Being the Washington Post, some pretty "snide" remarks, naturally, are included in the article. But Rummy is great!
It's clobberin' time! How else to explain yesterday's midday appearance, down in the Pentagon basement, of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (normal human strength, no known superpowers), wedged between Spider-Man and Captain America, trying his best to melt that icy glare of his into a boy-am-I-glad-you-guys-showed-up kind of smirk?
Either Marvel Comics is really hard up for readers and needs an ultra-dynamic, Pentagon-heavy publicity gimmick to boost its sales, or Rumsfeld is finally ready to admit that only a superhero can extricate us from Iraq.
The official explanation for this partnership (The Titanic Three? The Terrific Trio?) is this: Marvel Comics has created a custom "Support Our Troops" comic book starring the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four for "America Supports You," a Defense Department campaign. One million copies will be distributed to service members in the United States and overseas. snip
Yesterday's news conference unveiling the comic book had less of the KOOM! thrill and more of the Santa Claus-comes-to-the-mall feel. Hundreds of Pentagon employees brought their children down to the commercial mini-mall in the basement to "Meet the Superheroes," as the event was billed. Rumsfeld, after urging the young crowd to be "quiet, very quiet, very quiet," introduced the superheroes and said he hoped "we all remember what this is about: supporting our troops."
A man dressed in a Spider-Man costume gamely squatted and did that web-squirt thing with his hands dozens of times to pose for photographs, while the Captain America look-alike flexed his muscles and kept his expression deadly earnest. At some point Rumsfeld too did a little muscle flex for the cameras, only he couldn't keep a straight face. snip
Move over BBC and Al Reuters, this is from the most trusted name in major media, the Weekly World News.
(WWN itself is now using the slogan "America's most reliable newspaper" which could well be true given the reputation of the NYT, WaPo, and other slimey rags.)
DEADLY NEW CREATURES LIVE IN SMOG!
Health officials claim Smoglodytes have killed over 36,000 in Mexico City -- and warn: The death toll is expected to be even higher in L.A. and other large cities
By MICHAEL CHIRON Fresno, Calif.
UNIVERSITY scientists have discovered a bizarre new airborne life form that has evolved in smog -- and they warn it poses a potentially deadly health threat to all Americans.
Dubbed smoglodytes by researchers, the tiny microorganisms are now being blamed for a host of medical woes, ranging from asthma attacks and whooping cough to emphysema. Yet astonishingly, the federal government is taking a hands-off approach to the creatures and the White House has labeled scientists' report on the startling February 22 discovery "classified."
University scientists, eh? Practically as good as The Lancet. WWN, unlike other major outlets, actually recognizes the possibility of fabrication and is even running a "Guess the Fake Story" contest right now.
To prove their credentials and popularity among the intellectual elite, WWN runs a list of Top 10 visiting Universities in the site stats on their (homepage). Currently:
1. University of Missouri
2. University of Michigan
3. University of Maryland
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5. Stanford
6. Purdue
7. Arizona State University
8. Georgia Tech
9. UCLA
10. University of Texas, Austin
(U of Missouri is consistently at or near the top of this list. They don't call it the "Show Me State" for nothing.)
Posted by: ||
04/30/2005 11:38:03 AM ||
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As the son is a journalism student as Mizzou (U of Missouri) he would say its only natural. They do scan everything.
Imagine thousands of young want-a-be journalists looking for a story to put on their resume.
#3
WWN holds a fascination for journalists and writers, and for students of those subjects. The late Carl Sagan reportedly subscribed to WWN. My own long-running interest in this publication is another example. It is, in all seriousness, a cautionary illustration of just what is and is not possible, and of how fragile the boundaries might be. Within the relatively tight limits of libel and slander, there is no law against inventing news out of whole cloth.
Among the general public, there is a vague but seldom-questioned perception that such a law or other external authority prevents the outright fabrication and distortion of news. There is really no such thing, of course, just the internal ethical controls and the market forces provided by review and fact-checking.
#4
being a premiere journalism school isn't something to be proud of
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/30/2005 15:26 Comments ||
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It is for a journalism student who wants a good job when they get out. The "Mizzou Mafia" helps them out. That, though, is a minefield. The son avoids certain topics as the dean was dowager of the US journalist for ages and quit being dowager when a "slimy right wing Fox punk" was awarded something....
Tightrope for a bit longer and then he can earn some money.
#6
aha ....a pragmatist in journo clothing? Dean's that tool from the WaPo huh? Genevieve Overholser or something....too lazy to google her, but I remember her tantrum
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/30/2005 16:34 Comments ||
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School Mistakes Huge Burrito for a Weapon
Associated Press EFL
CLOVIS, N.M. - A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito. "Okay, son, put down the burrito and no one has to get hurt. We can talk about this. . . ."
Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High. The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt. Mmmmmmmmmm . . . jalapenos.
"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," school Principal Diana Russell said. . . .
. . . The burrito was part of [eighth-grader Michael] Morrissey's extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product. "We had to make up a product and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos," Morrissey said. After students heard the description of what police were looking for, he and his friends began to make the connection. He then took the burrito to the office. "The police saw it and everyone just started laughing. It was a laughter of relief," Morrissey said.
"Oh, and I have a new nickname now. It's Burrito Boy."
Posted by: Mike ||
04/30/2005 9:17:37 AM ||
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30" ... could have been a sawed-off shotgun. Glad it wasn't anything like that.
Although those jalapenos sound pretty dangerous, too.
#7
Burritos don't explode until an hour after eating it.
