Elves and kiddies hit hardest. Wait, did they say a donkey? Are Santa reindeers jobs being outsourced to third world donkeys?
Santa will have to rent a donkey to help him this Christmas after one of his animals met a tragic end. The creature - made of polystyrene - was decapitated after making contact with live cables as Santa drove along a road cordoned off after an accident. The earlier crash - at Tadcaster, North Yorkshire - had left the wires exposed.
Emergency crews were amazed when a man dressed as Santa, towing a nativity scene on a trailer, ignored the closure and his plastic donkey touched a cable.
In the original accident, a woman's car hit an electricity pole, bringing down the wires. She was not hurt, despite her vehicle turning over, but was treated for shock.
Now Santa is hoping someone will give him a new ass donkey for Christmas. Reindeers not good enuff for you? Is that so? I call that discrimination!
TAIPING: Malaysias snake king Ali Khan Samsudin, 48, died as he had lived handling the reptiles that he loved. His eldest son Amjad Khan, 21, said his father had been performing at a show in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday when he was bitten by a King Cobra.
Ali Khan, who regularly performs with his beloved snakes for charity and for a living, died at 1am yesterday at Kuala Lumpur Hospital where he had been recuperating.
We don't call it 'recuperating' when in fact you're dying. We call it 'dying'.
Amjad Khan related that when his father contacted him on Tuesday to tell him he had been bitten, the family had not been too worried. He had been bitten by snakes many times before, including three times by King Cobras. The first King Cobra bit him in Taiping when he was 21.
So we didnt think anything would happen. I was just relaks saja (calm), said Amjad Khan at their flat in Kampung Boyan here yesterday.
On Thursday night, his condition took a turn for the worse. Family members here received a call from Amjad Khans uncle to go to the hospital. We rushed from Taiping at 11.30pm, but by the time we arrived he was already gone. We didnt even get a chance to say goodbye, said the son. Maybe his body couldnt take it any more because of his diabetes.
Snake venom on top of diabetes? Yup, that could be bad.
He leaves behind five children aged 13 to 23 from wives Mau Boh Bee, 48, and Jumabee Mohd Ibrahim, 33. Amjad Khan, who also works as a snake handler, said he would continue his fathers work despite the tragedy. Many of my fathers shows have been cancelled, but this is a trade that has been passed down for five generations, he said, adding that his uncle Husein Dasthagir, 48, also worked with snakes. Its our way of life and we cant imagine doing anything else.
Handling snakes runs in the family. Crazy definitely runs in the family.
Well known for his daring feats with cobras, Ali Khan had also made it into the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records, living in a glass enclosure filled with more than 5,000 scorpions for 21 days. He set another record by living with 400 snakes for 40 days.
You really have to wonder how the guy managed to live as long as he did.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
About 1962 or 63 our boy scout troop at Morrison (Taichung - near the AB) had the top snake guy from Taipei visit our clubhouse at the MAAG enlisted complex.
We could start by saying such shows are not appropriate. prior I had killed lots of nasty snakes - esp. white mambas after the show all of us were scared to death of the snakes..
This jerks idea of a snake show was to have about 8 cobras slithering in a circle surrounded by scared cub scouts and sadistic den mothers.
Then he would start skinning one and let the others aim for us. When one would get close he would set down the one he was skining and start in on the closests one. After all these were skined and he had cut out their gallbladders and poison sacs - putting them in various booze jars with strong spirits...
He started in on the bamboo snakes and mambas.
We used to stake out mambas for our cat but this guy made the cat look kind hearted and gentle...
The next week dad took me to see the largest live python they ever captured in Taiwan. (Damn thing really stared in my eyes for a long time).
At this point it was night lights on for a year.
Several weeks later a 100 ft step snake got the snake man while doing a show in his resturant.
Another side story like that.... we lived on a compound right across the street from the Taiwanese Airforce Hospital and pilots housing. We employed a "slow" guy to do minor lawn care and such on our campus (not mil). He loved snake meat and had watched the vendors do their thing so many times the poor fool thought he could do it to. He tied two white mambas to a stick. Started to skin one so the other bit him. Went to the other and the first bit him. Then he thought he better do something about it so he walked across the street to the ROC airforce hospital ER carrying the stick with the two snakes on it so they could give him the correct antivenom.
