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Hero of Anbar Would Stir a Revolt in Afghanistan
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Texas governor's mansion fire may be case of arson
  • Fire marshal says investigators "found evidence that the fire was intentionally set"
  • Firefighters were called out to the blaze about 1:15 a.m.
  • The mansion was empty because it was undergoing renovation
  • Mansion has been official residence of Texas governors since 1856
  • Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


    -Short Attention Span Theater-
    Seafood ads on trolleys spark de-bait after transit union carps about them
    The wisecracking cartoon fish that recently appeared on the sides of Green Line trolleys have some lines that sound like they were ripped from a Henny Youngman routine: "Hey lady, I've seen smaller noses on a swordfish," and, "This trolley gets around more than your sister." Then there's this side-splitter sure to leave 'em laughing: "This conductor has a face like a halibut." Ba-boom.

    A lot of riders on the Green Line seem to think they're a hoot. So does Roger Berkowitz, the big fish at chief executive of Legal Sea Foods, who shelled out $150,000 for the ad campaign featuring the "fresh" fish.

    But the MBTA is not laughing. Neither are the hundreds of employees who work on the Green line. This week, after the trolley conductors union carped complained to T management, the agency's top bass brass ordered the immediate removal of the "this conductor" ads, deeming them in poor taste.
    Gave 'em the hook, as it were.

    The T "felt this ad was inappropriate and disrespectful to employees," spokesman Joe Pesaturo said. . . .

    "To say they are crabby angered and offended is to put it lightly," [Stephan G.] MacDougall[, president of the Boston Carmen's Union,] said. "I will tell you this: If they don't come down, we will not drive those trains."
    "Even if you pay 'em union scale."

    MacDougall said he likes Legal Sea Foods, and cannot understand why the company and the T could not have anticipated a backlash to the ads.
    "Holy mackerel!"
    "Who the hell wants to say they have a face like a fish?" he said. "I happen to like to eat fish, and I like seafood, and I like going fishing, but I don't want anybody saying that I or any of my members look like a fish."
    "You better believe it, chum!"

    Berkowitz said all he wanted to do was draw attention to his "really fresh fish." "They're cute ads," Berkowitz said. "It's hard to conceive of anyone being insulted by them, truly insulted by them, because it's coming out of the mouth of a fish and it's really tongue-in-cheek. For anyone to take it personally, I'd have to sit there scratching my head." . . .

    Berkowitz said he was surprised by the decision because Legal Sea Foods did not hear any complaints after it sponsored a virtually identical ad campaign earlier this year on the tops of Boston taxicabs. Those ads showed a fish declaring, "this driver has a face like a halibut."
    Posted by: Mike || 06/09/2008 15:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Are Boston cabbies unionized like T Carmen? Just wondering.
    Posted by: Harcourt Jush7795 || 06/09/2008 16:32 Comments || Top||

    #2  For conductors to take it personally is a sign of stupidity and/or immaturity.

    That said, what kind of a name is "Legal Sea Food"??? Is there a big problem with criminal sea food in Boston?

    I can't help but imagine tuna with guns... or would it be mafia goombahs running black market sturgeon? Anyone know? Please help explain....
    Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 06/09/2008 16:50 Comments || Top||

    #3  I don't know why it's called Legal Seafood but the food is very good. I miss the good restaurants in Boston.
    Posted by: Deacon Blues || 06/09/2008 16:58 Comments || Top||

    #4  You've always impressed me as a Durgin Park type.
    Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 06/09/2008 17:04 Comments || Top||

    #5  It seems I missed that den of culinary delight. I remember Dom's on Salem Street, Joseph's Aquarium, The Sail Loft, Cambridge Brewing Company, and a small Puerto Rican place in Cambridge I can't remember the name of. The Indian, Portoguese, and French restaurants. I tried a lot of em.
    Posted by: Deacon Blues || 06/09/2008 18:25 Comments || Top||

    #6  Let's say their waitresses would win snark of the day about 50% (or more) of the time if they commented here.
    Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 06/09/2008 18:43 Comments || Top||


    Today's Birthday: John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
    Magee's posthumous fame rests mainly on his sonnet High Flight, started on 18 August 1941, just a few months before his death, while he was based at No. 53 Operational Training Unit (OTU) in Llandow, Wales. He had flown up to 33,000 feet in a Spitfire Mk I, his seventh flight in a Spitfire. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem -- "To touch the face of God." He completed the poem later that day after landing. The first person to read this poem later that day was almost certainly Air Vice-Marshall M.H. Le Bas, with whom Magee had trained, in the officers` mess.

