by Steven Kurtz
ISBN: 1-4134-3603-X (Picture Book)
Pages: 52
Subject: ART / Pictorial
Reading Level: 4 - 0
Age Level: 10 - 0
Picture Book $19.99
The perfect gift for anyone named Steve. (And fun for everyone else.)
This book is a celebration of a name and a country. There are photos of more than 150 businesses throughout the U.S. called "Steve's." Perhaps one of them is just around the corner.
ThereÂŽs something delightful and unexpected on every page. Among the stops on the tour:
SteveÂŽs 1st Class 2nd Hand Shop—"Open 24 hours per week." HeÂŽs a craftsman who builds deck chairs and Christmas trees out of old crutches.
Crazy SteveÂŽs Fireworks—Largest selection in the state. Please, no smoking.
SteveÂŽs Pro Shop—The store that combines two passions, bowling and astronomy.
SteveÂŽs Bug Off Exterminating—Where giant insects crawl up the wall.
SteveÂŽs Curling Supplies—The top supplier in the country, he operates out of his garage and basement.
Dr. SteveÂŽs Transmission Clinic—Customers keep asking for medical advice.
SteveÂŽs Authentic Key Lime Pie—Delivered to your doorstep in the striking "Piemobile."
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/24/2004 6:00:41 PM ||
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It's clear to me the Army of Steve buried this article late on Sunday during a World Series game so that this topic would not get the exposure it deserves.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/25/2004 14:48 Comments ||
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#6
My first thought was to check the byline for an April 1st posting date. Second thought, given that this is from al-Beeb, was to wonder why they didn't compare and contrast with the behavior of Islamic bees.
#7
The team found the bees which had consumed the higher concentrations of ethanol spent the least time flying or grooming and spent more time on their backs.
Dr Mustard said: "These bees had lost postural control. They couldn't coordinate their legs well enough to flip themselves back over again."
Loss of "postural control" would seem to explain a lot regarding typical sorority girl complaints the following morning.
Just another BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious). Who are these overpaid science geeks and how can we strangle them in the cradle to prevent any further abuse of public funding?
#8
I've heard of a "beer buzz" before, but this is just too much.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/24/2004 9:08 Comments ||
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#9
The bees were secured to a small harness made from a piece of drinking straw and fed solutions of sucrose and ethanol. The ethanol concentration ranged from zero to 100.
I don't think it's the bees that have a problem.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2004 10:33 Comments ||
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#11
Then let them bee the designated drivers.
Posted by: ed ||
10/24/2004 10:34 Comments ||
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#12
talk about over inflating your claims to get grant money! Bees "hold key to alcohol abuse" *scoff!* a more appropriate title would be "taxpayers fork out big bucks for lame experiment that shows bees get drunk when given alchohol".
A STRONG aftershock measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale struck Japan today, two days after the country's deadliest quake in nearly a decade left 23 people dead, the Kyodo news agency said. agr/dk The latest tremor occurred at 6.05am (7.05 AEST) in the Niigata region, 200km north of Tokyo, the report said. There was no immediate news of damage or casualties. More than 240 aftershocks have been felt in the area since Saturday's killer quake, which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. Niigata was hit yesterday afternoon by two strong aftershocks of 4.9 and 4.6 on the Richter scale.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/24/2004 6:00:12 PM ||
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The British Armed Forces has officially recognised its first registered Satanist, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Naval technician Chris Cranmer, 24, has been allowed to register by the captain of HMS Cumberland, based at Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth. The move will mean that he will now be allowed to perform Satanic rituals on board the vessel.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Cranmer realised he was a Satanist nine years ago. Mr Cranmer said that was when he stumbled across a copy of the Satanic Bible, written by Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He said: "I then read more and more and came to realise I'd always been a Satanist, just simply never knew." Mr Cranmer, who is from Edinburgh, is now lobbying the Ministry of Defence to make Satanism a registered religion in the armed forces. Former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe said she was "utterly shocked" by the Royal Navy's decision. "Satanism is wrong. Obviously the private beliefs of individuals anywhere, including the armed forces, are their own affair but I hope it doesn't spread." She added: "The Navy should not permit Satanist practices on board its ships". Here, here!
"God himself gives free will, but I would like to think that if somebody applied to the Navy and said they were a Satanist today it would raise its eyebrows somewhat." A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: "We are an equal opportunities employer and we don't stop anybody from having their own religious values."
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/24/2004 4:37:10 PM ||
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Do they still describe the Queen as the Defender of the Faith or is it now the Defender of any Faith?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/24/2004 16:56 Comments ||
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ah yes, moral equivalence at its' finest. I mean, who are we to judge if evil is evil, ight?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2004 17:21 Comments ||
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The Queen is "The Defender of the Faith", but her jug-eared retarded son Charles has intimated that he would like to be known as "Defender of Faith". He also wants to change his name from Charles as that has connotations he would rather not have to widely known (the last King called Charles, was Charles II, and we beheaded him - and then buggered it up with the restoration a few decades later when we put another blue-blood on the throne ... sigh)
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/24/2004 17:28 Comments ||
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1. I bet the guy is an a-ganger.
2. I happen to be good friends with Anton Lavey's cousin (writer of the Satanic Bible) He was close to Anton, and knows that Anton did the whole thing as a joke. He probably would think this story is incredibly funny.
#5
Penguin - The Satanic Bible is a scream. I've had one since the 1970's, though I haven't looked at it for years.
More than once, some religious nut would knock on the door and tell me, "I've got a book for you." My response would be, "I've got a book for you," and bring out my copy of the Satanic Bible. They always turned white and left immediately, never to return. :-p
Saved wear and tear not only on my nerves, but on the doorbell.
(And no, I'm not a satanist.)
It's a funny book if you don't take it seriously. If you do take it seriously, you need professional help.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/24/2004 17:38 Comments ||
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#6
The guy's been given space to worship en warship. Wonder what satanists do in their sacred cubby hole? My guess: defile WRENS and drink unholy grog. The joke's definitely on the Navy...
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/24/2004 17:42 Comments ||
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Sailors are a superstitious lot to this day, so this is not likely to go over well with Cranmer's shipmates.
The US Army has Satanist chaplains, and official instructions for Satanic rituals.
