Viral

I don't know. I can't figure out whodunnit!

Transsexual prostitute in Italian
political sex scandal burns to death

'Brenda', a transsexual prostitute linked to a sex and drugs scandal which brought down the prominent Italian politician Piero Marrazzo, has been found burned to death in her apartment.

The Telegraph

Police are investigating what may have started the fire which engulfed the Brazilian prostitute, known only as Brenda.

The blaze broke out in the early hours of Friday morning and fire crews who rushed to the basement flat in Rome found only the charred remains of the sex worker.

Magistrates were treating the death as murder, according to court sources quoted by the Italian media.

"Brenda" was friends with another Brazilian transsexual, known as Natalie, who was filmed allegedly having sex and taking drugs with Piero Marrazzo, the governor of Lazio province, which encompasses Rome and its surrounding region.

The film was secretly recorded and obtained by four police officers who are being investigated for allegedly trying to blackmail Mr Marrazzo.

The centre-Left politician initially denied any involvement in the scandal when it broke last month, but days later was forced to resign after admitting that he had been a client of the prostitutes and took cocaine with them.

"Brenda" testified to investigators in the affair that she had met Mr Marrazzi on two occasions.

A former journalist with the state broadcaster RAI, Mr Marrazzi was elected governor in 2005.

A lawyer for Mr Marrazzo said the death was "really worrying news".

"We must find out what's behind it," said Luca Petrucci.

Before you go flinging yourselves off of buildings tomorrow night ...

I did a little research to see just what the prospects are killing the Senate bill tomorrow night. It appears that Mary Landrieu has been promised $100 Million for Louisiana, and Dick Durbin boasted earlier (and then retracted his boast) that Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas has told Reid how she would vote. Since the vote is going forward, that should tell you something.

Today, I saw that Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman (both of whom are committed to a filibuster of a public option) are voting "yes" to open debate. So, what gives?

Then, I turned to the best political analyst in America. Do I have your attention? He is Jay Cost, of "The Horserace Blog". Following Jay on Election Night 2004, I knew 15 minutes before the networks that Pres. Bush had won. He is fantastic, conservative, level-headed, and a superb statistical analyst.

We could use this perspective these days (some one get word to Beck ... so he doesn't go bungee jumping without a cord on Saturday p.m.).

So, here's the deal: The Senate is almost certainly going to vote to open debate on Saturday night. They will pitch it as health care reform a la the Reid bill is a foregone conclusion. Don't buy it. Seniors are going to hammer whoever pushes this through in 2010 and 2012. Bank it.

Get the lowdown from Jay Cost about what is likely to happen tomorrow night right here.

Memo to Conservatives: Call your Senators today

Today ... call the Senate @ 202-224-3121 to urge them to vote "No" on the motion to proceed to debate on Harry Reid's bill.

My understanding is that the stakes are high: If they get 6o votes then some sort of bill will come out of the Senate. If they don't get 60 votes tomorrow night, then the whole effort for the feds to take over the healthcare system is on life-support. Got it?

So, call. I just did and the circuits are jammed. Good. I'll call back later.

BTW, don't you appreciate these weekend votes while the whole nation is watching the Texas Longhorns play football (or should be doing so)? The vote is scheduled for 8 PM EST Saturday night, when Senate offices are closed and Harry Reid can work his magic by stuffing those Christmas stockings without people watching. Lovely transparency and courage, don't you know?

To all of you who voted for Obama and huge Demo majorities under the guise of more "openness and transparency" (and also have brought us to the brink of this calamity), from the bottom of my heart ...

Thank you again, you ignorant putzes.

Does This Look Infected to You?

The Connecticut ACLU has beclowned itself once again. It's threatening to sue the Enfield Board of Education for holding its graduation ceremonies at a nearly Bloomfield "megachurch"...where ceremonies have been held for several years. Four other schools also use the church space for graduation ceremonies.

If you have the stomach for it, the ACLU's press release can be found HERE. As usual, the liberal position is anchored in the solipsism and infantilizing disorder of liberalism itself, which is obsessed with the projection of liberal sensitivities and their emotive fragility onto everyone else. Liberals imagine a world inhabited by people like themselves - pandemic narcissism and puerility on a cosmic scale. It isn't a world fit for heroes, or curiosity or tolerance and strength.