    Magee enclosed the poem on the back of a letter to his parents and his father, then rector of Saint John's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, reprinted it in church publications. The poem became more widely known through the efforts of Archibald McLeish, the then Librarian of Congress, who included it in an exhibition of poems called 'Faith and Freedom' at the Library of Congress in February 1942. The manuscript copy of the poem remains at the Library of Congress.

    High Flight has endured as a favorite poem among aviators and, more recently, astronauts. Portions of this poem appear on many headstones in Arlington National Cemetery. Today it serves as the official poem of the RCAF and RAF and it is required to be recited by memory by first year cadets at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA). . . .
    Here is the poem ...

    High Flight

    Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
    And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
    Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
    of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
    You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
    High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
    I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
    My eager craft through footless halls of air....

    Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
    I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
    Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
    And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
    The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
    Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
    Posted by: Mike || 06/09/2008 06:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  And fade to test pattern.

    Is this ever broadcast anymore? What are we teaching our children?
    Posted by: Shomosh Tojo7120 || 06/09/2008 9:23 Comments || Top||

    #2  One of Reagan's fave poems.
    Posted by: Grins Dingle9430 || 06/09/2008 16:16 Comments || Top||

    #3  yup...read it to the nation when the Challenger blew up...
    Posted by: Warthog || 06/09/2008 16:17 Comments || Top||

    #4  Sigh... this poem was all over the Air Force when I was there. (1977-1997 for anyone keeping track of this kind of minutia)

    It was on Garrison Kieller's daily poetry/public radio thingy today, so I guess that it hasn't entirely gone down the civilian memory hole.

    Speaking about Texas Public Radio - they let all the regular part-time announcers go this week. Every one of us, some of whom have been working there for fifteen years or so.

    Apparently, they want to put the money saved into the news department - and to automate most of the weekend and evening shifts that we worked. This means that now I really have to make a lot of money from my books! (The Adelsverein Trilogy is coming out in December - this is the series about the Texas Hill Country Germans. Insert shameless mercantile plea here - please buy my book!)
    Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 06/09/2008 19:04 Comments || Top||


    Spike Lee hits back in war of words over black soldiers
    The acrimonious feud between two of Hollywood's best-known film directors reached a new level of name-calling and accusation at the weekend as Spike Lee invoked America's bitter legacy of slavery in response to Clint Eastwood's comments to the Guardian on Friday.
    Original. Very original. It's all about slavery, isn't it. Seems to me that meme wore out long ago.
    Responding to Lee's criticism of his second world war films for ignoring black soldiers, Eastwood said America's most influential black director, should "shut his face".
    It's OK, Clint. It all makes sense when you realize the guy's feeling a bit irrelevant these days.
    But after the remarks were reported around the world, Lee hit back, reminding the older man that they were not "on a plantation".
    Then he stuck out his tongue and stomped his little feet.
    The reference to times when a white man could tell a black slave what to do came after Lee first issued a raft of fresh accusations against 78-year-old Eastwood, who has won five Oscars and boasts a string of celebrated gritty film roles, including "Dirty Harry" Callahan.

    Lee, who has been nominated for two Academy awards, has made his own second world war film, Miracle at Santa Anna, which highlights an all-black US army division.
    My what a coincidence. I'm sure he didn't seek out that subject out based on race, unlike Clint the Racist.
    In responding to Eastwood's Guardian interview, he said: "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either. He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films ... And a comment like 'A guy like that should shut his face' - come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."
    Better than an ignorant middle-aged man with a chip on his shoulder. You'll grow out of that someday. If you stop drinking Sharpton's KoolAid for more than five minutes.
    Lee's comments to abcnews.com were provoked by the equally blunt interview Eastwood gave to the Guardian last week. Riled by Lee's "whites-only" mauling of his films Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood accused him of historical ignorance before growling his advice to shut up.

    He also mockingly implied that Lee's views exaggerated equal opportunities by quipping about his own next big film, The Human Factor, set in post-independence South Africa: "I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy."
    But, but, but . . . isn't Clint a racist? I wonder what Spike's next film is going to feature. Probably the Swedes or Irish or something.
    Now Lee has repeated his charge that black US troops, who fought in a munitions company at Iwo Jima, had not been given a second of the four hours in Eastwood's two films.

