Stephenville Update

(Cue the X-Files theme music now.)

From The Independent Reporter:

STEPHENVILLE, TX - A staff writer with the Stephenville Empire-Tribune recently found herself at the center of her own story after she was directed to stop writing about UFO’s and pursue more flattering articles.

Ultimately, she ended up out of a job.

Angelia Joiner, a staff writer with the Empire-Tribune for the past 18 months, on February 3-4, 2008 wrote two in-depth articles about Ricky Sorrells who alleged that he was being harassed by the United States Air Force…

Sorrells was one of several witnesses who claimed to have seen a UFO in Stephenville and was interviewed by the Associated Press in mid-January.

According to Ms. Joiner’s published account, Sorrells alleges that “military officials have been harassing him by flying military aircraft over his property at low altitudes.” The article goes on to state that the military flyovers have disturbed the man’s livestock and interrupted sleep patterns.

The articles created a lot of interest within the community, generating record revenue for the newspaper through increased readership in January, but eyebrows were raised within the editorial offices.

In an email posted on Open Minds Forum — a message board specializing in UFology, Disclosure, Exopolitics and Paranormal Studies — Ms. Joiner revealed that the newspaper wanted her to cease and desist crafting stories related to the matter.

Pressure may have come from influential citizens within the community. As one city councilman allegedly put it, “the whole thing was an embarrassment to the town,” Joiner stated.

The writer then made the decision to submit her two week notice, but was asked by her boss to leave sooner. Her computer was “confiscated”, her rolodex came up missing and she was “made to feel like a criminal.”

Stephenville Empire-Tribune: UFO witness claims harassment
Stephenville Empire-Tribune: More twists in the Sorrells’ saga
YouTube: CNN covers Stephenville Texas U.F.O. Sighting
CNN: UFO fever
Open Minds Forum: Angelia Joiner’s email to a message board administrator
Open Minds Forum: Read all posts by former newspaper writer Angelia Joiner (posted as “ajoiner”)
Above Top Secrets: Dublin Texas UFO witness Ricky Sorrells being harassed by the Air Force (MUST READ)
UFO Blog: Stephenville, Texas UFO - Empire-Tribune Writer Silenced! (Commentary)

Four Reasons Why I Like Hillary by Robert Kirk

1. She's pretty.


2. Her sapphire eyes dazzle in the light.


3. She's always right about stuff.


4. I think she'll beat Obama this time.

John McCain on the Pledge of Allegiance

(I received this in an e-mail and verified it. Regardless of how you feel about McCain, I hope you will read this.)

"As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home.

One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian. Mike came from a small town near Selma , Alabama . He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.

Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt.

Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event.

One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.

That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept Four naked light bulbs hung in each corner of the room.

As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian. He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making that flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world. You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country."

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Wednesday night, February 20th, this blog brought you the lunar eclipse.

This is what Tom Weller's excellent book Science Made Stupid has to say about eclipses:

"An eclipse of the moon occurs when the sun passes between the Earth and the moon.
An eclipse of the sun occurs when the shadow of the Earth falls on the sun.An eclipse of the Earth occurs when you put your hands over your eyes."

Lunar eclipses are often thought to be precursors of great calamity and evil.





The next day, Bill Clinton appeared in Odessa. Coincidence? You tell me.

Cats

My lovely and gracious wife now owns a digital camera, so now I don't have to steal all my pictures from Flickr. Now I need only steal the camera!

I want to introduce you to our three cats. This is Bubba, our grumpy oldest cat.
He was once a stray, then Liz started feeding him. He's very gentle now.Bubba used to have a girlfriend. She had kittens in our yard and left them for Bubba to raise. He became both mom and dad to them, but he slapped them across the yard when they tried to "nurse".
At one time there were about 10 kittens here, but we gave most of them away to be "barn cats" on a ranch.

These are Bubba's two remaining children who hang out here. This is Widget, who is small and semi-wild. She growled at the camera. One of the reasons she is still with us is because she is too smart for the cat trap.

