Sad news of the day. I'll always remember her the day of Reagan's funeral, and how she disregarded all the doctors and got on that plane and flew to CA, being with Ronnie til the end
The daughter of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher has spoken for the first time about her mother's struggle with dementia. n her new book, serialised in the Mail on Sunday, Carol Thatcher says she first noticed her mother's memory was failing over lunch in 2000.
She says she "almost fell off her chair" seeing her mother, 82, struggle. Ms Thatcher also says Baroness Thatcher had to be reminded several times her husband, Sir Denis, had died.
In her book, A Swim-On Part in the Goldfish Bowl: A Memoir, she tells of how her mother's "blotting-paper brain", which had always absorbed information, began to fail eight years ago - a decade after leaving power. The former Conservative prime minister got confused between Bosnia and the Falklands during a conversation about the war in the former Yugoslavia, Ms Thatcher writes.
"I almost fell off my chair. Watching her struggle with her words and her memory, I couldn't believe it," she says. "She was in her 75th year but I had always thought of her as ageless, timeless and 100% cast-iron damage-proof."
The contrast was all the more striking because she had always had a memory "like a website", she writes.
Ms Thatcher goes on to describe how telltale signs of dementia then began to emerge. "Whereas previously you would never have had to say anything to her twice, because she'd already filed it away in her formidable memory bank, Mum started asking the same questions over and over again, unaware she was doing so.
"It might be something innocuous - such as 'What time is my car coming?' or 'When am I going to the hairdresser?' - but the fact she needed to repeat them opened a new and frightening chapter in our lives."
Ms Thatcher describes how she had to learn to be patient and that her mother "had an illness and that it wasn't personal".
"That's the worst thing about dementia: it gets you every time," she says. "Sufferers look and act the same but beneath the familiar exterior something quite different is going on.
"They're in another world and you cannot enter."
Losing Sir Denis to pancreatic cancer in 2003 "was truly awful" for her mother, she says, "not least because her dementia meant she kept forgetting he was dead".
"I had to keep giving her the bad news over and over again.
"Every time it finally sank in that she had lost her husband of more than 50 years, she'd look at me sadly and say 'Oh', as I struggled to compose myself.
"'Were we all there?' she'd ask softly."
On bad days her mother can "hardly remember the beginning of a sentence by the time she got to the end", she says. But on good days there are flashes of her old self, and she retains a good memory of her time in office "as if her dementia had sharpened her powers of long-term recall", she adds.
Lady Thatcher, who was prime minister from 1979 to 1990, had a series of minor strokes in 2002 and was advised by doctors to stop making public speeches. Friends of the Tory peer, who lives in central London, said earlier this year the strokes had affected her short-term memory.
But Ms Thatcher's book is believed to be the first time a family member has spoken publicly of her condition.
Lady Thatcher briefly returned to the limelight in September last year when she visited Downing Street as a guest of Gordon Brown. She had won praise from the prime minister who described her as a "conviction politician".
#1
It's a torture to live with, whether from within or without. The worst is those intermittent moments of lucidity, knowing what is happening to oneself.
#2
On 19 January 1976, she made a speech in Kensington Town Hall in which she made a scathing attack on the Soviet Union. The most famous part of her speech ran:
“ The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.
#3
My heart goes out to her loved ones. It can't be easy to watch such a formidable presence slip away.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
08/25/2008 16:24 Comments ||
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#4
Second only to Winston Churchill in the pantheon of 20th Century British Prime Ministers, and definitely in the top ten ever. The world owes her a tremendous debt of gratitude. In the late 1970"s, a dark time of bleakness and despair, she and Ronald Reagan stood forth like bonfires to show the way and reinspire our confidence in ourselves. May God bless her forever.
Few figures have been as visible and polarizing in the anti-war movement in the United States than Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in the Iraq War. She is in Denver today and is at the parade and protest rally organized by Recreate '68.
"I'm going to be speaking and marching here today," she told Fort Collins Now reporter Matt Brady on Sunday morning. "I'm just here to show there's opposition to both parties, not just the Republican Party."
#3
My wife was for Hillary. She doesn't follow politics. She doesn't know the issues or who stands where on them. When I told her some of Hillary's positions, my wife always disagreed with her. But it didn't matter. My wife wanted a woman President. No more than that. McCain will pick up a lot of Democrats and women just by picking a female veep.
Posted by: Scott R ||
08/25/2008 13:36 Comments ||
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#4
Been hitting those magic mushrooms again, Bobby?
#5
Well, one way would be to put her on the McCain ticket... Wouldn't THAT be interesting?
Posted by Bobby
It'd be VERY interesting for McCain. Like watching his own back 7x24. Does the name Vince Foster ring a bell? How's he supposed to run the contry while not eating anything he hasn't prepaired with his own two hands? If Sen. Clinton is only one body away from being PotUS that body'd best be VERY careful.
If Obamas electors are elected this Nov, Obama has to stay healthy for 42 days until the electoral collage actually meets and votes Obama/Biden into office. How many of Hillary's crazed minions are out there? After Dec 15th, if anything happened to Obama, the VP-elect would assume office.
Once again, I really hope McCain wins. "recreate '68" might be a catchy slogan, but having something happen to the first American-African president-elect would NOT be fun for anybody.
#7
If some Clinton-supporting Dem was caught trying to literally take Bama out, it would wreck their party for decades. A more seismic shift in American party politics is hard to imagine.
The Clerk of Zimbabwe's parliament is expected to swear in elected parliamentarians today (Monday) ahead of the election of parliament speaker for the first time since the controversial March 29 presidential elections. Both factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have presented their candidates to vie for the position of speaker of parliament, while the ruling ZANU-PF party is yet to present its candidate. However, some Zimbabweans are reportedly expressing concerns that President Robert Mugabe's government would have the upper hand on who becomes the speaker by preventing opposition parliamentarians who are in hiding for fear of being arrested after various forms of allegations were leveled against them.
Glen Mpani is the regional coordinator for the transitional justice program of the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in Cape Town, South Africa. He tells reporter Peter Clottey that today's swearing in could deepen the political crisis.
"The members of parliament are going to be sworn in by the clerk of parliament and Mugabe is going to convene parliament on Tuesday when he is going to open the seventh session of parliament. My take on the opening of parliament is that it just shifts the unresolved conflict of Zimbabwe to parliament where we are going to have the three contending parties using parliament as the way of extending the unresolved issues that SADC (Southern African Development Community) has failed to resolve in the negotiation," Mpani noted.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Tareque Rahman, the eldest son and heir apparent of two times former Bangladeshi premier Khaleda Zia, was partially paralysed when tortured in custody, doctors said Sunday. Tareque was strung up blindfolded in a dark room, then dropped down and struck against a wall, fracturing two bones in his back, Kazi Mazharul Islam, the doctor who treated him quoted from his medical report. Rahman was partially paralysed by the impact of the fall, which has resulted in "gradual wasting of his right lower limbs," he said. Rahman, who is joint secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has been detained since March last year on graft charges after the government launched an anti-corruption crackdown.
This article starring:
Khaleda Zia
Tareque Rahman
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Just crippled? They must be losing their touch.
An Awami League (AL) activist was killed and ten people were injured yesterday in a clash between activists of AL and BNP over a ha-du-du match at Jaduria village in Jhenidah. Apparently ha-du-du's kinda like Bangla bocce, with about the same rules of play as in Sicily...
