Longtime San Francisco Giants clubhouse manager Mike Murphy will testify about Barry BondsÂ’ hat size, a Nike employee will discuss the sluggerÂ’s feet and prosecutors will show the jury photographs of BondsÂ’ growing physique during his career, court papers filed Monday showed.
Yes, you knuckledraggers here at the 'Burg, in case you didn't get it, she's referring directly to you. ;-)
"So it's more complicated than saying, 'Where was Obama born?' In Hawaii or not? Is he an American citizen or not?" she asks. Ms. Liley then describes the birthers as conservatives.
"We're not covering the birthers. We are not covering them. There's a whole movement within the conservative group about questioning something that Obama has said as fact, 'I was born in Hawaii, when it was the United States.' The group that questions this, some of whom are commentators...I don't know any who are Democrats, but they are primarily conservative commentators and people who follow them question if Obama is [a citizen]," she further explains.
"I think the challenge in our society now is that we are questioning facts. It's not opinions we are debating. I mean, what are the facts? Is the world flat? Is that the next question we're going to debate?" Ms. Liley wonders. I hope Ms. Liley lives a long, long time. And that people remember her positions on these things.
#1
If people remember what she said, her life may become shorter. She just needs to live for 9 more years or so, when the minimum really starts to show with the resounding backdrop of chattering teeth.
[Ennahar] Tunisian Acting Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi, announced Monday the list of his provisional government composed of 22 ministers including five new ones, it was announced officially.
This new team no longer has any minister who served in the last government of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, until he decamped last January 14.
Appointed interim prime minister on February 27, Mr. Essebsi, 84, had to immediately redesign the government he had inherited from his predecessor, Mohammed Ghannouchi, following the resignations of five ministers a few days ago.
Among those who resigned were two ministers who had been part of the last government of Ben Ali: Mohamed Nouri Jouini (Planning and International Cooperation) and Mohamed Afif Chelbi (Industry and Technology), and two opposition representatives: Ahmed Ibrahim (Higher Teaching and Scientific Research) and Ahmed Najib Chebbi (Regional and Local Development).
Minister to the Prime Minister in charge of the Tunisian economic and social reforms, Elyes Jouini, had also tendered his resignation.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Cote d'Ivoire's rebels say they have captured a town after a fierce battle in the country's volatile west near the border with Liberia, triggering panic among tens of thousands of refugees already fleeing violence over a deepening political crisis.
The New Forces rebels said in a statement on their website that they seized Toulepleu on Sunday.
The statement said: "The large town of Toulepleu in the west of Ivory Coast is now in the hands of the army of the New Forces (rebels) since Sunday at noon following an intense combat."
The town near Liberia's border was the scene of heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... on Sunday between forces backing the political rivals who both claim to be Ivory Coast's president months following a disputed election.
The rebels are backed by the UN-recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, while government forces are allied with Laurent Gbagbo, ... President of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent has refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... who is refusing to step down.
Gbagbo has been in power for more than a decade and his security forces - who insist they are still holding Toulepleu - are accused of abducting, torturing and killing political opponents.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... the interior ministry on Monday released a statement saying at least three Ivorians were killed and 30 maimed in an armed rebel attack on a village seen as loyal to Gbagbo.
The attack happened overnight in Anokoua-Koute, the ministry said of the area populated by the largely pro-Gbagbo Ebrie tribe. The village is within an Abidjan suburb ruled by fighters who profess support for Gbagbo's rival.
Analysts fear the political crisis could spill over into a full-blown civil war.
Nearly 400 people have been killed since the November 28 vote, according to a UN and an News Agency that Dare Not be Named tally of bodies.
The UN refugee agency says more than 200,000 people have decamped fighting in Abidjan in the last week, and more than 70,000 have crossed the border into Liberia to avoid fighting in the country's west.
Over the weekend, gangs of young people aided by uniformed police ransacked houses in Abidjan belonging to officials allied with Ouattara.
And on Thursday soldiers fatally shot six women who were protesting against Gbagbo's refusal to step down.
Governments around the world swiftly condemned the killings, with Britain's foreign office minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham, saying he was "deeply concerned" about the deteriorating security situation in Cote d'Ivoire.
