Punishment meted out after girl mishandles Quran, according to rumor circulating at Arab-Israeli town
TAIBEH — Harsh punishment? A Muslim girl from Taibeh was punished by Allah and turned into a dog, according to rumors that have been circulating in the Arab-Israeli town this week, Arab-language newspaper Panorama reported.
According to the rumors, the harsh punishment was meted out after the girl, upset by her mother's request to bring her the Quran as she was watching television, threw the holy Muslim book at the mother with disdain. As opposed to throwing it with respect, I suppose.
The newspaper decided to look into the rumors and sent a reporter to check where they originated.
"Sounds credible to me, Achmed, go check it out"
As it turned out, the source was a photocopy of a news story posted in Taibeh's largest mosque. According to that report, taken from the Internet, the unusual story happened in a Muslim country in Asia.
Local women say they saw story on TV "But, Sarai, everything on tv is true! That is how we know about the infidel atrocities in Iraq and the censorship and repression in America."
However, the newspaper reported, the rumor changed several versions as it was passed on. At one point, the dog apparently "moved" from to one of the Persian Gulf countries, and from there to Gaza, before ending up in Taibeh itself
Later on, women in Taibeh even claimed they saw the story featured on Palestinian television and on Israel's channel 33.
The newspaper reporter also turned to the Muslim leaders to ask their opinion on the matter. One religious cleric responded that the story was obviously baseless, "since Allah doesn't need to turn a girl into a dog in order to prove his strength. If Allah wants to prove his power he can make the entire universe shake." "or tell us to stone her or set off a car bomb or something." She is lucky she didn't burn the Koran instead, she might have been turned into something really awful, like a DUper or an NYT columnist.
Venezuela's Chavez blames Bush for Bolivia crisis Soooooo predictable and booooooring!
By Pascal Fletcher
1 hour, 45 minutes ago
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blamed President Bush on Sunday for Bolivia's crisis and said Bush's "poisoned medicine" of free-market democracy was being rejected by Latin America.
The left-wing Venezuelan leader said the protests that shook the Andean nation this week were triggered by popular opposition to capitalist free-trade policies advocated by Bush.
Chavez condemned as "poisoned medicine" a speech given by Bush to the Organization of American States last week in which he recommended a mix of representative democracy, integration of world markets and individual freedoms.
"That is what is killing the peoples of Latin America. ... This is the path of destabilization, of violence, of war between brothers," Chavez said, speaking on his "Hello President" weekly television and radio show.
The Venezuelan leader is a fierce critic of U.S. policies although his country, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, sells billions of dollars worth of oil to the United States each year.
Chavez rejected charges by some U.S. officials that he and Cuban President Fidel Castro were directing the Bolivian miners, rural peasants and labor groups who are demanding the nationalization of their country's rich gas resources.
"What's the cause? Is Fidel? Is it Chavez? No, Bush is the cause ... and what he represents," he said.
Addressing Bush in broken English and calling him "Mr. Danger," he added, "We, the people of Latin America are saying 'No Sir, Mr. Danger,' your poisoned medicine has failed."
Chavez welcomed signs the Bolivia protests were easing following the inauguration as president on Thursday of Eduardo Rodriguez. He replaced Carlos Mesa who resigned.
Chavez, a firebrand nationalist first elected in 1998, says free-market economic policies have increased not reduced poverty in Latin America. He proposes as an alternative his self-styled "revolution" in Venezuela, which channels oil income into health, education and job training for the poor.
He spoke while inaugurating one of 600 new medical treatment centers which his government was opening with help from Communist Cuba.
During his program lasting more than seven hours, Chavez received a phone call from Castro, which was broadcast live.
The two leaders mocked U.S. accusations that they had created an anti-U.S. alliance to destabilize Latin America and that it was being financed by Venezuela's oil income.
"You're the malevolent genius and I'm the rich financier of revolutions, what do you think?" Chavez told Castro.
"Well, it's marvelous," the Cuban leader replied.
Venezuela ships up to 90,000 barrels per day of oil to Cuba and more than 20,000 Cuban doctors, dentists, teachers and technicians, including sugar experts, are working in the South American oil exporter under a broad cooperation program.
The United States has criticized Chavez's close alliance with Castro, a longtime foe of Washington, and says it fears his rule in Venezuela is becoming increasingly authoritarian.
#1
"'You're the malevolent genius and I'm the rich financier of revolutions, what do you think?' Chavez told Castro. 'Well, it's marvelous,' the Cuban leader replied."
Yes, it's marvelous to be a Chavez, a Castro, a Mugabe, a Kimmie... I do hope there is a Hell.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 21:09 Comments ||
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#2
There is a Hell. Unfortunately, it's living under the rule of one of those tyrants. Maybe we can hope for reincarnation back in time. They can be Cambodian schoolteachers.
#3
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blamed President Bush on Sunday for Bolivia's crisis..
If there was anything Hugo did NOT need to do was something like this. If people already didn't suspect he was just another leftist nut bag, it's all but certain now.
Hours before being mauled to death by the family pit bull, 12-year- old Nicholas Faibish had been told to stay in the basement separated from the dogs, said his distraught mother, Maureen Faibish, who called The Chronicle on Saturday, trying to make sense of what she called a "freak accident.''
"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door,'' said Faibish, who had left the boy alone with the dogs on June 3 to run some errands. "He had a bunch of food. And I told him, 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me.'' She should have given the kid the shovel to protect himself...
Faibish said she was concerned that the male pit bull, Rex, was acting possessive because the female, Ella, was in heat. Apparently, Nicholas found a way to get the door open and come upstairs. At that point Faibish believes he walked in while the dogs were mating and was attacked by Rex.
"It was Rex, I know it in my heart,'' Faibish said. "My younger dog (Ella) was in heat and anyone who came near her, Rex saw as a threat. He may have been trying to mate. Or he may just have been hungry. It was a freak accident. It was just the heat of the moment.''
"It's Nicky's time to go," she said. "When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time."
Zeynel Erdem, a leading Turkish businessman, came to Izmit, a seaside industrial town, to give 400 of his prominent peers a message. "Don't count on the European Union," he told the crowd after a chicken dinner in a hotel ballroom here. "Look to the U.S.; they're our real friends." A bit slow on the uptake, ain't they?
That view is spreading in Turkey, a sprawling land of 70 million people who have yearned for decades to become a part of the EU gravy train Europe. With the European Union in political disarray after the French and Dutch rejected a European constitution, and with opposition to Turkish membership gaining ground in Europe, many Turks are beginning to wonder whether their European dreams are worth the effort. Short answer....no. They are reassessing instead their relationship with the United States, a relationship that has been declared DOA suffered since the start of the Iraq war.
Turkey's stated goal is still to see who gives them a better deal join the European Union, but the shift in sentiment signals a deepening awareness that they might have REALLY @#$%-ed up this time ambivalence toward the vaunted vision of shared sovereignty.
Just as French and Dutch voters expressed dismay at the increasing European-level control over their lives and worried aloud about immigrants diluting their nations, many Turks are now questioning whether their country should see its future as part of Europe.
Of course, few Turks have bought into the American program for reshaping the Middle East, and relations with the United States lost their pre-eminence during the Iraq war, which Turkey opposed. Turkey's focus shifted to Europe.
But that is beginning to change. Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan's fence-mending trip to Washington this week played well here. He even won some support from Washington in ending the economic and political isolation of Turkish Cypriots. I can think of one real nervous Greek Army recruit right now....
European Union leaders agreed in December to begin membership negotiations with Turkey on Oct. 3, and the country has done a great deal to make that happen. It has put a new penal code into effect and agreed to sign a protocol extending its customs union to all the newest members, including the Greek-dominated Republic of Cyprus, which Turkey does not recognize.
Yet despite all that, the prospects for Turkey's membership look gloomier than ever. Turkey will have a larger population than any member country by the time it completes its membership process - a projected 80 million - and will probably still be far poorer. More troubling to many Europeans is that Turkish membership would create a powerful Muslim presence and push Europe's eastern borders out to Syria, Iraq and Iran. Like there aren't any Muslims already in Europe?
Hanging in the background is the pledge last year by President Jacques Chirac of France to submit Turkish membership to a national referendum. After last month's rejection of the constitution, few believe such a referendum would pass.
Many Turks say they are getting fed up with meeting Europe's manifold demands without some guarantee that they will become a part of Europe in the end.
"Europe is playing us for suckers a dangerous game with Turkey," said Can Paker, chairman of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation. "It's giving a stronger hand and more motivation to people who want the status quo to prevail."
Turkey's economic output surged nearly 10 percent last year and is expected to grow as much as 6 percent this year. The current 10 percent inflation rate is the lowest in more than 30 years. Foreign investment from the West, slow because of Turkey's chronic corruption, has picked up.
While there is still strong support for membership, polls have recorded a decline in national enthusiasm to 63 percent before the French referendum in May from more than 70 percent a year ago.
Hansjörg Kretschmer, the European Union's point man in Turkey, warns that without better understanding on both sides, Turkish attitudes could turn quickly. "Strong support based on ignorance is not good because it can collapse very quickly," he said before meeting Tuesday with representatives of nongovernmental organizations in Trabzon, on the Black Sea. "The key element is that Turkey does its homework and completes the necessary political and other reforms. No one will say no to a Turkey which has become a liberal democracy in the European understanding. "Well, except for the French...and the Greeks....Cyprus....maybe Germany....Luxembourg is a tossup...."
Saban Disli, deputy chairman for foreign affairs in the ruling Justice and Development Party, said Europe should not try to project a decision of 10 years from now by looking at Turkey today. "Who knows?" he said, "Maybe in 10 years' time, it will be Turkey who holds a referendum to see if Turks still want to become a part of the E.U."
This was posted at RB yesterday, too. It's an important development, if in fact it plays out this way.
#1
I would approach this news with a bit of caution. The Turks are hedging their bets. They have also been having high level meetings with the Chicoms. I will post an article I saw last week to the Rantburg Turkey Dept, page 2. When a government jacked us around like the Turks did in OIF, I would not go off and kiss and make up without some verification.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/12/2005 13:28 Comments ||
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#3
The Turks are on the take. They'll take from the EU, the US, the ChiComs or anyone else who will give. They have proven to be untrustworthy and it will require a long time to earn trust. We need to do to them exactly what the EU is doing to them: dangle a carrot on a stick indefinitely, just to keep them focused on not being a bother.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 14:34 Comments ||
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#4
AP, we'll do it in an instant. For better or worse, the alternative is that they go to the ChiComs. That'd be even worse for them and us than their little French flirtation. Besides, if they cross us again, Kurdistan becomes a reality. And we should tell them that while we exchange the first hug.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/12/2005 14:39 Comments ||
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#5
AP is on to something. Turkey has been spending the decade, since the fall of the Soviet Union, building ties with the various Turkman stans of Central Asia. It flows with their historic 'identity'. Check where the national Turkish airlines flies to. An alternate Chicom approach for the Turks can't be any less fulfilling than with the EU.
#6
Looks like the Turks are wrong yet again! Looking like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the Med here. New best friends for Turkey ares the Zionist Entity for awhile and what ever 'stan they can spook.
#10
As I said yesterday, Geography and the distribution of power and economics point to a Turkey aligned with Iraq as the heart of a Middle East Common Market. Importantly, with democracy as the most important prerequisite for membership, it would be a population and economic bloc in competition with the EU. Inclusive to the "Arab" nations, necessarily excluding Israel, and Iran being much as Russia is to the EU: too big, too powerful, and too divisive to belong.
Moving to California
Chuck was sitting in an airliner when another fellow took a seat
beside him. The new guy was an absolute wreck.... he was pale, his hands were
shaking, he was biting his nails and moaning in fear.
"Hey pal, what's the matter?" Chuck asked.
"Oh man.... I've been transferred to California," the other guy answered.
"There's crazy people in California .... and they have shootings, gangs,
race riots, drugs, rapes, the highest crime rate...."
"Hold on," Chuck interrupted. "I've lived in California all my life
and it is not as bad as the media says. Find a nice home, go to work, mind
your own business, enroll your kids in a good school, and it's as safe as
anywhere in the world."
The other passenger relaxed and stopped shaking for a moment and
said, "Thank you. I've been worried to death but if you live there and say
it's OK, I'll take your word for it. By the way, what do you do for a
living?"
"Me?" said Chuck. "I'm a tail gunner on a bread truck in Oakland."
________________________________________________________________Wish I had gotten in on yesterdays discusion on the merits of Sonoran Flora,I have some good stories.
Here is one:I friend of mine had just moved to Tucson from Arkansa.We went out plinking our .22's and I was explaining to him that everything that lives in the desert sticks,stings or bites.One of the first things I pointed out was a piece of Cholla laying on the ground.Said give that stuff a wwwide berth,they call it jumping cactus for a reason.What dose this dummy do,he say's that and kicks it(wearing canvase sneakers). He started danceing around and kicking like a cat with tape on his foot.I was laughing so hard it took 5 min.to help him out.
KUWAIT has appointed its first female cabinet member, naming veteran women's rights activist Massouma al-Mubarak as planning minister, the state news agency KUNA said. Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah "announced the appointment of Dr Massouma Mubarak as planning minister and minister of state for administrative development affairs," KUNA reported. Mubarak, a columnist and political science professor at Kuwait University, said she had been offered the post, and said she was honoured to be the first woman minister in the Gulf Arab state's history. She replaces Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah in both posts.
The appointment makes Kuwait the third country in the conservative Gulf Arab region to have a woman cabinet minister. Sheikh Ahmad retained his post as communications minister and was also given the health ministry portfolio, official sources said. Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah had been interim health minister since Mohammad al-Jarallah resigned in April after parliament members called for a no-confidence vote, accusing him of squandering public funds and mismanagement. Kuwait appointed two women to its municipal council earlier this month, the first women appointed to the body.
