Scrap the Kyoto plan, Ambrose says
JEFF SALLOT
Globe and Mail Update
Ottawa As greenhouse gas emission levels in Canada climb, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose says it's time for the federal government to scrap its Kyoto plan and think about something new.
"We're looking at all options," she said yesterday, making it clear the Conservatives think it will take a lot longer to clean up the air than the deadlines adopted by the previous Liberal government.
High-level discussions among officials in the Departments of Environment and Natural Resources since the Conservatives took office in February conclude "that it is impossible, impossible for Canada to reach its Kyoto target," Ms. Ambrose said.
Instead of reducing the levels of greenhouse gas emissions as specified under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, Canada has seen an actual increase, she said.
Canadian emissions had been running about 24 per cent higher than the benchmark level. But Ms. Ambrose said that in Canada's next report to the United Nations the government is going to be in the embarrassing position of having to admit "we're getting close to being up by 30 per cent."
Environment Canada officials said later in the day the figure is closer to about 28 per cent.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said the Conservative government is being defeatist. "It's as though they're throwing in the towel before we've even begun."
The New Democrats like the Kyoto Protocol and say the environment is a keystone issue for their support of the minority Conservative government. The environment is the first item Mr. Layton raised in political discussions with Prime Minister Stephen Harper after the Jan. 23 election.
Ms. Ambrose said Canada is not the only country that agreed to the protocol on global warming in Kyoto, Japan, nine years ago only to find now that cutting greenhouse gases is a lot tougher than first thought.
The United States, which reneged on the original Kyoto deal, actually has a better track record cutting greenhouse gases than does Canada, Ms. Ambrose said.
The Kyoto pact set short-term reduction targets through 2012. These are unrealistic for Canada, the minister said. Instead, Canadians need to talk about "action and solutions long term. We need solutions that are out by 50, 100 years, not two years, five years." The rest is at the link. I do have an issue with the reporter on his statement that the US "reneged" on the Kyoto deal. We never agreed to abide by it so there is no way we reneged.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006 17:33 ||
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The United States, which reneged on the original Kyoto deal, ...
Reneged? How can you renege on something you never agreed to? I mean outside of LLLa-LLLa Land.
#2
The irony is that Canada is the highest per capita energy consumer in the world, because it's so bloody cold. Were global warming to actually occur, it would be highly effective in reducing Canada's energy consumption and emission of so-called greenhouse gases.
Is it Nuclear Winter™ already? But my warm coat's still at the cleaners...
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.
Does something not strike you as odd here? That industrial carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of earth's recent decadal-scale temperature changes doesn't seem at all odd to many thousands of independent scientists. They have long appreciated - ever since the early 1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the gravy train of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this possible?
Since the early 1990s, the columns of many leading newspapers and magazines, worldwide, have carried an increasing stream of alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change. Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as "if", "might", "could", "probably", "perhaps", "expected", "projected" or "modelled" - and many involve such deep dreaming, or ignorance of scientific facts and principles, that they are akin to nonsense.
The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science advice is not welcomed in Westminster, and nor is it widely reported.
Marketed under the imprimatur of the IPCC, the bladder-trembling and now infamous hockey-stick diagram that shows accelerating warming during the 20th century - a statistical construct by scientist Michael Mann and co-workers from mostly tree ring records - has been a seminal image of the climate scaremongering campaign. Thanks to the work of a Canadian statistician, Stephen McIntyre, and others, this graph is now known to be deeply flawed.
There are other reasons, too, why the public hears so little in detail from those scientists who approach climate change issues rationally, the so-called climate sceptics. Most are to do with intimidation against speaking out, which operates intensely on several parallel fronts.
First, most government scientists are gagged from making public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead making use of public relations experts to craft carefully tailored, frisbee-science press releases. Second, scientists are under intense pressure to conform with the prevailing paradigm of climate alarmism if they wish to receive funding for their research. Third, members of the Establishment have spoken declamatory words on the issue, and the kingdom's subjects are expected to listen.
An Egyptian man who routinely donned the full Islamic veil to visit his mistress incognito was tipped off by his unfeminine shoes in the Cairo metro's women-only carriage. Camouflaged under a head-to-toe black niqab to spare his illegitimate partner her neighbours' reprobation, the 30-year-old student eventually met his own doom after accidentally revealing suspiciously clumpy footwear. An alarmed passenger on board the carriage screamed for security at a central Cairo underground station and the impostor was unmasked.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Here in America we would just assume she was a butch lesbian.
