This from Massachussetts:

Boston’s 2008 presidential primary ballot could read like a bad Chinese menu.
There might be “Sticky Rice” in column A, “Virtue Soup” in column B and, in column C, “Upset Stomach.”

Those could be choices facing some voters if the names of Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Hillary Rodham Clinton were converted into Chinese characters, according to Massachusetts’ top election official.

Of course, there are a hundred possible plays off this story, but I am going to play it straight. This is insane.

How many languages must we have, how tedious must our ballots be, how much expense must we force upon the state before we realize that the least we should be able to ask of a voter is that he or she speak the damn language? And how much more of this lunacy can we sustain before we devolve into an inefficient third world country?

And why is Boston in this fix? You guessed it:

On Tuesday, Galvin filed a challenge in federal court to a Justice Department agreement requiring that ballots be fully translated to protect the rights of Chinese-speaking voters.

Yes, folks, another fine example of all the good brought to us by political correctness.

How do you say, “Kiss my arse” in Chinese?

As heard on the Dan Patrick show, here’s who you want to contact:

Ravan Kazan
Director of Victim Services Division
7800 Shoal Creek Blvd. Suite # 230S
PO Box 13401
Austin, Texas 78711
Fax # 512 452-0825
E-Mail: victim.svc@tdcj.state.tx.us

Here is the murderer up for parole:

Reference : Timothy Acklen
ST ID # 04141843
TDCJ # 00512444

Here’s a sample letter from the victim’s parents:

To Whom it may concern,

On July 14th, 1988 Timothy Acklen and James Garcia (also in the Tdcj at this time) willfully and with malice and forethought murdered our son Paul Brandon Elledge. They stalked him like an animal and Acklen shot him point blank in the face with a 38 caliber pistol he had taken from his father’s night stand.

This wasn’t a case of a “kid fight” gone bad, or a dope deal or some other nefarious activity. These two monsters had a list of 28 names of young men and women in the Sugar Land area and our Brandon wasn’t even their first name on the list.

When asked by the District attorney about the list Acklen readily volunteered that it was a list of stereo/radio equipment in cars and trucks in the Sugar land area.

He further said that it was Brandon Elledge they chose off the list first (even though he wasn’t the first name on the list) because, to quote Acklen; ”We knew where Brandon would be… we knew he’d be over at the school lifting weights getting ready for football season.”

He was indeed there that day and they even went into the weight room and “spotted” the weights for him as he worked out. Then , per their plan , they asked him to give Acklen a ride home. Most upper classmen would have never considered taking a “freshmen” home after workout. But Brandon wasn’t a regular kid. He often did it and this time he paid for his kindness with his life when he took the wrong monster home.

District Attorney Sam Dick asked Acklen at the grand jury session; “Did the Elledge boy ever do anything to you? I mean hurt you or threaten you in any way?

Acklen’s answer: Nope…we picked him because he would be an easy target.”

Sam Dick asked one last question: Mr. Acklen? If you had gotten away with the murder of the Elledge boy what would you have done next?”

Without pause Acklen said: GO TO THE NEXT NAME ON THE LIST!!!!”

Can you imagine such a monster and can you further imagine what a monster he must be now these eighteen years later after he has mastered the art of prison life?

I urge you to do two things before you ever consider letting this monster out of jail.

One, get the adult certification and trial transcripts and look at the picture of my son after he was shot by those monsters. It is too horrible to describe.

Secondly look deep inside yourself and imagine what a cold bloodied killer like Acklen might do if he was ever allowed into the world of free people. He is a cold blooded sociopath who would kill again in a heartbeat and he must never be released to go where he would surly kill again.

On four occasions you have refused to parole his accomplish James Edward Garcia, most recently just a couple of years ago. Further, if they had not been juveniles we’d be making ready to execute the both of them or they would already be executed by now.

I elected to plea bargain their cases to spare my family the horrors of a trial for want of only a few more years of sentence we got agreements to serve from both Acklen and Garcia.

