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White House speechwriter William Safire’s letter to President Nixon on the failed moon landing of 1969
AS we in the know know, the 1969 moon landing never happened. But in case what never happened, never happend badly and the mission failed, speechwriter William Safire wrote to President Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman. He wanted to outline a plan should Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reach the moon’s surface but fail to return home. Buzz had a prayer. But the US needed a statement.
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Posted: 22nd, April 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
Cliff Richard’s music kills plants – Black Sabbath makes them thrive
THE relationship between music and plants has been long muttered about, despite the fact plants don’t have ears. Prince Charlies plays songs to his shrubbery and even Stevie Wonder dedicated an entire LP to our flowering friends.
However, a new experiment has shown that Sir Cliff Richard’s music may actually kill our green cousins.
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Posted: 22nd, April 2013 | In: Music, Reviews | Comments (5)
When Lester Bangs Creemed for Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music
IN 1976, Lester Bangs (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung) wrote for Creem magazine an article on Metal Machine Music, the Lou Reed album. Like many other writes, he had hangovers:
When you wake up in the morning with the worst hangover of your life, Metal Machine Music is the best medicine. Because when you first arise you’re probably so fucked (i.e., still drunk) that is doesn’t even really hurt yet (not like it’s going to), so you should put this album on immediately, not only to clear all the crap out of your head, but to prepare you for what’s in store the rest of the day.
Speaking of clearing out crap, I once had this friend who would say, “I take acid at least every two months & JUST BLOW ALL THE BAD SHIT OUTA MY BRAIN!” So I say the same thing about MMM. Except I take it about once a day, like vitamins.
In his excellent liner notes, Lou asserts that he and the other speedfreaks did not start World Wars I, II, “or the Bay of Pigs, for that matter.” And he’s right. If everybody took amphetamines, all the time, everybody would understand each other. Either that or never listen or bother with the other son of a bitch, because they’d all be too busy spending three days drawing psychedelic lines around a piece of steno paper until it’s totally black, writing eighty-page letters about meaningless occurrences to their mothers, or creating MMM. There would be no more wars, and peace and harmony would reign. Just imagine Gerald Ford on speed- he might manifest some glimmer of personality. Or Ronald Reagan- a blood vessel in his snapping-turtle lips would immediately burst, perhaps ridding us of that cocksucker. As is well known by now, JFK enjoyed regular injections of Meth and vitamins from happy croakers. ‘Nuff said. Hey may not have actually accomplished anything (except the Bay of Pigs- wait a minute, Lou hasn’t been doing his homework), but he had style and a winning smile.
You want it, don’t you? In 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide’s Billy Altman called MMM “a two-disc set consisting of nothing more than ear-wrecking electronic sludge, guaranteed to clear any room of humans in record time.”
Now you really want it.
Rolling Stone magazine also compared it to “a night in a bus terminal”.
Paul Morley tells you what to expect:
Containing nothing but Lou’s all-time favourite thing – electric guitar and distorted feedback – MMM was 64 minutes of violent, spitting droning split into four vinyl sides of more or less the same cheerless, inert and shrieking length.
Bangs:
I predict by that time the general public will have grown ears and gotten hip enough to appreciate Metal Machine Music, so this follow-up, which I’m gonna call Triumph of the Will, will be the best-selling LP of all time and those ratfucks in Chicago can suck my asshole along with that little blob Elton John who could use some speed almost as bad as Leslie West but can’t have any of mine, because as I think it was Pat Ast said in that fabulous review of Coney Island Baby in the Soho Weekly News ‘I have seen rock’s future and its name is Lou Reed'”), a double album, you ask? Simple- the two discs are, according to Lou, symbolic of two tits (“There’s never more than two,” he explained), to signify that this is, albeit mechanized, a very sexy album designed to cut in heavily on the hot Barry White market.
Whoah! get back. You all want one:
Here’s Lou, happening:
10 hangover cures from famous writers
WHAT’s your favourite cure for a hangover?
Hunter S. Thompson recommended poppers and beer.
