BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin is allowed first dibs on Alaskan wolfpack kills.

calendar   Thursday - June 11, 2009

Thursday is Crowder Day




I think he’s trying to skewer Republican stereotypes. I’d give it a C+.

The video was very jerky for me. Perhaps I’m not getting enough bandwidth right now.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/11/2009 at 09:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-StuffPolitically-Incorrect •  
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Today In Science

Heavy Metal: It’s Official



Say Hello to Ununbium

A new, superheavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said.

A team in the southwest German city of Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.

“The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table,” the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The zinc and lead nuclei were fused to form the nucleus of the new element, also known as Ununbium, Latin for 112.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), confirmed the discovery of 112 by the team led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Helmholtz Center. IUPAC has asked for an official name for the element to be submitted.

John Jost, executive director of IUPAC in North Carolina, told Reuters that creating new elements helped researchers to understand how nuclear power plants and atomic bombs function.

So far the only known use for ununbium is it’s ability to make enormous sums of grant money evaporate.

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ordinarily, I’d use this as an excuse to post some sort of hair pr0n, especially since Science Daily’s lead stories are on the jellyfish joyride, which sounds rather naughty, and another one about lady water striders exposing themselves after being serenaded, which is completely naughty. So here is skin model Marketa doing something almost like clothing modeling. Almost.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/11/2009 at 06:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and DiscoveriesEye-Candy •  
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No Seasickness on this ship

USS Rancocas, LS-1



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Where else? This one lives in New Jersey. In Moorestown actually. In the middle of a farm field.



Yes, the US Navy considers this to be an actual commissioned ship. The USS Ranconos is the 2nd and last LS ( Land Ship ) in the fleet, though it is designated Number 1.

The “Cornfield Cruiser,” or “Ship in the Cornfield”

It is the test facility for the U.S. Navy’s AEGIS Fleet Defense System. The facility is commissioned as USS Rancocas.

It is in a cornfield because the land upon which it is built is owned by a farmer that still grows corn there. The owners of the facility have a 99-year lease. Upgrades developed at this facility are then installed on the USS Norton Sound for testing at sea. The final product is then transfered to combat ships, USS Ticonderoga for example.

Every year, on the first Saturday in December, the Rancocas is decorated with flags that read “GO NAVY” and “BEAT ARMY.”

Description:  A complete cruiser ship’s bridge on a building.

The facility shown below is known as CSEDS, or the Combat System Engineering Development Site. It is used primarily to test the world’s most powerful and effective sea based radar known as the Aegis Radar system. The facility below is also the only landlocked commissioned US Naval vessel which is designated as the USS Rancocas and houses an entire crew of naval personnel.

While many of today’s passing motorists are amazed by the landlocked ship’s bridge, 30 years ago drivers were equally mesmerized by the giant “golf ball” at the same location.

From 1960 to 1975, a 15-story, 140-foot-wide, snow-white radar dome was a landmark. The radar station was built by Radio Corp. of America and operated by the Air Force as a prototype of a ballistic-missile early warning system.

The “golf ball” housed an 84-foot-wide antenna. The housing could protect the antenna from winds up to 180 m.p.h. and temperatures of 65 degrees below zero.

In 1972, some residents in Willingboro claimed the radar station caused buzzing sounds in their televisions, radios and intercoms.

The station was used to track satellites as the Cold War was winding down and was labeled obsolete as more sophisticated radar systems were developed. The “golf ball” was replaced by the ship’s bridge in 1976.

Another picture can be found here.

I have no idea why this ship is designated LS-1. It ought to be LLS-2, since LLS-1, the USS Desert Ship is still “afloat” at White Sands NM, as a missile launch test site ship.

Hey, at least in New Jersey our not-really-a-ship ship sort of at least looks a bit like a ship. Well, part of one anyway.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/11/2009 at 02:50 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-StuffMilitaryScience-Technology •  
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Man faces charge for insulting his German neighbour in her own language.

Oh good grief here we go again.