The dead was identified as Ariful Islam, 15, son of Manik Biswas of the village and a student of Narikelbaria School. "Arrr! 'At's wot he gets fer cheatin' like that!"
"How wuz he cheatin'?"
"He wuz ahead, weren't he?"
The injured include the victim's father Manik, Abu Sayed, Bashir, Abdur Rahim, Asad, Humayun, Shamsul and Mokles. They were admitted to the Jhenidah hospital. "Cheeze, Dr Gillespie! Where'd all the blood come from?"
"It was another ha-du-du match, Young Dr Kildare!"
"Ahah. And these are the guys who almost won!"
Police and villagers said a clash between the followers of local BNP leader Ishaq and AL leader Nayeb Ali over a ha-du-du match occurred at Jaduria village in the evening leaving Ariful dead on the spot and 10 others wounded. Superintendent of Police Jahangir Hossain Matabbar said additional policemen had been deployed in the area to avert any untoward incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Not a good Olympics for The Worker's Paradise...
HAVANA - Fidel Castro on Monday defended the Cuban taekwondo athlete who kicked a referee in the face at the Beijing Olympics, saying Angel Matos was rightfully indignant over his disqualification from the bronze-medal match.
Taekwondo officials want Matos and his coach banned for life from the sport. But Castro expressed "our total solidarity" for both Matos and his coach Leudis Gonzalez.
Matos was winning 3-2 in the second round when he fell to the mat after being hit by his opponent, Kazakhstan's Arman Chilmanov, and was disqualified for taking more than his one minute of injury time. Matos angrily questioned the call, pushed a judge and then pushed and kicked referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden, who needed stiches to repair his lip. Matos then spat on the floor and was escorted out.
Taekwondo officials called Matos' behavior an insult to the Olympic vision. Matos' coach countered that the match was fixed and accused the Kazakhs of offering him money. Castro said the alleged bribery attempt gave Matos good reason to expect the judges to treat him unfairly."They had tried to buy his own coach," Castro wrote in his essay published in state media. "He could not contain himself." That's our story and we're sticking to it, gringos...
Cuba is accustomed to winning golds in boxing, but settled this year for four silver and four bronze medals. Overall, Cuba took home only two golds, down from nine in Athens four years ago. "I saw when the judges blatantly stole fights from two Cuban boxers in the semifinals," Castro wrote. "Our fighters ... had hopes of winning, despite the judges, but it was useless. They were condemned beforehand." Ya shoulda took care of me, Fidel, I coulda had class! I coulda been a contendah, instead of a bum. Which is what I am...
The ailing, 82-year-old ex-president also noted that defections have taken their toll, blaming "the repugnant mercenary actions" of promoters who lure Cuban boxers off the island with lucrative contracts. Viva La Revoluc...wait. How much? And Castro hinted that big changes could be in order for Cuban sports, pledging a serious review of "every discipline, every human and material resource that we dedicate to sport." Oh-oh. If I was part of the Cuban Olympic team, I'd be rigging up my '59 Buick for amphibious operation...
"Cuba has never bought an athlete or judge," Castro wrote, adding that Cubans need to begin preparing now for London in 2012. "There will be European chauvinism, judge corruption, buying of brawn and brains ... and a strong dose of racism," he predicted. Oh, yeah. How'd your baseball team make out, Fidel?
Anyone else out there watch the closing ceremonies? Wife and I watched for about 5 minutes until it became so goofy we couldn't keep the laughter down from waking the baby.
#2
swksvolFF,
Would you describe the ending ceremony to us happy cretins who didn't get a chance to watch it, por favor?
>:)
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
08/25/2008 17:24 Comments ||
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#3
Red Dawg, I did watch... my first impression --- they started with hundreds of guys on drums, then over a thousand women walking in... all lit up with lights.
Then, these two enormous drums, with drummers on each side, began coming down from on high.
All of I could think of, "I don't want to go to war with these people."
The women moved into different formations, looked like battalions forming.
I thought, "Are they sending us a message?"
The precision, the masses -- to me, the first part looked like it could have been scenes from an old movie, where 1000's of years ago, preparations for war were beginning.
Then, I thought about that scene in Lord of the Rings (last movie, I think) where by the thousands, the sides line up.
Then, it got really silly --
Just my opinion. I have PIP -- so the Food Network got most of the attention.
#4
Sherry, the precision was maintained even by the little girls, maybe 8 or 10 years old (i.e. the gymnastics team).
Posted by: Scott R ||
08/25/2008 18:47 Comments ||
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#5
Oh, and the British float at the end with Jimmy Page and Beckham was just an embarrassment.
Posted by: Scott R ||
08/25/2008 18:49 Comments ||
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#6
Sherry, that kind of thing is just high school marching band formations writ large. I cannot imagine it translating into military ability, else the U.S. is in very good shape, if the trailing daughter's school band is any indication. Anyway, totalitarian dictatorships love group spectacles with mass exercises -- think of the North Koreans or the Nazis.
#8
TW -- I understand the marching band stuff -- I did that in high school.
For some reason, there was this foreboding feeling as I watched those first 15 minutes. It was just a feeling....
To me, some of the formations, well, just my thoughts as I watched it. You had to marvel.
My high-school marching band story? Before we went to the all lined up on the same yard-line formation, we marched the blocked formation. I had a problem with left and right! Plus, my shortness is in my legs, they just aren't as long as they need to be!
So, bless Mr. Steele's heart, during a practice session, he placed me at the pivotal, left hand corner of that formation, and told everyone, just turn the way she turns! With the trombones behind my, giving me clues when turning was about to happen!
It worked, I kept the spot! Now about those 8 steps through those 10 yards, that was another story!
It was a small school, only 32 in our grad class -- big reunion this weekend!
#9
I think North Korea has thousands-strong syncronized marching done every year at some festival they have. (Ariana or something like that). I've seen websites from a couple of people who 'toured' North Korea mention it.
So that taekwondo guy will only be sent to labor camp a month upon arrival in Cuba.
Btw baseball will no longer be an Olympic sport. Thank God they didn't touch "walking" and synchronized swimming or whatever they call it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/25/2008 19:50 Comments ||
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#11
Sherry I think you're right that the Chicoms wanted to leave the impression of a huge disciplined army.
They've aborted themselves into a massive gender imbalance and now have millions of young men who have no hope of finding a wife. The historic outcome of such imbalances is armed aggression.
I think we'll see a Chinese army move into some territory in my lifetime. Unless of course they collapse economically and due to social unrest as a result of being unable to block out information about the outside world entirely.
#12
Or the Americans get tired of China and stops sending a net $300/year their way.
Posted by: ed ||
08/25/2008 20:10 Comments ||
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#13
They've aborted themselves into a massive gender imbalance and now have millions of young men who have no hope of finding a wife. The historic outcome of such imbalances is armed aggression.
You're right, Lotp. They've dug themselves into a heck of a hole with that one. Remember this line from that immortal cinematic pasterpiece, "D.C. Cab."
"Women have half the money and all the p***y!"
Actually, it's probably considerably more than half. Pretty important people to have been trying to eliminate...
