Mebbe yes, mebbe no. I think we've heard this before... Y'know, I don't recall a single Global Climate Thingy asshole apologizing for getting it so fucking wrong this year. Anyone? Any dick can predict shit. What matters is toting up their results. Asstards.
LONDON (Reuters) - The United States, which has emerged from this year's hurricane season largely unscathed, should brace itself for a potentially devastating hurricane season in 2007, a leading windstorm forecaster warned.
A long-range forecast for next year issued by Tropical Storm Risk, a London-based forecaster, on Thursday predicted an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season with a strong probability that more hurricanes will slam into the United States than usual, based on average figures for the period 1950 to 2006.
It said that 16 tropical storms were likely to occur in the Atlantic basin, nine of which would be hurricanes and four likely to be so-called intense hurricanes.
Five tropical storms are likely to hit America, of which two will be hurricanes, TSR said.
It anticipated a combination of conditions that would indicate a higher-than-average hurricane season.
In 2007 the trade winds, which blow westwards from the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, will be weaker than normal, while the sea temperatures between west Africa and the Caribbean, where many hurricanes form, will be warmer than normal, TSR said.
For those who may be inclined to disregard such ominous warnings following this year's widely [That should be wildly - ed.] inaccurate predictions of another string of major storms similar to those that ravaged the U.S. coast in 2004 and 2005, TSR said an unusual mix of conditions led to fewer windstorms than were predicted.
"The below-average 2006 hurricane season was due to the presence of considerable African dry air and Saharan dust during August and September, which inhibited thunderstorm occurrence and therefore tropical storm development, and to the unexpected onset of El Nino conditions from mid-September," TSR said. "There is no precedent for these factors together having been so influential before," it added.
If you predict it enough times, eventually you'll get lucky. I got lucky once or twice.
#2
"The below-average 2006 hurricane season was due to the presence of considerable African dry air and Saharan dust during August and September, which inhibited thunderstorm occurrence and therefore tropical storm development
Maybe the answer to the hurricane problem is to kick up a lot of dust in the Sahara. Got to be cheaper than rebuilding New Orleans.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
12/08/2006 0:32 Comments ||
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Also, 2006 was the first year since the 1920s that no hurricanes struck the US mainland. In a rational world that would be big news. I haven't seen a single mention of that fact in the MSM. I know because I checked the records.
#5
Being a bunch of agenda-driven assholes means never ever EVER admitting a mistake having to say you're sorry, lol. Besides, they're the MSM - who's gonna tell on 'em? Blogs? Don't make me lol.
/Dan Rather
#8
Geez, the mind boggles. I definitely can not remember a season where we didn't even get hit once, and yet, we came out "largely unscathed?" And, they didn't expect the el Nino effect this year, but they expect us to believe they can predict temps to the 3rd decimal place in the year 2110? Give me a flyin' break!
Posted by: BA ||
12/08/2006 9:35 Comments ||
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#9
Yes, they do.
Posted by: kelly ||
12/08/2006 10:08 Comments ||
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#10
for what its worth, Dr. Grey, who is the long time primo hurricane forecaster, is a Global Warming Sceptic.
#15
I predict a constant stream of bullshit from the macaca with difficult to pass chunks at 7 and 11 PM daily. The bullshit will flow over several macaca outlets without regard for accuracy, or effects of the uninterrupted flow and stench. Nawlins may sink beneath it, again.
#16
Further on #10 - Dr. William M. Gray was the first (I think) to do annual forecasts, starting maybe 20 years ago, for which he was scorned. After a number of years of being successful, people began to pay attention.
When he became publically skeptical of global warming, during the Clinton Administration, his Federal funds suddenly evaporated. He retired from Colorado State University shortly thereafter, but continues to forecast.
#19
I look at it this way though. Our saviors Democrats have only been elected, not in office, YET, and they've already stopped global warming. I mean, we hit record lows here in Atlanta overnight in the teens. Who else but the Donks could stop global warming with only being elected, not in power yet! /sarcasm
Posted by: BA ||
12/08/2006 14:39 Comments ||
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#20
I definitely can not remember a season where we didn't even get hit once, and yet, we came out "largely unscathed?"
Well, we did get peed on by Alberto and Ernesto....I guess that counts. ;)
#22
Hope its more accurate/reliable than for 2006, andor the new SOLAR FLARE!? Considering the fuzzy-wuzziness on TV-Raaadios + Residential power blackouts + stronger daylight luminations here on Guam last month, no surprise for me iff the Solar Flare news is behind. DARTH VADER [breathing] > THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE.
SPACEWAR.com > US BMD TEST ABORTS. HEY MADONNA, THE FIREBALL(S) WENT THE WRONG WAY - HOW CAN WE WIN THE WAR [Guam saying]???
#2
Andrew Cranswick, 44, ACR's chief executive, said: "I don't believe Zimbabwe would allow illegal seizure of claims without due process."
Guess Andy should spend a little less time playing golf and a little more time reading Rantburg. Farmin B. Hard could have set him straight on this matter of illegal seizures.
#9
Andrew Cranswick should catch a "wake up call" - that is the joke of the century that statement! Hello! wakey, wakey your coffee is cold!
Zen, as for a slug in Mugabe's skull, rather throw the b*****d down a shaft - where he can die a slow painful death - even that is too good for him as far as I am concerned!
Rhodesiafever - sick is too a milder term, to use in regards to this topic - makes my blood boil to see how one man can desecrate our once beautiful Country - that we used to call home!
#10
he can die a slow painful death - even that is too good for him as far as I am concerned!
Works for me, rpg7. It is impossible for Mugabe to die slowly or painfully enough. Please accept my personal condolonces upon the butchering of your beloved country.
(SomaliNet) Liberia's ex president, Charles Taylor, has a son by the name of Charles McArthur Emmanuel. 29 year old Emmanuel has been sent to jail to answer charges pertaining to wrong identification.
Emmanuel, commonly known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor is accused of using a passport carrying a wrong name in order to facilitate his entry to USA. He says that he gave the wrong name because he was scared of using his father's name as he would not have easily entered USA. Emmanuel has spent the past eight months in jail after his arrest on March 30 at Miami International Airport.
However, his lawyer, Miguel Caridad, said that the passport issue was a set up to keep him in jail as preparations to make him answerable for torture cases against him are being completed. Emmanuel also appeared in court for having carried out war crimes in Liberia. He is a US citizen and was charged under a law forbidding a US citizen from involvement in war crimes abroad (outside USA).
Posted by: Fred ||
12/08/2006 00:00 ||
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(SomaliNet) Nigeria's oil saga is continuing. This time, Agip oil flow station in Nigeria's Bayelsa state has been attacked and at least two foreign oil workers have been kidnapped. "There was an attack on an Agip flow station at Brass about 5am. They came in about seven boats. Two or three expatriates were kidnapped," Hafiz Ringim, Bayelsea state police commissioner, told Reuters. However, Agip's spokesman in Nigeria's city of Lagos denied having any information on this attack by press time.