Three or four, or a dozen complaints which align with the fetishes of the ACLU are enough to insure a tyranny of a minority. The Ohmigod! money line in the Connecticut ACLU's bleat about the wicked, subversive nature of palpable religious symbolism is:

"The facade of The First Cathedral features five large Christian crosses, and another large cross towers over the cathedral roof. There is a fountain in the shape of a cross surrounded by a frame in the shape of a tomb in the church's lobby, and upon entering the sanctuary where the graduation takes place, students and parents pass under large banners on which biblical scriptures are written. During the graduation ceremony, students are seated underneath a giant cross in a window at the front of the sanctuary....."

Gag. Church, Auschwitz, Church, Auschwitz....The graduation rates in Connecticut will guarantee that only a few youngsters are exposed to these abominations anyway. Liberalism wins where the manswarm of idiots is so large and complicit that a consensus-ocracy of governing stupidity grows to have real power. The only way to prevent this retrograde slide to conformity and living death is to fight, fight, fight. You know what I mean.

Oh, by the way ...

Remember when we all wondered and worried in the wake of 9/11 if and when we would be hit again by terrorists?

The thinking in those days was that it was pretty much a foregone conclusion. We were sure another attack was coming. There was uncertainty in the minds of some that Pres. Bush was up to the task. His campaign in 2000 had focused on domestic issues almost exclusively.

But due to the efforts of our military, the CIA, and a Bush Administration that proved it was indeed willing to do the necessary, hard work to go on offense against jihadis, we were not hit.

Yes, we used to wonder when it would happen, and on whose watch.

Well, now we know.

The first terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 happened on 5 Nov 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas.

If this had happened on Pres. Bush's watch, what do you think the MSM reaction would be?

Do you expect the Obama Administration -- the same administration that is preparing to treat the mastermind of 9/11 as a common criminal in federal court -- will take aggressive measures against jihadis?

Can Pres. Obama even make up his mind whether he wants to fight to win in Afghanistan?

Remember these questions -- and the answers -- the next time you hear some one argue that it doesn't matter who wins in 2010 and 2012.

The difference on foreign policy -- in particular the will to defend this nation from Militant Islamists -- is like night and day between the Obama and Bush Administrations.

Now, we have to make it through this long night and accompanying nightmare.

Having Wonderful Time

Dear Nickie & Rhod:

Night life in offshore casino is RAD! The Missus stayed in her cabin - Lopez shot this one of me with Bambi, Sinead and Kitten on the MoJo Deck and turned it into an instant post card! Amazing! Still fit into my Busboy Kollege uniform. Ha Ha!

Yours, Mine and Everybody's,

DC

(Okay, I lied about this. But just as bad, the island formerly known as the United Kingdom has rejected a Benny Hill Stamp!)

"I vant to bite ... your neck!!!"

Here's the Senate Healthcare Bill

2,074 Pages
Read it and weep. And puke. And contact those lying SOBs.

CLICK HERE

These days the news ain't on "the news" and you can't tell whether it's "news", "comedy", or a "tragedy", but ...

The following actually appeared on www.recovery.gov. His Competency, Pres. Obama, apparently has not yet figured out how to operate them internets.

Here's an actual post on the website, from some one down in Texas not fond of the "Stimulus Package" and also with a sense of humor (no, not me or my kinfolk ... there are millions of such folks here):

SEN. FOGHORN LEGHORN ANNOUNCES $14.7 MILLION FOR TEXAS; ‘YEE, HAW!’ HE ADDS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Foghorn J. Leghorn, D-State, announced Tuesday that he had won an extra $14.7 million in stimulating funds from the solicitous Obama Administration for the people of seven congressional districts in Texas.

“This funding will go for good,” the Senator said. “Why, son, 98 hardworking, taxpaying, aging, poor, honest, hungry, working-class, middle-class, undereducated, disadvantaged, undercounted, overlooked, underprivileged, overtaxed and uninsured constituents of my good friends and esteemed colleagues in the 52nd, 58th, 86th, 00th, 68th, 91st, and 85th Congressional Districts of Texas deserve every penny,” he added. “Yep, they can shore count on me. Vote Leghorn! Yee, haw!”

Following is an official, premeditated account* of the stimulating funds provided by the Obama Administration through Sen. Leghorn’s good offices:

Texas Congressional District Jobs Amount

52nd congressional district 0 $8,937,289
58th congressional district 45 $3,659,694
86th congressional district 6 $943,326
00 congressional district 11 $752,292
68th congressional district 1 $310,963
91st congressional district 30 $57,367
85th congressional district 5 $56,661

Stimulus Total: $14,717,592

Jobs Total: 98

*Please don’t call Sen. Leghorn’s office about this. He’s busy working on health care today. For further information on this gracious investment of job-creating government money, please “track the money” through the President’s Recovery website, http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=TX

Thanks to Redstate for this jewel.

