Damnit. Fnliii was right, I got that stupid catchy song stuck in my head. Yes, you guessed it, I watched The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Very true to the book; Very enjoyable.

From 600 Seconds.

Suddenly I heard a scream. It came from the back alley; high pitched and nearly blood curdling. I jumped over the bar knocking over half-full beer bottles and tumblers of poorly mixed liquor.

“hey god damnit!” a patron yelled.

“Chill!” I yelled as I ran to the back door.

Pushing the door open to show a man holding a woman from behind so her arms were behind her back and another man slapping her silly.

“This doesn’t concern you, get the fuck back in side.”

“Wrong, this is my bar anything that happens on this property concerns me.”

The man pulled a gun. Without thinking I pushed the door fully open as hard as I could. The woman and the man holding her were next to the door so it hit both of them hard and pushed them over into the man holding the gun.

The impact caused him to loose the gun and it dropped to the ground and skidded across the wet cobbled pavement of the back alley.

At this point, several other patrons poured out of the door behind me and the two men got up and ran.

The police were called, the woman was taken away, but nothing has been heard since.

Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight

Spectators cheered as entire Cambodian Midget Fighting League squared off against African Lion
Tickets had been sold-out three weeks before the much anticipated fight, which took place in the city of K

Cape Town’s disaster management team went on emergency alert on Friday for a storm that never happened. But they had forgotten to monitor the latest weather forecasts.

These showed that weather predictions made several days ago of severe storms by the end of the week had been revised to nothing more than partly cloudy weather today and scattered showers tomorrow evening.

Within three hours, red-faced council spin doctors had to revise their “dire warnings of stormy weather predicted for the coming weekend” to a relatively feeble “with the approaching winter and changeable weather, the City’s disaster management team is ready for every eventuality”.

The original city council announcement said dramatically that “disaster management team is pulling out all stops…”

Quoting Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, it added: “In the event of an emergency, a joint operations centre is instantly activated to act as the nerve centre for information flow and the co-ordination of the emergency plan. A multi-disciplinary rapid response team then springs into action, managing and implementing the most appropriate contingency measures.

The City’s emergency plan provides for the registration of victims, the provision of health and safety information, and the efficient dissemination of blankets, food and basic necessities to provide for the needs of affected communities.

“We have already pinpointed various emergency shelters which can be used to minimise the disruption of lives. However, community halls are the last resort as they do not offer privacy for flood victims who are already severely traumatised.

“After Disaster Management has assessed and stabilised the situation, other specialist teams then move in to restore essential services pertaining to health, electricity, water, sewage, waste removal and road maintenance.”

Fortunately for the intrepid disaster teams, they can take it easy this weekend - unless of course the weather forecasters have got it wrong again.

Check out the rest of them here.

Your currentyly occupying a country trying to setup a puppet government and you are at war with fractions of its people. You’re considering going to war with Iran and Syria and North Korea has some missles with war heads that they are just itching to fire off. What do you do? Beef up your military inlistment so that you can continue to fill the ranks or do you keep shutting down military bases. Yep you guessed it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/13/base.closings/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Pentagon on Friday recommended closing 33 major military installations and many smaller facilities across the United States, sparking fierce reactions from lawmakers who had hoped their states would be spared.

The proposed changes also include significant reductions of forces at another 29 major bases.

The 28-page document, sent to the nine-member Base Realignment and Closure Commission, known as BRAC, marks the first step in a politically charged process that will end with a congressional vote near the end of the year. (Full story)

It calls for changes in all 50 states, with a net loss of 10,782 military positions and 18,223 civilian positions; 2,818 contractor posts would be added.

Military personnel would be moved into positions at other U.S. bases or overseas.

The list recommends 775 facilities for what the Pentagon calls “minor closures and realignments.”

Members of Congress got advance copies of the report and reacted quickly to the news.

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, called the recommendation a “travesty and a strategic blunder of epic proportions on the part of the Defense Department.”

Her state had three installations on the list, including the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

Military officials said the changes called for are larger than those enacted in previous rounds of closures.

“This was a capability review aimed at jointness,” Deputy Undersecretary Michael Wynne said at a news briefing. “We think all of the services are in fact going to gain from this event.”

Wynne said the Defense Department defined a major military base as one with a “plant replacement value” of at least $100 million. The department said there are 318 of those.

The powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, R-California, said he told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that he opposes the recommendation to close the submarine base at New London, Connecticut.

Hunter told CNN he opposes the closure “from a national security standpoint” because “undersea warfare is now and in the future will be critical to our survival as a nation.”

