Thursday - July 21, 2005

London Bombed Again

The asshats are at it again, not as effectively this time, it seems. My guess is it’s the same group but they couldn’t fool the delivery boys into being suicide bombers this time so the whole thing got furked up ....

London blasts cause chaos on Tube

(BBC)—The Tube has been plunged into chaos and several stations evacuated after minor blasts on three trains and a bus. Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair said only three Tube lines were still suspended and it was time London started to return to normal. The minor explosions - just two weeks after blasts killed 56 - involved detonators only, a BBC reporter said. There was only one injury.

A blast was also reported on a Number 26 bus in Bethnal Green. There were no injuries and the bus suffered no structural damage. Eyewitnesses heard bangs and saw abandoned rucksacks at the sites of the incidents at Warren Street, Shepherd’s Bush Hammersmith and City line and Oval tube stations as well as the number 26 bus.

At Warren Street and Oval a man was seen running away from the scene. Large areas around all four sites were cordoned off. One person was injured at Warren Street. There were reports the injured person may have been holding a rucksack containing the detonator.

Sir Ian appealed for witnesses with mobile phone pictures of any of the incidents to send them to www.police.uk And he said it was “time to get London moving” again. Prime Minister Tony Blair said: “We can’t minimise incidents such as this because they obviously have been serious in the four different places as we know.

“I think all I’d like to say is this that we know why these things are done, they’re done to scare people and to frighten them, to make them anxious and worried.” The BBC’s Andrew Winstanley said devices had been found but appeared to have been dummies, containing no explosives.

Terrorism experts are already saying the bombings were “amateurish” and could likely be a copycat group ....

Jeremy Binnie, an analyst with the London-based Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, said there were key differences between Thursday’s explosions and the previous blasts. The latest ones did not take place at rush hour, they targeted more outlying stations, and “if there were bombs, they seem to have been duds,” Binnie said. “It seems much more amateurish in many ways,” he told The Associated Press. That could suggest they were a copycat operation, but Binnie cautioned that it was too early to tell. He noted that investigations into the July 7 blasts showed signs there could be a second cell in existence.

Keith Burnet, an expert at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, also said the blasts appeared to be part of a “copycat exercise, carried out by people not as sophisticated as the bombers who struck on July 7.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2005 at 10:23 AM   
Filed Under: • International • Terrorists •  
• Comments (13) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The Final Frontier

Scotty’s Ashes To Hit Outer Space

(BBC)—The ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan, who died on Wednesday, are to be sent into space at his request. The Space Services Inc company said Doohan’s ashes could be on a Falcon 1 rocket launching from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, tentatively scheduled for launch in September. The ashes of Star Trek writer John Meredyth Lucas, who died in 2002, are also set to be on the flight.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2005 at 04:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Gaze Into The Abyss

Liberal bloggers + Roberts nomination = massive implosion of stupidity. Einstein couldn’t have put it better in this case ....

(WASHINGTON POST - 21 JULY)—At 1:27 a.m. yesterday, the Guerilla Women of Tennessee weighed in on President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee. “John Roberts: Married to Anti-Choice Org VP,” the group’s Web site blared. Another site, A Liberal Dose, asked: “Why does John G. Roberts Hate Our Soldiers?”

And Feministing.com made no attempt at subtlety: “Why John Roberts Sucks.”

The lightning-quick attacks came after 50 top liberal bloggers held a 45-minute conference call Tuesday night. “On the left, we’ve always talked about the need to have an echo chamber,” says John Aravosis, a Washington lawyer and gay rights activist who writes at Americablog.com. “We believe the right has a whole media network, from talk radio to Fox News to Matt Drudge. The left doesn’t have that because the left doesn’t play well with others.”

The conference call was arranged by BlogPAC, a political action committee that got some of its members on the phone with Sen. Ted Kennedy on the day that Sandra Day O’Connor announced she was leaving the court. The group has also held calls with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and the liberal organizations involved in the nomination battle, including MoveOn, Alliance for Justice, NARAL and People for the American Way.

Kennedy “reached out to them directly to convey the impact that this decision will have on hundreds of millions of Americans, whose last line of defense for their freedoms and liberties is the Supreme Court,” says Laura Capps, the senator’s spokeswoman.

The purpose of Tuesday night’s call was “to agree on where we want to work as a swarm and divide that from where we want to work individually,” says Bob Brigham, a San Francisco political activist who runs BlogPAC. (Its founders include Aravosis and Markos Moulitsas, who runs the popular site Daily Kos.) A swarm, in online lingo, is when legions of bloggers jump on the same issue, as when conservative Web sites attacked Dan Rather’s CBS report on President Bush’s National Guard record.

