CAIRO - An Egyptian woman pretending to suffer from labour pains gave such a poor performance at customs that a quick hand-search revealed her bundle of joy to be 48 mobile phones, an airport source said.
It's a gir -- oh, it's a Samsung.
The young woman, whose identity was not released, began to complain of labour pains after arriving at Cairo airport from one of the Middle Eastern countries, hoping to speed her way through customs.
That never worked for me neither.
A customs officer checked her passport and was surprised by the number of stamps it held, showing too much recent travel for a woman in her condition, the source said.
So he asked a female colleague to frisk her. The search exposed what was really under the womans clothing -- 48 mobile phones worth more than 17,000 dollars. The mother was arrested.
Could have been a jihadi under the burka.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2006 00:00 ||
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Australia says it will impose conditions on aid to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Solomon Islands to get better governance in the South Pacific.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, says Australia has every right to attach conditions to its aid.
"If you want Australian aid, you've got to reduce corruption. If you want Australian aid, you've got to improve governance," Mr Howard said.
"If you want Australian aid, you've got to have a better approach to economic management.
"It's not a question of forcing countries to do things, it's a question of defending the operation of the rule of law in Australia."
Mr Howard says the diplomatic fight with Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands is caused by the police effort to extradite and prosecute the suspended Solomons Attorney-General, Julian Moti.
He says the Government will not interfere with the police and the rule of law.
The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, says an act of blatant lawlessness by PNG caused the ban on ministerial contacts with the country.
Mr Downer says a PNG defence force plane was used to allow Moti to flee the PNG capital Port Moresby, despite an Australian extradition order.
"It is our view that we should make our voice heard about this blatant act of lawlessness that has taken place in that country," Mr Downer said.
"Of course not everybody in PNG will like it, but I think people will notice it, and I think they will understand that for Australia the whole of governance is a very, very important issue."
Mr Downer says the National Security Committee of Federal Cabinet approved the ban on visits by PNG Government ministers.
And we should do the same to Indonesia, particularly in light of the latest figures that 1 in 10 indonesians support al-Qaida affiliates and Islamonazi terrorists Jemaah Islamiah.
They bomb Bali, kill Australians and hindu Balinese, and when they get a tsunami bam we give them a cool billion in aid money, no strings attached.
We should be doing more of this tied aid stuff... or cut the aid money right off
#2
Yes, we should, anon1. But our political admin-specifically, the Bush administration, via Condi-thinks need equals merit. They are promising aid to Palestine without the measly condition of recognizing Israel-a pretty damned reasonable condition in the view of American tax payers.
#3
Jules, that is terrible. I really think we should all, Americans, Australians and Brits, have a box to tick on our tax forms where we can choose or choose NOT to pay a portion of our taxes to foreign aid.
that way we can freely give to charities of our choice and be sure that our taxes are spent on US: our hospitals, schools and roads, which would always benefit from a nice upgrade that wasted aid money could buy.
#4
our political admin-specifically, the Bush administration, via Condi-thinks need equals merit
I don't read it that way. I think they think aid is a lever for influence. Maybe not total influence, which is where the judgement calls come into play. And we see the public aid (carrots) but we don't usually see the sticks which usually occur in private diplomacy ... but sometimes are applied publicly.
When I see the Bush Admin going along with the decades-old State Dept BS of accommodation and sliminess, such as giving one cent of US Aid to the Paleos, I have to force myself to remember that the DhimmiDonks would howl and bash Bush, somewhat successfully, with a campaign of "it's for the children" BS if he actually cut off all aid. After all, our betters in the EU are all for it - so Bush would catch hell from the Tranzis. Just under half of the Congress is triangulating against Bush - and push this shit whether they give a rat's ass about the Paleos or not - and most certainly do not. It was good enough for Saint Bill, who had Yassir over to Camp David for a few brewskis and some laughs, so it's a wunnerful thang, etc.
Triangulation. It's all the rage among the asshats who'd love to take down the US - both internally and externally.
