week of Sept 17th Thread

[brainfiber]

This could either be very useful...or a huge waste of time.

Jer and I watched the opening episode of 'Extras', and then the first episode of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" and then some "Ren & Stimpy"



I really don't remember every second line of Skeletor's being maniacal laughter. I recall him, like all good villains, cackling following his own descriptions of his diabolical plans, but random cackling? Was he supposed to be high?

this should explain it...one of my favs of all time.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/3kmeOktIwAg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/3kmeOktIwAg</a>


Hope the link works...can't actually check it out from work.

[brainfiber]

sorry I missed all the college football hijinks around here...all I got to say is college cheerleaders are hot.

The way they can hold those girls up in the air...those guys have to be in awesome shape

[Tripp]

I had a wholly inconsequential weekend.  Had a big allergy attack saturday and missed a party.

yesterday me and S___ discoverd some super buffet out in east memphis. they had 12 buffets up in dere. I ate lots of shrimp.  really.    real shrimps.

[captqitn]

(wink to tripp)


I had a superfun weekend.   Home show on Thursday, then called in sick and followed my buddies, The Baby Robots to Baltimore and Philly.   Superfan style.   Ate lots of regional meats, drank, danced to the rock musics.

And then the Yanks took 2 out of 3.   So, I give this weekend an 8.5.

[captqitn]

And monday's shaping up ok too, with Blackwater getting kicked out of Iraq.

[brainfiber]

i woke up saturday morning to find one of my eyes itching like shit...like something was in it...but nothing was...itched all day and yesterday and today it's like all swollen and bloodshot...like i'm baked, which I'm not. But now whenever I'm talking to anybody they'll make eye contact with me for a second then look away...I make it a point to refocus them on my weird swollen eye.


we discoverd that our boys like crab legs...they had them at the chinese buffet last week.

So Saturday night we bought some crab legs and had a feast...yummy...there's something about having to work to get your food that makes it extra special.

and by work I mean cracking them and trying to get the meat out...not like hanging off a boat off Alaska in sub freeezing tempertures to catch some crabs.

[Doctor Rock]

Awfully boring thread title.  You guys couldn't do better?  Yawn!  

You want to start doing week long threads?  

[Doctor Rock]

Talking about allergies... There's a kind of plant called herb-à-poux.  I think the english name is probably ragweed...  Whenever the ragweed season comes, my nose turns into a faucet.  I become a snot monster.  

[bebopbalogna]

And monday's shaping up ok too, with Blackwater getting kicked out of Iraq.

really?   that's kinda huge.  don't see anything on the msn.   linky?

[bebopbalogna]

DAN!! DON"T CLICK HERE!! (unless you want to become a snot monster!!)








actually, i've never heard these guys, so i have no idea what they sound like.  didn't bother to check em out now either.  just remember hearing something about "canadian ragweed", so i googled it

[Tripp]

 BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead. The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a "terrible incident."
art.blackwater.sign.ap.jpg

Blackwater USA is headquartered near Moyock, North Carolina.

In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians, an Iraqi official said.

Sunday's firefight took place near Nusoor Square, an area that straddles the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Mansour and Yarmouk.

The ministry said the incident began around midday, when a convoy of sport utility vehicles came under fire from unidentified gunmen in the square.

The men in the SUVs, described by witnesses as Westerners, returned fire, and the witnesses said the vehicles are that Western security firms use.

A witness told The Associated Press that he heard an explosion before the gunfire began.

"We saw a convoy of SUVs passing in the street nearby," Hussein Abdul-Abbas, owner of a mobile phone store in the area, told the AP. "One minute later, we heard the sound of a bomb explosion followed by gunfire that lasted for 20 minutes between gunmen and the convoy people who were foreigners and dressed in civilian clothes. Everybody in the street started to flee immediately."

