EFL. Hat tip to Tim Blair. I want me one of these! :-p
The genesis of these designs started on the campus of Wayne State University.... [I]dentifiably Jewish students on that campus, for example those who wear a Kippah on their head or a Chai or Star of David pendant around their neck, know the Arabic word for Jew, al Yahud. Wayne State, located in Detroit, Michigan, not far from Dearborn, has one of the largest Arab and Muslim student populations of any American college campus and it seems that many Arab students like to mutter "al Yahud" at Jewish students as they pass by. Simply put, because of the aggressive attitude of Arabs, Muslims and others who support the âPalestinianâ cause, American campuses have become a hostile environment for Jewish students and other supporters of Israel. Quelle surprise.
Abrahamic Apparel is intended to provide some chizuk, support for those students and other Jews and supporters of Israel and allow them to show their Jewish pride and support for Israel in a language that literally the mutterers will understand. What Arab-language logo should I get on my shirt - "IDF" or "Thereâs no Palestine"?
More logos at the link.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2004 5:45:05 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
There Is No God But YKWH And Moses Is His Messenger
I seem to be running across quite a few of these weirdo horror stories lately. Yesterday it was the cannibal tamale guy in Mexico, today it is this altogether creepy exposition of a gap in Californiaâs legal code:
In a bizarre twist to a disturbing case, a man who allegedly had sex with the corpse of an elderly woman cannot be charged for that incident act. Mahdi Allah, 48, was arraigned in court Wednesday morning and pleaded not guilty to one felony count of possession of stolen property and two misdemeanor counts of trespassing. Allah was allegedly discovered by an employee Saturday morning in the basement of the Hogan, Sullivan and Bianco funeral home on Ninth Avenue, passed out drunk, with his pants down, on top of the cadaver. But that apparently is not a crime in California. According to Assistant District Attorney Adrian Ivancevich, who is prosecuting the case, there are no laws in California that specifically address necrophilia.
I think the usual response is "Git a rope!" Law has nothing to do with it.
"Trust me, we looked all over the penal codes. We looked everywhere. There is no charge for having sex with a corpse," Ivancevich said. "This is just one of those gaps that the legislature has not dealt with." Ivancevich said there were laws against mutilating corpses and disinterment -- digging a body out of a grave -- but not against "having simple sex." The upshot is that Allah, who did not speak during the arraignment, has been charged with the felony stolen property count -- the stolen key with which he allegedly let himself into the funeral home -- and the two misdemeanor trespassing charges. But the prosecutor will not even be able to touch upon necrophilia except in relation to one of the trespassing counts. Ivancevich said that the maximum sentence for possession of stolen property is three years but that it was unlikely Allah would get the full sentence since the stolen property was only a key. There is even the slight possibility that Allah could get off with probation and time served if he is convicted of the current charges. In light of the "unique circumstances," Ivancevich asked the judge to set bail at $100,000 and issue Allah a stay-away order from the Inner Sunset funeral home. The bail hearing will be held Friday. It is very unlikely that a proper Muslim would be named "Allah" so this is probably a generic Bay-area weirdo who has changed his name as an act of solidarity with the oppressed death cultists and necrophiliacs of the Middle East.
#3
Just publish his address and notify the next of kin of the "victims"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2004 18:29 Comments ||
Top||
#4
"Allah was... passed out drunk, with his pants down, on top of the cadaver."
That figures.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2004 19:03 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Gross abuse of a corpse?
Crimes against nature?
Being a sick bastard?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/23/2004 19:05 Comments ||
Top||
#6
"... passed out drunk, with his pants down, on top of the cadaver."
brings back some ugly memories, especially 'splaining to the cadaverwife the next morning.....
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2004 21:50 Comments ||
Top||
#7
AC, I was thinking the same thing about this guy being a convert who adopted an improper Muslim name. However, a check of the telephone listings for California show eleven listings for Allah and two for Abu Allah. There appear to be as many from southern CA as from northern part of the state. Since the woman obviously didn't consent could he be charged with rape?
Yeah, but what if one of them wanted to wear a head scarf?
A French politician has said he will conduct his countryâs first same-sex wedding in June. Noel Mamere, mayor of Begles near Bordeaux in south-west France and a parliamentary deputy for the Green Party, said he would marry the men. He said there was nothing in French law to prevent it, and that it was unacceptable that gays did not have the same rights as other French citizens. Civil unions between same-sex partners have been legal in France since 2000. However, gay lobby groups say these fall short of legal marriages as they do not come with benefits such as adoption rights or the same fiscal advantages. Mr Mamere said: "Thereâs nothing extraordinary about marrying two people of the same sex in the European Union. "Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands have done it already and the new Spanish prime minister... has put it in his political programme," he told the Reuters news agency. He said the men asked him last week to perform the ceremony this summer, after he pledged to marry any same-sex couple that asked him.
Posted by: tipper ||
04/23/2004 11:39:52 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
That's why they call it "Gay Paris".
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 11:47 Comments ||
Top||
#2
EUrope continuing to go downhill. Gay marriage = opening up uncloseable Pandora's Box
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
04/23/2004 11:55 Comments ||
Top||
#3
near Bordeaux
Hmmm... Wonder what kind of wine they are going to serve at the reception?
EFL - a new WMD = Skippy
A sixth-grader was suspended after school officials accused him of threatening to expose a highly allergic teacher to peanut butter cookies, the boyâs father said Thursday. Loubert Gabriel said his son, 12-year-old Jules, had been kept out of class since April 2, after a girl in his social studies class at South Orange Middle School told the teacher that Jules had made the threat. The father said Jules was carrying a snack packet of Nutter Butter cookies and made a comment about having "something dangerous" but never said he had a weapon. "They mishandled this," Gabriel said. Does the 2nd Amendment cover Keebler products?
Gabriel said the boy has not been allowed to return to classes pending a May 13 hearing by the district. The family had believed the suspension would be for 10 days, he said. School superintendent Peter Horoschak said several classmates who were interviewed said the boy â with the teacher out of the room â waved the cookie over his head and said he would use it against the teacher as protection from receiving detention or any other penalties. "Weâre very concerned about the teacherâs welfare, and how the teacher was threatened by this," Horoschak said.
I'm very concerned that adults can't recognize childishness in children...
So far, Horoschak said, the boy has shown no remorse and refused to recognize the seriousness of his actions. Horoschak and the school principal planned to meet with the boy and his parents Friday. Ingestion of even a morsel of peanut can cause people who are allergic to suffer severe reactions, from throat irritation to death. Gabriel said the teacher was not exposed to the cookies and had no reaction. Heâs a criminal mastermind.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 2:29:36 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This is what you get when you have zero tolerance. This is absurd.
The part you're not seeing in this article is that these cookies were handed out to everyone by the health teacher, doesn't that make him a weapons proliferator? Shouldn't the teacher be punished for arming the kids?
Oh thats right! If your a teacher in NJ and have tenure and the NJEA behind you, you couldn't get fired or reprimanded on a bet.
#2
Peanuts as a weapon of mass distruction, I blame Jimmy Carter.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 9:37 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Do you have a link for the part about the health teacher? Schools are unbelievably cautious about this stuff now - it's hard to believe a teacher would hand out any peanut products to kids, or that even tenure would protect one who did.
It's serious stuff - a friend of mine lost his daughter when an exchange student gave her a piece of candy "from home" that turned out to contain just a trace of peanut oil.
#4
I think our consideration for people with oddball allergies has gone WAY overboard.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/23/2004 9:47 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Peanut oil allergy is a life-threatening medical condition for a few -- I've seen a couple in my practice, and the precautions they observe are rigorous. None of us would want to live that way if we could help it, let me assure you.
The young lad in question knew this was an issue and used it. Whether he's just a normal teen with the usual mix of hormones, teen idiocy and modern upbringing, or whether he's a budding malcontent and sociopath, is something the school will have to figure out if they can, and I have no great faith in the ability of a school hearing board to do so. But there has to be some consequences for his actions -- if the teacher's allergy is severe, he really is threatening her life.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2004 11:26 Comments ||
Top||
#6
this is not a joke. im agree with steve white. i have an ex girlfrend allergy of peanuts and she got real sick one time she eat chinese food that use peanut oil and had go to hospital. she alway ask at restaruant if any peanut products in food after that.
#7
The teacher should never have made it an issue in the first place. Nobody in the school had any reason to know that she has a peanut allergy.
What does she expect? She tells the whole class all about an allergy that IS bizarre any way you slice it. Then she expects junior high school kids NOT to make a joke out of it? Has she never seen a 12 year old boy before today? I would EXPECT to hear snide comments or attempts at wit after making a revelation like that to a bunch of smartassed jr. high schoolers.
Sure, he was indirectly threatening her but let's be serious. He should be thoroughly questioned and perhaps even psychologically tested (if it's feasable; no clue on the financial situation of the school or the family). But making sure he's just a prankster and not a crazy nut (no pun intended) shouldn't take a month.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
04/23/2004 15:49 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Chris - Thankfully I'm not allergic to peanuts, but people who are have severe reactions to them that could kill them. It sounds weird, but they literally cannot be anywhere near peanuts. Why do you think you can't get them on most flights anymore? Or if you can, there are special "peanut free" rows? It's not like they just break out in a rash, get some cortisone cream, and get on with it. Inability to breathe is scary sh**. Trust me on that.
I'm sure she expected some dumbass comments, and has heard plenty of them. And yeah, no one expects 12 year olds to be mature individuals, but she and the school probably figured the best way to keep her from inadvertently getting an allergy attack (ie. Johnny decides to eat his peanut butter sandwich in class) was to tell the kids and hope that they would show some common sense. Not all kids that age are completely shtoooopid.
Why the school didn't just suspend the idiot and move him out of her class is beyond me, though.
#9
Peter Horoschak? I remember a character with a similar name on the TV series "Welcome Back Kotter" with Gabe Kaplan, and John Travolta?
So he grew up to be a school administrator eh?
Figures.
Just get the kid out of the teachers class. The kid is a moron, and so is his father for not telling him nonesense like this is unacceptable. When my son gets out of line with foolishness he is told that his actions are "Mean and unacceptable". His dad should have done more of that.
How come the meetings Iâm forced to attend are never as interesting as this one?
Tâis discrimination, I tell ya
Porn publisher Richard Desmond, the owner of the Daily Express, brought a business meeting to a standstill yesterday after he goosestepped around a boardroom and accused all Germans of being Nazis. On the day his newspaper announced that it was switching its support from Labour to the Conservatives, Mr Desmond indulged in a display of behaviour described by a witness as the "most grotesque outburst of slander and racism" he had ever seen.
Sounds like he came to work pretty drunk...
The incident took place at 9am yesterday at a routine monthly meeting of the finance committee of the board of West Ferry Printers in east London. The company is under joint ownership of Express Newspapers and the Telegraph Group, the publisher of The Daily Telegraph. Upon the arrival of four Telegraph executives - led by Jeremy Deedes, the chief executive - Mr Desmond and the three Express executives greeted them in bad German accents, saying "guten morgen" and "sehr gut" - "good morning" and "very good". The Telegraph team assumed they were referring to the German Axel Springer groupâs bid to buy Hollinger International, the Telegraphâs owner.