I too met Anton Lavey once. He was a charming chap in person and definitely did not seem a good candidate for sacrificing virgins or conjuring up hurricanes and the like ("converting" virgins would be a different story).
It was obvious that his evil "church" was a heavy-handed and long running secularist joke.
I think Anton did not realize, and was reluctant to acknowledge, that his silly doctrines would be seized upon and taken seriously by impressionable and criminal-minded young sociopaths.
There are real devil-worshippers in the world, if violence, slavery, and duplicity as primary values are recognized as true manifestations of evil.
I would also include the worship of celebrities and the media, built around devotion to a one-eyed idol, television, as a form of devil worship, since it is utterly devoid of any significant moral or constructive value.
Sufi or not Sufi? That is the question Islam week at the Globe Theatre will link Shakespeare with a mystic Muslim sect Over in Roswell, they link him to space aliens (I am not making that up). The Roswell moonbats have better evidence though.
The influence of William Shakespeare on western culture has made him arguably Britain's greatest export. Now it is being claimed that his work resembles the teachings of the Islamic Sufi sect. The argument will be put forward next month at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. It comes as part of a week of events focusing on Islam to address concerns raised by the 'war on terror' and improve understanding of the links between Islam and British culture. — Concerns: death, enslavement
— links with British culture: Muslim/dhimmi, master/slave, hated enemy for 1000 years.
While it has been suggested that Shakespeare dabbled with espionage and Catholic political activism, and quantum cosmology
... and was somebody other than Shakespeare...
I'd guess it was Sir Francis Bacon, but you can't say "Bacon" to a Moose-limb ...
the new theory will attempt to persuade Shakespeare scholars that the playwright was a member of a religious or spiritual order which can best be compared to the philosophy of Sufism. Sure, he invented the airplane, too.
But he never mentioned Sufism because he wanted to keep it a secret, see?
The respected (by whom?)
academic Dr Martin Lings will put forward this thesis in his lecture on 23 November. 'Shakespeare would have delighted in Sufism,' said Lings, who is 96 and an adherent of Sufism. 'We can see he obviously knew a lot about some kind of equivalent sect or order.'
Jonson said he had "little Latin and less Greek." But he had Arabic?
Lings argues that the guiding principles of Sufi thought are evident in Shakespeare's writing. The plays, he believes, depict a struggle between the dawning modernist world and the traditional, mystical value system.
Oh, yeah. You can see that in lines like "Out, out, damn spot!"
And, like the Sufis, the playwright is firmly on the side of tradition and spiritualism.
Echoes of Sufism
'Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, the gods themselves throw incense'
King Lear to his daughter, Act V, Scene III
'We are such stuff as dreams are made on'
Prospero in The Tempest, Act IV, Scene I
Upon such fluff careers are made on...
Also like the Christian Church of the time.
... and much like the society he moved in. Unlike, of course, Jonson and Marlowe and Spenser and all the other guys who were writing at the time...
'It was the end of the Middle Ages and the birth of atheism,' he says. 'It was the beginning of the ideas of enlightenment and the beginning really of the modern era. Shakespeare is the last outpost of tradition.'
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" is the last outpost of tradition?
Lings believes that characters in some of the best known works exemplify the Sufi quest for purification, while others represent Shakespeare himself. 'I am going to say that it is wrong to say we know very little about Shakespeare because he is present in his plays to a remarkable degree,' said Lings, who was keeper of oriental manuscripts and printed books and in charge of Koranic manuscripts at the British Museum. He argues that the journey of Edgar, in King Lear, is like the Sufi's search for truth, in which the seeker is helped by angelic characters and impeded by diabolic agents.
Ummm... What about Falstaff? What's he supposed to be?
While the magician-like figure of Prospero, orchestrating the action in The Tempest, and the manipulative Duke of Vienna in Measure for Measure are commonly seen as Shakespeare's alter egos, Lings traces the teachings of a spiritual order akin to Sufism in their words. The famous line of Prospero's 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on' is a complete fit, he claims, adding that King Lear's words also eerily echo Sufi ideas when he tells his faithful daughter: 'Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, the gods themselves throw incense.' Lings makes the point that the Bard is 'quite at home' with 'Gods' in the plural. They also reflect Phoenician and Native American religious ideas. Maybe Bill was a Carthaginian or a Navajo.
Hmmm... You might be right. There is that Athabascan phrasing thing...
I'm waiting for them to explain Othello slaughtering the Turks ...
The International Shakespeare Globe Fellowship Lecture will take place in the middle of the Islam Awareness Week on the 22-28 November and will be preceded by a lecture from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, the founder of the Zaytuna Institute in California, who will look at Shakespeare's sonnets from a Sufi perspective. Throughout the week the outside walls of the theatre on the banks of the Thames will be illuminated with scenes of Islamic culture.
Barf bag, please...
On the final weekend a souk will take over the premises, with stalls selling eastern wares. The week will also form part of the 4th centenary celebrations of the first recorded performance of Othello , which will be marked by staged readings of four plays featuring Moors and Turks. Ok, I know these dinks have to kiss Islamo ass, but do they have to be so obvious about it?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
10/24/2004 1:31:55 AM ||
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Strictly speaking, the mad donkey represents the American Democrat Party, of which Guardianistas are only advisory members.
They are such righteous jackasses though, I thought it could still apply fully to them as well.
#6
Shakespearean culture-dink overheard on the phone:
"Yes, I've heard of it......"
"As Chair-emeritus of the Kidneystone-Nether Wallop Shakespeare Festival, I must denounce and repudiate in the strongest possible terms this ludicrous and illiterate fantasy that the Bard himself was a........"
"What's that? The Haj Amin al Husseini Memorial Foundation will donate how much?......"
"Good God, er, Allah be praised, that's what I thought you said......"
"Of course, we must do everything possible to acknowledge Wallih-i-Liam Sheihk Spear's role in the ummah....."
"What else?......"
"That isn't really my field......"
"Ok, if you insist, he invented the airplane and the flush toilet and introduced golf from Arabia, too."
#7
Oh my God, Zenster!
That is literally the funniest thing I have ever read here. I was laughing so hard my wife thought I would hurt myself. It is superbly compact and elegant in its relevance, balance, and imagery.
