There Are Times A Good Nazi Can Help

I'm sure a lot of people will read this and be pissed off about helping Nazis but some Nazis actually helped the U.S. of A. Don't get me wrong, most of them (like 99%?) were very bad, but you could count on some of them Nazi scientists to really know their thing. It's just like America. You can't brand EVERYONE a piece of crap without eliminating the few good ones. Right?

When it comes to killing a lot of people all at once, you ask a Nazi and he'll tell you, and you would be hard pressed to get better advice on this subject back then, and perhaps even now! They are also great at that marching and saluting thing. They can get like a thousand guys in line and do it perfectly.

The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)

The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so “would be to the detriment of the national interest.”

Isn't that a hoot? Will you ever think of a "Paperclip" the same way? I know I won't. Whenever I hold a paperclip now I'll think of this hardworking Nazi guy helping us out. But before I get carried away, there's the other hand, where every group has its lemons, and we apparently took in a few of these as well.

In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that “misstated the facts” in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department “knew that Soobzokov had advised the C.I.A. of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States.”

Now maybe they brought some of these lemons over to hang out with the good ones? The scientist guys? I mean it's gotta be lonely over here in America for a Nazi. Maybe they brought over a few of your more average dyed in the wool Nazis to go bowling and have a few beers with the good Nazis that we needed to help us build the rockets. Maybe even a few Nazi chicks, like in those "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" movies?

Apparently there was also an Indian outburst somewhere along the line and that Dr. Mengele got bushwacked like Custer. At least that's how this sounds. Maybe we sent an Indian hit squad down there to take him out? He wouldn't suspect that...he'd be looking for a Jew! Ah-hah! So in conclusion, there are a few lessons here, and probably the most important one is don't be so naive as to think you can't find a useful Nazi here and there, even though most of them are pretty bad.

So too are references to macabre but little-known bits of history, including how a director of the O.S.I. kept a piece of scalp that was thought to belong to Dr. Mengele in his desk in hopes that it would help establish whether he was dead.

[New York Times]

His Own Worst Enemy

It's always good to be home -- except for those times when you shoot yourself in the head.

CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- The Cleveland-based 252nd Military Police Company of the Tennessee Army National Guard persevered through a 10-month combat tour in Iraq without a single casualty.

The night before a ceremony to honor its service, the unit lost its first soldier.

Family members said Spc. Joshua Meeks accidentally shot himself in the head while cleaning a new 9mm pistol at his Whitwell home late Saturday night.

"He was dead instantly," said Spc. Mark Michaels, Meeks' brother-in-law, who saw the accident. He said he and other members of the unit were staying with Meeks on the eve of the ceremony.

[Chattanooga Times Free Press]

Rudolf the Red Meat Reindeer

Makes a very tasty steak!
And if you've never tried it,
You'll soon have your chance to partake

Discount supermarket Lidl has come under fire for selling reindeer steaks in the run-up to Christmas.

[...]

Animal rights campaigners have criticised Lidl for selling reindeer that are, according to Uppsala University in Sweden, often herded using non-traditional techniques such as snowmobiles and motorbikes which causes the animals distress and muscle wastage.

"The idea of ‘Rudolph’ being slaughtered and sliced into steaks for a novelty Christmas dinner is revolting," said a spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "Christmas is supposed to remind us of peace and goodwill - and the rest of the animal kingdom could do with a taste of it, rather than being tasted."

[SKY News]

Woe is She

If you want to be able to get to your chemotherapy sessions and receive your meals on wheels, you'd best pay your taxes.

Redding, Conn. (WTNH) - After nearly three decades the access to Lisa Lind-Larsen’s driveway in Redding has been blocked. Now, she has turned to News 8 for help.

This driveway has been there for 26 years. It's the only way in and out of Lind-Larsen's home. But one day in August a chain went up cutting her off and the 71-year-old woman was subsequently cut off from her visiting nurse, Meals on Wheels, and fuel oil delivery for her furnace.

Lisa Lind-Larsen now walks through the woods to get to her car at a neighbor's house in order to go to chemo-therapy and radiation sessions. She worries about the dangers of no longer having access to her driveway.

"Nobody can get in here. What is really of some concern, not only to me, in an emergency, what happens if I have a medical emergency? They can't get in here. It's totally against the law to remove access to a residence."

[...]

After a long, complicated tax dispute with the Town of Redding, two of her eight-and-a-half acres were foreclosed upon and sold to Daniel Torcio.

