B'Man's Revolt
Archive for May 2008
Flying Airplanes
9/11 Conspiracies and all the different organizations and websites centered around the 9/11 attacks can drive a person crazy with the detail that needs to be digested even to form a minor opinion on whether or not our government (some crazy group within that government, anyway) was complicit, if not the actual perpetrators. There are scientists, physicists and engineers (structural, demolitions, and many other areas of expertise) who disown the proposed “facts” as misleading or false. There are firemen, policemen and everyday citizens who heard and witnessed strange phenomena like extra explosions, etc that don’t add up to the findings in the 9/11 Commission Report.
As a matter of fact, the report itself is so ineffectual and lacking that it is deserving of another try through independent means. Luckily for the perpetrators, all the evidence was quickly hauled away without review and we have no evidence to examine except video shots, etc. (Can you imagine even a car wreck where such an examination were not conducted, yet the worst travesty ever perpetrated on America was not truly investigated?)
One of the most telling examples is all the published interviews with the flight instructors of the “terrorists” before they “hijacked” the planes. Basically, these “terrorist pilots” could barely fly single engine “learner” aircraft. In some cases the instructors were scared to death to even taxi, much less fly with these “pilots”.
Now a bit about old BuelahMan. I actually used to fly small planes with my adoptive dad. He was a pilot for many years and had several of these overwing planes before purchasing a Cherokee Lance (multi-passenger underwing, single engine plane… that ultimately took his and my 5 yo brother’s life in a crash at our local airport). I was actually set to make that flight with a buddy, but we decided not to at the very last minute. This crash is the reason I never pursued flying again.
Anyway, I spent a few summers flying often with him, taking the controls while flying and as the summer progressed, learned how to take off and land the plane. Now since I never flew a big jet, I can only compare an airline pilot’s testimony to my small plane experience, but from what I understand these jets are one hell-uv-a lot harder to navigate and control than a small Cessna (makes sense to me, as well).
A Cessna can do some fairly audacious manuevers, while a behemoth like a 737 cannot.
On one of my attempted landings we had some side winds (not much, but enough to cause the small plane to lurch and move sideways as we approached). It scared the hell out of me and I told my dad to take the controls (he did and brought us down as if there were no wind whatsoever). However, I have never forgotten that experience because it showed me how difficult it is to keep even a small aircraft on line.
Can you imagine trying this with a huge jet and little more experience than I had?
Now, one thing that is never talked about is the auto-pilot functionality of these jets and the fact that we have aircraft that are totally capable to be flown remotely (yes, even jets).
My point is that I cannot believe that these “pilots” who could barely fly small aircraft could not possible have done what was done. Some of the planes’ maneuvers were so radical that it is suggested that they could not have done it. I agree.
So, how did these piss-poor pilots fly these jets into buildings with such accuracy?
In my mind, they didn’t.
They Couldn’t.
What Do Iraqi People Dream About?
B’Man: My daughter (3.5) awoke this morning and told us, “I had a dream and in my dream I was going to “Big School” and they taught me all sorts of things. Then my boyfriend, Justin, said that we were going to get married.”
Now, I have no idea where the boyfriend crap comes from, but there is a 4 yo boy at her preschool named Justin (I’m gonna have to have a little man to man with “little man”… LOL). Nor do I understand where she gets the big school stuff from, except probably the older kids at her preschool.
My point is that she dreams this funny, happy-go-lucky stuff. Even with some allergies, she is probably one of the happiest kids I ever knew. She, her Mom and I are blessed in many ways, when I consider what Iraqi people are thinking and living through.
Do the little Iraqi girls dream of such things? Iraqis in general? I know in my heart that most of them don’t dream such wonderful things, even though I wish they all did. Then, this afternoon, I read about some of their dreams in this article at Alternet and I believe that all rednecks should understand that their dreams are nothing to Americans, simple everyday conveniences, for we have all these things in abundance and are spoiled by it.
We have spent Billions, millions dead, millions fled to other countries to survive what we unleashed. Murder on every corner. Threats, intimidation. FEAR!
We have no real understanding of what they don’t have, because it is all stuff that we take for granted.