#10
I wonder why the article dosn't mention Dr. Lings' other name:
Martin Lings (also known as Abu Bakr Siraj Ad-Din) was born in Burnage, Lancashire, 1909. After taking an English degree at Oxford in 1932, he was appointed Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon at the University of Kaunas. His interest in Islam and in Arabic took him to Egypt in 1939, and in the following year he was given a lectureship in Cairo University. In 1952 he returned to England and took a degree in Arabic at London University. From 1970-74 he was Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books at the British Museum (in 1973 his Department became part of the British Library) where he had been in special charge of the Qur’an manuscripts, amongst other treasures, since 1955. Dr. Lings currently lives in England with his wife
#11
Oh my God, Zenster! That is literally the funniest thing I have ever read here. I was laughing so hard my wife thought I would hurt myself. It is superbly compact and elegant in its relevance, balance, and imagery.
Little higher praise ever have I received. Methinks I shall carry it to my final days, as a treasure precious only to mineself.
#12
Excellent catch, Seafarious. I've posted it at LGF with a hat tip to you.
I think we are going to burn the house down on this string. First the Clark County fiasco, then the Bush assassination, now this crown jewel of moonbat self-parody. I could not make Al Guardian look more depraved or foolish if I had been editing their stories myself at Karl Rove's behest. They are truly the laughingstock of the planet, nay, the Solar System.
In a thousand years, "ALGuardian" will be a standard euphemism for feces, stand-up comedians will draw roars of laughter just silently mouthing the word and tiny kindergarteners will giggle and snicker when they hear it mentioned aloud.
#13
The respected (by whom?)academic Dr Martin Lings
Not respected by everyone, apparently. From a discussion of his book on the early life to the Prophet:
Author: AbuUbaida
Asslamualikum,
In terms of scholarship. martin lings is not a scholar. On certain topics there is minor diffrences in opinion by scholars but when it comes to isnulting The Prophet (peace be upon him) then their is only one opinion. The person doing that must be killed.
#17
I know something about Sufi-ism and it can legitimately claim to be the peaceful face of Islam - philosphically similar to buddhism. Wahabbists consider Sufis infidels and kill them on a regular basis.
#19
The professor's contribution is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Macbeth
Or maybe it signifies that soon bewildered students in UK universities will be required to answer questions on the similarities between Shakespeare and Islam in Drama 101.
Posted by: Susan ||
10/24/2004 9:25 Comments ||
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There is a precedent for this sort of claim. Idries Shah, probably the most well-known writer in English on Sufism, claimed that Chaucer's Caterbury Tales was based on Attar's Parliament of the Birds, a Sufi mystical allegory. He also claimed to have shown that Aesop's fables were translations of Sufi mystical parables, which was tanatmount to proclaiming that he was a heretic, since Aesop obviously predates Muhammed. Interesting claim for somebody who I think was considered to be the Sufi "pope". There was undoubtedly a lot of cross-cultural influence between Christian Europe and Muslim Spain, but by Shakespeare's time, the influences were probably very indirect.
Posted by: V is for Victory ||
10/24/2004 9:48 Comments ||
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#23
Susan, the author of that op-ed piece was clearly not very well brought up. How utterly rude!
#24
Par for the course. Just a part of the muslim strategy of conquest and asserting superiority. Just like they assert muslims really discovered the Americas. Even Columbus's navigator was a muslim, even though there is no shred of evidence for it. Hell, the muslims couldn't even discover the Azores, but knew how to find the New World. Just as they claim the American Indians were muslim, or influenced by them in pre-Columbian times. With names like al-Gonquin, how could the Indians be anything but muslim?
Everyone is born a muslim, but the unfortunate are led astray. Muslims make the same claims about the Australian Aboriginies. They even have camels down there, you know. So muslims have a historical and rightful claim to take over the Australian subcontinent. Expect to see more claims of this sort by American muslims in the next few years.
Posted by: ed ||
10/24/2004 10:15 Comments ||
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#25
LOL Zman. Was that an oldie? I vaguely remember the response, it's me Romeo! Please pitch up the Charmin.
I proudly swear that that little gem was a spur-of-the-moment reaction, exclusively created for alla youse at Rantburg. Something about this board brings out the worst best in me.
Does anyone else think it strange that Islam in general seems to have no problem with ridiculous claims like this being made on its behalf? Much as they should loudly disown terrorism, one can only that think they would fervently disavow lunatic claims like the above drivel.
There springs to mind the old saying; "Straining on gnats and swallowing camels whole." Somehow, Islam is able to countenance the most hideous atrocities and outrageous fabrications but remains unable to withstand even a glimpse of feminine flesh without descending into complete chaos.
This singularly contradictory aspect of Islam merits close examination, being that it is indicative of an overarching philosophical malaise that taints the entire religion. Any takers on this one?
#29
"Does anyone else think it strange that Islam in general seems to have no problem with ridiculous claims like this being made on its behalf?"
Alas, not strange at all. I've come to view Muslims as having notions of "reality" and "truth" very different from ours. We tend to live at an evidentiary level; they appear to live at on the level of belief: they want "A" to be true, therefore "A" is true. And "A" can be damn near anything at all.
I've noticed that Democrats tend to think like that, too.
"...These acts of violence (WTC/Pentagon, etc attacks) against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that."
"The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself: 'In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule.'"
"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. ISLAM IS PEACE."
I, George Bush, really believe that "Islam is peace," and that is why I outlawed secularism in Iraq, and created a power vacuum for the Islamofascists to fill. Notice how so many people think I am a genius, even though I am a whiny, rich kid whose alcohol degenerated brain prevents me from putting 2 words together.
Posted by: George Bush6334 ||
10/24/2004 4:17 Comments ||
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Costa Rica has plunged into its deepest political crisis in decades after two former presidents were arrested on corruption charges in the space of a week.
Costa Rica has the strongest economy in the region, where its political stability has earned it the nickname of "the Switzerland of Central America". But a series of corruption scandals this year, mostly involving kickbacks from foreign companies negotiating contracts, has led to a collapse of confidence in the political class.
Many analysts now think that constitutional reform is inevitable.
There were dramatic scenes on Friday as Rafael Angel Calderón, president from 1990 to 1994, was sentenced to nine months in prison while investigations continued into allegations that he took a slice of a $39m loan he had brokered from the government of Finland, intended for investment in the Costa Rican health system.
