BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin knows how old the Chinese gymnasts are.

calendar   Monday - October 25, 2010

A Paltry Trillion

Could Obama Wield Cameron’s Axe?

not bloody likely, but perhaps a new Congress could do it for him



imageThe British government this past week announced the steepest set of spending cuts in decades, vowing to slash department budgets by close to 20 percent and eliminate a half-million public sector jobs—all in the name of closing the country’s stubborn deficit.

The sweeping proposal has given way to bickering in London, but it already has observers on this side of the pond wondering, what if?

Britain’s austerity program would surely shock U.S. senses, at a time when the Obama administration has taken a slow-and-steady approach to closing the deficit.

“Slow and steady”? Whachu smokin’ Willis?

To replicate in the United States what Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is doing in Britain, an economy one-fifth the size of America’s, Washington would have to propose a set of cuts well above anything proposed so far on Capitol Hill. But the exercise shows just how drastic an effort may be needed to keep the United States from going broke.

“The Obama administration is showing no appetite whatsoever to do what the British are doing,” said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the conservative Heritage Foundation. But, he said, the U.S. has to “at the very least do what the British are doing” to avoid a fiscal calamity.

Gardiner said congressional Republicans will be paying close attention as they craft their agenda should they end up with a majority in either chamber come Nov. 3. “I do think what Cameron is doing is going to be seen as inspirational by many conservatives on Capitol Hill,” Gardiner said.

Cameron is calling for $130 billion in cuts from his country’s budget by 2015. If Washington were to cut a similar percentage from its federal budget, it would need to carve out more than $450 billion. Gardiner estimated that, based on the size of the United States’ economy, Washington would need to find more like $650 billion to excise by 2015.

Though some agencies have been spared, the average hit each department would take under Cameron’s plan amounts to about 19 percent.

Applied in the United States, that would mean a $4.9 billion hit to the Department of Agriculture; a $5.6 billion hit to the Department of Justice; a $5.4 billion hit to the Department of Energy; and a whopping $11.5 billion hit to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Britain’s military got away with just an 8 percent reduction—but for the U.S. Department of the Defense, that would translate to more than $56 billion from its proposed 2011 budget.

Obama has said he wants to halve the federal budget deficit by the end of his first term, a move that would likely mean hundreds of billions of dollars in savings from somewhere. But he’s still awaiting a report from his debt and deficit commission on how best to accomplish those goals.

Huh, we’ve heard that “waiting for a report” nonsense before, right General? And whether Obambi really wants to halve the annual deficit is pretty moot, as he seems hell bent for leather on doubling it, or even more, every year.

But if the United States wanted to tackle its debt and deficit with the same kind of vigor as Britain, it might end up dealing with even steeper cuts. The latest Treasury Department report showed the U.S. deficit was nearly $1.3 trillion in 2010. And while Britain’s national debt is a paltry trillion, the United States owes $13.6 trillion.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/25/2010 at 07:56 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsGovernment •  
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Death Count Rising

Haiti: Cholera Death Count Almost Doubles Over Weekend



On Friday the death count was at 150, with 1526 people infected. Today, Monday, the number of fatalities has increased to 253 (reported so far) and 3015 infected. The WHO and teams of international aid workers are rushing fresh water and medicine to the beleaguered island nation, but with outbreaks now plotted in nearly a dozen areas, expect the counts to climb nearly vertically before the outbreak can be contained.

image

The Artibonite river in Haiti has turned deadly. Once a source of water for the villagers that live along its banks, now it is thought to be the source of the cholera epidemic.

For those who used to bathe, play and do laundry in the river - or drink from it - life has changed drastically. Aid agencies deliver bottled water daily and leaflets are being given out to the villagers. “This is very good information,” one man tells me, as he reads about how handwashing is important in combating the spread of the disease.

“If we had learned this before, lives could have been saved,” he observes.

The guy can read, but he doesn’t know that washing your hands is the most basic step in sanitation. They’re doomed.

The public information campaign is well underway. Outside St Nicholas’ hospital in St Marc, a song blares out from the sound system, encouraging people to use clean water and clean toilets. There is plenty of bottled water, courtesy of the aid agencies, but clean toilets are another matter.
...
Haitian authorities hope the epidemic may now be stabilising, but the human cost continues to mount, in a country which has already seen so much suffering.

