Saturday - October 29, 2005

Get Your Protest T-Shirt Today!

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2005 at 05:50 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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Bird Flu Tips

Letterman’s Top Ten Tips For Avoiding The Bird Flu

1. If you have a chicken, check for swelling in the McNuggets.

2. Fill birdfeeder with Sucrets.

3. Go back to the old Y2K bunker, start drinking.

4. Avoid birds that look like they’re up to something.

5. Move to a place where there are no birds, like the moon!

6. Anti-bacterial smoothies.

7. Stay away from basketball great Larry Bird.

8. Frighten birds by constantly meowing.

9. Don’t lick unfamiliar pigeons.

10. Before eating chicken, soak it in Lysol. 

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2005 at 05:38 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Harry Pothead: Prisoner Of Cannabistan

The problem with marijuana is that if you’re so stoned you can’t remember where you put your stash, don’t try to blame your neighbor for stealing your dope. Even better, don’t call the cops to report him. In some cases, it gets even worse than that ....

Generous Criminal?
(SALT LAKE TRIBUNE)

In September, Anthony R. Martin, 52, of Belleville, Ill., became the latest person to call the police and complain that someone had stolen his illegal drugs. But there was more: Martin told the investigating officer that a hostile neighbor had taken his marijuana plants, but when he showed the officer the room where he usually kept them, the plants were still there. Martin then said whoever took them must have returned them. He was charged with growing marijuana.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2005 at 03:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
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Star Trek: The Undiscovered Closet

Sulu: “Chekov, you have such beautiful eyes ...”

Chekov: “Ceptain, help me out here.”

Kirk: “Sulu! Take your hand off Mr. Chekov’s shoulder and man the phaser banks!”

Scotty: “I’m gonna need more Romulan Ale if this keeps up!”

Kirk: “Bones?”

McCoy: “I’m a doctor, not a social engineer.”

Spock: “Fascinating!”

George Takei, ‘Mr. Sulu,’ Says He’s Gay
LOS ANGELES (MSNBC)

George Takei, who as helmsman Sulu steered the Starship Enterprise through three television seasons and six movies, has come out as a homosexual in the current issue of Frontiers, a biweekly Los Angeles magazine covering the gay and lesbian community.

Takei told The Associated Press on Thursday that his new onstage role as psychologist Martin Dysart in “Equus,” helped inspire him to publicly discuss his sexuality.

Takei described the character as a “very contained but turbulently frustrated man.” The play opened Wednesday at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Los Angeles, the same day that Frontiers magazine featured a story on Takei’s coming out.

The current social and political climate also motivated Takei’s disclosure, he said. “The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay,” he said. “The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.”

The 68-year-old actor said he and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years. Takei, a Japanese-American who lived in a U.S. internment camp from age 4 to 8, said he grew up feeling ashamed of his ethnicity and sexuality. He likened prejudice against gays to racial segregation.

“It’s against basic decency and what American values stand for,” he said. Takei joined the “Star Trek” cast in 1966 as Hikaru Sulu, a character he played for three seasons on television and in six subsequent films. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986.

A community activist, Takei ran for the Los Angeles City Council in 1973. He serves on the advisory committee of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program and is chairman of East West Players, the theater company producing “Equus.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2005 at 09:22 AM   
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The Ultimate Man Toy

Beach Blanket Hummer
(AUTOWEEK)

General Motors’ future product plan includes a back-to-basics, go-anywhere Hummer H4—a rough-and-tough competitor for the Jeep Wrangler. The fourth Hummer could be on sale by 2008 or 2009. A GM source confirms the company is looking for ways of making a small Hummer on its various sport/utility vehicle and pickup platforms.

GM engineers and designers are working on the project, but a chassis for the vehicle has yet to be selected. One possibility is a two-seater, focused on the most rugged off-roading possible, similar to the Hummer dune buggy we illustrated earlier this year (“A Hummer Buggy,” May 9).

“It’s a matter of finding the right combination of rugged components and how we can package them into a vehicle smaller than the H3,” says the source. “The main design factor is that any vehicle with a Hummer badge has to be the most capable off-road, period.” One possibility is to use a shortened version of GM’s small pickup platform, which underpins the new H3.

