...and, yes, we have more pictures. School rocked again — guidance counselor booted A guidance counselor at a Manhattan high school is in trouble for having an affair with one of her students, officials said yesterday - the second sex scandal to rock the school this week. Samantha Solomon, 29, was booted from the High School for Health Professions and Human Services after school bosses learned she was having sex with a teenage boy, according to the Education Department. Again, they must train teachers differently from when I went to school. We never got such one-on-one attention. Dammit!
But Solomon, who was reassigned to desk duty last month, vehemently denied any wrongdoing and attributed the accusations to rumors gone wild. "I never had a sexual relationship with a student ever," she told the Daily News last night. "I'm a good person, a nice person. I never signed anything saying I did that." Hey, stonewall, honey. It worked for Clinton.
Solomon is set to meet tomorrow to discuss "disciplinary action" with educrats, who are seeking to fire her, said Education Department spokesman Keith Kalb. Solomon said she had met with the student, currently a senior, to discuss college possibilities. "She did not do anything that was illegal or immoral," said her mother, Donna Solomon. "She's very pretty and very close with all the students." She sure is. You tell 'em, mom.
The accusations were leveled as students and staffers reeled from a report charging that a shy basketball star got social studies teacher Rhianna Ellis pregnant. Ellis, 24, delivered a healthy baby in February after a 10-month tryst with an 18-year-old student who graduated in June, officials said. Students and staffers at the school, on E. 15th St. in Gramercy Park, identified the boy toy as Cesar Pozo, a good athlete who was popular with classmates. ...and teachers. At least one.
Ellis was chummy with students, showing up at a sweet-16 party last year where she slow-danced with Pozo, and frequently letting kids skip class, students said. "She was a very friendly person," said senior Brandon Simms, 18. She sure was...
Ellis and the youth began having sex in August 2003, when he was 17, according to a report released yesterday by Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon. Her jealousy soured the relationship and they broke up last spring after one last fling, investigators said. She then alerted him that she was pregnant and planned to have an abortion, according to Condon's report. The teen had even introduced his older flame to his parents - but never said she was his teacher, his father told investigators. The Pozos declined to comment yesterday from their posh midtown apartment. AH-HA! A rich kid! Could we possibly have a motive here? So much for that abortion idea, kid.
The teacher and student phoned each other so frequently that his cell-phone bill hit $700, investigators said. His parents seized the phone, but Ellis replaced it and paid the new bills, investigators said. Good parental responsibility there, mom and dad, he snickered...
Last year, the teen received a 65 in her class, a passing grade that "wasn't bad," considering he failed exams, didn't do homework and was late every day, he told investigators. Probably not his fault though. I blame "low self esteem" or something like that. And doesn't teacher babe sound like she was doing a helluva job?
Ellis left the school on unpaid medical leave in October and has not returned. She could not be reached yesterday at an apartment she rents with her parents in Glendale, Queens. But neighbors were shaken by the news. "She is a good person," said neighbor Heidi Leschitz, 24. Although they were friends, Leschitz said Ellis never mentioned a boyfriend or named the father of her newborn. "The baby is beautiful," Leschitz remarked. When I die, please let me come back as a horny teenager at the High School for Health Professions and Human Services in Manhattan.
#1
A guidance counselor at a Manhattan high school is in trouble for having an affair with one of her students, officials said yesterday - the second sex scandal to rock the school this week.
They must think they're UN peacekeepers or something.
(Hmmm... I wonder... The teacher's unions are some of the biggest supporters of the Democrats, and the Democrats treat the UN like it's a frikking religion. Maybe we've finally figured out why?)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/14/2005 15:12 Comments ||
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#2
Students and staffers at the school, on E. 15th St. in Gramercy Park, identified the boy toy as Cesar Pozo, a good athlete who was popular with classmates.
First of all, 15th Street is NOT in Gramercy Park, its in the Stuyvesant Square area. Only a realtor would call it Gramercy Park. Second, sounds like thats the old Stuyvesant building.
Third - RC - the NYC teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers is probably the most pro-Israel, anti foreign policy loony union in the country. They have NO love for the UN, that I know of.
In any case of course most teachers DONT abuse their pupils. Imagine if somebody made a remark about the Catholic church like yours above (well actually some folks do, and I dont have any more patience with them)
#7
LH -- I really don't care about the policies of the union this particular teacher belongs to. My remark was, intended to be at least, a bite at the UN sex scandal and the Democrats' seemingly religious belief in the innate goodness of the UN.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/14/2005 19:09 Comments ||
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#8
In the late 70s, I worked as a security guard at a motel in Lubbock while I was in college.
One night we had extra people on duty because there was a high school event of some sort going on. One of the chaperones, a school administrator from a district north of Lubbock, came to the manager about 2 in the morning and demanded that we open a room in which 4 of his male charges were registered. The chaperone insisted that there was something illegal going on. He had a distraught couple in their 40s with him, who claimed to be the parents of one of the boys staying in the room.
Since the school contract allowed chaperones to enter student rooms unannounced, we duly opened the door and barged in. There we discovered a rather attractive young woman in flagrante delecto with one of the teenage guests. Two others were naked observing the proceedings. The fourth was nowhere to be found.
Worse, the administrator and the two parents instantly recognized the woman, a very short and exceedingly well-shaped brunette, as a first grade teacher from the same district. I learned later that she came from a prominent family in the little town and in fact still lived with her parents. She was also quite drunk and naked as a jaybird.
Fortunately, the boy whose parents had barged in with us was not the one we had caught in the act, so to speak. Nevertheless, the irate mom had to be physically restrained from attacking the naked teacher.
We called the police, they took a report, and everyone left, including the whole group from the school.
In those days, such things were more often covered up than not. Years later, I happened to get to know the irate parents whose son was in the room that night. I learned from them that the administration had allowed the teacher to resign quietly to keep her family from finding out. They even gave her a good reference when she left. She moved to another town, got married, and teaches in yet another small town school to this day.
Rogersville, Tenn. (AP) -- Hawkins County authorities were waiting for two would-be burglars after a cell phone in a suspect's pocket accidentally dialed 911 and dispatchers overheard them plotting the crime. Authorities arrested Jason Anthony Arnold, 29, and James Keith Benton, 38, both of Church Hill, and charged them with burglary and theft over $500. Officers said they tried to steal a refrigerator from a mobile home dealership. They needed to keep their beer cold
The Hawkins County Sheriff's Department was tipped off early Friday morning when dispatchers overheard a 40-minute conversation from a cell phone about plans to rob the dealership. 40 minutes to plan this caper. This was some serious criminals
"It's the kind with the numbers exposed," detective Eve Jackson said. "Apparently with this type of phone if you hold down the number nine it automatically dials 911. So Mr. Arnold's phone was in his front jeans pocket, and somehow the number nine got pressed, and central dispatch heard everything they said." Deputies thought the 911 call could have been a prank because it was April Fool's Day, but the scene unfolded exactly the way the conversation had described. The suspects went into one of the mobile homes, carried out a refrigerator and were surprised when police came out from hiding and confronted them. Authorities were hoping to identify other accomplices by listening to the 911 call again. I can picture the scene later. "You had your phone in your pocket?"
