Thousands of demonstrators clashed with riot police in the capital for a second day Saturday, protesting against Togo's recent army-appointed president in what many are calling a coup d'etat. Three people were reportedly killed and dozens wounded when police fired at demonstrators. West African leaders, who are leading the international pressure on Togolese authorities to roll back their constitutional changes, have demanded Togo's leaders meet them in neighboring Niger on Saturday. An estimated 3,000 protesters hurled rocks and jagged pieces of metal at police, and set garbage fires to block their vehicles. Security forces fought back with tear gas, batons and stun grenades, attempting to quell a growing opposition against the appointment of President Faure Gnassingbe. Large fires with heavy smoke could be seen over parts of the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
9:54:11 AM ||
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"Have some of this juche Kool-ade! There's plenty to go around! Dip right in, but remember: Army First!
Loyalty or else!
Guess we can't use the lemmings picture any more.
North Korea urged its impoverished people to rally around Stalinist leader Kim Jong Il on Saturday, after Washington rebuffed the communist North's demand that the sides hold bilateral talks to curb nuclear tension. Pyongyang's state-run daily Rodong Sinmun allotted the whole front page of its Saturday edition to an editorial that said "the single-minded unity serves as the strongest weapon," said the official news agency KCNA. "At a time like today, when the situation gets tense, no task is more important than to strengthen our single-minded unity," the editorial said. Minju Joson, another state-run daily, said that "devotedly protecting the leader is our life and soul."
The surge in communist rhetoric followed North Korea's announcement on Thursday that the reclusive communist country has nuclear weapons for self-defense. With that declaration, Kim brandished his strongest diplomatic card yet and dramatically escalated the nuclear standoff with Washington and its allies. North Korea's claim could not be independently verified. It remained unclear whether North Korea intended to remain a nuclear power or was trying to use the weapons as a bargaining chip to win aid, diplomatic recognition and a nonaggression treaty with Washington — measures the North believes will guarantee the survival of Kim's regime.
My mind keeps drifting back, lo, these many years, to Romania, and how they used to have occasional demonstrations and parades and expressions of love for their version of Kimmie. Then, one day, they took him and the little woman out and stood them against a wall and shot them. They hunted the Securitate guys down and killed them in the streets. Then they moved on to trying to put together a country that works, with all the problems that entails along with the necessity of trying to repair the damage Ceaucescu and the Commies did.
Yet people keep buying the expressions of adoration produced by a state-run press, keep accepting as genuine government-organized demonstrations. I wonder if, a dozen years from now, we're going to be watching some other regime on the edge of dissolution, and the thought of North Korea and how it collapsed is going to pop into somebody's mind? Or will we still be "negotiating" with these nitwits in between KCNA harrangues and diplomatic walkouts, while the population is reduced to eating stones and the average height of an adult male's dropped below three feet?
As the standoff intensified between Pyongyang and Washington, newspapers in South Korea urged the government on Saturday to stand firm against North Korea. "We should be resolute against any nuclear problems that decisively threaten our national security," said the mass-circulation Joong Ang Daily in an editorial. "Seoul and Washington should closely cooperate in finding out the North's intention."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
9:51:45 AM ||
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#1
This has the eerie ring of the Stalinist propaganda after the Nazis has just trampled their military en route to Moscow. Stalin was just about to jump ship and head to the far east, to try and save his sorry butt.
#2
This coward is in serious trouble. He doubts his countrymen - and for good reason.
This encounter with comrade kim should turn into a personal affair - all rhetoric should be directed at him alone. His knees have gone weak - if Bush keeps up the regime change chant along with assurances to the NKor people that after kim and his nuclear ambitions fall to the wayside their lot in life will improve - he may indeed bolt.
Anyone that has to call for loyalty is in trouble.
North Korea will have a regime change, and its people will come out of their half century nightmare when everyone quits enabling Kimmie and his band of not-so-merry men.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 11:40
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"All is well! All is well!" (channeling Kevin Bacon in Animal House
Dozens of losing candidates in Saudi Arabia's first regular election will contest results from the opening round of municipal balloting, arguing that conservative religious candidates won unfairly by claiming support from clerics, Saudi newspapers said Saturday. The Okaz daily reported that more than 30 losing candidates were scheduled to meet soon to draft a complaint to the election commission about the results of the vote, which was promoted by this country's absolute monarchy as a democratic reform. Another daily, Al-Riyadh, reported that some losing candidates planned to hire lawyers to challenge the results.
"We have 10,000 lawyers, standing by, ready to contest the results!"
Municipal elections are being held in three stages, with Thursday's first stage covering half the kingdom's city's councils. Only men were allowed to vote, and balloting was confined to the capital, Riyadh, and adjacent districts. Voting in other regions is scheduled for March and April. Many consider the elections a modest step toward democracy, but others see them as a remarkable development in a country ruled by a monarchy that considered any talk of participation in decision-making to be taboo.
"Don't worry about making decisions! That's why you have us princes!"
At least five of the winning candidates for the seven electable seats on the Riyadh City Council are believed to be Islamists, an election observer said Friday. Suleiman al-Oqaili said he saw the seven Riyadh winners' names on a list circulated via cell phones and the Internet. "It was promoted as a list that had a religious blessing," al-Oqaili said.
If a bunch of holy men say to vote for them, then you know the rubes are gonna mark their ballots for them...
Losing candidate Thafer al-Yami told The Associated Press he saw the winning list that was circulating. "These people have hijacked the elections," he said.
"This council is illegitimate! There is no mandate!"
Many of the winning candidates in Riyadh are either imams in mosques who preach conservative Islamic ideas, teachers or workers for Islamic charities, Saudi political analyst Mshari al Thaydi told the AP on Saturday.
Local newspapers characterized some winners as Islamists. Al-Riyadh called the results "largely unexpected."
That's what I said!
The government will appoint the other half of the council and it could moderate the body by choosing liberal councilmen.
Sure. That's prob'ly what'll happen. We're talking about Soddy Arabia, after all...
In the districts around Riyadh, the winners were mostly from tribes and big families.
Ummm... We're talking about the first elections in Soddy Arabia, not in the world. Who the hell writes this stuff? Did they keep this guy locked away in journalism school for 42 years, feeding him nothing but warm milk and gooey cookies, and then let him out to write just this one story?
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
9:31:03 AM ||
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A prominent Iraqi judge under Saddam Hussein, Taha al-Amiri, was assassinated Saturday by two gunmen in the southern port city of Basra, said Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi. Al-Amiri, a former chief judge at Basra's highest criminal court, is one of several former Baath Party figures assassinated in the Basra area the past 18 months. Suspicion has fallen on Shiite extremists seeking revenge for Saddam's oppression of the majority Shiite community.
South of Baghdad, gunmen shot dead a Sunni imam who worked for an endowment that handles funds for mosques. The man's son was also killed in the shooting. Their bodies were found dumped on a highway Thursday, officials said. It wasn't clear if the attack was a reprisal killing by Shiites seeking revenge for insurgent attacks on their community.
Lemme see: the Sunnis boomed a mosque yesterday, and boomed a hospital today. They boomed schools during the runup to the election. The Shiite "extremists" don't look quite so extreme when they bump off a prominent Baathist.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
9:26:39 AM ||
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A car bomb exploded in front of a hospital in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 17 and wounding 21, police and hospital officials said, a day after 23 were killed in two attacks aimed at the Shiite community. A police captain who refused to give his name said the Saturday blast occurred in front of the main hospital in Musayyib, 35 miles south of the capital in a religiously mixed area that's been the scene of frequent attacks by Sunni Muslim insurgents.
Schools, hospitals, mosques... All legitimate military targets to the turbans. Still waiting for the human rights crowd to go ballistic...
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
9:24:26 AM ||
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#1
actually most of the human rights leftists blame the deaths on the US
#2
According to HRW - its perfectly allright for Muslims to rape and kill, and for dictators to murder newborn babies right in front of their mothers (Kimmie-boy) or feed people to industreal shreadders (Saddam) or whip 12 year olds to death for eating during a holiday (Iran). But put one panty on one head and your going to get it!
Targetting schools, hospitals, and religious centers is alright to the left (and MSM) as long as your Muslim.
AUSTRALIA'S domestic spy agency retained great concerns about former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib and that was why his passport was cancelled, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.
Mr Downer said he doubted Mr Habib would succeed in his action in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to have his passport returned. "On the basis of the adverse security report that I have received from ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) I have cancelled his passport and I think that is in the best interest of both Australian and the broader international community," he said on Channel 9. "ASIO has great concerns about him. They have great concerns about his alleged involvement with al-Qaeda."
Mr Downer said the Government could appeal if he won in the AAT. But if, in the end, he succeeded, the law would apply and the Americans, who released Mr Habib last month, could not complain, he said.
Mr Downer said Australia had made it clear to the Americans that their concerns about Mr Habib were shared. "And on the basis of sharing their concerns, we are prepared to make sure as best we possibly can his activities were in no way inimical, either to our own security here in Australia or to broader international security," he said.
Mr Habib was detained in Pakistan in late 2001 and transferred to Egypt and then to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It has been alleged he trained with terror group al-Qaeda. He returned to Australia last month after the US released him without charge.
Mr Downer said he had no advice that the Americans decided to repatriate him because he would air claims of torture and state sponsored abduction at any trial. "As far as these allegations of torture are concerned we have obviously raised them over quite some period of time with the Americans ," he said.
Mr Downer said Australia could not investigate the inner workings of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon and that had to be left to the Americans. "So far their investigations haven't turned up anything," he said. "There is a separate question of what happened to Habib when he was in Egypt. The issue there is that the Egyptians have at no time acknowledged that they did actually detain Habib, though we for a long time believe they did."
Mr Downer said Australia's Ambassador in Cairo even raised his welfare with the Egyptian prime minister and other ministers. He said he to the best of his knowledge he was taken there by the Pakistanis. "When we have sought this information we haven't been given this information. The reason I think he was sent to Egypt (was) because the Egyptians regarded him as an Egyptian citizen because he was born in Egypt."
This article starring:
MAMDUH HABIB
al-Qaeda
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005
8:07:18 PM ||
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The enemy within....
What a degrading display of surrender and cringing, fawning, cowardly submission and dhimmitude; to the accursed French, no less.
How much more will it take? Bring down the institutional media culture (the "MSM") and the rest will collapse like dominoes.
Fry Mumia!
French Mumia backers get Liberty Bells
Slain cop's wife outraged by city's gesture
By CHRIS BRENNAN
brennac@phillynews.com
French politicians and activists seeking a new trial and freedom for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal were welcomed in a Friday rally at City Hall and given replicas of the Liberty Bell.
Mjenzi Traylor, the city's first deputy director of commerce, told the crowd of about 150 that he was there to "make certain that we are receiving the message that you would like for us to deliver to Mayor Street."
Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, later called that greeting an "absolute outrage."
Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering Faulkner in 1981.
"This man stood over him and shot him, point-blank, in the face," Maureen Faulkner said. "For them to give them replicas of the Liberty Bell and welcome them with open arms, I think it's an embarrassment for the city."
Faulkner said she planned to call Street on Monday to protest the city's actions.
"This is a disgrace," she said. "It is a slap in the face for all of law enforcement."
Street planned to attend the meeting with the French politicians but canceled due to a busy schedule, his staff said.
Instead, Traylor was scheduled to meet in private with Connie Little, the mayor's executive assistant, and the French politicians.
But when the large crowd arrived with escorts from the Philadelphia Police Department's Civil Affairs unit after marching around City Hall chanting Abu-Jamal's name, Street's staff decided to let them all into the mayor's reception room.
Jacky Hortaut of the National Unit Collective, a coalition of pro-Abu-Jamal groups, addressed the crowd with pointed words for the Philadelphia judicial system.
Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Dembe postponed a hearing on Abu-Jamal's appeal yesterday, saying a ruling in a recent, unrelated case raised questions about jurisdiction. She is waiting for attorneys on both sides of the case to weigh in on that.
"We are here to denounce this discriminatory and racist justice," Hortaut said. "So we are here today to tell Mrs. Dembe that we are here to support Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose only crime has been to fight for poor people here in America."
Traylor then handed them the Liberty Bell replicas.
"We welcome you to Philadelphia," said Traylor, who serves as the city's international liaison for visiting dignitaries. "Thank you very much for coming."
Jacques Daguenet, a city councilman from Paris, then decried what he called Abu-Jamal's "racist trial." Paris made Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen in 2003.
"He is the voice of people who have nothing," Daguenet said. "We have to struggle to have him free."
Majid Wannass, a deputy for the mayor of Saint Denis, just outside of Paris, drew cheers when he told the crowd his town would rename a street for Abu-Jamal.
Hortaut, Daguenet and Wannass spoke in French with an English translator for the crowd.
Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death in 1982 but a federal judge in 2001 ruled that he should be sentenced to life in prison or granted a new trial.
Abu-Jamal is seeking a new trial while the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office is seeking to reinstate the death sentence.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
02/12/2005
7:46:23 AM ||
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#1
Compelling evidence for abu Jamal's guilt and, by extension, the utter depravity, callousness, and ignorance of his celebrity supporters, can be found at Justice for Daniel Faulkner
#2
This is sickening. Thanks for the post and link, AC. "Paris made Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen in 2003" -- Disgusting.
Posted by: Dar ||
02/12/2005 8:54
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Thanks, AC. Disgusting is just the tip of it.
The website is also very interesting. I didn't realise that they took a bullet of Faulkner's out of Abu-Jamal's FREAKING gut. Misidentified? Ha.
Posted by: Scott ||
02/12/2005 8:56
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"We welcome you to Philadelphia," said Traylor, who serves as the cityâs international liaison for visiting dignitaries. "Thank you very much for coming."
Here's a link for Taylor and other city officials involved in this public disgrace:
#5
...Normally, as much as I respect the police, I do not support their right to strike. However, in this instance, I think Philadelphia needs to get a good case of 'blue flu' for about 24 hours.
The city's government has just made it very clear whose side they're on, and the police need to get their attention.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/12/2005 9:03
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Ah, yes. Philadelphia and the French, the folks that brought you the epic Ira Einhorn story.
If you research this case, it doesn't take long to figure out it's about as cut and dried as it gets. Fry Mumia!
It was a great day for anti-idiotarians: First Eason Jordan, now this quack College Official Resigns Over Speaker CLINTON, N.Y. - The head of a gender studies program at Hamilton College has resigned after igniting a furor by inviting to the campus a professor who likened the Sept. 11 victims to Nazis. Nancy Rabinowitz said she was stepping down "under duress" as director of the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture. She will continue to teach comparative literature.
"I mean, a girl's got to make a living, and this isn't as hard as hooking..."
Rabinowitz resigned in a telephone call Thursday to the college's president.
"That does it! I quit!"
"Okay. Turn in your key..."
"Now, don't try to talk me out of it!"
On Feb. 3, she extended a speaking invitation to University of Colorado professor Ward ["Big Chief Spouting Bull"] Churchill, who in an essay written shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks compared the World Trade Center victims to "little Eichmanns," a reference to the Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann. "BUREAUCRAT"?!! Is that all he was, AP? Is that a fair or reasonable identification? Something nice and neutral to keep from offending, whom exactly? Holocaust deniers? Skinheads? Your future Arab employers? You wouldn't want to be judgmental, I know, but "convicted nazi war criminal who was hanged for complicity in genocide" sticks to the objective facts. Just the first 3 words will do nicely if you're pressed for space.
His appearance was ultimately canceled by the school because of death threats against college officials and Churchill. Bullshit, the only threats that got their attention were the ones from alumni threatening to cut off, not their ears and noses as Islamofascists would, but their gravy train. With this explanation, they salvage a little something by creating a precedent for rejecting non-idiotarian speakers in the face of Islamo-fascist and peace-hypocrites. Hey, if you get a lemon, make lemonade.
Rabinowitz also drew fire in November when the program she headed offered a temporary teaching position to 1960s radical Susan Rosenberg. Rosenberg was indicted but never tried in a 1981 armored car robbery that left a guard and two police officers dead. "Drew fire"? We should be so lucky.
She was sentenced for 58 years in prison for weapons possession, but President Clinton granted her clemency in 2001 after she served 16 years. How much did that cost Soros? This is interesting given Churchill's ties to the Weathermen terrorist gang (see below).
Rabinowitz has been the project's only director since its founding in 1996. "What the project needs now is someone more adept at the kind of political and media fight that the current climate requires. A cockroach who won't panic when the lights come on. Lots of luck.
Therefore, it is in the interests of the mission of the project itself and for no other reason that I am yielding to requests that I resign," she said."
Might one suggest that it's about time to wrap up the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture? Is that really, really, truly the most pressing thing Hamilton College has going?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
02/12/2005
7:07:25 AM ||
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#1
"....'convicted nazi war criminal who was hanged for complicity in genocide' sticks to the objective facts. Just the first 3 words...."
Err, just the first FOUR words.
