Best of the week: Takedown!
According to Israel, a cargo ship seized with of hundreds of tons of rockets, missiles, mortars, grenades and anti-tank weapons was headed for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Not anymore, bitches!Israel stopped the ship, the Francop, which bore writing in English that said "I.R. Iranian Shipping Lines Group", off the coast of Cyprus and towed it to the port of Ashdod. It carried orange, red, white and blue containers piled three deep on its deck. Rows of crates from the vessel were displayed on the dock, and inside were rockets, hand grenades, mortars and ammunition. At least 3,000 missiles were on board, and the seizure was the largest ever.
Among the weaponry displayed were Katyusha rockets. One of the long skinny missiles sat atop a pile of storage boxes the military had labeled in Hebrew "rocket 122 mm." The 122 mm Katyusha was the main weapon used against Israel by Hezbollah in a monthlong war in 2006. During that war, about 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and about 160 people were killed in Israel. Some of the weapons were hidden in the Francop's containers behind stacked bags of polyethylene labeled in English "NPC National Petrochemical Company," and the flame logo used by both the company and the Iranian Petroleum Ministry. Israel said the huge weapons shipment backed up its long-standing contention that Iran is supplying large quantities of arms to Hezbollah and Hamas.
The Israeli military said cargo certificates showed the ship departed an Iranian port for Syria, from where the weapons would be transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The military did not show the documents, and Syria denied the vessel was carrying weapons. Iran has never acknowledged giving weapons to Hezbollah and the seizure may also complicate relations with Egypt, where Israel says the weapons were loaded. The seizure came a day after Israeli officials said Hamas tested an Iranian rocket that can hit metropolitan Tel Aviv — bringing to the fore Israeli fears that both Hezbollah and Hamas are rearming for more confrontations.
Israel said the ship arrived in Beirut from Iran Oct. 28 and left the next day with a declared destination of Turkey. Instead, Israel said, it sailed to Damietta, Egypt, where the weapons were loaded. Its next destination was supposed to be Latakia in Syria, via Cyprus, Israel said. The vessel, sailing under an Antiguan flag, was operated by United Feeder Services, a Cyprus-based shipping company. An employee of the company's chartering department in Cyprus who would not identify himself confirmed the ship's destination but insisted the company did not know what was in the containers or where the cargo originated.
It's nice to see Israel bust these scumbags, but how much more red handed must these terrorist nations be before more is done to support Israel?
Also: Congratulations are in order! Police have determined a teen missing since 1954 was murdered! Time to retire!
Buried as Jane Doe in Colorado 55 years ago, Dorothy Gay Howard's disappearance took a historian, a detective and a determined family member to make the connection after more than a half century that these two people were one and the same.
The lead investigator in the case said Howard died of blunt-force trauma. She couldn't be identified because her body was found a week after she was killed, and animals had gotten to her face and fingers. At the time, the mystery made headlines across Colorado, and Boulder residents raised enough money to buy her a gravestone, which read "Jane Doe — April 1954 — Age About 20 Years."
Boulder County sheriff's have credited historian Silvia Pettem with encouraging them to renew efforts to identify Jane Doe. Meanwhile, Howard's grandniece Michelle Marie Fowler decided to contact them after reading an article about Jane Doe and asked for a DNA sample. Authorities think that it was serial killer Harvey Glatman, executed in 1959 in California, who was responsible. Glatman, who confessed to killing three women, had time in a Colorado state prison for violent assaults on women, including one about a quarter of a mile from where Howard's body was found. Because of marks on her body, evidence at the scene and a passing reference Glatman made to a California police detective, Police theory is that Glatman hit Howard with his car as she tried to get away.
Now, on to the rest of the cases from the 1950s!
And: The meek shall not inherit, but the horny might.
Inspired by the comment on another blog, "By 2100 Everyone Will Be Part Duggar," Maggie Koerth-Baker at Boing Boing set out to see whether that might actually be true:
Best picture of the week:
After all, back in 2003, researchers figured out that 8% of all men living in central and east Asia--a huge proportion of the global population--are likely descendants of Mongol ruler/horde-leader Genghis Khan. I contacted some of the researchers involved in that project to find out whether we can project that kind of genetic impact forward in time as well. The answer: Kinda-sorta.
"It's really just a little simple math," said Spencer Wells, Ph.D., Explorer-in-Residence with the National Geographic Society, working on their Genographic Project, which traces human migration patterns by studying DNA markers. "If you imagine that each of the Duggars' 19 kids has 19 kids, for only four generations--that's only going for 100 years--there would be 130,000 descendants of this one couple."But, at the same time, it's not as easy as all that. Wells, and colleague Chris Tyler-Smith, Ph.D.,head of the Human Evolution team at The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said it's too early to tell what the Duggars' genetic impact on America will be.