And many rednecks want more of this horror for them. Unbelievably cruel. Heartless, unfeeling and embarrassing to this redneck. No decent human being would ever want this to go on.
Five Years After Mission Accomplished, Iraqis “Dream of the End of the Occupation”
BAQUBA — After more than five years of U.S. occupation, the very dreams of the people of Baquba have changed. For a start, they are no longer about the future.
Today, a shower is a dream. Or that the electricity supply continues just that little bit longer.
“These needs are very trivial for people of other countries,” 43-year-old political leader Saad Tahir told IPS. “But in Iraq, people dream more of these things than of some ambition or success.”
Abdullah Mahdi, a retired 51-year-old trader, says he dreams only of electricity.
“Like millions here, I hope supply gets better to help us to sleep in this hot summer,” Mahdi told IPS. “We have been suffering from this problem since the 1991 Kuwait war, and this current occupation only made things worse.”
Others dream of freedom of movement. “I dream of traveling among the Iraqi provinces freely and safely,” a local resident said. “For more than two years now, I have not traveled to any province of my country.” Lack of security means Iraqis can rarely travel even to a neighboring area.
Children also seem to have begun to dream differently.
“I dream of a playground in which I and my friends can play freely and at any time,” 11-year-old Luay Amjad told IPS. Children are not allowed to play just anywhere for fear of unexploded bombs, haphazard firing, and a general fear of the Iraqi military. Many children in Baquba and other districts of Diyala province have been kidnapped.
“All families wish to see their children safe, and then enjoying their time,” said a young father. “We know that they currently live in a very closed world. But we put pressure on our children for their own safety. Streets are dangerous, and even gardens may sometimes be dangerous.”
Others dream of a functioning economy. According to the ministry of trade, unemployment has been vacillating between 40-70 percent over the last two years.
“I hope that the trade and economic process will improve,” said an unemployed trader. “I wish Iraq could be an industrial country with a flourishing and luxurious status of living. I want to get back to my shop and have my own customers.”
Teachers dream of an Iraq that can be a center for education again. “Iraq was one of the countries that paid great attention to education,” a university professor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “Now, breaking the rules of schools is very common, and fake certificates are spread widely all over the country. We dream of a rigorous and successful educational process.”
Farmers simply dream of water, and the security necessary to work in their fields. “I hope I can work on my farm again, and have water to irrigate all the land,” said a local vegetable farmer.
A cleric spoke of bigger dreams. “I dream that all Iraqis will love each other again, as we used to in the past days. We miss hope, a smile, and true love. We hope that cooperation prevails again among people. We hope for killing and displacement to end forever in this once peaceful country. We hope that the sectarian discrimination disappears.”
A political analyst said he dreams of an end to the occupation. “The occupation is the source of all the problems of our people. I do dream of the end of the occupation — no more arrests, no more prison for simple and poor people, and no more suffering.”
(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq’s Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East).
B’Man: So, what DO you rednecks dream about?
Honda Bringing More Work to Alabama
The WSJ reported that “Honda Motor Co. plans to meet growing U.S. demand for small cars while maintaining North American jobs by moving production of two bigger models from Canada to Alabama,” according to Thursday’s comments by Chief Executive Takeo Fukui. “Honda’s Pilot sport-utility vehicle and Ridgeline pickup, now rolling off its plant in Ontario, Canada, will be produced in Alabama, allowing the Canadian plant to increase production of the Civic sedan.”
B’Man: How does it feel to be considered a low-wage country?
Bush Is Learning As He Goes…
… but is making his friends rich while he is obtaining his education on such trivial matters.
I dunno about you, but it seems that these idiotic bastards should have KNOWN what they were getting into, before lying to us about the damn thing to begin with. It is my contention that they did and DO know precisely what is happening (and it is going perfectly to plan).
When will the rest of you rednecks wake up and demand that this maniacal asshole is removed from office and jailed for the rest of his miserable life?
Of course, he made this stupid comment to the Air Force Academy. (Who there will stand up and question the idiocy of such a statement without fear of loss of commission and career?) Nor would they have the balls to suggest that his further statements comparing the Iraqi/Afghan “mistake”“law-breaking” to what was done in Japan and Germany are even further proof of his inability to grasp truth or understand what is taught in high-school history (even though his lack of education doesn’t surprise me). Even a cursory history student knows he is full of shit.
