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Leb contorts, obfuscates over Hezbollah disarmament
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 4: Opinion
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Councilwoman Accused of Hitting Mayor
ECORSE, Mich. A city councilwoman has been charged with two misdemeanors for allegedly choking and hitting the mayor during a council meeting. Theresa Peguese was charged last week with assault and battery and obstruction of a government function during the July 18 council meeting. Peguese's lawyer, Hugh Davis, said his client, who is green black, was provoked when Mayor Larry Salisbury used racial slurs as they argued over a resident's request for relief from the city's zoning ordinance to build a modular home in Ecorse, a city of 11,000 about 10 miles southwest of Detroit. Salisbury's lawyer, Bill Colovos, denied the racial slur claim and said the councilwoman was "out of control."

"This lady is in need of some serious anger management classes," said Colovos, who said he reviewed the tape of the council meeting and heard no racial slur. Peguese could spend up to 93 days in jail if convicted. "We admit that she had physical contact with him, but my client didn't choke him," Davis said
Posted by: Fred || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder if her husband ever tells her, "No".
Posted by: Itstoolate || 08/16/2006 1:55 Comments || Top||

#2  He probably said something like "Get your hands off of my throat! My vision is turning black!"

Sigh.

Do you ever get the feeling that life is just a big game of whack-a-mole?
Posted by: gorb || 08/16/2006 4:03 Comments || Top||

#3  This lady is in need of some serious anger management classes," said Colovos,

The federal pens are full of folks just like her. Must be something in the water.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/16/2006 6:19 Comments || Top||

#4  proud graduate of the Cynthia McKinney School of Negotiation
Posted by: Warthog || 08/16/2006 10:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Is she Stephanie Studebaker's kid sister?
Posted by: Mike || 08/16/2006 11:41 Comments || Top||


Lincoln Police Arrest Man For 226th Time
LINCOLN, Neb. -- Lincoln police on Monday morning arrested a man for the 226th time after, police said, he was breaking into vehicles. Kevin Holder, 41, has a 43-page criminal history that stretches back to 1980. Lincoln police have his mug shot on file 16 different times. "He's very well known to Lincoln police officers. He's a prolific career criminal," said Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady.
"He's a prolific career criminal, just not a very good one..."
Holder's latest run-in with the law was Sunday morning, when Lincoln police arrested him after a short pursuit. "He had burglar tools in his possession he had goods taken out of four different cars," Casady said.

“His list of charges includes theft, trespassing, assault, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia and child abuse...”
His list of charges includes theft, trespassing, assault, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia and child abuse. Many of Holder's offenses are misdemeanors for which he paid fines and was released. He spent 18 months in prison beginning in 1990, four years in 1996 and another year in 2002. "Your average Nebraskan thinks after a prisoner has committed a certain number of crimes (he) will be put away for a long period of time. That doesn't happen," Casady said.

Even with Holder's 226 arrests, Casady said, he doesn't even crack the top 10 habitual criminal list. Casady said there are a number of people that have over 500 arrests. A habitual criminal law in Nebraska states that if someone spends a year in prison on each of two prior felonies and is found guilty on a third felony, a judge has to sentence him or her to 10 to 65 years if the prosecutor seeks it. It does not apply to misdemeanors.
Posted by: Fred || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's a cry for help. With just a few billion more in discretionary social spending, we might have saved him.

/liberal
Posted by: Mike || 08/16/2006 6:36 Comments || Top||

#2  just walk him into a field and shoot him
Posted by: Frank G || 08/16/2006 8:42 Comments || Top||

#3  Nail him down. Shown to have remarkable success in deterring second offenses.
Posted by: Throluter Ebbuck8609 || 08/16/2006 9:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Give this guy some midnight and a basketball...
Posted by: tu3031 || 08/16/2006 9:35 Comments || Top||

#5  He's just one of those guys that mentally think of the county lockup as his home. We used to nickname them "frequent flyers". He gets out for a day or two, gets scared because he doesn't think he has anywhere to go except maybe a homeless shelter (usually they're right), and so he commits a misdemeanor or petty offense so he can get his three hots and a cot.

