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Leb Army seals Syrian border
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
20:47 1 00:00 Photle Fleart1604 []
20:12 1 00:00 JosephMendiola [1] 
19:52 2 00:00 .com []
18:35 23 00:00 DMFD []
17:38 2 00:00 Xenophon []
17:21 6 00:00 whitecollar redneck [] 
14:19 13 00:00 Anonymoose [1] 
14:16 2 00:00 Captain America []
13:10 2 00:00 Visitor [] 
13:08 13 00:00 Frank G []
13:08 7 00:00 DMFD []
12:56 4 00:00 Robert Crawford []
12:40 1 00:00 3dc []
12:20 1 00:00 Vinkat Bala Subrumanian []
12:17 19 00:00 Frank G []
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10:18 9 00:00 Listen To Dogs [2]
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Is the VOA still a global broadcaster?
Posted by: Evil Elvis || 03/03/2006 20:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Considering you've downsized your military and are redeploying what you still have to be more focused on strategic missions, it seems consistant to do the same thing with other 'Cold War' left overs. Welcome to the club.
Posted by: Photle Fleart1604 || 03/03/2006 21:17 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Japan, U.S. Finishing Plans for New Radar
Japanese and U.S. military officials are finalizing plans to deploy a radar system for a missile shield at a Japanese air force base in northern Japan, defense officials said Friday. The high-resolution radar system, aimed at detecting and intercepting ballistic missiles, is to be deployed at the Shariki base in Tsugaru, Aomori prefecture, about 360 miles northeast of Tokyo.
...
Japan's Defense Facilities Administration Agency said the two countries are still finalizing the plan as part of ongoing talks on a broader realignment of U.S. military bases in Japan. Japan and the United States will hold talks next week on the realignment, which would reduce the U.S. military presence on a southern Japanese island and give Tokyo greater responsibility for security in the Asia-Pacific region, defense and Foreign Ministry officials said Friday.
...
During the five-day talks beginning Tuesday in Honolulu, Hawaii, the two sides will discuss details of an October realignment agreement that includes a proposal to shift 7,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. This is good news. Yesterday I was thinking of posting a comment about moving all the Marines out of Okinawa to Guam. Guam is about 1/2 the size of Okinawa but has 1/9th the population and will give the Marines some room to train.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 20:12 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There's also TINIAN and SAIPAN islands in the Northern Marianas - the Mayor of Tinian has told the local MARIANAS VARIETY and other medias that he would like to see Marines or some other type of military-based economy come to Tinian. In any case, North Korea's beating the rhetoric drums of war but its China and its PLAAF that doing all the buzzing and penetrating of Japanese airspace for the Norkies. STRATEGYPAGE.com reports that China's PLAN are expanding their surface warfare and UNREP naval actvities, inferring that China's intent is for its PLAN assets to engage in long patrols of areas claimed or occupied by China. A scenario still exists that any US-led mil action ags North Korea proper may likely also involve TAIWAN. With both China and NK claiming to have missles that can hit the US West Coast-MidWest, and eventually all of the USA, Guam as the closest US territory to Asia should be the first choice for at least one, or more, Nimitz-class BG and MAG/MRG. China cannot hope to successfully confront or par the USN in the Pacific unless she controls or dominates the major island groups in the Western and Central Pacific, which by extens also means in LT a play for control of Hawaii. We already know from the 2005 Chinese White Paper that a minima of 1/2 of CONUS is already desired as future Chinese territory, plus the pre-planned destruction of 200M, plus-minus, of Amer's 300M population. THE ONLY WAY FOR CHINA/COMMIES TO BYPASS CONTROL OF THE PACIFIC IS TO WAGE FULL-FLEDGE WAR ON CONUS-NORAM ITSELF, IDEALLY WITH ANTI-AMERICAN AMERICANS IN THE WH AND CONGRESS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/03/2006 23:47 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Pentagon Releases Names of Gitmo Inmates
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 19:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is about as stupid as it gets. Now the religion of pieces is gonna see names and start kidnapping and murdering to have thier friends and heros released. Sometimes I really wonder what the White House is thinking.
Posted by: mag44_vaquero || 03/03/2006 21:58 Comments || Top||

#2  You didn't read the story.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 22:21 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Zarqawi?
MNF investigates reports on Al-Zarqawi''s arrest nearby Fallujah

MIL-IRAQ-MNF-ZARQAWI
MNF investigates reports on Al-Zarqawi's arrest nearby Fallujah

BAGHDAD, March 3 (KUNA) -- The Multi-National Force (MNF) on Friday announced it is investigating reports on Abu Mosab Al-Zarqawi's arrest nearby Fallujah.

An MNF officer did not confirm or deny the arrest, noting that the US forces are still investigating the reports.

A well-informed source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the US forces are continuously chasing Al-Zarqawi in an attempt to capture him, adding that the process is going in cooperation with the Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, an MNF major said the force, based upon intelligence reports, executed Monday a number of arrest operations 45 kilometers northeast of Fallujah to capture key Al-Qaeda officials, Al-Zarqawi's assistants, and others involved in providing logistic support for foreign fighters and suicide attackers in Fallujah and Ramadi.

The major added that 61 people were arrested in the operation, which was announced before, among them were major Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq, while quantities of weapons and ammunitions were seized and destroyed in the operation.

Meanwhile, sources in the Iraqi Army said that Al-Zarqawi could be among those arrested in the operation on Monday.

Al-Zarqawi is the leader of Al-Qaeda organization in Iraq and is responsible for a number of armed operations targeting US and Iraqi soldiers and citizens, in addition to the abduction and beheading of civilians. (end) mhg.


Posted by: Glenmore || 03/03/2006 18:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Invoke the 48 hour rule.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 18:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Oh, it could'nt be the brave Al-Zarqawi. He promised to blow himself up. We all know the ones that send the people to die, would never be taken alive.
Posted by: plainslow || 03/03/2006 18:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah, I know it's probably wrong, and at least 48 hours would have to pass before it was acknowledged, even if it is right. But it is so much fun to speculate.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/03/2006 18:47 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm not a superstitious man, but I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed just in case. Would that we could get Zarqawi to implicate Iran. Drool.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 19:06 Comments || Top||

#5  I find myself in complete agreement with Zenster.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 19:13 Comments || Top||

#6  I vote for this wringing after interrogation:

1) Douse him with BZ
2) coat with honey
3) wrap in wet leather
4) place in desert sun near ant hill
5) Rescue before death
6) Nurse back to health
7) remove finger nails with pliers
Repeat 1-6
8) remove toe nails with sledge hammer
Repeat 1-6
9) crush one jewel
Repeat 1-6

Video tape the whole thing and broadcast on Al Jizz so retards can see what it gets them -
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 19:21 Comments || Top||

#7  Heh, got your mojo working there, 3dc...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 19:22 Comments || Top||

#8  If true, it will be true forever, there's no hurry, lol. But the fun is infectious...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 19:23 Comments || Top||

#9  I'm hoping it's true. Be nice if they got his laptop too, full of "logistical support" and Iranian addresses.
Posted by: Hupomoger Clans9827 || 03/03/2006 19:23 Comments || Top||

#10  Note to self: Do not piss off 3dc.
Posted by: Mark Z || 03/03/2006 19:39 Comments || Top||

#11  We will need help from the Iraqis to *ahem* loosen his tongue, in a venue that is a fine and private place. 48 hr rule.....damn, it's hard to wait....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/03/2006 19:46 Comments || Top||

#12  I am very cautious to get excited about this, especially after so many close calls. BUT IF THIS S.O.B. EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING IS IN CUSTODY, I WILL JUMP UP AND DOWN WITH JOY. TWO WORDS, CAN YOU SAY... DEATH PENALTY???
Posted by: bgrebel || 03/03/2006 20:04 Comments || Top||

#13  The US already got Zarqawi's laptop once before.
Zarqawi narrowly escapes US trap
US forces recently came close to capturing Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and had found his laptop computer and seized some of his money, America's ABC television reported today.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 20:08 Comments || Top||

#14  Iraqi handlers. Make sure there are family members of victems of the AQ "lions of islam" suicide bombers.

I think they would make Hanibal Lecter look like a Boy Scout.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/03/2006 20:08 Comments || Top||

#15  Why is this guy alive? We need to stop taking captives.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 20:13 Comments || Top||

#16  Just arrest his severed head, that will suffice.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 20:41 Comments || Top||

#17  MNF? _ Monday Night Football has really lost focus since it moved to ESPN....
Posted by: Chavitch Clavique1463 || 03/03/2006 20:59 Comments || Top||

#18  3dc: far too gentle. Didn't you use to watch the X-Files? I figure we won't have done him justice unless by the time of his departure from this plane he is karma free.

Science is our friend.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 21:27 Comments || Top||

#19  Anonymoose, BZ is not gentle
see: Reports on BZ (the superhallucinogen that violently detaches users from reality for days at a time)
more here

Think - really bad bad trip. really bad..
esp with the ants and stuff adding to it..
and everything amped.
Everything.
Like imagine actually being tortured by daemons in hell bad...


Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 22:39 Comments || Top||

#20  3dc: old tech. funny movies, though. However, we now have such things as endorphine blockers that can make you feel every nerve ending in your body at the same time. BZ is just too damn unreliable--unpredictable results. Sloppy.

We also have lovely, magnificant psychotropics that are just a wonderment. Think of them as full virtual-reality Hell simulators.

Paranoia drugs that will make you terrified of everything all at once, like a dozen different intense phobias.

Brain electrode implants that are just plain fun.

We can probably make him think he is a disembodied living brain in a jar. Or that pork is the tastiest food in the world. Or that he has met Allan, and she is a dominatrix. Or convince him that he is a raving homosexual.

We can re-write his brain so that he is our most trusted agent. Use drug-induced hypnosis and implant high tech explosives in his abdomen prior to his meeting with the President of Iran.

We have all this great technology, I say we use it.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 23:00 Comments || Top||

#21  Hall of Shame: Americans who participated in Iran's "Holocaust Cartoon" project:
Mike Flugennock
Aaron Heineman


http://www.irancartoon.com/

Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 23:15 Comments || Top||

#22  So why not air-drop some BZ via crop dusters to known hangouts of 'militants?'
Posted by: USN Ret. || 03/03/2006 23:16 Comments || Top||

#23  I'd be satisfied with:

1) Announce release time and place on radio / TV - two hours in advance.
2) Release at noon (local) time in Samarra, Iraq
3) One minute head start
Posted by: DMFD || 03/03/2006 23:45 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar Drives Through Crowd Deliberately
May be just random nutjob, or... a not so random nutjob.

A University graduate careened a rented silver Jeep Grand Cherokee through the Pit about noon Friday, striking nine pedestrians and sending six to UNC Hospitals with minor injuries.

Mohammed Reza Taheriazar, 22, who graduated in 2005, is still in custody at the Department of Public Safety after turning himself in after the incident. DPS spokesman Randy Young said he will be transferred, likely to the Orange County Jail, but did not say when that would be.

Taheriazar was born May 5, 1983, Born where? according to University registrar records. He was a psychology and philosophy major. He was published in The Charlotte Observer for dean's list honors in spring 2005. He is still listed as a senior in the print directory.

At about 2 p.m., a bomb threat was called into the University Commons apartment buiding D, at 303 Smith Level Road in Carrboro, where Taheriazar is believed to live. State Bureau of Investigations officials entered the building at 3:03 p.m. The Federal Bureau of Investigation now has arrived. No counter-terrorist agents are present, said Capt. Joel Booker, of the Carrboro Police Department.

Booker said the threat is related to the campus incident. All buildings have been cleared, and police encourage residents not to return to the complex. Officials have not yet entered the apartment, Booker said at 4:30 p.m.

"To my knowledge, the only person involved is being dealt with on (campus police's) end," he said. "This person obviously has roommates, but there's no reason to believe they were involved."

No, none at all. HEY LOOKITTHAT! Oh, just a bird. What were we talking about?

Commons apartments typically house four people. Booker said Taheriazar has two roommates, one a UNC student and one a student at a local community college.

They are trying to get one of the roommates to return to the apartment.

What ever for?

Chapel Hill police spokeswoman Jane Cousins said a Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar has a prior arrest. He was arrested June 16, 2003, on one count of resisting arrest and reckless driving.

EFL Much more at the link. The only thing that shocks me is that they gave out his name. I'm guess the Daily Tar Heel doesn't know that they are supposed to edit funny sounding names when it might be... well... you know.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 03/03/2006 17:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Meant to put this on page two.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 03/03/2006 17:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Reza indicates he's Persian (Iran). And screwing around with the suffix of his last name was common for the rioting Iranian students of the 70s. There are meanings for the suffix (i.e. -pour is son, zadeh is daughter) I don't know what azar is for. March is a common month for birthdate claims as their passports only have years, however, the days were usually the 21st or 20th of March (first or last day of the persian calender).
Posted by: Xenophon || 03/03/2006 21:57 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Madonna Awaits Messiah
US pop diva Madonna wants to buy a house in the Israeli town of Rosh Pina, where the ancient Jewish Kabbalah tradition expects the Messiah to appear at the end of the world.

Yediot Aharonot said the owner of a 100-year-old, ramshackle five-bedroom villa overlooking the Sea of the Galilee had been recently contacted several times by representatives of the superstar with a view to selling his property.

According to the same source, Madonna wants to renovate the building into a centre of study of mystical Jewish texts pored over by Kabbalah followers.

The self-proclaimed Material Girl, a keen aficionado of the ancient Jewish mystical tradition, last visited Israel in September 2004.

She turned to Kabbalah in 1997 through the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Centre which proclaims to offer a path to spiritual enlightenment through an eclectic mix of Orthodox Jewish tradition, visualisation and positive thinking.

Two years ago, she took the Hebrew name Esther and reportedly observes the Jewish sabbath, although she has not converted to Judaism.

One of her recent dance tracks is called "Isaac", the name of famous Kabbalah Rabbi Isaac Louria who lived and worked in the now northern Israeli town of Safed during the 16th century.
Oy. There goes the neighborhood.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 17:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Clearly she isn't a nice Catholic girl anymore. But what will she do if the Messiah has the temerity to appear while she's on tour elsewhere?
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 19:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Don't think she's touring much nowadays...
Posted by: Raj || 03/03/2006 19:20 Comments || Top||

#3  More proof that all the money in the world can't buy a lick of common sense.

What a pathetic loser.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 20:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Madonna Awaits Messiah

Probably because He's the only nooky she hasn't nicked yet.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 20:20 Comments || Top||

#5  'I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.'-Matthew 19:23-24

How she can work that will indeed be a miracle.
Posted by: Photle Fleart1604 || 03/03/2006 21:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Yeah, he's coming sweetheart and he's pissed!
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 03/03/2006 21:24 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
U.S.-Canada border pass card a bad idea, U.S. senator says
A U.S. senator is sounding the alarm about a plan for identity cards at the Canada-U.S. border, dubbing the idea a potential "economic and cultural train wreck." The blunt talk came from Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy who told a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington on Thursday he feels the entire plan is a "cockamamie idea." The so-called pass card, announced in January, will be used by Americans crossing the Canadian border.

"We've got an economic and cultural train wreck on the horizon," said Leahy. "I can just see a complete screw-up on the border come Jan. 1, 2008. Our closest friend in this hemisphere is going to be, like, what happened? Are we pariahs?" U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff defended the plan for the new cards. "Unless we were to waive all identification requirements and just let people come and go willy-nilly, it seems we owe the American public at least a kind of identification document that is biometric and that is secure," he said.
You know, national ID cards aren't really all that bad. If it improves security, why not?
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 14:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, national ID cards are that bad. I've seen plenty of people excluded from society because they didn't have an ordinary picture ID. And they couldn't get a picture ID without a picture ID.

And without a picture ID you can't rent an apartment, and you can't get a job. But this is now, bad as it is.

With a national ID, all of a sudden hundreds of intrusive and poorly thought out systems come into play. Databases filled with incorrect information that *can't* be corrected, are thrust into your life based on nothing more than bad luck.

Someone with a name kind of like yours has an outstanding warrant for a traffic citation in Florida--with a national ID card, you discover you can't get a driver's license in Oregon until you travel to Florida to get arrested so you can prove you are not who they think you are. (This is now, too, BTW. Happened to a friend.)

Other problems are that everybody wants to use the national ID card for their own purposes, like the Social Security number was misused. How about ridiculously low-security systems such as credit cards, with 1970s quality security, associated with your ID card? A nightmare.

You know they issue the damn things consecutively? So if you steal one credit card, you automatically know the numbers of the next 100 or so? And they adamantly refuse to improve their security.

Your medical records will be associated with your national ID card, making it very easy for your insurance company to discontinue coverage when you are no longer cost effective, that is, when you want them to pay for your medical costs, not just to pay them premiums. Thank you, HIPPA Act.

Look, right now the Brits are trying the national ID card scheme. See what a disaster it will be for them, before even thinking about the same for the US.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 16:34 Comments || Top||

#2  If it improves security, why not?

Ben Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." That's you he's talking about, Rafael. And nothing you've said leads me to believe he's wrong. Happy Brithday, Ben.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 16:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Contrast your response with that of Anonymoose.

I know what national identity cards are all about, from another world in another lifetime. (cards hell, identity booklets!) My experience with them is a little different, hence my statement that they aren't all that bad. Anonymoose did a great job pointing out how this would not be the case here.

Now, I'm just wondering Nimble, do you agree with Chertoff? Do you support these new border cards (PASS I think they're called)?
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 17:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Passports work fine. If they don't fix them, don't invent a new form.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 17:58 Comments || Top||

#5  show your ID - quit whining . Take the tinfoil off for a second. Does the US control who Canada admits as political refugees? Check the list and see if you agree. Whether it's a PASS, passport, Driver's License (restricted to legal citizens/aliens) or other hard-to-counterfeit ID, you may bitch and moan, but you'll show it or stay home, because the rest of rational America will DEMAND it. F*&king black helicopter nuts
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:08 Comments || Top||

#6  Just who exactly is whining? I'm all for whatever security measures are deemed necessary! National ID cards or whatever.

You'll note that these PASS cards are for AMERICANS crossing the border. Canadians will be required to show passports. Fucking black helicopter nuts! Or were you refering to Spemble?
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 18:21 Comments || Top||

#7  Yo, brilliant one - he's referring to Moose and (to my surprise), NS.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 18:23 Comments || Top||

#8  Moose has had Black Helicopter Syndrome for a long long time...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 18:24 Comments || Top||

#9  From the black helicopter society I resent that!! NSDQ!~
Posted by: 49 pan || 03/03/2006 20:17 Comments || Top||

#10  .com: Look, you may be filled with the milk of human kindness, trusting of your fellow man, honest as the day is long and always willing to give a sucker an even break.

That ain't my hood. I was raised around cutthroats, blackguards, hackers, teachers, thieves, creeps, rats, historians, finks, con-artists, bureaucrats, senior NCOs, spooks, and I suspect a few pimps. To say I have had a colorful vantage of the species is an understatement.

However, I see mankind as neither inherently good or evil. Weak and lazy, more to the point. So I rely on history.

If villains have used it for their purposes in past, and yet now, someone claims great good will come of it, call me dubious.

For this reason, I see no more purpose in ID cards than did Heinlein's Lazarus Long: that once a place adopts them, it is going to hell, so you had best pack your bags and leave.

In fact, I lump ID cards along with all the other accoutrements of the police state. They are well known, and the earliest, best example I can think of is that of the first emperor of China, Ch'in, whose techniques bore a startling similarity in the ancient world, to those used in East Germany.

Dammit, they keep doing it the same way every time.

And yet you say, but *THIS* time, the ID cards will be used for a GOOD purpose! Yeah, right.

Face it, this is the same damn argument liberals always use to try to justify socialism and communism. It didn't work in 100 OTHER countries, but that is just because they didn't TRY hard enough, or didn't spend enough money, or they were inferior ethnically, or whatever. IF WE CAN JUST TRY SOCIALISM OR COMMUNISM HERE, WE *KNOW* IT WILL WORK!!!! IT JUST *HAS* TO BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO GOOD!!!

Same with goddamn ID cards.

Face it, sometimes an idea just sucks, no matter how good it sounds. It's not paranoia to know that it sucks ahead of time, as it has sucked 100 times in 100 different places in the past.

Pattern recognition is one of the hallmarks of people who get through life with all of their fingers, toes and eyes.

Prove that you are smarter than a liberal. Look at the British experiment with ID cards, objectively. See what they get out of the deal vs. the major pain in the ass it turns out to be.

It won't happen quickly. Look how long it took for the National Health Care to go to the dogs. But I can almost guarantee it will be for crap. As it has been, and so shall it ever be, forevermore.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 22:02 Comments || Top||

#11  It's coming. Period. Get your 2¢ in constructively with everyone who you can collar. That would be good for us all because, indeed, there are those who will try to abuse it.

As for your colorful background - we might have a lot in common, lol. If I wasn't a near-total recluse, not out of paranoia - simply a personal choice, it would be fun to trade stories, heh.

Grab your congressman and anyone else you figure can steer it in the best direction.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 22:48 Comments || Top||

#12  Uhh... I hate to sound the doom-n-gloom, but all you people protesting ID cards need to take a look in your wallets (or equivalent). See that driver's licence? There it is. Try cashing a check without it.

The only thing standing in the way of the Orwell Nightmare that you are so worried about is the finite capacities of the Gummint to actualy do something.

While everyone here can come up with anecdotes all day long, your actual fears are mostly just potential. If your worries were to actualy come to pass, we would all have much more important / immediate things to worry about. I, for one would probably be mobilized to help implement whatever police state was being started up, and I would have to decide on wether I wanted to join the resistance in the woods, or be a mole from within resistance sympathiser/agent.
Posted by: N guard || 03/03/2006 22:53 Comments || Top||

#13  As far as a US police state goes, I have a simple way to tell if we are really becoming a police state, or if someone is having a paranoid delusion.

I call it the MSCE ditch digger scale.

The typical paranoid delusion is the fear that when the government "takes over", it will take all of the Microsoft Certified Engineers and make them dig ditches. This is because a paranoid police state America needs lots and lots of ditches for some reason, and heck, it's not like those engineers were doing anything constructive, anyway.

Of course this is ludicrous, but it shows the difference between a delusion and reality.

In a real police state, the government would use gradualism to take away *accustomed* rights, such as the right to bear arms, the right to free speech, the right to practice religion, etc. It would justify each of these as necessary to combat "the threat".

A real police state is also very obsessive about surveillance, and more than anything else, this shows the large grey area between a liberal state and an authoritarian state. A liberal state only uses authoritarian techniques against a small, criminal minority. An authoritarian state insists that only by inflicting such techniques on everybody, are they *able* to police the criminal minority.

So, for example, the US is far more a liberal state because we are allowed to own guns with few restrictions, compared to elsewhere. We can also be really abrasive with our political speech, even going so far as to suggest a politician dyes their hair, without being supressed, like in Germany.

However, we are more authoritarian over such things as highway speed limits, and shrug off the right to drive as fast as you want, which is beloved in Germany. So our government could get really abusive about speed limits and we would shrug it off as not particularly oppressive. But if they tried restricting our ownership of dogs and cats, there would be pitchforks and torches in the streets.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 23:18 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraqi Journalist: "The Direction of the Anger Has Changed"
NBC News' "Blogging Baghdad," via Steve Spuriel's NRO Media Blog.

Capturing the Iraqi Street Scene

I have mixed feelings when I pick up my camera and start filming on Baghdad's streets.

On the one hand, I feel good about being able to let the world know what is going on here. Being an Iraqi, I can go to places western cameramen can not go to. On the other hand, I am angry over what is happening to the people of Iraq.

Life gets harder everyday, and the poor are getting hit the hardest. The price of everything is going up, corruption is infesting the government, and to top it all off we are in constant danger because of the security situation. . . .

But when I am filming with my camera, I feel OK. I am not scared. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I have instincts. I know what to ask, and how to ask it so that people around me do not get upset, especially if I am filming at angry demonstrations. I try not to judge. I try to be fair.

The past few days were bad.


I wasn't surprised to see the big crowds hit the streets. Some people described the attacks on the tombs in Samara as an attack on their father's graves. Of course they went out and protested.

But you know, the direction of the anger has changed. A year ago everyone was angry at the Americans. Everyone thought they were responsible. But that is not the message I am getting on the street now. People know these attacks are being carried out by the extremists.

The situation may be tough for my job, but in the old days I would not have been able to shoot whatever I wanted. Under Saddam Hussein cameramen could never show pictures or film freely. They couldn't tell the real story.

That's all changed. The first image I ever filmed was the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down. That was my start.

It is a good job. When I see my pictures on TV, it really is all worth it. The hardship. The danger. It is worth it. Really.
Posted by: Mike || 03/03/2006 14:16 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's good to see that they're begining to refocus their anger. They've got the ingratitude schtick down pat.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 14:54 Comments || Top||

#2  The wind blows in from the East (Iran), South (Soddie), West (Syria), and North (former US Ally, Turkey).

What's an Iraqi to do?
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 15:04 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Sports Father from Hell
Posted by: too true || 03/03/2006 13:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not like hiring a hit man to take out a rival.
Posted by: Snomoting Ebbomong1497 || 03/03/2006 14:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Both sickening and depraved, but he was man enough to confess.
Posted by: Visitor || 03/03/2006 14:23 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Border patrol agent shoots at attackers
A U.S. Border Patrol agent opened fire when he was attacked by men with rocks shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday near the Rio Grande in the Lower Valley, an agency spokesman said.

No injuries were reported in the incident, which remained under investigation Thursday night. The attack, officials said, is part of an increase of assaults on agents in the El Paso region.

The unidentified agent was about five miles east of the Zaragoza Bridge when he was assaulted with rocks by a group of possible undocumented immigrants, who ran back into Mexico, said Agent Ramiro Cordero, a Border Patrol spokesman.

The assault took place on U.S. soil, but investigators were attempting to determine where the attackers were when the agent fired, officials said.

"Our agent was on U.S. soil, of course. They (attackers) were in the river. They were in the dry riverbed," Cordero said.

Mexican authorities, who were called for help, found no evidence that anyone was wounded, Border Patrol officials said.

Assaults on agents have been "growing significantly," Cordero said. "It depicts the pressure we are putting on the border because they are going to extreme measures."

In fiscal year 2005, the Border Patrol recorded 43 assaults against agents in the El Paso sector, compared with 21 in fiscal 2004.

Nationwide, agents were assaulted 687 times in fiscal year 2005, which ended in September, compared with 354 the previous year.
Posted by: too true || 03/03/2006 13:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nothin' a few predator drones couldn't handle.
Posted by: doc || 03/03/2006 14:10 Comments || Top||

#2  rocks are deadly weapons - direct shooting back is the appropriate response - make the shots accurate
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 14:25 Comments || Top||

#3  If this agent doesn't get fired, this is a good sign.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 14:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Call me when a border patrol agent actually shoots some of these criminals, not just "shoots at."

"A whiff of grape-shot" works for me.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 14:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Give ALL the agents live fire target practice.
Posted by: Ptah || 03/03/2006 14:41 Comments || Top||

#6  Send in the Veepinator...
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/03/2006 14:57 Comments || Top||

#7  What's the over/under for days till a gunfight with significant casualties occurs on the border?
Posted by: Penguin || 03/03/2006 15:10 Comments || Top||

#8  I think the illegals are learning the "intefadah" approach to crossing the border. Not a bad tactic, really, since they can play it defensively, instead of offensively, as it were.

By that, I mean that they don't go looking for any BPs to throw rocks at, they only throw rocks at the BPs who are in their way. Compare that to what the BP agents are trying to do, which is to stand there and block them getting into the US. Since the BP have to be fairly passive, even rocks make effective weapons.

In the near future, look for slow escalation from the Mexican side. Slings to throw their rocks with, for example.

And I imagine, that when the wall is constructed, it will all become a moot point.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 15:32 Comments || Top||

#9  Si Seafarious

happy hunting Mr. Cheney.
Posted by: RD || 03/03/2006 16:09 Comments || Top||

#10  Anyone else remember this story?
A camouflaged Marine on an anti-drug patrol to support the U.S. Border Patrol shot 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez Jr.(a US citizen) to death on May 20 (1997) near the Rio Grande in the Big Bend. Cpl. Clemente Banuelos, the team leader who shot Hernandez, said the youth was killed after firing twice at the four-man Marine patrol and raising his .22-caliber rifle to take a third shot.

In November 1998 the US goverment paid the Hernandez family $1.9 million dollars in a wrongful death settlement.

A Texas grand jury decided not to indict Cpl. Banuelos, but the incident did lead to a national debate on the issue of military personnel being assigned to the border. That's why no one is a big hurry to deploy troops along the border again.

Posted by: GK || 03/03/2006 16:43 Comments || Top||

#11  Oops. I sent out #10 before opining that that incident may also influence present border patrol policy regarding use of deadly force.
Posted by: GK || 03/03/2006 17:02 Comments || Top||

#12  Keep it up d-ass',bringing rocks to a gun fight,not smart.
Posted by: raptor || 03/03/2006 17:23 Comments || Top||

#13  the BP union has essentially won the argument that they have the right to shoot with deadly force when attacked (20-30 fist sized rocks = a deadly attack) here in CA, especially the San Diego sector. All they have to do is ask for a jury trial
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:14 Comments || Top||


Has the New York Times Violated the Espionage Act?
From Commentary, so severe EFL

The 9/11 Commission, in seeking to explain how we fell victim to a surprise assault, pointed to the gap between our foreign and domestic intelligence-collection systems, a gap that over time had grown into a critical vulnerability. Closing that gap, in the wake of September 11, meant intercepting al-Qaeda communications all over the globe. This was the purpose of the NSA program—a program “essential to U.S. national security,” in the words of Jane Harman, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee—the disclosure of which has now “damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

One might go further. What the New York Times has done is nothing less than to compromise the centerpiece of our defensive efforts in the war on terrorism. If information about the NSA program had been quietly conveyed to an al-Qaeda operative on a microdot, or on paper with invisible ink, there can be no doubt that the episode would have been treated by the government as a cut-and-dried case of espionage. Publishing it for the world to read, the Times has accomplished the same end while at the same time congratulating itself for bravely defending the First Amendment and thereby protecting us—from, presumably, ourselves. The fact that it chose to drop this revelation into print on the very day that renewal of the Patriot Act was being debated in the Senate—the bill’s reauthorization beyond a few weeks is still not assured—speaks for itself.

