"It was all an accident -- honest!"

Stephenson, 44, took took the stand in his own defense, telling jurors that he accidentally burned the woman while trying to warm her up with a propane lantern.


Stephenson said that he and the woman were having sex inside the trashed-out home of his deceased grandmother when the incident happened. He said the house had no utilities and that he and the woman were freezing.


He told jurors he picked up a propane lantern - the home’s only light and heat source - and moved the flames up and down his own arms to warm them. He said the woman, who was mostly nude, asked him to warm her too. He said he was attempting to do so when liquid from the broken lantern dripped down her back.

Then why didn't you take her to the hospital, nimrod?

He said that when he saw the seriousness of her burns the next morning, he panicked.


"I got excited," he said. "I said, 'Oh my Gosh. Now I’m going to go to prison for the rest of my life.'"

Well, here's hoping your premonition was accurate, Mr. Stephenson. Here's hoping you are locked up for life.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 16:27 0 comments

 
The torturer goes to trial
I first reported on this story last March.

Now, Robert "Drew" Stephenson is on trial for charges that could send him to prison for life.

Why'd he do it? Depends on who you ask. The victim says Stephenson was in a rage because her call to police landed him in jail on an assault charge. He also accused her of cheating on him.

Stephenson, however, blames it on drugs and "rough sex".

Yeah, right. He was on a three week drug and rough sex binge.

As I said last March -- hanging's too good for some folks.

More to come as the trial continues.

UPDATE: The midday news aired this segment. This local Fox news report is a bit more graphic, but misstates the date of the event as March 2005, not 2006.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 15:50 0 comments

 
Note to GOP: Nobody likes a whiner
Apparently, house Republicans are upset that the Democrats are using their House majority to -- surprise -- pass legislation they favor and shut out the minority.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi publicly and repeatedly pledged before November's election that if Democrats won a House majority and she became speaker they would treat Republicans with respect and comity and would foster bipartisanship.

Instead, three weeks into a session in which the strong-willed Pelosi has rammed through important legislation and major rule changes, increasingly exasperated and angry Republicans are asking when the new Democratic speaker and her leadership team will keep their pledge to create a less-partisan, more-open atmosphere.

Listen up, GOP: this is how you act when you are in the majority. You pass bills supporting issues on which you were elected. If you claim to be the party of fiscal restraint, then you pass bills exercising that restraint. You shut out members of the opposition and legislate. If the country doesn't like the legislation you generate, they'll let you know at the ballot box.

That's the way the Founders designed the system.

And its the way many conservatives (myself included) wish the GOP would have governed over the past twelve years. Had they done so, I suspect they would still be in the majority.

What can the Republicans do about the situation? Not much, so long as the Democrats remain unified. All the Republicans can do is take on the role of the loyal opposition, standing up for conservative principles and values where they can, and forging alliances with conservative Democrats when possible.

Oh -- and the Republicans can stop the whining. Nobody likes (or respects, for that matter) a whiner.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 09:51 0 comments

 
How freaking stupid . . .
My wife and oldest daughter are big fans of the show Gray's Anatomy. Basically, its a soap opera set in an Oregon hospital and revolves around the lives of four or five young internists in the surgical ward.

Apparently, last fall, one of the cast members called another cast member a "faggot". The recipient of this particular epithet, as fate would have it, is homosexual. The actor who uttered the epithet, Isaiah Washington, later apologized.

Apparently, the apology is not good enough. Now, ABC executives apparently have decided to force Washington to undergo a "psychological assessment" in order "to examine why he would say such hateful words." If he doesn't, ABC has apparently threatened to cut him from the show, effective immediately.

Wow. I am amazed that ABC would threaten to fire a costar of a very popular show over one remark that he later apologized for making. Political correctness is running amok.

Just one guy's opinion.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 13:33 0 comments

 
Will a few more of these bring McCain back to reality?
In a straw poll of Arizona GOP precinct committemen, McCain only got half the votes of Duncan Hunter, a 13 term congressman (also from Arizona).

Yes, it was a straw poll -- but McCain should have done much better in his own back yard.

One can hope this bodes well for Republican chances in 2008.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 07:36 2 comments

 
Yet another reason I like Dr. Dobson
"Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances."

Me neither, Dr. Dobson, and for many of the same reasons: McCain's squishiness on the War on Terror; his ambivalence on the issue of gay marriage; his sponsorship of the unconstitutional McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill; his desire to extend legal adjudicatory rights to prisoners of war in Guatanamo; his opposition to strong border security; his willingness to legalize millions of illegal immigrants; etc., etc.

As I have said before, if the decision is between John McCain and Hillary Clinton, I'll cast a vote for a Democrat for President for the first time in my life.

Why?

Simple. John McCain is NOT a conservative. He is part of the old guard of Republican politics, a pseudo-Rockefeller Republican. If he becomes President, he will be able to appoint moderates to the courts and to positions of power within the administration to implement moderate policies. He will be able to drive a stake through the heart of what remains of the Reagan revolution. More importantly, he will have the ability to place his allies and supporters in positions of power in the Republican party in all fifty states. In short, a McCain paresidency will have the effect of shutting conservatives out of political power for decades.

Hillary would be a disaster as president -- no question about that. I suspect her economic policies and foreign policy would costs American jobs and lives. I do not think, however, that she could destroy the country. After all, Jimmy Carter didn't, and it's hard to see how Hillary Clinton could be any more of a disaster than Carter.

And, one must always remember that one great thing Jimmy Carter gave the American people -- the Ronald Reagan Presidency. If Hillary wins in 2008, I suspect a strongly conservative candidate would do well in 2012.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 20:57 0 comments

 
Didn't we go to war over something similar back in the 1840s?

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.
. . .
The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.

Why were they forced to retreat? Aren't National Guard units armed? I would hope that our National Guard could hold its own in a firefight against drug runners and border coyotes.

And yet the rumors from D.C. are that funding for the wall will be cut by the new Democratic congress.

Sigh.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 16:52 0 comments