test please delete

[n5gooner]

In the mid-1100s, the tide began turning in the Crusades. The Muslim world was more united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and dissension rose between the Christian factions. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other great Christian orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights, and decades of internecine feuds weakened the Christian positions. After several disastrous battles including the pivotal Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Jerusalem was lost to Saladin in 1187. The Crusaders retook the city in 1229 (without Templar help), but held it just briefly. In 1244, the Khawarizmi Turks recaptured Jerusalem, and it would never again be under Christian control .[13]

[n5gooner]

The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, such as the seaport of Acre, which they held for the next century. But they lost that too in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds, Tortosa (in what is now Syria) and Atlit. This left them with only an offshore headquarters in Limassol, Cyprus,[14] and a garrison on tiny Arwad Island, just off the coast from Tortosa. They attempted to build a new invasion force at Arwad, but in 1302 lost that island as well, their last foothold in the Holy Land.[11]

[n5gooner]

With the Order's military mission no longer as important, European support for the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex though, as over the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of European daily life. The organization had a widespread presence at the local level, with thousands of Templar Houses around Europe. The Templars managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with the Templar network, such as by working at a Templar farm or vineyard, or using the Order as a bank in which to store their personal wealth. But the Order was still subject to no local government, making it a "state within a state". It also had a standing army that could pass freely through all borders, but no longer had a clear battlefield. This situation heightened tensions with some European nobility, especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia.[12]

[Clownio]

Queen "fears for her life now that Brown's in charge"

Buckingham Palace - (Ass Mess): Queen Elizabeth has told courtiers to change the locks, the safe combination and all the Palace phone numbers after fearing her days are numbered now that Gordon Brown's in charge of No 10 Drowning Street.

Sources close to Lord Chamberlain Lord Luce-Cannon said today that the tense 45 minute meeting between Old Fatty Mountbatten and the new Prime Monster of the UK confirmed her worst suspicions:

"Queen Elizabeth has always dreaded the day when some mad Scottish decendant of Jack the Ripper takes over running the country," an equerry said today.

"She had all the valuables super-glued to the furniture in case Brown's restless fingers strayed over the ormolu clocks, Constable paintings, commemoriative Meissen figureines and countless family heirlooms.

"Brown's record for light-fingered mischief is notorious in those hallowed Palace circles, especially after he floged off the nation's gold bullion and made a loss of £600 million in the sale.

"Each time he looks at her the old dear comes over all a-tizzy, as if he's waiting to snatch her gold dentures and melt them down to bolster the country's piss-poor bullion reserves."

Before his lunchtime audience at Buck House today Palace staff were ordered to carry out an intensive inventory of all assets in the reception chambers where the new Prime Monster waited to greet the old quisling monarch.

The actual investiture - or "kissing of hands" was videotaped on police orders and all the silver counted before he was allowed to leave and return to Drowning Street.

QEII's medication has now been upped and extra security posted around the clock "incase the madman Brown tries to do a Princess Diana in the Pont d'Alma tunnel" on the ageing old matriarch, just as he promised to do in his CND and Communist Party days.

[n5gooner]

In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in France, sent letters to both Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret, discussing the possibility of a merging of the two Orders. Neither was amenable to the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first, in early 1307, though de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting for him, De Molay and Clement discussed charges that had been made two years earlier by an ousted Templar. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement wrote to King Philip IV of France to request his help in the investigation. King Philip, however, decided to seize upon the Templar rumors for his own financial needs. He was deeply in debt to the Templars as a result of his war with the English, and he began pressuring the church to take action against the Order in order to free himself from his debts.

[n5gooner]

In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in France, sent letters to both Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret, discussing the possibility of a merging of the two Orders. Neither was amenable to the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first, in early 1307, though de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting for him, De Molay and Clement discussed charges that had been made two years earlier by an ousted Templar. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement wrote to King Philip IV of France to request his help in the investigation. King Philip, however, decided to seize upon the Templar rumors for his own financial needs. He was deeply in debt to the Templars as a result of his war with the English, and he began pressuring the church to take action against the Order in order to free himself from his debts.

..

[Clownio]

Britain's Most Dangerous Road Named

A short section of road in Lancashire has been named as the most dangerous in Britain in a new survey.

The 15-mile stretch of the A682, running between junction 13 of the M65 and Long Preston, has killed or seriously injured 100 people in the last decade, according to a report by the Road Safety Foundation for the European Road Assessment Programme.

The road, that has previously been arrested for possession of a firearm, has a string of offences ranging from Actual Bodily Harm to Attempted Murder.

Local resident Amos Kitoe added "Since that road moved in, he's caused nothing but trouble. It started with endless noise and pollution, but now this! And I bet he's an Asylum Seeker too! It's madness gone mad!"

Local MPs have backed a decision to move the road to a secret location 20 miles away, for rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.

A spokesman for the road was unavailable for comment, but a criminal psychologist has deemed prominent green sections of the road as an "unhinged, and violent cycle-path."

[n5gooner]

On Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date incorrectly linked to the origin of the Friday the 13th legend[15][16]), Philip had Jacques de Molay and scores of other French Templars simultaneously arrested, charged with numerous heresies, and tortured until they "confessed" various types of blasphemy. Despite the fact that the confessions had been produced under duress, they caused a scandal in Paris, with mobs calling for action against the blaspheming Order. In response to this public pressure, along with more bullying from King Philip, Pope Clement issued the bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.[17]

[n5gooner]

Britain's Most Dangerous Road Named

A short section of road in Lancashire has been named as the most dangerous in Britain in a new survey.

The 15-mile stretch of the A682, running between junction 13 of the M65 and Long Preston, has killed or seriously injured 100 people in the last decade, according to a report by the Road Safety Foundation for the European Road Assessment Programme.

The road, that has previously been arrested for possession of a firearm, has a string of offences ranging from Actual Bodily Harm to Attempted Murder.

Local resident Amos Kitoe added "Since that road moved in, he's caused nothing but trouble. It started with endless noise and pollution, but now this! And I bet he's an Asylum Seeker too! It's madness gone mad!"

Local MPs have backed a decision to move the road to a secret location 20 miles away, for rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.

A spokesman for the road was unavailable for comment, but a criminal psychologist has deemed prominent green sections of the road as an "unhinged, and violent cycle-path."

LOL "!!!!!

[Clownio]

Blair Middle East role is a joke says NATO

London - (Ass Mess): Speculation about UK Prime Monster Tony Blair's new job as a Middle East envoy is a joke according to senior NATO military intelligence sources who have laughed at the idea of the fictional "Quartet of Middle East Mediators" organization paying Bush's slimeball apologist to work for them.

"Firstly, there's no such organization such as the Quartet," NATO officials confirmed today, "unless of course this so-called quartet is a musical arrangement for wind and top brass, with Blair playing the traditional second fiddle to Bush."

"Next, who will be his employer and where's the money coming from? If the White House is to employ him where is the funding coming from?

"Any speculation that Blair has a job after June 27 is subject to the cash-for-peerages police.

"NATO's best bet is that come the 27th Blair and his co-conspirators will get that 6am rap on the front door that the entire country has waited for since Lord Levy and pals got busted last year.

"But as a piece of counter-intelligence the Quartet story is a right laugh for us!"