GM product czar Bob Lutz is believed to be a big supporter of the H4, and as a former boss of Jeep he knows the competition intimately. Hummer is also unlikely to launch a second range of soft-roaders, a move that Jeep is taking to exploit sales with owners who don’t need its “Trail Tested” off-road abilities. “It’s not the right time to be rounding off the corners of the Hummer range yet,” our source says.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2005 at 09:05 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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WOPR

What has 65,536 processors, can simulate a nuclear explosion in real-time (and in 3-D), map out molecular interaction in new drugs instantaneously and only costs $290 million?

Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game ...?

Blue Gene/L Tops Its Own Supercomputer Record
(C|Net News)

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and IBM unveiled the Blue Gene/L supercomputer Thursday and announced it’s broken its own record again for the world’s fastest supercomputer. The 65,536-processor machine can sustain 280.6 trillion calculations per second, called 280.6 teraflops, IBM said Thursday. That’s the top end of the range IBM forecast and more than twice the previous Blue Gene/L record of 136.8 teraflops, set when only half the machine was installed.

In addition, the lab unveiled a lesser known but also powerful machine with a speed up to 100 teraflops. The ASC Purple is built from more conventional IBM server products. Together, ASC Purple and Blue Gene/L cost $290 million. Both will be used for nuclear weapons simulations and other computationally demanding tasks.

Broadly speaking, both machines use a similar approach: A powerful network connects huge numbers of processors. But there are differences. ASC Purple’s 12,544 Power5 processors are individually more powerful than the specialized Power chip variants used in Blue Gene/L. And, each ASC Purple processor has access to more memory so that more complicated simulations can run. However, Blue Gene/L consumes less power, and instead of using a massive, complex central switch to connect processors, it uses a collection of five separate networks.



Supercomputing was once a domain limited to companies, such as Cray, Hewlett-Packard and Silicon Graphics, with deep research programs. But the steadily increasing power of mainstream processors and networks has meant that even companies without major engineering programs, such as Dell, have entered the market.

Blue Gene/L first became the top-ranked supercomputer a year ago on the Top500 supercomputing list with a 70.7-teraflop speed. The speed is measured with a mathematical test called Linpack, but Top500 organizers acknowledge it has been an incomplete measurement of a computer’s abilities. When Blue Gene/L runs Linpack, each processor performs mathematical calculations. But for many jobs, half the system’s processors are used for networking tasks.

The Blue Gene design began as a research project within IBM to simulate fundamental biochemical processes involving proteins. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory became its first customer, but the machines now are used for several research projects around the world as IBM commercializes the technology.

IBM sells the Blue Gene machines for about $2 million per 1,024-processor rack, but it also rents access to Blue Gene and other supercomputers for those who don’t want to buy a full machine. On Friday, IBM is expected to announce four new customers for the rental service, called Deep Computing Capacity on Demand. Two of the new customers will be using Blue Gene.

One customer is SmartOps, which helps companies such as Caterpillar and Cardinal Health to manage inventory and distribution. Another is QuantumBio, which plans to sell processing power to pharmaceutical companies that perform drug simulation and other computationally intense tasks. Nuclear weapons remain an active area of computing research in the U.S. as the DOE tries to ensure their reliability without using actual nuclear tests. ASC Purple, still undergoing final acceptance tests, will be able to fully simulate a nuclear explosion in three dimensions.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2005 at 08:37 AM   
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Religion Of Peace Update

“There are none so blind as those who cannot will not see.”—Except for those who have no heads. They can see even less. How much longer must the world continue to put up with this crap before someone decides to put a stop to it? How do we stop it? Is Allah really proud of his “people” for beheading little schoolgirls? Are other Muslims around the world happy to see this kind of barbarity? I demand an answer ....

Three Indonesian Girls Beheaded
JAKARTA, Indonesia (BBC)

Three girls have been beheaded and another badly injured as they walked to a Christian school in Indonesia. They were walking through a cocoa plantation near the city of Poso in central Sulawesi province when they were attacked. This is an area that has a long history of religious violence between Muslims and Christians.