He said that political and economic progress is hard without security.
Dude? No shit? Why is God’s name didn’t you just ask this old redneck, you waste of Barbara’s egg.
People, the fact is that if and when you attack another country, invade them, kill millions and send many more millions away from their homes, demolish their infrastructure and lives, they will tend to be a bit pissed about that. Maybe, the fact that the entire Bush Administration is a lying pool of snakes may cause you some issues in success, as well, since no one except the worst Koolaid Drinkers can believe a word any of them say.
I have never been more embarassed to be an American. These imbeciles have ruined the country I love. The best thing that could occur is impeachment and war crime tribunals for Bush, Cheney and all the Bush Admin.
ALL OF THEM!
Remote Area Medical Returns to Lafayette, Tennessee, U.S.A.
B’Man: I wrote about this group visiting Tn a while back here.
I do not find this situation an odd occurence in the deep south. Most people I know don’t have any real insurance (maybe hospitalization, for full coverage cannot be afforded right now). As a matter of fact, BuelahMan’s family is going through a harrowing ordeal right now and may likely lose much (if not all) my coverage.
So, we may be on board for the next visit from RAM…
Medical Charity Helping US Poor
Stan Brock is like a 21st-Century Florence Nightingale.
He started a charity – Remote Area Medical (RAM) – more than 20 years ago to bring relief to those cut off from healthcare.
Originally it was to help poor tribes in the former British colony of Guyana, South America.
That is where he lived after leaving Preston, Lancashire, more than half a century ago – he still is a British citizen.
But now Stan spends most of his time bringing relief to the richest country in the world.
Production line
Some 60% of RAM’s work is now carried out in the United States.
On a wet, spring weekend he lands his vintage World War II aircraft – once used to drop American troops on D-Day – in Lafayette, Tennessee.
He bought the plane to parachute medics into the jungle.
Today he is unloading dentists’ chairs from the plane into a pickup truck.
By eight o’clock on Friday evening the first patients have arrived after travelling hundreds of miles.
They start queuing.
For one weekend RAM has turned a high school into a hospital.
Classrooms have become consulting rooms and the sports hall has been transformed into a production line to fill or extract painful teeth.
Volunteer nurses, doctors and dentists have flown in from all over the country to man the stations.
ike Stan, they are not getting paid.
By five o’clock on Saturday morning the line is snaking round the school.
State troopers are on standby to help.
The patients are handed numbers as they wait in the pouring rain.
‘Working poor’
Most of those I speak to seem to have jobs, but cannot afford healthcare.
For one reason or another they do not have insurance.
They call themselves the “working poor”.
And then Stan Brock arrives with a loudspeaker to call the first batch in.
Once inside there is more queuing and waiting.
The patients slowly make their way to tables with yet more volunteers, who take blood pressure and medical history.
Among the sea of faces is Donna Pollard.
She wants a mammogram to check out a lump on her breast, as well as dental work and new eye glasses.
For her, this service is nothing short of a lifeline.
Healthcare is a luxury when you are struggling to pay the bills.
Then there is Ken Barbee.
At 64, he has been working for most of his life.
But recently he had to give up his job as a truck driver to look after his sick wife.
By the time I catch up with him he has already got his new glasses – now he hopes to have his last few teeth removed.
Ken calls it “a shame” that people have to resort to charity for their healthcare in the world’s most prosperous country.
He feels let down: “We’re just pushed out there and told to do the best y’can.”
Election issue
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Some 47 million Americans have no health insurance.
Millions more are under-insured.
It is no wonder that healthcare is now such a big issue in the presidential race.
For a stoical Stan Brock, organising these clinics is both rewarding and depressing.
Come Sunday when it is time to pack up, he will be turning people away.
He watches over the whole operation wearing a neatly pressed khaki uniform, carrying a clipboard and pen, looking like a figure from the old British empire.
He has given his life to all this.
He takes no salary, and lives in an old school building in Kentucky from where he plans RAM’s expeditions.
As for his views on America’s healthcare, Stan says:
“We need to fix it… fall into line with Britain and France.
