#1
National Lampoon did it best years ago, when they did a picture of the Queen in a housecoat, curlers and with fuzzy pink slippers, a cigarette dangling from her lip, opening a beer while watching TV, in front of which an unshaven, wife-beater t-shirt wearing Prince Philip is sleeping on the couch.
#2
the company accepted responsibility for "manipulating the chronology" of the footage.
You and I, non-journo simpletons that we are, would call that "lying". Michael Moore is a master at this trade, but more subtle versions are everyday occurances.
Next time you see news footage of a 'massive demonstration', count the actual number of faces you see in that closely framed shot. Do you ever see the entire street scene or just a tight shot of a half dozen people and signs? Amazing what impression you can convey with careful framing and clever cuts. Once you start noticing it, you will be appalled at how often this technique is used.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced what he called a vast programme to upgrade the country's missile defence system. Visiting a new radar early-warning station near St Petersburg, Mr Putin said it was the first step in a major construction project lasting till 2015.
Russia claims to have has grave concerns about plans to deploy parts of a new US missile defence system in Eastern Europe.
Putin's managed to sell that one to the western press pretty well. Of course, the press wanted to buy it.
Mr Putin has warned that Russia will take measures to counter the plan.
On account of, it's their geopolitical RIGHT to threaten Europe with missiles. More to the point, it cuts into their arms sales to Iran etc. and is humiliating to them. Or something.
The US insists its programme is aimed to deal with threats from countries such as Iran and North Korea, and says Russia should have nothing to fear.
Simple math: twelve interceptors can't stop several hundred Russkie missiles. But twelve interceptors prob'ly can stop a few Iranian missiles.
Russia has offered a sneaky compromise solution, which would allow the US to share use of a radar installation in Azerbaijan.
Hey, their first PCs were a total reverse engineer of the Apple II, right down to the unoperational bits in the boot ROM. Think how cool it would be ro reverse engineer our BMD!
Mr Putin described the new early-warning station - at Lekhtusi, 50km north of St Petersburg - as "the first step in the implementation of a major early-warning programme up to the year 2015". The station was built in just 18 months and opened in December last year. It replaces the Soviet Union's Skrunda radar station in Latvia, which was dismantled in 1998. A similar installation is under construction at Armavir in southern Russia.
The geopolitical sands are truly shifting globally. We'll see how it all settles out. A lot depends on whether the American public wakes up to what is at stake.
#2
Actually 12 ground based interceptors can't stop a hundred Russkie missiles, but 12 ground based interceptors packing 30 Miniature Kill Vehicles are definitely a match for a 100 or so Russkie missiles. Its this potential phase of development that has the Russian high command terrified. Mind you..I'm not losing any sleep over it.
#3
I knew I liked this guy when he went after a couple of media dirtbags who were intruding on his vacation in New Hampshire. I still want to know what the recent cozying up to Muammar Khadafi's all about, though...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
08/12/2007 10:55 Comments ||
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The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III made its Canadian debut at an international airshow in in Abbotsford, B.C. It's the first of four such planes Ottawa bought to transport heavy cargo across Canada and the world. At a cost of roughly $900 million, the 53-metre-long planes are capable of carrying 78,000 kilograms and can airdrop 102 paratroopers and their equipment.
The pilot who will lead the C-17 crews said the arrival of the new plane is a big step for the Canadian Forces. "This is an absolute paradigm shift for us. We've never had this capability before," said Maj. Jeremy Reynolds.
#2
DOUG STEPHEN Show > The Canadians know that iff anything hits the fan btwn the USA-NATO and Russia-China, now wid the ARCTIC controversy, Canada will a primary battlefield for conventional and nuke exchanges, and moving to the USA isn't gonna help becuz any NORAM WAR will likely spread to the lower 48. * Like good dialecticists/PC'ers, RUSSIA is doing two thingys by the ARCTIC - one, its long Cold War desired dissection and creeping control of CONUS-NORAM; and two, putting the USA on its side [ vv economics]iff any war occurs btwn Russia and China for control of [post-Amer/USA] Asia = Eurasia.
