Francis Fukuyama believes we are still at the End of History, and the end is called the European Union. I don't know whether the EU spells the end of history, but do I suspect it could spell the end of Europe:
The End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organization. Following Alexandre Kojeve, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EUs attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a post-historical world than the Americans continuing belief in God, national sovereignty and their military.
The French presidential campaign had not yet digested the March 27th Gare du Nord riots when a dramatic new clash between rioters and the police has hit the news. This time the incident occurred at the Foire du Trône, an amusement park in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. There was not one turnstile jumper but a whole bunch of cheaters. And a 31 year-old policeman is dead.
Employees of the Maxximum Ferris wheel got in a fight with a group ofwell, at this stage of the investigation they are still youthslets say a bunch of hoodlums massed on the access ramp waiting to jump on for a free ride. Two policemen intervened.
Patrolman Reynald Caron somehow landed in the path of the turning wheel and was slammed with such force it nearly beheaded him. His colleague almost passed out at the sight. The youths scattered.
Initially the media reported the death as accidental. Now two witnessesSilvio Bolinio, 40 years old and Christian Marcel, 43have come forward to testify. They say the youths deliberately pushed one of the policemen into the path of the Ferris wheel, he stumbled, the gondola hit him and sent him flying. The police are investigating. The boss of the foire was interviewed on a french radio; he told that a "black young man" had deliberately pushed the policeman under the gondola, and that he was part of a "large group of Youths who kept harassing customers, employees, and havign clashes with the security". Since this was not a very PC-thing to do (mentioning race!? Oh, my!), after a first warning, the interviewer abruptly cut off the phone line, thus illustrating the state of freedom of speech in France.
For three days the chief Prosecutor of Paris, Jean-Claude Marin, was visibly twisting and squirming as he tried to deny the obvious: Someone had pushed the policeman into the path of the Ferris wheel. And the policeman was dead. No, no, it was an accident. A simple Brownian effect of a milling crowd. No intrepid reporter (I was out of town) thought to visit the fairgrounds and describe the scene of the crime or accident. But common sense would suggest that there had to be a barrier between the access ramp and the wheel. How could a random crowd surge project a policeman over the barrier and into the path of the deadly wheel?
The incident that triggered the police intervention was consistently described as a brawl between the forains and the youths. Forains are the people who run these amusement parks, which grew out of traditional country fairs. Forains have a reputation for toughness and brawling but in this case the forains were apparently trying to keep a bunch of cheaters from getting a free ride, and the cheaters turned on them and started fighting. Perhaps they fought back. That still doesnt make it a brawl. There were many complaints about unruly young men misbehaving on the fair grounds. No matter how many policemen were on duty, it never seemed to be enough.
The two eyewitnesses, S. Bolinio and C. Marcel, courageously showed their faces on television, and described how the patrolman was deliberately hit and shoved into the path of the Ferris wheel.
Several young men, described as key witnesses, were brought in for questioning. The news broke this eveningone of them, a 15 year-old, admits he pushed the policeman. He is now charged with involuntary manslaughter. Other details are leaking out.
The youths in question belong to a gang of blacks (black is the politically correct French word for noirs.) from la Cité des Pyramides a tough housing project in Evry in the southern suburbs of Paris. The culprit is a big husky kid, with a long record of violence, particularly against men in uniform. His friends say that when he blows a fuse, nothing can stop him. It seems that when he got back from the Fair that evening he bragged to friends and family about hitting and shoving the patrolman. A buddy of his also admits to hitting the cop, but says he didnt shove him.
Le Procureur had to abandon the hypothesis of Accidental death by Ferris wheel, but managed to find a new understatement: the young man undoubtedly pushed the policeman so as to avoid arrest.
If thats the case, he seriously miscalculated. Hes looking at the possibility of twenty years in prison. But who knows what evil lurks in the heart of a youth? Witnesses described the scene as something out of a horror movie. Reynald Caron was so badly mutilated that his widow was not allowed to see the body. Prime time news spared about 40 seconds of cold attention to the funeral.
Why the low key treatment? If a policeman had accidentally pushed a youth into the path of a Ferris wheel or a roller coaster it could have set off weeks of mayhem. Why the unanimously cool attitude to a truly horrifying story? And what does it have to do with the presidential campaign?
