Tuesday - December 30, 2008

Life on Easy Street with the compliments of the Brit Taxpayer who grow money on trees in gardens.

PRETTY DAMN PATHETIC.  HE’S DEPRESSED AND CAN’T WORK, SHE SAYS THEY HAVE TO BUY EXPENSIVE SHOES FOR KIDDIES SO THEY’LL FIT IN AT SCHOOL.
THE DAMN TRUTH OF IT IS, THEY GET MONEY FOR EVERY BABY.

LIFE ON EASY STREET

Ray and Tracey Ramond have been branded Britain’s biggest beneficiaries from state handouts.

The couple and their nine children hit the headlines three years ago when it emerged they received £39,000-a-year in benefits.

Ray and Tracey Ramond with their nine children

The payments amounted to more than £750 a week, but the Ramonds said they still struggled to pay their rent, despite receiving housing benefit.

Mr and Mrs Ramond were living in a three-bedroom house in Newcastle upon Tyne with their children Cherlynne, 13, Stacey, 12, Chantelle, 11, Nicky, ten, Susan, nine, Courtney, seven, Leigh, four, Tia, three, and 11-month-old Chardonnay.

Mrs Ramond, then 36, said she could not work because she was a full-time carer for Stacey, who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and her husband was off work with depression.

She said: ‘It’s hard for us making ends meet, it really is. I try to cook healthy food for the kids and keep them looking presentable and the money just goes on food and clothes. Our two older children only want the best trainers because they’re at school and don’t want to get picked on so what can we do?’

In an average week, Mrs Ramond said she spent £250 on food, £100 on clothes and nappies, £55 on gas and electricity and £150 paying off catalogue bills and a loan.

The rest went on cigarettes, mobile phone bills and pocket money for the children.

In all, the family received housing benefit, child benefit, child tax credit, carer’s allowance and incapacity benefit.

The Ramonds were last night unavailable for comment.

THE LEECHES, MR. AND MRS.

Posted by peiper     on 12/30/2008 at 12:44 PM   
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A FISHY STORY WITH PHOTO.

Hard to believe this fellow isn’t a pro.  What a shot.  Still, I’ve heard from professional photographers who claim that pure luck is like 90 percent of a shot.
But I never believed it myself.  For example, Vilmar says he isn’t a professional. OK, perhaps because he didn’t want to sell stuff. Fact is though, he takes some smashing photos and his composition is spot on.  None of his stuff looks like ‘luck’ to me.  It looks like professional quality. 
So this picture really has me impressed.  But is also almost looks computer generated. 
The photo in the hard copy edition is a bit better.  I thought all the black (on my screen) above the shark’s head looked like molten lava.

I don’t ever wanna be close enough to one of these to take any kind of photo.

Lemon shark ‘grins’ into camera in award-winning photo
A remarkable photograph of a lemon shark which appears to be grinning for the camera has won an international competition.


Last Updated: 2:47PM GMT 29 Dec 2008
Bruce Yates’ smiling shark picture that has just won an award at the prestigious 2008 NATURE’S BEST PHOTOGRAPHY - WINDLAND SMITH RICE INTERNATIONAL AWARDS.
Bruce yates used a ‘fisheye’ lense to take the picture. Photo: Bruce Yates / Barcroft Media

The close-up of the shark’s face was selected from more than 20,000 photos as winner of the Oceans division of the Nature’s Best Photography 2008 Windland Smith Rice Awards.

American amateur photographer Bruce Yates 54, from Medina, Seattle, snapped the creature on a 15mm ‘fisheye’ lens in July last year in the Bahamas.

He said: “My wife and I were on a “liveaboard” boat trip to see and dive with sharks in the northwest part of the Bahamas, in an expansive area many miles from land with relatively shallow water (5-20 metres deep).

“The shark was roughly 8 feet long and only a few inches from my camera.

“Although this particular photo makes it look like the shark is smiling, it is really just closing its mouth after trying to grab a bit of fish.”

He said: “The camera happened to catch a moment in which its mouth - not quite closed - resembles a grin.

“It is an expression that I have never seen on a shark before, and I doubt I could get that shot again if I tried for the rest of my life!”