Bush has done far more than any other President to bring some honesty to the Paleo bullshit situation. It's an inherited thing with tons of BS baggage. He has made serious efforts to whittle the crap down. But some just don't give any credit if he doesn't toe their personal line and meet their personal schedule and dance to their tune. Gosh, sounds just like the pro-Paleo crowd. That's a gutless and dishonest approach, but hey - it's America - you can be whatever you wanna be. Dishonest, disingenuous, irrational, pointlessly uncharitable for what has been accomplished and ignorant of reality, posting from a perfectly surreal world where you get everything you want -- yep, anything you wanna be.
Jules -- Since you've stated that you intend to Bash Bush in the November vote your carping about him is just DU noise, now. Have a nice life.
#6
Blah blah blah. I don't owe loyalty to parties-I owe it to the ideas individuals fight for.
Aid monies come directly from the American people. The Palestinian people have voted in a terrorist government which refuses to give up its designs to remove Jews from Israel-perhaps even from this earth. Aid monies from the US would support a terrorist government in Palestine. That should be a disgusting position for any self-respecting American-Dem, Pub, anybody.
Some believe money solves anything. That used to be the sole territory of Dems; guess the idea is getting traction with Pubs these days, too.
#8
What's the alternative to Bush? The dems? Lets get real here. Allegiance to ideas and not parties is a wonderful idea, but political realities in a two party system (yes, two party...the rest are powerless) dictate that we sometimes have to accept the lesser of two evils.
While I disagree with Bush and Rice on the paleo issue, and vehemently disagree with him on the immigration issue, that's a disagreement in the family. I'm not about to go down the street and ask to be adopted by that pack of unadulterated scumbags.
#10
Condi Rice is right when she says the war on Islamacist terror will take a generation. That's 20 years.
Many Americans have short attention spans and are impatient. I don't know if we'll win this or not. But I'm pretty sure that key people in the Bush administration are trying to position us to win over the course of time. And that will take a delicate balancing act which will NEVER satisfy the "nuke them all now until they glow" crowd.
20 years, folks. Keep your eye on the long term prize and judge things like foreign aid as one step in preparing the battlefield. The goal is to defeat militant Islamacism without allowing them to bring down the global economy that we lead (and that they hate) and without so embroiling us in wars everywhere that we can no longer defend ourselves.
Balancing act. 20 years. Statesmanship and yes, even international leadership, not just short term (albeit emotionally satisfying) whomping.
#14
I've written to the local and Washington offices of both of my federal representatives: Mike Dewine and Mike Turner. I did this months ago with the following request:
I've politely asked each of them to initiate action to cut off all funding to any and all muslim countries or, in the alternative, to set hard core verifiable terms for receipt of same. To what end?
Sadly, I have yet to receive so much as a form letter from either office thanking me for taking the time to even write the senator and congressman notifying them of my concerns or desires.
Why? My hunch is that my concerns and desires don't register in the least with the currently elected politicians. My letters were shitcanned upon receipt.
For example, I want the USA out of the UN. But that sentiment puts me on some extreme fringe. I've written to my reps to make my ideas known. Again, no response. It must be me. I'm the one who is crazy to want to dissolve (or walk away from) the UN and construct an organization of democratic countries bound by western, democratic values. No commies, no muzzies allowed.
Do I expect a change in party will make a difference? No, absolutely not. Recently I was personally woed by the Dem nominee trying to take Mike Turner's seat for the 3rd Congressional District. When I asked him point blank: Will you support US militry action to prevent Iran from gaining nukes he wouldn't give a straight, understandable answer. It's not that hard of a question. To me it requires a yes or no response. But I guess that makes me a stupid person because I only see the issue in black or white.
F**k it all....
(and thank you Mr. Fred for giving me a forum to vent...I've been booted off of several forums for expressing my views).
Yeah, I understand what dot com means when he says the election does make a difference. I'm just not sure how much it means in the long term.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
10/16/2006 11:54 Comments ||
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#15
I'm not about to go down the street and ask to be adopted by that pack of unadulterated scumbags lol! Well said.
I've gotten sorta worked up on the Muzzy / WoT topics, too, and did a little ranting now 'n then to make my points.
The key is reality vs. rant.
I gots myownself a wish list, too. I'd like to see mass deportations of Muzzies from the West (all of it), starting with the imams, quarantine of the Muzzy World from transportation, technology, and aid, and a few other choice notions that are one step shy of eradication - just to see if they'll allows us to forgo the nasty thingy.
