Wtf 2

Seems the earlier thread disappeared, so I'll get this rolling with an interview with the Tea Parties presidential runner Michele Bachmann, who one would expect to know that John Quincy Adams was not a Founding Father, or that they fought tirelessly to end slavery- http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/...chele-bachmann

@sdw, I guess in part this happens becomes it's so frequent with Bachmann and she's the front runner in the Tea Party so there's a lot of wiggly facts in that realm, period.


Does this make him a martyr?


"ONONDAGA, N.Y. -- Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike's handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon in the town of Onondaga, in central New York near Syracuse.

State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving (er..."riding"!) a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets.

Troopers say Contos hit his brakes and the motorcycle fishtailed. The bike spun out of control, and Contos toppled over the handlebars. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Troopers say Contos would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet."

It doesn't matter that Wtf 2 isn't as "good" as Wtf 1. Wtf 2 has massive marketing and lots of sex as well as the big explosions and amazing special effects. That sells. It'll be a massive money making machine, passing all previous records. That's far more important than boring charachter substance that only old fashioned people like.

Personally I loved the scene at the begining when all the Founding Fathers tirelessly set all their slaves free. That was touching. It's rare these days that an audience cries right at the begining of a film.

Bachmann would be proud-

"According to a new poll by Marist, more than a quarter of Americans couldn’t correctly identify the country from which the United States declared its independence.

While 74 percent correctly named Great Britain, 20 percent said they weren’t sure and six percent named other countries. In the South, 32 percent of respondents either responded incorrectly or weren’t sure.

The poll comes on the heels of test scores that showed few American students gaining proficiency in U.S. history, a problem presidential candidate Rick Santorum blamed on the “conscious effort” by “the left” to keep Americans uninformed.

When your that far in the red there's bound to be a lot of red tape too.

Inhofe though has been soaking up some manly blue-green and finally acknowledges that he's a scumbag who doesn't care about the environment-

"A day after cancelling his keynote address at the Heartland climate denial conference because he felt “under the weather,” Republican Senator Jim Inhofe today insisted his sickness was due to a toxic algae bloom on the Grand Lake in Oklahoma where he has a home – joking to a local newspaper that “the environment strikes back” and ”Inhofe is attacked by the environment.”

Inhofe’s run-in with algae comes as his state deals with a record-setting heat wave and drought not seen since the 1930’s – creating perfect conditions for blue-green algal blooms that can cause respiratory problems, diarrhea, skin irritation and, in rare cases, death. In Texas, cattle have been dying from drinking blue-green algae that scientists explain have blossomed due to severe drought conditions.

Environmental officials in Oklahoma sent out a warning today about major blue-green algal blooms around the Northeastern portion of the state, saying this is the largest bloom the area has ever seen. Because “toxins harmful to humans and animals can be produced in some algae blooms,” it is strongly recommended you do not swim in places where there are visible blooms. Ironically, Inhofe, who has chaired the Senate Environment Committee, didn’t know that, but even his teenage granddaughter figured it out.

“There is no question,” the Oklahoma Republican said, linking what he thought was a routine dive into the lake last Monday morning to a severe upper respiratory illness.
“That night, Monday night, I was just deathly sick.”
Inhofe and his wife, Kay, have had a home on the lake for decades, and he has never seen that kind of algae in the water previously.

“I didn’t think anything about it,” he said, recalling that he had encouraged his 13-year-old granddaughter to join him in the water but she declined.
“She didn’t want to get in that green stuff.”
~ http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/0...e/#more-259859

Wow!- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/pi...ua-Mexico.html

"These breathtaking images capture the hidden depths of the world's biggest cave passage - so large the end is yet to be found. Hidden in the depths of the Vietnamese jungle lies The Hang Son Doong, part of a network of over 150 caves. Surrounded by jungle and used in the Vietnam war as a hideout from American bombardments, the cave passage is so large that it could hold a block of 40-storey skyscrapers. Its entrance was only rediscovered by British cavers in 2009."
~ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ear...Son-Doong.html

"For the first time perhaps since the fall of the Roman empire, a group of centurions faces prosecution for mounting an assault on brother officers just a few paces from the Forum.

