BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin's presence in the lower 48 means the Arctic ice cap can finally return.

calendar   Friday - December 07, 2007

News for Nerds

This is amazing. Some people figured out how to scale images by automatically removing unimportant content. And you can edit the heck out of things by marking image objects as less important, which could let you save great vacation pictures and remove the ex- from the picture at the same time!

Though I have to agree with the one commenter that this could be used in a very dishonest manner by folks in the media ... recall what Al-Reuters has done with their “fauxtography”. You could never trust a digital image again. Well, even less then you trust them now.

And to be most useful for scalable web pages, I think you’d have to build the dynamic function right into the image. Maybe that could be done with .gif files, which already have the ability to be animated, but if its a vector graphics thing that forces you to use .bmp images then there will be lots of overhead. Bitmaps are highly adaptable but they make a huge file. So there may be a new graphics format on the way?

Looking towards the future, how would you embed this kind of algorithm in a digital movie file?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/07/2007 at 08:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Iran Claims to Have Built Supercomputer

ComputerWorld is reporting today that Iran is claiming to have built a reletively lightweight supercomputer based on Advanced Micro Devices’ Opteron Processor.  Problem is: AMD says it didn’t sell Iran any of these.  If they, in fact, have them, it is a violation of trade sanctions we have against Iran.

Iranians claim to have built Opteron-based supercomputer
Use of processors by research center would run afoul of U.S. trade sanctions; AMD says it hasn’t authorized any shipments to Iran, ‘directly or indirectly’

December 06, 2007 (Computerworld)—Despite federal antiterrorism trade sanctions that bar the sale of U.S.-made computer technology to Iran, a computing research center in Tehran claims to have used Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s Opteron processor to build the Middle Eastern country’s most powerful supercomputer.

The Iranian High Performance Computing Research Center (IHPCRC), which is located at Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology, said in an undated announcement on its Web site that it has assembled a Linux-based system with 216 Opteron processing cores. That’s a relatively small supercomputer, with a claimed peak performance level of 860 billion floating-point operations per second, or gigaflops. But the research center said that the system, which will be used for weather forecasting and meteorological research, is the fastest built in Iran to date.

This isn’t the first time that the Iranians have used U.S.-developed processor technology to build high-performance systems, according to a history posted on the research center’s Web site. For instance, the history says that in 2001, prior to the formation of the IHPCRC, researchers at Amirkabir University built a 32-node PC cluster based on Pentium III processors from Intel Corp. A year later, they used Pentium IV chips in another cluster, this one with eight nodes.

But how did the IHPCRC get Opteron processors for the new supercomputer if U.S. technology can’t be sold in or shipped to Iran? The research center may have provided a clue, though perhaps inadvertently, in a photo gallery that also can be found on its Web site.

The gallery includes a series of photos dated this year, showing workers assembling what the research center describes as the “cluster of IRIMO.” That acronym refers to an Iranian meteorological organization, which would be a perfect fit for the planned uses of the Opteron-based supercomputer.

The first picture in that series of photos shows a staffer using a screwdriver on what appears to be the components of a server. Behind him, on a table, is a stack of similarly sized boxes, all of which appear to have the word “Thacker” and the initials “U.A.E.” written in hand on their sides.

Thacker FZE is an authorized distributor of AMD products that is based in the United Arab Emirates, in the state of Dubai. The company is also listed under the name Sky Electronics on AMD’s Web site. Sky Electronics, whose managing director is named Manoj Thacker, says on its Web site that it is a business partner of Intel, Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Corp. and several other technology vendors in addition to AMD.

Maybe that’s why they need all of that enriched uranium...to predict the weather.  blank stare


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/07/2007 at 08:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran •  
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Bank’s security secrets in rubbish bin

Bank’s security secrets in rubbish bin
I FILED UNDER OUTSOURCING CAUSE I HAVE A TWISTED SENSE OF HUMOR.  WELL, IT IS FUNNY.

Bank’s security secrets in rubbish bin
By Harry de Quetteville
Last Updated: 2:54am GMT 07/12/2007

It cost £100 million to renovate and was intended to be one of the most secure spaces on the planet, but the secret plans to the vault of the German Federal Bank in Berlin were thrown away in a hairdresser’s rubbish bin.

