This story is a few weeks old, but I’m just now getting around to it.

A leading Al-Qaeda militant on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to defend Uighurs in China’s restive northwestern region of Xinjiang. He told Uighurs to prepare for a holy war or Jihad and urged a “vast media campaign” to raise awareness of their fate at the hands of “oppressive” China.

In the video posted to jihadist websites, Abu Yahya al-Libi appeared to launch a frontal assault against China.

The coming war between China and Islam has been boiling under the surface for some time now.  China, having the benefit of a closed media and an existing international reputation as bad guys, will react to this war in a much different way than the west.

They will react in ways that countries like the US or Great Britain, or even Russia cannot.

He [ed. the Al-Qaeda militant] also accused China of using “satanic ways” to oppress Muslims in the province and replace them with other ethnicities while “looting their wealth and undermining their culture and religion.”

“Tens of thousand of people have been silently killed to prevent a revolt. The communist Chinese government has tried to eliminate all links between eastern Turkestan and the Islamic nation by sending colonisers to constantly reduce the number of Muslims,” he stated.

Another tactic China is using to exterminate Muslims is calling the province Xinjiang instead of eastern Turkestan, just as Palestine’s name as been changed to Israel, al-Libi argued.

He described China’s presence in Xinjiang as an “occupation” and claimed the colonisation of the province has made the Muslim population a minority.

“The Chinese have closed all the Islamic schools, forbidding the study of the Muslim religion. They have arrested and killed all the Muslim leaders,” he said.

Xinjiang is also the province where China is carrying out the largest number of nuclear experiments, al-Libi alleged.

“Thousands of people have died from the radiation emitted by the many nuclear missiles that have been launched and the experiments carried out in the area,” al-Libi concluded.

Uighurs make up 8 million people out of Xinjiang’s population of 20 million. It covers one-sixth of the country and is relatively sparsely populated.

I wouldn’t be surprised if 8 million Uighurs just ended up disappearing one day.  It’s surely not beyond the ability of the Chinese to execute.

China has been mostly silent as the rest of the international community deals with the threat of Islam.  (See, for instance, Iran.)

It will be interesting to see how they react when the threat is in their own back yard.

Everyone has experienced this problem:  You go to buy shoes.  But how can you be sure that those shoes will fit?  That squishing your toe thing is so barbaric.  Wouldn’t it be great if there were a high tech way to check shoes for proper fit?

Why yes, kids and kiddies, you need a Shoe Fitting Fluoroscope!

The Fluoroscope, common in shoe stores from the 1920s – 1950s, used x-rays to project an image of the foot, inside the shoe, onto a screen.

The three viewfinders were for the shoe salesman, mom, and the kid getting the shoes.  The kid put his foot into the slot below, and was basically standing on an x-ray tube.

X-Rays of feet! How high-tech!

Now, even the most casual observer of history and science can finish this story.  Yep.  Cancer in shoe salesmen, deformities, birth defects, sterilization.

But a small price to pay for a proper fit, I say!

Toward the end of the 1940′s US states started adopting laws regulating the machines and the radiation they could output.  By 1960 they were pretty much banned everywhere.

Source: History Channel, here.

The “Hot Mormon Muffins: A Taste of Motherhood” calendar features 12 mothers who claim membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in vintage pinup picture poses. Each month also has a muffin recipe.

Last year, a dustup over the calendar ultimately cost its creator, Las Vegas entrepreneur Chad Hardy, his membership in the church and his diploma from the church-owned Brigham Young University.

Hardy said the projects are designed to shake up stereotypes that paint Mormons in general as stuffy or hyper-conservative and mothers in particular as homemakers from another era.

“For Mormons, the most holy calling next to missionary work is motherhood,” said Hardy. “But they’re not all the subservient housewives that people think they are.”

Well, he was a phony, but now he’s less of one, I guess.  Let me explain.

Former Marine Drew Carey (the signature crew cut hair style is from his Marine days), at some point, had refractive surgery to correct his eyesight.  His signature glasses worn in public are a prop used so people recognize him.  Though, the joke is on him because as he is getting older, he really does need bifocals.

Other Drew-trivia:
The Drew Carey Show was on for 9 seasons / 233 episodes.
He hosted the American version of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” for 215 episodes.
He is fiscally conservative and considers himself a libertarian.
He is a minor owner in a Seattle Major League Soccer team.
He is a fan of The Sims and had a cameo in the House Party expansion
pack… if you threw a successful party, Drew would arrive to the party
in a limo.  And April Fools episode of The Drew Carey Show had a scene
that takes place completely within The Sims.
He is not as good as Bob Barker.

Source:  Good ole wiki

While at a party on Saturday, Ep0pee mentioned that he read in a Lutheran Cookbook that Sloppy Joes are called “Spanish Tavern Sandwiches.”  He also mentioned that he knew a few nutty folks who call them “BBQs.”  So that got me thinking… what’s with the name?  I mean, sure ‘sloppy’ is descriptive, but who is this Joe.

Turns out, the origin of Sloppy Joes traces back to a bar in Old Havana.  Sloppy Joe’s is now an historic bar in Key West, FL (Foreign Leadership Camp?).  According to the wiki, Sloppy Joe’s is mentioned in Citizen Kane when one of the men interviewed lists a few places that are “down south.” The last place mentioned before he remembers the right name is Sloppy Joe’s.

The Sloppy Joe sandwich is an American dish, “of ground beef, onions, [and] sweetened tomato sauce.”  Turns out Korndog is making them wrong (no onions!).  In various other parts of the country, they are also called:
Loosemeat sandwich
Looseburgers
Maid-Rites
Wimpies
Yip Yips
Slushburgers
Barbecues
Hot Tamales
Taverns
Steamers
Gulash

I call them… delicious

Under a section called “Partisan Knowledge Gap,” we find Republicans were more knowledgeable by a double-digit factor on four issues. Although the Glenn Beck question is naturally easier for Republicans, the other three issues are basic political knowledge— what “cap-and-trade” means, who’s in control of the House, and who the new Supreme Court Justice is (a question that should perhaps be easier for Democrats). Republicans also led Democrats on identifying the unemployment rate, Fed chairman, Dow level, Max Baucus’ position. Republicans correctly answered an Iran/Israel question and an Afghanistan question more often than Dems. Republicans and Democrats were even on identifying the “public option” as a health-care plan.

An April 2007 Pew Quiz showed this about partisan difference: “Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to be represented in the high-knowledge group. But significantly fewer Republicans (26%) than Democrats (31%) fall into the third of the public that knows the least.”

A September 2007 quiz showed more Republicans than Democrats could identify even the Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

It should not have happened — that I will stress, and very strongly,” said Michele Montas, spokeswoman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “There was some lapse in security and the individual in question [...] was, on the initiative of one security guard, taken [...] into the UN.”

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently sent this official letter to a member of the state assembly.  As a coincidence, the letter was sent to the member of the state assembly that told the Governor to “kiss [his] gay ass” at a fundraiser the other day.

Don’t see the significance?  Try reading the first letter of each line, down the page.

Still need it s-p-e-l-l-e-d o-u-t?  Click here (probably NSFW).

Soon to be the new mascot of the Democrats’ cap-and-tax push, Disney’s Tinker Bell was tapped by the United Nations this week to serve as an “Honorary Ambassador of Green.”

This is not an Onion parody:

Everybody knows New York City is an expensive place to live. But the United Nations wants to know if affordable housing is so tough to come by that it actually violates human rights.

The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said.