Bomb Or Not - Training for Government Agents

See if you qualify for the TSA by correctly identifying which items are and are not bombs.

Play BombOrNot

Turn your Doberman into a Poodle

Step by step instructions on attachchi.org.au

Move over Mel Gibson, here's anti-semite Katherine Harris for congress

Remember Katherine Harris who handed Florida to Bush in 2000? She's still a candidate for Congress with the GOP, the new "Party of God" - also called Hezbollah in Arabic.*

Rep. Katherine Harris sought Saturday to smother a campaign brushfire stoked by an earlier claim that failure to elect Christians to public office would allow lawmakers to "legislate sin.

Speaking in Fla, Harris said: "If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

On Friday, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Democrats and Republicans blasted the comments, saying Harris was suggesting non-Christians were less suited to govern or should be excluded altogether.

State GOP leaders — including Gov. Jeb Bush — don't think she can win against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record) in November. Fundraising has lagged, frustrated campaign workers have defected in droves and the issues have been overshadowed by news of her dealings with a corrupt defense contractor who gave her $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions.


Full story here
*Quote and story from (AmericaBlog)

Puppy Lion Cub: Part II

Someone asked for more info on the puppy/lion cub (I guess cute pictures just aren't good enough for some people.) I googled, and this is what I found. They were living together at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the puppy an Italian mastiff was brought in to help socialize the lion cub after it's twin died.
The full story and some more pictures are here. Unfortunately, a keeper at the zoo left a fence open and the cub was mauled by an adult lioness and euthanized that story is here

Xi Shun - The World's Tallest Man - 7 ft 8.95

More pictures here Via (LookAtThis)

A TIMELINE OF THE IRAQ WAR

From 2003:
MARCH 19, 2003: Bush launches invasion of Iraq
launch

MARCH 30, 2003: Donald Rumsfeld: We know where the WMD are

We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

APRIL 1, 2003: Pfc. Jessica Lynch recovered by U.S. forces. What the Pentagon framed as a heroic rescue was later revealed to have been staged.

To 2006:
AUGUST 15, 2006: 3,438 Iraq civilians died in July, “the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians.”

AUGUST 16, 2006: 1,666 bombs exploded in Iraq in July, “the highest monthly total of the war.”

See it all On Think Progress

How long will these guys remain friends?

more pictures here

** Government seizes the worlds largest collection of torture devices...

If seen approach with caution!

**Completely stolen from shadowfalcon's blog. Go read her blog, it's fun!

Is there really a "war on terror"?

From a great essay by Greg Palast:

They just caught the British guys with the chemistry sets. But when these guys were about to blow up airliners, the USA was on YELLOW alert. That’s a “lowered” threat notice.

According to the press office from the Department of Homeland Security, lowered-threat Yellow means that there were no special inspections of passengers or cargo. Isn’t it nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our security forces are given the day off? Hmm. I asked an Israeli security expert why his nation doesn’t use these pretty color codes.

He asked me if, when I woke up, I checked the day’s terror color.

“I can’t say I ever have. I mean, who would?”

He smiled. “The terrorists.”

But Americans don’t ask for real protection from what’s killing us. The War on Terror is the Weapon of Mass Distraction. Instead of demanding health insurance, we have 59 million of our fellow citizens pooping in their pants with fear of Al Qaeda, waddling to the polls, crying, “Georgie save us!”

War on Terror is class war by other means — to keep you from asking for real protection from true menace, the landlords of our nation give you fake protection from manufactured dangers. And they remind you to be afraid every time you fly to see Aunt Millie and have to give up your hemorrhoid ointment to the underpaid guy in the bell-hop suit with a security badge.

Read the rest

Trouble brews as conservatives openly wonder if Bush is an idiot

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."
Read more Via (Washington Post) Video On (Crooks and Liars)

Bush still tries to link Iraq to 9/11: "Flip Flops" when caught

Bush also tied Iraq to 9/11, and then backed off, when asked about the effects of the U.S. invasion as witnessed today.

"You know, I've heard this theory about, you know, everything was just fine until we arrived and, you know, kind of -- the 'stir up the hornet's nest' theory," Bush said. "It just doesn't hold water as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East."

Asked by a reporter what Iraq had to do with 9/11, Bush replied, "Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September the 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken."

Via (Editor and Publisher)
Video on (Crooks and Liars)

Frank Rich: Five Years After 9/11, Fear Finally Strikes Out

Just a snippet of a great commentary.

It’s hard to ignore the tragic reality that American troops are caught in the cross-fire of a sectarian bloodbath escalating daily, that botched American policy has strengthened Iran and Hezbollah and undermined Israel, and that our Department of Homeland Security is as ill-equipped now to prevent explosives (liquid or otherwise) in cargo as it was on 9/11.

