SICK DAYS---We will no longer accept a doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
PERSONAL DAYS---Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturday and Sunday.
LUNCH BREAK---Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy. Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get balanced meal to maintain their average figure. Fat people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that's all the time needed to drink a Slim Fast.
DRESS CODE---It is advised that you come to work dressed according to your salary. If we see you wearing $350 Prada sneakers, and carrying a $600 Gucci Bag, we assume you are doing well financially and therefore you do not need a raise. If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise. If you dress in-between, you are right where you need to be and therefore you do not need a raise.
BEREAVEMENT LEAVE---This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives, or coworkers. Every effort should be made to have no employees attend to the arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary funeral should be schedule in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave that much earlier.
RESTROOM USE---Entirely too much time is being spent in the restroom. There is now a strict three-minute time-limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under ''Chronic Offenders.''
Thank you for your loyalty to our great state. We are here to provide a positive employment experience.
EFL
An Army officer survived falling 3,500 feet from an aircraft after his parachute failed to open properly during a training exercise. Lieut Charlie Williams, a platoon commander in the Irish Guards, escaped serious injury when he crashed through the corrugated iron roof of a house in a shanty town in eastern Kenya. The 25-year-old officer, who was making only his third parachute jump, cracked three vertebrae in the lower part of his back and dislocated a finger, when his fall was broken by the roof. In his first interview since the accident, Lieut Williams said: "I was completely helpless, there was nothing I could do. I said to myself 'this is it' and I prepared to die."
The incident began immediately after Lieut Williams jumped from a Cessna 102 aircraft as it circled above Malindi airport. Instead of making a clean exit, he clipped the side of the door and was sent spinning and tumbling through the air. His feet became entangled in the parachute's rigging lines and he began spiralling downward, head first. All attempts to free himself failed.
"The parachute canopy had partly deployed, but my feet were up above me and were preventing it from deploying fully," said Lieut Williams, who was speaking from his parents' home in Bradford, West Yorkshire. "I was very frightened and I was panicking. My body position meant that it was impossible to deploy my reserve parachute. Everything I tried failed, so I resigned myself to the fact that I was about to die. "Bizarrely, from that point on, everything seemed to slow down and I became strangely calm. I remember thinking of how lonely I felt at the time. "I just tried to keep things as ordered as possible and waited to see what was going to happen when I hit the ground." "The next thing I knew, was that I had smashed through the corrugated iron roof of somebody's home and I was lying on the ground with a crowd of puzzled Kenyans looking at me. My immediate thought was 'Oh my God, I'm alive'.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bulldog ||
11/14/2004 4:36:12 AM ||
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Ok, I'll bite - he's in the Irish Guards, so may I suggest that Charlie went through the roof head first? ;)
disclaimer: there's a fair amount of Irish blood in my family...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
11/14/2004 5:00 Comments ||
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#2
He is a one lucky bugger though - a few cracked vertebrae and a dislocated finger! - amazing...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
11/14/2004 5:01 Comments ||
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#2
Russell Jones, in terms of what the news has stated thus far died from heart failure.
In terms of 'rap sucks'. If your including all hip hop/rap in that comment I disagree and further more 'what really sucks' is the majority of red-neck-country music, as we say in NYC.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 5:33 Comments ||
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#3
Good point Mark , but I am not into hick red neck tripe either . Give me music written properly and played well , and not by a bunch of out of tune , crotch grabbing , limp walking , gang bangers anyday :)
#7
If your including all hip hop/rap in that comment I disagree and further more 'what really sucks' is the majority of red-neck-country music, as we say in NYC
Guess you have to listen to it to appreciate it, huh? :o)
#8
In a truly funny movie chock-full of great one-liners, not to mention Halle Berry playing an exotic dancer, there is a priceless reference to "rap music" that must be seen in context to get the full effect. Check it out sometime, Mark. You won't be disappointed in the movie, I assure you, lol!