But I don't expect the political climate to allow for my ideas to be accepted in my lifetime - unless we get nuked 4 or 5 times. Then, maybe.
Power in this representative democracy flows from the vote. Period. Wasting it in some infantile display of pique is an act of prime stupidity, so I get a little hinky about it.
I'm regularly reminded that I didn't get a MaGiK wAnd, like some. *sniff*
#17
this is such an important election. We only need look at how fast things are degenerating in Britain and France to see what will be in store for us here if Dems take control of the Senate and/or House. Before you vote for a Dem, go find the list of who will become in charge and then find out who they are. It's very frightening indeed.
I'm not interested in saying "I told you so" as I put on my Burka. This election is for the future of our freedoms.
#18
Dont' forget those year-end contributions to the Taliban! They have starving innocents, too, you know.
Don't worry about that 9/11 dust floating through the air. it may be the dust of 3000 dead Americans, but gosh darn it, in the long-term, changing hearts and minds of the Taliban through aid will be worth it! /sarcasm off/
SR-71 - No, actually. But hey - you asked the question and went ahead and answered yourself, drew conclusions, yadda³. Obviously, it was completely rhetorical - you didn't / don't need me.
#23
I don't owe loyalty to parties-I owe it to the ideas individuals fight for.
You again convince me that you are just young and .... idealistic.
You can dream about how everything should be perfect and you can say, "it should be", "they should"
but in the end - the way that things get done is through cooperation and clumsy lurches forward.
Good intentions are not good enough. You don't sound smart with your fantasies of how the world should be more perfect - and your dreams of how a white horse needs to ride up and rescue you from every slight to your honor - you just sound like someone who is green behind the ears and doesn't have the slightest grasp as to what it takes to accomplish momumental tasks.
#24
Don't worry about that 9/11 dust floating through the air. it may be the dust of 3000 dead Americans, but gosh darn it, in the long-term, changing hearts and minds of the Taliban through aid will be worth it!
You miss the point.
But let's start with 9/11, shall we? My daughter was 1/4 mile from the Twin Towers that morning. We couldn't get through to her to confirm she was all right until 36 hours later. She watched the planes hit. She was without food and mostly without water that day, as she and thousands others walked miles north, across the bridges and back south to her apartment, not knowing who else had been attacked or what they would find.
My sister's husband worked in the upper floors of those buildings until just a few days before the attack, and just missed being there at the time the planes hit.
My spouse is retired military. We had close friends in the wing of the Pentagon that was hit.
You do not BEGIN to come close to the rage I and those like me feel about 9/11. Nor our cold determination to turn this world upside down as need be to put an end to those who fostered and carried it out.
But unlike yours, it would seem, my determination is deep enough to go the long haul. And I'd rather the world my daughter continues on in have something of an economy and a civilization intact when we're done.
If can be. That too remains to be seen. As my colleagues who wear green remind me, the enemy has a vote on the battlefield. I've done business in the Middle East. I have a little familiarity with how things happen there.
So too BTW does .com. So too do a number of other regulars here.
The enemy has a vote. But then, so do we. And I intend to use mine with as much subtlety and effectiveness as I can, as I think Dr. Rice and others do as well.
PRIME Minister John Howard has given his strongest support yet to the use of nuclear power in Australia, backing the local development of the "clean" energy industry.
An expert taskforce is due to release a draft report next month on the merits of nuclear power and whether Australia should be thinking of value-adding options, such as enrichment, for its vast uranium stores.
But before the experts have even had their say, Mr Howard has indicated he believes nuclear power is an industry Australia should be developing. Mr Howard has previously suggested nuclear power was something Australia should consider if economically viable. "I'm in favour of Australia developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes," he told the Nine Network. "It's clean and green and, in an age where we're worried about global warming, we should be looking seriously at nuclear power as an option because it's clean and it doesn't emit greenhouse gases.
"I can't understand why the extreme greenies oppose it."
