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POPSRe: Kelika's Clip-Stealth boat Ady Gil Intriguing clip by Kelika led me to do a little research. More from the article below: "Now the newly-renamed vessel has been unveiled as the Sea Shepherd's new weapon in the organisation's sixth campaign against whaling, Operation Waltzing Mathilda, which will launch from Australia early next month. The craft, which is capable of up to 50 knots, will be used to intercept and physically block harpoon ships from illegally slaughtering whales. The Ady Gil and the Steve Irwin are the two remaining ships in the Sea Shepherd Society’s fleet. A third vessel – the Farley Mowat – was sent to protest against Canadian seal hunting last year and was seized by offiicials."
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POPSObama's War Whoop: "Let the bloodbath begin!"
Obama also has a glaring truth-in-advertising problem. He's just not who he pretends to be. He was sold as an avatar of change but, as soon as he was sworn in, he proceeded to reinforce the most regressive policies of the Bush administration. With typical callousness, he has run roughshod over his liberal base who mistook his sweeping proclamations as a sincere commitment to progressive politics. Boy, were they duped. No change, no way. So what exactly is the difference between George Bush and Barack Obama? 3 inches and maybe 20 lbs, beyond that, not a thing. They're carbon copies. Obama will now deploy 30,000 troops to the Afghan hellhole while activating Gen Stanley "death squad" McChrystal's savage counterinsurgency operation which will integrate psyops, special forces, NGOs, psychologists, media, anthropologists, humanitarian agencies, public relations, reconstruction, robotic drones, and conventional forces to assert control over the South and the tribal areas of Pakistan
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POPSTips On How To Buy Mon Calamari Star Cruiser-Star Wars Command Center
Best tip is please grab before they run out your kids world of imagination and most powerful desire of the alternative universe of the imperial star. This is the ultimate in Star Wars One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser episode. A 10-year celebration of mon calamari star ship as a command center for real come to life lego creations of Admiral Ackbar, Rebel leader Mon Mothma, General Lando Calrissian, General Madine, a Mon Calamari officer and a Green Squadron A-wing pilot. The Calamari cruiser is the capital ship, command center in these wars of rebellion in the hyperspace, against the Empires second Death Star. This is a world of the famous adventure stories of the green squadron, a-wing starfighters, squadron a-wing, 13 a-wing pilot, a world where kids learn the communal military art and tradition of 'build and design' trust and loyalty on the altar of command and control with the salvation and preservation of society and values as a goal, a goal against terrorists and rebels.
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POPSFDNY's New Fire Boat to Honor 343 Bravest Smith told the station that the letters spelling out 'Three Forty Three" were all cut from World Trade Center and welded on by the shipyard's workers. Not only will the fire boat be the biggest, he said it also will be the highest in capacity, pumping close to 50 thousand gallons a minute -- equivalent to about 50 average size city fire engines. "This thing as far as looking at fire fighting as a battle this thing's a nuclear weapon compared to what they've got," he said. The ceremonial launch will consist of the traditional breaking of a champagne bottle across the bow, followed by the first splash down of the ship into the Gulf. FDNY officials in attendance at the ceremony will include: Chief of Special Operations William Seelig, Chief of Marine Operations James Dalton, Battalion Chief of Marine Operations Michael Buckheit and Retired Chief of Special Operations William Siegel.
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POPSA Soldier's Story Part I Return to Tarawa to discover a battlefield covered in garbage and human waste, and the unspeakable disgrace of having hundreds of fallen American heroes " including a man posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor " buried under parking lots and septic tanks. There are somewhat graphic images, and a few moments of salty language " but this is something I would encourage you to watch with your families, simply because it is so heartbreaking. If we do not often remember the cost of our freedoms, we will surely lose them. Listening to what these boys did for us " and that’s what they were: teen-aged boys, for the most part " brought home to me the debt we owe these remarkable men. It is the very least we can do to listen to their stories. They are amazing stories, funny and tragic and full of wisdom, and I mean to tell as many of them as I can, from World War 2 up through the present.
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POPSTrue Grit November 27, 1931: Concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein impresses a Vienna audience with his performance of Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand. The pianist refused to give up his career after losing his right arm in World War I. 1981: John Kennedy Toole is posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for A Confederacy of Dunces. His gritty mom, Thelma Ducoing Toole, had enlisted the initially skeptical Walker Percy to help get the book published after Toole’s suicide. 1993: Andrew Wiles announces that after many years of work he has solved the seemingly unsolvable Fermat’s Last Theorem. Mathematicians discover a small error, but Wiles resolves it within another year. October 2008: After a decade spent lobbying, high school dropout Alvin Sykes sees the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act " named for the black teenager brutally murdered in 1955 for reportedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi " signed into law, largely because of his relentless efforts.
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POPS8 Fascinating Object Graveyards An amazing assortment with a definite focus on transportation and a smaller focus on military vehicles... Some very nice gems here from the US Airplane Graveyard to the Soviet Cars and the Vending Machines of Japan. The Bolivian Train Graveyard is in the High Andean Plain and deserves a closer look. Actually ALL the graveyards deserve a closer look and the folks at Oddee.com were nice enough to give links to the parent sites, use them, you will not be sorry.
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POPSTreasure hunters claim historic warship found It did not specify the ship's exact location. Maritime lore said the ship went down in the northern part of the Channel Islands, south of England near the coast of France. Stories about treasures -- including gold -- that may have been on the ship have existed ever since its disappearance. This HMS Victory was a predecessor to the historic British ship that took the same name and which served as Admiral Nelson's flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
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POPSChinese Crew Fends Off Somali Pirates The Global Times newspaper, a tabloid run by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said yesterday two destroyers and a large-sized depot ship would set sail for the region after Christmas to defend Chinese shipping. The first tour of duty would be for three months, it said. According to Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers Assistance programme, there have been 124 incidents of piracy off Somali this year and some 60 successful hijacks. Nearly 400 people and 19 ships are being held along the coast, including a Saudi supertanker with 2 million barrels of oil and a Ukrainian cargo ship with 33 tanks.