Kingsley Amis recommended the Polish Bison (Bovril beef paste and vodka) and/ or a cup of Grand Marnier at breakfast.
“When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover. You are not sickening for anything, you have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a shit you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is.”
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Hunter S Thompson’s FBI file
THE FBI investigate all kinds of people. They had a file on journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Cody Winchester distilled it:
In 1967, the FBI was keeping close tabs on The People’s Weekly, the communist party’s west-coast newspaper affiliate. They had an informant who knew his way around the circulation department and was feeding them names of subscribers.
Among them, according to newly released records, was Hunter S. Thompson, a high-flying, drug-addled journalist who had just written a book about riding with the Hell’s Angels.
The FBI began gathering string on Thompson, who moved from San Francisco to Woody Creek, Colo. (where, decades later, he would commit suicide).
The agency followed Thompson’s unsuccessful bid for sheriff of Pitkin County, in which the Freak Power candidate memorably shaved his head bald and began referring to the crew-cut sheriff he was running against as “my long-haired opponent.” (Thompson campaigned on promises to rename Aspen “Fat City USA”; to jackhammer the streets and lay down sod; and to legalize drugs for personal use. Profit-seeking traffickers would be put in stocks on the courthouse lawn.)
FBI agents interviewed Thompson’s mailman and other Woody Creek locals. They collected copies of the Aspen Wallposter, a bimonthly newspaper that Thompson edited with the artist Tom Benton; illustrations of a bloody-mouthed Nixon (spelled with a swastika) and “comments regarding law enforcement and the Director” caught the agency’s eye. The Secret Service was alerted.
All this and more is detailed in Thompson’s FBI file, which I got a copy of last week.
Photo: Journalist Hunter S. Thompson lets the camera have a quick look at his usually sunglass-covered eyes near Aspen. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of journalism in books like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” fatally shot himself Sunday night, Feb, 20, 2005 at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.
Posted: 21st, April 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev fight the religious war with Islam (bigots seize the moment)
HBO’s Bill Maher discussed the matter with Brian Levin,Director of Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism:
At one point Levin calls out”Pamela Geller”.
Well, she and the likes of Steve Emerson and Glenn Beck have been pointing the finger at a Saudi Arabian student who was injured in the blast. Here’s Beck:
We at the Blaze know that this Saudi national is a bad, bad, bad man … This administration is playing an extraordinarily dangerous game. They have very little regard for what it takes to be a citizen. Before the sequester cuts happened, they opened the prison and let illegals out. Who does that? Remember also, the Saudi national that was — is about to get on a plane — involved in blowing the legs off of American citizens, being held in protective custody or being protected, at least, by our administration. He will be put in protective custody and the plans are to deport him.
All wrong.
On the very day of the bombing, the New York Post reported on a Saudi “suspect“. That was wrong.
Of course, the Saudi is likely to be Mulsim. So. Was this an example of Islamophobia? You should be free to criticise Islam without being labelled a bigot. But critics should be scrutinised. They too can be criticised.
The Saudi national is in a Boston hospital and “is not a suspect, nor is he a person of interest. He was an individual at the marathon, and therefore, like so many individuals, has been questioned,” said the DHS. His name is Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi. He’s an innocent. He’s a victim twice over.
But other were unsure. Steve Emerson wrote in WorldNetDaily
“I just learned from my own sources that he is now going to be deported on national security grounds next Tuesday, which is very unusual,” Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism told Sean Hannity of Fox News Wednesday night.
The Reuters news agency reported President Barack Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Wednesday, noting “the meeting was not on Obama’s public schedule.”
After that meeting was mentioned, Emerson told Hannity, “That’s very interesting because this is the way things are done with Saudi Arabia. You don’t arrest their citizens. You deport them, because they don’t want them to be embarrassed and that’s the way we appease them.”
Smell that? The implication seems clear: the Saudi is not innocent and Obama is helping him. But Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says it is not so. “I am unaware of anyone who is being deported for national security concerns at all related to Boston. I don’t know where that rumor came from,” Napolitano said.
The full story seems to be this:
Boston – The Department of Homeland Security tells CNN that there has been some confusion and misreporting regarding two different Saudi nationals.
