A map due to be unveiled in Beijing and London next week may lend weight to a theory a Chinese admiral discovered America before Christopher Columbus.
The map, which shows North and South America, apparently states that it is a 1763 copy of another map made in 1418.
If true, it could imply Chinese mariners discovered and mapped America decades before Columbus' 1492 arrival.
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!
The map, which is being dated to check it was made in 1763, faces a lot of scepticism from experts.
Chinese characters written beside the map say it was drawn by Mo Yi Tong and copied from a map made in the 16th year of the Emperor Yongle, or 1418.
It clearly shows Africa and Australia.
The British Isles, however, are not marked.
Controversial claim
The map was bought for about $500 from a Shanghai dealer in 2001 by a Chinese lawyer and collector, Liu Gang.
According to the Economist magazine, Mr Liu only became aware of the map's potential significance after he read a book by British author Gavin Menzies.
The book, 1421: The Year China discovered America, made the controversial claim that a Chinese admiral and eunuch, Zheng He, sailed around the world and discovered America on the way.
When you are not distracted, discovery of other things becomes easy
Zheng He, a Muslim mariner and explorer, is widely thought to have sailed around South East Asia and India, but the claim he visited America is hotly disputed.
The map is now being tested to check the age of its paper and ink, with the results due to be known in February.
Even if it does prove to have been drawn in 1763, sceptics will point out that we still only have the mapmaker's word that he copied if from a 1418 map, rather than from a more recent one.
But for some, this would still not make the Chinese admiral the first modern discoverer of the Americas, as they believe that Viking Leif Eriksson sailed to north America in the year 1000.
L'Anse Aux Meadows - Viking Settlement
Newfoundland c.1000
#3
Did Zheng He take a dump in what is now Manhatten ?
Clearly, this land is historically Chinese territory and must be returned to the motherland. No yankee splittist plots will prevent this.
Posted by: john ||
01/13/2006 19:36 Comments ||
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#4
good thing they waited to build our railroads until we crackers got here, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2006 19:46 Comments ||
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#5
I've said this repeatedly; The Chinese have maps showing just about every square inch of this planet, save Antarctica, as some sort of prior possession of China. A whole beachful of sand will have to be pounded up the communist Mandarins' @ss before they will finally STFU.
#6
Zheng He probably peed on the Antartic ice as well.
That land is also part of the motherland...
Posted by: john ||
01/13/2006 20:01 Comments ||
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#7
Yep, surprise surprise Sgt Carter Clintonian Fascist = Commie Amerika is in reality ancient Chinese territory, ergo China is "justified" in planning the extermination of 200 Milyuhn Zilyuhn Amerikans, including but not limited to the bulk ifff not all of the US Left. Besides, ala the US Ninth America is still an illegal and unconstitutional nation, whose decision is still legal but just no action being taken to immediately enforce it, thus the USA as a matter of NinthLaw cannot arrest, prosecute, or jail anyone from rapist US Dem Presidents to Saddam Hussein, etal. to ......OWG Chicoms engaged in "managed" planned lawful holocaust opon their own unannexed territory formerly known as America.
#9
Notice the map displays Antartica and the passage above North America facts that wouldn't become known for centuries later. Hitler's Diaries Part Duex. Yeah, I can wash some old parchment and create something 'new' on it. Doesn't pass the huh test.
#10
So what? A great many peoples had contact with the Americas over the centuries. They are now saying that the ancient Egyptians got tobacco from South America for use in mummification. What matters is who settled the land successfully, and that would be those who followed on Columbus' discoveries en masse: the Spanish to what is now the Hispanic-American countries, and the English to North America. You snooze, you lose, as it is said.
What was the topic? Something about the Middle Kingdom?
Fuck China. Fuck Islam. History's dustbin will greet them the same as Arabism, Mullahism, Nazism, Communism, Socialism, Maoism, Moonbatism, Trazism, OWG, AlleyOopism, Paleoism, Revisionism, and all the rest. Real no-shit Individual Freedom, once tasted, is the greatest, most addicting, thing since sex.
#3
WaPo (and the other "major" MSM Tranzi bitches) has "outsourced" their agenda, so their management are merely puppets. So I figure the concept is actually nothing new to them, lol. Worthless wankers.
Yah, sure. India has demonstrated such remarkable business acumen that they dwarf the US brand of capitalism - why just compare the economies and standard of living, woohoo! - so outsourcing management makes perfect sense, lol. Yewbetcha. Morons.
British scientists are seeking permission to create hybrid embryos in the lab by fusing human cells with rabbit eggs. If granted consent, the team will use the embryos to produce stem cells that carry genetic defects, in the hope that studying them will help understand the complex mechanisms behind incurable human diseases.
The proposal drew strong criticism from opponents to embryo research who yesterday challenged the ethics of the research and branded the work repugnant.
Repugnant? I guess that is what you call it. This is a family newspaper..
Plans for the experiments have been put forward by Professor Chris Shaw, a neurologist and expert in motor neurone disease at King's College London, and Professor Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh University-based creator of Dolly the sheep, as a way of overcoming the shortage of fresh human eggs available for research.
"The fertility of rabbits is legendary," said Prof Shaw. "The most important thing is that with animal eggs, we have a much better chance of generating stem cells and if we wait for human eggs, it's going to be maybe a decade before we can do this. If we can use animal eggs, we could maybe have stem cells within one or two years," he added.
The fertility of rabbits is legendary-So did Bill Clinton donate the human cells so we could have a rapid results...
"Come here Monica, I need you!"
Scientists use eggs in research to create cloned embryos, from which they harvest stem cells. By producing stem cells that carry the genetic defects of diseases, researchers believe they will be able to unravel how a cell's molecular machinery goes wrong, potentially leading to new cures for disease. But the research is progressing slowly, hampered by a severe shortage of "spare" eggs donated by couples undergoing fertility treatment.
Prof Shaw's team will need a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority before they are allowed to pursue the research. "As with all research involving human embryos, the research team would have to show that the research is both necessary and desirable, and that any embryo created could not be allowed to develop for longer than 14 days or be implanted in a woman," said Dr Chris O'Toole, head of research regulation at the HFEA.
If the researchers are granted consent, they will not be the first to fuse human cells with rabbit eggs. In 2003, Huizhen Sheng at Shanghai Second Medical University published work in which she claimed to have extracted stem cells from hybrid embryos made from rabbit eggs.
Live action sentient Bugs Bunny - will say as his first words to the research head be, "What's up Doc?"
To make a hybrid embryo, a human skin cell would be taken from a person with motor neurone disease and injected into a hollowed-out rabbit egg. The resulting embryo would contain only a tiny amount of rabbit DNA in a microscopic structure that generates energy in the cell. The rest of the DNA would be human. If the experiment is successful, within a week, the egg will have divided to form a tiny ball of a 200 or so cells, from which stem cells could be extracted.
The embryos could not legally be implanted into a woman's womb and the stem cells would not be safe to implant because they would be rejected by the immune system. "They will never grow beyond the 200 cell stage and they will have no human features," said Prof Shaw.
The proposal exposes a grey area in British regulation, however, as officials at the HFEA admitted it was questionable whether the resulting embryo was human. "That's the question and it's for the government, the HFEA and lawyers to work out," said Prof Shaw.
Grey area - Bugs is grey
Josephine Quintavalle of the lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: "There is a lot of innate wisdom in the yuk factor, or repugnance as it is also known. My question is: what will they actually create? It is simplistic or deliberately deceptive to say they are simply making stem cells. In order to obtain stem cells they surely have to go through the blastocyst stage; they have to create a 'something' from which to derive the new cells. What is this something? It must be human to be of any use to researchers."
Professor Sir John Gurdon, a Cambridge University researcher, already uses similar technology to investigate how eggs appear to be capable of converting adult cells into stem cells that can potentially grow into any tissue in the body. His experiments have so far focused on injecting DNA from human cells into frog eggs.
He said: "I don't see there's any ethical problem with what they are proposing. I don't see it as a human embryo, but it all comes back to the question of when you think life begins. Scientifically, though, I'm not persuaded it will work. If you put cells from one species into the egg of another, the egg may divide, but you could get a lot of genetic abnormality that won't lead to good quality stem cells."
Genetic abnormality?... What about the researchers?... No, I won't go there!
#4
First, you make the sentient rabbits. Then, when they've bred into over 1.2 billion of them, you realize that you need smarter carnivores. So, you breed sentient wolves and leopards.
That would be the end of Humanity. I'm going to start collaborating now and beat the rush.
#2
Plants and animals have been at war for millions of years. Whether the physical defenses of cactus thorns or the chemical weapons of poison ivy and broccoli, it has been a constant arms race, a running battle between offense and defense
This is just the latest in their phyto-treachery.
CAIRO - An official from Egyptâs Suez Canal Authority denied a French aircraft carrier heading to a scrap yard in India would be prevented from crossing the waterway, Egyptâs official news agency reported on Thursday.
The comment came after another official told Reuters the vessel would not be able to cross the canal because it was leaking toxic waste. âAn official source at the Suez Canal Authority denied reports that Egypt had not allowed a French aircraft carrier to cross the Suez Canal today on its way to India,â the Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.
The report made no mention of toxic waste. The French Defence Ministry said there was no leak coming from the ship.
The decommissioned Clemenceau set sail from France in December for the massive Alang ship-breaking yard in Gujarat. Earlier this month, the French Defence Ministry said the Clemenceau was still in the Mediterranean and would take two months to reach India.
MENA quoted the official as saying Egypt had not prevented the crossing but required ships bearing scrap to fulfill internationally agreed conditions to safeguard the environment. The official who previously said the ship would not be allowed to cross the Suez Canal had said the decision was taken after Egyptâs environmental agency said the vessel could harm the canalâs environment and the Egyptian coastline.
Greenpeace has been behind this: I'm waiting for a final airstrike by the Clemenceau on a Greenpeace trawler.
Environmental group Greenpeace has also urged Paris and New Delhi not to allow the Clemenceau to reach the scrap yard without first being 98 percent decontaminated in France.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/13/2006 00:00 ||
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Earlier this month, the French Defence Ministry said the Clemenceau was still in the Mediterranean and would take two months to reach India.
Two months! Hell, Clipper Ships would do 90 days around Africa. And the carrier is taking a shortcut through the Suez canal.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/13/2006 0:26 Comments ||
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#2
A two-mont transit would the vessel isn't under its own power, though I don't know for sure.
#4
All hail Greenpeace !
They are saving the world from the Clemenceau which has a billion tons of asbestos on board.
They are saving the Indian slave workers of Alang scrapyard, caught from their idealic villages by evil white men with nets and forced to break ships.
After breaking ships for decades, these dumb Indians still don't know how to handle asbestos...
Posted by: john ||
01/13/2006 6:34 Comments ||
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New Delhi, 12 January, 2006: Greenpeace activists intercepted and boarded the French aircraft carrier, the Clemenceau, on Thursday raising the stakes in the international row over the decommissioning of the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau, which has been sent to India for decommissioning despite widespread outrage at the high levels of asbestos and other hazardous materials it contains.
At 12.00 hrs this morning, two activists boarded the carrier 50 nautical miles from the coast of Egypt in international waters. They are currently on the shipâs mast with banners declaring âASBESTOS CARRIER: STAY OUT OF INDIAâ.
2 months to India, kids. On an asbestos laden ghost ship.
Enjoy the cruise...
DAKAR (AFP) - Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing gave four million US dollars to Dakar within hours of his arrival in Senegal, the latest west African country to have recently ditched Taiwan in favour of mighty Beijing. Hi! Hey! Anybody here in government want $4 million?
Li is the first high-level Chinese government official to visit Senegal, which switched ties to China on October 25. Beijing had severed diplomatic relations when Dakar recognized Taiwan nine years ago.
Shortly after arriving Li immediately met and signed the protocol agreement with his Senegalese counterpart Cheikh Tidiane Gadio. Who saw the light when Li opened the attache case.
Senegal will use 3.8 million dollars as it wishes while 200,000 dollars will specifically go to assist victims of floods that hit parts of the country mid last year. $500K for the floods and the rest for administrative overhead.
Li and Gadio also "spoke about the resumption of cooperation in the medical field, with a medical team expected to come to Senegal soon". Since relatively few doctors want to hang out in Senegal.
China will also help Senegal renovate 11 regional stadiums. A meeting was scheduled later Thursday with Senegalese Prime Minister Macky Sall before a dinner in Li's honour. French wine will be served, of course.
Before his departure for neighbouring Mali on Friday, the Chinese minister will officially open China's new embassy in Dakar. Better get with the CIA so we do not have a mistake hit like that in Serbia.
Beijing, in its bid to counter-balance Western influence among developing nations, has chosen Africa as its first port of call. Good luck t'ye in deepest darkest Africa. Buy some friends.
But will they stay bought?
Mainland China has in recent years aggressively intensified its diplomatic tug-of-war with the breakaway island of Taiwan. Attacking on all fronts.
Since the two were separated after China's civil war ended in 1949, Beijing and Taipei have been engaged in a battle to poach allies from each other with generous economic aid packages. In its first ever African policy document, published Thursday to coincide with Li's tour, Beijing said the "one China" policy remains "the political foundation for the establishment and development" of relations with African countries. Sing our tune and we will shower you with money. Sing another tune and you can FOAD.
"The Chinese government appreciates the fact that the overwhelming majority of African countries abide by the 'one China' principle, refuse to have official relations and contacts with Taiwan and support China's great cause of reunification," China states in the policy document.
China vows to "unswervingly" pursue its relations with Africa and foster new types of strategic partnership. "China will establish and develop a new type of strategic partnership with Africa which features political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and cultural exchange," it said.
The foreign minister's trip, seen as a bid to bolster China's energy ties and forge stronger global political alliances to counterbalance US dominance, will also take him to Liberia, Nigeria and Libya. Better watch the Nigeria trip. Chinese are hungry for oil. Another significant market.
Senegal became the sixth country to defect to China since 2000, following Liberia, Macedonia, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Vanuatu and Grenada. The number of countries worldwide still maintaining links with Taiwan has dropped to 25, mostly small nations in Africa and the Pacific. Gambia and Burkina Faso are now Taiwan's sole partners in west Africa.
After its swing for Beijing, Senegal said it recognized that "China is the sole government legally representing all of China and that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory." The decision "corresponds perfectly to the fundamental interests of our country and the spirit of the new global diplomacy serving our national interests," the Senegalese government said.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/13/2006 16:24 ||
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#1
The decision "corresponds perfectly to the fundamental interests of our country and the spirit of the new global diplomacy serving our national interests," the Senegalese government said getting a buttload of moolah just for signing this silly little document.
This follows an announcement by the South African National Blood Services that it would not accept donations from men who have sex with men. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance says its members would lie when asked the question: "Have you had male-to-male sex in the past five years?"
The Alliance claims members have already donated 120 units of blood. It aims to flood the blood services with 70,000 units. Alliance spokesman Juan Uys describes the question as "humiliating, offensive and an insult to gay men". He says all blood should be treated equally.
He says the SANBS has already admitted that it uses state-of the art equipment that ensures rigorous screening of donated blood, and therefore they should accept the blood from men who sleep with other men and subject it to the tests.
He is, of course, an idiot.
Mr Uys said the question of risk of HIV infection was no reason to discriminate against gay men. He says if people were discriminated against based on risk, then South African women between the ages of 18 and 24 should not be allowed to donate, as research shows that they are the group with the highest HIV infection rate in the country.
But the SANBS has described the Alliance campaign as idiotic "unfortunate". Spokeswoman Lanthe Exall says screening procedures are based on World Health Organisation guidelines. She urged the Alliance to reconsider its actions, which she said posed a risk to the lives of patients needing transfusions.
It is not clear what will happen to blood donated on Friday, as the SANBS will be unable to tell which blood came from Alliance members who lied. Ms Exall says though they do have the best testing systems in place, no machine in the world can detect the HI virus during the "window period" that follows the transmission of HIV.
It is not the first time that the SANBS has been hit by controversy. Last year it was forced to change its screening procedures when it was revealed that they destroyed blood donated by black people, because it claimed they were at a high risk of HIV infection. It emerged that President Thabo Mbeki's blood was destroyed because he was black and because his doctor had refused to complete the personal history questionnaire used to screen donors.
Mr Mbeki donated blood as part of a publicity campaign to persuade people to donate blood.
#1
Alliance spokesman Juan Uys describes the question as "humiliating, offensive and an insult to gay men". He says all blood should be treated equally.
"And therefore people with a need for blood transfusions must be placed in danger because it is, and forever shall be, all about MEEEEEEEEEE."
#2
Alliance spokesman Juan Uys describes the question as "humiliating, offensive and an insult to gay men". He says all blood should be treated equally.
"And therefore people with a need for blood transfusions must be placed in danger because it is, and forever shall be, all about MEEEEEEEEEE."
#5
Mr. Uys, who's probably also infected, should have his death hastened, publicly and brutally, as should any other knowingly-HIV blood donors. By donating, you are basically killing someone, their partners, possibly family members. ...just slowly
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2006 16:52 Comments ||
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#6
If a single person gets HIV from a blood transfusion, I hope SANBS just sues the piss out of this Gay and Lesbian Alliance, collectively and individually.
#7
Alliance spokesman Juan Uys describes the question as "humiliating, offensive and an insult to gay men". He says all blood should be treated equally.
Yet, it is not humiliating or offensive to contract AIDS because some thin-skinned moron decides that lack of disclosure should take priority over protecting the purity of transfusion supplies?
The article mentioned the most critical "window" aspect of tainted blood in which the virus has not detectably expressed itself. However, there are many other risks such as accidental needle sticks by blood bank workers and other unanticipated vectors which represent avenues of death for even more innocent people.
What Juan Uys basically wants is for innocent people to die so that others who engage in exceptionally dangerous sexual practices can avoid any niggling questions about the wisdom thereof.
Between crap like this, the supposedly curative powers of having sex with a young virgin female and the incredible hypocrisy of infidelitous husbands having sex with whores while away from home - who then come back, infect their faithful wives and throw them on the street because they are infected.
All of this has brought me to the point where I await a significant meltdown of the entire sub-Saharan African continent. With HIV infection rates surpassing 50% in some regions, there is a massive die-off that has yet to occur. While I would not advocate withholding a functional vaccine, were one invented, if over half of the male population dies quite soon, I will regard it as being for the better.
The slaughter, abuse, corruption and general tyranny that are pandemic in Africa make me wish it could somehow be wiped clean and make a new start. AIDS may end up doing that. However brutal my opinion may seem, it will finally put a stop to some of the most hideous abuses on earth. As you can see, idiots like Juan Uys are merely speeding my solution on its way.
Muntasir Abdul Baqi may have a thankless job for most of the year, but during Haj there are more fruits to his labor. The middle-aged Sudanese plumber is one of the men in Makkah that help keep the municipalityâs sewage system working. During the annual pilgrimage, he says plumbers find all sorts of lost items beneath the many toilets at the holy sites.
âMy friends and I have found gold in underground places in Mina,â said Baqi. âI have personally found many cell phones, gold bracelets, rings, watches and other interesting goods that are just laying there in the dark.â
Every toilet in Mina lays over a large room that connects to the main sewage system. Human waste falls into these rooms and flows to the pipes that connect to the sewage network. During Haj, millions of people use these toilets, and many lose items into what they must perceive as virtual black holes where all that enters is lost forever. âWhen people go to the toilet, it is quite often that they drop some of their belongings. Due to their weight these items donât flow into the pipes,â said Baqi. âEach season we go to clean the sewage rooms underneath each camp and we find a wealth of goods.â
Since people have already left for their countries, and there is no one to whom to return these items. In most cases they are considered one of the few bonuses of a dirty but necessary job. âAll plumbers in the area fight each year to get the chance to clean the sewage in Mina,â said Baqi, who estimates that thousands of riyals worth of lost items can be found by plumbers who clean these sites.