“We dumped a ton of opposition research on Roberts” after the call, Brigham says. The bloggers also agreed during that discussion to keep hammering on Karl Rove and the CIA leak story.

The Liberal Dose site (which featured a doctored photo of Roberts making an obscene gesture) pointed to a 2004 ruling joined by Judge Roberts that threw out an award of nearly $1 billion to 17 Americans who said they were abused while imprisoned in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.

Aravosis, who helped expose the X-rated past of conservative White House reporter Jeff Gannon, wasted little time. He wrote Tuesday night that Roberts “sounds like a partisan hack” and posted statements from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Human Rights Campaign and People for the American Way.

But Aravosis sees no prospect of his blogging colleagues sticking to a set of talking points. “It’s like herding cats,” he says. “You can get 40 cats in a room, but you can’t herd them.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2005 at 03:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Headline Of The Day

28,000-year-old Phallus Found in Germany

(AFP)—A stone phallus 28,000-years-old has been discovered in a cave in Baden-Wuertemberg in southern Germany, the University of Tubingen said on Wednesday. In assembling 14 stone fragments found last year in the Hohle Fels cave, archeologists rebuilt the phallus, which is 20 centimetres long and three centimeters wide.

It will be on display at the prehistoric museum in Blaubeuren from Monday. The caves in the Blaubeuren region, which sheltered Neanderthal man, are among the most important archeological sites in Europe. The oldest object representing a bird, dating back 32,000 years, was discovered a few years ago in the same cave.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2005 at 03:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Science-Technology •  
• Comments (16) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The Wisdom Of The UN

From the “Blindingly Obvious Department” our research turns up this statement yesterday by the Koffing Anus in an address to the UN ....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Violence in Sudan’s Darfur region has diminished greatly over the past year, partly because militia have run out of targets after razing countless villages, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

His report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday, said active combat had been replaced by intimidation and fear, perpetuated by an ever-present militia when homeless people leave refugee camps.

”The decrease in attacks on civilians may also be a function of a reduced number of targets,” Annan said. “So many villages have been destroyed since the war began that there are now fewer locations for militia to strike.”

At least 180,000 people in Darfur have died from violence, hunger and disease and 2 million have been driven out of their homes, most into squalid camps or neighboring Chad.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2005 at 03:04 AM   
Filed Under: • United-Nations •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Afghan Pizza Man Convicted In Britain

Londoners might be surprised to learn they have been getting their pizzas from a murderous Afghan warlord ....

(MIDDLE EAST TIMES)— Afghan warlord Faryadi Sarwar Zardad was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a London court on July 19 for torture and hostage-taking in Afghanistan in a landmark case for international law.

Zardad, 42, who lived in south London, had denied the charges, which included keeping a “human dog” to savage his victims. The ruling came as Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai met Prime Minister Tony Blair during a brief trip to London. In the first trial of its kind under a UN torture convention, Zardad, who fled to Britain in 1998 on a fake passport, was prosecuted at the Old Bailey even though he is not a British citizen and his crimes were committed overseas.

Treacy said he was sure Zardad had personally shot dead one man in the presence of his men. He was also present and knew what was about to happen when a bus containing men of different ethnic origins was shot up.

The British jury, who unanimously convicted the warlord on Monday, heard evidence of summary execution, the slaughter of 10 or 11 men in a minibus, and an old man imprisoned in a metal cupboard and whipped with a bicycle cable. The court was also told about the “human dog” kept by Zardad and his men, a man in chains who would be set on victims to bite them.

Zardad fled to Britain in 1998 to seek asylum after fighting both the Russians and the Taliban during Afghanistan’s civil war between 1992 and 1996. He ran a pizza take-out shop in Streatham, a suburb of south London, but two years later was confronted first by a BBC television crew and then by British anti-terrorist detectives.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2005 at 02:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • International •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

How Will They Know?

_{Bob Gorrell, National/Syndicated}

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2005 at 02:09 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Wednesday - July 20, 2005

Random Mindless Thoughts

I got back from the horse-pital a little after noon, zonked out on drugs with a sore rear end from the colonoscopy. Eight minor polyps removed but prognosis is good. Doc says I’ll probably live until I die. Thanks to the drugs, I thought that was profound. I just woke up and am still groggy. Not much happening in the news today as the Donks rally their troops and prepare for battle over Judge Roberts. For some reason, Ann Coulter is also against his nomination.

The Red Chinese have been stymied in their evil plan to buy America. Neither Chevron nor Maytag will be theirs, so they’re using the money to buy more tanks, guns and bombs. Madonna is moving to England in case the ChiComs invade the US. I respectfully request she take Alec Baldwin with her.

