SAN FRANCISCO, June 22 (UPI) -- Leather Alley may have begun as just a 10-foot-by-10-foot display less than a decade ago -- but this year it'll be 7,800 square feet of San Francisco kink. Some 70 San Francisco-area fans of bondage and discipline plan to fill the air with the smell of leather and the sound of cracking whips this weekend as part of the annual San Francisco Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade and Celebration.
Damm, is it that time of year again?
In a curtained-off display area, the group will offer an educational introduction to the thrills of being tied up, spanked, flogged, clamped, dripped with hot candle wax and dominated.
Or, you could just get audited by the IRS
The 10th year of the display called Leather Alley will give demonstrations and offer those over age 18 a chance to participate, the San Francisco Chronicle said Wednesday.
In 1995, Leather Alley was a 10-by-10-foot booth and most participants were gay men. Now, organizers say 60 percent of Leather Alley's visitors are men, and 30 percent are straight.
Ummm, unless they use different math in SF I'd say they still are mostly gay men.
A 1990 Kinsey Report study estimated between 5 percent and 10 percent of Americans dabble in bondage and discipline, dominance and submission and sadomasochism.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 15:43 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I live in San Francisco, and we do have to stay away from some parts of town that day.
And you have to make sure the kids don't pick up the newspaper for a few days, or you may end up having to field some awkward questions.
#3
Shouldn't the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, transgender, transexual pride folks come up with a single term that covers them all? It's a pain in the butt to say and you just know the trans whatevers get all snitty when they're left off the list.
I know a lot of folks outside of that community have a term or two, but it's time for the community to create their own term.
They should just call themselves Rainbows now that most ethnic groups have walked away from the term because of it's relation with gays.
PLANETARY SOCIETY TO TEST DEATH RAY WEAPON PLATFORM IN SPACE
Islamic Community Net
June 21, 2005
"We estimate that a solar sail could reach speeds of 100,000 miles per hour and for example Voyager One right now is travelling about 37,000 miles per hour and it's going to take it thousands of years to reach the nearest star system. Solar sailing might be able to get us there in a more reasonable time, perhaps within a human lifetime."
-Charlene Anderson, Associate Director of the Planetary Society
Tuesday, 21 June, 2005
Do the math: The nearest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri at a distance of 4.28 light years. Each light year is 5.88 trillion miles. So the distance in miles to the nearest star is 25,166,400,000,000 miles. Even at Anderson's projected 100,000 miles per hour, the "Planetary Society's" "solar sail" would take 251,664,000 hours to get there. There are 365.25 days in a year and 24 hours in a day, for a total of 8766 hours per year. 251,664,000 hours divided by 8766 hours per year yields ***28,709.1*** years.
28,709.1 YEARS!
That's one heck of a "human lifetime" - even a "reasonable" one. The question arises as to why Charlene Anderson, Associate Director of the Planetary Society, would push such a bald-faced lie on the public in support of the Planetary Society's "Cosmos 1" space sail project. Why the fraud?
What's so bad about a "solar sail" that quietly wings its way through the "billions and billions" of stars in Carl Sagan's cosmos that it requires this level of fanciful "travel to the stars in a human lifetime at 100,000 miles per hour" hype to overcome public resistance?
The problem is this: western society has a facility for euphemism. A mass, disorderly retreat by cowardly troops is a "strategic withdrawal of forces". Genocide is called "rural pacification". Legalized baby-killing is "choice". Whores are "commercial sex workers". A christian crusade against Islam is called a "war on terror". And so on.
The pleasantly named "solar sail" evokes a scene of mostly harmless gentle motion in an airless void. Actually the "solar sail" is the latest attempt to orbit a highly reflective "space mirror" with all that that implies. In fact, the solar "sail" is PRECISELY a very highly reflective space mirror. The mission parameters for the Planetary Society's "Cosmos 1" are practically identical to those for the Russian Znamya-3 space mirror that was never implemented - until now:
EXCERPT
Znamya (1997)
Znamya-3 experiment is a significant phase of the SRC reflector development program. It requires substantial modification of a Progress M spacecraft. An additional thin film reflector of much larger size (60-70 meters) will be incorporated to the outer spacecraft structure. A new control device will also be introduced which will allow the spacecraft to control a large moment of inertia without using reaction control thrusters. The Znamya 3 reflector may also incorporate an array of thin film photovoltaics into the reflector structure as part of the test. The main goal of the Znamya-3 experiment is to test a new reflector concept and design in space, and verify major design characteristics.
-
Okay, then, the "solar sail" is really a space mirror. So what's wrong with a "space mirror"? Let's take a peek:
EXCERPT
ABC (American Broadcasting Corporation)
October 24 (year unstated)
"...they feel so confident they're even talking about building mirrors larger than a football field that could be placed in orbit high above the Earth. But instead of facing out, these mirrors would face in, looking at the Earth instead of into space. A mirror that large could provide high-resolution images of half of the globe, allowing scientists to keep track of weather systems, fires, and all sorts of things.
ALL SORTS OF THINGS.
Heh.
And just what "sorts of things"?
Let's see:
EXCERPT:
The dream of the space mirror dates back to Hermann Oberth, the great mathematician and physicist, who in the early 1920s published Ways and Means to Space Navigation. In his book Oberth described various uses for space mirrors, including its destructive forces as a military weapon, capable of destroying cities and incinerating armies in the battlefield from space.
"a military weapon, capable of destroying cities and incinerating armies in the battlefield from space."
Ah, THOSE "sorts of things".
No wonder Charlene Anderson has to lie through her teeth to gain public acceptance for the euphemistically named "space sail".
I knew I should have bought that Alcoa stock.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 12:43 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
OH BOY... I don't know where to start with this one, and I have to get back to work now.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/22/2005 13:51 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Do the math: 28,709.1 YEARS! That's one heck of a "human lifetime" - even a "reasonable" one.
Poor dumb dope. He missed the forest for the trees.
#4
The launch failed (premature first stage booster cutoff). Either the craft is in very low orbit or (most likely) has already reentered the atmosphere and is on bottom of artic ocean.
This is the second russian launch failure in the past few days. A booster with a military comm satellite fell onto a siberian forest after first stage failure.
Posted by: john ||
06/22/2005 15:50 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Given that is is a sub missile, it does make me feel a bit more secure.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/22/2005 16:10 Comments ||
Top||
#6
He also forgot about acceleration time and deceleration time. How do you stop something going 100,000 miles an hour? Very big brakes?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/22/2005 16:34 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Deacon---You will need an an Acme Solar Sail (Space Mirror) Multiple Mirror Deceleration Kit with anti-matter creator/retro-rocket feature for quicker stops.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/22/2005 16:50 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Diamonds are forever
They are all I need to please me
They can stimulate and tease me
They won't leave in the night, I've no fear that they might desert me...
#9
One little piece of math the moron missed: relativistic effects on the "Cargo".
"Solar sailing might be able to get us there in a more reasonable time, perhaps within a human lifetime"
THis means if they work them to where they can obtain higher velocities, they will get there faster, and the faster you go, the slower time goes for the humans aboard.
I guess the Muslims must have a different physics in their world of moonbats, dhimmis and kehfirs.
"As a faculty member at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Hoodbhoy found himself challenging the establishment during the 1980s when he noticed some bizarre, indeed hilarious, ideas creeping into the domain of science. It was the era of Zia-ul-Haq. The erstwhile army general had banned freedom of expression and had set Pakistan on the road to Islam. Hoodbhoy says the period also witnessed an Islamisation of science that Pakistan had never seen before.
Scientists began to write and discuss âscientific papersâ on such topics as the angle of God, the temperature of Hell, or the latent energy of jinns. One university professor of physics wrote a paper on the speed at which Heaven was departing from Earth. A nuclear reactor scientist argued that jinns were made up of methane gas and proposed that jinn energy may be tapped to meet Pakistanâs energy requirements.
The political climate in Pakistan has changed over the years â and the Zia-ul-Haq-inspired brand of science doesnât get the encouragement or protection that it used to. But it hasnât entirely gone away, either, says Hoodbhoy"
Posted by: john ||
06/22/2005 19:00 Comments ||
Top||
#11
That's not a moon. It's a space station!
Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2005 21:16 Comments ||
Top||
#12
...the faster you go, the slower time goes for the humans aboard.
Thats why I stipulated hjigher velocities to get it down to a human lifetime. I was trying to emphasize that once you get to relativistic velocities, human lifetimes are incredibly long back in this frame of reference.
More - Honorable Mentions, I guess... Roddy Piper from They Live!... Gary Oldham from The Professional...
And this one is a personal favorite. (NSFW, lol!)
Another weird animal story, but no sheep-bonking this time.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Police say three lions rescued a 12-year-old girl kidnapped by men who wanted to force her into marriage, chasing off her abductors and guarding her until police and relatives tracked her down in a remote corner of Ethiopia. The men had held the girl for seven days, repeatedly beating her, before the lions chased them away and guarded her for half a day before her family and police found her, Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo said Tuesday by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, some 560 kilometers (348 miles) west of the capital, Addis Ababa.
"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said, adding he did not know whether the lions were male or female.
Insert "Born Free" theme here
News of the June 9 rescue was slow to filter out from Kefa Zone in southwestern Ethiopia. "If the lions had not come to her rescue then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage," he said. "Everyone ... thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people," Wondimu said.
Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said that it was likely that the young girl was saved because she was crying from the trauma of her attack. "A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they (the lions) didn't eat her," Williams said. "Otherwise they probably would have done."
Of course, they could have been saving her for a late nite snack. But the friendly lion meme is better for the tourists, at least till they try to pet the friendly lions.
