One of the defendants has more than a leg to stand on in a lawsuit filed by a convicted drug dealer. Andi has four legs. He's a dog used by the Athens County Sheriff's Department.
County Prosecutor C. David Warren said to his knowledge, it's the first time the county's dog has ever been singled out as a defendant. Warren has volunteered to handle Andi's defense personally. "That dog could've done something to me or one of my attendants," said Wayne Francis Green, 46, of Albany, who filed the suit Nov. 18 in Athens County Common Pleas Court.
Green, who is representing himself, alleges that a search of his furniture business in 2003 was illegal. He claims officers also went into an adjoining building that he owned without a warrant, but police deny it.
Green said Wednesday that he felt endangered by Andi's presence. "They've got a mean ol' dog, you know what I'm saying? I take that pretty serious," Green said, adding, "I'm a dog fucker lover, but that's the limit."
The search turned up 50 pounds of marijuana, and last month Green was convicted of possession and trafficking in the drug. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 6.
Green's lawsuit, which seeks $450,000 in damages, also was filed against police investigators, Athens County Sheriff Vern Castle and the trial judge who ruled that the marijuana was admissible as evidence because it came from the furniture business, not the other building.
Last week, Andi the German shepherd was informed that he's being sued, sort of. With a paw print, the dog "signed" the paper indicating he had been formally served with the complaint. And CBS news verified it was authentic.
Green said he wants prosecutors to look into the dog's actions. "I want him charged with several different felony counts." Yo! Beelzebub! We want some ice water over here.
Honest to Gawd, we don't make this stuff up. Other people might, but we don't...
SARASOTA - Veterinary staff members from Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary were a little surprised when they were recently called to rescue a screech owl found perched in a Christmas tree that had been inside a house for five days. But the story got stranger still when medical staff examined the owl back at the sanctuary's hospital and noticed a sweet smoky smell coming from the bird. Staff took turns sniffing the bird and agreed. Not only did the bird smell of marijuana, it was clearly feeling the effects. ''The owl was leaning back on its backside and 'vegging' out,'' said Jeffrey Dering, the sanctuary's executive director.
A blood sample confirmed the diagnosis: The owl was stoned. The staff briefly considered giving the bird a bag of Cheetos, but decided to simply let the drug wear off. The owl was fine by the next day. Although they don't normally name the birds they care for, sanctuary staff couldn't help but dub the owl Cheech the Screech, after the stoner played by Cheech Marin in the Cheech & Chong movies. Cheech is doing well and is scheduled to be released shortly.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2005 15:45 ||
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Duuuuude, like, whoooooo bogarted the stash?
Posted by: Mike ||
12/15/2005 16:10 Comments ||
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I thought owls were carnivores, not omnivores. Pretty weird.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Police were hunting Wednesday for a man who fled a New Zealand hospital spinal unit wearing a traction apparatus and with both arms in casts. The man disappeared Wednesday from the Burwood Spinal Unit in the southern city of Christchurch wearing a traction "halo" to correct a serious neck injury and elbow-to-wrist plaster casts, police said in a statement. Removing the halo could cause potentially fatal injuries, police said. It was not immediately clear how the man sustained the injuries that put him in hospital, nor why he fled before completing his treatment.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2005 00:00 ||
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One hundred and twenty two initiates were rescued during weekend raids on five illegal circumcision schools in the Maluti area, Eastern Cape health officials said on Sunday. "Thirty-two initiates were admitted to hospitals in the province. They are in a stable condition," spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said.
Wonder if they were acting on a 'tip'?
Eight people were also arrested on Saturday and Sunday from the bogus circumcision schools near Sibi Village.
That sounds ... painful.
Don't eat the soup.
