The scene:

The dark, decrepit, smoke-and-beer-filled rooms of LST headquarters.

The scenario:

Heated messages are being sent back and forth by LST insiders over hot topics like pandas and RINOs, when a spate of Google ads alongside a message catches someone’s eye.

The actual result:

It’s rumored Bramanti blew coffee out his nose over this one.

Place your thoughts and impressions here. How did the President do with his speech? How juvenile did the Democrats look for lustily applauding when the President said that Congress did nothing with his Social Security reform proposal? Let everyone know here.

According to the AP, Cindy Sheehan made it back from Venezuela and took time from planning her senate run to cause a disruption in the House gallery before the President’s State of the Union speech. She was removed by police.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was taken into custody by police in the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush’s State of the Union address.

Police escorted Sheehan from the visitors’ gallery above the House chamber after causing a disruption, said a Capitol Police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident were sketchy.

UPDATE:  At about 9:13pm Fox News reported that "Senator" Sheehan was arrested for wearing an anti-war T-shirt under her coat, which she concealed from Capitol Police until she arrived in the gallery.  Apparently Sheehan spent the President’s address getting booked and released on a misdemeanor protesting charge.

Vigilant readers know that we here at Lone Star Times are on the cutting edge. We brought you news of China’s attempts to track pandas using GPS technology late last year, and most recently we exposed how the Chinese were using this technology to spy on Thailand using the furry GPS-equipped agents.

Now we have uncovered disturbing evidence of a more nefarious plot to infiltrate Taiwan.

Chen Yunlin, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, announced during then Kuomintang party chief Lien Chan’s mainland visit last May, that the mainland would donate a giant panda couple to Taiwan compatriots as a gift embodying the aspiration for peace, unity and fraternity of Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.

Further revelations include the agents involved.

Previously the two pandas were only known by their candidate numbers, "No. 16" for the female one and "No.19" for the male.

A public campaign to confuse the Taiwan compatriots as to the actual identities of Agents 16 and 19 has met with success.

But the pandas do have their nicknames at the Wolong Center, which are "Xiaoguaiguai" — literally means "little darling" for the male and "Huangmao Yatou" — literally means "chit of a girl" for the female.

While analysts are still trying to determine the significance of “chit of a girl,” a widespread naming campaign has further muddied the waters.

The most favored names for the pandas, selected by the public via the Internet voting or mobile phone short message ballots over a three-week period, are "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan", which have a combined meaning of "reunion" literally.
The names were announced at the annual Spring Festival Eve entertainment party of China Central Television (CCTV), live broadcast to hundreds of millions of Chinese viewers worldwide.

Never fear, dear readers. Hard-bitten, steely-eyed LST technical teams are running complex computer analyses…

…and poring over reams of data to defend the Taiwan compatriots against the infiltration of the most favored Chinese “chit of a girl.”

Where’s Jack Bauer when you need him?

This weekend, your humble correspondent scooted on down to Webster for the LST Bayou City Barblogging Tour. As you can’t really see, we had a pretty good turnout:

There is not enough beer in this photo.

And with a good turnout comes good dirt. Friendswood City Councilman John LeCour — who was swept into power by reform-minded taxpayers and RINO hunters — was gracious enough to stop by with some welcome news:

Ron Cox is out.

That’s right — the appraisal-creep-dodging, taxpayer-betraying Friendswood City Manager will resign his post in April. Here’s part of the city’s press release:

After 28 years of city management experience and 15 years in Friendswood, City Manager Ron Cox has decided to share his local government insight and experiences with other growing cities.

On Monday, January 24, 2006, Cox informed the Friendswood City Council that he would be resigning as City Manager effective April 30, 2006. Upon his resignation, Cox plans to begin leadership and development consultation work for various municipalities.

Gentle reader, if you happen to live in "various municipalities," RUN LIKE HELL.

The Senate has voted to confirm the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, replacing retiring Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor.

The vote was largely along party lines, 58-42.

At least we don’t have to continue to hear how "outraged" or "concerned" Senator Kennedy is everyday by Alito’s judicial philosophy.

UPDATE: Alito was sworn in about 12:40 EST.

That was fast. You can’t say any grass was allowed to grow between the confirmation vote and swearing in. 

