An Amtrak train carrying more than 200 passengers was evacuated near Denver after a passenger threatened the crew and others on board, claiming he had a weapon and bomb, an Amtrak spokeswoman said early Monday. Police met the California Zephyr train about 22 miles west of Denver late Sunday after the crew alerted authorities about the unidentified passenger's threats Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero said.
Authorities detained the man for questioning and did a sweep of the baggage car and the passenger car where he was sitting. The man was carrying a knife, and a bomb-sniffing dog focused on his bag, Romero said. "There was something that was in that bag that made the dog stop," Romero said, declining to elaborate. Police turned the suspect over to the FBI.
#1
Update: The FBI released a man Monday who was suspected of causing the evacuation of an Amtrak passenger train near Denver. It turns out that there was never a threat on boar [sic] the train Sunday night. The FBI calls the incident a "complete misunderstanding."
Special Agent Rene VonderHaar of the Denver FBI office says the man was let go Monday morning after several hours of questioning.
The man was on his way to a vacation. He was taken to Denver International Airport to board a flight. His name and hometown have NOT been released. There's no word on what was in the man's bag, or why a bomb-sniffing dog focused on it for a time./em>
The train crew alerted authorities after the man threatened passengers and crew with a weapon and a bomb, and the FBI release him as harmless? I do hope it's because they're following him as he goes to meet the head of Al Qaeda in America.
Scotland Yard believes that Pakistan cricket team coach Bob Woolmer died of a heart attack and has ruled out the possibility that he had been murdered, Geo television reported on Sunday. According to a Jamaican newspaper, Scotland Yard police released an investigation report stating that Woolmer died of a heart attack and categorically denied that he was killed, the channel reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Not that a Pakistani paper would have reason to muddy the waters in this case...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/14/2007 5:24 Comments ||
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No, no! Certainly not!
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2007 8:22 Comments ||
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JoAnn Falletta was doing what a conductor should - concentrating on the orchestra in front of her. No wonder it took her a few seconds on Sunday to realize someone behind her was motioning for a try. President Bush.
"Smiling at me kind of devilishly," Falletta said. She gave him her baton and stepped aside. Gesturing exuberantly, the president led the orchestra during part of its performance of "Stars and Stripes Forever."
"We didn't expect him to know the score so well," Falletta said afterward. "He was not shy about conducting at all. He conducted with a great deal of panache."
That was the music played for Bush's exit after his speech at a ceremony commemorating the founding 400 years ago of Jamestown, America's first permanent English settlement.
Just before the music ended, Bush turned to Falletta, who stood on a step below him, kissed the top of her head and left without saying a word.
The switch in conductors was impromptu, said Falletta, the symphony's music director. "I think he may have just been seized by the desire to conduct the orchestra," she said or it might have been a Rovian plot.
The musicians were impressed by how musical Bush was, Falletta said. "He was cueing the brass, he was cueing the percussion, he kept the tempo going," she said. "It was a little shocking, but it was fun," Fearnside said.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/14/2007 07:04 ||
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How can someone so stooopid conduct? Was Cheney giving him cues? Did Halliburton rig up something?
#3
I was having brunch at the rooftop restaurant at Hotel Washington yesterday with some friends from out of town. As we gazed out over the Treasury Building and the White House, three identical Marine helicopters flew up the Potomac, accross the Mall, and then two of them split off as the third landed on the South Lawn. Way, way cool and now I see that was the Prez arriving fom Jamestown, and therefore, even cooler.
#6
My prediction: the second Bush leaves office the whole "he's a moron" meme will be dropped in a hearbeat and *gasp* he'll be sought out by the media for his opinions on various matters. These opinions will sound shockingly intelligent when reported by the same people who branded him an "idiot."
The exact same thihg happened to Dan Quale; another so-called idiot. When upon occasion he is asked to comment on something topical - generally Family Values controversies, real or imagined - the media reports his answers as thoughtful and well-crafted.... because there's nothing to be gained politically by promoting the "Dan Quale is a moron" meme anymore! Same thing will happen with Bush.
