The US Navy has relieved an aircraft carrier captain of his command over the production of lewd videos on the ship.
The videos featuring Capt Owen Honors were apparently made in 2006 and 2007. One has gay slurs, women in the shower together and simulated masturbation.
Officials said Capt Honors' actions and "profound lack of judgment" put his character and fitness to lead in doubt.
Admiral John Harvey Jr has replaced Capt Honors on the nuclear-powered ship USS Enterprise, the Navy said.
And of course the recent ending of DADT is entirely unrelated to this unfortunate event, as is the trash teevee, and DVD's that the gov't sees no problem with troops and sailors purchasing in the PX/BX, or watching in the DFAC or the galley.
Something tells me Capt Honors may have had rather stellar FITREPS throughout his career. Why did this...."profound lack of judgement" not manifest itself in other professioanal areas? Senior Raters please comment? Inquiring minds, etc.
#3
Whatta bunch of bull. If DADT is repealed then gays should be subject to the same stereotypical jokes everyone else is subjected to, fairly or unfairly.
Welcome to out; worse than the goofballs who wanted legal partnerships but complained about divorce procedings.
[Emirates 24/7] Sri Lanka said Monday it was considering banning mini-skirts following complaints about women wearing skimpy clothing in the conservative island nation. Oh, noze! Not wimmin in skimpy clothing!
Nimal Rubasinghe, secretary of the Cultural Affairs Ministry, said the government had received representations calling for a ban on wearing revealing clothing in public, though he declined to name the groups involved.
"There have been complaints from various quarters about mini-skirts, but we are only considering them and no final decision has been taken," Rubasinghe told AFP.
Rubasinghe was responding to a media report that said the government had asked a committee to prepare a dress code for public places to ensure that mini-skirts were outlawed.
The Lakbima News newspaper said mini-skirts could be banned if the cultural ministry had its way under a "new era of moral purity."
President Mahinda Rajapakse's government has recently ordered the removal of billboards featuring scantily-clad women and also launched a campaign to discourage the use of alcohol and tobacco.
Last year, US singer Akon was denied a visa to perform in Sri Lanka after Buddhist monks took offence at one of his videos that featured women in bikinis dancing around a pool in front of a Buddha statue.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Cant men (and women) who cannot control themselves simply check themselves into jail or wear (horse) blinkers rather than force other people to change?
#2
I gather one Caribbean nation had to ban miniskirts, because the combination of them and bicycles was causing so many auto accidents that it had become a crisis.
#3
Akon the Bay Con was more likely denied visa because he is a dry humping rapist rapper of poor lyrical quality, more likely to sing praise for the tigers than behave like your normal illegitimate celebrity and just trash the strip club and hotel room to be escorted out of country quietly.
[Emirates 24/7] A fox, believed to be the biggest ever found in Britain, was caught and killed after it apparently ate a family's pet cat.
The giant creature was twice the normal size of its species and weighed a massive 26.5 pounds. That's a big ass fox...and a damn nice coat.
It was four feet long - which is the same height as an average seven-year-old child and approximately the size of a coyote, dingo or Iberian lynx. Maybe the dingo ate your cat?
A moose bit my sister once.
The animal was caught on Boxing Day by veterinarian Keith Talbot, who had laid a trap with food, while he spent Christmas vacation at his parents' home in Maidstone, southern England.
Nobody's saying anything, but there are rumours deep-fried Twinkies involved.
The fox's capture raised fears the animals were getting larger and bolder, as they continue to have easy access to discarded food from suburban homes. Couldn't have anything to do with outlawing hunting the beasts... Can't use a gun, can't use a knife, can't use a slingshot, what am I supposed to hunt with in Britain, a spoon? OUR DIRTY LOOKS ARE USELESS AGAINST THEM!!!
Talbot spoke about the suspected attack by the fox on the family's cat. "The cat was on the doormat when they [his parents] went to bed and heard some commotion. They saw a fox going up the drive later on that night, but didn't think anything of it. Later that morning, they came out and there was fur and bits of the cat everywhere," he said.
The veterinarian caught two foxes after setting the trap. Both animals were humanely destroyed.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#4
"Gia danced around a little, shaking her peaches for show. She shook it hard. Too hard. In the middle of a shimmy, her stomach cramped. A fart slipped out. A loud one. And stinky."
