BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin's image already appears on the newer nickels.

calendar   Tuesday - May 31, 2011

There’s Always More Room Under The Bus

John Bryson to be named Commerce Secretary



CNN’s Ed Henry reports that President Obama will nominate John Bryson to be the next commerce secretary. He is the former CEO of Edison International. Bryson is also the co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonpartisan environmental advocacy group. He also serves on a U.N. group that deals with climate change.

Obama will make the announcement at 1:15 p.m. ET in the Rose Garden.

Bryson, who must be confirmed by the Senate, would replace current Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who has been nominated to serve as ambassador to China.

So with the economy in a shambles, the fall guy who helped get it there gets a lateral promotion and gets shipped off to China, to deal with our new financial overlords. How fitting. I hope he quickly learns how to translate Old Mother Hubbard into Mandarin.

So who is this new guy? Well my goodness, if he had a cape he’d be freakin Superman. The guy is Wile E Coyote, Super Genius personified. The ultimate Renaissance Man. Oh, and a total Greenie.

– CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison and Edison Mission Group, from 1990 to 2008.

– Director of The Boeing Company, The Walt Disney Company and Coda Automotive, Inc., and is a senior advisor to KKR.

- Chairman of the board of BrightSource Energy, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), and the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) Board of Overseers. He also serves as co-chairman of the Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIP).

– Trustee of the California Institute of Technology and a director of The California Endowment and the W. M. Keck Foundation.

– Serves on the Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank Americas

– Served as president of the California Public Utilities Commission, chairman of the California State Water Resources Control Board, and on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.

– Graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School.

He can run an energy company, an airplane making company, an entertainment company, an asset management company, a bank, several green initiatives, a medical school, a tech school, and more! Plus he’s a double graduate of super elite universities! Wow!!!! World famous neurosurgeon, experimental physicist, secret agent and inventor, plus he plays a mean guitar, no doubt!

Today, President Obama will announce his intent to nominate John Bryson as the Secretary of U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Bryson will play a key role as a member of the President’s economic team, bringing decades of knowledge and experience in the public and private sectors, and will provide valuable ideas and initiatives to strengthen America’s competitiveness around the world.

“I am pleased to nominate John Bryson to be our nation’s Secretary of Commerce, as he understands what it takes for America to succeed in a 21st century global economy,” said President Obama. “John will be an important part of my economic team, working with the business community, fostering growth, and helping open up new markets abroad to promote jobs and opportunities here at home.”

The President is confident in Mr. Bryson’s ability to lead the Department and promote job creation, economic growth, sustainable development and improved standards of living for all Americans by working in partnership with businesses, universities, communities and our nation’s workers.

The last guy who had the job seemed to have some pretty damn amazing qualifications too if I recall. And they helped so well ...

Home prices: ‘Double-dip’ confirmed

Home prices hit another new low in the first quarter, down 5.1% from a year ago to levels not reached since 2002. It was the third straight quarterly drop for the S&P/Case-Shiller national home price index, which was released Tuesday. Prices are now down 32.7% from their peak set five years ago.

“Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight,” said David Blitzer, spokesman for Standard and Poor’s.

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The index covers 80% of the housing market, and this month’s report confirmed “a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation,” said Blitzer.

The housing market went through a brief recovery period starting in mid-2009, recovering nearly 5% of earlier losses. After homebuyer tax credits expired last April, the slump resumed.

But now we’ll have Buckaroo Banzai at the helm guiding our economy. Things will only get better, guaranteed! Right? (hey, pass me that extra long jack handle, would ya? I need to raise this bus up another foot or so)


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/31/2011 at 12:31 PM   
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More Izzie Sickness

It’s Arab Springtime!

Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers!



Egypt: Female Protesters In Eqypt Beaten, Tortured, and given “Virginity Checks”

Oh yes, the sweet sweet taste of freedom, equality, and human rights.

A senior Egyptian general admits that “virginity checks” were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.

At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or “virginity tests.”

But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.

“The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general said. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs).”

March 9th was AFTER Mubarak’s ouster.

The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn’t later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities.

“We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place,” the general said. ”None of them were (virgins).”

This demonstration occurred nearly a month after Egypt’s longtime President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid a wave of popular and mostly peaceful unrest aimed at his ouster and the institution of democratic reforms.

Sure general, sure. They were all evil Jezebels, succubi, houris, and temptresses. Probably Jews and Christians too. And your people did this for their own self-protection.

