Saturday, June 20, 2009

Orwell would have shook his head and said: I told you so!


HOMELAND INSECURITY
U.S. military teaches 'protesters' are 'low-level terrorists'
Become 'dangerous citizen' by 'repeating the very phrases Founding Fathers used'

 

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Just weeks after a scandal erupted over a Department of Homeland Security report that described as "right-wing extremists" those who oppose abortion and support secure national borders, another report is revealing that the Department of Defense is teaching that protesters are "low-level terrorists."

The newest action to define those who disagree with positions adopted by the government or administration of the United States was revealed by blogger Dennis Loo at Salon.com.

He cited a complaint filed by the northern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union demanding that the Department of Defense change its instructions and those who have been given the training be told of the modifications by "sending out corrective materials."

According to the ACLU letter, the DoD's "Annual Level 1 Antiterrorism (AT) Awareness Training for 2009" tells department personnel "that certain First Amendment-protected activity may amount to 'low-level terrorism.'"

Specifically the training "Knowledge Check 1" asks, "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?"

Click here to read the rest.

From the Robot Gallery: Directory - Hall of Fame

   Conky is a small, plastic, wind-up toy robot based on the character from the Pee-Wee Herman television show of the late 1980s.

This image shows the packaged box. Click on the image for a larger view.

Click here for the sounds of CONKY (voice by actor Gregory Harrison).

Other images:
Conky, front view
Conky, large front view
Pee-Wee Herman

 

 To see and read all about more Robots from the Good Old Days till present

click here.

Image and text via robots@chaoskids.com

Dancing around the world strengthens social bonds...

We humans are natural dancers. Dances can be celebrations, or for praise, or for an audience - or just a simple act of letting the rhythm move your body. Dancers can communicate ideas, preserve cultural identities, strengthen social bonds, or just have a lot of fun. Collected here are recent photographs of us, human beings around the world, professional and amateur, in motion for all of the reasons above and more. (39 photos total)

photo via The Big Picture

Friday, June 19, 2009

U.S. Destroyer braces for first test stop of North Korean Ship

Navy Positions Destroyer For Possible Intercept of North Korean Ship Suspected of Proliferating Missiles, Nukes

The USS John McCain, a Navy destroyer, is preparing in case of orders to intercept a North Korean when it leaves the vicinity off the coast of China, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

According to Fox News this afternoon...

The U.S. military is preparing for a possible intercept of a North Korean flagged ship suspected of proliferating weapons material in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last Friday, FOX News has learned.

The USS John McCain, a Navy destroyer, is positioning itself in case it gets orders to intercept the ship Kang Nam (pictured here) as soon as it leaves the vicinity off the coast of China, according to a senior U.S. defense official. The order to inderdict has not been given yet, but the ship is moving into the area.

"Permission has not been requested. Nor is it clear it will be," a military source told FOX News. "This is a very delicate situation and no one is interested in precipitating a confrontation."

The ship left a port in North Korea Wednesday and appears to be heading toward Singapore, according to a senior U.S. military source. The vessel, which the military has been tracking since its departure, could be carrying weaponry, missile parts or nuclear materials, a violation of U.N. Resolution 1874, which put sanctions in place against Pyongyang.

The USS McCain was involved in an incident with a Chinese sub last Friday - near Subic Bay off the Philippines. The Chinese sub was shadowing the destroyer when it hit the underwater sonar array that the USS McCain was towing behind it.

This is the first suspected "proliferator" that the U.S. and its allies have tracked from North Korea since the United Nations authorized the world's navies to enforce compliance with a variety of U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing North Korea for its recent nuclear test.

Click here to read the whole story.

photo via Fox News

Ten most ridiculous lawsuits featured...

I'm always looking for stories regarding wacky lawsuits and this one fit's that bill nicely. Enjoy:

From The Independent World..

By John Costello

Blame Stella Liebeck. It was her ridiculous lawsuit against McDonald's that started the avalanche. Back in 1992, 79-year-old Stella spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee on her lap and burned herself. Everyone laughed when she declared she was suing McDonald's, until a jury awarded her $2.9m.

Now outrageous lawsuits are a fact of life no matter how farcical.

The latest involves ex-con Dawud Yaduallah, who is suing a prison nurse in the US after she sent him to his cell even though medication had given him a painful 55-hour erection that wouldn't go away.

It seems that particular dose of "hard" time was just too much for Yaduallah. But even his legal action isn't so harebrained when compared to the Ten Most Ridiculous Lawsuits Of All Time.

                    10. The sound of silence

Music publishers for the late avant-garde composer John Cage sued Mike Batt for plagiarism in 2002. They claimed Batt's song, 'A Minute's Silence,' ripped off Cage's '4'33,' which also contained absolutely no music or vocals.

