Hey, I broke 10,000 today, and I am very pleased. I wanted to do it before my bday, which is the 3rd, and we did it. Thanks to all of ya'll. Always remember never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Oh yea, and thanks so very much to this young fella for all the land line help and patience he gave me untill I got it sort of right. http://charmingjustcharming.blogspot.com/
Sphere: Related ContentThursday, January 29, 2009
SICK AGAIN
I got it bad this time, headache, backache, sinus bad, coughing constant and a low grade fever. Not only that I am ugly. Ha. The weather must be the culprit. The temps in Houston have been up and down for the past few weeks, and many are sick. I have been attempting to avoid sick people, but the wife got sick and my son, plus both grandkids had it bad, and that is where I think I got it from. When they come up to you for a hug as they allways do you have no choice. Oh, well I am staying home tomorrow and I still have some left over anti biotics from last time.. I'll see what happens. Hell of a waste of a weekend though.
A Little Funny For Everyone
Elderly Part Time Job at Walmart
As many of you know, I had ambitions of finding a simple, uncomplicated part time job after coming here from Texas.
Unfortunately, as I have gotten a little older, I have become a little less sensitive. So after landing my new job as a Wal-Mart greeter, a good find for us older folks, I lasted less than a day......
About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into the store with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance. As I had been instructed, I said pleasantly, 'Good morning, and welcome to Wal-Mart.. Nice children you have there. Are they twins?'
The ugly woman stopped yelling long enough to say, 'Hell no, they ain't twins. The oldest one's 9, and the other one's 7. Why the hell would you think they are twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?'
I replied, 'I'm neither blind nor stupid, Ma'am, I just couldn't believe you got laid twice. Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.'
My supervisor said I probably wasn't cut out for this line of work........
Killer executed for deaths of ex-girlfriend and children
Come on down
HUNTSVILLE — Texas has executed a former Houston security guard for gunning down four people, including his ex-girlfriend and her two small children, during a 1996 shooting frenzy.
Virgil Martinez, 41, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CDT Wednesday.
Martinez was the fourth Texas inmate executed this year and the first of two on consecutive nights this week in the nation’s most active death penalty state.
Martinez was condemned for the slayings of Veronica Fuentes, 27; her son, Joshua, 5; her daughter, Casandra, 3, and an 18-year-old neighbor, John Gomez. Gomez, mortally wounded, told a police officer at the slaying scene in October 1996 that Fuentes’ former boyfriend was the gunman.
In a rambling final statement, Martinez told relatives he loved them, then blamed Gomez for three of the slayings.
“I know what you’ve been told and that’s all a lie,” he said, looking toward the victims’ relatives watching through a window. “ John Gomez killed your kids and sister.
“I wish I would have shot him in the leg, then he would be here. Those investigators were just trying to convict somebody.”
He was recalling the slaying scene when prison officials, who warn condemned inmates they will have only a couple of minutes for their final comments, began pumping in the lethal drugs.
Nine minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
Lawyers for Martinez had hoped to get the punishment postponed, raising questions he may be so mentally ill that he could be disqualified for execution. Appeals pending in the federal courts briefly delayed the lethal injection beyond the scheduled 6 p.m. time.
Martinez, who declined to speak with reporters in the weeks preceding his execution date, was picked up by police in Del Rio, ranting about voices telling him to kill. He was taken to the Kerrville State Hospital for a mental evaluation. Two weeks later, authorities determined he had given them a false name and that he was the man wanted for the four slayings 300 miles away in Alvin, just south of Houston.
Prosecutors said Martinez faked the mental illness to avoid police.
Fuentes had been shot 14 times. Her son was shot five times and her daughter three times. Gomez, who had been helping the woman watch her children, was shot eight times.
Witnesses testified they saw Martinez shoot Fuentes. Her two children were found dead in their beds, both shot in the head at point-blank range. Gomez was gunned down as he ran to Fuentes’ aid.
“Anybody that saw these two little kids, laying out like cordwood with a bullet in their heads, shot for no reason — that sort of sticks with you,” said Dale Summa, a former Brazoria County district attorney.
In earlier appeals in the courts, lawyers argued unsuccessfully that temporal lobe epilepsy suffered by Martinez was responsible for the shooting spree.
