Thursday - September 30, 2010
sweet
I was always a sucker for that innocent winsome look.
Posted by Drew458 on 09/30/2010 at 04:43 PM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •
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Monsoon Season Is Over
Which means the Somali pirates are back to work.
A maritime security alert has been issued for the Indian Ocean following the reported hijacking of a Panama-flagged vessel with 15 crew members on board.
The 3,884 dwt MT Asphalt Venture is believed to have been traveling to Mombasa and is now en route to Xaradheere in northern Somalia, reports GAC Protective Solutions.
NATO Shipping Center reports that at “282000 UTC a merchant vessel was reported pirated in position 07 07S 041 02E.” It says that position is in the close proximity of a pirate action group sighted and reported in an earlier NATO report
NATO warns that the weather is becoming more favorable for pirate operations in the Arabian Sea and southern Somali Basin as the effects of the southwest monsoon abate.
A week after maritime security forces warned ship owners of increasing piracy, a tanker owned by a UAE company has been hijacked by pirates in Somalia. The Panamanian flagged MT Asphalt Venture was seized around 100 miles South of Dar es Salaam after unloading its cargo of bitumen at Mombasa in Kenya. According to reports, the vessel was manned by a crew of 15 Indians. The ship was en route to Durban when radar observation showed her turn suddenly and set a course for Xaradheere, about 300 miles north of Mogadishu on the Somali coast.
EU Navfor, which is responsible for protecting ships from pirate attacks in the Somalia basin, had warned about the possible increase in piracy following the end of monsoon season.
“The number of attacks is expected to increase in the near future and vessels will have to be increasingly vigilant,” a EU Navfor statement said.
It also blamed several shipping lines of not ensuring enough safety measures to prevent piracy.
Asphalt Venture IMO 8875798 Flag: Panama DWT 3884
Length 96m Beam 14m Speed 7.5 knots Cargo - in ballast
a small slow ship like this is easy pickings
Ok, business as usual, right? Even the fact that this hijacking was the 4th incident in the area in just a couple days doesn’t even raise much interest. Who cares that various navies were around?
On the afternoon of 28 September, MV Mississippi Star, en route to Dar Es Salaam was attacked by a pirate skiff. The pirates, firing automatic rifles and RPGs, attacked the vessel 45 nautical miles north east of Dar es Salaam. Mississippi Star took evasive action and escaped the attack. EU NAVFOR French Maritime Patrol Aircraft provided observation and the EU NAVFOR Italian warship Libeccio, which was in the vicinity, proceeded to the scene and is monitoring the situation. The Tanzanian Navy in Dar Es Salaam were alerted to the incident. The vessel had been proceeding from Mombasa when attacked; no injuries have been reported. Mississippi Star IMO 9527623, dwt 13100, built 2010, flag Malta, manager Rigel Schiffahrts GmbH, crew 1 German, 15 Philippino, 2 Polish.
This is the third pirate attack in Tanzania waters in a period from September 26.
Fine. So then here IS an interesting bit. The pirates are using a full sized captured oil tanker as a mother ship, and those Thai fishing trawlers I wrote about a while back as junior mother ships, and the world knows EXACTLY where those ships are, and they HAVE DONE NOTHING.
In the north pirates highjacked Greece freighter Lugelo, but fleed vessel being unable capture crew, sheltered in engine room, and afraid navy would free vessel and capture them. Two previously highjacked vessels, Thai trawler Prantalay 14 and Korean VLCC Samho Dream in full load, used as mother-ships, spotted in area where Lugela was highjacked, approx. in 10 38N 056 44E, and they’re still there, moving in general eastern direction, reports Ecoterra Intl.
...
How come VLCC Samho Dream became pirate ship and now is running around like some dhow or skiff, is simply beyond my comprehension – this is Super Tanker, for God’s sake! If pirates start to hunt on vessels like this one, they’d move to Atlantic soon, and highjack vessels somewhere off New York or Rotterdam, why not? How come VLCC Samho Dream is still captured, not ransomed out? What is the reason? Are Obama’s sanctions to blame, or greed of both pirates and owners? 300000 tonns of crude in hands of illiterate pirates, and nobody seems to care.