"Yep, I might have needed to make a call. OW! OWOWOWOWOW! Stop hitting me!" This is the same town where a fight between two trailer dwellers who were drunk was broken up by a Pit Bull. Someone posted about the other story a couple of months ago. We never lack for intertainment here in East Tennessee. This town is only about 20 miles from the Deacon Blues Pork Palace.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/14/2005 10:34:56 AM ||
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"This toen is only about 20 miles from the Deacon Blues Pork Palace. "
If you smell the BBQ, you're gettin' close. If you hit the gravel road, you done gone too far.
That's just down the road from Rick and Billy's Bait Shop and Dog Grooming Emporium, correct?
#2
DB -- Do you even have a TV or do you sit on the porch and watch the neighbors for entertainment? :-)
Posted by: Dar ||
04/14/2005 13:38 Comments ||
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#3
You they're sorry now? Wait till they get their phone bill.
Posted by: ed ||
04/14/2005 13:43 Comments ||
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#4
You think...
Preview is your friend.
Posted by: ed ||
04/14/2005 13:44 Comments ||
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#5
Dar, I do have a TV, we have sattelite. True story, My nearest neighbor, Fred, came by the house a couple of months ago and wanted to borrow my Viking helmet. It seems his dog, Pup, had goteen squished about a mile up the road and Fred wanted to give him a Viking funeral. He had a rope tied to Pup and was dragging him with his truck because Pup was in no condition to be put in the truck. He said it sounded like he was dragging a rug. Anyway, Fred built a funeral pyre because he didn't want to burn his boat and anyway it was too dangerous to let a burnning boat loose in the creek. Apparantly he used a bit too much kerosene and in the resulting "festivities" the fire spread to the trailerhouse. Did I mention there was beer involved? Fred ran in and called the Volunteer Fire Department but we had the fire out by the time they got there. They came anyway because they had never been to a Viking funeral. There was really no damage done to the trailerhouse. I really needed a picture of Fred talking to the Fire Chief while wearing my Viking helmet and holding a beer.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/14/2005 15:53 Comments ||
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#6
Actually, Psycho, I live on a gravel road.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/14/2005 15:54 Comments ||
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#7
DB - ROFL!!!
Viking funerals in TN. Lol!
Now you get to explain how and why you came to possess a Viking helmet. Did that involve some brewski's, as well? Lol!
#10
.com, I was looking on a website for hats, I have a large collection, and there were several Viking helmets listed so I bought one. This probably sounds weird but I wear a different hat to work every monday. So far the Viking helmet and the beanie with the propellar were the favorites.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/14/2005 16:13 Comments ||
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#11
Lol, DB - I didn't know you were quite so sartorially splendid!
Now I'll keep a sharp eye out for cool hats to recommend, heh...
#14
On the not quite so amusing side, our local Knoxville, TN police managed after firing 26 rounds at a fellow with CO2 pistol, to hit him in the arm and wound him slightly. Were I the police chief, I think I'd be checking to make sure the scores of these guys on their next training rotation.
#16
Viking update here... Recently went to the Viking Museum in Norway where they have a couple of 1200 year old viking ships. The reason they had ships? Because they didn't burn them, they would bury them with artifacts and riches. The viking burning ship may be a Hollywood creation.
The other interesting (to me anyway) factoid is that contrary to popular belief, the Vikings weren't the bloody cut-throats they were made out to be. They were on a boat with 20-30 guys max, and if you were reckless with who you picked a fight with, and a viking got killed, you had to row back home for yourself and him as well. In the overall scheme of warfare, I got the impression they were risk averse.
Of course, this might be some "peaceful Norwegian" propoganda. No mention of Burning ships anywhere to be found.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/14/2005 19:18 Comments ||
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#19
Capsu78, I know the Vikings didn't burn their ships they also didn't have horns on their helmets. I board a horse here for a Norwegian who has been in country for 4 years. He's a real scream. I've got LOTS of stories about him. .com, now that's a hat!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/14/2005 19:25 Comments ||
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#20
Nothing like reach out and touch someone!
I once heard a story about two bank robber's who threw a bag of money out the window of their car after the die pack exploded- then parked the car went inside the bar and grill for a brewski. Unknowingly, the bag made a money trail, that ended
just before the driveway to the bar and grill,
needless to say, the cops did not have a hard time locating the bank robber's!
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea Jackson ||
04/14/2005 20:03 Comments ||
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A second Indonesian volcano has sprung to life after a series of earthquakes, intensifying fears that the archipelago's violent geological forces will unleash a new disaster.
Tangkuban Perahu, a smouldering 2,076-metre mountain near the city of Bandung on Java island, has started rumbling.
Scientists raised the alarm and declared the summit around the open crater off limits.
"There is possibility that poisonous gas may come out," said Surono, a vulcanology and geological disaster mitigation official.
Surono said the volcano's status had been raised from "alert" to "prepare".
More than 20,000 people had already fled the slopes of Mount Talang on Sumatra island, as its peak spewed hot ash.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has called an emergency summit of regional governors to discuss volcanoes, was due to visit Talang to try to calm some of people who had abandoned their homes.
Scientists were closely monitoring Mount Talang's activity after having raised its status to "beware", one rung short of a full-blown eruption.
Syamsurizal, a geologist at Indonesia's vulcanology headquarters in Bandung, said that since an outburst early on Tuesday, there had been several smaller explosions and ash emissions, but no signs of an impending major eruption.
Mas Ace Purbawinata, a senior geologist deployed to Talang, told ElShinta radio that the volcano appeared to be calming down.
But he said the tremors indicated that molten lava was trying to force its way through the earth's crust.
"The [frequency of] volcanic tremors is still quite high," he said.
Talang has had at least four major eruptions, all in the 19th century, and three smaller eruptions in 1981, 2001 and 2003.
Indonesia has more than 130 active volcanoes and endures daily seismic jolts attributed to the Pacific 'ring of fire' - restless fissures in the earth's crust which cause seismic activity from Japan to the Indian Ocean.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
04/14/2005 5:33:40 PM ||
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What kind of alert do you need, that the volcano doesn't already provide? "Hey, look! That f*cking mountain over there's fixin' to blow! Dude, turn around!"
#3
BH, they've bunch of them volcanoes that don't spew yet and as the whole area seems to be on a shaky grounds and a bit lively, the alert is issued wholesale.
Eleven volcanoes are under close watch in Indonesia after a series of powerful quakes awoke intense subterranean forces and increased the chances of a major eruption, scientists have said. As tens of thousands of people spent a third night in temporary camps after fleeing the slopes of Mount Talang on Sumatra island, where hot ash has been raining down since Monday, more volcanoes began rumbling. Late on Wednesday, Anak Krakatau - the "child" of the legendary Krakatoa that blew itself apart in 1883 in one of the worst natural disasters recorded - was put on alert status amid warnings of poisonous gas emissions. No one lives on Krakatau, which forms a small island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, but the peak is a popular tourist spot, attracting Indonesian and foreign day-trippers.
Posted by: mojo ||
04/14/2005 11:44:12 AM ||
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Why does Allan...
Okay, I won't.
Thing is, as Phil_B noted a day ago, somethings'up. No one knows if this increase of seismic/volcanic activity in the area is something cyclical or rather a chain of clustered transient coincidences.