“It should be possible” to keep an outbreak of cholera out of the capital of Haiti, but the potentially deadly disease remains “a major risk,” an international aid worker told CNN Monday.

“I think we’ll be able to contain it fairly well, but it is a risk, it is a major risk,” said Jason Erb, deputy country director for the International Medical Corps.

The fast-moving outbreak has claimed at least 253 lives on the impoverished island nation, which is yet to recover from January’s massive earthquake. Another 3,015 cases have been reported, according to Haiti’s Health Ministry. Even if the disease can be kept out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, it remains a serious risk in the tent camps that are still home to tens of thousands of earthquake survivors, Erb warned.

“It’s a danger because the camps are so crowded and so unhygienic,” he said

But meanwhile, officials are stepping up sanitation efforts and setting up quarantine areas in Port-au-Prince. Authorities are bracing themselves for a possible larger outbreak nationwide.

“I think the only responsible thing we can do at the moment is prepare and plan for the worst-case scenario,” [UN aid spokesman] Wall said.

On Friday, officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Agency for International Development discussed the outbreak and efforts to work out a containment strategy.

The CDC will send an 11-member team to Haiti over the next few days to find out which antibiotics will be most effective in treating the outbreak. USAID will provide supplies needed to set up treatment centers. The group already has 300,000 oral re-hydration kits in position and is distributing water purification kits in affected areas.

The U.N. mission in Haiti credited access to clean water and free medical facilities for preventing feared outbreaks of cholera and tuberculosis.

Great. So the next outbreak will be TB. Guaranteed. 


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/25/2010 at 07:31 AM   
Filed Under: • Health-MedicineInternational •  
Comments (4) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

suicides with monotonous regularity ….

Here’s yet another example of the kind of thing that brings down that unwanted red curtain. (rcob)

So far he hasn’t said sorry and I’m glad about that. I hope the minister stays the course and ignores the idiot critics who are oh so easily “offended” noy only for themselves, but for ppl they don’t know and never will meet.
I am not at all bothered that someone with a name like Mahmood is offended.  Nobody with a name like that or even similar to it should be telling anyone in a western country what to say or not say.  Even if that Mahmood person is an MP himself.  Up yours Khalid. And Anglicize your name btw. And up yours as well to those ‘mental health professionals’ who just can’t understand what the minister was saying or how it was meant.  He was not making fun of sad situations but making a statement on fact.  See for yourself.


Transport secretary faces anger over flippant remarks on suicides

The Transport Secretary is facing criticism over a “flippant” remark about people committing suicide by jumping in front of trains.


By Melissa Kite

In an interview, Philip Hammond suggested that the train service he used from Surrey to London was “pretty reliable, unless somebody jumps off the platform at Wimbledon, which happens with monotonous regularity.”

His remarks were condemned as insensitive by mental health professionals. There are around 200 suicides a year on the railways.

“There is nothing inconsiderate or amusing about people taking their own lives.”

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood said: “These comments are absolutely disgraceful. Mr Hammond should apologise immediately to anyone who has ever been affected by the tragic events of a suicide for his callous flippancy.”

Earlier this year Network Rail announced a £5 million five-year plan in conjunction with the Samaritans to reduce the number of suicides, including posters with helpline contact details at key stations around the country.

They also called for responsible and sensitive attitudes towards the issue.

Suicides cost Network Rail an estimated £15 million in compensation payments to train operators because of delays.

A spokeswoman for Network Rail said last night: “We are working very closely with the Samaritans to reduce suicides on the network. They are a tragedy for those involved. From a passenger and business perspective they are incredibly disruptive. I think you had better ask Mr Hammond about whether or not his remarks were appropriate.”

source


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/25/2010 at 06:08 AM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
Comments (3) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Obama’s Democrats are about to take a hiding in the mid-term elections…..

The exact dimensions of the Democrats’ rout are not yet clear. Nor is it clear whether Republicans will advance serious policies to roll back their expansion of government, and whether voters will support them if they do. Britain may give us some clues on that. But we do know that Americans who embraced “hope and change” two years ago are now rejecting the change they were given.