...
With situation like this, shipowners and crews have no one to rely upon, except themselves, and the only way to guarantee safe passage is armed guards on board.
Mikhail Voytenko
I hear ya Mikhail. We’re in the same boat on this one.
The VLCC Samho Dream is a supertanker that is nearly 1100 feet long and 200 feet wide. It is a huge ship. Too big a target to miss, even from space.
NATO reports that Somali pirates have moved the captured VLCC SAMHO DREAM (314,360-dwt) to a position approximately 80 n.miles off the Somali coast, leading to speculation that the supertanker could be used as a mother ship for other pirate activity in the region. At least one skiff as used by pirates to attack merchant shipping has been seen on the tanker’s deck. Samho Dream has a crew of 19 Filipinos and five South Koreans on board and was seized by pirates on 4 April. The ship is loaded with a cargo of crude oil from Kuwait and was heading for the United States when captured. The cargo is said to be worth at least US$170 million.
Between ship and cargo, this has to be worth at least a quarter billion dollars. But the Somali pirates are using the thing as a floating dock, just like the Smokers did in WaterWorld.
Posted by Drew458 on 09/30/2010 at 02:40 PM
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •
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double mulligan?
“According to opinion polls at the time taken directly after Tet and a few weeks after Tet, the American people wanted to escalate the war,” Robbins says. “They understand that the enemy had suffered a terrible defeat, so there was an opportunity if we had taken concerted action to actually win this thing.”
In fact, a majority of those polled after Tet considered themselves “hawks,” Robbins found. He adds that in the summer of 1967, hawks outnumbered doves on college campuses. “The notion that young people were long-haired dope smoking draft resisters in 1967-68 is not true. The ‘Forrest Gump’ view of history is wrong.”
One of Tet’s flaws, Robbins says, was that the North Vietnamese believed that if they attacked countrywide in the south with their tripwire forces, the south would rise up in revolt against Saigon and join the communists.
“And the reason they believed that was because they were reading the New York Times,” Robbins says.
...
To Robbins, the Vietnam narrative must be reclaimed from the “ruling class of hippies and leftists, who went from protests to the U.S. Senate in some cases” and those who “went from dope-smoking teach-ins to teaching from tenured positions on college campuses.”
Yes, there’s a whole book about it too.
h/t to Roger
Posted by Drew458 on 09/30/2010 at 02:04 PM
Filed Under: • History • Media-Bias • Military • Politics •
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Cyber Warfare
"We” seem to be winning this one. Not that anyone is admitting to making the attack, although “everyone knows” and has known for weeks now that it was that little nation on the east end of the Med ...
http://debka.com/article/9050/
Poor, poor Iran. Can’t run their nuclear plant without computers, can’t run their air defense system without computers, can’t target their missiles, can’t properly monitor their oil industry without computers. Probably screwing with the power grid at this point. And it seems that all their computers have caught a nasty germ and have called in sick. “Stux” to be them!
Kewl. This is better than a plague of locusts stink bugs ( a war we are losing ).
So now they are asking foreigners for help? Wonder who will answer the call? Russians? Chicoms? NorKs? Sure as heck better not be anyone from US, EU, or India.
Posted by Drew458 on 09/30/2010 at 12:50 PM
Filed Under: • Computers and Cyberspace • War On Terror •
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Take A Guess
This may be a tough one. Then again, with this crowd, the answer may come up in seconds. Unlike Allan’s “Lost” posts, it’s not an airport, and it’s not at an airport.
This is the birthing room, where we were born. Better than that even; it’s the wumpus rumpus room where we were conceived.
Ok, in the picture the place is undergoing renovation. That was finished in 2008 I believe. Check out all that lath, ready for new plaster. And all those bricks, which were probably not made by machine. Cool.
Where are we?
On a slightly similar note, or in case the first one is too hard, what’s this gizmo?
