Monday - October 06, 2008

The bacon was taken into custody. . .

I like that headline better than the one the Dayton Daily News chose:

Porcine scare clears Boehner’s West Chester office

See, I’m betting that many Daytonians, being drop-outs graduates of the Dayton public schools, don’t know what ‘porcine’ means. My headline is easily understandable to the average Daytonian, who not only was likely also taken into custody recently, but understands the word ‘bacon’. (Well, the ones that can read. . .)

I do know what ‘porcine’ means, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it in this context. Did a herd of swine invade Boehner’s office? (Maybe looking for ACORNs?) Yeah, guess I’ll have to read the dreaded Dayton Daily Democrat News:

HAMILTON — A package of low-sodium bacon triggered the evacuation of House Minority Leader John Boehner’s West Chester office on Monday, Oct. 6, after staff going through the mail became suspicious of oily residue leaking from a package.

Worried that the residue was evidence of some sort of attack, staffers contacted the Washington, D.C., office and Capitol police about 3:30 p.m.

The four staffers in the West Chester office were evacuated a half-hour later, according to Jessica Towhey, a Boehner spokeswoman.

Police, local fire officials and the Butler County hazardous material team were called to the office at 7969 Cincinnati-Dayton Road.

After two X-rays of the package were inconclusive, officials took the package out back and opened it, only to find it was bacon.

The bacon was taken into custody.

Definitely a better headline. But what a waste of bacon! If you are going to send pork to a congressman to make a political statement, at least send something useless, like pork rinds.

Then again, it was low-sodium bacon. (yuk!) Come to think of it, I’ve a #10 can of rancid lard I could send to, say, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for that rancid, pork-laden bailout last week.

Mmmm, bacon!

Posted by Christopher     on 10/06/2008 at 09:58 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Porkbusters •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Ultimate Squeegee Project, Day 4

I still live.

Bear witness all ye fellow sgueegee men and strip washer wielders. Today I am one with the best of you. I have faced the mighty Skylight of Doom upon the Roof of Small Traction. At least 4, nearly 5 full stories off the ground. Upon the treacherous Rickety Stairs I did ascend, through the guardian Bilko Door I passed, and into the ethereal heights did I emerge. Falling not, failing not, fearing not (Ok, quite a bit, but I did it anyway), I have breathed the rarified air where few pigeons dare to fly, looked down upon the chimney pots, walked unsupported across the open peaks and scrubbed away generations of dirt and dead stink bugs. I have left cleanliness in my wake. And no streaks or smudges either.

Friday I was able to stick my head out the roof hatch and look around, but that’s as far as I got. Today I just went up there, out there, and got the job done. Granted, I didn’t waste any time turning cartwheels up on the roof, and I did keep my center of gravity as low as possible the whole time. But I did it, and it really did feel like some kind of rite of passage. And it was a loooooong way down with no railing, no safety harness, no nothing. Thankfully, it was also no wind, so that made it much easier mentally.

I also did the skylights in the bathrooms, which are interesting, in that they are secondary skylights. They are in wells in the attic floor, and get light from the main skylight in the attic roof 2 stories above. I’ve never seen anything like that. So I had to remove the safety screens in the floor, lean down below the floorboards, and give things a good scrub. I could have gone up through the bathroom ceilings, but that part of the house was closed off to me today. Funny, these sheets of frosted glass are not mounted. They just sit there, lose in the wood framing. I guess that lets excess steam out. But it also lets bugs and dust and stuff in. Odd.

So the attic is finished. I got all the removable storm windows off the lower floor, except one, got the inside surfaces clean, and got them back on. One left, and there is a small stained glass window to scrub underneath that. I would have got it done, but some whizzo who was painting the sills came along some time ago and filled all the screw holes with putty. I just didn’t have the energy left to deal with that, so I went down into the basement and scrubbed a few of those little windows. The basement windows can’t be cleaned from the outside, since there are iron bars across them. And the basement is very very large, and not always very well lit. So I was down there with a ladder and a flashlight, doing my best to scrub away more filth than you can imagine. I don’t think those windows haven’t been washed in 30 or 40 years. Triple washing on both sides, even with a scrubbie pad, and the dirt was still coming off in chunks. Yikes. Fortunately, the building manager thinks that this is beyond the call, so I did only 4 of the ... maybe 18? ... before she had me call it a night. Sun up to sun down. Another day’s work for the window guy.

