Monday - July 13, 2009

Pushing the Limits

Shoe blogging.

It’s what I almost never do. Ever.

But I will write about good engineering. About how form following function sometimes allows for beautiful and simple design; the art of purity. This is not one of those times.

These shoes do not qualify as art in any way, shape, or form. They are remarkably ugly ... and they are just as remarkably effective. This is technology pushed to the edge, where the complex becomes simple because all the rules and the preconceived notions have been done away with. A futuristic design that could have been created 5000 years ago.

However, The Manolo, the ultimate and original shoe blogger, lover of form over function sometimes to the point of unwearability, would never label these things Super Fantastic. He would need a new phrase that was as antithetical to that concept as possible. Ultra Hideux!

And yet these may be the best running shoes ever made. They weigh almost nothing. They are more toe gloves than shoes. Foot condoms. They let you run as if you were barefoot, which is best for your body. Yet they give you better traction than barefoot, and protect you against rough ground, gravel, and little sharp things in the street.

Vibram FiveFingers are little more than flexible plastic soles with just enough cloth to hold them snugly on your feet. They have little individual pockets for each toe, making the FiveFingers into a sort of foot glove. The resulting footwear feel less like shoes and more like tougher, more invulnerable versions of your feet.

Traction is incredibly good, due to the grippy material, the separation of the toes, and the addition of siping, or tiny zigzag cuts etched into the soles that expand into little treads as the sole flexes.

The VFFs are also surprisingly comfortable. Each toe is snuggled inside its own little pocket, which is not only cozy, it also gives your feet a surprising amount of feedback about the ground you’re standing on. Your toes, freed from their typical leather prisons, act like a tiny topography sensor array.

Running in FiveFingers is much like running barefoot, except without the mincing “Ow-ow-ow!” moments as you hit a patch of gravel or sun-baked asphalt. You have to use the same stride (and the same, probably atrophied, calf and arch muscles) as you do when running with naked feet. The end result is good: By forcing me into a more efficient stride, the VFFs helped subtract nearly a minute from my admittedly slow per-mile pace. Also, a growing body of research suggests that minimal or no footwear will result in fewer running injuries. But it takes some getting used to if you’ve never run barefoot before. Start with very short runs, and work up gradually.

They cost about $75. Maybe Michelle Obama could start wearing these and make a new fashion trend? Rebrand them as Gorilla Toes, or Cling-Ons, since they give such a great grip. And who better to push Cling-Ons than the Worfette?

Posted by Drew458     on 07/13/2009 at 11:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Neat Inventions •  
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An update in lousey news and oh hell. Here we go again. Yeah. Travelers.

OK, let me say it again ... without saying it out loud.

Everyone here knows my solution to this sort of totally unreasonable problem.  No. I just can’t resist.  Kill ALL the bastards! Make no exceptions. The good ones are the dead ones.  Otherwise this will only continue to get worse and worse as more and more find how easy it is to get away with this.

What makes this case (reported on some months ago) even more urgent, is that a group of hapless Navy vets are the ones being booted out after 30 years.
THIRTY FREEKIN YEARS PPL.  And the biggest fault is with the council or whoever approved this outrage. So they need to be greased also, to set a proper example for the rest of the country. 

You folks outside the UK can’t begin to imagine how big this problem is, made all the worse by the politically correct, socialist/ commie scumbags who have forced this on the country.  And those responsible including the legal eagles who pave the way are no less then traitors.

Think of these life forms as land pirates, and maybe my suggestion with regard to their elimination won’t seem quite as harsh or outlandish.

War veterans’ clubhouse faces demolition - to make way for travellers’ caravans

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:44 PM on 13th July 2009

A group of war veterans face being evicted from their clubhouse after travellers demanded it be torn down to make way for more caravans.

The 40-strong group of travellers moved on to a plot of land next to the veterans’ clubhouse last week following a council decision to relocate them.

Members of the Royal Naval ex-servicemen’s club are now in talks with Gravesham Council who will decide if the veterans are to be relocated permanently.

The veterans, who have been on the site for more than 30 years, were shocked when the travellers set up home on a disused patch of grass 20 yards away.

But it came as more of a surprise when they discovered the travellers were evicted from a previous site for breaching government greenbelt land planning laws.

Their eight static mobile homes were bulldozed after a four-year wrangle costing £40,000 for numerous court orders and legal fees.

As a result, a concession was made to the small group which allowed them to move to the former allotment land off Springhead Road in Northfleet.

But that brought them into direct contact with the Naval Association club who are fighting to stay.

The move comes just six months after the local council pledged they would ‘not abandon’ the 160 members of the Naval Association of Gravesend.

Association chairman and Korean war veteran John Down said the group would fight to remain where they are.

‘A lot of our members are elderly people who live nearby and don’t want to have to go elsewhere,’ he said.

A council spokesman confirmed it was ‘in talks’ with the veterans to decide whether they will be relocated.

The spokesman said: ‘There is a meeting scheduled with the Naval Association - we are in talks with regards to the gypsy site.

