Friday - January 04, 2013

Hard To Categorize This One

A man in Norfolk, England, was reportedly attacked last week by a pair of Oompa Loompas.

According to WTVR.com, the 28-year-old man was assaulted in a city center by four individuals—two of whom had been dressed up as the orange-skinned characters made famous in Roald Dahl’s children’s book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

The man reportedly “suffered cuts to his face, nose and lip, as well as two black eyes” after being confronted by the group last Thursday.

The Guardian reports that the two Oompa Loompas, believed to be men, were accompanied by a woman and a man “not wearing fancy dress.”

Police say that the costumed men had “painted orange faces and dyed green hair.” They were said to have also been wearing “hooped tops.”

“One of the males in the group...pushed the victim to the floor before he got up,” a spokesman for Norfolk police said, according to Sky News. “He was then hit on the head, fell to the floor and hit again.”

Police are currently searching for the perpetrators.

Norfolk Police are appealing for witnesses.

A spokesman said: ‘Perhaps they were taking part in a Christmas event. They may have been at a fancy dress party.

‘It is possible it is captured on CCTV but we are still looking for images.’

It is not the first time that Oompa-Loompas have had a brush with the law.

A man dressed as one of the characters was allegedly involved in a brawl during a fancy dress evening at a Welcome Family holiday park in Dawlish, Devon, in May 2009.

Other characters involved included a Spiderman and even Tinky Winky - the largest of the Teletubbies - best known for his size and red handbag.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/04/2013 at 09:45 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Humor • UK •  
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Benji The Racist

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel’s prime minister says thousands of Africans who have infiltrated into Israel will be sent back home.

Benjamin Netanyahu declared Wednesday that Israel has halted the flow of African migrants into Israel over the past seven months. He spoke while visiting the fence Israel built on border with Egypt to keep migrants out.

He said he will soon begin “repatriating the tens of thousands of infiltrators in Israel to their countries of origin.”

About 60,000 Africans have entered Israel in recent years, some seeking asylum and others looking for work.

Sigal Rozen, whose group assists migrants, says it’s unlikely Israel can repatriate them, since many come from conflict zones or countries that have no ties with Israel.

Hoo boy, this one’s going to explode on the news the moment they start to load up the first boat. Hey Benji, play it smart and make sure the cameras see you sending home some Irish and Portuguese too. Not that it will make any difference. Certain groups get a pass, no matter what.

OTOH, if some of those African asylum seekers are provably Falashas, then he’s in a world of trouble within Israel itself. Africa is a huge place, and I have no idea which part these infiltrators came from.

... and Drew ties another post to the Aksum/Queen of Sheba post! Learning stuff is dangerous; you start noticing all sorts of things you’d never been aware of before!




This may be news over here, but the problem is not at all new in Israel. There seems to be a pretty huge groundswell of public opinion that these people should get the boot. On the other hand, there are some who want them to stay; part of the core concept of Israel is that it is a refuge, and it looks like the vast majority of these ‘infiltrators’ are from Eritrea. Eritrea, as you recall, is a tiny bit of a country on the lower Red Sea, which broke off from Ethiopia about 20 years ago. It’s very much an Islamic nation, and it’s also a hellhole with one of the worst human rights ratings of any country on earth. The same thing goes for the newly independent South Sudan. Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, among many others, has been speaking out about this problem for several years now. Jump over to Haaretz or the JPost and you can read hundreds of news articles on the topic.

Border control fans in the USA will find the next bit quite interesting: Once Israel got the border fence properly built, not one single infiltrator was able to get in. Not one.

12/24/12: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday signaled he was ready to begin repatriating African migrants, which he termed the “second stage” in the effort to clear Israel of illegal infiltrators.

“We have succeeded in blocking the entry of infiltrators from Africa to Israel,” Netanyahu said at the start of a discussion he convened on the issue. “After having faced the threat of the entry of hundreds of thousands, this month, not one infiltrator entered Israel’s cities.”

The prime minister said that after workers complete construction of the the security fence being built along Israel’s southern border next month, Israel will start working to send migrants already in Israel back to their home countries. “Now we are moving on to the second stage, that of repatriating the infiltrators who are already here.”

On the third hand, this could be a lot of political posturing. There is a significant right-wing faction in Israel that could need a bit of pandering to for the upcoming elections. And that bunch has already held “Banish the darkness” rallies.

