Quite recently, in a suburb far, far away

Quite recently, in a suburb far, far away, abided Australia's greatest Star Wars aficionado. 

Chris Brennan has low maintenance work as a Darth Vader impersonator, is the president of the national Star Wars fan club and has dedicated the whole second carpet of his home to his fixation. 

When he went by the set of the most recent Star Wars portion, Mr Brennan indicated out the ensemble office they were utilizing the wrong Darth Vader outfit for the order of the movies. 

The 38-year-old IT laborer has been gathering anything to do with Star Wars since the time that his mother put a R2d2 puppet on his twelfth birthday cake. 

His gathering could now be worth to the extent that $100,000 and is secured from jealous devotees by an alert framework. 

Mr Brennan's home in Doreen, in Melbourne's north, is his place of worship to Star Wars. 

A life-size styrofoam Jabba the Hut complete with sticky Vaseline dribble sits close to a huge copy of a Jedi spaceship. 

The dividers are lined with puppets from Luke Skywalker to darken characters, for example, Yakface, still in their containers. 

He even has a working R2d2 that reacts to orders. 

The delegated brilliance of his gathering is the $5000 Darth Vader suit he wears for Star Wars advancements, KFC openings and Toys "R" Us occasions. When he suits up, his wife calls him "Master Vader". 

"You must be drenched in the character," Mr Brennan said. 

"Vader has a presumption. You're in control. Other people, escape the way." 

In outfit he has pushed news people out of his way and snatched individuals around the throat to make them search legitimately terrified for photographs. 

One passerby was so occupied by seeing the kitted-up Vader in a retail chain he tumbled down the elevators. 

"You're that character. 

He did confess to giving yelling youngsters a little wave to quiet them down if nobody was looking. 

Mr Brennan has required some investment off work to show up on the Star Wars circuit when Revenge of the Sith opens next Wednesday.

The beloved wife of Jacob

Rachel as illustrated in the Bible is the beloved wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife. Jacob was her first cousin, and she was the youngest niece of Rebekah.

Rachel's son, Joseph, is intended to be the leader of Israel's tribes between exile and nationhood. This role is demonstrated in the Biblical story of Joseph, who prepared the way in Egypt for his family's exile there, and in the future figure of Mashiach ben Yosef (Messiah, son of Joseph), who, in the Rabbinic Jewish view, will battle the apocalyptic Wars of Gog and Magog, paving the way for the kingship of Mashiach ben David (Messiah, son of David) and the messianic age. Rachel also had a second son named Benjamin; she died during labor with him.

Rachel

Rachel as described in the Bible is a prophet and the favorite wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife. Jacob was her first cousin, and she was the youngest niece of Rebekah.

Marriage to Jacob: Rachel is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 29 when Jacob happens upon her as she is watering her lamb. He had traveled a great distance to find his mother's brother, Laban. Rebekah had sent him there to be safe from his furious twin brother, Esau.

During Jacob's stay, he fell in love with Rachel and agreed to work seven years for Laban in return for her hand in marriage. On the night of the wedding, the bride was veiled and Jacob did not notice that Leah, Rachel's older sister, had been substituted for Rachel. Whereas "Rachel was lovely in form and beautiful," "Leah had tender eyes".Later Jacob confronted Laban, who excused his own deception by insisting that the older sister should marry first. He assured Jacob that after his wedding week was finished; he could take Rachel as a wife as well, and works another seven years as payment for her.

After Leah had given birth to four sons, Rachel remained unable to conceive. She became jealous of Leah and gave Jacob her maidservant, Bilhah, to be a surrogate mother for her. Bilhah gave birth to two sons that Rachel named and raised (Dan and Naphtali). Leah responds by offering her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob and names and raises the two sons (Gad and Asher) that Zilpah bears. According to some commentaries, Bilhah and Zilpah, are actually half-sisters of Leah and Rachel.

After Leah conceived again, Rachel was finally blessed with a son, Joseph, who would become Jacob's favorite child.