‘The gypsies have a spokesman allocated by them who is liaising with our officers.’

On its website, the council noted it had to be sensitive to the needs of the women and children on the site who were ‘all considered vulnerable’.

It emerged the council even offered to tarmac the new site at taxpayers’ expense - until travellers told them they could do it themselves for free.

Gypsy traveller Anne Scarrott said: ‘The council are going to knock the navy club down so we can have more space.

‘There is not enough space while the navy club is here. We are all too close to each other and can see into each others’ windows.’

The ex-servicemen said the decision could mean the end of the road for their association which was formed 76 years ago.

They admit their scout hall-style building is old but would prefer it to be updated rather than move out of the council-owned property.

Veteran Terry Moore, 56, said: ‘It’s a quaint old place - I don’t see why we should be the ones moving.

‘The hall has memorabilia, old medals and pictures. We definitely don’t want to move - especially to make way for people who don’t pay their taxes.

‘The club is in a great location for many of our members. If we have to go somewhere else they simply won’t be able to make the journey.’

THE MAIL

So it cost it taxpayer £40,000.00 to remove illegals from land after four years, and now they move in and DEMAND this. They DEMAND!

Alright. I can understand perhaps the Brits being a bit civilized might also be a tad squeamish about doing the job themselves.
No Problem.  Hire Russians. No. Even better.  Rent a Chinese regiment. Maybe only a squad and see how fast this problem can go away.

Posted by peiper     on 07/13/2009 at 11:06 AM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! • Politically-Incorrect • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters •  
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GORBALL WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE THE LEFT AND ONE PO’d NEWSMAN SAYS ENOUGH TO BBC NEWS & QUITS

Just a touch of background. Peter Sissions is a newsman of many years and has worked for more then one outlet.

After being shot in both legs in 1968 while covering the Biafran War he was left less mobile and became industrial correspondent then industrial editor, reading headlines part-time. His first role as full-time anchor was for ITN’s News at One in 1978.

Here’s part of what this veteran newscaster wrote in the Sunday Mail.

One of the links on their site unfortunately isn’t working and I’ve spent the better part of an hour and a half trying to gather his stuff together and also copy from the paper some of what he said.  Wasn’t easy for me but it’s well worth the trouble.

Peter Sissons: BBC standards are falling - and bosses are too scared to do anything about it.

By Mail On Sunday Reporter
12 July 2009

Peter Sissons, the veteran newsreader who announced his retirement last month, has launched a withering attack on the BBC - claiming standards have fallen and accusing producers of being too mired in political correctness to do anything about it.

He says: ‘At today’s BBC, a complaint I often heard from senior producers was that they dared not reprimand their subordinates for basic journalistic mistakes - such as getting ages, dates, titles and even football scores wrong - it being politically incorrect to risk offending them.’

The 66-year-old also pinpointed the exact moment he decided to leave BBC News as the day senior producers attempted to stop him asking Labour’s then deputy leader, Harriet Harman, why the Queen had not been invited to the D-Day commemorations in May.
‘The most senior of the producers asked me directly what other issues I would raise with Miss Harman.
No problem, until I mentioned the last question I wanted to get in: why the Queen had not been invited to the 65th anniversary commemoration of D-Day. The response shocked me. It was suggested that it was not a topic worth raising because it was only a campaign being run by the Daily Mail.’
However, the topic had angered veterans and the campaign had gathered huge public support.

The presenter went ahead and asked the ‘obvious and important question’.
‘I drove out of Television Centre for the last time a month later, with not a pang of regret,’ he wrote in the Mail on Sunday.
His withering attack did not stop there. He went on to address the corporation’s view on global warming. He claims

It is ‘effectively BBC policy’ to ignore climate change sceptics.

He also claims it is now ‘effectively BBC policy’ to stifle critics of the consensus view on global warming. He says: ‘I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC interviewers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is another side to the debate…

‘The Corporation’s most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that “the science is settled”, when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn’t.

‘But it is effectively BBC policy… that those views should not be heard.’

The leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, went into the studio at Westminster to be interviewed by me.  She clearly expected what I call a “free hit” to be allowed to voice her views without being challenged on them.

I pointed out to her that the climate didn’t seem to be playing ball at the moment.  We were having a particularly cold winter, even though carbon emissions were increasing. Indeed, there had been no warming for ten years, contradicting all the alarming computer predictions.

Well, she was outraged.  Miss Lucas told me angrily that it was disgraceful that the BBC- the BBC! - should be giving any kind of publicity to those sort of views. 

Politically the argument may be settled, but any inquisitive journalist can find ample evidence that scientifically it is not.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 07/13/2009 at 09:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous • UK • work and the workplace •  
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Global Warming!!

A volcano on Krakatoa is still erupting. Perhaps most famous for the powerfully explosive eruption in 1883 that killed tens of thousands of people, ash from a violent eruption might also have temporarily altered Earth’s climate as long as 1500 years ago. In 1927, eruptions caused smaller Anak Krakatau to rise from the sea, and the emerging volcanic island continues to grow at an average rate of 2 cm per day. The latest eruption of Anak Krakatau started in 2008 April and continues today. In this picture, Anak Krakatau is seen erupting from Rakata, the main island of the Krakatoai group.