A government-brokered truce has only partially succeeded in reducing the number of incidents in recent years. Police say the heads were found some distance from the bodies. It is unclear what was behind the attack, but the girls attended a private Christian school and one of the heads was left outside a church leading to speculation that it might have had a religious motive.

Central Sulawesi and Poso in particular was the scene of bitter fighting between Muslims and Christians in 2001 and 2002. Muslim gang members carry makeshift rifles as Christian homes burn in sectarian violence-wracked Poso, December 2001. More than 1,000 people were killed before a government-brokered truce.

Although the violence has been subdued, it has never gone away completely. A bomb in May in the nearby town of Tentena, which is predominantly Christian, killed 22 people and injured over 30. The fighting four years ago drew Islamic militants from all over Indonesia and many have never gone home.

Analysts say the militants have targeted central Sulawesi and believe that it could be turned into the foundation stone of an Islamic state. The analysts have warned that the violence could resurface at any time.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/29/2005 at 07:53 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA •  
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   Friday - October 28, 2005

Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day

OK, gang! It’s that time again to play ”Punchline”. Here’s the way we play: (1) I provide the totally bizaare news story and then (2) you have to come up with a suitable punchline to cap it off. Ready ... Set ... GO!

Cat Ran Off With Severed Toe
LUEBECK, Germany (ANANOVA)

A cat ran off with its owners toe after he accidentally chopped it off and then left it on the floor while he called an ambulance.

Udo Ried, 41, was slicing bread in his kitchen in Luebeck, Germany, when he dropped a large kitchen knife onto his bare foot, chopping off his second toe.

While Ried was hopping to the bathroom to get a bandage and at the same time using his mobile phone to call emergency services, his cat Fritz pounced on the bloody toe and ran off with it into the garden.

Ried tried to get the toe back but after a few minutes he was forced to abandon the search to seek medical attention.

A spokesman for Luebeck hospital said they would have been able to reattach the toe if the cat had not stolen it.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/28/2005 at 02:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Odd-Strange •  
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Mess-Cans Making MRE’s?

File this one under “S” for Screwed The Pooch as in “what the Defense Department contractor did while Uncle Sam was looking the other way”. Uh, no sir! We had no idea these guys were illegal ....

Memo To Troops In Iraq: open carefully any packages that smell like re-fried beans ....

Texas Co. Hired Illegals to Make MREs
(CBS NEWS)

A Texas employment agency was sentenced to five years of probation for hiring illegal immigrants to work at the nation’s top producer of military battlefield rations, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

The Tollin Group was also fined $20,000 and ordered to pay $414,000 in civil penalties Wednesday. It has been barred from Department of Defense contracts for three years.

The San Antonio-based company, which does business as Remedy Intelligent Staffing, pleaded guilty in January to hiring illegal immigrants and trying to cover it up by falsifying employment eligibility forms. The workers were hired for Wornick Co., which makes MREs or “meals ready-to-eat.”

The investigation was initiated in February 2003 after an al-Qaida operative was arrested with information pointing to McAllen and Wornick as terrorist targets. Wornick had been awarded a $47 million contract to produce more than 1.1 million MREs for U.S. forces in Iraq.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force ran background checks on Wornick employees and found hundreds of temporary employees with fraudulent documentation.

No direct link to terrorism was found.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/28/2005 at 02:23 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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More Halloween Humor

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/28/2005 at 10:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Happy Birthday

October 28, 1965 ... the last piece was put in place and the Ninth Wonder Of The World was complete. Come to St. Louis and see it. It will take your breath away!

St. Louis’ Arch to Ring in 40th Year
(ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH)

Granted, St. Louis’ 630-foot stainless-steel monument to the can-do spirit of America’s pioneers gets its gleam from the inspired design of architect Eero Saarinen. So, in an obvious and very large way our riverfront marvel is Saarinen’s Arch. But the Arch also belongs to the math and engineering wizards who figured out how to build the one-of-a-kind structure. And to those sure-footed, no-fear ironworkers who stacked those two legs neatly into the sky, one triangular section at a time, until they were joined at the top on a crisp autumn morning — Oct. 28, 1965 — while a wide-eyed city watched from below.