Her driveway happens to be on that land. Torcio has now chained it off, put in obstructions and dug a trench. His attorney, Adam Cohen, says his client is not interested in talking to News 8.

[...]

Returning our call, First Selectman Natalie Ketcham said: "We would not turn a blind eye to a townsperson in need. There's nothing the Town of Redding can do. This is the result of a court judgment...."

[WTHN]

You All Make Me Sick

I hate to bump this picture off the top of this page, that is a lovely cleavage and a perfectly distant and oblivious look, but I have to say this. All of you make me sick. What kind of a world is this and what is wrong with you? People buy...John Wayne Gacy's paintings, Charles Manson's doodles...anything connected to what you could loosely term "fame" even if the person is famous for being someone who should have been obliterated by a meteor or a decent sized pistol long before they reached the pinnacle of recognition for being an absolute waste of life asshole.

I personally have never wondered what being in Madoff's shoes would feel like. Why on Earth would someone want to buy the guy's SHOES? His real value is in demonstrating just how stupid and greedy people are, who would believe this swindling jerk was a genius as he's taking you to the cleaners doing nothing other than covering a new check with old money and moving on. There was some guy for years, telling anybody who would listen. "His results aren't possible. It's a scam." Nobody listened. Like the people who smelled Gacy's basement. "Must be the sewer backing up." Right. At Auschwitz they were baking cookies.

What the hell is wrong with the people buying this stuff? Buying Hitler's underwear or his favorite pocketwatch. Hirohito's nail clippers. JFK's golf clubs. Touched by greatness. I wonder what someone would pay...to go back in time...and be one of the people Madoff nailed? Wouldn't that be worth something? You wouldn't have to walk around in his damn shoes...you could brag to everyone..."hey, I got robbed by Madoff." Why settle for a robe and slippers?

It would be great if this was a science fiction movie and Madoff's possessions...would come to life...and the necklaces would strangle the idiots who lined up to buy them at auction.

Please God give this power to these inanimate objects and I'll never ask you for anything again.

Ever wonder what being in Bernard Madoff's shoes must feel like? On Saturday you could find out when the imprisoned Wall Street conman's wardrobe and other personal items go to auction.

Not only his shoes are headed for sale, but socks, pants, monogrammed slippers and other clothing once belonging to the super-fraud, who has been imprisoned for life for running the biggest ever US pyramid fraud scheme.

Proceeds from the huge catalogue, which also reflects Madoff and his wife Ruth's immoderate love of jewelry, will go towards compensating his victims of the swindle.

[Yahoo News via AFP]

Wonder Why You're Sad so Often?

Probably because you spend too much time wondering about things.

"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind," concluded Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, the authors of [a] study which was published in the Nov. 12 issue of "Science." "The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."

[...]

Just what sorts of places does the mind wander? Reminiscing (and ruing) past events, looking forward to (or fearing) things that might happen in the future.

[...]

[People] were least happy when working, resting, or using a home computer. (Captain's note: this means almost certainly that you're unhappy this very moment, doesn't it? It's ok to cry now if you need to.)

"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness," Killingsworth said in the statement. "In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged."

[CBS News]

Sorry Your Son Is Dead, but Prepare to Starve

Apparently this mum hasn't heard about Britain's new austerity measures which require sacrifice from everyone. Her 18 year-old son sacrificed his life, now it's time for her to sacrifice food and shelter.

The mother of the youngest British soldier killed in Afghanistan has condemned officials for using a death-in-service payment to stop her income support allowance.

Lucy Aldridge, 42, returned from an Armistice Day ceremony - in which her son William's name was unveiled on her village war memorial - to find a Jobcentre Plus letter warning that her £307.80-a-month income support had been suspended.

[...]

'To open that letter, on Armistice Day of all days, after watching William's sacrifice honoured on our local memorial, was insensitive beyond belief,' said Miss Aldridge a single mother with two other children - George, seven, and Archie, five.

'The letter was dated November 9th. It was timed to arrive on the 11th. Have they no shred of compassion? 'I received £66,000 as a death-in-service payment for Will. I didn't want it - I'd rather have my son back than take the government's blood money.

'None of it is for me. I've put it in a savings account for Will's brothers to give them the future he never had. No one ever said I had to declare it to anyone.'

[...]

Former printer Miss Aldridge, of Bredenbury, Herefordshire, is unable to work because she suffers from a degenerative and incurable tissue disease called Hypermobility syndrome.

[...]

