BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) – Harry Haney has built a sled that can walk on water.

The 39-year-old’s snow boat is a 14-foot custom-made aluminum craft welded into a standard snowmobile. The prototype has been named one of Time magazine’s most amazing inventions of 2004.

Well, even with the *spit* Time *spit* recognition, it’s still a pretty kick-ass invention.

Haney, who grew up on Saginaw Bay where his dad taught him to fish, had a friend and fellow fishermen die after falling through the ice a few years back. He got a patent for his amphibious vehicle in July 2003.

“There’s always danger out there, the way the wind and the weather is,” Haney said. “But this machine will go anywhere. It’s very stable in water.”

Where there’s a need, there’s an individual, somewhere, who will come up with a way of fulfilling said need.

Haney drew up his idea on a paper plate while visiting the Upper Peninsula with relatives. A friend of one of his cousins agreed to do the welding.

The nearly six-foot wide boat took a month to produce. Haney took it to the annual Houghton Lake Tip-Up Town USA last year where it was the envy of other sledders, he said.

And did he run to the government asking for a handout to subsidize his invention, ala Airbus or any of the other Socialist Succubi?? Nope.

Haney has contacted both snowmobile and boat companies and is hoping one or both will buy into his idea as a search and rescue or ice fishing vehicle.

Like any other good capitalist, he’s looking to reap the rewards of his idea and the fruits thereof. Of course, the Socialist Shitsniffers (aka Lickers of Lenin’s Loins?) will whine about how he should forego all profit and just donate his invention For The Children?.

“If somebody goes down and there’s enough of these around, they can call and get them out right away,” he said. “I’m looking for an investor to take it on.”

And we hope you find many, many investors, Mr. Haney. We’ll raise a mug of Imperial Draught? in your honor when the first life is saved and you’re kicking back in the lap of luxury because of your ingenuity.

F.E.T.E.

Example #1: “It’s tough to leave your girlfriends behind.“

Simple and straightforward enough, no?

Example #2: “It’s tough to leave your girlfriend’s behind.“

‘Nuff sed.

Remember kids: “Punctuation is the key to conveying meaning.”— B.C.

That concludes today’s lesson. You may now discuss amongst yourselves.

F.E.T.E.

Group holds fast to Kerry cause with Beacon Hill vigil

The election is long over. A new year is starting, and even most of the more ardent liberals are moving on. But in Louisburg Square this week, one determined group isn’t quite ready to let go. About a half dozen supporters of John Kerry are holding vigil in front of his house, still hoping for a Kerry presidency.

And if more than a half-dozen actually believed in him Kerry might have carried a few more states. But honestly, just knowing that die-hard Kerry supporters are still dumb enough to be standing around in the snow and slush while even their fellow Taxachusites make fun of them is simply priceless. They’re probably the same people who spend every Halloween waiting for the Great Pumpkin, and I think I’ll save their picture and turn it into a nice Christmas ornament.

United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster.

It’s not a rival coalition, it’s an option to use what works instead of waiting on an army of headless chickens to arrive from Belgium.

The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world?s response.

Since all four have navies and resources in proximity, that would make sense.

But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN.

The reason she’s a former International Development Secretary is because she’s a nutcase backstabbing windbag whose heart is said to hemorrhage rather than just bleed and ooze.

?I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,? she said.

If you’re starving to death on an island, do you want to see a helicopter from a functioning navy or wait till diplomats manage to build up the UN?

?Only really the UN can do that job,? she told BBC Radio Four?s PM programme.

And what is the UN’s experience in dealing with disasters, other than making sure the disaster area still looks like a disaster area a decade later? On the other hand, Florida routinely gets flattened by hurricanes without interrupting the flow of tourists for more than two weeks. Which group would you want in charge of recovery?

?It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.?

Once again, would you rather wait three weeks for an explanation of why diplomatic obstacles by people with “moral authority” keep you from a can of beans, or would you rather opt for some food?

Ms Short said the coalition countries did not have good records on responding to international disasters.

Oh, is that why Japan and the US don’t need outside help responding to typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes? Is that why the US flies in C-130′s full of experts and supplies to where ever the earth shifts?

She said the US was ?very bad at coordinating with anyone? and India had its own problems to deal with.