Krakatau made a bigger bang about 12,500BCE, whence the current deep submerged caldera formed. The 1883 event was a fizzle in comparison.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted a proposal to the State Duma to change the electoral law of the country, the Kremlin press service reports.
The amendments to the current legislation are the result of a planned move from a mixed to a purely proportional representation electoral system. But experts say that voters in Russia's regions will be able to elect a certain number of candidates, distributed proportionally among parties accordingly to the quantity of votes received in each region, only in 20-30 years' time.
The draft stipulates that coalitions during elections will also be banned, and if an elected deputy switches factions during a Duma term he risks losing his seat.
The draft would also reduce the number of invalid voters' signatures allowed when preparing an application to stand in an election from 25 to 5 percent of the necessary 200,000.
The state financing of the leading parties will be significantly increased as of Jan. 1, 2006.
Moreover, the president suggests making the second Sunday of March the unified day for elections of all levels. The first Sunday of October was given as a reserve day.
During the consideration of the amendments in the lower house of the parliament Putin's point of view will be presented by the chairman of the Central Election Commission
#4
OK, I'll bite. There are really two questions here. One is, are individuals easier to control inside or outside strong political parties? Clearly they are easier to control outside strong parties, since getting members to agree to and stick to a program is pretty much the sole function of a political party. The other question is, is it easier to control large numbers of individuals (a majority) with strong political parties (implicitly without agreeing to their program)? I would argue no, for the same reason as in question one, it is directly contrary to why political parties exist.
#5
Seattle's Kings County Dems have a lot they could teach Vlad about winning regardless of the vote count
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2005 21:43 Comments ||
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#6
I think an individual election system is healthier for democracy because each member of the legislature has their own base of power (electoral district) and must answer to their electorate. In a party slate, the party leaders control whether a candidate is on a list or not. In that case, their power, privilege and loyalty is to the party bosses, and leads to an easily abused concentration of power.
I think the greatest flaw in the Iraqi electoral system is this party slate. The parliament and executive branch members are chosen by the leaders of DAWA, SCIRI, PKK, etc., and only indirectly by the voters.
Posted by: ed ||
04/14/2005 21:45 Comments ||
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#7
Stalin wrote the book. King County Dems are amateurs.
Posted by: ed ||
04/14/2005 21:47 Comments ||
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#8
Putin Proposes Stringent New Electoral Rules
"When I or any of my flunkies run for office, you will vote for us, and no one else."
#9
Putin's a puppet. Mark my word: he's not likely to survive his term, esp if oil prices decline.
The real power center in that country is in an alliance of two sets of "oligarchs," those outside the government who kowtow to it, and those inside the government who set the rules.
The latter group includes heavy representation from the security services-- ie the figures who found and promoted Putin and who dominate his government now. Think of Putin as Musharraf in whiteface.
BRUSSELS - Plans to drop a European embargo on arms sales to China by June appear to be losing momentum amid concerns over recent developments in Beijing even if the EU is maintaining the timetable in the face of opposition from the US and Japan.
If a decision is not taken by the end of Luxembourg's presidency of the European Union in June—an increasingly likely scenario—the issue could be left in limbo until 2006 after the end of Britain's six-month presidency of the EU starting on July 1.
The future of relations with China is set to be one of the top subjects up for discussion at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers Friday and Saturday in Luxembourg. The 16-year-old embargo is not officially on the gathering's agenda and no progress is expected on the subject, especially in the absence of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who is unable to attend the meeting in Luxembourg on account of an election campaign in Britain. But nevertheless, "the question (of the embargo) will be unavoidable" at the gathering, diplomats said.
Despite US and Japanese opposition, the EU has until recently been moving towards lifting the arms sales ban that it slapped on China after the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Led by France and Germany, European leaders asked foreign ministers last December to draft an accord on removing the embargo by the end of June.
Support for its lifting has waned since China passed a controversial anti-secession law which authorizes the use of military force against Taiwan if the island moves toward formal independence.
"The European Union's position remains the position (taken) by the European Council in December. It has not changed at all," said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "But it's clear that there's been a series of elements, like the anti-secession law, which have had an impact. It could affect the time line," she conceded.
Last month, Solana admitted that the "anti-secession law raises reservations among us".
Why? You're the one who's going to sell the munitions so that China can flex its muscles.
Such concerns are clouding the timetable for a decision in Brussels diplomatic circles. "I can't tell you when it (a decision) will be done nor whether it will be done or not," said a diplomat, speaking on condition of remaining anonymous. "We are heading towards the end of the Luxembourg presidency. Maybe this has to be torn a little, not only because of internal preparations but also because of the mistakes that the Chinese have made," the diplomat added.
On top of the anti-secession law, tensions between China and Japan have flared up recently in disputes over their shared wartime past and Tokyo's decision to allow drilling for gas and oil in disputed waters. "The situation now between China and Japan is not contributing"Â to efforts to make a decision on lifting the embargo, the diplomat said.
Human rights concerns are also fueling growing European reservations about dropping the arms ban, leading the EU to implicitly link a lifting of the embargo to an improvement on this front. "A gesture from China would not hurt," a Brussels diplomat said.
"Preferably an empty gesture," he added.
Meanwhile, the US has been stepping up pressure on the EU not to drop the embargo, with US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick suggesting last week that such action could hurt transatlantic defence relations. During a visit to Brussels, he said that "if there ever were a point where there were some conflict or danger and European equipment helped kill American men and women in conflict, that would not be good for the (transatlantic) relationship."
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/14/2005 12:03:18 AM ||
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Big E(U)go, little mind.
Posted by: Dennis Kucinich ||
04/14/2005 6:03 Comments ||
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#2
My prediction is that the EU is going to lift the embargo. If it will do business with Iran, which is right next to much of the world's oil supplies and just a few time zones away, it will do business with China, which is on the other side of the world.
#3
Agree that EU will lift it. With unemployment at 5 million, Schroeder's desperate to find new markets for exports. Without these, he's finished politically. Ditto to a lesser extent for Chirac, who's also in deep trouble politically.
So long as German domestic demand remains anemic, only exports will lift Germany above 0-0.5% economic growth this year and next.
#6
lex: Agree that EU will lift it. With unemployment at 5 million, Schroeder's desperate to find new markets for exports. Without these, he's finished politically. Ditto to a lesser extent for Chirac, who's also in deep trouble politically.
So long as German domestic demand remains anemic, only exports will lift Germany above 0-0.5% economic growth this year and next.
Actually, I think it's conviction-driven, not interest-driven. They really believe all that crock about Uncle Sam being responsible for the actions of the nations it was allied with during the Cold War, and are looking to balance American power by strengthening its enemies. They are doing what the Arabs did for decades by supporting terrorists on the side against Uncle Sam. This is the ancient tactic of setting one barbarian against another, weakening them both in the process.* We could counter it by deciding that a nuclear Iran is not a problem, by exporting US weaponry to China and deciding that international quarrels not directly involving Uncle Sam are not our problem. Everyone else would be scared stiff, but we'd be OK. The EU in particular would be in deep doo-doo when China starts expanding its territory in Asia, given that the EU is heavily dependent on exports, and wars in the region are likely to depress demand for EU exports.