Last time I ever heard this expression was way back in 1940something. Is this racial?  It’s not like he referred to her as a kraut. Come to think of it, even that doesn’t appear “racial” in the same way that using the “N” word is. 

Guess the lawyers will settle this one as usual.

Don’t call me schweinhund! Man faces charge for insulting his German neighbour in her own language
By Andy Dolan
The Mail

A man brought his German-born neighbour close to tears by twice calling her a schweinhund, a court heard yesterday.

Clive Robinson is accused of racial harassment for deliberately using the insult, which translates as pig dog, against Christine Hurst because of her nationality.
Mrs Hurst, a magistrate who moved to the UK as a student more than 20 years ago, said the word was ‘extremely offensive’ to a German and had left her so upset that her English husband had to call the police.

She told a jury that the insult was connected to her nationality because ‘otherwise he would have sworn at me in English’.
Robinson, 45, later admitted to police that he had made the remark - which was once commonly used in war films and comics - but claimed he was referring to one of his Great Danes.

The Hursts and the Robinsons live on neighbouring smallholdings in Weston Hills near Spalding, Lincolnshire, but relations between them broke down four years ago after Robinson was served with a noise abatement order, the jury was told.

It followed complaints from Mrs Hurst and her husband Peter after Robinson’s son and his friends staged banger races in old cars on nearby land.
Giving evidence, Mrs Hurst said that in the past Robinson had delivered an obscene one-fingered salute while walking by her home.

He had also once mounted a novelty plastic hand, similar to the type sometimes worn by fans at sports events, on the roof of his home with the middle finger pointing up in the air.
Bavarian-born Mrs Hurst, who married in 1986 after her move to the UK, told the jury the gesture was Robinson’s ‘trademark’.
Lincoln Crown Court heard that relations between the Hursts and Robinson and his wife Marlah had ‘broken down completely’ over the incidents.

Mrs Hurst admitted: ‘We are not on speaking terms. I have written to Mrs Robinson to try to sort it out, but I have never got a reply.’
In January last year she said she had gone into her garden to bring in her washing when she encountered Robinson.
‘I saw his car parked on our verge. When he saw us he reversed into his property. He got out and basically shouted at us,’ she said.
‘He looked at me and shouted “schweinhund!”. Then a couple of seconds later he said it even louder.
‘Schweinhund is a German word. It means pig dog. For a German it is extremely offensive. My husband phoned the police straight away, because I was close to tears.’

Mrs Hurst, who has been a magistrate in Spalding for four years, denied she was oversensitive, insisting: ‘It was so offensive. I could not believe he had said that. I was so upset. It’s the way I feel - I’m a German and I’m being sworn at with a German swear word.’
Defence barrister Michael Rudd suggested to Mrs Hurst that schweinhund was incommon usage in the UK in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
He added: ‘People of a certain age in the UK might be familiar with that word from war movies and from comics and magazines.’
Mrs Hurst replied: ‘It’s an extremely offensive word.’

Earlier Catherine Chasemore, prosecuting, told how relations between the families fell apart after the noise abatement order was served in 2005.
She told the jury: ‘Those of us who get on with our neighbours are lucky. You are going to hear from Mrs Hurst that unfortunately she did not.
‘This defendant was well aware of her German heritage. He did not say what he said in English. He said it in German.

Robinson denies a charge of racially-aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress on January 24 last year.
He also denies an alternative offence of using threatening words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
The trial continues.

SOURCE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/11/2009 at 01:52 PM   
Filed Under: • MiscellaneousUK •  
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Gardening Heroics

Wardmama Overcomes Fear and Ick Factor

To Rescue Giant Snake




In case you missed it in one of her comments yesterday, here are the frightful details.

Hey - short break - we have a snake (biggest I’ve even seen - probably 4+ feet) entangled in the plastic bird netting that is the grape protection system. I discovered him yesterday at about 5 pm - he is still alive at 10:41 am. We are trying to figure out how to get him out - 1) without expending money, 2) without getting bitten - although he seems to be more flight than fight) and 3) preferably without cutting the heck out of the netting (which now seems impossible) however, since he was alive - I tried using the small shears we have out in the garden - no luck and the tree pruner (give me some distance please) - again no such luck. So I think I will sacrifice one of my forever knives (as they are brand new, I have two paring knives and I think that they might be sharp enough to do the cutting). Did I mention that it is pouring down rain? What fun.