Tomorrow I will do the rest of the downstairs inside. It’s about 1/4 done already. After that I have a few (10) hanging lamps to clean, and I’ll be done. 6 days, max. Hopefully 5.

Time for dinner. Shower first, and start more laundry. I am filthy. And I smell like Easy-Glide. Soapalicious!

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 06:40 PM   
Filed Under: • work and the workplace •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

OK, EVEN IF YOU DON’T AGREE WITH EVERYTHING, THIS IS A MUST WATCH AND LISTEN VIDEO.

Just before getting ready to shut down for the night, I paid a visit to Vilmar’s site where I stole this.
I don’t think he’ll mind me doing that.

Now then, please, please stay with this fellow even if it is a mite hard to watch because he’s jumps a lot.
This really does have a large WOW factor.

One of the things I’ve always liked about Vilmar, is his take no prisoners attitude and kick the hell out of the left when ya have em down.

Well, while this young man might not be Vilmar he sure does score some points and doesn’t seem to worry much about prisoners either.

NOW THEN ... WANNA TALK ABOUT TAKE NO PRISONERS?

HE GOES ON AGAIN HERE.  THIS YOUNG FELLA IS ON A ROLL. 

Thanks Vilmar.  http://antzinpantz.com/kns/ and thanks as well to Sndrak, which is where V got it.  http://tinyurl.com/48qoj8

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 02:43 PM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Racism and race relations • Religion • Republicans •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

FROM THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY …. A $20,000.00 LAPTOP COMPUTER … WHOO HOO

Looks like a handbag to me.  I guess it’s for the girl, or the guy who thinks he’s a girl, who already has everything.
For 20G though, I’d want it to fly and have a kitchen and bath. So forget the flight. At least a kitchen. 

Bentley create £10,000 luxury laptop

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/09/2008

In these straitened times, it’s hardly the kind of gift that is going to feature on many people’s Christmas lists. But Bentley, the luxury car manufacturer, is hoping to entice the world’s super rich with the release of a new £10,000 laptop computer.

Bentley lap top by ego
The Bentley laptop is hand-built

Hand-built with white-gold frames and the Bentley logo, the exclusive computer comes in a leather case cross-stitched like the cars’ seats.

The exterior is in Bentley leather and the laptop’s handle is modelled on the company’s trademark door handles.

Only 250 of the computers will go on sale worldwide from this autumn. However, if the blogosphere is anything to go by, there are unlikely to be many takers.

One unimpressed blogger said: “I’m sorry, but that really is one of the ugliest laptop form factors I’ve ever seen. But, then again, if you can afford a Bentley, you might as well throw heaps of cash on this thing, as well.

“You’ll be the butt of plenty of cruel sniggers, but what the hey…you’ll be chic. And that’s all that really counts, isn’t it?”

Another disgrunted blogger wrote: “This is a pointless product. Anyone who buys this laptop has too much money for his/her own good.”

(Now that last remark is dead wrong. One can NEVER have too much money.  Money does not buy poverty. The more, the better. And the more toys you can buy. )

http://tinyurl.com/4a3le5

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 10:48 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

War in Afghanistan cannot be won, British commander Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith warns .

It’s June 5th and Ike finally says, We can’t win this war.
Of course the Germans hear that too and so ......

August 6, 2008
Sie haben Papiere? Sprechen Sie Deutsche?

War in Afghanistan cannot be won, British commander Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith warns
The war in Afghanistan cannot be won, Britain’s most senior military commander in the country has warned.

By Caroline Gammell
Last Updated: 11:53PM BST 05 Oct 2008

(just what these grunts wanna hear, right?  risking and often losing life and limb, they gotta wonder just what the hell they are doing this for if a high ranking officer says they can’t win.  and now we might not. because the enemy knows all they gotta do is wait us out.  good strategy brigadier. )

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the British public should not expect “a decisive military victory” and that he believed groups of insurgents would still be at large after troops pulled out.

In June, he claimed that British forces had reached a “tipping point” against a weakened Taliban after their leadership was “decapitated”.

But on Sunday the army officer said it was time to lower expectations and focus on reducing the conflict to a level which could be managed by the Afghan army.

Brig Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade - which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan - said talking to the Taliban could be an important part of that process.