Kidnapping of foreign oil workers is common among Nigerians. However, in most cases, they are released unharmed after payment of a ransom to the kidnappers. Nigeria is the world's eighth biggest oil producer, though its natives remain very poor. This has been cited as one of the causes of the frequent kidnappings.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/08/2006 00:00 ||
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(SomaliNet) A rocked fired from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) exploded in a Ugandan district of Kisoro killing seven people and injuring half a dozen more.
A source revealed that the injured are being treated in Mutolere Hospital. A rocket-propelled weapon fired from inside the Congo caused the blast.
Meanwhile, Congolese government forces have been fighting with forces loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda in the past two days and sources say this has caused thousands of refugees to flee into Uganda via Bunaganaborder in Kisoro.
The District Security officer David Masereka said yesterday that the fighting had subsided but the Ugandan army warned that the security situation in the area remains volatile.
"The Congolese army retook the areas of Bunagana and Bunyonyi yesterday but since control of the area has been exchanging hands between Gen. Nkunda and the National army- the situation will remain fragile," Ugandan army spokesman Maj. Felix Kulayigye said yesterday.
The army spokesperson said Congolese Brigade Commander Col. Kahenga Smith together with Brig. Hudson Mukasa of the UPDF yesterday assured refugees that it was safe to return home.
"We expect regular consultation between cross border commanders as agreed upon between the Chief of Defence Forces Gen. Aronda Nyakairima and his counterpart in Kinshasa in October," Kulayigye said. Daily Monitor.
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12/08/2006 00:00 ||
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RIYADH, 8 December 2006 The US-based Human Rights Watch reported yesterday that it was still waiting for a response from the Saudi authorities to a request to visit prisons in the Kingdom for a first-hand study of the situation.
The request was made over two months ago, said Christoph Wilcke, Human Rights Watch researcher for the Middle East and North Africa. Wilcke, who speaks fluent Arabic, arrived in the Kingdom as part of his mission to observe the criminal justice system, the rights of women and children, and the treatment of domestic servants. During my stay in Riyadh I received hundreds of calls from everywhere about peoples grievances, he said. A majority of them related to maids.
The news of the organizations presence in the capital spread quickly. Many, including the relatives of detainees, rang up Arab News from abroad to get their own message out through the media. Others said they were unable to contact Wilcke as he had closed the line due to the flood of phone calls.
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LONDON (AP) - Preliminary hearings in the coroner's inquest into the 1997 death of Princess Diana and her friend Dodi Fayed will be open to the public, officials said Thursday.
The hearings were initially to be held in private, but Mohammed Al Fayed - the owner of Harrods department store and father of Dodi - protested and had asked for a judicial review of the decision by Lady Butler-Sloss, a former judge who is overseeing the inquest. Weren't uniformed troops denied entry to Harrods?
On Thursday, Butler-Sloss "decided to reconsider," a spokesman for the Judicial Communications Office said. "She has discretion in the matter and was persuaded that the strong public interest in the cases justified the meeting being held in open court," he said on condition of anonymity, in line with government policy. "The reasons she had in mind that led her to conclude initially that the meeting should be held in private were entirely pragmatic, such as the size of the courtroom."
In a statement, Al Fayed declared victory, saying that his threatened challenge - which was to go to court Friday - was the reason Butler-Sloss changed her mind. "I am encouraged by this decision, although regret it only came about as a result of threatened legal proceedings," he said. "The public and I have a right to know how my son and Diana, Princess of Wales were really killed on that awful night."
The inquest, which was initially convened and then swiftly adjourned in 2004, is due to formally resume next year. The hearings on Jan. 8-9 at the Royal Courts of Justice will decide issues such as whether the inquest should be joint and if it should have a jury.
Diana, 36, and Dodi Fayed, 42, were killed along with chauffeur Henry Paul when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont d'Alma tunnel in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, while being chased by media photographers.
Rumors and conspiracy theories continue to swirl around Diana's death, despite a French judge's 1999 ruling that the crash was an accident. An investigation later concluded that Paul had been drinking and was driving at high speed.
It is believed the official report into Diana's death will be published next week, although British police have refused to confirm that. The British inquiry, which is estimated to have cost as much as $7.2 million, employed cutting-edge computer technology to reconstruct the crash scene, and examined the Mercedes in painstaking detail.
#2
All this money spent to take on yet another convergence of desert moonbats and moonbats of the domestic variety. This sort of farce only serves to confirm the idiots in their suspicions and to dignify the lies with attention that should have been sneered at. This scum should have been dragged off in irons for employing the drunk who was driving Diana. The men chasing her should have been lined up in that underpass and shot.
#5
However, the paparazzi sure make good scapegoats if the intriguing conspiracy theory that Dodi Fayed was the real target is seriously entertained, as he was supposedly enroute to meet arms dealer Khashnoggi that fateful night.
A failed asylum seeker jailed for child rape is to receive around £50,000 in damages after a judge ruled he had been unlawfully kept behind bars while the Home Office tried to deport him to Somalia.
He won the payout despite being offered the opportunity to go voluntarily - but he preferred to stay in a British prison with free bed and board. The pay-out is all the more astonishing because the authorities effectively have little choice but to keep him in prison. He cannot be let out on to the streets in Britain because he is considered a danger to the public - especially women. But equally, it is very difficult to deported him back to Somalia, despite failing in his asylum application.
Until July no airline was willing to fly compulsory deportees there, and only one will do so now - but it is dealing with a backlog. The man himself, meanwhile, refuses to go voluntarily because he says it is too dangerous for him back home.
He has, in effect, elected to stay in Britain - yet is claiming compensation for doing so. All the while, on top of his £50,000 damages and £100,000 legal fees paid by the taxpayer, he is costing more than £37,000 a year to keep in prison. His stay in prison beyond his sentence has already cost well over £100,000 to the taxpayer. And he is also entitled to remain anonymous in the media.
This is because the Court of Appeal follows the convention in other European courts that publicly naming asylum seekers may put them at danger from those they may be fleeing from.
The 30-year-old entered Britain illegally on a false Kenyan passport in 1995, and within three years had raped a 13-year old girl at knifepoint. Probation officers warned that if freed he might stalk his victim and attack her again, and that he poses a risk to all women, and the public in general. He has been held in prison since his sentence ended in 2003, while officials bid to deport him to Somalia. He used Legal Aid, pushing his law fees for the taxpayer of up to £100,000, to launch a High Court appeal to be freed, along with a claim for compensation for being unlawfully imprisoned - in spite of the fact that he has been free to return to his homeland for more than three years.
Yesterday, astonishingly, his claim was partially accepted by High Court judge Mr Justice CalvertSmith who ruled that although the failed asylum seeker had sought to remain in Britain 'by hook or by crook', he had been unlawfully detained for 20 months.
The rapist - who has been granted the cloak of anyonymity, and can be known only as 'A' - will accordingly be paid compensation likely to run to £50,000, enough to buy many houses in his homeland.
The failed asylum seeker plans to appeal any imminent bid to forcibly deport him, but if he is successfully sent back his legal winnings will be sent to him there.
