That's the original Rooters headline. When was the last time you saw people racing street cars outside of San Francisco?
Seven people were killed early on Saturday when a car plowed into roadside spectators watching a high-speed street race in a town near Washington, according to media reports.
Ding ding ding went the trolley
The large sedan crashed into the crowd that had gathered to watch the race along a highway in Accokeek, Maryland, 20 miles (30 km) south of Washington, killing six of them, the Washington Post said.
Clang clang clang went the bell
A passenger in the car was also killed. The driver was one of four people injured in the crash, which occurred at around 3 a.m. EST (0800 GMT), the paper said. "It was a very horrific scene with the number of individuals in the road at one time and the amount of debris," the Post quoted Cpl. Clinton Copeland of Prince George's County Police Department as saying.
Copeland said police were investigating the possibility that other drivers had been involved in the crash and fled the scene, and that it was too early to determine any criminal charges, the paper said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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...as Darwin rubs his hands together with an evil chuckle...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/17/2008 8:58 Comments ||
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New Delhi, February 16:Do animals commit suicide? That can be the subject of an interesting evolutionary and zoological debate but for Indian Army soldiers in the UN peacekeeping mission in war-torn Sudan, its a problem.
They have been asked to cure a bunch of what they call suicidal donkeys apparently fed up of being overworked and underfed.
Doctors posted at the Indian Veterinary hospital in the city of Malakal in Southern Sudan are now figuring out ways to treat local donkeys that have even taken to jumping into the Nile to escape cruel masters.
Reports coming in from the UN Mission say that donkeys in Malakal, that saw a fierce battle between Sudanese government forces and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army in 2006, are being severely mistreated by their owners, leading to their casualties.
Two cases of donkeys taking their own lives have been cited in a UN report filed by the Indian Army recently. In the first incident, according to the report, an overworked donkey preferred to be beaten to death by his master rather than pulling a heavily loaded cart through the market.
In the other case, a donkey jumped in to the Nile river, along with its load of a water barrel. A donkey, who had decided to end his miserable and wretched life, ran towards the Nile. As he approached the banks, he plunged into the river and moved towards the current and the strong current of the mighty river swept it to a watery grave, says the report, written by Major Shambhu Saran Singh, posted at the UN mission. He (the donkey) was still tethered to the water cart he was pulling when he decided to go and drown.
Indian Army veterinary officers posted in the town since 2006 to assist the local population whose economy primarily depends on livestock breeding, are advising owners to be less harsh on the animals. The formula worked out by doctors to drive away the suicidal tendencies is a weeks rest and a good diet of grain.
These donkeys have a very rudimentary harness and as a result they invariably have painful galls on the withers and chest. The carts are generally driven by young boys who continuously beat them with a whip made of plastic water pipes to goad them forward. After severe beating, hematoma develops and then they will bring the donkey to us for treatment, writes Major Singh.
Close to 3,000 Indian troops are currently posed in southern Sudan. They form part of a 10,000-strong force of soldiers and police that was sent into the country in 2005 by the UN department of peacekeeping.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/17/2008 08:36 ||
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Hmmm. Reminds me of an old joke where the punchline was "Don't listen to sheep. Sheep lie..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/17/2008 8:55 Comments ||
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#5
Quite a few Islamic countries seem to have endemic animal cruelty..
Posted by: john frum ||
02/17/2008 13:43 Comments ||
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#6
Quite a few islamic countries seem to have a very low empathy for the other, be it infidel, wimman, minority member, or as it is here the case, animal. Mouthing my uninformed opinion, tt all comes down to their cultural hardwiring, I guess, third world environment conditioning (think of kids growing up in western "ghettos" and who have to deal with violence around them, both as a threat, and as a solution), and the ever-beneficial input from their Holy Book/Holy Tradition/Admirable Prophet combo.
Paris Hiltons first quarter-century of existence has been largely achievement-free, by anyones standards but her own. But now shes set a record thats likely to stand for a long, long time to come: Her new movie, The Hottie and the Nottie, has been voted the worst movie of all time by users of IMDb, who gave the abortion an average rating of just 1.2 out of 10. That makes the Rotten Tomatoes 7 percent rating look almost kind, but the reviews at RT are crawling with comments like, excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful, utterly worthless, unfunny sack of pain, and crass, shrill, disingenuous, tawdry, mean-spirited, vulgar, idiotic, boring, slapdash. Reviewers might have to start drafting adjectives from other languages to do justice to this movie.
