Mark Hoffman And The Anthon Forgeries

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Having featured the Book of Mormon a few posts earlier jogged my memory somewhat about a film I had once watched about the master forger Mark Hoffman.

A quick search of Youtube brought up a condensed version, three parts, twenty one minutes in total. So good and clever scientifically were his forgeries, not only did he fool the Mormon Church but every expert in the field including the FBI.

Well worth watching if you haven't viewed it before and have some few minutes to spare.

Masterminds - The Anthon Forgeries - Part 1

Masterminds - The Anthon Forgeries - Part 2

Masterminds - The Anthon Forgeries - Part 3

Or should you wish to understand a little more about the religion of a presidential hopeful you might want to try this from South Park.

All about Morons.. errr Mormons

The Planet Is Fucked: Arctic Edition

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Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record this year, US scientists have confirmed.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said the minimum extent of 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles) was reached on 16 September.

The figure shatters all previous satellite surveys, including the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km measured in 2005.more

It's a Funny Old World: Dumb Ass Dealer Edition

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A man who thought he was asking a friend about a drug deal instead sent a text message to the state police and was arrested, authorities said.

Joshua Wayne Cadle, 19, allegedly sent the message Wednesday to a phone number that used to belong to an unidentified friend. The number is now held by the State Police, Trooper B.H. Moore said Thursday.more

It's A Funny Old World: Don't Steal My Stash Edition

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What you might call a bit of a pisser.

(CBS13) Ernie Vesie says he needs his weed. He and his wife Roni have a legal prescription to use the medicinal marijuana. Ernie suffered a painful stroke, and Roni is recovering from major stomach surgery. The two say it eases their pain.

The Vessies grow the marijuana in their south Sacramento backyard. During happier times, a bumper crop blossomed and it was something Ernie's became proud of. But, after three armed suspects forced their way into their home, the plants are now gone. more and video

It's A Funny old World: (New) African American Edition

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When they came to America, some of them just a few weeks ago, they couldn’t wait to begin their quest for the American dream.....

These victims of many wars were literally dropped off in southwest Houston at an apartment complex where there’s a brewing clash of cultures.more

It's A Funny Old World: Der Fuehrer Plonk Edition

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I can't speak for the body or the bouquet but the taste is obvious.

ROME (AFP) — A prosecutor in Bolzano, northern Italy seized wine bottle labels on Wednesday bearing a portrait of Hitler and other Nazis from a winery near the Austrian border, the company said.

The 20 labels from the "Der Fuehrer" line show Hitler raising the Nazi salute and his generals, including Hermann Goering, the Reich's economic minister, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, and Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy.more

Onward Christian Soldiers. Pentagon Sued Over Jesus

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WTF do you mean WTF is an atheist?

A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused.



"Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military personnel, by the senior ranking ... staff sergeant who asked plaintiff why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he is an atheist," says the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to Truthout. "The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. Nonetheless, plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal."more

All Hat Five Cattle And No Balls

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President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses.

Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a "windshield cowboy" – a cowboy who prefers to drive – and "the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life".

He recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when Mr Fox offered Mr Bush a ride on a "big palomino" horse.more

Have Volts Will Taser

Nice.

Officer on leave after Tasering woman

The police department in Warren, Ohio has placed an officer on administrative leave after he was accused of using a stun gun on a handcuffed woman. (AP/Sept. 20) video. You will have search "Officer on leave after tasering woman" I can't get a direct link to open.

Update

Might I suggest y'all have a read of this, both those that are suitable outraged by the above story and those that are eager to call the rest of us "sissy" and rush to the defence of their "Daddies" in blue.
How easily you give up your fundamental rights so your Daddies can protect you.

And you call us sissy.

There are links to tasering in the latter part of this previous post.

Places I Wouldn't Want To Live And People I dont Want To Meet: Utah And Cops

And here an unrelated short video.

The Militarization of Our Police

Why I hate Religion. Chapter One Zillion And Two: HPV Vaccine

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I was going to make the end of the headline read HPV Vaccine And The Bloody Catholics, but although this story features a Catholic school board it's not just the Catholics that are embracing near Islamic values when it comes to their daughters.


