The Countertop Chronicles

Seriously.

Any place that forces tyrants to listen to the people can’t be all that bad.

After listening for nearly four and a half hours to emotional and at times harshly critical testimony from scores of residents, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed legislation at 1:55 p.m. Monday to extend New York City’s term limits law, allowing himself and a majority of the City Council to seek a third four-year term in 2009.

The mayor’s signature was pretty much a foregone conclusion; it was he who had urged the Council to extend the term limits, overturning the results of two public referendums, in 1993 and 1996, that had imposed a limit of two four-year terms. Nonetheless, city law requires that before signing any law adopted by the City Council, the mayor must first sit and listen to any witnesses who want to come forward and speak about it.

What a great law. Maybe we should force it on the President.

Best comment came from a 14 year old Rachel Trachtenberg

“I may not be able to vote yet but I know for a fact that what you are doing is wrong.” She added, “Quite frankly, Mayor Bloomberg, you are cheating, which does not make a good example for the youth of New York City and the whole world.”

Of course, one might point out that when you elect someone who has made undermining a basic tenet of the constitution his political goal, you shouldn’t be surprised to find he’s a liar and a cheater.

update

Her grandfather left a comment!!

Here’s the you tube of Rachel telling the Mayor where to stick it

And here is her webpage

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

Last week, Fannie’s stock plummeted to $10.25, down 74 percent in 2008. Freddie’s shares also dived, closing at $7.75, a loss of 77 percent this year.

So, besides EVERY member of Congress for the last 40 years (throw every last one out - Republican and Democrat - and sue them and their estates to recoup the bill) who’s really to blame for this?

James A. Johnson, a longtime member of the Washington establishment who previously worked as a campaign adviser to former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, ran Fannie for most of the 1990s.

“Jim Johnson was the architect of Fannie’s lobbying strategy. He was the muscle guy, if you will. The guy who would walk the halls of Congress,” said Bert Ely, a banking consultant in Arlington, Va., and longtime critic of the companies. Freddie, Mr. Ely said, soon copied Fannie’s playbook.

Hmm, Jim Johnson . . . haven’t we heard that name before???

Oh, here it is, 8 paragraphs later HIDDEN far down in the article

(Mr. Johnson was compelled to step down as the head of Senator Barack Obama’s vice-presidential search team last month after he was criticized for receiving mortgages on favorable terms from Countrywide Financial.)

Of course, Barack Don’t-mention-my-middle-name-is-Hussein-and-my-family-is-muslim-
and-I-did-more-to-finance-gun-bigots-than-any-other-America Obama didn’t fire him for single handedly creating and funding the system that looks to do more damage to America than Osama bin Laden . . . no, that was actually the reason he was hired.

Uncle just turned a new acquaintance (one from day care even) into a gun nut . . . and i convinced a neighbor this weekend to get a CCW!!!

I’ve got to renew mine - and so he’s going to go down with me on Wednesday morning to drop off his application. And when its granted, he asked me to take him to go buy a handgun.

Seems his motivation was the same as Uncle’s friend - when Change comes, he doesn’t trust they won’t be after guns.

Seriously.

Annie and Douglas Brown, embarked on a similar, if abbreviated journey: 101 straight days of post-nuptial sex.

No wonder he’s smiling!

More Here (warning, ugly graphic violence depicted)

Linked from the comments of this excellent post at Daily KOS

The Virginia Citizen’s Defense League, in honor of that schmuck of a Democrat gun banning bigot Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax), has decided to host open carry lunch’s and dinners every weeken in the month of April throughout that schmuck of a Democrat gun banning bigot Richard Saslaw’s district. They actually got things started last night at Ocean M right in my hometown of McLean.

Wish I could have made it, but alas I had familial obligations that had to take presedence.

Anyway, I plan to be there next week and at least a couple of others times this month.

But thats not the point here - rather, its the fact that I went right into the heart of that schmuck of a Democrat gun banning bigot Richard Saslaw’s district tonight with the family for dinner - to IHOP on the Fairfax Circle (IHOP food sucks, but they were doing a Horton Hears a Who tie in and my son got some disgustingly sweet food - I shudder to call it that - which he absolutely devoured) and I decided to open carry. Not so much as a batted eye - and trust me,

my Colt 1991 sticks out a plenty that folks couldn’t have not missed it.

Once a rule comes out, this is the comment I’m going to send in:

When seconds count, the police are days away

Hiker never gave up fight, Hilton said

By RHONDA COOK, CHRISTIAN BOONE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/23/08

Gary Michael Hilton acknowledged that the petite woman nearly overpowered him when he first accosted her. As they struggled near the Appalachian Trail, Meredith Emerson disarmed her attacker of a knife and baton.

