Saturday - May 13, 2006

Saturday Silliness

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/13/2006 at 04:27 AM   
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   Friday - May 12, 2006

Complete Madness

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/12/2006 at 05:45 PM   
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Barking Moonbat Of The Week

This is the first time we have given this award out for a movie (although we were extremely tempted with “Fahrenheit 911"). Rarely do we come across a motion picture like the one below that is so outrageous that it borders on the sublimely ridiculous (not to mention blasphemous to the tenth degree). Fatwah, anyone?

I have no idea where Hollyweird comes up with these “gems” but I believe it has a lot to do with certain mind-altering substances. Regardless, this movie takes the prize this week. At least ... it holds first honors until the release of “Tag-Team Smackdown: Mohammed/Allah vs. Alien/Predator” - which I’ve heard will be “an operatic deathmatch with soundtrack by Snoop Dogg, starring George Clooney as Allah”. I can hardly wait.

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)

Director: Lee Demarbre

Winner: Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film - Santa Cruz Film Festival (2002)

Publicity: The first testament says “an eye for an eye.” The second testament says “love thy neighbour.” The third testament KICKS ASS!

The filmmaking team that brought you Harry Knuckles and won the “Spirit of Slamdance” prize with Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy ups the ante with this tale of the ultimate action hero: Jesus Christ.

The second coming is upon us, and Jesus has returned to earth. But before he can get down to the serious business of judging the living and the dead, he has to contend with an army of vampires that can walk in the daylight.

Combining kung-fu action with biblical prophecy and a liberal dose of humour, the film teams the Savior with Mexican wrestling hero El Santos against mythological horrors and science gone mad, and also manages to address contemporary sexual politics. And did we mention that it’s a musical? This sure ain’t Sunday School.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/12/2006 at 02:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Awards • Hollywood • Outrageous •  
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Caption Contest

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/12/2006 at 02:00 PM   
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Kiwis Not Included

Actually, I had a bid in for $5000 but I withdrew it after I was told that Lucy Lawless and Peter Jackson were not part of the deal. Maybe it’s for the best. Nobody in his right mind lives down there anyway. Nothing but sheep herders and ... sheep herders.

eBay: New Zealand Not for Sale
_{May 12, 2006, 8:22 AM EDT}

SYDNEY, Australia (AP)—New Zealand is not for sale, despite somebody in neighboring Australia trying to offload the nation of 4 million to the highest online bidder.

With a starting offer of just one cent, brisk bidding for the prime chunk of South Pacific real estate quickly boosted the price to $2,330 before eBay pulled the plug on the auction this week.

“Clearly New Zealand is not for sale,” eBay Australia spokesman Daniel Feiler told the New Zealand Press Association, adding that 22 bids had been made before the company acted.

“It is mostly household items we have for sale, but there are the occasional quirky items put up,” he added. “We have a look at them and if they are OK we leave them, but if it is something that can’t be sold, we take them off.”

The trader has not been named, but apparently was unimpressed with the country he was trying to sell.

The rivalry between the two countries is intense and in his advertisement the man said New Zealand had “very ordinary weather.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/12/2006 at 01:21 PM   
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The Smoking Gun?

In the story below, AP headlines that “more” uranium was recently found in Iran. Then they proceed to tell us deeper in the story that it was not a question of “more” uranium but “more powerful” uranium. Indeed, traces of weapons grade nuclear material have been found at a site that was mysteriously closed down recently and all traces of the facility destroyed. Iran still refuses to let the UN and the IAEA back into the country to monitor their nuclear facilities. All we have is their “word” that they only have peaceful intentions.

Trust the Mad Mullahs and President Ahmawhackjob? Not on your life. However, I do have a solution. Let’s all step back and let the Iranians go ahead with their plans. Does that sound insane? Well, not really. You see, if you build a nuclear bomb you have no way of knowing if you got it right or if the bloody thing will even work as advertised until you test the damned thing. Every country that has developed nuclear weapons has had to take that final step of actually testing their bomb.

