Can you find what’s so outrageously offensive in the above ad? Well, duh… of course it’s got to be the puppy. This little guy is Rebel, a German Shepherd police dog “recruit” who’s been featured recently on police fliers in the Scottish town of Tayside. Now the Muslims in the nearby Dundee community are outraged because of how offensive and insensitive this ad is. Huh?

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert. Dundee councilor Mohammed Asif said: ‘My concern was that it’s not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.’

WTF? Are you kidding me? The West has quite a love for canines, and dogs have also found worthy service in many parts of our society. So if you don’t like it perhaps you should go eat dog crap. Any shopkeeper from that town that refuses to put up that sign should be sentenced to community service cleaning the police kennel.

Seriously, anyone offended by a puppy should kill themselves. Really.

A spokesman for Tayside Police said: ‘Trainee police dog Rebel has proved extremely popular with children and adults since being introduced to the public, aged six weeks old, as Tayside Police’s newest canine recruit.’

[...]

‘We did not seek advice from the force’s diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused.’

Why is this wimp apologizing?! A puppy is not offensive… so if someone decides they are offended by it, who the heck cares? Good! I’m glad they are offended. Perhaps being offended will help them out… in a therapeutic way. Maybe I’ll draw a cartoon featuring Muhammad the Sheltie - it can be my weekly comic in their Sunday paper.

This whole brain-scraper is the typical, wreaking, leftist, multiculturalistic approach to social appeasement… bereft of any principles or logical thought. If you took their “tolerance” and “sensitivity” to its logical conclusion (oops, that takes thought) the town would ultimately have to remove all dogs, including police dogs, as to not offend any Muslims. After that all non-mosques would have to be torn down, too, because they are filled with infidel swine. Oh yeah… all pork products should be pulled from the store shelves.

You see… I’m spun up now.

The 2008 NBA Champion Boston Celtics apparently had no players worthy of being sent to China to play for the US… despite spending the 2008 season wiping the court with the rest of the league. Oops… have I forgotten how successful our more flashy players can be in international play. We wouldn’t want to put in Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, or Paul Pierce… who collectively surrendered their individual games in favor of a cooperative team-centered style… would we? Do we really want to start winning against those other big-name basketball countries… like Greece, Argentina, and Puerto Rico? Countries who would gladly shove that basketball up your rear if they could score soccer tickets out of the “exchange”. Team-centered play… what’s that nonsense about?

Bless my soul, I thought basketball was a still a team sport!? Instead of sending the so-called all-stars to showboat, trip all over each other and screw up another year of international play (a far cry from the Bird, Magic, Jordan days)… why not send an actual team? Why not send the NBA championship team? That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout. China baby! Someone said tea… I heard you ask for a little Boston 3 Party to march all over your misshapen paint!

Fetchr4SSP

Features

• Integrates beautifully with SSP
• Allows you to load an album of a Flickr user’s latest photos
• Allows you to display all of your Flickr photosets as albums inside SSP, or even pick and choose any public photosets from assorted Flickr users
• Allows you to display the full Flickr photo’s description as a photo caption inside SSP
• Allows manual and programmatic cache refreshing from the URL

The final result is a Flickr photo gallery wrapped in a premiere Flash-based slideshow interface that is delightful to your web visitors.

Visit the official Fetchr4SSP homepage!

Background

This project started for me just trying to finagle my own way of getting all my Flickr photos organized into album photosets and all available in an easy-to-use interface on one of my WordPress-driven websites. A tall order… but I knew it was doable. After fumbling with some WordPress plugins and such, nothing really worked smoothly enough. A Flash solution was needed, so purchased a license for SlideShowPro (SSP) and I couldn’t be happier!

The next task was putting together a PHP script that would build the complex XML needed to properly load all my Flickr photos organized into photosets into SSP. I tried an existing one with some success, but it lacked a few vital functions I needed… and it wouldn’t handle certain SSP abilities. Soooo, I coded my own. And after some polishing decided to put together a sharp website to peddle my fine creation to the masses.

As always you can view all my recent Cape Cod pics on my online photo gallery.

Thanks to Siberian Grinder for the heads up on this camera.

Of the suspect benefit concerts there was one that stood out. A local man named Bruce Martin is having a benefit as a “fallen firefighter” for medical bills and from “on the job” nerve damage while serving as a volunteer. Apparently, though, this benefit concert might be a sham. Those close to the situation say that many people who know Bruce Martin have called the music venue to voice concerns about the veracity of Martin’s claims. There’s even talk of Martin being kicked out of his old firefighting unit for cause. Increased speculation grew of how “debilitating” Martin’s condition really is if he intends to perform on stage at his own concert, and if he has the mobility to make a YouTube video.

Anyways… here’s an excerpt of a comment I made in response to someone questioning the critique of local benefits, and to assigning responsibility on the venue for determining “worthiness”:

@Bob
I agree with you that there are many legit benefit concerts. Just last year there was one in this area, and one in Rhode Island (I think), for my wife’s god-daughter who has leukemia. This was a VERY legit cause and the little girl’s family received some welcome assistance.