Let's look back at Khan again. And clarify things a bit, while we're at it. It's important to point out that nobody knows for certain that 8% of Asian men are descendants of the Mongol leader. What we know is that those men share a collection of genetic mutations--a haplotype--on the Y chromosome, which suggests that they all shared a common male ancestor. Y chromosomes are passed from father to son intact, without the shake-n-bake interference of maternal DNA. So Y chromosomes don't get remixed each generation, but they do, occasionally, pick up a small change here and there from random mutation. Scientists know roughly how often those mutations happen, so they can look at a haplotype, see how different it is from the general population, and get an idea of when that family group broke off from the herd. In this case, the point of origination would have been about 1000 years ago, give or take.
Scientists associate the haplotype with Genghis Khan not because all the men who share it have a predilection for little furry hats, but because of simple logical deduction. It's a rare guy who is going to have enough children, and whose children will have enough children (and etc.) to leave such a big mark on such a large geographic area. Historically, we know that around 800 years ago, old Genghis was doing quite a bit of marrying, concubinage and raping/pillaging. And we know that his immediate descendants were also powerful men who were able to have a lot of children, with a lot of different women, in a lot of different places. Chris Tyler-Smith explains it thusly, "So we can either say that there were two separate events: One, Genghis Khan's lineage, which was present in Mongolia 800 years ago and we know was greatly amplified over the next centuries, has disappeared from the current gene pool, while another lineage that arose in the same place around the same time has reached high frequency without leaving any trace in history. Or we can say that Genghis Khan's lineage and the star cluster lineage were the same. To me, this second possibility is the simpler explanation. Indirect, but a bit more than guesswork."
To tie this whole Mongolian warlord thing back to the Duggars, just look at the kids. Genghis' sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons were privileged by his power and wealth. They had the means to support BIG families, and the social capital to acquire those families. In fact, they had the social obligation to breed it up. And, thus, did the not-exactly-meek-and-peaceful Khan inherit most of Asia.
Whether the scientists of 2800 are studying the Duggar haplotype depends on how many babies the 19 Duggar kids, and their kids, have. In this case, it's not necessarily a given that the parents' productivity will be inherited. If growing up in America's biggest TV family leaves most of the kids gun-shy, so to speak, the family could end up with no more of a long-term genetic footprint than the rest of us. On the other hand, there are certainly social and religious factors encouraging the Duggarlets to follow in their parents' footsteps. And, if a large number of them do, and if their kids carry on the family tradition...we could well be on the way to welcoming our Duggar overlords. Genetically speaking.
vote for Joey Lombard
Best bonus links:
• Surging Kings Halt Pens' 7-0 Road Start - When you rally from behind and score four in a row to beat last year's Stanley Cup champs, that's a good thing.
• Army Bomb Disposal Expert Killed On Final Day Of Afghanistan Tour - Wow. Because there is no wire to cut when irony is about to detonate.
• Study: Man-Eating Lions Consumed 35 People In 1898 - Was this done by the same people who solved that cold case? Good thing we know this now.
• Florida Baby Found Alive In Box Under Sitter's Bed - and it only took them five days to do it! Only on Florida, folks.
Worst of the week: Exodus - movement of Jap people.
Toyota, the world's largest automaker, is pulling out of Formula One racing.
"Based on the current economic environment, we realize we have no choice but to withdraw from Formula One," said Toyota's president.
Toyota follows Honda as the second major Japanese automaker to withdraw from the sport in the last 11 months. When Honda pulled out last December, Brawn GP took over the old Honda team, and won the 2009 F1 championship. Toyota officials called the withdrawal from F1 complete, making a return to the sport when and if conditions improve unlikely. The announcement comes on the heels of its worst-ever loss in the financial year.
The FIA will review the legality Toyota's pullout that since the Japanese team's announcement comes only weeks after it committed to the sport through 2012.
Just days before, Japanese tire manufacturer Bridgestone Corp. announced it would not renew its exclusive deal to supply tires for F1 when its contract expires in 2010. And in July, Toyota-owned Fuji International Speedway announced it would not host the Japanese F1 GP from 2010 and beyond amid the faltering global economy.
F1 is not the only motor sport to be affected. Citing similar concerns to Toyota and Honda, fellow Japanese automakers Subaru and Suzuki pulled out of the World Rally Championship ahead of the 2009 season.
Toyota made its F1 debut in 2002 but never won a grand prix. The team's best result was in 2005 when Jarno Trulli finished second in Malaysia and Bahrain. Despite a promising start to the 2009 season, Toyota finished fifth in the constructors' standings. Trulli and Timo Glock raced for Toyota this season. Trulli finished eighth in the driver standings and Glock was 10th. Kamui Kobayashi filled in for an injured Glock in the last race of the season and posted a sixth-place finish at Abu Dhabi.
