Haiti will need U.N. peacekeepers for several years as the impoverished nation struggles to rebuild its ill-equipped police force after the bloody uprising that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said Saturday. The U.N. Security Council last week extended a year-old peacekeeping mission's mandate for another eight months, but the volatile nation will need their presence for longer, said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations.
"How much longer?"
"About 65 years should maybe do it."
"Haiti will need peacekeepers beyond the present mandate, there's no question about that," Guehenno said in an interview with The Associated Press aboard a U.N. flight from this northern city to the capital of Port-au-Prince. "Haiti will need peacekeepers so long as there's not a credible, effective police and judiciary."
"Okay, longer, then. Make it... ummm... 85 years..."
Guehenno, wrapping up a five-day visit to evaluate peacekeeping efforts, said troops would be needed while the U.N. helps revamp a police force prone to corruption and outnumbered by armed street gangs, a process he said would take "a few years." "There's no quick fix," he said. "Rebuilding the police is not going to happen in three months, or six months or even a year. These efforts take time."
Haiti achieved independence in 1804. Somehow they haven't gotten around to building a police force, much less rebuilding one. The best they've managed to come up with was the Ton Tons Macouts...
Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, has about 4,000 police officers for a population of 8 million. Experts estimate the country needs up to 10 times more.
"So how many peacekeepers is that gonna mean?"
"8 million."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2005 22:36 ||
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Why is the White House still insisting that the only health issue Vice President Cheney dealt with today is an old football injury to his knee, visiting renowned orthopedist Dr. Richard Steadman? At the Vail Valley Institute dinner tonight, I kept asking what those in the know here knew. Little by little, here is the story I pieced together: After the Secret Service secured the Vail Valley Medical Center, including the parking lot, the Vice President arrived under his own power and checked in at the orthopedic center under the name "Dr. Hoffman". He was immediately whisked to the adjacent cardiac unit, suffering from what was described to me as "an angina attack". The security was so high that a Secret Service agent wouldnât let an ER nurse out of the bathroom that she had gone into just before the Veep arrived. "Get back in there," the agent told her. Confounded, she called her husband on her cell phone, telling him "something big" was going on. And indeed it was⊠but you wouldnât know it from the White House. It appears that not only doesnât the public deserve to know what is really going on in Iraq ("last throes"?) we donât deserve to know what is going on with our Vice Presidentâs health. Arianna Huffington. TWAGO Salt. However, angina can be a little, or it can be a lot. Also, even if he is in good health, would the time be right to resign for "health reasons", and turn the job over to Condi Rice?
#1
Oh, Moose! You took this from the brain trust over at the HuffPo! Hell, if I had Arianna Huffington on a hook, I wouldn't let her go until it was wrapped around her small intestine.
"Really! And then a UFO swooped down and beamed up Cheney, two Secret Service men, and a ski bunny with a busted ankle! But that was by mistake, so they sent her right back."
#6
It's like Kobe Bryant! He's secretly visiting Steadman for knee surgery, but will most likely hole up in some local spa so he can get some rough sex with some nubile blonde concierge.
Even the VP needs a little strange every once in a while!
I'm not sure whether to laugh or cheer at this one...but one does have to smile. As another blogger said, "You have to wonder when a guy with way too much mascara and a snake wrapped around his neck has a better grasp of 2st century geopolitics than the leading lights of the Democratic Party."
RTWT.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/26/2005 11:50 ||
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#1
And Dave Mustaine for veep, he's another rock star who's head isn't in the sand.
#2
Well, I think if you're in a war, you don't want a poodle in there, you want a pit bull. I don't think that you want a guy in there going, "Gee, I don't know. Maybe. Could be." I think you want a guy in there who's either going to win it or lose it.
He gets it. Interesting interview, by the way.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/26/2005 15:40 Comments ||
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#3
I guess this answers the question: What do you tell your kids at 40?
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have solved one of the greatest mysteries of Stonehenge - the exact spot from where its huge stones were quarried.
A team has pinpointed the precise place in Wales from where the bluestones were removed in about 2500 BC.
It found the small crag-edged enclosure at one of the highest points of the 1,008ft high Carn Menyn mountain in Pembrokeshire's Preseli Hills.
The enclosure is just over one acre in size but, according to team leader Professor Tim Darvill, it provides a veritable "Aladdin's Cave" of made-to-measure pillars for aspiring circle builders. Within and outside the enclosure are numerous prone pillar stones with clear signs of working. Some are fairly recent and a handful of drill holes attest to the technology used. Other blocks may have been wrenched from the ground or the crags in ancient times.
They were then moved 240 miles to the famous site at Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.
The discovery comes a year after scientists proved that the remains of a "band of brothers" found near Stonehenge were Welshmen who transported the stones. The skeletons were found by workmen laying a pipe on Boscombe Down and chemical analysis of their teeth revealed they were brought up in South West Wales.
Experts believed the family accompanied the stones on their epic journey from the Preseli Hills to Salisbury Plain.
Now Prof Darvill, colleague Geoff Wainwright, a retired English Heritage archaeologist, and six researchers and students from Bournemouth University have confirmed where exactly they uncovered the stones.
The team have spent the past three years on the project.
They scoured a 3km-square area in the highest points of Carn Menyn where they made the amazing discovery.
Prof Darvill said, "When we came across the enclosure we couldn't believe it. You dream about finding things like this but don't really think they exist. We have done geological and chemical tests which are still ongoing but show the quarry is the exact place.
"Geographically, the bluestones are very distinctive and could have only come from a very certain area. We already knew it was in the Preseli Hills but the geological tests combined with the chemical test results make us sure we have found it.
"Nobody can be sure why the stones were taken from there to Salisbury but I believe it is because they were regarded as holy or to do with a deity of some kind.
"This is a great discovery and opens up the door for many more.
"Hopefully in the future we will be able to trace the exact holes where the stones were extracted from. It isn't going to be a massive hole in the ground as we understand a quarry to be these days.
"In 2500 BC things were a lot more primitive so the builders would have looked for rocks which were naturally displaced.
"They then would have put them on a river and taken them to Stonehenge that way.
The "band of brothers" found last year, were a family unit of three adults, one teenager and three children buried in the same grave 4,300 years ago, at the start of the metal age.
The family were found on Boscombe Down and were soon christened the "Boscombe bowmen."
The burials were found near to the site where the famously wealthy "Amesbury archer" was uncovered three years ago.
Prof Darvill's discovery will be published in the July-August edition of British Archaeology.
He has been researching Stonehenge for the last 10 years.
#7
ah stone worshipers like the mohammedans--but these guys worshipped BIG stones that were transported over river and dale--mo's people worship tiny meteorites that fall from the sky--gawd what boadica could've done to the armies of islam like berber queen kahina
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
06/26/2005 16:36 Comments ||
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#8
Blast it! I saw the headline, I thought they'd found out what the place was for!
#1
You captured it perfectly in the headline, mmurray821. It is, as many said or implied the other day, the beginning of a huge battle.
Use of eminent domain for private interests.
When some say there's political recourse, that's a disingenuous canard - it's long over and done when the elected officials come before the voters, again... and that's assuming there isn't a political machine against which the lone voice cannot contend. Total asswipe bullshit.
The old Texas divorce court joke that, for a man to get custody of the children, his wife would've had to service the entire crew of the Enterprise aircraft carrier has been eclipsed.
Now, with this SCOTUS decision on the books, barring incredibly damning evidence against the commercial and political interests behind it, no court challenge of eminent domain will succeed. This story illustrates clearly the situation. The last recourse against unjust use of this power is now, as officially as it gets, denied.
This is Ft Sumter redux. The Second Civil War has begun.
#2
This is probably the most outrageous thing ever coming out of SCOTUS.
The consequences are mind boggling. If a private company can seize private real estate for "the common good" (creating tax income, jobs, whatever) the idea of private property is a thing of the past.
And it would set a precedent for non real estate property.
Imagine a software engineer creating a great program. Microsoft wants to buy it. The engineer refuses (because Microsoft is evil, asking price is not enough, he has other plans... whatever).
That would be his perfect right, wouldn't it?
Now Microsoft just goes for expropriation,under the pretext that if they market the software they generate more taxes and create jobs (common good). The engineer loses his property and is "compensated" with "fair market value" (which certainly is below anything he wants and might get).
That's communism light, my friends (communism hard is without compensation).
I could quote a million examples. You own an inherited Rembrandt? Your local museum could seize it for the common good... claiming more taxes are generated for the community by putting the painting on public display.
You're on a very slipery slope there. And I would think twice now before buying property in the U.S.