Mr Calderón, the son of another former president still revered for setting up the country's welfare state, is the first president ever to be imprisoned for corruption. The judge said he had "probably had functional dominance in negotiations, and the power to decide the precise form in which the money would be shared out, which placed him at a high decision-making level in this criminal organisation."
Crowds lined the streets to boo and shake their fists as his prison vehicle passed by.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/24/2004 5:31:53 PM ||
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"he had taken a $550,000 (€433,600, £300,800) bribe from Alcatel, the French telecommunications company". Oil, telecommunications, do I detect a pattern here? Is the US the only country with an anti-bribe law for international business?
Posted by: Don ||
10/24/2004 17:40 Comments ||
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Is there any proof that Kofis' kid was involved? I thought not, racists. You see bribe and think oily food, watch out for that rough cut 2 by 12 in the aural passage! Shame!
Haiti's interim leader castigated the international community Saturday, saying it has sent too few peacekeepers to prevent violence that has left some 55 people dead in two weeks. Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, during an hourlong interview with The Associated Press, defended the government's decision to aggressively root out the street gangs loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide that it blames for the violence.
Lemme 'splain this to you, Gerry: The world's disinterested because you've been doing the very same things over and over again for the past 200 years. You're in a rut. Call in your wise men, and come up with something new, some accomplishment other than being the most utterly corrupt nation in the world.
Latortue also indicated that Haiti's next elected government could restore the Haitian army — an institution responsible for some 30 coups.
... and which I don't believe has ever actually fought a war. In 200 years.
With the U.N. force and Haiti's ineffective police short of troops, Latortue said he was tempted last week to accept help from the ex-soldiers, who threatened to descend on the capital to halt the unrest.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2004 2:58:44 AM ||
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Army's a joke. The Dominicans would stomp 'em flat in a week, and that's the only place they could even reach.
Illegal voters get stern warning CO SecState Davidson vows to pursue fraud Key graf:
The documented fraud ranges from voters registered multiple times, unauthorized changes to party affiliation and as many as 6,000 felons on the registration rolls. Davidson, along with county clerks across Colorado, has turned over at least 1,000 instances of questionable voter registrations to Attorney General Ken Salazar, she said. Salazar, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, said he is "in full cooperation with the district attorneys around the state - we will find and prosecute these violations aggressively and to the fullest extent of the law." http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E64%257E2466666,00.html
Counties ferret out attempts at fraud
Bleary-eyed clerks in the Colorado county with the most voters are spending nights and weekends inspecting hundreds of scrawled signatures and splotchy Social Security numbers in an attempt to head off massive voter fraud in Colorado... In all, Jefferson County has 45 possible cases of voter fraud, which will be passed on to the secretary of state’s office to investigate, said Susan Miller, the county’s director of elections. Some forms, which officials believe were fraudulently filled out, will be sent to the district attorney... [Jefferson County] is handling 107,000 absentee-ballot requests on top of a jump of 10,000 new voter registrations in less than a month... Arapahoe County has caught at least 500 and as many as 700 suspicious voter registration forms since April, said County Clerk Nancy Doty... Denver County sent its "150 suspicious forms to the secretary of state. And the call is for her to make," said Denver Election Commission spokesman Alan McBeth. http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E64%257E2468927,00.html
Election tactics push envelope Lists obnoxious tactics used thus far. I am so looking forward to this election being over! Old Spook, watch your back, ok? http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E64%257E2488266,00.html
Ohio Provisional Ballot Ruling Reversed
A federal appeals court ruled Saturday that provisional ballots Ohio voters cast outside their own precincts should not be counted, throwing out a lower-court decision that said such ballots are valid as long as they are cast in the correct county. Fancy that - Logical Conclusion
The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supports an order issued by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Democrats contend the Republican official's rules are too restrictive and allege they are intended to suppress the vote. Suppress the fraudulent votes of Dick and Mary
Ohio Democrats on Saturday night decided not to file an appeal in the case, one of the first major tests of how such ballots will be handled in a close election. Polls show that the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry in the key swing state is too close to call. That rascally Supreme Court, you know, has already decided 5-4 against them...
Federal judges in several states have issued varying rulings on the issue of provisional ballots, which are intended to be backups for eligible voters whose names do not appear on the rolls. Saturday's ruling was the first time a federal appeals court has weighed in. Oops...
Not that it will be the last time ...
The state's Democrats had filed a lawsuit challenging Blackwell's directive instructing county elections boards not to give ballots to voters who come to the wrong precinct and to send them to the correct polling place on Election Day. Blackwell has said allowing voters to cast a ballot wherever they show up, even if they're not registered to vote there, is a recipe for Election Day chaos.
It's a prime ingredient for the Dems to implement their "early and often" scheme.
The Ohio Democratic Party and a coalition of labor and voter rights groups had argued that Blackwell's order discriminated against the poor and minorities, who tend to move more frequently. Usual suspects
How hard is it to go to the correct precinct?
U.S. District Judge James Carr on Oct. 14 blocked Blackwell's directive, ruling that Ohio voters who show up at the wrong polling place still can cast ballots as long as they are in the county where they are registered. Blackwell appealed to the 6th Circuit. Judge Carr - Clinton appointee....how could he..wait a minute..those Hillary conspiracy rumors...could they be TRUE?
"Today's ruling reaffirms Secretary Blackwell's understanding of the law," Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said in a statement. "Unfortunately the frivolous lawsuits filed by the Ohio Democratic Party and its allies have needlessly wasted the valuable time of election officials across the state as they prepare for this important election." Or, in simple terms...Take your fraud and shove it...
Democrats said Saturday they were disappointed by the ruling but were ready to move on with election preparations. We can build shacks, and sue the post office for not delivering undeliverable registrations...
To avoid any confusion, we are not going to appeal this ruling," David Sullivan, voter protection coordinator for the Ohio Democratic Party, said in a statement. "That way we can ensure that voters and election officials understand that voters must be in the proper polling place before casting a vote." Curses, foiled again...Snidely Whiplash
Similar court battles are under way in other states. In Florida, a federal judge ruled Thursday that the state must reject provisional ballots if they are cast in the wrong precinct. I see a pattern evolving
In Michigan, a federal judge said those ballots must be counted if cast by voters at the wrong precinct but in the right city, township or village. That decision also has been appealed to the 6th Circuit, but the appellate court has yet to issue a ruling in that case. A precident has been set...will it be followed?
