Rosa Parks, the black civil rights activist whose courageous refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger helped start the Civil Rights Movement, has died. Ms. Parks was 92.
Tennessee’s already woeful offense just got worse:
Tennessee running back Gerald Riggs Jr. will miss the rest of the season after injuring his right lower leg and ankle.
Riggs, the team’s top rusher, was hurt in last week’s 6-3 loss at Alabama. A statement from the team late Monday said “Riggs definitely will miss the remainder of the 2005 football season.” Earlier in the day, coach Phillip Fulmer said he didn’t know the extent of the injuries.
Doctors were still evaluating Riggs, and officials had no other details about the injuries.
We all wish Gerald Riggs a speedy recovery.
It snowed a little this morning here in Boone. Not much, mostly just flurries with very little accumulation. Still, it’s a reminder that winter will soon be here. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures - but Marie did.
Congratulations to Evan Coyne Maloney, whose film “Brainwashing 201: The Second Semester” was named as the Best Short Film of 2005. This film is a sequel to “Brainwashing 101,” a film released last year that features yours truly.
UPDATE: Also be sure to watch “Dead Meat,” a powerful expose on the Canadian healthcare system by Blaine Greenberg and Stuart Browning that should serve as a warning as to what could happen here.
Update II: “Dead Meat” was produced by Stuart Browning and Blaine Greenberg, not Evan Maloney as originally stated. Apologies for the error.
In a great display of intellectual savvy, Brazil bucked a worldwide trend and voted against banning the sale of guns:
With more than 92 percent of the votes counted, 64 percent of Brazilians were opposed to the ban, while 36 percent backed it, said election officials, giving the ‘no’ position an insurmountable lead.
Chalk up a victory for liberty. Be sure and read the entire article - you can practically feel the disappointment from CNN!
Visited Linville Falls and Linville Caverns today, enjoyed a nice little hike, and took a few pictures (as usual).
Via Todd Yarbrough, this is very disturbing. I’d even go so far as to consider it child abuse.
Conservative legend George Will unloads on President Bush for nominating Harriet Miers in today’s Washington Post, as well as on Miers’ defenders. Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports that the White House is beginning to make plans for Miers’ withdrawal. We shall see what happens.
The Linville Viaduct on a fall day.
Mike Adams has the scoop on North Carolina State professor Kamau Kambon, who recently proclaimed:
Now how do I know that the white people know that we are going to come up with a solution to the problem? I know it because they have retina scans, they have what they call racial profiling, DNA banks, and they’re monitoring our people to try to prevent the one person from coming up with the one idea. And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem. Now I don’t care whether you clap or not, but I’m saying to you that we need to solve this problem because they are going to kill us. And I will leave on that. So we just have to just set up our own system and stop playing and get very serious and not be diverted from coming up with a solution to the problem and the problem on the planet is white people.
In fairness, a university official says Dr. Kambon no longer works at the university (his name was still on the African Studies department’s website at the time of Adams’ column, but has since been removed). Yet Kambon is a former visiting professor there, meaning taxpayer dollars funded this man’s fanaticism.
No, there’s no problems in higher education… (also see The Locker Room)
This could have huge implications:
The brother-in-law of Syria’s president was implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and Lebanese intelligence officials helped organize it, according to a U.N. inquiry officially linking Damascus to the slaying for the first time.
The report into the Feb. 14 car bomb that killed the popular opposition leader and 20 others stopped short of directly blaming Syrian President Bashar Assad (search) or his inner circle. But it accused the regime of failing to cooperate in the inquiry and alleged that Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa lied in a letter to investigators.
It will be interesting to see how the U.N., and, more importantly, the United States respond to this. President Bush has called the report “deeply disturbing,” and is urging swift action.
Boone has made it into the New York Times.
Via Sharon Cobb
It’s Friday, so time yet again for my weekly college football predictions!