#4
The "law makers" are the ones doing the land grabbing.
TGA, this is not new. This has been going on since the 1930's. This is just the first time somebody felt like carrying it to SCOTUS. How do you think Robert Moses did his wonderful urban landscapes?
What we now have is a citizenry that is seeing the underside of the New Deal and concluding it ain't pretty.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/26/2005 8:25 Comments ||
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#5
TGA, I believe you outlined the premise behind "Atlas Shrugged". That the pioneering spirited owe their inventions and entreprenurial achievements to the masses because it helps the "so-called" public good while spitting in the face of personal freedoms. A book I highly recommend for those who've never read it.
#6
You can disagree with SCOTUS on this but there is no reason for fear or outrage.
First of all, the public use projects of the 50s and 60s, many of which (including some of Robert Moses's) were poorly conceived, poorly executed and turned into tax and social liabilities, were not in question in the Kelo case. Those urban renewal type projects were done for clearly 'public' purposes and if SCOTUS had ruled the other way, they would still be legal.
Second of all, we don't do those kind of urban renewal projects anymore.
The reason is that the public has learned that these projects don't work.
The projects being done these days are smaller and generally better targeted. Home owners are generally amply compensated - not just for the fair market value of their property but also for moving and for incidentals.
Yes, some of the projects being done are ill conceived. Some of them benefit wealthy developers. But, many of them have created a source of tax revenue for local government that goes for all the things that local govt does: schools, police, waste disposel, etc. It is certainly true that local govts are sometimes inefficient but that is a different matter and not solveable thru preventing takings.
The other thing to think about is that, had SCOTUS ruled the other way, it would have been the Federal govt. gaining power over local govts.
#7
The other thing to think about is that, had SCOTUS ruled the other way, it would have been the Federal govt. gaining power over local govts.
But that's what the Fifth (and other amendments in the Bill of Rights) are supposed to mean:
IF THE LOCAL COURTS TRY TO BREAK THEM, THE FEDERAL COURTS ARE SUPPOSED TO STEP IN AND OVERRULE THEM.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/26/2005 13:59 Comments ||
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#8
Phil F
Yes, that's obviously one thing the SCOTUS does. However, it also is to stop the Federal govt when they issue laws or regs that are egregiously inconsistent with the constitution.
We do hope and expect that egregious violations by local govt are addressed in State courts without going to SCOTUS and so the 'violations by local govt' cases are expected to be fewer than the 'violations by the feds'.
#9
...Without wanting to minimize the implications of this, to a very great extent all this decision did was confirm what was already policy in many many places. The Federal Government really went off the rails more than four decades ago when they declared 'eminent domain' for national security reasons to build the Minuteman ICBM complexes. Hundreds of thousands of acres (and possibly more) of farmland were basically taken for next to nothing - and I remember being told that in a disturbing number of cases the owners got nothing. (Remember that the original plan for Minuteman called for 10,000 missiles vice the 1200 we actually got, and a lot of land taken was never used.)
Not heard of this before? Quite likely not. Those displaced have, for the most part, long since gone to their rewards. The Government, for their part, doesn't talk about it much at all..because at the end of the day, Conservative or Liberal, it's a nice power to have...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/26/2005 15:54 Comments ||
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#10
Uh, excuse me Mike, but did the government let Northrop, G.E. or Rockwell come in and take over the land from those farmers in order to make more money off of those silos than the farmers could from their crops? Not the same thing at all. I would suggest that national security is a much more important issue than local politicians increasing tax revenue at existing owners' expense.
Folks - eye on the ball here: This is about politicians using eminent domain to benefit themselves and private commercial entities without recourse to legal landowners. It is not about the original intent of the law - to give government the legal leverage it needs to do public works.
Some have said this use, for private enrichment, is common. Funny, but I've lived all over the Southwest, the Mountain States, and, toward the end, the Left Coast. I have NEVER seen this condoned or common in any of those places. People making these statements MUST come from machine politics centers - which is synonymous with Blue State Big Cities. Maybe in ChiTown or Philly or Boston, but not anywhere in Texas, and I've lived all over the state.
Summary:
There is no recourse left to correct abuses of this law.
a) The deed is long done and over before you can hold the politicians to account.
b) The courts will not hear these cases - as was clearly shown in the article.
Thus there is no actual timely redress for abuse left.