There is one Saudi national who is in a Boston hospital, and has been questioned by the FBI because he was at the marathon during the terrorist attack.
He is not a suspect, nor is he a person of interest. He was an individual at the marathon, and therefore, like so many individuals, has been questioned.
There is a second Saudi national from the Boston area who is in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for being in violation of his visa. This ICE custody has nothing to do with the Boston Marathon, officials from the Department of Homeland Security said.
Geller demandsthat “American People Must Demand the Full Story”.
Jim Hoft went on the Gateway Pundit site:
Tonight Steven Emerson told Sean Hannity that the non-suspect Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi is being deported back to the Saudi Kingdom.
Barack Obama met with the Saudi foreign minister today. It was not on public schedule.
UPDATE: Shoebat Foundation reported that ali Alharbi had links to several Al-Qaeda terrorists.
Sarah AB notes:
The Muslim community, and others, are right to express reasoned concerns about the way some critics of Islam express themselves without being tarred as intolerant and deceitful extremists, eager to clamp down on free speech, or as apologists for abuses carried out in the name of Islam.
So. Islam? Max Fisher writes about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s viewing habits:
One of the “favorite” videos lists “7 steps to a successful prayer.” Another denounces Sufism, a more mystical branch of Islam. Another, with the title “one of the signs of Allah,” shows a chameleon changing colors at will as a man sings Arabic prayers in the background.
Several of the videos under “Islam” are by a man named Abdülhamid Al Juhani, who is listed by a Salafist Web portal as a scholar. His videos include Arabic audio and Russian text and show photos of Grozny, the Chechen capital. Another video under the “Islam” heading shows young men carrying assault rifles through a forest as a narrator intones, “They demonize as terrorists anyone who supports Islam.”
Update: Mother Jones’s Adam Serwer also looks at the YouTube page. He says it includes “a video of Feiz Mohammad, a fundamentalist Australian Muslim preacher who rails against the evils of Harry Potter” as well as a video “dedicated to the prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan, which is embraced by Islamic extremists — particularly Al Qaeda.”
Bob McManus says the NYPD were right:
Just as it’s time for politicians — and especially the press — to stop chewing on Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s leg over the NYPD’s so-far-enormously-successful anti-terrorist surveillance programs.
Knock wood on the “successful” part, of course. If America has learned anything about terrorism since 9/11, it’s that the threat is incessant, though hugely unpredictable as to source, specific motivation and any given terrorist’s tool kit of choice. . . .
No doubt the dark fantasies that put the Boston bombers into motion will be teased out of their personal histories in the days and weeks to come. But there was enough on the record yesterday to discern radical Islamist motives in their plot.
That is, to ratify once again the wisdom of Ray Kelly and the NYPD in targeting Islamic extremism as a profound and continuing threat to New York and its citizens — all of its citizens, including thousands upon thousands of Muslims — and then acting accordingly.
Where was Kelly & Co. supposed to go to protect the city from Islamist terror — Lutheran quilting bees?
Roger L Simon wrote back to David Sirota, who hoped the bombers were white non-Muslims:
…what to do about Islam, an all-consuming ideology that seeks to engulf the world. The Sirotas of our culture want to downplay that but the reality remains.
Andrew Sullivan writes
That’s what I mean by a religious war. It’s war between the extremes of fundamentalist Islam and the free, secular West. That war can exist inside the mind of a single young fanatic who, merely with access to the web and guns and pressure cookers, can stop the world in its tracks. Or it can take the form of sectarian violence in Iraq.
My reader is correct that this is not reducible to Islam in all its breadth and complexity and history. But it cannot be understood at all without grasping the fundamentalist Jihadist mindset. The uncle of the two Jihadists could not be more emphatic that he as a Muslim feels utterly violated and offended by what these losers did. He says he feels ashamed. He is a Muslim as well. And he is an American through and through.
We have to make a simple distinction: between being a Muslim and being an apocalyptic self-proclaimed Jihadist. But the latter exist, are very real, and are inspired by a toxic distortion of Islam.