Every day is blame Sarkozy day in the French media as the first round of the presidential elections looms. It hasnt made a dent in his popularity, he still comes up the winner in every poll while his rivalsRoyal, Bayrou and Le Pengo in circles like goldfish in a small bowl, and the half a dozen extreme Left revolutionaries sputter six versions of the same tunetake the money from the rich and give it to the poor.
But that doesnt keep some Sarkozy blamers from imagining that the death of a policeman would be chalked up as a negative stroke for the former Interior Minister (he resigned in the last week of March). You see, the line goes, Sarkozy tricky guy that he is rules his replacement with an iron hand. Curious twisted reasoning. And nothing could have kept the media from puffing up the story to fever pitch if they thought it could possibly harm Sarkozy. Journalists are not allowed to freely express their opinions and preferences, so they do it by manipulating the news. Innocently, of course.
On the one hand it seems like almost everyone, from the Prosecutor of Paris to your jejune corner journalist, was afraid that if a crime had in fact been committed at the Foire du Trône, then the guilty party might be found and would have to be punished eventually. And the only candidate whose campaign would not be jeopardized by that issue is Nicolas Sarkozy.
On the other hand most of the other candidates are breathlessly courting the French diversity vote as if it could tip the scales in their favor. That piece of savagery in the amusement park certainly puts a pinch in the increasingly colorful photo-ops of François Bayrou, who seems to spend all his time in violent and tough neighborhoods telling people that hes the man wholl make France peaceful and friendly to them.
After months of solo campaigning Bayrou finally found his right hand man, Azouz Begag, former Undersecretary for Equal Opportunity in the Villepin government. Begag didnt like Sarkozy to begin with but his animosity was enflamed by Sarkozys rough tactics during the 2005 banlieue uprising. Last month Begag announced that he was backing Bayroubut remained in the UMP cabinet. Last week he published a mud slinging book against Sarkozy and Villepin asked him to leave. So now hes free to ride shotgun for Bayrou. They take the métro together, hang around in the hood, do their thing.
Other candidates for the presidency compete in the unattractiveness sweepstakes.
The whacko altermondialiste (i.e. anti-globalization protester ) José Bové gets his kicks with the illegal immigrants of France.
The kewpie doll, Olivier Besancenot [Ligue communiste révolutionnaire], makes doe eyes at the working class and caters to anti-Zionist passions.
Jean-Marie Le Pen [Front National] after slamming Sarkozy for the domestic audience as the immigrant who has the effrontery to run for president, declared in an interview with a Lebanese daily that Sarkozy is a danger to France because hes a friend of Israel.
Ségolène Royal not to be upstaged by Le Pen harrumphed, in the same or another Lebanese paper, that if elected she would certainly not shake hands with George Bush comme si de rien nétait, as if it were a normal thing to do.
The Green Party candidate, Dominique Voynet, hoes a similar row. And the off the wall Workers Party [Parti des Travailleurs] candidate, Gérard Schivardi, who looks like a professional drunk, promises to nationalize, in fact expropriate the banks and all major industries. Hell pay a bit to the small shareholders, but the moneybags and the pension funds can cry in their beer, they wont get a penny.
Arlette Laguiller, eternal candidate of the Workers Combat Party [Lutte Ouvrière] wants to pave the country from coast to coast with low cost no cost housing, and give back every job that was ever taken away from any factory worker ever.
All of the above candidates have something to lose when the death of a policeman in the line of duty gets too much attention.
Does it mean that the Leftwing candidates, the Prosecutor of Paris, and the media are in cahoots? And can get away with murder or let a youth get away with it?
I dont think so. Something more profound is at work, a slow process of dhimmitude that is setting up its own laws and prohibitions. It does not mean that the young man (will we ever know his name?) who pushed the policeman to his death is a Muslim. What it does mean is that French society has internalized an attitude of self-indictment.