The Justice Department has already initiated a criminal investigation into the leak of the NSA program, focusing on which government employees may have broken the law. But the government is contending with hundreds of national-security leaks, and progress is uncertain at best. The real question that an intrepid prosecutor in the Justice Department should be asking is whether, in the aftermath of September 11, we as a nation can afford to permit the reporters and editors of a great newspaper to become the unelected authority that determines for all of us what is a legitimate secret and what is not. Like the Constitution itself, the First Amendment’s protections of freedom of the press are not a suicide pact. The laws governing what the Times has done are perfectly clear; will they be enforced?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 13:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The laws governing what the Times has done are perfectly clear; will they be enforced?
In my lifetime ?
Posted by: wxjames || 03/03/2006 14:10 Comments || Top||

#2  The White House should sue to shut down the NY times... thats right I said it.
Posted by: bgrebel || 03/03/2006 15:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Sue to shut them down? Not necessary. Arrest each writer and editor, and charge them appropriately under the Penal Code? Yup, that would do it.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/03/2006 15:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Why do we need to pass more laws, use the 'living' nature of the Constitution and torte lawyers acting on behalf of any citizen or soldier killed or wounded subsequent to the release of tips, techniques, and proceedures which they [the enemy] can exploit to cause carnage. Sue them to oblivion.
Posted by: Angomogum Unutle3413 || 03/03/2006 16:11 Comments || Top||

#5  Has the New York Times Violated the Espionage Act?

What? Today???
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 17:05 Comments || Top||

#6  Duh!

Ya' think?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 18:09 Comments || Top||

#7  Yes. Next question ...
Posted by: DMFD || 03/03/2006 19:37 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
The Bloody Borders Project
Back in December, the Baron wrote a post in which he mentioned Samuel Huntington’s well-known quote about Islam’s “bloody borders”. The imagery was graphic and startling. In my ignorance, I asked the Baron if he could draw a simple map delineating these boundaries. I wanted to be able to see these “fault lines”. I wanted to see if a pictorial representation would help me better to understand the reach and the destruction of what the Islamofascists have wrought.

The Baron reminded me that no such map could be made. Islamic terrorism takes place among, between, and inside many countries. The constant, vicious, lethal storm of Islamist violence stretches from equatorial Africa and the Barbary coast, across the Holy Land and the Arabian heartland, snaking through the mountains and plains of South Asia, making its way along the littoral of Indochina and the Indian Ocean, and ending in the archipelagos of the Pacific Rim.

The Baron explained the difficulties inherent in making any map encompassing what I wanted to see. To be accurate, his cartography would have to include the ongoing quotidian massacres that have occurred and continue behind the screen erected by the legacy media, the screen on which they display the bread and circuses meant to trivialize and distract. What does it matter that thirty Hindus died in Kashmir today, or that 350 women were raped in Darfur, when there is the serious matter of Paris Hilton videos to be considered?

And so we come now to what I call The Bloody Borders Project. Or, on my bad days, “that bloody Bloody Borders Project.” Perhaps, as you view it, you too will be changed by what you see. You are seeing it because of all those falling bodies in New York City on that September day in 2001. How ignorant we were not to know that bodies had been falling, falling for years, all along those bloody borders.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/03/2006 12:56 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Goodness, what an incredible resource!
Posted by: Ptah || 03/03/2006 14:52 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't know how to do it mathematically, but if you could plot a point that minimizes the total distance between that point and the location of all the terrorist incidents, what are the chances it would be Tehran? Also note the number of incidents that occur in dictatorships vs. open societies or failed states.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 15:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Seafarious:

We are doing something. We are exporting freedom to the oppressed peoples of the Middle East. And they love us for it.
Posted by: Thrith Omeatch6456 || 03/03/2006 15:30 Comments || Top||

#4  The project shows two killed in Baton Rouge and two killed, two injured in Montgomery. Anyone have any details?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/03/2006 20:02 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Mark Steyn on the Oscars

EFL'd to get to the part where he eviscerates George Clooney.

. . . Say what you like about those Hollywood guys in the Thirties but they were serious about their leftism. Say what you like about those Hollywood guys in the Seventies but they were serious about their outrage at what was done to the lefties in the McCarthy era – though they might have been better directing their anger at the movie-industry muscle that enforced the blacklist. By comparison, Clooney’s is no more than a pose – he’s acting at activism, new Hollywood mimicking old Hollywood’s robust defense of even older Hollywood. He’s more taken by the idea of “speaking truth to power” than the footling question of whether the truth he’s speaking to power is actually true.

That’s why Hollywood prefers to make “controversial” films about controversies that are settled, rousing itself to fight battles long won. Go back to USA Today’s approving list of Hollywood’s willingness to “broach tough issues”: “Brokeback and Capote for their portrayal of gay characters; Crash for its examination of racial tension…” That might have been “bold” “courageous” movie-making half-a-century ago. Ever seen the Dirk Bogarde film Victim? He plays a respectable married barrister whose latest case threatens to expose his own homosexuality. That was 1961, when homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom and Bogarde was the British movie industry’s matinee idol and every schoolgirl’s pin-up: That’s brave. Doing it at a time when your typical conservative politician gets denounced as “homophobic” because he’s only in favor of civil unions is just an exercise in moral self-congratulation. And, unlike the media, most of the American people are savvy enough to conclude that by definition that doesn’t require their participation.

These films are “transgressive” mostly in the sense that Transamerica is transsexual. I like Felicity Huffman and all, and I’m not up to speed with the latest strictures on identity-group casting but isn’t it a bit condescending to get a lifelong woman (or whatever the expression is) to play a transsexual? If Hollywood announced Al Jolson would be playing Martin Luther King, I’m sure Denzel Washington and co would have something to say about it. Were no transsexual actresses available for this role? I know at least one of my acquaintance, and there was a transsexual Bond girl in the late Roger Moore era who looked incredibly hot, albeit with a voice several octaves below Paul Robeson. What about that cutie with the very fetching Adam’s apple from The Crying Game? And, just as Transamerica’s allegedly unconventional woman is a perfectly conventional woman underneath, so the entire slate of Oscar nominees is, in a broader sense, a phalanx of Felicity Huffmans. They’re dressing up daringly and flouncing around as controversy, but underneath they’re simply the conventional wisdom. Indeed, “Transamerica” would make a good name for Hollywood’s view of its domestic market – a bizarro United States run by racists and homophobes and a poodle media in thrall to the Administration.

You can certainly find new wrinkles on “racial tensions” – Abie’s Wahhabi Rose? – but Hollywood “controversy” seems more an evasion of controversy. If you want it in a single word, it’s the difference between the title of George Jonas’ original book – Vengeance – and the title of the film Steven Spielberg made of it – Munich. Vengeance is a point of view, Munich is a round of self-applause for the point of view that having no point of view is the most sophisticated point of view of all – a position whose empty smugness is most deftly summarized by the final shot of the movie, the Twin Towers on the New York skyline. For a serious film, it would be hard to end on a more fundamentally unserious note.

"Munich" is also a synonym for pacifist appeasement in the face of aggressive evil. Mere coincidence? Neville--oops, I mean Stephen Speilberg may have been more correct than he'll ever appreciate.

But then it’s hard to be serious when you’ve made a virtue of dodging the tough choices of the age. The BritLit blockbusters currently keeping Hollywood afloat – Harry Potter, Narnia, Lord Of The Rings – may be ghastly Multiplex crowd-pleasers unworthy of great artists like George Clooney but they’re not a retreat to the periphery in the way that Hollywood “seriousness” is.
I hope Steyn's just mocking George Clooney here, and not slagging Harry Potter, Narnia, and LoTR. Tolkein is great literature on a level most writers can only dream of approaching. The Narnia books are some of the most serious children's literature ever written, by one of the most serious theologians and apologists of the last century. Even Harry Potter has an awful lot going on beyond a simple story.
Okay, i'll shut up now.

Spielberg’s lingering shot of the World Trade Center wasn’t even the most equisitely framed banality of the year. That honor goes to The Constant Gardener, which may yet win Rachel Weisz an Oscar for her role as a passionate anti-globalization activist who dies in mysterious circumstances. At one point Ralph Fiennes is doing his signature stare, peering elliptically into the distance, when the camera pulls back to show him as a little stick-figure dwarfed by the mega-multinational pharmaceutical company’s corporate headquarters he’s standing outside.

Oh, come off it. The Constant Gardener is distributed by Universal Pictures. Don’t they have a big office? If King Kong’s standing outside waiting to get past security to find out why his residuals check has bounced, then Universal might look like some little mom’n’pop operation. But stick any of the rest of us on the sidewalk and we’d be like Ralph Fiennes outside Big Pharma. That’s Hollywood: no-one lavishes more care and expense on saying nothing.

Three months after 9/11, George Clooney was asked what he wanted for Christmas. “I want,” he said, “one day when nobody is getting shot at. Call a truce for a day.” Our own Jay Nordlinger remarked at the time that this was “a child’s response”, correctly noting “the implied moral randomness… People are just shooting at each other, you know, and shooting at each other is bad.”
Actually, most children have a more sophisticated view of things than that.
If you want stories about journalists, nobody was shooting on the day The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl had his head sawed off. If you want stories about “racial tensions”, nobody was shooting on the day British expat Ken Bigley was similarly decapitated. Hollywood’s “bravery” is an almost pathological retreat: it’s against segregated drinking fountains in Alabama and blacklisting writers on 1950s variety shows. It’s in danger of becoming an oldies station with only three records. . . .
Posted by: Mike || 03/03/2006 12:40 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Brokeback had no basis in reality. A out-of-the-closet gay (queer in those days) in the Wild West would have measured his life in seconds.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 13:38 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Japan Wants N. Korean Agents Put on List
Japan has asked Interpol to put two elderly former North Korean spies on an international wanted list for their suspected involvement in kidnapping at least four Japanese citizens in the 1970s, media reports said Friday. The move was another step in the government's efforts to pressure North Korea into cooperating more fully in detailing what happened to the abducted Japanese.

North Korea said in 2002 that its agents kidnapped 13 Japanese over the years, apparently to train spies in the Japanese language and culture. It returned five of the victims, including two couples, but said the remaining eight were dead. Japan, however, suspects some of the others are still living in North Korea and has demanded conclusive proof of their deaths. It also wants information on other missing people that authorities think may have been kidnapped by the North.

With public anger in Japan high, Japanese leaders have put the issue at the top of the agenda in recent rounds of talks with North Korea and they rule out increased ties sought by the communist regime in Pyongyang until there is progress. Last month, Japanese courts issued arrest warrants for two former North Korean agents -- Shin Kwang Su and Choi Sung Chol -- suspected of participating in some of the kidnappings. The government demanded Pyongyang hand over the men for trial. Now the National Police Agency has requested that Interpol put the two men on the international wanted list, public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News agency reported. The police agency and Foreign Ministry would not confirm the report. The two men, who are both in their 70s and are believed to be in North Korea, are suspected of kidnapping two couples -- Yasushi and Fukie Chimura and Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike -- separately from western Japan in 1978. North Korea returned all four to Japan in 2002.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 12:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
[warbling tone] Channel D, Waverly here.

As he speaks into a pen.

Posted by: Vinkat Bala Subrumanian || 03/03/2006 13:16 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Carter Seeks Vote in U.N. Against U.S.
President Carter personally called Secretary of State Rice to try to convince her to reverse her U.N. ambassador's position on changes to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the former president recalled yesterday in a talk in which he also criticized President Bush's Christian bona fides and misstated past American policies on Israel.

Mr. Carter said he made a personal promise to ambassadors from Egypt, Pakistan, and Cuba on the U.N. change issue that was undermined by America's ambassador, John Bolton. "My hope is that when the vote is taken," he told the Council on Foreign Relations, "the other members will outvote the United States."

While other former presidents have tried to refrain from attacking the sitting chief executive, Mr. Carter's attacks on President Bush have increased. The episode he recounted yesterday showed how he tried to undermine officials at lower levels in an effort to influence policy.

The story, as Mr. Carter recalled, began with a recent dinner for 17 he attended in New York, where the guests included the president of the U.N. General Assembly, Jan Eliasson; an unidentified American representative, and other U.N. ambassadors from "powerful" countries at Turtle Bay, of which he mentioned only three: Cuba, Egypt, and Pakistan. The topic was the ongoing negotiations on an attempt to replace the widely discredited Geneva-based Human Rights Commission with a more accountable Human Rights Council.

"One of the things I assured them of was that the United States was not going to dominate all the other nations of the world in the Human Rights Council," Mr. Carter said. However, on the next day, Mr. Carter said, Mr. Bolton publicly "demanded" that the five permanent members of the Security Council will have permanent seats on the new council as well, "which subverted exactly what I have promised them," Mr. Carter said.

"So I called Condoleezza Rice and told her about the problem, and she said that that statement by our representative was not going to be honored," he said. But despite Mr. Carter's assessment that there are "a lot of people" in Washington who oppose Mr. Bolton on the Human Rights Council, Mr. Bolton's opposition to the proposed new structure became American policy.

Publications not known for their support of the Bush administration or Mr. Bolton, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, recently backed the ambassador's policy on the Human Rights Council, saying in editorials that the compromise hashed out by Mr. Eliasson is an inadequate fix for the existing structure.

Mr. Bolton's spokesman, Richard Grenell, told The New York Sun yesterday that it is "naive" to think that Mr. Bolton has "a different position than the rest of the United States government on this issue."

Asked yesterday about his views on religion, Mr. Carter said, "The essence of my faith is one of peace." In a clear swipe at Mr. Bush's faith, and to a round of applause, he then added, "We worship the prince of peace, not of pre-emptive war." Mr. Carter then went on to attack American Christians who support Israel.

He also reiterated his known view that most of the problems in the Israeli-Arab front derive from Israel's settlement policies and its building of a defensive barrier in what he insisted on calling "Palestine."

"From Dwight Eisenhower to the road map of George W. Bush, our policy has been that Israel's borders coincide with those of 1949," Mr. Carter said, adding, "All my predecessors have categorized each settlement as both illegal and an obstacle to peace."

On April 14, 2004,President Bush said in a speech, "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." He later cemented that statement in a letter to Prime Minister Sharon, which became the stated American policy on Israeli settlements.

The host of yesterday's event, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, who has served several presidents in key Middle East roles, including most recently Mr. Bush, told the Sun yesterday that while American officials frequently defined settlements as an "obstacle to peace" they refrained from calling them "illegal."



Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 12:17 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How the hell was this drooling embarrassment elected president?!?
Posted by: BH || 03/03/2006 12:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Man... If this isn't sedition, what is? Carter, you are NOT the fucking president anymore! Stop damaging US security and intrests by trying to (clumsily too) undermine Bush.

Someone kill this asshole. PLEASE!!!
Posted by: mmurray821 || 03/03/2006 12:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Time was I used to think he was a good natured but honestly misguided person.
Turns out I was misguided giving that old useless dick the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 03/03/2006 12:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Wow, what a humongous ego. He still thinks he can make promises to foreign governments and expect them to be upheld? That ended 26 years ago Jimmy. Wake up and fuckin realize it, dipshit.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 12:56 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm embarrased every time I see that tired old hack. He should have left this country long ago if he doesn't uphold the values this country stands for.
Posted by: Crusader || 03/03/2006 13:01 Comments || Top||

#6  I will long remember a dear, sweet, little old lady being escorted by her family to a restaurant to celebrate her 92nd birthday. Some kook was literally soapboxing, standing on a box to rail at the crowd about some schizophrenic political conspiracy theory.

Watching him for a few seconds, the little old lady suddenly boomed out, in an uncharacteristically deep voice for a little old lady:

"JEEEEEZUS! WHAT AN ASSHOLE!"

There was a pregnant pause, then somebody in the crowd snickered, and everybody there but the fanatic cracked up in loud laughter. That was pretty much the end of the political show.

Whenever I read about someone like Jimmuh Carter, the voice of the dear, sweet, republican, little old lady comes through, loud as a bell.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 13:08 Comments || Top||

#7  ;-)
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 13:10 Comments || Top||

#8  Seems to me that if we can't terminate his pension, we should at least pay it in some foreign currency -- perhaps Iranian payable only at the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/03/2006 13:37 Comments || Top||

#9  I'm training a ninja rabbit to take him out.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/03/2006 13:53 Comments || Top||

#10  How the hell was this drooling embarrassment elected president?!?

1 - President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon which pissed off enough people as not to show up at the polls.

2 - He refused to fire Kissinger who'd already decided the Soviets had won which pissed off enough people not to show up at the polls.

Ford was the Washington establishment's choice for election. He beat out his Republican primary challenger, Ronald Reagan. Guess what happened four years later?
Posted by: Snomoting Ebbomong1497 || 03/03/2006 13:56 Comments || Top||

#11  He also reiterated his known view that most of the problems in the Israeli-Arab front derive from Israel's settlement policies and its building of a defensive barrier in what he insisted on calling "Palestine."

Yeah, sure, you betcha. The endless white-hot genocidal Arab hatred for the Jews has nothing to do with it at all. If this @sshole isn't senile, he oughta be. Do the Democrats realize that they've gone past the point of being amusingly misguided and crossed over into the realm of being dangerously idiotic?
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 15:08 Comments || Top||

#12  First of all, Mr. Carter is a U.S. citizen and as such is entitled to exercise his right of free speech. I disagree with virtualy everything he says, but I support his right to say it.

Second, it is important to understand that this is the core position of the Democratic party. It is what Kos believes. It is what Hollywood and the old media believes. It is what Gore believes (but didn't say until after his presidential run); it is what Kerry believes, and it is what Hillary believes but won't state publicly.
Posted by: DoDo || 03/03/2006 17:16 Comments || Top||

#13  Asked yesterday about his views on religion, Mr. Carter said, "The essence of my faith is one of peace." In a clear swipe at Mr. Bush's faith, and to a round of applause, he then added, "We worship the prince of peace, not of pre-emptive war." Mr. Carter then went on to attack American Christians who support Israel.

That epitomizes what I can't stand about "mainline" Protestant Churches: the pride of using the Church as a soapbox for one's political views and not knowing the difference between the political and theological. At least the Roman Catholic Church, for all its faults - agree with it or not, very clearly defines the core dogma of the Church and what is in the realm of personal conviction.
Posted by: Xbalanke || 03/03/2006 17:37 Comments || Top||

#14  the peace of the dhimmi
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 19:24 Comments || Top||

#15  At least ex-President John Tyler had the stones to join another government. He died in 1862 while a member of the Confederate House of Representatives.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/03/2006 19:29 Comments || Top||

#16  DoDo - this bullshit is NOT free speech.

Giving promises to foreign governments in the name of our government when he is not authorized by our government to do so is flat-out sedition. Especially when those promises are against the policy of our country.

I'd say put him in jail, but the other prisoners would probably complain it was cruel and unusual punishment. For them.

Since he thinks all these dictatorships are so wonderful, he needs to live in one of them. Permanently.

I suggest Gaza.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 19:35 Comments || Top||

#17  Carter is a negative indicator. If he's for a position, any sane person will question it. BTW, he's for letting Dubai run our ports.
Posted by: DMFD || 03/03/2006 19:44 Comments || Top||

#18  First of all, Mr. Carter is a U.S. citizen and as such is entitled to exercise his right of free speech. I disagree with virtualy everything he says, but I support his right to say it.

Freedom of speech doesn't include the right to conduct your own foreign policy. Carter's passport should be revoked.

Or, hell, he needs to be evaluated by a mental health professional.
Posted by: Shease Grinese2156 || 03/03/2006 19:57 Comments || Top||

#19  or publically disavowed - even better
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 23:04 Comments || Top||


Iraq
U.S. Intel: Qaeda Plotting 'Big Bang'
U.S. officials tell CBS News that intelligence has picked up reports that al Qaeda in Iraq is planning what one source calls the "Big Bang," a spectacular terrorist attack in Iraq against either a single high-profile target or multiple targets simultaneously.

Last week's mosque bombing in city of Samarra that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war was the work of terrorists, some U.S. officials have theorized. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi seems to be betting that another big bang would push the country over the brink, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin. The bomb in one of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims set off violence all across the country that left hundreds dead.

The Iraqi government has banned all private vehicles in Baghdad during daylight hours Friday, the Muslim prayer day, just as it did last week. That kept car bombs, what the military cars vehicle-born improvised explosive devices, off the streets.

But Zarqawi just waited until the ban was lifted.

"The day the vehicle ban was lifted, all these VBIEDS that he had staged he deployed in Iraq and detonated over the last three days," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a U.S. military spokesman.

This week, the ban takes effect when the overnight curfew ends at 6 a.m. Friday and will last until 4 p.m. Friday, according to a statement issued by the prime minister's office. Police and army were instructed to seal off the capital and seize any private vehicles that defy the ban.

Pentagon officials are also worried that a terrorist spectacular will undermine administration claims about progress in Iraq and therefore weaken public support for the war here at home, Martin reports.

Also Thursday, a bomb ripped through a vegetable market in a Shiite section of Baghdad and a leading Sunni politician escaped an attack on his convoy as at least 36 people were killed in unrelenting violence pushing Iraq toward civil war.

As sectarian killing surged last week, the U.S. 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division was put on alert in neighboring Kuwait for a possible move into Iraq, the military said. But no orders were given for such a move.

The violence has complicated talks to form a broad-based government, which U.S. officials consider essential to cut support for insurgents among the Sunni-Arab minority so coalition forces can start drawing down later this year.

Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 12:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Somebody cover Sistani like fleas on a dog...
Posted by: Ptah || 03/03/2006 14:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Does this follow the "Iraq is having a civil war" story?

Keep in mind, terrorists are so not only for what they do, but how they terrorize innocent people when they say they are going to do something.

And, C(the)BS is right on the story, acting as Zarq's PR agency.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 15:07 Comments || Top||

#3  We really, really need to link Zarqawi to the Iranians more substantially. Driving a wedge between Qom and Baghdad is the best thing we can possibly do right now. Isolating Iran by dint of its incessant sponsorship of international terrorism is a critical prelude to bombing the living crap out of them.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 15:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Question for Bush Backers on Iraq insurgency:

If insurgents can push Iraq to the brink of civil war while the U.S. military coalition is in the the country, what do you think will happen once they leave?

Posted by: Just Curious || 03/03/2006 16:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Depends on when we leave.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 16:10 Comments || Top||

#6  Prez Bush has stated in so many words that the U.S. coalition "will stand down as the Iraqi military and security forces stand up"..

I take that to mean that U.S. coalition will leave when Iraq can defend itself against attacks against it's new democratic government.

What is troubling in that strategy is that the U.S. military coalition is currently in Iraq
and a civil war nearly broke out. Do you truly believe that once the U.S. leaves a civil war WONT break out?
Posted by: Just Curious || 03/03/2006 16:21 Comments || Top||

#7  Depends Just Curious/Left Angle/etc. etc.. Depends on a number of factors, including choices the various Iraqis make.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 16:27 Comments || Top||

#8  Depends on who wins in 2008.
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 16:35 Comments || Top||

#9  So ltop, youre taking a wait and see position on the question. I can respect that.

IMHO, if the insurgency can cause a civil war to nearly break out while the U.S. military coalition is Iraq currently, civil war is inevitable when the U.S. coalition leaves.
Posted by: Just Curious || 03/03/2006 16:41 Comments || Top||

#10  i dont consider myself a bush backer.

While im more pessimistic than i was a couple of weeks ago, i dont see a collapse of order as inevitable. The Iraqi army seems to have performed well in this crisis. The Iraqi interior ministry and police forces have been more mixed. Much depends on who the next Iraqi Interior Minister will be. Much depends on how SCIRI reacts to Sadrs new assertiveness. Much depends on whether the Sunnis are scared enough to compromise.

Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/03/2006 16:55 Comments || Top||

#11  Expect it to get worse in the short run. The Iranians and Al Qaeda each have their own reasons to try a huge push to destabilize things thoroughly.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 17:07 Comments || Top||

#12  Al Q is always plotting a big bang.

24 - 7

So why is this news>
Posted by: mhw || 03/03/2006 17:10 Comments || Top||

#13  Expect massive car bombs in multiple cities at once, aimed in part at a wide variety of Iraqi officials. Not the model at this very moment.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 17:23 Comments || Top||

#14  sure. CBS News has a direct pipeline to disaffected Clinton leftovers trying to set up an "I told you so" top Bush Security officials. That's who they turn to first, via Lucy Ramirez, Texas Correspondant.
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:02 Comments || Top||

#15  Sounds like scuttlebut from the Greenzone Lounge.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/03/2006 18:05 Comments || Top||

#16  Just Curious: It depends on where we go when we leave.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 21:06 Comments || Top||

#17  I can't resist...

IF they create a big bang - who will be god in the created universe? Binny?
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 22:41 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Three Killed at Indian Anti-Bush Protests
Anger at President Bush swept through parts of India on Friday as protesters burned his effigy and carried posters of Osama bin Laden. Three people were killed in clashes, and 18 were injured.

While most Indians look favorably upon the United States, and though the protests have not been as large as expected, anti-Bush demonstrations have been held in various Indian cities by communists and Muslim groups during his visit.

Violence erupted in the city of Lucknow when dozens of armed Muslims tried to force Hindu shop owners to shut their stores to protest Bush's visit, said Senior Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Pandey. The two sides argued, exchanged blows, and finally shot at each other, killing a Muslim teenager, Pandey said.

Television stations showed shrieking people carrying the injured on fruit carts through narrow streets choked with protesters.

In the southern city of Hyderabad, demonstrators burned an effigy of Bush around the time that he arrived there.

Chanting "Bush hands off India" and "Bush go home," several hundred communist and Muslim demonstrators marched through the city, and shops in the Muslim-dominated Charminar neighborhood were closed in protest. Some 40 percent of the city's 7 million people are Muslim.

Later, some worshippers at a Charminar mosque threw rocks at police after Friday prayers. Officers surrounded the mosque with barbed wire and called on protesters to disperse peacefully. Two protesters and two policemen were slightly wounded, police said.

In Hyderabad, protesters waving red and black banners marched three kilometers (two miles) to a rally where they burned an effigy of Bush and conducted a mock funeral. Some carried posters of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

"We are protesting against George Bush because he is a warmonger. We are demanding the evacuation of American troops from Iraq," said B.V. Raghavulu, a senior leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

In Srinagar some 5,000 worshippers chanted anti-American slogans and burned effigies of Bush as they emerged from Friday prayers. The worshippers pelted police with stones and bricks.

Police used tear gas to disperse them and the street fighting left about a dozen protesters and policemen injured, said police officer Ali Mohammad.
HYDERABAD, India (Rantburg News Service): Muslim clerics and commies continued manufacturing anger at President Bush in an effort to disrupt his visit to India on Friday. Protesters burned his effigy and carried posters of Osama bin Laden. The clashes, as is traditional with Muslim festivities, claimed three lives.

Violence erupted in the city of Lucknow when dozens of armed Muslim bully boyz tried to force Hindu shop owners to shut their stores, said Senior Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Pandey. The Hindoos, preferring their livelihood to indulging the latest Muslim temper tantrum, told them to piss off. A Muslim yoot hollered "Go fer yer guns, Mukkerjee!" whereupon Mukkerjee shot him through the brisket. Television stations showed shrieking, eye-rolling protesters, jumping up and down and carrying the injured on fruit carts through narrow streets choked with lunatics.

In the southern city of Hyderabad, demonstrators burned an effigy of Bush around the time that he arrived there. "They did?" President Bush responded when asked about the burnings. "I didn't feel a thing. I suppose it gives them something to do, though, since it didn't look like they were the kind of people who have jobs."

Chanting "Bush hands off India" and "Bush go home," several hundred communist and Muslim demonstrators tromped through the city. Shops in the Muslim-dominated Charminar neighborhood were closed in protest. Some 40 percent of the city's 7 million people are Muslim. Most of the rest are normal people.

Later, some rioters at a Charminar mosque threw rocks at police after being whipped to a frenzy by their holy men at Friday prayers. Officers surrounded the mosque with barbed wire, much like caging crazed animals, and called on protesters to disperse peacefully. Two protesters and two policemen were slightly wounded, police said, which indicates they didn't.

In Hyderabad, protesters waving red and black banners dutifully tromped three kilometers (two miles) to the usual rally where they burned an effigy of Bush and conducted a mock funeral. "I'm mock dead?" Bush asked rhetorically. "Hell, I don't even feel mock sick!"

Some carried posters of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Evil Bert. "We are protesting against George Bush because he is a warmonger. We are demanding the evacuation of American troops from Iraq," said B.V. Raghavulu, a senior leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

In Srinagar some 5,000 worshippers chanted the usual anti-American slogans and burned effigies of Bush as they erupted from their dosage of Olde Tyme Religion at Friday prayers. The worshippers piously pelted police with stones and bricks. Police used holy tear gas to disperse them and the ritual street fighting left about a dozen protesters and policemen injured, said police officer Ali Mohammad.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 12:12 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Muslim Brotherhood Activists Arrested
Egyptian security forces on Friday arrested seven student activists from the banned Muslim Brotherhood, an official for the group said. Abdul Munem Mahmoud, the Muslim Brotherhood official, said seven members of the group, all university organizers, were arrested during a raid on their Cairo apartment. "Security men broke into the apartment and arrested the young men and took them to an unknown destination," Mahmoud said. "They were only arranging a protest against the offensive cartoons of our great prophet."

