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Sarah Palin is the other whom Yoda spoke about.

calendar   Sunday - September 30, 2012

‘I have struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago, It is inhabited by

Last year sometime, I posted an angry rant with regard to the treatment given my wife by agents of the KGB, working for customs and immigration at LAX.
Stone faced, unhelpful, arrogant and petty in the extreme.  Most regulars of BMEWS know the story so I won’t go into all of it again.  For those who don’t know, perhaps with some help from Drew we can find a link to my original post and include a link here to that old post.  If that’s possible.  ??
I tried and failed to find it. ??  I am hopeless at this sometimes.

Well anyway, I came across an article in the Daily Mail a few days ago and didn’t get a chance to post it and so I am doing it now.
I guess Chicago immigration can be a bit of a challenge too.

Next year we have to return to the states for a short time and do something about a few items in storage, and see to legal matters.
Neither of us are looking forward to it, and the wife especially is really tired of being treated as though she’s a potential threat or trying to sneak into the USA illegally.  Good grief, she collects SS after having been gainfully employed for 39 or 40 years.  So I really well understand the writer’s frustration with what he faced in Chicago.  After what we went thru 2wice bmews, as in twice, I am not even upset in the least by his comments and the desire at first, to just say the hell with it and turn around and go home.  Oh how I wanted to do that, but couldn’t.  I was already home. It was my wife who discovered that her home of some 40 years wasn’t home anymore.  And before anyone suggests dual citizenship, HA!  Check out the rules on that baby.  They make it impossible.
If you don’t feel like surfing through a lot of print, then simply pick up a phone and call immigration and ask about that and how to qualify. Listen to what they tell ya. 

So then .... here’s the article that started me off on another rant.

Why has friendly, beautiful Chicago got the second city blues?

By Martin Samuel

Chicago is feeling a little left out. America’s second city wonders why it attracts a fraction of the millions who visit New York, Los Angeles, Miami or Las Vegas.

It has a memorable skyline, great architecture and one of the world’s finest art galleries. It has a musical heritage second to none and superb restaurants. The lake is gorgeous.

Yet in 2010, while New York received 9.7 million visitors from abroad, Chicago entertained just 1.1 million, scraping into America’s top ten tourist destinations in last place. So where are all the people? Here’s a clue: maybe they’re at the airport.

Those arriving in Chicago on Monday this week took two hours to be processed at O’Hare. Regular visitors in the queue acknowledged this as standard. They reckon the country has no money for Homeland Security.

So we waited, in a soulless, low-ceilinged hall, with no mobile telephone signal to contact the outside world, until the single customs official on duty could be bothered to let us through. At one stage she went away and we were left staring at empty booths.

It was almost like a social experiment. How long could they humiliate people this way before there was a riot? Three hours, four hours? Maybe six? And this line was only for visitors. Passengers in transit and United States nationals had their own territory. They weren’t moving too fast, either.

It wasn’t as if ten planes had arrived simultaneously. This was a lone flight from London plus the residue of another from the east. And by the end of this voyage into tedium, most had decided that (a) America was skint and its politics bankrupt; (b) America was rude, inhospitable and had no respect for humanity; (c) they weren’t coming back, if they could help it.

Which is a pity, because Chicago is a fantastic city, one of the greatest in the world. The people are friendly, the urban landscape quite beautiful. I want to implore you to go.

But would I return? I’m not sure. I certainly wouldn’t change planes there because I don’t enjoy being treated like dirt.

And there is the irony. How can a city that wants to promote itself to the world, and a country that wants to promote its ideas and culture around the globe, allow this to be the first experience of any visitor?

How can it greet you, not with a smile, but the brusque suspicion that you are here to blow the place up? There is no courtesy on entry, none of the eagerness to please that is found beyond.

It is the same at the embassy. Those who have obtained an American visa will know the drill by now. The appointment, the wait, the inconvenience — no electronic devices, even electronic key fobs, allowed on the premises, and nowhere to store them — and then the incredible rudeness of the staff. It is a horrid, dehumanising experience.

Nobody who has been through it would think fondly of Chicago, of any American city, or American democracy. It smacks of what outsiders see as the worst of America: bullying arrogance and a refusal to engage in a civilised manner. Nobody smiles, nobody treats you nicely.

And then you get here and it couldn’t be more different.

Went to the White Sox game on Monday. Fantastic. The following night the local tourist board had invited a friend to dinner at a restaurant called Q. I tagged along.

The hospitality was insane. Tours of the kitchen, stuff on the house, try this, try that. We had the ‘competition ribs’, so called because they had won prizes.