“The problem was, it was a bad crime,” said Don Vernay, who handled some of Martinez’s earlier appeals.
At trial, Martinez was defended by Jeri Yenne, who later was elected district attorney in Brazoria County. After she took office, the Texas Attorney General’s Office took over the case, handling all appeals for the state.
In 2004, a federal appeals court ordered a hearing to look into Martinez’s claims that defense lawyers didn’t present enough evidence about his medical condition blamed for the shootings. Lawyers said that would have contradicted Martinez’s stance going into the trial that he didn’t do the shooting.
Prosecutors combined all four slayings into a single capital murder charge. Police concluded a single 9 mm gun fired all the bullets. A holster for the gun was recovered in Martinez’s car, and a box designed to house the same caliber weapon was found in his mother’s Houston home, where he lived. The murder weapon, however, never was recovered.
The shootings occurred a short time after Fuentes ended a relationship with Martinez.
On Thursday, Texas prisoner Ricardo Ortiz is set to die for the retaliation killing of Gerardo Garcia, 22, a fellow inmate at the El Paso County Jail, in 1997. Garcia died of a lethal injection of heroin.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Wednesday Hero
This Weeks Post Was Suggested And Written By Cynthia
27 years old from Hollywood, South Carolina
1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division
January 28, 2008
James, 27, was killed on January 28, 2008, in Mosul, Iraq, along with four other soldiers when the unit encountered an IED, followed by an ambush from a nearby Mosque. It has been a year since James was killed. I miss him each day.
James was on his third deployment to Iraq. There are so many things about James that I admired. He was 'loud' and funny and articulate and sweet - even calling himself 'Sweet Soldier' - and brave and tough. He was a devout Christian and more comfortable with telling people he was than anyone I ever knew - he had a enviable, easy comfort with this faith. It would be so easy to write and write about James, but let me share some portions of his letters - his long and articulate letters.
"...I am very much looking forward to this war being over. However, I fully support everything that is going on over here ever since I saw first hand what the real situation was. Our media doesn't portray the truth of this operation or the necessity to the people here. They need freedom and desperately cry out for someone to help them. ... I know one thing, God wants me here."
"The war here is stating to come to an end. It will be a slow transition period where the responsibility of the battle space is handed over to the growing Iraqi Army. It all depends on the Iraqis if we are able to leave them with it safely."
"...it is a tale of my wonderful journey where I made memories I will never forget and stood up for something that I believe in...that sweet taste of freedom when the day is done and the knowledge that I have done something to ensure the positive future of my loved ones. And, you should know that it comforts me the most that what I do protects wonderful people like you."
To read more about Sgt James Craig, go here.
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
HEROES HONORED
A job well done and Welcome Home Troops.
By Kelly Moore
Leesville Daily Leader
Mon Jan 26, 2009, 08:31 AM CST
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Fort Polk, La. -
Hundreds gathered at Fort Polk’s Honor Field Friday afternoon to show their appreciation and support to the more than 3,000 members of the 4th Brigade 10th Mountain Division who have spent the past 14 months deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The ceremony began as the soldiers, in formation, made their way from the back of Honor Field to the front. As troop movement began, cheers from friends and family members of the returned soldiers resonated through the air.
“I am proud that you have decided to share in their victory with us,” Brig. Gen. James Yarbrough, Commander, JRTC and Fort Polk told the audience of the brigade.
“We rest easy tonight and America rests easy tonight due to your service,” he continued, speaking to the soldiers.
Though cheers prevailed throughout the field, a hush resonated just as loudly in the moment of silence to honor the nine soldiers of the brigade who gave their lives while in combat.
Gold Star Families, those families of the fallen soldiers, also attended the day’s ceremony, and with tears in their eyes, looked across the field at their extended Army family, those with whom their soldier had lived, fought and died for the cause of freedom, not only for Americans, but for the families in Iraq who have lived in fear and terror for the past years.
The fallen soldiers of the 4th Brigade 10th Mountain Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom are:
Pvt. Daren A. Smith
Sgt. Austin D. Pratt
Sgt. Timothy M. Smith
Sgt. Joseph A. Richard III
Sgt. Mark A. Stone
Sgt. Marcus C. Mathes
Spc. Jeffrey F. Nichols
Sgt. 1st Class David R. Hurst
Staff Sgt. Matthew J. Taylor
As the units of the 4/10 prepared to uncase their unit colors, Gold Star Family members and wounded soldiers of the brigade entered the field.
