The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Florida Governor Charlie Crist. He gets the award for announcing he will seek election to the Senate as a independent. This after months of denying he would run as anything but a Republican.

Watch this You Tube video.



Crist said not once but three times that he is a Republican. When Chris Wallace of Fox News asked if he would back the winner of the GOP primary if it was Rubio, Crist said 'that's right'.

That interview was taped barely a month ago on March 28th. WPEC Channel 12 asked Crist two weeks ago if planned to run as a Republican, and the Governor said yes then too.

Crist knows he has little support. His staff has just defected and his money is drying up too. He can't beat Rubio, so he plans to sabotage the November election. Crist isn't running to help the people of Florida(He's been running for another office almost all the time he's been in the Governor's mansion. First angling to be the Vice President nominee, then for the Senate) but to satisfy his ego. If his needs can't be satisfied, then to hell with everyone.

I no problem naming Florida Governor Charlie Crist today's Knucklehead of the Day.

Talking sense

Marco Rubio is the current front runner for the Republican nomination. In a statement today he said-

While I don’t believe Arizona’s policy was based on anything other than trying to get a handle on our broken borders, I think aspects of the law, especially that dealing with ‘reasonable suspicion,’ are going to put our law enforcement officers in an incredibly difficult position. It could also unreasonably single out people who are here legally, including many American citizens. Throughout American history and throughout this administration we have seen that when government is given an inch it takes a mile.

I can cite specific instances of American citizens getting into immigration difficulties.

A truck driver, born in the United States, detained for four hours last weekend. In Arizona BTW, but ICE was the one acting.

He was very lucky. Click here to read about the U.S. citizen detained by ICE for 13 months.

Another case of a United States citizen held for the best part of a year.

All of which directly contradicts what Gary Mead, Deputy Director of the Office of Detention and Removal Operations told a House subcommittee. He said at no time did ICE knowingly or willfully place a U.S. Citizen in detention.

How about actual United States citizens who been deported.

Pedro Guzman

Sharon McKinght

Mark Lyttle

In each case simple checks weren’t done that would have prevented these travesties. ICE deported Lyttle to Mexico, he isn’t even hispanic!

From Lyttle’s story-

According to the Observer, documents from the Department of Homeland Security show that before the deportation, immigration officials had Lyttle’s Social Security number, the names of his parents and information on him from criminal records checks. And they knew that he was bipolar and had a learning disability.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is shown to be grossly incompetent time and time again. Don’t even get me started on Citizenship and Immigration Services aka CIS. I can cite more horror stories, the above is only the start. GI in his recent post cited the hassles he’s had with his wife.

You will say this is Arizona who will doing the arrests and immigration checks but who do they rely on for the information to determine citizenship and who trains them? See above.

An arrest of a innocent person isn’t justified even for a few hours and the damage that can be done to that person and their family if they’re detained for months like in cases I cited above, can devastate a family. My wife is a immigrant, at present the salary earner in the family, who also provides health insurance to me her husband who has several serious medical problems. A person in my situation would be out on the street in a couple of months while ICE is still trying to discover whether a family member is a citizen or not.

Are you fine with people being arrested for not carrying their birth certificate on them? Those of you who distrust government, how then do you trust ICE to do their jobs properly?

Bueller? Bueller?

Hat tip- Poliblog

The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Today's winners are T & J Towing of Kalamazoo Michigan and its President Joseph Bird. They get the award for the following-

A Facebook group targeting a Kalamazoo towing company has cost the business numerous contracts, according its attorney.

The Facebook group started by a Western Michigan University student, meanwhile, has eclipsed the 10,000 mark in members.

“Kalamazoo Residents against T & J Towing,” created in February by 21-year-old WMU student Justin Kurtz, has generated “adverse publicity” that has resulted in T & J Towing losing “somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15” contracts, said Richard K. Burnham, who earlier this month filed a $750,000 lawsuit against Kurtz on behalf of T & J Towing President Joseph Bird.

“He lost two more (accounts) over the weekend,” said Burnham, who declined to name those former T & J Towing clients.

Burnham said the value of lost business is “substantial,” but couldn’t provide a dollar figure.

Kurtz, an aviation student from Yorkville, N.Y., claims his Saturn SL2 was legally parked and that his complex-issued parking sticker was displayed when his car was towed in January from The Arboretum apartment complex. Kurtz says on his Facebook group that he believes his car was broken into and his parking sticker removed so that the car could be towed.

Similar allegations are made in numerous posts to the Facebook group by people who say they were legally parked when they were towed by T & J, including some claims that parking stickers had been removed.