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#1
Yes, well, it's this sort of blinked Philistine pig-ignorace we've come to expect from such politically correct garbage. They sit all day on their loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads not giving a tinkers cuss for the struggling citizen. [/architect sketch]
#4
'Peb, in the States all it would take is one guard giving a lifer a pack of cigarettes and some prison store credits and that "short-eyes" (pen slang for a kiddie f*cker) would be shanked in the shower the next day - problemo solved. I'm sure you have some fine lads in your correctional facilities who would do the same.
#5
Or you could just tag him and release him to the public here in the States. Let him run up against NYPD or the Atlanta PD and 50 rounds may not be enough.
Posted by: BA ||
12/08/2006 9:30 Comments ||
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#6
Great post. My dad used to say: you can either fish, or cut bait all day...
#7
The Brits have C-130s. It's not terribly difficult or dangerous to fly one of those at 300 feet over the shallow waters just off the coast, and toss the garbagedetainees out the back with fast-opening chutes. They should have plenty of time to wade to dry land, if the sharks don't get them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/08/2006 15:43 Comments ||
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#8
A .22 costs 2¢ retail.
Posted by: ed ||
12/08/2006 16:10 Comments ||
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*sniffski*
Moscow - Exactly 15 years ago, the leaders of three of the Soviet Union's biggest republics gathered in a village near Brest, Belarus, and just so happened to end the superstate's 75-year existence.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Ukraine's Leonid Kravchuk and Belarussian Supreme Soviet chairman Stanislav Shushkevich met 'to discuss questions of gas and oil deliveries into Ukraine and Belarus,' Shushkevich said in remarks carried Thursday by the Vremya Novostei newspaper. 'We spoke literally a half-hour when the question arose of whether we could agree to sign our names under the phrase: 'The USSR has ceased to exist as a geopolitical reality and a subject of international law,'' he said. On December 8, 1991, the document was signed.
Today, with Russians marking a decade and a half of capitalism and democracy, the country's relationship with its former, communist self remains paradoxical and nostalgic, even as a generation that never wore the uniform of the Pioneer youth group comes of age.
Nearly 70 per cent of Russians say they're wistful for the Red Army, planned economy and powerhouse Olympic teams that symbolized the USSR, a survey conducted by the VTsIOM polling centre ahead of the anniversary showed.
Russia's 68 per cent compares with 59 per cent of Ukrainians and 52 per cent of respondents in Belarus.
As Russia and other former republics continue to search for a post-Soviet identity, roughly half of Russians and Ukrainians would vote in favour of a new union, VTsIOM's poll showed - compared to the one-quarter of the population in each state opposed to unification. With racial tensions higher than ever in Russia and political problems abounding with the former republic of Georgia, many in today's Russia nostalgically speak of the harmony they say prevailed among the brother republics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year called the Soviet collapse 'the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. Whoever doesn't regret the fall of the Soviet Union has no heart,' Putin said at the time. 'But whoever regrets it has no head.' Lol. Wotta 'tardski.
But with gross domestic product growth averaging 6.7 per cent over the last seven years in Russia, some of the sting of the Soviet collapse seems to be leaving.
While a majority of Russians - 56 per cent - regret the collapse of the 15-republic state, that number has shrunk from 84 per cent in 1997, according to the Bashkirova and Partners polling group. Young people especially find the idea of a communist Russia to be increasingly alien. The Soviet Union was 'something old and ancient, with which nothing good is associated,' Anton Yevseyev, 15, told the magazine Ogonyok.
Few of the 15-year-olds interviewed by the publication knew what the letters USSR - or, as the Cyrillic abbreviation looks, CCCP - stood for. (Answer: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.)
Yeltsin, also, said he saw no room for regret: The Soviet Union's end, he told state-owned Rossisskaya Gazeta Thursday, could have been softened only by the creation of the looser Commonwealth of Independent States. 'It was the only alternative to the inevitable and unmanageable catastrophic failure of the former Soviet Union,' he said. Ah well, throw 'em a boneski: Yah, shure, we miss the gold old days too - when our sworn enemies were only half-crazy.
#3
--- All these nostalgics are 15 years older than they were when the USSR collapsed, the passing of time tends to make memories rosier for some.
--- Not everybody dislikes servitude and oppression if they somehow benefit from it.
--- Leftists in the West definitely regret the shrinkage of communism and think any criticism of it undermines their own life history.
#6
Perhaps the Russians should look over at the Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and study how they've managed their own economies.
Perhaps the Russians should tackle the Russian mob and create a Free City in Vladivstock along the lines of Hong Kong and open up real trade in the Pacific.
Perhaps the Russians should sell the Japanese the islands they've held since WW2.
Perhaps the Russians should reevaluate their alliances with thugs and act like a global power. Adding Russian troops to peacekeeping missions.
Perhaps the Russians should find a way to build a new transsiberian railroad-bullet train to connect the Far East with the European section of Russia.
Perhaps Russia should write off the Commonwealth of Indepedent states and promote ethnic Russians to move back to the motherland and promote non-Russians to move back to their own areas.
Perhaps Russia should stop whining about everythign Europe does and become the spine Europe needs in exchange for the technology and investment Russia needs.
Perhaps Russia should promote emigration into Siberia from non-ethnic Chinese before they lose the whole Eastern section of their nation.
Just a few ideas that won't happen but that could go a long way towards returning Russia to becoming a Great Power again.
#8
..I always said there'd come a day when we would miss having the Soviets around.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/08/2006 14:03 Comments ||
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#9
The Russians have the resources to be a superpower. They just don't have the will or the freedom. If the Russians had a US-style constitution, political and cultural guarantees of freedom and private property, and an incentive to work, save, invest, and profit, there would be a huge boom in Russia. First, though, they'd have to be willing to kill off every former member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, every former member of the KGB, and most of the GRU. Unless that happens, Russia will continue to falter. Any attempt to re-form the Soviet Union will fail, possibly bloodily. Putin doesn't have the intelligence to govern, much less rule, and he's eliminated anyone who does.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/08/2006 15:49 Comments ||
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#10
Demographic trends (especially in comparison with Muslim and Chinese ethnicities nearby) indicate the Russians will be a small minority in what used to be their country within 75 years or so. They are dying off in droves.
My great grandfather Mark came from a poor Jewish family that lived in a Jewish mestechko near Kiev. In February 1917 a capitalist democratic revolution in Russia seemed to have opened the future for him. Up until that point Jews couldn't serve as officers in the Russian army, which was but one of thousand ways to discriminate against Jews under the Tsar. Mark joined Cadets. In October 1917 he was among a regiment of young trainee officers and a female batalion that guarded the Winter Palace (the seat of the democratically elected government in St Petersburg) when it was attacked by the Bolshevik mob comprising sailors, soldiers and lumpen proletariat.
Following the success of the Bolshevik attack, Mark and the other guards were taken for interrogation. While he was waiting, he was allowed to go to the washroom. He escaped through the window prior to giving his details. I understand that nobody else among his comrades has survived "the interrogation" as it was conducted by applying a gunshot to the temple.
In 1921 he married Bina. They survived the civil war, the terror of the proletariat, relaxation which was called "new economic policy" and seemed to be doing O'K.