Pretty much every jurisdiction has at least one of these characters. As the article states, he's not even the local guy with the most arrests.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie || 08/16/2006 10:15 Comments || Top||

#6  In the mid-70s I was student living in Lincoln. One day the girls in the basement got flashed at a bus stop and the cops were over to show them the sexual perp. photos. I asked if I could see the books to see whom I may have seen about.
The books they had just covered folks active in the past year.... that said there were over 1500 hundred photos and the city only had a population of about 180,000 including students...
Oh, yeah, I had seen a lot of those faces everywhere - bars, resturants, university classes - everywhere.
Posted by: 3dc || 08/16/2006 10:21 Comments || Top||

#7  But why o why do americans want to live on closed secure estates?

/moonbat
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 08/16/2006 13:19 Comments || Top||

#8  To the Tower with him, and toss him off! (Lincoln has a tower right?)
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/16/2006 13:52 Comments || Top||

#9  The "Singing Tower" located in Lincoln. They could just leave him up in it for 'a bit', bet he'd never do that (or anything else) ever again.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 08/16/2006 14:00 Comments || Top||

#10  Dang, MR. I was expecting to you to issue a fatwa on him requiring him to watch Cornhusker football 24/7 in the upcoming weeks, lol!
Posted by: BA || 08/16/2006 14:01 Comments || Top||

#11  Sorry BA. Some folks enjoy Cornhusker field sports (some even fanatically). We can't take that chance with a "prolific career criminal".....he may have aquired that viewing taste in a previous incarceration (this IS Nebraska we're talking about, birthplace of Johnny Carson and all that).
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 08/16/2006 16:12 Comments || Top||

#12  To the Tower with him, and toss him off! (Lincoln has a tower right?)

Ummm...you might want to rephrase this for our foreign (and English) guests since "toss him off" has a somewhat, shall we say, pornographic meaning in Merry Old England...to the best of my knowledge...

...just a thought...


Posted by: FOTSGreg || 08/16/2006 21:07 Comments || Top||

#13  I bow to your "religious" experience, oh Mullah Richard. I, for one, am looking forward to opening day in 2.5 weeks.
Posted by: BA || 08/16/2006 21:08 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Indian boy tied to tree for nine years for biting dogs
Mowgli... is that you?
Authorities in Indian state of West Bengal rescued a 15-year-old boy tied to a tree for nine years because he used to bite dogs and goats besides gnawing on the feet of relatives and neighbours, officials said today.

Rahul Amin Dhali was just six when he first bit a dog in Biramnagar village, 60km north of Kolkata, the state capital, they said. A few days later he tasted the flesh of a family member. "We chose to ignore the issue since he was just a child but it turned worse with every passing day," Rahman Dhali, the boy's father, told Reuters.

Rahul later wandered off in the village and bit a goat grazing in a field before nibbling at the paws of the neighbour's pet dog, leaving Rahman, a poor farmer, flummoxed.
"Flummoxed" is the right word here.
When neighbours' complaints increased, the Dhalis chained their son by the wrist to a tree in front of their house, where the boy has since been taught to read. "We found him tied to a tree with a long chain near a pond and he seemed very sick to us," said Sushanata Dutta, a senior government official who organised Monday's rescue mission after being told of Rahul's condition by village health workers.

"Dhali had the habit of nibbling at his hands and feet when he failed to lure dogs and cats for a bite," Dutta added.

Doctors said the boy was suffering from a serious neurological disorder and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Kolkata for treatment. "Everyone was scared about Dhali because they thought he was a demon possessed with evil powers, but actually he should be fine with several months of treatment," Ranadip Ghosh Roy, one of the doctors treating Rahul, said.
I blame Bush!
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 08/16/2006 05:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Global Warming
Posted by: Delphi2005 || 08/16/2006 8:22 Comments || Top||

#2  "Everyone was scared about Dhali because they thought he was a demon possessed with evil powers,

Posessed by evil powers? Don't think that's gonna fly in court...
Posted by: BigEd || 08/16/2006 16:06 Comments || Top||


Snakes On A Plane opens Friday
Nelville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson): "I've had it with these motherf***ing snakes on this motherf***ing plane!"
This movie looks like how I've been feeling for almost five years now: "There's motherf***ing snakes on this planet!" And very few of us are willing to even agree that poisonous snakes roaming freely around our cabin is a problem. We keep trying to *understand* the snakes.
In case you aren't familiar with the phenomenon, Snakes on a Plane was greeted with disgust and sneering before the movie had even been made: the premise was pathetic. The title said it all. So the movie studio asked the audience that if SoaP is destined to be a campy, bad movie, then what would they want to see in it? This resulted in several script re-writes, changing the rating from PG to a hard-R.

