Just before a speech on Sunday, Bill Clinton had another of his famous meltdowns, blasting away at Bill Richardson for having endorsed Obama, the media and the entire nomination process.
"It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended," one superdelegate said.
He was the Good Old Bill at first, smiling, and charming and making small talk with the 15 or so delegates gathered in a room behind the stage. But then Rachel Binah, a former Richardson delegate now supporting Hillary Clinton, told Bill how "sorry" she was to have heard former Clinton campaign manager James Carville call Richardson a "Judas" for backing Obama.
"Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that," a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted.
On December 9, 1965, a large, fantastically bright fireball was seen by thousands in at least seven states and provinces. [ed's note: I saw a fireball once, about five years ago in Seattle, standing in my front yard. At first I thought, they're here. An eighth of a second later I thought it was a missile, and then I had no idea. It was a light dull green and after it was gone (almost instantly), I stood in my front yard bewildered. The next day, Seattle Post Intelligencer reported a lot of people had seen it and an astronomer posited that it was probably space junk, or a large meteorite burning up as it entered the atmosphere. I can't remember if it made a sound or not, but meteorite researchers say that any sound a meteor might make would occur long after the meteor had vanished--due to the relatively slow speed of sound... Whatever I saw looked a lot like the fireball pictured above, except it was colored a light pea-green, like a 1959 Rambler.]
The fireball (don't you love the word...and the concept?) rocketed over the Detroit, Michigan/Windsor, Ontario area and dropped reported metal debris over Michigan and northern Ohio. It caused sonic booms in western Pennsylvania and was generally reported by the press to be a meteor. However, some eyewitnesses in Kecksburg, a village 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, claimed something crashed in the woods.
One boy said he saw the object land; his mother saw a wisp of blue smoke in the woods and called the police. The local volunteer fire department members reported an object in the shape of an acorn and about as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. Writing resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics ran in a band around the base of the UFO (ed's note: a fairly common occurrence in many sightings).Witnesses said there was an intense army presence that secured the area, ordered the civilians out, and carted the UFO out on a flatbed truck.
The military searched the woods and found "absolutely nothing." Or, so they say.
The nearby Greensburg Tribune-Review's reporter at the scene wrote an article the next day with the headline "Unidentified Flying Object Falls near Kecksburg — Army Ropes off Area."
The government explanation of the fireball was that it was a mid-sized meteor, however, speculation as to what the Kecksburg object was range from it being an alien craft to the remains of an unmanned Soviet Venera 4 atmospheric probe (known as Kosmos-96, originally destined for Venus). Similarities have been drawn between Kecksburg and the Roswell UFO incident, and the Kecksburg event is often referred to as "Pennsylvania's Roswell".
Photograph of a fireball Jan 21 1999 from Czech station No. 16
of the European Fireball Network camerasystem
The February 1966 issue of Sky & Telescope reported that the fireball was seen over the Detroit-Windsor area at about 4:44 p.m. EST. The Federal Aviation Administration received 23 reports from aircraft pilots, first starting at 4:44 p.m. A seismograph 25 miles southwest of Detroit recorded shock waves created by the fireball as it passed through the atmosphe re.
The FAA concluded that the fireball was descending at a steep angle, from the southwest to the northeast, and probably fell to earth on the northwestern shore of Lake Erie.
A reporter and news director for the local radio station WHJB, John Murphy, arrived on the scene of the event before authorities had arrived, in response to several calls to the station from alarmed citizens, and took several photographs and conducted interviews with witnesses.
His former wife Bonnie Milslagle later reported that all but one roll of the film was confiscated by military personnel. In the following weeks, Murphy became enveloped with the incident and wrote a radio documentary called Object in the Woods, featuring his experiences and interviews he had conducted that night. Shortly before the documentary was to air, he received an unexpected visit at the station from two men in black suits identifying themselves as government officials. A week after the visit, an agitated Murphy aired a censored version of the documentary, which he claimed in its introduction had to be edited due to some interviewees requesting their statements be removed from the broadcast in fear of getting in trouble with the Army. Mazza remembers the aired documentary was entirely different from what Murphy had originally written. In 1969, John Murphy was struck and killed by an unidentified car in an apparent hit-and-run while crossing a road.