Posted by: ed ||
04/30/2005 11:50 Comments ||
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# 7 yes, this could be a dangerous weapon after
eating and I think you all know what were aiming at.
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
04/30/2005 13:07 Comments ||
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#9
Drop the chalupa!
Posted by: Chris W. ||
04/30/2005 14:20 Comments ||
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#10
I understand that the bean burrito can invoke silent and deadly biochem attacks. Look out! He's loaded!
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/30/2005 15:43 Comments ||
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The US Government has determined that the greates contributor of VOC's in the office (volitile organic chemicals" is "Human bioefluent emitions". Burps and farts.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/30/2005 19:26 Comments ||
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Every woman's dream, I guess, lol! Chocolate beauty treatments Women are being given the chance to 'dive into chocolate' to make themselves beautiful at a health spa in Paris.
Men are being sold tickets to watch at exorbitant prices...
Beauty treatments include a Chocolate and Cranberry Body Scrub, a Toffee Chocolate Wrap and a Deep Chocolate Massage. Therapists at the Four Seasons Hotel George V spa say cocoa has anti-ageing properties and that the treatments are designed to be 'anti diet'. "You know you're going to do yourself good and you won't have any regrets afterwards," said manager Isabelle Schlumberger. "On the contrary you feel good in every sense, all the senses have been satisfied. It's such a rejection of the idea of dieting, to dive into chocolate." The ultimate two and a half hour Decadent Chocolate Package costs £200 and comes complete with a bowl of chocolate sweets beside the massage table. Sweet! Everything else I can think of to say would likely be censored, lol!
Posted by: .com ||
04/30/2005 3:11:40 AM ||
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The U.N. health agency on Friday said that 18 new cases of polio have been found in Yemen, sparking fears of an epidemic in the Middle East country with a low immunization rate among children.
Strange, most civilized countries vaccinate all their children.
"What we're facing now is a major epidemic in Yemen," said David Heymann, chief of the World Health Organization's polio eradication campaign. Heymann noted that the disease had spread across the country from the initial four cases that were recorded in the Red Sea port of Al-Hudaydah last week. The country was previously thought to be to be free of the disease. "Ongoing field investigations have identified additional suspected polio cases across the affected governorates in Yemen," WHO said. "Low immunization rates among Yemen's children may facilitate the spread of the virus." Heymann said all the infected so far were children.
Yep, they're the canaries.
"It will never be possible to tell how this virus came into Yemen," Heymann told reporters. "What's important is that the virus is there and that we have to stop it." A nationwide immunization campaign is planned for the second half of May, WHO said.
Unless some nutwing mullah issues a fatwa, then the WHO will apologize and vacate the country.
"We are confident that this vaccine will help finish polio" in Yemen, Heymann said. Yemen is the most recent of 15 previously polio-free countries that have reported new cases since 2003 after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria was blamed for causing an outbreak that spread the disease to other countries.
But I'm sure that somehow it's our fault...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/30/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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It's Allen's will, isn't it?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/30/2005 1:43 Comments ||
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Lack of vaccinations in Yemen and Pakistan are a reflection of the paltry resources allocated to public health and education. The well being of their people is just not a priority for Pakistan or Yemen. They are both failing states.
Anti-Polio campaigns have been resisted by mullahs who claim that it is all a conspiracy to sterilize muslim girls.
Polio is endemic in muslim dominated areas in India and Nigeria.
When the BJP was in power in India, reporters would write that the muslim community just did not trust the Hindu nationalists. This explained the backwardness of the community and justified their resistance. With a new Government in power they still resist the campaign. They must be waiting for a muslim government.
In northern Nigeria they must also complain about sterilization of muslims and prevent vaccinations.
I guess president Obasanjo must be a hindu nationalist.
Posted by: john ||
04/30/2005 13:47 Comments ||
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the Islamists may succeed in self-extinction via lack of vaccinations. As long as they keep the damage contained, I don't feel real bad except for those too young to be responsible for their condition.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/30/2005 14:12 Comments ||
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In what was a blatant tip of the hat to 9/11 conspiracy pop culture, BBC's new Doctor Who series featured a plot which mirrored every aspect brought forth by those who contend that the September 11 attack was an inside job.
In the recent episode 'Aliens of London,' a spaceship crashes into Big Ben in a sequence eerily similar to the events of 9/11.
While London is put under martial law, it turns out that the purpotrators of the attack is the government itself, having been infiltrated at the highest levels (by aliens).
They then use the staged attack to launch a war on another planet under the pretext that they can attack earth with weapons of mass destruction in under 45 seconds (mirroring Blair's infamous 45 minutes Iraq lie). It turns out that the hidden agenda is to grab the planet's fuel.
The Prime Minister even goes AWOL and is criticized for his lack of action (as with Bush in the elementary school on 9/11).
Immediately after the Big Ben crash, an alien pig-like body is recovered from the Thames river. This race then gets blamed for the attack while the real purpotrators organize behind the scenes. This is symbolic of Muslim hijackers being used as the patsies on 9/11.
The episode even enlisted the services of real BBC news readers to create mock news reports for the show. Click here, here and here to watch them. There is also a mock US news report. Click here to watch that.
Many of our readers will remember the Lone Gunmen pilot episode, which carried the plot where a secret group within the government attempt to hijack a commercial airliner and fly it into the World Trade Center. This was made in late 2000 and broadcast in early 2001.