Gee whiz, how much CO₂ and ΔH is that thing spewing? Certainly more than my little car and a few hundred thousand just like it!



Maybe we could send Algore down there to host a lecture. That ought to put it out. What the heck, it works everywhere else. And if not ... how long has it been since the last sacrifice to Pele anyway?

Posted by Drew458     on 07/13/2009 at 09:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Nature •  
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ONE HELL OF A FLY BY, WOULDN’T YA SAY? NOT TOO CERTAIN I’D WANT TO BE ON THAT BALCONY.

Wait a minute. Wouldn’t flying that low lose him lift? OK maybe not but this is hard to believe. It isn’t April 1st tho.
Gee ... talk about a very high wow factor.

Thing is, that guy on the balcony watching.  He just looks so casual like it’s an every day event. And what about being that close to a jet engine?
How about the walls and windows in the apt. complex?  Wouldn’t they suffer some damage?
I’m just trying to figure out if it’s a hoax. It was published a short time ago (an hour ago) in the Mail.

Now that’s what I call a fly-past: US Navy F18 streaks past apartment block

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 1:27 PM on 13th July 2009

This is the moment a a US Navy pilot gave a shocked resident a very close look at his F18.

The fighter/bomber streaked past an apartment block on the banks of the Detroit River at the weekend.

It was part of a tactical demonstration fly-past to open a speedboat race in the North American city.

Officials waived rules to allow the Navy flyers to swoop under 100ft along the waterway.

One resident said: ‘I couldn’t believe how low they flew and how close they came to our building - I’m sure the pilot waved at me.’

The jets had flown in from the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia to put on a spectacular show for thousands of spectators.

The Chrysler Jeep Superstores APBA Gold Cup race was won by speedboat ace Dave Villcock.

‘We danced with the devil at every turn,’ said Villwock, 55, who demolished the field on his way to his seventh Gold Cup win.

‘We were either going to win it big or lose it big.’

He couldn’t match the F15s for speed, although his average of 141mph for the five-lap final remained impressive.

DAILY MAIL

Posted by peiper     on 07/13/2009 at 08:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Adventure • Art-Photography •  
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The Headline is:  Segregation in schools is fueled by ‘White Flight.’ Look familiar?

Oh, now this is a huge surprise. Aren’t you all surprised too? Ppl of like background and something in common (language too?) wanting to be among their own.
Not to mention a better environment for their offspring. 

Segregation in schools fuelled by ‘white flight’

Warwick Mansell and Polly Curtis The Guardian, Friday 10 July 2009

Schools in parts of England are becoming increasingly segregated, deserted by white parents if they find their children becoming outnumbered by pupils from ethnic minorities, a report by a think tank set up to promote community cohesion has warned.

Councils should consider allocating school places using lotteries in some inner-city areas to tackle a growing phenomenon of “white flight” in the education system, the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo) said.

Its study, which focused on 13 local areas including Bolton, Sunderland, Oldham, Hounslow and Bristol, concluded: “Many of the schools and colleges in the areas we have studied are segregated to a greater or lesser extent and the evidence available to us at a local level suggested that this was generally worsening over recent years.

“This reflects in part residential segregation, but it also reflects parental choice, despite the fact that most people we spoke to in focus groups wanted their children to have a mixed education. Parental choice tended to push people to what they saw as the safe option, where children with similar backgrounds went.”

It added: “We heard strong evidence of ‘white flight’ in a number of areas.”

ICoCo was set up in 2005 to research and promote community relations. Nick Johnson, its director of policy and author of the report, said: “‘White flight’ is certainly happening in specific areas of England. In the case of one school in Blackburn, once the number of non-white pupils got above 60%, white parents started saying they did not want their kids being the odd ones out.” Segregation reduced the chance for young people to mix with their peers from different backgrounds, said the report.

Johnson added that councils should consider allocating school places by lottery, a scheme that has been trialled at some schools in Brighton. “If you did that in Blackburn or Bolton or Oldham, it would have a dramatic effect on the schools’ composition ... if you accept the argument that all forms of segregation in education are bad, you do need to do something about it,” he said.

(turns out however that not all forms are bad. Are they? For example, studies have reported that girls do better in all girl schools. You may argue with that I suppose but that’s what’s being claimed. And many interviews with younger girls seem to bear it out. On the other hand, forced integration due to social engineering works against human nature. And I doubt it makes many friends.)

The report found that less popular schools with spare places sometimes admitted large numbers of immigrant pupils in a short time. It cited the case of an unnamed school at which, at the end of 2005, 85% of pupils were white British. Over the next two terms, pupils from 15 to 20 Somali families were admitted.

“Many white parents reacted negatively, arguing that their children were being disadvantaged by large numbers of non-English speakers. By September 2006, 60 white children had been removed from the school ... and the percentage of black and minority ethnic pupils rose to 45%. But many white families stayed,” the report said.