Calling it a move to “banish the darkness,” right-wing MKs Michael Ben-Ari and Arieh Eldad held a Hanukka candle-lighting ceremony in south Tel Aviv on Monday to issue a call to expel all African migrants from Israel.
...
Ben-Ari’s parliamentary aide and right-wing activist Itamar Ben-Gvir said, “We came to expel the darkness!” but added that the message of the rally was not racist, as they accept Ethiopian Jews.

He clarified that the “darkness” refers to the poverty and suffering among residents of south Tel Aviv and other neighborhoods with high populations of African migrants, and not to people of color.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/04/2013 at 09:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Border Security • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Israel •  
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broad of nose, big thick lips, yes sir yes ma’am one of those

The front page headline that greets us …. and not for the first time.

Bad enough this country seems unable to flip the international bird at those who insist these vermin have rights.

There does not seem to be any lynch mobs out for blood either.  And there should be.  In many respects, western cultures have become a bit too civilized for their own good.  At the same time, the criminal has it appears, become less human like, more aggressive and more brutal.

Recently, a woman was surprised by burglars who overpowered her , tied her up and poured petrol over her.  They ransacked the house and told her she’d be set alight.  Somehow, she managed to reach a phone and dialed 999, with her tongue after they left. She is damn lucky they left her only frightened. It could have been worse.

There can not be anything too much scarier than being accused of a crime one is innocent of.  So yes, if someone is accused of a crime, and especially a sexual assault against a child, then the authorities must make damn sure they have the evidence, either by the victim and or DNA.

None of us would like being in a position of being accused of something we did not do.  So there is indeed a good reason for having a darn good defense lawyer.  BUT.

That is not the case here.  Example after example of those clearly guilty, but because of the “Rights Industry” they not only remain here, they do so with benefits from the folks who pay the taxes.  And worse yet, as this example shows, they are out on a bail and, hmmm.

Not much doing today. Bored. Oh I know, how about having sex of some kind with a four year old.  Sickening, but it’s happened.  And ALL in the name of … “rights.” When is this travesty going to end? 

Here, take a look . 

Nearly 4,000 foreign murderers, rapists and other criminals are roaming the streets, free to commit new crimes.

The Government wants to deport them but admits that many cannot be kicked out because of their human rights.

The figures do not even include the handful of terrorist suspects such as Abu Qatada whom the Government is seeking to extradite.

by Tim Shipman

Officials say thousands use the Human Rights Act, which guarantees the ‘right to family life’, or fears about violence in the countries they left as a way of dodging deportation.

Around 800 of the foreign criminals have been at large in Britain for more than five years.

The revelations last night prompted calls for the Government to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights so that the foreign offenders can be sent home.

Ministers admitted last year that a string of murders and sex attacks have been committed by foreign nationals who should already have been kicked out.
Foreign criminals on immigration bail have committed three murders, three kidnappings and 14 sexual offences, including rape.

Official figures show that there have also been arrests in relation to 27 other ‘violent crimes’ and 64 thefts.

Home Office Minister Mark Harper used a Parliamentary written answer to release the most recent figures, recorded at the end of September.

He said: ‘There are 3,980 foreign nationals in the UK subject to deportation action living in the community.

We continue to pursue removal in all these cases.

‘The principal barriers to removal are non-compliance on the part of individuals which means we have insufficient evidence of nationality and identity to obtain a travel document, ongoing legal challenges and the situations in countries of return.’

Home Secretary Theresa May has issued new guidance to judges saying Section 8 of the Human Rights Act, which guarantees the right to family life, should not override serious criminality in deportation cases.

But critics say that is not enough to solve the problem. Tory MP Priti Patel, who asked the Parliamentary question that led to the publication of the figures, called for the abolition of the Human Rights Act.

She said: ‘Lax immigration and border controls inherited from the previous Labour government have left this mess and the current Government must take all steps necessary, including abolishing the Human Rights Act, to get these people removed from Britain.

‘The public deserve to have a robust immigration system in place to keep them safe instead of laws and rules designed to help foreigners remain in Britain when they should have no right to be here.

‘Hard-pressed taxpayers will be disgusted to learn that they are footing the legal fees and living costs associated with this number of foreigners overstaying their welcome.’