You know, I think we are turning the corner in the long fight against the media/academic Axis. For the first time in 40 years, the left is on the defensive. It is a war of attrition. If we can take down one prominent media beast or academic quisling a week, we are well ahead of the game.
#2
What the project needs now is....
Maybe the college should evaluate Hamilton's need for the Kirkland Project instead of the project's needs for anything.
as an aside, I wonder if our new relations with Libya hasn't shed new light on Ward Churchill's visit there in the early 80's, which according to Churchill, "wasn't to buy arms."
#5
This story should be turned into a Bonus Question on the Gender Studies Final.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
02/12/2005 10:38
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The best means for change in some of these colleges and universities is to have the alumni hit them in their pocketbook. The University of California, Berkeley Alumni association called me a few weeks ago. I listened politely until they started talking about an alumni gift. Then I told them that I would not send one red cent to their school, nor send my children down there until they showed some action and cleaned up their LLL act. I said to pass the message on. Took me a while to cool off.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 12:23
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#7
Does anybody, besides me, see the resemblance between this fuckwad and john kerry?
Posted by: Tom Dooley ||
02/12/2005 18:16
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The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has removed Turkey, who had remonstrated to the world twice, from the list of countries that will be investigated for torture and added countries who had criticized Turkey this year. Turkey, which had been accused of violating human rights in its fight against terrorism, began using the slogan of "zero tolerance for torture" to help rid it of its past record. Positive results of from recent studies are being obtained. While the CPT announced to the world in 1992 that torture was being implemented in Turkey, it has now removed Turkey from among the list of countries that will be under investigation in 2005. The Committee runs the European Covenant on the prevention of torture. Having criticized Turkey for many years about "torture", Belgium's inclusion to the list drew widespread attention. Germany and Greece were also added to the list with accusations that people whose freedoms were taken away would be examined. The Committee will also investigate human rights violations in Hungary, Norway, the Russian Federation, San Marino, Slovakia and Ukraine along with these three prominent European countries...
#1
Turkey, which had been accused of violating human rights in its fight against terrorism, began using the slogan of "zero tolerance for torture" to help rid it of its past record.
Anyone accused of torturing was immediately beaten until they confessed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/12/2005 19:30
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#2
It is a fine slogan tho. I wonder if it rhymes in Turkish.
#5
The torture committee is running amuck. This torture accusation thing will gain momentum and will suddenly vanish up its ass and we will never hear of it again.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 21:37
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Volume of commercial transactions between Iran and France rose by 22 percent to 3.353 billion euros in the first 11 months of 2004 from 2.744 billion euros in the same period in 2003. The Economic Department of Iran's Embassy in Paris said on Saturday that France exported 2.070 billion euros worth of goods to Iran in the first 11 months of 2004, showing a 17 percent growth, compared to the same period in 2003. It said Iran's exports to France however rose by 31.7 percent to 1.283 billion in 2004 compared to 2003. The Tehran-Paris trade balance was 787 million euros in favor of France in 2004 compared to 795 million euros in 2003.
...The EU — mainly at the urging of the new Socialist government in Spain — has suspended sanctions that it imposed on Cuba after Castro's brutal crackdown in March 2003. Spain and much of the rest of the EU are eager for things to be hunky-dory again with the regime.
But the Czechs won an important concession. You see, after the crackdown, the EU embassies in Havana began to invite oppositionists and dissidents — those still unjailed — to receptions and the like. And the Spain-led EU was on the verge of banning those invitations, as Castro has insisted.
The Czechs said no: They said they would use their veto power in the EU Council of Foreign Ministers to prevent any ban on the dissidents. And Spain et al. were forced to back down.
I also wish you to note the piece by Vaclav Havel published in the Miami Herald. It appeared before the Czech government won its victory, before the EU was forced to reverse course. Havel speaks of the importance of being related to by diplomats from democratic countries when you're a dissident in a totalitarian country. And he says,
Today, the EU is dancing to Fidel Castro's tune. . . .
Where will it end? The release of Milosevic? Denying a visa to Russian human-rights activist Sergey Kovalyov? An apology to Saddam Hussein? The opening of peace talks with al Qaeda?
I believe that Havel and his fellow Czechs effectively shamed the EU. (How the Czechs should know the misery of appeasement!) They were the only ones around to do so.
...From the Freedom Party in Austria to the National Front in France to the Republicans in Germany, Europe's far right has made a comeback in recent years, largely on the strength of anti-immigration feelings sharpened to a fear of Islam. That fear is fed by threats of terrorism, rising crime rates among Muslim youth and mounting cultural clashes with the Continent's growing Islamic communities.
But nowhere has the right's revival been as swift or as strong as in Belgium's Dutch-speaking region of Flanders, where support for Mr. Dewinter's Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, has surged from 10 percent of the electorate in 1999 to nearly a quarter today.
Vlaams Belang is now the strongest party in Flanders, with support from a third of the voters in Antwerp, the region's largest city. Many people worry that the appeal of antiIslamic politics will continue to spread as Europe's Muslim population grows.
"What they all have in common is that they use the issue of immigration and Islam to motivate and mobilize frustrated people," said Marco Martiniello, a political scientist at the University of Liege in the French-speaking part of Belgium. "In Flanders all attempts to counter the march of the Vlaams Belang have had no results, or limited results, and no one really knows what to do."
Fear of Islam's transforming presence is so strong that even many members of Antwerp's sizable Jewish community now support Mr. Dewinter's party, even though its founders included men who sympathized and collaborated with the Nazis during World War II... NYT bias included free of charge.
#1
Europe is over. Time for the US to turn East. Enough of trying to accommodate the ankle biting European leftist/socialist dominated political system. Europe's pastime is criticizing the US while the smell of it's rot fills the nostrils of everyone. The Transnational Socialist hope to infect us with their deadly disease before they collapse under Sharia law and Islamic domination.
The right in Europe will always be equated with Hitlerism and Fascism . Many times it's even true. It's the natural reaction to the domination of politics of the Socialists and Communist Greens. I expect the EU to slide into the drain in what remains of my lifetime. There is nothing the EU can do. It will never react as it needs to. I will just accommodate the in inevitable.
#2
"The right in Europe will always be equated with Hitlerism and Fascism."
Such equation seems to be what some American right-wingers are doing, given the ludicrous translation here of "far-right" into "non-Leftist". The growth of such nice little beasties like Lepen or Heider translated by you, Anonymouse, as "growth of non-Leftist parties"?
#4
Continuing my thoughts.. there seems to be a fundamental assumption by the EUrophiles that the levers of power within the EU will remain beyond the reach of these people. I believe this is a bad assumption.
It strikes me as fundamentally unwise to build levers of power you would not want your opponents to control. Societies shift. Cultures shift. There is a natural pendulum. If you try to stop the pendulum, it will swing in unpredictable and possibly even terrible ways.
#5
Aris: not so ludicrous. Catagorizing parties like the Tories in England and the German CDU as "rightist" is the real stretch. In fact, they are centrist to liberal. No "rightist" party, or "conservative" party, would ever embrace a welfare state, or the EU, the elimination of a self-defense military, National Health Care, or other purely leftist concerns that are an abomination to the right. The true "rightist" party in the US, the Republicans, stubbornly resisted such things, and systematically dismantled them when possible. So that is why I called the European parties "non-Leftist" parties rather than "far-right" parties. In all fairness, parties like Labour, in Britain, and the SDU in Germany, should be called "radical left" parties, because their ideas are so far removed from what the status quo once was, just a decade or two ago. The "far-right" parties, as the NYT or European radical left would call them, are just a reaction to the violent leftward movement Europe has taken in recent years. Hearkening back to the status quo of the 1980s is hardly what I would call "wanting a return to fascism", however.
#6
No "rightist" party, or "conservative" party, would ever embrace a welfare state, or the EU, the elimination of a self-defense military, National Health Care, or other purely leftist concerns that are an abomination to the right.
They are an "abomination to the right", according to whom? You? I had a good laugh especially when you labelled the EU as such an abomination for the so-called "right" -- ofcourse it's usually (not always) the opposite, that it has been supported by mainstream right-wing parties and opposed (or much more critically supported) by left-wing ones. Most of the rhetorical attacks on the EU (or the Constitution) in the actual continent happen from the left for example.
When the Socialists in France had a vote over the European Constitution, it was the left-wing of the party that opposed it IIRC, and the moderate centrist side that supported it. On the other hand the right-wing party of Chirac didn't even need to put it in a referendum among its members because it had such a high level of support there.
That's (with some noteworthy exceptions) typically the reaction throughout the continent. (Malta which was half-and-half divided on EU membership, had the right-wing party support membership, and the left-wing party oppose it, and so and so on)
If the definition of which are right-wing parties and which aren't isn't defined by either the status quo nor by the actual *center* of the political debate, then what the hell do you think it should be defined for?
In all fairness, parties like Labour, in Britain, and the SDU in Germany, should be called "radical left" parties, because their ideas are so far removed from what the status quo once was, just a decade or two ago
And if you name *those* parties "radical left", then what would you call the actually Marxist parties?
#7
Aris, Anonymoose was describing it in US terms. By US standards they're all Statist, Marxist or Stalinist. By European standards, Republicans are a mixture of Anarcho-Capitalists, religious Capitalists, Individualists and Objectivists. Democrats would be center-right to center-left.
#8
Parties that endorse Marxist ideas and ideology are Marxist parties, whether or not they call themselves such. They are noteworthy in their belief of the "blanket solution" to complex problems and the inability to see failure in their programs, despite numerous and repeated examples of failure. Moderate and Conservative parties are known for their pragmatism and realism, almost always preferring the status quo to any philosophy-based change in government policy. Parties of the Right reject changes in policy that have failed, and those changes that have to some extent succeeded and are status quo, but are philosophically wrong to their point of view.
So, for example, a Marxist party would want to cede governmental authority to an internationalist regime they felt was also Marxist in orientation; a Moderate or Conservative party might want to do the same, seeing it as a natural evolution of the status quo, and believing that eventually the regime would become less Marxist and more Moderate or Conservative. But the Right parties would be adamant in neither wanting to cede power *and* to eventually withdrawing entirely from what they see as an unneccesary usurpation of national sovereignty. This makes the Right parties into almost "anti-radicals", embracing the policy of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it, and if someone is trying to fix it, make them stop."
#9
"By US standards they're all Statist, Marxist or Stalinist."
And yet, for a supposedly statist place to live, it's European Netherlands that allows drugs and prostitution, and it's the United States that uses the state's mechanism to crack down on such "freedom and individualism".
Other than that, I understand your point that the United States is to the right of Europe. But calling EU a "leftist cause" or "an abomination to the right" is still an absurdity.
#10
Aris, please take a moment and read Bush's Inaugural Address as if it were given by an Anarchist. It works surprisingly well.
Regarding drugs and prostitution, the "War on Drugs" is primarily targeted at the economic activity rather than use. Prostitution is legal in Nevada. Both are currently being debated.
#11
"Parties that endorse Marxist ideas and ideology are Marxist parties, whether or not they call themselves such"
If you label everything remotely social-democratic as "Marxist", then this discussion is meaningless. Marxism is a specific ideology. Marxists mostly oppose private property and generally seek to nationalize industries, per the plan Marx described in the communist manifesto. Marxists don't see capitalistic competition as a useful tool, they see it as anathema.
And Marxists oppose the EU and the Constitution, given how it describes free competition and free market both as objectives to be achieved.
Your definitions seem to describe "Conservative" instead of "right-wing", being all about the status-quo and about nationalism, and talking little to nothing about either economical freedom (which the EU is generally seen to enhance, and hence the bitter hatred of a large portion of the Left towards it) or about personal liberties (which the EU is also generally seen to enhance or atleast not hurt, hence the general support to the EU by the most liberal parties).
I agree with you on one thing -- right-wingers that care more about national sovereignty than about fiscal freedom (being chauvinistically right-wing instead of free-marketeers), will usually tend to oppose the EU.
#13
As someone who has regulary attacked Aris in the past, I find I mostly agree with him on this issue. The EU has its faults but its a coalition of still largely sovereign democracies figuring out how address transnational issues. The UN its not (i.e. its not corrupt and incompetetent). Otherwise its political centre of gravity is to the Left of the USA but subject to similar political/social forces and the I think the substance of the article is correct. Europe is moving to the Right for the same reasons the USA and Australia have moved to the right. And that IMO is good news.
#15
which the EU is generally seen to enhance Seen by whom?
By pretty much everyone, both those who hate it and those who love it. Those who hate it from the left oppose it because it promotes free market and competition across national borders. Even those who hate it from the fiscal right don't want to destroy it altogether, they simply want to reduce it back to a "common market" "free trade area" zone, acknowledging that those are positive characteristics of it.
Added level of bureaucracy? I don't need a visa, or even a passport to travel elsewhere in the Schengen area, and I don't need either a living permit or a working permit to dwell and work anywhere in the EU -- capital, services and people move freely. Those seem to me to be vastly *reduced* levels of bureaucracy, and vastly *less* interference by the state.
Iran and Belarus support each other on the international scene in the solution of human and political problems, Iranian ambassador to Belarus Abdulhamid Fekri told a RIA Novosti correspondent.
Speaking about the Iranian nuclear programs, Mr. Fekri said they had peaceful purposes and had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction.
"All US accusations against Iran in this sphere are groundless," he stressed.
According to him, Iranian nuclear programs are carried out independently. "Today we have many young scientists aged 24-26 who are working independently in the nuclear research sphere," the ambassador said.
In spite of close cooperation with Belarus in the cultural, economic and scientific spheres the Iranian side is not going to ask Belarussian nuclear physicists for assistance, Abdulhamid Fekri noted.
In his words, cooperation with Belarus will be developing in the future because Iran is interested in hi-tech production in Belarus. Iran is going to purchase trucks in this country. Moreover, Iranian oil companies would like to cooperate with the Belarussian oil-processing industry.
A Rhode Island high school student won an art award and an A from his teacher for building an abstract scene that juxtaposes Nazi swastikas and quotes by Adolf Hitler with American flags, desert-colored toy soldiers and an image of President Bush.
Jeffrey Eden, 17, insisted he was trying to make comparisons between the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the German blitzkrieg without actually equating Hitler to Bush, the Providence Journal reported.
But his piece, titled "Bush/Hitler and How History Repeats Itself," immediately prompted a complaint after it was displayed at a store with other winners of the Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards.
Paul Lewis, 34, of North Providence, found the artwork offensive and notified media after asking that it be removed. President Bush's policies have no relationship to Hitler's, he said, but the piece leaves the impression Bush is as evil as the Nazi dictator was.
Eden, who plans to study art after graduation from Chariho Regional High School, thinks he was "clear about what I was trying to get across."
"I believe those who misconstrued the artwork didn't take the time to really read into it," he told the paper.
Eden said he supports U.S. soldiers but contends the war in Iraq was unjustified.
"At the time we invaded, we did not have the justification nor the intelligence to take [Saddam Hussein] out the way we did," he said.
Store owner Hershel Alpert refused to remove the exhibit but attached a disclaimer stating the views of the artist do not represent the store.
"We're not in the business of censoring art," he told the Journal.
Although Eden was rewarded for his creativity, he undoubtedly has been following news of political and popular culture.
As WorldNetDaily reported, MoveOn.org, a left-leaning soft-money organization allied with the Democratic Party, posted two spots equating Bush with Hitler as part of its "Bush in 30 Seconds" television ad contest last year. One of the ads featured images of the German tyrant with the words, "What were war crimes in 1945 is foreign policy in 2003." The final two frames include Hitler with his hand raised and then a shot of Bush with his hand up taking the oath of office.
Last summer, Republicans accused the Kerry campaign of hyprocrisy for calling on Bush to apologize for folding brief excerpts from the MoveOn.org pieces into an ad of its own that begins with the title: "The Many Faces of the John Kerry Campaign. The Coalition of the Wild-eyed."
MoveOn.org's biggest contributor, billionaire financier George Soros, also has evoked the Nazi regime in his criticism of the Bush administration.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Soros said he believed the White House was guided by a "supremacist ideology."
"America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," he said. "... When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans. ... My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me."
Although MoveOn.org issued an apology for the Bush-Hitler ads, one week later it staged an event to announce contest winners in which participants stayed on the Nazi theme.
Comedian Margaret Cho said, in part:
"Despite all of this stupid bull---- that the Republican National Committee, or whatever the f--- they call them, that they were saying that they're all angry about how two of these ads were comparing Bush to Hitler? I mean, out of thousands of submissions, they find two. They're like f---ing looking for Hitler in a haystack. You know? I mean, George Bush is not Hitler. He would be if he f---ing applied himself. (big, extended applause) I mean he just isn't."
Singer Linda Ronstadt said after the November election that the U.S. is "like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers."
ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organization ]has cracked a spy ring in Canberra after tailing an Israeli diplomat who was suspected of being an agent of Mossad, Israel's espionage service.