Kuwait gave women the right to vote and run in elections last month, but passed the legislation too late for them to vote or stand for election in municipal polls on June 2. Women will vote for the first time in the 2007 parliamentary elections. The suffrage bill was seen as a breakthrough in Kuwait, which had promised to carry out democratic reforms.
The last half of an article in the Tory magazine the Spectator. Free reg required.
The broader political significance of this poverty agenda has not yet been noticed. It has its roots in the terror all mainstream politicians feel at the collapse of mass party politics. The Labour party and the Tory party, which both enjoyed memberships of over one million voters barely a generation ago, today cannot count on more than 500,000 between them. By contrast, the four largest aid agencies — Oxfam, Christian Aid, Action Aid and Save the Children — have the best part of three million members.
Just before the general election the ace Labour strategist Douglas Alexander, now minister for Europe, delineated the problem in a pamphlet, Telling It Like It Could Be. 'Citizens are increasingly participating in activities such as single issue campaigns,' wrote Alexander, 'without seeing these as activities in which party politics should or could play a role. Labour needs to engage these people in our vision of the good society.' Alexander, a key adviser to Chancellor Gordon Brown, argues that Labour must take full advantage of all this energy. His pamphlet, though published before the election, was a manifesto for much that has happened since. It explains exactly why the British government is so mesmerised by the Geldof agenda, and accounts for the perplexing collusion that will take place when the G8 summit takes place in Scotland: the British government conspiring with protesters by urging them to come and disrupt its own event. For New Labour, Make Poverty History will win back the voters lost over Iraq.
It is, of course, good that we should think about Africa, and there is no denying that Bob Geldof is a wonderful man. Nevertheless, there are substantial reasons for concern at this new method of making policy. For one thing, it is not democratic. Africa did not loom large during the general election campaign. Pretty well all MPs report that alarm about mass immigration was a much bigger issue. And yet we have heard nothing about immigration since 5 May. The day after the election Tony Blair announced that he had been chastened by the result, and would spend much more time addressing the domestic agenda. Instead, he has set about the prodigious task, which has frustrated all politicians since Alfred Milner a century ago, of how to solve the African problem. This project is about re-energising lost activists, not appealing to the average voter.
Giving way to pressure groups like Make Poverty History is as bad a way of making policy as surrendering to corporate lobbyists. Its agenda — debt forgiveness and a huge increase in aid — is very hard to defend. As Richard Dowden of the Royal Africa Society notes, 'If aid were the solution to Africa's problems it would be a rich continent by now.' Tony Blair is open to the same criticism over Africa as over Iraq: that he is guilty of a naive belief in interventionism. The contrast between the British insistence on aid and the American focus on proper governance is very striking.
Nevertheless George Bush did his best for Tony Blair this week in Washington. He is extremely fond of the British Prime Minister, and the real venom is felt towards Gordon Brown. The Chancellor badly upset the White House when he tried to railroad Condoleezza Rice over Africa at a meeting in the British Foreign Office on 4 February. According to well-placed sources, he treated Rice with the same contempt that he normally hands out to Cabinet colleagues. Afterwards the Americans briefed that Brown's financing plan was poorly thought through and would 'be forgotten within a year'.
Well-informed sources say that President Bush is proud of what he has done for Africa, and is 'affronted by the way Gordon Brown is trying to get cheap publicity ahead of the G8'. The US President may well have spent a portion of his private meeting with Tony Blair this week urging the British Prime Minister to remain in power as long as possible. Meanwhile the volume of private briefing against the Chancellor from within the White House is remarkable by any standards.
None of this will do Gordon Brown any harm at all with the Labour party. Quite the reverse: falling out in such a spectacular fashion with the White House, and the prospect of a sharp cooling in the special relationship with Brown at No. 10, will help ensure him the succession. Even so, the Chancellor's clumsy, bullying diplomacy raises real questions about whether he has the calibre to be prime minister.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 14:09 ||
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Civil servants on the Brussels gravy train now earn £70,000 a year after tax.Take home base pay of $127,000 PLUS allowances and a huge pension, PLUS not one has ever been fired. And that's just for starters. The European Commission, by instinct bashful about its generous perks and allowances, was forced to disclose the figure, and much more, in response to a written question from a Czech MEP.
The Commission admitted that its officials, who number nearly 20,500, are entitled to seven separate allowances over and above their pay, plus a generous pension scheme after just 10 years' service.
The average take-home pay of £70,000 is based on the income of an "A" grade Eurocrat - one who can draft new laws, for example - who is married with two children and in the middle of his or her career.
Chris Heaton-Harris, a Conservative MEP, described the figure as "obscenely high". He said: "They get paid too much for doing too little and most of that is done badly. They take Friday afternoons off and they get all the Belgian bank holidays. And what's more, they get extra money for having children."
Brussels admitted to the following family staff perks:
⢠Household allowance: two per cent of basic salary plus £100 a month.
⢠Dependent child allowance: £185 a month per child.
⢠Pre-education allowance: £11 a month.
⢠School fees: reimbursement of up to £150 a month "doubled in certain cases".
Eurocrats are also eligible for other allowances:
⢠Expatriation allowance:
16 per cent of the total sum of basic salary, household allowance and dependent child allowance.
⢠Secretarial allowances of between £77 and £120 a month.
⢠"Various" allowances - among them standby duty, shiftwork, overtime, for which values were not given.
Bureaucrats who are posted outside Brussels and Luxembourg are also eligible for an allowance known as a "correction coefficient". It compensates officials posted to cities with a high cost of living and rounds down salaries where life is cheaper than in Brussels or Luxembourg.
As a result, expatriate officials posted to Britain are entitled to a further 42 per cent on top of their basic deal.
The perks don't stop there. At the end of their careers, pensioners can expect £3,681 a month for the rest of their lives - at a total cost to the taxpayer of £303 million last year.
What's more, in return for adhering to the EU's mantra of "ever closer union", the bureaucrats know they will never willingly be let go.
There has never been a round of redundancies at the Commission and under-performing employees are often promoted because the bureaucracy involved in firing them is too onerous.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 10:45 ||
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#3
Sounds ideal for our favorite Greek conscript -- if he survives.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 15:23 Comments ||
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#4
The Lefties will bitch and moan if an American CEO makes big bucks, even if he/she was responsible for increased dividends for stockholders.
The EUrocrats make MUCH more than the average European - whose wages are taxed at confiscatory levels to give said Eurocrats those salaries - and the silence from the usual suspects is deafening.
Guess they don't want to interrupt those chirping crickets.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/12/2005 18:10 Comments ||
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There's some good insight in this British report, although the idea of the national government running this makes me shudder.
A CONFIDENTIAL Home Office report recommends that children should be targeted as potential criminals from the age of three. It says they can be singled out by their bullying behaviour in nursery school or by a history of criminality in their immediate family.
It proposes parenting classes and, in the worst cases, putting more children who are not "under control" into intensive foster care instead of care homes. Nursery staff would be trained to spot children at risk of growing up to be criminals.
The 250-page report, entitled Crime Reduction Review, was drawn up on the instructions of Tony Blair, who wanted to identify the most effective ways of cutting crime by 2008.
Its leak coincides with an expected announcement tomorrow by Ruth Kelly, the education secretary, of a £430m package to provide out-of-hours clubs at schools for children aged four to 14.
The Home Office strategy unit, which spent five months compiling the report, concluded that "from the simple perspective of reducing crime . . . the arguments for focusing resources on the children most at risk are 'overwhelming'".
Children who were not "under control" by the age of three were four times as likely to be convicted of a violent offence, it warned. It adds: "Getting schools to tackle bullying, exclusions and truancy effectively is key to diverting more adolescents from crime". They're right that this needs dealing with. But no mention of dealing with the parents?????
The report was conducted against a bleak assessment by the Home Office that, without new measures, the crime rate would rise 8.5% by 2008.
Last July the government used the review's findings on what worked and what didn't to underpin a formal commitment to reduce crime by 15% by 2008.
Measures such as CCTV, increased street lighting and longer custodial sentences were judged in the report to have been expensive failures, with only a few exceptions.
Instead, it maintained that if potential offenders were spotted young enough, "soft" measures — such as improving their reading, language and social skills — could be enough to change their direction. there's some real truth here. Kids who are neglected by self-centered or messed up parents need attention and need opportunities to learn. That's what develops self esteem and a stake in social order.
Kelly's £430m is intended to provide breakfast clubs and after-hours sports and arts; some children could be at school from 8am to 6pm. The sessions will be run by private sector and voluntary groups, rather than by the schools' regular staff. That has promise ... let's make sure those private groups aren't teaching jihad tho, okay?
Research in the report found that 85% of inmates in young offenders' institutions had been bullies at school, while 43% of male prisoners had children with a criminal record. In a verdict likely to anger leftwingers, the report suggests that bullies should be treated as aggressors rather than victims of their social background.GASP - could it be ... Common Sense??? YES!! score one for reality.
It states that bullies, who can start from a very young age, do not suffer from low self-esteem but act as gang leaders who "recruit" others to commit crime. As they graduate to being juvenile offenders, aged 8 to 15, they act as magnets by drawing in followers one or two years younger than themselves.
Those who by the age of 18 reach this stage, it states, are best dealt with in young offenders' institutions with "boot camp" regimes.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 07:52 ||
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#1
Sorry TT but you're suffering from Optimists syndrome here.
"In a verdict likely to anger leftwingers, the report suggests that bullies should be treated as aggressors rather than victims of their social background. GASP - could it be ... Common Sense??? YES!! score one for reality."
But just who gets to determine who is a bully and who is a victim, hmmmmm?? That's right, all those left wingers in the social services and educational industries. I'll garauntee that any law of this kind would rapidly be used to attack any parent who dared to question a school or a teacher.
And the victim can be made to look like the instigator very easily. After all, how many times do we here about a foul in a sport being called on the reaction rather than the action?
#3
While discussing self defense with my sons Jr.High Princepal,he's answer to the ??? of when does a student have the right of self-defense. His answer was a student's right of self-defense(acorrding to the Az.school board)consists of falling to your knees,covering your head with your arms,and praying.I let him know in no uncertain terms what I thought of that.
12 or so years ago my son was having trouble with a bully. He got in trouble with the school for defending himself. When I spoke to the teacher (the bully was the teacher's pet) I explained that my son knew that I would not accept him starting a fight but that I had no problem at all with him finishing one, and that I had not raised him to be a compliant victim of violence. If she had any objections I would give her the number of my lawyer ( which I did not have). The trouble stopped and I never heard a word again. AND this was in Massholia!
#6
Yep, self defense is also not permitted in Southern California. However, my school immediately suspends and expels (2-strikes) the attacker. Did it to one 1st grade miscreant this year; his parents took the hint and moved him out of state.
#7
Raptor, same thing in Tennessee. My daughter was walking down the hall at school and a girl said, "Hey, Lauren." She turned around and was met with a fist to the mouth. She grabbed hold of the other girl and they both went down, She was suspended for 3 weeks. I really gave the school Principal and the school board a piece of my mind and then filed charges against the other girl. I had dental costs to pay whitch I got back from the other girl's parents as a result of the charges. It doesn't matter what happens both students are suspended. Absolutely rediculus.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/12/2005 19:45 Comments ||
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#8
Be very quiet and know that most of the teaching staff is on your side in any sort of face of in or out of court.... make them your friends.
Posted by: P Drake ||
06/12/2005 20:18 Comments ||
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#9
Same in Ohio. Fortunately a teacher came through the blocked bathroom door and took both girls directly to the principal's office, where the other girl was given no time to think up lies, so she confessed to attacking trailing daughter #1. Both girls were given in-school suspension and required to write an essay detailing what she'd done wrong. I explained to the principal that td1 would write the essay, but that as the descendent of Holocaust survivors I require her to protect herself from attack, and that we'd be going out to dinner to celebrate her behaviour. The principal was shocked by my attitude, which is too damn bad.
It's not just Haringey social workers who believe in witchcraft. There are many African immigrants who subscribe to one or another brand of one of Britain's fastest-growing religions (and who are not yet employed by our social services departments).
Last month police investigating the murder of the boy whose torso was found in the Thames in 2001 announced that 300 African boys aged between four and seven had gone missing in a three-month period in the capital that year, though — a police spokesman reassured us — "there is no reason to assume that they have all been murdered".
Earlier this month we had the case of "Child B", another little African girl who had been tortured by her relatives (shoved in a bin bag, chilli pepper rubbed in her eyes, etc) because the devil was deemed to have gained access to her soul. A fervent belief in the power of the Dark One is, apparently, very common among some west African immigrants.
The term "ndoki" designates those who are possessed. There are many African-based churches in north London who will exorcise for a fee. At the time of Child B, the NSPCC announced "this trial has exposed some beliefs in some communities that can lead to child abuse". I suppose murder counts as "abuse".
Unfortunately, we now have the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill about to enter the statute books, so I am prohibited from suggesting that people who believe in witches, the demonic possession of children and exorcisms are either cretins from a Stone Age culture or psychologically deranged. Which is a shame, because that's what I'd hoped to do.
In fact the government, through its charismatic Home Office minister Paul Goggins, has announced that people who worship the great Satan himself should indeed receive protection from the bill; so we mustn't whip up hatred when we see a wild-eyed person carrying a black bin bag, some chilli pepper and a small child. Each to his own; live and let live, etc.
The bill was introduced to secure the votes of Britain's Muslims, but if it gives succour to the followers of Beelzebub, all well and good.
This whole notion of "private fostering", for example, which occurred with Child B and Victoria was, we were told, culturally acceptable within African communities. So they were dealt with by African social workers who accepted the practice with little demurral. Later it emerged that cultural acceptability had less to do with it than simple benefit fraud — but by then it was too late for Victoria.
