A retired University of Tennessee professor is accused of conspiring to provide military secrets to a Chinese graduate student.
... named Churchy la Femme, I'll bet...
J. Reece Roth was indicted Tuesday on 18 charges related to violating the Arms Export Control Act and trying to defraud the U.S. Air Force. The charges involve work performed by Roth and the student on an Air Force contract to develop flight controls for weapons-deploying unmanned aircraft.
The government says Roth failed to get permission to involve a foreign national in the work, carried sensitive documents on a lecture trip to China and directed wire transmissions of restricted technical data to China. Roth's attorney says his client has done nothing illegal and conducted himself ethically and honestly. Git a rope . . . .
#1
Not enough information here, but ITAR and EAR have carve-outs that exclude research from falling under their juristiction. But i will bet, that at the end of the day, Professor Reeces Pieces broke the law.
#2
I'm waiting to see what comes out. The guy is kind of a nerd. Doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would willingly pass secret information to Iranian and Chinese graduate students. I wonder why a background check wasn't done on these project personnel. The University of Tennessee doesn't have the resources/technical capability to conduct such background checks. It seems like the FBI would do this kind of background check. Roth seems like the kind of guy that would need instructions to get across the street. I'm just saying he appears to be fairly naive and might have been used unwittingly.
#3
I might add that when Roth looked around to hire graduate students, most likely Iranians and Chinese were readily available (maybe the only graduate students available). Engineering graduate programs have a plethora of foreign nationals. You see fewer and fewer U.S. graduate students in graduate programs. Diversity and multinationalism recruitment is celebrated and a policy in many universities including UT. I'm not saying Roth didn't pass secrets; he just doesn't seem like the type-but then one never knows. He has a lot of publications in plasma engineering and fusion processes that are available through Amazon. It would seem the Iranians or Chinese would have access to these publications.
#4
JohnQC, the preponderance of foreign nationals in our grad programs (science, engineering) isn't a matter of multiculti admissions so much as a lack of interested Americans with decent math scores.
It's a deep and really worrisome problem, one that I and others are trying hard to turn around one kid at a time. But it will take years at best -- knowledgeable annecdotal evidence is that we have to get them by about 8th grade or they're probably lost to that life direction.
#6
It's also happens to be a net lifetime financial penalty for a US science/engineering grad to pursue a PhD. While for a foreign student it's a sure thing to a green card, and often, a salary several multiples that back home.
It's not shortsighted from the individual's perspective if a US grad opts to go for a law, MBA, or financial engineering advanced degree. The incentives are stacked in that direction. The preponderance of foreign sci/eng advanced degree grads serves to push down salaries for the citizen grads. Good for employers, not so good for the student who will spend the next 4 years in a PhD program ringing up debt or a $15K/year fellowship followed by a postdoc at slave wages.
Posted by: ed ||
05/21/2008 21:35 Comments ||
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#7
My Dad was a Civil Engineer, and so am I. None of my kids wanted to be engineers...
/In all truth I was Biology Pre-Med track at UCSD and realized I'd SUCK as a doctor, then switched to graduate with a BSCE with a Radiation Physics minor at SDSU. While living in a fraternity. Life is interesting....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/21/2008 22:06 Comments ||
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#8
...who will spend the next 4 years in a PhD program...
4 years?? My boyfriend took 4 years to get his PhD. This was considered lightning-quick. But then he was a sniff theorist.
BELFAST (Rooters) - Brian Keenan, a former guerrilla leader in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who fought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, has died, his close ally Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said on Wednesday.
Born in 1942, Keenan still believed close to his death that the IRA could have won its fight for a united Ireland had it continued attacks on the British mainland and focused on business targets as in the 1996 London bombing of Canary Wharf.
"Those IRA Volunteers who took the fight to Britain were particularly brave and had special qualities," Keenan told the republican Sinn Fein party's weekly newspaper An Phoblacht earlier this year. "That is the only way to fight a war. There cannot be self-doubt, half-measures or holding back," Keenan said in the interview.
Adams said Keenan nevertheless accepted Sinn Fein's political participation in the Northern Ireland peace process and used his clout to move the IRA to support a 1998 peace deal that largely ended three decades of violence. "He got his head around the peace process...and the need to more forward to a different phase," Adams said. "He then used his considerable influence to persuade others that the course that Sinn Fein was setting was the course to follow," Adams told Irish broadcaster RTE.
Jonathan Powell, an aide to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has written that there would have been no IRA disarmament without the agreement of Keenan who he described as having once been the biggest single threat to the British state.
Building on the 1998 peace deal, predominantly Catholic Sinn Fein last year agreed to share power in Northern Ireland with Protestant unionists who want the province to remain British.
Sectarian tension between Protestants and the minority Catholic population persists, however, leading to sporadic violence. Small dissident groups on both sides continue to be involved in paramilitary and criminal activities.
Keenan, whose father had served in Britain's Royal Air Force during World War Two, joined the IRA in 1968 and was convicted of conspiring to cause explosions in Britain. He spent 16 years in jail in England, according to An Phoblacht.
"It is arguable that had we been able to sustain a bombing campaign in London a lot earlier by using Canary Wharf-type bombs then we might have changed the course of the war decisively in the IRA's favor," Keenan told An Phoblacht.
The IRA, responsible for about half of the more than 3,600 people killed during 30 years of conflict, called a ceasefire in 1997 and announced in 2005 it was formally ending its Armed Struggle, promising to abandon all weapons.
#2
This scum deserved a far worse death. Tossing him out of a plane over the North Atlantic, hands bound sans parachute, would have been a better fate than his actions merited.
Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 ||
05/21/2008 18:45 Comments ||
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Hamilton Jordan, a political strategist from south Georgia who helped propel Jimmy Carter to the White House and served as his chief of staff, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. . . . Jordan's battle with cancer began 22 years ago, when he was diagnosed with lymphoma, followed by bouts with melanoma and prostate cancer.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/21/2008 09:35 ||
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#1
Did he ever write a book? Was it called "I'm In Way Way Way Over My Head"?