Those apprehended were in contravention of the Circumcision Act which regulates the custom in the province. Ten initiates have died since the beginning of the circumcision period earlier this month. The provincial health department has hired 60 additional 4x4 vans to patrol rural areas. Four hundred officials have been deployed throughout the province in an attempt to curb the increasing number of deaths. - Sapa
A Kuwaiti Islamist lawmaker on Wednesday slammed the government for providing Christians with two plots of land to build churches, saying this was against Islamic law. âThe recent measure of allowing non-Muslims to build places of worship in Kuwait is illegal under Islamic law,â Waleed al-Tabtabai said in a statement after the government provided the land. Tabtabai, a member of the hardline Sunni Salafist group, said non-Muslims must be allowed to practice their religious rituals but without the need to establish places of worship. He said Kuwait at present has about 20 churches and the number of Kuwaiti Christians is less than 100, âwhich means there is a church for every five Kuwaiti Christians.â
Church sources told AFP on Wednesday that the Gulf Arab state has eight churches, four of which have their own permanent buildings and the rest are in rented homes. According to the sources, there are between 150 and 200 Kuwaiti Christians and up to 350,000 foreign Christians mostly from India, the Philippines, Egypt, Lebanon and the West.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2005 00:00 ||
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Church sources told AFP on Wednesday that the Gulf Arab state has eight churches, four of which have their own permanent buildings and the rest are in rented homes. According to the sources, there are between 150 and 200 Kuwaiti Christians and up to 350,000 foreign Christians mostly from India, the Philippines, Egypt, Lebanon and the West.
Which means, contra the bigot's whinge, there are 43,768 and 3/4ths Christians for each church.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/15/2005 14:46 Comments ||
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An elderly hajj pilgrim Sujjat Ali, waiting at the Zia International Airport (ZIA) due to overnight disrupted Hajj flight schedule, died early hours of Monday, airport sources said. Civil Aviation doctors who attended the ailing pilgrim said Ali died due to old age complications. ZIA immigration sources said Sujjat Ali, aged about 55 and son of late Jahan Box of Fakirpool village of Pabna died at about 2:30am at ZIA. His passport number is 031164 and was scheduled to avail BG flight no-0801.
Acting Managing Director of Biman Major (Retd) Salam Monday told UNB that passengers of the cancelled flights were accommodated to other scheduled flights of Biman which left for Jeddah on Sunday evening and early Monday. He said stranded pilgrims of the 12:45 am flight are expected to leave for Jeddah by 3:00pm Monday. Two special flights chartered by Biman were cancelled on the first day of the Hajj flights on late Sunday causing serious dislocation at the airport and stranding hundreds checked-in waiting pilgrims. Biman sources said the flights of two Boeing 747 aircraft, chartered from Corsair Airlines, were cancelled due to non-availability of landing permission from Saudi authorities in Jeddah.
Civil Aviation sources said about 300 pilgrims demonstrated Sunday night at ZIA after receiving the flight cancellation news.
The first Hajj flight of Biman took off from the ZIA on Sunday morning with 274 âballotteeâ pilgrims (under government management) out of 2,621 such hajj pilgrims.
The official Web site of Borat Sagdiyev - the fictitious, self-styled second-string Kazakh journalist and sixth-most-famous man in Kazakhstan - was hardly a postcard extolling this vast, oil-rich nation sandwiched between Russia and China.
"Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world!" Borat, as he is known, boasted in a Web site posting that is actually the work of the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, star of "Da Ali G Show," a television comedy in Britain and the United States.
"Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat and age of consent has been raised to 8 years old."
But now, the grainy image of Borat - posed in his trademark dark curls, below a Kazakh flag and dueling pistols - has vanished along with the Web site, shut down this week by the Kazakh authorities, who were not joking.
For almost a year, government officials have been grumbling about Borat, the loutish anti-ambassador of Kazakhstan who is a master of fractured English and likes to expose prejudice by showing how easy it is to encourage a crowd in a bar to sing a chorus of "Throw the Jew down the well so my country can be free!"
Posted by: john ||
12/15/2005 15:30 ||
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I don't find him funny either. He is probably used in the recruiting drive for the Kazakh fascists.
Lance Armstrong has been ordered to stand trial in Italy on charges of defaming cyclist Filippo Simeoni. Armstrong's lawyer in Italy, Enrico Nan, said Thursday that the seven-time Tour de France champion was indicted Wednesday and scheduled to go to trial on March 7. Nan said Armstrong does not face jail time, but he could be fined if found guilty.
Armstrong is being investigated for pursuing Simeoni during an early stage breakaway in last year's Tour de France and reportedly threatening him for testifying about doping abuse in the trial of an Italian doctor associated with Armstrong. Simeoni told an Italian court in 2002 that doctor Michele Ferrari advised him to take performance-enhancing drugs. Later, Armstrong reportedly called Simeoni a liar, and the Italian sued the American for libel.
Ferrari was given a 12-month suspended jail sentence in October 2004 for sports fraud and malpractice. He has always denied he dispensed illegal substances to athletes and is appealing the sentence.
In the USA, the truth is a defense. Galloway proved that that isn't the case in Europe.