#9
Best discription I heard of for rap"It is not music,good poetry(debatable),but not music".After all it does not take a great deal of talent to scratch hell out of an old LP.C&W music,I spent a great deal of my youth hearing my parent's brand of C&W.(Conway Twitty,Loreta Lynn,Ray Oberson, etc.)I got so sick and tired of hearing a bunch of whinning crying rednecks sing about how horrible life was.
#10
..In the late 90s I was finishing up my BA at University of South Carolina, and had to take a music appreciation class. Our final was to take a piece of music and analyze it with the methods we'd been taught in the class. We could use any song we wanted, but had to play it for the class and get the instructor's okay.
Mine was 'Jolly Roger' off the Independence Day soundtrack, and it went over quite well. The next one played some godawful piece by (as it turned out)Wu-Tang Clan. The instructor listened politely, and when it was over, looked the kid dead in the eye and said, "Mr. So-and-so, that is a remarkable piece. However, it is not music by even the most generous definitions. Please select and other piece by our next meeting."
The punch line is that about 7 or 8 other people declined to play their pieces that evening and asked if they might pick new ones as well.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/14/2004 12:58 Comments ||
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After all it does not take a great deal of talent to scratch hell out of an old LP.C&W music,I spent a great deal of my youth hearing my parent's brand of C&W.(Conway Twitty,Loreta Lynn,Ray Oberson, etc.)I got so sick and tired of hearing a bunch of whinning crying rednecks sing about how horrible life was.
LOL, raptor.
Maybe it's time to start listening to it again. Country has changed remarkably in just the last 10 years. Much more emotional, far less woe is me crap. It ain't your Daddy's twang no more. :o)
Now, for my part, I was raised as part of the Woodstock generation, but almost always listen to country music now. I was raised ( and still am ) a Door's fan, can name every album they ever cut, can sing every song they released. I still from time to time listen to alternative rock music, but it's country all the way for me. And in Oklahoma City we have one of the first country oldies station playing country music dating back to the 50s. I promise you it sounds even better now than it did then when I wasn't country, but I prefer the new country even more.
Come on back, raptor. Join the more sophisticated crowd listening to country music.
#15
After all it does not take a great deal of talent to scratch hell out of an old LP.
Perhaps not, but it does require some exceptionally refined skills to beat-match and seamlessly seque between rock & roll and classical guitar (which I have seen done).
Having gone to concerts by Digital Underground, Queen Latifah, Yellow Man, Eek A Mouse and many other acts, I can confidently say that while there is some articulate and morally well-reasoned material in the genre, a majority of rap glorifies thug life, violence against women, conspicuous consumption and predatory behavior. For those reasons alone, it strikes me as pretty useless stuff.
I have always felt that rap was entertainment for people incapable of non-linear thought. As to C&W, give me Junior Brown any day, as opposed to most of the dreck spewn under that category.
I write lyrics, compose, and perform on several instruments in jazz, blues, classical, rock & roll, baroque, R&B plus a few other styles. I've played in several bands and have appeared on radio, television and before large audiences. The music industry does not promote you on the basis of what you know but who you know. That alone is responsible for 90% of the crap being passed off as talent. Chalk up another 5% to artificially engineered acts like In-Synch or Back Street Boys and other such drivel. This doesn't leave much room for quality.
Throughout nearly all categories of popular art a majority of it is pretty trashy. Think: Thomas Kincaide. The Iceberg Theorem states that 90% of a given prospect is not in view. The Generalized Iceberg Theorem states that 90% of everything is shit.
#16
.Com, I have not seen The Last Boy Scout but with Bruce Willis & Halle Berry, rare stunning beauty. I must see it. One of the best Bruce Willis movies I've saw at the movies & whenever it runs on cable, is Die Hard-With a Vengeance, with a great co-staring cast, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene, among fine actors.
Raptor, Great discription! "a bunch of whinning crying rednecks sing about how horrible life was. (clean up America, flush them.)
Yo, everyone is really rolling on this topic lol
Boris do you like Cossack blues?
Angie Schultz. I must say the song you mentioned slipped right by me. Who sings it? Tractor Truck Tom & the Dip Sticks?
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 20:21 Comments ||
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#17
Angie Schultz, you have some real fine published work on the web. Bravo!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 20:30 Comments ||
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Who sings it? Tractor Truck Tom & the Dip Sticks?
