Algerian web pirates 2,000 miles astray in siege of Belvoir Castle
One of Britain’s best-known castles fell victim to a band of hapless Middle-Eastern “cyber-pirates” last week after they mistook it for a Crusader fortress of the same name more than 2,000 miles away.
By Heidi Blake
01 Sep 2010

Belvoir Castle, the family seat of the 11th Duke of Rutland, was mistakenly targeted by a subversive group of Algerian hackers who confused its website with that of Belvoir Fortress in Israel.

The hackers hijacked the castle’s homepage and replaced images of the stately home nestled in rolling Leicestershire countryside with a black page displaying the Algerian flag and a tirade against the Jewish state in Arabic.

Belvoir Fortress became a stronghold of the Christian military order of the Knights Hospitaller in 1168, when it was erected to fend off Muslim forces attacking the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the east.

It returned to Muslim control in the 13th Century, but was abandoned after a bloody assault by Israeli forces on the surrounding village of Kawkab al-Hawa in 1948.

By contrast, Belvoir Castle was a Royalist stronghold in the English Civil War and now holds an annual teddy bears’ picnic in its 15,000-acre gardens.

An Algerian subversive group called the Dz-SeC claimed responsibility for the cyber attack, which occurred on Friday afternoon, writing in Arabic on the castle’s website: "The cause of this hack is Israel's presence.”

The message added: "Internet law does not protect the ignorant. Thank you to all the pirates of Algeria." ...






The UK Belvoir is pronounced 'beaver' which is also 0_o -inducing.

[brilliant snooty English butler]Sir, a Mr Darwin is now on the telephone for you, Sir.[/brilliant snooty English butler]


Ta much, dear Glenn321

Robber nabbed after mocking police in email
Wed Aug 18, 2010

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German bank robber led his pursuers straight to him after taunting police in an email over their efforts to catch him.

Authorities in the southern city of Wuerzburg said on Wednesday the 19-year-old sent emails to police and two newspapers to point out factual errors in the report of his bank raid in the town of Roettingen a week ago.

According to daily Bild, he mocked the police for getting his age, height and accent wrong then pointed out he escaped in a car, not on foot.

"His game of cat and mouse went all wrong," a Wuerzburg police spokesman said.

Police traced his email and arrested him in a gambling hall in Hamburg just a few hours later. ...



[brilliant snooty English butler]Sir? A Mr Darwin is ringing to enquire whether he may contact Sir whilst Sir is in gaol, Sir.[/brilliant snooty English butler]

Ta much, dear BrightKnight

Ta much, dear Ar0cketman...I think.....

[brilliant snooty English butler]Pardon me, sirs, but a Mr Darwin is calling and would like a word. Shall I ask him to ring back once the bandages have been removed from your visages? Very good, sirs.
Thank you, sirs.[/brilliant snooty English butler]

Ta much, dear Anneliese

McInnis' articles for foundation lift ideas, words from 20-year-old essay
By Karen E. Crummy
The Denver Post
Posted: 07/13/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 07/13/2010 02:57:26 PM MDT

Although GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis presented his "Musings on Water" for publication as original works, portions are identical and nearly identical to an essay on water written 20 years earlier by now-Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory J. Hobbs.

A Clemson University expert who reviewed McInnis' work next to Hobbs' essay called it a clear case of plagiarism of both words and ideas.

McInnis' water articles were a required part of his two-year fellowship at the Hasan Family Foundation in 2005 and 2006. The former congressman, who left office in 2004, was paid $300,000 to do speaking engagements and "research and write a monthly article on water issues that can be distributed to media and organizations as well as be available on the Internet."

Totaling 150 pages over 23 installments, the articles discussing state water policy are devoid of footnotes, endnotes or other forms of attribution.

In at least four of those articles, McInnis' work mirrors Hobbs' 1984 essay published by the Colorado Water Congress, "Green Mountain Reservoir: Lock or Key?"

In one of his installments of the musings, titled "Pumpbacks and Roundtables," McInnis uses four full pages that are nearly reprinted verbatim from Hobbs' earlier work. ...

McInnis's Colo. gubernatorial bid derailed by plagiarism charges
By Aaron Blake
July 14, 2010; 3:06 PM ET

Former Rep. Scott McInnis's (R-Colo.) gubernatorial campaign is in a fight for its life as charges of plagiarism have led to questions of whether McInnis can stay in the race.

Republicans in Colorado say he's a dead man walking, and they are exploring the ins and outs of how to get another nominee.

The Denver Post this week uncovered two examples of alleged plagiarism by McInnis -- one in papers McInnis wrote for a fellowship a few years ago and another in a Washington Post column and speech he delivered in 1994.

Sources in Colorado Republican circles say it's likely a matter of when, not if, McInnis will exit the race.

"Almost without exception, they think he is done," said one senior Colorado Republican who spoke on the condition that his name not be used.

"He may be the last one to know it, but he's dead in the water," said another. "It's likely he will resist heavily, but at some point he's got to realize this is a fact of life." ...

McInnis should throw in the towel
After revelations of plagiarism and other cases of questionable judgment, it's clear the GOP candidate is not fit to be governor.
By The Denver Post
Posted: 07/14/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT

Revelations of extensive plagiarism in work that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis claimed as his own call into question his fitness for public office.

The lifted work, examined in The Denver Post, constitutes inexcusable intellectual thievery. It is so damaging that we believe McInnis ought to drop out of the race.

Colorado's next governor should be a person of integrity, a trusted hand to lead the state through difficult times.

The Post revealed in Tuesday's paper that McInnis was paid to write essays on water in 2005 and 2006 yet turned in writings that had been plagiarized. Now we learn he did the same thing in a 1994 op-ed in the Rocky Mountain News.

We were astonished Tuesday to hear McInnis, in an interview with 9News, call the revelations over his water essays a "non-issue." Later, he did tell us he had made a mistake and that he should have checked the material. Yes, he should have.

The Hasan Family Foundation paid McInnis $300,000 over two years to give talks on water issues and write original, monthly articles on the topic. The plagiarism detailed by Post reporter Karen E. Crummy is extensive.

McInnis says he hired a consultant to serve as an expert for the writings. Yet the foundation hired McInnis as the expert, and McInnis' work never mentioned the help of anyone else. It was presented as his own.

The written work he submitted to the foundation included numerous instances of passages that were copied, with few changes, from scholarly work originated by Gregory J. Hobbs, who is now a Colorado Supreme Court justice.

The former congressman was paid handsomely for work that he said was "original and not reprinted from any other source." It was McInnis' obligation to ensure that was true.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we've had questions about McInnis' judgment. ...

Researcher: CO gov. campaign trying to pass blame
By STEVEN K. PAULSON
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 15, 2010; 12:40 AM

DENVER -- A researcher who Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis blamed for plagiarism allegations says he won't sign a letter from the campaign owning up to what happened because he claims McInnis is lying.

Researcher Rolly Fischer told KMGH-TV in an interview Wednesday that McInnis' campaign sent him a letter to sign in which Fischer would say the alleged plagiarism was "solely my own." A McInnis spokesman didn't immediately return a call for comment. ...

Privacy? Ummmm...

6. teabagger

A misinformed, right-wing corporate media consumer who often fails to understand that BOTH major parties represent a corrupt plutocracy that steals from the middle class by taxing labor and profiting from corporate tax subsidies.

A teabagger also often fails to acknowledge that George W. Bush and his neo-conservative minions perpetrated one of the boldest and most egregious executive power grabs in the history of the United States. Furthermore, teabaggers mistakenly continue to blame a newly elected President Obama for all that ails the United States of America, based on a grossly flawed perception of reality (including latent racial prejudice) and despite the fact the U.S. economy collapsed on the previous administration's watch.

Teabaggers are also known to base their misguided, right-wing-media-inspired beliefs about President Obama on stupid conspiracy theories about totalitarian takeovers, FEMA camps, etc., despite the fact these very same theories have been circulating around on the Internet for years, and were originally ascribed to neo-conservative cabalists at a time when Barack Obama had not even entered national politics. Teabaggers also are known to be particularly paranoid, xenophobic and intolerant, especially with regard to immigrants and anyone who isn't white.

Additionally, teabaggers generally echo stupid myths about entitlement spending (it actually only accounts for about 1% of federal budget spending), have no idea that most poor people in America are not lazy, actually do work and don't want to be on welfare, and have no idea what socialism actually means or that socialist reform in this country is actually what allowed a middle class to flourish and ultimately make the U.S. one of the most prosperous nations in human history.

Furthermore, teabaggers incorrectly equate socialism with Stalinism, think a system that rewards greed (capitalism) is the divine preference (despite Gospel evidence to the contrary), and are shameless champions of a misguided belief in American exceptionalism. Teabaggers also fail to recognize the inherently unpatriotic nature of their failed every-man-for-himself ideology that ultimately vilifies anyone who supports public policy aimed at reaching out to fellow Americans in need. They celebrate an exploitative corporatocracy (holy creator of jobs, blah blah blah) while denigrating the little guy for being "weak."

Interestingly, teabaggers uphold an immoral, morbidly obese, twice divorced, draft-dodging, college dropout and known drug addict as their de facto leader, and are even known to advocate burning books. Of course, teabaggers fail to recognize the blatant hypocrisy within the GOP and tend to oversimplify all political debate and social issues, much like their pseudo-intellectual, fat-ass leader.