Point out where I'm mistaken, please. Show me how this is not different - and dramatically so - most places in the US are NOT under the corrupt thumb of some villianous political machine, you know. Flyover America is going to go apeshit over this - bank it.
#12
There are plenty of State Laws that make this illegal kind of taking in lots of states but not all. The Supreme Court ruling has nothing to do with that. In matters of property Sate law not federal law is supreme 99.9% of the time. Don't like this ruling like me? Then make sure your state passes a law making this impossible. You can bet your bottom dollar lots of greed head breaucrats will be happy to screw folks via this ruling.
#13
What? States that do not have and use eminent domain? Or some special law(s) against the abuse of eminent domain? I do not believe it. And, may I point out, it would now be irrelevant.
Read this story. What is clear is that:
1) The City is using eminent domain to take the legal private property from one entity and force the "sale" to another private entity. Eminent domain was never intended for this.
2) The courts system put the original owner's appeal on hold to await the SCOTUS decision. They will now summarily deny the appeal. Clear as glass.
Texas has some of the strongest legal protections of property rights you can imagine. I lived there for over 20 years. I could defend my property with deadly force without fear of injustice. The books were packed chock-full of laws designed to prevent the carpetbaggers, who would take over the Govt, from looting the state after the Civil War. It worked, too. The State Govt (and Counties, as "arms" of the State) is as weak as a kitten. I had the legal right to defend my property with deadly force - without fear of injustice afterwards. There will be a major uproar as Joe Citizen begins to "get it".
In a nutshell, here's the new reality:
If your city decided to seize your house tomorrow and "sell" it to another private entity because they felt they could get better tax revenue, what would you do?
Wait for the politicians to come up for election and campaign against them? -- That would be too damned late. Bulldozed and paved.
File suit to stop the city from forcing the sale? Your charge? Misuse of eminent domain, perhaps? -- What court would even hear your case, much less grant your appeal when they have the SCOTUS decision as the new universal Law of the Land in hand? None would is the correct answer. Q.E.D.
#14
Many states have laws that make a public taking for a private purpose illegal, New Jersey for one. I put no faith in government to behave. If a local or state government tries to take your land for sale to a non government entity and it's against state law the matter will be decided in state court. What the SCOTUS ruled has no bearing on those states and states which pass those laws. The state that this happened in has no such law.
The SCOTUS is very wrong on this. Their view is that the the government can take your property if it can get more taxes from the party that it forces a sale to. Sucks ass and is totally beyond what the court should be ruling on. I never put much faith in Lawyers, Judges, Courts or the government so I am not disappointed. All the listed are wannabe kings wishing to tell you what you can do with the "king's" land that you just rent according to them.
I decided to re-read this to see if there was any inkling that points to your assertion - regards New Jersey, for example. I can find nothing to support your statement.
Her opening paragraph says it all: "Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded--i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public--in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings "for public use" is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property--and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent."
-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
As she pointed out no exceptions, and I believe her to be somewhat well tutored in law, I believe I have it right. Three other Justices agree with us, me 'n Sandy.
The five who disagree are traitors to the Constitution - and I do not offer them anything respectfully. May they be impeached and rot in hell.
#16
The commenters I have seen on the Boob Tube seem to think that states such as New Jersey protect their citizens from this kind of theft. What the hell do I know. I watch FOX.
I don't mean to say in any way that this isn't scarry, it is. But most property cases are decided in state courts and state courts don't depend on federal rulings all that often. They go by and set their own course. The state this poor SOB lives in doesn't provide protection from public takings for private benifit.
In the long run this isn't anything different from actual practice. If some greedy public employee with the power wants your land they will find a way to steal it. It's just now they can do it with impunity in places where state law allows for it.
The SCOTUS quit protecting me about 1969. So I am not shocked at any course they might take. What part of shall not be infringed don't they understand? Well as far as I can tell all of it.