Similarly, we are cautioned — and indeed now legally obliged — to have respect for those who believe any amount of primitive superstitious rubbish because this cultural relativism demands that we should not be judgmental. Similarly, we must remove crucifixes from crematoria because they might offend people from other religions or atheists.
This self-flagellation does immigrants no favours. Nor does the confusion of race with religion — of something genetic, skin deep and irrevocable with a set of ideas consciously embraced.
At the end of Child B's case, NSPCC director Mary Marsh called for a taskforce of child protection officers drawn from the African community. Why must they be African? Maybe instead we should send African child protection officers to investigate white families and send white child protection officers to sort out the Africans, using precisely the same criteria in each case.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 07:34 ||
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Two of my three children were possessed, but the demons gradually faded away in their 20's; the third joined the Marines.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/12/2005 12:55 Comments ||
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My three teenagers are all possessed, but I've never had the urge to put them in bin bags and rub chili pepper in their eyes. Grounding seems to be sufficient.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 14:20 Comments ||
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Frankly, I did want to maybe try the chilli thing for a second or two...
"THE trail-blazing first lady of Downing Street", as her promoters like to characterise her, was reportedly paid around £30,000 ($55,000) this week to share her thoughts with a Washington audience. Cherie Blair returned home to a media outcry and accusations that she was exploiting her public role for private profit. If prime ministers' wives could quit, Mrs Blair would have faced calls for her resignation.
Officially, Mrs Blair has done nothing wrong. That is because, officially, she does not have much of a job at all. She is not a state employee, which means her job is not covered by the various codes that bind political figures. But that's what has annoyed Britons. Although she has no official role, and so is not bound by the official rules, it seems unlikely that rich Americans would have paid to hear from her were she not Tony Blair's wife.
For a human-rights lawyer with four children and no dark stains on her character, Mrs Blair is remarkably unpopular. She recently topped a BBC radio poll of people who Britons most wanted ejected from their country, beating Abu Hamza, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric with a winning combination of dead eye and hook, by a good length. Mrs Blair's problem is not just that she is the wife of a prime minister loathed by many Britons, but also that her judgment has proved to be dodgy in the past. In 1998, she was spotted wearing a new-age "bio-electric" pendant, said to contain magical crystals. A reputation for credulity was confirmed by news that she employed a "lifestyle guru" to advise on spiritual matters. The guru's ex-husband, an Australian swindler, claimed to have helped Mrs Blair purchase two flats at a discounted price. Having first denied any wrongdoing, she made a tearful public apology.
The Conservatives have called for rules covering ministers' conduct to be extended to spouses. But regulations seem an unnecessarily heavy-handed response to a rather small problem when any sensible prime ministerial consort would take care not to behave in a way that turned the electorate against their spouse. Perhaps painful experience will at last have taught Mrs Blair what the famously low-profile Denis Thatcher told the Duchess of York: "Whales get killed only when they spout."
China is on track to complete building its first strategic oil reserve storage tanks by August, but Beijing has not indicated when it may start filling them in the face of high oil prices, an industry official said on Friday.
The world's second-largest oil consumer after the United States will finish the crude oil tank farm in Zhenhai, located in the port city of Ningbo in the booming east coast province of Zhejiang, on schedule with plans announced last year, he said.
No salt domes, just tanks? Heck, this military district is already responsible for Taiwan, just add a few more targets into the mix.
The 5.2 million-cubic-meter (33 million-barrel) facility will hold about one-third of China's initial planned emergency reserves, the foundation of state efforts to bolster energy security as consumption soars and domestic output plateaued.
"The entire infrastructure in Zhenhai will be completed by August. But prices are so high right now and it is not clear when Beijing will kick off emergency stockpiling activities," the Chinese official told Reuters.
A top Chinese government official said last week that China would build up its emergency stockpile gradually, lessening the impact on global energy prices.
He did not say when Beijing could begin filling the tanks, a move being closely monitored by oil traders fearful that even a modest build will add stress to a taut global crude market that some fear may struggle to meet global demand later this year.
China's oil demand is forecast to rise by almost 8 percent this year to nearly 7 million barrels per day (bpd), half last year's explosive growth rate but still increasing its dependence on foreign crude.
Cars are selling like hotcakes these days. And Chinese rarely buy used cars.
It now imports 40 percent of its oil needs and the growing reliance on imports has moved energy up the political agenda, especially as prices cling above $50 a barrel.
China has also earmarked three other sites for strategic stocks along the eastern seaboard, aiming to build a total of 16.2 million cubic meters (101.9 million barrels) of reserves in the next five years, equivalent to 20 days of consumption.
Whee, 20 days. I suppose the giant U.S. supply is only 60 days, but still.
This would augment the commercial stocks of the country's major refiners and importers, who typically hold 10 to 30 days worth of supplies, and give Beijing some cushion against any unexpected supply outages, particularly from the Middle East.
The other crude oil tanks will be in Aoshan in Zhejiang, Huangdao in Shandong and Dalian in Liaoning.
The capacity in Aoshan will be similar to Zhenhai, while the other two sites will each boost 30 tankers storing up to 3 million cubic meters of oil.
#3
In the short term yes, but consider the long term price viz. short term fluctuations in the ice market.... in Pensacola last year it was 1.5 us a lb on the nreal spot market.. the price variation was soon dampened by the large terrestrial ice reserves.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian farmers have been dancing in the rain as downpours delivered the first soaking falls in over four years to large parts of drought-ridden eastern Australia.
The rainfall would be enough to allow many farmers to plant their winter crops after months of waiting, New South Wales Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said on Saturday.
Australia, the world's second-largest wheat exporter after the United States, is a major supplier to Asia and the Middle East.
"Farmers are out dancing in the rain," farmer Chris Groves told Reuters by telephone from his prime wheat-growing area at Cowra, 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of Sydney. "This rain has the potential to save our winter cereal crops. There's still a good planting window available for people to sow and all we need now is good follow-up rain," he said.
Australia's eastern farmers have endured three months with barely a drop from the sky. Some areas have not even begun to recover from Australia's worst drought in a century, which destroyed crops and caused a mass slaughter of livestock in 2002.
That drought never broke in some far-inland areas of eastern Australia.
Farmers in country towns, dustbowls a few days ago, happily trudged through brown rivulets of rain water running through streets and fields.
Some held hats to the sky in quiet gestures of thanks.
On the edge of the Outback, the far western New South Wales town of Ivanhoe received one of the best falls on Friday and Saturday of around 50 millimeters (2 inches).
"TREMENDOUS"
"That'd be the best rain that we've had here since November 12, 2000," Ivanhoe property owner John Vagg told ABC radio. "It's actually drought-breaking rain -- its absolutely a tremendous fall."
The rain came just days after Australia officially slashed its forecast for the next wheat crop by almost 30 percent. However, wheat planted up to the end of June, although sown late, can still yield good crops.
Up to 50 mm of rain fell on Saturday in a sweeping band along a 1,500 kilometer (930 mile) front, from Adelaide in South Australia, through Victoria and into western New South Wales.
"Those that have dry-sown are going to get a great fillip," Macdonald said on ABC radio in reference to farmers who plant seed in dry ground in the hope that rain will fall to produce an otherwise-doomed crop.
Brown hills and valleys throughout Australia's grains belt, unusually quiet in recent weeks as farmers prayed for rain, will now turn frantic as growers sow their crops.
On the border between New South Wales and Victoria, leading wheat farmer Angus Macneil said most of his farm will be sowed as quickly as possible.
"We might get going tomorrow afternoon, but more likely Monday," he said. "And then we'll be going 24 hours a day."
Prime grain-growing areas throughout New South Wales and Victoria also received good Saturday falls of up to 30 mm.
Recipients included the Cowra-Dubbo-Parkes region in New South Wales and the northeast of Victoria.
Victoria's Mallee and Wimmera wheat-growing areas received good falls on Friday.
More rain forecast for the next week or so would really set up winter crops, farmers said.
But much more was needed throughout winter to fill dams and ensure enough irrigation to support the next summer's crops, Macdonald said.
Very dry areas in south-east parts of New South Wales, including Goulburn which is getting close to running out of drinking water, had received some rain but missed the heaviest parts of the downpour, they said.
"We're just about prayed out," Mayor Paul Stephenson said.
Good to hear that some rain has come; hope for more.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 10:06 ||
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Meanwhile here in the West we have had the wettest start to winter in a hundred years (15 inches in 6 weeks) and I wish it would just stop f@@kin raining.
Europe's leaders were yesterday at odds over the future of the EU constitution, with demands growing for the treaty to be put on ice indefinitely.
Jacques Chirac, French president, and Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor, yesterday said in Paris they believed the ratification of the treaty should go ahead, in spite of the French and Dutch No votes.
But European leaders are expected to conclude at next week's EU summit in Brussels that pressing ahead with referendums on the treaty in the current climate would be to invite further rejections.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark's prime minister, said the ratification could not continue until Mr Chirac and Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, explained how they intend to overcome their No votes.
"It must be up to the French and Dutch governments to present a solution," he said. Denmark is expected to join Britain in suspending its planned referendum indefinitely.
Neither Mr Chirac nor Mr Balkenende is expected to be able to provide a solution in the summit, since an offer to hold a second referendum on the same treaty would create domestic uproar.
The problems of ratifying the treaty after the double No votes was illustrated when a new Portuguese opinion poll showed a referendum in that country could be hard to win.
It predicted an extremely close result, with 50.8 per cent voting Yes and 49.2 per cent No - a sharp fall in support for the constitutional treaty.
Margot Wallström, European Commission vice-president, broke ranks with the official line when she said the ratification process "has de facto been put on hold".
"One can no longer ask for a Danish referendum to take place," she told Politiken newspaper.
But both Mr Chirac and Mr Schröder insisted that all other member states should proceed with ratification. "I think that respect for others and for democracy implies that the ratification process continues," Mr Chirac said.
In adopting that position, Mr Chirac hopes to deflect blame for "killing" the constitution from France to those leaders who want to postpone their referendums - notably Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister.
Mr Chirac's tactic of diverting attention from his own political embarrassment has already been highly successful in the case of the British rebate from the EU budget, which is also up for discussion at next week's summit.
The hardening of positions in London and Paris has dampened hopes of a budget agreement at the summit. Goran Persson, Swedish prime minister, said yesterday he was "not over-optimistic".
Mr Blair knows, however, that he will be portrayed as the villain of the summit if he refuses to negotiate on Britain's â¬4.6bn (£3.2bn) rebate, first secured by Margaret Thatcher in 1984.
He wants to reopen the 2002 Brussels deal at which EU leaders - including Mr Blair - agreed farm subsidies until 2013, as a precursor to allowing 10 new member states to join the club.
The deal would set farm spending at about â¬300bn over the seven-year period; together with other rural subsidies that would amount to 43 per cent of the total proposed EU budget.
Europe's foreign ministers meet tomorrow in Luxembourg for a "conclave" to try to narrow the differences over the seven-year budget, which is expected to be set at â¬800bn-â¬900bn.
The Netherlands and Sweden are also digging in to cut their net contributions to the budget
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 13:42 ||
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Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark's prime minister, said the ratification could not continue until Mr Chirac and Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, explained how they intend to overcome their No votes.
That says a lot about the mindsets of these bureacrats. The people have spoken, so the first order of business would be to examine the premise of the proposal. But that would be too logical.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/12/2005 13:51 Comments ||
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I think what Mr. Rasmussen wants to know is how Chirac intends to proceed with the ratification, in spite of the No vote. Forget about examining the premise!
What I don't get is that Chirac & Shroeder want the referendums to continue, knowing that the constitution will have to be "adjusted" for France to have another go at a referendum. So, what, different countries will vote for different constitutions? I guess then they'll propose a merger of all the constitutions to sort out this mess after everyone has voted. Only in Europe.
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/12/2005 14:33 Comments ||
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I think what Mr. Rasmussen wants to know is how Chirac intends to proceed with the ratification of the same constitution (no changes), in spite of the No vote. Forget about examining the premise!
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/12/2005 14:36 Comments ||
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Eyal Sivan is one of the most openly anti-Semitic far-leftist extremists in Europe. He grew up in Israel but then migrated to Europe, where he divides his time between making Jew-bashing anti-Israel films and filing frivolous SLAPP suits against people who criticize him.
In recent years a growing anti-democratic harassment tactic used by the very worst left-wing fascists has been the filing of such SLAPP suits for "libel" as a way to silence critics of the Left. SLAPP (which stands for 'Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation') suits are anti-democratic harassment suits in which someone attempts to suppress the free speech of his critics. They are illegal in many parts of the US and there are penalties for those who file them.
Eyal Sivan is a radical anti-Semitic pro-terror ex-Israeli "film artist" living in France (where else?). He is the French equivalent to that other notorious ex-Israeli Eurobat, Dror Feiler. Feiler lives in Sweden and who made the "sculpture art" celebrating the suicide bombing woman who mass murdered 23 people at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, many of them children, including three generations of two families. One of her victims is a 10 year old who lost his parents and was permanently blinded by the blast.
Sivan lately has been co-making anti-Israel propaganda films with a local Palestinian pro-terrorist. Eyal Sivan likes to make venomous propaganda movies against Israel and Jews. In one of his recent movies, "Route 181 - Splinter from a Trip in Palestine-Israel," he devotes much of the screen time to justifying the Arab attack on Israel in 1948 designed to annihilate Israel (and its population) and which coincidentally gobbled up the land the UN had allocated to become an Arab state of Palestine.
The Arabs, declares Sivan, were in the right when they attacked Israel in 1948, because the Arabs were seeking a nice Rwanda-style bi-national state with an Arab majority in which the Jews would be treated almost as well as are the southern Sudanese Christians and animists today.
