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Terror suspect surrenders in Trinidad
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 3: Non-WoT
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Bush: Putin has 'derailed' democratic reforms
Could it be Bush is beginning to truly understand Putin?
President Bush arrived here Tuesday for the Group of Eight industrial nations summit, having just a few hours earlier stoked a testy dispute with Russia over a new U.S. missile defense system by saying that Moscow has “derailed” once-promising democratic reforms.

In a speech in Prague celebrating democracy’s progress around the globe — and calling out places where its reach is either incomplete or lacking — Bush said that free societies emerge “at different speeds in different places” and have to reflect local customs. But he said certain values are universal to all democracies, and rapped several countries for not embracing them.

“In Russia, reforms that once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development,” Bush said, speaking at a democracy conference organized by former dissidents.

The president asserted that this discussion of democratic backsliding in Russia under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin was just one part of a strong relationship. “America can maintain a friendship and push a nation toward democracy at the same time,” Bush said.

But the lecture, however gentle, was not likely to be well-received by Putin, already riled over what he sees as unwelcome meddling by the United States in Russia’s sphere of influence.
Rest at link.
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2007 18:36 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Whoops. Please relocate to page 3 Russia.
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2007 18:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Putins big duh moment; re us meddling in russia, "Dont they know we intend to take over the world with our Oil?

just wait tell we can set the price to 500.....

then I'll have enough loot siphoned off to do any dam thing I want...

Putin is the Big Dog, it says so right there on that bumper sticker.
Posted by: Spiny Gl 2511 || 06/05/2007 18:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Putins big duh moment; re us meddling in russia, "Dont they know we intend to take over the world with our Oil?

just wait tell we can set the price to 500.....

then I'll have enough loot siphoned off to do any dam thing I want...

Putin is the Big Dog, it says so right there on that bumper sticker.
Posted by: Spiny Gl 2511 || 06/05/2007 18:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Putin is the Big Dog, it says so right there on that bumper sticker.

Putin may be a Great Dane, but even they run from a mated pair of mountain lions.

One of the many things a friend taught me about living in Colorado was to never kick a sleeping bear. They may look dead, but nobody can run fast enough ...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 06/05/2007 19:23 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Jon Benet's Dad, Natalee Holloway's Mom: Dating...
File under Shortest of Attention Spans Theater.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2007 10:43 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Greta Van Sustern musta set this up....new 6 month's worth of filler material
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2007 11:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds good. Think I'll buy stock in National Enquirer...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/05/2007 12:17 Comments || Top||

#3  That bastard!
Posted by: Ex Astronaut Lisa Nowak || 06/05/2007 12:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Eeeewwwwwww
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/05/2007 16:12 Comments || Top||

#5  I swear to god, people, I thought the link was to Iowahawk or some other parody.
How can satire live, when reality gets this wierd??!!
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 06/05/2007 17:01 Comments || Top||

#6  Beth Holloway Twitty Ramsey? MSM attention span is really too short for that name.
Posted by: JohnQC || 06/05/2007 17:22 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Bahrainians Reject Anti-Celebration Censorship
Protests against restriction of freedom of expression have recently emerged in Bahrain, following a dance performance titled Majnoun Lilah that was held as part of the country's annual Spring Cultural Festival.

Islamist circles in Bahrain claimed that the dance contained "immoral acts" that they said were against religion, against morality, and against societal custom. As a result, the Bahraini parliament decided by a majority vote to establish a committee to investigate the matter.

Islamic MP Abd Al-Halim Murad explained the reasons for the Islamist opposition to the dance performance: "What happened at some of the activities of the Spring Cultural Festival was not part of [our] culture!... The MPs saw the scenes in which the male and female dancers were in perverted positions. It is absolutely impossible to remain silent about this - especially when the scenes were presented publicly, without shame!... Our country is Bahrain, not France or America! Bahrain is a Muslim country, and its identity is Islamic and Arab; its principles are Islamic, and its character is Islamic..."

The show's creators, Bahraini poet Qassem Haddad and Lebanese artist Marcel Khalifa, rejected the Islamist criticism. In a joint communiqué, they said that what the Islamist circles were doing was a kind of "terrorism [against] forms of thought and culture, and repression of any creative effort."

Haddad and Khalifa said that the position of the Islamist MPs was "not only an insult to free individuals who seek only knowledge and enjoyment, but also an insult to any civilized country that belongs to the 21st century... Is it appropriate that the people of a civilized country are represented by MPs who fantasize about taking over the regime - which, [if they did, would become] a regime of prohibition, repression, and expropriation?"

With the show's creators stood some 50 civil organizations, which issued a communiqué condemning the parliament's decision to set up an investigative committee. They accused political circles in the Bahraini parliament of "strangling the atmosphere of freedom and forcing its dominion on the choices of the citizens."

Bahrain's media joined in the protest against the restriction of freedom of expression and freedom of creativity in the country. In addition, criticism appeared also in the press of other Gulf countries. Newspaper editors and columnists attacked the Islamist circles for their interference in the lives of Bahrain's citizens, and called on them to stop the religious coercion and the damage to individual rights.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/05/2007 10:49 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If these dances are what I'm thinking they are, they are "traditional", i.e. very old? So how come they have been square with Islam until now? I think they hit a nerve with this one, maybe they will start to wake up some day and get out the pitchforks and torches.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/05/2007 23:02 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
AL runs on subscription, not extortion
Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina yesterday said Awami League is a people-oriented political party, not a business organisation, which runs on subscriptions of party's leaders, workers and sympathisers. "We don't do business but do politics for the welfare of the people. So, the donation and assistance that we receive from our well-wishers should not be treated as extortion," she said while talking to party leaders at her Sudha Sadan residence.
"Invest! Or else! It's for the People."
Meherpur District AL President Joinal Abedin, Awami Ulema League leader Liaquat Hossain Belali, Juba Mohila League General Secretary Prof Apu Ukil and its central leader Sabina Akhter Tuhin met Hasina at her residence. They quoted Hasina as saying that many mills and factories in the public sector were in operation during the five-year rule of the AL government when workers and employees of these mills used to pay subscriptions voluntarily to the party fund.

The meeting sources said that Hasina instructed her party leaders and workers to have patience taking into consideration the situation now prevailing in the country. Hasina expressed her Deep Concern® over health condition of the party's detained General Secretary Abdul Jalil who is now undergoing treatment at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


Greed wipes out a reserved forest
Not a single tree seen in 21-year-old woodland; rampant logging allowed for bribe
Jugalchhari Reserved Forest in the hill district of Khagrachhari does not exist anymore because of mismanagement and misdeeds of forest department officials, sources said. As a result the government lost a large sum of investment and at least 10 types of wild lives and 25 kinds of birds lost their safe habitat, environmentalists said adding that the large reserved forest could have been a wonderful natural habitat for wild lives.

A total of 2,415 acres of the reserved forest, which was supposed to grow into a lush habitat for many kinds of wild lives in the last 21 years since 1984, is now totally destroyed due to rampant illegal felling of trees by loggers under the safe shelter of the officials of Divisional Forest Office (DFO) and Panchhari Range Office.

Local forest officials of all levels directly helped the loggers to plunder the forest in exchange for hefty sums of bribes, making sure that they would not go out into the forest for routine inspections and monitoring, but they did not hesitate to misappropriate allocated government fund for the purpose, sources said.

A total of 2,565.50 acres of land of the same mouza were also brought under Jugalchhari forest for cultivating a variety of fruits, 800 acres of those were brought under the forest in 1984, 180 acres in 1997, 550 acres in 1985, 550 acres in 1993, and 555 acres in 1994. According to a statement of the DFO, a total of 30,89,130 segun saplings and a large variety of fruit trees were planted in the forest in the last 21 years. But during a recent visit to where the forest once was, The Daily Star correspondent could not find a single tree of any kind there.

According to Mongshi Marma, the man who coordinated the process of setting up the now vanished Jugalchhari Reserved Forest and its fruit orchards, the government spent more than Tk 12 crore for planting, preserving, nurturing and monitoring the trees, and it also had a target of earning more than Tk 100 crore after 20 years of its establishment. But after 21 years now the government still could not earn a single taka as the fruit orchards and the forest itself do not exist any more, Mongshi said.

Pradip Chowdhury, programme coordinator of the Centre for Sustainable Development (CFSD), said due to a lack of proper management many wild lives lost their habitat threatening the environment. "We want a proper investigation of the wholesale plunder of the forest, which made it extinct," he said.

"All forest officials concerned are responsible for the complete destruction of the reserved forest", said former chairman of Bhaibonchhara union parishad Kazi Shamsul Islam.

Minati Bala Tripura, 33, an indigenous woman who lives near where the forest once was, said the forest officials concerned directly helped loggers to cut down the trees. But, Divisional Forest Officer Shah-e-Alam said after the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord had been signed the indigenous communities cut down the trees of the forest illegally to sell the logs. When asked why he did not take any action against the alleged crime, he said, "I was not here at that time. Officials who were here at that time should have taken actions."
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thats property abuse. Thats sinful.
Posted by: newc || 06/05/2007 2:50 Comments || Top||

#2  "25 kinds of birds lost their safe habitat" are (were there) any spotted owls displaced??
Posted by: USN. Ret. || 06/05/2007 14:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Could be worse. Imagine what it would look like if the UN had control of it.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/05/2007 22:21 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Putin labels himself world's sole 'absolute democrat'
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described himself as an “absolute democrat” whose credentials are so pure that he has no peer in the world, a Russian newspaper reported on Monday. “Of course I am an absolute and pure democrat...the tragedy is that I am the only one, there are simply no others in the world,” he told foreign journalists ahead of this week’s Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany, the daily Kommersant reported. “Look at what is happening in North America: The horror, torture, homelessness and Guantanamo with imprisonment without a court or trial,” he told foreign journalists on Friday.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jeez. Sounds like he's been taking lessons from Hugo & Amad-what's-his-name
Posted by: Creager and Tenille1461 || 06/05/2007 0:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Yeltsin was an Absolut democrat. Putin is just another Stalin wannabe.
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2007 0:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Soooo, what do you suppose brought this on?

1) The syphilis has finally hit his brain.
2) He knows that the world's right-thinking people have never met a dictator they didn't like.

"Homelessness" -- now that's a blast from the past. He's dusting off Soviet playbooks from the Reagan era.

Next thing you know, hair metal will be back.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 06/05/2007 0:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Putin is a tragedy. Stalin was a statistic.
Posted by: Seafarious || 06/05/2007 0:40 Comments || Top||

#5  “Look at what is happening in North America: The horror, torture, homelessness and Guantanamo with imprisonment without a court or trial,” he told foreign journalists on Friday.

Unlike RasPutin, we are fighting terrorism instead of sponsoring it.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2007 0:40 Comments || Top||

#6  like ted kennedy democrat? jon murtha?
Posted by: newc || 06/05/2007 2:52 Comments || Top||

#7  If he says something, it's a lie, that's pretty what I believe. Let's not mention the terrorist dictorships his nation supports and suppplies.
Posted by: Grusons Darling of the Faith6548 || 06/05/2007 3:44 Comments || Top||

#8  Heh heh Em.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/05/2007 5:40 Comments || Top||

#9  I think he's right ... after watching that sorry Democrats' debate, Putin IS the absolute Democrat. Sorry Hillary.
Posted by: doc || 06/05/2007 8:50 Comments || Top||

#10  He opposes the US defending itself. He supports our enemies. He tries to silence opposition.

He'd fit right in with the Democrats.
Posted by: Gary and the Samoyeds || 06/05/2007 10:09 Comments || Top||

#11  That tells us how far the Dhimocrats have fallen when an enemy of the US matches their political rhetoric.
Posted by: DarthVader || 06/05/2007 10:39 Comments || Top||

#12  Vladimir I, By the Grace of God, Absolute Democrat of all the Russias, Wannabe of Poland.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 06/05/2007 10:50 Comments || Top||

#13  What the hell has Putty been smoking lately?
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/05/2007 22:22 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
China shares tumble as panic spreads
China stocks tumbled 8.3 percent on Monday in their second biggest drop this decade, erasing $340 billion in market value and extending big losses from last week after the government hiked the share trading tax to cool a feverish bull run.

In an apparent attempt by authorities to restore confidence, front-page editorials in official newspapers tried to reassure investors the market's medium- and long-term outlook was still positive, and that the tax hike was merely aimed at speculators.

But that failed to stop selling by many of the anxious and often inexperienced individual investors who had jumped into the market in recent months for what seemed like easy money.

"This is obviously panic selling, and the sentiment is quickly spreading across the market," said Wang Jing, deputy general manager at Everbright Securities.

"But the fall is normal today, given the fact that the market has gone up so much. It won't be surprising if the index falls to about 3,000 points -- which would mean a 30 percent correction from the top."

However, many analysts and fund managers said they did not believe the government, which has made a strong stock market central to its economic reforms, would permit an extended slide which could fuel social unrest or threaten China's rapid economic expansion.

The key index has now lost 15.3 percent from last Tuesday's record intra-day high. A fall of 10 percent is an internationally accepted definition of a bear market in stocks.

Global stock markets, which were roiled by a heavy Chinese market sell-off in late February, appeared to be taking the latest slump in stride, though many Asian markets came off the day's highs as the rout in Shanghai worsened.

"I knew the market would go down, but I did not expect it would be this fast. After a small plunge, it should go up, but it is not going up," said Madame Wang, a pensioner in her 50s, who put some of her savings into stocks during the bull run.

"Next time I will remember -- once the market falls, I will sell all my stocks."

Many fund managers and analysts in Asia said the index, which had risen 62 percent this year to last Tuesday's close after surging 130 percent in 2006, had room to fall much further in coming days as the excesses of the bull run were corrected.

But many also said they did not believe the market as a whole was going into freefall.

Most worrying to analysts were deep falls in some of the blue chips favored by institutional investors, since those stocks had stayed firm last week even as speculative shares tumbled.

Oil refiner Sinopec, which had risen 16 percent over the final three days of the week, sank its 10 percent daily limit to 13.65 yuan.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest bank, dropped 8.1 percent to 4.99 yuan.

The Shanghai Composite Index ended the day at 3,670.401 points, its lowest level since April 25. Losing stocks overwhelmed gainers by 846 to 17, with about 466 shares plunging their 10 percent daily limits.

Turnover in Shanghai A shares was active at 143.0 billion yuan ($18.7 billion), but down sharply from Friday's 224.7 billion yuan, suggesting many investors were pulling out of the market.

"Most new retail investors are too speculative to envision the mid- to long-term positive market trend. Their exit will cause a market landing, be it hard or soft," Morgan Stanley said in a report.

Traders see strong technical support for the index around 3,600, where it briefly peaked in mid-April. That level would still leave the market up 35 percent from the start of this year.

"Since the index has even fallen below 3,700 now, I believe the correction is about over," said Zheng Weigang at Shanghai Securities.

Another disillusioned investor at an Everbright Securities branch in Shanghai's financial district, a woman in her 30s surnamed Xu, said:

"I used to have confidence in the stock market. But how can I have confidence now that it has fallen so much. I have no more confidence. Even if the government wants to regulate the stock market, it should not be done like this."

($1 = 7.65 yuan)
Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/05/2007 00:13 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Zenster, comment?
Posted by: gromgoru || 06/05/2007 0:51 Comments || Top||

#2 
Mr. gro*goru is High.

-->Leb on Paleo

;-)
Posted by: RD || 06/05/2007 3:33 Comments || Top||

#3  China stocks tumbled 8.3 percent on Monday in their second biggest drop this decade, erasing $340 billion in market value and extending big losses from last week after the government hiked the share trading tax to cool a feverish bull run.

More government market manipulation. While ours might change the prime lending rate, this is a far more serious intervention. The loss of $340 BILLION from a single day's correction speaks of heavily inflated and over-valued stock prices to begin with, much like what I would expect from China's closed economy.

In an apparent attempt by authorities to restore confidence, front-page editorials in official newspapers tried to reassure investors the market's medium- and long-term outlook was still positive, and that the tax hike was merely aimed at speculators.

One can only wonder at just how much of China's market activity is based on "churning" accounts versus actual strategic trading. I doubt online trading in anywhere near as strongly in place as it is here in America. In fact, it appears to be all of one percent of overall traffic.
China's securities regulators recently issued provisional regulations for on-line stock trading, thereby legalizing a business that has been growing in China but without the blessing of the regulators. The regulations issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) ban non-securities companies such as Internet portals from engaging in any kind of online brokerage. Even securities companies which have licenses for stock trading must apply for qualification for Internet brokerage, according to the regulations. The CSRC demands Internet stock brokers separate their online trading system from other systems. Since 1997, more than 20 securities companies in China have opened online stock trading. According to CSRC chairman Zhou Xiaochuan, online trading now accounts for one percent of the total stock trading volume in China.
[emphasis added]

The fact that online trading has just recently come under regulation bespeaks of a wide-open market and one that is easily subject to irregularities. Compare this to American online trading:
Research done as CS First Boston determined that the volume of American online stock trading is increasing at the astronomical rate of 30 to 40 percent per quarter. Internet brokerage accounts now account for 25% of all retail stock trades and 15% of total stock trades, with both percentages rapidly increasing. We are now seeing a steady movement away from mutual funds and traditional brokers and towards deeply-discounted brokers operating over the Internet.
[emphasis added]

With such a minuscule amount of China's stock trading being done online, it leads me to believe that their market is much more subject to manipulation, by both government and financial institutions alike. It will be extremely interesting to see if overall financial numbers, like price to earnings ratios and other evaluations, will even be made available to the public.

Ever since communist China's birth such critical data has always been regarded as a state secret. With so much of Chinese big business being held by PLA top-brass, release of those numbers might cast an extremely unfavorable light upon China's much vaunted "redistribution of wealth."

But that failed to stop selling by many of the anxious and often inexperienced individual investors who had jumped into the market in recent months for what seemed like easy money.

Also known as shorn sheep.

Zenster, comment?

Two words: Bubble Economy.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2007 4:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Apparently, few insiders got forewarned about this, so the wealth of important people in China may be in jeopardy. Does anyone know whether this is the case, or do we have inside manipulation at play ?
Posted by: Grusosh Borgia9229 || 06/05/2007 11:00 Comments || Top||

#5  http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia

I gather that most of the panic selling has ended.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/05/2007 16:54 Comments || Top||

#6  #4: "the wealth of important people in China may be in jeopardy"

Awwwwwwwww....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/05/2007 17:54 Comments || Top||

#7  China is not so much a bubble economy as a hot money economy. Too much money sloshing around relative to opportunities to spend/invest that money.

Will it lead to 1997 type financial meltdown? Probably.
Posted by: phil_b || 06/05/2007 21:36 Comments || Top||

#8  ChinaThe whole world is not so much a bubble economy as a hot money economy. Too much money sloshing around relative to opportunities to spend/invest that money.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/05/2007 22:06 Comments || Top||

#9  How is the coming slowdown of Chinese imports going to affect their stock market, I wonder? The FDA just blocked Chinese made toothpastes because when tested they were found to contain diethylene glycol. As a matter of public safety they will have to expand the testing, and when they do even more interesting ingredients will be discovered... leading to more product/manufacturer blocks. Life is about to become extremely unpleasant for the Chinese, and losing face is only the least of their imminent problems.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/05/2007 22:15 Comments || Top||

#10  Tee Hee Hee!
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/05/2007 22:20 Comments || Top||


Europe
Mass Holocaust grave unearthed in Ukraine
Posted by: Unaitch Ulick9769 || 06/05/2007 18:22 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "but...but..." the lefties sputter, "...it never happened, and besides, it's a distraction from (our prescious)global warming hysteria..."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 06/05/2007 21:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Ironically, the concentration camp victims can be found, because their remains were buried. However, very few of the vast number of Slavs murdered were buried, often stacked in piles, then covered in fuel oil and burned by the einsatzgruppe in the retreat from Russia.

It even surprised the Wehrmacht, who had no idea what was going on in their rear area, until they had to retreat back through it.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/05/2007 22:18 Comments || Top||


Netherlands sued over Srebrenica
Relatives of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre have filed a case against the Dutch state and the UN, saying they allowed it to happen. The Bosnian town of Srebrenica was a UN safe haven under the protection of Dutch peacekeepers at the time. About 8,000 Muslims were killed after Bosnian-Serb forces overran the town.

The case was filed before The Hague district court. Dutch officials say compensation claims should be directed at the perpetrators of the massacre. Two-hundred women from the group known as the Mothers of Srebrenica carried banners in a silent march outside the Dutch parliament.

Their lawyers said the Dutch were to blame for refusing to give air support to their own troops defending Srebrenica, claiming that would have prevented Bosnian-Serb forces from advancing.

The Dutch cabinet resigned in 2002 after a report blamed politicians for sending the Dutch UN troops on an impossible mission. The Bosnian-Serb troops were under the command of General Ratko Mladic and the former leader Radovan Karadzic, the war crimes tribunal's most wanted fugitives.
Had the Euros stood tall in Bosnia in '93 and '94 -- simply enforced the ceasefires and safe zones for civilians as it said it would -- we would have far less of the Bosnian muslim radicalization that we have today. The Dutch, the French, the Brits, the Italians -- all failed, and it was finally up to Bill Clinton to step in and fix the mess. One of the several good things he did.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/05/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Had the Euros stood tall in Bosnia in '93 and '94

Had the Euros had sense not to side with Muzzies against humans (after all, it isn't like Serbs were "Zionists").
Posted by: gromgoru || 06/05/2007 0:53 Comments || Top||

#2  A lot of Serbs, from Milosevic on down, were spoiling for a fight with the Muslims, Croats, Slovenians, and even the Montenegrans in order to build a 'Greater Serbia' and, coincidentially, keep themselves in power after Tito died. Milosevic was one of the first to use ultra-nationalism, though not the only one. That in turn caused the Croats, etc to see themselves more as Croats, etc, instead of Yugos.

Not that being a 'Yugoslav' was all that great, but as it turned out, it beat the alternatives of mass graves and ethnic cleansing.

That war wasn't started by Muslims. It was started by Serb ultra-nationalists. If ever Muslims were true victims in the world, it was in Bosnia. Check out the mass graves sometime if you need further convincing.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/05/2007 1:27 Comments || Top||

#3  That war wasn't started by Muslims. It was started by Serb ultra-nationalists.

Look again.
Posted by: gromgoru || 06/05/2007 3:45 Comments || Top||

#4  You can't have shit like that happening in Europe 50 years after the holocaust no matter who the victim and aggressor. Not proud of the Euro role either.
Posted by: Howard UK || 06/05/2007 6:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Shit like this happens in Europe right now---to Kosovo's Serbs, Roma, and Turks.
Posted by: gromgoru || 06/05/2007 7:35 Comments || Top||

#6  Clinton stepped in and sided with the Muslims. And this was a good thing? Not even a close chance Scooter.

I remember several instances when the Muzzies were shelling their own people seeking MSM public victimhood. Now the only real victims are the Christian churches in the region.

Put another way. Muhammad's leason of mass murder dates back to the cold blooded killings of the Quraiza. The Dutch or Clinton, shit give me Legos over that Dhimmi idiot any day.
Posted by: Icerigger || 06/05/2007 7:37 Comments || Top||

#7  This is a war that has been going on for centuries with only brief hudnas. We didn't have a dog in it and should have stayed out. Even Bismark knew better than to get involved in the Balkans.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 06/05/2007 7:48 Comments || Top||

#8  Once I was shocked. Now I no longer care.
Posted by: Excalibur || 06/05/2007 9:21 Comments || Top||

#9  I've never been a believer in anything connected in the Kristian Amanpour War. [mrs. Mustache and her Husband, Mr. Rubin-Amanpour]
neither the so called facts nor the analyzers of the same.


Shit now lets see who were our people felons handling America's bizneth back then..

loose change Bill Clintoon,
Fatty Maddy Halfbright,
Dicky dick-up Holbrooke,
Warren guess-whats-in-my-mouth Christopher, Richard 'nothing actionable' Clarke
and Sad Sandy Ass Burgler.

nope, I demand a redo, one where the Muslimes and their deeds are measured objectively.
Posted by: RD || 06/05/2007 22:27 Comments || Top||


G-8 security fence troubling for Germans
HEILIGENDAMM, Germany - Bystanders gazed in curiosity and disgust Monday at the razor-wire-topped fence that will separate Group of Eight leaders from the rest of Germany during this week's summit — part of security measures that, for some, evoke memories of life behind the Iron Curtain.
The G-8 conference - just like the Stasi!
"It's not good given the history of Germany — we had it in East Germany, and now it's up again," said Ralf Klonschinski, on vacation from a home in eastern Germany, as he looked at a security camera and floodlight perched atop the eight-foot fence. "I'm not so sure it's necessary."

Cutting across seven miles of verdant farmland near some of Germany's main seaside playgrounds, the fence is reviving memories of the Berlin Wall as authorities confront the modern realities of global terrorism and radical protest movements. German officials say a 16,000-strong police presence at the G-8 meeting as the only way to safeguard the free expression of nonviolent demonstrators, after more than 400 police officers and 500 protesters were injured in nearby Rostock over the weekend. But some precautions don't feel so benign to Germans with long memories. Prosecutors already face criticism for taking scent samples in a pre-summit investigation of a handful of G-8 opponents — a technique used by the dreaded East German Stasi secret police to track dissidents with dogs — and for intercepting and opening the mail of another suspect.
See? See? Toldja! Stasi!
Like other vacationers, Klonschinski and his wife hiked to the edge the fence supported by massive concrete blocks at every post and reinforced with iron bars driven into the ground to prevent people from going underneath.

Protesters will not legally get anywhere near the barrier, after a court last week upheld a ban on demonstrations within about four miles of the fence. An alliance of activist groups that plans a June 7 march has appealed to Germany's highest court. On Monday, officers on foot patrolled the inside perimeter. Police vehicles periodically drove along the dirt road built along the outside of the fence, bisecting lush green fields and a forest.

The public could see the fence only where it meets the sea, with the other area restricted to journalists and officials. Inside the fence, all was quiet: A small red fox even emerged from a farmer's crops to examine the barrier between him and the forest before retreating.
Surely a spy fox reporting back to HQ
Days before the summit starts, armored personnel carriers, trucks with water-cannons atop and other support vehicles were put into place, while police helicopters flew overhead. "I wanted to go a little further, but there's a tank," vacationing Hamburg resident Ingeborg Seipel said as she turned her bicycle around. "It's all a little much." She cycled to the fence from the Baltic resort city of Kuehlungsborn — crowded with media covering the summit. Seipel said she knew that the G-8 would land in the middle of her three-week holiday, but didn't expect such tight controls. "These measures I couldn't imagine," she said.

Kuehlungsborn hoteliers say a drop in tourists because of the G-8 has been made up for by journalists coming in.

Klaus Selck, who runs a seaside bratwurst stand along the path between Kuehlungsborn and the summit site in Heiligendamm, said normally 2,000 to 3,000 tourists would be in and out of his patch every day at this time of year, compared with a small trickle on Monday.
Seaside German brats. Yummy!
But nodding to dozens of police vans and armored vehicles in the parking lot in front of his stand, he said the officers were making up for the drop-off in tourist business — and he prefers them to the black-clad anarchists who torched cars and broke windows in Rostock. "I'm happy they're here," he said. "We don't want those others here." As a lifelong resident of the Kuehlungsborn area, once located in communist East Germany, he rejected any similarities to border controls to the era before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. "In East Germany you'd never get close to the border fence — they stopped you 10 kilometers (six miles) away," he said. "There's no comparison."
And then the reporter heaved an audible sigh of relief, snapped his notebook shut, and gratefully retired behind the fence to the hospitality tent...
Posted by: Seafarious || 06/05/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  For the record, I made some lighthearted comments here but the security afforded to eight men (yes, yes, Angela, etc etc) and their retainers and remoras is absolutely ridiculous.

They (by which I mean we) are paying over $250 million to keep their inflated heads attached to their necks. I am appalled by the motives, tactics, and justifications of the anarchists/ islamists/ indymidiots who arrive to speak truth to power and heave grapefruit size paving stones at cops while wearing black hoodies and kefiyyehs.

*BUT*

If hordes of angry commoners, braying about Justice and literally bearing pitchforks and torches and buckets of tar, can be held at four miles' worth of arm's length from their Excellencies, how can we normal peaceable folk hope to change anything by writing letters and making phone calls?
Posted by: Seafarious || 06/05/2007 2:06 Comments || Top||

#2  They could solve the problem easily - simply meet in Smolensk in the middle of December.
Posted by: Glomoger Guelph3150 || 06/05/2007 2:34 Comments || Top||

#3  If hordes of angry commoners, braying about Justice and literally bearing pitchforks and torches and buckets of tar, can be held at four miles' worth of arm's length from their Excellencies, how can we normal peaceable folk hope to change anything by writing letters and making phone calls?

we can't. please pass the ammo.
Posted by: RD || 06/05/2007 3:08 Comments || Top||

#4  They should hold these things on Cruise ships at sea and just put a naval escort around them it would be cheaper.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 06/05/2007 5:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Sock - your suggestion is the theme of a recent (and rather bad) Frederick Forsyth novel ('The Afghan').
Posted by: Glenmore || 06/05/2007 8:08 Comments || Top||

#6  I'm telling you a good round of head cracking will go a long way toward shrinking the crowds numbers. It's one thing to rant but another to rant after a baton whacking on the head/leg/back/etc. Truly the problem is that we have let these rabble rousers too much freeedom and they have taken it and infringed on the freedom of others. Also these meeting have little use anymore because everyone is connected by the WWW and video conference. If they didn't hold one for five years these groups would simply dry up and blow away. Also almost all of these groups are way WAY out there on the fringe, it just looks spectacular when you get them all in a small space.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 06/05/2007 19:06 Comments || Top||

#7  A mislaid 480 volt cable and a water main break will take care of these anarchists.
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2007 19:10 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Wyoming senator dies after long battle with cancer
Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas, a three-term conservative Republican who stayed clear of the Washington limelight and political catfights, died Monday. He was 74. The senator's family issued a statement saying he died Monday evening at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

Just before the 2006 election, Thomas was hospitalized with pneumonia and had to cancel his last campaign stops. He nonetheless won with 70 percent of the vote, monitoring the election from his hospital bed. Two days after the election, Thomas announced that he had just been diagnosed with leukemia.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party.

Thomas was a low-key lawmaker who reliably represented the interests of his conservative state, often becoming involved in public lands issues. He worked in behind-the-scenes posts to oversee national parks, including Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. He was also an advocate for domestic energy and minerals production. He worked to protect Wyoming's mining industry from foreign competition and backed efforts to get a federally funded coal gasification plant built in the state.
A faint whiff of pork, but hey, he's dead.
Gov. Freudenthal said he and his wife have known Thomas for many decades and his death "is a very big loss to the people of this state. He carried the values that we treasure in Wyoming to Washington and had many successes," Freudenthal said. Thomas entered Congress in a special election in 1989 to replace Dick Cheney when the future vice president was named defense secretary by the first President Bush. Thomas won that race with 52 percent of the vote. He was born in Cody, Wyo., and was raised on a ranch. He graduated from the University of Wyoming with a degree in agriculture, then served four years in the U.S. Marines.

According to Peggy Nighswonger, Wyoming's elections director, the governor has five days to appoint one of the party's three nominees once he receives the names. That person will serve until the next general election in 2008.
Posted by: Seafarious || 06/05/2007 00:31 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party.

I heard tha on the radio this morning and thought, "My heavens! That certainly might've been done differently in many other states!" Like maybe the people of the State of Wyoming are put above George Soros' agenda.

Where's Cheney from, again?
Posted by: Bobby || 06/05/2007 6:13 Comments || Top||

#2  > "He worked to protect Wyoming's mining industry from foreign competition"

Translation. He worked to ensure American users of mining products were worse off.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan || 06/05/2007 7:03 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Perv gags media
President General Pervez Musharraf on Monday introduced amendments to the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Ordinance, 2002, putting new restrictions on electronic media. The amendments, made through an ordinance, empower PEMRA to seize the broadcast or distribution service equipment of channels, seal their offices, and suspend their licences if they operate illegally or violate PEMRA rules. Sub-section 2 of Section 30 has been withdrawn, under which complaints against broadcasters were referred to a Council of Complaints, which decided what action PEMRA should take against the violators.

Under a new Section 39a, the PEMRA authorities have been authorised to make new regulations without informing parliament. The ordinance raises possible fines for violations from Rs 1 million to Rs 10 million. It also brings Internet Protocol TV, radio and mobile TV under PEMRA regulations. The definition of frequency has also been changed in the rules encompassing the frequency of electromagnetic waves measured in hertz and used for transmission. The owners of private TV channels have also been bracketed along with operators to bring them under the PEMRA laws. The new ordinance is called the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Ordinance, 2007, and comes into force throughout Pakistan at once.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2007-06-05
  Terror suspect surrenders in Trinidad
Mon 2007-06-04
  Clashes in Ein el-Hellhole between army and Syrian sock puppets
Sun 2007-06-03
  UAE gives $80 million to Palestinians
Sat 2007-06-02
  Report: Feds arrest 3 in alleged JFK airport plot
Fri 2007-06-01
  Leb army attempts to seize Fateh al-Islam positions inside camp
Thu 2007-05-31
  UNSC approves Hariri court
Wed 2007-05-30
  Maliki is conducting "reconciliation" talks with Izzat Ibrahim
Tue 2007-05-29
  Iraqi Kurdistan to take charge of own security
Mon 2007-05-28
  14 Arrested in Spain on Terror Charges
Sun 2007-05-27
  U.S. Military Rescues 41 Iraqis From Al Qaeda Prison
Sat 2007-05-26
  Nangahar big turban snagged
Fri 2007-05-25
  Dems blink: House Approves War-Funding Bill
Thu 2007-05-24
  Israel seizes Hamas leaders in West Bank
Wed 2007-05-23
  PLO backs army entry into Nahr al-Bared
Tue 2007-05-22
  Hamas threatens new wave of suicide attacks


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