You might have already noticed…I'm back!

Good to know. It’s not gay if it’s in the Garage.

New York ‘lone wolf’ was one hour away from finishing his bomb
She also praised the New York Police Department, saying, “I think they handled it well.”
Officials with the NYPD, which conducted the undercover investigation using a confidential informant and a bugged apartment, said the department had to move quickly because Pimentel was about to test a pipe bomb made out of match heads, nails and other ingredients bought at neighborhood hardware and discount stores.
Two law enforcement officials said Monday that the NYPD’s Intelligence Division had sought to get the FBI involved at least twice as the investigation unfolded. Both times, the FBI concluded that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own, they said.
The FBI thought Pimentel “didn’t have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own,” one of the officials said.
The officials were not authorized to speak about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. The FBI’s New York office and the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan both declined to comment on Monday.
Pimentel’s lawyer, Joseph Zablocki, said his client was never a true threat.
“If the goal here is to be stopping terror … I’m not sure that this is where we should be spending our resources,” he said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the handling of the case Monday, saying the NYPD kept federal authorities in the loop “all along” before circumstances forced investigators to take swift measures using state charges.
“No question in my mind that we had to take this case down,” Kelly said. “There was an imminent threat.”
Added Kelly: “This is a classic case of what we’ve been talking about �� the lone wolf, an individual, self-radicalized. This is the needle in the haystack problem we face as a country and as a city.”
Authorities described Pimentel as an unemployed U.S. citizen and “al-Qaida sympathizer” who was born in the Dominican Republic. He had lived most of his life in Manhattan, aside from about five years in the upstate city of Schenectady, where authorities say he had an arrested for credit card fraud.
His mother said he was raised Roman Catholic. But he converted to Islam in 2004 and went by the name Muhammad Yusuf, authorities said.
Using a tip from police in Albany, the NYPD had been watching Pimentel using a confidential informant for the past year. Investigators learned that he was energized and motivated to carry out his plan by the Sept. 30 killing of al-Qaida’s U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, police said.
Pimentel was under constant surveillance as he shopped for the pipe bombmaterials. He also was overheard talking about attacking police patrol cars and postal facilities, killing soldiers returning home from abroad andbombing a police station in Bayonne, N.J., authorizes said.

Yes and no, Stuka.  It would only make vetoing a budget a thing of the past, in other words, it would streamline the budget process.  But ONLY if the Congress decides to spend MORE then they get in taxes.  Bear in mind, if Congress decides to actually, don’t faint now, spend ONLY what it has without a deficit, then it only needs a simple majority and a signature instead of a super majority AND a signature.  Likewise, if the budget has no deficit, then a veto can still be over-ridden by a super majority.

The whole idea is to make it SOO hard to go into debt that most times the country will operate above board.

In fact, I’d like to see legislation that states that 10% of all taxes MUST be invested in local government or domestic corporate bonds. (Relatively secure, helps the country or countrymen.)  Eventually, the feds should have enough invested throughout the land that they will never need to tax the people again.

Furthermore, that’s not so outlandish an idea.  Many governments domestically and abroad are buying mutual funds to supplement their income so they can ease the tax burden.  Why can’t the feds?

OK.

So the first post of the cartoon was just like “huh?”

The discussion of NEDM and burning cats, turns my stomach.

It reminded me of the two Iraqi workers burned to death by a rocket about 20 yards from my workshop in Iraq.

Not a pretty sight.

221b - AFAIK partial-birth abortions are permitted in the US - at least within certain realms (not in Canada yet - even Mortgentaler - the king of the pro-choice movement - believes that abortion after 18-odd weeks is murder).

w.r.t. the articles you posted - its hard to figure out what exactly they are talking about.
We have had newbirths on the unit that were taken off of life-support a few times. It is a sad process, but it really only happens when it is understood that the child has already died. At the same time, we never actually “killed” any of these children.

Finally - w.r.t. euthanasia - this should be debated in a separate topic. I have a problem with “pain” being a reason to kill people. IMO we need to work on our palliative care methods. I wonder if the Dutch are just behind the 8-ball on this one . . . .

Ooh ooh! Thankew vewy mucho, dz!! Ewe r sew kynd.

And you don’t think we oppose them too? But so far, no hate crimes have been committed or buildings exploded. I say that would be Democracy at work.

Nah, the government still withholds information from World War II even though all the major players are dead.