The girl, the youngest of four brothers and sisters, was "shocked and terrified" and had to be treated for the cuts from her beatings, Wondimu said. He said that police had caught four of the men, but were still looking for three others.
In Ethiopia, kidnapping has long been part of the marriage custom, a tradition of sorrow and violence whose origins are murky. The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where the majority of the country's 71 million people live.
Ethiopia's lions, famous for their large black manes, are the country's national symbol and adorn statues and the local currency. Former emperor Haile Selassie kept a pride in the royal palace in Addis Ababa.
Despite their integral place in Ethiopia culture, their numbers have been falling, according to experts, as farmers encroach on bush land.
Hunters also kill the animals for their skins, which can fetch $1,000, despite a recent crackdown against illegal animal trading across the country. Williams said that at most only 1,000 Ethiopian lions remain in the wild.
Guards thwarted two attempts to penetrate storage sites for Russia's nuclear arsenal, where the "human factor" remains a weakness in security, the top general responsible for storage of warheads revealed Wednesday.
The two incidents in 2002 and 2003 involved lone suspects caught while trying to enter sites "in the European part of Russia," General-Colonel Igor Valynkin told journalists in Moscow, without providing further details.
Valynkin said the two had been handed over to the Federal Security Service "and I do not know their further fate."
In sharp contrast to alarming reports from some Western nuclear security experts, Valynkin said that he was "100 percent" satisfied with levels of protection of the arsenal.
However, Valynkin acknowledged that the "human factor" was a problem in some cases.
"If you put a sentry at a site, then of course he is a defender, but also can be a person who himself violates, or aids a violation and possible penetration of the site.
"That is why we, with the United States and with our German partners, are using American and German money to strengthen our defences. ... This allows us to remove the sentinel and guard completely through technical means."
Valynkin named Chechnya, where tens of thousands of Russian troops are fighting the second war against separatists in a decade, as the most likely source of a plot to attack military nuclear sites.
"We have special information from the Federal Security Service about the plans of the terrorists for our sites," he said.
As chief of the 12th main directorate of the ministry of defense -- which stores and maintains warheads -- Valynkin is one of the top officials responsible for calming Western fears of nuclear materials reaching the black market.
Earlier this month, former US senator Sam Nunn, who heads the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said that "the gravest danger in the world today is the threat of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction."
Japan signalled Wednesday it will give up on hosting a revolutionary nuclear energy reactor after reportedly securing a large share of the project in exchange for letting the main site be built in France.
The Mainichi Shimbun said Japan has informed the European Union it will abandon its bid to build the multi-billion dollar International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in the village of Rokkasho-mura.
The newspaper said a decision would be made official at a meeting Tuesday of the six partners in the project, which seeks to emulate the sun's fusion and create an inexhaustible future source of energy.
Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiken Sugiura, a spokesman for the government, acknowledged implicitly that Japan had agreed to the European Union offer to build the reactor in the French town of Cadarache.
"It is not like 100 percent will go to the other party and our side will give up 100 percent," Sugiura told a news conference when asked about the Mainichi report.
But he added: "We are negotiating how to share various things and on other details and not all has been decided yet."
The European Commission also said it would await an announcement until the meeting in Moscow of the ITER partners -- China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
"For us, the decision will be taken during the ministerial meeting on June 28 in Moscow," said Antonia Mocan, a spokeswoman in Brussels for European Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik.
The Mainichi said Japan made its decision after securing a deal to construct the project's main research facility in Japan and keep 20 percent of the jobs at the head office, including the top post of the ITER organization, for Japanese nationals.
Japan is also set to get 20 percent of the work to build the reactor although Japan's share of the cost for ITER is 10 percent, the daily said without citing sources.
The United States and South Korea have supported Japan's bid for ITER, while China and Russia back the European Union's efforts to bring it to France.
Amid the deadlock, both the EU and Japan had signalled that they wanted to finalize a decision before the July 6-8 summit in Scotland of the Group of Eight industrialized nations which will include Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and French President Jacques Chirac.
Media reports have indicated that despite the Japanese science ministry's enthusiasm for ITER, the finance ministry was been worried about burdening public finances.
#1
If your program's reactor costs billions of dollars and there are fights between different countries over which one gets _the_ reactor, there may be something wrong with the program.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/22/2005 22:29 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Lets see...
Stoned cats prefer catnip.
Stoned dogs will steal their owners beer...
this is a really sneaky way to distribute pot seeds pure and simple.
I know I'm violating protocol, but this is some of the inside Euro skinny from the summit:
As ever, France's president Jacques Chirac took centre stage in the hurling of insults - though his sidekick Gerhard Schröder did not miss the opportunity to get in a few digs of his own....
...According to Dutch PM Jan-Peter Balkenende, Schröder accused Holland of "national egotism" for refusing to sign the Franco-German stitch-up....
...Chirac, predictably, was worse: Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot claimed that "things were said that I have never heard in my eleven years as a diplomat in Brussels."
Such as? Well, here's a gem of a quote Bot attributes to president Chirac - one which seasoned Chirac-watchers will treasure as much as previous golden classics like "They missed a good opportunity to shut up."
Bot said that Chirac "Talked about fat, bloated countries that are not ready to do something for poor countries and looked at us (Holland)."....
#2
Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot claimed that "things were said that I have never heard in my eleven years as a diplomat in Brussels."
Oh, dear. You mean European diplomats and politicians talked to the dip-pols of other European countries in pretty much the same way that they talk to Americans? How terribly difficult that must have been for you, Bernard...
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
06/22/2005 14:15 Comments ||
Top||
Schroeder and Putin act together to snub and deliberately bypass former Soviet countries
VILNIUS - Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis has criticised Tuesday's decision by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to attend 750th anniversary celebrations in the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, it was reported on Wednesday.
"Sometimes it seems as if German politicians make decisions without considering the historical and political sensitivities of our region," Valionis told Baltic news agency BNS.
Kaliningrad was once part of the Prussian Empire and prior to the close of the Second World War bore the name Koenigsberg.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to expressly include the city's German-era history in the '750 Years of Kaliningrad' celebrations, to be held July 3, and issued a formal invitation to Schroeder.
The historically-disputed Baltic region is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. Called Karaliaucius in Lithuanian, Kaliningrad played an important role in the country's history up to the 18th century. To this day, the main transit route between Russia and its Baltic exclave, secured after years of negotiations, runs through Lithuania.
However neither the president nor prime minister of either nation has been invited to the party.
Poland's German ambassador Andrzej Byrt in a German newspaper article recently called for "neighbouring countries" to participate "at the same level" in the Kaliningrad anniversary.
"We read the signs now," said Valionis. "And we will answer them."
The spat follows Russia's controversial honouring of the end of the Second World War earlier this year. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus declined an invitation to attend lavish celebrations in Moscow, citing "differences in the understanding of history".
The Baltic Republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were long occupied by Russia following the Second World War.
Posted by: too true ||
06/22/2005 12:58 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Kaliningrad was once part of the Prussian Empire Yeah, and Yorkshire was once part of the British Empire.
#3
East Prussia (Kalingrad) was the original territory of Prussia back 600 years ago and it was German majority for at least 300 years prior to the mass expulsion after WW2.
Reflecting the disarray after last week's failed European Union summit meeting, leaders throughout the Continent have unleashed new criticism of one another, promoting their own visions for the future of Europe.
In a sign that France was not ready to compromise on money matters, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Tuesday castigated the British government for demanding a generous rebate every year from the bloc.
"This British check - and I say this with all the friendship I carry for the British people - is truly an expense from the Old Regime," Villepin commented in a session of the National Assembly. For good measure, he called the rebate of about $6 billion a year "a legacy of the past, an obsolete legacy, no longer with any purpose."
By contrast, Villepin defended the billions of dollars in subsidies French farmers receive every year from the European Union as "a major asset for Europe and for France," and denounced what he called Britain's "groundless accusations" on the subject. Villepin was named prime minister in a cabinet shake-up three weeks ago after the rejection by French voters of the European constitution, and his verbal assault Tuesday underscored the determination of the government of President Jacques Chirac to blame outside forces - particularly Britain - for the worst crisis in European integration in decades.
Before the May 29 referendum, widely regarded here as both a rejection of the French government and its troubled economy as well as of European unification, Chirac had said that France would be the "black sheep" if voters said no. Now, however, Chirac seems determined to change the subject by portraying himself as a white knight leading Europe into the future through his heavily subsidized farmers and accusing his British counterpart of taking much-needed funds from the 10 new members of the bloc, all of them relatively poor countries.
In a postmidnight news conference after talks on the Union's long-term budget failed Friday night, Chirac called the farm subsidy system "modern" and "dynamic." Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, by contrast, has branded the farm subsidies an anachronism that sucks much-needed EU financing from research and development in areas like biotechnology and the promotion of small businesses. In London on Tuesday, Blair, unlike de Villepin, struggled to sound conciliatory. He said he was ready to recognize that Britain's rebate is "an anomaly that has to go." But he reiterated that such a gesture was possible only if "the other anomaly" was changed - that is, the expenditure of 40 percent of the EU budget on farm subsidies.
The reverberations from the two rejections of the constitution and last week's contentious summit meeting in Brussels are still being felt throughout the Continent. In Poland, President Alexander Kwasniewski announced the postponement of his country's constitution referendum, which was planned for October. In Brussels, many officials are pessimistic that Blair, who assumes the EU's rotating six-month presidency on July 1, will be able to broker a deal on its long-term budget. They cite demands of the richer countries to keep their financial benefits or to pay less and concern that Blair will not be trusted to act for the benefit of all.