Welcome to Pottersville has the whole column

What is it? Mystery Beast Killed By Car

Residents are wondering if an animal found dead over the weekend may be the mysterious creature that has mauled dogs, frightened residents and been the subject of local legend for half a generation.

It was charcoal gray, weighed between 40 and 50 pounds and had a bushy tail, a short snout, short ears and curled fangs hanging over its lips, he said. It looked like "something out of a Stephen King story."

"This is something I've never seen before. It's an evil-looking thing," he said
Read More on Fox News via (Hemmy.net)

Evangelicals urge Kenya museum to hide man's ancestors

Powerful evangelical churches are pressing Kenya's national museum to sideline its world-famous collection of hominid bones pointing to man's evolution from ape to human.

Leaders of the country's six-million-strong Pentecostal congregation want Dr Richard Leakey's ground-breaking finds relegated to a back room instead of being given their usual prime billing.
Read more

Al Qaeda in Drag

Al Qaeda's newest tactic to elude American forces appears to be dressing in drag.
Read More

Photoshop Mastery -Taylor James Photographc Retouchers

This is a composite image made from many smaller pictures with an animation on how it was all put together.
Go look

Bill O’Reilly proves the NSA program works WITH warrants

While talking to the head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff about the "London Terror Plot" about how the NSA helped Britain, O'Reilly proves that getting FISA court approval works. (Which has been the whole issue behind warrantless wiretaps)

O’Reilly: The fact that the NSA was able to intercept these phone calls that were made in the United States to al-Qaeda in Britain. By using the very controversial, although I understand that warrants were obtained for this by the FISA court…does that mean in your opinion that the Bush administration is ahhhhh–justified now in its original policy? Is this a big win politically for you guys?
Video on Crooks and Liars

White House Has Liquid Explosive Detectors: Airports Dont

Since the early 1990s, AS&E has made SmartCheck, a $50,000 low-intensity X-ray scanner that can spot a bottle of organic compounds in a passenger's pocket.

But is the liquid an explosive, or a batch of baby formula? Ahura says its $30,000 handheld laser scanner, the First Defender, can answer the question. The device can ``see" through glass or plastic bottles and identify any of 2,500 different chemical compounds in about 15 seconds. The FBI and New York City police already use the Ahura system, which went on sale about a year ago.

Joe Reiss, AS&E's vice president of marketing, said his company's SmartCheck systems are used at the White House and the US Supreme Court. But they're not widely used in airport security. TSA agreed last year to conduct tests of the system. But Reiss said those tests had not yet begun.

The TSA has not outfitted airports with the devices, in part, because officials have to prioritize where they spend limited dollars, according to Frank Cilluffo, former special assistant to President Bush for homeland security...

We had money for tax cuts, lots of them. $300 billion for the Iraq war, and counting. But not enough to stop terrorists from blowing up US commercial airliners when we knew about this threat ten years ago.

Read the rest on AmericaBlog

65 students pregnant: High School re-thinks "Just say no"

An Ohio school board is expanding sex education following the revelation that 13 percent of one high school's female students were pregnant last year.

There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported.
Read more

NY Times sat on the NSA eavesdropping story and helped Bush

Eric Sullivan, from Waunakee, Wis., asked NY Times editor Bill Keller “I’d like to know why you sat on the N.S.A. story. You probably changed the course of an election and likely history to come.”

Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the election also was an issue of fairness, Mr. Keller said. I agree that candidates affected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to a week — to get their response disseminated before voters head to the polls.

The NYT is supposed to be liberal, they're the mainstream media. Remember the front page articles fed to them by Cheney's office, then cited by Cheney as proof WMD's existed. (Google Cheney, Chalabi and Judith Miller) The Times promised to be more forthcoming in the future.
Guess the future is a long ways off. Read it from the horse's mouth

CNN reports on 9/11 Commission's follow up - Watch it!

The Republican Chair, and Democratic Vice Chair of the 9/11 commission have written a book detailing the difficulties dealing with the various gov't agencies while investigating 9/11.

"Fog of war could explain why some people were confused on the day of 9/11, but it could not explain why all the after-action reports, accident investigations and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue."

As Jon Stewart recently asked.. Where are the books commending the job these people have done? It's not like the right has a problem attacking their critics. Where's Ann Coulter's book commending all the good this administration has done? Maybe there isn't a book there?

Giant Rabbits

They have a homepage too.