I’m guessing that was done so Alito can be part of the State of the Union pageantry.

Anyone want to make a bet where Sen. Kennedy is now? (My bet: in a bar somewhere drinking away his troubles since now he has to address Alito as "Justice Alito"…..)

Another videotape surfaced with top Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri "taunting" the recent miss to hit him with a missle strike in Pakistan.  He called President Bush the "Butcher of Washington" and "a curse" (he must of been reading those "moveon.org" talking points).  He further echoed the remarks of his boss, Bin Laden, calling the U.S. policy in Iraq a "failure" (thus echoing the talking points of the Democrats) and warning of more bloodshed.

You know, the usual Al Qaeda dribble…….

The Washington Post quoted a terrorism analyst about the message:

M.J. Gohel, a terrorism analyst and chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, said it appeared that Zawahiri and bin Laden had coordinated their recent messages. He said it was noteworthy that al Qaeda’s leaders had fashioned an effective system of communication that Western intelligence agencies have been unable to penetrate.

Next week the U.S. Senate will be conducting hearings for… failure to crack Al Qaeda’s communication system? No.  They are all over the administration to trying to do so unlawfully.

So, "Mother May I" and would you please make those scruffy meanies quit laughing at us?

Thanks.

(hattip: The Corner)

Has passed on. She was 78.

Condolences to the family.

The President gives the State of the Union address tonight. Any predictions as to what he will say? Anything you wish he would say? (like "I propose a new sur-tax on any alcohol Sen. Kennedy purchases…. we should wipe that debt out in no time!")

Have a great day!

Some days you have to dig to find the news, other days it drops right into your lap. Take Cindy Sheehan for example. A story on the comedy that has become the woman’s life practically writes itself.

Cindy Sheehan May Challenge Calif. Senator
Peace Activist Considers Challenging Dianne Feinstein to Protest Senator’s War Stance

Before you laugh, imagine the news stories. “Senator Sheehan called today for the President to end our occupation of New Orleans. See the shocking video at ten.”

In the meantime, Ms. Sheehan is just not satisfied with the anti-Bush, anti-war credentials of California Senator Dianne Feinstein.

"She voted for the war. She continues to vote for the funding. She won’t call for an immediate withdrawal of the troops," Sheehan told The Associated Press in an interview while attending the World Social Forum in Venezuela along with thousands of other anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

Obviously chumming it up with Hugo Chavez and Harry Belafonte brings out the politician in Cindy.

"I think our senator needs to be held accountable for her support of George Bush and his war policies," said Sheehan…

After that blast, the Feinstein camp felt compelled to weigh in and defend the Senator’s anti-Bush bonafides.

Feinstein’s campaign manager, Kam Kuwata, said the senator "doesn’t support George Bush and his war policies." "She has stated publicly on numerous occasions that she felt she was misled by the administration at the time of the vote," Kuwata said by phone from California. But with troops committed, Feinstein believes immediate withdrawal is not a responsible option, Kuwata said.

Undeterred by such “I voted for it before I was against it” squirming, Cindy continues to plan for making another spectacle of herself, or as she puts it, making a run to highlight the cause.

"If I decided to run, I would have no illusions of winning, but it would bring attention to all the peace candidates in the country," she said.

Run Cindy, run!

UPDATE: LST reader Viper points out that Sheehan supporters are encouraging Cindy to run for the Senate with a "blog petition." Take a look here and tell them LST sent you. They seem oblivious to the comedic possibilities, but that shouldn’t stop you from registering your vote for a Senator Sheehan.

With all the political posturing of the last week by our good friend, the respected Senator from Massachusetts, I got to wondering… Whatever happened to that Form 180 that Mr. Kerry promised to sign releasing full access of his military records for public scrutiny?

If you look at the KerryWatch to the right sidebar, you will notice that it has been exactly one year since John Kerry made that promise on Meet the Press to unveil this own military records. To my knowledge, and the extent of my search engine prowess, he has not done so. While the mainstream American media seems unsure whether to laud or laugh at his efforts to filibuster the Alito confirmation, the talking heads seem blissfully unaware of Kerry’s year-long filibuster of the truth about his own military service (or lack thereof).