This from a woman who’s made a career out of stabbing people in the back, resigning her front bench seat in Parliament three times, making claims the British government was spying on Kofi Annan (surely just to keep him from stealing the Crown Jewels), and demanding Tony Blair’s resignation every time there’s a full moon. She even vowed to bring him down, which didn’t help her political career any, such as it was. But then, she just can’t be satisfied, saying “”Most of us women like men, you know; it’s just that we find them a constant disappointment.”

?I don?t know what that is about but it sounds very much, I am afraid, like the US trying to have a separate operation and not work with the rest of the world through the UN system,? she added.

Probably because we want to help the disaster victims, not pilfer their pockets in some Food for Toil scheme set up for Kojo Annan. Meanwhile, our C-130′s are already on the ground, navies are steaming in, while in other news

With the death toll rising above 117,000, European governments were taking soundings on holding an international donors conference Jan. 7. Boucher said, “The United States will participate at a senior level in whatever donor’s conference is held.”

They’re talking about, or rather “taking soundings”, on holding a conference about this disaster sometime around two-weeks after it’s hit, at least if everyone can agree where to meet and manage to keep their calendars free?

The first rule of disaster relief is to not put it under the control of the largest, most unwieldy, incompetant, corrupt, and slow organization imaginable. Maybe the quake will be on the real UN agenda sometime after they finally decide what to do in Darfur, but for now they’re just grabbing face time on camera to take cheap pot shots.

The article’s questions cover the gamut of paranoid stupidity, from the simple ones

1. Why were the Indian Ocean countries’ governments not informed?

2. Did US authorities monitoring seismographic data have knowledge of the earthquake prior to its actual occurrence at 00.57 GMT on the 26th of December?

3. Why is the US military Calling the Shots on Humanitarian Relief

To the inevitable

Why has a senior commander involved in the invasion of Iraq been assigned to lead the US emergency relief program?

Yep. It’s all a vast American conspiracy, and this from the same nut who thinks the US military has weather control technology. After the usual blabbering about Bush and global warming he cuts right to the chase.

While global warming is undoubtedly an important factor, it does not fully account for these extreme and unusual weather patterns.

Weather Warfare

The significant expansion in America’s weather warfare arsenal, which is a priority of the Department of Defense is not a matter for debate or discussion. While, environmentalists blame the Bush administration for not having signed the Kyoto protocol, the issue of “weather warfare”, namely the manipulation of weather patterns for military use is never mentioned.

The US Air Force has the capability of manipulating climate either for testing purposes or for outright military-intelligence use. These capabilities extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes.

Yep. Just armor up with a good ol’ US Air Force +7 Smasher of Super Secret Seismic Strength? and be done with it. I wonder what paranoid lunacy of this magnitude rates on the Richter scale? The only people I can think of who are dumber than this are in the European Parliament, passing Resolution 28.1.99 that opposes US weather and mind control technology. I am not, I repeat, not making this up.

24. Considers HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project) by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body before any further research and testing; regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration to send anyone in person to give evidence to the public hearing or any subsequent meeting held by its competent committee into the environmental and public risks connected with the HAARP programme currently being funded in Alaska;

HAARP broadcasts in the HF radio band, right in there along with the BBC World Service, though the BBC runs at higher power levels. Of course our frigates radiate more power than HAARP, but then we’re talking about the primitive fears of a people whose skies were dominated by a general who said, “Radio aids contain boxes with coils, and I don’t like boxes with coils ? Hermann G”ring.” So when you’re out of airspeed, out of altitude, out of options, and your black box just contains contraband French cheese, bail out.”

However, I can see why the US refused to send anyone in to these European hearings. With Dr. Vincent Honeydew and Beaker tied up, the military is understandably reluctant to risk having an Air Force sergeant laugh in the faces of foreign “dignitaries” who obviously listen to clandestine broadcasts from Art Bell.

25. Requests the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) Panel to agree to examine the scientific and technical evidence provided in all existing research findings on HAARP to assess the exact nature and degree of risk that HAARP poses both to the local and global environment and to public health generally;

All that for a low-frequency diesel-powered steerable beam radio transmitter on the other side of the fucking planet. Meanwhile Europe is upgrading their very own version, EISCAT with three times the radiated power. Go figure?

27. Calls for an international convention introducting a global ban on all developments and deployments of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human being;

The European Parliament is just quoting www.haarp.net, who say

The mental-disruption possibilities for HAARP are the most disturbing.

?
For example, one of the papers describing this use was from the International Red Cross in Geneva. It even gave the frequency ranges where these effects could occur — the same ranges which HAARP is capable of broadcasting.