The floor plans to the vault, home to hundreds of millions of pounds and part of a building that was opened to much fanfare four weeks ago, were discovered by a bemused barber as he threw out his rubbish.

The plans reveal that the money is stored beneath metres-thick layers of concrete and steel.

They also reveal the precise location of motion sensors and intruder detectors, as well as reinforced grills and gates.

“I wanted to throw away my rubbish and I noticed the plastic bag with the building sketches,” said the bemused barber.

The Bundesbank confirmed that the plans were genuine and promised “to come up with an explanation as soon as possible”.

“We will check to see how this could have happened,” Albrecht Sommer, a spokesman, said. “Right now we have to make sure no more work site plans are out there.”

http://tinyurl.com/2e5ow8



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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 12/07/2007 at 07:03 AM   
Filed Under: • Outsourcing •  
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calendar   Thursday - December 06, 2007

Unreconcilable

Now that the dust has settled in the “Let’s give a name to this Teddy Bear, shall we class?” affair, maybe it’s time to sit back and reflect upon some of the reactions to it.  Not so much from the blog-o-sphere, but from some of the “organizations” we’ve grown to know and love over the years…

NOW - “In the U.S., a spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women said the situation is definitely on the radar, and N.O.W. is not ignoring it.  But she added that the U.S.-based organization is not putting out a statement or taking a position.” (Fox News)

CAIR - Nothing.  (via search for “Teddy Bear” at cair.com)

Amnesty International - Nothing (via search for “Teddy Bear” at amnesty.org)

Human Rights Watch - Nothing (via search for “Teddy Bear” at hrw.org)

Well, you get the idea.

I don’t think for a minute that there wasn’t discussion at any of these organizations about this, but the public response speaks volumes.  With the exception of CAIR, whose motives have been well-explained elsewhere, none of the above can reconcile what’s happened in the Sudan with the kind of moral equivalence that gets preached in our direction on a regular basis. 

The editorialists at USA Today, with whom I normally disagree, got this one right: “If any value is to come from this sorry episode, it is to put moderate Muslims on notice: If you do not stand up, forcefully, and in a sustained way, the religion you claim is peaceful will be defined by intolerant extremists and manipulated by cynical politicians such as al-Bashir. And that, in turn, makes Western hatred of Islam, and a clash of civilizations, more likely.” (Read the whole editorial at http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/12/message-from-a.html)

But back to those stalwards of Human Rights - NOW, AI, and HRW: I will maintain that it’s their inability to reconcile world events with their so-flawed dogma that has rendered them silent.  And I’ve got news for them: there is no moral equivalence between decent human beings and those vermin that slithered through the streets of Khartoum calling for the execution of this woman.

Shame on them.  Shame on them all.


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Posted by Somnambulist57   Bermuda  on 12/06/2007 at 04:40 PM   
Filed Under: • AfricaRoPMA •  
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Smackdown

Michael Bane has a link to an interesting video taken in NYC on the “A” train posted on The Smoking Gun

Go watch the video, then come back to discuss.

Questions:
1. What should the victim have done differently?
2. What about the rest of the riders, simply doing nothing (except for recording it on their phone and posting it on the web)?
3. What can we learn from his misfortune?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/06/2007 at 05:19 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
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Prince Caspian

Our family has read through the C.S. Lewis series: The Chronicles of Narnia and absolutely love the first picture.  It looks like number two will be even better.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/06/2007 at 04:08 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-PhotographyFun-Stuff •  
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Who ya gonna believe, the MSM or John Bolton?

The Flaws In the Iran Report

by John Bolton

image

The Mustache of Truth

Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the “intelligence community” on issues such as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.

All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than “intelligence” analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.

I question the timing of this NIE document ...

Consider these flaws in the NIE’s “key judgments,” which were made public even though approximately 140 pages of analysis, and reams of underlying intelligence, remain classified.

First, the headline finding—that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003—is written in a way that guarantees the totality of the conclusions will be misread. In fact, there is little substantive difference between the conclusions of the 2005 NIE on Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the 2007 NIE. Moreover, the distinction between “military” and “civilian” programs is highly artificial, since the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Indeed, it has always been Iran’s “civilian” program that posed the main risk of a nuclear “breakout.”