Unknown to the attackers, their fellow "centurions" were undercover police officers sent to investigate claims of racketeering and fraud in the shadow of the Colosseum. Dozens of modern-day Romans dressed as centurions or gladiators make a living by posing for photographs alongside tourists in return for tips and by enticing them onto tours in exchange for payments from the organisers.

But the business has been plagued by complaints from holidaymakers of centurions resorting to threats, and allegations that it is a "closed shop" from which outsiders are rigorously, and sometimes brutally, excluded. The three men arrested on Wednesday have been accused of assault and risk additional charges of criminal conspiracy, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The officers posing as centurions were reportedly approached and threatened in the Piazza Venezia by the three men who were subsequently arrested. An argument broke out, and swords albeit wooden ones were soon cleaving the air.

Unknown to the trio, a party of street cleaners at work nearby was also made up of undercover police officers. On seeing their colleagues attacked, they sprang into action and, watched by bemused tourists, clamped handcuffs on the aggressors.

One ruse allegedly involves offering to take a photograph of a tourist with his or her own camera, and then refusing to give it back until a substantial amount of money has been handed over.

In 2007, police arrested a fake centurion following a reported attack on an American man and a Chilean woman which landed both in hospital. The same year police said they had arrested 28 unlicensed phony centurions and charged them with "violating laws banning commercial activity in an archaeological area".

Four years earlier there was a fistfight outside the Colosseum between rival bands of costumed ancient Romans. Also in 2003 police arrested a self-styled gladiator for carrying a real sword.

The Rome authorities said in 2002 they would be licensing the centurions who hang around the Colosseum and other historic sites. There was talk of tests to show they spoke English, had good people skills and adequate general knowledge.

Those who passed were to be put on a list, given a badge and assigned a pitch. But they would have to abide by regulations concerning the authenticity of their costumes.

Alessio Di Porto, a 28 year-old former souvenir hawker, said, however, that the scheme had never materialised. "We've been waiting for years to be authorised", he told Corriere. "Unfortunately, [the council] has forgotten about us.""
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...ight-colosseum

Should those who believe in BDSM (bondage, discipline, sado-masochistic) be afforded the same rights as those of other beliefs?

That's what courts in the UK are trying to decide.

Should an employer have the power to force an employee to remove a black leather and studded (no pun intended) neck collar worn to honor one's beliefs, when they can't force the same individual not to wear a clerical collar or a hijab? One might argue "well they'd enjoy being told they can't wear one because their pathetic and useless", but that's beside the point.


Here's more on the story-

"The issue arose last week as the long-predicted collision between protections for "philosophical belief" and proponents of the BDSM (bondage, discipline, sado-masochistic) lifestyle hit the courts in Bedford. In balance was the claim by a local midwife that her dismissal for wearing an emblem of her beliefs a silver collar was discriminatory.

The judge appeared to have few qualms accepting that "D/s" the somewhat more esoteric philosophy of dominance and submission at the heart of BDSM had most of the qualities, including cogency, consistency and personal importance one might expect of a belief system. He got that this was not about the "right to spank" even if, as witnesses testified, that could be part of it.

No. His very real difficulty was whether a way of life sometimes described as "consensual slavery" or "consensual non-consent" could possibly be worthy of recognition in a democratic society.

Which was where I came in. After spending well over a decade following, studying and writing about alternative sexualities, could I assist the court? I tried. The key point, I argued, was the substance how the principles operated in practice rather than the wordage. Christianity, for instance, has had its own issues as critics have represented its practice of eating the body of Christ as cannibalism. And as for the Masonic oath

D/s is not sexist: there are probably far more male submissives than female ones. Nor is it truly inequal. It embodies different and, in the everyday, unequal roles. But its cornerstone is equality and formality: it is preceded in most cases by highly protracted negotiation; there is agreement of rules and boundaries; and an absolute recognition that "no" means "no". Could we claim as much for the average marriage?