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch UK, said: ‘This is an extraordinary number. Offenders and their lawyers are clearly playing the legal system.
‘The case for pulling out of the 60-year-old ECHR gets stronger by the day. The Government is trying to give better guidance to the courts but that is most unlikely to have the necessary impact.
‘The only long-term solution is to pull out of the ECHR completely and write our own human rights law.’

And in a somewhat related story:

llegal immigrants injured five staff during a riot at a detention centre. About 40 detainees were involved in the incident at Morton Hall immigration removal centre in Swinderby, Lincolnshire, on December 30. One detainee was taken to hospital. Up to 50 detainees took part in a protest on Christmas Day, in which no one was hurt.

The ONLY way to control this problem, is the use of deadly force.
Oh wait, can’t do that.  Need the permission of the euro-weenies, who will not approve. Hey wait again, just whose country is this anyway?
Oh yeah. I forgot.  Brits gave it away to Brussels and the euro-weenie human rights court.  But wait yet again.. What humans?  Where? There aren’t any. 

Posted by peiper     on 01/04/2013 at 06:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • EUro-peons • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
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   Thursday - January 03, 2013

Green Porkulus Grows Fangs

Delaware taxpayers appear to be getting soaked twice under a deal in which the Democratic governor loaned $21.5 million to a hybrid electric carmaker to set up shop in the state. The company has yet to produce a car in Delaware, and taxpayers are footing the electric bill for the idle plant.

The deal was enthusiastically announced in 2009 by Gov. Jack Markell and Vice President Biden—formerly Delaware’s senior senator—as a way to bring as many as 2,500 green jobs to the state. But California-based Fisker Automotive Inc. has since suffered a series of setbacks that have compounded its shaky financial situation.

“It has not worked out the way he had envisioned,” Markell spokeswoman Cathy Rossi acknowledged Monday in a statement to FoxNews.com. “We didn’t know and couldn’t have known about the underlying technical and financial problems.”

Delaware reportedly has paid at least $400,000 in utility bills since about April, when Fisker halted operations and laid off dozens of workers at the 142-acre, Wilmington-area facility. Markell staffers told The News Journal the payments are part of the grant deal and necessary to at least keep Fisker’s small-scale operation on life support.

Fisker opened for business in 2007, and its early problems were largely related to such technical issues as steering and emissions.

However, in February the U.S. Energy Department stopped disbursements on Fisker’s $529 million loan because the company purportedly failed to meet production and sales goals on its electric plug-in sedan, the Karma.

The Kar-ma? Oy, what a goldmine for one liners that one is. “Hey, I hear that Fiskers new hybrid only drives in circles! Yup, what goes around, comes around”.

“This is never a good roll for the government—corporate welfare,” said Paul Chesser, an associate fellow at the conservative-leaning National Legal and Policy Center. “Let the market put up the money, not the taxpayer.”

Chesser also points out the similarities of California-based solar company Solyndra going bankrupt after receiving nearly $530 million in federal loan money from the Obama administration.

“There’s a trend of companies with no track record—or in this case failure—being worthy of government investment,” he said.

No, really? And it gets better: the Karma ran on batteries built by A123 battery company. You know, the one that Oxama dumped a few hundred million into, only to have it go belly up a short while later. And is now owned by the damned Chinese. It almost ... like this whole thing was planned to fail from the get-go. Like, it’s karma or something.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/03/2013 at 06:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Miscellaneous •  
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Worldwide Kiddie Porn Bust

More than 200 adults have been arrested in an international investigation of child pornography, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday.

The agency’s director, John Morton, said 123 child victims were identified during the five-week investigation, which ended in early December. ICE and local authorities found 110 victims in 19 U.S. states, while the others were living in six countries elsewhere.

Morton declined to provide specific details about which foreign countries were involved, saying only that there were some cases in Mexico.

The investigation, dubbed “Operation Sunflower,” was part of ICE’s effort to find and rescue victims, and arrest abusers and people who make or transmit child pornography.

“We have to attack child exploitation relentlessly and together. There is no other way, there is no other answer,” Morton said. “It is a wrong among wrongs. We are literally defending the defenseless.”

Morton also announced arrest warrants for two unidentified adults charged in Los Angeles with molesting a girl who appeared in online photos to be about 13 when she was abused. The man and woman were identified only as “John Doe” and “Jane Doe” and authorities believe they may have been near Los Angeles when they abused the girl. Photos of the abuse investigators found online are believed to be about 11 years old, Morton said.