They looked like something out of The Flintstones. The competition seemed to be who could get near finishing them without keeling over.

And all the time I was thinking that, if I’d had the option, I would have turned around and flown home without setting foot in the place.

It should be the easiest sell in the world, Chicago. They should be watching tumbleweed blow past at the tourist board, left with nothing to do, as visitors stampede to the Art Institute (260,000 works including Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, considered the most recognisable painting by an American artist) or absorb Chicago’s history on the architectural tour.

‘I have struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago,’ wrote Rudyard Kipling. ‘Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.’

He was wrong. Chicago isn’t inhabited by savages.

For some reason, though, its government is happy to let you think that way.

MARTIN SAMUEL

(c) they weren’t coming back if they could help it.
My wife’s thoughts exactly and I don’t fault her.  Twice she was taken on her own to an interrogation room where she was questioned at length and the fact that she was married all these years to an American meant squat. That she has a bank account in Ca., meant squat.  Why should she want to return once we get our other things in order?


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 09/30/2012 at 12:04 PM   
Filed Under: • GovernmentHomeland-SecurityIllegal-Aliens and ImmigrationJack Booted ThugsUSA •  
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John J on Samue L

Wake The F**k Up!





John Jay’s essay about Samuel L. Jackson’s little Obama film and the left’s rape of America’s youth ...

they have taken the image of this little girl, this picture of youthful vulnerability and innocence fitfully asleep in her own bed, the room still much like a nursery, and transformed her into the spit-slathering profanity-laced enraged & vulgar visage of james carville.  they have perverted and profaned innocence, and put it in the service of a radical leftist agenda which exploits innocence and vulnerability.

this is what our society, our world has become.

this is the degeneracy that we have sunk to.

what do you think would have been the reaction in the 1930’s if shirley temple, america’s sweetheart, had stopped in the middle of one of her musical numbers, and brayed as loud as she could, mouth stretched wide, “wake the fuck up,” america.

just how damned worthless have we become?  how much farther can this road take us, before we are rendered completely evil, and completely complicit in evil?

samuel l. jackson has just fired the first shots aimed at destroying what little is left of the american political ethos.  he has attempted to degrade us one more step into utter moral degradation & destruction.  i, for one, think it is time to shoot back.  at the left.  at samuel l. jackson.  he is a despoiler, and he deserves what he gets.

Yup. Damn straight Skippy. The moonbats are really showing their true colors now ... and remember, to them Obama is a centrist.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/30/2012 at 02:28 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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calendar   Saturday - September 29, 2012

E7: Stolz-Pilnik, Saltsjöbaden 1952

Seventh exercise from Your Move by Yakov Neishtadt.

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BLACK TO MOVE

Black accepted the offer of a draw thinking that he had nothing better than perpetual check (1… Rg4+ 2. Kh2 Rh4+). Has he?

Graphics courtesy of Exachess

UPDATE:

I’m certain that Pilnik was short of time, otherwise he’d have found this mate-in-3

1. … Rh3+
2. Kf4 Rf3+
3. Qxf3 Qe5#

Black sacs the Rook so White’s Queen occupies the only escape square for White’s King.


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 09/29/2012 at 07:26 PM   
Filed Under: • CHESS •  
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they(americans) love european weapons. we make em the yanks kill each other with em

I think I was preordained to find stuff that just plain bothers the heck outta me, even if not looking for it.
Unlike liberals who actively go out looking for things that will offend them on behalf of other people.
I just find stuff without looking.  In this case, I was looking for some stats because I saw something in our amateur local newspaper.
It was just one of those man in the street interviews they run every week to fill space and make ppl think someone cares about what they think.

So the burning question of the week on the heels of the murder of those two unarmed lady constables was, should Brit cops all be armed.
Generally and for a reason I don’t understand, some ppl claim they’d be nervous going up to an armed officer even to ask directions on how to get somewhere.  Hey, if that’s how they feel, fine. It’s their country.  Then one guy interviewed on the topic comes up with this.

“I heard a statistic that one on ten American police officers shot are killed by police guns, so that’s the major problem with bringing it here.”

He concedes there are arguments for and against.

But that isn’t what bothered me.  I wanted to know where in the world he got that figure. I’ve a lifetime as an American living in KY, TN, CT, MA, AZ, CA.
I recall one time a few years ago, there was a major news story about a black female officer in New Orleans, who shot dead her partner.  I’m sure there may have been similar shootings over time of like nature.  We are after all dealing with human nature in all its twisted variety.  But surely if the number this fellow quotes were true, there’d have been lots more made of it and we’d all know, because that really would be a bleed leads feature of every newscaster and paper in the country.  I never read or heard about what he refers to.  Not even when I worked in radio and had to clear the all night news feeds.