Alex Jones interviewed Dean Haglund, one of the stars of the show back in December. Haglund said that by the time the X-files was coming to an end, the producer Chris Carter (who also produced 'Gunmen') was being approached by government agencies and NASA with script ideas.
Was this a forewarning from the inside that 9/11 was about to happen?
In the case of the Doctor Who episode, it's a benchmark of how far we've come. Alternate explanations behind 9/11 (ie the truth) are so ingrained in the collective unconscious of popular culture that entire episodes of major fiction and drama shows are being based around them.
This can only be a good thing as it may spur people to look deeper.
Let's just hope that, unlike the Lone Gunmen episode, the Doctor Who show doesn't come true and Big Ben remains standing. N.B.: Leftist wacko site. But they do have video clips.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
04/30/2005 9:33:33 AM ||
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Too bad. I was hoping to see something of the new Doctor Who. Now I would be throwing my self-respect into a shredder if I did.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
04/30/2005 10:04 Comments ||
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This was discussed on Biased BBC the other day.
#8
We need to force the BBC to make long, boring documentaries about the glories of the British National Health Service, and run them 24/7 on all BBC channels. The next election (after this one coming up) would see a host of candidates running specifically to do away with the BBC in its entirety. Who knows, they might even invite CNN, Fox, and PBS to take their place...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/01/2005 0:00 Comments ||
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The US administration highly estimates Russia's role in the anti-terrorist struggle and criticizes Georgia for the fact that terrorists continue using its territory to penetrate into other states. These issues were contained in the annual report from the US Department of State: the report was devoted to struggle against terrorism in foreign states in 2004.
And if the report mentioned Russia's role in helping to supply the sponsors on the list with conventional or nuclear weapons, it's not being reported here.
The American administration acknowledged in the report that Russia had made several considerable initiatives in the struggle against terrorism in 2004. The report particularly runs that Russia's role in the global war on terror has increased. The high level of cooperation between US and Russian special services has become the biggest accomplishment of the Russian government at this point, the report says. Russian inner political reforms, including the cancellation of the public gubernatorial elections, raise concerns with the US administration, because such reforms may supposedly result in the reduction of anti-terrorist efforts.
Oh, so they're reforms now. I didn't know. I'll have to suggest this language to Chancellor Palpatine.
According to the US Department of State, separatists and terrorists in the Northern Caucasus carry responsibility for the killing of hundreds of Russian citizens. US special services, the report runs, have evidence to prove activities of international terrorists in Chechnya, as well as the funding of Chechen terrorist groups from abroad. It is noteworthy that the US administration emphasized subversive activities of the Chechen separatist movement.
The anti-Georgian criticism became quite a surprising part of the report, taking into consideration the fact that the republic of Georgia has been persistently running for the status of the USA's major ally in the Caucasus. Authors of the report wrote that terrorists were still using the territory of Georgia for their own transit, albeit in a smaller capacity. American officials believe that such an activity lessened owing to the efforts of the Georgian administration in the Pankisi Gorge after the tragic terrorist act in Russia's Beslan in September of 2004.
The USA realizes that Georgian law-enforcement agencies are restricted in their possibilities on account of the lack of finance, equipment and training. The USA, therefore, renders technical and financial assistance to Georgia in this respect. In addition, attempts to reform local law-enforcement structures result in messy situations, which do not allow to elaborate the universal counter-terrorist policy in the republic.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the person, who initiated law-enforcement reforms in the republic, commented the conclusions of the US Department of State. "What terrorists in Georgia are they talking about if US President Bush is coming to Georgia, as well as other presidents and thousands of tourists? Georgia has become a normal country," Mr. Saakashvili said. The president stressed out that the American report pointed out the improving situation on the level of security in Georgia.
The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry has not released any comments on the US report, not even on the part about Georgia. Moscow believes that American officials have said everything that needed to be said...
Keep in mind that the report appears to say that the Georgians are having trouble combatting terrorism. NOT that they are a state sponsor of terrorism. One can easily find manyaccounts that Russia suffers from similar problems, and they don't look like the sort that can easily be fixed by cancelling elections.
...Gutierrez's rustic maneouvres with national institutions were only the top of the iceberg of a system corrupted to its roots, which also includes Palacio as one of his executors. The Ecuadorean people is well aware of this and do not trust in Palacio as Palacio presumes.
Gutierrez was the third leader of this unstable, oil-rich Andean nation forced from office in eight years. He took office in January 2003 as a populist, anti-corruption reformer but soon angered many Ecuadoreans by adopting economic austerity measures. Many also were upset by growing accusations of nepotism and corruption in his inner circle.
Palacio is not an outsider and is co-responsible in Ecuador's tragedy, If he is not ready to change anything, then the people of Ecuador will be ready to change him...
If anyone here is substantially more familiar with the state of affairs in Ecuador please feel free to jump in.
US ambassador at the OSCE, Stephan Minikes, arrived in Kazakhstan two days ago. The American official conducted several meetings with the Kazakh administration and parliamentarians. The talks were presumably devoted to Kazakhstan's plans to chair the OSCE.
The chairmanship at the OSCE in 2009 has been the dream of Kazakh President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, for several years already. Mr. Nazarbayev constantly talks about the issue, saying that it is extremely important not only for Kazakhstan alone, but for the entire region of Central Asia. Experts share the position of the Kazakh president: they are certain that Kazakhstan's chairmanship at the OSCE will acknowledge political pseudo-democratic systems of Central Asian states. It is worth mentioning that both the USA and the OSCE accuse the leaders of those states of authoritarianism, in which all international democratic principles are violated radically...