Mr Deedes responded by good-naturedly congratulating Mr Desmond on "seeing the light" over its new-found support for the Tories. Mr Desmond insisted the decision had had nothing to do with him, adding that his editors were independent. He then criticised Conrad Black, the embattled former chairman of the Telegraph Group, before reverting to faux German, asking if the Telegraph members of the West Ferry board were looking forward to being run by the Nazis. Mr Deedes said: "Thatâs not very helpful." He pointed out that Axel Springer made the reconciliation of Germans and Jews a publishing principle and that the groupâs staff were required under their contracts to support the state of Israel. Mr Desmond replied angrily: "Theyâre all Nazis."
Mr Deedes said the remark was "thoroughly offensive" and asked him politely to sit down so that the meeting could start. Mr Desmond told him: "Donât you tell me to sit down, you miserable little piece of shit." Witnesses said his voice rose and he became enraged, launching into a stream of abuse - both personal and general - peppered with four-letter expletives. Mr Deedes eventually managed to make himself heard and said: "Iâm not sure this meeting is going to be productive." Witnesses said there was a moment of calm before Mr Desmond renewed his attack with more references to the Nazis. He goose-stepped up and down the room, holding two fingers to his upper lip - in a Basil Fawlty parody of Hitlerâs moustache - and giving stiff-armed Nazi salutes. When Mr Deedes remonstrated with him, Mr Desmond asked him if he wanted to "come outside and sort it out".
Mr Deedes decided to abandon the meeting and as the Telegraph team stood up and packed away their papers, Mr Desmond ordered his Express executives to sing Deutschland uber alles. Martin Ellice, the managing director, Rob Sanderson, the finance director, and Chris Haslum, the publishing manager, did as they were asked, adding further Sieg Heil - hail to victory - salutes. A spokesman for Express Newspapers declined to comment on the incident.
Even if he'd said anything, nobody could have understood it with that bag of his head like that...
However, the Telegraph board now believes that it is only worth reconvening the meeting if there are third parties present. From now on, it will confine its attendance to the wider board meetings that also involve other publishers who use the plant. The two publishers co-own the printing works, one of the biggest in Europe, since Mr Desmond bought the Express in November 2000. Insiders say the partnership has been difficult. At Express Newspapers, Mr Desmond is notorious for conducting meetings in what could charitably be described as an eccentric manner. When someone comes up with what he regards as a good idea he has a bell rung, but if he hears a bad idea, he orders one of his cronies to blow a duck hooter. Mr Desmond tried to institute the practice at the West Ferry meetings but it was not met with enthusiasm.
It is not the first time Mr Desmond, who is Jewish, has accused others of being Nazis. His newspapers have repeatedly dredged up the support that the Daily Mail showed to Hitler in the 1930s. Last year, he infuriated Lord Rothermere, the paperâs owner, by wrongly accusing his grandfather of supporting Hitlerâs anti-Semitism. Yesterday, as the Express announced its support for the Tories, the paper mentioned the dictator again, claiming that only he could have dreamed of the monster that Europe has become in the 21st century. Although his circulation figures show no sign that he will ever succeed, he has claimed that defeating the Mail is his lifeâs mission. "I donât want to sound like Jesus," he said last year, "but this is what I was born to do. They [the Mail] are everything I hate and I am everything they hate." In an interview last year, he complained about the press coverage he received. "Itâs not nice being constantly vilified and attacked," he said.
It's not a nice thing goose-stepping around a meeting, either...
More serious allegations have dogged his career. He was accused of links with the America mafia - Philip Bailey, his former right-hand man, was allegedly tortured by associates of the Gambino crime family in New York after the collapse of a phone sex line deal. Mr Desmond has always denied the story. Industry insiders predicted yesterday that Mr Desmondâs latest outburst was "beyond the pale". A source said: "He genuinely doesnât know when to stop. Heâs an idiot. The Labour Party is going to have to explain why they gave him permission to take over the Express in the first place."
Posted by: tipper ||
04/23/2004 11:25:52 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
For others who had trouble following this difficult, but funny and enlightening story...
Porn Producer Richard Desmond, who has links to the American mafia and has said that his mission in life is defeating the Daily Mail, owns the Daily Express, which is under joint ownership of Express Newspapers and the Telegraph Group, the publisher of The Daily Telegraph. The partnership is because they co-own the printing press, one of the biggest in Europe. Other than that, they hate each other. On the day his (Desmond's Express) newspaper announced that it was switching its support from Labour to the Conservatives, he has a[nother] mental breakdown, apparently because of the German Axel Springer groupâs bid to buy Hollinger International, the Telegraphâs owner.....
So Desmond, who is Jewish, loses it and starts goose-stepping around the room, calling everyone Nazi's. The Telgraph defends it's new owner, self, saying (and this is interesting!!!) Axel Springer made the reconciliation of Germans and Jews a publishing principle and that the groupâs staff were required under their contracts to support the state of Israel.
The article ends with: "The Labour Party is going to have to explain why they gave him (Daffy Desmond) permission to take over the Express in the first place."
Hmmm...could it be those mafia ties?
The American Mafia owns the printing industry (and porn), here in the US. And the mafia is, here in the US, how shall I say it....more friendly with the DNC than with the RNC.
Just yesterday, I saw on the news that the gaming industry is attempting to expand their business into the UK. So...then am I the only one who finds it interesting that their boy, Mr. Desmond, goes and buys a paper there??? Coincidence?? You decide.
And one last question.....should we wonder why the Daily Express, purchased by the Mafia's guy, (possibly to help expand their gambling empire into the UK) ..... has suddenly done an about face and its editorals have suddenly come out in support of labour?
There's more to this story. I'd like to know what it is.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 12:37 Comments ||
Top||
#2
oops...last sentence should = come out in support of tories
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 12:38 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I know I'm talking to myself here...but seeing as how the Islamists have purchased more of the Labour party than they have of the conservatives or GOP....doesn't it make you wonder???
I mean...gambling and Islam go together well right? Makes me wonder about the fact that the Boston Globe has also made a strange shift away from their expected party line. In other articles today, they seem to have given Kerry the boot. Is the Boston Globe (no mafia in Boston, right?) starting to get a clue that a rise of Islam in Europe will be bad for business?
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 12:45 Comments ||
Top||
#4
ooops..did it again!! Last sentence should have said, Is the American Mafia starting to get a clue that a rise of Islam in Europe will be bad for business? Freudian slip.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 12:47 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Hi B! Hate to see a lonely poster ;> Good stuff tho.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - A former death squad chief who helped lead a bloody rebellion that drove Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile will surrender to police on Thursday, his lawyer said on Wednesday. Louis Jodel Chamblain, who was convicted in absentia in 1995 of the murder of a prominent businessman, will put himself in the hands of the Haitian justice system, attorney Stanley Gaston told reporters after a meeting with police officials. "Tomorrow, Chamblain will surrender to the police, hoping justice will be done," Gaston said.
At his side, Chamblain said: "My decision is made and tomorrow I will explain it." Human rights groups had expressed concern a convicted killer and human rights abuser could walk Haitiâs streets freely, as Chamblain has done since joining the rebellion that pushed Aristide out of power on Feb. 29. Chamblain signed autographs for admirers in the capital, Port-au-Prince, in the chaotic days after Aristideâs government collapsed, when armed gangs ruled and police were nowhere to be seen.
An army officer accused of heading death squads during the last years of the Duvalier family dictatorship in the 1980s, Chamblain helped form the Front for the Advancement of Progress of the Haitian People, or FRAPH, after a military junta ousted Aristide in 1991 during his first presidency. FRAPH was blamed for 3,000 deaths in the three years Aristide was in exile.
In 1995, Chamblain was convicted of the 1993 murder of Antoine Izmery, an Aristide supporter who was dragged from a church, forced to kneel and shot in the head. Chamblain returned from exile in the neighboring Dominican Republic in February, shortly after armed gangs and former soldiers began an uprising in northern Haiti. He helped lead the rebel forces that ultimately forced Aristide to flee.
The pledge to give himself up came after a meeting between rebel leaders, Haitian National Police Chief Leonce Charles, Justice Minister Bernard Gousse and representatives of the multinational force sent to Haiti to provide security. Charles said police had formulated a plan to take Chamblain into custody. But he said he was pleased the surrender would avoid any possible violence from the armed rebels. "Chamblain will go back to where he should be (prison)," he said. "Itâs up to the justice system to decide this case."
Wynter Etienne, a leader of the rebels in Gonaives, the cradle of the rebellion, said Jean Pierre Baptiste, another notorious FRAPH member better known by his alias "Jean Tatoune," would also surrender to police. He did not say when. Tatoune was convicted in the 1994 Raboteau massacre, when FRAPH forces went on a rampage in a seaside slum in Gonaives and killed more than two dozen people.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 3:26:37 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Shit, THIS thing didn't have much of a news cycle, did it? Guess Dubya does it again?! Gotta luv 'im.
Franceâs embattled Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, faced fresh embarrassment today when his communications director was charged after being caught with a teenage hooker prostitute.
I hate it when that happens.
Dominique Ambiel, 49, resigned after his summons to appear in court on June 7 on the twin charges of soliciting sexual relations with a child involved in prostitution and of insulting the police officers who arrested him. M Ambiel has protested his innocence and claimed that the 17 year-old Romanian girl had climbed into his car in the Bois de Boulogne, a park in west Paris, to escape a violent quarrel.
"I was just giving her a ride, er...."
But his resignation was a further blow to his political mentor, M Raffarin, who employed M Ambiel in May 2002 in a rÃŽle similar to that of Alastair Campbell in Britain. The affair was especially sensitive as the centre-right Government has made the fight against eastern European prostitution a high priority.
Guess Dominique was doing a little hands-on research
M Raffarin has introduced new laws aimed at tackling the gangs who bring young girls into France from countries such as Romania, Ukraine and Albania. Police have also been ordered to round up prostitutes caught soliciting in red light districts, and it was as a result of one of these operations that M Ambiel was arrested.
We now turn to tonight's episode of "COPS - Paris Vice"
I suppose the other hooker ripped her pants off, too...
"I dropped her off less than two minutes later and about 300m away to get her out of danger," said the Catholic-educated spin doctor. At that moment, the Anti Criminality Brigade arrived. According to the officers, M Ambiel insulted them, told them that he worked for the Prime Minister and said he did not need to pay â¬150 for sex.
"Don't you know who I am?"
M Ambiel, who was a successful television producer before taking over as M Raffarinâs communications director, denied this. "If there was indeed a fairly lively exchange on the conditions of this police operation, the rest is lies and slander, even manipulation," he said.
Lies, slander, manipulation, oh my!
Later that day, he was summoned to the police station to confront his version of events with that of prostitute.
Let's see, who to believe? A lying prostitute, or a 17 year old hooker?
A judicial source said: "In the light of the evidence, it was decided to prosecute M Ambiel."
Bwahahahaha!
Under a law introduced in 2002 in an attempt to protect child prostitutes, he faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a â¬45,000 fine. The scandal could hardly come at a worse time for a Prime Minister who has been on the defensive after a severe defeat in regional elections last month. M Ambiel was his closest adviser, with an office at the foot of the central staircase in the Prime Ministerâs official residence. Ministers complained that that they could not see M Raffarin without M Ambielâs approval and dubbed him "le concierge". The two men sat side by side in meetings and were said to be on the "same intellectual plane".
Both are out to screw the French public. One got caught doing it.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 1:38:56 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I dropped her off less than two minutes later
*chuckle*
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/23/2004 14:08 Comments ||
Top||
#2
who does he think he is? Barney Frank?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2004 14:37 Comments ||
Top||
#3
. . .the 17 year-old Romanian girl had climbed into his car in the Bois de Boulogne, a park in west Paris, to escape a violent quarrel.
