LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Microsoft analyst has won an annual contest celebrating bad writing by comparing fixing carburetors to fondling a woman's breasts.
I'm not surprised someone from Microsoft won a bad writing contest, I'm only surpried it wasn't for one of their support manuals.
"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual," went Dan McKay's winning entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
I'll never look at a Triumph the same way again
McKay, 43, of North Dakota was said by organizers on Thursday to be visiting China "perhaps to escape notoriety for his dubious literary achievement." He wins $250.
The California San Jose State University contest challenges entrants to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels and has attracted entries from around the world for 23 years. It was inspired by 19th century novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" with the now immortal words, "It was a dark and stormy night." San Jose State English Professor Scott Rice said that judging the contest "is a hoot." "By and large the entries are submitted by serious readers who have a notion about what is good and bad writing. That is what is heartening," Rice said.
In a contest that now has several sub categories, the winner in the children's literature section was sent in by Shelby Leung of New South Wales, Australia.
"The woods were all a-twitter with rumors that the Seven Dwarves were planning a live reunion after their attempted solo careers had dismally sputtered into Z-list oblivion and it was all just a matter of meeting a ten-page list of outlandish demands (including 700-threadcount Egyptian cotton bedsheets, lots of white lilies and a separate trailer for the magic talking mirror) to get the Princess Formerly Known As Snow White on board."
Posted by: Steve ||
08/01/2005 11:44 ||
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PFKASW - LMAO!
Posted by: Dar ||
08/01/2005 13:00 Comments ||
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PFKASW?
Posted by: Mike ||
08/01/2005 13:43 Comments ||
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Princess Formerly Known As Snow White on board."
#7
Exactly why is "It was a dark and stormy night" bad writing?
I have always wondered this myself. I use to think it was because "dark...night" is redundant, but if you know anything at all about nights, you know that some are darker than others.
In any case, the real reason it's considered bad writing is because the full opening sentence is this: "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
BELGRADE (Reuters) - After twice receiving a tax bill, an enraged Serb stormed the tax office, started shooting and tried to set the tax chief and the building on fire, Serb media reported Friday.
Serbs, why do they hate........oh, yeah, they're Serbs.
Nebojsa Miladinovic, a saw-mill owner in his fifties, tried for days to convince tax officials in the central town of Gornji Milanovac he had paid his 192,200 dinar ($2,794) bill. They said he had not, sent the bill again and blocked his bank account.
Sounds like tax officials are the same everywhere.
After arguing his case Thursday, Miladinovic returned, doused tax chief Gojko Stefanovic and the office files with petrol, shot at computers and yelled "I was ripped off."
A tad excessive, but I guess he got his point across.
Two people were injured in the melee and parts of the office caught fire, with panicked staff escaping through the windows.
"Run away!"
Police arrested Miladinovic, whom neighbors described as a hard worker who never made trouble. Witnesses said he even paid for parking his car in front of the tax office before the rampage.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/01/2005 11:27 ||
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So, did they abate the tax bill? I have to call the Mass. DOR in an hour; I need to know this stuff.
#1
He's still the Man! I can't help but agree with his current assessment of the "idiots" green-lighting movies in Hollywood lately either. Look at what they're re-hashing and dumping on us: Bewitched, War of the Worlds, The Bad News Bears, Herbie, The Honeymooners, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc. etc. Nothing but remakes because none of those idiots can have an original idea.
Posted by: Dar ||
08/01/2005 9:38 Comments ||
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ima go wach "derbee ogills an em litter peples" tonite fro selebrashens mr. kornerys career.
Hildegarde, 99, the cabaret sensation whose elegant piano and vocal style -- combined with flirty banter and a champagne smile -- made her an icon of nightclub sophistication for decades, died July 29 at a hospital in New York. The cause of death was undisclosed.
I'm guessing it was old age. What's your guess?
From vaudeville obscurity, Hildegarde became one of the highest-paid performers of the 1940s. Specializing in such wistful songs as Jerome Kern's "The Last Time I Saw Paris" and Noel Coward's "I'll See You Again," her substantial recording career, high-profile musical engagements and onstage charm brought her such nicknames as "The Incomparable Hildegarde" and the "First Lady of the Supper Clubs." The second came from another first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2005 00:00 ||
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But did she ever do the Ed Sullivan Show? Sophie Tucker used to perform there as "the last of the red-hot mamas."
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
08/01/2005 1:57 Comments ||
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..She used to show up on the old Jack Paar Tonight show a lot, s well as the Ed Sulivan Show and the Merv Griffin Show. She was a little bit of history and entertainment that we won't see again.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/01/2005 7:06 Comments ||
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But Fred,
No one dies of old age anymore. Why it would screw up the statistical collection process that is the heart of every demand for more studies, more money. No one ever considers death to be a zero sum game. Its nature pie chart. Reduce death in one catagory, you only create an increase in another. More studies, more money!
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba's Communist Party on Monday harshly criticized the U.S. government for creating a post to oversee a transition on the Caribbean island, accusing American officials of intruding in the country's domestic business. U.S. President George W. Bush "once again meddles in a rude manner in the internal affairs of Cuba by naming one of his men to publicly coordinate subversive actions against the island," the Granma newspaper said in a signed editorial.
Caleb McCarry, a veteran congressional staff expert on Latin America, was appointed last week to the new post aimed at preparing for a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. The move was criticized by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque on Friday and by Cuban Parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon on Saturday. The post of "transition coordinator" that is being filled by McCarry grew out of a 2004 report on Cuba prepared by a commission headed by then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. The report outlined the steps that the United States was prepared to take to assist a democratic Cuba and to bring pressure to bear on Fidel Castro's government in the meantime.
"In Iraq, a U.S. coordinator was also named ... but for that they had to wait to invade and militarily occupy the nation," the editorial said.
I like that we're planning ahead. I can't see any military action unless the "transition" got really bloody and threatened to spill over or if the flood of refugees got out of hand.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/01/2005 11:00 ||
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How's that ticker, Fidel? Any rumba beats today?
#2
"In Iraq, a U.S. coordinator was also named ... but for that they had to wait to invade and militarily occupy the nation," the editorial said.
He didn't notice the earlier announcement about troop withdrawals from Iraq. The General didn't say where they'd withdraw to. Gitmo getting crowded, may need some more room.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized a trade deal that eliminates barriers between the United States and Central American countries, calling it a misguided deal that will harm the region's small economies. Chavez, a frequent critic of the U.S. government, also said he had read reports of President Bush "putting money in circulation to buy votes and to blackmail, through the so-called (U.S.) intelligence agencies, to approve an initiative which is perverse."