The victims ranged in age from less than 1 to 17 years old. Morton said 44 of the victims were living with their accused abusers.

Living willingly with their abusers, or locked in hidden rooms in the basement?

God almighty, this just skeeves me out. Sexual abuse of pre-teen children? Some still in infancy? There isn’t a big enough, sharp enough, slow enough Whisper Chipper in the world to enact punishment. And if you don’t execute them, or at least lock them up forever, then they’ll go right back to doing this. This is what happens when your “anything goes” culture goes too far. There’s permissiveness, and then there’s twisted perversion. And it’s a damn sharp line. Or at least it ought to be. Used to be? I wish there was to be?

Oh, and what’s with the 11 year old photos of the 13 year old? Isn’t there some kind of statute of limitations? Beats me. I’m not a pedo, so I don’t know jack about the applicable laws. But I can spot perversion from a mile off.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/03/2013 at 05:42 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
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So, Let’s Talk

FBI source link

FBI gun background checks hit record highs

The FBI performed nearly 2.8 million background checks on people wanting to buy guns in December, a record month that capped a record year.

...

The FBI performed more than 2.78 million checks in the final month of the year. That followed a record November. For 2012, the agency ran more than 19.5 million background checks, another record that represented a year-over-year increase of more than three million.

Under federal law, sales staff at stores licensed by the government to sell firearms are required to call the FBI or another approved agency to make sure the buyer does not have a criminal record or a history of serious mental illness, which would legally prohibit the sale.

The system does not account for all U.S. gun purchases, however. Many gun shows are not covered and private sales, such as one hunter selling a weapon to another, also are not subject to checks.

Also remember that a few states require a fresh NICS check for people renewing pistol permits. But one check can be used for purchasing several guns at once, and nobody has any real idea how many legal private “gun show loophole” sales go on. Plus all the illegal ones. My bet is that it all pretty much evens out, and the monthly NICS numbers reflect about 75% of all the actual transactions. So in my opinion, the number of guns sold is actually a good bit more than these numbers show. NICS does not track how many sales were for new guns or used ones, but guns last for ages and ages.

But still ... the increase in November 2012 and December 2012 compared to those months last year adds up to nearly 1.4 million, which would be a fat number for any month of any other year on this chart. Total NICS checks for the past 4 years are about equal to the number of checks for the 7 years before that. The 2012 numbers are nearly double the 2006 numbers, and are more than half again larger than the 2008 numbers.

Playing with fire: If we assume a moderate lifespan of 65 years for a firearm, and we take the 1998 numbers as a baseline, assuming that November and December are 10% sales spike months, and further assuming that sales increase about 7% each year, which was damn optimistic prior to either Obama or the War on Terror, then it can be extrapolated that a further 120 million firearms were purchased between 1948 and 1998. This ignores the post WWII glut of military weapons dumped on the market by the US government and foreign imports. But it adds up to 280 million guns, and is probably a highly conservative number, given that firearms can easily last 100 years or more, and that the 7% growth rate was probably more like 3% for decades. Adjusted for a bit of reality, it’s pretty safe to say that there are at least 350 million firearms in private hands in the USA. And our current population is what, about 312 million?

UPDATE: Hammer Time (ie “can’t touch this") On a related note, the Samizdat network (all the VRWC blogs and some few news pages) is trumpeting today how the latest FBI UCR numbers show that hammers and other blunt instruments are used as murder weapons 50% more often than rifles are. And that hands and fists are used 230% more often. The numbers vary a bit year to year, but from the available data, 1995-2011, the trend remains constant. See FBI Table 11, and the same data expanded to the state level in Table 20 for 2011 data. For earlier years, go here.

The FBI has not published microscopic granularity numbers of rifle murders categorized by type. Too bad, because they have that data. There are only 5 types, broadly speaking. And just in case they do release it, and it turns out that bolt action scoped hunting rifles are the weapons of choice (evil sniper rifles!!) their own statistics claim there was only 1 sniper murder this past year. And that was done with a handgun. Don’t ask me how you can snipe with a pistol. Maybe it was one of those long barrel Encore ones with a scope and a bipod. But there was only one of them.

