#2
well, it was pretty obviously a "trophy adoption" - showing how much Madonna is relevant cares and is doing her best to jumpstart her flagging career - nobody cares make "difference" by taking a child whose father put the child in the orphanage after the death of his wife since he couldn't properly feed/support him. Thank God she was there to make him her talisman of "caring"!
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/14/2006 22:22 Comments ||
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But at least their penises didn't fall off.
(AP)— Pneumonic plague is suspected to have broken out in two areas in Congo, causing a reported 42 deaths, the World Health Organization said Friday.
WHO said it had received reports of 626 cases, mostly in the town of Wamba in northern Oriental province.
The reports, which covered July 31 to Oct. 8, were investigated by a team from Congo's provincial health authority, WHO and Doctors Without Borders.
The U.N. health body said final laboratory confirmation of the presence of pneumonic plague was pending, but preliminary results from a rapid diagnosis test in the field found three out of eight samples positive.
Pneumonic plague is spread mainly by fleas, and causes an infection in the lungs that slowly suffocates its victims. If diagnosed in time, it can be treated with antibiotics. Yeah, but the antibiotics are made by Jooos.
#1
Mortality of pneumonic plague is close to 100% even if treatment is given quickly, and I mean quickly. The lung infection kills rather quickly (where did this "slowly" come from?) Pneumonic plague can be spread from person to person, at distances up to 6 feet. Mortality rate, rapid course of disease, and person to person spread make it one of the most dangerous infectious diseases.
Other less severe types of infection are bubonic plague (mortality about 16% with treatment and 40-70% without treatment)and septicemic plague (30-50% mortality with treatment, 100% without. Causative agent is bacillus Yersinia pestis
The 2012 London Olympics have been plunged into controversy by the discovery that the Games will clash with Ramadan, the most holy month in the Islamic calendar.
Nobody bothered to look at the calendar before now, did they?
The clash will put Muslim athletes at a disadvantage as they will be expected to fast from sunrise to sunset for the entire duration of the Games. Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "They would not have organised this at Christmas. It is equally stupid to organise it at Ramadan.
"It shows a complete lack of awareness and sensitivity.
"This is going to disadvantage the athletes and alienate the Asian communities by saying they don't matter.
"It's not only going to affect the participants it's going to affect all the people who want to watch the Games.
"They won't want to travel during Ramadan and they won't want to watch sport. It's a spiritual time."
Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, an imam on the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said: "I'm sure the athletes will seek advice from their scholars.
"They are obviously going to be at a disadvantage because other competitors will be drinking and keeping up their energy levels.
"But they are athletes and I am sure they will train their bodies to cope with this.
"A Muslim might feel it would have been nice to avoid this month but life doesn't stop for Muslims during Ramadan even though they are fasting.
"The best thing for a Muslim is to continue his or her life as normal. This is the real test."
The British Olympic Association is now planning a meeting with the organisers of London 2012 to discuss how the timing will affect UK Muslim athletes. And Muslim countries such as Turkey are calling for the date to be changed. Togay Bayalti, president of the National Olympic Committee of Turkey, said: "This will be difficult for Muslim athletes.
"They don't have to observe Ramadan if they are doing sport and travelling but they will have to decide whether it is important to them.
"It would be nice for the friendship of the Games if they had chosen a different date." Muslims and the Olympics. Munich.
#1
The clash will put Muslim athletes at a disadvantage as they will be expected to fast from sunrise to sunset for the entire duration of the Games.
Complete and total utter bullshit! For the greater glory of Islam there are any number of absolutions available to the athletes. Fatwah this, assholes!
Looking for a really good reason to switch over to the Dhimmis and teach BusHilter a lesson? WaPo gets all warn 'n runny 'bout the Donk crop this season. Democratic Faces That Could Launch Thousands of Votes With a Parade of Attractive Candidates, the Party May Benefit From the Politics of Beauty
Maybe Democratic candidate Michael Arcuri is running strong in this Republican House district because he pledges to expand health coverage, balance the budget and raise the minimum wage. Or maybe it's his piercing Italian eyes and runner's physique. "He is pretty good-looking," observed Paula Ferrin with admiration, as the 47-year-old district attorney worked the crowd at a local senior center.