* If you take a good, honest look at WWI and WWII, you will probably find that Uncle Sam was right to hold off until the last minute - the European powers brought it upon themselves by ignoring the German threat, while stabbing each other in the back. With the exception of Canada, the US was the only power not under threat of complete military conquest (for geographical reasons) to participate in the war. Apart from the Russians, our boys took the most casualties despite having no territory at stake.
#7
The EU has had no compunction about trading with Saddam during the great UN Decade Sanctions. After all, why not stick it to the US? It's trendy, fashionable, and the US, with its power and might, serves well as an entity to project all ones dark thoughts upon.
The EU will sell itself out to the Chicoms. Tianamen Square was 16 years ago. To the EU, no big deal, time to move on. The problem is that the EU can't be trusted not to sell out to the Chicoms, a serious potential enemy, so they cannot be trusted not to sell out NATO. Mmurray821 is correct. NATO is already dead.
These are very dangerous times, folks.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/14/2005 11:43 Comments ||
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AP: These are very dangerous times, folks.
They are dangerous to us only if we keep our security commitments overseas. If we back away from them (except for Iraq and Afghanistan), they are dangerous times for somebody else, but not for Uncle Sam. Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are big boys. It's time they learned to take care of themselves.
#10
Exactly ZF. It well past time for the US to become the ultimate triangulators. If France and Germany wish to arm an expansionist China, then the best thing we can do is rationalize our trade policy. We are running a $50 billion trade deficit with Germany. Bring the money (and 1 million direct jobs, 3M when the effects of money circulation are taken into account) back to the US. Germany's neighbors have very bad memories of it's behaviors. Time for us to make some money and open our catalog for them.
Same for China and near $200 billion trade deficit. Open our goodies catalog to Japan, Taiwan, et. al. Shut down our ports for the 20% of China's GNP we import. Better to bring the money and jobs home to create a self sustaining domestic energy infrastructure or shift some of the jobs and developemt to Latin America or non-muslim Africa. No sense in funding Chinese expansionism, who we then spend more money to counter. Let China fund their expansionism with Euros. Let Germany, France and China stab each other in the back to create trade surplusses with each other.
Posted by: ed ||
04/14/2005 13:12 Comments ||
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#11
ZF's approach sounds like John Mearsheimer's "Offshore Balancer" strategy, ie scale back forward deployments and IIRC seek to offset and balance, not directly challenge, regional giants like China.
It's a clear and coherent strategy-- maybe the right one long-term-- but I seriously wonder whether, in the post-Iraq War environment, our credibility and percieved reliability with emerging democratic forces esp in the middle east (and maybe with the Japanese as well) would not suffer so much as to reduce our influence greatly in the near term.
Are the benefits of osshore balancing worth the hit to our credibility with allies?
#12
lex: Are the benefits of osshore balancing worth the hit to our credibility with allies?
Excessive credibility presents its own problems. Friendly countries begin to starve their national defenses because they think Uncle Sam will come to the rescue, meaning that when it becomes necessary, our boys will take a lot more casualties and our treasury will take a much bigger hit from rescuing them. In essence, we become providers of military welfare. In South Korea's case, the local view has become so distorted that Uncle Sam is viewed as a colonial presence, even as they protect their domestic markets against our goods (by auditing buyers of American cars) and generally prevent US goods from entering their markets. American protection is now viewed as a free good. My response is to repudiate the US commitment to South Korea. If it wants to become Chinese territory, that's its prerogative. It might even become necessary to make an example of one of these countries to make the point that American protection requires that the country being protected make some goodwill gestures in our direction, the principal one of which is a good faith effort at self-defense.
headline: EU momentum to lift China arms embargo slows
comments: theyd damned well better lift it, to preserve our view of them EEVIL euros.
You guys seem to have missed the fact that lifting the embargo has been controversial in Euro from day 1 - its been opposed in the european parliament, and by SOME EU states. Ergo its hardly surprising that Chinese behavior could weight the balance to some degree. Why different attitude then to Iran - well they want to invest in the Iranian oil industry, not sell arms to Iran. They have NO embargo on selling civilian products to China,or investing in China, NOR for that matter does the US.
#14
LH: headline: EU momentum to lift China arms embargo slows
comments: theyd damned well better lift it, to preserve our view of them EEVIL euros.
I think you miss the point. I don't think they're evil. I think that they kind of believe that outside of Europe, we're the enemy, and are acting rationally in response to that belief, and kind of believe in Europe proper, we're their friends which is why they continue to have a formal military alliance with us. It's a weird kind of relationship that they have with us. Kind of like South Korea's.
Text, title and source deleted. This isn't a place for other bloggers to spam us with their work. Most especially, don't go putting tags into author lines, etc. Rantburg is for news on the WoT and related issues. Citations and sources must be to news sources, not blogs (exceptions are the usual here: Steyn, VDH, etc.).
#1
Grrr... Stop bolding the title. No, better yet, buzz off.
I have no argument with your sentiments, but I find your self-promotion via RB annoying, inappropriate, and lame. Many here have blogs and other online activities -- but do NOT use RB for personal purposes.
Post in the Opinion Page, if you just can't control yourself and feel compelled to post here.
Buy a BlogAd, then you'd be helping Fred and yourself at the same time - win-win.
#2
No need to get nasty. I am very new (a couple of months) to blogging and am really not trying to go about this the wrong way. I didn't realize that this was considered "bad form". I actually e-mailed Fred to see if the type of posts I put up were appropriate for the site.
Posted by: Buckley F. Williams ||
04/14/2005 21:08 Comments ||
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#3
fair enough - live and learn.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2005 21:12 Comments ||
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#4
Thanks Frank.
Posted by: Buckley F. Williams ||
04/14/2005 21:14 Comments ||
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Intuit == TurboTax
Intuit is using a third party tracking technology on all tax forms submitted to the IRS. "We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site," acknowledged Matt Belkin, who serves as vice president of best practices for Utah marketing giant Omniture, which tracks the online activities of people using Intuit's TurboTax. The IRS disavows any knowledge of this, saying "The IRS does not take a position on Web tracking tools." Makes you wonder where your tax information is going..."
#1
I call bullshit. I used TurboTax this year and have run anti-Spyware scans a couple of times since, with no hits.
Ah. I see. Just as I thought -- this is bullshit, and the Slashdot coverage is (naturally!) incomplete and misleading:
Both Intuit and Block, which offer electronic filing for free through the IRS' Free File program, use hidden Web bugs throughout the tax-preparation process to monitor taxpayers' online behavior.
When you use their web forms to submit your taxes, they "monitor" your web browsing. Why do they do it?
"We're not collecting personal information," she insisted. "We're using this to improve our Web-site design and effectiveness."
For example, Miller said, if a Web bug shows people are getting stuck at a particular point of the tax-preparation process or are giving up in frustration at a specific juncture, Intuit can use this data to improve its service.
Duh.
Also note that there's no way they could track anything you do on A DIFFERENT SITE. They couldn't, for example, get what I'm typing into this form. Because cookies don't work that way.
About all they can do is track when you go to other sites that use their service.
And, gee, a modern browser that refuses third-party cookies will handle the issue quite nicely. What a pity the story didn't mention that.
