RESCUE workers have recovered at least 80 bodies from surging waters in south-west Pakistan where heavy rains caused a large dam to burst, sweeping hundreds of people into the Arabian sea, an official said. "Coast guards have so far pulled out 80 bodies from the floodwaters with fishing nets, while 400 are still missing," said Sher Jan Baluch, a provincial minister in Baluchistan province. The 150m-long Shakidor Dam burst late Thursday near remote Pasni village in Baluchistan, about 1900 kilometres south-west of the capital, Islamabad. Witnesses in Pasni and elsewhere described seeing trucks, tankers and cars swept out to sea in the deluge, which came amid harsh winter weather. The fast-flowing floodwaters washed away homes, telephone lines, roads and bridges. Villages near the town of Uthal - about 100km away from Pasni - were also hit by the floodwaters late Thursday, but there was no word on casualties. Pakistan has been hit by more than a week of heavy rain and snow.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 2:42:54 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
More than 130 people have been killed across Pakistan in the heaviest rains in 16 years that caused a dam to burst, provincial officials said on Friday. Authorities rushed thousands of troops to join rescue operations in the remote southwestern Baluchistan province, where some 20,000 people had been affected by the floods, said Raziq Bugti, a government spokesman in the province said. Officials said at least 60 people died on Thursday night after Baluchistan's Shadikor dam burst, sweeping through villages near the coastal town of Pasni. More than 40 more died from heavy rains in other parts of the province. Some reports said hundreds were missing, though officials said there were no reliable estimates. "Relief operations are in full swing. Army, paramilitary rangers and coast guards are trying to pull out people stranded in the flood water," Bugti told Reuters.
Officials said at least five villages, home to around 7,000 people, had been submerged by waters that poured through the 35 metre (115 foot) high and 300 metre long embankment of the dam, constructed just two years ago. "Sixty bodies have been recovered in the Pasni area. They were all killed due to the dam burst," provincial minister Sher Jan Baluch told Reuters.
Dozens of losing candidates in Saudi Arabia's first regular election will contest results from the opening round of municipal balloting, arguing that conservative religious candidates won unfairly by claiming support from clerics, Saudi newspapers said Saturday. The Okaz daily reported that more than 30 losing candidates were scheduled to meet soon to draft a complaint to the election commission about the results of the vote, which was promoted by this country's absolute monarchy as a democratic reform. Another daily, Al-Riyadh, reported that some losing candidates planned to hire lawyers to challenge the results.
"We have 10,000 lawyers, standing by, ready to contest the results!"
Municipal elections are being held in three stages, with Thursday's first stage covering half the kingdom's city's councils. Only men were allowed to vote, and balloting was confined to the capital, Riyadh, and adjacent districts. Voting in other regions is scheduled for March and April. Many consider the elections a modest step toward democracy, but others see them as a remarkable development in a country ruled by a monarchy that considered any talk of participation in decision-making to be taboo.
"Don't worry about making decisions! That's why you have us princes!"
At least five of the winning candidates for the seven electable seats on the Riyadh City Council are believed to be Islamists, an election observer said Friday. Suleiman al-Oqaili said he saw the seven Riyadh winners' names on a list circulated via cell phones and the Internet. "It was promoted as a list that had a religious blessing," al-Oqaili said.
If a bunch of holy men say to vote for them, then you know the rubes are gonna mark their ballots for them...
Losing candidate Thafer al-Yami told The Associated Press he saw the winning list that was circulating. "These people have hijacked the elections," he said.
"This council is illegitimate! There is no mandate!"
Many of the winning candidates in Riyadh are either imams in mosques who preach conservative Islamic ideas, teachers or workers for Islamic charities, Saudi political analyst Mshari al Thaydi told the AP on Saturday.
Local newspapers characterized some winners as Islamists. Al-Riyadh called the results "largely unexpected."
That's what I said!
The government will appoint the other half of the council and it could moderate the body by choosing liberal councilmen.
Sure. That's prob'ly what'll happen. We're talking about Soddy Arabia, after all...
In the districts around Riyadh, the winners were mostly from tribes and big families.
Ummm... We're talking about the first elections in Soddy Arabia, not in the world. Who the hell writes this stuff? Did they keep this guy locked away in journalism school for 42 years, feeding him nothing but warm milk and gooey cookies, and then let him out to write just this one story?
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005 9:31:03 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Polio apparently reached Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Islam's holy city, just before the annual pilgrimage by 2 million Muslims last month, and World Health Organization officials now fear that the disease may be spreading around the world, carried by returning pilgrims.
In crowded nations with spotty vaccination coverage like Bangladesh and Indonesia, "there could be substantial consequences," Dr. Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the health organization's Global Polio Eradication Initiative, said in an interview from Geneva.
A spokesman at the Saudi Embassy in Washington said his country had feared the arrival of polio this year and started vaccinating 800,000 people in September, hoping to head it off before the height of the hajj, or pilgrimage, in late January.
Saudi Arabia had been polio-free since 1995, but two cases were found late last year. The first was in Jidda, the port city 40 miles from Mecca where most pilgrims disembark. The patient was a Sudanese girl who became paralyzed just after arriving.
The second, more worrisome case was confirmed just Thursday. It was a 5-year-old Nigerian boy who developed paralysis on Dec. 15. What made it troubling, Aylward said, was that his family had lived for several years in an illegal encampment on the outskirts of Mecca, so he must have caught a strain circulating in Saudi Arabia.
Spotting new outbreaks in far-flung countries will still take weeks, experts said. Paralysis affects only about 1 in 200 carriers of the virus, symptoms can take up to 35 days to emerge, pilgrims traveling by bus or boat can take weeks to get home, and epidemiological reporting in poor countries is often slipshod.
"You want to be well into March before you breathe a sigh of relief," Aylward said.
The virus lives in the intestine and spreads through fecal-oral contact, so anything from changing a diaper to sharing a food dish or swimming in contaminated water can transmit it. Polio vaccination was not required for pilgrims. Even if it had been required, thousands arrive illegally, and many legal visitors carry forged immunization records, said the Saudi Embassy spokesman, Nail al-Jubeir.
"We have to trust the health services of the countries they come from," he said. "We can't give everyone blood tests."
Vaccinations were required for meningococcal meningitis and, in some cases, yellow fever.
Polio has been spreading from northern Nigeria since 2003, when vaccination campaigns there halted for months after Muslim imams and local politicians spread rumors that the vaccine could make women sterile, transmit AIDS or was made with pork products. It took until last summer for world health officials and clerics from other countries to get Nigerian Muslims to accept a vaccine made in Indonesia.
Most cases from that outbreak have been in the largely Muslim Sahel, the band of arid land south of the Sahara from Mali to Ethiopia. Pockets elsewhere are also mostly in Muslim areas -- Pakistan, northern India, Afghanistan and Egypt.
Each case of paralysis implies that many more virus carriers are nearby. Most victims suffer symptoms no more serious than those of flu, but even people with no symptoms can pass the virus.
In 1988, when polio was endemic in 125 countries, the annual assembly of the health ministers of all nations in Geneva declared their intent to eradicate it by 2000. That target was missed, but $3 billion in vaccination campaigns drove the disease back until it existed in only six countries by the end of 2003.
Posted by: tipper ||
02/12/2005 3:10:27 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Polio, and all of the other goodies from the Islamic cesspool, converge on Mekkah and do their magic upon the faithful. Nature's Way of saying slow down and smell the camel dung. The prayer rugs, furnishings, etc. in the Grand Mosque are 14th Century muzzy population control devices.
