An enraged Connecticut lawyer leaped through the window of the house next door and plunged a knife into his neighbor's chest a dozen times - after being told the man had molested his 2-year-old daughter, police said yesterday.
Patent-law attorney Jonathon Edington, 29, turned vigilante after receiving a phone call Monday evening from his wife - who was away on vacation with their daughter - telling him that the neighbor, Barry James, 58, had been sexually abusing the little girl.
That prompted the seemingly mild-mannered Edington to storm over to James' house in the quiet suburban neighborhood, jump through a kitchen window and stab him, said Capt. Gary MacNamara of the Fairfield, Conn., police. The victim's elderly parents looked on in horror.
When Edington returned to his house, James' 87-year-old mother called police. Officers found the lawyer in his kitchen trying to wash blood off his hands and the murder weapon lying on the counter, MacNamara said.
Edington was arrested without incident and was charged Tuesday with murder and burglary.
His lawyer said his client simply lost it after being told his daughter had been sexually assaulted.
"The daughter gave the mother information which was alarming and disturbing. The mom relayed it to her husband. That was the spark," attorney Mickey Sherman said.
He would not say when the alleged molestation occurred.
MacNamara said police have no evidence that such an assault took place but were investigating.
"Mr. Edington had received information from a relative leading him to believe Mr. James had sexually assaulted his daughter," he said. "We have no information [that] any improper conduct occurred between Mr. James and Mr. Edington's daughter. We have no indication if it's true or not."
MacNamara said cops had not yet interviewed Edington's wife, Christina, and had no indication "of any sort of family problems."
But he added, "There is the potential that we now have a 2-year-old sexual-assault victim and we are continuing to investigate that."
Several detectives went to Edington's house yesterday and examined a window panel that they took from the scene. It wasn't immediately clear why.
Edington was released yesterday after posting a $1 million bond in Bridgeport Superior Court.
He hopped into a car loaded with luggage and rode off.
No one was at the family home yesterday, and his whereabouts were not clear.
Edington's wife could not be reached for comment.
Neighbors, however, said James - who lived with his parents - had problems with alcohol, shouted obscenities at neighbor- hood children and even went outside in the nude.
"There have been battles with them over the years - mostly over drinking - and he has been known to walk around in his yard without clothes on," said one neighbor, who would not give her name.
James had once served as a town councilman, neighbors said, but ran into trouble with alcohol and increasingly erratic behavior.
He worked most recently at a funeral home, and had lately begun acting particularly strange.
"He had some bizarre behavior over the last month," said neighbor Darrell Maynard. "He drove his car through his garage, hit the other neighbor's building."
James served two days in jail in 2001 on a drunken-driving charge, according to the state Department of Correction.
On June 30, police received a complaint from Edington that James had been parading through his own house "in various stages of undress" and in full view of neighbors.
James was never charged, MacNamara said.
Others found it hard to believe James would molest a child.
"But then again, you don't know," said neighbor Pat Wysocki, who has known the James family for 39 years.
James' parents declined to comment, but an attorney for the family said they strongly deny the molestation accusation.
Edington, his wife and daughter moved to Fairfield in March, their landlord said.
Their house - a modest, one-story, ranch-style home - stands about 15 feet from James' tidy bungalow-style house.
A white Toyota Camry was parked in their driveway.
Edington graduated from Fordham Law School in 2004 after getting his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University.
He practices law at the Fairfield firm of Perman & Green, which specializes in patent and intellectual property matters.
Although he had passed the Connecticut bar exam, he had not yet been formally sworn in, according to the state Bar Association.
Attorneys at Perman & Green declined to comment.
Neighbors described him as a doting father.
"He seemed to be a very nice, low-key man," Maynard said. "It seemed like he really loved his daughter. He was really good with her.
"Something had to happen that was terrible for this to have occurred," Maynard said. "[He] seemed like a computer geek or something. He was not anybody you would ever feel you were threatened by."
Attorney Sherman said Edington - who has no criminal record - was stunned by what had transpired.
"He's in shock," he said. "This is the most unexpected turn of events one can imagine with this young man's background."
Don't know if he did molest the child, but if so, I nominate this guy for Lawyer of the Year.
#6
Something smells about this story, and Penguin hits it. The wife calls while on vacation to tell the guy the kid has been molested?
What evidence? What medical confirmation?
I have a child, and if she were molested I'd have blood in my eye. I too would be looking fondly at the kitchen knife rack. But I'd damned sure would want to know, absolutely, without a doubt, 100%, that a horrid crime had been committed before I got out the cutlery.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/31/2006 18:22 Comments ||
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You know--that famous painting based on the lovable Macaulay Culkin pose in "Home Alone"... Edited for brevity.
"The Scream" and another stolen masterpiece by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were recovered by police on Thursday, two years after gunmen seized the paintings from an Oslo museum. "'The Scream' and 'Madonna' are now in police possession," police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. "The damage is much less than we could have feared." He said the pictures were recovered on Thursday afternoon in "a successful police operation" and said no ransom had been paid. I haven't seen "The Scream", and I haven't seen "Madonna", but I saw a screaming Madonna on MTV once.
Two masked gunmen walked into the Munch Museum, thinking it was a snack bar, in Oslo in August 2004 and yanked the two works from the walls in front of dozens of terrified tourists. They escaped in a car driven by another man. The paintings are both from 1893. Three men were convicted in May of taking part in the theft and were sentenced to up to eight years in jail.Two of them were ordered to pay $122 million in damages.