Belarusian lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation that would crack down on Internet dating and online spouse searches in the latest of a series of stringent government controls backed by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. Authorities said the measure, which was passed 101-1 by the subservient lower house of parliament, was intended to help halt human trafficking in the ex-Soviet nation. The legislation would place new restrictions on organizations that promote dating or that help match potential suitors with spouses, particularly via the Internet.
The bill also would require Belarusian students seeking to study abroad to receive written permission from the Ministry of Education, if the study is longer than 30 days. Foreign companies seeking to hire Belarusian students for summer jobs also would need ministry approval. "The measures are directed at improving the mechanisms guaranteeing effective counteraction to human trafficking -- one of the most dangerous phenomena modern society faces in its development," First Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Shurko told parliament.
Lukashenko has made his nation of 10 million people a pariah in the West by stifling dissent, persecuting independent media and opposition parties and prolonging his power through elections that international organizations say were marred by fraud. Earlier this year, Lukashenko placed new, tight restrictions on Belarusians' foreign adoptions as well as modeling and wedding firms.
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12/15/2005 00:00 ||
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And here I assumed from a look at the headline that Belarus was concerned about a babe-drain.
Human-trafficking sounds considerably worse than simple "dating". I'm glad my own Match.com experience didn't lead me down the path to White Slavery!
#5
Actually, eLarson, it is both a babe and brain drain for Belarus. If you take a look at the online dating/marriage sites for Russia/East Europe, most of the Belarussian women looking for Western husbands are well-trained and highly educated professionals. Lots of medical doctors, physicists, lawyers, and hard sciences university professors.
HYDERABAD, India - Indian Ocean nations are rapidly upgrading tsunami detection systems and plan to put in place a deep-sea sensor network so those at risk can be warned faster, a UN conference heard on Wednesday. Twenty-three nations in the Indian Ocean rim will have a âmodernâ tsunami detection network by June 2006, said Patricio Bernal, a top official at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Bernal, who is UNESCO assistant director general, was speaking at the UNâs Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission meeting in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to discuss progress towards setting up a proper warning system. âThe programme entails enabling (data receiving) stations in these nations to be upgraded and be able to broadcast in real time,â Bernal said on the sidelines of the three-day conference that opened on Wednesday.
âDuring tsunamis the first casualty is power. So solar panels need to be used to broadcast data to a satellite. All the nations are changing their systems to record on real time,â he added.
While âthe focus is now on upgrading existing seismographic and sea-level networks,â he said the UN group was also planning to have a deep-sea sensor network in the Indian Ocean by 2010. âTwo deep-sea sensors have already been deployed in Sumatra off Indonesia with the help of German cooperation. Weâre planning to deploy them in the Bay of Bengal, Pakistan, Western India and Iran as well,â he said.
Bernal said upgrading existing detection networks and installing deep-sea sensors would cost a total of 200 million dollars. âThe real problem is not the cost alone. The nations will have to maintain them 24 hours, 365 days a year and you need specialists. That cost needs to be factored in,â he said.
India, which has set up an interim tsunami warning centre, said it would launch a full-fledged centre by September 2007. âAll the systems such as pressure recorders, buoys, tide gauges, radars and mapping of coastal areas vulnerable to inundation will be ready by then,â V. Sampath, director of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/15/2005 00:00 ||
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Indian Ocean nations are rapidly upgrading tsunami detection systems and plan to put in place a deep-sea sensor network so those at risk can be warned faster, a UN conference heard on Wednesday.
"Upgrading"? Wait, I thought they never had one to start off with....
Managers in charge of two federally subsidized housing facilities have told residents in one case they cannot sing Christmas carols, and in another they can't decorate their own entry doors with religious symbols, according to a religious-liberty law firm.
Attorneys at Liberty Counsel say they have sent two separate letters to housing authorities subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development demanding that they reverse their positions regarding Christmas. In a statement, the law group says the Housing Resource Development Corporation has informed those senior citizens living in its Winter Park, Fla., subsidized housing facility that they may not sing Christmas carols, nor may they have outside religious groups or churches sing Christmas carols in the facility. Representing one of the residents, Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter asserting the housing authority is violating the Federal Fair Housing Act, which prohibits religious discrimination. The housing authority was threatened with legal action if it did not lift the carols prohibition.