Finally, incredibly, teabaggers fail to recognize the hysterical double entendre associated with their proudly adopted teabag moniker.

Every village has its idiots, of course, but it's sad when citizens of any nation allow themselves to be whipped into a frenzy en masse by a state-run propaganda machine masquerading as a legitimate, fair, balanced and independent news organization. Teabaggers are right to believe the future of the U.S.A. is in jeopardy, but sadly they have not yet correctly identified the real enemy. Perhaps when teabaggers finally grow up and mature into thinking adults, they will see the right-leaning power establishment for the oppressive and cunning beast that it is.

Teabagger: We don't care that George Bush tripled the deficit and lied us into a war. The new administration only cut taxes for 90% of the population... fascists. Let's go throw some Lipton tea bags into a fountain!

tags: brainwashed misfit idiot fool foxlover
by deepshot Apr 20, 2009


Ta much, dear MSiegel

see more Political Pictures

Grow a Brian, Morans!

Ta much, dear Anneliese

... She was born on February 2, three weeks after the failed revolution of 1905. Her parents were Jewish. They lived in St. Petersburg, a city long governed by hatred of the Jews. By 1914 its register of anti-Semitic restrictions ran to nearly 1,000 pages, including one statute limiting Jews to no more than 2 percent of the population. They named her Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum.

When she was 4 or 5 she asked her mother if she could have a blouse like the one her cousins wore. Her mother said no. She asked for a cup of tea like the one being served to the grown-ups. Again her mother said no. She wondered why she couldn't have what she wanted.* Someday, she vowed, she would. In later life, Rand would make much of this experience. Heller does too: "The elaborate and controversial philosophical system she went on to create in her forties and fifties was, at its heart, an answer to this question and a memorialization of this project."

The story, as told, is pure Rand. There's the focus on a single incident as portent or precipitant of dramatic fate. There's the elevation of childhood commonplace to grand philosophy. What child, after all, hasn't bridled at being denied what she wants? Though Rand seems to have taken youthful selfishness to its outermost limits—as a child she disliked Robin Hood; as a teenager she watched her family nearly starve while she treated herself to the theater—her solipsism was neither so rare nor so precious as to warrant more than the usual amount of adolescent self-absorption. There is, finally, the inadvertent revelation that one's worldview constitutes little more than a case of arrested development. "It is not that chewing gum undermines metaphysics," Max Horkheimer once wrote about mass culture, "but that it is metaphysics—this is what must be made clear." Rand made it very, very clear.

But the anecdote suggests something additionally distinctive about Rand. Not her opinions or tastes, which were middlebrow and conventional. Rand claimed Victor Hugo as her primary inspiration in matters of fiction; Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac was another touchstone. She deemed Rachmaninoff superior to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. She was offended by a reviewer's admittedly foolish comparison of The Fountainhead to The Magic Mountain. Mann, Rand thought, was the inferior author, as was Solzhenitsyn. ...

...what truly distinguished Rand was her ability to translate her sense of self into reality, to will her imagined identity into material fact. Not by being great but by persuading others, even shrewd biographers, that she was great. Heller, for example, repeatedly praises Rand's "original, razor sharp mind" and "lightning-quick logic," making one wonder if she's read any of Rand's work. She claims that Rand was able "to write more persuasively from a male point of view than any female writer since George Eliot." Does Heller really believe that Roark or Galt is more credible or persuasive than Lawrence Selden or Newland Archer? Or little James Ramsay, who seems to have acquired more psychic depth in his six years than any of Rand's protagonists, male or female, demonstrate throughout their entire lives? ...

...Rather than remake the world in the image of paradise, she looked for paradise in an image of the world. Political transformation wasn't necessary. Transubstantiation was enough. Say a few words, wave your hands and the ideal is real, the metaphor material. An idealist of the most primitive sort, Rand took a century of socialist dichotomies and flattened them. Small wonder so many have accused her of intolerance: when heaven and earth are pressed so closely together, where is there room for dissent?

Far from needing explanation, Rand's success explains itself. Rand worked in that quintessential American proving ground—alongside the likes of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Glenn Beck—where garbage achieves gravitas and bullshit gets blessed. There she learned that dreams don't come true. They are true. Turn your metaphysics into chewing gum, and your chewing gum is metaphysics. A is A.





*No wonder it was such a damn selfish, illogical c***.

... From: HSBC BANK [benno209@gmail.com]

Dear valued customer Incidentally,there is an emergency shortlited varified problem in your account which there is a need to restore Pls send us all the enqiures of your bank account so that the varified problem will be entirely and stupidiously retrieve. Thanks for banking with us

And that represents the entire content of the email. No graphics, no links, nothing, save some exceptional English and a truly stupidious gmail addy. Make no mistake, this classic has been shortlited for bone-idle scam email of the year.

As the federal and congressional probes continue into the causes of the Gulf oil rig explosion, new information is coming to light about the failure of a key device, the blowout preventer, to shut off the gushing well, which could have prevented the growing catastrophe.

And new questions are being raised about the testing of the preventers. At today's hearing before a House subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., revealed that the blowout preventer had a leak in a crucial hydraulic system and had failed a negative pressure test just hours before the April 20 explosion. And at a hearing in Louisiana on Tuesday, the government engineer who gave oil giant BP the final approval to drill admitted that he never asked for proof that the preventer worked.

In addition, an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.

Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP.

As he describes it, the test involves a chart that shows whether the device will hold a certain amount of pressure for five minutes on each valve. (The test involves increasing the pressure from 250 pounds per square-inch (psi) to 5,000 psi.) "Sometimes, they would put their finger on the chart and slide it ahead -- so that it only recorded the pressure for 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes," he tells HuffPost.

Mason claims that a BP representative was usually present while subcontractors performed the tests. ...



Ta much, dear Zaxy

The Detroit City Council assailed Mayor Dave Bing's proposed budget Wednesday as being rife with charter violations, such as billing city departments for the cost of his administration appointees.

Administration officials acknowledged making some errors, and promised to have changes sent back to the council by Friday. But they insisted the city must fundamentally change the way it operates to climb out of its financial hole.

Discussions between Bing's staff and council members got contentious at times during a hearing Wednesday.

Councilman Andre Spivey called it a "slap in the face" to Detroiters that the mayor's appointees' salaries are in the top of their compensation range. He said the administration was charging costs for five appointees to the city departments they oversee, supplementing their salaries with grants and enterprise funds.

"Think about the folks at the bottom of the rung here," Spivey said.

City Budget Director Pam Scales said only a portion of grant funding allocated for administrative costs was used to supplement appointee salaries.

The city charter requires that salaries for mayoral appointees be included in the mayor's office budget. ...

... So, let's get this straight: Palin is more than happy to utilise the contents of stolen emails to score political points when it suits her own cause – in this case, attacking the "radical environmental movement" – but finds it "repugnant" when her own privacy is invaded "for political gain"? Why was she not calling in her article for whoever stole (hacked, leaked, whatever) the UEA emails to face a "just" punishment instead of jumping up and down with glee at their politically convenient content?

Hypocrisy? You betcha.

Muslim driver fined for wearing veil
Woman, 31, accuses French police of attacking her freedom after she was fined for wearing a niqab while driving in Nantes
Lizzy Davies
Friday 23 April 2010

A Muslim woman has accused French police of attacking her freedom after she was fined for wearing a niqab while driving in the city of Nantes.

The 31-year-old, who says she has worn the full veil for nine years and never been told not to wear it behind the wheel, was flagged down by two police officers and told that her niqab – which did not cover her eyes – was a safety risk.

"My eyes were not covered. I can see just like you and my field of vision was not obstructed," [Ed. Note: Yeah, suuurrrrre!] the woman, whose name has not been reported, said.

She was fined €22 by the officers, who argued she was infringing the highway code by "driving in unsuitable conditions". ...

Beneath the veneer of the Conservatives' people power

What these slick PR operators are really offering is deep cuts, lower taxes for the rich and sweeping Thatcherite privatisation

Ta much, dear MSiegel

Unemployment benefits and GOP principle
Michael Tomasky Monday 5 April 2010

... You may remember a few weeks ago that it was Republican Senator Jim Bunning who held up extension of these benefits because the Senate wasn't coming up to any way to pay for them and make the extension deficit neutral thereby. This time around it's Oklahoma's Tom Coburn:

"The legitimate debate is whether we borrow and steal from our kids or we get out of town and send the bill to our kids for something that we're going to consume today," Coburn said on the Senate floor.

The cost is $10 billion, so I can see that if you're concerned about the deficit it's a fair point. But here's the thing that gets me.

Somehow, Republicans don't manage to raise these objections about deficit neutrality when the question involves tax cuts heavily weighted toward the rich. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 increased the deficit. I don't remember many Republican protestations about that. As you can see from this roll-call vote from 2006, extending the tax cuts (well after their deficit-augmenting reality was known), all 51 (at the time) Republican senators voted for them, Coburn and Bunning among them.

Rich people are rich because they're good, so by definition the deficit isn't their fault. Working-class unemployed people, well, hard luck.