Munch painted two famous versions of "The Scream", including the one recovered on Thursday. The other was stolen in 1994 from Oslo's National Gallery by thieves who simply broke a window and climbed in with a ladder. It was recovered after several months by police posing as buyers. Wow--even paintings have sequels!
Posted by: Dar ||
08/31/2006 13:14 ||
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Three men were convicted in May of taking part in the theft and were sentenced to up to eight years in jail.Two of them were ordered to pay $122 million in damages.
Police tracked down war protester Cindy Sheehan at a vigil near President Bush's ranch for failing to pay a traffic ticket. Officers from the Waco suburb of Woodway went to a roadblock near the ranch Tuesday night where Sheehan and other war protesters had gathered, said Sheehan's spokeswoman Tiffany Burns.
A Woodway police spokeswoman said the officers told Sheehan there were two outstanding warrants for her arrest, one for an unpaid traffic ticket and the other for failure to appear in court. Sheehan was allowed to follow the officers to the station in her own vehicle, police said. Burns said Sheehan paid the ticket and other fines totaling $400 and left. She was not handcuffed, fingerprinted or booked, Burns said.
In July, Sheehan was pulled over and cited for following too closely and later for failure to appear in court over the ticket, police said. Burns said Sheehan had made arrangements weeks ago to pay the ticket but that it was forgotten because of other concerns, including Sheehan's hospitalization and hysterectomy surgery.
#3
Sorry Besoeker, there's DNA cloning. With Cindy, you really couldn't tell if the results were a success or a failure, the perfect situation for some university grant baby.
#12
I have an 85-lb Husky/Shepherd mix at home (name of "Shadow") that has made a virtual career out of killing cats. I actually saw him in action one day (he usually snuck off and did his misdeeds when I wasn't looking) - he snagged the cat out of a mid-air leap, tossed it in the air, and pounced on the broken body and simultaneously bit and ripped its' innards out. It was one of the most savage attacks I've ever seen an animal make.
Afterwards, he looked over at me as if to say "What? It's just a cat. It's not like it's a real pet or nothin'..."
My dog would make mincemeat outta' this little bit of fluff and fury IMO.
I do not hate cats. A couple of my best friends have been cats (names of Vicious, Tiger, and Sammie).
Fortunately, they have also been cats that loved dogs, thought they were dogs, and played with the dogs.
My dogs loved them and thought they were just differently-shaped and smelling puppies (I have a photo of my (now deceased) dog "Smokey" lying on the floor with a black kitten between her paws batting at her nose, and another of a much larger and older cat flophousing across her shoulders).
Shadow's the only one I've ever had that had no tolerance for cats.
Not so! My cat, "Piewacket", is best friends with my wolf-hybrid, "Zen". He thinks that cats are the most fabulous plush toys ever invented. Even though Piewacket has the IQ of a celery stalk, I still keep him around for the entertainment value.
Zen agrees, too. From the way he constantly jams his snout up Piewacket's butt, it's easy to tell that he thinks the cat's ass is the cat's ass.
As to Grumpy, he's living proof that there's nothing more difficult to deal with than an irritated pussy.
Super Typhoon Ioke, a Category 5 storm and the strongest to hit the Pacific in more than a decade, slammed into tiny Wake Island Thursday, threatening to submerge the U.S. territory, U.S. Navy weather forecasters said.
The storm, packing sustained winds of more than 220 mph, with some gusts topping 250 mph, came ashore at about 10 a.m. ET, and was slowly tracking west, gaining strength over the warm tropical waters, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported. Wake Island is located about 2,300 miles west of Honolulu.
The U.S. Navy evacuated the island's 188 residents on Monday, flying the mostly military personnel and their families to Honolulu. Wake Island is home to a U.S. Air Force base and a scientific outpost, roughly midway between Hawaii and Japan, and serves as a key refueling stop for U.S. military aircraft in the Pacific. Forecasters expect the monster storm to destroy everything on the island that is not made of concrete.
The low-lying coral atoll also is the site of one of the most well-preserved military battlefields in the world. U.S. forces came under fire from the Japanese at the same time Pearl Harbor was attacked, sparking the U.S. declaration of war against Japan. The wreckage of at least four sunken Japanese warships sit off the coast, and numerous Japanese aircraft and other battle remnants are scattered about the island.
Won't be much left now
VOA: Super Typhoon Ioke has made a direct hit on Wake Island, pounding the tiny U.S. Pacific territory with catastrophic winds of up to 300 kilometers an hour.
Ioke is the strongest central Pacific typhoon in at least 12 years. The eye of the typhoon skirted the north edge of the coral atoll Thursday.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/31/2006 12:46 ||
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Wake Island Atoll's maximum elevation is 21 feet, with an average height of 12 feet above sea level.
"Not much left now" could be considered an understatement.
AT 800 AM EDT...1200Z...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM ERNESTO WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 30.4 NORTH...LONGITUDE 79.9 WEST OR ABOUT 95 MILES...155 KM...EAST OF JACKSONVILLE FLORIDA AND ABOUT 170 MILES... 275 KM...SOUTH OF CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA.
