Couleur Café Brussels, June 27-29

In 1994, Couleur Café moved to Tour & Taxis, one of the most beautiful industrial sites in Europe. Nowadays, Couleur Café can no longer be rightfully described as a world music festival but more like a festival that proposes a full array of music styles coming from all over the world.

With more than 40 concerts over three days, Couleur Café offers the best of R&B, hip hop, world, afro, reggae, ragga, dub, dancehall, Latin, salsa, son, raï and rock under three huge tents.

There is also a dance floor featuring electronic music where festivalgoers can also feel the force of the musical mix. Couleur Café is an apt reflection of the city it calls home, Brussels, with its cultural mix that makes travelling the world as easy as looking out your front window. Although today it welcomes a crowd of 70,000 over three days, Couleur Café maintains a human scale. Independently organised and managed by Zig Zag, a non-profit organisation, Couleur Café preserves its vibrant party atmosphere 18 years after it started.

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Motivational poster of the day

The end of the world as we know it!

Scottish schools prevented thousands of students from making Father's Day cards at school because the administration was afraid that it might embarrass those students who live with single mothers and lesbians. Wait. What?

Are fathers held in such low regard that no issue is too small to merit throwing fathers under the bus? Is this how low the bar has sunk for cutting dads out of the picture? STORY

Sorry about the gratuitous picture.....you know I had to.

The lost tribe discovered by Al Gore.... wasn't so lost........

Just less than a month ago there was lots of excitement about a tribe of people living deep in the Brazilian jungle that had been photographed from the air. It was claimed at the time that these villagers were just now being discovered for the first time.
In the past few days it's been determined that this was a lie on the part of the photographer.
José Carlos Meirelles has admitted that authorities have known about the tribe since at least 1910! He took the photos and still claimed that these people had been completely undiscovered until his aerial reconnaissance.
Why? Because he wanted it to seem like they were a truly lost tribe so that more attention would be given toward the issue of the impact of logging in the Amazon basin.
In other words: it was a lie driven by a political agenda. What a shocker eh?

Hey....was that a goal?

http://view.break.com/525778 - Watch more free videos

Before everyone in every country not called America or Canada writes in to defend soccer, I’d like to point out that I’m a soccer fan. But I’m the first to admit that, at times, these games can be a little tedious (did anyone see Italy vs. Spain on Sunday?) Between the diving and the backpassing and the kicking-of-balls-100-yards-over-the-goal (seriously, please, just put it on net) there’s a fair bit of downtime between the first whistle and the penalty shootout 120 minutes later.

Which is why this goal may go down as the greatest thing to ever happen on a football pitch since Robbie Fowler celebrated a goal by snorting a penalty line.

Blinded by a Thong

I haven’t reported on a thong since Monica Lewinsky’s under-garment of choice was uncovered during the impeachment of President Clinton. Well, the flimsy clothing item is once again front and center in the news.
The Smoking Gun has details of a woman who has filed a lawsuit against Victoria's Secret after she got hit in the eye with a decorative piece from a thong. She claims her eyesight will never be the same again.

Even thongs have their limits I guess....

George Carlin dead at 71

Sad news this morning. It's been reported that legendary comedian and cantankerous badass George Carlin passed away yesterday at the age of 71, according to People:
The stand-up comic and author – best known for his groundbreaking routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" – reportedly died of heart failure at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica. (Carlin, who was open about his long struggle with drugs and alcohol, had a history of heart problems, including a previous heart attack.)
George Carlin was always awesome to me because he had a hilarious way of seeing through the everyday bullshit. The world just got a whole lot less funny and a little less brutally honest. Rest in Peace, George. You'll be missed.

Paris in your backyard

WACKY Gerard Brion shows off his in-Seine creation – a model of Paris built out of rubbish in his flower beds.

Amazing miniature city in Frenchman's back yard. Click the slide show, it's pretty cool.

Iowans aren't complaining; they're dealing

You've probably seen the news stories of the great flooding we've had that started here on the Mississippi, spread through Iowa and is now inundating Missouri.

The Euros loved to gloat and assign blame about all the things that went wrong in New Orleans in the flooding during Katrina. Funny thing is though...New Orleans is probably one city that is about as close to the European social welfare state as anything the US has.