It should've been...
#3
"...the passage of Saturn in opposition to Uranus..."
I know, I know - blatant invitation to a rich vein of Rantburg hilarity. But I think I'd better just polish my bust of Salieri and leave it to the masters. Zenster? Oh, Zensterrrr????
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
05/21/2008 22:48 Comments ||
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When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong.
I'm not sure about that. Sounds pretty overly-optimistic. If everything else is declining, why not brainpower, too?
Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit.
More like often to the point where there's nothing to be found but clutter.
The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, Progress in Brain Research.
I wonder whatever happened to the Police Gazette? And Argosy. I haven't been to a barber shop in years, but I expect that the next time I go to one there's gonna be a stock of Argosies, none of them dated later than April, 1963.
Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimers disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older.
Alzheimer's causes a physical deterioration of the brain. It takes your mind and it takes your dignity.
But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.
Yeah, well, it's harder to bend over to tie your shoes, too. And for us guys, it's harder to go a whole night without trooping to the potty every hour or so to let some water dribble out of the old hose. That's pretty frustrating, too, and demonstrably not very useful.
It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing, said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book.
Right. And neither are Depends. That doesn't make them desirable, does it?
It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.
If you can't retrieve it when it's needed, what good is it?
For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.
Just not as quickly as we did in the heady daze of our youth. Eventually, I expect to reach the point when I sit and stare at a single sheet of text until approximately Doomsday. I'll be taking it in and processing it, I reckon, as the glaciers whip by me.
When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.
Then they went to the bathroom.
For the young people, its as if the distraction never happened, said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. But for older adults, because theyve retained all this extra data, theyre now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information theyve soaked up from one situation to another.
Just takes a little time. And we tend to mumble as we're doing it. That's because we're afraid our upper plates are gonna fall out.
Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world, where it is not always clear what information is important, or will become important. A seemingly irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on new meaning if the original plan changes. Or extra details that stole your attention, like others yawning and fidgeting, may help you assess the speakers real impact. A broad attention span may enable older adults to ultimately know more about a situation and the indirect message of whats going on than their younger peers, Dr. Hasher said. We believe that this characteristic may play a significant role in why we think of older people as wiser.
That's right. You can't put one over on us. We're too smart for that. We can't do anything about it because we're old and stiff and tying our shoes leaves us winded, but you ain't foolin' us.
In a 2003 study at Harvard, Dr. Carson and other researchers tested students ability to tune out irrelevant information when exposed to a barrage of stimuli. The more creative the students were thought to be, determined by a questionnaire on past achievements, the more trouble they had ignoring the unwanted data. A reduced ability to filter and set priorities, the scientists concluded, could contribute to original thinking. This phenomenon, Dr. Carson said, is often linked to a decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. Studies have found that people who suffered an injury or disease that lowered activity in that region became more interested in creative pursuits.
Uhuh. I've been ever so much more interested in creative pursuits since I was dropped on my head.
Jacqui Smith, a professor of psychology and research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the current research, said there was a word for what results when the mind is able to assimilate data and put it in its proper place wisdom.
Or "dotage." Take your pick.
These findings are all very consistent with the context were building for what wisdom is, she said. If older people are taking in more information from a situation, and theyre then able to combine it with their comparatively greater store of general knowledge, theyre going to have a nice advantage.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
well, this does agree with one thing I've seen as I get older:
#3
I feel like a large old white Cobra asleep in an ancient abandoned city treasury. Young people are like inquisitive chittering monkeys who sometimes come in through a hole in the roof. They are curious mostly. But they dont stay long.
I dont care if they have names. As I get older evil becomes very understandable.
My memory and imagination are excellent. I dont have to be fast if you dont see me until its too late. When you are young you are all potential. When you are old you are all actuality.
Its all in the single touch.
#4
We tend to remember the good stuff and each time we bring it to mind, it appears to be moved to the front of the filing system. The bad stuff, while not entirely forgotten, seems to get pushed to the back of the system. That's the way with me anyway. I wouldn't want to change it, mother natures filing process... that is.
#5
I don't care, the older I get (and I'm not getting any younger, day by day), the less I use my brain, and th emore I rely on simple stimuli to keep me going from one automated task/response to an another. Basically, I'm a large chunk of low quality meat, animated by chemical stimuli, I don't quite have a need for an higher brain, kinda like Mike the headless chicken (with whom I feel a strong sense of kindship) - but, on the bright side, I'm mostly harmless.
It may be the mother of all doom and gloom gas price predictions: $12 for a gallon of gas is inevitable.
Robert Hirsch, Management Information Services Senior Energy Advisor, gave a dire warning about the potential future of gas prices on CNBCs May 20 Squawk Box. He told host Becky Quick there was no single thing that would solve the problem, due to the enormity of the problem. Becky Quick sounds like a name from a James Bond movie.
[T]he prices that were paying at the pump today are, I think, going to be the good old days, because others who watch this very closely forecast that were going to be hitting $12 and $15 per gallon, Hirsch said. And then, after that, when oil world oil production goes into decline, were going to talk about rationing. In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, but in addition to that, were not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it.
Hirsch told the Business & Media Institute the $12-$15 a gallon wasnt his prediction, but that he was citing Charles T. Maxwell, described as the Dean of Oil Analysts and the senior energy analyst at Weeden & Co. Still, Hirsch admitted the high price was inevitable in his view.
I dont attempt to predict oil prices because its been impossible in the past, Hirsch said in an e-mail. Were into a new era now, and over the next roughly five years the trend will be up significantly. However, there may be dips and bumps that no one can forecast; I wouldnt be at all surprised. To me the multi-year upswing is inevitable.
Maxwells original $12-15-a-gallon prediction came in a February 5 interview with Energytechstocks.com, a Web site run by two former Wall Street Journal staffers. [Maxwell] expects an oil-induced financial crisis to start somewhere in the 2010 to 2015 timeframe, Energytechstocks.com reported. He said that, unlike the recession the U.S. appears to be in today, This will not be six months of hell and then we come out of it. Rather, Maxwell expects this financial crisis to last at least 10 or 12 years, as the world goes through a prolonged period of price-induced rationing (eg, oil up to $300 a barrel and U.S. pump prices up to $15 a gallon).