ERNESTO IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH NEAR 15 MPH...24 KM/HR...AND A GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST AND A FASTER FORWARD SPEED ARE EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. THIS MOTION WILL TAKE THE CENTER OF ERNESTO FARTHER AWAY FROM THE COAST OF NORTHEAST FLORIDA TODAY...AND COULD BRING THE CENTER NEAR THE NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA COASTS LATE THIS AFTERNOON OR TONIGHT.
Back over open water and gaining strength
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE INCREASED TO NEAR 55 MPH...90 KM/HR... WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 85 MILES...140 KM MAINLY TO THE SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER. LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE REPORTED BY AN AIR FORCE PLANE WAS 996 MB...29.41 INCHES.
COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 3 TO 5 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS IS POSSIBLE ALONG THE COASTS OF SOUTH AND NORTH CAROLINA IN AREAS OF ONSHORE FLOW WITHIN THE WARNING AREA. COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 1 TO 3 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS IS POSSIBLE ALONG THE GEORGIA COAST IN AREAS OF ONSHORE FLOW. RAINFALL TOTALS OF 4 TO 8 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE FROM NORTHEAST SOUTH
CAROLINA INTO THE MID-ATLANTIC STATES...AND THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL APPALACHIANS...WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 12 INCHES...THROUGH SATURDAY. THESE AMOUNTS COULD CAUSE LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODS. ADDITIONAL ISOLATED RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 1 TO 2 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE OVER FLORIDA TODAY. ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE POSSIBLE OVER EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT.
Predicted track has him coming right over Richmond. He's coming for me. I was widely known in the Pacific theater as a typhoon magnet and looks like things ain't changed. Time to finish that ark and bring in the animals
Posted by: Steve ||
08/31/2006 10:16 ||
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#1
Steve, this time I was the magnet - like I said yesterday, I finally move to the coast 3 weeks ago and this is what happens. I'm about 20 miles N/NW of Myrtle Beach, the track takes it directly over the house. We lost Direct TV a few minutes ago, so we're relying on the net to tell us what's going on. At this point it's just lotsa rain, but we expect to get winds in the 30 MPH range between about 6PM and midnight - other than that though it shouldn't be too bad.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/31/2006 11:23 Comments ||
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Mike, time to start worrying, it's getting stronger:Forecasters issued a hurricane watch for the North and South Carolina coasts Thursday as Tropical Storm Ernesto gained strength over the Atlantic. The watch, stretching from South Carolina's Santee River to Cape Lookout in North Carolina, means hurricane conditions, with sustained winds of at least 74 mph, are possible within 12 hours.
Ernesto had been downgraded to a tropical depression over Florida, but gained strength and was upgraded as it moved over the warm waters of the Atlantic. It's outer bands reach the South Carolina coast Thursday morning, and its sustained wind was near 60 mph shortly before noon. The storm was forecast to make landfall late Thursday along South Carolina's coast, likely near Georgetown, then head for central North Carolina.
At 11 a.m. Thursday, Ernesto was centered about 105 miles south-southeast of Charleston, S.C., and about 225 miles south-southwest of Wilmington, N.C. It was moving north-northeast at about 17 mph. Ernesto's 60 mph sustained wind at 11 a.m. was up 20 mph from early Thursday.
The storm was expected to move ashore along the northern South Carolina coast Thursday afternoon or night and expected to quickly weaken after making landfall, but a larger area will be affected because tropical storm-force winds stretched out up to 85 miles from its center.
Time to get out, Mike
Posted by: Steve ||
08/31/2006 13:07 Comments ||
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#3
Be careful up there, Mike. Hope you are on higher ground, safe and secure. Keep us posted.
#6
Looks like we dodged the bullet but not by much - Ernesto shifted just a few miles to the east and looks to be going ashore at Wilmington NC around 10PM EST - it will probably be a weak hurricane by that point. Lotsa rain, no winds at all yet but local news is saying gusts of up to 40 MPH at MB.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/31/2006 19:03 Comments ||
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#7
Rain, blessed rain. Central Virginia needs rain. Come on, rain.
Though I feel sorry for the folks in The Bottom - they're gonna get slammed. Again.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/31/2006 21:07 Comments ||
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(No English yet - but in short...Monsignor Paul Joseph Swain, Vicar General of the Diocese of Madison, born in 1943, has a law degree, served in the military, received into the Catholic Church in 1982, ordained in 1988.)
Il Santo Padre Benedetto XVI ha nominato Vescovo di Sioux Falls (U.S.A.) il Rev.do Mons. Paul Joseph Swain, finora Vicario Generale di Madison.
Rev.do Mons. Paul Joseph Swain
Mons. Swain è nato il 12 settembre 1943, da una famiglia di confessione Metodista. Dopo aver seguito le scuole elementari e medie, ha continuato la sua educazione superiore prima nella Ohio Northern University, dove nel 1965 è diventato Bachelor of Arts in History; poi, allUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, dove nel 1967 ha conseguito il Master of Arts in Political Science; e successivamente, presso lUniversity of Wisconsin Law School, dove ha conseguito il titolo di Juris Doctor, nel 1974. Nel frattempo ha partecipato alla Guerra in Vietnam (1967-1971), come Air Intelligence Officer. Per i suoi meriti ha ottenuto lonorificenza di Vietnam Veteran Bronze Star. Laureatosi in Diritto Civile, ha seguito la pratica giuridica: prima come Assistant Legal Counsel, League of Wisconsin Municipalities (1975-1976); poi come Avvocato (1976-1979); e successivamente come Legal Counsel del Governatore dello Stato di Wisconsin, Sig. Lee Sherman Dryfus (1979-1983).