#2
Wearing "Clumpy shoes" with a head-to-toe niqab is a serious fashion faupax. A better choice is something more casual like a simple smart looking pump. Remember nothing too elegant and women shouldnt wear anything in an open-toe to expose their sensual body parts.
An anti-corruption campaign group has urged governments in the West to help Africa recover part of the wealth lost through corruption.
Transparency International made the appeal in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The group estimated the amount of illegally appropriated money invested outside Africa to be $140bn (£80.4bn). $140 Grazilliontrillionschmillion (£80.4 Grazilliontrillioinschillion).
It called on Western governments to change their banking laws to make it easier for illegally acquired wealth to be repatriated to Africa.
Thats a lot of milk tarts. Balance at the link. Imperialist, colonizing pigs.
#2
So the Nigerian scams have escalated to international and governmental levels. Guess the quota of common idiots has started to dry up. Now they're aiming for the professional idiots. Heh.
An international press watchdog has called for the immediate release of a Saudi journalist detained for the last five days after writing about religious extremism in the conservative kingdom. In a statement issued on Saturday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, expressed deep concern about the detention of Rabah al-Quwai, who works for the Okaz and Shams dailies and two Saudi-run websites. Ann Cooper, the CPJ director, said: "We condemn the detention of Rabah al-Quwai and call for his immediate release."
The CPJ said Quwai was detained after criticising "the strict religious interpretations of hard-line Islamists who subscribe to the Wahabbi doctrine and who wield tremendous influence in the country". Ouwai's lawyer said that his client was detained in the northern city of Hail on Monday after being summoned from Riyadh, with Inquisitors prosecutors reportedly questioning him for allegedly having "denigrated Islamic beliefs" in his articles. The CPJ quoted Saudi media as saying Quwai had received threats in the past warning him to "go back to his religion and leave these fictions behind".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Can anyone explain to me why Bush, so seemingly rational about so many other things, has such a "hard-on" for the Saudis? Is it a money thing, an oil thing? What gives? These assholes aren't woth the powder it would take to blow them to hell.
Rescuers found two bodies yesterday and were searching for more people missing after a goods-laden fishing boat capsized in a storm in northern Bangladesh overnight. The trawler, carrying bags of rice and fish along with 33 people on board, sank in the Meghna River near Kishoreganj, 80 kilometers north of the capital, Dhaka, the United News of Bangladesh said. Eighteen passengers managed to swim ashore or were rescued by passing boats, while about 15 others were initially unaccounted for, it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 00:00 ||
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AS part of a strategy to boost its connection with the outside world, China's railways will seek to extend the newly built Qinghai-Tibet rail link to India, a State Council official has said.
China plans to build four international railways in the southwest, south, northeast and northwest of the country during the 11th Five-Year Plan period.
In the southwest, China will extend the 1,956-kilometer Qinghai-Tibet line to Shigatse and will then stretch it into the South Asian subcontinent to connect with India's railway network.
The Qinghai-Tibet rail link, the first railway on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau - known as the "roof of the world" - will launch its test run on July 1.
The Tibet Autonomous Region boasts a border line of more than 4,000 km, neighboring many countries such as India, Bhutan and Nepal. Prior to the completion of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, many countries had guessed that Lhasa would not be the terminal station for the new railway, hoping that the line would be extended to benefit neighboring countries.
King Gyanendra of Nepal has expressed hopes that the Qinghai-Tibet railway will stretch into Nepal and eventually link to India's rail network, making Nepal a transfer hub for its two giant neighbors.
"Considering the stable relations between Tibet and neighboring countries as well as their economic development, it is very necessary to pave tracks into South Asian countries," State Council official Hu Changshun was quoted as saying by the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper yesterday.
With the increasingly close economic relations between China and the world, the building of international rail links is expected to bolster China's opening-up policy, solving transport problems that curb cooperation with neighboring countries over energy and mineral resources, Hu added.
Besides connecting to southern Asia, China is also considering construction of international railway links from Yunnan Province to Southeast Asia; northeastern China to Russia's railway network; and northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with Russia as part of the 11th Five-Year Plan and in the future.
Posted by: john ||
04/10/2006 14:49 ||
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China plans to build four international railways in the southwest, south, northeast and northwest
Big thinking, I like that. Cut me in for 10 percentum and I'll show you how to water the stock real money.
