Morning Wood: 'Beast' Man Jailed for Possessing 31,000 Animal Porn Images

A Tasmanian computer technician who considered himself a beast has been given a suspended jail sentence after being caught possessing bestiality images.

Rodney Scott McLagan, 48, of South Arm, today was sentenced after pleading guilty to possessing 31,000 illegal images, most involving human female sex acts with dogs, ponies, snakes, tigers and an octopus.

I usually draw the line with mammals. Turns out Rodney is a multitasker - he's into child porn as well.

Although 30 per cent of the total images involved child pornography, Hobart Supreme Court Justice David Porter today said only 20 per cent of those were actually viewed by McLagan.

"Your interests lie in the bestiality material," Justice Porter said in sentencing today.

McLagan's lawyer David Barclay told the court that his client had little or no interest in child pornography, and no relevant prior convictions.

Guys have tried that "my interests lie in the articles and not the naked women" line for years. I know my wife doesn't buy that shit.

Justice Porter said: "It also emerges from the report that you are particularly self-conscious about your teeth".

"One of the consequences of all of this in your case is that you equate yourself with a beast, reflecting the level of your self-esteem.

"It is that which motivated your accessing the material you did."

Sounds like Porter enjoyed pouring over the 31,000 images.

Time to clear the pallet.

McDonalds Gets Sued Again

A hearing-impaired woman filed a federal lawsuit against a local McDonald's, saying workers refused to let her order food at the drive-thru window.

Karen Tumeh of Lincoln says they insisted she either order at the electronic speaker along the drive-thru lane or come inside to order.

Tumeh wears a hearing aid but still cannot hear while using the drive-thru ordering box at fast-food restaurants, according to the lawsuit.

At least three times since September 2007 workers at a Lincoln McDonald's refused to let her place her order at the drive-thru window, Tumeh said.

In denying her service, McDonald's violated the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, she said. Tumeh's lawsuit seeks to force McDonald's to make accommodations for hearing-impaired people to order food in restaurant drive-thrus.

If making a lazy-ass American get out of their damn car gets you sued then we are in big trouble as a nation.

I can't wait until I can sue the NBA for not letting me play point guard for the Detroit Pistons. As soon as I figure out how to make my lack of leaping ability into a Federally protected disability I should be all set.

The part I don't get is why in the HELL do you wear hearing aid if you still can't hear.

Morning Wood: Olympic Special

Yes, you need a reason to watch olympic table tennis. And here it is.

Markets Work...if we let them

President Bush FINALLY recinded the Presidential Order that has prevented drilling on the US continental shelf. While critics (ie political hacks who like high oil prices) say it will take time for any new drilling to bring oil to market. People who understand markets know that prices reflect everything that is known at the time futures contracts are purchased.

So guess what happened.

Oil dropped by almost $10 a barrel in one day.

All while the congressional ban is still in place. If congress removes their ban we would see significant and immediate drop in oil and gas prices.

As I have asked before. Who wants lower gas prices?

Morning Wood: Granny Dearest

Family: Woman With 5 Dead Husbands Obsessed With Cash, Can't Be Trusted

Jeff Carstensen was spooked when he learned his grandmother planned to buy him a $100,000 life insurance policy — and name herself the beneficiary.

"She told me that people of our stature have insurance policies on each other," he said. "That way, if something happens to you, you take care of me, and if something happens to me, I take care of you. It was all too suspicious. So I got out of there any way I could, as soon as I could."

As he and everyone else who came into Betty Neumar's orbit have learned, he apparently had good reason.

The 76-year-old Georgia woman sits in a North Carolina jail, accused of hiring a hit man to kill fourth husband Harold Gentry. Authorities are re-examining the deaths of her first child and four of the five men she married, including Gentry.

Here's a classic line.

No motive has been discussed, but records and interviews with relatives and police officials paint Neumar as a domineering matriarch consumed by money.

Naw, ya think???