The Gold Star Family members were asked to install the Operation Iraqi Freedom Campaign Streamer to the flag of the unit in which their fallen soldier had served. The streamer, placed by mothers fathers, wives, brothers, sisters and children, serves as visible proof that the brigade’s mission is complete.
A wounded warrior, pushed onto the field in his wheelchair by a fellow soldier, attached the Campaign Streamer for the 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry “Warriors” with a steady hand and unwavering eyes.
The final streamer was attached to the flag of the 4th Brigade 10th Mountain Division by Sgt Nathan Hunt who was injured by an Explosively Formed Penetrator on May 10, 2008 in Baghdad.
Now a double amputee, Hunt made the journey back to Fort Polk to see the soldiers with whom he once lived and fought.
“I came back to see my soldiers,” said Hunt, who also wore on his t-shirt his Bronze Star with Valor device earned in Iraq. “I wanted to show them that I support them.”
Hunt is currently assigned to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio where he undergoes daily therapy.
Hunt’s injuries prevent his wearing a uniform.
The soldier was joined by his wife and children at the ceremony.
His younger son impatient, wiggled and played with an action figure throughout much of the ceremony, but when his dad made the journey to install the Campaign Streamer, the boy’s eyes widened and focused on his father.
“At first when I came home, it was hard on my wife and my kids, to see me like this,” Hunt said. “But soon they realized that I was just more determined.”
After the ceremony, many family members of the 4/10 made their way to thank Hunt for his service.
Thank you so much; you are an inspiration and a true American hero,” said one woman, with tears in her eyes.
The day’s activities were dedicated to the heroes of the 4/10, both those who stood in formation on the field and those who were lost in combat.
Police sniffer dog dies of nose cancer after sniffing cocaine
This is sad, but I'll bet he died with a smile on his face..
Springer spaniel Max, aged nine, may have caught the disease because of the effect of cocaine and other drugs he was taught to detect.
Police Inspector Anne Higgins, the dog's owner, fears the training may have led to the disease which led to him being put down last week.
Max worked as a drugs dog with the Avon and Somerset police but lived with Insp Higgins, who is based at Tiverton police station in Devon.
She said: "It is ironic the wonderful organ that made him successful in his work has been his demise.
"It may or may not have been connected with what he used to do. Up until a couple of weeks ago he seemed fine and was doing well but it was an aggressive tumour.
"It was very hard to have him put down but we had to do it.
"I took him to the police station which he usually loved and was his favourite place but he did not show any reaction to being there and we knew he was not right.
"He was a fighter until the end and always very dignified. He has had a good life and a successful one as a police dog. Just think of all the bad people he managed to put away."
Max retired from police work last year after arthritis in his back legs led to him being fitted with a trolley so he could still run around.
Inspector Higgins said the cancer caused an infection in his front legs which threatened to leave him completely immobile.
Kate Fairclough, the dog's vet, his work may have caused his death from nasal cancer, which is rare in dogs.
She said: "Sniffing drugs may well have been a factor. I certainly cannot rule it out.
"Nose cancer in dogs is not at all common. It represents only one or two per cent of all cancers.
"It is difficult to know what caused it as there are so many different factors involved. Environmental factors can plat a part.
"He had done so well since 2006 when it was thought he would have to be put down so he had an extra three years of life.
"It is always hard to do and he was such a lovely dog."
Friday, January 23, 2009
Police: Man fathered 4 children with daughter, killed 1
Libs at work.
HARRISONVILLE, Mo. — A man suspected of fathering four children with his teenage daughter faces charges of killing at least one after human remains were discovered at the rural home where the family once lived, authorities said Friday.
The 47-year-old man is charged with second-degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, statutory rape, two counts of incest and two counts of abandoning a corpse.
Three of the children are dead. The abuse of his now 19-year-old daughter allegedly began when she was 13, Cass County prosecutor Teresa Hensley said.
The Associated Press is withholding the suspect’s name to protect the identity of the teen daughter, an alleged sexual assault victim.
“For six years (the daughter) was under his control,” Hensley said.
At an arraignment later Friday, the man said he did not yet have an attorney and indicated to a judge that he didn’t understand the murder charge. Another hearing was scheduled for Jan. 29.