According to Google, it's "Big and Rich". No clue who that is. I can't stand the song, but it was only after hearing it several times that it occurred to me it was a rap song. Or rap-ish, anyway.
Angie Schultz, you have some real fine published work on the web. Bravo!
Well, er, thanks, I guess. Are you sure you have the right Angie Schultz?
I thought your some of the postings in the link were written by you. I like the state break down chart in 'Religious Extremism in America' Anyway, good postings!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 21:26 Comments ||
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Well-known Egyptian Actress Safa Al-Saba was the latest victim of pickpocketing at the Grand Mosque in Makkah when an African pickpocket tried to make off with her mobile while she was leaving the mosque with her mother, Okaz reported yesterday. "The African youth snatched the mobile and run away while she was making a phone call," the Arabic daily said. Criminal investigation agents inside the mosque led by Capt. Ahmed Al-Hazmi did not take long to trace and arrest the culprit despite the huge crowd there. Safa thanked the officers for the good work.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2004 2:26:52 PM ||
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BANKS will no longer honour the debts of victims of internet fraud after a sudden rise in attacks against online accounts, The Times has learnt. Britain's 14 million internet bank customers have faced a month of intense bombardment from fraudsters trying to access online accounts in devious "phishing" scams. Around 60 such frauds, each generating hundreds of thousands of e-mails, were detected in October — a 33 per cent increase from September. MessageLabs, an internet security company, is currently intercepting 50,000 messages and 80 to 100 phishing websites a day.
Banks are not insured against the losses and have to compensate victims themselves. They paid out more than £4.5 million in refunds to approximately 2,000 fraud victims in the first half of this year. Some police officers have recommended users to abandon internet accounts altogether. Up to now, British banks have automatically refunded money to victims, regardless of how obvious the fraud was and how much the customer was at fault.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 6:44:40 AM ||
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Good move. And inevitable. I would hesitate to credit the banks for their prior generosity when, as the article states "[u]p to now, British banks have automatically refunded money to victims, regardless of how obvious the fraud was and how much the customer was at fault". People unable to realise when they're the victims of a web fraud shouldn't be using internet banking. Simple as that. It's in not the banks' responsibility if a third party sends one of their customers an email and the customer buys the con. Partial fault should the fraudsters have discovered customers' details through lax bank security, perhaps. But compensation for said frauds should never have come from the banks' resources, anyway - that in itself could be considered a kind of hush money, and borderline criminal, coming as it does from the resources of blameless investors, customers and shareholders.
#2
Bad precedent for consumers, dumb or otherwise. Here in NoCal I know of a bank customer who checked her monthly statement and discovered that $300k, her entire life's savings, had been transferred out of her account in the previous month via fraudulent wire transfers. The bank, a major national player, refused to take the hit because the "... had followed all of our standard procedures to the letter." There was no evidence that she'd done anything wrong at all, well aside from selecting this particular bank that is.
An entity such as a bank has a fiduciary duty to protect its client's assets from fraud, even where said client must be protected from their own stupidity to a degree. If the bank offers a service that is so rife with fraud that the client's assets become unsafe the service should be discontinued, made safe, or surcharged to cover client's losses. Allowing the large entity that already holds all of the power in the relationship to merely say "too bad" when their clients are defrauded will be a disaster.
#3
AzCat: Here in NoCal I know of a bank customer who checked her monthly statement and discovered that $300k, her entire life's savings, had been transferred out of her account in the previous month via fraudulent wire transfers. The bank, a major national player, refused to take the hit because the "... had followed all of our standard procedures to the letter." There was no evidence that she'd done anything wrong at all, well aside from selecting this particular bank that is.
Make the identity of the bank public, and depositors will stage a run on it faster than you can say "rosebud". Legal liability issues will prevent banks from adopting the same policy in the US.
#4
Up to now, British banks have automatically refunded money to victims, regardless of how obvious the fraud was and how much the customer was at fault.
Why it should be so? Why is it the banks' responsibility to compensate customers because of money lost due to their own gullibility? I don't want my bank to be subsidising the careless and the idiotic.