A reader writes:
Would you characterize Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and the militia movement they were associated with as being “at war” with the US? If anything, those men can be said to have been “at war” with EVERYONE, including the 19 children and hundreds of others that they murdered. These men and their ilk are murderers, not soldiers, and what they have done doesn’t deserve the dignity of cloaking it as some part of a larger ideological struggle. They killed because they could. Because they wanted to. And they are enemies of all humanity.
M. Zuhdi Jasser argues for more Muslim action:
Until most Muslims begin to harness our resources and our efforts to counter the ideology of Islamism and its attraction of vulnerable American Muslim youth and its pathway towards jihadization, we will continue to see youth ages 13 and up turn against us. The “morphine” of jihadism numbs their identity and drives them to destroy free societies. It infects them, dehumanizes their fellow Americans, and instructs them to commit acts of terrorism against their own — Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
As is often the case with Islamists, their radicalization is preceded by misogyny and a learned behavior that dehumanizes women and then all those who seek to be free. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was arrested in 2009 for assault and battery against his girlfriend.
The warning signs in these two youths were obvious. But as a society that refuses to engage Islamism, we ignored them at our own peril.
Howie Carr has the last word:
“I know you’re not supposed to paint with a broad brush, unless you’re a liberal, in which case you are not only permitted, but expected to make Adam Lanza the poster boy for 100 million law-abiding legal gun owners.”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 21st, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Man smuggles gold bars up rectum
TO Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, southern India, where Abdullah Mohammad Riyaz has 1.4kilos of gold on his person. He has four gold biscuits (116 gm each) tucked in his socks and eight in his rectum.
Mr Riyaz is thought to have collected the gold – valued at Rs4 million (£49,000, $74,000) – in Dubai. Duty is payable on gold brought into India.
If Mr Riyaz is looking to mount a defence, he could do better than cite the case of Paul Moran, who tried to turn his faeces into pure gold by placing them on an electric heater at his flat in Derrin Park, Enniskillen.
French bus drivers trike over too-tight trousers
BUS DRIVERS in Marseille do not like “the quality, the colour or the fit” of their new trousers. Workers with RTM, (Régie des transports de Marseille), are making ready for a day if industrial action on June 3rd.
Says CGT union leader Bernard Gargiolo:
“I won’t be wearing them. The shirts are alright, but these pants are far too tight. We reject the bottom half of this uniform, which has the same colour as the Gendarmerie National.”
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The FBI’s 2011 investigtaion into Tamerlan Tsarnaev
THE alleged Boston Marathon bombers were not invisible. The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was on the FBI’s radar. FBI Press release: 2011 Request for Information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev from Foreign Government:
2011 Request for Information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev from Foreign Government
Washington, D.C.
April 19, 2013FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691
The two individuals believed to be responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday have been positively identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, now deceased, and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, now in custody. These individuals are brothers and residents of Massachusetts. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a legal permanent resident and Dzhokar Tsarnaev is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Charges have not yet been filed against Dzhokar Tsarnaev and he is presumed innocent.Tamerlan Tsarnaev, age 26, was previously designated as Suspect 1, wearing a black hat. Dzhokar A. Tsarnaev, age 19, was designated as Suspect 2, wearing a white hat. Both were born in Kyrgyzstan.
Once the FBI learned the identities of the two brothers today, the FBI reviewed its records and determined that in early 2011, a foreign government asked the FBI for information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The request stated that it was based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.
In response to this 2011 request, the FBI checked U.S. government databases and other information to look for such things as derogatory telephone communications, possible use of online sites associated with the promotion of radical activity, associations with other persons of interest, travel history and plans, and education history. The FBI also interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev and family members. The FBI did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign, and those results were provided to the foreign government in the summer of 2011. The FBI requested but did not receive more specific or additional information from the foreign government.
It usually takes longer for conspiracy theory to take hold…
Photo: A house where Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, were lived in before leaving for Dagestan, in a small Kyrgyz city Tokmok east of the country’s capital of Bishkek, on Friday, April 20, 2013. The Tsarnaev family arrived in the United States, seeking refuge from strife in their homeland. The family had moved from Kyrgyzstan to Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia’s North Caucasus that has become an epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from Chechnya.
