Welcome to the 1900's Egypt...

ZAGAZIG, Egypt: Dressed in karate uniforms and track suits, the young Egyptian women break off in pairs and begin sparring, with one kicking and punching while the other tries to block the attacks.

The nearly two dozen women and girls in a small gymnasium in this city of one million, north of Cairo, are learning to fight off assailants - a rarity for women in the Arab world.

Such self-defense classes have popped up in the past year across Egypt, as this conservative Muslim country for the first time turns major attention to the issue of sexual harassment. Women, and even some men, have begun campaigns against sexual harassment around Cairo, using Facebook to raise awareness among the country's Internet-savvy youth.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Olympia Brown, Helen Pitts...did it in and around 1919. So who is going to step up in Egypt?

To all the Egyptian men watching this happen...start practicing this simple phrase:

"Yes, Dear."

Give & Take...

"Shock over use of road salt in Stratham"

STRATHAM — Highway Agent Fred Hutton on Monday discussed his winter salting procedures for an average storm with the Stratham Board of Selectmen.

"We usually dump about 200 to 300 pounds of salt per lane mile," he told them.

As he said it, members of the Conservation Commission in the audience were noticeably shocked. They were at the board meeting in order to give a presentation about the dangers of over-salting the roads, which they said can wreak havoc on wildlife, the environment, cars, the roads themselves and the Highway Department's budget.

The horror....the horror !!!

I love the "do-gooders." They really are a cuddly, naive bunch. Highway Agent Hutton sets them straight...

Each storm, the Highway Department spreads about 120 tons of salt, according to Hutton. When asked if he thought that was over-salting, he said "no."

"Otherwise we'd have our trucks sliding down every hill," he said. "It's (a matter of) public safety, not being able to get up the roads. A $1 million lawsuit could buy a lot of salt."

Wow...common sense and a favortism...NO..OUTRIGHT BIAS TOWARDS HUMANS !!! How can you respond to that?

The Conservation Commission members at the board meeting said they were trying to get a discussion going about the topic.

"We're not going to solve this issue tonight, and we may not solve it this summer or this year," said commission member Donna Jensen, "but we really have something to be concerned with here."

(shrugs)...what do you think that solution is? Here's a clue...

To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets.

But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

How'd that work out, Mayor Nickels?

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced this morning that the city will reverse its decade-old policy and use road salt to melt ice in future storms.

The mayor set certain conditions for using salt: on hills, arterials or snow bus routes, and on routes to hospitals and other emergency facilities when at least 4 inches of snow is predicted, if ice is predicted, or if extreme cold is expected to last more than three days.

They really are cute...these wittle conservationist folks...with their desire to save the field mouse from a salty aftertaste at the risk of medical emergency vehicles, work commutes, and the like...

I love'em. Besides, most parts of New Hampshire (Stratham is in NH) still spray that green chemical stuff on the roads. That's better than road salt, and the roads glow for a while in the darkest part of the evening ;D .

"Probing question: Why do whales beach themselves?"

Whales are the largest marine mammals in the world — the smallest species weigh in at several tons. When whales beach themselves, they can die simply from the crushing weight of their own bodies or from overheating due to their blubber, which is needed for insulation in cold ocean waters. What causes these often fatal incidents?

Bad judgement, obviously. Despite our animal rights crew telling us how smart whales are...the simple fact of the matters is...well...not so much.

Or...National Geographic provides a new theory. Not really...they just point out the evidence and I provide the theory.

Forty-seven million years ago primitive whales gave birth on land, according to a study published this week that analyzes the fossil of a pregnant whale found in the Pakistani desert.

Instinct?

Let's ask the experts...



"Excuse me...Ms. O'Donnell...I have a question!"

At least he's consistent...

MUNICH: The United States will pursue a missile defense plan that has angered the Kremlin, Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. said over the weekend, but he also left open the possibility of compromise on the issue and struck a more conciliatory tone than the Bush administration on relations between the countries.

"It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia," Biden said in a speech Saturday at a security conference here attended by global leaders and diplomats.

Compromising out safety...seems to be the calling card of the Obama administration...the lastest outlined above.

So far, he has vowed to ban "weapons in space" despite Iran launching a satellite less than a week later, clear out Gitmo (even though the latest count on past inmates returning to terrorisim is documented at 12), drop charges on suspects in the USS Cole terrorist attack, and has spoken with Iran without pre-condition (a direct contradiction to what he said in the debate with John McCain).

The man will get a lot of Americans (and their allies) killed before he is done. Of course, these comments come from Biden (arguably the dumbest man to have graced the US Senate at one time)...and chances are anything he is involved in is an effort to keep him under the impression that he is doing something important.

CLOSE NALCHIK !!!!

Some young Muslims facing trial for a militant attack on the state security services in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria three years ago were in fact arrested due to their active faith, Forum 18 News Service has been told.

As frequent mosque-goers, they and relatives say they were already blacklisted as Islamic extremists by police, who used torture to extract confessions. These claims are "lies" and "rubbish", Forum 18 was told at the detention centre in Nalchik where they are currently held by that institution's assistant head. Unproven suspicions of Islamic militancy resulted in the arrest of one detainee, former Guantanamo Bay inmate Rasul Kudayev, his mother told Forum 18.

Detained for almost three years, some young Muslims accused of instigating a bloody 2005 uprising in the North Caucasus city of Nalchik were arrested due to their active faith and have undergone gruesome torture to extract confessions, Forum 18 News Service has been told.

Russia's Gitmo moment(s). The irony of Rasul Kudayev (former Gitmo tenant) being caught up in it is priceless.