At the other end of the spectrum, to be fair and balanced, rifles were only used to kill offenders - justifiable homicides - just a dozen times by private citizens. Handguns did the job on average 10 times more often for police and for private citizens.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/03/2013 at 11:34 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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The It Girl of 1921

Seriously classic eye candy

Betty Blythe, silent film era movie star and sex symbol. Tying in with yesterday’s “Larnin” post on ancient civilizations, she played the lead in the 1921 Fox film The Queen of Sheba. Dude. 1921? Srsly? I’m seeing almost nakedness in these pics ... nice figure! ... must have been one helluva racy film for 1921. What was the term, “blue movies”?

Blythe replaced Theda Bara - the original cinema “It” girl - by the early 20s, and spent the next decade torching up films. And here I thought the Roaring 20s was all about those stick skinny flapper girls. Not hardly!

Betty Blythe (September 1, 1893 – April 7, 1972) was an American actress who was one of Hollywood’s earliest sex symbols. Blythe is best remembered for her dramatic roles in exotic silent films such as “The Queen of Sheba” (1921).

Silent Era, hell. She worked steadily in Hollywood from 1916 until 1964, appearing in at least two films per year, every year, until 1952. From 1917 to the early 1930s she was either the lead actress or one of the top billed ones in every film she made. 

Posted by Drew458     on 01/03/2013 at 09:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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onward christian soldier, with a long bow. usual but lovable brit insanity. who else would dare?

Missed yesterday and this will be my only post today.  Unavoidable.

Caught this a couple of days ago.  Reads like something that Hollywood should do.  Of course, they’d make the Brit an American like they did in the movie The Great Escape.  Which in case you didn’t already know, was a Brit operation in real life. 

So anyway, I saw this and still wonder, did he really do that?  It may be brave but it’s a bit bizarre. This is something that is so purely Brit, if Hollywood did the story and tried turning the lead into an American, nobody would buy.  The feeling would be, no American GI would be that dumb. 

Some might say he had more guts than brains.  I don’t think he was dumb at all, but I’m not sure why I believe that.

Bottom line whatever you choose to believe, this was some kind of derring do.

One little niggling problem with the story however, and it will take BMEWS Weapons Guru Drew to tel usl.  And he will if the info printed is incorrect, as I suspect it is.

The article says the guy used the Long Bow, with American Indian arrows.

How?  Would not the Indian arrows have been a lot shorter?  And why Indian arrows? The article does not say.

The amazing story of Mad Jack, the hero who took on the Nazis with a bow and arrow (and later became a professional bagpipe player)

Commando leader said soldiers without a sword was ‘improperly armed’
Led his men carrying a bow and arrow and playing the bagpipes
Earned two Distinguished Service Orders and a Military Cross during war
His story recovered by researchers from website findmypast.co.uk

By Ian Drury, Defence Correspondent

He was nicknamed Mad Jack by his men during the Second World War.

After coming face to face with Lieutenant Colonel John Churchill, the Germans probably had a similar, if less affectionate, moniker for the eccentric officer.

Rather than wield a sub-machine gun in battle, the commando leader inspired his comrades by storming beaches armed with a bow and arrow and two-handed sword, dressed in a kilt and playing a set of bagpipes.

He enhanced his reputation by capturing 42 German prisoners with only his broadsword and later escaping from one of the most daunting Nazi jails before the end of the war.

The colourful officer’s bravery – he is the only soldier in the war credited with killing enemy troops with arrows – earned him a chestful of gallantry medals, including two Distinguished Service Orders and a Military Cross. But even though his career was one of the most remarkable in the history of the Army, his story is not widely known.

Now the heroism of Lt Col Churchill, who died in 1996 aged 89, has been recovered by researchers at family history website findmypast.co.uk.

His story has been put together from reports in local newspapers which have been placed online for the first time.

Born in Surrey in 1906, he was educated on the Isle of Man and at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He joined the 2nd Battalion the Manchester Regiment in 1926.

He later left the Army to become a professional bagpipe player and appeared in films. He was also a highly skilled bowman, representing Britain in the World Archery Championships in 1939. At the outbreak of war he was recalled to the Army.

Carrying an English longbow and American Indian arrows on to the battlefield, Lt Col Churchill’s fearlessness under fire became his hallmark.

He often said that ‘any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly armed’. An account in the Dundee Evening Telegraph from May 1945 described his deadly attack against Germans hiding in bushes during the retreat to Dunkirk five years earlier.