I wrote her back with a couple of suggestions for capturing snakes, and some advice for putting in a couple of plants that are natural snake repellents. And I asked for pictures of course!

Drew, I had the urge to run screaming (or magically levitate as your mom did) - but I’ve been around the most egregious of animals (heck a crocodile in the bath tub) - that my run screaming mode has a kill switch. And then yesterday my ‘oh look at the poor animal trapped - how can I get him out’, mommy mode kicked in.

However, I do know that holding his tail end while hubby was cutting the netting away - my heart was racing at about 200 beats a millisecond.

So here:
The first one, shows you how far away I was taking the first pictures.
The rest are pretty much self explanatory.

I am shooting off a note to Fiskars - can’t believe that the garden shears (which I’ve used to cut the metal tying ‘string’) and the pruners didn’t cut at all but the Fiskars scissors (and older ones at that, they started in my desk) did the trick.

I have never heard about the rue - will look into it. And tell people if they can identify the snake - we’d be much appreciated - would like to know exactly what is roaming around behind us.
Wardmama4

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Ok, do we have any herpetologists with snake ID skills here? She didn’t mention that it had a rattle, so it’s not a rattlesnake. But that big diamond shaped head says Viper to me ... but I don’t know squat about snakes.

And I think she deserves some sort of recognition, for both eco-sympathy and braveness. Maybe we should call her Snake Wrangler from now on or something? LOL


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/11/2009 at 11:21 AM   
Filed Under: • AnimalsDaily LifeHeroes •  
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Why do some women do these things? Especially the older ones.

This has been one heck of a day. Had to go into town and take care of estate business etc. It was supposed to have been done yesterday BUT.
Yesterday was one of those days where I thought, is this what a hangover feels like?  And I hadn’t been drinking.

It started with the return a damnable cough that I thought was gone but no.  Like early in the morning the day before. By early I mean something like 1 or 2am.

Every time I coughed I cursed the damn doctor who didn’t want to give me the one medicine that proved itself to work.  Didn’t cure anything but it stops the cough.
So I was dragging yesterday and went nowhere and got in touch with the duty doctor at the practise and convinced her to call in an Rx.  Which I got by 3pm.
Joy ... relief ... cough gone and I now have some cough medicine that’ll work when the cough comes back again. And it will if the last 18 months are anything to go by.

OK, so.  Today I caught a bus into town.  Was a time I could have walked. It isn’t that far. I think it’s under two miles. Bus runs every hour and what I had didn’t take too long. Caught the 10:45 into town. 
Once done with business I had thirty minutes to kill before the 12:10 return bus. So I ambled down the high street in the direction of the bus station, bought a couple loaves of our favorite fresh baked bread at a bakery and continued on to the station.  Oh yeah, I had to buy a ‘C’ size battery and they come in packs of two which work out ok.  Except the price.  £4.49.  Jeez ... using American dollars, I think that’s almost $8.00.  OUCH! 8 bucks for two ‘C’ batteries?
I might have gotten them cheaper had I bought on line I guess. But I needed them NOW!

Well, since I had time to kill before my bus and I was dry as sand, I decided to stop at the small coffee/tea whatever cafe across from the station where I sat down outside with a container of questionable coffee and watched the parade go by.  Some of what I witnessed was downright depressing so I won’t go there, for now.
But something else also caught my eye as it always does and I bet yours does too.

I can not understand what makes young folks think they look cool with several studs in their face. Studs in the eyebrow and the lip and heaven knows where else.
I would think they might be concerned about a possible lightning strike. Especially when the exhibitionist (for what else are they?) is not just young but otherwise very good looking.  Or might be without the facial piercings.  But hey, it’s an almost free country still and if it makes em happy to look so stupid, let em be and go in good health.  Maybe in time they’ll mature. Or maybe not.  Cuz the other thing I could not avoid noticing were the older women trying oh so hard to be “cool” and “with it” and the bees knees. Or whatever expression is current these days.