In 1928 Mark was arrested along with thousands of other engineers. Apparently, he was planning to dig a tunnel to London. Others were persecuted under similarly ridiculous charges for "intentionally causing starvation in the USSR". As Mark was to find out, the 1928 purge was exceptionally mild by Soviet standards. He was let out within a few months of arrest without a courtcase and wasn't even beaten or tortured in prison.
By 1937 Mark was doing quite well. He managed a plant in Nizhni Novgorod. He even had a car with a personal driver. His children were well educated and looked after. A special Jewish doctor would prescribe his kids a special Jewish diet every week so that the kids would grow fat faster.
His plant was doing quite well, but it was the wrong thing to do at the wrong time. Someone got envious and the whole management of the plant was arrested. Cause given was that one of the workshops was built of wood and that was considered "an act of the enemies of the people". Ten years ago that wooden workshop was still in place in Nizhny Novgorod. Mark knew exactly who snitched on him and his colleagues. That man lived happily to an old age.
This time Mark was tortured and spent 2 years in prison. He did say that not all NKVD investigators were equally cruel. One of them would ask Mark to scream during questioning and pretended that he was beating him.
Mark survived, but he has never been the same again. One thing that he was happy about was his companions in prison. The best Soviet scientists, engineers, doctors were there with him. There were several boys, who apparently received exceptionally good education which was provided by other convicts.
A bunch of convicts were released in 1939 when Stalin decided to slow down the repressions and change the head of NKVD. Mark was one of these lucky people. For the rest of his life he had a "prison" suitcase prepared. Every time he heard steps on the staircase, he would jump up and grab that suitcase.
Mark died just before I was born [1970]. He died relatively old, considering when and where he lived, very much loved and valued by his family.
Dmitry Kovtun, a contact of dead Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, is in critical condition in hospital from radiation poisoning, Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying on Thursday. "Doctors have classified Kovtun's condition as critical," Interfax quoted its source as saying. Kovtun met Litvinenko in London on November 1, the day the former spy fell ill.
Interfax also reported that Kovtun fell into a coma after British and Russian investigators working on the Litvinenko case had finished questioning him in a Moscow hospital. However, it gave no source for the information on a coma. A spokesman for Russia's Prosecutor-General's office said he had no information about Kovtun's health. Russian prosecutors earlier opened a criminal investigation for the attempted murder of Kovtun, a businessman. They said Kovtun was displaying symptoms of radiation poisoning.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
And restaurant workers and patrons and airline passengers were also infected. And we are talking less than 1 gram of radio-active material.
When will we admit to our extreme vulnerability, and take the gloves off in face of our enemy?
#2
By the time this completes the circulation, we will have conclusive proof about the 'Six Degrees of Separation' theory; we will all be dead. Or sick.
By JOSEPH KAHN
BEIJING, Dec. 8 Chinas Communist Party has a new agenda: it is encouraging people to discuss what it means to be a major world power and has largely stopped denying that China intends to become one soon.
In the past several weeks China Central Television has broadcast a 12-part series describing the reasons nine nations rose to become great powers. The series was based on research by a team of elite Chinese historians, who also briefed the ruling Politburo about their findings.
Until recently Chinas rising power remained a delicate topic, and largely unspoken, inside China. Beijing has long followed a dictum laid down by Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader who died in 1997: tao guang yang hui, literally to hide its ambitions and disguise its claws. Lol. It's fair to say we noticed the elephant trying to hide in the doghouse.
The prescription was generally taken to mean that China needed to devote its energy to developing economically and should not seek to play a leadership role abroad.
President Hu Jintao set off an internal squabble two years ago when he began using the term peaceful rise to describe his foreign policy goals. He dropped the term in favor of the tamer-sounding peaceful development.
His use of rise risked stoking fears of a China threat, especially in Japan and the United States, people told about the high-level debate said. Rise implies that others must decline, at least in a relative sense, while development suggests that Chinas advance can bring others along.
Yet this tradition of modesty has begun to fade, replaced by a growing confidence that Chinas rise is not fleeting and that the country needs to do more to define its objectives.
With its $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, surging military spending and diplomatic initiatives in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Beijing has begun asserting its interests far beyond its borders. Chinese party leaders are acting as if they intend to start exercising more power abroad rather than just protecting their political power at home.
Like it or not, Chinas rise is becoming a reality, says Jia Qingguo, associate dean of the Beijing University School of International Studies. Wherever Chinese leaders go these days, people pay attention. And they cant just say, I dont want to get involved.
Itself a major recipient of foreign aid until recently, China this year promised to provide well over $10 billion in low-interest loans and debt relief to Asian, African and Latin American countries over the next two years. It invited 48 African countries to Beijing last month to a conference aimed at promoting closer cooperation and trade.
Beijing agreed to send 1,000 peacekeepers to Lebanon, its first such action in the Middle East. It has sought to become a more substantial player in a region where the United States traditionally holds far more sway.
At the United Nations Security Council, China cast aside its longstanding policy of opposing sanctions against other nations. It voted to impose penalties on North Korea, its neighbor and onetime ally, for testing nuclear weapons. Lol. That assertion is absurd on its face. China has triangulated for profit wherever possible. Mr Kahn is either an employee, useful tool, or the NYT has also abandoned all pretense - in a new arena.
Officials and leading scholars are becoming a bit less hesitant to discuss what this all might mean. The documentary, on Chinas main national network, uses the word rise constantly, including its title, Rise of the Great Powers. It endorses the idea that China should study the experiences of nations and empires it once condemned as aggressors bent on exploitation.
Our China, the Chinese people, the Chinese race has become revitalized and is again stepping onto the world stage, Qian Chengdan, a professor at Beijing University and the intellectual father of the television series, said in an online dialogue about the documentary on Sina.com, a leading Web site. It is extremely important for todays China to be able to draw some lessons from the experiences of others, he said.
The series, which took three years to make, emanated from a Politburo study session in 2003. It is not a jingoistic call to arms. It mentions China only in passing, and it never explicitly addresses the reality that China has already become a big power.
Yet its version of history, which partly tracks the work done by Paul Kennedy in his 1980s bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, differs markedly from that of the textbooks still in use in many schools.
Its stentorian narrator and epic soundtrack present the emergence of the nine countries, from Portugal in the 15th century to the United States in the 20th, and cites numerous achievements worthy of emulation: Spain had a risk-taking queen; Britains nimble navy secured vital commodities overseas; the United States regulated markets and fought for national unity.
The documentary also emphasizes historical themes that coincide with policies Chinese leaders promote at home. Social stability, industrial investment, peaceful foreign relations and national unity are presented as more vital than, say, military strength, political liberalization or the rule of law.
In the 90 minutes devoted to examining the rise of the United States, Lincoln is accorded a prominent part for his efforts to preserve national unity during the Civil War. China has made reunification with Taiwan a top national priority. Franklin D. Roosevelt wins praise for creating a bigger role for the government in managing the market economy but gets less attention for his wartime leadership.
Government officials minimize the importance of the series. He Yafei, an assistant foreign minister, said in an interview that he had watched only one or two episodes. He said the documentary should not signal changes in Chinas thinking about projecting power, saying that colonialism and exploitation would go nowhere in todays world.
