Sunday - November 14, 2010

just some personal stuff and eye candy on a damnp,cold very foggy morning

Drew is busy doing computer stuff ...

And I’ll try and get back later. He has my sympathy as I had a problem or two myself yesterday. Like, program not responding. Well duh. I knew that. And then server error.
Here’s what sometimes works and of course if Drew’s puter is down he won’t be able to read the good advice.

Lots of swearing and even make up new cuss words as ya go.  Then a good punch as shown above.  It doesn’t actually work too well but can make you feel better and in control of things. Even if you aren’t.

So, I leave for awhile with this photo I had to scan from a paper that doesn’t allow free access on line.  Did my best with the software I have. Even with better software I’m not sure I have the knack of understanding how to use it all properly. Sometimes the instructions aren’t always straightforward.
And they hardly ever make allowances for aged blockheads.
The young lady isn’t an actress or a model.  She’s a college student and the paper used her for her obvious good looks, in an article about the challenges facing students in today’s economic environment.  Wish I had access to a better copy because even in the newspaper where quality isn’t always great, she really stands out.  And this time their quality was really very good.

Her name is CLAIRE ABRAHAMS. She’s a student at Cambridge here in the UK.  She deserves better then my effort here. She has a very high wow factor in the hard copy.

Posted by peiper     on 11/14/2010 at 03:03 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • Personal •  
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   Saturday - November 13, 2010

world’s oldest mother and looks it. feel sorry for the kid in a few years

Charming my aching butt.  Nothing charming that I see.  A wizened and decrepit old bat who’s selfish enough to give birth to her own old age care giver. If she’s lucky.

And I question the age she says she is. Take a look at the web page for other pix. No matter, I really think somewhere down the line the kid may pay for her mother’s ego trip.

Broody again at 72: She became the world’s oldest mother at 66. Now her little girl’s five - and she wants ANOTHER

By Helen Weathers

Charming though they look together, walking hand in hand to school, Adriana Iliescu — at 72 — looks more like her five-year-old daughter Eliza’s slightly doddery great grandparent than her mother.

Heavily lined and with dyed black hair, even she — who in January 2005 became the world’s then oldest mother — admits she looks every one of her years, if not more.

‘I try not to look in the mirror, because I don’t enjoy it,’ says Adriana, a writer and part-time ­university lecturer in Romanian literature, who lives with Eliza in a two-bedroom flat in the ­Romanian capital, Bucharest.

The mirror is unkind to women, but if we are talking about my energy then I feel like a young woman. I feel like I’m 27 and when I feel a bit more tired, I feel like I’m 37. I am healthier than women more than half my age.

‘People think they are being funny when they call me granny, but I didn’t have Eliza to make me look younger. I never feel my years.’

Could this be why, in what must surely be a ­triumph of attitude over age, Adriana is now ­defying all her critics by talking about the ­possibility of having another child?

‘Medically, it’s possible,’ she says. ‘I ­understand there are trials going on with a 70-year-old woman in England, so it could be done. I am fine and healthy and I think it would be possible to have another child in the future, but I’m not in a rush at the moment.’

Not in a rush? She’s 72! How much time does she think she has?

But her caution, she insists, has nothing to do with age, exhaustion at caring for a young child or the fear of dying. It is the love she feels for Eliza and their strong bond, that makes ­Adriana ­reluctant to test it with the ­rigours of another baby.

‘I am so close to Eliza, so bonded with her, I’m not sure I’d be able to ­consider having another child if it actually came to it,’ she says.

‘I was really tense as I wanted her to do well. I’ve invested a lot of energy into the past two years,’ she says. ‘But, Eliza makes friends and plays with them, which gives me a break.’

The result of Adriana’s complete focus on her daughter is that Eliza can already read and write and is academically advanced for her years.

She has friends and is happy, which is all that matters to Adriana, who gives not two hoots for the opinions of others.

A deeply private woman, she doesn’t like to engage in school gate tittle-­tattle and deflects questions from other mothers, curious as to how she copes or what might happen to her daughter if she dies.

Conceived via IVF, courtesy of donated sperm and eggs implanted by a Romanian fertility expert seemingly keen to make medical history, Eliza’s birth continues to divide opinion.

Her decision has been described as ‘grotesque’, ‘horrifying’ and the ­‘ultimate act of selfishness’ by ­religious and ethical groups.