20,000,000 Google web hits later, the studio has tried to make the movie so bad that it is good. Campy awfulness that will sell itself by word of mouth, and hopefully, actually make money from a movie originally destined for the discount direct-to-DVD bin. It is the flip side of marketing: not selling what you have made to the public, but having the public design what they want you to sell. And movie studios are watching the results of this experiment, which could change the way many movies will be made in the future.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How sad that the first movie in years I've actually been waiting to see (at least since Gladiator came out) is titled "Snakes on a Plane".

And no, I couldn't get worked up over a Herbie remake.
Posted by: Dreadnought || 08/16/2006 0:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Speaking of Snakes on a plane, a friend of mine was flying a Pilatus Porter in Laos way back in the Air America daze, when his man in the right seat looks back and sees a cobra in the cabin. Well, both guys freak out and are crouched on their seats flying the plane and finally land. They carefully searched the plane, and gingerly opened up the maintenance ports and checked out the whole plane with mirrors and flashlights. No cobra, so they figured that it slithered out of the plane while airborne.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Kotzebue, Alaska || 08/16/2006 4:19 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm glad I wasn't walking under that plane's flight path. I wouldn't want to look up and suddenly see a cobra tumbling and writhing out of the sky onto my head.
Posted by: Monsieur Moonbat || 08/16/2006 5:17 Comments || Top||

#4  It has to be said: Air Cobra.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 08/16/2006 5:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Funny thing is how the fan stuff gets to be used, re the SLJ quote; reminds me of the "I'm the Juggernaut, b*tch" of X-men 3. It looks like the internet has more rewarding material to offer to geeks than just PrOn, who knew?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 08/16/2006 5:31 Comments || Top||

#6  When I was growing up, we had a rosy boa (named Rosie) for a pet, and my father used to pack her up in a gunny-sack and take her into the lab once a month for her live-mouse lunch (labs always have an overstock of mice, you see). But she got out of the sack one day, on the ride home, and although we searched the car very carefully, we never found her. You have no idea how nervous people were, riding in that car for months afterwards. Especially the ones who didn't care for snakes.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 08/16/2006 7:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Just like American Express, Anti-venom; don't leave home with out it.
Posted by: Delphi2005 || 08/16/2006 8:30 Comments || Top||

#8  Fluffy the corn snake got out of his bag while my daughter was moving last week. My daughter unpacked everything and eventually found him curled up in a hiking boot.
Posted by: mom || 08/16/2006 9:16 Comments || Top||

#9  Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
Posted by: Professor Jones || 08/16/2006 9:21 Comments || Top||

#10  Where's Harry Potter whn you need him?
Posted by: Korora || 08/16/2006 9:58 Comments || Top||

#11  AoS, or whomever is the teal mod, hearing you say snakes around our cabin made me think of the INCREDIBLE speech Sen. Zell Miller gave on the floor of the Senate during the debate over Iraq. Being from small town Georgia (and believe me, Young Harris is still small, not even a red light), he compared it to a den of copperheads under his front porch, and how they threatened his wife and grandkids and that he wasn't gonna wait for City Council approval to kill said copperheads. Quite a speech from a Southern boy.
Posted by: BA || 08/16/2006 10:30 Comments || Top||

#12  Seafarious.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 08/16/2006 10:31 Comments || Top||

#13  Almost as scary as "Kennedys in a Car".
Posted by: tu3031 || 08/16/2006 15:21 Comments || Top||

#14  When I was a kid I was gonna climb a tree in my front yard and nearly stepped on a big ass snake wrapped around the base. Screaming I told my dad who promptly got a shovel and whacked its head off.

I found out later the snake was someones escaped pet. Sorry, but I'm guessing you probably wouldn't know the replacement from the old one after awhile.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 08/16/2006 17:30 Comments || Top||

#15  All this movie will do is result in more herpetological phobia. Snakes are a vital link in the food chain and, more often than not, destroy quite nasty vermin (e.g., rats and mice). See The Simpsons, re: "Whacking Day."
Posted by: Zenster || 08/16/2006 20:58 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Clashes erupt in Bangladeshi capital over power cuts
DHAKA - Residents stormed two power stations in the Bangladeshi capital, clashed with police and attacked vehicles in the streets in the latest protests over shortages of electricity, officials said on Tuesday. About 30 people were injured in clashes with police after protesters entered the generating stations in the old quarter of Dhaka earlier this week demanding an end to daily power cuts running into several hours.