In a speech in Berlin on Tuesday, the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who blamed Britain and to a lesser extent the Netherlands for the failure of the summit meeting, attacked Britain's "social model" and its vision of Europe, which is at odds with the cradle-to-grave social welfare systems of much of the Continent. "There is a special European social model to protect that has developed on the Continent," Schröder said, without mentioning Britain. "Those who want to destroy this model due to national egoism of populist motives do a terrible disservice to the desires and rights of the next generation." The verbal attacks during and after the summit meeting have been so angry, sharp, and unusual that it is not clear that relationships of trust will be restored.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 11:51 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
And we sit back with the popcorn and watch the sharks turn on each other.
#2
I know we're dealing with the French here, but the gall he has to get up there and say that massive subsidies to French farmers are a vital European interest is just amazing. Are the frogs born without a sense of shame, or do they have it surgically removed in a government hospital?
#3
Captain, it's a genetic defect. (Or is that "infect"?)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/22/2005 13:31 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Lol, what a bunch of sore losers! Apparently, the pouting Frogs are going to take their ball and go home. I'm amazed that 40% of the EU budget goes to farm subsidies (and I thought US agriculture bills were pork-ridden). Common market, yeah right. Have fun living in the 20th century EUros!
#5
"Those who want to destroy this (European social) model due to national egoism of populist motives..." So, in effect he is saying that the European social model is not popular? Well, granted it has sky high perpetual unemployment, stifled business, delivered poor quality social programs and has exhorbitant taxes. But why wouldn't it be popular?
Coming up next: Turkish HVAC techs. In a tongue-in-cheek dig at the French fear of eastern European competition, the Polish tourist board is using the image of a handsome plumber to promote Poland as a holiday destination. The board's website sports the image of a seductive blonde man clutching pipes and a monkey-wrench beneath the slogan, "I am staying in Poland -- come on over." ...and I vill not be on...how you say...ze strike.
During the campaign leading to the French "no" in a May referendum on the EU constitution, the "Polish plumber" became a symbol of the cheap labour from new member states which was supposedly a threat to French jobs. Zay work 40 houraires a week! Barbarians!
"People in Poland were really fed up with being made to take the blame," said Elzbieta Janek of the Polish tourist office in Paris."We decided the best response was humour. Our job is to encourage people to visit Poland, and this was a good way of defusing the tension and showing the French that they are always welcome," she said. And yes, ladies. There is a picture.
Posted by: Senator Robert C. Byrd ||
06/22/2005 08:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Hmmm... a frog in yellow leotards would have worked just as well. The Poles did their homework except for one thing. Many French women are tired of their girly guys, burly unshaven French girls have long substituted well, and a girly looking Pole to entice them may well work as eye-candy for them. However, what will back fire is that the Frenchmen will respond more heavily to the advertisement. The Poles will realize this later what a bugger it will be.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Tuesday that Europe must choose between two futures: one as a politically united continent able to hold its own in a globalized economy and the other as an enfeebled trading bloc. In his first major speech since the collapse of talks late last week at a European Union summit, Schroeder said disagreement about Europe's future — not its stricken constitution or budget — was at the heart of the dispute. "The core question is: which Europe do we want? Do we want a united Europe capable of acting, a real political union ... or do we want to limit ourselves to being a large free-trade zone?"
I'd say go with the large free trade zone. They've been trying the empire thing ever since Charlemagne, and it hasn't worked yet. Finland isn't Portugal.
Schroeder said at the presentation of a book by a lawmaker from his Social Democratic Party. "I'm convinced ... we need a political union. Only a political union is able to practice solidarity," Schroeder said.
That's making the assumption that "solidarity" — fine old Second International word that it is — is a good thing by definition. Pause and think about it, and it might not be the case. Cooperation implies working together for mutually desirable ends. Solidarity doesn't brook dissent. I'd rather be in a situation where I'm allowed to have an opinion, and I imagine most Europeans would, too. Cooperation ends when interests diverge, but solidarity applies across the board. Cooperation allows competition even while trying to achieve those mutual ends, and competition, that desire to do things better than the next guy, is what makes for innovation. Innovation is the stick that stirs the bottom of the pond and keeps it from getting stagnant.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Shroeder's hung up on Socialist Big Government. He wants Europe to mold to the model. Like anything successful in business, nature, or other aspects of life, form follows function, not vice versa.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/22/2005 2:05 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The choice is the same for either Western Socialism or Asian Socialism, De Gaulle, Peron, Marx or Mao, etal. - the only way to stop the still-expanding USA hyperpower is to either destroy the USA, or suborn/control the USA. Else, is to let the USA rule the global roost and OWG -Leftism stands for nothing except politcs, advantage, and PC etc. anyways!?
#6
Strangely enough, Schroeder seems to ignore the many other alternatives.
One could be a continent of independent nations respecting free men, free ideas, and free trade. No need for centralized "political union" in order to reach such goals. Just tell people they are free, and protect them from the wolves (thieves, politicians, and Marxists).
It doesn't have to be the European Union of Socialist Republics, does it?
A Muslim cleric who condoned wife-beating in a widely publicized interview that alarmed the government last year was cleared of criminal charges on Tuesday. Abdelkader Bouziane, whose comments prompted the government to expel him to his native Algeria, was accused of "provocation to commit an assault." He was tried in absentia.
Hopefully, he'll stay there anyway, contentedly beating his wife...
He told Lyon Mag in a 2004 interview that beating an adulterous wife was condoned by the Quran â the Muslim idol holy book â an interpretation rejected by most Muslims.
In public, anyway...
A court in the southeastern city of Lyon ruled that Bouziane was explaining his religious beliefs and that his remarks fell outside the competence of law. "It is not the court's role to intrude in the domain of religious conscience. A reference to a text of the Quran does not constitute a call to commit assault," said judge Fernand Schir.
I'd venture to say that "The Koran sez it's okay, go ahead and beat the bitch" does constitute a call to commit assault...
Bouziane, who has two wives and 16 children, was the imam of a mosque in the Lyon suburb of Venissieux. He was deported to Algeria in October. In his interview he said that "beating a wife is authorized by the Quran notably if the wife cheats on her husband" and that a man "can hit hard to make the wife afraid, so that she does not do it again."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yah. Koran, adultery, and stoning the woman and all that. What I want to know is how Bouzy is living in France with two wives? Isn't the customary French practice one wife and a mistress?
Posted by: ed ||
06/22/2005 0:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Yeah, ed. My first thought exactly.
Maybe it's because I come from an American perspective, but I thought pologamy was banned pretty much everywhere even partially civilized.
So, if you can have multiple wives in France and you don't feel like working, does that mean you get extra welfare checks?
And if you're one of the extra wives, can you sue/divorce the husband for not being egalitarian in the, uh, matrimonial duties?
#3
There was an article about that polygamy thingy not too long ago. Apparently the French authorites are too busy dealing with real issues to enforce the marriage laws in such instances, but only one wife and her children are legal -- leading to a great deal of resentment on the part of the junior wives and their children... not to mention problems later should they try to regularize their situation.
Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government survived a confidence vote Tuesday, easing the risk that Canada's scandal-plagued leadership could fall. In a 152-147 vote, members of Parliament approved a second reading of the Liberals' contentious budget deal with the New Democrats calling for $3.7 billion in additional social spending. A vote on a budget bill or its amendments is seen as a confidence vote, and an election would likely be called if the government were to lose.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Well thank goodness the genetically superior won.
Trouble just seems to follow this William Kennedy Smith guy. The Kennedy clan member, who was acquitted of rape in 1991, has recently faced civil claims for sexually harassing female co-workers at the Chicago not-for-profit organization he chairs. While a judge this year tossed a lawsuit filed by his former personal assistant, Smith reportedly paid six figures in an out-of-court settlement to a second woman who worked for his Center for International Rehabilitation (CIR). While Laura Hamilton did not file a lawsuit against Smith, her lawyers last year prepared a 40-page federal complaint that, absent a settlement, would have landed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.. Since a TSG source was kind enough to provide us with a copy of Hamilton's draft complaint, her account of Smith's remarkably sleazy and scary behavior will not be permanently cloaked by a subsequent confidentiality agreement. In the excerpt below, Hamilton describes Smith, a medical doctor, as a creepy predator who targeted many women who worked for CIR, which describes itself as a "humanitarian network of individuals and organizations that promotes the full potential of people with disabilities through education, innovation, and advocacy." Smith, Hamilton charged, referred to a handicapped man she dated as "that amputee" and often improperly touched her. When she became pregnant, Hamilton, who worked at CIR for nearly seven years, said that Smith frequently entered her office and gave unwanted massages, explaining that pregnant women "glowed" and he found them "irresistible." She also recounted attending a 2001 UNICEF conference in New York and bunking in the "guest apartment" of Smith's mother, Jean Kennedy Smith. On the second night of Hamilton's stay, Smith showed up unannounced at the apartment and began massaging her neck and back and stroking her belly. Hamilton, seven months pregnant at the time, rebuffed Smith when he tried to kiss her. "Instead of allowing her to leave the room, Dr. Smith continued to rub Ms. Hamilton's belly, inched his hand below her waist, and stuck his tongue in her ear. Ms. Hamilton abruptly stood up and rushed out of the room," the draft states. Hamilton claimed that she barricaded her door that evening, adding that Smith told her the following morning that "it was all [he] could do not to come in [her room] last night." During an October 2002 conference in Croatia, Smith "maneuvered himself" into her hotel room and quickly "produced and unwrapped a condom, making it clear that he had intended to have sexual intercourse with her," according to Hamilton's complaint. Fearing for her job and believing that she "had no choice," Hamilton "submitted to Dr. Smith's unwelcome sexual advances and felt degraded and humiliated afterward." Rashida Adams, one of Hamilton's lawyers, declined to discuss the complaint, saying only that Smith and Hamilton "have resolved their dispute." Attorney Barbara Brown, who defended Smith in several sexual harassment matters, told TSG, "I'm not authorized to speak to you." (23 pages)... Courtesy of the good guys at The Smoking Gun.