    Drawing on his two film making degrees from universities in Atlanta and New York, he added: "I'm not making this up. I know how to make a film history. I'm a student of how to make a film history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to the second world war. Not everything was John Wayne, baby."
    And I know that if I bother to do some reasearch I am sure I will find at least one black guy who took part in the invasion and for some reason I think that guy should feature prominently in a film made by somebody else [thereby proving that he is a racist @$$hole, of course]. The fact that 99% of the films/MTV-videos I have made have featured mostly black folks is sheer coincidence. And even if it wasn't (which it isn't) it's OK because I'm black and Clint isn't. Neener neener.
    Lee accused Eastwood of ignoring other critics who picked up on the absence of black soldiers when Flags of Our Fathers premiered.

    Thomas McPhatter, a US marines sergeant who crawled up the landing beach under a hail of Japanese fire, was one of hundreds of black servicemen involved in the attack.

    He said: "Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face. This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."
    Hey! You must go to the same church that Obama went to!
    Lee pounced on Eastwood's derision of the idea that a token black American should have been included in the famous scene, where the Stars and Stripes, on a makeshift pole, is hoisted aloft on the island.

    He said: "I never said he should show one of the other guys holding up the flag as black. I said that African-Americans played a significant part in Iwo Jima.

    "For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black ... no one said that. It's just that there's not one black in either film. And because I know my history, that's why I made that observation."

    This leaves plenty of further ammunition if the row deepens, as McPhatter, who became a US navy lieutenant commander and served in the Vietnam war, does claim a black American took part in Iwo Jima flag-raising. Not in the actual dramatic moment, immortalised by the Marines Corps memorial at Arlington national cemetery, but by providing a flagpole. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he said.
    Thank you for your service and efforts, but I don't see how that part could end up anywhere other than the cutting room floor.
    American academic Melton McLaurin has also used interviews in his history of the 35-day battle which suggested that newsreel photographers in the front line "deliberately turned their cameras away when black folks came by".
    How do you know who is about to wander through the camera's field of view when you're busy looking through the viewfinder? Maybe they have a guy whose job it is to watch out for black guys? I'd love to see all the war footage that abruptly ends the second a black guy comes into view.
    Lee however promised to draw a line under the bitter war of words, alluding to the tone of the bid for the White House of Barack Obama, who went to see Lee's Do The Right Thing on his first date with his wife Michelle. Lee said of Eastwood: "Even though he's trying to have a Dirty Harry flashback, I'm going to take the Obama high road and end it right here. Peace and love. After I've said what I wanted to say, of course."
    Don't forget who started this, Spike.

    And if it's so bad, you can always go make your own movie of the events surrounding Iwo Jima and we'll see how well it is received and by whom. And since slavery seems to be soooo relevant to the subject that you can't help but mention it, you can start your movie with the first black slave who was taken from Africa and landed on American shores four hundred years ago by some people that nobody today had any control over, and you can end it with your permanent return to your family's country of origin. Don't forget to include the guy who found that pipe for a flagpole, of course. It makes the whole story so much richer. Or that guy who climbed up the cliff. And of course any other parts that are equally irrelevant to the meaning of the events surrounding the invasion (like logistics, civilian efforts, AWOLs, R&Rs, black military history back to 1776, the kick-a$$ Tuskegee Airmen, etc.) should get equal billing in order to be fair. After all, it's all part of working up to and carrying out an invasion! And make sure you tell the whole tale in two hours. Don't forget the little part where white guys raise that flag thanks to the efforts of all - black, white and everyone else. I don't need to see color to know who was there, nor do I care much. I'll bet you didn't know that one of the guys raising the flag was a Native American. Or were you just about to whine about that when I mentioned it? The correspondent who snapped the photo was Jewish, too.

    /rant off

    Deep Question: Based on what I have heard about Spike's movie "Do the Right Thing" I wouldn't even go to see it alone. Why would Obama take Michelle there on a first date? Does it offer hope or something?
    Posted by: gorb || 06/09/2008 03:51 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Original. Very original. It's all about slavery, isn't it. Seems to me that meme wore out long ago.