Posted by: D Drew ||
04/10/2006 16:32 Comments ||
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If the PLA doesn't take all the window seats, it sure would be a pretty ride. Too bad China is so screwed up. Imagine taking a train ride from Mumbai to Bejing. What an intestine eye popping journey that would be. It'd make the Trans-Siberian look like the trans-continental snoozer it really is.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin will announce on Monday how the government plans to revise an unpopular youth job contract in the hope of bringing more than one month of mass protests and strikes to an end. Villepin is to present President Jacques Chirac with the "agreed position" of the ruling UMP party on changes to the First Job Contract (CPE) at 8:30 a.m., sources at the presidency said. After the meeting Villepin will make an announcement at 10:30 a.m., his office said in a statement that gave no further details.
The "easy hire, easy fire" law allows firms to fire workers under 26 without giving a reason during a two-year trial period but it has proved highly unpopular, provoking a series of mass marches and national strikes. Unions, who want the CPE repealed because it removes job security for young people hired under the contract, threatened on Sunday to extend their protests unless Chirac provides a clear solution to a crisis that has weakened his prime minister. "If tomorrow the message isn't clear, the order of the day will be new action ... before May 1," said Annick Coupe, national representative of the Solidaires union.
Backers of the contract say it will help reduce France's 22 percent youth unemployment by helping employers bypass laws that make it hard to lay off workers -- something often cited by firms as a disincentive for taking on new hires. Students are planning fresh protest marches on Tuesday. "We need a clear response on the part of the government and the president of the republic, which is to say the withdrawal of the CPE, pure and simple," Bruno Julliard, president of the French National Union of Students, told LCI television.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Some yellow snow would go well with the white flag.
Unbelieveable, if France were a civilized society. If they insist on committing suicide, I want to be as far away from the blast radius as possible. Where I worked, several young French engineers had returned home to renew their work visas. Then the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. During the time these "youths" were stuck in France, all they wanted to know was if their visas would be renewed so they could return to the US. Incredible selfishness, but they also realized they had a snowball's chance in hell of finding similar work or pay in France.
#3
National suicide on the installment plan. You got your muzzies on the car-b-que, you have your youth on strike and rioting, and there are always transit workers ready to strike for any reason.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 17:21 Comments ||
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What does it mean when you discover that aljazeera is a less biased news source than either the NYT or WaPo? I mean, there was only one actual attack on Berlusconi by the reporter in the entire article!
Continuing his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, John F. Kerry addressed (by telephone) a conference convened by that racist hustler and prevaricator Al Sharpton who won, if I'm not mistaken, exactly one delegate at the party convention in 2004. According to The New York Times yesterday, in what appeared to be rather inchoate remarks, Kerry used Iraq as a trope but offered a ten-point plan for the nation from soup to nuts ... well, from getting Osama bin Laden to legislating lobby reform. The Times alluded to Kerry's well-known verbosity. So it wasn't surprising that he also went off and said, "Not in one phrase uttered and reported by the Lord Jesus Christ, can you find anything that suggests that there is a virtue in cutting children from Medicare." I'd actually go Kerry one further: I doubt that Jesus ever mentioned Medicare at all. Still, it's probably significant that some presidential aspirants--Kerry, for one--want to demonstrate that there are among them some real live Democrats for God. Or, as the Times said about him, he is "A Roman Catholic, who has struggled at times to talk about his own faith ... Mr. Kerry also told the group that he believed 'deeply in my faith'." Now, there are many Catholics including high ecclesiastics who doubt this. But who am I to have a point of view on what is essentially an intramural fight? In any case, as it turns out, Kerry is not only a Roman Catholic but also an ecumenicist. Once again I rely on the Times: Kerry asserted that "the Koran, the Torah, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles had influenced a social conscience that he exercised in politics." My God, what bullshit politicians feel obliged to utter! Or maybe the bullshit is already second nature, or even first. But since Kerry raised it, let me ask: What hadith of the Prophet influenced him the most, and why? And here I have a personal interest: Which of the injunctions of Leviticus and who among the Prophets have the most meaning for him? Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't ask such personal questions of a politician. In the spirit of Jesus, Kerry will certainly forgive me for doing so.
--Martin Peretz
This is from The New Republic Online.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006 12:00 ||
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Kerry is a slimy asshat that will say anything to get in the whitehouse. If he said water was wet I wouldn't believe him.
Real Life imitates the Onion, Part 345
A job for life, generous bennies, the pick of tee times, and compliments from every lawyer in town can't make up for the reality of "low" pay on the federal bench. Making between $149,132 and $208,100 (on par with the vice president and House speaker) just doesn't cut it anymore for the black-robed class. So much for equality between the three branches of our government....