An entity such as a bank has a fiduciary duty to protect its client's assets from fraud, even where said client must be protected from their own stupidity to a degree.
No one's debating that banks don't owe their customers a duty to take every reasonable precaution to protect their money from theft and fraud. However, what we're talking about here are transactions that do not involve the bank in any way. The bank is not even a third party. If I walk up to you and say "I'm from your bank - please hand over your cards and PIN numbers" - how could the bank be considered responsible if you're foolish enough to actually do it, even if I'm wearing a good copy of the bank's uniform? Why on earth should your bank compensate you?
#6
AzCat has become more or a Northern Californian than he thinks. He probably voted for Anna Achoo.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
11/14/2004 20:00 Comments ||
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Naa Mrs. D. it's just that whole thing I did in grad school that gave me a bit of a differnt perspective on a few things. To me a bank that implements a system that's so easily defrauded isn't much different than a bank that takes all of the cash out of the safe and puts it in wheelbarrows in their parking lot with only a rope cordon to protect it. Either way the bank isn't fulfilling their duty to protect depositor's accounts because they've not implemented sufficient safeguards. The method used to perpetuate the fraud (physical carrying away versus online shenanigans) shouldn't reduce the culpability of the party with the duty to protect the assets.
ZF - I can't comment further but the case has been in the courts for months and no one seems to care. By the time it's all said and done the woman will owe her lawyers half her life's savings if she's able to recover.
MINISTERS are to announce tough curbs on television adverts for "junk food" up to the 9pm watershed in an attempt to combat an epidemic of obesity among children. John Reid, the health secretary, will this week warn the food industry that he will bring in legislation banning junk food adverts unless firms agree to voluntary restrictions by 2007. The crackdown for products high in fat, salt or sugar is far wider than anticipated by the industry, which believed restrictions would target only afternoon children's television.
However, Reid will argue that research by Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, shows more than 70% of viewing by children aged four to 15 is between 6pm and 9pm. The crackdown follows research showing 18% of children are overweight and a further 6% obese. Children are also for the first time being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, a disease previously only associated with those over 40. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has drawn up guidelines defining what it considers unhealthy levels of fat, sugar and salt in products. For fat, it is any product with 20g per 100g; for sugar 10g; and for salt 0.5g
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 6:43:15 AM ||
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#1
More crushing of free speech by The Virtuous. F'ing Wankers.
#3
Hmmmm..... virtue!
Is there any food better than a Whataburger with Jalapenos at 2 a.m. in a pick up truck chased down by a Bud and followed by a Salem?
#5
There is most definitely a problem. Obesity is arguably the biggest health problem in the Western world. Censorship is definitely not the answer.
It's impossible to buy any kind of prepared food that doesn't have added sugar, often a lot. It drives me crazy trying to find foods that don't. I nearly went postal in the grocery store the other day after having read the ingredients on every type of prepared curry sauce in the store (about 50) and they all had significant amounts of added sugar. I was at the point of throwing jars on the floor and was only stopped by my daughter saying "Lets buy this one dad. It has the least sugar."
A Japanese trade minister has linked the recent intrusion of a suspected Chinese nuclear submarine into Japanese waters with China's natural gas exploration near islands disputed by the two countries. "I cannot help but think that they are related," Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Shoichi Nakagawa said in a news show on Fuji TV network. He added that he took it "as a matter of course" that Chinese submarines had been intruding into Japanese territorial waters for some time. The Tokyo government has said that a nuclear submarine violated its waters for two hours last Wednesday. After a two-day chase on the high seas in the East China Sea, it declared that the vessel belonged to the Chinese navy and demanded an apology from Beijing. The Chinese government has only said it was investigating the Japanese claims.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 5:50:52 AM ||
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We all live in a Chinese submarine,
Chinese submarine,
Chinese submarine...
Posted by: The Beatles ||
11/14/2004 9:21 Comments ||
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I'd really like to see the galley on a Chinee sub.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/14/2004 11:50 Comments ||
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I wonder what would have happened if the Japanese had maneuvered a sub into 'China's territorial waters'? I'll tell ya...they'd be gulping seawater at the bottom or taken to an island like the American EP-3 surveillance plane was; and disassembled!
