Thursday - July 02, 2009

SOME IMPORTANT JULY BIRTHDAYS ….

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Of course our birthday is July 4th.  Everybody knows that.

But July has a few other birthdays as well and they belong to BMEWS people.

For example .... I believe today is the birthday of :

CMBLAKE

HAPPY JULY BIRTHDAYS ALSO GO OUT TO:

PIXIE, who remains forever young and whose birthday is July 15.

RANCINO has a birthday this month too.  It’s July 23rd.

Hope our members will mark the dates and wish our BMEWS friends well on the day. 

I do realize I’m ahead of things with this but living outside my own country, I insist on being forgiven for wishing ourselves a Happy 4th, prematurely.

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA .......

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Letters From Littleton

Those Confusing British



The latest packet of news clippings arrived last night from Peiper. This one has a magazine sized insert from The Daily Telegraph, called The Complete Expenses Files.

Now, I fully expect our British readers to be quite wound up about this, as it’s a major scandal in their government. I’ve been trying to follow it, as Peiper has sent me several clippings on this before. But frankly, I just don’t get it.

The English have Parliament as their Legislative Branch. I don’t know why the word has that extra “a” in it, but I have figured out that Parliament meets in London. And since the MPs - not the Military Police, but the Members of Parliament (think Congressmen) have to go to London to sit on their benches in Parliament (no chairs, but they have front benches and back benches), they’re allowed to get a house or an apartment there. It’s too far to drive. England is a large country, about the size of Missouri or Alabama (or Idaho or Michigan if you include Scotland and Whales and that bit of Ireland to make up the whole UK), this means the MPs need a place to stay while Parlia-ment is in session. And that costs money!

To offset that added expense, MPs are given an expense account. Each one of them - and there are lots of MPs, something like 659 of them, possibly 644 - gets the cash, and those expenses are going to ad up. But not really. You see, each MP is allowed £23,083 per year for expenses. That’s $37,834. About the price of a Nissan Maxima. MPs are already paid an extraordinary salary that averages £64,766 ($106,174). Compared to a US Senator’s mere $162,100. Compared with the $110-175,000 a low/mid-level executive would earn in the American corporate world. The entire bill for all the expense accounts, what they call the ACA (for Additional Costs Allowance) comes out to about $21 million per year. Which is about how much it costs New Jersey to put in a toll booth, or repave 17 miles of highway. Heck, California spends that much just to “rehabilitate” 3/4 of a mile of highway. So we are talking about quite a fortune here.

Ok, that’s just a bit of background. Now on to the scandal: the public over there is in a tizzy fit because ... get this ... the MPs are submitting expense claims in amount up to, but not over, their expense account level. And it’s rocking the nation. The nerve! The gall! The cheek, that these rotters have gone and spent the money that we said they could spend!

HUH???

Granted, some - many! - have put in for reimbursements that don’t actually wash. Like mortgages that don’t exist. And some have put in some rather egregious claims, like having the moat cleaned (must be from the House of Lords) or for the cost of building a floating duck house. Or buying extra manure for their gardens, 28 tons of it actually. Some even put in for some cash to get the mole catcher in for a visit, or for the bug man to come and spray for wasps. Outrageous! Those things have nothing to do with the cost of running a home at all! If the mole catcher’s bill is allowed, then the next thing you know they’ll want money to hire a kid to mow the lawn!

But the bottom line is that these law makers are allowed to claim this much per year, and quite a number of them are actually doing just that!! So heads are rolling on both sides of the aisle. Several have already stepped down in shame, and many have declared that they won’t seek re-election.

There are times when I just don’t get the British.

You may read all about it, in amazing detail, right here.

Rare copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence found gathering dust in BRITAIN’S National Archive

Hey ... How about this.  What a find.

Here’s some reader comments from The Mail.

Contrary to what many think, the declaration was not signed on July 4. The first public reading was on July 8. It was not engrossed until 7/19, and ordered to be signed. The signing did not start until Aug 2. Happy 233rd birthday!

- Marlene, Alexandria, VA, 02/7/2009 15:47

Please preserve that copy for us just in case ours goes missing. The idiots in Washington don’t seem to remember what it says or why it was written.