#7
Naw, they won't seek out Bush for comment. For one thing, he'll probably take the same tack his father did of keeping his mouth shut. For another, if the next president's a Republican, you'll definitely never get a bad word from him, and if the next president's a Democrat, then the press won't be interested in criticism.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/14/2007 12:13 Comments ||
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#8
Dang, Seafarious, you might as well buy an endowed chair on the roof of the Hotel Washington, you're there so often :-)
[N.B. she's taken me and other Rantburg citizens there, and it is a great view]
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2007 14:46 Comments ||
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I always take the tourons out-of-town guests there, makes 'em feel like swanky lobbyists...
TEHERAN - Iran has expelled 85,000 illegal Afghan refugees in the past three weeks in a repatriation plan whose speed triggered the sacking of two Afghan cabinet ministers, officials said. Around 85,000 illegal Afghan citizens have been expelled from Iran since Teheran started the plan on April 21, Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr said, according to the IRNA agency.
Afghans without proper working papers are estimated to form half of the two million Afghans, mostly Shia Hazara or Sunni Persian-speaking Tajiks, who fled conflict at home and still live in the Islamic republic. Iran wants all its Afghan refugees to return home in the coming years and Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi has said Teheran wants one million Afghans to be repatriated by next March.
Times must be getting tougher in Iran.
Zolghadr said the foreign citizens plan was not targeting those Afghans who were legally registered and even those expelled had the right to return if they picked up the right papers at Iranian consulates in Afghanistan. Iran is ready to furnish employment for those who have been expelled if they enter the country legally, he said.
But Irans swiftness in executing the plan has sparked anger in Kabul, prompting parliament to sack both Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta and Refugees Affairs Minister Akbar Akbar. Spanta was accused of not doing enough to persuade Iran to ease its policy of forced repatriation, while Akbar allegedly failed to help accommodate thousands of refugees forced out by Iran.
Somebody had to be the fall guys.
Afghanistan publicly asked Iran not to expel the refugees, saying that its own capacity to house them is very limited and this would create problems. But Iran has frequently expressed exasperation that it must shoulder the burden of housing those displaced and wants all Afghans in Iran without an Iranian passport to return home by 2010.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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All that Muslim brotherhood stuff only goes so far. Now beat it!
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
05/14/2007 4:47 Comments ||
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Around 85,000 illegal Afghan citizens have been expelled from Iran since Teheran started the plan on April 21, Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr said, according to the IRNA agency.
If Iran had a proper INS, this would have never happened!
Zimbabwe's Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai has supported the Australian Government's decision to cancel the Australian cricket team's tour to the country, while the Government in Zimbabwe has hit out at the Howard Government as being "desperate and racist" for the cancellation.
Mr Tsvangirai believes the controversy surrounding Australia's decision to pull out of the tour serves to highlight the political and economic crisis that is engulfing his country. "I think it's a positive step. It'll put the Zimbabwe crisis on the international radar," he said. "It's not escaping the focus of the international community."
Mr Tsvangirai maintains the move by the Australian Government is one of the most effective means of applying diplomatic pressure to the government of Robert Mugabe. But Mr Tsvangirai concedes his country's cricketers are losing out to the game of politics. "As sportsmen obviously they would like to engage but they're collateral damage," he said. "They've become the victim of a much broader, broader issue that is concerned in Zimbabwe."
Zimbabwe cricket's governing body says it expects Australia to play in Zimbabwe despite the decision to cancel the tour.
Two chances of that, slim and none.
Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says no decision has been made on whether to allow the Australian cricket team to play matches against Zimbabwe at neutral venues. South Africa has indicated it may be willing to provide a neutral venue, but Mr Downer does not think it will come to that. "It seems to me highly unlikely that the Zimbabwe Cricket Union would want to play the game in another country," he said. "For them I suspect and at least for the Zimbabwean Government it would be seen to be humiliating to acknowledge that they are not able to play against the top cricket team, in their own country."