#1
While a judge this year tossed a lawsuit filed by his former personal assistant, Smith reportedly paid six figures in an out-of-court settlement to a second woman who worked for his Center for International Rehabilitation (CIR).
Maybe Mr. Smith could use a little rehabilitating himself?....
#3
Yes, they would, tu - but unfortunately they would never accomplish anything.
You can't rehabilitate arrogant bastards with access to too much money that someone else earned.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/22/2005 17:17 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Hire me! ME!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Posted by: Paris Hilton ||
06/22/2005 18:04 Comments ||
Top||
#5
"felt degraded and humiliated afterward" A lot of women complain of that saem feeling when dealing with a Kennedy, those that live. Be glad you are in the latter, next time uncle Ted might be driving you home.
#6
Rehabilitation? How do you go about rehabilitating the Kennedy Rape Gene⢠?
Posted by: Red Dog ||
06/22/2005 21:11 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Rehabilitate? As someone said recently (I can't remember where I read it): to be rehabilitated one must first be habilitated. Something the Kennedys are obviously not.
Talk show host Sean Hannity broke the media censorship of the details of the new book by Edward Klein, "The Truth About Hillary."
But one of the nationâs top conservative talkers said the book had ingited a "huge controversy" and that even he was under enormous pressure to cancel his planned interviews with Klein for his ABC syndicated radio program and Fox News TV show. "I've had more political pressure than I've ever had in all my years in radio," Hannity said to Klein after a blockbuster 90-minute interview with the controversial author. Hannity did not elaborate on the source of the pressure to cancel the planned appearance.
Nor did he apparently buckle to the pressure, explaining to his radio audience, "We deal in controversy - that's what we do here." "I've got to tell you," Hannity told Klein midway through the interview. "Do you know the number of requests I've had to cancel you and not have you on this program? I think it was higher than any guest or controversial author we've had on this program."
"I've never in the history of this program had more demands to cancel the guest," Hannity reiterated.
But Klein quickly interjected to say that the Clinton public relations machine had successfully pressured other radio and TV outlets to cancel interviews with him. "A number of people who have booked me on TV and radio have already canceled," Klein said. "And the reason they've canceled is because the publicity machine of the Clintons is hard at work."
On both his TV and radio shows, Hannity openly worried that the new book may backfire on conservatives since it deals with sensational personal and sexual allegations against the former first lady that he argued were not worthy of political debate.
Klein, a veteran journalist and author who has spent four decades in the media world, including major editing jobs at the New York Times and Newsweek, said he had set out to write a biography that captures Hillaryâs flawed character, not a political work about her.
Asked if the effort to silence him hasn't made him "afraid," Klein told Hannity: "If I weren't concerned, I'd be nuts."
"I'd be crazy," he said, adding, "Because the Clintons have a well-established career reputation of smearing other people. And I know they're out to get me and I know they're going to do everything in their power to get me." Klein vowed, however: "They're not going to be successful."
#3
Noooooo. Hey you Rantburgers, just drop this stuff! Don't take the bait!
Klein is a slefish, greedy hack and Hannity is a witless dupe for indulging him. Since when have Conservatives respected the credentials of a journalist who worked at the Times and Newsweek?!
Klein is playing conservatives for fools, pumping his booksales with salacious rumors designed to get conservatives all worked up - much the same way CBS tried to get the Bush haters all excited with TANG memos.
For us conservatives, Clinton hatred is our blind-spot, our achilles heel. Politically it's a loser, but many can't seem to stop themselves from leaping at a new,credulous rumor of sexual misconduct from 25 years ago, like moths to a flame. And the story about Hillary's rape/pregnancy is as bogus as a Dan Rather scoop and just as likely to blow up in our faces - except Klein won't care about loss of credibility as long as he's got his book sales. The rest of us will have to live with the consequences of these stupid, misguided and counterproductive attacks on Hillary. What we need are effective attacks. We'll only have ourselves and Sean Hannity to blame for Hillary's success.
Posted by: John in Tokyo ||
06/22/2005 21:56 Comments ||
Top||
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Broke and without enough money in the bank to pay its bills after the end of the month, the Florida Democratic Party has now been slapped with a lien by the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay payroll and Social Security taxes in 2003. snicker..
The state party's budget and finance committee voted Tuesday to ask for a new audit to account for more than $900,000 it believes somehow disappeared from the books during the 2003-2004 calendar years when the party was led by Scott Maddox, who is now seeking its nomination for governor. Maddox and successor Karen Thurman, who became the party's new chairwoman just last month, did not immediately return phone messages asking for comment on the findings.
"I know nothing! Nothing! Tell them, Hogan!"
While the party owes roughly $200,000 in delinquent payroll and Social Security taxes, the lien was against the remaining $98,000 in their account on Friday, longtime Leon County committeeman Jon Ausman said. Ausman said it cost about $250,000 a month to pay salaries and overhead for the party operation in Tallahassee and that it had been spending more so far this year than it has raised. The Democratic Party in Florida has traditionally gone through financial woes, selling its headquarters building in Florida a few years ago to get out of debt.
State vice-chair Diane Glasser of Fort Lauderdale said Tuesday she was confident the party could be able to meet its commitments. "We've had these problems before," Glasser said. "I think that everything will resolve itself. Karen has already got commitments for money that is going to be coming into the party."
So Mr. Soros is coming through, eh?
Ausman, who is also a member of the party's budget and finance committee, said the party's 2003 year-end audit showed $609,032 cash on hand. He said it netted $586,986 in 2004 when it raised about $18 million. "I don't know how you start out with $609,000 and raise a net of $586,000 and end up with $269,000," he said.
Must be a Republican plot, damm that Karl Rove is good
Ausman said he was concerned about the audits in 2003 and 2004 done by Carr, Riggs and Ingram of Tallahassee. He said they should be held accountable, certainly for the failure to pay the IRS, if the audit proved to be flawed. Mark Carr did not immediately return a phone message to his office about the audit.
Yasss, blame the auditors. Too bad Arthur Anderson, Inc., isn't still around.
Last summer, a report filed in July by the party's executive committee to the Federal Election Commission showed it spent $120,000 more than it has taken the first six months of that year, including a $30,000 deficit for June. That report, however, included 2003 carry-over information that skewed the numbers and gave the appearance of far more red ink, Maddox said. The latest report comes at the front end of fund-raising efforts by candidates readying for the 2006 election cycle when the Democrats' lone statewide elected official, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, faces re-election and there will be no incumbent in the governor's race. "It's very important that we reassure our donor base and all the Democrats that we're on top of this situation," Ausman said.
The state Republican Party, which operates with a larger staff at its Tallahassee headquarters, has raised close to $5 million already this year and has several million in the bank, a party source said Tuesday.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 09:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"I don't know how you start out with $609,000 and raise a net of $586,000 and end up with $269,000," he said.
Embezzlement? Fraud?
C'mon, ask around your party -- there's probably a union officer around who can explain to you how it's done!
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/22/2005 9:32 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"I don't know how you start out with $609,000 and raise a net of $586,000 and end up with $269,000," he said.
I do. Maybe you got a bunch of friggin thieves working for you?
#3
Maybe you hand out a lot of walkin around money (cash).
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/22/2005 9:47 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Broke and without enough money in the bank to pay its bills after the end of the month, the Florida Democratic Party has now been slapped with a lien by the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay payroll and Social Security taxes in 2003.
Well, the solution is simple! Tax the public more! And...oh wait,....er....um...
#6
"I don't know how you start out with $609,000 and raise a net of $586,000 and end up with $269,000" Was it that great orator George W. Bush that coined the phrase "Fuzzy Math"? Now we all know the math lesson that Florida taught us in 2000: "If you keep counting you get more." Maybe the Florida DNC needs to relocate to a trailer park (how fitting) and recount their money about 100 times and maybe they will be back at the correct number. Also they might want to bring in that great economist (sic) Krugman to help count the loot contributions.
#3
I wish that would work, tu3031. Unfortunately, I doubt the jihadis would care - they seem to bomb mosques in Iraq quite frequently. I work in a 30-story building and care about this issue! Maybe we could try korans on the roof.
Indians are "a slippery, treacherous people", said president Richard Nixon. "The Indians are bastards anyway. They are the most aggressive goddamn people around," echoed his assistant for national security affairs, Henry Kissinger. The setting: a White House meeting on July 16, 1971, during the run-up to the India-Pakistan war which ultimately led to the birth of Bangladesh, erstwhile East Pakistan.
more at link ....
Posted by: john ||
06/22/2005 15:38 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
WTF does this have to do with anything current?
2005 - 1971 = 34 years ago!
Slandering an impeached resigned and dead president to further anti-american hate. Pretty vile.
Note the total complete lack of context in this story too.
Attempt to sabotage visit by Indian PM to Washington.
The Indian commies serve their chinese masters well.
Posted by: john ||
06/22/2005 17:12 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Well, the Indians haven't exactly covered themselves in glory with respect to trying to court Uncle Sam. They stayed out of Korean War fighting. *Ethiopians* showed up for that one. During the Cold War, India aligned itself with the Soviets while claiming to be non-aligned. It supported the Soviets over its invasion of Afghanistan. It was pretty much understood that in any confrontation with the Soviet Union, the Indian Ocean would constitute hostile waters, thanks to the Indian Navy. The Indians aren't bastards, they're a nest of vipers. Notice how forthcoming they've been with respect to Iraq.