Society is in the wrong; when criminals lift their hands against the social order, the representatives of that order are guilty and should take their punishment without a fuss. When an illegal immigrant Chinese grandfather was arrested near the school where he goes to pick up his grandchildren, the do-gooders interfered with the police, the story was in the news for days. When the police were photographed by an amateur cameraman looking out his window as they arrested two drunk-driving students, it was a cause célèbre. The video was played and replayed, pinpointed and highlighted for hand-wringing. One of the students showed his bruised face to the TV audience and complained of police brutality. But it is alleged that the students were also dealing drugs and had been arrested frequently for criminal activity.
All of the candidates on the French Left, beginning with Royal, including Bayrou, and all the way to the radicals radical, Schivardi, promise to redistribute income and pacify society. After the battle at Gare du Nord, they accused the Right of dragging the law & order issue into the campaign, where it does not belong. Citizens, they claim, want to hear about wage increases, subsidized housing, job security, and retirement pay. The atrocious death of a young patrolman disturbs these advocates of soft government. We will soon know how voters judge their game. The first round of voting will take place on Sunday, 22 April 2007. The wheel turns Les jeux sont faits. Place your bets. My bet is on bayrou; hey, the infamous corsican politician charles pasqua related recently that bayrou once had a Blessed Virgin Maria apparition, and that She told him he was gonna be president. If the BVM sez so, who am I to disagree?
#1
A5089, thanks for this link and thanks to Nidra Poller for the reporting. I also saw the reference to these events at No-Pasaran (all links were in French) but could not find anything in my usual Euronews in English site (ie Expatica).
#2
However, the only witness to the apparition was . . . Bayrou.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/14/2007 11:52 Comments ||
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#3
Forains have a reputation for toughness and brawling but in this case the forains were apparently trying to keep a bunch of cheaters from getting a free ride
No link. It came to me as an HTML file pasted in an e-mail. It seems one must subscribe to American Congress for Truth
http://www.americancongressfortruth.com/index.asp
But it looks like it might be worth joining.....
Anybody know anything about it? I sure do like this message! Bobby
Madame Traitor: An Arab-American's Perspective on Pelosi in Damascus
By Emilio Karim Dabul
Nancy Pelosi is to world diplomacy what Michael Jordan was to baseball: completely forgettable and unnecessary. But unlike Michael's slightly amusing foray into the Babe's world, there's nothing funny about Pelosi in Damascus. The terrorists and their supporters, who are always looking for weak links and signs that the US does not have the will or backbone to win the war we're fighting with them, just found a great ally in Madame Speaker.
Among the older members of my extended Syrian family, there was a general attitude that kindness equaled weakness. It wasn't that they didn't believe in charity, but that it must be parceled out carefully, because those of ill intent can be quick to take advantage of those they perceive to be gullible and soft. This is what Nancy Pelosi either doesn't understand, or doesn't care about: she's being used by the very people who want to destroy us in another round of window dressing, subterfuge, and deceit. I suspect that Pelosi knows this, but is more intent on trying to undermine the President than in looking at how she could best support national security.
Let's look at the record. Syria has admitted that it has financially supported Hezbollah and Hamas, but says that it doesn't supply them with arms. What's the difference? What do you think these groups buy with the money? How many Israeli and Lebanese men, women and children have been slaughtered because of Syrian backing of these groups? And who do you think Syria supports across the border in Iraq: our troops or the terrorists some blithely refer to as "insurgents"? Without the direct involvement of Syria and Iran, the current terrorism movement in Iraq would have considerably less groundswell.
Pelosi might respond that she's aware of all that, but that she's simply taking James Baker's advice to talk with your enemies. Well, here's the problem: Baker's wrong. Talking to the Syrians has never accomplished anything. They correctly read the signs a long time ago that there would be no real consequences for continuing to support Arab and Islamic terrorist groups. And Pelosi has proven them right again: bend us and we will break.
This needs to stop. Syria and Iran need to know in a very real way that if they continue to support terrorism, they will experience the full wrath of the United States. And there cannot be any negotiating when it comes to this. Moammar Gadhafi -remember that boogeyman?-backed off when we bombed his palace in Libya. Gadhafi's two-year-old adopted daughter died in that raid, which was a terrible tragedy, particularly since he was the one with blood on his hands, not her. Still, Gadhafi crawled back into his hole, and retreated even further when we invaded Iraq, making a public show of acquiescence to the US. He may be crazy, but he's not stupid.