Rest assured I’d have gone the distance if we could have seen them get the needle. If ever a crime deserved a death penalty in Texas theirs did. They didn’t get that justice because they were a few months too young.

In any event to release this man out and on to society would be unconscionable. I know you will do the right thing, as you have done already with James Garcia.

For the benefit of future boards I am going to “sound the alarm” to my personal data base and the media. Hopefully there will be a significant number of other letters sent to the board and put in his file. Please consider the magnitude of the crime and the admitted potential for this inmate to have been a serial killer. This time they caught him in ten hours. Next time and after years of prison exposure to every known manner of other criminals we may not be so lucky. Leave him where he poses no threat to any of us on the outside. The risk is too great to do otherwise.

Thank you for remembering our family and our son Brandon as you reach your decision.

Yours Truly,

Ben and Betty Elledge

You know what to do.

Lady Bird Johnson, 1912-2007

I’m sorry to hear about the passing of a truly great Texas lady.

Toasty candidate for the Republican nomination for president, John McCain, finds his campaign in a freefall.

McCain on brink after staff purge

Republican Senator John McCain’s waning White House bid was rocked Tuesday by the loss of its top two strategists, as they paid the price for shaky fundraising and plunging poll numbers.

In typical Drive-By Media fashion, our liberal friends in journalism-land push the wrong reason for McCain’s poor performance.

News broke that campaign manager Terry Nelson and top consultant John Weaver had quit as McCain was on the floor of the US Senate backing US policy on Iraq — the issue that has done more than anything to dent his campaign.

Wrong. This is just more propaganda designed to push the liberal mantra that Iraq is political poison, which it is not. The real reason for McCain’s plummet is reported, but it is relegated to secondary status because it does not advance the anti-war agenda.

He also dismayed many conservatives key to the Republican race by backing Bush’s immigration reform drive which collapsed in the Senate last month, killed off by opponents who branded it an “amnesty” for illegal workers.

McCain did more than just “back” the amnesty plan, he was in the thick of the fighting, negotiating, and arm twisting. His appearances with Teddy “Amnesty” Kennedy did more to scuttle his chances than any speech or war stance taken by the Senator. But let us be magnanimous with our liberal media friends. They have obviously gotten their distorted assessment from McCain himself.

“Every campaign has ups and downs … I am very happy with where the campaign is,” he told a crush of reporters on Capitol Hill.

News flash to McCain: Ron Paul has more cash in the bank than you do. Ron Paul.

Don’t be surprised if when Texas Governor Dan Patrick’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is assembled in the year 2014 and the editors of the Houston Chronicle are frog-marched into the chambers to answer for their High Crimes of Liberality, three key pieces of evidence form the basis of the proceedings.

1. Lucas Wall’s infamous article on the death of Leroy Sandoval in Iraq;
2. A copy of the Chron editorial board’s “secret but accidentally posted on the web” pro-rail editorial memo; AND now…
3. This morning’s expose on the imminent threat to low-cost collegiate pre-marital sex, “Higher birth control costs sting students“.

Exhibit A–the lede paragraph.

Facing steep increases in the price of birth control, many Houston-area college students are weighing whether to shell out several hundred more dollars each year, switch medications or just go without oral contraceptives.

Gee, those are tough decisions to make. Imagine how complicated things would get if they also had to weigh whether or not to just stop having sex. Thank goodness that’s not a option these Houston-area college students have to worry about clouding their judgment.

Just how terrible is the crisis faced by frisky co-eds?

Prices have tripled at universities around the country, including Houston, because of a change in the Medicaid rebate law that discourages pharmaceutical companies from offering big discounts on medications to college health centers.

Starting last week, the most popular oral contraceptive at the University of Houston’s health center, Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, sold for $35 for a monthly pack, compared with the previous $10.

The price of being able to engage in pre-marital sex without risk of pregnancy sky-rocketing a full $300 per year! Oh, the humanity!

It gets worse.