The real differences between the NIEs are not in the hard data but in the psychological assessment of the mullahs’ motives and objectives. The current NIE freely admits to having only moderate confidence that the suspension continues and says that there are significant gaps in our intelligence and that our analysts dissent from their initial judgment on suspension. This alone should give us considerable pause.

many involved in drafting and approving the NIE were not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department, brought into the new central bureaucracy of the director of national intelligence. These officials had relatively benign views of Iran’s nuclear intentions five and six years ago; now they are writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high. In fact, these are precisely the policy biases they had before, recycled as “intelligence judgments.”

What, you mean all the Clintonistas that got kicked out of State not only still have jobs, they’re now playing Secret Squirreltm with classified intel?

That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling. While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this “intelligence” torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.

Well, no kidding. I’ve read elsewhere that this NIE report, and the instant spin the MSM put on it, have effectively pulled off a foreign policy coupe against Bush. We will take no action whatsoever against the Mad Mullahs for the remainder of W’s time in office. By which point they will have the bomb, guaranteed.

Go read the rest of the article.


Why the heck isn’t JB running for President or at least making GOP stump speeches? He looks like the only Repub with a spine in all of DC. Of the whole damn GOP, I trust him and Newt and Scalia. And Fred, a little. That’s about it.

batbatbat

UPDATE The ‘stache isn’t alone on this. Read more about the never ending battle between the Whitehouse and CIA at Powerline who quote two NY papers:

The proper way to read this report is through the lens of the long struggle the professional intelligence community has been waging against the elected civilian administration in Washington. They have opposed President Bush on nearly every major policy decision. They were against the Iraqi National Congress. They were against elections in Iraq. They were against I. Lewis Libby. They are against a tough line on Iran.

One could call all this revenge of the bureaucrats. Vann Van Diepen, one of the estimate’s main authors, has spent the last five years trying to get America to accept Iran’s right to enrich uranium. Mr. Van Diepen no doubt reckons that in helping push the estimate through the system, he has succeeded in influencing the policy debate in Washington. The bureaucrats may even think they are stopping another war.

Our own “confidence” is not heightened by the fact that the NIE’s main authors include three former State Department officials with previous reputations as “hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials,” according to an intelligence source. They are Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The U.S. also knows that Iran has extensive technical information on how to fit a warhead atop a ballistic missile. And there is considerable evidence that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps has been developing the detonation devices needed to set off a nuclear explosion at the weapons testing facility in Parchin. Even assuming that Iran is not seeking a bomb right now, it is hardly reassuring that they are developing technologies that could bring them within a screw’s twist of one.

Pajamas Media weighs in

The most interesting part of the “Estimate” is of course its political and policy implications, which National Security Adviser Steven Hadley was quick to spell out. In his view, and in that of many political leaders and pundits, if Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, there is no great urgency to move against the mullahs.

his sort of blatant unprofessionalism is as common in today’s Washington as it is unworthy of a serious intel type, and I think it tells us a lot about the document itself.

The Philadelphia Inquirer wonders where the missing (redacted?) paragraph is that explains things:

There’s lots to wonder about in the Key Judgments of the latest National Intelligence Estimate, which informs us with “high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear bomb program four years ago. This contradicts its 2005 warning that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.” That followed the 2003-2004 zig-zag from our intelligence community on Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s interest in weapons of mass destruction; which followed the intelligence failure to zero in on the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers before they slammed airplanes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

Would you buy a used car from our spooks?

But let us assume that their new report is correct - at least until its consensus, distilled from the bureaucracies of 16 U.S. agencies, might be contradicted by the next intelligence reversal (or perhaps an Iranian nuclear test). Let us assume, as our spies now estimate, that Iran’s government had a nuclear weapons program running for years, but in late 2003, “primarily in response to international pressure,” brought it to a halt.

That brings us to what I would call the crucial, missing paragraph in this report. If international pressure achieved such sterling results in Iran four years ago, then surely we deserve to know what, exactly, impressed Iran’s rulers so thoroughly that they might have slammed on the brakes. This the National Intelligence Estimate does not explain.