...The Office of the Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan and the financial police of the republic are meanwhile checking all local non-governmental organizations that receive foreign grants. The majority of such organizations have already proclaimed current inspections as politically motivated and connected them with events in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz authorities fear lest "secret foreign services" should fund another revolution on the territory of the republic.
The majority of experts believe that the USA decided to have the wait-and-see attitude to Kazakhstan's OSCE plans on account of the above-mentioned measures that are being taken by the government of Kazakhstan. The USA needs Kazakhstan to "behave:" it is important for the US administration not to revise previously concluded oil and gas contracts.
...Both American and Italian sides agree that the US soldiers did not intend to kill the Italian agent. However, the US side lays the blame for the incident on Italy. The Pentagon believes that American servicemen fired at the vehicle on account of the fact that Italian special forces had not warned US forces about the forthcoming release of the Italian hostage in Iraq. It was also said that the car was moving too fast and did not stop upon the patrol's request, RIA Novosti reports.
Italian citizens, who survived in the incident, asserted that their car was moving at a low speed, and the fire was opened after the driver of the Italian vehicle stopped the car...
It gets snarkier from there.
That's all the truth I have time for right now. More later.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
04/30/2005 12:37:47 AM ||
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President Saparmurat Niazov has added public libraries to the long list of things banned in Turkmenistan — a bitter blow to many in the Central Asian republic who say their last window on the world has been slammed shut. Turkmen have grown used to living without opera, ballet, cinemas and even circuses — all forbidden by Niazov — but they say his decision to close all libraries cuts especially deep.
"First they came for the opera, but I said nothing, because I didn't like opera..."
Olga told IWPR she regularly took her 12-year-old son to the central library in Ashgabat, where he seemed inspired to read. "The library has a completely different spirit, a different atmosphere which gives rise to a thirst for knowledge," she said.
Dictators and despots generally not too keen on that "thirst for knowlege." They much prefer to have the populace actually thirsty, and compliant.
"Now I'm afraid our children won't be interested in anything except futile street activities, so they will lack a basic familiarity with the works of the great writers and poets of world literature. Because of the closure of the libraries, they have been deprived of this opportunity." A 60-year-old pensioner from Ashgabat said the library provided a welcome chance to socialise with friends and discuss the books they'd read. "Now we've been deprived of that too," she said. "I used to come to our district library and get out various books several times a week. You could also read a selection of magazines here, which I couldn't afford to buy on my meagre pension."
Various NGOs including Human Rights Watch and the International Helsinki Federation have protested the late February decision by Niazov — known as Turkmenbashi, or father of all Turkmen — to shut down the libraries. His explanation at a meeting of cabinet ministers was simple, "No one goes to libraries and reads books anyway." Also problematic appears to be the fact that most literature in Turkmenistan's libraries is printed in Cyrillic. Since 1996, schools have been teaching in a Latin-based alphabet.
Only the national library appears to have escaped the purge, so, according to Niazov, it can house new Turkmen literature as well as historical texts. The president said any more libraries are unnecessary as most books that Turkmen need — many written by Niazov himself — should already be in homes, workplaces and schools. Those include the Niazov-penned Rukhnama — a spiritual treatise that is the basis of the country's education system - poems written by the president as well biographies of him and his parents. A recent addition to the school curriculum is the "Source of Wisdom", a book for secondary school students with excerpts in alphabetical order from Niazov's three greatest poetic works. "To read all these books it is not necessary to go to the library as all these books should be close at hand for everyone," Niazov said.
"Or else," he added.
The order to close the libraries came during the cotton harvest under the pretext the buildings were being renovated or inventories done. However, libraries have long been out of favour with the president and this was just an excuse, analysts believe. In the late 1990s, he ordered classics of Turkmen literature written by authors including Berdy Kerbabaev, Rakhim Esenov, Beki Seitakov, Tirkish Jumageldyev, Khydyr Deryaev and Nurmurad Sarykhanov pulled from the shelves and burned. A literature professor at an Ashgabat university said these writers fell out of favour with the president because "they describe the material and spiritual contribution of Soviet republics to the culture of the Turkmen people, their spiritual enrichment and the formation of the Turkmen land".
Crucially, these works contradict Turkmenbashi's own writings, particularly his most important work, the Rukhnama, which denies any influence by civilisation, science or culture on the development of the Turkmen people. It also says the Turkmen invented the wheel and writing. Observers worry about the effect this information vacuum is having on Turkmen and warn of mass ignorance of the people, especially among the younger generation who are deprived of the opportunity to learn about the modern world. Though universities still have libraries, the supplies of books have not been updated for ten years while many works on history, literature and biology have been removed and destroyed. Bookshops elegantly display the president's works, but no other literature is sold. Bringing books into the country privately has become almost impossible as the government has set high customs duties on the import of printed material.
Certain magazines including Cosmopolitan are available from private shops and stalls but since June 2002 subscriptions to foreign periodicals have been prohibited. Access to the web is expensive and limited and as a result most young people have never heard of the internet. One Turkmen observer said, "The plans announced at the dawn of independence to remove communist ideology from national education have ended with government programmes becoming even more ideological. "But now the ideology is different, with scientifically unfounded historical, social and political theses declared by the authorities of the country which go directly against historical facts."
Honest, we don't make this stuff up.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/30/2005 12:02:13 AM ||
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I should have added this before, but at what point does North Korea become a better place to live than Turkmenistan. I think even Kimmie still purports to have hospitals ...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/30/2005 2:20 Comments ||
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These poor folks need an iron fist / bloody red revolution. Rivalling NorkiLand for sheer insanity is truly making a statement.