He insisted his forces had “taken the sting out” of the Taliban for 2008 as winter and the colder weather approaches, but warned that many of the fighters would return in May or June.

He said British forces had killed six important Taliban commanders and delivered a vast turbine to Kajaki dam to significantly bolster electricity supplies.

However, he told a Sunday newspaper: “We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.

“We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency… I don’t think we should expect that when we go, there won’t be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world.

“That would be unrealistic.”

Brig Carleton-Smith, who took the unusual step last month of calling for 4,000 more troops, said the goal should be to find a non-violent resolution.

“We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of a gun to one where it is done through negotiations,” he said.

“If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.”

“That shouldn’t make people uncomfortable.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesman defended the brigadier’s comments and said the aim was to provide a secure infrastructure for the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army.

“We have always said there is no military solution in Afghanistan. Insurgencies are ultimately solved at the political level, not by military means alone,” the spokesman said.

“We are not looking for a total military victory, it is much wider than that, improving the infrastructure to alllow the country to move forward without the need for a total defeat of the Taliban.

“We fully support President Karzai’s efforts to bring disaffected Afghans into society’s mainstream with his proviso that they renounce violence and accept Afghanistan’s constitution.”

Joining the debate about how long troops will stay in Afghanistan, Brig Carleton-Smith said he expected tactical military responsibility to be handed over to the Afghan government within five years.

Defence Secretary Des Browne has already warned it will take years to establish a stable democracy and told a think-tank in Washington in July that it would be a “longer haul” than Iraq.

Last week, the British ambassador to Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, was linked to disparaging remarks about the role of international troops in Afghanistan.

A French newspaper printed what it claimed was a leaked memo which quoted Sir Sherard as saying that foreign forces were “slowing down and complicating and eventual end to the crisis”.

http://tinyurl.com/4s9yb4

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 09:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Military • Terrorists • War On Terror •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

ANTIQUITY FOR US HISTORY BUFFS … FOUND IN A COMPUTER MAGAZINE.

As everyone who knows me also knows by now, I’m blown away by things like this.  Even though I read this short piece, I still can not grasp exactly how they can know for sure how an ancient Greek instrument sounded.  I understand what they are telling me here. No problem there.
I guess I don’t have the imagination to quite figure out how they can be so sure they have it right.

Bottom line though is, I do believe em and think this is a great find.

For our BMEWS readers who are bored by this kind of thing, take heart and please be patient.
I’m sure I can find blood and gore and politics to post. Especially the first two as there’s so damn much of it here.

The link below is an audio only, no photos.

http://www.astraproject.org/examples/dufay.mp3

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 08:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Fifty people who have wrecked Britain.  (I don’t think American papers would do it this way)

BUT I SURE WISH WE DID!

I will not list all of them here, but some that will be familiar to Americans. Possible exception is John Prescott.
I was gonna joke about the ruinous SOB and say he was a favorite of Lyndon & Chris.  But the thought of being hunted down just for a bad joke
and being badly beaten about the head decided me against such folly.
Anyway ... I am not listing in order the way the Daily Mail has it.  But you can go there for the entire list. It is interesting.

Fifty people who have wrecked Britain
• Abridged extract from FIFTY PEOPLE WHO BUGGERED UP BRITAIN by Quentin Letts, published by Constable & Robinson on Thursday, October 9, at £12.99.  Quentin Letts 2008.

Last updated at 3:27 AM on 06th October 2008

So much money, so many high-tech advances - yet today Britain is such an unhappy country, so drained of community, so robotic as it staggers towards oblivion. Who landed us in this mess? Who are the halfwits, the mooncalves, the clotpolls whose touches and yanks on the national tiller steered us onto the rocks?

It’s time to name and shame the guilty. This is my personal roll call of the people who made our country the ugly, ignorant, beer-ridden and brawling place it is today.

Here are the fools, knaves and vulgarians who ripped up British honour and glory and set in its place the tawdry and the trite. Will my list of prime suspects match your own? Read on and find out ...

12 John Prescott

Prescott was the most gormless and ineloquent person yet to hold the non-office of Deputy Prime Minister.

This so-called statesman spoke English like a bibulous chimp. In his Labour Party conference speeches, he cranked up class hatred in an era when most adult Britons were trying to place such social insecurity behind them.

He debased himself and his rank by thumping a member of the public in the 2001 General Election campaign, by bedding his secretary, by flicking V-signs on the steps of 10 Downing Street and by licking the plate of privilege until it was almost spotless.