Was it diplomacy? In 2003, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency was still pondering and dithering over Iran’s nuclear program, unwilling until 2005 even to refer the matter for action to the Security Council - where no action was taken until the watered-down sanctions imposed in 2006. Also in 2003, the European Union began a series of talks with Iran so limp that they dragged on for years with no verifiable results beyond nose-thumbing from Tehran. I’d suggest, with high confidence, that crediting the EU or the U.N. with having corralled Iran four years ago would be ridiculous.

Iran’s regime has a long record of deceit, terror and murder. In choosing the tools to stop Tehran from taking these tactics nuclear, Americans need honest assessments of what works - and what doesn’t. If our intelligence experts are now writing our military overthrow of Hussein out of their history books as irrelevant to whatever calculations they now suggest took place in Iran that same year, it’s time for less official consensus, and a lot more common sense.

This intelligence report cheats Americans.

I’m sure you can find other voices of patriotic dissent without much effort. It’s a con people, don’t buy it.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/06/2007 at 01:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Female ‘lyrical terrorist’ escapes jail

This country will go to all lengths to be very fair. 
Even if means sucking up to this filth.

Female ‘lyrical terrorist’ escapes jail
By Natalie Paris and agencies
Last Updated: 1:43pm GMT 06/12/2007

A worker at Heathrow airport convicted for possessing records likely to be useful for terrorism has today been spared a prison term.

Samina Malik, 23, called herself the “lyrical terrorist” and stocked a “library” of material that would be useful to terrorists at her family home in Southall, west London.

She wrote poems called How To Behead and wrote on the back of a WH Smith till receipt: “The desire within me increases every day to go for martyrdom.”

Malik, who worked at the stationery shop, was given a nine month suspended jail sentence after her conviction at the Old Bailey undersection 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 last month.

She had already spent five months in custody.

Described as an unlikely but committed Islamic extremist, Malik told the court she had only given herself the name because she thought it was “cool”.

She insisted in court that she was not a terrorist but prosecutors she had visited a website linked to jailed cleric Abu Hamza and stored material about weapons.

She had also listed her interests on a social networking site as “helping the mujaheddin in any way I can”.

Under her favourite TV shows, she listed: “Watching videos by my Muslim brothers in Iraq, yep the beheading ones, watching video messages by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri and other videos which show massacres of the kaffirs.”

Judge Peter Beaumont said he thought Malik’s offence was “on the margins of what this crime concerns.”

In her defence, John Burton, said that Malik had been “searching to find out about Islam” when she was “subjected to the messages of hate”.

“She became hooked on Abu Hamza-type addresses and that affected her mindset”, he added.

The conviction has provoked some criticism however.
Muhammed Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said today that he did not think such cases should come to court.

“Many young people download objectionable material from the internet, but it seems if you are a Muslim then this could lead to criminal charges, even if you have absolutely no intention to do harm to anyone else.

“Young people may well have some silly thoughts. That should not be criminalised. It is their actions that we should be concerned about.”

But a Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: “Samina Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry.

“Ms Malik was convicted of collecting information, without reasonable excuse, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

“This information included terrorism and poison handbooks as well as military manuals and other material likely to be useful to someone planning terrorist activity.”

http://tinyurl.com/2bnpm2


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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 12/06/2007 at 09:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists •  
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Hero at Seven

There are a lot of angles to this story.

DETROIT—A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an “angel from heaven” and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother’s life.

Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm.

“She is an angel from heaven,” said Aisha Ford, a family friend for 15 years who also was caught up in the evening of terror.

The girl’s mother, Selietha Parker, 30, was shot in the left side of her head and her bicep by a former boyfriend, who police said was trying to kill Parker. The gunman was disarmed by police and arrested at the scene of the shooting, a Detroit gas station. Police identified him as Calvin Tillie, 29, a four-time convicted felon whom Parker had dated for six months.

Parker, who was treated and released at Detroit Receiving Hospital, is now at her daughter’s bedside. She declined to comment Tuesday.