Liberty Counsel also targeted Bethany Towers, which provides housing to low-income seniors and people with disabilities in Mechanicsburg, Pa. The managers reportedly have barred Christmas decorations from the lobby and the day rooms on each floor, and have prohibited decorations with religious connotations on individuals' entry doors. "Throughout the year, residents decorate the exterior of their entry doors with cards and stuffed animals, but this year they have been told that they may not have religious Christmas decorations," Liberty Counsel stated.
Mathew Staver is president and general counsel of the law firm. "Some of these elderly citizens and persons with disabilities will celebrate their final Christmas in these housing facilities," Staver noted. "It is unthinkable that these housing authorities would rob the elderly and the dependent residents of their joy in celebrating Christmas. It is hard to imagine what these officials are thinking when they tell senior citizens that they may not celebrate Christmas, and then in the same breath, seek to justify their discrimination on the basis of inclusion. Forbidding these senior and dependent residents from celebrating Christmas is the most exclusionary act imaginable."
Repeated calls to both the Housing Resource Development Corporation and Bethany Towers were not returned by press time. Quick! Find a way to weasel out of this before they call again!
#3
If I were a member of some legal group, I'd demand that the judge PROVE to me in writing that there MUST BE a "separation of church and state" that includes RESTRICTING religious observance. The Constitution clearly states that the Government cannot establish a state church, and also says it cannot restrict the free expression of religious ideas. IT never says there must be this "wall of separation". It doesn't exist. Every one of these retards that try to insist upon such a separation are guilty of violating the second part of the expression - the "free expression thereof", and need to be fired, lose all access to pension rights, and thrown out on their ear. It's time to take up arms to defend this right, and to ensure OUR courts do OUR will. I'm sure each of us could think of a few judges we'd like to see sent to the big house for 30-40 years, starting with Ruth Badder Ginsburg.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/15/2005 22:22 Comments ||
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I'm with ya', OP. Been saying that for years. Just what the hell Constitution have these "no religion" clowns been reading? Certainly not ours.
BTW, you misspelled Ginsberg's middle name. Perfect. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/15/2005 22:50 Comments ||
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Robert D. Novak: Marines on verge of losing battleship feud with Navy brass
WHILE FIGHTING valiantly in Iraq, U.S. Marines are on the verge of serious defeat on Capitol Hill. A Senate-House conference on the Armed Services authorization bill convening this week is considering turning the Navy's last two battleships, the Iowa and Wisconsin, into museums. Marine officers fear that deprives them of vital fire support in an uncertain future.
Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the current commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on April 1, 2003, that loss of naval surface fire support from battleships would place his troops "at considerable risk." On July 29 this year, Hagee asserted: "Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered." Nevertheless, Marine leaders have given up a public fight for fear of alienating Navy colleagues.
The Navy high command is determined to get rid of the battleships, relying for support on an expensive new destroyer at least 10 years in the future. This is how Washington works. Defense contractors, Pentagon bureaucrats, congressional staffers and career-minded officers make this decision that may ultimately be paid for by Marine and Army infantrymen.
Marine desire to reactivate the Iowa and Wisconsin runs counter to the DD(X) destroyer of the future. It will not be ready before 2015, costing between $4.7 billion and $7 billion. Keeping the battleships in reserve costs only $250,000 a year, with reactivation estimated at $500 million (taking six months to a year) and full modernization more than $1.5 billion (less than two years).
On the modernized battleships, 18 big (16-inch) guns could fire 460 projectiles in nine minutes and take out hardened targets in North Korea. In contrast, the DD(X) will fire only 70 long-range attack projectiles at $1 million a minute. Therefore, the new destroyer will rely on conventional 155-millimeter rounds that Marines say cannot reach the shore. Former longtime National Security Council staffer William L. Stearman, now executive director of the U.S. Naval Fire Support Association, told me, "In short, this enormously expensive ship cannot fulfill its primary mission: provide naval surface fire support for the Marine Corps."
The Navy's anti-battleship bias began Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese surprise attack destroyed the U.S. Pacific Fleet's battleships. Although admirals in 1946 vowed never to bring back battleships, they served effectively in the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf wars. Congressional pressure brought the USS New Jersey to Vietnam for six months, leading the Marine commandant, Gen. Leonard Chapman, to conclude, "Thousands of American lives were saved." The Marines calculated that 80 percent of 1,067 U.S. planes lost in Vietnam could have been saved had battleships fought the entire war.
