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Korean beheaded in Iraq
Today's Headlines
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Mary-Kate Treated for Eating Disorder
Pointing out the obvious
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 06/22/2004 3:29:38 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In truth, she has been sooooooooooo distraught over the plight of the displaced "Palestinian" refugees by the evil "Zionist entity" that she has lost her will to eat or live....

___________borgboy in the subjunctive after reading to many Arab news services...
Posted by: borgboy2001 || 06/22/2004 16:28 Comments || Top||


Jackpot - African Migrants land on Nude Beach
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 01:33 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There's a Hollywood script.

African refugees wash up on a Spanish beach, with a twelve-fingered baby comforted by the beachgoers. Now, what happens next?
Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 15:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Who's the love interest? Is she nekkid, too?

I think we've got a hit on our hands...
Posted by: Fred || 06/22/2004 22:29 Comments || Top||


Director Detects Dan Darling in Demons’ Den!
Roger L. Simon, Hollywood writer/director, suspected ex-lefty and known fedora-sporter, visits that notorious den of iniquity, the American Enterprise Institute, and snaps a rare photograph of the elusive Dan Darling, a young man with a suspicious amount of hair. Scroll past Michael Ledeen, who is the one without hair.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 06/22/2004 12:48:09 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But... that's John Cusack!
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 06/22/2004 1:19 Comments || Top||

#2  only better looking!
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 4:31 Comments || Top||

#3  He's dead sexy!
Posted by: Chris W. || 06/22/2004 12:47 Comments || Top||

#4  It's amazing what you can do with PhotoShop.
Posted by: Steve || 06/22/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||


Young Norwegians can earn a merit badge
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 00:36 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I had figured it would be a modified Order of the Arrow.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/22/2004 7:37 Comments || Top||

#2  The badge, which displays sperm cells swimming in waves, can be won by correctly answering 10 out of 13 questions about sex.

Mom, why won't you sign my book? I know the answers. Let me give them to you.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 16:53 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm not sure I'd like to handle the answer sheets without surgical gloves
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 17:03 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Shouldn’t he be wearing a pointy cap?
The Religous Policeman has doubts about the Saudi Security Chief:
"...I’m also worried about Prince Nayif, the Idiot Child of the Saud Family. He’s been far too quiet recently. He normally has Verbal Incontinence - although it’s completely embarrassing, he just can’t stop the words from dribbling out uncontrollably. But we’ve not heard anything since he blamed the Jooos for the terrorism in Saudi Arabia. Everyone laughed at him, but he’s used to that. But then they told him that everyone has always blamed the Jooos for everything - Hitler, various Tzars, innumerable Medieval Kings and Princes - and the Jooo thing really has been flogged to death, nobody’s buying it. Now he’s in a deep sulk. I hope no stray cats go near him. He’s looking around for some new scapegoat. He liked it when he could blame the western booze merchants, but the more he put in prison, the more the bombings went on, so eventually he had to let them go. But still, there was the germ of an idea there. All he needs now is another group of westerners who are operating businesses and are fiercely protective of their territories. Once Prince Nayif has identified them, he’ll strike.

So guys, if your wife has got a Tupperware or Avon franchise, I should start packing right away..."
He may be an ignorant idiot, but he’s a dangerous ignorant idiot. If he isn’t in bed with A-Q, he’s putting on a good fakeout. And possibly angling for the top slot in the corporation...er, I mean, Royal Family.

THAT would be just what we need, having the Wacky Wahabists in control of the Mecca Mosques wasn’t enough, oh no...
Posted by: mojo || 06/22/2004 3:50:56 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
'Honour killings' reinvestigated
Posted by: Howard UK || 06/22/2004 04:30 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The proocess of cultural assimilation continues apace in the UK...
Posted by: Howard UK || 06/22/2004 4:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Eh, just who's being assimilated into which culture?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 7:16 Comments || Top||

#3  I really do fear for your country Howard.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 06/22/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Asian Leaders Seek Security for Oil Supplies
Thailand’s Foreign Minister has called for Asian governments to develop long-term plans to ease energy shortages. Rapidly increasing demand for energy, driven largely by China’s booming economy, has driven prices up, and caused anxiety in a region whose own oil reserves are dwindling. Meeting with officials from 22 nations in the Chinese port city of Qingdao Monday, Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Asia needs to make tough decisions to ensure its energy supplies in the future. Two weeks ago, Thailand became an example of what Asian countries hope to avoid. In January, the government began spending $4 million a day to shield consumers from high oil prices, but the prices remained high for longer than expected. Government analysts in Bangkok downgraded the country’s economic growth forecast by a percentage point, to between six and seven percent. In response to the forecast, the government sought to reduce gasoline consumption by forcing gas stations to close between 0000 and 0500 local time. Officials also announced plans to increase taxes on gas-guzzling vehicles, and to turn off billboards at midnight to save electricity - drastic steps not seen since the oil crises of the 1970s.

Asia has hosted a number of energy meetings this month, after the price of oil reached a 20-year high on June 1, in part due to terrorist acts in Saudi Arabia. The agendas at each meeting have been dominated by concerns over Asia’s oil supply and threats of terrorism. Asia hosts some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and like most of the world, the region is heavily dependent on oil from the volatile Middle East. Southeast Asia has oil resources of its own, mostly in Indonesia. But Indonesia’s old oil wells are drying up, and the country has not invested in new drilling projects. The country became a net oil importer for the first time this year, leaving Malaysia and tiny Brunei as the region’s only net oil exporters.

Merrill Lynch oil analyst Mario Traviati, based in Singapore, says diminishing reserves aren’t the only factor in Asia’s oil equation. "What’s happening at the moment is the industry under-invested in the refining area since the Asian financial crisis," he says. "And now the demand is very, very strong. Basically, there’s a shortage." Cyn-Young Park, an economist at the Asian Development Bank, says China and India, with a third of the world’s population, are largely responsible for that demand. India, she says, recently switched to a more oil-dependent energy policy, while China has grown faster than economists expected. "China is growing very fast. Oil imports have grown by 25 percent for the last two years," she says. Oil prices dropped from their peaks early this month, thanks to OPEC’s announcement that it would increase production. But at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur last week, an OPEC official warned that terrorism could cause prices to edge upward again.

Several recent acts of terrorism in Saudi Arabia have caused oil prices to rise. Mr. Traviati says the attacks on oil supply lines to Asia could have an even more widespread effect. "The region is relying more and more on the Middle East for their crude and one of the concerns we have, is a potential terrorist threat in the Malacca Straits." A quarter of the world’s maritime trade and about half of the world’s crude oil pass through the Strait of Malacca, which narrows to 1.5 nautical miles at one point. Bordering Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, the Strait is already infested with pirates, and experts say oil tankers passing through such a narrow artery make an attractive target for terrorists. The main shipping lane could easily be blocked by sinking a freighter or turning an oil tanker into a floating bomb. Earlier this year, a chemical tanker was hijacked in the Strait. And though the hijackers abandoned ship an hour later after doing no damage, the incident raised concerns about the vulnerability of shipping. Thailand has for six years considered bypassing the Strait altogether by building an oil pipeline across its narrow southern isthmus, from the Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Siam. Last week, the government revealed that it was in talks about the project with a major Chinese energy company. Proponents say such a pipeline would increase security and lower the cost of shipping oil from the Middle East, and lower shipping time to China, the world’s second largest oil importer, by as much as a week.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/22/2004 2:25:04 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Irish outlaw Muslim second wives
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 06/22/2004 13:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Irish Council of Civil Liberties (And burka fetishists) said the enforcement was "despicable". A Lebanese army officer was refused residence for both his wives and 13 children.

Yeah!

Those despicable Irish. . . .
My kind of despicable!

Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 13:39 Comments || Top||

#2  I can't believe I'm saying this ... but go white boy!
Posted by: Edward Yee || 06/22/2004 16:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Beggorrah....INFIDEL!!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/22/2004 20:46 Comments || Top||

#4  By the blood of St. Mensus, the Irish took a stand and laid down the law. Two choices:

1. Eventual Sharia

2. Western Civilization

They chose No. 2. Good show!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 06/22/2004 20:51 Comments || Top||


Turkey sent to the back of the line... again
The Croatians were jubilant last week as the European Commission simply gave the go ahead to name Croatia as a candidate for membership and start accession talks in 2005. This is of course a blow to Turkey that has been struggling for years to appease the EU member states and get a date for accession talks. Turks would have expected at least some tough negotiations for Croatia before they even considered this Balkan country eligible for membership. But we see with great surprise that the meticulous efforts to grill Turkey over practically every issue and create numerous obstacles have not been repeated in the case of Croatia.
More at the link. Basically Turkey gets snubbed again as Croatia is given a date for entering talks on joining the EU. Turkey doesn’t even have that.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 06/22/2004 11:55:23 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  murat - another opportunity to say HAHAHAHA...turkey should of known they could not count on the EU....kinda backed yourself in the corner in a very dangerous part of the world (and do not try and say Bush made it that way - been that way for years - decades)..once again HAHAHA
Posted by: Dan || 06/22/2004 12:19 Comments || Top||

#2  BigEd needs to repost Nelson Muntz
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 12:24 Comments || Top||

#3  This is of course a blow to Turkey..

Reminds me of the hapless dweeb in school that, even after numerous previous instances, will still look down when you point to a spot on his shirt, only to get a finger rubbed upward across his face as a joke.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/22/2004 13:03 Comments || Top||

#4  France and Germany have been very clear about their opposition to Turkish entrance to the EU.

Perhaps Turkey will be invited in after Islam takes over Eurabia.
Posted by: yank || 06/22/2004 13:12 Comments || Top||

#5  At Turkey is still great friends with the US... oh, right.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 06/22/2004 13:35 Comments || Top||

#6  Turkey's been improving but it's not ready for the EU yet.

And the EU is not ready for Turkey, for that matter. Even if you let aside its large and growing population, the problems with Cyprus and so forth, and the human rights issues, I'm not so sure we want to have common borders with Iraq, Syria and Iran as yet.

Croatia is a much less problematic candidate all around.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 14:44 Comments || Top||

#7  Turkey should have given up long ago and worked on their own middle-eastern empire. If they'd sided with the US they could easily have taken over Syria and played the majority role in the Iraqi occupation . Turkey could have been a player again, instead they simply want to hitch their wagon to the EU and let them do all the thinking and hard work.
Posted by: yank || 06/22/2004 15:21 Comments || Top||

#8  Erdogan to Chirac and Schroeder

If I let you screw me again, then can I be your friend?
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 15:23 Comments || Top||

#9  You know, Aris, the last external genocidal war the Turks were involved in was the Cyprus embarrassment. The Croats were ethnically-cleansing Serbs and Muslims as recently as nine years ago. The only reason they're not doing it right now is that they managed to clean the Serbs out of their controlled territory, root and branch.