He also said he was "appalled" to hear that women were killed during a peaceful demonstration.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
How can you be a rebel if you represent the elected government?
[Al Jazeera] Nigerian soldiers have destroyed nearly 500 illegal oil refineries in the Niger Delta in a bid to stop the smuggling of stolen oil in the country.
Special units using gun-boats and helicopters were used to track down the make-shift refineries, located deep in the mangrove forests, the Rooters news agency reported.
The refineries consist of several discarded metal drums joined together by pipes, which are filled with crude and heated continuously for several days to produce usable petrol and diesel.
Jafaru Ibrahim, a military commander on the raid, said the smugglers beat feet from the scene and no one had been nabbed.
"This exercise is going to continue as often as possible so that they do not have freedom of action to continue [these] illegal activities," Ibrahim said.
Experts say up to 300,000 barrels of crude is stolen every day by smuggling gangs in Nigeria.
Government amnesty
Crude oil thieves - known locally as "bunkerers" - have been a fact of life for years in Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, puncturing pipelines and costing Nigeria and foreign oil firms millions of dollars in lost revenues each year.
A government amnesty two years ago for gunnies in the Niger Delta, where dirt-poor thatch-roofed villages sit among some of Africa's biggest industry installations, brought some respite.
But there has been a renewed wave of oil theft as former fighters fed up with the pace of the rehabilitation programme regroup in the creeks to re-establish their illicit business.
Rising world oil prices have pushed the cost of gasoline in Nigeria up by a third to $0.98 a litre over the past three months, increasing demand on the black market and making the illegal refineries as profitable as ever.
The vast wetlands region on the Gulf of Guinea is arguably Africa's most heinous example of the "resource curse", where multi-billion dollar oil facilities run by firms including Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and Agip sit among some of its least developed communities.
Risking lives
The illegal refiners risk their lives to eke out a living in a region where most people survive on $2 a day or less.
"The local communities raised the alarm because of the devastating effects on their waterways and farms, and complaints have also started coming from the oil majors," Timothy Antigha, military front man in the Niger Delta, said.
Antigha said that most of the refined oil ends up on the Nigerian market where it is used in homes for heating and lighting and has been a major cause of kabooms because it has a high petrol content.
The involvement of international oil smuggling syndicates in Nigeria's water ways has also added to the government's agony in trying to completely eradicate the trade. Last year the Nigerian army intercepted a Greek vessel loaded with 800 tonnes of stolen oil.
President Goodluck Jonathan, ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). On 13 January 2010, a federal court handed him the power to carry out state affairs while President Umaru Yar'Adua received medical treatment in a Soddy Arabian hospital, a fatal move on his part. On 24 February 2010 Yar'Adua returned to Nigeria, but Jonathan continued as acting president. When Yar'Adua departed this vale of tears less than three months later Jonathan succeeded to the Presidency. He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... the first head of state from the Niger Delta, has pledged to develop the region if he wins April's election. But similar promises have been made before.
The oil minister said last month that communities in the region would receive an estimated $600m in annual dividends as part of efforts to improve security and development under reforms currently before parliament.
But security experts say that only sustainable employment for tens of thousands of unemployed youths will prevent the illegal refineries springing up again once the army's back is turned.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2011 00:00 ||
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[Emirates 24/7] A mass circulation Arabic language newspaper in Soddy Arabia stopped two well-known female journalists from writing although their articles are widely read in the conservative Gulf Kingdom, local newspapers said on Monday.
Alwatan, one of the largest newspapers in Soddy Arabia, told Amal Zahid and Amira Kashgari it would no longer publish their articles several years after they began writing in the daily, the newspapers said.
"Alwatan stopped its well-known female journalists from writing without giving any reasons for its decision," the online Kolwatan Arabic language daily said.
"The move followed growing attacks through the internet against Saudi female journalists as some consider this against Islam and local traditions."
The paper quoted Saudi minister of information and culture Abdul Aziz Alkhoja as saying recently that he does not mind a woman heads a local newspaper.
But he added:"The problem is that there are no qualified women to take up that post plus the fact that the editor's job appears to be confined to men in most other countries, including advanced nations."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Greece has had its credit rating dropped by three notches, sparking strong condemnation from the debt-hit nation.