"What we want is brains, honey," scolded her friend Rose Oliver.
The research is unambiguous that Ferrin is right: Attractive politicians have an edge over not-so-attractive ones. The phenomenon is resonating especially this year. By a combination of luck and design, Democrats seem to be fielding an uncommonly high number of uncommonly good-looking candidates.
The beauty gap between the parties, some on Capitol Hill muse, could even be a factor in who controls Congress after Election Day.
Democratic operatives do not publicly say that they went out of their way this year to recruit candidates with a high hotness quotient. Privately, however, they acknowledge that, as they focused on finding the most dynamic politicians to challenge vulnerable Republicans, it did not escape their notice that some of the most attractive prospects were indeed often quite attractive.
There is a certain logic to the trend. Back in 1994, when Republicans seized power in Congress from Democrats, the GOP had a number of fresh-faced challengers who knocked off incumbents who had grown worse for wear after years of committee hearings and fundraising receptions.
This year, it is the Democrats who have several ripe opportunities to unseat Republicans, some of whom have grown gray and portly during their years in power. To gain the 15 seats needed to recapture House control, the party is targeting about 40 GOP-leaning districts, including New York's 24th, where veteran Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R) is retiring and where Arcuri is campaigning.
In most of the races, the Democratic challengers look a lot like standard-issue politicians -- not likely to impress the judges at Atlantic City. But there are others who, while they might not have movie-star looks, are certainly well above the C-SPAN median. There's more, lots more, but I gotta go hurl.
Air America Radio, the liberal talk and news radio network that features the comedian Al Franken, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a network official told The Associated Press.
The network had denied rumors just a month ago that it would file for bankruptcy protection. On Friday, Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn told the AP that the filing became necessary only recently after negotiations with a creditor from the privately held company's early days broke down. Ms. Horn declined to name the creditor with which talks had reached a logjam. The company will operate in the interim with funding from its current investor group, Ms. Horn said.
“According to documents filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Air America owes Franken $360,750 and $9.8 million to RealNetworks Inc. CEO Robert Glaser, who owns 36.7 percent of the company and had previously served as its chairman.”
In addition to Mr. Franken, the network also features shows from liberal talk show host Randi Rhodes and syndicates shows from Jerry Springer and Portland, Ore.-based talk show host Thom Hartmann.
According to documents filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Air America owes Franken $360,750 and $9.8 million to RealNetworks Inc. CEO Robert Glaser, who owns 36.7 percent of the company and had previously served as its chairman.
Tracy Klestadt of Klestadt & Winters LLP, an attorney for Air America's parent company, Piquant LLC, said Rob Glaser had resigned as a director as of Friday morning. GMr. laser, along with two others, is providing new financing through Piquant investor group Democracy Allies LLC.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
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#1
They're were getting too much competition from the government sponsored NPR stations. Liberals should demand that the Bush administration sponsored NPR be shut down so that radio networks like Air America can have a chance.
#2
The Smoking Gun has the bankruptcy petition and creditor schedulkes available online. The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club is not listed as a creditor, which is . . . interesting.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/14/2006 9:01 Comments ||
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#3
Who needs Air America when you have the standard radio networks? The sad truth is that Air America failed because it was surplus to requirements - the vast majority of radio stations already put out the same left-wing material, but with more subtlety. And it is because of this liberal dominance of the airwaves that it looks like Democrats are going to win in a landslide.
#4
As I understand it, money for the Gloria Boys and Girls Club was previously put into a segregated account (still controlled by AA but with oversight), so perhaps that's why it isn't listed as a creditor.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/14/2006 11:59 Comments ||
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#5
yada, yada. Look at it this way. Franken was a comic who probably was living on top ramen with an occassional dinner at Spagos. For the last several years he's made buku bucks on his steady gig. So he doesn't get his last couple of paychecks? Big deal. Nothing from nothing equals nothing. This whole deal was sweet for him.
