Sometimes You Have To Smile

Look where the bedbug epidemic is now.



The EPA and Customs and Border Protection have offices in the same building.



Poetic justice?

Pest control was due to deal with the problem yesterday, five days after the critters were discovered in the building.

In late September, a Maryland public library had an infestation of bedbugs.

Meanwhile, the invasion of stinkbugs continues apace. The six-legged, brown-marmorated variety of stinkbug. The two-legged stinkbugs are found mainly on the campaign trail now through November 2. Heh.

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Capitol Hill As Mosque

And, thus, the ongoing submission of the United States of America continues.


Shari'a isn't creeping. It's galloping!





From Creeping Sharia:

A new website for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association details the room and time for Islamic prayers on Capitol Hill:

From the group's website:

For the primary benefit of Congressional Members and staffers, CMSA conducts briefings and issue forums on legislative and political issues that concern the Muslim American community and Muslim world…

CMSA produces religious and cultural programming that increases Congressional members, staffers and community members awareness of Muslim beliefs, traditions, historical narratives, and contributions to American culture…

Examples:

Congressional briefing on the Gaza Humanitarian Crisis
Congressional briefing on the media’s use of “Islamophobic Language”
Weekly “Capitol Hill Jummah Prayer Service”
Annual Congressional Ramadan Iftar Reception
State Department Briefing on U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Muslim World
USAID Briefing on development programs in the Muslim World
Homeland. Security Department Briefing on Muslim American Civil Rights Issues
“All DC-Area Muslim Summer Interns” Capitol Hill Reception
Resume collection for “Muslim American Congressional Resume Book”
Participation on panels at various symposium hosted by DHS, CAIR, MANA, etc.

Read more at Creeping Sharia.

Information about the term jummah:

Jumu'ah (Arabic: جمعة‎) (also known as jum'ah, Friday prayer, etc.) is a congregational prayer (salat) that Muslims hold every Friday, just after noon in lieu of dhuhr. It is mentioned in the Qur'an as:

O you who believe! when the call is made for prayer on Friday, then hasten to the remembrance of God and leave off business; that is better for you, if you know. (Qur'an 62:9)

And when the prayer is ended, then disperse in the land and seek of Allah's bounty, and remember Allah much, that ye may be successful. (Qur'an 62:10)

Successful at what, exactly?

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Interfaithing Equals Dhimmitude

Ongoing since 2002, the year after 9/11:


This week, at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.:

From May 25-27, 2010, Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia will host Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and his 9th Annual Building Bridges Seminar. Since 2002, the Archbishop of Canterbury has chaired an annual seminar bringing together leading Muslim and Christian scholars from around the world to explore issues at the heart of the two traditions. Georgetown University has become a partner in this significant dialogue process and hosted the seminar in 2004 and 2006.

Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi is, no doubt, gratified by the dhimmitude of a Jesuit university as he watches mainstream Christianity submit to Islam via his "educational charities", which finance centers of Islamic study at Western universities.

According to Campus Watch:

Perhaps Alwaleed's animus toward the instruments of "Jewish pressure" explains some of his less-advertised investments -- among them, a $27 million contribution to a Saudi government telethon that raised more than $100 million for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Both the Middle East Media Research Institute's Steven Stalinsky and columnist Diana West have called attention to the prince's co-ownership of the Saudi ART TV network that, under Alwaleed's watch, aired not only the aforementioned telethon but also the fundraiser "Jihad in Palestine," which encouraged Muslims to triumph over the West through suicide bombings and "slitting of throats and shattering skulls."

Charming, huh? [heavy sarcasm]

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More Greenie Idiocy: Fees For Grocery Bags

Encouraging people to bring their own reusable canvas bags to the grocery store is one thing, forcing them to do so, another.


Now, I'm one of those people who recycle paper and plastic bags by finding other uses for them, mainly because doing so saves me from having to purchase the bigger plastic bags such as Hefty or Glad trash bags, too big for some household purposes here anyway. Those purposes include lining small wastebaskets and disposing of food leavings in a household with no under-sink garbage disposal. I even reuse the plastic sleeves in which the Washington Post arrives every day. Those sleeves make excellent gloves with which to clean out the cats' litter boxes. Scoop out the piles, turn the bag inside out and knot it. Voila! Useful and sanitary!

Here in the Virginia suburbs, such household management of paper and plastic bags is, thus far, completely VOLUNTARY.

As of January 1, 2009, however, the city of Washington, D.C., has begun charging a user fee for each paper and plastic grocery bag issued, even at liquor stores. Supposedly, this restriction on paper and plastic bags will help to clean up the Anacostia River:

The District's user fee on plastic and paper bags at stores that sell food and/or alcohol went into effect New Year's Day and is one of the toughest such measures in the country.