In 2003, the Sci Fi Channel sponsored a scientific study of the area and related records done by the Coalition for Freedom of Information. The most significant finding of the scientific team was tree damage dating to around 1965 at the site where some eyewitnesses said they saw the object. Air Force Project Blue Book documents indicate a three-man team was sent from an Air Force radar-installation near Pittsburgh to investigate the Kecksburg crash. They reported back to Blue Book that nothing was found.
In December 2005, just before the Kecksburg crash 40th anniversary, NASA released a statement to the effect that they had examined metallic fragments from the object and now claimed it was from a re-entering "Russian satellite." The spokesman further claimed that the related records had been misplaced. According to the Associated Press story:
The object appeared to be a Russian satellite that re-entered the atmosphere and broke up. NASA experts studied fragments from the object, but records of what they found were lost in the 1990s. This new explanation from NASA contradicts the official Air Force explanation in 1965 of the fireball being from a meteor.
This video truly appears genuine...an African Lion embraces and kisses the woman who rescued him--six years ago! It's a misty-eyed moment. This makes we want a lion! Or maybe just another, less aloof, cat...
An oddly dated, but good, music video of The Posies Definite Door...on their "breakout" record, Frosting On The Beater. This song is one of their tunes that sort of bridges the gap aurally and lyrically, instrumentally (is that a word!?) between the more acoustic first two albums and the power pop of Frosting and Amazing Disgrace.
The Posies played at my 50th birthday party and did a great version of Definite Door that night.
Definite Door (By Ken Stringfellow and Jonathan Auer)
Say goodbye to your friends and family Pack your promises silently Leave a note on your kitchen table This is all you will ever be
So hope for a better place for a better time for a better speed So hope for a better use for a better word for a better need And if you listen close enough You might hear too much Hard as sharp and razor-rough You've never seen the such...
It's the definite door To another dimension Nothing No more (not even a mention...)
Keeping track of the eyesight streaming Isn't part of the regimen Many hours of sleepless dreaming Unaware of the mess you're in And if you didn't have a clue You probably never will And all the things you didn't do Will inundate you still...
It's the definite door To another dimension Nothing No more (not even a mention...)
Better cross your heart, make it people-proof try to fight the fright And have a real good trip, see you when you fall don't forget to Write yourself back... And if you fail to see the point Of doubting all you do Don't forget to blame yourself There's nothing else for you...
Say goodbye to your friends and family Pack your promises silently Funny how they forget to tell you This is all you will ever be
This is all you will ever be now This is all you will ever be This is all you will ever be now This is all you will ever be... ---o0o---
"Don't move back. I think I'm getting a chubby."Click to enlarge.
John McCain today attempted to add distance between himself and President George W. Bush—clearly, but gingerly, attempting to dodge the toxic political legacy of Dubyah, as he seeks a way to weasel himself into the White House, through a hazard-littered course.
"The point is, I'm not running on the Bush presidency, I'm running on my own service to the country, my own record in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate and my vision for the future," McCain told ABC television.
by Pablo Fanque, All This Is That national affairs editor
Normally, Jack would handle writing about this topic. But he has been a little "freaked" by some of the reactions to his posts. Originally, Jack Brummet wrote three articles about Michael Toubbeh. One here, one here.and one here. And then Jack received a visit--at his work!--from someone close to the Doctor who begged Jack to remove the posts, since she loved him, and didn't want her children to see the articles. Jack had a heart and removed most of the material. It was all available elsewhere, and he didn't really want anymore in-person visits from the Doctor's emissaries.
Jack told me "None of this makes a lick of sense, Friendo, not even Bizarro sense. I mean, all of a sudden people are fighting little comments wars on ATIT. . .and yet, the guy apologized in public! On someone's blog, where it would be cached forever (forever being relative of course)."
He wrote when he pulled the material:
The editors of All This Is That have deleted all 13 comments from this thread, as well as the stories that engendered all the comments. The whole thing has become a tilt-a-whirl ride of people pretending to be other people; people attacking other people who were pretending to be other people; people posting with aliases stating only who they were not; and a raft of accusations and cross-accusations; moves and countermoves; posing, posturing, lies, and delusion.