It works like this: You get a bunch of foolish investors, open a business, run up a bunch of credit and use all of that money to pay your really big salary first. Then when the capital runs out, you rinse and repeat. The are calling themselves investors, but they are just con artists who rip people off.
The only polls that actually count are the ones on Election Day. Having said that, the polls are looking grim for the Republican party. John at Powerline on the numbers:
Last night, I wrote a relatively optimistic post about the fundamental strength of the Republicans' position going into the election. Take a look, though, at the poll results from yesterday and the day before, compiled at Real Clear Politics. It's a sea of blue, with the Democratic candidate leading in just about every race for every office, nationwide. The polls can't all be screwy, and if this batch are anywhere near right, they foretell a rout of astonishing proportions. Maybe that's what the voters want; the Republicans have three weeks remaining to focus Americans on the serious issues at stake in the election.
Hard to say if it's the price of gasoline, collapsing home values, the war in Iraq, skyrocketing property taxes, stagnant real wages, leftist anti-Bush media coverage or all of the above, but it sounds like large segments of the people polled want to replace Republican politicians with Democratic ones. If a lot of Republicans in the House of Representatives are replaced, it will be in spite of their support for an enforcement-only illegal immigration bill, in start contrast to the Senate Republicans who have largely been in favor of amnesty. In which case the Senate (and GWB) will have made the right calculation about the political implications of this bill.
#8
Schadenfreude alert: the movie "Al Franken: God Spoke" starring you know who, has been in theaters since the Sept 13th release date. As of thursday, it had made.......$69,178
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/14/2006 12:37 Comments ||
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#9
Zhang Fei, you don't live in America, do you ?
Our economy is booming, house ownership has never been so high, unemployment is at all time lows, the prioce of gasoline is falling, and the biggest clue, we lie to pollsters, because we don't like being manipulated.
Wait till November for a reality check.
Zhang - there is no doubt that there are several races that are very close and if they all go (or enough of them) go the Dems way, they will a slim, one or two person lead in the senate and or house.
No one is predicting a Dem landslide - but rather the situation is such that the Dems might be able to slug it out in key races with the right combination of enough October sleeze and dead votes to barely scrape a majority in the senate or house.
Like I said, you tipped your hand with "landslide" and further tipped it with your follow on post. U ain't from around here, r u?
#13
Zheng isn't all wrong. The Senate is prone to moving one way or the other quickly. It went +5 for the Dhimmis in 2000 and +4 for the Repubs in 2002. Almost all were close, 51-49 races that all broke one way. That could happen again this time, and unfortunately (for me at least) the Dhimmis are poised to go anywhere from +3 to +7.
I can't tell about the House, the polling isn't so good and the MSM certainly isn't giving us the full story. The GOTV (get out the vote) effort the Repubs have learned to do will be sorely tested this time.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/14/2006 14:59 Comments ||
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#14
Here is my prediction on how you can tell if these polls are just election BS or if they are legit. If right before the election the pollsters start to close the gap - then you know they are BS.
That's what has happened in many of the races where we saw the fudging in the last election cycles.
Same MO every time:
MSM repeats the talking points and uses the same macros in every paper across the nation - you can see them on ZF's post above. But when you scratch the surface you see that the talking points and polls don't really pan out. For example, if so many Americans want us out of Iraq, then why did both the Senate and House vote overwhelmingly to NOT cut and run?
They tell us that the Dems are going to win. They run polls and articles that stress every example of how the Dems are doing well and Repubs are doing poorly.
They come up with an issue or issues and tell us that Foley or some other bad thing has everyone so upset that they plan to change their vote to vote Democrat.
Then as we get really close to the election, the pollsters start closing these gaps.