Chavez did not give other details of his source or the claims, which have been made by some opponents of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The House of Representatives narrowly approved the agreement Thursday in a 217-215 vote, four weeks after the Senate backed the measure. The trade deal eliminates barriers between the United States and Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Chavez says that is the wrong strategy for small countries with a history of domination by the United States. "It would harm the economies and societies much more in our sister Central America," Chavez said during his weekly television and radio show.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2005 00:00 ||
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If Hugo,the Unionsand Dems are against it it must be good.
Is it just me or is Hugo dipping into the Bolivian marching powder a bit heavily?
#3
Free trade exposes the nasty bits of a socialist economy and it avoids greedy government fingers along the way.
If we get free trade throughout the hemesphere with the exception of Venezuela and Cuba it'll be fun watching them rationalize their increasing poverty while the rest are able to sell their goods and prosper.
Because economic indicators in a dictatorship are possible to fudge; you can't take this completely at face value. However, if China does manage to gradually cool their overheated economy without a crash, it will be good news for the world economy; a it will take some of the pressure off world oil prices without drastically upsetting the various trade protocols and agreements. Of course, its an IF.
BEIJING (Reuters) - A pair of reports on Chinese manufacturing issued Monday reinforced views that the country's economy is gradually cooling.
Hong Kong-based brokerage CLSA said its purchasing managers' index for China rose to 51.5 in July from 51.0 in June.
The increase, the first in four months, signaled a slightly stronger rate of improvement in China's manufacturing sector, but it was still the third-weakest reading since the index was launched in April 2004.
An index based on a separate survey of purchasing managers conducted for the National Bureau of Statistics painted a less rosy picture. The index fell for the fourth straight month in July, to 51.1 from 51.7 in June.
However, both indexes remained above the 50 mark, indicating manufacturing expansion; a reading below 50 shows contraction.
#2
The question that remains to be answered is this: How real is the Chinese economy? What part of the various numbers can we trust?
If China is a Ponzi scheme, as I maintain, any slowing of the economy causes collapse. If China is a struggling yet developing First World economy, then they have a recession with some benefits to prices world-wide.
I just don't find it believable that China can be an economic success and still have 80% of its population living in Third World conditions. The nation doesn't have enough water, enough electricity, enough raw materials and way too many people.
#3
I still think the Chinese are trying to prevent complete collapse. They are in debt up to their eyeballs, 60% at least of bank loans are bad, growing discontent from the country-bumpkins, shrinking GDP while having a growing military budget....sounds like a Soviet Union type collapse in the making.
#4
This has the air of a thousand economists claiming "I saw it years ago!" Once it's all over, that is.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/01/2005 10:44 Comments ||
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This has been years in the planning. Not just from the Chinese gnomes, but from the EU's, the US's, and every serious economic player in the world. All of them, united, put on a dog & pony show for the real government in China of *exactly* what was going to happen under a dozen different economic scenarios. The end result is that what is happening now is as carefully scripted as an operatic ballet. N.B.: the Chinese have long had the nickname "The Jews of the Orient", not in a deragatory sense, but in respect to their aptitude with economics and finance, apart from that silly glitch known as Marxism.
#6
moose, one of the errors in perception that I believe many pundits make is to assume that the technocrats are in charge in China. The reality may be very different. China has been behaving as if the world economy has no influence on its internal economy, and that the world must come to China in the end. Neither is true, and I suspect the reality is that the "Middle Kingdom" oligarchs are the ones in charge. Not a good thing for China.
#8
CS: The question that remains to be answered is this: How real is the Chinese economy? What part of the various numbers can we trust?
As real as the physical plant springing up all over its boomtowns bearing names like Siemens, Nokia, etc. As real as the shoe and textile factories that supply products to Nike, Adidas, Ralph Lauren, JC Penney, etc. As real as the furniture factories that supply first-rate leather and other furniture for a fraction of the price of a La-Z-Boy.
CS: If China is a Ponzi scheme, as I maintain, any slowing of the economy causes collapse. If China is a struggling yet developing First World economy, then they have a recession with some benefits to prices world-wide.
A Ponzi scheme is one where people put in money that is then squandered by the organizer of the scheme on expensive baubles. Asian and Western investors with decades of experience in light and heavy manufacturing are putting up plants in China to pump out products at the fraction of the cost they would incur elsewhere. This is not a Ponzi scheme - low input costs will attract investment. Why do you think Detroit is a shell of its former self, and auto plants in lower cost areas like Ohio and Alabama are thriving?
CS: I just don't find it believable that China can be an economic success and still have 80% of its population living in Third World conditions.
China is an economic success *relative* to the basket cases of the world. It is a success only in the limited sense that its economy is growing faster than most countries around the world. The reason it is growing so rapidly is because most of its population is desperately poor due to underemployment - this makes their labor extremely cheap. The average peasant makes as little as $25 a month. In China's industrial boomtowns, he gets to double his salary to $50 - and in many cases, he can quadruple it to $100 a month, if he learns a trade.
But this gap is exactly why the vast majority of the peasants will remain quiescent - they have a well-defined path to prosperity. The real danger to China's rulers doesn't come from the peasants - it comes from urban dwellers who are losing their jobs, pensions, housing and free health care, as China's state-owned companies are privatized, one after another.
CS: The nation doesn't have enough water, enough electricity, enough raw materials and way too many people.
Saudi Arabia doesn't have enough water. (But it gets by using reverse osmosis water plants). China has no lack of water. The seasonal floods that displace millions and kill thousands are ample evidence of this fact. The problem is that a lot of it is either wasted or not collected.
The electricity issue is related to rapid economic growth and subsidies. Without rapid economic growth, power demand wouldn't be a problem. Without subsidies, power supply wouldn't be a problem.
And raw materials really aren't an issue. The East Asian countries that industrialized in the 70's, 80's and 90's imported most of their raw materials. Most of those countries did not grow cotton but were major textile exporters. Most of those countries grew little in the way of pigs or cattle, but were major leather products exporters. The raw materials issues that the Chinese government is always on about relate to wartime-related supply lines - anything imported from abroad is vulnerable - in a fight with Uncle Sam.
As to too many people, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Population is a strength, not a weakness. The reason China was always a major economic, cultural and technological colossus in the past was because of its immense population. Communism turned a strength into a weakness in China, just socialism did the same to India. The US is a major economic and military power because it has a population of close to 300m. If the US population was 3m, American influence would be similar to Belgium's.
Another overlooked aspect is that China has among the lowest population densities in East Asia. China's is 140 per sq km, whereas Japan's, Korea's and Taiwan's are 339, 493 and 696 per sq km respectively - a difference that doesn't even take into account the fact that most of China is relatively flat, whereas most of Japan, Korea and Taiwan are relatively hilly. Overpopulation isn't the reason for China's backwardness - decades of communist economic policies are.
A Ponzi scheme is one where people put in money that is then squandered by the organizer of the scheme on expensive baubles. Asian and Western investors with decades of experience in light and heavy manufacturing are putting up plants in China to pump out products at the fraction of the cost they would incur elsewhere. This is not a Ponzi scheme - low input costs will attract investment. Why do you think Detroit is a shell of its former self, and auto plants in lower cost areas like Ohio and Alabama are thriving?