So I went looking for a way to see if I could find statistics on cop on cop shootings, whether by accident or intentional. I didn’t get far at all because I stumbled on the following.  Which really did piss me off.  Criticism is one thing and we should all be able to take that in and reply without attacking the numbnuts who don’t care for how we live in our country and our attitude towards guns. 

The comments I found while looking for something else entirely are from 2011 but I found em anyway.  Lucky me.  And I read them of course.  That was lame.
And cos it was late I never did finish my original intent which was to research if I could, the stats mentioned by that fellow that started this whole thing.
Got tired and went to bed.

J.M.
Location: Vancouver, BC., Buenos Aires.

In the American society, weak minds tend to clinch on guns to fill the empty space in their mental and spiritual strength. They embrace guns like a little child embraces his Teddy bear. It’s a culture that has been promoted for commercial purposes. The NRA came up with the slogan “Guns don’t kill. People do”. That speaks for their cowardice in protecting their own interests over the precious life of the innocents like this 9-year-old child whose life was cut short by the insanity of a gun lover.
On a related topic, the violence in Mexico would not have been as intense as it has been if the weapon flows from the US were put to an end.
American people should follow the heroism of the 61-year-old lady who tackled the gun man. They must stand up and say enough is enough and take the courage and determination to stop evil people in the weapon business from taking control of their lives. Until then, this kind of tragedy will continue to repeat itself.

I haven’t a clue what 61 yr old she is referring to in the above. She then goes on in another posted comment.

I am not sure if I am missing something here but please help me out on this one. America is a democratic country, is it not? If congress is an institution that is supposed to represent the PEOPLE, under the assumption that the US is a democratic country, then please explain why this happens:

Approval Ratings:

Obama 47.3%
Congress: 21%

In a healthy democracy, this could not have been possible. So a possible conclusion is America is not a democratic country or at least, its democracy is very..... sick?

And finally someone else on guns in America. Like it’s really any of their business. 

BlueMax

Location: London, England
Gender: male
About me: Webmaster at PoliticsWorldwide.com
Web page: http://politicsworldwide.com

The argument about DC’s restrictive gun laws and high murder rate is a red herring. The US is so awash with weaponry almost anyone can get a handgun at almost any time.
Firearms control in the US is like King Cnut sitting on the beach commanding the sea to retreat. It’s a brave but ultimately pointless, or damaging, exercise.
If you’re a normal, decent person living in the US, particularly in a city, you MUST be armed to protect yourself and your family from the effects of the 2nd Amendment. The criminals are armed, or can get a gun in 5 mins, so normal people must be too.
That’s the consequence of a firearms-saturated society. US gun murder rates reflect that saturation.
The Yanks will never, ever, give up their arms. Ownership’s protected by the Constitution. Lawmakers and judges tinker at the edges but the effect is usually to make life easier for the criminal.
Britain, thank God, doesn’t suffer that saturation. The UK’s restrictive gun laws, passed in stages over the last c. 100 years, have made gun crime rare. That’s reflected in our hospital trauma units: few UK doctors ever treat a bullet wound. In the States an ER doctor learns about gun trauma with his mother’s milk.
Plus we’re not a disarmed society. The British countryside is awash with legally held shotguns and rifles. But the curse of handgun saturation has been avoided.
Well done the Brits.
My heart goes out to the poor old Yanks, sitting on a great pile of guns, shaking in their boots at the thought of getting shot, caught in a cycle of gun violence endorsed by their Constitution.
The other thing to keep in mind about US gun-saturation is they just LOVE European weapons. We make ‘em, the Yanks kill each other with ‘em.

There’s an argument that the US, given its handgun-saturation problem, backed by an outdated yet impossible to amend Constitutional right to bear arms, is actually doing quite well in the murder-stakes. The US gun murder rate, given the huge pile of guns in US society, could be very much higher.
The other difference with the UK is gun ownership in Britain, like so much else, is class-based. The large numbers of legally held weapons in the UK countryside are owned mainly by toffs - rich people with land, or access to land.
Conversely, In the States gun ownership is spread across the social classes, with blue collar and lower middle class gun owners forming the backbone of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 09/29/2012 at 07:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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calendar   Friday - September 28, 2012

The Berk Still Works

Weekend Wallpaper



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These pictures are pretty much brand new, both taken in August.

Visit RailPictures.net for thousands more.

The “Berk” in this case is the Nickel Plate Road engine 765, a 2-8-4 Berkshire locomotive. Built in 1944, this anthracite eating 400 ton chugger is again making steam and delighting rail fans around the northern mid-west.