God bless Texas and Long Live Foghorn Leghorn ... "I say, I say, boy ..."

Thank you, again, for electing Obama and Big Demo Majorities in Congress, Part 2

Let's see if I can understand this. Folks elected Obama to "repair America's image abroad". We already know that to Democrats this means apologizing for America and going easy on jihadis.

Now, America's president is bowing to the Japanese, getting lectured by the Germans in their newspapers, all after returning a bust of Winston Churchill that was a gift from Great Britain. What a difference a half-century makes, I guess, really ... what a difference a year makes. America's enemies used to be worried. Now, our friends are.

Obama is an international embarrassment.

Thanks again, you ignorant putzes.

Hey! Guys! Somebody slap down that little scab bastard.

Union Bullies Boy Scout for Dastardly Deed

A 17-year-old Boy Scout worked more than 200 hours to clear a path in his local park so that people could enjoy walking and biking along the river.

Bad move Boy Scout. Now grown men who didn’t get around to doing it for a paycheck are after you.

Kevin Anderson, a junior at Southern Lehigh High School, a varsity soccer player and a Boy Scout hoping to get his Eagle Scout badge, spent 250 hours over several weeks creating a path on the partially complete 165-mile Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor that runs through Kimmets Lock Park in Allentown, reports The Morning Call.

"I decided to do my part in completing this part of the trail. In that way, others could enjoy walking along the river, without having to walk on the busy road," Anderson said in an e-mail, says The Morning Call.

But once the city’s municipal union caught wind of this do-gooder breath of fresh air, it put up a stink at Tuesday’s city council meeting. Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Unions said its considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing such good, free-of-charge, work to happen.

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council, reports The Morning Call.

Anderson’s act of carving out a 1,000-foot path is not seen as good community service by the union because it was the only group to suffer layoffs in the city’s current financial downturn.
"We would hope that the well-intentioned efforts of an Eagle Scout candidate would not be challenged by the union," said Mayor Ed Pawlowski in an e-mail Friday. "This young man is performing a great service to the community. His efforts should be recognized as such."

Hat tip to NBC Philadelphia

Win a New Car!

Who Said It?

"Well, you see, according to [blank's] plan, I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think! I like to read! I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy who likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder..."Gee, should I have the T-Bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I WANT high cholesterol! I want to eat bacon and butter and BUCKETS OF CHEESE, okay? I want to smoke Cuban cigars the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section with my feet on the table. I want to run through the streets naked with green jello all over my body, reading Playboy magazine! Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to, okay pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year old virgin sitting around in beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer weiner".

A) Rosie O'Donnell
B) Nickie Goomba
C) Sting
D) Edward Kennedy
E) Charles deGaulle
F) None of the above

BONUS POINTS! Who Said It?

"I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off. On and off, all day; all night. Soon where [blank] once stood will be a string of gas stations. Inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly-prepared food, tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards, reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it wil be beautiful!

A) Any Congressional Republican
B) Henry David Thoreau
C) DC
D) Lou Dobbs
E) John Major
F) All of the above

It's decision time

Just 'cuz I love these songs

Bowing to Pressure

Japan expert to ABC: Yes, Obama’s bow made him look like an idiot
posted by Allahpundit

So much of an idiot, in fact, that according to Tapper’s source, at least one Japanese paper isn’t running the photo out of embarrassment. This tool actually groveled himself into a minor international incident.

The good news for O-bots? It wasn’t unprecedented. Nixon evidently made a modest bow to Hirohito in the early 70s. The bad news?

“Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush’s back-rub of Merkel.

“Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs.

“The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms….The last thing the Japanese want or need is a weak looking American president and, again, in all ways, he unintentionally played that part.

A senior White House official (read: Axelrod or Emanuel) assured Politico this morning that no Japanese observers “would say anything other than that he enhanced both the position and the status of the U.S., relative to Japan.” Consider that spin exploded, thanks to ABC.

And yet, having said that, I’m not convinced that the “groveling” explanation for the bow is necessarily the correct one. For one thing, his protocol office is famously run by imbeciles. They may very well have simply given him bum advice: “Be sure to hunch way the hell over and stare at the ground. They all do it that way.” For another thing, and somewhat notably, Japan isn’t a stop on The One’s world apology tour. It could have been, but he declined the opportunity to turn it into one. So why give the emperor the full Hopenchange treatment, then? Is it just … reflex at this point? Or is it actually a sign of how keenly aware Obama is of the messianic hype that follows him around the world? Maybe he figured that, as the newly anointed global Jesus, he’d better go out of his way to show deference to Japan’s divine ruler lest it seem like he was “pulling rank.” Think of it as “Superman II,” if the main characters had landed on Earth convinced that they had to “rebuild Krypton’s relationships” with the universe. In that case, you don’t kneel before Zod; Zod kneels before you.