A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said the rules on receiving income support and military death-in-service payments were 'quite detailed'.

She added: 'It is unfortunate that our letter arrived on Armistice Day. However we have a duty to taxpayers to act as soon as we receive information about a claimant.'

[Daily Mail]

You Make a Dead Man C**

Everybody knows that sex sells, so why not ... coffins???

Coffin makers have taken the lid off the raunchy side of their business with a racy calendar of drop dead gorgeous models.

[...]

The black and white cover shows a close up of a woman in a frilly thong and suspenders holding a gun behind her back, while on the back a couple are seen apparently making love on top of a coffin.

Inside, the months begin with a man being forced in to a coffin at the barrel of a Tommy gun and end with a curvy topless blonde posing in front of a mirror.

[...]

But the calender featuring models from the UK, Germany and Poland has sparked controversy in Catholic Poland.

"This is simply tasteless and shocking. Death is not sexy and the connotations presented in this calender are disturbing to say the least," said church spokseman Father Tadeusz Rybnik in Warsaw.

[Orange News]

Chain Sore

Sometimes you can break those chains that bind you and still be in a whole world of hurt.

Astonished medics are trying to save the hands of tormented Zhang Chuanqiu who was chained so tightly in an illegal prison that his flesh grew over his shackles.

Zhang, 27, had been chained to a cowshed in Hunan, southern China, in 2005 after falling out with village officials over a loan to build his house.

But his chains had been so agonisingly tight that Zhang's own flesh began to absorb them.

[...]

"They cause me a lot of pain. They are always inflamed and ooze pus all the time. But we have no money so I have to rely on charity or the good heart of a hospital or doctor to save my hands," he said.

[Austrian Times]

Kind of a Drag

This is cracking me up. Sharon Murphy is "honoring" her daughter by writing this book. Maybe she should honor her daughter by getting a job? Toiling at Wendy's. Like many moms of celebs, dead or otherwise alive.

Now imagine Brittany Murphy and Simon Monjack looking down on this from heaven. What are they thinking? "Thank You For Celebrating My Life. I'm Dead, But Honored. Thank You. Please Tell All. Right Now! And Don't Spend It All In One Place! Love Always. B...and S."

Brittany Murphy - Brittany Murphy's Mother, Sharon has signed a deal a write a tell-all book about her daughter. According to reports, "Sharon says she wants to honor Brittany Murphy and her husband Simon Monjack – who died five months later also from pneumonia – by writing her memoirs." Sharon told RadarOnline, “This book will be my way of celebrating and honoring her extraordinary life and career." One has to wonder how Brittany Murphy might have felt about her mom writing a tell-all book about her life. Brittany Murphy died last December from pneumonia at age 32.

[DimeWars]

Kiss Your Chocolate Goodbye!

On the bright side, experts predict that in twenty years the US economy may finally start to begin to recover. So by the time chocolate becomes as expensive as caviar, you might be able to afford it once or twice a year if you're lucky.

The world could run out of affordable chocolate within 20 years as farmers abandon their crops in the global cocoa basket of West Africa, industry experts claim.... "In 20 years chocolate will be like caviar. It will become so rare and so expensive that the average Joe just won't be able to afford it."

[...]

The reason for this unimaginable shortage – which has been presaged by the doubling of cocoa prices in six years to an all-time high over the past three decades – is simple.

Farmers in the countries that produce the bulk of cocoa bought by the multinationals who control the market have found the crop a bitter harvest. The minimal rewards they have historically received do not provide incentives for the time-consuming work of replanting as their trees die off – a task that usually means moving to a new area of canopied forest and waiting three to five years for a new crop to mature.

[...]

Meanwhile, as the supply of the raw material diminishes, millions of new consumers in the developing world are becoming addicted to the sweet energy-fix at the end of the processing chain. "Chocolate consumption is increasing faster than cocoa production – and it's not sustainable," Tony Lass, chairman of the Cocoa Research Association, told the annual conference of Britain's Academy of Chocolate last month.

[The Independent]

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

When child protection services finally get off your back, you know it's time to par-TAY!

A west suburban woman was drinking vodka to celebrate [Department of Children and Family Services] dropping an investigation against her when she was arrested Saturday afternoon after witnesses saw her carrying her 3-month-old child "as if she had a football under her armpit," police said.

About 4:30 p.m. Saturday officers were dispatched to the northbound lanes of the 5400 block of South Harlem Avenue for a well being check involving Jamie L. Riley, 27, who was intoxicated while outside with her child, a Chicago police report said.