Even after the season has ended, there's still big drama in F1.
Also: Never mind the snakes...there's rats on the plane!
In what has been a bad year for airlines everywhere, Air India has suffered from a series of particularly painful — and at times embarrassing — misfortunes. The struggling government-owned carrier’s already uneven reputation has been further tarnished in recent months by rats on a plane, a strike by senior pilots and a midair fistfight between pilots and flight attendants. In September, a flight to Riyadh was grounded after a passenger saw sparks coming from an engine.
The embarrassing chain of events and the airline’s dire financial situation — it is expected to lose more than $1 billion in the current business year, and the government tentatively pledged about $1.1 billion in bailout money to it recently — has prompted many to ask: Why is the Indian government still running an airline?
The question is particularly relevant in a country that has more poor people than any other nation and where just a tiny percentage of the people fly. Many analysts say government ownership is a root cause of Air India’s most pressing problems. In 2007, for instance, the government forced the airline into a poorly conceived merger with Indian Airlines, which was also state-owned. Politicians have influenced the company’s dealings with labor unions, leaving the airline with a much bigger and better-paid staff of 31,000 than it can afford. Employees, too, say Air India is rudderless. “We feel like an orphan. Every three years we get a new mother and a new father,” said Capt. Shailendra Singh, president of the Indian Commercial Pilots Association.
In the last 15 years, both the airline’s reputation and its market share have eroded. While it continued to fly years-old planes, and passengers complained that its staff treated them in the surly manner Indians have come to expect from government employees, more nimble rivals like Jet Airways and Kingfisher flew shiny new planes and built reputations for indulgent service. Air India has recently begun adding dozens of new planes to its fleet. And the series of unfortunate events in the last two months has only heightened the perception that Air India is troubled.
Late September, a flight to Toronto was delayed 11 hours as employees hunted rats that had scurried onto the plane while it was being cleaned. The airline worried that the rats might chew through wiring. That same day, senior pilots began calling in sick to protest the airline’s plans to cut their pay as much as 50%. The incident disrupted dozens of flights for four days, ending only after senior policy makers promised that pay packages would not be reduced without negotiations with the senior, or executive, pilots, who are not represented by a union.
And just last month, pilots and flight attendants brawled in front of passengers on a plane flying to India from the United Arab Emirates. One attendant said a pilot had molested her and shoved her. The pilots said that was not true. One of the pilots told a local reporter that the cockpit had been unmanned for 10 minutes during the fight, a claim that the airline has denied.
I love their food and music, but God help me if I ever have to travel there.
And: It's not kids who say the darndest things, it's celebrity assholes.
"I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears. That was the level of media chaos that happened the next day," said the singer-cum-punching bag, slagging both the white trash performer and decrying her busted image. "Teenage girls can't tell their parents that their boyfriend beats them up...It's one of the things we (women) hide because it's embarrassing." Well, if you're just going to take it, then shut up and take it. Embarrassing is getting beat and doing nothing about it. This isn't Mad Men, it's 2009. That shit doesn't fly, so don't let it.
Next, Reese "The Chin" Witherspoon has just released a new fragrance, In Bloom, for Avon, and she says she "is proud that the scent reflects her new attitude toward life." How the fuck does a smell reflect a life attitude, unless it's the scent of soap when you're a dirty homeless person?
"I think that In Bloom captures the idea that I'm at a time in my life where I feel very confident with my work, with my personal life -- and that it's a time to really blossom." Nice marketing statement. The star -- who was involved in practically all aspects of the "incredibly complicated process" of creating a fragrance over the past two years also says she "incorporated memories" from her childhood. Which makes me ask, does being touched by a cousin have a scent?
"A large part of my childhood was spent in my yard with a gigantic magnolia tree, so I knew it had to have magnolia in it." In Bloom also incorporates peach tea leaves and gardenia, a nod to the perfume her mom used to wear. So this scent about her new attutide towards life is the smell of childhood and memories of her mother? How the fuck does that make any sense? Shut up and stop bullshitting just so you can get a profit from putting your name on a product.
Worst picture of the week:
Lady Gaga, eligible for the fucktard Hall Of Fame - immediately
Worst bonus links
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• Suicide Prevention Groups Protest `The Office' - Maybe they ought to protest shows that make you want to kill yourself, like Two And A Half Men.
• Jon Gosselin Does Yoga - The OMG! Idiotic Non-Story Of The Week. "His spiritual quest continues as he tries out meditative poses..."? This douchetard couldn't get spiritual if he was getting fisted by the Dali Lama.
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