The March 9 protest occurred in Tahrir Square, which became famous over 18 historic and sometimes bloody days and nights of protests that led to Mubarak’s resignation.

But unlike in those previous demonstrations, the Egyptian military targeted the protesters. Soldiers dragged dozens of demonstrators from the square and through the gates of the landmark Egyptian Museum.

Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old hairdresser and one of the women named in the Amnesty report, described to CNN how uniformed soldiers tied her up on the museum’s grounds, forced her to the ground and slapped her, then shocked her with a stun gun while calling her a prostitute.

“They wanted to teach us a lesson,” Hosseini said soon after the Amnesty report came out. “They wanted to make us feel that we do not have dignity.”

The treatment got worse, Hosseini said, when she and the 16 other female prisoners were taken to a military detention center in Heikstep.

There, she said, she and several of other female detainees were subjected to a “virginity test.”

“We did not agree for a male doctor to perform the test,” she said. But Hosseini said her captors forced her to comply by threatening her with more stun-gun shocks.

Plenty more at the link. Don’t forget that nearly every single female in Egypt over the age of 11 or 12 has already been sexually mutilated, oh excuse me, the blameless PC term is “female circumcision”, a process in which an untrained and unwashed old hag carves of their labia and clitoris with a rusty old razor blade, ”for their own good” to help quell women’s demonically inspired sexual urges. Anesthetic? What’s that? And who needs bandages when there’s all this fine dried dung and straw we can use? So I’m sure these arrested protesters were all surely wanton whores. And since everyone in their neighborhoods know who was arrested, now that the general has helpfully told everyone how they were out all night in tents with guys, and drugs and weren’t virgins ... I’m sure the next wave of “honor killings” is about to commence. This general has pretty much sentenced all these women to death. Nice, huh? But that’s pisslam. Have to keep half the population in her place, one way or another. Sure makes me want to join up as fast as I possibly can!

You know what surprises me? That there isn’t a worldwide murderously violent women’s protest movement against pisslam. You know, hundreds of thousands out chanting and rioting in the streets every day, hundreds of imams being found dead every morning due to rocks magically falling from the sky that crushed their heads while they slept. Abusive husbands who fall on their own knives, 72 times in a row, while sleepwalking. Psychotic grandmothers who have their fingers cut off with razor blades, for their own good. Insh’allah, you know. Kismet. God willed it, so it happened. Who are you to question the wonders of Allah?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/31/2011 at 11:57 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA •  
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Male, Female, Other

Nepal Recognizes Third Gender



In what is believed to be a world first, Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics is giving official recognition to gay and transgender people—a move seen as major victory for equality in a country that only decriminalized homosexual relationships three years ago.

Among those happy to stand up and be counted in the third gender category is Dilu Buduja, 35. “I was born as a girl, but as I grew up I felt I was a boy. Today I totally feel like a man,” he said.

A spokesman for the statistics bureau, Bikash Bista, said the new categorization was an attempt to open up the traditionally conservative country up to different points of view.

Huh? Looks to me like the loonies have taken over in Shangri-La. They have confused physical gender with sexual orientation.

But the state’s recognition of the rights of gender minorities, gays and lesbians has not come without a fight.

“We had to put in a lot of pressure to have the third gender counted in the census,” said gender minority rights activist Sunil Babu Pant. “It was only after we said that we would go to court that the officials agreed to include the third gender as a category.”

If the case had gone to court, it would likely have been upheld thanks to a landmark 2007 Supreme Court ruling that directed the state to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and decriminalize “unnatural sex.” It also decreed the issue of citizenship certificates that clearly indicate an individual’s choice of gender identity. Citizenship certificates, which work as national identity papers, are needed in Nepal to open a bank account, own property, secure a job and get a passport among other things.

Oh yes, gender identity so totally needs to be on your national ID card, because you never know when you’ll have to have sex with some random government official. And if their card doesn’t line up with your card, then you can play the victim card. Otherwise it’s just a convenient bribe, or the new Nepalese way of saying howdy? This is really strange. And it makes me wonder what ‘gender identities’ that allowed you to choose from, and why the really far out folks aren’t protesting their lack of choice?

Nepal Identity Card Form
Gender Identity Section
Check the One Category That Applies
* Just with women
* Just with men
* Depends on my mood
* After 3 drinks, who cares?
* men, women, medium sized livestock, government officials who can do something for me
* Avatars of the Gods and demons from the underworld, but only if they’re hot
* religious statues and icons I don’t approve of
* religious statues and icons I do approve of
* Shojo, help me turn this Panda around the other way!

see? It’s so limiting!