Listen to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. "We are patronized when we meet judges from England, the European Union, or Malaysia, whose salaries double that of ours," he tells a House subcommittee. "They say, 'We're so sorry about your salaries.' You shouldn't put us in that position." How dare we peasants keep him in such poverty!! Of course, I'm sure they are comparing their gross salaries, not their net salaries....
His dramatic complaints reveal that judicial pay has gone from a whine to a serious issue that Chief Justice John Roberts plans to raise with Congress. "The failure of the Congress to address the problem of judicial salary is assuming the proportion of a historic wrong," says Kennedy. Yeah, right up there with separate-but-equal and Kelo.
Court reps say law school students shun the bench, judicial morale is low, and many are fleeing to wealthy firms. Kennedy says his law clerks win signing bonuses equal to his $199,200 salary when they leave, and the federal bench's top class-action judge quit because he didn't get a cost-of-living adjustment. The resulting higher workload even has older judges off the links and in the court full time. Horrors! What inhumanity!!
"They don't have to do that," says Kennedy. "They don't have to work at all." The rest of us have to wait until we retire to not work at all, your Highness. Sorry for the confusion as to appropriate judicial duties.....
#1
A Kennedy who dislikes patronization? Quite unique I'd say. You don't like being a wage earner in the top 3% of all Americans?
then find other work you sniveling, whining puke.
#4
they should make less than the President, VP and all legislators, none of which has a lifetime appointment.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 13:32 Comments ||
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Why don't we just confirm the ones we've already hired, so they can judge? Since they're salaried, they don't get overtime, so my proposal would amount to a pay increase for actual work done, right?
#6
Sea, I agree. These guys leave a LOT of money on the table when they go on the bench, if they're any good. And I hope they are. And I'm willing to pay for it. Except for Anthony "Whiner" Kennedy. Patronized? My ass. I'll bet no one ever patronized Oliver Wendell Holmes, or Harry Black (HWNAL) or, name your own favorite SC justice. Criminee, he's a justice on the greatest court in the world and he feels patronized?! What a wimp.
#8
lol, CF! What does (on an annual basis) McCain's proposal of $50/hour come to? I'd sign up in a heartbeat, especially if he paid me under the table in cash a'la the amigos. Calculator says that's a TRUE $104,000/year, with NO withholdings! Sign me up! So much for the whole "Americans won't do this work" argument!
Posted by: BA ||
04/10/2006 15:47 Comments ||
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#9
I'd also nominate any of my fine Rantburgian friends to the bench. Any one of us would make a better judge than Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg et. al.
Posted by: BA ||
04/10/2006 15:48 Comments ||
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"The failure of the Congress to address the problem of judicial salary is assuming the proportion of a historic wrong," says Kennedy.
You just missed another historic opportunity to STFU, Justice Kennedy. Your ruling on Kelo v. New London was an act of treason. Come the glorious day...
DASKA: A schoolgirl escaped unhurt when two boys tried to set her on fire after failing to kidnap her from outside her school in Sayyan village on Saturday. According to the first information report, Muhammad Tahir and his accomplice allegedly tried to kidnap Safina, 15, a resident of Malhowali village, when she came out of her school on Saturday.
When the girl resisted, the accused sprinkled petrol on her and tried to set her ablaze. People came to her rescue, foiling the attempt and saved the girl from being burnt. Later, the accused allegedly tried to throw acid on her face but she remained safe. The accused escaped from the scene threatening the girl of dire consequences, in addition to making announcement to kidnap her at any cost. Satrah police have registered a case, while the accused are still at large. People expressed grave concern over the incident, demanding immediate arrest of the accused.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Flay the skin from their living bodies in public. Keep doing it to teh perps every time this happens and soon it will happen no more.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/10/2006 0:43 Comments ||
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This is utter nonsense. Anyone, even small children, can pick up a sharpened stick or piece of metal or glass, and perform effective vigilante justice on these perps.
Why they do not do so is the problem. Why no one has ever even suggested they do so is the problem.
Anyone, anywhere, who solely relies on their government for their defense will be a victim.
A stampede at a religious gathering in Pakistan has left at least 29 people dead, most of them women and children, police say.
I'm sure it's Bush's fault...
The incident occured at the Sunni Muslim Faizan-e-Medina centre in the southern port city of Karachi on Sunday afternoon. As many as 70 others people were injured in the crush, hospital and police officials said. Zahid Hussain, a Karachi police spokesman, said thousands of women were leaving for a rally after attending the gathering to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, which falls on Tuesday. "A girl was coming out of the mosque ... when she fell down, triggering a stampede," Hussain added. As she fell she had cried out, sparking the panic.