- Terrie, Houston, USA, 02/7/2009 15:15

Declaration of Independence found gathering dust in BRITAIN’S National Archive

By Tom Kelly
Last updated at 4:45 PM on 02nd July 2009

An original first print of the United States Declaration of Independence has been discovered gathering dust in Britain after nearly 250 years.

The poster size proclamation, which is in perfect condition and is said to be worth £5million, is one of only 26 surviving initial copies of the document that changed the course of history.

It was found by complete chance by an American antiquarian bookseller carrying out unrelated research in the National Archives in Kew, West London.

The manuscript was hidden among files of correspondence from U.S. colonists that had been intercepted by the British in the 18th century.

The Declaration of Independence was mainly written by the U.S. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, and is described by historians as ‘America’s birth certificate.’

It was adopted by the Continental Congress in 1776 which announced that the thirteen American colonies that were at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire.

It includes the then extraordinary assertion: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,’ which sent shockwaves through the hereditary European monarchies, and paved the way for the French Revolution 13 years later.

The document was finalised and approved in Philadelphia on July 4 1776 and the 200 first copies were made by printer John Dunlap that night and distributed throughout the colonies the following morning to be read aloud to the colonists and their militia.

It is not certain how the newly discovered copy came into British hands, but it is likely to have been captured by the Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War which continued for seven years after the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The last discovery of a Dunlap print was at a flea market in 1989, and it sold at auction in 2000 for £4.94million.

Despite its value, the National Archives said it will not be selling the print, although it might be loaned to former foes in the U.S.

‘The Americans are very excited by it,’ said a spokesman.

‘We do often loan out our key documents and I’m sure if an American institution wanted to borrow it, we would consider lending it to them.

‘It’s amazing that it has been lying here for so long undetected. It just shows how many documents we have.’

Edward Hampshire, the diplomatic and colonial specialist at the National Archives, said it was an incredibly exciting find.

‘It is likely that only around 200 of these were ever printed, so uncovering a new one nearly 250 years later is extremely rare, especially one in such good condition’.

The National Archives already has two other copies of the Declaration of Independence, one of which it keeps on display.

The Declaration was signed by 56 delegates from the colonies including two future presidents, Jefferson and John Adams, prompting church bells to ring over Philadelphia.

In the U.S. July 4 is marked by a public holiday, known as Independence Day.

SOURCE

A Post For Mom

I’m fine, don’t worry. We’re uphill from all this mess. The roads are open and dry.



For everyone else who is not Mom:

I live about a quarter mile away from the Spruce Run reservoir. The surface of that lake is pretty much the same elevation as the foundation of my building, and there is a small valley between my place and all the water. So no flooding here. Heck, it isn’t even raining here. Right this minute, but the clouds are lowering. But it did rather pour last night. Again. As always. It’s rained here just about every day since the 4th week in May I think.

It’s not the reservoir that’s the issue. It’s the river, and the river is boiling. Downtown Clinton sits about 4 or 5 feet below the level of the spillway by our world famous Red Mill. And the water is starting to flow over the edge of the gabion wall. If the river rises another 4” it will flood the town.

My man Apu at the Kwiki-Mart says the water was higher late last night. The river runs behind his store on one side, and a big feeder stream comes in behind him on the other side. So he’s concerned, but hasn’t had to get the mops out. Yet.

Flood warning issued for South Branch of Raritan River for Clinton, Stanton, Three Bridges and Neshanic
by Terry Wright/Hunterdon County Democrat
Thursday July 02, 2009, 8:44 AM

The South Branch of the Raritan River was predicted to flood this morning, with Clinton, Stanton, Three Bridges and Neshanic in Branchburg, Somerset County among the areas expecting high water.

“A surge of water was moving down” the river south of High Bridge around 7 a.m., according to the flood warning from the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.

River gauges indicated that some minor flooding was likely along the South Branch from south of High Bridge to Branchburg, NWS said. A flood warning means that flooding is imminent or has been reported.

The flood came after heavy rainfall overnight, coupled with rain earlier in the week. More than six-tenths of an inch of rain fell in some parts of Hunterdon early today.

Excessive runoff from heavy rainfall was the cause flooding of small creeks and streams, highways and underpasses, besides the river, the weather service said in announcing the warning, in effect until 10 a.m.

Central Jersey also faces a “slight risk of severe thunderstorms” later today, the NWS said. Scattered thunderstorms this afternoon and evening could produce damaging wind gusts and large hail, as well as frequent, dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning and heavy rainfall which could cause localized flooding.