For the entire commentary of course, see the link.
America does get covered over here as you see.  I found this to be very interesting but also rather long.  So of course it’s cropped for space and breathing room.


Why the US has turned against Obama

Obama’s Democrats are about to take a hiding in the mid-term elections. Michael Barone explains why the US has turned its back on big government.

By Michael Barone

Why have American voters gone so sour on Barack Obama’s Democratic party? It’s a question that must puzzle many in Britain who – Conservative as well as Labour and Lib Dem – welcomed Obama’s election two years ago and saw him leading America and the world into broad, sunlit uplands. But now it appears that Obama’s party is about to take what George W Bush called a “thumping” in the mid-term elections on November 2.

It looks to be quite a fall. Obama won the popular vote in 2008 by a 53 to 46 per cent margin. That’s not quite a landslide, but he won a higher percentage of the vote than any Democratic candidate in history except for Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. More than John Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Grover Cleveland; more even than Bill Clinton.

And Democrats won the popular vote for the House of Representatives – a key index of public support – by a 54 to 43 per cent margin. That was their best showing since 1986.

Polls now suggest that those percentages could turn upside down. Republicans lead on the generic ballot question – which party’s candidates will you support for the House of Representatives – by an average of 49 to 42 per cent. In no previous election cycle since the Gallup organisation started asking the question in 1942 have Republicans led by more than 4 per cent. Now in Gallup’s “low turnout” likely voter model they lead by 17. Republicans seem very likely to win more – perhaps many more – than the 39 seats they need for a majority in the House and might, if they get lucky, win the 10 seats they need for a majority in the Senate.

After the 2008 elections, Democratic strategist James Carville predicted that Democrats would dominate US elections for 40 years; Republican strategist Karl Rove had predicted something similar for his party after George W Bush’s narrower win in 2004. And Tony Blair’s New Labour dominated British politics for nine or 10 years after its first landslide victory in 1997. But the Obama Democrats’ dominance turned out to last not 40 years but 40 weeks – until Republicans overtook Democrats in the polls in August 2009.

What gives?

read it all here


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/25/2010 at 05:48 AM   
Filed Under: • EditorialsPoliticsUSA •  
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Freeze! It’s the Serious Crime Directorate 9 Human Exploitation … blah,blah,blah

See?  PC rules.  It really doesn’t end. Be interesting to see where this all ends if it ever does.

the word ‘vice’ was thought to have negative connotations.

Well duh. Ya think?
Or maybe not anymore. 

I had an uncle who (like 60 or more yrs ago) was on the vice squad. I can just imagine what his reaction would be reading this silly thing today, if he were still around.


Freeze! It’s the Serious Crime Directorate 9 Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command: Vice Squad goes politically correct

By Rebecca Camber

Scotland Yard’s famous Vice Squad has been renamed in a politically correct makeover.
The unit, which led some of the Metropolitan Police’s most celebrated cases in the capital’s seedy underworld, has a new title - the Serious Crime Directorate 9: Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command, or SCD9 for short.

The Met says the unit has been renamed to reflect its work combating ‘all forms of human exploitation’, not just prostitution and criminal activities in nightclubs and casinos.

But sources say the switch was ordered as the word ‘vice’ was thought to have negative connotations.

The Vice Squad, established in 1932 as “8 Area Clubs and Vice Unit”, famously dealt with Ronnie and Reggie Kray when the gangster twins moved into running nightclubs in the 1960s.

source


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/25/2010 at 04:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Politically Correct B.S. •  
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museum displays hidden so as not to offend pagans and other sensitives … our wacky world today

bat Well here we go again. It not only never ends, it gets worse. But that won’t surprise anyone.
I think it’s all because we have so much leisure time and so much time to dream up new dizzily stupid things that past generations might have laughed at. And then locked up the people who advanced stupidity.

A few weeks ago I was certain I’d found the Moonbat award for the year, even though the year isn’t finished yet.  I just didn’t think in the short time left, anyone would come up with a higher level of social insanity.  But hey .... leave it to the legions of the politically correct morons who sadly are in charge of things.

Mummy dearest .... why are you hiding?
So as not to offend those more sensitive souls.