In all these matters, Prescott, a revolting specimen with the manners of a flatulent caveman, demeaned our public life.

5.  Diana

The ‘People’s Princess’ was a liability, a souffle of false ideas, a supermodel with all that that entails. She was the glamorous tool of cleverer men, a plaything for the powerful, a delusion worshipped only by the impressionable.

The Princess may have been a loving mother. She may also have been photogenic and able to convey an easy charm. But the sorry truth is that this adored concept, this packaged, airbrushed Diana, weakened our society. She made us more neurotic.

After Diana, it became so easy to emote it was hard to tell if people meant their tears or if they were simply trying them on. Diana robbed us of the stoicism and understatement which had served Britain well.

Thanks largely to Diana we have become a country in which the words ‘crisis’ and ‘disaster’ are devalued from overuse, a country of emotional incontinence where adults will weep if they fail to win a talent competition yet where no one bothers to welcome home soldiers from a war zone.

Diana was a danger to the stability of our kingdom. She mixed in circles that were disreputable and, in some cases, neurotically anti-British. Her death was shocking, horrible and a waste of beauty.

But Diana was a naive menace, an odd mixture of simpering shyness and galloping egomania. God rest her soul, she was a mirage, a false harbinger of egalitarianism, and we were foolish ever to think otherwise.

10.  John McEnroe

Any young games player today soon learns the ways of modern Britain: the referee’s word may well not be final.

This widespread undermining of the referee (and other official authority figures) as a font of impartiality can be traced back to an afternoon at the Wimbledon tennis championships in 1981.

A call had gone against a young American player and he refused to accept it without a fight. ‘Man,’ he screamed, ‘you cannot be serious.’ Rant, rant, rant. Pout of lip. ‘Man.’ Ugh.

John McEnroe, the American in question, was one of the most skilful tennis players not only of his era but probably of all time. But he cannot properly claim to be a ‘sporting great’.

No one who shrieks at officials, ‘You guys are the pits of the world, you know that?’ can rightly be called a ‘great’, unless ‘great pain in the backside’ is intended.

McEnroe helped spread bad sportmanship to a generation of youngsters.

3.  Howard Schultz

Once upon a time, not so long ago, it was routinely possible to buy a cup of coffee for the price of a popular news paper and in a container which did not contain nearly a pint of liquid so scaldingly hot it was undrinkable for at least ten minutes after you had bought it.

Once upon a time. The time before Starbucks.

The man to blame? Howard Schultz, who did not start Starbucks, but bought the company in 1987 and focused on global domination.

In 1995, the company conceived a ‘ Synergistic Rollout Program’ under which one new store was opened somewhere every day. Now look at them. Not even the grey squirrel spread and bred this fast.

The trend may well pass. Brands are notoriously fickle things. So we must not despair.

But for the meantime, Schultz is the king of the caramel macchiatos and there seems to be nothing to stop him. Unless he drinks one too many of his filthy brews and has a fatal seizure from all the palpitations.

More Here => http://tinyurl.com/3vvakq

Who’ll be next for a lambasting by Letts? The list of shame continues tomorrow.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 07:19 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Miscellaneous • UK •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

McCain resorts to attacks on Obama’s character as aids fear campain is over.  (what?)

This doesn’t look too good for our side folks. 

Your thoughts?

John McCain attacks Barack Obama’s character in bid to rescue campaign
John McCain will try to revive his flagging presidential prospects by launching an all-out character assassination on Barack Obama, branding his Democratic rival an untrustworthy political extremist who is “too risky for Americans”.

By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 2:10PM BST 04 Oct 2008

The move comes amid growing signs that Mr McCain’s closest aides do not believe he can win the race for the White House in a “fair fight”.

The Sunday Telegraph knows of at least three occasions in the last month where members of his inner circle have voiced fears that he is doomed to defeat.

Voters have flocked to Mr Obama during the current economic crisis, and Mr McCain has lost the lead in several key swing states he must win if he is to have any chance of victory in November.

A former McCain strategist familiar with the senator’s tactical discussions told The Sunday Telegraph that he would pursue the “nuclear option” targeting Mr Obama personally in the final month leading up to November’s vote.