A police official confirmed the arrest. "The men attached to the Brotherhood were having a meeting in their place, which is banned by the government," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 12:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
..How Crooked Was Duke Cunningham?...
....I knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad..

The staggering details of Cunningham's wrongdoing surpass anything in the history of Congress, official Senate and House historians said.

"In the sheer dollar amount, he is the most corrupt," said Deputy House Historian Fred W. Beuttler. "The scale of it is unprecedented."


RTWT.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/03/2006 12:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  His bribes included a Rolls-Royce...

Hey, I mean who would take notice of a congressman driving around in a Rolls and start asking questions?
What a friggin idiot...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 12:15 Comments || Top||

#2  "His own misconduct has already left him penniless, homeless, estranged from those he loves and disgraced in the eyes of his countrymen,"
Yup, and now for a stint in the pokey - off you go, good riddance.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 03/03/2006 12:29 Comments || Top||

#3  The scale is unprecedented? Teapot Dome? Credit Mobelier? Abscam? Koreagate? If it's sheer dollar amount, it's only because of inflation.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 13:17 Comments || Top||

#4  The Credit Moblier was a good one, all right. Union Pacific RR. And they pretty much got away with it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/03/2006 19:53 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
EU, Iran fail to reach nuclear deal
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 11:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Baghdad under daytime curfew
Iraqi troops and police are patrolling the deserted streets of Baghdad after the government imposed a daytime traffic curfew to avert possible violence between Sunnis and Shia on the day of the Muslim congregational prayer. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi prime minister, has warned clerics not to use inflammatory language from pulpits on Friday as he tried to rally Sunni and other leaders into a US-sponsored unity coalition to help staunch 10 days of sectarian bloodshed.

The main minority Sunni bloc ended a boycott of talks called in protest at reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques after the bombing of a Shia shrine on 22 February. Violence has killed at least 500 people, even by conservative official accounts. But after al-Jaafari hosted a late-night meeting on Thursday of the main parties elected to parliament in December, political sources said Sunnis, Kurds and other leaders were still pushing the dominant Shia Alliance to ditch al-Jaafari as premier. A senior official in the Sunnis' Iraqi Accordance Front said: "The negotiations will go on, but we still insist on removing al-Jaafari."
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 11:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Accountant stole millions to support 17 lovers
An "unremarkable" accountant stole £9.5 million to support 17 lovers, a court in Japan heard yesterday.

Masaaki Matsubayashi, 56, admitted diverting money from a baking company's health insurance scheme on more than 500 occasions in the last five years alone.

Colleagues were reportedly stunned to discover that Matsubayashi, an apparently unremarkable officeworker, had numerous mistresses going back over 25 years.

He reportedly bought several of them expensive Mercedes, one received a £10,000 kimono and he continued to pay £1,500 a month to a lover he had not seen in years. Matsubayashi was office chief in the accounts department at the Shikishima Baking Company in Nagoya, where he was said to be a quiet man who left office parties early.

No one suspected that he maintained a secret apartment and toured nightclubs to drink with hostesses.

However, his home was said to be dilapidated. His wife, who is reported to have been unaware of his double life, has now divorced him.

The Shukan Jitsuwa magazine reported that he initially told police: "I want more new women. It's what I live for. I don't feel guilty at all."

Yesterday, he told the court in Nagoya: "I am truly sorry." He will be sentenced at a later date.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 11:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "I want more new women. It's what I live for. I don't feel guilty at all."
If that's the lifestyle of the average accountant, I have truly missed my vocation, dammit!
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 11:08 Comments || Top||

#2  ...he was said to be a quiet man who left office parties early.

And now they know why...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 11:57 Comments || Top||

#3  This story really needs a graphic...
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 03/03/2006 12:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Your wish is our command ... ;-)
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 12:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Note to Fred: I can't get the graphic posting to work in linux on Firefox. Clues?
Preview can go south too.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 12:35 Comments || Top||

#6  Sorry. It only works in IE and Opera. It's a DOM thing.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 23:57 Comments || Top||


And now for something completely different : Backmasking!
Years ago someone told me that if you played Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven song backwards that you could make out "satanic messages". It is not my opinion that Led Zeppelin and the other artists here were given some kind of evil power to make these backwards sounds have a satanic message. And, no, I did not create this to show the evils of Rock and Roll. Instead I made this flash piece for two reasons:

I was new to flash and wanted to be better at it and
The reverse files sound cool.
The way I made these sound clips was first to get a copy of the original versions. For example I took my copy of Stairway to Heaven (I tried it once with a live version but I couldn't hear the message clearly) then opened it in a sound editing program (I used Windows Sound Recorder—but you can use the open source software Audacity), and reverse it. Crop to the place with back-masking sounds. That's it.

Cool flash animation by Jeff Milner with a dozen backmasks, some very cool (Eminem), some creepy (Pokemon, Britney Spears). Totally WOT-unrelated, but fun IMHO.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 10:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Man 'hacks off own legs' with a chainsaw
A MAN who claimed a chainsaw gang chopped off his legs did it himself, police said yesterday.
This calls for a Leatherface pic.

The unnamed van driver told them he was dragged from his vehicle by attackers who hacked at his legs with the saw before torching his Transit.

But police revealed they now believe he turned the saw on himself.

Retired policeman Jim Edgar, 61, found the man lying on the ground screaming at an isolated spot in Shilton, near Witney, Oxon, on Wednesday.

He said: "Blood was gushing all over the place."

A police source said: "It looks as if he did it to himself. The pain must have been horrific. God knows what possessed him."

Officers would not comment on whether doctors had saved his legs.

The man was still under heavy sedation yesterday.
I'll bet.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 10:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  At least he left his tackle in place.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 12:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Do we have a "crazy as a s#!thouse rat" graphic?
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 03/03/2006 13:42 Comments || Top||

#3  "If you cut your legs off with that thing, don't come running to me."
Posted by: Mike || 03/03/2006 14:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Image hosting by Photobucket

Tough guy.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 16:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Frank Zappa fan?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:03 Comments || Top||

#6 
chain saw marks..the new fetish.

Posted by: RD || 03/03/2006 18:46 Comments || Top||

#7  chain saw marks..the new fetish.


Cutting is for sissies.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 20:09 Comments || Top||

#8  Frank Zappa fan?

Nah, they'd have to be electric weasles, Frank.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 20:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Heh, I dunno... I've been cut purdy good - hurt (and bled) like nothing else, before or since. Just barely made it - the ER estimated I lost just under a quart before they stopped it.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 20:14 Comments || Top||

#10  "weasels ripped my flesh"
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 23:06 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
CENTCOM Eyes Blogs to Shape Opinion
In a bid to find new ways to influence public opinion about U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a small media affairs team in Tampa has burrowed into the mushrooming cyber world of blogs and persuaded hundreds of Web sites -- which then link to thousands of other sites -- to post content prepared by military public affairs officials.

Since last July, the Florida-based U.S. Central Command's public affairs staff -- in an effort recently praised by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for its innovation -- has been initiating contact with editors of Web sites that cover operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, offering the same news releases and stories written by military officials that are made available to journalists affiliated with traditional media outlets.

In addition, this CENTCOM "electronic media engagement team" encourages these blogs to post a direct link -- along with the command's insignia -- back to CENTCOM's main Web site.

To date, more than 300 blogs have posted links to the command's public affairs page, which have directed millions of viewers to CENTCOM's site, command officials say. The blogs with direct links to CENTCOM's site are linked to another 9,300 blogs. This second band of Web sites then link to another 270,000 blogs, providing a potentially exponential reach.

"It's an incredible way to communicate with the public," said Lt. Col. Richard McNorton, a CENTCOM spokesman, who oversees a team of two young, enlisted staff members who work full time on the blogs.

It has generated new traffic to the CENTCOM Web site, he said, and paved a new path for pushing content to the public that bypasses traditional print and broadcast media outlets.

CENTCOM's Web site now gets more visitors through these linked blogs than it does from search engines like Google and Yahoo. Since the outreach effort began, online subscriptions to the command's weekly newsletter have tripled, and the command has observed that items it sends to bloggers ripple across the Internet, directly reaching thousands of viewers, McNorton said.

These results have attracted high-level attention.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a speech last month to the Council on Foreign Relations on the need for the government to improve its strategic communications capabilities, highlighted CENTCOM's project as an example of an innovative outreach effort.

McNorton, the CENTCOM spokesman, said the command has reached out to blogs edited by people who support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as to those who oppose it. To date, the vast majority of the blogs that regularly post CENTCOM content and provide a direct link are run by what he calls "supporters."

"They will pretty much post anything," he said. "The problem with that is the readers are already pro-military. It's almost like we're preaching to the choir."

Fewer than 10 blogs written by those who oppose U.S. operations, which CENTCOM calls "determined detractors," have established links, he said.

Along with these two categories, the public affairs team targets two other blog categories, McNorton said: Those run by pundits like Bill Bennett, who on occasion has posted CENTCOM content, and sites that are focused on current affairs.

Based on its experience with blogs, the command is laying plans to revamp its main Web site to provide more varied content that could be easily exported for use on blogs, he added. CENTCOM officials are looking to take advantage of new multimedia tools to provide video clips and podcasts -- individual sound files -- of speeches by senior command leaders like commander Gen. John Abizaid, he said.

All CENTCOM-generated content provided to blogs is in English. A real counter-propaganda campaign, McNorton said, would require engaging in other languages, particularly Arabic and Farsi.

"Right now our mission is to provide information to the public," he said. "This is just another method of engaging directly."

While military leaders may consider the blog outreach effort pioneering, McNorton noted that U.S. adversaries are demonstrating effective uses of this new medium.

"The enemy is so good at using Web sites and blogs to communicate and to recruit. They even have virtual Caliphates. We were so far behind the curve," he said.
Posted by: tipper || 03/03/2006 10:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Now send this idea to the White House, clear out the reporters, and go directly to the people through the blog. Allow interviews and personal briefings on a select basis. Who knows, maybe elements of MSM might start bribing and giving good press to the WH just like they did Saddam et al for access.
Posted by: Snomoting Ebbomong1497 || 03/03/2006 12:19 Comments || Top||

#2  This could hurt the reputation for independence that blogs have.

The link is ok. The rest is not good.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 12:31 Comments || Top||

#3  I disagree. I think that it is a smashingly good idea to have the military communicating as much as possible with the public. In fact, I think that this idea doesn't go far enough.

That is, the US military is on every corner of the planet, doing incredible things, really extraordinary and interesting stuff. They also have lots of journalists, writers, and regular personnel who can *communicate* with the rest of us, but seldom do.

They have set up some good websites, filled with good photography and a news story or a few, but nowhere near enough, and with too narrow a focus to be very popular, at least compared to blogs.

There should be the equivalent of a Pentagon newswire at least as busy as the AP newswire.

(See pentagonchannel.mil) (A good example of a very well made, but inaccessible, website.)

Stories should be formatted for easy pickup by bloggers and RSS feeds. In face, every major Command should have its own newswire--not aimed at the MSM, but aimed at the Internet.

They should also have a parallel "free speech" opinion wire, published by military personnel, but on their own time and which "does not reflect the policy of the US military".

For example, personnel in Japan could give extensive commentary on life in Japan, what they see happening in Japan, how they relate to Japan, etc., in an "expat" news forum. With almost no censorship by the military unless it violates security rules. With public *and* private areas.

The idea is not for them to talk among themselves, but to have a steady stream of communication with the home front.

Imagine a soldier having something like a Myspace site, with password subscription. He can have daily chats with his parents and friends, share digital pictures in an acceptably controlled way (ahem!), and really stay connected to his people.

In 90% of the world, US military personnel are working and living in peacetime conditions. The more they stay connected with their family and friends back home, the higher their morale, and the less trouble they get into.

Putting it all together, by essentially becoming a news and information service, the military also becomes an opinion maker. In past, they have relied on a spokesman to put out the official word; but in the future, it should be the people themselves that really express the feeling of the military.

It doesn't replace the official word, it complements it.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 13:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Wouldn't I love to have a nickle for every idea I have which eventually becomes reality. Duuh.
Now, to screen the reporters at the White House news briefings. All this is necessary to finish the war on terror, or rather the war against radical Islam. We can never win with rubber bullets and Miranda rights.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/03/2006 14:04 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm with moose on this. Its a great idea. In Internet jargon, it's called disintermediation, in this case journalists (so called).
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 18:00 Comments || Top||


Europe
Cartoonist's Daughter Hunted by 12 Jihadists
Posted by: tipper || 03/03/2006 10:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Strikes me a little ventilation of the "brave" child-stalking jihadis would help that situation.

Those bastards are going to have such a surprise when they die and find what's waiting for them is 72 Virginians (Washington, Jefferson, Lee, etc.) to mete out a little well-deserved rough justice, to be followed by their trip straight to HELL.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 10:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Sick!

Typical 'Lions of Islam'......
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/03/2006 11:05 Comments || Top||

#3  So far it’s been confirmed that 12 Moslem males (age defined as "youngsters") paid a visit to the school of the daughter of one of the cartoonists.

Exsqueeze me, but exactly where were the school officials when this was happening? It does not sound like twelve other schoolmates confronted this child. It sounds like some a posse of Muslim yoots dropped by to intimidate (or worse) one of the cartoonist's children for f&ck's sake.

I say, hire a midget actress, if needed, to impersonate this poor child and set up a "flytrap" for these aspiring thugs. If anything, they need to be identified so that their parents can be monitored for pro-terrorist activities. These little runts had to learn their behavior somewhere and home is a splendid place to start looking. Should the parents come up clean, proceed to their preferred mosque. Most likely, these weasles didn't come up with this idea all by their widdle selves.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 11:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Muslim gangrapes are all the rage in northern europe (and elsewhere too); now, 7 might seem a tad too young... except old Mo' set the standards very low.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 11:28 Comments || Top||

#5  The enemy shows you the way of influencing them. Go after their families and see how long the behavior remains. I still think there is something about [indirectly] bombing [with the low accuracy of dumb bombs] the hell of the civilian population of Germany and Japan that has resulted in the demilitarization of their cultures.
Posted by: Snomoting Ebbomong1497 || 03/03/2006 12:17 Comments || Top||

#6  Sounds like the school administration and the local police were behind the power curve on this one. If something even vaguely like this happened in the US, those 12 would have been in irons being interrogated by some very serious FBI agents within an hour.

Within two hours, so would their Imams, their parents, and any other agitators who had inspired them to do this.

And that would be in a blue State. In a red State it would have been taken even more seriously.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 12:48 Comments || Top||

#7  Yeah...."Lions of Islam" throw acid in the face of women becasue of their own inadequacies. They chase down little girls and threaten to kill them. Yeah...that's just what the demon "allan" would want.

Posted by: anymouse || 03/03/2006 12:49 Comments || Top||

#8  Do we get them now or do we wait till they commit a crime ? I hate to sacrifice an innocent female to prove a point.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/03/2006 13:37 Comments || Top||

#9  The cartoon-jihad story is stale, but read the following Der Spiegel essay only because its author is Ibn Warraq. You can trust an ex-Muslim to explain Islam.


http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,druck-398853,00.html

Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 22:59 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Dr Wafa Sultan on al-jazeera. She’s probably a dead woman.
Posted by: Hupereting Anguse2410 || 03/03/2006 10:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Damn. That's my kind of woman.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 10:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Your type? A probably dead woman? That's your type? Damn, that's shocking.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 10:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Please don't ban me (sucking noise).
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 10:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Watch the vid. Orianna couldn't have said it better.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 11:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Humm, so you won't ban me because of that necrophiliac remark? Good.

Watched it : yup, joke aside, she is very courageous, you really have to respect that, especially when she acknowledge that the civilization clash is engrained in the coran's jihad teachings, and ask them to be *reformed*.
Still, I have to wonder how many muslims she represents; she's herself the MMM, but for the pious (mainstream, I'd suppose) muslim cleric facing her, she's an apostate... and in fact, she is, she's apostazied this hateful, aggressive religion and is now something else.
How many will hear her and follow her path? SHE is the extremist and the minority, unfortunately, not the Lions of Islam(tm) and thoses who support them passively or actively.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 11:23 Comments || Top||

#6  #2: Your type? A probably dead woman? That's your type? Damn, that's shocking.

As we used to say in the Navy: " 8 to 80. Blind, crippled or crazy. Not dead over 3 days."
Posted by: wrinkleneck_trout || 03/03/2006 11:37 Comments || Top||

#7  She tore the guy in the funny hat a new orifice. He couldn't address her arguments; all he could do was call her names. This was on the teevee, watched by millions, so maybe a half dozen or so viewers might pick up on that.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 11:41 Comments || Top||

#8   Your type? A probably dead woman? That's your type? Damn, that's shocking.

This reminds me very little of a Southern politician bragging about how the only way he'd lose the upcoming election was to be caught with a live boy or a dead girl.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 11:44 Comments || Top||

#9  *
Kudos Dr Wafa Sultan, she's a force.

Posted by: RD || 03/03/2006 11:45 Comments || Top||

#10  Maybe she will inspire others to speak up. Remember that exponential functions start out slow. Only trouble, we don't have much time for the good ones to brew, with the Iranian M²s thinking that they are on a roll right now.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/03/2006 11:52 Comments || Top||

#11  Its interesting this was on Al Jazeera. It did in fact reach millions. Good. This sort of thing will probably rile some people up more in the short term, but it gets important ideas out there.

She lives in the US, little (though not impossible) chance for violent retaliation. This is not the Netherlands.
Posted by: buwaya || 03/03/2006 12:48 Comments || Top||

#12  per http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007434.php

she is syrian ethnicity

a psychologist who was, in 2005, practising in LA
Posted by: mhw || 03/03/2006 12:49 Comments || Top||

#13  Wish there were an Arabic word for a "(female) leader". She is certainly an inspiring one.
Posted by: Jules || 03/03/2006 13:09 Comments || Top||

#14  Burn baby, burn!
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 03/03/2006 17:19 Comments || Top||

#15  It figures, the last true liberal in America is foreign.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/03/2006 17:33 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Suicide bomber attacks Canadians
A Canadian soldier was in serious condition and could lose his arm after a suicide bomber demolished the armoured vehicle he was riding in Friday morning near Kandahar, the Canadian military said. Four other soldiers were slightly wounded in the attack, the second incident in as many days to cause casualties among Canadians in Afghanistan.

The body of the Canadian soldier killed in a vehicle rollover Thursday, Corporal Paul Davis, was put on a military plane headed for Canada just hours after Friday's mid-morning attack.

The bombing came after soldiers at the provincial reconstruction team base in downtown Kandahar were warned that there were suicide attackers in the city looking for targets, soldiers said. “It's a suspected suicide bomber that was in a vehicle that attacked the convoy,” Lieutenant (Navy) Mark MacIntyre said from Kandahar Airfield. “The point of impact was in the vicinity, or very close to a light armoured vehicle.” At the scene, the vehicle lay shattered in two pieces 50 metres apart, with small pieces littering the road in between. The blast was marked by a large crater.

Lt. MacIntyre said the destroyed armoured vehicle was one of a convoy of four targeted by the bomber. One of the vehicles was carrying a board of inquiry looking into another suicide bombing that killed Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry and wounded three Canadian soldiers in the region last month. None of the members of the board were injured, Lt. MacIntyre said.
Rest at link.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 10:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Al Jazeera TV has interview with an anti Islam secularist
Hat tip to Faithfreedom.org.

Following are excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan. The interview was aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006. [translation by MEMRI]

----------
Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.
....I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?

Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...

Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: The Jews have came from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

I wonder how many flames Al J got from their viewership
Posted by: mhw || 03/03/2006 09:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Read this on FF. I really like him, speaks the truth, basically left the other chap totally and utterly whupped.
Posted by: Shistos Shistadogaloo UK || 03/03/2006 11:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Her sorry.:)
Posted by: Shistos Shistadogaloo UK || 03/03/2006 11:24 Comments || Top||


Great White North
Chevron expands Alberta Oil-Sands land buys - will spend billions
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 09:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the bought relatively cheap ($50M or so)

they will attempt to sell a portion of the development rights

if it works out well, they can reduce their own expenditures to the hundreds of millions and still retain 30% or more of the eventual output

full disclore: I own stock in Chevron
Posted by: mhw || 03/03/2006 11:44 Comments || Top||

#2  The process of melting the frozen bitumen with hot steam essentiall cleans the sand and it is then returned to the ground with the main byproduct steam. These extensive sands provide a continental source of oil without damaging the environment, and sounds like a great investment to me. They should proceed warp speed as we may not have years.
Posted by: Danielle || 03/03/2006 16:07 Comments || Top||

#3  When I lived in Canada 25 years ago, you could homestead on the Peace River. The government would give you 64 acres of land as long as you cleared it. I seriously thought about it. Of course, no one at that time understood the oil sands under the land were worth anything.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 17:01 Comments || Top||

#4  I don't know anything about this particular accumulation of tar sand, but in a general sense the tar sand system is pretty well understood, so I'd be surprised if the tar was not under the ground there. The challenge is mostly economic - there is a lot of oil already being produced from the Alberta tar sands, but it is being strip mined, and the tar extracted. I believe this project is intended to develop it with a combination of underground mining and drilling. This costs a lot more, and requires higher sustained oil prices in order to make economic sense. (But it is more environment-friendly, and it could work for more deeply buried reservoirs.) And, it costs a huge amount of money up front. And, it requires the technology to work as planned. Keep that in mind next time you fill up your tank - Chevron is betting over a billion dollars prices stay high, so they can continue to supply the consumer and make money.
(Full disclosure - I work for them, elsewhere, as a geologist, and NOT in PR (shields self from barrage of rocks and rotten vegetables.))
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/03/2006 17:48 Comments || Top||

#5  Glenmore, thanks for finding oil.

Get Chevron to lobby for an oil import fee to keep the price above $50/bbl.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 18:01 Comments || Top||

#6  war with Iran will do that without a fee. Open ANWR, build refineries, choke the ME
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:10 Comments || Top||

#7  1) Nobody would listen to me if I did 'lobby' Chevron for anything.
2) An oil import fee might keep prices high, but it would be wrong. Let the market find the right price.
3) War, or threat of war, in Iran, or Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia .... any or all of these will decrease the supply and increase the cost, or increase the risk premium and increase the cost. All are bad for world (not just US) economies in the short and medium term. Peace is better.
4) Opening ANWR won't help much, may not help at all (may not be any oil there - we haven't drilled, so we don't know), and it will eventually be opened and explored, once we get desperate enough.
5) We have not built refineries in a long time, but we have built refinery capacity, by enlarging existing plants, and improving their efficiency. Building NEW refineries in the US is just about impossible environmentally; as a hypocritical environmentally sensitive nation we would rather emit two units of pollution in some foreign country and import the refined product than emit one unit of pollution here. American refineries are cleaner and safer than ever, and cleaner and safer than pretty much anywhere else in the world, but they still stink and can blow up.
6) The Mid-East isn't the only place which poses a threat to us through high oil revenues; we can't really crack down on Mexican immigration lest Mexico cut off our imports and crush our economy; we can't retaliate against idiot Chavez in Venezuela - same reason. Bush has to 'hold hands' with Saudi leaders and engage in diplomatic pressure rather than nuke Mecca when oil funds flow to terrorists. We're addicts, and will remain so for a while - there is no replacement to fossil fuel in sight.
7) And I'm not banned (yet)! Would have been at some open-minded liberal web sites.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/03/2006 18:28 Comments || Top||

#8  A couple of points.

1. Only governments can carry very large financial risks. This is why governments are the insurers of last resort for banks. Goverments can and should underwrite the risks of large non-conventional oil developments by contracting to buy a fixed amount for a fixed price over the lifetime of the project.

2. There is far more oil in unconventional sources than in the Middle East.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 19:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Glenmore - good responses, why would you be banned? I disagree with a few, as follows:
the regional gas formulations at seasonal changes cause periodic shortages of refinery capacity (by air-basin in the US) clearly for good reason - cleaner air. California, my state, must be forced by Feds (FHWA Highway funds?) to ease enviro-suit stops on refinery capacity. We need to share the pain. I would even agree to off-shore oil-drilling if adequate safety/insurance could be made. (i.e.: negligent spill: turn over all assets)
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 19:34 Comments || Top||

#10  P.S. : Mexico? We could take it and Venezuela by force if need be. Hardass? yes. Realistic. F*&k yeah. They need to know it
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 19:36 Comments || Top||

#11  The real war on terror.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/03/2006 19:41 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Gore Asks for (free) Ad Time to Fight Global Warming
Former Vice President Al Gore launched his keynote address at the Four As media conference in Orlando Thursday morning by promising not to do a commercial for his new cable network, Current TV. which is as moribund as Air America's new subscriber list

And he didn’t.

Instead, he urged the media industry to contribute air time to an upcoming public service campaign alerting consumers to the dangers of global warming. Gore spent most of his twenty minute presentation detailing the heavy toll that global warming is taking on the earth’s ecosystem.
20 minutes of greenhouse gases he sould've spared the planet
He said that a new coalition, to be announced soon, comprised of environmental, labor, religious and other groups would be raising money to make “major ad buys over the next three years” to address global warming.

Gore than asked the media industry to step up with a “dollar for dollar” matching contribution for that campaign. Gore said he was contributing the proceeds from a book and a documentary on the subject (both to be released later this year) to the coalition.
that's called a quid pro quo for his reelection in '08 plans enviro-hysterical action plan, basically a 50% freebee on ads. But hey! no controlling legal authority, huh?

“The climate crisis is the most serious challenge our civilization has ever faced,” he said.
Bullshit. The real science is still out except for the true believers and those getting agenda-based-study grants. Even if warming due to human causes (not proven), the rise is soooo miniscule, all but hysterics would never notice it this century. Read Michael Chrichton.
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 09:02 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."

-- Vice President Al Gore

Posted by: Visitor || 03/03/2006 9:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I keep wondering, all this things in the water and air keep killing us supposedly, but we are living longer hmmmmmm.
Posted by: djohn66 || 03/03/2006 9:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Gore said he was contributing the proceeds from a book and a documentary on the subject (both to be released later this year) to the coalition.

Wow! A book and a movie by Al Gore coming out? That could bring in, like, hundreds and hundreds of dollars!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 10:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Gore has his OWN NETWORK spewing weird propaganda 24/7. That channel is "Current". On DirecTV it is channel 366.
So having a complete network of his own to spout BS what the hell does he deserve free air time from the other networks for?
Make his own network interesting enough that some fool would watch his crap!
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 10:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Dear Mr. Gore.

Shut the fuck up, you moron.

Thank you,

People of the United States of America
Posted by: mmurray821 || 03/03/2006 11:24 Comments || Top||

#6  djohn66

Actually, the air and water is cleaner than anytime since before the 70s. However, when your standards are something like non-existance of mankind, its a little more demanding. Too bad these people didn't live a hundred years ago when most heating and energy creation at home was by coal. Fouled the air, few if any 'white' christmas with soot all over the urban areas. Rank dumping of waste into nearly all waterways. With transportation by horse, where do you think most of the 'organic' material they dropped went to? Summer was a season of flies and other wonder vectors for disease. I believe people like these should be sentenced to three years in a real third world country without all these 'harmful' modern techologies. Can't wait to see when the first crop failure strikes their 'organic' farms.
Posted by: Snomoting Ebbomong1497 || 03/03/2006 12:27 Comments || Top||

#7  SE,

Don't know if you've read "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson, but he has some great descriptions of what a winter in Chicago was like with all the coal smoke.
Posted by: Dreadnought || 03/03/2006 13:39 Comments || Top||

#8  Thanks for the plug!
(just kidding, that's not me. But we spell it the same way)
Posted by: eLarson || 03/03/2006 14:14 Comments || Top||

#9  A classic example of Gore using # 14:

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the 2005 winners

1. Cashtration (n): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

2. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

3. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

4. Bozone (n): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

5. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is, like, sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's, like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic fit (n): The frantic dance you perform just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

And the pick of the literature:

18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
Posted by: Visitor || 03/03/2006 14:33 Comments || Top||

#10  And his fellow travelers post garbage like this:
claiming bush is the anti-christ
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 15:29 Comments || Top||

#11  It isn't the WP 'Mensa Invitational'. It's the 'Style Invitational'. I had an honorable mention once back in 1994 for my entry in a 'Give someone an appropriate nickname' contest:

Bill Buckner Clinton.


Unfair to Bill Buckner, I know, but what are you going to do?
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 03/03/2006 16:15 Comments || Top||

#12  I've always like this Terpsboy image of Gore, too.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 17:21 Comments || Top||

#13  LOL - Rodger rules
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:30 Comments || Top||

#14  POTUS GORE is going to SAVE THE SUN BY FORCING THE ENTIRE EARTH TO REGRESS/GO BACK TO THE FUTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES OR EARLIER. Rather than building the Starship(s) Enterprise or Battlestar(s) Galactica, Gore and the enviro nuts want to make sure every human being and pet dog gets to be toasted by the Sun safe here in good ole doomed Earth, where OWG and American-specific Holocaust/Genocide is good for the earth and everyone, even for future mostly dead Americans, ERGO VOTE FOR THE DEMS IN 2008.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/03/2006 23:56 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
VDH: Rocks and Ripples
Playing it smart in the Middle East.

Fear in the U.S. of Russian nukes made strange bedfellows during the Cold War, like our relationship with the shah of Iran, Franco, Somoza, and Pinochet. The logic was that such strongmen, unlike Communist thugs, would evolve eventually into constitutional governments, or, unlike elected socialists, they could at least be trusted not to turn their countries into satellites of the Soviet Union.