The lemon shark - Latin name Negaprion brevirostris - inhabits coastal inshore waters from New Jersey to Southern Brazil, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean and along Senegal and the Ivory Coast of Africa in the eastern Atlantic.

Despite their large teeth, they represent a small threat to humans with only 10 unprovoked attacks recorded and no fatalities.

A large print of the image will be on show at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC until May 2009.

“As an amateur photographer, you can imagine how shocked I was when one of my photos was not only recognised, but actually won! It is still hard for me to believe.

“And it just goes to show that you don’t have to be an ‘expert’ or professional photographer to take good photos.”

THA-THA-THAT’S ALL FOLKS

Posted by peiper     on 12/30/2008 at 05:33 AM   
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GETTING RELIGION FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Well what do ya make of this BMEWS?

Without comment from meself and H/T to Lynne with thanks.

For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It

By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: December 29, 2008

If I’m serious about keeping my New Year’s resolutions in 2009, should I add another one? Should the to-do list include, “Start going to church”?

Further Reading
“Religion, self-control, and self-regulation: Associations, explanations, and implications” (PDF) McCullough, M. E.; Willoughby, B. L. B. Psychological Bulletin, 2009.
Leading us not into temptation: Momentary allurements elicit overriding goal activation. Fishbach, A.; Friedman, R. S.; Kruglanski, A.W. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003.

This is an awkward question for a heathen to contemplate, but I felt obliged to raise it with Michael McCullough after reading his report in the upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin. He and a fellow psychologist at the University of Miami, Brian Willoughby, have reviewed eight decades of research and concluded that religious belief and piety promote self-control.

This sounded to me uncomfortably similar to the conclusion of the nuns who taught me in grade school, but Dr. McCullough has no evangelical motives. He confesses to not being much of a devotee himself. “When it comes to religion,” he said, “professionally, I’m a fan, but personally, I don’t get down on the field much.”

His professional interest arose from a desire to understand why religion evolved and why it seems to help so many people. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

These results have been ascribed to the rules imposed on believers and to the social support they receive from fellow worshipers, but these external factors didn’t account for all the benefits. In the new paper, the Miami psychologists surveyed the literature to test the proposition that religion gives people internal strength.

“We simply asked if there was good evidence that people who are more religious have more self-control,” Dr. McCullough. “For a long time it wasn’t cool for social scientists to study religion, but some researchers were quietly chugging along for decades. When you add it all up, it turns out there are remarkably consistent findings that religiosity correlates with higher self-control.”

As early as the 1920s, researchers found that students who spent more time in Sunday school did better at laboratory tests measuring their self-discipline. Subsequent studies showed that religiously devout children were rated relatively low in impulsiveness by both parents and teachers, and that religiosity repeatedly correlated with higher self-control among adults. Devout people were found to be more likely than others to wear seat belts, go to the dentist and take vitamins.

But which came first, the religious devotion or the self-control? It takes self-discipline to sit through Sunday school or services at a temple or mosque, so people who start out with low self-control are presumably less likely to keep attending. But even after taking that self-selection bias into account, Dr. McCullough said there is still reason to believe that religion has a strong influence.

“Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there’s a lot of activity in two parts of brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion,” he said. “The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control.”

In a study published by the University of Maryland in 2003, students who were subliminally exposed to religious words (like God, prayer or bible) were slower to recognize words associated with temptations (like drugs or premarital sex). Conversely, when they were primed with the temptation words, they were quicker to recognize the religious words.

“It looks as if people come to associate religion with tamping down these temptations,” Dr. McCullough said. “When temptations cross their minds in daily life, they quickly use religion to dispel them from their minds.”

In one personality study, strongly religious people were compared with people who subscribed to more general spiritual notions, like the idea that their lives were “directed by a spiritual force greater than any human being” or that they felt “a spiritual connection to other people.” The religious people scored relatively high in conscientiousness and self-control, whereas the spiritual people tended to score relatively low.

“Thinking about the oneness of humanity and the unity of nature doesn’t seem to be related to self-control,” Dr. McCullough said. “The self-control effect seems to come from being engaged in religious institutions and behaviors.”

Does this mean that nonbelievers like me should start going to church? Even if you don’t believe in a supernatural god, you could try improving your self-control by at least going along with the rituals of organized religion.