Duh Drew, it’s a thin board with 3 metal plates across it. Well yes, but then what? While I do not have any exact measurements for you, I’m pretty certain the thing is 48” long or a little bit less. And that the metal plates are about 8” wide with the special caveat that their flat ends stick up about 1/8” - 1/4” higher than the face of the center board, which I think is perhaps 3” or 4” wide. The flat ends of the metal plates could be set at a very slight angle as well; more like the dihedral on the wing of an airplane than anything you’d call a V shape. The device has a marvelous and crude name. What is it?
I am sorry to say that this nifty and inexpensive device may be outmoded. I think it has been replaced by an 8” wide X 48” length of 3/8” plywood or directional particle board with a thin bit of lath on both the long outside edges of one of the faces. The new version is cheaper, stronger, works even better, and when used on larger jobs the device is almost always 52” long - even though the lath edging is still exactly 48” long - and it has an additional strip of lath across one of the short sides, 4” away from, and at right angles to, the 2 bits of 48” lath. Cheese Whiz, that’s a total total giveaway of what these devices are used for. But they work great, and solve a problem that has plagued folks for 100 years now. You can purchase the plywood version or make your own, but it does not have the wonderful gross name as the original one.
Posted by Drew458 on 09/30/2010 at 02:20 AM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
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Wednesday - September 29, 2010
Cheap Trick
House Democrats have decided to skip a vote on extending Bush-era tax cuts, announcing Wednesday that they will not count heads until Congress returns for a lame duck session beginning Nov. 15.
The decision raises the impending tax increase to the fore ahead of the Nov. 2 midterm election, a debate that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen told Fox News that his party is ready to have.
“We will take it to the election,” Van Hollen, D-Md., said.
The House on Wednesday barely reached approval to adjourn. The 210-209 vote sets up a departure as early as Wednesday afternoon after lawmakers finish business still at hand, including a vote on health benefits for sickened Sept. 11 first responders.
The Senate punted two weeks ago on whether to hold a vote on extending nearly 10-year-old tax brackets for another year or longer. Democrats say they want to extend the current rates for couples making under $250,000 but hike it from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for couples making more than $250,000. The individual rate threshold is $200,000.
“Given the fact that Senate Republicans are going to hold tax relief hostage, we’ll have to get this done later this year,” Van Hollen said.
Republicans say the decision to forego a vote before the election amounts to a tax increase.
“A vote to adjourn this Congress without an up-or-down vote to stop all the tax hikes is a vote to raise taxes and destroy more jobs,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday. “American families and small businesses deserve better. ... If Democratic leaders leave town without stopping all of the tax hikes, they are turning their backs on the American people.”
But don’t worry, this won’t be reported on the 6 o’clock news.
Posted by Drew458 on 09/29/2010 at 07:49 PM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •
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Busy Morning
Up in the morning ‘fore the rising sun
making some money, getting things done
Started my day off by repairing an office door and doing some soldering to repair a lamp for a precision optical instrument. The soldering was pretty easy. I used a good silver solder so that little connection is never ever going to come loose again. Fixing the door was bit harder. It’s another one of those outside hinged external doors, weighs about 200lbs. The top hinge is just a rider. All it is is a floating pin locked in place by a set screw. The lower pin is used to adjust the height of the door above the threshold. So pretty much the entire weight of the door is carried by the 3/4” inch diameter aluminum pin, which is screwed into the door’s lower hinge bracket. Turns out the thing rides on a thrust washer that’s down in the bottom of the frame’s hinge cup bracket, and this one had worn right through. The proper part is about the size and thickness of a nickel and is probably made from hardened steel. I greased two dimes and put them in, because that’s what I had. Seems to be working fine, and now the adjusting pin has some range to work with again. Hey, if it wears out in 6 months I’ll go and spend a dollar on the proper part. Now that I know how to take this kind of door apart, and now that I own a proper gigantic screwdriver to do that with, I can have the door on and off in 4 minutes or less. So both tasks ate up an hour and some this morning, and I was done long before the office opened at 8:30. Cha-ching! Pay me please, thank you!
Bowling mini-blogging: 602. Me!! Last night. First one in ages. And even with a 217 pin net handicap, Team Loser still lay down and died, twice. Once by 3, once by 19. Horry clap.
