An Arizona man dialed 911 to report that his girlfriend has caught on fire in a freak accident – only to hear peals of laughter on the other end of the line.
Tucson resident Lalo Delgado and his girlfriend were driving to Chiva Falls along a rural road when their car burst into flames, leaving the woman with serious burns.
Delgado called 911 to report an emergency, telling the dispatcher: ‘my car just kinda caught on fire, my girlfriend caught on fire.’
In response, the female operator asked if Delgado’s girlfriend was still on fire.
He answered ‘no,’ and a moment later he heard giggles in the background on the other end of the line.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-03 00:10:372013-10-03 00:10:37‘Is your Girlfriend Still on Fire?’ The Moment 911 Dispatcher Laughed While Responding to a Man’s Emergency Call about Freak Accident (+video)
The Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently paid $98,670 for the purchase and installation of an outhouse at the Swede Park Trail Head in Alaska.
The purchase includes a single-vault Romtec 1011 “Aspen Single” prefabricated waterless toilet and its installation at the parking area for the trail head.
KJ Mushovic of the BLM tells CNSNews.com, “Almost half of it (contract expense) is for the cost of the toilet.”
The Oregon based company Romtec lists the “Aspen Single” model on its website for “as low as $9,999”, but the BLM says the price they paid likely includes shipping to Alaska.
“And the cost of all the materials that will have to be taken to the site, Mushovic said. “There will be earthwork that’ll have to be done.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-03 00:01:042013-10-03 00:01:04Open for Business: Gov’t to Erect $98,670 Outhouse in Alaska
After a group of veterans “stormed” the barricaded World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, other WWII veterans groups are planning to visit the same site on Wednesday — which only exists because of their service. Meanwhile, another Honor Flight group in Ohio is claiming that the Park Service threatened to arrest its members if they entered the closed memorial during their planned visit on Oct. 9 (assuming the government is still “shut down”).
Andrea Plunkett, a volunteer with the Kansas City-area Heartland Honor Flight, told TheBlaze the group plans to bring about 90 veterans to the WWII memorial in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. She said the WWII veterans would arrive at around 11 a.m. with a delegation about about 12 U.S. senators and representatives. The group plans to breach the barricades…
“When we heard the news this morning about the barricades being erected at the memorials, dozens of people started helping us try to find a solution,” she told TheBlaze. “Both Kansas and Missouri officials have been incredibly responsive– we heard back from Senator [Roy] Blunt, [Claire] McCaskill, [Pat] Roberts and [Jerry] Moran’s offices right away. Several members of Congress have been involved as well…”
“Our next flight isn’t until Spring of 2014, and waiting is not an option for many of these vets. Between 600-900 WWII vets die each day, so when it comes to Honor Flights, time is of the essence,” she said. “These veterans can’t wait on the government.”
Lawmakers from Kansas and Missouri plan to be on hand tomorrow to help the veterans gain access.
Every time there’s a shooting tragedy, there are more calls for gun control. Let’s examine a few historical facts. By 1910, the National Rifle Association had succeeded in establishing 73 NRA-affiliated high-school rifle clubs. The 1911 second edition of the Boy Scout Handbook made qualification in NRA’s junior marksmanship program a prerequisite for obtaining a BSA merit badge in marksmanship. In 1918, the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. established its own Winchester Junior Rifle Corps. The program grew to 135,000 members by 1925. In New York City, gun clubs were started at Boys, Curtis, Commercial, Manual Training and Stuyvesant high schools. With so many guns in the hands of youngsters, did we see today’s level of youth violence?
What about gun availability? Catalogs and magazines from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s were full of gun advertisements directed to children and parents. For example, “What Every Parent Should Know When a Boy or Girl Wants a Gun” was published by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The 1902 Sears mail-order catalog had 35 pages of firearm advertisements. People just sent in their money, and a firearm was shipped. For most of our history, a person could simply walk into a hardware store, virtually anywhere in our country, and buy a gun. Few states bothered to have even age restrictions on buying guns.
Those and other historical facts should force us to ask ourselves: Why – at a time in our history when guns were readily available, when a person could just walk into a store or order a gun through the mail, when there were no FBI background checks, no waiting periods, no licensing requirements – was there not the frequency and kind of gun violence that we sometimes see today, when access to guns is more restricted? Guns are guns. If they were capable of behavior, as some people seem to suggest, they should have been doing then what they’re doing now.
Fears about the federal government shutting down appear not to have reached Wall Street.
Stock markets opened higher Tuesday morning after Congress failed to authorize spending overnight. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained over the first half of the day, and the Nasdaq composite index also increased by over a percentage point.