The Hidalgo state police chief was kidnapped and shot to death, a police officer was killed in southeastern Tabasco state and nine people were murdered in northern Chihuahua state, local officials said Saturday. The relentless killing spree in Mexico has claimed the lives of more than 2,700 people so far this year, despite a crackdown by authorities against drug trafficking and kidnapping gangs and organized crime in general. In the latest violence, Hidalgo state police chief Raymundo Zamorano was kidnapped at gunpoint while patrolling the streets of Pachuca in his official car late Friday, state public safety secretary Damian Canales told AFP. Zamorano's bullet-riddled body was found Saturday 60 kilometers outside the city, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Mike K. stated the other day that Mex is in worse shape than the USG or the media are letting on. There was also a story in Strategy Page about the epidemic of kidnapping-for-ransom going on in Mex. Mike may well be right. If so, all the more reason to expedite the construction of the fence and to be proactive in deporting the illegals now. If Mex collapses, we'll have a hell of a time continuing to deport illegals into that mess, and the problem will come from the lefties here.
#2
There was also a story in Strategy Page about the epidemic of kidnapping-for-ransom going on in Mex
That is what accounts for the legal [often well paid for] immigration by purer European blood Mexicans to America [vice their program effort to dump their unemployed, unskilled, uneducated indios y mestizos on the US]. They're getting out to protect their families and fortune. Some how they can't connect the long running corroding effect of their oligarchy upon the economy and social stability of Mexico with these symptoms.
#3
Wonder if a $1,000,000,000 bounty on coyotes would make a difference to the boarder farmers who are probably paid handsomly to let these scum through.
Oh well, the good news is we'll be getting our boys back from Iraq well trained in desert warfare just in time to deal with problems closer to home.
Isn't there a Mexican proverb that goes something like "You mess with the bull, you get the horn"?
#5
In San Antonio there has been a quiet undercurrent of well-off Mexicans buying second homes in tranquil gated communities and bringing their families North. At one of the networking luncheons I used to go to, there were some reps from local real estate firms where it is a big bonus to be fluent in Spanish for just that reason, when it comes to selling high-end homes.
I recall someone telling me (or maybe I read it in the newspaper) that a certain high-end neighborhood in demand by Mexican expatriots was especially prized... because the families of the people buying second houses there did not have to go around with squads of bodyguards, 24-7. They could have something approximating what Americans think of as a normal life.
On the down-side, we have noticed a lot of police squad cars in our own neighborhood recently. A neighbor who has also noticed this asked a friend who was a SAPD detective - and the friend told her that they had reports of 200 members of a Mexican gang suddenly appearing in San Antonio in recent months. Their purposes are unspecified, but assumed to be malign.
#6
FREEREPUBLIC/NEWSVINE > seems MEXICO'S crime orgs have authorized select assassinations to take place across the US border.
WOT > Among other, 'tis MACKINDER'S "WORLD ISLAND" WAR BWTN NEW WORLD + OLD WORLD > PROPOSED NORTH AMER UNION/FEDERATION, PAN-AMER + TEXAS SUPERHIGHWAY = Mexi's crime orgs are jockeying for lead/pole position at the border as OWG FREE TRADE ZONES = SPECIAL ECON ZONES ARE SET UP IN THE CARIBBEAN + CALIFORNIA-BAJA, etc [control of Entry Points = Trade, $$$ Flows].
* ALSO GOOD THE OTHER WAY, I.E. FOR LIMITING = KEEPING THE USA OUT OF MEXICO AND LOWER AMERICAS.
#7
the epidemic of kidnapping-for-ransom going on in Mex.
Surely that's not new? I knew a Mexican lady who'd married a local German back when we lived in that country -- our children were in an American Women's Club playgroup together. She went home to visit family in the summer of '94 or so, and her sister wouldn't allow her to take her daughter to the bottom of the driveway to buy ice cream for fear of kidnapping. Granted, both my girlfriend and her daughter were very blond, but it was only a thoroughly middle class neighborhood in Mexico City.
Russian lawmakers are set to discuss the future of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia amid tension in the Caucasus region.
That shouldn't take long ...
Russia's State Duma and Federation Council will hold a session on Monday to discuss the issue following demands by the region's people and officials, the Russia Today reported on Sunday.
The leaders of the breakaway region have announced that they should not wait longer following Georgia's attack on South Ossetia. They asked Russia to recognize their independence and protect "their republic".
"Please, please, Czar Vlad!"
"Parliament has accepted the appeal to recognize the independence of Abkhazia," Sergey Shamba, Abkhazia's self-proclaimed foreign minister said. "The appeal is addressed to the government of the Russian Federation as well to presidents and parliaments of the world. Provided Russia recognizes the independence of Abkhazia, we hope to receive guarantees of our security and the economic development of the republic," he added.
Abkhazian President Sergey Bagapsh had appealed to Russia and other countries to recognize the region's independence earlier this month and after the Ossetia war. The breakaway region proclaimed independence from Georgia in 1990s but no country has so far recognized it.
That'll change Monday ...
Russia had earlier warned that the West's support for the unilateral independence of the breakaway Serbian region of Kosovo would set a dangerous precedent, arguing that the move would justify the secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
Sarge, unfortunately we can't send a carrier into the Black Sea. Turkey owns the Dardanelles and Bosporous Straits. And it's too late to reclassify our carriers as cruisers or whatever the Russians did to get around the restrictions.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
08/25/2008 18:39 Comments ||
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#3
INTERFAX > seems Russ is alleging that the USN is covertly delivering UAVS + Missles to Georgia, NOT humanitar aid???
#5
WAFF.com Threads > THE BLACK SEA IS GETTING HOT > RUSSIA'S MILITARY CONCERNED OVER LARGER NATO FORCE PRESENCE IN THE BLACK SEA. Russ-perceived "PROVOKED CONCERN" agz US-NATO as Rus labels the USN + NATO ships as a MIL "STRIKE FORCE", NOT AN AID RELIEF/HUMANITARIAN TASK FORCE???; + RUSSIA AIMS TO KEEP CONTROL OF GEORGIAN PORT CITY [POTI + SENAKI] + RUSSIA PLANS ARMED/MIL PATROLS IN POTI + RUSSIA PLANS TO INSPECT/SEARCH CARGO IN POTI [+ Internat Merchant Vessels in Russ-controlled Georgian Ports].
RUSSIA WARNS MOLDAVIA AGZ MAKING "GEORGIAN MISTAKE".
Georgian civilians captured and recently freed by Russian and South Ossetian forces on Saturday described beatings, forced labor and miserable living conditions in prison.
Georgian officials said that 79 Georgian civilians have been released over the past few days but that at least 75 civilians, almost all of them young men, remain in captivity in Tskhinvali, capital of the separatist territory of South Ossetia.
The former prisoners, half a dozen of whom were interviewed at a school serving as temporary housing in this industrial city, said they were seized from their homes or as they fled advancing Russian and South Ossetian forces. Some said they were held for as many as 12 days at a jail in Tskhinvali.
The detainees, many of them elderly fruit farmers from villages along Georgia's northern border, said male inmates were forced to clean streets and bury the war dead, and occasionally endured beatings that left them with bruises and welts. More than 100 men and women were packed into a cell with a single toilet, they said. "I thought they would kill us. I was very much afraid," said Manuna Gogidze, 48.
Gogidze said she and 15 others were forced out of her neighbor's cellar on Aug. 8 and lined up against a wall. A South Ossetian militiaman was pointing a cocked rifle at them when another fighter intervened, she said. They were then loaded into a truck and taken north.
The inmates' stories could not be independently verified, though people interviewed separately gave consistent accounts. South Ossetian and Russian officials have in the past denied abusing Georgian detainees. A Kremlin spokesman, who would not give his name, said only that prisoners held by the South Ossetians were treated according to "acceptable standards." A spokesman for the South Ossetian government could not be reached for comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Mass protest marches in London, Paris, New York,...oh, wait, never mind.