Khaled Saeed, a camp operator, said that once his phone fell into the toilet. He called one of workers in the camp and offered him SR300 to go down and retrieve the lost item. âWhen the man emerged from the sewers, he had four different phones including mine,â he said. âWith the thousands of toilets in Mina, the amount of goods that can be found must be worth a fortune.â
Baqi agreed. âIâve been working as a plumber in Mina for four years and I donât want to leave this job any time soon,â he said. YJCMTSU.
#5
When the fellow standing next to me at the urinal is discussing dinner menus with his wife or girlfriend on his cell, I always try to crack a nice loud one off... just for polite measure. Happens to me at airports all the time. Appropriate porcelainic decorum of course.
Pilgrims slaughtered over one million sheep, cows and camels in Mina to mark the successful completion of the Haj. An additional 42,000 beasts were slaughtered in Makkah abattoirs as of Wednesday, official sources said.
The Kingdom launched a program for the optimal utilization of the sacrificial meat in 1983. Under the Project for the Utilization of Sacrificial Animals During Haj, managed by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), pilgrims can purchase coupons and delegate the bank to sacrifice an animal on their behalf. The project is designed to make use of the meat by distributing it to the poor and needy in the Kingdom and abroad.
Most pilgrims who choose not to perform the sacrifice personally purchase the coupons, which cost around SR450 this year. Subsequently, they never experience the hassle of slaughtering and distributing millions of animals on their behalf.
This year the IDB sold 700,000 sacrificial coupons. It purchased 650,000 sheep, and a large number of camels and cows. Slaughtering this many animals over three days is an awesome task that requires highly sophisticated facilities and substantial resources. In 2001, Saudi Arabia built the worldâs biggest slaughterhouse in Mina at a cost SR470 million ($125 million). This correspondent toured the huge complex on Wednesday and witnessed the arrival of animals in large numbers, their slaughtering and processing of the carcasses.
This state-of-the-art facility sprawling over a 500,000 square-meter area can slaughter 200,000 sheep a day utilizing some 10,000 workers. They work in two 12-hours shifts.
Ameen Idrees, a mechanical supervisor who has been working at the abattoir for the last four years, said there was a wrong perception among people who have not visited the slaughterhouse that âthe slaughtering is done by machines. As a matter of fact it is done manually by the employees conforming to all Islamic requirements.â
The animals are brought one by one to the floor of the slaughterhouse from an adjacent facility. The floor is a lattice of steel that allows the blood to drain through. After the animal is slaughtered there by knife, the carcass is hooked to a conveyer that takes it to the upper floor where they are skinned, disemboweled and vitals removed and thrown into designated baskets linked to another chain. Refuse is sent directly to dumping trucks parked outside, said Jamal Moussa, a Sudanese worker at the slaughterhouse.
After cleaning, sheep carcasses are cut up into quarters while camels and cows are cut up into suitable parts and then distributed through the distribution channels in Mina and Makkah, Idrees said.
âAn amount of sacrificial meat is sent to a charity in Makkah, where it is cooked for feeding pilgrims. Meat is delivered to various charity organizations in Makkah and Madinah as well as other Saudi cities for distribution among the poor and the needy. Excess sacrificial meat is transported, either by land, sea or air to Muslim countries for distribution among the poor,â Idrees said.
Outside the slaughterhouse the scene was entirely different. Some came to offer the sacrifice personally. Others came from nearby cities of Makkah, Jeddah and Taif to collect sacrificial meat.
There were still others who came to buy cheap meat from a large number of Africans who were selling carcasses they received as âsadaqaâ from the pilgrims. Over a billion served, every year.
-alMcDonalds
#2
"Most pilgrims who choose not to perform the sacrifice personally purchase the coupons..."
Ahhh, about $100 and you're absolved from the messy details of the faith. I doubt that's the way Mo intended it.
#3
Anything to separate the faithful from their money is just fine by the holy men and the royals...it keeps them in bejewelled turbans and curly toed slippers for another year.
Personally, I don't care for the Eid ritual, but I don't see it as being substantially different from our annual turkey slaughter at Thanksgiving or pine tree slaughter at Christmas.
#9
There were still others who came to buy cheap meat from a large number of Africans who were selling carcasses they received as âsadaqaâ from the pilgrims.
Mmmmmm ... bush meat. Just don't ask what it actually is.
#10
"This year the IDB sold 700,000 sacrificial coupons. It purchased 650,000 sheep, and a large number of camels and cows."
I'm thinking I smell an new internet business for me...! But without all that messy slaughtering. Let's start sending em internet solicitations...We could call em something like "Chicago Letters" similar to the Nigerian scam letters.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
01/13/2006 17:01 Comments ||
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Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah made a phone call to Bahrainâs King Hamad and offered his condolences over the death of his son. King Hamad thanked King Abdullah for his brotherly feelings. King Hamadâs 14-year-old son was killed in a car accident yesterday in Manama, Bahraini officials said. Sheikh Faisal ibn Hamad Al-Khalifa, the youngest of kingâs six sons, was killed in a âregretful accident late yesterday,â according to a statement by the royal court published by the state news agency BNA. He will be buried early today, it said.
Earlier, an Information Ministry official told AFP that Sheikh Faisal was killed when the car he was in collided with a bus in the southern part of the capital, Manama. The official, who did not wish to be identified, said the teenager had been with a number of bodyguards, one of whom was driving the car.
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01/13/2006 00:00 ||
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The Government Chief Whip will today launch a petition calling on Big Brother contestant George Galloway to "respect his constituents, not his ego." The move comes after the politician took part in a degrading task in which he pretended to be a cat. The publicity-seeking Scot got down on all fours, licked the hands of fellow housemate Rula Lenska and rubbed himself up against the actress as part of his feline act.
The petition criticises the Bethnal Green and Bow MP for neglecting his constituents and taking part in the show while the House of Commons is sitting.
#3
The publicity-seeking Scot got down on all fours, licked the hands of fellow housemate Rula Lenska and rubbed himself up against the actress as part of his feline act.
Doing this with Rula Lenska was embarrassing but doing it with Saddam was not?
(AP) Bolivia's leftist President-elect Evo Morales extended a conciliatory hand to the United States on Wednesday, saying he forgives past humiliations and welcomes dialogue even as he believes U.S. officials may be plotting against him.
Bolivia's first elected Indian leader criticized Mexican President Vicente Fox, telling The Associated Press in an interview that Fox was hostile toward him and all indigenous peoples in the Americas, including those of Mexico.
Morales said he believes claims by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that the United States is plotting to overthrow Morales, but welcomes reports that U.S. officials are interested in talks. "Any dialogue that is oriented to put an end to discrimination and poverty is welcome," he said in South Africa, where he arrived Tuesday on a tour that has taken him to Europe and China.
"I also forgive those in the White House for so many humiliations. I forgive because through dialogue we have to look for peace and social justice," Morales said. He didn't refer again in his news conference to humiliations except to claim that U.S. officials had described him as a "mafioso and a narcotrafficker."
Chavez said in a speech Tuesday that Venezuela's government will stand by Morales if any attempt is made to oust his friend and fellow leftist leader. He did not offer specifics to support his claim. The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia dismissed the accusation as ridiculous. Morales, who has spoken out against U.S. "imperialism" and its coca eradication policy in Bolivia, takes office on Jan. 22.
Morales' inauguration invitation to Mexico's Zapatista rebel group drew a protest Wednesday from Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez. "There should be one invitation to the Mexican government, which represents the Mexican state," Derbez said in Mexico City. "Not to specific groups."
Morales also lashed out at Fox, who, apparently frustrated by long-delayed negotiations to import Bolivian natural gas, reportedly said that if the Bolivians would not export their petroleum products, they could eat them. Morales said his plans to nationalize his central American nation's natural resources involve increasing exports. "President Fox is mistaken," he told the AP. "I think the president has a problem with me and my country and most importantly with all indigenous peoples in the Americas, including those in his own country."
Morales came to South Africa to meet with business and political leaders who helped move the country from apartheid isolation to democratic prosperity. He met Wednesday with President Thabo Mbeki, describing his visit as "an encounter of two peoples who have been historically discriminated against." Morales also sought a meeting with South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, but the anti-apartheid icon was out of the country until the end of the month.
The rise to power of the left-leaning ANC unnerved some observers in the same way that Morales's election set off alarm bells in boardrooms _ and in Washington. Morales, a former union leader who, like Mandela, has a warm relationship with Cuba's Fidel Castro, has pledged to nationalize his country's oil and gas resources. As he wrapped up a visit to China on Monday, he declared that country his ideological ally.
In Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, Morales reassured political leaders and energy executives that his government will respect foreign capital. And he has found common ground with Bolivian business leaders, telling them he would work to attract foreign investment and create jobs.
Speaking after his half-hour meeting with Mbeki, Morales invited oil companies Wednesday to be "partners but not owners" in exploiting Bolivia's wealth. He said Bolivia would be renegotiating contracts with foreign energy companies to take account of the surge in international gas prices, but promised no privately owned infrastructure would be nationalized. "We will only own what is under the ground," he said. Morales flies Thursday to Cape Town before leaving South Africa for Brazil. Interesting comments about Fox.
#1
Fox is of the 'European' variety of Mexican. Talk about a class system. Its a carry over from the Spanish colonial period [yeah, I know that's a long time ago]. Spain limited immigration to the 'right' people. The English et al were happy to get rid of their 'wrong' people. Different cultural orientation. The Spanish kept their class system, the Anglo-Americans didn't have enough to have any class. Heh.
The Dutch coastguard found several kilos of cocaine on board one of its own ships, the Tjerk Hiddes, while it was patrolling the Caribbean for drug smugglers, the military police said yesterday.
Ooops.
A spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Hirs, said no arrests had been made. "I'm not going to speculate about how the drugs got there, or who put them there, that's all part of the investigation."