#5
One of my hobbies is collecting foreign coins and paper money. I'm starting a collection of the filthy lucre of toppled despots---meaning, only after they're toppled. Got me some Saddams and some afghanis. I am so looking forward to getting a few colorful portraits of Turkmenbashi to stick in the album.
It's kinda funny, but there are despots who stick their mugs on the money, and those who don't. Saddam: yes; Castro: no (but when Castro goes down I'm getting myself one of these beauties). Fahd: yes; Kimmie: no (puts daddy on the money instead). Abdullah: no, Elizabeth: yes. (Ha ha, just kidding.)
Compound nutrient powder and jelly have been made in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to improve people's health. Contained in them are 17 kinds of amino acids and natural ferments, various vitamins, 7 sorts of microelements, etc. They are popular among miners and coal-miners and those with other labor-consuming jobs. They are also efficacious for preventing and curing digestive disorder, tuberculosis in early stage, arteriosclerosis and aging. They, made in consideration of the daily average amount of vitamins, salt, microelements and dextrose needed for recovery from physical and mental fatigue, were registered as state inventions in the 7th national exhibition of inventions and new technologies. Can you say Soylent Green? I knew you could.
Posted by: Spot ||
04/30/2005 9:10:28 AM ||
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Serve over super flat rocks. Great appetizer!
Posted by: Iron Chef Sakai ||
04/30/2005 10:49 Comments ||
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Sounds like the End-of-the-War German Syrups for wymans and yuts.
#3
They are popular among miners and coal-miners and those with other dark labor-consuming jobs
who can't see what they're eating....
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/30/2005 11:06 Comments ||
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"...efficacious for preventing and curing digestive disorder, tuberculosis in early stage, arteriosclerosis and aging..."
It's amazing how much healthier people can be when they have something to eat, even if it's just this porridge of multi-vitamin, rice/soy, and sugar (dextrose). The DPRK invents food!
Posted by: Tom ||
04/30/2005 11:37 Comments ||
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#5
salt, microelements and dextrose
Call Bill Cosby. The Norks have invented rock flavored Jello
Posted by: ed ||
04/30/2005 11:54 Comments ||
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Annanova's just loaded with goodies, today, heh. Presented exactly as found...
A top model brought a Sydney street to a standstill when she had a bubble bath in a shop window.
Megan Gale was at David Jones in Sydney to promote her new range of beauty products.
Crowds of shoppers and office workers - most of them male - flocked to the store window after curtains parted to reveal her in a white tub.
Maids poured bath products into the tub before Gale, temporarily screened, emerged from the water and donned a bathrobe.
"There was so many people, I was really quite shocked," she later admitted.
The 29-year-old, born in Perth but who now lives in Italy, has been the face of David Jones for a number of years.
She will this year be seen in her first Hollywood film when she makes a cameo in Stealth, an action film shot in Sydney last year starring Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx. Cleanliness is next to, er, impossible. She's really really shy, as you've prolly guessed, but you can get a better view of Megan here and here and here and... There were only a hundred or so to shoose from. NSFW, but it's Saturday, so...
Posted by: .com ||
04/30/2005 3:43:10 AM ||
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A group of Australian farmers have won permission to open a 'feet-first' graveyard. Keeps 'em from getting dizzy.
The eco-friendly cemetery will bury the deceased vertically to save space and in bio degradable bags in a field to be used later as pasture. Doesn't get any greener than that.
Tony Dupleix, chairman of the farmers' cooperative set up 20 years ago when the idea was first mooted, said it was a 'no fuss' alternative to traditional burials. Dead, huh? Okay. Sign here. Charlie, fire up the backhoe!
"When you die, you are returned to the earth with a minimum of fuss and with no paraphernalia that would affect the environment," he said. So no plastic Wayfarers, patent leather, or latex fetish rigs, please. Sorry, guys.
"You're not burning 90kg of gas in a crematorium and there's no ongoing maintenance costs. You'll just be fertilizer for the South 40.
"Once the cemetery operations are complete it will go back to being a paddock, just as it looks now, with animals grazing," he said. How, um, serene you'll be. Don't think about the cows and sheep shitting on your head.
Bodies will be stored in a morgue in Melbourne and buried in batches of 12 to 15 in three-metre pre-drilled holes. We don't fire up the backhoe for singles, y'know. We sack 'em, rack 'em, stack 'em, pack 'em, and plug 'em.
Vertical burials cost £600 and will be located on land at Derrinallum, west of Melbourne, reports The Age newspaper. The, uh, bag is very expensive, I guess.
Dupleix said they expect to bury between 300 and 400 people a year. Most will be dead, heh.
Posted by: .com ||
04/30/2005 3:27:46 AM ||
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And no tombstones. So in a subtle way this deeply undercuts the sense of an afterlife or of family ties through the generations.
Dialectical materialism, folks. Marx is smiling.
Minerals from the bones will help the cows a decade from now, no doubt.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid raised a few eyebrows yesterday on the Senate floor when he said it would take a "miracle" for Democrats to win enough races next year to take back the Senate. The ClueBat enters, stage right!
"I would like to think a miracle would happen and we would pick up five seats this time," he said during a floor debate over the filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees. "I guess miracles never cease." He never did grasp that number-line thingy. On the left the numbers are negatives, Harry - to the right they're positives, heh.
Republicans were delighted by what they called an "admission" from the highest-ranking elected Democrat in the country. Nope. Never did. Don't expect it'll happen again, either, lol!