#4
Worse in one sense. In the time it takes to walk 100 steps you are dead. (different kind of poison. Stops respiration. But if you can get on life support quickly or have mouth to mouth you stand a good chance.)
#6
When I lived in India as a kid, we used to get snake charmers through our village periodically who would charge money to get rid of snakes in your yard. Of course it's purely coincidental that they would show up right about the time people began reporting cobra sightings around town.
11/30/2006 - Those religious nut bags at the Westboro Baptist Church were not welcome at this funeral for a soldier who died in Iraq. They are pretty much running for their lives and trying to drive away as fast as possible. This crowd would have torn them limb from limb.
This gang is not a church at all, of course. It is a sado-masochistic lawyer cult whose membership is limited to one family; the disbarred shyster and longtime Democrat activist Fred Phelps, eleven of his thirteen children, and their assorted children and spouses.
I've always wondered how the Phelps cult gets the money for its various activities. Granted, nine of the thirteen Phelps children are lawyers, four of them with cushy state jobs at the Kansas Department of Corrections; but it is still hard to account for how they can afford to have two or three different groups traveling around the country all the time. At one point, before the 2003 invasion, they even went to Iraq to join one of Saddam Hussein's anti-American demonstrations.
There is some money behind this and it is not from someone who has any respect for Christian principles.
#1
In a related event, a ND Indian tribe has banned Phelp's hate group from their reservation pending a funeral of a ND National Guardsman from the tribe killed in Iraq on Thanksgiving Day.
With so many lawyers in the group, I imagine part of their income is related to tort extortion -- they provoke someone to attack them and squeeze money by manipulation of the US tort system. This is why the video cited in this article was made, as a way of collecting evidence to make money off this racket. Many states have laws against being a public nuisance, I wonder if these could be applied against Phelps and his crew.
#7
My first reaction is: ABOUT FRIGGIN TIME! Too bad one or two didn't get roughed up enough to have a court date. I am assumming that any rational jury would conclude the group was inciting violence and therefore deserved what happened. Also the discussion is correct the bulk of these yahoos are lawyers with somewhat cushy jobs. I think that maybe the MSM needs to give them super publicity and have their names all over the papers. I heard two of the lawyer/snakes on the radio and they have no love for anyone that doesn't worship as they do. Think FAR FAR right fringe and then go two spaces right from that.
#9
What I want to know is what the hell are those police doing there ? Why are there police protecting those parasites ? They would be sent home with a lesson carved on their faces and they would learn to stay home, but the asshole police are protecting them.
#10
The cops are doing their jobs just like the professionals that many of them are. Go figure. No officer of the law should stand by idly as someone within their view takes the law into their own hands. To expect that is to encourage societal mayhem. What would your response be if the officers in attendance happened to agree with Phelps?
#1
Baker has long roots here. His family named the road and when the new neighbors moved in, he tells us, they asked him to move out.
"Basically that I should package up my family and my business and find a place elsewhere," said Baker. "That's ridiculous, they just bought the place one week prior and he's telling me I should think about leaving."
Well, it's because you have to respect their sensitivies (pigs and all are haram), and... they don't have to respect yours (you're just a kufr). Simple, but brilliant.
#2
More from the Houston Chronicle. There's a few details not mentioned in the other story. The mosque spokeman says that "attendance at the largest services will probably not exceed 30 worshippers", but apparently the mosque complex serves 150-200 families. And of those, you're only going to get 30 worshippers at a time? My boyfriend thinks this is a typo for "300", but 300 people is not a trivial number.
By the way, Houston (and environs) is famous for its lack of zoning laws, which is why the government can't stop them from building a mosque, and it can't stop a guy from putting in a few pigs, either. About a mile from me there's a high-rise office complex, and a mile in the other direction there are cows. (Office complex has been there for years, during which there used to be a lot more cows.)
There's a pop-up on the Chronicle web site that shows the proposed site. It's right next to George [H.W.] Bush Park.
#6
Or chickens, .com. The ammonia in their waste alone is enough to knock a grown man over. The new chicken houses have huge fans (for cooling the birds). Just put the end of the houses with the fans near the moskkk.