Meanwhile, in downtown Clinton, at the millpond below the reservoir ...

I live about 3/4 mile to the NW of downtown, and it’s a good 15 feet uphill from the millpond dam. The reservoir itself lies about 35 feet above the town though!



Water rages over the dam at our famous Red Mill, right on the edge of town.
The water wheel is turning, and it’s not even connected. That never happens!



The town end of the damn, by the art museum. Note the water pouring over into the parking lot



Water coming over the gabion wall at the museum. Downtown is off camera to the left.



another view of the beginnings of a flood. If the river rises another couple inches, downtown is done for

I’MSORRYI’MSORRYI’MSORRY … WTF is it with these retroactive apologies?

Don’t you just hate this BS.
Get a load of this.

David Cameron has publicly apologised for Section 28 the law introduced by the Thatcher government banning local authorities from promoting homosexuality

Just so you folks back home know, Mr. Cameron is more then likely to become the next PM and he is the head of what passes here for, the Conservative Party, known as Tories.

No pun intended here but I guess he’s sucking up to this crowd for what else?  VOTES!  That’s my guess anyway.  Why in the world is that necessary to begin with?  It was the 80s and he wasn’t in power.  (Lyndon?  What was he doing back then?)
I just see red every time somebody not connected by generation or authority makes these sucky apologies. 

David Cameron says sorry over Section 28 gay law
David Cameron has publicly apologised for Section 28 the law introduced by the Thatcher government banning local authorities from promoting homosexuality.

By Andrew Pierce

The Tory leader, speaking at a Gay deviant pride event, went much further than before in apologising for decisions taken by the party when Baroness Thatcher was leader.

Mr Cameron, the first Tory leader to speak at a Gay queer pride event, said: “I am sorry for Section 28. We got it wrong. It was an emotional issue. I hope you can forgive us.”

Aagghhhh gak.  What the hell is this hope you can forgive US?  US?  Jeez, I bet ya none of the tories in office today were even involved with that decision.
And if any were, so what?  So this is what the Tories and the UK have come to.  TINOs!

Section 28, which became law in 1988, banned local authorities from portraying homosexuality in a positive light. It became a totemic issue for Conservative modernisers. In 2003, when it was abolished by the Labour government, Mr Cameron voted for only the partial lifting of the ban.

Mr Cameron was speaking at an event in London to support Margot James, the Tory candidate for Stourbridge, who is the party’s only openly gay woman candidate. If she wins Stourbridge, one of the party’s key target seats, she will be only the second out gay woman in the House of Commons.

Mr Cameron said: “It is remarkable to have a Conservative leader standing on a gay pride queer platform. Five years ago not many gays would have turned up. Five years ago not many Tories would have turned up either.”

He said one of his “proudest” moments as Tory leader was telling the annual party conference in 2006 that they had a duty to support a “commitment to marriage” among men and women, between a “man and a man, and a woman and a woman”.

Mr Cameron and the shadow cabinet have been on a

(kiss -kiss)

charm offensive with the gay community as new polling research indicates for the first time since 1988 they have moved ahead of the Labour Party.

A survey published today by Jake, gay professionals networking organisation, had Labour on 20.7 per cent, the Lib Dems, on 27.6 per cent, and the Conservatives ahead on 38.2 per cent.

Last year Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, said that the party had got it badly wrong on gay issues. ‘I think we indulged prejudice in the 1980s and missed the point,’ he said. ‘It’s not gay men who are abusing women and abandoning children – it’s straight men.” he said.

While Tony Blair said that the introduction of civil partnerships was one of his proudest achievements as Prime Minister Gordon Brown did not attend the Commons to vote in favour of any of Labour’s pro-gay legal reforms. Votes which he missed include the Government’s equalisation of the age of consent, gay couples being able to jointly adopt, civil partnerships, the Equality Act and the abolition of Section 28.

Mr Cameron voted against gay couples adopting but did vote for the introduction of the Civil Partnerships Act, which introduced a form of ‘gay marriage’.

Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall the gay rights organisation, said: “This is something people have waited on for many years. It is a remarkably positive step forward. Without any doubt the legacy of Section 28, even after it was repealed in 2003, has been a great deal of electoral damage to the Conservatives among a significant number of people who would otherwise have been natural supporters.”

