I would like to congratulate you on successfully finishing the democratic primaries. I have been watching your taped speeches and I have to tell you, man, from now on you my hero. The way you pulled out from that nasty, dirty and immoral attack on you from MSM is something that supposes to be written into the world history books.
I am talking about the made up stuff about your favorite Rev Jeremiah. That poor old man was just expressing his rights for freedom of speech (something that nobody will have once we take over your country, with your help of course) and telling the truth about white people of Amriika. Its not like you...
Amy: "I am not a slack-jawed lackwit. I'm... ummm... something else."
A video showing British singer Amy Winehouse singing a racist chant and apparently surrounded by drug paraphernalia has been released by The News of The World tabloid.
In the home footage, filmed by the Grammy Award-winning singer's husband Blake Fielder-Civic, Winehouse sings a racist football chant to the tune of the British children's song 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'. In place of the conventional words, however, Winehouse sings with a friend: 'Blacks, pakis, gooks and nips.'
The clip shows a coffee table in the background upon which six cigarette lighters are resting, alongside a substance which looks like heroin on a foil.
According to the British tabloid, it received the video from a friend of the 24-year-old singer's, who also handed over a number of photographs in which Winehouse is seen apparently taking drugs with Fielder-Civic. Fielder-Civic, 26, is currently in jail facing trial for Grievous Bodily Harm, in addition to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. In another section of the video he asks Winehouse to perform a sex act on him in the public stairwell of a hotel.
The British newspaper The Daily Mail reported that the troubled singer apologized on Sunday for her racist words, speaking to photographers on the steps of her London home.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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Why Drugs Are Bad For You, Example #14
Posted by: Mike ||
06/09/2008 6:50 Comments ||
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(Source: China Daily/Agencies) Paris Hilton's mother doesn't want her daughter to rush into marriage. Kathy Hilton thinks the "Simple Life" star should take her time to decide whether Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden is the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, because they have only been together for a short time.
Kathy said: "They've only been dating for three months! But he's such a nice boy and they're really sweet together. He likes Paris for herself." Paris recently revealed she thinks Benji is her "perfect match", saying she has never had such strong feelings for a man. She said: "He wants to get hitched and we've talked about it. I'd wear a beautiful white dress, probably Dolce and Gabbana. We are the perfect match. We don't like being apart - we like to stay with each other as much as we can."
I can't wait to see the honeymoon video.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
My Dilemma.
I can't decide whether Skunk or Skank best describes Paris Hilton??
Paris, Britney, and those other strumpets quit wearing panties when somebody told them that public utilities are required to be open for inspection at all times in California.
#4
Paris, Britney, and those other strumpets quit wearing panties when somebody told them that public utilities are required to be open for inspection at all times in California.
ROLF! I spit coffee Damn IT AC! LMAO!
now my keybox8*ard doe(` wor&
#5
I think Miss Hilton is starting to reach some sad conclusions. First of all, the old man with the money hates her and her sister, and is not going to give them a dime. Second, that she doesn't have a heck of a lot of ways to make money. And third, that a well to do husband might at least keep her in Gucci blue jeans.
#6
AC is the definite winner of the Snark o' the Day™ Award. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/09/2008 14:42 Comments ||
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#7
You're kidding right 'moose? She made like mid-high 8 figures last year on her little cult of personality. Even if she's yesterday's news she's no longer in need of the family's money.
The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass -- almost 110 million square kilometres -- enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.
The above translation indicates there were no usual poultry deaths in stalls that tested positive for H5N1. The detection of H5N1 in 5 of 20 samples in these stalls suggest the H5N1 infected chickens were asymptomatic.
Asymptomatic H5N1 infections are more common in waterfowl, raising concerns that either the H5N1 has changed, or the chickens have protective immunity that keeps birds asymptomatic, but allows for viral shedding.
Asymptomatic chickens have been reported previously in Vietnam, but that H5N1 was clade 1. The common H5N1 infection in southern China is clade 2.3 (Fujian strain), which has also been detected in wild birds in Hong Kong for the past several years.
The current outbreak raises concerns of a significant H5N1 reservoir in southern China, which may be related to the wild bird outbreaks further north along the east edge of Asia, which lies in the East Asian flyway.
The outbreak in China raises additional concerns of a global expansion for the Fujian strain of H5N1.
Free and stable, self-declared republic chafes at lack of world recognition
Longish piece in the Sunday Chicago Tribune. Regular Rantburgers have seen this material before but it's a good review for the casual/MSM reader.