Tasmania's Zimbabwean-born former cricket captain Brian Davison says it was right for the Government to ban Australia's tour of the African country. Mr Davison says while the decision is unlikely to have a significant effect in Zimbabwe, the Commonwealth needs to maintain pressure on President Mugabe. "There's no doubt that Mr Howard has done the right thing - and Mr Downer - to make sure that this ongoing problem with Zimbabwe is taken out of the hands of the cricketers and made political," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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South Africa has indicated it may be willing to provide a neutral venue,
The usual compromising support from a Zimbob friendly, South Africa.
A Feni court yesterday sentenced former Awami League lawmaker Joynal Hazari to three years' imprisonment as he failed to submit his wealth statements to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), reports BSS.
Judge of the special court Mohammad Nazrul Islam convicted Hazari who is on the government's list of 50 corrupt suspects. ACC's Assistant Director Shafiqur Rahman filed the case under section 26(1) of Anti-Corruption Law 2004 on April 8. Five witnesses gave their depositions. The AL leader has been absconding since August 16, 2001, and was convicted in four cases out of 20 filed by the various government organisations.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Awami League (AL) General Secretary Abdul Jalil yesterday said the corrupt politicians, black money holders and godfathers of criminals can be rooted out through legislation and consensus among the political parties. He thanked the military-backed interim administration for initiatives to rid politics and parliament of the evil elements. "It would never do the nation any good if the evildoers are elected to parliament. They only cater to self-interest and poison politics," Jalil told reporters at his Mercantile Bank office.
Queried if his party would decide not to nominate the corrupt suspects, black money holders and patronisers of criminals for the next election, the AL leader said "If we expel them, the others will shelter them, and in that case, my party will wind up being on the losing side. So, all political parties need to arrive at a consensus on the issue." Bzzzzt! Wrong answer!
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is becoming isolated within the party as more leaders, now articulating their views against her 'unilateral' decisions in running the party, are asking for reforms to bring democracy in the party. Former whip in parliament and BNP Joint Secretary General Ashraf Hossain yesterday called for curbing the power of the party chief and end 'dynasty'. Earlier several senior leaders of the party demanded decentralisation of power within the party.
Another faction of BNP, however, raised questions about the recent 'revolt' against the party chief by some leaders and said those leaders had earlier accepted every decision of Khaleda Zia without any question.
"The party constitution should be changed as the power given by the constitution was misused," Ashraf Hossain said. Terming Khaleda's 'family centric' leadership as undemocratic, he said, "The party chairperson has given priority to her relatives and non-political persons during the last few years. Even she appointed her relatives to the party positions without any consultation. As a political party, BNP was not run the way it was supposed to. Fourteen years have passed without any national council and nothing has been done according to the party constitution. But I could not get the chance to tell this in the party platform."
Meanwhile, BNP Joint Secretary General Goyeshwar Chandra Roy yesterday hinted that party Chairperson Khaleda Zia might release her brother Sayeed Iskandar from the post of vice-chairman of the party. "I discussed the matter with her [Khaleda] over phone and she told me that she would ask her brother to resign," Ghoyeshshar told a TV channel last night.
Sources said Sayeed Iskandar did not meet Khaleda Zia in last few days as she decided to ask her brother to resign from the post of party vice-president. "Dynasty is harmful for the democracy while decentralisation of power is urgent for the party," former whip Ashraf Hossain told the reporters yesterday.
Ashraf, one of the close aides of BNP Secretary General Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, said it is good to see that some people are now speaking against dynasty. Earlier former BNP minister M Saifur Rahman said, "There should be an immediate end to family-centric politics."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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TOKYO (AP) - Japan's parliament on Monday passed guidelines for amending the country's pacifist constitution to give the military a larger global role. The vote marked a political victory for nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wants to see Japan take more responsibility for global security. The legislation easily passed in parliament's Upper House with support of the ruling bloc's majority. The measure was approved last month by the Lower House.
But the bill drew strong criticism from opposition lawmakers who say the legislation is flawed and aimed at boosting Abe's image before key elections in July. Abe, who is strengthening military cooperation with the United States and requiring schools to teach patriotism, has campaigned to loosen the constitution's limits on military action.
Monday's legislation sets up panels in both the lower and upper parliamentary houses to review drafts of proposed amendments. A national referendum is needed to amend the constitution, and the new legislation maps out how such a referendum would be carried out.