“Local authorities did not know about third gender and they were afraid that they would lose their jobs if they gave such a citizenship,” said Buduja, who last month became only the second person in the country to obtain a citizenship certificate indicating gender.
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Though discrimination persists, there is progress. The government is also finalizing a list of discriminatory laws that need to be changed so that gender minorities can enjoy the same rights as others, including inheritance rights.
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“We visited several districts in the country and Norway to look at its experience and use it as a case study,” said sociologist Chaitanya Mishra, a member of the recommendation committee.

According to another member of the committee, it will recommend that the government legalize same-sex marriage, which would be a first in South Asia.

The committee members of the government of Nepal had to go to NORWAY to learn about “gender minorities” and what to do about them? Damn. I have GOT to get me some of that wicked shit these guys are smokin’.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/31/2011 at 11:32 AM   
Filed Under: • InternationalSex •  
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Been going through all the ‘artwork’ I’ve accumulated over the years.

Yes, and since peiper has morphed into Hefner, I’ve decided to try posting some of my findings.

Due to adult content, posted below the fold. You’ll have to ‘Continue Reading’

Bhwhahaha!

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 05/31/2011 at 12:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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calendar   Monday - May 30, 2011

Cheating? Or Not?

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Ladies? Gentlemen? Is it cheating?


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 05/30/2011 at 05:34 PM   
Filed Under: • Love-Marriage •  
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EYE CANDY

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See More Below The Fold

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/30/2011 at 11:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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if only we had president reagan again.

Now this is very interesting and I thought bmews readers would like to see the opinion of this Brit on this subject.
I can’t add anything to this.  But you might.


Ping pong, high fives and an insidious obsession with PR gimmicks

By IAIN MARTIN

Twenty-nine years ago, another American President addressed a joint meeting of both Houses of Parliament. Unlike Barack Obama, this visitor was not accorded the ultimate parliamentary honour of being asked to speak in the ancient Westminster Hall.

Instead, Ronald Reagan was relegated to the Royal Gallery, because many Labour MPs felt that a Right-wing U.S. leader was not sufficiently worthy.

But after the festival of hype and spin that accompanied Obama’s visit this week, with British politicians fawning in his presence, it is well worth re-reading.
Reagan’s brilliantly incisive and clear-sighted speech from that day, back in the summer of 1982.  And what a sharp contrast to Barack Obama’s vapid sloganeering and windy rhetoric it is.

Reagan correctly diagnosed the ills of his age. He lambasted the Soviet tyranny that still enslaved Eastern Europe, highlighted the dangers posed in the West by the relentless increase in the powers of the state, and reminded his audience of the importance of individual freedom.

While explaining how he would defend Western Europe, he outlined how he would pursue nuclear disarmament — but only from a position of strength. People in countries such as Poland, he also said, would be encouraged to shake off the yoke of communism.

As a former Hollywood star, Reagan has been criticised for elevating public relations above political principle.
Certainly, he used his acting skills. But he was also a deeply serious man, with a passionate and coherent free-market philosophy developed during his time as the boss of the Screen Actors’ Guild and then as a successful governor of California.

The truth is that public relations techniques were simply tools he had mastered to get across his message.
How different politics are today, where public relations seem to be both the medium and the message. Forget the Special Relationship. Obama’s visit to Britain was one extended photo-opportunity designed to win him votes in next year’s presidential election.

Compare Reagan’s principled vision to the vacuous soundbites of Obama, who may be Harvard-educated but whose shallowness makes him seem merely to be a classier, transatlantic version of Tony Blair.
Not that you would know it from the sycophantic reaction of Britain’s political establishment, who greeted Obama’s Westminster speech as if it was the Gettysburg Address.

But then we live in an age when image is seen as much more preferable to the more difficult responsibility of dealing with reality. Obama, the consummate PR man, is the personification of this insidious trend.

Of course it was a major achievement for him to become America’s first black President. But his record in the White House has been, at best, patchy. It is impossible to discern any clear thread running through his presidency other than an obsession with winning re-election.

LOTS MORE HERE

Sure do MISS this man.

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/30/2011 at 10:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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no gun and they’re just damn lucky elf & safety didn’t demand hard hats

Well ya know. There might be something to this. Of course, it’s pretty much only the criminally minded who might go to the trouble. But hey ... it’s better to be safe. Right?  The problem is, people here ARE NOT SAFE!  But lets not get into that again. I’m just a gun mad American who thinks there’s something wrong when the only folks who have guns are the bad guys. Where’s that leave the rest of us? Dead, I guess.

