The really scary thing about all these terror alerts

A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, “Wolf! Wolf!” and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains.

The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: “Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep”; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.

Best line of the day, so far

“Department of Reelection Security Secretary Tom Ridge”

Billmon

Alternate best line of the day (from the same item) — “I’m just glad Kerry didn’t get a bigger bounce in the polls from the convention, or the White House would have taken us to Defcon 1 by now.”

Who?

New Mexico Magazine has a poll:

Which New Mexico athlete will be remembered the longest?
Baseball’s Ralph Kiner
Football’s Brian Urlacher
Golf’s Notah Begay
Golf’s Nancy Lopez
Racing’s Al Unser

Ya’ think?

New Mexico Magazine has a link to NewMexiKen, which they describe as “Half wisdom, half whimsy, half wit from Albuquerque blogger with a liberal political bent.”

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument…

was established by President Wilson on this date in 1918.

For over a thousand years, prehistoric farmers inhabited much of the present-day state of Arizona. When the first Europeans arrived, all that remained of this ancient culture were the ruins of villages, irrigation canals and various artifacts. Among these ruins is the Casa Grande, or “Big House,” one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America. Casa Grande Ruins, the nation’s first archeological preserve, protects the Casa Grande and other archeological sites within its boundaries.

Source: Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Yuck!

Unpleasant development — finding ants in the peanut butter jar just after eating the sandwich. Oh well, harder on them than on me I guess.

But how’d they get in there? The jar was closed. Guess they had my 18-day absence to execute their diabolical plan.

Gold star

NewMexiKen was told today I was a good patient after the dentist completed two restorations (fillings) somewhere just left of my right ear.

Bet on it

From The Atlantic:

Looking at the gambling boom years of the 1990s, when casino revenues more than tripled nationally, the researchers conclude that counties with casinos suffered individual bankruptcy rates more than double the rates in demographically similar counties without casinos. But the bankruptcy rate for businesses in these “casino counties” was 35 percent lower than in their betting-free counterparts.

The rest of the story

Remember Bill Nevins, the Rio Rancho High School teacher who claimed he was fired for supporting free speech; specifically for helping organize a poetry club and because a student wrote an anti-Iraq, anti-Bush poem? NewMexiKen reported on the story in May. And then someone commenting here said maybe he was just not re-hired (which I guess is different than being fired).

Well, the Rio Rancho district settled with him for $205,000 according to The Albuquerque Tribune.

Best line of the day, so far

“I wouldn’t want to be either a criminal defendant against Kerry, or a negligent corporate slug caught in Edwards’s crosshairs. It’s like lining up against Jack McCoy and Atticus Finch simultaneously.”

The always insightful Charles Pierce writing to Eric Alterman

Straight Talk! from White House West

It’s no This Land, but Will Ferrel’s ACT Bush reelection video is pretty amusing — well, I don’t suppose that’s true if you support Bush.

Timing is everything

Gen. JC Christian, patriot has written Tom Ridge. Don’t miss it!

Terror Alert: Wolf

From The New York Times:

Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.

Happy Birthday!

Tony Bennett is 78.

Martin Sheen is 64.

Martha Stewart is 63.

Jay North (TV’s Dennis the Menace) is 53.

Super Bowl quarterback Tom Brady is 27.

Ernie Pyle…

was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has twice before posted this quote from Pyle, but decided to do so again on his birthday, and because for me, returning late last night, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942