So we sit back and wait. The US, Russia and several other countries have sophisticated monitoring devices that operate around the clock to detect nuclear explosions anywhere in the world. All we need to do is wait ... and listen. Concentrate on Iran with all of our “big ears” devices. The instant we hear a “BURP” out of Iran ... we launch. Fifty thousand years later radiation levels will have subsided and humans will finally be able to go back into what used to be Iran. Which will give us time to figure out what to do about North Korea. Any questions ... ?

More Uranium Reportedly Found in Iran
_{May 12, 2006 11:30pm EDT}

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N. atomic agency found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country’s defense ministry, diplomats said Friday, adding to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities aimed at making nuclear arms.

The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads.

Still, they said, further analysis could show that the traces match others established to have come from abroad. The International Atomic Energy Agency determined earlier traces of weapons-grade uranium were imported on equipment from Pakistan that Iran bought on the black market during nearly two decades of clandestine activity discovered just over three years ago.

The Islamic republic denies accusations it wants to make nuclear arms and says it is only interested in uranium to generate power. To argue that it never enriched uranium domestically to weapons grade, it cites the IAEA’s tentative conclusion last year that weapons-grade traces collected from other sites within the country with no suspected ties to that military came in on equipment from Pakistan.

The origin of the samples now under perusal created some concern in that regard. One of the diplomats told The Associated Press that the samples came from equipment that can be used in uranium-enriching centrifuges at a former research center at Lavizan-Shian. The center is believed to have been the repository of equipment bought by the Iranian military that could be used in a nuclear weapons program.

The United States alleges Iran had conducted high-explosive tests that could have a bearing on developing nuclear weapons at the site. The State Department said in 2004 that Lavizan’s buildings had been dismantled and topsoil had been removed in attempts to hide nuclear weapons-related experiments. The agency subsequently confirmed that the site had been razed.

In an April 28 report to the U.N. Security Council and the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors, agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said the agency took samples from some of the equipment of the former Physics Research Center at Lavizan-Shian. The diplomat said the evaluation of those samples revealed the traces in question.

- More on this nucular madness here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/12/2006 at 12:30 PM   
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Hypocricy Alert!

_{John Trever—The Albuquerque (NM) Journal}

- May 8, 2006: “President Bush Turns to Gen. Hayden to Lead CIA”

Republican and Democratic critics also questioned the wisdom of putting a military officer in charge of the civilian spy agency.

“Nevertheless, to send a signal of independence from the Pentagon, General Hayden may want to consider retiring from the Air Force,” Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine said. “That would put to rest questions about whether an active duty military officer should lead the CIA at this time.”

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said that Hayden’s military background would be a “major problem,” and several Democrats who made the rounds of the Sunday television talk shows. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Hayden could leave agents with the impression that the CIA has been “just gobbled up by the Defense Department.”

Some lawmakers, like Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, suggested that Hayden might think about resigning his military post if he were going to head the CIA.

- February 8, 1977: “President Carter appoints Admiral Turner to Lead CIA”

Admiral Stansfield Turner was appointed head of CIA on 8 February 1977 by President Jimmy Carter; confirmed by a Democrat-majority Senate without dissent on 24 February 1977 and sworn in on 9 March 1977.

Under Turner’s direction, the CIA emphasized TECHINT and SIGINT more than HUMINT. Turner eliminated over 800 operational positions in what was called the Halloween Massacre. This organizational direction is notable because William Casey was seen to have a completely opposite approach, focusing much of his attention on HUMINT. Turner gave notable testimony to Congress revealing much of the extent of the MKULTRA program, which the CIA ran from the early 1950s to late 1960s. Reform and simplification of the intelligence community’s multilayered secrecy system was one of Turner’s significant initiatives, but produced no results by the time he left office.