But that probably wouldn’t work either, Dr. McCullough told me, because personality studies have identified a difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.

So what’s a heathen to do in 2009? Dr. McCullough’s advice is to try replicating some of the religious mechanisms that seem to improve self-control, like private meditation or public involvement with an organization that has strong ideals.

Religious people, he said, are self-controlled not simply because they fear God’s wrath, but because they’ve absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. He suggested that nonbelievers try a secular version of that strategy.

“People can have sacred values that aren’t religious values,” he said. “Self-reliance might be a sacred value to you that’s relevant to saving money. Concern for others might be a sacred value that’s relevant to taking time to do volunteer work. You can spend time thinking about what values are sacred to you and making New Year’s resolutions that are consistent with them.”

Of course, it requires some self-control to carry out that exercise — and maybe more effort than it takes to go to church.

“Sacred values come prefabricated for religious believers,” Dr. McCullough said. “The belief that God has preferences for how you behave and the goals you set for yourself has to be the granddaddy of all psychological devices for encouraging people to follow through with their goals. That may help to explain why belief in God has been so persistent through the ages.”

NY TIMES

Posted by peiper     on 12/30/2008 at 05:04 AM   
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CAPTIONS, ANYONE?  They just HAD to sign the road this way. Not that anyone pays any attention.

Hey, what’s the speed limit here?

WHY THE HECK CAN’T THE POWERS THAT BE PUT UP ROAD SIGNS THAT PEOPLE CAN SEE?

Posted by peiper     on 12/30/2008 at 04:24 AM   
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   Monday - December 29, 2008

It’s not too late ladies

Ladies, did you find yourself out of ideas for your conservative man this Christmas? Has he got all the socks, ties, and power tools he’ll ever need? A closest bursting with firearms? Well, don’t despair. Don’t write this holiday off just yet with a “I’ll try harder next year”. All you really need ... is a present you’ll both enjoy!

Posted by Drew458     on 12/29/2008 at 04:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Celebrities • Republicans • Sex •  
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geriactric humor

If these don’t apply to you already, they will soon enough.

An elderly gentleman ...
Had serious hearing problems for a number of years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%
The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, ‘Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again.’
The gentleman replied, ‘Oh, I haven’t told my family yet.
I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will three times!’

******************************

Two elderly gentlemen from a retirement center were sitting on a bench under a tree when one turns to the other and says: ‘Slim, I’m 83 years old now and I’m just full of aches and pains. I know you’re about my age. How do you feel?’
Slim says, ‘I feel just like a newborn baby.’
‘Really!? Like a newborn baby!?’
‘Yep. No hair, no teeth, and I think I just wet my pants.’

******************************

An elderly couple had dinner at another couple’s house, and after eating, the wives left the table and went into the kitchen.
The two gentlemen were talking, and one said, ‘Last night we went out to a new restaurant and it was really great. I would recommend it very highly.’
The other man said, ‘What is the name of the restaurant?’
The first man thought and thought and finally said, ‘What is the name of that flower you give to someone you love?
You know… The one that’s red and has thorns.’
‘Do you mean a rose?’
‘Yes, that’s the one,’ replied the man. He then turned towards the kitchen and yelled, ‘Rose, what’s the name of that restaurant we went to last night?’

******************************

Hospital regulations require a wheel chair for patients being discharged. However, while working as a student nurse, I found one elderly gentleman already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet, who insisted he didn’t need my help to leave the hospital.
After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator.
On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She’s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown.’

******************************

Couple in their nineties are both having problems remembering things. During a checkup, the doctor tells them that they’re physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember

Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. ‘Want anything while I’m in the kitchen?’ he asks.
‘Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?’
‘Sure.’
‘Don’t you think you should write it down so you can remember it?’ she asks.
‘No, I can remember it.’
‘Well, I’d like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, so’s not to forget it?’
He says, ‘I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries. ‘
‘I’d also like whipped cream. I’m certain you’ll forget that, write it down?’ she asks.
Irritated, he says, ‘I don’t need to write it down, I can remember it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream - I got it, for goodness sake!’
Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes,
The old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment.
‘Where’s my toast ?’