Hilton eventually subdued Emerson, kidnapped her and later killed her. She did not make it easy for him, according to interviews Hilton gave to investigators that were obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Speaking to Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Clay Bridges only days after killing the young woman, Hilton said: “I think it was you probably, or one of the GBIs, said ‘That little 120-pound-girl about probably came close to whipping your ass.’ She about did.”

Her life in danger, Emerson fought back using her strength, her wits and a large measure of courage and determination. In the four days after she disappeared on a Blood Mountain hiking trail in Union County, investigators said, Emerson never gave up.

Bridges said he talked with the South Florida-born vagrant as authorities drove him from the Union County Jail to the Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area, where Hilton killed Emerson. Hilton made a deal with prosecutors that he would lead investigators to her remains, if they would not seek the death penalty.

As they descended the winding North Georgia mountain roads, the Army veteran casually detailed the abduction and slaying of the 24-year-old University of Georgia graduate.

Bridges said Hilton clearly relished the attention, and authorities described his account as “self-serving.”

Still, Emerson’s tenacity and smarts are evident throughout, and, despite Hilton’s best attempts, her actions overwhelm the one-sided narrative.

“She was doing everything she could to stay alive,” GBI Director Vernon Keenan said. “It’s not something you can train for. Instinct kicks in. … She nearly got the best of him. … She’s very much a hero.”

Meredith Emerson was described as “feisty” by her roommate and close friend. Her Judo teacher said at 5 feet 4 inches and 120 pounds, she “trained with us like she lived every day — hard and with everything she had.”

Hilton, 61, told investigators he abducted her because she was a woman.

Easy prey, he figured.

‘Wouldn’t stop fighting’

Both were with their dogs when they met near the Appalachian Trail in Union County on New Year’s Day. For a time they walked together, but, as Hilton later admitted, he couldn’t keep up with her and fell behind. He intercepted her on her way down, producing a military-style knife and demanding her ATM card.

Without pause, Emerson fought back.

“The bayonet is probably still up there,” Hilton told Bridges. “I lost control, and … she fought. And as I read in the paper, she’s a martial artist.”

Emerson, who held a green belt and a blue belt in two different martial arts, grabbed the blade.

He countered with a baton. She grabbed it, too. They stepped off the trail and fell down a slope, leaving the weapons behind.

“I had to hand-fight her,” Hilton said. “She wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop fighting,” he said. “And yelling at the same time. … So I needed to both control her and silence her.”

He kept punching her, so hard it left both her eyes black and may have fractured her nose. Hilton said his hand was broken by the blows. He figured she had worn down, and they moved farther off the trail.

Then Emerson started fighting again. He finally got her to stop by telling her all he wanted was her credit card and PIN. He then restrained her hands with a zip tie.

Then, Hilton told Bridges, “I had to go back and clean the crime scene.”

But he couldn’t find any of his weapons. He said he spotted three hikers nearby and assumed they had found the knife and baton.

It was one of several close calls that continue to haunt Hilton’s captors. On at least three other occasions before he killed Emerson, Hilton crossed paths or was in the vicinity of law-enforcement officials.

On the day he abducted her, he was worried police officers might be waiting for him in the parking lot as he led Emerson back down the mountain, staying off the established trails. He assumed whoever retrieved his baton and knives had called police, or perhaps they had heard Emerson’s cries for help.

Apparently no one did.

Without incident, Hilton placed Emerson and her dog, Ella, in his van and secured his victim with a padlocked chain.

Chained or bound

In the following hours and days, Emerson kept Hilton off-balance by repeatedly giving him the wrong PIN for her ATM card but assuring each time that this time the numbers were correct.

She bought time with that ploy. Three days.

“That’s one thing that broke my heart in this case,” Bridges said. “She was doing everything she was supposed to do to stay alive, and we didn’t get there in time.”

In recounting conversations with Emerson, Hilton revealed himself as a killer without shame or remorse — and unwittingly provided testament to her resolve.

Hilton said he and Emerson camped all three nights during a spell of bitter cold.

To keep her from running away, he usually kept a chain or nylon rope around her neck and she was often tethered to a tree or inside the van. When they slept, Emerson was tied to him so he would know if she tried to escape.

Hilton claimed he tried to make Emerson comfortable, at one point saying he gave her the warmer sleeping bag because temperatures had dropped to 4 degrees. He offered her aspirin for a lingering headache that followed their fight the first day.

“I was solicitous of her … comfort and everything else,” said Hilton, seemingly oblivious to the contradiction.

Perhaps one of the most chilling details followed, as Hilton nonchalantly told Bridges, he raped Emerson that first night. He was angry she’d made him drive around from bank to bank and still had nothing to show for it.