MORE TO SEE AND READ HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/13/2010 at 05:47 PM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
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England remembers its fallen while itself falls prey to self delusion

At the stroke of the clock on 11am every November 11th ... people all over this country stop for 2 minutes of silence in remembrance of those soldiers who fell in service to their country.  If you’re in a store for example, at exactly 11am everything will stop. People remain silent for two minutes, or most do. Out on the street it’s the same.  And this Sunday there will be services on what is called Remembrance Sunday.

For a couple of weeks leading up to Nov. 11, there is The Poppy Appeal - supporting The Royal British Legion. http://www.poppy.org.uk/

There are stores and outlets everywhere that folks can buy a red paper flower, just like this one.  Some people collect donations door to door.  One of our neighbors brings around a collection box every year in which we deposit some money. We take a couple of the red poppies and they are worn by most people. Everywhere you go you will see folks wearing these.

Monies collected every year go to ex servicemen and women for things like ...

Well now .... enter the vilest scum of the earth. The lice infested, unwashed grizzly bearded fugitives from the dark ages.  Yeah, who else.
mudslims. People who come here and insist on changing their host country to the slum and filth and ignorance of the shit hole they came from. And they also manage to turn native born mudslims to their creepy cause.  None of them really belong here, but they know how to work the system because democracy has decided it’s better to commit national suicide then lower the boom on these worthless, useless non human life forms.  Who by the way, do understand their right to demonstrate and of course they did. On Nov. 11 at 11 am where they thought up the brilliant idea of burning a giant poppy in protest of what they say is the murder of muslims in other countries.  They don’t seem to demonstrate much over the killings by the thousands of muslims by other muslims. Have you noticed that?  Not that I personally care how many of their brothers they kill.  The more the better. Anyway ... a very small group it should be said held their insulting demo ....

And one of my very favorite very conservative columnists had this to say about that.

We should let these vile jihadists burn in Hell

Richard Littlejohn

There is nothing more despicable than defiling the memory of our dead servicemen and women.
Why should we have to tolerate those Islamic hatemongers who disrupted yesterday’s two minutes’ silence, setting fire to a giant poppy and brandishing placards reading: ‘British soldiers burn in Hell.’

Offensive: These Muslim rabble-rousers should all have been banged up
If that isn’t incitement, I don’t know what is. They looked like the same crowd demonstrating outside the Old Bailey last week when that Muslim madwoman was convicted of stabbing MP Stephen Timms.

Yet although 50 people took part in this atrocity, there were only three arrests - and judging by the pictures it was the counter-demonstrators from the so-called English Defence League who had their collars felt.

If these Muslim rabble-rousers hate this country so much, why don’t they leave and set up shop in an Islamic theocracy?
We could give them every encouragement by stopping their benefits, as a basis for negotiation.
They should all have been banged up and, if they weren’t born here (as, sadly, I suspect most them were) they should have their citizenship revoked and be put on the first plane out.

At the moment these vile jihadists are spitting in our faces and laughing at our cowardice, while abusing the freedoms countless British soldiers have died to defend.

MORE LITTLEJOHN

I really don’t believe that one soldier gave up a life or limb to secure the freedoms of jihadists. The army is made up of volunteers. Who in their right mind would volunteer to risk all, to insure the free movement of scum who want to kill your family in your own country.

I haven’t been here long enough to become an expert on things Brit. But I have seen enough to believe that the left really does rule no matter who is in office. I think I’ve read and seen and heard enough to convince me that these folks will not have another Dunkirk or Trafalgar or Waterloo.
The future of this island is all behind it because there isn’t anyone around who is able to save it. Or anyone with the stones to do what desperately needs doing.
Which very simply put is ... Killing! On a very large scale.  But it will never happen.  They’ll try and educate their way out of this morass. They’ll find to their regret that it won’t be as easy as banning cigarettes. 

Posted by peiper     on 11/13/2010 at 04:38 PM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • muslims • Terrorists • UK •  
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Student, 13, told to remove Stars and Stripes from his bike ..  when will we start killing lefties?

This can only happen in a PC state in a situation with libtards in charge of things.  I really wish there were some way of removing the pc crowd, by any means, who are responsible for teaching and brainwashing a generation into buying into this sort of crap. Jeez I really hate the bastards.