With many existing plants shut, Bangladesh only produces around 3,200 megawatts of power a day against demand of 4,500 megawatts. The government says a shortage of funds is affecting plans to build new power plants. Several new plants had been expected to start operations but they have fallen behind schedule, mainly because of lack of money.
But don't bother to work with India to drill for oil in the Bay of Bangla, or build industries at home, 'cause that wouldn't be Islamic.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, living in the dark squalor of your filthy, disease incubating hut is way more islamic than a modern, safe, healthy lifestyle.

Duh.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 08/16/2006 11:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe if they destroy enough of themselves they won't need so much power and everything will be OK again. It's easier and cheaper than getting to work on more power plants.
Posted by: gorb || 08/16/2006 15:53 Comments || Top||

#3  They turned down the offer by the Tata conglomerate of India to build power plants.
Billions in foreign direct investment, the largest in Bangladesh history, refused.

Posted by: john || 08/16/2006 17:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Have you ever seen what happens to appliances when powered by infidel electricity?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 08/16/2006 18:21 Comments || Top||

#5  Jinn blenders?
Posted by: Frank G || 08/16/2006 19:33 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Alfredo Stroessner Dies
Paraguay's former military ruler Alfredo Stroessner has died aged 93 in a hospital in the Brazilian capital. General Stroessner had contracted pneumonia after an operation for a hernia on 29 July.

Gen Stroessner, who led a military coup in 1954, had lived in exile in Brazil since being ousted in 1989. Paraguay had said earlier it would not pay tribute to him as he was a renegade from justice and was wanted for questioning over alleged rights abuses. Paraguayan judges had, on a number of occasions, requested the extradition of the former leader in connection with Operation Condor, a co-ordinated campaign carried out by South American military governments in the 1970s to quash their opponents.
He squished the communists like insects and led Paraguay into decades of peace and prosperity. For this he was damned by liberals for making his country "boring". Though he may officially be condemned, a lot of Paraguayans remember him fondly.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/16/2006 11:42 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Miami Herald one year had him as "BEST LATIN AMERICA DICTATOR" one year. As I remember his real vice was a fondness for young girls. He would have gotten along fine with Scott Ritter.
Then there was the Stroessner joke, The Genral visited Argentina. When he was visiting the PM, Stroessner asked, " Argentina is such a poor country how can you afford such a lavish office?"
The politico replied, "You see the bridge over the river?"
The general replied, "Yes"
The Argie said patting his wallet, "50%"
Several years latter an indian from the boonies in Paraguay got an audience with General Stroessner. He is amazed by the lavish office and asks the general, "Since Paraguay is so poor how can he afford it."
The General points to the Parana river and asks, "Do see the bridge?" The Indian says "NO"
The genral then pats his wallet and says, "100!%"
Posted by: bruce || 08/16/2006 18:26 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Bird flu kills 1,800 ducks in China
This is what it looks like when baby ducks die.
BEIJING - About 1,800 ducks have died from bird flu at a farm in in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, central China, and more than 210,000 have been culled, the online edition of Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.

A national laboratory confirmed on Monday the ducks had died from the H5N1 bird flu virus, it said.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  H5N1 coming to an emergency room near you.
Twice a year, birds migrate, therefore, twice a year, the bird flu can be spread from continent to continent. The people of the world may not be doomed, but the poultry industry sure is.
Posted by: wxjames || 08/16/2006 11:52 Comments || Top||

#2  I wonder how central the poultry industry is to Chinese food supply.
Posted by: lotp || 08/16/2006 12:13 Comments || Top||

#3  For a little perspective, the U.S. poultry industry produced 8.9 BILLION "broiler" chickens in 2005.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/News/broilerCoverage.htm
Posted by: Darrell || 08/16/2006 12:36 Comments || Top||

#4  FAO for 2003
125 of 2940 calories/capita/day. 52 poultry meat 73 eggs.

Of the 2940 c/c/d about half is cereal and half of that is rice. The next greatest source of calories after rice and wheat is pigmeat 343 c/c/d, over 10% of the cal/cap/day. Islam's going to have a problem there.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 08/16/2006 12:56 Comments || Top||

#5  Interesting. Thanks.
Posted by: lotp || 08/16/2006 13:37 Comments || Top||

#6  W: Twice a year, birds migrate, therefore, twice a year, the bird flu can be spread from continent to continent. The people of the world may not be doomed, but the poultry industry sure is.