In 1999 two marines were sentenced to nine years for trying to smuggle 125 kg of cocaine on a Dutch navy plane that had returned from combating drug trafficking in the Netherlands Antilles.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/13/2006 00:13 ||
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Sound like a 70s "touch and go" exercise for a MAC plane to Mexico.
From the Rantburg "Russia in deep Sh*t Desk.....
Riots are feared in Russia after a new law forced vodka distilleries to halt production.
Analysts predict trouble as shops begin to run out of the national tipple.
The new law, endorsed by President Putin on January 1, stipulates that every distillery must have computerised equipment for measuring alcohol levels. Leave it to the Soviet Russian government to screw up an national strategic industry through burearcratic stupidity.
The move caught the big distilleries by surprise and brought nationwide production to a standstill.
After two weeks of no vodka, even respected newspapers such as the economic journal Vedomosti have started to print panicky front-page headlines, such as 'The vodka is running out!' This looks like a wonderful opportunity for the Russian Mafia to step in and save the nation.
Some commentators fear a revolution as more and more Russians turn to violence on discovering empty supermarket shelves. Running out of food is one thing, but running out of vodka is like....running out of water.
The state is also suffering huge losses as it usually collects over £3.4 billion pounds in liquor taxes per annum, which works out at about £95m per day. This wouldn't happen in the old Communist system, by golly. Heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/13/2006 15:47 ||
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#1
Didn't happen under the old system because they knew no one could live in Russia without revolution and riots unless they were drunk. I thought Putin was smarter than this.
#4
And it's remarkably similar to what's happening in Venezuela under Chavez, albeit with coffee. (I don't know how his attempted nationalization of Polar's facilities worked out... I haven't heard of any shortages in _that_... YET. If you don't know, it's the national beer in Venezuela, it's made from Yucca, and it's pretty good.)
I've been wondering lately whether Morales is really a CIA plant, whose job it is to do to Bolivian Cocoa production what Chavez has done to Venezuelan Coffee production, or Putin done to Vodka production.
Posted by: Phil ||
01/13/2006 18:27 Comments ||
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WEST Australian police have added turbans and hijabs to their list of accepted uniform items in an effort to encourage more Sikh and Muslim people to join the force.
At today's launch of the additions to the traditional blue uniform, police commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said the innovation was a milestone in the 152-year history of the WA force.
"The police have always been pretty rigid as far as their uniform regulations go. We are relaxing those, we are changing those and we are now allowing people to join and wear culturally appropriate clothing," Dr O'Callaghan said.
"This directive is a step forward for WA police in embracing Western Australia's diverse and multicultural society."
The new directive allows police officers who have genuine religious or cultural requirements to adapt their uniform to meet these needs.
The items of cultural clothing, including turbans and hijabs, will correspond with the blue of the WA police service and will include the chequered hatband and badge. Beards worn on religious or cultural grounds will also be acceptable.
Suresh Rajan, of the WA Police ethnic advisory committee, said the uniform change would make a difference.
"It makes the service far more relevant, as people from these communities can look at the people in the police service representing them and feel some sort of affinity," Mr Rajan said.
Satwant Singh, of the Sikh Association of WA, said he hoped the initiative would encourage more ethnic communities to consider joining the police.
"What this has done is open the general mainstream community, to say to them there are other communities that are part and parcel of Australia," Mr Singh said.
Posted on the off-chance that Europe still matters. Hat tip to Orrin Judd.
The European Unionâs record on innovation is so poor that it would take more than 50 years to catch up with the US, according to a survey presented by the European Commission on Thursday.
The Innovation Scoreboard compares the performance of the 25 EU countries with the US, Japan and several other nations, and ranks them according to factors such as the number of science and engineering graduates, patents, research and development spending and exports of high-tech products. The survey finds that only four EU countries â Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany â can compete with the US and Japan in terms of their innovative abilities.
âThe innovation gap between the EU25 and Japan is increasing and the one between EU and US is close to stable,â the report notes. It adds that it would take more than 50 years to close the gap between the average EU performance and the current US level.
Commission officials said the innovation ranking was important because it looked beyond R&D spending to analyse the ability to transform basic research into marketable products â and therefore into jobs and economic growth. GÃŒnter Verheugen, the EU industry commissioner, said: âThe Innovation Scoreboard clearly shows that we have to do more for innovation. There is clear evidence that more innovative sectors tend to have higher productivity growth rates.â
The EUâs âdisappointingâ performance masks striking differences between the 25 member states: the Commission ranks Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany as âleading countriesâ and states including the UK, France and Italy as âaverage performersâ. Portugal, the Czech Republic, Greece and others are âcatching upâ, while states Spain and Poland are âlosing groundâ. Switzerland, which is not an EU member, comes second overall â ahead of both Japan and the US.
The UK and Ireland â which have recently boasted high economic growth rates, low unemployment and which regularly score highly in surveys examining countriesâ economic competitiveness â have both performed worse than in previous scoreboards. Germany, despite its status as an âinnovation leaderâ, and a strong record for lifelong learning receives poor marks for its dearth of science and engineering students and for its comparatively poor levels of youth education.
The EUâs largest economy is also chided for its populationâs reluctance to embrace innovative products and services.
If the State can't provide it, it's not worth having.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/13/2006 00:37 ||
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#1
I'm not sure what the point of this survey is, except to come up with new ways for the EU bureaucracy to throw its weight around to "fix" these things. Most of the things they cited are not things the government can fix. Far better to deal with the barriers to business formation and tax structures. But that's not what these bureaucrats are talking about. And that is why this survey is a complete farce.
#2
ZF, to me they are finally admitting that their way isn't perfect. It MIGHT be an opening to them realizing how bad their situation is. We can opnly hope this is the first incident showing they have received a good hit from the cluebat.
#3
I hope for Brett's opinion to win out in the EU, but I think Zang's is the one that will win out over their. Remember, "If an impotent, bloated bureaucracy can't solve it, pass more bloated legislation!"
#4
Yo Mediocrestan25: If EU want to ram your own ship into the Socialist iceberg, fine. Good luck.
Just kwitcherbitchen about the USA.
(though we might say "Thank EU" for such a clear example of failure, many Americans haven't awoken to the fact that "calitalism plus entitlements = socialismo")
France got its clearest look yet at the man who would be its next president, as Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called Thursday for sweeping changes in the way France — and the European Union — operates. Stopping short of announcing his candidacy for next year's presidential election, the ambitious interior minister said his aim was to "embody the future." He marked a clear break with President Jacques Chirac's style of governance, asking whether the presidency had become "archaic." He held up a vision of a re-styled seat of power to narrow the credibility gap between old guard polticians and the people.
I'm waiting for comments from our readers who actually know something about La Belle France...
The 73-year-old Chirac, in his second term, has been the leading force on the conservative right for three decades, the official bearer of the Gaullist legacy. However, as president since 1995, Chirac has often confined his public role to affairs of state. Increasingly aloof, he took 11 days to respond to three weeks of rioting last year in France's depressed suburbs. Corruption scandals have weakened his authority and fed disenchantment with the political class. "The future president can only be different from those who preceded him," said Sarkozy.
"Things have got to get better. They can't get much worse."
The suburban riots reflected "the extent of the failure of our public policies over 30 years," Sarkozy added — referring to a period that coincides with Chirac's preponderant role on the political right. Sarkozy proposed a maximum of two five-year terms for presidents. He added, in an apparent swipe at Chirac: "When one's energy goes to lasting, one no longer thinks of doing." There is currently no limit, meaning Chirac could theoretically run for a third term in 2007.
... when he will be 186 years old.
Sarkozy, who turns 51 later this month, heads Chirac's UMP party, but has positioned himself as a political rival with the man who once was his mentor. His feisty nature, straight-talk and policy proposals have set him apart from the mainstream left and right.
"Garcon! There is substance in this mush! Take M. Sarkozy away!"
Sarkozy says the French economic model no longer works;
... and probably never did.
he champions strong policing and tougher immigration controls; he opposes Turkey's aspirations to join the European Union; he says France must adjust its secular foundations to better integrate its 5 million Muslims.
He may even think hard about deporting some of them...
widely regarded as Chirac's protege, in the party's January vote for a presidential candidate.
His poufy hair would stand him in good stead when negotiating with Kim Jong Il...
Sarkozy's proposals Thursday for making the president more accountable and parliament more powerful were radical. The prime minister would be reduced to the role of coordinator. Sarkozy argued for a "president-leader who is engaged" not only in the larger issues but also in the "daily life of the French."
Wrong way, Corrigan. La Belle France would probably be better off with the gummint spending less time messing with the daily lives of its citoyens.
Sarkozy ventured far beyond his portfolio as interior minister in his remarks Thursday. He said major European powers should have the lead role in European Union decision-making — and not be held back by smaller countries. Aside from Bulgaria and Romania, which hope to join the 25-member EU in 2007, no more members should be admitted until institutions are reformed, he said. Long opposed to allowing Turkey to join the EU, he stressed that "Europe needs frontiers."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
making the president more accountable and parliament more powerful were radical. The prime minister would be reduced to the role of coordinator.
Sounds suspiciously like the American system to me.
#3
JFM is more savy and credible than me in political analysis (I don't vote because I'm fed up with all theses inept liars, I just started back voting against the Eu constitution), but...
I don't like Sarko, he's part and parcel of the system, and he's a double-talker from my pov.
Also, IMHO, he's very pro-islam, that may have changed, as the climate is into "islamophobia" on the french street, I'd say.
Sarko IS ambitious... true, he's more "free market" and atlantist than the rest of the "conservatives", not hard, (there are simply no conservative mvt in France, after all, its head for the last 30 years has been Yaouled Shiraq, a crypto-leftist who only acted like a rightwinger when it suited him), but when in was industry minister, he was a colbertist, not a free-market proponent (prices control isn't exactly free-market).
Apparently, he's accepted the "inevitable" mutation of France into a multiculturalist country with several "communities", Ã la USA, and hope to use this to enable him to be president.