#4
Saudi Arabia "started vaccinating 800,000 people in September". Sounds like they were a little bit behind the times themselves. National health care is my guess.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 10:22 Comments ||
Top||
#5
but $3 billion in vaccination campaigns drove the disease back until it existed in only six countries by the end of 2003
Now, if we can affect the immigration policies of those six countries for expediting the immigration of Muslims, we'd have something.
RIYADH: Participation during Saudi Arabia's first round of municipal elections on Thursday was 82 per cent in the areas surrounding the capital, an election official said. "The turnout was 82pc in all the Riyadh region excluding Riyadh city. Some towns and villages exceeded 92pc," Sultan Al Bazai, a member of the general commission of municipal elections.
Riyadh mayor Prince Abdul Aziz bin Ayyaf Al Muqrin said the turnout was strongest in the second district of Al Nassim, reaching 76pc. The highest number of candidates contested from Al Nassim.
Maybe I didn't write enough book reports in summer school, but if this is the highest Riyadh district at 76%, how can the average participation in Riyadh be 82%? Hey Emily, lemme borrow the calculator in your cell phone ...
Not a chance, Steve. I'm still trying to figger out the tip on my bar tab...
Turnout was lowest in the fourth (Olaya-Suleimaniyah) of seven districts that comprised the capital, at only 58pc, the mayor said. Just over 140,000 men out of 470,000 eligible voters registered to cast their ballots in the first of three-phase polls, in which half the members of 178 municipal councils will be elected across the ultra-conservative kingdom.
Women are barred from taking part in the elections, which will take place on March 3 in the Eastern Province and the southwest, and on April 21 in the western regions of Mecca and Medina, as well as the northern regions. "The country is now moving in the right direction," Shaikh Mohsen Al Awaji, a moderate Islamist and government critic, said. But "if the government continues with this pace of reform, it means that we will need several centuries to get our minimum rights," he said.
Optimist.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005 12:11:22 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
They got all this, even though all the women didn't vote. Did someone vote twice?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
02/12/2005 1:20 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Quite right Phil! The vote only tallys over 80% of the men's 50 percent of the total potential vote! 100% of the women didn't vote, neither 18% of the men!
#3
Flatly contradicts this story from only yesterday. Looks like the Arab Times dropped the ball with pure speculation and Gulf Daily reported facts. Makes me dizzy, with, uh, um, something.
Islamist-backed candidates triumphed in Saudi Arabia's landmark council elections in the capital Riyadh, according to preliminary results released on Friday. Several losing candidates said the names of at least six of the seven winners had been on a list, which suggested they had Islamist backing. "I don't know them personally, but they had a religious character to them," said Zafer al-Yami, one of the defeated candidates said of the winners. Election commission chief Prince Mansour bin Miteb said the winning candidates for the seven seats up for grabs on the Riyadh city council were Abdullah al-Suweilam, Suleiman al-Rashoudi, Tareq al-Kassabi, Abdul-Aziz al-Omari, Omar Basudan, Ibrahim Quaid and Misfer al-Bawardi. Yami said he planned to appeal the result because he said the winners had violated election rules forbidding any public coalition or alliance of candidates.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Well, Prince Faisal said they would do this democracy thingy in their own way and in their own time. Big surprise, huh, him knowing more than most "Govt Officials" about what the "election" results would be, in advance. Mebbe CNN and SeeBS oughtta hire him as a pundit and prognosticator.
...The EU — mainly at the urging of the new Socialist government in Spain — has suspended sanctions that it imposed on Cuba after Castro's brutal crackdown in March 2003. Spain and much of the rest of the EU are eager for things to be hunky-dory again with the regime.
But the Czechs won an important concession. You see, after the crackdown, the EU embassies in Havana began to invite oppositionists and dissidents — those still unjailed — to receptions and the like. And the Spain-led EU was on the verge of banning those invitations, as Castro has insisted.
The Czechs said no: They said they would use their veto power in the EU Council of Foreign Ministers to prevent any ban on the dissidents. And Spain et al. were forced to back down.
I also wish you to note the piece by Vaclav Havel published in the Miami Herald. It appeared before the Czech government won its victory, before the EU was forced to reverse course. Havel speaks of the importance of being related to by diplomats from democratic countries when you're a dissident in a totalitarian country. And he says,
Today, the EU is dancing to Fidel Castro's tune. . . .
Where will it end? The release of Milosevic? Denying a visa to Russian human-rights activist Sergey Kovalyov? An apology to Saddam Hussein? The opening of peace talks with al Qaeda?
I believe that Havel and his fellow Czechs effectively shamed the EU. (How the Czechs should know the misery of appeasement!) They were the only ones around to do so.
...From the Freedom Party in Austria to the National Front in France to the Republicans in Germany, Europe's far right has made a comeback in recent years, largely on the strength of anti-immigration feelings sharpened to a fear of Islam. That fear is fed by threats of terrorism, rising crime rates among Muslim youth and mounting cultural clashes with the Continent's growing Islamic communities.
But nowhere has the right's revival been as swift or as strong as in Belgium's Dutch-speaking region of Flanders, where support for Mr. Dewinter's Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, has surged from 10 percent of the electorate in 1999 to nearly a quarter today.
Vlaams Belang is now the strongest party in Flanders, with support from a third of the voters in Antwerp, the region's largest city. Many people worry that the appeal of antiIslamic politics will continue to spread as Europe's Muslim population grows.
"What they all have in common is that they use the issue of immigration and Islam to motivate and mobilize frustrated people," said Marco Martiniello, a political scientist at the University of Liege in the French-speaking part of Belgium. "In Flanders all attempts to counter the march of the Vlaams Belang have had no results, or limited results, and no one really knows what to do."
Fear of Islam's transforming presence is so strong that even many members of Antwerp's sizable Jewish community now support Mr. Dewinter's party, even though its founders included men who sympathized and collaborated with the Nazis during World War II... NYT bias included free of charge.
#1
Europe is over. Time for the US to turn East. Enough of trying to accommodate the ankle biting European leftist/socialist dominated political system. Europe's pastime is criticizing the US while the smell of it's rot fills the nostrils of everyone. The Transnational Socialist hope to infect us with their deadly disease before they collapse under Sharia law and Islamic domination.
The right in Europe will always be equated with Hitlerism and Fascism . Many times it's even true. It's the natural reaction to the domination of politics of the Socialists and Communist Greens. I expect the EU to slide into the drain in what remains of my lifetime. There is nothing the EU can do. It will never react as it needs to. I will just accommodate the in inevitable.
#2
"The right in Europe will always be equated with Hitlerism and Fascism."
Such equation seems to be what some American right-wingers are doing, given the ludicrous translation here of "far-right" into "non-Leftist". The growth of such nice little beasties like Lepen or Heider translated by you, Anonymouse, as "growth of non-Leftist parties"?
#4
Continuing my thoughts.. there seems to be a fundamental assumption by the EUrophiles that the levers of power within the EU will remain beyond the reach of these people. I believe this is a bad assumption.
It strikes me as fundamentally unwise to build levers of power you would not want your opponents to control. Societies shift. Cultures shift. There is a natural pendulum. If you try to stop the pendulum, it will swing in unpredictable and possibly even terrible ways.