#6
Gotta use the preview button more.
Just when I got the hang of using the HTML in the title...
Posted by: john ||
06/22/2005 18:02 Comments ||
Top||
#7
ZF, India backed the Soviets in Afghanistan - sure. But it was a move against Islamist Fundamentalists a takeover. In retrospect, it's pretty easy to see what a huge mistake our support of the Islamists was!!! I think we would be well served to look on the Indians as natural allies in the fight agains Islamic nutbags.
Posted by: Sheik Abu Bin Ali Al-Yahood ||
06/22/2005 22:12 Comments ||
Top||
A 73-year-old man used his bare hands to tear out the tongue of a leopard that attacked him in Kenya and killed it, a newspaper said overnight of an incident confirmed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
Don't mess with grandpa
The 73-year-old Daniel M'Mburugu was working in his potato garden near Mount Kenya in the centre of the country when the animal, apparently aggressive, hurtled from nearby grass and charged towards him. "It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop chirping. I froze for some seconds, then it dawned on me that death was staring at me on the face," he told the Standard Newspaper.
M'Mburugu, a peasant farmer, dropped the machete he was carrying and forced his hand into the leopard's mouth, pulling out its tongue in an act of self-defence, according to the report in the daily. "A voice, which must have been from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand into its wide open mouth, I obeyed," he said, explaining that the leopard sank its teeth into his wrist, but would not let go. As the struggle continued, M'Mburugu realised that the animal's "breathing was belaboured", prompting him to keep pulling the tongue. Villagers only responded when the animal lay dying and he gained instant status as a village hero, the paper said.
"Wardens said the leopard attacked the man because it was injured elsewhere ... wild animals are usually very aggresive and attack unprovoked when injured," KWS spokesman Edward Indakwa said. "Nevertheless, he was lucky," he added of the incident that occurred early this month. Incidents of human-wildlife conflict in the east African nation are common, mostly near game parks and national reserves.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 16:15 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
I am paraphrasing from the âChristian Allianceâ issues section on the website:
Pursuing Economic Justice:
Tax cuts Bad
Bankruptcy Reform Bad
The Government (Republicans) Spends money frivolously Responsible Environmental Stewardship for Today:
The Government (Republicans) is wasting natural resources Equality for Gays and Lesbians (Come on you knew this was coming!):
Gays pay taxes and deserve recognition from (and in) the church Effective Prevention vs. Criminalizing Abortion:
Jesus would SUPPORT abortion and you should too
Banning abortion INCREASES the likelihood of abortion
Rightwing extremist (Republicans) are against Abortion because they are BAD Seeking Peace, Not War:
George Bush rushed to war
People Die in wars
The un should take over Health Care for All Americans:
Soak the rich and make them pay for it
The Government (Republicans) is against health care and they are BAD
The only way to truly describe this new website organization would be to call it the âReligious Side of Democratic Undergroundâ. The site is really sickening and funny at the same time. Itâs like somebody took left-wing ideal and placed a thin veneer of religion over them to mask the smell. The abortion issues forum is especially enlightening that they infer that Jesus would support abortion. I encourage everyone to contrast issues section with that of the Christian Coalition. For added nausea review the âpersonal storiesâ section.
#1
Jesus would not support abortion: he who saw into the hearts of his enemies is quite capable of seeing what happens to an unborn baby when it is getting aborted.
#3
Yes, Ptah! Wasn't it Jesus who said "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me."? And, I always love Medved's (devout Jew) approach to the libs who cry you're not Christian if you don't support gov't handouts.... Jesus said "Sell all you have, give it to the poor and follow me. He didn't say Sell all you have, give it to Rome and then follow me and let the Romans figure how to take care of the poor."
Posted by: BA ||
06/22/2005 14:33 Comments ||
Top||
#4
You gotta love an organization that simutaneously declares that the government spends money frivolously, yet tax cuts are bad.
#5
Christianity has been used for centuries to futher political goals. They will be successful to a certain degree with this - just like Jessie Jackson can promote racism under the banner of civil rights. But in the end - King's word lives on and Jackson is exposed for the fraud that he is.
Stalin and Marx must be rolling over in their graves. They worked so hard to make Christianity synonymous with uncool and nut-bag. They were very sucessful doing this, mostly by ignoring Christianity as if it didn't exist - erasing it like political figures from their history books. Now the dems come along and reverse years and years of effective hard work.
I've been to these churches they study all things spiritual and philosophical - except Christianity. The DC National Cathedral is a prime example. Check out their classes and you will see Buddhism, Hinduism, tree-worship and all things EXCEPT Christianity. They talk about saving the whales. Gotta be inclusive.
Hey, go for it dems, clearly the concept of negative publicity escapes your grasp. You can't control all of the churches and in the end, lots of people will be exposed to Christ's teachings. People that would not have otherwise felt comfortable entering a church.
As for perverting Christianity for the sake of ambition, power and money, nothing new to see here.
#6
Considering the way in which the Democratic Party interprets democracy, I am not surprised that this is the way the Democrat "Christian Alliance" interprets Christianity. "Through the Looking Glass and off with the Republicans' heads" said the Mad Hatter.
#7
In my direct experience most christians support leftwing positions. This is especially true in Europe and of the established religions. It's not entirely clear to me why the media equates rightwing = religious. I consider someone like Tony Blair a 'typical' christian.
#8
A typical Euro Christian, but not a typical American Christian. The absence of an established church means there is much more variety in religious options here, and the leftish main line churches are falling into disuse as are the established churches in Euroland. But the new chruches are growing like crazy and they tend to be conservative in theology and politics.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/22/2005 16:02 Comments ||
Top||
#9
phil_b: In my direct experience most christians support leftwing positions.
I guess this would be in churches where the pastor leads the congregation. Evangelical Christians I know view the pastor as merely a prayer leader and an organizer of church functions. These people tend to be very right-wing and will not take any crap from the pastor. They keep their own (conservative) counsel on religious matters.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- State radio said Wednesday people displaced by a government eviction campaign were being provided for in a "transit camp."
Yes, we've heard that term used before. It doesn't end well.
Meanwhile, the government's campaign to clear the homes, businesses and even gardens of the poor from its cities has sparked more violence, a pro-government newspaper reported.
The U.N. estimates up to 1.5 million people were left homeless after police burned or demolished their shacks in what the government calls a clean up campaign in the cities. The political opposition, which has its base among the urban poor, says the 4-week-old Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, is meant to punish its supporters.
The government said Tuesday that besides knocking down shacks and the kiosks of street vendors, police were intensifying efforts to destroy vegetable gardens the urban poor plant in vacant lots around Harare, saying the plots threatened the environment.
The pro-government Daily Mirror reported Wednesday that there had been rioting by scores of people resisting demolitions in the Marondera and Wedza townships, 110 kilometers (68 miles) east of Harare on Tuesday.
Police spokesman Darlington Mathuthu told the newspaper police had to call for reinforcements and arrested at least eight people who had been involved in running battles with security forces. Such violence has not been uncommon since the campaign started May 19. Thousands of urban poor have had their homes burned or bulldozed, or pulled them down themselves on orders given at gunpoint. Babies, the terminally ill and the elderly have been forced to sleep out in freezing midwinter temperatures.
State radio, though, said Wednesday some of those displaced had been moved to a farm 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Harare. The broadcast said charities were working with the government of President Robert Mugabe to turn the site "into a healthy comfortable destination."
"Some families have already been resettled after vetting," said Inspector Eunice Marange, the police officer in charge of what the state radio said was a "transit camp" at Caledonia. "The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare has since moved in to vaccinate children and provide other services, while accommodation, water and food have also been made available," Marange told the radio.
Going to build some "showers" next, Bob?
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says "vetting" means proving loyalty to Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, with suspected opposition supporters being forced into the countryside for "re-education," under a policy similar to that of the former Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.
Bingo! I called it when he started
During the weekend, independent journalists reported there was one toilet for 3,000 people at Caledonia Farm, with new arrivals required to register with local ZANU-PF officials before they were allowed to line up for it. They also reported a heavy presence at Caledonia of secret police agents who said they wanted to hear what the people said and to see who visited them. A U.N. spokesman said Monday that Anna Tibaijuka, the Tanzanian head of UN Habitat, would be coming here soon to judge the impact of Operation Murambatsvina for Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Tibaijuka's office said Wednesday the date for her visit had not yet been set.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 10:04 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
During the weekend, independent journalists reported there was one toilet for 3,000 people at Caledonia Farm, with new arrivals required to register with local ZANU-PF officials before they were allowed to line up for it. They also reported a heavy presence at Caledonia of secret police agents who said they wanted to hear what the people said and to see who visited them.
Yeah, Guantanamo's such a hellhole.
Oh, wait. This ain't Guantanamo?
#2
Frustration with the debt relief for Africa people. Look at these animals and moonbats that are in power on that continent. Your a fool to send them a nickle. Might as well cancel the debt because Lord know's they'll never repay it. Aids money is a waste of time since the masses which could rise up against these corrupt regimes are already dead! The elderly and infants are quite easy to move around by well fed government machete thugs with retrovirals. Basically the continent is a loss. Forget aid and aids programs. The UN if it had any balls (NO BOLTON NO BALLS) it would use it's stablization forces to change regimes or bring back the colonialists.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict announced on Wednesday that he would summon a special synod of Roman Catholic bishops to discuss the church's role in solving the problems of Africa. Benedict told pilgrims at his weekly general audience that he planned to follow through with the intention of his predecessor, John Paul, to hold such a meeting.