SOURCE

Math for Breakfast

In one of my posts the other day I mentioned that I had to do a bit of cleaning up here at the blog, and that I was keeping an eye on space limits. Peiper wrote me about it, so I jokingly replied that he should stop uploading those 20GB pictures of Carla Bruni.

He wrote back with a bit of confusion about megs and gigs and file sizes, so I started writing another one of my computer education email replies back, when I realized, WTH, make a post out of it. So here goes.

Strange, but every number related to computers is done in Base 2, since the heart of a computer is the simple transistor, which is either on (1) or off (0). This leads to some really large, odd looking numbers when you’re talking about larger values, so people have come up common words to express those numbers. These words, prefixes actually, have become common in our language and are used by everyone, even though most people round them off to the nearest power of ten. But computers are very exact, so we won’t do any rounding in this discussion.

8 bits to the byte. 8b = 1B. 1/2 a byte is called a nibble, but nobody uses this term anymore. Nobody hardly even thinks of bits anymore either. Bytes are the common unit of data. All a single bit is, really, is an On/Off switch. You can store some meaning in a byte, but not much. 8 bits limits you to 2⁸ numbers, a mere 256 of them, with the values 0-255. A 32 bit “word” of 4 bytes, or a 64 bit “word” of 8 bytes, is more realistic, but for now we all use bytes as the common size measurement. Units of bits are written as Xb, units of bytes are written as XB. Nuance! Moving right along ...

2¹⁰ bytes = 1024, which is 1 kilobyte, also called 1KB or 1K. For everything other than computers, 1K = 1000.
2²⁰ bytes = 1,048,576, which is 1 megabyte, 1MB. 1M for the rest of everything = 1 million.
2³⁰ bytes = 1,073,741,824, which is 1 gigabyte, 1GB. 1G in common use = 1 billion.
2⁴⁰ bytes = 1,099,511,627,776, which is 1 terabyte, 1TB. 1T of anything else = 1 trillion.

Yes, that’s the American billion. And trillion? Sorry, but I didn’t write the rules. The next larger unit is the petabyte, 2⁵⁰ bytes, 1PB. what we over here call a zillion. This is a number even larger than the total US National Debt. You may insert your own “PETA bites” joke here.

Still with me? Great. Today’s LCD computer monitors are usually in the 16:9 format, which is the width to height ratio. For a 22” diagonal screen of that ratio, this gives you a screen 19.17” wide and 10.79” tall.

The human eye can only distinguish about 3780 x 2485 pixels, which equates to the 1 arcminute (1/60th of one degree) resolving power of the eye on a screen that size. Right now, it looks like Toshiba has a wicked expensive high resolution 22” monitor that does 3840 x 2400 pixels, which is right at the limit of human perception. Awesome. And about $18,000.

Let’s assume price is no object, and that Toshiba has the ability to stitch several of these together to make an ultra-resolution “JumboTron”. Ok. Now let’s assume dear Carla is quite tall, so we’ll need a screen a bit over 6 feet wide to display her life-size, lying down. That means our “UltraTron” monitor would be made from 12 of these smaller ones, 3x4, to give a screen size 32.37” tall and 76.68” wide. I’ll leave it to you to build the graphics card. Anyway, this display would have a resolution of 15,360 x 7200. 110, 592,000 pixels. Call it 110.6Mp.

“Full color” graphics currently means “32 bit color”, which means a pixel can be any one of 2³² colors. 4,294,967,296 colors, to be exact. A 32 bit color bitmap file of a 110.6Mp image works out to a file size of 17,623,131 bytes, which is 16.41GB. Run that file on the quarter million dollar monitor described above and you can look at Carla as large as life and in a level of detail you couldn’t tell from real life.

So, unless you’ve got some larger than life, ultra-detailed photos to upload, don’t worry about it. BMEWS has a mere 1.5GB of storage space, which is plenty enough for the time being.

My first computer was upgraded (!!) from a 10MB to a 32MB hard drive. A good old Seagate ST-4096. It was HUGE! Plus I ran a Perstor card on it, which converted the drive to over 120MB!!!  Beyond massive in those days. 20 years later, right now, for about £55, you can buy a 1TB drive. A terabyte hard drive. For $90. Horry Clap! 1TB is 32,768 (32K) times bigger than 32MB. And the price is a third what I paid back then for the ST-4096, plus the money itself is worth less than half as much. Amazing.