Prostitute? No-no-no I though she was a gymnast fighting with her coach.
#4
According to the officers, M Ambiel insulted them, told them that he worked for the Prime Minister and said he did not need to pay â¬150 for sex.
Good to see that political hacks are just about the same all over the world.
And, Frank? If he was Barney, he would've let her set up shop in his living room.
Globalization Gone Wild!
Itâs proving hard for German fans to swallow - the 2006 football World Cup looks likely to go ahead without German beer. Shocked politicians are seeking talks with tournament organizers after it emerged that a US brewer has the exclusive right to sell its beer in and around World Cup stadiums. Surely not!
A World Cup in Germany without traditional German beer is almost as inconceivable for Germans as the countryâs football team failing to qualify for the tournament - or losing to England on penalties. Inconceivable? [They] keep using that word. I do not think it means what [they] think it means. [/Princess Bride]
But the Germans may have scored an own goal in allowing footballâs world organizing body FIFA to secure an exclusive contract with the US brewer Anheuser-Busch, brewers of Budweiser, as one of the tournamentâs official sponsors. Whoops. I hate when that happens.
In Bavaria, where beer is regarded as part of the stateâs cultural heritage, senior government officials have met to discuss the serious prospect of the World Cup kicking off in Munichâs new Allianz stadium without any of its traditional wheat beers on sale. The local Green party has called on state premier Edmund Stoiber to make the lack of German World Cup beer a top-level issue. Calling out the shock troops.
"We will very shortly be approaching the World Cup organizing committee to see what possibilities there still are," said a culture ministry spokeswoman. My guess is youâll drink Bud Lite and learn to like it.
Both Munich and Nuremberg, another Bavarian World Cup venue, are now planning "fan villages" outside stadium precincts so supporters can buy German beer instead of American Budweiser. Gerhard Ohneis, head of the Augustiner brewery, told Munichâs Merkur newspaper: "Itâs annoying if there is not going to be any Munich beer in the Munich stadium." A spokesman for Paulaner brewery said a possibility might be to enable Bavarian beer to be sold in "neutral glasses". Bavarian Social Democrat parliamentary group leader Franz Maget said: "The cities will make sure that World Cup visitors are supplied with respectable products." "Not that swill the Americans drink."
Nuremberg has an additional problem - it wonât be able to sell its traditional Nuremberg sausages at World Cup games. "McDonaldâs has the exclusive on sausage supplies," Maget said. Injury, meet insult.
And if that were not enough, German carmakers will also be left on the sidelines, with players, VIPS and officials being shuttled to and from games by South Korean sponsor Hyundai. Technically, if I go to Germany to watch soccer, I would want Bavarian beer and local sausage, not Budweiser and McSausage patties. Hope they can work something out.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
04/23/2004 10:57:08 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Hee hee, this is great. Bud Lite and Mickey D's at the World Cup. And riding 4 cyl kimchee machines.
The "cretinisation" of Euro culture proceeds apace...
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
04/23/2004 11:03 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Ah, Munich. I've spent many a night in the Munich Banhof waiting for a train. The beer made it all worth while. Reminds me of catching the last train out of Munich on the last night of Octoberfest. All compartments and the corridors of the train packed full of people who have been drinking beer and eating sausages for days. The smell was beyond belief.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 11:41 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Well - Don't they know that the original Busch came from Germany. Thus it IS a German brew, only it was not made in Germany
In the Movie Patton : "General - Even if Rommel wan't there, if you defeted Rommel's plan, thus you defeated Rommel!"
#4
love it - multilaterism and economics at it's best -
Posted by: Dan ||
04/23/2004 14:09 Comments ||
Top||
#5
German fans will need a Bud to sit through the Toby Keith "Shock'n Ya'all" Half time extraviganza, brought to you by Microsoft...
Oh wait, no halftime during the sissy girl football game!
(OK, OK ...just having a little Ugly American fun! Chicago hosted some World Cup games, and I know it is the real deal!)
#6
Steve - I was stuck in the Munich station one morning, and around 8 am a group of German soldiers who I think had just finished their leave showed up, beyond drunk and while waiting for their train they spent the morning drinking even more and marching (though that turned progressively into staggering) up and down the station, singing the paint off the walls.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
04/23/2004 14:42 Comments ||
Top||
#7
American beer rules. Soccer sucks. Case closed.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
04/23/2004 15:34 Comments ||
Top||
EFL
German soldiers who are in relationships with each other will be able to sleep together in barracks and on foreign missions. "Donât ask, donât tell"?
Don't drop the soap.
Peter Struck, the defence minister, said the new guidelines applied to homosexual as well as heterosexual couples. They were necessary to reflect "social normality". Dear God help us. Gheez.
"Hey, Fritz! Ready for a little 'social normality'?"
"Oh, Horst! You're so romantic!"
Posted by: Dragon Fly ||
04/23/2004 7:14:28 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
....That odd whirring noise you hear is Feldmarschall Gerd Von Rundstedt spinning in his grave at over 4500 RPMs...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/23/2004 8:29 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"Hold me, Gunther. Please... hold me."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Posted by: Cthulhu Akbar ||
04/23/2004 11:11 Comments ||
Top||
#3
hans and oskar are going be diging in the trenches.
"This is the first time in my life I regret not being English", said Mr Philippe de Villiers, leader of a the small Eurosceptic Movement for France.
While referendums are possible in France - voters narrowly approved the Maastricht Treaty (51%) in 1992 - they are not allowed in Germany. But this has not stopped calls for the Constitution to be changed to enable public polls at the federal level. Politicians in the Christian Social Party (CSU) and the liberals are asking for a referendum.
But the Social Democratic government as well as the opposition Christian Democrats have spoken out against it. Government spokesperson Thomas Steg said a referendum was "absolutely" not being considered in Germany. So far, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic have all said they will have a referendum.
Is it possible that Blair planned this?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 1:33:12 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Limeys vs Frogs -
Thousand years of "fun"
From the ouside we call Tony Blair a "rascal"
From France what they call him is translated into one of George Carlin's seven forbidden words.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 01:28 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Interesting.
Is this the EU's attempt to make up for past sins? More likely they think there's a buck in it for them.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2004 1:33 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Barbara(if I may be informal),I think you are right that it's about the money.Times are tough for Euro economies.Palestinians wants Euro money.Israelis want to buy from Euro companies.Euro companies would also like easy access to Israeli tech(and indirectly US tech).
Posted by: Stephen ||
04/23/2004 2:12 Comments ||
Top||
#3
As long as the EU wants to deal with Tel Aviv, it won't work. The capital of Israel is Jerusalem.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
04/23/2004 17:12 Comments ||
Top||
More than 30 years after he returned to voluntary, and happy, obscurity as a Houston lawyer, 58-year-old John OâNeill is making a prime-time comeback. Whoâs John OâNeill? He was the Vietnam veteran â a former commander of a Patrol Craft Fast, better known as the Swift boat â who famously debated one John Kerry, a fellow Swift skipper, for 90 minutes on The Dick Cavett Show back in 1971. C-SPAN excavated this particular television gem a couple of weeks ago and re-broadcast it.
In 1971, Kerry was leveraging his military experience for political gain (old habits die hard, eh?) and had recently testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the American soldiers who, he believed, habitually committed war crimes. A few months earlier, Kerry had been involved in the "Winter Soldier Investigation," which proved to be less a serious inquiry into American actions than a rigged indictment of AmeriKKKa. It was later shown that many of the "eyewitness" participants, as well as many of Kerryâs colleagues in Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), were frauds who had never been near a battlefield, let alone seen these crimes happen. Undaunted, Kerry claimed in his Senate testimony that these were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." In other words, these alleged horrors were endemic to, and an officially sanctioned corollary of, the U.S. war effort in Vietnam.
Kerry, as we know, went on to great things, and perhaps may ascend to still greater ones, but what ever happened to John OâNeill? His biography, perhaps owing to its very ordinariness, is far more interesting than Kerryâs flashier story of riches-to-riches. It is OâNeill, not Kerry, who embodies how countless regular Americans experienced, survived, and remembered Vietnam. His is a world away from the cynicism and the insanity, the cruelty and the self-hatred represented by the Winter Soldier Investigation and transmitted into the popular consciousness by such movies as Apocalypse Now and Platoon. The first thing you need to know about John OâNeill is that the OâNeills were sea dogs through and through. Even today, there are some 90 first cousins living in and around Annapolis â home of the Naval Academy â many of them serving in Americaâs fleets. OâNeillâs grandfather taught at the Naval Academy; his father graduated in the early â30s, flew fighters, fought at Iwo Jima, and retired an admiral; OâNeill himself, who grew up in landlocked San Antonio, Texas, was in the Naval Academy Class of 1967 (two brothers also graduated, â57 and â59). An uncle, a fighter pilot, was killed at Pearl Harbor; another, also a naval pilot, in Korea. Several of OâNeillâs nephews fought in the first Gulf War in the Marine Corps, and his brother-in-law commanded the Coast Guard, Atlantic Area. Nelson and Nimitz would have been proud of the OâNeills.
Young Ensign OâNeill chose to serve aboard a minesweeper, the Woodpecker. His fellow classmates had a good laugh. A minesweeper? Not exactly the most glamorous gig in the Navy, and an especially odd choice for a man whose class standing was so high he could have breezed into pretty much any posting he desired. But OâNeillâs motive was nothing to laugh about: Mindful of the "family tradition of service," he says it was "important to me not to sit out the war" â and he supposed that he had a better chance of seeing action on one of the smaller boats than he would have cooling his heels aboard an aircraft carrier. After a year on the Woodpecker, OâNeill transferred to the Swift boats in the spring of 1969, serving on them until the summer of 1970. His boat was fired on many times as it patrolled the Cambodian border, as well as the Uminh and Namcan forests in southern Vietnam. In the Swifts, says OâNeill, the average length of service was twelve months; John Kerry was in for four.
After a little over two yearsâ duty, OâNeill himself departed Vietnam with two Bronze Stars (with "V"s for valor in combat) pinned to his chest. There were apparently several more decorations, but when I asked about them, his modesty triumphed over my curiosity. He also came home with a badly damaged knee and leg, which earned him some time in a military hospital. And it was there that John OâNeill started learning about the Senate testimony of someone named John Kerry. Distressed and angered by the future senatorâs allegations, none of which squared with his own experiences, OâNeill vainly wrote to the Foreign Relations Committee asking for a chance to testify himself. Then he read an op-ed in the New York Times by Bruce Kessler, a former Marine and a leader of the new group, Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace, which disparaged the Kerry allegations. OâNeill wrote to Kessler, who got him involved in a Washington press conference. "We were convinced," says OâNeill, that "Kerryâs charges were false." 60 Minutes and NBC both offered time for a debate â Kerry vs. OâNeill â but the former repeatedly balked. And then, miraculously, Kerry accepted an invitation from Dick Cavett to go head-to-head with OâNeill.
By this time, OâNeill had been star-spotted by President Nixon, and he met the president at the White House. (The sunny atmosphere turned a little frostier when OâNeill confided that heâd voted for Hubert Humphrey in â68: "The people all around me were shocked" when he told Nixon he was a Democrat.) He was also introduced to several Democratic congressmen and senators who didnât like Kerryâs slanderous grandstanding. As for the Cavett Show appearance, that was an invitation arranged by the television host himself, and had nothing to do with the White House; OâNeill even had to pay his own travel and hotel expenses. He wore "the only suit I had" â a not overly fashionable blue serge number unfortunately teamed with white socks. It mattered not. What mattered, says OâNeill, was that "I felt very passionate about the issue of war crimes. I had served in Vietnam with all those kids . . . and they reflected the people in the country as a whole. And the way [Kerry and his friends] falsely used war-crime charges involved a degree of political cynicism beyond my comprehension. I was outraged. I thought honestly about my friends who had died out there. And the unit we were in â Kerry and I â had suffered substantial casualties because of the restraints we placed on ourselves." OâNeill says that "Kerry, of course, knows this." The debate was a success. "I always thought Kerry wouldnât be able to document evidence of war crimes," and so it was. His claim that these crimes were not isolated incidents but ordered by officers was nothing but a "barefaced lie."