Shirt Race starter pistol confiscated by police

By Tom Jennings

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A HISTORIC race in Bampton will go off with less of a bang this year after police confiscated the starting pistol.

The Original Great Shirt Race is run between the village’s pubs and is believed to date back centuries.

Traditionally, it was always started by firing a 12-bore shotgun into the air, but police stopped that practice in 2000.

The shotgun was replaced with a starting pistol but now Government legislation means this year’s event will start with an airhorn.

The pistol was confiscated from race starter John Buckingham over concerns it could be converted into a lethal weapon.

Mr Buckingham, 49, of Weald Street, said: “It’s taking away from the race. It’s always been started with a gun. And I think it’s going to be bad because people aren’t going to be able to hear it.”

Master of ceremonies Don Rouse said: “It’s heath and safety gone mad. When I was told we couldn’t use the starting pistol any more I couldn’t believe it. We are village people, we aren’t criminals.

“It wasn’t worth going down the route of getting another starting pistol. The law is forever changing.

“These events are getting harder and harder to organise, with health and safety.”

Police spokesman Adam Fisher said the pistol, an Olympic .380 BBM, was classified as a prohibited weapon because forensic tests showed it was “readily convertible” for criminal use.

He said the same model had been converted into a lethal weapon and used in a series of shootings, primarily in London.

In March 2010, a 17-year-old from Islington was convicted of the attempted murders of two people using a converted Olympic pistol.

Mr Fisher said: “It’s illegal for anyone to be in possession of one of these weapons without an appropriate licence.

“Following the reclassification, a programme of activity aimed to remove the Olympic .380 from circulation in the UK and an amnesty began in April last year.

“Mr Buckingham surrendered his gun in accordance with this amnesty and it was sent for destruction. “ The Original Great Shirt Race will take place this Saturday from 7pm. The race, which was revived in 1953, involves teams of two people racing around the village, one pushing the other in a ‘chariot’.

The pair have to visit all the village’s pubs and drink half a pint of ale at each.

H/T OXFORD MAIL


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/30/2011 at 09:34 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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it’s the old race ploy. again.

I read this in the morning paper and thought, what a load of crap.  How can she make a big deal out of this but then I remembered.
Naomi Campbell. Right.  The same self loving women who, when a suitcase was lost by an airline, cursed the airline, started a fight and proceeded to claim that the airline lost her case due to ......  yeah.  RACE! That Naomi Campbell.

Maybe one has to be Negro to feel the offense here. It certainly wasn’t intended, but am I wrong to think she sees something here that honestly doesn’t exist?
She sure does have the “diva” reputation and that’s how I see the advert.  How about you?  Or, are we too white to understand?

Then of course there are the hanger ons coming out of the woodwork. The professional victims, as I see em. I bet most of the ones doing the most shouting feel nothing at all, unless it’s joy to have something to be offended by. A cause to wrap themselves in.
And they are insisting that this little bru-haha be exported to the USA and a boycott of Kraft.
Dream on idiots.  Take a look.


Naomi Campbell’s outrage as ‘racist advert likens her to a chocolate bar’

By RYAN KISIEL

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Naomi Campbell is considering taking legal action against Cadbury after claiming a ‘racist’ advertisement compares her to a chocolate bar.

The supermodel said she was shocked and hurt to see her name on billboards and in newspapers next to the Dairy Milk Bliss bar.

Black civil rights groups have urged shoppers to boycott products of Cadbury’s U.S. parent company, Kraft Foods.

And Miss Campbell, who is known for being litigious, said she is currently considering taking ‘every available option’ over the adverts that appeared in a national newspaper last week and in supermarkets, reading, ‘Move over Naomi, there’s a new diva in town’.

She said: ‘I am shocked. It’s upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me but for all black women and black people.I do not find any humour in this. It is insulting and hurtful.’

Her mother, Valerie Morris, supported her daughter’s stance, saying: ‘I’m deeply upset by this racist advert.

Do these people think they can insult black people and we just take it? This is the 21st century, not the 1950s. Shame on Cadbury.’

Black rights group Operation Black Vote has called for Cadbury to apologise after receiving dozens of complaints about the advert from members of the public.

Simon Woolley, from the group, said that without an apology, the ‘only recourse black people have is not to buy its chocolate’.