Amir Lati, the second secretary at the Israeli Embassy, was secretly expelled from Australia last month.
He is known to have seduced a senior Defence Department official who is believed to have had access to classified documents.
It is believed he intended to use the woman to gain US intelligence and military technology given to Australia.
The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation put the junior Israeli diplomat — and other embassy officials — under surveillance after he visited two suspected Israeli spies who were arrested in New Zealand.
The scandal has rocked Canberra's intelligence community, and Defence has launched a major investigation into the affair.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005
4:24:16 PM ||
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#1
forget the Jihadis intent on overthrowing your civilization....watch the Joooos
typical post for you God Save The World
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 17:43
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#2
The Mossad? In Australia? I'ma freakin shocked. Looking for ex-Jooo, lesbians I figure.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 19:54
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#4
Typical post is it ? Well i guess your an expert on everything huh frank ? Considering i've posted topics with quite a wide range of variety.
Typical whine for you frank....
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 19:56
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#5
Whineburg.com
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 19:57
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#6
;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 20:09
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#7
hurts, doesn't it, when you're exposed to sunlight
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 20:14
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#8
So Australia shouldn't have tried to stop an Israeli spy ring stealing our military tech?
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/12/2005 20:50
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#9
I suspect it was a bullshit article to begin with.
"Secretly expelled?" "...known to have seduced a senior Defense Department official..."?
And what would this spy ring really be for?
Israel probably has more cooperative defense projects with the US than Australia does.
The idea that Israel runs spy rings in New Zealand doesn't seem to make sense; they have larger problems closer to home than to try to get alleged secrets from a country that's pretty much shut down its military.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
02/12/2005 21:04
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#10
The alleged spy ring in New Zealand was arrested for trying to obtain a passport for another Israeli who had been using false documents. The Israelis were deported from New Zealand after serving their sentences.
The implication was that Mossad was going to use NZ passport to create an identity that would be used to carry out black ops
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/12/2005 21:35
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#11
Let me understand.
Israeli consul met with two distressed Israeli citizens --- probably a part of his job description. And had an affair with "... senior Defence Department official who is believed to have had access to classified documents." Which led ASIO to suspect that "... he intended to use the woman to gain US intelligence and military technology given to Australia."
I have two remarks for Australians.
(a) It's hardly suprizing that a sheila prefers an Israeli to local drongos.
(b) At least you're not accusing us of trying to steal Australian military technology.
#12
Nah doesnt hurt at all Frank, your just making yourself look like a bigger moron then what you were when you fell out your mothers ass.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 22:15
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#13
Are you a real passported Aussie, GSTW, or just one of those non-passported ones?
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 22:18
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#14
Im no import, i was born & bred in Australia.
As for you Frank, maybe i've had one beer too many, but your a complete idiot.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 22:20
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#15
You seem to be positively enbalmed by Forters.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 22:22
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#16
Fosters. Damn, blew the line.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 22:23
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#17
lol, i thought you meant 'Fosters' i wasn't too sure
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 22:24
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#18
Israeli consul met two alleged Mossad agents, whose ring included an Israeli diplomat. These nen are deported, and then their Australian contact is deported. Israel makes no complaint or protestation of innocence.
Whether you are aware of it or not, Israel does spy on western nations, just like other countries. Australia isn't likely to risk a diplomatic breach by deporting an Israeli diplomat for no reason, particularly since the current Australian government is the most pro-American, pro-Israeli in generations.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/12/2005 22:25
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#19
Well, sorry if i've offended anyone, but im going to post whatever i like, im not here to please frank.
PS: fosters is crap - i'm drinking XXXX GOLD
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 22:26
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#20
I traveled the length of your east coast about 20 years ago. Every little town had a Toyota dealer, a Kentucky Fried Chicken stand, and a pub with a huge Fosters sign. I've often wondered what the insides of those Toyotas were like with all that rancid chicken grease and spilled beer. :P
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 22:29
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#21
Yeah thats where i am, on the East coast, not far from the Great Barrier Reef.
mmmmmm Chicken & beer
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005 22:33
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#22
I did Sydney to Port Douglas.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 22:35
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#23
evening GSTW - lived down to expectations. I don't expect Aussies or anyone else to OK Mossad spies on their homeland,
Paul, just wondered aloud who was acceptable?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 23:02
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#24
hmmm Antiwar by any other name would be?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 23:07
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#25
Err, the only fact we know is an Israeli diplomat seduced an Oz gov employee. There is no spy ring I can see.
Frank we all know that pretty much every country spies on most of the others. The presence of 'spies' is not the issue. The issue is did they do something wrong/illegal. Last time I checked seduction was not illegal in Oz.
FREED terror suspect Mamdouh Habib has revealed he made a secret pact with fellow detainee David Hicks while both Australians were in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Mr Habib has told the 60 Minutes TV program, in a paid interview to be aired tonight, that he made Mr Hicks promise to tell his family if he disappeared that it meant he had been killed. i might just have to watch 60 minutes tonight and laugh at the monkey
Mr Habib's lawyer also says he was ferried from Pakistan to Egypt on a US Central Intelligence Agency "torture jet". It is alleged the secret agency shackled and handcuffed terror suspects, often forcibly sedating them, before flying them to countries with lax laws on torture.
Mr Habib has accused Australian Government officials of complicity in his abduction to Egypt and brutal detention. He claims his transfer to an Egyptian prison started three years of abuse in three countries, including threats that he would be raped by dogs.
Mr Habib said an Australian consular official met him in Islamabad soon after he was arrested as a terrorist suspect in Pakistan in October 2001. He said he pleaded to be returned to Australia but several weeks later US agents whisked him away to Egypt.
Mr Habib's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, said he believed his client was ferried around in the CIA's Gulfstream V executive jet. "Habib's movements corresponded with flight logs (of more than 300 flights) obtained by sources in London," Mr Hopper said. Mr Habib claims that after being captured in Pakistan, he was flown to Egypt and tortured, then moved to Afghanistan in early 2002.
Mr Habib was reportedly paid $200,000 to appear on 60 Minutes.
He says in the interview he and David Hicks who faces terrorist charges were held in cells at Guantanamo Bay near each other for a brief period. The pair were regularly moved around the camp and met at least once. Mr Habib said the men made a pact. He said: "I told him, 'If you go home and you not find me in Australia, that means I get killed.' "
He asked Mr Hicks to let his family know what happened to him. "He says, 'No worries, I will.' And that's the last time I saw him."
Mr Habib was released last month and returned to Australia, but Prime Minister John Howard has not ruled out his facing charges in Australia.
This article starring:
DAVID HICKS
al-Qaeda
MAMDUH HABIB
al-Qaeda
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005
4:20:46 PM ||
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I have just emailed channel 9 and I told them I will be boycotting their channel because of the payment to Habib. I urge other Australians here to do the same.
In a massive roundup by Iranian security officials, as many as 50 Iranian CIA operatives were exposed and killed, leaving the U.S without any intelligence sources in that critical Middle Eastern nation.
The shocking story surfaced on Feb. 2, when former Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle told the House Intelligence Committee about what he called the "terrible setback that we suffered in Iran a few years ago when, in a display of unbelievable, careless management, we put pressure on agents operating in Iran to report with greater frequency and didn't provide improved communications." He called it an example of the failures that have beset U.S. espionage in the Mideast.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Perle, a longtime critic of the agency, recalled that when the CIA's sources stepped up their reporting, "the Iranian intelligence authorities quickly saw the surge in traffic and, as I understand it, virtually our entire network in Iran was wiped out."
While confirming the gist of Perle's report, CIA sources told the Times that the incident occurred in the late 1980s or early 1990s, not "a few years ago," as Perle suggested. They added, however, it was not clear that the informants were exposed because of any pressure from the agency to file reports more frequently.
The CIA declined to comment officially, but a U.S. intelligence official rejected Perle's criticism of the agency's record in the Mideast as both ill-informed and outdated.
"Intelligence methods evolve constantly," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Times. "Trying to use these things from the past to make assertions about the present is in this case ill-advised."
Perle admitted that his timing was off, but told the Times: "I don't recall the details, or the mechanism by which the [Iranian agents] were communicating. What I was told was that our entire network was destroyed" and that as many as 40 of the informants were executed.
A former CIA official who served in the Mideast at the time confided to the Times that the Iranian informants were part of a network of spies that was run by CIA officers based at the agency's station in Frankfurt, Germany.
Incredibly, the communications system used to contact their agents and be contacted by them was right out of a 19th century spy novel - they used invisible ink!
According to the Times, the former CIA official recalled that the Iranian agents communicated with the agency "via secret writing," referring to messages printed in invisible ink on the backs of letters that were mailed out of the country. The spies received messages in the same fashion from a CIA officer in Frankfurt, the former official told the Times.
While admitting that he did not know what tipped off the Iranians, Perle said: "All of the letters went to a handful of addresses in Germany. Once they had one agent and they recovered the letters that had come in to him and found out where he was sending his letters out, they quickly identified others who fit that profile."
Consequently, the Times reported, as many as 50 spies, who were providing information on an array of activities, were exposed. They included members of Iran's military, the former official said.
Perle, an assistant Defense secretary in the Reagan administration and a Pentagon adviser who advocated the invasion of Iraq, said he mentioned the Iranian operation to highlight how the agency had struggled in the region.
"I think we're in very bad shape in Iran," Perle said during his testimony.
He also complained that CIA leaders had not been held accountable and noted that the official who had been in charge of the exposed Iran operation was later promoted.
In a recent unclassified report, the CIA, now operating in the blind without intelligence assets in Iran thanks to the destruction of its spy network there, says it believes Iran is "vigorously" pursuing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and that its civilian nuclear development program is a cover for efforts to build a bomb.
And the agency doesn't have a single bottle of invisible ink left to equip any Iranian agents it manages to recruit to confirm its suspicions.
Polio apparently reached Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Islam's holy city, just before the annual pilgrimage by 2 million Muslims last month, and World Health Organization officials now fear that the disease may be spreading around the world, carried by returning pilgrims.
In crowded nations with spotty vaccination coverage like Bangladesh and Indonesia, "there could be substantial consequences," Dr. Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the health organization's Global Polio Eradication Initiative, said in an interview from Geneva.
A spokesman at the Saudi Embassy in Washington said his country had feared the arrival of polio this year and started vaccinating 800,000 people in September, hoping to head it off before the height of the hajj, or pilgrimage, in late January.
Saudi Arabia had been polio-free since 1995, but two cases were found late last year. The first was in Jidda, the port city 40 miles from Mecca where most pilgrims disembark. The patient was a Sudanese girl who became paralyzed just after arriving.
The second, more worrisome case was confirmed just Thursday. It was a 5-year-old Nigerian boy who developed paralysis on Dec. 15. What made it troubling, Aylward said, was that his family had lived for several years in an illegal encampment on the outskirts of Mecca, so he must have caught a strain circulating in Saudi Arabia.
Spotting new outbreaks in far-flung countries will still take weeks, experts said. Paralysis affects only about 1 in 200 carriers of the virus, symptoms can take up to 35 days to emerge, pilgrims traveling by bus or boat can take weeks to get home, and epidemiological reporting in poor countries is often slipshod.
"You want to be well into March before you breathe a sigh of relief," Aylward said.
The virus lives in the intestine and spreads through fecal-oral contact, so anything from changing a diaper to sharing a food dish or swimming in contaminated water can transmit it. Polio vaccination was not required for pilgrims. Even if it had been required, thousands arrive illegally, and many legal visitors carry forged immunization records, said the Saudi Embassy spokesman, Nail al-Jubeir.
"We have to trust the health services of the countries they come from," he said. "We can't give everyone blood tests."
Vaccinations were required for meningococcal meningitis and, in some cases, yellow fever.
Polio has been spreading from northern Nigeria since 2003, when vaccination campaigns there halted for months after Muslim imams and local politicians spread rumors that the vaccine could make women sterile, transmit AIDS or was made with pork products. It took until last summer for world health officials and clerics from other countries to get Nigerian Muslims to accept a vaccine made in Indonesia.
Most cases from that outbreak have been in the largely Muslim Sahel, the band of arid land south of the Sahara from Mali to Ethiopia. Pockets elsewhere are also mostly in Muslim areas -- Pakistan, northern India, Afghanistan and Egypt.
Each case of paralysis implies that many more virus carriers are nearby. Most victims suffer symptoms no more serious than those of flu, but even people with no symptoms can pass the virus.
In 1988, when polio was endemic in 125 countries, the annual assembly of the health ministers of all nations in Geneva declared their intent to eradicate it by 2000. That target was missed, but $3 billion in vaccination campaigns drove the disease back until it existed in only six countries by the end of 2003.
Posted by: tipper ||
02/12/2005
3:10:27 AM ||
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#1
Polio, and all of the other goodies from the Islamic cesspool, converge on Mekkah and do their magic upon the faithful. Nature's Way of saying slow down and smell the camel dung. The prayer rugs, furnishings, etc. in the Grand Mosque are 14th Century muzzy population control devices.
#4
Saudi Arabia "started vaccinating 800,000 people in September". Sounds like they were a little bit behind the times themselves. National health care is my guess.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 10:22
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#5
but $3 billion in vaccination campaigns drove the disease back until it existed in only six countries by the end of 2003
Now, if we can affect the immigration policies of those six countries for expediting the immigration of Muslims, we'd have something.
The University of Colorado professor under fire for calling victims of the 9-11 attacks "Little Eichmans," reportedly trained a domestic terror group. Ward Churchill taught the revolutionary group the Weathermen how to make bombs and fire weapons, according to a Fox News report citing the Jan. 18, 1987 issue of the Denver Post. The revelation is among many reported since Churchill prompted a national furor...Churchill resigned his position as head of the Colorado University ethnic studies program but kept his $96,000 per year teaching post. He has steadfastly refused to apologize for his comments. Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater said it will allow Churchill to speak next month, a decision that sparked outrage among state lawmakers, the Associated Press reported. Chancellor Jack Miller said in a statement he finds the professor's views repugnant but believes it's necessary to permit him to speak under First Amendment principles. A former student of Churchill's says she heard him justify the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing during a class lecture. Kimberly Hickel said the professor "actually stood in front of our class and said how the FBI got what they deserved. It was awful." In an interview last April with the left-leaning Brooklyn-based magazine Satya, Churchill was quoted saying the United States should "cease to exist" and that "more 9-11s may be necessary."
Posted by: tipper ||
02/12/2005
3:06:29 AM ||
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Hmm, met with KhQGadhaffy, trained the Weathermen, justified the OKC bombing... this is starting to get really interesting. Is he just a free-lance idiotarian, or is he working for someone?
Posted by: Pete Stanley ||
02/12/2005 4:53
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Agreed, Pete. Getting stranger by the minute with this assclown. He's definitely a professional something - precisely what is not clear. At this rate, by next week he'll be part of the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy. Some people shouldn't be breathing our air. Methinks he qualifies. Maybe there's a fatal accident in his near future. That would be good.
#3
Here's another thing that is interesting Pete. On another thread above we are treated to the fact that Susan Rosenberg was one of Clinton's last minute pardons. Like, Marc Rich .... "allegations arose that Rich had been involved in forbidden arms dealing since leaving the country after being indicted in 1983 for tax evasion and racketeering.
Now there's Ward Churchill who went to see Momo "not to buy arms".
I'd really like to see a time line of these subversive groups...like Weather Underground, SLA (late 70's early 80's) Code Pink (helped rebels in SA) and to match that up with the player's in this lucrative university speaking network - like Churchill, Angela Davis, etc. etc., As that speaking gravy train has been providing these 60's radicals with big cash bonuses- funded at taxpayers expense.
It is going to be very fun to see where this goes!!
#5
Did he train them how to pose for pictures with an AK, shades, and a smoke dangling out of their mouth? And, oh yeah, the beret. Ya gotta have the beret.
I don't think this douchebag could "train" a puppy not to piss in the house. He seems like more of an idea man, the "no heavy lifting" branch of the operation.
#6
What would be even more interesting is an investigation of the funding of these folk to find out who was paying the bills. It is possible they are still funding vilent leftist causes and should be shut down
#7
Folks, none of this is NEW information -- it's just all being put together in a short enough time span that we notice. And Churchill's NOT that unusual -- there are dozens, maybe hundreds on the left who fit his pattern of America-hatred and wannabe violence.
Both Farrakhan and Jackson also went to visit Momo; I seem to remember someone connected to CAIR visiting him and coming back with a case of money. Lots of people claim to have worked with the Weathermen -- it's like having been at Woodstock for the radical set -- but beyond getting the ex-Weathermen jobs once they got out of prison, it's not clear if any of them really did.
Churchill's a conman who figured out how to press all the far-left buttons to get what he wanted. Oppressed minority? Yep -- he can fake that. Marxist, post-modern gibberish? Yep -- he can spew that. Hatred for the US, everything it's done, and everyone in it? Yep -- he can do that.