    Yep, considering that they ignore the payment in blood for that little issue. Over 250,000 white northerns et al paid with their lives to get the 13th Amendment added to the Constitution, long with the 14th and 15th. In 1860 the census said there were about 32 million of us. Today there's over 300 million. On a very rough extrapolation that means to end slavery that war took the equivalent of over 2 million casualties in four years. Given that today far too many people can't even handle 4,000 casualties in four years to free men from tyranny, it showed a commitment of historic proportions. All of which is ignored because it undermines the sense of entitlement and POWER.

    I wonder where his sensitivity to slavery was when in the last burning of LA, his community was looting and burning down Korean mom and pop stores in the hood. There are Koreans still alive today who were literally slaves under the Japanese, not something several generations ago. However, that doesn't generate POWER does it Spike.
    Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/09/2008 9:00 Comments || Top||

    #2  ...over 2 million casualties in four years.

    in todays population.
    Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/09/2008 9:02 Comments || Top||

    #3  "For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black ...

    Didn't they do just that for the two-towers memorial in NYC. Change the ethniticity of one or two of the people to raised the flag over the WTC ruins when they made a statue or plaque? To make it more 'inclusive' and PC....
    Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/09/2008 9:18 Comments || Top||

    #4  Obama took Michelle to see "Do the Right Thing" on their first date? That's not a shocker.

    I have it on good authority Spike took the first Mrs. Lee to see "Pink Flamingos" on their first date. Let that settle in...

    One movie we'll never see Spike make is a documentary of the 1400 year old and continuing muslim slave trade of black africans.
    Posted by: MarkZ || 06/09/2008 11:59 Comments || Top||

    #5  I bet he hits like a girl...
    Posted by: mojo || 06/09/2008 13:37 Comments || Top||

    #6  Lee was technically correct that a black company was on Iwo Jima. That would be about 150 men among well over 100,000.
    Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/09/2008 14:03 Comments || Top||

    #7  Didn't Secretary Rumsfeld say something about making movies with the army you have, or something?

    Will Morgan Freeman play him in the upcoming feature film about OIF?
    Posted by: Shomosh Tojo7120 || 06/09/2008 15:25 Comments || Top||

    #8  But after the remarks were reported around the world, Lee hit back, reminding the older man that they were not "on a plantation".

    Dats right Spike, us old white mens needs remindin!
    Posted by: Besoeker || 06/09/2008 18:59 Comments || Top||

    #9  Wotta crocka shit.

    Spikey has never been "on a plantation," nor has anyone he knows. Slavery ended in this country in 1865.

    Then the DEMOCRATS (including the Yankee Dems) spent the next hundred years passing laws that disarmed and disenfranchised the black community, until the Civil Rights Act was passed, in spite of DEMOCRAT "nay" votes and filibusters, with the votes of the REPUBLICANS in Congress.

    So who does Spikey hang out with? The DemoncRats, of course.

    You want to make a significant movie about black slavery, Spike? Then make one about the black Africans who are kidnapped and sold into slavery TODAY by Arabs and other black Africans. But you won't, of course. You don't give a rat's ass in hell about them, because you can't use them to blame whitey and claim grievances for yourself that for the most part were gone before you were born.

    You have never wanted to be a solution; you just keep stirring up the same old problems so you can whine and play victim and wallow in hate.

    You're just like all the other Hollyweird lib/lefties - it's all about you.

    As far as I know, I haven't seen anything you've made, and it will be a cold day in Hell before I bother to. I'd rather watch oil paint dry. >:-(
    Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/09/2008 19:41 Comments || Top||

    #10  "played a significant part in Iwo Jima"

    Sorry SPike, They didnt. THey hauled a bit of ammo but miniscule contribution compared to the rest of the troops there.

    And even it it was miniscule, its stil a HELL of a lot more than your lefty ass has EVER put on the line for the nation, you spoiled punk-ass bitch.
    Posted by: OldSpook || 06/09/2008 19:54 Comments || Top||


    The moon is out: Nekkid riders take to Barcelona streets

    Naked protesters ride on a street in Madrid, capital of Spain, on June 7, 2008. Hundreds of protesters hold a naked riding demonstration here on Saturday to protest against the expansion of the use of autos and call for riding instead of driving to reduce pollution as well as respecting the rights and interests of riders. (Xinhua Photo)
    Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Hey! That girl on the left is cheating.
    Posted by: ed || 06/09/2008 11:17 Comments || Top||