Lawmakers hope the tax will make the nation's capital more green-friendly and help the environment, with proceeds going to fund the cleanup of the Anacostia River. They estimate it will produce about $3.6 million in revenue in the first year, an amount that might decline as awareness grows and people get used to bringing reusable bags when they go shopping.

[...]

Discarded bags sometimes make their way into the District's storm-water drains and nearby waterways, including the polluted eight-mile stretch of the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington, where they become tangled in trees and roots.

As if the Anacostia area's residents and transients, a sizable portion of whom are involved in the illicit drug trade, are going to change their habits! The user fee on bags from the liquor store is particularly ludicrous and ineffective.

Meanwhile, back here in the Virginia suburbs, not long ago I made a special trip to Whole Foods to pick up a particular supplement carried only at that store. The clerk at the register gave me an excoriating look when I didn't produce or purchase a canvas bag in which to tote the single item I purchased. Indeed, she looked at me as if I were evil personified. So much for "The customer is always right." I admit it: I didn't feel the least ashamed or obligated to explain that I would be recycling the bag she grudgingly produced.

Trying to force people to care about the environment is a non-starter. But utopians, including sanctimonious environmentalists, never give up trying to make non-starters work.

Additional reading: As long as I'm on the topic of greenie idiocy, check out this recent story about the greenie-experimental urinals in Chicago's City Hall (hat tip to Weasel Zippers):

There's been a stench coming from the second floor of City Hall -- and it has nothing to do with the steady stream of Chicago aldermen convicted on corruption charges.

Waterless urinals installed to promote water conservation in the public men's room outside the City Council chambers have turned into a stinky mess. The odor got so bad that the "green" urinals are now being ripped out and replaced with the old-fashioned kind at a cost City Hall has refused to disclose.

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Another Snowstorm Is Headed Our Way (With Cartoon Addendum)

Posted February 9, 2010 and stuck here for a few days. Please scroll down for more recent postings.

(Photo by The Merry Widow)

Yet another snowstorm is headed our way later today (February 2) and close on the heels of the last one, from which we have not fully recovered. Digging out from under last week's two-plus feet has been difficult, particularly as nighttime lows have dropped well into the teens.

The weather forecasters are saying we will get 10-20 inches on top of the mess we've already got!

If not for our Good Samaritan neighbor with the snow blower, The Merry Widow and I would still be out there digging out the cars.

The situation here at this old house before the arrival of this next blizzard:

We have sagging gutters with all those icicles that have formed during daytime melting. We do worry about ice dams and cascades of water getting under the eaves and making its way into our living quarters.

The roof of the carport sheltering my beloved Mustang convertible can't handle much more weight, I'm sure. Not to mention the stoop over the front porch.

Our side street is in better shape than the nearest main artery, thanks to our neighbor with the snow blower.

So far, we haven't lost power here at the AOW household. But I know of friends who have been without electricity since last Friday afternoon.

If any person even mentions global warming to me, I'm going to react in a most unladylike manner.

So much for the prophecy of "global-warming expert" RFK, Jr.

By the way, be sure to take a look at this photo essay by The Merry Widow. The photos were taken the morning of February 7. I'm in one of the pictures. Heh.

CARTOON ADDENDUM:
Cartoon by Nate Beeler

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Getting Ready To Shelter In Place

Posted on February 5, 2010

(Photo by The Merry Widow)

A huge snowstorm is headed our way today.

We've been advised to be prepared to shelter in place for three days.

Apparently residents in the D.C. area are taking the warning seriously. Last night, one grocery store in Washington, D.C., was so packed that the manager had to shut it down!

As I wrote some time back, D.C. area residents are notorious for overreacting when the forecast mentions "Snow!" This time, the panic may actually be warranted.

As a lifetime resident of the D.C. area, I've experienced the rare times when I've been snowed in for a week or two. This storm promises to be one of those cabin fever whoppers. The local news refer to this storm as a "monster storm" and an "atmospheric bomb."

We are prepared here in the AOW household. The Merry Widow and I each have our own snow shovel to use when the time to dig out arrives. Even as the snow is falling, we'll be sweeping off the front porch and Mr. AOW's four-foot-wide, thirty-feet-long wheelchair ramp. Digging out the cars, which are parked on the street as the AOW house has no driveway, will be the biggest challenge. I've learned that hard way that there's no point in keeping the cars dug out as a snowstorm progresses because the county truck will just come along and plow us back in.