I disagree with you on a few points, though. I don’t think it’s the venue’s responsibility to verify benefits. Why would it be? They get hired to provide or donate a service just like everyone else involved. It’s EVERYONE’s responsibility to keep a sharp mind and a critical eye on EVERYTHING and EVERYONE that asks for money… from benefit concerts to bums. The event organizer’s should be held accountable for the legitimacy of an event. I will agree with you that the venue may take on some of the potential blame to whatever extent they personally use the charitability of the event to boost attendance (and by extension their own alcohol sales).

I also don’t think blogs like this do any harm in making people aware of crooked benefit events. It may cause people to be a little more wary… but that’s a GOOD thing. People should always be wary… they should ALWAYS be paying attention to where their money goes. Sure, you may dissuade lazy-minded curmudgeons who decide to never give any money anymore… but in the end legit and worthy causes have only to BENEFIT by people carefully choosing to give money to where it’s really needed.

Speaking of benefits for medical costs… the biggest reason why medical costs (including drugs) are so ridiculous is because of the liability on doctors, hospitals and drug companies by trial lawyer firms… firms similar to that of Martin, Harding & Mazzotti. Another reason for high drug costs are that drug companies don’t fear dumping billions into research because they know they’ll recoup it through indirect subsidy via medicaid and medicare. So one of the BEST LONG-TERM things you can do for loved ones with high medical costs is to push for Tort reform (including medical liability caps) and medical entitlement reform.

Catch the whole Bill Bucher article and all the comments here.

It is of note that Bruce Martin is the son of Martin from local big-name law firm Martin, Harding & Mazzotti. That has the making of a whole new blog post, doesn’t it?

The “Big Three” of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and team captain Paul Pierce proved an unstoppable force this season in the NBA. I have waited since the 80’s to see my team back in its glory. Indeed, with all the flash-slappy style of play since the 90’s I haven’t watched much pro ball… but this whole series felt like a nostalgic blast from the parquet past. What a treat… and what a sweet victory!

From FoxSports:

Boston Celtics claimed their 17th NBA title, and first in 22 years, with a stunning 131-92 blowout over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday.

On a new parquet floor below aging championship banners, the Celtics won the first title — at last — for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen — their Big Three for a new generation.

Lifted by ear-splitting chants of “Beat L.A.” from their adoring crowd, which included Boston greats Bill Russell, John Havlicek and JoJo White, the Celtics concluded a shocking rebound of a season with a resounding win over the Lakers in Game 6.

Well, the final 10 episodes are going to commence - horror of horrors - in the first quarter of 2009!?!? Are you frakkin’ kidding me!? What kind of sick game is this? It’s not even officially summer yet and I have to wait until after Christmas?! ARGH!

Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1958 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2008 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1958 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2008 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Jeffrey won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.
1958 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2008 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Billy breaks a window in his neighbor’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1958 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2008 - Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse.. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy’s sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1958 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2008 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Pedro fails high school English.
1958 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2008 - Pedro’s cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action laws suit against state school system and Pedro’s English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1958 - Ants die.
2008 - ATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1958 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2008 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

So what’s the deal with these lethal peanuts? Not to sound old and cranky, but when I was growing up there was never such a thing as a so-called “peanut allergy”. No student was ever punished for bringing a PB&J sandwich to school… and surely no school kid ever got charged a felony for cookie crumbing his classmate’s stuff. Neither was any airline being sued for serving the proverbial “in-flight peanuts”. What the heck is wrong with kids today? Is something wrong with mothers’ breasts that their milk is poisoning their kids’ immune systems? Perhaps the mothers are watching too much Oprah!

Being slightly fed up with hearing about this on the news (and feeling not-so-compassionate) here’s my pictorial ode to this problem:

After further thought I noticed that there are lots of “disorders” and “conditions” - unheard of when I was young - that are lowering today’s kids on the evolutionary totem… like ADD and all kinds of autism. So what gives? Something has changed, for sure. Recently on a discussion board I read a school nurse’s personal observation:

[My] first decade of school nursing involved NO kids with food allergies. In 1998 the first child entered our school with a peanut allergy. Now, 10 years later, we have dozens of children with increasingly complex food allergies.

I agree that there is something very serious going on with the health of our children and instead of looking only at treating kids with allergies, we need to be researching the cause. 1998 is the same year we had our first autistic child, our first (ODD) oppositional defiance disorder, and all degrees of (PDD) pervasive developmental disorders. We invented a whole batch of new diagnostic names that had never existed before during the next couple of years.

There are questions I want answered: Why were these kids so different from our previous children? What happened to the kids who entered school in 1998 that was new to the human experience? What compromised and confused their little immune systems; and why were their bodies confused about healthy foods? If you take time to examine the history, you immediately notice these were the first kids who got Hepatitis B shots as newborn babies in the hospital nursery. [...]

Ya know, that’s a good point. The more people I talk to who have really delved into the “science” behind some of these vaccinations, the more I hear about how much “junk” is in that stuff. Now I’m not trying to stir up a scare… or tell you not to vaccinate your infant. But there’s a lot of coincidences… and if you talk to medical professionals (I live with one) they’ll relate lengthy anecdotal evidence for reasons to be suspicious.

