Political Stuff
For those eager to discuss politics I have a few posts with observations of the Orange County, Florida political landscape over at my place. I kept at the political yard sign counting in an effort to gauge the political intensity of the Presidential race down here. Since we’re in the swing part of a swing state it actually has some relevance! (Short version: I believe but am not certain that Romney will win Orange County and Florida. Some of the latest polling agrees with that assessment.)
Anyway, I try to avoid politics over here, but not over there. So if that’s what you want please feel free to join in. I’ll be posting about how I’m going to vote soon as well. I’ve been in the Attila the Hun American camp but I’m wavering.
And the REALLY good news is we’ve only got about nine more days of this crap. After the election we’ll get some fresh Hell to blight our political landscape.
A bit o’ delight
I sent this to our bloggeress, as so many folks I know need some cheering up, me included, so why not pass it along to the Ambiance readership?
Astaire and Rita Hayworth, in a production still from 1943’s You Were Never Lovelier.
This story can’t possibly be true.
I saw a story today that was so perfectly awful I can’t believe it is true. It seemed like every sentence made it worse! let’s start with the headline.
Okay, right off the bad this sounds too funny to be true.
BERLIN (Reuters) –
Even the by-line makes the thing sound more unbelievable! Berlin? A story about an undertaker suing a domanatrix for the infliction of pain MUST take place in Germany! The fact that it actually is just seems too incredible. (There will be far too much use of the word ‘too’ in this post.)
A German court has ordered a dominatrix to pay 200 euros ($260) to a local charity as a penance after a client accused her of hurting and robbing him.
She had to pay penance to a charity for thrashing some undertaker?
Cologne district court spokesman Dirk Esser said the plaintiff had accused the woman he hired for sex last month of holding a kitchen knife to his throat before demanding his debit card and PIN number.
The guys name is Dirk, he’s an undertaker, he hired a dominatrix and is upset that she held a knife to his throat and made him do things? You actually CAN make this stuff up! But I can’t believe it really happened. Surely the guys name was Rolf, or he was an accountant, or he didn’t know he was hiring a dominatrix, or something!
The plaintiff, a 49-year-old undertaker, also said the woman had detained him against his will for five hours.
Um, perhaps he didn’t understand what a dominatrix is for?
The court decided that it was impossible to know for sure what really happened because both parties had consumed too much cocaine during their encounter.
AND it was coke-fueled?! This is just too freakin’* incredible!
* I use ‘freakin” because what else would be appropriate?
It dropped the charges but ordered the prostitute to pay the “penance money” to a charity that supports crime victims.
They can do that?! How strange! “Well, we don’t know that you actually committed a crime, but what the Hell, go give some money to charity!” Couldn’t she have just said some extra “Hail Marys” instead?
The 35-year-old mother of four has been in pre-trial custody for the past five weeks, but declined to be compensated for time spent in jail, Esser said.
Of course she’s a mother. And of course she refused to be compensated for five weeks in jail. Right, this all makes perfect sense.
The dominatrix denied keeping the man against his will, adding that he had also asked if a transsexual colleague could join them.
Of COURSE a transsexual colleague would somehow be involved!
The only things this story missed are midgets and ponies. But other than that, it’s too freakin’ freaky to be true. Right? RIGHT?!
More light, frothy content
Cross-posted at The Kitchen Drawer.
Over at Althouse they’re discussing Thursday’s Presidential visit to the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus. They’re shutting down the campus for at least part of the day so the President can have a nice photo-op post-debate. The Thursday timing is brilliant. Most students will have classes on Friday so they’ll stick around. If the event were on a Friday many students (and probably some professors and staff) would just take off after class on Thursday and make a nice, unexpected three day weekend of it.
They’re discussing many aspects of this visit, including whether or not the students should be upset by this intrusion. After all, this is a denial of one day’s paid education. Personally I think they should be upset, but who are we kidding – most of them won’t be because they won’t be thinking of the payments they’re making (or will make) for their education.
One commenter speculated that the lost tuition was worth it for the chance to see the President in person on one’s own campus. Maybe, but I’ll hold to the idea (expressed by others) that we shouldn’t worship our pols.
Nevertheless, this led me to reminisce about the times I’ve been in the presence of a sitting US President.
I’ve seen three Presidents in person. I saw Ronald Reagan at EPCOT for his 1984 Inaugural Parade. (The one in DC was cancelled due to weather, so a few months later they did it down here in Florida.) I got to see him from less than 30 feet away as he drove by in a Presidential limo.
I saw George H. W. Bush twice. Once in the White House from about 10 feet away (pure luck, the family was taking a tour and he unexpectedly showed up with some ambassador from some African nation) and once at Daytona International Speedway during the race in July. I may have even been within 1000 feet at that time!
(Funny/strange story from that one. Our tickets were for the stands right behind the pit road in the infield. Awesome seats! So as we approached the tunnel for the infield in a Ford Explorer we were questioned by the Secret Service. “Do you have any firearms in your vehicle?” “No, sir.” “No bazookas or anything like that?” “No, sir!” “Carry on.” That was it! Like we would have answered “Yes” if we were bringing in a bazooka! And who the Hell was talking about bazookas in 1992?! Very strange incident, but I guess the guy sized us up with a 14 and 10 year-old in the car as well as people up in their 60s and assessed us as “NOT terrorists”.)
And I once saw George W. Bush at a campaign rally. I still can’t believe I went to one of those things.
All in all it was kind of neat, but not awe inspiring. They are, after all, just men.
Now my sister, when she was little, once got to sit in JFK’s chair behind his desk in the Oval Office. That happened through a series of happy accidents, and if anything like that were to happen today it would be a major security breech complete with drone strikes on the houses of everyone in the family.
Mom and Dad lived in DC back in the early 1950s. Dad was out taking a morning walk one morning and bumped into someone on the street. Dad said something along the lines of “Hey, watch it buddy!”, took a few steps and stopped. He turned around and there stood President Truman (who was found of walks), hands on hips, just glaring at Dad! Dad muttered apologies and scrammed!
I’ve also wondered about the time Nixon wandered out of the White House one night to visit some protesters over at the Lincoln Memorial. How strange that must have been for the protesters!
With friends like these ….
Naked man kidnapped, robbed by friends, deputies say
Six Osceola County residents are behind bars after deputies say they kidnapped and robbed a friend then left him naked in Kissimmee early Saturday morning.
Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies say the victim agreed to give friends, 18-year-old Lindsey Saucedo and 33-year-old Rosa DeJesus and their two friends 20-year-old Stephen Batista and 24-year-old Frederick Rodriguez, a ride around 2:45 a.m. Saturday.
Deputies did not say where they five were headed, but along the way, investigators say Batista and Rodriguez pulled out weapons and demanded the driver give them money.
Shortly after the demands, the victim ran out of gas, and the five abandoned the car and walked to meet up with two others — 35-year-old Crystal Gonzalez and 18-year-old Abraham Buil.
After all seven met, they drove to two local banks and forced the victim to withdraw money, deputies said. They also took his personal items, including his clothing.
They ditched the naked victim on McLaren Circle in Kissimmee, where he walked to a Wawa store on Orange Blossom Trail to report the crime.
Deputies caught up to the six suspects.
All six were booked into Osceola County Jail and face charges of armed robbery, conspiracy and kidnapping charges.
You can get a look at the perps here.
On the Sentinel website larryboy77 comments: “you can plan and plan and plan the perfect crime and something can still go wrong”
NOTE: I do have a couple of better posts I’m working on, but the last three days have not been conducive to writing. Nothing like not having a properly functioning toilet in the house to induce writer’s block!
Ambiance 