Student, 13, told to remove Stars and Stripes from his bike… to avoid ‘racial tensions’ with other pupils

By Daily Mail Reporter
13th November 2010

A California middle school student was told to remove a U.S. flag from his bike to avoid ‘racial tensions’ with other pupils.

Cody Alicea, 13, was told not to fly the flag from his bike while at Denair Middle School, in Sacramento, after other students made complaints, according to KCRA-TV.

District superintendent Edward Parraz said that racial tensions at the school boiled over during the Cinco de Mayo holiday - a national holiday in Mexico.

Mr Parraz said: ‘The First Amendment is important. We want the kids to respect it, understand it, and with that comes a responsibility.

‘Our Hispanic, you know, kids will, you know, bring their Mexican flags and they’ll display it, and then of course the kids would do the American flag situation, and it does cause kind of a racial tension which we don’t really want.

‘We want them to appreciate the cultures.’

The teenagers parents said he flies the flag from his bike as a tribute to service veterans in his family.

His father Robert Kisner said: ‘He’s got that flag on his bike because he’s proud of where he comes from.’

The student folds the flag up and keeps it in his backpack during classes, the TV station added.

FLAG SOURCE

superintendent Edward Parraz said the following.

‘Our Hispanic, you know, kids will, you know’

Huh? you know, you know?  What’s with this guy? I think we can overlook a wetback accent. But should not a school superintendent be able to string a few words together better then that?
Word is that the flag was reinstated but I’m not pacified.  How could that happen to begin with? Teach the fuckin wetback kiddies that our flag takes precedence.  One right no immigrant motherhumper has, is the right to be ‘offended’ by OUR FLAG. Damn it! What the hell is wrong with ppl today?
If our flag offends you, get the fuck out of my country you stupid assed pile of shit.  And who the hell is teaching school kids that they should be offended in the first damn place? 

Posted by peiper     on 11/13/2010 at 04:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Insanity • Politically Correct B.S. • Stoopid-People • USA •  
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offend muslim skank and get arrested do not pass go.  jokes not allowed re. any raghead muzzy.

How’s this for stupidity?  People have cars damaged and homes taken over by strangers ... but it’s civil rather then criminal liability. Never mind that. I’m just sayin cos this is weird.

Apparently, free speech does not include making tasteless or ill advised jokes on Twitter. Not only can you be arrested, you can be charged with—gasp --
the big ‘R’ even if that subject never came up.  It’s all in the eye of the beholder I guess.

Here’s what happened.  Oh, I should mention it happened as will be explained below, due to the slag’s (slag, Britspeak for skank,) appearance on a radio program.

A conservative British politician has been arrested after jokingly asking on Twitter for someone to “stone” a pesky Muslim reporter. Can “someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death?” asked Birmingham Councillor Gareth Compton. “ I shan’t tell Amnesty if you won’t. It would be a blessing, really.”

Bad taste? Well, yeah to some.  Just how did racism get into the mix?  Well, the scummy muzzie broad whose name is, as you already saw above, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. The skank is a very, very, far, far left journalist.  She was upset by his Twitter post and furthermore, she said that as he suggested she be stoned, that remark tied her to islam which in turn meant he was being racist, cos of course she is muslim.

How’s the logic so far BMEWS?

So, he was duly arrested with the big ‘R’ being one of the serious charges.  He has been suspended from the conservative party btw. Hey, that’s understandable isn’t it?  Come on before you gripe ask ... what’s important? Votes or honor?  See how that works?  So here’s all of it and the more I think about it the more pissed I get.  There were muzzy scum on the streets this week, not a lot mind you, but the fact that there were some with signs during a memorial day week on Nov. 11, which commemorates those fallen in Brit wars, there they were with their usual signs calling for the death of Brit soldiers. While Brits are fighting a war in some god forsaken even less then turd world place. 
I shouldn’t rant so much. Can’t help it tho.

Tedious: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Simon Heffer,
Sat. Telegraph

Why on earth did the police arrest a silly man who joked that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a rather tedious newspaper columnist, should be stoned to death? I don’t dispute that the joke was in poor taste – most of us would settle for having her locked in a cupboard and not let out until she promised to stop being boring – but the idea that anyone is actually going to be prompted to stone her to death as a result of this oaf’s remark is insane. Those of us who write newspaper columns must get used to abuse and, if we can’t, should do something else. And why, I wonder, are the police so slow by comparison to arrest genuinely murderous nutters who abuse our freedom of speech and call sincerely for jihad?