Prayers, especially for no loss of electricity, are appreciated. We also covet prayers for our poor backs.

By the way, The Merry Widow took the photo in this posting is a picture of my side yard last week, when a mere 5 inches fell. The weatherman is gleefully speaking of sixteen to twenty-four inches for the coming storm, due to start dumping the white stuff on us before noon today. Just imagine what my side yard will look like this time around!

Please scroll down to the photo essay posted on February 6.

Note to readers: If you yearn for political postings, please scroll down. This post will stay at the top for a few days. At least.

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The Blizzard Of 2010: The Merry Widow's Photo Essay

The Merry Widow is staying with me to help with caregiving Mr. AOW.

Well, she got more than she bargained for: the rare blizzard in the Washington, D.C. area!

All the photos in this posting were taken at my house, during the shifts of shoveling we're doing.

PHOTO ESSAY PART ONE





This was from last night around 9 pm, just before I cleared the ramp, rails and cars(~8" on top of the cars!)

PHOTO ESSAY PART TWO

This morning around 8:15 am...








AOW note: The next-to-last photo above is one of my azalea bush near the front porch. Now, to the left is what the bush is supposed to look like.

Visit The Merry Widow's site for additional photos of the Blizzard of 2010.

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Major Snowstorm!

(Note to family and friends: The most recent update on Mr. AOW is here, updated December 12. Also see this post).

Unlike so often, the weatherman appears to have gotten this forecast correct. We are under a blizzard warning until tomorrow morning with this classic Nor'easter slamming the D.C. area.

This storm could well set a record for December snowfall in the area!

So far, here at this house, we have a full six inches, possibly eight since the last time I ventured out the door to sweep off the front porch. Because of the direction the snow is blowing, the front porch was covered all the way up to the front door.

Yesterday, all the grocery stores were madhouses as I discovered to my regret when I had to go to the nearest grocery-pharmacy to pick up Mr. AOW's eye drops.

In the past, I've ridiculed Washingtonians' love-hate relationship with snow. This time, however, people were wise to stock up. A few days may pass before the streets are fully navigable.

My biggest concern is losing electricity with the winds expected to kick up later today even as the heaviest snowfall moves in and blizzard conditions ensue.

A friend has called to tell us, "I'll be over on Sunday to shovel off the wheelchair ramp." In that case, we won't be isolated for long.

Here's to hoping that I don't have to move Mr. AOW's hospital bed across the room so as to start a fire in the fireplace!

Note: Please scroll down for the weekend-humor post.

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D.C. Jihadist Or Merely A Lunatic?

Due to Mr. AOW's illness, I haven't been keeping up with the news as much as I usually do. I have no idea how much the story below has been covered elsewhere.

From this posting at Jihad Watch:


At Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer makes the following comment:

The fact that mosques were included will no doubt be used to "prove" that Ahamed Ali is just a garden-variety lunatic, and not an Islamic jihadist. And he may indeed be a lunatic and not a jihadist. But with the numerous incidents of violence against mosques in Iraq and elsewhere, perpetrated by Muslims of opposing sects, the fact that his notebook contained diagrams of mosques doesn't indicate anything conclusive.

Question for my readers: How much coverage has the story received?

From what I can glean, a federal investigation is ongoing.

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Lowlifes Steal Cross

The full article from 9News Now, a local channel here in the D.C. area:

Hospital Volunteer's Cross Stolen From Chapel

WASHINGTON DC (WUSA) She raised six children and was grandmother to 13 others, but 71 year old Patricia Perna always found time to do more.

Perna was a girl scout leader, water aerobics instructor, and had volunteered more than seven thousand hours at the Washington Hospital Center, before ovarian cancer claimed her life last January.

Her family and friends filled the chapel at the hospital Tuesday to receive a brass cross with Perna's name on it from the women's auxillary. That's when they got the unthinkable news. The cross was missing.

Investigators are trying to track down the brazen thief who stole the cross right off a church altar.

The theft from the Washington Hospital Center chapel was discovered just hours before the cross was to be blessed and given to the family of Perna.

Being a place of worship, the hospital chapel is open to anyone 24 hours a day. There is no security guard or surveillance camera in the chapel.

The hospital wouldn't let 9News Now take pictures in the chapel. Nobody could provide a photo of the two foot by two foot brass cross, but the hospital is asking for the public's help to find it.

You'll know it when you see it. It has Patricia Perna's name engraved across the front of it.

[source]

What is WRONG with people, to do such a thing as steal a cross dedicated to a volunteer? For the monetary value of the brass?

Even worse, as a society we have become inured to such deeds and shrug them off, saying, "What else can you expect? The chapel wasn't locked."