A friend of mine writes for the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper in the Twin Cities. Where are all the media now...when you can see a picture of the "real" America.

A must read: Joe Soucheray / Saint Paul Pioneer Press

Maybe I missed it because I have been doing my best to not watch CNN, but I don't think Anderson Cooper has rented a rowboat and paddled around Cedar Rapids or Des Moines with a concerned look on his face. If it wasn't Cooper who paddled around New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, I apologize; but even if he didn't go out in a boat, he was at the edge of the water with a concerned look on his face.
CNN has been on in our house far too much lately, what with the prolonged presidential campaigns and what have you, and I seem to spend a lot of time going from room to room, trailing a certain news junkie, turning off televisions. We live in a house politically divided, but I am the one who is energy-conscious. I have developed a theory about CNN, incidentally, if not all major news sources. If you woke up after a five-year coma and you were in a windowless room with only CNN as your exposure to the world, you would not want to leave the room. You would think that life — particularly American life — was ruined and beat up, from high gas and food prices, bad weather and various diseases. They report storms as though there are not supposed to be storms. They report hot weather in New York in June with utter astonishment.
In any event, maybe it wasn't Cooper; maybe it was one of the always-available movie stars who showed up in New Orleans with a rowboat. Sean Penn? That rings a bell. I think Sean Penn brought a boat with an outboard motor and he went around New Orleans acting concerned.
The floods in Iowa must not be glamorous enough to attract the usual gloom-and-doom crowd. Then again, nobody in Iowa is complaining or blaming. Nobody has left his or her post. Nobody is crying foul. A large congratulations might be sent to Iowa, or Iowans, who seem to be dealing with their floods the only way possible, by dealing with them.
There is a little town in Iowa, Chelsea, that was flooded out in 1993 and now is experiencing another bout. That town could have been moved back in 1993, with the help of federal aid, but most everybody stayed. The mayor of Chelsea, Roger Ochs, had the following to say to the New York Times in a piece the Pioneer Press carried Monday:
"Most of the time in '93 you could walk anywhere in hip boots. The water, it's not life threatening here. That's what I can't get across to people in the news.''
Ochs added the following: "Right now, fewer than 10 homes have water in their living quarters. Last night, I mowed my lawn.''
Apparently, Ochs lives on a spot of high ground, but his point was such a delightful contrast to most of what we read or hear in the news. It corroborates my CNN/Big News theory that Ochs has had to insist to the media that the floodwaters are not threatening anybody's life.
Granted, Chelsea is a little town — 300 people or so — about 70 miles northeast of Des Moines. But Cedar Rapids and Des Moines and Iowa City have experienced serious flooding. The residents just keep plugging away, and so far, I haven't heard anybody say the high water is George Bush's fault. The weather turned sour, the rains fell hard and the rivers flooded. There's been nothing pleasant about it, nothing at all. But let's fill some sandbags and keep on moving on.
Also, if I am not mistaken, the people in Iowa who were asked to evacuate from certain significantly flooded areas did so. They evacuated. I am sure if you poked around enough in Iowa you could find disgruntled souls, but there has been no large-scale blame cast elsewhere, to Washington, for example, or FEMA.
There isn't anybody for Cooper to interview. And they sure don't need Sean Penn.
Good for Iowa.

It's going to be hit and miss for awhile

Sorry about the lack of posts but I've gotten busy making a living. I hate when work gets in the way of my hobbies. I might have to retire if this keeps up.
Who would have thought that the housing slowdown and astronomical gas prices would be good for business...eh?

If nobody's going anywhere, I guess they think they might as well put in a pool. It's been our best year ever, and it just started getting hot this week.

if you need one...you know where to find me

No more traveling with my stash...I guess

During an international police anti-drugs operation Saturday night 856 people in Belgium were found to be in the possession of narcotics. Eleven people will have to answer to the public prosecutor.
The raid in Belgium was part of an international operation. Operation 'Etoile' includes police from France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, as well as 700 Belgian police and customs officials. The controls focused on narcotic trafficking and drug tourism. They took place along major motorways, in trains, buses and clandestine outlets where narcotics are sold.