“Here in this country if you’re poor – you don’t have much of a shot.”
In this one short weekend, RAM treated 550 people – 416 teeth were extracted, more than 200 pairs of glasses handed out.
The estimated value of this free treatment was nearly $1m (£500,000).
So Stan Brock will continue flying in healthcare to rural Appalachia as well as the developing world.
He is also seriously thinking of returning to Britain – with a team of RAM volunteers.
He has heard his old country has a shortage of NHS dentists.
“I am sure we’ll get just as large a crowd as we’re getting here in the US,” he says.
© 2008 BBC News
WTF Thursday: Forcing Your Child to Dismember Her Mother?
Leave it to the southeast USA…
Memphis girl says father forced her to help dismember mother
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – A 12-year-old girl has testified in court that she saw her father kill her mother and he then forced her to help dismember the body with a circular saw.
Police said James Hawkins cleaned the saw and returned it to the store where he bought it.
The testimony came Wednesday at a preliminary hearing for Hawkins, 30, who is charged with killing and dismembering his girlfriend, Charlene Gaither, on Feb. 9 in their apartment. His case was sent to a grand jury.
According to The Commercial Appeal, the girl testified that her father made her help cut off her mother’s head, and she helped cut off Gaither’s hands and feet.
USA Loses Technological Edge to China
B’Man: The entire scheme has supposedly been that the US was so far technologically advanced from the rest of the world that the US manufacturing segment was supposed to become the ultra high-tech center of the world. We would pass along the menial production jobs to the low wage countries (slave workers, etc), while our workers (being so much smarter and advanced than the rest of the fools of the world) would take in the high tech stuff and get rich.
But, what has happened is that we have denied what made us smart, rich and the USA, in general. It was always our manufacturing that made us what we are. But a few ideologues have convinced an entire country otherwise and look what is happening. We are not only losing the jobs, but some countries view us as the “low-wage” area to begin making their products. A slap in the face, if you ask me.
Of course, we need the jobs now, so I am not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but the gift pretty much sucks when our own auto industry is about to fall completely apart and we are sending much of that manufacturing overseas. Yet, we are low price enough for Asian and German automakers?
Bullshit!
The New World Order is set to bring the majority of us down to poverty levels. Never forget that. We need to reverse this foolish thing before we are totally ruined. From Alternet:
China Surpasses U.S. in Technological Prowess
For years, folks like Thomas Friedman and Robert Samuelson have dismissed concerns about our dwindling manufacturing base as just so much economic fear mongering. We don’t need those dirty manufacturing jobs, they said. There’s more value added in services, and with our educated workforce and technological edge, there’s no reason in the world not to have other countries build our play-stations, bikes and TVs.
The only problem is that the manufacturing sector has always been a key driver of technological innovation. When manufacturing goes, so does a large share of hi-tech R and D. Now, according to Manufacturing and Technology News, we appear to be reaping what the corporate globalizers have sown:
China has surpassed the United States in a key measure of high tech competitiveness. The Georgia Institute of Technology’s bi-annual “{High-Tech Indicators” finds that China improved its “technological standing” by 9 points over the period of 2005 to 2007, with the United States and Japan suffering declines of 6.8 and 7.1 respectively. In Georgia Tech’s scale of one to 100, China’s technological standing now rests at 82.8, compared to the U.S. at 76.1. The United States peaked at 95.4 in 1999. China has increased from 22.5 in 1996 to 82.8 in 2007.
“The message speaks out pretty loudly,” says Alan Porter, co-director of Georgia Tech’s Technology Policy and Assessment Center, which produces the benchmark. “I think the prospects are pretty scary.”
“In areas like nanotechnology, China now leads the United States in published articles, but what scares me is China is getting better at marrying that research to their low-cost productive processes,” says Porter. “When you put those together with our buzzword of innovation, China is big, they’re tough and cheap. Again, where is our edge?”
We had it, but we shipped it off to China, content to sell one another real estate, sue each other and manufacture only green pieces of paper to trade for oil and cheap knick-knacks at Wal-Mart.