#5
Aris: not so ludicrous. Catagorizing parties like the Tories in England and the German CDU as "rightist" is the real stretch. In fact, they are centrist to liberal. No "rightist" party, or "conservative" party, would ever embrace a welfare state, or the EU, the elimination of a self-defense military, National Health Care, or other purely leftist concerns that are an abomination to the right. The true "rightist" party in the US, the Republicans, stubbornly resisted such things, and systematically dismantled them when possible. So that is why I called the European parties "non-Leftist" parties rather than "far-right" parties. In all fairness, parties like Labour, in Britain, and the SDU in Germany, should be called "radical left" parties, because their ideas are so far removed from what the status quo once was, just a decade or two ago. The "far-right" parties, as the NYT or European radical left would call them, are just a reaction to the violent leftward movement Europe has taken in recent years. Hearkening back to the status quo of the 1980s is hardly what I would call "wanting a return to fascism", however.
#6
No "rightist" party, or "conservative" party, would ever embrace a welfare state, or the EU, the elimination of a self-defense military, National Health Care, or other purely leftist concerns that are an abomination to the right.
They are an "abomination to the right", according to whom? You? I had a good laugh especially when you labelled the EU as such an abomination for the so-called "right" -- ofcourse it's usually (not always) the opposite, that it has been supported by mainstream right-wing parties and opposed (or much more critically supported) by left-wing ones. Most of the rhetorical attacks on the EU (or the Constitution) in the actual continent happen from the left for example.
When the Socialists in France had a vote over the European Constitution, it was the left-wing of the party that opposed it IIRC, and the moderate centrist side that supported it. On the other hand the right-wing party of Chirac didn't even need to put it in a referendum among its members because it had such a high level of support there.
That's (with some noteworthy exceptions) typically the reaction throughout the continent. (Malta which was half-and-half divided on EU membership, had the right-wing party support membership, and the left-wing party oppose it, and so and so on)
If the definition of which are right-wing parties and which aren't isn't defined by either the status quo nor by the actual *center* of the political debate, then what the hell do you think it should be defined for?
In all fairness, parties like Labour, in Britain, and the SDU in Germany, should be called "radical left" parties, because their ideas are so far removed from what the status quo once was, just a decade or two ago
And if you name *those* parties "radical left", then what would you call the actually Marxist parties?
#7
Aris, Anonymoose was describing it in US terms. By US standards they're all Statist, Marxist or Stalinist. By European standards, Republicans are a mixture of Anarcho-Capitalists, religious Capitalists, Individualists and Objectivists. Democrats would be center-right to center-left.
#8
Parties that endorse Marxist ideas and ideology are Marxist parties, whether or not they call themselves such. They are noteworthy in their belief of the "blanket solution" to complex problems and the inability to see failure in their programs, despite numerous and repeated examples of failure. Moderate and Conservative parties are known for their pragmatism and realism, almost always preferring the status quo to any philosophy-based change in government policy. Parties of the Right reject changes in policy that have failed, and those changes that have to some extent succeeded and are status quo, but are philosophically wrong to their point of view.
So, for example, a Marxist party would want to cede governmental authority to an internationalist regime they felt was also Marxist in orientation; a Moderate or Conservative party might want to do the same, seeing it as a natural evolution of the status quo, and believing that eventually the regime would become less Marxist and more Moderate or Conservative. But the Right parties would be adamant in neither wanting to cede power *and* to eventually withdrawing entirely from what they see as an unneccesary usurpation of national sovereignty. This makes the Right parties into almost "anti-radicals", embracing the policy of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it, and if someone is trying to fix it, make them stop."
#9
"By US standards they're all Statist, Marxist or Stalinist."
And yet, for a supposedly statist place to live, it's European Netherlands that allows drugs and prostitution, and it's the United States that uses the state's mechanism to crack down on such "freedom and individualism".
Other than that, I understand your point that the United States is to the right of Europe. But calling EU a "leftist cause" or "an abomination to the right" is still an absurdity.
#10
Aris, please take a moment and read Bush's Inaugural Address as if it were given by an Anarchist. It works surprisingly well.
Regarding drugs and prostitution, the "War on Drugs" is primarily targeted at the economic activity rather than use. Prostitution is legal in Nevada. Both are currently being debated.
#11
"Parties that endorse Marxist ideas and ideology are Marxist parties, whether or not they call themselves such"
If you label everything remotely social-democratic as "Marxist", then this discussion is meaningless. Marxism is a specific ideology. Marxists mostly oppose private property and generally seek to nationalize industries, per the plan Marx described in the communist manifesto. Marxists don't see capitalistic competition as a useful tool, they see it as anathema.
And Marxists oppose the EU and the Constitution, given how it describes free competition and free market both as objectives to be achieved.
Your definitions seem to describe "Conservative" instead of "right-wing", being all about the status-quo and about nationalism, and talking little to nothing about either economical freedom (which the EU is generally seen to enhance, and hence the bitter hatred of a large portion of the Left towards it) or about personal liberties (which the EU is also generally seen to enhance or atleast not hurt, hence the general support to the EU by the most liberal parties).
I agree with you on one thing -- right-wingers that care more about national sovereignty than about fiscal freedom (being chauvinistically right-wing instead of free-marketeers), will usually tend to oppose the EU.
#13
As someone who has regulary attacked Aris in the past, I find I mostly agree with him on this issue. The EU has its faults but its a coalition of still largely sovereign democracies figuring out how address transnational issues. The UN its not (i.e. its not corrupt and incompetetent). Otherwise its political centre of gravity is to the Left of the USA but subject to similar political/social forces and the I think the substance of the article is correct. Europe is moving to the Right for the same reasons the USA and Australia have moved to the right. And that IMO is good news.
#15
which the EU is generally seen to enhance Seen by whom?
By pretty much everyone, both those who hate it and those who love it. Those who hate it from the left oppose it because it promotes free market and competition across national borders. Even those who hate it from the fiscal right don't want to destroy it altogether, they simply want to reduce it back to a "common market" "free trade area" zone, acknowledging that those are positive characteristics of it.
Added level of bureaucracy? I don't need a visa, or even a passport to travel elsewhere in the Schengen area, and I don't need either a living permit or a working permit to dwell and work anywhere in the EU -- capital, services and people move freely. Those seem to me to be vastly *reduced* levels of bureaucracy, and vastly *less* interference by the state.
The enemy within....
What a degrading display of surrender and cringing, fawning, cowardly submission and dhimmitude; to the accursed French, no less.
How much more will it take? Bring down the institutional media culture (the "MSM") and the rest will collapse like dominoes.
Fry Mumia!
French Mumia backers get Liberty Bells
Slain cop's wife outraged by city's gesture
By CHRIS BRENNAN
brennac@phillynews.com
French politicians and activists seeking a new trial and freedom for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal were welcomed in a Friday rally at City Hall and given replicas of the Liberty Bell.
Mjenzi Traylor, the city's first deputy director of commerce, told the crowd of about 150 that he was there to "make certain that we are receiving the message that you would like for us to deliver to Mayor Street."
Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, later called that greeting an "absolute outrage."
Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering Faulkner in 1981.
"This man stood over him and shot him, point-blank, in the face," Maureen Faulkner said. "For them to give them replicas of the Liberty Bell and welcome them with open arms, I think it's an embarrassment for the city."
Faulkner said she planned to call Street on Monday to protest the city's actions.
"This is a disgrace," she said. "It is a slap in the face for all of law enforcement."
Street planned to attend the meeting with the French politicians but canceled due to a busy schedule, his staff said.
Instead, Traylor was scheduled to meet in private with Connie Little, the mayor's executive assistant, and the French politicians.
But when the large crowd arrived with escorts from the Philadelphia Police Department's Civil Affairs unit after marching around City Hall chanting Abu-Jamal's name, Street's staff decided to let them all into the mayor's reception room.
Jacky Hortaut of the National Unit Collective, a coalition of pro-Abu-Jamal groups, addressed the crowd with pointed words for the Philadelphia judicial system.
Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Dembe postponed a hearing on Abu-Jamal's appeal yesterday, saying a ruling in a recent, unrelated case raised questions about jurisdiction. She is waiting for attorneys on both sides of the case to weigh in on that.
"We are here to denounce this discriminatory and racist justice," Hortaut said. "So we are here today to tell Mrs. Dembe that we are here to support Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose only crime has been to fight for poor people here in America."
Traylor then handed them the Liberty Bell replicas.
"We welcome you to Philadelphia," said Traylor, who serves as the city's international liaison for visiting dignitaries. "Thank you very much for coming."
Jacques Daguenet, a city councilman from Paris, then decried what he called Abu-Jamal's "racist trial." Paris made Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen in 2003.
"He is the voice of people who have nothing," Daguenet said. "We have to struggle to have him free."
Majid Wannass, a deputy for the mayor of Saint Denis, just outside of Paris, drew cheers when he told the crowd his town would rename a street for Abu-Jamal.
Hortaut, Daguenet and Wannass spoke in French with an English translator for the crowd.
Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death in 1982 but a federal judge in 2001 ruled that he should be sentenced to life in prison or granted a new trial.
Abu-Jamal is seeking a new trial while the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office is seeking to reinstate the death sentence.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
02/12/2005 7:46:23 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Compelling evidence for abu Jamal's guilt and, by extension, the utter depravity, callousness, and ignorance of his celebrity supporters, can be found at Justice for Daniel Faulkner
#2
This is sickening. Thanks for the post and link, AC. "Paris made Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen in 2003" -- Disgusting.
Posted by: Dar ||
02/12/2005 8:54 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Thanks, AC. Disgusting is just the tip of it.
The website is also very interesting. I didn't realise that they took a bullet of Faulkner's out of Abu-Jamal's FREAKING gut. Misidentified? Ha.
Posted by: Scott ||
02/12/2005 8:56 Comments ||
Top||
#4
"We welcome you to Philadelphia," said Traylor, who serves as the cityâs international liaison for visiting dignitaries. "Thank you very much for coming."
Here's a link for Taylor and other city officials involved in this public disgrace:
#5
...Normally, as much as I respect the police, I do not support their right to strike. However, in this instance, I think Philadelphia needs to get a good case of 'blue flu' for about 24 hours.
The city's government has just made it very clear whose side they're on, and the police need to get their attention.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/12/2005 9:03 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Ah, yes. Philadelphia and the French, the folks that brought you the epic Ira Einhorn story.
If you research this case, it doesn't take long to figure out it's about as cut and dried as it gets. Fry Mumia!
It was a great day for anti-idiotarians: First Eason Jordan, now this quack College Official Resigns Over Speaker CLINTON, N.Y. - The head of a gender studies program at Hamilton College has resigned after igniting a furor by inviting to the campus a professor who likened the Sept. 11 victims to Nazis. Nancy Rabinowitz said she was stepping down "under duress" as director of the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture. She will continue to teach comparative literature.
"I mean, a girl's got to make a living, and this isn't as hard as hooking..."
Rabinowitz resigned in a telephone call Thursday to the college's president.
"That does it! I quit!"
"Okay. Turn in your key..."
"Now, don't try to talk me out of it!"
On Feb. 3, she extended a speaking invitation to University of Colorado professor Ward ["Big Chief Spouting Bull"] Churchill, who in an essay written shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks compared the World Trade Center victims to "little Eichmanns," a reference to the Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann. "BUREAUCRAT"?!! Is that all he was, AP? Is that a fair or reasonable identification? Something nice and neutral to keep from offending, whom exactly? Holocaust deniers? Skinheads? Your future Arab employers? You wouldn't want to be judgmental, I know, but "convicted nazi war criminal who was hanged for complicity in genocide" sticks to the objective facts. Just the first 3 words will do nicely if you're pressed for space.
His appearance was ultimately canceled by the school because of death threats against college officials and Churchill. Bullshit, the only threats that got their attention were the ones from alumni threatening to cut off, not their ears and noses as Islamofascists would, but their gravy train. With this explanation, they salvage a little something by creating a precedent for rejecting non-idiotarian speakers in the face of Islamo-fascist and peace-hypocrites. Hey, if you get a lemon, make lemonade.
Rabinowitz also drew fire in November when the program she headed offered a temporary teaching position to 1960s radical Susan Rosenberg. Rosenberg was indicted but never tried in a 1981 armored car robbery that left a guard and two police officers dead. "Drew fire"? We should be so lucky.
She was sentenced for 58 years in prison for weapons possession, but President Clinton granted her clemency in 2001 after she served 16 years. How much did that cost Soros? This is interesting given Churchill's ties to the Weathermen terrorist gang (see below).
Rabinowitz has been the project's only director since its founding in 1996. "What the project needs now is someone more adept at the kind of political and media fight that the current climate requires. A cockroach who won't panic when the lights come on. Lots of luck.
Therefore, it is in the interests of the mission of the project itself and for no other reason that I am yielding to requests that I resign," she said."
Might one suggest that it's about time to wrap up the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture? Is that really, really, truly the most pressing thing Hamilton College has going?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
02/12/2005 7:07:25 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"....'convicted nazi war criminal who was hanged for complicity in genocide' sticks to the objective facts. Just the first 3 words...."
Err, just the first FOUR words.
You know, I think we are turning the corner in the long fight against the media/academic Axis. For the first time in 40 years, the left is on the defensive. It is a war of attrition. If we can take down one prominent media beast or academic quisling a week, we are well ahead of the game.
#2
What the project needs now is....
Maybe the college should evaluate Hamilton's need for the Kirkland Project instead of the project's needs for anything.
as an aside, I wonder if our new relations with Libya hasn't shed new light on Ward Churchill's visit there in the early 80's, which according to Churchill, "wasn't to buy arms."
#5
This story should be turned into a Bonus Question on the Gender Studies Final.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
02/12/2005 10:38 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The best means for change in some of these colleges and universities is to have the alumni hit them in their pocketbook. The University of California, Berkeley Alumni association called me a few weeks ago. I listened politely until they started talking about an alumni gift. Then I told them that I would not send one red cent to their school, nor send my children down there until they showed some action and cleaned up their LLL act. I said to pass the message on. Took me a while to cool off.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 12:23 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Does anybody, besides me, see the resemblance between this fuckwad and john kerry?
Posted by: Tom Dooley ||
02/12/2005 18:16 Comments ||
Top||
Here's another reason why some Democrats are fretting over installing antiwar former presidential candidate Howard Dean as chair of the Democratic National Committee. He might cede national defense to the Republicans.
Don't worry, that's already been done.
That's the charge from associates of another former presidential candidate, former NATO boss Wes Clark. Seems the Clark and Dean teams have been warring over the future of the Democratic Party, and now that threatens to spill into the public if Dean, as expected, wins the chairmanship this Saturday. Here's the fight: Clark wants the Democrats deeply involved in foreign policy and the war, and Dean's team isn't as jazzed about that. They see domestic policy and issues like Social Security and the deficit as the keys to success. But this might be the real rub against Dean: Clark fans think the retired general will be marginalized by Dean.
Whereas Weasley would prefer to do that to himself.
Posted by: Desert Blondie ||
02/12/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
He might cede national defense to the Republicans.
I'm sure glad I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when I read that. Is this reporter dishonest, or merely stupid? The Democrats ceded national defense to the Republicans over thirty years ago and haven't even tried taking it back any time since then.
Clark wants the Democrats deeply involved in foreign policy and the war, and Deanâs team isnât as jazzed about that. They see domestic policy and issues like Social Security and the deficit as the keys to success.
To the Democrats, foreign policy and the war are unwelcome distractions from the one game they know how to play: acquiring power by using the government to steal money from one group of Americans and handing it to another group whose votes they want to buy.
The Democrats haven't had a new idea in over forty years. The only things that change from time to time are a) which group they want to steal from, b) which group they want to bestow the "free" lunch on in exchange for votes, and c) what BS justification they offer to excuse the theft.
Howard Dean is the end result of the Democrats' long degeneration into what it has become: the Parasite Party.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/12/2005 7:51 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Help me out here guys. Dean is the guy who lost to the guy the Dems ran for President who lost because no one could figure out what he stood for even though he had Lots of Plans. And the reason Dean lost to Lots-o-Plans Guy is because Dean was regarded as a loose canon. Am I missing anything here? 'Cause this all sounds totally nutso!
The U.S. Navy believes that the strategic landscape is changing, and that the navy's new organization will revolve around Sea Basing -- a new concept enabling joint military forces to operate from ships offshore rather than from established land bases.
Sea Basing is one of the three cornerstones of "Sea Power 21." Sea Strike will expand power projection through increasingly networked sensors, combat systems, and war fighters. Sea Shield will provide global defensive assurance through extended homeland defense, sustained access to coastal areas, and the projection of defensive power deep overland. Sea Basing will provide enhanced operational independence and support for joint forces provided by networked, mobile, and "secure sovereign platforms operating in the maritime domain" (ships). This philosophy recognizes the facts that the US must be able to respond more quickly to threats from abroad in a time when other nations are increasingly reluctant to let the US base its forces in the territory, even temporarily. One has only to look at recent history to see how difficult it is to overcome the inability to base US forces in nominally friendly countries when political and religious consideration intervened.
This new strategy of joint forces afloat implies big changes for the black shoe Navy — the "ship-driver"officer community, as opportunities to command are likely to be spread across multiple services as the number of ships in the Navy continues to decrease due to retirements, the large cuts to the shipbuilding budget announced recently, and the realization that some of today's ships simply are not compatible with Sea Basing due to speed, size, or age. Sea Basing is an extension of maneuver warfare and will be the basis from which offensive and defensive force is projected through Sea Strike and Sea Shield. Afloat positioning of assets is to strengthen force protection and free airlift-sealift to support missions ashore. Planned Sea Basing Technologies will include heavy equipment transfer capabilities, intra-theater high-speed sealift, improved vertical delivery methods, rotational crewing infrastructure, and international data-sharing networks. Ships will not only be forward deployed and "crash deployed" from US ports, but will spend extended periods at sea with crews swapped every six months or so. This capability can only become more important in light of the recently announced cuts to new Navy programs such as the inland fire support destroyer (DD(X)) replacement for the Burke and Spruance class destroyers and the Multimission Maritime Aircraft replacement for the P-3.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005 1:56:36 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So in short this is a new buzzword for which we won't have the ships to adequately implement.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
02/12/2005 15:14 Comments ||
Top||
#2
This is a counter to China's Pacific-grab to snatch Taiwan strategy! For long, the Achilles heel of the US Pacific fleet has been the reliance for repair, resupply and rearmament on *only* two US ports, Bremerton and San Diego. The Chinese figured that if they could neutralize these two ports, the US Pacific Fleet would be high and dry, because there are no other friendly ports in the Pacific that could do the job. But by creating something akin to a "port group", dispersed enough to be a difficult target, yet able to assemble for fleet RRR with reasonable speed, the Chinese efforts to attack these two cities, *and* to take control of the Panama Canal, *and* whatever mischief they are planning in the Caribbean and South America against the Atlantic Fleet, have been countered.
#3
This is the Master Green plan to take over the US military and impose the TRINITY on US armed forces fighting against OWG and Clintonista/Socialist/General Foods clique. Luckily I think it'll work, all it'll take is a 150 ft. lengthening of the follow on Wasps.
Is that like welding the shit tank ball valves shut right before turn-over to the other crew? "I dunno Chief. The crapper won't flush no more." "Shut-up and gimme the crescent wrench."
#6
If I'm understanding correctly...
it's a way run with 8 or 9 carriers deployed on a permanent basis, without springing the huge tab for 12 more CAGs.
#7
Bottom line, it's whatever it needs to mean to keep budget position with Rummy. btw did you know that components for each of these systems are made in every congressional distirct?
One day we'll wake up and find out we've lost control of the seas.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
02/12/2005 18:43 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Beware of efficiency in war. A down-sized just-in-time military scares me. The point of a big Navy is to prevent "the big one". You do that with many hulls rippling with weapons. When a destroyer pulls into port and the locals laugh at your single 5-inch pea shooter it is not good. When you roll into town with nine 16 inch guns, they get the idea you are serious. Naval battle is decisive battle in a way that land warfare is not. Land warfare can drag on for a long time. In a battle over Taiwan, lose your few carriers and you are done. Go home. You can't control that sea without them. Bringing only 6 carriers into the coming showdown with China is tempting fate. They start to think, hmmm if we can just knock those few hulls out, we win. Bring 10 hulls, it gets dicey. 6 hulls may be able to win, I don't know, but why tempt fate. If you think 15 or more carriers is too expensive, wait until you see the bills after the shooting starts.
#9
I think the naval "downsize" is deceptive. For example, most of the fleets are being upgraded to far more effective ships, with far more firepower. The battleship example is a good one: 16-inch guns are magnificant against enormous or highly concentrated targets, but for most circumstances, it is using a sledgehammer against a fly. Instead, if you have highly accurate 155-mm guns with a 12 round/minute firing rate, you can take out flies at 100 nautical miles to your heart's content with a flyswatter. And there are few targets that can take getting a satellite guided 155 in the ear.
#10
What and how many platforms will have that weapon with how many of the guns mentioned Moose? In a battle between ships (thinking Taiwan), who is doing the targeting of said weapon and from where? When you say satellite-guided, are you saying a satellite controls the weapon or someone selects the coordinates and the weapon uses GPS to hit that target. What good does that do against a moving ship? Is there some remote sensor doing the targeting. It all sounds feasible, butI can't help it, I am always suspicious of swishy wonder weapons at sea. I am such a crank.
#11
To call those 155s "frighteningly accurate" is an understatement. And the satellite locates the target (not necessarily naval), feeds the data to the ship, and adjusts the round in flight. The 750 round complement to a DD(X) class multimission destroyer: "land attack support for ground forces, but also carry out anti-air, anti-surface and undersea warfare missions." And the thing looks more like the Civil War 'Monitor' than your typical surface ship. But it is just one component to the new fleet. The new ships are almost science-fictiony looking, and the #1 used reference word is "Littoral" (coastal).
The University of Colorado professor under fire for calling victims of the 9-11 attacks "Little Eichmans," reportedly trained a domestic terror group. Ward Churchill taught the revolutionary group the Weathermen how to make bombs and fire weapons, according to a Fox News report citing the Jan. 18, 1987 issue of the Denver Post. The revelation is among many reported since Churchill prompted a national furor...Churchill resigned his position as head of the Colorado University ethnic studies program but kept his $96,000 per year teaching post. He has steadfastly refused to apologize for his comments. Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater said it will allow Churchill to speak next month, a decision that sparked outrage among state lawmakers, the Associated Press reported. Chancellor Jack Miller said in a statement he finds the professor's views repugnant but believes it's necessary to permit him to speak under First Amendment principles. A former student of Churchill's says she heard him justify the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing during a class lecture. Kimberly Hickel said the professor "actually stood in front of our class and said how the FBI got what they deserved. It was awful." In an interview last April with the left-leaning Brooklyn-based magazine Satya, Churchill was quoted saying the United States should "cease to exist" and that "more 9-11s may be necessary."
Posted by: tipper ||
02/12/2005 3:06:29 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Hmm, met with KhQGadhaffy, trained the Weathermen, justified the OKC bombing... this is starting to get really interesting. Is he just a free-lance idiotarian, or is he working for someone?
Posted by: Pete Stanley ||
02/12/2005 4:53 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Agreed, Pete. Getting stranger by the minute with this assclown. He's definitely a professional something - precisely what is not clear. At this rate, by next week he'll be part of the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy. Some people shouldn't be breathing our air. Methinks he qualifies. Maybe there's a fatal accident in his near future. That would be good.
#3
Here's another thing that is interesting Pete. On another thread above we are treated to the fact that Susan Rosenberg was one of Clinton's last minute pardons. Like, Marc Rich .... "allegations arose that Rich had been involved in forbidden arms dealing since leaving the country after being indicted in 1983 for tax evasion and racketeering.
Now there's Ward Churchill who went to see Momo "not to buy arms".
I'd really like to see a time line of these subversive groups...like Weather Underground, SLA (late 70's early 80's) Code Pink (helped rebels in SA) and to match that up with the player's in this lucrative university speaking network - like Churchill, Angela Davis, etc. etc., As that speaking gravy train has been providing these 60's radicals with big cash bonuses- funded at taxpayers expense.
It is going to be very fun to see where this goes!!
#5
Did he train them how to pose for pictures with an AK, shades, and a smoke dangling out of their mouth? And, oh yeah, the beret. Ya gotta have the beret.
I don't think this douchebag could "train" a puppy not to piss in the house. He seems like more of an idea man, the "no heavy lifting" branch of the operation.
#6
What would be even more interesting is an investigation of the funding of these folk to find out who was paying the bills. It is possible they are still funding vilent leftist causes and should be shut down
#7
Folks, none of this is NEW information -- it's just all being put together in a short enough time span that we notice. And Churchill's NOT that unusual -- there are dozens, maybe hundreds on the left who fit his pattern of America-hatred and wannabe violence.
Both Farrakhan and Jackson also went to visit Momo; I seem to remember someone connected to CAIR visiting him and coming back with a case of money. Lots of people claim to have worked with the Weathermen -- it's like having been at Woodstock for the radical set -- but beyond getting the ex-Weathermen jobs once they got out of prison, it's not clear if any of them really did.
Churchill's a conman who figured out how to press all the far-left buttons to get what he wanted. Oppressed minority? Yep -- he can fake that. Marxist, post-modern gibberish? Yep -- he can spew that. Hatred for the US, everything it's done, and everyone in it? Yep -- he can do that.
The people who hired him, promoted him, asked him to speaking events, praised him, and kissed his ass weren't doing it despite his "repugnant" views; they were doing it because of those views.
And don't buy it when those responsible for his rise hide behind the First Amendment. There's no requirement to subsidize speech, but that's precisely what they're doing.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/12/2005 10:22 Comments ||
Top||
#8
But watching all the bits of information being put together, is riotiously amusing. Churchill is the Forrest Gump of leftoids, apparently--- everywhere and talked to everyone.
It's like a picaresque novel by Tom Wolfe played out in real time.
#9
RC...you are right. It isn't new information. But what is new is the ability for it to be reported in a non-compartmentalized fashion by the blogosphere. In the pre-blog days, we'd have only gotten a blurb here or there about Churchill or about Rosenberg resigning, but no one in the press would have made the connections that are made instantly made in the blogosphere - that Rosenberg was connected to Churchill through the Weather underground...and that Churchill went to see Momo, "not to buy arms", (something he would not have been able to do if he wasn't a representative for Indians - who with their separate soverignty, didn't have to abide by the restrictions to visit a terrorist state).
And while it may well be just a coincidence, it is intriguing that Clinton pardoned arms dealer Marc Rich and Rosenberg who is connected to "not buying arms" Ward Churchill. Coincidence, sure. Interesting coincidence..why yes, yes it is.
Oh..and corrupt Jessie goes to see Momo too. Throw in the whole Castro love fest by this same circle of friends. Then take all the groups like moveon.org, mothers against guns, Code Pink (involved with Contra gun running during the 80's) and the others who all work out of the same office in NYC and ...well ..some will be coincidence, but the connected web between these groups certainly is ...interesting.
I'd really like to see the web of connections between these sixties radicals who are involved in this self-perpetuating backslapping of University speaking fees (that range in the tens of thousands of dollars).
#10
Pete, from your link: In April 1983, Churchill went to Libya to meet with Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
The U.S. government had banned travel to Libya two years earlier, saying Gadhafi supported terrorism.
So Churchill broke US law to meet the chief terrorist sponsor of that time. The same Khaddafi who would order the Pan AM 747 and a French airliner blown up. Churchill belongs in a prison.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005 12:19 Comments ||
Top||
#11
ed---I think that stuff like you mentioned is being investigated. Churchill will begin to feel the heat. When you make outlandish remarks like Churchill made, people will start digging to find out everything about you. For better or for worse.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 12:32 Comments ||
Top||
#12
ed.. I may be wrong about this, but I suspect that as a representative for American Indians, Churchill would have been able to skirt the laws to legally visit Libya. Indians have their own sovereign laws and may not have been subject to the same restrictions as other American citizens.
#20
# 2 .com Ass clown is a great adjective. Churchill has a hair across his ass, thus
making a total ass of himself. He impresses
me as being a 60's left over. I had to laugh
at him---I think we all have had so called professors like this JERK** Good luck in all
his future endevors
Andrea
Posted by: ANdrea ||
02/12/2005 21:26 Comments ||
Top||
#21
# 11 Alaska Paul: Churchill had better crawl back from whatever rock he came out from.
What a total FOOL. I had college professor's
like him- I think we all did** see # 2 .com
response "ASS CLOWN" I will save that for future
reference. Hey, wish Churchill l-o-l that is all anyone can do!
ANdrea
Posted by: ANdrea ||
02/12/2005 21:31 Comments ||
Top||
#22
Andrea, NO! Let the freak show continue. I love it when the LLL Dems line up behind Crazy Loons like this. The political commercials just write themselves: "Congressman Soandso SUPPORTS Chief Spounting Bulls comments about America getting what it deserved on 9/11, do you?"
The United States slammed Myanmar's military junta on Friday for arresting several pro-democracy leaders and prohibiting groups from commemorating a key pre-independence event.
Meet the new thugs, same as the old thugs.
Among those held was Hkun Htun Oo, the chairman of the Shan National League for Democracy, which won elections in 1990 and the results of which the junta refused to acknowledge. "The United States is deeply concerned" over the arrest, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. He also expressed concern that the military had prohibited the United Nationalities Alliance, Myanmar's leading coalition of pro-democracy ethnic political parties, from commemorating Union Day on February 12. On that day in 1947, various ethnic communities within what was known as Burma then unanimously called for independence from Britain. Burma became independent a year later but has been ruled by a military dictatorship since the 1960s.
Boucher said the latest actions by the junta further demonstrated its "rejection of genuine national reconciliation as well as its disregard for the well being of the Burmese people and the views of the international community." He reiterated US demands for the immediate and unconditional release of nobel laureate and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners and to allow her National League for Democracy to reopen its offices. The United States has branded Myanmar an "outpost of tyranny" and is very likely to boycott next year's Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Yangon. Washington has imposed diplomatic, trade and investment sanctions on Myanmar for several years to pressure it to embrace democracy and respect human rights.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005 12:37:50 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Volume of commercial transactions between Iran and France rose by 22 percent to 3.353 billion euros in the first 11 months of 2004 from 2.744 billion euros in the same period in 2003. The Economic Department of Iran's Embassy in Paris said on Saturday that France exported 2.070 billion euros worth of goods to Iran in the first 11 months of 2004, showing a 17 percent growth, compared to the same period in 2003. It said Iran's exports to France however rose by 31.7 percent to 1.283 billion in 2004 compared to 2003. The Tehran-Paris trade balance was 787 million euros in favor of France in 2004 compared to 795 million euros in 2003.
Five West African presidents cancelled their planned visit to Togo on Friday to press the country's new leader Faure Gnassingbe to hold a free presidential election after he refused to meet them in the capital Lome, insisting instead that they fly to the northern town of Kara.
"Nope. Ain't gonna do it. Hold an election, then call us."
The presidents issued a joint statement deploring the situation in Togo, where Gnassingbe seized power with the backing of the armed forces following the death in office of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema on 5 February.
He will be sorely missed from the world stage.
They ordered the Togolese government representatives to attend a summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger on Saturday. If the Togolese authorities failed to attend this meeting, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) would impose immediate sanctions on Togo, the presidents of Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Benin and Mali added. The presidents of the ECOWAS member states assembled on Friday morning in Cotonou, the capital of neighbouring Benin, for preliminary talks in the airport's VIP lounge.
"Stewardess! More broiled dik-dik here!"
But Benin government sources said their plans to fly on together for a meeting with Gnassingbe in Togo fell through after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo insisted that the encounter take place in Lome. Gnassingbe switched the talks venue from Lome to Kara on Thursday and prevented a Nigerian plane carrying an advance party of Obasanjo's aides from landing in the Togolese capital.
Afraid Olusegun's aides might be packing head, was he?
This angered Obasanjo, who initially announced that he was cancelling plans to fly to Togo as part of the ECOWAS mission. Officials in the Nigerian capital Abuja said on Friday morning that Obasanjo had relented after receiving an apology from the Togolese government. But officials in Benin said Gnassingbe's insistence that the talks take place in Kara, his father's birth place, 400 km north of the capital, made Obasanjo dig his heels in and refuse to go.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005 1:04:19 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Thousands of demonstrators clashed with riot police in the capital for a second day Saturday, protesting against Togo's recent army-appointed president in what many are calling a coup d'etat. Three people were reportedly killed and dozens wounded when police fired at demonstrators. West African leaders, who are leading the international pressure on Togolese authorities to roll back their constitutional changes, have demanded Togo's leaders meet them in neighboring Niger on Saturday. An estimated 3,000 protesters hurled rocks and jagged pieces of metal at police, and set garbage fires to block their vehicles. Security forces fought back with tear gas, batons and stun grenades, attempting to quell a growing opposition against the appointment of President Faure Gnassingbe. Large fires with heavy smoke could be seen over parts of the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005 9:54:11 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
WASHINGTON - Pakistan would not object to India buying American-made F-16s if Islamabad is also permitted to acquire the sophisticated fighter jets, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington said on Friday. "As long as we are on the list for F-16s, it's all right if India gets them," Ambassador Jehangir Karamat told Reuters.
"We wouldn't have any problem because we have no problem with India buying defense equipment worldwide. We are no longer in an arms race with them," he said of Pakistan's South Asian nuclear rival.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
The comments seemed designed to open new political possibilities for advancing Pakistan's stalled 15-year quest for the F-16 fighters and to strike a contrast with India, which has opposed the sale to Islamabad.
But US officials said India's interest may not be serious and complicates Bush administration decision-making. "We don't want to create an arms race with our own sales in South Asia," one US official said, speaking anonymously.
"They'd much rather fly MiGs for some reason."
But Karamat, former chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: "We accept the (conventional arms) imbalance which is there between India and Pakistan. What we will do and continue to do is keep that imbalance at a state which we consider manageable from our point of view."
India, long dependent on Russian-made armaments, recently expressed interest in American-made military aircraft and top US defense firms are promoting their wares this week at Aero India, the industry air show in Bangalore. There, a senior executive with Lockheed Martin Corp. said his company is in talks to sell its C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft and P-3C Orion naval spy planes to India. India also has sought preliminary information in efforts to buy Lockheed's F-16 fighter jets. Under US law, Congress must approve government to government arms sales.
Diplomatic sources said India's interest in US fighters makes sense because ties between the two countries improved dramatically in recent years and sophisticated arms sales would add "ballast" to burgeoning trade.
But some US officials doubt India is serious about buying American, especially when there are other producers like France and Sweden, and when New Delhi remains concerned that American supplies could be interrupted by possible sanctions. They suspect India's interest is aimed at preventing Washington from selling to Islamabad.
India "has put the administration in a tough place. Does it sell to Pakistan and forgo a potentially lucrative deal with India, or is that Indian deal just a ploy to prevent arch nemesis Pakistan from getting them," one US official said, noting an Indian deal would be larger than an Pakistani deal. If Washington sold F-16s to both countries "that means we would be fueling a rivalry. It's very complicated," he added.
"Not as complicated as Balochistan, but complicted enough," he noted.
Lockheed is a major factor. US congressional sources told Reuters the defense contractor has warned that if F-16 sales to Pakistan are not approved, the F-16 production line, with key facilities in President George W. Bush's home state of Texas, will be shut down. A Lockheed spokesman could not be reached.
Some US lawmakers oppose F-16s to Pakistan because they feel the government is undemocratic and has not done enough to oppose Islamic militancy. But others say F-16s should be used to reward Islamabad for a major achievement, like peace with India in disputed Kashmir.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005 12:22:15 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Some US lawmakers oppose F-16s to Pakistan because they feel the government is undemocratic and has not done enough to oppose Islamic militancy. But others say F-16s should be used to reward Islamabad for a major achievement, like peace with India in disputed Kashmir.
Guess who does, and who doesn't have enough phosporus in their diet.
Some pretty interesting posts come from no-name posters, though the majority are simply dumped because they're either too goofy or too misspelled for comprehension. This guy does raise a point. It's a goofy point, but still a point...
While the case of a student suing his school on the grounds that summer homework ruined his vacation might not be the best use of the nation's overly burdened court system, the lad does have a bit of a point.
I'd certainly agree that it's a waste of the nation's overly burdened court system. I'd also wonder where the money for the suit is coming from. As for the child's point, I'd call it pretty infinitesimal, myself...
I'm just guessing here, but this young lad apparently is not growing up in a Chinese, Korean or Hindi immigrant household ...
On what grounds, exactly, do schools have the right to compel students to complete assignments during those times of the year when students are not under the school's legal authority?
I'd say on the grounds that the schools are charged with the responsibility of imparting an education to the little darlings. What would you say? Think real hard, now...
The school claims these requirements are not an undue imposition since they only apply to honors courses in which the plaintiff volunteered to participate.
Which, to my mind, would make them a less than adequate "imposition." If my child was lumped in with the dumb kids and not given anything to do that might strain his little mind, I'd be indignant...
While that might apply to this particular Wisconsin jurisdiction in question, it does not settle the matter on a broader philosophical level as some schools such as those in Prince William County, Virginia I wrote about way back in the mid 90's do not make it an honor's only requirement but rather mandate that all students do book reports and such over the summer.
Book reports! Quelle horreur! I can remember the agony of cranking out book reports when I was a lad in school. I would agonize over them for up to a half hour at a time! And that wasn't counting the hour or two it would take me to read the book! I can't begin to estimate the damage it must have done to my mind, if any...
"The subject about which this book report is about is..."
"And remember, kids, Mr. Google knows every word that was written about this book by someone else ..."
In the same spirit as that motivating Bill Clinton when he said he opposed tax cuts on the grounds Americans would not know how to spend their own money properly, educrats claim students not given assignments to do over the break would otherwise allow their brains to whither. What of it?
Educrats in this case are correct. Children are not fully formed adults, only smaller, who are capable of making their own decisions. That's why parents and the school systems are put in a position where they can make demands of the little darlings' time and attention, in the expectation of something like knowledge seeping into their little heads which will will then be available for use when they are grown up.
Since the brains belong to the students and under the custodianship of their parents, aren't they free to do with them as they see fit when school is not in session? Besides, other than basic reading, who uses most of what they learned in school anyway?
I'm sure that unsuccessful adults don't. Adults who're successful use all sorts of odd things they learned in school. If you compute your part of the check when you go to lunch, you're using the division skills you learned in 4th or 5th grade. If you compute the tip, you're using the multiplication tables you started to learn in 3rd grade. If you should happen to acquire a foreign language, you're using the language skills you acquired in grade school and hopefully developed through high school. And, yes, Virginia, you do use algebra when you get out of school if you take anything more complicated than modern dance in college.
Me, I use the calculator in my cell phone, just like all the cool kidz. Long division is for geeks.
The fool who wrote this clearly doesn't use anything he learned in school, assuming that he learned anything.
Maybe if schools did not devote so many resources to intellectually dubious pursuits such as diversity appreciation, environmental awareness, and indoctrination in evolution, schools would have more than enough time to teach those essentials education propagandists insist there isn't enough hours in the day (and hence the year) to teach.
I quite agree that there's too much time spent on diversity appreciation, environmental awareness, though not indoctrination in evolution paleontology would seem to support the idea pretty well, from what I've read, but then I possess more than just basic reading skills. Where I disagree is in how the time should be spent. Rather than packing the three R's into the time, I'd ensure they're taught in the time allocated for them, and I'd use the time freed up to teach additional math and foreign languages, to include Latin and Greek, plus geography. I'd split the warm milk concept of "social studies" back into history and civics and spend more time on each. And I'd make sure the little treasures got enough to do that they'd have to do a bit of work over the summer, too.
Lucky for us, the Catholic schools already do what Fred suggests. Even that Latin part.
For students still ensnared for whatever reasons in the clutches of the public education leviathan, these institutions serve as centers of indoctrination in the ideology of total state control.
Actually, I think they've become more dispensers of warm milk and gooey cookies than a leviathan. The mechanics of education are becoming so watered down that the system can't even pass on the indoctrination in the ideology of total state control.
For what other lesson do students learn from summertime homework than that, even when not on duty, their lives belong to those running the New World Order?
There could be lots of reasons, to include bible study, if you want to go that route, which I would't. The mere fact of making them do work doesn't dictate the content. But it does give them the idea that people have to do more than just the barely required minimum to get by if they want to make a success of themselves.
I was being flippant before, but now I'm serious. Kids have so much MORE raw knowlege they need to know by the end of high school now, especially in the math and science areas. And it seems to me they spend much less time studying and more time "saving the whales" and producing multimedia presentations on diversity...
There are no short cuts. You either learn or you get left behind. This fellow got left behind and hasn't figured it out yet.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Left behind? they're all left behind these days. When the professional educators dumbed down studies and scores so everyone graduates with a piece of paper, then the kids who could master circa 1960's courses at the 12th grade level are now just being challenged by 9th grade materials today for that graduate diploma. See, say the educators, so many now qualify. Its the old practice of debasing the coin. The king would begin adding alloy to the gold or silver till the point was reached that the coin was the alloy and not the original metal and of far less value.
#2
Bull. My oldest is a junior in a Catholic high school honors program. I cringe when I see some of the details of the math and science and other courses he's taking. A lot of it is stuff I never saw until college. And he has had summer homework (typically one or two books to read and a paper to write) every summer for as long as I can remember. My youngest is in 8th grade -- his last year in Catholic elementary school. He too has had summer reading routinely. And there's a test that counts just a few days after arriving back at school in September.
I'm not saying that there aren't big problems out there, but I hear parents in my area complaining and they have good schools available if they can afford it. And they have expensive SUVs, so if they can't afford it, where are their priorities?
You don't even need to bother to try to improve the public schools if you're not even going to do your parenting. I know bright, affluent kids in my area who are wasting away their lives on instant messaging, computer games, and hanging out at the mall. Their parents don't even know what they're studying at school or doing on-line or doing at the mall. They are free to fail and they do.
"For what other lesson do students learn from summertime homework than that, even when not on duty, their lives belong to those running the New World Order?"
That's right, MY kids learn that, even when not on duty, their lives belong to ME. When I've finished educating them to MY standards for a high school degree, then they are free to fail. Not before then.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 16:07 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"My oldest is a junior in a Catholic high school.."
Fine, let me clarify - public schools. The Catholics haven't appeared to have been swayed by the hip-in nuances of education theory implemented in the last quarter century in the public schools.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has sharply criticised the US Secretary of State during a speech to launch his party's general election campaign.
[Mugabe] said his government would continue to co-operate and forge closer relations with Libya and China, saying: "The sun rises in the east."
Speaking at a rally, Mr Mugabe said Condoleezza Rice was a girl born out of slave ancestry who should know "that the white man is not a friend".
"I prefer to think of the white man as a source of free boodle for my friends," he added.
Ms Rice has previously branded Zimbabwe an "outpost of tyranny". It is the first time Mr Mugabe has responded to the comment, which also named Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. A banner said 31 March poll would be an "anti-Blair election", in reference to the UK prime minister.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
02/12/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Mugabe launches election campaign by bashing US, UK
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.
CLINTON, N.Y. - The head of a gender studies program at 
Here's another reason why some Democrats are fretting over installing antiwar former presidential candidate Howard Dean as chair of the Democratic National Committee. He might cede national defense to the Republicans. 
The United States slammed Myanmar's military junta on Friday for arresting several pro-democracy leaders and prohibiting groups from commemorating a key pre-independence event.
Thousands of demonstrators clashed with riot police in the capital for a second day Saturday, protesting against Togo's recent army-appointed president in what many are calling a coup d'etat. Three people were reportedly killed and dozens wounded when police fired at demonstrators. West African leaders, who are leading the international pressure on Togolese authorities to roll back their constitutional changes, have demanded Togo's leaders meet them in neighboring Niger on Saturday. An estimated 3,000 protesters hurled rocks and jagged pieces of metal at police, and set garbage fires to block their vehicles. Security forces fought back with tear gas, batons and stun grenades, attempting to quell a growing opposition against the appointment of President 
While the case of a 
