The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Dawntreader]

How far is Mt. Rushmore from us? Isn't it a day's drive? I have never been before...I cold grab a friend and make a road trip out of it over a weekend....

And he MUST see the biggest ball of twine also. Hmm...and Bunyan of course. How about the Mall of America? He could go to Camp Snoopy LOL

What other sites do we have? The beginning of the Mississippi river?

[carton253]

Ah - E-Bay! The internet's version of a Middle Eastern Bazaar!

One regime down, six more to go.

It's a long way from over.

Remember the World Trade Towers! Remember the Pentagon! Remember Flight 93!

Never forget!

Let's Roll!

[Corin Stormhands]

The dwarf rises for a moment of personal privlege...

I'm sure I missed somebody on the pings. Please consider this and consider passing this around:

Glenn Beck is holding one more Rally for America on Memorial Day weekend in West Virginia, near the home of Jessica Lynch. He's had so much negative press over a radio station "sponsoring" it that he wants the money to come only from the listeners. He's turned down corporate sponsorships.

He needs about $250,000 to make the rally happen.

Here's what he is asking:

Send one dollar, or no more than one dollar per person in your family to:

USO/Rally for America
The Port Authority
625 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10018

IMPORTANT: Make sure the envelope says "Rally for America." If you write a check, make it out to the USO with "Rally for America" in the memo line.

If he doesn't make the money he needs, the funds will go to the USO.

Jr. and I went to the Rally in Richmond. I know we've done a lot and are planning on doing more, but if he can pull this off, it will send the mediots a collective "blow it out your shorts."

Is anybody close enough to take Flat Frodo?

[HairOfTheDog]

BAH!.... An uprising crowd in some small town (started with an I) has apparently rushed two Muslim clerics in public and hacked them to death. Whew... not all this stuff is gonna be fit for embedded TV reporters.

[Corin Stormhands]

My bad. Should pinged you to 25103.

[Dawntreader]

GREAT JOB!! :-D

[Dawntreader]

Well you don't have to give me a year lol

[Corin Stormhands]

Remember the flap about the movie Aladdin? They had to re-write the first song because it said something like "break the law and get your hand hacked off"...they got all kinds of grief over that.

Yesterday Michael Graham suggested that we fly the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN to Baghdad Airport, give him twenty bucks and turn him loose in the streets to find his own way home...

[RMDupree]

My pleasure, Corin!

I'm half-Cuban so you know I have a BIG family. *wink*

[HairOfTheDog]

BAH!.... An uprising crowd in some small town (NAJAF) has apparently rushed two Muslim clerics in public and hacked them to death. Whew... not all this stuff is gonna be fit for embedded TV reporters.

(UPDATE)

[Dawntreader]

Putting it in the mail now!

[Corin Stormhands]

I'm half-Cuban so you know I have a BIG family. *wink*

Well, okay. But he's pretty adament about one dollar per person. He's got people on the line saying "I'm sending 50 bucks." And he's telling them "get a dollar from forty-nine other people."

He says if he gets checks for 10 and fifteen bucks he's going to call and see if you're either Mormon or Catholic...

[HairOfTheDog]

Did that Iraqi Ambassador blow town already? - I never saw a follow up after he escaped into his limo. I thought at the time.... We aren't gonna find him again, unless it is a sighting on a beach in South America.

Would he *know* anything? Maybe not, but I would imagine he is somewhat trusted to have been let out of the country.

[Corin Stormhands]

Did that Iraqi Ambassador blow town already?

I dunno. Last I heard was he said it was over and that "I have no relationship with Saddam Hussein."

At least I think that's the translation...it was in French...;-)

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, one of the Muslim clerics that was murdered may have been on our side, and the killing was by a group loyal to Saddam.

Iraqi Shi'ite Leader Al-Khoei Assassinated in Najaf
Reuters ^ | April 10, 2003 | Staff

Posted on 04/10/2003 7:57 AM PDT by AntiGuv

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Senior Iraqi Sh'ite leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei was assassinated at the mosque in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday, a member of his family foundation told Reuters.

Ali Jabr, a member of the London-based Khoei foundation, confirmed to Reuters by phone that Abdel Majid was dead. The murder is sure to raise tensions among Iraq's majority Shi'ite population.

Majid is the son of the late Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei, spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ites at the time of the 1991 Gulf War.

Al-Khoei's nephew, Jawad al-Khoei, told Reuters from the Iranian holy city of Qom that Abdul Majid was stabbed to death at the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, one of the holiest shrines for Shi'ite Muslims.

"An hour ago we talked to the persons who were with him at the time of the incident. They said he was martyred by treacherous hands," Jawad al-Khoei said.

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TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Click to Add Topic
KEYWORDS: IRAQ; Click to Add Keyword

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So it begins. I believe this was the leading Shi'ite figure of the Iraqi exile community who'd recently returned to Najaf in order to assist in the establishment of an interim authority.

1 posted on 04/10/2003 7:57 AM PDT by AntiGuv

[ecurbh]

Mount Rushmore is a full day's drive from here (630 miles, 8-10 hrs). Maybe there is a buffalo farm on the way, to give him a taste of the Great Plains. And Wall Drug!

I've never been to the ball of twine (although I've heard Weird Al's song about it). Where is it?

I'm planning a trip to the North Shore for the fall color, and can take him to the Duluth shipyards and Gooseberry Falls. How about Minnehaha Falls? And maybe take him a tour of the skyways downtown.

[RMDupree]

OK. But should you be talking about the weather so casually? hehehehe

[HairOfTheDog]

There is a thread about the Glenn Beck thing in Breaking news now.

[carton253]

He went to France...

[HairOfTheDog]

He says if he gets checks for 10 and fifteen bucks he's going to call and see if you're either Mormon or Catholic...

When I was in Social Services, I was stunned at the size of Russian immigrant families! - I never did ask/find out why, but 8-11 children was not uncommon. Know anything about Russian (mostly Ukrainian) culture that would explain that? Is it intentional or biology? (lots of cold nights in Russia)

In Romania, I know that everyone was encouraged to make more babies, more workers for the motherland, even if they couldn't care for them. Infants were ruitinely dropped at orphanages. That policy/leader is no longer in place, but apparently a lot of folk didn't get the memo. A friend adopted a baby from there 5 years ago now....