But, the barrister asked: was I really suggesting that entering into a relationship in which someone else might tell you what to do, and where and how, was consistent with modern values? My answer was brief: "wage slavery".

In the end, the court remained unpersuaded. If nothing else, I suspect that the idea of being the first employment tribunal in the land to give comfort in any form to "slavery" made the judge quite queasy.

That's not the end of it, though. No precedent was set. There may yet be an appeal. And even if there is not on this case, it's an issue that won't go away. As the BDSM community increasingly finds its voice, it is likely one day to test the wisdom of an altogether higher authority: the supreme court, natch."
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ensual-slavery

Does this remind you of anything? - http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/20...val-shred-cash

"A group of Franciscan monks furious at the theft of bibles from their church in Florence have taken the unusual step of praying for the thief to be struck down by diarrhoea.

Monks at the 15th century church of San Salvatore al Monte, which was a favourite of Michelangelo, were irritated when a rare and expensive bible disappeared from the lectern, and they flew off the handle when a replacement bible donated by a worshipper also went missing and within a few hours.

In a note, pinned up in full view of worshippers, the monks say they hope the thief sees the error of his ways. But in case he does not, they add: "We pray to God that the thief is struck by a strong bout of the shits."

This turn of events will, they hope, "encourage him to carry out no further thefts".

Described by La Stampa newspaper as "the product of the Tuscan ability to be ironic about anything", the note and its unorthodox request will be forgiven, claim one of the monks. "It is not exactly clean language," the monk said, "but we couldn't put up with it any longer. The Lord and the faithful will understand."
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...ea-bible-thief

"China Irked With Its Pugnacious Basketball Team- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk9dN...layer_embedded

BEIJING—The Chinese Communist Party has long cherished competitive sports as a conduit for geopolitical détente. For decades, the slogan “Friendship First, Competition Second,” guided the nation’s approach to international sporting events. It was dueling ping-pong teams, after all, that 40 years ago paved the way for the historic thaw in relations with the United States.

But even if Beijing has since come to believe that gold medals are lovelier than bronze, senior leaders here are clearly displeased that players from its most popular men’s basketball team got into an ugly, full-court brawl Thursday night with a visiting American team from Georgetown University.

It does not help that the melee took place on the second day of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s first official visit to China.

The violence, captured by amateur video cameras and broadcast around the world, occurred during the final minutes of a “goodwill” match between the Georgetown Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets, a team whose members are drawn from the People’s Liberation Army.

In the video, a Rockets player can be seen ramming guard Aaron Bowen through a partition and wailing on him with fists as he sat on his chest. Before the Georgetown coach pulled his men off the floor and called the game quits, Chinese players and spectators threw punches, folding chairs and full bottles of water. With that, the match officially ended in a tie, 64-64.

But even as members of both teams met Friday morning at a Beijing hotel to make peace, the country’s propaganda maestros were trying to ensure that the brouhaha did not find its way into the national psyche. Censors quickly deleted videos and chat room comments, although by evening, the restrictions appeared to be easing."
~ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/wo...l.html?_r=1&hp

A study of 60 million people has found that if the US had the same level of equality that Canada has, it would prevent 883,914 premature deaths in the US a year- http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b4471.full.pdf Maybe taxes aren't such a bad idea?

Crappy actress makes debut on world stage- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14274688

"Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld wrote a column proposing the construction of an artificial mountain in the flat Netherlands as a joke. But the idea has captured the country's imagination and Zonneveld is now looking into its feasibility. After all, he says, in the past the country managed to reclaim massive areas of land from the sea.

Journalist Thijs Zonneveld became a household name in the Netherlands overnight with a short column that looked like something written to fill a slow summer news day. But his idea to build a 2,000-meter (6,560-foot) peak appears to have caught the public's imagination.