Why do they do this? Because it gets them far more votes than if they say that the people don't trust the Democrats on National Security and plan to vote against them. If the Dems know it's going to be a blow out - why bother to wait in lines at the polls? And lots of sheeple who really don't pay attention think that "everyone else" is voting for the democrats, so that must be who is the best.
So mark my words - if the pollsters start closing the gaps in the short weeks and days before the election - then its all a bunch of BS.
#15
When it comes right down to it, I expect most conservatives will look at the situation in Iran, look at the situation in North Korea. Look at the appeasing idiots in the Democratic party. And then hold their nose and vote for the local GOP (or RINO) candidate. That's what I (reluctantly) plan to do.
#16
anon: But when you scratch the surface you see that the talking points and polls don't really pan out.
These aren't talking points. They are the reality. High gasoline prices. Check. Collapsing home values. Check. War in Iraq. Check. Skyrocketing property taxes. Check. Stagnant real wages. Check. Leftist anti-Bush coverage. Check.
Sure, there are some good things in our current situation, like a healthy stock market (the result of a collapsing property market)* and good employment numbers. But the public tends to blame the Federal government for the bad things, and not give credit for the good things. This means that the GOP may be in big trouble. I've followed the polls closely since GWB was elected. They've been never been this bad.
* Just as the spike in home values was the result of a collapsing stock market.
#17
wxjames: Zhang Fei, you don't live in America, do you ?
Our economy is booming, house ownership has never been so high, unemployment is at all time lows, the prioce of gasoline is falling, and the biggest clue, we lie to pollsters, because we don't like being manipulated.
I'm from New York. Let me address your individual points:
- The economy may be booming, but real wages are not only stagnant, they aren't keeping up with consumption, which is through the roof on an avalanche of easy credit via Home Equity Lines of Credit (some have called it the HELOC ATM card) and ordinary credit card debt. When the bills come due and it can't pay, the part of Middle America that has overextended itself doesn't look in the mirror - it blames the Federal government for allowing "predatory lending", etc.
- Homeownership is at an all time high primarily because of easy credit. What homeowners don't realize is that until they pay off the loan, they don't actually own the home - the bank can take it away from them. A few points - (1) mortgage payments are at an all time high relative to median income - families are really stretching to cover their mortgage payments, (2) a big percentage of loans in the past several years are of the variable rate kind where families stretched themselves financially to take on a payment predicated on a 3% rate - a rate that is about increase several percentage points, (3) many of the "homeowners" making up this record home ownership number have Option ARMS - which are loans where they have the option of not paying off the entire interest amount due, and simply adding it to their principal balance.
There are a multitude of reasons why home values are collapsing in addition to the ones I mentioned above, but the average voter doesn't really think too hard about reasons - he just votes for the party not in power. Note that the average American uses play money to invest in stocks, but a significant percentage of his net worth to invest in his home. When home values dive, he is apt to be more disgruntled than when stock prices crash.
- Unemployment may be low, but real wages aren't increasing - something that Irwin Stelzer, who covers the economy at the Weekly Standard, has pointed out. When real wages don't increase, but real consumption does, you get increasing indebtedness - as I pointed out previously - which leads to stress. A stressed out wage earner is not good for the party in power.
- Gasoline prices may be falling, but they are high relative to what Americans are used to. They are certainly way higher than they were during the 2004 elections. They are high enough to hurt the many Americans who have commutes over an hour long just so they could have their patch of suburbia away from the teeming hordes.
- As to lying to pollsters, I would say Republicans are less likely to lie than Democrats. I don't want to insult liberals, but it's only an insult if it ain't true.
Thousands of people have been attending mass ceremonies in India at which hundreds of low-caste Hindus (Dalits) converted to Buddhism and Christianity.
The events in the central city of Nagpur are part of a protest against the injustices of India's caste system. By converting, Dalits - once known as Untouchables - can escape the prejudice and discrimination they normally face.