But the biggest smackdown came from regular moviegoers, notties like you and me. In its first three days of release, playing in 111 theatres, The Hottie and the Nottie took in $27,696. More or less. That works out to 31 viewers per theatre over the entire weekend, meaning that an audience of three would have been a standout success. Jessica Simpson must be very happy indeed that shes finally got someone to look down on, and Paris now has hard, documentary evidence that she is truly the Bob Beamon of suckitude. LOL!
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 06:50 ||
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#1
Oh, come on. Nothing could ever be worse than Manos.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/17/2008 9:39 Comments ||
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#2
Yeah, but at least Manos had the excuse of being made by a San Antonio fertlizer salesman.
This movie was ostensibly made by Hollywood "professionals".
#3
My top 10 list of amazingly bad movies. An asterisk
(*) denotes those worth seeing for twisted enjoyment.
An exclamation (!) indicates intentionally bad or comedy. There is no way to order this list from worst to worster.
1) Gymkata(*). Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas fighting insane people in Kookistan for the US, with gymnastics, not martial arts, the winning nation being allowed to bribe the dictator for a military base in his nasty central Asian ex-Soviet backwater.
2) Starcrash(*). The amazingly beautiful Caroline Munro, co-starring Christopher Plummer and a young David Hasselhoff, with the most horrific abuse of science in a film, ever. A robot with a southern drawl. People swimming through space like water. "At night, the temperature drops thousands of degrees every hour!"
3) The Bed Sitting Room(*)(!). The largest collection of pre-Monty python British comedic talent ever assembled, in post-nuclear war England, with surreal humor so inaccessible as to be unwatchable except while chemically impaired.
4) Casino Royale (1967)(*)(!). The absolutely worst example of 1960s cinematic excess, with an all star cast, insanely beautiful women, four directors, zero continuity, and a brilliant soundtrack.
5) The Creeping Terror (1964)(*). A con artist persuaded a town to give him money to make the film with locals as actors. He made the movie then disappeared, never to be seen again, so the movie was never seen until the mid-1970s, on TV. The monster is a bunch of teenagers covered with a big piece of carpet, that slowly gobbles other teenagers incapable of deliberately walking away from it. You root for the monster.
6) The Magic Christian (*)(!). Peter Sellers and Ringo Star in contention with Casino Royale (1967) for the title of 1960s cinematic excess. All star cast, high anarchy quotient. A good explanation for why England is so messed up these days.
7) Greaser's Palace (*)(!). Directed by Robert Downey, Sr. Jesus in a zoot suit comes to Earth via guided parachute and lands in an old West mining camp run by the constipated, dictatorial Greaser.
Hypnotically bad on the first viewing, but utterly unforgettable. Gets better with age and inebriation.
8) Lisztomania (*)(!). Ken Russell's bizarre homage to the even more bizarre life of the first rock star, Franz Liszt, who put our modern "extreme lifestyle"
scandal-prone celebrities to shame with his outrageous life. Unless you know the biography of Liszt, the movie seems cartoonish and silly.
9) The Story of Ricky (*). "That which kills you makes you stronger." It's a prison movie. And a martial arts movie. And an ultraviolence movie. And a monster movie. And a hilarious, bizarre mess. Best when listening to the bad English version, with bad English subtitles that do not match what the actors say on the screen. Oscar nomination to the warden's fat b*stard sniveling sadist kid. It is gape jawed funny.
10) The rest (*). Plan 9 From Outer Space. Robot Monster. The Terror of Tiny Town. Blackula. Cat Women of the Moon. Satan's Sadists. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Pippi Longstocking. Mommie Dearest. Radio Ranch. Frankenstein meets the Space
Monster (aka Mars Invades Puerto Rico). It Conquered
the World. Hercules II (1985).
#4
Moose, I feel good that I haven't seen any of those you listed (and I see a LOT of movies) - I would nominate Battlefield Earth with John Travolta. Scientology crap in a sci-fi setting. My then-young sons were enthused by the TV ads, but halfway through asked if we could go home - that's never happened before or since. The movie was unintelligible crap
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 13:56 Comments ||
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#6
Manos: The Hands of Fate is still my measuring stick for a bad movie. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is second on my list. If Hottie/Nottie is anywhere close to those two, it has to be bad.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/17/2008 15:24 Comments ||
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#7
I tAkE cARe Of ThE bLoG cOmMeNtS wHiLe FrEd Us AwAy.