The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S. ..

I hate seeing that but am not surprised one bit.

I’ve been following this subject for awhile and have been aghast at the rate of crime, and the nature of same, in a country I once thought of as among the safest.

I clearly recall some 25 years ago, being able to walk streets quite late and seeing others do the same with no fear.  Try that today. I dare ya.

There isn’t any real honest to gosh penalty to discourage the bad guys and sadly now, women as well in greater numbers. And many not yet women but young girls.  ASBOS are not the answer and neither is giving ppl a break. 

Just yesterday the headlines told us about Bernie Madoff getting 150 years for the biggest ponzi scheme in history.  Good. The bastard deserves to be in jail. But wait a damn minute please.  Why not the same for rapists and killers?  What kind of punishment is deserving of ‘yoots’ who set their victims on fire?
Oh… screw with large amounts of money and it’s jail for life and no time off.

For a long time ppl here kept pointing to my country every time a horrid crime over there was reported. Almost as though they have it better here.
Well, they do not. If they ever did and they may well have , that’s all ancient history.

Was a time here when even many criminals would not carry a gun.  That’s because the penalty was so high.  And the thought of shooting a policeman wasn’t an issue. Well, mostly it wasn’t. Seemed to be some kind of unwritten rule or law about assaults on cops and especially with guns.  But that’s no longer the case.
The UK has something else to worry it that perhaps 25 years ago was only in the far future.  Foreign and illegal criminals and and many who can’t be deported.
So the bottom line is ... a totally defenseless law abiding public.  And I will confess that at my age, that’s a worry more now then ever.

The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S.

By James Slack
Last updated at 10:34 AM on 02nd July 2009

Britain’s violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it is revealed today.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world’s most dangerous countries.

The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour. 

The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.

In the decade following the party’s election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

* The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
* It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
* The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
* It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.

CHECK THIS LINK NOW

Catch that link above and see the charts as well as more of the story.
What a sad state of affairs.  If you read the comments by Brits that follow the article, it’s plain the people know the system is screwed and they know why. And they do have answers.  But the powers that be are deaf. I swear they must be. Or else their attitude is much like the late MIL and this isn’t meant to be a joke.

The old lady used to say, “ I hear what I want to and ignore all the rest.”
I think that must be how politics work.  How else would anyone explain where we are now and how we all got here.

   Wednesday - July 01, 2009

Run Ragged

Hard Work ... is hard work!
Me so tired ...



So, I was up at 5am today, on about 4 hours sleep. Got the coffee IV started, loaded up the Saturn with ladders and stuff like it was a rented pack mule, and headed on out. Got to the job site at 8, and it was a cool and soggy NJ morning. 62 with 94% humidity. Lovely window washing weather. By the time I had the first 8 done though, the clouds blew away, the sun came out, and suddenly it was summer. Like throwing a switch. So I spent the rest of the day sweating buckets, but I got the job done. This customer only wanted the outside of the upstairs done, thank you too much, so I didn’t go crazy doing detail work. No scraping, no triple cleaning. But I still did really good work and the windows are nice and clean. I got back here at about 3 and was exhausted. Took a shower, had a couple more glasses of juice to drink, and took a nap. Got up about 6:30, made some decaf and went out on the front balcony to drink it and wake up. Neighbor lady comes walking by and sees me. “Do you still do windows? I need mine done.” So I got my business cards, went over and took a look, she agreed on a price, and I did the job right on the spot. I give the folks in my building a discount, along with extra business cards to hand out. One hand washing the hand washing the windows, right? So now I’m all dirty and damp again, but hey, another $50 in my pocket. So I put on a dry shirt and I’m starting some pasta, and I figure I’ll take out the recycling and the trash while the water heats, so I do that. And I run into 2 more neighbors out having a chat and a smoke, and I talk to them and wind up with another condo job for Friday. Oh, and at the first house this morning I met the friend of “Mrs. outside upstairs”, and she’s going to call me for a whole house estimate. Cool. Word of mouth is the best advertising.

Mr. Squeegee’s window tips of the day:
A) use 2 buckets. One bucket for your soapy water, the other bucket to rinse your scrubber. Every time you come back for a dip, vigorously rinse the scrubber. I did this today, and even after 24 big dirty windows and dusty sills the wash water was still clean enough after the job to pour back into jugs to use another day.