    #2  Last few years they can do this...
    When the Muslims rule - nudes will be flogged to death.
    Posted by: 3dc || 06/09/2008 11:56 Comments || Top||

    #3  The problem with naked protestors is that the set of "people you want to see naked" does not usually intersect with the set of "people who protest in the nude." In most instances, the set of "people who protest in the nude" is almost perfectly congruent with the set of "people who really really need to be covered up."
    Posted by: Mike || 06/09/2008 14:33 Comments || Top||

    #4  "Stop or we'll do it again."
    Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 06/09/2008 19:56 Comments || Top||


    -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
    Heavy Snow Warning For Washington State
    Heavy Snow Warning in effect from 6 PM this evening to 8 am
    PDT Tuesday for the Olympics above 3500 feet...

    The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a Heavy Snow
    Warning for the Olympics above 3500 feet from 6 PM this evening
    until 8 am Tuesday. This warning replaces the Snow Advisory that
    was issued earlier.

    A strong... late season storm system will dump 4 to 9 inches of
    wet snow on the Olympics tonight... with the west slopes likely
    receiving near a foot of snow. The snow levels will start out
    about 5000 feet but then plummet to near 3000 feet late this
    evening as a colder air mass invades the region.

    Expect the snow to taper off or become light Tuesday morning.

    People planning on hiking or camping in the Olympics should be
    prepared for winter-like weather conditions.
    Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/09/2008 17:27 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  They had snow at Kaiser pass in the High Sierras last weekend.
    Posted by: crosspatch || 06/09/2008 18:07 Comments || Top||

    #2  By "had snow" I meant that it was snowing, not that there was still some on the ground.
    Posted by: crosspatch || 06/09/2008 18:07 Comments || Top||


    Strong earthquake jolts Greece
  • Two people killed; several people trapped beneath collapsed buildings
  • Strong earthquake measuring 6.1 hit southern Greece
  • Epicenter was about 20 miles southwest of port city of Patras
  • Athens -- about 80 miles east of the epicenter -- felt the ground shake
  • Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Afghanistan
    Video: Iron Chefs of Bagram
    Posted by: wtf? || 06/09/2008 17:02 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


    Africa Subsaharan
    Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat (of being butchered for parts) in Tanzania
    Samuel Mluge steps outside his office and scans the sidewalk. His pale blue eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, trying to focus.

    The police say the albino killings are worst in rural areas.
    The sun used to be his main enemy, but now he has others.

    Mr. Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania now there is a price for his pinkish skin.

    “I feel like I am being hunted,” he said.

    Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.

    Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.

    As the threats have increased, the Tanzanian government has mobilized to protect its albino population, an already beleaguered group whose members are often shunned as outcasts and die of skin cancer before they reach 30.

    Police officers are drawing up lists of albinos in every corner of the country to better look after them. Officers are escorting albino children to school. Tanzania’s president even sponsored an albino woman for a seat in Parliament to show that “we are with them in this,” said Salvator Rweyemamu, a Tanzanian government spokesman.

    Mr. Rweyemamu said the rash of killings was anathema to what Tanzania had been striving toward; after years of failed socialist economic policies, the country is finally getting development, investment and change.

    “This is serious because it continues some of the perceptions of Africa we’re trying to run away from,” he said.

    But the killings go on. They have even spread to neighboring Kenya, where an albino woman was hacked to death in late May, with her eyes, tongue and breasts gouged out. Advocates for albinos have also said that witch doctors are selling albino skin in Congo.

    The young are often the targets. In early May, Vumilia Makoye, 17, was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men showed up with long knives.

    Vumilia was like many other Africans with albinism. She had dropped out of school because of severe near-sightedness, a common problem for albinos, whose eyes develop abnormally and who often have to hold things like books or cellphones two inches away to see them. She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making $2 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun.

    When Vumilia’s mother, Jeme, saw the men with knives, she tried to barricade the door of their hut. But the men overpowered her and burst in.

    “They cut my daughter quickly,” she said, making hacking motions with her hands.

    The men sawed off Vumilia’s legs above the knee and ran away with the stumps. Vumilia died.

    Yusuph Malogo, who lives nearby, fears he may be next. He is also an albino and works by himself on a rice farm. He now carries a loud, silver whistle to blow for help.

    “I’m on the run,” he said.

    He is 26, but his skin is thick and leathery from sun damage, making him look 20 years older.

