‘David Hicks was a bumbling wanna-be who would have been a “total liability” for al-Qaeda in any terrorist attack.
In a scathing critique, Hicks’s US military prosecutors have privately described the convicted Australian as a man of “no personal courage or intellect” who rolled over as soon as he was questioned.
And they have undermined the Australian Government’s portrayal of Hicks as a dangerous terrorist by admitting that his crimes were relatively minor compared with those of his fellow inmates at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.’
‘A Bentonville, Ark., man is seeking $20,000 from the city after his two teenage sons found a book on lesbian sex on a public library bookshelf.
He also wants the library director fired.
Earl Adams said his 14- and 16-year-old sons were “greatly disturbed” after finding the book, titled “The Whole Lesbian Sex Book.” Adams said the book caused “many sleepless nights in our house.”
Adams said the book is “patently offensive and lacks any artistic, literary or scientific value,” according to a letter he faxed to Mayor Bob McCaslin. He said the teenagers found it while browsing for material on military academies.’
‘The college student responsible for yesterday’s Virginia Tech slaughter was referred last year to counseling after professors became concerned about the violent nature of his writings, as evidenced in a one-act play obtained by The Smoking Gun. The play by Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, was submitted last year as part of a short story writing class. Entitled “Richard McBeef,” Cho’s bizarre play features a 13-year-old boy who accuses his stepfather of pedophilia and murdering his father. A copy of the killer’s play can be found below. The teenager talks of killing the older man and, at one point, the child’s mother brandishes a chain saw at the stepfather. The play ends with the man striking the child with “a deadly blow.”‘
followup to: Viginia Tech School Shootings.
‘Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Cat’s Cradle,” died Wednesday. He was 84. [..]
Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he’d prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.
“When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon,” Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005.
“My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I’ll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children.”‘
21 Gay Street is, I assume, the lesbian version of 21 Jump Street.
‘A public high school has suspended three 16-year-old girls who disobeyed officials by saying the word “vagina” during a reading from “The Vagina Monologues.”
Their defiant stand is being applauded by the author of the well-known feminist play, who said Tuesday that the school should be celebrating, rather than punishing, the three juniors.
“Don’t we want our children to resist authority when it’s not appropriate and wise?” said author Eve Ensler.
The three honor students, Megan Reback, Elan Stahl and Hannah Levinson, included the word because “we knew it was the right thing to do. Since we’re comfortable saying it, we should make other people comfortable saying it,” Levinson said.’
’10> As he was led to die in an arcane alien ritual, Tank McPhoton tried one last time to apologize. How was he to know that what he took to be an extended hand of friendship which he gripped firmly and shook vigorously was actually the Supreme Ruler’s private parts? [..]
7> I lived on the land, she lived in the water. It gave shore leave a whole new meaning. Or the same old meaning, except with bigger crabs. [..]
6> As one, the Spacemarines stood up, raised their spacerifles in salute, then marched out the spacedoors to the spacedock, where their spaceship was waiting to boldly take them where they’d all been before: Space!
5> You could tell it was a real UFO because there weren’t any wires holding it up and it smelled like outer space. [..]’
‘The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children’s literature, for that matter.
Yet there it is on the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.
“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”’
`Ambling our way from one pile to the next (and totally dependent on the other for further movement), Rod pointed out a Taco Mayo cup with the straw still inserted jammed between a spy thriller called SOVIET HOUSE and a sci-fi sex-’em-up titled VERONIQUE alongside an empty Prince Albert pasta package. Bill soon had stumbled into the only space he left empty – we suppose one might generously grace it with the euphemism “office space” – and sat down on a chair beside one of those refrigerator doors inscribed with the word “MEATS.”
“I’ve got about 200,000 books in here,” he said. “There’s another 160 pounds of books in my van out there. Y’know that tan van outside? It’s full of books. Books I don’t have room for in here!” Bill laughed..’
`A woman from Devon who finally passed her driving test after 23 years is now hoping to use her wealth of experience to help others.
Maria McCarthy from Sidmouth ripped up her L-plates after taking about 250 lessons, which cost her between £2,000 and £3,000.
The 42-year-old said getting her licence has given her a “badge of adulthood” and changed her life.
She has now written a book aimed at helping other women succeed.’
‘With a new paperback set to hit shelves and a celebration of his work underway, Kurt Vonnegut is already enjoying a banner year.
The city of Indianapolis, where the literary legend was born and raised, has declared 2007 “The Year of Vonnegut,” coinciding with Tuesday’s paperback release of his latest work, A Man Without a Country.