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said, "We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq. The investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday's killing will be referred to Iraqi justice."
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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to call Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday to discuss the matter, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The Diplomatic Security Service has launched an official investigation into the Blackwater incident, a review that will be supported by the Multi-National Forces-Iraq, he said.

McCormack said from early reports it appears to be a "terrible incident" with innocent loss of lives.

"The secretary wants to make sure we do everything we possibly can to avoid innocent loss of life," he said.

McCormack said that while the United States tries to avoid innocent casualties, "we are fighting people who don't play by any rules" and have no problem killing innocent civilians.

There has been no official notice from the Iraqi government on revoking Blackwater's license, McCormack said, so he couldn't confirm it and declined to speculate on how it would affect protection of U.S. personnel that Blackwater is handling.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad confirmed a State Department convoy was in the area.

"We are taking it very seriously. We are cooperating with the Iraqi government on several different levels and will continue this cooperation with Iraqi officials," the embassy official said.

Blackwater is one of many security firms contracted by the U.S. government during the Iraq war. An estimated 25,000-plus employees of private security firms are working in Iraq, guarding diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials. As many as 200 are believed to have been killed on the job, according to U.S. congressional reports.

Some Blackwater personnel died in a grisly incident in Iraq more than three years ago that sparked shock and outrage in the United States.

Four Americans working as private security personnel for Blackwater, all of whom were military veterans, were ambushed, killed and mutilated in March 2004 in Falluja, west of Baghdad.

People close to the company estimate it has lost about 30 employees during the war.

Iraqi authorities have issued previous complaints about shootings by private military contractors, but Iraqi courts do not have the authority to bring contractors to trial, according to a July report from the Congressional Research Service.

"Most recently, a news article discussing an incident in which a Blackwater guard shot dead an Iraqi driver in May 2007 quoted an Iraqi official's statement that the Iraqi Interior Ministry had received four previous complaints of shootings involving Blackwater employees," the congressional service report said.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee estimated in February that nearly $4 billion had been spent on security contracts amid the insurgency that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003 -- costs that have forced the delay, cancellation or scaling back of some reconstruction projects.

Sunday's incident highlighted concerns in the U.S. Congress about a subject that one lawmaker, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, has called "one of the biggest gray areas of the entire war effort" -- the legal status of private security firms in Iraq.

Meanwhile, seven people were killed and 31 others were detained Monday in U.S.-led coalition raids across Iraq, the U.S. military said.

The fatalities occurred west of Yusufiya, southwest of the capital, as coalition forces targeted two buildings used by al Qaeda in Iraq militants, who organize suicide attacks.

Armed men at one building drew weapons as troops approached, and the troops "engaged" the two and killed them, the statement said.

They killed four others who were apparently acting as lookouts and another who wouldn't surrender when ordered. Nineteen people were detained, the military said.

Troops arrested other suspects in regions north of the capital -- north of Taji, near Balad, in Baiji and near the Syrian border.

In Baghdad, three people were killed and 11 others were wounded Monday when a parked car detonated near a Shiite mosque on the edge of a densely populated Shiite neighborhood, an Interior Ministry official said. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh, Suzanne Simons, Cal Perry and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

[bebopbalogna]

thanks tripp.  i actually just finished reading that. (cnn article) wonder why msn is slow to report?  maybe i need to change my home page.

[Doctor Rock]

DAN!! DON"T CLICK HERE!! (unless you want to become a snot monster!!)




actually, i've never heard these guys, so i have no idea what they sound like.  didn't bother to check em out now either.  just remember hearing something about "canadian ragweed", so i googled it

They suck.  Kinda like ragweed.    

[Moetown]

(Yawn)

Don't hafta tell me why I hate Mondays.  

[brainfiber]

Awfully boring thread title.  You guys couldn't do better?  Yawn!  

You want to start doing week long threads?  

no but that's pretty much the way last week went.

I could of put something like..

"Tiddllywinks on the precipice of a bleeding canyon"

but what good would it have done.

I just bought a doldrum over the weekend.