He has written to the American civil rights activists Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to ask them to mobilise the country’s Afro-American population in a boycott of Kraft goods.

Being likened to chocolate was as bad as being called a golliwog for black people, he added.  ‘Racism in the playground starts with black children being called “chocolate bar”.

‘At best, this is insensitive – and at worst it demonstrates Cadbury’s utter disregard for causing offence. Its lack of apology just adds insult to injury.

‘It’s particularly galling because we’ve just had a week that saw the establishment fall over themselves to be close to the Obamas and yet black people are being derided in such an insulting and negative way.’

Lee Jasper, who was senior equalities adviser to Ken Livingstone when he was London’s Mayor, said: ‘This issue is not just about the insult to Naomi Campbell. It’s about how these companies treat black people in general. Part of the problem is that they don’t see it as offensive.’

Kraft Foods said the poster has been removed and there are no plans to repeat it.

A statement read: ‘It was certainly never our intention to cause any offence and the campaign itself is a light-hearted take on the social pretensions of Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss.’

In all my 74 years, I have never heard a black kid referred to as a chocolate bar. Not even once. There were many other sometimes very accurate discriptions, but not chocolate bar.  I think these folks make things up as they go along.

NAOMI

And THIS is what the fuss is all about. Does she really have a legit case?

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The diamonds are a clever touch and she was much criticized at the time if you remember. Now in that case I thought ppl were being a bit touchy and unfair to her. Maybe they should have asked permission to use her name?


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/30/2011 at 07:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Racism and race relationsUK •  
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calendar   Sunday - May 29, 2011

Exploring the contents of our ‘fridge.

I woke up about midnight last night/this morning, not sure exactly what day it was. I was feeling somewhat peckish. I thought: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich should do the trick.

Peanut butter? Check!
Bread? Check!
Jelly?

Oh dear. This requires a very scary safari into…the refrigerator! With no certainty that I’ll even find what I’m looking for!

20+ years ago, when I was still dating my spouse, she came over with her 12-year-old son. We explored my refrigerator. We found something. I remember it was green, which was NOT its original color.

Her son asked me: “What is it?”

I said: “Shush. Quiet. You’ll wake it up.”

He’s now in his mid-30s, is bigger than me, has a wife and child, and he still giggles if I say ‘Be quiet’ when somebody opens the refrigerator.

I did not, in fact, find any jelly. I’d been resigned to possibly having to do with grape jelly. That’s what my wife likes. I prefer strawberry jam. But what I actually found was even better.

I found Baconnaise. Wife’s been holding out on me. Bacon-flavored mayonnaise. Yum!

So, I had a peanut butter and baconnaise sandwich. Admittedly, not quite as good as a peanut butter and bacon sandwich–no crunchy bacon–but a reasonable facsimile taste-wise.


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 05/29/2011 at 02:15 PM   
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining •  
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On Being Black In The UK

I believe they call it ‘street’.




No, I am not having fun at this fellow’s expense. Not at all. Theater professional and television personality Ben Douglas encountered a mouthy drunken racist at a rather posh soiree. But the Black Experience over there is quite different than the one over here, and sometimes the reactions set off by the same old garbage - mindless racism from the liberal elite - are quite different. Actually, I rather applaud his reaction, and his admission that such things happen perhaps once in a decade. In America it is almost a guarantee that there would have been violence of some type, and a vast explosion of anger. And with just cause. But this fellow is all “My goodness me. Whatever am I to make of this? In the main, I find it most vexing, and my latent reaction seems to have a violent tinge.” And that to me, is quite hysterical, because it’s ever so British. And that in itself is proof positive that the insults thrown his way are utterly unfounded. Chin up Mr. Douglas! Illegitimis non carborundum and all that.

Every now and again something happens that is so shocking, you walk away wondering if it was just a bad dream.  These events are mercifully rare – they come along perhaps once or twice a decade, and are all the more remarkable for it. I experienced one of them last Sunday night, and I am only now coming to terms with the fact that it actually happened. It took place at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London, where I had been invited to attend the Bafta awards.

This was the Baftas, a supposedly elegant soiree of educated, liberal individuals, not a BNP fundraiser at an inner-city boozer.

But here’s the rub: this fool thought he was bonding with me as a black man. By using the N-word (and for the record I would rather he had used the C-word – it’s that bad), he thought he was being fashionable. I believe they call it ‘street’.