Two Connecticut lawmakers — Rep. Rob Simmons, a Republican who represents New London, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat — said they are outraged by the decision to close the submarine base, according to the former’s office.

At a news conference Thursday, Rumsfeld said the closings would save the U.S. military almost $50 billion over two decades.

Among the recommended changes is a broad reduction of forces in Germany and South Korea as well as what are termed “undistributed troops.” The total for those groups would drop by 14,000.

One of the bases that would be closed if the recommendations are followed is Georgia’s Fort McPherson, headquarters of the U.S. Army Forces Command, which directs deployment for Army personnel.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said proposals to close Fort McPherson and other bases in the state disappoints him.

“The battle is not over. We will continue to give a vigorous defense of the military missions of these installations as we go forward,” Perdue said.

Others recommended for closure include the Naval Station in Pascagoula, Missississippi; Fort Monmouth in New Jersey; Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico; Fort Monroe in Virginia; and Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.

Rumsfeld said Thursday that the list would be shorter than expected since additional space will be needed to house U.S. troops now deployed overseas.

“Nonetheless, the changes that will occur will affect a number of communities, communities that have warmly embraced nearby military installations for a good many years — indeed, in some cases, decades,” he said.

“The department will take great care to work with these communities with the respect that they have earned, and the government stands ready with economic assistance.”

What’s next?
The military has carried out four earlier rounds of base closings since 1988. The Pentagon estimates those closures have saved about $40 billion so far.

Former Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi leads the nine-member base-closing commission.

The panel will review the Pentagon’s recommendations and send them, along with any changes, to the White House by September 8.

President Bush has until September 23 to approve or reject the list without making changes; if approved, it goes to Congress for a vote.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the closures were designed in conjunction with efforts to turn the U.S. armed services into lighter, more agile forces.

The closure of several bases is “a necessary part of that,” Myers said.

“It is integral to our ability to structure ourselves to be able to defend this country well into the future.”

Number One: Girard Depardeu. In one of history’s most ironic twists, America imports Jerry Lewis to the French in a clandestine CIA effort to make them even more stupid than they already are. Having vastly underestimated their low IQs, the CIA never guessed that the French would hail him as a genius. Worse still, the intelligence community completely misses the possibility of retaliation. As “thanks” for Jerry Lewis, the French send us Gerard Depardieu

Number Two: Marcel Marceau. The French deserved to be carpet bombed not just for Marcel Marceau specifically, but for “giving” the world mimes and mimery in general. Think about it: what kind of sick national psyche comes up with this shit? The English invent rugby, the Scots have the highland games, America invents football, the Afghans play polo with a baby goat’s head. And the French give us guys in tight white pants pretending to put their hands on invisible glass.

Number Three: Wine, Wine Coolers, Wine-in-a-Box. Sticking with the international comparison theme…The Scots and Irish invent whiskey. The Germans and English give us ale that will grow hair on your toes. America invents crank and crack. And France’s contribution to the world panoply of sedation? Wine coolers.

Number Four: The French Language. We swear the REAL translation of virtually every French phrase is “I’m a soccer-playing, pastry-eating mime!” The real reason the Germans keep invading France is that they are sick of hearing men whine in this dialect like drunken drooling babies.

Number Five: Berets. Where to even begin with this one? Of all the things you can put on your head ~ a stocking cap, a baseball hat, a cowboy hat, a coonskin cap ~ why in the world would you want to wear a beret? Because you

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — The models show a baby-faced young man with chubby cheeks and his family’s characteristic overbite, a weak chin and a pronounced, sloping nose beneath an elongated scalp.

Three teams of scientists have created the first facial reconstructions of King Tutankhamun based on CT scans of his mummy. The images are strikingly similar both to each other and to ancient portraits of the boy pharaoh, including his depiction on the famed golden mask he wore into the crypt.

The teams — from France, the United States and Egypt — each built a model of the pharaoh’s face based on some 1,700 high-resolution images from CT scans to reveal what he looked like the day he died nearly 3,300 years ago.

That models, photos of which were released Tuesday, bear a strong resemblance to the gold mask of King Tut found in his tomb in 1922 by the British excavation led by Howard Carter.

The beardless youth depicted in the model created by a French team has soft features, a sloping nose and a weak chin — and the overbite, which archaeologists have long believed was a trait shared by other kings in Tut’s 18th dynasty. His eyes are highlighted by thick eyeliner.

“The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamun as a child where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom,” said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The CT scans — the first done on an Egyptian mummy — have suggested King Tut was a healthy, yet slightly built 19-year-old, standing 5-feet-6 at the time of his death.

The three teams created their reconstructions separately — the Americans and French working from a plastic skull, the Egyptians working directly from the CT scans, which could distinguish different densities of soft tissue and bone.