#8
Yee, gods...The Creeping Terror...I thought I was the only one who'd ever seen that wretched piece of drivel - it's so utterly bad I find myself sitting down to watch it every time it comes on (with suitable alcoholic beverages close at hand).
I recentl saw another very, very bad film whose name I can't recall. Had to do with a group of pre-WW2 German kids who were piloting gliders. One of them murders a rival for a girl's affections and then they all go off to fight for the Nazi's. Years later, the survivors meet at a pre-arrnaged time and location. Loe and behold, here comes the glider with the murdered rival in it...
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
Xanadu
Ishtar
The Fisher King
Bill Cosby in Ghost Dad
The Black Hole
Saturday Night Fever
Grease
That excludes cheap monster/horror movies like Godzilla and Gamera and pretty much everything that Channel 33 showed on "Shock Theater" in the 1970s, which were bad but in a goofy fun kind of way that made them entertaining to watch. (I highly recommend Destroy All Monsters, the ultimate giant rubber monster smackdown.)
Posted by: Mike ||
02/17/2008 17:13 Comments ||
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Godzilla vs The Thing
I was the only one at the showing at UC Berkeley that was not high on weed. Everyone else thought that it was profound.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/17/2008 17:19 Comments ||
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#11
Sweety Sweetbacks Badasss Song was fairly painful and I enjoy Blacksploitation flicks.
I aslo thought Paris Hilton's "National Lampoons Pledge This!" was pretty foul.
#12
Bride of the Gorilla
The Wasp Woman
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women
The Wild Women of Wongo
She Gods of Shark Reef
Teenagers From Outer Space
Surf Nazis Must Die
White Pongo.
Very bad movies.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/17/2008 17:54 Comments ||
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#13
The Lost Glider was an episode of the TV show ONE STEP BEYOND. It only seemed like a full length movie.
If forced to watch Battlefield:Earth try introducing dialogue from Hogan's Heroes, it really does help.
Posted by: bruce ||
02/17/2008 18:18 Comments ||
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#14
> Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
I liked that one!
The new version of Planet of the Apes was major suckage.
#17
I would like to add, for many hours of mindless nonsense, the movie Radio Ranch (aka Men With Steel Faces) was the highlights from a serial called "The Phantom Empire". Here's a plot synopsis:
Gene Autry is the owner of a ranch with a radio station, for which he performs his music. Villains discover radium on his ranch, so plan to mine and steal it, ala the Hardy Boys. To carry out their insidious plot, they have an Ali Baba cave, and menacingly ride horses around while wearing Emperor Ming's guards helmets and capes.
Well, Gene Autry's young male and female sidekick, who fly a single engine plane, poorly, discover the villains' cave while crashing, without injury. However, at some point, the villains bust through to a secret underground city.
The queen of the underground city has her own troops that she plans to invade the surface world with, or something, helped by large robots also used in Flash Gordon, I think.
But her scheme is thwarted by Gene Autry, who thwarts just about everybody's plots at some point, between running back to his radio station for its next one song broadcast.
Thwart and sing. Sing and thwart. Eventually, I think the underground city is destroyed somehow and the queen dies heroically fending off her own schemers, the villains are arrested, the radio station and the ranch are saved, the sidekicks are sold off to Gypsies as slaves, and Gene's horse does stunts.
A fully-equipped hospital that lay unused for two years has burned to the ground in northern Nigeria. The General Hospital in Maiduguri was built in 2006 but the state government refused to open it until the president came to cut the ribbon. Several surgical theatres, the intensive care ward, and the clinical section which held millions of dollars of equipment were all destroyed. The president was due to visit the hospital next month to open it.
Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff blamed the fire on arsonists who wanted to damage his political reputation. The governor had refused to open the hospital, which was ready for patients in June 2006, until former President Olusegun Obasanjo came to the state. His visit was postponed several times, the last being just two months before the election in 2007. His successor Umaru Yar'adua was due to visit later next month.