#1
A history of clear and reality-based thinking there. Baptised as a Catholic when he was 39, so he knows why he believes what he does -- one one of the reasons I end up assigning homework to the people who reing my doorbell to convert me. This can only be good for the Church.
Tyson Reduced to Vegas Strip Freak Show
Former Champ Put on Display at Aladdin Hotel
Mike Tyson used to put on displays. On this day, he was just on display.
Down the street, tourists watched lions and dolphins between breaks at the slot machines. In the Aladdin hotel, they didn't need to move from their seats at the bar to see another curiosity in a makeshift ring. The former baddest man on the planet has been reduced to this - just another freak show on the Las Vegas Strip. Like he wasn't a freak before this?
The signs said he was in training, and that was enough to lure a few hundred people to the makeshift ring set up just outside the casino's buffet restaurant. Training for what was a question better left unanswered. Training for a full 12 rounds with reality.
Tyson once made $35 million for one fight and more than $300 million in his career before blowing it all. Now he's a casino sideshow, trying to make a few bucks the only way he knows how in a sport he no longer can stand.
"I truly hate fighting," Tyson said. "I've got a bad taste in my mouth." Probably some of Holyfield's earwax.
More at link ...
A SYDNEY brothel owner has resorted to offering petrol discounts to clients in a bid to boost business. Madam Kerry's brothel in western Sydney offers clients a discount of 20c a litre if they use one of its "service providers".
I guess they don't do Green Stamps anymore, do they? I only need another book and a half to get a toaster...
Kerry said high petrol prices were hurting the sex service market as much as any other industry. "We wanted to think outside the box, we have gone quieter with the high petrol prices and we wanted to find a way to give something back to our clients."
"Other than the occasional dose of the clap, of course..."
And on top of the money back from the brothel, motorists could still claim the 4c discount offered by service stations aligned with supermarket chains. "They just need to bring in the docket," Kerry said.
"What can we do fer ya, sport?"
"Haul me ashes and punch me ticket!"
"Another Number 16, Noreen!"
The latest discount petrol offer came as Prime Minister John Howard said he would not be converting his V8 commonwealth car to gas, despite encouraging other Australians to do so. "There are security considerations," Mr Howard told ABC Radio in Adelaide, when asked why he would not convert the commonwealth's number one vehicle to LPG. But Mr Howard did say the car used ethanol-blended fuel. "We use ethanol," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2006 00:00 ||
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The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is to remake classic British war film "The Dam Busters", he has told film industry trade paper Screen Daily. Jackson will produce the movie, with King Kong animator Christian Rivers in the director's chair. Jackson said it would be "as authentic as possible and as close to the spirit of the original as possible".
The biplanes attacking "King Kong" were computer generated, can't wait to see what he can do to a Lancaster bomber
The 1954 film told the true story of how Britain developed bouncing bombs to destroy German dams in World War II. Jackson says he first saw the film as a child and "really loved it". "There's that wonderful mentality of the British during the war - that heads-down, persevering, keep-on-plugging-away mentality which is the spirit of Dam Busters," he told Screen Daily.
They need to be reminded of that spirit today
Based on a book by Paul Brickhill, the original film starred Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis, who developed the bomb, and Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who led the RAF bombing mission. Jackson asked his agent to inquire about the possibility of remaking the film at the same time as he was securing the rights to the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1990s. "He came back and said that [film company] Icon had the rights and that Mel Gibson was going to direct and possibly act in it," Jackson said. "Obviously that didn't happen."
Mel's going to be busy for awhile
The remake is set to use details of the bombing mission which were still classified at the time the original film was made by director Michael Anderson. "So much of it was still secret," said Jackson. "They weren't even allowed to show the bomb itself and had to create a fictionalised bomb."
I've seen the 1954 movie many times and they came pretty close
The project is due to start filming next year, with a budget of $30-40m (£16-21m).
So it won't hit the theaters until 2008
Posted by: Steve ||
08/31/2006 09:04 ||
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There are 17 known Avro Lancasters remaining in the world, two of which remain in airworthy condition, although few flying hours remain on their airframes and actual flying is carefully rationed. One is PA474 of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the other is FM213 of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.
#2
Paul Brickhill also wrote The Great Escape, another great book and movie (although Steve McQueen wasn't in the book).
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/31/2006 10:40 Comments ||
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#3
...This will be SO cool - worked with 617 Sqdn at Red Flag a couple times (they fly Tornados now) and they were great examples of the history and pride of the RAF.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/31/2006 11:26 Comments ||
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#4
Allright, where's "Lancasters over Dresden" when we need him? I'm sure he could loan Peter a few.
#8
I saw "Dam Busters" recently - you'd think that Chinese DVD shops would only stock new releases, but they have a surprisingly good selection of obscure movies that can be quite good. There was an earnestness about the movie, you could tell that they were really trying to be factual. Quite a difference from today's movies where they just make stuff up and use technospeak.
But Peter Jackson and the rest of Hollywood really need to STOP REMAKING OLD MOVIES and come out with some new, fresh stuff. Really.
#10
Yep, this is cool, sounds like the type of movie I might actually go to the theater to see. I wish he would do the "hobbit" movie - I really enjoyed that book and even that silly cartoon movie of it when I was a kid.