When rightwing hate goes mainstream
The Republican party is indulging extremists, hoping they'll put down their guns long enough to vote for them this November
Dan Kennedy
Wednesday 7 April 2010

... The first warning came a year ago, when the department of homeland security predicted a rise in rightwing extremism fuelled by economic calamity and the election of our first black president. News of the report, and especially about a warning contained therein that military veterans might be pulled into the movement, set off criticism among conservative bloggers. Yet it proved prescient.

The most recent and oddest manifestation was last week's arrest of nine people involved in what authorities have referred to as a "Christian militia" intent on sparking revolution. But there have been other examples, each treated by the media as isolated incidents. The murder of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, whose killer was sentenced to life in prison last week. The pilot who crashed his plane into an Internal Revenue Service facility in Austin, Texas, in February. Protesters whipped into a frenzy during the healthcare debate who yelled racist and homophobic slurs at members of Congress, who spat upon one and who phoned in threats of violence.

According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, the number of rightwing extremist groups has risen exponentially during the past 18 months. And in an interview with National Public Radio's On the Media last week, he was unstinting in placing at least some of the blame for that with their enablers in the Republican party and in the media....

April 8, 2010
Totalitarian drab is à la mode as Kim Jong Il is hailed a fashion arbiter

Kim Jong Il’s trademark suit is in vogue across the world thanks to the North Korean leader’s greatness, according to the official government website.

Uriminzokkiri.com said: “The august image of the Great General, who is always wearing the modest suit while working, leaves a deep impression on people’s minds in the world. That is because his image as a great man is so outstanding.”

The article quoted an unidentified French fashion expert as saying that the North Korean leader’s style was followed internationally. “Kim Jong Il mode, which is spreading expeditiously worldwide, is unprecedented in history,” the stylist said. ...

New nuke policy and old political idiocy

Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton just announced the new US nuclear policy, which is a middle-of-the-road kind of thing in which we say we won't use nukes against non-nuke countries unless they're Iran.

On top of this of course, Obama is going to Prague Thursday to sign a new treaty with Medvedev to reduce nuclear stockpiles.

Needless to say, in Republicanland, all this means Obama is the Disarmer-in-Chief who wants the terrorists to win or whatever nonsense they're cooking up. Here, for example, is Rudy Giuliani:

President Obama's revamping of American nuclear policy is the mark of an "inept" leader intent on living a "left-wing dream," says Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, in an interview with National Review Online. "A nuclear-free world has been a 60-year dream of the Left, just like socialized health-care. This new policy, like Obama's government-run health program, is a big step in that direction."

"President Obama thinks we can all hold hands, sing songs, and have peace symbols," Giuliani says. "North Korea and Iran are not singing along with the president. Knowing that, it just doesn't make sense why we would reduce our nuclear arms when we face these threats."

Every hallmark of irresponsible right-wing posturing exists in those words, and it's this kind of thing that has driven the polarization in this country to such awful extremes.

If Giuliani -- who you'll notice tried to be president but is in fact not -- can guess the US nuclear stockpile within 1,000, I'd be surprised (it's about 5,700 in the active stockpile). He also probably conveniently forgets, if he ever knew, that just 18 or so years ago, we had about 24,000 active warheads. ...

Police accused of trespass after 'burgling' 50 homes... to show owners how insecure they are
By Luke Salkeld
30th March 2010

When it comes to fighting crime, a certain understanding of the criminal mind is essential.

But the police have been criticised for their attempts to prevent a spate of house thefts - by committing the burglaries themselves.

Officers have been entering private homes through open windows or unlocked doors, supposedly as a warning to residents about a lack of security. ...



Wow. Warrantless co pigs rooting round in peoples' homes, eh? Jolly good show, idiots.

Ta much, dear Edosan

The Republican chairman, Michael Steele, promised on taking office that he would bring the party to corners of America it had not reached before. It is a fair bet that most Republicans did not expect these corners to include the Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage and S&M club in Los Angeles.

It emerged today that the Republicans spent almost $2,000 last month on a visit to the club where topless women hang from nets on the ceiling and simulate sex in a glass case.

The lavish spending will anger grassroots Republicans who are bombarded almost every day with more requests for contributions to help the cash-strapped party. A Republican National Committee spokesman said that it was looking into the matter. It insisted Steele was not at the club, but did not identify who had spent the money.

Such extravagance, in a time of recession and by the party that bills itself as fiscally conservative and reflecting family and Christian values, will renew questions about Steele's leadership.

The spending is disclosed in a Republican filing, as required by US law, to the Federal Election Commission.

It says that $1,946.25 (£1,300) was spent on 4 February for meals at the Voyeur West Hollywood by the Republican National Committee. ...

Kindly note that Mr Muntz is laughing at the insurance company, and the idiot who crashed it.

The car itself having been crashed makes Nelson and I make small, hurt-animal noises.

Robbers 'called ahead to bank to get money to go'
Two would-be robbers called a bank ahead and demanded that the cash be ready for them when they arrived, Connecticut officials said, giving police ample time to get to the scene.
24 Mar 2010

The pair called the People's United Bank branch in Fairfield, Connecticut, threatening to create a "blood bath" if there was not a bag of money waiting for them when they arrived.

But they were intercepted by police, who were already waiting on the scene when the young men arrived.

Police arrested 27-year-old Albert Bailey and an unidentified 16-year-old boy on robbery charges on Tuesday afternoon.

Sgt James Perez said the two Bridgeport residents turned up at the bank about 10 minutes after making the call and were met by police in the bank's car park.

Sgt Perez told the Connecticut Post that, in his opinion, the suspects were "not too bright". ...



Epic Fail!

{This fancy font available here}

Disputed Bay of Bengal island disappears into sea
An island that has been at the centre of a dispute between India and Bangladesh for three decades has disappeared beneath rising seas
24 Mar 2010

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said Sugata Hazra, a professor of oceanography at Jadavpur University, in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Mr Hazra.

Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.

Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 0.12 inches a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 0.2 inches annually, he said.

Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well, Mr Hazra said. ...

... In the bullpen tonight Jim Pagliaroni was telling us how Ted Williams, when he was still playing, would psyche himself up for a game during batting practice, usually early practice before the fans or reporters got there.

He’d go into the cage, wave his bat at the pitcher and start screaming at the top of his voice, “My name is Ted fucking Williams and I’m the greatest hitter in baseball.”

He’d swing and hit a line drive.

“Jesus H. Christ Himself couldn’t get me out.”

And he’d hit another.

Then he’d say, “Here comes Jim Bunning. Jim fucking Bunning and that little shit slider of his.”

Wham!

“He doesn’t really think he’s gonna get me out with that shit.”

Blam!

“I’m Ted fucking Williams.”

Sock!




Mr Bouton also points out that Mr Williams was fond of calling himself Mr Baseball, Teddy Baseball, and Teddy fucking Baseball of the MFL (Major Fucking League).

The US Senate was stuck behind a roadblock in the person of Jim Bunning, the Republican senator from Kentucky who who used Senate procedural rules to shut down its business.

Aside from being a politician of eccentric views, and not highly popular among Republicans, Bunning is best known as a skilled major league baseball pitcher of the 1950s and 1960s. He may not have been one of the great pitchers – measured by the standards of Warren Spahn or Bob Gibson, say – but he has the distinction of being one of the few players to ever pitch a perfect game in the majors. (A perfect game being one where no opposing batter reaches first base.)

There are more details of Bunning's baseball career here – including Bunning's appearance in the best book about baseball ever written, Ball Four, by Jim Bouton ...

The US Senate is known as the body where legislation goes to die, and a Republican senator from Kentucky has spent several days illustrating that point at the expense of nearly 500,000 out-of-work Americans.

Since last week Senator Jim Bunning [an ex-baseball player] has used his privilege under the chamber's parliamentary rules to hold up a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits, health insurance assistance, funding for road and infrastructure projects across the country, and other aid.

In exchange for lifting his objections he demands the senate come up with a way to pay for the $10bn extension package by reducing spending elsewhere, eliciting scoffs from Democrats who note that he voted for President Bush's $1.7tn tax cuts for the wealthy.

Nearly every major item on President Barack Obama's agenda, from health insurance reform to cap-and-trade climate regulation, has stalled in the Senate after passing the House of Representatives. ...

Minnesota GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty joined the teleprompter wing of Republican Hypocrisy Caucus during his speech at CPAC on Friday when he used a teleprompter to promulgate the hoax that Pres. Obama uses teleprompters more than other politicians. Worse, however, Pawlenty’s attack against the president was quickly determined to be a lie:

“President Obama was in a grade school classroom speaking to elementary school children and he was using a teleprompter,” Pawlenty said Friday in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he added. “That’s not a joke. That’s a real story.”

Actually, it’s not. The tale spread by bloggers over the Internet and in some media, including the Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart, blended together two Obama appearances Jan. 19 at the Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia, to make it appear he used the teleprompter when speaking to a classroom of 30 pupils.

In reality, Obama sat on a chair and spoke with the pupils without the device.

In a different classroom, he used the teleprompter to give scripted remarks on education to television cameras.

At CPAC just one day earlier, Marco Rubio, Florida’s tea bagger candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, read what was supposed to be a joke about Obama and teleprompters from a teleprompter.

But neither of these new members of the GOP Hypocrisy Caucus can hold a candle to the chairwoman, Sarah Palin, whose promotion of the Obama teleprompter hoax at the tea bagger ball in Nashville earlier this month prompted us to catalog 20 separate incidents in which she used teleprompters during her campaign for vice president in 2008.