We paid a price for such realpolitik when the Berlin Wall fell. Few gave us the deserved thanks for bankrupting the Soviet empire, but we did get plenty of the blame for the mess left behind by third-world dictatorships.

Now Middle East autocracies use the same "it's either us or them" blackmail. They hope to survive the tide of democratization by showing off their antiterrorist plumage. The problem is that the defeat of terrorism — like that of global Communism — ultimately rests with promoting freedom, not authoritarianism.

Decades of supporting right-wing authoritarians did nothing to ameliorate a dysfunctional Middle East. Perhaps support for democratic reform will usher in Hamas in Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, something worse than Gen. Musharraf in Pakistan, and a shaky post-Saddam Hussein government in violence-torn Iraq, but what else is the United States to do?

About what we are doing now: We should keep supporting the process, but not necessarily the result; much less should we subsidize elected anti-Americans. The key is to keep a low profile and promote consensual government, but without bullying or grand moral pronouncements when the odious are elected.

We should praise the relatively free voting that ushered in Hamas, insist that they institutionalize the process that brought them to power, but under no circumstances give such terrorists any American money as long as they pledge to destroy Israel.

Allowing the autocratic Mr. Mubarak to go his own way without any more American largess may well empower the Muslim Brotherhood. Fine. Let the zealots talk all they want about bringing corruption-free government to Egypt at last, and hatred of the United States too. In response, America need only quietly explain that we no longer subsidize dictators — or terrorists who are elected to power through principled American support for democratic elections. I'm sure that after all the invective subsides, the Egyptians can sort out both our logic and idealism.

The key is consistency — and subtlety in expression. That way we avoid the unsustainable paradox that Americans are dying for democracy in the Sunni Triangle while subsidizing its antithesis in Cairo. And by the same token, we need not tour the Middle East demonizing Hamas; that will certainly not result in ostracism of that terrorist organization by "moderates," but it will give rise to the opinion that we behave hypocritically when the Arab street votes in someone we don't like.
Rest at link.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 09:02 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Suspected bird flu cases on rise across the country
Suspected bird flu cases are being detected in the country at an alarming rate, with more people falling sick in Surakarta in Central Java, Madiun and Malang in East Java and Batam in Riau Islands province.

An as-yet unnamed 12-year-old girl suspected of contracting bird flu died Wednesday night after being treated at the Moewardi Hospital in Surakarta.

Her body has been sent to her hometown in Boyolali, Central Java, for burial, hospital director Mardiatmo told Antara.

Blood tests for the victim have been sent to a Jakarta laboratory for confirmation.

Another seriously ill suspected bird flu patient is being treated in isolation at the hospital.

"Clinical symptoms, including coughing and a high fever, indicate that he is bird flu-positive. The patient also used to live near large-scale quail breeding centers," Tri Lastiti, the deputy director of the hospital, told The Jakarta Post.

The 31-year-old man, identified as Daryoto, was believed to have been infected by the carcasses of dead birds, which had been dumped in the area during the past month.

"Thousands of quails died every day and their remains were just thrown away into a nearby river," Nanik, Daryoto's wife, said.

Central Java Governor Mardiyanto said earlier the provincial administration would launch a large-scale poultry cull of infected birds. The culls would occur in five of the province's 35 regencies -- Karanganyar, Boyolali, Sukoharjo, Sragen and Klaten.

Mardiyanto ordered people to be on the alert for the virus and immediately report any suspected bird flu outbreaks among poultry to their local animal husbandry office.

"If people see scores of chickens dying, they should report this to the nearest office. Animal husbandry and health officials will soon follow up their reports," Mardiyanto said.

In Bandung, the number of suspected bird flu patients rose by 11 to 66 as of Wednesday. The latest patient was admitted to the city's Hasan Sadikin Hospital on Wednesday.

In Madiun, East Java, the condition of a 12-year-old patient from Singkil village, Ponorogo, who is believed to be infected with the virus, remained serious.

"The patient is still in intensive care by our team of doctors, and cannot be visited yet," a Dr. Soedono Hospital spokesman said Thursday. A sample of the patient's blood has been sent to Jakarta for testing and the results would be available within a week, the spokesman said.

In Malang, a seven-year-old boy was admitted to the intensive care unit at the Saiful Anwar Hospital with suspected bird flu symptoms.

However, Gatoet Ismanoe, a doctor of the hospital, said the boy, who had earlier been treated at the Muhammad Saleh Hospital in Probolinggo, was still under observation to determine his illness.

In Batam, the local animal husbandry office sprayed disinfectant at Panglong village in Nongsa district Thursday, after laboratory tests found bird flu in the area's poultry.

At least eight chickens were found dead in the area with blue and swollen heads -- recognizable symptoms of the flu.
Suspected bird flu cases on rise across the country


Wahyoe B. Wardhana and Fadli, The Jakarta Post, Malang/Batam

Suspected bird flu cases are being detected in the country at an alarming rate, with more people falling sick in Surakarta in Central Java, Madiun and Malang in East Java and Batam in Riau Islands province.

An as-yet unnamed 12-year-old girl suspected of contracting bird flu died Wednesday night after being treated at the Moewardi Hospital in Surakarta.

Her body has been sent to her hometown in Boyolali, Central Java, for burial, hospital director Mardiatmo told Antara.

Blood tests for the victim have been sent to a Jakarta laboratory for confirmation.

Another seriously ill suspected bird flu patient is being treated in isolation at the hospital.

"Clinical symptoms, including coughing and a high fever, indicate that he is bird flu-positive. The patient also used to live near large-scale quail breeding centers," Tri Lastiti, the deputy director of the hospital, told The Jakarta Post.

The 31-year-old man, identified as Daryoto, was believed to have been infected by the carcasses of dead birds, which had been dumped in the area during the past month.

"Thousands of quails died every day and their remains were just thrown away into a nearby river," Nanik, Daryoto's wife, said.

Central Java Governor Mardiyanto said earlier the provincial administration would launch a large-scale poultry cull of infected birds. The culls would occur in five of the province's 35 regencies -- Karanganyar, Boyolali, Sukoharjo, Sragen and Klaten.

Mardiyanto ordered people to be on the alert for the virus and immediately report any suspected bird flu outbreaks among poultry to their local animal husbandry office.

"If people see scores of chickens dying, they should report this to the nearest office. Animal husbandry and health officials will soon follow up their reports," Mardiyanto said.

In Bandung, the number of suspected bird flu patients rose by 11 to 66 as of Wednesday. The latest patient was admitted to the city's Hasan Sadikin Hospital on Wednesday.

In Madiun, East Java, the condition of a 12-year-old patient from Singkil village, Ponorogo, who is believed to be infected with the virus, remained serious.

"The patient is still in intensive care by our team of doctors, and cannot be visited yet," a Dr. Soedono Hospital spokesman said Thursday. A sample of the patient's blood has been sent to Jakarta for testing and the results would be available within a week, the spokesman said.

In Malang, a seven-year-old boy was admitted to the intensive care unit at the Saiful Anwar Hospital with suspected bird flu symptoms.

However, Gatoet Ismanoe, a doctor of the hospital, said the boy, who had earlier been treated at the Muhammad Saleh Hospital in Probolinggo, was still under observation to determine his illness.

In Batam, the local animal husbandry office sprayed disinfectant at Panglong village in Nongsa district Thursday, after laboratory tests found bird flu in the area's poultry.

At least eight chickens were found dead in the area with blue and swollen heads -- recognizable symptoms of the flu.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 08:57 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In Bandung, the number of suspected bird flu patients rose by 11 to 66

My comments got lost due to stuff. I made the point that Bandung is where the first cases of human bird flu occured in Indonesia and the current rate of ongoing infections strongly indicates to me we have sustained transmission, which means the pandemic has started here.

Whether it can be stopped is an interesting question that given time, I will say more on later.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 9:21 Comments || Top||

#2  I project the first official outbreak will work much like this:

First of all, about 25-100 people will all come down with the flu at once. The official response, good, bad, or indifferent will *seem* to work, with no new cases and much rejoicing that "we have stopped the spread" of the disease.

Then, within a short time, a smaller number of people will come down with the disease outside of the original infection area. These cases will be incorrectly put down to "ones we missed", and the sense of relief will still be there.

And then, much further outside the original infection area, there will be several outbreaks, all seemingly unconnected to each other. And then the explosive growth of the disease starts to happen in earnest.

Every control measure taken will be "a day late and a dollar short". The local region will be quarantined only after it has spread through the country. The country will be quarantined only after it has spread to several adjacent countries, etc.

Avian flu will give us some "special effects", too. That is, even though we will be focused on the sick people, entire nation's supplies of poultry could be wiped out--their major source of protein. Starve or risk the flu?

Other domestic animals, such as dogs and cats, are everywhere in the world and spread out among the human population. If the disease also affects them, the human-animal transfer could intensify the spread of the disease enormously.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 10:05 Comments || Top||

#3 
"...entire nation's supplies of poultry could be wiped out--their major source of protein. Starve or risk the flu?"

Well...the folks in the PI with the worm problems can always market their worm meat!

Posted by: Vinkat Bala Subrumanian || 03/03/2006 16:06 Comments || Top||

#4  If the disease also affects them

At least one cat has been diagnosed with the avian flu HN51 in France already.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 16:15 Comments || Top||

#5  11 to 66 does not a pandemic make, phil_b, especially when most of them have had bird contact to an extent that most people never do.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/03/2006 16:27 Comments || Top||

#6  The issue is, how will the pandemic start? Will it start with a big cluster of cases as Moose suggests or will it start slowly with an almost imperceptable increase in cases over time?

I think the latter, primarily because I think there are multiple changes the virus has to acquire in order to transmit efficiently in humans. One prominent virologist estimated 25 genetic changes are required for efficient transmission in humans. I know enough about evolution to know that the bulk of those changes can only be acquired through infecting people and are only retained (in the gene pool) if (once) sustained transmission occurs.

So until sustained transmission occurs all we have is a series of isolated bird to human infections and short chains of H2H transmission. Once sustained transmission occurs and we will see a steadyly increasing cluster (and then clusters). How fast the cluster increases depends on how many of those adaptations the virus has acquired. Initially, it will just have enough adaptations to maintain sustained transmission (RO just over 1) and we will see a slow increase in cases in the cluster, which is what we are seeing in Bandung.

How long it takes before we get efficient transmission and rapid spread is anyone's guess, but the 1918 pandemic indicates 1 to 2 years.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 17:26 Comments || Top||

#7  could be Phil B, but just as intercontinental jet travel will expose people much more rapidly, we've all been exposed to bacteria and viruses that our ancestors (at least Cont. U.S.) would NEVER have been exposed to. We have antibodies for things which will never naturally occur where we now reside. I'm hoping the outbreak will be short, like you, I'm sure. Could be a real bitch in Indonesia, Burma, China, et al....
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 17:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Frank, I've thought a lot about this and much of what you read is politically correct drivel.

In a nutshell, I think even when we have thousands of cases a day, its still containable. However, whether it is contained or not will depend on local factors.

The case in Batam caught my attention. Batam is a 45 minute ferry ride from Singapore and several thousand people cross a day. If anywhere can contain an infectious H2H bird flu outbreak, Singapore can. So watch what happens when there is an outbreak there.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 18:11 Comments || Top||

#9  lol - that's the FIRST time I've ever been accused of being Politically Correct

*slap* Slap*

I'll see you at dawn, sir. Bring a second
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:32 Comments || Top||

#10  Frank, I wasn't accusing you of being PC. Rather its the idea that once the pandemic starts we are all equally at risk is PC nonsense. Without going into a long complex explanation. Containment measures are additive and the number of cases in an area is a direct function of how effective the local containment measures are. The key variables are how effective the government is and how 'public spirited' the citizens are.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 19:30 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
StrategyPage: Old Soldiers Stick Around
The U.S. Department of Defense now believes that older is better, at least when it comes to NCOs and officers. The Pentagon wants to encourage more military personnel to stay in uniform for up to 40 years. To that end, the Department of Defense is asking Congress to approve extending pay rate tables from 30 to 40 years. Currently, once you pass 30 years of service, you no longer get raises based on length of service. There is another proposal in play, that would change the current "half pay at 20 years and 75 percent pay at 30 years" retirement plan to add " 25 percent at ten years" and " 100 percent at 40 years". This would encourage younger troops to stay for ten (and then maybe go for 20 or 30), and make it more attractive for the most experienced troops to go for 40 years.

Ever since World War II, the U.S. military has encouraged a "youthful force." In addition to "up or out" (get promoted after so many years in a rank, or be laid off), officers and NCOs were encouraged to retire at 20 years or, at most 30. But things have changed in the last sixty years. People not only live longer, they stay fit as they grow older. It's not unusual to see NCOs in their 50s keeping up with troops in their 20s during runs and other demanding physical tasks.

The 40 year career would not be open to any old soldier that wanted it. You can stay in for 40 or more years now, but need approval from the Pentagon. The new pay scale would make more older troops willing to stick around if asked. In fact, the number of older NCOs and officers worth keeping around is small. But these are men and women with extraordinary capabilities. These are people you don't want to lose, even to age. The talents they have are usually people skills, which tend to improve with age. Putting together, and managing, teams is what the military often has to do in a hurry. In cases like this, one or two people, who are really good at it, can make an enormous difference. Military history is also full of soldiers in their 60s and 70s who ran circles, at least mentally, around everyone else. Since the military has been all-volunteer since the 1970s, the overall quality of the force has improved, and that, along with healthier old age, has produced a lot more old soldiers worth keeping around.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 07:26 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
bug report extracted - thanks
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 7:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Ah, 2 singles - looked like the double-quote. Good eye, ed!
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 7:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Looks like you and phil_b are already on it in the "Bush's trip to Pakistan" thread.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 8:16 Comments || Top||

#4  In fact, the number of older NCOs and officers worth keeping around is small. But these are men and women with extraordinary capabilities

The name Grace Hooper comes to mind.

Hopper was never one to hold a single job at any one time. She was involved both with the academic world and with the Navy during the time that she held her positions in the Remington Rand Corporation, then from 1955 in the Sperry Corporation which had merged in that year with Remington Rand. Her connections with the academic world were many, sometimes visiting positions as in 1959 when she was a Visiting Lecturer at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania. She was a consultant and lecturer for the United States Naval Reserve up to her retirement in December 1966, by which time she had reached the rank of Commander.

The Navy and Hopper were not apart for very long for, in August 1967, she was recalled to active duty in the Navy. At this time she took military leave from the Sperry Corporation and did not return to that job, retiring from it in 1971 when she reached 65 years of age. Her return to the Navy was intended to be for only a six months period [5]:-

... at the request of Norman Ream, then Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy for Automatic Data Processing. After the six months were up, her orders were changed to say her services would be needed indefinitely. She was promoted to Captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr., Chief of Naval Operations. And in 1977, she was appointed special advisor to Commander, Naval Data Automation Command, where she stayed until she retired.

Active service in the Navy did not prevent Hopper holding academic appointments, and she was a Lecturer in Management Sciences at George Washington University between 1971 and 1978.

When Hopper retired from the Navy in August 1986, at 80 years of age, she was the oldest active duty officer in the United States. She had reached the rank of Rear Admiral, being promoted to the rank of Commodore in a White House ceremony in December 1983, then becoming Rear Admiral Hopper in 1985. At a celebration held in Boston on the USS Constitution* to celebrate her retirement, Hopper was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award possible by the Department of Defense.


* retiring the oldest active servicemember on the oldest active ship in the fleet.
Posted by: Snaiper Jeretch8186 || 03/03/2006 8:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Subject: The poodle and the leopard

A Story with a Moral

A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful aged poodle named Cuddles, along for the company.

One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and before long, Cuddles discovers that she's lost. Wandering about, she notices a leopard heading rapidly in her direction with the intention of having lunch. The old poodle thinks, "Oh, oh! I'm in deep doo-doo now!"

Noticing some bones on the ground close by, she immediately settles down to chew on the bones with her back to the approaching cat.

Just as the leopard is about to leap, the old poodle exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard! I wonder if there are any more around here."

Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks a way into the trees.

"Whew!", says the leopard, "That was close! That old poodle nearly had me"

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard.

So off he goes, but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up.

The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard.

The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!"

Now, the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks , "What am I going to do now?", but instead of running, the dog sits down with her back to her attackers, pretending she hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says:

"Where's that damn monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard!"

Moral of this story.....Don't mess with old guys... age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill!

Bulls--t and brilliance only come with age and experience!



Posted by: Visitor || 03/03/2006 9:03 Comments || Top||

#6  Ah, Grace Hopper.

When I was a fledgling programmer working for the JCS, Adm. Hopper was still active in an office down the hall of the E-ring, 2nd basement. I got to meet her a couple of times.

Only flag officer in all of DOD who got away with wearing a charm bracelet while in uniform. Sharp, sharp, sharp as a whip.

Somewhere I still have the 'nanosecond' she passed out in a talk she gave to my software team.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 9:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper has an Arleigh Burke-class DDG named after her. It's the only combatant ship in the Navy named after a woman.
Posted by: Mike || 03/03/2006 9:11 Comments || Top||

#8  Somewhere I still have the 'nanosecond' she passed out in a talk she gave to my software team.

You mean you didn't grind it up to make some pica seconds? :)
Posted by: Snaiper Jeretch8186 || 03/03/2006 9:20 Comments || Top||

#9  no link?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 9:21 Comments || Top||

#10  Link was given in comment #1 bug report.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20060303.aspx
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 9:31 Comments || Top||

#11  Hell if they'd had this I'd probably still be in the reserves at a minimum.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/03/2006 9:37 Comments || Top||

#12  np - thx ed
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 9:39 Comments || Top||

#13  You mean you didn't grind it up to make some pica seconds?

Chopping it would have been more appropriate. She used to pass out pieces of wire about a foot long, i.e. the length of wire that electrical signals can travel in a nanosecond. Her point was that hardware constraints would loom sooner or later and would affect how we wrote software.

That was before really integrated circuitry was possible, so the looming is happening a little less slowly than some might have predicted. But it's a real issue for serious machines that model e.g. nuclear blast effects, airplane performance or weather.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 9:47 Comments || Top||

#14  There are a few facts of life that the military only grudgingly accepts during wartime.

The first of these is that appearance doesn't matter, performance matters.

The second is that you only really need combat soldiers for combat.

The third is that the young and strong non-combat soldiers are only needed in forward deployment, not back in the home front to train replacements.

The fourth is that you *never* have enough lead time in training replacements before you need them to be shipped forward. This means that those already forward deployed stay there longer than they should be, and those in the rear get shipped forward sooner than they should be.

Older personnel help ease things at every level of this process.

First of all, they are skilled and experienced performers. Second, though they are not optimal for combat, they can fill in every role behind the combat lines.

Third, though they are also less than optimal for forward CS and CSS, they free up young and strong CS and CSS personnel to become combat soldiers, both near the front and back in training facilities.

Finally, they improve replacement training because they can discriminate in training between militarism (or "looking" military) and militancy (or "performing" militarily); and emphasize the latter. This gets competent replacements forward faster, and gets forward combat soldiers rotated to the rear faster.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 10:54 Comments || Top||

#15  There's one other problem with the military, especially with retaining people longer: too often once you reach a certain rank, you're shoved into "administration", rather than retained in your primary skill area. I declined one promotion and refused to be considered for another because it would have meant I'd end up an administrative desk jockey, instead of working with people in a real job. If you keep people longer, you're going to have to do some major modification to the skill ladder and the entire TO&E. Lots of other problems to be addressed, too - like how do you keep older guys in if you treat them like crap. BTW, #14 is right on the mark!

Today, there are between 25m and 35m active/reserve/retired/former military people in the United States. That would be a rather large number to select from to put people on the border for national security. There are lots of other areas where the US could use these people to good advantage, if they'd just get over a bunch of silly prejudices, mostly maintained by middle-management (senior NCOS, Field Grade officers). Inertia will be extremely difficult to overcome, however.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/03/2006 13:23 Comments || Top||


Europe
US firm told to translate documents into French
A French subsidiary of the US conglomerate General Electric was found guilty Monday of breaching the country's language laws for producing English-only versions of health and safety guidelines.

Confirming a lower court ruling, the appeal court in Versailles west of Paris ordered GE Medical Systems to pay 580,000 euros (690,000 dollars) to the company's works committee and to the General Labour Conferation (VCGT) trade union, which brought the case to justice.

The company was also fined 20,000 euros for every computer and print document that has not been translated in three months' time.

The case was brought under a 1994 law intended to defend the role of the French language in public life.

Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hey - obey local laws. I don't care where you do business.
Posted by: gromky || 03/03/2006 2:58 Comments || Top||

#2  GE medical will pay up and quit doing business in France at all. That is how this usually goes.
Posted by: SPoD || 03/03/2006 6:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah, and you need to start rewriting your medical prescription in Latin again.
Posted by: Snaiper Jeretch8186 || 03/03/2006 6:46 Comments || Top||

#4  There is no need for GE to base operations in France, other than onsite techs and maintenance engineers. It may even turn out cheaper to move operations to other offices in the Netherlands, Italy, or better yet, to New Europe, though the sales commutes may be tough.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 7:50 Comments || Top||

#5  If it was not for GE (and other 1940's era US companies) this would not be an issue: Siemens would be making all the med-tech equipment for France, and all the docs would be in German only. Of course, that would not be a problem, because German would be the national language of France.
Still, it makes no sense that GE would not print documents in whatever the local language is where the equipment or services are being used. And how hard is could it be - computers can translate most of it, and the technical words stay in English anyway.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/03/2006 9:38 Comments || Top||

#6  And how hard is could it be - computers can translate most of it, and the technical words stay in English anyway.

Not in France. All English technical language words have Frenchified equivalents. ]They'll pick up some liability risk for poor translations as well as the immediate cost of translation. Pull out, Jeffrey.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 9:57 Comments || Top||

#7  No big deal _ there's plenty of people in the Dead Languages Departments of universities that wouldn't mind part time jobs.
Posted by: Shilet Throse6198 || 03/03/2006 15:30 Comments || Top||

#8  FWITW: Aall US companies require the US-based companies they deal with to have their Quality Management System documents in (at least ) English, so this is not unreasonable. This is also applicable to companies doing DOD work, regardless of the company's nationality. I think that if the full story were known, they were probably asked nicely several times and then after being told, "OK we're on it" for many moons, the fun-meter pegged and the laywers took over.
Posted by: USN, ret. || 03/03/2006 16:14 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
German worked in Tommy Franks' office in Iraq: report
German politicians Thursday played down a new report in the New York Times detailing assistance to the United States by German intelligence agents during the Iraq war.
Ve know nuttink. Nuttink!!
The report said a German intelligence officer worked in the office of the top American commander of the Iraq invasion, General Tommy Franks, and passed on information collected by two German agents in Baghdad.

Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat member of the Parliamentary Control Commission which discusses intelligence activities, called the report "absurd and unreliable."
Nope. Didn't happen. And you can't prove it.
Max Stadler, a member of the opposition Free Democrats, said the report contained nothing new.

The Times gave the source for its report as a classified section of a review compiled by Scholz's committee. But it was not clear whether this meant a government report prepared for the committee.

The Times said the review stated that the decision to station an intelligence officer in Franks' office in Qatar from early 2003 through the invasion on March 20, 2003, was made at the highest levels of the German government, even though Berlin was a staunch critic of the Iraq invasion.

A version of the report was released to the public, but the original 300-page dossier was cut down to 90 pages, and, according to the Times, omitted such information as the stationing of the German liaison officer in Franks' office.

The Times said it was able to view a copy of the classified copy from a German journalist.
wonderful. just freakin wonderful. I'll sleep better tonight knowing the NYT will print any damned thing it can get its hands on - and nobody's bothering to lock those file drawers. That's the REAL story here.
It said the German intelligence officer made 25 reports to the Americans, answering 18 of 33 specific requests for information during the first few months of the Iraq war.

Most of the information was on sites that should not be bombed, including diplomatic compounds, but eight of the reports had to do with Iraqi police and soldiers in Baghdad, including two that provided the geographic coordinates of military units.

The German report, however, insisted that German intelligence did not direct airstrikes, the Times said.

Stadler said the fact a German intelligence officer made 25 reports to the Americans had already been published in both German and US media.

Scholz called the Times report "a rehash of previously known facts that has nothing to do with serious research." He said the Times was trying to sell excerpts from a government report to a parliamentary committee as further proof of the involvement of German intelligence agents in Iraq.

"This involvement was cleared up long ago by the Parliamentary Control Commission," he said.

While the German report indicated the intelligence cooperation as systematic, relations between Berlin and Washington at the time were at a low over then-German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to military action against Iraq, which he made the focus of the 2002 federal election campaign.

Germany has long insisted it provided little help to the US-led invasion forces, but a parliamentary review and news reports indicated regular cooperation.

The Times also reported earlier this week that the German intelligence agents in Baghdad in 2003 obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's defence plans for the capital, which were passed on to the United States.

The German government strongly denied the story and said it was never aware of the Baghdad defence plans, which the Times said it obtained from a classified US military study.

According to the classified review cited Thursday by the Times, the US-German intelligence-sharing arrangement was made and approved in late 2002 by officials that included then-foreign minister Joschka Fischer and the current foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was Schroeder's secret service coordinator.

The Times said the operation was stopped at the end of the invasion and the three intelligence agents involved received the American Meritorious Service Medal recognizing the "critical information to United States Central Command to support combat operations in Iraq."

The Parliamentary Control Commission is due to meet again on Monday to discuss this week's revelations. Opposition parties are pressing for a full parliamentary inquiry.

DPA


Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This needs the graphic of flogging the dead horse, methinks. Yeah, yeah, Germany was a fucking big help before, during, and after in Iraq. Woohoo! Where would we be without 'em? Right. A real peach. Now STFU.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:12 Comments || Top||

#2  The Germans helped nearly as much as during WWII.
Posted by: JFM || 03/03/2006 10:12 Comments || Top||

#3  America Bashing is a popular sport the world 'round, and an almost sure ticket to victory at election time ( unless your initials are Gerhard Schroeder). Still, I keep seeing little tidbits like this where various foreign intelligence services - even the usually feckless French - seem to be working in concert with the U.S. All parties concerned would deny it, of course. But it makes me wonder if certains governments realize we have a common interest in fighting terror even though they would never say that publicly.
Posted by: SteveS || 03/03/2006 12:51 Comments || Top||

#4  But it makes me wonder if certains governments realize we have a common interest in fighting terror even though they would never say that publicly.

Or at least if not the entire government, then some individuals within it. TGA did mention that Joschka Fischer was the most sensible of the bunch. I like this.
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 12:59 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Mulla Omar operating freely in Pakistan: Afghan FM
Afghanistan has hit back at Pakistan’s dismissal of its intelligence about Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Pakistani territory, notably information about the whereabouts of the reclusive Taliban leader Mulla Omar. Afghanistan handed over the information during a visit last month by President Hamid Karzai to Pakistan — a key ally in the US “war on terror”..

Pakistan at first denied in statements to the media that it had received the intelligence and then said most of it was outdated, including about the possible whereabouts of the fugitive Omar. Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah questioned Pakistan’s attitude. He said that Afghanistan would not have handed over information it did not believe in and neighbours were expected to share details of the common threat. “We wouldn’t have given anything to them had we not been sure about its credibility,” he said in an interview.

Abdullah said Afghanistan believed most of the “Taliban leaders that are actively instigating terror in Afghanistan” were in Pakistan, with Omar known to have spent time in the border city of Peshawar and in Balochistan. “We have provided evidence of him being outside of Afghanistan, in Quetta in Balochistan , to our Pakistani friends.” This was not for “one day, not one hour but time and again in Quetta.” Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Taliban training camps on its soil and also alleged that some circles in Pakistan support the hardliners. Pakistan denies the accusations, pointing to the tens of thousands of troops it has had in the region for two years to hunt down the militants. It also claims to have netted two-thirds of the Qaeda leaders in its territory.
KABUL (Rantburg News Service): Afghanistan has pointed out the absurdity of Pakistan’s frantic dismissal of its intelligence about Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists tromping around in Pakistani territory, notably information that pinpoints the location of unemployed potentate Mulla Omar.

Afghanistan backed the Musharraf government into a corner when it handed over the information during a state visit last month by President Hamid Karzai. Pakistan at first denied that it had received the intelligence and then said most of it was outdated. They thought seriously about denying that Karzai had been there, then changed their minds when someone pointed out that there were photographs and too many witnesses. Eventually they settled for claiming the dog ate it.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah questioned Pakistan’s attitude. "It's kind of fun to watch them squirm and convolute and say funny things," he told Rantburg News Service. "We sure as hell wouldn't have handed over the information if we hadn't known it was good."

Abdullah said most of the “Taliban leaders that are actively instigating terror in Afghanistan” were in Pakistan. "We know who's putting them up in their guest houses, whose wives they're flirting with, who's loaning them money. All those turbans trotting back and forth across the border in the dead of night? Well, that goes both ways. I mean, the American press was able to stumble across some of these guys; what makes them think we can't?" Omar is known to have spent time in the border city of Peshawar and in Balochistan. “We have provided evidence of him being outside of Afghanistan, in Quetta in Balochistan — photos, recordings of his phone calls, that sort of thing — to our Pakistani friends.” This was not for “one day, not one hour but time and again in Quetta.”

Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Taliban training camps on its soil and also alleged that that Pak fundamentalists, such as Qazi Hussein Ahmad, Fazlur Rehman, Samiul Haq, and most of the ISI, support the terrorists. Pakistan denies the accusations, pointing to the many tribal lashkars it has had in the region for two years to hunt down the militants. It also claims to have netted two-thirds of the Qaeda leaders in its territory.
Paging General Musharraf. General Musharraf, please pick up on line 1.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wish we could turn that whole Waziristan region into a nuclear wasteland. There's not one thing in there that's worth pissing on.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/03/2006 0:45 Comments || Top||

#2  except maybe pissing on a picture of mo-ham-head
Posted by: anymouse || 03/03/2006 0:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Lol, Fred - these RNS items are terrific... Thinking about making them a separate offering in some fashion?

