Monthly Archives: September 2005

More prisoner abuse by the U.S. military

Time Magazine reports: The U.S. Army has launched a criminal investigation into new allegations of serious prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan made by a decorated former Captain in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, an Army spokesman has confirmed to TIME.
Meanwhile, Americablog is bringing to light a story about U. S. soldiers trading digital pictures of dead Iraqis and Afghans for online access to porn. The pictures are then posted on the same porn site. It’s pretty grim; there are pictures of soldiers gleefully posing in front of humiliating pictures of dead middle easterners. So if you click through to the link, be prepared to see some sickening stuff.

Continue ReadingMore prisoner abuse by the U.S. military

Bill Frist Stock Scandal

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  • Post category:Politics

Senate leader Bill Frist is in some trouble regarding stock sales. He and other insiders apparently sold off stock in a company that he partially owns, just before the stock price went down, ala Martha Stewart.
The Associated Press has the basic story.
And ABC News exposes Frist’s lies that he didn’t know anything about the state of the stock before he sold.
Wow, I wonder what Stephanie’s classmate Nick Smith, who works for Senator Frist, thinks. Hee.

Continue ReadingBill Frist Stock Scandal

“Operation Offset” is more accurately “Operation Offset with money from your pocket”

The Republican Study Committee (RSC) lead by Indiana Rep. Mike Pence proposes “Operation Offset” which is their plan to pay for Hurricane Katrina, by raping America and transferring money to their big business cronies.

Marla helps us out by summarizing the plans:

  • $225 billion cut from Medicaid, the last-resort health insurance program for the very poor.
  • $200 billion cut from Medicare, the health care safety net for the elderly and the disabled.
  • $25 billion cut from the Centers for Disease Control — pending flu pandemic? What me worry?
  • $6.7 billion cut from school lunches for poor children — protein deprived children grow up to make a less pesky, more compliant workforce or breatharians must receive early training.
  • $7.5 billion cut from programs to fight global AIDS — it’s bad enough we have to pay anything for one group of poor black people, so don’t push it.
  • $5.5 billion to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — bye-bye Big Bird.
  • $3.6 billion cut to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities — if we can’t tolerate Big Bird, don’t even dream of tolerating art. So what if it’s an essential for consideration as a civilized society and only costs us 4 cents a day. You don’t expect the richest 1 percent to give up their tax cuts. Puhlease!
  • $8.5 billion cut to eliminate all subsidized loans to graduate students — aka professional jobs should be reserved for the sons and daughters of the oligarchy.
  • $2.5 billion cut from Amtrak — except for the commuter trains for Wall Street types, there goes that program, too.
  • $2.5 billion to eliminate the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative — the only thing remotely environmentally friendly Shrub embraced but what’re two hurricanes when you can make more, more, more!
  • $417 million cut to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency — it’s not as if a reasonable amount of the windfall of the Katrina/Rita budget is going to make it into minority-owned businesses anyway. All those rules were suspended along with the prevailing wage requirement straight off.
  • $4.8 billion cut to eliminate all funding for the Safe and Drug-Free schools program — no use trying to prevent any future poverty if we’re not willing to pay for it now.

Now, none of this would be neccessary if Bush eliminated the tax breaks he’s given to his big-business buddies, and to the richest 1% of America. But of course that’s not gonna happen.

I think the Repugnicans are forgetting what happened after Marie Antoinette and her infamous “let them eat cake” incident. The peasants rose up and cut off her head. Almost makes me want to take up knitting.

Continue Reading“Operation Offset” is more accurately “Operation Offset with money from your pocket”

100+ Funny British Place Names

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  • Post category:Funny Lists

April 26, 2013 update from Steph: Updated this page to add links to as many of the towns and streets as I could find in google maps. I originally added this list to my site on September 26, 2005, but I never verified whether the names were real places or not, until someone asked in comments. As far as I can tell, none of the thousand other sites that have this same list did either. It turned out that most of the names are of streets, rather than towns, so I updated the title of the page. If you have any names to add this list, feel free to contact me.