Read a bit more about her here. And here as well. And there are loads of pics and videos as close as your nearest search engine.

For more about the Nickel Plate Road, aka the NKP, which is the TLA that the NPR actually goes by, because “New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad Company” takes too long to say, venture over here.

Bridges? Nah, I’m not saying anything about those two, although the stone one is quite famous. And the other one is wrought iron.

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/28/2012 at 11:50 PM   
Filed Under: • BridgesFun-Stuffplanes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
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Good french citizens have enough and run roma scum out of their community. BRAVO!

I just can’t get away. Can I.

Just now saw this and am sooooooo happy to share.

Bravo Frenchmen!

imageimageimage

There’s nothing for me to say.  This says it all.  Maybe Brits should take a page from these good folks. 

H/T Telegraph


Romas chased from camp by Marseille residents

Residents in the southern French city of Marseille took the law into their own hands and chased a group of Roma from their illegal camp before burning what was left behind, police said yesterday.

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Police arrived at the scene to keep the locals and the Roma apart as the Roma left on Thursday evening with their caravans and vehicles, but some of the locals returned later to set fire to any belongings left behind.

The locals, who blamed the Roma for burglaries in the area that had happened since their arrival a few days earlier, had warned authorities that if they were not evicted they would do it themselves.

“It’s no surprise this has happened,” said Caroline Godard of Rencontres Tsiganes, a group set up to help Roma. “There is a climate of tension that is being fanned. We are moving towards a war between the poor.”

The Marseille branch of France’s Human Rights League (LDH) said that although there was no violence and noone was injured in Thursday’s incidents, “one can fear the worst” for the future.

France’s Socialist government is currently attempting to get an estimated 15,000 Roma living in makeshift, often illegal camps across France to return to their countries of origin, mainly Romania and Bulgaria.

The policy of closing migrant camps and repatriating the Roma with a 300-euro incentive has been widely criticised. Critics have said the Roma will use the money Paris will give them to buy bus tickets back to France.

Romania, one of the two poorest countries in the European Union, has the biggest Roma minority in Europe: 620,000 according to the latest official census, more than two million according to local rights groups.

the biggest Roma minority in Europe: 620,000

ZYKLON B could put paid to that number

If only.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 09/28/2012 at 11:11 AM   
Filed Under: • FRANCETravelers/Gypsies/Squatters •  
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some eye candy sort of

Hey, anyone else here heard of or use something called MP3 Gain?

I guess it’s pretty good. I downloaded it, easy to use. Not much to instructions although things could be a fraction plainer. So why the hell am I having a problem?  I heard that.

I have these olde tracks, Jazz.  Need the volume to match across all of the 11 trks.  But not getting there. Actually, overall there will be way more than 11 trks, as I have lots to work on and have delayed or been too tired or for one reason or another, just haven’t made the time needed until now.

Wish there were a faster easier way to do this. Windows Media Player has a place where you can check and request that it make the tracks the same vol. But so far, I see no difference.
I have Audacity but it doesn’t work easily with MP3. Lots of hoops to jump thru.

So that’s my main focus at the moment and has been almost all day.

Oh well, cept for the following.

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Good for mom.  Or mum, as the Brits say.  Nothing wrong with that shade of red and it looks good on her.  As long as the kid isn’t attending class on a distracting attention grabbing Mohawk or studs all over her face, what the heck.
School rules state no un-natural hair color for students, and since her hair was not naturally red, they told her to dye it back.  But surely unnatural should mean outlandish colors like lime green and purple. 

Since this will be my only post for which I feel guilty and I might not be here tomorrow, I’ll leave with this.

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 09/28/2012 at 10:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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calendar   Thursday - September 27, 2012

Local Stories

Passing History In The Pass Through State

From Roller Coasters To Icicles And Landslides In Just Over 100 Years



History is all around you. Sometimes it’s next to you, sometimes it’s right in front of you. Sometimes you’re standing right on top of it, and never even know.

This is pretty much the same spot, a few miles to the west of me, separated by 100 years and about 100 vertical feet:

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Once upon a time, when America was young and able and believed in itself and got things done because it didn’t know how not to, New Jersey really was a back water state. Aside from a couple of nice colonial towns and a few cobblestone “highways”, the whole state was a forest, with isolated little farms and mines here and there. And nothing between them but dirt paths through the woods, hardly better than deer tracks.

