Thursday - June 30, 2005

Guess Who

Guess who has a new avatar?

I changed one of our member’s avatars.

How fast can you figure out who it was?

Shhhhhhhhh .... it’s a secret ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 03:52 PM   
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Little Black Sambo Lives In Mexico

So what’s up with Mexico and the Mexican government? Are they just going out of their way to piss off Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? They seem to be trying real hard lately with Vicente Fox’s remarks about Mexican border-jumpers taking jobs that “not even blacks in America want to do”. Fox apologized for that. Now, the Mexican government has issued a series of postage stamps with pictures of “Little Black Sambo”, or at least that’s what it looks like to me. I could be wrong but I distinctly remember a childhood coloring book I had back in the 1950’s (that is banned nowadays) about a young African lad who was chased by a tiger and who ran around and around a banyan tree so fast with the tiger in hot pursuit that the tiger eventually melted into butter, which Sambo poured on his next meal of flapjacks and syrup. I never did figure out how the flapjacks recipe made it to Africa .... unless it was carried there by a swallow .... African, of course.

(BBC News - Thursday, 30 June, 2005) Mexico faces renewed accusations of racism over the issue of stamps showing a popular black cartoon character.

US civil rights campaigner Jesse Jackson said the stamps depicted African-Americans in a negative manner and asked Mexico to withdraw them. The Mexican Embassy said the depiction was a cultural image that had no meaning and was not intended to offend. In May President Vicente Fox apologised for saying Mexican migrants in the US did jobs “even blacks don’t want”. He said the comment was taken out of context, which had been made to express frustration with tough new immigration legislation approved by the US Senate.

The latest row comes after the Mexican government issued a series of five stamps of Memin Pinguin. The cartoon character from a comic book created in the 1940s has exaggerated eyes and lips. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) called the stamps “injurious to black people who live in the United States and Mexico.”

“It is offensive,” Mr Jackson said.

Mexico insisted that like Speedy Gonzalez - a cartoon mouse with a Mexican accent, aired in the US - Memin Pinguin should not be seen as a racial slur.

The Mexican leader has yet to comment.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 12:47 PM   
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My Name Is Ozymandias, King Of BVD’s

My, how the mighty have fallen. You just have to know that you’ve reached the very bottom of the food chain and attained status of relative unimportance in the affairs of men when the raunchiest yellow-tabloid in England prints pictures of you sitting in jail in your underwear, right? No? What could be worse than that, you ask? Well, what could be worse is if you decide to sue the paper and they reply, “NANNY-NANNY-BOO-BOO!” and then they publicly stick out their tongue at you.

What’s a poor, down-on-his-luck, mass-murdering, ex-dictator to do? Why, I’m glad you asked, Saddam. Why not call our BMEWS Ex-Dictator Helpline right now at 1-800-EAT-SHIT and when the operator answers, use the code word “MORON” for a discount on your first therapy session ....

Ozymandias I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed, And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. --Percy Bysshe Shelley

Editor’s Note: For the great, unwashed illiterate masses out there in the Blue States, Percy Shelley was perhaps one of the greatest of Britain’s 19th century poets (and maybe of all time). However, in today’s modern “culture” he is a relative unknown compared to his wife, Mary Shelley, who wrote .... ”Frankenstein”. Now you know.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 12:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
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The Crack Down The Middle

It turns out OldCatMan was right in his “no LEFT or RIGHT, just a CRACK DOWN THE MIDDLE” observation. Cornell University scientists have determined that the human brain does not work in a sequential “1’s and 0’s” mode like a computer does but has its own method which involves parallel processing in several gray zones at once ....

“For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols—like a digital computer,” said Spivey. “More recently, however, a growing number of studies, such as ours, support dynamical-systems approaches to the mind. In this model, perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space; the neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties—like a biological organism.”

The computer metaphor describes cognition as being in a particular discrete state, for example, “on or off” or in values of either zero or one, and in a static state until moving on. If there was ambiguity, the model assumed that the mind jumps the gun to one state or the other, and if it realizes it is wrong, it then makes a correction.

“In thinking of cognition as working as a biological organism does, on the other hand, you do not have to be in one state or another like a computer, but can have values in between—you can be partially in one state and another, and then eventually gravitate to a unique interpretation, as in finally recognizing a spoken word,” Spivey said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 10:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
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Constitutional Question

Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine are going to go to jail next week for refusing to reveal the sources for their stories that caused the whole Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame kerfuffle last year (if you haven’t been keeping up with current events, just go Google “plame"). The judge in the case has ordered the two reporters to reveal their sources in order to continue the search for truth in the trial (the “search for truth” is, after all, what justice is supposed to be about, isn’t it?). The two have refused, citing their “Constitutional right”.