But Mr. He also hinted at a shifting official line. He emphasized Chinas status as a developing country. But he allowed that others may see things differently. Whether a country is a regional or a world power, it is not for that country to decide alone, he said. If you say we are a big power, then we are. But we are a responsible big country. We are a maintainer and builder of the international system.
China has in fact emerged as a major power without disrupting the international order, at least so far. It has accepted an invitation by the Bush administration to discuss becoming a responsible stakeholder in the American-dominated international system.
Beijing places importance on many world institutions, especially the United Nations, where it holds a veto in the Security Council. It professes a strong commitment to enforcing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Last month Margaret Chan of Hong Kong became the first Chinese to head a major United Nations agency, the World Health Organization. She vowed to build a harmonious health world, echoing the slogan of harmony promoted by President Hu.
Yet critics say China is prepared to emerge in a less amicable fashion, if necessary. The Central Intelligence Agency says that Chinas military spending may be two or three times higher than it acknowledges and that it allocates more to its military than any other country except the United States.
Beijing has cultivated close ties to countries that provide it with commodities and raw materials, regardless of their human rights records. Sudan, Myanmar and Zimbabwe have all escaped international sanctions in large part because of Chinese protection.
Chinas increasing international engagement has also stimulated a more robust academic discussion about its global role and the potential for tensions with the United States.
Yan Xuetong, a foreign affairs specialist at Qinghua University in Beijing, argued in a scholarly journal this summer that China had already surpassed Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and India in measures of its economic, military and political power. That leaves it second only to the United States, he said.
While the military gap between China and the United States may remain for some time, he argued, Chinas faster economic growth and increasing political strength may whittle down Americas overall advantage. China will enjoy the status of a semi-superpower between the United States and the other major powers, Mr. Yan predicted in the article, which appeared in the China Journal of International Politics.
He added, Chinas fast growth in political and economic power will dramatically narrow its power gap with the United States.
#2
The PRC could have avoided this if they had reined in the Norks. How long until a Japanese nuke?
Posted by: Jonathan ||
12/08/2006 12:03 Comments ||
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#3
How long until a Japanese nuke?
Bet they could crank one out in a hurry if they decide they need it.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/08/2006 12:06 Comments ||
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#4
UN: You just wiped out Pyonyang and Bejing and Shanghai.
Japan: It was merely self-defense.
UN: What happened ?
Japan: They threatened to publish their own history versions of WWII. Satisfied ?
#6
ISRAEL = JAPAN, etc. know they can't depend on overt or covert anti-Amer American, OWG Pols to protect them or their interests. And the Hegemony-centric CHICOMS, in and by themselves, has more than enough manpower reserves to suppor a multi-front regional war, let alone wid Commie Allies.
More importantly, can Europe afford Airbus?
They've showed us the plane. Now, where's the money? At a Paris press conference on Dec. 4, Airbus unveiled plans for the long-awaited A350 XWB, a wide-body jet that will be its answer to Boeing's (BA) 787 Dreamliner.
The Airbus plane, repeatedly delayed by design uncertainties and the turmoil surrounding the A380 megaplane, finally got the green light on Dec. 1 from Airbus's parent, European Aeronautics Defence & Space Co. It's expected to enter commercial service in 2013, five years after the 787. "There has been some bad weather getting here," Airbus Chief Executive Louis Gallois admitted at the press conference. But, he said, "the A350 XWB is just the airplane the market needs."
With Airbus and Boeing in agreement that airlines will order some 5,700 midsized wide-body planes over the next 20 years, the new plane could help Airbus rebound from a deep plunge in orders. During the first three quarters of 2006, Airbus logged only 226 orders, versus 736 for Boeing. They might fall to #3 behind the U.S. and Brazil as commercial airplane makers.
But the Airbus plane is going to cost a bundle to develop$13.5 billion in R&D, plus $2 billion in capital expenditure, Gallois said. Where will Airbus get that kind of money? After all, the company is bracing for a $6 billion hit to earnings over the next few years because of production snafus on the A380. Pah. It's going to be double that as the A380 continues to face delays.
At the same time, the strength of the euro and the British pound against the dollar has weakened the competitiveness of Airbus' mainly European manufacturing base.
Gallois said financing for the A350 XWB would come principally from cash flow and from major suppliers who would take a "risk-sharing" stake in the project. EADS also might raise money on capital markets, he said. And, the CEO said Airbus had not ruled out obtaining low-interest "development" loans from European governments, as it did for the A380 and other recent planes.
What about financing from other companies? Airbus has promised to outsource some 50% of the basic structural work on the A350, up from about 30% on the A380. It is especially keen to find suckers suppliers outside Europe to escape the ill effects of the strong euro and take advantage of the weak dollar. It's likely that about 5% of the plane's final value will be produced in China, another 5% in Korea, and another 3% in Russia, company officials said on Dec. 4.
That leaves two other possible sources of financing: capital markets and European governments. Here, the picture gets even murkier. Gallois said on Dec. 4 that Airbus would "study all possible instruments" of financing, including a capital increase and loans from European governments. "I will not exclude anything, and will not be more specific at this point," he said.
Airbus clearly hopes to avoid taking out government loans, which could inflame an already-heated dispute before the World Trade Organization. Gallois said on Dec. 4 that he hopes the U.S. and European Union will negotiate a new agreement on aircraft subsidies, putting an end to what Airbus contends are equally unfair forms of aid that Boeing receives from the U.S. and foreign governments.
However, in an interview published Dec. 4, French Finance Minister Thierry Breton made clear that the Europeans are still willing to subsidize the new plane. "The four governments concerned [France, Germany, Britain, and Spain] have declared that they will provide guarantees," he told the French business daily La Tribune. "But for the moment, they are not locked into doing it." Depends how many jobs they want to save.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/08/2006 00:09 ||
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#1
XWB stands for cross wired b*tch. heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/08/2006 1:47 Comments ||
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#2
I'm going to rename it the XLT -- extra large turkey.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/08/2006 10:19 Comments ||
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#3
Just speculation here, but a lot of this A350 XWB seems more to do with preservation of supply base than beating Boeing, let alone just competing with Boeing. ALong with having the tick-box for a similar bird.
A lot, and I mean a lot, of AirBus suppliers have slowed up due to A380. If there is nothing next/after A380, many of them will flee to other OEMs. Note, they all work with the other OEMs already, but recently it has been a balance between Boeing and Airbus ... if there is no next thing, they'll shift to other smaller OEMs and more Boeing.
Both are having supply chain problems these days, so any loss of a critical supplier - or I should say any focus loss or urgency loss from a critical supplier would really hurt things.
Again, speculation, but I think it is more about 'yeah, yeah, A380 delayed and has problems, but hang with us, will give you better positions on A350'
First, Boeing has outsourced much of its parts manufacturing to suppliers around the globe. That has reduced costs to the company, including initial launch costs, and has reduced it's exposure to any one currency. Airbus has kept manufacturing in-house, which means it must shoulder all of the launch costs, does not shop for lower priced supply and is exposed to fluctuations in the Euro. (The only exception is a new deal to produce the A320 for the Chinese market). Boeing will have huge cost and flexibility advantages over Airbus as the two companies move forward.