In Missouri and Colorado, judges have ruled that votes in the wrong place don't have to be counted. Yup!
Provisional ballots are not counted until after the election. They are set aside and inspected by Democratic and Republican election board employees to establish their validity. Democratic Party election judges want every vote to count...
States nationwide have adopted individual standards for when a provisional ballot can be cast and counted. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia require a provisional ballot to be cast in the correct precinct, or it will not count. Seems logical to me...
In 2000, Bush beat Al Gore by only 3.6 percentage points in Ohio, which went for Democrat Bill Clinton in the two previous elections. More than 100,000 provisional ballots were cast in Ohio during the 2000 election. Actual margin was probably higher, just like Florida, and the stolen states of Wisconsin and Iowa
Posted by: BigEd ||
10/24/2004 12:47:11 AM ||
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"...y'see they call it a poll because there's a list... From the Greek, polis...Is any of this gettin' through to ya? Blink your eyes if you can hear me..."
#2
Title's got it backwards. Carr - the Clinton appointee - was going to let this shit go fwd. He was bitch-slapped back in place by a Court of Appeals. Note that in the article they don't mention he was appointed by Clinton . Blackwell is a Rep, a very smart black politician, and an up-and-comer. Watch for him
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2004 9:41 Comments ||
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#3
Require a thumbprint as well as a signature with each ballot, and most of the problem will go away (along with a good many wanted persons who heretofore had escaped capture for whatever reason).
PARIS, Oct 24, 2004 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Grumbling about high gas prices, Sri Lankan businessmen ditch their cars for the bus. Strikes over fuel costs shut down cities around Nigeria. Would-be vacationers in France put off their getaway plans.
Anger has yet to explode into mass demonstrations, but the pockets of disgruntlement could be a sign of more worry to come if oil prices continue to hover around record highs.
Fears about supply from top oil-producing countries and the increasing appetite of emerging economic powers like China and India have helped drive up crude oil prices about 80 percent from a year ago.
Help - however limited - is on the way in some corners: A Berlin tabloid is publishing a daily list of the cheapest gas stations around town to fill up.
"The most likely effect on the consumer is to say, 'We're going to spend less on other items,"' like travel, or gifts in the holiday season, said Robert Rochefort, who heads a Paris research center on the quality of life. Frogs will be taking more dips in their own frog pond.
In France, where taxes account for about four-fifths of the pump price, fishermen, farmers and truckers have taken aim at the government. In the latest protest, ship captains paraded at a snail's pace along the Seine River in Paris, demanding cuts in tax on gasoline and diesel fuel.
Near Munich, police have counted about 100 cases of customers driving off without paying after filling up at gas stations in the last two months. Fuel was siphoned from parked vehicles more than 20 times.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/24/2004 7:45:45 PM ||
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#1
I wonder when governments will start giving directives to oil refineries to start refining abundant "heavy sour" (high sulfer) crude oil. It will happen when the greater cost of that refinement is less than the "light sweet" market.
From The New Yorker, an article by Philip Gourevitch
.... The U.N. is composed of a hundred and ninety-one sovereign governments. These member states, as they're called, are Annan's employers, and, as his double-barrelled title indicates, his job is to serve them as the U.N.'s secretary, its chief administrative officer, and also as its general, its chief political operative. Together the member states form the General Assembly, which convenes in full each fall. The Assembly rides herd over the U.N.'s administrative functions, sets its internal agenda, and can also pass resolutions, which may have political influence but have no standing as law and no power of enforcement. For that, there is the Security Council, the U.N.'s political organ, which has only fifteen seats, ten allotted by an arcane political arithmetic to member states elected for two-year stints, and the remainder occupied since 1945 by five permanent members, known in-house as the P-5—China, England, France, Russia, and the United States—who alone enjoy the supreme power of the veto, and thereby dominate the Council's debates and decisions.
The Security Council's resolutions have the authority of international law, and the Secretary-General is supposed to see that they are carried out. In addition, Annan is endowed with an independent political capacity, described vaguely in the Charter by a single sentence: "The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." In other words, he is expected to tell his bosses what he thinks they should be thinking about. But, at the same time, the Charter states that he must "not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the Organization." So Annan must be independent—not neutral, exactly, for he must exercise judgment—serving all states while being beholden to none, interpreting the rules of the game as the world's hybrid coach and referee.
Such unaligned evenhandedness is made unusually tricky because of the Council's limited membership and the concentration of its political powers in just a few hands. The U.N. is hardly the universally representative body of "international community" it purports to be. And if the P-5 rule the roost, America is the cock of the walk. In that, at least, the U.N. is truly a microcosm of global reality, and America's predominance has been the defining feature of Annan's tenure. "The rest of the world is trying to live in the shadow of the U.S., and they come to him and hope he will explain the U.S. to them, and hope he will explain them to the U.S.," Nader Mousavizadeh, a close aide to Annan, told me. When Annan took office, with the blessings of the Clinton Administration after it unceremoniously killed the reëlection bid of his Egyptian predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, there was much grumbling in the international press that he was Washington's poodle. That is no longer the view. "He appears to be everybody's Secretary-General," Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Ambassador to the U.N., said, although he was quick to add that it would be folly for Annan to ignore America's clout. .....
In 1989, peacekeeping had been handled by a suboffice of the political department, staffed by six people who oversaw around fifteen thousand troops, whose main task was to monitor front-line truces in such places as Cyprus and Kashmir. Four years later, when Annan took over the portfolio, there were thirteen U.N. peacekeeping missions in the field, with fifty-four thousand troops, and many of the newer missions were in countries where there was no real peace to keep: Cambodia, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia ....
The slaughter of as many as seven thousand Bosnian Muslims, nearly all of them male, in Srebrenica, in July of 1995, was the largest genocidal massacre in Europe since the Nazis were forced to stop exterminating Jews. And, as Annan later observed, in a report that he presented to the General Assembly in November of 1999:
The fall of Srebrenica is also shocking because the enclave's inhabitants believed that the authority of the United Nations Security Council, the presence of unprofor [U.N. Protection Force] peacekeepers, and the might of nato airpower, would ensure their safety. Instead, the Bosnian Serb forces ignored the Security Council, pushed aside the unprofor troops, and assessed correctly that airpower would not be used to stop them. They overran the safe area of Srebrenica with ease, and then proceeded to depopulate the territory within forty-eight hours. Their leaders then engaged in high-level negotiations with representatives of the international community while their forces on the ground executed and buried thousands of men and boys within a matter of days.