(Right. “many families stayed.” Wanna bet those were the unfortunates that either could not afford to move, or were themselves slaves to the left and PC)

Researchers also found evidence of pupils of different ethnicities not mixing even when they were sharing classes and playgrounds.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 07/13/2009 at 07:08 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Education • UK •  
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Arranged marriage and honor killings. They just refuse to join the 21st century, or even the 19th.

This is a long but interesting story I just ran across.
It isn’t really anything new to you.  The idea that these people arrange marriages and use threats of death to enforce their dark age mentality is old hat by now.
However, this particular story reads almost like a novel. And it isn’t fiction.

Certain immigrant communities simply refuse to abide by the laws and customs of their host country. And that isn’t going to change.  Of course to be critical of them makes one automatically “racist.” The fact that their own twisted mentality contributes to how others view them is lost among them and the politically correct.
A POX on both I say. 

Just moments ago.

Across the cultural divide: The Muslim woman and older British man whose love survived death threats but was doomed to fail.

By Tom Rawstorne
Last updated at 9:24 AM (UK Time) on 13th July 2009

Before he goes to sleep, Jack Briggs goes through his nightly ritual. First, he checks there is a knife within easy reach beside his bed and a baseball bat beneath it.

It has been the same routine ever since he ran away with his sweetheart, Zena, 17 years ago. She came from a Muslim family and was supposed to wed a cousin in an arranged marriage - not Jack, a white British man ten years her senior.

And so it was that, under threat of death, the couple fled their homes and have been in hiding ever since.

Now, for the first time, the Mail can reveal that the couple, who had battled not just prejudice but violence, have separated after the strain of so many years of clandestine existence finally proved too great. But remarkably, says Jack, that changes nothing. Their lives are still in danger.

‘The threat to me and Zena is still there, and I don’t think it will make a jot of difference when her family finds out that we have split up,’ he says. ‘In their eyes, the damage has been done.

‘It goes back to the whole honour-based culture. We have put a mark - a stain - on their family and it will never go away.

‘They believe it’s passed from generation to generation and the only way they can see how to lift it is through murder. It is terrible, but it is fact.’

For a couple whose extraordinary story has been likened to that of Romeo and Juliet, news that their marriage has broken down will come as a terrible shock to the legion of supporters who have followed their plight over the years.

They met and fell in love in 1992 in Leeds, when Zena was just 21. The British-born daughter of Pakistani immigrants, her father had decreed that she would marry a cousin when she came of age.

But then Jack came along (the couple met by chance when he was visiting his sister, who lived close to Zena) and from that moment on their lives would never be the same again.

Told that their relationship was a stain on the honour of Zena’s family, the couple were forced to go on the run amid a barrage of death threats.

These threats were taken so seriously by the police that they received protection from Special Branch, assumed numerous new identities and moved house no fewer than 30 times.

It is a terrible irony, then, that only when they stopped running did their relationship itself run into problems. Informed three years ago by detectives that there was no longer a ‘credible threat’ against them, Jack and Zena attempted to settle down.

But while Zena embraced the return to relative normality, Jack struggled to cope. A disagreement over a piece of furniture brought that fact into focus.

‘We’d been out and bought a wardrobe and then brought it back to our flat,’ explains 47-year-old Jack.

‘Once we’d got it in, I picked up our bags and dumped them in the bottom of the wardrobe and shut the doors. That’s what we always did, just in case we needed to make a quick getaway.

He is determined that no one else in this country will have to suffer in the same way that he and Zena have had to, warning that the practice of forced marriages and so-called honour killings continues to be a real problem.

Political correctness, he adds, is all that keeps it out of the headlines.

‘People still think this happens only in the back streets of Bradford, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Birmingham and places like that,’ says Jack.

‘It doesn’t - it happens in the sort of leafy suburbs where people will be sitting reading this paper.

‘It touches those who weren’t fortunate to have a good education, as well as those who have degrees. It is out there and it is simply not going to go away on its own.’

Many, no doubt, will find it hard to believe that anyone in 21st-century Britain could be forced to live under such a threat.

Or, indeed, that anyone could be so twisted as to harm someone they supposedly love for simply exercising their freedom or choice in whom they marry.

But the details of Jack and Zena’s life highlight a problem that police admit may have cost hundreds of young women their lives over the years. It should be pointed out that Zena did not come from a troubled, dysfunctional family.

‘But this time Zena stopped me, put her hand on my arm, and said: “No - we unpack the clothes now. This time we’re not going anywhere.”

THE REST OF THE STORY IS HERE

This is a long story as I’ve noted but suggest again that you read the rest as not all of it is posted.  But I do want to add this.

‘I was expecting them to be angry - but nothing like it was,’ says Jack. ‘I spoke to a brother who said, very coldly, very calmly, that when they found us we would end up in several bin liners.

‘He said: “I am selling my cars, my company, and I am going to hire a bounty hunter - you are dead, you are walking corpses.”’

As you see, there really isn’t talking to these sub human cave ppl from another time.