The film also alleges all sorts of gory Israeli "war crimes" against the poor innocent Arabs of 1948, including imaginary rapes. It is capped by scenes of railroad tracks designed to be associated in the minds of French viewers with scenes from the "SHOAH" movie about the Holocaust, and of course with Israel in the role of Nazi Germany. [Ironically, when Sivan needed an actor to play a thuggish Israeli, he chose an Arab. Talk about racial profiling!]
This latest "film" was broadcast in England, Germany and France, a 4.5 hour pseudo-documentary. Sivan wanted it to be the Palestinian answer to the French documentary movie "Shoah" about the Holocaust. Sivan has also long justified arson attacks against French Jews and their synagogues, saying the French Jews themselves were to blame for these (Jerusalem Report, March 22, 2004) because they support Israel.
Ah, but then the heroic French Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut described the cinematic atrocity being prepared by Sivan as "incitement to murder Jews" and a tissue of lies. He also openly called Sivan a Jewish anti-Semite. Sivan decided to file a frivolous harassment SLAPP libel suit in France against Finkielkraut for daring to tell the truth.
Meanwhile, other French intellectuals petitioned the Pompideau Center and other institutions not to screen the scurrilous propaganda film of Sivan, successfully. It was evidently not screened.
In Israel, Sivan is embroiled in a conflict with members of the family of the heroic Gideon Hausner, who had been the prosecutor in the famous trial of Adolf Eichmann, the German architect of the Holocaust captured and executed by Israel. The Hausners began petitioning the Attorney General last February to prosecute Sivan, because of his deliberately distorted "documentary" film on Hausner and the trial, in which he misrepresented and mocked the deceased Hausner, they insist. The family members want Sivan charged with "receiving profit from deliberate fraud," a crime in Israel.
The frivolous harassment suit against Finkielkraut is stuck in the French court backlog, but Sivan may be getting his comeuppance from an Israeli court in the Hausner case. Now Sivan has decided to try the harassment suit tactic all over again, this time against a leading Israeli professor and politician from Israel's Zionist Left.
Sivan this week filed a "libel suit" against Israeli Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, a professor of constitutional law and a one-time cabinet minister from the leftist Meretz party. Two weeks back, Rubinstein had called Sivan an anti-Semite in an opinion column that was published in the Jerusalem Post and also in Maariv, Israel's second largest daily. Rubinstein had denounced the attempts by Sivan to paint Israel in his films, especially in "Route 181", as morally equivalent to Nazi Germany. Rubinstein also noted that Sivan's film had been banned in France but was being screened in Israel itself by local far-leftist moonbats.
Yes, the same anti-Semitic film by Sivan that French institutions refused to screen, too anti-Semitic even for FRENCH tastes, has been screened repeatedly in Israel itself by the far-Leftist Jerusalem Cinematek, a moonbat institution maintained by Jerusalem taxpayers and which is always on the lookout for seditious anti-Israel propaganda that it can screen as "art". You may recall its role in promoting the Goebbals-like film "Jenin Jenin", a propaganda film produced with PLO funds whose own producer has admitted he filled it with lies. The architecture department at the Bezalel College also showed it.
Rubinstein has courageously stuck to his guns and has announced he will retract nothing he wrote about Sivan and will certainly not apologize. Sivan will continue to attempt to suppress the free speech of his critics anti-democratically using SLAPP suit harassment.
Lengthy analysis of the "Non!" vote and what the author considers the breakdown of the Fifth Republic. Go read it all; here's a taste:
Power sits with the executive nationally - the President - or locally in the mayoralty, with big city mayors being key political actors. Parliament does not provide the political platform from which to build a constituency, launch an argument or build a career.
As a result, the democratic disconnection in France is even more pronounced than in Britain. There's an understated sense of disaffection and fragmentation; French cafes, for example, no longer seem to bring people together but, rather, they emphasise their separateness. Africans hawk cheap tat in the streets, an unintegrated and unwanted subculture. Brutal new shopping precincts, car parks and roads arbitrarily cut through familiar communities.
French youth culture wants to embrace the latest from Britain or America, but also wants to be French and doesn't know how. Four years after university, 40 per cent of graduates are still unemployed.
Ariane Chemin, a writer for Le Monde, captured contemporary France perfectly in her piece on Compiegne, a typical commuter town 64 kilometres east of Paris. With the aid of some local estate agents, she plotted the 'no' vote against the price per square metre of property, advancing through the town and its outlying villages quarter by suburban quarter.
The correlation between low property prices and readiness to vote no was perfect. The part of town where the Africans were most visible and social housing most evident registered the biggest no vote at 77.24 per cent.
But in Saint-Jean-aux-Bois, the gilded village retreat of Compiegne's professional classes and Parisian second home-owners, the yes vote was 65 per cent. In the suburbs in between, even with a socialist mayor calling for a yes, the denizens of small, three-bedroom houses voted no by 64 per cent.
This is the France over which President Chirac presides. He and the constitution which confers on him such power is the France of Saint-Jean-aux-Bois, but the rest of Compiegne gazes on in mute disaffection and gathering anger. Its deputy in the National Parliament might as well not exist; its President and the aristocrat Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, speak a language, come from a class and represent a political system that is light years away from their daily experience. . . .
I would be very interested in the reactions of our European contingent (JFM--this means you!) to this guy's analysis.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/12/2005 09:51 ||
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but also wants to be French and doesn't know how.
Take a cue from Runway Boy a few days ago - sport loud, obnoxious striped clothing and wear your clip-on braces backwards. At least it's a start...
#4
From the article: While corporate France has restructured and raised its productivity to the highest in the industrialised West, easily surpassing the US, the rest of the French economy has been becalmed.
I hate it when people just f-ing lie. From the OECD website (scroll to the bottom): French productivity is 26% lower than the US. In fact the only OECD country that comes slose is Norway, which is 2% lower.
PARIS, June 10 (AFP) - French industry continued to flag in April on falling demand for energy for heating, and analysts say the overall climate for growth targets this year is gloomy as the new government turns its guns on unemployment.
Official data showed that industrial output fell in April by 0.3 percent compared to figures in March, the second monthly contraction in a row following a 0.3-percent fall reported in March from February, mainly caused by declining energy sector production.
At Natexis Banques Populaires, economics analyst Marc Touati said: "Now, it is a fact: French industry has gone into recession."
However, the official, seasonally adjusted data from the INSEE statistics office showed that manufactured output grew by 0.5 percent, an increase coming on the heels of a 0.7-percent jump in March.
But Touati also commented that this increase did not compensate for a fall of 1.9 percent in the previous two months.
At BNP Paribas, analyst Jean-Marc Lucas commented that the recent trend did not point towards recovery of growth in the second quarter.
"Recent developments in industrial productivity do not suggest that gross domestic product will increase in the second quarter," he said. "Growth risks finishing at slightly less than 1.5 percent this year, a rate normally insufficient to beat back unemployment."
A new French centre-right government was appointed this week following French rejection of the European Constitution. The vote was widely interpreted as expressing exasperation with some structural reforms of the economy and a perception that living standards are stagnating.
There is also deep public concern about high unemployment which successive governments have been unable to treat for years. The new administration has given itself 100 days to make an impact, but is constrained by heavy state overspending and slowing growth.
Several analysts noted that the slowdown shown in the latest industrial data reflected mainly a seasonal fall in energy needed for heating, but also commented that other recent data has not been bullish for growth.
Xerfi finance house chief economist Nicolas Bouzou said that the situation "is less serious than it seems", pointing to moderate growth in the consumer goods and automobile sectors.
Energy sector production fell by 4.8 percent in April and textile output by 2.7 percent percent.
But automobile industry output rose by 0.7 percent, output by the construction sector grew by 1.6 percent, consumer goods production by 0.7 percent, semi-finished goods by 0.4 percent, and electronics by 0.5 percent.
Bouzou said that the automobile and aeronautical sectors seemed set to underpin manufacturing during the year.
From February to April, industrial production dipped in volume by 0.6 percent compared to figures from the previous three months, and manufactured output fell by one percent.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 09:41 ||
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There is also deep public concern about high unemployment which successive governments have been unable to treat for years.
When you refuse to consider tax cuts and / or deregulation, that's usually what you wind up with.
#3
These numbers are deceptively good. The fall in energy production is the one that got my attention. Energy consumption is a basic metric of economic activity and unlike the others there is no lag in it. 5% is a very large fall and signals these numbers will get a lot worse fast.
The Army is preparing barracks and military bases in Scotland for use as holding camps if, as police expect, thousands of protesters are arrested during the G8 summit of world leaders next month. The decision to earmark sites where protesters may be held follows warnings from European police forces and intelligence officials that foreign anarchists have already entered Britain and are plotting to disrupt the meeting, to be held at Gleneagles, the luxury hotel and resort in Perthshire, Scotland.
Senior detectives have told The Sunday Telegraph that more than 50 dedicated troublemakers with criminal records have slipped into the country, before the imposition of stringent security measures at airports, ferry terminals and on the Eurostar train service in the immediate run-up to the summit.
World leaders including Tony Blair and presidents Putin, Bush and Chirac will attend the three-day meeting and police are straining to protect them and keep protesters at bay. There are fears that anarchists from across Europe will mingle with anti-capitalism campaigners in and around Edinburgh, which is expected to be the focal point of demonstrations against the international financial system.
Their numbers are likely to be swollen by campaigners for African debt relief, who have been urged to descend on the Scottish capital by Bob Geldof. According to warnings passed by Italian police to their British counterparts, some Italian protesters intend to dangle themselves on ropes from motorway bridges to disrupt traffic. Italian police have also uncovered plans to overturn and set fire to lorries on the main A9 approach road to Gleneagles. Detectives also believe that some anarchists want to blockade the Faslane nuclear base on the Clyde, near Glasgow.
Detectives in Scotland and at Special Branch headquarters at Scotland Yard in London, say that protest groups including Ya Basta, which once held a squat on a train and demanded to be taken to a financial summit in Prague, have sent "sleepers" into Britain to organise protests. One Italian anarchist known as "The Raven" entered Britain two weeks ago but police have lost track of him. Some of the information disclosed to senior police officers by Scotland Yard and MI5, the security service, follows the arrest in Rome on May 26 of five suspected anarchists - three men and two women, including their suspected ringleader, Massimo Leonardi - who were planning to target Gleneagles. They revealed that colleagues had already left Italy for Britain.
In a related investigation, police raided 80 homes in Bologna and other central and northern cities, targeting two further anarchist groups intending to visit Gleneagles. One senior detective who monitors anarchist groups said: "There are close connections between British groups such as Class War and foreign groups such as Ya Basta. "We know that some Italian anarchists have already entered the country and are staying at squats and safe houses with British sympathisers. They are planning major violent disruptions to the Gleneagles summit and we will be powerless to stop them."
The army bases earmarked to hold arrested protesters include the Dreghorn and Redford barracks, and the bases of the 2nd Division Craigiehall and the 51 Scottish Regiment, all within a 20-mile radius of Gleneagles. Police are concerned that Geldof's call for a million people to descend on the city will provide perfect cover for anarchists, and fear a repeat of the violence at the 2001 Genoa summit in Italy. There, hundreds were injured, one man died after being run over by a police vehicle, and the crowds were eventually dispersed by armed police using tear gas.
Assistant Chief Constable Ian Dickinson, of the police force which covers Gleneagles and Edinburgh, said: "A million people coming to Edinburgh - it is difficult to conceive how they could all get to this area in the first place and where they could assemble safely. No one wants tragedy to distract world attention from the aims of the campaigners."
The grounds of Gleneagles and much of the surrounding area will be fenced off and patrolled during the meetings, but one group, calling itself the People's Golfing Association, plans to invade the hotel grounds and golf course and disrupt the first-day photocall of the G8 leaders.
Dissent, a south London-based anti-capitalist group, has called for supporters to blockade roads around the resort on July 6. Some foreign anarchists also intend to storm Edinburgh's leading financial institutions including Standard Life and the Royal Bank of Scotland and stage sit-ins. Police said the plans were discussed at a "conference of anarchists" in Nottingham earlier this month. In response, police will mount their biggest ever operation in Scotland, with more than 5,000 officers on duty instructed to enforce a zero-tolerance policy and arrest anyone breaking the law.
Police intend to set up road blocks in a 40-mile radius of Edinburgh and Gleaneagles and say they will use the Public Order Act 1988 - originally intended to control outdoor raves - to detain people and disperse crowds. Intelligence officers said that S26, an international anarchist umbrella group, originally formed to organise protests in Prague against the International Monetary Fund/World Bank conference there on September 26, 2002 - hence its name - was orchestrating some of the protest actions.
Class War, a veteran British anarchist outfit, some of whose 200 activists have declared their support for violence, especially against property, is expected to take part in protests. The so-called Wombles (White Overall Movement Building Liberation through Effective Struggle), the largest of the three, is an anti-capitalist group formed in 2002. A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland said: "We will be properly prepared for any eventuality. We have said all along that, while we will facilitate lawful protest, we will deal with anyone who wants to cause disruption."
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 09:38 ||
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Didn't MP Galloway threaten that W and Blair would be arrested (for war crimes, of course) during their stay in Scotland?
#2
sounds like ample opportunity for head-cracking on teh whackos. Snipers for the molotov-carrying
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/12/2005 12:05 Comments ||
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Scotland can be such a warm, fuzzy place. Take for example some of their older prisons, hewn out of live rock, where air conditioning was never at issue, and oatmeal was the food. They also have a very interesting set of laws, Scots' Law, which is more Roman than Common Law. I would really not like to be a visitor on an extended stay there.
h/t to the Atlantic for a short summary and a reference to this paper. Sunstein is a strong liberal, politically.