The question then arises about where the lower input costs are coming from. I keep hearing stuff like "such and such a plant in China's going to be able to undercut everyone else because it has much lower steel costs than everywhere else" and I wonder how it makes sense given that China imports large amounts of steel on the international market and should be paying the same price that everyone else does.
The only way the steel itself could be cheaper is if the government's subsidizing it or otherwise manipulating the price.
What I _suspect_ happened is that they gained a foothold in the semi-disposable-electronics department thanks to much more lax environmental regulations than here (i.e. they don't strongly enforce any of the laws against CFC-based circuit board cleaning agents) and they borrowed heavily against it to subsidize their entries into a large number of industries (like hand tools).
I can assure you that the electronics (motherboards, for instance) and hand tools I've seen coming out of China are very often of substandard quality. We wound up buying, a couple years back, some extra-cheap allen and torx wrenches from Harbor Freight that were made in China and in the end turned out to be much more expensive than buying similar tools from Sears... it turned out they were made from anodized aluminum, and not phosphated steel...
(And don't get me started about the memory I got last month, stamped "Made in China," just like the motherboard it wouldn't fit into...)
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/01/2005 13:10 Comments ||
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PF: The question then arises about where the lower input costs are coming from. I keep hearing stuff like "such and such a plant in China's going to be able to undercut everyone else because it has much lower steel costs than everywhere else" and I wonder how it makes sense given that China imports large amounts of steel on the international market and should be paying the same price that everyone else does.
Could be because the journalist who reported the story (and his source) don't know what he's talking about. Apart from factual announcements (or acquisitions, bankruptcies, etc), a lot financial news opinion is worth what you paid for it - $1. After all, they're written and researched by journalists, who really don't know anything from anything - if they did, they'd be doing, not reporting.
The reason China has lower costs for a lot of stuff is because of cheap land and cheap labor. The fact that you can't find an explanation for why China has lower costs indicates not that China's cost advantage is inexplicable, but that you may not know enough about the history of how lower costs have been the basis of East Asia's industrialization in the post-WWII era. China is not the first country in East Asia to have made products based on flat-rolled steel or to have imported substantial amounts of steel at world prices to feed domestic demand. South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and much of East Asia all preceded China. This is how they industrialized - by moving up the ladder in industry after industry.
#11
PF: What I _suspect_ happened is that they gained a foothold in the semi-disposable-electronics department thanks to much more lax environmental regulations than here (i.e. they don't strongly enforce any of the laws against CFC-based circuit board cleaning agents) and they borrowed heavily against it to subsidize their entries into a large number of industries (like hand tools).
Lax environmental regulations might be part of it, but the major factor is the fact that electronics goods manufactured in small runs require a lot of manual assembly. And manual assembly in China costs $0.50 an hour for top quality labor, in comparison to $15 an hour (including bennies) in a bottom of the barrel assembly plant in New Jersey.
PF: I can assure you that the electronics (motherboards, for instance) and hand tools I've seen coming out of China are very often of substandard quality. We wound up buying, a couple years back, some extra-cheap allen and torx wrenches from Harbor Freight that were made in China and in the end turned out to be much more expensive than buying similar tools from Sears... it turned out they were made from anodized aluminum, and not phosphated steel...
The motherboards (and most other products) coming out of China are not made by Chinese manufacturers - they're made by foreign manufacturers with plants in China. Motherboards in particular are dominated by Taiwanese and South Korean manufacturers. The reason you got cheap crap was because you decided to buy based on price. The Craftsman tools you got from Sears are probably also made in China (typically by a foreign company), but Sears paid up, and got a better product. Even with Chinese-made goods, you get what you pay for - the domestic firms have lower prices, but the foreign firms have better quality control. But even the foreign firms will compete based on price when they have to, leaving quality control inspection in the hands of the consumer.
PF: (And don't get me started about the memory I got last month, stamped "Made in China," just like the motherboard it wouldn't fit into...)
I have bought memory assembled in all kinds of places - Taiwan, Japan, China, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, etc. The only instances when I've had issues is when I bought generic memory - whether it was made in Japan, Korea, Taiwan or China. When you buy generic memory, you are buying the rejects - the items that did not pass quality control consistently.
Give me the name of your motherboard manufacturer, and I'll tell you its country of origin - I bet it wasn't even a Chinese company, most of which aren't sophisticated enough to manufacture motherboards. In fact, I don't know of a single Chinese manufacturer of motherboards. All of them are foreign transplants where the entire physical plant was moved to China.
#13
Article: An index based on a separate survey of purchasing managers conducted for the National Bureau of Statistics painted a less rosy picture. The index fell for the fourth straight month in July, to 51.1 from 51.7 in June.
Here are the equivalent stats for the US since 1948.
#14
I can't imagine that excess Chinese population will be as much of a problem starting about a decade on. I don't want to even think about how many blood donors will be dying of AIDS (entire villages all at once, from the mixed plasma that was reinjected into their veins), SARS, the new Pig Flu/Ebola thingy that's already killed at least 34 people... all those aborted baby girls who won't be mothering their fair share of the next generation. And if China is foolish enough to try to invade Taiwan or India, they could lose masses of young men in only a few days, taking even more pressure off the economy.
#15
TW: I can't imagine that excess Chinese population will be as much of a problem starting about a decade on.
China will have a huge population for a while yet. I think the one-child policy is a stopgap to ease the pressure from the wreckage of 30+ years of communist economic policies. Ordinary Chinese are having more than one child. They're just hiding it from the authorities, some of whom are bribed into ignoring it.
TW: I don't want to even think about how many blood donors will be dying of AIDS (entire villages all at once, from the mixed plasma that was reinjected into their veins), SARS, the new Pig Flu/Ebola thingy that's already killed at least 34 people...
All exaggerated. I think some NGO's came up with the statistic that half of all Africans were infected with AIDS. I'm still waiting for the big die-off. China has some real issues with accountability over disease control, but the basic habits of soap and water inculcated among schoolchildren have ensured that there will be no big pandemics emerging from China.
TW: all those aborted baby girls who won't be mothering their fair share of the next generation.
Actually, China has dealt with huge shortages of women for millenia. The old problem was that women would die in childbirth. This is why the bride price was invented, whereby the groom's family had to pay the bride's family a significant sum of money for the bride's hand. In the old days, wealthy men had as many concubines as they wanted, and poor men did without, or paid for the company of women, as they do today.
TW: And if China is foolish enough to try to invade Taiwan or India, they could lose masses of young men in only a few days, taking even more pressure off the economy.