Apparently the EU is for nations which are smug in their genocidal success. Nations which have repeatedly failed to finish off their minorities are clearly too racially inferior for the European Union.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 06/22/2004 16:13 Comments || Top||

#10  oh jeez, you countered Aris!, Here comes another 80 comment thread.....
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 16:18 Comments || Top||

#11  Mitch>

And Greece had been a dictatorship that attempted the military takeover of Cyprus (and I assure you that *would* have been followed up by an ethnic cleansing of the Turkish Cypriots there) only SIX years before it became part of the EU.

Given that Croatia will at soonest become a member state on 2007, that'll be a gap of 12 years, double the gap that was given for Greece. Am I right?

--
Also:

Freedomhouse labels Croatia as "Free" at 2/2

http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/countryratings/croatia.htm


even as it labels Turkey as "Partially Free" at 3/4

http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/countryratings/turkey.htm

The lower the ratings the better.

From the same Freedom House, Press Freedom is rated at 33 in Croatia, at 55 in Turkey. (ratings of 2003, I believe) Again the lower the better.
----

So, yeah, I think you'll find EU caring about the modern-day status of countries more than they care about whether they have crimes in their recent or distant past.

If it makes you any feel better, cooperation at handing over all war criminals to the international court is essential in moving Croat-EU relations forward.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 16:41 Comments || Top||

#12  Also note Mitchell's fine distinction of "external genocide" versus I suppose "internal genocides" which are probably okay by him.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 16:49 Comments || Top||

#13  Aris, that last comment is uncalled for. You posted that out of spite over the fact your comment was questioned.
Posted by: Charles || 06/22/2004 20:53 Comments || Top||

#14  No, I posted that out of spite over the fact that he said: "Apparently the EU is for nations which are smug in their genocidal success. Nations which have repeatedly failed to finish off their minorities are clearly too racially inferior for the European Union."
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 21:35 Comments || Top||

#15  You gotta admit though, Turkey does now look like a...well, turkey. So was it worth it, bending over for Chiraq??? I hope he used a condom at least. Suckers.
Posted by: Rafael || 06/22/2004 21:47 Comments || Top||


French wine-makers stirred by US losses
French wine producers need to radically rethink the way they package and market wines to US consumers if they hope to stem the decline in their share of the multi-billion dollar US wine market, a panel of industry experts said here.
Bwahahaha!
Sales of French wine has been held back by confusion over the type of wine being sold, perceptions that the wine is over-priced, and an inability to distinguish between the hundreds of different brands on the market, said panelists during a seminar at Vinexpo Americas 2004, a wine trade fair being held in Chicago.
Not to mention they're FRENCH!
France now lags Italy and Australia in wine exports to the United States, the world's largest wine market, although its sales of premium or high-end wines have held up well. Part of the decline can be attributed to the surging euro, which has jumped from 84 cents to a high of USD 1.29 over the past three years, and anti-French sentiment stemming from the fallout over the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Posted by: Steve || 06/22/2004 9:28:13 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  French wine producers need to radically rethink the way they package and market wines to US consumers

"You see that label that sez Made In France?"

"Oui!"

"Take that label off."
Posted by: BH || 06/22/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#2  How could that articled not even mention that Americans boycotting frog products is also having an effect? I haven't had a drop of French wine in 3 years. And I love wine.

Meanwhile, more (deserved) frog-bashing here. Hey, Frenchmen, when a second-tier gossip columnist uses all her space to bash your country, you should probably just admit that you're wrong.
Posted by: growler || 06/22/2004 11:22 Comments || Top||

#3  France now lags Italy and Australia in wine exports to the United States

AND

anti-French sentiment stemming from the fallout over the US-led invasion of Iraq

1+1=2. It always has. It always will.
Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 12:00 Comments || Top||

#4  I hosted family parties each of the past two weekends. We served three American (Bud, Yuengling and Sam Adams) and one British (Bass) beers and three Australian (a Shiraz, a Chardonnay and a Cab), one Italian (a Pinot Grigio) and one American (a Pinot Grigio) wine, as well as some excellent Italian and American meats and cheeses. The only Frog product that slipped through the nets was a small piece of brie that was deemed "not very good" by my wife.
Posted by: Tibor || 06/22/2004 12:18 Comments || Top||

#5  French wines have suffered one blow that is irrepairable. Prior to the spat, French wines were living on the image that being French somehow meant it was superior. Not anymore. "Made in France" no longer carries the panache it once held, and they won't get that goodwill back. It's gone.

In the end, they basically ended up educating everyone that good wine is good wine - and being from France isn't a key part of that equation
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 12:22 Comments || Top||

#6  They still have that 'French Wines - 10 to 20% off!' sign at the local package store; it's been there due to a lack of demand for over 2 months now.

Air America, French wines - we need a three-fer in the schadenfreude column!
Posted by: Raj || 06/22/2004 13:24 Comments || Top||

#7  In general people who are sophisticated about wines dont go by the country on the label theres way to much variance among the makers, different varietals and years, etc.

I havent been as into wine as a few years ago, but it used to be the sense that at mid price levels Calif and Australia were better deals for the money, esp on Cabernet, Chardonnay, Sauvingon Blanc. France remained superior on Pinot Noir, Gamay-Beujolais, and on high end (premier cru) Cabernet-Bordeaux.


Of course more recent trends are the selling varietal Merlots.


Whenever you have customers try your competitors product, youre doing your competitor a favor. Some wont like the alternative, but some will, and you wont get that customer back.
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 06/22/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#8  "We are talking to the average consumer using a language he doesn't understand and
isn't interested in," said Jean Marie Chadronnier, chief executive officer of Dourthe, a producer of premium French wines, speaking at the event late Sunday.

"We have to bring something accessible . . . not thousands of brands and petits chateaux."


Ah, now there's the problem. We Americans are simpletons, that's why we don't buy more of their wine. I suppose he's right in a way. One thing my simple brain has figured out is that the French collectively, and often individually, are insufferable.

Here's a story that mixes French wine and US military action: circa 1991 I was visiting an Oregon winery and got to chatting with a Frenchman working as the assistant winemaster. He was insistent on telling me that US air force pilots were all heroin addicts who needed to shoot up before each mission. (With DOD supplied slag, of course.) He knew this because he did his military service at an air base in the south of France where planes going to and from Gulf War I refuelled. I never figured out if the dude actually believed this stuff or if he was just being provocative. Either way, he was being typically French.

The embargo on French goods into our household will continue for the forseeable future.
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 06/22/2004 13:44 Comments || Top||

#9  classic liberal... at least the French winemasters can look forward to employment in the US..where wine sales are booming.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 13:47 Comments || Top||

#10  The French wine industry is still mad at the US for reviewer Robert Parker.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 06/22/2004 21:01 Comments || Top||

#11  And the world has moved on... and found love...
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 21:06 Comments || Top||

#12  France? Bah. It's Spain I'm boycotting.
Posted by: someone || 06/22/2004 22:35 Comments || Top||

#13  Actually, there are great wines coming out of Australia now. They have had time to get things right and find the right grapes and climates to produce wines that are superior to almost anything the French can make, especially when ti comes to red wines. And for everyday use, California and Italy still make great priced table wines that are better than French wines that sell for 2 times the price.

The French blew it - the only thing they had going for them was years of snobbery.
Posted by: OldSpook || 06/22/2004 23:35 Comments || Top||


Vote 'No' for a federal Europe
Another FINE piece By Mark Steyn.
Posted by: Brett_the_Quarkian || 06/22/2004 12:41:00 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't think Tony's getting this one at all. May have bitten off more than he can chew.
Posted by: Howard UK || 06/22/2004 4:20 Comments || Top||

#2  The reality for Britain in Europe is simple: united we'll fall, divided we might stand a sporting chance.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 4:29 Comments || Top||

#3  How can Steyn oppose the single most important project in the world?!
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 7:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Crawford> How can Steyn oppose the single most important project in the world?!

The same way some countries opted out of World War II when *it* was the most important project in the world, and the same way some countries opted out of taking sides in the Cold War when *it* was the most important thing happening in the world. Or the same way Portugal refused to finance Colombus' foolish expedition westwards.

But the problem is that he is indeed opposing it as you say, rather than simply opting out of it. My annoyance at Steyn is not that he rejects the constitution, it's that I've not see him anywhere in that article call for UK to leave the EU in its entirety.

And yeah, all those paragraphs and fine-print he mentions, I hope he remembers about half of these were due to Britain's insistence on caveats upon caveat. A constitution without UK involved would somewhat more simple and streamlined I think, since UK alone represent more than half of the exceptions that needed to be mentioned in said constitution.

"Say what you like about those shifty duplicitous Continentals, but on this issue it's successive British governments that have been shifty and Monsieur du Plicitous who's been admirably straightforward."

No shit.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 9:21 Comments || Top||

#5  what an idiot
Posted by: aris hater || 06/22/2004 10:37 Comments || Top||

#6  Right, Aris. It's all Britains fault that D'Estang and his hench-persons put together the most impenetrable mass of feel-good bullshit and lawyerese anyone's ever seen and presented it as a proposed constitution.

You bet.
Posted by: mojo || 06/22/2004 10:42 Comments || Top||

#7  I was being sarcastic, Aris. The EU's no where near the most important project in the world.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 10:47 Comments || Top||

#8  I was being sarcastic, Aris.

I would have *never* guessed.

mojo> I don't care how much you reject reality --reality's still there. AFAIK, it was British objections that forced the inclusion of trully opaque "lawyerese" such as:

"If members of the Council, representing:
(a) at least three-quarters of the level of population, or
(b) at least three-quarters of the number of Member States necessary to constitute a blocking minority resulting from the application of Article I-24, first subparagraph, indicate their opposition to the Council adopting an act by a qualified majority, the Council shall discuss the issue."

This kind of bullshit wasn't in D'estang's work. This was part of the recent bullshit compromises more than half of which were meant to pacify UK. As far as I know only UK wanted the creation of a whole paragraphs concerning the qualified minorities on the "discussion" of issues.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 11:16 Comments || Top||

#9  And Robert, concerning EU not being the most important project in the world, as far as I know EU is the most talked-about non-WOT related subject in this forum, love it or hate it -- and given that this is a WOT-centered forum populated mostly by Americans, that's saying something I think.