Republicans have leapt on a New York Times story which accused Mr Obama of having played down his relationship with the former terrorist turned education professor William Ayres, whose Weather Underground group bombed the Pentagon in the 1960s and with whom Mr Obama worked on community projects in the mid-1990s.

(this terrorist creep bombs the Pentagon and he’s not only allowed to continue his pointless breathing, he becomes a professor.  and he teaches what exactly? bomb making 101?  why oh why has this bastard not been shot dead by some patriot by now? jeez. rcob,)

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Mr McCain to make it a campaign issue. It ought to matter to voters,” he said. “If you hang out with somebody who has never apologised for bombing the Pentagon and the United States Capitol and is proud of something he should have been ashamed of, then it calls into question your judgment.

“I think a person who wants to be president should be appalled that anyone would ever lead this level of anarchy against the government of the United States.

In the second presidential debate on Tuesday, Mr McCain will seek to brand Mr Obama as an old fashioned tax-and-spend liberal.

At the same time, his campaign will launch coded attacks on Mr Obama’s patriotism. On Friday Mr McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin accused the Democratic candidate of disparaging American troops, a toxic charge in US politics. “Some of his comments about Afghanistan and what we are doing there supposedly, just air raiding villages and killing civilians, that’s reckless,” she said.

Greg Strimple, a senior adviser to Mr McCain confirmed the change of direction. “We’re looking for a very aggressive last 30 days,” he said. “We’re turning the page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr Obama’s liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans.”

While the McCain campaign will not charge directly that Mr Obama’s views are un-American, that case is now being made by conservative pressure groups.

A group called the Judicial Confirmation Network has begun a $1m ad buy hinting that Mr Obama cannot be trusted to pick new justices for the Supreme Court. The basis for their charge is that he might select people like his incendiary pastor Jeremiah Wright, “who has blamed America for the 9/11 attacks”, or the aforementioned William Ayers. They also point out that he chose as one of his first financial backers Tony Rezko, a slumlord now convicted on 16 counts of corruption.

The former McCain strategist said: “We were doing well when this election was all about Obama. The last two weeks have been more about John and we need to shift the focus back.

“There are real questions for Obama to answer. Also, it’s the only way we win. It’s the nuclear option but votes are firming up. It’s now or never.” Mr Obama now enjoys a six point national poll lead and has moved ahead in states like Ohio , Virginia , Florida , Colorado , North Carolina and Missouri, all of which were won by George W. Bush in 2004.

Mr Strimple said: “We have just started advertising there heavily and I believe that every one of those states will snap back heavily in our favour.” But behind the scenes a mood of grim pessimism has gripped McCain staff. Even in the aftermath of Sarah Palin’s triumphant speech at the Republican convention, one of Mr McCain’s closest aides told The Sunday Telegraph that he expected Mrs Palin and her state of Alaska to disappear from public view within six weeks, a tacit admission that he expects to lose the election.

On Thursday, the campaign announced it was pulling out of Michigan , once a state Mr McCain hoped to steal from the Democrats, but where Mr Obama now enjoys a 13 point cushion.

Mrs Palin’s perky debate performance was the one bright spot of Mr McCain’s week but polls show her folksy charm did little to win over floating voters.

The strategist said: “Everyone’s saying she stopped the bleeding. She did, but you’ve got to do more than stop the bleeding when you’re leg’s already fallen off.”

McCain biographer Matt Welch told The Sunday Telegraph that McCain owes his current plight to his lifelong habit of fighting elections on his temperamental character rather than policy.

“In the last two weeks his responses to the financial crisis have been classic McCain,” he said. “He has no idea what he is talking about.

He has changed his mind on a daily basis.”

“When he said he was going to stop campaigning and solve the crisis in Washington, that was a moment when Americans said: ‘I don’t believe this guy any more.’

“What we see from McCain is anger and incoherence and publicity stunts and it’s not working.”

But he counselled against writing Mr McCain’s political obituary just yet. “Never count him out. If he’s five points down a week before the election, psychologically, that’s where he wants to be. He wants to feel like he’s fighting as the underdog. He will come up with something surprising.”

http://tinyurl.com/4bavr6

Posted by Drew458     on 10/06/2008 at 06:28 AM   
Filed Under: • Republicans •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Sunday - October 05, 2008

A Pep Talk

Campaign gusto flagging? Debates got you down? The whole 2 friggin year long election cycle wearing you out?