View Funny British Place Names in a larger map

Percy's Passage, London
Percy’s Passage, London
  1. Jeffries Passage, Surrey
  2. Prince Albert Court, Surrey
  3. Nork Rise, Surrey, United Kingdom. There is also a Nork Way, Banstead, UK and Nork Park, Banstead, United Kingdom. All in the same little area. Street and park names.
  4. Brown Willy, Cornwall – Cornwall’s highest point!
  5. Great Tosson, Northumberland
  6. Trump Street, London
  7. St. Mellons, Cardiff
  8. Percy Passage, London – This one was hard to track down – you basically have to use Google Street View because Google Maps doesn’t note this as an actually street. Do look around, because this is a cool little place. It’s a street that goes through buildings and then winds around in alleys. Londonist put together a helpful map of all of London’s Back Passages.
  9. Booty Lane, North Yorkshire
  10. Nether Wallop, Hampshire
  11. Honeypot Lane, Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
  12. Mudchute, London – this is an London Underground Station
  13. Juggs Close, East Sussex
  14. Cockermouth Green, Newcastle – I can find a Cockermouth Road, Sunderland, United Kingdom
  15. Six Mile Bottom, Cambridgeshire
  16. Cock and Bell Lane, Suffolk – This is in Long Melford.
  17. Little Bushey Lane, Hertfordshire
  18. Titlington Mount, Northumberland – The town of Titlington exists in Northumberland.
  19. Slippery Lane, Staffordshire
  20. Hooker Road, Norwich Also, Hooker Street, Northwich, United Kingdom
  21. Cumloden Court, Dumfries and Galloway
  22. Tinkerbush Lane, Oxfordshire
  23. Ugley, Essex
  24. Pratts Bottom, Greater London
  25. Ramsbottom Lane, Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom
  26. Prickwillow, Cambridgeshire
  27. Old Sodbury, Gloucestershire
  28. Upper Dicker, East Sussex
  29. Swell, Somerset
  30. Bladda Lane, Paisley, United Kingdom
  31. Snatchup, Hertfordshire
  32. Spital in the Street, Lincolnshire
  33. Shingay cum Wendy, Buckinghamshire
  34. Pump Alley, Middlesex
  35. Old Sodom Lane, Wiltshire
  36. Long Lover Lane, Halifax
  37. East Breast, Inverclyde
  38. Norfolk Broads, Dicks Mount, United Kingdom
  39. Staines, Surrey
  40. Crapstone, Devon
  41. Three Cocks, Powys
  42. Feltwell, Norfolk
  43. Pant, Shropshire
  44. Balls Cross, West Sussex
  45. Ogle Close, Merseyside
  46. Friars Entry, Oxfordshire
  47. North Piddle, Worcestershire
  48. Mincing Lane, London
  49. Bottoms Fold, Lancashire
  50. Backside Lane, Oxfordshire
  51. Winkle Street, Southampton
  52. Wham Bottom Lane, Rochdale, United Kingdom
  53. Upperthong, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
  54. Tosside, Lancashire
  55. The Furry, Cornwall
  56. Lower Swell, Gloucestershire
  57. Lickers Lane, Merseyside
  58. Honey Knob Hill, Wiltshire
  59. Boghead, Ayrshire
  60. The Bush, Buckinghamshire
  61. Hill o’Many Stanes, Scotland – This is an historic site. More than 22 rows of low slabs arranged in a slightly fan-shaped pattern, which may have been a prehistoric astronomical observatory.
  62. Grope Lane, Shropshire – there is a Gropers Lane, Ipplepen, United Kingdom
  63. Willey, Warwickshire
  64. Happy Bottom, Dorset – This one exists, but was hard to find. Google Maps didn’t show it until I found an address with a postal code on this street elsewhere, then searched the address.
  65. Feltham Close, Hampshire
  66. The Knob, Oxfordshire – not finding this. Knob Hall Lane, Southport, United Kingdom, and other Knobs exist.
  67. Menlove Avenue, Liverpool
  68. Titty Ho, Northamptonshire
  69. Crotch Cresent, Oxfordshire
  70. Blairmuckhole & Forestdyke road, Lanarkshire
  71. Pant-y-Felin Road, Swansea
  72. Beef Lane, Oxfordshire
  73. Merkins Avenue, West Dumbartonshire
  74. Pork Lane, Essex
  75. Moisty Lane, Staffordshire
  76. Wetwang, East Yorkshire
  77. Scratchy Bottom, Dorset – This exists, all though it’s hard to find on maps. The link is to the wikipedia page. The location is a valley between Durdle Door and Swyre Head in Dorset, England. Also “Durdle Door”? Wow.
  78. Swallow Passage, London – like Percy’s passage, Swallow Passage is an alley that passes under buildings, and isn’t marked by name on Google Maps. You have to use street view to find it.
  79. Lickey End, Worcestershire
  80. Bitchfield, Lincolnshire
  81. Spanker Lane, Derbyshire
  82. Rimswell, East Riding of Yorkshire
  83. Lickfold, West Sussex
  84. Dick Court, Lanarkshire
  85. Beaver Close, Surrey – there are a number of streets named “Beaver Close” throughout the UK. Must have a lot of beavers nearby.
  86. Fanny Avenue, Derbyshire
  87. Cockshoot Close, Oxfordshire
  88. Inchinnan Drive, Renfrewshire – Inching in?
  89. Fanny Hands Lane, Lincolnshire
  90. Hole of Horcum, North Yorkshire – Saltergate, Hole of Horcum
  91. Slag Lane, Merseyside
  92. Shitterton, Dorset
  93. Back Passage, London – Another one of those London alleyways that doesn’t pop up on google maps. The famous “Ye Old Cheshire Cheese Shop” is located on this passage just off of Fleet Street.
  94. Fingringhoe, Essex
  95. Muff, Northern Ireland – Northern Ireland isn’t in Britain, obviously.
  96. Sandy Balls, Hampshire
  97. Twatt, Orkney Unlike many of these, Twatt is actually a town.
  98. Bell End, Wollaston – I’m not sure why Bell End is funny. Urban Dictionary: Bell End. Nevermind, I get it.
  99. Minge Lane, Worcestershire
  100. Cocks, Cornwall – There is a Cock’s Hill, Cornwall, and a Cock’s Lake Lane, Cornwall.

There. Aren’t you happy that I’ve taken a survey of all the Cocks, Tits, Snatches, Mounds, Swells and Scratchy Bottoms in the United Kingdom so you don’t have to? List inspired by and contributed to from Rude Britain.

Other funny or unusual British towns and place names

While I was hunting down the above place names, I discovered others that were funny or interesting.

Continue Reading100+ Funny British Place Names

Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated

All those ultra-conservatives who sent around e-mails decrying the “chaos and break-down of society” in the wake of Katrina (the fault of poor people and liberals, of course) — full of crap, reports the the Seattle Times:

Following days of internationally reported murders, rapes and gang violence inside the stadium, the doctor from FEMA — Beron doesn’t remember his name — came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.
“I’ve got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome,” Beron recalled the doctor saying.
The real total?
Six, Beron said.
Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the handoff of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice.

Continue ReadingReports of anarchy at Superdome overstated

The Commonplacebook.com Morning Gazette

Here are many of the fine sites I read regularly.

Continue ReadingThe Commonplacebook.com Morning Gazette