Posted: 20th, April 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Paris Brown: Kent police make an example of their youth heroine
PARIS Brown has been helping the police with their enquiries. Is Kent’s first and to date only teenage crime tsar (Youth Police and Crime Commissioner) back on the job?
The BBC implies as much with its headline, one suggestive as it is that Brown has been headhunted by the Force:
Paris Brown: Kent Tweet row girl interviewed by police
But police were not impressed by her illiberal tweets about “Pikeys”, “illegals” and “fags” and thought her a suitable candidate for cadetship. Her messages actually cost her that £15,000 a year job helping police and youth come together. You see, Kent police’s Special Branch have seized Brown’s mobile phone and questioned her about her tweets. A police spokesperson says:
“Officers must first determine the extent of the misuse of social media so that the Crown Prosecution Service can then, taking into account the DPP’s [director of public prosecutions] interim guidance, determine whether or not any potential evidence meets the set criteria for a prosecution.”
The Times calls her the “disgraced teenager”. The Mail calls her the “offensive… foul-mouthed youth crime commissioner”. The sane might just call her a teenager and wonder what the stiffs expected an adolescent to tweet about when she was 14 or 15? Was it all to be about tax discs and points of law? Would Paris Brown tweet about the antics of her private police patrols, who, dressed in smart Navy Blue stab vests (cereal boxes stuffed down actual vests), woggles and brown sandals, restored faith in Britain’s youth?
Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, seems to think so, telling one and all of his “deep shock”:
“Public money should never be given to anyone who refers to violence, sex, drunkenness and other antisocial behaviour in this offensive manner.”
Whither the adult who when a sniggering teenager told opposing sets of football fans they were “going home in St John’s ambulance” (blushes), fretted about sex and vomited up a bottle of Soave. Or as Kent’s crime commissioner, Ann Barnes, Paris’s now former boss, said of the teenager:
“Paris is going to be the young face of policing in the county and I’m quite sure she is going to do a brilliant job at helping the police to connect with young people.”
Paris would make the police understand youth. The police would then read their tweets and nick them for saying things adults know to be stupid.
Posted: 20th, April 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
American ignorance forces Czech ambassador to issue statement saying Czechs are not Chechens
DID you hear the CNN anchorman root the Boston Marathon bombing in “the Islamic Czech Republic”?
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and 6-year-old brother Tamerlan, 26, were born in Chechnya.
Ambassador Petr Gandalovič, Czech ambassador goes on the record:
As many I was deeply shocked by the tragedy that occurred in Boston earlier this month. It was a stark reminder of the fact that any of us could be a victim of senseless violence anywhere at any moment.
As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect. The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities – the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.
As the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman noted in his message to President Obama, the Czech Republic is an active and reliable partner of the United States in the fight against terrorism. We are determined to stand side by side with our allies in this respect, there is no doubt about that.
The Onion was right:
“Our research shows that, while many Americans would like nothing more than to make sweeping, insensitive generalizations about these two individuals based purely on their ethnic identity, this process is largely impeded by the fact that 9 out of 10 Americans truly know next to nothing about Chechnya, including even the very barest details of what or where Chechnya is,” said lead researcher Dr. Tim Kinane, adding that a majority of American citizens are almost totally unaware of Chechen history and culture, how to locate Chechnya on a map, whether Chechnya is a country or a city or a region, or that a person from Chechnya is called a Chechen.
Such are the facts…
Posted: 20th, April 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Boston Marathon bombs: How tweeting the Watertown shootout can get you killed (put those lights out!)
DO you rubberneck? Kristian Tuinzing @Dutchguy000 tweets a a “bullet hole in my wall from Watertown shootout. My head was there minutes before”.
Wow. That really is a horrible calendar. And there’s no writing on it. None. The hole’s the best part.
But Mr Tuinzing’s wall planner could have been decorated with his last thoughts – literally.