Even though copyrighting silence would seem to be impossible, Batt agreed to settle the case out of court by paying a six-figure amount.

Silence, it seems, is not only golden but it is also potentially worth millions.

 Click here to see the other nine lawsuits.

Wait till you see number one!

 photo via The Independent World

Ahmadinejad Rally Photoshopped to Appear Larger

See the circles showing where crowd images have been copied and repeated to add volume to the crowd that did not truly exist.

From the Daily Kos...
by thereisnospoon

Via the twitter feeds at #iranelection and #gr88 comes this interesting tidbit: yesterday's rally for Ahmadinejad's supporters was photoshopped to appear larger than it really was.

(N.B.: the original image comes from a website with a .ir extension: I'm not providing a direct link lest the domain be taken down)

Of course, the only way the regime thought it could get away with such a blatant maneuver was through the ban on media coverage of all rallies and protests--a ban being ignored by regular Iranians on the street, but which is severely hampering media estimations of crowd sizes, as well as decent shots of crowd sizes.

When a thuggish government is so desperate that it has to photoshop pictures of its own rallies to give them more credibility vs. the opposition rallies, it's in some serious trouble.

Here's hoping the real rallies can effectuate real change in Iran.  The regime has moved from simply thuggish to pathetically so.

Update: Several commentators have reminded me that this would not the first time the Iranian regime has doctored photos for propaganda purposes.  Remember the faked missile launch photos as well.  Potemkin missiles, Potemkin rallies.

image and text from the Daily Kos

H.L. Mencken: a great newspaperman, book reviewer, political commentator

by Gibbons Burke

The most prominent newspaperman, book reviewer, and political commentator of his day, Henry Louis Mencken was a libertarian before the word came into usage. His prose is as clear as an azure sky, and his rhetoric as deadly as a rifle shot. Frequent targets of his lance were Franklin Roosevelt and New Deal politics, Comstocks, hygenists, "uplifters", social reformers of any stripe, boobs & quacks, and the insatiable American appetite for nonsense and gaudy sham. But his life was not defined by negativity. He was positively enthusiastic about to the writings of Twain and Conrad, the music of Brahms, Beethoven and Bach, and the victuals offered up by Chesapeake Bay.

Mencken's writing is endearing because of its wit, its crisp style, and the obvious delight he takes in it. The Introduction to The Impossible H.L. Mencken: A Collection of His Best Newspaper Stories, edited by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers which relates Mencken's manner while reporting on the presidential conventions:

Click here to read the rest.

image and text via the H.L.Mencken Page

Thursday, June 18, 2009

A curious bird is caught looking at timed web cam...

A webcam in Szentgotthárd, Hungary captured this curious bird looking into the camera. The webcam is set to shoot only one frame in every minute, so what are the chances?

photo via city noise

The strange case of Miriam Sakewitz, the rabbit hoarder!

 

By KATU.com Staff

TIGARD, Ore. - Here we go again.

A woman court-ordered to stay away from animals was found Tuesday in a Tigard extended-stay hotel with rabbits, authorities said.

It was just the latest problem for 47-year-old Miriam Sakewitz, who has served jail time in the past over a sometimes bizarre case of animal abuse and hoarding.

Back in 2006, police found nearly 250 rabbits at her Hillsboro home, 88 of which were dead and in freezers. After the animals were confiscated, she broke into a police facility and took back more than 140 of them.

She was eventually convicted of animal neglect and tampering with physical evidence, among other charges. She received probation and was ordered to refrain from owning any domestic animals. But in 2007, she served three days in jail for violating her probation when she was discovered raising rabbits again.

In 2008, police found a dog and rabbit in her garage when they went to her home to check a report she was suicidal, another violation of her probation. The outcome of that case was not immediately clear.

Click here to read the rest.

photos via KATU

Patient charts often come with cryptic notes from Doctors

                                  Doctors' Comments On Patient Charts:
  • "Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year."
  • "On the 2nd day the knee was better and on the 3rd day it disappeared completely."
  • "The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1993."
  • "Discharge status: Alive but without permission."
  • "Healthy appearing decrepit 69 year-old male, mentally alert but forgetful."
  • "The patient refused an autopsy."
  • "The patient has no past history of suicides."
  • "Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital."
  • "Patient's past medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days."
  • "Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch."
  • "She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night."
  • "She is numb from her toes down."
  • "While in the ER, she was examined, X-rated and sent home."
  • To read more comments click here.
  • From "Things People Say" at rinkworks

Trump's Lowest Grift Ever Saved for Holy Week

This is a story about how the devil's puppet, aka Donald Trump, mocked Christianity by selling a book combining the Bible, the Constitu...