I posted about 15% of the article. Much more at link
In the summer of 2002, a little-known Illinois state legislator named Barack Obama thought he saw the political opening he'd been looking for. It was a long shot, a flier -- a race for the U.S. Senate against a sitting Republican. Obama believed he could beat the incumbent, Peter Fitzgerald. The immediate and, in some ways, harder challenge would be getting the Democratic nomination.
Obama was about to turn 41. An attorney and law lecturer at the University of Chicago, he had been elected to the state Senate in 1996, but had been chafing for some time at the limitations of legislating in Springfield. In 2000, he'd overreached by challenging former Black Panther Bobby Rush for the seat Rush held in the U.S. House of Representatives. It had been a disastrous bid, but understandable given that in Illinois, as around the country, paths to higher office for black politicians are few. Spinmeter twitches.
But this new opportunity looked, to him, feasible. In 1992, another Chicago politician, Carol Moseley Braun, had demonstrated that it was possible for an African American to win a statewide U.S. Senate primary, as long as there were at least two white Democrats to split the white vote. And several were already lining up to take on Fitzgerald. It's alweays about race, isn't it. So how did Obama win so much of the white vote, I wounder?
There was just one problem, and it was a big one: Moseley Braun was talking about running herself. Only the second African American U.S. senator since Reconstruction, she had lost to Fitzgerald in 1998, in part as a result of allegations, never proved, that she had misused campaign funds. After the loss, she had been appointed U.S. ambassador to New Zealand. But now she was back in Hyde Park, the neighborhood that surrounds the University of Chicago, where Obama also lived. If she did run, there would be two credible black Democrats in the primary -- one far better known than the other.
"Our bases overlapped so much -- not just that she was African American, but that she came out of the progressive wing of the party . . . and our donor bases would have been fairly similar," says Obama, who also needed support from liberal whites. "So it would have been difficult, I think, to mobilize the entire coalition that was required for me to run."
During the second half of 2002, Obama quietly hired staffers, putting a team together and planning his campaign. But he couldn't announce until Moseley Braun made up her mind. Lobbying her seemed likely to backfire. "She's a very independent person," says Obama's campaign manager at the time, Dan Shomon, and "the view was to let her decide on her own."
And then, just after the new year, news reached them that Moseley Braun had made her decision. She was running.
For president of the United States. Just like Obama, except she served an entire term, first.
And with that, the first cherry had clicked into place: one in an extraordinary series that would hit -- bing bing bing bing -- in the jackpot that for the past five years has characterized Barack Obama's career. If Moseley Braun had run for her old seat, Obama would not be where he is now: sitting on an upholstered couch in a busy office in the Hart Senate Office Building, the only African American member of the U.S. Senate and a leading contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Legs crossed, suit jacket off, Obama readily acknowledges Moseley Braun's decision "was another example of the stars aligning" to land him in what seemed, not so long ago, a laughably improbable spot.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/12/2007 07:37 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Moseley Braun's decision "was another example of the crecent and stars aligning"
#4
Moseley Braun was dating a dude with serious financial ties to Nigeria's then dictator. She couldn't have been elected dog-catcher, even though her intellectual abilities merited that position and no higher...
#5
I understand she was not the brightest bulb in the socket, shall we say, yet she was elected to represent the great state of Illinois - by Democrats!
Or was she appointed? I've slept since then...
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/12/2007 16:24 Comments ||
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#6
"Except she served an entire term, first" > that pesky 2008-2020 anti-USA OWG-SWO/CWO Omni-Govtist DemoLeft agenda again. *FREEREPUBLIC Netter > COMUNIST PARTY USA Elex Flyer + US Manifesto > 2008 and beyond is likely the best oportune time for the COMMUNIST PARTY USA, etal and aligned Orgs to achieve de facto political power in the USA.
#7
And here I always thought you had to be born American to be president.