Their second day together, Hilton set up camp in Dawson Forest, where they hiked for several hours. He insisted she was free, but he also said he told her he would shoot her and anyone around if she tried to get away.

“We took both dogs and went hiking along Shoal Creek,” Hilton said. He said she was not bound while they hiked.

If she appeared to be going along with her abductor, as Hilton described, Keenan said it was only to survive. “She struggled to live,” the GBI director said.

Hilton knew he was a wanted man, telling investigators he had followed the AJC’s coverage of Emerson’s abduction. On the day she died, Jan. 4, he was pictured on the newspaper’s front page alongside a story in which police named him a “person of interest” in the Buford hiker’s disappearance.

That day, Hilton said that he told Emerson “she was going home.”

“I said, ‘I’m giving you all your stuff back.’ I had all her stuff bagged up together. I made a point of showing her.”

They drove to the spot where he would kill her. On the way, they passed a law-enforcement officer.

“I waved at him,” Hilton said. “It was that close.”

Though a police bulletin had been issued for Hilton’s van with a DeKalb County license plate, by then he had switched that tag for a stolen North Carolina tag.

“I walked her into the woods,” Hilton said. He carried two sleeping bags, an air mattress “for her to sit on,” two bags and a chain.

“Secured her to a tree. Walked back to the van. Kinda got myself together. Made some coffee.”

Killing was difficult

When he came back to her, Hilton said with a little laugh, Emerson told him, ” ‘I was afraid you weren’t coming back.’ ”

He gave her a book to read, “Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures” by Marvin Harris, walked behind her as if he were going to remove the chains holding her to the tree and hit her several times with the handle from a tire jack.

Hilton both killed and decapitated Emerson in a vain effort to destroy evidence that might incriminate him.

Hilton was worried about another piece of evidence that might link him to the slaying — Emerson’s dog. She had told him the Lab-mix carried a microchip identifying it as her pet.

“If I wanted to ensure that no one would associate the dog with her, I would’ve killed the dog,” Hilton said. “But there’s no way I could do that.”

He had no such reservations about killing Emerson.

“Was it difficult for you at all?” GBI agent Bridges asked after Hilton finished his account of the murder.

“It was like an out-of-body experience. It was surreal. … You look back on it, and you say ‘That wasn’t even real.’ You might say it was an altered state. …

“It was hard,” Hilton continued. “You gotta remember we had spent several good days together.”

Clifford P. Albertson and Constantinos E. Scaros. Both in the NY Times today. Its a shame I have to run one before the other. But here goes (with my emphasis where warranted).

To the Editor:

Re “The Court Considers Gun Control” (editorial, March 18), about the Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision on the District of Columbia’s gun control law:

You refer to Washington’s law — which bans private ownership of handguns and permits only locked or disassembled rifles and shotguns — as reasonable, and, implicitly, you agree with judge-made law that the right to bear arms refers to service in a militia.

If, in fact, the founding fathers envisioned guaranteeing the right to bear arms to individuals only insofar as they participated in a militia, do you suppose that on their off-duty days they were required to turn in their guns, disassemble them or keep them under a trigger lock?

Your concern about the dangers that arise from too-easy access to weapons is sensible. But for the law to change in order to reflect contemporary society, the Second Amendment would have to be repealed by another constitutional amendment, not by judicial legislation.

Constantinos E. Scaros
Cliffside Park, N.J., March 18, 2008

The writer is dean of criminal justice at the Katharine Gibbs School and a professor of history, law and political science at New York University.

•

To the Editor:

Your editorial says, “For the high court to choose this moment to strike down reasonable gun rules would defy common sense.”

One wonders what “reasonable” controls you would consider on the freedoms guaranteed by the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights. There are those who would consider it reasonable to restrict publication of information detrimental to national defense. What “reasonable” rules would you impose for quartering troops in your home? Or what “reasonable” rules would you place on the right to be protected in your home from unreasonable searches and seizures?

In short, none of the other freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights require registration, nor can they be arbitrarily prohibited by any state or local government. If they are abused, suitable sanctions are in place. Why, then, should gun ownership be treated differently?

Clifford P. Albertson
Suffern, N.Y., March 18, 2008

Very Interesting Talk Back discussion with the Washington Post’s Supreme Court Report Robert Barnes.

Here’s some highlights.

Alexandria, Va.: If the Supreme Court rules that the 2nd Amendment gives individuals an unlimited right to “bear arms”, can we expect that any restrictions on the type of weapon desired will be lifted? I’m looking forward to acquiring a bazooka,

Don’t know where download mp3 music for ipod mp3 player, Do you want mp3 music download on perssonal computer

a flame-thrower and a charged-particle beam cannon in order to defend myself against, well, whatever threatens me. An arm is an arm is an arm, yes?