The people who hired him, promoted him, asked him to speaking events, praised him, and kissed his ass weren't doing it despite his "repugnant" views; they were doing it because of those views.
And don't buy it when those responsible for his rise hide behind the First Amendment. There's no requirement to subsidize speech, but that's precisely what they're doing.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/12/2005 10:22
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But watching all the bits of information being put together, is riotiously amusing. Churchill is the Forrest Gump of leftoids, apparently--- everywhere and talked to everyone.
It's like a picaresque novel by Tom Wolfe played out in real time.
#9
RC...you are right. It isn't new information. But what is new is the ability for it to be reported in a non-compartmentalized fashion by the blogosphere. In the pre-blog days, we'd have only gotten a blurb here or there about Churchill or about Rosenberg resigning, but no one in the press would have made the connections that are made instantly made in the blogosphere - that Rosenberg was connected to Churchill through the Weather underground...and that Churchill went to see Momo, "not to buy arms", (something he would not have been able to do if he wasn't a representative for Indians - who with their separate soverignty, didn't have to abide by the restrictions to visit a terrorist state).
And while it may well be just a coincidence, it is intriguing that Clinton pardoned arms dealer Marc Rich and Rosenberg who is connected to "not buying arms" Ward Churchill. Coincidence, sure. Interesting coincidence..why yes, yes it is.
Oh..and corrupt Jessie goes to see Momo too. Throw in the whole Castro love fest by this same circle of friends. Then take all the groups like moveon.org, mothers against guns, Code Pink (involved with Contra gun running during the 80's) and the others who all work out of the same office in NYC and ...well ..some will be coincidence, but the connected web between these groups certainly is ...interesting.
I'd really like to see the web of connections between these sixties radicals who are involved in this self-perpetuating backslapping of University speaking fees (that range in the tens of thousands of dollars).
#10
Pete, from your link: In April 1983, Churchill went to Libya to meet with Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
The U.S. government had banned travel to Libya two years earlier, saying Gadhafi supported terrorism.
So Churchill broke US law to meet the chief terrorist sponsor of that time. The same Khaddafi who would order the Pan AM 747 and a French airliner blown up. Churchill belongs in a prison.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005 12:19
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ed---I think that stuff like you mentioned is being investigated. Churchill will begin to feel the heat. When you make outlandish remarks like Churchill made, people will start digging to find out everything about you. For better or for worse.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 12:32
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ed.. I may be wrong about this, but I suspect that as a representative for American Indians, Churchill would have been able to skirt the laws to legally visit Libya. Indians have their own sovereign laws and may not have been subject to the same restrictions as other American citizens.
#20
# 2 .com Ass clown is a great adjective. Churchill has a hair across his ass, thus
making a total ass of himself. He impresses
me as being a 60's left over. I had to laugh
at him---I think we all have had so called professors like this JERK** Good luck in all
his future endevors
Andrea
Posted by: ANdrea ||
02/12/2005 21:26
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#21
# 11 Alaska Paul: Churchill had better crawl back from whatever rock he came out from.
What a total FOOL. I had college professor's
like him- I think we all did** see # 2 .com
response "ASS CLOWN" I will save that for future
reference. Hey, wish Churchill l-o-l that is all anyone can do!
ANdrea
Posted by: ANdrea ||
02/12/2005 21:31
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#22
Andrea, NO! Let the freak show continue. I love it when the LLL Dems line up behind Crazy Loons like this. The political commercials just write themselves: "Congressman Soandso SUPPORTS Chief Spounting Bulls comments about America getting what it deserved on 9/11, do you?"
SINGAPORE'S highest authority on Islamic affairs has declared that it does not support any move to develop a casino in the city-state. The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) said, through its president Alami Musa, that its position is based on religious and social considerations. "We cannot accept a casino on religious grounds and, in Islam, we totally reject the idea of gambling as it can bring harm to society," Alami said on Wednesday after an event at the Darul Ghufran Mosque in Tampines to mark the start of the Muslim new year. I have been to Singapore, and I can attest that the greatest social threat stems from the backwardness of its parasitic clerical elite.
"Islam teaches its followers to make a living through honest work and not through chance or luck. Islam forbids its followers to work in support of, or invest in, the casino project." Last I heard, 100% of the economic success of Singapore and Malaysia is rooted in the vibrant commercialism of their Chinese and Hindu minorities.
...Muis was established as a statutory board in 1968 to advise the President on all matters relating to Islam in the republic. Let Muslims eat jihad.
Eh. At least at this juncture, the Muis sounds reasonable, and AFAIK, nothing's gone "boom" in Singapore. 'Course we dunno what the preacher man is saying in the mosque at Friday prayers, but I'm inclined to grant him his opinions, as long as it stays civil.
Posted by: IToldYouSo ||
02/12/2005
3:05:52 AM ||
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#1
Singapore has pretty strict laws relating to religous and ethnic incitement. I suggest any muslim cleric who preached kill all the Jooos/Infidels would find himself in the slammer by the end of the day.
#2
The religious leaders here in East Tennessee were vehemently against a state lottery, saying much the same things as this Imam. The difference is nobody went BOOM when the lottery passed. As long as they only speak out against it, everything's OK. WHat does worry me, and I'm sure the Government leaders in Singapore, is are they going to forcefully exert their influence on the rest of the population?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/12/2005 8:10
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I think this is routine opposition from religious leaders who fear having a casino nearby may corrupt their flock. At present, Malaysia has the only legal casino in Southeast Asia. Singapore has legalized prostitution. If a casino opens up there, it may become the Las Vegas to Malaysia's Atlantic City.
#5
At UCLA, etc, the Muslim Students Association habitually campaigns for dry-grad ceremonies. A campaign for responsible drinking would be more credible. Even where they are in a minority position, Muslims try to enforce sharia perversity.
Check out the Detroit and Windsor casinos. There is no prostitution or other illicit sex anywhere on either sites. In fact, there is so much security, and linkage with local law enforcement, that it would be unthinkable. Casinos don't cause sex; hormones do.
#6
Hmmmm a "casino owner" might have to have some employees "speak" to the cleric, explain things in terms he can understand...like keeping his appendages and children whole
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 16:11
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OK this is what the press knows...
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Saturday came out against a German proposal that would create a trans-Atlantic rival to NATO to coordinate and develop policy among alliance nations.
Rumsfeld described the 26-country alliance, created in 1949 to confront the Soviet Union's military strength in the Cold War, as still energetic and vital. As were at least two participants of the conference...
He also said the U.S.-European alliance can withstand its current differences, caused chiefly by opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In urging unified efforts to defeat terrorism and deter weapons proliferation, Rumsfeld took a conciliatory note toward America's allies in Europe and even made light of his "old Europe" characterization of nations such as France and Germany that opposed U.S. policy in Iraq.
"That was old Rumsfeld," he said, drawing laughs from officials at a security conference. "Our collective security depends on our cooperation and mutual respect and understanding." And on a different German government maybe...
Germany's defense minister proposed more direct coordination between the European Union and the United States. NATO "is no longer the primary venue where trans-Atlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies," said Peter Struck, reading a speech on behalf of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who was ill. Too bad he felt the urge to write anyway...
Struck also recommended appointing a commission to study the idea. Ok, study it, then dump it.
But Rumsfeld said: "NATO has a great deal of energy and vitality. I believe they are undertaking the kinds of reforms to bring the institution into the 21st century. The place to discuss trans-Atlantic issues clearly is NATO." That's why they call it the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
[...]
"Our Atlantic alliance relationship has navigated through some choppy seas over the years. But we have always been able to resolve the toughest issues," he said. "That is because there is so much to unite us: common values, shared histories, and an abiding faith in democracy." Except for those demonstrators waving the old flag of the Soviet Union and Palestine (interesting combo) and held up photos of "pacifist" Che Guevara... the usual suspects.
The Pentagon chief said coordination of legal, diplomatic and intelligence efforts was crucial.
"By now it must be clear that one nation cannot defeat the extremists alone," he said. But until the others get a clue the United States gave the thing a kick start.
"It will take the cooperation of many nations to stop the proliferation of dangerous weapons ... and it surely takes a community of nations to gather intelligence about extremist networks, to break up financial support lines, or to apprehend suspected terrorists," Rumsfeld said. Listening to Mr Ivanov, I'm not so sure about Russia...
He added, "The military can only be part of the solution and it is always the last resort." And sometimes the ONLY resort.
The secretary singled out France and Germany for praise for their arrests of suspected Islamic extremists last month. The sparrow in the hand...
[...]
He also said he believed that U.S. and European policy concerning Iran's nuclear ambitions were in accord. "There is not much daylight between the approach of the United States and the Europeans," Rumsfeld said. TGA will have a lot to comment on that issue in the coming days...
Posted by: True German Ally ||
02/12/2005
3:02:11 PM ||
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"There is not much daylight between the approach of the United States and the Europeans." Interesting parse, sort of like "If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."
RESCUE workers have recovered at least 80 bodies from surging waters in south-west Pakistan where heavy rains caused a large dam to burst, sweeping hundreds of people into the Arabian sea, an official said. "Coast guards have so far pulled out 80 bodies from the floodwaters with fishing nets, while 400 are still missing," said Sher Jan Baluch, a provincial minister in Baluchistan province. The 150m-long Shakidor Dam burst late Thursday near remote Pasni village in Baluchistan, about 1900 kilometres south-west of the capital, Islamabad. Witnesses in Pasni and elsewhere described seeing trucks, tankers and cars swept out to sea in the deluge, which came amid harsh winter weather. The fast-flowing floodwaters washed away homes, telephone lines, roads and bridges. Villages near the town of Uthal - about 100km away from Pasni - were also hit by the floodwaters late Thursday, but there was no word on casualties. Pakistan has been hit by more than a week of heavy rain and snow.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
02/12/2005
2:42:54 AM ||
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I must admit, Moro politix are a bit Byzantine for my taste, and somehow I think Arroyo is gettin' played, but here goes:
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Thursday denounced the Jolo clash saying it is not their war and announced that they won't support the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) "breakaway" group's call for their troops to join in the on-going war in Jolo. Both the MILF and the government also said the Jolo clash "will not in any way affect the moves for the resumption of the peace talks." They, however, admitted there is still no definite date as to when the formal peace negotiations will resume.
"Maybe when the fighting dies down, but that could take a while. Say, this shrimp cocktail is really outstanding!"
The Coordinating Committees on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCHs) of the government and MILF Thursday held its 25th Joint Meeting at the Pryce Plaza Hotel. The affair was also attended by the International Monitoring Team (IMT) from Malaysia. During the press conference, MILF-CCCH chairman Von Al-Haq was asked on whether its troops would heed the call of Abu Solaiman, MNLF breakaway group leader in Jolo, that the MILF join its forces in the on-going clash. Al-Haq replied, "We are in the MILF that is not our war that is very clear."
"As long as the teevee cameras are on," he forgot to add.
He also made it clear that the MILF-GRP peace talks will not be affected in any way by the on-going Jolo clash. "It (Jolo clash) has nothing to do with our peace process," he said. Al-Haq was the one who replaced Benjie Midtimbang as MILF-CCCH chairman to conform with some internal rule.
After hearing this statement from his MILF counterpart, GRP-CCCH chairman Brigadier General Alexander Yano for his part said, "this is a positive development considering that no less than the chairman of the MILF-CCCH is pronouncing that the MILF has nothing to do with the cause of the MNLF (breakaway group) in Jolo." Yano also said the CCCH has "now set the stage and paved the way for the resumption of the peace talks." He nevertheless "said, "We are not in the position to give the exact date on when the peace talks would be scheduled.
"But we're keeping a close eye on the 'having peace talks' funding. If we're forced to start ordering from the early-bird menu, we may have to consider moving up on the schedule."
This military general who replaced General Rodrigo Garcia nevertheless later told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro that they have received reports that the peace talks would be set anytime this month. "But still it is indefinite," he said.
U.S. Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, foiled an attempt by a terrorist to coerce a child into accepting a hand grenade at approximately 1 p.m. in Ramadi Feb. 10. Lt Gen Mattis was right - these guys lack the balls to attack directly.
The Soldiers, currently assigned to the 1st Marine Division of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, were conducting a patrol in the northeastern sector of the city when they observed a blue 4-door sedan with three military-aged males pull up near their position.
The driver exited the vehicle and approached a child, estimated to be 10-years-old. The two exchanged words and the adult gave the child a hand grenade. The child and the adult exchanged possession of the hand grenade several times.
The grenade was dropped after U.S. Soldiers fired a warning shot in the direction of the terrorist. The child ran away as the adult returned fire with a handgun.
The adult then jumped into his vehicle and attempted to flee the scene. The patrol fired disabling shots into the vehicle to prevent the terrorists from escaping. A brief firefight ensued, which resulted in one terrorist being killed and two terrorists being wounded.
The patrol evacuated the wounded to the medical facility at their forward operating base. The unit recovered the grenade from the scene, but was unable to locate the child.
There were no U.S. casualties.
(h/t commenter Papa Ray at Blackfive)
Posted by: too true ||
02/12/2005
2:02:49 PM ||
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All hail the brave Jihadis, great and fearsome recruiters of children! I wonder how you say "Islamo-pussy" in Arabic?
Allah be Praised! He provideth young children to d our dirty work so that we may live and plan more such things in the future.
Allah Akhbar- Allah Akhbar!
Oops Infidel Dog General Mattis is coming. Oh! Allah protect me... Mattis has his pistol drawn, and a smile on his face. He says I'm hurting little kids.
#4
It reminds me of that Jihadi doctor complaining early in the war that these evil americans aim for the head and chest and he simply can't help the ones that got shot when they do that.
#12
That depends on the positioning. If the child was somehow close to the line of file it might be better to fire a warning shot then risk hitting the child.
(If we did fire and wound the child I bet the MSM will be all over it... "Military targetting Children" while failing to mention the gernade of course).
The U.S. Navy believes that the strategic landscape is changing, and that the navy's new organization will revolve around Sea Basing -- a new concept enabling joint military forces to operate from ships offshore rather than from established land bases.
Sea Basing is one of the three cornerstones of "Sea Power 21." Sea Strike will expand power projection through increasingly networked sensors, combat systems, and war fighters. Sea Shield will provide global defensive assurance through extended homeland defense, sustained access to coastal areas, and the projection of defensive power deep overland. Sea Basing will provide enhanced operational independence and support for joint forces provided by networked, mobile, and "secure sovereign platforms operating in the maritime domain" (ships). This philosophy recognizes the facts that the US must be able to respond more quickly to threats from abroad in a time when other nations are increasingly reluctant to let the US base its forces in the territory, even temporarily. One has only to look at recent history to see how difficult it is to overcome the inability to base US forces in nominally friendly countries when political and religious consideration intervened.
This new strategy of joint forces afloat implies big changes for the black shoe Navy — the "ship-driver"officer community, as opportunities to command are likely to be spread across multiple services as the number of ships in the Navy continues to decrease due to retirements, the large cuts to the shipbuilding budget announced recently, and the realization that some of today's ships simply are not compatible with Sea Basing due to speed, size, or age. Sea Basing is an extension of maneuver warfare and will be the basis from which offensive and defensive force is projected through Sea Strike and Sea Shield. Afloat positioning of assets is to strengthen force protection and free airlift-sealift to support missions ashore. Planned Sea Basing Technologies will include heavy equipment transfer capabilities, intra-theater high-speed sealift, improved vertical delivery methods, rotational crewing infrastructure, and international data-sharing networks. Ships will not only be forward deployed and "crash deployed" from US ports, but will spend extended periods at sea with crews swapped every six months or so. This capability can only become more important in light of the recently announced cuts to new Navy programs such as the inland fire support destroyer (DD(X)) replacement for the Burke and Spruance class destroyers and the Multimission Maritime Aircraft replacement for the P-3.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005
1:56:36 PM ||
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So in short this is a new buzzword for which we won't have the ships to adequately implement.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
02/12/2005 15:14
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#2
This is a counter to China's Pacific-grab to snatch Taiwan strategy! For long, the Achilles heel of the US Pacific fleet has been the reliance for repair, resupply and rearmament on *only* two US ports, Bremerton and San Diego. The Chinese figured that if they could neutralize these two ports, the US Pacific Fleet would be high and dry, because there are no other friendly ports in the Pacific that could do the job. But by creating something akin to a "port group", dispersed enough to be a difficult target, yet able to assemble for fleet RRR with reasonable speed, the Chinese efforts to attack these two cities, *and* to take control of the Panama Canal, *and* whatever mischief they are planning in the Caribbean and South America against the Atlantic Fleet, have been countered.
#3
This is the Master Green plan to take over the US military and impose the TRINITY on US armed forces fighting against OWG and Clintonista/Socialist/General Foods clique. Luckily I think it'll work, all it'll take is a 150 ft. lengthening of the follow on Wasps.
