COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.
Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said.
Clarke moved to Sri Lanka in 1956, lured by his interest in marine diving which he said was as close as he could get to the weightless feeling of space. "I'm perfectly operational underwater," he once said.
Co-author with Stanley Kubrick of Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," Clarke was regarded as far more than a science fiction writer. He was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits.
He joined American broadcaster Walter Cronkite as commentator on the U.S. Apollo moonshots in the late 1960s.
#1
A couple years ago the Beeb had some comments from him regarding the problems in Sri Lanka. The article had a photo of him wearing an "I invented the communication satellite and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!"
Posted by: bruce ||
03/18/2008 19:04 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Damn, he WILL be missed. He wasn't my favorite SF author, but he was a damn good one. His stories were always thought provoking and well-written. Too many of these greats are passing now.
#4
I love Clarke's work but there's a pretty big leap between a story idea and the engineering to make it a reality.
It's the "ideas" that give the engineers something to aim for. He had the vision, others worked to make it a reality, give the man credit where credit is due.
#5
Rezvendous With Rama was the first serious SF novel I ever read, and it's still one of my favorites. Mr. Clarke helped me survive innumerable high school study hall periods with Glide Slope, The Nine Billion Names of God, Childhood's End, Tales of Ten Worlds, A Fall of Moondust, The Songs of Distant Earth, and 2001.
Rest in peace.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/18/2008 20:53 Comments ||
Top||
#6
As an engineer, we're usually fully tasked with making someone else's bright ideas work. I have made a career of making unwanted improvement ideas :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2008 21:14 Comments ||
Top||
#7
How's that perpetual motion thing coming along, Frank G?
#8
It wasn't a story idea, lopt, and had nothing to do with Clarke's fiction. He hadn't yet written any fiction at the time, in fact. Clarke proposed the geo-stationary satellite in an article entitled "Extra-terrestrial Relays" in the October 1945 issue of Wireless World. He had first mentioned the idea in a letter to the Wireless World editors in February of that year.
It was a serious proposal in a serious technical publication.
In his non-fiction collection, Ascent to Orbit, Clarke said that he had not really expected to see such satellites in his life-time back when he made the proposal, since he could not have anticipated the phenomenol advances in electronics that would follow the invention of the transistor just a few years later.
#9
The first serious SF work I ever read was Clarke's Earthlight. I was just 8 years old so it was pretty tough going, but I got through it. I did a book report on it. My third-grade teacher gave me an A, but she also smiled condescendingly and told me that I would eventually outgrow that "science fiction stuff."
That was in 1957 and it hasn't happened yet.
#10
trying to get rid of that last friction thang... We've alleviated all mechanical friction, it's the "excessive profits tax" proposed by the Democrats. Their rhetoric of "finding a loophole in the laws of physics shouldn't reward the rich and lawless, who disregard the poor and friction-bound!" is setting an adversary environment
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2008 21:59 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Try adding more socialism, Frank. Maybe that will *finally* be the solution for something.
I'm tempted to make a snark about how women and children are affected more by friction, but I'm not going there!
#12
I much enjoyed A.C. Clarke's original story that birthed 2001 A Space Odyssey. Also....did anyone catch the clue that first points to HAL 9000's impending doom? HAL made a mistake during the chess game. He claims checkmate. Frank concedes...though a study of the game shows that is not the case!
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/18/2008 23:45 Comments ||
Top||
At least 68 people were killed in a two-week government crackdown against separatists in Democratic Republic of Congo's western Bas-Congo province, according to internal U.N. reports seen by Reuters on Monday.
Starting on Feb. 28, hundreds of soldiers and police battled members of the ethnic-based political and religious movement Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) in an operation that initially began at Luozi, 200 km (125 miles) west of the capital Kinshasa.
BDK is campaigning for reestablishment of the pre-colonial Kongo kingdom, which encompasses parts of present-day Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Gabon.
After the violence at Luozi, clashes moved from town to town as police pursued BDK militants in a security crackdown the government said aimed to restore state authority in Bas-Congo.
