by PunditGuy | Jun 30, 2006 | General |
I’m taking the family out to the beach for the next three days. While they’ll be having the time of their lives, I’ll be hunting for WiFi…somewhere…anywhere. It’s not that the beach location is uncharted. It’s just in a section of a coastal town that hasn’t been wired for broadband yet.
There is, of course, a chance that I won’t find a hotspot. Every time I think of that I break out with a nasty case of hives, I become nauseous and throw up a little bit in my mouth. So you see, for the good of everyone involved, it’s vital that I find a high speed internet connection.
Have a great weekend.
UPDATE: I’m back. And no, I didn’t find WiFi…yet I survived! A bonafide miracle. More tomorrow.
by PunditGuy | Jun 30, 2006 | General |
Mary Winkler, the minister’s wife charged with murdering her husband on March 22, 2006, told police she shot him after they argued over family finances and then told him “I’m sorry” as he lay dying in their bedroom, according to testimony at a bond hearing Friday.
In court Friday, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Agent Brian Booth read a statement Mary Winkler gave authorities in Alabama, where she was arrested a day after her husband’s body was found by church members.
Booth testified that Winkler told police she knew her husband kept a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun in the closet of the home where they lived with their three daughters. She said she didn’t remember getting the gun.
“The next thing I remember was hearing a loud boom. I remember thinking it wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be,” Booth said, reading from Winkler’s statement.
She told police her husband rolled from the bed onto the floor after being shot.
“He asked me why, and I just said `I’m sorry,'” Booth read from the statement.
Winkler said the two had argued throughout the evening about several things, including family finances. The problems were “mostly my fault,” she said, because she was in charge of keeping the family books.
“He had really been on me lately criticizing me for things — the way I walk, I eat, everything. It was just building up to a point. I was tired of it. I guess I got to a point and snapped,” Booth read to the court.
She guesses? Granted, I wasn’t standing in the police station when she was giving this statement, but that last little bit about being criticized by her husband Matthew sounds a little emotionless to me. And I’m sorry, but I’m really having a hard time believing the whole “I don’t remember getting the gun” jazz. A rather lame defense.
Winkler, who entered a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ on June 21st, is hoping the judge in the case will set a reasonable bond. The prosecution is basically saying, ‘over our dead body’ (no pun intended -ed.) on the bond issue. Church members are due to testify next. Bottom line – no one expects Mary Winkler to get out of jail, either before or after her trial.
Previously: | Winkler: Opening Up | Winkler Attorneys Waive Fees | The Innocent Victims | Winkler Family Fund | Possible Winkler Defense? | Mary Winkler: “Overwhelmed and Confused” | Winkler Vs. the State of Tennessee | She Did It |
by PunditGuy | Jun 30, 2006 | General |
Remember this story from May 11, 2006?
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
Well, USA Today released this little tidbit just now.
On May 11, USA TODAY reported that the National Security Agency, with the cooperation of several of America’s leading telecommunications companies, had compiled a database of domestic phone call records in an effort to monitor terrorist activity.
Several days later, BellSouth and Verizon specifically denied that they were among the companies that had contracted with the NSA to provide bulk calling records.
The denial was unexpected.
Based on its reporting after the May 11 article, USA TODAY has now concluded that while the NSA has built a massive domestic calls record database involving the domestic call records of telecommunications companies, the newspaper cannot confirm that BellSouth or Verizon contracted with the NSA to provide bulk calling records to that database.
So now, what can we conclude from this? We now know that the “massive domestic calls record database” isn’t so massive. In fact, this correction from USA Today calls into question their entire investigation into the program.
Yet, the damage has already been done. Members of Congress, others in the Democratic Party, and the Left dutifully parrotted the shocking magnitude of the USA Today story on Sunday morning talk shows, from the well of the Senate, in editorial pages and throughout the blogosphere. Today’s muted correction/denial does little to change that fact.
What’s being done to prevent this kind of inaccurate reporting from being transfered as fact in the future? Nothing, I suspect, and that’s outrageous. The solution seems to fall at the feet of those on the right side of the blogosphere. Our responsibility is to immediately call into question the obvious anti-American, anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-Conservative investigative reporting from the MSM. If what’s being reported is varifiably true, we should acknowledge it and push those involved to right their course. But, if reports are based on dubious facts, and if the news gathering process has been compromised by a political agenda, the reporters and the upper brass need to be called on the carpet (ala the New York Times today). The blogosphere did that a little bit in the immediate aftermath of the NSA phone records story, but we did so defensively. That’s a natural first instinct. An offensive approach was needed then, and it’s needed the next time this kind of thing happens. We can do better.
by PunditGuy | Jun 29, 2006 | General |
Nancy Pelosi released this statement following the U.S. Supreme Court decision on trying Guantanamo detainees.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision reaffirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system. This is a triumph for the rule of law.
“The rights of due process are among our most cherished liberties, and today’s decision is a rebuke of the Bush Administration’s detainee policies and a reminder of our responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional rights. We cannot allow the values on which our country was founded to become a casualty in the war on terrorism.”
Translation…
‘If you plan terrorist attacks against America, if you kill Americans in a successful terrorist attack, if you kill our troops in Iraq or on any battlefield, we, the Democratic Party, will defend your right to be defended.’
In Pelosi’s world, that means these guys (if still alive) would have deserved the same U.S. Constitutional rights you and I share.
Do you agree?
by PunditGuy | Jun 29, 2006 | General |
Heh.
Defamer congratulates the crack team of web programmers at ABC who, in less than 24 hours, successfully erased every mention of Star Jones from their website. Apparently though, the web guys over at Star’s site aren’t nearly as efficient.
UPDATE: NOT SO FAST…Star found in back alleys of ABC.COM
by PunditGuy | Jun 28, 2006 | General |
I’m not kidding
Via the BBC: Lion mutilates 42 midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight. In the end, 28 are dead.
by PunditGuy | Jun 28, 2006 | General |
A TV news reporter covering a story about a man wanted for murder is suddenly surprised when the suspect casually walks up to him. The surreal event happened live on the air.
by PunditGuy | Jun 28, 2006 | General |
It’s a sad day in Brownsville, Texas. RIP
