The votes have been counted yet again, but the losing presidential candidate is threatening the peace by failing to recognize the result.
August 30, 2006
A COUP D'ETAT IS BREWING in Mexico. Even as he runs out of legal ways to challenge the July 2 presidential election results, the contest's sore loser, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is planning to proclaim himself president and establish a parallel "people's government" on the national Day of Independence, Sept. 16.
The defiance by the leftist former mayor of Mexico City comes after a unanimous ruling Monday by the nation's top electoral tribunal, which rejected claims filed by Lopez Obrador's party of massive fraud. Lopez Obrador, who finished second in the balloting, has been waging an increasingly desperate campaign to have the election nullified. The independent panel of seven electoral justices reviewed 9% of polling places where it had reason to suspect error, and it threw out tens of thousands of ballots.
The net result of the review was to reduce conservative candidate Felipe Calderon's nearly quarter-million-vote margin by about 4,000 votes. The tribunal has until next Wednesday to certify the election results.
Lopez Obrador's supporters have shut down much of Mexico City in acts of civil disobedience, and they appear intent on making the country ungovernable. The hope had been to pressure the tribunal into overlooking legal niceties reformed election laws defer to the election-day count conducted by citizens chosen at random to annul the vote.
Lopez Obrador and the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, are crying out against the imposition of a president backed by the nation's business elite, but the whining is misplaced. Lopez Obrador, who obtained roughly a third of the ballots cast, became an activist in the dark days of the autocratic rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, but Mexico's electoral institutions are now fully independent. There has been no convincing proof of any widespread fraud. The election was conducted by nearly a million citizens selected to serve, and foreign observers have all praised the balloting as exemplary.
Indeed, if there is any threat to democracy in Mexico, it is Lopez Obrador and his sense of entitlement. The vast majority of Mexicans, including many of those who voted for him, find his antics tiresome. But even if only 10% or 15% of the population believes its candidate is being unfairly denied the presidency, it can create quite a bit of havoc if egged on by a demagogue exploiting their sense of victimization.
The next weeks and months pose a different challenge for the country's democracy, as Lopez Obrador's supporters will seek to disrupt President Vicente Fox's final State of the Union address on Friday, as well as Independence Day celebrations later in September. Fox's government has shown admirable restraint, but Lopez Obrador is hoping for some violent confrontation with federal authorities to score him sorely needed public opinion points.
Meanwhile, it's time for democratic voices on the left in Mexico to distance themselves from Lopez Obrador's destructive coup attempt. The likes of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the PRD's founder who probably was victimized by electoral fraud in his 1988 bid for the presidency, should say basta and encourage everyone to respect the election's outcome.
Bizarre article. Confirmation, if any is needed, that these people are insane
By Kim Myong-chol
The time is coming fast to decide who is the winner and who the loser in the long-standing conflict between the Korean people, with a history of 5,000 years - proud descendants of Dankun and Paedal Korea and Koguryo - and the United States, with a history of a mere 200 years. The Korean people have many scores to settle with the US.
The North Korean government of Kim Jong-il is going to show who the real masters of Korea are by winning the nuclear standoff with the US. The Korean people adamantly refuse to be second-class citizens, but are determined to prove that they are sovereign masters of the Land of Morning Calm.
The Korean-US conflict began long before the late Kim Il-sung and his son, current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, were born. It was nearly 150 ago, in 1866 when the US gunboat General Sherman raided Pyongyang. The final stage of the conflict is in the present nuclear standoff between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States. Kim Jong-il and his North Korean people have long-standing scores to settle with the US and its allies. Scene I of the first stage is the declaration of nuclear-weapons status. Scene II is to show beyond doubt that North Korea has the nuclear capability to settle the old scores with the US.
#3
About halfway through I had to look back to make sure this wasn't from Scrappleface. What a maroon!
Posted by: mac ||
08/30/2006 18:05 Comments ||
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As professional as their name sounds, the Asian Times is totally focused on Anti-American readers. After 9/11 I was reading some of their articles about American Imperialism and how America deserves to be destroyed. They sometimes use various English or Spanish names aliases, but I doubt any of them are.
Yesterday, August 29, was a memorial day for many who were involved with Hurricane Katrina. Much like the Rodney King riots of the early 90s, Katrina The Debacle has come to assume an evil existence of its own. But the MSM story is not the whole story, nor is it ours.
I was with my parents in Jackson as Katrina marched through Mississippi. Jackson was spared the 100 mph winds but suffered damage. It became a focal point for: disaster relief for the ravaged South Mississippi, much of which suffered from what can only be called an inland hurricane (winds 100 to 125 mph). And for the devastated Gulf Coast.
Jackson was also host to thousands of Louisiana/New Orleans refugees. A very good host, too, I might add. We had no electricity or gasoline in Jackson for about a week, but no one was turned away. So I am providing a link to the Biloxi ceremony and the speech given today, August 29, by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, along with others at Biloxis City Park. Its a tribute to those who suffered, sacrificed, worked, and have come so far during this year.
As he says, we in Mississippi are not victims.
Here is the WJTV (Jackson MS) link. Please use Watch WJTVs Big Stories, opting for the Biloxi Service, which is about 57 minutes long, and was filmed on August 29. Its a rather homespun civic affair, mostly white, although I suspect the audience, which you may not see, holds many black MIssissippians. It is, I think-especially about 20 minutes in, when the Governor speaks-true of who we are as a people.
We are grateful survivors and rebuilders. And always Americans.
Barbourand his leadershiprepresent the different Katrina story from the MSM/Spike Lee/Ray Nagin version.
Barbour, unlike his Lousiana counterparts, warned specifically beforehand about 30 foot tidal waves. Waves which struck Biloxi. Barbour led prearranged plans to get people out.