Welcome to more of the world of IDIOTS! batbatbat


Hide your mummies! Museum displays of human remains are covered up for fear of offending pagans

By Sarah Harris
Last updated at 7:39 AM on 25th October 2010

Museums are hiding away mummies and human remains for fear of offending pagans and other minority groups, it has been revealed.
They are putting up warning signs, closing previously opened coffins and displaying exhibits in darkened cases.
This is despite the fact that such displays are among the most popular attractions.

The move is designed to give the skeletons and mummies ‘privacy’ and to avoid upsetting faith groups and even some museum staff, according to academic findings.

Research shows how 17 museums have drafted policies on human remains, with most advocating that signs are put up to warn visitors of their presence.
Manchester University Museum’s policy requires consultation before displaying human remains, particularly with what it calls ‘marginalised communities and faith groups’.

At the insistence of a pagan group called Honouring the Ancient Dead, it removed the head of an Iron Age bog body – the skull of Worsley Man, which was found buried near Manchester 50 years ago – from display.


It also covered up the unwrapped mummy of Asru, the partially-wrapped mummy of Khary, and a child mummy with sheets. The three mummies were uncovered only after a public protest.

Meanwhile, the Egypt gallery at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery has changed its display of Egyptian human remains.
Instead of the previous display of mummies in open coffins, it now exhibits them with half closed lids, which it considers more respectful.


bat
click me for more.

Here’s a comment from the source at the Daily Mail.  Kinda says it all.

More PC insanity, ancient people went to extreme lengths to claim a little slice of immortality utilising mummification and other skills handed down over generations so now PC dimwits and members of other shallow hippy new age ‘religions’ make it so the small story from the past that these ancestors have to tell is ignominiously silenced as they are hidden away at the back of museum storerooms or re-buried.

It seems totally illogical that academics have to listen to people who go around claiming to be witches or druids anyway, these loons would be far too dimwitted to survive in pre-Christian times when the the old belief systems flourished and certainly should not be involved in destroying the archaeological heritage of this or any other country on the basis of half baked, rehashed quasi-religious dogma most likely pieced together from less than accurate Victorian history books and a mish-mash of local folk tales.
- leew, Lancashire


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/25/2010 at 03:10 AM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINEMoonbat Award to:Politically Correct B.S.Stoopid-People •  
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calendar   Sunday - October 24, 2010

all gone, bye bye

After years and years, Blogrolling is shutting down November 1, 2010. Sorry to see them go.

But over the past few months their widget has become a liability of sorts; I get at least one email a week telling me I have a malware problem. Blogrolling has not, does not, and has never been a source of any malware. Somehow, the way they wrote their widget code sets off some of the very sensitive malware sniffers, especially in the Chrome browser.

I have remove the Blogrolling code from the source code for this blog. Maybe I will build up my own table of blog links, maybe some other linking service will step up to the bar. But this should take care of those false flag warnings. I hope.

I took out the Blogiversary code too, since that gizmo died more than a year ago. Nothing lasts forever I guess.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/24/2010 at 03:24 PM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff •  
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de devil made me do it …. dark ages meet the 21st century … not that some know the difference

Yeah. We’re expected to accept these life forms as, just folks I suppose. 

See what happens when you take the wrong specimens out of their natural habitat?

The white man’s burden. Forever.

Turning our attention now to Haiti ... or maybe not.

11 Hurt In Plunge ‘Fleeing From Devil’

Eleven people have been injured jumping out of a second-floor flat window after apparently thinking they had seen the devil.

Police are investigating the incident which took place in the early hours in the small town of La Verriere, west of Paris.

Officers said some of the injured were children including a four-month-old baby, who is in a serious condition in a children’s hospital in the French capital.

“Thirteen people were in an apartment on the second floor when, at around 3am, one of the occupants heard his child crying,” said Odile Faivre, the deputy prosecutor in Versailles.

“The man in question, of African origin, who was completely naked, got up to feed his child, at which point the other occupants took him for the devil.

“He was seriously wounded in the hand after being stabbed with a knife before he was thrown out of the apartment, via the door.”

The 30-year-old man then tried to force his way back into the room.

“That’s when the other occupants tried to escape by jumping out of the window, panicked by a fear of the devil,” said Ms Faivre.