"Of course," OâNeill, with good humor, adds, "he was there for such a short time, he might not have known what was happening." Well, the offers to do more TV appearances came rolling in, but OâNeill decided to pack his blue serge suit and go home. He went to the University of Texas Law School, and graduated first in a class of 554 with the third highest score in its history. In 1974, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court justice William Rehnquist before returning to Texas to practice law. Specializing in large-scale commercial litigation â though he has often represented poor clients for free â heâs been there ever since, founding along the way his own 35-lawyer firm (Clements OâNeill, for those of you with large-scale commercial-litigation needs). He hasnât been politically involved since those heady days of the â70s. From 1972 onward, whenever people ran against Kerry, they asked OâNeill to spill some more beans, but he always declined â "because I believed in forgetting the thing." But I myself wondered, what suddenly prompted OâNeill to break his silence after all these years and talk to National Review?
#1
Kerry, what a joke. Even still, I still wouldn't underestimate the ability of big media to spin him as "better than Bush". Despite the fact that the media's losing their grip, many people I know still think the war's a failure, bush lied, etc., etc.
Let's hope all of the dead who vote in the next election will be Vietnam War veterans.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 14:49 Comments ||
Top||
I donât understand Democratsâ hunger for pics of dead American soldiers. If they think these pictures are going to turn middle America against Bush, they are SO wrong! Middle America knows why these heros died. To protect us from another 9-11. Middle America is smart enough to understand why Democrats want these pictures to be shown. To help get Kerry elected. Kerry, who stabbed his fellow soldiers in Vietnam in the back and rode the bodybags of dead American soldiers, killed in Vietnam into the senate. Middle America knows that Kerry is trying to ride the bodybags of dead American solders, killed in Iraq into the White House. Havenât Democrats learned anything? After Bushâs speech, a lot of Democrats were saying Bush is finished. Polls show him gaining an even bigger lead over Kerry. Democrats are out of touch with middle America. Show your pictures, abuse our dead American soldiers, and we middle America will send Kerry back into oblivion.
NO MORE BODY BAG RIDING FOR KERRY!!!
EFL - ?You canât make this up.
Hat tip -> Drudge (Original source: The Guardian)
Does John Kerry, who supports higher automobile fuel economy standards, own a gas-guzzling SUV? He does, but says it belongs to the family, not to him. Did Bill Clinton die? Kerry seems to be channeling Bill "it depends on what the meaning of âisâ is" Clinton.
Or Al Sharpton, whose suits are owned by his corporation...
During a conference call Thursday with reporters to discuss his upcoming jobs tour through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether he owned a Chevrolet Suburban. ``I donât own an SUV,ââ said Kerry, who supports increasing existing fuel economy standards to 36 miles per gallon by 2015 in order to reduce the nationâs dependence on foreign oil supplies. Kerry also has made rising gasoline prices an issue in the campaign against President Bush. In Houston on Thursday, Kerry said the president broke a 2000 campaign pledge to ``jawboneââ oil-producing nations by pressuring them to increase their output. Of course Sept 11th never happened.....
Kerry thought for a second when asked whether his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had a Suburban at their Ketchum, Idaho, home. Kerry said he owns and drives a Dodge 600 and recently bought a Chrysler 300M. He said his wife owns the Chevrolet SUV. ``The family has it. I donât have it,ââ he said. Should be easy to verify - who is it registered to?
#5
Kerry drop out of the race? Nah, ain't gonna happen.
"JFK" is certainly starting to look like a complete fool, but he's far from being in enough trouble yet to cause any "dump Kerry" movement to prevail.
I'm betting he's in it til the end.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2004 13:16 Comments ||
Top||
#6
"Kerry said he owns and drives a Dodge 600"
Hold on a second here.... I believe the Dodge 600 was made back in the early to mid eighties. A really dark time for th US auto industry. A real POS. I guarantee that if "he owns and drives a Dodge 600" is guzzles more gas than a new Chevy Suburban and produces ten times the pollution of a Chevy Suburban.
#15
I guess the whole man-separate-from-his-family angle has been played already. So I'm going to try figure out his statement regarding cars built by the UAW in Michigan.
Is he intending to leave out cars built in Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama and South Carolina? How about Illinois? Or did he just happen to be in Michigan at the time?
Chevy Suburbans are currently made in Janesville Wisconsin. Depending on the vintage, the 'family owned' vehicle could have been manufactured in Silao Mexico.
All Chrysler 300Ms are manufactured in Bramalea, Ontario, CANADA.
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2004 23:34 Comments ||
Top||
Does John Kerry, who supports higher automobile fuel economy standards, own a gas-guzzling SUV? He does, but says it belongs to the family, not to him. During a conference call Thursday with reporters to discuss his upcoming jobs tour through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether he owned a Chevrolet Suburban.
``I don't own an SUV,'' said Kerry, who supports increasing existing fuel economy standards to 36 miles per gallon by 2015 in order to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil supplies. Kerry also has made rising gasoline prices an issue in the campaign against President Bush. In Houston on Thursday, Kerry said the president broke a 2000 campaign pledge to ``jawbone'' oil-producing nations by pressuring them to increase their output.
Kerry thought for a second when asked whether his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had a Suburban at their Ketchum, Idaho, home. Kerry said he owns and drives a Dodge 600 and recently bought a Chrysler 300M. He said his wife owns the Chevrolet SUV.
``The family has it. I don't have it,'' he said.
Of course, when campaigning in Idaho, it'll be his Suburban. And it'll have a gun rack.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 9:23:44 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
John Kerry, the self-Scrapplefying candidate. He keeps going like this, even Democrats won't take him seriously.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2004 10:14 Comments ||
Top||
#2
If I was a reporter I would ask him how he expects to get his environmental policy through congress when he can't even convince his own wife to save gas.
#7
I can see the rational behind the push for higher mileage standards. The less oil we import the less the asshats and others have to try and hold over our heads. I just wish one off the candidates would come publically for true energy independence and in the long run that means getting our transportation needs off of our petroleum habit. Ulitmately we'll have to go to more nuclear IMO. The pebble bed reactors look promising and work on fusion reactors should be taken away from the DOE and turned over to the Navy with the stipulation they work on producing a reactor that will fit inside the hull of a Los Angelos class sub. And for all of those who advocate "renewables" such as wind, solar and the like. All they are are first, second and third level nuclear power sources relying on a reactor 93 million miles away
(2004-04-21) -- Democrat presidential hopeful John Forbes Kerry today took aim at "corporate fat cats who try to buy political influence" by raising money for Mr. Kerryâs campaign.
"Wealthy elitists contributed much of the $57 million that my campaign took in over past three months," said Mr. Kerry. "They know that this money will inevitably influence my decisions when Iâm president. Iâll be biased toward my wealthy cronies. After all, look what happened to George Bush. How could I escape the same fate?"
Mr. Kerry called on the United Nations to limit campaign contributions from the wealthy.
"When Iâm president, Iâll work with Secretary-General Kofi Annan to create an international income tax on the obscenely rich--those who earn more than $125,000 per year," he said. "We need to send a message to these fat cats that theyâre no better than the ordinary, middle-class slobs who have nothing left to give to my campaign after theyâve paid their union dues and contributed to public broadcasting."
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
04/23/2004 9:13:19 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
..When the Boston Globe is running with this stuff...Johnny's got a problem. Discrepancies noted in Kerry's record, Ex-skipper says website wrong
Vietnam combat records posted on John F. Kerry's campaign website for the month of January 1969 as evidence of his service aboard swift boat No. 94 describe action that occurred before Kerry was skipper of that craft, according to the officer who said he commanded the boat at the time. On the site, the Massachusetts senator is described as the skipper of Navy boat No. 94 during several actions in late January 1969. However, Edward Peck, who was the skipper of the 94 before Kerry took over, said combat reports posted by the campaign for January 1969 involve action when he was the skipper, not Kerry.
Peck, who was seriously wounded in fighting that took place on Jan. 29, 1969, said he believes Kerry campaign aides made a mistake in claiming Kerry as skipper of the 94 at that time. On the Kerry website, the report of the combat on that day on the 94 boat is posted as occurring during Kerry's time as skipper of the boat. Peck said Kerry replaced him after the Jan. 29, 1969, event. "Those are definitely mine," Peck said, referring to the combat reports that the Kerry campaign posted as representing Kerry's action. "There is no doubt about it." A Kerry campaign spokesman, Michael Meehan, said in an e-mail that the campaign had obtained the combat reports for the 94 from the Navy. He did not directly address the question of why the campaign describes Kerry being skipper of the 94 at a time when Peck says he commanded the boat.
Snicker, they got the boats record and never checked to confirm who the skipper was at the time.
The reports at issue are in a 20-page batch representing Kerry's combat in January 1969. The reports include references to some dramatic action, including an ambush of Patrol Craft Fast, or PCF, 94. In addition to posting the information online, the campaign sent out an e-mail yesterday afternoon repeating the claim that Kerry was the skipper of the 94 boat throughout January and describing action the campaign said Kerry experienced while commanding the craft. For example, in a summary of action that occurred Jan. 26, 1969, the campaign says Kerry served on boat No. 94 alongside another boat, No. 66. "PCFs 94 and 66 escorted troops up the Ong Doc River early in the morning when they were ambushed by gun and rocket fire from approximately 40 men on both sides of the river," the campaign summary says. "Two B-40 rounds hit close to Kerry's boat, while PCF 66 received 2 B-40 rocket hits. Three men on PCF66 were wounded. A junk containing South Vietnamese troops was also sunk, killing 11 South Vietnamese troops. Intelligence reports after the mission indicated that the Viet Cong troops may have planned the ambush in advance." Peck said he was the skipper of the 94 at this time and that Kerry was not on the craft. While combat reports show several boats traveling with the 94, the campaign website says only that Kerry was the skipper of the 94 and does not try to place him on the other boats.
In another report, the campaign summarizes action that took place on Jan. 29, 1969, this way: "While Kerry's boat and another [PCF72] were probing a canal along the river, Kerry's boat came under heavy fire and was hit by a B-40 rocket in the cabin area. One member of Kerry's crew -- Forward Gunner David Alston -- suffered shrapnel wounds in his head. His injuries were not considered serious and he was sent to the 29th Evac Hospital at Binh Thuy." Peck said he was the skipper on this day as well. Peck was also injured in the ambush and was hospitalized. As a result, Kerry then took over the crew, Peck said.
The Navy combat report posted by the Kerry campaign states that Peck and Alston were injured in the same event. There is no mention of Kerry in that report. Kerry's commanding officer, George Elliott, said in a telephone interview that he vividly recalls Peck's injury and hospitalization and Kerry's replacement of Peck. "I think somebody made a mistake who doesn't know" the timing of Kerry's service, Elliott said. Kerry was skipper of boat No. 44 in December and January before taking over command of the 94, he said.