HARGEISA, Somalia Somalia isn't supposed to be this normal. Untroubled by petty crime, money changers in this quiet desert city leave their stacks of currency unattendedin piles the size of refrigerators while they pray in mosques.
Earnest government officials, elected in what may be the cleanest voting in Africa, eagerly meet reporters in roadside cafes, a practice that would be suicidal in the violent south of the country, where occupying Ethiopian troops do battle with a ferocious Islamist insurgency. (Even more unusual, the officials insist on picking up the tab for camel-milk tea.)
Across town, another private university is being plannedthe sixth in the region. It won't teach the Quran, unlike the few other surviving educational facilities in war-ruined Somalia. Instead, its curriculum will be secular and Americanpinched from Portland State University in Oregon, to be exact.
"This is what frustrates us," said Dahir Rayale Kahin, president of the obscure self-declared republic of Somaliland, a parched enclave the size of Oklahoma that proclaimed its independence from Somalia in 1991 and is angling to become a platform for U.S. power in the region. "We are a functioning state, but the world still ignores us. Instead, it props up a failed state in the south, in Mogadishu, a place with no rule of law, a state that is nothing."
A court in Zimbabwe has ordered the release of an opposition MP who had been arrested for the second time in a week on public order charges.
Authorities suspected Movement for Democratic Change lawmaker Eric Matinenga of election-related violence. The MDC says Mr Matinenga is being harassed and accuses the government of trying to sabotage its poll campaign. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai faces incumbent Robert Mugabe in a run-off vote for the presidency on 27 June.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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Bangladesh's army-backed emergency government is preparing to free the country's top two political party leaders - former premiers who are being held on corruption charges, reports said Sunday.
Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who are being held as part of the government's crackdown on graft, would both be allowed out of jail to go abroad for medical treatment.
Bangladeshi newspapers said Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who are being held as part of the government's crackdown on graft, would both be allowed out of jail to go abroad for medical treatment. "The government has completed preliminary preparations to release the two former prime ministers," the Prothom Alo newspaper said. Reports said the women were visited by doctors several days ago, and were found to be suffering from conditions that require treatment overseas.
Prothom Alo said Zia's youngest son and political heir Arafat Rahman, who is also being held on graft charges, could also be released and sent abroad for treatment of severe asthma. According to the Daily Star newspaper, Zia and Hasina will soon be bailed. It said the emergency government "is now working to find out a way to release them in a manner acceptable to all."
Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Hasina's Awami League were blamed for the political paralysis and unrest that led to the imposition of a state of emergency and formation of an army-backed authority in January 2007. The interim government has since detained the two women, as well as tried to force them into exile as part of an effort to clean up the country's notoriously dysfunctional political system.
At the same time, the government is trying to hold talks with the BNP and the Awami League on restoring democracy by the end of the year. Both parties say they are boycotting the talks unless their leaders are freed. But according to Zia's lawyer, Nasiruddin Wasim, the political leader "would in no way go abroad for treatment." Hasina's lawyer Kamrul Islam, however, said the Awami League leader was "willing to go to the United States" for treatment for an ear problem.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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One-way tickets?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/09/2008 16:17 Comments ||
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday revoked a law he decreed last month creating four spy agencies and a Cuban-style national informants network, saying that the measure contained errors.
I began listening to criticism (of the law) and in the end, I think there are some mistakes there, I have no problem acknowledging it. So I decided this morning to correct that law, said Chavez at a function of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
The law, which the government said was needed to block US interference in Venezuelan affairs, made it a crime to refuse to cooperate with intelligence agencies and to publish information deemed secret or confidential.
That sparked outrage among opposition members and human rights groups that charged that the law denied people due process and the right to inform authorities anonymously. For many rights groups, That amounts to what is known as a police state, said Marino Alvarado of the Venezuelan Programme for Education and Action on Human Rights (Provea).
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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The Americans seem determined to flood outer space with weapons. In early April U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering again called for the early deployment of space-based missile defense systems, a universal means of hitting either ground or space targets.
His Russian counterpart and longtime opponent on this issue, Space Forces Commander Col. Gen. Vladimir Popovkin, responded in late May, warning for the umpteenth time: "We are against any deployment or placement of weapons in outer space, as it is one of the few realms where frontiers do not exist. Militarization of outer space will disrupt the current balance in the world."
The Russian general is seriously worried that space-based attack weapons could increase the risk of igniting hostilities on the ground.
Putting the long-distance dispute between the two generals aside, let us recall that the defensive doctrines of most industrialized countries are space-oriented. Satellite systems are involved in every aspect of an industrialized country's activity, warfare included. The majority of modern weapon systems, both nuclear and conventional, include space-based components.
Russia is behind the United States in development and deployment of space-based systems. The figures are far from encouraging. A total of around 500 American and 100 Russian satellites currently are orbiting the Earth. The U.S. military satellite fleet is more than four times the size of Russia's, and some of the orbiting Russian satellites are inoperable.
The Americans also have the Navstar Global Positioning System, which has been working successfully already several years. Russia's equivalent, the widely publicized GLONASS, is undergoing its initial deployment, with only 12 operable satellites presently in orbit, compared with 31 American ones.
Obviously the Pentagon can afford to speak of space-based weapons deployment, possessing such impressive assets.
Now back to Col. Gen. Popovkin's idea that space-based weapons could spark a war. He says that present space systems and complexes are very sophisticated and susceptible to failures, and "in such cases, I cannot guarantee that a failure was not caused by hostile action."
Is this statement logical? Surely it is. Strategic nuclear stability -- that is to say, a high-degree guarantee against a surprise nuclear missile strike -- depends on the trouble-free operation of early warning and intelligence satellites. If a satellite fails with another country's attack weapons deployed in orbit, there will be an increase of mistrust, which could lead to a military disaster.
Besides, it is well known that tests involving satellite destruction result in a growing amount of orbital debris, which is difficult to counter. According to NASA and the U.S. Air Force, China's anti-satellite weapon tests in January 2007 left up to 2,000 baseball-sized fragments orbiting at altitudes of 120 to 2,340 miles above the Earth. High speed makes these fragments extremely dangerous for man-made space objects.
An international treaty banning weapons from outer space certainly would help avoid more such trouble, or at least minimize the risks. Yet the United States sticks to the opinion that such an agreement would be impracticable.
(Andrei Kislyakov is a political commentator for RIA Novosti. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)
#1
Are there dams down river from this lake? If so, would this have a pancake effect if it goes breaking down every dam in its path as the torrent flows through. Or, is this a case where it "just" spreads out, flooding the surrounding countryside?
#2
I would think the worst case would be an aftershock that loosens a new slide into the lake. That would basically send a tsunami over the existing dam and possibly breech it all at once. A slumping of the existing dam would be nothing compared to a breech caused by a large slide into the lake behind it.
#3
The people have been sitting idle for a week. That will have a slight impact on production, and therefore exports. I do hope they get that fixed before real problems result.
Honour-related violence is rampant across the country, according to a new study by Sveriges Radio.
Nearly 60 percent of the countrys social services have helped victims of honour violence or those threatened with honour violence to hide themselves.
75 percent of the countrys social services answered a survey from Sveriges Radio. Seven of ten responded that they had dealt with cases involving honour-related violence.
Honour-related violence most often affects women and young girls. In families where it occurs, can girls be strictly controlled and have their social lives sharply restricted.
In Chicago politics a key question has always been, who "sent" you? The classic phrase is ... from an anecdote of Abner Mikva's, the former White House Counsel (Pres. Clinton) ... As a young student ... he walked into the local committeman's office ... and was immediately asked: "Who sent you?" Mikva replied, "nobody sent me." And the retort came back from the cigar chomping pol: "Well, we don't want nobody that nobody sent."
So it is reasonable to ask, who "sent" Barack Obama? In other words, how can his meteoric rise to political prominence be explained?
#1
I don't think he was "sent," exactly, though I expect George Soros and lots of Saudi money is somewhere in the deep background.
I think Obama is a modern Manchurian Candidate - except he didn't need to be brainwashed, he's running for President instead of Vice President, and the target of assassination is the United States of America.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/09/2008 19:51 Comments ||
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#2
Barak Hussein Obama is the bravest, kindest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
#6
"The Lemurian Candidate." I like that...
So did Edgar Cayce do a life reading on him 100 years before his birth and William Jennings Bryan leave him a cross of oil speech?
It's still all about the white men. Hillary Clinton's loss has renewed critiques that American political media is slanted, sexist and dominated by men. While Clinton and Obama broke barriers in the Democratic primary, swiftly dispatching white male Senators with more government experience, the race was still refereed, scored and narrated by white male commentators, an influential constituency in presidential politics. Pundits talked a lot about gender and racial progress during the campaign, of course, but the elite opinion media continues to employ, groom and promote a commentators corps that is disproportionately white and male. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
06/09/2008 16:53 ||
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HOT AIR > GEORGE WILL - OBAMA WILL CRUSH MCCAIN. NOT just a DEFEAT???
Which he kind of has to, I suppose, given that a messiah's job is to drive Satan out of the body politic:
Barack Obama's plan for imposing unity on the nation after he takes office apparently entails a close look at war crimes trials for Bush administration officials. He has even said so in an interview with Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News.
This kind of change -- putting your predecessors on trial for their conduct of policy -- may not be what most Americans really want or expect from someone with Obama's gauzy rhetoric of unity. But unity has a dark side in the hands of people who regard their opponents as criminals. America has two centuries-plus of history lacking the totalitarian practice of jailing the predecessors when a new president takes office.
This is the sort of proposal one might expect from a man steeped in Marxism at his church, from his friends like Ayers, and as a member of the Alinsky Left. But I am surprised he let this slip.
Few on the right noticed and became alarmed, as the interview in question appeared on a Philadelphia Daily News blog,
Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to "immediately review the information that's already there" and determine if an inquiry is warranted -- but he also tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun as "a partisan witch hunt." However, he said that equation changes if there was willful criminality, because "nobody is above the law."
At the time it was picked up only by the Huffington Post.
To me the terribly frightening phrase is the wish to avoid a "partisan witch hunt." When a Harvard-trained lawyer inserts a qualifier into a phrase, that is a signal of wiggle room being created. In this case, the obvious implication is that if you get Chuck Hagel or some other antiwar Republican on board, then you have cover for your "witch hunt."
Today Mark Ambinder addresses the issue at the Atlantic blog, while at Little Green Footballs there is the discovery of a campaign document mentioning the intention to:
Here is Obama's answer to Bunch's question on the possibility of war crimes trials, in its entirety:
What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.
So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.
Bunch points out that some interpret discussions of waterboarding by officials as grounds for launching a probe.
#11
There's two possibilities here, neither of which is good:
1. He really means it, in which case he's a barking moonbat.
2. He's just saying it to win over the raging anti-American, anti-Semitic crazies that make up his party's left wing, and doesn't have any intention of following through. That makes him saner than option #1 above, but also disturbingly dishonest.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/09/2008 17:22 Comments ||
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#12
The "unity" Obamessiah wants is that of the mindless collective run by the elites and disciplined by the jackboot.
He is a walking disaster and beholden to the most fascist part of the leftists in the US.
#13
The Dems (not all of them moonbats) have wanted to criminalize their political opponents ever since the impeachment of the Slickster. I have had a number of conversations with reasonably sane people who advocate this, so Obambi is not far outside the mainstream of the Democrat party. Clinton statrted the process with harrassing IRS audits. This is just the next logical step.
No my friend, I believe it will come to more than that. There is a whole class of people that will need to be removed from society, by whatever means. Then there are legions that will need to be re-educated.
Personally, I cannot understand why there isn't some clandestine organization that hasn't engaged in targeted assassinations of the upper echelons and money people of our enemies. Think Soros and the sort.
The Senate has voted to privatize its restaurants, which are famously lousy and have lost millions. Why Republicans failed to do this years ago, we may never know. It appears as though Dianne Feinstein of California has played the role of heroic public servant and pushed for something that makes sense even though many of her Democrat colleagues loathe the idea of letting the private sector run something in place of the government.
When Democrats took power last year, Feinstein ordered several studies, including hiring a consultant to examine management practices, before deciding privatization was the only possibility.
In a closed-door meeting with Democrats in November, she was practically heckled by her peers for suggesting it, senators and aides said. ...
Feinstein made another presentation May 7, warning senators that if they did not agree to turn over the operation to a private contractor, prices would be increased 25 percent across the board.
And so the restaurants are privatized. Someone should put Feinstein on whatever Senate committee is in charge of the Post Office.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/09/2008 12:26 ||
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Banks and investment banks whose health is crucial to the global financial system should operate under a unified regulatory framework with appropriate requirements for capital and liquidity, according to Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Writing in Mondays Financial Times, Mr Geithner, a key US policymaker throughout the credit crisis and one of the main architects of the rescue of Bear Stearns, says that the US Federal Reserve should play a central role in the new regulatory framework, working closely with supervisors in the US and round the world. At present the Fed has broad responsibility for financial stability not matched by direct authority and the consequences of the actions we have taken in this crisis make it more important that we close that gap, Mr Geithner says, in an excerpt of a speech to be delivered today at the Economic Club of New York.