Police are questioning the naked man as well as another man who jumped from the window with a two-year-old girl in his arms.

Seven of those injured - who were African, possibly from Angola - were taken to hospital for emergency treatment.

Detectives are trying to find out if the group jumped voluntarily or were forced to jump.

black magic


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/24/2010 at 02:42 AM   
Filed Under: • FRANCEStoopid-People •  
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calendar   Saturday - October 23, 2010

take three, they’re free

linky love on a Saturday night

The high cost of going green. German power companies about to go broke because they offered way too high an incentive for folks to get solar power, and now the power grid can’t handle it either.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/10/19/German-grid-aching-under-solar-power/UPI-13471287518368/

NAACP can’t remember history, so I guess they are condemned to repeat it. This reads like one of Michael Zak’s columns, and that’s a good thing. NAACP decides that the Tea Party is racist, and then lists a dozen racists throughout US history, without realizing every last one of them was a Democrat. Time for a good Fisking.
http://www.allamericanblogger.com/12572/brutal-fisking-nc-naacp-chapter-pres-alleges-tea-party-is-as-racist-as-democrats/

Speaking of not knowing history too well, here’s TOTUS manipsinatin’ on Abe Lincoln. Duh. Wadda maroon.
http://www.handsofftexas.com/posts/8-learn-your-lincoln-mr-president


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/23/2010 at 06:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
Comments (3) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

weekend whatsit

UPDATE AND ANSWER:


These are archery rings.

image



They have been used across the Far East for centuries to shoot the short, heavy composite bows that are indigenous there, and they are still used today. When you shoot an arrow while using an archery ring, you are using what is called the Mongolian Release ... because I guess the Mongols invented the darn bow, and the thumb ring, and then the horde. And then they took over the world. As John Freakin’ Kerry put it, ”in fashion reminiscent of ‘Jeng-gis Khan‘“ ... because they were WITH Genghis Khan.

The Mongolian bow was a mighty little thing, with nearly double the draw weight of the English Longbow. It had nearly twice the accurate effective range, and the bodkin pointed style of arrows they used - which may have been hardened steel, which China has had since forever, much longer than the West, and the Horde took over China before going after Asia and Europe - those arrows would shoot right through fully armored knights. Riding in on their STEPPE ponies (and thus my “step” pun in the comments) they would attack in a circular rolling wave, each archer shooting tangentially forward as they rode around.  No army could stand against them. They could shoot you dead long before you could shoot back. But short bows have steep string angles, and steep string angles make it impossible to use the 3 fingered release we use here in the West. And bows with 160 pound draw weights make it impossible to use the Pinch Release. No, you use a thumb ring, and releasing an arrow is as easy as flipping a coin. It’s actually the same hand action as flipping a coin, just turned sideways. It’s faster than the other styles too, which lets you shoot more enemies as your pony runs past.

image image
Mediterranean release, left VS Mongolian release, right

The first redhead on the horse is Katie Stearns, a modern horse archer who calls herself The Flying Duchess. Here she is again, Mongolian bow in use:

image

Once upon a time, Episode #119 to be exact, the MythBusters crew approached the “rumor” that shooting arrows from a running horse made them penetrate twice as much. This obviously is not true, though it may have been a bit of a cultural memory from long ago, because a narrow, hardened, bodkin pointed Mongol arrow fired from a Mongol bow launched by some short hairy dude riding a pony ... that arrow will go right through you. Whereas the more knife-like broadpoint European style arrow fired from a less powerful longbow by a standing archer will just go mostly through you. Either way you’re dead, but that MythBusters angle allowed me to post team member Kari Byron’s photo. Yeah, like I need another reason to post pictures of cute redheads. And where did the MythBusters go to learn how to shoot bows from horses? Gosh, they went to visit the Flying Duchess, because she teaches it.