But there was a demand for goods and services from elsewhere. And there was a demand to be able to get through this state in as short a time as possible. So the state came up with this nice little money maker called a charter. They chartered highways: for a certain amount of money, they’d sell you the right to run a toll road between this place and that place, and you could collect whatever you could as long as you kept the roads open. They didn’t make it. We had toll roads all over the place, called turnpikes, but we also soon had the NJ creation called a “shunpike” ... a sneak around the toll house so you wouldn’t have to pay. The chartered highways soon failed.

We had chartered canals too. Several of them. For a couple of decades they were a great idea, because the toll roads were never in good condition and horse drawn wagons just couldn’t move the amount of cargo that canal boats could. But like the Pony Express delivering coils of wire for some guy named Samuel Morse, the canals carried the seeds of their own destruction; the very first one opened in the Delaware Valley carried a little steam engine imported from England and some iron tracks. The Stourbridge Lion, the first steam locomotive in the USA, went to the coal fields in PA in 1829 by canal.

The demand for produce and hard coal in Philadelphia and New York City was insatiable, so railways proliferated. Even the canals kept busy for 70 years. But trains were the future and everyone knew it.

I can’t begin to understand the various rights of way and the linage and trackage and all that choo-choo stuff, but New Jersey soon had dozens of railroads operating here. One of those early rail companies, actually a conglomerate of two earlier lines, the Easton & Perth Amboy Railroad, drove their tracks eastward across the state from the Delaware Valley, and tunneled right through Musconetcong Mountain. The same mountain that the locals today call Jugtown Mountain. The same one that carries a highway steep enough and twisty enough that I preferred not to face it in my little wind up rented Chevy Spark. And underneath me that whole time was a train tunnel, from 1872.

Jugtown Mountain is the southern end of a ridge that runs across the central western part of the state, called the Highlands. From the top of the mountain you can see a long long way. So when the tunnel was done, after the drownings and the race riots, and the new national record was set, the owners came out of the eastern terminus and saw what a great view there was. And decided to make money off of that.

The Pattenburg Tunnel, or Musconetcong Tunnel as it was more commonly known when it was built, was constructed from 1872 to 1875. It was bored through Jugtown mountain as the locals called it by the Easton and Amboy RR and was 4,893 feet long when completed. It was actually the longest tunnel constructed on the east coast until the Hoosac Tunnel was finished in Massachusetts around 1876. This huge project was constructed under the supervision of Henry Drinker who, at the time of the start of construction, was only 21 years of age. Construction was not easy for the young Lehigh University graduate and several large obstacles were met with difficulty along the way. In May of 1873 a very large underground aquifer was struck with an pneumatic drill which resulted in huge burst of water and severe flooding. Before the water could be entirely pumped out it destroyed several of the wooden support arches in place to hold the masonry work. This now empty underground chamber can still be seen today by walking 1/4 mile in from the west portal and shining a very bright light up at the ceiling. After things were eventually cleaned up the tunnel soon hit another obstacle many other business and industries ran into around that time - the panic of 1873. Another large problem was with the workers who were largely responsible for the construction of the tunnel. Long hours, exhaustion, race issues, and alcohol were responsible for a large number of fights with one in November of 1872 resulting in 5 deaths and many other injuries. Despite many setbacks and troubles, the Musconetcong Tunnel was finally holed through in Dec of 1874 and later opened in June of 1875. Eventually the Easton and Amboy RR was absorbed by the Lehigh Valley RR who decided later to build a vacation resort on the eastern side of the tunnel. Bellwood Park as it was called, was a popular place for traveling folks from PA to NYC to visit in the summer months. The park featured many rides including a roller coaster and a ferris wheel, however it later closed in 1916. Although this tunnel was a marvel in engineering at it’s time of completion, it constantly had water problems and was a little small for the newer locomotives in the early 20th century. A larger, better tunnel was constructed by the Lehigh Valley RR and opened in November of 1928. Although the tracks have been slightly modified in the tunnel, it still sees several trains a day from Norfolk Southern.

[The new tunnel is about 25 yards to the south of the old one. It’s taller and wider, and when the trains pass through it at night and blow their horns you can hear it all the way across the county]

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So above their leaky tunnel ... their possibly unstable tunnel, because no one had told the railroad that the mountain had been mined for iron ore for the past 100 years or more ... they built a theme park. Because the rail carried coal Monday to Friday, so they needed to make money on the weekends. So they put in a passenger line, built an amusement park, and brought folks in from New York City and from Easton PA. And they arrived by the thousands. To sleepy little Bethlehem Township. Unreal. Even if their roller coaster was only 50 feet high, the view from the top must have been fantastic. You could almost see across the entire state on a clear day, and easily see halfway to Philadelphia.

