Via Lucianne. My, my, we are getting bold, aren't we????
London: Distinguished diplomats were reduced to eating handfuls of cold rice when an American ambassador in Rome threw a Thanksgiving reception designed to remind the corps diplomatique of the scale of world hunger.
Guests of Tony Hall, the US ambassador to the United Nations food agencies in Rome, were confronted on Thursday with the reality of living off cups of rice. When they arrived for his party, they were asked to draw raffle tickets, placing them in three categories of wealth. The richest were served with the customary gourmet meal.
Others were handed portions of rice and beans. But there were strained smiles among those who drew the "poorest" tickets. They found themselves shut out of Mr Hall's spacious residence in the elite suburb of Caracalla and left in the darkness to pace the garden. These diplomats were then presented with their meal - a few handfuls of cold rice. A leaflet informed them that they were representing the 60 per cent of the world's 6 billion people who struggle to find each meal.
#3
I don't know, man. On the one hand, diplomat and NGO abuse is always a hoot; on the other hand, the message is so fucking PC I could piss a textbook. Maybe if they had thrown in a fillip of "this is what your alleged beneficiaries actually get, while you live high on the proverbial hog off of NGO adminstrative lard"...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/26/2004 22:51 Comments ||
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#4
Hell, I think it's hysterically funny, lol! Of course Tony Hall can expect several of his "poor" guests to devise some sort of comeuppance... I can't picture anyone, anywhere, in the diplo or NGO crowd who gives a rat's ass about the poorest people they supposedly represent. He'll pay for this, I'm sure.
TWO European backpackers who danced semi-naked around the eternal flame at Brisbane's Anzac Memorial should be deported, the RSL said today. RSL state president Bill Mason said ex-diggers were outraged after the two tourists received $700 fines for causing a public nuisance. The pair, who were arrested for taking photos of themselves burning books on the flame while dancing semi-naked in army fatigues, avoided deportation when a Brisbane magistrate today opted against recording a conviction. Mr Mason described the desecration as "soul destroying" and said the backpackers were let off too leniently. "The fact there was no conviction recorded astounds me," Mr Mason said. He called on Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to deport them even though the Polish man apologised.
German Andreas Benjamin Porzelt, 22, and his Polish friend Robert Weimann-Wojcik, 21, were arrested at 3am today after a member of the public witnessed the incident and rang police. Outside court, Mr Weimann-Wojcik said: "I was drunk and I say sorry to all Australian people... I am a guest in this country and I say sorry about this." The pair extinguished the flame after a four-hour drinking binge at the Down Under club in the city's Palace Backpackers hostel. They told police they had sculled tequila slammers, sambucca and jugs of beer before scaling a 2m-high wrought iron fence to get inside the memorial.
Mr Weimann-Wojcik apologised in court after being branded a disgrace by Brisbane Magistrate Jim Herlihy. Mr Herlihy told him he should've known the memorial also honoured the Poles who fought alongside Australians. "That memorial is important to a lot of Australians and you would be most disgusted if an Australian tourist came to your country and defaced a memorial to your fallen soldiers," Mr Herlihy also told Mr Porzelt.
The German traveller had to be helped in and out of the prison dock after limping heavily into court. He was later taken to Royal Brisbane Hospital emergency department for treatment of an ankle injury sustained in the jump over the wall. Legal aid lawyer Michael Maloney told the court police had no evidence of a pagan ritual despite pictures depicting the pair burning books. Mr Maloney told the court he was instructed by the men that they were very intoxicated at the time but were now remorseful and ashamed. RSL state secretary Geoff Opray said the two men had committed a "despicable act". Mr Opray said Anzac Square in Brisbane's city centre was in the process of refurbishment and the RSL was considering installing security cameras.
"So throughout our great country, with pride our hearts turn
Our unknown soldier to us doth return
In the sunshine in Aussie, this day in November
Our Soldiers - our Heroes, we'll always remember!!!!"
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/26/2004 2:17:46 AM ||
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#1
I was drunk
Sums it up right there. O.K., Rantburgers, lets start a thread on all the stupic things we did while drunk and either overseas or in colledge, or both.
As for myself, I'm half convinced that I'm personaly responsible for half the anti-U.S. attitude in Korea. It seemed evry time I went out on pass, I wound up fighting evry Korean I ran into.
