Queen Elizabeth II’s first Rumsfeld Welsh Corgi was named Dookie.
Iraqi Researcher Living in Europe on Al-Jazeera TV: The Nobel Prize is Racist; ‘Why Has the Prize Been Awarded to 167 Jews and Only 4 Arabs..........
Creator of one of the greatest singer/songwriter albums of all time, “Tea for the Tillerman,” the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens has finally come out of his self-imposed retirement, and it’s literally a blessed event.
In the late 1970s, following his own lyrical precept to “pick up a good book now” (in his case, the Koran), the musician became a Muslim and renamed himself Yusuf Islam. He threw away his guitar, judging music frivolous and distracting. He plowed his energies and royalties into creating a London school to nurture Muslim girls (having three of his own), and eventually took over leadership position in dozens of religious-linked organizations.
Yusuf now says it was a combination of factors - including visits to music-friendly Muslim countries and having his son bring a guitar into the house - that finally got him into singing and composing again.
But being refused admittance to the U.S. as a terrorist threat (the week before he was awarded a peace prize in Britain) also must have motivated the man to instigate a major public relations effort on behalf of moderate Muslims.
The result is this comeback album filled with songs that espouse the peaceful and all-embracing side of his religion.
Still shy of scaring would-be listeners away, the new disc, “An Other Cup” (Atlantic, A-) lists the artist just as Yusuf (no last name). His distinctive finger-picked and strummed acoustic guitars and still decently purring voice, zesty global rhythms and sweet-natured lullaby tunes often recall glories past.
A revival of “I Think I See the Light” underscores that he was a spiritual cat way back when, while Yusuf’s genteel treatment of the Animals’ “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” likewise aims to set matters straight.
Most exotic and enticing of all, though, is “The Beloved,” a haunting celebration of Muhammad that shares the testimony with Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour.
Truly, this is baklava for the soul.
Shrubber
Nigel Powers: All right Goldmember. Don’t play the laughing boy. There’s only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch.
Goldmember: What? Take the fahza away! Dutch hater! And now, it is time to say goodbye. Dr. Evil’s orders. Which, for you, is bad news bears,
[talks in a deep vioce]
Goldmember: Walter Matthau.
(All apologies to the normal movie moment people)
mmmmmmmm......
Ralph Cleary celebrates with his new Playstation 3 after waiting in line for three days for the 12:01 am release at a Best Buy store in Los Angeles, California. Violence broke out at the chaotic US launch of Sony’s PlayStation 3 as game fans and profiteers mobbed stores nationwide to grab limited stocks of the must-have computer console.
My co-workers and I have been laughing our asses off while watching all the news reports. I’m sorry but these idiots have got to be some of the most retarded people I’ve ever seen in my life.
All this over a fucking video game console.........unreal
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Thursday encouraged the Republican Party to return to conservative principles of limited government and the rule of law.
What’s that flawed legislation again that flies in the face of the 1st amendment? McSomething-Feingold?
That’s like Murtha talking about a return to ethics in congress. Or Dennis Kucinich encouraging others to act like a man. Or…
This is from a screen capture of the front page of Yahoo! News. Once again the leftist media tries to equate the situation in Iraq to that of Vietnam. The image also depicts an apparently dejected General Abizaid.
If any of you saw some clips from Abizaid’s time dealing with the morons on Capitol Hill you’re realize it’s not an expression of dejection or demoralization; but rather one of exasperation.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The Dutch government announced plans Friday for legislation banning full-length veils in public places and other clothing that covers the face - putting the Netherlands at the forefront of a general European hardening toward Muslim minorities.
And to put the Netherlands toward the top of the islamopithecenes’ shit-list.
For my money this sure makes more sense than banning cigarette smoking in public.
What? Not Bangladesh?
THIS IS AWESOME & MIND BOGGLING !!
This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa . Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation equipment of Bancroft Iowa , yes farm equipment!
It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it was WELL worth the effort.
It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.
SierraHome
A woman poses wearing the new Wonderbra Multiplunge bra in the National Portrait Gallery in London November 16, 2006
[ yes, there’s a hundred more ]
Like she needs a Wonderbra.
T.E. Lawrence: I killed two people. One was… yesterday? He was just a boy and I led him into quicksand. The other was… well, before Aqaba. I had to execute him with my pistol, and there was something about it that I didn’t like.
General Allenby: That’s to be expected.
T.E. Lawrence: No, something else.
General Allenby: Well, then let it be a lesson.
T.E. Lawrence: No… something else.
General Allenby: What then?
T.E. Lawrence: I enjoyed it.
^otherwise known as “The Waddle”^
~*~
Boazo and me
I’m having a stroke. How many of my amazingly hilarious rollover posts (usually some of my BEST) have gone un gotten because some peeps don’t know what a rollover is?
(roll your mouse over the pictures...................sobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb)
I know I made a promise after winning the Conservative Diva deallio that I wouldn’t pimp these things but I never said no one ELSE could.
Only one nomination in the 2006 Weblog Awards??
Sheesh. It really isn’t all about me yannow.
After Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga in 1863, many in the North believed that victory was soon to come after Lincoln appointed Ulysses S. Grant General-in-Chief on March 12, 1864. When the spring campaigns all turned into bloody stalemates, Northern morale dipped and Lincoln seemed less likely to be re-nominated. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase strongly desired the Republican nomination and was working hard to win it, while John Fremont was nominated by a breakoff group of radical Republicans, potentially taking away crucial votes in the November elections. Lincoln selected Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat as his running mate in order to form a broader coalition. Lincoln and Johnson then ran on the Union Party. The Union party was a coalition of Republicans and War Democrats such as his running mate Johnson of Tennessee.