The entire Gulf Coast DID evacuate (many to Jackson). In the Biloxi area, only 55 may have perished.
Barbour spent the days after the hurricane living on the Coast with the relief crews. His wife accompanied him. He updated the local populace (most listening by battery power) every day at 5PM with hour-long/more state-of-recovery addresses. He held us together; he kept us informed. We knew who was in charge.
About 20 minutes into the video you will find Barbours speech (link below). You will note that in the speech, as always, he does not criticize the Federal Government, or the President.
He is a Republican, BUT since Mississippi was MORE HEAVILY damaged-taking the direct impact of the storm-than was Louisiana, he does possess the RIGHT to complain. Why does he not, then?
It is so very hard, even with massive Federal support, to recoup complete devastation. Survivors and rebuilders certainly have no room for victimhood, political attacks, worrying about extraneous matters. As a state, MIssissippi requires all the help we can get, because The Gulf Coast was one of the most prosperous areas of a relatively impoverished people. The loss there was catastrophic.
And HELP we got, from DAY One, from volunteers. I saw-or heard about in the Jackson area alone- of countless private individuals, groups, churches, companies from the ends of America. Specifically Vermont, New Jersey, Illinois, MIssouri, Oregon, to use names. My familys church has spent hundreds of hours AFTER KATRINA rebuilding on the Coast, along with volunteers from all over the world. The media and the Governor say at least 350,000 people as a total. Miraculous.
Mississippians have received, with the aid of 2 powerful Republican Senators, billions in Federal aid. The whole state has seen the effects of it. It should be noted that, as a personal matter, my familys cousin, working with a large public utility, knew of contacts with the Vice Presidents office within a short time AFTER Katrina struck. The Governor has repeated the same claim about contacts with President Bush.
WE as a state and as a people, helped by massive aid, are going to survive. AS Americans.
And, so, the Governor works at caring for his people, and not in attacking the friends and government(s) who help him. He is focussed on accomplishment.
Thus I maintain : Katrina, from a Mississippi view, was a huge natural disaster responsibly handled by the
1. resolve and fortitude of local citizens
2. love, care, and unbounded generosity of hundreds of thousands of volunteer Americans
3. hard working leadership of many individuals at local and national corporate and government levels. We have lost much; many have suffered. But we remain strong in faith and hope.
We do not deny problems; corruption; mishandling;hurt.. But who has time to make these the dictator of our recovery?
Perhaps the vilest aspect of the Katrina Media debacle,as we see it, is the charge of racism.
No rational ior sane person would suspect such. We were one people post Katrina, without many resources, waiting for help in every area.. No races. We aided each other. Why should anyone attack? Who among refugees, locals, families would consider hurting someone else? The Souths troubled history is NO basis for denying her human loss. During the months after Katrina, I heard NOT one instance of racism. Especially in the days after the disaster.H
ow evil to impose this odious vice on those hurt and suffering, and on those striving to relieve that. Regardless of the views of Spike Lee. or CNN/NYTimes/BBC, Hurricane Katrina struck us all, without regard to person.
Too many of those heaping abuse on others DID not suffer through the hurricane.
I do hope this ground level view aids your understanding on the West Coast. Its possible only because of the blogosphere.
It is despicable beyond words that, in the August/ Sept 2005 period of grave national crisis, some groups/interests did seek to divide and weaken us as a people. In the time of terror threat, such augurs badly for the next disaster we Americans as a people must surmount.
Something I've thought all along. Differences in the way Katrina was handled by Mississippi vs. Louisiana have more to do with the character of the people than anything else.
#1
Jackson was also host to thousands of Louisiana/New Orleans refugees. A very good host, too, I might add. We had no electricity or gasoline in Jackson for about a week, but no one was turned away.
As a lifelong New Orleanian, I can personally vouch for that statement. When it comes to hospitality, Mississippi takes second place to none.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/30/2006 13:56 Comments ||
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Have you got a 1 year after story to post here, Matt? How does the reconstruction appear to be going from your perspective?
#3
One year after, in New Orleans - not so good.
Criminals are back. Doctors are not.
Politics is unchanged. Corrupt, incompetent, incompetently corrupt. Pandering to professional victims. And it seems like everybody wants to get on the victim gravy train.
Drainage and levees are improved, because the flaws became quite obvious, but they're still inadequate. I doubt 'adequate' is even possible in this geologic setting, let alone cost-effective.
Other infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc.) is reasonably functional, considering.
All-in-all, I think we'd be better off if on or about September 29, 2005 all government assistance had been ended - and all government involvement, regulation, oversight etc. had ended with it.
#4
NS, replying very briefly, I could take you on one tour of New Orleans that would lead you to conclude that the city had not been hit by Katrina at all. I could take you on a second tour that would lead you to conclude that New Orleans had been obliterated by Katrina. It's very mixed bag.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/30/2006 17:17 Comments ||
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All-in-all, I think we'd be better off if on or about September 29, 2005 all government assistance had been ended - and all government involvement, regulation, oversight etc. had ended with it.
Myself along with most of the rest of the tax paying US public will agree with you Glen.
Bashing the feds over the handling of natural disasters and terror threats is a popular media sport. We all snickered when it was reported that the federal government considered a petting zoo and an Amish popcorn factory to be targets for terrorists. Now we have learned that the media got that story wrong, too.
When it was first reported that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) spending priorities meant less money for New York and Washington, and more for places like Nebraska and Wisconsin, the media and a lot of politicians roared with contempt. When DHS responded that the new figures represented a combination of the smaller amount appropriated by Congress, the quality of the applications by the various locales, risk assessments and the fact that places like New York and Washington had been front-loaded with infrastructure in the previous years of the program, it made little difference. The editorial decision had been made to discredit DHS.