The ceremonies mark the 50th anniversary of the adoption of Buddhism by the scholar Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. He was the first prominent Dalit to urge low-caste Indians to embrace Buddhism. As the chief architect of India's constitution, he wrote anti-discrimination provisions and quota systems into the country's law. But four-fifths of India's Dalits live in often isolated rural areas, and traditional prejudice has persisted in spite of official laws.
The Dalits arrived by the truckload at a public park in Nagpur for ceremonies, which began with religious leaders giving fiery speeches against the treatment of lower castes. Reuters reported that dozens of riot policemen had turned out at the sprawling park. Udit Raj, a Dalit leader, told the BBC that around 2,500 people converted to Christianity and Buddhism.
DALIT FACTS
167m people, 16.2% of India's population
Nearly 60% live in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu states
The lowest rank in Hindu society, beneath the traditional caste system
Expected to perform the most menial jobs, particularly handling cadavers and human and animal waste
Physical contact with a Dalit was traditionally considered ritually polluting for other castes
Even converts to Christianity and Islam have encountered discrimination from higher-caste converts
Joseph D'Souza, the president of the Dalit Freedom Network and a Christian convert, described the conversions as a "celebratory occasion". "I think it's important to understand that this is a cry for human dignity, it's a cry for human worth," he told the BBC.
He said that Dalits could seek dignity by converting to Christianity, Jainism or Sikhism as well as Buddhism.
Buddhist convert Dhammachari Manidhamma told the BBC that social equality was impossible within Hinduism. "Buddha's teaching was for the humanity, and Buddha believed in equality. And Hindu religion, Hindu teaching is nothing but inequality.
Similar mass conversions are taking place this month in many other parts of India. Several states governed by the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, have introduced laws to make such conversions more difficult. The states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have all passed laws restricting conversions.
Gujarat has reclassified Buddhism and Jainism as branches of the Hindu religion, in an attempt to prevent conversions away from Hinduism eroding the BJP's bedrock support.
Hinduism teaches that most humans were created from parts of the body of the divinity Purusha. According to which body parts they were created from, humans fall into four basic castes which define their social standing, who they can marry, and what jobs they can do. But Dalits fall outside this system and are traditionally prevented from doing all but the most menial jobs or even drinking from the same water sources as other castes.
Interesting: Christianity got a big push in the Roman Empire because the slaves saw it as a way of escaping their lot in life. 2,000 years later and it's the same thing.
The General Assembly adopted a resolution by acclamation Friday appointing South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to succeed Kofi Annan as the next UN secretary-general. When Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, the assembly president, asked members of the 192-nation world body to adopt the resolution by acclamation, hundreds of diplomats and UN staff in the chamber burst into loud applause. She then banged the gavel saying "it is so decided." Ban, 62, will become the eighth UN secretary-general on Jan. 1 when Annan's second five-year term expires.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
SOUTH Korean?
This could get interesting.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/14/2006 20:21 Comments ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
10/14/2006 12:38 Comments ||
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#3
The fires, often started deliberately by farmers or big plantation businesses, have been burning for weeks in parts of Indonesia, creating a choking haze that has made many ill, shut airports and threatened wildlife in protected forests.
Kaban said more than 75 percent of the fires were not in government-controlled forests but in plantations and farms belonging to private companies and local people.
Let's see, they want other countries to send money to help with fires they start themselves?
But, we have our own fires to fight and sending valuable resources to your shitty little country just doesn't seem like a good idea. We will be keeping our money this time, sorry.
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.
Air America Radio, the liberal talk and news radio network that features the comedian Al Franken, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a network official told The Associated Press.
The General Assembly adopted a resolution by acclamation Friday appointing South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to succeed Kofi Annan as the next UN secretary-general. When Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, the assembly president, asked members of the 192-nation world body to adopt the resolution by acclamation, hundreds of diplomats and UN staff in the chamber burst into loud applause. She then banged the gavel saying "it is so decided." Ban, 62, will become the eighth UN secretary-general on Jan. 1 when Annan's second five-year term expires.