EU's also the only matter that half a continent had recently referendums over, and quite likely half a continent will soon again have referendums over.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 11:31 Comments || Top||

#10  I read the constitution when it was in draft form, before the caveat stuff was put in, and as I recall it tried to encode a lot of feel-good socialist policy stuff, as opposed to simply outlining a mechanism of government.
Posted by: virginian || 06/22/2004 11:32 Comments || Top||

#11  virginian> Indeed. I'm not saying *all* the problems of the consitution, arose out of UK objections. Only half of them. :-)

And some of the "socialist-policy" stuff would be bound to enter regardless:
European constitution don't tend to be as rare to change as the US one, so I believe stuff often get added to them which end up enshrining particular policies. E.g. the constitution of Greece includes provisions on the protection of forest areas, the function of universities and the role of education, the authority that regulates radio-tv frequencies, and lots such stupid stuff which I personally think should be simple laws rather than parts of a constitution.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 11:42 Comments || Top||

#12  Le Chirac, La belette première a peur de ses propres gens votant sur la constitution. Maintenant cette chose entière pue !

(thirdpage.com)
Posted by: Pepe LePeu || 06/22/2004 11:44 Comments || Top||

#13  I liked the footnote to the EU Constitution that said that all member states will be referred to as Departments of France. I thought that was wonderfully inclusive.
Posted by: yank || 06/22/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||

#14  Serious question.

Has anyone debated what happens to various EU overseas territories, dominions, and Departments? Does French Polynesia still stay under the boot of France or could they become a member state of the EU if they pushed? Same with Frenchy Guyana, or the little UK and Dutch dots in the Carribiean?
Posted by: yank || 06/22/2004 13:22 Comments || Top||

#15  yank> I'm pretty sure that no part of a member state can assume that it can become a member state itself by breaking away from its own nation. If it gains independence from its country, that's obviously independence from the EU as well. Let it apply for membership on its own afterwards and then it's up to the rest of the countries on whether they'll accept it or not.

---

As to the rest of your question, scope of the Constitution is declared thusly in the draft (and I don't believe anything has changed in this articles since the draft):

Article IV-4

Scope

1. The Treaty establishing the Constitution shall apply to the [insert list of member states]

2. The Treaty establishing the Constitution shall apply to the French overseas departments, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands in accordance with Article III-329 of Part III.

3. The special arrangements for association set out in Title IV of Part III of the Treaty
establishing the Constitution shall apply to the overseas countries and territories listed in Annex II to the TEC.

The Treaty establishing the Constitution shall not apply to overseas countries and territories having special relations with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which are not included in that list.

4. The Treaty establishing the Constitution shall apply to the European territories for whose external relations a Member State is responsible.

5. The Treaty establishing the Constitution shall apply to the Åland Islands in accordance with the provisions set out in Protocol 2 to the Act concerning the conditions of accession of the Republic of Austria, the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden.

6. Notwithstanding the preceding paragraphs:
(a) the Treaty establishing the Constitution shall not apply to the Faeroe Islands;
(b) the Treaty establishing the Constitution shall not apply to the sovereign base areas of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Cyprus;
(c) the Treaty establishing the Constitution shall apply to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man only to the extent necessary to ensure the implementation of the arrangements for those islands set out in the Treaty concerning the accession of new Member States to the European Economic Community and to the European Atomic Energy Community, signed on 22 January 1972.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 14:12 Comments || Top||

#16  Well if I was Bavaria, or Tuscany, I'd declare independence and join the EU seperately to avoid the additional layer of taxation.

If I were the independence movement in French Polynesia I'd be thinking the same thing. They could almost certainly get a better deal as part of Europe than as part of a state that is part of Europe. Ditto Scotland, Whales, Basque, and a dozen other areas. But that's just me, perhaps the historical warm-fuzzy of being part of a thousand years of history and culture is stronger than I imagine even if they are willing to see that history seriously dilluted into the federal state.
Posted by: yank || 06/22/2004 15:13 Comments || Top||

#17  I think the historical warm-fuzzy is indeed stronger than you imagine. But I have indeed heard mention of Scottish, Welsh, Basque and such nationalists wanting to separate from their countries and become separate member-states of the EU. But such people ofcourse would have probably wanted independence from their current countries even if EU didn't exist.

You have to again keep in mind however that you need a unanimous agreement of the current member-states before any new new member state is accepted.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 15:58 Comments || Top||

#18  Would they need 100% approval from all member states? Imagine French Polynesia which recently voted in some Independence-minded fellows. If they went around the EU saying they would love to be a member state, but if not they absolutely would not tolerate being a French possession anymore what would happen?

I assume the French would try to veto. Would a United Europe sit idly by and allow the French to send troops and beat the Polynesians back into submission?
Posted by: Yank || 06/22/2004 22:54 Comments || Top||

#19  Yank you are wasting your time with this idiot..
Posted by: Anon34 || 06/22/2004 23:12 Comments || Top||

#20  The EU looking more and more like an empire. :0
Posted by: Rafael || 06/22/2004 23:25 Comments || Top||

#21  Yank> Why are you confusing two different issues? I already said that accession of a new member state requires absolute unanimity. You seek to confuse this issue with the issue of a territory breaking away from its country. That's between the territory and the country, ofcourse. If the territory breaks away from the country, they no longer have any connection to the EU. Doesn't that make sense?

As for whether EU will try to stop its member state from sending army to territories that are recognized to be legally theirs, it has never done so this far, and I don't see why it would do so in the future. EU never tried to stop the Spanish from keeping the Basques in Spain, and never tried to stop the Brits from keeping North Ireland in the UK.

But if you are referring to oppression, that's ofcourse difference -- France wouldn't have a right to violate the political or human rights of the French Polynesians. Any French polynesian, as citizen of the EU, would have a right to press charges against his government for violating his rights.

Rafael> *g* That map's a few days outdated. Croatia should have been colored as a candidate member state, same as Bulgaria, Romania. and Turkey.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/22/2004 23:50 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore
By Christopher Hitchens
Mikey, you do not want Chris Hitchens chewing a hole in your behind; it is going to hurt.

Example: " I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible."

Another: "If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture."
Posted by: Steve White || 06/22/2004 1:21:25 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Moore reminds me of something I occasionally pick on the soles of my shoe.

Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/22/2004 1:40 Comments || Top||

#2  I read the entire article and was absolutely floored. That was one of the most articulate, verbal disassembly and dismemberments I have ever witnessed. Hitchens is scary.
Posted by: anymouse || 06/22/2004 1:45 Comments || Top||

#3  I just love it when they eat their own. :)
Even more vicious and biting than when they're fully involved in an episode of BDS.
Posted by: therien || 06/22/2004 1:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Hitchens is a real master when it comes to polemics. Even when he takes bizarre and wrong-headed positions on other issues, you have to admire his talent even when you disagree. In fact you have to appreciate how hard it is to disagree with him, even when you know in your gut that he's wrong.

But when he takes your side (i.e., when he's right), he can be the most powerful spokesman. For 3 years, he has been one of the most eloquent defenders of the war on terror.
Posted by: John in Tokyo || 06/22/2004 2:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything.

How pathetic of an individual does one have to be to follow MM?
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 3:58 Comments || Top||

#6  If the film is nothing but lies, why is it getting the world attention? Why can not the Zionist conservative right acknowledge the true facts mentioned in the film?
Posted by: Anonymous5296 || 06/22/2004 6:21 Comments || Top||

#7  Ye Gods! When Hitchens is on a tear, he sure tears 'em up!
Posted by: Mike || 06/22/2004 6:24 Comments || Top||

#8  What true facts?Be specific
Posted by: Raptor || 06/22/2004 8:49 Comments || Top||

#9  There's that Zionist word again.
Posted by: Anonymous4021 || 06/22/2004 9:32 Comments || Top||

#10  KoolAid drinkers like A5296 will read Hitchens' rip-n-tear and see a two-thumbs-up on this piece of crap. The Academy should be horsewhipped for fraud if they call this a documentary
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 9:35 Comments || Top||

#11  Key graf We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.

The left has to choose between what its against and what its FOR. Real leftism on the ground in Islamic world is the bitter enemy of both Jihadism and Baathist Fascism. So is it more important to oppose the US and UK, especially the Bush Admin, or to support the goals and aspirations of progressives in the Islamic world, and oppose fascist movements in the Islamic world. Hitchens and Paul Berman have chose one path, Michael Moore has chosen another.
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 06/22/2004 9:38 Comments || Top||

#12  Anon5296 - It gets world attention in 2 ways:

1) in the same manner that a bloody car wreck attracts sick twisted assholes and fuckwits to gawp and gape

2) because there is a significant population segment, approx 50%, with an IQ under 100 - some, such as yourself, significantly lower

And who, pray-tell, is the "Zionist conservative right"? Hmmm?

You've read too many supermarket tabloids and viewed too many Michael Moore turds, I'm afraid. Yes, it shows...

Quick cognitive dissonance quiz:
1) Elvis, dead or alive?
2) Space Aliens, why are they interested in probing your ass?
3) Are they also curious why your head resides there?

HAND
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 9:38 Comments || Top||

#13  nice bit in there for Antiwar and her ilk:

If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 9:42 Comments || Top||

#14  I'm all for free speech and think that the only thing between MM and obscurity is that big media showers him with attention for political purposes.

But, at what point do you cross the line between spin and outright slander?
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 9:51 Comments || Top||

#15  From Frank's quote of Hitchens quoting Orwell:

Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …


Two years ago, I found an essay from H.G. Wells that sounds the same notes.

This part of his description of the "Yielding Pacifist" should sound familiar:

The vulgarity and crudity of the things nearest him impressed him most; the dreadful insincerity of the Press, the meretriciousness of success, the loudness of the rich, the baseness of common people in his own land. The world overseas had by comparison a certain glamour. Except that when you said "United States" to him he would draw the air sharply between his teeth and beg you not to...