Moody's Investor Services downgraded its rating to B1 from Ba1 on Monday, and warned it may cut the rating again if the government's commitment to austerity fades.
Greece was saved from bankruptcy last May after accepting a $154bn bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF), on the condition that Athens imposed strict austerity measures.
Moody's said the Greek government's economic programme may not reduce debt and spark growth, and said there would be more difficult conditions when the bailout package ends in 2013.
"The risk of a post-2013 restructuring might lead the Greek authorities and investors to participate in a voluntary distressed exchange before that time,'' the agency said in a statement.
Monday's downgrade sent a ripple of concern around credit markets, raising the price of insuring Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt against default and the risk premium on holding Greek bonds rather than benchmark German bunds.
The Greek goverment swiftly condemned the move, saying the downgrade was "completely unjustified" and "does not reflect an objective and balanced assessment" of the country's economic prospects.
"Ultimately, Moody's downgrading of Greece's debt reveals more about the misaligned incentives and the lack of accountability of credit rating agencies than the genuine state or prospects of the Greek economy,'' the finance ministry said.
It said that credit rating agencies had downgraded struggling countries like Greece heavily in past months in an attempt to make up for failing to predict the financial and debt crises.
"Having completely missed the build-up of risk that led to the global financial crisis in 2008, the rating agencies are now competing with each other to be the first to identify risks that will lead to the next crisis,'' the ministry said.
Greek national debt is still to exceed 150 per cent of GDP this year, while the economy is forecast to contract three per cent in 2011 as a whole.
Credit ratings agencies have been criticised in recent years for having presented a too-rosy view of the global economy in the run-up to the financial crisis, which led to the deepest recession since World War II.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Wow, I didn't know that had a credit rating BELOW Greece!
Is Greece's credit rating like the Mendoza line in baseball?
Is our credit rating taking the same express elevator to the basement?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/08/2011 9:53 Comments ||
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#2
Credit rating agencies played a big part in creating the current worldwide economic disaster by giving top credit ratings to utterly worthless paper.
Then deadbeats like Greece borrowed for all & then far more than they were good for.
#3
A rating of B1 is still too high. That means it's still in the middle of the pack. In reality, I wouldn't touch their debt for 10 cents on the dollar.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
03/08/2011 12:47 Comments ||
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#4
Several years ago I read an essay on the credit crash that blamed, primarily, 3 things:
1) The CRA which opened the floodgates on bogus gov't insured mortgages (all in the NAME of helping the poor)
2) BASEL II - which moved accounting of the worth of assets from a mark to model basis to a mark to market method. This "vanished" billions in assets that had been used as collateral for loans. When the collateral "disappeared" the loans were called.
3) Most relevant to this, the credit rating agencies kept hanging AAA ratings on worthless derivatives etc.; then pulled the plug. The key question is this: In the essay George Soros was mentioned as a major player in the credit rating debacle. Anyone else hear this?
#6
The US Federal government is 4 years behind Greece and will reach Greece's current public debt of 145% of GDP in 2015. Sooner if state and local debt in included.
#7
BP, not sure what you mean by ~0. Are you saying that Basel II changed the reserve requirement to $0? That would certainly be a problem, but, that seems to be about the same as the model to market shift which lowered the value of the reserve (collateral).
The credit being driven below (way) risk was a factor of the Fannie/Freddy guarantee (wink, wink) that the gov't would insure all those bad loans aka no risk to the lender.
#8
ION WAFF > POSTER THREAD = IIUC proudly opined that NO WAY WILL THE US-NATO-EU ALLOW GREECE TO COLLAPSE BECAUSE GREECE, DESPITE ITS SEVERE ECON TRUBLES [including POOR CREDIT RATINGS + MUSLIM/ FOREIGN IMMIGRATION], IS NOW THE US-NATO-EU'S INDISPENDABLE MILITARY FORT IN THE "WILD WILD WEST/INJUN COUNTRY" KNOWN AS JASMINE-TROUBLED ARAB MIDDLE EAST + PERSIAN GULF = SE EUROPE + MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS.
The Vanguard + Bulwark between Europe + Arab-Muslim barbarian hordes, espec WILY DASTARDLY,
HELEN-STEALING TROY/TROJAN, USED-TO-BE-GREEK/GRECIAN, YOU-CALL-THAT-A-BIKINI-BABE-CALENDAR MUSLIM TURKEY [Greece-vs-Turkey Mil Forum Boyz].