To some extent, those gains reflected the fact that markets had already priced in the impact of a shutdown, which was viewed as likely by Monday afternoon when Republicans and Democrats remained far from a deal, if not by the close of business Friday before Congress’ weekend deliberations.
Nevertheless, said Craig Alexander, the chief economist for TD Bank Group, the morning showed “very sanguine movement, so clearly no deep fear in the markets.”
Private-sector economists have said the lapse in government spending could modestly reduce economic output for the quarter, and that a shutdown of longer than a month could start to disrupt the broader economy more significantly as government services were missed.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:55:572013-10-02 00:55:57No Signs of Government Shutdown Worries in Stock Markets (+video)
Shutdown: The government is shut and the sky hasn’t fallen, just as the sequester didn’t invite Armageddon. It’s time to realize just how much of government can be permanently furloughed.
‘In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” Ronald Reagan said after taking the oath of office.
He pointed out that “we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present.”
Sound familiar? And that was in 1981, when the deficit was under $80 billion, not $1 trillion as today; and the national debt was less than $1 trillion, not $17 trillion.
Government — more of it than ever — remains the problem today, more than it ever has.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:50:462013-10-02 00:50:46The Government Is Closed, But America Is Still Open
The White House and the Department of the Interior rejected a request from Rep. Steven Palazzo’s office to have World War II veterans visit the World War II memorial in Washington, the Mississippi Republican told The Daily Caller Tuesday.
Palazzo helped the veterans commit an act of civil disobedience against the Park Service Tuesday, when the heroes stormed through barricades around the closed memorial. (Related: WWII vets storm closed memorial as GOP congressman reportedly distracts cops)
The veterans were visiting the memorial as part of Honor Flight, a non-profit that provides veterans free transport to the nation’s capital to visit the memorials to the wars they fought in…
In a statement, Palazzo noted that he is introducing legislation to ensure that all Honor Flights are granted access this week. “This is an open-air memorial that the public has 24/7 access to under normal circumstances — even when Park Service personnel aren’t present,” Palazzo said in the statement. “It actually requires more effort and expense to shut out these veterans from their Memorial than it would to simply let them through. My office has been in touch with NPS officials and the Administration to try to resolve this issue.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ World War II Veterans Storm Memorial: Pols Help
by Mackenzie Weinger and Jose Delreal – Politico
(Politico) An Honor Flight of almost 100 WWII veterans on the Mississippi Gulf Coast flight didn’t let the barricades set up due to the government shutdown stop them from entering the memorial, according to reports and Tweets from the area. Shortly after, a group of Iowa vets wearing matching yellow shirts also entered the memorial and more visitors poured in….
“We’ll be here every day we’re shut down, until it’s done,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) who was out doing her “usual morning walk” when she received an email from another member of Congress about the veterans. “I ran over here to do what I could,” Bachmann said…
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) also tweeted a photo of him with a veteran at the memorial, writing, “Proud to stand with #WW2 veterans today in Washington, DC,” and Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga (R) told his followers, “Amazing grace sounds even more beautiful on bagpipes when I am helping WWII vets tour the monument they risked their lives for. #freedom.” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Steve King (R-Iowa) were also on hand.
________________________________________________________________________________________ Veterans Break Past World War II Memorial Barricade
By Laura Koran and Ashley Killough — CNN
Busloads of World War II veterans, many in wheelchairs, broke past a barricade Tuesday morning to cross into the World War II Memorial, as onlookers applauded and a man playing the bagpipes led the way.
Moments earlier, a few Republican members of Congress had removed a section of the black gates that surrounded the site, allowing a line of veterans to roll past security officers, who willingly stood aside…
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, called the moment heart-warming, if infuriating that intervention was necessary in the first place. “We don’t have guards around them at any other time,” King said of the monuments in a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
He referred to the gating off of the memorial as “a completely spiteful act,” by President Obama, comparing it to the White House canceling school tours in the aftermath of the automatic budget cuts of the sequester. “Perhaps the most bitter, spiteful act ever committed by a commander in chief”…
Carol Johnson, the spokeswoman for the National Mall and Parks, said the memorial hosts Honor Flight visitors every day. “We want to make sure that they have a good time and are enjoying the memorial, but legally, the National Mall and the memorial are closed,” she said. Asked if she was off the clock and volunteering her time, Johnson replied: “Apparently so.”
When elderly veterans pushed their way through police barricades Tuesday to get to the World War II memorial on the Mall, they not only became an instant online sensation, but also a symbolic protest against the government shutdown.
It wasn’t just in D.C.
National Park Service sites became a focus of the shutdown debate across the country, as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite national parks closed, and families had to cancel or alter long-planned vacations.