Mr Howard's one-time adversary, former prime minister Paul Keating, sees the issue completely differently. "Nuclear energy is a bad fuel, a dirty fuel, a dangerous fuel," he told Sky News. "Nuclear is a no-no generally in my opinion - it is a bad business."
Instead Mr Keating would prefer to focus on alternative strategies to reduce Australia's reliance on fossil fuels, options such as hybrid cars and hydrogen fuel cells.
Labor has pledged there will be no nuclear power if it wins Government, but it does plan to re-examine its policy of no new uranium mines at its national conference next year. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley wants the policy changed but faces a difficult job convincing some sections of Labor that it is the way to go.
Mr Keating thinks a change in the Labor policy would be a mistake. "I think I would stay with the existing policy," he said. "This is not a good industry to encourage, and anyone that has an electricity program, ipso-facto ends up with a nuclear weapons capability."
#1
I oppose it. The hidden costs make nuclear economically non-viable - hence it has stalled in the last couple of decades. No new reactors built for ages, until this latest push.
Plus nuclear power makes it easier for rogue states to get nuclear weapons. We want a reactor for power. 1 year later: we have a nuclear weapon.
Worse: nuclear accidents in third world countries who have poor safety skills but who have demanded reactors, anybody remember Chernobyl? The fallout crosses borders.
This is the trick behind the whole greenhouse scare, it's being used as a PR piece by the nuke industry.
Average volcanic eruption puts more carbon in atmosphere than humans do. Global warming here to stay: change is inevitable, we should just deal with it by building dams and breakwaters and saving money for species rehabilitation and habitat conservation: not throwing it at nuclear reactors.
#2
Anon 1, I appreciate your positions, but we need nuclear power badly. This is really the only viable alternative which can efficiently produce enough power to allow complete freedom from the oil shiekhs and other wackoffs like Chavez. New design pebble bed reactors are really fail safe, and can operate at higher internal temperatures which would allow a more optimal path to hydrogen production from water. If fuel is reprocessed, which we used to do until Jimmah started meddling, we could burn that fuel in a second cycle in breeder reactors and attain a yield of about 90% potential. This gives us much more fuel and eliminates much of the long term storage issues, though not all. If nuclear is held back, the result is many more...about 40 immediately...new coal fired generation plants. This actually produces much more environmental pollution than the latest design nuke plants. Nothing is cheaper over the life cycle of generation facilities then nuclear. Proven and documented over the past 40 years.
I too want freedom from buying oil off of people who are trying to kill us and strangle our culture.
It's a problem! I'm just not so sure that nuclear power is the solution. Maybe there isn't one solution perhaps each country or each region must find their own?
Brazil runs their cars on ethanol: it works for them with their massive sugar industry
New Zealand runs on hydro and geothermal: they can, they have massive waterfalls and volcanoes.
Australia can do a bit of lots of things: we have ethanol burning generator in Queensland, hydro in Snowy Mountains, solar out in the desert, wind farms in Victoria.
I think we need a reactor so we can have nukes which we need as insurance against indonesia (which we don't actually need because hopefully our defence treaty with the US can keep them in check for the moment)
I understand that new technology makes new generation reactors safer than the old ones, but what bothers me is the people running them.
No problem trusting reactor in a developed nation like the US or UK... it's when they start sprouting in places like indonesia on the edge of a volcano (serious they wanted 7 reactors, one on the edge of volcano), or vietnam or places which have a social system raddled with corruption and a shortage of skills.
The plant might be fine it's the idiots running it I worry about. Flicking wrong switches, not checking parts, not replacing old pipes... and then there's the temptation to sell off spent fuel rods to bin Laden.
Terror states like Iran and NorK can legitimately argue on the world stage they want the plant for power. And developed nations stand on a weakened position saying: we can have them but you can't. So they get the power reactor. Voila they have nukes. It's bad for proliferation.
I appreciate coal-fired plants produce pollution, and by volume more than Nuke reactors but it's the intense and long-lived nature of that N-pollution, and the cost of getting rid of it that makes me want to avoid nuke plants.
At the end of a reactor's life the whole thing: pipes, topsoil, lightbulbs everything becomes radioactive and needs to be "decommissioned".
But the thing that bothers me is the highly radioactive waste stays hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years. Our human civilisation including all recorded history from the pharoahs on is barely a few thousand years old.