Before this year, college health centers could buy contraceptives and other drugs at nominal prices from pharmaceutical companies. But the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which went into effect in January, imposes a disincentive for companies to sell discounted drugs by requiring those that do so to pay more to participate in Medicaid.

Damn Deficit Reduction Act of 2005… who do these people think they are, trying to reduce the federal deficit anyway… WHAT IS IT ABOUT OUR NEED TO HAVE FEDERALLY-SUBSIDIZED PREGNANCY-FREE SEX YOU PIN-HEADS IN CONGRESS JUST CAN’T UNDERSTAND?!?!

Pissed off yet? Just wait.

The law does not target contraceptives specifically, and some policy wonks say its effect on college health centers was inadvertent. But pharmaceutical companies tended to sell only birth control at deep discounts to colleges, partly to develop loyal customers.

By all means, let’s add pharmaceutical companies trying to develop a loyal customer base of college-educated skanks to the list of powerful corporate interests whose pain I’m supposed to feel. Get in line boys, right behind the credit card companies that hand out plastic to every freshman class like–well, like condoms–and then cry to the feds when they suffer high non-payment rates.

For sheer jaw-dropping “I can’t believe I’m reading this”-ness however, you must meet Ms. Daisy Rios. Emphasis’ in bold added by LST.

Daisy Rios, a senior at UH, left the health center empty-handed after learning that her formerly $10-per-month pills now cost $35. Because of warnings from the clinic, she knew the increase was imminent, but she still felt sticker shock when it kicked in, she said.

So she had been warned about something and knew about it, but was still in “shock when it kicked in.” By all means, this is someone who ought to be having pre-marital sex.

But that’s not all.

“That was just a little too much to pay for at that time,” said Rios, 22, who lives with her parents and holds a work-study job during the school year. She still had a two-week supply of pills left, she said, so she had some time to decide whether to purchase another pack.

Daisy’s solution is real simple– just go ask Dad for the money. (We hope someone records that conversation and posts it on YouTube.)

But what about all the unmarried horn-dogs not lucky enough to still be living at home?

Always trying to play a positive role in the community, LST would like to offer a few valuable pocket-book tips for horny undergrads faced with the burden of scrounging up $300 more bucks a year to avoid getting pregnant.

• OPTION ONE– Put a “tip jar” next to your bed. Ask your partners to throw a few bucks in for maintenance and upkeep. Maybe hold a “Begathon” twice a year; works for us.
• OPTION TWO– Charge a toll. Inform all potential partners “no pay, no play.” Trust me ladies–they’ll pay.
• OPTION THREE– Congestion pricing. Sure, commissioner’s court abandoned the concept for Westpark, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work for you! Charge more on Saturday night, for freshman or to infrequent bathers. One good weekend with a visiting chess team could pay your way in birth-control pills for the rest of the year.

LoneStarTimes.com– If it feels good, blog it.

I happen to turn on the other day, a very old “travel log”. I love seeing these old films; I find them fascinating. Once I started watching, I realized that I was watching Will Rogers. I love seeing him in films! Then it only got better: he was in Ireland circa 1927!!

I was totally blown away by two of his “jokes” (observations? witticisms?)

Please keep in mind these “quotes” are approximate. I don’t have a transcript so this is what I remember.

Ireland, at that time, was full of horse drawn carriages? (I think calling them carriages would be a little generous; they are mostly carts). Anyway, Will says, “Look here, here comes a Democrat.” Appearing in the camera view is a Donkey pulled cart. He then continues to say, “yeah, they (the Donkey) can never resist getting their picture made.”

Later on, Will observed some double decker buses going by in Belfast (I think). Will said, “these busses are just like the Republican platform. It takes two: one to get elected on and the other to take the electorate on a ride.”

Oh I couldn’t agree more…

80 years ago. Nothing changes.

Will Rogers was brilliant. Just brilliant.

No really. Things are getting better.
Click the Pic for the story
Seriously we ain’t lyin’

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