I feel like screaming, but I will say this to all the fuckedup repressed sanctimonious religious cocksuckers that are against vaccination, you don't own your daughter, you have a duty to your daughter before any duty to some imaginary celestial super being. Do what is right, the question of choice shouldn't enter into the equation, not in a million years.
Your daughters are going to get laid, get used to the idea.

Local Catholic parents will have the choice whether their daughters will get a new HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer at their schools later this autumn.

The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board says the policy addresses concerns that providing the shot may be seen as condoning premarital sex, while at the same time following a provincial directive that the potentially lifesaving vaccine be made available. more

h/t Fark

Book Of Mormon, Of Course Whatever You Say

A rare first edition of the Book of Mormon found in a home near Palmyra fetched more than $105,000 at auction.

Mormons say that church leader Joseph Smith translated the book from gold plates delivered to him by an angel. more

Shouldn't be any trouble over copyright then, and the polls tell me ninety percent of Americans would vote for a Mormon before they would an atheist, I wonder if they'd vote for Father Jack?

More fecking from Craggy Island.

Mychal Bell Jena Six Update

Raw Story has a couple of videos up.

Rudy You're A Wanker

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LONDON - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani bragged about his international celebrity Wednesday on a trans-Atlantic campaign trip in which he schmoozed with conservative idol Margaret Thatcher.

"I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world," Giuliani told a small group of reporters at a posh London hotel as onlookers gathered in the lobby to gawk at actor Dustin Hoffman who was on a separate visit. more

h/t Americablog

Cocks In frocks and the NASCAR Vote

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If ravishing Rudy does end up with the Republican nomination why do I get the feeling that come the presidential race the Dems will have ads with photo's of Rudy the raving transvestite running morning noon and night.


Or better still have a transgender march show up in support of Rudy complete with all the suitable banners, I can see it now NY Trannies Heart Rudy.

Should go down a bomb in redneck country.

Rudy had come up all the way from New York with a posse of staffers to appear on television next to the Nascar drivers for the opening race of the season and to shake a few machine-oil-stained hands.

A good place to spend a Sunday then, for a candidate.

"These are MY people," the former mayor said as he caressed the horizon of bobbing faces with his hand.....

Rudy may be leading the pack at the moment, but the reaction of Gene and Grover, who were busy grilling ribs outside their RV, should be sobering.

"He cheated on his wife," said Gene. "That makes him unfit to be president."

Grover agreed, perhaps a touch too quickly. more Matt Frei BBC

Egypt Shuffles Slowly Ahead on FGM

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Hardly surprisingly that progress is terribly slow with attitudes such as these, but then just how how fast can people be dragged out of the ignorance of the dark ages?


Not fast enough I fear for the future countless thousands of girls who will yet have to endure this barbarity.

The men in this poor farming community were seething. A 13-year-old girl was brought to a doctor’s office to have her clitoris removed, a surgery considered necessary here to preserve chastity and honor.

The girl died, but that was not the source of the outrage. After her death, the government shut down the clinic, and that got everyone stirred up.

“They will not stop us,” shouted Saad Yehia, a tea shop owner along the main street. “We support circumcision!” he shouted over and over.

“Even if the state doesn’t like it, we will circumcise the girls,” shouted Fahmy Ezzeddin Shaweesh, an elder in the village. more

“The Koran is a newcomer to tradition in this manner,” she said. “As a male society, the men took parts of religion that satisfied men and inflated it. The parts of the Koran that helped women, they ignored.”
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Previous posts FGM

Why I hate Religion. Chapter Ten Zillion And One

I came across this story via a link in the next story. (above)


This short story below is horrendous in it's own right but what jumps out at me is it's location and the degree of sentencing.

Given that it is set in Georgia of all places, Georgia where farting without a licence will get you twenty five to life or receiving a consensual blowjob gets you ten, then why oh why does this animal only get ten years?

I can think of no other reason than "Religion" is involved.

An Ethiopian immigrant was convicted of the genital mutilation of his 2-year-old daughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what was believed to be the first such criminal case in the United States. The man, Khalid Adem, 30, left, was found guilty of aggravated battery and cruelty to children. Prosecutors said Mr. Adem used scissors to remove his daughter’s clitoris in his family’s Atlanta-area apartment in 2001. Mr. Adem wept loudly after the jury’s verdict was read. Federal law bans the practice of genital mutilation, but many states do not have a law addressing it. Georgia lawmakers, with the support of the girl’s mother, passed an antimutilation law last year.source

I beg you read this previous post concerning Georgia and adult female genital piercings, it's a must.


The bill would make such mutilation punishable by two to 20 years (sic)in prison. It makes no exception for people who give consent to have the procedure performed on their daughters out of religious or cultural custom.

I can only assume the proposed bill was originally intended to address the custom of female circumcision but then went on to included consensual adult female piercing.

Two to twenty years; I wouldn’t have a problem with the full twenty being handed down to any parent who subjected a daughter to such a selfish act of barbarism, in fact if religion were cited as the reason for carrying out this heinous act, I would give them forty years. more Democracy! I'll Take Anarchy Any Day.

The Bible Hey?

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If it were not so tragic it might be funny.

The man charged with killing his sister-in-law in her west Cobb County home was rummaging through her dresser drawers looking for a Bible shortly before he allegedly shot her in the face.more

Bowie Donates Ten Large To Jena Six Fund

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It seems to be the same AP story that is doing the rounds.


For what it's worth, I have previously been accused of being pro-black, (in the comments) this wouldn't be the case at all at all. I wouldn't hold much hope for a white that falls into the clutches of such a corrupt immoral and vindictive regime as the inappropriately named American Justice System. Given that it is all these things, then what chance has a black boy from Bumfuck Louisiana?

NEW ORLEANS — David Bowie has donated $10,000 to a legal defense fund for six black teens charged in an alleged attack on a white classmate in the tiny central Louisiana town of Jena.

The British rocker's donation to the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund was announced by the NAACP as thousands of protesters were expected to march through Jena on Thursday in defense of Mychal Bell and five other teens. The group has become known as the Jena Six. more

I have reported a fair bit on this case, search "jena" in the header toolbar, but for the most comprehensive report on just how bad the system in Jena really is this is the one to read, particularly the Democracy Now links at the bottom of the page.

Modern-Day Court Lynching; Jena Louisiana

Nasty Nazi Ratzinger Gives NeoCondi The Finger

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Pope Benedict XVI refused a recent request by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Middle East and Iraq, Vatican sources say.

The Pope refused a request for an audience during the August holidays.

Senior Vatican sources told the BBC the Pope does not normally receive politicians on his annual holiday at the Castelgandolfo residence near Rome.

But one leading Italian newspaper said it was an evident snub by the Vatican towards the Bush administration. more

Be Careful Of What You Wish For

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A married couple are divorcing after they chatted each other up on the Internet using fake names.

Sana Klaric and husband Adnan poured their hearts out to each other over their marriage troubles.

Using the names 'Sweetie' and 'Prince of Joy' in a online chatroom, the pair thought they had found a soulmate with whom to spend the rest of their lives. more

What Price An Education?

Poor little buggers.

A bridge is to be built in a Chinese village where children are forced to cross a raging torrent on a steel cable to get to school. Nearly 500 children, from Maji village in Fugong town, Yunnan province, cross the most dangerous stretch of the Nujiang River each day.

They fasten themselves to the cable with a metal carabiner and a rope and slide across the 200 metre wide canyon.

The youngest student, A Qia, 4, has to go over by herself each day.

The villagers say that usually four-year-old children are taken by their parents, and begin to go by themselves from the age of five.

A Pu, five, who was stuck in the middle of the cable for nearly 20 minutes once, said: “I used to dream of having a bridge, but then I learned that my dream was too expensive.”

But officials finally agreed to spend £35,000 on a bridge after a TV programme was made about the children’s dangerous daily journey. source

Update:

Dangerous cable replaced by bridge

Students in a Chinese village are overjoyed to have a bridge to cross a river they used to cross on a steel cable.

The new bridge, 170 m long and 1.7 m wide, at the Bulacun Elementary school in Maji village, can sustain a total weight of 2 tons.

The village in Fugong town, Yunnan province, is located at the most dangerous part of the Nujiang River. Each day, nearly 500 children used to have to go to school and return home on a cable taking them more than 200 meters across the river attached only with a carabiner and a rope, reports Spring City Evening Post.

After Jiangsu TV broadcast a program called “the most dangerous walk to school,” a lot of people visited, and donated money to the village for a bridge.

With donations totaling 350,000 yuan, a bridge was built in three months, ending the daily cable flights for students and villagers.