Lt. Col. Robert Bateman explains why filming a shoot out is not a great idea. It makes the work of these chaps all the more remarkable:
In the real world, even when a bullet does hit something, unless it is at nearly a right angle, THAT BULLET CAN STILL KILL YOU. It is called a ricochet. Ever played pool? Same idea. Remember that. Even the bullets not aimed at, or anywhere near you, can ruin your whole day…firing anything with greater hitting power than, say, a .32.. it will go through things. Metals, woods, sheet-rock? No problem. Your front door will not protect you, at all. Nor will the walls of a normal suburban house, nor the three Sheet-rock walls beyond that. In a car, the only thing that really stops most bullets would be the engine block itself. All the rest of the body of a car, well, basically tin-foil. All those cop movies you remember from the 70s, when they hid behind the opened door of their patrol car and shot at the bad guy? Yea, no. Do not think that works.
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Great headlines: The Ulster Gazette ‘s Bohemian Rhapsody
THE Ulster Gazette has produced a cracking headline:
Understanding the Jihad Brothers: Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Unicorn blood and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s beer pong
THE Tsarnaev are not the Jihad Bothers, as the Sun dubs them. They were no comedy act. So. Wht do we know about them. The best quotes from those who met them are here.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead. The one quote that seems worth repeating ad finitim in all media outlets is his telling a photographer:
“I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.”
And:
In April 2012 Tamerlan was clearly watching radical Islamist content on the internet. His YouTube channel includes several posts by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed, an Australian ex-boxer, now resident in Lebanon. One rant by Mohammed includes a denunciation of Harry Potter films as promoting “paganism, evil, magic and the drinking of unicorn blood”.
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Weather forecasters to be sued for wrong reports
PREDICTING the weather is like trying to catch rain with dentures. Endless figures are crunched and the end result is a vague idea of what could happen, coupled with a cheerful shrug.
Well, the owner of a cave centre in Wales is not having it and is threatening to sue weather forecasters over their inaccurate reports.
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American turned Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev into killers, says expert
SO why did Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19 , and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, allegedly murder four people and injure scores more. The Boston Globe‘s Kevin Cullen has discovered some facts:
I was on an NPR show this morning, talking as I drove back from Cambridge to write this column, and a caller came on the air and started talking about how we’ve got to look in the mirror and ask what we as Americans have done to create angry young men like this.
I almost drove off the road.
No one who lost their life or their limbs on Boylston Street last Monday did anything to create angry young men like this.
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In photos: the hunt and capture of Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
IN photos: the hunt and capture of Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19 (see above). His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, known as “suspect Number 1” was killed during a shootout in the Boston suburb of Waterton. He was one of five people killed in the drama.
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Posted: 20th, April 2013 | In: Photojournalism, Reviews | Comment (1)
MI6 safehouse features on Google Maps
THE Secret Intelligent Service will be having kittens this morning as one of their buildings appeared on Google Maps, complete with sarcastic reviews.
Somehow, one of MI6’s safehouses in central London found itself included on Street View, which invariably means that it won’t be a safehouse for long, now we all know where it is.
Reports state that British intelligence needn’t worry as this is the handiwork of Reddit jokers, however, The Anorak doesn’t mind going on record and proclaiming that this is clearly a double bluff. We know your game, Bond.
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What they all said about peaceful all American kids Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev
RIGHT up until the moment Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev allegedly planted bombs and blew up people watching the Boston Marathon they were just regular guys. Not for a moment should you think that the therapy industries and police agencies failed to notice two budding mass murderers passing through the system. Know that they were just a couple of lads:
The family was given permanent residence on March 2, 2007. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became a US citizen in September 2012. There is no record of him ever having left the US. Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months outside the US in 2012.
Sky News: “Boston: Brothers Were ‘Regular American Kids'”
The Gobe – Zolan Kanno-Youngs talke of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:
“Dzokhar was just a guy with full potential, and never showed any signs of doing this whatsoever. I think that if you ask anybody in Cambridge that truly knew him, and truly hung out with him, this you would know that this is probably the most shocking news we’ve heard in a while….