If China was looking to lose masses of men, it wouldn't be spending all this money on research and development and buying cutting edge American technology from our *ally* Israel and building modern warships. They'd send their people over on fishing boats to Taiwan. Note that the last time the Communists fought the Nationalists - it was the Nationalists, not the Communists, who ended up retreating to Taiwan. And the last time China fought the Indians, let's just say that a significant chunk of Indian land ended up in Chinese hands - this at a time when the Chinese were significantly under-equipped compared to the Indians.
#16
"I think some NGO's came up with the statistic that half of all Africans were infected with AIDS. I'm still waiting for the big die-off. "
Ive never seen that claim. Its that about a third of adults in a few southern african countries, like Botswana, are infected. And yes, the death rates in those countries have increased (dont forget, in a country where the normal life expectany is in the 40's catching a fatal disease when youre 30 that takes upto a decade to kill you wont increase the death rate all THAT dramatically.
#17
In the last 3 months China has become a substantial net exporter of steel. This has been cited as evidence of a sharp slowdown in their economy. It could equally well be evidence that they overbuilt plant. Overbuilding is the reason busts follow booms.
#18
phil_b: In the last 3 months China has become a substantial net exporter of steel.
If that's true, supply has finally caught up with demand. I would sell coal stocks - at least of the kind used for steel. Retailers are also about to see *declines* in the cost of goods made with steel. Now I understand why Chinese steel companies were looking for substantial discounts on iron ore from Rio Tinto - the party's coming to an end, at least until the high-cost players get weeded out. This may mean a lot of non-Chinese companies in the steel industry, including the Japanese and US producers.
Could be because the journalist who reported the story (and his source) don't know what he's talking about. Apart from factual announcements (or acquisitions, bankruptcies, etc), a lot financial news opinion is worth what you paid for it - $1. After all, they're written and researched by journalists, who really don't know anything from anything - if they did, they'd be doing, not reporting.
Zhang, this was not something I heard from a journalist, but from someone doing business in the country. I can't really talk about it any more. Have a nice day!
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/01/2005 21:44 Comments ||
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AUSTRALIAN girls as young as 14 have been flown overseas and forced to marry older men in an attempt by their families to protect them from promiscuity and Western influences at home.
The Australian embassy in Beirut has been approached by 12 women in the past two years - seven of them minors - seeking help to return to Australia to escape arranged marriages.
Diplomats met Islamic clerics and Arabic community leaders in Sydney and Melbourne last year asking for their help to prevent women being taken abroad to marry against their will, The Australian has learned.
Australian ambassador in Lebanon Stephanie Shwabsky said women were arriving at the embassy seeking help to return to Australia after fleeing their new husbands.
"The cases that come to our attention are very serious," Ms Shwabsky said. "The young people involved are very upset and want our assistance and protection."
In one case, a 14-year-old girl arrived alone at the embassy seeking consular assistance, saying she had effectively been imprisoned in the home of a man she had been forced to marry by her father, who had taken her to Lebanon promising her a holiday.
Consular staff made contact with her mother in Australia and organised her flight home.
Ms Shwabsky said it appeared that many of the teenagers were unaware they were going to be married when they travelled to Lebanon, where the legal age for marriage is 16.
In most cases, the teenagers are married into families in northern Lebanon, were such marriage traditions are still strong.
Australia's most prominent Islamic cleric, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, said he had heard about girls who had been taken to Lebanon for arranged marriages, a practice he condemned as "unfair for the children" and against religious teaching.
"It's against Islam," he said. "This is cultural thinking, not religious. "They (the parents) want her (their daughter) to be safe, and to bring the families closer together, but these marriages are not true and are unfair for the children."
He also expressed concern about marriages of convenience by overseas husbands wanting to live in Australia. He said Australian women of all ages were travelling to Lebanon so they could marry, but some men consented only so they could emigrate to Australia. The husband would then divorce his wife after living with her for two years and qualifying for a permanent resident's visa. Ms Shwabsky has written to Arabic media in Australia warning against forced marriages and meets regularly with religious leaders and politicians in Lebanon who oppose the practice.
"The communities that have the highest number of these cases, I have spoken both publicly and privately with opinion-makers and local and senior clergy, including the chief judge of the Sunni Court in Tripoli," she said.
"In addition, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra has also spoken to religious and community leaders." She said the embassy worked with local government, legal officials and families to help the victims fly home to Australia.
While teenagers rarely married before the Australian legal age of 18, many were facing pressure to get engaged as early as possible to avoid losing their religious and cultural identities and to protect themselves from Western lifestyles, including sex before marriage.
"My cousin got married at 17 to a man around 28 years old," one teenage girl said. "She completed half of Year 11 and now she's having a baby. She always tells me that I am wasting my time studying."
Rather than refuse, girls were eager to find a husband in their communities that placed the highest value on marriage and raising a family, welfare workers said. Others obliged because they felt unable to integrate into a society they think distrusts Muslims in the wake of the war on terrorism.
The welfare workers fear these girls are reducing their employment options and financial independence and isolating themselves from mainstream society. They stress many arranged marriages are loving and successful but question whether young teenagers fully understand the responsibilities.
"Because of the ongoing tensions after September 11, rightly or wrongly they think that whatever chances they had of integration prior to September 11 don't exist now," Islamic Women's Welfare Council of Victoria manager Joumanah El Matrah said.
"And it's not a sense of blame or anger, it's being pragmatic. They are going to just live quietly and exist on the fringes. It's quite bleak."
The council has repeatedly approached the Victorian Government for funding to address the issue, involving possibly several hundred girls, but have so far been refused.
"It's just like a black hole," Ms El Matrah said. "You put your concerns forward and (government officials) are sympathetic but nothing evolves."
Posted by: God Save The World ||
08/01/2005 19:47 ||
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French aren't really Evil(tm), they're just confused about their place in the world, besieged by doubt and false ideologies, and badly led by unresponsive so-called "elites".
By Kim Willsher in Paris
The President of one of the world's biggest advertising agencies has issued a damning state-of-the-nation assessment that describes France as being in steep decline and his countrymen as "narrowed and stunted".
For good measure, he described the 35-hour week as "absurd" and the wails of complaint that followed Paris's loss of the Games to London as "pathetic".
His forthright critique was published in the opinion section on the front page of the respected daily newspaper Le Monde.
"What I wrote was hard, but true. France is not in a crisis, it's worse than that. A crisis is usually sudden and short, while we are in an endemic situation," he said. "I've just had enough and wanted to say what I felt."
"The Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry has reminded us of our [public] debt and the fact that we are living beyond our means. We knew the figures, yet no government for the last 20 years has wanted to draw a conclusion from them. The figures that attest to our decline are known to all."
He said that unemployment, at more than 10 per cent, was a "cancer that gnawed at our society", complaining that companies had lost their competitiveness and that job creation had broken down.
"The general gloom is based on the idea that nothing can be done and nobody seems to have a solution. In fact our politicians have long played fathers of the nation, protecting their flock and hoping to save we the children from crises. It's praiseworthy and generous. Thank you. But it doesn't prepare us for the harsh realities of life.
