W. Is Still The Man

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood last night and spent "considerable time" consoling those who were wounded in Thursday's shooting spree, Fox News has learned.

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

God bless 'em.

H/t doubleplusundead.

Ft. Hood Shooter Was Involved In Homeland Security Policy Institute Task Force

Original link here at Gawker, I found out via Gateway Pundit. (at their shiny new digs; sad that one of the first big new posts there is on a pregnant soldier, just back from Iraq, being murdered)

Listed as a "Participant"-- which apparently is everyone who RSVP'ed before printing-- this may not be as creepy as it sounds; it's a pretty normal military thing to try to make sure that... well, for lack of a better way to put it, it's pretty normal to make sure that if you've got someone who would make a good token rep for an event, you send them.

K, gonna digress:
 If you send five people out of, say, fifty in your department, and you've three women, it's almost 100% assured that the women will go more than the rest of the guys.  If race is involved in the thing you're providing bodies for and you've got only one black guy, he'll almost always end up being sent.  Why?  Because if you don't, sometimes you'll end up sending five 20-something, brownish-haired guys, and you'll get chewed out for not showing enough "diversity."  Really funny if those guys consist of an immigrant from Poland, a guy whose ancestors were mostly from the PI, a guy who doesn't know what countries his ancestors were from, a guy who's dad is from India and a German/American Indian guy..."diverse" is so picky about what type of look-based diversity counts, even if the look-diversity usually results in three middle-class lapsed protestants from Cali going to 90% of the events.  All examples from folks I actually knew who didn't look "ethnic" enough to be token.

Back on topic:
 It's not beyond reason that, if Hasan made big noises about how Islamic he was, he'd be first in someone's mind as a good token name to send in for an event like this-- there's a good chance that if he asked a question, it'd be a PC one, and he's got a good chance of asking a really good question to boot, and it gets the "Uniformed Services University School of Medicine" listed with a name that clearly says "this isn't about attacking Arabs."  Sorry if this pisses folks off, but it is kind of important to consider presentation like this.

  All assuming that Hasan didn't go on his own initiative, although the listing of the school under his name makes that unlikely.

There's Nothing I Can Add

at this time, about Ft. Hood.

Jimmy points out the impropriety of Obama's initial reaction, while Neo tries to put her finger on what was so creepy.

The expected groups are claiming Islam had nothing to do with it, while simultaneously claiming that the bastard was harassed for being a Muslim.  (Er... choosing to give a lecture on your religion, in a professional setting, and advocating murder of unbelievers will make folks have an...unpleasant reaction to you.  That isn't harassment, that's you being a moron.)

Hopefully, heads will roll against whatever PC morons decided that ignoring the mounting warning signs that this guy was Trouble--not that it will manage to get the folks above them, that cause that kind of climate.
  (Back on the ship, we had a shop supervisor who had been accused of racism so many times he kept a pile of responses, xeroxed, in his desk.  Had nothing to do with him, had to do with his shop being the dumping ground for deck guys who thought they could get out of work by breaking things.  He had a crud-ton of trouble every time we had any change in our chain of command, because each and every new guy would try to make a name for himself...)

It's infuriating that over a dozen people are dead because the common sense notion "when we are fighting nutcases who take the Koran's orders to kill non-believers seriously, we should make sure there aren't nutcases who show sympathy to killing non-believers in our fighting force" did not reflect reality.

UPDATE:
Just had a random thought; all the sympathy folks are pointing out Ft. Hood has had a lot of suicides this year.
Wonder if any of them went through the bastard's office.

Something Good

Dead Baby Wasn't.

Short form:
Tiny baby (Just over a pound!) is born in critical condition; after an hour trying to revive him after they lose vital signs, the hospital gives up.

Baby is put in a casket and sent home.

The baby's father opens the casket to say goodbye to his son...and sees that the baby is breathing.  Crying, he rushes his son back to the hospital and gets him into an oxygen tent.