The contempt became ridicule when in early July a DHS Inspector General's report was made public that described a "critical targets" list that included a petting zoo in Alabama, a Mule Day parade in Tennessee, and an Amish popcorn factory in Indiana as critical infrastructure that DHS planned to protect. At the same time, according to early reports, such icons as the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge were left off the list. This was considered by the media to be the second DHS misstep in just two months. The Bush Administration was on the defensive.
The Washington Post reported that the DHS list had grown to more 77,000 targets, including "bean festivals, car dealerships, small-town parades and check-cashing stores." The media and the late-night talk shows had a field day.
Deep in the story, however, the Post had a comment from Robert Stephan, the assistant DHS secretary for infrastructure protection, who said that the 77,000-item database is "only as an information source for more refined analyses of critical targets." This put the controversy in a very different perspective.
Stephan had more to say on the subject and he wrote a guest column for USA Today the following week. In it he explained that they had sought input from local, state and federal officials, and that the list of 77,000 represented a "phonebook" of items from around the country which was then narrowed down to a classified list of some 600 potential targets nationwide. They included the leading financial centers, nuclear power plants, major seaports and airports, dams and petrochemical plants.
Stephan, a retired Air Force colonel, criticized the DHS inspector general for not having interviewed him for the report, and having "missed the purpose of the database entirely...[he] focused on raw, unfiltered data to create national hype. That's akin to looking at what's left on the cutting room floor rather than at the movie, then giving it a half-star rating."
He added, "That does a huge disservice to the department's dedicated men and women and to the American people, whom they have served so ably for the past three years."
The media thought they had another story of federal incompetence. But what we have discovered is that it's really a case of media incompetence. The media did not take the time to look into the real facts. They wanted a quick laugh at the expense of federal officials who were doing their jobs. But journalists became the joke.
#1
But what we have discovered is that it's really a case of media incompetence. The media did not take the time to look into the real facts. They wanted a quick laugh at the expense of federal officials who were doing their jobs.
IMO that's not incompetence, it's negligence - a more active and participatory failure.
#3
Quite frankly, with regard to this issue I suffer from severe cognitive dissonance. I have always believed that living below sea level was something which should only contemplated by aquatic life. The gummit however, would have me believe I must pitty and compensate upright primates who attempt to reside in this type of environment, despite the obvious inherent dangers. I am confused.
IT'S time for triangulation on terror.
The American people, as usual, don't buy either the Republican or the Democratic party lines.
They agree with the Republicans and President Bush that the War on Terror is essential. They embrace the GOP's views on the Patriot Act and National Security Agency wiretaps.
But Americans agree with the Democrats that Iraq has nothing much to do with the War on Terror. The latest New York Times survey shows that a majority believes that Iraq it not part of the War on Terror.
So it's time for triangulation. Bush and the Republicans need to stop alienating voters by arguing that Iraq is an indispensable front in the War on Terror. They should center their fall campaign to keep control of Congress on the national-security issue sans Iraq.
Bush doesn't need to reverse course on Iraq. He doesn't need to pull out the troops and send them home. He doesn't even need to set a timetable for withdrawal. But he does have to stop talking about Iraq and talk, instead, about homeland security.
Bush and the Republicans under attack - Sens. Mike DeWine, Conrad Burns, Lincoln Chafee, Jim Talent and Rick Santorum, and numerous House members - need to talk about the Patriot Act, the NSA wiretaps and the resources allocated to homeland security. They should talk about Iraq only when asked, and then only briefly.
Yes, the war in Iraq is connected to the War on Terror. Obviously, al Qaeda is behind many of the attacks in Iraq. Obviously, the streets of Baghdad are the alternative to Manhattan as the place in which the War on Terror is waged.
But, equally obviously, it is political suicide to insist on drawing the connection. So, Republicans: Don't even think about it!
Democrats are vulnerable on all of the domestic-security issues. Just as Republicans hurt themselves when they tie Iraq to the War on Terror, Democrats impair their chances to win by opposing the NSA wiretaps and the Patriot Act along with our Iraqi involvement.
The key is for Republicans to talk about the specific instances in which the Patriot Act and the NSA wiretaps helped us to foil terrorist attacks. John Spencer, running against Sen. Hillary Clinton, has pioneered the way by tying her December 2005 vote against closure on the Patriot Act extension and her voluble opposition to the NSA warrantless wiretaps to the plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.
Evidence indicates that the bridge would've been in smithereens without the Patriot Act. The act forced the sharing of information between the federal security agencies and the NYPD, which triggered the flooding of the bridge with New York cops. Telephone intercepts indicated that the terrorist charged with destroying the bridge told his handlers that the NYPD presence made the bridge "too hot." Feds have indicated to The New York Times that the NSA wiretaps played an important role in the apprehension of Lyman Faris for his plot to destroy the bridge.
Bush and the GOP need to leave a defense of the war in Iraq behind in their bid to keep control of Congress. After all, what is more important to the American people - a war thousands of miles away or the immediate threat to homeland security so recently evidenced by the plot to blow up jetliners over the Atlantic on the London-to-New York route?
Republicans can't afford to insist on being re-elected for the right reasons. But if they take what American public opinion is prepared to give them, they can yet salvage this election.
#4
But Americans agree with the Democrats that Iraq has nothing much to do with the War on Terror. The latest New York Times survey shows that a majority believes that Iraq it not part of the War on Terror
Maybe because the NYT and MSM have buried the story in the translations of the captured Iraqi documents that do show such a connection. Now why would the NYT do that?
#6
Morris has been dead wrong so many times I've lost count. On the other hand, he knows Hillary like the back of his hand. The real Hillary, mind you, not the public image she's so carefully tried to rehab in the past few years. If he were talking about her, he'd have my individed attention.
#9
Heard him on Fix a number of times, and always seemed savy. I find it hard to believe he "predicted" Kerry would win. I'm sure I heard him say something like, "Bush will lose, if he can't get his message across."