A U.N. source, who asked not to be named, said there were further clashes over this weekend in three different towns and that three more BDK militants were killed.
Congo's government has given an initial official death toll of 22 BDK militants killed during the Luozi clashes. But the preliminary internal reports from U.N. teams, which have visited the areas worst hit by the violence, documented 68 deaths in the ongoing crackdown. The documents indicated the final death toll could be much higher.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
AN 11-year-old boy has married his 10-year-old cousin in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Mohammed al-Rashidi and his unidentified cousin would seal the marriage they contracted under the sharia laws of Islam and move in together after a ceremony to take place later this year, Al-Shams newspaper reported today.
"I am ready for this marriage. It will help me study better," Mohammed, who goes to primary school in the northern province of Hail, was quoted as saying by Al-Shams.
"I invite all my classmates to do like me," the boy said. He wanted to "crown a love story through marriage".
The boy's father, Muraizak al-Rashidi, told the newspaper he was busy sending out invitations for a celebration to seal the marriage. Dahim al-Jaber, the headmaster at Mohammed's school, said marriage at such a young age was "inappropriate" but wished the couple a happy life together.
3 dozen of her cousins & uncles are entitled to pre nuptial conjugal visits.
/puke
After-all she's older that the favorite wife of Muhammad.
/ok i made the whole thang up
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
03/18/2008 18:43 Comments ||
Top||
A respected east London Muslim has been convicted of rape following a Scotland Yard counter-terrorism investigation.
So he's not so respected anymore, is he ...
Abdul Makim Khalisadar pleaded guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court to raping a 27-year-old woman after forcing his way into her home in October 2005.
Police were investigating Khalisadar's links to terrorist Kazi Nurur Rahman but it did not lead to a terror arrest. However, DNA taken when he was arrested for having child abuse pictures on his computer linked him to the rape. After denying it for almost a year and a half, Khalisadar admitted raping the woman in Whitechapel, east London, in the early hours of 16 October 2005.
He is unemployed but used to work as an assistant in a primary school teaching English and Maths. He also worked with an anti-drug-and-violence project in east London's Brick Lane, and was well known for his religious talks.
Seven of Khalisadar's religious friends have admitted conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Belal Ahmed, 24, Tanbir Ahmed, 24, Mohammed Tahar Hussain, 25, Iqbal Hussain-Ali, 25, Tony Autier, 30, Thouhid Ahmed, 24, and Shaherul Islam Khan, 24, admit lying to the police in formal statements. They claimed Khalisadar was giving a talk at the East London Mosque at the time of the rape.
They're not so respected either, are they ...
The victim's ordeal began at around 0330 as she returned to her home. She was accosted by Khalisadar who forced his way past her as she opened the door. "I'm going to rape you," he said twice. She said she was pregnant with twins, which was not true but she was trying to stop the assault.
He forced her to perform a sex act, and threatened to kill her when she tried to escape. He held a knife to her throat, saying: "You love your Daddy." Traces of his semen were found on the victim's body and clothes. She was also left with bruises on her arms, leg and face. There was an appeal on the BBC's Crimewatch programme but the assault remained unsolved for almost a year.
In the meantime, Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command was investigating Khalisadar's connection with Rahman, who was convicted in 2006 of trying to buy Uzi sub-machine guns for use by terrorists. When Khalisadar was taken to a police station and swabbed for DNA, detectives discovered to their surprise that he was the man being sought for the rape.
At first he insisted the sex was consensual, then he concocted an alibi saying he had been giving a talk on repentance at the mosque that night. It was the middle of Ramadan, and young men would often meet at the mosque through the night before eating their breakfast ahead of sunrise. His friends supported the alibi, but now admit they lied. The DNA evidence was overwhelming and there was also technical evidence that his phone was used near the victim's flat at the time of the rape.
Khalisadar and his co-accused will be sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Tuesday. Eleven charges of possessing photographs of child abuse are not being proceeded with at present.