One exception to Turner’s preference for non-human intelligence gathering involved the use of a psychic. In the January 2006 issue of GQ magazine, former President Jimmy Carter reportedthat Turner hired a psychic to help locate a US plane that had been lost in Central Africa. When Turner’s preferred TECHINT and SIGINT approaches both failed to find the missing plane, Turner reported to the president that the agency hired a psychic to help find the plane.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/12/2006 at 10:23 AM   
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   Thursday - May 11, 2006

That’s Entertainment

Some people are entertained by television, others by Hollywood movies. Some even go to the internet and the blogs for entertainment. Sadly, in some third-world countries, people have to be content to be entertained by ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/11/2006 at 03:51 PM   
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The Strange Story Of Antonina Makarova

One of the good things to come out of the end of the Cold War was the opening up of Soviet archives. Historians have been digging through the files and new (and sometimes strange) facts are coming to light every day. The strange history of Antonina Makarova was disclosed in December of last year and is just now reaching the outside world.

Antonina Makarova was executed by firing squad on August 11, 1978 and her life story is worth a couple of books and maybe a Hollywood movie. Makarova was 19 years old when the Nazis pushed into the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. She volunteered for the front as a machine gunner and when the Nazis swept through and destroyed her unit she wandered behind German lines until the SS grabbed her and offered her food and shelter in return for her services as an executioner. The rest of her story defies description ....

Woman Who Executed 1,500 People In WWII
Faced Death Sentence 30 Years Later
(PRAVDA)

Many years after WWII, the Soviet Interior Ministry and the KGB were still disclosing war crimes and exposed those criminals who assisted the Fascist army during the war. In the summer of 1978, after so many years of unsuccessful searches the KGB finally found traces of a Soviet woman who during the war executed partisans and their families by shooting by order of Fascist commanders. Within 1941-1943, Antonina Makarova worked as a machine gunner on the occupied Soviet territory. At that time the woman was just 20, too young and wishing to stay alive, so she chose to work for Nazis and carried out death sentences instead of dying when defending the motherland from enemies.

Antonina was born in a village to the Parfenovs family where later more children were born. She was the eldest child and was the first to go to school. Antonina was not a talkative girl; she felt embarrassed when a teacher asked her last name. The girl forgot her last name, and the teacher put down her last name as Makarova as the name of the girl’s father was Makar. And since that time Antonina was the only member of the Parfenovs family who had the last name Makarova. After the girl left school she left for Moscow where she planned to continue studies or find some employment. But suddenly WWII broke out, and the 19-year-old girl joined volunteers going to the front. She dreamt of becoming a machine gunner.

In autumn of 1941, Hitler’s troops were approaching Moscow in the framework of the Typhoon operation. Over one million of Soviet young people died near Vyazma and 500,000 people were taken captives. It seemed that the deaths of the people were senseless and could not save the situation. One day Antonina found herself among heaps of dead Soviet soldiers and felt terribly scared. The girl survived but had to make a long and hard way to find Soviet troops and join them. The girl roamed about villages and asked housewives to shelter her and give some food. Usually, women let Antonina stay in their houses for several days, gave her food and allowed to wash in the bath house, but soon inevitably told her to go away. Village women did not like the girl’s glance and her manner to flirt with those few men who stayed in the village. Indeed, it seemed the girl was terribly afraid of spending cold nights alone and agreed to share her bed with any man who agreed. In the settlement of Lokot Antonina came across Fascist policemen who offered her employment of a machine gunner for good payment and gave her some lodging.

Usually Antonina Makarova was ordered to execute a group of 27 people, the number of partisans which a local prison could house. Death sentences were carried out on the edge of a pit half a kilometer from the prison. She never knew people whom she executed and they had no notion who the executioner was either. Antonina executed the first group of partisans being absolutely drunk and the girl could hardly realize what she was doing. She often kept clothes of those whom she killed if the things were good; she carefully washed them and heaped them in her room.

In the evenings after work Antonina loved to dress up and enjoy her time dancing with German officers together with other girls who came there as prostitutes. Antonina boasted she used to live in Moscow that is why other girls kept aloof from her. At dawn, Antonina often came to the prison and peered into the faces of people whom she was to execute in the morning. The woman just did her job when executing people and believed that the war would write her crimes off. She often had to shoot families of partisans, women, elderly people and teenagers.