“In Nevada today — it is 7 in the morning out there — they are closing Great Basin National Park,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said as he opened his chamber for business Tuesday morning. “Lake Mead Recreational Park will be closed. Red Rock Recreation Area — over a million people come there every year. The visitor center will be closed.”
With Congress stalemated on how to fund the government for fiscal year 2014, which began Tuesday, government agencies gave nonessential employees a few hours to take care of last-minute business and then sent them home to wait out the legislative gridlock in Washington.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:45:542013-10-02 00:45:54Shutdown Hits Parks Across Nation (+video)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the world community not to be fooled by the new Iranian president’s conciliatory words, using a U.N. address to decry him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Netanyahu, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly session on Tuesday in New York, sought to counter the positive reviews Iranian President Hassan Rouhani got over his debut at the international gathering. As the U.S. reaches out anew to Iran under its new leadership, the Israeli prime minister suggested Hassan Rouhani is no better than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“Rouhani didn’t sound like Ahmadinejad, but when it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was the wolf in wolf’s clothing. Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Netanyahu said. “A wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community.”
Netanyahu spoke after meeting in person with President Obama on Monday in Washington.
Netanyahu is wary amid efforts to re-launch diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran, and following a historic phone call on Friday between Obama and Rouhani. The Obama-Rouhani phone call was the first between an American and Iranian president since the Iranian revolution of 1979, which sent U.S.-Iranian relations into a deep freeze.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:45:442013-10-02 00:45:44Netanyahu In UN Address Decries Iran’s Rouhani as ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’
With the new “Obamacare” health insurance exchanges officially open for business, Glenn Beck and his radio co-hosts Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere went to www.healthcare.gov on Tuesday only to find what countless others were greeted with: glitches, errors, and messages asking you to hold.
Before long, they also spoke with a caller whose life is being turned upside down by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“We appreciate your patience,” Gray said in the voice of a telephone operator. “You are Number 477,326 in line. Please continue to wait, as you will be taken in the order in which you arrived. Thank you for your patience.”…
After the break, Beck took a call from Bryan in Florida, who says his costs have already skyrocketed in the wake of the Affordable Care Act.
“Our insurance for the family plan…our current cost is $127 a week through United Healthcare which, you know, we have a really good plan,” Bryan began. “Well, my wife went in early this morning, they went over all the different options. The same plan for my family — nothing in our life has changed, everything is the same — is now $237.10 a week.”
But the jump from $127 a week to $237 a week isn’t even the worst of it, he said. Even if they opt for a plan that’s not as good as what they currently have, they’ll still be paying more than they were before.
Obamacare Quadruples Costs for Some, Rewards Others Who Quit Working
By Hans Bader.
Due to Obamacare, in North Carolina, insurance premiums will “triple for women, and quadruple for men” in the “individual-market” for health insurance. In Tennessee, Obamacare will triple men’s premiums, and double women’s, in the market for individual health insurance. Nationally, Obamacare will increase men’s premiums by 99 percent, and women’s by 62%.
Kathy Kristof of CBS MoneyWatch describes experiencing a 67 percent spike in her premiums, for a worse policy than she had before:
“The promise that you could keep your old policy, if you liked it, has proved illusory. My insurer, Kaiser Permanente, informed me in a glossy booklet that ‘At midnight on December 31, we will discontinue your current plan because it will not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.’
“My premium, the letter added, would go from $209 a month to $348, a 66.5 percent increase that will cost $1,668 annually . . . the things that mattered to me – that I would be able to limit my out-of-pocket costs if I had a catastrophic ailment – got worse under my new Obamacare policy. My policy, which has always paid 100 percent of the cost of annual check-ups, had a $5,000 annual deductible for sick visits and hospital stays. Once I paid that $5,000, the plan would pay 100 percent of any additional cost. That protected me from economic devastation in the event of a catastrophic illness, such as cancer.
“Kaiser’s Obamacare policy has a $4,500 deductible, but then covers only 40 percent of medical costs for office visits, hospital stays and drugs. Out-of-pocket expenses aren’t capped until the policyholder pays $6,350 annually.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:45:022013-10-02 00:45:02How Obamacare has Changed One Family’s Situation to ‘It’s Either Eat or Buy Health Insurance’
After a group of veterans “stormed” the barricaded World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, other WWII veterans groups are planning to visit the same site on Wednesday — which only exists because of their service. Meanwhile, another Honor Flight group in Ohio is claiming that the Park Service threatened to arrest its members if they entered the closed memorial during their planned visit on Oct. 9 (assuming the government is still “shut down”).
by Charles C. Johnson – Daily Caller 