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?!!! Honestly, I think someone’s already zapped their wittle brains with signals (maybe the BBC’s own drivel being pumped by the megawatt into the HF band), so HAARP might at least act as a useful jammer.

So somehow Europeans, and not just average Europeans but their “elite intelligentsia”, are dumb enough to think a short-wave radio station in Alaska, running at common international power levels, is going to catastrophically alter Europe’s climate and induce mental problems in Europeans, as if Europeans didn’t have enough of those already, while Canadians seem convinced we have seismic and hurricane technology. In the face of all this stupidity, how could our military even run a respectable disinformation campaign? Mheh?

There isn’t much that can be said about the tsunami that hasn’t already been said all over the Blogosphere, so we shall kindly refrain from adding to the din.

But why, oh why, oh WHY is it that every time we’re overcome by sorrow and compassion for our fellow human beings in need, we’re confronted with outrageous shit like this? (Link gracelessly lifted from LC & IB BMEWS)

So these deranged camel-bothering worshippers of a Pedophile Prophet would rather their fellow citizens perish than accept help from Eretz Israel?

Well, so be it.

You Sri Lankan heaps of medieval rat droppings can go fuck yourselves, die and rot in Hell.

And remember, as you’re watching your loved ones slowly die, that it was your “religion of peace” that made it happen. Remember that you brought it upon yourselves. Remember it as the vultures pick the eyeballs from your children’s corpses.

Then thank Allah for it.

Primitive shits.

[UPDATE: And then we have this crap (thanks to alert LC Rey), proving once and for all that the Pope has his funny hat on a bit too tight:

Vatican, Dec. 28 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican newspaper has denounced a decision by the Israeli army to deny emergency help to disaster victims in Sri Lanka.

We don't know exactly where you pontificating pot heads get your "news" from, but you might want to check your sources. Here's a hint: Al-Jizmeera is not a reliable source.]

[UPDATE the 2nd: And who says we can't be apologetic in the Empire? LC & IB Laurence the Merciless has it down to a fine art. Take that, you ungrateful sods.]

[UPDATE the 3rd: Turns out that the whole she-bang about the Vatican exhibiting the ultimate in chutzpah was based on some third-rate clerk getting his Latin mixed up and translating the article wrong.

A most powerful lesson in not trying to cut corners in the translation department in order to save a few pennies, because it will come back to bite you. This is also known as the Golden You Get What You Pay For Rule?.]

Next summer, it will be legal to plunge into some Missouri rivers and grab catfish by hand – a type of fishing that is not for the faint of heart.
Known variously as noodling or hogging, handfishing has long been a misdemeanor punishable by fines, because state officials fear it depletes breeding-age catfish.

Whether or not the catfish are completely depleted, I’m sure they’re rather offended.

It can also be dangerous: Noodlers hold their breath for long periods under water and sometimes come up with fistfuls of agitated snakes or snapping turtles instead of fish.

“Monty, I’ll take what’s behind rock #3.” Or as they say, or should, “There are old noodlers and bold noodlers, but there are no bold 10-fingered noodlers.”

Missouri’s biological concerns are that handfishers, who go for the biggest fish they can wrestle from riverbanks or hollow logs, will take too many sexually mature fish from their underwater nests.

Now how a man grabs a sexually mature catfish is his own business, don’t you think?

So secretive are handfishers that they have formed a club called Noodlers Anonymous. A University of Missouri-Columbia professor who got the group’s cooperation in surveying its members found that most are men, average age about 40, living in rural areas.

Well of course they are, and bored and lonely too, but by making this strange practice illegal you just drive it underwater. As long as the noodlers don’t fish in the same spots as the dynamite fishermen there’s no real harm in it, but forgive me if I choose an electrically operated reel and computer controlled lure as my personal method of pissing off PETA.

“Secret European military intelligence reports indicate the transformation of the American humanitarian mission in Iraq into a profitable trade in the American markets through the practice of American physicians extracting human organs from the dead and wounded, before they are put to death, for sale to medical centers in America. A secret team of American physicians follow the troops during their attacks on Iraqi armed men to ensure quick [medical] operations for extracting some organs and transferring them to private operations rooms before they are transferred to America for sale.

Mheh. I’m sure our crews of flying space monkeys are using UFO’s to fly the pilfered body parts to Roswell, too. The funniest part is the alleged pricing.

