Category Archives: War

pic o’ the day: World Press Award Winner

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World Press Award winner

The international jury of the 50th annual World Press Photo Contest selected a color image of the US photographer Spencer Platt of Getty Images as World Press Photo of the Year 2006. Click here for the award winning picture.

The picture shows a group of young Lebanese driving through a South Beirut neighborhood devastated by Israeli bombings. The picture was taken on 15 August 2006, the first day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah when thousands of Lebanese started returning to their homes.

World Press Photo jury chair Michele McNally describes the winning image: “It’s a picture you can keep looking at. It has the complexity and contradiction of real life, amidst chaos. This photograph makes you look beyond the obvious.”

via Neatorama.

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Jack Bauer vs Aqua Teen Hunger Force!

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It doesn’t pay to piss off a Canuck. When will the terrorists learn?

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USAF firing on British troops

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This is the real thing, people: this is the leaked video of a pair of American Airforce reserve fighter pilots killing British Lance Corporal Matty Hull near Basra in Iraq. There is a time lag on the audio here, so follow the subtitles (which were added by the investigators). The video dates from March 28th of 2003, and more details about the incident and investigation are here.

…the pilots, a lieutenant-colonel and major at the time of the incident, are flying warplanes again, attached to the 190th Air Fighter Squadron, based at Boise, Idaho…

The cockpit video reveals that the pilots clearly saw the orange panels on the top of the British armoured vehicles intended to identify them as friendly forces, but ultimately decided that they were rocket launchers. When one pilot suggested a return to base, the other said: “I think killing these damn rocket launchers, it would be great.”

Even after attacking the column, the transcript shows the pilots were still unsure whether they had attacked enemy or friendly troops.

“It doesn’t look friendly,” one pilot said. Minutes later, they were told of their mistake.

“We’re in jail dude,” one pilot said. “Goddam it. Fuck me dead,” the other cries.

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press conference of the century

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Mooninite! Gee, I thought they were mostly Asian.Two Boston urban terror suspects, out on bail, give the press conference of the century, if not of the post-Biblical era. I think I’m in love!

Background from CNN:

CHARLESTOWN, Massachusetts (CNN) — Two men pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges they created panic by placing electronic light boards that caused a bomb scare Wednesday in Boston.

The boards depicted a cartoon character making an obscene gesture at passing motorists.

Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards “bomb-like” devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city.

Indeed, and if Ralph Lauren shirts had been explosive no doubt much of Harvard could have been destroyed. Something tells me that overripe cans of that damn chowder have caused more explosions in Boston than any Aqua Teen Hunger Force ad campaigns. Those easterners are so neurasthenic; ten cities had this ad campaign, and Boston was the only one to call out the SWAT teams on the poor, unsuspecting Lite Brite boards. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is the Bomb!

Now, to the press conference:

“I feel like you’re not taking this seriously. Now do we have ANY questions about hairstyles in the Seventies, because my patience is wearing thin.”

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I married a spy…and all I got was this lousy cottage in Essex

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Works great on bloodstains...also gunpowder residueWell I, personally, didn’t marry a spy, although there’s still time (interested parties leave contact details in comments section, plz). No indeed, this is a piece from the Guardian, interviews with three wives of, all of whom are well past their “tempt the Russian delegation with your best meatballs, won’t you dear?” stage, and only some of whom have recovered. Fascinating reading, if only for the satisfaction of thinking to yourself Well, I’d at least have shot someone for fuck’s sake! Might as well stay in the playgroup, you lot of wankers.

Special bonus pointlessly salacious and juvenile tidbit: the interviewer’s name is Fanny.

In 1939, 18-year-old Betty Farmer was being wooed by a man who was not only good-looking and charismatic, but also, apparently, had a job “in the film business”. When he whisked her off for a few days holiday in Jersey, she was surprised by the two rather shady looking men who accompanied them, but kept her concerns to herself.

On their second day away, over Sunday lunch, with the sunshine dancing on the sea outside, Betty‘s paramour kissed her briefly, before hurling himself through a closed window and running down the beach, chased by the police. Betty had no choice but to rely on his repeated promise: “I shall go, but I shall always come back.”

With a lede like that, how can you not finish the piece?
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