Uhuh. That'll do it, whatever it was...
He said up to 50,000 people, mostly women and children had gathered for the ceremony.
Apparently just waiting to stampede...
A doctor at the state-run Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre, said most of the deaths were caused by internal injuries and suffocation. "Many of the victims are women and children," Dr Simi Jamali said.
That follows, since most of those present were women and children...
Survivors in hospital described how the scene quickly descended into chaos as participants at the ceremony struggled to reach safety. "Women fell on each other as panic spread," one woman said. "It was absolute mayhem. Nobody knew what had happened".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"A girl was coming out of the mosque ... when she fell down, triggering a stampede," Hussain added. As she fell she had cried out, sparking the panic
#9
Although muzzies seem particularly apt at this behavior (stoning the devil, anyone?), it is unfortunately an all too common human phenomenon with large crowds in bottlenecks. Remember Pope JP II's Africa visits, or Roskilde, or the Who in Cincinatti, or any number of soccer stadium stampedes and too many smaller instances to name? With huge crowds in tight spaces, it just takes one idiot or unfortunate to trigger a huge tragedy.
A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he recieved a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday. Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported. But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported. It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after after his death.
How many of those calls were to Damascus, Aden, Khartoum, and Riyadh?
"If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I'm ready to face it," the paper quoted Yahaya as saying. "In fact, I can't wait to face it," he said. Yahaya, from northern Kedah state, received a notice from the company's debt-collection agency in early April, the paper said. Yahaya said he nearly fainted when he saw the new bill. Government-linked Telekom Malaysia Bhd. is the country's largest telecommunications company. A company official, who declined to be identified as she was not authorized to speak to the media, said Telekom Malaysia was aware of Yahaya's case and would address it. She did not provide further details.
#1
I got an overdraft notice from my bank back in '04 that said I was $998,695.99 overdrawn. Damn near pooped my pants. According to the bank they still don't know what happened.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006 16:28 Comments ||
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DB, Subtract that OD from $1,000,000 and you'll probably have the balance that should have been in the account. A $1,000,000 debit probably hit it in error becasue and account number was miscoded. Happens all the time. Usually, though somebody catche one of the at magnitude.
YANGON, Myanmar - Former Foreign Minister Win Aung has been sentenced to seven years in jail by a special court after being charged with misuse of authority by the ruling military regime, family sources said on Sunday.
Kind of a light sentence for a prominent former regime member; they usually get tossed into an open grave.
The family source, who demanded anonymity for fear of retribution by authorities, said Win Aung was being held in Yangons Insein prison. They did not specify the date of the verdict.
At a press briefing on Sunday, police chief Brig. Gen. Khin Yi confirmed sentence had been passed on Win Aung but declined to elaborate. The sources said Win Aung was arrested last October and his trial began early this year on charges connected to the sale of an imported car.
Previously a military intelligence colonel and a former ambassador to the United Kingdom, Win Aung became foreign minister in 1988. Win Aung was known to have been close to ex-Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt, who was given a 44-year suspended sentence in July last year on charges including bribery and corruption. A number of other close associates area also serving jail terms in what was seen as a power struggle within the ruling junta.
The current junta has something to look forward to when they lose the next power struggle.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006 00:09 ||
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An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less.
Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.
"After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work.
"We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane," she said. "When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame."
Mrs. Swope said employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi faced similar problems, when thousands of men from Mexico and several Central and South American countries -- many in crowded buses and trucks -- came into the three states after Katrina, looking for employment and willing to work for less money. The number of foreign workers who flooded the area after the hurricane has been estimated at more than 30,000. Many of them have been identified by law-enforcement authorities and others as illegal aliens.
"The men we sent to jobs in Alabama were local fellows looking for work, men who needed jobs," Mrs. Swope said. "After driving 50 miles to the work sites where they had been promised $10 an hour, they discovered the employers had found substitutes who were willing to work for less."
#3
Construction is made for illegals even more than agriculture. Shifting, temporary job locations for employers who form a new corporation for each job or year. Now that they've got the skills in the drudge jobs, drywall, insulation, etc. it will be hard to keep them out. The other big industry in the midwest is meat packing. Calling Upton Sinclair.