The admirals moved to get rid of battleships forever when Republican Rep. Richard Pombo proposed sending the USS Iowa to Stockton, Calif., as a museum. The Navy supports that as well as making the USS Wisconsin a museum in Norfolk, Va., and repealing the existing requirement to keep two battleships in reserve.
The Navy's anti-battleship campaign began March 15 when Adm. Charles Hamilton briefed the House Armed Forces Committee. It is no coincidence that Hamilton has been the Navy's point man promoting DD(X).
Never has it been clearer how the military-industrial complex functions. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics and BAE Systems are mobilized behind DD(X) and against battleships. Congressional staffers, eyeing a future in the Pentagon or the armaments industry, know the way to future advancement is not to be pro-battleship.
"The Marine Corps supports the strategic purpose of reactivating two battleships," said a Nov. 19, 2004, General Accounting Office report. Since then, current Marine leaders have adhered to the naval position and walked away from boosting battleships, but not retired Marines. Gen. P.X. Kelley, the renowned former commandant, said in a June statement: "I would hate to see a premature demise of the battleships . . . without a suitable replacement on station. In my personal experience in combat, the battleship is the most effective naval fire support platform in the history of naval warfare."
The Army is an interested but silent listener to this debate. Its generals have failed in their fight over stressing tube artillery. If Congress now turns the last battleships into museums, the losers will be the grunts who carry rifles.
Robert D. Novak is a Washington political columnist and commentator on CNN.
#1
Keeping the battleships in reserve costs only $250,000 a year, with reactivation estimated at $500 million (taking six months to a year) and full modernization more than $1.5 billion (less than two years).
If these beasts have value as fire support platforms, why then are they in mothballs where a refit would take some time to perform?
Any future conflict requiring an amphibious landing isn't going to wait for the Iowa or the Wisconsin to be reactivated and deployed.
#2
Because the NAVY Brass does not give a damn about Marine dead, just their new toys like the DD(X). Remember, the Marines are not subservient enough to the Navy, so the Navy is now pushing for a Naval Infantry regiment - an all-Navy infantry unit that would duplicate the Marines. The Navy REMFs do not mind if Marines die because of the lack of inherent naval gunfires, just that they make Rear Admiral with a flagship.
#3
These aren't just cannons on a self-propelled platform. $500 million reactivation and 1.5 billion modernization estimates don't take into account brining on and maintaining a crew of 800-1600 (depending on how much modernization is done). That doesn't include having to train a whole new generation of boiler techs. We haven't even touched on the cost of operating these beasties.
The BBs aren't much good for ASW. They're limited as ASUW platforms. If the Marines want to cough up $4 billion to bring 'em on line, plus whatever it takes to keep them at minimum readiness, they're more than welcome to make the offer.
#4
No Pappy, that is the Navy's damned job : to come up with the money to provide the required support for the Marines. And if the Navy does not want to do that, then perhaps the Marines should be split off as a separate distinct service and perhaps the Navy should lose 10% of its funding to pay for what the now independent Marines need for fire support. And if people are concerned about the funding issue, how about bumping up the defense budget by 2 billion dollars for 5 years to pay for this? It is not like we are spending too large a percentage of our GNP on the military nowadays.
#5
In today's dollars, I wonder how much an old-style battleship, singularly a 16" platform, cost, if purchased by a civilian? The idea being that, if push came to shove, he coule *rent* the battleship to the Marines.
Nothing fancy, no guided missiles, no advanced much of anything. Just a heavily armored tub thumper.
If done with economy in mind, I bet one could be made for maybe $100M, and damn good quality at that. With a one mission rental of $100M, it would pay for itself quick. Otherwise it sits back in the rear in drydock, kept in pristine condition.
#6
Navy League article: Successful test flights of a long-range naval artillery projectile paved the way for BAE Systems to award Lockheed Martin a $120 million contract for further development and testing of the projectile.
The Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile (LRLAP) is being developed for the Advanced Gun System, a naval system being developed by BAE Systems for the Navyâs next-generation destroyer, the DD(X). The LRLAP is a precision munition designed to provide Marine expeditionary forces rapid-response, high-volume, all-weather fire support.
The 155mm LRLAP is equipped with a rocket motor, tail fins and a navigation system with Global Positioning System capability to guide it to its intended target.