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is running for re-election in June, and is hoping that Germany's large Turkish community can help him secure the votes he needs. But his request for electoral help from the German government has ruffled feathers.
This June, Erdogan wants to see ballot boxes placed in the Turkish Embassy and Turkish consulates in Germany. Germany's Interior Minister at the time agreed, at least in principle, to provide support, and tentatively promised police protection. Swedes, Iraqis and Australians are already able to vote in their embassies in Germany. The German government had previously rejected all requests from Turkish politicians -- out of fear of attacks.
The situation was not helped by a campaign speech Erdogan delivered in Germany 27 Feb: He said that Turkish, not German, must be the first language of the children of Turkish parents. "You are my citizens!" he told the crowd.
#1
Remember all the Mexicans in the US demonstrations waving the Mexican flag and waving poster signs in THEIR language and not in English?
Multi-Cultural is good... cant have enough of it. California has taco stands all over the place.
The stupid dont survive long. The purpose of anything is always itself. Have a Taco.
....have another one, put some chipotle sauce on it. F*** the hotdog and Cinco de Mayo.
[Bangla Daily Star] A Turkish court has charged four journalists and a writer with involvement in an alleged plot to overthrow the country's government, a day after two prominent news hounds were jugged pending trial.
Yalcin Kucuk, a staunch critic of the ruling administration, was charged and jugged yesterday along with four journalists from the anti-government Odatv website. All five were charged with membership of a terrorist group and stirring hatred.
On Sunday Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, two leading investigative journalists who have written books about secret activities within the state, were also charged and jugged on similar allegations.
The charges came a week after the group of seven were jugged following police raids on their homes.
Turkey's government is conducting a lengthy investigation into the ultra-nationalist Ergenekon group, which is accused of plotting to overthrow the adminstration of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, by planning attacks in order to provoke a military coup.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2011 00:00 ||
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Drawn from an article by the news source that shall not be named. 77% of senior officers on active-duty are white, while only 8% are black, 5% are hispanic, and 16% are women. Give it time, oh impatient ones who pretend to be relevant. Senior means they've been at it a while. Far longer than most combat troops have been alive. I don't expect senior officers to have the same makeup as today's kids because they are 30-40 years older. In another 30-40 years, you idiots are going to be complaining that the makeup looks a lot like today's raw recruits. The only way to "cure" this is to reach down and promote some folks who don't have the necessary experience over those who can get the job done because they have actually been there and done that. I prefer to wait given that our soldiers' lives depend on experience, not PC.
These kinds of studies may be asinine, but at least they are idiotic.
Yet another place we could have saved a few million bucks by applying a simple relevancy test.
#1
How about an idiotic analysis of the dead? No break down by the same groups? Who's paying the ultimate price? Then again, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs just thinks its another 'job'.
#2
I'm thinking of a "rapid promotions track" that involves duty stations in the Aleutian Islands to track icecap melting from MMGW with hourly ice measurements, while writing enormous reports on how having flamboyant homosexual military liaisons with conservative Muslim nations will improve America's image abroad.
If there were say, 500 black lesbians promoted to Brigadier in that duty station, it would balance everything out. They could be part of the reconstituted 92nd Infantry Division, known for its, uh, bravery in Italy in WWII.
I mean, since the Department of Truth has so effectively rewritten what happened there, proving beyond any doubt that they were *not* running away, but were decisively tricking the Wehrmacht into "over advancing" through the American lines. But only racism prevented the entire unit from all being given Medals of Honor for their brilliant tactics.
#3
When I was an LT, my boss sent me to brief the general. Face time with a 2-star, hoo boy, big production. He made me rehearse repeatedly so I didn't screw up.
On the big day, I arrived punctually, 100% prepared - and mentally hiccupped for a nanosecond, because no one had bothered to mention that the general was black.
And then I mentally hiccupped again: was there any reason anyone SHOULD have mentioned that? No. And that's exactly as it should be.
Reports like this, with a flawed focus on equal OUTCOMES rather than equal OPPORTUNITY, undermine that rare and wonderfully color-blind culture, and promotes racism and divisiveness. Shame on them.