Read the rest to get the full story, but imagine the courage of this young lady to jump in front of an enraged man who is shooting her mother.  Imagine the horror of seeing your child do that for you?  Imagine the depth of evil in a man’s heart to continue shooting this little girl when she threw herself in the line of fire.

I hope and pray that proper justice will be served on this cretin.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/06/2007 at 09:13 AM   
Filed Under: • CrimeHeroesSelf-Defense •  
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calendar   Wednesday - December 05, 2007

Who needs Osama?

Every year we hear a warning from the FBI that they have some kind of intel that terrorists will wreak havoc in a shopping mall during the holiday period. And it seems that just about every year they do, except they aren’t foreign terrorists. Nope, when it comes to mall shootings, we do just fine by ourselves. I had this thought while watching the news tonight on the latest rampage out in Omaha, and 10 seconds on the net showed that I was right.

FOX Facts: Past Holiday Mall Shootings

The following facts provide background on recent holiday mall shootings.

Christmas Eve 2006: Jesse Cesar, 21, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in a fatal Christmas Eve gang shooting at a St. Petersburg, Fla., mall that sent shoppers running for cover. Cesar was accused of firing the shots that killed Berno Charlemond, 23, and of shooting at authorities, according to the arrest report. No one else was injured. (Source: St. Petersburg Times)

December 2006: Gunfire at Eastland Mall in Charlotte, N.C., sent Christmas shoppers ducking for cover and left one man shot in the neck. The shooting erupted in the busy mall about 8:15 p.m., after an argument between two groups of men. Investigators believe four shots were fired from two guns. One struck a 27-year-old man in the base of his neck, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said. The man had been involved in the argument. (Source: Charlotte Observer)

December 2004
: Holiday shopping turned deadly when two men were shot - one fatally - inside of their car in the Quail Springs Mall parking lot, police said. Police received several 911 calls about 11:40 a.m. reporting that shots had been fired in the parking lot and that both victims had fallen out of their white Oldsmobile and onto the lot. Police said they did not believe Christmas shoppers were targeted. (Source: The Daily Oklahoman)

December 2004: A Boston boy in his early teens was shot in the stomach just outside the Cambridgeside Galleria’s east entrance as hundreds of holiday shoppers packed the mall, police said. The shooting, which frightened shoppers, neighbors, and mall employees, was the third inside or just outside the mall in less than a decade. (Source: The Boston Globe)

December 2003: A shooting inside the Caribbean’s largest shopping mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico, wounded one man and created panic during the height of the Christmas season. Thousands of shoppers were in Plaza Las Americas mall when a man fired at Manuel Villanueva Carrasquillo in front of the Sears store, police said. They were unsure of the motive. Villanueva was in stable condition at a hospital with two gunshot wounds to the neck and chest, police said. (Source: Orlando Sentinel)

December 2001: A fatal shooting outside Owings Mills mall prompted questions yesterday about mall security and whether the incident would scare off shoppers during the last week of the crucial Christmas shopping season. But some shoppers said the violence, which appeared unrelated to any mall activity, would not force them to change their habits. (Source: The Baltimore Sun)

Christmas Eve 1999: A former Roxbury man was convicted of fatally shooting a 20-year-old Roslindale man at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall on Christmas Eve was sentenced to 15 to 18 years in state prison for the slaying, authorities reported. The shooting occurred in the parking garage in front of stunned shoppers who were streaming out of the mall with packages and bags. (Source: The Boston Globe)

We do a better job at this than Osama could ever hope for. Sorry to be such a cynic, but it’s true.

By tomorrow, or the day after, expect today’s shooter to be linked to the hand grenade that was found at this same mall last week. And wasn’t there something about a hand grenade at a mall last year? Or was that a plan to grenade a mall but they got caught? Were we allowed to call that one attempted terrorism, or was it just a benign plot to use WMDs in a criminal manner?

Oh, and this latest kid used an “assault rifle”, a $100 piece of junk SKS.

ABC News has confirmed with two sources that the gun used at Westroads Mall was an SKS-style assault rifle with two magazines taped together found at the scene. ABC reported that taping magazines together is a technique that allows the shooter to reload more quickly.

...

Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren confirmed the rifle style, but would not confirm the magazine detail.