This is a nothing story, blown out of proportion by people who didn't even bother to read the story.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/14/2005 14:06 Comments ||
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#2
RC: If you install essentially spyware on your computer, isn't *any* data on your machine, or even your keystrokes, possibly available to the spyware maker? If what is suggested is true, you would have to grant your TurboTax software firewall permission to access the Internet just to be able to use it, and the spyware would just piggyback, xferring data to both the IRS and to Omniture. Last but not least, do you use multiple spyware checks? It's been noted that Ad-Aware, Spyware S&D and others are not universally effective, so you need to run 2 or 3 progs to pretty well guarantee you haven't been spywared.
#7
I just did a project with Omniture. It's used to create web logging information. It works by using javascript in served up web page to capture page URL and other information. You can configure it to capture custom variables set on your website's web pages. These custom variables are set through the javascript embeded in the web page and are usually set to information the webserver has already obtained from the user's activity or general info from their browser, like the browser language setting.
It is not spyware in any real sense. It is only capturing information a website, such as Inuit's, already knows about you as you are using their website.
If you submit tax information to an Intuit website instead of directly to the IRS, they can capture whatever they want-- as you essentially just mailed them your return, not the IRS.
Posted by: DO ||
04/14/2005 16:20 Comments ||
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#8
Anonymoose -- there's no spyware involved. DO has a good explanation.
Again, THERE'S NO SPYWARE. That's just the lunatics at slashdot unable to pull their heads out of their asses. A cookie is NOT spyware, no matter how many times a slashdot groupie claims it is.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/14/2005 18:55 Comments ||
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#9
Badanov...
Now with Intuit being a company owned by people of the LDS faith ...
I would expect the check to be more along the lines of....
He claims to have given money to a LDS church
Check - a person of interest
Check how much money earned
Check if money to LDS church >= 10% of pre-tax earnings (tithe)
IF NOT SIC HIS LOCAL CHURCH ON HIM TO PONY UP!
#10
You have to understand lots of the foaming mouthed loonies at slashdork will not even accept cookies. Anything that might (I am not saying it doesn't either) give up any of their data is evil (I agree) But that is why I have an Tax person do my taxes. If my data ends up in the wrong place I have someone to sue. You won't find me on slashdork ranting about it.
If you'll excuse me I have to get out of my parents basement for a while
#11
This started off from a wildly inaccuracte and alarmist article from the San Francisco Chronicle. Matt Belkin of Omniture reports that he was misquoted and that comments were attributed to him and to Intuit that weren't made.
dont know that turbotax puts acchual spyware on yer system but it does put somthin similar that prevents your loadin it up on diffrent machines. im know. ima remove this kinda crap for a livin. runnin a lavasoft scan rite now on em nother compyooter
EFL: Good way to start my day. Group braves sprinkler system to spread message of chicken treatment
April 14, 2005 — Why did the chicken cross the road? Well, it depends who you ask in Brownsville.
A protesting trio from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), one of which was dressed in a chicken outfit, stood their ground Wednesday at The Chicken Stop as they briefly protested next to the local eatery. Then they crossed Boca Chica Boulevard to picket the nearby KFC for the restaurant suppliers' treatment of chickens. But if you ask the manager for the KFC, the chicken crossed in search of water. "They already hit me in McAllen," said John Olivo, shortly before cranking KFC's sprinkler system at full blast and soaking the curbside protestors. "I was already waiting for them here in Brownsville," he laughed. Welcome to Brownsville, losers!
The PETA members were also greeted by David Ingersoll, a Los Fresnos beef-eating supporter who showed up with his children to antagonize their protest. When the chicken crossed the boulevard, he followed. Armed with a microphone and a hand-held speaker, Ingersoll shot strait at the chicken protestors and outspoke them at one of the busiest intersections in the city in the middle of a hot South Texas afternoon."You bunch of crazy animal rights nuts!" he shouted. "You're not going to win. Not in Brownsville!" His two step-children hurriedly passed out anti-PETA pamphlets to drivers stopping at the intersection. "I'm waiting for someone to throw a cabrito head at them so they know what part of the country they are in," Ingersoll said. This is good. Quality time between dad and the kids...
The protesters were then greeted by high school students yelling insults from their school bus windows. "Who's your chicken daddy?" one student yelled as he and others stuck their heads outside the bus and screamed. Oh, look! Pathetic losers!
Despite the rude welcome, the PETA members remained outside the KFC to spread their message."It hasn't been quite like this in other parts of the state," said Chris Link, PETA's campaign coordinator who is traveling to protest KFC in 12 Texas cities.The group also protested in McAllen on Wednesday but did not receive the same harsh treatment, he said."It's a rarity that we get this," he said after the mid-afternoon dousing outside KFC. They always seemed so shocked when people don't want to put up with their shit, don't they?
The protests are part of an international campaign to get KFC to put pressure on slaughter houses, which are inhumanely killing the chickens, according to claims by PETA. I dunno, maybe change the name? Eternal Chicken Sleep Houses? Poultry Heaven Gateways?
The campaign thickened after talks between PETA and KFC corporate officials fell through in March."We're out here today to raise awareness about the chickens," said Link, a Baltimore native. "All we want them (slaughter houses) to do is gas the chickens instead of killing them." PETA suggests a "controlled-atmosphere" killing, using gases such as nitrogen and argon to kill the chickens. I think they ought to shoot them out of cannons, but that's just me.
The gas chambers would ensure a painless death for the birds, PETA reported in its Web site. Slaughter houses currently use an electrical stun method or cut off the birds' heads. How about little chicken electric chairs?
In a previous story, KFC spokeswoman Bonnie Warschauer told The Associated Press that "we don't comment on the corporate terrorist activities of PETA. They are corporate terrorists and just like the United States government, we will not negotiate with corporate terrorists." Get some, KFC.
Ingersoll said he hopes KFC stands firm against PETA's demands."I don't know about you, but I want my chicken to be cut in the throat, hung upside down and bled to death," Ingersoll said. "I don't want no chicken that has been gassed. Chickens are not gassed in the farm." Olivo also was not sympathetic toward the activists. He accused them of taking away his way of life."As far as I'm concerned, they are terrorists. I'm trying to make a living and they are trying to stop my people from making a living," he said just before cranking the water system at full blast, showering the protesters. "To me, there is no difference between them and al-Qaida."
Link was accompanied by Chris Arellano, an Uvalde native, who was holding a television showing the slaughter of chickens. Eric Deardorff, the man inside the chicken suit, was at the receiving end of most of the obscene comments at the intersection.
Link said awareness is vital to PETA's goal in stopping cruelty to animals. The organization's reason for pressuring KFC is because the company is the nation's largest buyer of chicken. The restaurant chain, therefore, has the power to change the way slaughter houses kill the chickens. Chicken awareness? Deep fried, side of fries, barbeque sauce. That aware enough for them?
Posted by: tu3031 ||
04/14/2005 11:20:39 AM ||
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The Lettuce Ladies would have been more effective.
#3
They want chickens to die of (relatively slow) suffocation in gas chambers (CO2 or CO is most often used)??? How cruel are these PETA nuts? I prefer they use lethal injection with a tasty basting marinade.