And this is Bubba Junior, also known as Junior. He is about one and a half times Bubba's size. He is also half-wild and only approaches us when we have food.
(Bubba was photographed by Liz. I took pictures of the other two cats.)

Liz Gets a Great Evaluation!

My lovely and gracious wife got a great job evaluation! In the four areas in which she was judged, she was rated as "exceeding expectations" in two and as "proficient" in two others! No other first year teacher has been rated so highly in the past 11 years, according to Mrs. Hayes, her principal. Way to go, Liz!

Big Spring Refinery Explosion

From Fox News : BIG SPRING, Texas (About a hundred miles east of us - DK) - A thunderous explosion rocked an oil refinery Monday, injuring four workers and shaking buildings miles away.

One employee was hospitalized for burns, while the others were treated and released, said Blake Lewis, a spokesman for refinery owner Alon USA.

All workers were accounted for about an hour after the explosion, he said. The refinery employs about 170 people.

Fires caused by the blast were under control but still burning in the afternoon, Lewis said. The Dallas-based company was waiting for access to the site to investigate the cause of the explosion.

• Click here for photos.

The blast sent black smoke billowing into the sky, and forced the closure of schools and an interstate.

"It was extremely scary. You shook you were so scared," said Laura McEwen, the mayor's wife who lives about two miles from the refinery. "Our walls shook. It jolted your bed. It was like an earthquake."

John Moseley, managing editor of the Big Spring Herald whose downtown office is also about two miles from the refinery, said, "I thought it would knock the walls down."

Two elementary schools were evacuated, then classes were canceled at all nine campuses in the Big Spring school district, assistant superintendent Carie Dunnam said.

Classes also were canceled at Howard College, according to the two-year junior college's Web site.

The explosion forced open the doors of the school district's administration building about four miles from the plant, Dunnam said.

"Literally pieces of my ceiling came on top of my head," she said.

Bus routes were affected by road closures and that emergency officials were warning of the potential for more explosions, Dunnam said. Parents were asked to pick up their children, she said.

Interstate 20 was shut down near the plant, Big Spring police spokesman Roger Sweatt said.

"There's some fire and a whole bunch of smoke," Sweatt said.

Big Spring is about halfway between Dallas and El Paso.

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day Part Three - Looking Good for Jesus!

From The Blingdom of God :"Protests forced this line of cosmetics to be pulled. Context is everything, I guess--folks objecting to how stuff like this trivializes Jesus seem fine with products marketing 'the Christian palette for the face' in Christian stores."

Happy Valentine's Day Part Two!

Uhhhh...here's to finding love in a backwards world?
( Thanks to Conservatism With Heart)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's to finding love in a backwards world!

Halloween in February! (Graphic Image Warning)

Oh man. "It's not my fault," says the possible future president. "It was the 60's." View more here if you have the stomach for it.

Local Politics

Read about this man who's running for county attorney in Kermit. I suppose since it happened in Odessa (45 miles away) four years ago, they don't think we will notice or remember.

The Marfa Lights

This is for Anonymous. The Marfa Lights are about 130 miles southwest of us, and they're real. I've seen them.





This is funny. It's an alleged flying saucer on the ground in Odessa. It is OBVIOUSLY A WATER STORAGE TANK!

The Night I Got "Turned In" To America's Most Wanted

How do I start this story? From 2002 to 2006, before my wife found employment with the school district, I worked a weekend job at the local Pizza Hut as a delivery driver. This was in addition to my regular inventory gig during the week.

One Thursday night in 2005, I was on my way back from an inventory in Iraan, Texas, about 120 miles south of my home. Liz and Robert were at home. Liz heard a knock on the front door and opened it to find a U.S. Marshal standing there.

"Good evening, ma'am. Is your husband at home?" he asked.

"No, he's on his way back from Iraan," Liz answered.

"Do you have a recent picture of your husband, ma'am?"

Liz invited him in and showed him the most recent picture that was hanging in the hall.