The report quotes from the indictment for war crimes of the former Bosnian Serb President, Radovan Karadzic, and his Army chief, Ratko Mladic, and tells of "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history" at Srebrenica: "thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers' eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson." Srebrenica was just one of six safe areas established by the U.N. under Security Council mandates during the Bosnian war, and as many as twenty thousand people were killed in these enclaves. The U.N. safe areas were among the most unsafe places on earth in the mid-nineties. ....
In his report, Annan had acknowledged that, as the head of peacekeeping, he was among those responsible for the abandonment of the people of Srebrenica. But, despite the prominence of his position, he remained in the background of the horror. The retreat of U.N. missions in the face of slaughter had by then become an agonizingly familiar spectacle, and Annan had learned to keep a low profile as a technocratic middleman in the machinery of international dysfunction. The excited, can-do spirit of the immediate post-Cold War period at the U.N. had been effectively extinguished in October, 1993, when eighteen American soldiers were killed in Somalia. .....
In Bosnia, as in Rwanda, however, passive neutrality was tantamount to complicity with the perpetrators of "ethnic cleansing" and mass murder. "We will not just swallow the fact that we were protected by the U.N. and were betrayed anyway," one of the Mothers of Srebrenica told Annan. "We really believed the United Nations. And what happened? They deceived us." She thought that the U.N. should pay the survivors some sort of compensation. .... He called the suggestion that the U.N. had a responsibility to the survivors, and should pay them compensation, "a novel idea." But it would require Security Council approval, he said, and—"quite frankly, speaking honestly, not to raise your hopes — I don't think they will entertain that thought." ....
Annan's impressively detailed report on Srebrenica describes the enfeebling process of triangulation among the Security Council, the U.N. Secretariat, and unprofor troop contributors and commanders, but its ultimate effect is to obscure rather than to clarify individual responsibility. Individual actors are more often identified in the narrative by job title than by name. The profusion of these actors, and of the more broadly anonymous institutions or governments they represented, along with the combined weight of their misjudgments, overcautiousness, gullibility, and sheer cowardice in the face of a party of notorious ethnic cleansers and exterminators who had repeatedly hoodwinked them in the past, creates an impression of collective responsibility that comes uncomfortably close to a spirit of collective exculpation. In this respect, the report simultaneously exposes and replicates multilateralism in its most unctuous form, as a theatre of international damage control — a diplomatic safe area. What is missing, even more than a precise attribution of responsibility, is any notion of accountability, which is what the Mothers of Srebrenica seemed to be asking for.
Although Annan struck a tender note of reckoning in his farewell remarks to the mothers, it was not their plight that preoccupied him but that of the U.N. "In the kind of conflict we saw here, the third party has a vital role," he said. "What is worse is when nobody cares or pays any attention. The third party who gets up and says, 'This is enough, this cannot be acceptable, this cannot go on,' and tries to take steps to help, has an impact on encouraging the victims to fight, to resist, and to carry on. Sometimes they may be around to bear witness. They may not be able to resolve the conflict and solve all the problems, but it doesn't mean that they didn't try. It doesn't mean that the involvement of the third party focussing attention on the issue and getting the people to fight back is not something that we shouldn't treasure. I really wish things could have turned out otherwise, but the intentions of coming to help and coming to assist were good."
The "safe areas," however, weren't established to provide international witnesses to slaughter, much less to encourage anyone to fight back. They were set up as sanctuaries for the defenseless. The people of Srebrenica were assured that they would not be abandoned, and then the U.N. forces handed them over to their killers, without a word of protest from the Security Council or the Secretariat. Of course, as Annan said, in order to fail one first has to take steps to try to help. But to treasure the effort regardless of the results is kindergarten talk—or, worse, the language of martyrdom—and suggests a profound reluctance to acknowledge the nature of war. ....
According to Richard Holbrooke, Annan got his job because of his willingness, in the summer of 1995, to look beyond the narrow habits of conventional peacekeeping. In August of that year, in the wake of the Srebrenica massacre and of a mortar attack on civilians in an outdoor market in Sarajevo, Annan agreed to nato's aerial-bombing campaign, which finally drove the Serbs to the negotiating table at Dayton. Until then, nato airpower had been hamstrung by what was known as a "dual key" arrangement with the U.N., whereby both the Secretary-General and the nato command had to approve any air strikes, and Boutros-Ghali had vetoed all but the most limited pinprick bombing, for fear of appearing to take sides. But when Boutros-Ghali was travelling, Annan was left in charge of the U.N. key. "When Kofi turned it," Holbrooke told me, "he became Secretary-General in waiting."
"I think we cannot live through some of the things that we lived through in the nineties without being affected, without being changed," Annan said to me in Sarajevo. He was staying at the Holiday Inn, where a decade earlier, at the start of the war, the U.N. had set up its first offices just one floor away from the headquarters of Radovan Karadzic. Through the open window of Annan's suite, the sound of church bells mixed with the crackling wail of an evening call to prayer from a mosque. "I must say, to come back to Sarajevo today and see how they have rebuilt the city and to see people in the streets, when it used to be empty when you drove in from the airport—buildings without roofs, burned down, charred . . ." He trailed off. "You ask yourself," he said, "How can human beings be so wicked and brutal? Where is our conscience? Where's our humanity? How can this happen? And where was the rest of the world? Couldn't we have done more? Did we do enough? We were here, but was it enough?" The only possible answer was no. But Annan was more interested in the question: Why not? And to that his answer was, as always: The member states didn't want to. .....
For Annan, the chief lesson of the past decade is that the U.N. must say no to impossible missions and insufficiently supported mandates. "Peacekeepers must never again be deployed into an environment in which there is no cease-fire or peace agreement," he said, in the conclusion of his report on Srebrenica. "If the necessary resources are not provided—and the necessary political, military and moral judgments are not made—the job simply cannot be done." .....
