I’ve been getting a lot of hits to this site by people looking for the video of the grape stomp where the lady falls flat on her face and makes some pretty humorous noises. I happen to have that video. I’ve had it on my server for over a year, but I never shared it on the site. It was in a folder that can be reached only by knowing the exact address. So here it is for everyone to view. I’ll keep it up for public downloading until downloads suck up too much bandwidth or someone hotlinks to it. If you want to share it on your site, put it on your own server or link to this post. Do not directly link to the file or I will take the file down.

Grape Stomp Video

The reason people keep ending up on my site when they search for that video is because my earlier post about the Wollersheim Grape Stomp.

UPDATE: 15 February 2006
Sorry, I’m not hosting the file anymore. I needed the bandwidth for other things.

My roommate wants to watch Survivor, even though there are countless other things on. This show is beyond stupid. Why do people watch this?

Shameless pitch time.

I love Me First And The Gimme Gimmes. Few punk bands can do a cover as well as them. They can take the intent and emotion of the original song and turn it punk. A nice example is “Wild World”. This song was of course written and originally performed by Cat Stevens.

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes is also on a really cool record label, Fat Wreck Chords, that gives away mp3’s of songs. “Wild World” is one of the songs offered, which you can download here.

Former Madison mayor Paul Soglin offers up his advice for preventing another Halloween fiasco and I’m glad he lost to Dave, not that Dave is doing an adequate job of handling city business either.

“First, the private apartment parties with the excessive drinking that has run rampant since the summer of 1997 must come to an end. That culture of alchol [sic] abuse is a major cotibutor [sic] to the dangerous substance abuse that takes place each fall.

Get the kids back in the bars where they belong.”

So Paul wants more regulations for what you do in your home, freedoms be damned. I know people that have a party at their home downtown instead of heading out on State Street. Then there’s people that have after parties at their apartments so people have some place to go after the bars on State Street close. In Paul’s dream world, everyone will party politely at State Street and then disburse and go to bed after bar time. Nice fantasy, but it will never happen unless you have it enforced by shock troops.

It’s also a fantasy that apartment parties downtown are something that has escalated since 1997. Everyone knows the University students have a long history of parties. It dates back before Soglin’s time at the University in the 60’s. The Mifflin Street Block Party is an homage to that history.

As soon as I heard about this I knew some people would doubt the Air Marshals. Sure enough, a moonbat makes his doubts public. The Skipper over at Barking Moonbat asks a few questions that I can answer, or pretty much anyone else could answer if they weren’t dedicated to undermining national security.

“If this man was bipolar, why wasn’t he on his medicine?”

That’s a good question. He can’t answer that, but his wife who was on the flight sure can. It is wise to not take your medication for a mental illness if you’re traveling, especially by air?

“Did the air marshals act properly?”

Yes, it only takes a moment to activate a bomb trigger.

“Was deadly force really necessary?”

A man that claims to have a bomb is acting erratically and when asked to get on the ground he attempts to reach into his backpack. Should the Air Marshals be required to wait until after the man has a chance to active the bomb trigger?

“I do not like the idea of making the rest of the passengers sit with their hands on their heads while dogs sniff the luggage. Why does one man’s irrational act automatically place suspicion on the other passengers?”

The Air Marshals to not have the luxury of hindsight. We know the man was not a terrorist because his background has been checked now. But in the moments after the incident, it must be treated as a terrorist act and terrorists often work in teams. Could he have been a decoy for the real attack? Were his co-conspirators still on the plane with a bomb? I think The Skipper lacks a basic understanding of tactics. A diversion is a common ploy in many attacks. The plane and passengers must be checked for the safety of everyone involved. So yes, the irrational act of one person on a flight places all the other passengers under suspicion.

“People, we’re not being smart about this. When the authorities start to panic there is little hope for the rest of us …”

I think this is cause for hope. They didn’t panic. The Air Marshals acted immediately and when it looked like the situation was about to escalate, the man reaching for his backpack, the Air Marshals acted quickly to protect the passengers. This sends a message to potential terrorists. We have Air Marshals on flights and they will not hesitate to take proper protective measures.

Now don’t get confused thinking The Skipper has a military background because of the name he chooses to use online and would therefore know a thing or two about security or handling terrorism. He’s a Oracle database administrator and a computer science professor. The Skipper claims to be a Reagan Republican, but he forgets Reagan was not shy about taking action to protect Americans.