These teams offer $40 for every usable kidney and $25 for an eye.

Do these morons realize an American doctor would charge you more than that for recommending cranberry juice and Visine? They must be confusing our doctors with European socialist health-care systems, where the debate is about whether doctors in Holland should be immune from prosecution for secretly killing babies.

Nevertheless, the German media will undoubtedly report our organ thefts as fact, just as David Kaspar reports they’re doing about the oil. Over a year and a half later my SUV is still waiting impatiently for all that Iraqi crude…

Malaysian Prime Minister’s goats stolen

Kuala Lumpur, Dec 25. (PTI): Two goats belonging to Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi have been stolen from a government facility in the north of the country, a media report said today.

Holy moly! Is there no limit to man’s perfidity? Where were the minister’s caprine security forces? I simply had to read the gritty details of this earth shattering tale, skipping the site’s third link to something about a quake and tsunami.

The two Australian Boer goats were presented to Badawi a few years back by some businessmen and were placed under the care of a veterinary department in Penang state in northern Malaysia, ‘The Star’ daily said.

What kind of businessman gives goes up to a prime minister and gives him a pair of goats? What kind of thieves then plot to steal them? Will this true-life incident form the plot of the next Bond flick or give us “The Bourne Inanity”?

The pair of Boers worth about USD 1,300 were stolen along with 11 other goats after the thieves gained entry to the department’s compound by cutting its perimeter fencing, the report said.

OK, now I’ve got the theme music from “Mission Impossible” playing in my head as I picture a squad of ninja clad secret agents slipping through the fences, security lasers, and guard towers, then catapulting over the inner wall and hacking the security system to get into the holding pens. Obviously they couldn’t risk having the other goats trigger the alarms, so they took them too, hustling the whole group into unmarked white vans and speeding off into the dark night, tossing out smoke grenades to thwart any government jeeps that might pursue.

The theft was discovered by the veterinary department’s staff on Thursday when they conducted a head count, it said.

“They started shouting in German as the peaceful morning was shattered by the compound’s air-raid sirens, and within minutes diplomatic and emergency lines lit up all across the Pacific Rim. The goats were missing.”

Police were checking abattoirs and breeding farms to look for culprits and the animals, the paper said.

They can save the trouble since the goats are already halfway to Morocco on Dr. Evil’s private Airbus A340, enroute to Skull Island, but rest assured I’ll keep my finger on the pulse of this one, even though the true facts will remain shrouded in secrecy for decades.

HAVANA (AP) – President Communist Dictator Fidel Castro said a crude oil deposit has been discovered off Cuba containing up to 100 million barrels, good news for a country that imports about half the petroleum it needs.

We’d be willing to bet donuts to dollars that this story wouldn’t contain the words “good news for a country that imports about half the petroleum it needs” if it were the U.S. that had discovered a rather sizable oil deposit just off the coast of, saaaaay, Tampa Bay or Miami. It’d be spun so that the Eeeeeeeeevil BushCheneyHalliburtonBigOiiiiiiiilCabalr was plotting to cover the beaches of Florida with a 3-foot layer of heavy crude and had plans to dynamite every piece of coral within the Caribbean & Gulf of Mexico basins.

“This is the first discovery since 1999,” Castro said Friday in a speech to a closed session of the National Assembly. His comments were aired on state television Saturday.

Castro said the deposit was located off the coast of Santa Cruz del Norte, east of Havana, during an exploratory drilling. He said production at the site could begin during 2006.

And yet we’re still shelling out top dollar to the Shoddy Retardians? and other camel-fellators, while TENS OF BILLIONS of barrels of oil and TRILLIONS of cubic feet of gas are just offshore of the US and in ANWAR. Makes sense to us.

Cuba currently produces 75,000 barrels daily, about half of what it needs. It imports most of the rest, much of it on favorable terms from political ally Venezuela.

And that, right there, tells you all that you need to know about the current government in Venezuela….

Oil specialists believe Cuba’s waters in the Gulf of Mexico could contain large quantities of crude, just as those of Mexico and the United States do. Earlier explorations turned up only modest discoveries.

And which of these countries would have its economy castrated by the *spit* Kyoto Protocols *spit*? (We’ll give you some time to think that one over.)

We’ll be outside sitting in the Imperial F-150 SuperCrew o’ Doom? and revving the engine all night. We’ll peek in occasionally to check on your answers.

F.E.T.E.