Now when I say “older women” understand I’m not talking about ladies in their 30s altho they might qualify. No,no.  I’m seeing really older women by many years and not only have they studded themselves, they are sporting tattoos as well.  It possible the tatts were on earlier and remained I guess.  But the studs?
Multiple studs in face?

I watched as two walked by with a couple of older guys who weren’t too smart looking either but hey.  Guys are known to be stupid about some things but I used to give the ladies a lot more credit.  With us guys you ladies I just know will look and shrug your pretty shoulders and mutter something along the lines of, “Well they’re guys. What do you expect?” But I have to say, seeing some vastly overweight 60 year old who also looks like she can stand a good bath and wearing a very short skirt is hardly “The Cat’s Meow.”

Wish I had one of those hidden cameras because I’m sure at this point you’re thinking I’m exaggerating a little.  No. Not even a tiny bit.

To the women out there of a certain age, like over 50 and look it, ladies. Please. Please stop doing that.  You are not your grandaughter’s boon companion. You do not belong to that generation and try as you might, you look like you don’t belong.
You are not “hip” either.

Look, I’m okay with stupid. I can do stupid too and do it really well.  Trust me, I am on a first name basis with things like stupid and even silly.

But, “Oh You Kid,” What you are is far worse and it’s very sad.

You’re pathetic!  And pathetic is very depressing.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/11/2009 at 10:47 AM   
Filed Under: • PersonalUK •  
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New Coulter

Best Ann In Ages




Ms. Coulter writes about our President, Poo Cee al-Hussein, and his Middle East junket. Brilliant, and spot on. Go read. Naive much? Gak.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/11/2009 at 10:05 AM   
Filed Under: • Politically-IncorrectTerrorists •  
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calendar   Wednesday - June 10, 2009

Bigger, Faster, Higher

Speaking of slightly old stories about things that fly through the air ...


Predator? Old school.

Reaper? Bigger, but already dated.

Latest Attack Drone: Enter the Avenger



April 23, 2009

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI), maker of the famous Predator and Reaper unmanned warplanes, has taken the wraps off a new and still more powerful kill-robot - the “Avenger”. The company says that first flights have been conducted successfully this month.

The Avenger, also known as Predator-C, has been developed with GA-ASI’s own money, as was the successful Reaper (Predator-B) before it. GA-ASI’s philosophy is to build what the company thinks the US military will actually need for operations, rather than trying to build what the services say they want.

Now comes the Avenger, upgraded to jet propulsion and offering some Stealth features. GA-ASI say that it is “more survivable in higher threat environments” and say that it “will have higher operational and transit speeds than current Predator-series aircraft, resulting in fast response and rapid repositioning”.

The firm promises 400-knot airspeeds and a 60,000-foot ceiling using the Pratt & Whitney PW545B turbofan (the same used in the Cessna Citation XLS biz jet). The Avenger can be flown using the same control stations as its predecessors, and “can carry the same mix of weapons as Predator B” - that is, laser-guided Hellfire missiles or Paveway/JDAM smartbombs. It will also be suitable for carrying any of the various advanced sensors - ground-sweeping radars, thermal imagers, multiplex Argus spyeyes, mobile-phone sniffers etc. - nowadays so popular for airborne surveillance. It’s a biggish brute, 41 feet long and with a 66-foot wingspan - comparable in size to an F-15 fighter plane, but wide rather than long.



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Gorgeous. Straight out of Star Wars





I’d say it’s the best looking Avenger since ... Mrs. Peel.
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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/10/2009 at 09:58 PM   
Filed Under: • Militaryplanes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobilesWar On Terror •  
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A Responsible Rocket Launch

World’s Largest Model Rocket Flies A-OK




We’re a long, long, looong way from the Estes Astron Alpha here folks, but the concept is the same:

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Picture from Rocket Dungeon, along with more details.