Antonina was lucky. In the summer of 1943 when the Soviet army began fighting for liberation of the Bryansk Region where Antonina lived and worked for the Fascist army, German officers found out that she and other prostitutes had a sexually transmitted disease and sent them to cure the disease in some remote hospital. When Soviet troops entered the settlement of Lokot and executed traitors of the motherland working for Nazis by hanging, Antonina Makarova was not among them. According to modest estimates, Soviet troops discovered remains of about 1,500 people whom Antonina had executed. Later, only about 200 people of them could be identified. The death of the people was the ground of a criminal case initiated against Antonina Makarova born in 1921 and supposedly living in Moscow before the war. There was no other information about the terrible woman.

The KGB was keeping the case of Antonina Makarova for many years in the archives and could not believe that the woman disappeared once and for all. After the war, KGB investigators found out about 250 women with the name Antonina Makarova and approximately of the age of the terrible machine gunner. The KGB could not just ignore the fact that the woman actually existed but suddenly disappeared. The crimes she committed were terrible and must be punished for. It seemed incredible that one woman killed so many people. Fortunately, some of Antonina’s victims survived and told they saw the young woman every day in their dreams. These people were absolutely sure that the executioner was alive.

All searches for Antonina Makarova turned out to be a bad luck. The machine gunner managed to escape punishment because investigators did not guess to search the woman by her real last name, Parfenova, not the one – Makarova – that the teacher gave to the girl by mistake. In 1976, KGB officials suddenly found traces of Antonina Makarova who had the last name Ginsburg after a marriage in 1945. A Moscow official named Parfenov was registering documents necessary for a trip abroad and put down the names of all close relatives in official documents necessary for getting a visa. All people of the family had the last name Parfenov but one woman was named Antonina Makarova (Ginsburg after marriage). The KGB went into details and found out that Antonina Ginsburg (maiden name Makarova) was a very respectable 55-year-old woman living in a small town in Belarus, in Lepel. In 1945, Antonina Makarova married war veteran Viktor Ginsburg whom she met in a military hospital.

When the war was over Antonina together with her husband went to his native town, Lepel where they lived a happy life and gave birth to two daughters. The woman and her husband were respectable citizens of the town, war veterans enjoying all privileges usually granted to war veterans. The KGB acted rather cautiously not to mar the woman’s reputation in the town in case all suspicions turn out to be mistaken. KGB officers brought several victims of the terrible machine gunner, another executioner working with her and one of Antonina’s war lover to the town where the suspected woman lived to identify her. Only when all the witnesses identified Antonina Ginsburg as Antonina the Machine Gunner who executed orders of Fascist officers the KGB arrested the woman. At first, Antonina behaved as if she was arrested by mistake. Her husband was indignant at the arrest and even threatened to complain to the UN about the human rights violation. But soon Antonina confessed she had been working for Nazis during WWII and told every detail about those horrible days. Her husband turned grey overnight when he learnt the truth.

Being in a detention center, Antonina wrote no messages to her husband and daughters. The woman concealed not a single detail of her past which was particularly scary. Investigators say that it seemed as if Antonina could not realize that she actually committed anything criminal. She remembered every execution she carried out but did not regret anything. There is no excuse for Antonina’s doings even if the woman says she had to kill hundreds of people to save her life. A psychical expertise revealed the woman was of sound mind. Investigators feared that the accused could commit suicide which was quite typical of people whose terrible crimes were disclosed.

During the investigation, Antonina was brought to the settlement of Lokot where she executed families of partisans. The woman described in detail where and how she committed every execution. Antonina took the arrest as something particularly shameful for a woman of her age and reputation. She expected she would be sentenced to not more than three years of suspended sentence and planned to leave Lepel to begin a new life somewhere else.