For the past three years, Annan has been unable to raise a force of even seven thousand troops—the number that failed to hold Srebrenica—to beef up the U.N.'s minuscule peacekeeping mission in Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, where it is estimated that two to three million people have died since 1998 as a result of civil war and foreign occupation. .... For more information on this subject, see also How Kofi Annan Enabled the Genocide in Rwanda.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/24/2004 3:08:47 PM ||
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No snarkiness needed (right...) XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN OCT 24, 2004 12:00:01 ET XXXXX
FEW DOZEN TURN OUT TO HEAR ROSIE O'DONNELL ELECTION PREACH
**Exclusive**
Rosie O'Donnell addressed a nearly vacant CLUB OVATION Saturday night in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida during a get-out-the-vote rally for Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry.
"You know, there's only like, you know, maybe 38 of us here and maybe we can just like tap a keg and put on some disco, and totally party," O'Donnell deadpanned.
The debacle came one night after only a couple hundred came out to see Cher rally for Kerry at Miami Beach's CROBAR disco.
"There were supposed to be thousands of people here tonight. I'm not sure why that didn't happen, obviously the people putting on this thing were just not very good at it," an embarrassed Cher explained to the crowd.
A top Florida Democratic party official dismissed the weak back-to-back club turnouts as any indication of voter enthusiasm for the Kerry candidacy.
MORE
At CLUB OVATION Rosie endorsed Kerry's assertion in debate that America needs to pass a "global test" before acting in the world.
"The best part to me in the entire debate was when John Kerry said we have to pass a global test before we enter into a war. And you see George Bush got all nervous because frankly the word 'test' terrifies him," O'Donnell said to scattered chuckles.
"He never passed one at Harvard or Yale, but whatever. But there is a global test. It's the global test of decency, of humanity, of integrity. That's what our country stands for as we lead the free world. Let's take back our country. Let's elect John Kerry."
Rosie said the Bush Administration's actions go "against the foundation of what our country was built on," giving example of Administration telling the "United Nations we would ignore their doctrine and their resolutions."
MORE
Rosie continued: "Every single thing this White House has done goes against the foundation of what our country was built on. For us to tell the United Nations we would ignore their doctrine and their resolutions, for us to say that we will not adhere to the Geneva Convention during this war. We are America, we are better than that. We were built on the foundation of freedom and truth and equality for all people. And the rich, corporate, horrible, horrible people who have been destructing and ruining everything this country was made on has been really unbelievably damaging to all of us spiritually, emotionally, monetarily."
Rosie advised the audience to ignore any and all media in last days of the election race and to keep telling themselves "Kerry by a landslide!"
"Just remember this, don't believe the media in these last nine days. Tell yourself every day when you wake up and every morning when you have a worry or a doubt or whether you believe FOXNEWS: Kerry by a landslide. Because America knows the difference between genuine and junk."
MORE
Finally, Rosie spent an inordinate amount of time at the end of her speech cracking jokes about THE VIEW co-host Star Jones, suggesting that the daytime diva's weight loss was not the product of "diet and exercise," but of plastic surgery:
"Star Jones is my body double. She's getting smaller every day. I'm telling you ladies, it's diet and exercise. [Rosie pauses giving disbelieving look, then makes popping noises as she motions around her body implying plastic surgery] No problem, [singing] 'I believe in dissolution.' Okay, that's fine. She's alright. She's married to some guy, it's fine. Ah huh. Yeah. The thing is -- it's fine, it's alright, leave it. What do I care? I don't even watch TV in the day... He is a cute boy. And I'm gonna leave it there because I see that camera rolling. And all the Kerry thing will go away and it'll be 'Rosie O'Donnell Attacks Star Jones!' And in the Enquirer it'll be 'Crazy Lesbian Goes Insane At A Kerry Rally.'"
#1
Reminds me when (then state of the art) Phantom fighters were built without machine guns/cannons. 1950's R&D high techies thought missles were sufficient...HOO-HAW...
#2
From the FAS page on Virginia class subs:The New Attack Submarine's sail configuration houses two new photonics masts for improved imaging functions, and improved electronics support measures mast, and multi-mission masts that cover the frequency domain for full-spectrum, high data-rate communications. The sail is also designed for future installation of a special mission-configurable mast for enhanced flexibility and warfighting performance.
Sounds to me like they just replaced the old goes-up-and-down periscope tube with something more modern. You still have a way to look around outside.
Check out this little honey!
SMALL PACKAGES, BIG BANG: Personal Defense Weapons
The Problem: How does a person armed only with a sidearm-sized weapon -- a semi-auto pistol, for instance -- go up against an opponent armed with an assault rifle or submachine gun? Well, the first question you might ask is why would he want to? Why not fight a rifle with a rifle, so to speak? Tried to post apic,couldn't figure it out. The magizine problem makes it unreliable.
Posted by: raptor ||
10/24/2004 10:59:55 AM ||
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strange magazine layout, "pipsqueak" rounds(?)
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2004 11:07 Comments ||
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#2
7.62mm does very nicely,thank you,with .357 mag for back up.
#3
5.7mm is the noted size, and the "pipsqueak" comment is from the article. It'll still kill, but....
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2004 11:30 Comments ||
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#4
Well, according to the manufactorer, the 5.7 rounds will penetrate greater than 48 plies of Kevlar at 200m. This is equivlent to Class III body armor. However the weapon will not penetrate Class IV at any range. H&K is making their own version of a PDW
#6
I'd add a new lightweight 7.62mm machine gun per squad too. Need to kill these RPG guys,not punch tiny holes in them.Need heavy rounds to deal with cinder blocks as well.This is urban warfare with buildings etc.Think the Marines are smart using snipers with squads.Heck,add an RPG guy of our own,too.
#7
I get a this news letter in my e-mail weekly from military.com.Saw a docu on the SEALs,one guy made the statement "A lot of people complain that the 9mm doesn't have enough knock down/stay down punch.But if I put 2 in your chest and 1 in your head you ain't getting up."
#9
The new M8 comes in a 9.5 inch barrel length PDW version that still shoots the 5.56x45mm ammo. Don't want too many ammunition types out in the battlefield.
Posted by: ed ||
10/24/2004 12:09 Comments ||
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#11
I still like HK's new MP7/PDW design.
http://www.hkpro.com/pdw.htm
The FNP90 had that nifty ammo that could be used in the P90 or the Five-Seven pistol, I think. But if I remember correctly, the magazines on the p90 would jam if a partially-loaded magazine was bumped.