Cool. Looks like a really first class job of scale construction. And it was! Except this one was built to a scale of ... 1:10. You betcha. Modeler Steve Eve built the largest model rocket ever, modeling the largest rocket ever. Eve’s model stands 36 feet tall and weighs 1600 pounds.


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On April 25, 2009, history will be made.  At Higgs Farm in Price, Maryland, Steve Eves will enter the history books as the person who flew the largest model rocket in history. The rocket will weigh over 1,600 pounds, it will stand over 36 feet tall and it will be powered by a massive array of nine motors: eight 13,000ns N-Class motors and a 77,000ns P-Class motor. The estimated altitude of this single stage effort will be between 3,000 and 4,000 feet and the project will be recovered at apogee. In a special to Rocketry Planet, author Mark B. Canepa and ROCKETS Magazine wish to share.

It’s an excellent story, about a boy who fell in love with NASA and the Space Program and never left it behind.

On the evening of July 20, 1969, eleven-year-old Steve Eves and his father, Donald, stepped out of their home in northern Ohio to gaze into the night sky.  Above them, nearly a quarter of a million miles away, three American astronauts—one in a small space capsule circling the moon and two more on the lunar surface—had just achieved the greatest scientific accomplishment of modern times—maybe of all times—by safely reaching, landing, and now walking on the surface of the moon. A few hours earlier, on a small television screen in their house, Eves and his father had witnessed the seemingly impossible—men walking on another world—and they now looked toward the stars with a new sense of wonder, and pride.

America’s accomplishment left its mark on the young Steve Eves, and taught him that when you set your mind to something, almost anything can be done.

Now fifty, the soft-spoken Eves is poised to pay homage to that night—and to the untold thousands of Americans who made the race to the Moon possible—with the upcoming launch of the largest amateur rocket ever built: a one-tenth-scale Saturn V that is, in almost every outward respect, a perfect replica of the mighty vehicle that took mankind to the moon forty years ago.

But this one went up. Then it came down. Safely.

After testing the winds with a ‘tiny’ Nike Smoke on a J350, Steve Eves’ Saturn was launched into the beautiful Maryland skies at around 1PM local. The central ‘P’ and eight ‘N’ motors (that’s ‘R’ impulse, baby - yeaaah) lifted it majestically to around 3-4K feet. At apogee, the rocket was nominally over the crowd so there was a slight pucker factor until its 4 ‘chutes opened. It looked like one was slightly snagged but, nevertheless, the Saturn drifted slowly into an adjacent field.

‘R’ impulse? Horry Clap. That’s about a pickup truck bed full of ‘D’ engines - 181,000 Newton-Seconds. Wow.

“In all the years I fooled around with model rocket motors the biggest thing available was the D motor.  And when as kids you launched a rocket with a D motor you usually never saw it again. Suddenly, I was looking at a whole basket of F and G motors—the old Aerotech stuff, I think—and I bought it all.  There might have been fifteen motors in there and I didn’t even own a rocket, but I bought them all.”

Steve, I know exactly how you feel. Been there, done that, and that’s the feeling that once in a while makes me take a pile of cash back to the gun store.

Here’s the video:



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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/10/2009 at 09:24 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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A Non-News Item

Another airliner in south Texas avoids a missile




via Blogs Of War



Liberty Co., FAA to discuss report of object near plane

Liberty County Sheriff’s officials are expected to meet with the FAA on Tuesday to discuss what a Continental Express pilot reported as a “missile or rocket” flying near his airplane.

A pilot reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that at about 8:15 p.m. Friday, an object passed within 150 feet beneath the aircraft, sheriff’s officials said.

The aircraft was near the southern edge of the county, flying at about 13,000 feet, officials said.

“The pilot, from what we understand, was former military. He was able to get the coordinates down real quick,” said Cpl. Hugh Bishop with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff’s deputies searched Friday night for signs of evidence where a missile might have been launched or landed.

“We couldn’t find anything,” Bishop said.

The FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department met Tuesday to compare notes on an unidentified flying object reported late last week by an ExpressJet Airlines pilot.