HEFFER

The stupidity of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Rod Liddle
Saturday, 13th November 2010

The Yasmin Alibhai-Brown business is quite remarkable, isn’t it? She takes herself on to Radio Five Live to make her usual sententious and ill-thought out views on the stoning of Muslim women. Western politicians are not morally qualified to condemn such stonings, she said, because they’ve killed lots of Muslim women with bombs etc. Now, this is a typically stupid assessment, for all the obvious reasons. It implies that the allies were not morally qualified to condemn Nazi atrocities because they killed some of the very same people, largely inadvertently, with bombs and so on. It is, like the rest of YA-B’s journalism, an Aunt Sally argument scarcely worth the effort of rebutting.

A Tory councillor called Gareth Compton, from Birmingham, heard her talking this usual drivel and posted a message on Twitter to the effect that maybe YA-B should be stoned to death. Nobody could possibly consider this an incitement to violence; it was, poor taste or otherwise, a joke. But the old bill were dispatched to arrest Mr Compton (he’s been bailed) and YA-B, puffed up with her matchless self-regard and self-importance, has said that she wishes to press charges on the grounds that it is a racially motivated incitement to murder. Well it’s neither racially motivated – it was motivated by your own stupidity, love – not an incitement to murder. Incredible.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 11/13/2010 at 02:51 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Brother • CULTURE IN DECLINE • FREEDOM • Jack Booted Thugs • UK •  
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foreign criminals to be given thousands in bribes to leave the country …

This happens a lot. I find stories I think are ripe for Moonbat awards or else something dumb but not quite award material. Then, as I turn pages in the wkend papers I find something else that I just have to start with for reasons I forget by the time I’m finished. Damn this is time consuming. Lucky it’s also fun. Sort of.
Sometimes it isn’t, like after I’ve read a column by a liberal. And no email address I can flame to.  Steam coming out of ears can be painful.
Meanwhile, all the talk is still about how much in debt the country is and how belts need to be tightened and yadda,yadda, Well heck.  Wouldn’t it be cheaper to simply make these folks just disappear? Take em out in a leaky boat in the Irish Sea and flush. 

Here, take a look.

Foreign criminals to be paid £1,500 to go home

Foreign murderers, rapists and other criminals are being offered cash bribes of up to £1,500 to return home after serving their sentences.

By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor

The Coalition, which wants to ease the pressure on overcrowded jails, has trebled the amount of money offered to prisoners who go back to their country of origin voluntarily.

Those who agree to return with up to nine months left to serve will receive a bigger payout than those who go at the end of their sentence, in an attempt to create more space in prisons.

Hundreds of criminals who have no right to remain in the country are likely to take advantage of the offer each year, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds.

Critics attacked the payouts as “obscene” when law-abiding families and victims were facing higher living costs, falling wages and widespread austerity measures.

The incentives, first offered by the Labour government in 2006 in an attempt to avoid drawn-out deportation battles, were criticised by the Tories when in opposition.

Under Labour, most of the support was made up of benefits in kind to ease resettlement, such as help with setting up a business or obtaining training or education.

The most the criminals were offered in cash was £500. The money is put on a prepaid card which means the criminals can go straight to a bank and withdraw the funds.

They are given £500 as they leave the country and another £1,000 within a month of arriving in their home country.

All they have to do is explain to the International Organisation for Migration, the body which runs the scheme overseas for the Home Office, how they intend to use the cash.

Last year, almost one in three – or 1,660 – of the 5,535 foreign criminals removed from Britain went voluntarily after accepting a handout, including a Malaysian migrant, Agnes Wong, who killed a 17-month-old baby.

I’m not posting the entire article. I figure that give you the idea. But for those interested, here’s a LINK

But wait, I’m not through.  Yeah. There’s more on another subject. I can’t find the longer Telegraph version but that doesn’t matter. For me, I’m trying to understand why so many who left negative comments about conservatives after the article where I found a short version, can’t see the line in the story about ILLEGAL.  ??  Here’s what I’m talking about.

Traveller row lands council with legal bill

A council is facing a legal bill running into tens of thousands of pounds after failing to pay £600 in compensation to two Travellers.