Compared to the feat of reclaiming that land, is building a 2,000-meter mountain on the soil of Flevoland such a challenge, Zonneveld asks? "We can do this," he writes. "We created half of this country ourselves. We just did not practise our skills for a very long time.

Zonneveld says he now seriously believes that all of this is doable and could also be attractive from a business standpoint. An artificial mountain could serve as a giant athletic playground for skiers and racing cyclists, kite flyers, mountain climbers and hikers. It could, in short, become a vacation destination, a beauty spot with a view, for people "from Paris to Copenhagen," a tourist attraction capable of generating healthy profits. And the region, he says, could use a mountain. Very much so.

Zonneveld believes that it could be done for about €1 billion ($1.43 billion). Of course, he adds, raising this "costly mountain" would not be a job for the public sector, but for bold investors instead."
~ http://www.spiegel.de/international/...784085,00.html


....and it be a nice stimulus too.

Maybe if they put a bunch of wind turbines on it, especially higher up, and a lots of trees, it might not be too bad.

Sure, but let's keep things in perspective- http://www.sibleyguides.com/conserva...ird-mortality/

The numbers have about doubled from wind turbines since that 2003 graph.

Some of the birds killed are "large and scarce". Would you like to stop all new wind turbines being built that impact these birds?

There's enough earth right there under where the mountain goes. Probably more than is needed actually, because a lot of the mountain should really be made out of rock. They also only have to make the earth deep enough so trees will grow. It would look more natural and impressive, indeed beautiful if the bulk of trees were lower down and only a sparse number in say the top third. That'll promote rock climbing too.

It may be a lot of rock though, and it would be a pretty crummy looking mountain if all they used was rubble. It would really need some really large boulders got up there somehow, and that will mean the mountain will have to be extremely strong structurally. But again, the mountains fake, so it may not be so much as one would expect. So long as it looks real on the surface, who cares what's underneath?

I wonder if the Dutch could use the inside of the mountain as an energy producing methane landfill, from rubbish over a wide area. This could over time be used to fill in the mountain too, thereby strengthening it and giving it a permanency that would otherwise be very expensive and ungreen to accomplish.

I suspect it would only be possible to get the waste to the mountain by rail, so more funds would be needed, but those same tracks could take visitors there too.

Certainly not a green project, but could it become one? Maybe.

Very, very hairlarious hair do's of the Greed Of Politicians- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...=Newt_Gingrich

No, you must be given benefits than have a green healthy life-

"The Masons have transformed what they described as a derelict four-acre plot into a haven of self-sufficiency boasting a 400 sq m allotment, a polytunnel and greenhouses to grow fruit and vegetables, chickens for egg production and an orchard they have regenerated by planting around 14 new apple trees of various species.

The couple, who have two boys, aged eight and nine, say because they moved onto the site in order to work the land, Mid Devon District Council is turfing them off as officers do not consider them to be conserving an agricultural area.

They faced magistrates on March 31 when they were served with an injunction to leave within 28 days from June 1.

Dinah, 35, who spent a year with her husband clearing four-foot high nettles and thistles which engulfed the four-acre site, said: "How anybody can say the orchard was being conserved before is beyond my comprehension."

Dinah works while Stig, 34, as well as making sure the children get to school on time, tends to the land on a daily basis where peas, potatoes, garlic, strawberries, raspberries and various produce have been growing since 2009.

Vegetarians Stig and Dinah claim council officers offered them bed and breakfast accommodation in Cullompton at taxpayers' expense and suggested they live on take aways, which are likely to cost around £20 for each family meal.

Dinah's income currently provides the family with everything they need which they cannot grow themselves but is unlikely to stretch to cover kennelling costs for their dog, Moo.

They say they currently receive no state hand-outs but by giving up their "off grid" way of life, they fear they will end up in a council house, claiming housing and council tax benefits, as well as seeking grants to help pay for high utility bills.

Stig, chairman of the Willand Composting Scheme and a member of the primary school's PTFA, sells eggs, produce, and hopefully cider in the future but explained that planning permission to live and work on the land was refused in 2009 which they are appealing against.