We're all going to be eating rice and using chop sticks by 2020 if China's hegemony isn't checked.
A convoy of military lorries roared along the dirt track leading to a fertile valley of rice paddies and ridges of garlic shoots in central China. Green-uniformed soldiers equipped with razor-wire and cannons stared out blankly at Chinese police, who stood to attention as they passed through a checkpoint.
They were heading for two neighbouring villages, Nanren and Weitang, which have co-existed peacefully for centuries - but where, earlier this month, martial law was abruptly declared after a row over a traffic accident escalated into pitched battles that left 148 people dead.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/14/2004 12:44:27 AM ||
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The Chinese have long experience at permanently solving this sort of problem. One or the other villages will be gone one day soon. Unlikely to be the Han village, either.
#5
Another entry on the list of ethnic/religious groups who oppress Muslems
OOhh and just for the record , you need oppressing as you are such a bunch of bigoted , immoral , halfwits , who think religion is the key to solvng the world's problems , when it clearly isnt , it creates them .. sheesh
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 5:37 Comments ||
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...Man, these people have NO idea what they're screwing with, do thay?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/14/2004 12:05 Comments ||
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This map is totally wrong. Zhengzhou is nowhere near Shanghai, it's two provinces over. Some brilliant light at the Telegraph misidentified Hangzhou as Zhengzhou. I have no idea how they came up with the locations of Nanren or Weitang.
#10
I've gone through all seven of the atlases I own, and can't find these two towns. That means they must be relatively small - under 5000 inhabitants. Gromky is correct - Zhengzhou is on the Huang Po (Yellow River) about 500 miles northwest of Shanghai. The Telegraph is clueless.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/14/2004 21:17 Comments ||
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If he's against it, that's the best reason I can think of to be for it.
Seriously, this will probably require a Constitutional amendment. Good luck getting it passed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/14/2004 12:04 Comments ||
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#2
This isn't worth the effort they're putting into it. Key quotes:
President Clinton used the power 82 times that year to strike specific wasteful pork projects in larger spending bills, saving taxpayers nearly $2 billion.
With the federal deficit currently at a record high, Congress should approve the Presidentâs plan. This would undoubtedly go a long way toward reversing the dangerous government spending spree that has largely contributed to a whopping $422 billion deficit for 2004.
Simply put, even if they manage to pass a line-item veto there won't be sufficient opportunities to exercise it to really put a dent in the deficits.
#3
no, but the ability to punish vindictive Dems and RINO's who get off the reservation is too delicious
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/14/2004 15:49 Comments ||
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#4
(1) Balanced Budget ammendment
(2) Line item veto
(3) Manditory twilight/review clause in every law
(4) Review (and rewrite, cancellation, or renewal) of old laws
4 simple points to a better functioning government.
#5
Good list RJ - Let's add a completely flat, deduction-free income tax or (preferably) a retail consumption tax to replace our current tax morass. And while we're at it I think it's hight time we developed a regulatory budget to track, catalog & control the damage our government is doing to our economy.
#6
This would prolly mean that they wouldn't have gotten that Liberace Museum up in one of the Dakotas (don't remember which) which received, IIRC, $4M tax dollars during the Clintoon Era. I don't remember the exact reason why we needed to pay for it, either, but I'm sure it would wrench your heart right outta your chest. Camelot II. What a time it was.
#7
I remember the first year Clinton used the line-item veto; he basically used it to kill 100 million dollars or so worth of funding, a great deal of it having to do with _real_ reusable spacecraft work at DARPA.
He managed to find the one federal program I thought at the time was worth anything, and cancel it.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
11/14/2004 19:30 Comments ||
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No matter how you slice it, it's still unconstitutional.