Posted by Drew458 on 09/29/2010 at 04:16 PM
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging • Daily Life •
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Law of unintended consequences?
“duh, it wasn’t us” says animal rights lunatics.
Liars.
DUBLIN – The roads and rivers of northwest Ireland are suddenly lined with mink.
Managers at Anderson’s Mink Farm said Wednesday that many of their cages and fences were cut and opened over the weekend, freeing an estimated 5,000 animals into the wilds of County Donegal. About 28,000 others declined the invitation to bolt for freedom.
More than 100 already have been recaptured by hunters using cage traps, while several hundred others have been run over and killed. Drivers have reported seeing groups of the farm-reared animals standing, dazzled by headlights, in the middle of busy roads.
One of the farm’s directors, Connie Anderson, blamed animal rights activists for invading the farm in the early hours of Sunday. He declined to explain why it took the farm so long to raise the public alarm.
“These people are animal liberation terrorists and had no thought for the mink or for the damage that will be done to other wildlife in the area,” Anderson said.
Agricultural authorities warned that the surviving minks could decimate local populations of salmon, rabbits and fowl.
Animal rights activists in Ireland have denied responsibility — but are praising whoever did it.
“We have nothing to do with it. However, I commend whoever risked their freedom to do this as these animals have a horrendous life,” said Bernie Wright, spokeswoman for Ireland’s Alliance for Animal Rights.
And this act is right on the heels of a similar one that happened in Greece just a couple of weeks ago ...
Sep 2, 2010
ATHENS, Greece — An international animal rights activist group has claimed responsibility for releasing more than 50,000 minks from two fur farms in northern Greece.
In an online statement, the Animal Liberation Front says it carried out the attacks last week near the towns of Kastoria and Siatista, in the heart of Greece’s fur industry.
Thursday’s statement said the break-ins were meant to hit the industry “and especially the disgusting ‘fur towns’ of Siatista and Kastoria, plagued with hundreds of fur stores.”
Greece’s National Fur Breeders’ Association said most of the animals released into the local ecosystem were likely to die in the heat. It said the cost to the farm owners could exceed euro1 million ($1.28 million).
So the ones that don’t die of heatstroke, get run over, or starve to death (these are farm raised animals with no hunting experience) will probably wipe out all the small game in the area. And then die. It’s happened before ...
These Critters First groups like The Animal Liberation Front don’t give a damn about the animals themselves. No, they are against people using animals to earn a living. We call it farming ... or ranching ... same thing I guess when you’re farming animals. But they think of it as exploitation.
Of course, they don’t stop for a second to consider that the european mink is a highly endangered species in the wild, and almost all the living animals are the ones raised on farms. That’s people’s faults too, of course.
Nutjobs.
Now, there is such a thing as responsible farming. When you raise livestock, you are as God to the animals; you order the timing of their birth and their death, you control their living conditions. So it is not responsible - it’s downright cruelty - to use the lives and health of the animals as a labor bargaining chip. This is criminal:
Minks ‘starved to death’ in wage dispute
Employees at a mink farm in Russia’s European exclave of Kaliningrad are starving their animals to demand unpaid wages, a Russian furrier, who owns the farm, said overnight.
Staff “refused to feed the animals to protest over unpaid salary arrears dating back to December,” Grigory Isayevich, the deputy director of the furrier Russian Furs, which raises some 300,000 minks at five farms, said.
He said several dozen angry employees had blocked access to the animals’ food stores last week in an unusual strike that prompted the struggling company to pay back a part of the wage arrears.
Minks at the farm had already been underfed and suffering from chronic food shortages as the firm teeters on the brink of bankruptcy due to Russians cutting back on purchases of luxury fur coats amid the global economic crisis.
In August, “as many as 500 animals died daily (of starvation) at the farm and the minks began to eat each other,” said Sergei Babasyuk, deputy head of the department of agriculture at the Bagrationovsky region, where the farm is based.
OTOH, the farmer could afford the feed for 300,000 minks but couldn’t afford to pay a couple dozen workers? That smells worse than a soggy bag of new Fishy Bits flavor Purina Mink Chow.