To make a long story short, the two reporters are falling back on that old “Freedom Of The Press” lie that reporters don’t have to reveal their sources, according to the Constitution. I want someone to point out to me exactly in which article or amendment this “right” of the press is written down. To listen to the modern press, you’d almost think it came down from the mountain with Moses. Unfortunately, most of the modern press are heathen liberals who don’t believe in anything written in the BIble so that lets Moses off the hook.

In my humble opinion, what good is a so-called “press” or “media” if they don’t have to back up their stories with sources, bibliographies, references, etc. ? They can tell us anything and attribute it to “anonymous sources” or some raincoat-clad, disgruntled, mysterious government employee, code-named “Deep Throat” that they met in the dead of night in a parking garage somewhere. They can even make up crap or plagiarize other reports as Jayson Blair and others in the media have done lately. They can take as Holy Gospel a barely legible, forged document faxed from Kinko’s in Abilene and foist it off on us as “truth” (and then later, refer to it as “fake but accurate").

They have done all this and more .... and they have gotten away with it in the name of “protecting their sources under their First Amendment rights”. Pardon me, but if it smells like bovine feces, looks like bovine feces, tastes like bovine feces .... then it must be BULLSHIT! And the only constructive thing you can do with bullshit is spread it around the roses and let nature take its course.

WASHINGTON, June 29 - With mounting frustration and a hint of anger, a federal judge said at a hearing Wednesday that he would send two reporters to jail in one week if they did not agree to testify before a grand jury about their confidential sources in the meantime.

Lawyers for the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, said their clients would accept jail time rather than testify.

The judge, Thomas F. Hogan of Federal District Court here, added that he would also impose very large fines against Time Inc., in an effort to force the company to obey a court order directing it to turn over documents in the investigation.

A lawyer for Time Inc., Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., told Judge Hogan the company was still considering whether to comply with the order.

“We are grappling with those issues,” Mr. Boutrous said. “Time is part of a public company and has a deliberative process to work through these issues.”

The grand jury is looking into the possibly unlawful disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame.

Judge Hogan expressed surprise that a public company like Time Warner, Time Inc.’s parent, would even consider violating a final court order. The Supreme Court turned down appeals in the case on Monday.

“The only way we operate in this society, in a democratic society, is by the rule of law and to have people obey court orders,” Judge Hogan said.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the case, said Time has no choice but to comply with the order.

“I don’t understand what Time can deliberate about,” he said. “They don’t have a right to break the law. We shouldn’t allow people to think that court orders are sort of optional.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 08:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Media-Bias •  
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Girlie Boys

Michelle Malkin has a truly excellent editorial on how our nation’s schools are going one step further with the pussification of America by training our children to be wimps and wusses ....

White House senior adviser Karl Rove caused a firestorm last week after observing that liberals favor “therapy and understanding” to fight terrorism in a post-Sept. 11 world.

Rove spoke the truth. But he barely scratched the surface.

The left-wing Kumbaya crowd is quietly grooming a generation of pushovers in the public schools. At a time of war, when young Americans should be educated about this nation’s resilience and steely resolve, educators are indoctrinating students with saccharine-sticky lessons on “non-violent conflict resolution” and “promoting constructive dialogues.”

Peaceniks are covering our kids from head to toe in emotional bubble wrap. They are creating a nation of namby-pambies.

The latest example of Hand-Holding 101 comes from the New York City public schools. According to Lauren Collins of The New Yorker magazine, the school system is introducing a new curriculum called “Operation Respect: Don’t Laugh at Me” into all of its elementary and middle schools. The program is now used in at least 12,000 schools and camps across the country.

Ostensibly, the program helps kids deal with petty meanness and name-calling from insensitive classmates. Not by instructing them in self-defense, mind you, but by inflating their self-esteem. The organization’s stated mission is “to transform schools, camps and organizations focused on children and youth, into more compassionate, safe and respectful environments.” Instead of “put downs,” teachers encourage “put ups.” The Operation Respect website depicts well-adjusted children holding up signs with ego-affirming messages: “Ridicule Free Zone,” “No Dissing Here,” “U Matter,” and “Peace Place.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 06:38 AM   
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A Good Idea

_{Don Wright, The Palm Beach Post, FL}

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 06:18 AM   
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   Wednesday - June 29, 2005

PARTY-TIME!