Then again I got ALL my shots… and by ALL I mean the Army jacked me up with everything. EVERYTHING. Not to mention in high school I immersed my entire hand in a beaker of mercury. And look at me… I’m perfect fine still breathing.

Growing up in a small town myself I relate to this letter. I empathize with the author’s feelings and frustrations. I, too, sorta’ shake my head and crinkle my nose at some of the screwy things I hear politicians say about “normal folk”.

Dear Barack Obama:

I grew to like you over the last year.

I’ve always thought of you as dangerously naive at best. Eloquent, gifted, genuine, yes. But dangerously naive at best.

I couldn’t vote for you — but not because of your funny name or your lunatic pastor. I couldn’t vote for you because you say we should raise taxes (even on the rich, who I’m convinced already pay too much), and because you say we should abandon Iraq (which I’m convinced would be surrendering a war we must win), and because you don’t respect the Second Amendment (which I’m convinced should disqualify any politician from any office).

Still, I’ve liked your message of unity and your ability to inspire. And, since your rise I’ve hunted, quite frantically, for young conservative leaders with your talent. (To my relief, I found Bobby Jindal.)

And I’ve long said if you beat Hillary Clinton, you will have done your country a tremendous service. But anymore I’m having a harder and harder time rooting for you.

First came your wife’s comment about being proud of America for the first time — conveniently, right after you started winning primaries. Then came your own words about your grandmother, who is just a “typical white person” — a racist, or at least someone with racist tendencies. (I’m a “typical white person,” I suppose, and I’m no racist. In fact, little makes me angrier than when it’s insinuated I am.)

Sometimes people say things they don’t really mean. But this is a pattern.

Last week, we heard your comments about small-town America. Someone at a San Francisco fundraiser asked you why it’s so hard for Democrats to win in rural areas. You said:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them … So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them …”

Is that a minority? HEY CLETUS, GET THE GUN! (If only we had a job to go to, some time in the last 25 years …)

Here’s a thought: Maybe gun rights voters know gun control laws kill people and steal freedom.

Here’s a thought: Maybe some of us have moral objections to an immigration system that forces rule-followers to wait decades for legal status, and rewards border-violators with amnesty.

Here’s a thought: Maybe some Americans cling to their church because their pastor is a nice person, because they find love there, because there they have something they can believe in.

Here’s a thought: Maybe, just maybe, us simpletons in small towns find it harder to be bigoted than all o’ y’all cityfolk. Maybe, in small towns, where everybody knows your name — and how hard you work, if you pay your taxes, how well you treat your neighbors, how often you volunteer in the community, and whether or not you’re a good parent — people see the content of your character, so they don’t give a hoot about the color of your skin. (But I grew up in a small town where about a third of the population is of a different race than me. What do I know?)

And here’s my favorite thought of all: Maybe small-town folks are — really — capable of thinking. All on our own.

You’re wrong about why small-town Americans don’t vote for Democrats.

We don’t vote for Democrats because we’re self-reliant so we don’t like the government trying to “solve” everything for us. And because you tell your rich friends in San Francisco that we’re dumb. And because, each election, whichever one of you is running for president traipses all over the country telling us you have all the answers, that you’re the one on our side, that you understand and respect our way of life.

But each time, a little bit here and there slips out — and by the end of the campaign, we can tell what you think about us. And we manage to learn who you really are.

And we see you’re just a horse’s ass.

Will Manly was a reporter for The Hays Daily News and The Stir.

Well, all the kids are currently back with their parents. Now we can actually try using due process rather than fascism… what a novel thought!?

Now, that GGW guy Joe Francis is scum for sure… but Dupré is suing him for $10 Million dollars partly for falsely advertising that she performed for their cameras. Except that - wait for it - she DID perform for their cameras. In fact I read that he has TONS of footage she willingly did for GGW (for some cash) back before she was infamous.

Anyways, Dupré’s lawsuit says that Francis “ruined her reputation”. What? Are you serious? Gee… I would have thought that it was taking your clothes off in front of a camera (and a crowd of drunk guys, also with cameras) and dancing around naked groping yourself that would have ruined your reputation. I would have thought that getting busted prostituting yourself out to strangers would have ruined your reputation… but what do I know? I think Francis (the scum) said it best:

It’s hard to imagine how anyone could actually ruin a hooker’s reputation.

This almost reminds me of Monica Lewinsky who after the VERY famous Bill Clinton scandal found refuge from various media questions by saying that comment on it wasn’t “appropriate”. Hmm… I wouldn’t have thought for her propriety was on the table… apparently neither would she, having spent so much time under it.

Now I’ve used some straight-forward language here… and it’s not because I think I’m immune to the pitfalls of this rock. But what I am big on is personal responsibility. My libertarian leanings tell me that we should be free to make choices, and then be responsible for the consequences… whether gain or pain, treasure or pleasure, shame or fame, embarrassment or harassment. [admit it, how many of you just pronounced harassment like the Brits so that it rhymed! ...I love this too much] Well, since I’ve taken so much flak for not being compaaaaassionate lately I’ll add the following disclaimer.

Compassionate Disclaimer: Jesus loves everyone mentioned in this post.