Has our society reached the point that we have to lock down everything, even on the altars of places of worship?

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Not Just Satire

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

The story of the hundreds of flyers left all over the campus of George Washington University illustrates the leftist bias in academia and in the media. At first, Young America's Foundation or the group's supporters came under suspicion. YAF's official October 9, 2007 statement about the distribution of the posters is HERE, and includes the following:

...Bridgette Behling, the assistant director of the Student Activities Center at GWU, wrote an email to one of the conservative students urging them to disavow hate speech that may originate from any future Foundation events: “due to the inflammatory nature of today’s events [falsified posters], as a good faith effort on behalf of YAF, it is important that YAF drafts a statement which states that you will not allow hate speech to be a part of any of YAF’s events, literature, written or verbal communication planned for Islamofacism Week. This statement should also include your plan for preventing these things from happening as well as the consequences for these things happening. It is important that we have this document should any further incidents occur as we move forward.”...

Later some additional information came to light. According to this article in the university's newspaper the GW Hatchet:

A group of seven GW students sent an e-mail to The Hatchet late Tuesday night [October 9, 2007] admitting to hanging hundreds of controversial posters around campus early Monday morning.

The students - Adam Kokesh, freshman Yong Kwon, senior Brian Tierney, freshman Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Amal Rammah - said their motives were misinterpreted. Students for Conservativo-Facism Awareness hung the posters in opposition to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, an event being held beginning Oct. 22.

Kokesh, a graduate student and Iraq War veteran, gained celebrity over the past year because of his vocal opposition to the war. Nwigwe and Rammah are also graduate students.

[...]

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is being held at GW and sponsored by the Young America's Foundation, a conservative student group. It will feature several speakers - including controversial conservative author David Horowitz - slated to discuss radical Islam.

One-hundred and forty two colleges nationwide will host the event, according to its Web site. Horowitz is organizing the week.

"While the poster, even if taken seriously was not intended to cause any real harm, the systematic and glorified type of racism represented by this event is being imposed upon us from dangerous divisive outside forces" the e-mail said.

In the letter, members of the organization said their intent was to shed light on the week - which they called racist.

When all else fails, playing the race card is the tactic — never mind that adherents to and supporters of Islamo-fasicsm cross race lines.

Miss Beth of the blog Miss Beth's Victory Dance provides the following, which I haven't been able to confirm:

It was a hoax [they claim satire] perpetrated by the Saudi-funded radical islamic front group Muslim Student Association.

If true, no surprise there. Anything to stir things up instead of participating in a reasoned discussion to show that the term "Islamofascism" is a misnomer. Anything to discredit Islamo-fascism Awareness Week, which begins on October 22 at university campuses all over the United States, according to the left sidebar at FrontPage Magazine:

Berkeley -- Nonie Darwish, October 22

Brown -- Robert Spencer, October 24

Cal Poly -- Greg Davis, October 25

Cal State Fullerton -- Nonie Darwish

Clemson -- Mike Adams, October 25

Columbia -- Phyllis Chesler, Ibn Warraq, Christina Hoff Sommers

Columbia -- Sean Hannity, David Horowitz, October 26

DePaul -- Robert Spencer, October 25

Emory -- David Horowitz, October 24

George Mason -- Luanah Saghieh, Alan Nathan, October 22

Lawrence University -- Jonathan Schanzer

Maryland --Michael Ledeen

Michigan -- David Horowtz, October 23

Northeastern -- Daniel Pipes, October 24

Ohio State -- David Horowitz, October 25

Penn -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Penn State -- Rick Santorum, October 23

Rhode Island -- Robert Spencer, October 24

San Francisco State -- Melanie Morgan, October 24

Stanford -- Wafa Sultan

Temple -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Tulane -- Ann Coulter, October 22

UC Santa Barbara -- Dennis Prager, October 25

UC Irvine -- Ann Coulter

UCLA -- Nonie Darwish, October 24

UCLA -- Frank Pastore, John Ziegler

USC -- Ann Coulter, October 25

Virginia -- Frank Gaffney

Washington -- Kirby Wilbur

Washington -- Michael Medved, October 25

Wisconsin -- David Horowitz, October 22

Hot Air has this update about one of the "masterminds" behind the posters distributed at GWU:

As soon as I saw it, the name Adam Kokesh rang a bell. He’s the Marine vet who got in trouble for wearing his uniform to anti-war protests, and who heads up the Iraq Veterans Against the War....

The situation at GWU could have been much worse, I suppose. Just think of the uproar which could have ensued had a group distributed posters of the Danish cartoons satirizing MTP!

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