"Remember the day after the first petrol shock, when the Dutch took to their bicycles to save petrol while our good president explained to us that we could (and deserved to) set off in our cars for our weekends away.
"Later, when it was necessary, alas, to make redundancies, the compensation was set at 90 per cent, therefore allowing those made redundant to earn yet more without working. Why in that case, make any effort to find a job? In doing this, trying to avoid any difficulties for them, we have turned the French into children.
"The final straw has to be the absurd decision to introduce the 35-hour working week when we were told repeatedly that we could work less and earn more. How on earth in this context can we expect the same French people to accept necessary reforms?"
#2
Sounds like he has a solid handle on the problems of not only France, but western Europe. There are some very painful, but nessisary changes needed to their economies and cultures. Kinda like surgery. It hurts, takes a while to get healthy, but is better for you in the log run and can keep you from dying.
#4
Lots of Jews converted to Christianity in the old days, Shipman. The patronym is not a clear indicator. Think of the composer Mendelsohn, whose father had all the children baptized so they'd be able to make careers outside the ghetto. Or for that matter, somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of my mother's cousins in Germany before the war, who'd been Christian for a couple of generations. Although to be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if anyone carrying a Jewish surname would experience at least some prejudice in Europe, regardless of his personal beliefs. And no doubt that could colour his thinking. ;-)
Mods, please put this article in the appropriate category. Thanks! :-) via Drudge.
Federal authorities (specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. ICE is an arm of the Homeland Security Department.) arrested 582 alleged gang members over a two-week period, officials said Monday, targeting an estimated 80 violent groups they say have spawned street crimes across the country.
Investigators picked up most of the offenders between July 16 and July 28 on immigration violations for being in the United States illegally. Good! Seventy-six face criminal charges, ranging from illegal possession of a firearm to holding fraudulent documents.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the gangs "a threat to our homeland security and ... a very urgent law enforcement priority....For too long, these gangs have gone unchecked _ flouting all laws and demonstrating a blatant disregard for public safety."
Investigators targeted members in 27 states of what they considered to be the most violent street gangs, including Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13; Surenos; the 18th Street Gang; Latin Kings; the Mexican Mafia; Border Brothers; Brown Pride and numerous others.
Many of the arrests came in large urban areas, including 61 in Boston, 28 in Denver, and 23 each in Los Angeles and Detroit. But even smaller cities have been infiltrated by the gangs, the arrests showed, including 42 in Birmingham, Ala., and one each in Grand Rapids, Mich.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; and North Platte, Neb.
The crackdown is part of ICE's ongoing "Operation Community Shield" campaign, targeting gang activity with other federal and state authorities. So far, ICE has made 1,057 arrests as part of the sting.
More than half of them have been members of MS-13, a street gang rooted in Central America where members have been known to behead enemies and attack with grenades and machetes. Federal officials estimate between 8,000 and 10,000 MS-13 members live in 31 states _ the majority of them in the country illegally.
"We're just getting started," said ICE investigations chief Marcy Forman.
Hillary Clinton isn't running for president, but her campaign already has started in New Hampshire.
A group, Hillary Now!, this week will run TV ads in Manchester, Concord, Portsmouth, Salem and Nashua, pushing the New York senator for president in 2008. The group has no official ties to Clinton's office, but its president, Bob Kunst, of Miami Beach, said he is laying the foundation for her possible bid for the presidency.
"Hillary is the strongest Democrat. She's the most popular woman in the country," said Kunst, who believes the polarizing senator will attract votes from Republicans who are unhappy with the Bush administration.
"The party simply says, 'Well, Hillary divisive, Hillary controversial.' We say that is an asset, not a liability," Kunst said. "Nobody gets attacked like her, but on the other hand nobody has the support like her."
Clinton has not openly declared ambitions for the presidency, though she is perennially mentioned as a contender. She received more than 600 write-in votes for vice president during the 2004 New Hampshire primary. Press Secretary Philippe Reines said Clinton is flattered by Kunst's efforts, but is concentrating on getting re-elected to the Senate next year.
Only night owls will see the animated ad, which airs Tuesday through Thursday on cable news from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. The commercial casts Clinton as President Bush's trash collector, emptying trash cans labeled "Iraq," "War on Terror" "Health Care" and "Budget" into a garbage truck for "Bush's Mess," while a giggling President Bush hides on the White House lawn.
State Republican chairman Warren Henderson declared the advertisement "vintage Democrat.... It's all about complaining and not one specific solution," he said.
Kunst makes his living in tourism marketing, but said he has been working full-time for two years to draft Clinton, holding more than 100 news conferences during that time. On Monday, he held a solo news conference in Concord, spreading a hand-lettered "Hillary '2008'" sign in front of a lectern, and offering reporters pieces of chocolate chip cookie his group sells to raise money.
"He's kind of a gadfly, but every party needs their gadflies," said Raymond Buckley, vice chairman of New Hampshire's Democratic party.
Kunst may be Clinton's biggest cheerleader, but he isn't shy about critiquing her. Lately, he is upset with her for speaking out against sexually explicit video games, instead of taking strong stands against terrorist bombings in London and Egypt.
"If she's attempting to appeal to the right wing, it's a losing proposition. They're not going to vote for her anyway," said Kunst, who would like to see Clinton leverage her star status by coming out in favor of popular issues, like legalizing marijuana.
"Hillary's got star quality and star power and she's just something different," he said. "She needs to deal with the controversies and come up with legitimate answers and approaches." Expect the darkest conspiracies against Hillary from her own party. There are many democrats who hate her with a deep and abiding passion.
#1
Hillary is hated by almost every political hack and party. She still has a strong base in the liberal Democrats, but enough of them in the higher ups can make a run at the white house impossible if she doesn't coddle up to them. She will run, I think, but I doubt she will pass the primaries.
I have also seen ads for Rice in '08.
This is gonna be a strange next two electoral cycles.
White House press doyenne Helen Thomas is plenty peeved at her longtime friend Albert Eisele, editor of THE HILL newspaper in Washington, D.C. In a column this week headlined "Reporter: Cheney's Not Presidential Material," Eisele quoted Thomas as saying "The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself. All we need is one more liar." Thomas also said: "I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does," according to Eisele's column.
But Thomas said yesterday at the White House that her comments to Eisele were for his ears only. "I'll never talk to a reporter again!" Thomas was overheard saying. "We were just talking -- I was ranting -- and he wrote about it. That isn't right. We all say stuff we don't want printed," Thomas said.
But Eisele said that when he called Thomas, "I assume she knew that we were on the record." "She's obviously very upset about it, but it was a small item -- until Drudge picked it up and broadcast it across the universe," Eisele said. Still, he noted that reporters aren't that happy when the tables are turned. "Nobody has thinner skin than reporters," Eisele said with a laugh.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/01/2005 15:38 ||
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#1
Yeah. Reporters all suck, don't they Helen? And some really, really suck. And should retire their ugly asses...