If John Kerry came across as stiff and awkward during his bid for the White House, then a very different picture of him is emerging - as a silver-tongued womaniser - in a book to go on sale this month. Lee Roystone, a former girlfriend of Mr Kerry, has written a semi-autobiographical novel in which her fictional alter ego, Nikki Matthews, has an on-off affair with a dashing Massachusetts senator - a Democrat whom she says is modelled on Mr Kerry. Nikki, a Harvard graduate, describes her politician lover as a "caveman" in the bedroom who would whisper sweet nothings to her in French - a language Mr Kerry speaks fluently. He also has a home on Beacon Hill, Boston, as does Mr Kerry.
In another part of Hedge Fund Mistress, Nikki tells a friend about a particularly wild encounter over dinner with her political paramour, Sen Jim Hoyt. "We were sitting at one end of the long dining room table and suddenly we were feeding each other and kissing, and all over each other, and undressing each other and plates were falling on the floor, food was everywhere, you know, our usual combustible frenzy, and then he carried me to the bedroom," she writes. Asked by her friend what happened next, Nikki says: "We made mad, passionate love and he immediately fell asleep." The unfortunate Nikki, however, almost dies as the senator lies snoring while she goes into anaphylactic shock from eating shellfish.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bulldog ||
11/14/2004 7:24:41 AM ||
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Miss Roystone's taste - in men and writing, lol, is the real topic here... Skeery, a hot womanizer? Lol! We're talking some serious dementia, babe! I can't wait for the RB femalians to wake up and see this bomb!
#4
Damn. By "graphic" they mean "explicit". I was hoping it was gonna be a "graphic novel", as in comic book.
It just seems more fitting, somehow.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/14/2004 8:58 Comments ||
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#5
Will this bring new meaning to the term Massachusetts Minute Man?
Posted by: Don ||
11/14/2004 9:20 Comments ||
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#6
As the first RB femalian to respond, all I can say is ick. I prefer to leave soft-core porn to those RB malians who have already expressed a taste for such things. The Telegraph exerpts were more than enough for me.
#7
Some Washington insiders thought this book would go on sale 3 weeks before election day. Most in Mass either know of Kerry's past or have heard the rumours. Maybe after his defeat the Beacon Hill "caveman" might decide not to seek office again? I know...wishful thinking.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 20:58 Comments ||
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#8
Some Washington insiders thought this book would go on sale 3 weeks before election day. Most in Mass either know of Kerry's past or have heard the rumours. Maybe after his defeat the Beacon Hill "caveman" might decide not to seek office again? I know...wishful thinking.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 20:58 Comments ||
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#9
tw - Lol!. I'll have to insert "ick" into my vocabulary, lol, it is the definitive response to this article!
#10
The final trivialization of a campaign that set a new standard for foolishness, vulgarity and vanity in US politics.
P Diddy and "Vote or Die." MikeyBoy in the VIP booth. The madness of Maria Tereza. Did he shoot the goose or didn't he?
What a f**king clown. The sooner this vain and trivial man disappears from public view, the better. Actually, he could just go back to the Senate, from which he's been absent some twenty years.
Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a history of heart trouble, went to a hospital Saturday after experiencing shortness of breath. Tests found no abnormalities, an aide said, and Cheney left after three hours. "I feel fine," the 63-year-old vice president said as he walked out with his wife, Lynne. Cheney smiled and waved people gathered outside the hospital entrance. "Sorry we ruined your Saturday," Mrs. Cheney told reporters. "We're great, thank you." A pacemaker implanted in Cheney's chest three years ago indicated no irregularities during the past 90 days, said Mary Matalin, a spokeswoman for the vice president. The device gives doctors a three-month readout. She said an electrocardiogram, which measures the heart's electrical activity, showed no change.
His cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, said he suspects the vice president has a respiratory infection. "The vice president, complaining of a productive cough and shortness of breath, was evaluated at George Washington Medical Center today," Reiner said in a statement issued by the White House. "Tests ruled out any cardiac cause of the vice president's symptoms. Tests also ruled out pneumonia and other pulmonary causes. The vice president likely has a viral, upper respiratory infection."
Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, although none as vice president, returned Thursday night from a pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota with a cold that left him short of breath, Matalin said. The vice president, who joined President Bush on Friday for meetings with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, felt fine otherwise, but his cardiologist recommended as a precaution that he go to the hospital for tests.