Pillow Talk from BriTANicK
I have this funny thing I like to do after sex…
The autoplay sucks. See the cool video at link below…
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a day that usually instills patriotism and pride in country and fellow Americans with flag waving, parades, salutes and a whole barrage of special services and Memorials. I have experienced all of those feelings and can remember tremendous pride and love for America and its seeming care for the rest of the world’s lesser fortunate citizens. I remember going to the parades in my youth, then marching in many later. I would beam with pride and honor.
But as I began to mature, I began to see mindlessness in the flag waving because most people weren’t even sure what the day was even for. Even I could easily forget that the day was for remembering and memorializing the fallen of wars. It was originally a day called “Decoration Day” because people would go to cemeteries and decorate the graves of fallen soldiers and service members with flags and flowers in “memorial” of those folks.
The day (like Christmas) is now commercialized to a point that it basically represents (in years past) the weekend that kicks off summer and vacation season. People pile into cars and go to some destination that usually has little or nothing to do with decorating or remembering anything except for spending money. Amusement Parks normally get a big hit on this weekend. Down south it is basically warm enough to hit the beach and remember dolphin and crabs and decorate shells. I have personally “remembered” a few golf balls on this day (once playing with a friend who had a bag towel that was the stars and stripes… we were very patriotic).
Of course, there are those who still do the “Memorial Day” military extravaganzas, just as my dad (The Old Soldier) is very involved with every year down around Birmingham. But I know and understand where he is coming from and I know him. I know what an illegal war did to him and the tragedy that war caused for me, my sister and my Mom. I know that he flatly agrees with this neocon agenda and it is those people who are the most unpatriotic that can be… for I can never understand how sending people to die for bullshit reasons is “patriotic”.
We had our “Decoration Day” last week down close to the river (my wife’s family’s old home site/church). Every year (this is common in the SE US), we honor everyone (not just vets) who have died and get together and eat, tell stories, have a blast. Today, I am not driving anywhere. I am not raising a flag half mast. I will not salute. I will not view a parade, even if the damn thing passes in front of my home. I am going to remember those that have fallen. Period.
I am going to think about the ones falling right now in these wars that should have never been, understanding that these new deaths, brought on by careless greed for money and power, are honored only in heart and mind and not through any mindless actions that have been brainwashed into society. Doing what the monsters want us to do is not patriotic, people. Enamored by their shiny little objects that grab our attention (like an illusionist tricking his audience) doesn’t mean we care about America and its fallen. That, in my opinion, is truly from within, no matter where you are standing at the moment.
You will see politicians out today smothering us with flag pinned dreams of hope and change, but they have little intent of real change. Its all part of the hypnotizing show. People are coming out in droves to mingle and “touch” these people, like they are spiritual miracle doers… all-the-while thousands are losing their health care, becoming sick and dying. People losing their homes in record numbers. $12-15/gallon of gas looming, but no one talking about it, yet record profits for the Bush cronies and oil friends. Apocalyptic beliefs prevailing (both us and “them”) or imagined “enemies” (radical Islamics and the like) to scare the hell out of us rednecks. Spending ungodly amounts of our illegally taken “Income Taxes” to pay the interest on the money they are borrowing from China for these oil wars, while raping and pillaging the environment and resources.
Most importantly, this fake war for Democracy is killing our friends and family when they have no real business over there. None. All lies. All devious from the get-go. I want to remember them, even though their leaders are monsters and sacrificed them for their ill gotten gains and evil intent. So, I will not memorialize the “holiday”.
But I will walk across the street to speak to my neighbor who’s husband died in Nam and tell her how much I care about her and remember her husband. I WILL reach out to several folks via phone who have lost loved ones in a war and share my thoughts with them. I will read and consider stories offered by others and “remember” their heroes with them.
Roger Wicker and the Mortgage Crisis
From CottonMouth down in Mississippi:
MS-SEN: Roger Wicker and the mortgage crisis
Now that our economic recession is a reality it is time to take a look a what got us here. No one will deny the role that subprime mortgages have played in the economic tragedy being savagely played out in the homes of those who can least afford. As late as August 2007 Mississippi ranked first in the percentage of subprime mortgages past due at 23%. This crisis created by unfettered greed and the nearly criminal intent to take advantage of the vulnerable, has allowed some of our neediest citizens to be seduced by the predators of the subprime industry.