According to associate of Maxwell at Weeden & Co., Maxwell is out of the country and currently unavailable for comment.
Maxwells biography on the Weeden & Co. Web site said he has been ranked by the U.S. financial institutions as the No. 1 oil analyst for the years 1972, 1974, 1977 and 1981-1986, according to polls taken by Institutional Investor magazine. In addition, for the last 17 years he has been an active member of an Oxford-based organization comprised of OPEC and other industry executives from 30 countries who meet twice a year to discuss trends within the energy industry.
Although Maxwells prediction is for the long-term, not everyone supports high-end predictions, even in the short-term. CNBC contributor and the vice president of risk management for MF Global (NYSE:MF) John Kilduff said on The Call May 7that he expected gas prices to drop following the Chinese Olympics, as Chinas economic boom slows down.
#1
Well if could ever drill for more and get more refineries and stop the stupid 31 flavors of gas I say we have a good shot at getting back to $2 gas.
#2
I gas hits $12 a gallon in my lifetime, Darth, you won't have to defeat the enviroweenies - they will only be found dangling from lampposts!
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/21/2008 18:27 Comments ||
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#3
Won't help if the Fed keeps debasing the dollar dumping billions on the credit market to bailout the investors and bankers. All they do is launder move the money around so they can continue to play at our expense as reflected in those prices. Of course, they're doing it for our own good(tm). Not much different between those players and socialist bureaucrats in the destruction of value.
#4
If oil gets anywhere near $500/barrel, the takeover of the middle east oil fields will be irresistible. 20M barrels at $500 is $3.65 trillion/year. That will fund a lot of pork and national health care, just saying.
Posted by: ed ||
05/21/2008 18:42 Comments ||
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#5
(eg, oil up to $300 a barrel and U.S. pump prices up to $15 a gallon).
Feel free Mr. Hirsh to pull any old number out of your ass. Say, you wouldn't happen to be eyeball deep in oil futures, would you?
Posted by: ed ||
05/21/2008 18:45 Comments ||
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#6
CNN > BLITZER/CAFFERTY FILE Segment AM > IIHC, CAFFERTY's sources are telling him that PEAK OIL may occur as early as next Year = before 2010, + that a US$200-a-Barrel price is strongly anticipated to occur TWO YEARS FROM NOW [May-June 2010]???
WOT > WAR FOR OWG-NWO > = AS MUCH AS AMERS MAY NOT LIKE IT, POLITIX + LIFE, ETC. IS NO LONGER ONLY ABOUT AMERICA, OR EVEN THE WEST + DEMOCRACY, ANYMORE.
#7
He's right. Just uncertain about the date. Between inflation and continuing demand vs. finite supply, $12 gas IS inevitable. If not in 2010 then 2020 or 2030. There will be a prolonged period of very painful global adjustment to the end of the oil age, whenever that turns out to be. But I am still optimistic that innovative humans will find another energy source - maybe nuclear, maybe bio-engineered algal biofuel, maybe high-efficiency solar-electric conversion cells, or maybe something totally unconceived-of. But unless American students start actually learning (especially math and science) in school again, the US won't be the leader in whatever new technology develops.
``What we have here is a situation where essentially higher prices aren't generating any more supply,'' Paul Sankey, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg radio. ``What we have to do is keep pricing the commodity higher until demand starts falling,'' which ``is around $150 a barrel.''
#15
REDDIT> WSJ: UN OIL MONITOR [IEA] IS GETTING READY TO SLASH THE WORLD'S ESTIMATE OF CRUDE. IEA Report won't be out until November but its already clear that world supplles will be getting tighter??? On separate note, REDDIT Poster on OIL DRUM artic argues that power plants will need to begin operating more at night, and that must start de facto switch to electric cars???
#16
Let me guess, we'll have 12 buck gas when we start carrying around ten megabuck bills (Like Zim-bob-way) won't seem so bad then.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/21/2008 21:21 Comments ||
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#17
Let's do some numbers here. The average American commutes 32 miles a day. Assuming a mix of highway and city traffic in a Honda Accord, we are looking at about 25 miles per gallon, or about 1.28 gallons a day. At $12 a gallon and 22 work days per month, his monthly gasoline cost would be $337. This compares with a monthly commute cost of about $98 today (based on $3.50 gasoline). If we get $12 a gallon gasoline, we are looking at a serious dent in the American consumer's purchasing power. Assuming average income of about $3,000 a month, gasoline has just gone from 3% of the average American's budget to just over 11%. I expect the Honda Fit (30 mpg) to replace the Accord (25 mpg) as the best-selling car in America.
Let's say the average Chinese commutes 16 miles a day. He might drive a Chery QQ, which gets perhaps 50 mpg, given a similar mix of highway and city miles. China's subsidized price is now $3 a gallon. The Chinese QQ driver's monthly gasoline budget is $21 a month. If US gasoline goes to $12 a gallon - assuming the government continues with the $0.50 subsidy, we are looking at $11.50 Chinese gasoline. Assuming no change in the exchange rate, the Chinese driver's gasoline budget just went to $80. This is not a small change. The average Chinese worker makes about $250 a month. Gasoline would go from 8% of his budget to just under 30%. I predict a lot of Chinese will simply go back to riding motorcycles.
January 15, 2008 Efforts to make hybrid electric vehicles more affordable for consumers achieved a major milestone today when a lead-acid test battery surpassed a 100,000 mile performance run. The Ultrabattery, developed by member companies of the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC), completed its 100,000 mile test run in a Honda Insight at the Millbrook Proving Ground near London in the UK. The achievement is significant because the Ultrabattery now is proven to:
Last at least as long as nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries installed in many hybrid electric vehicles.
Operate at a higher level of efficiency than Ni-MH batteries.