#11
Trivia for
The Dam Busters (1954):
The RAF supplied most of the aircraft, at a cost of 130 pounds per hour. This expense consumed 10% of the film's budget.
A cut of the film was spiced up for the American market. Additional scenes of a plane crashing were later removed after it was spotted that Warner Brothers had used WW2 footage of a Flying Fortress (the RAF used Lancasters).
The bombs shown in the movie were the wrong shape because the actual shape (a stubby cylinder) was still secret at the time.
Gibson's dog "Nigger" was dubbed into "Trigger" for the US market. The dog used in filming to play the part of Nigger was also called Nigger. This is one of the films that George Lucas used clips from to edit the rough cut of Star Wars (1977) (which utilizes many features of the finale of this film quite closely, notably the briefing, the ground staff waiting for news, the troika formation of the attacking aircraft and so on). In Addition, the following exchange from this film is reproduced almost verbatim (with the exception of the characters' names) in "Star Wars": Gibson: "How many guns d'you think there are, Trevor?" Trevor: "I'd say there's about 10 guns - some in the field and some in the tower".
Wing Cmdr. Gibson mentioned the "Tirpitz" as a possible target. This German battleship was later sunk, by Sqn. 617, using 6-ton demolition bombs which were also designed by Dr. Barnes Wallis.
Feature film debut of Patrick McGoohan.
Footage used to show the bombs as they skipped on the surface of the water towards the dams was drawn from footage of the bombs being tested. The backspin placed on the bombs, which is what allowed them to skip, was a secret at the time. To conceal this fact, the bombs in the footage were painted over frame by frame.
Scenes of indoor testing of the model bomb were shot at the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington in the tanks where the actual tests took place.
#12
Mel Gibson was going to direct and possibly act in it
I doubt Mel's choice of uniform would have pleased many people.
Nice to see Jackson take on a time-honored classic. With modern effects, the dam-busting and deluge scenes should be much more exciting. I agree with others about the earnest tone of the original movie. There was no melodrama, just a gritty determined bunch of scientists and military men making sure Britain didn't end up under a Nazi boot heel.
I'll also agree as to Jackson making "The Hobbit". He needs to do this pronto before many of the cast *cough*Gandalf*cough* become unavailable. As an aside, I'll also note how, if New Zealand had any brains, they would constuct a massive "Rings" theme park in some secluded mountain valley, have it served by steam rail lines, and make uncountable gajillions of dollars. Imagine a Moria Mine Cart ride or an Isengard Parachute Drop. Horseback camping trips to Rohan, Hobbit hole accomodations. The possibilities are as endless as the potential revenues.
#16
*deep sigh*
I am one with wishing that producers and directors would just please STOP with remaking old and satisfying movies! Jeeze, people, arent't there new heroes, new stories... let alone new wars!
But *another deep sigh* it will undoubtably make a really cool movie, in remake. But he absolutely, absolutely has to use Eric Coates' "Dambusters' March" in the score. He just has to. It's a classic. Custom commands, and all that.
OTO, do you realise that trashing a bit of infrastructure like an essential dam would likely be accounted to be a "war crime" in these degraded days?
Really... local civilians might be harmed. Might have to do without a bit of electrical service and all. Guy Gibson et al might have to look carefullu, the UN and Human Rights Watch and all might be taking an interest in this...
#1
"Rockland County elections officials are reportedly investigating a scheme to force the residents of an adult home to vote for four Democratic candidates. The Journal News reports that the residents were told if they didn't vote accordingly their television privileges would be revoked."
You get to vote Republican AND you get to avoid watching network TV?
Um.......Where's the downside?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/31/2006 6:05 Comments ||
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#2
Par for the course. The only news in this story is that it's being investigated.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/31/2006 9:17 Comments ||
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#3
The home's administrator - Yitzy Ullman - is denying the accusations...
#5
Probably short for Yitzhak, tu3031. That's Hebrew for Isaac. That town has a large Orthodox Jewish population. Unfortunately, every religion has its goniffs.
Before someone accuses me of anti-Semitism, pleas note that I'm a Conservative Jew.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/31/2006 14:15 Comments ||
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#6
What amateurs. The Democratic election handbook is very clear, get them to sign for absentee ballots and vote yourself. Then confuse them about election day or poll location and insinuate that it was the Republicans intimidation tactics to keep them away.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence given to two women from Maharashtra for committing a series of murders of minors, whom they kidnapped and used for theft, saying they are unlikely to be reformed.
"We have carefully considered the whole aspects of the case and are also alive to the new trends in sentencing system in criminology. We do not think that these appellants (convicts) are likely to be reformed," a Bench comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice G P Mathur said.
Confirming the capital punishment awarded to the two sisters -- Renuka Bai and Seema Gavit -- of Pune by the Bombay High Court in five such cases of murder involving children up to the age of five years, the Bench said, "We confirm the conviction and death sentence imposed on them".
Vacating the stay on the execution of the capital punishment, the court said, "The authorities are directed to take such further steps as are necessary to carry out execution of capital punishment imposed on them".
#2
The Indian Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences passed on two women convicted of murdering a number of children who they had kidnapped.
The children were then forced to beg and steal by the two women. Thirteen children were involved, but not all the bodies have been recovered. The court said the brutality was so grave, there was no scope for leniency.
Death sentences are seldom carried out in India, and are very rarely passed on women.