July 4, 1904. Opening Day at Bellewood Park brought more than 10,000 people to the amusement park in Pattenburg. Most families came by train, from the Lehigh Valley terminus at Allentown, Pa. to the west and Jersey City and New York City to the east.

Farm families from within Hunterdon County boarded the trains at local stops, such as Flemington and Clinton, or arrived by horse and wagon. Railroad sidings were constructed to accommodate the traffic and the park operated from Memorial Day to mid-October. Thousands arrived every day except Monday, but mostly on the weekends.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad hoped to supplement its income from the tracks, used mostly for hauling coal west to east during the week, with weekend excursion fares. The park proved an immediate success. The main attraction was the beauty of the area—the Musconetcong Mountain offered a panorama of rolling hills, flower beds bloomed throughout the park and picnic areas were available near babbling brooks and under shady trees.

So they made extra cash for a decade, and then closed the joint when business started to fade, taking away every building, board, and scrap.

For the more adventuresome and eager the park offered a wide variety of activities—a dance pavilion, boat rides, a roller coaster, a German beer garden, a shooting gallery, a bowling alley, a carousal, a Ferris Wheel, a fun house, a Tunnel of Love and a penny arcade. A photo studio was also on the grounds.
President Teddy Roosevelt stopped at Bellewood Park in 1905 and mixed with 6,000 people there that day, mostly from religious groups. On any given day, the park attracted Grand Army groups (Civil War veterans’ associations), church groups, ethnic groups and singing societies for outings.
Despite its success, Bellewood Park closed in October 1916 after a 12-year run.

Pretty hard to believe, as Pattenburg doesn’t have a population of 500 these days I think, unless you’re taking a much bigger unincorporated township area under consideration. And then there was the mining disaster in 1989…

When chunks of granite from a nearby quarry tumbled into his backyard last spring, Gus Dobes of Bethlehem Township complained to the state. Months earlier, when he and his neighbors noticed that their houses were shaking more than usual from the quarry’s blasts, he signed a petition that was also sent to the state.

Now that Mr. Dobes has lost at least an acre of his backyard to a 60-foot-deep chasm that he thinks was created by unsafe mining by the owners of the Pattenburg Quarry, he has opted for a different strategy. ‘’I think I will have the lawyer do the talking,’’ he said. For Mr. Dobes, who has lived for 20 years in the same house, which is roughly 400 feet from the quarry, the story is pretty simple: a crack in the road outside his door in late October, a blast of dynamite in the quarry in early November and then, 20 minutes later, a 250-foot-long landslide that swallowed some of his land.

And if you look at a map, you’ll see the landslide in the quarry is just a short distance down hill from the eastern end of that 1873 railroad tunnel, the one that always had the water leakage problems for 115 years before the slope gave way with some dynamite help.


History everywhere. And 150,000 cars and trucks a day clamber up the highway over Jugtown Mountain and down the other side, bound for parts east or west at 80mph, and never know what they just drove past.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/27/2012 at 01:53 PM   
Filed Under: • HistoryMiscellaneous •  
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Even With Diagrams, Nobody Will Listen

Netanyahu At UN: A Red Line Must Be Drawn

That Iran Will Not Be Allowed To Cross

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, acerbically responding to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel remarks.

He made his case against Iran, arguing that time is quickly running out to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear power and the threat of force must be seriously considered.

Earlier in the evening, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the assembly, announcing he has opened talks on a new bid for international recognition of a Paletinian state at the UN, but avoiding specifying exactly when he will ask the General Assembly to vote.

Abbas said in his speech that “intensive consultations with the various regional organizations and the state members” were underway.

The Palestinians will apply to the General Assembly for nonmember state status. That stands in sharp contrast to last year, when they asked the Security Council to admit them as a full member state, but the bid failed.

Earlier still, an Israeli official said Netanyahu is expected to set out a “clear red line” for Iran’s disputed nuclear drive, adding that the plan could be pursued together with the United States.

Netanyahu faces the world body a day after US President Barack Obama disappointed some Israelis by imposing no ultimatum to the Iranians in his own address, though he did warn that time for diplomacy with Tehran “is not unlimited”.

“The prime minister will set a clear red line in his speech that will not contradict Obama’s remarks. Obama said Iran won’t have nuclear weapons. The prime minister will clarify the way in which Iran won’t have nuclear arms,” a senior Israeli official said en route to New York.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu drew an actual red line with a marker on a chart symbolizing Iran’s uranium enrichment program, and expained that Iran must be told that if it reaches 90% of the enriched uranium it needs for a nuclear bomb, it will be attacked.
...
“Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Every year for over three millennia, we have come together on this Day of Atonement. We remember the great travails of our dispersion. But at the end of Yom Kippur we celebrate the rebirth of Israel. We celebrate of the flourishing modern Jewish state.