On one hand he's flirting with the Le Pen's electorate, on the other he's hoping to get the muslim vote. Fat chances, after the "Sarkozy sale juif!" of november, and the "racaille" (scum) libel (he didn't actually say it, it was a tv edit, either on behalf of Galouzeau "de Villepin", or because of the channel's bias against him... after all, he's what passes for rightwing in this country).
That's my take on him.
In 2007, I guess I'll most probably vote for Philippe de Villiers (conservative christian who openly talks about the rapid islamization of France), though I'm not even sure he's truly divorced from the Establishment. Not even my first choice...
If nothing else, I'll vote for Le Pen, but while I kinda like the character (he's the useful scapegoat of the french political landscape, used by Establishment pols to legitimate their power, he's a tool, and he knows and profits from it... but he's also a Loki-like "trickster" entity), I really disagree with his statist proposals (his tax cuts are good, though) and many of his opinions (like antisemitism).
Nightline veteran and former WCBS anchor Dave Marash has signed on to be the Washington-based news anchor for Al Jazeera International, the network announced this afternoon....
"This is a real sort of marriage made in heaven in terms of journalistic ambition and interest," said Mr. Marash on the phone today.
Mr. Marash joins a number of other Western journalists, including Brit interviewer Sir David Frost and former CNN talk show host Riz Khan, in jumping to the upstart network, a sister channel to the controversial Arabic language version. Both channels are financed by the benevolent dictator of Qatar. Mr. Marash will anchor two and a half hours a day. He will also report stories around the world and moderate in-studio discussions, a la Koppel.
"Our niche, if you will, in the satellite news channel competition is to be the high end," Mr. Marash said. "It is to be the most sophisticated, the most nuanced and the most sort of information-filled, and that all sounds great to me." Ah, that old "nuance."
Mr. Marash said he first approached That's right, he went to them and not vice versa.Al Jazeera International shortly after May, 2005, when Mr. Koppel announced his intentions to leave ABC after a contentious few years with network brass. The International channel also approached Mr. Koppel, according to sources close to the anchor, but nothing came of the meeting.
Rebecca Lipkin, a former London-based Nightline producer who was among the first American journalists to switch to Al Jazeera, recommended the move.
"When she went and started talking to me about what she was doing, and the atmosphere and the ambitions there, I mostly just kvelled for her," Mr. Marash said. "But then, when it became clear my Nightline future was drawing to a close, she said, 'You oughta call them.' I did, and I found them very receptive."
Al Jazeera, which has made headlines recently as a possible one-time target of President Bushâs aggression (and bombs), is still in an uphill public-relations battle among Western audiences, distributers and journalists. Mr. Marash said he thought long and hard about that before signing with the channel.
"You'd have to be dumb and blind not to be thinking about these issues," he said. "The fact is, of course, that Al Jazeera has never aired any beheadings. Their news standards seem to me to be very similar to our news standards." Sure, they'll air the videos right up to the point just before the blade touches flesh. Sure they'll air tapes from Binny and his minions. Welcome to the propaganda machine, Dave. You tool.
A new study for the federal Justice Department says Canada should get rid of its law banning polygamy, and change other legislation to help women and children living in such multiple-spouse relationships.
âCriminalization does not address the harms associated with valid foreign polygamous marriages and plural unions, in particular the harms to women,â says the report, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
âThe report therefore recommends that this provision be repealed.â
The research paper is part of a controversial $150,000 polygamy project, launched a year ago and paid for by the Justice Department and Status of Women Canada.
The paper by three law professors at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., argues that Sec. 293 of the Criminal Code banning polygamy serves no useful purpose and in any case is rarely prosecuted.
Instead, Canadian laws should be changed to better accommodate the problems of women in polygamous marriages, providing them clearer spousal support and inheritance rights.
âWhy criminalize the behaviour?â she said in an interview. âWe don't criminalize adultery.
âIn light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society ... why are we singling out that particular form of behaviour for criminalization?â
Instead, there are other laws available to deal with problems often associated with polygamous unions, which are not legally recognized as marriages in Canada.
âIf there are problems such as child abuse, or spousal abuse, there are other criminal provisions or other laws dealing with those problems that certainly should be enforced,â Ms. Bailey said.
The Justice Department project was prompted in part by an RCMP investigation into the religious community of Bountiful in Creston, B.C., where polygamy is practised openly.
Although the Bountiful case raises immediate issues, Canada is also faced with a rising tide of immigration from Africa and the Middle East, where polygamy is legally and religiously sanctioned. Immigration officers can refuse entry to individuals practising polygamy.
Ms. Bailey said Canada should nevertheless offer some recognition to polygamous marriages that are legally valid in foreign countries to help protect women's rights here.
Another paper for the project, by the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, urges British Columbia to proceed immediately with a prosecution in Bountiful.
âBased on the harms associated with polygamy as it is practised in Bountiful, there do not appear to be any alternatives to prosecution, however difficult it may be.â
#1
Saw this article today...no mention of Islamic sensibilities...just "immigrants". Right. No wonder the conservatives are gaining ground..hope it's not too late.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/13/2006 13:18 Comments ||
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#2
Oh, sure guys, go for polygamy, but where's the equal rights for us gals. Polyandry is the way to go.
___Speretle Whereger8983 (who is actually not a man)
#3
2 problems with Polygamy that instantly come to mind-
1. Multiple ##'s of inlaws.
2. You know your wives will gang up on you at some point. Then it gets ugly.
Posted by: N guard ||
01/13/2006 14:12 Comments ||
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#4
It isn't just Canada. A man with many wives (or women) and many children is well blessed in a welfare society. Goat herding from under the tent flap is much, much easier than farming. As we all know, farmingbehard.
#5
So they admit that polygamy introduces problems not otherwise encountered in marriage. Might want to chew on that idea for a while, Canada. But let's not stop at inheritance rights and spousal support. You're gonna need to take a hard look at the frequency of rageful revenge attacks by unwilling co-wives. Might see a sudden uptick in acid and knife attacks in Canada. And that doesn't even take into account the mental damage done to women and children in these "families". Creating a generation of self-hating, enraged women and insecure, confused kids-brilliant.
#6
I read a summary of a study the other day, that concludes, among other things, that many of the problems built into Arab and African societies are actually due to polygamy. The authors spoke specifically of weak familial attachment leading to poor societal attachment, due to rivalries between the offspring of the various wives in defence of their mothers on the one hand, and for their father's attention and favour on the other; overt preference for male over female offspring (what benefit is there to having a daughter when she will be competing with other females for the favour of someone else's son; and the dangerous excess of young men with no chance of marriage because the marriageable females are snatched up in harems on the one hand, and on the other surrounded by frustrated females at home (both mothers and sisters) to whom he feels little attachment and no duty on the one hand, and who are within reach of his bed, unlike all the other females of his society on the other hand.
The Canadians are looking at this as if these people who arrive in polygamous relationships are simply Westerners who'd formalized their love affairs, but who otherwise regard men and women as equals. This is self-rationalizing idealism raised to a dangerous level. Shoot, a simple close examination of their indigenous polygamous communities should reveal enough pathologies to keep the psychologists busy for a generation.
#8
Years ago I laughed when someone (a female no less) told me that the âFeminist Movementâ was not only detrimental to society but an ideology that would have an adverse affect on the lives of women. But when an agenda is advanced based simply on the theory that gender inequality is a manifestation of a patriarchal hierarchy, it shouldnât be a surprise that enforcement of Polygamy laws would be twisted as an infringement on âwomenâs rightsâ.
#9
uh guys? this doesnt seem to be a proposal to recognize plural marriage. Just to decriminalize it, so you can send in the social workers instead of the cops. Like some people want to do with pot. Not that im saying its a good idea - wait till our Esteemed Neighbours get an influx of breakaway polygamous Mormons (or ex-Mormons, depending on you POV) theyll be regretting it.
#11
Nimble, you're sweet. But I can barely keep up having that first husband; I fear I should prove an abject failure at more than one. Now, if I were one of those managerial types of woman...
Liberalhawk, I have to disagree with you on this one. Decriminalization is de facto approval. Why should the social workers be sent in for something not against the law? That would be like sending them in for families that are formally registered for home schooling, just because they didn't send their kids to the public schools.
#12
Thraith-actually, you should look a little closer at Utah. Recently a young teenage boy in Utah who was raised in a polygamous household went public with how damaging his father's polygamy was to the "extended" family. If you need to hear it from someone besides a woman to believe it, his testimony might be a good place to start.
LH-an insignificant semantic point. Whether it's decriminalized or legalized, it will have negative consequences. Anyone doubt it? Try bringing home another "wife" and see how positively your current wife responds to this news. I don't think she'll really care if you make a fine point of how this new wife isn't actually your LEGALLY RECOGNIZED "wife". It creates hostility between and within genders and leaves a trail of maladjusted kids in its wake.
Unless you really want to emulate the Muslim family model...
#13
I put this one right up there with the attempt to introduce Sharia law in family court.
Howlings from the very people the misguided "inclusiveness" lib mentality were trying to embrace put an abrupt end to the idea.
Similarly here, news stories locally have immigrant women huffing and puffing. "The sick family structure is why I left my home country and came to Canada. The abuse, the strife, the complete lack of familty unity.. it's why I left. Are you nuts?" was the quote just moments ago on the news from a TO Pakistani women.
Roll on Jan 23 - enough of this crap.
The stupidity of the left never ceases to amaze me.
Former Vice President Al Gore will attack President Bushâs domestic eavesdropping program at a Washington, D.C., speech on Martin Luther King Dayâwith a Republican by his side.
Gore is teaming up with former Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican, for the policy address, sponsored by the liberal MoveOn.org and libertarian Liberty Coalition. Barr is an outspoken critic of Bush on issues of national security. He led the drive to impeach President Bill Clinton, Goreâs partner in the White House for eight years.
"The speech will specifically point to domestic wiretapping and torture as examples of the administration's efforts to extend executive power beyond Congressional direction and judicial review," according to a MoveOn.org press release. "The extent of bipartisan concern over these issues is highlighted by former Republican Rep. Bob Barr's introduction of the Vice President and by the organizations cosponsoring the speech."