‘He was on patrol when some Germans were detected in a thicket about 200 yards away,’ said the report. ‘He shot two arrows into the thicket. There were some strange noises and no answering fire.’

He was also in the thick of the action with his bagpipes while leading 2 Commando through Sicily, to Messina and the landings at Salerno, Italy.

Alongside a corporal named Ruffell, he took 42 German prisoners and captured a mortar post using only his sword, taking one guard as a human shield and then creeping between sentry posts and forcing the soldiers to surrender.

Mad Jack was finally captured in an attack on the island of Brac, off the then Yugoslavia, when, as bombs exploded around him, he continued to play his bagpipes until he was knocked unconscious.

He later escaped from the Sagan prison but was recaptured and interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until being released by the German army.

MAD JACK SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 01/03/2013 at 08:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Battling Brits • UK • War-Stories •  
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   Wednesday - January 02, 2013

my daily larnin’ o’ stuff

Aksum, Maqurra, Alwa! Nobatia! Dongola!!

Nope, not magical words from some unknown Harry Potter spell. Cities. Kingdoms. Entire Civilizations. Gone. Put to the sword. Pretty much lost to history, and literally off the edges of the better known maps.

Until the rise of Islam, these were the names of vast areas in central Eastern Africa, from the south end of Egypt, down through Nubia, Kush, Ethiopia, Eritrea and into the Sudan and the outskirts of modern Somalia. At it’s height, the Aksum Empire controlled the southwest part of the Arabian peninsula (think Queen of Sheba) and the southern coast of what is present day Yemen.

They were not part of the Roman Empire, but they were Christian nations. Some fell quickly to the onslaught. Some lasted to 1415. Ethiopia is still a Christian/Jewish enclave, as are parts of the Sudan. And under constant violent pressure still. From Islam. For more than 1400 years now.

Buried Christian Empire Casts New Light on Early Islam

Archeologists are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen. The sites have sparked a number of questions about the early history of Islam. Was there once a church in Mecca?

The commandment “Make yourself no graven image” has long been strictly followed in the Arab world. There are very few statues of the caliphs and ancient kings of the region. The pagan gods in the desert were usually worshipped in an “aniconic” way, that is, as beings without form.

Muhammad had a beard, but there are no portraits of him.

But now a narcissistic work of human self-portrayal has turned up in Yemen. It is a figure, chiseled in stone, which apparently stems from the era of the Prophet.

Paul Yule, an archeologist from the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, has studied the relief, which is 1.70 meters (5’7") tall, in Zafar, some 930 kilometers (581 miles) south of Mecca. It depicts a man with chains of jewelry, curls and spherical eyes. Yule dates the image to the time around 530 AD.

...

Yule has concluded that Zafar was the center of an Arab tribal confederation, a realm that was two million square kilometers (about 772,000 square miles) large and exerted its influence all the way to Mecca.

Even more astonishing is his conclusion that kings who invoked the Bible lived in the highland settlement. The “crowned man” depicted on the relief was also a Christian.

At the height of their empire, the king - the Negus of Aksum (love the title) - controlled the ocean and shoreline spice and silk routes from the Arabian Sea west of India right up to the borders of the Byzantine Roman Empire. Talk about your middle man.

http://ethiopiandynasty.weebly.com/axum-kingdomy-100-900.html
http://www.ethiopiantreasures.co.uk/pages/aksum.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maqurra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alwa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyarite_Kingdom
http://www.timemaps.com/history/nubia-ad500
http://images.classwell.com/mcd_xhtml_ebooks/2005_world_history/images/mcd_awh2005_0618376798_p226_f1.jpg
http://images.classwell.com/mcd_xhtml_ebooks/2005_world_history/images/mcd_awh2005_0618376798_p171_f1.jpg

Posted by Drew458     on 01/02/2013 at 08:51 PM   
Filed Under: • Archeology / Anthropology • History •  
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Spies Wear Rayon

There’s the gal who leads a life of danger.
To everyone she meets she stays a stranger.
With every move she makes, another chance she takes.
Odds are she won’t live to run in ‘16.

Secret agent Hill
Secret agent Hill
They’ve given you a number,
and taken away your pantsuit.

this started to surface the day before yesterday ...

Clinton Injured, US Navy Seal Killed In Secret US Mission To Iran

A new Foreign Military Intelligence (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today is saying that United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was injured, and a top US Navy Seal Commander killed when their C-12 Huron military passenger and transport aircraft crash landed nearly 3 weeks ago in the Iranian city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border.