Yep. I do this all the time with my clinic panel. If you have bad heart or lung disease and get what looks like a cold, I'm going to send you to the ER to be checked out. As I tell my patients, "don't be a dead hero, be a live chicken."
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/14/2004 12:07:07 AM ||
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#1
What do you think the reaction of Hillary Clinton would be if Cheney were to retire in 2006 for reasons of health and be replaced by Condaleeza Rice?
African leaders supported an arms embargo and other U.N. sanctions on the Ivory Coast government and rebels when they met in Nigeria to discuss the current violence. Ivory Coast's president, blamed by France for violence against foreigners and on guard against feared attempts by Paris to overthrow him, holed up in his lagoon-side mansion Sunday and skipped the African summit in Nigeria on ending his country's crisis.
Earlier this month, the U.N. Security Council supported sanctions if the government and rebels did not return to a peace process by the beginning of December. Foreigners jammed the airport to flee the West African country despite the return of calm. President Laurent Gbagbo also promoted the hard-line commander whose forces launched a deadly airstrike on French peacekeepers that set off the confrontation, making Col. Maj. Philippe Mangou head of the country's armed forces in a move likely to anger France and much of Gbagbo's own army. As a French-led evacuation builds to one of Africa's largest exodus of foreigners, French President Jacques Chirac denounced Gbagbo's "questionable regime" and said France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, would not tolerate much more. "We do not want to allow a system to develop that would lead only to anarchy or a regime of a fascist nature," Chirac told an audience in the southern French city of Marseille.
French and Ivorian troops manned Abidjan's international airport, where scores of French families and other foreigners milled with children and luggage awaiting flights out. A handful of heavily armed U.S. Marines stood ready to assist French troops.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2004 2:42:20 PM ||
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The decision by Boeing and Northrup Grumman to join forces in their bid to build NASA's next generation manned spacecraft, dubbed the crew exploration vehicle or CEV, significantly reduces the number of major aerospace players available to the agency. This also forces NASA to make its choice from only two camps, neither of which is ideal: the oversized and experienced vs. the undersized and innovative. The CEV is planned as NASA's primary manned spacecraft as soon as the space shuttle fleet is retired, probably in 2010. The agency's road map for building the CEV calls for proposals to be submitted early in 2005, with two companies then chosen to build a prototype that actually will stand for flight tests in 2008. NASA then will pick its prime contractor from these two companies. The first manned mission is set for no later than 2014. After that, the CEV will be augmented so it can be used for all manned missions to the moon and beyond... Article also gives a general overview to the current manned space program organization, which is subject to drastic change with the arrival of Burt Rutan and t/Space.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
11/14/2004 11:46:58 AM ||
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Once again with feeling: NORTHROP is an aerospace company. NORTHRUP is a seed company. A basic mistake like this taints the whole article.
#2
Ha! Little do you know, RWV, that deep inside their secret laboratories in Dubuque, Northrup is testing its genetically-modified Meteorologically Adapted Zero-gee Orbital Lift Ability cornstalk, made of graphite composites and capable of growing to an altitude of 300 miles! Once they've perfected the orbital platform, look for them to deploy the Popcorn of Doom! MUAHAHAHAHA!
#3
Moreover, [the] response [of the large aerospace companies to] the challenge of building the CEV seems remarkably timid, considering their experience.
Been there, seen that, this isn't exactly news. If there's a more stifling and risk-averse bureaucracy than that created by career DC sycophants it'll be found only in the defense/aerospace sector. NASA should award this one to the little guys if for no other reason than to serve notice to the dinosaurs that their end is nigh.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/14/2004 18:46 Comments ||
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This study is not convincing if you read the whole article. Note that they compare rates for the entire urban teachers to rates for urban, sub-urban and rural populace. This really speaks to the poor quality of urban schools, not a secret to anyone.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
11/14/2004 18:55 Comments ||
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The part about accelerating the satellite is a bit fanciful, as if the tether produces up to 40KW, it would take at least 40KW injected into the system from some source to overcome the drag, then whatever power is required to accelerate the satellite.