Is that like welding the shit tank ball valves shut right before turn-over to the other crew? "I dunno Chief. The crapper won't flush no more." "Shut-up and gimme the crescent wrench."
#6
If I'm understanding correctly...
it's a way run with 8 or 9 carriers deployed on a permanent basis, without springing the huge tab for 12 more CAGs.
#7
Bottom line, it's whatever it needs to mean to keep budget position with Rummy. btw did you know that components for each of these systems are made in every congressional distirct?
One day we'll wake up and find out we've lost control of the seas.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
02/12/2005 18:43
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#8
Beware of efficiency in war. A down-sized just-in-time military scares me. The point of a big Navy is to prevent "the big one". You do that with many hulls rippling with weapons. When a destroyer pulls into port and the locals laugh at your single 5-inch pea shooter it is not good. When you roll into town with nine 16 inch guns, they get the idea you are serious. Naval battle is decisive battle in a way that land warfare is not. Land warfare can drag on for a long time. In a battle over Taiwan, lose your few carriers and you are done. Go home. You can't control that sea without them. Bringing only 6 carriers into the coming showdown with China is tempting fate. They start to think, hmmm if we can just knock those few hulls out, we win. Bring 10 hulls, it gets dicey. 6 hulls may be able to win, I don't know, but why tempt fate. If you think 15 or more carriers is too expensive, wait until you see the bills after the shooting starts.
#9
I think the naval "downsize" is deceptive. For example, most of the fleets are being upgraded to far more effective ships, with far more firepower. The battleship example is a good one: 16-inch guns are magnificant against enormous or highly concentrated targets, but for most circumstances, it is using a sledgehammer against a fly. Instead, if you have highly accurate 155-mm guns with a 12 round/minute firing rate, you can take out flies at 100 nautical miles to your heart's content with a flyswatter. And there are few targets that can take getting a satellite guided 155 in the ear.
#10
What and how many platforms will have that weapon with how many of the guns mentioned Moose? In a battle between ships (thinking Taiwan), who is doing the targeting of said weapon and from where? When you say satellite-guided, are you saying a satellite controls the weapon or someone selects the coordinates and the weapon uses GPS to hit that target. What good does that do against a moving ship? Is there some remote sensor doing the targeting. It all sounds feasible, butI can't help it, I am always suspicious of swishy wonder weapons at sea. I am such a crank.
#11
To call those 155s "frighteningly accurate" is an understatement. And the satellite locates the target (not necessarily naval), feeds the data to the ship, and adjusts the round in flight. The 750 round complement to a DD(X) class multimission destroyer: "land attack support for ground forces, but also carry out anti-air, anti-surface and undersea warfare missions." And the thing looks more like the Civil War 'Monitor' than your typical surface ship. But it is just one component to the new fleet. The new ships are almost science-fictiony looking, and the #1 used reference word is "Littoral" (coastal).
Troops captured the main stronghold of hundreds of Moro gunmen Friday and pursued them from a town where they attacked an Army detachment, triggering clashes that have killed more than 60 people, military officials said. About 300 armed followers of jailed Muslim leader Nur Misuari fled toward a mountainous region, and villagers wanted the military to finish them off to ensure they no longer threaten Panamao town, on southern Jolo island, officials said.
Civilians getting a little tired of the hard boy act.
At least 24 soldiers have been killed, including Lt. Col. Dennis Villanueva, head of the army's 53rd Infantry Battalion, and two of his enlisted men, who came under mortar fire Thursday while battling the gunmen in Panamao. More than 40 other soldiers were wounded in the clashes that erupted Monday. The military said troops have killed 37 Misuari loyalists. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Manila ordered no let-up in operations against the rebel group faction and Abu Sayyaf until all their "terrorist lairs" are dismantled.
"Go get'em, boys...the room is all ready for my the press conference."
On Thursday, Air Force fighter planes bombarded the gunmen near the Army company detachment, a nearby hospital and Panamao's town hall. After, large numbers of troops moved in, firing artillery and automatic rifles and prompting the attackers to withdraw, officials said. They fled to a hilltop stronghold called Bitan-ag, then retreated deeper into Jolo's mountainous heartland. Army troops and marines captured Bitan-ag and were chasing the gunmen, said army Brig. Gen. Agustin Demaala. Lt. Gen. Alberto Braganza, commander of the military's Southern Command, said troops would not ease their pursuit of the gunmen, who were led by locally prominent religious leader Habier Malik, until they surrender or are dead. "He is now in imminent defeat, and our troops are finally closing in on him," Braganza told reporters on Jolo, where he was overseeing assaults against the gunmen.
This article starring:
HABIER MALIK
Moro National Liberation Front
NUR MISUARI
Moro National Liberation Front
Posted by: Seafarious ||
02/12/2005
1:52:55 AM ||
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GSPC appears to be moving its operations out of the country. The Islamic rebels are widely unpopular and the security forces have gotten better at finding rebel camps. There is, in effect, no place to hide in Algeria. But overseas, particularly in Europe, there are Arab communities that honor and support Islamic militants.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005
1:51:23 PM ||
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That sounds like France to me. Their special investigating judges are going to have a lot of work in the years to come.
A MAN who arrived in Britian from Pakistan had been charged in relation to an alleged bomb plot, police said today. Salahuddin Amin, 29, was arrested on Tuesday at London's Heathrow airport under anti-terrorist legislation and was charged this weekend with explosives offences. He is alleged to have conspired with others, between October 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004, to explode a bomb which was likely to endanger life and cause serious property damage.
Mr Amin will appear in London Central Criminal court on Monday.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005
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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tried Friday to calm growing cries for economic sanctions against North Korea after the communist country announced it had nuclear weapons, even as Tokyo prepared to ban the North's ships from entering its ports starting next month. Koizumi said economic sanctions against the North could threaten six-nation talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its atomic program.
I'd say NKor belligerence and nuke rattling had already threatened the talks...
"I understand the feelings behind growing calls for economic sanctions, but dialogue and pressure are important," Koizumi told reporters in the northern city of Sapporo. The comments were broadcast by Fuji TV. Public support for economic sanctions has surged amid the ongoing dispute between Tokyo and Pyongyang over the North's abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:50:18 AM ||
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The thought of that NORK missile flying over Japan, is what Koizumi can't get out of his mind! What Japan should do, to shore up determination and resolve in concert with South Korea is to fire it's own missile over South Korea! The gall of this type action would cement the unity of the US, Japan, and South Korea, in any action that might be contemplated by the North.
#2
But that's the problem, smn, "in concert with South Korea." Isn't the government -- and aren't the younger generation -- far-leftist?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
02/12/2005 3:15
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True, E. Yee, South Korea must be seen as in sync with the Japanese show de'jur for the 'in your face' intent to be absorbed by the NORKS! South Korea will eventually have to accept the 'Red Or Dead' threat from the NORKS as a serious threat for their democracy! My advice to the South would be to play ball with the US and Japan on this one.
#5
"...economic sanctions against the North could threaten six-nation talks..."
There are no six-nation talks. The North has made that clear. But that doesn't rule out five-nation talks.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 10:40
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#6
Koizumi is worried about something that has gone and is heading nowhere. Like, 50 years of jive by the Norks has not produced anything but a shaky cease fire. Shut the Norks out. If Kimmie does not get his way, he will ALWAYS threaten those who would deny him a Sea of Fire (TM).
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 11:45
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Time for S Korea, Japan, and Taiwan to announce their intent to develop nukes. Then watch how fast China will curb their dog.
The United States slammed Myanmar's military junta on Friday for arresting several pro-democracy leaders and prohibiting groups from commemorating a key pre-independence event.
Meet the new thugs, same as the old thugs.
Among those held was Hkun Htun Oo, the chairman of the Shan National League for Democracy, which won elections in 1990 and the results of which the junta refused to acknowledge. "The United States is deeply concerned" over the arrest, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. He also expressed concern that the military had prohibited the United Nationalities Alliance, Myanmar's leading coalition of pro-democracy ethnic political parties, from commemorating Union Day on February 12. On that day in 1947, various ethnic communities within what was known as Burma then unanimously called for independence from Britain. Burma became independent a year later but has been ruled by a military dictatorship since the 1960s.
Boucher said the latest actions by the junta further demonstrated its "rejection of genuine national reconciliation as well as its disregard for the well being of the Burmese people and the views of the international community." He reiterated US demands for the immediate and unconditional release of nobel laureate and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners and to allow her National League for Democracy to reopen its offices. The United States has branded Myanmar an "outpost of tyranny" and is very likely to boycott next year's Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Yangon. Washington has imposed diplomatic, trade and investment sanctions on Myanmar for several years to pressure it to embrace democracy and respect human rights.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005
12:37:50 AM ||
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Yeah, but I've been doing this long enough not to put an awful lot of trust in "experts."
Bluffs and bluster, then capitulation and compromise. North Korea has decades of experience dancing a diplomatic tango with its allies and enemies to get what it wants — and leaving the rest of the world guessing as to the real intent of the isolated communist regime.
Actually, leaving the rest of the world assuming they're all nutz would be more like it...
North Korea played one of its biggest cards yet Thursday when it boldly stated it had nuclear weapons to deter a U.S. invasion, and was staying away from international talks aimed at convincing it to give up its atomic bombs. Still, experts said the move should be read as a negotiating tactic typical of the North's style and its capricious leader, Kim Jong Il. "Until the ultimate point they maintain their stubborn posture, but in the end they know when to bend their position in order not to break up the entire process," said Park Joun-young, a political science professor at Ewha Women's University in Seoul.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:35:05 AM ||
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#1
The Norks problem is that people have to believe they have a bomb for the bluff to work. Remember they have never tested one. So the US (and Howard) is doing the right thing by suggesting - they don't believe the Norks have a working bomb. IMO the fact they have never tested one is conclusive proof they don't have one that will work.
Phil_b, are we sure that is the case; what was that huge mountain explosion that occured in North Korea a couple of months ago? Has it been definitively ruled out as a nuke test (ie; no radiation), if so, what was that blast?!
#4
Yeah smn that wasn't a nuke blast. A nuclear detonation has a particularly unique seismic signature that shows up easily. Sorta analogs the double flash in an above ground nuclear explosion.
#5
âIt's a pattern that's been seen repeatedly in the past. The North stoked world fears when it threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in the early 1990s, then backed down after signing a 1994 deal with Washington to receive energy aidâ.
Iâm not sure if backing down really describes what happened. After all they received everything they asked for: food and oil without any effective oversight of their nuclear program.
Posted by: Canaveral Dan ||
02/12/2005 9:40
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The NKors must have run into a technical problem developing a bomb that actually works. Semantically their inference to a weapon could indeed be a dirty bomb of some sort. Thus the bluff of a "nuke."
#8
JP,
Betting that NK has tech problems is a bad bet. NK traded Pakistan ballistic missile tech for uranium enrichment and bomb tech. The Pakistani nuke tests in 1998 showed them which designs did and did not work (some fizzled). http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005 11:41
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#9
Wasn't there some speculation that one of Pakistan's nuclear tests was done on behalf of another country?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/12/2005 13:03
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#10
Several Pakistani nuclear bomb tests didn't work. Think about it, if the Norks had tested a bomb that worked their negotiating position improves dramatically. If they have one they would have tested it for sure.
#11
All I needed to see was the Kimmy graphic, and I'm happy. Thanks, BigEd, for putting it in earlier this week. I was at work, and didn't see it till way too late.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will meet Saturday with militant leaders to push them to honor a days-old cease-fire marred by mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli targets, according to an aide. The Islamic militant group Hamas said it would only stop attacks when it was satisfied Israel would release prisoners and stop pursuing militants.
Abbas' planned meetings with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad faction were the latest sign of his commitment to keeping intact the cease-fire he and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared Tuesday to end 4 1/2 years of bloodletting. On Thursday, he fired top security commanders after Hamas bombarded Jewish settlements in Gaza with mortars and rockets. And the central committee of his Fatah movement announced a state of emergency in the Palestinian security forces in an effort to prevent new attacks.
Abbas aide Taeb Abdel Raheem said the Palestinian leader's meetings with the militant factions would take place Saturday night. Asked if Abbas would ask the factions to commit to a cease-fire, Abdel Raheem replied: "I think there is a responsibility, and all the factions should show their responsibility in this sensitive and crucial era." Hamas is interested in a truce, but on condition Israel halt all raids against the militants and release prisoners, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. "Hamas still wants a truce, but needs this truce to be with Israeli obligations," Abu Zuhri said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:33:38 AM ||
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#1
Lol! I just love these stories. They're so, um, imaginative and spun until they're dizzy. Check back in a decade - after that wall is finished - and it will be precisely the same game and stories with the same headlines, unless one side or the other has been wiped out.
#2
I can just see Abbas appealing to the good nature of people that send out their young suicide bombers to kill women and children in buses. "Let us reason together, people." This is a bus to nowhere.
After this road kill map charade is done, Israel needs to finish the wall and pull out of the indefensible settlements. Israel also needs to put the Gazoids on notice if bombardment of Israel continues over the wall, that the water will be shut off to Gaza and they can pound sand in their little hellhole bit of heaven.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 12:01
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Abbas better watch his back. Hamas doesn't want peace. Their entire existence is founded on violence. yeah but you gotta try. abbas is doing a lot more than arafat did. I agree with that Stan but Abbas is walking a tight rope. Trying to appease Israel and Hamas isn't going to be easy. no doubt
Posted by: John & Stan ||
02/12/2005 13:37
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TEHERAN — Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi has complained of again being summoned to court, as well as subjected to death threats, the student news agency Isna reported yesterday. "I have been summoned for trial on February 23, without knowing what the new charge is and what will be the fate of this case," she was quoted as writing to reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Ebadi was also said to have told Khatami she had been subjected to a string of death threats, and the culprits had been arrested and jailed but recently released. She also said her home had suffered several attempted break-ins. In addition, Ebadi complained that the judiciary were refusing to return her house deeds, posted as bail in a case that dates back more than five years.
Ebadi also wrote to Khatami to protest what she said were attempts during the past two months by unidentified people — trying to pass themsleves off as police — to raid her offices and arrest her staff members. According to Ebadi, "people are trying to hinder my activities."
That's why they call it a police state.
In January, Ebadi was summoned to appear before a branch of the feared Revolutionary Court — an apparatus that normally deals with national security offences — to "provide some explanations" on her activities or else be arrested.
But Iran's hardline Iran's judiciary later said the summons had been a mistake caused by a bureaucratic mix-up and insisted Ebadi was not being pursued. The judiciary said that summons concerned a private complaint of "insult".
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005
12:29:40 AM ||
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#1
For a Nobel Laureate, w00t!, she's pretty damned slow.
#2
"...Ebadi was not being pursued"
no, that will be later this month or next, when this particular round of intimidation ends in a draw.
Its interesting that the Black Hats don't just throw her in prison - they must fear a reaction if they are too heavy handed. Is she popular enough to form a rallying point?
Who is betting it will not be too long before there is a "burglary gone wrong" and she gets shut up once and for all.
paraphrasing .com, pretty damn brave or pretty damn slow. My guess is the former.
Sri Lankan government on Friday blamed splinter factions of the Tamil rebel movement for the slaying of a top guerrilla leader and praised it for the "restraint" it had shown since the killing. Accusing "factions" of the killing, the government said the splinter groups oppose a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire between the government and the Tigers. "There are factions working to sabotage the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)," government spokesman Mangala Samaraweera told reporters after a cabinet meeting. "It's the work of those who want to see the ceasefire agreement come to an end. In a way, the ceasfire has been violated by such people."
A senior Tamil Tiger leader, E Koushalyan, a former Tamil legislator and four other rebels were gunned down Monday in the eastern Batticaloa district in a government-controlled area. There has been no claim of responsibility but Tamil Tigers have blamed rebel renegades working with Sri Lanka's military.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:29:16 AM ||
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"Does this belt make me look fat?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 14:24
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#2
No, not really... it's the vertical stripes that make you look like the f*****g Michelin Man!
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:22:40 AM ||
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#1
The two remaining legs of the âaxis of evilâ are shaking in their boots encouraging each other to remain firm. Should Iran be attacked by the US, I'm 100% positive the NORKS would panic themselves into a trilateral agreement with the west or foolishly preimpt an action into the South, to hasten the wait they have been fearing of!
#2
IMHO, kimmy is truly mad. It's possible to predict NK's probable reactions - but one of those probable reactions will always be the totally crazy response of a mad man.
That's a big problem when nuclear weapons are concerned.
#3
2b---quite possibly mad. But he is also playing the old playbook. Make dire threats, withdraw the threats when appeasement comes through. Then make new dire threats for new agendas. Lather, rinse, repeat. We need to quit playing the game. By we I mean the US, Japan and South Korea, and Russia to some extent. The quicker Nork sinks, the better off everyone, including the North Korean people will be. The Chicoms will figure into this. If they keep Kimmie going, it will cost them big time, like a nuclear armed Japan.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 11:53
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There is also the question of whether a mad Kimmie would be obeyed if he uttered an irreversible order. After all, quite recently he disappeared from the news for a while, and his title was reduced to a mere "Leader Kim Jong Il." The Generals must know that they will have to clean up the mess afterward, so they have a double set of consequences to think about at each decision point....