I don't have any solid ideas at the moment, and there are many people 'round here smarter than me about such things, but there's definitely a certain magic there (LOL) which might become a "sister" service to RB The Interactive Newspaper...

Of course it would mean you'd have to stop working and starve, lol...

Mebbe the marriage of your experience / knowledge / writing could become a commercial product with the right touches, direction, and mechanism.

I hesitate to say it, but something like a new Onion thingy, but with the WoT focus...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 1:28 Comments || Top||

#4  Fred, thanks for the real scoop. As for the original article, I wasn't able to get past the quotes marks around the US “war on terror”B>
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 2:44 Comments || Top||

#5  agree with .com. But alas, I don't have meaningful suggestions other than "Go Fred!"

This is the best site on the web for a comprehensive view on the WOT. Too bad you don't bash Bush. Then you could find someone to underwrite the magic. But then, it would just be crap like all of the other crap out there. Catch-22.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 2:53 Comments || Top||

#6  Hmmm... We could kidnap one of them, 2b, hold him incommunicado, beat his PIN number out of him, and, um well, er, nevermind, heh. Jus' funnin'...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:57 Comments || Top||

#7  Mushy plays with the clerics through his Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-i-Azam) connections. The Daily Times publication, along with the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Sindh based, MQM, are the last vestiges of secularism in Pakistan. If President Bush would deride the Pakistan's bearded parasite class for the Arab-Wannabes that they are, then Secular nationalists would sweep aside two faced swine like Mushy.

If a corrupt dictatorship ordered you, or your children, to learn a worthless language like Arabic, wouldn't that engage your national pride against that vulgar cultural servitude?
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 6:44 Comments || Top||

#8  Listen To Dogs I'm shocked! Shocked! Don't you know that Pakistan, along with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, are key allies in WOT?
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/03/2006 8:26 Comments || Top||

#9  "Paging Mr. Hellfire"
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 9:43 Comments || Top||

#10  Guys, are y'all ready to give up control of Afghanistan or Iraq in order to piss off Pakistan or the Gulf Emirates to no real good effect?
Posted by: Phil || 03/03/2006 10:49 Comments || Top||

#11  unemployed potentate Mulla Omar

Fred, on a good day the combined skills of a dozen Hollyweird hacks might be able to come up with something that funny. Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 11:31 Comments || Top||

#12  C'mon down, Blinky! Your buddy needs a roomate at Yale!
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 15:13 Comments || Top||

#13  Perhaps he would like to be admitted at Yale?
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 16:12 Comments || Top||

#14  Considering he is handicapped, Yale might appoint him as college prez?
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 16:22 Comments || Top||

#15  howzat Phil?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 17:52 Comments || Top||

#16  Peshawar would be a great place to experiment with Nanotech. If you screwed up and made grey ooze... what's the downside?

Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 20:36 Comments || Top||

#17  Lol, 3dc. Major mojo!
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 20:46 Comments || Top||

#18  Its Friday!
I need to let loose.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 22:43 Comments || Top||

#19  Besides nobody would notice. Grey ooze... what's there now. Not much difference.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 22:45 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas invited to South Africa
JERUSALEM - South Africa has invited the Palestinians’ incoming Hamas rulers for talks, Hamas and South African officials said on Thursday, in yet another blow to Israel’s efforts to isolate the group. No timetable has been set for the visit, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told The Associated Press.

Israel expressed concern at the South African invitation, which the Foreign Ministry in Johannesburg confirmed. “We would be concerned that giving legitimacy to an unreformed Hamas could stifle the possibility that the movement will transform itself from a terrorist organization to a political party,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birds of a feather. The South Africa that stood with Israel is being driven out for having the wrong SPF factor.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 6:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Hamas and South Africa?

Now there's a shocker.

/sarcasm
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 10:22 Comments || Top||

#3  And Bob the SA neighbor will probably invite Hamas in for tea, too. Hugo already put out the welcome mat for Hamas. See This Pravda article. Hamas has found a number of friends, including Russia, and the marks of the European Union. There will be a big push on Israel soon. Hellfires will not be enough to counter this one. Iran will be pouring in funds to groups like Hizb'allah and Hamas for a major attack on Israel.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/03/2006 12:03 Comments || Top||

#4  regression to the minimum.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 12:05 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
The Attack of the Giant Worms
not funny for the local farmers, I know, but I couldn't resist with the headline ...
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I was there 14 years ago and the worms were a problem then. Spectacular place BTW.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 0:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Perhaps it's time for the farmers to consider switching over to wheat, which doesn't need swampy conditions, and I think is more nutritious anyway, even if it isn't traditional.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 6:48 Comments || Top||

#3  That guy's not wearing no pants!
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/03/2006 7:40 Comments || Top||

#4  They don't need to grow anything but earthworms. An 18 inch earthworm would be worth a couple of dollars in North Florida about right now. Probably pay to air freight them in.
Posted by: 6 || 03/03/2006 8:46 Comments || Top||

#5  18 inches worms would provide a lot more protein than wheat, and it tastes like chicken, I'm told.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 11:35 Comments || Top||

#6  IIRC, dog food is made from earthworms, also. That could be a rather profitable sideline to their other farming income.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/03/2006 13:00 Comments || Top||

#7  ummm ... which brands, OP?
Posted by: Rolf the dog || 03/03/2006 13:04 Comments || Top||

#8  I pass
Posted by: RD || 03/03/2006 16:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Years ago, an agricultural station on Mindanoa, the Rural Life Center, discovered that a local shrub, the ipil-ipil, made a good hedge for terraces. The farmers didn't have to use wood to shore up the terraces.

Now would be a good time to look that plan up.
Posted by: mom || 03/03/2006 16:38 Comments || Top||

#10  Watch this video from google

Shark is not top.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 16:42 Comments || Top||

#11  Mindanao, not Mindanoa.
Posted by: mom || 03/03/2006 16:45 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
China urges India to abandon nuclear weapons
If the Chinese are against it, I'm for it.
BEIJING - China urged India to abandon nuclear weapons and strengthen atomic safeguards as President George W. Bush and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed a controversial nuclear pact on Thursday. Under the deal signed while Bush visited Delhi, the United States offered India nuclear fuel and technology in return for India agreeing to put a wall between its civilian and military nuclear facilities and place its civilian programme under international inspections.

India should sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and also dismantle its nuclear weapons, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang, told a news briefing in Beijing. “As a signatory country, China hopes non-signatory countries will join it as soon as possible as non-nuclear weapon states, thereby contributing to strengthening the international non-proliferation regime,” he said.

Qin said current international safeguards on nuclear weapons were the hard-won product of many countries’ efforts and should not be weakened by exceptions. “China hopes that concerned countries developing cooperation in peaceful nuclear uses will pay attention to these efforts. The cooperation should conform with the rules of international non-proliferation mechanisms,” he said.
Funny how this wasn't a problem back in the 1960s when the Chinese were building their first bombs.
The NPT grants China, the United States, Russia, France and Britain status as nuclear weapons states, but bars other signatory countries from having such weapons.

China has been pursuing nuclear power cooperation with Pakistan, India’s long-time rival, and has also hosted stalled six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.
And we all remember how angry the Chinese were with Khan.
China urged Iran on Thursday to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog and suspend nuclear enrichment activities, adding to rising international pressure on Teheran. “China hopes Iran will fully cooperate with the agency and clarify the unresolved questions about its nuclear programme and will restore the international community’s confidence in Iran,” ministry spokesman Qin said.
"Mr. Quid, this is Mr. Pro. Mr. Pro, meet Mr. Quo."
Posted by: Steve White || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Never happen. For the same reason Israel will never sign. To do so would be foolish.
Posted by: SPoD || 03/03/2006 1:24 Comments || Top||

#2  ROFL!

To the only nuclear threat to their hegemony and conquest in the region they have the unmitigated arrogance and gall to politely request that they unilaterally disarm.

ROFL!

YJCMTSU.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 1:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Well you can if you are chinese I guess PD and say it with a serious face too. LOL
Posted by: SPoD || 03/03/2006 1:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Lol, Spo'D... They did invent and perfect supreme arrogance, lol. Later equaled by the Arabs...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:29 Comments || Top||

#5  And I thought the Asian giants were playing the Iran card together.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 7:13 Comments || Top||

#6  You know, they might as well try skywriting "Surrender Dorothy" over New Delhi, see if that works.
Posted by: Phil || 03/03/2006 10:20 Comments || Top||

#7  And we urge China to abandon nuclear weapons.

Go ahead, China - practice what you preach. Set a good example for the world!

(You'll notice I'm not holding my breath....)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 10:21 Comments || Top||

#8  Remember that the Soviet Union asked the US to unilaterally disarm, too.

Remember who they used as proxies to try to get the US to unilaterally disarm? Several of them are still in office in the US.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 10:34 Comments || Top||

#9  I wonder if a Nuclear equipped India with a billion plus Democracy embracing citizens seeking economic betterment was in their 20 or 30 year plan. We will just see how the big lumbering third world, Madarin=Imperial power China reacts to this. Should be worth a couple of bags of popcorn...
Posted by: TomAnon || 03/03/2006 11:22 Comments || Top||

#10  In other news; Fox requests henhouse keys.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 11:51 Comments || Top||

#11  The only thing that really sucks about India is the globalization factor. Look how many jobs we have lost in the last 10 years to china. How many more will we lose when India's economy revs up. If you think the manufacturing and steel industries are bad off now, just wait. Everyone cant be an IT tech you know.
Posted by: Elmavimp Javiling7379 || 03/03/2006 13:19 Comments || Top||

#12  Elmavimp: Economies have to evolve to efficiency. For example, right now the US has moved away from heavy industry into high-tech. It has done that for three reasons.

First, we cannot compete with those who can run heavy industries far cheaper than us. We also don't want to pay the price for heavy industry in terms of pollution, energy consumption, etc.

Second, while heavy industry is profitable, it is less profitable than high tech. Many countries realize this and want a high tech industry. So by losing the heavy industry, we can but our resources to being at the forefront of a competitive high tech industry.

And third, we are moving to high tech because we *can* move to high tech. We are far less reliant on heavy industry than is China. Our infrastructure is built. Maintaining it is far less expensive than building it anew. Even if we retained our heavy industry, we couldn't retain it at the levels we wanted or needed; we just don't need it as much as we used to.

So what of the future? The US has long ridden the crest of the wave of development. We like doing that, and want to keep doing that. This means that we have to brutally allow what is less efficient to go by the wayside, and look for ever increasing ways to get more bang for our buck, in whatever enterprises our cutting edge technologies can take us.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 13:55 Comments || Top||

#13  Moose, you actually believe there's some kind of plan in action here ?
Whatcha smokin ?
Posted by: wxjames || 03/03/2006 14:32 Comments || Top||

#14  Well, what Moose is describing exactly does happen. The weak die, or are sucked up in aquisitions by the strong or mergers to be stronger. Perhaps not a macro economic scale per se, but at Enterprise level it is out do the competition or sink. This forces the evolution he's describing.

For us, being in Aerospace it is likewise true. We have to adopt new technologies and fundamental new ways of doing this or else the LCCs (low cost countries) based competitors will destroy us ... only a matter of time. So in our specific case, we are doing everything we can. Likewise to all of our industry peers regardless in the supply chain (vendor, customer, partner).

An extreeme shift will come when nano-manfucaturing tech is a reality. When we no longer tear things down to make stuff, but build it from the groud up there is a huge savings in waste. Whoever gets there first is going to utterly dominate (be it a specific company, an industry, whatever) but that will be the next wave.
Posted by: bombay || 03/03/2006 15:09 Comments || Top||

#15  wxjames: Most definitely there is a plan. This stuff is not unknown to economists, they are paid big bucks by those with the big bucks to predict where business is going to be in the future.

Right now, for example, everybody who can is migrating out of big oil. Not because of "peak oil" or global warming, or other short term issues like that, but because even the oil producers know that there is no future in it--it's dead already, Jim. Oil is a creature of huge, stable contracts, with fluctuations limited to marginal markets. As new sources of energy, and ways of using energy are invented, oil will first tumble in the marginal markets, then it will settle down as a not very profitable commodity.

That is why the UAE for example is spending tens of billions of dollars on becoming major transport and tourism hubs.

They know that their petrodollars aren't going to just up and stop one day, but they will be in a slow decline that could drag on for decades. And they don't want to stagnate or slowly decline. They want to stay at the top as best they can.

As far as steel goes, it is a 20th Century metal.

The metal of the 21st is titanium, mined at enormous mines in Australia. Sure, steel will still be good and profitable, but it's not *going* anywhere.

A little known principal of economics is why a "boom" economy *is* a "boom" economy. Simply put, it is when a huge *new* demand is created where there wasn't one before. In trying to create the supply needed to fill that demand, lots of innovation happens, and there is a ripple effect through the economy. Compare steel and titanium again.

There is very little innovation being done with steel anymore. Most is just re-working existing solutions. So it's a pretty stable market. It no longer excites the economy. However, when great amounts of the previously rare titanium enter the market, suddenly everyone has to ask the question, "Would this be better if it was made with titanium?"

If there were huge amounts of titanium, what would happen to our economy if all of a sudden, GM announces a new line of ultra-safe, ultra-light titanium cars that are competitively priced? Not only does the entire automotive industry need to re-tool because everybody now wants a titanium car, but there are huge fluctuations in the auto insurance industry, the banking-loan industry, and a dozen other industries simultaneously.

And, BTW, the steel industry gets kicked in the newts at the same time. But after its prices drop into the basement, all of a sudden, everyone wants to buy steel to make stuff that had been made out of plastic. So the question arises, "What can we make out of steel?"

This being said, an economy that keeps a push-push-push attitude will always win out over one satisfied with the status quo. Sure lots of jobs go to India and China, but the jobs that are going there are jobs in stagnant industries--those countries will fight for the consolation prize.

Meanwhile, the Americans who would have had those go nowhere jobs *have* to find better jobs. They have to do whatever it takes, even if it means they have to get a personal push-push-push attitude, too. But if they do, the rewards they can get also go up.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 16:14 Comments || Top||

#16  Excellent observations, as usual, 'moose. Slight nitpick:

The metal of the 21st is titanium

The "metal" of the 21st century is going to be composites. Pure metals and alloys will be reserved, almost exclusively, for armor, aerospace hulls and powerplants (until ceramic engine blocks come about). Composites, like those used in the B-2 and stealth fighter's skin can weigh half that of steel, yet possess thirteen times the strength.

bombay hits this one on the nose. Nanotechnology is the ne plus ultra of manufacturing. No selvage, no scrap, no overrun, no waste and few, if any, byproducts. Articles built from individual atoms and molecules from the ground up. Nearly zero labor costs and exceptionally low, if non-existent, defect densities. No cracked castings, no voids or bubbles, no chipped edges or surface dings. Superior utilization of critical materials via selective deposition of precious metal electrical contacts without etchback, doping and implantation at the crystal lattice level without thermal diffusion or high energy ion beams and their collateral damage. Single crystal materials plus innovative monolithic detectors and sensors constructed out of traditionally incompatible compounds.

For a fun and informative little romp with nanotechnology, please read "The Assemblers of Infinity" by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason. The authors note how a renegade self-replicating nanodisassembly robot could turn the earth's entire surface into gray slime in the matter of a few weeks. Quite obviously, such little critters will need to be modified, much like ecoli bacteria, to perish in ambient oxy-nitrogen atmosphere.

Still, it's fun to imagine a large swimming pool sized vat of these disassembly robots into which you can toss worn out computers, automobiles, refrigerators, sofas, shoes and organic waste only to extract pure elemental components therefrom. It is the ultimate recycling machine. It even has the potential to deconstruct toxic and hazardous waste back into more benign compounds. The nation that masters nanotechnology will achieve unheard of degrees of self-sufficiency. I look forward to America being the unrivaled master of such critical technology.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 19:44 Comments || Top||


#18 
The road/rail mobile Indian Agni 3 missile is ready for test launch and these (with 200 kT thermonuclear warhead) will be aimed at Beijing and Shanghai.

There are strong rumors that one (perhaps two) Akula nuclear submarines have been sold by Russian and are on the way to India now. These will be armed with nuclear tipped cruise missiles.

The really perverse thing is that China brought this on themselves.
India would probably not even have an army now (or much of one) far less nuclear weapons were it not for the Chinese attack across the McMahon line.

The 1962 Indo-China war

Soon after Independence the first commander-in-chief of the Indian armed forces, General Sir Robert Lockhart, presented a paper outlining a plan for the growth of the Indian Army to Prime Minister Nehru.

Nehru's reply: "We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats. You can scrap the army. The police are good enough to meet our security needs."

He didn't waste much time. On September 16, 1947, he directed that the army's then strength of 280,000 be brought down to 150,000. Even in fiscal 1950-51, when the Chinese threat had begun to loom large on the horizon, 50,000 army personnel were sent home as per his original plan to disband the armed forces.

After Independence, he once noticed a few men in uniform in a small office the army had in North Block, and angrily had them evicted.


After the war was another story

"I remember many a time when our senior generals came to us, and wrote to the defence ministry saying that they wanted certain things... If we had had foresight, known exactly what would happen, we would have done something else... what India has learnt from the Chinese invasion is that in the world of today there is no place for weak nations... We have been living in an unreal world of our own creation."
Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajya Sabha, 1963


Posted by: john || 03/03/2006 20:31 Comments || Top||

#19 
Posted by: john || 03/03/2006 21:30 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
In New Video, Blanco Says Levees Are Safe
In the hectic, confused hours after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast, Louisiana's governor hesitantly but mistakenly assured the Bush administration that New Orleans' protective levees were intact, according to new video obtained by The Associated Press showing briefings that day with federal officials. "We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29, according to the video. "We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time."

In fact, the National Weather Service received a report of a levee breach and issued a flash-flood warning as early as 9:12 a.m. that day, according to the White House's formal recounting of events the day Katrina struck. Critics have maintained the Homeland Security Department responded too slowly to the breaches, delaying repair efforts and allowing flooding to worsen. Formal reports of New Orleans' levee breaches reached the White House by 6 p.m., and the administration confirmed the damage by the next morning, according to the White House's recount.

In the video of the conference call, Blanco appears uncertain about the reliability of her information and cautioned that the situation "could change." Blanco said floodwaters were rising in parts of the city "where we have waters that are 8 to 10 feet deep, and we have people swimming in there."

"That's got a considerable amount of water itself," the governor said. "That's about all I know right now on the specifics that you haven't heard."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gosh. How will the assholes spin this one?

The more unvarnished BS-free info you learn...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Of course Bush should have known that the levies were breached! Just like he should have known there were notWMD's in Iraq [anymore] and he should have known that 9/11 would happen....

For being a dumb chimpbushhitler(tm) they sure must think he has some kind of super-ESP or something.

I figure the MSM will ignore this and focus even more intensely on Bush'es failure....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/03/2006 7:28 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm very confused, I thought the levees were blown up by neurotoxin-tipped darts armed Krazed Killer Dolphins escaped form Area 51 or something... this was how The Man held down the NOLA proud people, I was told.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 7:47 Comments || Top||

#4  think this will make Bob Schieffer's CBS news as the lead? Bwahahhhaa


me neither
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 9:17 Comments || Top||

#5  At the time Bush, Blanco etc. were making their statements there was no reason to doubt that the levees were intact, save for some possible localized overtopping or seepage. They knew how high the storm surge had been, and it was not as high as the main New Orleans levees (those around St. Bernard and the Lower Ninth Ward are a different story.)

Most of the area SHOULD have been safe against the actual impact of Katrina. Most of the damage THIS TIME was due to levees that failed due to flaws in design and/or construction. These flaws were not discovered due to poor monitoring and maintenance.

That the NWS "received a report of a levee breach" earlier than Blanco's (or Bush's) statements did not make their statements 'wrong' - as we later learned, a LOT of initial 'reports'
about a lot of things were wrong.

I live in New Orleans. Pre-storm there was lots of warning that it could be bad, and everyone should leave if they could (I did). The storm came through where I was; the wind blew, the rain fell, the power went out. Battery-powered radio told us the storm had weakened, and jogged to the east a bit, and we all thought that, once again, New Orleans had dodged a bullet. Then morning came and the winds dropped and people out towards the Lake started seeing water coming up in their streets. It still took a number of hours to get official confirmation - thousands of trees and power lines down meant you couldn't just drive, and helicopters had to be brought back into the area from Lafayette etc. where they had been taken for their protection. Landing zones and support service had to be set up (Lakefront Airport is outside the levee.) I could go on, but you get the point - it is totally unrealistic to expect ANYONE to have perfect, or even decent, information over such a large area in just a few hours after such a large event.
(This is not a 'blanket' defense of Bush, Blanco, Chertoff, Brown, Naguin, Broussard, etc., and just applies to all this nit-picking 'gotcha' cr*p about 'who said what when' during and immediately after the storm.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/03/2006 9:30 Comments || Top||

#6  It's simple, really. Bush knew that the levees would break because Halliburton placed the explosives right where Rove told them to. Duh!

/wow, that's actually kinda fun
Posted by: BH || 03/03/2006 10:27 Comments || Top||

#7  Five days after the briefing, with most of New Orleans underwater, Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

This gotcha crap has gotta stop! What Pres. Bush says is true, even with this video of his briefing. There's a HUGE difference between saying they COULD be topped/breached and actually ANTICIPATING/BELIEVING they WOULD be! I, for one, knew about NO since college and the very MINUTE I saw that storm hit Cat. 5 (Friday or Saturday), I would've been gone! Much like the scrappleface article on Nagin below, sitting around waiting on Feds to save you will get you killed in a storm like this!
Posted by: BA || 03/03/2006 11:25 Comments || Top||

#8  For being a dumb chimpbushhitler(tm) they sure must think he has some kind of super-ESP or something.

Actually it is all right there under the desk in the Oval Office--next to the Economy Up/Down Lever and the Nuclear Button is the "knows everything about all topics" screen.
Posted by: eLarson || 03/03/2006 14:11 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Where's Bangla Bhai?
The first question of Rab (Rapid Action Battalion) interrogators to detained militant kingpin Abdur Rahman was on the whereabouts of another top militant Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai. "We started interrogating Rahman in the car in which he was brought to Dhaka, soon after a court placed him on remand. And you know, certainly whereabouts of Bangla Bhai was the first question," Director General (DG) of Rab MA Aziz Sarker said.

When contacted over phone yesterday afternoon, he also said acting on information from Rahman, Rab personnel have seized a huge quantity of explosives from Hatilbagh of Shibganj in Sylhet. Rab was also raiding some areas in Habiganj. Aziz however declined to say what Rahman told them about Bangla Bhai. Asked whether Bangla Bhai is in the country, he refused to make any comment. But sources in intelligence agencies said Bangla Bhai and Rahman were shacked up staying together even two months ago. "We don't believe any of the remaining three members of JMB Majlish-e-Shura including Bangla Bhai, who are yet to be arrested, are absconding in India, as assumed by some investigators earlier," said a top law enforcement official. "They are all in Bangladesh and we believe, if we continue our determined efforts, they will certainly be captured." Bangla Bhai, operations commander of the banned Islamist outfit Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), and two other members of Majlish-e- Shura are the next target of the elite force, he said.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Please, give him the honor of a proper crossfire.

Then lend us a RAB Unit or two. I'll provide them pizza & Thai, beer, and a well-honed target list...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Muslim logic in action: all Muslim prisoners are innocent educators suffering false arrest and confinement, who are only guilty of performing charitable works, inshallah. I pulled this link off those Google ads:

http://www.kuwaitifreedom.org/prisoners/index.php

I would be shocked if "due process" can be translated into Arabic.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 8:25 Comments || Top||

#3  The nearest translation is "sharia." That's what they mean, anyway.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/03/2006 10:02 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
China urges Iran to cooperate fully with IAEA
China urged Iran on Thursday to "fully cooperate" with the U.N. nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency. "China hopes Iran will fully cooperate with the agency and clarify the unresolved questions about its nuclear programme and will restore the international community's confidence in Iran," said Qin Gang, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry.

Time is running out for a breakthrough before March 6, when the IAEA is to discuss a report on Iran's nuclear activities. Tehran says its nuclear plans are entirely peaceful, but the United States and the European Union trio of Britain, France and Germany say Iran hopes to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons. The Western powers may use the March 6 meeting to push Iran towards the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, according to a report of Reuters. Qin said China believes "there is still scope to peacefully resolve the Iran nuclear issue through diplomatic means". He urged Iran to continue negotiating with Russia about Moscow's compromise plan that would allow Iran to produce nuclear power but not reprocess its own atomic materials.

But Qin placed the onus on Tehran to mollify its critics by freezing any nuclear enrichment activities. "We hope that Iran will restore its freeze on all activities related to uranium enrichment, creating conditions to appropriately resolve the Iran nuclear issues through negotiations," he said. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said the U.N. Security Council should be ready to act to ensure Iran does not develop nuclear weapons once the IAEA refers the matter to the council.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yeah, sure, that pitiful little $10 billion Chinese oil deal will really put the fear of sanctions into Iran. We need to bomb Iran, if only to gum up China's oil supply. Effing wankers.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 12:05 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Terror don surrendered meekly
Abdur Rahman, who terrorised the country with his ruthless squad of bombers and preferred death to surrender in the cause of Jihad, yesterday walked out of his den, meek and cowed, into the law enforcers' hands, ending a 34-hour suspense. Breaking a 26-hour silence, the chief of the banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), finally surrendered at 7:06am to the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) that had pinned him down at a Sylhet house since Tuesday night.

Under high security, he has been brought to Dhaka by road for interrogation at the Rab-1 office in Uttara after a Sylhet court remanded him for 10 days. Before giving in, Rahman, whose band of killers carried out serial blasts on a number of occasions to kill more than 30 people and injure many others, charged the Rab of "violating human rights" by cutting off his utility supplies. "You have stopped my gas, electricity and water supply," Rahman appeared on the window and spoke in a weak tone. "It is violation of human rights."

"I want a peaceful solution. I want to meet Khaleda, Hasina, Ershad and [Lutfozzaman] Babar," he blurted out. He also wanted to talk to the media. "Once I surrender, I will not get the chance to talk with the media and say what I have to tell the countrymen," Rahman said in a weak voice, asking for a loudhailer.

The Rab members applied both coaxing and threats to snap the terrorist's psyche. "You have wasted enough time. We won't tolerate any more," a law enforcer shouted at Rahman. "They [Khaleda, Hasina, Ershad and Babar] could not come here," another law enforcer said. "We have made sitting arrangement for you in the next house where you can talk to the media. You will be given all types of legal support." The law enforcers asked Rahman to come out unarmed only in his pyjamas. "We will keep our words, but you will have to come out first. You will not carry anything in your hands or on your body. You have to show you are safe for all," a Rab officer said on a loudhailer.

A hesitant Rahman consulted with his two aides--Moizul Islam alias Hridoy Chowdhury, 40, and Hanif alias Abdul Aziz, 27--also holed up in the building. He repeated his demands for a few more times. Then he nodded to his cohorts, signalling with his head that the game is over. A few moments later, Rahman in a white flowing beard and draped in long punjabi, a red-and-white chequered scarf and a topi on his head walked out of the single-storey house at East Shaplabagh. He was clutching a copy of the Quran.

The terrorist looked like a cornered mouse. He and his two accomplices were immediately handcuffed and whisked away in a sports utility vehicle, not letting Rahman talk with the mediamen who had been waiting there since Tuesday night. Journalists were also not allowed at the Rab-1 office in Dhaka when Rahman and other arrestees were taken there at 3:00pm yesterday. Rab officials said they will not allow any journalists as they have already started their interrogation. They said they may arrange a briefing for journalists today.

A case was filed with Sylhet Kotwali Police Station against nine, including Rahman. A motorcade of top Rab officials took them to the court of Magistrate Ershadul Haque who sent Rahman on a 10-day remand upon a petition submitted by the police. The law enforcers seized a two-kg bomb, 11 detonators, power gel, electric wires, 21 CDs and books on Jihad, and a motorcycle from the house. The police later sealed the house.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "It is violation of human rights."

LOL. Obviously, he watches Law & Order, Special Victims Unit and missed his electricity and satellite signal. Just a mere decade or so ago no one would've known WTF he was jabbering about. I blame globalization, lol.

The farce of another Brave Lion of Whatever™ ends... Should've been in a classic crossfire, however.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:46 Comments || Top||

#2  The Rab members applied both coaxing and threats to snap the terrorist's psyche. "You have wasted enough time. We won't tolerate any more," a law enforcer shouted at Rahman. "They [Khaleda, Hasina, Ershad and Babar] could not come here," another law enforcer said

"But we will take you to meet them....probably around 4AM...."(pssst..where's the shuttergun?)
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 9:00 Comments || Top||

#3  "You have stopped my gas, electricity and water supply," Rahman appeared on the window and spoke in a weak tone. "It is violation of human rights."

You gotta feel for this guy. When the air conditioning gets shut off it becomes a whole lot harder to kill and maim innocent people from the comfort of your own home. When he gets to prison, I hope someone stops his gas there, too.

Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 12:34 Comments || Top||

#4  Another brave Jihadi pussies out. More proof that "Death for the Jihad" is still reserved for the "little people".
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 12:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Yeah, give him his 2 year prison sentence and let him think about all those people he blew up.
Posted by: Elmavimp Javiling7379 || 03/03/2006 13:13 Comments || Top||

#6  The "lions of islam" all use Tampons.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/03/2006 18:51 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Derbyshire: Hesperophobia
A couple of days after 9/11 I posted a column with the title "Hesperophobia." I had borrowed this word from Robert Conquest, who used it to mean "fear and hatred of the West." My attempt to re-float the word into general circulation didn't fare any better than Conquest's introductory effort had. I still think it's a very handy word, though. It is, for example, the word that comes to mind when I look at those pictures of Muslims in Europe and Islamia, rioting about the Danish cartoons.