Recent polls show that support for an amendment is mixed. Many Japanese credit the charter's pacifist clause with keeping the country out of war since 1945, preventing a resurgence of wartime militarism and allowing Japan to focus on becoming wealthy.
Abe and supporters, however, argue that Japan needs to take more responsibility in maintaining global peace and security. The country dispatched troops on a humanitarian mission to Iraq in 2004-06, the first time since World War II that Japanese soldiers have entered a combat zone.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2007 00:47 ||
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The pacifist charter served its purpose, but now it's time to shift a tack with times. A war with Mordor is coming and we need allies with unimpended military capability, able to project force if needed.
#3
At last check, the Chicoms have not renounced their desires to see Japan under Chinese domination, but they have PC recently belabeled a "CHINA-JAPAN PARTNERSHIP" "OUTSIDE OF THE USA" as important for the future of Asia-Pacific.
#4
Perhaps the Japanese would like some F-22s and laser weapons. Just make sure girlfriends (non-Chinese) are part of the package deal.
Posted by: ed ||
05/14/2007 7:14 Comments ||
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#5
Good. I think the current Japanese generation is capable of being a modern nation. Plus, anything that gets China's panties in a bunch is a Good Thing.
#6
Little Kimmie can take full credit for this transformation of national will. The Chicoms butt-f**ked themselves really good by letting the Chiuahua having such a long leash.
Thousands of protesters circled a United States military airbase in Okinawa on Sunday, to urge its forces to leave ahead of the 35th anniversary of the southern island chain's return to Japan. "Maybe Guam, then," said Rep. Murtha...
The tiny province, which was ruled by the US from 1945 until 1972, hosts half of more than 40,000 American troops stationed in Japan under a security alliance. Thousands held hands together at Okinawa's Kadena Air Base, which has a 17 kilometre (10 miles)-long perimeter, and hoisted banners that proclaimed:"Give us back quiet nights! US bases, withdraw from Okinawa!"
A middle-aged woman said she wanted to send a message of peace to the next generation of Japanese people who have grown up with military bases in Okinawa.
The demonstration was organised by local labour unions and peace activists, also to mark the 35th anniversary, on Tuesday, of Okinawa's return to Japan. Japan and the United States in 2005 agreed to a relocation plan that will transfer 8,000 troops from Okinawa to the US territory of Guam and dismantle Futenma air base, which has long been the source of grievances as it is in the crowded urban centre of Ginowan.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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So how are the demos going in getting back the Kuriles? Oh that's right, the Yanks are the only ones you can play the guilt game on.
#2
I remember Reversion and would nuke Okinawa in a heartbeat. I was on a barely flyable B-52 on a typhoon evac out of Guam in 74. The only thing working on the airplane was one radio intermittently and the periscopic sextant. We couldn't get the tip gear up and didn't have enough fuel to make Thailand, so we diverted to Okinawa. Because the Japanese considered us a "nuclear war machine", they would only allow us to land if we were "on fire". A tanker was launched out of Kadena to refuel us and lead us all the way to UTapao. I remember vividly the value they placed on my life, believe me, 33 years later the feeling is mutual. Labor unions and peace activists used to translate as Communist. My guess is they still do.
#3
Labor unions and peace activists used to translate as Communist. My guess is they still do
Yup, that's Okinawa. My Japanese techs at Yokota told me that the whole island had a big leftist population. The native Okinawans were not happy with being given back to Japan either, they wanted independance. Of course, they'd like us to keep paying them even after we left.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/14/2007 10:47 Comments ||
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A female officer serving in Sweden's Kosovo force is suspected of having leaked secret NATO and UN documents to a Serbian spy with whom she had a love affair. The women was sent home to Sweden last year following preliminary investigations by the Military Intelligence and Security Service (Militära underrättelse- och säkerhetstjänsten - MUST). A disciplinary committee later decided that there were not sufficient grounds for removing her from the army.
Must not have been caught in bed.
Recently however new information has emerged surrounding the case and the officer has once again been reported to the disciplinary committee. The Swedish woman is suspected of sending sensitive information to the Serbian spy via e-mail.