Second, keep in mind that the 787 is still in development and, like the A380, is incorporating a lot of new technology. There is still a lot of risk to the 787 program; Boeing will undoubtedly suffer if it stumbles.
#5
I can say, without doubt, that AirBus does shop for better supply options, does outsource, etc - often with a very heavy hand. Can we say Route '06?
Note, also outsourcing is risky, and the airframers feel it ... not fun having Boeing or AirBus living at your site after you've stopped a line roll. So you have to balance both sides of the coin.
In many cases, AirBus is in a better position on launch costs due to euro subsidies, and obviously on design funding as well.
Ture, 787 is in development, but it is progressing through design risk and into mfg risk.
Anybody in Aerospace will suffer if they stumble these days. That's a given now, be it AirBus, Boeing, LM, Gulf, Embraer, etc. There's no room for anybody to mess up - esp. with the outsourcing and deep integration of JIT / Lean / etc that they are working towards with suppliers.
I agree, that on a go forward basis, Boeing appears in much better position.
#6
Couple updates: Lst week, Airbus told prospective A350 suppliers that they would be expected to 'contribute' as much as 15% to the development cost of this aircraft.
They also are planning to build the A350 very similiar to an aluminum-skinned aircraft. they are planning on using carbon panels fastened to aluminum ribs. stringers. bulkheads. There will not be a lot of weight saved, and more costs due to required use of exotic metals for fasteners or risk severe corrosion due to galvanic action between the carbon and convnetional aluminum / steel fasteners.
Boeing's plan to bring completed and fully plumbed / outfitted sections of the 787 to Everett and then snap them together like legos looks to be running into some initial difficulty as they have publicly admitted to having to have some 'travel work' done in Everett.
#7
Hard to believe Airbus is going to use riveted CF panels. Not only will it be overweight but labor intensive to build compared to 787 fuselages laid down by automated CF tape machinery. To further add to Airbus problems, the next gen 777 should be available a little after the A350, bracketing it from the top and bottom. Airbus should take the time and effort to correctly design the A350.
Posted by: ed ||
12/08/2006 15:54 Comments ||
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#8
USN,
That's the heavy handed supply side, but along with that 15% are some serious gains ... in the form of exclusive supply.
To be honest, the galvanic concern is kind of moot, as modern coating methodologies are there. It seems more of an adhesive issue and/or vibration isolation issue - as the mating surfaces are far different.
Note: They may correct it - but the title is exactly as it was posted on the Grauniad site, lol.
Boeing today stole a further march on European plane-maker Airbus by saying it was in serious talks with three or four more airlines about the new stretched version of its venerable jumbo, the 747.
Lufthansa this week became the first airline to buy the passenger version of the 747-800, ordering 20 and taking options on a further 20.
Airbus had dismissed the potential market for the plane which can seat 450 compared with its own 555-seater A380 superjumbo.
Randy Baseler, head of marketing at Boeing Commercial Aircraft, said the airlines in talks could decide to replace their 747 fleet with the new version over the next 12 months. British Airways, which has eschewed the A380, is a traditional jumbo customer. "We would expect that, now that Lufthansa has signed up, others will feel more urgency to get into the front line of production," Mr Baseler said. He sees a market for 325 stretched 747s over the next 20 years. It has won 68 firm orders so far, including 48 freight versions.
Boeing has won more than 850 orders this year compared with 635 for Airbus which has been hit by two-year delays to its A380 and has only just decided to go ahead with a new A350 mid-sized, long-haul jet to rival Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. The A350 will enter service in 2013 or five years behind the 787.
Airbus took some comfort from Lufthansa's decision to order seven more A340 jets. The plane has been widely written off because of high fuel consumption.
The new 747s will use leaner engines developed by Rolls-Royce and GE.
#1
the new 747 is actually the -8, not -800.
what is significant to this order is that Lufthansa is the launch customer for the pax version of the -8. several others were interested in it, and Boeing has sold a bunch of the -8 freighters. this will open up an entire new segment of aircraft for freighter conversions ( the -400s) and can only take potential A380 customers away.
As I fly over this great nation in my wife's Gulfstream...
Sen. John Kerry is pulling an Al Gore. ...and view this beautiful land from the window of one of my family's SUVs..
But instead of bringing his environmental views to the big screen like his fellow losing presidential candidate, the Massachusetts Democrat is putting them on paper. ...I've often wondered, if they're going to kill tree's anyway, why shouldn't I make some money on it...
Kerry and wife Teresa Heinz Kerrys as-yet-untitled book about an environment and environmental movement under attack is scheduled for release by Public Affairs Books on March 17. ...and I thank Gaia that no ugly windmills mar the pristine splendor of Nantucket Sound as I view it from the big house on The Island or cruise it in my 42' Hinkley Yacht...
A Kerry spokeswoman described the couple as committed environmentalists who met on Earth Day. Yes. Yes we did. She taught me the white raisin in vodka thing, and I said to myself, "Drunk and rich. This is the woman for me".
(They) have been deeply involved in issues from global climate change to renewable and alternative energy for a long time, spokeswoman Brigid ORourke said. Notice she didn't say "committed". Taraaaysa gets very agitated when she hears that word.
In a flowery authors note, Kerry recounts how his early experiences set him on a lifelong path. I squirrel- and woodchuck-hunted as a kid, he wrote. I dug my toes into the mud and seaweed of Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, looking for clams and mussels - which were abundant and edible in those days." They still are, you lying dunce.
I spent time on farms, witnessing the cycle of crops, cows and sheep nurtured and marketed, he said. I was introduced to the fragility and power of oceans and mountains and given a great sense of responsibility for the stewardship of these God-given gifts. "...and I'm fascinated by rap!"
In her note, Heinz Kerry eschews defining an environmentalist.
I dont much care for labels: I was always who I was before any names or issues defined me, she said. The environment was never a campaign for me; it was personal. As a child growing up in Africa, the rhythms and the fabric of the grasslands surrounding our home were an integral part of our family life . . . If you were careless, did not boil water, then typhoid or dysentery would follow. A trip to the watering hole at dusk or dawn, when the animals gathered there, could end in a dangerous or even fatal encounter with a wild beast. ...so bring a gun, you ditzy bitch.
Neither Kerrys office, nor his publisher, would disclose the value of the book deal. Oh, boy! Just in time for Christmas!
US lawmakers on Thursday settled differences on landmark legislation to allow shipments of civilian nuclear fuel to India, clearing the way for passage of a measure that will overturn three decades of American anti-proliferation policy.
The bill is likely to be approved in a final vote Friday before it is sent to President George W. Bush to sign into law.
The bill is likely to be approved in a final vote Friday before it is sent to President George W. Bush to sign into law. Senior lawmakers from both political parties championed the proposal as a major shift in US policy toward a strategically important Asian power that has long maintained what the Bush administration considers a responsible nuclear program.
Critics countered that the plan could spark an Asian nuclear arms race and ruin global efforts to curb the spread of weapons technology.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Fifty donors pledged nearly US$350 million (263 million) to a fund that is helping the United Nations respond quickly to emergencies from the war in Lebanon to drought in Afghanistan and the recent typhoon in the Philippines.
