On the way home from the water park (awful day for it, cloudy, under 80° and windy – we didn’t stay long) I heard a story on the radio.

AP was reporting that they had acquired some report from some investigator for the Personnel Board of the State of Alaska that said that Sarah Palin was being unethical in taking money for a defense fund to pay the lawyers for successfully defending her against multiple ethics charges.

An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the “official” legal defense fund.

Okay. Sarah Palin is the Governor of Alaska for a little while longer. Sarah Palin was the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in the last election. She is well known. She authorized creation of the trust, but did she sign the authorization as Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, and use the official seal? Or did she sign her name as a private citizen like anyone might, even other Governors doing private business might do? If the latter and they are trying to get her for forming or approving of a defense fund because she’s the governor, then anyone in public office can’t do anything in or for private life while they hold office. No opening bank accounts, purchasing homes, purchasing or leasing vehicles, or entering into any type of contract at all because that person would be using their “official position for personal gain”…

I also remember a certain former president who had a legal defense fund. And a former governor who was able to use campaign funds to pay off legal bills here in Illinois while he was still Governor. All those poor rubes who thought they were making campaign contributions were actually paying Blagojevich’s legal bills and it was all perfectly legal.

The Lonely Conservative says:

So let’s see, if you want a politician taken down for ethics violatons, file numerous complaints against said politician to the point where said politician racks up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. When said politician attempts to raise money to pay the legal bills – voila! – file another ethics violation complaint.

Ridiculous.

They hate her. They REALLY hate her.

More at Hot Air.

This has been a really cruddy summer. I should be harvesting some of my tomatoes and certainly some zucchini by now, but it’s been too cold. I couldn’t even get my tomato plants into the ground until June and I usually plant around Mothers’ Day weekend or the weekend after at the latest.

My Early Girl tomato plant has three green tomatoes on it. My cherry tomato plant has quite a few green tomatoes. The Beefmaster and Sweet 100’s tomatoes don’t have any fruit yet. My Grape tomato plants were knocked over by a storm on June 19th and I had to replace them that next week so they are still small. So is the Roma tomato plant I purchased with the replacement Grapes.

My Sweet Banana peppers are small, but fruiting at least. My zucchini and straight neck yellow squash have blossomed, but then there’s no fruit. It may have been rabbits, so I’ve added some fencing. I have one cucumber on each my two different cucumber plants, one a Japanese cucumber, the other a Burpless Bush cucumber.

My cauliflower, Brussels’ Sprouts, and eggplant are not doing very well yet, but I have hope.

Even my herbs are negatively impacted by this summer weather. The only one that’s doing really well is the thyme.
click any picture to embiggen

We went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Saturday afternoon and we went to a Civil War re-enactment on Sunday. Both were very enjoyable, but my feet hurt far worse after the Civil War, lots more walking.

Here’s a video I took of Union Soldiers firing artillery near the end of the narrated battle. We were near a speaker so you might be able to hear some of the narration.

More pictures later.

too funny (and true)

12:34:56 7/8/9

Once in a thousand years…

And Happy Birthday Hubby!

On Friday, June 26, 2009 I received a take down notice from a police group in Mumbai, India. I reproduce the email in full here:

O.W.No.1680/Sr.PI/CCIC/09
Office of the
Sr. Inspector of Police
Cyber Crime Investigation Cell
Crime Branch,CID, Mumbai
Date :- 26/06/09
To,
Website Administator,
Musing mind.com

Subject :- Block / delete suspected links about muslim communities.

Dear Sir,

This office is enquiring a complaint wherein cartoon articles on alhaa and islamic religious personalities for eg. Mohammed and wife aisha are created and posted. They are making insulting remarks against muslim prophet and other personalities of muslim communities. You are requested to delete/remove block below mentioned suspected and malicious link and articles on your websites.

http://musing-minds.com/[…]/2008/02/jyllands-posten-mohammed.jpg

Regards,

(Mukund Pawar)
Police Inspector
Cyber Crime Investigation Cell
Crime Branch, CID, Mumbai.

This is exactly what I received, with all spelling, grammatical, and capitalization mistakes intact. The only change I made was in the url for the image. Entering it as given in the email was returning a 404 error anyway so I have replaced part of the url with […].

The email was sent from officer at cybercellmumbai dot com. That site states that it is the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, C.I.D., Mumbai.

The picture that is so offensive is this one:

from this post in February 2008: No Surrender.  The image was linked to Human Events’ article Muhammed Cartoon Gallery of 2/2/2006 where all the full size cartoons can be found.

Needless to say I am not going to take this down. I contacted a few people about it and was advised to report it to the Chilling Effects website, which I did. I was told that perhaps the worst case scenario of not complying with the request would be that I could never travel to India. The other worst case scenario was that I would become the next Salman Rushdie. I really doubt that one since others, far more prominent than I, have published these images as well.

I do hope I won’t have to go into hiding.

I’d like to know if anyone else received one of these notices. Please let me know, either in comments or by email to kimsch at this domain.

Thanks Howie for the link!

Founding Bloggers linked. Thanks!

Kyros from Report on Arrakis linked. Thanks!

What a strange weekend for Independence Day. Saturday was rainy and relatively chilly. Sunday was much warmer and mostly cloudy.

Still, the turnout at the Chicago Re-Tea Party wasn’t too bad with the rain, and Taste of Chicago, and some mis-information that the Tea Party had been canceled (a different one had).

Here’s Christina Tobin of ReTeaParty and FreeandEqual.

And Happy Birthday to Nancy Reagan and George W. Bush!

I almost forgot, when we were leaving the Chicago Childrens’ Museum there was a family arriving. Mom was dressed in a full black burqa. The daughter (about 4-5) was dressed in headscarf, tunic and loose trousers. The father and the boys were also wearing religious garb, tunics and hats.

Althouse fisks Weymouth.

Several hundred people here in the rain at Gateway Park at Navy Pier in Chicago.

A picture from the Chicago Children’s Museum:

A bigger picture and more can be found here.

Founding Bloggers has a picture of Hubby and our “growing debt-star” sign and many more:

Our Growing Debt-Star sign

Hubby, The Little Guy, and I are about to get on the train to go to the Tea Party at Navy Pier in Chicago! Yay!

I will be taking pictures with my camera and my phone.

I’ll see what I can post from the Tea Party!