Target Centermass

Category: General

  • Lynn Swann Enters Pa. Governor’s Race as Republican

    It’s time for another iteration of the celebrity-for-governor election story.

    Lynn Swann, whose acrobatic receptions took him to four Super Bowls and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, made another leap last night as he formally launched his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor.

    Before a cheering crowd of about 500 at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, the former Steelers receiver promised to bring leadership and change to his adopted state.

    “I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1974, and tonight, I’m drafted by Pennsylvania to be governor,” Mr Swann said, shortly after making his entrance to the strains of Van Halen’s “Right Now.”

    Speaking for 25 minutes without text or notes, a relaxed and engaging candidate pledged an administration that would deliver lower taxes in general and a reformed property tax system in particular. As in earlier appearances in his campaign, however, Mr. Swann offered few specific details of his polices amid the broad, thematic promises.

    “I want to cut taxes in a responsible way and I’d like to reform property taxes … getting rid of the millage system and giving us real property tax reform,” he said. “If you want change, I’m your guy.”

    In an interview before his appearance, Mr. Swann dismissed suggestions that he had been any less forthcoming than his Republican rivals in fleshing out his policy vision.

    As the Legislature struggled without apparent progress to craft some solution to the controversial property tax issue, Mr. Swann said, “I’m competitive. So even if I had that play today, if I laid it out for you today, don’t you think that my opponents and other people would then say, ‘We can adapt that plan, too’?

    “I don’t think this is the time to roll out the details,” he added while saying that he would provide more policy specifics as the campaign moves forward.

    Swann’s grace has been on display for years on the gridiron and behind the microphone, but certainly the political realm is a different playing field. It certainly seems that the media is already looking for shortcomings and missteps.

    At least in the case of Swann, as opposed to other recent celebrity candidates, the interest in politics doesn’t seem to be overnight or whimsical.

    This is Mr. Swann’s first run for public office, although he has been active in Republican politics, campaigning extensively for President Bush in the 2004 election.

    While he seeks to follow in the path of political outsiders who have won statehouses such as Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, Mr. Swann’s candidacy boasts the support of many members of the state’s GOP hierarchy, such as Mark Holman, who was former Gov. Tom Ridge’s chief of staff, and former state chairman Alan Novak.

    Mr. Swann, born in Tennessee in 1952, was raised in California, and earned a degree in public relations and a place on the All-American football squad while attending the University of Southern California. He appeared last night with his wife, Charene, and their sons, Braxton and Shaffer. His parents, Willie and Mildred Swann, sat beaming in the first row as Mr. Swann spoke in a makeshift theater in the round amid the center’s artifacts of Pennsylvania history.

    In an interview, Mr. Swann said that when he first registered to vote, it was as a Democrat, as his parents still are. He said he switched his registration to Republican after he moved to Pittsburgh, where he was active in civic affairs, including serving on the board of the Pittsburgh Ballet and as a spokesman for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America.

    Okay, now there will be some reason for this sports fan to have a little interest in the Keystone State’s voting this year, though I would need some more specifics from Swann for that interest to actually change into support. I’m sure that’s a common thought in Pennsylvania right now.

  • Humor Break

    Okay, it’s not my usual style, but here’s a blonde joke that actually made me chuckle, courtesy of long-time blogroll resident Chapomatic.

    Enjoy.

  • Happy New Year, Y’all

    Welcome to 2006. May the year bring you many blessings.

  • Quote of the Week, 26 DEC 05

    An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot.

    —T. E. Lawrence

  • Merry Christmas, Y’all

    The stockings are stuffed and the presents are wrapped. Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, my all-time favorite holiday album, is playing. I’m enjoying just a little touch of Christmas and then postponing the rest until I’m no longer chained by the oncall pager and my fiancee returns from visiting with her family.

    Here’s wishing a happy and safe holiday to all.

  • Go Ahead, Make (Fun of) My Day

    Tuesday, the twentieth of December, 2005 A.D. (or C.E. if you would prefer), has been absolutely craptastic.

    Let’s just start with waking up, which is how I tend to start my days. Normally, though, I don’t wake up with a fever and what can only be described as an immovable wall of mucous in my sinuses. I notify work that I’ll be in late, if at all. Hours later, with fever now abating, I decide to head on in to the office. Well, that was the decision, anyway.