The pilot reported a “missile or rocket” flying near his airplane Friday at 8:09 p.m., shortly after takeoff from Bush Intercontinental Airport, according to sheriff’s officials.

“The FAA then contacted the Liberty County department dispatcher and reported their pilot reported an object flying straight at his aircraft and passed 100 feet under it,” said Ken DeFoor, chief deputy for the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department.

FBI spokeswoman Shauna Dunlap said the agency was aware of the sighting.

“While we have no information to indicate there was a criminal act we certainly do not rule anything out and certainly would not want to speculate on what it may or may not have been,” she said.

The flight was over the southern edge of Liberty County flying at 13,000 feet when the incident occurred, officials said. ExpressJet flies regional routes for Continental Airlines as Continental Express.

Yikes! And almost the same thing happened a bit over a year ago in the same area ...

Continental jet has near miss with ‘rocket’

12:39 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 By Jeremy Desel / 11 News

HOUSTON—Jet pilots aren’t used to sharing their airspace, so you can bet a rocket will get some attention.

Continental Flight 1544 was flying at 5,000 feet about 11 miles east of Bush Intercontinental Airport after takeoff Monday morning when the pilot called the tower to report an object headed toward the plane. The pilot described seeing a fast moving object with a thick smoke trail nearing his airspace.

The FAA now says it thinks that object was some kind of model rocket. Both the FAA and the Houston Area Joint Terrorism Task Force continue to investigate the incident that KHOU.com first reported early this afternoon.

Neither said conclusively what the pilot saw was indeed a model rocket, but an FAA spokesperson told 11 News that it was likely a high-powered model rocket. It is a federal crime to launch a rocket of any sort without notifying the FAA.

The plane was at about 5,000 feet at the time of the sighting and the flight continued on to Cleveland.

No, of course this wouldn’t be on the news. Not a story that has anything to do with an airliner being mysteriously shot at. Not a few days before another airliner crashes in the ocean for no known reason.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/10/2009 at 09:11 PM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
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Whatsit?

Figure it out




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Ok, this thing is actually so big it more of a place, but it’s still a thing nonetheless. What is it?



Great balls of fire, you want a clue? OK, it’s in New Jersey. That was two clues, actually.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/10/2009 at 08:51 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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Who said life is fair?

Not much going on that I want to post about today. So this is a steal from the gossip pages, but I added the fashion info.

Actress Heather Graham attends the Dublin premier of her new film The Hangover. Hey, they sent her on a round-the-world publicity junket. I wonder why? wink

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Now, how’s that for a new take on the classic little black dress? No, she wasn’t attacked by Edward Scissorhands, or a flock of eagles. It was made that way. It’s fashion. Actually, it’s a series of fake “suntan inserts”, probably custom matched to her exact skin tone, so it only looks like she forgot all her undies, again*. A mere $1900 from the new spring collection by Herve Leger. the shoes could be from Cloe, about $500. The clutch? Damned if I know. The result? Priceless.

Ms. Graham is 5’ 8” tall and is 39 1/2 years old. No tattoos, no Botox, no implants, no extensions. And the blond is natural, mostly. Thank you, God. 


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/10/2009 at 04:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-CandyHollywood •  
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Let’s do lunch

This week’s most emailed photographs - baby animals and Obama stuffing his face. Go figure.


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New born black panther cubs Larisa and Sipura born at the Tierpark zoo in Berlin


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Obama has a burrito


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St. Bernard puppy born in Swiss town of Martigny. The Barry Foundation will continue the tradition of using these dogs to patrol the famous Great Saint Bernard Mountain pass


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Obama has a cheeseburger


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Siberian tiger in Chinese zoo births 6 kittens


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Obama gets some chili


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Another new family member at the Berlin Zoo


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Obama has some pancakes


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World goes to hell


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What will Obama eat today?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/10/2009 at 08:19 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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calendar   Tuesday - June 09, 2009

Barack Obama extends his hand to Islam’s despots .

