Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/08/2012 09:39 ||
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These are a bit more expensive but they don't need to submerge to go undetected. Problem is we'll be borrowing money from the Chicoms so we can send these bad boys to patrol the coast of China.
[An Nahar] From testicle-biting police dogs to sonic cannons capable of inducing involuntary urination, Polish anti-hooligan squads have an array of weapons ready for potential trouble-makers at Euro 2012.
A suggestion: deploy the dogs before the cannon. The dogs will be happier that way.
The English-language Krakow Post newspaper asserted in an editorial that local law enforcement agencies were more than ready to tackle any hooligan threat at England's southern Poland base camp.
"The Polish police are going to come down on troublemakers like a bag full of anvils and you don't want to be there when it happens," the paper warned.
"Krakow has a long history of hooligan violence -- the local police have seen it all before and they will ruin your day if you try it on.
"These lads' mums and dads rioted under Soviet machine guns -- a few chairs thrown by beered-up fans is not going to intimidate them.
"Do not expect softly, softly police tactics.
"Poland's anti-hooligan squads are armed with: Shotguns firing baton rounds that probably won't kill you as long as you're 30m away, a truck-mounted water cannon affectionately known as 'the typhoon', a high-tech sonic cannon that can make you wet yourself on its lowest setting, dogs trained to bite you directly in the testicles."
English fans are not expected to arrive in Krakow in significant numbers, with England's Group D games all taking place in Ukraine.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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This has all the makings for Big Fun. I hope it's on pay per view or DVD. And no, I don't mean the game.
[Tolo News] The mother of an 18 year old girl who was repeatedly raped in Afghanistan's eastern Kunduz province has threatened to self-immolate if those responsible are not prosecuted.
"We will burn ourselves if the rapists are not prosecuted," the mother said.
The 18 year old girl was allegedly raped multiple times by men from a local police unit in the province
Her mother named the men, who she said entered their family home to kidnap the daughter.
"One ranger with four [men] came to our house and took the girl with themselves. Sakhidad, Khudadad, Abdul Razeq and Akhtarak took the girl in a military car," the mother told TOLOnews.
"If the government doesn't help us, we will burn ourselves."
The father of the victim also said that a military ranger took his daughter.
"They beat me up, I fell on the ground, they took my daughter and took her away with themselves. They took her to Khudadad's house," he said.
The military attorney office in the province rejected the allegation against the police unit saying that the gang was not made up of the local police, but confirmed they were still investigating.
General Mohammad Sharif Safi, head of the Kunduz military attorney, said that several people including the commander of the local police unit, Ishaq, are under police investigation.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... commander of 303th Pamir zone General Baba Jan rejected the gang rape accusation saying that two local police were accused of the rape and were placed in long-term storage Please don't kill me! by police.
"The gang rape case is not true, two people were accused of this case and have been incarcerated ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... by Kunduz police," he said.
This comes as Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... ordered the Ministry of Interior to arrest and disarm the local police unit accused of raping an 18-year-old girl, New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... wrote this week, quoting government front man Aimal Faizi.
The newspaper reported that a shepherd girl was in jug of the Afghan local police for days and was reportedly raped several times by the members of the unit.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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MORONS, if the accuser is dead, all charges will be dismissed.
The Rapists will escape punishment.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/08/2012 16:23 Comments ||
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The Arab Spring was kicked off when a Tunisian man set himself on fire to protest harassment by officials.
#3
Might be a smidge more effective to burn the rapists rather than yourself, doncha think?
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/08/2012 18:36 Comments ||
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I'm a bit behind with my Islamic Math thingy, but as there were 5 men involved , there must be 4 times that many female witnesses for a case to be made. All witnesses to be disfigured with acid and then hung by the neck until dead. Next.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Ghana's former President-for-Life Jerry Rawlings ... former lieutenant in the Ghanian air force, then military dictator for 11 years. He thought he was elected President-for-Life of Ghana in 1993, but was forced to step down his at the end of his term-limited second term when his proxy was defeated ... has given the first hint yet that his wife, former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings might enter the Presidential race in December.
But it is not clear whether she would do so as an independent candidate or form a new party.
Speculation has been rife but, she has consistently refused to confirm or deny her candidature.
But, last Sunday, President Rawlings told a rally at Aflao, on the country's eastern border with Togo that Nana, "must be given the chance to rescue the country from the current leadership crisis."
He pleaded with the people to consider giving her the needed support to rule.