"No, that's not the man we're looking for," said the Marshal. He thanked my wife and apologized for disturbing her. Apparently they had received an anonymous tip that a man named David Creamer, who had been recently featured on America's Most Wanted, was in the area and delivered pizzas in Kermit.

He doesn't look like me except for the glasses. His glasses are identical to the ones I wore at the time. He must have gotten his glasses at Wal-Mart just like me. And I did have a mustache at the time, but not a beard.

Interestingly, Creamer is a diabetic, which I am not. That condition must make life on the run even more difficult.

It wasn't until the Marshal left that Liz noticed the four other deputies on the porch, collectively carrying enough firepower to take down a brontosaurus!

"Is daddy in trouble?" Robert asked his mom.

About a week later, Johnny, the manager at the Hut, admitted to me that he knew the name of the customer who had "turned me in" because he (the customer) had been bragging about doing so. The guy who called the show is a security guard and fancies himself an amateur sleuth.

I still see this guy around town, and I've never spoken to him about the incident. I saw him at the grocery store on December 31 and wished him a happy new year. He wished me the same. I am trying to forgive him. Inwardly, though, I still say "G-r-r-r..."

Everyone at Pizza Hut thought the whole thing was funny. My household was not amused.

As for Creamer, he remains at large, probably stopping in from time to time at Wal-Mart to get his glasses adjusted. And probably ordering testing supplies from Wilford Brimley.

And as for me, it was just a coincidence that I decided to get different glasses and shave my mustache off.

How do I end this story? Well ... if you're a fugitive from justice, why not leave me a comment? Or better yet, just keep running...

And as for the rest of you ... say, doesn't that person delivering pizza in your neighborhood look a little seedy?

Omen?

From clintontracker.com:
Clinton Revels in Giant Win

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton became a super fan of the New York Giants Sunday, reveling in their upset of the New England Patriots -- and even seeing an omen for her own political future.

"Super Bowl, Super Tuesday, we've got one down, let's get the other," said Clinton.
Clinton has said she's banking on the "New York team" to carry the day in football's biggest test, and in a mega-round of primaries next Tuesday. With their 17-14 win, the Giants held up their end of the bargain.

Clinton held a campaign rally in Minneapolis, but gathered with about 200 backers at a local sports bar to watch football's biggest event.

When New York scored the go-ahead touchdown with 35 seconds remaining, Clinton leaped up and high-fived some young people standing near.

"That was unbelievable," she said. "Oh my gosh."

Filing out of the room after the game, Clinton gushed to reporters.

"I'm so excited, I'm thrilled," said Clinton. "It was a fabulous game."

Her husband, former President Clinton, watched the game with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Clinton cheered for the Giants and Richardson rooted on the Patriots as they watched the Super Bowl at the governor's mansion in Santa Fe, two days ahead of the state's Democratic presidential caucus.

Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley said there was no talk about Richardson endorsing Hillary Clinton before Super Tuesday.

Groundhog Day

In the words of lightside-robyn.blogspot.com:

"It's really no surprise Punxsutawney Phil, the famous furry weather forecaster, saw his shadow today. Six more weeks of winter. Yea. But really, would we expect on Feb. 2 that winter would end any sooner than mid-March anyway?

The only thing I like about Groundhog Day is the movie of the same name that came out in the early '90s. If you haven't seen it, rent it. In the comedy, Bill Murray plays the main character, a somewhat bitter TV weatherman who has to cover the Groundhog Day events in Punxsutawney. Suddenly he finds himself stuck in the little town, repeating the same day over and over again.

It's interesting to see his character change. At first he indulges in anything he can -- from too many jelly doughnuts to too much alcohol -- knowing the next morning it will be like nothing happened and he starts over. Gradually, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities and finds a way to make the experience a positive one.

Wouldn't that be an interesting opportunity? If you could go back and re-live one day of your life, which one would it be? Would it be one of the great ones you want to keep experiencing? Or would it be one you'd want to go back to so you could change something about it? "