London Terror Alert? A Skeptical Round-up

Cartoon xxcerpt from Wondermark via (J-walk)

Several points make the whole affair seem unlikely:
1) The Republicans are joyfully using it for political gain. Via (Phila Daily News)
2) Officials have known about the threat of liquid explosives for years and done nothing. Via (NYTimes)
3) Bush has been trying to cut funds for bomb detection at us airports Via (ABC News)
4) It is unlikely that these chemicals more unstable then nitroglycerine and it requires refrigeration of 10 C or less to be manufactured with any degree of reliability. The idea that this process could be carried out in the cramped washroom of an airliner is fanciful at best.
5) The US rushed the British investigation. Via (MSNBC.com)
6) These "dangerous" liquids that aren't safe enough for air travel are being mixed into bins in the airport by passsengers (See photo below) , and unopened liquids not safe enough for travel are apparently safe enough to sell on Ebay and donate to homeless groups. Via (CNN)

AmericaBlog: After September 11, we did get hit again

It was called Anthrax. And Bush still hasn't caught the killer. So next time Bush/Cheney claim we haven't been hit again, ask them what happened to the Anthrax killer.

Then ask them where Osama is.
(AmericaBlog)

Free Bill Stickers

Via (Free Bill Stickers)

Taking the fight to them

President Bush just said the events in London are "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

Also a pretty stark reminder that President Bush's War on Terror, the way he's chosen to fight it, is at best irrelevant to combatting this sort of danger. These are homegrown Brits apparently trying to blow up planes over the Atlantic. Good thing we've got a 150,000 or so troops in Iraq to take the fight to them. -- Josh Marshall

Bush seeks political gains from foiled plot

Was this another convienently timed terror alert? Does this surprise anyone?

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances."

Read more

And then there's this from America blog:

In today's NY Times, Dick Cheney warned that the Lieberman loss would embolden "Al Qaeda types." It is reasonable to assume that Cheney, like Bush, knew about the unfolding scandal in Great Britain.

Think about this for a minute. It shows how evil the Bush/Cheney team really is. Knowing that this story was about to break, Cheney invoked Al Qaeda in purely political terms. Once again, Cheney is using terrorism for political purposes. The media should have laughed at him when he made his outrageous claim yesterday. Now, the media should be outraged. They were duped.

So Bush stays on vacation, Cheney goes on a political attack. Sums them up. Clearly, Cheney's motives were pure partisan politics. He choreographed his statements to be out there when this story broke. It's sick.

Instead of fighting terror, the Bush team is continually playing politics -- even with top secret info. That's one reason why Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, is on trial. Bush and Cheney breach security -- and use classified info. for political reasons.

Ken Mehlman's been on a terror tirade lately. Did Ken Mehlman know about the alleged terror plot, too?

OCD Cat flushes and flushes and flushes...

9/11: 30% of Americans can't name the year

Some 30 percent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York's World Trade Center and the
Pentagon in Washington took place, according to a poll published in the Washington Post newspaper.
Read more

National Geographic Reports: Evolution Less Accepted in U.S. Than Other Western Countries

In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a third firmly rejected the idea.

In European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, and France, more than 80 percent of adults surveyed said they accepted the concept of evolution.

A new study of those surveys suggests that the main reason for this lies in a unique confluence of religion, politics, and the public understanding of biological science in the United States.
Read the full article and see larger chart

AP/ Reuters staging war photos?

It appears that this poor woman lost her first house July 22 and then 2 weeks later on August 5 she lost another one.

A Lebanese woman wails after looking at the wreckage of her apartment, in a building, that was demolished by the Israeli attacks in southern Beirut July 22, 2006. REUTERS/Issam Kobeisi

A Lebanese woman reacts at the destruction after she came to inspect her house in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006, after Israeli warplanes repeatedly bombed the area overnight. Israeli commandos attacked near the southern city of Tyre early Saturday but were repelled by Hezbollah guerrillas who killed an Israeli member of the force and wounded others, the group said in a statement. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Original photo's via Yahoo News (article 1), (article 2)
via (Drinking From Home)

Real Life Wolfman

Danny Ramos Gomez looks like any other circus performer. Look a little closer and you'll quickly realize why Danny is known as "the wolf man".

Danny has a condition called hypertrichosis, in which the body produces an abnormal amount of hair.

Danny Ramos Gomez, Werewolf Guy: "Sometimes people who touch me say that the hair on my face is finer than the hair on my head. That's what they say."

Twenty-two-year-old Danny and his 25-year-old brother Larry are known for their daredevil feats in a Mexican circus. But when they were little, it was different. They were part of a freak show, and they were known as "los ninos lobos", the "wolf children", and exhibited like animals.
Read the rest and see more pictures on ABC7Chicago
Via (Across the Board)

Don' Judge Too Quickly - I'm her Daddy - Ameriquest Commercial

A series of misunderstandings make for a series of great commercials for Ameriquest
Watch this one then go see the others:
Kitty
OOPS
We Killed Him
You're Getting Robbed
Via (Haha Nu)

He said what?