WASHINGTON - Pakistan would not object to India buying American-made F-16s if Islamabad is also permitted to acquire the sophisticated fighter jets, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington said on Friday. "As long as we are on the list for F-16s, it's all right if India gets them," Ambassador Jehangir Karamat told Reuters.
"We wouldn't have any problem because we have no problem with India buying defense equipment worldwide. We are no longer in an arms race with them," he said of Pakistan's South Asian nuclear rival.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
The comments seemed designed to open new political possibilities for advancing Pakistan's stalled 15-year quest for the F-16 fighters and to strike a contrast with India, which has opposed the sale to Islamabad.
But US officials said India's interest may not be serious and complicates Bush administration decision-making. "We don't want to create an arms race with our own sales in South Asia," one US official said, speaking anonymously.
"They'd much rather fly MiGs for some reason."
But Karamat, former chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: "We accept the (conventional arms) imbalance which is there between India and Pakistan. What we will do and continue to do is keep that imbalance at a state which we consider manageable from our point of view."
India, long dependent on Russian-made armaments, recently expressed interest in American-made military aircraft and top US defense firms are promoting their wares this week at Aero India, the industry air show in Bangalore. There, a senior executive with Lockheed Martin Corp. said his company is in talks to sell its C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft and P-3C Orion naval spy planes to India. India also has sought preliminary information in efforts to buy Lockheed's F-16 fighter jets. Under US law, Congress must approve government to government arms sales.
Diplomatic sources said India's interest in US fighters makes sense because ties between the two countries improved dramatically in recent years and sophisticated arms sales would add "ballast" to burgeoning trade.
But some US officials doubt India is serious about buying American, especially when there are other producers like France and Sweden, and when New Delhi remains concerned that American supplies could be interrupted by possible sanctions. They suspect India's interest is aimed at preventing Washington from selling to Islamabad.
India "has put the administration in a tough place. Does it sell to Pakistan and forgo a potentially lucrative deal with India, or is that Indian deal just a ploy to prevent arch nemesis Pakistan from getting them," one US official said, noting an Indian deal would be larger than an Pakistani deal. If Washington sold F-16s to both countries "that means we would be fueling a rivalry. It's very complicated," he added.
"Not as complicated as Balochistan, but complicted enough," he noted.
Lockheed is a major factor. US congressional sources told Reuters the defense contractor has warned that if F-16 sales to Pakistan are not approved, the F-16 production line, with key facilities in President George W. Bush's home state of Texas, will be shut down. A Lockheed spokesman could not be reached.
Some US lawmakers oppose F-16s to Pakistan because they feel the government is undemocratic and has not done enough to oppose Islamic militancy. But others say F-16s should be used to reward Islamabad for a major achievement, like peace with India in disputed Kashmir.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005
12:22:15 AM ||
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Some US lawmakers oppose F-16s to Pakistan because they feel the government is undemocratic and has not done enough to oppose Islamic militancy. But others say F-16s should be used to reward Islamabad for a major achievement, like peace with India in disputed Kashmir.
Guess who does, and who doesn't have enough phosporus in their diet.
An upstate New York doctor was found guilty on Thursday of illegally sending millions of dollars to Iraq, in violation of US sanctions, authorities said. Rafil Dhafir was convicted of 59 out of 60 charges ranging from conspiracy to money laundering to Medicare fraud after a 15-week federal trial in Syracuse, N.Y., prosecutors said.
Dhafir, an oncologist, used an unregistered charity named "Help the Needy" to solicit some $4 million in contributions in the United States and then launder much of it to Iraq through bank accounts in Jordan, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said he began sending money to Iraq in 1994, in violation of executive orders and Treasury Department regulations in place since 1990. Dhafir, who will be sentenced in June, could be sentenced to more than 500 years in prison, prosecutors said.
This article starring:
RAFIL DHAFIR
Help the Needy
Help the Needy
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:20:47 AM ||
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The top US diplomat for the Middle East had "productive" talks with Libyan officials in Tripoli this week as the two nations continue to work to improve relations, the US State Department said on Thursday. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and other officials on Wednesday and Thursday, a sign of warming ties since Libya's 2003 decision to give up its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs. "Burns held productive and thorough discussions in Tripoli ... continuing the step-by-step process of improvement in US-Libyan relations," the department said in a statement. "He reaffirmed the goal of fully normalized relations, as the US and Libya build cooperation on counter-terrorism, the peaceful resolution of regional conflicts, and economic and political modernization," it added.
This article starring:
Muammar Gaddafi
William Burns
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:18:55 AM ||
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#1
He's like the Muzzy Liberace, only with hats thrown in. Nice shade of blue. Who knows what's real about this guy, other than the ME version of fashion sense and his Fembots, heh. Figuring out his son Seïf's agenda is something else entirely.
It's not like there aren't at least 10-20 nutbag professors, on every campus in America, spewing the same bile that Churchill is spewing.
I can't help wonder which came first; the focus on Mr. Churchill's anti-American spew or the discovery of more details about his previous vist to see Momo.
#5
IIRC, there used to be some Black Panther Party guys that headed over to see Mo decades ago, also. He was the popular guy then for the radical left, kinda like a ME Castro.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2005 11:35
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#6
Great graphic-- looks just like the guy who runs the news stand a couple blocks from here.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/12/2005 11:40
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#7
.com, hate to tell you this, but my wife informs me that that particular shade of color is known as "French Blue".
You may now proceed to dislike it intensely :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005 11:58
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#8
That explains the yellow stripe down the back.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2005 12:22
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#9
Guess that explains the feeling of disgust the oic braught on.
Cause this needs to be front and center for the weekend.. Don't go bein' mean to our military .... Damn, they are so young.. A message to them, we stand with you and this was a fight from American's "silent majority" to MSM CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amid a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq. Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
I agree. It should only be fairly tarnished by controversy. Peter Arnett thinks so, too.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted. He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place where a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy. "I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.
But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up. There was an online petition calling on CNN to find a transcript, and fire Jordan if he said the military had intentionally killed journalists. After several management restructurings at CNN, Jordan actually had no current operational responsibility over network programming. But he was CNN's chief fix-it man overseas, arranging coverage in dangerous or hard-to-reach parts of the world. "I have decided to resign in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq," Jordan said.
Jordan joined CNN in 1982 as an assistant assignment editor on the national news desk. CNN's global newsgathering infrastructure is chiefly the result of Jordan's work, said Jim Walton, chief of the CNN News Group.
Posted by: Sherry ||
02/12/2005
12:18:24 AM ||
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Wow. That was fast.
But if you think the MSM was out to get blogs before, look out...
#3
But if you think the MSM was out to get blogs before, look out...
The first shots were fired a few days ago...in Maryland, a staffer for Republican governor Ehrlich had to resign after he got caught on Free Republic smearing Ehrlich's likely Democratic opponent, Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. There was a bit of a blog hit piece in WaPo yesterday...
#6
If Barney Frank of all people was giving him crap about it, then its no wonder the video never turned up, his remarks were truly uncalled for. Its always a source of wonder these media elites think regular people share their views about how evil and underhanded the military is.
They are just kids doing what those people are to chickenshit to.
Seeya asswipe!
#9
Pretty obvious what was in the video. Wonder if the audio includes the sounds of catcalls (in American-accented English) and kudos (in arab-accented English)...
#12
It's Fred, the owner/operator of this beautiful rig.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 10:49
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Here is a quote made my E. Jordan from the same article, that Fox left out.
""I have devoted my professional life to saving Saddam helping make CNN the most trusted and respected news outlet in the world, and I would never do anything to compromise my work or that of the thousands of talented people it is my honor to work alongside," he said.
I put this in the category of: "Whatever you are smoking, I want some." BTW, Enjoy the link!!
#14
I think the real story here is that mainstream advertisers (who pay the bills) want their ads seen by mainstream folks, not by viewers whose tin foil hats are on too tight. Jordan got the boot because he was bad for business.
#15
The only thing that worries me about this is what might happen when someone says something that the bloggers don't like, and they go after him and hound him until he's forced to give up - when perhaps his fate was not actually deserved.
Jordan deserved what he got, no question about it. But this, along with a number of other incidents in the past year, helps to illustrate the growing power of blogs. I just hope bloggers continue to use their power responsibly.
Posted by: The Doctor ||
02/12/2005 12:36
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#16
Doubt that will happen Doc,we've alredy been called"pajamahadin"among other things.They thought it was an insult,but bloggers took it as a compliment.After all it was pajamahadin that braught down Dan Rather and John Kerry.
#17
Doc, it actually wasn't the statement, rather the cover up in MSM that did their boy in. Had he step forward when this first popped up and said "Me Bad" and apologized for slandering the men and women serving honorably, this would have blown over.
#18
Jordan got the boot because he was bad for business. He sure did, but then its dawning on the MSM that this whole Leftist PC Agitprop schtick is bad for business when there are alternatives. The model only works when you have a monopoly
#19
Oh, I understand perfectly - and as I said, I think what happened was what should have. I'm just expressing a little concern for the future, that's all.
And I suppose I'm worried about what might happen if a bunch of wild-eyed liberals decide to go after a decent man just because they hate him. I don't see it happening now, but I wouldn't put any unscrupulous tactic past the left, not these days.
Posted by: The Doctor ||
02/12/2005 16:40
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And I suppose I'm worried about what might happen if a bunch of wild-eyed liberals decide to go after a decent man just because they hate him. I don't see it happening now, but I wouldn't put any unscrupulous tactic past the left, not these days.
er.....do the names Bork, Bush, Gonzalez, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld...mean anything to you?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 16:48
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Doc, it aint he bloggers that are bringing down the MSM, it's their own words and actions brought to light. Everyone believed the (un)Guard story, until the story behind the story was told. Everyone jumped onthe weapons cache, sroey until the real story was told. Chief Pouting Bull was not put down by some blogger, he wrote his own article that was simply shown in the light of day. And no Eason Jordan was called for comments HE made (not soembodies writing about him) and he couldn't lie because of the hoards of witnesses. If you want to see abusive blogging, look to the many LLL site (du, indy, etc).
#22
Jordan got the boot because he was bad for business
Maybe, but I'm not so sure the blogosphere has achieved quite the coup that some are celebrating. Jordan had already been eased out of day to day control of news ... this was just the straw that broke his contract's back with the Time Warner biggies.
Frank, I do indeed recognize those names. But you know what? They were all very public figures when they were attacked. I have serious concerns about bloggers who take a high profile without being, say, a tenured academic or a lawyer. You can be right and still lose your house trying to defend against a lawsuit.
Posted by: too true ||
02/12/2005 19:52
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#23
not buying it - there's cranks everywhere and readership is a good measure of having tour geet on the ground (DU excepted)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 20:07
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Right-wing extremists tried to attack Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a wedding he was attending but he was not injured, Israeli police said on Friday. A small group of people vehemently opposed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw Israelis from occupied Gaza shouted at Netanyahu "Murderer, your day will come" in the Thursday evening incident, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said. Reports said a plate was thrown at Netanyahu at the wedding in the Jewish ultra-Orthodox village of Kfar Habad and a police spokesman said a tyre on his car was slashed. The assailants tried to attack Netanyahu, 55, but were held back by wedding guests as his security guards whisked him away from the scene in another vehicle.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
12:16:32 AM ||
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How ironic it would be, for Netanyahu to pay the price for peace in the future, on the decisions made by Sharon and who keeps and iron curtain around him at all times! Now we know the reason why Sharon doesn't travel abroad much.
RIYADH: Participation during Saudi Arabia's first round of municipal elections on Thursday was 82 per cent in the areas surrounding the capital, an election official said. "The turnout was 82pc in all the Riyadh region excluding Riyadh city. Some towns and villages exceeded 92pc," Sultan Al Bazai, a member of the general commission of municipal elections.
Riyadh mayor Prince Abdul Aziz bin Ayyaf Al Muqrin said the turnout was strongest in the second district of Al Nassim, reaching 76pc. The highest number of candidates contested from Al Nassim.
Maybe I didn't write enough book reports in summer school, but if this is the highest Riyadh district at 76%, how can the average participation in Riyadh be 82%? Hey Emily, lemme borrow the calculator in your cell phone ...
Not a chance, Steve. I'm still trying to figger out the tip on my bar tab...
Turnout was lowest in the fourth (Olaya-Suleimaniyah) of seven districts that comprised the capital, at only 58pc, the mayor said. Just over 140,000 men out of 470,000 eligible voters registered to cast their ballots in the first of three-phase polls, in which half the members of 178 municipal councils will be elected across the ultra-conservative kingdom.
Women are barred from taking part in the elections, which will take place on March 3 in the Eastern Province and the southwest, and on April 21 in the western regions of Mecca and Medina, as well as the northern regions. "The country is now moving in the right direction," Shaikh Mohsen Al Awaji, a moderate Islamist and government critic, said. But "if the government continues with this pace of reform, it means that we will need several centuries to get our minimum rights," he said.
Optimist.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005
12:11:22 AM ||
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They got all this, even though all the women didn't vote. Did someone vote twice?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
02/12/2005 1:20
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Quite right Phil! The vote only tallys over 80% of the men's 50 percent of the total potential vote! 100% of the women didn't vote, neither 18% of the men!
#3
Flatly contradicts this story from only yesterday. Looks like the Arab Times dropped the ball with pure speculation and Gulf Daily reported facts. Makes me dizzy, with, uh, um, something.
Because sometimes, the Urdu Press just isn't strange enough.
First, an opinion piece....The Iraqi Elections Is Neither Legitimate Nor Fair
In Jan 30 the elections were held after a huge preparation and propaganda by the Iraqi authorities and occupation troops who wanted to legitimize the U.S and its allies installed government, urging the people to participate in the US project.
Amid an insecurity atmosphere and domination of the armed militias belong to many parties and movements in the cities, no agenda put forward for the participants by the parties, the elections campaign was in hands of a very few parties who are very well and heavily supported financially either from the Iraqi belonged money or by the neighboring countries, and the most dangerous part among all, is that some political groups began to use religious and spiritual effects as a tool to attract people to cast the ballot, the major one was the Fatwa issued by Al-Sistany urging the mandate of this elections.
Later on Al-Sistany representatives started issuing religious orders and threats towards the people stating that god will be punishing whoever didn't vote for the list blessed by Al-Sistany, which means terrorizing people spiritually. In addition the authorities used the same old fascist ways that were used by the former regime that was cutting off the rations on whoever didn't vote or spreading out rumors stating that
the failure of the elections will lead the Wahabbies to win and sloter the Shiite and Ayad Allawi is the hero who will save us all.
So they admit that the former regime, which was supported by Russia, really was fascist? Wait a second...
On the whole they have created a dramatically complicated political scene based on frightening and terrorism. Besides all of that some high profile figures who were monitoring the polling station in many regions took advantage of the illiterate women and elderly to vote on their behalf for their own parties.
So the US's alleged clever scheme is based on 'frightening and terrorism,' which is being supported by Syria, who gets its weapons from Russia, often on credit, and with the resulting debt eventually written off... what a conspiracy.
Thus the outcome of the election is known already and the winning lists were known even before the commencement of the elections.
Which is why the results aren't out yet.
The political powers with the US masterminding have completed and passed on a political show. They succeeded to maintain the ethnicity and religious division among the Iraqi people and legitimized a government they installed a year ago.
What they called it elections for those reasons are neither legitimate nor fair. Furthermore it will draw the society down to more division and conflicts, and it is eventually strengthening and deepening the US plan in the region.
Subtle plans are here again...
We call on the, trade Unions, libertarian and secular powers to lead the massive protest against this reactionary and antihuman plan of occupying forces and Islamic and ethnic forces in Iraq and to strengthen the liberation front to put forward the people will to end the occupation of Iraq. Rejection of the division based on the ethnic or religious background which will lead to the failure of the US plan in Iraq and in the region.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
02/12/2005
1:11:32 AM ||
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One almost can hear the echo of the rsing and falling signal of the English language propaganda News broadcats of the old USSR in the telling of these stories.
Five West African presidents cancelled their planned visit to Togo on Friday to press the country's new leader Faure Gnassingbe to hold a free presidential election after he refused to meet them in the capital Lome, insisting instead that they fly to the northern town of Kara.
"Nope. Ain't gonna do it. Hold an election, then call us."
The presidents issued a joint statement deploring the situation in Togo, where Gnassingbe seized power with the backing of the armed forces following the death in office of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema on 5 February.
He will be sorely missed from the world stage.