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
CASS R. SUNSTEIN, University of Chicago Law School
ADRIAN VERMEULE, University of Chicago Law School
March 2005
Abstract:
Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context, because government is a special kind of moral agent. The familiar problems with capital punishment - potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew - do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in capital punishment may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat "statistical lives" with the seriousness that they deserve.
The full paper can be downloaded from the linked page.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 13:18 ||
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#1
I've never understood the big hoopla about the death penalty. You don't give the death penalty as a deterrent - though it works out to be one. You give the death penalty because an individual is unfit to live in a civilized society.
It matters less to me whether or not you kill them or just put them away. Seems to me personally - and it's just MHO - that it's more humane just to put them down than to keep them in a cage forever. Not to mention the cost and for what purpose? If you've decided they are unfit to live in society then it seems mean to lock them in a closet for life. but hey, that's just me.
we don't allow lions to walk down the street and eat our children.
It's nothing against the lion, it's just a "it's you or me and I choose me" kind of thing.
If you don't like the death penalty fine. Come up with someplace to put the unfit that makes you happy. But it should not be about deterrent. It should be about a decision, one person at a time: are they fit to live among us, or not? And if not, then what?
#2
Vox populi, vox dia. Yes, please teach the American people that government is a farce and disregards their wishes. Teach them that they are to be ruled rather than they rule themselves. Disregard their unquestionable desire to have upon due process their right to require a individual to forfeit their life if they are properly convicted of hidious crimes. If life and death is the ultimate power on this planet, then teach them that 'their' government is ineffectual while the thugs and scum of society hold far more power, enough to cause the good citizenry to change their behavior - by locking themselves up in their abodes, to fear to travel to parts of their own cities, and to fear for the lives of their children when the sun goes down.
Consent withdrawn.
#3
The death penalty is less an issue that the ability to avoid the death penalty. Over and over again, sober and serious judges and political leaders, not squishy types, look at how the death penalty is used, and are appalled at how it is mis-used. First of all, if you are white, female, attractive, middle class or above, and able to hire a private attorney, you WILL NOT get the death penalty for ANY crime. However, if you are a minority, male, unattractive, lower middle class or poor, and must rely on a public defender, the dice have been tossed. By this, I mean that all the things we hold dear about the rationality or reasonableness of the court system mean *nothing*, compared to what can only be called "corruption" of the system. At that point, you trial stops being an adversarial debate and becomes a toy for bias, prejudice, political ambition, misconduct, incompetance, and other subjective sins that make honest people gag. For this reason alone, these honest judges and political leaders say that NO executions are tolerable until THE SYSTEM is restored to SOMETHING more equitable, fair, or rational. This is really not debateable, in that the statistics for who receives the death penalty are open to review.
#4
People on "life" terms get out of prison, through pardons or escapes. There is a long list of people murdered by ex-cons. Anyone who opposes quick and frequent executions needs to justify those murders.
#5
First of all, if you are white, female, attractive, middle class or above, and able to hire a private attorney, you WILL NOT get the death penalty for ANY crime.
#6
Pappy: My list is pretty inclusive. Has Texas taken to executing Martha Stewart types? If so, I would be amazed. I know some of those cheerleader mother types can be pretty homicidal, but find it hard to imagine someone getting a death sentence whose shoes match her designer purse.
#7
Don't try the "perfection trap" on us: That is, if it can't be done PERFECTLY, WITHOUT FLAW, then it shouldn't be done at all. Iraq war. Death Penalty. The whine is always the same.
The Roman sense of Justice is that we're willing to let SOME of the guilty go free to make sure that the innocent is not punished. This, however, implies that SOME of the guilty WILL BE PUNISHED. The whine NOW is that some of the guilty get off, while others get what they deserve, so NOBODY should be given what they deserve.
#8
Sorry Moose, but
1) There is no perfect
2) No one said life's fair
To screw over everyone else declaring that perfect has to be achieved first is just another attempt to stop capital punishment. This is a society of men not angels. If we were angels there would be no need for a death penalty.
However, lets use your own arguement. Why imprison anyone? Cause your same arguement means that unless you're white good looking middle class female you are going to receive inequitable treatment for a life sentence or any sentence as punishment for crimes committed. Bah!
Meanwhile the death penalty is being carried out over 18,000 times a year on our streets, in our homes, our neighborhoods, and our schools. There is no due process and no appeal, just swift quick death. The state that can not or will not deal out the same to these social-pathic murders says basically that the rest of us are expendable for the 'greater good'. I repeat - consent withdrawn.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/12/2005 20:59 Comments ||
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#10
Look, Jackal, I ain't buying it. I worked for a department that sent an innocent man to death row (former employer, Phoenix Police Department....the man they sent there was Ray Krone.) If his execution would have been speeded up, the exonerating evidence (ie. borderline criminal incompetence from the PPD) would never have come to light in time to save him from death row.
Before you say, "big freakin' deal!", stop to consider....what if you were Mr Krone, or someone you love was in his position?
I don't think perfection is too high a standard for the death penalty. What is more precious to you than your own life? And how do you make it up to someone who has been wrongly executed? If they were imprisoned, there are some things that can be done to rectify the wrong.
EU, the big difference is the death penalty is being carried out in all of our names. It is not trivial or unreasonable to demand that the government be absolutely, positively right if they are going to take a life. Why do you have a problem holding the state to a higher standard than some homicidal idiot out on the street?
How can you honestly believe that justice is being done when someone who didn't do the crime is killed when the perp walks free? That's not justice, that's appalling.
People who kill fall into two categories: premeditated (ones who plan it out and generally make attempts before or after the murder to escape detection), or "crimes of passion" (under the influence of emotion, insanity and/or drugs). The first category generally thinks they are so friggin' clever that they will get away with it, the second, well, they're not really thinking.
Neither one generally stops to consider, "Hmm....I don't want to have a lethal injection...." If it has such a deterrent effect, why are the murder rates higher in Texas and Florida (two death penalty states) than Wisconsin and Hawaii?
Many current or former Senators and Representatives appear to have taken illegal Congressional salary payments during the current Congress, prior to the October recess.
The chronically absent list is well-represented by candidates who ran for higher office, including those who ran for President or Vice President: Senators John Edwards (D-NC), Bob Graham (D-FL), John Kerry (D-MA), and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), and Congressmen Richard Gephardt (D-MO) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Senate candidates Brad Carson (D-OK), Mac Collins (R-GA), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Pete Deutsch (D-FL), Joseph Hoeffel (D-PA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Chris John (D-LA), Denise Majette (D-GA), George Nethercutt (R-WA), and Patrick Toomey (R-PA), who have served in the House during 2003 — 2004, also had numerous unexcused absences. In 2003 now-Kentucky Governor and former Representative Ernie Fletcher (R) missed 27 session days.
Federal law requires Members of Congress to forgo Congressional pay for days missed due to campaign appearances or other unexcused absences. In June 2003 National Taxpayers Union wrote to each of the six Presidential candidates serving in Congress to ask whether they planned "to voluntarily follow this law during your campaign." None of the candidates replied.
Here are the estimated salary overpayments made to each of the six Presidential and/or Vice Presidential candidates:
Senator John Edwards was absent for every vote during 52 of the 115 days when the Senate cast floor votes in 2003. In 2004, Senator Edwards missed every vote during the months of July, September, and October — a total of 59 consecutive votes. Senator Edwards' 50 absent days in 2004 equal an estimated salary overpayment of $63,543.16.
Representative Richard Gephardt was absent for every vote during 85 of the 109 days when the House cast floor votes in 2003. Gephardt compiled many streaks of consecutively missed votes, including all votes from April 10 to May 8, June 2 to June 24, September 9 to October 1, and October 20 to November 20, when he missed 93 votes in a row. In 2004 Gephardt was absent for 46 days. Representative Richard Gephardt's total estimated salary overpayment: $81,362.53.
Senator Bob Graham's 41 absences in 2003 add up to an estimated salary overpayment of $25,269.53.
Senator John Kerry was absent for every vote during 76 of the 115 days when the Senate cast floor votes in 2003. The Senator's longest streak of missed votes in 2003 ran from July 11 to September 9, when he missed 62 in a row. For 2004, Senator Kerry was absent for every vote during the months of July, September, and October — and compiled a total of 76 consecutive votes missed from June 23 through October 11. Kerry's absences for 2004 total 70 days. Senator John Kerry's estimated salary overpayment: $90,932.68.
Representative Dennis Kucinich was absent for every vote during 28 days in 2004, but did not meet the study's missed-votes threshold for 2003. Representative Dennis Kucinich's estimated salary overpayment: $17,636.64.
Senator Joseph Lieberman was absent for every vote during 63 of the 115 days when the Senate cast floor votes in 2003. Lieberman skipped 54 percent of all the votes. Notably, Lieberman was first elected to the Senate after criticizing the incumbent for missing too many votes. Lieberman's longest lineup of missed votes ran from July 10 to July 29, when he missed 43 votes. Senator Joseph Lieberman's estimated salary overpayment: $38,828.79.
All Members of Congress who are included in this report are noted in the table below:
see link for table of 2003 and 2004 data
The Law
According to 2 U.S. Code 39, "The Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives (upon certification by the Clerk of the House of Representatives), respectively, shall deduct from the monthly payments (or other periodic payments authorized by law) of each Member or Delegate the amount of his salary for each day that he has been absent from the Senate or House, respectively, unless such Member or Delegate assigns as the reason for such absence the sickness of himself or of some member of his family."
In 1981, and again in 1996, this provision in the law was amended in unimportant respects, thus reaffirming a Congressional belief in its continued legal vitality. It therefore seems indisputable that Section 39 is binding on all Members of Congress.
The candidates have a duty to comply with this law. The Code of Ethics for Government Service says, "Any Person in Government service should ... uphold the Constitution, laws, and legal regulations ... and never be party to their evasion." The House Ethics Manual also notes that if a Member violates any "provision of statutory law, a Member or employee may also violate these provisions of the House rules and standards of conduct."
House Rule 23, clauses 1 and 2 state:
1.) A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.
2.) A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Rules of the House and to the rules of duly constituted committees thereof.
Both House and Senate ethics rules contain strict prohibitions against the use of official resources for campaigns.
Paying Congress Members to miss work is unfair to other candidates who usually campaign without pay. If any of the other candidates worked for a corporation that gave a paid leave of absence for campaigning for President, the Federal Election Commission would impose a stiff fine for an illegal corporate contribution.
The records of the House show that in 1971 then-Congressman Edwards of Louisiana, someone not known for high ethical standards, took action to ensure that he was in compliance with this law when he did not attend House sessions during his campaign for Governor.
Methodology
We studied those Members of Congress who were absent for a high percentage of votes, over 15 percent, for 2003 and 2004. Each year's absences were studied independently; thus, in order for a Member to have absences noted for both 2003 and 2004, they would need to exceed the study's threshold each year.
If a lawmaker was present for even one floor vote during a session day, credit for full attendance that day was assumed. The study only counted absences if every floor vote was missed during a day.
We performed a computer search of the Congressional Record to determine whether any of the House candidates had received a leave of absence for any reason, even those not authorized by law. If a leave was granted, no salary overpayment was calculated. Senators' requests for leave are not stated in the Congressional Record.
We also inquired with the offices of each absent Senator and Representative to determine which, if any, days were for absences provided by the law. We updated our records to reflect any information from lawmakers who replied. Furthermore, we conducted independent research of online media sources for each lawmaker to ascertain whether illness or surgery may have accounted for any absences. Those lawmakers who still had more than 10 days of absences remaining after these examinations are included in this report.
To estimate the amount of salary to deduct for each day missed, we divided the 2003 annual Congressional salary of $154,700 by 251, since there are 261 weekdays per year, and 10 federal holidays. That calculation yields a Congressional salary of $616.33 per day. In 2004, a leap year with an added workday, an added holiday for Ronald Reagan's funeral, and a higher salary of $158,100, the per-day deduction was $629.88.
This is a conservative estimate of the overpayment. Others have suggested that the docking of congressional pay should be based on the number of session days. Such a calculation would yield a substantially higher overpayment estimate for each candidate. For example, under such a formula, Representative Gephardt's overpayment would have exceeded $122,000 in 2003.
Data citing missed votes that was used to perform the calculations was obtained from the respected Congressional Observer Publications (http://www.proaxis.com/cop/), a Congressional vote data service widely used by educational institutions and media outlets. Individual reports, detailing the dates on which a Member missed every vote, are available upon request.
I read a summary of this in the Atlantic, which cited the full report.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 12:48 ||
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#1
There's something called Garnishee, isn't there?
Garnish their paychecks like a dead beat dad's is.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/12/2005 9:50 Comments ||
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#5
``con dolcezza''
I'd like to experience the tempestuous side w/ those spiky leather boots. >:]
BTW against any dummycrat shes got my vote.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
06/12/2005 11:54 Comments ||
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#6
..You know, I simply cannot picture ANY LLL woman of national significance doing something like this. They all seem to be too busy being angry.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/12/2005 15:04 Comments ||
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#7
Bingo, Mike.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/12/2005 18:26 Comments ||
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#8
Agree, Barbara - Mike nailed it.
Y'know, this is the second article from alG posted on RB in a week which was spot-on and contained no spin. I can't remember the other one off the top of my head, but my astonishment at it certainly registered. And now we have another. Sheesh, if they keep this up for another 10 or 20 years, I'll forgive them for trying to screw with our election, lol!