His public commitment to Africa comes less than two weeks after finance ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations agreed ahead of next month's summit to huge debt relief in a drive to free Africa from hunger and disease. Synods are major gatherings of Roman Catholic bishops to discuss a specific theme or region. They usually last about a month and are usually held at the Vatican. "I hope this meeting will mark another impulse for the African continent for evangelization, the consolidation and growth of the Church and the promotion of reconciliation and peace," he said of the synod.
It would be the second synod on Africa called by the Vatican. The first was held in 1994 under John Paul, who made frequent visits to the continent during his 26-year papacy. It was not clear when the African synod would be held but since the gatherings take much time to prepare, it was not likely to held before next year. Any Vatican meeting on Africa would likely discuss debt relief, AIDS, corruption, poverty and war.
Not to mention our "friends" in the R.O.P.
The Vatican applauded earlier this month when the world's wealthiest countries clinched a deal to wipe out more than $40 billion of impoverished nations' debts. But it called for more steps by developed countries to help Africa. Proposals for increasing aid will be a main element at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, next month. The 1994 synod ended with an appeal by African bishops to the United Nations and the West to stop their continent from "burning and bleeding." They called for debt relief, an end to arms shipments and greater solidarity for the poor.
Catholicism is growing faster in Africa than any other continent. The number of men preparing for the Roman Catholic priesthood is high in some African countries and some Church leaders have suggested Africa will be called on in the future to ease the acute shortage of priests in Europe by sending clergy over to "re-evangelize the West." The continent is also seen as a living laboratory of inter-religious relations because Christians and Muslims live side-by-side in many places there and often clash.
Pope Benedict is not a big fan of Islam. This could be interesting.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 09:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
A joint Russian-U.S. project to launch a solar sail space vehicle crashed back to Earth when the booster rocket's engine failed less than two minutes after takeoff, the Russian space agency said Wednesday.
The Cosmos 1 vehicle was intended to show that a so-called solar sail can make a controlled flight. Solar sails, designed to be propelled by pressure from sunlight, are envisioned as a potential means for achieving interstellar flight, allowing such spacecraft to gradually build up great velocity and cover large distances. But the Volna booster rocket failed 83 seconds after its launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the northern Barents Sea just before midnight Tuesday in Moscow, the Russian space agency said. Remind me again why they were using a sub to launch?
It's all they had.
Its spokesman, Vyacheslav Davidenko, said that "the booster's failure means that the solar sail vehicle was lost." It's dead, Jim.
The Russian Defense Ministry launched a search for debris from the booster and the vehicle, he said.
U.S. scientists had said earlier that they possibly had detected signals from the world's first solar sail spacecraft but cautioned that it could take hours or days to figure out exactly where the $4 million Cosmos 1 was. The signals were picked up late Tuesday after an all-day search for the spacecraft, which had suddenly stopped communicating after its launch, they said. "It's good news because we are in orbit â very likely in orbit," Bruce Murray, a co-founder of The Planetary Society, which organized the mission, said before the Russian space agency's announcement. Wait, maybe it's alive!
A government panel will investigate possible reasons behind the failure of the three-stage rocket's first-stage engine, Davidenko said Nope, it's dead.
#1
Now a'hold up there - how come a'certain of the MSM have arrrteeekles describing dem dat Solar Sail as operational and cabable of a'orbitin, with the Russki engine probs a minutae glitch!
#2
Remind me again why they were using a sub to launch?
It saves them the trouble of building a launch site on land; the missile in question is designed for launch from the sea; finally, it lets the western sponsor say they're using the "former" Russian domesday weapon for something useful while the Russians get to do a launch test of one of their missiles/subs at Western expense.
I *thought* they had a doppler signal from the satellite last night, before the apogee kick motor kicked in, which was on the satellite and not the launcher. So that should hint at where the problem started.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/22/2005 9:08 Comments ||
Top||
#3
From the report I saw the booster failed after 83 seconds. And they originally built these things to lob nucs at us????????
#5
Iridium was first designed to use the MX missiles being decomissioned as part of START.
When statistics were run on its targeting and reliblity new rockets had to be quickly be found. Pegasus was the first choice but it's payload size kept getting smaller. Eventually regular boosters from US, USSR and China (long march) were used....
Needless to say at a much much higher cost.
Oooh! Look! It's an Ed Anger of the left! He's pig-bitin' mad, and he ain't gonna toake it no more!
According to a new study published in the American Political Science Review, being politically conservative is, in part, a matter or genetics.
Well, that makes sense. If a child's parents are intelligent, good-looking, morally sound, and all that sort of stuff, then you can expect the child to be, too... Oh. That's not what he meant, is it?
Iâve long wondered how an otherwise seemingly rational person could adhere so strictly to stilted ideologies; how they could be so consistently willing to smother a sense of social well-being.
Which sort of "stilted ideologies"? Political conservatism has many strains, running from the libertarian through the paleoconservative. We have no single set of books — like Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto — that establish our dogma. Pretty much across the board, conservatives of all stripes revere cause and effect, balancing costs with benefits, the laws of probability, rules that apply to everyone, and even logic.
Itâs merely a matter of having been dumped in the shallow end of the gene pool. Theyâre sorta like the puppy who piddles in the middle of the floor: They just donât know any better.
Oh, I dunno. It's also a matter of age and experience for many of us. When I was a young fellow, I was close to being a socialist. There were many problems in this world, by Gad, and government should address them all. At once! People were suffering, dammit! It was government's responsibility to alleviate poverty, make sure people were treated the same, to ensure that cars were safe, and even to define "safe." Of course, when I was somewhat younger than that, I used to poop in my diaper. Thankfully, with the passage of years, I've outgrown both.
To be sure, the study says that how someone is raised may determine their political party affiliation, but itâs genetics that appears to set one on a philosophically conservative course. To me, that helps explain why PBS threatens their intellect, or why they are so at peace with going to war.
There's no threat to my intellect from PBS. PBS tends to bore me to tears. I don't think I've watched it in five years, at least, and even before that only briefly. And I'm at peace with going to war because I pay attention, unlike some residents of Seattle.
Itâs not that conservatives mean to favor the rich over the poor and middle class. And itâs not that theyâd rather drill for oil than preserve the environment. Because itâs not really their fault. Theyâre just born that way.
It might be that many who're conservative used to be poor and have now achieved some sort of middle class stability. It might be that many are in the process of achieving that middle class stability and like the idea of the rules not being changed out from under them, and the idea of once they achieve some sort of economic stability that it won't be snatched away from them and given to somebody else.
And
More on this genetic pseudo-validation of the far leftâs superiority complex, at (where else?) the New York Times: Some Politics May Be Etched in the Genes.
#1
Iff one believs that any and all mortal humans have a living soul, and said soul is inherently or naturally "good", i.e. born "good", and such "good/goodness", however surreal, is akin to "natural" or innate "Perfection" as recognized by the soul, then its only "natural" for living human souls to seek the best in everyone, the world, and in reality, because "good" wants to work and be with the [other]"good". If RIGHTISM is defined as those common values that makes any organized group or society or nation the same, then Rightism and the Soul complement each other, NOT work against each other, regardless of any minutae differentiations!?
#2
Ahh, how I love to read a scholarly paper from the Lysenko Institute of Genetic Studies.
Actually, with the exception of America's Test Kitchen and Nova, PBS usually just threatens my ability to stay awake during pledge drives. (Seems like they have 'em every other week now. Zzzzz.)
Hey Ken, bring it. Just be man enough to take the punishment that is coming your way. I guess I sorta knock that house of cards to pieces. Then again, its like kicking puppies, picking on low grade morons like that author. But here goes anyway.
I'd compare SATs anytime. 780 verbal, 790 math. Masters, 2 bachelors, working on PhD.
IQ in excess of 160.
Life-long military and intelligence work. Some would say Patriotic. Catholic. Conservative. Classical (Edmund Burke) Liberal when it comes to freedom. American to my core.
And damn proud of it.
Now Kenny, go back to sleep, dont worry - there are plenty of us smart armed and patriotic types out here so you can sleep safe in your bed. Your betters in the military will take care of you even if you dont deserve it. Just dont think about us if we scare you that much that you have to make up lies about us to try to bring us down to your level.
Its really fairly pitiful that the author would spout pseudo scientific theories in order to comfort himself in his position as loser in a battle of intellgence, wills and ideals. Pitiful, but common in the self-delusional world the Left lives in these days.
Unlike the pusillanimous popinjay that penned the pitiful screed in question, I'm intelligent enough to know that freedom has a price, and honest enough to tell the truth about it; I know people who have paid that price.
#4
*Snicker* Ahh, yes. The New York Times once again presents us with a classic Insecure pseudointellectual (can someone give me the proper latin scientific classification for this common name? Thanks) slamming those he fears are better than he. Note the distinctive markings: claim of inherent genetic superiority, concern that environment may be a modifier (so he can blame it on Mummy and Daddy if he turns out to be wrong), egregious insult using childish images (piddling on the floor), and an unsubstantiated claim that dislike of one of his cherished icons equals intellectual inability.
#5
What about the converse? If being conservative is a matter of genetics, then so is the opposite. So the real argument (such as it is!) is that conservatives are from the "shallow end" of the gene pool, something that the Dems floated after the election, but it sank.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2005 8:14 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Then there is my sister, who probably voted for McGovern, who told me she is getting more and more conservative with time. I told her she was just a little slow, but with age and experience comes wisdom - at least in the folks with the good genes.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2005 8:16 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Ahh, yes. Genetic Superiority. Where have we heard that before. The left and the fascists have become one.
#8
Editor note: Three "conservatives is genetic" stories were two to many. Thank you.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2005 8:45 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Fire up those bread ovens! We have work to do!!
Posted by: Joseph Mengele ||
06/22/2005 8:59 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Ken Schram is seattle's village idiot who regularly appears on KOMO TV.
If conservativism is due to gentics then what Ken is saying is akin to racism or gay-bashing. "Oh they cant help themselves because they are [ black | asian | gay | conservative | female | etc... ]
His email address is: kenschram@komo4news.com and he welcomes commentary (which is why I post his emial -- be nice now.)
#14
Desert Blondie---Ah, T.D. Lysenko, now there is a quack that rose to power way beyond the Peter Principle. Classic case of power grab and politics above science and well-established agricultural practices. Read a book years ago called, "the Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko." As Minister of Agriculture (or whatever they called him) he set Soviet agriculture back decades with his vernalization crap, etc.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/22/2005 10:59 Comments ||
Top||
#15
I am a conservative, have never voted Democrat in my life, but I firmly believe that for the good political health of our country we need two (or more) parties willing to rationally and civilly present their ideas to the electorate.
When I read stuff like this, it seems as if the Democrats are basically saying, "We're losing elections because the voters are stupid. See? It's in their untermenschen genetics." Once one subscribes to that, there is no desire to debate, only to coerce.
#16
LOL. Though genetics have, by his own account, blessed Kenny with a liberal set of blinders, it seems to have shorted him on intelligence and good looks! Kenny wants attention and cries out for it yet he offers nothing of substance in his "commentary." Lazy tree hut scholar is the most generous description available for Kenny. Dreadnaught is right. Lazy Kenny's found an easy (and very dangerous) answer to what is a complex question. Kenny's a proud and ignorant voice for the new bigotry.
#19
Dr. Spook! I love it! And d@mn it, Old Spook, I only scored 1270 on SAT. Like the cowboy doing better at Yale than sKerry, methinks that Kenny is, oh, what do those psycho-babble call it? Oh yeah, PROJECTION! And, Dread, here's one of my favorite quotes describing how we grow up:
"If you're not liberal when you're younger, then you don't have heart/emotion. But if you're not conservative when you age, you're just flat out stupid!"
Posted by: BA ||
06/22/2005 14:22 Comments ||
Top||
#20
Actually, in a way, the genetics argument is true. I was a socialist until a pair of pretty brown eyes came along.
#21
Like many I started left - but...
Carter's little 28% interest rates destroyed my entry into the job market.
His dealing with the Shah and replacing him with a worse monster then pouting in the rose garden appalled me.
And I have to say it...
At the time I said that supporting Islam against the Russians in Afganistan would come back to bite us. It was a good 1 term policy but an awful long term one.
Never voted dem again.
Majority republican
Sometimes I vote for other parties
Sometimes I just write in Mickey Mouse
Once - anybody but the incumbent.
Oh and I don't know why Kerry bragged about his IQ and SAT. A president should be much smarter!
if my politics are genetically determined then I cant be blamed for them, since Im not really responsible for them... to paraphrase the argument on sexuality that the left likes to use.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
06/22/2005 18:15 Comments ||
Top||
WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Tuesday to inventory all offshore oil and gas resources _ a step environmentalists saw as a threat to bans on drilling _ and debated a challenge to President Bush's climate-change policies.
Many senators from coastal states criticized the offshore energy inventory as a prelude to gas drilling in waters that have been off limits to energy development for nearly a quarter-century. Supporters of the measure called it necessary to know what resources the country has available if they are needed. An attempt by Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and several other coastal senators to strip the inventory requirement from a broad energy bill was turned back 52-44.
Later the Senate turned its attention to climate change, one of the most contentious issues facing senators as they move toward approving sweeping energy legislation by the end of the week. The House passed its version of a national energy policy in April.
Most Republicans rallied around a climate proposal offered by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., which would avoid mandatory greenhouse emission cuts. It would focus instead on providing government incentives to develop and make available new technologies _ both domestically and for export to developing countries _ that would reduce carbon emissions.
A more ambitious proposal, strongly opposed by the White House, was expected to be offered by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., that would require greenhouse emissions to be cut back to where they were in 2000 within five years. It also would allow for an emissions credit trading system aimed at holding down the costs to industry. The two senators have argued that mandatory emission caps are needed to make progress on dealing with the potential of climate change.
The administration has opposed regulating carbon or other greenhouse gases, arguing that voluntary actions by industry already is reducing the growth of greenhouse emissions and to go further would harm the economy and raise energy prices. "The McCain-Lieberman amendment will put coal out of business," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, as he expressed his support for the Hagel proposal.
Hagel described his measure as "a market-driven, technology-based approach" to dealing with climate change without imposing mandatory emission-reduction requirements on industry. Yet it will dampen the growth of greenhouse gases both in the United States and in developing countries, he said.
It would establish a system of loan guarantees and provide other incentives to spur private companies to develop technologies that would capture carbon or promote development of cleaner coal and other fuels. Hagel acknowledged that the energy bill already contains incentives for such programs, but he said his proposal would focus more closely on emissions specifically affecting climate.
Environmentalists have dismissed Hagel's approach, arguing that it would do little to move climate policy beyond what the Bush administration already is doing: relying on voluntary industry measures and focusing not on actual reduction of greenhouse emissions, only on slowing their growth.
The inventory of oil and gas resources beneath the nation's Outer Continental Shelf was strongly criticized by some coastal senators who argued it would lead to drilling in areas that have been off limits to energy development since the 1980s. "It's the first step to drilling. It's the proverbial camel's nose under the tent," declared Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who said the Interior Department already is conducting an inventory of offshore energy resources every five years.
Proponents of the drilling inventory argued that the country needs to know more specifically what offshore oil and gas resources might be available in future years. "This gives Americans full information of what is there," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. "This is not a drilling amendment."
Oil and gas development has been banned for more than two decades in almost all of the country's coastal acreage outside the western Gulf of Mexico. Congress enacted the first moratorium in 1981 and later expanded its reach and reaffirmed it every year. A succession of presidents have continued the moratorium since 1990. The latest extension, issued by President Bush, expires in 2012.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2005 00:57 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So... rather than have our coasts explored and drilled for oil we should give away a significant portion of our national treasure to a bunch of Saudi oil-ticks?
Seems like a sad bargain to me.
Inventory! Explore! Exploit!
Use it now while we can... some day oil will be superceded by some other form of energy.
#2
Fastest way I can think of to reduce CO2 production is to cut interstate power lines into California and New York. Oil and gas pipelines too.
Posted by: ed ||
06/22/2005 1:54 Comments ||
Top||
#3
If Ted the Chappaquidic Amfib driver is against windmills near Martha's Vinyard, maybe he won't object to an offshore drilling platform instead as a constructive alternative.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/22/2005 2:14 Comments ||
Top||
#6
My first car was a 66 Delta 88. It rocked but needed premimum at a grade now called racing fuel!
It was a great car. He should have got jail time just for drowning the car let alone the girl.
400hp 425 SuperRocket with 13-1 (I think) compression ratio. (yeah it would sometimes continue on after shut off. Changing the sparkplug under the airconditioner really sucked too and was a great way to slice open your hand.)
It, also, taught me the danger of speed... I flew over a hill at 128MPH and saw a stop light, narrow bridge, town with lights and more. Started pumping the brakes and the fluid just boiled away.. Lucky all the lights were green. Slowly went to the side and waited for the breaks to cool before continuning the trip.
PHILADELPHIA, Miss., June 21 - In what is likely to be the final chapter in a story that has troubled a generation, a jury pronounced Edgar Ray Killen guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday in the deaths of three young and idealistic civil rights workers who disappeared on a summer night here exactly 41 years ago.
Mr. Killen, 80, sat in a wheelchair, the thin, greenish tubes of an oxygen tank under his nose, his expression impassive as the verdict was read aloud. Throughout the courtroom, people wept - the Killen family on the right, the victims' relatives on the left, as well as townspeople deeply invested in seeing the case brought to trial in hopes that Neshoba County could overcome its past.
Roscoe Jones, a tall, elderly black man with tear-rimmed eyes who had worked alongside the three men who died, pushed his way through the crowd to the side of Rita Bender, a diminutive white woman who had been married to one of them. "Excuse me," Mr. Jones said, politely urgent. "Excuse me." When he reached Ms. Bender, they embraced.
The disappearance of the three men, Andrew Goodman, 20, Michael Schwerner, 24, and James Earl Chaney, 21, on June 21, 1964, drew the national news media and hundreds of searchers to Neshoba County, while Mississippi officials said publicly that the disappearance was a hoax intended to draw attention. When the three bodies - two white, one black - were found under 15 feet of earth on a nearby farm, the nation's horror helped galvanize the civil rights movement.
Jurors said the evidence fell short of what they needed to convict Mr. Killen, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, of murder. "I should say I heard a number of very emotional statements from some of the white jurors," said Warren Paprocki, 54, a white juror. "They had tears in their eyes, saying that if they could just have better evidence in the case that they would have convicted him of murder in a minute. Our consensus was the state did not produce a strong enough case."
Rather hard after 40 years. The victims are still dead, though.
The defense plans to appeal. "At least he wasn't found guilty of a willful and wanton act," said James McIntyre, one of Mr. Killen's lawyers. "Manslaughter is a negligent act."
Although the federal government tried 18 men, including Mr. Killen, on a conspiracy charge in 1967, Mr. Killen - a preacher and sawmill operator - was the first to be charged by the state. The 1967 jury deadlocked over Mr. Killen, and he has maintained his innocence. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each count. With witnesses dead and memories fading, he could be the only one of the mob of Klansmen responsible for the killings to be tried.
"Finally, finally, finally," said Jim Prince, the editor of the local weekly newspaper, The Neshoba Democrat. "This certainly sends a message, I think, to the criminals and to the thugs that justice reigns in Neshoba County, unlike 41 years ago."
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
NMM, you're an asshat. Those boys all voted Democrat. They were the bastion of the southern, white Democrats. And they're still out there.
It took Everett Dirksen and the Republicans in the Senate to beat Robert Byrd's (D-KKK) filibuster of the Civil Rights Act. The Republican party today is just as committed to civil rights. I'm proud to be a part of that.
Again: you're an asshat, and a troll. And if trolling is all you're here to do (just from your notes today and yesterday), I've got a solution, since I'm an editor ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2005 0:12 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Hey! It was Exalted Cyclops! Y'all get it right!
Posted by: Senator Robert C. Byrd ||
06/22/2005 8:15 Comments ||
Top||
#9
This NotMikeMoore guy is new to me, but methinks he doth protesteth too much (apologies to W. Shakespeare). I think he IS Mike Moore!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2005 8:21 Comments ||
Top||
#10
NMM's an olde RB hand Bobby. He once threatened .com with the Justice Dept. It was a scream! I think you can do a search for Lindbergh Baby and find the thread.
#11
Didn't you read the other article, as a liberal, NMM is genetically superior, just like Edgar Ray Killen (believed he) was.
As for Killen (unfortunate name, that) ha, ha, loser. Murder statutes never die. I'm guessing a manslaughter charge, at this point, is a life sentence, like you deserved a long time ago.
#13
Ship (Bobby) - I'm kinda partial to the Thailand thread on that same day - when pedoboy couldn't resist projecting his closet dream perversion one too many times. AC ripped him several new assholes, lol! All around, it was a big NMM day - Lh even acknowledged that he *might* be trolling, lol! I'll bet that hurt. Anyway, a fun time was had by all - except NMikeyM the fuckwit.
Bobby there was one totally whacked out thing that NMM used to do: post insults late, just before or after rollover. Now back then you could post on any article at any time, which got pretty weird when someone would drop by and have a good screaming rant - on an article 6 months old, lol! But NMM was a stealth asshole for quite awhile - and most didn't realize it. I was in Thailand at that time, so I saw what he did and called him on it. What you saw today was actually more intelligent than his older "works" - check 'em out, lol!
Both Mr Bordet and Mr Lesbre worked for 10 years as waiters and hosts at the restaurant before being sacked in 2004 for allegedly drinking wine on the job.
"All I said was, 'you cook ze hamburger too long, and you do not use zat evil American cheese but a nice runny Chabichou du Poitou', and zoot alours, I was out on my, as you Americans say, keister!"
The civil suit claimed that the management of the restaurant "made fun of Mr Bordet's French accent" and "expressed glee" that "President Bush hated the French".
He doesn't hate them, he feels sorry that they're French. And what's wrong with your goofy, funny-sounding accent anyway, bub?
The three men are seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay and $5m (£2.7m) in damages.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
I don't feel 5 million sorry for them, but I think it's wrong if they were fired for being French. Just because the French are rude and self-righteous, we don't have to become like them.
These guys were there for 10 and 14 years. That's just wrong.
#8
Well, perhaps they are unwilling or incapable of changing with the times. It was once fashionable and chic to go to a French restaurant and be ridiculed and abused by the waiters when you failed to match their sneering Parisian accent.
Now, it's not amusing.
Of course, I rather like the point that Jackal made, too - a LOT, in fact, lol!
#10
You beat me to it, AA! I was wondering how hard these guys actually "worked." And, I know it's expensive to live/work in NYC, but come on, you're still a waiter at 63 and 68? When are ya gonna retire, and it's so un-French of you not to retire. Maybe that's the lead...they're actually un-French (fakes) and people saw through it and complained.
Posted by: BA ||
06/22/2005 14:07 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Good waiters in expensive restaurants make very good money. (Quick: calculate a 15% tip on a $500 dinner, assuming that the waiter can handle about four of those a night, six days a week.)
Chad residents voted overwhelmingly to allow President Idriss Deby to seek another term in office, according to results from a June 6 referendum revealed Tuesday. About 78 percent of voters in this central African country said yes to a constitutional change to permit Deby to run for a fourth consecutive term, said election official Djimtebaye Lapia. Deby had served for 15 years and was barred from seeking another five-year term. Chad's presidential election is set to be held next year. Deby, 53, seized power in a 1990 coup, but introduced multiparty politics in Chad in 1991 and went on to win elections in 1996 and 2001.
I can see why they sometimes forget to hold elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Police have begun destroying vegetable gardens planted by Zimbabwe's urban poor, extending a demolition campaign that initially targeted shacks and street vendor kiosks. Senior assistant police commissioner Edmore Veterai said urban farming on vacant plots of land was causing "massive environmental damage," state radio reported Tuesday. The crackdown _ at a time of food shortages in Zimbabwe _ is the latest escalation in the government's monthlong Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, which has seen police torch the shacks of poor city dwellers, arrest street vendors and demolish their kiosks. President Robert Mugabe was quoted Tuesday as saying concern about the campaign was misplaced and agreeing to allow in a U.N. observer.
Mugabe defends the campaign as a cleanup drive. The political opposition, which has its base among the urban poor, says the campaign is meant to punish its supporters. The United Nations estimates the campaign has left at least 1.5 million people homeless in the winter cold. Police say more than 30,000 have also been arrested, most of them street vendors the government accuses of sabotaging the failing economy by selling black market goods.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'm sure Anasty will be right on it, as soon as they finish their awareness campaign of the elevated cholesterol levels of the gunatanamo detainees.
#3
Whats next? Operation Mugabebatsvina? Will they next seal off all water wells and other sources of water because it harms the environment to drink so much water and people who wash frequently are probably trying to wash away their guilt? Perhaps only government approved water will be sold with a ChiCom Health Ministry seal of approval attached. Mugabubu and his Zimboland Nazi Party thugs will stop at nothing to leave their pig stained mark imbedded upon the oppressed people of Zimboland. Mugabubu is following the same old bloody trail of these rest of the evil clowns that have paraded back and forth over the bodies of the enslaved and dictated. If he thinks that his ChiCom buddies will bail him out he is mistaken. He is their puppet by default and when his strings are cut it is because the puppet don't sing and dance like he used to anymore. His asinine gyrations of appearing to lead Zimboland are so affense to almost not warrant comment except for the sad and brutal oppression of it's inhabitants. What a blood soaked slippery slope that Mugabubu is pushing the people of Zimboland down... and of course as the role of tin hat despot, its women & kids go first into the mouth of the lions. Mugabubu is shameless and pursues self-gratification to the enth degree. I would not put it passed him (her?) to chum up to Kimmy for advise on agro-undevelopment techniques to reduce population issues and thus reduce agro requirements. "Less people require less feeeding and result in less headache... thus Zimboland will be cleansed and I become a better father to my peopoles!"
#7
You can cut-and-paste the link, but might not want to. This article is putatively about ZimBobwe, but devotes 1 sentence to Bob-land:
Zimbabweâs government manipulated food shortages for political reasons.
and 3 paragraphs to the US: The US administrationâs attempts to dilute the absolute ban on torture through new policies and quasi-management speak such as "environmental manipulation", "stress positions" and "sensory manipulation", was one of the most damaging assaults on global values.
Despite the US administrationâs repeated use of the language of justice and freedom there was a huge gap between rhetoric and reality. This was starkly illustrated by the failure to conduct a full and independent investigation into the appalling torture and ill-treatment of detainees by US soldiers in Iraqâs Abu Ghraib prison and the failure to hold senior individuals to account.
"The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity," said Irene Khan.
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.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 22 (UPI) -- Leather Alley may have begun as just a 10-foot-by-10-foot display less than a decade ago -- but this year it'll be 7,800 square feet of San Francisco kink. Some 70 San Francisco-area fans of bondage and discipline plan to fill the air with the smell of leather and the sound of cracking whips this weekend as part of the annual San Francisco Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade and Celebration. 
Reflecting the disarray after last week's failed European Union summit meeting, leaders throughout the Continent have unleashed new criticism of one another, promoting their own visions for the future of Europe.
In a tongue-in-cheek dig at the French fear of eastern European competition, the Polish tourist board is using the image of a handsome plumber to promote Poland as a holiday destination. The board's website sports the image of a seductive blonde man clutching pipes and a monkey-wrench beneath the slogan, "I am staying in Poland -- come on over."
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Tuesday that Europe must choose between two futures: one as a politically united continent able to hold its own in a globalized economy and the other as an enfeebled trading bloc. In his first major speech since the collapse of talks late last week at a European Union summit, Schroeder said disagreement about Europe's future — not its stricken constitution or budget — was at the heart of the dispute. "The core question is: which Europe do we want? Do we want a united Europe capable of acting, a real political union ... or do we want to limit ourselves to being a large free-trade zone?" 
A Muslim cleric who condoned wife-beating in a widely publicized interview that alarmed the government last year was cleared of criminal charges on Tuesday. Abdelkader Bouziane, whose comments prompted the government to expel him to his native Algeria, was accused of "provocation to commit an assault." He was tried in absentia.
Police have begun destroying vegetable gardens planted by Zimbabwe's urban poor, extending a demolition campaign that initially targeted shacks and street vendor kiosks. Senior assistant police commissioner Edmore Veterai said urban farming on vacant plots of land was causing "massive environmental damage," state radio reported Tuesday. The crackdown _ at a time of food shortages in Zimbabwe _ is the latest escalation in the government's monthlong Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, which has seen police torch the shacks of poor city dwellers, arrest street vendors and demolish their kiosks. President Robert Mugabe was quoted Tuesday as saying concern about the campaign was misplaced and agreeing to allow in a U.N. observer. 