Vonnegut, 84, insists that the slim volume of essays and simple illustrations, a sort of mini-memoir published in 2005, is his last contribution.’
`There were many acid tests happening in the 1950s and 1960s. Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters dosed sometimes-unsuspecting proto-hippies. The CIA was dosing unsuspecting mainstreamers. Leary dosed fully cognizant artists, therapists and students. But meanwhile, over at Army Chemical Center at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, psychiatrist James S. Ketchum was testing LSD, BZ and other psychedelic and deliriant compounds on fully informed volunteers for the U.S. military. [..]
Now, Dr. Ketchum has released his fascinating self-published memoir, Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten, primarily detailing his times at Edgewood. The book boasts charts, graphs and experimental reports – a veritable goldmine of information for those who are interested in psychedelics, deliriants, or chemical warfare. It’s also a funny, observant, and reflective personal memoir, casting a light not only on Ketchum and his work, but on a decade that saw 60s counterculture and the military share an oddly intersecting obsession with mind-altering drugs.’
`Every afternoon at Maplewood Middle School’s final bell, dozens of students pour across Baker Street to the public library. Some study quietly.
Others, library officials say, fight, urinate on the bathroom floor, scrawl graffiti on the walls, talk back to librarians or refuse to leave when asked. One recently threatened to burn down the branch library. Librarians call the police, sometimes twice a day.
As a result, starting Jan. 16, the Maplewood Memorial Library will be closing its two buildings on weekdays from 2:45 to 5 p.m., until further notice.’
Big free books, full of information that might be useful.
Not to might right at the moment, really. But I’m bored and I like getting parcels in the mail. 🙂
‘A tele-evangelist with a large following across the United States is being sued by relatives over her claim that prayer cured her brother’s throat cancer.
Darlene Bishop’s claims appear in her book, Your Life Follows Your Words, which fails to mention that her brother, the songwriter Darrell “Wayne” Perry, died of the disease 18 months ago.
Mr Perry’s four children have filed a lawsuit against their aunt for wrongful death, claiming that she persuaded him to stop chemotherapy and to depend instead upon God’s healing.
Mrs Bishop, who is co-pastor at a 4,000-congregation Ohio church, also claims that prayer cured her of breast cancer.’
`On January 27th, 2007 we will be holding a symbolic book burning in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. All known White Patriots are welcome to attend, and are encouraged to bring degenerate books suitable for throwing into the fire. We will be filming and recording this event for NSM Radio/TV, and possibly using some of the footage for an upcoming Music Video for the song Burn the Books by Achtung Juden (released on the NSM Record Label).
Come Join with us in this Historic Event, as we torch degenerate books such as the Talmud, and other anti-American and/or anti-White books.’
‘Addington paints a very clear picture of this very intimate art in direct and often gritty terms; it is a graphic work about a graphic (and possibly intimidating) practice. Some of her favorite nouns and verbs are a little edgy; if four letter words describing sexual acts offend you, you might want to bypass this one.
On the other hand, (pardon the pun) “A Hand in the Bush” is an excellent guide to the ins and outs of vaginal fisting. Topics covered include safety, communications, troubleshooting, and lots of good common sense. The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) covers the topic well, with sections on safety, what’s involved, injuries and how to avoid them, who are likely candidates, and what to avoid (for instance: force, lack of consent, and hangnails, to mention only a few.)’
Michael Crowley was the critic, and here’s a short section of Michael Crichton’s latest book:
‘Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. …
It turned out Crowley’s taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]–as was his custom–tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child’s mother as “fantasizing feminist fundamentalists” who had made up the whole thing from “their sick, twisted imaginations.” This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley’s penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum.)’
‘Back in the late 60’s this book, written for Children, was pulled from all public libraries and store shelves by the government. It was said that the experiments and information contained herein were too dangerous for the general public. [..]
This book is thoroughly interesting and is full of ideas and inspiration, it is the bible for any young chemist-in-training. Used copies on Amazon are rare and are currently priced between $237 and $690 for very used copies. However, because it was published in 1960, before the US copyright laws were rewritten, and because its original copyright was never renewed (yes, I checked myself), it’s legal for me to share with you online.’