Instead of looking like his hero on PT-109, Kerry's looking more like the skipper of PT-73.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/23/2004 8:22:55 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The left-leaning media will favor their candidate up to a point, but once they get the feeling he's a lemon, they stop showing any mercy. I have to wonder if they're reaching that point with Kerry.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2004 9:11 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Dave, They dont have anyone else.... They placed all their eggs in one basket -- a basket with several holes in it.
I wonder what other 'mistakes' there are in his posted records...
#3
My fellow Americans. The Republican attack machine has once again shown how low they will go to discredit me and my glorious service to our country. I was on the boat before I wasn't on the boat. Have I told you lately that I was in Vietnam.
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
04/23/2004 9:35 Comments ||
Top||
#4
You stoopid Republicans are always questioning Kerry's patriotism. Get over it. Can't you see there ARE NO LIES here.
The email is correct. Kerry's BOAT and members of Kerry's CREW were involved in this action. They never said Kerry was involved.
Your so-called "lies: are actually the truth and there is no need for the Kerry campaign to correct the propaganda effect that they have already taken to the bank over this "so-called" "mistake". Only people who read the Boston Globe or fair minded blogs will ever read about this.
Bwahhahaaahahahahaaaa.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 11:11 Comments ||
Top||
#5
This makes sense. He threw someone else's medals away during a protest. As Stan Marsh would say, he's an @ss spelunker.
Posted by: Tibor ||
04/23/2004 11:58 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Oh ya did I say Ketchup John's activities after the war were treasonous too? Patriotism=Opportunism for Hanoi John. Those "hearings" in 71 showed what is really made of. The book, Winter Soldier that he co-authored shows an American Flag upside down and an insulting mockery of Iwo Jima. YA man vote for Kerry. What a hero. LMAO....
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
04/23/2004 12:00 Comments ||
Top||
#7
B - hard to tell where you stand - either you being funny or your an idiot..
doesn't matter what the e-mail said - it's all in the symantics of the wording. it is written to lead the reader to believe skerry was there. this guy is a true phony. i really do not know why he is pushing the service issue - he has nothing to stand on.
and remember it was democratic badgering of Bush and his record (which was made totally public - not from some hq in some piss water town only!)which will cause the Rebublican machine into action. is it fair for one candidate to have show the money and not the other? the dems dug their own hole on this one.
Posted by: Dan ||
04/23/2004 12:04 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Kozlowski-Instead of looking like his hero on PT-109, Kerry's looking more like the skipper of PT-73.
LtCdr Quintin McHale should not be compared to Kerry. He had a crew of oddballs, but remember, he was an effective warrior. It was his commanding officer, Binghampton, who was the idiot.
#9
Correction : I stated "The book, Winter Soldier that he co-authored shows an American Flag upside down and an insulting mockery of Iwo Jima. YA man vote for Kerry."
Should have been The New Soldier
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
04/23/2004 12:52 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Dan...I was trying to be funny, but I guess that it doesn't preclude me from being both :-)
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 12:58 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Instead of looking like his hero on PT-109, Kerry's looking more like the skipper of PT-73
I keep getting these two mixed up anyway myself...
Question: Is the Kerry campain only posting records which show SKerry in a 'positive' light? or all his records? Seems like they are being 'filtered' if not outright 'forged' to me.
#12
Crazy Fool - I think the Kerry campain thinks they understand that they can manipulate the information that they put out. Probably in the years before the blogs, they could. The press would have printed the reports about the heroism of Kerry's "boat" and "crew" and would never have mentioned that Kerry wasn't present unless it appeared as a small correction in the last paragraph or an article titled, "Kerry's Patriotism Questioned by GOP".
There is an article on Drudge today about the NYT mis-lableing a photo under the Senate hopeful, Mr. Coors. Under his photo, they ran a caption labeling him a KKK murderer. I don't know, it's probably a mistake....but these days you have to wonder.
In the old days, the propaganda effect of that would have been useful as it would have fooled a certain percentage of the people who would have just been left with a vague, negative impression of the Coors candidate. Most people don't really pay attention to these things.
I say Kerry thinks he can manipulate, because it all seems to be backfiring on him. It's MHO, that they aren't used to the power of the computer and the blogs and haven't yet adjusted their tactics accordingly.
When it comes to the propaganda - these guys are living in the 20th Century, instead of the 21st. IMHO they won't be able to get with the program, as so much of their world is dependent on the old way of doing things. They never really bothered to get in touch with their voters, they just tried to manipulate them with the news media. I just think that's going to be a lot harder to do in the future and I don't think they grasp that yet.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 13:49 Comments ||
Top||
#13
B i am also both :)
Posted by: Dan ||
04/23/2004 14:18 Comments ||
Top||
#14
One member of Kerry's Peck's crew -- Forward Gunner David Alston -- suffered shrapnel wounds in his head. His injuries were not considered serious and he was sent to the 29th Evac Hospital at Binh Thuy. So for 'not serious' wounds you get med evaced. That raises two questions: Did Alston get a Purple Heart for his head wound? If Kerry's wound was so serious as to rate a Purple Heart why was he just treated on site by a corpsman?
#15
head wounds to non-essential personnel (i.e.: other than JF'nK) are inconsequential, and not worthy of a medal deservedly self-awarded by his nibs
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2004 14:55 Comments ||
Top||
#16
You know, I bet that guy probably did get a purple heart...but if he did not - then this little scrape of Kerry's is finally going to draw enough blood that he will truly have earned that purple heart.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 15:14 Comments ||
Top||
#18
The people in the story keep talking about "somebody" in the Kerry campaign made a "mistake."
They're far more charitable than I. I think Kerry's campaign made a mistake, all right - they thought no one who was there would notice or, if they did, wouldn't say anything.
And these clowns think they're capable of running a nation?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2004 20:37 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 04:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"...a very charismatic fellow looking for a good issue."
Charismatic!? I don't think so. But looks like he was already thinking of how to sell himself.
Posted by: AF Lady ||
04/23/2004 7:57 Comments ||
Top||
#2
His oratorical flair. . . (Who, Lurchie?, I am laughing so hard I have a pain in my sides. He has an annoying affectation that the so-called intellegensia love.)
phrases which rang so eloquently over television . . (How eloquent were those phrases in the VVAW meeting in KC?)
Kerry did the Washington social scene and slept in a clean bed. (With the richest heiress he could smooth-talk)
Kerry is not so uptight about Viet Nam as to be militant or radical.
(There is a disconnect here. Refer to previous comment about VVAW in KC)
Stephens . . .drawing on more than 30 months' experience in the Viet Nam theater -- many (five) times that of Kerry. Stephens argued that the United States could not morally pull out so fast as to endanger the lives of those thousands of South Vietnamese who had trusted the American promise of deliverance from the Communist enemy. (we know who was prophetic in retrospect. Garden Grove, California uses the former South Vietnam flag as their city flag. The population is majority Vietnam immigrants)
Stephens' testimony might have escaped public attention altogether had not Sen. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, Republican floor leader, complained that the TV networks had ignored it. (Walter Walrus, and the rest of them thoughtful folks on the evening news at the time decided that Mr. Stephens was inconsequential.)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Eleven Republican senators called on former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick to testify before the Sept. 11 commission on which she serves. Gorelick was a top deputy to Clinton administration Attorney General Janet Reno. Some Republicans have called on her to resign from the panel, claiming her tenure at the Justice Department amounts to a conflict of interest. The senators did not ask her to step aside, but said she should testify under oath before the panel.
"It is our firm belief that any committee report or recommendations will be incomplete without public testimony by Ms. Gorelick about her activities while serving as Deputy Attorney General," the senators wrote in a letter sent Thursday to commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton. The senators noted Gorelick has made important contributions to fighting terrorism, including her advocacy of harsher sentences for terrorist activities.
Nobody doubts that she worked hard.
Among the senators who signed the letter are Intelligence Committee members Kit Bond of Missouri, Trent Lott of Mississippi, and Georgia's Saxby Chambliss.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2004 1:57:23 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'm really dumbfounded that she was allowed on the panel in the first place. Anyone who was involved in law or foreign policy for the past two decades should have been automatically bypassed for this panel since anyone in those categories could have been involved.
US REGULATORS GIVE NISSAN A WAIVER ON FUEL ECONOMY RULES
US regulators have given Nissan North America a waiver from federal fuel economy rules in order to protect US jobs, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Rules were made to be broken. Particularly stupid politically correct rules.
NHTSA announced Tuesday that it exempted Nissan from a provision in the federal fuel economy standards which the company was in imminent danger of breaching. Under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards, manufacturersâ domestic and imported car fleets cannot exceed an average gas mileage rate of 27.5 mpg -- per fleet. Snore. Oops! Mustâve dozed off there. What were you saying?
But the official classification of domestic and imported cars will change later this year in accordance with a 1994 law implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement, which covers the United States, Mexico and Canada. The new regulations go into effect with the introduction of 2005 model-year vehicles and designate any vehicle as "domestic" if at least 75 percent of its parts or labour originate in any of the three nations covered by the treaty. Under ordinary circumstances, the new guidelines would change the designation of the Nissan Sentra from import to domestic -- at least for the purposes of measuring gas mileage. The fuel-sipping sedan is manufactured in Mexico. Nissan said that the reclassification would mean that its import fleet would no longer be in compliance with the CAFE car limit and it would be forced to begin sourcing parts for the Sentra overseas. In view of the threat to US jobs in the auto parts industry, NHTSA said it had no choice but to exempt Nissan from the "two-fleet" rule, and allow it to calculate the gas mileage for its entire fleet, regardless of where the vehicles were manufactured. If a foreign company with a plant in the U.S. sends jobs back overseas, is that outsourcing? Or maybe insourcing? Whatâs Kerryâs position on this - this week? "Projected job losses from denying the petition outweigh the potential job losses from granting it," NHTSA said in a statement, citing a provision in the CAFE law that exempts 2006 to 2010 model year cars from the two-fleet rule where the exemption preserves US jobs. Yaâ think? Whining from various enviro sources in 5, 4, 3...
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut bskolaut@hotmail.com ||
04/23/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Does this mean that my Cod will have higher lead content. Lead makes me dreary.
#2
"cannot exceed an average gas mileage rate of 27.5 mpg -- per fleet". I don't get this, if you acceed that average it means that more cars are above 27.5 mpg, wouldn't that be a good thing?
#3
cannot exceed an average gas mileage rate of 27.5 mpg -- per fleet"
When they say "exceed", they mean the cars can't suck more gas than 27.7mpg. More gas means less miles per gallon. So "less" really is "more".
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 13:08 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Bragging: While my 2004 F-150 doesn't get good mileage (14 City with a tonneau cover) -it does meet car smog emission standards, which is unheard of in trucks. Remember this too: Ford F-150's are the single largest selling vehicle in America, like 1:20, with 800,000 sold last year. Bush is really killing the trees, huh? Bullshit
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2004 20:40 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Frank G: I've got a Honda CRV. I have no clue what mileage it gets; I spend $10-$15 a week on gas. Don't know what standards it meets, either (though I'm sure it met whatever standards were around in 1998).
What I do know it suits my purposes, both in my business and for personal use. AND I had no problem getting downtown to work in the snow this winter. AND I could afford it. That's my criteria for choosing a car. (And I suspect it's the same for most people.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2004 21:44 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Barb S. - on the money - I bought it knowing what I knew going in - no excuses, no complaints - I love my truck
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2004 23:02 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Amen, Barb.