    Flat freakin’ tire.

    I could’ve just called it a day and given up, but that only would have been delaying dealing with the tire, and there’s no guarantee I’d be feeling better tomorrow. Maybe it was the slight fever, as I’m just as bad at procrastinating as the next man.

    Did I mention it was 39 degrees out and raining? And let’s not forget the insidious biomass claiming squatters rights in my sinus cavity. Sure, I have covered parking, but there was no way I could maneuver the car completely under the shelter. I worked on the jack and tire in dry conditions but managed to get pretty darned damp while dealing with anything in the trunk (i.e. getting out the spare and jack, putting in the tire that had betrayed me).

    Okay, the spare was now in place, and I inspected the flat. A screw. Well, screw you, too, screw! It was a pretty new tire and still under warranty, so I hopped in and drove to the nearest franchise of the tire store where I’d purchased it. No problem, they said. No charge, they said. Just leave the tire overnight, they said. What?!! There’s a few things I expect to find at place of business specializing in the area of automobile tires, things such as tires, wheels and patches. Patches? They apparently don’t need no stinkin’ patches. In an astounding failure of inventory control, this wondrous facility was completely out of patches. Quick thinkers that they were, they had ordered some from another outlet when they realized they had absolutely zero in stock. Delivery was expected in under two hours; as it was now around two in the afternoon, I told them to fix it as soon as possible and then went to get some lunch, pick up some means of self-medicating and run a quick Christmas-related errand in the neighborhood.

    Eventually I checked back and was told my tire was ready. Luckily they were a little more efficient in actually putting it on the car and I was able to stroll into the office as the daily exodus home was beginning for most. Did I say stroll? Struggle would be more accurate as, by this time, I had realized that I had apparently strained something in my back while dealing with the flat. Stupid tiny-ass, manufacturer-supplied tire iron.

    So now I sit, slightly feverish with an aching back and what may be a new form of life dwelling in my sinuses.

    How was your day?

  • Ecoterror Suspect may be Charged in 2001 UW Arson

    I only highlight this story because, as the far-far-far left becomes more militant, I expect such tales to become more common and groups like ELF and ALF to become more dangerous and eventually murderous.

    A woman being held in Oregon and accused of toppling an electricity transmission tower and torching a meatpacking plant there is a prime suspect in the 2001 firebombing of the University of Washington’s Urban Horticulture Center in Seattle.

    Chelsea Gerlach, who is also known as “Country Girl,” is one of six people the FBI arrested last week in a series of Northwest ecoterrorism attacks. She is likely to be indicted in the UW arson, according to federal criminal justice sources.

    At a hearing in Eugene on Tuesday to determine whether Gerlach will be held or released on bond, assistant U.S. attorney Kirk Engdahl said that she is a prime suspect in the May 21, 2001, UW fire. He also called her a suspect in four other high-profile ecoterrorism cases: the Oct. 11, 1998, attempted arson at Bureau of Land Management wild-horse corrals in Rock Springs, Wyo.; the Oct. 19, 1998, firebombing of a ski resort at Vail, Colo., which caused $12 million in damage; the Dec. 25, 1999, arson of a Boise Cascade office in Monmouth, Ore.; and the May 21, 2001, firebombing of the Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Ore. Two others have been arrested in the last case.

    Judge Thomas Coffin ordered Gerlach held without bail, pending the outcome of today’s grand jury session in Oregon.

    Gerlach, 28, of Portland, and two others are accused of loosening bolts and support components on a Bonneville Power Administration electric tower 25 miles east of Bend on the night of Dec. 30, 1999. The tower toppled.

    She is also being charged with the May 9, 1999, firebombing of the Childers Meat Co. in Eugene. Engdahl said he would present evidence to a grand jury today seeking indictments against Gerlach in the meatpacking fire and the 2001 firebombing at the tree farm in Clatskanie.

    She was one of six people arrested in five states last week on indictments alleging they took part in a string of arson attacks and other crimes from 1998 to 2001 in Oregon and Washington, for which the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front took responsibility.

    How environmentally sound was the UW arson? Well, good if you hate the manipulation of plant DNA. Bad if you hate plant preservation.