A man facing the first major criminal trial to take place without a jury in England in 400 years was being hunted by police today after he went on the run from court.

Peter Blake, who police warn is dangerous and has previously had access to firearms, was reported missing just after the lunch break at the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday. ...

A suspected armed robber who was on trial for a £1.75m heist in a historic criminal case without a jury has gone on the run.

Peter Blake, 57, apparently walked out of the high court in London in the midst of his trial yesterday.

Blake and three co-defendants were being tried without a jury after the prosecution and police alleged the jury in the previous Old Bailey trial had been harassed.

The escape of Blake is the latest in a series of setbacks in the investigation and prosecution of suspects for the 2004 heist at a warehouse near Heathrow. There have been three criminal trials and more than £20m has been spent, but no one has been convicted of the robbery.

During the third trial last year, the judge halted proceedings over claims from the prosecution that the jury had been interfered with. The court of appeal ruled that in the face of threats to a future potential jury the four men should be tried without a jury – the first such trial in England for 400 years. ...

Ta much, dear Anneliese

One in three members of the public matched a picture of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, with the name of Peter Griffin, the protagonist of the cartoon sitcom.

The survey of 1,498 people found more were able to identify a picture of Alex Reid, the new husband of Katie Price, than recognised Gordon Brown, the prime minister. ...

Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Correction

A story on Page 1 of Tuesday’s Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was “off the record.” However, the explanation about the talk being “off the record” was, it turns out, also “off the record” and should not have been quoted.



Ta much, dear Edosan, for that amusi bemusing bit of enlightenment.

Can you say, "Disbar"?

I knew you could.

Ta much, dear Ar0cketman

... J-Press: They really did it.
J-Press: They called it the iPad.
J-Coen: I'd laugh if it weren't so gross.
J-Press: It's been so long in the making. Months. Years. Lifetimes. How could they make such a silly, foolish, human error?
J-Coen: Obviously they have no women involved in their decision-making process.
J-Coen:: Silly Apple — pads are for writing or menstruating. Not for finger-sliding.
J-Press: This is going to be so awkward.

J-Press: There's going to be a huge female backlash and they're going to have to backtrack and change it. Like Beaver, the official magazine of Canada.
J-Press: Or Beaver College. ...

... J-Press: You can go everywhere with it, but NOT IN THE POOL!
J-Coen: And then eventually people will start saying things like, "I can't believe you're still using the iPad."
J-Press: "Don't you know they have this new version that's so small and compact, you can insert it right up your vagina? It's called the iPon!"
J-Coen: Though young girls might want to wait a few years before trying that one.


Yup. They really thought that one through well, innit.

Ta much, dear Edosan

Ministry of Justice lists eco-activists alongside terrorists

• Campaigners lumped in with al-Qaida and far right
• Government criticised for tarring peaceful protesters
Matthew Taylor and Rob Evans
Tuesday 26 January 2010



Oh, jolly good show, UK. Bra-fricken-vo.

Adultery website boosted by Christian publicity campaign
What would Jesus do? Get on Facebook, definitely
By John Oates

A purportedly Christian man claims to be running a campaign against a website which offers dates for married people.

Jon Kurht claims to work for a Christian charity in London and has already had one complaint about a maritalaffair.co.uk billboard rejected by the Advertising Standards Authority. He has now started a Facebook to campaign against the site, which has the strap-line "Where the grass is always greener".

We don't buy this. He's clearly some kind of viral marketeer whose genius campaign has already got the unknown website mentioned in the Daily Telegraph, Sky News and surely the Daily Mail can't be far behind. ...

Richard Dawkins

Haiti and the hypocrisy of Christian theology

We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, un-premeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery.

The religious mind, however, restlessly seeks human meaning in the blind happenings of nature. As with the Indonesian tsunami, which was blamed on loose sexual morals in tourist bars; as with Hurricane Katrina, which was attributed to divine revenge on the entire city of New Orleans for harboring a lesbian comedian, and as with other disasters going back to the famous Lisbon earthquake and beyond, so Haiti's tragedy must be payback for human sin. The Rev. Pat Robertson sees the hand of God in the earthquake, wreaking terrible retribution for a pact that the long-dead ancestors of today's Haitians made with the devil, to help rid them of their French masters.

Needless to say, milder-mannered faith-heads are falling over themselves to disown Pat Robertson, just as they disowned those other pastors, evangelists, missionaries and mullahs at the time of the earlier disasters.

What hypocrisy. ...


Ta much, dear Anneliese

Reports of racial and religiously motivated crime rose following the election of British National party councillors in several far- right strongholds, police statistics have revealed.

Complaints of hate crime increased in wards in the West Midlands, London and Essex after the election of a BNP member, in spite of declines in reported hate crime in the wider police areas. In other wards race crime reportedly rose in the runup to BNP election victories, according to the figures, obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

The findings came as the party stepped up its campaign to win its first seats in the House of Commons with a "weekend of action" in Barking and Dagenham, where the culture and tourism minister, Margaret Hodge, faces a challenge for her Labour seat from BNP leader, Nick Griffin. Hodge said the new figures cast doubt on police assurances that there is no link between racially motivated crime and a BNP presence.

Yesterday, BNP member Terence Gavan was jailed for 11 years after police found nail bombs and 12 firearms at his home in the borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, where the BNP has councillors. The Old Bailey heard that Gavan harboured "a strong hostility" towards immigrants.

One of the biggest increases in hate crime came in Barking's Eastbury ward, where racially motivated violence, theft and criminal damage more than doubled in the year after Jeffrey Steed won a council seat for the BNP in May 2006. A year later, hate crime rose again and 45 racial incidents were reported in 12 months. ...

Sexist morons. It's not the one couple/one child policy at fault, it's the aborting and slaughtering of female babies!

Gentle Categorian, one never finds stories such as this which involve females.

Ta much, dear Anneliese

US airport closed after security scare caused by bottles of honey
A California airport was closed for several hours after a passenger carrying honey in plastic bottles triggered a security alert.
By Tom Leonard in New York
Published: 6:03PM GMT 06 Jan 2010

Police were struggling on Wednesday to explain why two baggage screeners at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield had to be taken to hospital on Tuesday after opening the bottles and becoming nauseated from the fumes.

A police spokesman said the bottles, which were being carried by a gardener, had tested positive for explosives even though the contents was later confirmed to be just honey. The two screeners may have felt nauseous because they were "just nervous", he added.

Amid heightened airport security tension following the alleged attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound plane, Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport in Minnesota was also closed temporarily on Tuesday after a sniffer dog indicated a suspicious piece of luggage.

The bag turned out to be a marker that airport staff put on the luggage carousel to tell other staff that all items have been unloaded from a flight.

There was further embarrassment at Newark International Airport in New Jersey where it emerged that a security camera supposedly monitoring a corridor where a major security breach occurred on Sunday had been broken for six days.

The busy airport was evacuated for nearly seven hours after a passenger reported a man walk the wrong way through an exit corridor without being challenged.

The comedienne Joan Rivers has complained angrily about officious security after she was kept off a flight from Costa Rica to Newark on Sunday because a gate agent was suspicious about her passport containing both her married and professional names.



So appalling I had to post the whole dang thang.
Screw you, tsa.

The United States prevented Dutch authorities from installing full body scanners before the suspected Christmas Day bomb plotter passed through security at Amsterdam's airport, the Dutch government claimed today.

The Dutch claimed that they had been trying to install the machines for flights to the US since 2008 but had been blocked by US officials who wanted passengers to all destinations screened.

In light of the failed attack all passengers travelling from Holland to the US will now have to go through full body scanners the Dutch Interior Minister announced following discussions with the Americans. ...

Iraq demands Iran withdraw troops from oilfield
Fri Dec 18, 2009
By Suadad al-Salhy and Mohammed Abbas

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq on Friday demanded that Iran immediately withdraw its soldiers from a disputed oilfield on the two countries' border, but Tehran denied any incursion.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said 11 Iranian soldiers had taken control of the Fakka oilfield in a remote desert area of southeastern Iraq, in a "violation of Iraqi sovereignty."

"Iraq demands the immediate withdrawal from well No. 4 and the Fakka oilfield, which belongs to Iraq. Iraq is looking for a peaceful and diplomatic settlement to this issue," he said.

Dabbagh did not give a deadline for withdrawal and did not say what Iraq would do if Iran failed to comply. Officials have summoned Tehran's envoy in Iraq to discuss the matter, he said.

Iraqi officials said the Iranian soldiers crossed into Iraqi territory on Friday and raised the Iranian flag at Fakka, whose ownership is disputed by Iran.

Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji said the incursion was the latest of several this week at the field, some 300 km (186 miles) southeast of Baghdad in Maysan province.

"At 3:30 this afternoon, 11 Iranian [soldiers] infiltrated the Iran-Iraq border and took control of the oil well. They raised the Iranian flag, and they are still there," he said.

Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency later quoted the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) as rejecting the report.

"The company denies Iranian soldiers taking control of any oil well inside Iraqi territory," Mehr quoted the NIOC as saying.

Khafaji said the well was in Iraqi territory.

"This well is located on Iraqi land, 300 metres (yards) inside Iraq. It is disputed between Iran and Iraq. There was an agreement between the two countries' oil ministers to fix this problem diplomatically," he said.