The last execution, of a man two years ago, was the first for 10 years.
The two women were tried in court along with their mother, who later died in custody.
Police say they have recovered the bodies of five murdered children - all aged between one and five years old.
In its judgement, the court said says it did not find "any mitigating circumstances in favour of these women except for the fact they are women".
The judgement said that the "nature of the crime and the systematic way in which each child was kidnapped and killed" demonstrated "the depravity of mind" of those accused.
"They indulged in criminal activities for a very long period and continued it till they were caught by the police," the judgement said.
The court heard that the women kidnapped children from railways stations, temples, fairs and public gardens.
Posted by: john ||
08/31/2006 12:33 Comments ||
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#4
This kind of element has no place in any society, and its continued existance can only be a threat and never a benefit. It's too bad we have to waste so many resources to rid ourselves of such elements. Good riddance. The sooner and less-expensive the better.
PESHAWAR: The NWFP government will soon make necessary legislation to sentence violators of the Prevention of Gun Sex Aerial Firing and Explosive Act, said Asif Iqbal Daudzai, the NWFP information minister, at a press conference ahead of the provincial governments awareness campaign against aerial firing to be launched from September 1 to September 10, 2006.
... the provincial government will focus on the cooperation and assistance of clerics, elected public representatives, journalists, non-government organisations (NGO) and prayers leaders...
The minister said that the provincial government will focus on the cooperation and assistance of clerics, elected public representatives, journalists, non-government organisations (NGO) and prayers leaders to convey message to the people in their respective areas.
District police officers (DPO) would arrange seminars to inform the masses about the negative aspects of the aerial firing, he said. During wedding ceremonies, SHO would take an undertaking from the family head that neither they would resort to festive firing nor allow others to do, as strict action would be taken against the violators, the minister said. It had been decided that the family would be made bound to print no firing allowed in the wedding ceremony on the invitation cards, he said. The Information Department would also carry out a campaign against aerial firing through mass media, he said. Up to 1,275 cases were registered during the period between January 1 to August 30, 2006 against the violators in the province and 1,511 were arrested, the minister said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
It had been decided that the family would be made bound to print no firing allowed in the wedding ceremony on the invitation cards, he said.
Is this rural Kentucky or Pakistan? They'll have more luck closing the madrassahs than ever stopping the gun sex.
The parents of one girl said that when they contacted the administrator of the school, Hamid Hussain, he responded with threats.
KARACHI: Sindh Education Minister Hameeda Khoro ordered an inquiry on Wednesday into reports that some schools had sent photographs of female students to marriage bureaus. The minister ordered the education secretary and executive district officer for private schools to investigate after the parents of three girls wrote to her complaining that information about their daughters' had ended up in marriage bureaus and demanding action against the schools. NNI has learnt that over a dozen private schools are involved in such practices. The scandal was exposed when a family arrived at the home of a female student for further information about the girl. The family got a photograph and address of the girl from a marriage office. The parents of one girl said that when they contacted the administrator of the school, Hamid Hussain, he responded with threats.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2006 00:00 ||
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The parents of one girl said that when they contacted the administrator of the school, Hamid Hussain, he responded with threats.
The story that developed in July was just too good to pass up: a Jordanian-born restaurant owner in Xenia, Ohio had been the apparent victim of repeated attempts to burn down his store. The day after the third attack, when a Molotov cocktail had been thrown through the front window of his business, yet another explosion rocked the store the second attack in 24 hours sending the owner and his son to the hospital with burns over 80-90 percent of their bodies. An employee in an adjoining store was also taken to the hospital for injuries.
Just hours before the blast, the store owner had been interviewed by a local TV station vowing that he would never give in to pressure to close the store (video of the interview can be seen here).
Into this situation jumped the Cincinnati-area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) the self-proclaimed Muslim civil rights organization suggesting that anti-Muslim hatred was at work. An item posted on July 14th on the national CAIR website screamed the headline, Blast at Arab-American Restaurant Suspicious .
Karen Dabdoub, the local CAIR spokeswoman, was quoted in the local media saying,
Anytime an attack like this happens, the perception in the Arab and Muslim community is that it is ethnically or religiously motivated. Especially in the absence of perpetrators being caught by law enforcement, thats the fear. Until that (motivation) is discovered, people speculate, rightly or wrongly.
The problem with CAIRs narrative of anti-Muslim hatred in small-town America was that it wasnt true. Arson investigators have determined that the final blast that severely injured the store owner, Musa Shteiwi, and his son, Essa, was set by the pair themselves. In a performance worthy of a Darwin Award, the Shteiwis were standing in a pool of gasoline that they intended to use as an accelerant in setting their store ablaze later that night when Musa Shteiwi took a break and lit up a cigarette, igniting the gasoline prematurely and causing the blast that inflicted their injuries.
But theres more: prosecutors claim that Shteiwi had hired a former employee, Joshua Hunter, to commit the previous attacks against his store that CAIR had insisted were hate crimes committed by non-Muslim members of the Xenia community. Hunter has been jailed and charged with arson, and similar charges against Musa and Essa Shteiwi are pending until after they have recovered from their injuries.
This incident is a textbook example of CAIRs incitement of kafir (lit. infidel, non-Muslim)-phobia. On July 14th, when CAIR began making public statements and posting notices on their website about the incident, it had already been widely reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer and local TV news stations that the Shteiwis were either accidentally or intentionally responsible for the explosion. It is clear now that it was both.