The French and Egyptians knew they were recreating King Tut, but the Americans were not even told where the skull was from, yet correctly identified it as a Caucasoid North African, the council said in a statement.

“The results of the three teams were identical or very similar in the basic shape of the face, the size, shape and setting of the eyes, and the proportion of the skull,” Hawass said.

The French and American models, seen in photos released by the council, are similar — with the Americans’ plaster model sharing the more realistic, French silicone version’s receding chin and prominent upper lip. The Egyptian reconstruction has a more prominent nose and a stronger jaw and chin.

The scans were carried out on January 5 in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, where Tut’s leathery mummy was briefly removed from its tomb and placed into a portable CT scanner.

The tests provided an unprecedented look at Egypt’s most famous mummy — but they did not resolve the mystery of the death of King Tut, who came to power at age 9.

They were able to dismiss a long held theory that Tut, who died around 1323 B.C., was murdered by a blow to his skull or killed in an accident that crushed his chest. It raised a new possibility for the cause of death: Some experts on the scanning team said it appeared Tut broke his left thigh severely — puncturing his skin — just days before his death, and the break could have caused an infection.

The life of Tutankhamun — believed to have been the 12th ruler of ancient Egypt’s 18th dynasty — has fascinated people since his tomb was discovered in 1922, revealing a trove of fabulous treasures in gold and precious stones that showed the wealth and craftsmanship of the pharaonic court.

A U.S. museum tour a quarter-century ago of Tut’s treasures drew more than 8 million people. A smaller number of treasures — minus Tut’s famous gold mask — will again go on display in the United States starting June 16 in Los Angeles, after touring Germany and Switzerland.

The decision to allow the exhibit was a reversal of an Egyptian policy set in the 1980s that confined most of the objects to Egypt, after several pieces were damaged on international tour.

Hawass is leading a five-year project to scan all of Egypt’s known mummies — including royal mummies now exhibited at the Cairo Museum. Eventually, each mummy will be displayed alongside CT images and a facial reconstruction.

“For the first time, we will make these dead mummies come alive,” Hawass said.

Q. How do you say “Give me liberty or give me death!” in French?
A. I give up.

Q. How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?
A. Nobody knows. It’s never been tried.

Q. What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up?
A. The French Army.

Q: Why do they have trees in Paris?
A: So the Germans can march in the shade instead of the sun

Q: Why is it good to be French?
A: You can surrender at the beginning of the war, and US will win it for you.

Q: What is the first thing you are taught when joining the French army?
A: To say “I surrender” in German

Q: Why was Jesus not born in France?
A: Because they couldn

I saw Kingdom of Heaven last night and was impressed. It was rather long but there was enough gore and blood to keep me interested. The real question I had walking out of there was how much was the movie based on fact vs fiction. The movie is based after the 1st Crusade when the Europeans held Jerusalem. The movie goes over the fall of Jerusalem and the retreat of the crusaders. What was interesting was the pitting of the different sects of knights and the in fighting between the Knights of Templar vs the others that servered the King loyally.

http://www.mailorderchickens.org/

I know what you’re thinking chickens? Well you better help out. These poor bastards might become scrambled!

Looks like Baghdad is a new airbase for us to bounce into other middle eastern countries that need an ass whuppin. Although I am begining to feel that this thing has dragged on, I do know the reasons for going into Syria. They are assiting the local terrorists and always have.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/09/iraq.main/index.html