Posted by Drew458 on 09/29/2010 at 02:49 PM
Filed Under: • Animals • Crime • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People •
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SOME HUMOR FOR A WET AND GLOOMY WEDNESDAY MORNING, hope it’s nicer where u are
Classic saucy seaside postcards images are being relaunched today to mark their 100th anniversary. Businessman Ian Wallace said he is hoping the classic cheeky cartoons, which could soon be appearing on everything from mouse mats to boxer shorts, will give everyone a light-hearted boost in times of economic gloom. Mr Wallace said: “They always look good and they always make people smile. Maybe they’re not to everyone’s taste but if you can’t laugh at Bamforth postcards what can you laugh at? They are classic images which have really stood the test of time”
Mr Wallace, 63, bought the firm Bamforth & Co nine years ago and now owns the rights to more than 50,000 of the postcard images with their pneumatic women, henpecked husbands and voluptuous nurses. But he has waited until the centenary to a sign a licensing agreement, which he is doing today with the Jane Evans Licensing Consultancy at the Brand Licensing Europe Exhibition, held at London’s Olympia
In morning paper and worth opening the day with a laff. Not certain yet if this will be my only post today. Too much to do and we’re helping with an elderly friend, semi- shut in etc. The old family friend also drives me nuts. Or maybe it’s the wife’s kindness. She, the old family friend, keeps giving us stuff, hardly any of which we have use for. But the wife doesn’t want to hurt her feelings by refusing, and so accepts ‘stuff’ we then have to get rid of. It’s odd and oddly sad too. For example, when she calls and I answer the phone cos it’s next to me, she’ll always ask if she may, “have a word with the wife.” We visit with her usually on Fridays. Most of the time just my wife goes when the visits are over an hour long. So anyway, the old lady calls & asks if on the way over the wife can be so kind as to pick up some milk or eggs on the way. She can never, ever ask me to pass on so simple a message. No, it has to go direct as though I’m likely to forget it. Sometimes, like last week, she’ll ask if we can use some tomatoes from her garden. I told her we didn’t need any thanks, we had just bought quite a few and I don’t use em much so it’s only the wife. And at the moment we’re a bit overbought. Made no difference at all to her. When we went over to deliver something for her the next day, she had a bag full of the damn things along with runner beans and carrots and something else I forget exactly what.
Wife brought her an order sheet from the local dairy and told her about the free home delivery service. All the items she could ever need are delivered by them. Not just eggs, milk, bread and butter. But she’s done nothing about it since being told. Much easier to let my wife do the odd and small pick up.
Not that I haven’t dropped a hint but it falls on deaf ears. Wife’s attitude is that someday that could be us and won’t we be glad for help if needed.
Yeah I guess. I see her point but ..... I hope I’m gone before reaching that state.
Darn ..... it’s raining again. Oh well. We already had our 4 and a half minutes of sun today. Be thankful for that.
Bawdy seaside postcards that sold by their millions before World War Two are to go on display for the first time since they were banned for indecency in 1954.
CLICK THE POST CARD FOR MORE
Posted by peiper on 09/29/2010 at 10:16 AM
Filed Under: • Humor •
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Tuesday - September 28, 2010
another drunk driver, another set of victims. la angles pitcher NICK_ADENHART, dies result of crash
Caught this article in Brit paper ....
Stories about drunk drivers are a dime a dozen and the only thing that sets this one apart is the fact that one of the victims was a baseball player for the LA Angles. Since it’s American based I would imagine that folks at home in the USA already know about it.
My reason for posting it is to ask a question. Since the only photos I can find are the ones in the Daily Mail article (see link below), I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how people would have died in this wreck. We see the front of the van but not much else. The article doesn’t say how fast the drunk bastard was going, the windshield doesn’t look broken or shattered. It also doesn’t say if they were wearing seat belts or not. Apparently the drunk was able to drive away so how much damage did his car have? It just seems like such a freak like accident. And as almost always the way, the drunks usually walk away unscathed leaving victims behind. And this SOB had a record of DUI. Life in jail is too good for this creep.