The UN General Assembly upgraded the fund last December after world leaders decided to make up to US$500 million (376 million) available so the world body could respond quickly to conflicts and disasters anywhere in the world instead of waiting for donors to respond to appeals for help. "We've gone from having a total lottery of whether there would be money or not for life-saving activity to a well-funded vehicle that can provide immediate funding to operations," UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said at a news conference Thursday following a high-level meeting with potential donors. "I think this is an example that the United Nations can reform, is willing to reform, but also has to reform," he said.
I think this is a perfect example of why the US should not give one cent more than .52% of the UN "Budget", using the term very loosely - that's 1/191th. I'd say "Shine my knob, Egeland." but he'd prolly like that.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
And of course the 50 mysterious philanthropists don't expect anything from the UN in return...
Posted by: ed ||
12/08/2006 15:39 Comments ||
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#2
TRANSFORMERS - MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, iff thats its pic on SPACEWAR.com. EIther that or Silicon Valley = US MIC has officially surrendered to FRANCE???
No wonder the original report was thin on the details of this alleged "insensitivity".
A Muslim woman in Dearborn, Mich., lodged a complaint Tuesday against Fitness USA for an alleged civil rights violation involving a fellow gym patron. According to Jodi Berry, executive director of Fitness USA, Wardeh Sultan was praying in front of another members locker when the member wanted access to her belongings inside the locker. The inconvenienced patron tried to interrupt Ms. Sultan, but she remained prostrate in front of the locker and an altercation ensued. A manager was called into the locker room to intervene.
Ms. Sultan later complained that the Fitness USA management was unconcerned about the humiliation she suffered when her prayers were interrupted. Probably not as much humiliation as you're gonna get once everyone finds out you pray in the general direction of stinky tube socks and spandex.
She stated that the gym personnel were insensitive, rejected her complaints and did not satisfactorily intervene on her behalf. Ms. Sultan further reported that the manager told her, You have to respect her (the other patron), but she does not have to respect your god. "Who apparently has a thing for sweaty women's underwear and wet towels."
#3
I suppose I'd be deemed insensitive if I were to go to the local mosque this evening during evening prayers to knock off a few reps of sit-ups, push-ups and jumping jacks, eh?
Posted by: Mark Z ||
12/08/2006 14:29 Comments ||
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Your wife, who unlike you is white, and who is expecting your first child, has been receiving the oddest reactions to the news of her pregnancy. Upon finding out, friends can't resist informing her that "interracial children are beautiful." It's said in a tone that suggests deep gratitude and admiration, although the reasons are a little unclear.
The comment may be kindly meant, as a sort of reflexive compliment, but it inevitably suggests that she is being congratulated for her willingness to place the aesthetic enhancement of the populace above the imperatives of racial purity. She's heard the remark, or some variation of it, from a dozen different people if she's heard it from one. And more often than not, your wife tells you, it's the first thing they blurt out, even before asking about gender and due dates. . . .
A short time later, at a wedding reception in London, your wife finds herself chatting with a Danish woman she has just met. Back at the hotel, your wife informs you that the woman asked her, "How do you feel about having a baby who will look nothing like you? I have a lot of friends who have interracial babies, and they feel totally alienated from their children."
Wondering whether to expect more such questions and how to respond, your wife turns to you for advice. You tell her to avoid Scandinavian women for the balance of her pregnancy (and you promise to do the same).
It's no surprise that these comments all came from white people; surveys have long demonstrated that blacks are much more accommodating of interracial relationships. More noteworthy is that in all but a couple of cases, the remarks came from white people parked on the political left, the kind of superior folks who might run you down in their Prius for even suggesting that they harbor racial hang-ups. As liberals constantly tell themselves, only conservatives have race issues.
But you know the truth is closer to the opposite. It is the left's obsession with skin pigmentation--invoking it everywhere and always, regardless of its relevance--that keeps race front and center not only in our public policy debates but even in everyday life. . . .
Go read it all. It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad.
Speaking for my little dark corner of the vast right wing neocon conspiracy, at least, congratulations on the new baby, and best wishes for a healthy delivery.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/08/2006 06:52 ||
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Mixed race makes for some of the prettiest darned babies I've ever seen.
I've seen plenty of negative reaction to mixed couples from the darker skinned community as well as the whites, though I can't speak to their reaction to mixed race kids.
I will say that I think mixed couples and their kids are going to face more challenges because of it, but those challenges will be less than even an all white family would have faced in life 100 years ago. And, to a significant degree, Nietzche was right - 'that which does not kill us makes us stronger', so facing a bit of challenge growing up is a good thing.
#2
"White [sic Liberal] Guilt," Shelby Steele tackles this phenomenon with his usual peerless eloquence. He describes the endless frustration of dealing with whites "who have built a large part of their moral identity and, possibly, their politics around how they respond to your color."
It's a vestigial part of their olde Burden Thingy!
#4
I am reminded of my time in hospital with a kidney stone. The pain was horrific but what really pissed me off was the long line of people telling me that at least I now had some idea of the pain of childbirth. I still want to throttle those people.
#5
Liberal race-consciousness is defined as: keeping them down so you have someone to feel superior to.
One way in which this is seen is in how liberals seek out the most stereotypical example of the "downtrodden ethnic" they can find. Then they want them to be "cleaned up", so they can put on a show for them and their 'elite' friends. (I think of "performing animals" like Tracy Chapman.)
Another version is how liberals are always at the forefront of volunteering to "lead" people they want to feel superior to. The NAACP was founded by white liberals, and the ungrateful "coloreds" then threw them out as soon as they could. As did the "Native Americans", when the liberals strongly backed the AIM, and went to the reservations to 'take charge'.
Efforts at "inclusion" and "fairness" only apply to those who are inferior. Why give racial preferences if you think that other race is equal, or can in any way, ever, compete fairly?
This goes hand-in-hand with the discomfort that liberals feel in the presence of an ethnic minority who *obviously* isn't inferior, who is, in fact, superior. People like Condoleeza Rice are damnable to liberals, who even try to deny them their race, because "her people aren't like that." She is a race traitor because she is not an ignorant, humble and groveling servant.
She has no right to be sophisticated, extraordinarily intelligent, cultured, talented and powerful. Because "her people" are like the obscene caricatures portrayed on MTV and in Hollywood gangsta movies.
All of this is one of the big reasons that liberals backed the welfare state. The design of welfare was that once on it, the rules are such that it is extremely hard to get off of it. But this transcends even race. It is intended to breed inferiors.
Because, in the final analysis, liberals feel so terribly inferior that they will do anything to feel superior to anyone. To think of themselves as intellectuals and elites, above the common herd, is a great motivating factor.
I like to recognize the book "Cannibals All!: or Slaves Without Masters", by George Fitzhugh. Truly a liberal screed of the first order written before the Civil War.
It was more than an apology for slavery, it said that slavery was such a good thing that 9 out of 10 people should be slaves. Because slaves lead such happy, carefree lives.
Of course, the reader would assume that they would be in the 1 in 10 who are masters, and that the masters, the elite, should be praised because they were doing all of the "hard work" that masters have to do to control their slaves.