U.S. offensive near Syria kills 75

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — U.S. forces have launched an offensive against “insurgents and foreign fighters” near Iraq’s border with Syria, killing at least 75 of them in the first 24 hours of the operation, the U.S. military said Monday.
According to the military, coalition and Marine Corps aircraft and forces from the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines are involved in the fighting in Iraq’s Anbar province.
“The operation is currently on the area north of the Euphrates River, in the Al Jazirah Desert. The region is a known smuggling route and sanctuary for foreign fighters,” the military said in a statement.
“The offensive is aimed at eliminating insurgents and foreign fighters from the area,” the statement said.
The military made no mention of U.S. casualties.
Earlier Monday, a suicide car bomb detonated at a police checkpoint in southern Baghdad, killing at least four people — two police and two civilians — and wounding eight others, police said.
The wounded include six police and two civilians. Three people inside the car also. died.
According to police, the attack took place at 9:10 a.m. (1:10 a.m. EDT) when the vehicle — with a driver and two passengers — pulled up to the checkpoint. After being stopped by police, the vehicle detonated.
Government appointments
Insurgent attacks have risen in recent weeks even as the Shiite and Kurd-dominated parliament reached out to Sunnni Arabs on Sunday, approving four more of their number to serve in the government.
The ministries of defense, industry and human rights are to be headed by Sunnis, and a newly named deputy prime minister is a Sunni.
The defense minister will be Sadun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni. The Oil Ministry will be headed by a Shiite, Ibrahim Bahrululum.
Hashem al-Shibli, a Sunni who was tapped to be the minister of human rights, refused the post, saying he did not believe Cabinet positions should be allocated based on ethnic or religious affiliation.
Last month, transitional Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced all 36 Cabinet positions in the new government — some of them temporary. The new Cabinet members were sworn in one by one last Tuesday — altogether 28. (Cabinet list)
The transitional government’s main goal is to write a constitution that must be put before voters in a referendum this year.
But scores of people have been killed in a string of attacks since Iraq’s Cabinet was sworn in on April 28.
1,600 U.S. casualties
Total U.S. troop casualties in the Iraq war passed 1,600 Sunday, according to a CNN count, when two soldiers were killed near Khaldiya and a third died in Samarra.
All three were killed by roadside bombs, the U.S. military said.
To date, 1,602 American forces have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In all, 1,780 coalition forces — not counting Iraqi forces — have been killed.
The U.S. death toll passed 1,000 in September 2004. (Full story)
According to news reports compiled by Pat Kniesler of the Web site iCasualties.org, more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers, police and guardsmen have been killed since U.S.-led troops began working with Iraqis to build a security force under the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003.
Also Sunday, two attacks in northern Iraq left four civilians dead, the U.S. military said.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the war remains unclear. Data compiled by the Web site iraqbodycount.org suggests that between 21,000 and 25,000 civilians have been confirmed killed.
Aide’s ‘intelligence documents’ found
The U.S. military said Sunday that an aide to terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been captured by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad.
U.S. forces identified him as Ammar al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Abbas.
Al-Zubaydi was captured Thursday, the military said. He was responsible for many recent suicide car bombings and an attack on Abu Ghraib prison in April that wounded U.S. troops and detainees at the facility, the military said. (Full story)
The military said al-Zubaydi was responsible for a string of car bombs in the Baghdad area on April 29. On that day, 12 explosions were reported in eight areas of the capital within a matter of hours.
Twenty-three Iraqi security troops died across the city and 31 others were wounded, authorities said. At least one civilian died and dozens more were wounded. (Full story)
Al-Zubaydi is not the same Abu Abbas who masterminded the terrorist hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. That man, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, was captured in Iraq in the early days of the war and died in custody.
Iraqi officials said “intelligence documents” seized at al-Zubaydi’s home indicated he was preparing to assassinate a senior government official, who the officials did not identify.
Al-Zubaydi confessed to supporting another suspected al-Zarqawi aide, Abu Omar al-Kurdi, captured in December, Iraqi officials said.
The officials released a statement Sunday saying al-Zubaydi also confessed to stealing 400 rockets and 720 cases of explosives from weaponry warehouses in Yusifiya in 2003.
A U.S. military statement said he told the Iraqis he gave al-Kurdi access to the stolen explosives, which he stockpiled on and near a farm in Yusifiya. Al-Kurdi used them for car bombs, the military said.
Tip leads to capture of 54 insurgents
Another al-Zarqawi associate — captured April 26 — helped U.S. and Iraqi forces kill six insurgents Sunday and capture another 54 in western Iraq near the Syrian border, the U.S. military said.
The anti-insurgent operation took place near the Rawa region in the Anbar province north of Qaim, the military said. The region is a base for rebel attacks in Baghdad and Falluja.
Information provided by al-Zarqawi associate Ghassan Muhammad Amin Husayn al-Rawi helped the operation, according to the military.
During the mission, U.S. and Iraqi “forces also destroyed car bombs, bomb-making material and two buildings that contained large weapons caches,” the military said.
Before his capture, al-Rawi “facilitated movement and meetings for al-Zarqawi in the Rawa region, facilitated movement of foreign fighters, and was responsible for terrorist activity resulting in the murder of innocent Iraqis,” according to Saturday’s announcement of his capture by the military.
Word of the raid came a day after U.S. soldiers captured 33 suspected terrorists, including two men described as “high value targets” in the Baghdad area, the U.S. military said.

I would like to take this time to remind Fnliii that haiku is a greatly refined art that many noble men spent their lives trying to create. Haiku is considered sacred, and writing it about something as frivolous as fluffers is a desecration of beauty itself. Now, when you consider how truly bad fluffer haiku is, it becomes an aberration, something so disgusting it is beyond the ability of words to describe.

That being said, here