“He was one of the more peaceful religious people I know. He never brought up any sort of political views whatsoever. I’m still in shock. I honestly can’t accept it. But I’m gonna have to.”
Alina Tsarnaev talks to WBZ-Boston about her brothers:
“They were great people. I never would have expected it. They are smart – I don’t now what’s gotten into them.”
Maret Tsarnaeva, the brother’s aunt, talks to journalists in Toronto, Canada:
“Within the family, everything was perfect…
“What century are we living in? We need evidence. Otherwise you can go shoot anyone like a chicken on the street. Not for me. We need evidence.All these pictures are on the computer. I have to see them. You have to have a motive first. Something that would drive you through some actions. They cannot go crazy or mad or sick just for one day. As far as I know them they are fine.”
She says Tamerlan Tsarnaev is married and has a daughter.
“Tamerlan has his daughter, above the age of that little boy who died there. Why would he think that this daughter’s life is worth more than that little boy’s life that died there? I don’t trust the FBI. Show me evidence.”
Anzor Tsarnaev, the father of the suspects, tells the AP:
“My son is a true angel… We expected him to come on holidays here… They were set up, they were set up! I saw it on television; they killed my older son Tamerlan.”
“In my opinion, my children were set up by the secret services because they are practising Muslims.”
“I will never believe my boys could have done such a terrible thing,” he said in a telephone interview from Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan region. “I have no doubt they were set up.”
“My older son is killed and now they are after my little boy,” he said. “It is a provocation of the special services who went after them because my sons are Muslims and don’t have anyone in America to protect them.”
Tsarnaevs’ father has more:
Q: Did he want to be an American citizen?
A. He wanted to, of course. Why not?
Q. But it didn’t work out, right?
A. Because with his girlfriend, there was a scandal. He hit her lightly. He was locked up for half an hour. There was jealousy there. He paid $250, that was it, he went home. Because of that — in America you can’t touch a woman, they wouldn’t give him citizenship.
A. Because of that they didn’t give him citizenship?
Q. He had gone through the interview, that was it. But they said, he said, they will check the federal authorities, when they check me they will give it. He would have been granted it, he passed the interview. Now we have a new system where they check young people. Because he is a Muslim, I think, and a Chechen, too.
And this might be a classic:
Yes, he was in Makhachkala. Makhachkala, he was never out my sight. He used to sleep till lunchtime, then we visited relatives. We went to Chechnya to visit relatives. He only communicated with me and his cousins. There was nobody (else). People know. I would ask him, did you come here to sleep or what?
Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya speaks on Instagram:
“Tragic events happened in Boston. As a result of a terrorist attack, people were killed. We already expressed our condolences to the residents of the city and to the people of America. Today, as the media report, a certain Tsarnaev was killed during a detention attempt. It would be logical if he was detained and an investigation was conducted, all the circumstances and degree of his guilt explained. Apparently, the special forces needed a result at any price to calm society. Any attempt to make a link between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs, if they are guilty, is in vain. They grew up in the US, their views and beliefs were formed there. The roots of evil must be searched for in America. The whole world must battle with terrorism. We know this better than anyone. We wish recover to all the victims and share Americans’ feeling of sorrow.”
Robin Young, host of the public radio PRI show Here and Now, tweets:
“Remember Djohar well, beautiful boy in tux at prom party and elsewhere.”
They knew it!
Tamerlan Tsarnaev won the New England Golden Gloves amateur boxing competition in 2009. New York Daily News speaks to boxer Edwin Rodriguez:
“He was really weird and kind of downplaying [the workout] saying ‘Edwin is too light. He’s not going to be a good work for me, but I’m going to come down anyways… He was odd looking, dressed up with military boots, kind of a weird guy.
“We were just sparring so I wasn’t trying to knock him out. But I was trying to hurt him to the point he’d respect me because he thought I was too small so I didn’t really like that. He told that to my trainer. Like I said, he was kind of a cocky and arrogant type of character. He was a little odd and different.”
Ruslan Tsarni is the brothers’ uncle. Why would they have done it?