This award is self explanatory. Mr. Bird is trying to muzzle Kurtz with a lawsuit. This is covered under freedom of speech and if Bird and his lawyer were worried about bad publicity, wait till this story gets picked up by wire services and bloggers. More damage will be done to T & J Towing and its owner and it will be all self inflicted.

And I'll do my part by naming T & J Towing of Kalamazoo Michigan and its President Joseph Bird today's Knuckleheads of the Day.

Hat tip- Overlawyered

Toppled over

The photo of the day. From BBC-

Que Jingde and Zhang Zhiqin of Shanghai Meidu Real Estate both received life terms for the June 2009 collapse.

According to China Daily, Zhang had allowed an unqualified contractor to build an underground car park.

This, combined with a large pile of excavated earth on the other side of the building, caused it to topple to one side, the paper said.

The building, a large apartment complex in Shanghai’s “Lotus Riverside” development, fell over almost intact.

It was empty at the time of the collapse, but a worker who had returned to the site to collect his tools was killed.

Contrast the justice handed down in Shanghai compared to that in South Korea when a building collapse took 500 lives. The longest prison term handed down for Sampoong was ten and a half years.

The way the building collapsed in Shanghai is pretty amazing. It looks like something made with Lego.

Hewlett Packard- Not so great

My desktop computer two weeks ago was infected with a nasty malware. I had a computer technician pick it up for me. When Jim called me back he said my computer hard drive was failing. I also have the mother board fail twice, probably due to power surges. Short of cash and unemployed, I was now in need of a new PC.

I got one. A Compaq and I like it so far. The trouble is- It has Windows 7 operating system. My perfectly fine Hewlett Packard Printer is now obsolete. HP doesn't make the software or drivers for W7 or Vista for this series printer. My dearly departed desktop has Microsoft XP as its operating system.

Tonight I called up HP to complain. The representative couldn't even find my machine at first.(HP still has it up on their website). My personal information was on record and when he finally found my machine, told me it was built in 1998. That sounds about right, but I think I bought it 99, after another HP croaked after 2 or 3 years of use.

After he took my information and then told me my old HP even if they made the software couldn't work on Vista or Windows 7. I don't know if that's true, but why then did it work on XP? XP is better than Vista or 7 is probably the answer.

To resolve my situation, the representative tried to interest me in a new all in one machine. The first of which, after rebate was $119. I don't have that money now. Then he offered another machine, that after rebate, would have come to $79. That wasn't an answer I wanted to hear either. I priced printers the last few days, the cheapest HP I found was for $89. If I could have gotten a deal for $69 I might have bought another.

Instead I am kissing HP goodbye, growling about being left stranded by them and going to bad mouth the company from now, and have purchased another company's printer for less than $69 from Sam's Club today. It was(and is) still in the box when I talked to HP. Sometime in the next day or two I will set up my new printer. Too bad I can't stick my old printer up someone's ass at HP.

Remember what happened to me the next time you're looking for printers. HP may leave you high and dry too.

Lorena Ochoa Superwoman

Golf World's Ron Sirak writes-

An indication of Ochoa's inconsistent play last year was the fact she was tenth on the money list, yet still won Player of the Year by a single point over Jiyai Shin.

That would be truly incredible in light of how Ochoa didn't win a major championship last year. The only problem- It isn't true.

Lorena Ochoa finished 4th on the 2009 LPGA money list. She is 10th on this year's money list.

Ron Sirak did a similar blunder with Juli Inkster last year. I can cite over a half dozen other cases in Sirak's writing. Getting simple golf stats or facts straight is too much for this golf writer on a regular basis.

I liked the column other than that. As for Ochoa who announced her retirement today, she was a class act. I liked her, she was humble where as Annika Sorenstam came off as arrogant on more than one occasion. Sorenstam was sometimes hypocritical and never liked being challenged, and was rather unsubtle when in those occurrences. Ochoa was more of a superstar than Sorenstam, when everything is weighed. IMHO.

From the Silly News Desk

Some news from Australia. All I say is- Don't hold the pepper next time.

An Australian publisher has had to pulp and reprint a cook-book after one recipe listed "salt and freshly ground black people" instead of black pepper.

Penguin Group Australia had to reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported.

The reprint cost A$20,000 ($18,000; £12,000), but stock in bookshops will not be recalled as it is "extremely hard" to do so, Penguin said.

The recipe was for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," head of publishing Bob Sessions is quoted as saying by the Sydney newspaper.

Penguin said almost every one of the more than 150 recipes in the book listed salt and freshly ground black pepper, but a misprint occurred on just one page.