A senior engineer from Maysan Oil Company, which operates the field, said Iranian troops had taken temporary control of one of the field's seven wells, an inoperative well in a disputed border area, four or five times this year.

"Iranian forces come to this well periodically, and then at daybreak they withdraw. They are provoking us ... I don't know why this is a big deal this time," he said, on condition of anonymity. ...

I wish sarah's rededicate itself to God by taking a vow or silence, or meeting its maker - and not at the Faire.

Bumbling NJ firemen, cops blown up in 'huge fireball'
Gunpowder plot ruled out: bunker-buster blunder blamed

By Lewis Page

Posted in Bootnotes, 30th November 2009

Firemen and police officers in New Jersey blew themselves up last week in an "orange mushroom cloud of fire and debris" which created a "deafening boom felt miles away". The unfortunate public-safety operatives had been attempting to light a bonfire at a high-school rally.

According to the South Jersey Courier-Post, kids at Vineland High School had planned a "pep rally" at 6:30 pm local time last Wednesday. Weather conditions had been damp, and it seems that local firemen attending the rally "doused" the bonfire - constructed largely of wooden shipping pallets - with "diesel and another accelerant".

Within seconds of the fire being lit, there was apparently a devastating blast which "ejected a flaming pile of pallets into the sky" atop the above mentioned roiling fireball. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt, though the Courier-Post reports that a firefighter was injured by flying debris and several police officers "sought medical treatment for ear ailments" following the blast.

No schoolkids were harmed, and the rally apparently went ahead without trouble at an alternative venue free of exploding bonfires. ...

Man threatened to kill shoppers in £3.5 million Dirty Harry blackmail plot
An unemployed man threatened to kill supermarket shoppers in a £3.5 million blackmail plot inspired by the Clint Eastwood film Dirty Harry, a court heard.

Nick Britten
25 Nov 2009

Mark Hazel, 39, even adopted the signature of the film’s villain, Scorpio, the sniper who warns police that he will kill his victims unless he is given a briefcase full of cash.

Unfortunately for Hazel, he was easier to catch that his movie namesake, having left his fingerprints on the blackmail letter, which was written in handwriting exactly matching his own. He also took the foolish decision to target his local store.

Having branded his attempts “amateurish”, a judge jailed him for 15 months.

Hazel, from Erdington, Birmingham, copied Scorpio’s modus operandi in threatening to kill random customers if the Co-op failed to meet his £3.5 million demands, although he was not specific about how he would carry out his crime.

In a letter to his local Co-op in Erdington, he wrote: “It will be my greatest pleasure to select at random three people in your store to kill and maim if my demands are not met. I will kill anyone in this store, whether it is staff or guards if my demands are not met." ...

Balloon boy parents to plead guilty 'to keep mother in US'
The parents of the "balloon boy" Falcon Heene will plead guilty on Friday as part of a deal to avoid the deportation of Mayumi Heene, the boy's mother, to Japan.
Published: 6:28PM GMT 12 Nov 2009

The couple, who reported that their six-year-old son had floated away aboard a helium balloon when in fact he was hiding in their home, will plead guilty to some charges and serve probation so that the family can stay together, a lawyer for the boy's father said on Thursday.

Richard Heene will plead guilty in the alleged Oct 15 hoax to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, his lawyer David Lane said. Mayumi Heene - a Japanese citizen who could have been deported if convicted of more serious charges - will plead guilty to false reporting to authorities, a misdemeanour, he said. ...

GOP Gone Wild: Unruly Republicans Silence Women Lawmakers With Screams, Shouts, And Delay Tactics

This morning, the House began consideration of the rule for debate of the House health care bill. As the Democratic Women’s Caucus took to the microphone on the House floor to offer their arguments for how the bill would benefit women, House Republicans — led by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) — repeatedly talked over, screamed, and shouted objections. “I object, I object, I object, I object, I object,” Price interjected as Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) tried to hold the floor.

In an effort to delay and derail the proceedings, the Republicans continually talked over the Democratic women for half an hour. They sought to prevent the debate by calling for unnecessary “parliamentary inquiries” and requests for “expanding the debate” by an hour.

After being repeatedly interrupted by Republican shouts, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) observed:

Do I not have the right to be able to continue my sentence without objections that are trying to censor my remarks here on the floor that I have a right to make as a member of this House?

...

The goddam rethuglicunts musta been wearing these their entire repulsive lives.

Ta much, dear Anneliese

Ta much, dear Edosan

The article fails to mention he'd blamed three Hispanic men for the attack.

Also, while it's mentioned that he's 27, it should also be said that his stunt wasn't even worthy of a 17-y-o.

More like a 7-y-o.

... The 'satanic abuse' hysteria was particularly appalling, but year after year in America prudery exacts a terrible toll – as witness the unfortunate female schoolteachers packed often to prison with hefty sentences for having affairs with boys in their mid to late teens.

Is America permanently lodged in the 17th century so far as moral policing is concerned? The answer is Not exactly, since gay marriage wasn’t a big item on the legislative agenda of the colonies at that time. But regulation of sexual behaviour is the preferred route to wider social control.

The control of sex and pornography is a major part of promulgating a puritanical political culture without ever imposing overt political censorship. Sexual repression, often through the allegation of 'deviant' fantasy crimes, is the designated stand-in for violations of the social order that are hard to crush in a courtroom. As Williamson is now ruefully aware, the state not only has a long arm, it has a long gaze.

Moral: the eyes of the law are on you at all times, even at 8.30 am in the supposed privacy of your own kitchen.



What did you expect from a cuntry founded by folks so uptight the Brits threw them out?

... Cllr Sonja Wilson added she thought the festival was against the teachings of the Bible.

She said: "We feel strongly about the potential dangers of letting youngsters become involved in it.

"We never encouraged our own children to join any Halloween activities because it's unhealthy.

"The Bible says not to believe in other idols and Halloween is all about promoting Satan.

"There is a risk that it could lead to other things like an interest in the occult and witchcraft – it's like encouraging young people to drink beer."

The pumpkin competition task fell to the deputy mayor, Councillor Clive Stringer, who said: "As far as I'm concerned it's just a bit of fun for the kids.

"I was brought up as a Christian but I don't see anything wrong with children dressing up as witches and wizards and making faces out of pumpkins."

Christian Broadcasting Network Warns Against 'Demonic' Halloween Candy
Huffington Post | Alex Leo & Katla McGlynn
First Posted: 10-29-09 02:34 PM | Updated: 10-30-09 07:37 AM

UPDATE: CBN has removed the blog. The original text is available here.
-----
Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network posted a blog by Kimberly Daniels recently that warns Christians to forgo celebrating Halloween because of its evilness. Daniels specifically calls out candy as a source of soul-molestation:

"During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches."

Obviously, we shouldn't be buying Halloween candy, but what about getting it by trick-or-treating?

"Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

Darn.

We wholeheartedly agree with Daniels and have put together a handy guide of outrageously demonic candy to stay away from this (and every) season. ...



High-quality xian stupidity and paranoia and hilarious slideshow by the more enlightened courtesy of dear Zaxy

Ta much, dear Zaxy for hippin' me.

"Ideas are hard. Blocking them is easy."

Ta much, dear Anneliese

Balloon boy's father 'wanted TV fame before world ends in 2012'
Richard Heene, the man suspected of the alleged "balloon boy" hoax, was driven by a conviction that the world will come to a cataclysmic end in 2012, according to a friend.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
20 Oct 2009

Robert Thomas, who claims to have been a confidante and researcher for Mr Heene, has been interviewed by police.

Mr Thomas's lawyer, Linda Lee, claimed: "Heene believes the world is going to end in 2012. Because of that he wanted to make money quickly, become rich enough to build a bunker or something underground, where he can be safe from the sun exploding."

It was the latest disclosure about Mr Heene's bizarre world view, which also allegedly includes a belief in aliens and UFOs.

The suggestion that the world will come to an end in 2012 is based on an interpretation of the ancient Mayan calendar.

It is also the subject of a soon to be released Hollywood blockbuster called "2012".

However, scientists and Mayans themselves have debunked the theory. ...



Great. Not only is it a prick and a liar, it's also a bleeding ignorant looney.

A hoaxer who's bought into a hoax = Priceless.

I'm sorry, but, uh, how in fuck will a bunker protect you from an exploding Sun?

Mayhap he's got one of those ahem Looney Tunes cartoon images stuck in his head: Bugs Bunny & co hanging onto what remains of the Moon after the vast explosion caused by Marvin the Martian.

Idiot.

Yes, but the biggest joke is the 'survey' was reported as news, not satire.

Well done, British "journalists."

... "More than 40 percent of women eventually diagnosed with a serious autoimmune disease have basically been told by a doctor that they're just too concerned with their health or they're a hypochondriac," says Virginia Ladd, founder and executive director of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association. ...

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Two newlyweds are fighting for the dismissal of the justice of the peace who refused them a marriage license because they are of different races. ...



Um, what century is this again?

Women MPs fight back as Berlusconi lashes out
You are increasingly more beautiful than intelligent, PM tells furious Bindi
By Jack Bremer
FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 9, 2009

Amid warnings that Italy is on the edge of a constitutional crisis after Silvio Berlusconi was stripped of his immunity from prosecution, the man himself has been flailing around like a bear with a thorn in its foot. Taking part by phone in a late-night television discussion, he struck out at President Giorgio Napolitano saying he should have used "his influence" to get a different ruling from the Constitutional Court.