#1
A respected east London Muslim has been convicted of rape following a Scotland Yard counter-terrorism investigation.
How the word "respected" fits in with any other fact presented by this piece is beyond me. This man and all his accomplices should be shot in the head and their bodies disposed of in pig skin. Unfortunately, I gather this is not the penalty currently required by law.
Boris Johnson has opened up a 12-point lead over Ken Livingstone in the race to become mayor of London, according to an opinion poll published today. The survey for the London Evening Standard says that 49% of voters would use their first-preference votes to back Johnson, the Conservative candidate, while only 37% would vote to give Labour's Livingstone a third term in office.
It's not clear to me that replacing Red Ken with a dude named "Boris" is a step forward. But I don't know much about London city politix, so I'm willing to be educated.
Johnson is also ahead of Livingstone on second-preference votes, according to the YouGov figures, suggesting that the mayor would struggle to make up the gap by collecting the votes redistributed from other candidates.
YouGov had Livingstone ahead by four points in January, but by February it said that Johnson was leading by five points. Today's figures suggest that the Tory candidate has now opened a commanding lead. With more than six weeks to go until polling day, Livingstone who formally launches his campaign tomorrow will be hoping that voters will turn away from Johnson as media scrutiny intensifies in the run-up to the election.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
His plans include the use of GLA-owned land, such as sites near railway stations, for a "FirstSteps" housing scheme for low-paid Londoners ineligible for government "key-worker" homes. Planning rules would be used to help "design out crime" without producing ugly developments and to ensure iconic structures such as St Paul's Cathedral and the Palace of Westminster were not obscured from view by new skyscrapers.
Not sure what GLA stand for in the UK, my only knowledge of that acronym comes from C&C:ZH.
And sure, skyscrapers, but what about the other plans in the works which would significantly altar the London skyline?
The Serbian government on Tuesday decided to call back its ambassador to Japan, Ivan Mrkic, from Tokyo after Japan earlier in the day officially recognized Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia last month.
The ambassador was ordered by the Serbian foreign ministry to leave Tokyo within 48 hours and return for consultations after handing over Serbia's protest note to Japan over the recognition, a statement by the ministry said.
Ahead of Kosovo's declaration of independence, the Serbian government had approved action plans, which included downgrading diplomatic relations with the countries which recognize Kosovo.
So far, more than 30 countries, including the United States, Britain, France and Germany have recognized Kosovo.
NATO placed the Kosovo town of Mitrovica under de facto military law on Tuesday after riots by a hostile Serb population killed one U.N. policeman and forced the pullout of U.N. personnel.
The NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR and the United Nations mission ordered all local Kosovo Serb police officers to park their patrol cars and suspend normal duties. With U.N. police already withdrawn, the order left French, Belgian and Spanish troops in sole control of law and order in the northern slice of Kosovo, where Serbs opposed to its Feb 17 secession from Serbia dominate the population.
...
A Ukrainian police officer serving with the United Nations died overnight of injuries sustained in the riots. A U.N. source said he died of shrapnel wounds. Polish, French and Ukrainian police were also injured, some seriously.
...
The violence was sparked by a U.N. police operation to retake a U.N. court seized three days earlier by protesting Serbs and cast further doubt on the deployment in the north of a European Union rule-of-law mission in the coming two months.
It left NATO holding the line. But the 16,000-strong peace force has ruled out policing the new state, a job the United Nations is supposed to hand over to the EU. "We will maintain our intention to deploy the mission throughout the territory of Kosovo," the EU's new Kosovo envoy, Pieter Feith, told a news conference. The EU last month withdrew a small advance team from north Mitrovica for security reasons.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2008 09:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
Good question, Ex. I'd be ready to join Code Pink if U.S. troops get involved in this mess. Don't be surprised, though, if the French, Belgian and Spanish troops get really nasty.
#5
WAFF.com > various nations have recognized Kosovo, wid CANADA about to become the latest.