Before my mind floats off again, I declare this an open post. Comment on anything that’s on your mind. As for myself I’m gonna sit back and remember Scotty and some famous quotes of his from Star Trek (add your favorites in the comments) ....

“Now this is a drink for a man.”—Scott
“Scotch?”—Checkov
“Aye.”—Scott
“It vas inwented by a little old lady in Lenningrad.”—Checkov (The Trouble With Tribbles)

“The best diplomat that I know is a fully-loaded phaser bank.”—Lt. Cdr. Montgomery Scott ("A Taste of Armageddon")

“Just before they went into warp, I beamed the whole kit and kaboodle into their engine room, where they’ll be no tribble at all.”—Scotty, explaining how he got rid of the tribbles (The Trouble With Tribbles)

“In four hours the ship blows up”—Scotty (The Savage Curtain)

“The energizer is bypassed like a christmas tree, so don’t give me any bumps.”—Scotty
“No promises. On your way.”—Kirk, (Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan)

“Scotty, what’s left?”—Kirk
“Just the batteries. I can give you inpulse power in a couple minutes.”—Scotty
“We don’t have a couple minutes.”—Kirk, (Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan)

“How long to re-fit?”—Kirk
“Eight weeks. But you don’t have eight weeks, so I’ll do it for you in two.”—Scotty
“Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?”—Kirk
“How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”—Scotty
“Your reputation is safe with me.”—Kirk, (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)

“She’s supposed to have a transwarp drive...”—Sulu
“Aye, and if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a waggon!”—Scotty, discussing the Excelsior (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)

“Level, please?”
“Transporter room!”
“Thank you!”
“Up your shaft…—A talking turbolift and Scotty, (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)

“She’s all yours, sir. All systems automated and ready. A chimpanzee and two trainees could run her!”—Scotty
“Thank you, Mr. Scott, I’ll try not to take that personally.”—Kirk, (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)

“The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”—Scotty about the USS Excelsior, (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)

“What are you standing around for? Don’t you know a jailbreak when you see one?”—Scotty to Kirk, McCoy and Spock when freeing them from the brig, (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/20/2005 at 02:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
• Comments (13) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Star Fleet Bulletin: Cmdr. Montgomery Scott

LOS ANGELES, California (AP)—James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original “Star Trek” TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command “Beam me up, Scotty,” died early Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) at his Redmond, Washington, home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, he said.

The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.

“The producers asked me which one I preferred,” Doohan recalled 30 years later. “I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, ‘If this character is going to be an engineer, you’d better make him a Scotsman.’ “

The series, which starred William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr. Spock, attracted an enthusiastic following of science fiction fans, especially among teenagers and children, but not enough ratings power. NBC canceled it after three seasons.

When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself typecast as Montgomery Scott, the canny engineer with a burr in his voice. In 1973, he complained to his dentist, who advised him: “Jimmy, you’re going to be Scotty long after you’re dead. If I were you, I’d go with the flow.”

“I took his advice,” said Doohan, “and since then everything’s been just lovely.”

From Doohan’s Biography: You may have never noticed, watching the Original Series and the movies, that Mr. Scott has a physical handicap — he’s missing the middle finger of his right hand. That’s because the actor kept it very well hidden.  (Watch the shows again carefully — Scotty is almost always clenching his right hand, or hiding it behind a console — but if you know to look, the missing digit is occasionally apparent.) That injury occurred on D-Day.  Lt. Doohan successfully led his Canadian troop onto the beach and pushed inland to establish the best possible gun position (along the way Doohan shot two German snipers, never knowing whether he killed them). A field was secured and command posts were established, but not all Germans between the beach and their position had been captured. That night about 11:30, Doohan and another officer were walking between command posts when machine gun fire broke out. Doohan was hit; he fell into a shell hole, looked at his hand and saw blood. Three bullets struck the one finger. Never losing consciousness, he actually walked to the regimental aid post, unaware he also took four bullets in the leg.

There was an eighth bullet, and it was nothing less than a miracle that he’s still with us today. It hit his chest, four inches from his heart. But it ricocheted off the sterling silver cigarette case in his pocket, the one his brother had given him for being best man at his wedding. It’s like a trite plot twist, he acknowledges — his brother saved his life from thousands of miles away. Jimmy pushed the dent out of the cigarette case and continued using it until he quit smoking years later. He stayed in the military, learned to fly and came to be known as the “craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces.”