That notwithstanding, CAIR officials were quick to use the incident to indulge in their kafir-phobia by portraying the local non-Muslim community as simmering with anti-Muslim hatred, just waiting for the slightest provocation to lash out in acts of violence. But the facts they relied on werent true and the date of the item regarding this incident posted on CAIRs website was almost a week after it was known and reported numerous times in the local press that the pair were implicated, directly or indirectly, for the blast.
Since the arrest of Shteiwis associate, CAIR has refused further comment and has offered no apology for its shameless kafir-phobic behavior to the community they falsely impugned.
This recent incident is hardly the first time that CAIR has used faked hate crimes to flame the fires of kafir-phobia. As Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha discussed in an article last year, CAIRs Hate Crime Nonsense, a report issued in May 2005 by CAIR, Unequal Protection: The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2005 a report allegedly identifying a rapid rise of anti-Muslim violence in America cited several hate crime hoaxes where incidents had been staged or invented whole-cloth by Muslims themselves to make it appear that they were religiously or ethnically motivated. Perhaps CAIR might have rationalized the inclusion of these debunked hate crimes in their report as fake, but accurate representations of supposed anti-Muslim bias in America.
One of the hate crime hoaxes identified by Pipes and Chadha in the 2005 CAIR report involved a July 2004 act of arson at an Everett, Washington grocery that CAIR claimed as an anti-Muslim hate crime. But it had been announced more than eight months prior to CAIRs May 2005 report that the grocery owner, Mirza Akram, was the accused culprit in the arson at his establishment as an August 2004 article in the Seattle Times makes clear. The article even noted a CAIR spokeswomans request that the FBI investigate the incident as a hate crime.
In a separate blog post, Daniel Pipes cites additional instances of CAIR rushing to get in front of reporters and TV news crews when the incidents they decry as hate crimes later turn out to be false reports or self-inflicted by the Muslim victims themselves.
To date, so far as I can tell, not only has CAIR not apologized for falsely accusing non-Muslims of hatred and bias in the respective communities where these hate crime hoaxes occurred, but the press releases on CAIRs website go uncorrected even after the truth is revealed. For instance, a press release related to a staged hate crime in McAllen, Texas still appears today without any correction or update whatsoever, even though multiple media outlets, including even the New York Times, had debunked the incident as a hate crime hoax perpetrated by the victim almost two years ago.
Admittedly, CAIRs ubiquitous appearance in stories related to staged hate crimes denouncing supposed Islamophobia makes for great press releases and news stories, but does little too actually improve American-Islamic relations (CAIRs self-stated goal). Such feeds the very prejudices that distances Muslims from their non-Muslim neighbors.
Instead of building cultural bridges to achieve their social and political agenda, CAIR regularly burns those bridges by inciting kafir-phobia and carelessly making charges against non-Muslims. As Robert Spencer of JihadWatch pointed out in commenting on this latest incident,
Hate crimes are a big business: they enable the targeted group to claim victim status, which entitles that group to full-hearted Leftist support, and a free pass for all its own enormities.
Meanwhile, CAIRs website makes no reference at all to one of the most arresting incidents Islamic relations with America: the videotaped forced conversion at gunpoint of Fox News correspondent Steve Centanni and his New Zealander cameraman Olaf Wiig. Does CAIR condemn such actions in Islams name, and call on all Muslims to recognize the illegitimacy of compulsion in conversions to Islam? Or does it now regard these two men as irrevocably Muslims? Surely, that is an important issue in American-Islamic Relations isnt it?
Kafir-phobia seems to be CAIRs go-to propaganda weapon of choice whenever they want to make their constituency appear legitimately aggrieved or victimized by falsely portraying the non-Muslims in these communities as seething with pent-up anti-Muslim hatred regardless of whether it is true or not as the inclusion of previously debunked hate crimes in the May 2005 CAIR report demonstrates.
The consequences of CAIRs kafirphobia and the manufacturing hate crimes are far-reaching. American media and officials rush to dismiss incidents such as-StartFragment> Omeed Aziz Popals intentional SUV attacks on pedestrians in San Francisco and Naveed Haqs shootings at a Seattle Jewish center as isolated incidents of madmen, not terrorism, even when the former was quoted as announcing I am a terrorist and the latter announced that he was an angry Muslim. The media and officials are behaving as good dhimmis, absorbing and regurgitating the kafir-phobia.
Hypocrisy is part and parcel of kafir-phobia, as CAIR is quick to identify supposed anti-Muslim bias amongst the American public at large on a fairly regular basis, while reluctant to look at its own ready negative presumptions about Americans at large.
If CAIR is truly interested in improving American-Islamic relations, perhaps it might spend more time dealing with the kafir-phobia among Muslims instead of investing its time and energy into diagnosing the supposed Islamophobia of its critics.
Patrick Poole is an author and researcher. He maintains a blog, Existential Space.
#1
Anytime an attack like this happens, the perception in the Arab and Muslim community is that it is ethnically or religiously motivated. Especially in the absence of perpetrators being caught by law enforcement, thats the fear. Until that (motivation) is discovered, people speculate, rightly or wrongly.
Exactly. And it's a two-way street. You're lucky the oncoming traffic is Western society and not Islamic.
#2
Let's compare body counts: ~3100 Americans : 1 muslim.