The credit crisis has heightened pressure on US policymakers to consider sweeping changes to a regulatory system for financial institutions which has commercial banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup regulated by the Fed and investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers more loosely regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr Geithner called the system a confusing mix of diffused accountability, regulatory competition and a complex web of rules that create perverse incentives and leave huge opportunities for arbitrage and evasion.
However, legislation to overhaul US financial regulation is unlikely to start advancing through Congress until next year when the new administration takes office.
In his speech, Mr Geithner will also say the Fed is examining whether to make permanent some of the new liquidity facilities put in place during the credit crisis, and called for central banks to establish a standing network of currency swaps, collateral policies and account arrangements to bolster liquidity during a future crisis.
Meanwhile, Malcolm Knight, the general manager of the Bank of International Settlements, the Basel-based central banking group, told the FT that the financial system now faces a growing risk of exchange-rate volatility as investors and central banks grapple with the impact of rising commodity prices and other inflationary pressures. It is not clear if the rest of the world is going to continue to fund the US current account deficit at current levels of exchange rates, he said. The pattern of the exchange rates is subject to considerable uncertainty now.
The comments are likely to be closely watched by investors and policymakers, since they come at a time of renewed market focus on the outlook for the dollar relative to the euro and other currencies. Last week, Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman, broke with the US central banks traditional silence on currency matters to make clear that it does not want any further dollar weakness.
While the dollar rallied on Mr Bernankes remarks, it retreated later in the week after European Central bank comments suggested an interest rate rise and as the price of crude oil soared, heightening inflation fears. There is a perception that after a long period of quiescent inflation, things are changing, Mr Knight said. This is quite visible in terms of commodity prices in energy markets but also in terms of what is happening with other commodities too.
How about if they're going to engage in dangerous behaviors that effect all of us that instead they become civil servants to the Bank of the United States and we give the speculator shareholders who've prodded them into such behaviors equivalent value savings bonds in return. Dangerous behavior by these people does not justify giving another institution even more power over our existence.
#2
Bernanke has been a disaster. We're going to hear more of this kind of crap as people seek ways to deal with that problem indirectly instead of firing the guy. If I were elected in November, my first act would be to ask for Bernanke's resignation and get a real banker in the job. Too many GD academics in the Fed.
#4
No, the problem is central bankers who won't face up to their responsibilities to maintain the value of the currency while letting the market sort out the survival of smart bankers and the extinction of dumb ones.
A majority of Democrats think Barack Obama should select Hillary Clinton as his running mate, according to a new national poll. Fifty-four percent of registered Democrats questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Friday think Obama should name his rival as his running mate; 43 percent disagreed.
The 43% understand the need to keep the stake in her heart ...
The poll is the first national survey conducted since Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, at the end of the primary season. Clinton is expected to announce Saturday that she's suspending her campaign and backing her Senate colleague.
Men and women don't see eye-to-eye on the question. Sixty percent of Democratic women said Clinton should be Obama's running mate, but only 46 percent of male Democrats agreed, while 51 percent of them said no.
" 'What do women want?' Sigmund Freud famously asked," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst. "The answer appears to be Clinton on the ticket. It's pretty clear that many Democratic women are miffed and that Obama has to be very careful how he deals with Sen. Clinton."
Twenty-four percent of those polled said that even if Obama names someone else as his running mate, Clinton should try to override that decision at the Democratic convention in Denver in August. But 75 percent said that would not be a good idea.
"Democrats would like Barack Obama to choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate, but they seem to recognize that it is his choice to make," said Keating Holland CNN polling director. "Some will be disappointed if Obama does not pick Clinton, but not disappointed enough to want a floor fight at the convention."
The survey also found that the economy remains the top issue in the minds of a plurality of Americans. Forty-two percent of those polled said the economy will be the most important issue in their decision on the presidency. Iraq remains in second place, selected by 24 percent as the most important issue for them, while health care was selected as most important by 12 percent.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday, with 921 registered voters, including 435 registered voters who describe themselves as Democrats or independents who lean Democratic. The sampling error for most results is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
#1
Will Barry be so dumb as to let Billary that near his administration? (maybe it's a case of "keep your enemies closer")
Will Hillary want to risk being VP for 8 years instead of running for Prez again in 4 years if Obama tanks?