Outrage in massive print and broadcast coverage for weeks in and on our MSM...oh, wait, never mind.
"Stalin was an efficient leader, not a murderer. The killing of Polish officers in Katyn was a well-deserved revenge," will be the new official historical theory taught in Russian schools.
Before the opening of the new school year, the Russian Academy of Qualification Improvement and Professional Retraining of Education Employees has released guidelines for teachers regarding the history syllabus in schools.
From now on, Russian pupils will be informed that some 22,000 Polish officers were indeed killed by the NKVD in Katyn in 1940, but the act was fully justified and "politically suitable", reports a Moscow-based liberal, but pro-government daily newspaper Vremya Novostei.
Russian teachers will also explain to their school children that the Katyn massacre was carried out "in response to the killing of thousands of Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity after the war of 1920 [between Poland and the Soviet Union], initiated by Poland, not the USSR".
That was the war in which Trotsky led the new Red Army to the gates of Warsaw, and got whupped, isn't it ...
Purges and acts of ethnic cleansing, killing millions, carried out on Stalin's orders were simply "efficient endeavors" of the leader getting the country ready for the forthcoming war.
The Katyn massacre has been a running sore between Warsaw and Moscow. On March 5, 1940, Joseph Stalin signed a decree to murder Polish Army officers taken captive after the Red Army invasion of Poland in 1939. The officers, made up of Poland's intellectual elite, were systematically shot from April till May 1940 in Katyn, Charkov and Tarnow.
Now more than ever the Poles should be happy they're taking the ballistic missile defense system into their country.
The information about mass graves in Katyn was made public by the Germans on April 13, 1943. Two days later, the Soviets blamed the massacre on the Nazis. After an investigation of over a decade in length, Moscow refused to name the massacre as a war crime nor, as the Polish side alleges, was it genocide. No prosecutions have ever been made against the NKVD officers involved in the slaughter.
#1
Stalin's purges, including the murder of the Kulaks, the killing of any general with balls (and a possible threat to Stalin), the Gulags, and other atrocities of the Soviet Union are all "justifiable" according to Communists. Including murdering anyone who isn't Communist enough, or anyone who the hierarchy didn't like that morning, or whatever.
There should be a Holocaust Museum to the victims of Communism. Not to diminish the Shoah, but communism has probably killed over 100 million people in its history. All of it "justifiable".
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
08/25/2008 18:21 Comments ||
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#2
Vlad Putin isn't even pretending anymore he doesn't want to be the second coming of Stalin. I guess he invaded Georgia to erect an over sized of himself next to the original.
Posted by: ed ||
08/25/2008 18:51 Comments ||
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#3
"Stalin was an efficient leader, not a murderer."
Fixed.
Interestingly, Stalin was from Gori (recently occupied by Russia). Putty is out for his legacy.
#4
I take it this means Poland won't be inviting Russia to any PAN-SLAVIC BEACH BARBECUES anytime soon - NO MORE HE-MAN FLEXING OF THE ABS BY PUTIN = VLADVEDEV BEFORE THE POLISH BIKINI BABES???
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2008 21:56 Comments ||
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#6
There should be a Holocaust Museum to the victims of Communism. Not to diminish the Shoah, but communism has probably killed over 100 million people in its history.
Call it "The Other Holocaust" and we're good to go as far as I'm concerned, Rambler.
Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President, was in a fierce and defiant mood yesterday as he urged Nato to respond to the Russian invasion of Georgia by moving quickly to expand the frontiers of the alliance eastwards. In an exclusive interview with The Times Mr Yushchenko asserted that the fundamentals of international politics had changed. Ukraine had to do everything in its power to ensure it was not going to be next on the Kremlin hitlist.
"It is the first time in Europe since the Cold War that a foreign army has entered the territory of a sovereign state without any internationally accepted legal basis," he said. "If we were to be ambivalent about this it would give tacit approval to put our country and our citizens under threat."
The President -- one of the figureheads of the Orange Revolution that toppled Moscow's favoured candidate for the leadership of Ukraine -- was careful not to criticise Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, directly. Even when the 54-year-old economist flew to Tbilisi shortly after the outbreak of the Russian-Georgian war, his words were more carefully chosen than those of the other East European heads of state.
Russians form a strong minority in Ukraine -- about 17 per cent of the population, in the east and to the south in the Crimea -- and could become a flashpoint in any future confrontation with Moscow.
Yesterday was the eve of Ukrainian Independence Day and it was time for the President to break cover. Over the roofs of Kiev, a Ukrainian jet fighter howled through the sky. It was preparing for the celebrations, but its presence still induced a vague sense of menace.
This weekend the Independence Day festivities will have a martial edge. It is a good moment to display strength, although in truth the Ukrainian forces are a mere shadow of those of Russia, which is using oil money to modernise the army and boost military might. New aircraft carriers are planned, and new equipment across the board.
"Ukraine has to move towards the Nato alliance," the President said, drumming up support before the Nato summit in December. "It is the only way for our country to protect our national security and sovereignty. When the borders of Nato expand, so too does the region of peace and stability."
The defence budget of Ukraine -- as in other nervous Central European states -- is to be raised immediately. "I want to remind all political forces in our country that shout about the possible neutral status of Ukraine that neutrality can come at a very high price," he said, casting a nod at pro-Moscow politicians.
"We need to increase the military budget so that there is no question about what happens tomorrow," he added. "The peace and security of Europe are under threat, thus a united Europe should give a robust and appropriate response," the President said.
Instead, at the beginning of a new Russian presidency, Moscow is demonstrating its readiness to champion Russian minorities everywhere -- disturbing for Estonia with 30 per cent of its population of Russian origin; Latvia with 33 per cent; Moldova with 13 per cent, and the Belarussians with 13 per cent. The Central Asian republics such as Kyrgyzstan (with 21.5 per cent Russians) could also become vulnerable.
No one seriously believes the Russians are set to march into the Baltic states -- though Moscow has no problems about exploiting their dependency on Russian oil and gas -- but that is President Yushchenko's point: as full members of Nato, along with Poland, they are more secure than Ukraine. It was now essential, he said, that Ukraine should be enlisted in the Nato Membership Action Plan.
Still pockmarked from a dioxin poisoning attack before the 2005 presidential election, the President has reason enough to be wary about Russian-inspired dirty tricks. His face became bloated and disfigured after eating a meal with security chiefs -- medical tests later showed that he had consumed several thousand times the safe dose for dioxin -- and though the matter has still to be cleared up by the courts, many observers think that it was a typical KGB operation.
"This is my personal tragedy and that of my family," he said. "Unfortunately it has become an integral part of the political debate in Ukraine." Once seen as a revolutionary hero, then as a victim of mysterious poisoners, he is now viewed by many as a somewhat ineffective president, struggling to make a mark. Ahead of next year's presidential elections, his popularity ratings are at a record low.
Paradoxically, the perceived threat from Russia could boost his position and help him to brand himself as a doughty defender of Ukranian independence. The same goes for leaders across the region: they are all starting to play the nationalist card, playing on the deep suspicion of Vladimir Putin and the Russian generals.