Wells and Orwell were describing the same mindset. We can all point to people today who exemplify that mindset. What a pity that some people never seem to learn...
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 10:06 Comments || Top||

#16  Analinguist 5296 sez:
"If the film is nothing but lies, why is it getting the world attention?"
So, "world attention" is the test of truth? You cannot possibly be that stupid.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/22/2004 10:17 Comments || Top||

#17  I suppose that A5296 also believes in racist ideology and the dangers of witchcraft, since both of these have received, and continue to receive, a great deal more "world attention" than the ravings of the Ham-ass terrorist, Mike Al-Moor.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/22/2004 10:20 Comments || Top||

#18  I guess Shrek is true too! Whoda thunk it!
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 10:32 Comments || Top||

#19  Frank--

Antisemite has never, ever read Orwell. She's barely heard of him. Remember how she didn't think anyone supported both Hitler and Stalin?
Posted by: BMN || 06/22/2004 10:47 Comments || Top||

#20  Gee Communism and National Socialism got a lot of WORLD attention, they must be good too? What a MOROON! Love the article and I don’t usually read from slate but this article hit a home run with me.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 06/22/2004 11:13 Comments || Top||

#21  Did anyone catch the two LA Book Fair Debates about the Iraq war? They were carried on C-SPAN. On one side was Christopher Hitchens and Michael Ignatieff. On the other side was Robert Scheer of the LA Times and Mark Danner of The New Yorker. The debates are memorable because they were so tense and ugly at times. The pre-war debate was a resounding victory for Hitch and company. The second debate was this past April during the height of Sadr/Fallujah. Ignatieff practically capitulated. Hitch by himself got knocked out of the saddle. The other side simply was able to count more baby ducks and wring their hands louder. It is good to see Hitch back in the saddle.
Posted by: Zpaz || 06/22/2004 11:41 Comments || Top||

#22  It has impressed me that there are eloquent spokesmen of the left who have a world view when it comes to the BIG ISSUE.

In the war on terror, Hitchens has acquitted himself well, and in a well spoken comment by John in Tokyo, above, . . .But when he takes your side (i.e., when he's right), he can be the most powerful spokesman. For 3 years, he has been one of the most eloquent defenders of the war on terror.

Couldn't have said it better. I am over being a little pissed at Hitchens over remarks I thought were unkind, re: Ronald Reagan. Let's get back to the focusing on the WoT and the egomaniachal false preachings of an overfed idealogue.

(starwars.com)

Michael Moore

Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 12:16 Comments || Top||

#23  That can't be Moore -- not ugly enough and not nearly fat enough.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 12:18 Comments || Top||

#24  Zpaz, I saw them both and totally agree. Hitchens is great when he is mildly hung over, but not when he is still drunk from the night before. See Lileks post today about this Hitchens piece: "Ever wondered if there’s a literary equivalent of someone attacking a hanging side of beef with a chain saw? Wonder no more. And if you think he’s some reflexive right-wing hack, read his Reagan piece. I am reasonably sure he wrote both pieces in the same state of furious irritated inebriation, and both strike me as two-pack essays. Forty cigarettes, minimum. Of course, you don’t know if he’s one of those light-‘em-and-leave’-em writers who fire up a Winston, set it aside, pound furiously for four minutes, take that last toxic plastic-tasting drag that makes you think I hate cigarettes for a fleeing second, or whether he parks the butt in the corner of his mouth and smokes as he writes, getting ashes all over the place. I suspect the latter. I suspect he is one of those writers who doesn’t empty the ashtray until the piece is done, and occasionally will use the butt to clear away some empty real estate in the ashtray so the cigarette doesn’t relight the discarded filters.

If he’s a filter man. Probably so. Otherwise he’d have to shave his tongue with a straight edge every morning. Steady, lad. Steady. Hold the wrist with the other hand if you have to. Ah, to hell with it."
Posted by: Sludj || 06/22/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||

#25  I would agree that he probably wrote the Reagan piece while drunk...however...it seemed to me that what he was saying in the Reagan piece was....

that he saw [past tense] Reagan as less than a hedgehog, but then "then the wall fell" and he noted that his liberal friends curiously would rather have had the likes of Dimmy or Mondale rather than see the wall come down. He then went on to wonder aloud why lefties seemed to share a psychosis in needing to knock down leaders to make themselves seem important.

I guess I just don't see how that isn't consistent with his life's journey. It's hardly a Reagan slam - more of a self-slam of his previous ability to see Reagan clearly.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||

#26  B, I think that was the last line in his Reagan screed. I haven't read the Bleat today, but will head over there now. BTW: check out Wretchard today. Man, can that guy write.

A friend said something about Moore a couple of weeks ago that I thought quite apt. "If there is one guy in the world I would like to see get charged with an iron-clad pedophelia case, he is it."
Posted by: remote man || 06/22/2004 16:27 Comments || Top||

#27  Absolutely beautiful. I almost hope Moore sues over this; it would be wonderful to see that fat, arrogant, tactless, ugly jerk having his ass handed to him.
Posted by: The Doctor || 06/22/2004 16:46 Comments || Top||

#28  this screed by Hitchens has been spread far and wide on the blogs today...heh heh. Seems to be a lot of Schadefreude at his expense. Couldn't happen to a bigger Piece Of Shit better guy
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 17:02 Comments || Top||

#29  If there is one guy in the world I would like to see get charged with an iron-clad pedophelia case, he is it."

LOL!!! He's got that look about him doesn't he?
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 17:07 Comments || Top||

#30  Moore is such a friggin' coward too. I loved how Hitchen's and Slate (via Shafer) called him out. There's no way in hell he will appear on the same stage with Hitchens now. The F movie (better nickname solicited hereby) is getting very good reviews by the critics. They should read Hitchens first, because their ignorant reviews all sound moronic afterward.
Posted by: sludj || 06/22/2004 20:18 Comments || Top||

#31  "If there is one guy in the world I would like to see get charged with an iron-clad pedophelia case, he is it."

Leave it to you idiots to see only one side of an issue. For MM to be charged with an iron-clad pedophelia case, it would mean that a child was abused. You narrow-minded folk don't care what innocent by-standers get hurt so long as your ultimate goal, regardless of how petty, is met. No wonder this country is in the shape that its in.
Posted by: If not holier - smarter than thou || 06/30/2004 20:26 Comments || Top||

#32  There is a refutation of Unfairenheit 9/11 provided here.
Posted by: Tim Blake || 07/04/2004 8:00 Comments || Top||

#33  Ahhh, the pleasure of watching Michael Moore's hallarious FARENHEIHT 911!

No "props" needed to be built, no facts had to be "created," no one had to "read" for the leading part!

'Ol Michael just assembled the facts, "nothing but the facts Ma'dam!"

The scene of the politician refusing to discuss "sending his kid to Iraq" was a jewell!

The last 5 minutes of 'Ol DUMB NUTS staring into space "As Rome Burned," tells us loads about why a CHICKEN HAWK DRAFT DODGER (including GPA C- students) should never be elevated to the highest position in the country.

Will America repeat its mistake of 2,000 in 2004?

Over the dead bodies of our young warriors!

TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.
DBA: IDidntVote4TheBasTerd@msn.com
Posted by: TheAZCowBoy || 10/30/2004 11:53 Comments || Top||


Great White North
Canuck Conservatives Battle Liberal Moral Gag Law
EFL
While Canada’s newly merged Conservative Party’s upward thrust in the general election polls is tied to Liberal scandal after scandal being exposed, as well as the Conservatives own moderate platform of middle class tax cuts, according to the mail bags of senators and members of Parliament, (thousands and thousands of letters) a moral backlash could also be building. Topics that average Canadians are beginning to notice in spite of there being little to no mainstream media coverage include the definition of marriage as being one man and one woman and Bill C-250 that now protects "sexual orientation" in the criminal code.

Bill C-250, the "moral gag law," represses moral opinion by adding the undefined term "sexual orientation," to existing hate crime legislation, passed through the Senate’s third reading, April 28, 2004, a few weeks prior to Paul Martin’s calling the general election. Bill C-250, an important part of the social-liberal agenda in order to stifle debate on the marriage issue, means that pastors, who are already being prosecuted for speaking out against homosexuality by Human Rights Tribunals in Canada, could also now be criminally charged. Canada has in fact now made "sin" a hate crime... Bill C-250 was originally a private members bill
(how do they get away with talking about their private members in a bill?)
brought forward by Member of Parliament Svend Robinson, a member of the socialist New Democrat Party. The bill died before Christmas but was reborn again this spring. Robinson has been involved in various radical stunts such as posing nude on the Internet for an environmental group and has been in favor of such things as lowering the age of consent in Canada (the age of consent is now only 14 years of age). Robinson graced the front pages of Canada’s newspapers after he was caught on videotape stealing a diamond ring for his lover, but has yet to be charged...

Martin also tried to reclaim the party’s left wing component by promising to reintroduce a bill to decriminalize marijuana. The auditor general reports that less then $500 million is invested in fighting illicit drugs in Canada, and Canada’s burgeoning basement trade of high potency pot is spawning a wave of organized crime never before seen in Canada. But an unconcerned Martin lightened the mood while visiting a daycare center by joking he had not smoked marijuana but, "there is a rumor going around that I have eaten [marijuana] brownies."
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 3:05:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Age of consent is only 14 in Canada? I thought some of those chicks on Burrard looked a little young...
I'd forgotten about Canada in the hubbub the other day over Virginia, but this is very interesting.
Googling yields this page, kinda scary:
www.ageofconsent.com
Posted by: therien || 06/22/2004 11:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Didn't Conan O'Brien's friend go to Canada and make remarks about the homosexual population there?

(formetopoopon.com)



On a serious note. Personally I have a live/let live re: activities amongst adults, but if this gag stuff is true, particularly in regard to a religious belief, then something has to be said about freedom in Canada, and it isn't good.
Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 11:54 Comments || Top||

#3  there were trying to add such a law here in California. Very broad wording that said you can say anything bad about anyone else. HOW CHILDISH!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 06/22/2004 12:07 Comments || Top||

#4  Prolly just trying to catch up, er, down with Europe, a favorite of the (ex) Hollyweird crowd...
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 13:03 Comments || Top||


Conservatives Poised for Comeback in Canada?
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 00:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Canada needs to become normal again.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/22/2004 2:39 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Al Gore To Accuse Bush Administration Of Intentional Distortion On Iraq/Al Qaeda Ties In Speech
Via Drudge - "He Betrayed Us!"
Tue Jun 22 2004 17:28:24 ET

Washington, DC-- In a major Washington policy address this Thursday, former Vice President Al Gore will accuse the Bush Administration of intentionally misleading the American people by continuing to falsely claim a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

He will charge that Bush and Cheney have "institutionalized dishonesty as an essential element of their policy process."

Gore will also urge the broadcast media to further resist Administration efforts to manipulate and intimidate them, to fearlessly report the fact that there is no Al Qaeda/Saddam collaborative relationship, as the 9/11 Commission staff report has concluded.

Gore will also discuss the implications of the Administration’s claim to be above the law in ordering the torture of suspects - and their claim that the Commander in Chief’s power trumps all other laws. He will call for the Administration to reveal all orders given the military on the treatment of prisoners.

Developing...

God, I hope he endorses Kerry! Must be jealousy at Bill’s "Me Me Me" week?
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 5:35:03 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Please oh PLEASE let him endorse Kerry!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 06/22/2004 18:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Can't wait for that Gore emotion to show up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Democratic Party.