The woman Hawkins was staying with said she thinks he stole the weapon from his stepfather.

Outside of Hawkins’ mother’s home, Omaha police and a crew from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were serving a search warrant in La Vista just before 10 p.m. It is believed the gun Hawkins’ used was stolen from the home.

Yeah, cuz any milsurp semiauto is an evil black rifle, even if it totally isn’t one, actually. It doesn’t matter any more: Stand by for the Brady/AWB crowd to jump on this in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

UPDATE
Just saw the press conference on FoxNews. Well most of it, as they ran Romney’s Rant on Religion first. So I missed hearing it, but the Fox screen ticker says the kid used an AK-47. That sorta moots the little side discussion on SKSs in the comments. I’m sure the press conference will be on loop, and the mall security cam videos will be on TV sometime today, so see for yourself.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/05/2007 at 10:48 PM   
Filed Under: • CrimeTerrorists •  
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a modern BBC nativity :  O Come All Ye Fatthless

Oh Darn.  Wish they’d publish ALL of the photo online as in paper. Just as well I guess.  The guy dressed as Jesus would really piss off Mel Gibson.
Actually, from the report there are rather a large number of Christians not too pleased.  Can’t say I blame them.  Oh boy, if the subject was islam ....

Follow the soap star: a modern BBC nativity By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:10pm GMT 05/12/2007

A former glamour model and soap star sits on top of a bus shelter, squeezed into a silver catsuit. A pregnant teenager stands below, nearby is an abandoned shopping trolley. It may sound like a scene from a new comedy series, but is, in fact, the BBC’s modern-day vision of the Christmas story.

In a move which has dismayed religious groups, the corporation is to broadcast a “contemporary” nativity play featuring Mary and Joseph as asylum seekers who are instructed to report to the nearest passport office.

The story, set in Liverpool, stars the former Brookside actress Jennifer Ellison as an angel and Geoffrey Hughes, who played Eddie Yeats in Coronation Street, as the Angel Gabriel. During the performance on Dec 16, which will be broadcast live on BBC3, the 300-strong cast will walk through parts of the city singing hits from local bands such as The Beatles and The Zutons, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

The actress Cathy Tyson takes the role of Herodia, a paranoid minister in a fictional state who orders a crackdown on immigration. In the midst of the turmoil, Mary discovers she is pregnant and must fight to protect both Joseph and her unborn child.

The project is not the first of its kind to be attempted by the BBC. On Good Friday 2006, it staged a live version of the Passion from the streets of Manchester.

The Prayer Book Society accused the BBC of indulging in “gimmickry”. “This is not the sort of thing that Christmas needs,” said Tony Kilmister, its vice-president. “The story is loved and revered by Christians around the world. There is a dignity to it that will be lost. Adding political correctness of this sort is harmful and quite uncalled for.”

A dramatisation next year of the final week in the life of Jesus Christ will be more to the traditionalists’ liking. The Passion, which will be shown across Easter week in six episodes, was unveiled yesterday as one of the highlights of BBC1’s winter schedule.

http://tinyurl.com/377yr8


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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 12/05/2007 at 11:01 AM   
Filed Under: • Religion •  
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Canadian PSAs

Via Tam this morning.

(Warning: Not for the faint of heart)

Canada - Home of the World’s Scariest PSAs
Greg Gutfeld showed this clip on Red Eye Saturday night. This a Canadian restaurant safety PSA with a horror tale ending.



Day-um.
And here’s a drunk driving PSA from MADD Canada.



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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/05/2007 at 11:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Education •  
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Glowball Warming guilt? The Jews Blame the JOOOOOS!

From the Jerusalem Post:

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

“The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won’t need another miracle,” said Liad Ortar, the campaign’s cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site’s environmental forum. “Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation.”

Can you believe this drek? Using the 15gm figure, and an estimated 13 millions Jews worldwide, I come up with just about 2000 tons of CO2 produced overall.
I’m not the only one feeling the stupid on this one:

The response of several Jewish leaders in Pittsburgh was summed up by Rabbi Danny Schiff, community scholar at the Agency for Jewish Learning.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, after hearing about the campaign for the first time. He went on to call it “an absurd notion.”