In Belgium the controls took place around Antwerp, Ghent, Dinant, Namur, Liège, Tournai, in Limburg along the border area with the Netherlands, and at the coast. 2500 vehicles and 3400 people were inspected. 11 kilos of cannabis, 373 grams of heroine, 68 grams of cocaine, 245 of hallucinogenic mushrooms and 740 cannabis seeds were seized. 31 illegal arms were also discovered and 12 vehicles seized.
The Belgian federal police are very enthusiastic about the cooperation between the participating countries and the results it has yielded.

Confessions of a rip-off artist

Just like the film Boiler Room, a British brokerage was recently shut down for making high-pressure sales of risky stocks to unknowing buyers.

Pacific Continental Securities employed dozens of young salesmen with no investing experience to spend all day on the phone fishing for suckers who would buy their scam stocks. Essentially, a boiler room operation. The scary part is that one former broker came forward revealing all their duplicitous tactics. He's heard some of his former co-workers might be at it again with new firms. Maybe he's just pissed he isn't a part of the new scam?

Tony Levene, a financial writer for The Guardian Newspaper, wrote about some of the details the now-anonymous former broker gave. STORY

Want to see a politician choke on national TV?.....watch this

Chris Matthews is .....a wimp.......but, he toasted Texas Senator Kirk Watson, when he asked the Senator for just one example of Obama's legislative accomplishments.......just name "one" dude.....ahhhh yeaa, thats what I thought.

The French Army is falling apart

According to documents leaked to the French press, half of France's military equipment is busted and inoperable, and most of the rest is held together with duct tape. Less than half of its Puma helicopters, 37 per cent of its Lynx choppers and 33 per cent of its Super Frelon models – built 40 years ago – are in a fit state to fly, according to documents seen by Le Parisien newspaper.

Two thirds of France's Mirage F1 reconnaissance jets are unusable at present.

And yes morons....I know the video is Canadian....but its funny, so its being used to illustrate my point.

Kids letters to God

Unless they're yours....... kids can be pretty funny and adorable. And although I'm sure this has been floating around the for some time, Kids Letters to God is pretty funny.

Isn't racing with the car a bit of an unfair advantage

This is the moment when a drunk driver crashed into a cycle race in Mexico, killing 1, and injuring at least 10 others.
This is the lesson bike riders and pedestrians should understand when they assert their "rights" on roads and crosswalks, it might be better to be alive...than right. VIDEO

That's too much of a good thing...... even a really good thing?"

A CONTROVERSIAL boob op which gave model Maxi Mounds world record breaking breasts has been banned - over safety fears.

The porn actress grabbed the title for the largest artificial boobs in the world in 2005, when they grew to a staggering 36MMM. STORY

Animal House in Belgium

Gee we can send them off to war, but we have to throw them in the brig if they have a food fight. Don't you just love hypocrisy!

The Belgian Defence Minister Pieter De Crem (creme fresh for short) has called for an investigation into the behaviour of a group of Belgian soldiers in the capital of Benin, Cotounou.
The events date from 8 May when a party for a group of around one hundred Belgian troops got out of hand. The party was being held on the eve of the troops' return to Belgium after having spent two weeks in the West African country on a training exercise.
Soldiers from the First Parachute Regiment, the Para Commando Training Centre and the 15th Wing from Melsbroek in Flemish Brabant are alleged to have been involved in the drunken revelry. The soldiers are said to have held a food fight and one of them is alleged to have ran naked through the Ibis Hotel before jumping into a swimming pool. Food had to be removed for walls and carpets at the hotel.Those involved in the incident have reimbursed the hotel for the cost of cleaning up after the food fight. However, the Federal Defence Minister Pieter De Crem has called for a full investigation. All those involved will be disciplined.

I'm back...but who's reading this blog?

I don't write for a week and the number of reader hits stays about 500-600 a day, whats with that? A little further investigation reveals that anything with tits, ass, or Tiger Woods wife naked is where all the search hits are. So much for you morons actually reading anything I write.....

I will say having a grandkid is much more fun than your own kids. He takes an atomic dump......it's here Mom, you hold him for awhile.....