******************************

A senior citizen said to his eighty-year old buddy:
‘So I hear you’re getting married?’
‘Yep!’
‘Do I know her?’
‘Nope!’
‘This woman, is she good looking?’
‘Not really.’
‘Is she a good cook?’
‘Naw, she can’t cook too well.’
‘Does she have lots of money?’
‘Nope! Poor as a church mouse.’
‘Well, then, is she good in bed?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why in the world do you want to marry her then?’
‘Because she can still drive!’

******************************

Three old guys are out walking.
First one says, ‘Windy, isn’t it?’
Second one says, ‘No, it’s Thursday!’
Third one says, ‘So am I. Let’s go get a beer.’

******************************

A man was telling his neighbor, ‘I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand dollars, but it’s state of the art. It’s perfect.’
‘Really,’ answered the neighbor . ‘What kind is it?’
‘Twelve thirty.’

******************************

Morris, an 82 year-old man, went to the doctor to get a physical.
A few days later, the doctor saw Morris walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm.
A couple of days later, the doctor spoke to Morris and said, ‘You’re really doing great, aren’t you?’
Morris replied, ‘Just doing what you said, Doc: ‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.’’
The doctor said, ‘I didn’t say that. I said, ‘You’ve got a heart murmur; be careful.’

******************************

A little old man shuffled slowly into an ice cream parlor and pulled himself slowly, painfully, up onto a stool.. After catching his breath, he ordered a banana split.
The waitress asked kindly, ‘Crushed nuts?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘Arthritis.’

Hey, #8 applies to me already!
Sent in by the other Carole. Thanks!

Posted by Drew458     on 12/29/2008 at 02:24 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Pictured as he waited to die: Patient subjected to 6-hour delay in A&E - dies in agony.oops, sorry?

The longer I’m here the scarder I get.
This is almost an unbelievable story. 

I was getting ready to close for the night and did a quick scan to see if there was anything that shouldn’t be missed.
Oh boy was there. THIS. And although it won’t bring back the poor guy, I hope the family sues BIG TIME and some ppl lose their jobs and never be allowed to work in the health field again.  Jeesh!

Pictured as he waited to die: Father subjected to 6-hour delay in A&E - despite GP’s note that said he had to be seen immediately

By Colin Fernandez
Last updated at 5:19 PM on 29th December 2008

A father-of-two died after a six-hour wait to be seen at an A&E department - despite having a note from his GP saying he must be treated immediately.

Stewart Fleming, 37, turned up at his local casualty unit with wife Sarah clutching a note from his doctor saying he must be seen ‘straight away’.

But instead of being sent to the head of the queue, Mr Fleming had to sit and wait in agony as his organs collapsed as a virus ravaged his body.

It was three hours before he was even assessed to see if he was a ‘priority case’, and even then it took another three hours for him to be admitted - six hours since he arrived at the hospital.

Doctors then realised the gravity of the situation and desperately started treating the infection, which was attacking his heart, kidneys and liver.

His nightmare began on December 12 when he arrived at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent.

Railway signalman Mr Fleming had been ill with flu-like symptoms for around a week and a half before he went to accident and emergency.

After a course of antibiotics had little effect, his GP recommended going to the hospital.

After belatedly receiving treatment, he remained in hospital for another week before having a leg amputated on December 19 - the day of his son Matthew’s 12th birthday.

He was then put in a drug-induced coma in a bid to save his life.

But, on December 27, after spending another week fighting the illness following his transferall to the Harefield Hospital, near Uxbridge, West London, Mr Fleming died.

The hospital in Kent has since apologised as it was busier than normal ‘due to a high number of admissions’.

But Mr Fleming’s wife of 15 years Sarah, 42, said the family, of Rainham, Kent, was devastated by her husband’s death and has demanded an explanation from hospital chiefs.

MORE HERE AND PIX AS HOSP. FUCKS UP

Posted by peiper     on 12/29/2008 at 12:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Medical • Outrageous • UK •  
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Video: Great white shark circles kayakers and fishermen in Sydney .

Amazing footage of the moment a group of kayakers and fishermen found themselves being circled by a great white shark has been released.

By Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 1:27PM GMT 29 Dec 2008

One of the group was even knocked into the water by the shark, and was forced to tread water while the man-eating creature circled him for a minute.