Interview. EFL.
The bombing, which Mr Gbagbo says was a mistake and the French say was deliberate, killed nine French soldiers and an American civilian. "I was in my office, working, " President Gbagbo, 59, said. "Then the commander of operations called, followed in quick succession by the head of the army and the French ambassador. I couldn't believe it. "Since Thursday we had been bombing key targets and the rebels' infrastructure was almost destroyed. Saturday was a last little trip, strikes here and there to prepare for the ground troops. It was the end of the rebellion. Then I learnt there had been a terrible mistake." The "terrible mistake" would lead to scarcely conceivable consequences in the richest of France's black African former colonies. In the immediate aftermath of the peacekeepers' death, the French military force, known as Licorne (Unicorn), received orders from President Jacques Chirac to destroy the Ivorian air force. As the two Sukhois landed in the political capital, Yamoussoukro, they were taken out by French troops guarding the airport. Later that night, four helicopters were also destroyed.
It has been one of Mr Gbagbo's worst week since the former history lecturer was elected in October 2000. His entourage has frequently accused France of supporting the rebellion, which broke out in September 2002, dividing the state in two. In Ivory Coast, almost every sovereign decision is considered to have been influenced or made by France. Mr Gbagbo complained that Paris had denied him the air support he needed to quell the rebellion. "France would never agree to us having an air force," he said. "At the start of the crisis I asked for two helicopters. If they had given them to me, the war would have been over in two days", he said. "Whenever we bought weapons, France never agreed. Ivory Coast must have the minimum air cover. It destroyed what it never wanted us to have and cut our defence capacity by 60 per cent."
So does Mr Gbagbo believe - as the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mamadou Koulibaly, claimed - that this was equivalent to a declaration of war? "The acts France committed against us are acts of war, which suggest that," he said. "But I have always said the world is divided into the powerful and the weak. And powerful countries are allowed to do everything, the weak nothing. "Objectively, France favours the rebels, because the French destroyed our advantage in less than two hours. So France favours the rebels." Brief pause. "Objectively."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bulldog ||
11/14/2004 5:49:34 AM ||
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Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/14/2004 6:38 Comments ||
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Sounds like the Africans are beginning to understand whose side the frogs are on
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
11/14/2004 10:21 Comments ||
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The Zimbabwean government has announced that it plans to set up more of its controversial youth camps in the run-up to elections scheduled for next March. The youth minister said the number of camps would rise from six to 10.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says the camps are used to indoctrinate young people to intimidate and attack government opponents. The announcement of new training camps makes the prospect of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe even more remote.
Gonna need a bigger microscope to see those chances.
Youth Minister Ambrose Mutinhiri, a retired army brigadier, told the state-run media that the government's youth training scheme was close to completing a major expansion. He said three of the six centres established over the last few years would re-open later this month following renovations, with four more opening by early next year.
The opposition says its no coincidence that the youth programme is being expanded shortly before Zimbabwe is due to hold parliamentary elections. "These new camps are simply meant to ensure the further militarisation of elections in Zimbabwe," said Tendai Biti, an opposition member of parliament. "They are meant to ensure that the opposition, the MDC, does not have access to those provinces where the new bases will be set up," Mr Biti said.
The youth training camps were first set up in ahead of the presidential election of 2002, which saw Robert Mugabe returned to power after a campaign punctuated by violence. The government said the scheme was intended to instil a sense of national pride, as well as providing vocational skills. But the human rights group Amnesty International said youth trainees were involved in various crimes directed against the opposition, including murder, torture and arson.
Former trainees have talked of widespread sexual abuse within the camps.
The MDC has yet to make clear whether it will contest the general election due to be held in March. The expansion of the youth training programme makes it more likely that the party will refuse to take part.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/14/2004 12:51:13 AM ||
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gotta feed the brown-shirt yoots....
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/14/2004 1:07 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Berry, rare stunning beauty. I must see it. One of the best Bruce Willis movies I've saw at the movies & whenever it runs on cable, is Die Hard-With a Vengeance, with a great co-staring cast, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene, among fine actors.
(clean up America, flush them.)