Guess he didn't hear what Chairmen Kean and Hamilton said after the press went over-board in the Commission's Staff Statement coverage.
Posted by: danking_70 || 06/22/2004 18:20 Comments || Top||

#3  And here I thought this dumbass would be back in his hole for at six weeks after that insane speech shilling for that assinine enviro-movie.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 06/22/2004 18:25 Comments || Top||

#4  Careful what you say about AlGore here, boys. Remember, he gave us the Internet. He can take it away.
[/sarcasam]
Posted by: Mike || 06/22/2004 18:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Has Al had work done? Saw him at Reagan's funeral and at his hissy fit a few weeks back. He looks like his face is on too tight.
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/22/2004 20:34 Comments || Top||

#6  tu3031, no, I think he fried his emotion chip during his last envirorant. Apparently the new one is scheduled to be installed sometime on Wednesday.
Posted by: Scott || 06/22/2004 23:29 Comments || Top||

#7  This makes me mad. I was hoping that Teddy Kennedy would belt this one out first. Every time Teddy gets worked up I have hopes that the last Value Meal that he has enhaled will finally be the last one. It's a shame that McDonalds is doing away with the "Super Size" option. That may add five to ten years on to his lifespan.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/23/2004 1:22 Comments || Top||


Clinton Loses His Cool - The Interview, The Tape!
Yesss! The Schadenfreude three-fer! (link via Opinion Journal)
Posted by: Raj || 06/22/2004 2:41:18 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As of High Noon, PDT, the article on the BBC directly below Clinton is:
"Can Condoms Kill?"

How appropriate!
Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 14:57 Comments || Top||

#2  I saw this on the WSJ Best of the Web:

"One of the reasons he [Kenneth Starr] got away with it is because people like you only ask me the questions. You gave him a complete free ride. Any abuse they wanted to do. They indicted all these little people from Arkansas, what did you care about them, they're not famous, who cares that their life was trampled. Who cares that their children are humiliated. Nobody in your line of work cared a rip about that at the time. Why, because he was helping their story. And that's why people like you always help the far-right, because you like to hurt people, and you like to talk about how bad people are and all their personal failings"

I bet Billy Dale feels their pain.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/23/2004 2:16 Comments || Top||


Bush is losing the paranoid schizoid vote
No link - a Rantburg Exclusive

I work in the Washington DC area and see a fair number of homeless folks. Most are well behaved since DC passed a law making aggressive panhandling illegal.

In the past few months, I’ve noticed that those panhandlers who want to rant frequently have an anti-Bush theme added to whatever else they are saying.

Today, I saw a schizoid type at a store hanging out near where the shopping carts are parked. He delivered a long rant about how the carts were not aligned properly (at least I think that was the subject) then said, "its just like Bush".

It appears that Bush is losing the schizoid vote. If you add this to the ex-felon vote, the econut vote, the jihad vote, the socialist vote, the gay vote and the quotas and restitution for slavery vote, it could be looking very good for Kerry in Greenich Village, NY and the Tenderloin district of SF.
Posted by: mhw || 06/22/2004 11:21:58 AM || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What part of SF is it not looking good for J-Fing-K? The only question about some districts in SF is if the Nader-Camejo ticket will finish ahead of GWB.
Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 14:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Bush is losing the paranoid schizoid vote


hmmm...from the title, I thought you were just talking about Bush-Haters in general.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 14:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Actually biged there are some precincts on the west side of SF in the Sunset and Richmond districts where GWB may do well. These are inhabited by people who have paid high SF taxes all there lives and have gotten less and less in the way of city services.
Posted by: mhw || 06/22/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Don't these folks kinda forget about voting. Perhaps we could whip by them with an uncorked wine bottle on a stick that they can chase after like the rabbit at the greyhound races?
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 16:12 Comments || Top||

#5  For the last few weeks I've seen Democratic Supporters (sporting a 'Democratic party' pin on their chest just like they do with Kimmie-boy's pin in Kimmieland...) on the streets in Downtown Seattle.

They always ask things like 'Do you want to get Bush out of the whitehouse'? or 'Would you like to remove Bush'? (I always respond with 'Why? He's doing a great job!' which shuts them up pretty fast).

Odd how they never tell what they would do and dont mention Kerry.... or what they would have done instead...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/22/2004 16:18 Comments || Top||

#6  I told the high school kid that came by here sporting a Kerry pin and clip board that I wasn't going to vote for democrats because I didn't want him to get drafted ... ya see, a clean-cut, pasty-white, fella such as himself was obviously school bound .....and the Dem's want to assure that a rich, white, child of privilege such as he be forced to join the service, despite the fact that there are more than enough volunteers. What?... didn't he know his party was pushing to reinstate the draft??? See how important it is to pay attention in class?

ok..that's what I should have said.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 16:48 Comments || Top||

#7  BigEd ain't been in the Mission lately....
Posted by: Anonymous5331 || 06/22/2004 20:03 Comments || Top||

#8  So it looks like the Dimbos can save the money on the free smokes and malt liquor for the homeless voter program this year?
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/22/2004 20:39 Comments || Top||

#9  Capt America---What you do is to take some high test monofiliment fishing line, tie it onto the back of your pickup, tie the other end to the bottle of Ripple, and drive in 1st gear at low speed. It is called Trolling for Winos and will be the title of Mike Al-Moor's new movie, which will be coming out this fall to a theatre near you, well maybe.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 06/22/2004 20:56 Comments || Top||


Air America Update: "Oops! Our Ratings Really Do Suck"
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 12:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Now if only Al Franken and Randi Rhodes would admit that THEY suck...
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/22/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Bomb-a-rama :
Each other?
Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 14:58 Comments || Top||

#3  ***hurrrrrrl***
Posted by: eLarson || 06/22/2004 16:35 Comments || Top||

#4  Uh, that's a nice visual, BigEd...
Posted by: Raj || 06/22/2004 16:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Now all Franken has left is to run for public office and feel that sting of defeat! I think he peaked in trading places where he played a nit-wit baggage handler. Nobody wants to listen to this unless they like hours and hours of hate America programming. Hell even Osama would grow tired of the crap spewing from them.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 06/22/2004 18:25 Comments || Top||

#6  Each other?

Somehow my brain feels dirty. Not me, just my brain.
Posted by: Charles || 06/22/2004 20:57 Comments || Top||


USA Today: Cheney needs to step aside for good of Bush
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 06/22/2004 07:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Seems to be a rash of these articles recently. I rather doubt there will be a change (Bush seems too loyal/stubborn for it), but if there were, it seems likely that it would be a "surprise" move at the convention to gain as much bounce as possible.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 06/22/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Opening line:
I am writing to you as a long-time admirer...
...that just happens to spout the rhetoric of the hard-left.

1) A vice-president is not nearly as big a factor as the writer believes. The people who believe Cheney is the White House puppet-master and the Oil Industry Rep-in-Chief already hate Bush and Cheney. Big deal. Removing Cheney from the ticken won't convince them. Neither would a sudden about-face on Kyoto. They just hate these guys.

2) Even in the 4th year of the Bush administration, there are still people who don't recognize "Dick Cheney" as the current VP, and think that Halliburton makes those Miami Vice-era aluminum brief cases. I'm not just talking about the kind of people on Street Smarts... I'm talking about otherwise intelligent, educated people who just don't pay much attention to politics. Hard to believe they still exist, but I work with them daily.

Leave the status = quo. And ignore the dead tree media when they start giving advice to a Republic seeking re-election.
Posted by: eLarson || 06/22/2004 9:09 Comments || Top||

#3  There's a part of me that wants to see W and Vice President Condoleeza Rice on the convention podium together, but . . . no.
Posted by: Mike || 06/22/2004 9:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Mike: There's a part of me that wants to see W and Vice President Condoleeza Rice on the convention podium together, but . . . no.

Rice is a blank slate. I have no idea of her positions outside of national security - which were properly conservative and anti-Soviet, during the Cold War, when she was an academic at Stanford. There's no way she's ready for the vice-presidential slot. She needs to get her political sea legs somewhere, perhaps in a governorship, before reaching for the ultimate political prize.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 06/22/2004 10:11 Comments || Top||

#5  If Cheney is going to step aside, it's a smart move to delay the announcement until as late in the game as is possible. It will delay the time they have to practice their policies of personal destruction on whoever the new running mate will be.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 12:27 Comments || Top||

#6  I'd like the Mucki viewpoint on this matter.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/22/2004 15:46 Comments || Top||

#7  Hey, why not? He could go and run Halliburton's new "Conquest of Space" program.
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/22/2004 20:42 Comments || Top||

#8  I expect to see this:
Bush - McCain
up against
Kerry - Gephart
Posted by: 3dc || 06/23/2004 0:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Klein: No 9-11 If Only Clinton “Had Been Free to Fire Freeh”?
EFL from MRC
9-11 Ken Starr’s fault? On NBC’s Meet the Press, after endorsing Bill Clinton’s disgust for Ken Starr (“He makes a very strong case for Starr’s abuse of power”) and agreeing with Clinton’s view of himself more as victim than perpetrator (“My feeling is, that in the end on all this stuff he’s more sinned against than sinner”), Time magazine’s Joe Klein gave credibility to Clinton’s claim that but for the Lewinsky scandal Clinton would have fired FBI Director Louis Freeh, who had proven incompetent in the battle against terrorism. Klein suggested “we might have had a better shot at rolling up those al-Qaeda cells if Bill Clinton had been free to fire Freeh.”
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 12:46:53 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm sure...he was thinking about Freeh when his 'knob' was 'slobbed'!!
Posted by: smn || 06/22/2004 2:08 Comments || Top||

#2  With Monica under the desk, Clinton was always in a Freeh Fire Zone.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 2:49 Comments || Top||

#3  So in other words - if he hadn't been a priapic goon humping the help, he might have been able to DO HIS JOB by firing an incompetent FBI Director? Is that about right?

Pathetic.
Posted by: mojo || 06/22/2004 3:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Joe Klein = Useful Clinton Idiot
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 3:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Never mind that it was the State Department's "Visa Express" that made it easy on them to get in.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 7:14 Comments || Top||

#6  When was it legislated that the CIA could not "talk" to the FBI?
Did Freeh have anything to do with that?
What we do know is that Clinton didn't want his left hand knowing what his right hand was up to:-))
Posted by: Cynic || 06/22/2004 10:01 Comments || Top||

#7  It was legislated awhile back, and made more stringent by one Jamie Gorelick who worked under Reno. She wanted to go beyond what the statute called for.
Posted by: eLarson || 06/22/2004 14:35 Comments || Top||

#8  Ha HA !! This is pathetic. Oh yeah let's blame 911 on Clinton. You guys are desperate. You'll have plenty of time to look back and reminisce after the elections.
Posted by: Ali Abdel Hafiz ben americani al ignorami aziz el alb mahmoud mustafa ben shoo bee doo || 06/22/2004 14:41 Comments || Top||

#9  Oh yeah let's blame 911 on Clinton.