When a studio guest, Rosy Bindi, a former family minister in Romano Prodi's centre-left government, expressed shock at this suggestion, Berlusconi replied: "I recognise you are increasingly more beautiful than intelligent".

Even coming from Berlusconi, this was over the top and Bindi answered that she was "not a woman at your disposal", alluding to the call-girls and television showgirls at the centre of the long-running Berlusconi sex scandal.

Among the first to leap to Bindi's defence was another former minister under Prodi, the American-born Italian MP Giovanna Melandri. She said the remark summed up "the Berlusconi philosophy towards women". The diminutive prime minister, she went on, had shown himself to be "taller than he is well-mannered". ...



He has also shown himself to have more height than integrity - and wisdom.

Her collaborator isn’t just a creationist. There’s the white supremacy issue, too ...

... The Palin book, moreover, is clearly being styled as a work of polemic, appealing to the Christianist base, thereby fanning homophobia, and empowering those who would like nothing more than to push gay people back into the closet, out of marriage, out of the military, and out of the workplace. Burnham is now directly party to this effort.

It's not possible to accuse Jonathan Burnham of hypocrisy because that would imply he has any convictions or principles at all. Here, for example, is his quote about a 400-page book written in two months:

“Governor Palin has been unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage, investing herself deeply and passionately in this project…. It’s her words...”

Hey, if it makes a buck, and advances his career, Burnham will do it. As gay people prepare to march for their civil rights, Burnham, one of the more powerful gay men in New York, is preparing to capitalize on their avowed enemies. It's just money, after all. And buzz. Always buzz.

This asshole needs to lose its law license, its Merc, all of its books, and as Mom said, "And get his house burned down."

Ta much, dear Foxy

Times papers trains with climate change blunder

Don't read us, we're rubbish

By Andrew Orlowski
6th October 2009

The Times has liberally papered London underground carriages with a fascinating new ad campaign. One poster shows a ship navigating some treacherous icy waters, with the accompanying copy reading:

Climate change has allowed the Northeast Passage to be used as a commercial shipping route for the first time.

Impressive - if only it were true. The Northeast Passage has been opened for commerce since 1934 - and never 'closed'.

Over the years hundreds of thousands of freighters have passed through, and after Russia put Soviet-era politics aside it was extended to foreign commerce in the 1990s. As we reported two weeks ago, it took bloggers a few seconds to find this out, and unearth a wealth of maritime history. But when German shipping company Beluga issued a press release claiming to be the first foreign pioneer, many newspapers and the broadcast media (the BBC) were in such a rush to report another example of Global Warming, they didn't bother to check the claim - and reported it verbatim.

Among the parrotters was Times hack Tony Halpin, here, who cleaned his Trumpet of Doom and proceeded to shoot himself in both feet with this blast: "It is both a symbol of global warming and a potentially lucrative new trade route between Europe and Asia."

According to the ad copy:

To help you navigate the changing world we have more dedicated science and environment correspondents than the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail or Independent.

Quality isn't quantity, evidently. But a fascinating question arises. Why spend so much money to tell commuters that you've cocked things up? It doesn't make sense. Perhaps there's a better explanation.

Perhaps what the Times has noticed is that there's a lucrative market for environmental scare stories. What the advertisements are doing is targeting this segment of the superstitious middle class, which wants to believe that Thermageddon is nigh, or that oil will run out next week, or that a tsunami of non-biodegradable plastic refuse will engulf the family Volvo on its morning school run - shortly before it's zapped by deadly WiFi radiation. ...



Um, check your sources, maybe?

... For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.

To be sure, while celebrating America’s rebuff by the Olympic Committee was puerile, it didn’t do any real harm. But the same principle of spite has determined Republican positions on more serious matters, with potentially serious consequences — in particular, in the debate over health care reform.

Now, it’s understandable that many Republicans oppose Democratic plans to extend insurance coverage — just as most Democrats opposed President Bush’s attempt to convert Social Security into a sort of giant 401(k). The two parties do, after all, have different philosophies about the appropriate role of government.

But the tactics of the two parties have been different. In 2005, when Democrats campaigned against Social Security privatization, their arguments were consistent with their underlying ideology: they argued that replacing guaranteed benefits with private accounts would expose retirees to too much risk.

The Republican campaign against health care reform, by contrast, has shown no such consistency. For the main G.O.P. line of attack is the claim — based mainly on lies about death panels and so on — that reform will undermine Medicare. And this line of attack is utterly at odds both with the party’s traditions and with what conservatives claim to believe.

Think about just how bizarre it is for Republicans to position themselves as the defenders of unrestricted Medicare spending. First of all, the modern G.O.P. considers itself the party of Ronald Reagan — and Reagan was a fierce opponent of Medicare’s creation, warning that it would destroy American freedom. (Honest.) In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich tried to force drastic cuts in Medicare financing. And in recent years, Republicans have repeatedly decried the growth in entitlement spending — growth that is largely driven by rising health care costs. ...



Ta much, dear Anneliese

Well done, Waitrose, et al...but why hasn't sky network dumped faux news?

Honours for Hogwarts? Not in the Bush White House.

Sasha Obama may have been given a birthday tour of the Harry Potter set but the former occupant of the White House was not such a fan of the boy wizard.

In news that you really couldn't make up, it has emerged that J.K. Rowling's name came up in discussions regarding recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. And she was rejected.

Not because of her nationality or Bush's aversion to Professor Snape's hair. But because various members of the White House staff were worried about associating with witchcraft. ...

[brilliant snooty English butler]Telephone for you, Sir. A Mister Darwin, Sir.[/brilliant snooty English butler]

OMFG

...and it's not a bloody bill, it's a peak.

Ta much, dear Anneliese

If Obama can't defeat the Republican headbangers, our planet is doomed

One year on, the world still looks to the US and holds its breath. The fate of a global climate treaty rests in American hands

What's the difference between religion and mental illness?

No, there's no punchline.

Ta much, dear Anneliese

Ohio armed robber asked victim for a date
'We are not exactly sure what he was thinking', admits cop
By Lester Haines
Posted in Bootnotes, 9th September 2009 14:04 GMT

An Ohio man who robbed a couple at gunpoint was arrested when he returned to ask his female victim for a date, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

Stephfon Bennett, 20, together with two other men, relieved Daniel Martinez Batista and Diana Martinez of their wallets outside their Columbus apartment on Saturday night.

A neighbour threatened the trio of miscreants, who legged it. However, less than two hours later, Bennett returned to the address to ask Ms Martinez if she fancied hooking up. ...

What a maroon!

... "She says she goes hunting and lives off animal meat - I've never seen it," said Mr Johnston, 19. "I've never seen her touch a fishing pole.

"She had a gun in her bedroom and one day she asked me to show her how to shoot it. I asked her what kind of gun it was, and she said she didn't know, because it was in a box under her bed."

The former governor, who stepped down in early July, citing the "insane" amount of time she had been forced to spend addressing "frivolous" ethics complaints filed against her, also built her reputation on traditional Republican family values - but Mr Johnston has claimed that she is an absentee mother.

"The Palins didn't have dinner together and they didn't talk much as a family," he told Vanity Fair, adding that the mother of five never came home later than five and would often disappear for an hour-long bath.

"She always wanted things and she wanted other people to get them for her. If she wanted a movie, Bristol and I would go to the video store.

If she wanted food, we'd get her something to eat, like a Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell."

Despite describing herself as a "hockey mom with lipstick" - a line which delighted Republicans at her forceful national convention debut last year - Mrs Palin rarely attended her son Track's hockey games, claimed Mr Johnston.

The young man fell out with the family after the birth of his child with Bristol, the eldest daughter. He even claimed that Mrs Palin often spoke of adopting the baby and passing it off as her own. "I think Sarah wanted to make Bristol look good, and she didn't want people to know that her 17-year-old daughter was going to have a kid," he said. ...

New depths of absurdity, kids. Meddling morons.

Ta much, dear Anneliese

The Pope blames atheists for global warming. Pope Benedict is claiming atheists are responsible for the destruction of the environment. The Pope made the claims in a recent speech given at the Vatican. The claim is a puzzling attack on atheism that frankly makes little sense.

Excerpt from the Pope's speech:

“Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where his existence is denied? If the human creature's relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the ‘final authority,’ and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.”

The irony is that any historical evaluation places the blame for global warming and the degradation of the planet firmly in the lap of Christians and the Catholic church. The Holy Bible, a book atheists firmly reject for good reason, claims that God gave man dominion over the earth. Christians, including Catholics, took these words to heart. They used those words as carte blanche, a justification for all manners of planetary abuse.

Christianity, and Catholicism, are historically anti-environmental. In fact, if blame is to be placed for the current global environmental crisis, it is to be placed squarely upon the Judeo-Christian tradition. The fact that Christianity is anti-environmental is no secret. Indeed, many Christians have taken a perverse pride in claiming their dominion. For example, James Watt, who became U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, wrote an influential and damning article entitled "Ours Is the Earth". Watt, speaking for countless Christians, made it abundantly clear that for believers the earth is "merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life...The earth was put here by the Lord for His people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on their way to the hereafter."