Louisville over Cincinnati (W, Louisville 46-22)
Georgia over Arkansas (W, UGA 23-20)
Ohio State over Indiana (W, OSU 41-10
Michigan over Iowa (W, Michigan 23-20 OT)
Miami (FL) over Georgia Tech (postponed)
Michigan State over Northwestern (L, Northwestern 49-14)
North Carolina over Virginia (W, UNC 7-5)
Clemson over Temple (W, Clemson 37-7)
Mississippi over Kentucky (W, Ole Miss 13-7)
Texas A&M over Kansas State (W, Texas A&M 30-28)
Houston over Mississippi State (W, Houston 28-16)
Notre Dame over Brigham Young (W, ND 49-23)
TCU over Air Force (W, TCU 48-10)
Tennessee over Alabama (L, ‘Bama 6-3)
Florida State over Duke (W, FSU 55-24)
Vanderbilt over South Carolina (L, SC 35-28)
Texas over Texas Tech (W, Texas 52-17)
NC State over Wake Forest (L, Wake 27-19)
Southern Cal over Washington (W, USC 51-24)
Wisconsin over Purdue (W, Wisconsin 31-20)
Fresno State over Idaho (W, Fresno 40-10)
Arizona State over Stanford (L, Stanford 45-35)
Navy over Rice (W, Navy 41-9)
Boise State over Utah State (W, Boise 45-21)
Oregon over Arizona (W, Oregon 28-21)
Colorado over Kansas (W, Colorado 44-13)
Penn State over Illinois (W, Penn State 63-10)
Oklahoma over Baylor (W, Oklahoma 37-30 OT)
West Virgina over South Florida (postponed)
UCLA over Oregon State (W, UCLA 51-28)
Auburn over LSU (L, LSU 20-17 OT)
California over Washington State
This is sure to anger Colin Powell’s fans on the Left:
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday the United States is “not doing bad at all” diplomatically, despite anti-American sentiment over the war in Iraq.
“If you stand back a bit,” Powell told an audience at the University at Buffalo, “you might see we have done very well in most parts of the world.”
Powell, a guest in the university’s Distinguished Speakers Series, outlined strides made in Europe, China and Asia, and predicted nuclear disputes with North Korea and Iran would be solved diplomatically.
“When I look at the world in that context, we’re not doing bad at all,” he said.
Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay was arrested yesterday. The arrest was routine following Delay’s indictment. Although I have expressed my disappointment with the Texas Republican, it appears as though the charges brought against him are politically motivated. I must also say that his mug shot is very amusing and clever:
Delay’s ear-to-ear grin will certainly disappoint Democrats, who will find using his mug shot in ads much less effective.
Okay, that is a really corny headline…
My friend Jason Piho visited me in Boone this week from Knoxville. We spent most of the day on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where, as always, I took loads of pictures. Of course, we also had to go look for the legendary Brown Mountain Lights (more on that later).
I also have many more pictures I want to put online. With my parents coming to visit this weekend, I am sure I will have even more…
Talk radio host Neal Boortz takes Tennessee Congressmen Zack Wamp and Lincoln Davis to task for not supporting the Fair Tax. The Fair Tax, which Boortz promotes in his latest book, would replace the current federal income tax with a consumption tax.
Robert Bork takes Bush to task for his nomination of Harriet Miers, and questions if President Bush is even a conservative:
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aside, George W. Bush has not governed as a conservative (amnesty for illegal immigrants, reckless spending that will ultimately undo his tax cuts, signing a campaign finance bill even while maintaining its unconstitutionality). This George Bush, like his father, is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values. He appears embittered by conservative opposition to his nomination, which raises the possibility that if Ms. Miers is not confirmed, the next nominee will be even less acceptable to those asking for a restrained court. That, ironically, is the best argument for her confirmation. But it is not good enough.
Read the whole thing.
Not surprisingly, the blogosphere is abuzz with reaction. Here are just a few…
* Predictably, Hugh Hewitt rushes to the defense of Bush and Miers. What else is new?
* The Right Coast hopes that Miers is rejected in the Senate.
* Rob Huddleston wonders who will be left standing with Bush if he continues down this road.
* Jonah Goldberg considers who is really a conservative, and who is not.
* David Boyd thinks it’s a travesty that Bork is not on the Supreme Court today. I am inclined to agree.