In 2007 a vote came in front of the House of Representatives on whether or not we should regulate the subprime mortgage industry. Does Roger Wicker take the side of his constituency, many poor and victims of predatory lending, or with the big money interests on Wall and K Street? Well I think we all know what Roger Wicker did, exactly what Bush and Cheney told him to do. “Rubber Stamp Roger” voted against regulations that would have helped to curb this crisis as well as help the thousands of Mississippians caught in the cross-hairs of this debacle. Don’t take my word on it, click on these links and read for yourselves
Rubber Stamp Roger’s vote on H.R. 3915
If you are interested in Mississippi politics, CottonMouth does some of the best blog coverage there is. Its my home state, but move across border to SW TN a year ago. Thanks to the whole gang at Cottonmouth…
Mules: The Way of the Future
B’Man: From ABC 33/40 and the Raymond’s in McMinnville, TN (I have many friends from McMinnville):
High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules
High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it. T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits. “This fuel’s so high, you can’t afford it,” he said. “We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That’s the truth.”
And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm.
“We’ve been using them quite a bit,” he said.
Brother Robert Raymond added, “It’s the way of the future.”
Trading Kidneys for Bread (US Led Democracy in Action)
B’Man: It is horrible enough realizing what this administration has done in our name in the guise of “spreading democracy”. Also notable is that we were led to believe that the Iraqi oil would pay for our invasion and reconstruction.
But, not only has virtually every avenue of rebuilding failed or been considered sub-standard or even down-right shoddily done, it is apparent that the everyday Iraqis are resolving themselves to some of the worst possible self-mutilization that can be imagined (mainly just to get by and feed their family).
This, rednecks, is what our “democracy” has done for those “rag-heads”, as mAnn Coulter likes to call them (disgusting bitch):
Kidney for Bread in oil-rich Iraq
BAGHDAD — Iraq, which has the world’s third-biggest oil reserves, is making billions of dollars in oil exerts thanks to record-setting prices. Still, many of its citizens sell parts of their own bodies just to survive.
“I couldn’t see my children crying for food and I can not get them at even bread,” Ali Hassnawi, a 34-year-old Baghdad resident, told IslamOnline.net.
“One day a friend of mine told me he had sold his kidney and I decided to do the same,” he recalled.
“I got $1,500 dollars for it, two months later my wife got a better payment for hers. She got $3,000 because the man who bought it was nearly dying.”
Abject poverty in oil-rich Iraq has driven many like Hassnawi and his wife to a growing organs black market, where kidney is the most sought-after.
Prices vary between $500 to $5,000 dollars depending on and urgent the kidney is needed.
According to the Health Ministry, renal disease is common in the country and more than 7,000 Iraqis currently need urgent kidney transplants.
“The lives of many Iraqis are threatened because haemodialysis machine are old and many aren’t working properly,” stressed Taha Abdel-Rahman, a ministry media officer.
“We have a long list of patients requesting kidneys and in many times when they can get the organ, they are already dead.”
Iraq, which is a member of OPEC and has the world’s third-biggest oil reserves, earned $38 billion in oil export revenue last year.
For 2008, the country has already raked in $20 billion from oil shipments just through April, according to the US Energy Department.
Catastrophic
Sellers can easily be spotted by relatives of patient at the main gates of hospitals or nearby coffee shops.
Usually a person who works inside the hospital brokers the deal and gets a 10 percent commission.
More than 90 percent of donors since 2003 are from the suburbs of Baghdad and other main cities of Iraq.
Donors are referred to a special committee at Karama hospital that determines their suitability.
But doctors say though they are against organ-buying they cannot prevent it as the donors always register at hospitals as family relatives.
“We have reached a catastrophic situation in Iraq where poor Iraqis sell their organs to survive,” says a renal surgeon at Karama Hospital, requesting anonymity for security reasons.
“In one side we are happy to know that we are saving lives, however, it is hard to know that it is for money and not for love of fellow humans,” he added.
“I was once forced to refuse to operate on a kid after I found out that the donor, a 12-years-old child, was being forced by his father who had sold his son’s kidney for $4,000 dollars.”