“We’ve named the bridge the ‘love bridge’, because love is what built it,” said the village head at the opening ceremony at the elementary school.

“Our kids not longer need to risk their lives to go to school”, says a joyful villager. quirkychina

Southwest Airlines. How Repressed Does It Get?

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She could sit next to me no problem. There wouldn't be a lot of English schoolies flying Southwest then.
What a bunch of repressed fucktards.

SAN DIEGO - Kyla Ebbert says she wants an apology from Southwest Airlines after being told to get off a plane and change her clothes because what she was wearing was too revealing. Images | Video

Ebbert, 23, told the Today Show's Matt Lauer that an airline employee asked her to come up to the front of the plane just before the crew closed the plane's doors.

"He told me, 'I'm sorry but you're going to have to catch a later flight because you are dressed inappropriately, this is a family airline and you are too provocative to fly on this flight'," Ebbert said. "I said, 'What part is it? The shirt? The skirt? Which part?' He said, 'the whole thing.'" more

Mother And Son Jailed For "honour" Killing Of Surjit Athwal

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I'm glad to see this case come to a conclusion, there is every chance both will die in jail. The country has an uphill struggle to educate these backward buggers in what is true morality, if education can't do it then perhaps fear of the justice system might. I don't hold much hope though.

A grandmother who ordered the so-called "honour killing" of her daughter-in-law has been jailed for life. Bachan Athwal and her son Sukhdave, 43, arranged the murder of Surjit Athwal, 27, who vanished during a trip to India in 1998, the Old Bailey heard.

Bachan, 70, and her son, both of Hayes, west London, were found guilty of murder in July.

Bachan must serve at least 20 years in jail and her son was jailed for a minimum of 27 years. more

Yes Sir Give It To Me, And The Coke Too

This isn't a million miles from where I am. The lower photo is I assume is a setup, but the upper one is not and typical of any high school in the country. And typically the most dangerous time to be on the road is three thirty in the afternoon when school lets out.

The Head of a school's sixth form had sex with one of his pupils after giving her cocaine, a court has heard.

Before the alleged intercourse, Andrew Riley, 36, had pleaded with the teenager, who was 17 at the time, not to scream, "yes Sir, yes!" in the throes of passion.

When the affair ended the girl made a CD of the messages that allegedly passed between her and Riley and handed them to senior staff at Baines High School in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancs. more

h/t Fark

What Part Of Guity As Sin Do You Not Understand? Phil Spector

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I despair, I really do. The Denver Post gives a more comprehensive analysis of the legalese.
It's ironic that the great travesty of justice, OJ, is in the news, the cops must be dancing in the aisles, the Juice won't be squeezing out of this one.

LOS ANGELES—The judge in Phil Spector's murder trial said he is considering giving jurors the option of finding the record producer guilty of a lesser charge than second degree murder after the panelists reported a 7-5 impasse following seven days of deliberations.

Spector's defense team was expected Wednesday to vigorously oppose Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler's expected proposal to help jurors break their deadlock, while legal scholars said a conviction on lesser charges could be vulnerable to appeal. more

Lars Vilks Displays Mo Cartoon

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Looks like Vilks is the new Salmond Rushdie, the cops have him spirited away to a secret and
secure location.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish artist displayed a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad to a seminar in Stockholm on Tuesday despite a death threat from al-Qaida in Iraq.

"Nobody has really seen this image and it has just become more and more impossible to show it, so I thought that ordinary people should be given the possibility to see it live," Lars Vilks told a crowd of about 100 people at a seminar.

He then held up the drawing — a rough sketch depicting Muhammad's head on a dog's body — to applause from the crowd at the Berwaldhallen concert hall in the Swedish capital. more

ACLU Comes Out For Larry Craig

Don't mind the pun, good for ACLU who knows this might shut a few wingnuts up for a minute or two, until they can find an angle to spin about this dangerous anti-American organisation.
Highlights mine. h/t TL

By the way Larry, you're still fucked.

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to a Minnesota District Court urging it to allow Senator Larry Craig to withdraw his guilty plea because the secret sting operation used to arrest him was likely unconstitutional.