I own a Chevy S10, 1998. Bought my first one used in 1997 (1990 S10)(that was after I owned a 1969 Chevy C-10 for about 12 years), and I loved the1990 S10 then. I love my 'new' '98 S-10 even more now.
This sounds kinda sad but it is the most luxurous vehicle I have ever owned. I guess I could get used to a 1/2 ton again (especially after the '69 C10) but I am absolutely sold on the S-10 line
Wny not get an SUV, or an F-150? This S-10 I have has everything but an ass-scratcher and its cheaper. I have no problem with big truck owners, and I kinda feel sorry for them these times of high gas prices.
The S-10 is more vulnerable in a collision, sure, but far more manueverable than the 1/2 tons.
Many news organizations across the country are mistakenly identifying the flag-draped caskets of the Space Shuttle Columbia's crew as those of war casualties from Iraq. Editors are being asked to confirm that the images used in news reports are in fact those of American casualties and not those of the NASA astronauts who were killed Feb.1, 2003, in the Columbia tragedy. An initial review of the images featured on the Internet site www.thememoryhole.org shows that more than 18 rows of images from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware are actually photographs of honors rendered to Columbia's seven astronauts.
Ah, that's where that big group of photos came from.
News organizations across the world have been publishing and distributing images featured on the web site.
In such a hurry to show dead bodies in coffins they didn't check the source.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 4:06:34 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Gotta take the link down off of the Kerry 4 Prez website. Oops.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
04/23/2004 16:36 Comments ||
Top||
#3
haha....serves them right. Their desperation to pick the bones of our dead is sick.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 16:39 Comments ||
Top||
#4
While we're all at it, spare a kind thought for the scores of thick-skinned men & women (military and civvie) of the Dover Port Mortuary. It's a tough job that few, if any, ever think about or appreciate. God bless them, our fallen comrades and their loved ones.
#5
You don't think any of these ideologically driven metrosexual pricks care one way or the other what pictures they show, do you? The true legacy of Bill Clinton is that now they don't even have to go through the motions of trying to be factual. You say, print, or show anything that can be used to advance your agenda, true or not. Oh, and by the way, attack in very condescending tones anyone who questions your veracity.
Posted by: Random thoughts ||
04/23/2004 17:29 Comments ||
Top||
#6
geezer- you are right. Military undertakers must have to deal with some particulary horrific cases.
#7
"facts and truth don't matter - the agenda is all - emotions speak louder than words - Bush lied!"
LLL F'kn assholes
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2004 18:27 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Military undertakers must have to deal with some particulary horrific cases.
Add to those prayers the men and women of DMORT: Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/23/2004 18:58 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Much of the photograpy in the press is produced by freelancers who are paid only when the images are used.
Standard procedure in the news biz is use of stock footage, but whether using file or freelance images they should always be labelled. Failure to provide credit is editorial laziness and reflects poor judgement and lack of integrity.
ed: "just get a picture of some coffins with flags on them. You're holding up the front page!"
Sorry, we are talking about the mainstream media here. The word integrity has no meaning.
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2004 22:27 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
04/23/2004 11:54 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
King Abdullah - perhaps the most reasonable man in the region â ever ask himself about questions of symmetry and reciprocity
um...that would be a no! And it's an issue that is taking up more conversation time here in the US with those who used to be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, as American's begin to realize that the WOT is really about our Islamic neighbors unbending wishing to implement Sharia world-wide. Try as we may to fit it into our melting pot ideals, it is simply not compatible with our democratic system that relies on the separation of church and State. This problem is not one we have faced before and it is causing us all to realize that the problems and beliefs of this century are very different than the last.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 15:10 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The Palestinians will, in fact, get their de facto state, though one that may be now cut off entirely from Israeli commerce and cultural intercourse. This is an apparently terrifying thought: Palestinian men can no longer blow up Jews on Monday, seek dialysis from them on Tuesday, get an Israeli paycheck on Wednesday, demonstrate to CNN cameras about the injustice of it all on Thursday â and then go back to tunneling under Gaza and three-hour, all-male, conspiracy-mongering sessions in coffee-houses on Friday. Beware of getting what you bomb for.
#3
This is an apparently terrifying thought: Palestinian men can no longer blow up Jews on Monday, seek dialysis from them on Tuesday, get an Israeli paycheck on Wednesday, demonstrate to CNN cameras about the injustice of it all on Thursday â and then go back to tunneling under Gaza and three-hour, all-male, conspiracy-mongering sessions in coffee-houses on Friday. Beware of getting what you bomb for.
What is racial profiling, and is it racist? We can think of profiling as using cheap-to-observe characteristics as indicators or proxies for more-costly-to-observe characteristics. A personâs physical characteristics, such as race, sex and height, are cheap to observe, and they might be correlated with some other characteristic thatâs more costly to observe such as disease, strength or ability. Profiling examples abound. Just knowing that one person is 6 feet 9 inches tall allows one to predict that heâs a better basketball player than a 4-feet-9-inch-tall person. That might be called height profiling. While height is not a perfect indicator of basketball proficiency, there is a strong association.
Similarly, just knowing the sex or age of an individual allows one to make predictions about unobserved characteristics such as weightlifting ability, running and reflex speed, and eyesight and hearing acuity because they are correlated with sex and age.
What about using race or ethnicity as proxies for some unobserved characteristic? Some racial and ethnic groups have a higher incidence of mortality from various diseases than the national average. In 1998, mortality rates for cardiovascular diseases were approximately 30 percent higher among black adults than among white adults. Cervical cancer rates were almost five times higher among Vietnamese women in the United States than among white women. The Pima Indians of Arizona have the highest known diabetes rates in the world. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men.
Would one condemn a medical practitioner for advising greater screening and monitoring of black males for cardiovascular disease and prostate cancer, or greater screening and monitoring for cervical cancer among Vietnamese American females, and the same for diabetes among Pima Indians? It surely would be racial profiling -- using race as an indicator of a higher probability of some other characteristic. You might say thatâs different and that using racial profiling as a proxy for potential criminal behavior is indeed racist. Just as race and ethnicity are not perfect indicators of the risk of certain diseases, neither is race a perfect indicator of criminal activity, but they are associations, and people act on those associations.
A Washington, D.C., taxicab commissioner, who is black, issued a safety advisory urging D.C.âs 6,800 cabbies to refuse to pick up âdangerous lookingâ passengers. She described âdangerous lookingâ as a âyoung black guy ... with shirttail hanging down longer than his coat, baggy pants, unlaced tennis shoes.â By no stretch of imagination does every young black person pose a threat to taxi drivers, but in Washington, D.C., and other cities, thereâs a strong correlation between race and the threat of robbery/murder.
We seriously misunderstand the motives of a taxi driver who passes up a black customer if we use racism as the sole explanation for his behavior. It might be racism, but it might just as easily and more probably be a fear of robbery, murder or being taken to a dangerous neighborhood. There are other examples and greater detail of this phenomenon in my recent Cornell Law and Public Policy Journal article "Discrimination: The Law vs. Morality". Needless to say, the law-abiding black person whoâs refused a taxi ride or pizza delivery or pulled over by the police is justifiably annoyed and offended. The rightful recipients of his anger should be those blacks who have made black synonymous with high crime and not the taxi driver or pizza deliverer who might fear for his life or the policeman trying to do his job.
God would never do profiling of any sort because God is omniscient. We humans lack that quality and must depend upon sometimes crude substitutes for finding out things. By the way, attempting to explain profiling doesnât require one to take a position for or against it any more than attempting to explain gravity requires one to be for or against gravity.
Dr. Williams is an African-American nationally syndicated columnist, former chairman of the economics department at George Mason University, and author of More Liberty Means Less Government
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 4:14:35 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
By JOHN PODHORETZ
ON Wednesday, the lead editorial in this paper suggested that President Bush name Rudy Giuliani to be this nationâs ambassador to the United Nations. The idea is so exciting that it deserves to be shouted from rooftops. The mayorâs signal ability to confront dysfunction, disorder, corruption and decay and - through sheer force of will and intellect - become a force for change transformed the lives of New Yorkers for the better. The United States desperately needs those very skills at work this year at the United Nations. I donât think Chirac will be callinâ him "Rudy the Rock" anymore. Particularly after the recent Oil-for-food scandal, and Rudyâs probable involvment in the cleanup of the sludge around folks like Anan, Jr., and maybe the esteemed French President himself
There are some political dangers for the president here. Rudy is an outsized personality, to be sure. He is not controllable. He will say what he thinks needs to be said. He will come into conflict with the State Department (as forceful U.N. ambassadors always do). But he is not only eminently capable, he also shares the presidentâs vision of the need to democratize the Arab world, confront terror and - not insignificantly - defend Israel against the depredations to which it is constantly exposed at the U.N. And, the point is? Rudy understands that W is the boss, and W. knows heâs hiring a pit-bull.
After all, five years before George W. Bush said heâd no longer deal with Yasser Arafat, Rudy kicked the Palestinian thug out of a Lincoln Center concert during the celebration of the U.N.âs 50th anniversary. We all know Rudy is a no-BS kinda guy.
Whatâs in it for Rudy? If he wants to be president, he needs foreign-policy credentials. Here they are, on a silver platter, big guy. Plus, it would just be so damn much fun to watch. Amen to that, brother!
Posted by: Anonymous4052 ||
04/23/2004 11:27:12 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Go RUDY, GO!!
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 14:33 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Good for Rudy, bad for the USA. We need to remove ourselves from the UN and kick them out of New York.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
04/23/2004 15:19 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Just do it, Rudy. Your country needs your smash-mouth diplomatic skills. C'mon, you street fighter. Your finest hour is yet to come. Rudy and Rummy in '08.
#5
Oh, man, that sure would be fun to see Rudy open up on the UN! That would be far more entertaining than what's been coming out of Hollywood so far this year.....
#6
Chris W, what makes you think the appointment of Rudy as US Ambassador to the UN and the US ultimately withdrawing from the UN are mutually exclusive?
Posted by: Tibor ||
04/23/2004 17:29 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Tibor - W wants to have a New Yorker collect the keys to the building when the criminals and liars leave. It makes the paperwork easier.
#8
I'd rather Giuliani be put into a position that doesn't involve the UN. State, AG, whatever. Just not the UN, as that organization isn't worth wasting quality people on.
#9
B-A-R is right. Why waste a good man of proven executive talent playing in a Punch and Judy show? Truth-telling is utterly wasted on such cynics as the French and the Russians-- so what's the point? To amuse John Podhoretz? Not a good enough reason!
#10
Bomarama, and Wuzzalib - One of Podhoretz's arguements is that this would give him a level of foreign policy experience before moving into a higher position. Rumor has it that Colin Powell is leaving after the election. Wouldn't a year as UN ambassador be useful to get to know the weasel family up close and personal, before he might take the SOS position if Powell leaves?
This is the best arguement in my mind and why I posted this for discussion. Your points are extremely valid. But, if a year in the "Cantina" will get him some foreign policy stripes, then view it as a step in a process.
#12
But, if a year in the "Cantina" will get him some foreign policy stripes, then view it as a step in a process.
If it's FP exposure that he needs, why not a direct U.S. envoy to an actual foreign country? I dunno, I just have this deep-seated loathing of the UN that has been a long time in the making (since Gulf War 1) and would rather that our active participation be as limited as possible. If it could be discontinued altogether, that would be even better.
#13
As much as I hate it, we need to keep the UN close for the simple reason of "keeping your friends close, but your enemy's closer". NYNY can be very seductive.