By the time we got to woodstock ..

We were half a million strong ..

And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
   

Name that tune ....





June 29, 2005 3:30pm .... and these members were here:

■ Argentium G. Tiger ■ dick ■ frank ■ imp ■ Stanley ■ StinKerr ■ Tannenberg ■ Tyler ■ The Skipper ■ U2warrior05 ■ Z Woof ■

Note: Tyler claims to have proof he was the 500,000th one. Somebody check his documentation. Make sure it wasn’t faxed from Kinko’s in Abilene.

Note II: We now have incontrovertible proof that the 500,00th visitor was: Tyler or Argentium G. Tiger or StinKerr. In light of this proof, I have declared myself the winner. And while we’re on the subject, I desperately want to f**k the PETA broad on the left (bottom picture) in the post below. Anyone have a phone number? DAMN! That’s a nice ass!

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/29/2005 at 03:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Gratuitous PETA Nekkidness

PETA strips .. Bulls snort .. We report .. You decide ....

MADRID (AFP) - A Spanish court in the northern region of Navarra authorised a nude demonstration next month by animal rights campaigners determined to use bare-faced cheek to protest at the traditional San Fermin or “running of the bulls” festival in Pamplona.

The court said the protesters could go ahead as long as they did so in a way which “does not affect good civic customs.”

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) group, which has protested against the event in the past, says it wants to highlight its opposition by organising a rival run by naked humans protesting cruelty to the bulls.

The nine-day San Fermin festival, due to start on July 6, traditionally involves hundreds of runners, including many tourists, trying to outrace a herd of bulls, who chase them throughout the town’s narrow streets in a tradition that goes back centuries.

Amid further concern about last year’s outbreak of blue tongue disease, a virus which forced restrictions on livestock movements in southern Spain, PETA asked Pamplona’s mayor to make the planned Running of the Nudes the official event this year, campaign coordinator Yvonne Taylor recently explained.

The event has resulted in the deaths of 14 spectators, and of an unknown number of bulls, since records began in 1911.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/29/2005 at 12:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Animals • Stoopid-People •  
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Your Outsourced Tech Support Is Currently Unavailable

An undersea cable that connects Pakistan, India the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Djibouti to international telephone communications and the internet was accidentally cut yesterday. All helpful help desk support people are currently unable to help you and will be unavailable for up to two weeks .... as if most of them ever could with their mangled English accents ....

Damage to the undersea telecommunications cable SEA-ME-WE3 (SMW3) Monday initially disrupted most of Pakistan’s international telephone and Internet connections, but the outage spread to India, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Djibouti as repairs were started yesterday.

Call centers in India using connections through the Reliance Group, India’s largest corporate conglomerate, to SMW3 to reach customers in the U.S. were experiencing service outages for the past day, they reported to InternationalStaff.net, a company that specializes in offshore process migration, call center program management, turnkey software development and help desk management.

Mark Lewitt, an American manager at the Godrej Upstream call center in Mumbai, India, said today that the better-funded Indian call centers were using satellite backup systems, where available, but that not all centers relying on Reliance had invested in satellite connections.

Established Indian call centers scrambled to obtain backup capacity after a fire last September at a switching facility in that country disrupted last-mile service to most Indian call centers.

The SMW3 fiber optic cable was reportedly damaged on the floor of the Arabian Sea 21 miles south of the port city of Karachi, Pakistan. A service vessel belonging to E-Marine, a UAE company, was dispatched from the United Arab Emirates to undertake repairs.

There have been conflicting reports on the expected duration of the service disruptions caused by the damaged cable. The Press Trust of India, Reuters and Xinhua have all reported that disruptions are anticipated to last for two weeks.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/29/2005 at 11:46 AM   
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Politically Correct Trafalgar

If there’s one thing that really pisses me off, it’s people hosing up history in order to be politically correct. What happened, happened, DAMMIT! If you try to sanitize it, you just made my hit list. And I’m sure Lord Nelson would feel the same way about yesterday’s travesty off the coast of Spain - in fact, if he could talk to us today I’m sure he’d say something like “sod the bloody French - who cares what they think?” ....

Introducing The Politically Correct Naval Battle

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain celebrated an epic naval victory Tuesday but a descendant of its hero Admiral Horatio Nelson said the Battle of Trafalgar bicentenary was trying too hard not to offend historical enemies France and Spain.