Posted by: ed ||
08/25/2008 15:23 ||
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DENVER (AP) - A cancer-fighting Sen. Edward M. Kennedy prepared to attend, and possibly speak, at the opening day of the Democratic National Convention on Monday. Kennedy, who is being treated for a malignant brain tumor, is a beloved figure within the Democratic Party, and the Massachusetts senator's last-minute appearance at the Pepsi Center is a way to unite the fractured party as the four-day convention opens amid signs of acrimony between Obama and Clinton delegates.
Kennedy arrived in Denver Sunday night and got a checkup at a local hospital. He plans to attend to watch a video tribute to him and may even address the convention if he feels up to it, said a senior Democratic official who talked on the condition of anonymity. "He's truly humbled by the outpouring of support and wouldn't miss it for anything in the world," said Stephanie Cutter, a Kennedy spokeswoman.
#4
Hopefully his speech will be brief, along the lines of, "Thank you all so much. Your kindness touches me more than I can say." Anything more may reveal how much damage the cancer has caused.
#10
Hey, it's the guy's last hurrah. I've despised him for years but I wouldn't begrudge him this. Let 'er rip, Ted. It's your last chance; make it a good one.
#13
He looked pretty good, didn't he. No obvious ill effects from either the surgery or the radiation. He gave a brief (mercifully for both him and me) exhortation to the crowd, and they ate it up.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2008 21:55 Comments ||
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A new US president could bring an historic US commitment to "serious nuclear disarmament," says Australia's Gareth Evans, co-head of a new international anti-nuclear commission.
He's assuming something, isn't he ...
More like smoking something
Mr Evans today pointed to "a change in the atmosphere" in Washington, led by a bipartisan alliance of former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former defence secretary William Perry and former Senate Armed Service Committee chairman Sam Nunn.
"(They are) making over the past two years a hard-headed, realistic case for the first times in US history for serious nuclear disarmament and the prospect that will flow through into the new US administration - particularly Obama but also a McCain administration."
Mr Evans, Australia's foreign minister from 1988 to 1996 and now president of Brussels-based International Crisis Group, launched the new International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament today with co-chair Yoriko Kawaguchi, also a former foreign minister. The commission is an initiative of Kevin Rudd and Japan's PM Yasuo Fukuda to influence the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in 2010.
Mr Evans, who with Ms Kawaguchi met the PM this morning, said he was "very impressed by Prime Minister Fukuda's personal commitment and support for this exercise".
Former PM Paul Keating, who with Mr Evans established the Canberra Commission on nuclear disarmament in 1995, warned at the weekend speech the NPT was near collapse and criticised it as "perhaps the most egregious example of international double dealing of any international regime".
Mr Evans said the 2010 review needed to create a "global regime that picks up the best of the NPT, that makes it stronger and applicable universally", including to "the elephants in the room" India, Israel and Pakistan, states which had no intention of joining the NPT.
Sorta dooms you guys to failure right off the bat, doesn't it? Not to mention Israel and China, and wannabes Iran and Saudi Arabia ...
Membership of the Evans-Kawaguchi commission has not yet been finalised but, similarly to the Canberra Commission, is expected to include former states-people, international security authorities, and nuclear technology experts. Mr Evans said he hoped the commission could convene in October.
At a very posh resort, of course ...
Posted by: john frum ||
08/25/2008 12:43 ||
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#1
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!! At first I thought this was scrappleface. I'm certain, ha, that new (democrat) leadership could get Iran to stop their development, oh and sweet talk Pakistan and India to disarm, and while I'm dreaming get me a date with Miss April. We have better odds of the return of Christ. They need to stop smoking that crack down there.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/25/2008 13:27 Comments ||
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#2
The Kissinger-Schultz-Perry-Nunn initiative has gotten a lot of disarmament folk really excited
Posted by: john frum ||
08/25/2008 13:32 Comments ||
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I don't see one chinese, muzzie, Korean, Paki, or Russian on that event sponsor list. Meaning the only disarming will be of the US. Screw them, Kissinger will only give America away. He said we are a dieing nation and that makes him fit into the "Not our friend" catagory.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/25/2008 14:02 Comments ||
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#4
Geez, get "the Elders" on board and we could do a new "We Are The World" video...
#5
I could see McCain in that role. he'd go to each of the nuker nations, one at a time and make them an offer they can't refuse. Wouldn't that be great?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/25/2008 16:50 Comments ||
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Sen. Barack Obama's bid for party unity at the Democratic National Convention, which opens Monday, is being challenged by angry supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who refuse to let heal wounds from a brutal primary fight that their candidate lost.
"You can actually feel this party splitting," said Diane Mantouvalos, co-founder of Just Say No Deal coalition, an Internet-based collection of more than 250 groups vehemently opposed to the impending presidential nomination of Mr. Obama at the party convention in Denver. "There is a lot of anger out there." Nah, can't be. Why, the media says that all Hillary voters are happily marching into line behind the Messiah....except for maybe five old, menopausal women. But once they get back on their hormone replacement, they'll get over it.
The renegade Democrats plan to stage protests outside the convention hall, flood the Internet with live blogs from Denver and air a TV ad challenging the legitimacy of the party's nominating process. Miss Mantouvalos said her group is screening two anti-Obama documentary films in Denver this week, including "The Audacity of Democracy," a play on the title of one of Mr. Obama's autobiographical books. Which will probably not be screened at Invesco Field...
Mr. Obama exacerbated the ill will Saturday by tapping Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware as his running mate, dashing Clinton supporters' dreams that she would at least get the No. 2 spot on the ticket. The Obama team didn't even ask Mrs. Clinton for the papers and records needed for the customary vetting process, a sign that she never was seriously considered despite Mr. Obama's public words, Clinton aides said.
"It's a total dis to Senator Clinton," Miss Mantouvalos said. "It just speaks volumes about how Barack Obama doesn't stand for anything." Obviously, she doesn't get the power of "hope" and "change".
Oh, she gets it. 'Change' means "No Clintons" ... and 'Hope' means "Hope she leaves and never comes back" ...
With polls showing as many as half of Mrs. Clinton's voters up for grabs in the fall, Republican Sen. John McCain's campaign sought to immediately seize on the opportunity by airing a TV ad Sunday quoting the former first lady's criticisms of Mr. Obama during the primary campaign. The ad also features a voice-over announcer echoing Clinton supporter's frustration about Mr. Obama's vice-presidential pick: "She won millions of votes but isn't on the ticket. Why? For speaking the truth."
Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand dismissed the ad, saying Mrs. Clinton's "support of Barack Obama is clear. She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn't. It's interesting how those remarks didn't make it into his ad." It is also interesting to note that Senator Biden's remarks regarding Senator McCain's fitness for the presidency and how Senator Obama is "articulate" will also never be featured in a Democrat ad, but I digress.
Will Bower, a registered Democrat in the District who co-founded an anti-Obama group called PUMA, nonetheless said he likely will vote for Mr. McCain. Ok, how did he get in here? I guess someone didn't read the memo....showcase bitter hags, not guys who don't think Obama's the One....
"I feel that Obama has won a fraudulent campaign," Mr. Bower said. "He's done nothing. He's great at speeches and that's it."
His misgivings about the senator from Illinois echo the primary campaign attacks by Mrs. Clinton, although the senator from New York has since recanted and embraced his nomination.
Mr. Bower isn't alone. Polls taken over the last week show as many as one in five of the Clinton supporters now back Mr. McCain, and many more are up for grabs. A Zogby International poll showed about 25 percent of Democrats do not support Mr. Obama. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll taken Saturday and Sunday showed that 66 percent of Clinton voters now back Mr. Obama, with 27 percent supporting Mr. McCain.
Obama campaign officials said the disgruntled Clinton voters do not reflect the steady stream of her supporters joining the all-but-certain Democratic presidential nominee. "It is a fairly emotional process that we are all going through at different rates," said Dana Singiser, a former Clinton campaign adviser on outreach to female voters who now does that job for Mr. Obama. "Hey, a goil's gotta pay the rent somehow!"
She said more Clinton supporters will gravitate to the Obama camp as the race progresses this fall. "We probably won't get all 18 million voters who voted for Hillary but we are going to keep screaming at her supporters to get over it,calling them pissy old crones,hoping these racist crackers get with the program, talking to her voters." "You don't have to fall in love with Obama, you just have to fall in line."
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
08/25/2008 08:36 ||
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#1
It is worth it to remember that Hillary got those delegates seated. There had to be some serious brass knuckle wrangling for that to have happened. It would not at all surprise me if there is some attempt by Hillary supporters to lead a call for an actual vote from the superdelegates.
I've been watching the behind the scenes on this with some angst - as I can't wait until the bells toll the wicked witch dead, but she's not dead yet, and her nature would not be to give up.
I wonder if this article gives us a a small hint of how something might go down. Perhaps Hillary will stand back and feign surprise while a group of "bitter post-menopausal hags" call for the vote.
I seriously doubt that Hillary can somehow pull it off at this point - but I have no doubt that she has been pulling out all stops and that no superdelegate has been left unbruised from her beatings in smokey back rooms. Like I say, it seems unlikely to me, but I'll be so glad this convention ends with Hillary packing her broomstick and flying into the sunset.
#4
Capsu - You are probably right. But the Clintons are masters of divide and conquer. Don't underestimate them. It is obvious that there is something going on behind the scenes. What would worry me, if I was Obama or Biden, is that the Clinton's have made a big show of how they are going to have teams of whips "ready to keep the "crazy" Clinton supporters in line. History has shown the Clintons to be the most gracious just before they strike.
I will be sooo glad that they are gone. I'm old enough to remember before and after the Clintons came on the scene. BC (before Clinton) it was politics as usual, which was rough, but after Clintons is when you could not sit at a dinner table without enduring a screed from some leftist acolite thinking themselves to be "elite" in thought word and deed. The Clintons are shrewd, ruthless thugs who are serious players. Obama and Biden are more like Kerry or Gary Hart: Faces put forth by the political machines whose real players are too ugly or tainted to be on a ticket.
I think Obama and Biden are weak - even with full media support. I hope Bobby is right!!
#5
Pay attention also to the suit filed in a PA federal court this past Friday by a Clinton supporter and longtime party hack alleging:
1. Obama was born in Kenya. The plaintiff reportedly claims to have in his possession a Kenyan birth certificate issued within a week of The One's date of birth listin The One's father as the father of the child.
2. That Obama's dual US / Kenyan citizenship disqualifies him from holding the office of President due to the inherent conflict of interest.
3. That Obama traveled to Pakistan on an Indonesian passport as a youth and that this happened as a result of his adoption by his stepfather in Indonesia.
Just to be clear since I know more than a few here have strong feelings about these matters: I'm not supporting or advocating any of these positions, I merely find it curious that a Clintonista filed such an action in a swing state a week before the convention. Probably also doesn't hurt that Bill appointed the judge hearing the case.
Your musting fits right in with my fantasy position of last week.
I'm wondering if Hillary is going to use her speech to drop a bomb on Obomba. My guess was it would be scandalous new relevations about Ayers, Wright, Rezko or Birth Certificate. I was leaning toward the CAC papers but who knows.
I don't expect this to actually happen but.......................... ;^)
#8
lotp, you're probably right which is why I don't expect it to happen. What I DO expect is that she will sandbag Zero so that he loses the election setting herself up to run agianst a very old McC or a newbie in 2012.
#9
The real key to me is that half of the Hillary Clinton Democrats are going for McCain. That should be enough to put him over the top in the national election, even as the Democrats continue to play for points at the party convention. Perhaps in 2012 the Democratic candidates will have realized that it isn't really about finagling convention delegates, but about seducing enough actual voters to get to the White House.
Speaking to reporters after her address to the New York delegation, Clinton offered delegates no instruction on how to cast their votes, Amie Parnes reports.
"I will be telling my delegates that I will vote for Barack Obama," she said. "How they vote is a more personal decision. They want to have their chance to vote for me. That is what traditionally happens ... some people are having to make up their minds because there are arguments pulling them both ways."
I would submit that you could see this coming the minute she got those delegates seated.
"I know a lot of hardened Clinton delegates who are going to be OK, they're going to wind up supporting Sen. Obama," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, told USA TODAY. "But they want to cast their votes for her. Â… I think that'll make it easier for there to be closure."
#12
But someone else might do it on her behalf, perhaps.
Yep. Bill and the Hildebeeste won't get their hands dirty in this affair as they need to ensure that they retain the ability to unify the Democratic Party behind themselves following Obama's impending defeat. Tough to do that if you're seen throwing the poster boy for the angry left under the bus.
I expect death by a thousand paper cuts for the Obama campaign. No one too closely associated with the Clintons, none of the inner circle, just those far enough away to maintain a sheen of plausible deniability. I expect the nonsense in PA is but the first of many swing state shenanigans to come.
Hillary and Bill would instruct their delegates not to call for a vote if they didn't think that Hillary would get an impressive showing. In fact, I'm surprised they would want a vote at all if they thought she didn't have any chance of winning it.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was supposed to give "closing remarks" during this afternoon's Shorenstein Center-sponsored panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators -- NBC's Tom Brokaw, ABC's George Stephanopoulous and CBS's Bob Schieffer -- but instead, he opened up a can of worms about bias in 2008 election coverage
"Ladies and gentleman, the coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing," said Rendell, in the ballroom at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel. "It was embarrassing."
Rendell, an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primaries, now backs Obama in the general election. Brokaw and Rendell began debating campaign coverage, including the on-air comments by Lee Cowan, and when MSNBC came up, Rendell went after the cable network.
"MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign," Rendell said, who called their coverage "absolutely embarrassing."
At that point, PBS's Judy Woodruff, who was moderating the moderators event, said: Silence, blasphemer! How dare you take the name of The Obama in vain? A pox on you and your Commonwealth! "Why don't we let Governor Rendell sit down."
That was met with applause from the crowd of big-time media figures, which included Arianna Huffington, Gwen Ifill, Al Hunt, and Chuck Todd. "You tell 'em, Judy!"
"He is a heretic! Off with his head!"
"Burn him at the stake!"
"We can't have steak, we're vegans."
"Oh. Well ... boil him in soy milk, then!"
Woodruff allowed Brokaw to respond, and in defending the network, he said that Matthews and Keith Olbermann are "not the only voices" on MSNBC. Coulda fooled me.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/25/2008 08:42 ||
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A lot of the Clinton folks stated that the Fox News Network was the only channel that gave objective coverage during the Dem Primaries.
#2
Woodruff told the sitting governor of Pennsylvania to sit down and shut up at an event he had been invited to?
Wow. I can't stand Fast Eddie, but that's all kinds of wrong.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/25/2008 11:04 Comments ||
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#3
Gee, there are so many. It's so hard to choose just one.