Iranian intelligence agents quoted in this GRU report confirm that the C-12 Huron aircraft is still in their possession in Ahvaz, but will only admit that the plane was “forced to land because of technical problems”.

The US Navy Seal member reported killed in this bizarre incident, this report says, was iulencedentified as Commander Job W. Price [photo 3rd right] who as a leader of this highly specialized American Special Forces unit protects high-ranking diplomats traveling in Middle Eastern and Asian combat zones.

Upon the C-12 Huron landing at Ahwaz, however, this report says it encountered “extreme turbulence” causing it to leave the runway where its main landing gear then collapsed causing it to crash.

Within seconds of the C-12 Huron crashing, this report continues, Iranian emergency and security personal responded freeing the victims, including Secretary Clinton who was reportedly unconscious and “bleeding profusely.”

After emergency aid was given, GRU agents stationed in Iran state that another US military flight was dispatched from Bahrain to Ahwaz which evacuated all of those wounded and killed in the crash including Secretary Clinton.

Strangely to note, this report says, is that in the aftermath of this crash, Iran’s main oil company announced today that they were buying the Ahwaz airport with the intention of moving it because, they say, oil was discovered beneath it.

Oh, and I wonder if the Farsi way to spell “extreme turbulence” is M A N P A D S?

Oops ... maybe I shouldn’t be joking around about this ...

A startling Foreign Military Intelligence (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that President Obama was informed by White House medical personal shortly after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s return to the United States that her health prognosis was “grim” as her likelihood of survival was “diminishing by the hour.”

Ordinarily, I’d say that if it was published in Pravda it must be true. But this was from a GRU report. You remember those guys. Like the KGB, only nastier. No reason they’d ever disseminate false information about the West. Nyet!
h/t to Da Bro

Posted by Drew458     on 01/02/2013 at 02:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Adventure • Hildabeast • Iran •  
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NYC: Starting The Year Off With A Bang

The New Year has started off with a bang.

Nine people have been shot since the city welcomed in 2013, police said.

Gunfire first erupted at around 2 a.m., when two people were hit with bullets in separate incidents.

In the first shooting, which happened on White Plains Road and Seward Avenue in the Bronx, a 32-year-old man was hit in the stomach and taken to Jacobi Hospital, cops said. He is in stable condition.

In the second report of gunplay, a 19-year-old boy was shot in the back on Irving Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn, cops added. He was rushed to Wyckoff Hospital in stable condition.

Then, at around 3 a.m. a 24-year-old man was popped in the buttocks after a fight broke out between a large group near Jerome Avenue and West Fordham Road in the Bronx, cops said.
...

Forget trying to get a concealed carry permit: even owning a gun is damn near impossible in New York City. I’m pretty certain that even toy guns are illegal, even if they’re made from Day-Glo™ plastic. It takes ages and ages and immense amounts of money to get a permit for anything, long gun or hand gun. Ammunition is also strictly controlled. So it’s pretty much a guarantee that every single one of these shootings was done with an illegal gun.

How is this possible? NYC has been run by Liberals since ... forever!, and they’ve had seriously strict, population-disarming gun control since ... forever!!

Boy, those straw purchase gun smugglers in Virginia must be working overtime.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/02/2013 at 01:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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flirt

Posted by Drew458     on 01/02/2013 at 12:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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Feudin History

All this fightin’ started out one Sunday morning
When old grandpa Coy was full of mountain dew
Just as quite as a churchmouse, he stole in the Martin’s henhouse
Cause the Coys they needed eggs for breakfast, too.


Oh, the Martins and the Coys they were reckless mountain boys
And they took up family feudin’ when they’d meet
They would shoot each other quicker
Than it took your eye to flicker
They could knock a squirrel’s eye out at ninety feet.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Hatfield clan New Year’s attack on Randolph McCoy’s cabin marked a turning point in America’s most famous feud—the homestead was set ablaze, and two McCoys were gunned down. Hatfield family members and supporters were soon thrown in jail.

Artifacts recently unearthed appear to pinpoint the location of the 1888 ambush in the woods of Pike County in eastern Kentucky. Excavators found bullets believed to have been fired by the McCoys in self-defense, along with fragments of windows and ceramic from the family’s cabin.