#10
EU6305,
That phrase has been around long enough not only is it out of style here in the sticks, there is a c'ntry song which uses the term as its title/theme.
Search badonkadonk if you are curious, or consider yourself bliss and snooker as unhip.
gromky, do give thanks. At my exposure level the only remaining remedy is shoving pins in my fingernails, shoving my hands in fine salt, then throwing tequila in my eyes.
#20
IIUC in playing snooki, once you put your cue ball in a pocket everything afterwards should be considered scratching. Even though the border of the gametable is dominated by the pockets, or game parlance "holes", rather than the traditional game consisting mostly of bumpers, or in snooki parlance "gutter", the winning strategy is to attempt to jump the cue ball off of the table and past other players without being caught - like in cricket - or putting any game objects into the "holes".
(CNN) -- A senior administration official says an offer for self-declared Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo to step down and come to the United States still is open but Gbagbo is "digging in." Well, that'll save some time...later.
The official, who spoke on background because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, said "If President Gbagbo is looking for a dignified exit we remain open to help him with that, but there's no indication that he's prepared to leave at this point."
The official said Gbagbo, who was defeated in an election but refuses to cede power, has ignored efforts by the U.S. to communicate. "He has declined to see our ambassador," the official said, "He has declined to accept phone calls. But we have provided written communication. He is aware."
Gbagbo, he said, owns a number of properties both in the region and elsewhere "so he's got no shortage of possible destinations."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Once they're dug in it's hard to remove them without separating the body from the head.
As West African leaders press Ivory Coast's incumbent president to cede power to the winner of the country's recent presidential election, a U.S. official says Washington is willing to help Laurent Gbagbo make a "dignified exit." But, State Department officials say Mr. Gbagbo has shown no signs of leaving Ivory Coast. Yeah..."dignified". You know, breathing, and with a planeload of money. Maybe throw in some of his favorite broads... Don't forget the cognac, it works for lil' Kim...
West African mediators showed little luck in convincing Mr. Gbagbo to step down Monday, despite international pressure for him to do so. Presidents from the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, met with Mr. Gbagbo Monday in Abidjan.
Back in Washington, State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley told news hounds that the U.S. is in contact with officials in the region.
"We hope that President Gbagbo will listen intently to the message that he needs to step down," said P.J. Crowley. "So far, he hasn't. But we certainly endorse what ECOWAS is trying to do today."
This was the second time in a week that presidents from Benin, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone met with Mr. Gbagbo. They were joined Monday by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2011 00:00 ||
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A squad from the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has raided the house of a Saudi man following a tip off that he is practising sorcery.
It was reported that the suspect has bewitched a girl and married her without the knowledge of her family.
Following investigation, the suspect was put in jail, awaiting trial. Saudi Arabia applies capital punishment for sorcery.
The incident, which took place in Riyadh, came to light when a security guard, working for a private company, accused a fellow citizen of bewitching his daughter and his other family members and used magic to marry the girl without a marriage contract.
The squad obtained the mobile number and address of the house of the suspect, who was caught asking payment from a client.
Religious police found clothes belonging to the girl in the suspect's home.
Sources close to the case said that the suspect was an accomplice in a similar case and was once reported for abusing his nieces.
The Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said it is conducting awareness programmes against the practice of withcraft.
[El Universal] "I will not change a comma in the constitutional reform. This proposal is alive, it is not dead (...) I will seek a way, which will certainly be slower, to implement the project," said Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in the early hours of December 3, 2007, after his intended constitutional reform was rejected in a referendum. Three years later, the Venezuelan president met his goal of promoting a socialist production model, which was consolidated thanks to the legal texts passed by the National Assembly and which will be strengthened with the enabling law.
In the proposed constitutional reform, the government intended to set up a socialist system by changing the territorial structure through the creation of communes and functional districts. New types of ownership would be implemented in those areas. The reform encouraged social ownership, and private property was maintained, yet minimized.
Although the system was rejected on December 2, 2007, the Venezuelan government kept on trying to reach its goals. Through the enabling law that was adopted in 2007-2008, it approved several laws that promote the creation of socialist production units and increase the State's participation in the production of food. The Economic and Social Development Plan provides that the strategic sectors should be under the control of the State.
In July 2008, when the special decree powers came to an end, the government delegated to the National Assembly the drafting of new laws to strengthen the socialist model.
In 2010, in order to deal with the emergency situation derived from heavy rains, President Chavez requested a new enabling law. The rules to be drafted will serve to support the socialist model.
On Sunday, January 2, the Venezuelan head of state in his column Chavez's Lines said that the adoption of the "enabling law opens a path to good living, to the good living that we all deserve. We will strengthen and deepen revolutionary laws to reverse the structural asymmetries and social imbalances that are part of capitalism."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Grass & tree bark soon to be at a premium. Lay in those supplies now, folks!
#3
My guess is that EU bureaucrats have a side agenda - the dissolution of NATO. They can't initiate it, and are therefore looking to have Uncle Sam take the lead, in response to some EU provocation.
#5
...except admit a mistake that is; I mean backtrack to a point where a wrong turn was made and correct, but that would require admitting a mistake. So, full steam tut tut, all musicians on deck, yes those chairs go over there.
Dengue fever is an odd one. A girlfriend of a friend had it, and it produced the strangest collection of symptoms. Local doctors were puzzled, since it was unheard of that far from the border.
Leave it up to Google to find the answer. Entering the symptoms got an 8 for 8 match. On the upside, you feel like hell for three weeks and get better. The downside is that you had better not get it a second time, or it could unpredictably turn into hemorrhagic dengue, which is much like ebola.
The "breakbone" nickname was a good one. She said every single joint in her body hurt, and hurt enough so she could tell different vertebrae apart.
The same is true of California. Our elites liked the idea of stopping new gas and oil extraction, shutting down the nuclear power industry, freezing state east-west freeways, strangling the mining and timber industries, cutting off water to agriculture in the Central Valley, diverting revenues from fixing roads and bridges to redistributive entitlements, and praising the new multicultural state that would welcome in half the nation's 11-15 million illegal aliens. Better yet, the red-state-minded "they" (the nasty upper one-percent who stole from the rest of us due to their grasping but superfluous businesses) began to leave at the rate of 3,000 a week, ensuring the state a Senator Barbara Boxer into her nineties. Since illegals pay more into the system than they take out we should incourage another 5-10 million poor to immigrate to California, that will solve the $28 billion budget deficit.
/sarc off
Yes, we are proud that we have changed the attitude, lifestyle, and demography of the state, made it "green,"and have the highest paid public employees and the most generous welfare system--and do not have to soil our hands with nasty things like farming, oil production, or nuclear power. And now we are broke. Our infrastructure is crumbling and an embarrassment. My environs is known as "Zimbabwe" or "Appalachia" for its new third-world look that followed from about the highest unemployment and lowest per capita income in the nation. Again, thanks to the deep South, our schools are not quite last in reading and math. So of course, like the Greeks, we are mad at somebody other than ourselves. Californians are desperate for a "them" fix. But who is them? "Them" either left, is leaving, or has been shut down. Darn, those pesky Republicans keep leaving the state.
#1
Darn, those pesky Republicans keep leaving the state.
What do you call the Democrats who are leaving the state? Are they disillusioned yet? Are they going to change their evil ways? Or are they off to destroy some other economy with their evil ways?
Hat tip Gates of Vienna The real US unemployment rate is not 9.8% but between 25% and 30%. That is a depression level of job losses - so why doesn't it look like a depression for many people? How can so large of a statistical discrepancy exist, and how is it that holiday shopping malls are so crowded in a depression?
The true devastation is hidden by essentially placing the job losses inside three different "boxes": the official unemployment box, the true full unemployment box, and most importantly, the staggering and persistent private sector job loss box that has been temporarily covered over by a fantastic level of governmental deficit spending. The "recovering and out of the recession" cover story is only plausible when nobody connects the dots and adds all the boxes together.
We will add together the three boxes herein - using US government statistics for all three - and convincingly show that the US economy is in far worse condition than what is presented by the government or by the mainstream media. No, we have not emerged from "recession" and there will be no "double dip" - because the first "dip" was straight down to a depression-level economy in 2008/2009, and we haven't come back up.
Creating artificial "free money" on a massive scale that artificially boosts short-term employment is how you segment depression level unemployment into the separate boxes and hide what is really happening.
#1
There are plenty of ways to hid it. Here are some methods the Australian government does it. Transfer people from unemployment to sickness or disability, if a husband or wife works disallow the other to register and job training programs.
Then there are also plenty of people studying who would rather work. Plenty on early retirement too.
During the Bush Administration, the U-6 (the traditional U-3 Unemployed + part time + discouraged + marginally attached) rate got to 10% (it is about 17% now). By and large the media didn't make a big deal of the U-6 rate back in Clinton and Bush days and reported the U-3 rate (which briefly got to 6%).
The Govt isn't hiding anything.
Yes, the media is generally leftist and will scream "Jobless recovery" during republican administrations while saying "steady but slow growth" during democratic ones but that's the media, not the govt.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
01/04/2011 11:14 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I think, like the WikiLeaks "revelations", it's a matter of paying attention. There have been reports for two years of people doing one of several things when the unemployment money runs out:
o retire early (supposedly lots of that happening, leading to predictions that Social Security will run out of money considerably sooner than predicted)
o go on Welfare (the social security net for the poor)
o get a job in the underground economy
o live off their savings, including emptying retirement accounts (supposedly lots of this happening, a terrifying prospect for their grandchildren, did they but know it)
o move in with parents or children (leading to more empty houses
Under the headline, "Construction Stops at Physician Hospitals," Politico reports today that "Physician Hospitals of America says that construction had to stop at 45 hospitals nationwide or they would not be able to bill Medicare for treatments." Stopping construction at doctor-owned hospitals might not seem like the best way to boost the economy or to promote greater access and choice in health care, but that exactly what Obamacare is doing.
Kenneth Artz of the Heartland Institute explains, "Section 6001 of the health care law effectively bans new physician-owned hospitals (POHs) from starting up, and it keeps existing ones from expanding." Politico adds, "Friday [New Year's Eve] marked the last day physician-owned hospitals could get Medicare certification covering their new or expanded hospitals, one of the latest provisions of the reform law to go into effect." HOPE AND CHANGE!!!
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/04/2011 17:19 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I always like to point out what Admiral Sumner Shapiro said about Pollard.
Pollard is a lunatic. He shouldn't have been given a clearance in the first place. Poor administrative follow up put Pollard in a place where he could sell secrets for money to foreign governments.
And Pollard an Israeli hero? Feh! He's just an idiot. Just because he is in prison, doesn't make him Natan Sharansky.
#4
Netanyahu has nothing to lose by asking. Its like giving a dog a chunk of red meat hoping he'll like you later. In this case I'm assuming the red meat is the ability for Obama to tell Israel no in no uncertain terms and try to look like a strong President while making the Arabs happy.
[Ma'an] Atta Abbas, the president's brother, died on Monday in Damascus, the official Paleostinian Authority news agency WAFA reported. Ah, Damascus. Another Palestinian Hero who don't live in "Palestine".
President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas delivered a statement mourning his brother, known as Abu Fayez, who was a prominent Fatah leader for many years. Bet you're glad you don't have to drag him around on your coattails anymore, eh, Mahmoud?
He said Abu Fayez always dreamed of seeing Paleostine liberated with Jerusalem as its capital, WAFA reported. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww...
Abbas said he would receive mourners at the presidency headquarters in Ramallah on Wednesday. ...and make sure they use coasters, dammit!
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#2
The original headline stated only "President's Brother Dies", gromky. I don't remember that Assad the Younger had any immediate living relatives, but perhaps I've forgotten.
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.
Sri Lanka said Monday it was considering banning mini-skirts following complaints about women wearing skimpy clothing in the conservative island nation.
[Emirates 24/7] A fox, believed to be the biggest ever found in Britain, was caught and killed after it apparently ate a family's pet cat.
[El Universal] "I will not change a comma in the constitutional reform. This proposal is alive, it is not dead (...) I will seek a way, which will certainly be slower, to implement the project," said Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in the early hours of December 3, 2007, after his intended constitutional reform was rejected in a referendum. Three years later, the Venezuelan president met his goal of promoting a socialist production model, which was consolidated thanks to the legal texts passed by the National Assembly and which will be strengthened with the enabling law. 
Under the headline, "Construction Stops at Physician Hospitals," Politico reports today that "Physician Hospitals of America says that construction had to stop at 45 hospitals nationwide or they would not be able to bill Medicare for treatments." Stopping construction at doctor-owned hospitals might not seem like the best way to boost the economy or to promote greater access and choice in health care, but that exactly what Obamacare is doing. 
[Ma'an] Atta Abbas, the president's brother, died on Monday in Damascus, the official 