    Many albinos in Tanzania are turning to the Tanzanian Albino Society for help. But the nonprofit advocacy group operates on less than $15,000 a year. That’s not enough for the sunscreen, hats and protective clothing that could save lives.

    Mr. Mluge, 49, is the society’s general secretary. He grew up with children pelting him with chalk in class. He said he had learned to live with being constantly teased, pinched and laughed at.

    “But we have never feared like we do today,” he said.

    Al-Shaymaa J. Kwegyir, Tanzania’s new albino member of Parliament, said, “People think we’re lucky. That’s why they’re killing us. But we’re not lucky.”

    She said it was a curse to be born in equatorial Africa, where the sun is unsparing, with little or no protective skin pigment. Albinism rates vary throughout the world; about 1 person in 20,000 is an albino in the United States.

    It is no accident that the Tanzania Albino Society’s office is on the grounds of a cancer hospital. Many of its members are sick.

    The smell of the wards is overpowering, a nose-stinging mix of burn salves and rotting flesh. Many of the albino patients are covered with scabs, sores, welts and burns.

    One patient, Nasolo Kambi, sat on his bed, recovering from a recent round of chemotherapy for skin cancer. His arms were splattered with dark brown splotches, like ink stains on white paper.

    “People say we can’t die,” he said, referring to a superstition that albinos simply vanish when they get older. “But we can.”

    Police officials said the albino killings were worst in rural areas, where people tend to be less educated and more superstitious. They said that some fishermen even wove albino hairs in their nets because they believed they would catch more fish.

    On the shores of Lake Victoria, in northern Tanzania, albinos are a touchy subject. When asked if they used albino hairs in their nets, a group of fishermen just stared at the sand.

    One traditional healer, a young man in a striped shirt who looked more like a college student than a witch doctor, said: “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. But that’s not real witchcraft. It’s the work of con men.”

    Police officials are at a loss to explain precisely why there is a wave of albino killings now. Commissioner Paul Chagonja said an influx of Nigerian movies, which play up witchcraft, might have something to do with it, along with rising food prices that were making people more desperate.

    “These witch doctors have many strange beliefs,” he said. “There was a rumor not so long ago that if you use a bald head when fishing, you’ll get rich. There was another one that said if you spread blood on the ground in a mine, you’ll find gold. These rumors come and go. The problem is, the people who follow witch doctors don’t question them.”

    Mr. Mluge said whispers swirled around him whenever he walked down the sidewalk.

    “I hear people saying, ‘It’s a deal, it’s a deal. Let’s get him and make some money,’ ” he said.

    At home, at least, he is not an oddity. His wife is an albino. So are all five of his children. Some have already had skin cancer, in their teens.

    The night used to be theirs, a time when Mr. Mluge and his fair-skinned sons and daughters could stroll outside together without worrying about the sun.

    Now they bolt themselves in, peering through bars.

    Just two weeks ago, while Mr. Mluge’s children were sleeping, a car pulled up to their house and four men got out to look around.

    “I’m worried,” he said. “They know we are here.”

    Mr. Mluge said he tried to read the license plate. But he couldn’t make out the numbers, and the car drove off.
    Posted by: anonymous5089 || 06/09/2008 11:18 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.

    Hunt down the Witch Doctors and butcher them.
    Posted by: One Eyed Ulese1266 || 06/09/2008 12:26 Comments || Top||

    #2  Sounds like a job for that crack Melnibonéan hit team Elric and Stormbringer...
    Posted by: Querent || 06/09/2008 13:10 Comments || Top||

    #3  "Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — believe albinos have magical powers"

    Can we call them un-civilized yet? How much of this barbaric cult thinking does an area / state / continent have to have before you can discuss it as a generic problem?
    Posted by: AlanC || 06/09/2008 13:55 Comments || Top||

    #4  I've been calling them uncivilized for a loooong time, Alan.