B) If you do screens: try just brushing them first. A good hand brush, like the kind you’d clean up sawdust with. If that doesn’t do it, then use a different scrubber to wash them. Use your >“porcupine" scrubber for screens, not the scrubber with the scrubby pad on one side. Best practice is too have another 2 buckets of clean water: dip the scrubber in the soapy window water, scrub, then rinse in bucket #3. This water will turn brown in a big hurry. Then scrub the screen again with the scrubber dipped in your window rinse bucket. Then again in bucket #4, which is plain clean water. Then blot the screen with rags, assuming it isn’t a removable screen you can just shake dry. You have to get the soap rinsed off thoroughly or else it will dry white and blotchy. This method works, and you still keep your wash water clean. It just means you have to buy a couple more buckets and a few more 5 gallon jugs. (At this point I’m sometimes hauling 15 gallons of water to a job site. You can’t count on water being available)

Ok, dishes are done, laundry can wait, dinner is cooked and eaten, and I’m still tired. Must post ... at least something. Ah! A couple cartoons. Good old Ramirez.



I think it’s fantastic that the Honduran Supreme Court gave that wannabe dictator the toss.
Somebody has his head up his O-ass if he can’t see that. Sic Semper Tyrannis baby!



Damn straight. An impossible job, well done. I wish I could say “Now come on home”,
but the next stop is going to be Afghanistan. Don’t fuck that up too, Obama

Thousands of U.S. Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops poured into Taliban-infested villages of southern Afghanistan with armor and helicopters Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama’s strategy to stabilize the country.

The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the world’s largest opium poppy producing area. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation’s Aug. 20 presidential election.

Officials described the operation, dubbed Khanjar, or “Strike of the Sword,” as the largest and fastest-moving of the war’s new phase, involving nearly 4,000 of the newly arrived Marines and 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces.

“Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.

God Bless Our Troops!



Gee, ya think? I’m not sure really, since Jordan could have had this bunch of crazy killers 40 years ago. Ah, I get it.
The Palis are going to take over Jordan next. Not surprised, but I’m a bit behind on the news from that region



I’ve got some good emails that I’ll get to tomorrow. And with that ... good night!

DRAMATIC PHOTOS OF WATER RESCUE ……….

Just something some may not have seen and of interest.  And it’s AMERICAN!

The moment construction worker dangling from a crane plucks woman trapped in swirling river to safety

By Sarah Titterton
Last updated at 5:54 PM on 01st July 2009

A construction worker dangles from a crane, his arm stretched out to reach a terrified woman trapped in swirling water at the base of a dam.

These astonishing images show the dramatic rescue of the woman after her boat overturned near the dam on the Des Moines River in Iowa.

She was pulled to safety by the quick-thinking construction crew - but her husband, who was with her in the boat when it overturned yesterday, tragically drowned.

Meanwhile, fire crews tried to throw life preservers from a boat.

After the initial attempt with the crane was unsuccessful, the construction company rigged up Oglesbee to the crane with a harness and Oglesbee was able to grab the woman from the water.

‘They just harnessed me in and dipped me down in the water and I grabbed her,’ he said.

When asked if he volunteered to be rigged to the crane, Oglesbee said he just happened to be wearing the harness.

‘I just told her to hang on tight. I won’t let go,’ Oglesbee recalled.

Emergency crews said it is likely the woman would have drowned had it not been for the construction crew’s heroic rescue operation

ALL THE OTHER PHOTOS AND THE REST OF THE STORY IS HERE

Blood boils as pensioners’ coffee morning axed.

Serious stuff happing back home I see. And that A-1 slob Al Franken wins in MN.  Not a good time for our side.
Still though ... and I know things are maddening back home ... get a load of this.
So far at least, American has not descended to this level of idiocy.  Maybe goin thata way but not there yet.

I need to explain for an American audience what a coffee morning is over here. I don’t know if we do this at home but I’m fairly sure we must but call it something else.

Just a small group of old friends, almost always older retired people, referred to here as “pensioners.” Some meet once a month either at someones house on a rotating basis, it can be once a week if they want.  Some meet in a public place as in this case.  Here in our area btw, the library is not called that anymore. Nope. It’s now “A Discovery Center” if you please. And even if ya don’t.  And like the one here in the story it has a coffee area and offers stale but expensive pastry. It looks like pastry, so it must be. Didn’t taste like it tho.