The man, referred to in the investigation as 'Z', was working as an interpreter for the UN in Kosovo at the time of the alleged espionage. "The loss of information caused by Z's activities is one of the most substantial in KFOR's history. It is of course extremely serious that a Swedish officer is suspected of involvement," said MUST's Klas Eksell in a statement.
If I were President (relax), I'd make it a point of instructing my Secretaries of State and Defense that we are never -- never -- to have anything to do with with Sweden's defense forces in any way shape or form, until the Swedes jugged this woman and groveled an apology.
After they had been seeing each other for around a month, Z is reported to have begun asking the Swedish officer to retrieve information about the NATO-led KFOR operation. According to MUST, Z passed any information he received on to his superiors. The investigation found that Z had worked as a spy for a number of years.
Once the illegal intelligence gathering operation was uncovered, Z was held for questioning. He then disappeared and has not been seen since.
They must have 'surrounded' him.
Though the contents of Z's computer had been deleted, investigators were able to recover extensive e-mail traffic between him and the Swedish officer. A joint KFOR, UN and MUST investigation found that the officer had thousands of secret NATO and UN documents stored on her computer.
MUST concluded in its report that the officer willingly answered Z's questions and must have known that he was a spy.
And that's not sufficient grounds to try and imprison her because ...
In the private correspondence between the pair, investigators found references to "spy business". Z however wrote to her to say: "I am not a spy. I am a doer of good."
#2
Exactly how much can be secret about NATO in Kosovo? We don't like or trust the Serbs, we are looking for war criminals (just not too hard), most NATO countries don't really want to be there, and we don't have any exit plan. As for the UN, who care if any one steals from them.
Me, I just want pictures of the hot swedish babe.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/14/2007 18:20 Comments ||
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I'm betting she wasn't so hot.
Now I'm not being a sexist oinker, really. When the honey trap is executed successfully against a man, it's usually (not always granted) because the man thought he was hotter than he was. Gawds gift to wimmins and all that with a receding hairline, a belly and a lisp. So when a babe comes on to him, gets him into the sack and then asks for -- oh, nothing really, just a couple of things from work that no one will ever miss -- well, he's stuck, and it's his own psychopathology that did it to him.
Now then, our Swedish woman, I'm willing to bet, is middle-aged, pudgy, has a broken marriage or romance haunting her, and is despairing that life has passed her by. So when a fairly hunky Serb dude starts hitting on her, she begins to wonder if life has taken a good turn. Falls for the guy, gets into the sack a few times, and the hunky Serb asks for -- oh, nothing really, just a couple of things from work that no one will ever miss -- well, she's stuck, and it's her own psychopathology that did it to her.
Just a thought.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2007 20:48 Comments ||
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#4
What a book, Steve! [*wipes away a tear*] Publish it.
Probably true, though.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/14/2007 23:27 Comments ||
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Iranian police have prevented 50 women from boarding flights in their ongoing crackdown on dress styles deemed to be out of line with Islamic dress rules, officials said on Sunday. Fifty badly-veiled women were prevented from boarding domestic and international flights for failing to respect Islamic dress rules, said the head of airport police Mamoud Bot-Shekane, according to the Fars news agency.
He said the airport police had handed out 17,135 warnings to women who are not fully respecting the Islamic veil and 850 of them have had to make a written pledge to respect the veil more. Out of these, the cases of 80 women and 50 men have been sent to the judicial authorities, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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See also WAFF.com > IRAN'S ECONOMIC CRISIS article.
Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant.
A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers.
But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google, Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.
Continued on Page 49
#2
So will MSFT pay royalties for all the BSD code they use?
What about damages for when their crap causes data loss and crashes?
And, really, if they could get away with it, they'd be claiming they patented the "+=" operator.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/14/2007 12:16 Comments ||
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#3
The attack by its proxy SCO failed, so now MS is taking up the battle itself. They don't have to win, they just have to exhaust their opponents. And MS has very, very deep pockets.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
05/14/2007 12:21 Comments ||
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#4
MS Going to lose this one. THe geeks will find prior art and invalidate every one of MS's patents. NEver piss off geeks on techy stuff, they are vicious as a pack of rebid weasels.
