Nobody lives in Awesome Town. There is no plumbing, no electricity and no air conditioning. There is no city council, no Police Department, no Fire Department, no Post Office. There is a jail where no one will be incarcerated. There is no telephone service and no weekly trash pickup.

Awesome Town has no industry, no farming, and no business.

There are no stores or restaurants in Awesome Town, but there is a 5-story hotel. Nobody has ever checked in to the hotel and no one ever will.  There are no gas stations because there are no cars, and children are not allowed in Awesome Town.

There are no newspapers in Awesome Town because there is no one to read them. There are no medical facilities or pharmacies either, and there is no hospital. There is no internet service or broadcast radio or television.

Awesome Town is located on San Clemente Island, California. It is a Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT) Training Complex.

[From this Architect's perspective, this would have been a fun project.  Found via here. Photos from here. Detailed description from CMA below the break.]

ARCHITECT:
Vasquez Marshall Architects
13220 Evening Creek Drive, Suite 117
San Diego, CA 92128
David R. Vasquez, RA, LEED® AP
Principal

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER:
Stedman & Dyson Structural Engineers
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
I.E.-Pacific, Inc.
MASONRY CONTRACTOR:
Persall Masonry Inc.

BLOCK PRODUCER:
RCP Block and Brick, Inc.

OWNER:
Department of the Navy

Architect’s Commentary:

This Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT) Training Complex is based on European and Third World urban patterns to give multidirectional access for Navy S.E.A.L. Operations. Water, air, and land approaches are all possible for training purposes. The training facilities include 26 buildings consisting of a variety of building types, including a 5-story hotel, urban open square, City Hall/Police building with jail, office, bank, school/mosque, industrial, retail/residential, embassy and an urban open market.

These collections of buildings, along with site walls, are designed to create diverse tactical situations for Navy S.E.A.L. training with narrow twisting, winding roads and pathways creating an unknown situation around each corner. The building interiors are designed in a similar fashion to the exterior style where each room, corridor and stair presents a new situation to the trainees.

Unique features of this collection of buildings include the considerations made for blasting and explosives. All rooms were designed so that live explosives can be set off inside and not destroy the structural integrity of the building. Blasting windows have been integrated throughout the buildings to help with relief of these blasts.

Good God! The Nicolle Brothers have a goldmine with AXE COP, and Episode 6 is up. Ethan Nicolle reports that since 25 January they’ve been getting 30-45 THOUSAND hits a day, and now they’ve got a splinter thread called “Ask AXE COP.” [Don't squint, click the image.]

Due to the massive volume of traffic, their site is being revamped to handle the load.

[Related post with links here.]

Please support Haiti by clicking on the SocialVibe banner. Its totally free, all you have to do is complete the activities that come up on the screen. Each activity gets the sponsor to donate money for one tree.

Thanks

AXE COP is the most awesome thing we’ve seen on the internest in years.

Imagine Calvin as the author of a comic strip, and this is what you get. Created and written by a 5 year old, his 29 year old cartoonist brother puts it into action in glorious black and white.

Ya gotta read it from the beginning, Episode 1.  (Episode 0 comes later.) Unfortunately the website is slow to load, and has some other quirks about it, but it’s worth the time.

Superhero Sockarang is my personal favorite.
He shows up in Episode 5:

“Sockarang came to a try out when Axe Cop was preparing to go on a mission to fight Bad Santa and the Evil Flying Book. Sockarang has socks for arms, and he can shoot them out and they return to him like boomerangs. In his fight with Bad Santa he got some of Bad Santa’s blood on him and he got Bad Santa powers, which he used for good.”

[Link via  the Awesome Miss Cellania.]

[Clarification: Although the image above is from the Axe Cop site, the lame-o mspaint editing/coloring  job was our doing for purposes of this post only, with apologies to the Nicolle Brothers.]

Mr. Zero.  He’s Nothing. Really Nothing.

Although he’s Nothing, he wants everyone to pay attention to him, to pay attention to Nothing.

He knows Zip, Nada, and Everything That Isn’t. No one knows him, yet too many people understand him. He says Nothing to everyone.

Mr. Zero is very intelligent, and agrees to Nothing because he can deliver it. He can give you Nothing as well.  He can make sure that you have plenty of Nothing, so much so that you can only give it away, even though nobody wants it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Zero demands a lot. He is capable of taking everything and turning it into Nothing, which is exactly what you will get back if you give him anything.

He creates Nothing, and he sells it, too, at a very high price.

The only way to stop Mr. Zero is to give him Nothing.

[Image found here.]

These are the folks who search for stuff on the internest.  These are the same folks who find Tacky Raccoons by searching for stuff on the internest.  These are the top 20 search requests over the past year that these folks used to find stuff on Tacky Raccoons. Go figger.