So these old dears who’ve been meeting for some time now have just discovered they are running afoul of Health and Safety.

IT’S THE KIDS ........

Blood boils as pensioners’ coffee morning axed

A group of pensioners in Cambridgeshire have had their weekly coffee morning axed over fears their hot coffee is a health and safety risk.
In the latest of an ever increasing number of health and safety over reactions – last month it was pick-your-own raspberries being deemed too dangerous - council officials have now banned the meetings claiming that infants who use the library at the same time could be injured if the hot coffee is spilt on them.

One pensioner, Mrs Owen, told The Daily Telegraph: “We are being told we can’t have a hot drink. Health and safety is a silly excuse. We have now made alternative arrangements and plan to have our coffee mornings at each other’s homes.”

HT/ http://blog.williammurray.co.uk/?p=396

I am so tempted to steal a quote from one of my favorites columnists, in fact. Yes I will.

BRITAIN IS MORE WACKO THEN JACKO
From Littlejohn at The Daily Mail

   Tuesday - June 30, 2009

And like that, it’s over

Republican Party Now Officially Redundant


Minnesota high court declares Franken winner of Senate seat

Ending an eight-month legal battle, Republican Norm Coleman conceded Tuesday to Democrat Al Franken in the Minnesota Senate race after the state’s high court ruled that Franken should be certified as the winner.

Though Coleman could have tried to take the case to the federal Supreme Court, he told reporters outside his home in St. Paul that continuing to drag out his challenge would hurt his state.

“I just had a conversation with Al Franken congratulating him on his victory,” Coleman said. “The Supreme Court of Minnesota has spoken. I respect its decision and I will abide by its result. ...We have reached the point where further litigation damages the unity of our state.”

Coleman, though, said he had no “regrets” about his prolonged legal challenge to this point—which has kept the Democratic Party one seat short of a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority for months.

Democrats applauded the state Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday afternoon and welcomed the former “Saturday Night Live” comedian to the halls of Congress.

President Obama, in a written statement released moments after Coleman conceded, said he looks forward to working with Franken to “build a new foundation for growth and prosperity by lowering health care costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century.”

Wonderful. That means the Democrats now have a 60-40 advantage in the Senate, making them filibuster proof. Thank God that they don’t have another 7 seats, which would give them the 2/3 majority needed to invoke cloture and stifle any discussion at any time. Wait, that’s wrong. These days they only need 60% for that, and they’ve got it now, as long as everybody shows up. Democrats also have a 259-176 advantage in the House, which does not have filibusters (yet), so they are beyond unstoppable there. And, of course, President Obama, the COTUS, in the White House.

So it’s pretty much over for the GOP at the federal level. You think you’ve seen Change in the past six months? Hell no baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Now the left is unstoppable.

Try Again Later

Running around doing chores and whatnot today. I’ve got a window job tomorrow. I did a window job for one of the ladies in the condos here the other day. I hear she is ultra happy with the results, and is recommending me to everyone. Cool. Word of mouth is the best advertising.

I’ve been messing about with an RCBS Lube-a-Matic 2 bullet lubricator. It’s a fussy beast. I have to go pick up another bag of free bullets and lube and start processing them. Free ammo is a lot of work!

Bowling tonight. I didn’t get in any practice this week, but we did watch The Big Lebowski last night. So we’ll see. My team has been loosing left and right lately.

.. and, oh great, it’s pouring out. Damn, and I have to go out. Well, we had 3 whole days in a row without much more than a couple of sprinkles. That’s the longest dry spell since May.

   Monday - June 29, 2009

bloggy stuff

I think I’m going to have to figure out how to set up a rule that rejects new member applications automatically if they use a either a .ru, or a .gmail email address. Almost every single one of them is false, and it just clogs up my record space. So I threw them all out today, not just the old ones. And they don’t even use imaginative fake names. “Alwercpoi3”. Yeah, sure, you spent half an hour figuring out that unique handle. Sure you did. Did you get Prince to help you pronounce it?

Small changes elsewhere here at BMEWS as well ...