"When it comes to the proofreader, of course they should have picked it up, but proofreading a cook-book is an extremely difficult task. I find that quite forgivable," Mr Sessions said.

What does AOL stand for?

I have had this internet service almost continuously for 15 plus years but the last few have been at no charge. AT&T is my high speed internet provider and AOL is my backup which I use by piggybacking onto AT&T.

Everytime I sign onto AOL a tip screen pops up. I ignore these 99.5 of the time but just a few days ago there was one that caught my attention.

Xdrive sounds like a wonderful service. Free online storage for all my important files. I have lots of those.

Only one problem. Xdrive was discontinued on January 12, 2009. My 48th birthday BTW,

AOL used to stand for American Online(or America Offline in those days when they first began offering unlimited internet access) but now I have another nomination for those letters. AOL- Absolutely Obsolete Link.

Golf World sticks it to the LPGA Tour......again

Who is on the cover of the magazine this week? Is it Yani Tseng, the golfer who won her 3rd career tournament and 2nd Major Championship overall?

No, it's Anthony Kim for winning a Masters warmup.

What a joke this magazine is. The biggest on course story of the week doesn't merit a cover photo. It isn't the first time GW has done this either. In 2006 they featured Phil Mickelson for winning at Atlanta by 12 shots instead of Kraft Nabisco winner Karrie Webb who didn't just make a comeback after nearly two years of no victories, but holed out on 18 for eagle to force a playoff.

Before 2006, GW used to put the Players Champion on the cover over the winner of Kraft Nabisco. Pseudo majors are more important than real major championships in their eyes.

Lets not forget their disgraceful 2009 LPGA preview which came to some of their subscriber's mailboxes after the first tournament of the year was already completed. A golf architecture issue was more important than the LPGA to them also.

GW is a joke of a golf publication. The next thing I expect from one of their authors(Ron Sirak maybe?) is an article about how poorly placed the Kraft Nabisco is and that it doesn't get enough attention. What's a case of Chutzpah in comparison to their regular displays of journalistic stupidity?

Not rare and not right

Ryan at Waggle Room writes-

Meanwhile, Karen Stupples holds a tenuous one stroke lead over Suzann Pettersen entering the final round at Mission Hills in the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Since winning the Women's British Open in '04, Stupples has finished in the top three just once on the LPGA Tour. With a win today, she would have a second LPGA major and enter a rare company.

First of all if Ryan didn't do half baked research which is becoming his specialty, he'd know Stupples has 3 top 3 finishes since her British Open win not one. Stupples finised 2nd and 3rd in tournaments in 2004 after her major championship triumph.

What's rare about a golfer notching a second major championship. Lets take a look how many LPGA major champions in the last decade won two majors or more in their career-

2 or more- Sorenstam, Webb, Pak, Ochoa, Inkster, Mallon, Steinhauer,

1 and done- Matthew, Ji, Nordqvist, Lincicome, Shin, IB Park, Tseng, Kerr, Pettersen, Pressel, Jang, B. Kim, G. Park, Meunier-Lebouc, Lunke, Stupples,

7 of the 23 LPGA Major Champions in the last decade had two or more major championship wins or about 30% of the time. Since when is 30% of anything considered rare.

Lets go back only 5 years-

2- Sorenstam, Webb, Pak, Ochoa, Steinhauer,

1- Matthew, Ji, Nordqvist, Lincicome, Shin, IB Park, Tseng, Kerr, Pettersen, Pressel, Jang, B. Kim,

5 of 17 major champions have two or more major championship wins. That's still over 30% and that isn't rare territory either.

Oh Ryan is probably counting the last two years when 7 of the last 8 major winners were one timers. Then who uses the word rare to describe something on such a small statistical sampling? Maybe someone who is a member of the unusually lazy golf media.

The fact is, LPGA majors in the last ten years have been won more often(22-18) by 2 time winners or more 1 and dones. For the last 5 years, the 1 and dones only have 13-7 lead or about the same percentage as if you count them individually.

Just in case Ryan wipes out his mistakes without acknowledging he made them in his post(Something he's done before and failed badly. Check the words in the URL I linked to.) I made a screen capture for posterity sake.

One more thing Ryan writes-

Meanwhile, Karen Stupples holds a tenuous one stroke lead over Suzann Pettersen entering the final round at Mission Hills in the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

and

Major champions Yani Tseng and Karrie Webb lurk as well.

Tseng opened the final round tied with Pettersen. That's more than lurking. Ryan's carelessness doesn't just extend to golf stats and history but elementary golf reporting. Way to GWAA! You give membership to people doing such subpar work and on a regular basis.