Robert Barnes: The point you make is one that bothered Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who represents the federal government before the court. He worried that the decision of the appeals court–which said that because a handgun fits the definition of an “arm” in the Second Amendment, DC was not permitted to ban it–would endanger federal gun control legislation, such as restrictions on machine guns. There was much back and forth on this yesterday–Alan Gura, who represented Heller, said he thought machine guns could be banned–but I think it likely that there would be further litigation on which weapons were allowed and which were not.

Springfield, Va.: How did Gura do yesterday? Prior to yesterday, he was portrayed in some quarters as being a bit of a neophyte. Did he hold his own?

Robert Barnes: He was arguing his first case before the Supreme Court and his nervousness was apparent at first–Justice Scalia told him to slow down because he was talking so fast they couldn’t understand him. But then he took a deep breath, and I think most who watched his performance thought he did well. It probably helped that he had an argument with which many of the justices agreed. I wonder if some gun rights activists were pleased with some of his statements about the way in which gun ownership could be regulated. But his job is to win the case for his client.

Dunn Loring, VA: Any idea where Justice Breyer came up with his figure of “80,000 to 100,000 handgun deaths a year”? According to the NY Times, the figure was less than 30,000 in 2004, so was Breyer intentionally exagerrating the number or was he just mistaken?

Robert Barnes: No that was unclear. I wonder if he misspoke when he said “a year” and had some other time period in mind.

In comments at the NY Times Board discussion on Heller.

All the way down at #67, comes liberal reader A.J. Fizzy

I am a 61 year old liberal. I am a “leftie”. Yet, I part ways with my cohorts on this issue. You don’t deprive homeowners of the right to have a pool, because some idiot left open the gate and a kid drowned. You don’t forbid the sale of alcohol despite the fact that people drink and drive. You demand that people not abuse their freedoms to the detriment of others, and when they do, you punish them. Guns are owned in rural and suburban areas in great numbers in this country with little or no ill to society. In urban areas violence reigns supreme. Gun violence, knife violence, club violence, fist violence, child abuse violence, drug violence etc. We outlaw drugs, yet no 12 year old in an urban settiing has trouble getting them. Why? Because bad people want them. Did prohibition work? No. Did anti-abortion laws work? No. Does gun control work? No. Until and unless we are ready to work on the problems of the inner city and the inhabitants therein, cities will be dangerous places to live. For wealthy city dwellers who don’t hunt, don’t target shoot, and have doormen and chaffeurs to protect them from bad people, to try and prevent the less fortunate from protecting themselves from the “element” is hypocritical. Calling 9-1-1 AFTER the fact does not bring the victim back. Stopping the perpetrator BEFORE he can do too much damage works every time. Now, I will go back to sounding like the liberal I am!

— Posted by A. J. Fizzy

Emphasis mine.

Line has moved inside. Just waiting for them to open up Sup Ct member desk to get tickets and move on in. That usually happens at 9, though I understand they are going to do it at 8:30 today.

Saw Stephen Holbrook. Just spoke

Was planning on getting to the Court this morning by 6:00 am. Woke up late, and pulled into my office parking lot (just down the Hill) at 6:15 instead. Ran upstairs, grabbed some coffee and printed out some stuff I need to read, and raced up the Hill.

Got here at 6:50 am. #54 in line, right next to that great American hero (and next VA Atty General - hopefully) Ken Cuccinelli. Now, that’s #54 on the bar members line. Usually you need to be within the first 125 to get in, if your a bar member. So things are looking good, even if they take away a lot of bar member space for

On the public line, for the non bar members, there’s a good 3 or 400 people. Or at least it looked that way when I showed up.

Court clerk was talking to us shortly after I got here, and indicated that the general public line is starting to remind him of Bush v Gore, except very well behaved.

Still standing outside, once I’m in, I need to surrender my blackberry. process is to

1) Go through security
2) Line up again insdie court
3) Register as a bar member and get my bar member ticket.
4) Go to the locker room and drop any contraband stuff off - blackberry, notebooks, cell phones, etc.
5) Go through security again - this time looking for electronic stuff mostly.
6) Enter court room and sit and network and wait and read.

Its plush inside the courtroom.

Question: What makes a girl go from a 7 to a 14?

As stated by her first pimp, the guy Eliot Spitzer busted for prostitution, on this morning’s Howard Stern show. Oh what a tangled web we weave when we aim to deceive.

For $1,000 an hour, how hot is the ass NY’s Ass In Chief was banging??

You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

That would be where I sit, surrounded by some pretty seriously kookoo liberal Chicago political operatives, waiting with them to fly into DC.