Posted by peiper     on 07/13/2009 at 03:33 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • RoPMA • Terrorists • UK •  
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   Sunday - July 12, 2009

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CEILING REFLECTED IN MIRROR

Up much later then usual for me and going through some photos I took looking for something for a project I’m putting together. Jeez, that’s a mouthful.
Anyway, I found this and thought it might be of interest.
Inside Winchester Cathedral (some of you may recall the song) there is a mirror mounted on a table that reflects the ceiling above.
So I got this shot but reduced the size for the site.  Hope it shows well on your screens.

The information listed below was taken from the cathedral website.  Of course there’s much more detailed info there if interested. Simply Google Winchester Cathedral. 

A new house is being built next door to us. No where near as impressive as the cathedral of course, but I just can’t help but wonder.  How in the world did those people build this beauty in 1079, or start anyway, without lifts and power tools and all the stuff the guys are using next door. And the stone. I’m blown away by things ancient and enjoy architecture provided it isn’t too modern. There was something about buildings like this ... don’t quite know how to describe it. I’m in awe of them. And the ppl who built and designed them.  I don’t think I really want to know all the exact details of how they did it.  I just accept it as magic of some kind. 

This place used to be within walking distance off this house. Nowadays I have to use the bus. Age is bothersome.

The Building

The foundations of the current Cathedral were laid by Bishop Walkelin in 1079 of stone brought from the Isle of Wight and timber from one of Hampshire’s oak forests. Most of the building has been restored, with only the crypt and transepts surviving. The east end was greatly extended to include the Retrochoir during the 13th century. The Nave was completely remodelled in around 1400 and since then, more minor alterations and the introduction of tombs, chapels and monuments have been a feature of every century.  The cathedral has the largest surviving area of 13th century medieval tiles in the country

Posted by peiper     on 07/12/2009 at 04:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Architecture • Blog Stuff • UK •  
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TRYING TO BREAK THE DARK MOOD WITH SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT HERE AND FOUND ….

I think I needed to lighten up a bit and looked for something to share that was funny after the gloom and doom stuff.
I can’t vouch for this being real, although the claim is they all are.  But even if they aren’t, they still amuse and that can’t be wrong.

I found this stuff here.  > http://www.ahajokes.com/dum13.html

Really Stupid People

Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.

A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other’s head.

A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film’s depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the film.

The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.

A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain.

Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.

A convict broke out of jail in Washington D.C., then a few days later accompanied his girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him paged. Police officers recognized his name and arrested him as he returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message “He’s lying” was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn’t telling the truth. Believing the “lie detector” was working, the suspect confessed.

When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police and was arrested.

A Los Angeles man who later said he was “tired of walking,” stole a steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.

Posted by peiper     on 07/12/2009 at 04:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Stoopid-People •  
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It just damn well doesn’t stop. Not for a day. Can’t believe I’m even posting this.

This is truly madness folks. I want to do ...  what exactly? I don’t know but it sure as hell bothers the life outta me.

I don’t care to post the entire article but it’s yours to read at the link.

This sort of thing happens so often here I find myself unable to express myself in words other then that of the most violent nature.
It’s simply beyond me how things have reached this point without the public rising up and forming vigilante groups. And even I can see the danger in that. But what else is there?  The law? The Law?  Really? Where? Punishment? When? How often?
Nuts!

Teacher knifed to death as she walked her dog

By Daily Mail Reporter
updated at 7:37 PM on 12th July 2009

A teacher was stabbed to death by a man who pounced on her as she walked her dog on playing fields.

Sally Garwood was knifed and killed in broad daylight as she took her family’s dog for an afternoon walk in a park in Buckinghamshire yesterday.

SOURCE

Dollars to donuts the bastard that did it won’t serve long, they’ll say he has a mental problem. We hear that so often after a crime like this. Too often.

Ppl with known problems like this need to be EUTHANIZED and sooner is better then later.  Screw the hand wringers.  Folks who show the first signs of this sort of behavior need to be put down.  And if as in a case like this they’ve stabbed someone to death, then that should be their penalty as well.

Very recently a 16 yr old boy was arrested for raping a young boy.  He has a record of this and yet he was out walking the streets 8 days after his arrest for another attack.  Seems he likes young boys. Authorities are aware of the creep and his record which isn’t a short one.

Surely you’d think if this place doesn’t like the death penalty, then the very least they should do is burn off his willy and see how the little shit likes that.
Oh, they can’t publish his name or show his photo due to his tender years and his “fuckin’ rights.”

Meanwhile ... a child killer/rapist is in jail and is suing the govt. over his right to vote.  That it has gone far enough to attract the attention of the press here show how very bad things are and how screwed up the system is. 

Makes me feel right at home, cause I know things aren’t a hell of a lot better there.

Posted by peiper     on 07/12/2009 at 02:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Outrageous • UK •  
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Too early to write off Sarah Palin. She will be back, says Leonard Doyle of The Telegraph.