Governor Sheriff is a major bonehead.
Borno was recently hit by a measles outbreak that killed hundreds of children across three states. Existing hospitals in Borno are poorly equipped and overcrowded. Angry residents of Bulunkutu, where the hospital was situated, gathered around the burned hospital and shouted abuse at the alleged arsonists, local papers reported.
The governor addressed the arsonists through the media. "There is not one hospital in the country owned by a state government that has the type of world class equipment we had in there. It is their people that would have benefitted," he told reporters at the scene. But in the meanwhile their kids were dying because you wanted to make a political point.
Can't heal the little children until the President cuts the ribbon
Isn't the governor elected to look after things for the people? I'm pretty sure that's how it works in a civilized country.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/17/2008 12:32 ||
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*shakes head in disgust*
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 13:06 Comments ||
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The key word in the last mod comment is "civilized." That's the missing component, not only in Nigeria but in all of Africa.
North Korea marked the 66th birthday of leader Kim Jong Il yesterday by imploring its impoverished people to unite around him amid a deadlock in talks over the country's nuclear weapons programmes. The main Rodong Sinmun newspaper ran a lengthy editorial praising Kim for making the communist nation an "undefeatable strong country" by strengthening its "political and military force.
"We have to unite and unite again around the leadership, upholding the slogan: 'Let's safeguard the revolutionary leadership led by Comrade Kim Jong Il with our lives!'"
#1
Great video: camerman asks "after Pearl Harbor, should we have negotiated with the Japanese?" and a Code Pinko responds "Yes, what were we doing in Hawaii anyways?"
Posted by: regular joe ||
02/17/2008 12:14 Comments ||
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#3
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: [whispering] Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he's rolling. ...
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 13:29 Comments ||
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#4
They had the local chapter Commisar and spokeperson on a Sacrmento radio station last week and the woman could not form a concise thought. She was all over the place and seem to be mad at or suspect of everything in the U.S. I serious when I state that most of them are in desperate need of a STRONG drug regiment.
By 6:00 a.m., things began to heat up and get downright ugly.
Two Blue Star moms were threatened with violence and one was shoved by a Code Pink lady, and when the mom called the Berkeley police for help, they hung up on her. Another call to the police was made by someone else with the same response.
Melanie Morgan, spokeswoman for Move America Forward, was in the middle of her morning KSFO radio program, called in from the scene in Berkeley. She told me yesterday that she honestly could not believe what was happening, and might not have believed it if she had not seen it with her own eyes.
The scene she encountered was one of "near mayhem," she told me. Cursing, shouting, profanities being hurled at moms and dads waving small American flags in support of our armed services.
Then high school students showed up. The students donned yellow and black "Palestinian" masks and t-shirts emblazoned with the charming slogan: "F*** Bush." Riding skateboards, they rammed into Move America Forward and Blue Star Families' peaceful protest. Some of the teens grabbed American flags from the hands of soldiers' moms and dads, and set them afire right in front of the startled parents. Police did nothing.
When I spoke today with Mark Coplan, Director of the Public Information Office for the Berkeley Unified School District, he was just as upset about the teen participation as was Melanie Morgan. These teens, he said, were recruited by World Can't Wait to "disrupt the peaceful protest."
According to Mr. Coplan, this teen recruitment has been a common strategy of World Can't Wait agitators, who have clashed with school authorities repeatedly in the past. Mr. Coplan was onsite at the demonstration himself, to make sure that students and teachers who had permission to observe the demonstration from a distance were not breaking the district's admonitions. He told me that he himself heard World Can't Wait demonstrators tell the students they had brought that they "did not have to listen to or obey any police instructions," that "they were participating in democracy at work," and that he personally saw older adults using teens as shields to harass and shove the peaceful counter-demonstrators.
World Can't Wait is an organization started in 2005 to actively thwart the American war effort. Its founder, Charles Clark Kissinger, is a Maoist and longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, who has stated his intention to organize "people living in the United States to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration." By "disastrous course" he means the war, specifically.
And of course, Code Pink's most visible spokesperson, Medea Benjamin, says her idea of heaven on earth is Castro's Cuba. Benjamin, readers may remember, is the patriotic American who spearheaded the effort in 2004 to hand over $600,000 in cash and supplies to the terrorist "insurgents" in Fallujah, Iraq. Why isn't that an act of treason? I must be too unsophisticated to understand.
So, we shouldn't be surprised when shameful un-American tactics are used by these people, as they were Tuesday in Berkeley.
But when a civil authority, such as the Berkeley Police, stand by while people are abridging the First Amendment rights of other citizens, then there is a huge problem.
Move America Forward has an attorney. He has written a formal protest letter to the City of Berkeley, citing numerous infractions of his client's First Amendment Rights, with the appearance of help from the police, and a lawsuit against the city is being considered.
Even though the Berkeley City Council went through the motions Tuesday night, listened to both sides of the Marine debate, and agreed to soften the language of its request to the Marines to vacate, not much has changed.
Code Pink gets to keep their parking space next to the recruiting center. They get to keep their cost-free permit to continue their agitating activities. And since Code Pink has posted a photo of Berkeley's mayor, Tom Bates, sporting a nauseatingly pink beret while he himself demonstrates with Code Pink at the recruitment office, I really don't think Berkeley has gotten the message.
#1
Sounds to me like we need to pull all Law Enforcement and Public Education Federal Funds from Berkley (and not just a bit of earmarks) - since they obviously are not being used for actual Law Enforcement or Education.
#2
There's a good post over at floppingaces.net about what appears to be a rather substantial economic boycott going on against businesses in Berkeley.
#4
It's not clear to me how much leverage a boycott would have.
The main tax revenues for the town are, as the article notes, luxury car dealers whose customers are your typical Bay area wealthy liberals. The mom and pop boutiques and restaurants aren't vulnerable. Chain stores might be, if enough of a stink were made, but again they have multiyear leases and MBAs doing cold number crunching.
I suppose going after suppliers might work a little ... refuse to bid on local business at good rates. But the town is propped up so much by the university that there isn't a real economy to hit. Nor much building going on there, it's all heavily in-filled already.
Full disclosure: we own a house north of Berkeley, Mr. Lotp's boyhood home, which we are currently renting. I'm all for punishing the B, but we would be grateful if your prayers didn't extend to earthquakes and similar disasters, given that that home will (we hope) provide some security for us and our daughter in coming years.
#7
actually, Worthington and Wozniak have not supported the proposals, and have sent very courteous reply emails. They don't need vitriol, they appear to be doing the right thing
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 13:50 Comments ||
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#8
Heyas lotp...always good to see a fellow Bay Area-ite. My uncle is UC Berkeley alumnus, class of '68 no less but no moonbat.
In regards to the City Council, Mr Wozniak is the only member that I'm aware of to have voted no on both resolutions from the get go..and he has received my thanks. None of the other council members who have been on the receiving end of my respectfully written bile have responded. Please note, there is also an initiative being put forth in CA State Legislature to strip Berkeley of $3 million in transportation funds - the sponsor's name escapes me at the moment. I'm sorry to say but this resolution also has my support and I'm actively involved in creating greater grassroots support. Berkeley must be made to feel real pain. My only concern is that their needs to be some parallel education regarding World Can't Wait and Code Pink. It seems that Mr. Coplan has already received his...and is probably a good place to starte. If it's possible to strip away community support for these groups - that would be the best answer. Kick out the Stalinist/Maoist groups and then stop electing freaking moonbats to represent the city.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/17/2008 14:29 Comments ||
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#9
Frank G... if Worthington has indeed been opposed to this lunacy that's great, and I would need to correct myself on that regards. The info I have on the intial vote shows only one vote in opposition, that of Wozniak. My information could very well be wrong. Thanks in advance for any clarification.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/17/2008 14:33 Comments ||
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#10
I realize that this isn't about Marine recruiting anymore, but throughout this controversy I've had a hard time imagining the type of young man or woman who would be motivated and patriotic enough to consider joining the Marines in time of war, but then would be deterred from doing so by people like Medea Benjamin. The Marines couldn't buy PR like this.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/17/2008 14:50 Comments ||
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#11
Rex - IIUC, the vote was 7-2 and Worthington's email said initial press reports (8-1) were wrong for the first voting (last month). I do know that Worthington's done the right things since then, although I obviously have no insight on motivation, nor real info on previous voting/position history (name is Kris, and I don't even know if that's a man or woman). I would only say that Worthington doesn't appear to be one that needs "attention" :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 14:53 Comments ||
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#12
I send 'em all the same e-mail, sayin' there stupid - in a respectful way, of course.