Most of the hijackers came into the country during his administration. His State Department instituted the "Visa Express" program. He failed to do anything -- ANYTHING AT ALL -- about the 1993 WTC attack.

Why don't you go away and learn somethings, idiot? Your inability to comprehend what's been going on is stunning. I bet you're one of the jihadis chased off of the jihadwatch site, here just to spew your hatred and try to start fights.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 14:45 Comments || Top||

#10  This is the strangest statement I've heard in a while.

"...IF Bill Clinton had been free to fire Freeh."

He says that like Freeh had some dirt on Clinton that gave him job security.

I wonder what the hell it was.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 06/22/2004 20:15 Comments || Top||

#11  He failed to do anything -- ANYTHING AT ALL -- about the 1993 WTC attack.

Hint for the dumbass troll with the long name: That's the FIRST attack on the WTC that DIDN'T bring the towers down. Didja get that? Now write all this down, as there will be a test on it this Friday.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/22/2004 21:26 Comments || Top||

#12  Al Ignorami's writing style indicates English is a second language, or he's a juvie.
Posted by: intel analyst || 06/22/2004 22:19 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
WND: Vietnam cites Kerry to prove U.S. abuses
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 00:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Of course the 'Winter Soldier' staged investigation upon which Kerry had based his testimony has long since been proven as a deliberate fraud. People who have testified at it were either not ever in Vietnam or were imposters -- falsely claiming to be someone who had been in Vietnam.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/22/2004 1:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Wait! Was Kerry in Vietnam?
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 3:52 Comments || Top||

#3  and some people thought McCain might pair up with Kerry.....yeah right!
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 4:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Don't underestimate McCain's irrationality. Watched over time, he comes across as short a bunch of gears--dangerously so. He doesn't seem to have much of a grasp of the US Constitution.
He also has a bad temper.
Arizona is a safe State for him, though, as the AZ GOP won't nominate anyone to run unless they are able to pay their own way--they don't fund their own candidates!
Most AZ republicans wish that McCain would retire.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/22/2004 12:08 Comments || Top||

#5  I disagree. McCain may be a hot-head, and for that reason, I wouldn't vote for him for President. But I think the Senate is a great place for him.

That McCain can cross party lines to get something done is a good thing in my book.

Say what you want about him, but he's a true American - regardless of whether or not you always agree with him and I don't.

That McCain is willing to publically shake hands with Kerry, and other slime bags in our Senate, in order to get things done doesn't mean he doesn't wash them incessantly once he gets home and out of public view.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 12:49 Comments || Top||

#6  What's with all the virus attempts? Is there some way that when we are in the comment section that it opens a portal or something (whatever) that allows hackers joint access?
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 12:51 Comments || Top||

#7  ? Virus attempts?
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 12:51 Comments || Top||

#8  I'd say about 2 out of 5 times I'm in the "submit query" section that I get hit with alerts. I can't help but wondering if during the info transfer that it doesn't somehow open a door to my computer to someone else logged in at the same time. But then what do I know?

Just wondering.
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 13:12 Comments || Top||

#9  never had that happen to me - dunno, sorry :-(
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||

#10  Thanks for asking..hmm...wonder if it's only me??
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#11  B, it happens to me too occasionally on my home PC. It's not just port scans, its outright intrusion attempts.
Posted by: Zpaz || 06/22/2004 16:16 Comments || Top||

#12  hmmm - I've got a firewall and AV going, but neither show any attempts on mine
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 16:20 Comments || Top||

#13  It's prolly Spyware - when in the post comment or preview mode you're in an HTML Form - whatever is on your machine must be detecting it and activating (prolly trying to snarf up textbox contents on Submit)... I have had a hell of a time lately - they're proliferating like crazy... and I have the best anti-spyware product available, as far as I know: Spy Sweeper.
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 16:23 Comments || Top||

#14  I had that happen twice on my home PC about three days ago. Both instances were within minutes of each other, but the firewall got them both. Haven't seen anything like it before or since.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 06/22/2004 16:25 Comments || Top||

#15  Thanks .com. They've been busy today. Why would they want to snarf up textbox contents?
Posted by: B || 06/22/2004 16:56 Comments || Top||

#16  that dc, considering Spy S for a network sweep.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/22/2004 18:52 Comments || Top||

#17  that is local jargon for thinks
Posted by: Shipman || 06/22/2004 18:53 Comments || Top||

#18  .com writes, ...and I have the best anti-spyware product available, as far as I know: Spy Sweeper.

I have a better one: a Macintosh :-)
Posted by: Steve White || 06/22/2004 19:00 Comments || Top||

#19  Ad-aware and Spybot are both free and will find most spy-bugs and data mining bugs...
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 19:10 Comments || Top||

#20  I have a better one: a Macintosh :-)

sigh
My cat Lizzy Borden has even better solution, she uses HP 20320 programable catculator.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/22/2004 19:17 Comments || Top||

#21  watch her with that axe, Eugene
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 19:43 Comments || Top||

#22  I'm purdy careful with her.
Posted by: Shipman || 06/22/2004 20:02 Comments || Top||

#23  Ship - Is this Lizzy sharpening her claws in anticipation of a night on the town?
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 20:14 Comments || Top||

#24  meow! Think I'm in heat!
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 20:17 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Oil minister says "no restriction" for US companies in Iran’s oil tenders
Oil Minister Bizhan Namdar-Zangeneh said here on Wednesday [19 May] that the US companies face no restriction in participating in Iran’s oil tenders. "Iran has neither banned nor restricted US companies from its oil tenders," Zangeneh told a press briefing after the weekly cabinet meeting when asked whether the US Halliburton company had been awarded the bid on a project for development of phases nine and 10 of South Pars gas field.
I bet most Americans think U.S. oil companies are not allowed to engage in any form of business with Iran>
Zangeneh however declined to say whether any agreement had been reached between Iran and Halliburton in that connection. He said oil supply exceeds the demand on global markets, raising fears of falling prices. He added that oil price rise on the markets is due to the US limited oil refining capacity and its military and political problems. He concluded that regional insecurity has raised concerns on global oil markets.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/22/2004 2:22:41 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Mullahs Have Troubles Managing Economy According to Koran
From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
... workers throughout the country continue to face difficulties. More than 200 salt factories are on the brink of closure and thousands of people could lose their jobs, salt-factories representative Hassan Ebrahimi-Sarcheshmeh said. He ascribed this situation to a doubling of salt prices by the federation of salt-mining cooperatives that disregarded the Commerce Ministry’s opposition. Luristan Province railway workers who have not been paid have held another sit-in to protest nonpayment of wages. A Kurdistan Province textile factory’s closure has left 300 people without jobs. Iraj Bahram-Nejad, a provincial House of Labor official, said that demand for the textiles is high but there is inadequate supply due to a lack of cash and raw materials, as well as mismanagement. The factory’s machinery is not running on the grounds that it will be replaced with new machinery, he said, but it was on the same pretext that other factories were closed. Kerman Province House of Labor official Abbas Kar-Bakhsh said the Asia Textile Factory has closed because of mismanagement and a dispute between managers and shareholders, ILNA reported. This has put 110 people out of work.

... three months into the Iranian year, which began on 21 March, not only have retirees not received the bonuses the government promised them, but in some cases they have not received their regular payments. These developments come as the country deals with a 10-15 percent annual inflation rate. The government normally provides retirees with tokens worth 600,000 rials (about $75) for the purchase of goods such as oil, rice, and butter, but this year it has provided only 480,000 rials (about $60) worth of tokens. As a result ... retirees’ living standards are deteriorating. Ali Akbar Khabazha, director of the association of retirees and civil servants, said that responsible officials are not providing any information on this situation. Laborers are entitled to retirement benefits after 30 years, but because of financial difficulties many retirees must continue to work.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/22/2004 8:40:30 AM || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We can send them Kerry? Please?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/22/2004 11:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Yeah, he'll raise their minimum wage!
Posted by: The Doctor || 06/22/2004 15:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Mullahs with no moolah?

Sounds like a new NGO name.
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 16:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Mullah Nomoolla Abdulla
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 06/22/2004 19:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Taliban
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 19:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Mullahs with no moolah

Great name for a band.
Posted by: Pappy || 06/22/2004 21:38 Comments || Top||


Central Asia
Uzbekistan Prohibits Schoolgirls from Wearing Headscarves
From Khilafah
Uzbekistan has intensified its crackdown on Islamic dress as part of an ongoing campaign against what it terms "radicalism". A government-run council on Sunday decided to ban Muslim headscarves in a school in Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley - the country’s religious heartland. The Uzbek constitution already bans the wearing of religious dress for those working in the public sector. Gulnora Salokhiddinova, a 14-year-old girl from the village of Margilan, was sent home from her school for wearing a hijab – but only after all students were gathered at a general assembly to witness her being publicly criticised.

Gulnora’s grandfather, Sadriddin Salokhiddinov, stated that the family interprets such criticism as an assault on the right to be able to practice religion. "There is no law prohibiting Muslim scarves!" said Salokhiddinov. "No such law! If parliament issues such a law, then OK, we would admit our fault." Her father could not be contacted as he is one among the hundreds arrested as a suspected member of the Islamic radical group Hizb al-Tahrir following two bomb attacks last March. But Shoazim Minovarov - chairman of the Cabinet of Minister’s Committe on Religious Affairs - stated that the school’s decision to "persecute" people for wearing headscarves was unlawful.

However, School Headmaster Zafar Amirov believes that forbidding the scarf is his duty as a teacher. "Students at school must wear a uniform," said Amirov, who asserted that he had not received orders "from higher up" to ban the scarf. "We must gradually reform this girl."

Gulnora said that the school’s staff and students would only express support for her decision to wear the headscarf in private. "Many students and even teachers told me ’we would love to wear Muslim scarves...but we are scared’," she said.

