Thursday 22 January 2009

Who doesn't loves a conspiracy...?

Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870, also known in the Italian media as the Ustica Massacre ("Strage di Ustica"), was an Italian flight that suffered an in-flight explosion while in route from Bologna, Italy to Palermo, Italy. June 27, 1980.

Some of the Italian Air Force officials who might have known about the disaster's background died suddenly.

* August 3, 1980: Col. Pierangelo Teoldi, was nominated to become Commander of Grosetto AFB, but had not yet assumed command as of date of death - Car accident.
* May 9, 1981: Maurizio Gari, Poggio Ballone air defense radar controller - heart attack at age 37.
* March 20, 1987: Licio Giorgieri, Italian Aircraft Registry Commander - killed by a communist terrorist group. (see it:Unità Comuniste Combattenti)
* March 31, 1987: Mario Alberto Dettori, Poggio Ballone air defence radar controller - suicide by Hanging.
* August 12, 1988: Ugo Zammarelli, Cagliari Italian Army Intelligence's Service Cagliari Section (see it:SIOS) - hit and run by motorcycle.
* August 28, 1988: Mario Naldini and Ivo Nutarelli, Italian Air Force strike pilots crossed Flight 870s path on June 27th over Tuscany - mid air collision during the 1988 Ramstein Air Show.
* February 1, 1991: Antonio Muzio, Lamezia Terme control tower Marshal - murdered, culprits unknown.
* February 2, 1992: Sandro Marcucci, Italian Air Force 46a Aerobrigata Pisa pilot - air crash during a wildfire firefighting operation.
* February 2, 1992: Antonio Pagliara, Otranto air defence radar controller - car accident.
* January 12, 1993: Roberto Boemio, Chief of Staff, 3a Air Region, Italian Air Force - knifed during a robbery.
* November 2, 1994: Gian Paolo Totaro, Italian Army Major medic - suicide by hanging.
* December 21, 1995: Franco Parisi, Otranto air defense radar controller - suicide by hanging.
* April 4, 2002: Michele Landi, IT consultant for the Italian government and for the same Procura that was on the Itavia 870 case - suicide by hanging (soon after he revealed he had come in the possession of information regarding the incident)

"I'll never apologize for the United States of America..."

George H.W. Bush (you know.. the older one ... that hates broccoli?)

In August 1988 Newsweek quoted the (then) vice president as saying

"
I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever, I don't care what the facts are."

in regard to the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655, also known as IR655. A civilian airliner shot down by US missiles fired from the USS Vincennes on Sunday 3 July 1988, whilst flying in Iranian airspace over the Strait of Hormuz.

You know what?

More than 30 years on... and still no apology for: killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 66 children, ranking it seventh among the deadliest airliner fatalities.

Saturday 10 January 2009

Bob's Wikipedia page of the .. um... day as well....

Mana Wahine Te Ira Tangata



was a small and short-lived political party in New Zealand. It was established by Alamein Kopu, a member of the New Zealand Parliament who had left her original party (the Alliance). After a short time as an independent MP, Kopu established Mana Wahine as her own party. It was officially registered on 12 June 1998.

The name "Mana Wahine Te Ira Tangata" is difficult to translate, but essentially refers to dignity or respect for women. Kopu claims that the party was intended to support Māori women, promoting a Māori form of feminism. Critics of Alamein Kopu, however, did not see the party as a genuine ideological organization. Rather, they saw a more cynical reason for the party's creation - as leader of a party rather than an independent, Kopu was entitled to $80,000 in additional funding. Jim Anderton, leader of Kopu's former party, said that the creation of Mana Wahine approached corruption, a sentiment which was echoed by several other politicians.

Kopu (and thus Mana Wahine) closely followed the National Party government of Jenny Shipley. National, having recently ended its coalition with the New Zealand First party, was highly interested in finding additional parliamentary support. It is sometimes claimed that National's influence was instrumental in gaining Mana Wahine official recognition as a party, and many members of the Opposition claimed that this help was given in order to secure Mana Wahine's vote – Trevor Mallard, a Labour Party MP, openly called it a "bribe".

Mana Wahine contested only two elections. The first was the Taranaki-King Country by-election in 1998. The Mana Wahine candidate, Mary Gilmore, received seven votes. In the 1999 general election, Mana Wahine failed to submit a party list, with Kopu saying that she missed the deadline by just minutes. The party nevertheless contested twelve electorate seats, gaining a total of 1,082 votes across the country. Kopu herself contested the Waiariki electorate, and gained sixth place with 1.70% of the vote.

12 February 2001, Mana Wahine was removed from the list of registered political parties at its own request.

Bob's deletionpedia page of the day...

Ding-isms (deleted 06 Aug 2008 at 11:23)


Ding-isms (noun)

  • 1) an ism is something done in an act of ding.

Ding-isms are named after the famed Lord Ding, a muppet if ever there was one.

one example of ding-isms is seeing apparitions of the dead, in a similar form to Jesus walking on the water in the Sea of Gallilee, The Ding-ism of seeing a dead ghost walking on the Newcastle Boating lake has appeared several times.

Other forms Ding-isms can take is Ding-Fu - a legendary fighting skill developed and honed over time where much Like Bruce Lee's legendary Jeet kune do combat form, Lord Ding was able to pre-empt grabs and gropes coming his way, and even able to ward off multiple attackers at once.