NRO’s Mark Levin gives us a little pep talk in his October 1 address. 10 minutes. With the sound track from Patton. Or was it Police Story?

Might want to mosey on over and check out the rest of his stuff too.

h/t to reader Richard K.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/05/2008 at 05:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Saturday - October 04, 2008

bye bye OJ

How fitting. I really don’t care if this was a sting or even if the charges were trumped up. But they weren’t. This was OJ Simpson being the violent thug that he really is. This is the important part:

The verdicts came 13 years to the day that a Los Angeles, California, jury acquitted Simpson of two murders.

Deputies then handcuffed Simpson and led him from the courtroom.

Simpson, 61, faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison for these convictions. Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass set sentencing for December 5.

Kidnapping, armed robbery, conspiracy, assault with a deadly weapon. Guilty on all 12 counts. And none of this would have ever happened if the jury back in 1995 wasn’t a bunch of racist leftitsts.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/04/2008 at 01:54 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
• Comments (11) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Britain’s rat infestation, growing at an alarming rate.  (wonder if they counted the MIL in this)

HEY…
Not a joke at all.  I had no idea it was like this, although we did see a family of them two years ago.
In fact, I saw one calmly saunter across our kitchen floor once, again it was two years ago.  But what I hear in the walls on a cold night might be them.
Mice for certain and maybe squirrels too.  No, not funny.

I can see Vilmar reading this and saying, Ha. Didn’t I tell ya they were DOOMED?

A SINGLE PAIR CAN PRODUCE 15,000 OFFSPRING IN A YEAR.

Damn, that’s close to a muslim record. 

It’s late, last post for the evening. Have a nice wkend all.
jdp

BRITAIN’S RAT INFESTATION

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 04/10/2008
Page 1 of 3

Britain’s rat population is growing at a startling rate thanks to warmer, wetter weather and our increasingly slovenly refuse habits. To make matters worse, the animals are becoming immune to our poisons - and they appear to be laughing at us. Will Storr goes on patrol with the pest police

Steve Davies removes the heavy iron manhole cover and stands back. ‘It’s not a pretty world down there,’ says the burly Yorkshireman, dressed in the unmistakable blood-red uniform of the Rentokil man. As on every other working day, he has come to commit maximum rodent slaughter with his bags of tainted grain, which causes the animals to bleed internally until they die.

It is four o’clock on a Wednesday morning on the outskirts of Leeds and we have been directed to this spot with the aid of a large, black-and-white map with sewer lines and manholes marked on it. There are also icons depicting large black rats. Lots of them. These mark the locations of known sewer infestations.

Davies’s job is called ‘sewer baiting’ and, on behalf of Yorkshire Water, he and Rentokil’s other agents of massacre go out - just as men like them have done since Victorian times - pulling up manhole covers, tying bags of Fentrol, an anticoagulant poison, to long lengths of string and laying them on the paths of the ‘foul lines’ that make up a small part of the subterranean world that thrives beneath our cities: a trickling, stinking, scuttling labyrinth of vast tunnels and abandoned subways. (Very few local authorities still bait their sewers, claiming it is too expensive - the people of Yorkshire are lucky to have men such as Davies.)

He pulls up a string he left last week. The bag attached to it is empty, having been ravaged by a brown rat. ‘There’s a lot of things down there that will eat anything,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen very, very strange frogs. Very bright. I don’t know if they’re mutations or what.’

What do the rats eat, I ask.

‘I wouldn’t like to go into detail,’ he says. ‘It’s a sewer. What do you think?’ My toes squeeze involuntarily. Almost everything I have discovered about rats has caused a similar sensation - a mixture of disgust and astonishment.

Rats can gnaw through concrete and metal, and are incapable of vomiting; they have sex roughly 20 times a day; male rats sometimes mate until their partner dies of exhaustion; a single pair can produce 15,000 offspring a year; it is thought that there are between 60 and 80 million of them in Britain, an increase of 39 per cent since 2000; every day four million are born worldwide; the African variety can grow to 3ft long; seven per cent of house fires in Britain are caused by rats biting through electric cables; they are the only animal that the SAS are banned from eating; the Taiwanese drown and then eat them - poached, fried, grilled or baked - especially savouring the liver; in 2005 they brought down the entire traffic light system at Marble Arch in London; a state of emergency was declared in Peru last year after a heatwave prompted record numbers of rat litters; up to five per cent of food produced worldwide is lost to rodents; they eat 10 per cent of their bodyweight every day; they dislike peaches, but like dog faeces; their collective noun is a ‘mischief’; they have a bite pressure of 7,000lb per square inch; if they weren’t being constantly worn, their incisors would grow 5in per year and are as strong as steel; they can run faster than humans and jump up to 6ft; 50,000 people a year are bitten by rats worldwide; they can collapse their own skeletons and crawl through holes as narrow as three-quarters of an inch; they are cannibals and, when one feeds on the another, it opens up the head and starts with the brain. And they can ‘laugh’: research recently revealed that they emit a ‘high chirruping sound’ when amused or tickled.