Posted by: N Guard ||
11/26/2004 8:47 Comments ||
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#2
I was drunk
... in Cologne, Feb. 1987 during an anti-nuke rally in some part of its downtown. Some guy got in my face, recognizing me as the Ugly American I was. Responded by saying 'if you guys didn't lose so many wars, maybe we wouldn't be over here with our Pershing missiles'. Then his pals came over. Wasn't too worried as I still had my Chuck Norris going at the time, but a few cops waddled over and 'advised' me to move a few blocks away as they screened me from the Greenpeace ruffians.
Uni: Standing on the top of the campus mini-bus, adopting a 'surfer pose' whilst the driver was banging out some Blues Brothers tracks and we were whizzing at 40 mph through the back lanes to and from campus.
Uni: Also hanging onto the windscreen wipers of a VW bug whilst another friend tried to shake me off. (wait, I wasn't drunk that time).
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
11/26/2004 11:44 Comments ||
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#4
Did not indulge in drinking to the status of being 'drunk' for the past 30 years. The reason is as follows:
At the age of ~20, I was a sponge. I was in a military hospital and someone smuggled in some wine and a bottle of gin. Whole room partied as if there was no tomorrow, I don't recall why, but I guess any reason was a good one.
Being a tad selfish, after 2 glasses of wine, I drank about half a bottle (1 liter bottle). I woke up next day, thinking that albeit a nice party, it ended quite uneventfully. That's what I thought.
Then my roommates made oblique comments about my behavior last night. It turned out that I decided to 'ravish' one nurse. To my credit is the fact that she was extremely, and I mean extremely, comely. After making her uniform look like going through dense overgrowth of thorny bushes, my less drunk friends restrained me and directed me to my bed, where I peacefully zonked out.
Needless to say that I did not remember any of it.
From that on, I decided that any close encounters with any comely female have to be with clear head, so I have something (hopefully nice) to remember.
I do drink since then, but in a carefull moderation.
#5
Lol, Cornîliës - I've been there, too. I woke up in the "wrong" city once. On a Tuesday about noon some 30 years ago I decided to build a complete set of hurricane glasses they gave away at a certain hotel bar / club. Stupid long story. That was in Dallas. I woke up in a Holiday Inn near the Alamo in San Antonio. Had to look at the phonebook under the Gideon's Bible to figure that out. I quit then and there.
To this day I still occasionally have dreams that I believe come from working the river walk in San Antonio that night. "Dancing" on wobbly tables, falling in the river, and tackling a busty laughing waitress are recurring themes.
There were 2 different airports in Dallas serving regular flights to SA - took me about an hour to work out which one I had used - and thus where my car would be. Still took me a few hours to find it.
I figure no one has a sufficient surplus of IQ points to surrender, lol!
#6
1991 MIT bar in Cambridge, Massachusets. Some friends and I were having a great time with several pitures of beer and a lady, for some reason unknown to me to this day, called me an Ignorant Southern Bastard. I called her a Daughter of a Bitch and her boyfriend then got in to the act. Tables were turned over and beer flew. I wonder if I'm the only person to be thrown out of the MIT Bar.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/26/2004 19:22 Comments ||
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#7
DB - Hell, that was no lady, lol! I won't say precisely what she was, in deference to Sea's sensitivities, but your use of lady is proof you're a Southern Gentleman and that she was a Yankee Bitch - to employ a less colorful term. Getting thrown out seems to me a badge of honor you should wear proudly, heh.
1. After a rugby match against an RNZAF team, woke up at dawn, sprawled on the runway, clad only in a pair of shorts,
2. Woke up and found myself handcuffed to a bed on a female artist's houseboat on San Francisco Bay,
3. Fell asleep on a train in Hong Kong, woke up twenty miles into Red China. Four PLA soldiers at the station very quickly bundled me onto a train headed back.
I don't drink much anymore. I figured I've used up near all the luck given me.
