Monthly Archives: October 2007

The Fortress of the Assassins, DESTROYED!

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Married To The Sea
marriedtothesea.com

The tragic destruction of the Fortress of Alamut, stronghold of the Assassins, expressed as a charming historical engraving/ironically juxtaposed caption mashup, for your viewing pleasure.

Background, from DamnInteresting:

The story of the Hashshashin, or Assassins, is cloaked in mystery, and much of the truth about them was long ago lost to war and time. Their influence, however, changed the course of history and spawned the very word we use today to describe calculated, politically-motivated murder.

The Hashshashin were formed by Hassan-i-Sabah, a follower of the Isma’ili sect of Shi’ite Islam. Hassan left his home in Cairo over a succession dispute between two heirs to the Fatimid Caliphate. After choosing the wrong heir to support, Hassan found himself escaping to Persia after spending a short period in a political prison. Determined to avenge himself upon the Fatimids while also wiping out his traditional Sunni enemies, Hassan sought and found the ideal stronghold: the fortress of Alamut, also known as “The Eagle’s Nest.” Located northwest of Tehran, just south of the Caspian Sea, Alamut was an imposing sight. Nestled atop a 2,100m mountain with only one near-vertical approach to the fortress, the Eagle’s Nest was nearly impregnable.

Nearly.

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Remember: the MadV call to action

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He’s back.

What do you want the world to remember?

On the 5th of November you are invited to post a video about what encompasses you as a person, what inspires you, what brings you hope, and most importantly those little things that you may have forgotten.

You may choose any topic, any idea, any person, event or place that you feel people need reminding of. You can use any style and any method (talking, writing, photos, metaphor) to get your message of remembrance across.

The aim of this project is to gather together people from all over the world on one unique day to celebrate the important things that we forget, and to remind each other of what we need to keep ideas alive.

Get ready, be creative – but please don’t post until the 5th November.

Remember, remember
Chin up,
MadV

you can never step into the same River Street twice

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Rollin' down the River Street

Behold the magnificence which is Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan’s River Street.

Often has it been said that Canadians are too literal-minded; most particularly often it has been said to my face, although there’s nothing about my face in particular or in whole which is literal-minded, and indeed quite often the parts migrate at will or vanish altogether and I’ll end up all ears, ferinstance.

Quite embarrassing, especially when they see me writing down everything they say.

But that is neither here nor there. And it’s certainly not in Moose Jaw, which is not all that far from everyone’s favorite Canadian place name: Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump.

So…have you been to Moose Jaw? Have you seen it? It’s not Paris, let me tell you. So, when the city fathers/mothers/foster parents put their heads together and wanted to do something uniquely Moose Jawian, they quite naturally phoned Germany and brought over artist Edgar Muller and his team to turn River Street into a painting of a river, reportedly the world’s largest 3-dimensional painting.

How proud they must be, eh?

So they not only paved Paradise: they gravened themselves an image of it and now walk all over it.

The Knicker Vicar on Panty Pilgrimage

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Laurie McIntosh The rat in granny's panties

Talk about a modern-day superhero! Inglewood, New Zealand priest Gary Husband which, come to think of it, is a real funny name for a priest you must admit, has volunteered to undertake a Panty Pilgrimage. It seems the town has been knickerless since the local store stopped carrying ladies’ underwear over a year ago. Apparently, neither the internet nor the Sears catalogue are available in this remote corner of Kiwilandia either, which of course makes the crisis all that much more severe.

The priest organized ad-hoc panty raids to the neighboring settlement of New Plymouth, but now, thanks to the fervent prayers of his parishioners, a regular bus schedule has been organized and paid for by the government.

Big Mama Granny PantiesCouncil’s operations director Rob Phillips says the Tranzit Coachlines trips will be subsidised for a year “to ensure people were really serious about buying those new knickers – and anything else that might take their fancy”.

That’s contemporary socialism for you. From each according to her ability, to each according to how she feels about the Disney print granny panties they happened to have in stock. But it’s not a trivial issue; no indeed, it could accurately be called seminal, at least once more of the local fellows get involved.

In a world fraught with the threat of terrorism, the very last thing you want to do is turn an entire gender into commandos.

Soe Win SO Loses

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Soe Win, soe what?

Soe Win, soe what? Ain’t karma a bitch?

Myanmar’s incumbent Prime Minister Soe Win, a hardliner best known for allegedly orchestrating an attack on democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has died at age 59, state media said Friday.

General Soe Win rose in the ranks after the deadly attack on the Nobel laureate’s convoy in May 2003, an event known to her supporters as “Black Friday…“

But eventually Fate catches up with you, as you’d know, if you were a Buddhist. Like the hundreds of monks beaten on Soe Win‘s orders recently.

At least 13 people were killed and more than 2,000 arrested in the crackdown on the largest pro-democracy demonstrations the country has seen in almost 20 years, drawing international outrage expressed in a statement by the UN Security Council on Thursday.