For those of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the earth is, for all intents and purposes, disposable, nothing but a waiting room for eternity. As such the waiting room can be plundered in any fashion. After all, the earth is but a temporary and transient thing of no consequence when compared to the promise of eternity (pie in the sky, yum yum!). ...


Ta much for the afternoon's boggle o_0, dear Glenn321

Ta much, dear Shell42970

God Hates Elms T-Shirt
By Daniel Florien on August 21, 2009 in Atheism, Christianity, Humor, Superstition.

Yesterday, while ridiculing those who believe a supernatural being sent a tornado to Minneapolis because of TEH GAYS!!!, PZ Myers said:

"It seems, if you look at the conference schedule, that the liberal Lutherans were contemplating making some friendly statements about their gay congregants, so obviously this was an example of gentle smiting of sodomites.

Of course, also on the schedule were bible study and hymn singing — god hates “Onward Christian Soldiers”. And a middle school in North Branch — god hates education. It knocked down many trees — god hates elms."

God hates elms. What a great idea for a t-shirt, I thought. Some commenters on PZ’s site also thought so, so a friend and I whipped one up:


...

Ta much, dear Anneliese

...“It’s awful that people react to art in this manner,” said Amy Boswin, director of the Novato Ignacio Art Gallery near Petaluma. “If they opened a biology textbook, they’d see a lot more risqué stuff than that.” ...



Let us ahem pray those fuckwits never do open a biology book: they'd want them banned too, also.

OMFG
Ta much, dear Zaxy

NEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Authorities temporarily closed one of the terminals at New York's busy LaGuardia airport on Saturday morning and took a man into custody after discovering what turned out to be a fake bomb in his bag.

Most of the airport's main terminal was closed at 5:30 a.m./0930 GMT and travelers were allowed to return about 3 1/2 hours later. Jack Kelly, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the terminal's Concourse C, where the man was taken into custody, would remain closed until a crime scene investigation had been completed.

Kelly described the suspect as emotionally disturbed and New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said the man was drunk.

"He was carrying a hoax device," Browne said. "The hoax device consisted of batteries and wires in a duffle bag." ...



Flash!

From the This Never Happens Department: Drunken Idiot Does Something Idiotic, Ruins Everyone Else's Day!

Film @ eleven

The race row that has inflamed the US took a bizarre twist last night when a Boston police officer was suspended for abusing Harvard scholar Professor Henry Louis Gates and calling him "a banana eating jungle monkey".

Hours before President Barack Obama was to sit down at the White House for a beer with Professor Gates and Sergeant James Crowley to calm tensions over the academic's arrest, it emerged that another police officer, Justin Barrett, was accused of sending an insulting email about Professor Gates to a local newspaper.

In a furious and at times ungrammatical rant at a reporter on the Boston Globe newspaper, the anonymous email, allegedly written by Officer Barrett said: "If I were the officer he (Professor Gates) verbally assaulted like a banana eating jungle monkey I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (capsicum spray)."

Later in the email, quoted in full on the website MyFoxBoston.com. the 36-year-old former English teacher suggested the headline for the newspaper's article on Professor Gates' arrest should read: "Conduct Unbecoming a Jungle Monkey - back to one's roots."

The Boston Police Department suspended Mr Barrett when the existence of the email became known. A spokesman for the police force said in a statement: "Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis placed Officer Justin Barrett, 36, on administrative leave pending the outcome of a termination hearing.

"Commissioner Davis was made aware of a correspondence with racist remarks and yesterday re[lie]ved the officer of his gun and badge." ...

Change that nickname from 'crazy cracker' to 'stupid cracker,' dood.

... In most countries, you have two major political parties or broad factions. They disagree on many things. But both begin by accepting certain suppositions. I would imagine that in Britain, for instance, both Labour and the Tories think healthcare for all or at least most people is a good idea. They have different notions about how to do it, but the goal is agreed upon. I gather also that the Tories accept the basic idea that global warming exists and that man's actions have contributed to it.

But American conservatism does not believe healthcare for all or most is a desired outcome at all. Conservatives believe people are responsible for their own healthcare, and that people who don't have it just aren't showing enough pluck and initiative. Last Thursday, one Republican congressman announced that the party wouldn't even offer its own version of healthcare legislation – and this man runs the party's so-called Solutions Group! And on climate change, of course, most deny its existence, and all deny that human activity has played any role in it whatsoever. ...



gop = grand obstructionist party

... There's no doubt that history education needs a boost in Texas.

According to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln's 1863 emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the constitutional convention.

... No More “Birthers” on CNN: The head of the cable news network sent a memo to the staff of Lou Dobbs’ crazy nativist news hour politely informing them that the so-called “birther” story — Dobbs’ latest hobby horse, in which he muses extemporaneously about whether the president is a U.S.-citizen — is officially “dead — because anyone who is still not convinced doesn’t really have a legitimate beef.” This couldn’t have anything to do with the thorough pantsing Crossfire-killer Jon Stewart gave Dobbs the other night, could it? ...

Thanks again, Mr Stewart!

... So. Right. First off, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama becomes a Senator and delivers a rousing speech on national television. Certain people are going to assume he is a Muslim, and certain other people are going to try to convince everyone that he's a Muslim. Rumors and smears like this are hard to track back to individuals, as they form and are molded in lengthy chain email forwards and pseudonymous message board posts. But Andy Martin, a crazy and litigious antisemite, is credited with amping up the Muslim rumors mere weeks after the 2004 Democratic National Convention. His "press release" was picked up, of course, by Free Republic, a message board for the nuttiest of the right-wing nuts. Martin's "secret Muslim" theory led to the "Islamic madrassa" story.

In October of 2008, Martin filed another of his many, many lawsuits, this one against the state of Hawaii, demanding they "verify" Barack Obama's birth certificate. At this point, though, Martin was claiming that Obama's "real father" was a radical Hawaiian journalist, so it is not entirely clear if he is actually a birther, or just a fucked-up attention-seeker. ...

... Six months after pledging to get tough on anti-social gangs, the Tories have come up with their master plan - seize their mobile phones and bikes. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has said that taking away a hoodie's mobile for a month would not only "disrupt" gang activity in the area but serve as a stiff lesson to the culprit.

"This would go to the heart of what matters to a Nokia generation of young people," he declared. And if they don't learn their lesson, he wants to go a step further and confiscate their bicycles as well. "In areas where there is a genuine gang culture, such a step could also give police an additional tool to disrupt gang activity," said Grayling.

Labour MPs could hardly stifle their laughter at the proposals, pointing out that the plan has a fatal flaw at its heart.

"Where do the Tories think these hoodie gangs get their mobile phones and bicycles from in the first place? They are stolen!" one Labour backbencher told the Mole. "There's even a test for some gang members, to steal a phone.

"Far from making things better, this proposal could make it worse as anti-social youths have to steal more phones and bikes to replace the ones that have been confiscated. It's bonkers." ...

Stupid; don't wanna insult cows; etc

Stupid...well, I can't very well call her a cow - that's insulting a noble beast.

Racist rants of elected BNP man, Andrew Brons, revealed
Yorkshire MEP Andrew Brons drew up some of the National Front's most inflammatory policies
Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
The Observer, Sunday 14 June 2009

One of the British National party's first MEPs' attempts to play down his past links to the extreme right as "silly" teenage posturing are today exposed as a sham after it emerged that for many years he played a crucial role in shaping the National Front's most overtly racist policies.

In 1983, when he was in his late twenties, Andrew Brons edited the National Front's general election manifesto that called for a global apartheid to prevent the "extinction" of whites everywhere.

The Let Britain Live! manifesto was prepared by the party's policy department, chaired by Brons. It outlined a series of hugely controversial positions, crystallised in one of its opening statements: "The National Front rejects the whole concept of multiracialism. We recognise inherent racial differences in Man. The races of Man are profoundly unequal in their characteristics, potential and abilities."

The manifesto claimed the UK had been "swamped" by "racially incompatible Afro-Asians" and that "Black muggings of White people, especially elderly ladies, occurs regularly".

It continued: "The eruptions in Bristol in 1980 and Brixton in 1981 were just two examples of the 'cultural enrichment' promised to us by the multiracialists." And it claimed: "We believe the gradual dismantlement of the Apartheid system over the last 17 years to be retrograde ... The alternative to Apartheid, multiracialism, envisages an extinction of the White man."

Brons was also an enthusiastic contributor in the 1970s and 1980s to Spearhead, a far-right magazine considered so extreme even the BNP tried to distance itself from it. In two lengthy polemics for the magazine, Brons outlined the supposed importance of nationalism and interpreted genetic studies to suggest Europeans had a "greater cognitive ability" than non-whites. He attacked the influence of "people of Jewish ethnic origin" and peddled the myth that a number of predominantly Zionist organisations were controlling the world. ...



The little green donuts are callin' ya, andy boy!

Not that I watch any real Yankistani tv shows either, let alone "reality" tv.

May 31, 2009
The teenage baby boom in Gloucester, Massachusetts
One Year On: A mysterious spate of teenage pregnancies has shaken up one isolated American town
Caroline Scott

The story really began at the monthly committee meeting at Gloucester High, a school in Massachusetts with 1,200 pupils. Around the table, along with the other business of the day — school food, parking, litter — someone raised the thorny issue of teenage pregnancy: “We really need to talk about the daycare centre. We’re licensed by the state to take seven children and we have 10 girls pregnant at the school right now...”