And there is good cause to be scared. In Bukhara, for instance, Nazira Ismailova - the chairperson of local council number eight - keeps a special file called Dangerous Groups. Dangerous groups include families that have relatives working abroad or children under the age of 18 whose "immature minds" could be influenced by Islamist extremists. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/22/2004 10:09:03 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Aren't headscarfs more Arab dress than Muslim dress?
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/23/2004 1:16 Comments || Top||


Narcotics Addiction and AIDS Spread in Central Asia
From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
.... A 2002 report provides the UN’s latest estimates on the number of drug users in the region. According to the report -- based on an assessment launched in 2000 -- the number of drug addicts in Kazakhstan, a country of some 15 million, is estimated to be as high as 186,000. Neighboring Kyrgyzstan is estimated to have as many as 100,000 drug users out of 5 million people. The number of drug users in Tajikistan, a country of 6 million, is believed to be as high as 55,000. In Uzbekistan, the most populous Central Asia country with 25 million people, the number was estimated at between 65,000 and 91,000. No figures were available on Turkmenistan ... for lack of cooperation with the international community in its fight against illicit drugs.

James Callahan, the regional director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told RFE/RL that the drug problem has worsened in the region, particularly over the past two years .... the situation is continuing to deteriorate or get worse again because of the increasing traffic from Afghanistan." ....

An additional problem is that heroin addicts in Central Asia use the drug intravenously -- something that has contributed to one of the world’s fastest-growing infection rates of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. .... In 1995, 88 persons were officially registered as being infected with HIV/AIDS in the region. In 2003, reported infections jumped to more than 6,700. These are only the registered cases. Experts warn the real figures are significantly higher. The World Bank estimates that the real number of HIV-positive cases in Central Asia most likely approaches 90,000. ...
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/22/2004 7:52:23 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How come we get editorial emphasis on this article, but nary a thing w/regards your postings regarding Iraq?
Posted by: Pappy || 06/22/2004 20:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Never mind. The "past two years" emphasis makes it clear
Posted by: Pappy || 06/22/2004 21:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Perhaps it's my youthful indulgence in bad lit'rature, but I suspect that when the WoT is over we're going to find Gharlane of Eddore behind it all. File this part under "Zabriska."
Posted by: Fred || 06/22/2004 22:38 Comments || Top||

#4  I agree with #1's question ie. what's the point of posting this article? It would appear that many Muslims in back water countries bordering Afghanistan are getting hooked on heroin and are getting AIDS. Indeed, the article states:
Cultivation of opium -- the raw material for heroin -- was banned in Afghanistan under the five-year rule of the Taliban militia. But since the fall of the regime following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, heroin production has once again rocketed in Afghanistan.

So is the poster suggesting that this a new front on the West's WOT - turning potential Muslim jihadists into AIDS ridden drug addicts? Inquiring minds want to know...
Posted by: rex || 06/22/2004 23:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Mike's choice of articles and editorializing is curious, to say the least.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/23/2004 9:11 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Tech
Jihad Watch Disables Commenting Because of Jihadist Trolls
From Jihad Watch
For those of you who may be checking in just now, I thought I’d repeat the notice that comments are temporarily closed. We have been hearing from a high volume of jihadists here at Jihad Watch, who are both enraged that we would tell the truth about jihad terrorism and ready to do violence to us for doing so. It’s the same old story: say it’s a religion of peace, or we’ll kill you.

So anyway, we are installing new features that will, I hope, once again enable people to comment but make it easier to screen out those whose idea of jihad is to steal other people’s names and post comments making lewd remarks. Until then, I ask for your patience and hope you will keep checking in, and posts will continue to be made when possible.

Thanks for all your support. Jihad Watch is, once again, an endeavor to defend human rights for all people, Muslim and non-Muslim, female and male, and anyone who is able to pierce through the fog of political correctness and misinformation to realize that has my gratitude.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/22/2004 7:13:49 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Fattenheit 9/11 Gets The Death Knell R ating
(snip)
"I hope the R rating doesn’t have a large impact on the box office," Ortenberg said.
It does; I couldn’t find a link that gives percentage impacts.
"I’ve spoken with many parents, including some on the appeals board, who absolutely said they are going to take their children to see the film. We’ll just have to hope the teenagers we’re encouraging to see this picture find their way in through parents or adult guardians."
(snip)
"As anyone who has read a paper, watched TV, surfed the web or chatted by a water cooler this week can attest, the interest in `Fahrenheit 9/11’ has grown to mammoth proportions," Sehring went on.
As Michael Moore continues to do...
"It is a shame that `Fahrenheit 9/11’ will become inaccessible to a segment of the American population to whom this film has a great deal of relevance."
Moore should have thought about that during production, right? Then again, this will give Mr. Biggie Size yet another chance to rail about ’censorship’.
Posted by: Raj || 06/22/2004 4:58:40 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  doh - s/b R Rating; mods, plz fix. thx.
Posted by: Raj || 06/22/2004 17:00 Comments || Top||

#2  it ok raj. ima understand you loud and clear.
Posted by: muck4doo || 06/22/2004 17:12 Comments || Top||

#3  'sides, one of his distributors has already accepted help from Hizbullah ... can't be that hard to find viewers, can it?
Posted by: Edward Yee || 06/22/2004 20:06 Comments || Top||


Luddite Weighs in on Spaceship One Triumph
EFL and hilarity...
By Bruce Gagnon
Three major issues come immediately to mind concerning space privatization. Space as an environment, space law, and profit in space.
Are those bugbears?
We've all probably heard about the growing problem of space junk where over 100,000 bits of debris are now tracked on the radar screens at NORAD in Colorado as they orbit the earth at 18,000 m.p.h. Several space shuttles have been nicked by bits of debris in the past resulting in cracked windshields. The International Space Station (ISS) recently was moved to a higher orbit because space junk was coming dangerously close. Some space writers have predicted that the ISS will one day be destroyed by debris.
Some space writers have predicted the world will be over-run by aliens from Arcturus, too. The writer seems to have the impression that space is slightly larger than his backyard, and that it contained no "junk" before man got there...
As we see a flurry of launches by private space corporations the chances of accidents, and thus more debris, becomes a serious reality to consider.
Not really. No rocket scientist I ever met was overly concerned about orbital Tang containers taking out space launches...
Very soon we will reach the point of no return, where space pollution will be so great that an orbiting minefield will have been created that hinders all access to space.
How long will it take junk from the earth to fill the space between the earth and the moon? How much will be left of the earth when the process is complete?
The time as certainly come for a global discussion about how we treat the sensitive environment called space before it is too late.
Good idea. Go hold a global discussion. Don't bother the guys who're actually trying to accomplish something.
When the United Nations concluded the 1979 Moon Treaty the U.S. refused, and still does, to sign it. One key reason is that the treaty outlaws military bases on it but also outlaws any nation, corporation, or individual from making land "claims" on the planetary body.
I think we oughta claim and tax it, by Gawd! The moon passes over your country, that'll be fifty cents a head, per occurrance. We can even offer discounts: 12 1/2 cents per head at the new moon.
The 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty takes similar position in regard to all of the planetary bodies. The U.N., realizing we needed to preempt potential conflict over "ownership" of the planetary bodies, made claim that the heavens were the province of all humankind.
Of course, the UN hasn't been there, and we have. If they want to enforce, they'll have to come after us, won't they? Thhhhhpppp!
As the privateers move into space, in addition to building space hotels and the like, they also want to claim ownership of the planets because they hope to mine the sky. Gold has been discovered on asteroids, helium-3 on the moon, and magnesium, cobalt and uranium on Mars.
Really? Sounds lucrative. Also speculative...
It was recently reported that the Haliburton Corporation is now working with NASA to develop new drilling capabilities to mine Mars.
Oh, no! Not the dreaded Halliburton!
One organization that seeks to rewrite space law is called United Societies in Space (USIS). They state, "USIS provides legal and policy support for those who intend to go to space. USIS encourages private property rights and investment. Space is the Free Market Frontier." Check their web site at http://www.space-law.org. The taxpayers, especially in the U.S. where NASA has been funded with taxpayer dollars since its inception, have paid billions of dollars in space technology research and development (R & D). As the aerospace industry moves toward forcing privatization of space what they are really saying is that the technological base is now at the point where the government can get out of the way and lets private industry begin to make profit and control space. Thus the idea that space is a "free market frontier."
Makes sense to me. NASA went great guns before it turned into an ossified bureaucracy. Little of real substance has been accomplished since the initial moon landings, when Luddites like the writer all demanded in a loud voice that the money be spent on social programs. The UN's not going to explore and exploit space.
Of course this means that after the taxpayer paid all the R & D, private industry now intends to gorge itself in profits.
All that R&D the taxpayers paid for somehow wasn't able to produce a cost-effective space craft. Perhaps private industry should sign an agreement not to use NASA technology? But of course, private industry did help fund the space program through its taxes, just like the rest of us taxpayers did. And if private industry somehow does manage to make a profit out of space exploration, the writer'll be demanding they be taxed, won't he?
One Republican Congressman from Southern California, an ally of the aerospace industry, has introduced legislation in Congress to make all space profits "tax free". In this vision the taxpayers won't see any return on our "collective investment."
"Think of all those helium-3 profits, slipping away! Oh, the social programs! Blubber!
So let's just imagine for a moment that this private sector vision for space comes true. Profitable mining on the moon and Mars. Who would keep competitors from sneaking in and creating conflict over the new 21st century gold rush? Who will be the space police?
Ummm? Marshal Buzz Lightyear? No man's yet set foot on Mars, and Gooby's wringing his hands over who's gonna keep man from getting drunk when he does...
In the Congressional study published in 1989 called Military Space Forces: The Next 50 Years we get some inkling of the answer. The forward of the book was signed by many politicians like former Sen. John Glenn (D-OH) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). The author reported to Congress on the importance of military bases on the moon and suggested that with bases there the U.S. could control the pathway, or the "gravity well", between the Earth and the moon. The author reported to Congress that "Armed forces might lie in wait at that location to hijack rival shipments on return." Plans are now underway to make space the next "conflict zone" where corporations intend to control resources and maximize profit.
Oh, no, Mister Bill! Not profits! Nooooo!
The so-called private "space pioneers" are the first step in this new direction. And ultimately the taxpayers will be asked to pay the enormous cost incurred by creating a military space infrastructure that would control the "shipping lanes" on and off the planet Earth.
You're a little behind, as usual, Bruce. Welcome to the United States Air Force Space Command, Guardians Of The High Frontier.

I think he's hyperventilating now...
After Columbus returned to Spain with the news that he had discovered the "new world," Queen Isabella began the 100 year process to create the Spanish Armada to protect the new "interests and investments" around the world. This helped create the global war system.
Made a lot of money for Spain, too. For awhile, Spain was the richest country in the world...
Privatization does not mean that the taxpayer won't be paying any more. Privatization really means that profits will be privatized.
Did that make any sense to anyone? Bueller?
Privatization also means that existing international space legal structures will be destroyed in order to bend the law toward private profit. Serious moral and ethical questions must be raised before another new "frontier" of conflict is created.
Serious moral and ethical questions must be raised over people who write drivel like this.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/22/2004 12:15 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I expected a surge in lefty/luddite space-bashing now that private spaceflight is a reality. Gagnon, Arch-Druid of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (aka GnawAn'Pis), wasted little time in proving me right.