There's a fairly new set of chicken houses (I think 4 houses, each hold about 25,000-30,000 birds) going up I-75 north out of Atlanta (near Cartersville area). They're about 200-300 feet off the right of way, but have the fans blowing toward the interstate. You can smell it for about 10-15 secs. after passing by, even if you're going 80+mph (and, the farm is on the southbound side of I-75).
And, ed, not only the waste pond, but the mortality pits for burying hogs that die on the farm. Nothing like seeing a full-size bulldozer have to go in and remove a 260 lb. hog from the house, lol! Another true story, a guy I work with went to inspect some hog farms up in Tennessee. About mid-week they had a storm roll through, and the next day, he went out to one of the hog farms. Lightning had struck the power to the cooling units to 1 hog house, and a cable had broken to raise/lower the cooling "curtains" on the side of the house. Mid-summer, and they had to dispose of about 600 BIG pigs! My coworker came up and they were extremely busy digging a burial pit (imagine how big that would be)!
Posted by: BA ||
12/02/2006 15:53 Comments ||
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#7
The bottom line of this story is that the asshats just picked the wrong place to buy and the wrong guy to fuck with. That this would / will be true in so many places and with so many folks in the South is purdy funny, IMO.
#9
Ya know, these type stories are happening more and more, and I always chuckle. Mostly it's due to urban sprawl (new subdivisions going up right next to the farm that's been there for 100+ years). That it happened to some headbangers is just a plus.
One final true story a guy from Florida told me (he works at the FL Dept. of Environmental Protection, DEP, a State counterpart to EPA, where I work). He was at a public meeting for a proposed dairy, in North Florida, and the dairy had applied for a wastewater permit to DEP. Granted, everyone that was protesting the dairy was there for these same reasons (mostly zoning or lack thereof, which EPA/DEP don't get into at all, that's a local issue). At the end of the meeting, one lady stood up (who lived nearby) and literally said, "Why do we need a dairy here? I can just go to the grocery store to get my milk!" The DEP guy said, "Lady, where do you think the store gets the milk?"
At that, the mindset of "city folk" was truly exposed. They have NO clue where their milk (or drinking water, or sewage, or gas, or power, etc.) comes from. They just know they can get it at the store/flip on a switch and it works! He told me that all the farmers in the room busted out laughing at the DEP guy's response.
Posted by: BA ||
12/02/2006 16:11 Comments ||
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Columbia University officials are lowering the boom on some graduate journalism students suspected of cheating on, of all things, an ethics exam. The J-schoolers' alleged lapse on the final was reported yesterday by Radar Online.
This is almost like being an intern with Reuters or CBS.
Or the Associated Press...
The exam in question consisted of two essay questions to be completed in 90 minutes any time during a 36-hour period. Students who took the test early were instructed to avoid discussing the questions with those planning to take it later, but the warning was ignored. One honorable young scholar got wind of what happened and blew the whistle, sources said.
Vice Dean David Klatell told students in an e-mail that there had been a "serious problem" with the final and ordered them to attend a special session of the class "Critical Issues in Journalism" today - or fail. The order applies only to the Friday morning section. The evening section is exempt. It was unclear how many students could be affected.
The course, which includes such issues as "Why be Ethical?" and "Tribal Loyalty vs. Journalistic Obligation," is taught by New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, who could not be reached yesterday. One source said of the special session, "It's an 'Out yourself or you'll all have to suffer' situation." A Columbia spokesman confirmed Klatell had fired off the e-mail, but did not release details about the "problem."
#2
The course, which includes such issues as "Why be Ethical?" and "Tribal Loyalty vs. Journalistic Obligation," is taught by New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, who could not be reached yesterday.
Ya sure he's not recruiting? They look like Times material to me.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
TAIPING: Malaysias snake king Ali Khan Samsudin, 48, died as he had lived handling the reptiles that he loved. His eldest son Amjad Khan, 21, said his father had been performing at a show in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday when he was bitten by a King Cobra. 
Columbia University officials are lowering the boom on some graduate journalism students suspected of cheating on, of all things, an ethics exam. The J-schoolers' alleged lapse on the final was reported yesterday by Radar Online.