Posted by: ed ||
04/14/2005 13:25 Comments ||
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#4
I hear they have a thigh and leg deal this week! Poor chickens with no legs and thighs! It's is the year of the rooster so chicken does sound good.
#6
âThey already hit me in McAllen,â said John Olivo, shortly before cranking KFCâs sprinkler system at full blast and soaking the curbside protestors. âI was already waiting for them here in Brownsville,â he laughed.
You've got to admire the plucky Mr. Olivo, who ruffled the protestors' feathers and gave chicken-eaters everywhere something to crow about.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/14/2005 13:43 Comments ||
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.âWeâre out here today to raise awareness about the chickens,â said Link, a Baltimore native.
That wonderful smell rolling out of KFC ought to be enough to raise awareness about the chickens.
#9
âAll we want them (slaughter houses) to do is gas the chickens instead of killing them.â PETA suggests a âcontrolled-atmosphereâ killing, using gases such as nitrogen and argon to kill the chickens
Anyone ever seen the episode of Bullshit (Penn and Teller take on junkscience, etc.) where they dealt with the "animal rights" movement? Was it PETA that had an industrial-sized freezer installed at their headquarters for the "humane" destruction of animals?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/14/2005 13:55 Comments ||
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#21
haha very funy guyz. kep eetin bruise and batter birds who have suffer torturer and its you sould that your sellin. kernal sanders chiken houses=abu grabby of the avian culture. im hope your parents are prowd.
#23
Mucky, do you have cats? I do, 3. Their favored passtime is to corner a mouse, all three of them, and stand watching the traped squealing rodent, with an ocassional paw nudge, until it expires from a hard attack. They also leave trophys of their nightly prowls and stack them on the front doormat neatly lying there peacefully, with ever so gently crushed skulls. Sometimes, they just leave heads and tails as the squirrels go, maybe because the nut stuffing is a yummy delicacy in cats' culinary cookbook. I can't imagine what they would do to a feathered serpent... but I do know what they do to avians and serpents.
We carnivorian humans are pure utilitarians in comparison.
#24
sorry Muck - chicken's besides tasting damn good are one of the dumbest animals on the Earth. Seems God sent a message with that pairing
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2005 21:48 Comments ||
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#25
"All we want them (slaughter houses) to do is gas the chickens instead of killing them."
Wouldn't gassing chickens leave residue in the body? After all, they'd be breathing the stuff in, and once the fowl's bodily functions stopped, there'd be no way to purge the toxins, right?
Quite frankly, I'd prefer the taste of the chicken unaltered, thank you.
Opponents of California's physician-assisted suicide bill warned during testimony to a sharply divided legislative panel that the state could find itself in the position of the Netherlands, where a similar law has led to involuntary euthanasia.
The measure cleared its first hurdle Tuesday, passing the Assembly Judiciary Committee by a 5-4 vote. Currently, Oregon is the only state that allows doctors to prescribe medication to hasten the deaths of terminally ill adults. But the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on a challenge to the law by the Bush administration.
Dr. John Whiffen, a board member for the California Family Council, a Christian advocacy group, told the panel that in the Netherlands, more than 25 percent of physician-assisted deaths were done at the request of the family or physician, not the patient. More than 60 percent of instances are not reported to authorities, studies estimate. The data from Oregon is not as well developed, Whiffen said, but anecdotal reports indicate a similar trend.
Whiffen argued the problem can be easily solved without resorting to assisted suicide, by employing palliative care and medication. "There is no reason for anyone to die in uncontrollable pain," he said.
Dr. Miller, an oncologist, concurred, calling the bill "the wrong answer to the right question."
The public needs to be more informed, he said, asserting improved training and more comprehensive palliative care is a better answer. He described the measure as "bad law, bad ethics, and bad medicine."
One of the bill's authors, Democratic Assemblywoman Patty Berg, argued the measure is all about "autonomy" and the "fundamental right to privacy," pointing out polls showing 70 percent of Californians support physician-assisted suicide. Responding to opponents who fear a slippery slope, Berg labeled the argument a "straw man." But Republican Assemblyman Ray Haynes pointed to developments in the Netherlands and noted that although the amended bill includes certain "safeguards," one glaring omission is that a conservator can make a life or death decision for another person. A co-author of the bill, Democrat Lloyd Levine, said he and Berg would consider addressing that in an amendment.
Dr. Kenneth Stevens, an Oregon cancer specialist, told the panel "pain is not the issue." He could not find one instance in Oregon of people taking the suicide medication to alleviate pain, contending lives were being ended for emotional reasons. Stevens cited several cases of botched suicides because no physician was present, and said there are even cases of people who had the life-ending drugs administered to them, despite safeguards spelled out in the law.
According to the Oregon health department's most recent statistics, 208 people have died by assisted suicide.
Modeled on Oregon's law, the California measure would make assisted suicide available to mentally competent adults diagnosed with less than six months to live. The patient would have to orally ask his doctor twice for the fatal drugs, more than two weeks apart, in addition to a written request.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
04/14/2005 11:43:24 AM ||
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#1
I don't think that Arnold is going to sign this and they don't have the votes to override his veto. Still think the Democrats in the State House should show us how good it is to euthanize themselves and it would also make the Republicans feel better too.
The headline and the quote below should say 'Marburg Still Not Peaking'. WHO's performance on this really has been dismal even by UN agency standards. They appear to have been the cause of the outbreak by using tainted needles in a childhood vaccination program and now sink to new lows here by blaming the Angolan people. They should be bringing in epidemiologists to find out how people are being infected and not continually repeating that infection results from contact with body fluids. Outside of a hospital setting, evidence from previous outbreaks is that contact with body fluids is not the primary cause of infection, it's contact with an unknown animal vector or tainted injections. There was a report yesterday that a family of 5 died within days of each other in Uige. This is strongly indicative of infection from a single external source not transmission within the family. Uige - There is no end in sight to the outbreak of the Marburg virus in Angola, a top expert from the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday, citing "massive problems" in mobilising Angolans to fight the Ebola-like bug in this northern city.
"After four weeks, this epidemic is still peaking," said Pierre Formenty, the WHO's top specialist on new and dangerous diseases. "It has not been stopped, because we have massive problems in mobilising the community against it," he told AFP as the death toll from the deadly haemorrhagic fever hit 210. The length of the epidemic "really depends on the degree of the mobilisation by the Angolans, of the people itself, not only on the authorities... They don't realise that it could take months", Formenty said in an interview.
A team of top scientists arrived last month in the northern city of Uige, the epicentre of the epidemic that was first detected in October. Their efforts have been met with fierce resistance and denial by many residents in Uige, who are shunning the hospitals and the specially-suited medical teams that roam the city in search of Marburg cases. "Uige is not a classic urban environment. It's a village with 200 000 inhabitants," said Formenty, a French doctor who has been on various WHO teams to combat a dozen similar deadly outbreaks, including Ebola which hit mainly rural areas in central Africa.
"The difference between this outbreak of Marburg and previous outbreaks, including Ebola, is that this one is in an urban, confined area, while the others were in rural areas," said Tom Ksiazek, who heads the Atlanta-based centres for disease control's (CDC) special pathogens branch. "(That is what's making) this one more difficult to control," he told AFP. I think what he means is we don't know how tranmission occurs in an urban context.