"After listening to Senator Reid's political spin about judicial nominees for the last several weeks, it is good to hear him come back to reality -- if even for a brief moment," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Senator Reid can do the math: A Democratic Party, plus no ideas, plus obstruction, plus over-the-top partisan rhetoric equals continued minority." That Q.E.D. stuff sure is fun.
Partisans on both sides of the aisle privately acknowledged that it was a fairly stunning remark. "I'm stunned. How 'bout you, Jim?"
"Yeah, sure. Uh, why aren't those guys getting up?"
"Damnit, Jim, they're dead! It was just too much for their hearts!"
But Democrats pointed out that Mr. Reid was making a larger point about the so-called "nuclear option" that Republicans have threatened to use to unclog the filibusters -- that Republicans might one day regret abolishing the filibuster for judicial nominees. Um, yeah. A larger point and, um stuff.
"If the Republicans keep abusing their power, it won't take such a miracle," said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "They're just so mean to us!"
Jim Manley, spokesman for Mr. Reid, noted that his boss "also said he believes in miracles. As a small-town boy from Searchlight, Nevada, who rose to become Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate, Senator Reid has shown that we can overcome the odds and is certain that we can win back the Senate," Mr. Manley said. When asked when that might be, he mumbled something that sounded like "2040" and headed straight for the bar.
Posted by: .com ||
04/30/2005 1:01:59 AM ||
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Asked for his reaction to Reid's "miracle" remark, former President Bill Clinton glanced longingly at a nearby Senate intern and said, "I belive in miracles. Where you from, you sexy thing?"
Posted by: Mike ||
04/30/2005 9:10 Comments ||
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Jim Manley, spokesman for Mr. Reid, noted that his boss "also said he believes in miracles. As a small-town boy from Searchlight, Nevada, who rose to become Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate, Senator Reid has shown that we can overcome the odds and is certain that we can win back the Senate," Mr. Manley said.
Did he raise among his constituents by telling them he knew what was better for them than they knew themselves, that the few should rule the many, that their personal beliefs in morality and family were bigoted, that the people existed to support the state? Somehow I don't think so. So why does he champion these principles now? Maybe because they are the principles of the "Democratic" Party at the national level, where he sits as Minority Leader in the Senate. And that's why regaining the Senate becomes more and more difficult. Your product does not sell well enough to alter that.
#2
I worked with the resettlement effort as a volunteer, starting in May 1975... sort of a combination social-worker, English teacher, driver, organizer, publicist... helping to resettle Vietnamese refugees in my hometown. One of them, just a kid at the time, had been a Viet AF MP, on duty at Tan Sun Nhut. He and the last of the Viet MPs were trying to work crowd control on the very last day, when the North Viets began shelling the airfield, and only helicopters could still fly. He was carried off his feet in a rush of people, and wound up in the doorway of a helicopter, and just on an impulse, threw away his weapon and got on. The heli flew out to the USS Hancock, which was landing them so thick and fast, they were emptying them out and throwing them overboard. Another family I worked with were supposed to be evacuated; the wife had taught English, and the husband was a librarian for USIS. They were waiting at their house with four childred, and the wife's mother... and only got away because the wife's brother was a Viet Coast Guard officer with access to a 100-ft launch. He sent away his crew to fetch their families, and he came to check on his mother. He told his sister and family to not wait a minute longer but come with him. They crammed a hundred people onto that launch. One of the other young men was a Viet AF mechanic; he got out because he was on a plane full of military technicians who flew to Thailand. Americans who had Vietnamese connections went all out during April 1975, sponsering out Vietnamese friends and family so they could get visas and leave. I met this one man who flew to Saigon to get his wife's parents out. He went for them, and came back with them...AND all of his wifes' sisters and brothers and their entire families, six of the inlaw's neighbors, and some total strangers that he took pity on, along the way; eighty+ people, all told.
I swear, I've blogged more about all this than I have heard on NPR, though.
#3
NPR et al are avoiding the after-fall violence, and that unfortunate "ruralization" in adjoining Cambodia. They've never had an answer for how the savages they supported behaved
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/30/2005 14:51 Comments ||
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Good job SgtM, we would have won the Vietnam War if the Blogosphere had existed in 1975. Wonder just how many Afghan an Iraqi will be alive due the positive efforts of folks like yourself, Rantburg, and the rest of the 'sphere.
Posted by: john ||
04/30/2005 20:50 Comments ||
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There's a prog right now on THS documenting the event. Boy, that now seems like a lifetime ago.
Former President Fidel Ramos' trusted men are reportedly recruiting members for a junta that could be part of a larger destabilization plot against President Arroyo.
Detained former President Joseph Estrada told The STAR yesterday he refused the offer made by the "FVR men" to join their "council." He added that they approached him after the latest Pulse Asia survey showed he enjoyed a 44 percent trust rating.
At the same time, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez warned yesterday that "anti-GMA forces," including supporters of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. and Estrada, are planning to sow chaos during the Labor Day rites on May 1.
Gonzalez said the alleged anti-government forces include some politicians and "civil society" leaders.
"There is an intelligence report about a destabilization plot on May 1. They will gather in front of the University of Sto. Tomas and move towards Mendiola. We will wait for May 1 (and see) if there will be bombings. But from my best sources, it is the same group who wanted to do it during the burial" of Poe last December, he said.
Estrada said he learned about the latest "coup" plot, which was supposedly going to be staged on May 1 by Ramos men identified with the group of retired generals Jose Almonte and Fortunato Abat.