Certainly in three thousand years - and probably as little as 100 years - society as we know it won't exist: but we don't know what will.
Most think that is too far ahead to care, but deep time will affect our children's descendants.
They may be hitting each other with rocks and sticks for all we know.
But these worries aside (after all they are philosophical rather than practical) mostly it is the cost of set-up, security and dismantling that makes them not the best option in my idea.
But I thank you for a very reasonable and informative reply!
The hunt was still on for thousands of mink which were let out of farms by radical animal rights activists. Activists let 15,000 out of farms near La Coruña over the weekend. By Monday, about 70 per cent had been recaptured but 4,000 were still missing. Of those who had been recaptured, 3,000 had died.
Manuel Vázquez, regional government environmental consultant, said criminals had broken into three mink farms in Oza dos Ríos, A Baña y Muros. The animal is bred for fur coats and cosmetics. Farm owners said they could not survive in the wild and most would die within three days. The Civil Guard said it appeared animal rights activists or ecologists had mounted an organised raid on the farms. Vazquez said this did "nothing positive" for the animals.
#3
Mink are nasty killers. Expect to see a lot of dead animals in the vicinity: birds, domestic cats, snakes, pretty much anything they can sink their teeth into.
They are one of the few animals that will kill for the pleasure of it and then leave the carcass untouched.
#4
Does anyone remember the Cordwainer Smith story, Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/16/2006 14:40 Comments ||
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#5
Someone needs to come up with a new term for these folks. Calling them "animal rights" activists implies animals actually have rights, and gives up way too much intellectual territory.
How about "Terrorists of the Darwinian Brotherhood" or some suitable alternative?
And ferocious, too. I had a friend who lived out in the boonies and had a tough, seasoned dog protecting his property. The one animal that ever got the best of him was a mink - made him turn tail and run like a whupped puppy.
#7
What these assholes have really done is sentence thousands of mink to death. There is neither the habitat nor the food supply to support all of or even a portion of these animals within their newfound territory. As noted by others, they have also sentenced to death countless other creatures in the area which are at the mercy of these ravenous little killing machines.
Someone needs to come up with a new term for these folks.
Maybe. But you might be surprised at the instincts that are lying dormant. Case in point: a Best in Show Whippet who got out of her cage at JFK in the wintertime. Scat and tracks show that this "pampered show dog" from an internationally aclaimed show line, with no coat and little body fat, figured out how to feed quite successfully on local critters for months before her signs disappeared in an area with humans.
#11
Yes, it would be fun if they ran into Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons. Follow the link for the whole story.
Katherine Hitton looked out the window and thought to herself, "Forty-two days before I go to market and it's a welcome day that I get there and hear the jig of a music."
Oh, to walk on market day,
And see my people proud and gay!
She breathed deeply of the air. She loved the gray hillsthough in her youth she had seen many other worlds. And then she turned back into the building to the animals and the duties which awaited her. She was the only Mother Hitton and these were her littul kittons.
She moved among them. She and her father had bred them from Earth mink, from the fiercest, smallest, craziest little minks that had ever been shipped out from Manhome. The lives of the minks had been shaped to keep away other predators who might bother the sheep on whom the stroon grew. But these minks were born mad.
Generations of them had been bred psychotic to the bone. They lived only to die and they died so that they could stay alive. These were the kittons of Norstrilia. Animals in whom fear, rage, hunger, and sex were utterly intermixed; who could eat themselves or each other; who could eat their young, or people, or anything organic; animals who screamed with murder-lust when they felt love; animals born to loathe themselves with a fierce and livid hate and who survived only because their waking moments were spent on couches, strapped tight, claw by claw, so that they could not hurt each other or themselves. Mother Hitton let them waken only a few moments in each lifetime. They bred and killed. She wakened them only two at a time.
All that afternoon she moved from cage to cage. The sleeping animals slept well. The nourishment ran into their blood streams; they lived sometimes for years without awaking. She bred them when the males were only partly awakened and the females aroused only enough to accept her veterinary treatments. She herself had to pluck the young away from their mothers as the sleeping mothers begot them. Then she nourished the young through a few happy weeks of kittonhood, until their adult natures began to take, their eyes ran red with madness and heat, and their emotions sounded in the sharp, hideous, little cries they uttered through the building; and the twisting of their neat, furry faces, the rolling of their crazy, bright eyes, and the tightening of their sharp, sharp claws.