Syria and Iran need to be given fair warning to cease and desist all support of terrorist activities, prove they're doing so, and if they don't, be held to account.
Damascus and Tehran will continue to taunt and undermine us, and the UK, until they know they can't. Assad would be a lot less likely to cut checks for terrorists if he knew it could cost him his job or his life. And the same is true of the little guy in the leisure suit over in Iran. This is what they both understand and respect: force, not treaties and tea.
And Pelosi would probably be adverse to hang out with these guys if she knew F-18s might be approaching. Charging her with treason in the meantime would be appropriate. If the Speaker of the House during the Vietnam War had broken bread with Cambodian leaders, the public would have demanded his resignation and the most severe punishment possible for such a crime. And yet when Nancy Pelosi sits down with our enemies' collaborators, she's given a pass, even praised by those who cheer on any action that goes against the President. Al Jazerra is probably her biggest fan right now, next to the New York Times.
The problem is she's not just hurting the President, she's betraying our troops, and everyone around the world at risk to terrorist attacks, which is most of us.
We should not let her get away with it. We need to hold Pelosi responsible for her actions, as well as Syria and Iran. The three of them have more than proven their status as enemies of the United States.
***
Emilio Dabul is a Contributing Editor for American Congress for Truth.com. He is a Syrian-American of Muslim heritage and a Middle East commentator. Perhaps a - dare I say - Mythical Moderate Muslim?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2007 16:50 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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I know I'm banging the drum relentlessly for this guy non-stop, but this Fred Thompson is grilling RedMeat for Rantburgers
I was 30 minutes late. Thompson, who was on the phone with Howard Baker, his political mentor, didn't seem to care. He hung up, extended his large hand, offered a friendly greeting, and led me to his office. We were alone. Thompson's work space looks just like what the home office of a successful politician or CEO should look like--though a little messier: a large desk, dark wood, leather furniture, lots of books and magazines and newspapers, a flat-screen TV, and box upon box of cigars--Montecristos from Havana.
The presence of the cigars and the absence of a press chaperone were clues that Thompson is taking a different approach to his potential candidacy. A campaign flack would have insisted on hiding the cigars--Senator, how did you get those Cuban cigars? Isn't there a trade embargo?--and might have dampened Thompson's natural candor. On subjects ranging from Social Security to abortion, the CIA and to Iran, there would be lots of candor over the next several hours.
.. As we spoke, I was struck by the fact that Thompson didn't seem to be calibrating his answers for a presidential run. On issue after contentious issue, I got the sense from both his manner and the answers he gave me that he was just speaking extemporaneously. Many of his answers would drive a poll-watching political consultant nuts.
...by the end of the conversation, two unexpected realities had emerged. If he joins the race for the Republican nomination, and if he campaigns the same way he spoke to me last week, Fred Thompson, a mild-mannered, slow-talking southern gentleman, will run as the politically aggressive conservative that George W. Bush hasn't been for years. And the actor in the race could well be the most authentic personality in the field.
OK here come the Rantburg Hot buttons
Is he really conservative?
Over the course of his time in Congress he earned a lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union of 86 percent; more conservative than John Warner (82), and John McCain (84).
Is he principled enough to take a stand?
His voting record suggests a strong belief in federalism. Thompson was frequently a lonely voice opposing the federalization of what in his view were state issues. His unwillingness to compromise on that principle even put him on the losing end of a 99-to-1 vote on the so-called Good Samaritan law. He thought it should have been left to the states.
Bush Lied, WMD
"Part of it had to do with what has become almost a knee-jerk suspicion on the part of a lot of people with regards to anybody in authority," he says. And then he directly faults the Bush administration. "A part of it has been the administration's inability to sufficiently communicate the reality of the situation. It's not just the president. . . . You have to have an organized, pervasive ability to get your message across and rebut erroneous misstatements of the history. It is amazing to me how something like this could be perceived so erroneously by so many people. Because we all know what the facts are. We've all seen the statements and the comments of Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, and the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, and the list goes on and on and on."
Thompson slips into sarcasm. "It is amazing to me how a man that they say is so dumb fooled so many real smart people. But that's what they're saying about Bush. Bush canoodled the entire Democratic establishment. Absurd on its face, and yet some people want to believe that sort of thing."