    The apparent target at the UW center was research into the fast-growing hybrid poplar tree — a tiny portion of which were the transgenic product of DNA manipulation and had been imported from an Oregon State University lab.

    But the ELF attackers — who style themselves as defenders of the environment against unchecked encroachment by people — also destroyed numerous rare and endangered Northwest plants growing at the center that were intended to be replanted in the wild.

    I will not judge Gerlach at this time, but I will predict a bloody future for ELF and ALF. You know, as if radical Islamist bastards trying to establish global dominion weren’t enough to deal with, there’s always our own domestic idiots.

    I really need a new category for this kind of garbage. Any suggestions, y’all?

  • Sometimes

    … ya just have to sit back and admire the brilliance of making the best out of an otherwise silly, overrated old tune.

    Granted, a certain sort of humor is required.

  • Well, the Weather Outside is Frightful

    We’ve had sleet and freezing rain most of the afternoon here in Dallas. The street’s are icy; it’s 25 degrees with a cold north wind blowing briskly. Predictions call for an inch or two of snow overnight.

    I hate winter.

    Especially as a dog owner living in an apartment. That last walk of the night is really going to suck.

    Oh well, time for a workout. Later, y’all.

  • Two Arrested in Attacks on Oakland Liquor Stores

    Though media attention during the war against radical Islamism has been focused on international culprits, the rising danger of militancy of a made-in-America variety has occasionally found the limelight. Usually, this has tended to be descendants of Arab immigrants or caucasian converts like that bastard John Walker Lindh. Stories about black Moslems in America have tended to be about how they have been a people of peace, quite happy and settled in American society, aside from the occasional threat of Islamist gang-related terror.

    I propose that this is all a little too politically correct and that there is a militancy in portions of the American Moslem population that would readily lend itself to the efforts of our civilization’s enemies. As anecdotal evidence, I present the following duo, allegedly two of a group willing to commit violent crime based upon their rigid religious beliefs.

    Two men were arrested late Tuesday for their role in vandalizing a pair of stores for selling alcohol to blacks, Oakland police said.

    Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said that Donald Cunningham, 73, and Yusef Bey IV, 19, turned themselves in to face charges including robbery, felony vandalism, conspiracy and terrorist threats. Police have obtained warrants charging four other suspects with similar crimes and expect arrests soon.

    Bey, who has been linked to a black Muslim group that runs the Your Black Muslim Bakery store chain, was taken to North County Jail and was being held on $200,000 bail, according to police.

    The arrests cap a bizarre week that has included the vandalism of the San Pablo Liquor store and the New York Market last Wednesday by men wearing suits and bow ties.

    The men, all of whom were black, smashed liquor bottles and toppled food racks while demanding that both stores stop selling alcohol to black people, authorities said.

    Then, days later, the store clerk at the New York Market was kidnapped and the business was burned down.

    Store employee Abdel Hamdan was found safe in the trunk of a car Monday, about 12 hours after the fire, as police sought to get to the bottom of the attacks.

    “We’re very happy that he came back safe,” said Frank Hernen, manager of New York Market. “We don’t want this to go further.”

    […]

    The incident at San Pablo Liquor was caught on surveillance tape, and police said they have identified six of the 10 or 11 vandals and believe the same men trashed the New York Market.

    Suspicion immediately fell on the Nation of Islam, a group of Muslims whose members often wear suits and bow ties. However, Jordan said the suspects are not members of the Nation of Islam. He held out the possibility that they belong to a separate Muslim group based in Oakland.

    In 1993, Muslims affiliated with a group which operates the Your Black Muslim Bakery store chain and whose members also wear suits and bow ties, were involved in a similar incident at a Richmond liquor store, police said.

    Investigators were looking into the recent vandalism as hate crimes because the store owners are of Middle Eastern background and are Muslims, Jordan said Monday.

    “In both incidents, the suspects entered the store and questioned why a Muslim-owned store would sell alcoholic beverages when it is against the Muslim religion,” police said in a statement.

    Interestingly, currently this is apparently a matter of Moslem-on-Moslem violence. I see little reason to see that this could not expand to other targets and grow to more violent methods. There are, after all, only large chunks of the history of the religion in question upon which to base these possibilities of escalation.