1. ferret
2. wooly bear caterpillar
3. batmobile
4. motivational poster
5. woolly bear caterpillar
6. amputee porn
7. giant bear
8. babe
9. motivational
10. mission viejo
11. giant caterpillar
12. dwarf porn
13. motivational pictures
14. steampunk
15. woolly bear
16. stained glass
17. gif animations
18. ninja cat
19. ferret pictures
20. pillsbury dough boy

None of this matters, aside from being a curious list, and that I’m honestly surprised that Igde Pshat didn’t show up;  not that anyone would google it, or that anyone would search for  fuldkommen gak either for that matter. We’ve got bigger ducks to fry. It kinda bothers me that neither phrase showed up in our most-wanted google list.

I’ll get over it. Meanwhile…

The big question today is, Who is Ellie Light?

[Image found here.]

[Update: Ellie Light is found.]

This waterspout off the Huntington Beach Pier came ashore and flipped an SUV last Wednesday.  The pier is about 1/2 mile from my office.

Because they’re laden with water, they’re smaller than tornados that touch down on land, but they’re still magnetically attracted to trailer parks and boat slips.

No photoshoppage here, these are the real deal. I’d give each of these students an A for Awesome.

Click on individual images below to avoid the squints. More great projects can be found here. Click on Death Row Barbie above for step-by-step instructions.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born 15 January 1929. Its a shame that so many self-serving politicians and faux civil rights organizations have co-opted and distorted his legacy.

Click on the image to read the whole publication.

Police Officer Martin Duffy rappels down the side of 2430 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. in Harlem to shoot a 400-pound Bengal-Siberian tiger, that was kept in an apartment, with a tranquilizer. The sedated tiger, named Ming, and a 3-foot caiman alligator were removed from the building. The animals’ owner was tracked down in Philadelphia and charged with reckless endangerment.

[Image found here with description embedded. Full story from 2003 here.]

Many have said that all Palestine needs is a Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. type to lift it from the depths of despair and enlighten it with the hope and promise of a new beginning. After all, that’s what many of the historically oppressed needed to triumph over apartheid-like regimes, right?

Not so easy. Unlike other oppressive states, Israel has a historic carte blanche with international law and a proficiency at nullifying or ignoring UN and criminal justice regulations. Recently, several promising, completely non violent anti apartheid Palestinian activists have emerged, but because of their talk and promise alone they have been arrested without cause and detained without trial. Tomorrow, January 9th, is now a day in the activism community to recognize both those who refuse to serve in the IDF and those who are unlawfully detained.

Mohammad Othman was detained on September 22^nd after a BDS advocacy trip to Norway. To this day, he has had several hearings that have only prolonged his detention and solitary confinement without access to a lawyer.

Abdallah Abu Rahmah is a high school teacher was arrested on December 9, 2009 for arms possession. These “arms” were teargas used at the weekly non-violent Bil’in protests (as a tiny piece of protection against the IDF).

Jamal Juma founder of the Stop the Wall campaign was arrested on December 16^th.  His home was searched and his computer and cell phone confiscated.  He has now been held for more than 20 days without charge.

These are only three of thousands of prisoners held unlawfully without charges. So, don’t keep the Mandela’s of Palestine imprisoned for as long as he was; click here to write to the US Consulate in East Jerusalem demanding the release of these prisoners. Make sure that the United States upholds Hilary Clinton’s supposed promise to not “torture, arbitrarily detain and persecute dissenters.” Also, for all Bay Areans, there is a protest in San Francisco tomorrow (Saturday).

Watch this Real News clip to learn more about shocking discrepancies in prison policies between Israelis and Palestinians.

[Image from here. .Gif from here. Video previously posted here with awesome commentary. Long Live the King.]

Photo by Greg Burchell

Story by Meg Banks and Greg Burchell

TORONTO — A stolen silver Hyundai sedan met its match at the corner of Bloor and Emerson tonight — in the form of a paneled van.

Just before 8:00 p.m. the driver of the Hyundai rear-ended a large van going south on Emerson. The van slid forward onto Bloor and collided with another van.

The driver of the Hyundai was placed under arrest when police realized the car he was driving (poorly) was reported stolen from London, Ontario, said Toronto Police Constable Steve Chen.

The four male occupants of the first van, and the lone male driver of the second van, were taken to St. Mike’s and St. Joseph’s hospitals, said Chen.

Photo by Greg Burchell

… so I guess we’ll never know.

[Top image found in here.]

New Year’s Resolution Number 1: Walk Wisely.

This lifesaving message was brought to you by the National Safety Council via the 1960 Rose Parade. Better advice cannot be found anywhere.

[Image from here.]

U.S.News & WORLD REPORT

By Kenneth T. Walsh

Posted December 24, 2009

President Obama is a cool customer. He doesn’t seem to get really angry, depressed, or frustrated or to lose control of his emotions.

And that’s the problem. To some of his supporters, Obama is presiding over a passionless presidency. He seems too cerebral and per­sonally disengaged from the problems of everyday Ameri­cans. Some have compared him to Mr. Spock, the brainy and aloof Vulcan of the Star Trek movie and TV se­ries who tried to base his decisions totally on reason and logic.