Drunk driver found guilty of murder of new star pitcher for LA Angels after horror crashBy David Gardner
A drunk driver faces life behind bars after being convicted today of murdering promising Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two of his friends.
Andrew Gallo, 23, showed little emotion as a jury read out the guilty verdicts at Santa Ana courthouse in Orange County.
Adenhart, 22, was killed just hours after pitching six scoreless innings in his season debut in April, 2009.
Gallo had spent hours drinking beers and shots at three different bars with his stepbrother before running a red light and slamming into a car driven by Adenhart’s friend, 20-year-old Courtney Stewart.
The young driver, a student and former cheerleader at Cal State Fullerton, and passenger Henry Pearson, a 25-year-old law school student who was building a sports management business, were both killed instantly.
Adenhart died later in surgery.
A third passenger, Jon Wilhite, survived, but was severely injured when the impact of the collision separated his skull from his spine.
Gallo’s blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit at the time of the crash. He fled after the crash, but was later caught and charged.
SEE WHAT I’M REFERRING TO HERE, SOURCE AND PHOTOS
Posted by peiper on 09/28/2010 at 01:38 PM
Filed Under: • Celebrities • Crime • USA •
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eu to brits. sovereignty? what sovereignty? we don’t got to respect no sovereignty …..
Surely there must be something in all this that would benefit the Brits. Lyndon/Chris ... Anything?
Oh hang a minute .... I forgot. Anything beneficial to this country is against the law. So this is a good thing.
Speaking of money .... and unrelated to this article .... This Sunday Germany makes its final reparation payment for WORLD WAR ONE.
Turtler ... Were Austria and Hungry exempt from reparations of any sort? Well, Austria anyway.
An open door to benefit tourists: EU warns Britain it can’t stop thousands more migrants claiming welfare handouts
By James Chapman
Benefits tourists are set to get the green light to come to Britain and immediately claim handouts totalling £2.5billion a year.
According to documents leaked to the Mail, ministers have been warned that restrictions on claims by immigrants are against the law and must be scrapped.The European Commission’s ruling threatens to open the door to tens of thousands who are currently deterred from coming to Britain.
At the moment, a ‘habitual residency test’ is used to establish whether migrants from the EU are eligible for benefits.To qualify for jobseeker’s allowance, employment support allowance, pension credit and income support, they must demonstrate that they either have worked or have a good opportunity to get a job.
But after receiving a complaint that the rules infringed the human rights of EU citizens, the Commission began to examine them.In a letter seen by the Mail, it warns that the restrictions are ‘not compatible’ with EU law.
It says: ‘EU law leaves it to member states to determine the details of their social security schemes and social assistance schemes, including the conditions on awarding benefits.‘However, when making use of this competence, member states have to comply with the fundamental principles of EU law, such as the right to equal treatment on the basis of nationality. Having examined the “right to reside” test… it is not compatible with different legal provisions of EU law.’
The letter, written to the individual who made the complaint and copied to the British government, is dated last December, but Whitehall sources claim ministers in the outgoing Labour government failed to argue against the proposals.
Posted by peiper on 09/28/2010 at 12:35 PM
Filed Under: • UK •
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Dance, gypsy … sing, gypsy … drink, gypsy …. STEAL GYPSY … and teach the kids as well
This is what these folks are almost all about, but I suppose it’s bigoted to say so out loud. Or I should say bigoted and racist to the know nothings who aren’t exposed to it. Like the civil rights idiots who got their knickers in a twist last month when the French govt. decided to clamp down on the illegal camps and deport illegal immigrants from this group. Anyway, this isn’t exactly new as it’s been known for a very long time.
If the authorities weren’t so damned afraid of world opinion and their membership in the EU, they could dispose of this group in the same manner they disposed of their former communist leaders, Nickolai Chauchescu and his wife. Bang-bang, you’re dead.
The end always justifies the means when you’re dealing with a national cancer. I am referring specifically to the criminal group and not the entire community,
a small percentage of which are guilty of nothing. All the rest who are known and with records of crime should be eliminated. Just a thought, might also be a good way to take the pressure off overcrowded prisons. Eliminate all of the worst with long records and repeat offenders. Cost effective too by gosh.