Almonte and Abat served Ramos as his national security adviser and defense secretary, respectively. They have figured prominently in the media during the past few weeks, airing their concerns on the alleged disenchantment of the military, citing the perceived mistreatment of retirees and pensioners who have yet to receive their benefits.
Estrada believes that Ramos has given his blessing for his people to reach out to him, but refused to say who actually approached him.
"Sinasali nila ako, ayaw kong sumali. Eh, panay bata sila ni FVR. Sila-sila na lang! (They want me to join them, but I won't. Since all of them are FVR men, let them run it)," he said.
Estrada said he turned down the alleged overtures to join their de facto council "because they knew a majority of our people still trust me despite the demonizing done to me. I got 44 percent in the Pulse Asia while I'm in detention, just taking care of my ducks."
Chuckling, the ousted president added, "What more if I am out and not detained here in Tanay?"
"If they want me to join them, they should make me the leader, the principal," Estrada said while laughing.
In a more serious vein, Estrada said he is preoccupied with his ongoing plunder trial at the Sandiganbayan. He has asked his defense lawyers to prepare a new petition for the anti-graft court to allow him to post bail.
"I am not a flight risk. I hope they (the Sandiganbayan justices) allow me to post bail so that I can be with my mother in what could be her last days of life," he said. "How can I run away and leave my 100-year-old mother behind? No way."
Estrada laughed off intelligence reports of alleged plots by his supporters to destabilize the Arroyo administration.
"Ewan ko sa kanila! (I don't know about them)," he said, adding that as far as he is concerned, "I'm concentrating on the 100th birthday of my mother this Monday."
The Sandiganbayan has approved Estrada's petition to allow him to join his mother's birthday party at the Manila Hotel from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., accompanied by police and military escorts.
The STAR tried to get in touch with Ramos but his aides said he was in a meeting in Tagaytay City. Ramos' aide told The STAR to fax a request for an interview to his office in Makati City.
Past whispers of a coup had also been linked to Ramos, who was instrumental in Estrada's ouster during a military-backed revolt in January 2001.
But Ramos has repeatedly denied these allegations, saying they are nothing but wild rumors he dubbed "coup-kurukuku."
Ramos, along with former President Corazon Aquino, was last seen with President Arroyo at Malacañang during the state banquet for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao Wednesday night.
Estrada's revelations came as policemen and soldiers prepared for a mass action to mark the May 1, 2001 siege of Malacañang, in which Estrada's supporters stormed the Palace but were violently dispersed.
Meanwhile, two suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf Group asked Gonzalez for police protection, saying they had received information that they would be picked up as fall guys in an alleged plan by anti-Arroyo groups to carry out car bombings tomorrow.
The two men identified themselves as Eduardo Arabe, also known as Abdul Jahlil, and Tyrone Santos, also known as Dawud Muslim del Rosario Santos.
Santos, who was out on bail as one of those accused of planning to bomb certain areas of Metro Manila, insisted he is innocent of the charges against him. His case is pending before the Quezon City regional trial court.
He alleged instead that a certain "Agent B" informed him "now that Dawud is out on bail, the car bombings in Metro Manila will be perpetrated on May 1."
Gonzalez, however, said he cannot assign policemen to protect Santos and instead asked the two men to put themselves under "safekeeping" with the National Bureau of Investigation.
Santos and Arabe refused the offer and decided to seek the assistance of police in Quezon City and Mandaluyong.
Santos was arrested by agents of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) last March 22 at the Rajah Soliman Movement compound in Cubao, Quezon City on the strength of a warrant issued by a Tarlac court for illegal possession of firearms, explosives and ammunition.
He later led the military to a hideout in Fairview, Quezon City where agents seized 10 sacks of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in the manufacture of bombs; 18 bomb canisters; a personal computer and a camera.
The military subsequently linked Santos to a plan to stage bombings during Holy Week, and said the explosives seized earlier were supposed to be used for that purpose.
The bombings were supposed to be carried out by the Rajah Soliman Movement in coordination with the Abu Sayyaf to avenge the death of 24 Abu Sayyaf leaders during a riot at the Camp Bagong Diwa prison last March 15.
Santos is also facing charges in connection with a raid in Alaminos, Pangasinan, where authorities seized a huge cache of explosives. He earlier posted a bail bond of P80,000 for his temporary liberty.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/30/2005 12:22:15 AM ||
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Reg required so posted in full. It contains the startling admission from Science (journal) that they don't publish information disseminated on the internet. Scientific and public interest are apparently not relevant criteria. I could go further and suggest that this reeks of the scientific equivalent of the MSM fear that it is losing control of the agenda. Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.
A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds. A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue.
The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame. The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser. However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.
They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.
Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet". Dr Peiser insists that he has kept his findings strictly confidential. "It is simply not true that they have appeared elsewhere already," he said.
A spokesman for Science said Dr Peiser's research had been rejected "for a variety of reasons", adding: "The information in the letter was not perceived to be novel." Dr Peiser rejected this: "As the results from my analysis refuted the original claims, I believe Science has a duty to publish them."
Dr Peiser is not the only academic to have had work turned down which criticises the findings of Dr Oreskes's study. Prof Dennis Bray, of the GKSS National Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, submitted results from an international study showing that fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity. As with Dr Peiser's study, Science refused to publish his rebuttal. Prof Bray told The Telegraph: "They said it didn't fit with what they were intending to publish."
Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It's pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It's the news value that is most important." He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review - despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.
