5
POPSSanta Claus vs. Krampus... TO THE DEATH! (By yours truly) More: These stories involve strong language, violence, sexuality, drug use both recreational and spiritual, and fairy-tale subjects on the darker side of the "Bruno Bettelheim" scale , the ones where bad & lazy servants gets tarred and feathered, and the wicked are forced to dance themselves to death wearing red-hot iron shoes. Disney has been driven from the building. This page will serve as a central list for links to the the collected stories as I finish them and their links go live. Not sure how many it's going to take, but I know how it ends for sure. I also, from time to time, blog about the writing process . As with any journey, getting there is most of the fun. Hope you'll take this one with me. As with any journey, getting there is most of
2
POPSPirates Set Up An Exchange to Manage Their Investments
"The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or useful materials ... we've made piracy a community activity." Haradheere, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Mogadishu, used to be a small fishing village. Now it is a bustling town where luxury 4x4 cars owned by the pirates and those who bankroll them create honking traffic jams along its pot-holed, dusty streets. Somalia's Western-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is pinned down battling hard-line Islamist rebels, and controls little more than a few streets of the capital. The administration has no influence in Haradheere -- where a senior local official said piracy paid for almost everything. "Let the anti-piracy navies continue their search for us. We have no worries because our motto for the job is 'do or die'." Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out
6
POPSRed Teeth the Pirate...I Mean, Environmentalist And that those "80 luxury automobiles crowded the shore as friends and family members of pirates clamored to get a share of the ransom money" have nothing to do with real motives. We've seen this before. We've seen Al Sharpton call them the "voluntary coast guard." And we've seen the "white Rat," an Idi Amin henchman, describe them as "brave...fisherman...seamen and navigators. They had no choice but to take revenge on foreign shipping and earn a living by ransom demands." Seriously. Is this where we break into "Gee, Officer Krupke"? Colleague Howard Nemerov made another telling observation about all this in yesterday's Austin Gun Rights Examiner column: The New York Times downplayed the fact that guns were aboard the Alabama, hiding it within one paragraph among other methods employed in the ship’s defense: "But a security team on board the Maersk Alabama responded with small-arms fire, long-range acoustical devices painful to
1
POPSBREAKING: Leaked UK government plan to create "Pirate Finder General" with power to appoint militias "For those who still wonder why governments put so much effort into fighting piracy, if you see piracy as what it essentially is - uncontrolled flow of information - things become much more clear. Yes, they're corporate shills but they also fear as death people who can freely communicate. Free and uncensored mass communication produces culture, knowledge and encourages independence." "Oh my nonexistent god. I think I'm at the stage where I may have to vote Tory, as I am damned & burning in a figurative hell if I am voting Labour again, after years & years of hoping beyond hope that they'd get in, during the Thatcher & Major years, bloody hell... I can't vote Lib Dem in my area because they won't even campaign here so what choice do I really have? I could cry, really I could. Can we have democracy in the UK please?"
3
POPSSept. 19th - Tis time to talk pirate, me hearties More: But it wasn't until humorist Dave Barry caught wind of the idea and threw his support behind it in a September 2002 Miami Herald column that this rickety ship took sail. # Ahoy -- Hello. # Avast -- Stand and give attention; listen up. # Aye -- I heartily agree with everything you said or did. # Aye Aye -- Yeah, boss, I'll get on that as soon as I finish this coffee or rum. #Aarrr -- Not to be confused with Arrgh (a sign of pain), it's a way of announcing yourself to the world, telling everyone you're here and alive. It could mean don't look at my girlfriend that way, or I'm enjoying this hamburger.
18
POPSWho Are The Real Pirates In Africa's Waters? Like the pirates of the ``golden age’’, today's Somali pirates see themselves as fighting for justice. As Sugale Ali told the October 1, 2008, NYT: ``We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.’’ ``The truth is, if you ask any Somali, if getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western vessels, and the production of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high. It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums.’’
8
POPSSwedish pirates capture EU seat
Established content providers in film, television and music, hope that aggressive enforcement of copyright law will ensure that their 20th Century business models survive against the onslaught of the network society. Evidence that heavy downloaders are also heavy music purchasers doesn't seem to have made any difference to the approach either, and instead of finding new business models they hold on to the old ways of working. The larger ISPs in the UK, Virgin, Sky and BT, are also content providers with their own interests in shoring up the current copyright regime. The spaces within which we can live unobserved are constantly diminishing, as both public and private sector agencies link their databases together or co-operate to ensure that nothing we do goes unremarked. Once ISPs decide that they are no longer neutral carriers of bits and choose to ally themselves with the content industry then we lose another sliver of freedom. (Bill Thompson, independent journalist & commentato
2
POPSNavy Grog AVAST, YA LUBBERS! Once again, it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so if yer plannin' to celebrate proper, ya best not fill yer mugs with any ole swill! Here be a good starter, for sophisticates and scallywags alike. Drink up, me hearties! ARRRRRR!
1
POPSCFR Pushes Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) The Obama administration, like the Democratic and Republican administrations preceding it, stretching back the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (and even before), is heavily larded with CFR members in critical positions. Obama’s CFR appointments, so far, include Timothy Geithner, Robert Gates, Michele Flournoy, Lawrence Summers, Thomas Donilon, Rosa Brooks, James Steinberg, Susan Rice, John Holdren, Eric Shinseki, Daniel Tarullo, Mona Sutphen, and Jeh Johnson. His CFR advisers include Anthony Lake, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, Sarah Sewall, and William M. Daley. President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of State Clinton are not formal CFR members, but all three have been closely associated with the organization (speaking at CFR programs and/or writing for the CFR journal, Foreign Affairs), and all three have supported ratifying LOST while serving in the Senate.
2
POPSRay Gun--Civilian Population Control Weapon? Non-military sales contracts to be announced soon. Watch for the UK government and Homeland Security, and law enforcement be the first to purchase this new weapon. It seems to suit applications in controlling angry crowds or protestors or times of martial law. Interesting that the first sales will be non-military and commercial, isn't it? The article shows presentations for "pirate control', and the like, but these seem much more far-fetched applications for which it would be less than suitable.
7
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update