“The forces of Medievalism seek a world in which not life, but death is glorified. These forces clash throughout the globe, but nowhere more starkly than the Middle East. The Medieval forces of radical Islam whom you saw storming embassies in the Middle East – want to destroy freedom and end the modern world.

“They are all rooted in the same bitter soil of intolerance. That intolerance is directed to their own fellow Muslims as well as Jews, Hindus and Christians, anyone who refuses to relent to their creed. I am sure that ultimately they will fail. The relevant question is not whether this fanaticism will be defeated, but how many lives will be lost before it’s defeated.”

Netanyahu referred to the Nazi regime, and noted that the world took too long to wake up to its danger. “My friends, we cannot let that happen again. At stake is the future of Iran. Imagine the world with a nuclear armed Al Qaeda.

“Given this record of Iranian aggression without nuclear weapons – just imagine Iranian aggression with nuclear weapons. Imagine their long range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads, their terror networks armed with atomic bombs. Who would be safe in the Middle East? Who would be safe in Europe?

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been speaking about the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons for over 15 years. I spoke about it when it was fashionable and when it wasn’t fashionable. The hour is getting late. Very late. When it comes to the survival of my country, it is not only my right to speak – it is my duty to speak. And I believe that this is the duty of every responsible leader who wants to preserve world peace.”

Given that Obama’s earlier remarks had been wishy-washy, Netanyahu’s Nazi reference effectively called him another Chamberlain. No kidding. Just like Bush before him. The time to bomb Iran was about 9 hours after Iraq fell, when they were sure we were coming and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Smoke the country, turn their mud cities into dust, turn their stone cities into mud, then leave. Go back to Iraq and see if there’s going to be an underground insurgency. Not likely. Oh well, that’s not how it happened, but the white gloves treatment of the mad mullahs has been going on a long long time.

Benji did a nice job today of silently rattling the invisible saber, and even had the crowd on it’s feet and cheering at one point, but I doubt that this will have any impact, even with a drawing so simple even Democrats could understand it.

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/27/2012 at 01:33 PM   
Filed Under: • IranIsraelObama, The One •  
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E6: Khalifman-Elvest, Lvov 1985

Exercise #6 from Your Move by Yakov Neishtadt.

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WHITE TO MOVE

Mate on c2 is threatened and the bishop on c8 is en prise. What should White do?

Graphics courtesy of Exachess

UPDATE:

Since Wes posted a link to the game, (Warning: requires Java.) guess I’ll go ahead and post the answer. Like everyone else, I didn’t see the proper followup to…

1. Bf5! Bxf5
2. Qc7!! …

This is the move we all missed. This is why Khalifman was a World Champion contender. I’d have never found that ‘x-ray’ defense. It’s called ‘x-ray’ because White’s queen protects c2 through the Black queen. If Black takes the queen, White mates with Re8#.

2. … Rxd1+
3. Kxd1 Bxc2+
4. Kc1! …

An important move, despite moving into a discovered check, as we shall see later.

4. … Ba4+
5. Qxc6 Bxc6
6. Re6 …

This is why 4. Kc1 was crucial: otherwise Black could salvage his piece with 6… Nc4+.

6. … Bb5
7. Rxb6 Kg8
8. Rb7
with a technically won endgame for White. 


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 09/27/2012 at 10:04 AM   
Filed Under: • CHESS •  
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calendar   Wednesday - September 26, 2012

In My Inbox

Three Legendary Americans


Three legendary Americans that will be long remembered for what they did.

Every man wants to leave a legacy ... something he will be remembered for.

These three certainly left their mark.



1. Steve Jobs

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See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/26/2012 at 09:24 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Evilist and Baddest

Oh, and I found the most racist, evilist, and baddest, weblog of all time. Or should I say the most honest?

“ White people - tax-slaves - have one purpose in Black-Run America (BRA): to provide safe communities for refugees, immigrants, or Section 8 Voucher holding citizens the opportunity to live in, and eventually exhaust all social capital (utilizing government aid like TANF/Welfare and EBT/Food Stamps) in the area, overwhelming the once pristine community and turning the environment into the exact same scenario these refugee, immigrants, or Section 8 Voucher holding citizens fled from.”

Understand that that was just one microscopic quote, taken 99.8% out of context. But they do push the thesis of BRA, and there are plenty of times when that seems to be the truth. The truth is that the government already is, at least at the federal level, and at most state levels if you have the population demographics.