Goreâs speech marks the second time in two weeks he will make a sympathetic plea to Republicans. On Jan. 5, he appeared before a group of center-right activists at Grover Norquist's popular Wednesday Group meeting to talk about global warming.
MoveOn.org made a last-minute offer Friday for tickets to Gore's speech: "Don't worry if you get a waitlist ticket. We expect that everyone on the the waiting list will be able to get into the event, we just can't guarantee it."
The speech will be held at DAR Constitution Hall, the same location Gore used for a Nov. 9, 2003, speech that denounced Bush and then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft for their "assault on civil liberties." Actually, I think the democrats would have a winning election issue if they went whole hog for freedom and liberty: NO national ID card; NO US espionage except with a real, not secret, court order; abolish the RICO statutes; a national personal-information database control act; and reversal of a century of judicial precedent that has eroded civil liberties. They ain't gonna do it, though.
#1
can't wait to hear the pedantic "outrage bot" hissing his sibilant s's and flaming anything Bush has ever done. Obviously (just like his timing for global warming speeches) we did get Zawahiri and the DNA match will come during Gore's "speech". I am SOOOOOOOO glad he lost
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2006 19:56 Comments ||
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The state's highest court has upheld the murder conviction of Michael Skakel, according to a prosecutor and the victim's mother.
Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was convicted in 2002 of bludgeoning his neighbor, Martha Moxley, to death with a golf club in 1975 in wealthy Greenwich. Skakel, who along with the victim was 15 at the time, is serving 20 years to life in prison.
He appealed his conviction to the Connecticut Supreme Court last year, arguing among other things that the statute of limitations had expired when he was charged in 2000.
"We're of course very pleased," said State's Attorney Jonathan Benedict. "We felt it was a very clean trial. It's just a great relief to have this behind us."
Dorthy Moxley, Martha's mother, told The Associated Press on Thursday that she was told by prosecutors that the high court had rejected Skakel's appeal. The decision was scheduled for release Friday morning.
"I'm not at all doubtful Michael did this. I know he did this," Moxley said. "I hope this is the last we'll hear of them..."
#5
The statute of limitations was relevant given the way he was charged. At the time of the murder, had he been caught he would have been charged as a juvenile. When he was finally caught and tried, he was an adult. He tried to argue that the statute on being charged as a juvenile had passed, since he was now an adult ("yer honor, you can't convict me for murdering my parents, I'm an orphan!").
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/13/2006 15:02 Comments ||
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Oily preacher Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has sent a letter apologizing for suggesting that Ariel Sharon's massive stroke was divine punishment for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip.
Pat Robertson is an affliction sent by God to punish American Christians for something or other...
Robertson's comments drew widespread condemnation from other Christian leaders, President Bush and Israeli officials, who canceled plans to include the American evangelist in the construction of a Christian tourist center in northern Israel.
"Avner, that man is a dipshit. Are we sure we want him in our consortium?"
In a letter dated Wednesday and marked for hand delivery to Sharon's son Omri, Robertson called the Israeli prime minister a "kind, gracious and gentle man" who was "carrying an almost insurmountable burden of making decisions for his nation. My concern for the future safety of your nation led me to make remarks which I can now view in retrospect as stoopid inappropriate and expensive insensitive in light of a national grief experienced because of your father's illness. I ask your forgiveness and the forgiveness of the people of Israel."
We're waiting for the next outburst of theological insight for Reverend Pat. They seem to come every six months or so. It's sort of like religious Tourette's.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2006 00:00 ||
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He's pretty amazing, in that he can still manage to speak clearly.... even with both feet in his mouth, all the way up to the ankles.
#2
What's NOT said is that yesterday Israel told Pat Robertson that the multi-million dollar religious complex that he wanted to build was denies, halted and scrapped because he slammed Ariel Sharon.
This is nothing more than "Save your Ass" and would never have been said without this denial by Israel to build his self-promoting Palace.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/13/2006 8:19 Comments ||
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#3
Israel said "thanks but no thanks - get out....apology not accepted since it's not sincere"
Pat does have a use - a white Sister Souljah
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2006 10:18 Comments ||
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#4
He's an old white man like me. Just have to forgive him and move on.
#5
The position of Israel's Minister of Tourism, which has been working with Robertson on the project:
The contract is still open - just not with Mr Robertson. If there are other Christian leaders, they are most welcome to sign a contract to bring Christian tourists to the State of Israel.
We want to see who in the group supports his (Robertsonâs) statements. Those who support the statements cannot do business with us. Those that publicly support Ariel Sharonâs recovery are welcome to do business with us.
#6
Call me cynical, but I suspect Pat's abrupt climb-down has more to do with economics and lost contributions than with regret over intemperate remarks.
#8
3dc:
Because he's an idiotarian and a self-proclaimed Christian. So they can say "See, Christians are just as stupid and bigoted as, um, well, we can't insult moslems..." Just as David Duke was brought onto shows as to argue against racial quotas and set-asides. "See, if you are against us, you must be like him."
India has said it will expand its nuclear industry in an attempt to reduce pollution rather than agree to cuts to greenhouse gases imposed by the Kyoto Protocol.
Speaking after the first meeting of a climate change group created by six of the world's biggest polluters in Sydney, A Raja, the Indian environment minister, said his country would accept help to reduce emissions but would not be forced into cuts.
"Neither the Kyoto Protocol nor this partnership can stipulate anything upon the government of India to reduce emissions," he said.
Asia's third-largest economy has signed the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges about 40 developed countries to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. But it is exempt from the mandatory cuts itself because, like China, it is considered a developing nation.
India is also part of the new Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate that met in Sydney. It was joined by China, the US, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. The group hopes to tackle climate change without hindering economic growth.
Own agenda
Environment ministers from around the world agreed in Montreal in December to a plan to extend the Kyoto climate pact beyond 2012 and to start new, open-ended world talks on ways to fight climate change that will include Kyoto outsiders such as the US and developing third-world nations.
But Raja was adamant that India would not agree to binding cuts.
"We are developing countries, we have our own agendas for our development activities, so we cannot give any promise, any commitment to reduce further our emissions," he said.
The two-day Asia Pacific Partnership gathering ended on Thursday with the participants pledging a multi-million-dollar fund to develop clean energy, but they said fossil fuels would continue to be central to their economies for generations.
India is mainly dependent on coal for its energy, but has about 15 nuclear power plants and is under pressure to increase energy production to meet a furious pace of industrialisation.
Growing problem
In July 2005, the US signed a deal to give India access to nuclear technology, including fuel and reactors, that it had previously been denied for 25 years.
In 2001 only two per cent of India's energy demands were satisfied by nuclear energy. A report released by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE) on Thursday forecast this figure to increase to 16 per cent by 2050.
While Indian cities suffer from choking pollution, the country's per-capita carbon emissions are low, less than a quarter of the world average and many times less than those of the United States.
But ABARE also said India's total contribution to global emissions would rise to 9.4 per cent by 2050 from 5.4 per cent in 2001, while its contribution to global emissions from electricity generation would rise to 10.3 per cent by 2050 from 6.2 per cent in 2001.
Reuters
Posted by: john ||
01/13/2006 06:23 ||
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#1
Ignorant headline writer. "India ignores Kyoto demands" is not true -- India signed on because Kyoto makes no demands of India.
And even if it did, it wouldn't stop global warming.
Kyoto with all signatories behaving would slow global warming by a paltry 3 months.
That never makes the headlines. The UN glosses over that.
Kyoto DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM.
NOTHING can fix climate change.
The planets climate has always changed, sometimes fast sometimes slow.
This is a colossal waste of money. The archetypal UN junket feeding a pile of corrupt bureaucrats who jet about and stay in 5 star hotels living off crap like this.
If you wanna make a quick buck off the madness of crowds, go start up a climate change consultancy. Jet about charging the UN $2000 an hour to educate Guatemalans on global warming.
Get paid for your hot air!!
trade in carbon credits: now there's a first.
invent a shonky technology that can pass as removing carbon from the atmosphere and sell your services for carbon credits.
Doesn't matter that it doesn't work because even if you stop all emissions now global warming will NOT stop.
#3
A DoD study some years back found it fesible to dump iron and fertlizer in patchs of the southern oceans to create huge carbon sinks. The tests worked and it wasn't that expensive.
#4
It's also a very bad idea to start messing with chaotic systems you don't fully understand. It has a way of biting you on the ass, and THAT'S the trufe.
A court in Kerala has acquitted all 16 accused in the Calicut ice cream parlor sex scandal
Kinky!
that forced top Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader P.K. Kunhalikutty to resign as industries minister a year ago.
Got caught with his pants down, did he?
Assistant Principal Sessions Judge LR. Sathyan acquitted the defendants, including the former ministerâs driver Aravindakshan and two former leftist city mayors, for lack of evidence. The judge observed that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges framed against the defendants. He, however, posted for hearing on Jan. 30 a petition for investigation into mass retraction of statements by the victims.
Mass retraction of statements, was it? Wotta coincidence that they all decided to clam up at once...
The case was based on a complaint filed by womenâs activist K. Ajitha in August 1997 that the girls employed at the ice cream parlor run by one of the accused, C. Sreedevi, were being sold to high and mighty, including Kunhalikutty.
Sold, rather than rented?
Although Kunhalikuttyâs name figured in the case diary, police did not press charges as the victims later retracted their statements. Womenâs activists even sought a Supreme Court directive to the state police for framing charges against Kunhalikutty, but without success.
"Big Mukkerjee! Go and have a . . . little talk wit' them babez!"
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2006 00:00 ||
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mass retraction of statements by the victims
Mass retractions after repeated insertions. A likely story!
PixelOptics has announced that it will receive $3.5 million from the Defense Department to develop SuperVision, a technology that enables our military men and women to have better than 20/20 vision.
"SuperVision is intended to provide the U.S. military forces with a competitive combat advantage and reduce the number of friendly fire incidents," said Dr. Ron Blum, President and CEO of Pixel. "Senator John Warner is to be commended for his leadership in seeking the highest level of innovation for the safety of the women and men who serve our country," Blum continued.
Dr. Dwight Duston, Pixel's Executive Vice President of Research and Development and Military Programs and program manager for the project, stated: "Certain nonuniformities within the human eye are the cause of most vision deficiencies. Conventional aberrations, such as nearsightedness (myopia) and farsightedness (hyperopia), can be corrected with normal spectacle lenses to give 20/20 vision.
The spatial density of light receptors in the retina, however, is enough to allow human eyes to see better than 20/20, perhaps as well as 20/08. However, higher-order aberrations in the eye prevent us from attaining this "SuperVision" (the ability to have optimized vision better than 20/20). Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
01/13/2006 09:39 ||
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....Not currently available for military retirees under Tricare Prime.
#2
I'm waiting for it to make it Pearle Vision Centers with the See Through Clothes Radar option.
Posted by: ed ||
01/13/2006 9:49 Comments ||
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#3
Since the correction is dynamic, the lens should also be able to adjust focus for distance. Include a range finder and the glasses should be able to compensate for presbyopia.
Another technological solution would be direct laser scanning onto the retina. By reflecting laser light off the retina back to the laser source, the optical distortion can be measured. The laser scanning could then be adjusted to eliminate that distortion. Any optical system, including infrared, telescopic, or microscopic, could provide the optical imput to the laser scanning system.
#4
YES!
I have been waiting to see this technology developed.
Anonymous5032 - the technique you mentioned is involved.
What Supervision is can be stated this simply.
1) Lasik without cutting a flap and using lasers transparent to the material that makes up the flap but not the next layer.
2) Where a typical lasik treatment involves less that 20 or 30 bursts this involves thousands or tens of thousands of microbursts
3) It involves a feedback view of the eye and retnia after each burst so near perfect corrections can be made.
4) with this technique you should be able to recognize somebody on the torch of the statue of liberty from either shore!
5) Pixel comes into the name as it is such high resolution that the brain might well receive a pixelated view.
When I had my Lasik I was at 20/15-10 now I am 20/20 but as the laser burst creates planes instead of perfectly optically smooth surfaces I sometimes need to slightly adjust my head for a good view. With this method you would not have that kind of artifact.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2006 16:46 Comments ||
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#7
3dc, what you describe sounds very interesting. My own sight would greatly benefit from such an operation. However, this text from the linked article describes a different technology:
âPixel's lenses dynamically alter the focus in ways not possible before. By adjusting the refractive index of an array of transparent pixels contained within the lens, it is possible to correct for the higher-order aberrations. This optimizes one's vision, in many cases, beyond how one sees today."
Bill Kokonaski, Chief Technology Officer of Pixel, noted: "Higher-order aberrations of the human eye are dynamic, not static. Conventional refractive error such as myopia (nearsighted), hyperopia (farsighted) and regular astigmatism are static. However, higher-order aberrations change depending upon many factors, including the environment. Pixel's patented technology allows for a dynamic solution to a dynamic problem.â
This is basically how some modern telescopes function. The reflective surface is made of many small mirrors whose surfaces can be dynamically changed to compensate for atmospheric distortion. A laser is aimed in direction of the target object. Laser light reflects off atmospheric layers and is distorted by atmospheric variations. The mirrors can be adjusted to compensate for the measured atmospheric distortions.
I expect these lens work in a similar manner except they compensate for dynamic changes in the eye lens and structure.
Interesting OT article I found via (amazingly) FARK..... EFL.
For "Stupid in America," a special report ABC will air Friday, we gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and in Belgium. The Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks. The Belgian kids called the American students "stupid."
The Belgians did better because their schools are better. At age ten, American students take an international test and score well above the international average. But by age fifteen, when students from forty countries are tested, the Americans place twenty-fifth. The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from countries that spend much less money on education.
In New York City, it's "just about impossible" to fire a bad teacher, says schools chancellor Joel Klein. The new union contract offers slight relief, but it's still about 200 pages of bureaucracy. "We tolerate mediocrity," said Klein, because "people get paid the same, whether they're outstanding, average, or way below average." One teacher sent sexually oriented emails to "Cutie 101," his sixteen year old student. Klein couldn't fire him for years, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."
They've paid him more than $300,000, and only after 6 years of litigation were they able to fire him. Klein employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what they call "rubber rooms." This year he will spend twenty million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them. In the last four years, only two teachers out of 80,000 were fired for incompetence.
When I confronted Union president Randi Weingarten about that, she said, "they [the NYC school board] just don't want to do the work that's entailed." But the "work that's entailed" is so onerous that most principals just give up, or get bad teachers to transfer to another school. They even have a name for it: "the dance of the lemons."
The inability to fire the bad and reward the good is the biggest reason schools fail the kids. Lack of money is often cited the reason schools fail, but America doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years. Test scores and graduation rates stayed flat. New York City now spends an extraordinary $11,000 per student. That's $220,000 for a classroom of twenty kids. Couldn't you hire two or three excellent teachers and do a better job with $220,000?
Only a monopoly can spend that much money and still fail the kids.
If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, cheap Wal-Mart-like schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows? If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom.
This already happens overseas. In Belgium, for example, the government funds educationâat any schoolâbut if the school can't attract students, it goes out of business. Belgian school principal Kaat Vandensavel told us she works hard to impress parents. "If we don't offer them what they want for their child, they won't come to our school." She constantly improves the teaching, "You can't afford ten teachers out of 160 that don't do their work, because the clients will know, and won't come to you again."
"That's normal in Western Europe," Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby told me. "If schools don't perform well, a parent would never be trapped in that school in the same way you could be trapped in the U.S."
Last week, Florida's Supreme Court shut down "opportunity scholarships," Florida's small attempt at competition. Public money can't be spent on private schools, said the court, because the state constitution commands the funding only of "uniform, . . . high-quality" schools. But government schools are neither uniform nor high-quality, and without competition, no new teaching plan or No Child Left Behind law will get the monopoly to serve its customers well.
A Gallup Poll survey shows 76 percent of Americans are either completely or somewhat satisfied with their kids' public school, but that's only because they don't know what their kids are missing. Without competition, unlike Belgian parents, they don't know what their kids might have had.
#2
Right. We're dumb. The Belgies are smart. Before they go to far with that, they maight want to consider what would happen if we weren't playing with one arm tied behind our back. But they've thought about that already, cause they're so smart.
#4
With all due repect, these comments miss the point. We DO have a crummy education establishment, and it has been poisoning our country for decades. Addressing this subject properly would take up too much of Fred's bandwidth, so I will keep this as short as I can.
My mother tried to teach in the Chicago Public schools for one year, after having taught in Wisconsin and Michigan before that. From the first, Chicago, like many other areas, abandoned any school that had even one black student. When she taught, nearly 50 years ago at the school that served the newly opened Cabrini Green complex, she had fifty-five first graders, 1/3 black, 1/3 Puerto Rican, and 1/3 Czech. The school was a firetrap (finally replaced several years later after the Our Lady Of Angels fire). The books were falling apart and the school had not seen scissors and paste in the supply room for two years. Teachers could get all the construction paper they wanted, but there were no scissors and paste.
The Chicago Teachers Union allowed senior teachers to bump junior teachers out of any position, at any time during the school year. As I grew older, living in the Chicago area, I saw all kinds of abuses perpetrated by political hacks in school administration. The system was determined to make life impossible for good teachers and keep the fools in cushy positions.
As the article "Stupid In America" points out, the Byzantine system that allows for stupidity to dominate school administration won't go away without some good, healthy competition.
Please note also that the report points out that the drop in achievement occurs between ages 10 and 15. A huge part of that drop is the middle school culture.
When I was working toward my teacher's certification course, the concept of Middle School was gaining popularity. After doing my practicum in a middle school, I came to the conclusion that Middle School is an invention of the Devil. A middle school keeps the same kids together all day, with no opprotunity for escape unless one is in band or orchestra. So take prepubescent hormones, and stick the kids in the same group from one end of the day to another, and you have the potential for some difficult class chemistry.
At the same time, kids are on their own more at this age, meaning they have less parental supervision. This is the age to which the advertisers of sleaze pitch their strongest appeals. So the combination of teen hormones, lack of supervision, and promotion of sex and irresponsible behavior combines to make the middle school age a minefield for kids.
I used to volunteer in a difficult neighborhood in Madison. I would see children who had the brains to run General Motors in 5th grade go to middle school, and suddenly abandon their schoolwork because achievement was uncool or acting white. You've heard of black students telling mixed race students they "aren't black enough." I saw it happen. I also saw the jerks drag down the smart students because achievement was "acting white."
I home schooled my daughters through middle school because the girls are vicious. My boys, because of their autism issues, have close staff supervision, so they are better protected. Even so, kids took advantage of my eldest and caused him a lot of trouble.
If the Belgians allow competition and choice among the schools, then they have an advantage over our system. Now if we could just get the socialist claptrap out of the teacher preparation courses (that's a different rant), we'd be doing our children a great favor.
#5
Yeah, yeah. Americans are dumb, everybody knows that.
What studies like this fail to reveal, because the authors never think in those terms, is the different aims of American and European educators. The various European education systems have the goal of turning out individuals who have a great deal of factual knowledge, but are completely responsive to their superiors about what to do with it. That is, when asked a question, they can provide the answer. However, it rarely occurs to these well schooled individuals to pose questions to themselves or others.
The American system, on the other hand, is oriented toward teaching the students how to think. Facts can be found easily, for those who know how to look; in my day we were taught how to find sources in the card catalog of the public library, and in encyclopedias, and to compare the results from various sources to winkle out the facts. Nowadays the kids learn how to do effective Google searches, and to sift the grain from the chaff. European students (those headed for university, at any rate) memorize reams of scientific information; American students learn to do laboratory experiments from the beginning of their formal education, and are expected to draw lessons from failing to attain the expected results (ie, accurate measurement of materials matters, order of addition matters, temperature matters, don't drop that bloody flask in the middle of an exothermic reaction!!!, etc). So American students come out knowing much less in the way of raw facts, but able to wrestle areas of ignorance into actionable information on short order. European students do well on these kinds of tests, but don't realize that they can question , let alone that they should. (This used to drive Mr. Wife crazy when we lived in Europe -- especially his German colleagues, who while otherwise delightful, didn't even know what they knew until he asked them a question; and who used to write him memos full of masses of raw data, unsummarized and unanalyzed, because the sheer number of numbers was more important in demonstrating their cleverness than actually pulling something useful, let alone actionable, out of the unorganized mess.)
#6
I have three teenagers in three different high schools, two public and one private. All have good teachers and poor teachers, but it's the principal that really runs the show.
When my private-schooled son's new Spanish teacher turned out to be a total loss, I met with the principal twice, was properly received each time, and in a few weeks the teacher was replaced.
When my public-schooled daughter's teachers decided to take the kids out to a movie (Zorro) and lunch on a school day (to reward them "for their good work"), I complained to the principal in writing about the wasted school day and never even got an acknowledgement. That's in a moderately-affluent, suburban school district where 11th graders are getting sub-standard scores in math.
I don't expect every teacher to be a star, but I do expect that the principal will not let the slacker teachers set the agenda. If I had it to do over again, my daughter would not be in that public school.
#7
And yet, tw, when I was a kid in the Cincinnati public school system, we were told at the end of fourth grade that our fifth grade math books would be omitting punctuation. In order to save money on ink.
#8
My niece was told, in 4th grade that "Handwriting isn't important because in the future everyone would be using keyboards.". As a result, at 23, she has the handwriting of a 4th grader (oh and no job...).
Teachers (and unions who often are the ones who really call the shots) should be held responsible for their student scores.
#9
Lots of valid complaints to be made about the schools but there's another important point to remember when seeing these international comparisons - most other countries "divert" their less academically promising (is that sensitive enough?) students out of the academic education system to parallel systems where they are often not included in these studies. The overwhelming majority of American kids stay in the main system all the way through to 18 and skew the sample in studies like this.
#10
CF as much as I agree with your implications, the fact is that the "using keyboards" is just about right. I have 3 sons, 30+, 24 & 20. They all have terrible handwriting despite my wife's and my best efforts. The 24 & 20 basically print. BUT, I don't think any of them have actually hand written anything longer than a Xmas card in years.
The 24 year old is a VP in real-estate and does everything on his blackberry or computer, the 30+ year old is a free lance writer who works and corresonds via PC, the 20 year old is in school and everything is done on the laptop.
I wish they could write, but it's hard to prove that it matters anymore.
(Personally I learned to type 40+ years ago cause I physically hate writing so much)
#11
I can't help you with that one, Seafarious. There are idiots everywhere. But you seem to have learned to think effectively despite a temporary lack of punctuation marks.
At a registration drive in Pilsen, radio host Javier Salas tried to energize his countrymen about their historic opportunity to vote in Chicago for their homeland's next president. "Let's hear it!" he shouted into his microphone Thursday. "Viva Mexico!"
But Salas later acknowledged that few are tuning in to that message: Three days before the registration deadline, it appears that the widely heralded debut of Mexican expatriate voting has fizzled.
Since registration started in October, only about 15,500 Mexicans in the U.S. have registered to vote by mail in the July presidential election, of an estimated 4 million eligible voters.
When the Mexican Congress approved the plan last year, organizers predicted a turnout of about 300,000 voters.
The hand-wringing has spread to Mexico, where lawmakers and pundits have questioned whether it is worth the government's expense to organize expatriate voting when so few signed up. Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute has spent $10 million on organizing the effort.
Both election organizers and immigrant activists acknowledged shortcomings but vowed to do better in the future.
The Federal Electoral Institute "has done all that is within its power. but we also have to be self-critical," said Patricio Ballados, in charge of overseas voting for the agency in Mexico. "We've learned a lot of things. Why? Because this is the first time we are doing it."
Salas predicted that Mexicans back home would question the commitment of expatriates.
Jorge Santibanez, president of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, said high expectations were unrealistic, given that even Mexicans at home do not see voting as an answer to their problems. Santibanez did not think the Mexican Congress would abandon the idea in future elections but predicted "a lot of noise in the debate" after final registration numbers are compiled.
Jose Luis Gutierrez, president of a federation of Michoacan natives in Chicago, said even one expatriate vote was better than none, noting that the exercise would make Mexicans more politically active in both countries. Right on cue, a voter who had just registered tapped Gutierrez on the shoulder and asked about becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen.
"See what I mean," Gutierrez said. "We are learning. We are learning how to speak our minds. This is the awakening of a new community, one that is binational, active here and there."
#5
Considering the large number of Iraqi expatriates who participated in the recent elections, it appears that they believe that true and valued democracy has a chance there. The Mexican expatriates know that such a creature does not and can not exist back in the old country with the present corrupt ruling class that's why they're here, so why bother.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy belongs to a social club for Harvard students and alumni that was evicted from campus nearly 20 years ago after refusing to allow female members.
According to the online membership directory of the Owl Club, the Massachusetts Democrat updated his personal information -- including the address of his home that is in his wife's name -- on Sept. 7. The club has long been reviled on campus as "sexist" and "elitist" and, in 1984, was booted from the university for violating federal anti-discrimination laws, authored by Mr. Kennedy.
Regardless of one's own political beliefs, we can all agree that it's best not to mix women and Kennedys.
Mr. Kennedy has spent much of this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings interrogating Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. for his ties to the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group that is critical of admissions quotas but was formed in the early 1970s in opposition to the admission of women.
Mr. Kennedy's spokeswoman, Laura Capps, said there is "absolutely no comparison" between the Owl Club, a social group, and an organized effort to "exclude women from getting an education" at Princeton. But the university views organizationssuch as the Owl -- called "final clubs" -- quite differently from fraternities and sororities, which are considered a form of housing and therefore not coeducational. Student opposition to the Owl Club -- even after it had been expelled from campus -- was so strong that involvement in it was fodder for scandal.
Come now, we don't need to stoop to a book club to find a scandal on a Kennedy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/13/2006 00:32 ||
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This guy had his day, now he's just an old man that does not have the US's best interest at heart. It's time Mass votes him out and gets with the program.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/13/2006 7:28 Comments ||
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#2
Not gonna happen unfortunately. In this loony tune state he's been getting away with his "do as I say, not as I do" act for 40+ years and will continue to do so. He'll die in that job.
#3
Tu, For Americas sake I hope your wrong. Unfortunately You are probably right.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/13/2006 7:48 Comments ||
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#4
Ted came by it honestly. A bit on papa Joe and the theater business:
-On August 9,1929 in Pantages's flagship theater, the Beaux Arts in downtown Los Angeles, an hysterical lady in red emerged from the janitor's broom closet on the mezzanine screaming: "There he is, the Beast! Don't let him get at me!" She pointed to the silver-haired Greek owner, Alexander Pantages in the office next to the broom closet.
- The girl, Eunice Pringle of Garden Grove, California, told police that she had come to Pantages looking for work as a dancer. Instead of offering her a job, he had pushed her into the broom closet, wrenched her underwear loose and raped her. Pantages insisted that he was being framed, and that the young woman had torn and ripped her own clothing.
- Poor Pantages was convicted and sentenced to fifty years, but the verdict was overturned on appeal, on the basis that it was prejudicial to Pantages to exclude testimony about the morals of the plaintiff. The court found her testimony "so improbable as to challenge credulity."
-At the new trial, Pantages' lawyers reenacted the alleged rape and showed that it could not have occurred in the small broom closet the way Pringle had described it. The jury was also shown how athletic Pringle was, casting doubt on her claim that she could not fight off advances by the slightly built Pantages.
- The second jury acquitted Pantages, but because of the notoriety, his business had plummeted. After numerous refusals to sell to Kennedy, a few months after Kennedy's final offer of $8 million, Pantages was forced to sell out to Joe's RKO for $3.5 million.
#10
How long do we have to endure the Kennedys? The only thing that they have ever had going for them is dishonest ruthlessness and a great PR firm that can make the stink on their poop smell like a cross between apple pie and Camelot's perfume. Personally - that smell makes me gag.
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.
CAIRO - An official from Egyptâs Suez Canal Authority denied a French aircraft carrier heading to a scrap yard in India would be prevented from crossing the waterway, Egyptâs official news agency reported on Thursday.
Muntasir Abdul Baqi may have a thankless job for most of the year, but during Haj there are more fruits to his labor. The middle-aged Sudanese plumber is one of the men in Makkah that help keep the municipalityâs sewage system working. During the annual pilgrimage, he says plumbers find all sorts of lost items beneath the many toilets at the holy sites. 
Pilgrims slaughtered over one million sheep, cows and camels in Mina to mark the successful completion of the Haj. An additional 42,000 beasts were slaughtered in Makkah abattoirs as of Wednesday, official sources said.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah made a phone call to Bahrainâs King Hamad and offered his condolences over the death of his son. King Hamad thanked King Abdullah for his brotherly feelings. King Hamadâs 14-year-old son was killed in a car accident yesterday in Manama, Bahraini officials said. Sheikh Faisal ibn Hamad Al-Khalifa, the youngest of kingâs six sons, was killed in a âregretful accident late yesterday,â according to a statement by the royal court published by the state news agency BNA. He will be buried early today, it said.
The Dutch coastguard found several kilos of cocaine on board one of its own ships, the Tjerk Hiddes, while it was patrolling the Caribbean for drug smugglers, the military police said yesterday.
France got its clearest look yet at the man who would be its next president, as Interior Minister 
A court in Kerala has acquitted all 16 accused in the Calicut ice cream parlor sex scandal 
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy belongs to a social club for Harvard students and alumni that was evicted from campus nearly 20 years ago after refusing to allow female members. 