#5
Come us Helen how you went all apesh*t when Franklin Roosevelt invade neutral French North Africa back in 1942. It wasn't like the Vichy had done anything to the good o'US of A. Frankie lied and troops died.
-- Presidents since George Washington have made appointments during congressional recesses to fill positions in the executive and judicial branches. Under the Constitution, the president can make temporary appointments while the Senate is in recess, without Senate approval. The appointment lasts through the end of the following one-year session of Congress. Following are some of the more notable recess appointments:
President Bush: 106 recess appointments, including Bolton, mostly to minor posts. Among them:
_Anthony J. Principi, chairman of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, April 2005. Bush used the recess to also appoint the panel's other eight members, circumventing a move by Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., to delay the base closings.
_William Pryor, 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, February 2004. The Alabama judge's re-nomination and Senate approval this June was part of a deal struck by centrist senators to avoid a judicial filibuster battle.
_Charles Pickering, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, January 2004. First nominated in 2001, he was blocked by Senate Democrats. He retired when his temporary appointment expired last December.
_Eugene Scalia, Labor Department solicitor, January 2002. Bush extended Scalia's term by naming him acting solicitor in November 2002, with the intent of re-nominating him before a GOP-controlled Senate. But Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, resigned in January 2003.
_Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere, January 2002. The former Reagan White House aide left when his recess term expired the following November.
President Clinton: 140 recess appointments over two terms. Among them:
_Former Sen. Wyche Fowler, D-Ga., ambassador to Saudi Arabia, August 1996. Put in the post two months after a bombing that killed 19 American soldiers stationed there, he received Senate confirmation in October 1997 and served until March 2001.
_Mickey Kantor, commerce secretary, April 1996. He replaced Ron Brown, who died in a plane crash, but left in January 1997 before his nomination went before the Senate.
_Roger Gregory, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, December 2000. He was later re-nominated by Bush and confirmed by the Senate.
_Bill Lann Lee, assistant attorney general for civil rights, August 2000. Blocked by Senate Republicans, he was appointed acting assistant attorney general in 1997, then received the recess appointment to serve out Clinton's term.
_James Hormel, ambassador to Luxembourg, June 1999. A gay philanthropist whose nomination was blocked by Senate Republicans, he remained ambassador until near the end of Clinton's term.
The first President Bush made 77 recess appointments over one term, and President Reagan made 243 over two terms.
Other recess appointments of note:
_President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October 1961, getting around opposition from Southern senators. Their resistance had weakened by the following September, and the Senate approved him 54-16.
_President Dwight Eisenhower made three recess appointments to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953) and Associate Justices William Brennan (1956) and Potter Stewart (1958). Each later received Senate confirmation.
_President George Washington appointed John Rutledge of South Carolina as chief justice during a 1795 recess. The Senate rejected the nomination and his appointment expired after he served one term.
Sources: AP archives; Congressional Research Service; Senate Historian's Office.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/01/2005 10:54 ||
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#1
President Dwight Eisenhower made three recess appointments to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953) and Associate Justices William Brennan (1956) and Potter Stewart (1958). Each later received Senate confirmation.
Well SOB! Shows what I know about legal history. Didn't realize that had ever been done. What would have happened if the Senate had not confirmed?
#2
What would have happened if the Senate had not confirmed?
Art. 2, Sec. 2:
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/01/2005 15:14 Comments ||
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The legislation, which passed 65 to 31, would protect the industry from a rash of lawsuits brought forward in recent years, including the 33 cases brought by government entities such as the District of Columbia. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the suits could bankrupt gun manufacturers and threaten police and military firearm supplies.
"America's crime problems will be solved not by unjustly targeting the gun industry for the criminal actions of others," Frist said in a statement after the vote. Hear hear. The manufacturer didn't shoot little Bobby, ma'am...
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who led the Democratic opposition to the bill, tried to narrow the bill to bar only suits brought by municipalities. He said he made the effort "reluctantly" in order to preserve the right of individuals to sue. "Nobody is going out and getting shot so they can bring a lawsuit," Reed said. "This legislation would bar the door to courthouses for real people." His amendment failed 63 to 33. I repeat: The manufacturer didn't shoot little Bobby. Sue the criminal.
#1
What the Democrats and the gungrabbers don't want the general public to know is that this in no way exempts gun manufacturers from product liability lawsuits, i.e., if some is injured by a firearm that has a manufacturing flaw the manufacturer can still be sued. What these people want you to believe is that this bill exempts firearms manufacturers from ALL lawsuits. More ouright lies from the "Progressives".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/01/2005 14:26 Comments ||
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#2
Sadly, things have reached the point where I assume everything said by a LLL reporter, any Democrat (Zell excepted) or 'independent' is a lie until proven factual. It just works alot easier that way.
#3
I say, using the Dem's so called logic, that we sue all knife manufacturers for stabbings, all sports companies for baseball bat injuries, all paper companies for paper cuts, etc.
(/sarcasm)
India is livid with anger over the Sino-Bhutan border talks that took place during the second week of July. It has caused a flutter in South Block.
Hackles in the Indian military have been raised. That is why it dispatched its Director General of Military Operations, Lt Gen Madan Gopal, to Bhutan to meet the King.
"Going by what has transpired it looks like Bhutan will give away some land in the Chumbi valley. Because about 500 kms down, you are in what is called the Chicken's Neck or the Siliguri corridor, a narrow stretch of land that connects the northeastern states to the rest of India.
"The current bargain is for the Chumbi valley which means Indians will have a problem militarily. It appears that the Chinese will occupy large areas in the Chumbi valley"
Posted by: john ||
08/01/2005 11:44 ||
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#1
Whatever happened to Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai? If India is such good friends with China, why is it so worked up over boundary negotiations involving a third country? Strikes me that the Indians are striking this pose of friendship with China in order to get Washington to ante up with more gifts for India. But the problem, of course, is that whenever Uncle Sam ever needs any help from India, he will get the stiff arm from the Indians, as occurred over Iraq. I think India enjoys playing Lucy to Uncle Sam's Charlie Brown.
#2
Other than Iraq, i wonder what we've asked of India that they havent delivered on? of course theyre not a core ally - doesnt mean we cant have a useful relationship with them.
#3
LH: Other than Iraq, i wonder what we've asked of India that they havent delivered on?
The list would be a far shorter one if we asked what they've actually delivered on. Apart from not delivering on Iraq. Remember - we've supplied them with firefinding radar and allowed Israel to sell anti-missile equipment to them. We are now about to hand a lot of nuclear technology to them.
#5
Shipman: Good send more. No Hindu ever called me Infidel.
Indians are pretty anti-American. They're not terrorists, but they're a bunch of snakes. Just look at the way the Indians stuck it to Uncle Sam throughout the Cold War. Why were we allied with Pakistan - which was not anybody's idea of a loyal ally, then or now? Because the Indians were and are duplicitous snakes.
#6
Yes, the Indians are looking out for themselves. But even with all their faults, they are not as bad as the Germans or the French; they are a democracy; they are becoming more middle class and wealthy; they are in the Asian sphere; they don't like the Chinese; and there are 600 million of them. All reasons to deal with them {don't trust them, deal with them}.
#7
SW: But even with all their faults, they are not as bad as the Germans or the French
Actually, the Germans and the French have troops in Afghanistan. And they are our treaty allies, having stuck with us throughout the Cold War, even as India was sticking it to Uncle Sam. You know, of course, that the Indians supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? The Germans and the French are putting out a bunch of nonsense today, but in the final analysis, they are part of the West and India is part of the Orient. The Indians are also putting out a bunch of hooey about Uncle Sam, but you don't hear quite as much about it because the media doesn't really cover it.
#8
Pakistan was a natural for the west to support - it inherited the old British role of countering Russia in Afghanistan. It was thus a natural member of Cento. Note that this maneuvering had already begun BEFORE partition, when the Muslim League was relatively pro-British, vs the Indian National Congress. Once China broke with the USSR friendship for the USSR was even more natural to India. It all makes balance of power sense.
Now the balance of power has changed. In particular Russia is too weak to help India offset China in a meaningful way, and Russia has flirted with China to offset American power. And China has grown in power. This make the US a more natural partner for India. Though we still have differences over Pakistan and Afghanistan. And of course its hardly surprising that India favors nominally secularist dictators in the ME - draining the swamp by spreading democracy is our idea, not theirs. But India still has alot in common with us, from fighting Islamist terrorism to containing China. Again, not a core ally, but a worthwhile relationship.
#9
its true the germans and french have troops in afganistan, and the Indians do not. But the Indians have historically supported the Northern Alliance, and supported their struggle even before 9/11. The Indians DO have troops in Kashmir, fighting terrorism.
Look, we imposed sanctions on India 14 years ago - why would you expect them to love us now?
#10
Both the US and India have a lot of kissing and making up to do. India is still suspicious of any white man since the British rule, but fortunately, the younger generation is loosing it and seeing us more as a business partner. India is, and will become more and more valuable to us, and us to them, not only as a counter-balance to China, but as a large trading partner and security ally in an area where Islam is abundant, and hostile.
#11
Also, the way France is going, in 20 years we are going to have to nuke them anyway : the Islamic Republic of Frankistan will had over nukes to Al Q and/or any other Islamofacists that ask for them. And Germany can rot in Hell as far as I am concerned. The genocidial butchers go off easy after WWII and when we even let them have Eastern Germany back, the bastards still stabbed us in the back when it came to invoking the NATO Charter after 9/11. If another major war happens in Europe, let the scum sort it out themselves - excepting Britian and the Central Europeans.
#12
Actually, the Germans and the French have troops in Afghanistan. And they are our treaty allies, having stuck with us throughout the Cold War
ZF, you strike me as too young to remember much of the Cold War. The West Germans "stuck with us" because they were occupied by a sizable chunk of the US Army and the British Army of the Rhine and knew that the Red Army and the East Germans would come pouring through the Fulda Gap the minute we left. The French, on the other hand, actively opposed us during the Cold War. DeGaulle, beset with delusions of grandeur, withdrew from NATO and created the "Force de Frappe" as a counterweight to the US. The French have been considered a security risk since the 60's. It used to be said that what we told Paris today would be in Moscow tomorrow. Whatever else they may be, the French have not been our friends in the lifetime of anyone now living.
Stop writing and weâll reduce your charges, an Ohio prosecutor has told an editor, in essence now publicly admitting that the criminal charges lodged against the website writer are direct retaliation for his exercise of First Amendment rights.
Thatâs illegal.
Less than two weeks ago, Daniel Kasaris, special prosecutor against two critics of public officials in northern Ohio, stated publicly that the duoâs website which often levels caustic charges against public officials, especially judges, and focuses on alleged governmental wrongdoing, was not a factor in the arrests of the pair.
But now he says if the website editor stops writing for the site, heâll reduce the felony charges he brought against him to a misdemeanor. Sounds like blackmail to us; also seems to establish that he made a false statement.
Not only is that a blatant violation of First Amendment rights by an agent of government but outright extortion. It would appear to us that Kasaris is the one who should be criminally charged, attempting to force a citizen to give up his constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to regain his freedom.
The constitutional violations keep mounting in this case. Now the government and the editorâs government lawyer, public defender Brad Greene, are allegedly holding hearings without informing the defendant or allowing the defendant to be present.
THAT is a blatant violation of rights. The Sixth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee a defendant an absolute right to be present at any and all material stages of a proceeding. Clearly, a pre-trial hearing is a material stage. Plenty of case law on that issue.
Read the rest at link. I am not a lawyer and the language makes my head hurt. But what comes clear through the legalise is that there is blatant violations of law and constitution. Time for the people of Ohio to overthrow their socialist overlords.
#1
I'd be real careful going out on a limb here. There are some far-right loons who like to file endless frivolous lawsuits and otherwise screw with the government, and what little I can gather on this case makes that a possibility.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/01/2005 12:57 Comments ||
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#2
OK, after deciding to take the risk and visit that site:
DuBois faces one count of extortion, two counts of intimidation, one count of retaliation, all third-degree felonies, and one count of possession of criminal tools, a fifth-degree felony.
His charges purportedly relate to a note he allegedly handed former School Superintendent Charles Burns after Burns testified against Baumgartner during a libel trial last year in which Burns had sued Baumgartner. DuBois maintains he can prove that Burns allegedly committed perjury.
Doesn't sound like he's being persecuted. Sounds to me like he did something stupid -- libel -- and did something even more stupid at the trial.
n fact, it is alleged that one âthreatening emailâ to Markus was sent in November, 2004, prior to him presiding over that same libel trial. Kasaris said that some of the charges against DuBois stemmed from an email that he allegedly sent to Markus before the libel trial began against Baumgartner. Kasaris labeled the email threatening and said that while it didnât threaten bodily harm, it threatened the judgeâs reputation and on the basis of that, he lodged a charge of extortion against DuBois.
Sending threatening messages to judges is also grade-A stupidity.
These folks sound like self-declared crusaders who don't have a clue how to handle themselves in polite society. It wouldn't be shocking for that type of person to have accidentally broken a law or stepped on their own tongues.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/01/2005 13:17 Comments ||
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#3
We also have had a problem here in Ohio with moonbats from the "common law" movement who file bogus judgment leins against public officials (and anyone else) who somehow get on their bad side.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/01/2005 14:59 Comments ||
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By MARCIA DUNN
The Associated Press
Monday, August 1, 2005; 1:06 AM
SPACE CENTER, Houston -- A couple short strips of fabric dangling from Discovery's belly may require an unprecedented repair by spacewalking astronauts, if engineers determine there's even a possibility that the problem could endanger the shuttle during descent, NASA said Sunday.
Teams of experts were scrambling to understand just how serious the problem was, with "strong arguments" raging on what to do, if anything.
The trouble has nothing to do with foam or other launch debris, but rather the accidental slippage of ceramic-fiber cloth used to fill the thin gaps between thermal tiles, which some engineers worry could trigger potentially treacherous overheating during re-entry.
It will be Monday before the analysis is complete and mission managers decide whether to have the crew's two spacewalkers cut or pull the two hanging strips.
If NASA's spacewalking specialists come up with a relatively easy solution, "Why worry? Why would you not just go take care of it?" deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said Sunday evening. "Why should I lose sleep over these gap fillers if we can take care of them that easy?"
Such a spacewalking feat would be a first: In 24 years of shuttle flight, astronauts have never ventured beneath their spacecraft in orbit and have made few repairs to their ship, certainly none of this magnitude.
Discovery and its crew of seven may be perfectly safe to fly back in a week with the drooping strips, officials stressed, as space shuttles have done many times before, although not necessarily with pieces that large.
Hale, in fact, did not think it was that big a deal when he first learned of the problem a few days ago.
"My immediate knee-jerk reaction was that we can live with this," he said. "On the other hand, this is bigger than we've seen before."
One piece is sticking out 1.1 inches between the thermal tiles, the other protrudes at an angle from six-tenths to nine-tenths of an inch. For those areas, far forward near the nose, the general wisdom and flight history indicate that the limit should be a quarter-inch, said flight director Paul Hill.
Hill noted, however, that the quarter-inch measurement was taken following previous re-entries and the intense heat could have burned some of the material off. Discovery's flaws were spotted in orbit _ a first _ because of all the photography and laser imaging being aimed at normally hard-to-see spots, an outcome of the 2003 Columbia disaster.
On a flight by Columbia in 1995, the shuttle returned with a gap filler that protruded 0.6 inches, but the material was rolled up and located farther back on the belly, in an area less likely to overheat, said Steve Poulos, manager of the orbiter project office. When unrolled, it was 1.4 inches long. The only overheating effect was to nearby damaged tiles.
"Tonight they're working overtime trying to compress, I believe the phrase was, a decade's worth of study into two days," Hale told reporters.
The extremely thin gap fillers are held in place with glue and by the tight fit of the thermal tiles; thousands cover the shuttle. Poulos speculated that on Discovery, the glue may have come loose.
Any repair, if deemed necessary, would most likely be performed during the third and final spacewalk of the mission on Wednesday, although a fourth unplanned spacewalk might be required. The second spacewalk, for space station repairs, is set for Monday.
Astronauts woke up late Sunday to Dire Straits "Walk of Life." On Monday, Astronauts Stephen Robinson and Soichi Noguchi planned to replace a failed gyroscope, which helps steer the space station.
"What a great song to wake up to. And what a great day to go do a walk of life," Robinson said. "I like that line in there, 'You got the action and we got the motion.'"
If repairs to the gap fillers are needed during a third spacewalk, the astronaut performing them would have to stand on either the shuttle or station's 50-foot robotic arm in order to reach the two hanging strips of filler. There are drawbacks to using either arm, namely clearance and time constraints. There's also the possibility, however remote, that the spacewalker or the arm might bang into the shuttle and damage something.
"There are pretty strong arguments for and against most of the options," Hill said.
One extreme option would be to put an astronaut on the end of the brand new 100-foot inspection crane, but it would likely be a bouncy ride and that makes spacewalk and robotic specialists nervous. Poulos said Sunday evening that that option was considered, but ruled out.
Anything dangling from the normally smooth bottom of the shuttle will overheat the area and downstream locations during re-entry. As it is, temperatures there typically hit 2,300 degrees.
A hole in Columbia's left wing, carved out by a large chunk of flyaway fuel-tank foam, led to the spacecraft's destruction during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. All seven astronauts were killed.
NASA has cleared Discovery's thermal tiles for landing on Aug. 8; they constitute the vast majority of the shuttle's exterior. The only remaining issues, before the final go-ahead can be given for descent, are the reinforced carbon panels that line the wings and nose cap, and the two dragging gap fillers.
In a series of TV interviews from space, commander Eileen Collins and her crew said they believe Discovery is safe to come home. She expressed surprise and disappointment that a big piece of foam came off Discovery's redesigned tank during last Tuesday's liftoff, after everyone _ including herself _ signed off on analysis showing that the specific area did not need to be improved in the wake of the Columbia tragedy.
"Was there a sound technical reason why they made that decision or was it subject to cost pressures or schedule pressures?" said astronaut Andrew Thomas. "I think we do need to address the question of why that area was not examined."
NASA now has a lower J. D. Power reliability rating that Kia.
#1
I keep getting this mental picture of a space suited astronaut with a wooden caulking mallet hammering this ceramic-fiber cloth back between the thermal tiles.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/01/2005 10:24 Comments ||
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#2
Someone has to pay the devil.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/01/2005 10:33 Comments ||
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#3
Time to fire up the ol' CFC factory. Seems to me the old foam formulation worked better, and if NASA intends to continue using the shuttle then that's what they should stick with, EPA be damned.
#4
EPA offered NASA the exemption, but NASA passed. All the blame falls squarely on NASA. It simply is not a serious organization, it doesn't have a mission, it's stuck in the past. Who would want to work there now?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/01/2005 10:44 Comments ||
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#5
I remember a provactive article decades ago. The idea was to kill NASA and then use its funding to offer dollar-for-dollar tax credits for anyone investing in Space. Finance Rhutan? That works. Invest in a satellite company? That's space. Build boosters? Sure.
#6
Mrs Davis, I'm not so sure that NASA passed on the EPA exemption but what I remember is that the Clinton Administration mandated that NASA not use the freon. I'll try to find the documentation. I could be wrong but that's the way I remember it.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/01/2005 12:19 Comments ||
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#7
My immediate knee-jerk reaction was that we can live with this," he said. "On the other hand, this is bigger than we've seen before."
Off record the administrator went further:
"On the other Palp this is bigger than what we'veseen before because we have cameras there now, it could be forelonging, forelonging? It's the opposite of fore-shortening - you know 14 years old, bath-room mirror."
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.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized a trade deal that eliminates barriers between the United States and Central American countries, calling it a misguided deal that will harm the region's small economies. Chavez, a frequent critic of the U.S. government, also said he had read reports of President Bush "putting money in circulation to buy votes and to blackmail, through the so-called (U.S.) intelligence agencies, to approve an initiative which is perverse."