I post this because this may - IMHO - be the most critical moment for the auto industry since the original union battles of the Thirties. We will feel the results whichever way it goes - Mike
By Keith Naughton
Newsweek
June 20 issue - As GM's engine stalled this year, CEO Rick Wagoner has laid much of the blame on the automaker's runaway health-care costs. And he's pushed the United Auto Workers union to give concessions on its generous medical bennies (no deductibles, tiny co-pays). The union has steadfastly refused to reopen its contract, which runs until 2007. So last week Wagoner ratcheted up the pressure. While announcing plans to cut 25,000 jobs and close factories by 2008, he promised to find a way to "promptly" reduce GM's health-care burden—with or without the union's help. The UAW fired back that GM can't "shrink its way" to prosperity, but instead needs to design cars people want. By late last week the war of words had escalated. "If we don't fix some of the basic problems that exist when it comes to the product," UAW president Ron Gettelfinger told NEWSWEEK, "then it seems to me that no matter what we did, it wouldn't be enough. Ever."
GM is on a collision course with its union over health care. And if there's a crash, the results would be devastating. Last time the UAW struck GM, for 54 days in 1998, it cost the automaker $3.5 billion and dealt such a blow to the economy it shaved a point off the GDP. Back then, though, the American auto industry was riding high on the SUV boom. Now analysts expect GM's North American car business to lose $4 billion this year, as SUV-fatigued buyers reject its aging lineup of guzzlers in favor of stylish sippers from Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai. Wagoner says the automaker's turnaround is threatened by accelerating health-care costs that add $1,500 to the cost of each car GM builds. The UAW and GM are in intense negotiations to reach a compromise because neither "side wants to see this thing go in the ditch," says Gettelfinger. Wagoner once made it his personal mission to improve GM's historically horrible labor relations. But now that he's taking a harder line, a relationship that has been carefully nurtured since the '98 strike hangs in the balance. "Without question," says Gettelfinger, "this will be a test."
The big question now: will GM try to break the contract if the UAW won't agree to benefit cuts? In a closed-door meeting with union leaders in Detroit last week, UAW VP Richard Shoemaker promised to block any attempts by GM to reopen the contract. But he also offered to help the ailing automaker find ways within the contract to cut health-care costs. At Chrysler this year, the UAW agreed to deductibles on some PPO plans. After the union meeting, GM stock surged on optimism that the union might give the company a break. But if GM acts unilaterally, the union hints at dire consequences. "Any corporation would have a hard time breaking contracts," Shoemaker told NEWSWEEK, "and still convincing consumers that they'd be a good company to do business with."
Wall Street has begun wondering if GM is overplaying the health card. "Even if GM solves their medical-cost disadvantage," says Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Sprinzen, "they will still not be another Toyota." And some question whether Wagoner's tough talk doesn't help because it simply backs the union into a corner. Says veteran analyst Maryann Keller, "It makes it difficult for the union to do anything without looking like the bad guys."
A roadblock to any deal is the union's feeling that GM brass is not sharing in the sacrifice. Wagoner just took a $2.5 million bonus (while Bill Ford swore off compensation until his company is fixed). And GM shareholders still receive $1.1 billion in yearly dividends. That makes the union suspicious that Wagoner's big job cuts are merely saber rattling, especially since they reflect the automaker's normal attrition rate. "Do they have problems?" says Gettelfinger. "They've got some issues. But I certainly wouldn't rate it as a crisis." The real crisis would be a breakdown in communications between GM and its union.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/12/2005 14:34 ||
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#1
Sometimes you have to slip the comb under the cholla and pull it out. Yeah, it hurts, but then it's over and you can get healed.
Either GM does this, or they file Chapter 11 and stiff all the retirees. Or, they get liquidated and Toyota and Kia buy some more plants.
#2
Jackal-
I have several GM salesmen for clients, and to a man, they are all quietly dreading one of two possibilities: first, that GM may implode due to runaway costs and utterly incompetent management. (Right now, the largest single cost at GM is health care.) Apparently, Federal law is such that GM might just be able to do that and simply blow off all its pensions and health care plans. The other rumor that has them concerned - one that has apparently been floated as a trial balloon - is scuttling Buick, Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer, and GMC's personal vehicles. This would come damn close to taking out about one HALF - or more - of the Automotive Division's personnel. The dealership structure would, with the exception of Cadillac, be 'dualled': each dealer would sell a combination of Chevies, Caddys, and/or Saturns.
These guys all feel that GM is in deep, deep trouble and it will not survive the decade in its present form.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/12/2005 19:13 Comments ||
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#3
Look for
The Union Label
On a guy in a breadline
Near You!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/12/2005 21:28 Comments ||
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#4
Time for Detroit to stop fiddling with the Unions and focus on dev George Jetson's flying/space car, or does the guy from Guam, i.e Madonna's daddy, have to do it, AGAIN. IN about ten years the Koreans will be where the Japanese automakers were in the late 1960s - ready to blow out Detroit and the world.
#5
I grew up in the Detroit area and had family and neighbors who worked in local plants or in the tubes. When I was young, I always thought GM cars were the best. My family had near-canine loyalty to Pontiac. Of course, this was the days of the SS/396, GTO, and Corvair, before the Vega, the Cimarron, and V8-6-4. It's a shame to see how far the company has fallen.
Unfortunately, the overhead is killing them. Having 6 divisions made sense when they had almost 50% of the market. Now that they have 25%, they have, what, nine divisions? Caddy, Buick, Pontiac, Chevy, Saab, GMC, Isuzu, Saturn, Hummer, Opel, ... Unless they can quickly get back to 50% share (as likely as My embracing Islam), they need to cut down the brands and the dealers servicing them. If you are selling half as many cars (I know the market's bigger, but let's just say half), you should have half as many dealers. Either they can close a bunch of them and give the franchise to others nearby, or they can continue to have them all slowly sink. You can keep the brands, but you simply must cut down the overlap, accepting fewer sales per brand, and having fewer dealers per brand.
No more Pontiac minivans. No more Buick trucks. Get Chevrolet out of any truck larger than Class 2 (or 3) and GMC out of any truck smaller than that. Clip Saturn back to its original plastic-bodied import-fighters. It did OK (not great, but OK) there. I don't know what to do about Saab.
As for the health care and pensions being thrown out in a bankruptcy, that's essentially what United, Kaiser, and many other companies have done. If it ends up being that or liquidation, which do we want?
Fans of Hudson and Packard must have felt the same way in the 50s.
Trade figures released by the Commerce Department on Friday suggested the US economy bounced back after a soft patch in March, but did not provide clear evidence that the trade deficit was stabilising.
The trade deficit rose to $57bn in April, below Wall Street's consensus forecast of $58bn. March's deficit was revised down $1.4bn to $55bn.
Imports and exports both hit new records in April, indicating stronger economic activity than in the previous month. The downward revision to the March data suggested that first quarter growth in gross domestic product would be revised up further, economists said.
The dollar strengthened against the main currencies. The euro under pressure for the past month due to stuttering eurozone economic growth, the French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution treaty and worries over the long-term viability of the currency fell 0.7 per cent to $1.213, a nine-month low against the dollar.
Bond prices also fell after the US report, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rising above 4 per cent for the first time in two weeks.
Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, gave upbeat testimony on the economy this week and provided no indication that the central bank was about to cease its rate tightening campaign.
Imports rose by more than 4.1 per cent in April, after the depressed March reading, with about half the increase accounted for by the higher price of oil. Exports to China rose, but the larger rise in imports meant the bilateral trade deficit rose 14 per cent to $14.7bn. In the four months to April, textile imports from China were twice as large as the same period of last year.
Exports rose by 3 per cent, though more than a third of the increase was accounted for by the volatile civil aircraft component, meaning that pace of growth was unlikely to be sustained.
Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at the consultancy Global Insight, said the trade figures provided further support for the Fed's sanguine view of economic prospects. "Oil played a role in boosting imports but domestic demand growth was quite strong in April. The economy is still probably expanding at about a 3œ per cent rate," he said.
April's deficit was less than the average of the first three months of the year, which if sustained would mean the international economy would add to US growth rate in the second quarter. In the first four months of the year the trade deficit was almost $229bn, compared with $187bn in the same period of last year.
Economists said that while the US economy continued to grow faster than Europe and Japan, and Asian governments prevented their currencies from rising against the dollar, the trade deficit was unlikely to shrink significantly.
Kathleen Stephansen, director of global economics at CSFB in New York, said: "The manufacturing sector has largely shifted from the US to Asia. While Asian economies are pursuing export-led growth, it is inevitable we will see large trade imbalances with the US." High oil prices have boosted the trade deficit in recent months, meaning that the trade figures looked better in inflation-adjusted terms.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 13:26 ||
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#1
Someone whose claim to fame involves mixing religious symbols and urine is complaining about religious symbols and urine? Stupendously jaw-dropping. I don't see how ScrappleFace can ever compete with stuff like this. You don't suppose Scott Ott is feeding these articles anonymously to the 'respectable media', do you?
#3
Bare-knuckle satire will become an endangered species as the LLL media-cult becomes more desperate in the coming years. This is because their worldview is rooted in the business of fantasy, advertising and entertainment, and is therefore utterly inflexible in the face of real challenges. Their only option will be more of the same: louder, crazier, shriller; more emotion, more radical 60s memes, more extreme and outrageous repetition of the same old themes. They can't change their tune, they can only turn up the volume. Their actual positions and statements will exceed anything that the most skilled satirist could devise.
#7
I guess Anne Coulter was more rationale than anyone thought when she commented that the 911 guys took out the wrong building in NY.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/12/2005 12:22 Comments ||
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#8
It is pretty simple to figure out the LLL and how it works. Look, they hate the US, our sense of values and our government, so anything that can be used as a tool to break down the country is fair game. Logic has nothing to do with it. PCB (Piss Christ Boy) sees Koran Abuse⢠as a useful tool.
Logic? Don't bother me with your stinkin' logic!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/12/2005 13:09 Comments ||
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#9
Ya gotta hand it to the NYT: When it comes to desecrating religious symbols, they went out of their way to find an expert....
#10
Secular Blasphemy: Bush's "faith based" mob of Bible-mutts and the spineless morons who support him, have all but buried Secularism in the Middle East and Central Asia. The nominal victories against Taliban/Baath were achieved at the cost of alliances with the same Islamofascists who carried out the 9-11 terror. On Sept. 11, 2001, Egypt's Secular government held over 19,000 koranimals in prison. Three years of Bush pressure has put over half of those terrorist pigs back on the streets, in the name of his oil-patch polluted notion of "freedom."
Listen!!! If it made sense to outlaw Nazism and (Japanese) Militarism after WW2, would it not make equal sense to outlaw Islamofascism, and wage total war against these elements, on a global scale. You people talk tough, but it is a fact that the jackass in the White House has not pacified either the Afghan or Iraq dog's breakfasts. In fact, terror attacks are increasing in both. Currently, 54% of Americans support withdrawl from Iraq. I believe that most of the declining support is extremely weak, and wavering. Troop recruitment, in face of one-arm-behind-the-back nation-building pseudo-war, has dropped in each the past 5 months. And why the hell not? Why participate in a winless farce, directed by suicidal misfeasants?
If you defend Bush's civil-policing/political-inclusivism (viz political-Islam) policies then you are both morally blind and intellectually bankrupt. Try to go beyond name-calling. Start by saying: Bush blew it! You will feel better without the apologist-baggage that hampers free thought at this forum. Thank me, and beg for my forgiveness!
Posted by: War on Islam ||
06/12/2005 14:59 Comments ||
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#12
Simple solution. Declare ALL guards at Gitmo to be "artists"...give 'em all Gummint grants...encourage them to let their artistic spirits free, and thus change "debasement" of the Koran into "artistic expression".
#14
War, you posted a pablpable lie in your insane diatribe.
"In fact, terror attacks are increasing in both. "
Wrong. Prove your statement, especially compared to data a year ago.
Shorten your horizone and hand pick statistics and you can lie just as badly as the other lardass thats just like you when it comes to truth: Michael Moore.
#15
I hope a dainty soft-liner like you can handle the truth, Old Spook. Stats reveal that the Islamofascist terrorists - at least those (like al-Sadr) who are not Bush-dhimmis - can spike US casualties at will. Their attacks are generating increasing casualties, per terrorist action.
http://icasualties.org/oif_a/Lunaville.htm
You should be aware that Iraqi military deaths are on the rise, as US theater troops either bunker down or give operations over to special ops. These totals do not include the serial slaughter of would be police/military recruits.
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
AP recently reported that almost 100% of Iraqi soldiers are Shiites. A free thinker like me would conclude that the Shis are taking a jihad subsidy from Uncle Sam. Don't let the White House put words in your mouth; its not sanitary. Nuke Mecca!
Posted by: War on Islam ||
06/12/2005 19:38 Comments ||
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#18
The only thing those statistics tell me is Islamists are killing other Islamists. They won't survive a standup fight against trained soldiers so they bravely attack the only folks they can: civilians.
#20
I hope a dainty soft-liner like you can handle the truth, Old Spook.
Like Pappy said, with that single statement you demonstrate that you have failed to take any deliveries off of the clue train that stops at RB on a daily basis ....
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/12/2005 20:50 Comments ||
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#22
Listen, "War", we've lost 1,700 soldiers in Iraq. Even if I grant you tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths in the last two years, how does that compare to over 400,000 dead people in Saddam's mass graves? How does that compare to Saddam's Baathist/Sunni minority wielding a club against a Shiite/Kurd majority of roughly 20 million people? People are still getting blown up in Iraq every day, but about 25 million Iraqis aren't involved other that seeing it on TV or reading it in the newspaper. I'd say Bush is doing fine under the circumstances.
As for nuking Mecca, there is little doubt in my mind that the Islamofascist Saudis have a day of reckoning coming. But it's not today. A nuclear Iran is a bigger problem today. You're either a poser or an idiot.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 20:59 Comments ||
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#23
Friday, the Washington Post had an article about SUNNI soldiers
(http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=121288&D=2005-06-10&HC=1) which, while not glowing, was not completely negative. Did this not fit your "mold"?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/12/2005 21:14 Comments ||
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#24
"I hope a dainty soft-liner like you can handle the truth, Old Spook."