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POPS "Just Like Old Times" Captain Mike Davis-Marks, a senior spokesman for the Navy, said: “This is bound to have an impact on pirates who for the last two years have been getting away with seizing vessels and receiving large ransoms. Now suddenly there’s the threat of death and this may force them to think again, but they are determined people, so we’ll have to see.” That’s OK. Kill more. Meanwhile, no show without Punch: The Russians claimed a helicopter based on their own frigate Neustrashimy had also taken part in yesterday’s battle , though the Royal Navy knew nothing about it. The Royal Marine commandos who boarded the pirates’ dhow were supported by a Lynx helicopter from HMS Cumberland, the MoD said.
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POPSIt's a Pirate's World Aye, they be e'erywhar,and some people in the world you just don't screw with. Unfortunately you can't always tell who those people be until tis' too late. Aye, the Wall Street and corporate scandals that began with Enron may be astonishin' for the scope and audacity o' their criminality, but they be not by any means unprecedented. In fact, Wall Street has been dogged by spectacular acts o' financial banditry since its earliest days. Gar We would ne'er glamorize criminals. We don't want any o' our young t' grow up t' rob or steal, at least not from us. Gar, Where can I find a bottle o'rum?
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POPSAaaaargh - Pirates The news story highlights that it would be difficult to unload Russian tanks. I'm doing my part and keeping an eye on eBay.
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POPSIran Warns of its Capabilities of Self Defense "Attack us and we will shut down the gulf which is what controls the flow of oil to the West". That summarizes the story behind this very slanted and propaganda-driven news article from the "liberal UK media", which states everything in such a manner as to suggest this as an offensive, instead of defensive, measure. So the US goads the UN into new economic sanctions in the game to eventually go to war, and Iran seeing this clearly warns of the consequences that attacking Iran will be no cake walk. Iran has missile systems to take out battle ships. The chess game continues, and war and oil prices (effecting all Americans daily lives) hang in the balance.
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POPS3,800 Piece LEGO Star Wars Death Star
Theis includes 25 heroes, villains, droids & creatures, 6 of which are new and exclusive to this set (Luke Skywalker in Stormtrooper outfit, Han Solo in Stormtrooper outfit, Assassin Droid, Interrogation Droid, Death Star Droid and 2 Death Star Troopers). It also includes Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C-3PO, R2-D2, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker in Jedi Knight garbs, Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, Emperor Palpatine, 2 Stormtroopers, 2 Emperor’s Royal Guards, R2-Q5, and a mouse droid! It features Movie-authentic Death Star environments which includes the Superlaser control room and target monitor, Imperial conference chamber, TIE Advanced hangar bay with moving launch rack, Emperor’s throne room, droid maintenance room, detention block, trash compactor, and much more. You can rescue Leia from the detention block cell, escape through a secret hatch to the trash compactor below or re-enact the final duel between Luke and Vader in the Emperor’s Throne Room.
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POPSNext Stop, Iran? Iran's conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000 reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and 21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces, three submarines, 59 surface warships and 10 amphibious ships. It's been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea and Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran's forces have not been worn down with bombing, wars and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from Russia that I've heard is pretty snazzy. So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I'd have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I'd have to promote you to idiot. Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of Folly. (read more at source)
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POPSDiscovered: HMS Ontario Lost During A Gale In 1780 The Ontario went down on Oct. 31, 1780, with a garrison of 60 British soldiers, a crew of about 40, mostly Canadians, and possibly about 30 American war prisoners. The warship had been launched only five months earlier and was used to ferry troops and supplies along upstate New York's frontier. Although it was the biggest British ship on the Great Lakes at the time, it never saw battle, Smith said. After the ship disappeared, the British conducted a sweeping search but tried to keep the sinking secret from Gen. George Washington's troops because of the blow to the British defenses.
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POPSNatural Disaster Evolves Into Man-Made Catastrophe "We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors." The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group have been waiting to join in the relief effort as well. U.S. Marine flights from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued Saturday — bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered. Britain's prime minister accused authorities in Burma of behaving inhumanely by preventing foreign aid from reaching victims. "This is inhuman," Gordon Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. Brown said a natural disaster "is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act.
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POPSSea Shepherd to Bill $1000.00 a Day for the Farley Mowat “And we will sue again,” said Captain Paul Watson. “We will not have the government of Canada trample on our rights as citizens and we will not have the government setting a precedent of boarding non-Canadian vessels in international waters with armed boarding parties. We intend to fight this battle in the courts and we intend to win based on the evidence that the government of Canada acted unlawfully for political reasons to further the selfish ambitions of Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Loyola Hearn.” Even the people of Newfoundland believe that the Farley Mowat should be returned to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. A week-end poll by the Newfoundland newspaper the Western Star had 75% voting to return the ship.
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POPSThe Serapis Flag Serapis is a name given to an unconventional, early United States ensign flown from the captured British frigate 'Serapis'.
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POPSNavy version of Iranian boat conflict unravels; Tape comments were spliced in; no motor noise in backgound; Iranians hailed US ship; objects in water were never thought to be dangerous; small boats incapable of damaging ships; no threats or hostile actions happened; US ships were not alarmed. Despite spectacular and erroneous media coverage, none have offered corrections, leaving impression of threat in American public mind. Bush uses it to stiffen anti-Iran rhetoric. Best comment on story: "What happened to the skier?"