This links to a 28.5meg, 114page PDF of the book. You can also see Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments at Amazon .. US$250.. Not cheap. 🙂
‘This is the engrossing story of Mary Toft, a young 18th-century Englishwoman who sought to make some money by inserting parts of rabbits into her vagina and pretending to expel them from her uterus. The case was celebrated at the time–popular poems appeared about it, bestsellers were written about it, the king of England ordered an investigation, her contemporaries considered her, as the title puts it, a medical mystery–and she became something of a freak-sensation. Pickover (Time: A Traveller’s Guide, etc.), carefully explores how 18th-century physicians were able to believe in such a medical marvel–even though they were scientifically in a position to have known better–and then finds in this history a cautionary tale appropriate for our own times.’
`The book, which was to have been published on November 30 by the News Corp-owned HarperCollins imprint ReganBooks, was touted as featuring Simpson discussing how he would have carried out the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, if he were the one responsible.
The book, titled If I Did It, was to have been preceded by a two-part Fox television interview of Simpson conducted by the publisher, Judith Regan. Fox, like HarperCollins, is a unit of News Corp.’
‘Alton Verm filed a “Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials” Thursday with the district regarding “Fahrenheit 451,” written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum.
“It’s just all kinds of filth,” said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read “Fahrenheit 451.” “The words don’t need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class.”
He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, “dirty talk,” references to the Bible and using God’s name in vain. He said the book’s material goes against their religions beliefs. [..]’
`Harry Potter creator JK Rowling has been voted the author Americans most want to ban from libraries over fears that her books promote witchcraft.
The American Library Association (ALA), who compiled the list for their Banned Book Week, said there were more than 3,000 attempts to remove the books from libraries and schools between 2000 and 2005.
The ALA said some of the main reasons cited for protesters trying to get controversial books removed from circulation were sexually explicit material, having an occult theme or offensive language.’
‘Crew members on a Sharon Stone movie were so annoyed by her behaviour that they urinated in a bathtub before she got in it to film a scene, a new book claims.’
‘Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, was obsessed with the singer Whitney Houston and wanted to marry her, a new book claims.
Kola Boof, a Sudanese poet and novelist, who says she was kept against her will as the terrorism mastermind’s mistress in 1996, writes in her autobiography that he wanted to give the star a mansion and make her one of his wives.
“He told me that Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen,” Boof claims in Diary of a Lost Girl, excerpts of which are published in Harper’s magazine.
But bin Laden had less respect for Houston’s husband Bobby Brown, apparently talking about the possibility of having him killed.’
`A textbook used at schools in the Indian state of Rajasthan compares housewives to donkeys, and suggests the animals make better companions as they complain less and are more loyal to their “masters,” The Times of India reported Tuesday.
“A donkey is like a housewife … In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents’ home, you’ll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master,” the newspaper reported, quoting a Hindi-language primer meant for 14-year-olds.’
‘It’s not just that America is being ruled by small and venal men, or that its reputation has been demolished, its army overstretched, its finances a mess. All of that, after all, was true toward the end of Vietnam as well. Now, though, there are all kinds of other lurking catastrophes, a whole armory of swords of Damocles dangling over a bloated, dispirited and anxious country. Peak oil — the point at which oil production maxes out — seems to be approaching, with disastrous consequences for America’s economy and infrastructure. Global warming is accelerating and could bring us many more storms even worse than Katrina, among other meteorological nightmares. The spread of Avian Flu has Michael Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, warning Americans to stockpile canned tuna and powdered milk. It looks like Iran is going to get a nuclear weapon, and the United States can’t do anything to stop it. Meanwhile, America’s growing religious fanaticism has brought about a generalized retreat from rationality, so that the country is becoming unwilling and perhaps unable to formulate policies based on fact rather than faith.’
‘A children’s book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin has been moved to the nonfiction section of two public library branches after parents complained it had homosexual undertones.
The illustrated book, “And Tango Makes Three,” is based on a true story of two male penguins, named Roy and Silo, who adopted an abandoned egg at New York City’s Central Park Zoo in the late 1990s. [..]
Barbara Read, the Rolling Hills’ director, said experts report that adoptions aren’t unusual in the penguin world. However, moving the book to the nonfiction section would decrease the chance that it would “blindside” readers, she said.’
`Jermaine Jackson feared his kid brother Michael might be guilty of child molestation, but backed him at trial because he thought the pop star would commit suicide in prison, according to a bombshell book proposal obtained by the Daily News.
In a tell-all outline shopped to publishers just weeks after Michael’s arrest in November 2003, Jermaine described the Pop King as a sometimes out-of-control drug and booze abuser with a calculating mean streak and “a thing for young children.”‘