Ms Nana Agyeman-Rawlings was rejected by delegates of the ruling National Democratic Congress when she stood against President John Evans Mills at the party's primary to elect a leader.
She had only three per cent of the votes and it was expected that she would give up her ambition.
The position taken by Mr Rawlings has finally pitted him against President Mills in the contest to win the hearts and souls of the entire members of the NDC some of whom have openly criticised Mr Rawlings for working against the party he founded and the man he chose as his successors.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Also from STRATEGYPAGE > KOREA: THE GREAT HUNGER 2.
Methinks China recognizes the dangerous geopol fallout in NE Asia which could stem from a de facto DPRK state collapse - add to its continuing failure to procure PLA Milbases throughout the "First island Chain" + Taiwan stall + SCS disputes, thus ...
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CHINESE COAST GUARD TAKES CONTROL OF DAOYUS ISLANDS FROM JAPAN.
Another CCG maritme foray into the sovereign waters of Japan around the Daoyus Islands [Japan = Senkakus].
* FYI DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > US REOPENING WWII BASES IN PACIFIC [Tinian = CNMI] | [DefenseTech] "AIR-SEA BATTLE" + OUR BUILDUP IN THE PACIFIC.
[Guardian UK] Greek talk shows are by nature combustible affairs. But rarely have they witnessed anything quite as shocking as the moment when a leading member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party launched a physical assault on two female politicians.
Ten days before the debt-stricken nation goes to the polls in an election that will not only decide Greece's fate but quite possibly the course of Europe too, the attack, captured on live TV, involved Ilias Kasidiaris, a high profile member of Golden Dawn, lashing out at two prominent leftwing MPs -- all part of a seven-strong panel attending the popular Good Morning Greece TV show.
The nation that triggered Europe's debt drama is now a boiling cauldron. In the third year of its worst crisis since the second world war, it has reached the point where fury becomes violence.
Within hours of a state prosecutor issuing an arrest warrant for Kasidiaris, word of the unprecedented punch-up had travelled across the country. And in the tavernas and cafeneia of villages and towns, on radio and TV channels, the overarching question was: is this the beginning of something worse to come?
In an atmosphere bristling with the discordant feelings of anger and fear, the assault on Rena Dourou and Liana Kanelli, deputies with the radical Syriza and KKE communist parties, has added an explosive element to an election campaign that is already electric and has also illuminated the dark role of Golden Dawn.
Kasidiaris, the party's 31-year-old front man, first turned on Dourou, hurling a glass of water into her face, for daring to suggest that Golden Dawn "would take the country back 500 years" if they were elected.
He then turned his fists on Kanelli when the communist MP stood up in protest. Within minutes of the talk show's presenter, Giorgos Papadakis, intervening to break up the brawl, the MP had fled.
Across Greece's deeply divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... political landscape there was agreement that the extraordinary incident, replayed on TV channels throughout the day, had unmasked Golden Dawn for what it really is: a group of intolerant faceless myrmidons who resort to violence to make their point.
Across the political spectrum, politicians said that the party, voted into parliament in last month's inconclusive poll for the first time since the collapse of military rule, had revealed its true colours. From garnering a mere 0.46% three years ago, the extreme rightwing party captured 7% of the vote in what was widely interpreted as a protest against mainstream parties enforcing unpopular austerity measures in return for EU-IMF funds keeping the moribund Greek economy afloat.
"Now that they have seen what this party is really about, Greeks will have no alibi to vote for them again," said Prokopis Pavlopoulos, a former conservative New Democracy minister who also participated in the talk show. "I, personally, will never take part in a debate with a member of Golden Dawn again."
Several hours after the incident, with the group still resolutely refusing to apologise, two MPs with the socialist Pasok party were attacked by Golden Dawn supporters as they campaigned in northern Greece.
In a statement KKE, the communist party of Greece, appealed to "workers, young people and pensioners" who voted for Golden Dawn to abandon the krazed killers. A front man said the stridently xenophobic group had used its anti-immigrant, anti-bailout platform to hoodwink Greeks into voting for it.
Led by Nikos Michaloliakos, and attracting an eclectic mix of soldiers, shepherds, workers and low-income professionals, Golden Dawn has fiercely denied No, no! Certainly not! any association with neo-Nazism -- despite its embrace of Third Reich paraphernalia and its symbol bearing an uncanny resemblance to the swastika.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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The comment about divisiveness vs principled reminds me of the "conjugation of irregular verbs" that was popular a few aeons ago, e.g.:
"I am firm"
"You are obstinate"
"He is a pig-headed fool"
Does seem to fit the political discourse these days....