Davies has one piece of good news: we are unlikely to be confronted by any rats this morning. Rats are nocturnal, and daylight sightings by pest control officers are rare (’the public see them more often than we do,’ he says). But almost nothing else I have heard today has been good. Leeds councillors have warned of a ‘plague of super rats’ - rapidly evolving, stronger, more intelligent and longer-living - and Colin Smith, Rentokil’s technical services manager, who is responsible for de-ratting major supermarket chains, has told me his company saw a 26 per cent increase in rat calls between 2006 and 2007.

What is more, the rodents - which are evolving at a rate three times faster than humans - are developing immunity to all our best poisons. Considering that they carry roughly 70 diseases (including salmonella, cholera, typhus and the potentially fatal Weil’s disease, or leptospirosis, which almost did for a Rentokil area manager not long ago), and that they are thought to have been responsible, globally, for 10 million deaths in the 20th century, it is surprising that the war against the rat doesn’t weigh more heavily on our consciousness, though the creature has long since burrowed into our collective nightmares.

A long article but worth the reading. The rest of the article can be found here.

http://tinyurl.com/4qqg5c

Posted by Drew458     on 10/04/2008 at 01:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Scary Stuff • UK •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Weekly Piracy Roundup

• World-wide cooperation and coordination happening at last?

  DEAUVILLE, France - Armed pirates aboard fast-moving skiffs have increasingly turned the shipping lanes off Somalia into a lucrative hunting grounds: commandeering vessels large and small and leaving the world’s maritime powers frustrated about how to stop the seafaring bandits.

  Now, however, momentum is growing for coordinated international action to back up the sharp response after the stunning seizure late last month of a Ukrainian cargo ship laden with tanks and heavy weaponry — as the pirates quickly found themselves encircled by U.S. warships and receiving only silence to their demands for millions of dollars in ransom.

  It could be a sign of a more aggressive and unified front in the one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.

  “Navy boats can’t be everywhere at all times.”
  “Frankly we could put 250 boats out there and we’d never be sure we’re free from hostage-takings,” said one French defense official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue. “It’s a little bit like fighting the drugs trade — there’s no watertight solution.”



• Russia arriving in force to help with tank carrying freighter
  

  Moscow will work with the U.S. and the European Union to fight piracy off the African coast and elsewhere, Russia’s foreign minister said.

  The Somali government has given foreign powers the freedom to use force against the pirates holding the Faina and its 20 crew members. It is anchored near the central Somali town of Hobyo, with six American warships within 10 miles of it.

  Russia is sending the guided missile frigate Neustrashimy, but it has a long long journey to get there.


• Go ahead and kill them! Somalia allows foreign forces to use whatever force necessary

  MOGADISHU, Somalia — Foreign powers can use force if necessary to free a hijacked cargo ship loaded with battle tanks and heavy ammunition, Somalia’s foreign ministry declared Wednesday — increasing pressure on the Somali pirates who have demanded a $20 million ransom.  ... “The international community has permission to fight with the pirates,” Ali told The Associated Press on Wednesday.



• Arrgh, take that ya scurvy dogs!

  MOGADISHU, Somalia — Disagreements between Somali pirates holding a ship laden with tanks and heavy weapons escalated into a shootout and three pirates are believed dead, a U.S. defense official said Tuesday. The pirates denied the report.



• Pirates still holding Iranian poison ship


• 8 incidents of piracy and attempted piracy just this week
  Oh for goodness’ sake. Some of these pirates are trying to hijack ships and all they have for weapons are a few knives!