Lord, how they hate us! If you think this is just Islam, you are kidding yourself. The West, and Westerners, are hated all over the world. A friend who has been looking into the Nigerian "419 scams" tells me that while the main motivation for them is of course financial, a strong secondary factor among the Nigerian scammers is the desire to humiliate those suckers in the West who (still!) fall for them. The Chinese seem to have slowed down their production of rabidly anti-Western movies recently, but I have no doubt that hesperophobia still lurks just below the surface of Chinese life. In South America, politicians like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are riding to power on anti-Americanism, which is merely a targeted style of hesperophobia. The West is hated all over the rest of the world. Why?

There are all sorts of answers to that question, most of them inspired by wishful thinking of one kind or another. Paleocons tell you that it's all because of our support for Israel, and if we just cut loose from the Israeli connection, everything between us and the Third World would be tickety-boo. I know people, quite intelligent people, who actually believe this; though why Nigerian con men and Andean coca farmers give a fig, or a coca leaf, about our support for Israel, my paleocon friends find hard to explain. Nor can they explain why Third World hesperophobes were smiling and gloating over the recent riots in France, a nation that has not, let us say, distinguished itself by courageous support for Israel.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipper || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting. Just a small tale; a portuguese journalist was not much years ago in the Cabinda Enclave. (North of Angola) he then picks up is satellite phone and talks to his wife. Some peasants near ask what was all that thing. He explains how it works and that he was talking to his wife in Lisboa (Lisboa the capital of Portuguese Empire usually called in colonies "the metropolis" that once you needed weeks to get there) then one peasant with admiration said this: "You whites are near Gods."
So hesperophobia isnt a clear in everyone and i bet that most have a double feeling that can be used by any political clever guy, for good and for bad...
Posted by: Cralet Thraing9228 || 03/03/2006 1:09 Comments || Top||

#2  I can't stand Derbyshire. Do yourself a favor and don't read past the excerpt posted on rantburg. Next month's article by Derbyshire - The Reasons Why The White Male Should Make Slaves of the Inferior Brown Folk.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 3:39 Comments || Top||

#3  I forced myself to get to the end of this article before posting this, in case he actually came to some sort of valid point.

But let me say this: So what if he is right? So what if it is true that different races have different strengths and weaknesses? I'm an American. Some of my ancestors were here at Jamestown. Some crossed the plains in covered wagons. Some came from Ireland. We keep moving west. But I'm no less American, (hmmm.. in some ways, maybe less so), than the guy who came here yesterday for opportunity - like my ancestors.

America is the land of opportunity. So back to my point of so what if Derbyshire is right? So what if blacks are more athletic and Jews tend to be doctors/lawyers/artists, so what if Mexicans tend to be ...I don't know...whatever. Isn't that what makes America great? That we all contribute something different? Don't you know "whites" who could fit into any category that I could name about any other group? We are a melting pot, a matrix, hybrids, mutts. Damn, I love that about us. I so tire of the Derbyshires who want to be somehow superior through birthright. Ain't gonna happen Derby, this is a "what have you done for me lately" kind of country. That's what makes it great.

As for his poo-poohing democracy. Well, it's late, I'm tired, and Screw him. Everyone deserves the chance to control their own destiny. Even the Paleos may learn from their election of Hamas that perhaps there is a better way.

Hey Derbyshire - Screw you. No one is special. Eveyone is special. Deal with it. We hold these truths to be self evident, all men are created equal.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 4:01 Comments || Top||

#4  The human genome project will, at some point, deeply inform the nature/nurture argument. Until we have all the facts, it is pure speculation to say that there are (or are not)significant genetic variations regarding social abilities and behavior. Anyone who says this is (or isn't) the case is speaking only from their own anecdotal experiences.

So I'll qualify my own thoughts on this issue as speculation based upon my own observations in life.

Yeah, there probably are measurable differences in behavior that hold true for ethnic groups in some cases.

And no, it ultimately doesn't matter, because people can learn and adapt.
Posted by: no mo uro || 03/03/2006 6:41 Comments || Top||

#5  You said it nicer than I did. Well said.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 10:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Dang.

From the headline I thought it might be a discussion of "The Wreck of the Hesperus" by Longfellow.

Instead I find a silly article by a long-winded fellow. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 14:53 Comments || Top||

#7  #2: I can't stand Derbyshire. Do yourself a favor and don't read past the excerpt posted on rantburg. Next month's article by Derbyshire - The Reasons Why The White Male Should Make Slaves of the Inferior Brown Folk.
Posted by: 2b|| 2006-03-03 03:39 ||Comments Top||

Intriguing admonishment and oblique reference to rascism. I have seen much here of late, labeled in a similar manner.
Posted by: Visitor || 03/03/2006 15:08 Comments || Top||

#8  Oblique?! One wonders what Visitor would consider direct.

Rascism, the last refuge of a rascal?

I have seen much here of late, labeled in a similar manner.

Now that's oblique!
Posted by: SLO Jim || 03/03/2006 16:07 Comments || Top||

#9  This isn't about race - it's about culture.

But that said, the line is pretty fuzzy and Visitor is quite right about that.

I can't stand him either, Visitor - one of the things we have in common. ;-)
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 16:13 Comments || Top||


Europe
14th century ship found in Stockholm
you know you want to go watch this, yes?
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's an omen.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 3:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Viking era ended in 1066. By the 14th Century, the Swedes were already inventing fictitious ancient kings to make their kings sound more impressive.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 10:58 Comments || Top||

#3  You mean to say they finally located that Soviet sub?
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 12:10 Comments || Top||

#4  I blame George Bush for this.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 03/03/2006 17:32 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Update: US diplomat, 3 others killed in Karachi attack
A suicide car bomber rammed into a diplomatic vehicle outside the United States Consulate in Karachi on Thursday, killing an American diplomat and three others, including the attacker.
Welcome to Pakistan, Mr. Bush...
Reportedly, a white car packed with about 12 to 15 kilogrammes of explosives rammed into the American diplomat’s five-door vehicle between 9.02am and 9.05am, killing the diplomat and three others. Police sources said the plan was made to deliberately use a small car so that it would be able to hit the chassis of the diplomat’s larger vehicle in such a way that it exploded upwards. The car was parked outside the nearby Naval hospital. Sources said that a Rangers official, Zafar, had asked the attacker to move his car but the attacker made some excuse. In the meantime the diplomat’s vehicle approached and the attacker rammed his car into it.

The blast was so severe that it broke the windowpanes of shops and houses as far as the Metropole Hotel. Zafar, US consulate driver Iftikhar, the US Foreign Office’s David Foy and the attacker were killed and 54 people were injured, mostly police, Rangers and Marriott Hotel staff. The explosion left a 15-foot wide and almost 3.25-foot deep crater in the road. Twenty cars were also destroyed. The nine-storey hotel was 60 percent full with foreigners. An eight-year-old Moroccan girl, a diplomat’s daughter, was also injured while in her hotel room with her parents. Sources at the JPMC said the DNA test of the suicide bomber was being carried out. They said that five of the injured were in critical condition. Capital City Police Officer Niaz Siddiqi told reporters that it appeared that the attacker’s vehicle did not pass by a police check-post, but came from within the hotel. He said the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other US agencies were assisting the Karachi police in investigations.

The attack came less than two days before Bush is scheduled to make a trip to Pakistan. “I have been briefed on the bombings and we have lost at least one US citizen in the bombings – a foreign service officer,” Bush said following talks with Indian PM Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. “Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan,” he vowed. President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz condemned the blast and vowed that its perpetrators would not be spared.

Shahzad Raza adds from Islamabad: Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao confirmed that the terrorist attack was a suicide act. He said that no group had accepted responsibility so far. “It was a well-planned attack. The Rangers tried to stop the car of the suicide attacker, but it broke the security barrier and hit the armoured vehicle of the US diplomat killing him and his driver,” the interior minister told Daily Times.

Sherpao told a private television on Thursday that the government had proof of foreign involvement in the Karachi blast, Online reported. He said that the issue of terrorists from neighbouring countries carrying out attacks in Pakistan will be brought up during President Bush’s visit. “Every terrorist in Balochistan and Karachi has a covert foreign hand involved,” he said.

A federal cabinet meeting presided over by the PM also condemned the attack. Hours after the suicide attack, two rockets fell and exploded in a stream near Gadap but caused no damage or casualties, AFP quoted local police official Hasan Dal as saying.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Ahmadinejad: Iran has 'inalienable rights' to nuclear technology
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday Tehran would refuse to negotiate over its "inalienable rights" to acquire nuclear technology, on the eve of last-minute talks between Iran and EU powers. "We believe that it is the right of all member nations to enjoy nuclear fuel and peaceful nuclear technology. We will not accept a scientific apartheid," Ahmadinejad told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. Ahmadinejad is in Malaysia for a three-day visit as part of Iran's efforts to garner international support before Monday's meeting. "My nation has chosen its path. Having said that I also point out that we don't want to pick a fight with any country but we are very capable of defending ourselves and securing our national interests," Ahmadinejad said.

While Iran is ready to negotiate, "it is very clear that we are not open to negotiating on our inalienable rights," the Iranian president said, speaking in Farsi through an interpreter. In an effort to end the crisis, Russia has offered to enrich uranium for Tehran so that the West can be assured that it is not being diverted to build weapons Larijani, confirmed in Moscow that Tehran will negotiate with Britain, France and Germany before of a March 6 key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board. A European diplomat said the talks will be held Friday in Vienna.

The IAEA board of governors could start a process leading to punishment by the UN Security Council, which has the authority to impose sanctions on Iran. "The Iranians asked for this meeting. We are prepared to meet them tomorrow to listen to what they have to say," a British Foreign Office spokesman in London said Thursday. "There are no new proposals from the EU-3," the spokesman said. IAEA director general Mohammad al-Baradei, who is also due to meet the foreign ministers, also welcomed the EU3-Iran meeting. "As negotiations proceed, it will be essential for all parties to specifically address the security, political and economic issues that underlie any future comprehensive settlement," he said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lol. We know, we know. STFU, already.

Look up!

Heh.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Because many of the key developments were carried out by Jews?
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/03/2006 8:41 Comments || Top||

#3  KEEP BEGGING, WE'RE RETARGETING
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 11:58 Comments || Top||

#4  What Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad needs to understand is that the U.S. and Israel have the right to bomb Iran into the stone age(but its not like they really ever left it though..)
Posted by: bgrebel || 03/03/2006 20:19 Comments || Top||


Europe
Belgium left red faced after Turkish militant disappears
lots of lapses by the Belgians lately, including refusing to act on CIA info about nuclear equipment sent to Iran despite being embargoed.
Belgium has been left red faced by the disappearance of convicted Turkish militant Fehriye Erdal, who vanished while under surveillance of the intelligence service VS and the Interior Ministry. Erdal had been under intensified surveillance in the past two weeks leading up to her conviction in Brugge Court on Tuesday for links to the Turkish militant group DHKP-C.
"And how intense was the surveillance, M. le Inspecteur?"
"I cogitated intensely to infer her whereabouts!"
She was sentenced in absentia to four years jail and the court ordered her immediate apprehension. However, it was later revealed that Erdal had been missing for 24 hours. An international arrest warrant has now been issued.
"Legume! I have cogitated that the wench has absconded! Issue an international arrest warrant immediately!"
And the news of Erdal's disappearance dominated front page headlines in Belgian newspapers on Thursday.
"Extry! Extry! Read all about it! Intelligence Belgique hoses it again!"
"Here, boy! Lemme see that!"
Turkish editorials and news broadcasts also paid heavy attention to the issue.
Yes, I imagine they might, considering what DHKP-C has been linked to.
The DHKP-C militant had been staying in a Belgian government safehouse since the end of March 2000 after her arrest in September 1999 in Duinbergen on suspicion of illegal weapon possession and using a fake passport.
safehouse? SAFEHOUSE??? Pardon me, but Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?????
Erdal was placed under the supervision of the Interior Ministry after she applied for political asylum in July 2000. If she needed to leave her safehouse — for example to visit a doctor — Erdal needed to ask ministerial permission.
ah, of course - she's just a poor misunderstood political refugee
"Legume! Did you, perhaps, issue a permission slip for her to go to Outer Mongolia?"
"Certainly not, M. le Inspecteur! It was to go to Australia."
This occurred on various occasions in the past six years without any problem, but when security service officers went to arrest her on Monday night, Erdal had disappeared.
"Where is she?"
"I dunno. Said she was goin' to see the docteur!"
House raids in Brussels at known DHKP-C addresses yielded nothing.
wotta surpise!
I feel faint, I'd best go lie down.
"Fehriye Erdal? Nope. Nobody by that name here!"
"Hokay. Ummm... What's your name?"
"Ummm... Fehriye Smith."
The Justice Ministry, Interior Ministry and federal public prosecution department were left pointing at each other for an official comment on Wednesday as Belgium was increasingly left red faced by the disappearance.
"Wudn't me."
"Wudn't me."
"Wudn't me. It wuz them!"
Eventually, Interior Minister Patrick Dewael and Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx confirmed in a joint statement on Wednesday night that Erdal had been under intensified supervision of the security service VS since 19 February. However, the VS lost sight of Erdal on Monday night.
"Yeah. It wuz them."
Adding to the diplomatic pressure on Belgium, Turkey requested the extradition of Erdal on Monday.
"Sorry. Can't do it. She's gone to the docteur."
It is the third such request.
"Again? She's at the docteur again?"
"She's been feeling poorly."
Erdal's lawyer has said the latest request could be due to the fact Turkey has abolished the death penalty. However, Erdal's extradition is not considered likely because
... she's beat it for parts unknown?
she was arrested in relation to a "political offence". The DKHP-C aims to overthrow the Turkish government and has already claimed responsibility for several violent attacks in Turkey.
and in Belgian eyes that makes her a political refugee? The place is f*cked up even more than I thought.
Remember how much the Euros dislike the Turks, and it begins to make sense. Not a lot of sense, but sense. In a Euro sort of way.
Belgian opposition parties are now demanding answers from ministers Dewael and Onkelinx, stressing that both of them have made mistakes in handling the issue. "This incident is damaging for the reputation of our country," Christian Democrat CD&V MP Tony Van Parys said.
No - you think??

More on the investigation here, including some biting words from Turkish officials.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Do we have a graphic of bon-bons?
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:54 Comments || Top||

#2  These dumb bastards should be committing Seppuku not pointing fingers at each other. The Belgians and their King are jokes.
Posted by: SPoD || 03/03/2006 4:50 Comments || Top||

#3  If I recall correctly, Belgium is the most corrupt country in the EU. Which takes some doing. The venal fools!
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 6:07 Comments || Top||

#4  If I recall correctly, Belgium is the most corrupt country in the EU. Which takes some doing. The venal fools!

They compete with Italy... and win!
Posted by: JFM || 03/03/2006 8:37 Comments || Top||

#5  Interior Minister Patrick Dewael

Which I read as Patrick DeWeasel. LOL.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/03/2006 9:00 Comments || Top||

#6  For another take on Italian corruption, you might be amused by Dalrymple's comparison of Italy and Britain: The Uses of Corruption.
Posted by: James || 03/03/2006 10:27 Comments || Top||

#7  My dad, commenting about WWII, called Belgium "a shitty little country between the Dutch and disaster". I haven't read anything, seen anything, to tell me differently. And yes, I HAVE been to Belgium, about a dozen times.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/03/2006 10:31 Comments || Top||

#8  Give them credit, Old Patriot, the food is better in Belgium than in France. And the portions are larger, too. ;-) Which doesn't change the fact that I would never let a Belgian policeman into my home outside of normal business hours -- the risks are too great.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 10:53 Comments || Top||

#9  See this about Belgium.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 11:06 Comments || Top||

#10  My wife used to travel to Belgium for business. She said it was the New Jersey of Europe.

Posted by: DoDo || 03/03/2006 11:10 Comments || Top||

#11  "This incident is damaging for the reputation of our country,"

Not really. More like just another corroboration of what we already knew.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 11:36 Comments || Top||

#12  Two excellent links from James and A5089. Thank you both.
Posted by: Grunter || 03/03/2006 12:21 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Families flee North Waziristan
Hundreds of families fled North Waziristan on Thursday fearing further attack a day after an army air and ground assault killed 45 militants suspected of links to Al Qaeda. The army action provoked retaliation by tribesmen in the area of North Waziristan. The tribesmen, urged on by militant Muslim clerics, took up arms and clashed with troops in the semi-autonomous regionn.

Rocket and gunfire resounded through the night in Miranshah, the main town in the region, and the airstrip and military fort both came under fire as helicopters patrolled overhead. “We are leaving to save our children from being killed,” said Rahman Karay, a shopkeeper in Miranshah. He said helicopter gunships had strafed the area on Wednesday and again on Thursday.

Security officers said on Wednesday the helicopters had been used to disperse militant tribesmen. The tribesmen were enflamed by talk that villagers were among the casualties when helicopter gunships backed by ground troops smashed a militant den at Danda Saidgai, a village 15 km north of Miranshah. A military statement issued late Wednesday said 45 mostly foreign fighters along with tribal militants had been killed.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  good. by and large only the innocent flee. the cockroaches hide.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/03/2006 0:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Not always so ... beware wolves hiding in sheep's clothing.
Posted by: doc || 03/03/2006 9:42 Comments || Top||

#3  kill the militant muslim clerics. Do it in Fridays prayers
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 10:11 Comments || Top||

#4  one of these days...sooner or later AQ is going to get their wish: the West will decleare war on Islam.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/03/2006 10:26 Comments || Top||

#5  The tribesmen, urged on by militant Muslim clerics, took up arms and clashed with troops in the semi-autonomous region.

Go get'em, boys! We'll be... back here waiting for you. Like we always are.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 10:29 Comments || Top||

#6  Quietly, the Pak army has been strongly upgrading its weaponry and tactics, so that before, when they would have gone into some of these enclaves, it would have been a "fair fight", now the army has considerably more firepower.

Both in N and S Waziristan, and in Baluchistan, this is upsetting the balance and giving the Paks the chance to assert federal authority. And once they're in, they are very hard to dislodge.

The time for autonomous tribes may be running out, and fast.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 15:37 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Islamic Jihad's military wing takes credit for stabbing
The military wing of Islamic Jihad, Al-Quds Brigades, took credit for stabbing a Jewish settler in occupied Jerusalem on Thursday morning. A statement by the armed wing said a group stabbed a Jewish settler in the industrial zone near occupied Jerusalem. It said the attack was in retaliation of the Israeli army's crime against the Palestinian people.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Moscow says John Paul II assassination accusation is 'absurd'
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What was absurd was the U.S.S.R. OF COURSE they are responsible.
Posted by: bgrebel || 03/03/2006 20:20 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanese Army seals Syrian border
The Lebanese Army deployed troops along the mountain passageways linking Syria to Lebanon in the Upper Hermel, erecting permanent military points and closing all illegal crossings. Security sources said army troops were deployed in northern Bekaa to thwart attempts to smuggle goods between Lebanon and Syria and to close illegal crossroads linking the two states. Dozens of tanks and trucks penetrated through rugged passages that were used for smuggling operations.

Witnesses said they were surprised by the fact that no smuggling activities were seen during the deployment of the troops in the area, which used to represent a major location for transferring goods illegally across the borders on a daily basis. It was not clear if the move was part of the heavy security measures taken to preserve the country's security in light of the national dialogue conference being held in Beirut. As soon as the Lebanese Army units reached the borders, a Syrian security delegation arrived to the area to inspect the measures taken on the Lebanese side.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  oooooooh.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 2:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Yea, but howda Syrians gonna scoot inta Leb?
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 15:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Aren't these idiots [Syrians] going to run out of borders being sealed?
Posted by: Angomogum Unutle3413 || 03/03/2006 17:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Lebs tired of being used? Hezbolllah's gotta get their weapons somehow. Will Lahoude transport them in a Diplotruck LOL?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 17:51 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Four Iraqis killed, 12 wounded in separate explosions in Baghdad
In Al-Sadr City suburb in the east of the capital, five Iraqis were killed and 10 others were wounded in a bomb blast that ripped through a bus, a security source said.

Three Iraqi policemen killed, US-led forces attacked in Kirkuk
Three Iraqi policemen died in Karkuk Thursday and seven others wounded from an attack by gunmen, said the Iraqi police in the city. The police also told KUNA that a bomb exploded under a police car. No life loses was reported from the blast. The US-led forces were also exposed to fire by insurgents in Kirkuk, without reporting any casualties, said the police.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
Oil rebels free six hostages in Nigeria
Separatist guerrillas in Nigeria have released six of the nine foreign hostages they have been holding, but also warned that they would step up attacks aimed at shutting down the country's oil industry. The militants said they would not hand over the remaining captives, two Americans and a Briton, until two ethnic Ijaw leaders were freed from jail and the oil giant Shell pays a hefty sum to compensate polluted villages. James Ibori, the Delta State governor, welcomed the men, freed on Wednesday - Macon Hawkins, Egypt's Bardese Mohammed and Aly Shady, Tony Santos of the Philippines and Thailand's Muado Somsak and Arak Suwana - to his lodge in the city of Warri. Hawkins was released on his 69th birthday, after 13 days in the Niger Delta swamps. He suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure. "We are very pleased that six of the hostages have been released. I want to thank everyone that has assisted in this effort.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Two US Embassy guards killed in Haiti
Two Haitian men who worked as security guards for the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince were shot to death as they went home from work, the embassy said on Thursday. Gary Michel Joseph and Ernst Polo were killed late on Wednesday and their bodies were found in a residential area of the capital on Thursday, the embassy said in a statement.

The killings came as Haitian police reported a drop in crime since the February 7 presidential and legislative elections, particularly in dangerous slums such as Cite Soleil. Haiti had been plagued by political and gang violence and a spate of kidnappings for ransom in the months leading up to the vote. Police said slum gangs opposed to the interim government that has run Haiti since ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed two years ago called a halt to the violence, allowing the elections to be held in relative safety. "Measures taken at the political level have contributed to easing the security situation," said Jean St.-Fleur, director of Haiti's administrative police. "In places such as Cite Soleil, Bel-Air and other places reputed as dangerous, the number of kidnappings is practically zero." The U.S. Embassy called the slain guards "devoted professionals" and said it was working with Haitian and U.N. police to find the killers.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why do we have an embassy in Haiti? The Dominican Republic sends us baseball players. Haiti only sends illegal immigrants to fill out our welfare rolls.
Posted by: RWV || 03/03/2006 0:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe if they learned to play bezboll they wouldn't spend so much time oppressing each other.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 11:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe if they hadn't been a French colony...
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 12:02 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Bomb blast hits Jounieh court offices
A bomb exploded late Wednesday in Jounieh's Judicial Palace, causing fears that the string of bombings had returned with the start of Lebanon's national dialogue, but security sources said the attack was part a personal dispute and only caused slight material damage. Security sources said the 100 grams of dynamite was attached to a stopwatch and placed behind one of the doors in the building's main highway, used by lawyers to access the court rooms. The sources added that the palace's guards did not hear the explosion and knew about it only after the concierge opened the gates in the morning.

The security sources said the dynamite exploded near the traffic court and might have been placed by someone who has been sentenced by the court. Police suspected a person who was attending one of the sessions on Wednesday and who was under threat of being declared bankrupt in a session held early Thursday. The person had given the judge a false name. But when the judge asked him to present his ID, he said he wanted to go to his car to retrieve it. The judge ordered security personnel to accompany him but the suspect pretended to be going home to get the ID and ran away. After determining the true identity and the location of the suspect, police officers were sent to arrest him but could not find him.

Sources said the suspect might have placed the dynamite to hamper Thursday's session. Sources also said that 32 employees in the palace had the key to the main door. They added that earlier in the day, a security official demanded to know the identity of all the employees who had a spare key and decided that the lock should be changed. Security forces said the incident could have led to more serious damage if the explosion had occurred after 9 a.m., when the lawyers and the judges usually arrive to the palace.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Turkey says US troops must stay in Iraq
Turkey's foreign minister said on Thursday U.S. troops should not quit neighbouring Iraq prematurely "The Iraqis should be able to administer themselves, but we say the withdrawal of coalition forces before these things can happen would cause a vacuum, a gap,"
a Greater Kurdistan
Abdullah Gul told reporters in televised remarks. Gul reaffirmed Turkey's support for Iraq's territorial and political unity, Reuters reported.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Funny comment from a country that did nothing to help us liberate Iraq, as a matter of fact did they not ask us to leave Turkey and deny us the use of their ports??? Turkey's comments go over there with the French comments in the "Who really cares" box.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 03/03/2006 1:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Methinks the "unity" bit was the crux of the biscuit, here, lol.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:05 Comments || Top||

#3  At least they've learned enough to realize the downside of us leaving. Perhaps they are trainable, after all. (Sorry for that bit of technical language -- Mama's specialty was early child development as applied to the mentally retarded, and "trainable" is a step down from "educable", that is those who may not be able to learn to read and write, but can at least be taught to brush their teeth and to wipe their bottoms after toileting.)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 6:40 Comments || Top||

#4  See Dec. 2005, Smithsonian Magazine, "Iraq's Resilient Minority." Sorry, I don't know how to post links.
Posted by: mom || 03/03/2006 9:40 Comments || Top||

#5  The article Mom references is here.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 9:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Greater Kurdistan..
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2006 15:26 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Bush's trip to Pakistan today not without risks: White House
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
bug report extracted - thanks
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 0:09 Comments || Top||

#2  I fixed it.

Damn them.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 0:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Fred, just tried to post an article and got this,

Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 2:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Heh - you should delete that comment, Fred. It gives away waaay too much Field Id info, lol.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Oops, .com's right. An email address to report bugs would be a good idea.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 2:29 Comments || Top||

#6  um....yeah.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 3:00 Comments || Top||

#7  I got a similar SQL error trying to post an article link.

Brokeback to the Future

Heh. Love parody trailers.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:42 Comments || Top||

#8  Looks like the SQL is objecting to the use of the double-quote as parm delimiter...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 6:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Apropos of not much at all, Chris Date's Guide to the SQL Standard is a classic. Easily the best book of its type ever written. I used to be forever going around the office tracking down who had 'borrowed' my copy.

I recall a " is a reserved character in the standard.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 6:41 Comments || Top||

#10  Fred changed DBs like socks - dunno what he ended up with - but the double-quote also appeared to be the culprit in the error msg for submitting a link-only article. Hey, whadda I know. ;-)
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 6:48 Comments || Top||

#11  If you want fun with SQL and purists check the news groups for Joe Celko ... some good arguments there and good info on both sides of the coin.

SQL Server and a few others use single quote / tick instead of double. If using SQL server or another that does this, a parameter based stored procedure (or compiled procedure in oracle) is MUCH better than sending the query or update as a string to the engine. You get true paramter checking and none of this single / double quote problem ... esp if the data contains special characters.

Also, you've abstracted your data access from the logic, so when you have to change things, esp if you change engines a lot, you don't have to regression test your logic or reverify it ... or simply you don't have to dig through logic to update a simple query.

Just some thoughts / pointers.
Posted by: bombay || 03/03/2006 8:08 Comments || Top||

#12  Back on topic...
The risk is not all to Bush. Almost three years of President Cheney could be a considerable additional risk to our foes.
Posted by: Halliburton Revenge Div. || 03/03/2006 8:13 Comments || Top||

#13  That's what I say to friends, that Chenny is Bush's bullet proof vest. They kill Bush they get Chenny and that scares LLL even more .:)
Posted by: djohn66 || 03/03/2006 8:17 Comments || Top||

#14  Like you're dealing with people capable of rational thought, djon66.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/03/2006 8:32 Comments || Top||

#15  Damn. Fix one thing, break another. It works now.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 9:00 Comments || Top||

#16  lol good thread
Posted by: Jan || 03/03/2006 9:40 Comments || Top||

#17  Just boys playing with stuff.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 9:47 Comments || Top||

#18  Like Quayle, Djohn?
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 03/03/2006 15:45 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
US animal campaigners convicted
good.
A US jury has convicted an animal rights group and six of its members of inciting violence and terror against a UK firm involved in animal testing. The six from the Shac group were charged with offences against Huntingdon Life Sciences. They now face heavy fines and possible jail terms of up to five years.

HLS was originally based in Cambridgeshire, but moved its main office to the US after a harrassment campaign by animal rights activists. The six members of Shac were found guilty by the federal jury in New Jersey after a three-week court case and three days of deliberation. Shac is an acronym for Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, and for the last five years the Philadelphia-based group has targeted the group. Huntingdon Life Sciences now has its headquarters in New Jersey, but its main laboratories are in Cambridgeshire in Britain. Its employees have sometimes been victims of violent attacks as well as extreme ongoing intimidation.
and it's about time we went after this group and ELF and their ilk.
The company has also suffered financially and its listing on the New York Stock Exchange was put on hold after one of Shac's most recent campaigns. It is believed to be the first case under a new law enacted in 1992, known as the Animal Enterprise Protection Act.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wouldn't be nice if they gave these hosers the option of being test dummies subjects themselves. A two-fer; these wastes of oxygen actualy contribute to the progress of science, and a cute, fluffy bunny is spared.
Posted by: N guard || 03/03/2006 2:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Heh, NG. I guess the HLS people were very smart to relocated... obviously substantially smarter than the Shac morons. Moving to the US has given them the protection from freaks that they require - and deserve.