The incident took place in Sydney, Australia, on the same day that Brian Guest, of Perth, was killed by a shark on the other side of the country.

Steve Kulcsar, the 29-year-old kayaker who was knocked overboard, told the Australian Daily Telegraph: “A fisherman yelled out, ‘There’s a 5m shark coming your way.’ We all thought he was just trying to stir us up for a laugh, but a few moments later, a big fin appeared.”

SHARK STORY

Posted by peiper     on 12/29/2008 at 11:05 AM   
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Muslims protest before Israeli Embassy in London.

A not so “peaceful” protest by the followers of the ROP in London brought traffic to a standstill.

They were of course protesting the awful brutish bloodthirsty Israelis, who had the damn nerve to complain about rocket attacks against them, coming from Gaza.

Imagine that if you can.  Rockets fired from Gaza.  Israelis say stop. Hamas say haha what you gonna do about it?
Israel replies by going BOOM on Gaza and now these folks try and storm the Israeli Embassy in London and cause grief for bystanders.
That’s something muzzies have a habit of doing, isn’t it?  Here’s a shot of a peaceful muzzie. Looks perfectly reasonable. For a muslim. It almost looks human.

Way back in time before many of the folks here at BMEWS were around, there was a war in the Middle East in ‘48 and again in ‘67 and there were other times as well.  What I recall vividly however was the lack of any street protests by angry Jews.  What I do remember vividly were the stories and the arguments in the press, about the number of American Jews who volunteered to go over there and fight for Israel.  As American citizens they were not supposed to do that.
But it was early days for the young state and warm bodies were needed for the cause.  So they went.

They didn’t do street protests because there wasn’t time to engage in that sort of thing. Not that they had em much back in the late 40’s. But the point is, unlike these pictured protesters who will accomplish NOTHING but a traffic disruption, the Jews from America and I should mention the UK as well, in fact all that could go from where ever they were, did so.  This lame group of open mouthed non-entities find it much easier to shout at a building then go and actually fight for the ppl on whose behalf they are holding up traffic.

What?  you want them to fight?  Against armed Israelis? Go on.  Risk getting a boo-boo from an Israeli soldier or tank?  Much easier tossing bomb into crowd of unarmed civilians and safer too.  And a lot easier and cozy right here in London fighting traffic.

So there.  That’s my comment on this group of losers.  Now then ....

I’m ready for some Eye Candy.  So here.  Enjoy the shot.

Right. I see why they’d rather stay in London. 

UPDATE: Peiper, there was something wrong with your picture of the protester. Lemme see ... I think maybe I can ... you betcha!

See? All better now.

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by peiper     on 12/29/2008 at 09:50 AM   
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Israel pounds Gaza for third day: Interior ministry destroyed.

Early in the morning for some places in BMEWS so thought I’d post this now.

Israel kept up its bombardment of Gaza overnight expanding its targets to include an Islamic university and government buildings such as the interior ministry.

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 8:29AM GMT 29 Dec 2008

Local Palestinian medical sources said six Palestinian children were among the estimated 300 people killed in the attacks, including four sisters aged from 1 to 12 whose house was hit when Israel tried to bomb a nearby mosque.

The night skyline was lit up repeatedly by huge explosions as Israeli F- 16s dropped laser-guided precision munitions on targets inside the densely populated of Gaza City and Rafah.

Witnesses said the Islamic University was struck at least six times and the interior ministry headquarters levelled by bombs.

The ministry was run by Hamas and the university had close links to the Islamist movement.

Israel issued a statement claiming the university labs were used by Hamas as a weapons manufacturing and development centre and it accused university lecturers of teaching bomb-making.

For the first time since operation Cast Lead began on Saturday, Israeli warships got involved, firing naval artillery at positions close to the main port in Gaza City.

Dead and injured Palestinians continued to be brought to Gaza’s hospitals with local medical sources saying the death toll since Saturday had reached 307. The number of injured has climbed to 1,400.

Four girls from the same family aged from one to 12 years old were killed in an air raid in the northern town of Jabaliya that targeted a mosque near their home.

Two boys were killed in raid in the southern city of Rafah, and a seventh person killed was a Hamas member.

With Israel showing no sign of heeding international calls for an end to hostilities the people of Gaza were left guessing what the next range of targets would include.