You probably know I don't place a high premium on The Truth, or more accurately, what often passes for The Truth, because The Truth is usually not all it's cracked up to be.If you know me "in real life," you know that truth may now and then take backstage to a knee-slapper or a twisted, 98% fictional, and often libelous, side-trip. There are some things better than the truth. No. 1?: The music of human laughter.
This whole Michael Toubbeh trip suddenly became a karmic burden, and the vibes were beginning to stink the place up. Once I start editing comments and removing stories, well. . .then, it's no longer All This Is That, but a blog for everyone who agrees with me, where those victims of parody, or targets of stories, can't respond. Democracy is for everyone, and I'm just not ready to change the name of the blog to Some Of This Is Sort Of That Sometimes. I don't mind if someone lobs charges at someone as long as that someone has the chance to respond. Which they do. I don't mind debate. This is still America, isn't it? Free speech, while wounded, still lives.
But recently there has been a flurry of activity in the comments section of these articles..both from the apparently small pro-Toubbeh camp, and also from the seemingly vast anti-Toubbeh camp. And "what really fried my ass," Jack told me, "was that now the pro-Toubbeh has been commenting, dropping these morality bombs, and even (the f*****ng pieces of s***) threatening me with libel and mentioning my liability." You can read Jack's response to that in the comments sections for the above articles.
Interestingly, virtually everything Jack originally wrote and posted is available elsewhere on the internet, usually in several places. A blogspot blog, Michael Toubbeh, the Toxic Doctor seems to include nearly everything that was deleted from this blog. In addition, the same material is included in several of the internet and blog archiving sites--including the wayback machine and others.
As I researched this piece, I also found online, an original posting from another blog (or website) "From He's Dead Jim,} that included a photo, and the text of a letter of apology that Toubbeh wrote.
"Above is the letter sent to me by Dr. Toubbeh. It applies to all of those he has been involved with. I am allowed to post this for one week. Thanks to all of those who have assisted with this. Below is the text of the letter":
'Dear Claudette, I write to apologize to you and the other women with whom I have had relationships. The postings on your site and its aftermath have caused me to reflect on the past years of my life, and I did not like what I saw.
I now understand that my conduct has hurt a great many people and I understand clearly that both my actions and their consequences were wrong. I am deeply sorry for the things I have done during this period in my life and for the hurt and pain I have caused. I know you may not believe this, and I have given you good reason not to, but I did not set out with the intent to cause harm. Obviously, however, I have done so and have no one to blame but myself.
Seeing the pain I have caused has made me understand that this was of my own doing and that I must take responsibility and ensure that I do not repeat my actions of the past. I know that you and others may not put much faith in these words or my intention to change. I hope that it will provide at least some help for you to know that I am taking steps with the assistance of others towards a change not only in behavior but in belief and attitude.
I feel the need to periodically bring up 10Eastern, one of my very favorite web sites. 10Eastern posts found photos. They only publish new ones maybe once a month, but it's always worth the wait. If you are a newb to 10Eastern, you can go back through their 130-something sets of photos they've published to date.
One thing I have noticed over the years is the large number of band photos that make their way into the galleries. People take a lot of band photos! And a fair number of them are hilarious. This is not all that surprising. I know at my work, there are at leas five bands. And if you include the other locations outside Seattle, the number rises to about 15. In any case, 10Eastern is well worth the trouble to put in your links that you check once in a while. And every once in a while, they produce a new set...and at least a couple will be worth the wait. ---o0o---
This is a great video of The Posies at one of their peaks, in their big hair phase, playing the s*** out of Solar Sister. Jon and Ken sound great, look great and the drumming is that characteristic thundering up front.
Speaking at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Pennsylvania yesterday, Chelsea Clinton was asked by a man in the audience whether her mother would be a better president than her father.
Chelsea Clinton said "yes."
"His question is, ‘Do I think my mother will be a better president than my father?"
“Well, again, I don’t take anything for granted, but hopefully with Pennsylvania’s help, she will be our next president, and yes, I do think she’ll be a better president.”
Unbelievable. Now they're even willing to throw Bill Clinton under the bus. ---o0o---
Just before a speech on Sunday, Bill Clinton had another of his famous meltdowns, blasting away at Bill Richardson for having endorsed Obama, the media and the entire nomination process.