Alan Noel Latimer Munby

Alan Noel Latimer ('Tim') Munby (1913–1974) was an English author, writer and librarian.

Born in Hampstead, Munby was educated at Clifton College and King's College, Cambridge. He is best known for his slim volume of ghost stories, The Alabaster Hand, most of which was written in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War Two. Munby worked in the antiquarian book trade with Bernard Quaritch, Limited (1935–37) and Sotheby & Company (1937–39, 1945–47). He became Librarian at King's College, Cambridge in 1947 and Fellow in 1948; he was J.P.R. Lyell Reader in Bibliography, University of Oxford (1962–63) and Sandars Reader in Bibliography, University of Cambridge (1969–70). He was elected President of the Bibliographical Society in 1974 and died during his term of office.

Munby's first marriage was to Joan Margaret Edelsten; his second marriage was to Sheila Rachel Crowther-Smith.

Revolution for the hell of it

The man who coined the slogan "revolution for the hell of it", Abbie Hoffman, died on the 12th of April, 1989. Yep, that crazy dude who cofounded and was a leader of the Youth International Party as well as instrumental in promoting the White Panthers, a la interrupting The Who at Woodstock by jumping onstage and making a speech of protest against the imprisonment of John Sinclair of the White Panther, er, Party... but guitarist Pete Townshend knocked him off stage - not because he disagreed, but Hoffman, like, interrupted his set, man...




I will try not to go off on a tangent, ranting about how much of a dangerous idiot I think this guy was, but I will just show you something that might help you make the same conclusion, unless of course you are a raving Leftie and in turn want to kill my fascist ass.

Check out the ten-point program of the White Panthers that I have listed below; they would probably go down well in happy happy Lala-Land, but we live on planet Earth and all the different cultures and societies in the world are made up of human beings. Now don't get me wrong, I am a staunch supporter of universal human rights, but it is beyond me as to how this plan will achieve anything resembling peace on earth...

It is so typical of the anarcho-Left to demand everything for free, an end to money [wtf?] and everything else for free; food, clothes, housing, dope, music, bodies, medical care... where is this stuff supposed to materialise from? Slaves in a small developing nation or the sparkly little fairies at the bottom of the garden? I do believe in universal medical care; but if you can afford to pay you should, and if you're too poor to pay I actually believe the state should provide because if we are going to have such exorbitant taxes you deserve a return on that forced investment. But free dope? Who would be responsible for paying for this? Ohhhh, that's right, money doesn't exist anymore, we would have already painted ourselves blue and be living like the Smurfs. Ha! What a wank! As human beings we are inherently selfish, that might not be such a great thing, but it is unavoidable. The individual should be responsible for their own selfishness, their own habits, their own desires...

Hm, I wasn't going to rant, oh well!

So, Abbie Hoffman, may your soul rest in peace, and in conclusion I will concede you made some rather lovely points, now where is the feasibility study to prove that everyone wants the same things out of life??!!!! Huh? Huh? Yeah, I thought so...

Like the Black Panthers, the White Panthers laid out a ten-point program

1.) Full endorsement and support of Black Panther Party's 10-Point Program

2.) Total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock n' roll, dope and fucking in the streets.

3.) Free exchange of energy and materials - we demand the end of money!

4.) Free food, clothes, housing, dope, music, bodies, medical care - everything free for everybody!

5.) Free access to information media - free the technology from the greed creeps!

6.) Free time and space for all humans - dissolve all unnatural boundaries.

7.) Free all schools and all structures from corporate rule - turn the buildings over to the people at once!

8.)Free all prisoners everywhere - they are our brothers.

9.) Free all soldiers at once - no more conscripted armies.

10.) Free the people from their "leaders" - leaders suck - all power to all the people freedom means free everyone!

Another ten-point program which is nearly the same

1.) We want freedom. We want the power for all people to determine their own destinies.

2.) We want justice. We want an immediate and total end to all political, cultural and sexist repression of all oppressed people all over the world, particularly the repression of women, of black people and of young people.

