New York


We are traffic

Critical Mass happens on the last Friday of the month in cities all over the world. I used to go on them, and when I remember which Friday is the last of the month I’ll do it again.

Of course, if you turn up to the regular New York Mass on the Friday before the Republican convention, the usually easy going NYPD will arrest the lot of you and throw you in “Little Gitmo”.


It was the CIA wot done it

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence says that the CIA knew before the war with Iraq that there were no WMDs (or at least had enough information to assume it was a possibility) but didn’t pass this on to the President. I’m sensing a whitewash here, and I doubt Wubble U would have paid any attention if he had been told.

New York Times, may require registration.


Executive Orders

Okay fanboys, get your heads around this. Seven of Nine was married to Jack Ryan, President of the United States and recurring character in Tom Clancy’s books. But they got divorced. Seven cited the President’s desire to have sex with her in public at “avant-garde” (as he called them) clubs in New York and Paris (Tom Paris? He’s involved in all this as well.) They should have just used the holo-deck.

(Executive Orders- Tom Clancy, Star Trek: Voyager)


More appropriate for Spinneyhead.

Seeing as this is Spinneyhead, the only site in the UK with exacting knowledge of all things wrong with everything, I found something based on famous artist Saul Steinberg that has been updated for the present. To help increase USA awareness, here is how it came about. The work was originally a 1976 New Yorker cover called The World from 9th Avenue, depicting how a New York person would see the rest of America (California appears as small ridge on the horizon).

A collection of his original works and more about the famous artist is here. His foundation does an excellent job of explaining a complex yet inspired man.

The World From a Bushies Eye


A Load of Old Baggage

Over the past few days, the daily BA flight from Heathrow to New York has been canclled or delayed several times, ostensibly because America has had intelligence suggesting a terrorist attack may be made on the plane. I cannot help wondering about the timing of this – it seems a shade too convenient that these “problems” started almost immediately after America announced that before long, it was going to require armed sky marshalls on planes entering American airspace.

On top of this, a warning from the Farcical Bureau of Investigation. Owning an almanac and reading it in public may seriously damage your liberty.

Does anyone want to take bets on which inoffensive household item the FBI will take exception to next?

While we’re on the topic, can someone please explain why you can no longer take sharp, pointed or bladed items on board an aeroplane, but you can still take glass bottles on, which could easily be smashed to create a very sharp, dangerous weapon? On reflection, perhaps this isn’t the best topic to raise, since if the FBI really do monitor this page, it could lead to the wholesale banning of the sale of Duty Free to passengers entering American Airspace!


Don't Kill the Haitians

Oh dear. On top of the brain dead moralising from the New York Post, GTA: Vice City is under attack again, specifically over the ‘Kill the Haitians’ mission. Anybody who bothered to play the game could tell you that you don’t pick on any one race- everyone is killed equally- and it’s all about extreme stereotypes anyway.


SoCred

Famously Libertarian sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein was always a radical. Earlier in his life he worked, and stood in elections, for the Social Credit movement. Indeed, his early, previously unpublished, novel For Us, the Living was based around a US that had adopted the SoCred doctrine.

In the novel, in the 1950s, Fiorella LaGuardia (mayor of New York when Heinlein was writing) begins a series of economic reforms, starting with a banking system based on the Social Credit theories of Socred thinker Clifford Hugh Douglas. In the novel, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds these changes. In reality, in Canada, the Supreme Court rejected them.

In For Us, the Living, later presidents complete the reforms. These reforms then give people a basic income that bridges the gap between production and consumption, which then allows the Americans of 2086 to do what they really want, free of economic fear.


Looks like Manchester has been snubbed again:

This time by the New York Times article extolling the virtues of the second city. Which second city? Birmingingham of course! A quick quote:

IRMINGHAM, England � It has long been fashionable to scorn Birmingham, the second city of Britain.

“One has no great hopes of Birmingham,” comments the snobbish Mrs. Elton in Jane Austen’s “Emma.” “I always say there is something direful in the sound.”

Prince Charles disdained Birmingham’s blighted downtown as having “no charm, no human scale, no character except arrogance.”

The common joke has been that Britain’s much maligned No. 2 city was so unsightly that its downtown tangle of freeways, known as Spaghetti Junction, had more lanes taking you out of the city than in.