This was not a unique theme to Fitzhugh. The "great" American author Ralph Waldo Emerson also wrote at length about mankind returning to an "Earth First" version of existence, again to be led by an elite few, his "Orphic poets". The State of Nature fallacy, going back to Rousseau.
From Emerson to Al Gore and John Kerry. The chain of inferiority-superiority remains unbroken. The neurosis is almost unchanged from the 19th Century.
It must be agony to look yourself in the mirror and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are an utter loser.
#6
Limousine Socialists - bigoted, small minded, segregated privileged class. And you then understand that these people don't know anyone in the American military or have been near any large American military reservation. American servicemen have married the locals and brought them home since the Greatest Generation. The joke is that any major military installation is far closer to the liberal ideals that the effete snobs articulate but in practice abhor in anything other than quaint self moralizing moments.
#9
" I am reminded of my time in hospital with a kidney stone." That never happened to me, I only got sympathetic responses, even from a woman who had had children and kidney stones (not at the same time, I don't think any human could endure that.)
Just drawing attention to "interracial children" tends to be a hostile remark, whether or not the speaker is aware of it, almost as bad as coming right out and saying "How do you feel, being so stupid as to conceive a baby who won't resemble your superficial appearances." Very much like saying "I don't have anything against Jews" or "some of my best friends are Jewish." On the other hand, many years ago a young, beautiful, intelligent and accomplished Jewish woman once asked me if I were Jewish (AFAIK, I'm not) and I felt good & took it as some kind of compliment. I mentioned this later to some of my (male) Jewish colleagues who knew both of us and their response was, "Why didn't you say you were, you fool?"
Not everything that makes the listener feel good or bad is meant that way, but some of these unsolicited "compliments" are spoken with hostility. And that's just the way people are. If anyone expects they can get through their lives without receiving some kind of vituperation from others, they are really insane.
#10
surveys have long demonstrated that blacks are much more accommodating of interracial relationships
May be true, but several of my friends are not accepted by the black side of the family and most say that there are mixed reactions on both sides.
Mr. Reilly's problem seems to be not that these are ill intentioned people, but that he and his family can't just fit in and live a "normal" life. I do feel sorry for him and his family in this respect.
#11
As did the "Native Americans", when the liberals strongly backed the AIM, and went to the reservations to 'take charge'.
Hey, man, don't let 'em bring you down, now. There's a lot of young people in this country just like myself who really know where the Indian's at, and don't worry, pretty soon we're all gonna be out here on the reservation living like Indians, dressing like Indians and doing all the simple, beautiful things that you Indians do... Got any peyote?
#14
Been in the States - never heard such a thing from anyone, of any race. This article has more to do about INTER-PARENT DECEPTION, NOT RACE PREGNANCY OR PARENTING. People will tend to ask questionnez iff, as example, the HUSBAND = GROOM is one race/ethnicity and nine months later the WIFE = BRIDE gives birth to an infant of another, absolutely different color than the alleged Father, or even Mother, including their known backgrounds.
Yah, well, it's not entirely up to her hugeness...
NEW YORK - She's only been on "The View" for three months and already there are published rumors that Rosie O'Donnell wants out. She tried to shoot them down on Thursday.
No mention of the millions who would enjoy seeing her canned - and caned? Lol.
O'Donnell, during Thursday's show, said she had answered an audience member's question during a commercial break the day before and mentioned how she would like to work on FX's "Nip/Tuck." She noted that it filmed during the summer, during "The View" vacation break. "Don't anybody worry where Rosie's going," she said. "She's right here."
Oh, it might not be that anyone's worried, per se, lol.
O'Donnell has already had a colorful tenure on the daytime chatfest, with fur flying occasionally during talks with her more conservative co-star, Elisabeth Hasselbeck. But viewers have responded: the show had its highest November audience in its history, up 15 percent over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Hoping to see some blood...
"The View" creator Barbara Walters said Thursday that she had gotten a phone call from actor Danny DeVito, who appeared drunk during a colorful appearance on the show last week after a night out with pal George Clooney.
DeVito told Walters that he wasn't drunk. Just groggy.
Yah shure, squirt.
The audience roared.
Heh, they know a drunk self-absorbed doofus when they see one.
"Danny, I love ya," O'Donnell said. "It's all right that you were drunk."
Gee - it's Baba's show - WTF asked you? Lol.
Walters said DeVito invited her out the next time he goes drinking with Clooney.
Wow, Star Banter. I feel so privileged - and faint.
They won't even have to buy booze. Makers of the liquor Limoncello, DeVito's drink of choice that fateful night, were so happy with all the publicity they sent a case over to "The View" in appreciation, Walters said.
Who really gives a shit? Posted for the 3 or 4 who might. The target was just sooo big, lol.
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.
(SomaliNet) Liberia's ex president, Charles Taylor, has a son by the name of Charles McArthur Emmanuel. 29 year old Emmanuel has been sent to jail to answer charges pertaining to wrong identification. 
(SomaliNet) Nigeria's oil saga is continuing. This time, Agip oil flow station in Nigeria's Bayelsa state has been attacked and at least two foreign oil workers have been kidnapped. "There was an attack on an Agip flow station at Brass about 5am. They came in about seven boats. Two or three expatriates were kidnapped," Hafiz Ringim, Bayelsea state police commissioner, told Reuters. However, Agip's spokesman in Nigeria's city of Lagos denied having any information on this attack by press time. 
RIYADH, 8 December 2006 The US-based Human Rights Watch reported yesterday that it was still waiting for a response from the Saudi authorities to a request to visit prisons in the Kingdom for a first-hand study of the situation.
LONDON (AP) - Preliminary hearings in the coroner's inquest into the 1997 death of Princess Diana and her friend Dodi Fayed will be open to the public, officials said Thursday.
A failed asylum seeker jailed for child rape is to receive around £50,000 in damages after a judge ruled he had been unlawfully kept behind bars while the Home Office tried to deport him to Somalia.
Dmitry Kovtun, a contact of dead Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, is in critical condition in hospital from radiation poisoning, Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying on Thursday. "Doctors have classified Kovtun's condition as critical," Interfax quoted its source as saying. Kovtun met Litvinenko in London on November 1, the day the former spy fell ill.
By JOSEPH KAHN
Yet this tradition of modesty has begun to fade, replaced by a growing confidence that Chinas rise is not fleeting and that the country needs to do more to define its objectives.
Our China, the Chinese people, the Chinese race has become revitalized and is again stepping onto the world stage, Qian Chengdan, a professor at Beijing University and the intellectual father of the television series, said in an online dialogue about the documentary on Sina.com, a leading Web site. It is extremely important for todays China to be able to draw some lessons from the experiences of others, he said.
While the military gap between China and the United States may remain for some time, he argued, Chinas faster economic growth and increasing political strength may whittle down Americas overall advantage. China will enjoy the status of a semi-superpower between the United States and the other major powers, Mr. Yan predicted in the article, which appeared in the China Journal of International Politics.
US lawmakers on Thursday settled differences on landmark legislation to allow shipments of civilian nuclear fuel to India, clearing the way for passage of a measure that will overturn three decades of American anti-proliferation policy. 