Posted by: bruce ||
10/16/2006 19:08 Comments ||
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#12
I knew of an individual who lived out in the woods, and kept a pair of wolverines in his fenced front yard. Vicious, nasty, aggressive critters, who would stay hidden until they attacked.
He did this because even if he took off for a couple of days, some jackass would jump into his front yard hoping to break into his cabin. After the 10th or so break-in, he had had it.
Usually he could tell if he had visitors by the swatches of bloody clothing he saw in the yard.
He really became fond of those two wolverines, though they never returned any affection or gratitude. He didn't mind, it wasn't in their job description.
Democrat Ned Lamont has just $329,560 cash on hand for the final weeks of the campaign, far less than rival Sen. Joe Lieberman whose account totals $4.7 million. In reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday, the Lamont campaign said the multimillionaire businessman provided most of the money raised in the July 20 to Sept. 30 reporting period.
#4
You mean those photoshopped pix of Joe Lieberman in blackface and nasty anti-semitic rants on sites like Daily Kos/DU/Puffington Host didn't cause the coffers to fill up? Whoda thunk it?
I'm not sure what's going to be more amusing....reading Kos/firedoglake's spin on the defeat the day after the election, or watching Joe's fellow backstabbing Dems cautiously kissing his ass afterwards. I better go stock up on popcorn.
Rarely in the annals of American politics has the much-used David-Goliath analogy been so apropos. U.S. Rep. John Murtha is literally and figuratively daunting -- literally because he's 6 feet, 3 inches tall and broad-shouldered with a booming voice; figuratively because he's a giant in Congress, a 32-year veteran of the House of Representatives. And his challenger, Republican Diana Irey, is the opposite -- soft-spoken, slight, barely clearing 5 feet, a neophyte on the national stage.
We know how the Bible story ended. But can Mrs. Irey slay this towering Johnstown warrior?
Since earning a surprising victory in her first run for political office, when she defeated an incumbent to secure a seat on the Washington County Board of Commissioners in 1995, Mrs. Irey has been a favorite among Pennsylvania's GOP notables such as former Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey, and Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum. A West Virginia native, she married into a family with some clout. Her late father-in-law, Frank Irey, was GOP chairman in Washington County. For years, there had been speculation that she'd be recruited to run for higher office, but, until now, she's balked, citing her young family and her comfort with her role in Washington, Pa.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Actually, it's the amazingly absurd and defeatist shit that comes out of his senile piehole which makes him a target. But it would be insensitive and disrespectful to this seditious bastard the Congressman to say so. I'm really extra sorry.
#2
If you've got a couple extra bucks left over from helping your local Republican -- hint, hint -- ship them to Diana Irey. It would be a hoot to oust this useless pig no matter what happens to the GOP overall.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
10/16/2006 9:59 Comments ||
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#3
Murtha's a big Mother, but still a dumb Mother. When you talk about pulling troops back, yeah, I can see that. Pull them back to our bases or to the oilfields. He wants to pull them back to Okinawa.
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.
PRIME Minister John Howard has given his strongest support yet to the use of nuclear power in Australia, backing the local development of the "clean" energy industry.
Democrat Ned Lamont has just $329,560 cash on hand for the final weeks of the campaign, far less than rival Sen. Joe Lieberman whose account totals $4.7 million. In reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday, the Lamont campaign said the multimillionaire businessman provided most of the money raised in the July 20 to Sept. 30 reporting period. 
Rarely in the annals of American politics has the much-used David-Goliath analogy been so apropos. U.S. Rep. John Murtha is literally and figuratively daunting -- literally because he's 6 feet, 3 inches tall and broad-shouldered with a booming voice; figuratively because he's a giant in Congress, a 32-year veteran of the House of Representatives. And his challenger, Republican Diana Irey, is the opposite -- soft-spoken, slight, barely clearing 5 feet, a neophyte on the national stage. 