In the dock: Modern-day Fagins who ‘sent 200 Romanian children to beg and steal in UK’
By Nick Fagge
A gang of modern-day Fagins brought almost 200 Romanian children into Britain to steal and beg for their criminal masters, a court heard yesterday.
The youngsters, some as young as eight, were said to have been trained in their home country to pick pockets, snatch bags from bars and restaurants, shoplift and beg at home.Then they were packed off to the UK, many with forged documents.
Their bosses, all Roma gipsies, coerced families into giving up their children, saying that they would find them work and send money home.
But in actual fact the youngsters, who were each making up to £100,000 a year, were sold as ‘slaves’ to other gang members and forced to hand over every penny of their earnings to their masters.A defendant, named Petrica Dragusin claimed that it was not a crime to ‘receive money from children’.
Yesterday, 24 gang members faced charges in a Romanian courtroom. Some of them appeared before a judge penned behind a dock with wooden bars.
Their criminal network is said to have sent at least 181 youngsters to Britain over seven years up to 2009 - seeking out disabled children and those younger than 14, which is the age of criminal responsibility in Romania.The group faces charges including child trafficking, money laundering, possession of illegal guns and creating a criminal network.
The charges read: ‘This group is involved in organised crime trafficking under-aged Romanians of Roma origin to western Europe, especially Great Britain, to exploit them through begging activities and street crimes.‘These people planned to carry out serious crimes over a long period of time with each gang member allocated precise tasks through a well-organised hierarchy. From the evidence found by the British-Romanian team it concluded that the minors found in the UK were transported there by the members of the criminal group who are under investigation in this case.
‘The children were forced to beg, steal and commit benefit fraud under the supervision of this group.’
It was also claimed that Romanian police suspected the gang of child trafficking in 2005, but allowed the criminals to continue the trade - until they were forced to act following pressure from Britain.
Posted by peiper on 09/28/2010 at 11:37 AM
Filed Under: • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters • UK •
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Monday - September 27, 2010
French MEP Rachida Dati confuses oral sex with inflation.
I thought I should leave tonight with this very funny article.
No comments from me, taking my inconsequential cold bug to bed.
I can imagine what some of the comments on this might be. Lets try and not be too gross.
Ooh la la! Embarrassing faux pas for French MEP Rachida Dati as she confuses oral sex with inflationBy Peter Allen
Glamorous French politician Rachida Dati has been forced to issue a public apology after confusing oral sex with inflation.
The 44-year-old former justice minister and MEP is frequently nicknamed ‘Rachida Barbie’ because of her poor understanding of complicated political issues.
But nobody expected her extraordinary mistake on the national Europe 1 radio station on Sunday.
Asked about overseas investment funds profiteering during a period of economic uncertainty, she said: ‘I see some of them looking for returns of 20 or 25 per cent, at a time when fellatio is almost non-existent.’
In French, fellatio – a sex act performed on a man – is ‘fellation’, which sounds a bit like inflation, which is the same word in French and English.
Apologising for the hugely embarrassing slip on her Facebook site, Miss Dati said: ‘This kind of thing happens if you speak too quickly on this kind of programme.’
The single mother of one added : ‘It is unfortunate that this is the only political message that has been received on such a serious subject.’
Miss Dati was fired from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government last year because of her inability to do her job properly, and her frivolous nature.
She frequently appeared on the cover of magazines in designer dresses and stirred up speculation about the mystery father of her baby daughter to the extent that some still think it might be Mr Sarkozy himself.
Miss Dati was a love rival of Mr Sarkozy’s third wife, Carla Bruni, for many months as both battled for a place in the Elysee Palace bed chamber.
Posted by peiper on 09/27/2010 at 04:22 PM
Filed Under: • FRANCE •
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tats and piercings, self mutilation? some more thoughts on the subject.
Gee, had no idea when I posted that story with regard to the moonbat job hunting with a face full of studs, that it would engender so much interest and argument. I haven’t changed my position on the subject and I don’t suspect any of you have either. However, I found this today and thought it explained a bit and there are links at the site with tons more info if anyone is interested. Meanwhile, I haven’t found any follow up on the story although she apparently has Facebook and Myspace accounts.