WAFF Poster - argues for forum not to be surprised IFF RUSSIA FORMALLY RECOGNIZES TURKISH SOVEREIGNTY = INDEPENDENCE? OF MUSLIM CYPRUS [or other] IN RETALIATION FOR THE WEST'S RECOGN OF KOSOVO???
Serbs in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica fired weapons and threw grenades at international peacekeepers, wounding dozens of police officers and NATO troops.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
RUMORMILLNEWS > RUSSIA-IC.com > PRECEEDINGS OF WW3: RUSSIA MAY SEND ITS TROOPS TO PROTECT SERBS IN KOSOVO. Troops option on table as Serbia and Russ engage in intense bilateral negotiations over how to deal to wid Kosovo crisis.
Also from RUSSIA-IC > RUSSIA MAY FIND ECONOMIC SUPPORT WITH SAR + RUSSIA BUILDING RELATIONS WID ISLAMIC WORLD/COUNTRIES IN SENEGAL.
In an interview with ABC News Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., called for the firing of talk radio host Don Imus. Obama said he would never again appear on Imus' show, which is broadcast on CBS Radio and MSNBC television.
"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus," Obama told ABC News, "but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude."
Exclusive photos at the link. Click through and admire the steely determination of this iron woman as she taunted the SerboBosniCroatBanian assassins with her defiance. "Your telescopically-aimed Dragunov SVDs can't intimidate me," her eyes seem to be saying.
Everyone in the photo seems remarkably calm despite the risk of sniper fire. Hillary has spoken several times about being attacked by snipers that day. . . . Digital Dope has more AP coverage of Hillary's daring 1996 visit.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/18/2008 10:50 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Either she and everyone else has the calmest nerves I have ever seen, the snipers are so bad of shots that no one noticed, or she is lying out her ass.
There have always been those who needed others to believe they were brave and heroic, 49 Pan. At least she's not like the wannabe firefighter who sets fires, calls them in, then watches the real firemen come to put it out.
#8
At least she's not like the wannabe firefighter who sets fires, calls them in, then watches the real firemen come to put it out.
Don't give her any ideas, TW!
Posted by: Mike ||
03/18/2008 12:50 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Don't worry so, Mike. Neither she nor her followers would pollute themselves by popping by here -- not when they can check the pulse at DailyKos and wherever it is that beer-drinking Democrats hang out.
#10
Don't-cha get it? She was really drawling the elocution of "snapper fire," the Arkansas term for standing in front of a bunch of people "takin' pitchers." Sheesh......!
Then, in 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government. For the first time in 26 years, Illinois Democrats controlled the governor's office as well as both legislative chambers.
The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James "Pate" Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor.
Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's kingmaker.
Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio program.
I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:
"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"
"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"
"Barack Obama."
Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.
"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit."
#1
"Pate" Philips is not a race baiter.
He is a jerk of the highest degree but all his jerkness revolved around money and favors - one could say he was a democrat machine pol wearing Republican colors.
#1
I'll be interested to see how many people jump ship on him over this. The flaming libs wont give a damn, they already hate amerikkka and whites(even if they are white).
The Early Show did its best this morning to help Barack Obama climb out of the hole he's dug for himself with his close association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In a set-up segment, CBS's Dean Reynolds rhetorically asked: "the question is whether the rhetoric is so remarkable, because in African-American churches pastors often seek to rouse their congregants to self-reliance by speaking harshly about the country's troubled racial past and the need to overcome it."
Nice try, but how does accusing the US government of introducing AIDS and giving black people drugs equate to a call for self-reliance?
Reynolds concluded by stating that the Obama campaign is concerned that its candidate has been "victimized" in the same way the Trinity church claims Rev. Wright has. Then it was on to a Russ Mitchell interview of the Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, III of Harlem's famed Abyssinian Baptist Church. The thrust of Mitchell's questions and Rev. Butts' responses was that the controversy is being blown out of proportion, that fiery rhetoric is a tradition in black churches with roots in the Bible and even in the words of Jesus. Moreover, it would be wrong to expect congregants to criticize their pastors' words.
RUSS MITCHELL: When it comes to the African-American church, how surprised should people be when they hear a pastor, from the pulpit, giving a controversial message using such strong language?
BUTTS: Well, the strength of the language of course is questionable. However, the prophetic tradition of the African-American church has been such that we have had to criticize the nation that we love so dearly in order to win our human and civil rights. We've had to speak harshly about the injustices to draw people's attention to the real problems that we've had to face. The shock value is nothing new. The Prophets used it in ancient Israel. The Disciples used it, Jesus called the Pharisees whitened sepulchres or whitened tombs. So the shock rhetoric is not unusual in pulpits, black or white, but certainly in the black community because people have to have the point driven home, and they have to have made vivid. And sometimes the language can be awfully powerful.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Disciples used it, Jesus called the Pharisees whitened sepulchres or whitened tombs.
Uh, nice try BUTTS, but the Pharisees that Christ was rebuking were the preachers of that time. Not a race, which were fellow Jews or the government over Israel, which happened to be Rome.
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness."
The body and bones of a dead person are considered 'unclean' (Tamai in hebrew) and when a Jew touches something Tamai, the Jew becomes spiritually unclean. It requires a ceremony using the ashes of the red heifer to cure the spiritual uncleaness.
#7
The outside of the sepulchre is bright and shiny (whitewashed). The inside is full of decay and corruption. So it was with the hypocritical Pharisees: they kept up with the externals of the religion, but (apparently) didn't take it any deeper to the point where their hearts were changed. In other words, they were hypocrites.
Officials at Sen. Barack Obama's church have taken offense at the controversy born out of the fiery statements made by their senior pastor who sermonized that black Americans should sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America."
Take offense and be damned, then.
Since last week's media eruption after the controversial sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Wright left the campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee and Obama distanced himself from his pastor of 20 years. "I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have [been] the subject of this controversy," Obama said, saying that he'd never heard any of them personally.
"Yep. Twenty years in church, never heard a one of them."
"One of them I had heard about after I had started running for president and I put out a statement at that time condemning them," he continued.
But more than a year ago, Obama disinvited Wright from speaking at his candidacy announcement. Wright told The New York Times then that Obama told him, "You can get kind of rough in the sermons. It's best for you not to be out there in public."
"Settle for being a power behind the throne, okay?"
Church member and University of Chicago theology professor Dwight Hopkins says Wright's message has been taken out of context.
What's the context that makes "God damn America" acceptable?
"The whole point to Dr. Wright's sermons is to how do you make America a better America. If anything he's a true patriot," Hopkins said.
Right. Washington used to say "God damn America" all the time. It was regularly on the lips of Lincoln. Audie Murphy had it embroidered on his underwear.
He also argues that the furor surrounding Wright smacks of a general attack against the idea of a black church born during slavery. "It tries to be a healing balm in the midst of some very challenging situations in the inner city and ghettos," Hopkins said. "If we took a field trip to a thousand black churches across the country on Sunday, you would have a very serious wake-up call on the nature of those messages."
You mean all black churches are venomously anti-American?
The Illinois senator is considering giving a speech this week on race. Referencing the tight delegate race ahead for the Democratic candidates, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile called the Wright focus "a distraction" to the campaign.
Same kind of "distraction" that little incident in Noo Joisey was to the Hindenberg.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Folks that follow Obama are all about excusing away all of these issues. Throwing it back on us for condemning it. Really unbelievable stuff.
Just reading the credo of the Trinity church is pretty controversial. Wright just reinforces it with his preaching (if you want to call it that).
Posted by: Jan ||
03/18/2008 0:45 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Let's see, who else do we know that uses the "It was a misunderstanding" meme?
#3
Just another reverand whose bible is not the one from God, but the one from the liberal hate America and God segment of society. He hates whites, even white Christians (followers of Christ) and Israel (God's chosen people). Both stances violate Old and New testament laws, statutes and commandemnts.
#4
Officials at Sen. Barack Obama's church have taken offense
Well lots of us kind-of really take offense with the words and actions seen from that church....
#5
Here' what he doesn't "hate;" Your ability to fund midnight basketball, finance black college full-ride tuition, pay restitution, compensation, 40 acres, mules, etc. Stoked for decades by the liberal government affirmative action blame game, that's what it's always been about, that's what it will always be about. Folks have been listening to this rubbish for so long they have come to believe it or are fully desensitized. Unfortunately, the Obama momentum is such now that if he loses, I fear we're in for some real social trouble.
#7
"Taken out of context" - like you accepted that line as a defense from another Senator, Trent Lott. The ruled class not buy the Lib mantra of 'one set of rules for thee and another set of rules for me'? Your Platinum Guilt Card(tm) is over the limit sir.
#9
My dad, the retired Lutheran Pastors, thinks the politics and racism in these sermons and this church should cause them to lose their religious tax-exempt status.
#10
"The whole point to Dr. Wright's sermons is to how do you make America a better America. If anything he's a true patriot"
The USA created AIDS to kill black people?
Blacks are superior to whites?
Farrakhan is worthy of an award?
Tell me how these things make America better. Stormfront couldn't be more racist than this guy.
And tell me why Wright himself isn't saying one word to the press about any of this? He sure had a lot to say over the course of 20 years. Does he only speak to black people? Why are Obama and others his apologists?
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2008 11:17 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Obama has a knife sticking out of his back. Every replay of the "Wright Stuff" causes his campaign to lose a bit more vilocity. Bill is just sittin back sayin ,"Lets let things play out".
Who dunnit to BO? Any ideas? Class? Anyone?
#14
Folks have been listening to this rubbish for so long they have come to believe it or are fully desensitized. Unfortunately, the Obama momentum is such now that if he loses, I fear we're in for some real social trouble.
Besoeker, am I the only one here seeing the similarity with the european decolonization of africa, north and subsaharan, and the relationship with former colonies (through foreign policies, AND, mostly through mass immigration from said former colonies), IE an explosive mix-up between a sense of grievance, a sense of entitlement, and plain resentment, met with a force-fed/enforced guilt from the other side? And, as for the USA, this particular negative and ultimately very harmful IMHO trend was not at all unavoidable, quite the contrary, it was cultivated by the same marxists/progressives strain, for ideological reasons, and for profit (many demagogues have built their career on that).
To me, there's an obvious parallal to be made between race relations in the USA since the civil rights era, and in race relations between ethnic europeans and migrants in Europe. Quite a waste.
#15
What is most important about Wright and his relationship to OHB is the consistent message that America is bad. Same message we get from Mrs. Obama. Same message he got when he grew up with his hippy mom. That is just not good. If he becomes president, he is going to go into every situation with a starting point perspective that America is at fault and so must make concessions. He is not going to defend what he doesn't love or respect. This stuff clearly runs very deeply in OBH. It is not going to go away and I don't think he is going to be able to 'splain it away. The curtain has started to be pulled back and what we see is down right scary!
#17
Telling people that they are taking it out of context when they have just watched the video is just making it worse. That's adding the insult of being a dumbass onto the heap.
In an interview with ABC News Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., called for the firing of talk radio host Don Imus. Obama said he would never again appear on Imus' show, which is broadcast on CBS Radio and MSNBC television.
"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus," Obama told ABC News, "but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude."
NEW DELHI - India plans to buy six Hercules transport planes from Lockheed Martin for nearly one billion dollars, marking the countrys biggest ever military aircraft deal with the United States, officials said on Monday. The government has signed a letter of offer and acceptance with the US government for the procurement of six C-130J-30 (Hercules) transport aircraft for the Indian air force, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a statement.
The estimated value of the aircraft along with ground-support equipment and spares was around 962 million dollars, Antony said. Delivery of these aircraft is likely to be completed by December 2011, Antony added.
The Indian deal involves an upgraded version of the Hercules, which began production in 1997, the company said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
ION INDIA, WAFF.com > INDIA ALARMED AS CHINESE-BUILT GWADAR PORT BECOMES OPERATIONAL. Summary - GWADAR PORT serves no intrinsic Paki = Regional commercial purpose except to serve/benefit China and PLAN.
Also from WAFF.com [paraph]> TIBET: PAKISTAN FULLY SUPPORTS/ENDORSES CHINA; + INDIA: HINDUS TRYING TO FORCIBLY RECONVERT CHRISTIANS. Alleged Threats, Bribes, and Intimidation???
NEW DELHI - Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who lives in exile in India, said on Monday that she wants to lead a normal life and needs to go abroad soon to de-stress herself, according to news reports. The 45-year-old Bengali author has been confined to a safe house somewhere in New Delhi after she was forced to leave West Bengals state capital Kolkata in November 2007 following violent protests by Muslim fundamentalist groups who said her writings were offensive to Islam.
The stress of the past seven-and-a-half months had affected her health, PTI news agency quoted Nasreen as saying from an undisclosed location. She said she had been suffering from a heart disease and retinopathy, an eye ailment.
I have to leave this impossible situation. I cannot interact with people. I cannot any more take this stress which has led to hypertension, she said. I want to lead a de-stressed life and I want to live life to the full, the controversial author said but did not reveal where she would be going.
Asked if she would return to India after medical treatment, Nasreen said she would love to come back and live in her favourite city Kolkata if she was allowed to lead a normal life.
Nasreen has been living outside Bangladesh since 1994 - first in various European countries and then in Kolkata - after Islamic fundamentalist groups in her country issued a fatwa against her writings.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) prime ministerial hopeful Makhdoom Amin Fahim on Monday accused outsiders of creating rifts in the party over his nomination and expressed his resolve to brave these intrigues to keep the party united.
Some outsiders are trying to create rifts and divide the party over the issue of [my] premiership candidature, but I will not let them succeed, a composed and confident Fahim told Daily Times at the Parliament building.
Fielding a volley of questions on the issue, Fahim responded to one, saying: I have left it to Asif Ali Zardari, but parried another on what his reaction would be if Zardari nominated someone else for the top slot.
Earlier, Fahim had said that he would support Zardari as the partys prime ministerial candidate on the latters request. Otherwise, he said he would be the candidate come what may.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Engineers harnessing the same physical property that drives silent household air purifiers have created a miniaturized device that is now ready for testing as a silent, ultra-thin, low-power and low maintenance cooling system for laptop computers and other electronic devices.
The compact, solid-state fan, developed with support from NSF's Small Business Innovation Research program, is the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size. It produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan and is one-fourth the size...
"The RSD5 is one of the most significant advancements in electronics cooling since heat pipes. It could change the cooling paradigm for mobile electronics," said Singhal.
The RSD5 incorporates a series of live wires that generate a micro-scale plasma (an ion-rich gas that has free electrons that conduct electricity). The wires lie within un-charged conducting plates that are contoured into half-cylindrical shape to partially envelop the wires.
Within the intense electric field that results, ions push neutral air molecules from the wire to the plate, generating a wind. The phenomenon is called corona wind.
With the breakthrough of the contoured surface, the researchers were able to control the micro-scale discharge to produce maximum airflow without risk of sparks or electrical arcing. As a result, the new device yields a breeze as swift as 2.4 meters per second, as compared to airflows of 0.7 to 1.7 meters per second from larger, mechanical fans.
The contoured platform is a part of the device heat sink, a trick that enabled Schlitz and Singhal to both eliminate some of the device's bulk and increase the effectiveness of the airflow.
"The technology has the power to cool a 25-watt chip with a device smaller than 1 cubic-cm and can someday be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips," said Schlitz.
This device is also more dust-tolerant than predecessors. While dust attraction is ideal for living-room-scale fans that that provide both air flow and filtration, debris can be a devastating obstacle when the goal is to cool an electrical component. Incredible military applications.
#1
"The technology has the power to cool a 25-watt chip with a device smaller than 1 cubic-cm and can someday be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips," said Schlitz.
The a huge bull broke through the wall and destroyed the lab in front of their eyes.
To let the public weigh in on the U.S. Air Force KC-X competition, Boeing has launched "Tanker Facts," an external blog. Employees should continue to use the internal KC-767 Tanker Blog to discuss topics that have direct impact on them.
"We hope that this blog will allow us to put the facts in one place by posting news and correcting inaccurate information quickly while providing a forum for open discussion," said Mary Foerster, vice president, Integrated Defense Systems Business Support, Communications & Community Affairs.
NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - The yield on U.S. 3-month Treasury bills fell below 1 percent on Monday to levels not seen in 50 years prompted by intense safety bids for cash spurred by the ongoing global credit crunch. Investors were pulling money out of stocks and even the booming commodity market even after the Federal Reserve conducted a fresh round of measures over the weekend to alleviate the credit crisis. Major U.S. stock indexes .DJI .SPX .IXIC were down as much as 1 percent. Oil prices CLc1 were off 2.6 percent at $107 a barrel.
"People are confused. They are in a reactive mode," said Lou Brien, market strategist at DRW Trading in Chicago.
The yield on three-month T-bills, considered by economists as a "risk-free" benchmark return on U.S. assets, was last quoted at 0.84 percent , down 36 basis points from late Friday. It reached a low of 0.63 percent earlier. "It's a complete place to hide out," Brien said.
The yield on 1-month Treasury bills traded even lower than their three-month counterparts. It was last quoted at 0.55 percent, down 64 basis points from late Friday. Six-month bill yield last traded at 1.23 percent, compared with 1.34 percent late on Friday.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I don't know what market this news is about. I've been buying & redeeming T-bills since 1992. (I have never sold one, all are kept by me until maturity.) On Mon. the 17th the usual 3-month T-bill auction took place and the rate was 1.118 % for CUSIP 912795E98. This auction is open to anyone who has an account with TreasuryDirect.gov or with many brokerages such as Fidelity & Vanguard, which have free or low-cost options to access the sale. The 6-month T-bill was 1.337%. I don't participate in auctions at these low rates, but it's weird to see even lower rates publicized & fretted over.
3- and 6-month T-bills are sold almost every Monday of the year to virtually anyone who cares to bid.
Perhaps these rates only apply to those who are so financially stressed that they must sell a 90-day T-bill at when it has 89 days until maturity.
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.
A respected east London Muslim has been convicted of rape following a Scotland Yard counter-terrorism investigation. 
Boris Johnson has opened up a 12-point lead over Ken Livingstone in the race to become mayor of London, according to an opinion poll published today. The survey for the London Evening Standard says that 49% of voters would use their first-preference votes to back Johnson, the Conservative candidate, while only 37% would vote to give Labour's Livingstone a third term in office.
The Serbian government on Tuesday decided to call back its ambassador to Japan, Ivan Mrkic, from Tokyo after Japan earlier in the day officially recognized Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia last month. 
Officials at Sen. Barack Obama's church have taken offense at the controversy born out of the fiery statements made by their senior pastor who sermonized that black Americans should sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America." 
NEW DELHI - India plans to buy six Hercules transport planes from Lockheed Martin for nearly one billion dollars, marking the countrys biggest ever military aircraft deal with the United States, officials said on Monday. The government has signed a letter of offer and acceptance with the US government for the procurement of six C-130J-30 (Hercules) transport aircraft for the Indian air force, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a statement.
NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - The yield on U.S. 3-month Treasury bills fell below 1 percent on Monday to levels not seen in 50 years prompted by intense safety bids for cash spurred by the ongoing global credit crunch. Investors were pulling money out of stocks and even the booming commodity market even after the Federal Reserve conducted a fresh round of measures over the weekend to alleviate the credit crisis. Major U.S. stock indexes .DJI .SPX .IXIC were down as much as 1 percent. Oil prices CLc1 were off 2.6 percent at $107 a barrel.