“When I was at Oxford and I’d say I was from Birmingham,” said Benedict Fisher, 23, a public relations executive, “people would always have a sarcastic reaction like, `Well, someone has to be,’ or `Isn’t it nice that someone actually lives in that grim, drab, industrial waste?’ ”

Through the centuries the locals, known as “Brummies,” stoically endured their countrymen’s abuse. “Brummies have low expectations,” said Mary Lodge, a retired Birmingham teacher. “They expect to get kicked.”

Her husband, the writer David Lodge, has lived here since coming to teach in 1960, but his novels that are set in Birmingham do not treat the place much better than outsiders do. “Brummies are ruthlessly ironic, laconic and inherently nonchauvinistic,” he said over lunch at their house in the leafy university district. “My satirizing of Birmingham was taken with great good humor by the locals.”

Now the city’s reputation as a rustbelt cripple and its residents’ wry resignation at being the laughingstock of the country may be coming to an end, and other Britons, for a change, are taking positive notice.

All it took was a Selfridges to heal the pus filled scabs crowding the city.


Fag End

I’ve never smoked (well, nothing that didn’t have ‘additives’ anyway) and I don’t want to. I think it’s a disgusting habit and paying for the privilege of shortening your life is pretty stupid.

But I don’t want to see laws brought in to ban smoking from all public places. No smoking areas are good, but a total ban is too extreme. This sort of health fascism may go down okay in New York, but not Paris and London. It’s un- European I tell you.


Plot Thickens

You may remember the 727 that was disappeared from a runway in Angola, only to turn up a few months later with a new paint job in Guinea. By virtue of mentioning the story twice, I got this in my Inbox this morning-

Yes,

I am Joseph B. Padilla, SR.

I live in Pensacola, Florida – U.S.A.

I am the Brother of Ben Charles Padilla Jr.

He is suspected to be the Pilot of the Missing Boeing 727 Plane that left the Airport in Angola on May 25 2003.

I am tring to reach news organizations to help me locate anyone that has seen or heard anything about this missing plane or my brother.

I appeared on ABC’s , Good Morning Amercia alone with my Sister Benita Padilla-Kirkland on June 19 2003 in hopes to get the story out and to Locate my brother.

We both also appeared on CNN’s Morning show, American Morning on June 24 2003.

Can you please help me by broadcasting a story or by your website news or newspaper?

I have alot of information about the dissapearance of the plane and my brother.

You can contact me at : 850-944-9688 or either by e-mail – padilla1956@cox.net

I hope that you will give me your help in hopes that someone seeing the story will either know something about the dissappearance of the plane and my brother or know someone that does.

Here is what I have so far about the story.

As in the begining as I told ABC News on The Good Morning America Show that I appeared on in New York, I thought that the Boeing 727 Plane had been sitting there in Angola for 14 months unattended to and not maintained.

Now, I have found out that My Brother, Ben Charles Padilla, Jr. had been in Angola for 2 months overseeing a crew of aircraft mechanics re-working the plane from one end to the other.

A B-Check was done and it was found to be fine.

I talked to the owner of the plane, Mr. Maury Joseph, which is also the owner of Aerospace Sales And Leasing in South Florida.

I too live in florida, Pensacola, Fl. and my brother too was born and raised here.

Maury Joseph told me that he was there in Angola two weeks before the disappearance to see how things were going with the re-build of the 727 and also talked to my brother 2 days before the plane became missing and he had sent my brother $43,000.00 for him to pay the fees to the airport there in Angola. My brother paid the airport and faxed Maury Joseph the reciept, This is what Maury Joseph told me this past friday night during our two and a half hour phone conversation.

My brother was also incharge of the hiring of a pilot and co-pilot. He was to be the Flight Engineer for the flight out of Angola for the repossession of the Boeing 727 plane.

My brother is not licensed to fly a 727 and never has flown an aircraft this large.

He is a Licensed Aircraft Mechanic, Flight Engineer, and Pilot of smaller airplanes.

I was told that he had took the plane out to the end of the runway and ran the engines up to check to see how they performed.

I feel that when my brother was checking the engines, someone was on the plane and hijacked him.

My brother isn’t a criminal nor has never done any wrong doings.