#17
I'm not a certified lawyer but my readings > the SCOTUS only reaffirmed the power of eminent/public domain that the latter already have, and have had for eons now. Private landowners will still have to be compensated for FMV at time of taking, plus developers will still have to compete with each other vv public bidding processes/protocols. The State cannot just hand it over to any singular developer regardless of the merits. For me the real battle will occur post-development, between County vs State vs Federal as to whom gets the taxes - why should one pay local taxes to the other(s) for lands which the latter did not condemn nor was subject or needed as per the Other's requirements. The SCOTUS mmay have unwillingly RE-OPENED up a can for worms for the various levels of Amer public governance i.e whom controls and gets the benefit of the Taxes and other Fees/Charges. About the only other pertinent issues is HOW LONG PRIVATE LANDOWNERS WHOSE LANDS WERE FORMALLY CONDEMNED WILL HAVE TO WAIT TO RECEIVE THEIR COMPENSATION, AND HOW MUCH IS FMV!?
NAIROBI - At least 21 Kenyans died after drinking an illegally prepared alcoholic drink probably containing poisonous methanol, medics and witnesses said on Saturday.
The victims took the locally brewed liquor on Friday evening at a bar in the village of Makutano, about 30 miles (50 km) south of Nairobi, and fell ill within hours. District medical officer Wako Dulacha told Reuters that by Saturday afternoon, 21 people had died. A further 36 -- looking confused and in pain -- were being treated in hospital, he said.
Of those in hospital, 10 had lost their sight and eight more were in serious condition. âWe suspect there was methanol,â Dulacha said. âSamples of the drink will be taken to the government chemists in Nairobi tomorrow to confirm the actual contents.â
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/26/2005 00:00 ||
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YORKTOWN, Virginia - Members of a group calling itself "America's Nazi Party" waved flags bearing swastikas and shouted slogans like "Sieg Heil" at a rally on a historic American battlefield, while some 500 counter-demonstrators gathered on a field nearby.
About 150 members of the National Socialist Movement and their supporters gathered at the Yorktown Battlefied to honor George Washington and other founding fathers whom they claim held separatist and anti-Semitic views - a position disputed by every most scholars.
Many wore Nazi uniforms with swastika armbands, while others identified themselves as members of the Ku Klux Klan and various skinhead groups. "This is sacred ground," said Jeff Schoep of Minneapolis, Commander of the National Socialist Movement, which bills itself as the largest Nazi party in the United States.
It's sacred ground allright, so get your ass off of it.
The counter-demonstrators, who came from as far away as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, gathered about 230 meters away. One group, Anti-Racist Action, marched in carrying a pink and red banner with black lettering that said, "Smash racism now." "All we want to do today is to get as close as we can and let them know they're not welcome to organize anywhere," protester Rob Conner said. The groups were separated by iron fences and police said no one was arrested.
The counter-demonstrators are just as nutty. Police should have let them have at each other and arrested the survivors, if any.
The U.S. Park Police said 15 law enforcement agencies were involved in maintaining security at the event. A helicopter circled the field continuously throughout the two-hour rallies.
The NSM had wanted the rally to be on the spot where the British army surrendered to Washington to end the siege of Yorktown - and the Revolutionary War - on October 19, 1781. Much of the park can be used by outside groups, but Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service based at Yorktown, said Surrender Field has always been off-limits.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/26/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Strutting socialist fools and pink fascist tools.
Wotta combo. We gotta start billing everyone who wants to march around and make fools / tools of themselves for the manpower required to maintain order and clean up after them.
Posted by: Jake Blues ||
06/26/2005 11:23 Comments ||
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#4
Oh yes I think it's a capitol idea PD. I bet it is actually applied, but onlt to normal groups, The Neo_NAZIs and TRANZIs nevr have it applied to them.
#5
Oh yes I think it's a capitol idea PD. I bet it is actually applied, but only to normal groups, The Neo_NAZIs and TRANZIs nevr have it applied to them.
#7
Most american Nazis are pathetic jokes that want to feel superiour about something. So, they go the whole "race" thing to feel better about their waste of a pathetic life.
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.
Haiti will need U.N. peacekeepers for several years as the impoverished nation struggles to rebuild its ill-equipped police force after the bloody uprising that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said Saturday. The U.N. Security Council last week extended a year-old peacekeeping mission's mandate for another eight months, but the volatile nation will need their presence for longer, said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations.
NAIROBI - At least 21 Kenyans died after drinking an illegally prepared alcoholic drink probably containing poisonous methanol, medics and witnesses said on Saturday.
YORKTOWN, Virginia - Members of a group calling itself "America's Nazi Party" waved flags bearing swastikas and shouted slogans like "Sieg Heil" at a rally on a historic American battlefield, while some 500 counter-demonstrators gathered on a field nearby.