But a court decision as concerning Antonina Ginsburg (Makarova) turned out to be an absolute surprise for investigators and for the accused herself. The court sentenced Antonina to capital sentence by shooting. The woman was executed August 11, 1978. Moscow authorities declined all appeals for pardon that Antonina had sent there. The case of Antonina Makarova was the last significant case on traitors of the motherland during WWII and the only one which concerned a female executor. Never before that was a woman executed by shooting by court decision in the USSR.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/11/2006 at 11:40 AM   
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Memo To Karl Rove

To: Karl Rove
From: The Skipper
Subject: Fornication

Karl,

Things are really looking bleak for President Bush lately. His approval rating is down to 31% in spite of the fact that the Democrats are loons, losers and have no ideas worth mentioning. I realize the war is going badly, we’re being overrun by illegal immigrants and the price of gasoline is through the roof but hey, we both know none of that is Dubya’s fault, right? So what do we do to turn this thing around?

The answer is ... fornication. We need more of it. It takes people’s minds off the bad things happening plus it relieves stress and puts people in a better mood which is something we need come November. I realize you may have a hard time selling this to Dubya so let me clue you in on a few interesting facts.

President Vladimir Putin in Russia recently told his people in a state message to have more sex and make more babies. Now I realize you guys think old “Pooty-Poot” is a wingnut but take a look at the results. His approval rating just jumped up to 75%.

Karl babe, are you paying attention here? Sex sells. Talk to Dubya. Convince him to use the fornication angle. If you don’t we’re all screwed.

Thanks!

P.S. The only good news is that people seem to dislike the Donks even more than they dislike Bush ....

The political situation has not helped some of the more prominent members of the Democratic Party. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who was Bush’s opponent in 2004, had a lower approval rating than Bush: 26 percent, down from 40 percent in a poll conducted right after the election. And just 28 percent said they had a favorable view of Al Gore, one of Bush’s more vocal critics.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/11/2006 at 10:50 AM   
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Meanwhile … On Another Planet

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/11/2006 at 02:27 AM   
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Donk Decisions

_{Nick Anderson—Houston Chronicle}

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/11/2006 at 01:49 AM   
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   Wednesday - May 10, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Zion Narrows - Zion National Park”
Jon Sullivan
_{(click image for larger version 1024x768 in popup window)}

_{Memo: Jon’s photographs have been featured here for the last few weeks (with his permission). Jon is a real dyed-in-the-wool Liberal but other than that he’s a nice guy and a helluva decent photographer who believes in sharing art - even with (horrors!) Conservatives. Jon and I may be on opposite sides of the political fence but we share a love of photography and nature. Go visit Jon at his site (link above) and check out the huge photo albums and outstanding photography. BTW, if I hear that any of you “neo-cons” gave Jon a hard time, I’ll beat you severely about the ears. Save your spleen for Democratic Underground, MoveOn.org and Daily KOS. Play nice.}

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/10/2006 at 05:49 PM   
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Most Hilarious Headline Of The Day

What I want to know is who decided to spend a lot of time looking for it ... and why. Regardless, you will have to make do without a picture for this story. Aren’t you glad ... ?

Found! King Tut’s Penis
_{Thursday, 4 May 2006}

King Tutenkhamen’s penis was there all along, scientists say. It wasn’t stolen and sold, as rumours suggested. King Tutankhamen’s rediscovered penis could make the pharaoh stand out in the shrunken world of male mummies, scientists say. They’ve taken a close look at old pictures of the 3300-year-old mummified king.

His sexual organ has been just another puzzle in the story of the best-known pharaoh of ancient Egypt. Harry Burton (1879-1940) photographed the royal penis intact during Howard Carter’s excavation of King Tut’s tomb in 1922.

But it was reported missing in 1968, when UK scientist Professor Ronald Harrison took a series of x-rays of the mummy. There was speculation that the penis had been stolen and sold.

“Instead, it has always been there. I found it during the CT scan last year, when the mummy was lifted. It lay loose in the sand around the king’s body. It was mummified,” says Professor Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

At first look, Burton’s pictures may seem to indicate that King Tut could have been a little better endowed. But according to mummy expert Dr Eduard Egarter Vigl, the pharaoh was built normally.

- More about mummified “johnsons” here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/10/2006 at 02:23 PM   
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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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