[...]

Riley told police on the scene during an interview “I was drinking vodka earlier, celebrating with my husband because DCFS dropped their investigation,’’ the report said.

Paramedics took the baby to MacNeal Hospital because he had a laceration on his nose and a Summit officer told a Chicago officer that Riley had become belligerent and wouldn’t answer questions about the child's well being, according to the report.

Riley was placed into custody and taken to the Chicago Lawn District police station for processing. While officers were taking her there, she told them: “I’m going to p---kiss all over your car,’’ and officers saw that she urinated on herself, according to the report.

[Chicago Sun-Times]

Sayonara

Apparently, it isn't just artists who threaten to broadcast their own deaths online via streaming video. A shame this gentleman didn't commit the act hara-kiri style, that surely would have gotten far more page views on his website.

The 24-year-old man, who has not been named, was found dead in his apartment in the city of Sendai early on Tuesday morning. Police had been alerted by viewers of the Ustream web page and were able to locate the man's apartment.

By the time they arrived at 8am, however, the man was already dead.

The man had announced his intention to kill himself in online chat rooms last week, according to the Yomiuri newspaper, after complaining for some weeks about problems he had been experiencing at work.

[...]

While some people posted messages attempting to talk him out of going through with his plans, others encouraged him to kill himself. Apparently believing they were watching a hoax, some viewers even suggested that he hurry up and get it over with.

Police told local media that the man initially tried to hang himself with a twisted sheet on the balcony of his apartment shortly before 4am on Tuesday. When that attempt failed, the footage showed the man looking for a stronger anchoring point for the home-made noose and repeating the attempt at 5:30am.

People watching online debated whether the footage was genuine until Ustream halted the broadcast and the police were informed.

[The Telegraph]

Want to Kill an Artist? Here's Your Chance!

The Captain is having trouble finding the link to Mr. Mavromatti's website that will give you the opportunity to electrocute him, but rest assured that when he finds it he will post it here so you can vote early and often!

UPDATE: Here's the link, now do your duty: http://svoichuzoi.org/ (Click on the Ally/Foe link on Mr. Mavromatti's page to enter)

OLEG Mavromatti is offering fans the chance to vote on whether he should live or die. In 2000, the artist was charged with inciting religious hatred for being crucified in a show called Do not Believe Your Eyes. He fled Russia for Bulgaria. But now he says it’s time to give his enemies chance to kill him. Says he of his “normal sociological study”.

[...]

The show is online. It’s called Ally / Foe. Mavromatti spends a period each day tied to an electric chair. The more votes he gets the longer her endures an electric shock. There are five shock levels. The fifth level will kill him.

Each shock requires an increased amount of votes for activation. Just 100 votes will give Mavromatti the first 600000V shock, lasting 0.5 seconds. A mere 1,000 votes will get him 5 seconds of shock.

He’s still alive.

[Anorak]

Whales Are Burning

You'd think whales, with their gigantic brains and all, would know enough to slather themselves in massive amounts of Coppertone SPF 50 before surfacing. Clearly they're not as intelligent as the enviro-whackos would have you believe.

Painful sunburns are usually associated with people, but many whales are now acutely sunburned, with cases escalating in recent years, according to new research.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is the first to demonstrate that sun damage to whale skin is on the rise and is likely tied to increasing levels of ultraviolet radiation resulting from the thinning ozone layer.

"The thing is, whales do not have hair, fur or feathers that could offer some protection, and they are forced to surface in order to breathe," co-author Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse told Discovery News.

"Other animals have behavioral adaptations -- hiding in the shade, for example -- but whales cannot afford to do so," added Acevedo-Whitehouse, a postdoctoral fellow at the Zoological Society of London.

[...]

The researchers believe that the sunburns will worsen over time, due to increased ultraviolet radiation exposure. They tested this hypothesis out on blue whales, a species for which they had data spanning three years. While bite marks and other skin problems remained unchanged over this period, the prevalence of sunburn blisters significantly rose over time.

[...]

Acevedo-Whitehouse said that, in addition to pigmentation, "whales may invest heavily in programmed cell death to counteract DNA damage caused by the sun." Given the large number of documented whale sunburns, this natural defense appears to be no match for the increased levels of ultraviolet radiation.

[...]

Although it's hoped that phasing out of [industrial solvents and chlorofluorocarbons] will allow Antarctic ozone levels to return to 1950's levels by the year 2080, that doesn't provide much hope for whales over the next several years.

[Discovery]