Maury Joseph told me that he trusts my brother and doesn’t believe the reports of my brother stealing the plane.

Maury Joseph also told me that he had talked to the Airport there in Angola and had found out that the control tower had radioed the 727 and told them as they were headed out to the runway to take off, that they didn’t have clearance nor permission to take off and the tower never recieved a response from the 727.

I talked to my brother Ben Padilla, Jr. back in either Jan. or Feb. and we talked about the Sept. 11 2001 ordeal and he himself told me that if this sort of thing ever happend to him, that he would down the plane in a New York Second.

So, with that said I really believe my brother was hijacked and taken prisonier and held against his will and possibly was killed.

My mother had a heart attack on Mothers day and my brother was e-mailed about this and he responded to the e-mail he recieved from another brother of ours and told him that he would contact us as soon as he could and we haven’t heard anything from him. So, that tells me that something isn’t right since he would of contacted the family about our mother.

I have talked to the FBI and State Department in Washington, D.C. and all they are willing to tell me is that they have not found my brother nor the plane. So, I am tring to search for any information that I can get thru news organizations.

I find alot of stories on the internet and try to get any of the news organizations to run this story.

I also include a couple of pictures of my brother so incase anyone knows anything or has seen him before, to please contact me.

I am including in this e-mail 2 pictures (1, 2) of him incase you run this story inwhich I hope you do.

I would like to include my e-mail address and phone number incase some one reads or sees this that they can contact me.

My phone number is, 850-944-9688 and my e-mail address is, padilla1956@cox.net

Our family has already lost 2 siblings and can not bear to lose another one.

I would appreciate any help you can give me.

If you need any additional information, Please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank you so much for your time.

Joseph B. Padilla, SR.

I present it to you as received, I’ve resized the pictures to be more suited to the Internet. I’ve had too many 419 emails to be totally trusting, particularly with the spelling and grammar errors, but he’s not asking for any money and I want to know more about this whole thing as well, so I’m accepting his story until and unless a little Googling proves me wrong.


What a great day!

Ok. It’s true one of the most annoying and dangerous US politicians has died in America. Aside from saying “THANK GOD!!!” and dancing on the tables with joy, one must look at the life Strom Thurmond led and what he meant to the Republican party, The South and to a way of life not since replicated. On the left, The New York Times front page leads with Stroms years of denying blacks civil rights. The Washington Times on the otherhand, calls him one of most “influential politicians of all time”. Hmmm….

Now back to more important matters. I found an interesting commercial this morning, brought to us by those great folks at the Center for Consumer Freedom. Why is this important? Well, over in America lawyers are gearing up to take fatty foods to court and seek damages because people don’t know when/how to stop shoveling food in their pieholes.

Now the interesting part. The Center for Consumer Freedom is paid for by fast food companies and a host of others. Watch the commercial and see how they portray lawyers as just out for money and how the companies are victims because “they made something taste good”…..


The New York Times and "All The News Thats Fit To Spin"

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

spin (DECEIVING) noun [S][U] INFORMAL

when an idea or situation is expressed or described in a clever way that makes it seem better than it really is, especially in politics:

For those of you who don’t know, the quotes in the heading are a wordplay on some of the most famous words printed each day on a newspaper that been around for about 130 years.

The New York Times, my most beloved daily, has had its day.

I don’t know if many of you have heard about Jayson Blair and his uncanny ability to write vast amount of column space from his Brooklyn flat while supposedly out in the field, but he has has ruined the love affair I’ve had for years with the NY Times. In owning up to its erroneous ways, the NY Times printed a 17,000 word story which highlighted every single one of his made up stories as well as the embellishments to real tags. Since that public display of apology (PDA), two editors have resigned, the right and the left openly call the NY Times a piece of shite, and readers have wondered away in droves.

All this comes from a paper I used to read during my sophomore year of high school while sitting on the radiator with my best pal Brian Schneider. Lucky or not so lucy for me, our teacher had the foresight to get us involved with reading the paper every single day and openly discussing the content. Since that class, I have read the NY Times in America, Scandinavia and Europe on a daily basis. In fact, I can’t recall not reading the NY Times for over 15 years (I am only 30). I have even gone so far to have the Sunday NY Times delivered to my house on Tuesdays in Britain just to get my fix! Well. Well.