Basildon District Council in Essex ignored an instruction from the Local Government Ombudsman to make the payment after it published personal details about the Travellers in a report.

The report was prepared during a row over the Traveller’s unauthorised occupation of land at Wickford in Essex. It contained information including the medical records of the Travellers’ children and was circulated to local media.

The Travellers, Paula Gallagher and Mary McCarthy, complained to the ombudsman who ruled the council should apologise for this intrusion of privacy, and make a payment of £300 to each of them. The council apologised, but did not offer any payment.

Mr Justice Kenneth Parker at London’s High Court has now ruled the council was wrong to reject the advice of the ombudsman.

He said the council had failed to show the ‘rational quality of response that is required in law’ and ordered the council to think again. This means that the Travellers are now likely to receive their compensation payment.

The judge also ordered the council to pay the Travellers’ legal costs in taking their complaint of non payment to the High Court and half of the costs run up by the Commission for Local Administration in England, the body behind the Local Government Ombudsman, which was also involved in the proceedings.

Taking into account its own lawyers’ bills, the total cost to the council is likely to run into tens of thousands of pounds.

The judge said that following the exhaustion of the planning process, direct action has been taken to remove the Travellers from the site, which was at Five Acres Farm, Hovefields Drive, Wickford.

One paper used the word ‘illegal’ and another ‘without permission.’ OK, the council may have acted wrongly in re. private info. Thing to keep in mind tho is that these folks do this all the time. Sometimes as our regular readers are aware, Traveler or Gypsy squatters will take over someone’s house. And it’s like pulling teeth to get rid of em cos taking over a house isn’t a crime here.

Well anyway ... that’s the story but look at the comments people are making. Nobody has made an issue of these ppl using land, illegally, without permission, unauthorized use ..... no.  It’s mean conservatives just being conservatives. And the judge didn’t require an apology from the land grabbers either. Hey, fair is fair.  But then, these folks are officially a protected minority.

SEE COMMENTS HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/13/2010 at 01:21 PM   
Filed Under: • UK •  
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   Friday - November 12, 2010

Such Tripe

So Peiper, how’s the blood pressure today? Feeling a little low? Need to get things pumped up a bit?

Here ya go!

The book describes Mrs Obama as “the only one in [Carla’s] (Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy’s) eyes able to dispute the title of the planet’s sexiest and most glamorous first lady”

Are they high? Horry Clap. You did see the pics of the FKOTUS at the mosque the other day, right?

To be fair to Michelle, she did look even angrier than usual at having to be wrapped up in a sack and having to walk behind her husband, eyes averted, hands clasped, and silent, as a good muslim wife should do. Hey, that pisses her off? Good! First time in my life I’ve ever been proud of her.

But sexy and glamorous? More so than Carla Bruni?

Yeah right. I’m sure Carla’s shaking in her Zanottis.

It’s quite funny seeing the fashion and advertising industries desperately hold on to their “Jackie Kennedy II” fantasy. Nobody is buying the BS about her husband anymore. Even Tweety has stopped getting the man-crush tingles. But the fashion industry will not let go. And the advertising industry? Start keeping an eye on all those television commercials, and notice how many of the black women you see in them have a superficial resemblance to her royal Klingonness. You’ll be amazed.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/12/2010 at 01:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Advertising • Obama, The One •  
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PC issues of the other kind

PC almost kills the Gingerbread Man? Unreal.

Meanwhile, my PC is having problems here. Nothing fatal I hope, but after 10 years of all day use, you never know. I’ve got to run some diagnostics and so forth, and see what I can do to clean this old puppy up and find some space on it’s whacking great 25Gb hard drive. I think I can do that safely. I think I can, I think I can.  It will take a few hours though. Posting later I hope.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/12/2010 at 11:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Computers and Cyberspace •  
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famed gingerbread man latest victim of political correctness, saved at last minute, heroic rescue

Not much to say because a quote I found on line says it for me.
This is being posted as yet another example of silliness to the extreme. And adults take it seriously. Well, some idiot adults do.

Anyway ... the latest ‘almost’ victim of political correctness is, of all things,

THE GINGERBREAD MAN

Good grief who are the people who dream up such stupid time wasting things? 

Gingerbread ‘person’, the PC pudding: Now even biscuits can’t escape the politically correct brigade

By Liz Hull

In the nursery rhyme, the Gingerbread Man fled from the clutches of an old woman and her husband.