Never did care for Letterman and never thought he was funny.  But apparently many think boring is funny so I’m in a minority or he wouldn’t have that job.

This was a long piece and so I didn’t post all of it. The rest is at the link below.

Sarah Palin may have quit as governor of Alaska, but after gauging the mood in Washington, Leonard Doyle says it’s too early to write her off

By Leonard Doyle
Published: 9:30PM BST 11 Jul 2009

Last Tuesday, Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin showed up on a beach in a fisherman’s bib and waders, hoping to clear the air about her decision to quit her job by the end of the month. But instead of providing the answer to whether she intends to launch a “Palin for President” bid for the White House in 2012, she became fodder for David Letterman, the late-night comedian.

“Is it just me, or is anybody else here having naughty thoughts about Sarah Palin in those waders?” he asked, pointing to endlessly looped footage of the telegenic governor clothed in rubber.

A few weeks ago he was advising her to update her “slutty flight-attendant look” and made an outrageous on-air sexual jibe about her daughter, which he later only half-apologised for.

When the jeering died down, it was not immediately clear whether Palin still had her eyes on the White House. Some of the governor’s friends believe her real aim is to develop a lucrative career on the lecture circuit, perhaps with her own TV talk show – indeed Levi Johnston, the estranged father of Palin’s grandchild, claimed last week that he had heard her talk several times of how nice it would be to take advantage
of the lucrative deals currently on offer. But her currency is based on the likelihood that she will declare herself as a presidential candidate some time next year.

And if anyone from small-town America can grow up to become president, surely it is Sarah Palin. She remains by far the most attractive woman in US politics. Even in her grungy, blood-streaked overalls, she cut a compelling figure for the cameras. But why she quit the top job with 18 months still left to serve remains a mystery.

Speaking to the journalist Andrea Mitchell, she said it was because she “loves Alaska”. She then complained bitterly of multiple and frivolous ethics investigations which had effectively paralysed her administration. The governor was also incensed at the growing mockery of her infant, Trig, who has Down’s syndrome.

America’s liberal elite chortled at the explanations. When someone pointed out that she shot her first rabbit on her back porch aged just 10, the media deemed that, at 45, she had shot herself in both feet.

More jeers were to follow every time the governor updated her thoughts on Twitter. In one early morning burst, she wrote: “Couple of thoughts for the day on beautiful bright AK morn: ‘You have to sacrifice to win. That’s my philosophy in six words.’ “

The governor’s BlackBerry produces half a dozen such haikus on any given day.

“Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy,” was how The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd summed up the situation. Vanity Fair magazine, the bible of America’s chattering classes, dissected what it called Governor Palin’s “narcissistic personality disorder”. On the cable news channel MSNBC, someone described Governor Palin as “incompetent”.

But it was Maureen Dowd’s spoof column, headlined “Sarah’s Secret Diary”, that captured the condescension in which so many sophisticates view her. “No one understands me. It’s like I’m speaking some Eskimo dialect or something,” Ms Dowd wrote, channelling Governor Palin’s style. “Andrea Mitchell follows me all the way to Kanakanak Beach and I get a French manicure and set up this huge photo op for her, even though she spooked the salmon.”

The liberal caricature of Governor Palin has previously been that she is a hopelessly erratic leader. Now she was being redefined as a “quitter” who could not stand the heat of political battle, and is therefore unfit for the Presidency.

The media is often a poor predictor of events in the US. It was slow to identify Barack Obama’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination and the Presidency. It completely missed the story of the global economic collapse. And thus predictions about the end of Sarah Palin’s political life seem premature.

Even though the Democrats believe they are unassailable in the face of a leaderless Republican Party, the country’s mood is fickle. There are signs that the tide is already turning against President Obama in some areas as he struggles to end the worst recession since the 1930s. In Iowa, a key bellwether state, his polling numbers are declining sharply.

THE REST OF THIS EDITORIAL HERE

Posted by peiper     on 07/12/2009 at 01:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Sarah Palin •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The Alaska governor’s resignation shows how shallow Republicans have become.  Oh Boy.

Yeah I know.  This is supposed to be a conservative site. But wait. 

Three major papers here have stories on her, all somewhat different slants with this being the harshest by far. I’m betting you haven’t read this article in the states, and I thought BMEWS should post it.  I thought you should see it and then have at it using I hope some logic instead of anger alone.
Truth to tell, I do not want to believe this. Any of it. But Andrew Sullivan seems to have done a bit of research. As a political writer he must scan speeches and attend his fair share of them as well.

I have read this fellow often, and this is the first time I’ve read anything like this by him. 

Is there food for thought here?  Look, I was one of many years ago who really did think Ross Perot was the answer.  I believed in him. I wasn’t alone. And look what happened. 

One thing is true and some of you have pointed it out as well.  The party seems to have a leadership problem these days.  It almost seems to be tossed by waves in the ocean going this way and that with no firm direction. Drew said it better, but you get the drift.

Question for you folks. Ya think there’s any truth to this? Even a little? Cause if there is, where does that leave us?