3.) We want a free world economy based on the free exchange of energy and materials and the end of money.

4.) We want a clean panet and a healthy people. We want to restore the ecological balance of the planet and secure the future of humanity and it's environs.

5.) We want a free educational system that will teach each man, woman and child on Earth exactly what each needs to know to survive and grow into his or her full human potential.

6.) We want to free all structures from corporate rule and turn all the buildings and land over to the people at once.

7.) We want free access to all information media and to all technology for all the people.

8.) We want the freedom of all people who are being held against their will in the conscripted armies of the oppressor throughout the world.

9.) We want the freedom of all political prisoners of war held in the federal state, county and city jails and prisons. We want them returned to their communities at once!

10.) We want a free planet. We want free land, free food, free shelter, free clothing, free music and culture, free media, free technology, free education, free health care, free bodies, free people, free time and space, everything free for everybody!





PS. If only Hoffman had lived to see the demise of the Iron Curtain...!!

There were Nazis...

... and there were people like this

Righteous Among the Nations Ceremony at Yad Vashem




Major Karl Plagge to be posthumously honoured in presence of German Ambassador




A ceremony posthumously honoring German Major Karl Plagge as a Righteous Among the Nations will take place at Yad Vashem on April 11, 2005. Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev will present the Certificate of Honor and medal to Professor Dr.-Ing. Johann-Dietrich Wörner, President of the Technical University of Darmstadt (Darmstadt University is Maj. Plagge’s alma mater), as Maj. Plagge has no surviving relatives.

Survivors who were helped by Maj. Plagge and their families - among them Dr. Simon Malkes, Dr. Michael Good, and Mr. Bill Begell - will attend the ceremony, as will Germany’s Ambassador to Israel H.E. Rudolf Dressler.



Some background...


Major Karl Plagge served as an officer of the Wehrmacht in Vilnius, Lithuania, from June 1941 to June 1944. While stationed in Vilnius he was in charge of a repair facility for military vehicles (HKP 562), where hundreds of Jews worked. According to the brutal decimation policy adopted by the SS in occupied Lithuania, the first to be slated for extermination were the “unproductive” Jews. Employment at Plagge’s HKP unit thus offered a chance for survival. Plagge treated his workers well, and included many people who were not qualified as mechanics to work there in order to save them from deportation; among the Jews of Vilnius it was known that if one wanted a chance to survive, the only option was to work in Plagge’s plant. In the last days of June 1944, on the eve of the German evacuation of Vilnius, Plagge assembled his Jewish workers and warned them in thinly veiled language that they were going to be handed over to the care of the SS. Some managed to escape and/or hide and some 200 survived. Karl Plagge died in 1957 and was posthumously recognized by the Committee on July 22, 2004.

Bracks = Tax

Bracks = Tax
Steve Bracks Stops Charity With Fifteen-Fold Rise In Land Tax

on Bracks Watch
Bracks' land tax grab, which has seen land taxes triple under his watch, continues. The Herald Sun reports that Hambleton House, a facility that houses 31 elderly and mentally ill residents, faces a fifteen fold increase in it's land tax from $2700 two years ago to $45,000 (almost $1500 a resident) this year.

Surely the Bracks government can see that the costs to the State of caring for these 31 high needs individuals elsewhere will make $45,000 look like a drop in the ocean? However it would seem not, apparently until two months ago private aged care facilities were exempted from the tax, but are now subject to it thanks to a "policy shift".

All the government could do when it hit the media this weekend was to roll out spokesperson Brent Hooley. When the rubber hits the road, you aren't going to see Steve getting up and explaining the government's decisions, he'd rather greet Princess Mary, go to the Grand Prix or daydream about opening the Commonwealth Games.

Rolling in money taken from Victorians, the Bracks government is still obsessed with revenue, gutting our small businesses & charities with exhorbitant increases in land tax and bickering with the Commonwealth about GST revenue. Are they just trying to overcompensate for the Cain/Kirner years, or is there more to this? What do they need all the money for? What dirty little secrets don't we know about, that require all this cash?