EFL
Lakhdar Brahimi is the United Nations official that President Bush has now put in charge of establishing a new Iraqi government that will take over from America on July 1. But back in October of 1989, Mr.Brahimi was working for the Arab League, in Beirut. He had the unenviable task of persuading the Lebanese prime minister, Michel Aoun, to accept what would become the Syrian occupation of his country that persists to this day. Mr. Brahimi was at the time the Arab Leagueâs envoy in the Lebanese civil war and an author of an agreement known as the Taif Accord that encouraged Syriaâs enforcement of peace in Lebanon. Mr. Brahimi, 70, now works for the United Nations, but his remarks this week sounded as though they could have come straight from the Arab Leagueâs headquarters in Cairo. On Wednesday he told the radio station France Inter, âThere is no doubt that the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians, as well as the perception by the body of the population in the region, and beyond, of the injustice of this policy and the equally unjust support of the United States for this policy.â Nice guy. More at the link.
Posted by: someone ||
04/23/2004 3:36:50 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Excerpted from Powellâs address to the Staff of Freedom House an NGO founded by Elanor Roosevelt.
... Itâs fitting, therefore, that we gather here, today, after a Freedom House discussion about the worldâs worst human rights abusers, because George Bush is concerned about them, concerned about the problem they create for their people and for the world. And itâs fitting that we do so as we look ahead, as was noted earlier, in just four days to this yearâs UN Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva.
Itâs no secret that weâve been disappointed with the CHR in recent years. As the country, the United States, that originally championed the UN system, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Commission on Human Rights, we Americans have been saddened by the fact that the commission has sometimes been used to shield human rights abusers from the condemnation they richly deserve.
The credibility of the CHR has been damaged. In the face of what has happened, some people say, well letâs just forget about it, forget about the CHR, forget about the United Nations, and throw up our hands and walk away.
But not us. Weâre not quitters.The world would not understand if we walked away from these international institutions. So with our democratic partners we seek to restore the integrity of the Commission on Human Rights, re-energize its capacities, and rebuild its credibility.
And once weâve done that weâre going to turn up the volume. Weâre going to make life more uncomfortable for regimes like those in Belarus, Burma, Cuba, North Korea and Zimbabwe, which violate, repeatedly and systematically, the inalienable human rights of their peoples.
Weâre going to continue to support even more persecuted human rights activists like Aung San Suu Kyi and Oswaldo Paya.
The United States will support resolutions on these and other countriesâ human rights records this year at the meetings, and we will call on all democratic states to join us in defending human rights, consistent with the mandate of the Commission on Human Rights.
And thatâs not all weâve got in mind for the UN system and for its associated agencies. As you know, the United States has strongly supported the Community of Democracies, which brings together over 100 democratic nations to strengthen democratic principles around the world. And now weâre building on the Community of Democracies to form a democracy caucus within the United Nations system.
Such a grouping, united by its membersâ shared ideals and democratic practices, will help the entire UN system live up to its founding principles. We envision a coalition of democratic countries consulting and cooperating in how they will vote in the UN, and uniting our voices to promote democratic ideals worldwide.
We want to provide an alternative network to existing blocs, not a replacement for them. We want all countries to be able to freely associate themselves with the ideals of freedom that will carry their peoples to security, prosperity and peace in the 21st century.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 3:07:18 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Interested to see if Powell will be the next ambassador to the UN -- since he's semi-announced he won't be returning for the second term.
The Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser is a short-range weapon being developed with Israel, which wants it to destroy Katyusha rockets fired at its border villages by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. The weapon looks like a searchlight. In tests during late 2002, the Army used the high-energy laser to heat artillery shells, which exploded in flight. In earlier tests, the laser shot down 25 Katyushas, both singly and in salvos. Artillery shells generate far less heat than rockets do and are more difficult to track. Also, because rockets are pressurized, they are easier to blow up than shells.
The MTHEL is being designed to protect soldiers from artillery and mortar rounds and rockets. the laser system can be packed into about three tractor-trailer loads, he said. The next phase will shrink it to less than one load. Ultimately, it will be small enough to mount on a Humvee.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 22:56 Comments ||
Top||
Lockheed Martin has completed factory testing of the optical benches for the Airborne Laser's Beam Control/Fire Control (BC/FC) system. The Airborne Laser (ABL) is the first megawatt-class laser weapon system to be carried on a specially configured 747-400F aircraft, designed to autonomously detect, track and destroy hostile trains ballistic missiles. The Beam Control/Fire Control system will point, focus and fire the laser to provide sufficient energy to destroy the missile while it is still in the boost phase of flight, before separation of its warheads. The ABL program is managed by the Missile Defence Agency and is executed by the US Air Force from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it had completed functional and performance testing of the two major elements of the Beam Control/Fire Control system - the Multi-Beam Illuminator (MBIL) and the Beam Transfer Assembly (BTA) - at its Sunnyvale, California facility. ------snip-----
Lockheed Martin said it performed extensive testing to verify that the system accurately controls every mirror at operational data rates. The tests validated that the BC/FC system is capable of acquiring a target, initiating tracking of the target, initiating atmospheric compensation, firing the high-energy laser and shutting down the system while maintaining beam quality and accuracy. Lockheed Martin will deliver the Multi-Beam Illuminator next month to ABL team lead Boeing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, where the Beam Control/Fire Control system and the high-energy laser will be integrated with the aircraft.
Following the MBIL delivery, this spring Lockheed Martin will deliver the Beam Transfer Assembly and the Flight Turret Assembly. The Flight Turret Assembly houses a rotating 1.5-meter telescope used to direct the lasers at targeted missiles.
Resistance is futile!
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 1:56:34 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So, does the IDF get a "ZIONIST AIRBORNE DEATH RAY" version?
I'm still curious about the "seminuclear bombs" some Pak paper was raving about the US using a couple of years ago.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
04/23/2004 14:35 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Man, this makes the Afghan's (Northern Alliance) response to our GPS guided missiles look like a cakewalk. Stories (in The Hunt for Bin Laden) say that the NA called our missiles "the American death ray." Now, we really have one! I loved the book (if you get a chance read it). In one of the companies' right up, our guys (groups of 10-12 Green Berets and GPS guy) called in an Air Strike for opposing (Taliban) forces on an opposite mountain top. It was the first time the NA had seen US of A technology and after that, they got in the habit of radioing the Taliban right before we dropped the bomb just to let 'em know they were about to receive a JDAM enema. My favorite story is of the "Death Angel"... a female pilot whom they patched through to the Taliban goons right before she dropped her wad to say "This is for how you treat your women." After that, the NA guys called her the "death angel."
Posted by: BA ||
04/23/2004 14:54 Comments ||
Top||
Ralph Peters
WE shouldnât be discouraged by the recent round of violence in Iraq. It was predictable. But there were two disheartening signs:
* We should be troubled that, in this bloody month, none of the insurgents waved an alternative constitution - unless we count their perversion of the Koran. None of those violent men is fighting for freedom - theyâre fighting to strangle liberty in the cradle. They are, without exception, forces of reaction, not liberation, no matter how madly al-Jazeera twists the facts.
* Nor did the general Arab population or its leaders take a public stand against those who would renew their oppression. And those who will not defend their own freedom do not deserve to be defended by others.
Operation Iraqi Freedom has been, among other things, an attempt to give Arabs hope for a better future. The ultimate outcome wonât be known for years, but we must prepare ourselves for the possibility that the Arabs are going to fail themselves again. With sufficient troops, we can force Iraqâs Arabs to behave. But we canât force them to succeed.
Ultimately, Iraq is not a test of the limits of American power. When necessary, we can do whatever must be done for our security and prosperity. Our use of force, in Iraq and elsewhere, has been remarkably - even foolishly - restrained. If Iraq collapses into medieval fantasies and blood feuds, we still may be proud of having given this crippled civilization a last, great chance to heal itself. Weâve made mistakes, but their impact is minor compared to the unwillingness of Iraqâs Arabs, Sunni or Shiâa, to build a free and civil society of their own.
In the United States, campus-generated political correctness was never more than a joke - capable of turning somber conservatives purple but unable to alter anything that matters. The far more dangerous form of political correctness is that which prevails in the dream-world of diplomacy: We pretend that all civilizations have equal merit. But they donât. Itâs time to face up to the functional and moral collapse of the Arab world - if we canât describe the problem honestly, we shall never deal with it effectively. Arab civilization has failed.
Disguised in part by the trappings of oil wealth, the Middle East has become humanityâs sinkhole, less promising, if richer, than Africa. But no facade of garish hotels in the hollow states that line the Persian Gulf, and no amount of full-page advertisements funded by the Saudi government, can hide the truth any longer: The Arab Middle East has become the worldâs first entirely parasitical culture; all it does is to imitate poorly, consume voraciously, spit hatred, export death and create nothing. Arab civilization offers its people no promising future, only rhetoric about a past whose achievements have been as exaggerated as they were impermanent. The present is a bloody, heartless muddle. For all the oil wealth and expatriate university degrees, for all the hired-in expertise and Western "engagement," Arab civilization has degenerated to a point where it provides the rest of humanity nothing useful of its own design - while offering its own citizens only a culture of blame, corruption and lethargy.
Itâs a matter of culture, not race. In the free atmosphere of America, Arabs do as well as anyone else. All populations have their share of talent - but the oppressive environment of the Middle East enervates those individuals it does not crush entirely. Iraq has been given a chance to break free of the thrall of a bankrupt culture, to establish a rule-of-law democratic government observant of human rights. But the chances are increasingly good that Iraqâs Arabs will fail to achieve and maintain even minimal standards of good governance. The time has not yet come, but, contrary to the sort of diplomatic wisdom that so long protected Saddam, we can walk away if Iraqâs Arabs refuse to help themselves. And we can break up the country to protect the Kurds - a far better solution than turning Iraq over to the venal brokers of the United Nations.
The failure of Arab civilization in our time is the greatest such disaster in mankindâs history. And, bitter though we find the proposition, the failure is so colossal that it cannot be neatly contained. Whether in Iraq today or elsewhere tomorrow, we cannot fully extract ourselves from this problem simply because our enemies wonât let go. If Iraq chooses failure, we can leave. But weâll be back, somewhere in the Middle East. Because, as we saw on 9/11, the Middle East will continue to come to us. Blame is the opium of the Arabs, and the sweetest blame for their failures is that directed at the United States (and, of course, Israel). It is our power itself, not its uses, that enrages Arabs trapped in their self-made weakness.
The oft-cited examples of the Arab worldâs problems, from a lack of interest in secular education and a poor work ethic to staggering corruption and the oppression of women, are symptoms, not root causes, of Arab failure. Past a certain analytical point, we come up against the wall of our own taboos - we cannot admit that the psychological premises of an entire civilization might be dysfunctional. Arab failure isnât about that which has been done to the Middle East, but that which the Middle East has done to itself. Iraq still has a chance, if a slimmer one than we had hoped. But even if Iraqâs Arabs disappoint our ambitions, our efforts will have been worthy and our losses not in vain. Intervention was unavoidable, whatever the critics say. Continued passivity in the face of the Middle Eastâs implosion would only have made the price higher in the end. We all would be better off were the Arabs to surprise us by building healthy, prosperous, modern societies. We would be foolish not to wish them well. But we would be equally foolish not to prepare ourselves for the consequences of their accelerating failure.
Posted by: tipper ||
04/23/2004 11:44:12 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
no!no!no! it's the jeeeewss! we are billion people being subjugated by 3 million blood thirsty jeeees!