Apart from a lack of information to the public, despite the best efforts of the WHO, health experts are trying to battle the outbreak with the very little infrastructure left over from the country's civil war that ended in 2002. There is almost no running water and no electricity, except for a few homes running on generators in Uige. So bring in generators and water purification equipment. It aint rocket science.
More experts are on their way to join the battle being fought by the WHO and Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors without Borders).
Posted by: phil_b ||
04/14/2005 1:50:50 AM ||
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#1
I read an article some time back that argued that a major factor in the early rapid spread of HIV in Africa was the practice of conducting mass immunizations using only a few needles, possibly compounded by vaccines tainted with a/several monkey HIV viruses. If so, it sounds like WHO is criminally negligent at best in remaining committed to a known dangerous innoculation protocol.
#3
Transmission is occurring in the normal manner. It's easier t have it spread in an urban setting because more people can come in contact with the bodily fluids that spread the disease.
So far, with little data, the growth of the disease is not exponential. See my Marburg data.
The WHO has only been tracking this epidemic for 22 days. Almost half the cases are believed to have happened between October 2004 and March 21 2005 when the virus was identified.
The major problem with the data is that the WHO is reporting it on an irregular basis, so that their reports tend to show a spike in cases where there is none. In other words, a report three days after the last report will show many more cases than a report the following day would have.
Much of WHO's efforts are centered at their HQ, in Geneva I think.
#4
When you are dealing with what is essentially an "invisible monster", it is very easy to lapse into superstition and the blame game. In this case, however, consider that a high percentage, relatively speaking of the casualties have been foreign medical personnel from developed countries. I would not *first* suspect these people of practicing bad medical hygiene or incompetance in an otherwise highly septic environment with poor hygiene practices and general ignorance about disease.
#6
Transmission is occurring in the normal manner. It's easier t have it spread in an urban setting because more people can come in contact with the bodily fluids that spread the disease. Chuck, is there evidence for this? What little data that exists on previous outbreaks indicates that outside of hospitals contact with the unknown animal vector or contaminated needles were the main causes of infection. In addition, in developing countries large groups of people live in close proximity in both rural and urban environments. In rural areas, people live in villages of hundreds of people or an extended family lives in a single house. Its not like in the West. In fact I would expect the reverse - a person in a rural environment would come into close contact with more people than someone in an urban environment.
#7
Phil, my graduating class in high school had 43 people. I find it difficult to believe that rural folks come in to contact with more people than urban folks, regardless of culture. Why would this disease, alone amongst the communicable diseases, thrive better in rural areas than urban areas?
Much of the vector depends on the life expectancy of the virus in air. Ebola is fragile. Every minute that Marburg is infectious after leaving its host is another minute someone else can catch it. If I nurse my sick mother, then go vegetable shopping, might I be spreading the disease? How contaigous might I be with the early stages of this illness and still walk through the crowded markets, etc.? All questions we don't know the full answer to as yet.
And, you don't have hospitals in rural settings in most of Africa. Hospitals are an urban locus. Hence, more easily spread in urban settings.
#8
One thing that helps spread the disease is the local custom of washing the dead before burial. Modern medicine has a hard time going up against traditions. Bodily fluids, anyone?
Rupert Murdoch urged newspaper editors Wednesday to embrace the Internet, saying print news executives have "sat by and watched" as a new generation of digital consumers has turned away from newspapers.
The chief executive of News Corp. cited a recent report commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic foundation, showing 44 percent of 18-to-34-year-olds say they use Web sites at least once a day for news.
News Corp. is the parent company of the Fox News Channel, which operates FOXNews.com.
Murdoch said newspapers must overhaul how they gather and deliver news to collect the readers and advertising revenue shifting to the Web.
"The trends are against us. Unless we awaken to these changes which are quite different than those five or six years ago, we will, as an industry, be relegated to the status of also-rans," Murdoch told the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (search).
"We've been slow to react. We've sat by and watched," he said.
When the Web was emerging in the 1990s Murdoch expressed skepticism about its business prospects. He referred to himself and other newspaper executives as "digital migrants" who are too old to have grown up surfing the Net but now must learn to direct their business toward those who did.
"Just watch your teenage kids," he told the editors. "The challenge for each of us in this room is to create an Internet presence that is compelling enough that users make it their home page. Just as people traditionally started their day with coffee and a newspaper, in the future I hope that the way they start their day online will be with coffee and our Web site."
Murdoch's media empire began with a single Australian newspaper business. Now headquartered in the United States, News Corp. is the parent of the 20th Century Fox (search) movie studio, Fox television network and the New York Post.
In recent years, Murdoch has sought to expand a satellite business in China, but he voiced doubts Wednesday when asked about the business climate there. "There are indications that it's closing up more than opening up," he said, calling the enterprise "very hard work."
Similar efforts in India have gone much better, he said, even though the potential market is significantly smaller.
Posted by: .com ||
04/14/2005 12:26:50 AM ||
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"The challenge for each of us in this room is to create an Internet presence that is compelling enough that users make it their home page. Fred, had any offers yet?
#3
in the future I hope that the way they start their day online will be with coffee and our Web site
Dream on, Rupe. Your bread and butter classified advertisers have already gone to craigslist.org and similar sites, and soon the car dealers and realtors will figure it out as well.
As to subscriptions, your circulation figures are bullshit, and in any case no one with a browser and a modem finds your stuff compelling enough to pay for it. I have not subscribed to any newspaper site, or offline newspaper, since 1991. With the exception of colleagues' workplace subscriptions to the WSJ and the FT, I don't know anyone else who's done so either.
#4
Someone once remarked that 'On the Internet the killer app is other people.' What makes something like RB work, apart from Fred and others hard work behind the scenes, is a commonality of interest and a sense of community, combined with a low enough noise level. Whilst I frequent other sites, none of the others has the same magic mixture as RB. My first comment wasn't entirely tongue in cheek. Sites that in MHO don't compare with RB have recently sold for large sums and the RB formula doesn't depend on a single or small number of people posting and commentating like most of the big name sites.
#5
Only with superior quality will you bring people to subscribe to online media. The WSJ and FT are such publications, but in the first place because their information can help you make (or save) money.
The Spanish El Pais, the most important and comprehensive newspaper in the Spanish language, went to subscription only a few years ago, and lost dearly. If those papers can't even make it, few others will.
And people are not likely to pay for something they had for free for years.
The solution? Clever but not annoying advertising, maybe some (payable) prime content (but it better be good).
Offer something nobody else has. This you can charge for.
#6
True, Phil, but check out the ads here to see the business challenge Fred faces.
Ads by Google serves up the NY Times [guffaw] and an ad for "newspapers in Colorado" -- go figure. Then there's an ad for Podcasting: cool. Rakes in millions each month, I'm sure. Also "Conservative T-Shirts" and other flotsam and jetsam.
Fer chrissake, is there not one advertiser who understands Fred's demographic? Isn't it obvious that you have on this site people with a huge and voracious interest in things military, technology-related, historical, global politics and economics, travel and working abroad and all the services that expatriates require?
How about ads for print publications targeted on the above interests? Or maybe travel, or offshore banking, or vacation homes, or conservative publishers, or gun manufacturers, or maybe even... I know this is a stretch... cars???