Ding-isms can take many forms, many with biblical references and connotations. from likening himself to Judas by accepting 30 pieces of silver betraying his lord, and cohorting, with Casper McAneenaw, to being the proverbial man about town attending many wakes, funerals and weddings, seemingly at random. Legend has it that when the great Lord Ding was on Holiday with his civil parner no-hair in Gay Capital of the World: San Fransisco where he bought a local newspaper, went directly to the births, deaths and marriages section, and seen that a funeral was taking place for an italian man, so Lord Ding attended it, just for the egg and onion sandwiches and tea afterwards.

Everywhere I turn on the interweb, I bump into some mentalist...

Sex crimes and the Vatican...



From Wikipedia
Sex Crimes and the Vatican (2006) is a documentary film (39 min) filmed by Colm O'Gorman, who was raped by a Catholic priest in the diocese of Ferns in County Wexford in Ireland when he was 14 years old. Father Seán Fortune was charged with 66 counts of sexual, indecent assault and another serious sexual offence relating to eight boys but he committed suicide on the eve of his trial. Colm started an investigation with the BBC in March 2002 which led to the resignation of Dr Brendan Comiskey, the bishop leading the Ferns Diocese. Colm then pushed for a government inquiry which led to the Ferns Report.

It was filmed for the BBC Panorama Documentary Series which charged that the Vatican used a secret document, Crimen sollicitationis, to silence allegations of sexual abuse by priests and that Crimen sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became the Pope. This allegation had been disputed on a number of grounds [National Catholic reporter article here].

What I do to you Evil Jack...

your names are dumb?

"mara". the name mara, in the readings of buddhism, essentially means "evil bitch from hell". which brings me to my point: this nickname is retarded.

mara is short for tamara, but not really, because it doesn't cut "tamara" short, it cuts tamara before it even begins. this is not a nickname, this is the suffix of a name.

i will prove that this is stupid empirically. let's say that i wanted you to go to the kitchen, but instead i told you to go to then "chen". you would have no idea what i'm talking about, and therefore anyone who asks me to call them "mara" should be shot.

it should be law that anyone who arbitrarily truncates the first half of their name is required to be called "asshole" until they die. this actor who calls himself "topher grace" has adopted what must be the dumbest name of all time, and his credits would be a lot less offensive if it was listed as "asshole grace" instead. children all over the world would appreciate this fine name in the credits for win a date with ted hamilton, spiderman 3, and other crappy movies full of assholes.

you might be asking by this point, if someone named christopher can't call themselves topher, is it ok for them to call themselves chris? of course it is, this is a stupid question. "chris" is the beginning of a name, and by calling people "chris" we increase the efficiency of our communication without introducing any ambiguity. plus, we flaunt our capacity for being lazy, which as we all know is the true american dream.

then there are people named "robert" that call themselves "bob". this is possibly the most dickhead move you could make. this isn't a prefix, it isn't even a suffix, this is just plain re-writing. to all "bobs", "jacks", and "bills" who weren't born with the name, a better re-writing of your name would be "fuck you".

Jack: originally a pet name for John. Only been a given name since 19th centuary (Captain John Sparrow at your service). So if I said to whoever wrote this, "I'm going to Spain on a plane" he'd be confused and say, "You dumb shit you're going to Spain on an Aero!"?

Mmmmm Aero... yummy

Not entirely sure who wrote this but I found it here theworstthingever.

Friday 9 January 2009

From the childhood of Bob comes...

KO century beast warriors (Yes it's from the era where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles raised the bar for crazy cartoon titles; the age of ACRONYM animations.)



I feel cheated that the episodes I saw were so poorly* dubbed into English that I felt a pang of shame in the pit of my stomach anytime my parents caught me watching it. I still have the video and hmm... no, I wont be watching it anytime soon. This YouTube clip has saved me the bother.

*Poorly dubbed by the people at AnimeUK (short lived anime mag either way ahead of it's time or just a pile of poo: I do remember the mag hypocritically moaning a lot about badly dubbed anime... shame on them!)

Bob's Deletionpedia page of the day...

Crinkle Cut Jones (deleted 22 Apr 2008 at 05:22)

Jameson "Crinkle Cut" Jones is the generally credited with inventing the so-called "crinkle cut" french fry. Prior to his invention, all french fries were either cut by hand from a potato or run through a grid to cut a uniformly straight fry. Crinkle Cut Jones, as he came to be known, wanted a more visually interesting fry to distinguish his from his competitors. While not a popular as straight cut or steak fries, the crinkle cut has a good portion of market share and is beloved by many. Thanks to the innovations of Crinkle Cut Jones, we all have a little more french fry variety in life to be thankful for.

Um... what? I want to believe this and I also want Crinkle Cut Jones to appear on a bag of crinkle cut chips (fries) in the same way Tony the tiger does: "Theeeeeeere.... Crinkly!"

Wednesday 7 January 2009

French Fort Boyard kicks our Fort Boyard's ass...

Ah... the French! Scenes like these would have helped rescue the ratings of the doomed game show. Hmm... have these women been exploited? As far as I remember the female team kit was always scoop neck (never saw one polo neck). So, any woman who did go on that show knew just how much "exposure" they were going to be subjected to. Mild titillation at best, a pervs paradise basically... for your dad to watch on Saturday night and claim it was a Game show...



So what did the British Fort Boyard have; big deal we had Melinda Messinger in our Fort Boyard.. big whoop!?