Take away ALL the Federal and State money, and let the sane ones move out. And here's hoping Toledo fails to pass the tax, and blames the Mayor.
If that were to happen, however, it might impact lotp's real estate....
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/17/2008 16:50 Comments ||
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#13
Bobby, Mr. Lotp's family home is a couple towns north of Berzerkly, so we should be okay - unless Sacramento steps in. (ugh)
#14
lotp - single-family homes are the most forgiving (i.e.: least weight in the inversed pendulum effect - especially if you don't have concrete tile roofs) in earthquakes. The stucco/plaster will crack - it's supposed to (it dissipates energy). In a a big quake, the concerns are a) unreinforced masonry commercial buildings, older commercial, older multifamily, and b) all of the above with gas fires
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 17:53 Comments ||
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#15
Well, the house is on bedrock at the top of a hill, which is a plus. However, it's 55 years old and our inspection suggested it needs better bolting to the rock ... we hope to renovate and expand it in the future. (Our adult daughter collapsed with what is now clearly a longterm disabling heath condition a few years ago so we hope to upgrade the home and retire there so that she will have family in the area when we're gone.)
As I recall, the house made it okay through the 89 quake with just a few cracks and some shattered china. Am hoping that track record continues. ;-)
#16
museum wax on "falling" items is a plus - helps stickem to the shelves, etc., without damage
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 18:39 Comments ||
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#17
Seems to me that the problem was the police. $93,000 in overtime for a bunch of people that formed useless lines that people could just walk around and then they did nothing to protect the protestors from a small group of snot-nose teens who were given a green light to act bratty by WCW organizers.
Thankfully too late to save Ted Kennedy's presidential ambitions, this long-awaited James Bond sci-fi technology is finally here:
GENEVA (AFP) - A car that can be driven underwater is set to be unveiled next month at the International Geneva Motor Show, the Swiss manufacturer of the prototype announced on Friday. The 'Squba' is like something out of a James Bond film and, according to the manufacturer Rinspeed, is the world's first real submersible car.
Rinspeed's head, Frank Rinderknecht, is a James Bond enthusiast who has dreamed of making the amphibious vehicle come true. "For three decades I have tried to imagine how it might be possible to build a car that can fly under water," said Rinderknecht in a statement. "Now we have made this dream come true."
The convertible sports car transforms into an underwater vehicle in which passengers breathe with the help of compressed air masks. "It is undoubtedly not an easy task to make a car watertight and pressure resistant enough to be maneuverable under water," said Rinderknecht. "The real challenge however was to create a submersible car that moves like a fish in water."
Propelled by electric motors, the car can descend up to 10 metres (32.8 feet) underwater.
Aesthetic appeal aside, the open-top design of the car is actually a safety feature that permits passengers to get out quickly during an emergency and avert the problem of excessive water pressure on the windows of a closed car.
The invention will be presented at the car show in Geneva, which opens to the press March 4 and runs for the public from March 6 through March 16. Rinspeed was not available Friday to specify the sale price of the new model. Snazzy looking contraption, but more importantly I think you could stack 3 of them, at least 2 anyway, in a de-activated Trident missile tube. What kind of paint job would SEALs prefer?
#1
nice try, Rinspeed, better if it wasn't a convertible. Awfully uncool to get out of your aqua car and shake the seawater and anchovies out of your pants
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 6:01 Comments ||
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#2
Great! I'll call my State Farm agent tomorrow and ...
Berkeley spent $93,000 on police overtime to control the Marines protest outside City Hall Tuesday, a city official said. About 140 Berkeley police officers worked at the protest, which drew more than 2,000 demonstrators from around the country, said Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, public information officer. There were four arrests, all misdemeanors.
The protest was over the City Council's Jan. 29 statement that the Marines, who have a recruitment center downtown, are "unwelcome intruders." After 3 1/2 hours of public comment and debate, the council voted early Wednesday to back down from the statement. To prevent similar controversies in the future, City Councilman Gordon Wozniak has proposed that every item submitted by the Peace and Justice Commission - where the Marines statement originated - undergo two readings by the council. Usually commission items need one reading. Peace and Justice commissioners were not happy with the idea.