With the help of a mole, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has turned the tables on Attorney General Eric Holder.
Issa and more than a few RBers has long been exasperated with Holder, claiming that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been withholding information on a controversial gun-running operation. But through an anonymous source, Issa has obtained information about the initiative that is under a federal court-ordered seal.
Giving such information out is a federal crime, raising the question of whether the Justice Department will seek to prosecute what Republicans are calling a whistleblower. But whatever happened to transparency? Could it be that Obean has abandoned this campaign promise? And Pelosi, whatever did you mean by "the most ethical congress in history"?
Issa has asked the DOJ for the documents wiretap applications it used in the botched federal gun-tracking Operation Fast and Furious for months. The California lawmaker has taken preliminary steps to move contempt-of-Congress citations against Holder, but it remains unclear if GOP leaders support that move. This new controversy could help Issa attract more Republican support for a contempt-of-Congress resolution.
If Holder does launch an investigation into where the leak originated, the powerful Republican could paint the move as an attempt by the DOJ to hide the documents contents. It would also raise the possibility that DOJ investigators will seek information from Issa, who has been trying to determine who approved the gun-walking tactics used in Fast and Furious along the U.S.-Mexico border. Go for it. They only have about four more months then they're going to be too busy shredding evidence for the next two months than to worry about going after you.
On the other hand, not launching a probe would mean turning a blind eye to a criminal breach and could lead Issas source and others to reveal other information sealed by a judge.
Issa told Fox News on Wednesday that he has no intention of shining the light on his source: Were not going to make our whistleblower available. Thats been one of the most sensitive areas, because some of the early whistleblowers are already feeling retribution. Theyre being treated horribly. Probably part of Obean's transparency program.
Asked earlier this week where he got the wiretap applications, Issa told The Hill, You can ask, but you should have no expectation of an answer. By the way, if I asked you where you got yours, would you give me your sources?
Of course, there is some political risk for Issa. The Obama administration could point out that he is stonewalling federal authorities after complaining throughout this Congress of being stonewalled by DOJ. Hey, if Holder isn't stonewalling, then neither would Issa be.
As the lead congressional investigator of Fast and Furious, Issa says the documents show top-ranking DOJ officials signing off on the condemned gun-walking tactics used in the failed operation. Senior DOJ officials have repeatedly denied that they approved the botched initiative.
The documents have not been made public, and Issa has apparently broken no laws by being given the information.
Regardless, the DOJ is not pleased.
Chairman Issas letter makes clear that sealed court documents relating to pending federal prosecutions being handled by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of California have been disclosed to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in violation of law, wrote Deputy Attorney General James Cole to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Issa this week.
This is of great concern to us, the letter added. Even greater than Black Panthers denying voting rights to American citizens?
A spokesman for the DOJ declined to comment about whether it was planning to launch an investigation into the leak. That's what happens when you're making decisions based on politcal fallout vs. what's right and wrong.
Democrats say that Issa is exaggerating what he has. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on Issas panel, reiterated this week that top-ranking DOJ officials didnt personally review any of the six wiretap applications related to Fast and Furious. Issa sent Cummings the information he received from his source.
In the past, the DOJ has justified not turning over the wiretap applications to Issa by saying that doing so could jeopardize the current criminal cases it is prosecuting.
Two former prosecutors for the DOJ, who were not familiar with the details of this article, independently told The Hill that defense lawyers could use an instance of documents being leaked in violation of a court-ordered seal to justify seeking a mistrial. Too bad you can't ask for a mistrial before everything goes public.
It is unlikely that the DOJ, if it does investigate the leak, will have grounds to go after Issa for accepting the documents. In past instances of court-ordered seals being broken, it is the actual breaker of the seal who is held responsible, which in this case could mean criminal contempt proceedings and possible jail time.
The battle between Issa and the DOJ has escalated over the past month, with House Republican leaders writing a letter to Holder asking him to hand over information about who was responsible for Fast and Furious. The letter also asked whether the DOJ misled Congress on when officials, including Holder, became aware of the program.
Issa is set to square off against Holder on Thursday when the attorney general is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. The Republican lawmaker will appear on a panel to discuss oversight of the DOJ.
