Norvalla Marie Peacher, 28, of Joelton, was arrested by TBI agents late Monday night after an investigation revealed she planned to have someone kill the girlfriend of her babys father.
Tuesday, News 2 spoke with Peacher from a Cheatham County Jail cell. She said she never planned to have the girlfriend killed.
A friend of mine told me, I was complaining about this girl and he said he'd have it taken care of, Peacher told News 2.
She said her definition of "taken care of was to have the girl beat up, not killed.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/07/2007 11:07 ||
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#1
Talk about a fatal assumption! Anyone who has ever written specs knows how hard it can be. It's the details, people.
Bolton was a libertarian conservative at Yale, and therefore, given prevailing campus political attitudes, a space alien. Student strikes were popular in those days, and you had to cut class boycott class or be an outcast. Bolton was never a bandwagoneer:
I didnt understand or approve of students striking any more than my father had liked teachers striking, and I especially resented the sons and daughters of the wealthy, of whom there were many, telling me that I was supposed to, in effect, forfeit my scholarship. I had an education to get, and the protesters could damn well get out of my way as I walked to class.
Flash forward quite a bit: Bolton is in the State Department, in the administration of the first George Bush. And the secretary is wily Jim Baker from whom Bolton learned a lot. Bolton is sharp on the bureaucracy, and how to deal with it:
While not exactly scintillating to outsiders, surviving and flourishing in a federal bureaucracy is often the difference between failure and success, which I define as implementing the presidents policies. [What an eccentric.] Since the bureaucracy defines success differently who sat where at the daily morning staff meeting, whose name appeared first on the from line of a memo to the secretary, who went on what trip, and other such weighty questions I often got what I wanted by giving the bureaucracy what they wanted. This approach was also consistent with Bakers general rule to yield on process issues in order to hold the line on substantive questions. I thought it was like buying Manhattan for beads and shells.
We learn this: In a conversation between George Bush and Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister said, We are a tiny country and Iran is a big country, and it doesnt take much to blow up a tiny country. Uh-huh.
And I loved this more: Heres a vignette, featuring Bush:
After some additional desultory chatter, Bush went to the nearby office of General Assembly president Eliasson, for yet another annual courtesy call. Bush reiterated what hed said to Annan about the lack of American public support for the UN, which prompted Eliasson, Swede extraordinaire, to explain American public opinion back to Bush. Bush just looked at him and said patiently, If there were a referendum today, I dont think the UN would win, which pretty much ended that discussion, other than for Bush to say, Thats why we sent Bolton up here, to get things fixed. Bush visibly lost interest in further conversation with Eliasson . . .
#1
Thanks for the post Sherry. I can't wait to read Bolton's book. I saw a pretty good interview with him on C-Span yesterday. He made an appearance on both Dennis Prager and Michael Medved's shows today, as well. I wasn't able to give the interviews my full attention, but the parts I heard were good. I'm sure there are some podcasts of those appearances for those interested. How I would love to see him as Secretary of the Augean Stables State.
#3
The dictators understands the value of big names when it comes to propoganda.
Actors are just happy to be fawned over by a head of state. Since they tend to be socialist in leaning, and somewhat anti-American Chavez and Castro get extra points.
A 60-year-old man was evacuated to a hospital in the Holon area in serious condition with a water sprinkler lodged in his chest, Zaka reported Tuesday. The man was impaled on the sprinker after jumping from the second floor of a building in Holon.
I hate it when that happens to me.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
No doubt immediately preceded by the statement "here, hold my beer and watch this!"
#2
Not necessarily unrelated > REDDIT > SOAK-CENTRIC Nanoporous materials may make hydrogen-fueled engines, and thus hydrogen-powered vehiiikles, etc. a reality???
#7
I saw the headline and thought it could happen here in the drought-striken southeast. Ya know, the "water police" get out in force.
Posted by: BA ||
11/07/2007 10:08 Comments ||
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#8
Years ago, a national medical journal asked ERs to send it accident statistics for a statistical analysis. After three years of doing this, someone noted an amusing oddity. All three years running, each year, one dozen men in the US were reported to have been "taking a shower, slipped and fell on a lemon".
But on the fourth year, again, exactly one dozen men were reported to have been involved in the same accident. Now statistically, unless it had been the same twelve men, which it wasn't, that would raise some eyebrows.
Pretty soon, "men slipping and falling and landing on a lemon, while showering", became a humorous reporting priority in ERs across the country, and in one of the offices of the medical journal, a large sign mysteriously had a single digit number on it.
After the fifth year of exactly one dozen men, small wagers began to appear. After the sixth year, some of the wagers became larger. By the reporting date of the seventh year, a Super Bowl atmosphere prevailed, helped by the refusal of the chief statistical analyst to reveal that years number until midnight of December 31st, at the New Years' party.
Sure enough, 12 men had, in the previous year, slipped and fallen while taking a shower and landed on a lemon.
But all good things must come to an end, and inexplicably, on the eighth year, in the United States, only four men were reported to have suffered that accident.
Interestingly, the collective frustration felt in ERs across the nation resulted in a considerable number of unsolicited reports of other, non-lemon objects, being added to their reports as unusual "rectal foreign bodies", discovered in the course of the year. Which, while of little statistical value, was an appreciated consolation prize.
#9
It almost sounds like someone was making up the statistics and failed to realize they needed to remove that line from the consolidated report. I suppose itwas double checked since they could track down the actual patients. The world is a strange place.
#11
I am forced to ask, why on earth would someone have a lemon in the shower to be fallen upon? And please don't anyone say, "Because gerbils don't like to get wet."
#12
TW -- I think the shower part of the story was to cover what they were really doing.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
11/07/2007 12:03 Comments ||
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#13
Somebody hand me the steel wool, will ya? I have this mental video of some old guy on the roof, with a fiddle, "If I were a rich man, Yadadadada, dadadawhoops......."
LAHORE: Muslim scientists have made all discoveries of the current age, said University of Columbias Arabic and Islamic Studies prof George Saliba at a seminar at the Government College University (GCU) on Monday.
The seminar, titled The Problems of Historiography of Islamic Science, was held at Fazl-e-Hussain Hall. Saliba gave a critique of the standard classical accounts of the rise of Islamic science.
He detailed problems in the accounts and explained alternative historiography that described the rise of an Islamic scientific tradition as a result of social and political conditions within the nascent Islamic empire. He said Muslim philosophy was the impetus behind Islamic science that had contributed to various disciplines including botany, zoology, algebra, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology and mathematics in the pre-industrial era.
He said the use of decimal fractions was not a Western invention and that it was discovered by a Muslim scientist. He said the binary system, on which the computer was based, was also invented by a Muslim scientist. He said Arab/Islamic science was not an intermediary between Greek science and European science, but was rather the Renaissance that integrated the Islamic science with European science.
Saliba also visited the English Language and Literature Department where he engaged faculty members in a conversation on the Islamic and Renaissance paradigms. staff report
#6
This is disgusting. This turd is a professor at an Ivy League college and he can say this crap?
Is he also a truther?
The only thing the Muzzies ever did was to maintain that which others developed. The Dhimmis did all the work or they found it out when they conquered someone.
#7
Heard this this crap before. Anything invented in that part of the world happened despite islam. If Europe had not had the plague they would have been worlds ahead of the muzzies.
Not only that but ALL the math he talks about had already been invented in south America.
Typical BS and coming from a Columbia I'm not surpised. Basically he's a liar and probable lived in Rome NY at one time.
#8
Saliba is perhaps best-known outside the academy for his role in the recent controversy surrounding Columbia's Near Eastern studies department. He was featured in a recent documentary, "Columbia Unbecoming," which accused him and other Columbia professors of presenting anti-Israel viewpoints in their classes and blocking the expression of dissenting opinions.
There follows a chronological list of recorded decimal writers.
[edit] Decimal writers
* c. 3500 - 2500 BC Elamites of Iran possibly used early forms of decimal system. [2] [3]
* c. 2900 BC Egyptian hieroglyphs show counting in powers of 10 (1 million + 400,000 goats, etc.) see Ifrah, below
* c. 2600 BC Indus Valley Civilization, earliest known physical use of decimal fractions in ancient weight system: 1/20, 1/10, 1/5, 1/2. See Ancient Indus Valley weights and measures
* c. 1400 BC Chinese writers show familiarity with the concept: for example, 547 is written 'Five hundred plus four decades plus seven of days' in some manuscripts
* c. 1200 BC In ancient India, the Vedic text Yajur-Veda states the powers of 10, up to 1055
* c. 400 BC Pingala develops the binary number system for Sanskrit prosody, with a clear mapping to the base-10 decimal system
* c. 250 BC Archimedes writes the Sand Reckoner, which takes decimal calculation up to 1080,000,000,000,000,000
* c. 100200 The Satkhandagama written in India earliest use of decimal logarithms
* c. 476550 Aryabhata uses an alphabetic cipher system for numbers that used zero
* c. 598670 Brahmagupta explains the Hindu-Arabic numerals (modern number system) which uses decimal integers, negative integers, and zero
* c. 780850 Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī first to expound on algorism outside India
* c. 920980 Abu'l Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi earliest known direct mathematical treatment of decimal fractions.
* c. 13001500 The Kerala School in South India decimal floating point numbers
* 1548/491620 Simon Stevin author of De Thiende ('the tenth')
* 15611613 Bartholemaeus Pitiscus (possibly) decimal point notation.
* 15501617 John Napier use of decimal logarithms as a computational tool
* 1925 Louis Charles Karpinski The History of Arithmetic [1]
* 1959 Werner Buchholz Fingers or Fists? (The Choice of Decimal or Binary representation)[2]
* 1974 Hermann Schmid Decimal Computation[3]
* 2000 Georges Ifrah The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer[4]
* 2003 Mike Cowlishaw Decimal Floating-Point: Algorism for Computers[5].
#10
Nice to know that Columbia U. has an Edward Said Jr. to carry on the mantle of faux scholarship now that the original has gone to have tea with Himmler. I'd check where George's mother had been sleeping around around the time he was born.
Posted by: ed ||
11/07/2007 17:48 Comments ||
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#11
That mantle should be properly fitted to Columbia President, Teacher's College founder, Nobel Laureate, fascist sympathiser and anti-semite Nicholas Murray Butler
#12
This is part and parcel of oislam's cultural imperialism; and in EUrabia, this version of History, western civilization owing everything to isla, will soon become official, as it is already incorporated at least in spirit in schoolbooks, and is internalized by dhimmis (the whole idea of "they taught us to wash", for example).
#15
Don't forget that brilliant Islamic scientists discovered that jew polio vaccine causes sterility, AIDS, hypoglycemia and probabaly bed-wetting. Joos, jooos, jooooos, I tell you!
The publisher of a local Irish newspaper is calling on the organizers of the city's annual St. Patrick's Day parade to begin overhauling the event's image by inviting Northern Ireland's Protestant leader to be a leader of next year's procession.
Irish Voice publisher Niall O'Dowd said in interviews Tuesday and in an editorial to be published Wednesday that the parade could "symbolize a new era for hope" if it were led next March by Ian Paisley and his Catholic partner in the territory's new power-sharing government, the Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness.
The parade typically draws about 2 million spectators.
Paisley, head of the Democratic Unionist Party, and McGuinness, a commander in the Irish Republican Army, were bitter enemies for decades but have been running Northern Ireland's cabinet together since May.
Putting the two men at the head of the St. Patrick's Day march would send a message about peace, O'Dowd said, and simultaneously say something about the future of the parade, which has been beset in recent years by disputes about its inclusiveness.
"I think people would be hugely impressed by it," O'Dowd said. "We need to take our head out of the 19th century here."
The idea, which O'Dowd first broached publicly during an interview on WNYC Radio, was met with disdain by John Dunleavy, president of the parade's organizing committee.
It would be inappropriate to put someone with a history of virulent anti-Catholicism at the head of a parade honoring a Catholic saint, he said.
Paisley has been "a thorn in the side of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland" for many years, Dunleavy said.
"If Ian Paisley wants to come out and march in the parade, he's welcome to do so," Dunleavy said, noting that nearly 160,000 people of varying faiths and backgrounds are expected to march in the procession. "But as a grand marshal? That's a totally different matter."
Dunleavy also criticized O'Dowd for suggesting that the parade needs an image overhaul.
"He forgets where he came from," he said.
The parade's main organizer, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, has been criticized for more than a decade for refusing to allow gay groups to carry banners in the procession, a policy that Dunleavy said would continue this year.
#1
If they're mor worried about banning gays from the parade, as it seems, than the Provos and IRA being in it together, then Ireland's northern counties are well on their way out of the troubles.
Follow-up from yesterday's story.BANGALORE, India - Doctors in southern India completed a grueling 24-hour operation Wednesday on a girl born with four arms and four legs that surgeons said will give the 2-year-old a chance at a normal life.
The surgery went "wonderfully well," said Dr. Sharan Patil, who led a team of more than 30 surgeons in performing the marathon procedure to remove Lakshmi's extra limbs, salvage her organs and rebuild her pelvis area.
"This girl can now lead as good a life as anyone else," Patil said from a hospital in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Continued on Page 49
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is suing renowned architect Frank Gehry, alleging serious design flaws in the Stata Center, a building celebrated for its unconventional walls and radical angles. The school asserts that the center, completed in spring 2004, has persistent leaks, drainage problems and mold growing on its brick exterior. It says accumulations of snow and ice have fallen dangerously from window boxes and other areas of its roofs, blocking emergency exits and causing damage.
The suit says MIT paid Los Angeles-based Gehry Partners $15 million to design the Stata Center, which cost $300 million to build. It houses labs, offices, classrooms and meeting rooms. "Gehry breached its duties by providing deficient design services and drawings," according to the suit, which also names New Jersey-based Beacon Skanska Construction Co., now known as Skanska USA Building Inc. The suit, filed Oct. 31, seeks unspecified damages.
An executive at Skanska's Boston office said Gehry ignored warnings from Skanska and a consulting company before construction that there were flaws in the design. "This is not a construction issue, never has been," said Paul Hewins, executive vice president and area general manager of Skanska USA.
#1
If they had know that the building was flawed during its construction, why didn't they stop it? Of course, Boston had the window-shedding John Hancock building too.
I understand Frank LLoyd Wright's Falling Water house was Hell to live in too.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/07/2007 0:16 Comments ||
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#2
Boston had the window-shedding John Hancock building
But wait, there's more! Not just any "window shedding building". The John Hancock building was designed with two-story tall panes of glass covering its façade. Once the odd low pressure storm-front hit this environmentally sealed structure, these massive sheets of glass molted like an ailing robin's plumage.
Now for the good part. Since these massive pains panes in the glass were two stories tall, entire floors had to be torn out in order that the internally placed glass sheets could be re-installed.
As to Strata Center, this is what happens when you hire PCP addicts masquerading as architects.
#5
Chomsky, on the other hand, spent decades in the beloved Building 20, MIT's ''Magical Incubator." He would go back in a minute. In Chomsky's eighth-floor office, the walls slant in. ''If you look in the corner, you get vertigo," he says.
''The first time he came in, he almost passed out," says his assistant, Bev Stohl, who has loaded the office with plants to minimize the effect.
Chomsky finds the space not very usable. ''It is hard to get a blackboard up," he says. Responds Brooks, the CSAIL director: ''He hates the US government, too. He hates this country. Have you ever read anything he has written?"
#8
tw, Brooks came to us from Canada. His lab's work has been very influential in robotics - iRobot is essentially a spinoff of his lab, for instance, bringing the Packbot and other ground robots to Iraq for things like IED detection/detonation.
#9
The engineering dept at Lehigh Univ in Bethlehem Pa designed a bridge over a river for the city. One cold night it fell down. The PHDs forgot to take into account thermal contraction and one cold evening a bridge section shrunk, sheared a couple pins and the section went into the water. Even the best and brightest aren't always perfect.
#10
Chomsky, on the other hand, spent decades in the beloved Building 20, MIT's ''Magical Incubator." He would go back in a minute. In Chomsky's eighth-floor office, the walls slant in. ''If you look in the corner, you get vertigo," he says.
Now he can appreciate how he affects me. I hope he lives in that office a long time.
"The first time he came in, he almost passed out," says his assistant, Bev Stohl, who has loaded the office with plants to minimize the effect.
Chomsky finds the space not very usable. "It is hard to get a blackboard up," he says. Responds Brooks, the CSAIL director: "He hates the US government, too. He hates this country. Have you ever read anything he has written?"
No. Have you?
Gehry, the world's most famous architect, is concerned about Chomsky's unhappiness, but not surprised, either. He knew Chomsky would miss feeding the squirrels as he did from the window of his old office. "I am a big Chomsky fan," says Gehry, ''and I will come to Boston to fix it in a minute."
So whaddaya waitin' for?
In the meantime, Chomsky can always go downstairs and feed the rats outside the day-care center.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/07/2007 6:40 Comments ||
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#11
Professor Brooks sounds like a charming man, lotp. Canada has produced a great many charming and useful people over the years (some of whom now post at Rantburg!). Perhaps one day I'll have the exceedingly selfish pleasure of being introduced to him.
#12
The University of Cincinnati has its "Design, Architecture, And Planning" (or some such nonsense) building, which features gypsum board on the exterior:
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
11/07/2007 7:30 Comments ||
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#13
Are we sure this whole story isn't a MIT student prank, like putting a police car atop the MIT Great Dome, or giving out buzzword bingo cards for an Al Gore speech?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/07/2007 7:37 Comments ||
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#14
If you want a piece of art for people to admire, build a piece of art.
If you want an office building for people to work in, build an office building.
Ferraris look nice, but most people commute in Civics.
All other is ego - LOOK AT ME[tm]
The suit says MIT paid Los Angeles-based Gehry Partners $15 million to design the Stata Center, which cost $300 million to build. It houses labs, offices, classrooms and meeting rooms.
I wonder how many student scholarships/aide programs* went overboard for that display of egocentric self worship.
* You know in the name of the Poor[tm] and the Children[tm]. :)
#17
I understand Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house was Hell to live in too.
Now, now, now, don't go doggin' Daddy Frank's best work. Fallingwater has needed some restoration work because of age (it is about 70 years old, after all) and because the concrete cantilevers turned out not to be as stiff as intended--but it still remains the all-time Coolest House Ever Built.
This thing, on the other hand . . . it's just creepy.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/07/2007 9:05 Comments ||
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#18
A well-known university eye institute in my area has a bunch of inward-sloping walls, including in the main lobby. More than one vision-impaired person has struck their head on the wall while walking into the adjacent rest rooms.
#21
That is one butt-ygly building. The things that pass for good architecture and art these days. Looks like something from Dr. Zeus.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/07/2007 10:03 Comments ||
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#22
I pilgrimaged to God's Country, western Pennsylvania to see Fallingwater a few years ago. Took me totally by surprise when I discovered... I hated it. It was too cramped, too dark, and WAY too hot. I felt no charm there, only the overwhelming presence of FLW's ego.
Fast forward to last year, when I went to Barcelona and experienced the work of Antonin Gaudi. I was skeptical of flamboyant architcture after my intro to FLW, but came away as a true believer. Gaudi's designs were approachable, flexible, airy and fun. He added zillions of little details, like staircase railings carved to exactly the shape of your hand as you sweep down the stairs. His designs were a little cartoony, to be sure, but at least they don't cascade ice and snow onto passers-by.
And everything Gehry has done since Bilbao has been a disaster. His Disney Performing Arts Center in LA had to be netted and dulled with steel wool because the sunlight reflected off the polished steel exterior was (a) blinding drivers and pilots, and (b) raising the temperature inside the surrounding apartments by 15 degrees.
#23
Next time go to Kentuck Knob. These houses are also statements of the past. Going in them did make me feel very much like I was in the 40's. It's sort of like visiting castles in Europe; it's not so much about me living there as about thinking of the people who thought it was the height of luxury, taste and opulence to live their.
#24
Frank Lloyd Wright's designs photograph beautifully, but apparently were very difficult to live in. The tenant had to adjust to Mr. Wright's vision, not vice versa. Also, because he kept everything in his head until the last moment, construction details were frequently incomplete, leading to leaking roofs and such. That the concrete cantilevers weren't stiff enough because he never investigated the real world properties of the materials is typical. But the photographs, and the details, are gorgeous.
#26
a metaphor for the age - the desire to be different no matter what the cost or how ridiculous.
Welcome to the "Fountain", "Piss Christ" and "My Bed". Modern "art" embraced this notion decades ago. I cannot find the quote but it read something like, "... mistaking novelty for innovation and primitiveness for authenticity." It was certainly most applicable to this topic.
#27
Speaking of ice falls, the Zakim bridge (part of the Big Dig) has suspension cables which cross the roadway as they pass to the top of the two towers. While spectacular, one wonders if anyone considered that these cables would acquire thick coatings of ice during Boston's frequent ice storms.
The ice falls off, and windshields have been broken. Big Dig officials called it a 'fluke' of the weather and are 'keeping an eye on it'.
He did some very important work in robotic AI, basically reinventing the field. His robotic intelligence is based on competing processes (e.g. 'hunger' (recharge) and 'target' (move towards some point) whose goals are weighted and layered to determine the overall actions of the robot. A very accessible and amusing paper (pdf) is available.
His group also developed 'L', a tiny variant of Lisp which controls hardware directly. The language has never been open-sourced, but I suspect it's used to program iRobot's products, and provides significant competitive advantage.
#29
Here's a fairly recent article on the Journey Robot, which is pretty close to state-of-the-art for amateur robotics. It uses subsumption architecture in its programming.
#32
And for hobbyists, the Microsoft Robotics Studio components provide a visual programming interface for a lot of inexpensive hardware like the Lego bots.
Carnegie Mellon, who won the DARPA challenge this year, did so with a cognitive robotics approach which went well beyond the MIT mainly-behavioral one. Serious techies can check out their Tekkotsu software library, originally developed for the Sony AIBOs but now available for at least one other platform too. I occasionally look at some of the vision processing for my own work.
#33
lotp, thanks very much for those links. I found both books available used at Amazon for $17 and $40 and grabbed them. Looks like a lot of dense information there. I'll be checking out your other links!
Can I assume that 'cognitive robotics' is layered on top of the behavioural approach, rather like the human mind? (I'm away for a couple of hours.)
#37
The Air Force Academy Chapel is a beautiful building, and they've never been able to stop the roof from leaking. Not all problems are all bad design or bad construction - some are caused by trying to do something that the technology just isn't "there" yet.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/07/2007 22:41 Comments ||
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#38
Wow, ANOTHER thread over 20 entries long and no trolling!
I grew up in Oak Park, IL and have lived most of my adult life in the Madison area. I got heartily sick of hearing about Rank Lloyd Fright. However, if you come to Madison, Monona Terrace, as built with the correct materials, is a very pleasant building. Take the tour. The tour guide said that if Monona Terrace had been built in Wright's day, it would have been torn down within 10 years. The adapted design works very well.
One more architectural note: In the 70s, somebody designed an energy efficient building for Southern Illinois University. It featured solar panels and strips built into the walls, carefully laid out to follow the sun, for efficient heating and cooling.
When they discovered that they hadn't planned properly for parking, some genius rotated the building 90 degrees, without changing the solar strip design. So it was an energy hog, impossible to heat or cool properly.
[Tik is methamphetamine and the coloured children in the Cape are being pumped full of it - possibly by Chinese Triads operating there. This country is a lunatic asylum. Jan]
In a new craze sweeping Ocean View, tik-fuelled youngsters go "hunting" with their pitbulls, searching for vulnerable targets - canine or human.
A number of residents have been badly bitten in recent weeks, while there have been numerous cases of pitbulls entering homes and seeking out people's pets.
One small dog was dragged from under a bed, another was pulled underneath a gate and had its throat ripped out.
"It's a new sport in Ocean View," said Sylvia Shortreed, a vet at the welfare group Tears, who has also treated dogs that have been sodomised by the drug-crazed youngsters. Well, in the country where there are surgeons specialized in reconstructive surgey for babies and toddlers gangraped by up to 10-12 aids-suffering men wanting to "cure themselves", it's relatively benign...
'But these guys use their dogs to break into houses or to rob people'
There have also been chilling reports of dogs having glue packets forced over their snouts, and of small children throwing puppies to pitbulls which catch them like balls.
Tik is a massive problem in Ocean View. Earlier this year more than 200 Rastafarians and community members marched on the homes of tik dealers demanding they stop dealing, but ironically some of those allegedly involved in pitbull fighting are Rastas themselves.
Tears staff member Ingrid de Storie, who lives in Ocean View, said even small children were getting involved in dog-fighting, copying adults.
"They use the puppies and try to get them to fight. They bet around R10."
Tears, whose core job is to rescue and re-home abandoned animals, now spends a vast amount of its time and resources trying to save the lives of pets that have been torn to shreds by pitbulls.
Most have their throats ripped out or, if they are trying to flee, are disembowelled.
Marilyn Hoole, co-founder of the organisation, said pitbull fighting was out of control in the area.
"It's not the organised fights so much but this new form of 'entertainment' where youngsters wander around with their dogs letting them attack any dog they come across."
It was a matter of time before a toddler was killed.
De Storie said she tried to forget some of the horror scenes she had witnessed. "One boy took boiling water and threw it over his dog. When I asked him why he replied 'net sommer' (just because). His mother then asked what business it was of mine."
She said if they went to the police they were just laughed at. "But these guys use their dogs to break into houses or to rob people."
Shortreed said Ocean View was a breeding factory for pitbulls and puppies were sold for about R1 500.
Patching up the victims takes up an enormous amount of her time and many are beyond help.
"Sometimes it is just damage control."
There have been calls over the years to ban pitbulls, especially after attacks on people and because many dogs are owned by criminals who use them as a form of intimidation.
A proposed new bylaw being discussed by the City of Cape Town and NGOs, seeks to outlaw the use of dogs to intimidate or threaten people. But Tears staff are under no illusion that it will ever be enforced, especially not in an area like Ocean View.
Hoole said what concerned them most was the link between animal and human violence, which was well documented.
Two members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, who are currently on trial for the alleged murder of Salman Al-Huraisi in May, denied yesterday in a second Riyadh High Court hearing that they had beaten the deceased or even took part in a raid on his house.
Yahya Al-Huraisi, the attorney representing Al-Huraisis family, said the defendants denied the charges after being queried by the three judges hearing the case. I explained to the judges the entire scenario of how the commission members raided the house in May, confiscated banner items, and then began beating the deceased while he was handcuffed, the attorney said. The two defendants, at that point, were asked to respond to the charges. They denied any involvement, whether it was with the beating or them taking part in the raid, he added.
"Lies! All lies!"
The attorney said the denial of the two commission members contradicted the outcome of investigations by the General Investigation and Prosecution Authority (GIPA) and the Governorate of Riyadh, which held them responsible for the mans death after the raid. He said it was now up to the judges to look into the evidence presented by the Al-Huraisi family, which includes a statement from the GIPA, as well as a copy of the official autopsy report submitted to the court.
A statement from the Governorate of Riyadh mentioned that the trial was just one of three cases currently in session regarding the death of Salman Al-Huraisi. There is another case about the abuse of authority by the commission, which is currently being heard in Riyadhs Court of Grievances.
In a lower court in Riyadh, three relatives of the deceased are being tried for possession of narcotics and alcohol that was found in the house during the raid. Over 18 commission members, not including police officers, took part in the raid on Al-Huraisis house in the Al-Uraija district of Riyadh in May. The commission members, who swooped down from the roof into the house, broke doors and searched the house extensively for alcohol.
During the process, Al-Huraisi was arrested, handcuffed and taken away in a car. Commission members found several bottles of liquor as well as sachets of narcotics in the house. They arrested all members of the family, including male and female relatives living in other apartments in the building. At the commission center, Al-Huraisi was beaten until he stopped breathing. He was pronounced dead by a medical team several hours later.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/07/2007 00:00 ||
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CBNNews.com - Organizers for the 2008 Olympics in China have released their list of items banned from the Olympic village where the athletes will stay.
Among the "prohibited objects" -- Bibles.
The Catholic News Agency reports that the committee behind the Beijing games cited "security reasons" for the ban. Athletes are also prohibited from bearing any kind of religious symbol at Olympic facilities.
Let's see how well the Iranian national team bears this.
The ban seems to undermine comments released by the country's top religious affairs official. Last month, Ye Xiaowen acknowledged that he expected large numbers of religious faithful among the athletes, coaches and tourists to be swarming into the officially atheist nation during the Olympics. Xiaowen, director-general of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, said on Oct. 17 that China plans to offer religious services for foreigners. He recognized that religion will play a positive role "in promoting economic and social development" in the future, Reuters reported.
But only the right kind of religion, officially blessed by the government.
"We are learning from practices in past Games to make sure that their demands for religious worship are met," Ye said on the sidelines of the ruling Communist Party's 17th Congress. "Here I can promise that religious services we offer will not be lower than the level of any previous Games," Ye said.
World-class diplomat: he said all that and kept his lips on.
He did not say if proselytizing would be allowed.
Let's just see how many Jehovah's Witnesses can go door to door in Beijing ...
The number of Chinese believers in Buddhism, Taosim and Christianity have been on the rise in recent years, Ye added.
But striking the balance between providing religious services for the faithful and banning personal religious materials outright may prove more difficult than safeguarding against possible security threats.
Because you know those meddlesome Presbyterians won't be happy til they can display their religious tokens.
The Olympic charter says "no kind of political propaganda, religious or racial hatred is allowed in the Olympic areas."
The Spanish daily La Razon called the standard one of many "signs of censure and intolerance" towards religious objects, particularly those used by Christians in China.
Not to mention what'll happen to the Falun Gong folks when they arrive at the Olympic Village, pick up a suitable spot, and kneel down to meditate peacefully.
There are some 10 million Catholics in China, divided between an "underground" church loyal to the Vatican and the state-approved church that respects the Pope as a spiritual figurehead but rejects effective papal control. Currently in China, five bishops and 15 priests are in prison for opposing the state-approved church.
Other items banned from the Olympic village include video cameras and cups.
Don't worry; it's just Communists doing what they do best ...
#1
I'm fairly sure that this policy will be "revised" and fairly soon at that. I can't imagine China wishing to look quite so authoritarian with all those wealthy Westerners in town.
No doubt they'll be keeping a close eye on the locals, tho.
#4
Too bad none of our politicians will have the grit to threaten a boycott over Beijing's Bible Ban. It would be a perfect platform to drive home the message of religious freedom that needs to be crammed down Islam's gullet as well.
#5
Spot on, Zen! What an incredible idea. We should see if someone can pick that up as a rally cry in order to force the politicos here to run with it.
Posted by: BA ||
11/07/2007 15:38 Comments ||
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#6
Too bad no one at the USOC has the grit to have the Olympians march in to the tune St. Gertrude.
#9
fuck the chinese and fuck the middle easeterners let them have their korans and shit and boycott the whole damn olympics, let the chinese see how much the christians spend in their piece of shit country
Local 9/11 conspiracy theorists are targeting TV news reporters, already leading to at least one confrontation with a FOX 25 reporter who grabbed a poster in an incident caught on camera and posted on YouTube.
We will be protesting as the presidential election gets heated, said Mark OConnor of the group Boston 9/11 Truth. No newscaster is safe if theyre live on the street.
FOX 25 political editor Joe Battenfeld has had run-ins with members of the so-called 9/11 truth groups - who claim the terror attacks were a government setup - in Boston and New Hampshire. During Hillary Clintons Boston visit last month, Battenfeld and OConnor clashed outside Symphony Hall. As Battenfeld faced the camera, OConnor stood behind him, prompting Battenfeld to grab his Expose the 9/11 coverup poster and demand, Can you not stand behind me?
OConnor, 30, a Dorchester man who works for a structural engineer company, caught the exchange on video, and posted the clip he dubbed FOX 25s Political Editor Joe Battenfeld Gone Wild on YouTube. OConnor taunts Battenfeld, repeatedly asking him his name and telling him, Youre going to be a star on YouTube.
Battenfeld said he tries to ignore hecklers. Thats the chance you take when you do a live shot now. People have a right to stand on a sidewalk holding a sign, no matter how offensive their views may be to some, so theres really nothing you can do about it, he said.
A distaste of his own medicine ...
It was OConnors first encounter with Battenfeld but may not be his last. If he runs into Battenfeld, OConnor says, he wont threaten him but will stand behind him when hes on the air.
At a John Edwards rally in New Hampshire in August, Justin Martell, 20, founder of Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth, approached Battenfeld after angry Edwards supporters challenged his low crowd estimate. With a camera in tow, Martell badgered him with questions, but Battenfeld wasnt doing interviews. Im the reporter, Battenfeld said.
"And you're a peasant!" he added.
Im not going to make it my prerogative to go after Joe Battenfeld, said Martell, whose YouTube video of the Edwards event has fetched nearly 6,000 hits. But if I see him at an event, I will approach him and get him again.
During Barack Obamas Boston Common rally, OConnor trotted his poster behind NECN reporter Alison King. Former President Bill Clinton told a 9/11 heckler to shut up at a speech last month.
#2
Good. Maybe it will dawn on some of these reporters that the only thing that separates them from the "Truthers" is a small degree of ideological intensity.
Maybe. But I'm not going to be holding my breath waiting for them to see the light.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
11/07/2007 18:19 Comments ||
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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.
CBNNews.com - Organizers for the 2008 Olympics in China have released their list of items banned from the Olympic village where the athletes will stay.