“This is one of the most famous conflicts in American history, and we’ve got bullets fired from one of the key battles. It doesn’t get any better than that,” said Bill Richardson, a West Virginia University extension professor who was part of the recent discovery.

The discoveries come amid a surge of interest in the feud that spanned much of the last half of the 19th century. The fighting claimed at least a dozen lives by 1888 and catapulted both families into the American vernacular, becoming shorthand to describe bitter rivalries.

The History Channel aired a three-night miniseries about the feud that set basic cable viewing records. The drama starred Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton as the patriarchs—William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield in West Virginia and Randolph “Ole Ran’l” McCoy in Kentucky.

The New Year’s attack was one of the bloodiest episodes in the feud.

“It was a turning point,” Richardson said. “The feud had lasted 23 years up until this battle. And then 20 days later it’s virtually over.”

Now, descendants of both families live peacefully among each other in the Appalachian region. And officials in both states see the potential to reap a financial windfall because of the public’s fascination.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/02/2013 at 08:21 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Such A Cliff Hanger

Congress gave its final approval Tuesday to a bill halting massive tax hikes and delaying a risky round of spending cuts, sending the package to the president’s desk and likely averting for now an economy-stalling fiscal crisis. President Obama said he would sign it.

The 257-167 vote in the House came after a day of high drama on Capitol Hill, during which conservative House lawmakers voiced serious concern about the Senate bill’s lack of spending cuts. Rank-and-file Republicans initially predicted they would tinker with the package, raising the possibility the Senate would abandon it and nothing would get done before the new congressional class is seated Thursday.

But House leaders soon learned they did not have a majority behind any spending-cut plan, and allowed the straight vote. Far more Democrats supported the final bill than Republicans.

The result, once Obama signs it, is that tax hikes that technically kicked in Jan. 1 for most Americans would largely be halted.

Obama, speaking at the White House shortly before midnight, thanked Vice President Biden for his role in negotiating with the Senate a day earlier on the compromise package. The president, as did Republicans on the Hill, cautioned that the bill will precede a broader debate in 2013 about deficit reduction.

The bill passed by Congress would nix the 2013 tax increases for families making under $450,000, while letting rates rise for those making above that threshold. It would also extend unemployment insurance for another year, while patching up a host of other expiring provisions and delaying automatic spending cuts for two months. Those cuts, which would hit defense heavily, will instead be offset with a blend of tax increases and other spending cuts.

Americans will still see a 2-point increase this month in their Social Security tax, as Congress did not opt to extend that payroll tax holiday.

Holy cow. If I’m reading that right, this is the best time in history to have lost your job. We were already at the two year mark (99 weeks). Now it will be 150 weeks? Unreal. And just where is that money coming from, anyway?

While Boehner and former Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, R-Wis., voted for the bill, some of Boehner’s top deputies – notably Republican Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. – opposed it. Boehner is facing a vote to retain his speakership in a matter of days.

Give him the boot. Try and find a real Conservative with some backbone to replace him. Yeah, good luck with that.

Without a resolution soon, taxes would have jumped by $2,400 on average for families with incomes of $50,000 to $75,000, according to a study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And because consumers would get less of their paychecks to spend, businesses and jobs would suffer as well.

Does this mean that most of the Evil Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich were renewed again???

UPDATE: Yup, I was right. While the Democrats will ring the bells that this is such a great victory for them, and the Republicans will boo Boehner as a turncoat, one truth is that the passage of this bill made 98% of the Evil Booosh Tax Cuts permanent. You know, the ones that the Democrats had fought tooth and nail against for a decade. The ones that Comrade Obingo campaigned for overturning in 2004. Seems the Dems have done another 180, and somehow the press hasn’t noticed. So, if they were on our side when they were against the EBTCFTR, and now they’re for the EBTCFTR (except for the really well off folks who are pulling down about half a mil or more), then you have to wonder ... whose side are the Democrats on? And the sad answer is that they’re on the same side as their erstwhile enemies the Republicans: the side they’re both on is NOT YOURS.  So while the tax cuts will stay with us, the AMT is going to get worse. And let’s not mention all the extra spending and pork thrown in this bill that was supposed to be all about saving money. Ain’t no such beast living in the malarial swamp called Washington DC. Ain’t no such beat a’tall.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/02/2013 at 07:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Government •  
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