Posted by: ed ||
08/31/2006 21:37 Comments ||
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#3
Also, I think I now understand the real reason insurance is haram in islamoland.
Posted by: ed ||
08/31/2006 21:41 Comments ||
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#4
Eventually The Bund will get too cocky, overstep it's bounds and somebody in the MSM will finally go after them and expose the whole package. Who bankrolls them, the members deported or in the can for working for terrorist front orgs, etc. Might not happen tomorrow, but it'll happen...
The Army's Chief of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, on Thursday announced that the Corps would take a dozen specific actions to transform the way it sets priorities and does business. The actions constitute the agency's "institutional response" to failures brought to light following Hurricane Katrina, he said. The plan stems from the Corps-commissioned Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force and other reviews of the agency's performance both before and after the hurricane made landfall. Among the most significant changes will be a more rigorous focus on risk analysis in both project design and construction, and a more comprehensive effort to communicate that risk to the public and other stakeholders.
"Risk has always been an element of our planning, but it clearly needs increased emphasis in how we do our work," Strock said. "Today the major driving points for recommending projects are economic justification, engineering feasibility and environmental acceptability." Additionally, the Corps will make far greater use of independent reviews throughout the life of projects, from design through construction and continued maintenance. Until now, independent reviews typically took place during the design phase. "What this does is it lets everyone in the Corps of Engineers know that independent review is necessary and it's got to be an ongoing thing, not just a one-time review," Strock said.
The 12-point plan reflects the fact that not all the problems exposed by Katrina were engineering mistakes. The incompleteness of the levee system, inconsistencies in levels of protection and lack of redundancy all contributed. "While the Corps is not responsible for levees we did not build, or for lack of funding for recommendations we made that were not funded, we do have accountability for our own design shortcomings, and we should have done more to inspect and reassess the condition of the levees and to communicate with the people of New Orleans," Strock said. "Not a day goes by that I do not reflect on the tragic loss of life and property as a result of this devastating storm," he said.
The 12 actions are:
Employ integrated, comprehensive and systems-based approaches to Corps projects.
Apply risk-based concepts in planning, design, construction, operations and major maintenance.
Continuously reassess and update policy for program development, planning guidance, design and construction standards.
Use dynamic independent review.
Use adaptive planning and engineering systems.
Focus on sustainability.
Review and inspect completed works.
Assess and modify organizational behavior.
Effectively communicate risk.
Establish public involvement in risk-reduction strategies.
Manage and enhance technical expertise and professionalism.
Invest in research.
Criminy, they paid the consultant how much to come up with that?
When asked what difference these steps might have made to the residents of New Orleans had they been in place prior to Hurricane Katrina, Strock said, "I would hope that with this focus on risk communication we would have made very sure that people understood the risks involved. It's my impression that many of those who did not evacuate... chose not to because they didn't understand the risk that they faced. "Now I think people have a very good sense of what the risk is down there. I believe that if a call for evacuation goes out tomorrow, it would be heeded by the vast majority of people," he said. Since last fall, the Corps has restored the levee system in New Orleans to pre-Katrina levels or better, Strock said.
#2
Tradition NS. West Point, up till after WWII, was duel function. Not only did the lads receive a military commission, they also received an engineering degree. That's because for most of the 19th century American had to be built and they needed engineers. So the national government provided the material to do it with, both in money and in human resources. Military personnel were often used in building roads and other useful infrastructures. Who do you think built the Panama Canal? The big difference today, is that while the uniform guys do occupy some of the top positions largely as the result of laws and regulations, most of the Corps has been 'outsourced' to civilians. Just consider the Corps sorta like Congress' local school board. They think it gives them more control over things than the results necessarily indicate and is a wonderful place to wiggle a little cash and influence in the whole process.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Police tracked down war protester Cindy Sheehan at a vigil near President Bush's ranch for failing to pay a traffic ticket. Officers from the Waco suburb of Woodway went to a roadblock near the ranch Tuesday night where Sheehan and other war protesters had gathered, said Sheehan's spokeswoman Tiffany Burns.
Super Typhoon Ioke, a Category 5 storm and the strongest to hit the Pacific in more than a decade, slammed into tiny Wake Island Thursday, threatening to submerge the U.S. territory, U.S. Navy weather forecasters said. 
Tyson Reduced to Vegas Strip Freak Show
A SYDNEY brothel owner has resorted to offering petrol discounts to clients in a bid to boost business. Madam Kerry's brothel in western Sydney offers clients a discount of 20c a litre if they use one of its "service providers".
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence given to two women from Maharashtra for committing a series of murders of minors, whom they kidnapped and used for theft, saying they are unlikely to be reformed.
PESHAWAR: The NWFP government will soon make necessary legislation to sentence violators of the Prevention of 
KARACHI: Sindh Education Minister Hameeda Khoro ordered an inquiry on Wednesday into reports that some schools had sent photographs of female students to marriage bureaus. The minister ordered the education secretary and executive district officer for private schools to investigate after the parents of three girls wrote to her complaining that information about their daughters' had ended up in marriage bureaus and demanding action against the schools. NNI has learnt that over a dozen private schools are involved in such practices. The scandal was exposed when a family arrived at the home of a female student for further information about the girl. The family got a photograph and address of the girl from a marriage office. The parents of one girl said that when they contacted the administrator of the school, Hamid Hussain, he responded with threats.