Oh, the status symbol thing: once the horsemen of the Steppes took over China, suddenly it was cool to be an archer if you were at Court. So a bunch of fakers started wearing fancy jade thumb rings. Over the generations the Chinese version of the archery thumb ring lost it’s flattened bill and just became a cylindrical ring. But the Chinese composite bow is nearly identical to the Mongolian bow. And once the Horde took over Europe, well at least the areas where present day Turkey and Hungary are, the Turkish bow became less like the Scythian bow and far more Mongolian in design. As did the Hungarian bow. Because it’s a better weapon. Between China and Turkey is India, and they got in on the act too. Did the Mongols take over India along the way? Yes they did! Was the Moghul Dynasty Mongol derived? Ever hear of this guy called Tamerlane? So that answer is, You Betcha. I’m pretty sure that the two fancy rings pictured are from the Moghul period.

So there you go. A piece of history that has killed thousands and thousands, has been a status symbol, has been turned into jewelry, and is still in use today. And I hate to say it, but I think fuckface Kerry was right about the pronunciation. From what I can dig up, the first Khan there really was “Jing Gis”. But our soldiers never behaved in any way reminiscent of the Horde ... because that would mean killing everyone as fast as possible, and then moving on. Not standing around the same damn rice paddy for a decade, being micromanaged from the other end of the world. That’s the other reason the Horde almost never lost - they never stopped coming. Or going. They never stopped, period. Retreat? Surrender? Coffee break? Nap time? No such terms in their language.

Here’s a pooper-scooper full of links:

http://www.asianart.com/articles/rings/index.html#7

http://www.primitiveways.com/archer%27s_thumb_ring.html

http://mountedarchery.net/equipment/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer%27s_paradox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_release#Mongolian_Draw.2C_Mongolian_release

cross section of this kind of bow: http://www.atarn.org/chinese/visible_bow/visible.htm
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/making_chinese_bow/making_bow.htm

http://www.themiddleages.net/life/arrows.html

The bows are held together with fish glue. Fish glue is also known as isinglass. The other kind of isinglass, which can be used to make windows for your Surrey With The Fringe On Top:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mica#Isinglass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass

And trying to find out what Isinglass was got me started on this whole thing. Song lyrics from Oklahoma! to Isinglass to fish glue to Mongolian bows to Mongolian Releases to archery thumb rings to mounted archers to interesting redheads to Mythbusters. You can still buy fish glue today, though the price varies. It is much stronger than rabbit skin glue. Heck, for composite bows it’s stronger than epoxy. Too bad it isn’t fully waterproof.

http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catalog/product_specific.cfm?ClientID=15&ProductID=17576

http://www.ginellames.fr/us/creations/colle/

http://mythbustersresults.com/exploding-bumper

http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/online/thumbring/thumbring.shtml

http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=1604

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q81H-V1_gGo

image

This is a plain one:
image



These are fancy ones:
image




They were not originally designed to be jewelry, but they have been status symbols in the past.


They have been around for a very long time.


Once you know what they are, searching for them can lead you to these two impressive redheads:


image


image


Yes, that is Kari Byron from Mythbusters.

Hmm, I’m wondering if I should have left that last bit off. That might make this both too easy and too distracting.  Anyway, a correct answer will not just name the object, but describe it’s proper use. References to John F’ing Kerry are optional, in context. Crivens, I just gave out another clue!!

{Sunday night} : Ok, time to get blatant. With this gizmo nearly the entire known world was conquered in just a couple of decades. And the parts that weren’t conquered were scared shitless, because they knew they were powerless against it. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands died due of it.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/23/2010 at 10:32 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
Comments (11) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

teacher is banned for being useless … no kidding.  read all about it …

Fine but what does this say about the morons who allowed him into the system to begin with? And he was in the job for 13 years?

This is an example of Labour throwing money at a problem and then saying, it has to work cos we gave it all this money.  Maybe if we throw more money at the education problem, it’ll get better. Right. 

Wanna bet somewhere down the line we’ll read about a race complaint?


The first teacher banned for life for being useless

By Sarah Harris and Arthur Marti

A teacher who is judged to be incapable of ever improving his work has become the first to be banned for life from the classroom due to incompetence.

Nisar Ahmed will never reach ‘requisite standards’ of teaching and cannot work in state schools again, a panel ruled.

The General Teaching Council for England found the 46-year-old guilty of serious professional incompetence and said there was a risk that pupils would be seriously disadvantaged if he was ever allowed to return to lessons.

Mr Ahmed was head of business studies at the John O’Gaunt Community Technology College in Hungerford, Berkshire, from September 2007 to January 2009.