Well, back in Canada after the war, Jimmy never gave thought to a career in acting until one night around Christmas of 1945, he took a break from his VA school studies and turned on the radio. “And I heard the worst radio drama I had ever heard. Couldn’t believe how terrible it was,” he said. With no training whatsoever, he was sure he could do better. So he found some Shakespeare and other reading material and marched into the local radio station to say, “I want to make a recording.”

That “tryout” eventually led to a scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he trained under famed acting coach Sanford Meisner. “He turned out to be one of the greatest drama teachers in the world,” Jimmy would say years later. He then knew he had a career, and he was soon working in the fledgling medium of television.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/20/2005 at 11:05 AM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

What’s it made of again?

Too Cool

In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we’ve added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Happy lunar surfing.

These guys are having too much fun.  Zoom in as far as you can on one of the landing sites.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/20/2005 at 10:30 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

Light Blogging Today

I’m off to the hospital for the next few hours. Nothing serious, just a routine check that all men over 50 need to do every five years. It has taken five years for me to get over the last time this was done. I still have nightmares. I will have more tonight. Many more. All of these nightmares involve a six-foot-long black snake crawling up my butt.

Yes, it’s time for the colonoscopy again. I’ll see you all back here this evening. Maybe.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/20/2005 at 07:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Ride Out The Storm

_{Walt Handelsman, Long Island, NY, Newsday}

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/20/2005 at 06:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

They Never learn

(DAILY TELEGRAPH - UK) Critics of Tony Blair’s policy in Iraq and Afghanistan claimed yesterday that Britain must share some of the responsibility for the Underground and bus bombings in London. While moderate Muslim leaders agreed to try to dissuade disaffected youths from turning to terrorism, radical clerics blamed the Government - and even the public for re-electing Mr Blair - for making the country a target.

Imam Ibrahim Mogra said that, as Muslims, they felt the “pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters around the globe every day”. The war had been a “successful recruitment sergeant for people who wish to preach hatred for our country and our Government”.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, condemned the bombings as an “act of criminality” but said the leaders had made clear that Mr Blair could not “simply shun the issue of foreign policy”.

Radical Muslims who did not take part in the talks said they would not be silenced by warnings of new legislation making it a crime to glorify or condone terrorism.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed said that support for America over Afghanistan and Iraq and the re-election of Mr Blair had all contributed to the attacks. I blame the British Government, the British public and the Muslim community in the UK because they failed to make the extra effort to put an end to the cycle of bloodshed which started before 9/11 and on July 7 was devastating for everybody,” he told the Evening Standard.

Anjem Choudary, the British leader of the militant Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, said that Muslim leaders should not meet Mr Blair for talks while Muslims were being “murdered” in Iraq. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, he declined to condemn the London bombings, which killed 56 people, and said there was “a very real possibility” of a repetition. “The British Government wants to show that they are on the side of justice and of truth, whereas in reality the real terrorists are the British regime, and even the British police, who have tried to divide the Muslim community into moderates and extremists, whereas this classification doesn’t exist in Islam.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/20/2005 at 12:18 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists •  
• Comments (13) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Tuesday - July 19, 2005

A Bloody Shame

What’s the world coming to when the only pirates to be found are off the waters of Iraq and Somalia? It’s a downright bloody shame, I tells ya. I see we’re gonna have to tighten up around this ship and head for the deep blue waters. There’s plenty of piratin’ and pillagin’ and rapin’ to be done, lads! AVAST!

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - The number of pirate attacks worldwide hit a six-year low in the first half of 2005, but Iraq and Somalia emerged as increasingly perilous hotspots for commercial ships, a maritime watchdog said Wednesday. Globally, 127 vessels were attacked from January to June, a 30 percent drop from 182 cases in the same period last year, the International Maritime Bureau said in a report released by its piracy watch center in Kuala Lumpur.

It was the lowest first-half figure since 1999, the British-based bureau reported. No seafarers have been killed by pirates so far in 2005 compared to 30 by this time last year, the report said. Thirteen crew were injured, down from 44 in the first six months of 2004. The report offered no reasons for the declines.

But the International Maritime Bureau warned of “a new and worrying trend” of armed robberies in Iraqi waters, noting that four “serious incidents” were reported there between April and June, despite the presence of U.S.-led coalition naval ships in the area. Before this year, “attacks in and around Iraq were almost nonexistent,” the bureau noted. It did not give details on why Iraqi waters have become more dangerous.

Security also worsened dramatically off Somalia’s east coast, where bandits with guns and grenades attacked eight vessels and sometimes seized hostages for ransom. Only one attack occurred in Somalia between January and June last year.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/19/2005 at 11:58 PM   
Filed Under: • International •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

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.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner