Residents in Winter Park, Fla., are angered over the city's response to a squirrel that attacked at least seven people this month, according to a report.
The squirrel attacks happened at Winter Park's Central Park over the last several days. A 3-year-old boy was bitten by the animal several times and has a two-inch wound on his leg, according to the report. Another child was reportedly bitten on his calf and a man sitting on a park bench was attacked by the squirrel. He suffered a bite and scratches on his arm.
The attacks took place between August 1 and August 4. Some people now say the attacking animal should have been captured sooner. One citizen said he captured the squirrel under a bucket after it attacked his friend. He said he released the squirrel when county animal-services workers failed to arrive after two hours.
City employees captured the animal this week.Winter Park received notice from the Florida Department of Health Epidemiology stating that the results on the squirrel were negative for rabies. I hope they remembered to give him a cookie...
#10
No one should construe this pic as any sort of answer to yesterday's post by Yosemite Sam concerning the 'dumbing down' of Rantburg. No sir, this isn't about that at all.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2006 9:16 Comments ||
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A typographical error that replaced a v with a d on a menu item during the First Familys flight to the Far East last Friday left four Air Zimbabwe staffers suspended - and a sour taste in the mouth. President Robert Mugabe and the first family, on the Harare-Singapore-China flight last Friday, were handed a menu card where an item should have read Chimukuyu and Dovi. But there was a disastrous typo when a d replaced the v.
The national airline on Tuesday reacted to the embarrassing stinker of an error by suspending the four employees involved after holding an emergency executive meeting. Air Zimbabwe spokesman David Mwenga yesterday confirmed the suspensions. We have suspended four staff members pending investigations into operational issues, said Mwenga who could not be drawn into detailing the issues in a terse response to The Financial Gazette. The suspended include Masi Gambanga, the cabin services manager, Victoria Munzara, the acting flight services officer, Chipo Sikireta the secretary to the senior flight operations manager and an unnamed worker who is employed in the airlines reservations section.
Robert Jr, the Presidents second born, reportedly stumbled upon the typo before alerting the veteran liberation war leader and the rest of his travelling party to the embarrassing blunder. First Lady Grace Mugabe was not on the flight, having travelled ahead earlier. Sources said a furious Transport and Communications Minister Chris Mushowe took issue with Air Zimbabwes management over the error and summoned the top officials to his offices early this week. The four workers will appear before a disciplinary hearing next week. They (suspended workers) were served with their suspension letters after submitting reports detailing the incident at around 3 pm, our source said.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that management has since apologised to the First family, which arrived back home yesterday. The family was on a trip to the Far East, a frequent destination for the President. The national carrier has faced a series of crises in recent years, but this latest one takes its troubles to new depths. Thank you Robert Jr. No spell check needed for you lad. A mind like a steel trap, 'n chip off die oud block! Smart move splitting the 'command group' and sending Grace out on an earlier lift, one never knows these days.
Ok, I confess: I don't get it. 'Dodi' versus 'Dovi'. Explain?
(Xinhua) -- The Ugandan government peace delegation is consulting with mediators on the next step after the rebel Lords Resistance Army (LRA) peace team walked out of the peace talks in Juba, southern Sudan.
Might we suggest killing them all?
Robert Kabushenga, head of the government Media Center, told Xinhua by telephone on Thursday that the government negotiators are consulting Riek Machar, chief mediator and vice president of southern Sudan, on the next move. The LRA negotiators walked out on Wednesday protesting the government's refusal to declare cessation of hostilities. "As far as the LRA delegation is concerned, the talks have not resumed," the LRA delegation spokesman Obonyo Olweny told journalists in Juba.
Last Friday, the elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony declared a unilateral ceasefire, urging the Ugandan government to do the same. Kabushenga said the Ugandan government still maintains its earlier position of discussing the ceasefire with the LRA team. "We have to first discuss the cessation of hostilities and agree. There are procedures to be followed before a ceasefire is declared," he said. The Ugandan government claimed that the LRA have abused past ceasefires by recruiting and re-arming its fighters, a claim rejected by the LRA negotiators.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2006 00:00 ||
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President Hugo Chavez said Thursday his close friend and ally Fidel Castro is in a "great battle for life," but he also expressed optimism about the 79-year-old Cuban leader's recovery. "From here, let's pray to God for Fidel and his recovery, and he's fighting a great battle," Chavez said in a televised speech from the eastern state of Anzoategui.
I'm praying for sepsis, myself...
Hugo prays to God? An odd sentiment for a commie thug to express over another commie thug ...
His statement was the most dire yet from a close Castro ally in describing the 79-year-old Cuban leader's condition. Chavez said he had received a message from Castro on Wednesday "that filled me with more optimism, with more faith."
"He said, 'Squigggk!'"
"Among other things Fidel told me ... 'I keep saying Chavez, God help Chavez and his friends,'" Chavez said. "I wrote to him in my own handwriting last night, in the early morning, to send it with the messenger who was returning immediately: 'You are fighting a great battle every day, all these nights,'" Chavez said.
"Ramon! Take a letter in my own handwriting!"
"Si, Jefe!"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Hurry up and die already, willya? The suspense is killing--uh, you, actually.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/11/2006 0:15 Comments ||
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#2
What ? I thought he was a lot better. Out of bed and walking around. Getting ready to get back on his skateboard. Ya mean you were just funnin' us ?
#3
I'm thinking Fidel is way dead, Ramon got iced shortly afterwards in a pre-emptive coup and there is some serious jockeying going on behind the scenes on who will be the front man for the regime.
#5
Aha! Right out of the 'Dictator's Death Playbook'. Looks like we're in week two:
Week 1. Announce he's sick, can't rule anymore, BUT he's recovering nicely & he'll be OK soon. Really.
Week 2. Announce he's had an unexpected setback in his health. There is Cause for Concern, but don't panic. Doctor's and fellow dictators are optimistic.
Week 3. Announce that his Heroic Battle continues. His condition has Stablized. Doctors are still cautiously optimistic.
Week 4. Announce that he's on a respirator, but still sends his Greetings to the Masses. Viva la Revolucion!
Week 5. Announce that he 'belongs to history, now' and 'will live foreever in the hearts of the people'. Arrange for millions of weepy peasants to pass by the wax facsimile.
#7
This is like Don Barzini wishing Don Corleone a speedy recovery.
Don't think Hugo would like Fidel out of the way so he becomes the new commandante of anti-Americanism in the hemisphere.
#9
Not even a still photo of Fidel propped up in bed conferring with his brother, no sign of dear brother anywhere, other commie leaders wishing Fidel a quick recovery. He's dead, Jim.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/11/2006 8:51 Comments ||
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#10
He can't go yet. Miami hasn't decided yet if they will salute his passing with mojitos or Cuba libres.
#16
Just which 'God' would you be referring to, Hugo? The Marxist Leninist Totalitarian Hate-filled Saber-rattling Opressor God is one I'm not familiar with.
NOTE: Info is from a private newsletter, which states the document will be made available in English at the Basic-Project web site [link goes there; not yet posted as of today].
Hmmm - lemmee see - "BASIC": B(razil)-A(frica)-S(outh)-I(ndia)-C(hina). Barf.
RIO DE JANEIRO--A document drafted by Brazil, China, India, and South Africa at an Aug. 7-9 climate change conference in São Paulo proposed criteria for setting greenhouse gas emission targets for developing countries under the Kyoto Protocol, a São Paulo state government spokesman [said] Aug. 10.
The proposal would cover for the treaty's second commitment period, from 2013 to 2018. The targets for the first commitment period, 2008-2012, only apply to developed countries.
The proposal also called for putting trade sanctions on nonmembers of the protocol such as the United States, and those that fail to become members by Dec. 31, 2012.
What's Chinese/Portugese/etc. for "chutzpah"?
Wouldn't this violate the WTO agreements? (Not that I care that much.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2006 18:28 ||
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#2
2005 US-China trade deficits:
US-China: $201.5 billion, growing 20%/year
US-India: $10.8 billion, growing 15%/year and accelerating
US-Brazil: $9.1 billion, growing 100%/year
US-South Africa: $2.0 billion, growing 50% this year
I would like nothing more than trade sanctions. I like it so much that I advise the American people to minimize buying any products from overseas. Keep the dollars and bring the middle class manufacturing jobs back home.
Posted by: ed ||
08/11/2006 20:56 Comments ||
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#3
This isn't really about Kyoto - it's nothing more than an end-run around WTO free trade requirements.* I guarantee you that Washington will put the screws to the countries that levy trade sanctions against us.
* The Japanese used to bar American medical products on the basis of what they termed genetic differences between the two nations, so non-tariff trade barriers are nothing new.
NINGDE, China (Reuters) - A "super typhoon", the strongest to hit China in half a century, slammed into the coast on Thursday killing at least two people, injuring more than 80 and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Typhoon Saomai, one of three storms to hit East Asia in the past few days, made landfall in the southeastern province of Zhejiang, hitting Cangnan county just after a state of emergency was declared, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. It destroyed more than 1,000 houses, plunged almost all the county into darkness and knocked out nearly half of local communication links. All together now: I blame Bush!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Can't wait until the Super dam lets go and sweeps all of South China into the sea.
#3
China doesn't usually get big hurricanes like Florida does on a routine basis. This is one of the few exceptions - a full-fledged Cat 5 hurricane (lower when it made landfall).
BEIJING The Chinese government, which has battled a surge of social unrest in recent years, reported Wednesday that there were 39,000 cases of "public order disruptions" in the first half of the year. The Ministry of Public Security said that represented a 2.5% decrease in the number of protests from the same period in 2005, though it offered no explanation of how it had come up with the figures.
China is in the midst of dramatic social and economic transformations that have created a two-tier society separated by a widening gap in incomes. Social discontent has been on the rise in recent years, fueled by income disparities, land disputes, pollution problems and an inadequate legal system that is widely seen as failing to address people's needs.
Beijing is normally reluctant to disclose negative information, especially about public disturbances that could tarnish China's international reputation and undermine one-party control. But in recent years, the central government has grown increasingly concerned about the effect of unrest on economic development and social stability.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Just wait for their first real economic recession!
#2
China's revolutions usually start in the countryside. This wave of unrest will not need a recession to set it off. In fact, a recession would probably reduce the friction between the countryside and the cities as schadenfreude sets in. The Olympics could be interesting.
#5
Article: Illegal land grabs are a major source of tension. In December, paramilitary police opened fire on villagers in southern China's Guangdong province who were protesting what they said was insufficient compensation for land appropriated for a new power plant. The government said three villagers were killed.
The weird thing is that in some of the prosperous (by Chinese standards) regions of Guangdong province, which is 20% larger than New York State, local officials have worked out deals that former residents have found acceptable, whereby the land is leased out to businesses and the rent paid is distributed to these ex-residents on a per head basis. The amounts paid can be significant - in Shenzhen and the counties immediately west of it, many ex-residents have achieved comfortable retirements (again, based on Chinese standards) on the basis of these pro rata rent payments alone. It appears that even within the same province, there are significant differences among the eminent domain policies practised by local officials - some satisfy local residents while others serve to inflame their grievances.
#6
China nor Russia will have to worry about achieving rough parity or auperiority vv USA 2030-2050 iff the USA is gone 2015-2020, now will they, voluntarily via MOVEON.org/Far-Radical Left-led Dem POTUSes, or forcibly via "Resistance agz US Agression". Worse case - USA's VOLUNTEER ARMY runs of beans-bullets afore the Commies-Muslims run out of cannon fodder bodies.
THE HAGUE - A Rwandan man suspected of having participated in the massacre of Tutsis during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda has been arrested in the Netherlands, the national prosecutors office said on Thursday. The suspect, 38-year-old Joseph Mpambara, is set to be tried in a Dutch court, said prosecution spokeswoman Desiree Leppens.
"Paging Ms. del Ponte, Ms. Carla del Ponte, to the white courtesy phone ..."
Witnesses questioned by Dutch police said that Mpambara played a role in several attacks on Tutsis in the Kibuye region in western Rwanda. He is said to have ordered the killing of Tutsis taken from an ambulance at a roadblock there.
According to the Dutch prosecutors office, Mpambara is suspected of being a member of the infamous Interahamwe Hutu militia, implicated in the deaths of thousands of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide that left some 800,000 people dead in 100 days. Mpambara will appear in court for a procedural hearing within three months, Leppens said.
And should get his day in court in about, oh, eight years, or whenever all the witnesses have died of old age ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2006 00:00 ||
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Hooray for Michigan State University (The Spartans) and Professor Wichman!!!
Well, what do we have here. Looks like a small case of some people being able to dish it out, but not take it. Let's start at the top. The story begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering professor named Indrek Wichman.
Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The group had complained the cartoons were "hate speech."
Enter Professor Wichman. In his e-mail, he said the following:
Dear Moslem Association:
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.
This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceeded with your infantile "protests." If you do not like the values of the West see the 1st Amendment you are free to leave.
I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option.
Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.
Cordially,
I. S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Well! As you can imagine, the Muslim group at the university didn't like this too well. They're demanding Wichman be reprimanded and mandatory diversity training for faculty and a seminar on hate and discrimination for freshman. How nice. But now the Michigan chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, apparently doesn't believe that the good professor had the right to express his opinion.
For its part, the university is standing its ground. They say the e-mail was private, and they don't intend to publicly condemn his remarks. That will probably change. Wichman says he never intended the e-mail to be made public, and wouldn't have used the same strong language if he'd known it was going to get out.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
08/11/2006 12:28 ||
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It's unfortunate that Prof. Wichman has to back-pedal the way he did.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2006 14:34 Comments ||
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#3
Isn't this an old story from earlier this year? It's good to see that the professor hasn't lost his job over this email. It's probably because engineering still relies on, well, verifiable facts, as opposed to liberal arts' touchy-feely deconstructionism crap.
KARACHI, Pakistan - Pakistans navy on Thursday inducted its first locally built submarine in an effort to bolster its marine force, a spokesman said. Pakistan has already built two Agosta submarines with help from France, but it is the first time that we completely built it ourselves without any foreign help, said Salman Ali, spokesman for the navy.
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was the chief guest at the launching ceremony of the Hamza submarine near the port city of Karachi. Musharraf congratulated the naval officers, engineers and technicians over the induction of the submarine into the navys fleet and hoped that it will help to boost the countrys defenses. Security and peace is only guaranteed through credible defense and strength and never through weakness, Musharraf said while referring to the ongoing fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.
Can't argue with Perv on that statement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
What'd you wanna bet that the name of this fine piece of Pakistani craftsmanship translates from Urdu into "The Widowmaker"? Or "Staring into the Face of Allah"?
#4
Umm, it is not the submerging part that I would be concerned with. I am quite certain that it can submerge very well -- the question is, can it surface after that?
#5
The problems will surface (pardon the pun) only after the sub's been run for a while. And it wasn't a Pak-only project; the French sent an engineering team (11 of whom were killled in an attack in Karachi back in 2002).
On paper, the Agosta seems okay. This last one also has air-independent propulsion. But a boat's only as good as its crew (and the builders) and the proof is gonna be if and when the design ever sees action.
#7
Yes, #5, the Agosta class is a good one BUT as the article made clear, this is the first all Paki built vessel. No way I would want to bet my life on the integrity of the welds done by a Paki shipyard.
#16
With help from the French; hopefully not in the propeller-retention system. I am betting the glide ratio of an underwater (unpowered when it does fall off) brick isn't great, but the curve can be fairly well plotted.
MV Kellie Chouest, At Sea - A Navy diver submerged 2,000 feet, setting a record using the new Atmospheric Diving System (ADS) suit, off the coast of La Jolla, Calif., Aug. 1. Chief Navy Diver (DSW/SS) Daniel P. Jackson of Navy Reserve Deep Submergence Unit (DSU) was randomly selected to certify the ADS suit for use by the Navy. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world, said Jackson. I am honored and privileged to be the first diver to go down to that depth.
The certification was the culmination of 11 years of planning, designing and testing by multiple agencies to develop the ADS suit, also known as the Hardsuit 2000. This is the biggest piece of teamwork that I have ever seen in the Navy, said Cmdr. Keith W. Lehnhardt, the officer in charge of the project.
Lehnhardt said the project was a collaboration of so many different organizations, such as DSU, Submarine Squadron 5 and Diving Systems Support Detachment. Jackson said, I was just a guy tied to a rope. It was the ADS team that made it all possible. They were incredible.
Developed by OceanWorks International from Vancouver, British Columbia, the Hardsuit 2000 was designed to withstand underwater pressure at 2,000 feet. Current models have only been able to go down as far as 1,200 feet. The suit worked incredibly, said Jackson. It did everything it was intended to do. I always heard that around 1,300 feet, the joints of the Hardsuit 2000 would work even better, and it worked exactly the way they said it would.
Meeting the Navys high safety requirements, the ADS suit was designed and acquired by the Navy to support submarine rescue. Its specific purpose is to be part of the advance assessment system during a submarine rescue operation, said Lehnhardt. The diver in the suit will see what the damage to the sub is and find out where the survivors might be.
At 2,000 feet, I had topside turn off all the lights, and it was like a star show. The phosphorescence that was naturally in the water and in most of the sea life down there started to glow," Jackson said. "When I started to travel back up, all the lights looked like a shower of stars going down as I was coming up. It was the best ride in the world.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/11/2006 09:41 ||
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#1
IIRC, the "rescue downed submarines" line was used to conceal all sorts of interesting UW ops.
The DSRV had a similar cover story, and they hid a lot of programs in the inevitable cost over-runs.
I wonder what sort of activities they have planed for this new suit? I hope I live long enough to see when it gets declassified.
Posted by: N guard ||
08/11/2006 11:04 Comments ||
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#2
I have a watch that can go to 3000 meters. Never understood what it's use is....
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/11/2006 12:04 Comments ||
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#3
They're ivory. It's a Rolex, Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would carry a pearl-handled pistol. wear a Kraut Tag watch.
#5
It's a hard suit. Inside it's atmospheric pressure. They breathe air and there is no need to decompress afterwards.
Posted by: ed ||
08/11/2006 12:58 Comments ||
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#6
Off topic on watches:
"It's a Rolex..."
Rolex makes the sea-dweller, but it doesn't dive quite that deep. Breitling makes the Seawolf Avenger, 3000 meters, and the Avenger M1 (1500 meters quartz) for people who need to use the stopwatch functions while underwater, which is a no-no with most chronographs. Others I have seen are quartz, but some can go deeper; there is one that says it can do 12k meters....
I agree; no tags. (except the one that has the Zenith 1/10th of a second stopwatch movement; that is a very good watch. But I'd rather have the Zenith rather than the Tag.)
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/11/2006 14:51 Comments ||
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#7
They are working in conjunction with Pakistan's submarine program. (No french were involved in this effort)
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.
Residents in Winter Park, Fla., are angered over the city's response to a squirrel that attacked at least seven people this month, according to a report.
The attacks took place between August 1 and August 4. Some people now say the attacking animal should have been captured sooner. One citizen said he captured the squirrel under a bucket after it attacked his friend. He said he released the squirrel when county animal-services workers failed to arrive after two hours. 
Winter Park received notice from the Florida Department of Health Epidemiology stating that the results on the squirrel were negative for rabies.
A typographical error that replaced a v with a d on a menu item during the First Familys flight to the Far East last Friday left four Air Zimbabwe staffers suspended - and a sour taste in the mouth. President Robert Mugabe and the first family, on the Harare-Singapore-China flight last Friday, were handed a menu card where an item should have read Chimukuyu and Dovi. But there was a disastrous typo when a d replaced the v. 
(Xinhua) -- The Ugandan government peace delegation is consulting with mediators on the next step after the rebel 
President Hugo Chavez said Thursday his close friend and ally Fidel Castro is in a "great battle for life," but he also expressed optimism about the 79-year-old Cuban leader's recovery. "From here, let's pray to God for Fidel and his recovery, and he's fighting a great battle," Chavez said in a televised speech from the eastern state of Anzoategui.
BEIJING The Chinese government, which has battled a surge of social unrest in recent years, reported Wednesday that there were 39,000 cases of "public order disruptions" in the first half of the year. The Ministry of Public Security said that represented a 2.5% decrease in the number of protests from the same period in 2005, though it offered no explanation of how it had come up with the figures.
THE HAGUE - A Rwandan man suspected of having participated in the massacre of Tutsis during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda has been arrested in the Netherlands, the national prosecutors office said on Thursday. The suspect, 38-year-old 