To the outside world, family members said, she was Bee — a friendly woman who operated beauty shops, attended church and raised money for charity.

But Carstensen saw another side: fist fights at family functions, use of obscenities and belittling of relatives, how she would act "one way in public — especially church — and another behind closed doors."

Police in Ohio are looking into the death of Carstensen's stepfather, Neumar's son Gary Flynn, who was found shot to death in his apartment in November 1985. It was ruled a suicide, but his family has questions. A decision on whether to formally reopen the case is pending.

Didn't Lifetime already do this? Serial Grandma or something?

Sorry David, This Isn't Going Away

Second ref implicated in fixing scandal

NEW YORK — NBA referee Tim Donaghy made repeated phone calls to a second referee at the same time he provided inside information to professional gamblers during the course of the 2006-2007 season, according to court documents and phone records obtained by FOXNews.com. The records show Donaghy placed 134 calls to referee Scott Foster — more than the 126 calls Donaghy made to his bookie — between October 2006 and April 2007, the period during which he has confessed to either betting on games or passing on game information to gamblers. The majority of the phone calls lasted no more than two minutes and occurred prior to and after games Donaghy officiated and on which he admits wagering.

With the exception of 150 calls Donaghy placed to Thomas Martino, to whom he says he provided “picks” to win games and who was the middleman between the disgraced referee and a bookie named James Battista, the ex-ref phoned no one more than he called Foster. During this period, the most calls Donaghy made to any other referee were 13.

This is bad. Actually it's stunning. David Stern has been quoted as saying, "Donaghy was a rogue, isolated criminal acting on his own, without the cooperation of any other referees or league officials."

If the NBA had done it's investigation as thoroughly as they claimed, this phone call information would have been some of the first data they acquired. The league has fallen into WWE territory and letting this story leak out over several years is going to do nothing to rebuild credibility.

Not identifying Foster last summer means that Stern is a fraud with zero credibility and he needs to step down immediately.

What the Hell is Going On?

Miss USA falls on her ass for the second straight year at the Miss Universe pageant.

Miss USA, Crystle Stewart of Texas, tripped on the train of her bejeweled evening gown as she made her entrance. During the 2007 Miss Universe contest in Mexico City, Miss USA Rachel Smith also tumbled during the evening gown competition and became an unintended star on YouTube, where the video was shown over and over again.

First the video of Miss Smith. Way to go USA!



Now for Crystle Stewart.

Morning Wood: Olympic Special

Niki Gudex, Mountain Biker

Report: Putting food in gastanks leaves less food for stomachs

I wonder if this was really the plan to reduce our carbon footprint all along: starve the third world to death. From The Guardian UK

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.

The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.

It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.

"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".

President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."

Rapid demand growth AND biofuel mandates are the issue. Without mandates and subsidies in the EU and US, biofuels would be limited to geeks with no lives that spend time filtering McDonald's smelly grease traps for their modified Volkswagen Rabbit diesels.

Both McCain and Obama are in love with the mandates/subsidies because it makes the big AgBiz guys happy and shutting this down would mean losing a lot of states in midwest this fall.

Morning Wood: Olympic Special

Alison Stokke. Pole vaulter.

No Freaking Way...Riders Killed, Injured After Hitting Heads on Overpass While Standing on Bus' Open-Top Upper Deck

AP Story

WASHINGTON —District of Columbia police say one man was killed and another was critically injured Friday night when they stood up while riding on the open-topped upper deck of a bus and their heads struck a highway overpass.

The victims, both believed to be in their 20s, were heading to a Washington Nationals baseball game.

Yeah, they were heading to a game. Then they headed the overpass. I thought that only happened in cartoons.

Iraqis lead final purge of Al-Qaeda

The Times (UK) reports that American and Iraqi forces are putting the coup de grace on Al-Qaeda in Iraq as the terrorists are now holed up in the far northern part of the country.

Quote: "in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror."