AFP
Ukraine's outgoing President Leonid Kuchma Friday agreed to meet with the opposition in the presence of heavyweight European mediators in a bid to resolve a five-day political crisis that has paralyzed the government. Tens of thousands of supporters of the pro-West opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko blockaded key government buildings in the capital Kiev demanding that their hero be recognized the winner of a weekend election that official ballot counts handed to the pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. But there were growing signs that the seat of power was relenting -- even as Russia again vented its fury at what it said was unlawful Western pressure being applied against its most important eastern European ally. Ukraine's national television stations that had throughout the week provided mostly positive coverage of Prime Minister Yanukovich and avoided broadcasting news of the mass demonstrations gripping the country began to feature the opposition in its news. Meanwhile the supreme court was expected to hear opposition claims Monday that the state had fixed last weekend's vote in favor of their man. Analysts said that its justices have shown independence in the past and could possibly back Yushchenko's position.
The police have so far failed to intervene against the unprecedented blockade of both the presidential administration and the cabinet buildings -- which prevented Yanukovich from getting into his offices on Friday. "This has paralyzed the government," the prime minister's press secretary fumed.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/26/2004 8:05:45 PM ||
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Ukraine's highest court on Thursday blocked the inauguration of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, whose contested election has led to mass protests, and said it would examine a complaint by his liberal challenger. The Supreme Court rejected the official publication of election results that showed Yanukovich had beaten Viktor Yushchenko in a run-off election last Sunday.
"Curses! Foiled again!"
In its ruling, the Supreme Court appeared to turn the tide of events in favour of Yushchenko, who has brought thousands of supporters on to the streets after alleging he was cheated out of the election. A president cannot be sworn in without the result being officially published.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/26/2004 4:22:27 PM ||
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Russian special forces have reportedly been deployed in the Ukrainian capital Kiev as thousands of demonstrators besieged government buildings to protest the results of the presidential election. A 1000-strong contingent of Russian special forces have put on Ukraine uniforms upon their arrival in Ukraine, said Boris Tarasyuk, chairman of Ukraine's parliamentary European integration commission and an envoy of the Ukrainian opposition's presidential candidate Viktor Yushtchenko. In an interview for Bulgarian private TV channel bTV Tarasyuk said the soldiers are armed with machine guns, which speaks of their "serious intentions". Tarasyuk, who was invited to visit Bulgaria by the right-wing opposition the Union of Democratic Forces, is expected to land in Sofia in the middle of the day on Friday.
Posted by: tipper ||
11/26/2004 8:42:19 AM ||
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Myanmar's military junta is pushing ahead with its promised mass release of prisoners and a top dissident who was democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's closest aide will be among them, a senior official said on Thursday. But Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu told Reuters in an interview he did not know when Suu Kyi would be freed from house arrest at her lakeside villa in Yangon, where she is without a telephone and requires permission to receive visitors. "I don't know when this house arrest will be lifted," he said. The same applied to Tin Oo, deputy leader of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, he added. But the mass release involving nearly 4,000 people held "inappropriately" in jail was real, he said, disputing reports it was fizzling out.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/26/2004 5:06:46 PM ||
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The United States will launch a mission in 2010 to land two stationary robots on the moon to collect rock samples before returning to earth, a US scientist said here Thursday. Carle Pieters of Brown University's Department of Geological Sciences, who is involved in the US space programme, said the aim of the Moonrise Mission was to land at the moon's largest and oldest crater - the South Pole Aitken Basin. "The purpose is to study how long ago the basin was formed and return materials derived from the deep interior to earth for analysis," Pieters said. "It will also help us to understand the unique process of how basins are formed." Pieters is also the chairwoman of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group, an organisation formed to promote cooperation between nations. She said scientists in the United States were still identifying which landing spots in the basin would be good for the twin robots to gather samples.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/26/2004 5:14:42 PM ||
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#2
Russia has announced plans to have a moon BASE by 2025. Ironically, they may do it before the US does it, for an odd reason: their willingness to go "low tech." For example, the US would want to send pre-fab high tech buildings, but the Russians would make most of their shelters from Moon rock and dirt, with a minimum of Earth supplied materials. This difference in philosophy gives the Russians a marked advantage in setting up long-term bases on both the Moon and Mars.
#5
NASA has been reduced to putting toy cars on Mars and stationary robots on the moon. Their management has ossified. Time to quit fooling around with them and turn space back over to the military (AF or Navy or create a new Space Force) and take the high ground. Otherwise, we may have to deal with the Chinese putting a manned base there and claiming the whole thing for the Middle Kingdom while NASA is still putzing around with Toy R Us.