He had taught for a total of 13 years at schools across the South-East.

His management of lessons was ‘invariably’ below standard, the GTC disciplinary panel was told.

The school, which has more than 450 pupils, aged 11 to 18, gave Mr Ahmed ‘extensive formal and informal’ support for more than a year but he failed to improve.

Just 13 teachers have been banned from the profession for fixed periods for incompetence since 2000.

Mr Ahmed is the first to receive a prohibition order without time limit.

the rest is here


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/23/2010 at 07:09 AM   
Filed Under: • EducationStoopid-Peoplework and the workplace •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

A Gold To Go’ Vending Machine.  So, what do ya think. Good idea? I like the girl.

Wow folks, is this a great idea er what?  Naturally I’m impressed with kind of thing. I guess that’s cos I know nothing about it. And it’s so darn new. And the girl lets face it is so pretty.


Berlin’s First ‘Gold To Go’ Vending Machine

A hostess holds a one gram bar of gold that she bought from Berlin’s first Gold To Go gold bar dispenser at Galleries Lafayette on October 21, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. The company Ex Oriente Lux AG is setting up the vending machines across Europe. Customers can buy gold bars weighing between one and 250 grams with cash or a credit card. The financial turmoil of recent years has increased the world demand for gold, which many people consider a safe investment.

image

There’s gold in them thar hills

^
Be sure and see all the photos at the link above. 


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/23/2010 at 06:21 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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most unusual obit story I’ve posted since doing this. rip…brigadier dennis rendell, one of a kind

For certain, of all the stories with much derring -do, this soldier comes closest to a movie that might star Errol Flynn. This is an incredible history of a soldier’s story.  It isn’t as though there weren’t brave people on all sides.  And since I unfortunately only speak and read English I am limited to a great degree.  I mean, if I could read other languages I might be reading of stories like or similar to this one.  But from the reading I have done over the years there’s something I keep bumping into.  Brit derring-do.  A daredevil attitude if you will.  It’s as though they were always testing themselves and proving themselves.
It’s as if the Brits had an entire army of Otto Skorzenys.  And often it came from very ordinary appearing people. And btw ... even the women in cases where they were allowed to show what they were made of, did this country proud.  Once upon a time.
Nothing I’ve said here should be taken as diminishing the valor and guts and fighting ability of those boys and girls in the current fight in Afghanistan.  Different kind of war, different sort of opportunities and a very much different kind of fragmented home front. 

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Brigadier Dennis Rendell (RIP)

Brigadier Dennis Rendell, who has died aged 89, had an adventurous career in the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Military Police, rising to become Provost Marshal, one of the most ancient of Crown appointments.

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Rendell, flanked by two unsuspecting Germans, tries his luck at a fair while on the run in Italy

In November 1942, 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment (2 PR) dropped at Depienne, Tunisia, with orders to destroy the enemy landing ground at Oudna. During the initial attack Rendell, then a lieutenant, led his platoon under heavy fire from armoured vehicles. Ignoring the dangers, he went forward alone to ascertain the best approach and played a notable part in the capture of the railway station.

After four days and nights of fierce fighting, Rendell’s platoon covered the battalion’s withdrawal. Despite being surrounded and virtually out of ammunition, with Rendell wounded and most of his men casualties, they fought on, enabling the remnants of the battalion to disengage. Rendell and the survivors were captured and taken to a German regimental aid post. Rendell was subsequently awarded a Military Cross.

After his capture, Rendell made two unsuccessful attempts to escape. On being moved to Italy he failed twice more but, in September 1943, eventually got away from a camp at Sulmona.

With the onset of winter, travel in the mountains became too hazardous, and he returned to Sulmona to hide out and wait for the spring.
One day in November, a travelling fair set up in the main square of the town.

Among the sideshows was a short shooting range where customers could try their luck with an air rifle at hitting a plate 20 yards away. If they succeeded, the impact of the slug “triggered” an automatic flashlight photograph of the marksman. Rendell and six of his fellow escapees could not resist visiting the fair. Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe servicemen were at the range, but their shooting was poor and the camera seldom flashed.