As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming." Concern about bias within climate research has spread to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose findings are widely cited by those calling for drastic action on global warming.
In January, Dr Chris Landsea, an expert on hurricanes with the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC, claiming that it was "motivated by pre-conceived agendas" and was "scientifically unsound". A spokesman for Science denied any bias against sceptics of man-made global warming. "You will find in our letters that there is a wide range of opinion," she said. "We certainly seek to cover dissenting views."
Dr Philip Campbell, the editor-in-chief of Nature, said that the journal was always happy to publish papers that go against perceived wisdom, as long as they are of acceptable scientific quality. "The idea that we would conspire to suppress science that undermines the idea of anthropogenic climate change is both false and utterly naive about what makes journals thrive," he said.
Dr Peiser said the stifling of dissent and preoccupation with doomsday scenarios is bringing climate research into disrepute. "There is a fear that any doubt will be used by politicians to avoid action," he said. "But if political considerations dictate what gets published, it's all over for science." Too true, my friend.
The European Commission announced plans this week to update efforts among EU member nations to help prevent outbreaks of avian and human influenza.
The H5N1 strain of avian flu is sweeping through poultry in Asia and has spread in some instances to the human population, causing fatalities. Health officials fear the virus could become more infectious to people and cause a devastating global pandemic.
"Beyond the known impact on animal health and welfare, there is a real fear that a mutant strain of avian flu could cause a human influenza pandemic," Markos Kyprianou, the EU's commissioner for health and consumer protection, told reporters in Brussels on Thursday.
Until now, the EU has not adopted measures to monitor the virus, but as a result of the recent outbreak in Southeast Asia, and previous poultry cases reported in Europe, Canada and the United States, health commission officials said they have been prompted to install a continental surveillance plan.
Under the new proposal, the 25 member states would be required to boost their veterinary surveillance of the poultry population to try to detect low-pathogen forms of the virus -- which generally are not dangerous to humans-- and prevent them from mutating into potentially deadly high-pathogenic forms.
The commission recommended each member nation watch for risk factors, such as possible contact of domestic poultry with wild birds, spread of infection among different poultry species and the density of poultry farms.
Commission officials said in a statement the cost of the programs could run from 3 million to 8 million euros ($3.8 million to $10.2 million) per year, adding they were confident the laws would pay for themselves by helping to safeguard the continent's agricultural sector.
"The current situation in Asia and recent outbreaks of avian flu in the EU has shown us how devastating the social and economic consequences of this disease can be," Kyprianou said.
Europe has seen sporadic avian flu outbreaks, beginning in Italy in 1999-2000, with other cases reported in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. So far, Europe has experienced only one human death as a result of avian flu -- in 2003 in the Netherlands.
As a result of the outbreak, however, Dutch authorities worked with the health commission to cull 33 million birds, including one-day old chicks, costing 150 million euros ($192 million).
"This proposal aims to set up the best possible system to prevent new outbreaks of avian flu in the EU, to swiftly manage those that do occur and to minimize their negative impact," Kyprianou added.
In January 2004, the World Health Organization activated its influenza pandemic-preparedness plan after individuals infected with H5N1 died in Vietnam and Thailand.
Since then, the WHO has reported a series of outbreaks in six South Asian countries, including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam and the Republic of Korea.
A report by WHO officials issued April 12 said there have been 80 confirmed human cases of avian flu, 50 of which were fatal, since Jan. 28. Of those, Cambodia reported three cases, all of which were fatal -- including an 8-year old girl from Kampot. Thailand had 17 cases, 12 of which were fatal. Vietnam was hardest hit, with 60 human cases in 18 cities and provinces and 35 dead.
Humans become infected by the avian strain through the air, after inhaling the dried and pulverized feces of birds. Symptoms are similar to other types of flu, including fever, malaise, sore throat and cough. Some victims even develop conjunctivitis.
A WHO report earlier this year concluded that surveillance and reporting systems for both the human and animal variations of the disease have been weak.
"Assessment of the risk to humans need to be based on a risk assessment of the disease situation in poultry that considers the prevalence of highly pathogenic avian influenza and the adequacy of the surveillance system," the report said. "A reliable system of review and verification is needed to ascertain that poultry are disease-free in an area or country. Equally important is a robust surveillance system for human respiratory illnesses that might signal transmission of avian H5N1 infection to humans."
"HANOI" Jane Fonda has at least one admirer of her Vietnam War-era antics. Rosie O'Donnell ranted to Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera in a taped interview that will air tonight: "All I know is that when I was a kid and the Vietnam War was on and Jane Fonda was the only person standing up and saying what every kid that was 9 years old like I was knew — war is wrong and we shouldn't go over and kill people . . . You know [President Bush] invaded a sovereign nation [Iraq] in defiance of the U.N. He is basically a war criminal! He should be tried in the Hague! . . . My publicist says I should stop talking about politics." Somebody who should be required to live in Afghanistan for a year or ten. But the Afghans have already suffered enough.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
04/30/2005 10:41:56 AM ||
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Rosie? There's a Mr. Atkins for you on line 1...
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.
Women are being given the chance to 'dive into chocolate' to make themselves beautiful at a health spa in Paris.
The U.N. health agency on Friday said that 18 new cases of polio have been found in Yemen, sparking fears of an epidemic in the Middle East country with a low immunization rate among children.
President 
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid raised a few eyebrows yesterday on the Senate floor when he said it would take a "miracle" for Democrats to win enough races next year to take back the Senate.