The centre of Gaza City was plunged into darkness after the local power station stopped functioning because Israel had refused to allow deliveries of diesel oil needed by the generators.

Israel provides most of the power to the Gaza Strip although a local power station, bombed by Israel in 2006 but now partially repaired, provided electricity to Gaza City’s most densely populated area.

The antiquated switching system of Gaza’s power distribution network meant that the power still coming in from Israel could not be diverted to Gaza City so the hundreds of thousands of people got set for lengthy power cuts.

Israel took care to justify the bombing raids on the Islamic University issuing the following statement: “One of the structures struck housed explosives laboratories that were an inseparable part of Hamas’ research and development program, as well as places that served as storage facilities for the organization.

“The development of these weapons took place under the auspices of senior lecturers who are activists in Hamas.

“Among the weapons that have been developed and manufactured at this site are Qassam rockets.

“Hamas has been working tirelessly to extend the range of the rockets, as has been shown during the past few days.”

Israel has repeatedly said the operation could last a long time. The aim is to stop militants in Gaza firing rockets into Israel.

Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and is now calling up 6,500 army reservists.

An Israeli civilian was also killed this morning by a rocket fired by militants from Gaza. He was hit while working in the centre of the Israeli port of Ashkelon, about eight miles north of the Gaza Strip.

He is the second Israeli to be killed by rocket fire from Gaza since Israel launched the operation.

GAZA

Posted by peiper     on 12/29/2008 at 09:27 AM   
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Republican party candidate distributes racist Barack Obama song.

I don’t suppose this is news to BMEWS but it’s just being reported here.

I went to the site at Rush and tried listening to it.  First, I didn’t think it was clever or really witty. Cute? Funny? Depends on your sense of humor.
I thought it was sort of juvenile.

I guess it could be thought to be funny because there are a couple of clever lines in the parody.  But the production quality was, in my opinion, very poor.
Maybe it was supposed to be.  My background is in recording studios and so perhaps I expect too much.  I admit I did not listen to it all. Not because of the content. I had no problem with that. It was the sound that I found very annoying and because of that alone, it was hard to listen to. Like it was recorded on a phone line.

A candidate to lead the Republican party is facing a wave of criticism after he sent other senior US politicians a Christmas CD featuring the song “Barack the Magic Negro”.

By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 10:02AM GMT 29 Dec 2008

Chip Saltsman, who is campaigning to become chairman of the Republican National Committee, defended the tune as one of several “lighthearted political parodies” that have aired on Right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh’s show.  MAGIC NEGRO

The 2007 ditty by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin, which is sung to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon, calls into question the President-elect’s racial identity. In the song, Shanklin, doing an impression of the New York activist the Reverend Al Sharpton, sings: “They’ll vote for him but not for me because he’s not from the ‘hood.

“See, real black men, like Snoop Dogg, or me, or Farrakhan, have talked the talk, and walked the walk, not come in late and won.”

The song picked up on a March 2007 comment article in the liberal Los Angeles Times in which David Ehrenstein argued that part of Mr Obama’s role was “to assuage white ‘guilt’ over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history”.

It was part of a collection of 41 songs by Shanklin on a CD titled We Hate the USA that Mr Saltsman, who managed Mike Huckabee’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, sent to Republican party members with the message: “I look forward to working together in the New Year”.

Mr Saltsman was condemned by the current party chairman Mike Duncan, who is running for re-election.

“The 2008 election was a wake-up call for Republicans to reach out and bring more people into our party,” he said in a statement. “I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think this is appropriate as it clearly does not move us in the right direction.”

Ada Fisher, one of three black Republican party members, responded in an open letter: “Racist actions and deeds have no place in the party. The lack of sensitivity in understanding the historical election we just had and the challenges this nation faces as we must bind our wounds as well as bring our people together requires that we set aside our biases.”

But Mr Saltsman was unrepentant: “Liberal Democrats and their allies in the media didn’t utter a word about David Ehrenstein’s irresponsible column in the Los Angeles Times last March,” he said.

“But now, of course, they’re shocked and appalled by its parody on the Rush Limbaugh Show.

“I firmly believe that we must welcome all Americans into our party and that the road to Republican resurgence begins with unity, not division. But I know that our party leaders should stand up against the media’s double standards and refuse to pander to their desire for scandal.”