What rkb said above, about the Clue Train. More specifically, War, you give the term "fucking idiot" a whole new dimension: you're one of those blubbering hysterics who've got no spine, no stomach and no brain, and just want to "nuke Mecca" because you don't have either the patience or the intelligence to see a long struggle through to the end which will allow your grandchildren to look themselves in the mirror every morning and not see genocidal mass murderers.
Useless fucking coward. Sit down and shut up, and leave this war to the adults. Because you are NOT one.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
06/12/2005 22:11 Comments ||
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#25
Be nice. Remember, you 46%ers endorse subsidizing Islamofascism, and indulge al-Sadr power politics. I don't want a ballot in the hands of those koranimals; I want bullets in their foreheads.
Name-calling is a sign of desperation. I want US troops in Iraq, in order to keep the local savages away from OUR oil fields, and to break up that vulgar lunatic asylum that has posed as a state for too long. Please join in my chorus: Nuke Mecca!
Posted by: War on Islam ||
06/12/2005 22:35 Comments ||
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#26
Oh my goodness. I haven't laughed this hard in quite some time.
I think that dear "War on Islam" should lead us all by example. You start the attack, WoI, and we'll be right behind you. Or anyway, we'll catch up after the tea and cream cakes have been properly digested (yes, yes, the strong stuff is there on the sideboard for those of you who loathe tea, right next to the embroidered napkins -- what kind of a hostess do you think I am?). Ok, to be honest, I won't be coming... I'll be needed here to clean up after, and then I simply must take a nap, but all the others will be along shortly, I'm certain.
And if you haven't a nuke of your own, dear WoI, although I must tell you that anyone who is anyone got an adorable little neutron bomb for Christmas courtesy of Old Spook's unparalleled generosity, I'm sure you'll be able to gin up something useful -- some Molotov cocktails to throw at a mosque, or send away for a few Korans to desecrate. But as I said, we'll all (excepting me, of course) be right behind you. Promise!
A different approach, not yet net energy producing but does appear to be fusion at room temps ... and explainable, too.
PASADENA, CALIF. — For the last few years, mentioning cold fusion around scientists (myself included) has been a little like mentioning Bigfoot or UFO sightings.
After the 1989 announcement of fusion in a bottle, so to speak, and the subsequent retraction, the whole idea of cold fusion seemed a bit beyond the pale. But that's all about to change.
A very reputable, very careful group of scientists at the University of Los Angeles (Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski, Seth Putterman) has initiated a fusion reaction using a laboratory device that's not much bigger than a breadbox, and works at roughly room temperature. This time, it looks like the real thing.
Before going into their specific experiment, it's probably a good idea to define exactly what nuclear fusion is, and why we're so interested in understanding the process. This also gives me an excuse to talk about how things work deep inside the nuclei of atoms, a topic near and dear to most astronomers (more on that later).
Simply put, nuclear fusion means ramming protons and neutrons together so hard that they stick, and form a single, larger nucleus. When this happens with small nuclei (like hydrogen, which has only one proton or helium, which has two), you get a lot of energy out of the reaction. This specific reaction, fusing two hydrogen nuclei together to get helium, famously powers our sun (good), as well as hydrogen bombs (bad).
Fusion is a tremendous source of energy; the reason we're not using it to meet our everyday energy needs is that it's very hard to get a fusion reaction going. The reason is simple: protons don't want to get close to other protons.
Do you remember learning about electricity in high school? I sure do - I dreaded it whenever that topic came around. I had a series of well-meaning science teachers that thought it would be fun for everyone to hold hands and feel a mild electric shock pass their arms. Every time my fists clenched and jerked and I had nothing consciously do with it, my stomach turned.
In addition, I have long, fine hair, and was often made a victim of the Van de Graf generator - the little metal ball with a rubber belt inside it that creates enough static electricity to make your hair stand on end. Yeesh.
Anyway, hopefully you remember the lesson that two objects having different electrical charges (positive and negative) attract one another, while those with the same charge repel. It's a basic law of electricity, and it definitely holds true when two protons try to get close together. Protons have positive charges, and they repel each other. Somehow, in order for fusion to work, you've got to overcome this repulsive electrical force and get the things to stick together.
Here's where an amazing and mysterious force comes in that, although we don't think about it in our day-to-day lives, literally holds our matter together. There are four universal forces of nature, two of which you're probably familiar with: gravity and electromagnetism.
But there are two other forces that really only come in to play inside atomic nuclei: the strong and weak nuclear forces (and yes, the strong force is the stronger of the two, the weak is weaker. Scientists really have a way with names, dont they?) I'm going to focus on the strong force, as that's the one responsible for nuclear fusion.
The strong force is an attractive force between protons and neutrons - it wants to stick them together. If the strong force had its way, the entire universe would be one big super-dense ball of protons and neutrons, one big atomic nucleus, in fact.
Fortunately, the strong force only becomes strong at very small scales: about one millionth billionth of a meter. Yes, that's 0.000000000000001 meters. Any farther away, and the strong force loses its grip. But if you can get protons and neutrons that close together, the strong force becomes stronger than any other force in nature, including electricity.
That's important- all protons have the same charge, so they'd like to fly away from each other. But if you can get them close together, inside the volume of an atomic nucleus, the strong force will bind them together.
The whole trick with fusion is you've got to get protons close enough together for the strong force to overcome their electrical repulsion and merge them together into a nucleus. The sun does this pretty much by brute force. The sun has over 300,000 times the mass of the Earth, which means there's a lot of gravity weighing down on its core.
That pressure gets the sun's internal temperature up to several millions of degrees, which means that particles inside the sun's core are flying around at huge velocities. Everything is moving around so fast that protons sometimes get slammed together before their charges have a chance to repel. The strong force takes hold, and a new atom (helium) is born.
In this process, some of the mass of the protons is converted into energy, powering the sun and producing the light that will eventually reach the Earth as sunlight.
Scientists have gotten fusion to occur in the laboratory before, but for the most part, they've tried to mimic conditions inside the sun by whipping hydrogen gas up to extreme temperatures or slamming atoms together in particle accelerators. Both of those options require huge energies and gigantic equipment, not the sort of stuff easily available to build a generator. Is there any way of getting protons close enough together for fusion to occur that doesnt require the energy output of a large city to make it happen?
The answer, it turns out, is yes.
Instead of using high temperatures and incredible densities to ram protons together, the scientists at UCLA cleverly used the structure of an unusual crystal.
Crystals are fascinating things; the atoms inside are all lined up in a tightly ordered lattice, which creates the beautiful structure we associate with crystals. Sometimes those orderly atoms create neat side-effects, like piezoelectricity, which is the effect of creating an electrical charge in a crystal by compressing it. Stressing the bonds between the atoms of some crystals causes electrons to build up on one side, creating a charge difference over the body of the crystal. Other crystals do this when you heat or cool them; these are called pyroelectric crystals.
The new cold fusion experiment went something like this: scientists inserted a small pyroelectric crystal (lithium tantalite) inside a chamber filled with hydrogen. Warming the crystal by about 100 degrees (from -30 F to 45F) produced a huge electrical field of about 100,000 volts across the small crystal.
The tip of a metal wire was inserted near the crystal, which concentrated the charge to a single, powerful point. Remember, hydrogen nuclei have a positive charge, so they feel the force of an electric field, and this one packed quite a wallop! The huge electric field sent the nuclei careening away, smacking into other hydrogen nuclei on their way out. Instead of using intense heat or pressure to get nuclei close enough together to fuse, this new experiment used a very powerful electric field to slam atoms together.
Unlike some previous claims of room-temperature fusion, this one makes intuitive sense: its just another way to get atoms close enough together for the strong force to take over and do the rest. Once the reaction got going, the scientists observed not only the production of helium nuclei, but other tell-tale signs of fusion such as free neutrons and high energy radiation.
This experiment has been repeated successfully and other scientists have reviewed the results: it looks like the real thing this time.
For the time being, don't expect fusion to become a readily available energy option. The current cold fusion apparatus still takes much more energy to start up than you get back out, and it may never end up breaking even. In the mean time, the crystal-fusion device might be used as a compact source of neutrons and X-rays, something that could turn out to be useful making small scanning machines. But it really may not be long until we have the first nuclear fusion-powered devices in common use.
So cold fusion is back, perhaps to stay. After many fits and starts, its finally time for everyday fusion to come in out of the cold.
If it gets to net positive as an energy source, well ... don't have to tell RB'ers what that will do
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 10:36 ||
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#1
If it gets to net positive as an energy source, well ... don't have to tell RB'ers what that will do
Does Islam allows cannibalism (of other Moslems, that is)?
#3
So when do they start selling fusion kits at Wal-Mart and what website will give me hacking tools to turn it into a bomb? I can hardly wait. My neighbor's gonna pay for that atrocious purple garage door.
#7
This isn't a device for producing power. It is a neutron generator similar to the accelerated ion neutron generators that have been produced for years. This one is just a little smaller, more reliable, longer lifed, and somewhat more efficient. This article is pop science crock, in that they are slanting it to make you believe some new way of producing energy was discovered. Lousy science reporting aside, it's still a nifty new method for generating neutrons, which will have many benefits for medical treatment, material analysis, etc.
Posted by: DO ||
06/12/2005 12:58 Comments ||
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Pyrofusion: A Room-Temperature, Palm-Sized Nuclear Fusion Device
A room-temperature, palm-sized nuclear fusion device has been reported by a UCLA collaboration, potentially leading to new kinds of fusion devices and other novel applications such as microthrusters for MEMS spaceships.
The key component of the UCLA device is a pyroelectric crystal, a class of materials that includes lithium niobate, an inexpensive solid that is used to filter signals in cell phones. When heated, a pyroelectric crystal polarizes charge, segregating a significant amount of electric charge near a surface, leading to a very large electric field there. In turn, this effect can accelerate electrons to relatively high (keV) energies (see Update 564).
The UCLA researchers (Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski, Seth Putterman) take this idea and add a few other elements to it. In a vacuum chamber containing deuterium gas, they place a lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) pyroelectric crystal so that one of its faces touches a copper disc which itself is surmounted by a tungsten probe. They cool and then heat the crystal, which creates an electric potential energy of about 120 kilovolts at its surface.
The electric field at the end of the tungsten probe tip is so high (25 V/nm) that it strips electrons from nearby deuterium atoms. Repelled by the positively charged tip, and crystal field, the resulting deuterium ions then accelerate towards a solid target of erbium deuteride (ErD2), slamming into it so hard that some of the deuterium ions fuse with deuterium in the target.
Each deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction creates a helium-3 nucleus and a 2.45 MeV neutron, the latter being collected as evidence for nuclear fusion. In a typical heating cycle, the researchers measure a peak of about 900 neutrons per second, about 400 times the "background" of naturally occurring neutrons.
During a heating cycle, which could last from 5 minutes to 8 hours depending on how fast they heat the crystal, the researchers estimate that they create approximately 10-8 joules of fusion energy. [To provide some perspective, it takes about 1,000 joules to heat an 8-oz (237 ml) cup of coffee one degree Celsius.]
By using a larger tungsten tip, cooling the crystal to cryogenic temperatures, and constructing a target containing tritium, the researchers believe they can scale up the observed neutron production 1000 times, to more than 106 neutrons per second. (Naranjo, Gimzewski, Putterman, Nature, 28 April 2005).
The experimental setup is strikingly simple: "We can build a tiny self-contained handheld object which when plunged into ice water creates fusion," Putterman says. (More information at http://rodan.physics.ucla.edu/pyrofusion .)
The researchers say that this method of producing nuclear fusion won't be useful for normal power generation, but it might find applications in the generation of neutron beams for research purposes, and perhaps as a propulsion mechanism for miniature spacecraft
#9
I was going to leave this alone, but WTF. You start out with Hydrogen atoms and end up with Helium atoms, then fusion has occured. This not open to debate. Only time will tell if this or other mechanisms for cold fusion result in a commercially viable source of energy. And I still don't get the pathological objection to the possibility, which this article demonstrates. It is a precondition to being taken seriously in this field that you deny the possibility of a viable energy source. You will forgive me if it looks to me like a manifestation of the Left/Green/Enviro Western Capitalism is evil and therefore the sky must be falling syndrome, cos cold fusion as a viable energy source means the energy crisis dissapears overnight. Thanks, I feel better now.
#10
Good, I'm glad you're better, phil_b. So far cold fusion uses expensive materials (e.g. Palladium at $183 USD per troy ounce) to produce little or no excess energy or uses lithium tantalite crystals (cost unknown to me) to produce no excess energy. I can do better striking a match.
All the facsination with scale-up so "the energy crisis disappears overnight" is wildly-optimistic conjecture with no basis in fact. There are lots of things that don't scale up well. [The billions of dollars that have gone into "hot" fusion research in the last 50 years prove that.]
And even if they did scale up well, they may not be cost-effective or they may have large-scale major drawbacks such as the "free neutrons and high energy radiation" mentioned in this article. One of the many problems with "hot" fusion is that everything around it gets a mega-radiation dose and that creates contamination and material properties changes that don't get mentioned in the glossy brochures for non-physicist lab visitors.
It's not time to buy Palladium or lithium tantalite crystals yet.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 20:32 Comments ||
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Hat tip Vodkapundit:
A massive reorganization has begun at NASA. NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has begun the process by sending out formal notices to more than 50 senior NASA managers aprising them of pending changes in their job titles. One person has already resigned. Associate Administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, Adm. Craig Steidle, tendered his resignation today effective 24 June 2005. Changes will occur across all of the agency's activities - except human space flight - those changes come later after both the STS-114 and STS-121 missions have been completed. Federal regulations require a 120 day waiting period after a new agency head takes office before involuntary reassignments can be implemented. Notices can be sent to affected employees no sooner than 60 days after that date. The countdown clock for the 120 day moratorium on involuntary reassignments [regulations] of SES career appointees started on 14 April 2005.
New NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin has decided to replace about 20 senior space agency officials by mid-August in the first stage of a broad agency shake-up. The departures include the two leaders of the human spaceflight program, which is making final preparations to fly the space shuttle for the first time in more than two years.
Senior NASA officials and congressional and aerospace industry sources said yesterday that Griffin wants to clear away entrenched bureaucracy, and build a less political and more scientifically oriented team to implement President Bush's plan to return humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually send them to Mars.
The moon-Mars initiative has put severe pressure on NASA's budget, forcing Griffin into a difficult balancing act -- trying to build quickly a next generation spaceship without crippling programs ranging from Earth observation satellites and aeronautics research to maintaining the Hubble telescope.
At the same time, the sources said, Griffin wants to restore NASA's glamour, reasserting the engineering and science leadership that has been eroding since the Apollo era. To this end, the sources said, he is willing to oust as many as 50 senior managers in a housecleaning rivaling the purge after the 1986 Challenger explosion. ....
Griffin, a former NASA chief engineer and associate administrator for exploration, settled into his new job. ....
"He's wanted to be NASA administrator for a long time and has given a lot of thought to what has been done well or badly," one congressional source said. "Because of that, he is not going to take a year or two to get to know the organization."
Instead, the sources said, he expressed dismay that NASA over the past several years had put a lot of people in top management positions because of what one source described as "political connections or bureaucratic gamesmanship -- not merit."
Several sources spoke of a corps of younger scientists and engineers, including Griffin, who had been groomed in the 1970s and 1980s as NASA's next generation of leaders only to be shoved aside during the past 15 years. They said Griffin hopes to bring them back.
"The people around him will be quite outstanding," one source said. "The philosophy is that good people attract outstanding people. This is going to be a very high-intensity environment, and NASA needs experienced, outstanding people."
#2
Thanks RK. NASA is one of our greatest accomplishments. There is no doubt it is full of politically placed bureaucrats. Lets hope the polticians that put them there stay silent or this will be a mess.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
06/12/2005 9:41 Comments ||
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#3
At this point, he should focus on NASA's "core business", the completion of "one shot" existing unmanned projects, maintenance, and human space flight--his directed priority. However, he should set up a major "subcontracting" agency within NASA, to farm out future unmanned projects to free enterprise. This would accomplish three things: mission accomplishment at significantly less cost and time; greatly expanding the commercial space industry; retention of overall control of space authority by NASA. This last insures that "lessons learned" by the subcontractors remain proprietary United States property, and that space "management" be centralized much like the FAA manages airspace, for much the same reasons. Hopefully the end result would be not just "scientifically interesting" unmanned technology development, but practical commercial development, too. Boffins are far too prone to want to only use tweezers when a sledge hammer is needed, technologically speaking. That is, never go inside a house *both* designed *and* built by an engineer. People focused on money are far more practical than people focused on science.
#4
Boffins are far too prone to want to only use tweezers when a sledge hammer is needed, technologically speaking. That is, never go inside a house *both* designed *and* built by an engineer. People focused on money are far more practical than people focused on science
what a load of crap. Proof I was right in my first take on you, "moose"
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/12/2005 11:13 Comments ||
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#5
People focused on money are far more practical than people focused on science.
People focused on money rather than science were at the heart of the Challenger O-ring cluster foo.
The new administrator said he foresees no reason why Johnson Space Center's mission would be significantly altered and hopes to maintain the balance that has been reached between robotic and human space missions.
"If you ask anyone in this country, 'Do you believe that the United States should cede the moon to say the Chinese, Europeans, Russians, whoever?' I bet you the answer would be, 'No,'" he said.
Griffin said he believes a majority of people "want to make sure that as humankind expands into space the United States is there in the forefront."
"That is why this is important," he said. "It's about where human beings go and what they do when they get there and what that means to the future of the human race."
The subtext is human presence there with regard to economic, political ... and possibly military uses, although the latter would be a major shift in national policy.
Another visit to the moonbat ward. Here we find someone who went to University a long time ago and has never left campus since. I presume there's some sort of 'invisible fence' around the Quad...tinfoil hat tip to Pirate Ballerina, your source for all things Ward Churchillian.
...Science is not a mere recording of 'objective' reality. It is more of an attempt to manipulate and control the ontological domain that has been delimited by a discipline's observational activities. The objects that appear present-at-hand were originally given ontological status to by the process of man carving out entities from the monistic Earth to use as instruments in the actualization of the objectives defining the teleology of his or her projects. Consequently, science should be understood less as a form of an objective rendering of reality than a manifestation of Nietzsche's Will to Power—the drive or impetus to come to control and manipulate one's surroundings that in actuality are probably too complex of which to ever come a complete, 'objective' knowledge...
#2
What this means is those in the WTC on 9/11 willed the airliners to crash into the towers. The hijackers were just an incidental mechanism to actualize that will.
#6
Oooh, golly! Ritualistic mumbo jumbo! The uttering of magic words and incantations! Words like "ontological" and "teleology" and "monistic" have great ju-ju. The rubes are major impressed and bow down toward the nearest university, uttering sounds of admiration, while the universities themselves award tenure to the utterers...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/12/2005 10:42 Comments ||
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#7
I think I've already heard somewhere what the word "ontological" means, but I'm not sure... sounds pretty impressive and academic... will try to google it, this method has shown good results with others unknown words... the search for "bukkake" was certainly memorable, ahem,...
#8
I read that paragraph three times, and I still can't figure out what the hell it says.
Raj: you're correct :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/12/2005 11:35 Comments ||
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#9
Consequently, science should be understood less as a form of an objective rendering of reality than a manifestation of Nietzscheâs Will to Powerâthe drive or impetus to come to control and manipulate oneâs surroundings that in actuality are probably too complex of which to ever come a complete, âobjectiveâ knowledge...
So? I mean, what's the problem with that? What's wrong with bending reality to your Will To Power?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/12/2005 11:39 Comments ||
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#10
"I reject your realty and substitue my owm":Myth Busters.
#12
The problem is that this essentially denies there is any such thing as objective truth in science.
Once you accept that, then you can justify all sorts of things, including suppressing the results of studies (or even the intent to study phenomena) whose political implications you don't like.
#13
The second assertion here will be familiar to people who study systems dynamics modeling ... the idea that there are feedback loops that make the behavior of complex systems counterintuitive and difficult to predict.
The subtext is that we should muck around with nature, therefore, because we may trigger things we can't control.
The subtext is that we should muck around with nature, therefore, because we may trigger things we can't control.
You know, I do not think that phrase means what you think it means... I think you forgot a negative there.
Seriously, have you ever seen how much money, energy, and face is invested in the belief that there will never be any significant drop in the price of carrying a kg of payload into LEO?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/12/2005 14:53 Comments ||
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#15
rkb, I happen to agree with the statement 'There is no such thing as objective truth in science.' However, and this is the motherofall howevers, to act as if there is, has huge utility. I.e. science may not reveal truth, but it sure as hell works.
Posted by: too true ||
06/12/2005 18:14 Comments ||
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#17
IMNSHO the author shows a profound misunderstanding of the tenets of basic science, how basic science is done, and how scientists think about the world around them.
I work at a major national science laboratory. I encounter scientists every day and often have the chance to speak with them and ask them questions about their research. Many read philosophy, but few would describe themselves as philosophers.
This nutbar, aside from trying to sound as high-falutin' as possible to, as someone said above, convince the rubes, simply doesn;t understand that good science has a sound foundation in a fundamental reality that we call natural physical laws - like that of gravity, that most of these natural physical laws can be understood through a solid grounding in mathematics, and that science is constantly striving to push the borders back, to understand more, and to improve its understanding of what science already thinks it understands. Few, if any scientists would ever presume they know everything (or even anything) about their own field of specialty let alone the universe.
If it were up to this guy the laws of thermodynamics would not apply and he'd be the one getting the free lunch
A woman hospitalised after her husband and in-laws allegedly threw acid on her died in Bahawalpur Victoria Hospital on Saturday. Atiqur Rehman told the Naushra Jadid police that his sister Rozina was killed by her husband Asgher after she opposed his plan for second marriage. On Friday, Asgher's sister Fatima and Shammoo threw acid on Rozina and her little daughter Sonia when they were asleep. Both were taken to the hospital where Rozina died.
LAGOS - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is the African Union (AU) chairman, on Saturday said an agreement reached in London to provide debt relief for 18 of the world's poorest countries was "a welcome development," according to his spokeswoman.
"Mastercard upped my limit again and sent me a bunch of courtesy checks. Now I can buy that island I've had my eye on."
"The fact that we have been on it for a long time, this (debt relief) is a welcome development," Oluremi Oyo quoted him as saying while reacting to the development at a traditional ceremony in Ijebu-Ode in southwest Nigeria. "As chairman of AU, this is what he has been campaigning for. What has happened in London is a manifestation of his efforts and those of other African leaders and a vindication of his campaign for debt relief for poor African countries," she also quoted her boss as saying. "Nigeria is looking forward to a special arrangement with the G8 on debt relief," Obasanjo said, according to Oyo who spoke to AFP on telephone.
And he's looking forward to an 8% commission.
"Daiquiris, anyone? I'll have my houseboy whip up a fresh batch. And do try these petit fours. They're delicious."
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/12/2005 00:00 ||
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ifn I could get some debt relief maybe I could hire some aliens to make me some new steps for my trailer house, stepping on this old motor block kida iffy in the present wet circumances i find myself in
#2
I can't imagine why he would need debt relief considering how many of his people send me e-mails offering me millions of dollars to assist them in getting money out of his country.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 14:48 Comments ||
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Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace are this weekend preparing for a lavish wedding anniversary celebration by approving a guest list that includes the names of African leaders seeking massive debt relief for their impoverished countries.
Now I know I'm gonna be sick. Please tell me Geldof and Bono sent their regrets...
"It will be a classy, royal-like occasion," a government source said in Harare. "The Mugabes will be driven from a church service at Kutama Mission outside Harare where they were married in August 1996 in an open Rolls-Royce with horses in front. That's how they want it."
They should be driven from the church in chains and sackcloth.
The wedding anniversary party will reportedly cost close to £1m. It will be preceded by a Mugabe family trip to an as yet unnamed country with close ties to Zimbabwe - possibly Libya.
Gah.
The all-day party will be partly paid for by President Mugabe - one of Africa's wealthiest men - partly by impoverished Zimbabwean taxpayers and partly by local companies seeking to stay in business at a time when the words "ethnic cleansing" are never far away from the lips of European, Asian and middle-class African businesspeople. Grace Mugabe is 40 years younger than her husband. The couple met when President Mugabe was still a married man.
They were probably introduced by Suha Arafat, who knows from golddiggers and mass murdering klepto-thugocrats.
His first wife, Ghanaian-born Sally Mugabe, died in 1992 and 40 days of national mourning was declared. Then rumours started that the austere Catholic-educated Mugabe had been having an affair for years with a State House security operative, Grace Marufa. Robert Mugabe fathered two children with her - Robert Jnr (now 18) and Bona, who is 16. The children were presented to almost 30,000 wedding guests at the end of August 1996. Since then the couple have had a third child. They will have a 10th wedding anniversary celebration next year. "It will probably be held at Mugabe's multi-million-pound palace in the suburb of Borrowdale," said a source in the ruling Zanu-PF party. "This year's anniversary will be huge. Next year's will be unnecessary colossal," he said, owing to the unfortunate demise of Mugabe and his Zanu cronies at the hands of an enraged populace.
#2
If you want to find Mugabe, just look for a horse's ass.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 12:33 Comments ||
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#3
"President Mugabe - one of Africa's wealthiest men"
Help me out here: why does Kofi want to tax us 0.7% of our income and send it to places like Zimbabwe and North Korea?
Posted by: Tom ||
06/12/2005 14:27 Comments ||
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#4
Tom - because he's a fellow kleptocrat.
He just kills people indirectly with incompetent UN "peacekeepers," while lining his pockets on the backs of people who actually work for a living.
Does Zim-bob-we have absolutely NO snipers? :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/12/2005 18:23 Comments ||
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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.
KUWAIT has appointed its first female cabinet member, naming veteran women's rights activist Massouma al-Mubarak as planning minister, the state news agency KUNA said. Prime Minister Sheikh 
"THE trail-blazing first lady of Downing Street", as her promoters like to characterise her, was reportedly paid around £30,000 ($55,000) this week to share her thoughts with a Washington audience. 
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The Army is preparing barracks and military bases in Scotland for use as holding camps if, as police expect, thousands of protesters are arrested during the G8 summit of world leaders next month. The decision to earmark sites where protesters may be held follows warnings from European police forces and intelligence officials that foreign anarchists have already entered Britain and are plotting to disrupt the meeting, to be held at Gleneagles, the luxury hotel and resort in Perthshire, Scotland.
A woman hospitalised after her husband and in-laws allegedly threw acid on her died in Bahawalpur Victoria Hospital on Saturday. Atiqur Rehman told the Naushra Jadid police that his sister Rozina was killed by her husband Asgher after she opposed his plan for second marriage. On Friday, Asgher's sister Fatima and Shammoo threw acid on Rozina and her little daughter Sonia when they were asleep. Both were taken to the hospital where Rozina died. 
LAGOS - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is the African Union (AU) chairman, on Saturday said an agreement reached in London to provide debt relief for 18 of the world's poorest countries was "a welcome development," according to his spokeswoman.