The affair is over, but like any good relationship, I am on the rebound. With the NY Times trying every single day not to be a newspaper associated with bullshit; it becomes more and more congenial to the American way of spin and doesn’t ask important questions anymore lest there might be accusations of impropriety. Where can I turn for American news that isn’t tainted by Mr. Murdoch or so obviously on the left, like Washington Post, but really delivers American news in a concise objective manner? Sadly, the answer is nowhere.

During my long love affair I used the NY Times to balance my left with the right, mainly reading the The Washington Times and other conservative newspapers to come up with a proportion of the real truth, but that isn’t possible anymore. My mantra has change completely. I am starting to believe all the news I read is spin or favouritism so why even bother reading it anymore? It is one thing to be well informed, but it is another to be a sheep believing what the news tells us must be true. At this rate, I don’t think I will ever believe anything in the media again. Bring on Fark, at least it highlights the stupidity of man and newsprint

I would personally like to say F*CK YOU TO THE NEW YORK TIMES as they are bunch of asshats who put the need for diversity above the lofty ideals of journalism!!


Everyone else is linking to it, so I will too

Top of the Popdex is this article in the New York Times about the weird relationship bloggers can develop with their friends and subjects. Mum will occasionally stop part way through telephone conversation and say that she won’t say any more because she doesn’t want to be quoted and I have drunk-blogged a few things I’ve later been called on. But it’s all fun, and I genuinely am too nice to diss anyone unless they really do deserve it- by which point they probably aren’t being talked to anyway. It’s also a good source of dramatic fodder for Post & Publish, when I finally stop staring at a blank page/ screen and get around to writing it.


Spinneyhead Related News

NEW YORK – Spinneyhead’s chances of remaining independent are beginning to look slim to none especially as the blogging sector braces itself for the long anticipated JohnnyTheo.Com.

There’s long been pressure for the world famous www.spinneyhead.com to marry up with a media power in order to compete with the likes of the new JohnnyTheo.Com and other super sites. But given the company’s incredible shrinking stock price, it is now beginning to worry about hostile takeovers too. Last year at this time, Spinneyhead (NASDAQ: SPH) was trading at $122.56. Today it closed at $22.60. The decline in share price reflects economic depression in the technology sector and previous labour disputes between Spinneyhead management and union leaders. Overall, Spinneyhead remains undervalued but analysts are hesitant to move from �hold� to �buy� until senior management comes up with a strong marketing and strategy plan capable of returning revenue into the share dividend.

On Thursday, Spinneyhead said it adopted a poison pill to prevent a hostile takeover and further degradation of itself share price. The plan will entitle shareholders to buy one unit of a share of Spinneyhead preferred stock for $250.00, should any single group or company accumulate 15% or more of Spinneyhead�s preferred stock. According to both the company and financial analysts, this was a pre-emptive measure created in response to the depressed stock price, and in no way a response to any takeover attempts.

“The Rights Plan was not adopted in response to any effort to acquire control of Spinneyhead,� the company statement said. Efforts to contact the Spinneyhead CEO directly have not been successful.


How bout them apples?

The Op-Ed piece today in the New York Times states the following about how the case for war was hogwash:

“One wonders whether most of the public will ever learn that the original case for war has turned out to be false. In fact, my guess is that most Americans believe that we have found W.M.D.’s. Each potential find gets blaring coverage on TV; how many people catch the later announcement � if it is ever announced � that it was a false alarm? It’s a pattern of misinformation that recapitulates the way the war was sold in the first place. Each administration charge against Iraq received prominent coverage; the subsequent debunking did not. ”

*Registration Required

** To The New York Times – I still have not received my referral contribution cheques!


George Galloway – Under fire and due to appear on Crossfire!

I quote:

“LONDON, April 24 � For anyone worried that the House of Commons has become too well-behaved to produce defiant oratory and eccentric behavior, George Galloway is a throwback to a provocative and histrionic past.”

Straight from the New York Times. The Article* is comical, but hey, he is a bastard war supporter anyway.

*Registration required

**Personal to the NY Times – Where is my liberation cheque? Four years of mentioning the American left and all I get is a renewal for the Sunday New York Times?