Cost considerably less than Ni-MH batteries.
During the tests just completed at Millbrook, the Ultrabattery operated at a normalized 40kW peak discharge power standard, exceeding by a wide margin the 25 kW standard set by the US Department of Energys FreedomCAR program in 2003. The Ultrabatterys performance also was better than the 28.7 kW performance in separate tests of a Ni-MH unit similar to those installed in hybrid electric vehicles sold in the U.S. and other countries.
Since the cost of raw materials in lead-acid batteries is considerably less than the cost of nickel metal hydride or lithium batteries, the performance of the new Ultrabattery could be a key factor in boosting the acceptance of hybrid vehicles among car buyers.
#21
Let's not forget that Iraq was recently said to have proven reserves (whatever that means) greater than Saudi Arabia's, and they haven't yet started exploiting the newly discovered fields. Canada is increasing their pace of extraction, and new oilfields seem to be discovered monthly, with a five to ten year timeline to exploitation. This may not be a long term problem, although it's certainly ugly for the short term.
If our oil expert could comment on how far off base I am, I'd be grateful.
#23
Based on my earlier calculations, if gasoline does in fact go to $12 a gallon, the consumption of gasoline will dive off a cliff. If we see gasoline at $12 a gallon, it will be on the way back to $3 a gallon gasoline. For probably a decade after peak prices.
Eight days after a massive earthquake struck southwest China, 129 students and 10 teachers were rescued in an isolated small town in Wenchuan County, Chinese state media reported Tuesday.
Early reports about the rescue in the town of Yinxing, carried by the official Xinhua news agency, provided few details about the condition of the students or the circumstances of their rescue, except to say that they were ferried to Chengdu, Sichuans provincial capital, aboard eight military helicopters, and taken immediately for medical care.
Later reports said that 1,100 troops had been dispatched to the 60-mile-long valley surrounding Yinxing village, and were proceeding from hamlet to hamlet, intensifying search and rescue efforts in an area that appears to have been largely overlooked in the initial emergency response to the earthquake.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2008 00:00 ||
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Rescued by one of those Japanese Survivor Search teams the Chinese want us to forget about?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/21/2008 19:35 Comments ||
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The Sichuan government said Tuesday that the provincial death toll from last week's earthquake in China has reached nearly 40,000. Vice Governor Li Chengyun told a news conference Tuesday in the provincial capital that there were 39,577 confirmed deaths in the province from the May 12 earthquake, and that another 236,359 people had been injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2008 00:00 ||
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well the generals have one thing on their side if there was an uprising besides having the military , their oppsitio after this will be too weak too throw a coup
#4
REDDIT: STATE MEDIA: MYANMAR GOVT. REFUSES TO ACCEPT ANY AID FROM US MILITARY, FEARS [US]INVASION.
For me, this Myanmar tragedy, in conjunction wid INDONESIA-SUMATRAN QUAKES, SICHUAN, etal., is of spec interest to me as is symbolic of a future US-CHINA MIL STANDOFF OVER SIMIL DISASTER RELIEF TO GUAM-WESTPAC, vv "EARTH CHANGES" [Dream/Vision].* DREAM > US desires to relocate many Guam and other refugees to new homes in Americas and elsewhere, but China fears alterior US motives despite its own severe Crises.
JUST AN OLD DREAM/VISION THAT HOPEFULLY WON'T = NEVER HAPPEN, CORRECT???
A Soweto hostel resident has told the police that he was paid to carry out the attacks on foreign nationals in the township, Sowetan, a South African newspaper, reported yesterday.
The xenophobic attacks, which started last week, have led to the death of no fewer than 23 persons.
The Federal Government of Nigeria, however, said yesterday that no Nigerian was killed in the riots.
Sowetan reported yesterday that the self-confessed hired killer was arrested with six others who looted houses belonging to those they believed were foreign nationals in White City, Jabavu, on Sunday night. It reported: This was the first indication that a third force could have a hand in fanning hatred for foreigners and inflaming xenophobic attacks in Gauteng.
Police were not revealing much about the mans claims, saying that he was being questioned. They could not say who paid the man and how much he received.
A police spokesman, Captain Mpande Khoza, confirmed to Sowetan that the man had made the startling claims although he did not give further details, saying the man was still being questioned. He had told the police that he was paid to carry the attacks. We do not know at this stage who hired him. We are still questioning them, the spokesman told Sowetan.
In Abuja, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that no Nigerian was killed in the riots. However, shops and properties belonging to Nigerians were said to have been destroyed.
THISDAY, quoting its reporter in South Africa, had reported on Monday that many Nigerians were killed in the xenophobic riots which gripped the former apartheid country. However, THISDAYs reporter in South Africa will verify claims on Nigerian casualty today.
Spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Mr. Ayo Olukanni, told THISDAY in a telephone conversation last night that the ministry was in contact with the Nigerian Acting Consular General in Johannesburg, Mr. Yakubu Ahmed, who had said that he held a meeting with the Nigerian community in South Africa and that no Nigerian had died in the riots.
Olukanni said that the Foreign Affairs Ministry had written to the South African authorities requesting for protection of Nigerians and Nigerian Missions in Johannesburg and Pretoria. "Ahmed held a meeting with about 100 members of the Nigeria community in Hillbrow Area, Johanesburg, and discussed issues of ensuring protection and safety of Nigerians in the wake of these attacks on foreigners. And with respect to the Consulate, request has been made to the South African Diplomatic Protection Unit for additional protection for the Mission and the two Missions are working together to ensure that things are under control," he said.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website reported yesterday that South African security ministers were discussing using the army to help stop the attacks on foreigners. The deployment of troops, which has been demanded by human rights groups and the opposition, could not be ruled out, a top ruling party official was quoted as saying.
Over 13,000 have reportedly fled their homes in the wave of attacks which President Thabo Mbeki has condemned as "shameful and criminal" violence.
Mobs of South Africans have been roaming townships, looking for foreigners, many of whom have sought refuge in police stations, churches and community halls, according to the BBC report. There have also been reports of attacks on South Africans from other parts of the country.
Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula promised that no illegal migrants would be deported during the attacks.
South Africa's police and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party intensified efforts yesterday to quell the violence. Police have struggled for over a week to end the violent attacks on foreigners who are accused by many in South Africa's poor townships of stealing jobs and fuelling a wave of violent crime.
Several foreigners have been burnt to death, women have been raped and scores of shops and homes looted.
More than 200 people have been arrested since the violence erupted on May 11 in Alexandra township, Reuters reported yesterday. The ANC said the situation was coming under control after it sent officials into townships to appeal for an end to the attacks. Police also increased their deployment to trouble spots. "The situation is being managed. Many ANC people are on the ground and things are quietening down," an ANC spokeswoman told a radio station.
The unrest has increased political instability at a time of electricity shortages, rising inflation and disaffection among the poor over President Thabo Mbeki's pro-business policies.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) has described the attacks as appalling. "We join the rest of South Africa in deploring this violence,'' the organisation said in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Johannesburg. Whatever are the underlying causes this senseless violence is not a solution," said Mr. Achmat Dangor, NMF's Chief Executive Officer, who signed the statement.
#2
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website reported yesterday that South African security ministers were discussing using the army to help stop the attacks on foreigners.
With 50% of the forces HIV positive this could be something of a challenge.
A gay Iranian teenager who feared execution for his sexual orientation if he were deported, has been granted asylum in Britain. Mehedi Kazemi, 19, came to London to study English in 2005, but later discovered his boyfriend had been convicted of sodomy in Iran and hanged.
An Iranian soldier, known only as BE, who deserted the military also won the right to stay in the UK. He had deserted rather than lay anti-personnel landmines.
Gay equality organisation Stonewall welcomed the news that Kazemi may stay in Britain. "We are delighted and very grateful to Jacqui Smith for her intervention as Home Secretary [interior minister] and for the work that Simon Hughes, as the local MP, did on the case," said Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall. "We are also pleased that, answering questions in the House of Commons, the Foreign Office ministers have acknowledged the danger that gay people face in Iran."
EU lawmakers at the European Parliament in Strasbourg called on Britain in March to look favourably on Kazemi's attempts to secure asylum, saying he would be executed if he were deported to Iran. The Iranian authorities "routinely imprison, torture and execute homosexuals," the lawmakers said in a resolution. That must be false, since iran doesn't have any homosexuals. Well, in any case, there is one less, now.
President Bush announced Wednesday that Americans soon will be allowed to send cell phones to Cubansa move that he hopes will push the communist regime to increase freedom of expression for Cuban citizens.
And after that we're gonna send them some cells.
Addressing recent changes in Cuba, Bush said, "Cubans are now allowed to purchase mobile phones, DVD players and computers and they have been told that they will be able to purchase toasters and other basic appliances in 2010."
"Jey, compañero! Look at this here toaster I got!"
"Joo, boy! Ain't socialism grande?"
"Got any bread?"
"Ummm... No. We can toast some of this cardboard, though!"
"And these see-gars! They ain't got none o' these in the USA!"
"If the Cuban regime is serious about improving life for the Cuban people, it will take steps necessary to make these changes meaningful," Bush said at the White House as he marked Cuba's 106th anniversary of independence this week. If the Cuban people can be trusted with mobile phones, "they should be trusted to speak freely in public," he said.
Dan Fisk, National Security Council senior director for Western hemisphere affairs, said the Bush administration will be interested in seeing if the Cuban regime allows the cell phones to enter the country.
Fisk emphasized that the new policy, which is to take effect in a few weeks, is not a loosening of the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, but a change in U.S. regulations that will allow cell phones to be in gift parcels that Americans can sent to Cubans.
Since becoming Cuba's first new president in 49 years, Raul Castro has done away with bans that prohibited Cubans from owning cell phones in their own names, staying in tourist hotels and buying DVD players, computers and coveted kitchen appliances. He also has acknowledged that state salaries are too small to live on, and pledged steady improvements.
"If Raul is serious about his so-called reforms, he will allow these phones to reach the Cuban people," Bush said.
Fidel Castro, 81, has not been seen in public since July 2006, when he underwent emergency intestinal surgery and relinquished power to Raul Castro. Fidel Castro formally stepped down as president in February, but keeps a presence through essays published in state media.
"The world is watching the Cuban regime," Bush said. "If it follows its recent public gesturesby opening up access to information, implementing meaningful economic reforms, respecting political freedom and human rightsthen it can credibly say it has delivered the beginnings of change.
"But experience tells us this regime has no intention of taking these steps. Instead its recent gestures appear to be nothing more than a cruel joke perpetuated on a long-suffering people."
#1
Idiots, without the towers and links they're worthless. (Can you hear me now?)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/21/2008 14:04 Comments ||
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#2
Strangely enough, all the phones have the Fidel Hanging From A Rope screen saver locked in.
Posted by: ed ||
05/21/2008 14:07 Comments ||
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#3
You think Jose Proletariat is going to end up with one? You know in the Peoples' Paradise(tm) who's fingers are going to be playing the buttons. It's normal hierarchical primate behavior. [Then again, Mossad et al has shown a neat trick with a cell phone or two. One well programmed call and there goes most of the party, so to speak.]
#1
The damage might have had something to do with a 7.9 earthquake although judging from the $hit we get from China, shoddy workmanship is definitely a possibility.
#3
My prediction: they will try and execute a few builders for poor workmanship. They will not try nor execute any of the city/county officials who took the bribes to look the other way from the poor workmanship.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
05/21/2008 18:06 Comments ||
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China is grappling with the next massive task in the aftermath of its earthquake: how to shelter the five million people left homeless.
Many were living Tuesday in tent cities like one at the base of Qianfo mountain in the disaster zone. The makeshift city offers some stability, along with food and medical care, to those whose lives were upended.
"After the quake, we couldn't sleep for five days. We were really, really afraid," said Chen Shigui, 55, a weathered farmer who climbed for two days with his wife and injured father to reach the camp from their mountain village. "I felt relieved when we got here. It's much safer compared to my home."
Continued on Page 49
#1
NOT snark, ship all those "Surplus" shipping containers back for emergency housing, I personaly plan to bury three of them for an underground home (Welded side-by-side into one big unit, encased in concrete, doors between.)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/21/2008 19:49 Comments ||
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#2
Wait until a space rock breaks up and one part crashes into the Asian manland.
ION, REDDIT/C2CAM > EARTHQUAKE LIGHTS/CLOUDS - ARE THEY FOR REAL?
Also from REDDIT > ATMOSPHERIC GRAVITY WAVES TURN THUNDERSTORMS INTO [powerful] TORNADOES. Guam's 1992 TYPHOON OMAR [Compact storm], aka "MIGHTY MIDGET" > PRE-GLOBAL WARMING/SUNSPOTS, POST-GLOBAL WARMING HARBINGER FOR FUTURE GUAM-WESTPAC???
Lest Guam forgets, the 1993 July Quake = SRF Quake + GIANT WATERSPOUT - "BACK TO THE FUTURE" OF 15 YEARS AGO???
#2
I said several weeks ago, Hilly should've offered to pay for the re-vote in Michigan of B.O. would pay for Florida, but does anyone listen to Bobby?
NOOoooooooooooooooo!
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/21/2008 18:31 Comments ||
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#3
if B.O. would pay....
Got out of class early tonight.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/21/2008 18:32 Comments ||
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Finally, a new and intriguing anecdote from David Mendell's biography of the Illinois senator, Obama: From Promise To Power, on page 125-126:
Obama, to be sure, had allies in the black caucus, but he had his share of critics as well. His chief antagonists were Rickey Hendon, who represented a district on the citys West Side, and Donne Trotter, who would run against Obama for Congress.
Hendon and other African-American lawmakers from the West Side often found themselves at odds with their South Side brethren, but the rift between Hendon and Obama was particularly acute. . . . In one legislative session, the two nemses nearly came to physical blows when Obama, apparently inadvertently, voted against a bill that included funding for a project that assisted Hendons district.
Years later, details of the incident remain in the eye of the beholder. Obama supporters say that Obama had stepped away from his seat and asked someone else to vote for him, not an uncommon practice considering the thousands of votes each session. His proxy, however, accidentally voted against his wishes. When Obama asked that the record reflect that he voted the wrong way, Hendon publicly accused Obama of duplicity. Hendon has never been shy about holding back his feelings, and he had a special way of penetrating Obamas usually smooth exterior. Soon, the two men were shouting at each other on the senate floor. They took their disagreement into a nearby room, and a witness said that Obama had to be physically restrained. Neither man cares to discuss the incident today, but Hendon remains unconvinced of Obamas explanation that his vote was accidental. Individuals close to the situation say Hendon still believes Obama voted against his project to pacify North Side fiscal conservatives who were leery of some West Side projects. For his part, the rarely reticent Hendon wont discuss the altercation, except to confirm that it occurred. I have been advised to leave Barack alone and that is what I am going to do, Hendon said. I am going to let things stay in the past. It happened. Thats all I can say. It happened.
The Los Angeles Times talks about Hendon and Obama shouting on the Senate floor in 2002, but no word of any near-physical altercation.
This anecdote raises a few questions.
1. This book came out last year. No one else has thought this was worthy of mentioning or discussion? Lots of people get angry, and even the best of us have our tempers flare every now and then. But is this incident ignored because the image of a furious Obama, having to be physically restrained, so contrasts the nice guy/secular messiah image we're seeing in the media?
2. Boy, that quote from Hendon sure sounds like clichéd dialogue from a mob witness from a cop movie, huh? Who "advised him to leave Barack alone"?
3. Any Democrat want to raise John McCain's alleged "temper issues" after this?
UPDATE: Mendell in a later interview: According to people I interviewed who were there, they said Obama was ready to throw some punches.
ANOTHER UPDATE: No less than three readers point out that once again, Obama is suggesting the buck stops elsewhere.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/21/2008 12:34 ||
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#1
Wait until he becomes your president---then you'll find out about his temper.
The rest of the story.
From CNN to the New York Times, the media hyped Barack Obama's Portland, Oregon rally on Sunday, some comparing him to a rock star. Unmentioned in national reporting was the fact that Obama was preceded by a rare, 45-minute free concert by actual rock stars The Decemberists. The Portland-based band has drawn rave reviews from Rolling Stone magazine, which gave their 2005 album Picaresque four and a half stars (out of five), and another four and a half stars for 2007's The Crane Wife.
How many of the people showed up to hear Obama, and how many to hear the band? Wonder if they played "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"? The Decemberists Typically open their act with the Soviet Anthem. No clear word if they opened this way in Portland.
There's nothing wrong with a candidate using celebrity power to draw a crowd, but the media have a responsibility to report their presence. By ignoring the free concert, the Times and other outlets made it appear that 75,000 people were drawn only by Sen. Obama's considerable charisma. Rest at link
#1
I don't think this makes much of a difference; the sort of degenerates drawn to the sorts of bands that play the Soviet anthem are probably also the sorts of people who will vote for Opophis.
She needed a win, and I think buying this one is a good investment.
The press really deep down inside wants to see this menopausal harpy as president.....HEY, I need to work on my resume.
Posted by: James Carville ||
05/21/2008 0:44 Comments ||
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#2
Thanks, James. Obama is beginning to scare me.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/21/2008 13:53 Comments ||
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#3
but at least i know what to expect from Hillary; Obamaramadingdong is waaay scary. and i am seeing too many of his bumper stickers on too many cars out here, and not just subarus, volvos and other stereotypical leftymobiles.
As Hillary Rodham Clinton decries the mainstream media for diminishing her chances of capturing the Democratic nomination, she is turning more to the Internet to make her increasingly urgent case. She held her first blogger-only conference call on Friday, phoning in to about 40 bloggers from the campaign trail in Oregon.
Hmph. I haven't gotten my check yet. What'm I? Chopped liver?
And the campaign has stepped up its use of Twitter, a social-networking service that sends short, text-based posts, to make real-time calls to arms.
The push on the Internet comes amid signs that Mrs. Clinton is getting less attention these days, both in the blogosphere and the mainstream media. Techpresident.com reports that according to the blog search tool Technorati, Mrs. Clinton is being mentioned less than half as often as Senator Barack Obama in the blogosphere and that mentions of her have even slipped below those of Senator John McCain.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Clearly I'm the wrong demographic. I've never heard of Twitter, and the only text messages I get are from Mr. Wife and the trailing and temporary daughters... and very occasionally, the phone company.
#3
And the campaign has stepped up its use of Twitter, a social-networking service that sends short, text-based posts, to make real-time calls to arms.
Republican John McCain, speaking to a raucous crowd on Cuba's independence day, hammered Democrat Barack Obama for saying he would meet with Cuban President Raul Castro and called Obama a "tool of organized labor" for opposing a Latin American trade deal.
For a second day, McCain criticized Obama for saying, in a debate last year, that as president he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela without preconditions. McCain insisted such a meeting could endanger national security, sounding a theme that is likely to persist until the November general election. The Arizona senator recalled the ridicule President Jimmy Carter faced in 1979 when he kissed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev during the signing of an arms treaty.
We've got two examples this very day to watch and learn from, not that anybody'll bother paying attention or learning anything.
One is in Sudan, where after years of negotiations the government reached a peace deal -- and formed a "government of national unity" -- with the southern rebels. John Garang, the southerners' leader, died in a plane crash almost immediately. Sudan government forces took over the Abyei area today, which is coincidentally oozing oil.
The other example is Israel, which is inching closer with each passing day to a hudna with Hamas through a process of backdoor negotiations through the ever-helpful Egyptians. That's going to be Olmert's "legacy," before they throw him out for corruption. Apparently everybody expects this one to be different from the countless ceasefires negotiated with Arafat when he was alive, though unwell. In each and every case, Israel made concessions to get a little peace. In each and every case, the Paleos took the concessions, then set about looking for excuses to get back to fighting.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
OBH is starting to look like easy meat. Critize something he has said and watch him tie himself in knots to prove himself wright, er right. Right(Wright)? He's like a little boy with a big ego. He can't back down and lose face no matter how ridiculous he ends up making himself sound. If others can control the agenda this easily, he will not appear to be powerful enough to handle the job he is appling for.
#2
McCain criticized Obama for saying, in a debate last year, that as president he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela without preconditions.
Maybe he thinks they're some of the 57 states? Or was it 58?
#3
Re: easy meat: It is going to be a blood bath for the GOP this year.
McCain's only redeeming characteristic is that he is strong on the war and that he is not feckless and "out-there" as Obama. McCain has completely snubbed his base. What's worse is that now the GOP is trying to "rebrand" themselves as being cool with global warming, same sex marriage, amnesty for immigrants and any other left issue. Regardless how you feel about those issues, the end result is that McCain has tried to make himself appealing to everyone but those that will send him money and help him get elected. Obama's supporters love him, adore him, would do anything for him. McCain has no supporters, only those that would rather vote for him than the alternative. McCain is going to have a real problem turning out the vote.
The GOP doesn't get it. They are so out of touch with the people that they represent that it is stunning. They aren't going to lose this election, they are going to commit suicide.
#4
And just like in 06 - they won't learn a damn thing from it, will blame their 'base' for being 'out of touch with the leadershit' (spelling intentional) and will come back in '12 with the same old LOOSERS and RINO's...
#5
The Arizona senator recalled the ridicule President Jimmy Carter faced in 1979 when he kissed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev during the signing of an arms treaty.
Well, some of those Russians might be kinda touchy-feely that way, a little like the French. As much as I despise Carter I'm less disturbed by a peck on the cheek from Brezhnev than the recent pictures of Bush holding hands with the Soddy king. That really turned my stomach.
As for Castro, I still think it's hypocritical to do all the business we do with China while refusing to have anything to do with Cuba.
McCain is attractive because of his hard line stance WRT Iran and Iraq but otherwise I think he comes up way short. This'll be the first election I can remember when I couldn't figure out who is the lesser evil.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/21/2008 11:54 Comments ||
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A strike called by family members of a local businessman killed by Maoist fighters, and backed by three mainstream parties, brought life to a standstill in Kathmandu on Wednesday.
Schools and businesses were closed and the streets were empty as people, appalled by the murder in the wake of the Maoists becoming the single largest party in Parliament in last month's constituent assembly election, supported the strike call.
"Unlike many strikes called in the past, this is for a good reason," said Khil Bahadur Khadka, who runs a private security company in Kathmandu.
"Everyone must support this strike to exert pressure on the Maoists to abandon violence completely," he said.
The abduction, torture and subsequent death of Ram Hari Shrestha took place earlier this month in a cantonment where Maoist fighters are confined under U.N. monitoring. The Maoist leadership, which is seeking to lead the next government, responded by taking damage control measures.
On Wednesday, Maoist chairman Prachanda issued a statement calling for the formation of a high-level probe commission, demanding tough action against the culprits and urging Shrestha's family to call off the strike to create a conducive environment for the constituent assembly meeting scheduled for next Wednesday.
However, Prachanda said there was no institutional involvement of his party or the army in the incident. "It was perpetrated by some selfish elements hiding in our party," he said.
Maoists fighters have admitted to abducting Shrestha, a Maoist sympathizer, from Koteshwore area in Kathmandu, holding him captive in Shaktikhor cantonment in Chitwan district of central Nepal for several days, and torturing him.
Though the Maoists had said last week that Shrestha died on May 10, a local hospital in Chitwan district said Tuesday he died in the hospital on May 8, a day after being brought there by the Maoists in a badly bruised and battered condition.
Doctors involved in his treatment said he died of extremely low blood circulation to his vital organs, caused by the brutal beatings.
The Maoists reportedly tortured him over a financial dispute.
The Shaktikhor cantonment is one of the several cantonments spread across the country that house nearly 20,000 Maoist fighters waiting for integration into the state army.
The Maoists say that they dumped his dead body in a river.
Protests against the murder have affected traffic in Kathmandu for five days in a row now. Hoarding boards carrying pictures of Prachanda have been pulled down in Kathmandu, and Shrestha's family members have said that they do not want a "murderer president" to rule the country.
The Maoists have been saying that Prachanda will be the first president of the country after the first meeting of the assembly abolishes the monarchy.
As the scandal threatens to weaken the Maoist bid to lead the next government, the Shrestha family is receiving threats from Maoists to tone down their protests.
"We have been receiving threats daily," said Shrestha's elder brother Gyan Kumar. The family has been sleeping in different houses every night.
The U.N. Mission in Nepal that is supposed to keep an eye on activities inside cantonments has condemned the killing and has said that commanders of the Maoist army have acknowledged it was committed by their members.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal is following an investigation that is being carried out by police.
Former US vice president turned environmentalist Al Gore said Tuesday that the Middle East's water shortage is a major part of the global climate crisis. Gore praised Israel for irrigating its desert landscape, but he warned against decreasing water levels in the region's lakes and rivers and called for action. Gore made the comments at a high-tech conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2008 00:00 ||
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#3
Hey, cut him some slack, a man's got to make a living, he's got a great racket, I'm sure he was handesomely paid for that "high tech" coference appearance. He sure is a great salesman, you've got to give him that.
#4
The real reason he was in Israel: to pick up a $1 million check. The Saudis aren't the only ones can play the ex-world leader bribe game.
Posted by: ed ||
05/21/2008 8:35 Comments ||
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#5
Lefties run around talking about teh eevil imperialist Zionists are hogging the poor pals water and will never give it up. Gore is making the completely sound case that technology is the answer to the regional water problem. And hes reminding everyone of what israel has already achieved technologically.
I know you guys dont like him, but theres nothing objectively wrong with this speech, is there?
#6
LH, you're just plain too rationally objective and level-headed. I say that for your own good, you know. Why fight the Dark side? Embrace it. Join us.
OTHO, what will exactly that $1 million speech by al achieve toward the stated goal?
#8
#6 its gotten about the only pro-israel coverage in the MSM on the 60th anniv that isnt qualified with "but for the Pals, its the anniv of the Nakhba" or " the speech was made by controversial Pres Bush" Id pay a million for that.
#7 Socialist? You mean like the state owned Israeli water company? Or maybe state involvement in desalination and other water schemes? Or maybe just pointing out the role that Kibbutzim have had in irrigating the desert? :)
#9
Besides, appealing to the Arabs would be a total wast of time.
Posted by: Kelly ||
05/21/2008 10:58 Comments ||
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#10
Socialist? You mean like the state owned Israeli water company?
No, I mean him and his fellow watermelons (Green on the outside and Red in the center and filled with mush). They will use Green and socialism to keep you down to using only rocks while they live comfortably and away from us ignorant peasants.
You are confusing government regulated operations with pure socialism drivel.
#11
not regulated, owned. Has been since 1950, I think. Israel used to have alot more socialism, but they went on a privatization trend in the '90s like everyone else. But the National Water Carrier is still govt owned, IIUC.
Im using socialism to mean, you know, socialist polices like govt ownership of industry, public utilities, etc. Not as a synonym for "yucky"
Israel has actual you know, socialists. Not folks who are into writing books about the West being eevil, but folks who actually live on collectively owned farms, or work for labor union owned businesses, or stuff like that. Not as many as it used to, of course (and the collectively owned farms now pay based on work done, which was somewhat traumatic for them), but still quite a few.
#13
As for sticks, I dont think that will be necessary to deal with GHGs. Not at all.
Well when they stop using their private jets, I'll believe it might be an issue.
And the best way to deal with GHGs, stop trying to fuck with them. CO2 is not an effective GHG since its infrared absorption are nearly at saturation at current levels and there are natural variations of weather patterns all the time.
#14
So why is it up to Israel to solve the mid-east water crisis. How about we trade water for oil? I guess the surrounding countries are too screwed up to solve anything.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind said on Monday that he saw then-Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert take an envelope full of cash following a Brooklyn fundraiser for the New Jerusalem Foundation in the 1990s.
Hikind said he had hosted the fundraiser at his Brooklyn home. When it was over, he said, he walked Olmert out and saw a person "give him an envelope filled with cash."
However, Hikind wasn't sure when the fundraiser was held and would not identify the individual who he claimed handed over the envelope.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2008 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
BELFAST (Rooters) - Brian Keenan, a former guerrilla leader in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who fought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, has died, his close ally Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said on Wednesday.
Hamilton Jordan, a political strategist from south Georgia who helped propel Jimmy Carter to the White House and served as his chief of staff, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. . . . Jordan's battle with cancer began 22 years ago, when he was diagnosed with lymphoma, followed by bouts with melanoma and prostate cancer.
It may be the mother of all doom and gloom gas price predictions: $12 for a gallon of gas is inevitable.
President Bush announced Wednesday that Americans soon will be allowed to send cell phones to Cubansa move that he hopes will push the communist regime to increase freedom of expression for Cuban citizens. 
1. This book came out last year. No one else has thought this was worthy of mentioning or discussion? Lots of people get angry, and even the best of us have our tempers flare every now and then. But is this incident ignored because the image of a furious Obama, having to be physically restrained, so contrasts the nice guy/
Republican John McCain, speaking to a raucous crowd on Cuba's independence day, hammered Democrat Barack Obama for saying he would meet with Cuban President Raul Castro and called Obama a "tool of organized labor" for opposing a Latin American trade deal. 
A strike called by family members of a local businessman killed by Maoist fighters, and backed by three mainstream parties, brought life to a standstill in Kathmandu on Wednesday. 