Though the Gateway Arch quickly became one of the nation’s most recognizable symbols, it is still “Papa’s Arch” to the children and grandchildren of Bill Quigley, the crane operator who placed the final section that day. Quigley, who died in 2003, used to joke that if he had dropped that 10-ton section, everyone would have remembered his name, says his wife, Mary Ann Quigley of O’Fallon, Mo. Among the thousands of spectators gathered on the riverfront to watch the topping out was Wilfred Kuennen of St. Louis, a self-described “window superintendent” who never turned a bolt or welded a seam, but developed a connection to the Arch that is shared by the uncountable legions who observed the construction from their cars and downtown office buildings.

Kuennen kept a dedicated eye on the Arch-raising from the 17th floor of the old Pierce Building — now the Adams Mark Hotel — on Fourth Street. “As window superintendent, I could hardly wait for the topping date,” he says. Lucky schoolchildren by the busloads watched the big event on the riverfront, while thousands of others clustered around TVs in classrooms and gymnasiums, hoping to spot the time capsule - their personal link to the monument. The names of 762,000 St. Louis area students and well-wishers were hoisted into history along with that last keystone section. The signatory sheets were sealed in the metal time capsule that was welded into the keystone, and that’s where they will stay for as long as the monument stands.

The signatures were the idea of Edwynne P. Murphy, chairman of the Topping Out Committee, who clearly understood the concept of ownership. “Children, when they grow up and have their own families, will be able to point to the Arch and say their names are in it. Close association is important,” Murphy said at the time. Forty years later, those children are all grown up and telling their Arch stories, just as Murphy hoped they would.

Brian T. McGuire of St. Charles, who was a first-grader at Griffith Elementary School in Ferguson, recalls family drives on weekends to check on the building progress and signing his name for the Arch time capsule. “I was always fascinated by the awesome monument,” McGuire says.

- The Official Anniversary Web Site Is Here

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/28/2005 at 08:52 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
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The Story Behind The Indictments

I firmly believe in letting everyone have access to all the facts on breaking news. Today, the federal prosecutor will be handing down indictments in the Valerie Plame affair. While this is going on today, you need to keep in mind the whole story. It is a long read but Stephen F. Hayes at The Weekly Standard has a complete timeline in his recent article, “The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons: The chain of events that gave rise to a grand jury investigation”. I suggest you read it carefully. There are several points to keep in mind: (1) Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame’s husband is a liar and has contradicted himself numerous times in interviews in the media, (2) during the period in question, the CIA, under George Tenet (a Clinton appointee), was engaged in hostile resistance and outright warfare against the Bush Administration, (3) the New York Times and the Washington Post (liberal rags of record) have been flogging Wilson’s side of this story since day one, while ignoring several key facts, and (4) Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, over whom the whole indictment process is brewing, lied about her participation in the CIA’s choice of Wilson to go to Africa to investigate the Niger-Iraq uranium connection.

The liars and criminals are at the CIA, NY Times and Washington Post as well as Wilson and Plame. This is a twisted story of bad decisions, lies, deceptions and crooked political tricks. Sadly, the Bush Administration walked right into this trap. Tenet is no longer at the CIA and several key top management leaders have resigned after new CIA head Porter Goss was put in place by President Bush. In short, everything about this story stinks of partisan political warfare ... including the indictments that will possibly come down today.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/28/2005 at 08:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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Help Wanted

Don’t just complain about it, apply now and do something about it. Starting salary: $34k-$38k. Deadline for new applications: Monday, October 31.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/28/2005 at 06:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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Christmas Joy

Guys, can’t decide on that “perfect” gift for your wife or girlfriend this year? Here is a gift for both of you. Guys love remote controls and women love .... never mind. Get her one of these and you both can be happy. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/28/2005 at 12:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Odd-Strange • Science-Technology •  
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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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