During the most recent tests this summer, the projectile impacted the predicted target area at ranges of 59, 46.5 and 63 nautical miles, respectively, distance records for gun-launched naval munitions. (The holder of the world record for land-based gun artillery is the German 232mm Paris Gun, which bombarded Paris with 277-pound projectiles for 140 days in 1918 at a range of 74.6 miles.) The LRLAP is designed for precision support to a range of 83 nautical miles.
â[LRLAPâs] range, accuracy and lethality will give the DD(X) the capability to support military operations in coastal areas with devastating force and minimum collateral damage,â said Capt. James Murdoch of the program executive office for Integrated Warfare Systems.
âLRLAP will have a key role in future coastal and urban combat scenarios,â said Pete Jasinis, Lockheed Martinâs LRLAP program manager.
The DD(X) is designed to be equipped with two fully automated 155mm Advanced Gun Systems and a magazine capacity of 920 LRLAP rounds.
Development of the LRLAP also has been supported by Science Applications International Corp., Custom Analytical Engineering, Alliant Techsystems, Goodrich and Honeywell.
Under the contract, Lockheed Martin is scheduled to deliver more than 100 LRLAP projectiles for development testing from 2006-2008 and qualification testing for the Advanced Gun System in 2009-2010. The company expects to begin full-rate production of the projectile in 2011.
I think the Marines are just worried about the feasibility of the Advanced Gun System and want to hedge their bets for $250K a year*. I bet they'll even pay that $250K. The Navy just wants to kill battleships dead. I think we should keep our options open. $250K is just a drop in the bucket.
* I think the battleship's supporters may be understating the costs. A battleship is a very specific type of ship with specific weapons systems. What about the costs of keeping a crew up to date on the operation of battleships? Gunnery practice with 16-inch guns, etc. That is most of the cost of operating a weapons platform - manpower.
#7
The battleships are looked upon by the Navy as a symbol of defeat dating back to Pearl Harbor. The Navy wants to get rid of them, the Marines want to keep them. The difference in Naval/Marine air is that a bomb can be placed somewhere in a three-meter box. A 16-inch round can be placed on the SPECIFIED CORNER of a one-meter box.
If the Navy were to strip down the battleships to just their 16-inch guns, thoroughly modernize and air condition them, add MLRS launchers in place of the 5-inch guns and add a good anti-aircraft missile, the BBs would be worth their weight in gold to the Marines, and would give the Navy a surface combatant force it currently doesn't have. With the new GPS-guided MLRS round, accuracy would be astounding. The only two things that would have to be done would be to train gunners (there hasn't been an active duty 16-inch gun crew in 27 years) and replace the current powder and explosive charges in the 16-inch shells, which are ALL left over from WW-II.
I went aboard the New Jersey when she came through Panama in 1968, on her way to Vietnam. I'm convinced that there is still a role for the BB's in the US Navy. Unfortunately, the Navy doesn't want to agree with me - or the Marines.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/15/2005 22:38 Comments ||
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#8
Whether BB or CVN, etc. the future of these traditional platforms is to be as super-arsenal ships of various hybrid designs wid multipurpose firepower dominance, and this exclusive of potens SPACE-BASED FIRE SUPPORT. The US Army is already contracting for designs for quad tilt-rotor vertical-lift attack transports capable of landing heavy AFVS deep behind enemy lines ala "Air-Mech" concepts. Its a issue of whether the services will continue to believe/adhere to America's enemies having "sufficient/rough parity" warfighting tech as opposed to inferior or easily overwhelmed tech when it comes time to face the American Death Star in direct combat.
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.
The general who led 4,000 French peacekeepers in Ivory Coast is being investigated for allegedly ordering the murder of an Ivorian prisoner. Henri Poncet, a four-star general, was yesterday placed "under investigation", a step short of being charged, for complicity in the killing on May 13 of Firmin Mahé who was allegedly suffocated by two French soldiers in the back of an armoured vehicle, according to the French defence ministry.
A Kuwaiti Islamist lawmaker on Wednesday slammed the government for providing Christians with two plots of land to build churches, saying this was against Islamic law. âThe recent measure of allowing non-Muslims to build places of worship in Kuwait is illegal under Islamic law,â 
Belarusian lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation that would crack down on Internet dating and online spouse searches in the latest of a series of stringent government controls backed by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. Authorities said the measure, which was passed 101-1 by the subservient lower house of parliament, was intended to help halt human trafficking in the ex-Soviet nation. The legislation would place new restrictions on organizations that promote dating or that help match potential suitors with spouses, particularly via the Internet. 