Inquiring minds are sick of the whole deal.
#2
Of course didn't a majority of voters (as opposed to caucusers) want Hillary on top of that ticket? Not that democracy is a high priority of the Democrats at this time.
(Though what percentage of those were conservatives participating in Operation Chaos?)
Posted by: Grenter Protector of the Geats4975 ||
06/09/2008 10:15 Comments ||
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#3
Obama would be a fool to put Hillary on his team. He should consider finding another woman, but Hillary is poison.
Are we learning anything yet?
Local police are accustomed to dealing with illegal border crossings but were astounded by the video of 15 Chinese immigrants unfolding themselves from the back of a sport-utility vehicle near this small border town. The SUV appeared abandoned when police rolled up early on a recent Saturday morning. But when Border Patrol agents arrived and swung open the double rear doors, the Chinese immigrants tumbled out, squinting in the sunlight.
"They were in bad shape," La Joya Police spokesman Joe Cantu said.
The immigrants were silent, able to communicate only with hand gestures. They did not try to flee. One man wanted to use Cantu's cell phone. When Cantu asked for the number, he was handed one with a New York area code.
Two more Chinese immigrants would be picked up nearby later that day, and another group of nine was caught near the border about 50 miles (80 kilometers) away a few days later.
More than nine out of 10 illegal immigrants detained at the U.S.-Mexico border are Mexican. But for years, this easternmost sector of the border has had more than its share of what the Border Patrol calls "other than Mexicans" or OTMs, most of whom come from Central America. But overall, the number of Chinese caught along the U.S.-Mexico border has been declining since the U.S. stopped its policy of releasing most illegal immigrants from outside Mexico until they could appear before an immigration judge.
After surpassing 2,100 in 2005 and 2006, the number of Chinese immigrants caught along the southwest border from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, fell last year to 837, slightly more than 1 percent of all OTM apprehensions, according to Border Patrol data. In the first eight months of this fiscal year, which began October 1, 512 Chinese were caught along the border with Mexico.
The specifics of how this group of Chinese immigrants ended up in South Texas were not known, but the methods and smuggling routes have been evolving for more than a century. Most pay an average of $55,000 to be shuttled from China to a U.S. destination by an elaborate smuggling operation, said Peter Kwong, a sociology professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. If they get caught, they request asylum, and lawyers are often hired by the Chinese smugglers, who will not get full payment unless the immigrants arrive at their destination, Kwong said.
Since 1882, when the U.S. began a crackdown on Chinese immigration that would last decades, Chinese have been crossing the Mexican border. Early on, most of the traffic was along the border with California because Chinese rode ships into Mexican ports on the Pacific coast, Kwong said. "This was a very early route," said Kwong, who wrote "Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor."
Eventually, though, Chinese immigrants began sailing directly into U.S. ports.
The Mexican route regained popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when U.S. ports became less accessible, Kwong said. The Golden Venture incident, when a ship carrying 286 Chinese immigrants beached off the New York borough of Queens in 1993, drew broader attention to the issue of human smuggling and further tightened access.
More Chinese began flying into U.S. airports and requesting asylum, Kwong said. When tighter restrictions on inbound international flights were introduced after the September 11 attacks, smugglers began looking for less secure airports, Kwong said.
Immigration attorney Hongxin Shi joined the Texas law practice of Paul Esquivel last year, after Esquivel saw a need for Mandarin-speaking attorneys at the Willacy County Processing Center, the largest immigrant detention facility in the U.S. Shi, who has about 20 pending immigration cases with Chinese immigrants, said he has heard of immigrants flying into Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico to begin the journey north.
In March 2007, Mexican federal police detained 81 Chinese immigrants and 22 Mexican immigration officers at the Cancun airport. They believed that the Chinese were hiding in the airport with the help of the immigration officials until they could begin the next leg of their journey north to the United States.
In Mexico, they meet "coyotes," or smugglers specializing in crossing the U.S. border, who have been arranged by their Chinese smugglers. "It's like a subcontractor," Kwong said.
For years, Chinese and fellow "other than Mexican" illegal immigrants were processed and released with a date to return for a court hearing. The process was known as "catch and release." Only about one-third of those released showed up in court, according to a 2005 report prepared for Congress.
That began changing in late 2005 and early 2006, with a policy that sought to close that loophole. Non-Mexicans caught trying to enter the U.S. now are steered into a streamlined process for "expedited removal." They are detained at centers like Willacy until they can appear before an immigration judge. The Border Patrol credits the end of catch and release with the sharp drop in OTM apprehensions.
Still, "we do encounter people from all over the world," said Daniel Doty, Border Patrol spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley sector. Just days before the 17 Chinese were picked up in La Joya, 13 Eritreans and five Ethiopians were caught in nearby Hidalgo.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2008 10:13 Comments ||
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#4
High fence, wide gate, sober gatekeepers ...
With springy leaf-things along the top to make sure ladders stay unstable. And glass embedded in the concrete to keep people from touching it. And two fences in parallel with laser beams in between. And alligators. And Michael Moore.
You were all right up until these two. Alligators hate the desert, and sicing MM on ANYBODY is cruel and unusual punishment. Just make the area between the two fences so nasty no one with three brain synapses firing would think of crossing it. Plant lots of cactus, of a dozen or more different kinds (doesn't need much water), cresote cypres (smelly, tarry), and desert broom (will cut a leather glove). Make the area between the fences prime habitat for sidewinders, scorpions, tarantulas, black widow spiders, centipedes, desert hornets, and vultures. Electrify both fences. Build a nuke power plant at Brownsville, El Paso, the California/Arizona/Mexico border, and in San Diego to supply uninterrupted power to the fence. Tell the Mexicans they can scavage anything they can find on those that don't make it across the fence.
The United States needs to assert its sovereignty over our southern border. It needed to have been done 25 years ago. Failing to do it now is an even bigger mistake.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/09/2008 18:10 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
Lots of luck with that Obambi. He is only the most liberal rated senator, most pro-abortion senator, severely anti-gun-rights, and comes with a 20 year association with hard leftists and preachers of hate and racist theology (including demanding reparations). And he has, despite what relatively few votes has has had, to prevent the US from expanding domestic petroleum production.
Like all that will to sell well in GOP areas. His only hope is to natter on about "hope and change" and pray that the press continues hiding the REAL Obama from people.
#2
The McCainiac ain't much better. That's why it makes more sense for him to push in Dem Strongholds and purple states where I suspect he will do well and ultimately win, especially as the troof about Obambi gets out.
#3
Someone has to explain how Obama is going to win Virginia. I used to live there and I think I know the state.
Richmond and Hampton will go Dhimmi, as will the northern burbs. But the rest of the state is Red, Red, Red, and a big part of it is retired military. Those voters will go McCain in a huge way and for the same reason they voted for Webb: he's one of theirs.
There aren't enough latte liberals and black voters in Virginia to carry the state for Obama. Not going to happen.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2008 10:15 Comments ||
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#4
There aren't enough latte liberals and black voters in Virginia to carry the state for Obama.
It's very close. And you should visit Northern VA again. Lotsa underwater mortgages there.
#7
There's an interesting bit of Obama background today on the Belmont Club blog . However, I think everyone up to now has missed the key point. Barack Obama won the Senate seat of the discredited Jack Ryan, who withdrew from the race over revelations of the details of his messy divorce from Jeri Lynn Ryan. She was the actress who played Seven of Nine in the Star Trek Voyager TV Series. The only possible conclusion from all this is that Obama was sent by the Borg. We all know what that means to the survival of Earth...
Posted by: Ho Chi Wazoo 9378 ||
06/09/2008 19:24 Comments ||
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This story originally appeared in the May 14, 1973, issue of U.S.News & World Report. It was posted online on January 28, 2008.
...I really didn't know what to think, because I had been having these other interrogations in which I had refused to co-operate. It was not hard because they were not torturing me at this time. They just told me I'd never go home and I was going to be tried as a war criminal. That was their constant theme for many months.
...I went back to my room, and I thought about it for a long time. At this time I did not have communication with the camp senior ranking officer, so I could get no advice. I was worried whether I could stay alive or not, because I was in rather bad condition. I had been hit with a severe case of dysentery, which kept on for about a year and a half. I was losing weight again.
But I knew that the Code of Conduct says, "You will not accept parole or amnesty," and that "you will not accept special favors." For somebody to go home earlier is a special favor. There's no other way you can cut it.
I went back to him three nights later. He asked again, "Do you want to go home?" I told him "No." He wanted to know why, and I told him the reason. I said that Alvarez [first American captured] should go first, then enlisted men and that kind of stuff. IMO, this kind of courage is a lot rarer than bravery in combat
...What they wanted, of course, was to send me home at the same time that my father took over as commander in the Pacific. This would have made them look very humane in releasing the injured son of a top U. S. officer. It would also have given them a great lever against my fellow prisoners, because the North Vietnamese were always putting this "class" business on us. They could have said to the others "Look, you poor devils, the son of the man who is running the war has gone home and left you here. No one cares about you ordinary fellows." I was determined at all times to prevent any exploitation of my father and my family.