This is true only if the poultry are allowed to run around in the open air. The American poultry industry grows its birds indoors in cages. Even poultry being grown outdoors can be isolated via netting. It's just not that big of a problem. Sanitation practices in China are crap. And yet the H5N1 infection rate there is negligible. Which goes to show that the disease is usually fatal, but not all that infectious, at least with respect to humans. Epidemic-scale infection is really hard to hide, because there are lots of foreign Asian reporters in China who can blend.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/16/2006 21:06 Comments || Top||


Down Under
U.S backs Howard's nuclear vision
THE Bush administration has indicated it will support Australia developing a uranium enrichment industry, despite the White House's policy to restrict new entrants to the world nuclear club.
In response to John Howard's campaign to ensure the existing nuclear powers do not lock Australia out of future nuclear development, a senior US official has said "special rules" apply to Australia and Canada.

Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear power at the US Department of Energy, said Australia and Canada were likely to be given special consideration because they would play a pivotal role in a new nuclear suppliers club the US is trying to establish.

"I think Australia, and Canada for that matter, play a special role in world nuclear affairs because obviously you are two countries that have the majority of economically recoverable uranium resources," Mr Spurgeon said in an exclusive interview with The Australian yesterday.

Asked if this gave Australia and Canada a strong bargaining chip in negotiating their entry into a new nuclear club, he replied: "Exactly. So in any discussion, you have to take into account the facts as they lay."

"I think Australia is viewed as a totally reliable and trustworthy country, so I don't think there is any issue there whatsoever."

The Government has launched an inquiry, headed by former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski, to examine the economics of expanding Australia's uranium mining sector, becoming involved in uranium enrichment and establishing a domestic nuclear power industry.

It comes after the Bush administration unveiled last year the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which is designed to restrict the number of countries enriching uranium to existing players such as the US, Britain, China, Russia and France.

But under the GNEP, nuclear fuel would be shipped to feed energy-hungry developing countries and the spent fuel taken back to the supplier so it could not be reprocessed and used for weapons. Its clear aim is to prevent nuclear proliferation as witnessed in rogue states such as North Korea and as fears grow that Iran's civilian nuclear push is simply a cover for nuclear weapons manufacture.

It is also designed to promote a fuel source that does not produce greenhouse gases.

But the plan caught the Howard Government off guard and it was one of the main issues the Prime Minister raised with US President George W.Bush on his trip to Washington in May. Mr Howard then travelled to Canada to discuss the GNEP program with counterpart Stephen Harper.

Last month, Mr Howard told The Australian he was not suspicious of the initiative "but I'm keen to keep an eye on it and keen to ensure it doesn't damage Australia's position".

The GNEP policy, as it stands, would freeze Australia out of the enrichment club and presents an awkward policy conflict between Australia and the US.

Mr Spurgeon admitted the GNEP policy as envisaged presented an "unusual situation" in relation to Australia and Canada.

"Any time you make a general rule you always find maybe it doesn't apply in all circumstances," he said. "The United States depends on, and wants to continue to have, a very close partnership and working relationship with Australia.

"We end up with a little bit of an unusual situation here because the policy is really designed to try to help countries like Vietnam, for example, to be able to have the benefit of nuclear energy without needing that kind of enrichment plant and without needing a reprocessing facility."

Keen to assuage fears that Australia would not be dealt a bad hand in the program, Mr Spurgeon added that future discussions with Australia "comes down to the way in which we might jointly agree on a path forward for implementing the principles contained in GNEP".

"But it is just that. It's a discussion. It's not a dictation in any manner of speaking.

"We are pleased Australia is looking at nuclear energy and does want to be an active partner as we attempt to increase the use of nuclear energy worldwide in a responsible way."

He stressed he was not in a position to make a definitive comment on what the administration's position would be on Australia enriching uranium, saying that was for the State Department to comment on.

However, a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Non-proliferation declined to comment.
Posted by: Oztralian || 08/16/2006 21:23 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We know our friends.
Posted by: RWV || 08/16/2006 23:17 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
A New Explanation For "Macaca?"
What does Macaca really mean? Three Virginia Republicans confirmed to the Hotline that several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday's videotaped encounter. According to two Republicans who heard the word used, "macaca" was a mash-up of "Mohawk," referring to Sidarth's distinctive hair, and "caca," Spanish slang for excrement, or "shit."