"The real motive behind secret sting operations like the one that resulted in Senator Craig’s arrest is not to stop people from inappropriate activity. It is to make as many arrests as possible – arrests that sometimes unconstitutionally trap innocent people," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "If the police really want to stop people from having sex in public bathrooms, they should put up a sign banning sex in the restroom and send in a uniformed officer to patrol periodically. That works."more

I don't believe this, what a bunch of proper sad bastards, get a fucking life.
Larry Craig toilet 'tourist site'

Let Us Not Forget We Are Animals

Am I sexist? most certainly. Where do women belong? given the choice, on a pedestal and not a war zone.

First things first, let's consign PC to it's proper place in life, the garbage can; if a person needs to adhere to a PC code to get through life then that person is a poor specimen indeed.

So without further ado, the question: Do women belong in war zones? succinct answer no, less succinct, no fucking way whatsoever.

History might have it that women have been in similar situations, albeit mainly peripheral in western societies, and have done invaluable sterling work. But historically there was a fair degree of separation between the sexes and seldom if ever were men and women thrown together in a prolonged combat situation.

Let us then look at the situation in Iraq. Tens of thousands of young men who by definition of being young are already awash with all natures intended hormones and all natures little tricks that only manage to be repressed and controlled by virtue that they, the young men, live in and abide by the rules of society.

But take these hormone drenched men and put them in a war zone, where society and it's rules seem a distant memory, pump them full of testosterone and adrenalin, let them wake up to thinking this might be there last day on earth or worse get blown into a bloody limbless mess that if they are unlucky they might survive, take all these factors and all these men and put them in close proximity to women and you will get one thing, trouble, trouble in the form of constant sexual harassment and rape.

The PC brigade might offer that no matter the situation men should still behave in a PC manner, well I can tell you the PC brigade are idiots if not downright fucking stupid and any mother father boyfriend that lets a girl go off to a war zone and not expect her to be at best sexually harassed is also fucking stupid and naive beyond compare.

Do I condone this behaviour? not in the least, but I'm a realist which is a far far better thing to be than Politically Correct.

Take a look at this short video from Truthout.
Military Sexual Violence:
Command Rape

Airman Cassandra Hernandez Will Not Face Court-Marshal

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I reported the plight of Airman 1st Class Cassandra Hernandez at the end of august, I didn't try to come to any conclusion because of the circumstances surrounding the case, those circumstances being that all concerned were pissed out of their brains and by Hernandez's own admission (watch video in Sharia Law link) things were fuzzy and there was much she couldn't remember.

She did however remember enough to say the sex was non-consensual and brought charges of rape against the three men involved. Given the prior (and ongoing) treatment by the military of women in similar situations (see post following this) it was no small decision by Hernadez to bring charges.
I can't moralise or make judgements here, I wasn't there.

Sharia Law Thriving In The USAF?

Update 17 September.

Female Airman Won't Face Court-Marshal
Charged with committing indecent acts after refusing to testify against a man she had accused of rape, only to see those charges later dropped, a female airman said Friday that she is no longer sure about a career in the Air Force.....

The commander of the 43rd Airlift Wing at Pope Air Force Base decided this week to drop the charge of committing an indecent act against Hernandez, 20, who instead pleaded guilty to underage drinking and received a nonjudicial punishment, said one of her attorneys, Capt. Chris Eason. ABC News.

Airforce Times

B&W photo Hanna Reitsch

Stroll On!

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How obscene.

Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run ball was auctioned Saturday for $752,467, well more than the estimates by memorabilia experts.

Home run No. 755, the ball that tied the record, went for $186,750, according to Sotheby's/SCP Auctions. Both final prices included the winning bid plus a 20 percent buyer's fee, according to the auction houses handling the sale.more

ISPs Blocking Truthout.org Communications

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This is scary shit indeed,China, eat your heart out.

While AOL has been largely evasive and silent about their reasons for blocking communications, our server logs and complaints from subscribers illustrate a clear pattern of interference. Microsoft-Hotmail, while not being forthcoming about their actions to the subscribers involved, have stated to our administrators that they are in fact "throttling" and "blocking" our communications. Further, the Microsoft-Hotmail administrators inform us that they are blocking our communications to Truthout subscribers on their systems due to what they describe as our "reputation."

We believe that you - not your Internet Service Provider - should decide what you will read. In an effort to restore service and send a clear message to the ISPs involved, we ask you to do the following: more