Christina V puts down her backpack and says hello


and I’m keeping an eye on space usage again. I hope I don’t have to snip any old posts again.



In other exciting news, we haven’t had more than a sprinkle of rain per day for three solid days!!

I’ve got some mid-week work, doing the windows on a house that the homeowners don’t want to do themselves. Outside, upstairs. A whole day up on the ladder. For a cut rate. But hey, it’s still some money coming in, and I should be able to do it in less than a full day. Of course, it will probably be raining again, as that’s what still predicted here for the next solid week.

Parade of Pride for The Grotesque!  Yeah.  Queers in the news again. When are they ever out of it?

I thought I should start with a few comments from the paper’s readers rather then anything from me.  They say it better.
This just shows, doesn’t it, how bad things have become.
AND byw ... The Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown, has announced she will take part in the London edition of this stupid self serving parade of pride for the grotesque!

Would they be paid to attend some event put on by the church??
- Tim, Liverpool UK,

Well that just about says all from this loony lefty commie society we live in, no wonder British people want the BNP to gain control and the Muslims want Sharia law.
- Jon, Teesside,

Why are they being paid at all to go on this march? If they want to take part then fine, they can do it in their own time, and not in uniform. Since when is the ambulance service there to be a political organisation?
- Argonaut, Manchester

Paramedics paid extra to go on gay queer pride march… regardless of their sexuality
By Ryan Kisiel

Ambulance staff are being offered overtime to take part in a gay homosexual march - regardless of their sexuality.
Dozens of paramedics, the majority of whom are heterosexual, are being encouraged to walk along Brighton’s seafront in their uniform at this year’s Pride festival.
They will be provided with refreshments and driven to and from the resort, all adding to the bill for the taxpayer

A paramedic who contacted the Daily Mail said South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Trust had decided to pay its workers £40 each to take part in their own time because it was feared that not enough would volunteer for the event.
The money is the equivalent of two hours’ overtime pay, although paramedics say the trust has recently stopped paying overtime while they are actually on duty, blaming financial pressure.

The trust, which covers parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey, has put up posters around its headquarters advertising the August 1 march with an ambulance covered in rainbow-coloured balloons and offering staff free transport to Brighton.
One paramedic said: ‘People from the trust went last year but they all attended as volunteers. I heard that the turnout wasn’t very high and they wanted to get more people there.

‘They’ve had to bribe people with the overtime cash because the overwhelming majority of staff are straight and not totally comfortable about giving up their free time to go on a gay march.’

Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said: ‘It is unacceptable to use taxpayers’ money in this way, especially as it’s a political movement.
‘The fact that the ambulance service is having to bribe paramedics to go is even worse. It would be much better to let them take a day off so they can get refreshed before they have to start their vital work saving lives.

MORE AND PHOTOS HERE

NOW THEN IF THAT ISN’T ENOUGH FOR THESE PROFESSIONAL VICTIMS, WHO BRING SCORN ON THEMSELVES AND BLAME EVERYONE ELSE, THE PM’s WIFE IS NOW GETTING IN ON THE ACT. 

Sarah Brown is ‘to march in really odd Pride parade’

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:37 PM on 29th June 2009

Prime Minister’s wife Sarah Brown is planning to take part in the London Gay Pride parade, Downing Street has confirmed.

She will show her support for the gay and lesbian community by joining the 5,000-strong march on Saturday.

For security reasons Gordon Brown himself cannot take part, although he is planning to hold a reception at No.10 beforehand for Pride organisers and other gay and lesbian representatives. 

Mrs Brown, known as a PR wizard who can even make her husband look good, was last seen at the Glastonbury music festival promoting the White Ribbon Alliance - a campaign to make births in developing countries safer.

And now she hopes to join the two-week Pride festival featuring theatre, music, debate, art and entertainment to raise awareness of discrimination and the issues and difficulties affecting the lives of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender people around the world. 

A Downing Street spokesman said: ‘Sarah wanted to show her continued solidarity for the gay deviant community by taking part. 

‘But because of security considerations, the Prime Minister will not be able to march himself. 

‘Mr Brown will be showing his support at the reception on the morning of Pride.’

It is believed that this will be the first time a PM’s other half has taken part in Gay Pride, but it is not the first time Mr and Mrs Brown have expressed their support for gaydeviant equality. 

MORE PLUS PINK TANK PHOTO

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