One gigantic hat tip to RightKlik

This just has to be seen

Hippos kill crocodile in rare clash

A diatribe defense: Pros say Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will act as his own lawyer in WTC terror case

BY Alison Gendar and Rich Schapiro
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Now that the venue is finally set, a sinister question looms over the case of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: Will he use the court as a platform to spew his sickening diatribes?

Experts say the terror thug will likely resist legal representation, opting instead to turn Manhattan Federal Court into his bully pulpit.

"The chances are excellent that he represents himself," said Ron Kuby, a defense lawyer known for taking on controversial clients.

"[Mohammed's] goal in the legal system is not to beat the rap. His goal is to use the legal system as a forum for his own ideas and to embrace martyrdom through that system."

As Mohammed and his underlings languished in Guantanamo Bay, a fleet of lawyers have worked to protect their rights.

But Mohammed repeatedly tried to get rid of his lawyers, Scott McKay and David Nevin, insisting he's bent on achieving martyrdom.

Even a lawyer for the ACLU, which has been helping to safeguard the rights of the terror gang, conceded that the likelihood they go it alone in court is high.

"It's quite possible that these defendants will undertake to represent themselves," Ben Wizner said. "They've been trying to fire their lawyers the whole time so they can be executed."

Experts say it's possible Mohammed will plead guilty, seeking a quicker path to death.

But if he opts to fight the charges and agrees to legal representation, his lawyer "will have powerful legal weapons at his disposal," said noted criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz.

Lawyers could seize on the time it's taken to prosecute the accused terrorists, arguing that they were denied their constitutional rights to a speedy trial.

A crafty defense lawyer might also employ a tactic called "graymailing," demanding reams of classified information in the hope that prosecutors refuse to release them. That provides an opening for a lawyer to request the indictment be dismissed.

Torture is also likely to play a central role in the case.

That Mohammed was waterboarded more than 180 times by CIA investigators is no secret.

"The first thing they're going to do is challenge all of the evidence and say all of it is the fruit of waterboarding," Dershowitz said.

(More...)

Goomba's Victory Garden

Today's Fruit Minute here at Goomba's Victory Garden deals with the various problems faced by you apple growers. We're still searching for a treatment for the condition shown in this photo from Woodsterman. Hang on, Odie, we can help...

But for now, if you're troubled by sobriety and bag worms, take this advice from S.W. Cole's "The American Fruit Book" (1849). To rid your trees of the worms, their larvae in the web, or to prevent the worms from crawling up the trunk in the first place:

“Dry ashes or fresh slacked lime thrown on the tree when the dew is on…One pound of WHALE OIL SOAP to 4 gallons of water…canvass or thick paper (old leather is better) around the tree and apply tar to it. Mix train oil with the tar or India rubber dissolved in whale oil. Burn India rubber, any viscid substance can be mixed…”

Then, to get rid of worms in your apples, let the apples fall and “let hogs run in the orchard and eat the fallen fruit”.

Environmental and whale issues be damned! Find train oil at your local train store. Find old leather and hogs at the next Barbra Streisand concert. And what to do on your Sunday afternoons? Damn the temperance reform, get hammered on New Jersey cider!

“CIDER is valuable for vinegar, though the temperance reform has almost banished it as a beverage. The farmer no longer toils hard in Fall to fill his cellar with cider, nor works hard all winter to drink it. Yet cider is valuable for vinegar. Apples for cider are better for growing exposed to sun and air; hence those from a young orchard are best….The Harrison and other fine cider apples of New Jersey produce about 1 barrel to 10 bushels.”

To hell with vinegar!

For those of you noodling on the name for that baby girl, consider apple variety names like Red Siberian Crab, Winter Sweet Paradise, Bellflower or Beauty of Kent. For boys, consider the pests, like Bag Worm, Borer or Bark Louse.

Odie writes to tell us that he's got four new hybrid apples he's named Russian Bride, English Dentist, Iranian Author and Hungarian Inspector!

See you next week here at Goomba's Victory Garden!

Which one of these is not like the other ones?

Cheney

Obama

King of Morocco

Olmert

President of Kazakhstan

Putin

Prime Minister of Slovenia

Prime Minister of India

President of South Korea