#4
This really is the heart of the matter. Americans know these ILLEGALS are here. Why didn't she contact state and federal representatives ? Immigration ? Sheriffs ? Why didn't any of the workers who were thrown out contact someone and raise hell? Everyone just rolls over and accepts this ? This is outrageous. These employers should not be fined, they should be jailed. Actually, I would prefer that we just declare open season on them. We could stop this in a couple of days.
#6
SOP35/Rat
Call them all you want, I've done it several times when I was in the carpenters union. They won't do a goddamned thing. Local police/ Sheriffs office won't touch them with a 10 foot stick. Federal building just transfers your call around until you get mad and hang up after 20 minutes.
#7
"Why didn't she contact state and federal representatives ? Immigration ? Sheriffs ?"
Conflicting laws and policies are on the books. ICE must make the arrest, and then they only usually do so if they are breaking another criminal law, such as dealing drugs. Local sheriffs aren't allowed to pick up and detain illegals for merely being here and have even asked for the law to be changed so they could aid overworked Feds. For a long time, many midwestern states had only one office and a few agents to handle a huge multi-state region and the smugglers knew it. One coyote was caught with the State Patrol schedule for Iowa, timing the drive through to avoid detection. The current policy is partial control of the southern border, with amnesty for any who make it across to the interior, with little law enforcement past our own borders. Not only do they work for less, they send much of it back to Mexico. The unfairness of these contradictory policies is further highlighted when trying to decide who should be deported and who should stay, who should get temporary work permits, paying back taxes and put on the rolls for income tax. The way I see it, they have to get a database of who is here so rational decisions can be made and that means getting them to register and get a tamper-proof ID card.
#8
The problem isn't overworked Feds, it's ober bribed Congresscritters. Every time an employer is raided, you can be a contributor call the congrewss critter to ask, "WTF? Didn't I give enough?"
#10
Good comments. You all know this same horseshit and so do I. I'm doing my taxes now. And I wonder why ? We all know the old saw about NO TAXATION without representation. That's exactly where all of us law abiding citizens are. Do we ALL have to stop paying taxes ? Do we need to start burning down federal structures ? No one is paying any regard to us taxpayers and we all know it.
#15
Remember that we have until the 17th this year because the 15th is on a Saturday ;)
Posted by: Jan ||
04/10/2006 18:22 Comments ||
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#16
Grouch Marx wrote a book about his dealings with the IRS called, "Many Happy Returns". Histerical factual accounts.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006 19:30 Comments ||
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#17
Dr. Kargol: Some youngsters on the other hand, are attracted to it by its very illegality. It's like murder make a thing illegal and it acquires a mystique. Look at arson I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn't set fire to some great public building. I know I have. The only way to bring the crime figures down is to reduce the number of offences get it out in the open I know I have.
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.
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
An Egyptian man who routinely donned the full Islamic veil to visit his mistress incognito was tipped off by his unfeminine shoes in the Cairo metro's women-only carriage. Camouflaged under a head-to-toe black niqab to spare his illegitimate partner her neighbours' reprobation, the 30-year-old student eventually met his own doom after accidentally revealing suspiciously clumpy footwear. An alarmed passenger on board the carriage screamed for security at a central Cairo underground station and the impostor was unmasked.
An international press watchdog has called for the immediate release of a Saudi journalist detained for the last five days after writing about religious extremism in the conservative kingdom. In a statement issued on Saturday, the New York-based 
Rescuers found two bodies yesterday and were searching for more people missing after a goods-laden fishing boat capsized in a storm in northern Bangladesh overnight. The trawler, carrying bags of rice and fish along with 33 people on board, sank in the Meghna River near Kishoreganj, 80 kilometers north of the capital, Dhaka, the United News of Bangladesh said. Eighteen passengers managed to swim ashore or were rescued by passing boats, while about 15 others were initially unaccounted for, it said.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin will announce on Monday how the government plans to revise an unpopular youth job contract in the hope of bringing more than one month of mass protests and strikes to an end. Villepin is to present President Jacques Chirac with the "agreed position" of the ruling UMP party on changes to the First Job Contract (CPE) at 8:30 a.m., sources at the presidency said. After the meeting Villepin will make an announcement at 10:30 a.m., his office said in a statement that gave no further details.
DASKA: A schoolgirl escaped unhurt when two boys tried to set her on fire after failing to kidnap her from outside her school in Sayyan village on Saturday. According to the first information report, Muhammad Tahir and his accomplice allegedly tried to kidnap Safina, 15, a resident of Malhowali village, when she came out of her school on Saturday.
A stampede at a religious gathering in Pakistan has left at least 29 people dead, most of them women and children, police say.