He is fun to listen to, and somethimes the dislike for the Hildebeast does overwhelm him...
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/30/2006 11:39 Comments ||
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"and somethimes the dislike for the Hildebeast does overwhelm him..."
Yeah, well don't blame him until you've also seen her without makeup.
#11
Morris belives that in 2008, it's Hillary vs. Condi.
I believe neither Condi or Hillary will run for pres. Oh, Hillary will start the run, but the democraps will split in half and will come up with a compromise candidate who will lose to a real American.
Republican, the party of America first.
Democrap, the party of amerikkka last.
#13
I hate this self-inflated windbag, but I agree with him here. Concentrate message on security of the US. And, do something about it. Virtually no improvements have been made in 5 years. This is ridiculous and indefensible. Start talking about issues voters are most concerned about. Otherwise, if Conyers gets committee control, we're going to concentrate on impeachment.
The Romans, when not engaged in civil war triggered by the loss of provincial security, were constantly looking for opportunities where they could meet the Germanic, Gothic, and Hunnic peoples on something approaching parity (with or without a set of Germanic and Hunnic allies). Given an even playing field, Roman military training, equipment, and logistics would slaughter opponents into oblivion. Size, to the invading peoples, was literally life. With so many domestic and security issues to address simultaneously, the western Romans simply never got the chance to apply their superiority in a way that balanced the overall risk. Attrition was the best that they could hope for.
Once the German tribes were firmly across the Roman military frontier (taking advantage of Gothic invasions in Italy proper), they began a long period of movement in Gaul and Spain. Unlike the Goths, who had been stalled at the Straits of Messina in 410 and at the Straits of Gibraltar in 415 or thereabouts, the Vandals (and their allies the Alans) were able to fight their way down from Gaul, through Spain and across the Straits to north Africa in 429CE. Over the next ten years, they were able to capture and control the richest portion of the Roman western empire. Rich because of its agricultural and industrial productivity, and rich because it had only required a single legion for protection from the Berbers to the desert south. North Africa was the western empire's "cash cow" which had been successfully milked for centuries -- grain, olive oil, high quality pottery, the list was extensive. Roman pottery from what is now Tunisia has been found as far away as Iona off the west coast of Scotland.
The overall story, then, was not of overwhelming Germanic or Gothic superiority -- a clash of titans -- but of a Roman system unable to convert its hinterland from a peace to a war footing before a welter of barbarians broke through to create utter chaos. Whatever treaties were made between Roman central authorities and invading groups were inevitably at the expense of local provincial land ownership and its prosperity. And as Ward-Perkins points out, what might have seemed like peaceable settlement of barbarians was usually matched by violent expansion from those settlements to neighbouring areas. When an armed community unified under a chieftain or king moves into an unarmed civilian population, the balance of power shifts immediately.
The author concludes with a discussion of the painful adjustments that the Roman literati and land-owning class needed to make with the Ostrogothic and Visigothic overlords who were now in charge of most of the key provinces of the old western empire:
"Some of the recent literature on the Germanic settlements reads like an account of a tea party at the Roman vicarage. A shy newcomer to the village, who is a useful prospect for the cricket team, is invited in. There is a brief moment of awkwardness, while the host finds an empty chair and pours a fresh cup of tea; but the conversation, and village life, soon flow on. The accommodation that was reached between invaders and invaded in the fifth- and sixth- century West was very much more difficult, and more interesting, than this. The new arrival had not been invited, and he brought with him a large family; they ignored the bread and butter, and headed straight for the cake stand. Invader and invaded did eventually settle down together, and did adjust to each other's ways -- but the process of mutual accommodation was painful for the natives, was to take a very long time, and, as we shall see ... left the vicarage in very poor shape."
n New Year's Eve in 1999, Islamist militants had plenty to celebrate. At the Taliban-controlled Kandahar airport, a planeload of hostages was being swapped for terrorists held in India. The hijackers--Kashmiri militants--had managed to secure the freedom of three key allies. Two, Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, were Pakistani; but the third, a man named Omar Sheikh, was the scion of a wealthy British Pakistani family and had studied at the London School of Economics.
That a British citizen figured so prominently in the Kandahar hostage crisis was disturbing but far from anomalous. The eleven people charged this week with conspiring to blow up planes using liquid explosives are all British citizens. So were the terrorists who attacked London in 2005, almost all of the plotters who allegedly conspired to detonate a fertilizer bomb in England in 2004, the suicide bombers who attacked a beachfront Tel Aviv bar in 2003, and an alleged Al Qaeda operative who, along with would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, planned to explode a plane in the fall of 2001.
Besides holding British citizenship, most had one other thing in common with Omar Sheikh: They were of Pakistani descent. For terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda--which, in the years since American troops deposed the Taliban, has reconstituted itself in Pakistan--ethnic Pakistanis living in the United Kingdom make perfect recruits, since they speak English and can travel on British passports. Indeed, in the wake of this month's high-profile arrests, it can now be argued that the biggest threat to U.S. security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan--but rather from Great Britain, our closest ally.
Akbar Khan Bugti on jihad: What use have I got for a God that needs me to fight His battles?
President General Pervez Musharraf has been singularly unsuccessful at finding Osama bin Laden in his cave on the Afghan-Pakistan border. But at the weekend the general showed his ability to reach into cavernous realms when he killed a 79-year-old tribal chieftain called Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. The nawab, educated at Aitcheson College, the Eton of the British Raj, died when his cave complex (in war-on-terror-speak) collapsed after a raid by commandos.
The Baloch sardar, who lived in accordance with the precepts of Nietzsche and Genghis Khan, disdained those of inferior breeding and intellect, British daily newspaper The Telegraph wrote on Tuesday. But he did have a habit of getting up peoples noses. Apart from denting Musharrafs ego by greeting him with a tirade of missiles during a presidential visit to Balochistan, the nawab was in the habit of saying that the military leader had just come down from the trees.
He also upset former premier Benazir Bhutto when he called her husband a son of a camel wallah.
They may, for all I know, have been neighbours, but bin Laden was one person with whom the nawab would not have shared his campfire. The British District Gazetteer of 1906 noted that the Bugtis were intellectually, perhaps, the least bigoted of the regions hill tribesmen. Against the backdrop of Pakistans endemic obscurantism, the nawab relished shocking brother Muslims with blasphemous diatribes. On jihad, he said: What use have I got for a God that needs me to fight His battles? He will be sorely missed by theologians across the country.
In my experience, it was never easy to visit the nawab. A trip to see him in April involved floating across a wide canal on a tractor inner tube, hiking along rock-strewn ridges and a nocturnal camel ride. Billeted in a cave, surrounded by his warriors and living on chocolate bars, the nawab thrived on the austerity of his quixotic campaign for tribal autonomy.
On a previous visit some eight years ago, when the nawab inhabited his ancestral fort, he had warned: Do tell me when you set off, or someone may take a pot-shot. In the event, he had my brother and me arrested on arrival. Each morning for a week he sent a posse of Kalashnikov-toting tribesmen to our jail, where they delivered a breakfast of chillied fried eggs from the back of a pick-up truck and then drove us to his residence for our daily audience.
Posted by: john ||
08/30/2006 00:00 ||
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He also upset former premier Benazir Bhutto when he called her husband a son of a camel wallah.
That must have gone down well over tea
Posted by: john ||
08/30/2006 0:11 Comments ||
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President General Pervez Musharraf has been singularly unsuccessful at finding Osama bin Laden in his cave on the Afghan-Pakistan border
Is Osama in the habit of 'taking the mountain air' outdoors in his Barca-lounger?
#3
An interesting is that the "governement in exile of Balochistan demands all Urdu and Punjabi speaking Muslims to leave Balochistan or else... and adds that non-Muslims can remain. Of course this so called governemnt in exile can be a single guy in a basement but perhaps, perhaps it is a crack in Islam's building. One that we should try to enlarge along similar cracks in Iran or North Africa. The day a Muslim country rejects Islam the whole buildiong will crumble (but we all know how Muslms deal with dissidents and you can count on Jihadists travelling to that country in order to prevent it).
The Balochis have seen, first hand, what an "islamic welfare state" is all about ... an excuse for outsiders to take their land and natural resources.. colonization by fellow muslims - Punjabis etc.
They no longer buy the brotherhood argument. No ummah for many of them.
Posted by: john ||
08/30/2006 15:59 Comments ||
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The author Dan Gordon served as a captain in the reserves in the IDF during the recent war. This article is from Jewish World Review online.
Contrary to what is now the accepted wisdom in the media, Hezballah in its recent offensive against Israel neither "badly bloodied the Israel Defense Force," nor "fought it to a standstill" in Southern Lebanon. In fact, the opposite is the case. By any legitimate measure Hezballah was handed a resounding military defeat by the IDF in the recent fighting, and while the cancer that is Hezballah was not cured by Israel's soldiers, it was put into remission.
Hezballah is not your father's terrorist organization. This is not a group of loosely affiliated cells of would-be hijackers or suicide bombers. Hezballah is a terrorist army, trained like an army, organized like an army, funded and equipped like an army, with one glaring difference. The main use of its arsenal was terror aimed at Israel's civilian population while hiding behind Lebanon's civilian population. Its intent was to cause maximum civilian casualties amongst both. This was not by accident. This was by design. This was Hezballah's war, planned and prepared for six years, funded by close to a billion dollars by Iran, aided by Syria. One of the great benefits to the West to come out of this war (if they choose not to turn a blind eye to it) is the certain knowledge that Hezballah is Iran's terrorist operational arm. It is the terrorist extension of Iran's expressed foreign policy. It is not a coincidence that Hezballah launched its totally unprovoked attack across Israel's internationally recognized border, killing and kidnapping Israeli soldiers and dragging Lebanon and Israel into a war which neither one wanted at exactly the moment when the international community had issued its ultimatum to Iran. That ultimatum was: "Cease your efforts to develop nuclear weapons or face the sanctions of the International Community." Iran's response was Hezballah's war.
Even a cursory examination of Hezballah's statements, captured documents, the weapons it procured over six years and instantly deployed, provides an insight into their war aims and the battle plan to achieve those aims. Hezballah announced in the clearest possible way that it was its intent to turn Southern Lebanon into a graveyard for the IDF. This was not mere rhetoric. It was their plan. Much has been made, and rightly so, of the arsenal of some 15,000 short, medium and longer range rockets which Hezballah stock piled for its offensive.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/30/2006 13:59 ||
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From a military perspective there can be absolutely no doubt as to the results of Hezballah and Iran's offensive against Israel. It was a defeat. Every part of their war plan except the manipulation of the media failed.
#2
I think that in the big picture, the IDF failure to destroy Hizb'Allah, neutralize Syria, and not fight the media war will come back to haunt them, and us. Kofi and Co has, in effect, legitimized Hizb'Allah from a terrorist outfit to a defacto state.
Isreal is now in greater peril.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/30/2006 15:18 Comments ||
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As this is being written, in late August 2006, news wires around the world are running a story that Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, has launched a new peace initiative with Israel. However, the new school books that the same Mahmoud Abbas has now introduced in the Palestinian Authority school system - run independently of Hamas - represent a curriculum that prepares a new generation of Palestinians to destroy Israel.
Following fervent support given by Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to Hizbullah's total war on Israel this summer, this raises the question as to whether the new school year in the Palestinian Authority, opening next week, will simply add fuel to the fire of the Palestinian Authority's war against Israel, instead of a new peace initiative with the Jewish State. Furthermore, because these PA school books have also been incorporated in the Arab schools in Jerusalem, which raises cause for further concern, a movement is afoot in the Israeli Arab schools in the rest of Israel to adopt the PA curriculum in their schools.
The latest study of PA textbooks, commissioned by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Herzliya (an agency that had been consistently supportive of the Oslo Peace Process), speaks for itself. Here are some pearls of wisdom that Palestinian children will learn from the new school books of the Palestinian Authority this year:
1. Israel does not appear on any maps of the world in the new PA textbooks, while maps of Israel replace the name Israel with "Palestine" in all of the new Palestinian Authority school books.
2. The new Palestinian school books "annex" sites in Israel to Palestine. "Haifa is a Palestinian seaport." (Lughatuna Al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language] Vol. 2, 5th grade textbook, p. 86) "Galilee, Nazareth and Beit She'an are regions in Palestine." (Al-Iqtisad Al-Manzili [Home Economy], 10th grade textbook, pp. 36-37)
3. The new Palestinian school books mention Israel only as an enemy, in reference to "occupation of lands" in 1948 and 1967: "There is no doubt that the Israeli occupation has a negative impact on [Palestinian] agriculture and its export." (Lughatuna Al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language] Vol. 1, 10th grade textbook, p. 102)
4. The new Palestinian school books present Zionism only as an enemy movement: "The Palestinian people are under an oppressive siege, limiting their movement and way of life." (Al-Tarbiyah Al-Islamiyyah [Islamic Education], Vol. 1, 5th grade textbook, p. 49) Accusation against settlements (from 1948!) of damaging water sources, as in "the influence of settlement on sources of water in Palestine." (Ulum Al-Sihha Wal-B'ia [Health and Environmental Sciences], 10th grade textbook, p. 122) "The Palestinian family has problems...stemming from the occupation... it loses father, mother or son to death or imprisonment... endures the difficulties of life..." (Al-Tarbiyah Al-Wataniyya [National Education], 5th grade textbook, p. 23)
5. The new Palestinian school books make the false claim that an "extremist Zionist" set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969 (Tarikh Al-'Alam Al-Hadith Wal-Mu'asir [History of the New Modern World], 10th grade textbook, p. 106), when it was really a mentally unstable fundamentalist Christian Australian.
6. The new Palestinian school books teach that the First Zionist Congress at Basel fostered the Zionist State based on a secret decision of what came came to be known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (Tarikh Al-'Alam Al-Hadith Wal-Mu'asir [History of the New Modern World], 10th grade textbook, pp. 60-64)
7. The new Palestinian school books teach that the only ancient inhabitants of Israel were Arabs, ignoring any ancient Jewish presence: "Concentrated... in the land of Al-Sham [Greater Syria]... was the culture of the Canaanite and Aramaic peoples who migrated there from the Arab peninsula." (Tarikh al-Hadarat Al-Qadima [History of Ancient Civilizations], 5th grade textbook, Foreword)
8. The new Palestinian school books teach that Palestinians must use war and violence - especially martyrdom - to accomplish their goals: The heroic mother, "who incessantly presents one sacrifice [fida'] after another." (Lughatuna Al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language], Vol 2, 5th grade textbook, p. 31) The warrior goes to war faced with one of the good options: victory or martyrdom in battle for the sake of Allah. (Ibid. Vol. 1, 5th grade textbook, p. 70). "Allah gave the people of this land [Al-Sham and Palestine] an important task: they must stand on the forefront of the Muslim campaign against their enemies, and only if they fulfill their duty to their religion, nation, and land will they be rewarded as stated in the scriptures." (Al-Tarbiya Al-Islamiyyah (Islamic Education), Vol 2, 10th grade textbook, p. 50)
9. The new Palestinian school books feature children with names such as Jihad (holy war) and Nidal (struggle). (Tarikh Al-Hadarat Al-Qadima [History of Ancient Civilizations], 5th grade textbook, p.6)
10. The new Palestinian school books stress the importance of "return" of refugees to all of Palestine - by violence: "The wrong must be made right by returning them to their homes: we returned to the homeland after a long absence." (Lughatuna Al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language], Vol 2, 5th grade textbook, p. 43) "Returning to the homes, the plains and the mountains, under the banners of glory, jihad [holy war] and struggle." (Lughatuna Al-Jamila [Our Beautiful Language], Vol 1, 5th grade textbook, p.88)
Tragically, most Israeli leaders do not take the influence of such "education" as seriously as they should. In May, 2001, when this reporter asked then-mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert about the incorporation of PA textbooks in the Arab schools in Jerusalem, his answer was, "They can teach what they want, and we will teach what we want."
Questions placed to now-Prime Minister Olmert on this issue have gone unanswered. When this reporter raised the issue of the curriculum with Olmert's cabinet secretary, he said that the issue is not on the agenda.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/30/2006 00:00 ||
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Posted by: ed ||
08/30/2006 08:23 ||
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#1
I would covert as well. Once back on U.S. soil I would show my conversion by setting fire to the Koran, extinguish the flames by pissing on it, and then feed the remnants to pigs for its final conversion. I would tape this and send it to CNN (to make sure the Islamofacists would see it). Then I would stock up on beer and bullets and wait on my front porch for other converts to show up.
IT'S bad enough that friends of Hezbollah terrorists could trick so many journalists with just a tall story and a rusty Lebanese ambulance. Worse is that some of those journalists seemed so eager to believe this ambulance was indeed wickedly blown up by an Israeli missile fired straight through the big red cross on its roof -- leaving not even a scorch mark. But worst is that even now that this hoax has been exposed, none of the countless writers and commentators who fell for it have admitted to passing on as fact the propaganda of terrorists.
It is this refusal to admit that suggests there was an agenda, after all, to so much of the hysterical reporting of the war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. No wonder Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer damned that coverage at a conference in Brisbane this week of Australian newspaper publishers: "What concerns me greatly is the evidence of dishonesty in the reporting out of Lebanon." Downer could have picked half a dozen examples of that dishonesty -- or of incompetence married to a bias. But few are as good as the Case of the Holey Ambulance.
It started on July 24, when Israel was already being accused by much of the Western media of carelessly killing Lebanese civilians. And it started with a cautious paragraph in a media release from the Lebanese Red Cross:
"According to Lebanese Red Cross reports, two of its ambulances were struck by munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked by the Red Cross emblem and flashing lights that were visible at a great distance. The incident happened while first-aid workers were transferring wounded patients from one ambulance to another."
Read the whole thing for a good laugh. Or a good tooth grit, depending on your mood...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2006 00:04 ||
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Miss the USSR + Cold War + SOviet/Mowcow Information Bureau that much, eh??? They demand to be TASS-ified and IZVESTIA-ified., locally regionally + globally.
Today's hand-wringing exercise is led by the scintillating Arnaud de Borchgrave...
Just days before the United Nations Security Council deadline for Iran to cease and desist enriching uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave the West the Iranian bird. By inaugurating a "heavy-water" reactor, Iran instantly doubled its chances of acquiring nuclear weapons. Adding insult to injury, the military mullahs test-fired a new long-range missile -- the Thaqeb, or Saturn, a submarine-to-surface weapon.
The new reactor runs on natural uranium mined by Iran and skips the difficult enrichment phase to produce plutonium, which gives nukes the power to obliterate entire cities. Of course, all these efforts, says Iran's president, is to treat and diagnose AIDS and cancer patients. And -- we almost forgot -- to generate more power to improve agriculture. The fact Iran has sufficient oil reserves to generate electric power for generations to come is conveniently overlooked.
Iran is now confident neither Russia nor China will go along with meaningful economic sanctions. Moscow says sanctions have never worked, ignoring those that collapsed South Africa's apartheid regime. The handwriting on the geopolitical landscape has convinced Israel and its core support in the U.S., from the neoconservatives to the Christian Right, that a military solution is inescapable.
Leading conservatives have said World War III -- the ultimate clash of civilizations -- has been under way since September 11, 2001. Some neocons say it started when the mullahs forced the shah into exile and seized power in Iran in early 1979 -- and that President Bush and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair are treading water among the appeasers. They remind Mr. Bush he vowed not to leave office without first ensuring that "the worst weapons will not fall into the worst hands" and thus Iran cannot become a nuclear power. Their ideological guide Richard Perle goes so far as to accuse Mr. Bush, who knows Iran has pursued a secret nuclear weapons program for the last 19 years, of opting for "ignominious retreat."
Overlooked in this calculus is Mr. Bush's burden of two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, and a much-diminished U.S. military. A third front against Iran, an ancient civilization of 70 million with global retaliatory capabilities (e.g., Hezbollah), is a frightening prospect that conjures up the nightmare of a return to the draft.
Mr. Bush believes deeply that Iran poses an existential threat to close ally Israel. Congress recently voted a resolution that said an attack on Israel is an attack on the United States. Mr. Bush also believes Iran is determined to sabotage American hopes of establishing a new democratic Middle East.
In Iraq, clandestine Iranian aid, from sophisticated "Improvised Explosive Devices" to funds and weapons to the two main Shi'ite militias, may be designed to maneuver the U.S. into a humiliating, Vietnamlike withdrawal from Iraq.
Given Mr. Bush's overarching dedication to "winning the Global War on Terrorism," said one former senior intelligence analyst, the neutralization of Iran has become a sine qua non, "equal if not higher on his list of priorities than 'victory' in Iraq, another impossibility that he is unwilling to recognize, even privately, much less acknowledge publicly."
Mr. Bush's national security advisers have also pointed out that an escalating danger of U.S.-Iran military confrontation automatically intensifies internal and regional opposition to U.S. objectives in Iraq. The president keeps reminding private interlocutors to think of how history will judge this critical period 15 to 20 years hence. He sees personal and national humiliation if he were to leave office having acquiesced to an embryonic Iranian nuclear arsenal.
So odds makers bet sometime before the end of his second term President Bush will order a massive air attack on a wide range of carefully selected targets in Iran, in partnership with Israel, and against the advice of many of his advisers. Mr. Bush is convinced a nuclear Iran would pose an intolerable threat to U.S. national security and, as one former intelligence topsider put it, "he is firm in his faith that God agrees with him on that point, and certain that history will eventually recognize and properly appreciate his courageous and visionary leadership."
This raises the question of congressional approval. As George Will said to CBS' George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago, when was the last time this president ever worried about getting approval in advance from the Congress or the public?
In any event, Israel is not taking any chances. Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said last week Israel would not be the first to attack Iran. Other Israeli voices say Israel will have to do just that. Israel recently added a new command to the IDF -- the "Iran Command." Its new commander is Maj. Gen. Elyezer Shkedy, Israel's Air Force chief. He is responsible for all conflicts with countries "not bordering Israel." The Jewish state's strategic thinkers and military planners take the diminutive Mr. Ahmadinejad at his word when he says Israel must be "wiped off the map."
Most worrisome for Israel is Hezbollah's recent military performance against the Israeli Defense Force in Lebanon. The perception is this Iranian surrogate resisted and repelled a mighty foe. The reality is Iran's new-mown conviction Israel can be defeated. So Israel will now have to prove, yet again, that it cannot. A little something for everyone, no?
AhNutJob inaugerated a heavy water production plant.
It makes heavy water D2O.
The heavy water reactor at Arak is at least 3 years from completion. A small 40 MW research reactor, it will no doubt make medical isotopes etc. Problem is with is ability for online refuelling and the amount of weapons grade Plutonium it can make per year - about 9 kg - enough for a bomb or two
Posted by: john ||
08/30/2006 8:13 Comments ||
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In Iraq, clandestine Iranian aid, from sophisticated "Improvised Explosive Devices" to funds and weapons to the two main Shi'ite militias, may be designed to maneuver the U.S. into a humiliating, Vietnamlike withdrawal from Iraq.
#3
The Israel-lost dogma is hard to shake. Even Nasrallah's statement of tactical regret for the precipative kidnappings, and his handing out counterfeit US money, can't pop the deception baloon.
Israel's three main targets - Dahiya (South Beirut), Bint Jebei and Aita ai-Shaeb are piles of rubble. Hizbollah supporters are homeless, while their leaders may finally come under Lebanese command.
Maybe, Hitler should have stayed in his Bunker for a couple of years after VE day, and then came out and proclaimed victory.
#4
Hexb'Allah has a big rebuilding effort, no doubt. But if the Iranians want to finance it, it will get done. And then Israel will be back where it was before the war. But without its reputation for invincibility or the two hostages. But it will probably still have Olmert.
As state colleges and universities begin the school year, deans and trustees should familiarize themselves with a group called "Scholars for 9/11 Truth." This group, the new locus for September 11 conspiracy theories, believes that the official history of the terrorist attacks is a hoax. But unlike garden-variety conspiracy clubs, this one happens to count nearly two dozen professors, instructors and other affiliates at state college and universities around the country among its members. Insofar as these people allow their nutty political beliefs to infect their teaching, school officials had better be equipped to make some decisions.
The University of New Hampshire probably wishes it had that advice last week. Over the weekend, a tenured professor of psychology, William Woodward, came under fire from Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican and State Senate President Ted Gatsas for telling the New Hampshire Union Leader that "there was a genuine conspiracy on the part of insiders at the highest level of our government" to orchestrate the September 11 terrorist attacks. This, of course, was compounded by another revelation: Mr. Woodward hopes to teach a class on the attacks. The class would examine them "in psychological terms -- terms like belief, conspiracy, fear, truth, courage, group dynamics," he told the Union Leader.
It's not just Mr. Woodward's sheer nuttiness that bothers people. It's the possibility of taxpayer-funded classes which legitimate that nuttiness. "I believe it is inappropriate for someone at a public university which is supported with taxpayer dollars to take positions that are generally an affront to the sensibility of most Americans," Mr. Gregg said, capturing perfectly the type of sentiment school officials will hear over and over as groups like "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" gain steam.
The university has backed Mr. Woodward so far, which will only make sense if the professor can show that he won't be teaching his theories as though they were rooted in fact or accepted outside his own echo chambers. That will be a tall order. The Union Leader quotes one class attendee, a National Guardsman who served in Iraq, who vouches for the professor. "He certainly doesn't try to indoctrinate the kids ... He just puts it out there." Even that is probably too much for taxpayers who hear about it.
Most people have come to expect a certain amount of nuttiness from academia and are reconciled to it -- but not when it comes to September 11. Conspiracists can believe whatever they choose in the privacy of their own homes and can proclaim it in lecture halls they rent with their own resources. But don't expect taxpayers to subsidize it. Those who do will get the William Woodward treatment.
#1
The myth is that one time institutions of higher learning were suppose to be centers of intellect. That's about as true as the news media was suppose to be neutral. It's something honored in exception rather than practice and more so in the past than any present incarnation of the process. The bulk of universities and colleges today are simply accreditation mills for employers. It's something to be placed upon a resume. The administrators try desperately not to acknowledge this fact cause they cling to the myth so they expend the value of their institution by defending self-important jerks and twits who played the tenure game. The ability to sell your product as having value and therefore is disguisable from say a community college is the prestige the product is held to is dependent upon how employers, those people who help pay off student loans by the means of employment, perceive what you deliver. Undermine that value by playing stupid games of inter-university politics and soon the name starts to lose value. You can live on branding only so long. Some longer than others, but eventually it will catch up with you.
#2
And if you excuse me, leads to one of the underlying casual factors that men seem to be attending college in lesser numbers. With the proliferation of soft degrees in arts and humanities populated by females, the men looking at post high school education in a practical manner of return on investment, time and money, are headed to what would be considered trade or skill jobs. Hard studies like chemistry, mathematics, architecture, etc, dont seem to be suffering the same male flight that the soft degrees do. Graduate with a four year college loan debt in English or History or Art and what are the chances are you going to get employment in any of those fields outside teaching assistant while you build even more debt working to the next degree. Meanwhile, when you take your car in to the dealer for service, just how much an hour is that mechanic getting? Its that sort of thing. Stuff like the hierarchical positioning games played by college wonks and lesser primates are something most guys can avoid by seeking productive income through other routes.
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.
The votes have been counted yet again, but the losing presidential candidate is threatening the peace by failing to recognize the result.
Yesterday, August 29, was a memorial day for many who were involved with Hurricane Katrina. Much like the Rodney King riots of the early 90s, Katrina The Debacle has come to assume an evil existence of its own. But the MSM story is not the whole story, nor is it ours.
As state colleges and universities begin the school year, deans and trustees should familiarize themselves with a group called "Scholars for 9/11 Truth." This group, the new locus for September 11 conspiracy theories, believes that the official history of the terrorist attacks is a hoax. But unlike garden-variety conspiracy clubs, this one happens to count nearly two dozen professors, instructors and other affiliates at state college and universities around the country among its members. Insofar as these people allow their nutty political beliefs to infect their teaching, school officials had better be equipped to make some decisions. 