He told The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, that members of the Republican committee have “the good humour and good sense” to see Shanklin’s tunes as “lighthearted political parodies”.

TELEGRAPH

OK SO A QUESTION FOR BMEWS.

Should this guy have known better then to mail out the CD?  Shouldn’t he have envisioned the criticism ‘to the party’ before mailing something out to many people he was going to be working with?  Was it irresponsible?  True, it was 2007 originally and true the libs are just making political hay which we’d do as well and you know that’s true.  Heck, I can’t see our side missing an opportunity like that were it a dem. who produced the CD.

I think he should have known he was giving the Democrats a free gift.  As individuals we might be excused for a bit of silliness perhaps. 
But not if you’re hoping to be a leader of a major political party that some folks already believe is a second cousin to the klan.  Please lets be honest about it, this simply reinforces the negative attitudes about us.  Do we really need that?

Posted by peiper     on 12/29/2008 at 08:38 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Politics • Racism and race relations • Republicans •  
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   Sunday - December 28, 2008

Liberal, Conservative, what’s the difference?

Finally, somebody wrote a piece that succinctly defines the difference between liberal fascist moonbats and compassionate conservatives. He is Christopher Chantrill at The American Thinker. He wrote, in part:

“This is the basic conflict between liberals and conservatives. Liberals believe you can solve social problems with government programs. Conservatives believe that you must solve them person-to-person, face-to-face. Compassion means, literally, “suffering with.” Getting paid to run a government program to help the poor with tax dollars isn’t “suffering with.”

Exactly. This is the true ‘trickle down’ economics: government, be it local, state, or federal, rakes in billions through the threat of force, and ‘trickles down’ just enough to keep you breathing. Good times or bad, Government never seems to “suffer with” us at all.

I do my “charitable” works personally with people I know through various venues: family, church, work, neighborhood, etc. I don’t (usually) just send money off to some big, impersonal government ‘welfare’ organization (like United Way) so that they can skim a few hundred thousand off the top for themselves and ‘trickle down’ some pennies to those in need. That doesn’t count what those government ‘charities’ seize by force from my paycheck…

Go read the whole article entitled The Conservative Elevator Story.

I guess George W. Bush was right when he used the phrase ‘compassionate conservative’. I hated it because I thought it was redundant, but I couldn’t quite point out why I thought that.

Posted by Christopher     on 12/28/2008 at 07:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Government • Personal • Philosophy •  
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Gaza: Running the Numbers

RE: the situation in Gaza and Israel’s response to it.

Comment by BlueStateSaint: “Run an Arc Light for the entire length and width of the Gaza Strip.” and blow the entire place even closer to Hell.

Now, just for sick fun, just how much work would that be? Let’s take a look at some numbers. Air Force types with more accurate information than mine are free to provide better numbers.

I looked at things, and concluded that it’s more a matter of logistics than practicality. You can do the job in less than 4 days with only 80 bombers. If you can add twenty dozen fighter planes into the mix the job can be done in less than 3 days. The problem really boils down to where you can field the planes from, and how fast you can get each reloaded and back into the sky.

Want to see the math?  I’ve read that a B52 can carry 50 one ton bombs. If the assured destructive blast radius of one of those bombs is 75 meters (what bombers call the PI, and I’m using a PI of over .8, which means an 80% destructive rate), how many bombs does it take to level all of Gaza? We want to kill everyone and their goats, and leave no buildings standing.

It turns out that the real limit of this operation is how fast you can reload and launch each airplane. If you can get a bomber into the air every 2 minutes, and land another one every 2 minutes, then you can cycle 15 bombers per hour, or about 20 every 90 minutes. Use the British air base in Akrotiri Cyprus. You would have to refuel the planes about every 3rd flight from Cyprus. The smart move would be to get to work right now to build a second strip parallel to the first one. Put 2000 men on the job and it should be done in two weeks or less. Then you can cycle more than double the number of planes, about 40 per hour. You would need a small army of bomb loaders.

Israel is so close it ain’t even worth flying bombers from there. Instead use Israel’s air bases to launch fighter planes, which can probably carry 4 of these bombs each. So every 12 fighters would equal one bomber. Bring in a couple carriers just over the horizon ... between the US Navy and the IDF, can we put 240 fighters on the job? Let’s assume we can.