Two Luftwaffe men put up such an abysmal performance that Rendell, exasperated beyond endurance, could stand no more. He grabbed the rifle, rammed a slug up the breach, aimed and fired. A satisfying clang followed by a large flash signalled a bullseye. The fugitives, rather shaken by attracting so much attention, collected the film and slipped away quickly – leaving the Germans to pay.

Soon after this adventure the organisation was betrayed.

On one occasion Rendell, whose highly proper manner masked a daredevil streak that erupted from time to time, approached several senior German officers at the opera house. In execrable Italian he asked one of them to sign his programme. When Rendell returned to his comrades they asked him if he had gone off his rocker – the German officer in question was the Military Governor of Rome.

READ IT ALL HERE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/23/2010 at 04:38 AM   
Filed Under: • HeroesOBITITUARIESUK •  
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calendar   Friday - October 22, 2010

nada

Blogger’s block? Could be. I don’t know. Just experiencing a short period of not feeling up to it I guess.

The Juan Williams thing? Eye roll. Total. Duh, NPR is so far off to the left that even being black can’t save a medium-leftist liberal when he does his other job on Fox News and speaks a bit of truth. That seeing muslims on airplanes in full-on muslim dress frightens him, even though he knows that such fear is unfounded and he’s working to get over it. So they fire him. Asshats. And Fox, along with a huge chunk of the VRWC, is all over the story, and now Jim DeMint has introduced a bill to strip that bunch of commies of their public funding. Hey, great idea, 20 years late. But watching and hearing the non-stop hoo-ha on Fox is getting under my skin.  Because poor little Juan just landed a 3 year, $2 million contract from Fox. Specifically because of this dust up. So he profits immensely for stating his viewpoint while being on a discussion/opinion show.

Hey, remember E.D. Hill? Smart, brassy, a bit loud, had lots of opinions of her own? A Democrat too, by the way. Did an on-air teaser for an upcoming Fox body language segment during the 2008 campaign, and wondered out loud (or read from a teleprompter) about that high dap thing the Obamas were doing that was getting them magazine covers. “A fist bump, a pound, a [sarcastic face] terrorist fist jab?[/sarcastic face] The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently. We’ll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says.” Within a week she was off the air, and stuck in a closet somewhere until her contract expired. Gone. Woosh. These days she’s doing internet radio in Sandy Springs Georgia. And at least one other journalist has traced the roots of that gesture back to the Black Panthers, who arguably are a terrorist group.

So it looks to me rather like a case of the old pot calling the kettle black for Fox News to go calling NPR a bunch of hypocrites for firing a news person for some insignificant remark they didn’t agree with, aired during a viewpoint/opinion segment. And that’s all I have to say about the war in Viet Nam that.

Hey, I can even connect paragraph 1 with paragraph 2:

‘Michelle Obama, you know, she’s got this Stokely-Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going… Her instinct is to start with this ‘Blame America,’ you know, ‘I’m the victim,”’ Williams said, according to an account by NPR’s Ombudsman Alicia Shepard.

Wow ... and he’s a liberal folks. [ note to young readers: Stokely Carmichael was a driving force behind the Black Panthers back in the 60s ]

To quote Juan hisself: “political correctness can lead to some sort of paralysis that can get in the way of reality.”




Meanwhile in Haiti, people are dying left and right - the count is at 140+ and still climbing - due to an outbreak of cholera, the first large scale outbreak in the western hemisphere in a century. Because they are all living in the mud, and the mud is saturated with sewage. With another 1500 or so sickened with the disease ... expect the death toll to climb into the thousands soon. Because they don’t even have clean water to drink, much less any sanitation, clean food, dry shelter, et cetera. The whole country is living under plastic tarps. Even though the world has sent in loads and loads of supplies, food, cash relief, and even Sean Penn, it’s not enough. It will never be enough. I think they have gone past the tipping point and will never be able to get back up even to the level of horrendous poverty and suffering. Can’t somebody find them a new island to destroy somewhere? Some other corner of the world they can turn into a horrid pismire? Gotta be somewhere. Anywhere. Bangladesh. Burma. Even Zimbabwe is better. But the island of Haiti is done. Move the people and let it lie fallow for a few hundred years.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/22/2010 at 04:08 PM   
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