“We’re Muslims, we’re Chechens, we’re ethnic Chechens. Someone radicalised them, but it was not my brother, who just moved back to Russia. He spent his life bringing bread to their table, fixing cars. He didn’t have time or chance. He’s been working. What do I think was behind this? Being losers, not being able to settle themselves, and thereby hating everyone who did…
“It’s not a surprise about him [Tamerlan]. The younger one, that’s something else.”
Deana Beaulieu went to school with Dzhokhar. She told the AP, you have to be “careful with the quiet ones”.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tweeted:
“I didn’t become a lifeguard to just chill and get paid, I do it for the people, saving lives brings me joy.”
On the day of the bombing, he tweetred:
“There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don’t hear them ‘cus they’re the minority… Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people,” and urged fellow users to re-tweet a photograph of a man bending over an injured woman.”
His last tweet was on Wednesday went:
“I’m a stress-free kind of guy.”
Russia Today talks to Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the brothers’ mother:
Such are the facts…
Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (3)
Boston Marathon bombs: Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
BOSTON Marathon bombers: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, came to the United States from his native Chechnya as a tourist travelling on a Kyrgyz 2002. He then sought asylum. He got it in 2012. He’s now on the run. Tamerlan Tsarnaev is his brother. He was given a green card after arrival in the US in 2004 but is not a naturalised citizen. He’s been shot dead.
The brother lived at Norfolk Street,Cambridge. Dzhokhar is a student at UMass Dartmouth.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev worked as a lifeguard Harvard University.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov states:
“Any attempt to make a connection between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs – if indeed they are guilty – are in vain. They grew up in the United States, their attitudes and believes were forged there. It is necessary to seek the roots of this evil in America – the whole world has to fight terrorism. We know that better than anyone else…
“The persons in question haven’t lived in Chechnya in their mature years and if they became ‘bad guys’ it’s the responsibility of those who raised them.”
He thins hints at the inevitable conspiracy:
“Today, as the media report, a certain Tsarnaev was killed during a detention attempt. It would be logical if he was detained and an investigation was conducted, all the circumstances and degree of his guilt explained. Apparently, the special forces needed a result at any price to calm society.”
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Boston Marathon bombs: Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi are innocent
THE Boston Marathon Bombs: Mike Mulugeta is dead, presumed killed in a police shoot out. Well, so many reports say. But it’s not true.
The other suspect fingered on the web is Sunil Tripathi. He ‘vanished’ from his home in Angell Street, Providence in March. But he’s innocent, too.
Photo: the suspect behind Martin Richards, the murdered 8-year-old.
The Times writes:
Mr Tripathi is described as a left-wing Marxist of Indian Brahmin descent, whose father is a successful software developer. His family set up a Twitter account and a Facebook page last month to help the search for him. Mr Tripathi was first identified as a suspect in a crowdsleuthing exercise on the Reddit website.
But the Times is wrong.
Other news:
One policeman killed in MIT shooting. The New York Times piece has more on the shootout in Watertown.
Update: Both Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi are innocent. They were wrongly identified on social media. So much for web sleuthing.
Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (5)
Photos of the Boston Marathon bomb suspects
THE Boston Marathon: the FBI has released these images of men they want to talk to in connection with the crime. As everyone with a vested interest lined up the usual suspects, there was one thing we all felt to be true: the perpetrators are most likely to be men.
Is the man in the above photograph smiling?
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Men deported for being too good-looking
HANDSOME people have dreadful lives don’t they? All those sexual advances, grooming and deportation! You’re querying the latter? Well, that’s what happened to three fellas from the UAE who were whisked away from a festival in Saudi Arabia for apparently being ‘too good-looking’.
Janadriyah – an annual shindig in Riyadh – was temporarily stopped on Sunday while these three devilishly handsome men were escorted from the event.
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Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment (1)
Texas fertiliser plant explosion: the terrifying video
IN Texas a fertiliser plant has blown up. Many are feared dead.
The blast at the West Fertiliser Plant near Waco hit 2.1 on the Richter scale. These people were at the scene:
Posted: 18th, April 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