Held at Kabardino-Balkaria's organised crime police department on 14 October 2005, he was beaten and given electric shocks through the back, hands and feet until on the point of losing consciousness, "but when they attached the wires to my ears, that was real torture." Police then moved to throw him from a balcony – where Tokhov says he saw one detainee lying dead having apparently already been thrown onto the ground below – but instead began shooting close to his head with a pistol.

We put panties on suspected terrorist's heads and have them sing "I'm a little teapot." The Ruskies apparently and allegedly consulted a dictionary to learn the correct definition of "torture" before proceeding. Should it be true, one would have to enjoy the rather harsh comments Putin made in reference to Club Guantanamo back then.

Yeah...yeah...consider the source (Muslim News) and it dates back to August 2008. I shant lose sleep over the matter...regardless.

Garbage in...Garbage out...

Recent Republican losses in Pennsylvania have been spurred by defections from among the party's more affluent and better-educated voters.

One of the strongest recent currents in Pennsylvania politics has been a shift of registered voters from Republican to Democrat. A new survey suggests that this change has been led disproportionately by some of the GOP's more upscale members, estranged by the Bush administration and the unpopular war in Iraq.

Muhlenberg College's Institute of Public Opinion looked at a sample of the hundreds of thousands of former Republicans who have swelled the ranks of Democrats over the last two federal election cycles.

In May 2006, just months before an election in which the GOP lost four House seats along with Rick Santorum's Senate seat, Democrats held a registration lead of roughly 550,000. By last November, as President Barack Obama was carrying the state by the widest margin of any White House contender in decades, the Democratic advantage had grown to 1.2 million voters.

Not a single mention in the whole article addressing the media's influence on this whopping switch of allegiance. Not a peep concerning the bias shown and admitted to be pro-Democrat and Anti-Republican (even more so Anti-Bush...which was a catalyst per the participants in the survey).

There is no reference to media bias in the survey because the Institute of Public Opinion chose not to include any references to it in their study.

Garbage in...Garbage out...

I need to buy a decent telescope...

"I wanna name her Dottie after my wife. She's a vicious life-sucking bitch from which there is no escape." (Armageddon-1998)

However, it turns out that this Comet already has a name... "Lulin." It seems like a bit of an esoteric call sign to me...if I ever discovered a Comet, I'd pick a name that was a bit more entertaining. For example...imagine the Anchorman trying to keep a straight face while doing a story on the comet "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight."

Enjoy the discomfiture as the pert little anchorwoman grimaces each time she has to refer to the comet "Over the shoulder boulder holder from outer space."

Would I do that...could I be so immature?

Of course not. I'd negotiate a sweet deal with a major corporation and turn the naming over to them in exchange for a disgusting amount of money so that they can incorporate the name of the comet with a new line of products (I'm thinking that the cosmetic companies would be falling all over themselves to place a bid).

"Lulin?" Well, it was the finder's call...and he named it after the observatory...but I think he missed a great opportunity.

Русская машина времени (Russian Time Machine)

Undercover pro-Kremlin agents have worked in opposition groups across Russia to provide the presidential administration with information on opposition activists and rallies, a self-described handler said Thursday.

Anna Bukovskaya, a St. Petersburg activist with the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth group, said she coordinated a group of 30 young people who infiltrated branches of the banned National Bolshevik Party, Youth Yabloko and United Civil Front in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh and six other cities.

The agents informed Bukovskaya, who passed the information to senior Nashi official Dmitry Golubyatnikov, who in turn contacted "Surkov's people" in the Kremlin, Bukovskaya told The Moscow Times. Vladislav Surkov is President Dmitry Medvedev's first deputy chief of staff.

The agents provided information on planned and past events together with pictures and personal information on activists and leaders, including their contact numbers, Bukovskaya said by telephone from St. Petersburg.

They were paid 20,000 rubles ($550) per month, while she received 40,000 rubles per month, she said.

My calendar says this is 2009...but the little voice inside my pointy little head says its 1980 again. Hmmmm...

Incidentally...Natalya Krainova (Staff Writer for the Moscow Times) is one brave lady. I'm not so sure I'd be stirring the pot considering the expiration period of a journalist rivaling non-homogenized milk in Russia these last few years.

From the mouths of babes...who eat lead paint chips...

Buffalo State College Journalism Professor Doctor Michael Niman said, "What we're seeing today here in Buffalo is extreme weather. It's not that extreme for Buffalo, but we're seeing all over the world extreme weather; weird weather. So, it's climate change. We don't really understand where it's going, but it's changing."

Believe it or not, the winters in New York State are now five degrees warmer than they were in 1970.

The story comes from WIVB in upstate New York. Buffalo...to be specific. There was something called a conference on Global Warming Solutions presented by the New York Public Interest Research Group yesterday. I hope they bundled up..it was -6 F.

My gripe is that the "expert" that this media outlet highlighted is a freakin' journalism professor. He makes these idiotic statements that contradict each other..."what we're seeing today in Buffalo is extreme weather." Except for the fact that " It's not that extreme for Buffalo."

Here...let me try that. "She really is a hot looking babe." "I really could do without her mustache, large flabby arms, and the unbelievable odor that seems to have a life of its own every time she moves."

I don't even have the heart to comment on the other inane comments relative to "extreme weather all over the world." But, he has no problem associating the non-defined or detailed weather as "climate change." Yup...climate changes...Shocking!!!

As for the winters in NY being five degrees warmer than they were in 1970...insipid nonsense...and non-factual, misleading tripe. Not bad for a journalism professor...give him a gold star.