Welcome, HLS, heh.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Shac are deranged fuckers two of their members robbed the grave of the relative of an owner of a farm that bred guinea pigs and held the remains to ransom. They also are responsible for terrorist attacks on scientists. Deluded Scum I hope they all die of preventable diseases
Posted by: pihkalbadger || 03/03/2006 4:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Jail time! Jail Time!

Deluded Scum I hope they all die of preventable diseases

LOL! That's a keeper!
Posted by: Ptah || 03/03/2006 5:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Hang 'em high!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 14:44 Comments || Top||

#6  As much as I oppose needless cruelty or suffering on the part of test animals, I'm still obliged to quote Dennis Miller on this subject:

If finding a cure for AIDS requires hooking up chimpanzees to car batteries, I've got only two things to say; Red is positive and black is negative.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 15:24 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Two hanged publicly in Iran for oil-city bombings
Two Arab separatists convicted of carrying out a deadly bomb attack in Iran's oil city of Ahvaz were hanged from a crane in front of thousands of people early Thursday, witnesses said. Ethnic Arabs Ali Affrawi and Mehdi Navasseri had been found guilty of planting two bombs that killed six people dead and wounded close to 100 others in a busy shopping area of the city last October. "There were thousands of people watching, although some of the families of the victims arrived late and were very angry," a resident of the city who witnessed the hangings told Agence France Presse by telephone.

According to the official news agency IRNA, the executions were carried out on a city center bridge at 8:15 a.m. - around one hour earlier than had been scheduled - "so as to prevent traffic problems." The witness said the two convicts, both of whom were in their early 20's, were slowly lifted from the ground by a crane - with the nooses providing death by strangulation rather than a broken neck. With their hands tied behind their backs, the pair were left dangling in front of onlookers for 40 minutes. Iranian state television carried footage of the execution, with the crowd of onlookers being egged on to chant "Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to England!"
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And who knows if they had anything to do with it.

As for the "Death to [insert convenient boogeyman here]" thingy. We'll be seeing you soon. Remember to think in three dimensions, k?
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Thousand of human rights orgs and left wing politicos immediately denounced the hangings.

Oh wait a minute... Nevermind.
Posted by: mhw || 03/03/2006 8:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Never mind the Lefties. What kind of play does this get on Arab TV?
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 03/03/2006 9:17 Comments || Top||

#4  The way to respond to this is tit-for-tat. The Arabs should snatch several rank and file enforcers and string them up on light poles. Nobody special, just ordinary thugs they could find anywhere.

The point is that ordinary thugs working for a regime have a very strong union. They don't like the idea of being punished for their brutality at all.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/03/2006 10:13 Comments || Top||

#5  Iranian state television carried footage of the execution, with the crowd of onlookers being egged on to chant "Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to England!"

LOL, I love the reference to hold the hangin' an hour early as to not disturb traffic. The above quote though, tweaked my Persian Decoder Ring(tm) a lil'. How in the world do you (logically) protest the US, Israel or Britain at a hanging of ARAB boomers? I gotta get that Ring re-calibrated, lol.
Posted by: BA || 03/03/2006 12:24 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
So long, Europe. Hello, India.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Contrast this comfortable, sleepy Europe afraid of disturbing the status quo with a vibrant, wide-awake India that is pulling itself out of desperate circumstances

John, can you comment on this? What's your take on this article?
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 0:35 Comments || Top||

#2  India learned during the 1962 Sino-Indian War that India needs to be strong and to have strong friends to keep the Chinese on their side of the border. The Soviet Union filled that role for a long time. Now that they are gone, we are the only country strong enough to back them against the Chinese, hence the new friendship.
Posted by: RWV || 03/03/2006 0:41 Comments || Top||

#3  I accept triangulation was the reason, RWV - but they have those decades of anti-Americanism deeply ingrained in their population. The only physical confrontation I had in Saudi was with a dickhead Indian who thought the Muzzy shithead who tossed a hand grenade into a tent full of his officers in Kuwait was both funny and justified. His baseline attitude was echoed by the other 4 Indians I knew there.

Then there's the issue of their anti-business government, which John has so eloquently described...
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 1:50 Comments || Top||

#4  The Himalayas do a pretty good job of keeping the Chinese on their side.
Posted by: gromky || 03/03/2006 2:48 Comments || Top||

#5  The Chinese own the Himalayas. Own Tibet, and I suspect them of the current subversion of Nepal.
It's a downhill run into India from there.
Posted by: Grunter || 03/03/2006 9:42 Comments || Top||

#6  The spectacles are just a bit rosey.

India is moving our way, but from a very distant position. For a long time they'll be a fair distance away. We should encourage closeness, not emphasize difference.

Europe, however, is on the critical list, and much as I despise them, they are important to us. If Europe falls, it will not fall apart, it will fall to Islam. So we need to get them moving in the right direction. Perhaps with some tough love.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/03/2006 10:09 Comments || Top||

#7  While we could do much to encourage the Europeans, but in the end, they have to do it themselves. There is little we can do to save them from themselves.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 10:15 Comments || Top||

#8  2b, exactly what do you think that we could do to encourage the Euros? No sarcasm intended, it's just that with the institutionalized anti-Americanism amongst their elites I can't imagine anything we could do (short of reinstating Willie boy) that would have any significant, positive effect.
Posted by: AlanC || 03/03/2006 10:42 Comments || Top||

#9  Back when Clinton was President, they derided him much as they do Bush now, although they never did call him stupid. That Rhodes scholarship thingy, I s'pose. They only like him now because he's not running the country.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 11:15 Comments || Top||

#10  I'm hearing rumors that this deal is much bigger than it seems. Allegedly it includes the Ruskies doing the construction work and their dumping the Iranian Moolahs, etc.

Must be some of that strategery that Bush is known for. But never mind, there's still the Katrina story, the Cheney buckshot, the port bullshit, etc., etc., etc.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/03/2006 15:12 Comments || Top||

#11  2b, exactly what do you think that we could do to encourage the Euros

I don't have any ideas, I just meant it as opposed to "not encouraging them", which seemed unkind. Can the Euros rise to the occassion? I don't know. But I do know that we can't save them from themselvs.
Posted by: 2b || 03/03/2006 21:14 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Aoun calls for dialogue, not diatribes
"The national dialogue is not the type of conference during which one party has to admit its defeat or surrender its will to the dictates and decisions of one winner; we have no winners or losers," Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun told The Daily Star in an interview. Speaking of the national dialogue that kicked off Thursday, Aoun added that the success or failure of the dialogue depends on whether the parties carry with them preset conditions and ready-made decisions, or whether they go to the negotiating table free of all presumptions regarding any controversial issue. "These issues must be discussed openly, honestly and with transparency with the aim to reach national consensus on how to advance and save the country; one cannot be serious about reaching consensus without being ready to find common ground on all issues," Aoun said.

The March 14 Forces had already declared they would not discuss the presidency issue inside the conference, which they said must not assume the function of Parliament. Aoun said he could not agree more. "However, if they want to solve the presidency issue through Constitutional means and not through national dialogue, let them try again. They will still need two thirds of Parliament to amend the laws or elect a new president."

Some parties and groups have voiced their support for Aoun as the only "accepted candidate" under the circumstances to replace President Emile Lahoud in case the latter decided to resign voluntarily. The majority, on the other hand, accept Aoun as one of several candidates. "I am ready to delay announcing my candidacy until the so-called majority names its candidate," Aoun said. "They cannot agree on one candidate while insisting on ousting Lahoud first; probably they want to have a vacant presidency to pass some decisions and laws without anyone checking."
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Pakistan wants US to match India nuke deal
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan said on Thursday that it expected the United States to give Islamabad the same kind of civilian nuclear cooperation as it had just extended to arch rival India.

In a pact agreed Thursday, the highlight of US President George W. Bush’s trip to India, Washington committed itself to seek approval from the US Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers Group to lift curbs on sharing nuclear technology with India. “We hope that we will also get the same kind of cooperation,” Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.
You mean the Chinese didn't care of you already?
Pakistan needs to generate 8,800 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power in the next 15 to 20 years for its growing economy, she said.

Last month Bush urged Pakistan to be patient with US nuclear cooperation with India but did not commit to -- or rule out -- a similar arrangement with Islamabad in the future. The United States regards Pakistan a frontline ally in its global war on terror and awarded it the status of a major non-NATO ally.

However Pakistan has been at the centre of international concerns over nuclear proliferation since its disgraced atomic scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan admitted in 2004 to leaking atomic secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
Too bad Khan didn't work on nuclear power plants instead of nuclear weapons.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ROFL!

I thought about this when I read the story about the deal with India yesterday - but figured Scrappleface would cover it, lol.

The PakiWakis sound just like the story yesterday regards the illegals who are first in line for services & goodies - and make no bones about it.

Fat Fucking Chance, Pervy. You haven't earned dick.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Hmmm... let's see...

India, 1 billion, democracy; generally free, productive, and friendly.

Pakistan, 160 million, military dictatorship; generally Sharia, packed with Islamic fanatics, exporting nuke weapons technology and terror, and anti-Western.

Nope.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/03/2006 8:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Tell Perv to cough up bin Laden and mullah Omar to get the talks started. Then, after elaborate preparations, tell them, "No."
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 11:48 Comments || Top||

#4  The United States regards Pakistan a frontline ally in its global war on terror and awarded it the status of a major non-NATO ally.
However, we do have a problem with which side of the front line Pakistan belongs. Nothing personal, but at times, we tend to keep our enemies close. We also realize that Pakistan will go full blown Islamonazi as soon as they can overthrow the Perv.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/03/2006 14:23 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
'We're being sold a turkey on global warming'
It is said that turkeys are so stupid that when it rains they stare up at the sky with their mouths open until they drown. Turkey farmers insist this is an apocryphal story put about by those who know nothing of the ways of Meleagris gallopavo.

There is a no less apocryphal tale about Homo sapiens, according to which humans stare up at the sky and do nothing as the earth’s climate changes and their livelihoods go down the drain. It would be funny were it not at the heart of so many dire predictions of the effects of global warming. From cities vanishing under rising seas to global starvation as key crops fail, they blithely ignore the time-honoured response of humans confronted by climate change: adaptation.

When the glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers downed spears and took up farming instead. When American farmers were hit by the Dustbowl droughts of the 1930s, they responded by switching to hardier crops, diversifying production and improving irrigation – which allowed them to ride out an even greater drought that struck in the 1950s.

Yet despite this long history of successful adaptation, the climate change debate remains doggedly focused on mitigation strategies, such as the Kyoto protocol, that seek to compel the whole atmosphere to do our bidding. Even the staunchest supporters of such mitigation policies would concede that they have thus far been more honoured in the breach than the observance. The reason is not hard to find: politicians are chary of doing anything that threatens economic growth, and mitigation carries a hefty price tag.

Politicians might be more keen to take decisive action if they knew what happens when adaptation is factored into the equation. The dangers of failing to consider adaptation have long been recognised. Almost a decade ago, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that predictions of the impact of climate change that ignored adaptation were “unrealistic”. In 2001, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, widely regarded as the voice of the climate science community, declared that adaptation must be considered alongside mitigation when developing strategies for dealing with climate change.

Yet as the UK House of Lords select committee on economic affairs pointed out last summer, adaptation remains the Cinderella of the climate change debate. Its report was summarily dismissed by climate scientists, who claimed the committee lacked the expertise needed to pronounce on the subject. Only climate scientists obsessed with mitigation could deny that by comparison adaptation has received scandalously short shrift.

Take the latest study of the likely effect of global warming on Africa, published this week by an international team of scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It concludes that as crops wilt under heat and drought, African food production may be “severely reduced”. Yields of maize, Africa’s favourite crop, will be especially badly hit.

Only after reaching this headline-grabbing conclusion do the researchers state that they have taken no account of attempts farmers might make to avoid such a calamity, such as planting different crops or making better use of land and irrigation. They hint that a switch to other crops such as sorghum might help, but give few details.

When the effects of adaptation are taken into account, the results are frequently revelatory. In research about to appear in the journal Environment and Development Economics, a team led by Robert Mendelsohn of Yale University examines the economic impact of predicted climate change when adaptation is included. It finds that a warmer world can actually produce net economic gain – at least for the richest nations. In contrast, the poorest nations look set to suffer disproportionately, essentially because they have hot climates already.

This has important implications for policies for dealing with the impact of climate change. Because if rich nations actually thrive on a warmer planet, they will be in a position to assist more vulnerable nations to deal with the effects – without jeopardising their own economic growth.

Many questions have still to be addressed: what is the optimal mix of mitigation and adaptation, and how should rich nations assist those worst affected by global warming? But the biggest question of all is why climate scientists still seem so reluctant to accept that humans are more resourceful than the average turkey.


The writer is visiting reader in science at Aston University, Birmingham
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Requires subscription.
Any chance of posting the full article?
Posted by: tipper || 03/03/2006 0:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Works for me.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 8:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Dang! When I first got there, the full article was available and I browsed it before returning to commnent, but now it's suscribers only. Someone, somewhere, is making fun of me, I just know it...
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/03/2006 8:38 Comments || Top||

#4  text posted now.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 14:04 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Canadian soldier killed, 7 wounded in road crash
One Canadian soldier was killed and seven other wounded, two of them seriously, when their four-wheeled armour vehicle turned upside down west of Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province. A military statement released here on Thursday said the soldiers were on routine patrol when their vehicle turned turtle. It was an accident, said the statement.

Four of the wounded soldiers were rushed to a medical facility through helicopters. Condition of two of the injured was critical. The statement did not mention the cause of the accident. But local officials said the accident occurred when the military vehicle collided with a car. They added two soldiers died in the mishap. However, police officials and witnesses said the military vehicle collided with a private car due to over speeding. The dead soldier has been identified as Pte Braun Scott Woodfield. The Canadian forces have recently taken control of the PRT in Kandahar. Over 22,000 Canadian soldiers are stationed in the province to ensure peace.

Meanwhile, Afghan soldier was killed and two others wounded in an attack by Taliban insurgents in the southern Helmand province on Thursday. The Defence Ministry said the soldiers were attacked when they were on routine patrol. No further details were released.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Unfortunately, engineering on military vehicles has to favor a high center of gravity, for maneuverability. If you hit a large pothole, with a wheel turned the wrong way, then its roll time.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 7:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Nothing beats a Hummer. These guys were probably driving Mercedes G-Wagons. It looks narrower and taller compared to a Hummer.
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 13:04 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Bodyguard of Iraqi political leader killed in ambush
Gunmen attacked the car of a top Sunni political leader Thursday, killing one bodyguard and wounding five. Adnan al-Dulaimi, a leader of the Sunni's largest parliamentary bloc, had already sped away in another car after his vehicle was stopped by a flat tire. Yassir al-Obeidi, spokesman for al-Dulaimi's Conference of the People of Iraq, said the Sunni political leader had been driven far away from his disabled vehicle before it was attacked. The attack on al-Dulaimi's motorcade occurred less than a day after it became known that he had joined with key Kurdish and secular politicians in a coalition seeking to deny Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari a second term.
Golly. Wotta coincidence.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


International-UN-NGOs
New UN fund to speed global disaster response
You wouldn't believe the cost of 5 star hotels in disaster areas these days.
Can't they run everything from Cyprus?
The United Nations next week launches a new global emergency fund to provide swifter relief to victims of natural disasters, but with far less money on hand than the $500 million it had hoped to raise.

The Central Emergency Response Fund will have just $188 million when it opens for business, which is nonetheless a significant improvement over an existing U.N. standby loan facility of $50 million.

Donations to the new fund, which will be able to make grants as well as loan money, have come from 19 of the 191 U.N. member-states. But some wealthy nations including the United States, Japan, Australia, Italy and Canada have yet to make pledges.
We prefer to help the victims rather than buy Kofi's kid an expensive car.
"Governments have committed to responding quickly and effectively to help those most in need, yet now that we have a global emergency fund, governments seem reluctant to actually put money in," said Sarah Kline, an official of international relief organization Oxfam.
That's because we're doing quite well without you. Better, in fact.
Oxfam has argued the fund would need $1 billion to increase their influence politically ensure an adequate U.N. response to disasters like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, last year's destructive earthquake in Pakistan and Hurricane Katrina in the southern United States.

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland asked for the fund after the tsunami, and the General Assembly approved it last December.

The idea is to give the world body the ability to quickly send emergency supplies to areas hit by natural disasters and other humanitarian crises, without having to wait for international donors to send checks. The money in the fund would be continually replenished as contributions later poured in for each individual disaster.

The 19 donors to date are Armenia, Britain, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Grenada, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Sweden, Switzerland and Sri Lanka.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cool! Then the Vampire Vulture Elite can get there and start sucking the bodies dry in record time!

Didn't the 'UN' claim to have been to the Tsuami areas in record time(1)? What do they need this for - a mobile 5-star hotel and 24 hour catering service? Kind of a MASH unit for the Vulture Elite?

This is pathetic...

(1) - Yes I know its was really the US (USAID) and Australia (and others) who provided the bulk of the initial relief - but the Vampire Elite was quick to take credit for it and they did send in their Corrodinaters of Corrodinaters (WTF?) --- as soon 24hour catering had been established.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/03/2006 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Spot-on, CF.

Same old create a new pot o' money game.

Fuck off. Don't offer the scum a dime of MY money.

Better yet, pull the plug on this aged whore, throw it out, and torch the building (per a comment yesterday), lol.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:08 Comments || Top||

#3  .com-

Burn the UN???I'm surprised...shocked....disappointed!

Get the furniture out first, it's GOTTA be some primo stuff. :)

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/03/2006 12:26 Comments || Top||

#4  The UN and "speed"? There ain't enough money on this planet to make that happen.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/03/2006 13:59 Comments || Top||

#5  The furniture and the artwork.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 19:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Heh, Mike & tw - you're right. The silverware's already gone, however, lol.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 19:20 Comments || Top||

#7  Have a heart folks! Do you have any idea how expensive Dom Perignon is these days? Swiss bank accounts don't fill themselves you know!
Posted by: DMFD || 03/03/2006 23:55 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Mutiny in DR Congo ends UN raid
Mom! Those mean rebels are SHOOTING at me!

And there isn't a decent restaurant in this whole place, either. That's it -- I'm going home.
A mutiny by some 40 soldiers in Democratic Republic of Congo has led to the suspension of a joint UN-Congolese operation against a rebel group.
"That does it! We quit!"
The men, unhappy about their conditions of service, fired shots in the air and seized food rations, a United Nations spokesman told the BBC. Other UN officials say the men had fired at a UN helicopter in which a senior commander was travelling.
Just you wait til the mighty Uruguayans get at them.
Some 17,000 UN peacekeepers are in DR Congo to oversee elections due in June. They have been helping the Congolese army stage a series of raids against various rebel groups which continue to rampage in parts of the east.
Nobody told me they waz gonna shoot back! Who do they think they are? They ain't even got blue berets.
The Congolese soldiers were taking part in a joint operation to retake the town of Tchei in Ituri region from an ethnic militia.

The elections will be the first multiparty polls in DR Congo for 40 years and come four years after the end of a civil war. The current transitional government is made up of various rebel leaders, who agreed to lay down their arms in return for a share of power. Mineral-rich DR Congo, the size of western Europe, has been ravaged by conflict and misrule and there are no roads or railways from one side of DR Congo to the other.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
US ready to sell advanced arms to India: Pentagon
The United States said on the heels of a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation pact with India on Thursday that it was prepared to sell advanced warplanes and other high-tech arms to the south Asia nation.

"Where only a few years ago, no one would have talked about the prospects for a major U.S.-India defense deal, today the prospects are promising, whether in the realm of combat aircraft, helicopters, maritime patrol aircraft or naval vessels," the U.S. Defense Department said as President George W. Bush paid a three-day visit to India.

"The next step is to turn the talk of prospective sales into reality. The United States is committed to working with India to do this," the department added in a statement released to coincide with the president's visit.

The Pentagon release did not mention any specific deals except to note that Washington was prepared to offer Lockheed Martin F-16 and Boeing F/A-18 jet fighters to India.

"It is our goal to help meet India's needs in the defense realm, and to provide important capabilities and technologies that India seeks. We are on a path to accomplish this," the Pentagon said in Washington.

"We have indicated our intention to offer both the F-16 and the F-18, both combat proven aircraft. As additional capabilities enter our force, we will work with the government of India to make them available," it added.

"Our proposal will also address India's interest in technology transfer and indigenous co-production."
telegram for Beijing and General Musharraf. Paging Beijing and General Musharraf, please pick up line 1.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lol, twisting the knife, eh?
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Excellent news. India despite its faults (socialist, marxists, moaists) is a natural ally of the West and the USA in particular.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 6:50 Comments || Top||

#3  It's a great plan, I hate it, but it's a great plan.

I first started outsourcing to India 1n 1998. The US has built a tremendous systems development industry in India breaking thru some of the caste crap and building an economic engine that has become self sustaining.

Now the money is gonna come back! Too funny.
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/03/2006 7:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Shouldn't the US assume the tech data of the full capability of any weapons India receives will be sent to Russia? There are still a lot of commies and others in India with fond memories of the Soviets. At least I hope the Russians don't actually receive an entire fighter (F-16A and Pakistan-China). I hope there are many modes, especially in any ASEA radars and ECM, not available in the export models.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 8:07 Comments || Top||

#5  AESA.
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 9:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Now the money is gonna come back! Too funny.

Classic capitalism.

Re: tech info going to others, the F16-A is an old, old model. We're on version D and are replacing the F16 anyway.

Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 9:54 Comments || Top||

#7  Re: tech info going to others, the F16-A is an old, old model.

Remebers me of a soviet joke: We should give all our technology to the Americans. This way they will be thirty years behind the technology curve.
Posted by: JFM || 03/03/2006 10:19 Comments || Top||

#8  Good. India is definately a natural ally since both countries intrests are the same in that area of the world.
Posted by: mmurray821 || 03/03/2006 11:22 Comments || Top||

#9  JFM - I made a similar suggestion to send the Soviets everything we produced - in 80 copies each. It didn't matter if it was classified or not. We should have sent them every piece of paper the US military created, every piece of paper, every exam, every Masters thesis, every PhD dissertation, and every piece of paper produced by every company in the nation. It would have taken their entire population (and then some) just to translate it, their paranoia would have required 20 copies of every report, they wouldn't have been able to collate even 10% of the data, and in the end the entire house of cards would collapse. Well, it collapsed anyway, but my idea would have made it happen 10 years sooner!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/03/2006 12:47 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Paleos give back $40 million in aid
The interim Palestinian Government has refunded $A40 million in aid to the United States because the funds would have reached an authority led by Hamas, which Washington lists as a terrorist group.
"Here! Take it! We don't need your filthy lucre!"
"Thanks. Jones! Make sure you count it!"
David Welch, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, told lawmakers the money was returned on Wednesday and the Palestinian Authority had promised to refund a further $A26 million before Hamas took over. "There should be by the time this interim caretaker government leaves office, no US taxpayer dollars in their (Hamas') hands," Mr Welch told the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee.
"Mahmoud! Call Riyadh! Tell 'em we need more dough!"
"Yes, Your Corpulence!"
The militant group Hamas, which is responsible for many suicide bombings in Israel, is listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the Bush administration cannot under US law give it any direct assistance. Since Hamas' victory in the Palestinian election in January, the US State Department has launched a review of its aid programs and the return of the $A66 million is part of that assessment.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is grat, now the Paleos will go back to kidnapping and extortion to fund their crap. Looks to me as if the people just voted themselves into an economy in full reverse. Hope the rally was worth it, ask the Philippines about unchecked overzealous nationality and the effects on economy. By this time next year they will be starving in the street and europe will have pictures of starving babies and blaming America.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 03/03/2006 2:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Funny, I recall the number to be $55M USD which would be almost $74M AUD.

Juice? Baksheesh?
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:22 Comments || Top||

#3  "Funny, I recall the number to be $55M USD..."

15M sounds like alot, prolly just the normal Transfer fees. Sounds like the UN is handling the financial transaction.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/03/2006 9:48 Comments || Top||

#4  I thought the paleos were broke. Who'd they steal the $40 million from to "give" it back to us?

The EU? Oh, OK then. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 10:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Something tells me there was some sort of trust account or else the checks we sent were filled out but awaiting signature.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 12:02 Comments || Top||


Palestinians fire missiles on Israeli settlements
Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine, fired four missiles toward Sderot settlement in southern Israel.
"Fired them toward" is different from "hit."
The brigades said in a press release the attack came in response to the cowardly assassination of Al-Quds Brigades leader Khalid Al-Dahdouh on Wednesday.
He will be missed. By his Mom. I guess.
Meanwhile, the Brigades of Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa, the military arm of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, announced responsibility for firing a missile on the settlement of Netiv Ha'asara in northern Gaza Strip. The brigades said the attack comes in response for assassinating Al-Dahdouh and for the Israeli threats to target Palestinian resistance leaders.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wow - these guys hate dirt more n' Mr Clean!

The clarity that "electing" Hamas brings, i.e. no more phoney BS political vs military wing BS, is great, IMHO.

The instant that Hamas forms it's little joke Govt thingy, any attack fromt Paleo territory becomes an "official" act of war. Proceed accordingly.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Anywhere else in the world, Sderot would be called a "town", but because these are Jews living in Israel, they can only have a "settlement".
Posted by: Baba Tutu || 03/03/2006 3:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Word, Baba. As I like to say, "End the evil, illegal, Arab occupation of Israeli land! We must liberate Gaza, Judea, and Samaria from Islamic occupation and oppression!"

Hey, why should Muzzies get a monopoly on disputing territory?
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 03/03/2006 4:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Patriot Act wins final approval in Congress
Capping months of partisan wrangling, the U.S. Senate gave final congressional approval on Thursday to renewing the USA Patriot Act, which expanded the government's power to track down foes in the war on terrorism.

A day after passing a related bill to better protect civil liberties under the act, the Senate endorsed the overall measure 89-10. It next goes to President George W. Bush to sign into law. The House of Representatives passed it in December.

First enacted shortly after the September 11 attacks, the Patriot Act broadened the ability of the U.S. government to obtain private records, conduct wiretaps and searches and share information. Fierce debate over the act's renewal has pitted critics who say its provisions have infringed too much on basic rights against backers who say such measures are essential to safeguard America against further attacks.

With 16 provisions of the act set to expire next week, the bill would make 14 of them permanent and extend two others by four years.The bill would also provide fresh tools to combat terrorist financing, protect mass transit, secure ports and curb abuse of methamphetamines, a highly addictive drug.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don'tcha just admire the Dems for "defeating" the Patriot Act?

Harry Reid, take a bow!

Posturing jackasses.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/03/2006 10:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Betcha the moonbats are seething.
Posted by: Mike || 03/03/2006 12:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who led the opposition to renewal, predicted that more safeguards would eventually be adopted. "This fight is not over," Feingold said.

Feingold is worried about civil liberties? The guy who helped draft a gross abridgement of political speech in direct defiance of the First Amendment? Now THAT'S funny.
Posted by: eLarson || 03/03/2006 14:19 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Landmine blast kills one, hurts 5 in Balochistan
A van driver was killed and five passengers were hurt on Thursday when their vehicle hit a landmine in the latest violence to hit Balochistan, officials said. The van was travelling towards the town of Kohlu when it hit a mine planted on the road, local administrator Nasim Lehri said. Balochistan Government Spokesman Raziq Bugti said security forces were busy defusing land mines installed in Dera Bugti and Kohlu areas of Balochistan. Four Para military personnel were injured on Wednesday in Mand area of Makran division situated some 700 km from Quetta. An unknown person, identifying himself as Doda Baloch, claimed the responsibility on behalf of a little known organisation called Baloch Liberation Front.

Meanwhile unidentified gunmen Wednesday shot dead a pro-government politician near the provincial capital Quetta and other attackers damaged a nearby natural gas pipeline.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
UK court clears Dubai port deal
Britain's High Court has approved the takeover of UK shipping icon Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co by state-owned Dubai Ports World, despite a last-minute objection by a US company. On Thursday, Justice Nicholas Warren dismissed the appeal from Miami-based Eller & Co as he gave the required go-ahead for the $6.8 billion deal. Warren said: "The objections of Eller do not persuade me that I should not sanction the scheme."

Eller had argued that US concerns about a United Arab Emirates company owning significant operations at six major US seaports could substantially harm its business. Eller Company, based in Miami, Florida, has a joint venture agreement with a subsidiary of P&0. Eller had argued that a successful takeover by Dubai Ports World, which is controlled by the ruling Maktoum family in the United Arab Emirates, would harm its national interests.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Sidon, Chouf sign up for Lahoud resignation
Hundreds of Sidon citizens signed the March 14 forces' petition Thursday calling for the resignation of President Emile Lahoud, as Public Prosecutor Magistrate Said Mirza prohibited the petition organizers of placing the petition board in the courtyard of the Judicial Palace in Beirut to be signed. A statement issued Thursday by the National News Agency said "Mirza, in cooperation with the president of the Beirut Bar Association Butros Doumit, prevented the organizers of the petition from setting up a bureau in front of the Judicial Palace, which is a public institution." The statement also said Mirza "prevented photographers from entering the palace, while the organizers chanted the national hymn in the square before heading to the Lawyers' House."

The petition campaign launched Sunday by the forces of March 14 demanding that Lahoud step down moved to Sidon's Martyrs' Square, where a petition board was erected next to pictures of late former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his son, MP Saad Hariri. After adding her name to the petition, citizen Fatima Sayyad said: "I signed this petition to save Lebanon from this tyrant Emile Lahoud ... Signing the petition is part of the solution we hope to reach ... because we want a president who can feel the sufferings of the people."
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Libya denies charges it is detaining women
TRIPOLI - A Libyan justice ministry official denied late Wednesday a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that the authorities were arbitrarily detaining women and girls indefinitely in “de facto prisons”. Libya rejects any discrimination against women, the official said, adding that it was protecting them against practices, which the government wanted to eradicate.