Under the now-defunct Fast and Furious initiative, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is under the DOJ, authorized the sale of firearms to known and suspected straw purchasers for Mexican drug cartels, but lost track of many of the weapons. I'd sure like to know how they planned to track those guns. Maybe ballistics on the bullets pulled out of dead children?
Some of those guns might have contributed to the December 2010 shooting death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Is it OK to say "might" when you mean "surely"?
#5
"The California lawmaker has taken preliminary steps to move contempt-of-Congress citations against Holder, but it remains unclear if GOP leaders support that move"
Really? Seems to me the crickets emenating from Boner's office tell mountains of stories about the 'support' of the GOP 'leaders.' Boner is almost as useless as Bambi.
The United States has cut funding to a popular Pakistani version of the children's program "Sesame Street" amid allegations of fraud and abuse, a US official said.
The program, run under the umbrella of the US-based Sesame Workshop by a local theater group, had been awarded some $20 million in funds from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Known as "Sim Sim Hamara" it included some of the furry puppets beloved by children in the West such as Elmo as well as local characters including Baily, a fluffy donkey who wants to be a pop star, and a crocodile, Haseen-o-Jameel, who loves words, rhymes, and songs.
But through an anti-fraud hotline set up by the US, Washington received "what we believe were credible allegations of fraud and abuse by the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, which manages the 'Sesame Street' program in Pakistan," a State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said.
An investigation had been launched into the allegations and Rafi Peer had been sent "a letter that terminates the project agreement," he added.
Toner refused to go into the nature of the allegations against the project, which he said had already spent some $6.7 million of its funds.
"We do acknowledge the program is beneficial. But, we had what we believe were credible allegations. So rather than to continue to throw good money after bad, we thought it was prudent to cut off this program and wait for the results of the investigation," he told journalists.
Sesame Workshop said in a statement that it was "surprised and dismayed to learn about the serious allegations made against Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop."
Who the crap thought this was a good idea? Don't they know that the relationship between Big Bird and Snuffleupagus is really a trite parody of the relationship between mo and allan? How about the undead Ottoman Wars hero Christian running about counting things. The only thing which makes sense and would fit in would be Elmo, with his touch of teh ghey and doll who giggles and wants others to touch his places.
NEW DELHI: India is not going to give up its tactical and strategic advantage over Pakistan in the Siachen Glacier-Saltoro Ridge region anytime soon, even though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may still want to convert it into "a mountain of peace".
The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), chaired by the PM, on Thursday cleared the "brief" for the 13th round of the defence secretary-level talks to be held with Pakistan in Islamabad on June 11-12.
Sources said the Indian delegation, led by defence secretary Shashikant Sharma, will insist Pakistan first agree to the three sequential "pre-requisites" of authentication, delineation and demarcation of the respective troop positions on the Saltoro Ridge before any military pullback plans can be discussed.
While there has been some recent buzz of "a breakthrough" on the long-festering Siachen dispute, the Army has cautioned the UPA government against any concessions in the face of Pakistani intransigence in providing iron-clad guarantees for even verifying the 110-km Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL).
Defence minister A K Antony himself told Parliament in May that "dramatic decisions" should not be expected from the talks slated for next week. Sources said India will tell Pakistan to first "authenticate" the respective troop positions on the AGPL along the Saltoro Ridge since Indian soldiers occupy almost all the "dominating" posts there and Pakistani soldiers are three to seven km away from the glacier.
Second, the authentication process will have to be followed by proper "delineation" both on the map as well as on the ground. This, in turn, will lead to the final "demarcation" of the agreed border. India will only then "consider" the proposed "disengagement" and "redeployment" of troops from the heights varying from 16,000 to 22,000-feet.
With better infrastructure and supply lines in place, the Army is no longer haemorrhaging like it did in the early years after its "Operation Meghdoot" in April 1984 pre-empted Pakistan's `Operation Ababeel' to occupy the icy heights.
Pakistan, which lost 139 soldiers in an avalanche that hit one of its Army camps there in April, is desperate to resolve the dispute since it is bleeding more. Over 3,000 of its soldiers have died in the region since 1984.
India, too, has lost many soldiers. Although the casualty rate has steadily dipped in recent years, the toll stood at 26 last year. Extreme weather and terrain cause more casualties in the icy heights, where temperatures even dip to minus 50-60 degrees, rather than exchange of fire. The guns have largely fallen silent in the world's highest and coldest battlefield since the ceasefire came into force in November, 2003.