As commander of TransCom, Schwartz is in charge of the Defense Departments extensive transportation network and worldwide operations. He has served in senior joint military positions as director of the Joint Staff, director for operations for the Joint Staff, and deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, Gates noted in his statement.
The defense secretary also has recommended that Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, Air Force vice chief of staff, succeed Schwartz at TransCom. McNabb has spent most of his three-plus decades in the Air Force in the areas of lift, refueling and logistics, making him an ideal candidate to assume the helm of this command, Gates said in his statement.
The secretary also is recommending that the president nominate Lt. Gen. William M. Fraser III, assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to follow McNabb as the next Air Force vice chief. In his current position, Fraser is the chairmans chief liaison and advisor on international relations and political-military matters. In addition to his numerous flying and command assignment in the bomber community, General Fraser has extensive wartime, contingency and humanitarian relief operational experience, Gates said in the statement announcing his recommended nominations.
I am confident that Mike Donley, General Schwartz and the new Air Force leadership team have the qualifications, skill and commitment to excellence necessary to guide the Air Force through this transition and beyond, the statement concluded.
#1
...Don't know Schwartz's record, but it does make sense that they'd pull somebody from outside of the 'combat' track - because quite frankly, everybody in that chain has been tarred by the nuke mishaps.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/09/2008 19:01 Comments ||
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#2
Click on Schwartz's name for his resume.
n. b. 16. June 1997 - October 1998, Commander, Special Operations Command, Pacific, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii
#5
"Camp H. M. ('Howling Mad') Smith is a United States Marine Corps installation on the island of Oahu, near the community of ʻAiea. It is the headquarters of Marine Forces Pacific as well as the United States Pacific Command and Special Operations Command Pacific.
Special Operations Command Pacific (SOCPAC)is a sub-unified command and serves as the SOF component command for the U.S. Pacific Command. In October 1983, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the establishment of Special Operations Commands in the Pacific and European Theaters. Special Operations Command, Pacific (SOCPAC) was subsequently activated on 1 November 1983 with an initial total strength of only eighteen personnel. Six years later, on 28 December 1989, SOCPAC was assigned operational control (OPCON) of what is now the 353d Special Operations Group and 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), which are located on Okinawa, Japan at Kadena Air Base and Torii Station, respectively. On 8 July 1991, SOCPAC assumed OPCON of Naval Special Warfare Task Unit-Pacific and a subordinate SEAL platoon, which are based at Apra Harbor Naval Station, Guam. In early March 2001, SOCPAC established the Joint Special Operations Aviation Component on Oahu, Hawaii. Three months later, on 11 June 2001, SOCPAC gained OPCON over E Company, 160th Special Operations Regiment (Airborne), which is based in Taegu, Republic of Korea".
Above information provided for retired paratrooper NCOs who might not have a clue what they're talking about.
#2
These are the large plants we are familiar with. However, the Chinese are wisely going for over 300 pebble bed reactors. They are cleaner, smaller, and produce less energy, but they are also cheaper and make little or no high grade waste.
#4
Moose, I'd liek these 30 to be a start, but to be supplemented by larger numbers of distributed PBRs and a a set of very large capacity plants that are built as long-life high capacity breeder reactors to "burn" the wast from the other plants, ans to be the mainstay of the base load.
#5
Clever on several levels. It's a start. It makes it harder for the nay-sayers to fuss. After all, if the country of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the one building the plants, it must be ok. And the Japanese are known for their Total Quality approach, and have never had a Three Mile Island incident, so far as the outside world is aware.
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.
(Source: China Daily/Agencies) Paris Hilton's mother doesn't want her daughter to rush into marriage. Kathy Hilton thinks the "Simple Life" star should take her time to decide whether Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden is the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, because they have only been together for a short time. 
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday revoked a law he decreed last month creating four spy agencies and a Cuban-style national informants network, saying that the measure contained errors.
The Senate has 
A majority of Democrats think Barack Obama should select Hillary Clinton as his running mate, according to a new national poll. Fifty-four percent of registered Democrats questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Friday think Obama should name his rival as his running mate; 43 percent disagreed.