#6
What tha HELL for? We need more moon rocks...for what? They won't make my cereal taste any better, and they definitely won't reduce my income tax! My advice is to let the Man In The Moon keep his rocks; if the chinese want them, maybe they can bring enough back to repair that Great Wall from cracks and leaks!
A potential gas source found on the moon's surface could hold the key to meeting future energy demands as the earth's fossil fuels dry up in the coming decades, scientists say.
Mineral samples from the moon contain abundant quantities of helium 3, a variant of the gas used in lasers and refrigerators. "When compared to the earth the moon has a tremendous amount of helium 3," Lawrence Taylor, a director of the US Planetary Geosciences Institute, said. "When helium 3 combines with deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) the fusion reaction proceeds at a very high temperature and it can produce awesome amounts of energy.
"Just 25 tonnes of helium, which can be transported on a space shuttle, is enough to provide electricity for the US for one full year."
Helium 3 is deposited on the lunar surface by solar winds and would have to be extracted from moon soil and rocks. To extract helium 3 gas the rocks have to be heated above 800 degrees Celsius. Dr Taylor says 200 million tonnes of lunar soil would produce one tonne of helium. Only 10 kilograms of helium are available on earth.
Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam has told the International Conference on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon that the barren planet held about 1 million tonnes of helium 3. "The moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of helium 3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth," Mr Kalam said.
However, Dr Taylor says that the reactor technology for converting helium 3 to energy is still in its infancy and could take years to develop. "The problem is that there is not yet an efficient type of reactor to process helium 3," he said. "It is currently being done mostly as a laboratory experiment. Right now at the rate which it (research) is proceeding it will take another 30 years."
About when we'll be back to the moon.
Other scientists say that the reactor would be safe in terms of radioactive elements and could be built right in the heart of any city. "Potentially there are large reservoirs of helium 3 on the moon," DJ Lawrence, a planetary scientist at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory, said. "Just doing reconnaissance where the minerals are and to find out where helium 3 likes to hang out is the first step, so when the reactor technology gets to work we are ready and have precise information.
"It really could be used as a future fuel and is safe. It is not all science fiction.
"There are visionaries out there and now the question arises where the funds come from. If people get on board to do it there is no doubt it could be done."
Dr Taylor echoed Dr Lawrence's views, adding that there are no funds available for funding non-petroleum energy projects in the United States.He warns of the exhaustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas on earth. "By 2050 the whole world will have a major problem. We need to be thinking ahead," Mr Taylor said. "Right now we are not thinking ahead enough. Some of us are. But then the people who make the decisions and put money on the projects are not. They think only about the next elections.
"If we set our hearts on the moon and have the money to do it, then we do it pretty fast.
"However, it could be done well within 10 years if the sources of finance are generated to get this (reactor) going."
Posted by: tipper ||
11/26/2004 8:49:49 AM ||
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#1
Helium 3 may not work so all of this is hypothetical. I think it's worth sending up a sample return mission to bring back some of the stuff though.
#6
"Just 25 tonnes of helium, which can be transported on a space shuttle, is enough to provide electricity for the US for one full year." To extract helium 3 gas the rocks have to be heated above 800 degrees Celsius. Dr Taylor says 200 million tonnes of lunar soil would produce one tonne of helium.
The 25 metric tons of helium 3 would require the processing of 5 billion metric tons of rock. I wonder if any of these bright folks bothered to calculate the energy cost of heating 5 billion metric tons of rock to 800° C, not to mention transporting the needed equipment to the moon and the mining of the rock. I have serious doubt this scheme could ever be a net positive energy producer.
#7
Lets just say, for the sake of discussion, that this He3 thing is real and really works. Any bets on how long it would take the luddites to start screaming about "Destroying the Pristine Lunar Environment"? Or that it is a plot by BushCheneyHalliburtonetc. to, ohh, heck, you think of something.
Note, present concerns about contaminating extraearth sites to throw off scientific discoveries dosen't count. I'm talking about the purely irrational concerns over the Lunar Enviroment.
Posted by: N Guard ||
11/26/2004 11:24 Comments ||
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#8
Aside from the cost of processing 5 billion tonnes of rock each year on the moon, the quoted enery figures are based on extracting the energy using nuclear fusion. So far, the only way we have to do this with high efficiency is in a bomb. This is just a bunch of moon bats talking to hear themselves.
Posted by: Tom ||
11/26/2004 11:48 Comments ||
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#9
No blood for helium!! Make the Moon a nuclear-free zone!!
#10
They are talking about using helium 3 in a fusion reactor. The researchers working on fusion reactors have been âpredictingâ commercial fusion power plants in only twenty years since the â70âs. The scientists making the âpredictionsâ are the oneâs who stand to benefit from more research money.
Someday I expect fusion to be a viable method of generating power. (Of course sunlight is already fusion generated.) Unless there is some unforeseen development such as âcoldâ fusion or a nanotech breakthrough, I expect fusion to remain a âpromisingâ power source for the next fifty years. Keeps promising, never delivers.
I do support limited fusion research. The knowledge gained is valuable even if it doesnât lead to commercial power generation. (I donât support the moonbat project of mining helium 3 on the moon.)
#11
They are talking about using helium 3 in a fusion reactor. The researchers working on fusion reactors have been âpredictingâ commercial fusion power plants in only twenty years since the â70âs. The scientists making the âpredictionsâ are the oneâs who stand to benefit from more research money.
Someday I expect fusion to be a viable method of generating power. (Of course sunlight is already fusion generated.) Unless there is some unforeseen development such as âcoldâ fusion or a nanotech breakthrough, I expect fusion to remain a âpromisingâ power source for the next fifty years. Keeps promising, never delivers.
I do support limited fusion research. The knowledge gained is valuable even if it doesnât lead to commercial power generation. (I donât support the moonbat project of mining helium 3 on the moon.)
One tonne He3 requires 22km^2 of terrain to be processed to a depth of 3m. This is roughly 4690m * 4690m * 3m (about 2.75 miles on a square and a yard deep), which whilst big is not really huge compared to the operations that go one everyday in the farming of corn (US or Canada).
It would effectively be strip mining (the replacement rate of He3 is essentially irrelevant), but there's quite a lot of regolith on the moon.
Now all we need is a Deuterium-He3 reactor, a reliable method of shifting the good stuff home and some good ole tractor boyz and we're laughing!
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
11/26/2004 13:20 Comments ||
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#13
I'm already laughing. We'd produce more energy if we'd just put these clowns to work winding up springs.
Posted by: Tom ||
11/26/2004 13:26 Comments ||
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#14
"We'd produce more energy if we'd just put these clowns to work winding up springs."
Or hold them captive and force-feed them baked beans, and harvest the resulting methane.
As an engineer, all I can do when reading whimsical crap like this is just laugh.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
11/26/2004 13:40 Comments ||
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#15
"Lets just say, for the sake of discussion, that this He3 thing is real and really works"
Its a bunch of crud hyped up about by environmentalist type scientists. Heres a little factoid, fusion reactions using deuterium and tritium are easier to produce than a He-3 reaction, however the difference is the neutrinos as well as the other harmful radioactive byproducts that are produced in a deuterium/tritum reaction are mainly absorbed by an He-3 variant. Hence the whole hypothesis says that this is merely a CLEANER way of doing a fusion reaction. Yet what they don't seem to get is why would earth's scientists who are working on these projects not try to do the easier reaction first to make sure it works?
#16
Strip mining the moon is OK by me as long as they dig in a huge Star of David pattern that can be seen by certain moon worshippers in the middle east.
Posted by: ed ||
11/26/2004 15:22 Comments ||
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#17
I thought Coca Cola owned the advertising rights to earth side?
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.
"So throughout our great country, with pride our hearts turn
The United States will launch a mission in 2010 to land two stationary robots on the moon to collect rock samples before returning to earth, a US scientist said here Thursday. Carle Pieters of Brown University's Department of Geological Sciences, who is involved in the US space programme, said the aim of the Moonrise Mission was to land at the moon's largest and oldest crater - the South Pole Aitken Basin. "The purpose is to study how long ago the basin was formed and return materials derived from the deep interior to earth for analysis," Pieters said. "It will also help us to understand the unique process of how basins are formed." Pieters is also the chairwoman of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group, an organisation formed to promote cooperation between nations. She said scientists in the United States were still identifying which landing spots in the basin would be good for the twin robots to gather samples.