The US-based global human rights group on Tuesday documented alleged abuses in the so-called protective homes for women and girls deemed by the authorities to be “vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct.” These include violations of rights to liberty, freedom of movement, personal dignity, privacy and due process.

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi’s regime is holding women and girls who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence, the report said, urging their immediate release. It said some were there because they had been raped and then ostracised from their families for staining their “honour”.
Typical Arab nonsense, in other words.
Officials transferred the majority of these women and girls to these facilities against their will, while those who came voluntarily did so because no genuine shelters for victims of violence exist in Libya, HRW said.
Because shelters are a western decadence.
The justice ministry official, who declined to be identified, said a “social rehabilitation institutions” was a place of refuge for women and girls who had no honest way of earning a living and no family links. “They are victims of incidents related to honour and morals and their relatives have refused to allow them to live in the family home,” the official said. “This institution is a refuge for women, a protection against exploitation and revenge.”
And punishment.
The official accused HRW of basing its report on “certain psychologically vulnerable women and a misunderstanding of Libyan laws.”

Farida Deif of HRW, the report’s London-based author, said Tuesday, “How can they be called shelters when most of the women and girls we interviewed told us they would escape if they could?” The inmates were not allowed to leave the compound and are sometimes subjected to long periods of solitary confinement for trivial reasons, HRW said.

Most endure invasive virginity examinations, are given no education except weekly religious instruction and typically have no legal representation, the group said. The report added that the exit requirements were “arbitrary and coercive”, with a male relative taking custody, or marriage, often to a stranger, the only way out.
And we know what happens next.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No, certainly not! There are honored guests of Kadhafi the caliph living in luxurious palaces with turbanned and parachute panted bodyguards (sans genitalia).
Posted by: ed || 03/03/2006 8:38 Comments || Top||

#2  "The official accused HRW of basing its report on “certain psychologically vulnerable women and a misunderstanding of Libyan laws."

No, the problem is they understand Libyan laws (Shari’a) quite well and find them to be barbaric. Under Shari’a justice the families of the victim as well as the perp are the first consideration not the victim herself. That’s the reason most rape cases end in marriage in Libya.

Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/03/2006 9:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Sounds like your standard arab "asshatery".
Posted by: Elmavimp Javiling7379 || 03/03/2006 13:20 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Armed attack kills, wounds 21 Iraqi security personnel in Tikrit
Up to nine Iraqi soldiers were killed Thursday during an attack targeting a checkpoint in Tikrit. A security source in the ministry of interior said that about 20 armed men attacked a checkpoint for the Iraqi army in al-dour village in south Tikrit, killing nine soldiers, including three officers. The police in Tikrit said that eleven security personnel were killed during the attack; four officers and nine soldiers, and four army vehicles were also damaged.

Furthermore, four Iraqi police officers were killed and eight others injured on Wednesday in an ambush against a police convoy near Hamrein Mountains on its way to Tikrit. Another 16 policemen were also kidnapped and were taken to an undisclosed location before they were set free earlier today after the joint forces carried out an operation chasing the perpetrators, according to the interior ministry. In Baqouba, three civilians were also killed yesterday and a 12 year old boy was kidnapped in two separate incidents yesterday.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hariri, Nasrallah hold seven-hour meeting on national issues
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So, how much tea did they drink? I hope they took lotsa W/C breaks. Wouldn't want anybody to go *boom*.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:23 Comments || Top||

#2  "Muslim unity"? Yeah, like they have in Iraq. Or Iran, where the mullahs arrested a couple of hundred Sufis last week.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 7:18 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Businessmen under scrutiny over attempted Philippines coup
I think we've seen this one on the teevee two or three thousand times...
Philippine officials say they are investigating a group of businessmen for their alleged role in the failed coup plot against the government of President Gloria Arroyo. Defence secretary Avelino Cruz says his office is gathering evidence against several businessmen who are suspected of having provided funds for the attempt to overthrow the Arroyo government. The businessmen, who have not been identified, allegedly attended a meeting of the leaders of the failed coup attempt.
I'll bet it was that idiot, Cliff Barnes...
Meanwhile, the Defence and Justice secretaries and the police chief are closely monitoring the security situation in the country in the next 24 hours.
After that, you're on your own!
They say there has been a marked improvement in the situation. If this does not change, the officials say they may suggest the lifting of the state of national emergency that was declared by President Arroyo to quell attempts against her government.
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nothing like a little theater to brighten up a trip. There were 5 tousand people at the protest, 17,000 showed up for the WWF event the same night. The people here were just looking for a street party.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 03/03/2006 1:29 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Nonsensical Proliferation Panic?
A recent Op-Ed piece from the Jordan Times suggests that non-proliferators are waging a war of panic-laden rhetoric against would-be proliferators. The Jordan Times reports:
Lost somewhere in the mists of history is the knowledge that it was the pro-American shah of Iran who initiated Iran's quest to build a nuclear bomb. And it was the anti-American revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini that initially suspended work on the bomb, from 1972 to 1985.

A slight correction may be in order here. The work was not initially halted by the good will of the Khomeni regime, but rather by bombs dropped by Iraqi war planes during the Iran - Iraq war. Work on reactors continued on a minor scale following the 1979 revolution.

Fanning the panic of proliferation has been a mainstay of the Bush administration, supported in the wings by the British government and, more recently, by France's President Jacques Chirac.

So, when Tehran makes statements such as "...the process of enrichment is a sovereign right of any state" and breaks off negotiations, we should assume that this is the panic of proliferation brought on by the west?

It is a high-stakes game that can slide too easily into the call for regime change, as it did with Iraq. Yet current would-be proliferators are arguably not as dead set on proliferating, nor even as advanced in their capabilities, as their antagonists suggest. But unyielding critical rhetoric combined with a lack of incentives to back down seems to only have the effect of making the likes of North Korea and Iran more determined than they ever were. Moreover, today's game overlooks the success of previous policy in persuading countries to give up and unwind their nuclear armaments' plans or stocks of bombs — South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and, most recently, Libya. This was because the right incentives were put before them.
Uranium enrichment on Russian soil isn't enough of an incentive?

In fact, the Libyan nuclear programme had gone on for many more years than has either the Iranian or North Korean. Despite a great deal of assistance from Pakistan's rogue nuclear weapons entrepreneur, A.Q. Kahn, Libya appeared seriously slowed, if not stalled, by apparently insurmountable difficulties. Iran may well be trying to build nuclear weapons, but it doesn't give the impression of being in a tearing hurry. Its heavy water moderated research reactor will not be online until 2014. Those who have suggested an earlier timetable ignore the slow progress made on completing the Bushehr reactor, a light-water nuclear power reactor initially ordered from Germany in 1975.

Joe Public is being led by the nose on nuclear weapons' policy. It has become nothing more than a political game.

Political game? I don't think so.
Posted by: Hupaith Fleth5783 || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Proliferation not a problem? Last I heard Iran's Mullahs incite "Death to America," shrieks every Friday at Teheran U, etc. Some barking dogs do bite, when they can.

There is a good bet that the NKs will evolve into a benign form in the not too distant future. But the Mullahs are surrounded by mortal Sunni enemies, in addition to the hated West. Nuclear jihad is in their future, unless we write that future for them.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 7:59 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Dubai flap threatens other investment in US
The political firestorm over Arab management of six U.S. ports threatened to widen on Thursday after a senior House Republican said he wanted foreign firms to sell their investments in American ports, electricity plants and other infrastructure critical to U.S. security.

California Republican Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said foreign investments in such areas should be "rolled back" along with the pending $6.85 billion deal involving Dubai Ports World, which is state-owned by the United Arab Emirates.

Hunter was scathing in his assessment of Dubai Ports World's plan to buy Britain-based P&O, including its American port assets, saying the UAE had been "instrumental" in the transshipment of nuclear materials and weapons of mass destruction components.

In the Senate, lawmakers of both parties also sought to tighten rules governing foreign investment. They expressed dismay at what they saw as Bush administration carelessness in quickly approving the Dubai Ports World deal to manage six U.S. ports without considering implications for national security.

"Everything in this country can't be for sale," Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said as his panel began questioning Bush administration officials on the Dubai ports deal. The Alabama Republican said the law should be clarified to take national security into account.

"While I strongly support our open investment policy and recognize that it is vital to our national economic interest, I do not believe it should stand at any cost," Shelby said.

U.S. President George W. Bush says security concerns are unwarranted because the UAE is a strong ally, and he has threatened to veto any legislation blocking the deal.

The Bush administration in January approved the Dubai Ports World deal but agreed over the weekend to give it a 45-day review after criticism from lawmakers who say they are worried terrorists could take advantage of the arrangement to infiltrate U.S. ports.

On the House side of Capitol Hill, Hunter told reporters that under the legislation he planned, the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security would list infrastructure critical to national security. Foreign companies would then be required to divest their holdings in it, he said.

Several lawmakers from both parties in the House on Thursday introduced a companion bill to Senate legislation that would ban foreign governments -- but not private foreign companies -- from controlling operations at U.S. ports. It is aimed at barring state-owned companies like Dubai Ports World.

Legislation already exists in the House and the Senate to review the Dubai Ports World deal and give Congress the ability to disapprove it.

Dubai Ports World officials told Hunter's Armed Services Committee the deal should be completed next Monday or Tuesday, pending the outcome of any court appeals in Britain.

A British judge ruled on Thursday the $6.85 billion takeover could go ahead.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, or CFIUS, the interagency panel that OK'd the ports deal, would start its 45-day review when the company filed papers requesting it.

Company executives told House lawmakers that Dubai Ports World would abide by any new CFIUS conditions "that would be reasonable" and also applied to competitors.

Officials confirmed on Thursday that another UAE company, Dubai International Capital, was under CFIUS review for its planned $1.24 billion acquisition of London-based Doncasters Group Ltd. It operates in nine U.S. locations and makes parts for U.S. defense contractors.
Posted by: lotp || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I know and like Duncan Hunter. I contribute regularly to his campaigns, but this makes us sound like a banana republic. Third world countries routinely put restrictions on foreign ownership. Whenever the Government interferes with business, trade, and the economy to make political points, we all suffer.
Posted by: RWV || 03/03/2006 0:28 Comments || Top||

#2  I've been thinking of buying Halliburton.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 03/03/2006 1:42 Comments || Top||

#3  I agree, RWV, though I have never directly supported him - until this I thought he was a good guy with both oars in the water.

I would like to see reciprocal rules. If a country restricts US business and individuals in their country, then the same exact limitations should apply to them here. If they're willing to join the 21st century and open their markets and allow ownership and individual freedoms, then so will we. The current situation is all one-sided and sucks, big-time.

What I saw in Saudi was just nuts. The Saudi company "owners" were merely well-connected ultra-fat-cats. Worthless parasites. The laws also required the "joint venture company" to hire Saudis in a strict quota (don't know the sliding scale specifics, sorry) to the number of ex-pats employed. They did not even show up, much less work. They got a check, same as me and the rest of the guys -- for doing nothing. I was told that them not showing up was actually preferred - since all they would do is sit around jabbering, drink all the coffee, and make endless long-distance calls.

This is going to get out of hand because the political pull is irresistible and popular resentment has been building for a long long time. And there will be repercussions - mostly unanticipated and many very negative - which will end up hurting us more than any Arabs.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:03 Comments || Top||

#4  A scathing" critique from the head of the House Armed Services Committee, is about as weighty a sandbag as there is. Rep. Hunter has been paying close attention to talk radio.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 7:25 Comments || Top||

#5  What an idiot. Doesn't he understands that USA mustn't hurt the feelings of its Arab allies?
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/03/2006 8:40 Comments || Top||

#6  the UAE had been "instrumental" in the transshipment of nuclear materials and weapons of mass destruction components.


Some substantiation of these allegations would be nice. Do all of you mean to say that if the above were positively proven, your own positions in this issue would not change one bit?
Posted by: Zenster || 03/03/2006 11:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Free trade must be fair trade, and that requires everyone plays by the same rules. Restricting vital infrastructure from foreign investment is necessary or we are open to extortion from some unfriendlies with both lots of money, oil, and nukes. This almost smells something like the UN and other Eurocrats would cook up. We need the foreign investment boost to the economy, but this deal as is leaves national security and our economy more vulnerable.
Posted by: Danielle || 03/03/2006 13:00 Comments || Top||

#8 
"I would like to see reciprocal rules. If a country restricts US business and individuals in their country, then the same exact limitations should apply to them here."

Well then...you need look no further than the UAE and other Arab entities!

Hoisted? Petard? Anyone?

Save your infantile schoolyard insults for someone that might be impressed or wounded, I'm NOT, that person.

I hereby label you, .comical!

Posted by: Vinkat Bala Subrumanian || 03/03/2006 13:31 Comments || Top||

#9  What set you off, Vincat? Got some investments at risk?
Posted by: Darrell || 03/03/2006 13:50 Comments || Top||

#10  VBS - You're really not too bright, are you? Here, I'll help you out with a 1st-grade level explanation.

What got you excited is not inconsistent and here's why:

The UAE deal on the ports, on which you have infamously chosen the uberstupid position, oops - I mean where you have made a boo-boo, is happening in a place we adults call REALITY. Go figure, huh? Er, isn't that interesting? The world isn't like in the pop-up books you read. Dick and Jane are getting it on just out of your vision. Pretty icky-ucky, huh? True. Jane has nice, um, tatas, too, under that pinafore. Trust me.

The comment that sent you aflutter is a desirable reality. That means I really do wish we could alter the bad reality and move on to a better reality, such as I described. You know what playing fair means? Good. I believe it would probably cause a few of those unfair countries to eliminate some of their stupid restrictions so they could continue making money here in deep-pockets land. Wouldn't that be nice? It does make sense. Trust me on this, k?

That we do not have a simple law on the books in the US to impose upon foreigners in the US the same standards that we endure when in their countries is a shame. It makes sense. I've said it several times before here on the 'Burg, including a few days ago on this topic. It is a desirable thing.

To your immense surprise, I'm sure, we suffer restrictions with countries that aren't Arab, too. Why even some of our bestest friends play unfairly with us in this way. Sad. Yes, I agree. Here's a tissue. But sometimes life isn't fair. I realize you're a babe in swaddling clothes who's never been further than the corner store - and that was with Mommy trailing 20 ft behind you, but it's true.

But we can change things with a little common sense and some gumption. Do you know what gumption is? Well, we'll save that for another day. We're probably reaching your limits for one day already.

I've been to some of the places you read about and consider nasty, full of mean people, really icky. Not just visited, but lived there. So when I post something about it, I actually know what I'm talking about, you see. There, there, don't cry. Unlike you, I'm not a total fuckwit cheesedick wannabee asstard who's stuck on fucking stupid for life. Gosh, I mean you have alot to learn and I'm here to help. It's just the kind of guy I am, no need to thank me.

I hope you enjoyed this little talk.

I love these quiet little moments before the storm, don't you?
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 17:08 Comments || Top||

#11  Yesssss. You're a hoot .com! Full of nuance an' everything!
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 17:57 Comments || Top||

#12  BTW, am I still a fucking liar??? Did you check?
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 18:02 Comments || Top||

#13  Lol. You remind me of the people who don't read the warning signs - and never really learn anything.

You wanna play, today?
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 18:10 Comments || Top||

#14  You didn't answer.
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 18:25 Comments || Top||

#15  "caution, slow children"
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2006 18:27 Comments || Top||

#16  Who? .com? I might agree with you there.
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 18:29 Comments || Top||

#17  Lol. Some folks not be too smart. That be you. Wotta surprise. Okay, let's party, asshole.

I've been accused of many things - being nuanced is not among them - or are you saying it? I've been told that bludgeon is more my style. I defer to the master for the hair-splitting shit.

Are you a fucking liar?

LOL.

Since you're being cutesy, think yourself to be witty when witless is far closer to the truth, and playing the asshole, yet again, I'll ask to which instance are you referring? Yesterday's thread - where you were an asshole fuckwit disingenuous dick who cherry-picked to suit your preferred view in spite of the weight of the article pointing to a far less optimistic situation - or one of the other infamous pointless dithering threads where you played the NuanceMeister fool in defense of idiocy?

Re: the nym change - how convenient. Does it add substance to you or your posts? No. Does it make you something? Well...

You see, you've been a fucking something for quite awhile. Your specialty seems to be defending the logically defenseless (for good reason) position. Our very own Don Quixote. Mildly amusing at times, but in the end a total moron who's chosen to waste his time in futile and pointless pursuits.

That you don't recognize what a dipshit many consider you to be is hysterical.

I think you're a classic nothing. No content. No value. Nothing to add. Notable for subtraction, in fact. Just another irritant in a world filled with substantive threats and issues. Another vacuous cranial black hole with zero original thought and a fucked world view.

But no offense intended, of course.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 18:34 Comments || Top||

#18  I was just wondering, because yesterday after doing some checking, you labeled me a fucking liar (your italics). I'm pretty sure you went back to that thread again today, if not, then you should because I added some new information. So, will you admit your mistake? Are you big enough to do it?

where you were an asshole fuckwit disingenuous dick who cherry-picked to suit your preferred view in spite of the weight of the article pointing to a far less optimistic situation

I was pointing out an alternative interpretation, mainly because the article painted a far gloomier picture than what other data would suggest. Call it cherry-picking if you want.
Btw, let me correct you on something...an asshole fuckwit disingenuous dick is anyone who disagrees with you. Cherry-picking has nothing to do with it.

You know what...your opinion is actually meaningless as it applies to that thread. You didn't exactly offer anything of value, unless you count your insults. Now, if lotp would say that I'm an asshole fuckwit disingenuous dick, then that would carry some weight!
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 19:06 Comments || Top||

#19  lotp would never use such language, Rafael. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2006 19:12 Comments || Top||

#20  I'll settle for a paraphrase :-)
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 19:16 Comments || Top||

#21  I love the willfully disingenuous and dense.

You claim to have posted under another nym, which I referenced in my previous response. Maybe so.

If so, then I was mistaken about you being a fucking liar on that point and, in that case, I am terribly sorry.

Changes none of the rest, however.

You pointed out an alternative interpretation. Right. You cherry-picked because you didn't like the sum of the piece. That is disingenuous. Look it up.

Then you play the equally disingenuous card of implying any response from me would proves I'm a prick. Right. You're a fucking coward and logic pimp.

I disagree with many posts. I do not respond to all of them. You're speshul.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 19:18 Comments || Top||

#22 
Antlers put on by the misses are way heavy! LOL!
Posted by: RD || 03/03/2006 19:40 Comments || Top||

#23  Well knock me over with a feather! I didn't think you'd do it.

You cherry-picked because you didn't like the sum of the piece. That is disingenuous.

...and I didn't like the sum of the piece because I knew it wasn't the whole story (and I provided supporting evidence). Happens every day on Rantburg.

Anyway, enough. If you deem I'm not adding anything of value then that's my cue, I guess. I didn't come here to argue with people I generally like and agree with. I wish everyone the best. I'd like to leave with this:
a joint GROM/SEAL photo, as proof that GROM was never officially involved in Iraq! (The guys holding the American flag are not Americans) Probably the worst kept Polish secret ever :-)
Posted by: Rafael || 03/03/2006 19:46 Comments || Top||

#24 
Anyway, enough. If you deem I'm not adding anything of value then that's my cue, I guess. I didn't come here to argue with people I generally like and agree with. I wish everyone the best.I>

Rafael, why leave? You don't have to argue or "win" a debate.

case in point. »:-)
Posted by: RD || 03/03/2006 23:32 Comments || Top||


Europe
Montenegro votes on independence on May 21
Montenegro will vote on independence on May 21, parliament decided Thursday, with the referendum to settle the fate of the last remnant of the former federal Yugoslavia. The assembly unanimously backed the date proposed by President Filip Vujanovic, a day after it passed a law laying out the rules of the vote. The stage for the referendum was finally set after years of wrangling between the "sovereignist" authorities and opponents that favour continued union with Serbia.

Under a European Union-brokered deal, the 460,000 registered voters will respond to a question asking whether they support a fully independent Montenegro. If at least 55 per cent of those voting are for independence, Podgorica would end the already loose and largely dysfunctional union of Serbia and Montenegro. The EU welcomed the assembly's approval. The broad support for the referendum law is "a good basis for a transparent and democratic process that has Europe's full support," EU foreign affairs chief Javiar Solana said in a statement. The EU presidency, currently held by Austria, issued a statement saying the referendum now has legitimacy and urging all political forces in Montenegro to ensure that "the organisation and the implementation of the referendum is accepted in all of Montenegro."
Posted by: Fred || 03/03/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


One-way sympathy
I'm not quite sure where this article goes.
Since the start of the Danish cartoon controversy, Vatican officials have expressed sympathy with Islamic outrage over the depictions of Muhammad. This sympathy comes from knowing what it’s like to have your beliefs treated with disrespect and even contempt. Yet in much of the Islamic world, that sympathy isn’t a two-way street.
The dingbats and beauzeaux don't much care. To many of them, we deserve to be vanquished.
That’s why the Vatican recently issued a statement “urging Islamic countries to reciprocate by showing more tolerance toward their Christian minorities.” As Angelo Soldano, the Vatican’s Secretary of State put it: “If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us . . . ”

Destroy is not too strong a word. The anger originally directed at Denmark is increasingly being directed at Christians. In Turkey, a priest was murdered in an attack that the Turkish media has connected to the cartoon controversy. In Pakistan, protesting mobs have ransacked churches and beaten Christians. In Beirut, which, unlike Pakistan, has a large Christian population, a Christian neighborhood was attacked by a Muslim mob.
But that sort of thing was going on long before the Mohammad cartoons. Oppression of other religions is a hallmark of Islam in most of its forms.
By far the worst attacks have occurred in Nigeria. In the state of Borno, attacks left as many as fifty-one Christians dead, including a priest. The Christian property destroyed included at least six churches, both Catholic and Protestant, the Bishop’s home, and a Christian bookstore. The rioters, who went on a rampage after hearing a Muslim cleric denounce the cartoons, sent a clear message with their choice of targets: These are our true enemies, the Christians. This led to a deplorable, yet predictable, response: Nigerian Christians retaliated against Muslims, killing one and burning a mosque. This is tragic.

And where Christians aren’t under physical attack, they still face restrictions that far exceed the ones being decried by Muslim protesters. These restrictions, which have been chronicled on “BreakPoint,” include bans on public and, in Saudi Arabia, even private worship.

This lack of reciprocity, along with the violence in places like Nigeria and Pakistan, has the usually-conciliatory Vatican saying, “Enough!” Pope Benedict told the Moroccan ambassador that peace requires a reciprocal “respect for the religious convictions and practices of others . . . ” Other Vatican officials were even sharper. The Secretary of its supreme court told an Italian newspaper, “Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It’s our duty to protect ourselves.”
His frustration arises from the well-founded doubts that the West will do anything about Muslim persecution of Christians. He noted that “half a century” of relations with “Arab countries” had not produced “the slightest concession on human rights.”
"Not one?"
"No no not one!"

Sadly, he’s right. While countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are cited for their violations of religious freedom, there are not any sanctions. So, the message is that we are not really serious about freedom and democracy. Without religious freedom, efforts to spread democracy are futile, because societies that don’t respect the rights of religious minorities cannot be expected to respect any other human rights. What this tragic turn of events really proves is that, contrary to the politically correct wisdom of our day, not all worldviews or religions are alike. And the differences really matter—just ask the Christians living in the Islamic world.
Posted by: Korora || 03/03/2006 0:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I would like to point out that Islam, in practice, is an ideology - of slavery, of aggression, of the glorified return of barbarisms vanquished ages ago, of hate and intolerance, of global dominion.

That is all. Thank you. Back to your regular programming.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 3:20 Comments || Top||

#2  I seem to have a picture of the last Pope kissing the Koran. A Pope should know why Muslims cannot reciprocate: the "finality of prophethood" dogma dictates the abrogation of all Jewish and Christian canons, except where they conform to Islam. Unless there is a strategic reason for doing so, no Muslim would dare accept Jewish or Christian scripture as a gift. Muslims cannot share Western values, because Western values are anathema to Islam.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs || 03/03/2006 8:13 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Mayor Nagini shocked, SHOCKED! by second Katrina video
ScrappleFace
(2006-03-02) — Just hours after the Associated Press (AP) ‘shocked‘ New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin yesterday by showing him video of a FEMA briefing during Hurricane Katrina in which government officials speculate about the impact of the expected Category 5 storm, the AP has shown the mayor a second “alarming and disgusting” video.

The first video shows President George Bush, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff and then-FEMA Director Michael Brown, among others, dealing with how to respond to the developing disaster, and what to make of inconsistent reports from New Orleans about the condition of the Lake Pontchatrain levees.

The second video, shot by a parking lot security camera several days earlier, shows row upon row of yellow school buses, sitting idle on a day when thousands of local residents remained in the path of the storm.

“Someone at the White House should have given the order to use those school buses to evacuate the city before Katrina hit,” said the Mayor, who is the top local government official in New Orleans. “It makes me ill to think that the federal government failed to intervene to save these people. George Bush had plenty of time, and he did nothing.”

Mr. Nagin, who is the Mayor of New Orleans, noted that local residents “did just what we have trained them to do in a disaster. They watched the hurricane coverage on CNN and waited for a federal official to knock on the door and rescue them.”

“They followed their training,” said Mr. Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans, “but the knock never came. They were helpless, utterly helpless.”

In May 2002, Ray Nagin was elected Mayor of New Orleans, a city which sits below sea level, between the Gulf of Mexico and a large lake.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan today said, “One can always argue after the fact about whether President Bush should have intervened more forcefully to protect New Orleans from this grave threat, but Ray Nagin is the lawfully elected mayor, and whether he remains in office is up to the people of New Orleans, not to the president.”
Posted by: Korora || 03/03/2006 0:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  “Someone at the White House should have given the order to use those school buses to evacuate the city before Katrina hit,” said the Mayor

The mayor owned the busses! Why the F?C! did he not do it! It was well within his authority. This guy must be the dumbest mayor on record. Sad to say but it looks like New Orleans will get a Darwin for electing him. He should be charged with neglegence and accessory to mass murder for not acting in his legally bound duty to protect his city. Some day it will sink into his head that he hold responsability for this.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 03/03/2006 2:08 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL. Ott Rulez. NO / LA are terminally fucked, politically, and will likely remain so forever.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:15 Comments || Top||

#3  agreed, these guys are fools, lead by bigger fools. The big easy should now be called the big stupid. This is criminal what he did and he should be tried by the people of LA for his crimes.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 03/03/2006 2:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Agreed, bro - but this is Scrappleface. I used to say that with a wink, but the gap between the parody and reality has become razor thin these days.

Brings to mind the Ghostbusters with their "proton gun" beam weapons... sometimes Scrappleface and Reality strike me as crossing the beams, lol. We're getting slimed, bro, lol.
Posted by: .com || 03/03/2006 2:34 Comments || Top||

#5  49, this is parody.
Posted by: gromky || 03/03/2006 2:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Got me as well. I missed the Scrappleface and thought it was a real news report and what's more it didn't even surprise me.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/03/2006 3:19 Comments || Top||

#7  Its like bronzie and goldie only its made of iron.
Posted by: pihkalbadger || 03/03/2006 6:24 Comments || Top||

#8  “Someone at the White House should have given the order to use those school buses to evacuate the city before Katrina hit,” said the Mayor.”

Mayor Ray: You've got your bus colors all discombobulated. Federal and State Buses are usually white and have bars and mesh netting over the windows, and have angry looking drivers, etc. Yellow buses are owned by the local school system, city or municipality. Yellow is your color mayor, your buses, your responsibility. White buses be the Feds or State.


Posted by: Visitor || 03/03/2006 9:48 Comments || Top||

#9  :>
Very truthy piece.
Posted by: 6 || 03/03/2006 11:52 Comments || Top||

#10  Now THAT'S fake, but accurate!!
Posted by: AlanC || 03/03/2006 12:32 Comments || Top||

#11  GOT ME on this one!!LOL! It is just so close to real! Good on ya Korora.
Posted by: 49 pan || 03/03/2006 20:22 Comments || Top||

#12  I missed most of the segment but a lady on FNC called in and claimed that over 90%+(?) of these LOCAL/CITY buses weren't in working order to begin with, or words to that effect. Someone should tell Mayor Nagin, etal. FEMA doesn't come in unless the State formally requests it, and usually after any storm; that FEMA is obligated/charged only to return the city or affected to the same or similar condition it was before the storm; and that it isn't FEMA's duty/mandate anyways to substitute for either the local private sector andor the local public sector, espec the latter. IS THE LADY CORRECT?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/03/2006 23:23 Comments || Top||



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On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2006-03-03
  Leb Army seals Syrian border
Thu 2006-03-02
  JMB chief Abdur Rahman nabbed
Wed 2006-03-01
  US journo trapped in Afghan prison riot
Tue 2006-02-28
  Yemen Executes American Missionaries’ Murderer
Mon 2006-02-27
  Saudi forces clash with suspected militants
Sun 2006-02-26
  Jihad Jack Guilty
Sat 2006-02-25
  11 killed, nine churches torched in Nigeria
Fri 2006-02-24
  Saudi forces thwart attack on oil facility
Thu 2006-02-23
  Yemen Charges Five Saudis With Plotting Attacks
Wed 2006-02-22
  Shi'ite shrine destroyed in Samarra
Tue 2006-02-21
  10 killed in religious clashes in Nigeria
Mon 2006-02-20
  Uttar Pradesh minister issues bounty for beheading cartoonists
Sun 2006-02-19
  Muslims Attack U.S. Embassy in Indonesia
Sat 2006-02-18
  Nigeria hard boyz threaten total war
Fri 2006-02-17
  Pak cleric rushdies cartoonist

Better than the average link...



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