...Lincoln pledged to destroy the Confederacy before he left office on March 4, 1865.
The Democrats, hoping to make setbacks in the war a top campaign issue, waited until late summer to nominate a candidate. Their platform was heavily influenced by the Peace wing of the party, calling the war a “failure.” Their candidate, former General George McClellan, was a War Democrat, determined to prosecute the war until the Union was restored. He was also willing to compromise on all other issues, including slavery.
General Grant was facing severe criticism for his conduct of the bloody Overland Campaign that summer and the seemingly endless Siege of Petersburg. Lincoln provided Grant with new replacements and mobilized the party to support Grant and talk up local support for the war. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September ended defeatist talk; the Democratic Party was deeply split, with some leaders and most soldiers openly for Lincoln; the Union party was united and energized, and Lincoln was easily reelected in a landslide. He won all but two states, capturing 212 of 233 electoral votes.
On March 4, 1865, he delivered his second inaugural address, which was his favorite of all his speeches. At this time, a victory over the rebels was at hand, slavery was dead, and Lincoln was looking to the future.
Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether”.With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
If the peaceniks and paranoid liberetardians of our time had their way, Lincoln’s legacy would probably read something like ...
“Horrible failure and sometime war criminal, King Lincoln was shot in the head by a gay anti-war dissenter who merely wanted to the right to marry his longtime partner and co-conspirator, Lewis Powell. The End.”
And what’s with all that “pray, G*d and the Lord” stuff?
Why that’s just ridiculously-ritualistic, anti-homosexual, Christianist-Fundamentalist crazy talk!
The man had just stuck the gun in his waistband when it fired, shooting him in the left testicle, authorities said. He cringed, causing the gun to fire again and strike him in the left calf, they said.
a twofer:
Same guy? You tell me.
FreeRepublic
DougM
Does Sondra know how to close tags?
Looks like love!
---some zookeeper
As Palestinian Arab rockets struck two Israeli towns yesterday, U.N. bodies prepared to launch no fewer than two overlapping “fact-finding” missions to second-guess Israel’s anti-terrorist tactics. President Carter could head one of those missions.
Savage via radio
So I’m reading along and thinking what’s the big deal? Unless there’s a paragraph in the book that interjects gay penguin sex or some reference to penguin glory holes who gives a shit, it’s a true story.....
A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents in this village who worry about the book’s availability to elementary students — and the reluctance of administrators to restrict access to it.
The concerns are the latest involving “And Tango Makes Three,” the illustrated children’s book based on a true story of two male penguins — Roy and Silo — in New York City’s Central Park Zoo who adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own.Complaining about the book’s homosexual undertones, some parents of Shiloh Elementary School students believe the book — available to be checked out of the school’s library in this 11,000-resident town 20 miles east of St. Louis — tackles topics their young children aren’t ready to handle.
BUT THEN!!!!!!!
Lilly Del Pinto thought the book looked charming when her 5-year-old daughter — a kindergartner at Shiloh Elementary — brought it home in September. Finding the watercolor illustrations “pretty and beautiful,” Del Pinto said she was halfway through reading the book to her daughter ”when the zookeeper said the two penguins must be in love,” jarring Del Pinto.
“That’s when I ended the story,” she said.
That’s when I said whoah, too. Ya see, there’s no way some zookeeper could know that so it’s not only misleading but that would be anthropomorphism which would make the zookeeper a very shitty scientist. And in the animal world gay penguins would be shunned and culled.
Take it away Mr. Science T FOaD!
Which is not to say I don’t subscribe to animals having feelings but I’m just a stoopid Neandercon.
(Gawd I love that....who thought that up? Someone said it in comments somewhere so I stole it. But now I feel guilty.)
he’s dead but can you still fuck him?*…
A US judge in the state of Massachusetts has settled a legal food fight by ruling that a burrito is not a sandwich.
Panera Bread, a chain of bakery-cafe restaurants, had been trying to keep a competitor, Qdoba Mexican Grill, from opening a new restaurant in a shopping mall where Panera was already doing business.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, Panera cited an exclusivity clause in its lease agreement that prevented the shopping mall from renting space to any restaurant or bakery that derived more than 10 per cent of its sales from sandwiches.
The shopping mall’s owner, White City Shopping Centre, countered that Qdoba wasn’t in the business of selling sandwiches but rather burritos, tacos, nachos and enchiladas.
In deciding the case, Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke found the meat of his ruling in the dictionary definition of the word “sandwich”.
Judge Locke said the New Webster Third International Dictionary’s definition of sandwich - “two thin pieces of bread, usually buttered, with a thin layer (as of meat, cheese, or savoury mixture) spread between them’’ - indicated there was no reason to keep White City from renting to Qdoba.
“Under this definition and as dictated by common sense, this court finds that the term ‘sandwich’ is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos, and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans,’’ the judge said in an eight-page ruling.
The lawsuit filed in Germany this week against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Administration officials for alleged war crimes in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has little chance of making it into court. That’s according to Andreas Zimmerman, a professor of international criminal law at Kiel University who helped negotiate the Rome Treaty that founded the International Criminal Court and who drafted the German law under which Rumsfeld has been charged. Under German law, the decision over whether to try the case will rest with the federal prosecutor rather than with a judge. Federal prosecutors, of course, are subject to the wishes of the government, and the government is unlikely to press a case that would antagonize its American allies. “In theory the prosecutor could find him guilty of torture and put him in custody if he visited,” says Zimmermann. “But in reality nothing is going to happen.”
