| Taleban threaten to step up attacks after 'Royal aggression' by Prince ...
Is it really true? There was/is a delightful movie called "The Student Prince" with Ann Blyth and Edmund Purdom...singing voice of Mario Lanza...that forcefully makes the point that a Prince cannot, at the snap of a finger, be "just one of the boys", and be treated as such, when the reality is that he is still a Prince... with all that that implies for himself and for those around him. Thank God that he is going home safe. God Save The Queen! .
Feisty locals dealt British navy first defeat of Revolutionary War 232 ...
Taken into the free harbor of Gloucester, it was stripped of its precious cargo: armaments enough to turn the tide of war in Boston."The capture of the Nancy was the biggest boost to American morale since the Falcon fight," Garland wrote in "The Fish and the Falcon.""As the tackles were sent down Nancy's hatches, and her captors hauled them up, they could scarcely believe their eyes: 2,000 muskets, bayonets, and infantry accoutrements; 100,000 musket flints, 62,000 pounds of musket shot; 7,000 rounds of shot, 12- and 6-pound; 20,000 one-pound shot; bomb carcasses, 4 siege mortars, including a brass giant with a 13-inch bore; 21 6-pound cannon; 8,000 fuses, several barrels of power; a great variety of the implements of war."General George Washington, who had noticed Gloucester's strategic significance even before the victory over the Falcon, had been hoping to take the Nancy.
Dreams, bullpen stressing me out
Last night I dreamed I was sent out to Turner Field in the middle of a Braves game, having seen not one minute of spring training and told to come up with something to write, ready to turn in at the end of the game. Oy. I used to have the old recurring stress-out dream in my beat-writing days. But now? Here I am the back-up beat writer in the middle of January. I'm dreaming this the night before I'm supposed to write one lousy fill-in blog for DOB? Such high standards you see, for the Braves/Man in Black. Or so sayeth my subconscious. Let me back up for a second. For those not reading carefully it's CARROLL again - hey! Wassup? Long time! - and I'm feeling a little out of it after submersing myself in hockey (hockey?) and a little Hawks and Falcons for the last three months.
McAllen cracking down on garage sales
McALLEN — The Saturday afternoon garage sale is no longer as easy and emptying your closets and hammering a sign onto your front lawn. A new city ordinance in McAllen restricts residents to selling only "used merchandise or personal property" — not new items, as is allowed under the former code. The regulation is set to go into effect this week. The more stringent regulations follow city officials’ discovery that residents were selling gift baskets and tourist merchandise out of their homes under the auspices of a garage sale, said McAllen Planning Director Juli Rankin. "Frankly, before this came to light I didn’t think it was that active," she said. "Around holiday times we do get people who make things, like figurines and gift baskets. "This last Valentine’s Day we had people make up Valentine’s baskets with candy and flowers and then sell them from their residence." Such activity disrupts the quality of life in the city’s neighborhoods, officials say.
Where are our ambassadors?
Oh, but hang on, he did know one thing about us. "I hear Australia has a very good cricket team," the bloke piped up, "but people tell me they are very bad sports!" Are you with me? You can argue that the Herald's Peter Roebuck is right in saying that Matthew Hayden should hang his head in shame for calling Harbhajan Singh an obnoxious weed. And I might have a sneaking sympathy for those who reckon that Jeff Thomson and Tommy Raudonikis are right on the money when they say that Hayden and company should be encouraged to say whatever they like to prevent cricketers from coming across as anaemic blobs. But in the mean time, surely, neither of us can dispute the fact that our international reputation has been sullied. Year after year, season after season, Australian cricketers are making damaging headlines around the world because of the things they say on the field and, lately, to a lesser extent, off it as well.
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