Tattoos and Body Piercing: Adolescent Self-Expression or Self-Mutilation?
Understanding ourselves through pop culture.
by Lawrence Rubin and Michael BrodyLawrence Rubin, psychologist and counseling professor, is co-author with psychiatrist Mike Brody of Messages: Self Help Through Popular Culture.
Dr. Michael Brody is a practicing child and adult psychiatrist and Chair of The Media Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Contemporary adolescent and young adult culture has embraced tattoing and body piercing, ostensibly as a form of self-expression. It seems that if not tattooed themselves, there are very few degrees of separation between any adolescent and someone in their life who bears a tattoo or is pierced somewhere on their body. Sports stars, rock stars and movie and television icons are covered in images and piercings; but we expect that of them, for they are in the public eye.
When a recent news piece highlighted a young woman who received 56 star tattoos on her face after only requesting three, I was moved to ask the question as to whether this phenomenon, as well as multiple and multi-site tattoos and piercing is really just a socially sanctioned form of self-mutilation?! I am, of course, driven to reflect deeply on this as I am after all, a psychologist and a tattooed one at that.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry released a statement in 1999 in which they listed tattooing and ‘excessive piercing’ along with picking, burning, head-banging and cutting as possible forms of self-injury.While this may seem somewhat of an alarmist conclusion to many, especially those who are tattoed and pierced, the AACAP is not the first on the block to reach this conclusion. In mainstream professional journals, including The Journal of Psychosomatic Research (2006, volume 6, issue 4), Adolescence (2002, volume 37, issue 147), The Journal of Adolescent Health (2005, volume 36, issue 4), Deviant Behavior (2009, volume 30, issue 6) and Pediatrics (2002, volume 109, issue 60), tattooing and body piercing have been associated with dangerous and sometimes lethal risk-taking behavior, eating disorders, self-loathing, substance abuse, depression and social alienation.
These findings and interpretations may well be valid, particularly for the samples upon which they are based. Certainly, we have all witnessed young people swathed in images, both benign (butterflies, roses and hearts) and horrific (skulls, demons and swastikas), and wondered “what the heck could they have been thinking...if they were thinking at all?!” And what about those who have gone to incredible lengths to virtually change their appearance by tattooing whiskers and cat’s eyes over their own, in addition to having their incisors sharpened. And then there are the real over-the-top instances where someone will surgically implant horns on their forehead, and permanently paint their faces to mirror those of demons?
Are these all instances of self mutilation, especially in the case of multiple or full-body art and piercings of everyting from nostrils, tongues, belly-buttons, earlobes and eyelids (favorites among teen girls) to nipples, genitals and everything in between. All of these hurt, to a lesser or greater extent, depending on the place in the case of piercings and tats, and the amount of time the body is exposed to the unrelenting ink-bearing needles. And I must admit, of the 4 tattoos I have received, they hurt! You would think; however, that a little tat here or a little ring or stud there can’t be compared side-to-side with repettitive self-inflicted razor wounds, beer chugging, street racing, and the myriad of other creative ways young people abuse themselves and flirt with danger, if not death?
Might there be alternate, less pathological explanantions for this tsunami of seeming self-desecration? At a most basic and benign level, perhaps tattooing and piercing are simply forms of self-expression, a means of marking ourselves in a society that fosters, both wittingly and unwittingly, anomie and anonymity.
Perhaps, as postmodernists might argue, this self-marking is a means of asserting mastery and control over our boides, and anchoring ourselves, quite lterally during a time of life when the only constant is change. Maybe it is not self-mutilation, but rather self enhancement and adornment, a means of saying “I am’ in a way that is heard...body bling! And don’t forget the socio/anthropological possibility that tats and piercings may demonstrate loyalty, affiliation or be a ritualistic rite of passage. For some, it may simply be the rush of adrenaline that accompanies a self-chosen and self-controlled moment of physical pain.
You decide for yourself
Posted by peiper on 09/27/2010 at 03:07 PM
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