Yes, yes, I can already hear the derision from the left that we conservatives just cannot let go of the past: instead of focusing on the evils of President Bush, we try to distract America’s attention by pulling up overblown issues from an election that is dead and gone.

But since the media has already begun salivating over another potential Kerry run in 2008, we need to maintain the watch. Who else will do it… CBS?

UPDATE: We were reminded by Pat of Brainster’s Blog that Kerry did in fact do a limited release of his records last summer, submitting the Form 180 to allow three media outlets only to get the records. There is some belief though that Kerry had them scrubbed first, and the Globe and Times have not made public the information they received, just synopsized it for news articles they wrote on the subject.

Perceptive readers may have noticed the addition of "Google Ads" in the far right-hand column of LST, below the significantly more important "Bert Terror Alert" indicator.

At present, the LST-Google partnership is offering you the following consumer choices:

• Oprah Winfre
• Oprah Winphrey
• Oprah
• Oprah Winfrey TV

Happy Shopping!

David Benzion
Publisher/Managing Editor, LoneStarTimes.com

[Sucka-sellout willing to betray his anti-ChiCom principles for a few, measly crumbs off of Google's table]

p.s.– Assistance from fellow bloggers who have GoogleAds on their personal sites in making this feature more (1) relevant; and (2) revenue generating would be welcome; feel free to share tips in comments, so that others might benefit.

p.p.s.– Weidenhof, you’d better pray we don’t start seeing personal ads involving the terms "p#nd@ s3x" or "Rhino Boy".

UPDATED– We’ve got "Oprah Picture"!

On. The. Cutting. Edge.

The stakes on police chases in Houston just got upped a notch.

Kyndall Batiste, the 12 year old boy injured on Friday when the car he and his mother were in were struck by a stolen SUV being chased by police, died on Sunday.

The seven-minute, two-mile chase started on Bellaire Boulevard at 8:21 a.m. Friday and ended in the 12100 block of Beechnut when Bromon ran a stop sign and slammed into the Batistes.

So, we have a family injured over on January 19 after a police chase was allowed to go over 2 hours.  This police chase lasted 7 minutes. 

The women in the stolen vehicle that hit Batiste’s car will probably be facing upgraded charges of murder (good). 

Now what?

Last Thursday morning, Edd Hendee told his radio audience about a banner adorning the Lee P. Brown METRO Administration Building — a sign proclaiming "70+ Million Safe Miles." Not ten minutes later, the morning traffic reporter warned drivers to avoid a certain downtown intersection that was the site of the most recent accident involving METRO’s celebrated light rail train.

According to Action America, Thursday morning’s light rail accident was at least the fourth just since the beginning of this year, from a light rail program that averages approximately one accident every six days since its inception in 2004. (The national average for light rail accidents in 7.5 miles of track is around 4 per year.) And only days before, a METRO bus struck a pedestrian in northeast Houston, ultimately killing her. So how can the transit authority back up its impressive claims of safety?

It took a little searching, but I came across this METRO newsletter [PDF file, see page 3] from the spring of 2005, which described the reason for the months-old banner and adds a little information to the puzzling safety record celebrations.

METRO Says "Thanks a Million!" to Elite Group of Bus Operators

METRO President & CEO Frank J. Wilson recently said "Thanks a Million!" to a group of 72 Bus Operators who have contributed the most to making METRO one of the safest transit systems in the nation. They are members of the elite Million Mile Club — Operators who have driven on Houston roadways for 1 million miles or 25,000 consecutive vehicle hours — without a preventable accident!

I’m not quite sure what METRO calls a "preventable" accident — whoever defines that must also be the one to declare that only one of the 126 confirmed light rail incidents was the fault of the train operators.

Immediately below the "Thanks a Million!" picture and announcement is another brief notice about METRO breaking their safety record again:

For the third year in a row, METRO has set a new record for safety, posting its lowest number of accidents ever per 100,000 revenue miles. … The new figures represent a 33 percent decrease in METRO’s accident rate since 2000. "Safety is no accident at METRO," said President & CEO Frank J. Wilson. We are dedicated to being the safest system in the country."

It’s Monday.  Ugh.

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