They ordered the Togolese government representatives to attend a summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger on Saturday. If the Togolese authorities failed to attend this meeting, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) would impose immediate sanctions on Togo, the presidents of Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Benin and Mali added. The presidents of the ECOWAS member states assembled on Friday morning in Cotonou, the capital of neighbouring Benin, for preliminary talks in the airport's VIP lounge.
"Stewardess! More broiled dik-dik here!"
But Benin government sources said their plans to fly on together for a meeting with Gnassingbe in Togo fell through after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo insisted that the encounter take place in Lome. Gnassingbe switched the talks venue from Lome to Kara on Thursday and prevented a Nigerian plane carrying an advance party of Obasanjo's aides from landing in the Togolese capital.
Afraid Olusegun's aides might be packing head, was he?
This angered Obasanjo, who initially announced that he was cancelling plans to fly to Togo as part of the ECOWAS mission. Officials in the Nigerian capital Abuja said on Friday morning that Obasanjo had relented after receiving an apology from the Togolese government. But officials in Benin said Gnassingbe's insistence that the talks take place in Kara, his father's birth place, 400 km north of the capital, made Obasanjo dig his heels in and refuse to go.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
1:04:19 PM ||
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Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) has urged the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) component parties to prepare independent plans to launch a campaign against President Musharraf for keeping the offices of president and chief of army staff simultaneously, sources told Daily Times on Saturday.
Sources said that in its central and provincial shoora (consultative body) meeting a few days ago, the JUI-F protested that the MMA was not serious in launching an effective movement against General Musharraf for violating the agreement between the government and the MMA to leave one office by December 31, 2004. JUI-F leaders Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani, Qari Sher Afzal and Maulana Rasheed Ahmad urged Maulana Fazlur Rehman that MMA should not cooperate with the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) in an anti-government movement. They claimed that the two major parties of ARD, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, were in contact with the government and were blackmailing the MMA.
This article starring:
Alliance for Restoration of Democracy
FAZLUR REHMAN
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl
MUHAMAD KHAN SHIRANI
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz
Pakistan Peoples Party
QARI SHER AFZAL
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl
RASHID AHMED
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
10:37:04 PM ||
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Washington will not stop Iran pursuing nuclear technology and should not attempt a military "adventure" in the country, an influential cleric said on Friday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has exhorted Iran to give up what she says is a nuclear weapons programme. U.S. officials have stressed diplomacy but not ruled out an attack against atomic sites, which Iran insists are to meet booming demand for electricity.
"The Persian Gulf is not a region where they can have fireworks and Iran is not a country where they can come for an adventure," cleric and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers. "It is not acceptable that developed countries generate 70 or 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear energy and tell Iran, a great and powerful nation, that it cannot have nuclear electricity. Iran does not accept this," he added.
Although France produces close to 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power stations, most major industrialised nations derive under 30 percent, U.S. Energy Information Administration data says. Rafsanjani is often hailed by analysts as a pragmatist who wants to restore diplomatic relations with the United States. However, Iran's right to produce its own nuclear fuel from uranium mined in the central deserts is a subject that unites politicians across the conservative and reformist camps. Talks with France, Britain and Germany have aimed to persuade oil-rich Iran to drop its fuel making programme in return for economic incentives.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
The US should let it 'slip' to the media, that it only needs to destroy Iran once, to force submission compliance!
#4
The US only need destroy the 300 sites (both confirmed and suspected) with the caveat of regime change as a simultaneous option! The US will not be the first to push the Nuclear Button, but the last. As always The US need the impetous for the final option; remember, no one was "nuked" by the US for 9/11, an Iran certainly would not be able to do that type of destruction in the US firsthand, their retaliatory strike(s) would be against the strategic forces in the theater. The Use It Or Lose It senario will force the mullahs to draw down their ultimate destiny for the Iranian people.
#5
#1 POSTER.. NUKE THE BITCH THAT SHIT YOU OUT SCUM BAG BASTARD ...THE OWNER OF THIS FAG UNITED OF AMERIKKKKA BLOG SHOUL BE RAPPED FOR PERMITTING THIS LANGUAGE YOU ARE NOT WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABBOUT AND SCUM LIKE YOU AND ALL THE OTHERS PLEAZ GO BACK TO iNDIA OR ISRZRA FUCCCK YOU ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: SEND THE SCUM BACK TO India ||
02/12/2005 5:09
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#6
#1 POSTER.. NUKE THE BITCH THAT SHIT YOU OUT SCUM BAG BASTARD ...THE OWNER OF THIS FAG UNITED OF AMERIKKKKA BLOG SHOUL BE RAPPED FOR PERMITTING THIS LANGUAGE YOU ARE NOT WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABBOUT AND SCUM LIKE YOU AND ALL THE OTHERS PLEAZ GO BACK TO iNDIA OR ISRZRA FUCCCK YOU ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For more information dial 1-800-TEDDYKENNEDY, but don't dial the NNEDY.
#7
And I shall rapped Fred, thrice! Take that, you Bad Blog Guy!
PLEASE:
For heaven's sakes, don't delete this jewel. It's priceless. We're only talking a few amino acids, mebbe an alkaloid or two, a missing chromosome, and *poof* we'd all be just like him. (See Dr Steve for specifics.)
#12
I think a few well-placed nukes would do wonders in obliterating some of Iran's nuke/missile facilities in short order and sending a message to our sworn adversaries that our nuke arsenal is not just some hypothetical bargaining tool. Conventional weapons can take out the easier targets including the Iranian military near the Gulf. The likes of #5 need to be humbled.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 10:34
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"...developed countries generate 70 or 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear energy..."
The Great Satan produces about 20% of its electricity by nuclear means, but would probably do less if it was sitting on the natural gas reserves that Iran is.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 10:37
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#14
Grandmaster Flash Fred to you, sir!
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 11:17
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Wow, the things you miss when you're out checking the missile silos...
ITSY, do you have any solutions that don't involve nukes?
Maybe, but where's he going to find 700 55-gallon drums of Miracle Whip, a ton of peacock feathers, and a willing midget?
...YOU ARE NOT WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABBOUT AND SCUM LIKE YOU AND ALL THE OTHERS PLEAZ GO BACK TO iNDIA OR ISRZRA...
Dear DU moderators, please come over and pick up your dog. It's ruining the front lawn.
#16
Okay, okay, I won't nuke #5. He can be today's chew-toy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005 12:30
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ITSY and Tom, using a nuke of any kind on Iran would be a disaster for the US -- the single exception being, if they used one on us, the Israelis, or the Euros. The world would NEVER forgive us if we unilaterally popped them. Each and every strong, current ally -- the Brits, the Aussies, the Poles -- would turn against us. We'd never live it down.
We don't need to nuke Iran. We need to encourage a revolution. The mullahs need see the 1989 play, "Nicky Ceausescu's Last Day on Earth". Skip to Act II.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2005 12:33
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Sounds fine, Steve, except how do you encourage revolution? The Romanians lived under Ceausescu's boot for a long time. What makes you think you can have an uprising before the mullah's get their nukes and hide one in your own backyard? Or just hide a very-dirty dirty bomb in your own backyard?
And how do you send the "don't tread on me" message to the others -- the Kimmies, the fanatical Pakis, and others who hate us and have small nuclear arsenals or other WMD capabilities?
The Brits, Aussies, and Poles may be your worry, but the Iranian mullahs, NKors, Pakis, Syrians, etc. are mine. I want to make them positively fear for their lives if another 9/11-type event occurs. I want a Libya-type response and I want it soon.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 14:48
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I'll agree we can't stop their ambitions.... ;-p
And no, #1 & 5 - conventional will do quite nicely.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/12/2005 14:56
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I want a Libya-type response and I want it soon.
Why wait? You can do it yourself. Just get a fancy uniform full of medals, an army of fem-bots, and start spouting nonsense.
Posted by: Tom Dooley ||
02/12/2005 16:26
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Don't know that we need nukes; conventional weapons would do just fine.
I wonder if the mullahs are scared by the recent developments in Iraq - and if they're trying to jack up the nuclear talk in order to make both themselves and, to a lesser degree, their subjects feel better. Now, I'm no statesman or military analyst, but what if we tried to support the democratic movements in Iran while running a surgical removal of the mullahs' nuke facilities? Is it possible that we could declaw them without much political fallout?
Posted by: The Doctor ||
02/12/2005 16:54
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#23
the only downside is if they're (the MM's) successful in getting nationalism to trump reality of how badly the people have been misled and misruled. The Iranian peeps are ripe to overthrow the regime
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 17:05
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I engage in the thrust and parry with America-haters on a blog run by a Middle Easter Studies prof at Berkeley. I'll post the link Monday. Anyway, this crank, just like Juan Cole, asserts that the Iranian mullocracy IS democracy and IS supported by the vast majority of the people. The assertions to the contrary are written by "propogandists". That was his actual term. Self-delusion is a wonderful thing, no?
#26
We used to say, when I was on active duty, "Nuke 'em till they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark". Unfortunately, black turbans don't glow too well. What we need to do is to run a really NASTY covert operation against them - destroy everything not nailed down. Blow up their ports and harbors, blow up their oil infrastructure and starve them of cash, blow up the mullahs and their respective mosques. Take off the gloves and show them just how nasty we can be, WITHOUT using nukes. And if they respond against us or our allies, destroy their military and civilian infrastructure from the Persian Gulf coast to 200 miles inland from the Armenian border to the Pakistan border. In the meantime, invite all the Iranians in the United States (and our allies) to partake in some serious military training if they're willing to go back to Iran and stir up trouble. While that's a playbook right out of the Russian manual, it's been known to work a time or three. We need to decide we'll do "whatever works" to eliminate the Iranian problem. Then we can follow with Syria, Korea, and whoever else tries to bully the United States.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/12/2005 20:06
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Back in about 1980, a friend of mine who worked on cruise missile development used to boast that we would be able to "put a cruise missile through Breshnev's bedroom window". How about a Mad Mullah's bedroom window. Fired from a sub, nothing announced, nothing admitted, ever.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 20:36
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#28
Revolutions cost $$$. I suggest "Lawyers, guns and money." Let the Iranians do the rest.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has sharply criticised the US Secretary of State during a speech to launch his party's general election campaign.
[Mugabe] said his government would continue to co-operate and forge closer relations with Libya and China, saying: "The sun rises in the east."
Speaking at a rally, Mr Mugabe said Condoleezza Rice was a girl born out of slave ancestry who should know "that the white man is not a friend".
"I prefer to think of the white man as a source of free boodle for my friends," he added.
Ms Rice has previously branded Zimbabwe an "outpost of tyranny". It is the first time Mr Mugabe has responded to the comment, which also named Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. A banner said 31 March poll would be an "anti-Blair election", in reference to the UK prime minister.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
02/12/2005
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Mugabe launches election campaign by bashing US, UK
Here's another reason why some Democrats are fretting over installing antiwar former presidential candidate Howard Dean as chair of the Democratic National Committee. He might cede national defense to the Republicans.
Don't worry, that's already been done.
That's the charge from associates of another former presidential candidate, former NATO boss Wes Clark. Seems the Clark and Dean teams have been warring over the future of the Democratic Party, and now that threatens to spill into the public if Dean, as expected, wins the chairmanship this Saturday. Here's the fight: Clark wants the Democrats deeply involved in foreign policy and the war, and Dean's team isn't as jazzed about that. They see domestic policy and issues like Social Security and the deficit as the keys to success. But this might be the real rub against Dean: Clark fans think the retired general will be marginalized by Dean.
Whereas Weasley would prefer to do that to himself.
Posted by: Desert Blondie ||
02/12/2005
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#1
He might cede national defense to the Republicans.
I'm sure glad I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when I read that. Is this reporter dishonest, or merely stupid? The Democrats ceded national defense to the Republicans over thirty years ago and haven't even tried taking it back any time since then.
Clark wants the Democrats deeply involved in foreign policy and the war, and Deanâs team isnât as jazzed about that. They see domestic policy and issues like Social Security and the deficit as the keys to success.
To the Democrats, foreign policy and the war are unwelcome distractions from the one game they know how to play: acquiring power by using the government to steal money from one group of Americans and handing it to another group whose votes they want to buy.
The Democrats haven't had a new idea in over forty years. The only things that change from time to time are a) which group they want to steal from, b) which group they want to bestow the "free" lunch on in exchange for votes, and c) what BS justification they offer to excuse the theft.
Howard Dean is the end result of the Democrats' long degeneration into what it has become: the Parasite Party.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/12/2005 7:51
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Help me out here guys. Dean is the guy who lost to the guy the Dems ran for President who lost because no one could figure out what he stood for even though he had Lots of Plans. And the reason Dean lost to Lots-o-Plans Guy is because Dean was regarded as a loose canon. Am I missing anything here? 'Cause this all sounds totally nutso!
The Pakistani Punjab comes out looking good in certain areas compared to Indian Punjab, while lagging behind in some others, notably literacy and poverty reduction, according to two new studies made by the World Bank.
In other words, the important areas...
A comparison between the two Punjabs was the subject of an informal presentation at the World Bank on Thursday by Ijaz Nabi, sector manager, economic policy, South Asia region. The population of Pakistani Punjab is 80 million, more than half of the country's, while that of the Indian Punjab is 25.3 million. Their respective GDPs are $32 billion and $14.6 billion, which form 52 percent and 2.5 percent of the national GDP, while in terms of area the Pakistani Punjab is more than four times the size on Indian Punjab, parts of which were made over to Haryana and Himachal.
So the Pak side has three times the population of the Indian side, and a bit over half the GDP. The Pak side produces $400 peer year per capita, and the Indian side produces $577.
In the former, agriculture represents 27 percent of economic activity, industry 22.5 percent and services 50.5 percent, whereas in the latter, the figures respectively are 39.3 percent, 24.6 percent and 36.2 percent. According to Nabi, in terms of overall poverty, it is 34.1 percent of the population in the Pakistani Punjab compared with only 6 percent in its Indian counterpart. The incidence of poverty is the highest in Pakistan's southern Punjab (40.4 percent), 31.8 percent on central Punjab and 29.8 percent in the northern part.
Pakland has almost six times the poverty level of the Indian side. I'm still waiting for the part where they're not doing so bad...
The literacy rate in Indian Punjab is 70 percent and only 45 percent in its Pakistani counterpart, while the net primary enrolment is 94 percent and 42 percent respectively.
That'd be an indicator that the disparity's going to grow, and keep growing in the future, even without factoring in quality of the education received.
#4
the other 40% are Gantt charts. I went to public schools
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2005 16:17
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Bureaucrats or mullahs? Bureaucrats or mullahs? So hard to choose. But either way you produce less than $600 per capita.
As I've said before, take away the oil and natural gas and the Gross Domestic Product of the Islamic world is zilch. Islamic culture appears to be non-productive.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 16:19
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It is not zilch, it is just inferior to the Gross Domestic Product of... Israel. And of course the intellectual output (books, patents, Nobel Prizes) is waaaay lower.
Some pretty interesting posts come from no-name posters, though the majority are simply dumped because they're either too goofy or too misspelled for comprehension. This guy does raise a point. It's a goofy point, but still a point...
While the case of a student suing his school on the grounds that summer homework ruined his vacation might not be the best use of the nation's overly burdened court system, the lad does have a bit of a point.
I'd certainly agree that it's a waste of the nation's overly burdened court system. I'd also wonder where the money for the suit is coming from. As for the child's point, I'd call it pretty infinitesimal, myself...
I'm just guessing here, but this young lad apparently is not growing up in a Chinese, Korean or Hindi immigrant household ...
On what grounds, exactly, do schools have the right to compel students to complete assignments during those times of the year when students are not under the school's legal authority?
I'd say on the grounds that the schools are charged with the responsibility of imparting an education to the little darlings. What would you say? Think real hard, now...
The school claims these requirements are not an undue imposition since they only apply to honors courses in which the plaintiff volunteered to participate.
Which, to my mind, would make them a less than adequate "imposition." If my child was lumped in with the dumb kids and not given anything to do that might strain his little mind, I'd be indignant...
While that might apply to this particular Wisconsin jurisdiction in question, it does not settle the matter on a broader philosophical level as some schools such as those in Prince William County, Virginia I wrote about way back in the mid 90's do not make it an honor's only requirement but rather mandate that all students do book reports and such over the summer.
Book reports! Quelle horreur! I can remember the agony of cranking out book reports when I was a lad in school. I would agonize over them for up to a half hour at a time! And that wasn't counting the hour or two it would take me to read the book! I can't begin to estimate the damage it must have done to my mind, if any...
"The subject about which this book report is about is..."
"And remember, kids, Mr. Google knows every word that was written about this book by someone else ..."
In the same spirit as that motivating Bill Clinton when he said he opposed tax cuts on the grounds Americans would not know how to spend their own money properly, educrats claim students not given assignments to do over the break would otherwise allow their brains to whither. What of it?
Educrats in this case are correct. Children are not fully formed adults, only smaller, who are capable of making their own decisions. That's why parents and the school systems are put in a position where they can make demands of the little darlings' time and attention, in the expectation of something like knowledge seeping into their little heads which will will then be available for use when they are grown up.