From The Sunday Times
July 12, 2009
Palin leads the right into a reality TV vortex

Andrew Sullivan

Writing about Sarah Palin always presents a quandary. Does one operate under the usual assumption that this is a rational figure, a serious politician, a rising Republican star . . . or do you acknowledge the copious evidence that she cannot tell the truth, has delusions of grandeur, has no policy record to speak of and quit her job as Alaska governor halfway through her first term because she is, in her own explanation, “not a quitter”? I think that you have to proceed under the assumption that this is a joke of a candidate and a symptom of a political party in the middle of a mental breakdown.

Mind you, I love the idea of Sarah Palin: a brassy, no-nonsense enemy of bloated government and corruption. That was probably John McCain’s rough idea of who she was in the five minutes his staff vetted her, and on the one occasion he’d met her, before offering her a chance to be leader of the free world. The idea of Sarah Palin, though, is sadly not the reality of Sarah Palin.

The reality of Sarah Palin is that politics is a means to her higher goal: celebrity. Every action she takes is designed to make sense . . . if you believe that government is really a version of a reality show. The remote, David Lynch-style location, the family often in trouble with the law, the pregnant teenage daughter and her impossibly handsome redneck boyfriend, the boyfriend’s angry sister, an ornery Alaskan trooper, a few moose and mysterious pregnancies . . . and, well, the mini-series never ends. The best guess I’ve heard of the real reason for her abrupt departure is: “I’m a celebrity . . . get me out of here!”

No one yet understands the real reason for a first-term governor just quitting on Friday, July 3, with no advance notice. If it were planned, why did her husband have to travel 300 miles to be there? Why do it all on a federal holiday before the Fourth of July? As Bubble from Absolutely Fabulous might note: “Who can say?”

A blog reader scanned every single governor of all the states for the past century to find precedents. There are plenty of examples of governors being arrested, being impeached or dying. But only two others in American history have just up and quit: Eliot Spitzer, New York governor, involved in a professional escort service after he had vowed to clean up the state; and Jim McGreevey, whose gay lover blackmailed him. Palin has quit for no apparent reason.

If it were to spend time with her family, it would be understandable, but she insists that’s not the case — and if you’re prepared to run for national office months after giving birth to an infant with Down’s syndrome, it’s a little odd to quit the governorship of a state when you have only a year and a half to go. It doesn’t make sense politically since it implies she could do the same thing at any moment in any future office. Why should anyone vote for someone who could quit for no good reason at any time?

But trying to makes sense of Sarah Palin is a fool’s errand. I spent a lot of time last year trying to figure out how her bizarre pregnancy story could make any sense at all — it doesn’t — and came up with nothing but a suspicion that large parts of it were made up. If you present the facts to Palin spokespeople, they seem offended and regard you as some liberal hater. But the facts reveal she lies all the time about almost everything and so is probably improvising about her reasons for resigning.

I’ve now compiled 32 incontrovertibly untrue statements of fact that she has uttered in the public record and never retracted. They are not the usual political lies — spinning or shading the truth; they are demonstrably, empirically untrue in the public record. Some are trivial: Palin said on television that she asked her daughters to vote on whether she should accept the vice-presidency offer; but that story contradicts details given by Palin herself, who said she accepted the offer on the spot.

Others are more serious: Palin lied when she said the dismissal of Walt Monegan, her public safety commissioner, had nothing to do with his refusal to fire Mike Wooten (her former brother-in-law, who was at war with her family) from his job as a state trooper; in fact, the Branchflower report concluded she repeatedly abused her power when dealing with both men.

Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed to have said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to the famous “bridge to nowhere”, an expensive, pork-barrel government project; in fact, she openly campaigned for the federal project when running for governor. I could go on. But the truth is, she’s a reality-show star vaulted to national prominence by a Republican party now so devoid of talent and desperate for some kind of support that it gambled on the political equivalent of Susan Boyle. One who couldn’t even sing.

My own bet is that there is another scandal out there that would have forced her resignation if she hadn’t pre-empted it. Yet as plausible is the simple notion uttered by the only person in the melodrama who seems halfway sane: Levi Johnston, the teenage father of Palin’s grandson: “I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars.” With a multi-million-dollar book deal, Palin can now become the darling of the right-wing media in America without the tedious duties of actually, you know, governing something. If the book contains scandals we have not yet learnt about, it could be explosively big in the mainstream; if it’s a hagiography, it could sell well with an adoring religious base.

And this helps explain the broader problem with American conservatism right now. It is less a movement than an industry. From Fox News to talk radio to conservative publishing houses, it has created an alternate and lucrative media reality that is worth a fortune to those able to exploit it. Alas, these alternative media thrive on paranoia, hatred of liberal elites and growing extremist rhetoric made worse by a hermetically sealed echo chamber of true believers. Anyone criticised by the left or even by the establishment right is a martyr in this world. In America, martyrdom sells. And Palin is a product worth lots of money.