Said one Republican close to the campaign: "In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance." Allen, according to Republicans, heard members of his traveling entourage and Virginia Republicans use the phrase and picked it up. It was the first word that came to his mind when he spied Sidarth at the weekend's event, according to Republicans who have been briefed on Allen's version of the event.

Opponents of Allen have said that Sidarth's hair was clearly styled as a mullet rather than as a Mohawk. Republicans are sending around a post by Chad Dotson, a Virginia prosecutor who blogs as "Commonwealth Conservative," which contains a photograph of Sidarth at an Allen event. Sidarth's hair appears to be shaved on the side and thick strands stretch over the top of his head from his neck to his temple. (Dotson is a Republican and unabashed Allen supporter.)

John Reid, Allen's Senate communications director, said in a statement: "I don't think George Allen would ever try to publicly embarrass or demean a young person even if that person was working on an opposing campaign. The Senator has apologized sincerely and repeatedly over the last two days to the young man and to the public in general. He has been speaking with members of Virginia's Indian Community to reiterate that apology and assure them he did not mean to be derogatory. At some point I don't know what else can be said. I am hopeful that everyone who has heard about this has also heard the Senator's apology."

Kristian Denny Todd, communications director for James Webb, said the new explanation rings hollow. "I don't know what's worse; calling this innocent 20-year-old a "shit head" or a racist slur that was debatable that it wasn't," she said. "This is a kid that had done George Allen no harm. The term was used to demean him. That's the bottom line." Todd said Webb "just wants to get beyond all this" and focus on issues.
Posted by: Steve || 08/16/2006 14:03 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why is an explanation particularly needed? Oh, right... George Allen is a Republican.
Posted by: eLarson || 08/16/2006 15:01 Comments || Top||

#2  It's hard to be dumber than Joe Biden, but George Allen gave it his best shot ...
Posted by: Steve White || 08/16/2006 18:40 Comments || Top||


Jimmah Cahtah's seed to run for Senate

Jimmy Carter's son, Jack Carter, won the Democratic nomination Tuesday to face Republican U.S. Sen. John Ensign in November in Nevada, where voters also were picking candidates in a wide-open and sometimes-zany pair of primaries to replace popular Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn.

Carter claimed 80 percent of the vote in early returns to defeat political unknown Ruby Jee Tun of Carson City, a middle school science teacher. Ensign won with more than 90 percent of the vote over Ed "Fast Eddie" Hamilton of Las Vegas, a former Chrysler Corp. supervisor.

Election officers posted notices at the polls to make sure voters knew former state Comptroller Kathy Augustine died last month, even though her name remained on the ballot for state treasurer. If she wins the GOP nomination, it would be the first time that a dead person has won a primary for a statewide office in Nevada history.

Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 08/16/2006 13:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sen. Ensign's campaign is looking for animal trainers to field a corps of swamp rabbits in the general election.
Posted by: Mike || 08/16/2006 14:17 Comments || Top||

#2  I didn't think he'd be running in Georgia.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 08/16/2006 14:38 Comments || Top||

#3  (Sen. Ensign defeated)Ed "Fast Eddie" Hamilton of Las Vegas (in the Republican primary)

My name is Ed, my wife sometimes calls me 'Eddie', but FAST EDDIE is too much... even for Nevada...
Posted by: BigEd || 08/16/2006 16:11 Comments || Top||

#4 
Now, remember, Clyde... The pappy is dangerous with an oar, so when you are in Nevada be careful of the son.
Posted by: BigEd || 08/16/2006 16:17 Comments || Top||

#5  Time to set up my Tie Amuahs Tubes Foundation. She'll be cheaper than young Clinton.

Figure a $800,000 love offering.
Posted by: 6 || 08/16/2006 18:43 Comments || Top||


Bush will not endorse Republican opposing Lieberman
President George W. Bush gave a boost to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's re-election bid as an independent by taking the rare step of refusing to endorse the Republican candidate whatever his name is running for Lieberman's U.S. Senate seat. "We are not making any endorsement in Connecticut. The Republican party of Connecticut has suggested that we not make an endorsement in that race and so we're not," said White House spokesman Tony Snow.