But now he has been cornered by an even more unforgiving foe – political correctness.

Council bureaucrats have stripped gingerbread men of their gender and renamed them gingerbread ‘persons’ on menus for 400 primary schools.

Parents in Lancashire were astonished when they discovered the change.

‘It is absolutely ridiculous,’ one mother said. ‘Someone has obviously taken the effort to change this and it is almost offensive.

‘I am all for anti-discrimination but this is a pudding. The gingerbread man is a character from a rhyme in a book, for goodness sake.’

Laura Midgley, of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, added: ‘It is totally ridiculous political correctness, nobody wants to talk about gingerbread people. They are what they are.

‘It is not just an innocent mistake. Whoever did it, I hope they will think long and hard about it.

‘If these sorts of things go unchallenged, they become the norm.’

The wording went out on the new autumn-winter weekly menu provided by the Lancashire School Meals Service.

Preston MP Mark Hendrick described the change as ‘daft’.

The outcry has since forced officials into an embarrassing U-turn.

They now claim renaming the biscuits was a mistake and that their gender will be reinstated as soon as possible.

Last night a spokesman for Lancashire County Council confirmed the gingerbread man would be back on school menus after Christmas.

It is not the first time the gingerbread man’s gender has come under threat from the PC brigade.

In 2006 branches of Bakers Oven in the West Midlands changed the name of gingerbread men to gingerbread persons, but reversed the decision after opposition from the public.

It follows a series of similar decisions by councils nationwide, including the renaming of school dinner favourite Spotted Dick to Spotted Richard last year by officials in North Wales.

They said they were fed up with customers’ childish sniggering.

SOURCE

I got this from the comments side of the Daily Mail.  However, I know I’ve seen it someplace else a year or two before. Or maybe even here. ??
Says it all it does. 

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional,
illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream
media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible
to pick up a piece of sh*t by the clean end. ”

Posted by peiper     on 11/12/2010 at 10:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Politically Correct B.S. • UK •  
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plane launced into space ….. and it’s made of paper … now that’s some kinda plane.

There has been a spot of trouble in the last few days with regard to so called students creating havoc and vandalism because of the raise in college tuitions.
Which this post isn’t about. I only bring it up to ask ....

Why can’t we have more folks like these and less like the slugs and slime that ran riot this week?

Always fascinated by people’s ingenuity. Especially on something like this. Hey, I bet if some govt. agency were doing this with a paper plane, the cost would have been in the billions. So many more hands to grease when dealing with govts. and committees. 

Paper aeroplane launched into space captures breathtaking images

British space enthusiasts have made history by launching a paper aeroplane into space which captured a series of breathtaking images on its glide back to earth.

By Murray Wardrop

The team crafted the aeroplane from sheets and straws of paper, fitted it with a camera and attached it to a helium weather balloon to lift it into the atmosphere.

After drifting 17 miles into space, the balloon exploded, allowing the 3ft wingspan aircraft to soar back to earth while taking pictures of its descent.

Code-named Operation PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space), the project saw the aeroplane take off from a remote area 50 miles west of Madrid, Spain on October 28.

Steve Daniels, Lester Haines and John Oates, who designed the plane, monitored its flight during its 90-minute ascent to 90,000ft using a GPS navigation system.

After the expanding helium caused the balloon to burst, they then tracked it as it glided downwards for another 90 minutes.

Remarkably, it landed only 100 miles from its release point in an area of woodland and was intact, save one small hole in its wing.

Mr Daniels, 42, an IT consultant from Paignton, Devon, said the team of amateur space explorers embarked on the project ‘’for a laugh’’ but ended up spending around £8,000.

The married father-of-two said: ‘’Somebody launched a bit of cheese out of a balloon, which we thought was bit stupid.

‘’We thought we could do something more technical than that. It seems really silly but it was brilliant fun.

‘’Nobody had ever done it before, so we were worried about what could go wrong. It was a little bit stressful.’’

The three enthusiasts got together after discussing the project on the IT website The Register and were sponsored by Peer One Networking.

Mr Oates, 39, from London, added: “We wanted a daft project but we were amazed by how successful it was. We are absolutely delighted.

“I never thought we would find the plane at all. It could have ended up anywhere and I thought it would be smashed to pieces.