Well here is the reality: I am not from the mean streets of Detroit, Harlem or LA. I am from Teddington in Surrey, and while my genetic roots are Bajan, the parents who raised me are as white as the buffoon who stood there insulting me. But this is irrelevant. It shouldn’t matter where I come from. Who in their right mind would launch into language like this with somebody he barely knows, within earshot of half a dozen perfect strangers? I am the least politically correct person you could care to meet.
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What is it about fashionistas? First we had John Galliano’s drunken anti-Semitism, and now this. As far as I could tell, this man had no idea how much offence he had caused.

But think of the context. The N-word originated as an insult, a throwback to the days of slavery, inherently placing one race above another.

In hindsight, I should probably have punched him on the nose. Since the event, I have gone over it in my mind a thousand times, dearly wishing I’d had a witty retort ready to puncture his obscene self-regard.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/29/2011 at 11:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Racism and race relationsUK •  
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14 years of pirate ship recovery and more to come

An old and close friend of my wife and her family has passed away, we were notified this morning. The dear lady had no family left, but did leave one hell of a story behind, which in the next day or two I’ll try my best to recall and put together. Anyway, when she was taken to the hosp. a few days ago it was our phone number that was logged with them, hence a call at 5:30 this morning.
So .... my posts today will be on the light side if any after this one.

These folks have been at this for some time now, they have brought things to the surface earlier but here’s another find from Blackbeard’s ship.

The real Pirates of the Caribbean: Archaeologists raise anchor from Captain Blackbeard’s ship

By CHRIS PARSONS

As Jack Sparrow battles the fearsome Captain Blackbeard in the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, archaeologists have recovered the anchor from the wreckage of the pirate’s flagship.

Working off the North Carolina coast, experts say the move might alter plans to save the rest of the almost 300-year-old remains from the central part of the ship.

Divers had planned to recover the second-largest artefact on what’s believed to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge but discovered it was too well-attached to other items in the ballast pile, said project Mark Wilde-Ramsing.

Instead they pulled up another anchor that is the third-largest artefact and likely was the typical anchor for the ship.

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Apparently, pirates had everyday anchors and special anchors just as the rest of us have everyday dishes and good china.

‘That’s a big ship to be putting that out to stop it,’ Wilde-Ramsing said admiringly as a pulley system of straps and men holding ropes moved the anchor from a boat to the back of truck.

It’s the first large anchor that divers have retrieved; they earlier brought up a small, grapnel anchor.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge was the infamous vessel commanded by English outlaw Blackbeard - who roamed the seas in the early 18th century and wore lit fuses under his hat to frighten his enemies.

The latest recovery effort comes the same week Blackbeard is immortalised on the big screen in the new Pirates of the Caribbean film.

The latest franchise instalment - Pirates of the Caribbean: on Stranger Tides, sees Ian McShane play the legendary pirate alongside Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz.

Named after his flowing black beard, Blackbeard - whose real name is thought to be Edward Teach or Thatch - operated around the West Indies and the east coast of the American colonies.

In 1717, he captured a French slave ship and renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge.

Although Blackbeard’s career lasted only two years, he was the world’s most feared pirate and once held hostage the entire city of Charleston, South Carolina.

The anchor is 11 feet, 4 inches long with arms that are 7 feet, 7 inches across.

It was covered with concretion — a mixture of shells, sand and other debris attracted by the leaching wrought iron — and a few sea squirts. Its weight was estimated at 2,500 to 3,000 pounds.

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Archaeologists had planned to remove the second-largest anchor, which is 13 feet long with arms that are 8 feet across, from the top of the ballast pile.

But it was too well-attached, so instead the divers went in from the side to retrieve the everyday anchor.

That means that future dives may involve going in from the side of the shipwreck rather than the top, he said.

Blackbeard settled in Bath, North Carolina, where he eventually received a governor’s pardon.
Some experts say he grew bored and returned to piracy.

He was killed by volunteers from the British Royal Navy in November 1718, five months after the ship thought to be Queen Anne’s Revenge sank.

After running aground on a sandbar in 1718 near the town of Beaufort, North Carolina, the ship was abandoned but probably remained intact for as long as a year before collapsing and disintegrating.

read and see more here


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/29/2011 at 05:31 AM   
Filed Under: • Archeology / Anthropology •  
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calendar   Saturday - May 28, 2011

International Conspiracy!!!!

Today’s Day By Day, full size



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Gosh, what’s in store next for our wondrous decileader?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/28/2011 at 09:55 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The One •  
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EYE CANDY and I know there’s at least 2 goddesses here

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almost the end

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/28/2011 at 03:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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