Since the brains belong to the students and under the custodianship of their parents, aren't they free to do with them as they see fit when school is not in session? Besides, other than basic reading, who uses most of what they learned in school anyway?
I'm sure that unsuccessful adults don't. Adults who're successful use all sorts of odd things they learned in school. If you compute your part of the check when you go to lunch, you're using the division skills you learned in 4th or 5th grade. If you compute the tip, you're using the multiplication tables you started to learn in 3rd grade. If you should happen to acquire a foreign language, you're using the language skills you acquired in grade school and hopefully developed through high school. And, yes, Virginia, you do use algebra when you get out of school if you take anything more complicated than modern dance in college.
Me, I use the calculator in my cell phone, just like all the cool kidz. Long division is for geeks.
The fool who wrote this clearly doesn't use anything he learned in school, assuming that he learned anything.
Maybe if schools did not devote so many resources to intellectually dubious pursuits such as diversity appreciation, environmental awareness, and indoctrination in evolution, schools would have more than enough time to teach those essentials education propagandists insist there isn't enough hours in the day (and hence the year) to teach.
I quite agree that there's too much time spent on diversity appreciation, environmental awareness, though not indoctrination in evolution paleontology would seem to support the idea pretty well, from what I've read, but then I possess more than just basic reading skills. Where I disagree is in how the time should be spent. Rather than packing the three R's into the time, I'd ensure they're taught in the time allocated for them, and I'd use the time freed up to teach additional math and foreign languages, to include Latin and Greek, plus geography. I'd split the warm milk concept of "social studies" back into history and civics and spend more time on each. And I'd make sure the little treasures got enough to do that they'd have to do a bit of work over the summer, too.
Lucky for us, the Catholic schools already do what Fred suggests. Even that Latin part.
For students still ensnared for whatever reasons in the clutches of the public education leviathan, these institutions serve as centers of indoctrination in the ideology of total state control.
Actually, I think they've become more dispensers of warm milk and gooey cookies than a leviathan. The mechanics of education are becoming so watered down that the system can't even pass on the indoctrination in the ideology of total state control.
For what other lesson do students learn from summertime homework than that, even when not on duty, their lives belong to those running the New World Order?
There could be lots of reasons, to include bible study, if you want to go that route, which I would't. The mere fact of making them do work doesn't dictate the content. But it does give them the idea that people have to do more than just the barely required minimum to get by if they want to make a success of themselves.
I was being flippant before, but now I'm serious. Kids have so much MORE raw knowlege they need to know by the end of high school now, especially in the math and science areas. And it seems to me they spend much less time studying and more time "saving the whales" and producing multimedia presentations on diversity...
There are no short cuts. You either learn or you get left behind. This fellow got left behind and hasn't figured it out yet.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Left behind? they're all left behind these days. When the professional educators dumbed down studies and scores so everyone graduates with a piece of paper, then the kids who could master circa 1960's courses at the 12th grade level are now just being challenged by 9th grade materials today for that graduate diploma. See, say the educators, so many now qualify. Its the old practice of debasing the coin. The king would begin adding alloy to the gold or silver till the point was reached that the coin was the alloy and not the original metal and of far less value.
#2
Bull. My oldest is a junior in a Catholic high school honors program. I cringe when I see some of the details of the math and science and other courses he's taking. A lot of it is stuff I never saw until college. And he has had summer homework (typically one or two books to read and a paper to write) every summer for as long as I can remember. My youngest is in 8th grade -- his last year in Catholic elementary school. He too has had summer reading routinely. And there's a test that counts just a few days after arriving back at school in September.
I'm not saying that there aren't big problems out there, but I hear parents in my area complaining and they have good schools available if they can afford it. And they have expensive SUVs, so if they can't afford it, where are their priorities?
You don't even need to bother to try to improve the public schools if you're not even going to do your parenting. I know bright, affluent kids in my area who are wasting away their lives on instant messaging, computer games, and hanging out at the mall. Their parents don't even know what they're studying at school or doing on-line or doing at the mall. They are free to fail and they do.
"For what other lesson do students learn from summertime homework than that, even when not on duty, their lives belong to those running the New World Order?"
That's right, MY kids learn that, even when not on duty, their lives belong to ME. When I've finished educating them to MY standards for a high school degree, then they are free to fail. Not before then.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/12/2005 16:07
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#3
"My oldest is a junior in a Catholic high school.."
Fine, let me clarify - public schools. The Catholics haven't appeared to have been swayed by the hip-in nuances of education theory implemented in the last quarter century in the public schools.
More than 130 people have been killed across Pakistan in the heaviest rains in 16 years that caused a dam to burst, provincial officials said on Friday. Authorities rushed thousands of troops to join rescue operations in the remote southwestern Baluchistan province, where some 20,000 people had been affected by the floods, said Raziq Bugti, a government spokesman in the province said. Officials said at least 60 people died on Thursday night after Baluchistan's Shadikor dam burst, sweeping through villages near the coastal town of Pasni. More than 40 more died from heavy rains in other parts of the province. Some reports said hundreds were missing, though officials said there were no reliable estimates. "Relief operations are in full swing. Army, paramilitary rangers and coast guards are trying to pull out people stranded in the flood water," Bugti told Reuters.
Officials said at least five villages, home to around 7,000 people, had been submerged by waters that poured through the 35 metre (115 foot) high and 300 metre long embankment of the dam, constructed just two years ago. "Sixty bodies have been recovered in the Pasni area. They were all killed due to the dam burst," provincial minister Sher Jan Baluch told Reuters.
A suicide car bomb exploded outside a Shi'ite mosque northeast of Baghdad as worshippers were leaving a religious ceremony on Friday, killing at least 13 people, local police said. The blast in the town of Balad Ruz targeted Iraqis as they were leaving a Shi'ite ceremony linked to the holy period of Ashura. The area around Balad Ruz has both Sunni and Shi'ite residents. Earlier, gunmen opened fire on Shi'ites in a bakery in Baghdad, killing at least nine people.
Shi'ites make up around 60 percent of Iraq's population but were oppressed for decades under Saddam Hussein. An alliance of mainly Shi'ite Islamist groups is expected to dominate Iraqi politics following the Jan. 30 elections. Insurgents, most of whom are Sunni Muslim, have mounted repeated attacks on Shi'ites. Shi'ite leaders say they will not be drawn into a civil war.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
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Guess what's going to happen to Sunnis once US forces leave.
#4
A suicide car bomb exploded outside a Shiâite mosque northeast of Baghdad as worshippers were leaving a religious ceremony on Friday, killing at least 13 people, local police said.
Haaaahahahahaaaa, that's a surefire way to win converts over to your side.....
Islamist-backed candidates triumphed in Saudi Arabia's landmark council elections in the capital Riyadh, according to preliminary results released on Friday. Several losing candidates said the names of at least six of the seven winners had been on a list, which suggested they had Islamist backing. "I don't know them personally, but they had a religious character to them," said Zafer al-Yami, one of the defeated candidates said of the winners. Election commission chief Prince Mansour bin Miteb said the winning candidates for the seven seats up for grabs on the Riyadh city council were Abdullah al-Suweilam, Suleiman al-Rashoudi, Tareq al-Kassabi, Abdul-Aziz al-Omari, Omar Basudan, Ibrahim Quaid and Misfer al-Bawardi. Yami said he planned to appeal the result because he said the winners had violated election rules forbidding any public coalition or alliance of candidates.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
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Well, Prince Faisal said they would do this democracy thingy in their own way and in their own time. Big surprise, huh, him knowing more than most "Govt Officials" about what the "election" results would be, in advance. Mebbe CNN and SeeBS oughtta hire him as a pundit and prognosticator.
Background noise? Or are they going to shut up somebody who has the goods?
The Interior Ministry directed the district administration and high ranking police officials of the Capital Police to apprehend a man who threatened Saudi diplomats in Pakistan. The Saudi diplomats wrote a letter to the Foreign Ministry in which they said that a person who identified himself as Muhammad Hamza Rashid Qureshi had visited the Saudi embassy a number of times and had made a number of requests to meet the Saudi ambassador, sources told Daily Times.
After the rejection of his requests, Qureshi made telephone calls to the office of the Saudi ambassador in Washington saying that he had important information about Saudi Arabia and about the custodian of two holy mosques, King Fahad bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the sources added. They said that the Saudi diplomats feared Qureshi might be trying to publicise forged stories that could create problems for both the Saudi and Pakistani governments.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
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Quick, send the National Enquirer reporters.
We need more good and dirty laundry.
An anti-terrorism court in Multan, headed by Zahoor-ul-Haq Rana, has given two death sentences to Muhammad Tariq, an activist of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, for killing two Shias on June 6, 1998 in Multan. The court acquitted Sharif, Sajil-ur-Rehman, Zulfikar and Muhammad Omar. "Tariq and his accomplices assaulted Dr Shafqat Raza's clinic in Timber Market on June 6, 1998 and opened fire. Dr Raza's younger brother Nusrat Raza and a patient died on the spot," sources said.
An Anti Terrorism Court has awarded a death sentence to Muhammad Asghar and Javed Ali for killing Javed Ahmed on July 11, 2000 for resisting their robbery attempt.
This article starring:
Javed Ali
MUHAMAD TARIQ
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Muhammad Asghar
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
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Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Safdar Hussain said on Friday that he wanted militant Abdullah Mehsud to surrender without any conditions. Talking to a delegation of clerics and tribal elders from South Waziristan Agency in Peshawar, Lt Gen Hussain said, "Abdullah will not be offered amnesty and will be dealt with according to the law."
His comment came two days after Abdullah vowed to continue 'jihad' against security forces in South Waziristan Agency after Monday's peace deal between fellow militant Baitullah Mehsud and the government. "Abdullah has committed a serious crime by killing one of the Chinese engineers he kidnapped and he should surrender unconditionally," he told the delegation led by Maulana Ainullah. He said the government was investigating Monday's killing of two tribal journalists in Wana to determine whether the killing was targeted or "a family feud or old enmity". He also expressed sorrow over their deaths. The corps commander asked the delegation "to be alert and keep a check on the activities of militants in the area". "It is primarily your responsibility to keep your areas free of terrorism. You are required to fulfil your territorial responsibility, flush out foreign terrorists and deny sanctuaries to them," he added.
This article starring:
ABDULLAH MEHSUD
Wazir Taliban
BAITULLAH MEHSUD
Wazir Taliban
Maulana Ainullah
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
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I think Cheech and Chong might be willing to give him up for a bag of really good weed. I'd reach out to them.
Lower Mall Police have arrested seven members of Gora Butt gang. The police also seized stolen property worth millions of rupees and illegal weapons. According to a handout issued here Friday, a special team headed by Old Anarkali ASP Dr Muhammad Abid Khan raided Mughal Park on Bund Road and arrested the accused. The arrested criminals are Adil Butt, alias Gora Butt, Adil, Khurram, Moosa, Abid, Waseem and Nadeem. The arrested accused were involved in robberies and car snatching incidents in Sialkot district. They were wanted in at least 15 cases. The police also seized five cellphones, two TV sets, gold ornaments, cash and seven pistols. SSP Aftab Ahmed Cheema has announced cash prizes and commendatory certificates for the police raiding team.
I'm sure the Butt Buddies are thanking their lucky stars they weren't doing business in Bangla. There would have been no survivors...
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2005
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Big Butt crack down!
Posted by: buns up ||
02/12/2005 8:13
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What kind of pathetic gang lets themselves get captured by mall guards? The Cigaretta Butt and Stinka Butt gangs were way tougher than these guys. Few gangs can knife-fight while singing showtunes like those guys could.
Posted by: Dar ||
02/12/2005 8:51
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I didn't see Bertha on the suspect list. Did she get away?
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.
Thousands of demonstrators clashed with riot police in the capital for a second day Saturday, protesting against Togo's recent army-appointed president in what many are calling a coup d'etat. Three people were reportedly killed and dozens wounded when police fired at demonstrators. West African leaders, who are leading the international pressure on Togolese authorities to roll back their constitutional changes, have demanded Togo's leaders meet them in neighboring Niger on Saturday. An estimated 3,000 protesters hurled rocks and jagged pieces of metal at police, and set garbage fires to block their vehicles. Security forces fought back with tear gas, batons and stun grenades, attempting to quell a growing opposition against the appointment of President 
A prominent Iraqi judge under Saddam Hussein, Taha al-Amiri, was assassinated Saturday by two gunmen in the southern port city of Basra, said Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi. Al-Amiri, a former chief judge at Basra's highest criminal court, is one of several former Baath Party figures assassinated in the Basra area the past 18 months. Suspicion has fallen on Shiite extremists seeking revenge for Saddam's oppression of the majority Shiite community.
CLINTON, N.Y. - The head of a gender studies program at 
Troops captured the main stronghold of hundreds of Moro gunmen Friday and pursued them from a town where they attacked an Army detachment, triggering clashes that have killed more than 60 people, military officials said. About 300 armed followers of jailed Muslim leader 
A MAN who arrived in Britian from Pakistan had been charged in relation to an alleged bomb plot, police said today. Salahuddin Amin, 29, was arrested on Tuesday at London's Heathrow airport under anti-terrorist legislation and was charged this weekend with explosives offences. He is alleged to have conspired with others, between October 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004, to explode a bomb which was likely to endanger life and cause serious property damage.
Japanese Prime Minister 
The United States slammed Myanmar's military junta on Friday for arresting several pro-democracy leaders and prohibiting groups from commemorating a key pre-independence event.
Bluffs and bluster, then capitulation and compromise. North Korea has decades of experience dancing a diplomatic tango with its allies and enemies to get what it wants — and leaving the rest of the world guessing as to the real intent of the isolated communist regime.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will meet Saturday with militant leaders to push them to honor a days-old cease-fire marred by mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli targets, according to an aide. The Islamic militant group Hamas said it would only stop attacks when it was satisfied Israel would release prisoners and stop pursuing militants. 
TEHERAN — Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi has complained of again being summoned to court, as well as subjected to death threats, the student news agency Isna reported yesterday. "I have been summoned for trial on February 23, without knowing what the new charge is and what will be the fate of this case," she was quoted as writing to reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Sri Lankan government on Friday blamed splinter factions of the Tamil rebel movement for the slaying of a top guerrilla leader and praised it for the "restraint" it had shown since the killing. Accusing "factions" of the killing, the government said the splinter groups oppose a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire between the government and the Tigers. "There are factions working to sabotage the ceasefire agreement between the government and the 
An upstate New York doctor was found guilty on Thursday of illegally sending millions of dollars to Iraq, in violation of US sanctions, authorities said. 
The top US diplomat for the Middle East had "productive" talks with Libyan officials in Tripoli this week as the two nations continue to work to improve relations, the US State Department said on Thursday. Assistant Secretary of State 
CNN chief news executive 
Washington will not stop Iran pursuing nuclear technology and should not attempt a military "adventure" in the country, an influential cleric said on Friday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has exhorted Iran to give up what she says is a nuclear weapons programme. U.S. officials have stressed diplomacy but not ruled out an attack against atomic sites, which Iran insists are to meet booming demand for electricity. 
Here's another reason why some Democrats are fretting over installing antiwar former presidential candidate Howard Dean as chair of the Democratic National Committee. He might cede national defense to the Republicans. 
While the case of a 
A suicide car bomb exploded outside a Shi'ite mosque northeast of Baghdad as worshippers were leaving a religious ceremony on Friday, killing at least 13 people, local police said. The blast in the town of Balad Ruz targeted Iraqis as they were leaving a Shi'ite ceremony linked to the holy period of Ashura. The area around Balad Ruz has both Sunni and Shi'ite residents. Earlier, gunmen opened fire on Shi'ites in a bakery in Baghdad, killing at least nine people. 
The Interior Ministry directed the district administration and high ranking police officials of the Capital Police to apprehend a man who threatened Saudi diplomats in Pakistan. The Saudi diplomats wrote a letter to the Foreign Ministry in which they said that a person who identified himself as 
An anti-terrorism court in Multan, headed by Zahoor-ul-Haq Rana, has given two death sentences to 
Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Safdar Hussain said on Friday that he wanted militant 
Lower Mall Police have arrested seven members of Gora Butt gang. The police also seized stolen property worth millions of rupees and illegal weapons. According to a handout issued here Friday, a special team headed by Old Anarkali ASP Dr Muhammad Abid Khan raided Mughal Park on Bund Road and arrested the accused. The arrested criminals are Adil Butt, alias Gora Butt, Adil, Khurram, Moosa, Abid, Waseem and Nadeem. The arrested accused were involved in robberies and car snatching incidents in Sialkot district. They were wanted in at least 15 cases. The police also seized five cellphones, two TV sets, gold ornaments, cash and seven pistols. SSP Aftab Ahmed Cheema has announced cash prizes and commendatory certificates for the police raiding team.