#8
They've twice been found in violation of existing federal statutes and as a monopoly. This time around, quit screwing with the monopoly enforcement and go directly to RICO. Suspend trading on the stock market. Keeps the company operating but seize the assets of the executive decision makers and it will finally get their attention. They can sue to get their assets back. Two can play the court delay game.
#15
Heh. Software developed for free by a bunch of volunteers violates 200+ of Microsoft's patents. Is this anything less than an open admission of what Microsoft's patents are really worth?
Patents must be novel, non-obvious and useful. The recent SCT ruling put some teeth back into the obvious requirement. How will MS argue that their shit isn't obvious when a bunch of open source developers routinely come up with the same thing?
#21
Sounds like GM suing Ford because Ford uses wheels. Ridiculous.
But if Ballmer and Gates have their way so that customers end up having to pay for Linux, Microsoft may not benefit as much as they hope. A lot of users might go running back to the old school flavors of UNIX like HPUX, Solaris, and AIX because they can't trust their mission critical applications to the unreliable bloatware that Microsoft produces. Some might even go to BSD.
#22
with all the financial databases, ss databases and school databases getting totally hacked and owned - I would be all for a law like the following:
1) Totally illegal to put privacy information on any computer with a Microsoft product on it.
2) Illegal to connect any computer with privacy information to the internet.
3) All computers with privacy information should use really obscure and strange operating systems like Plan 9. You know something even the developers don't understand let alone the hackers.
#24
On a serious ( for me, anyway) note: between this and the stories posted today and recently about record companies going after downloaded music, it is only a matter of time before we can expect it to be a crime to pass paperbacks around. The logic is the same; the follow-on readers didn't recognize the artist for his / her intellectual property by buying the book, and thus deprived him of his due. I am really surprised the big publishing houses haven't gone after the commercial second hand book dealers already.
#25
Show us the patents if you are making this claim. MS will not because it doesn't want to risk invalidation. Pure FUD.
IBM holds many, many more patents. I wonder how many Microsoft infringes?
So what this boils down to is FUD in Forbes to scare stupid and tech illiterate CEOs into making "Free Software" a no no in their corps. It is a plan to lock those companies even more into the clutches of Redmond. Anyone who makes software and OS decisions off of this is lame.
Suing your customers yea that is gonna work, in before SCO.
More Microsoft FUD and IBM owns the patent on FUD.
Posted using desktop Linux. It works for me, it might or might not work for you. It's not about cost saving it's about having a better operating system.
#28
What can I say? Ballmer, that MS hoppin' monkey, can stuff it. Of couse it's FUD.
Seems that MS has a hard time competing by normal means. Their server market share is shrinking as time pases by. And once XEN virtualization has stable production parameters, a giant fork would loom over Seattle MS campus servers development division.
LONDON (AP) - A former U.S. machine gunner's irreverent memoir about his year fighting in Iraq has won the second annual prize for the best book based on a blog. "My War: Killing Time in Iraq," by Colby Buzzell was to receive the $10,000 Blooker prize on Monday, beating out 110 entries from 15 countries.
Buzzell, 31, said he would have never written the book had it not been for the encouragement from readers of the anonymous online journal he started in his free time in a war zone. "I went into it without any aspirations," he said Sunday before learning he had won. "It was just a way for me to deal with what I was going through."
Buzzell blogged for eight weeks before the U.S. Army stopped him, enough time for book agents to start e-mailing him. His book has since been published by Penguin and translated into seven languages.
Some literary circles may look down on books that began as blogs, Buzzell said, but for an ordinary person who has a story to tell, blog writing can have unrivaled immediacy and power. "I wrote that stuff right after events happened with my ears still ringing," he said by telephone from his home in San Francisco.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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U.S. blogging queen Arianna Huffington, a Blooker judge, called Buzzell's book "an unfiltered, often ferocious expression of his boots-on-the-ground view of the Iraq war."