In a recent interview, Obama told me that his goal is to “make decisions based on information and not emotions.” Actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock on Star Trek, even weighed in. “I guess it’s somewhat unusual for a politi­cian to be so precise, logical, in his thought process. The comparison to Spock is, in my opinion, a compliment to him and to the character.” And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says, “He doesn’t get real high or real low.” Gibbs adds that Ameri­­cans should be comforted by Obama’s steadi­ness. …

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2009/12/24/critics-say-obama-lacks-emotion.html

It’s Christmas time and there is not much REAL news to report so, engaging in “MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING” might work. Obama lacks emotion…wow!!!

Apparently, the desired emotions that “critics” would like to see are:

Anger

Depression or frustration

And President Obama’s critics would like to see a loss of control of those emotions!

WOW!!!!!!!

The neocons and their supporters know there have been acts designed to bring out negative emotions from President Obama. Someone yelled out “YOU LIE” from a gathering of role models for America’s children. The yeller was an obvious critic of President Obama. President Obama’s CRITICS, perhaps, would have him respond thusly:

“YO MAMA – MOTHER …”

Or, perhaps, President Obama could have responded with, “IT’S JUST A GODDAMN PIECE OF PAPER … MOTHER …!!!

The neocons have indeed lowered the bar on respectable behavior. It is a known fact that “verbiage” from the past President and past Vice President, has, on occasion  strayed from the “straight and narrow”. And President Obama’s CRITICS – perhaps – would like to see him continue the emotional vocabulary slide of the neocons.

But, some critics ought to be encouraged to remain as just critics. What those critics want should be left wanting.

Perhaps President Obama’s critics could look at the President’s SOCKS! Mis-matched socks might provide an additional subject upon which to criticize the President.

Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between black and dark blue. One black sock and one dark blue sock could be a news-worthy revelation during the Yuletide season when real news is hard to come by.

The latest rap battle Robert Foster has done. This time it is between Lord Monckton, the climate change sceptic, and Al Gore, the climate change champion. They discuss climate change in another creative creation by Robert Foster. This is my personal favorite.

Was some time ago, but amusing still. A very creative way of presenting news. This one is about Obama’s so-called peace prize given out by the Nobel prize comitee in Norway.

He was only 26 years old when he died.

As many of you know by now, Chris Henry, a Bengals wide receiver with promise, died as a result of falling off a pick up truck during a domestic dispute with his fiancée. He sustained massive head injuries from which he couldn’t recover, and died Thursday morning.

Details of how this happened are sketchy, but a 911 call from an undisclosed individual claims that Chris Henry was yelling “If you leave me, i’ll jump off this truck and kill myself” to his fiancée in the car as she was driving.

Chris Henry had a troubled past. During  his first year in the league, he was pulled over on December 15, 2005 for speeding, and during a search, marijuana was found in his shoe. He also had no driver’s license or insurance. However, he pleaded guilty and avoided a jail sentence. It was only the first of many legal problems Henry would have, from future DUI’s, to assault charges for allegedly attacking a man that he claimed was “a case of mistaken identity for someone” that owed him money. For his legal troubles, he payed a large amount in fines to both the NFL and various police departments in Ohio.

In light of all these legal problems, however, Michael Irvin reached out to Henry in an attempt to help him clean his life up. Because of the hard work Henry and Irvin put in to turn Henry’s life around, he was a changed man.

And that’s the sad part. Henry had changed his life, from constantly doing wrong, to committing to the mother of his children and vowing to give his three children the life he wish he had when he was younger. His teammates, such as Chad Ochocinco, saw the change in his life and gave him all the support in the world. Sadly, the Cinderella story was never meant to be as he joined the ranks of people that left our world too soon.

You would think that people would have the common decency to not speak ill about the dead, but that thought apparently didn’t get into the head of Jay Feely, the kicker for the New York Jets.

“Chris Henry seemed to have turned his life around. But, you can’t live on the brink of destruction without inevitably falling off the ledge”

“younger generation needs to learn the lesson that our choices have implications and those implications often entail negative consequences”

For some people, decency is a foreign language. It’s too bad, because karma caught up with him in the form of three missed field goals this weekend, during the Jets v. Falcons game, in which the Falcons won by three.

Rest in peace, Mr. Henry.

Thanks. Thanks a lot, you gutless clueless corrupt morons.

From CNN at 11:40PM:

Washington (CNN) — Senate Democrats braved the aftermath of a blizzard Sunday to continue their push to pass a sweeping health care bill before Christmas.

Right. They were standing in the snow, shivering, while the Republicans kept the doors shut. Phew.

[Update 9:06PM: LIVE FEED HERE.]

[Update 10:24PM: 60-40. Wimps. Thank you, too, Mr. Lieberman.]

It’s “new” in that it’s a new way of presenting news. It’s rap presented in a very creative way. The first one is “NASA Bombs the Moon”. You think this sort of stuff is what you see in science fiction, until you read about it in the news..

The guy is brilliant. Very Shakesperian!

Skuuvuunuum LORBO indeed. If this doesn’t make you want to see Avatar, nothing will.

[Available from Jim Woodring's store.  Sent via email from Madame Pupshaw.]