#7
Don't change it. They reason our military works as well as it does is because of the promotion system. The standard is set for everyone and it is up to the individual to meet the standard. When someone is promoted, their ranked is respected because it is earned. If you start giving promotions away it will destroy the military.
#9
Don't forget lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders need their representative numbers in the higher ranks.
And short civilians, like me. I think we should have proportional representation in senior ranks as well, although they're going to have to redesign the uniform so I don't look silly. ;-)
#10
the report from the "Military Leadership Diversity Commission"
-end of story...the premise for the name of said commission says it all. Idiocy.
5yrs and change and I can retire. If we keep down the current path we are screwed. I'll be glad to leave. When they did away w/DADT I would've hoped a few of our senior leaders would've resigned in disgust to send a message. I thought that at least one Marine general would've said, okay, this is garbage, I'm out. The fact that they didn't tells me that so many are just politicians in uniform.
BTW - there are not enough 5'7" white men in the NBA - we need to have that changed pronto...
#11
The problem is that the bulk of general officer billets in the Army are combat arms. The normal progression is a combat battalion, brigade, division or ADC, corps. One may skip one some place, but that's about it. Women by law are excluded from combat arms. This is what is now being pushed on the repeal of DADT. The fundamental problem is that once you withdraw that, the 14th Amendment kicks in forcing the expansion of the militia [upon which selective service, aka the draft is based upon] to include not just all males 17 to 45, but all citizens - men and women. Once women can be in the combat arms in order to satisfy the 'progressive' agenda, they become subject to the same responsibilities of citizenship that males have carried since the inception of the republic. This is the imposition of the failed Equal Rights Amendment by other means and one of the fundamental reasons it failed in the first place.
Spend it while you got it ....
According to the CBO, the government has notched a $642 billion deficit for the first five months of fiscal 2011, which is slightly less than last year's pace. Income tax revenues are rising faster than spending, which accounts for the marginally improved picture. Maybe. But just wait until people file their returns and ask for those jumbo-sized withholdings back.
#3
I won't be happy until next year's budget is 1 TRILLION lower than this one, and Obumble is defunded in his entirety - no "czars", no "vacations", no golf, no obumblecare, no lastfast train to nowhere, no NOTHING. I haven't had a vacation in five years. This man's had what, five - six in two? He needs to be forced to eat what Michelle cooks from that "garden" of theirs.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/08/2011 20:18 Comments ||
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#4
He needs to be forced to eat what Michelle cooks from that "garden" of theirs.
Careful - the Secret Service doesn't take kindly to threatening the President's life....
[Straits Times] SEISMIC testing for gas in the South China Sea by an Anglo-Filipino consortium has been halted after an incident in which Manila says two Chinese boats threatened to ram a survey ship, the government said on Monday.
Last week, a Singapore-registered French-owned survey ship, conducting tests in the Reed Bank was stopped by two Chinese patrol boats. Beijing claims the area as part of its territorial waters in the South China Sea.
The Philippines insists the Reed Bank is within its sovereign territory and has awarded an exploration contract to the consortium to find and extract natural gas.
Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said the seismic tests would resume after the Philippines and China hold talks to resolve the dispute. Manila will send maritime affairs experts to Beijing later this week for negotiations.
'They had to pack up and reconstitute everything,' Mr Almendras told news hounds, saying it would take a few days to restart the tests. 'We have to wait, but we hope to resume.' Lieutenant-General Juancho Sabban, commander of military forces in the Western Philippines, said the Chinese ships had shadowed and threatened to ram the survey vessel.
They left the area after the military sent two aircraft to the area following a request for help from the survey ship.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Ennahar] Tunisian Acting Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi, announced Monday the list of his provisional government composed of 22 ministers including five new ones, it was announced officially.
Laurent Gbagbo,
"The local communities raised the alarm because of the devastating effects on their waterways and farms, and complaints have also started coming from the oil majors," Timothy Antigha, military 
[Emirates 24/7] A mass circulation Arabic language newspaper in 
[Al Jazeera] Greece has had its credit rating dropped by three notches, sparking strong condemnation from the debt-hit nation.
[Bangla Daily Star] A Turkish court has charged four journalists and a writer with involvement in an alleged plot to overthrow the country's government, a day after two prominent 