Posted by: Dan ||
04/23/2004 12:12 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I'm glad that Peters still has hope. I lost mine during the looting. There is no sense of civil obligation in that civilization. Just naked self interest and tribal bonds enforced only by fear.
Some will bring up the bloggers. Well there is always a thin veneer of Westernized folks in these cultures. We turn to them because they speak our language. They say soothing things to us and we believe them. But when you rip away the veneer, we see a very different picture. Every unit in society is based on oppression: from the "nation" through the neighborhood down to the family. Some hate the oppression and, as Steven den Beste might say, were born Americans. We tend to identify with these also since they are like us. They are not the majority.
What about the Sufis? They are more spiritual, right? More spiritual but just as likely to fight to preserve tribalism and oppression as this article shows.
What about the Turks and Indonesians? Their cities are Westernized and they seem to be progressing. Yet their countrysides are filled with Islamic violence and 7th century ignorance. The Islamist seem to do some of their best recruiting in these Westernizing countries. Why? In times of trouble, cities die fast. Famine and disease spread quickly. What would have happened in Bagdad if any other conqueror had taken it? Perhaps the millions of dead that the fringe left had predicted.
I'm sorry if I bring anyone down. This is the enormity of the task that confronts us. The Islamists know that we cannot coexist. That's why they vow to destroy us. Our civilizations are not miscible like the Confucian civilizations of the Far East and our own. To Westernize Arab civilization, one must first destroy the the authority and power of every sheikh and Ayatollah. One has to force dozens of nations to open banks that allow the masses to invest, not just the 1% that owns all the fertile land. Then you have to convince that 1% that it would be better for them to invest in factories and utilities rather than rent producing land -- in other words to sell their land to the peasants.
We cannot do these things any more than a communist can truly manage an economy. Here is where I absolutely disagree with Peters. The only people that can change their civilization are the Arabs and their satellite Turkic, Magrehbi, Pakistani, and Malay societies. The collapse of Arab civilization will be violent no matter what we do. The more we are engaged with them, the more violence that will spill over to our countries.
#5
Here is where I absolutely disagree with Peters. The only people that can change their civilization are the Arabs and their satellite Turkic, Magrehbi, Pakistani, and Malay societies.
This is why we are there, to give them the opportunity to pick up the ball and run with it. To build something new, and in the process wash away the past. We provide the tools and knowhow, and they provide the effort. If the Iraqis succeed, excellent. If not, then separate the known elements that do want to succeed (read: Kurds) from those that don't. And those that don't should be warned to squabble only among themselves and not to attempt to export their misery, lest they risk being finally ground into dust.
#6
Arab civilization has been in decline for a long time, since the fall of Granada in 1492 and their defeat at Vienna in 1683. Bernard Lewis outlines in "What Went Wrong? : The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East", the Arab world's withdrawal from contact with the West and the resultant disastrous stagnation their societies. Although European imperialism forced physical contact with the West in the 19th and 20th centuries, by then the Arabs had lost the capability for independent thought and action. The Arab world hasn't produced anything but trouble for the last 600 years, so why are we surprised that it is so hard for them to become part of our modern reality.
EFL
A Muslim Jordanian man stabbed to death his pregnant sister because she married an Egyptian man against the familyâs wishes. Investigators arriving at the scene Tuesday said the suspect told them "he killed his sibling to cleanse the familyâs honor using a kitchen knife," the Jordan Times reported. Her death is the fifth "honor killing" in Jordan this year tallied by the Times, which counted 17 last year.
Posted by: Dragon Fly ||
04/23/2004 7:10:49 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Most Jordanian families in this situation would report that the sister committed suicide with the kitchen knife.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
04/23/2004 7:34 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Of course most honor murders are not reported but from what is reported, this one is different from most. Typically the woman is murdered before she marries because, notwithstanding the suspect's claim, the cleansing is not complete if the marriage has taken place.
The Independent today reports that Russia may be about to declare it will sign up to the Kyoto protocol. The move would be a massive U-turn as minister after minister has come out in recent months to bad mouth the plan and its effects on Russia. One senior advisor to the Russian President even went so far as to liken the climate change accord to Auschwitz. Moscow has for months refused to sign the accord meaning the world emissions trading system has not come into force. Without the US on board, the protocol has to be signed by Russia in order to receive the necessary backing to become legally active. Russian newspaper reports indicate that the announcement may be made in the coming days or at the EU-Russia summit in May. Increased EU backing for Moscowâs bid to join the WTO may be behind the about-face, but better quotas for Russia under the emissions trading scheme are likely to be part of an eventual deal.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/23/2004 2:24:31 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
the EU-Russia summit in May
Ahuh. There's your answer.
Posted by: Rafael ||
04/23/2004 2:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
better quotas for Russia under the emissions trading scheme are likely to be part of an eventual deal.
This decodes to the EU is going to pay Russia even more to signup. The Euros want to spend their money on this nonsense then let them.
Posted by: Phil B ||
04/23/2004 4:02 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I am not sure, but if Russia comes onboard, the UN will see Kyoto as taking effect and can start persecuting nations who do not sign it. Anyone else know?
With both the US and Russia declining to sign it, the treaty was dead. Does it, at least as perceived by the UN, take effect in the US if Russia signs?
Yeah, I do know that US Constitution trumps such arraignments, but with international law the way it is, not so sure it still won't be our hassle to deal with.
Posted by: Ben ||
04/23/2004 5:51 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Can you imagine the s@#$%t the left will be in 2020 when everyone has been freezing their butts off for 15 years and someone inconveniently points out that, hey it's not really been any warmer than it was 15 years ago...
#5
I think Eurostan just got a new sugar daddy in Russia. No more relying on theose Simplise Cowboy 'Merkins. Eurostan is trying to make itself a superpower with this new addition to their little 'family.'
Russia signing on to Kyoto could wind up being actual good news. How long do you think Conress would let Euro-Rabia have this nasty little 'blended family' with power to enforce its will on the US and not sanction them by ordering the UN off our soil?
#6
Europe and Russia joining together into a single super state would probably be best for them and best for the world in the long run. The Europeans need some spine, and the Russians need some civilizing. They can then all get together and consider the Islamic menace on their southern border and ignore it or come up with a strategy.
#7
ruprecht - that would be nice, and I hope you are right.
I'm a little more pessimistic. The best I can see from this alliance is that it will result in infighting amongst themselves, causing them to try to align with us as they argue with each other. That's better than them using the US as their whipping boy for nationalistic fervor as they do today.
The immediate need in Europe, whether they admit it or not, is to fight the Islamic threat. The danger is that they won't fight it and it will grow stonger like Hitler did when France bended over for him.
France and Russia were more than happy to accept Sadaam's oil vouchers and the bottom line is the current leaders are prone to corruption - an addiction which the Islamists are more than happy to feed for their united cause.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 11:41 Comments ||
Top||
#8
I'm not suggesting for a moment that Russia joining the EU would do anything for the corruption. I imagine it would expand somewhat. I just think the Russians tuned into the Islamic threat earlier and they could provide a wake up call to those in Europe that still don't get it.
I also think it might give the Russians the power they crave without requiring conquest. Russia has hard workers, lots of minerals and a wobbly rule-of-law and grasp of democracy. Europe has short work weeks and rules against exploiting any of the minerals left in Europe but an overly strong sense of rule-of-law and democracy. Could be a match made in heaven.
#10
Good points. One would hope the spawn of the marriage would get the better, more dominant traits, and consign the recessive ones to the dustbin of evolution.
Posted by: B ||
04/23/2004 14:38 Comments ||
Top||
#11
If they do sign, my only question is how much are the Russians getting, and who in the economically depressed EU is paying it?
And are the Russians stupid enough to think they'll keep paying once the treaty is signed?
Yet again I am so grateful my ancestors said good riddance to Europe.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2004 20:44 Comments ||
Top||
#12
This is just about making Bush look bad in an election year? Unfortunately if Kerry opens his mouth to even breathe the word 'Kyoto', he may as well quit now. He is over. Wanna check another Senate voting record?
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2004 23:51 Comments ||
Top||
As the Afghan farmers prepare to harvest another bumper poppy crop, little is being done to address the rising trend of drug addiction among Afghans both inside Afghanistan and those living in the refugee communities in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. While opium traditionally has been used for curative purposes â treating chronic pains and certain other aliments â the rising number of heroin addiction is a relatively recent phenomenon. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), nearly 40 percent of drug users in Afghanistan began their habit in neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Iran, either as economic migrants or refugees fleeing war and conflict. The finding, that friends and peers were the main impetus for new addicts, illustrates the importance of drug abuse prevention programmes for refugees before they return home. A recent UNODC report says despite a ban on drug use and the criminalisation of the practice by the Afghan authorities, drug use is increasing due to easier access to opium and its downstream products like heroin, unemployment, poverty, âsadnessâ, and âmental pressuresâ resulting from war-related trauma.
Last year the first ever UNODC assessment of drugs usage in the Afghan capital, Kabul, showed that heroin, opium, alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs are being used by thousands of people across the city. The report also indicated that many returning refugees and women are among the drug users. Till recently the consumption of hard drugs in Afghanistan was not considered a major problem. But aid workers now maintain that the situation might be changing fast and the Afghan society has to grapple with yet another tragic challenge. Opium has been a traditional medicine in Afghanistan and hashish smoking has always been common. Even so, taking drugs was considered a social stigma. Interestingly, nearly one-third of the opium users interviewed were women, as were more than a third of those who abused pharmaceuticals especially sedatives.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/23/2004 2:16:33 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Don't get high on your own supply."
Posted by: Rafael ||
04/23/2004 2:34 Comments ||
Top||
âNoshiâ gets best âmujraâ
The most beautiful elder heejra (transvestite) of Dina called Noshi was reported in Khabrain as celebrating his/her birthday with great fanfare. The birthday was secret but the onlookers of the city of Dina and surrounding areas like Gujrat threw banknotes on the dancing transvestites with great abandon. Some transvestites like Bano, Lilly, Reema, Kanwal, etc, performed naked dance at which the onlookers went crazy. Sameera sang English songs and Babblie danced on pieces of glass.
Did Hameed Gul inform Taliban?
According to Insaf, ex-ISI chief Hameed Gul called totally wrong the accusation made before the US inquiry commission that he had informed the Taliban about the 1998 American Tomahawk missile attack on Afghanistan after American embassies had been blown up in Africa. He said he never went to Afghanistan before 2001 and in the beginning was opposed to the Taliban. He said he did not promise in 1999 that he would forewarn the Taliban before an American invasion. He said the Americans were incompetent and lacked all human values.
âNaara-e-Takbeer Allahu Akbarâ in India
A column written by Shaukat Janjua in Khabrain narrated that at a SAARC-related meeting in India, he heard Indian trade minister Sikandar Bakht saying that Indians and Pakistanis had been divided by an artificial line and that this line should be undone to make the people one again. On this a member of the Faisalabad chamber of commerce Mian Shafiq, who had immigrated from East Punjab, raised the slogan of Allah Akbar so loud that the Hindus at the meeting were dumb-struck and Sikandar Bakht forgot his speech. The writer went on to say that Pakistanis were unhappy in Pakistan but when they went to India and experienced freedom and a bit of wine they forgot that Hindus and Muslims had never been friends down the centuries.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/23/2004 1:37:29 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
experienced freedom and a bit of wine they forgot that Hindus and Muslims had never been friends down the centuries.
Which is why the fundis are against freedom and wine, can't have muslims making friends with infidels, it's un-islamic!
Posted by: Steve ||
04/23/2004 8:42 Comments ||
Top||
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.