"India has all the advantages now...why give them up without any gains?" asked a senior officer. If India was not holding the heights on the Saltoro Ridge, the highest watershed in the area, Pakistani and Chinese armies could link up to bring the Karakoram Pass under their control and threaten the Ladakh region. "The increasing Chinese presence in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan is a fact of life," he added.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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SIACHEN GLACIER ...
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > IFF PAKISTAN WITHDRAWS ITS SUPPORT FROM US, WAR WILL BE FOUGHT THERE [in Pakistan]: SALAHUDDIN. Top Kashmiri Militant Leader upset at seemingly new Indo-Pak strategic rapprochement.
[Dawn] Escorted by the security forces and officials of political administration, health teams administered anti-polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... drops to children in Sipah area of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency.
That's one way to demonstrate these are legitimate medical missions, rather than traitors seeking to reveal internationally wanted terror masterminds to their hunters...
Local sources said that a Bara-based cut-thoat organization had warned the residents of the area against vaccinating their children.
The political administration also deployed its officials on Tuesday and Wednesday to help the polio teams to reach those areas, which were inaccessible for them during the previous vaccination campaigns.
Agency Surgeon Dr Azam Wazir said that they were still faced with some resistance in few localities of Akkakhel like Fort Salop and Zaodin.
He said that local administration was making every effort to access maximum number of children in Bara under the age of five years.
However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... some officials feared that despite all those efforts, about 30,000 children could not be vaccinated and they would be at risk of contracting polio virus.
They said that Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency was the only place in the entire country where they had found both Type-3 and Type-1 polio virus that had so far infected six children since start of the year 2012.
Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea: there was a simple way to tell whether Manetti had been the triggerman -- just look at his shoes!... the Walikhel rustics of Landi Kotal on Wednesday refused briefly to vaccinate their children as a protest against power outages in their area.
Officials said that a handful of residents of Qayum Kallay stopped health workers from carrying out door-to-door vaccination drive to register their protest against power suspension.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] A member of the team sent to Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... on the orders of the Supreme Court to ascertain the status of the five women suspected of having been murdered confirmed on Thursday that four of the women were alive, DawnNews reported.
The court had been hearing a suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... notice on the issue since reports came up that holy mans had allegedly issued orders for the killing of four women and two men after a mobile phone video emerged of the six singing and dancing at a wedding in a remote village in Kohistan.
According to allegations levelled by Mohammad Afzal, a relative of the women, the four women seen in the video and another woman had been killed by their relatives in the village of Pales.
Speaking to media representatives from Kohistan, rights activist Farzana Bari said that four of the women were alive.
Bari is a member of the fact-finding delegation sent to the northwestern region in the case.
However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... Bari said that it would not be possible to produce the women before the court on Thursday.
Bari said she had personally met at least two of the women who she said were well. She further said that their bodies bore no marks of physical torture.
The activist said that the team had also recorded a video of the women.
Mohammad Afzal reiterates claim
However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... Afzal, a brother of one of the men in the video, reiterated that the women had been killed.
Speaking to media representatives outside the Supreme Court, Afzal again said that the women had been killed and their throats had been slit.
He said the women were killed on May 30 on the orders of a holy man who led a 40 to 50-member tribal jirga.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/08/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Must'va been using the Injustice Department's standards for colleges in employing preponderance of evidence [he's male] rather than beyond reasonable doubt to convict an accused.
#2
This doesn't sound right. The word of a man, by sharia law, is worth twice that of a woman. Therefore the women are routinely punished and the men set free. Either this guy is not a Muslim or he did something else wrong.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
06/08/2012 19:46 Comments ||
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Check out the pics at the link
A former anchor at The Weather Channel is suing the network after she said she was fired over a dispute involving her military service.
Nicole Mitchell, an Air Force Reserve Officer and a member of the "Hurricane Hunters" team, has accused The Weather Channel and NBC of discrimination and violating her rights under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.
Mitchell said she began to experience harassment about her military service just after The Weather Channel was purchased by NBC, Bain Capital and the Blackstone Group, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
Court papers allege NBC bosses made explicit complaints about her military service schedule and created a "hostile working environment" for the anchor.
Mitchell, who holds the rank of captain, was an on-air meteorologist for The Weather Channel from 2004 until 2011 -- when her contract was not renewed. She is a highly decorated officer who flies aboard a "Hurricane Hunter" and her military expertise was especially noted during the network's hurricane coverage.