For an idea on the size of the baby, when I went in for my ultrasound they calculated that Kiddo was 22.4 weeks along, and weighed 1lb 4 oz (566g) with all growth-perimeters inside of normal.

Found the story trying to find reference to something I heard a few years back, that a baby's heart will synchronize with his mothers and his biological father's so I could share it with the folks here.  (speaking of cool stories, although you probably already heard about the "babies cry with an accent" thing)

"Stridency-Prone"?

Oh, you mean the way that we tell you when you're full of it, if you ask?

The military as a far-right group...um... yeah... Right.  Only in so far as it's about 90% merit-based-- that would be "equality of opportunity, not of result," and sadly does seem to have become a conservative thing-- and that folks who are willing to risk getting killed for the US tend to at least appreciate the USA.

I'm eagerly awaiting announcements of a Federally funded round-table on "News Media as Far-Left Fearmongers" or some such.  Not holding my breath, though.....

Phoenix Honor Killing Update

The girl is dead.  She was twenty.  And lovely.

The other lady who was hit is apparently the girl's boyfriend's mother, and is expected to be just fine.

The unspeakable murderer apparently had lots and lots of help in trying to evade capture after running down his daughter-- hope they all get hit with a nice, big consperacy to commit murder charge, as well as aiding and abetting and conspiracy to prevent capture, and I think a good lawyer could come up with more....

BZ to the Brits for catching the dog and sending him back.

"Defend the Safety and Confidentiality of Our Clients and Staff"

Rochelle Tafolla, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson issued the following statement: "We regret being forced to turn to the courts to protect the safety and confidentiality of our clients and staff, however, in this instance it is absolutely necessary.

Wondering what happened?

Did someone break in to a records location?  Was a file stolen?  Did someone show up drunk, waving a gun?

Well.... No....

Their former manager was told that she needed to pull focus off of family planning, and go for drumming up more abortion business; she then saw a video of an ultrasound of an abortion in progress.

The lady resigned and is now praying with other pro-life demonstrators across from the PP office, and has been talking with the Coalition For Life.

So PP filed a restraining order against the lady and CFL:

The temporary restraining order contends that Planned Parenthood would be irreparably harmed by the disclosure of certain information, but does not bar Johnson or Coalition For Life volunteers from the premises.

As of Sunday evening, neither Johnson nor Carney had seen the complaint filed against them that prompted the restraining order.

I'd say that, yeah, your director of the last two years who has been big in your organization for the last eight resigning and announcing that you're trying to get folks to have abortions for the cash, then joining up with the pro-life group down the block, is  pretty harmful.

 Just not in a "safety" type way.

Oh, This Couldn't Be Abused

Organizing For America’s nationally-orchestrated, last-ditch, get-out-the-vote campaign in NY-23 is a privacy-invading and potentially dangerous effort.

NY-23 residents should be aware that because of a pervasive lack of controls in OFA’s get-out-the-vote operations and a poorly designed campaign:

The person calling them could be a potential spammer, thief, or even a violent criminal.
That person will be asking for personal information that no one should be willing to give out, including but perhaps not limited to personal e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers, and the time of day voters plan to vote.
OFA may be unable to track down persons who call on its behalf if unauthorized, illegal, or criminal acts occur as a result of information learned during this campaign.

h/t Confederate Yankee

Coyote Attack Update

Apparently, getting more common that is comfortable.

I haven't searched around for any extra info, and I'm headed out the door to buy cheap candy ASAP, so this'll be kinda bare-bones.

Woman and her lab, by three coyotes, in Denver.

Lone coyote attacks man in his back yard, trying to trap skunks.  Coyote is mentioned to not look well-fed and healthy.

At least two attacks in Griffith Park, in LA-- the guy in the story woke up to a coyote chewing on his foot.

Here's a quick google news of the last 6 years, with a very quick attempt to remove the poor musician and the college team called the "Coyotes."

(Prior post here)