There are no hit ‘n run posts. No “DIY journalist writing” of 2 pictures, a link, and a quick paragraph. These are essays that dig down; each takes several minutes to read. And the more you read, the further back you’ll want to go to read the older posts. Not because it’s so horrible ... but because a (ahem) niggling little voice inside your head is telling you that you’re finally seeing the real truth. Or perhaps you can’t really, not really accept what you are reading, and want to read a bit more, searching for the Ace of Spades that will tip and knock down this house of cards. I’ve gone back 3 months, and I haven’t found one yet, although to be fair I am not reading just for that one “pull the grenade pin” reason. It is a bit of a shock read at first. And it almost seems like I should be hiding in a dark corner to read the thing. It can’t be right. It just can’t.

Here is the link. Visit at your own risk: Stuff Black People Don’t Like.

It explains the Chicago teacher’s strike perfectly, and why Obama won’t be stepping in to pull off an October Miracle there like I wryly supposed at first was the plan. Fake strike, fake fix, big press. Yeah, in Rahmn Emanuel’s city? Hella yeah Obama would do that, and the press would swallow every last drop and call it gravy. It explains pro sports, the cost of college, the demise of so many of our once thriving cities. And more.

Oh, and speaking of once great cities going to total crap: Camden NJ, once of the major manufacturing centers of the nation, now a gangland ghetto, and frequently voted “worst city in America” is about to lay off it’s entire police force. They can’t do anything anyway, and there isn’t any tax money to pay them.

Some might say white flight and black issues brought the city low.  Whatever.  I say it’s their problem, and it can stay there.

All I hope is that Governor Christie has plenty of chain link fence and concertina wire to wall the place off from the rest of the state. We don’t want it. We won’t have it. And we’ll shoot the first carloads of tattooed muthafuggas in do-rags who come east flashing dey signs and gold grills. And the next. And the next. Farmers and Princetonians don’t play that shit. Take it to your bros in Philly. We’re not buying.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/26/2012 at 08:57 PM   
Filed Under: • Media-BiasRacism and race relations •  
Comments (4) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Mane Attraction


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/26/2012 at 07:28 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Talk About Audacity

Crivens, my head is spinning on this one.


Paki Islamist: OBAMA Is Waging War On Islam



Holy shiites Batman. Can you believe this crap??

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - One of Pakistan’s most feared Islamists accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of starting a religious war against Muslims over his handling of a video that mocked the Prophet Mohammad.

Hafiz Saeed, accused by India of masterminding the 2008 attack by Pakistani gunmen on India’s financial capital Mumbai, said Obama should have ordered steps to remove the film from the Internet instead of defending freedom of expression in America.

“Obama’s statements have caused a religious war,” Saeed told Reuters in an interview. “This is a very sensitive issue. This is not going to be resolved soon. Obama’s statement has started a cultural war.”

The Obama administration has condemned the film, which ignited Muslim protests around the world as “disgusting”.

But Western countries remain determined to resist restrictions on freedom of speech and have already voiced disquiet about the repressive effect of blasphemy laws in Muslim countries such as Pakistan.

“Obama has said he cannot block the film,” said Saeed. “What does that say?”

He said the United States should take tough action against the makers of the film.

“If not, then hand them to us,” he said, flanked by bodyguards.

Rlly? Srsly? OMFG. What a tard. Not even Obooger-eater is that stupid.

Reuters ran the article - another one by their in-house jizzlamic apologista Aisha Chowdry, may her burkhas itch forever. They included a photograph of the guy at a “defend Mohamhead’s honor” conference ... yet they didn’t send the GPS coordinates to the Air Force so that his punk ass could be JDAMed. So tell me, why are the Reuters people not in a cell somewhere being waterboarded for their treasonous behavior??

India is furious that Pakistan has not detained Saeed since it handed over evidence against him to Islamabad. Washington has offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to Saeed’s capture.

Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the 1990s, the militant group which India blames for the rampage in Mumbai, where six Americans were among the dead.

He denies any wrongdoing and links to militants.

The $10 million figure signifies major U.S. interest in Saeed. Only three other militants, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar, fetch that high a bounty. There is a $25 million bounty on the head of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

After the reward was announced, Saeed taunted the United States by holding a press conference at a hotel 40 minutes’ drive away from the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, calling the bounty laughable.

I rest my case. Every Western journalist and cameraman should have a sub-dermal GPS transponder. They could then be tracked 24-7 in realtime. Broadcast from a conference like this, or do a “background” story from a Pali bomb making factory, etc ... and the bombs fall. Journalist lost? Ooops. Too fucking bad. Maybe they shouldn’t be supporting the enemy.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/26/2012 at 03:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The OneRoPMA •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
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