According to court documents, the teenage daughter told police he had fathered all four children, while the father told detectives he was certain two of them were his. Both said all of the children were delivered at home by the father and his wife. The wife is charged with endangering the welfare of a child for not reporting the alleged sexual abuse. She is free on $10,000 bond.
The father was arrested Wednesday night in Daviess County after two sealed coolers with the remains of two infants were found. The third child is believed to have died in Oklahoma. The surviving child, a 3-year-old boy, is in state custody.
After receiving a tip from the sister of the 19-year-old, Cass County authorities in October used cadaver dogs to search the rural property. Nothing was found during that search, but on Jan. 1 new owners found the sealed coolers and contacted police.
The father is charged in the death of a boy born Nov. 17, 2006, and believed to have died of pneumonia on Feb. 28, 2007. Authorities believe the baby became ill and that the suspect and his daughter, who has not been charged, never sought medical attention.
Investigators are still looking into the death of the other infant. The daughter told investigators her father assisted with the birth in April and that he told her the child was stillborn, according to a probable cause statement.
Theresa Sims, a relative who attended Friday’s arraignment for the father, said the extended family didn’t know about the alleged sexual abuse or the 19-year-old’s children until October, when one of the teenager’s sister contacted police.
“We never knew anything, never seen any babies. When we first heard about it, it was just hard to believe,” Sims said.
The 18-year-old sister who contacted authorities and another sister told KMBC-TV in Kansas City that the family lived in seclusion behind locked gates and that the children were told never to report what was happening.
“Our dad told us if we’d say something, we’re dead. We’d get in trouble,” the 18-year-old said.
According to court documents, the wife told police she was jealous of the close relationship between her husband and her daughter but desperately wanted a son — even one as a result of incest.
Calls to multiple phone numbers listed under the wife’s name were not answered Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether she has an attorney.
The man’s mother said he and the teen had lived in a trailer beside the house where she lived north of Harrisonville, and she wasn’t allowed to go back there.
“I didn’t know there was a baby,” she told The Kansas City Star. “He’s my son and I love him, but I can’t go along with this.”
Obama reverses Bush abortion-funds policy
Playing God. What is next.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration’s ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information — an inflammatory policy that has bounced in and out of law for the past quarter-century.
Obama’s move, the latest in an aggressive first week reversing contentious Bush policies, was warmly welcomed by liberal groups and denounced by abortion rights foes.
The ban has been a political football between Democratic and Republican administrations since GOP President Ronald Reagan first adopted it 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.
“For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House. “I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.”
He said the ban was unnecessarily broad and undermined family planning in developing countries.
“In the coming weeks, my administration will initiate a fresh conversation on family planning, working to find areas of common ground to best meet the needs of women and families at home and around the world,” the president said.
Obama issued the presidential memorandum rescinding the Bush policy without coverage by the media, late Friday afternoon. The abortion measure is a highly emotional one for many people, and the quiet signing was in contrast to the televised coverage of Obama’s announcement Wednesday on ethics rules and Thursday’s signing of orders on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and banning torture in the questioning of terror suspects.
His action came one day after the 36th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.
The Bush policy had banned U.S. taxpayer money, usually in the form of Agency for International Development funds, from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion as a family planning method.
Critics have long held that the rule unfairly discriminates against the world’s poor by denying U.S. aid to groups that may be involved in abortion but also work on other aspects of reproductive health care and HIV/AIDS, leading to the closure of free and low-cost rural clinics.
Supporters of the ban say that the United States still provides millions of dollars in family planning assistance around the world and that the rule prevents anti-abortion taxpayers from backing something they believe is morally wrong.
The ban has been known as the “Mexico City policy” for the city a U.S. delegation first announced it at a U.N. International Conference on Population.
Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will oversee foreign aid, had promised to do away with the rule during the presidential campaign.
Clinton said Friday evening that for seven years Bush’s policy made it more difficult for women around the world to gain access to essential information and health care services. “Rather than limiting women’s ability to receive reproductive health services, we should be supporting programs that help women and their partners make decisions to ensure their health and the health of their families,” Clinton said.
In a related move, Obama also said he would restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). Both he and Clinton had pledged to reverse a Bush administration determination that assistance to the organization violated U.S. law known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment.