A highlight of the world’s biggest naval review was featuring two fleets enacting a 19th century sea battle.

But they have been called simply the red and the blue fleet rather than by country names, which has sparked a shot across the bows from Nelson’s great great great granddaughter.

“I am anti-political correctness. Very much against it. It makes fools of us,” said 75-year-old Anna Tribe.

“I think the idea of the blue team fighting the red team is pretty stupid. I am sure the French and Spanish are adult enough to appreciate we did win that battle,” she added.

The historian playing Nelson in the mock battle is equally annoyed.

“If you obliterate history for the sake of political correctness, you can’t learn from the past. Nelson thought politicians were cowards. I tend to agree,” Alex Naylor said.

Nelson sent the famous signal ”England expects that every man will do his duty” before the 1805 battle off the western Spanish coast that spelt the beginning of the end for Napoleon Bonaparte’s French Empire.

Nelson, already missing an eye and an arm from previous battles, was killed by a French sniper in the epic battle. He was 47.

Organizers of the bicentenary celebrations were anxious to avoid accusations of triumphalism, especially at a time when Anglo-French relations are frosty as London and Paris clash over the future direction of the European Union.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/29/2005 at 10:52 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • History •  
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Revised Freedom Tower To Be Unveiled Today

It will be 1,776 feet high, which will make it the tallest in the world. I think they finally got it right .... now BUILD THAT SON OF A GUN and be sure to mount the anti-aircraft batteries on all four sides. And hang a sign on the side facing Mecca that reads ”GO AHEAD - MAKE MY DAY.”

The revised design for the Freedom Tower will soar to 1,776 feet in the sky and serve as an inspirational and enduring beacon in the New York City skyline. The Tower’s design evokes classic New York skyscrapers in its elegance and symmetry while also referencing the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

The revised Freedom Tower builds upon the original’s extraordinary level of life safety features and will include other features that will make it unprecedented in terms of life safety and security. In addition, the Freedom Tower will further its distinction as a world-class model of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

As part of the new design, the tower’s footprint, measuring 200 feet by 200 feet, is the same size as the footprints of the original Twin Towers. As the tower itself rises from its cubic base, its square edges are chamfered back, transforming the square into eight tall isosceles triangles in elevation. At its middle, the tower forms a perfect octagon in plan and then culminates in an observation deck and glass parapet (elevation 1,362 feet and 1,368 feet – the heights of the original Twin Towers). A mast containing an antenna, designed by a collaboration of architects, artists, lighting designers and engineers, and secured by a system of cables, rises from a circular support ring, similar to Liberty’s torch, to a height of 1,776 feet. In keeping with the original design, the entire composition evokes the Statue of Liberty’s torch and will emit light, becoming its own Beacon of Freedom.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/29/2005 at 08:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Patriotism •  
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Sunbathing On Titan

Take a look at the picture below. This was taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it circles Saturn’s largest moon. Researchers and scientists think it is a large “lake” because of the smooth formation of the “shoreline”. The lake is 235km by 75km, which is pretty good-sized. I took one look at it and instantly knew what it was .... a gigantic swimming pool. The deep end is upper left and the children’s wading area is in the lower right. If you look real closely you can see four white cabanas around the perimeter. On top of all that, it’s in the southern hemisphere. Case closed.

I only have two questions: (1) what SPF sun-factor do the inhabitants use while lounging and (2) just how freaking monstrous are the hemadrones who inhabit this planet that they need a swimming pool this huge?

A dark, lake-like feature on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has been imaged by the US-European Cassini spacecraft. Researchers have long speculated that Titan might harbour open bodies of liquid methane - and the 235km by 75km target is the best candidate to date.

But they are being cautious about interpreting the feature, which has what looks to be a smooth shoreline. The scientists say the object could simply be dark, solid deposits caught in a sinkhole of volcanic caldera.

“This feature is unique in our exploration of Titan so far,” said Dr Elizabeth Turtle, Cassini imaging team member at the University of Arizona, US. “Its perimeter is intriguingly reminiscent of the shorelines of lakes on Earth that are smoothed by water erosion and deposition,” she added.

The feature lies in Titan’s cloudiest region, towards the south pole, which is presumably the most likely site of recent methane rainfall. This, coupled with the shore-like smoothness of the feature’s perimeter makes it hard for scientists to resist speculation about what might be filling the lake, if it indeed is one.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/29/2005 at 08:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
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Half A Million Served

Today is the day .... who will be the 500,000th visitor ....?

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/29/2005 at 06:17 AM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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