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."George W Bush —Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004

To Steal Election, Friends of Santorum Fund Green Party

Of $66,000 raised by the Luzerne County Green Party June all but $30 (contributed by the Green Candidate himself) came from GOP donors. This is an apparent attempt to split the liberal vote and steal the election for Santorum.
Read more
Via (America Blog)

New Yorker 's Bush Quiz

Match the number with what it quantifies.

3. At least 30,000.

4. More than 5,000.

5. Zero.

6. Around 200.



(a) Dollars’ worth of merchandise that the former Bush domestic-policy adviser Claude Allen was alleged to have stolen from Target and other stores through a phony refund scam.

(b) Shotgun pellets embedded in the face and upper body of Harry Whittington by Dick Cheney.

(c) National monuments or icons that Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said there are in New York City.

(d) dollars donated by Barbara Bush to a hurricane relief fund with the stipulation that the money be spent on software bought from a company run by her son Neil.

More questions here
For Answers, click and drag your mouse from HERE
(3) d, (4) a, (5) c, (6) b,
to HERE

Ties for dogs

For those times when a bandana is just too casual
Expect to see them at a dog park near you. DogTie.com
Via (J-Walk)

6-year-old boy did 10000 pushups in 3 hrs 20 min

According to China Daily.comLu Di, 6, flexes his muscles as other young kungfu students watch at a kungfu school in Central China's Henan Province July 26, 2006. According to school president Shi Yongdi, Lu did 10,000 pushups in three hours and twenty minutes four days ago. Since he shows so much promise, Shi says the school will waive his tuition for ten years. [Xinhua]
I think I may reserve judgement on this one.. just in case it turns out like the chinese woman pregnant with a load of laundry or Pat Robertson's 2000 lb Herculean leg press.
Via (Hemmy)

Scientist thinks invisibility possible in future

Fom the "I'll believe it when I see it department", Reuters reports the following:

LONDON (Reuters) - It's unlikely to occur by swallowing a pill or donning a special cloak, but invisibility could be possible in the not too distant future, according to research published on Monday.

Harry Potter accomplished it with his magic cloak. H.G. Wells' Invisible Man swallowed a substance that made him transparent.

But Dr Ulf Leonhardt, a theoretical physicist at St Andrews University in Scotland, believes the most plausible example is the Invisible Woman, one of the Marvel Comics superheroes in the "Fantastic Four".

"She guides light around her using a force field in this cartoon. This is what could be done in practice," Leonhardt told Reuters in an interview. "That comes closest to what engineers will probably be able to do in the future."
Read on

Guard dog destroys Elvis' teddy bear

 A guard dog has ripped apart a $900,000 collection of rare teddy bears, including one once owned by Elvis Presley, during a rampage at a children's museum.

"He just went berserk," said Daniel Medley, general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England, where hundreds of bears were chewed up Tuesday night by the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.
Read more

Welcome to the no spin zone: An Apology From A Bush Voter

A Conservative Radio host apologizes for voting for Bush:

"But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th."

There's just too much truthiness here to quote it all. It looks like the right is finally waking up. He doesn't just lie down and roll over for the Democrats either. It will be interesting to see what the faithful right does with this guy. Go read the rest.
Thanks ArtMart! :)

The Boy Who Sees with Sound

Blind since age 3, Ben Underwood skateboards, shoots hoops and plays video games. How does he do it? Just like bats and dolphins

Ben can hear walls, parked cars, you name it. I'm a master at this game."
The amazing boy who doesn't seem to know he's blind. There's Ben zooming around on his skateboard outside his home in Sacramento; there he is playing kickball with his buddies. To see him speed down hallways and make sharp turns around corners is to observe a typical teen – except, that is, for the clicking. Ben has learned to perceive and locate objects by making a steady stream of sounds with his tongue, then listening for the echoes as they bounce off the surfaces around him. About as loud as the snapping of fingers, Ben's clicks tell him what's ahead: the echoes they produce can be soft (indicating metals), dense (wood) or sharp (glass).

Read on (Via People Magazine)

Frank and Louie: Another 2 faced cat

Meet Frank and Louie, a 6 year old cat with 2 faces. He regularly frolics with his owners other cats, and her 65 pound dog, who developed a bond with Frank and Louie from the moment she brought the kitten home. Frank and Louie also likes to go for rides in the car and walks in the park.
More on Frank and Louie and a video too.

Forever Young: 12 year old Baby

She looks like a baby but her real age is 12 !

Forever Young - video powered by Metacafe