Steve left that part out, so as not to unfairly prejudice Rantburg readers by Huffenpuff's opinion.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/14/2007 5:52 Comments ||
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#2
It's a pretty decent book. Grunt's-eye view of the army at war. Doesn't 'glorify', but not all that condemning either. We see similar books from every war, though seldom are they published so quickly.
That said, I think one would be better off reading a full compilation of Michael Yon's dispatches, supplemented by Michael Totten's (and tipping them appropriately.)
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables. The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip. "We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.
Of course, none of that included throwing stuff at the attacker and gouging his eyes out. Now that would have been a useful exercise ...
But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged. "The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.
Some parents said they were upset by the staff's poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.
During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door.
After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said. "I was like, 'Oh My God,' " she said. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out."
Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."
As Orrin sez, just what does a public school teacher have to do to get canned?
"A dead girl or a live boy..."
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Learning experience?
"So children, besides being scared out of your frickin' minds by your seriously deranged teachers, what have we learned today?"
#2
O'REILLY [paraphrased]> ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS ARE WORKING FOR DE FACTO US DEFEAT IN IRAQ + WOT.
DRUDGEREPORT > State of INDIANA recently conducted local response drills vv NUCLEAR-WMD TERROR.
IONews, FOX NEWS > Christopher Hitchens - All together now, wid feelings, GOD [ONCE AGAIN] DOES NOT EXIST.
#3
Concealed carry for 10 year olds would nip this crap in the bud.
Posted by: ed ||
05/14/2007 7:39 Comments ||
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#4
This simulation might have been useful if perpetrated on the teachers, not 10-11 year olds. Many these cheese brains would begin to understand the merits of being armed and prepared. One teacher who can shoot straight and remain cool under the tension can eliminate a lot of pain and suffering for the kids. Normally just takes one or two well placed shots.
#6
I like the idea of the teachers having more in depth drills.
While I agree with most here that it was wrong to have a drill that the kids thought was real, I think it would be a good idea for the kids to have mock drills, but ones that they know are mock. We have fire drills, it would be good to have these drills for the kids to keep ever vigilant. To know how to best respond as far as what a lock down means for a school etc.
Posted by: Jan ||
05/14/2007 22:22 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.
Scotland Yard believes that Pakistan cricket team coach Bob Woolmer died of a heart attack and has ruled out the possibility that he had been murdered, Geo television reported on Sunday. According to a Jamaican newspaper, Scotland Yard police released an investigation report stating that Woolmer died of a heart attack and categorically denied that he was killed, the channel reported.
TEHERAN - Iran has expelled 85,000 illegal Afghan refugees in the past three weeks in a repatriation plan whose speed triggered the sacking of two Afghan cabinet ministers, officials said. Around 85,000 illegal Afghan citizens have been expelled from Iran since Teheran started the plan on April 21, Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr said, according to the IRNA agency.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is becoming isolated within the party as more leaders, now articulating their views against her 'unilateral' decisions in running the party, are asking for reforms to bring democracy in the party. Former whip in parliament and BNP Joint Secretary General Ashraf Hossain yesterday called for curbing the power of the party chief and end 'dynasty'. Earlier several senior leaders of the party demanded decentralisation of power within the party. 
TOKYO (AP) - Japan's parliament on Monday passed guidelines for amending the country's pacifist constitution to give the military a larger global role. The vote marked a political victory for nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wants to see Japan take more responsibility for global security. The legislation easily passed in parliament's Upper House with support of the ruling bloc's majority. The measure was approved last month by the Lower House.
A female officer serving in Sweden's Kosovo force is suspected of having leaked secret NATO and UN documents to a Serbian spy with whom she had a love affair. The women was sent home to Sweden last year following preliminary investigations by the Military Intelligence and Security Service (Militära underrättelse- och säkerhetstjänsten - MUST). A disciplinary committee later decided that there were not sufficient grounds for removing her from the army.
Iranian police have prevented 50 women from boarding flights in their ongoing crackdown on dress styles deemed to be out of line with Islamic dress rules, officials said on Sunday. Fifty badly-veiled women were prevented from boarding domestic and international flights for failing to respect Islamic dress rules, said the head of airport police Mamoud Bot-Shekane, according to the Fars news agency.