It is highly unusual for a sitting president not to endorse a Senate candidate from his own party and suggests the depth of the political machinations over Lieberman's Senate seat after his defeat in last week's Democratic primary by Ned Lamont, a well financed challenger running on an anti-Iraq war platform. Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has vowed to launch an independent bid to retain his seat.
Posted by: Fred || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don't you worry about the republican. For just staying in the race, in case Lieberman keels over dead or something, he will have gotten his ticket punched big time.

That is, the party will owe him plenty payback in the future for "taking one for the team", and campaigning against Lamont, and not Lieberman.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/16/2006 0:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Not sure I agree with that.

Loyalty goes both ways.
Posted by: DanNY || 08/16/2006 4:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Why would anyone ever vote Republican in CT, after this?

I wouldn't.

Lieberman may not be devoted to US military failure like Lammont, but he is devoted to US economic failure. I guess that's OK with the White House.
Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) || 08/16/2006 9:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Conn republicans failed to pick a good candidate to run against Lieberman, but then in the blue states, it's usually a waste of money for a conservative to run for office, so there is not a great choice of runners to pick from.
Posted by: wxjames || 08/16/2006 12:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Lieberman may not be devoted to US military failure like Lammont, but he is devoted to US economic failure

Yeah, but so is Bush.

Posted by: DMFD || 08/16/2006 22:44 Comments || Top||


Poll Shows Pa. Senate Race Narrowing
MANNS CHOICE, Pa. (AP) - Democrat Bob Casey's lead is shrinking over Republican Sen. Rick Santorum in one of the nation's hottest Senate races, a poll released Tuesday shows. Santorum has narrowed the gap from an 18-point difference in June, according to the poll, and a recent appearance of a Green Party candidate also is considered a spoiler for the Democrat.

In a three-way contest, the new poll found Casey leading Santorum 45 percent to 39 percent, with Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli picking up 5 percent. Eleven percent said they were undecided or did not plan to vote. As a two-way race, without Romanelli, 47 percent of the same respondents favored Casey to 40 percent for Santorum, with 13 percent undecided.

The results of the poll, based on telephone interviews with 1,384 Pennsylvania registered voters from Aug. 8 through Monday, carry a sampling margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The June poll showing Casey leading Santorum by 18 points, 52 percent to 34 percent, was also conducted by Quinnipiac University.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Rick's pushing hard -- I've lost count of the number of come-ons I've gotten from him. Bob Casey seems to be relying on name recognition and the Philly factor, but if Santorum can keep up the momentum that may not be enough. Is it possible that the Republicans will retain control of the Senate come November?
Posted by: Jonathan || 08/16/2006 10:35 Comments || Top||


Jerry Ford Admitted to Hospital for Testing
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Former President Ford was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota on Tuesday for ``testing and evaluation,'' his office said in a statement. The statement gave no details on why the 93-year-old former chief executive went to the clinic in Rochester, about 75 miles southeast of Minneapolis.
Maybe it's because it's one of the best facilities in the world?
``No further releases or updates are anticipated prior to early next week,'' said the statement issued from his office in Beaver Creek, Colo. Ford also has a home in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Mayo Clinic spokesman John Murphy confirmed the statement but said he had no additional information.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

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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.
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Meet the Mods
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2006-08-16
  Leb contorts, obfuscates over Hezbollah disarmament
Tue 2006-08-15
  Assad: We’ll liberate Golan Heights
Mon 2006-08-14
  Hizbullah distributes Leaflets claiming victory
Sun 2006-08-13
  Lebanese Cabinet Approves Cease-Fire
Sat 2006-08-12
  Israeli troops reach the Litani River
Fri 2006-08-11
  ‘Quake money’ used to finance UK plane bombing plot
Thu 2006-08-10
  "Plot to blow up planes" foiled in UK. We hope.
Wed 2006-08-09
  Israel shakes up Leb front leadership
Tue 2006-08-08
  Lebanese objection delays vote at UN
Mon 2006-08-07
  IAF strikes northeast Lebanon
Sun 2006-08-06
  Beirut dismisses UN draft resolution
Sat 2006-08-05
  U.S., France OK U.N. Mideast Truce Pact
Fri 2006-08-04
  IDF Ordered to Advance to Litani River
Thu 2006-08-03
  Record number of rockets hit Israeli north
Wed 2006-08-02
  IDF pushes into Leb


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