Where the hell are the intermediaries who can gather Rantburg's demographics and shop them to advertisers we truly want to hear from? It can't be that difficult.
#8
Lex, you bring up something I've been meaning to raise for a while. What is the RB demographic? I'd be interested in knowing. I may post a suggested questionaire as an opinion piece.
#9
I recall that TGA's looking for a second home (or is it retirement home?) with lots of open space and don't-fence-me-in atmosphere. Well, I'd be willing to bet that many others here would love the same thing-- it's hte intelligent libertarian/conservative's dream to live among nature unencumbered by bureaucrats and the state. This is why Mark Steyn and PJ O'Rourke live in New Hampshire, and why VD Hanson still has his dusty family farm in teh San Joaquin Valley.
So I'm sure that these folks would get quite a few click-throughs from this site: http://www.cjsmtnparadise.com/
Likewise, I'd bet that Rantburgers are partial to high-performance 4WD SUVs that have plenty of space for gear, maybe guns and prey as well. So GMC and Jeep and maybe the Escalade CXT (?) and the Honda Aztec (?) would do a good business here too.
Or how about an ad for the hybrid car (Prius?) that highlights the fact that ex-CIA Director Jim Woolsey drives one now? "Spite Osama, Drive a Prius"....
Gender: 95% male Median Age: 47 Active or ex-military: 40% Median Household Income: $70,000
Education: 90% have undergraduate degree, 40% have one or more graduate degrees
Occupation: 15% government/military; 15% self-employed professionals or businessmen; 70% in corporate sector, of which 60% in technical or other staff functions at manager-senior manager level.
Psychological orientation: Jacksonian technophiles with a strong interest in foreign cultures and history. Independent thinkers, skeptical of the state but fiercely loyal to country, God, the military.
This group is demographic gold for a market-savvy maker of high-priced technological toys for big boys. Cars, guns, bikes, boats, you name it. And given the age and income characteristics, for financial services companies like Schwab: how many Rantburgers have $70k or more in investable funds? 80%?
#13
Rantburg gets away with snarky old drawings and stuff for deocration that makes it much more interesting. It would be nice to have music and video clips imbedded in the articles too... but, skipping the serving cost ... we all need to wait for the MPAA and RIAA to truly understand how much their business plan so screws up everybody's little puns and jokes with no money gain for them and tons of ill will generated. One can hope that they figure out something more friendly.... (of course we may all die of old age first...)
Of all the blog type formats I think RantBurg is really doing the snarkyness attached to real serious topics much (I refuse to use the fisking phrase) better than then others... Giving up PC was a good thing to. Thought police just make everything so boring....
Its sort of like mixing Foreign Affairs with Nat. Lampoon and an attitude...
Your right that the demographic should generate business but its pushing the envelope too.
#15
I absolutly refuse to pay for or subscribe or register for things like the NYT.If they want my patronage do not expect meto pay for it.I have 12 blogs on my favorites list,RB is my favorite.It is the first one I visit and the only one I post to on an almost daily basis.
X% have/do live[d] as expat Americans outside the U.S., or travel regularly outside the U.S. (20-30%?)
Y% are not Americans (10-15%?)
Z% have spouses of a different nationality (for some reason a bunch of you married Russians...)
I would be willing to bet that there is a much higher percentage of female lurkers than posters, but the marketing shouldn't be much altered to address that: such wymynfolk are good for investments, travel, property and SUVs/Priuses, too, though perhaps not so much guns and motorcycles (rkb seems to have all the guns she needs at the moment, and whatever Sgt. Mom needs she can send Cpl Blondie to acquire (is that her latest rank? I've lost track)). And the girls hanging out here have graduated from Foreign Affairs magazine just like the boys.
As for income, I would bet on a double bell curve, low at the median but high and tight near both left and right ends. Our military readers have traded monetary rewards for the joys of duty and honour, and you seniour management types make almost as much as you are worth to those who pay you. And quite a few (like me) have retired from the working world either temporarily or permanently. (Granted, in my case housewifery is not the same as spending the day fishing, and Mr. Wife still goes off every morning to spread profit & loss, but the principle still holds).
#18
Another brilliant Ad by Google just popped up: "dontblamemeivoted4kerry.com" Google sucks. Where's the next big thing?
Google sucks because they don't target their advertising beyond keyword. It's like a lawyer handing out his card at a mass-casualty train wreck; there's been some really inappropriate ads on some sites.
#19
I make a point to click those inappropriate ads on the theory that a few cents per click come to Fred. I like the irony of Emily's List or JohnKerry.com (2 from yesterday) forking over a few cents for the care and feeding of Rantburg. It's yummy!
#21
BlogAds are maybe a year or so away from showcasing more 'legit' stuff. Remember, a year or so ago the infrastructure wasn't there at all, except perhaps for Reynolds. Now every decent-sized site has a few ads. The money's starting to follow.
The problem with RB becoming a mega-site is that it may not be scalable: it depends on a certain absence of noise and a more or less known-to-each-other -- if growing -- community of contributors. Would it work at 10*, 100*, 1000* the traffic? I dunno.
#22
rkb seems to have all the guns she needs at the moment
Just cause I'm too busy to get to the range much lately does NOT mean I have all the guns I want .... okay, maybe all I need. Maybe. But then there's what I want .... ;-)
I still sort of wish I'd bid higher on that Remington 700P .308 TWS that was up for sale last year. Very lightly used, good optics, bipod.
Mind you, I have ZERO time to learn precision long-distance shooting right now, but what fun it would be to distract myself from other things with it.
#23
RB is a trusted network. Add functionality that leverages trust relationships within the network and you get scalability plus query/search capabilities that far exceed what GOOG's lame keyword- and page-rank based algorithms can deliver
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.
A guidance counselor at a Manhattan high school is in trouble for having an affair with one of her students, officials said yesterday - the second sex scandal to rock the school this week. Samantha Solomon, 29, was booted from the High School for Health Professions and Human Services after school bosses learned she was having sex with a teenage boy, according to the Education Department.
Hawkins County authorities were waiting for two would-be burglars after a cell phone in a suspect's pocket accidentally dialed 911 and dispatchers overheard them plotting the crime. Authorities arrested Jason Anthony Arnold, 29, and James Keith Benton, 38, both of Church Hill, and charged them with burglary and theft over $500. Officers said they tried to steal a refrigerator from a mobile home dealership. 
Eleven volcanoes are under close watch in Indonesia after a series of powerful quakes awoke intense subterranean forces and increased the chances of a major eruption, scientists have said. As tens of thousands of people spent a third night in temporary camps after fleeing the slopes of Mount Talang on Sumatra island, where hot ash has been raining down since Monday, more volcanoes began rumbling. Late on Wednesday, Anak Krakatau - the "child" of the legendary Krakatoa that blew itself apart in 1883 in one of the worst natural disasters recorded - was put on alert status amid warnings of poisonous gas emissions. No one lives on Krakatau, which forms a small island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, but the peak is a popular tourist spot, attracting Indonesian and foreign day-trippers.
Uige - There is no end in sight to the outbreak of the Marburg virus in Angola, a top expert from the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday, citing "massive problems" in mobilising Angolans to fight the Ebola-like bug in this northern city. 
