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Friday, 25 December 2009

Some guy tried to blow up a plane over Detroit.

TLDR: Man tries, fails to ignite bomb on plane from a mixture of liquids. Is tackled by a young man, arrested. Claims ties to Al Quaeda.

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http://www.mediaite.com/online/attempted-terror-attack-on-northwest-jet/#more-61618

A passenger on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 landing this afternoon in Detroit tried to blow up the flight in an attempted terrorist attack — but the bomb failed, say authorities.
The White House is calling this an attempted terrorist attack.

The flight made an emergency landing in Detroit after 23-year old suspect, Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to detonate a device but failed. Initial reports were that a firecracker was set off, but as events unfolded reports shifted to characterizing it as an apparent act of terrorism — confirmed, we are now hearing, by Abdulmutallab himself, who says he was on a mission from Al Qaeda.

NBC, CBS and other news outlets report that Abdulmutallab was on a U.S. government watch list of people with suspected terrorist ties — but not a no-fly list.

According to CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen, Abdulmutallab told authorities that he procured the materials used for the potential explosive device in Yemen. Yesterday, an airstrike by Yemeni forces targeting an al Qaeda hub killed 30; reports that radical cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, linked to Ft. Hood shooter, army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, was not among them. According to Bergen, Yemen is becoming a major hotbed for terrorist activity.

Thursday, 17 December 2009

This is life.

A guy I sort of know:

"In Prague, periodically the 'Baroque' Circus sets up it's big-top and caravans on the Letna plains. It's a meager arrangement of tents surrounded by trucks at one end and another big tent on the other. Apparently one of the attractions is a motorcycle-riding black bear which they've trained to drive a bike around the inside of the main ring in front of grinning adults and cheering children. No telling how many times a day, and how many days a year, this beleaguered animal is forced to perform the trick–riding around, and around, and around, and, well…you get the picture.

One day, recently, there was a fairly well known journalist in the audience who the ringmaster tried to convince to ride shotgun with the bear. Naturally the journalist was apprehensive about this. The bear probably was too, at least more than usual. However, after much pleading and cajoling from the circus-types and audience alike the journalist warily got on the back of the bike.

Maybe it was the ringmaster tweaking the moment for the benefit of the audience. Maybe it was the unfamiliar presence of the journalist; his smell or the sudden re-distribution of weight on the bike. Maybe it was the mood of the bear; underfed, overfed, or just fed up. Who can say what a bear is thinking at any given moment? Whatever it was, the bear revved the engine and made a bee-line out of the tent and roared across the Letna plain – the journalist clinging to the back of the bike experiencing various degrees of horror and shock.

I worked out what had happened after a few weeks. But what I saw, standing at a nearby tram stop, was a Black bear on a motorbike - with a howling passenger - in the middle-distance zipping across a field with a crowd of people screaming and in hot pursuit behind it."

:)

Saturday, 12 December 2009

that nervous feeling

i'd felt it, weakly, a couple of times
and that made me nervous
but tonight, it hit me like a brick.
my heart beating fast,
my voice catching in my throat,
my mind freaking out.
i got that nervous feeling, strong,
and that makes me smile
my secret smile.

Thursday, 10 December 2009

It's funny how much

one morning of talking over a game of scrabble and a peppermint mocha can make you think and realize. I haven't read my Bible for real in forever. I open it today - and instantly find like eight answers to things I was thinking about. I haven't been doing any bad stuff, don't worry, I just haven't been working so hard to do good stuff. I was getting cynical again. I'm gonna get back on this path.
1 Timothy 1:12-14. My prayer ;)

Monday, 07 December 2009

Currently
Fallow
By Weakerthans
see related
For those of you who like substance,

I realized that I haven't done a real post in awhile. I mean, I've thrown out some lyrics here and a quote there, but I haven't written anything thick or interesting in a long time. I'm in a fantastic mood after a day of sledding and hot chocolate and a week of just pure awesomeness, so I thought now would be a good time to write some stuff and post some random art stuff.

Here are some of the people I've been hanging out with lately (photography by me):

and heres some art i did. it's been a long time since i did any photomanipulation, so it's not my best, but i gave it a shot:

and here's the first part of a song i'm writing. i just learned to sing and play at the same time, so it's not great. also are a bunch of random songs i've learned.

i've also started practicing drawing again and am making a little headway into drawing faces (pun completely intended :D ) but i don't have anything to show you guys about that.

so anyway that's an update in my life that you all can understand. i promise one of my next three posts will tackle an issue or at least talk about something vaguely interesting :)
(like this?)

speaking of which, anyone that hasn't should check out this article:
http://bitsofwisdom.org/2009/10/21/interesting/perception/
if you haven't heard of it, a world-famous violinist played in a subway for an hour anonymously and made $35 while no one stopped to listen. while it can all be explained away psychologically, what with crowd syndrome and the diea that others know better influencing your decisions, it's still interesting to think about.

oh and a picture of me: