Former Vice President Al Gore has been hit by new allegations of sexual assault. This time, it's two more massage therapists bringing the charges.
The former VP is already in hot water, fighting abuse claims in Portland, where another masseuse said Gore groped her in '06 and asked her to perform a "chakra release" (massage-speak for "hand job".) He denies everything.
The new allegations are said to have taken place at two hotels - one in Beverly Hills in 2007, when Gore was in Hollywood for the Oscars, the other in Tokyo in 2008.
A source from the luxury hotel in Beverly Hills told The Enquirer: "The therapist claimed that when they were alone, Gore shrugged off a towel and stood naked in front of her." He then propositioned her for a sexual act, according to The Enquirer.
Molly Hagerty, the Portland victim, has also recently piped up with some new evidence: a pair of stained black pants and the remains of some candy supposedly gobbled by Gore.
Two men who were apparently trying to take an unusual thrill ride were seriously injured in an explosion at a shop that builds and services race cars in Washington state.
Fire Chief Dean Klinger told the Skagit Valley Herald the men put about four gallons of methanol in a 55-gallon barrel in the parking lot Sunday night, sat on top and lit it for a "barrel ride." Klinger says, "Apparently it was supposed to slide across the parking lot like a rocket. Instead, it blew up."
He says one end of the barrel flew 120 feet.
The men were responsive when paramedics arrived at Funk Racing. They were taken to a local hospital, then flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with severe burns.
#6
Wouldn't be any imbibed alcohol involved you suppose?
Weelll?
Methanol IS alcohol, (Not the kind you can drink)
So you could easily say "Alcohol Related".
And be entirely accurate.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/21/2010 15:40 Comments ||
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#7
On the not-so-funny side of this: a co-worker is a fire-person ( don't even think about calling her a fireman) related this afternoon that the one w/ 95% burn coverage died earlier today; the other, with about 75% is also not expected to make it.
Might be funny to laugh at this stupidity, but they are leaving behind family.
And yes, Funk Racing is the correct name.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Around 520 people have died in Belgium since April in a heat wave which has claimed scores of lives in southern and eastern Europe.
Between April 1 and July 4, a total of 520 people died across the country, said Bianca Cox, a scientific collaborator at the Scientific Institute of Public Health in Belgium, which provides research on public health issues.
It is not clear yet why they died, but researchers speculate it could be linked to the heat and lower concentrations of ozone levels, Cox told CNN.
Lower ozone levels? But I thought it was high ozone concentrations that led to lung problems. Perhaps the problem is low ozone in the upper atmosphere? But I thought the southern polar hole in the ozone had mysteriously healed itself when no one was looking... *sigh* It's so hard to keep track of the latest environmental panic.
The deaths were mainly among those 80 and older, she said, and many already had underlying conditions such as heart and respiratory problems. The elderly and those with health problems can be particularly vulnerable to hot weather.
The heat wave across much of Europe is also causing crops to wither, forest fires to ignite and roads to melt, while refrigerators and fans are buckling in the searing sun.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
BS. Except for one week it has been cooler than normal and that week it was _far_ cooler than during the 2003 heat wave.
#2
The heat wave across much of Europe is also causing crops to wither, forest fires to ignite and roads to melt, while refrigerators and fans are buckling in the searing sun.
#3
Me, too, thinks they're confused about the ozone, TW. At the surface level, ozone is a major contributor to smog (bad for the lungs). What about the humidity? That will affect breathing also (in fact my Dad went into the hospital last Sunday due in part to shortness of breath - very hot and humid this summer).
#4
Here's the original CNN story. It looks like the Iran PressTV reporter is a bit over-excited. It would be useful to compare the death numbers over a comparable period in each of the last 5-10 years. JFM provides a bit of what we need, above.
There were 300 deaths in the last week of June and the first week of July alone, a week in which Belgium had unusually high temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher for seven days in a row, Cox said.
For three days that week, the country also had "critical" levels of ozone, she said.
For six days so far in July, temperatures at Brussels International Airport have topped 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), with a maximum of 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit), CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said. He added that the average high for this time of year is only 22 degrees Celsius (72 degrees Fahrenheit).
Ward said neither April nor May was terribly warm as a whole, with the highest temperature during either month about 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit).
What I said concerns France (and more concretely Paris who is only 140 miles from the Belgian border) but I doubt it is that different over Belgium. Also if you look at the numbers from CNN something doesn't add up as 22C is given as the average high for June and then we are told that they had 26 in May and that wasn't unusually hot.
BTW: Yesterday, you asked if there were other French like me. Don't know but I remind you that I am not a real French but a Pied Noir.
#8
"For six days so far in July, temperatures at Brussels International Airport have topped 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), with a maximum of 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit)"
86F? 91F? And they've got hundreds dead from the heat?
Jeezus harry christmas! It's already been over 100F and humid here a couple of days this year (and is forecast to be again this weekend) and I haven't heard of anyone dying from the heat. Somebody wanna explain that to me?
(BTW, 100F is a tad hot for this area, even in summer and even in August, our hottest month. It's 91F right now - 1:30 p.m. - and should reach 97F or 98F this afternoon.)
"while refrigerators and fans are buckling in the searing sun"
I think I see their problem - try bringing the refrigerators and fans indoors, out of the sun. Yeesh.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2010 13:41 Comments ||
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#9
French or Pied Noire, you are special to us, JFM.
Barbara, most homes and some offices do not have air conditioning.
#10
I know, tw. I used to live in Germany, and I remember the few days one summer that were hot (by their standards).
I also remember growing up without air conditioning. Yeah, it's hot, but we at least had electric fans (don't want to even try to imagine life in the South before electricity!). AND I remember the summer not too many years ago when I was laid off, my A/C unit was broken, and I couldn't afford to replace it. That sucked - no argument here.
But hundreds of people dying from temperatures under 90F? There's got to be something more to it.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2010 14:03 Comments ||
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#11
AC is for the weak. The Lord sends heat and water to make us strong. Put on your pith helmet and buck up, it's only for 8 months of the year.
Nao! Ima go kill 'skeeters with my rubber-band, it's awesome sport. Later perhaps, I'll go to the basement and work on the Panama Canal.
#12
Somebody wanna explain that to me?
I'll make a couple of stabs at 'splainin'.
-- It takes several days to acclimate to high temperatures. Sudden spikes in the heat index are especially stressful to the susceptible. If the weather fluctuates constantly between heat waves and normal temps, some people will never acclimatize.
-- Elderly are extremely susceptible to heat-related injuries. Unless you've had a lot of experience dealing with the elderly in hot weather, you just can't appreciate their obliviousness to levels of heat that are immediately acted upon by younger people. Kindly refrain from anecdotes about octogenarians completing the Death Valley Marathon last week, there are always statistical outliers and flat liars. The percentage of elderly people (in the Euro and US population) is probably at its highest point in human history.
-- Some civilized environments are constructed so as to maximize heat stress during heat waves. I will bet most of the parts of the USA which regularly suffer from temps of 100 and max humidity also have countless places where A/C is installed & running, from homes of friends & relations to stores, public buildings, cars & urban 'cooling centers.' This is not likely to exist in many parts of northern Europe where a very similar wave of heat-related deaths happened in France a few years back. Even if a person is in an air-conditioned (or cooler) environment for just an hour or two out of a single 24-hour period during a heat wave, their ability to tolerate heat is greatly enhanced. I read somewhere that in many parts of Europe people only drink tea, coffee, bottled water, etc. & would never drink plain tap water. A population with habits like that would tend to have many people always on the verge of dehydration. After a wave of heat deaths in the elderly years back, Chicago instituted a public health program to put notices on local media, encourage people to check on elderly neighbors & relatives, and move the susceptible to cooling centers for a few hours a day to stave off extra heat-related deaths. Also notice that during the immediate aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, people over 70 were the most likely to die - of heat stress and dehydration. And this was in a part of the country habituated to high heat, humidity, and widespread availability of A/C (until the power failed for weeks at a time.)
Without the widespread use of A/C, I think much of the US South would never have developed economically to its current level.
#14
But hundreds of people dying from temperatures under 90F? It makes sense to me, knowing what I know about heat related injuries, changes in medical care, and the shifts in population.
"I read somewhere that in many parts of Europe people only drink tea, coffee, bottled water, etc. & would never drink plain tap water."
I can sure testify to that! When I lived there, it was a bitch trying to get a glass of plain ol' water (not mineral water or seltzer water, but just plain in-a-glass-out-of-the-tap water). I quickly learned the German word for tap water (leitungswasser), then found I had to specify that I wanted it from the cold water tap, not the hot. I saw no point in paying for water when their tap water was perfectly good, and still don't now that I'm back home.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2010 14:22 Comments ||
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#16
Have they tried ice cubes and cold beer? Could try making sun tea, clouded up just 10 minutes after I set'm out.
#17
Barbara, most homes and some offices do not have air conditioning.
And what's worse, they're designed to actively trap heat in the winter.
Posted by: Things From Snowy Mountains ||
07/21/2010 15:01 Comments ||
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#18
Whoops, I let something important go without saying. The source article is a bit of PR for the religion of anthropogenic global-warmism. If the Belgians were serious about immediately reducing the death toll from whatever heat waves they have, the way has been clearly marked (& discussed) above. Whatever AGW has advocated to expiate whatever AGW type sins we may have committed, will have no positive effect in the lifetime of anyone now living and will have many adverse effects, such as crippling national economies and spiking the cost of living.
#19
"I read somewhere that in many parts of Europe people only drink tea, coffee, bottled water, etc. & would never drink plain tap water."
In Germany, at least, they are still convinced that tap water is unsafe. Tea and coffee are made with boiled water. Perhaps water drawn from the rivers is indeed unsafe -- do the Swiss chemical companies still dump directly? -- but where we lived in the Taunus hills above Frankfurt, the municipal tap water was drawn directly from some of the springs the region's health spas made famous... and yet the locals refused to drink tap water, unboiled.
#20
When I was very young (1950-51) we lived in St Johns Newfoundland, one summer they had a "Heat Wave" temperatures got all the way UP to 70F and people were falling out with heatstroke.
Dad said it was because they didn't know how to dress for warm weather, many were still wearing wool shirts, long Johns and didn't take them off.
We (Southerners) were running around in light shirts and shorts and were comfortable.
They thought our "Dress" was outlandish.
Same here.
Bet they're still wearing "Traditional" clothes.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/21/2010 15:49 Comments ||
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#21
Also Belgians have not adapted to heat. Their houses aren't built the right way, they don't open and close windows at the right moments, they eat and drink the wrong things.
BTw: my family recipe of lemonade.
For four big glasses.
One part lemon juice, three parts of water, the gratings of a lemon and a stick of cynamon. Mix and let in the fridge for an hour. Add just enough sugar to neutralize the lemon's acid. Juice must be neither acid nor sweet. Another hour uin the fridge. Filter. Put in the freezer until half of the juice is liquid and half is frozen. Serve and drink through straws.
Now comes the crucial difference between a Belgian lemon juice (boo, hiss) and a civilized one (cheers): ice requires 82 times more calories to melt than same quantity of water to heat one degree. So you drink the liquid part, let melt a bit, drink. You will enjoy ice cold drink well after the "Belgian juice" is luke warm.
#22
Without the widespread use of A/C, I think much of the US South would never have developed economically to its current level.
If you follow the availability of AC and the overall population shift west and south, you will find a pattern. Based upon the 2000 census - Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
However, you'll also note that Dallas, Phoenix, Vegas, Atlanta and other large metropolitan islands existed as well as a good size population outside those definitions well before AC was a common commodity. All AC was to create dynamic growth outside the normal population growth. People coped.
#23
I saw no point in paying for water when their tap water was perfectly good, and still don't now that I'm back home.
To Barbara Skolaut. German tap water is OK but there are parts of the world eg Taiwan where they see no point in purifying water when 99% of it will be used for washing clothes, showers, or toilets. So tap water is NOT safe to drink. If you want drinkable water you must buy bottled water or fill a recipient at a "water station".
#24
Sounds like a keeper recipe JFM, mind if I give it a try?
We do iced tea out here. Gallon/2litres of water, three tea bags, place in the sun for 3 hours to brew, chill in the refrigerator, serve over much ice. I like to garnish with crushed mint and flavorful honey according to tea used - my wife prefers the sweet tea but that much sugar gives me the jitters. I have done this with many kinds of tea, herbal teas are great and usually do without the caffeine.
#25
"German tap water is OK but there are parts of the world eg Taiwan where they see no point in purifying water when 99% of it will be used for washing clothes, showers, or toilets."
You've got that right, JFM. I'd say it most of the world (outside of Western Europe, Australia, probably Japan, and North America minus Mexico). Most places I've travelled have had treated municipal water, but I've been some places that don't. (As my dad always said, don't use the ice cubes either.) There, I drank either bottled water or something else in a sealed container. My (military) boyfriend told me about brushing his teeth with Gatorade when he was on TDY in Turkey. (They were someplace they couldn't get bottled water.)
True story (that probably has some meaning, but I won't speculate what it is): I worked with some native German ladies when I lived there. They thought I was nuts to drink from the tap, and didn't mind saying so, but I saw them use tap water (which was all that was available at the time and place) to take an aspirin or some other medication. When I pointed that out to them, they said that was different - the pills magically made it OK. Go figure.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2010 18:14 Comments ||
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#26
Not all of Australia has treated municipal water. Port Douglas, for example, at least 5 years ago. I was shocked when the hotel told me to brush with bottled water.
#27
When Mr. Wife was tootling round the non-First World, he either brushed his teeth with bottled water or scotch/gin/rum -- whatever appeared safely sealed in the hotel room refrigerator. A friend of mine related how she watched the hotel maid in Egypt clean the sink and bathroom cup with the rag she'd just used to clean the toilet... and left it all sparkling, my friend said.
[Arab News] Reports about a deterioration in Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's health are categorically false, his information minister said on Tuesday, two days after a US newspaper said Mubarak was dying of cancer.
"The president is in good health and has been given a clean bill of health by his doctors, following his recent gallbladder surgery in Germany," Information Minister Anas El Fekky said in a statement to Reuters.
"We obviously understand the interest in this issue given Egypt's geopolitical weight, and the president's role as a force for stability in the Middle East. However, the media reports published on the president's health are based on nothing more than rumor and speculation without any factual basis whatsoever, including a recent report citing anonymous intelligence sources."
An article in The Washington Times on Sunday said Mubarak was thought by most Western intelligence agencies to be suffering from terminal cancer affecting his stomach and pancreas.
It cited a central European intelligence officer as saying the 82-year-old leader could have less than a year to live.
Rumours about Mubarak's health have rattled markets in the past because he has no designated successor. He has not picked a vice president, the post he held before taking office in 1981.
The president has returned to a regular schedule of meetings with visiting officials since having surgery at Germany's Heidelberg University Hospital in March. On Sunday he met Palestinian and Israeli leaders and other officials.
He also appeared on Egyptian television on Tuesday attending a graduation ceremony for the Egyptian police academy. Television footage showed Mubarak standing to pin medals on graduates.
The Washington Times report was the latest of several reports questioning the president's health.
The Economist published an extensive report this week on Egypt which described his health as "not good."
Egypt dismissed last week a report in Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper that Mubarak would travel abroad for treatment.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
And Ariel Sharon is as fit as a fiddle.
Posted by: American Delight ||
07/21/2010 0:16 Comments ||
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#2
Marx, too, is recovering - under the name of Obama.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A Nigerian Islamic group on Tuesday challenged a suit filed by a government agency against a senator, Ahmed Sani Yerima, under fire over his marriage to a 13-year-old Egyptian girl.
The Registered Trustees of Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria is seeking an order of the Federal High Court to restrain any government agency from interfering with the rights of the senator.
Uwa said a Muslim has the liberty to "even marry a child in the womb of her mother."
The Islamic body propagates Islamic laws and defends the Sharia.
Defendants in the suit are the government-backed National Human Rights Commission, National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP), and senate president and the speaker of the lower house of parliament.
Investigators of NAPTIP last May questioned Yerima, ex-governor of Muslim-dominated northwest Zamfara State, over the marriage.
Yerima, 49, who provided investigators with an affidavit of marriage from the Sharia Court of Appeal in Abuja, slammed the Nigerian Child Rights Act of 2003 which he said "must have been enacted in error".
The lawmaker said that he and his government had rejected the law -- which forbids marriage to anyone under 18 -- when he was governor between 1999 and 2007.
The Islamic body is seeking court declaration that Yerima's rights to privacy and practice his religion have been violated.
"We are saying that the honorable senator, as a Nigerian, fundamentally as a Muslim, (that) the constitution guarantees him the right to practice his religion... the way and manner it is prescribed," the body's lawyer, Etigwe Uwa, told journalists after a court session on Tuesday.
"His religion allows him to marry four wives without restriction on age," he said.
Uwa said the section of the Child Rights Act which forbids marriage of a girl under the age of 18 contravenes the country's constitution which guarantees citizen's rights to practice his religion.
Uwa said a Muslim has the liberty to "even marry a child in the womb of her mother."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
What next: buying long term option contracts on young girls at the Chicago Board of Trade?
#1
Easy solution: let US arms retailers sell on the open market in Britain. Thus the government could buy "off the rack" at their local gun store, rather than having to go through a bunch of hoo-hah to procure weapons. Free enterprise.
Irish homeowners can now legally use guns to defend themselves if their homes are attacked under new legislation. The new home defense bill has moved the balance of rights back to the house owner if his home is broken into "where it should always have been", say top Irish police. The police association of superintendents and inspectors, the AGSI, stated that "the current situation, which legally demands a house owner retreat from an intruder, was intolerable".
The new bill was published by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern yesterday. Under the bill homeowners will be allowed to use "reasonable" force against intruders to defend themselves, others or their property. This includes lethal force, depending on the circumstances.
Justice Minister Dermot Ahern stated that house owners could use guns in self-defense, especially if the intruders were armed but said it would ultimately be a matter for the courts to resolve. The bill also clarifies that a house owner will not be required to retreat from an intruder. and that intruders injured as a result of reasonable force won't be able to sue the house owner.
"The bill is welcomed because it aims to clarify the entitlements of a homeowner when faced with the situation where an uninvited intruder has entered the home," AGSI vice-president Dan Hanley told the Irish Examiner. "The bill aims to shift the balance of rights back to the homeowner where it should always have been. It is intolerable a homeowner should be compelled to retreat in front of an intruder who has entered the home and who may have malign intentions towards the homeowner, the family or the home owner's property."
Hanley added: "It is ridiculous to suggest the bill, which attempts to redress a serious legal imbalance, would provide a license to kill or a 'have-a-go' charter for homeowners, the vast majority of whom will continue to act with good sense and in a peaceful way." Minister Ahern also dismissed the suggestion the bill was a "license to kill". He stated it merely allowed for lethal force provided it was justifiable.
Rural Link, the national network of community groups in rural Ireland welcomed the bill, saying it was "sensible legislation giving much needed clarity to homeowners on their rights when confronted by intruders". The Irish Council for Civil Liberties however, stated it would inspect the bill to establish that it was "human-rights compliant".
The need for new legislation became evident after an intruder, John Ward, was shot dead while on the land and dwelling area of Mayo farmer, Padraig Nally. Nally was convicted of manslaughter, but his conviction was later overturned after a public outcry.
Burglaries in Ireland increased from 23,600 in 2007 to 26,800 in 2009. Violent burglaries rose from 255 to 363 in the same period.
#3
When the writer Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article about immigration for National Review, for example, blogger Ed Kilgore didnt even bother to grapple with Hansons arguments. Instead Kilgore dismissed Hansons piece out of hand as the kind of Old White Guy cultural reaction that is at the heart of the Tea Party Movement. Its very close in spirit to the classic 1970s racist tome, The Camp of the Saints, where White Guys struggle to make up their minds whether to go out and murder brown people or just give up.
Absolutely Einsteinian. No wonder these guys want to tell us what to do.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/21/2010 6:26 Comments ||
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#6
Amazingly open and blatant about it aren't they? Tho it's not a surprise I'm shocked they'd so freely show how much disdain for the 1st amendment and for freedom of the press they have.
Posted by: Jefferson ||
07/21/2010 11:01 Comments ||
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#7
Taylor Marsh, a harsh progressive, asks what the big deal is -- of course everyone knows that the JournoList members were progressive, so what's the problem if they start labeling random conservatives as racists, etc?
This is how they're going to try and bury the story -- well, those journalists are just acting on their beliefs which they have a right to do, don't they. Nothing to see here, move along.
In the meantime, they had a major role, perhaps not the deciding one, but a major role in getting Bambi elected.
Name a single Republican who would have survived a revelation that his/her pastor was a race-baiting, bile-spewing dingbat. Wouldn't ever happen. Hillary wouldn't have survived it. No moderate Democrat would have survived.
But Bambi? He got through it thanks in large part to the JournoList members.
That's the story they don't want you to see.
It isn't that they 'avowed and openly progressive reporters', as Mr. Marsh would like us to think about it, but that these avowed, openly progressive reporters used the power they had to hide and obfuscate the truth about a man who is now President. Did they do that for principle? Did they do it because they received fat checks from the Open Society Initiative? Did they do it because they were hoping for a payoff in the future, a government appointment, a new source of power?
That's what people are going to be asking, regardless of what Mr. Marsh wants us to think. High time, too.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2010 11:27 Comments ||
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#8
I hope you're right Steve.
Posted by: Jefferson ||
07/21/2010 12:23 Comments ||
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#9
Very stupid of the Journolisters if their game plan involves moving journalism to a gov't-funded public trust model. Sure, they may still be able to get gazillions from Buffett (he already is a major WaPo shareholder, although that was, once upon a time, a purely financial bet of his), but it seems unlikely that an entire class of media organizations will get public funding or public trust status when their ideological bias is so naked.
The journolisters need to choose: either keep up the cabal and continue suffering slow financial asphyxiation in the marketplace, or shed the bias and get public trust status.
Thieves made an Army wife's move back to town a bad one, taking her furniture, clothing, television and keepsakes from a moving van. But the victim, Brittany Adair, discovered that for every hard-hearted person, there are a dozen kind ones. Donations of money, furniture and food came pouring in after El Pasoans read about her misfortune.
She and her 18-month-old son, Matthew, are awaiting her husband, a Fort Bliss soldier scheduled to return from Iraq in November. Adair spent Monday crying and wondering how she would be able to replace clothing, a baby crib, bedding and other personal items. On Tuesday, after a story about her appeared in the El Paso Times, she heard people talking about her on radio station KHRO-AM. To her surprise, they pledged donations to help her.
Mrs. Adair's mover said she chose a level of theft insurance that did not cover the full cost of her belongings. Maj. Myles Caggins said the reason the Army did not cover costs of Adair's move from Houston to El Paso was because it has a policy limiting each soldier and his family to one paid move per Army post. He said the Army had already covered Adair's moving expenses once.
This was Adair's second move to El Paso. She moved to Houston shortly after her husband was deployed to Iraq in November 2009.
#2
Usually druggies. Best to dress them up in a Federale police uniforms and leave them standing on some corner, preferably in a cartel neighborhood, on the other side of the bridge in Juarez.
[Dawn] As many as 17 labourers working in powerloom units were injured when police resorted to tear-gas shelling and baton-charge to disperse more than 5,000 workers demonstrating for a pay raise on Tuesday.
The police also resorted to aerial firing when the protesters pelted their vehicles and personnel with stones in Faizabad after policemen tried to stop them from moving to Clock Tower Chowk. Ghulam Mohammad Abad SHO was reportedly injured when a stone thrown by protesters hit him.
Responding to the protest call given by the Labour Qaumi Movement (LQM), powerloom workers from Sadhar, Faizabad, Jhang Road, Samundri Road, Ghulam Mohammad Abad and other areas took out rallies carrying banners inscribed with slogans in favour of their demands.
The workers also sought government intervention to press powerloom owners for raising their wages. Because of the rallies, massive traffic jams were witnessed on almost all main city roads.
The labourers staged rallies despite the imposition of Section 144 in the district by DCO Nasim Sadiq, banning all sorts of public gathering on Monday after the killing of two Christian brothers who were accused of blasphemy.
The LQM claimed scores of labourers were injured in police firing and over 100 taken into custody. Police denied the claim.
The protesters also tried to set a weaving factory on fire in Sadhar after the owners refused to shut it down.
The factory guards reportedly resorted to aerial firing to scare off the furious workers. In an ensuing scuffle between protesters and the guards four labourers were injured.
The protesters dispersed as the DCO held talks with them and assured them that their demands would be met.
The DCO has convened a meeting of representatives of labourers and factory owners at his office on Wednesday (today) to settle the issue.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2010 00:00 ||
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The departing leader of the United Nations agency that battles internal corruption issued a scathing assessment of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's record on accountability, fueling defensive remarks from Ban's spokesman Tuesday.
In a confidential memo to Ban obtained by the Associated Press, outgoing Undersecretary-General Inga-Britt Ahlenius accused Ban of systematically undermining her authority and weakening the U.N.'s oversight functions so much that it is becoming irrelevant.
Her criticism represents an unusually vociferous though not unprecedented attack on the U.N. chief's leadership and his unfulfilled pledge to restore a U.N. reputation tarnished by financial corruption and sexual abuses by U.N. peacekeepers.
"There is no transparency, there is lack of accountability," said Ahlenius in her end-of-assignment report to Ban upon the end of her five-year term as head of the U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services. The office, set up in 1994, is supposed to operate independently and has three main divisions for investigations, audits and inspections.
"Rather than supporting the internal oversight, which is the sign of strong leadership and good governance, you have strived to control it, which is to undermine its position," the former Swedish auditor general wrote to Ban. "I regret to say that the Secretariat is now in a process of decay. It is not only falling apart. ... It is drifting into irrelevance."
Ahlenius also said Ban and his senior advisers have blocked her efforts to fill key vacant posts within her office, causing "damage to the integrity of a core process" at the U.N. and have taken other steps, such as trying to set up a competing investigations unit, that undermined her tenure.
"I am concerned that we are in a process of decline and reduced relevance of the organization," she wrote in the memo, which was first reported by the Washington Post. "This inevitably risks weakening the United Nations' possibilities to fulfill its mandate."
Ban's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, said "many pertinent facts were overlooked or misrepresented" in Ahlenius' memo.
"This secretary-general, like his recent predecessors, has had to strike a balance between acting as a chief administrative officer of the United Nations on the one hand, and providing truly global leadership on the other," Nambiar wrote in a response. "So he has chosen the third path of his predecessor, encouraging nepotism, corruption, lubricious hypocrisy and a singular focus in creating world-wide taxation to pay for it."
#1
Is this suggesting that the anti-israeli posture is really just an advertising front to garner revenue donations in order to fund the graft and corruption of the UN employees which is now so widespread it eats the operational budget to the point the UN can no longer troll for dollars? I guess when an entity can no longer pay off the cambodian boys club it is in trouble.
#4
Is this suggesting that the anti-israeli posture is really just an advertising front to garner revenue donations...
Chip in anti-America and you've described how AI and HRW stay in business. The problem for the UN is that there's not a large enough world economy to sustain 'donations' large enough to keep it in a manner it thinks it should be accustomed to. Shrinking down to a manageable NGO is not in their plan for empire building.
#5
Then there's the Iron Law at work (from Wikipedia)
American science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle has proposed a theory he refers to as "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy", which states: "In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."
This robust tendency is purported to operate to the effect that:
"...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."
Authorities in the US territory of Guam have turned away a ship after thousands of spiders overflowed from its cargo. Hundreds of large spiders and thousands of smaller ones scurried into the open when dock hands began offloading insulation materials from the ship, the MV Altavia.
The cargo was returned to the ship, and the Guam Department of Agriculture turned the vessel away. It was last in a South Korean port. "When you get this many from this many various sizes, it's definitely an infestation," said the department's director Joseph Torres.
Officials said the spider was a type not normally found on Guam and there was concern they could damage the island's environment. "We don't want it here," said Mr Torres. However, the types of spider were not identified.
The ship was carrying housing units and accessories to make a village for up to 18,000 temporary workers. 18,000 temporary workers? Exactly what are they building on Guam that needs that many workers? Joe, we need a on-site report.
Guam customs officers had cleared the Altavia to unload its cargo but the containers were ordered back on the ship.
#2
Those spiders had to be eating something besides each other if there were that many of them. So if there was a spider infestation of that size, then there must also been a spider food infestation that was even larger.
#3
"Exactly what are they building on Guam" > the Locals I've personally spoken or discussed this with don't say anything new than what has already been described or inferred on the Net. CORPORATE = CONTRACTOR PROFIT MOTIVES ASIDE, IMO Guam doesn't need that many foreign temporary workers given how many Locals per se needs jobs themselves.
UNLESS the USMC, etc. are only expected to stay a SHORT TIME on Guam after any withdrawal from Oki, in relation to CONUS-based PROMPT GLOBAL STRIKE, SPACE = LUNAR PLANES, + OFFSHORE BASING OPTIONS [MOAB = Rapid Reaction Forces FROM the US].
IOW, POST-2030 or 2050? "POLITICALLY CORRECT/DENIABLE" US STRATEGIC = GEOPOL WITHDRAWAL from ASIA + WESTPAC, etc. back towards HAWAII STATE + US WEST COAST/CONUS???
CHINA PERTS + BLOGGERS > broadly or specifical
ly recognize that the USMC redux from OKI will induce JAPAN's GOVT [+ ROK, etc.] to DEV INDIGENOUS NUCLEAR WEAPONS + NUC MILITARY ARSENALS [ Treaty?] WHICH CHINA NOR OTHER ASIAN NATIONS INCLUD US ALLIES ARE READY FOR YET.
#4
The "18,000" is just a Number among many in GOVT. BUSNESS + ECON DECISION-MAKING > IMO, the more important factor is GUAM's FORMAL POLITICAL RELATIONSHIP WID THE USA, i.e. as a de facto US STATE VERSUS SOVEREIGN NATION INDEPEDENT FROM THE US.
Anything in-between is just ELECTION-HAPPY GOVT-CRITTERS + PROFIT CAPITALISTS, ETC. PLAYING MIND GAMES WID GOD OR THE INEVITABLE.
Robert Weinstein got his pistols back after a hearing Wednesday morning in Broward Circuit Court. On Monday, at a hearing Weinstein, 85, did not attend, Broward Circuit Judge Dale Ross signaled which way he was leaning.
Ross questioned Mila Schwartzreich, the lawyer representing the Broward Sheriff's Office, about the weapons seizure. "Just as a kind of a query, what legal authority does the sheriff or anybody have to walk in to someone's home and take property?" Ross said. "Don't we call that, in the business, stealing?"
Schwartzreich said state statute allowed the taking of property when there is a breach of the peace, which Ross again questioned. "Breach of the peace was when Mr. Weinstein threatened suicide," Schwartzreich said.
Ross did not seem satisfied. "What happens is Mr. Policeman shows up at your house and routinely confiscates property," Ross said. He called the sheriff's deputies' actions "well intended," but added: "You don't really have authority to take them. And now, lo and behold, they won't give 'em back."
The court is the only entity that can inquire into Weinstein's mental fitness, he said. If Ross decides the pistols should be returned, Schwartzreich said the sheriff would have no objection. Ross said: "If the guy does the worst, the agency can say, 'We didn't give 'em back, the court did.' And that's what we're doing here."
Weinstein, of Pompano Beach, was mourning Dana, his wife of 61 years who had recently died, when his weapons were taken for safekeeping by the Sheriff's Office in February. According to a BSO report, he told authorities he "wanted to blow his head off."
The retired bar and restaurant owner was upset because three weeks after his wife's death, her remains were not yet at the funeral home that was to bury them. BSO helped resolve that issue and Mrs. Weinstein's remains were buried.
Weinstein was taken to a hospital for medical evaluation. He was not arrested, nor was he institutionalized against his will under the Baker Act.
Barry Butin, on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, represented Weinstein for free. Weinstein said he turned to the ACLU for help when he thought his civil rights had been violated. An ACLU spokesman said he believes this is the first time in the organization's 90-year history that it has helped a gun owner retrieve his weapons from law enforcement.
#1
Well, if we have free-wheeling abortion rights, why then should a deputy have the right to prevent one from killing thee self?
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
07/21/2010 14:08 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Very proactive of the sheriff, but couldn't he have just cut his wrists? And what were to become of the guns? Kept forever? Raises many more questions than answers.
#3
The hidden problem here is "tandem death", and what to do about it. It is notorious that all too often, when one partner of an older married couple dies, the other partner is so stressed that they also die, or commit suicide, usually in a few days to a month later. (BTW this happened in my neighborhood just a few months ago. Natural death 3 days after spouse death.)
This problem, along with "grandmother death", when a grandchild graduates from high school or college, are so common that there are some proposals that such people be put on "health watches", until out of the hazard window.
This would include real time cardio monitoring, preventative drugs against sudden heart failure and stroke, keeping a defibrillator and oxygen handy, etc.
It also means keeping them on a suicide watch, for their family to take control of any firearms, issuing their medicines a dose at a time, and a willingness to call 911 if anything odd or ominous happens.
#4
An ACLU spokesman said he believes this is the first time in the organization's 90-year history that it has helped a gun owner retrieve his weapons from law enforcement.
And like Skokie, they'll parade this around for decades to show their 'balance'.
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.
Former Vice President Al Gore has been hit by new allegations of sexual assault. This time, it's two more massage therapists bringing the charges.
Two men who were apparently trying to take an unusual thrill ride were seriously injured in an explosion at a shop that builds and services race cars in Washington state.
[Arab News] Reports about a deterioration in Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's health are categorically false, his information minister said on Tuesday, two days after a US newspaper said Mubarak was dying of cancer.