But after the network was purchased by NBC/Universal, Mitchell said network executives ordered her to get clearance before agreeing to any military assignments.
"I was told in an email, 'before you agree to military duty, you need to clear it through us first,'" Mitchell told Fox News Radio. "If you don't show up for orders, you could be court-martialed."
The Weather Channel released a statement to Fox News Radio declining to comment on the specifics of the case.
Spokesman David Blumenthal said the network "is committed to creating a work atmosphere free of discrimination and in compliance with The Uniformed Services Employment Reemployment rights Act of 1994."
Blumenthal said some of Mitchell's allegations were inaccurate, but declined to provide specific examples.
"We disagree with many of the assertions in the plaintiff's press statements and intend to vigorously defend the matter in the arbitration process," he said.
Lance LoRusso, Mitchell's attorney, called The Weather Channel and NBC's behavior "deplorable."
"It is not a matter of providing lip service and saying you support the military," he told Fox News Radio. "You cannot interfere with their service. You cannot provide harassment or a hostile environment to them and if you do -- you are subject to sanctions."
An incident involving a missed hair appointment seems to be where Mitchell's career at The Weather Channel (ed added: went awry.) LoRusso said his client received a telephone call ordering her to appear for a Sunday hair consultation.
"They said quite clearly, 'this is non-negotiable, no excuses,'" LoRusso said.
But Mitchell did have an excuse -- she was on weekend military duty -- and Mitchell had given the network advance notice of her responsibilities.
"She was told that was not a good answer," he recounted. "They gave her a hard time, but she stuck to her guns."
It wasn't long before she was transferred from a Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. -- 10 a.m. anchor shift on "Your Weather Today" to a Monday-Friday, 10 p.m.-2a.m. shift.
And LoRusso believes she Mitchell was removed from her star role because she's a weekend warrior.
"Here we truly believe that the scheduling and the fact that her Reserve duty was up against a schedule of NBC and The Weather Channel -- was a motivating factor in their decision," he said. "That is illegal."
Mitchell joined the Air National Guard when she was 17-years-old -- and the network was well aware of her military commitments when she was hired, LoRusso said.
"It's not a matter of courtesy," he said. "It's a matter of obligation. Our military cannot function as a volunteer force if the individual employers can control when our service members can appear and when they shouldn't."
LoRusso noted the irony of NBC's sponsorship of a pro-military campaign called, 'Got Your 6' -- vowing to support service members.
#1
I feel a heat wave. The weather channel becomes politicized? The NPR of the weather business? Once I read that NBC was involved, that explained a lot. After all, NBC has such luminaries as Chris "I Feel A Tingling Up My Leg When I Think of Obama" Matthews, and Ed "South End of the Horse" Schultz of the Mr. Ed show, and Rachel Maddow of the Madcow Show.
#2
For many organizations, employing a military reservist is no problem because there is sufficient flexibility within the organization to accommodate the reservist. For other organizations, it is a hardship. I wouldn't judge the Weather Channel without knowing the innards, i.e., number and scheduling of the on-air workers, etc.
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/08/2012 17:09 Comments ||
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#3
lord garth -- according to the article, she has worked for the Weather Channel from 2004 through 2011 and she had been in the Reserves the entire time, having enlisted when she was 17 years old.
After all those years, now it becomes and "internal" scheduling problem? I think not. She had her own show, Monday-Friday 7 - 10 am.
#6
Fired over a "missed hair appointment" [salon]???
Yokay, I'll bite, - not to argue that Femme Anchors can't have a bad hair day on live TV, but isn't it usually the Male Anchors whom are mandated to have Regular to Crew Cuts before appearing on-camera - UNLESS SHE'S A BALDIE WHOM HAD A WIG FALL OFF ON LIVE TV, I DON'T KNOW OF ANY NEWS BABES THAT HAVE JOB-THREATENING HAIR PROBS???
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.
[An Nahar] From testicle-biting police dogs to sonic cannons capable of inducing involuntary urination, Polish anti-hooligan squads have an array of weapons ready for potential trouble-makers at Euro 2012.
Greek talk shows are by nature combustible affairs. But rarely have they witnessed anything quite as shocking as the moment when a leading member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party launched a physical assault on two female politicians.
With the help of a mole, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has turned the tables on Attorney General Eric Holder. 
[Dawn] Escorted by the security forces and officials of political administration, health teams administered anti-
