A “professionally constructed” tunnel leading nearly 100 yards from an abandoned house in the Northwest Washington town of Lynden to a greenhouse just beyond the U.S.-Canadian border was shut down yesterday before it could be used. (Seattle Times) More below:
This IS an open thread, but I thought you’d get a kick out of this at the end of the Seattle Times story:
Such tunnels aren’t uncommon in U.S. border towns.
In March, U.S. officials found a tunnel that had been dug from a middle-class San Diego-area neighborhood to an upscale residence in Mexico. Investigators called the 200-yard-long tunnel the most sophisticated they have seen along the California-Mexico border.
Investigators used a machine that can “see” underground, a video-equipped robot, a drug-sniffing dog and an air horn to find it.
That tunnel was 3 feet wide and 5 feet high with a concrete floor. It had wood-beam supports, fiberglass walls, ventilation, video security and groundwater-removal systems. Several altars with flowers and pictures of saints also were found inside.
New York, Jul 21 2005 10:00AM
A three-day regional African consultation on United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan’s Study on Violence against Children has ended with a call for a total ban on corporal punishment, blamed by delegates for instilling a culture of violence in youngsters.
“Hitting or smacking children is a type of violence,” the Independent Expert on the UN Study, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, told the conference. “Violence used as a means of discipline, despite its devastating effects on the child, should never be viewed as legally or culturally acceptable.”
The consultation for Eastern and Southern Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa, was one of a series of regional events being held worldwide to prepare reports on how children are affected by violence in five settings: the home and family; schools and other institutions; work situations; the community; and on the streets.
Recommendations from the consultations will feed into the global study mandated by Mr. Annan in 2001 for completion next year. …
Dr. Dobson:
On thumb-sucking
The red pepper is especially effective if the child rubs it in his/her eyes. That’ll teach ’em.
All Dobson’s advice will produce good Republicans who do what they are told by authority without question.
What a sicko. I wish we could do that to him.
(retorical snark ahead)
So what exactly does the word “family” mean in this context? I don’t see how children could be included with this kind of attitude, and my guess is women should just shut up. Not a lot of people left to make up a family …
Does the good Doctor have any suggestions about appropriate implements to use or parts of the body to concentrate on?
Damn, now I’ll have to find a different way to escape north. Maybe I can go to Maine, build a raft …
Hey, CATNIP! We’ll find another route….
Too bad about the tunnel. I suppose that I can request political asylum from Canadian authorities based upon my status as a persecuted liberal.
Wish we could ALL go!
”Downing Street Minutes 3rd Anniversary Event”
Thursday, July 21 @ 08:22:05 PDT by howard martin
Events
July 23, 2005: Seattle Labor Temple at 2800 1st Ave in Downtown Seattle, 1:00 PM.
Congressman McDermott has confirmed that he will participate. Also invited are Congressmen Inslee and Smith, and Senators Cantwell and Murray. Showing of DVD, dramatic reading of the DSM. Sign up here!”-from AfterDowningStreet.org. Thanks to Dina Lydia Johnson for the heads up.
from http://www.seattlefordean.com and http://www.howieinseattlefordean.com
Can’t help thinking of the old Onion story about the Mexi-Canadian overpass. (Prompted, I believe, by a Bushism about Mexico and Canada being neighbors.)
I wish I’d seen that. (Hint.)
… but you have to pay to see it. 🙁
Was able to get this tidbit from the story for you, though:
Oh thank you! I’m having a good laugh 🙂
when I read something and have NO CLUE what it’s about …
New York, Jul 20 2005 5:00PM
While the resumption of the United Nations-led Georgian-Abkhaz peace process is encouraging, only “genuine commitment” by both sides will lead to a lasting political settlement to the hostilities between Government and separatist forces in northwest Georgia, which uprooted nearly 300,000 refugees more than a decade ago, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in his latest report. …
Besides being an ugly American, I’m so ignorant.
Well if the congress would get off their collective rear-ends and debate immigration reform, I wouldn’t have to dig so many pathways to catnip’s pad. 🙂
I posted an overview of the new Republican Immigration bill.
How do you feel about this? I can see how it’d badly influence kids. But Darcy and I played all kinds of games like that — including Doom — and we didn’t turn into mad killers.
I worry about porn, and I worry especially about porn that portrays the exploitation and degradation of women.
But can we control it through censorship? Is that desirable?