He said one of the council's reasons for refusal was based on a belief the couple had did not have a "sound enough business plan."

As well as plans to sell more produce locally, the couple say it is only likely to take them a further two years to get to a stage where they will be able to grow six to eight months' worth of vegetables.

Dinah, who is a community care worker, cub leader and also a member of the PTFA, said: "To live in an agricultural area you need to have a financial need, but this gives us enough to live on, but our whole ethos is not about making money.

"The council is saying by us living here it becomes mixed-use and is therefore no longer deemed agricultural."

Dinah was bequeathed money from the sudden death of her aunt and £47,000 was spent on the land to create the smallholding where wood burners and solar panels provide their energy needs.

Dinah said removing them from their land will render them homeless and is concerned they will have to pull their children out of Willand Primary School if they have to move out of the area.

But several people from across the country have written to the council in support of the family's retention...."
~ http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/Injunct...ail/story.html

Here's a great way to raise taxes -

"... POGO estimates the government pays billions more annually in taxpayer dollars to hire contractors than it would to hire federal employees to perform comparable services. Specifically, POGO's study shows that the federal government approves service contract billing rates - deemed fair and reasonable - that pay contractors 1.83 times more than the government pays federal employees in total compensation and more than 2 times the total compensation paid in the private sector for comparable services.

The most egregious example of an outsourced occupational classification that resulted in excessive costs rather than cost savings is claims assistance and examining - administrative support positions that involve examining, reviewing, developing, adjusting, reconsidering or recommending authorization of claims by or against the federal government. To provide these services, on average, federal employees are fully compensated at $57,292 per year, private sector employees are fully compensated at $75,637 per year, and the average annual contractor billing rate is $276,598 per year. POGO found the government may therefore be paying contractors, on average, nearly 5 times what it pays government employees to perform the same services. Put another way, the government may be paying the contractor providing support services for claims assistance and examining more than it does federal judges or administrative law judges, who earn less than $200,000 per year. Contractors may be billing the government, on average, approximately 3.66 times what private sector employees are compensated for performing similar services.

Since 1999, the size of the federal employee workforce has remained relatively constant at about 2 million, while the contractor workforce has increased radically - from an estimated 4.4 million to 7.6 million in 2005. In other words, the federal contractor workforce dwarfs the federal employee workforce nearly four-fold."
~ http://www.truth-out.org/guess-what-...ees/1315928973

What about the US expanding opium production in Afghanistan, hypocrisy?-

"The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) -- even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they're carried out. The new law, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.

The Controlled Substances Act also regulates the distribution of prescription drugs, so something as simple as emailing a friend vacationing in Tijuana some suggestions on where to buy prescription medication over the counter could subject a U.S. resident to criminal prosecution. "It could even be something like advising them where to buy cold medicine overseas that they'd have to show I.D. to get here in the U.S.," Piper says."
~ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1..._n_998993.html

"A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.


The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.”


The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command."
~ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...s-drone-fleet/





Coming to a community near you- http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...-dwarfs-truck/

"Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the "routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates UK airspace, has been told by BAE and Kent police that civilian UAVs would "greatly extend" the government's surveillance capacity and "revolutionise policing". The CAA is currently reluctant to license UAVs in normal airspace because of the risk of collisions with other aircraft, but adequate "sense and avoid" systems for drones are only a few years away.

Five other police forces have signed up to the scheme, which is considered a pilot preceding the countrywide adoption of the technology for "surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering". The partnership's stated mission is to introduce drones "into the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies" across the UK.

Concerned about the slow pace of progress of licensing issues, Kent police's assistant chief constable, Allyn Thomas, wrote to the CAA last March arguing that military drones would be useful "in the policing of major events, whether they be protests or the Olympics". He said interest in their use in the UK had "developed after the terrorist attack in Mumbai".

BAE drones are programmed to take off and land on their own, stay airborne for up to 15 hours and reach heights of 20,000ft, making them invisible from the ground.
~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/ja...ce-plan-drones