“If you’re serious about the environment, you have to look at who the big polluters are—major corporations and countries that have no controls. The challenge is not going to be lost or won by how many candles 13 million Jews around the world light on Hanukkah, especially since a large proportion won’t light any at all. I’d like to see a comparison on how far you have to drive your car to create the same amount of carbon dioxide as one candle.”

Ok Rabbi, here ya go: Using the 15gm figure, and an average car carbon emission of 1lb/mile, the CO2 output of one candle equates to driving a car 175 feet; if no candles were lit for Hannukah AT ALL it would be the equivalent carbon offset of taking 1250 cars off the road for a year. With roughly 600,000,000 cars worldwide, this savings isn’t even a drop in the bucket - 1/5000 of 1%.




image

Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, dean of Yeshiva Schools and executive director, Chabad of Western Pennsylvania,
lights a candle on Pittsburgh’s community menorah at the City-County Building on the first night of Hanukkah for the year 5768 yesterday.

Such pollution, oy!


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/05/2007 at 09:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

ALL FAITHS WE DO EMBRACE CAUSE WE’RE BIG ON “DIVERSITY”

OKAY BOYS AND GIRLS, FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT ALREADY KNOW, THE BRIT NATIONAL ANTHEM HAS THE VERY SAME MUSIC AS OUR (USA) “MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE.”

IT’S BEEN SUGGESTED HERE THAT THE NATL. ANTHEM CHANGE A BIT TO MAKE IT MORE “INCLUSIVE.” WELL I’M NOT A BRIT BUT I DON’T LIKE THAT IDEA AT ALL.  AND NEITHER APPARENTLY DOES THE BRILLIANT LITTLEJOHN, WHO WRITES FOR THE DAILY MAIL.

MUCH TO THE CHAGRIN OF MANY BRITS, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HAS TAKEN HOLD HERE BIG TIME.  THERE’S EVEN GONNA BE A CHRISTMAS (UPDATED AND MODERN) NATIVITY STORY ON BBC TV WITH MARY AND JOSEPH AS “ASYLUM SEEKERS.” IT’LL BE THE SUBJECT OF MY NEXT POSTING.

OH COME ALL YE FAITHLESS (telegraph editorial)

Littlejohn:

How about ‘God save poor Gordon Brown’ as an alternative?
21:41pm 3rd December 2007

Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general leading Gordon Brown’s “Makes You Proud To Be British” committee, wants the National Anthem rewritten.
He says the traditional version is not “inclusive” and particularly objects to verse six (did you know there was a verse six?) containing the line: “Rebellious Scots to crush.”

Presumably he would like Flower of Scotland revised, too, since it refers to sending home the English army “tae think again”. an

Meanwhile a Welsh Labour MP says the Union Flag should be redesigned to include the Welsh Dragon.

Why not go the whole hog and chuck in a Muslim Red Crescent and the eagle from the Polish flag?

Actually, when it comes to God Save The Queen, the Sex Pistols got it right 30 years ago in their apocalyptic hit single of the same name.

“There is no future in England’s dreaming.”

Still, I thought I’d give Goldsmith a hand in bringing the National Anthem up to date and making it more inclusive. As always, it helps if you sing along.

•God save poor Gordon Brown

Caught with his trousers down God help him now.

Send him your sympathy

Brought low by infamy

Donors and lost CDs

God save our Gord

•All faiths we do embrace

The whole of the human race

Can settle here.

Big on diversity

And inclusivity

Banned the Nativity

God help us all.

•Our land ancestral

Now multicultural

All welcome here.

No need to integrate

We will just celebrate

You can live off the state

No questions asked.

•If you’re a terrorist

Or fundamentalist

We’ll take you in.

Give you a council home

Money and mobile phone

Health care and a car to own

No need to queue.

•Mullahs from Pakistan,

Jihadists, Taliban

Please come on down.

Feel free to murder us

Blow up a train or bus

We promise not to make a fuss

God help us all.

•Forgive us our racist sins

And for filling our wheely bins

With the wrong kind of waste.

Though it’s a mystery

We hate our own history

Even banned Christmas trees

God help us all

http://tinyurl.com/2b6cxm


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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 12/05/2007 at 09:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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