Local police have reported discovering many dead bodies lacking kidney or corneas.
Investigations have shown that a mafia is working with help from some doctors who take out such organs from recently killed civilians.
“The situation is delicate and we are running a thorough investigation to catch those criminals and set free doctors who are being forced to do illegal work,” said Lt. Col. Abdul Jabbar, head of the Crime Investigation Department (CID).
“Such organs are taken out from Iraq for neighboring countries where they are sold for huge sums of money.”
A World Health Organization (WHO) official in Iraq pressed for punishing those marketing organs.
But he admitted that a country like Iraq, which suffers a so serious security situation, can not possibly control such an issue.
“People might say that it is illegal but we are just trying to save our lives,” says Abu Ahmed, 56, who recently had a kidney transplanted from a seller in Baghdad.
“It is easy to say that it is forbidden while their health is good and they are not at the risk of losing their lives any minute for not having a proper renal system,” he fumed.
“I have bought a kidney for $4,000 dollars from someone who was offering outside the hospital. I was in a critical health condition and my family did all it can to find the appropriate donor. I don’t regret what I did and would do it again if necessary,” insists Abu Ahmed.
“They wanted to sell and I wanted to save my life. It was a good bargain and both of us left hospital with something to survive, a new kidney for me and money to feed his children.”
Encyclopedia of Life
lrose sent me a link to this site and I have been taking my time in exploration. This is amazing if you haven’t seen it and have a hankering for the ultimate biological reference site.
Worth noting.
The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is an ambitious, even audacious project to organize and make available via the Internet virtually all information about life present on Earth. At its heart lies a series of Web sites—one for each of the approximately 1.8 million known species—that provide the entry points to this vast array of knowledge. The entry-point for each site is a species page suitable for the general public, but with several linked pages aimed at more specialized users. The sites sparkle with text and images that are enticing to everyone, as well as providing deep links to specific data.
The EOL dynamically synthesizes biodiversity knowledge about all known species, including their taxonomy, geographic distribution, collections, genetics, evolutionary history, morphology, behavior, ecological relationships, and importance for human well being, and distribute this information through the Internet. It serves as a primary resource for a wide audience that includes scientists, natural resource managers, conservationists, teachers, and students around the world. We believe that the EOL’s encompassing scope and innovation will have a major global impact in facilitating biodiversity research, conservation, and education.
The EOL staff is made up of scientists and non-scientists working from museums and research institutions around the world. We currently have 20 full time employees, but as this project grows, so will the EOL family.
WTF Thursday: That VW Has Some Nice PoonTang
What is wrong with people? I have a hard enough time trying to understand the attraction of gay sex. Now, we have a plethora of inanimate objects like picnic tables, bicycles and now this from Jonathon Turley:
Love Bug: Man Admits to Sex with Over 1000 Cars — and One Helicopter
Recently, this blog explored the criminal charges against men who have liaison with inanimate objects ranging from bikes to gates to picnic tables, click here. However, now Edward Smith has publicly admitted that he has made love to over 1000 cars, including his current serious relationship with ,a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla. It appears that in England sex with a bike in private will get you jail time, but motorized “girlfriends” are particularly acceptable.
Smith has tried to explain why he started to have sex with cars at age 15 — around the time of both his puberty and learner’s permit.
“I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love. Maybe I’m a little bit off the wall but when I see movies like Herbie and Knight Rider, where cars become loveable, huggable characters it’s just wonderful.” A little bit off the wall? No, of course not. It just that most people she the Chevy as a location for teenage necking, they don’t throw the car out and take off with the car.
Smith, 57, insists: “I’m not sick and I don’t want to hurt anyone, cars are just my preference.” He says that he has never been attracted to men or women. They just lack the drive chain for a meaningful relationship.
For car purists, Smith may seem a bit too much the automotive libertine when he had a brief helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf. In fairness to Smith, he may have been star-struck in the celebrity one-night stand. Yet, he is not exclusive. In addition to Vanilla, he spends time with a 1973 Opal GT, named Cinnamon, and 1993 Ford Ranger Splash, named Ginger.
He says that he corresponds with at least 500 other “car lovers.”
For the full story and picture of Mr. Smith and his paramour, click here