Someone say Iran?
He is equally blunt about Iran. Thompson says that the actions of the Iranian regime--harboring senior al Qaeda leaders, funding and training Iraqi insurgents, supplying terrorists in Iraq with devices that are killing American soldiers--are acts of war. He stops short of calling for a military response, but seems to suggest that he would be saying something different if circumstances were different.
"Unfortunately, today it can't be considered in isolation, so you have to take into consideration our capabilities and our priorities worldwide right now. And unfortunately we're stretched too thin." Nonetheless, he says, the long-term objective in Iran is the same one that led to the Iraq war. "I think the bottom line with Iran is that nothing is going to change unless there is a regime change."
Immigration and Mexico?
I think its time for a little plain talk to the leaders of Mexico. Something like:
Hey guys, youre our friends and neighbors and we love you but its time you had a little dose of reality. A sovereign nation loses that status if it cannot secure its own borders and we are going to do whatever is necessary to do so, although our policies wont be as harsh as yours are along your southern border. And criticizing the U.S. for alternately doing too much and too little to stop your illegal activities is not going to set too well with Americans of good will who are trying to figure a way out of the mess that your and our open borders policy has already created.
My friends, its also time for a little introspection. Since we all agree that improving Mexicos economy will help with the illegal-immigration problem, you might want to consider your own left-of -center policies. For example, nationalized industries are not known for enhancing economic growth. Just a thought. But heres something even more to the point that you might want to think about: What does it say about the leadership of a country when that countrys economy and politics are dependent upon the exportation of its own citizens?
Convinced yet that I have the right guy? This old spook is going all-in. Fred is worth it.
#2
Then he goes on to give a better defense of the White House than anything that has come out of the White House communications shop in four years.
The irony here is that intelligence services had consistently over the years understated the capabilities of enemies and potential enemies. Now, here there was unanimity among the intelligence services, some of whom are supposed to be better than ours. . . . People don't understand intelligence. They don't understand. It's seldom clear. It's often caveated. It's sometimes flat-out wrong. Different people often have different ideas. That's what a president is faced with. And some today would say that politically a president has got to have unanimity before he can make a choice. And then they say that if he has that unanimity, the president has to make that choice--at the same time talking about how deficient our capabilities are. But if those deficient capabilities produced a recommendation, the president of the United States and leader of the free world has to take that recommendation. That has been so faulty in the past. It's absurd. Presidents in the future, as always, have to make a determination based on a lot of things, and intelligence is one of them. And the president not only has the right to evaluate the intelligence that he's receiving, he has a duty to do that. He listens to the British. I mean, if history was any judge, I don't know about now, but if the Brits tell me that there's an [Iraqi] deal with Niger and our guys don't know whether there was or not, I tend to rely on the Brits. I mean, those are the calls the president's got to make, and the question is really: Which way do you want the president to lean? Caution--that it's probably not so? When bad news is delivered, he gets mixed messages, he gets various intelligence reports of various kinds. Did you want him all balled up in all of that, you know, trying to apply some kind of a scientific equation to it for fear that somebody in an intelligence committee is going to wave it around at a hearing later on or something like that? Is that what it's come to? If so, the world is going to be a lot more dangerous than it otherwise already is. You've got to exercise the authority and the responsibilities that you've been given. I mean, in this debate over intelligence and what it is and what it ought to be and how it's used and all of that, you know, [it] needs to be dealt with and laid out in a way that people can understand it. . . . The next report says somebody's got weapons of mass destruction, you know what're we going to do with that? You know, just because history--a cat won't sit on a hot stove twice, but he won't sit on a cold stove either.
#4
The more I hear from Fred, the more I'm convinced that he's The Guy - I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. Even if he doesn't win, though, he'll be good for the race - forcing the candidates to confront issues squarely rather than tap dancing around them.
#5
Thompson: "You have to have an organized, pervasive ability to get your message across and rebut erroneous misstatements of the history."
The near-complete failure of the Bush administration to rebut those misstatements by the Left will remain the biggest head-scratcher about their entire 8 years in office.
I hope our next President, whoever he is, learns a lesson from that failure.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/14/2007 14:10 Comments ||
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#6
No question Bush's legacy will be his inability to set the record straight on the panopoly of lies set forth by the left.
#7
I don't chalk it up to inability so much as lack of effort-- or just plain cluelessness.
I give him somewhat of a pass due to the sheer massiveness of that panoply; and I reserve my harshest judgement-- getting shot by a firing squad, if I had my way-- for those on the Left who are doing the lying.
But I sure hope the next President learns from Bush's mistakes: you CANNOT just let that stuff float around out there without refuting it day-in and day-out, subjecting it to ridicule and grinding it into the ground. The general public DOES NOT have the sense to tell shit from Shinola without help.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/14/2007 15:16 Comments ||
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#8
Thompson would make a great president, but he has no chance in the next election. I hope he can put together the massive political organization needed for a 2012 run, though.
The Democrats and their media allies (including the potent left-wing blogosphere) are a formidable communications juggernaut.
In the future, America desperately needs a Republican president who is an exceptional communicator to present clear counter-arguments to the American people.
#9
The general public DOES NOT have the sense to tell shit from Shinola without help.
That's because for decades, the MSM has been feeding the general public shit and telling them it was shinola, while pointing at the shinola and telling them it was shit. Backed up of course, by the shit merchants in the education system.
Posted by: Natural Law ||
04/14/2007 16:09 Comments ||
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#10
Or as a North Carolinian once said to me, "He can't tell bear $hit from wild honey."
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2007 16:58 Comments ||
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#11
" Thompson would make a great president, but he has no chance in the next election. I hope he can put together the massive political organization needed for a 2012 run, though."
Gotta dispute this.
Rasmussen head-to-head polls show him beating Hillary nationwide 44-43.
Nationally and in some states he has outpolled everyone except Rudy, and he is gaining on Rudy.
As for the campaign, fred08.com is the "official" "527" draft site, and there is draftfredthompson.com which has thousands of readers and members an has been running since JANUARY, well before all this started in March.
Plus look at grassrootsvoter.com - almost 10K people signed up with their real name, address and phone number to volunteer when the campaign starts. All 50 states are covered, and we are getting volunteer and contribution lists and coordinators for different regions in each state.
Add to that - watch the news April 18. There will be an endorsement of Fred Thompson by as many as 60 Republican Congressmen. And with that endorsement comes promise of support and personnel from those congressional campaign offices across the US
And look at what else the "non existent campaign" accomplished: Just last week, the Lt Gov, Speaker Pro Tem and over 60% of state legislator Republican in Missouri signed a petition backing Fred Thompson, as well as a pile of private citizens, and many pledged monetary and staff support for him.
Now in light of ALL the above...
Think on this: he isn't even formally a candidate yet, he has no staff, no campaign, no mangers, no PR people, and hasn't spend a dime.
How do you explain all that - all the endoresments, polling well nationally, etc? Where is the support coming from?
Grass Roots! Word of mouth. Folks like me an you.
This isn't the 90's. We have a campaign organization that is running behind the scenes on its own power, without "direction from on high". Just a bunch of net geeks, conservatives fed up with the current administration and the threat of Hillary, old spooks like me (yes quite a few of us I was amazed to find), political guys, and regular Joes and Josephines that are tired of "the system" and the candidates it produces.
We have organized in "cells" like a resistance movement across the nation. We are recruiting recruiters who themselves recruit potential volunteers and donors.
Why is this so odd? Well its the first truly national grass roots movement the Republican Party has ever seen - and its all oever the internet, growing quietly stronger. And unlike the Dems and Howard Dean and the nutroots, we have a smart, conservative, personable authentic guy we are backing.
So you may want to reconsider the "can't win" and "no organization" stuff.
I believe we are proving you naysayers wrong - and the MSM is getting the shock of its life when it realizes that this is someone they cannot buy off, lie about or control. Fred's his own man - beholden to nobody other than us, and his own conscience.
#12
As for the "cancer" issue - there isnt one if yo bother to inform yourself.
Don't be a democrat and eat the lefty blogs (and Romney's lying people - they seem to hae been the worst on this other than Carvile) and MSM's line - go read Fred and his Doctors over at Redstate.
Or better yet at the blog I just took over from a friend who is moving to an official campaign position with an issues based 527, and cannot do the web thing anymore since it endorses a specific candidate. (which is why I am back in Colorado, registered to vote and changing my drivers license, etc)
I was diagnosed with what the doctors call an indolent lymphoma. Of the 30-plus kinds of lymphoma this is a "good" kind, if there is such a thing.
I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms. My life expectancy should not be affected. I am in remission, and it is very treatable with drugs if treatment is needed in the future--and with no debilitating side effects.
I am one of the lucky ones.
Now his doctor:
WHAT IS IT?
Senator Thompson has an indolent form of lymphoma, one of more than 30 types of lymphoma.
Some lymphomas are very aggressive, but people with slow-growing types, like Senator Thompson's, often dying from natural causes associated with old age, rather than from the disease.
Using a standard prognostic scoring system Senator Thompson has a favorable prognosis.
Senator Thompson has never been physically ill or had any symptoms from his lymphoma or had any side effects from the therapy.
TREATMENT
One treatment option for this type of lymphoma is simply to watch and wait.
There are also new therapies, if and when treatment is indicated, which prolong survival compared to treatments used just 5 years ago.
Senator Thompson chose to receive such therapy (Rituxan), but he is no longer in treatment as he is in remission.
Bruce D. Cheson, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Head of Hematology
Division of Hematology/Oncology
#14
Thompson would make a great president, but he has no chance in the next election. I hope he can put together the massive political organization needed for a 2012 run, though.
Im hope you are wrong and he's the next. That said, why didn't he run in 2000? I expect he feared the C word would run off voters, he was and is correct.
We all know people whose passionate beliefs stand in direct opposition to their other passionate beliefs. Here's a handy list of 30 contradictory concepts.
1 The same people who claim to worry most about future generations surviving climate change have no objections at all to abortion which kills thousands of future Australians every year.
2 The same people most likely to vote Green are also most likely to live in Australia's least natural environments our crowded, paved, stupid-filled inner-city suburbs.
. . .
6 The same people who've spent more time than most of us flying around the earth are proportionately more likely to insist fossil fuel consumption is a very grave problem.
. . .
9 The same people who are the loudest in support of drug-free "natural" childbirth are remarkably silent on the matter of drug-free "natural" dentistry.
10 The same people who demand price controls on petrol would scream like a goth in the sun if the sale of their own goods and properties were subject to price controls.
11 The same people who believe Americans have no sense of humour laugh their heads off at The Simpsons.
12 The same people who want to restrict cigarette smoking are invariably inclined towards decriminalising marijuana.
. . .
14 The same people who believe the Howard/Bush/Blair governments encourage a climate of fear by exaggerating the threat of terrorism never complain about the climate of fear fostered by Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, who consistently exaggerates the threat of global warming.
15 The same people who were offended by George W. Bush meddling in Australian politics are absolutely fine with Al Gore meddling in Australian politics.
16 The same people who thought anti-terror fridge magnets were a pointless tokenistic gesture nevertheless supported Earth Hour, during which they saved the planet by turning off their lights for 60 whole minutes.
. . .
18 The same people who protested against UN sanctions in Iraq later claimed Iraq shouldn't have been invaded because the sanctions were working.
19 The same people who fear nuclear power in Australia don't give nuclear power a moment's thought when they holiday in nuclear-powered France.
20 The same people who publish images of crucifixes in urine don't dare print even a single cartoon making fun of Mohammed.
. . .
22 The same people who fought for women's rights in the '60s and '70s are oddly silent today on the issue of women's rights for female Muslims.
. . .
30 The same newspaper columnist me who is such a psycho on law-and-order issues has just one point left on his licence due to repeated speeding offences.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/14/2007 12:03 ||
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Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe...actions taken thus far to reduce emissions have already had negative consequences without improving our ability to adapt to climate change. An emphasis on ethanol, for instance, has led to angry protests against corn-price increases in Mexico, and forest clearing and habitat destruction in Southeast Asia. Carbon caps are likely to lead to increased prices, as well as corruption associated with permit trading. The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem. The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger RevelleAl Gore's supposed mentoris worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate.
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.
From the desk of Fjordman