“To find it intact in such a wild area was amazing. There was a small hole in the wing, but otherwise it was fine.”

SOURCE, THE TELEGRAPH

GO HERE FOR THE VIDEO FROM THE BBC

Posted by peiper     on 11/12/2010 at 08:14 AM   
Filed Under: • Adventure • UK •  
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   Thursday - November 11, 2010

found around the web

Bee glad this wasn’t you!

So honey, how was your day?

Yikes!

Posted by Drew458     on 11/11/2010 at 03:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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eye candy

All I know about this beauty is her one name, Karin. And she’s a leggy 5’8” - oh my oh my

And this is Julia

Sweet Sue

Posted by peiper     on 11/11/2010 at 05:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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face to face with our darkest imaginings, Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead

Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead,
British Museum, review

A new show at the British Museum brings us face to face with our darkest imaginings, says Richard Dorment.

Most of us learnt about Egyptian burial practices at school – how the mummified corpse was entombed along with food, wine, furniture, bowls and eating utensils to stave off hunger, thirst, and boredom in the afterlife. I have to admit that even as a 12-year-old I found the Egyptian practice of taking everyday objects with them into the hereafter lacking imagination. If you need the same stuff in the next world as you do in this, I reasoned, death must have all the awe and mystery of a camping trip: wherever you might end up, you might as well make yourself comfortable along the way.

Now I know better. As you’ll discover in the British Museum’s autumn blockbuster, packing the celestial rucksack was only the start of the adventure.

For as well as the mummy cases, funerary statuettes, amulets and scarabs found in the pyramids, archaeologists also discovered “pyramid texts” provided for the use of the dead on their journey into the unknown. Written with reed pens on papyrus and often enclosed in wooden containers, or else inscribed on the walls of tombs or painted on the covers of coffins, these writings are known collectively as the Book of the Dead. Whereas the household utensils unearthed in Egyptian tombs are essentially banal, these rich texts draw us deep into the realms of the unconscious, where we come face to face with the ancient world’s darkest, strangest, and most fearful imaginings.

Once mummification was completed and the mummy placed in the sarcophagus, a priest used an adze ritualistically to “open” the dead man’s mouth and enable his winged soul (ba) to enter and leave the mortal remains at will.

Now the real journey could begin.

The Book of the Dead is not a single volume, like the Bible, but a collection of 200 magic spells and incantations which were believed to protect the dead person from evil and to guide him on his passage through a kingdom of the dead. Each spell was intended to be used in a specific situation the dead person might encounter on the tortuous path to eternal bliss.

Just as today you can order a bespoke funeral, so an Egyptian of high status could ask to be buried with his or her own particular selection of spells – say, number 154 (for not letting the body corrupt) and spell 9 (for allowing the soul to leave the tomb and move freely though the afterlife). Other spells enabled the deceased to turn himself into a snake or crocodile at will, or to assume the form of a god.

There’s more HERE , and it’s fascinating. It always is even if I’ve read something before. Seems like reading it again is almost like reading it for the first time.
Even though I’ve read a little about how things were done and what tools were used and the numbers of ppl involved etc, I still have trouble seeing it all because to me, it’s all so massive and beyond my ability to to understand. I’m not putting things well. It’s just that when seeing things on this subject, and not just Egypt and pyramids, the long dead world of the ancients, I’m in awe. Even when I do know I still find myself asking the same question.
How did they do that? 

In keeping with Drew’s unreasonable demand for yet another redhead .....  Here ya go birthday boy. Think you can handle this?

Posted by peiper     on 11/11/2010 at 04:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Archeology / Anthropology •  
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DREW … HAPPY BIRTHDAY DREW … another year older and deeper in tech.

Yeah well, the important posts have to wait. First thing here I have to let everyone know it’s Drew’s birthday although you’d never guess by the headline.
I’m so subtle about these things.

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO DREWWWWWWWWWW. HAAAAPY BIRTHDAYYYYYYYY TOOO YOUUUUUUUUU.

“this is my cake and I know you want it, but you can’t have it, cause I ain’t gonna give you none, no,no. Ain’t gonna give you none.”
(from, None of my jelly roll, Lizzie Miles and Sharkey’s Knights of Dixieland)

Posted by peiper     on 11/11/2010 at 03:20 AM   
Filed Under: • BIRTHDAY •  
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