I may be a couple days late but it’s still a pretty interesting editorial and it isn’t dead news. Wonder if O. reads this stuff. I hope you folks will read it.


The American President may not know it, but his ‘Muslim world’ is split by a war of ideas, says Amir Taheri.

By Amir Taheri
Published: 5:40PM BST 06 Jun 2009

What do you do when you have no policy, but want to appear as if you do? In the case of Barack Obama, the answer is simple: you go around the world making speeches about your “personal journey”.

The latest example came last Thursday, when Mr Obama presented his “address to the Muslim world” to an invited audience of 2,500 officials at Cairo University. The exercise was a masterpiece of equivocation and naivety. The President said he was seeking “a new beginning between the US and Muslims around the world”. This implied that “Muslims around the world” represent a single monolithic bloc – precisely the claim made by people like Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who believe that all Muslims belong to a single community, the “ummah”, set apart from, and in conflict with, the rest of humanity.

Mr Obama ignored the fact that what he calls the “Muslim world” consists of 57 countries with Muslim majorities and a further 60 countries – including America and Europe – where Muslims represent substantial minorities. Trying to press a fifth of humanity into a single “ghetto” based on their religion is an exercise worthy of ideologues, not the leader of a major democracy.

Mr Obama’s mea culpa extended beyond the short span of US history. He appropriated the guilt for ancient wars between Islam and Christendom, Western colonialism and America’s support for despotic regimes during the Cold War. Then came the flattering narrative about Islam’s place in history: ignoring the role of Greece, China, India and pre-Islamic Persia, he credited Islam with having invented modern medicine, algebra, navigation and even the use of pens and printing. Believing that flattery will get you anywhere, he put the number of Muslim Americans at seven million, when the total is not even half that number, promoting Islam to America’s largest religion after Christianity.

The President promised to help change the US tax system to allow Muslims to pay zakat, the sharia tax, and threatened to prosecute those who do not allow Muslim women to cover their hair, despite the fact that this “hijab” is a political prop invented by radicals in the 1970s. As if he did not have enough on his plate, Mr Obama insisted that fighting “negative stereotypes of Islam” was “one of my duties as President of the United States”. However, there was no threat to prosecute those who force the hijab on Muslim women through intimidation, blackmail and physical violence, nor any mention of the abominable treatment of Muslim women, including such horrors as “honour-killing”. The best he could do was this platitude: “Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons.”

Having abandoned President Bush’s support for democratic movements in the Middle East, Mr Obama said: “No system of government can or should be imposed on one nation by another.” He made no mention of the tens of thousands of political prisoners in Muslim countries, and offered no support to those fighting for gender equality, independent trade unions and ethnic and religious minorities.

Buried within the text, possibly in the hope that few would notice, was an effective acceptance of Iran’s nuclear ambitions: “No single nation should pick and choose which nations should hold nuclear weapons.” Mr Obama did warn that an Iranian bomb could trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. However, the Cairo speech did not include the threat of action against the Islamic Republic – not even sanctions. The message was clear: the US was distancing itself from the resolutions passed against Iran by the UN Security Council.

As if all that weren’t enough, Mr Obama dropped words such as “terror” and “terrorism” from his vocabulary. The killers of September 11 were “violent extremists”, not “Islamist terrorists”. In this respect, he is more politically correct than the Saudis and Egyptians, who have no qualms about describing those who kill in the name of Islam as terrorists.

Mr Obama may not know it, but his “Muslim world” is experiencing a civil war of ideas, in which movements for freedom and human rights are fighting despotic, fanatical and terrorist groups that use Islam as a fascist ideology. The President refused to acknowledge the existence of the two camps, let alone take sides. It was not surprising that the Muslim Brotherhood lauds him for “acknowledging the justice of our case” – nor that his speech was boycotted by the Egyptian democratic movement “Kifayah!” ("Enough!"), which said it could not endorse “a policy of support for despots in the name of fostering stability”.

In other words, the President may find that by trying to turn everyone into a friend, he has merely added to his list of enemies.

SOURCE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/09/2009 at 10:21 AM   
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