These are modern pirate ships in action. What used to be called whaleboats. I think you could sink one with a hand grenade:

This is the hijacked Iranian poison ship:

This is the Faina, the Ukrainian container ship with the Russian tanks onboard:

Gee whiz. 4 or 6 mounted machine guns per ship and a crate or two of M14s and not one of these pirates could get near even the smaller freighters. This is the downside of having such high levels of automation on today’s ships. Extremely small crews leave no manpower to repel boarders. Even if they try, the loss of 2 or 3 crewmen makes the ship nearly inoperable, and certainly indefensible. No, add 20 extra men, all of them armed. When pirates aren’t around they can paint stuff. Ships always need scaling and painting. Always.

So shipowners are turning to things like the Secure-Ship, a system that mounts electrified fence wires around the ship to zap intruders. Ooh, but it’s non-lethal! Nice idea. Until the pirates learn to throw a length of chain or wire across it, shorting the thing out. And in the meantime, it really gives your crew a great incentive not to fall overboard!

Posted by Drew458     on 10/04/2008 at 01:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Interactive map: How will Americans vote?

Check out the link below. I think you’ll like this.  There’s a drop down box too, with different categories where you can get state by state info including the percentage of minorities , electoral votes, illegal immigrants and so on.  It really is very interesting.
Go ahead. Check it out.

Interactive map: How will Americans vote?
John McCain and Barack Obama are running a tight race for the US presidency , according to polls, and are targeting key swing states that were close in the 2004 election.

Last Updated: 11:50AM BST 04 Sep 2008

Once again US voters are concerned about the economy, immigration and health care.

Click on our interactive map to see the regions and states where each issue is more likely to weigh heavily on voters’ minds.

http://tinyurl.com/6feppc

sorry the photo image isn’t good here, but it is enlarged and working fine at the site.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/04/2008 at 11:14 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

POINTS OF VIEW ……. A discussion, not an argument.

THIS POSTING IS A DISCUSSION ON THE SUBJECT WITH REGARD TO THE RIGHT OF A PHARMACIST TO WITHHOLD MEDICATIONS BASED ON PERSONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 
My position being that the rights of a patient come first where meds are the question. The right to expect to have an Rx filled without hassle based on someone else’s religion.  Apparently, things are not that simple.

I normally wouldn’t do this as a posting but .... Jarand does make a point here that I thought I should post, along with my reply under comments.
It’s interesting beyond where I originally thought the subject should go.  Not that I have changed my mind. But rather I see that it might not be so opened and shut a case as I believe it to be.  Not that it makes any difference because authorities agree with the pharmacist in question and with Jarand as well.

Although most of what I read on this site is pretty good stuff and in my opinion, right on the money, I have to disagree with you here. The pc left and libtards are exactly the people who want to force people to act against their own religious convictions. The fact that this guy is Muslim instead of Christian doesn’t change the fact that there is and always should be a conscious clause. Nobody should be forced to dispense a product that they find morally objectionable. She can say he’s imposing his religion on her but the fact is that, in this case she is trying to impose her lack thereof on him. He told her where the pill would be available. Let her just go there and get it.

Posted by jarand550 United States 10/04/2008 at 06:27 AM

Well, the way I see it is.  I can see your point and understand what you’re saying. But.

If you take a job dealing with the public and especially in this field working in a very major store, think Wal-Mart or Cosco in size, then you are going to be seeing ppl of many different values and backgrounds.
You’re a customer who walks into a store with the honest expectation of being able to get an Rx filled at a pharmacy. Chances are also (but I wouldn’t know in this case) that you’ve done or are about to also do your grocery shopping at the same time.
But hold on a minute ....
The pharmacist, based on his personal religious beliefs, can say to an atheist, a Jew or a Christian, “Sorry but based on my religious beliefs I can’t fill this Rx for you.  There’s another store a mile away that might.” ??? huh?

Can a very conservative Catholic pharmacist refuse to sell “The Pill” to a woman because he or she believe in the rhythm system? Or whatever it’s called.

There are some compromises that one makes in taking employment. Or should make.
If you can’t bring yourself to fit in with the predominant culture in which you live, maybe it’s time to return to where you will fit right in with others who hold the same beliefs.
Or get a different job.

One of the problems here in the UK has been and remains, the constant pandering to various minority groups, to a point where their beliefs should be put ahead of the views of the majority of the population.

peiper

Posted by Drew458     on 10/04/2008 at 08:23 AM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Daily Life • Health-Medicine •  
• Comments (3) • 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