It's my understanding that one must have one American parent and be born on American territory to qualify to become president of the United States. Hence, if Barack Obama was born at an American embassy or on a U.S. Armed Forces base anywhere in the world, that would count, as it would if his mother had returned to the U.S. to give birth. On the other hand, I've also been told that simply being born to American citizenship as the natural offspring of at least one American parent suffices. Given that trailing daughter is determinedly anti-political (except for thinking the Democratic Party is for unintelligent reationaries, and that whatever else Senator Clinton must not become president), I haven't worried much about the consequences of giving birth to her in a German hospital.
Around 1,707 honour killings were reported in Punjab from 1997 to 2003, making the province the leader with regards to gender-related violence. A report, 'The Concept of Justice in Islam ? Qisas and Diayt Laww', prepared by the National Commission on the Status of Women and funded by the United National Development Programme (UNDP) presented this information. It adds that till present, the courts have disposed of 1,142 of the 1,707 cases.
According to the report, honour killing is an extreme form of domestic violence, which is rampant in Pakistan because of the patriarchal system prevalent in society. It states 172 cases of murder and 67 cases of other forms of gender violence were reported in NWFP during the same period. Only 10 convictions have been made in the 141 cases presently disposed of by courts.
It states 57 cases of murder and 39 related to gender violence were reported in Balochistan, of which 39 cases have been disposed of with 17 convictions and 22 acquittals. In Sindh, 910 honour killings were reported in the same period, of which only 268 cases have been disposed of with 25 convictions and 268 acquittals.
According to the report, cases of domestic violence, rape, gang rape and chopping off of body parts are on the rise. It states culprits of honour killings are acquitted in most cases and claims that the judiciary shows leniency towards these crimes. It has been held by the courts that "a murder committed on account of ghairat (honour) is no offence", claims the report.
According to statistics compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 172 cases of honour killing were reported in Punjab in 2003, of which 16 victims were minors, 69 were single women and 61 were married.
The HRCP has also reported that 82 percent of women in rural Punjab feared violence from their husbands over minor matters and 52 percent of wives admitted to being beaten by their husbands in the most developed urban areas. Women are rarely compensated for injuries sustained by them, particularly in domestic violence, and most victims are not aware of their rights, reports the HRCP.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
STOP defiling and perverting 100% the meaning of the English word, "honour" in this manner!
#3
The HRCP BBC has also not reported that 82 percent of women in rural Punjab Birmingham feared violence from their husbands over minor matters and 52 percent of wives admitted to being beaten by their husbands in the most developed urban areas. Women are rarely never, ever compensated for injuries sustained by them, particularly in domestic violence, and most victims are not aware of their rights, reports the HRCP BBC, etc.
TEHERAN - Iran and Iraq signed an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil and oil products, the state-run Iran news network Saturday quoted the oil ministry as announcing.
The 32-inch (81-centimetre) pipeline will bring crude from the southern Iraqi port of Basra to the southwestern Iranian port of Abadan. There will be a separately 16-inch one for oil products. Under the deal, Iran would buy 100,000 barrels of Iraqi crude to be refined in the southern port of Bandar Abbas, then sell the product back to Iraq. The accord would have no upper limit on quantities. The report did not say when the pipeline will be built or who will pay for it.
In August 2006, Teheran and Baghdad signed a memorandum of understanding for Iran to refine 100,000 barrels per day of Iraqi crude in return for two million litres per day of refined products.
Iraq has the worlds third-largest proven reserves of crude but has faced chronic shortages of refined products ever since the US-led invasion of 2003, as insurgents have targeted its oil infrastructure. The Iraqi government has been forced to import refined products from a number of neighbouring countries.
It's not like Iran has a lot of refined oil products to spare right now.
The agreement was signed on Friday by visiting Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani and his Iranian counterpart, Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh. Sharistanis visit to Teheran comes two days after one by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in which he had talks with officials that reinforced growing bilateral ties.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced what he called a vast programme to upgrade the country's missile defence system. Visiting a new radar early-warning station near St Petersburg, Mr Putin said it was the first step in a major construction project lasting till 2015. 
TEHERAN - Iran and Iraq signed an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil and oil products, the state-run Iran news network Saturday quoted the oil ministry as announcing.