Obama, in his statement, said he looked forward to working with Congress to fulfill that promise: “By resuming funding to UNFPA, the U.S. will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries.”
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, said: “The president’s actions send a strong message about his leadership and his desire to support causes that will promote peace and dignity, equality for women and girls and economic development in the poorest regions of the world.”
“We are confident that under the new president’s direction, the U.S. will resume its leadership in promoting and protecting women’s reproductive health and rights worldwide,” Obaid said in a statement issued at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The Bush administration had barred U.S. money from the fund, contending that its work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. UNFPA has vehemently denied that it does.
Congress had appropriated $40 million to the UNFPA in the past budget year, but the administration had withheld the money as it had done every year since 2002.
Organizations and lawmakers that had pressed Obama to rescind the Mexico City policy were jubilant.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the move “will help save lives and empower the poorest women and families to improve their quality of life and their future.”
“Today’s announcement is a very powerful signal to our neighbors around the world that the United States is once again back in the business of good public policy and ideology no longer blunts our ability to save lives around the globe,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Population Action International, an advocacy group, said that the policy had “severely impacted” women’s health and that the step “will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don’t have access to family planning.”
Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers condemned Obama’s decision.
“I have long supported the Mexico City Policy and believe this administration’s decision to be counter to our nation’s interests,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
“Coming just one day after the 36th anniversary of the tragic Roe v. Wade decision, this presidential directive forces taxpayers to subsidize abortions overseas — something no American should be required by government to do,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., called it “morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans to promote abortion around the world.”
“President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
Texas Sen. Cornyn challenges Obama agenda
Somebody gota keep an eye on what's happening to us. Lets not be blinded by all the bling, high fives and crap.
WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. John Cornyn is leading an early charge against President Barack Obama, seeking to blunt the new administration’s momentum in Congress while lighting the way for a GOP comeback in the next election.
The conservative Republican, the new head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, delayed Senate confirmation proceedings for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General-designate Eric Holder. He challenged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. And he orchestrated a GOP plan that blocked Democrat Al Franken — embroiled in a contested race with Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota — from taking a Senate seat.
“I think he has decided that the only chance Republicans have is to be very aggressive,” political scientist Larry Sabato said of the Texan, who come to Washington six years ago as a defender of President George W. Bush.
Cornyn said the campaign committee role makes him a key player in the Senate GOP leadership as well as the architect of the party’s Senate campaign in 2010.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said, “but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think it would help the people of Texas.”
Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, who served on Cornyn’s Senate staff, said his former boss has no ulterior motives.
“He’s not the kind of guy to act in a very partisan manner just to advance partisan causes,” Olson said.
But some critics have a different take.
Critics
New York Gov. David Paterson, who appointed Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand as Clinton’s successor, called Cornyn’s maneuvering “grandstanding and self-promotion.”
And some Republican Senate colleagues want less partisanship and more collaboration. As Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., put it: “The message that the American people are sending us now is that they want us to work together and get to work.”
Cornyn said he won a commitment from Clinton that she “would be open” to an across-the-board donor disclosure requirement. He then voted for her confirmation — with 93 other senators.
Cornyn said he put the “hold” on Holder’s confirmation to win a commitment that he would not press prosecutions against anyone who used harsh interrogation techniques during the Bush administration.
And Cornyn pointedly challenged Reid about alleged ties to lobbyists. A Reid spokesman dismissed the criticism by Cornyn as having “everything to do with raising money.”
Pleasing conservatives
Larry Hufford, a political scientist at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, said Cornyn’s high-profile challenge to Clinton’s confirmation will please many conservative Republican donors.
“There is no better name than Clinton to go after,” Hufford said.
Cornyn, a master fundraiser who spent at least $28.5 million on his two Senate races in Texas, stands to gain political IOUs from his colleagues and a network of donor contacts as he heads the campaign committee.
Sabato said Cornyn, who has declined to rule out a future run for the White House, might use the campaign post as a springboard in 2012.
“There’s not exactly a stampede of candidates throwing their hats into the ring,” Sabato said, “but a 10-gallon hat from someone like Cornyn would be a pretty big hat.”
Jennifer Dlouhy contributed reporting from Capitol Hill.
stewart.powell@chron.com; gmartin@express-news.net
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