She wants some of it; and she has no actual interest in governing America (even though she’d love the title of president). She referred to giving up her “title” as governor, not her “office”. In this, she is the ultimate Republican of this degenerate moment: all culture war, no policy; all identity politics, no engagement with practical answers to difficult public problems; and all hysterical opposition to Barack Obama, no actual alternatives offered.

Since even epic scandals heighten celebrity rather than diminish it, Palin’s future is secure. Her party’s? Getting bleaker by the day.

http://www.andrewsullivan.com

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 07/12/2009 at 01:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Sarah Palin •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Muslim who justified killing British troops back at Treasury. Naturally. It’s one of his many rights

While on my way to post another story I found this at the Telegraph and HAD to post it.
I can’t make up my mind if this is a moonbat thing which in a sense of course it is.  Or maybe there’s something not being reported and more to come.
Hmm. kay. I’ll give it one for now but it isn’t funny.

btw ... If anyone understand this, please explain it to me. Or maybe not as the answer might make me crazy.

A personal side note > Turtler.  See why I’m swimming off the deep end?  Look at this.  Aaaagggggggg!

Azad Ali, a Muslim civil servant suspended after comments appeared on his personal website justifying the killing of British troops in Iraq, has returned to work at the Treasury.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent
Published: 4:32PM BST 12 Jul 2009

Ali, an IT worker and president of the Civil Service Islamic Society, was suspended on full pay for six months following comments on his blog.

In one post Mr Ali said he found ‘much truth’ in an interview with an Islamic militant who said: “If I saw an American or British man wearing a soldier’s uniform inside Iraq I would kill him because that is my obligation.

“If I found the same soldier in Jordan I wouldn’t touch him. In Iraq he is a fighter and an occupier, here he is not. I respect this as the main instruction in my religion for jihad.”

He also criticised the British Government for failing to condemn the “Zionist terrorist state of Israel” during the Gaza crisis and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, for condemning Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar after he said Jewish children were “legitimate targets”.

Mr Ali also mocked the official representatives of moderate British “Muslims” who support the Government, calling them “self-serving vultures, feeding on the dead flesh of the Palestinians”.

The Civil Service Islamic Society’s official website declares that it is bound by strict rules which say Whitehall special interest groups must be “non-partisan and non-political” and act with “honesty, impartiality and integrity”.

But the comments came on his personal blog, which highlighted his civil service role and provided a link to the Whitehall website.

Sir Gus O’Donnell, Britain’s most senior civil servant and patron of the Civil Service Islamic Society, ordered that Mr Ali be suspended while an investigation was carried out amid concerns that Mr Ali may have breached the Whitehall code of practice that restricts civil servants from political activities.

The investigation has now finished and Mr Ali has returned to his job.

A Treasury spokesman said: “Azad Ali is back at work. The Treasury has dealt with the matter in accordance with our disciplinary procedures. We will not comment on individual cases.”

Mr Ali refused to comment.

SOURCE

Doesn’t take a genius IQ to read between his lines.  And the Brits trust this guy?

Posted by peiper     on 07/12/2009 at 12:25 PM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists • UK •  
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   Saturday - July 11, 2009

Oh Shut Up

I was going to put up a little post mentioning how it’s raining again here, but with lots of thunder and lightning. A real ‘Hudson Valley Rumbler’. I grew up in the lower Hudson River Valley, and the area is pretty notorious for big thunder. Always has been - remember Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and the sound of the old Dutchmen bowling for ninepins? Same locale. And that’s the kind of storm we’re having here tonight. What the heck, we had 4 days without rain I think.

But just to check on the world, I pulled up FoxNews, and saw this story ... and realized I haven’t put an actual moonbat post up in quite a while. I think this one qualifies. She’s just a little moonbat, still in training.

Texting Teen Falls Down Open NYC Manhole

A New York City teenager says she was text messaging while walking down the street — and the next second she was down a manhole.

Alexa Longueira was walking down a Staten Island block and was getting ready to text message when she fell into an open sewer manhole, MyFOX NY reports.

Longueira suffered mild cuts and bruises and is expected to recover.

The teen’s mother says workers told her they left the manhole open and unattended for just seconds while they went to fetch some cones from their truck.

The Department of Environmental Protection says it is investigating.

“DEP is conducting a full investigation of what happened during a manhole incident on Victory Boulevard where workers were flushing a high-pressure sewer on Wednesday evening,” said Mercedes Padilla, of the DEP. “We regret that this happened and wish the young woman a speedy recovery.”

Alexa’s mom says it doesn’t matter that her daughter was text-messaging, the manhole should not have been left open.

The Longueira family says they plan on filing a lawsuit.

Yup, you walk down the street - not on the sidewalk, but out in the street - totally focused on your cellphone, not looking where you’re going, and fall in a hole. And it’s somebody else’s fault, so sue.

Personal responsibility? Situational awareness? A quarter microgram of common sense? These things are unknown in moonbat land. Big government’s job is to protect you 24 - 7, every day of your life. And you get loads of free money from the Infinite Money Tree when they don’t.

Please, please, please let me be on the jury. I really need the laughs.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/11/2009 at 09:28 PM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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