When Scientists Go Bad, They Get Whacked by the FBI?

Bruce E. Ivins seems to have been one bad scientist, the kind you do not want to take to a laboratory and leave alone. How bad? Hard to say. They are looking into this. The guy killed himself, making new interviews impossible.

"Since his death, a number of scientists have said that the limited forensic evidence that the F.B.I. made public in linking the attacks to Dr. Ivins is inconclusive."

Whack!

FBI Details Anthrax Case, but Doubts Remain
New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and NICHOLAS WADE WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON — Federal Bureau of Investigation officials on Monday laid out their most detailed scientific case to date against Bruce E. Ivins, the military scientist accused of being the anthrax killer, but they acknowledged that the many mysteries of the case meant an air of uncertainty would always surround it.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to put the suspicions to bed,” said Vahid Majidi, head of the F.B.I.’s weapons of mass destruction division. “There’s always going to be a spore on a grassy knoll.”

At a two-hour briefing for reporters, Dr. Majidi was joined by seven other leading scientists from inside and outside the bureau. They discussed in intricate detail the halting scientific path that led them from two main samples of anthrax used in the 2001 attacks, to four genetic mutations unique to the samples, to 100 scientists in the United States who had access to that particular strain, and ultimately to Dr. Ivins.

Jury Sides with God? Joel Osteen's Wife Did Not Whack a Breast, They Say

"Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential" by Joel Osteen. Spiritual Narcissism 101: Life About You, Not God.

Jury Sides With God, Pastor's Wife Cleared
TMZ.com
Megachurch preacher's wife Victoria Osteen did not assault a flight attendant over a stain on her first class seat, a civil jury in Texas has ruled.

Whack!

If TMZ says so...? Read their version of this sordid tale.

If you want to buy Osteen's book, you go right on ahead. I'll make a few cents if you, but so will he. If you just want to shop at Amazon, click the book and shop away as usual.

Witch Doctor Hired by Nigerian Official - President Umaru Yar'Adua

Nigerian official accused of hiring witch doctor
This is whacked. True? Who knows. Not me. Could be politics as usual.

read the entire story

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Police on Friday arrested the head of a federal agency charged with developing Nigeria's impoverished southern oil region after allegations that the man spent millions of dollars on a witch doctor in hopes vanquishing a rival.

President Umaru Yar'Adua announced Friday that the head of the Niger Delta Development Corporation, Sam Edem, had been suspended from his job after local media reports of Edem's large expenditure on black magic. Police later said he had been arrested.

The police said they were investigating the source of the roughly $4 million Edem reportedly spent on hiring a sorcerer to hex and kill another development official.

Whack!

Enjoy the Chipmunks version of the famous David Seville Witch Doctor song (oo ee, oo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang).

Pastor Osteen Accused Whacking Woman in Breast

Victoria Osteen, megarich wife of megastar pastor Joel Osteen, has been accused of assaulting a woman on a plane.

Bigger stars than both Paris Hilton and Barack Obama, the Osteens are facing a strange case involving a breast. Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown claims in a lawsuit that Victoria Osteen elbowed her in the breast and threw up her agaist a bathroom door. Seems Brown says Osteen was pissy about a a stain on her plane seat (first-class, of course).

Victoria Osteen is the co-pastor of Houston, Texas' Lakewood Church, televised all over. The Osteen's face is seen more often than Kevin Trudeau's.

Whack!

Also in the news is the fashionably famous Paris Hilton lampoon video of Barack Obama's shallowness and John McCain's age.

Mary Baker Eddy is Still Dead (So is Madalyn Murray O'Hair)

LOOK FOR MRS. EDDY TO RISE FROM TOMB; Some Christian Scientists Certain She Will Prove Her Power by Resurrection.
December 29, 1910, Thursday

An old article, to be sure, but she still has her followers.

For the record, Madalyn Murray O'Hair seems dead as well, and the news is still out on Jimmy Hoffa.

On an interesting note, O'Hair, who claimed to be a free-thinker, who had started her atheist club on behalf on son Bill, disowned him after he freely converted to Christianity. She said harshly, "One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times...he is beyond human forgiveness."

Her murderer is dead too, apparently a man she hired despite knowing he had urinated on his mother.

Whack!

Enough About Barack "The Whack" Obama

Big Whack of the Week is an easy one. Whiny Obama worshippers in almost a cultish sort of blind embrace (can you say, "David Koresh" or "Jim Jones"?).

No, not every blogger and journalist is asking to be Barack's honey: New Yorker Barack Obama Cover: Satire: To Laugh or Not to Laugh (just be careful if you laugh so hard you pee) but enough are to make me groan at their incestuous glee.

But enough of Obama. I'm getting tired of hearing about him.

Not Everything Is Whacked: The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

Our early leaders, though war ached their hearts, stood fast against tyranny in favor of freedom. Do our leaders now have the same sober valor?

originally posted here: Let Freedom Ring! The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/rolling.html

Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan