Hi there, !
Today Mon 05/07/2007 Sun 05/06/2007 Sat 05/05/2007 Fri 05/04/2007 Thu 05/03/2007 Wed 05/02/2007 Tue 05/01/2007 Archives
Rantburg
533683 articles and 1861906 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 67 articles and 428 comments as of 22:25.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion       
Thousands Rally Against Olmert
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
3 00:00 Jackal [2] 
3 00:00 Zenster [2] 
6 00:00 3dc [2] 
2 00:00 JosephMendiola [8] 
1 00:00 Procopius2k [3] 
8 00:00 3dc [4] 
9 00:00 xbalanke [4] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
4 00:00 sinse [6]
11 00:00 Zenster [4]
10 00:00 trailing wife [2]
9 00:00 JosephMendiola [10]
6 00:00 JohnQC [4]
7 00:00 trailing wife [5]
19 00:00 Zenster []
5 00:00 Shipman [3]
3 00:00 M. Murcek [1]
4 00:00 trailing wife [3]
20 00:00 trailing wife [4]
8 00:00 gorb [2]
0 [7]
4 00:00 ptah [8]
0 [3]
8 00:00 Redneck Jim [3]
7 00:00 JosephMendiola [12]
Page 2: WoT Background
2 00:00 Chusogum Dingle8371 [4]
23 00:00 Zenster [6]
6 00:00 Eric Jablow [8]
3 00:00 Jackal (no relation) [2]
2 00:00 gorb [2]
17 00:00 OldSpook [3]
21 00:00 trailing wife [6]
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [7]
8 00:00 Ebbang Uluque6305 [4]
1 00:00 M. Murcek [6]
0 [7]
1 00:00 Captain America [2]
0 [3]
0 []
3 00:00 Captain America [8]
1 00:00 doc []
8 00:00 Old Patriot [3]
0 [2]
Page 3: Non-WoT
3 00:00 mrp [4]
5 00:00 trailing wife [3]
14 00:00 JosephMendiola []
11 00:00 trailing wife [5]
5 00:00 JosephMendiola []
9 00:00 Captain America [3]
10 00:00 Redneck Jim [3]
11 00:00 DMFD [7]
0 [2]
13 00:00 regular joe [4]
14 00:00 Jackal [4]
2 00:00 Jackal [5]
6 00:00 Redneck Jim [6]
4 00:00 anonymous2u [3]
16 00:00 3dc []
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [2]
9 00:00 Old Patriot [3]
5 00:00 3dc [3]
Page 4: Opinion
5 00:00 Sid 6.7 [4]
6 00:00 CrazyFool [4]
1 00:00 gromgoru [4]
8 00:00 Zenster [1]
4 00:00 John Frum [15]
0 [1]
4 00:00 Zenster [4]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Prosecutors seek 45 days in jail for Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton screwingIt won't be the Hilton for Paris if Los Angeles prosecutors have their way. Prosecutors have recommended that heiress and reality TV star Paris Hilton serve 45 days in a county jail for violating her probation on a drunken driving misdemeanor, according to court documents filed on Thursday.

Hilton is accused of failing to enroll in an alcohol education program by a court-ordered deadline and of driving on a suspended license, prosecutors said. She is scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles court on Friday for a hearing at which a judge may decide to impose a jail sentence that was suspended when she was placed on probation in January.

Hilton was arrested last September on suspicion of driving under the influence. She pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge in January and was placed on probation for 36 months and was ordered not to drive and to enroll in alcohol education classes within 21 days. Prosecutors are also asking the judge to impound the car she was driving, a Bentley, extend her driver's license suspension and ban her from drinking alcohol for 90 days.
Posted by: Fred || 05/04/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/04/2007 0:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Your honor, may I suggest that she be handcuffed to my bed for 30 days instead? I promise to feed her.
Posted by: gorb || 05/04/2007 4:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Damn, this bitch is whacked...
Posted by: Ex Astronaut Lisa Nowak || 05/04/2007 10:54 Comments || Top||

#4  If she can bring in a camera crew and make some money off of it, she'll do it.
Posted by: tu3031 || 05/04/2007 11:03 Comments || Top||

#5  She does make an excellent poster child for continuing the estate tax
Posted by: kelly || 05/04/2007 15:39 Comments || Top||

#6  Hee hee Kelly!
Here, have a secret Camel Menthol I've found.
Posted by: Shipman || 05/04/2007 19:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Reality is a bitch.
Posted by: JohnQC || 05/04/2007 21:04 Comments || Top||

#8  Kelly - she and her sister have made themselves into multi-millionaires many times over. So they GET capitalism.

Compare this to ex-CEO and grandson of the founder of mine and many others ex-workplace - who pissed away the company, the workforce and the products (MOT).

Galvin -1 Hilton Sisters +4
Posted by: 3dc || 05/04/2007 22:46 Comments || Top||


Naked man superglued to exercise bike
A gang stripped a South African man before supergluing him to an exercise bicycle while they ransacked his house, according to a report Thursday. SAPA news agency said the attackers, dressed in suits, hijacked a man in his 50s and forced him at gunpoint to take them to his home in Johannesburg. "The victim was then forced to strip, after which he was superglued to the seat of an exercise bicycle, his hands were superglued, as were his feet and then his mouth was superglued shut," SAPA quoted Mark Stokoe, a spokesman for emergency services Netcare 911, as saying. The man was rescued about three hours later when his partner arrived home, SAPA said.

South Africa is battling one of the world's highest crime rates which has prompted concerns that violence might mar the 2010 soccer World Cup, which the country is due to host. A police spokesman could not immediately comment on the report. No one at Netcare 911 could be reached.
Posted by: Fred || 05/04/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is South Africa a "gun-free zone"?

Sure sounds like it....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/04/2007 0:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe gun free, but not glue free. This is really nasty. Using duct tape is bad enough but super glue would be especially painful to separate.
Posted by: Woozle Elmeter2970 || 05/04/2007 0:53 Comments || Top||

#3  It's my understanding that superglue was originally invented to glue human skin together after operations. Plenty of evidence to support this! :-)
Posted by: gorb || 05/04/2007 4:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Woozle Elmeter2970, not really, with some patience. The skin is dead on the surface, but epidermal tissue creates new one undernetah, thus in a week, the bike would fall off. ;-)

Barb, SA is not a gun free zone. It's a sick place. Very sick place.

I am sure that the bicycle owner has a pretty high fence around the house. Some people have a vault as big as one room (within that room), stuffed with guns, food/water to last 4-8 weeks. The fear is everpresent. Some roads are not advised to take, at least not with a mounted machine gun inside the car/truck or a few readily available pump action guns. Else it may be your last trip. But it is not that the violence is directed towards white folks. Black on black is even more common, often rather gruesome. There is not much of it trickling into MSM, but snippets do get told, here and there, and in blogs.

It's a sickness. As if some parasite that drives people mad is truly endemic there. Or in Zimbabwe, Angola, Congo, and it does not stop there. As if it adapts to different conditions. It is, perhaps, everywhere. It likes misery, its frequency or chemical environment that get produced by humand mind and thrives on it and instinctively forces the host to create more of it.

Different people react differently. Some create elaborate fantasies of paranoid nature and construct world of contradictions that they are not able to discern as such, other lose betwen some and any ability for empathy. True empathy, not an outward screen pretense that covers the lack of it. Those that lose all empathy do want to punish everyone else for their misfortune, by a murder, especially that of a riualized kind, else some feeble remainder of sanity may intervene--those that fear intervention opt for murder by suicide, those that don't do beheadings.

I think it will get worse. Much worse.

Sorry, just a "hour of wolves" rant...
Posted by: twobyfour || 05/04/2007 5:45 Comments || Top||

#5  The man was rescued about three hours later when his partner arrived home, SAPA said.

I note the word "Partner" is used, not "Wife", or "Girlfriend"

Perhaps the man was targeted because he's gay?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 05/04/2007 6:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Well said 2x4. Bottom line, South Africa is becoming Afria and proudly divesting itself of all things white. Sad, very sad indeed. I would love to hear Fjiordman's analysis.


It's a sickness. As if some parasite that drives people mad is truly endemic there. Or in Zimbabwe, Angola, Congo, and it does not stop there. As if it adapts to different conditions. It is, perhaps, everywhere. It likes misery, its frequency or chemical environment that get produced by humand mind and thrives on it and instinctively forces the host to create more of it.


Posted by: Besoeker || 05/04/2007 7:21 Comments || Top||

#7  Still, it's one way to stick with your training program.....
Posted by: Bunyip || 05/04/2007 8:29 Comments || Top||

#8  I note the word "Partner" is used, not "Wife", or "Girlfriend"

Don't know about SA, but in Australia they say "partner" rather than "girl/boyfriend". It is a more dignified expression, but also rather mysterious. The first time someone mentioned his "partner", I assumed he meant business partner. When it became clear that wasn't the case, I wondered if he were gay (no). I just managed to avoid embarrassing myself.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 05/04/2007 11:25 Comments || Top||

#9  Barb, SA is not a gun free zone. It's a sick place. Very sick place.

Absolutely. The first thing I thought when I heard the story is: the guy was lucky. Most SA crime victims are lucky if they die quickly. If you have a strong stomach, there are several sites that catalog SA atrocitiescrimes.
Posted by: xbalanke || 05/04/2007 12:13 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
People with Nothing Better To Do Activists Want Chimp Declared a 'Person'
I don't really like it either, but if it's me/mine vs some apes, me/mine win. But if you can a reasonable fraction of humanity to decide not to take advantage of anything derived from research on apes, we'll think about it. They can also help out by finding a better research substitute. How about their kids?

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - In some ways, Hiasl is like any other Viennese: He indulges a weakness for pastry, likes to paint and enjoys chilling out watching TV. But he doesn't care for coffee, and he isn't actually a person—at least not yet.

In a case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26- year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a "person."

Hiasl's supporters argue he needs that status to become a legal entity that can receive donations and get a guardian to look out for his interests. "Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights," said Eberhart Theuer, a lawyer leading the challenge on behalf of the Association Against Animal Factories, a Vienna animal rights group. "We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions," Theuer said. "We're not talking about the right to vote here."

The campaign began after the animal sanctuary where Hiasl (pronounced HEE-zul) and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years went bankrupt.

Activists want to ensure the apes don't wind up homeless if the shelter closes. Both have already suffered: They were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled in a crate to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.

Their food and veterinary bills run about $6,800 a month. Donors have offered to help, but there's a catch: Under Austrian law, only a person can receive personal donations.

Organizers could set up a foundation to collect cash for Hiasl, whose life expectancy in captivity is about 60 years. But without basic rights, they contend, he could be sold to someone outside Austria, where the chimp is protected by strict animal cruelty laws.

"If we can get Hiasl declared a person, he would have the right to own property. Then, if people wanted to donate something to him, he'd have the right to receive it," said Theuer, who has vowed to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Austria isn't the only country where primate rights are being debated. Spain's parliament is considering a bill that would endorse the Great Ape Project, a Seattle-based international initiative to extend "fundamental moral and legal protections" to apes.

If Hiasl gets a guardian, "it will be the first time the species barrier will have been crossed for legal 'personhood,'" said Jan Creamer, chief executive of Animal Defenders International, which is working to end the use of primates in research.

Paula Stibbe, a Briton who teaches English in Vienna, petitioned a district court to be Hiasl's legal trustee. On April 24, Judge Barbara Bart rejected her request, ruling Hiasl didn't meet two key tests: He is neither mentally impaired nor in an emergency.

Although Bart expressed concern that awarding Hiasl a guardian could create the impression that animals enjoy the same legal status as humans, she didn't rule that he could never be considered a person.

Martin Balluch, who heads the Association Against Animal Factories, has asked a federal court for a ruling on the guardianship issue.

"Chimps share 99.4 percent of their DNA with humans," he said. "OK, they're not homo sapiens. But they're obviously also not things—the only other option the law provides."

Not all Austrian animal rights activists back the legal challenge. Michael Antolini, president of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said he thinks it's absurd.

"I'm not about to make myself look like a fool" by getting involved, said Antolini, who worries that chimpanzees could gain broader rights, such as copyright protections on their photographs.

But Stibbe, who brings Hiasl sweets and yogurt and watches him draw and clown around by dressing up in knee-high rubber boots, insists he deserves more legal rights "than bricks or apples or potatoes."

"He can be very playful but also thoughtful," she said. "Being with him is like playing with someone who can't talk."

A date for the appeal hasn't been set, but Hiasl's legal team has lined up expert witnesses, including Jane Goodall, the world's foremost observer of chimpanzee behavior.

"When you see Hiasl, he really comes across as a person," Theuer said. "He has a real personality. It strikes you immediately: This is an individual. You just have to look him in the eye to see that."
Posted by: gorb || 05/04/2007 18:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, we owe ourselves and mother nature good stewardship of the world around us. As for giving apes human rights, like Dennis Miller said:

If finding a cure for AIDS requires hooking up chimpanzees to car batteries, I've only got two things to say: Red is positive and black is negative.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/04/2007 19:56 Comments || Top||

#2  If you declare that chimps are persons, then how long before the activists want them to be citizens so they can vote Democrat?
Posted by: RWV || 05/04/2007 20:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Does this include Chimpy Bushitler? Or is he still beyond the pale?
Posted by: Jackal || 05/04/2007 22:39 Comments || Top||


Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo





"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Posted by: Mike || 05/04/2007 13:45 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What wire did this come across?
Posted by: Zenster || 05/04/2007 17:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Other KOREA + NK News > KOREA HERALD/CHOSUN ILBO -Op-Ed WHY NORTH KOREA WILL NOT GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS; + TALKS [USA-SK] BEGIN ON WAR RESERVE STOCKPILES. USA wants to sell to SK; + SOKOR Prez ROH sent a formal letter to Russia's PUTIN desiring to link Trans-Siberian Railway wid new NK-SK Inter-Korean Railway.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/04/2007 23:25 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Five Mexican soldiers killed by narcotraficantes
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 05/04/2007 02:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Must have been five honest Mexican soldiers. Va con dios.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/04/2007 9:23 Comments || Top||


Iraq
The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy
Be careful, somewhat graphic imagas at link.

If this kind of $hit isn't dealt with harshly by the new Iraqi government I'll sadly admit we should walk away.

A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion.

As a horrifying video of the stoning went out on the Internet, the British arm of Amnesty International condemned the death of Du’a Khalil Aswad as "an abhorrent murder" and demanded that her killers be brought to justice.

Reports from Iraq said a local security force witnessed the incident, but did nothing to try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding in fear for his life.

Miss Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an "honour killing" by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.

They said she had shamed herself and her family when she failed to return home one night. Some reports suggested she had converted to Islam to be closer to her boyfriend.

Miss Aswad had taken shelter in the house of a Yezidi tribal leader in Bashika, a predominantly Kurdish town near the northern capital, Mosul.

A large crowd watched as eight or nine men stormed the house and dragged Miss Aswad into the street. There they hurled stones at her for half an hour until she was dead.

The stoning happened last month, but only came to light yesterday with the release of the Internet video.

It is feared her death has already triggered a retaliatory attack. Last week 23 Yezidi workmen were forced off a bus travelling from Mosulto Bashika by a group of Sunni gunmen and summarily shot dead.

An Amnesty International spokesman in London said they receive frequent reports of honour crimes from Iraq – particularly in the predominantly Kurdish north.

Most victims are women and girls who are considered by male relatives to have shamed their families by immoral behaviour.

Kurdish authorities have introduced reforms outlawing honour killings, but have failed to investigate them or prosecute suspects, added the Amnesty spokesman.

Kate Allen, the organisation’s UK director, said: "This young girl’s murder is truly abhorrent and her killers must be brought to justice.

"Unless the authorities respond vigorously to this and any other reports of crimes in the name of 'honour', we must fear for the future of women in Iraq."
Posted by: gorb || 05/04/2007 17:51 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ah, the Kurds, those exemplars of Western liberal values. Just get our troops out and let these muppets get on with what they've always done, and always will do.
Posted by: Sonar || 05/04/2007 20:50 Comments || Top||

#2  An Amnesty International spokesman in London said they receive frequent reports of honour crimes from Iraq – particularly in the predominantly Kurdish north.

Likely because AI believes it's safe enough to have a presence there. Wonder what kind of presence they have in the south?
Posted by: Pappy || 05/04/2007 22:02 Comments || Top||

#3  An Amnesty International spokesman in London said they receive frequent reports of honour crimes from Iraq – particularly in the predominantly Kurdish north.

So, where is the international outrage over this blatant violation of human rights? When will Amnesty International come down on the side of banning sharia law for being the massive violation of human rights that it is?

If Iraq cannot commit itself to being sufficiently secular whereby this sort of Neanderthal crap is punished on the spot, they have no right to resent our presence. Through our intervention, we are still saving more Iraqi lives to this day and these thankless turds had better never forget it.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/04/2007 22:32 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
A good reason to go see Spider Man 3
Right Wing Trash

Okay, here’s the deal: There’s a whiny Leftist film critic who’s developed serious Bush Derangement Syndrome, and even got some attention when he declared that last year’s The Break-Up ($39 million domestic opening weekend) was set to be a box-office bomb—most likely because he’d heard that Vince Vaughn had once said something that was almost patriotic.

Anyway, the same deep thinker is now all upset that USA Today did an article on Spider-Man 3 director Sam Raimi—and the paper didn’t even report that Raimi gave $900 to the George W. Bush campaign in 2004. It’s “as if such things are peripheral,” weeps our brave critic.

Never mind that Raimi gave $1,000 to Barbara Boxer’s campaign. Also—as a fan of the critic’s site felt compelled to comment—Raimi’s a Jew.

So let’s do our part to support Sam Raimi. Perhaps we can beat the blacklist and go to the multiplex and give Spider-Man 3 a chance at becoming a commercial success. It might even be possible to use our capitalist clout and make Spider-Man 3 nearly as successful as The Break-Up.

. . . Seriously, Spider-Man 3 is in theaters now. Help out a brother.
Posted by: Mike || 05/04/2007 14:42 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think he'll get by without my help...

"Spider-Man 3" cast a worldwide web with a blockbuster first day, hauling in $29.15 million in 16 overseas markets and beating the debuts of the previous two "Spider-Man" flicks in each locale.

And it doesn't even open here until today.
Posted by: tu3031 || 05/04/2007 15:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't know about Raimi being a Jew but I do know his family is Persian. At least according to the book by Bruce Campbell.

Spider-Man 3 is setting records in Asia and Europe. The past two also set records. Sam Raimi hardly needs help.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 05/04/2007 16:27 Comments || Top||

#3  It should be enough that this is on the Web.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/04/2007 20:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Is this about a movie?
Posted by: Shipman || 05/04/2007 20:01 Comments || Top||

#5  From Wikipedia:

Raimi was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, to a conservative Jewish family of Polish[citation needed] ancestry; his father is Leonard Ronald Raimi and his mother is Celia Barbara (Abrams) Raimi. His family's original surname was Reingewertz, but was shortened to Raimi after his grandfather immigrated to the United States. His father's close cousin was Harry Margolis who played for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1941 season.[citation needed]

So the man was born Jewish, at least. Heaven only knows what he believes now, although I suspect that spending significant time in the company of the Hollywood crowd is enough to convince a sensitive soul of the need for the classic Hell with fire, brimstone, imps with pitchforks, and eternal damnation. Into which the whiny Leftist critic and his oh-so-clever fan should be tipped at the first opportunity.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/04/2007 22:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Son said there were some really painfully strange segments in that movie. This from a young man who likes to draw cartoons...

Hollyweed really needs to start hiring REAL writers again. Even if they have a union that goes on strike sometimes.

A good writer knows how to take care of PLOT HOLES.
Posted by: 3dc || 05/04/2007 22:42 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
67[untagged]

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2007-05-04
  Thousands Rally Against Olmert
Thu 2007-05-03
  Muharib Abdul Latif banged; Abu Omar al-Baghdadi said titzup
Wed 2007-05-02
  75 'rebels' killed in southern Afghan offensive: UK officer
Tue 2007-05-01
  Abu Ayyub al-Masri reported rubbed out
Mon 2007-04-30
  UK police charges 6 with inciting terror, fundraising
Sun 2007-04-29
  Somalia president claims victory, asks for international help
Sat 2007-04-28
  Missiles Kill Four Hard Boyz in Pakistan
Fri 2007-04-27
  US House okays deadline for Iraq troop pullout
Thu 2007-04-26
  London: Four men plead guilty to explosives plot
Wed 2007-04-25
  IDF to request green light to strike Hamas leadership
Tue 2007-04-24
  Lal Masjid calls for jihad against ''un-Islamic'' govt
Mon 2007-04-23
  51 killed as Somalia fighting rages
Sun 2007-04-22
  Khaleda sets out for exile any time now...
Sat 2007-04-21
  Rocket fired at Fazl's house
Fri 2007-04-20
  Paks demonstrate against mullahs


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.
3.144.151.106
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (17)    WoT Background (18)    Non-WoT (18)    Opinion (7)    (0)