The reaction in the room was incendiary. The norm was maybe three or four unplanned pregnancies across the age groups per year. In March, 10 girls in the 10th grade were pregnant; by April, the figure had risen to 15. By June, as school broke for the summer, there were 18 pregnancies. The principal, Joseph Sullivan, announced that he believed there was “a clique who may have entered into a pact”. That extraordinary statement was picked up by Time magazine and the story went global. ...

... Principal Joseph Sullivan, always set against offering any kind of contraception in school, despite the school doctor reportedly having run more than 150 pregnancy tests last year, stepped down from his post to head a Roman Catholic elementary school in Wakefield, several miles away. And in October, under a new principal, Bill Goodwin, the school committee voted unanimously for condoms and birth-control pills to be distributed, with parents’ consent, to all students.

Atheism ‘is the greatest of all evils’, says outgoing Archbishop of Westminster
21 May 2009

TAKE a deep breathe … you are about to be annoyed. Very annoyed indeed. [Ed. Note: May I take a deep breath instead? I get even more annoyed when I take a deep breathe.]

In the same week in which the unremitting cruelty of Catholic institutions towards vulnerable youngsters in Ireland was exposed, the outgoing Archbishop of Westminster had the sheer gall to identify “lack of faith” as “the greatest of all evils.”

According to The Times, the rancid Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor – who recently said that secularists and atheists were “not fully human” – blamed atheism for war and destruction, and suggested it was a greater evil even than sin itself. ...



Oh, so athiests started the crusades? I learned something new. I can go home.

Daaaang! You done got wrong!

£500,000 Government report: commuters want trains to run on time
A two-year-long, 178-page report that cost taxpayers £500,000 has arrived at the unsurprising conclusion that commuters want trains to run on time.
By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 3:10PM BST 24 May 2009

... Tony Ambrose, of the passenger campaign group More Train Less Strain, said: "It beggars belief. It's bad enough having the highest fares and worst overcrowding in Europe without the added unpleasantness of finding out you have been filmed without your permission.

"The report is astonishing. It's a rehash, in consultant-speak, of what is blindingly obvious to every traveller."

The RSSB defended its study, however, insisting it was a "practical appraisal of real-life situations".

A spokesman added: "In total, about one hour of filming was undertaken, based on one person travelling for four to five days."

The report comes just a week after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was attacked for spending £300,000 on a three-year study that proved ducks liked rainy weather.

BNP London assembly member could be banned from Buckingham Palace party
Deputy chief executive of Greater London Authority tells Richard Barnbrook he will be barred from garden party unless he agrees to take guest other than BNP leader Nick Griffin
Hélène Mulholland and Rachel Williams
Friday 22 May 2009

A BNP assembly member who planned to take the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, to a Buckingham Palace garden party hosted by the Queen was today told he would be barred from attending unless he agreed to take another guest.

In a letter to Richard Barnbrook, Jeff Jacobs, the deputy chief executive of the Greater London Authority, also warned him to "desist" from creating any further adverse publicity.

Barnbrook, a BNP member of the London assembly, yesterday said he had no intention of changing his choice of companion for the garden party, which takes place in June and is being held to recognise community service.

Boris Johnson, the London mayor, intervened after learning of Barnbrook's intention to take the BNP leader with him.

Six London assembly members have been nominated to receive some of the 25 pairs of tickets offered to the GLA by Buckingham Palace.

Johnson accused Barnbrook of turning a "happy event" into a political stunt. The mayor wrote to the chairman of the London assembly, Darren Johnson, to see whether the invitation could be rescinded. ...

I’M NOT A RACIST, SAYS ‘W*GS OUT’ BNP BIGOT
22nd May 2009
By Tom Hutchison

A BNP candidate is facing suspension for setting up a vile Facebook page demanding all blacks “go home”.

But Eddy O’Sullivan, 49, who is standing in the Euro elections, has denied being racist.

He set his web status on the site to “W*gs go home, Gurkhas very welcome”.

Mr O’Sullivan thought he had set his Facebook profile to private. But he accidentally made it public, exposing his sick beliefs.

The Salford party organiser, a driving instructor, is now facing suspension after admitting the comments.

In one he said of black people: “They are nice people oh yeah but can they not be nice people in the f***ing Congo or… Bongoland or whatever?” ...



File under "More bnp Brilliance."

Ah, more bnp brilliance...........

... The Pope is isolated and fails to adequately consult his advisers, said a Vatican source with 20 years' knowledge of the Holy See.

Another Vatican insider described Pope Benedict's four-year-old papacy as "a disaster", recalling the pontiff's previous inflammatory remarks on Islam and homosexuality.

"He's out of touch with the real world," the Italian insider said. "On the condom issue, for example, there are priests and bishops in Africa who accept that condoms are a key part of the fight against Aids, and yet the pope adheres to this very conservative line that they encourage promiscuity. The Vatican is far removed from the reality on the ground." ...



Well, whaddya expect from an ignorant, kiddie-fiddling-encouraging, dress- and Prada shoe-wearing ex-nazi?

As frightening as it is disgusting. Exile the folks responsible for this to Chernobyl and see how they like it.

Why have humans consistently throughout history put idiots in charge of the most important things?

They've already begun widening it elsewhere, without first discussing it with homeowners in the area, and they have dug up many beautiful old trees and have destroyed many attrative plantings.
The roadwork is also snarling traffic there far worse than it had been when it was still narrow.

It's fiction, stupid!

Send them to Detroit - we know what to do with their like here.

Selling crrrrap with sex is bad enough - now they're selling crrrap with violence, and state the ads are aimed at teenagers.

Fuck off.

Getcher Karma, pal, and good luck with it.

They should be listening to the "farmers" and the WHO!

How popular is pork in such a virulently muslim country, anyway? The whole thing makes my brain hurt.

Old reagan-in-a-dress has always been an evil cow.

This cow's cluelessness well and truly has no bounds. It's fair astonishing.

Priests shoudn't be required to be celebate nor exclusively male - it's not natural. All priests should be well-adjusted folks who are happily married and don't abuse their/others' kids.
How on Earth can someone who does not live in the modren world give helpful advice or information to those who do?

Anyone who'd take seriously the spoutings of an old nazi in a dress, funny hat, and Prada shoes needs medication.

Steal This Phrase

Category:
Posted on: March 4, 2009 9:30 AM, by Ed Brayton

Someone who comments here under the name grasshopper has invented a brilliant phrase for the Rush Limbaughs of the world: ignorexia verbosa. Pass it on.

The rethuglicunts are so clueless and evil. Let's send them to Afghanistan, shall we?

Man 'finds US troop data' on MP3
Tuesday, 27 January 2009

A New Zealand man says he found confidential data about US military personnel on an MP3 player he bought from a thrift shop in Oklahoma.

Chris Ogle, 29, said: "The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be looking."

The files included names and telephone numbers of American soldiers, according to reports by TV New Zealand.

One expert says the files are unlikely to compromise security, as most of them are from 2005.

Some included a warning that the release of its contents is "prohibited by federal law".

Embarrassment

As well as personal details of US soldiers, such as social security numbers, the files also listed pregnant female troops and apparent mission briefings in Afghanistan. ...

January 25, 2009
Loss of British Council staff data disk stings David Miliband
David Leppard

THE foreign secretary, David Miliband, faced embarrassment last night after it emerged that a computer disk containing confidential bank details of up to 2,000 public servants working for the British Council has been lost.

The council — the Foreign Office’s cultural arm — admitted that the disk, which held the names, National Insurance numbers, salary and bank account details of staff on its UK payroll, went missing while in transit last month.

The incident is the latest in a string of losses which has led to criticism of the government’s handling of sensitive data.

In November a memory stick holding data said to give access to tax and benefit records was lost in a pub car park, forcing officials to suspend the government’s gateway website.

After that loss, Gordon Brown promised that Whitehall rules on data handling would be toughened yet again.

However, it emerged this weekend that a month later the British Council’s data disk had been lost by TNT, the courier firm, in transit to its offices.

A spokesman for the council said the information — which was compressed and therefore difficult to read — was part of a monthly report from its payroll data supplier.

Although the British Council is at arm’s length from the Foreign Office, Miliband is still responsible for its oversight.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman who uncovered the loss, said: “This is another instance in a long line of slapdash data protection by government departments.

“If Whitehall cannot look after its own data records . . . it should not be trusted with the personal information of every citizen as it wants with the identity card scheme.”


Amen. You took the words right out of my brain.

Oh, boy. More proof that the catholic church is completely fucked.

Well, what else could we expect from a pope what's an ex-nazi?

I couldn't even finish the damn book. It made me as nauseous as Nausea.

I'd hope lush windbag has heart failure, but it hasn't got a heart.

Just shut yr mouth, palin.

Bad things always happen when religious freaks meddle with politics.

Peru's top court says drunk workers can't be fired
Thu Jan 15, 2009

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's top court has ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job, a decision that was criticized by the government on Wednesday for setting a dangerous precedent. ...

Drunk worker reportedly starts fire in Moscow museum
Sun Jan 11, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A drunk electrician started a fire at a world-famous Moscow art museum after he fell asleep while smoking a cigarette, a police source told RIA news agency Sunday. ...