If we can put 80 B52s into a continuous bomber stream, and they take off from the British air base at Akrotiri in southern Cyprus ... only 230 miles from target ... half an hour each way, 15 minutes over target, 15 minutes to takeoff and land (2 hours total air time) and 2 hours to reload? .. call it 5 runs a day to be safe ... how long will it take to do the job? With an air base cycle rate of 40 per hour and 2 hours air time, this means you are limited to using 80 B52s. I wish we had that many. Ok, drag some B2s along as well. Surely we have 80 bombers between the two? Add in all the fighter planes, and you effectively have 100 B52 bomb loads in the cycle.

The Gaza Strip is 360 square kilometers. 360 x 1000 meters x 1000 meters

A Mk82 GP bomb has a fatal PI of 75 meters ... which means damn near everything inside that radius is destroyed or killed.

Now we do the math: to destroy one square kilometer you need to lay down a grid of these bastards 14 x 14. 196 bombs. Call it 200, which is 4 B52s worth. (which also gets your PI up a little higher) Therefore you would need 4 x 360 = 1440 B52 loads to destroy Gaza utterly: 72,000 bombs. Given 100 planeloads and 5 runs per day, which is 500 runs worth, it would take just 70 hours. 

Better start building that second runway in Cyprus, and somebody better get the bomb factories up and running again.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/28/2008 at 04:58 PM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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Analysis: Israeli politics lies behind Gaza attacks .  Interesting and worth the read.

My final post for the night and will leave you with this. With no comments from me.

The people of Sderot, a small town in southern Israel a few miles from the Gaza Strip, have 15 seconds to take cover whenever the wail of sirens gives warning of another rocket attack.

By David Blair,
Diplomatic Editor
Last Updated: 5:08PM GMT 28 Dec 2008

For almost five years, this has been their daily ordeal and Sderot’s bus stops have been specially reinforced to serve as armoured shelters from the regular salvoes fired out of Gaza.

With a general election due on Feb 10, no Israeli government could afford to appear indifferent to this threat, especially as Palestinian fighters are deploying rockets with longer ranges and heavier warheads, with some weapons capable of hitting the port of Ashdod 20 miles from Gaza. In all, some 500,000 Israelis live within range of Gaza’s rockets.

The political imperative to act undoubtedly lay behind Israel’s decision to launch the attack. It will have weighed most heavily on the minds of Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the centrist Kadima party, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of the Labour party.

Both will be fighting the election against Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister from the right-wing Likud party. As they enter this contest, neither can afford to appear anything but hawkish.

Yet the scale of the response exposes Israel to international criticism. Almost 300 Palestinians have been killed in the last two days alone. By contrast, rockets fired from Gaza have killed 17 Israeli civilians in the last seven years.

Since Israel completed its withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005, about 150 Palestinians have been killed by its security forces in the territory for every dead Israeli civilian. Faced with this astonishing ratio, Israel’s government will find it extremely hard to argue that its response has been proportionate.

Moreover, the subtext to the operation in Gaza is a failure of policy on both sides. Since Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007, its only tactic has been to fire rockets at southern Israel, thereby provoking a draconian – and predictable – response.

Meanwhile, Israel has blockaded Gaza of all but essential humanitarian supplies and launched regular military raids. On the rare occasions when the territory’s border posts have been open, Palestinian fighters have occasionally attacked them, forcing their closure and maximising Gaza’s isolation and the ordeal of its people.

Its 1.5 million inhabitants are effectively prisoners. This cycle of attack, retaliation and more attack has achieved nothing save inflict suffering on both sides.

Last year, a truce arranged by neighbouring Egypt brought a measure of calm. That has now collapsed amid recriminations over who was to blame.

Israeli forces killed three Palestinian fighters and destroyed a tunnel linking Gaza with Egypt during an operation in November. A barrage of rockets fired at Israeli towns was the response, with 70 being launched last Wednesday alone.

The only hope lies in restoring the ceasefire. But any political progress will have to await the outcome of Israel’s election. In the meantime, the military campaign goes on.

ANALYSIS

Posted by peiper     on 12/28/2008 at 02:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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