Where is this in the American press? Forget presidential politics for 5 minutes, our guys have reversed a total mess after many of our gutless congressmen/women wrote this whole thing off as a lost cause 2 years ago.

I guess our media and political classes have too much invested in defeat to celebrate what our troops have accomplished.

10 Taliban Die From Premature Detonation

This story is from the AP, so note that Taliban terrorists planting roadside bombs are referred to as "militants" or "fighters."

Militants planting a roadside bomb detonated the device prematurely, killing 10 Taliban, said police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.

The fact one bomb killed so many men appears to reflect the increased size of bombs Taliban fighters have been using in recent months. The bigger bombs — long used in Iraq but a fairly new phenomenon in Afghanistan...

No, the fact that so many men were killed reflects what giant morons they are...everybody knows Blockbuster Bombs don't go off unless you hit them "just right." That's a Bugs Bunny reference (see below). By the way, does this still qualify for the virgin thingy or is That All Folks?

Anyway, nice job AP; don't mention that these bigger bombs are mostly made in Iran and the success of the surge in Iraq is the reason they are showing up in Afghanistan.

Leap of Logic Science: The Green Scare Continues

Here's a gem from ABC News.


Plasma, LCDs blamed for accelerating global warming

What! My TV is killing the environment!

A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming.

Almost half of the televisions sold around the globe so far this year have been plasma or LCD TVs.

But this boom could be coming at a huge environmental cost.

The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

Ironically, NF3 is not covered by the Kyoto protocol as it was only produced in tiny amounts when the treaty was signed in 1997.

This is terrible. Call Harry Reid...TV's ARE MAKING US SICK!!!!!

Check that. Here's the little "sciencey" bit.

Levels of this gas in the atmosphere have not been measured, but scientists say it is a concern..

Huh? We have never measured the gas? But the headline. The headline was big, and in bold type...

PLASMA, LCD'S BLAMED FOR ACCELERATING GLOBAL WARMING

Now I'm no expert in journalism, but I am an environmental scientist and this looks like the latest installment of the Green Scare from our leftist press.

Where Do We Get Our Energy?

Energy. Abundant, affordable energy is the single biggest source of our standard of living. And a lack of that energy is the quickest way to push our lowest income residents into desperate straights. There is so little understanding out there regarding the massive scale of our electricity generating infrastructure that even our esteemed senators could make comments like those of Harry Reid (see below). The talk of renewables and green energy is in our future...distant future. But people alive right now will probably never see more than a few percent of their energy come from truly renewable sources.

Here is the breakdown of the sources of electricity in the United States:
Coal 49%
Natural Gas 20%
Nuclear 19%
Renewables 9%
Petroleum 2%

Hey, renewable looks pretty good at 9%. One problem. The environmental left doesn't like about 75% of our renewable electricity: hydroelectric dams. We will not be building any more of those dams mostly because of the endangered species act. So what does that leave us with.

Other renewables and % energy generated
Biomass 1.1%
Geothermal 0.3%
Wind 0.2%
Solar <0.01%

For comparison, let's look at France.

Nuclear 78%
Hydro 11%
Natural gas 4%
Coal 4%
Other fossil fuel 2%
Renewables 1.8%

If we got almost 80% of our electricity from nuclear, I guess we would have looked at Kyoto differently. France didn't buy into the "No Nuke" movement and now they are glad they did not listen to the environmentalists of the 1970's.

So, the leftist environmentalists worked feverishly to prevent non-carbon sources of electricity (hydroelectric and nuclear) in the US and now wants to add 7 trillion in carbon taxes to make the remaining sources prohibitively expensive.

Why not fix the mistakes of the 1970's with hydro and nuclear first?

A final irony. The biggest solar project in the US was scheduled to be constructed over the next 4 years. It has been blocked by a lawsuit from the environmental left. The issue: the Environmental Impact Statement. The just say no left is trying to ruin the economy by blocking all forms of feasible electricity, and at this point they look like they will have their way, just like the 1970's.