More than 650 politicians and intellectuals vowed Saturday to push for a constitutional amendment to stop Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from serving another term in office. Mubarak, 76, has been Egypt's president since replacing his assassinated predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in 1981. His current six-year term ends in October 2005, and he has not chosen a successor.
Though sonny-boy seems to be moving up quickly.
... In four previous presidential referendums, which require Egyptians to vote yes or no, he has been the sole candidate...
In four previous presidential referendums, which require Egyptians to vote yes or no, he has been the sole candidate. More than 650 people soon to be in prison - Islamists, Communists and 30 lawmakers - signed a petition in the name of The Popular Campaign for Reforms, to try to amend Egypt's constitution to limit a president to two terms. The petition, a copy of which was faxed to The Associated Press, called the system of one-man rule in Egypt "an obstacle to all opportunities for reform and progress." In the face of growing calls for reform, Mubarak's government underwent a major Cabinet reshuffle July 14, replacing the so-called old guard with more of the same a range of technocrats and business-minded ministers. Supporters of the move praised it for introducing new ideas and trying to revive the country's ailing economy. But critics said Mubarak was only making cosmetic changes to avoid the need for deep reform.
Petition signatory Ibrahim Mansour, a leading journalist and member of Egypt's press syndicate, acknowledged that the chances of forcing such a change were "slim," but he added that we will "push for changing the constitution anyway." Mubarak has previously ruled out amending Egypt's constitution to term limit the presidency, while the parliament has routinely rejected calls for more than one candidate to run at presidential elections.
Mubarak has not indicated whether he will run for another term. Speculation has been rife that his 41-year-old son, Gamal, who heads a powerful policy-making post within his father's political party, is being groomed to succeed him. The signatories also demanded the abolition of the country's emergency laws, which were adopted following Sadat's assassination and give far-reaching powers to police and other security forces and create military courts, which human rights activists have long criticized as unjust.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/24/2004 12:49:57 AM ||
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#1
Currently, Egyptian presidential term is limited by how long you can duck Muslim Brotherhood assasination squads...
India on Saturday urged the West to remove blocks on the transfer of critical nuclear technology, offering an assurance that New Delhi had effective tools to prevent proliferation. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also said India, which declared itself a nuclear state with a string of weapons tests in 1998, was determined to carry on with its atomic energy programmes to augment the country's ailing conventional power sector. "India will not be the source of proliferation of sensitive technologies. We will ensure that those technologies, which we already possess, will be effectively safeguarded," he said at a nuclear facility in this southern Indian city. "While we are determined to use our indigenous capability to fulfill our national interest, we are doing so in a manner that is not contrary to the larger goal of nuclear non-proliferation," Singh said. Singh criticised the tray of US-led sanctions which were slapped on rivals India and Pakistan after their tit-for-tat nuclear tests, saying such restrictions harmed development. "Technology denial and closing avenues for international cooperation in such an important field is tantamount to denial of developmental benefits to millions of people, whose lives can be transformed by the utilisation of nuclear energy and relevant technologies," he said.
It also keeps loonies from getting their mitts on nukes.
Singh did not name rival Pakistan but made reference to recent disclosures of proliferation from the neighbouring country. "India remains faithful to the "atom-for-peace' policy despite the well-known and glaring examples of proliferation which have directly affected our security interests. (And) constraining those who are responsible and rewarding those who are irresponsible -- the international community should face up to the implications of the choice," he said in Kalpakkam, the hub of the country's civilian nuclear programme. India, which refuses to endorse either the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, hopes to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity from its atomic power plants by 2020.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/24/2004 12:38:06 AM ||
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So why is it that 100 percent of our flu vaccines are now made by two companies in Europe? The answer is simple. Trial lawyers drove the American manufacturers out of the business. In 1967 there were 26 companies making vaccines in the United States. Today there are only four that make any type of vaccine and none making flu vaccine. Wyeth was the last to fall, dropping flu shots after 2002. For recently emerging illnesses such as Lyme disease, there is no commercial vaccine, even though one has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
All this is the result of a legal concept called "liability without fault" that emerged from the hothouse atmosphere of the law schools in the 1960s and became the law of the land. Under the old "negligence" regime, you had to prove a product manufacturer had done something wrong in order to hold it liable for damages. Under liability without fault, on the other hand, the manufacturer can be held responsible for harm from its products, whether blameworthy or not. Add to that the jackpot awards that come from pain-and-suffering and punitive damages, and you have a legal climate that no manufacturer wants to risk.
Now, ain't one of those guys running for VP a trial lawyer who made his money on medical malpractice cases? Funny you don't hear nothing about that, huh?
Posted by: RWV ||
10/24/2004 12:06:12 AM ||
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This seems to be my cousin's(the Kerryite) primary beef with Bush.I went to those web sites you guys gave me,down-loaded facts and figures.It all boiled down to"I don't care,anybody but Bush".
#2
Another part of the problem with the drugs, is that in this case the government is the major procurement agent. Its just like the defense industry that in the early 70s were there were scores of companies, but today a small handful. They've had to consolidate or go out of business because of the nature of government procurement. The government wants the lowest price it can get for obvious short term reasons. As a consequence the incentive for companies to remain in competition, even though they may only get a major contract every five or eight years, is not there. The government drives the price down so low as to reduce the profit of the manufacturer below a point to invest the capital and labor, to sustain it through long term absences of work. Since the government is by volume the market setting buyer, its an all or nothing commodity supply. In this case, the commodity is now no longer available. The fall back is for the government itself to become the manufacturer which will further drive producers out of the market or to introduce real market incentives back into the process, which is politically undoable since they have poisoned the environment with their playing to the mob with the propaganda of the "Rich Evil Drug Companies".
Posted by: Don ||
10/24/2004 10:10 Comments ||
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#3
read the Steyn article I posted if ya wanna know about the "perfect little health system" in the Great White North
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2004 10:15 Comments ||
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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.
Sufi or not Sufi? That is the question 
Haiti's interim leader castigated the international community Saturday, saying it has sent too few peacekeepers to prevent violence that has left some 55 people dead in two weeks. Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, during an hourlong interview with The Associated Press, defended the government's decision to aggressively root out the street gangs loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide that it blames for the violence.
Illegal voters get stern warning