"It's like he's trying to legislate himself to read what's on his own agenda," said the commission's former president, Steven Freedkin.
Meanwhile, protests continue at the recruiting center on Shattuck Square. About 50 people from Code Pink and World Can't Wait blocked the center entrance for several hours Friday and then marched to UC Berkeley, a block away. There were no arrests.
#2
Probelms is: on what ground a fricking city councuil has a Peace and Justice commission? On what ground are they expending tax player's money on this toy instead of on, say, improving the sewer network?
#3
JFM, apparently the Peace and Justice Commission is an "untreated" branch of their sewer system
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 4:49 Comments ||
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#4
Berkeley spent $93,000 on police overtime to control the Marines protest outside City Hall Tuesday, a city official said
From the looks of things, the good citizens of Berkeley did not get their money's worth. Two thousand demonstrators is not exactly a big huge deal. I'd want an accounting of why it cost so much for so little if I lived there. $93,000 for the police to stand around on overtime and watch the crowds? Please.
A very pathetic parade. Wacky old aunts in funny hats, senile old men, confused and angry teens collected by paid organizers and given a green light to act tough. Lines of cops who seem to be standing off against nothing. You almost feel sorry for the drug addled hippies and the perpetual wacky wall-flower pinkos.
#10
Yep...Berkeley indeed got ripped off. And it looks as if again, Councilman Wozniak is the lone voice of reason. He has my full support and sympathy.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/17/2008 14:38 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Fitch Ratings last month warned that California was at risk of a credit rating downgrade if state officials failed to address budget shortfalls promptly.
After the subprime fiasco, you know that's going to be a winner. And those who made money in the housing Ponzi scheme have left the state with their take. So the defaulting home owners aren't adding to the states income or tax base and the profiteers aren't around to stick it to anymore. More fun ahead. Especially when the property assessors balk at lowering the property value that property tax is based upon with the artificially inflated market prices of homes.
#2
Second and third order effects of the silicon housing bubble callapse. NAFTA clearly taught us the days of smoke stacks and manufacturing are in the past, technology is the key to the future.....in China at least.
#5
If they don't get a handle on things, more companies and people will leave the state. All those 55 electoral votes going elsewhere. Damn shame, ain't it?
#6
Whats a shame DarthVader, is that the "Governator" has to act as if California is a sovereign nation just to keep the system pliant and progressive. With him throwing that muscle behind McCain however, I don't feel so sympathetic toward California, why...a republican has been in the nation's highest office for going on 8 years now, and Arnie has been hit by that proverbial "2 by 4" from it! Projecting Obama's "Utopian" nationalism would bring a windfall to California not unlike that "huge sucking sound" Ross Perot saw coming, blowing out of the US, years ago.
#7
while not defending Governor Schwarzeneggars' priorities, the rest of your comments are, simply, trash, smn. The budget has been controlled by the legislature: Donks - elected in gerrymandered districts, especially along the coast. If you wish to slam a State that has prolly the highest GDP, and concentration of ex and current service members, go ahead, that allows me to call you ignorant. The Governor hasn't done what I'd hoped, and I will be looking for something better in the next term.
Next time? Stick to a logical argument. A better comment would surely issue
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 19:21 Comments ||
Top||
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.
Paris Hiltons first quarter-century of existence has been largely achievement-free, by anyones standards but her own. But now shes set a record thats likely to stand for a long, long time to come: Her new movie, The Hottie and the Nottie, has been voted the worst movie of all time by users of IMDb, who gave the abortion an average rating of just 1.2 out of 10. That makes the Rotten Tomatoes 7 percent rating look almost kind, but the reviews at RT are crawling with comments like, excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful, utterly worthless, unfunny sack of pain, and crass, shrill, disingenuous, tawdry, mean-spirited, vulgar, idiotic, boring, slapdash. Reviewers might have to start drafting adjectives from other languages to do justice to this movie.
Then high school students showed up. The students donned yellow and black "Palestinian" masks and t-shirts emblazoned with the charming slogan: "F*** Bush." Riding skateboards, they rammed into Move America Forward and Blue Star Families' peaceful protest. Some of the teens grabbed American flags from the hands of soldiers' moms and dads, and set them afire right in front of the startled parents. Police did nothing.