Posted by: ed ||
08/25/2008 15:05 Comments ||
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#4
And some guy named Jared Bernstein says McCain won't be a good President because he's Rich and is out-of-touch with middle-income Americans, unlike Obama. I barfed.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/25/2008 15:11 Comments ||
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They really hate it when you call them on it. It's almost like you're questioning their objectivity or...something.
Add Rendell's name to the future show trials list.
US PRESIDENTIAL candidate John McCain has hit back at Madonna after the singer kicked off her world tour with a concert that appeared to compare him with Adolf Hitler. Mr McCain's campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds angrily condemned the segment of Madonna's concert in Cardiff, Wales, on Saturday that appeared to draw a comparison between Mr McCain, Hitler and Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe.
"The comparisons are outrageous, unacceptable and crudely divisive all at the same time,'' Mr Bounds said in a statement, reported by Fox News. "It clearly shows that when it comes to supporting Barack Obama, his fellow worldwide celebrities refuse to consider any smear or attack off limits.''
It also shows a tremendous lack of imagination by the Material Girl. Since this is her last swipe at looking desirable on a concert tour, you'd think she'd come up with something more original.
Madonna's apparent swipe at Mr McCain came during a performance of the song Get Stupid, when the Republican contender's image was flashed up alongside images of destruction and global warming as well as Hitler and Mugabe.
Towards the end of the song, pictures of Beatles star John Lennon, former US vice-president Al Gore, Indian Mahatma Gandhi and McCain's Democrat rival Barack Obama appeared.
Oh, oh, how .. inspiring. How .. insipid. It's like the Left has never learned the lessions taught by Leni Riefenstahl ...
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
08/25/2008 5:02 Comments ||
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Madonna's attacking Robert Mugabe by comparing him to John McCain? Why, that means she's ... she's ... RACIST!
[/liberal]
Posted by: Mike ||
08/25/2008 6:23 Comments ||
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Probably a mistake on McCain's part. Madonna's career has been a series of shock concerts. Each one creating more scandlous controversy than the last. This is what her fans expect and, predictibly, this is what she gives. At 50, she is, at best, reaching for material. From the description, it sounds like the one she is paroding the most is herself. A gentle, humorous putdown of an over-the-hill performer is all that is needed here. Giving her much attention is counterproductive.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/25/2008 6:45 Comments ||
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#6
Yuck. Nasty old slut. She looks like the washed up barfly latching onto anyone that will pay attention to her.
I'm going to go wash my eyes out with bleach now.
#8
The initial signs of MDS [McCain Derangement Syndrome]. A mutation of BDS? It certainly shows the same pathology of jingoism marked by intolerance and hate. So expect an outbreak come January, among the same population which displayed the same symptoms for the past eight years.
#10
She thrives on attention and shocking. She's the celebrity version of a troll. Yeah some people like her songs but she knows she can't survive on that alone. Thus the attention grabbing stunts.
McCain shouldn't have taken the bait. I know he's no internet user but someone on his staff must be. Don't feed the trolls (even ones that look like they haven't eaten in weeks).
#13
My daughter found this through a British chat group she frequents and we posted it on the Daily Brief last month - sort of the very last word on Madonna... and a very scary likeness!
#3
Someone will have to explain to me why the Dhimmis allowed the Pubs to have their convention the very next week. Just as Obama and Joe go stamping around the country on their post-convention tour, McCain names his VP and rides into Minneapolis, thus taking all the air out of Obama's balloon.
Brilliant guys, just brilliant.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2008 9:29 Comments ||
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Steve, that is what they will use the MSM for. Keep the Republican convention and announcements to a minimum.
However, the MSM will not be able to control the damage when Obama tries to debate.
#5
The VP announcements came out too recently to be in effect in most polls. Also they announced going into the weekend which is when you do things you're hoping to hide. I have a How-to book on Coups and that is rule one. Do the Coup going into a weekend and have things settled by Monday Morning when the world checks the news again.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
08/25/2008 15:20 Comments ||
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CNN also polled registered voters. Which way do you think likely voters will go?
Posted by: ed ||
08/25/2008 15:36 Comments ||
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#10
Bullshit!!!
McCain C Hummer is bullshit
TRUTHERS HURT
Posted by: Albert Grotle3730 ||
08/25/2008 17:12 Comments ||
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#11
PRAVDA > TWO COCKROACHES AIM FOR THE US PRESIDENCY. Looks like, besides POLAND, PUTIN = VLADVEDEV won't be invited and flexing their abs for US BIKINI BABES either.
D *** NG IT, WHAT IS IT ABOUT OWG BARBECUES AND THE USSA THAT THE [former]USSR HATES!?
New Delhi, Aug 25(PTI) For the first time, an army General is set to take over command of the country's strategic forces and nuclear arsenal. Lt-Gen Balraj Singh Nagal will take over command of the country's strategic forces and nuclear arsenal, an official announcement said.
Nagal, currently Director General (logistics) at the army headquarters, will take over as Commander-In-Chief of the strategic forces command on September 30, the announcement said. The army general will take over from Vice-Admiral Vijay Shanker, who has been shifted as Commander-In-Chief of the nation's other Tri-service command based in Andaman and Nicobar Island.
Nagal, would be the first army officer to take over command of the nuclear weapon operating forces. So far, only Air Force and Naval officers have headed the command, which was set up very recently.
Army along with Air Force are the only two forces operating nuclear missiles and bombs. India, so far, is making efforts to build an under-sea missile launch capability.
Army has raised three to four specialised missile groups to operate both the short- and the long-range surface-to-surface Prithvi and Agni missiles. Both the missiles have the capability to carry conventional as well as nuclear warheads. Army has also set up a new unit to operate the Indo-Russian supersonic Brahmos cruise missile.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/25/2008 13:28 ||
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ION INDIA > WAFF > HINDU MOBS BURN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN EAST INDIA + THE MAOIST REVOLUTION IN INDIA.
Appears Islamist Militants-Terr are "THE OTHER ARMED WING/FACTION" = "OTHER COMMUNISTS" EXTENS OF INDIA'S COMMIES-SOCIALISTS???
D *** NG IT, THE SECULAR ATHEIST COMMIES WILL SAVE INDIA FROM THE GOD-BASED COMMIES AKA ISLAMISTS!
IOW, the "RED TURBAN/RED-STAR TURBAN" is still rising in ASIA!
(PTI) Claiming that there was no agreement with ex-President Pervez Musharraf that led to his resignation, Pakistan's ruling PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari has, nevertheless, said his party was not interested in taking any action against him and was not looking to get into "messy fights." The day Musharraf stepped down last week was "a momentous day especially for the forces like us who believe democracy is the best revenge," Zardari told 'Newsweek' magazine in an interview.
When asked whether his party had reached an agreement with Musharraf before he resigned, the PPP Chairman said: "No. He hasn't got anything yet. There is a general understanding that we are not looking to (get) into any messy fights.
"We are not interested in doing anything against him - we are looking for a transition to full democracy." Zardari said the Parliament will decide whether Musharraf would get immunity from future prosecution. "Everybody knows the Pakistan Peoples Party's position is that we are not into revenge." He, however, said the General was "welcome to stay" in Pakistan and a future President could also grant him pardon.
When asked if he would like to see Musharraf exiled, Zardari said: "Personally I would like him to be around and see us flourish in Pakistan and make Pakistan a success story. I think that would be the revenge of Benazir Bhutto." To a question whether the new President should give up the power to dissolve Parliament, Zardari said: "... We need to have a debate in Parliament and see how strong we want the future President (to be) and how strong we want to make our Prime Minister. I think the president should not have the power to dissolve the assembly."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Pakistan People's Party Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari says he believes that the president should not have the power to dissolve the National Assembly and that the head of state's role should be "more ceremonial". "Parliament is sovereign, and one has to look at the future of Pakistan's democracy as more important than individuals as such," he said in an interview with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth before he was formally nominated by his party to be its candidate for the post of President.
Replying to a question, the PPP leader also said that he was in favour of restoring ex-chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry along with 60 other superior judges. "I personally am in favour of the chief justice, but there is a position in the party, which says that he has become too politicized in the last many months and he has been leading rallies," Zardari said. Elaborating his views on Presidential powers, he said, "We fought this war for democracy, and all the powers that Musharraf enjoyed were obviously non-democratic. We need to have a debate in the Parliament and see how strong we want the future president [to be] and how strong we want to make our prime minister. I think the president should not have the power to dissolve the assembly."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Burma's opposition party says UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari's latest trip to the country was a waste of time.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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The BBC's South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, says Mr Gambari now seems to have used up all the credibility he had. After more than two years of failure his statements remain relentlessly upbeat - yet he seems to put no pressure on the generals, our correspondent says.
Mr Gambari's latest visit to Burma has attracted little praise. "The UN envoy was wasting his time on matters that he was not supposed to deal with."
He added that Mr Gambari had also failed to make any progress on the other major theme of his mission - to secure the release of political prisoners including Ms Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest.
During his six-day visit, Mr Gambari did hold talks with the NLD and meet Prime Minister Thein Sein - a figurehead who holds little real power. But diplomats conceded that nothing concrete had come of his visit.
Hell, that sounds to me like a typical UN success story.
Sri Lanka's ruling party swept two local councils in an election seen as a referendum on the administration's war against Tamil rebels, results showed on Sunday. President Mahinda Rajapakse's United People's Freedom Alliance comfortably won the provincial councils by polling over 55 percent of Saturday's vote, according to the department of elections. Rajapakse wanted the ballot for the highest level of local government in the North Central and Sabaragamuwa provinces to be a referendum on his military campaign against Tamil separatists.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE
A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH IN NORTHERN COLORADO
To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:
Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.
Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:
"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time.And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."
Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:
"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."
Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."
Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.
Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief.
Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.
The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches.
Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Denver
James D. Conley, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver
#1
San Fran Nan doesnt know she that has crossed swords with an articulate and very intelligent defender of the faith, who will not brook such nonsense as hers without correcting her.
Unlike some of his west coast brother bishops, Archbishop Chaput is not afraid to speack the truth to those nominally "Catholic" politicians.
#3
For many years, the Catholic church had to court despicable and evil tyrants, because they made it clear that "you were either with them, or their enemies". And with honor, this was often done not for the sake of political power, but so that the church could minister to those under the domination of the tyrant. That situation still exists in many parts of the world, such as China.
However, that being said, in the free, western world, many politicians who arose from the Catholic faithful, have long ignored Catholic teachings, and have sought to call themselves Catholic only for social reasons, or even cruder, just to maintain their power.
They have become the true enemies of the church, and there is no reason whatsoever that they church should tolerate them or their pretensions to the faith.
Unless someone like Nancy Pelosi confesses her offenses, asks forgiveness for them, and refrains from them in the future, automatic excommunication is not enough. It is not just within the authority, it is the responsibility of the bishop of the diocese which she claims membership, to formally and publicly expel her from the church. To make it known within that diocese that she is no longer Catholic, nor may claim to be, nor may be sanctified by Catholic sacrament, nor even buried in a Catholic cemetery.
Nebraska's new "safe-haven" law allowing parents to abandon unwanted children at hospitals with no questions asked is unique in a significant way: It goes beyond babies and potentially permits the abandonment of anyone under 19. Wait. It gets better.
While lawmakers may not have intended it, the month-old law raises the possibility that frustrated parents could drop off misbehaving teens or even severely disabled older children with impunity. "Whether the kid is disabled or unruly or just being a hormonal teenager, the state is saying: 'Hey, we have a really easy option for you,"' said Adam Pertman, executive director of a New York adoption institute and a frequent critic of safe-haven laws.
Nebraska's approach is surprising because it is the last state in the nation to adopt a safe-haven law. But instead of following the lead of other states, which focus on the abandonment of newborns, lawmakers here wanted to extend the protection to all minors. And in Nebraska, that goes all the way up to age 19.
"All children deserve our protection," said Sen. Tom White, who helped broaden the measure. "If we save one child from being abused, it's well, well worth it."
White said it doesn't matter if that child is an infant or 3 years old or in the care of a parent or baby sitter. As for what constitutes a minor, he refers to common law, which interprets it to be anyone under age 14.
The measure, which took effect July 18, does not absolve people of possible criminal charges -- for example, if a child had been beaten. And since the law does not specify, it technically allows anyone, not just a parent, to legally surrender custody. Most other states narrowly define the role of the person surrendering the child. WTF??? Maybe some of the Rantburg Bar could 'splain this to me, but would there be any recourse for a parent in this situation? (Other than comin' after 'em with a lead pipe or a shotgun once I got Junior safely home.....if I could get Junior safely home before he got sucked into the Child Welfare services.....)
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
08/25/2008 09:35 ||
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#1
Oboy! Do we get to play 'guess which party' Senator White is?
#3
Now wait a minute. The state claims the power to teach your kids that its OK to do sex. They'll provide the means to abort without parental consent. That even that isn't necessary because the state authority figures say that same-sex extra curriculum activity is OK too. The state says its criminal assault if you engage in Pavlovian behavior modification to your little creation. Child Service will get into your door on the slightest unfounded rumor and then take control of the house hierarchy and daily operations. So what's the problem with just dumping the little darling upon the state? You want all the power, you can have'm. I think is going to open the proverbial can of worms. :)
#6
So what's the problem with just dumping the little darling upon the state? You want all the power, you can have'm. I think is going to open the proverbial can of worms
The problem, Procopius, is that the dollars going to support that little darlin' are comin' outta' your and my pockets! Yeah, I know you were joking, but these buffoons don't need any more "good" ideas for how to pick our pockets "for the children".
#7
Safe Haven laws are a crock around the country. They do NOT reach the women you would want to reach -- the ones who birth a baby in a toilet and then abandon it in a paper bag in the cold. Such women have substantial psychological issues and don't use the Safe Haven laws (go figure).
SH laws are a feel-good for legislators who don't want to tackle the difficult problems of helping women with unwanted babies. This knucklehead Tom White (no relation, thank goodness) is just following his progressive instincts to their natural conclusion.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2008 13:21 Comments ||
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#8
A good thing we don't have that law in Ohio. Temporary foster daughter's father would have dumped both girls a year ago for no longer adoring him like they did as toddlers.
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.
An Awami League (AL) activist was killed and ten people were injured yesterday in a clash between activists of AL and BNP over a ha-du-du match at Jaduria village in Jhenidah.
And Castro hinted that big changes could be in order for Cuban sports, pledging a serious review of "every discipline, every human and material resource that we dedicate to sport."
Pakistan People's Party Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari says he believes that the president should not have the power to dissolve the National Assembly and that the head of state's role should be "more ceremonial". "Parliament is sovereign, and one has to look at the future of Pakistan's democracy as more important than individuals as such," he said in an interview with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth before he was formally nominated by his party to be its candidate for the post of President. 