    Given the behavior of most (but not all) Africans, especially "in rural areas" (though God knows there's plenty of this kind of crap in the cities, too), I say they need to prove me wrong - since far too many of them have proved me right.
    Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/09/2008 14:32 Comments || Top||

    #5  I understand pureed Witch Doctor makes excellent hemmorrhoid cream
    Posted by: Frank G || 06/09/2008 15:00 Comments || Top||


    Fifth Column
    Video: In his Portland OR. rally Obama people put portapotties on Police Memorial
    Posted by: wtf? || 06/09/2008 16:39 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    India-Pakistan
    Shackled youth recovered from an Arifwala seminary
    Police have recovered a 12-year-old boy from a madrassa in Arifwala, where he was found in shackles, Geo News reported on Sunday. According to the channel, police raided the madrassa and found Ramzan tied with iron chains following a complaint lodged by his mother, Najma Begum. The channel said that she had sought the help of local human rights officials for the recovery of her son, and told rights activists that her husband Muhammad Ali had divorced her and forcibly kept their two sons, the channel said. She alleged that Ali, a retired trooper of the Pakistan Rangers, along with his second wife, had tortured Ramzan after tying him up. Ali told police that he had personally tied his son with chains to force him to stay and study at the madrassa, the channel reported. Later, Ramzan told police that his father and stepmother had tortured him for the last three days, the channel said, adding that Ramzan was now in police custody.
    Posted by: Fred || 06/09/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:


    Science
    New supercomputer sets record
    An American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, has reached a long-sought-after computing milestone by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second.

    The new machine is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the IBM BlueGene/L, which is based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

    The new $133 million supercomputer, called Roadrunner in a reference to the state bird of New Mexico, was devised and built by engineers and scientists at IBM and Los Alamos National Laboratory, based in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It will be used principally to solve classified military problems to ensure that the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age. The Roadrunner will simulate the behavior of the weapons in the first fraction of a second during an explosion.
    Continued on Page 49
    Posted by: gorb || 06/09/2008 03:39 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  > Before it is placed in a classified environment, it will also be used to explore scientific problems like regime climate change. The greater speed of the Roadrunner will make it possible for scientists to test global climate models with higher accuracy.

    This is what we technically call a lie. They can run their models more quickly, and/or they can run their models at smaller scales; but it wont make them more accurate over a climate timescale.
    Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/09/2008 4:50 Comments || Top||

    #2  The PS3 gaming community has been delivering 'spare' computing power to Stanford in analyzing human proteins mutations "folding" in pursuit of medical/biological studies. By downloading a program for their PS3s through the internet and then allowing it to run on the platform overnight or when not in use, each member of the community takes a portion of the process and crunches the numbers whose results are then uploaded for analysis. This PS3 network right now is producing a Teraflop or more of processing, and has been for most of this year. If this intrigues you, go here for more information.
    Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/09/2008 8:45 Comments || Top||

    #3  Oh and 1527 Teraflops, as shown on the Stanford site, is a 1.527 pedaflop.
    Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/09/2008 8:49 Comments || Top||

    #4  Even more powerful (per chip) and interesting are the new programmable video cards from Nvidia and AMD. I recently bought an Nvidia 8000 series card just to learn how to program it for scientific tasks.
    Posted by: ed || 06/09/2008 8:59 Comments || Top||

    #5  and 10 pedaflops = 1 "Divac"
    Posted by: Frank G || 06/09/2008 9:00 Comments || Top||

    #6  ed, take a look at CUDA, it is very helpful. I've been messing with it on my 8800gt, nothing serious, but it is very cool and so much easier than before as you don't have to map data structures to the texture units, etc (CUDA is high level C like language for the GPUs, so you can avoid mapping everything to DirectX or OpenGL).
    Posted by: bombay || 06/09/2008 10:27 Comments || Top||

    #7  Already downloaded it.
    Posted by: ed || 06/09/2008 10:51 Comments || Top||

    #8  "They can run their models more quickly, and/or they can run their models at smaller scales; but it wont make them more accurate over a climate timescale."

    Probably more accruate from the point of view that they can consider more parameters in the models.

    However, there is always the GIGO (garbage in garbage out) factor to keep in mind.
    Posted by: Kelly || 06/09/2008 13:32 Comments || Top||

    #9  Nope GIGO doesn't matter.

    It can be 99% accurate in Garbage out.

    The recursion inherent in climate models accentuates error.
    Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/09/2008 13:46 Comments || Top||

    #10  More "idle-loop" repetitions per second than EVER BEFORE!
    Posted by: mojo || 06/09/2008 16:01 Comments || Top||

    #11  Cue the "it'll do an infinite loop in fourteen seconds!" joke.
    Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 06/09/2008 17:22 Comments || Top||

    #12  Can it count to infinity faster than Chuck Norris (PBUH)?
    Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/09/2008 22:10 Comments || Top||



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