He hits all the right notes for his audience: "space pollution", militarization, corporate profits. He even manages to invoke the dread name of the Left's demon du jour, Halliburton.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/22/2004 12:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Temperature readings show space pollution contributes to space warming, especially toward the center of our solar system

(/tinfoil hat)
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 12:26 Comments || Top||

#3  These two little gems stand out:

The time as certainly come for a global discussion about how we treat the sensitive environment called space before it is too late.

"[T]he sensitive environment called space," puhlease! Who is this loon? We are sensitive to space, it is not sensitive to us!

Of course this means that after the taxpayer paid all the R & D, private industry now intends to gorge itself in profits. One Republican Congressman from Southern California, an ally of the aerospace industry, has introduced legislation in Congress to make all space profits "tax free". In this vision the taxpayers won't see any return on our "collective investment."

Rather obviously, the public will see no benefits in the way of improved material science, drug isolation, fundamental research or sophisticated device fabrication techniques. All such advances will be forced to remain in orbit due to the prohibitive cost of sending them back down the "gravity well."
Posted by: Zenster || 06/22/2004 12:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Bruce's cubicle...
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 12:46 Comments || Top||

#5  Now that is priceless. I bow in homage to those who constructed this masterpiece.
Posted by: Steve || 06/22/2004 12:51 Comments || Top||

#6  The Left hates and fears private spaceflight precisely because the more progress it makes, the harder it will be to regulate and control.

At some point in the distant future, self-sustaining space communities will be almost immune to centralized control of any kind, a lefty's worst nightmare.

Can you imagine the UN police trying to root out renegade asteroid colonies?

This kind of stuff has been a top theme of science fiction for decades. I especially like the rabidly anti-Luddite novel Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle and Flynn.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/22/2004 12:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Jeebus, is this guy for real?!? Are we seriously talking about the perils of polluting a LIFELESS VOID?!? Get a frickin grip!
Posted by: BH || 06/22/2004 13:00 Comments || Top||

#8  Two points (1) the majority of that debris was created in the very early days of space travel. More advanced craft seem less likely to leave the debris, or at least they leave it behind prior to breaking into orbit so that it falls into the sea (2) If we have private industry in space perhaps we can pay someone to clean up the mess. Put up a y-prize saying anyone that can figure out any way to clean it up for x dollars will get the cash. I bet someone would think of something.
Posted by: yank || 06/22/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#9 
It was recently reported that the Haliburton Corporation is now working with NASA to develop new drilling capabilities to mine Mars.


I'm pretty sure NASA asked Halliburton to develop a drill for Mars exploration, not mining.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#10  You just can't make this stuff up. Here's to a true crackpot. Whatta maroon.
Posted by: remote man || 06/22/2004 13:47 Comments || Top||

#11  I'm not a psychologist, by any means, but I suspect that Bruce is scared of men with hair on their chests who like to tinker with machines and can do math. Deep down, he's afraid they're gonna set out to hunt antelopes or mastodons or something and tromp through his organic veggie garden. I also suspect that Bruce isn't too fond of new-fangled things like drilling for green cheese on the moon -- if it was good enough for Eugene V. Debs, it should be good enough for us.

And they call us conservatives?
Posted by: Fred || 06/22/2004 13:51 Comments || Top||

#12  Steve, if you liked the foil cubicle, check out this and this. Loopy friend wraps man's apartment in foil.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 06/22/2004 13:55 Comments || Top||

#13  I guess that means the rest of the universe can't bid on any of the Martian contracts right?
Posted by: Ali Abdel Hafiz ben americani al ignorami aziz el alb mahmoud mustafa ben shoo bee doo || 06/22/2004 13:55 Comments || Top||

#14  Sure, make a bid, jackoff. Be sure to include shipping charges, lol!
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 13:58 Comments || Top||

#15  Oh Gawd - Can't find any photo of the Veep holding a power tool.

I wanted to give the leftys something to howl
about. Dick Cheney is taking over Mars!

There is one of him holding a knife (About to cut a cake)

I did find this:
(Google Images)

Cheney & Rumsfeld c1975

So people can talk about a 30 years of conspiracies!

Posted by: BigEd || 06/22/2004 14:08 Comments || Top||

#16  Ali, we'll make an exception for you, what with Mars being like the 3,276th Holiest Site in Islam and all.
Posted by: BH || 06/22/2004 14:16 Comments || Top||

#17  The space junk takes care of itself. Friction is generated by it hitting gas molecules escaping from our atmosphere (ohmygawd, the atmosphere is leaking into space... quick... call the UN!) and the solar wind. Eventually, it fall back into the atmosphere and burns up.

Here is my favorite tin foil beanie site.
Posted by: 11A5S || 06/22/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||

#18  "Well Dick sure we could lie to start a war I mean We did it in Vietnam W/ the Bay of Tonkin. Gimme a few years I'll go shake hands w/ that Iraqi 'Friend' of ours wutshisname?" "great, I'm so excitd Rummy I feel a strange fluttering in my heart, i'll go sign up all the chemical & biological weapons conracts to be delivered to our 'Friend'".

www.iraqiidol.com
Posted by: Ali Abdel Hafiz ben americani al ignorami aziz el alb mahmoud mustafa ben shoo bee doo || 06/22/2004 14:27 Comments || Top||

#19  How come the trolls on this site are so illiterate? Do you have some kind of I-can't-type, I-can't-read club you go to in order to meet other subhumans, Abdel?
Posted by: BMN || 06/22/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#20  How come the trolls on this site are so illiterate? Do you have some kind of I-can't-type, I-can't-read club you go to in order to meet other subhumans, Abdel?
Posted by: BMN || 06/22/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#21  This is typical of the disease that has infected us for the last forty years: those that don't understand anything and can't do anything (lawyers, environmentalists, "activists" et. al.) try to muscle in and take the prize from those who can actually produce. The older I get, the more sense "Atlas Shrugged" makes.
Posted by: RWV || 06/22/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||

#22  How come the trolls on this site are so illiterate?

It's a union requirement, I think.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 06/22/2004 14:40 Comments || Top||

#23  Ali,
It's the Gulf of Tonkin, the war was already on at the time, and this "we" you are projecting onto Cheney and Bush was, in fact, Lyndon Baines Johnson and other enlightened liberal types such as Bobby Kennedy and Robert McNamara.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/22/2004 15:11 Comments || Top||

#24  Temperature readings show space pollution contributes to space warming, especially toward the center of our solar system

Danger! Entropy Decreasing!
Posted by: Shipman || 06/22/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#25  That photo brings it out, Rumsfeld is Clark Kent.
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 16:18 Comments || Top||

#26  The moron who wrote this is British. He didn't contribute a damned thing to the US space program!
Posted by: Steve White || 06/22/2004 18:32 Comments || Top||


Media Bias Shown In Study from UCLA/Stanford
Severely EFL - Hat tip to Drudge
Few studies provide an objective measure of the slant of news, and none has provided a way to link such a measure to ideological measures of other political actors. That is, none of the existing measures can say, for example, whether the New York Times is more liberal than Tom Daschle or whether Fox News is more conservative than Bill Frist. We provide such a measure. Namely, we compute an ADA score for various news outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Drudge Report, Fox News’ Special Report, and all three networks’ nightly news shows.

Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABC’s World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News’ Special Report is the most centrist. These findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets. That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample.

*snip*
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 10:51:45 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
Iraqi Official to American Press: Report More Good
EFL - I think he wasted his breath as the story is in AFIS and nowhere else.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 20, 2004 – Iraq’s deputy prime minister implored the American press to provide more balanced coverage of operations in Iraq. Barham Salih, a prominent leader from Kurdish northern Iraq, made his plea June 19 to American reporters traveling in Iraq with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. "I hope you from the American press will be able to tell people back home 
 that (through) this mission you are giving an entire nation an opportunity to be rid of their challenges," he said. "These soldiers are helping renovate schools and so on, and very, very little of that is reported," Salih continued. "We have to be grateful to those young men and women who have come from afar, sacrificing their lives to defend our security and our freedom."
He said context is important, and many American papers don’t put things in the proper context. For instance, he said, "Many of the op-ed writers before the war predicted that Kirkuk would become the scene of the most vicious civil war," he said, referring to the northern Iraqi city that has been the site of problems between Kurds and Arabs. "There are tensions in Kirkuk," he said, "but no civil war."
New Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer explained his belief that 90 percent of what’s happening in Iraq is good news, and 10 percent in bad. "The media is magnifying the 10 percent, ignoring the 90 percent," Yawer said.
Because the 90 percent good news doesn't fit their agenda.

He said the scandal surrounding detainee abuses at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison is a perfect example. The issue is clearer to people like him who have lived in the United States and understand American values, he said. "I know this is outrageous to the American public (and) to the American administration as much as it is outrageous to the Iraqis," Yawer said. But, he added, regular Iraqis "have been breastfed hatred to the United States and Great Britain for 45 years." Yawer said he and other Iraqi leaders are working to acquaint the Iraqi people "with the real values of the American Bill of Rights and other great things you have in your constitution."
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 2:56:36 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting that someone else has noticed . . .
Posted by: The Doctor || 06/22/2004 16:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Press reaction: WTF? Not only do you not kiss our collective ass, as is our due, you presume to lecture us? We don't care what is happening or what is in the constitution! We are The Press! We are the arbiters of Truth! If it ain't on the agenda, it ain't truth!

Uh, btw, do you know if any of the private bars will let us in?
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 16:14 Comments || Top||

#3  needs to do repeated press conferences and open up with the exact same thoughts. Shame the little bastards into reporting the good news
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 16:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Look for them to get on this guy's case soon for attempting to "supress dissent".
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/22/2004 20:52 Comments || Top||


AEI: proof that Iraqis Have Hope - no refugees
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 03:07 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
WSJ - the World Without American Hegemony
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 01:37 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
Iraqi Officials Begin Voting Workshop
Mexico? Who'da thunk?
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Iraqi officials organizing elections as the U.S.-led occupation hands over power have turned to Mexico, a country with its own history of cleaning up a bad electoral system.

Authorities from Mexico and five other countries are sharing their experiences with nine members of the newly appointed Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, president of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, offered no easy answers on how to forge free and fair elections in violence-wracked Iraq. "When it comes to elections, there are no universal models or generic applications," Ugalde said. "There are successful experiences that each country should adopt according to its own demographic, cultural, religious economic and geographic reality."

Mexico could be one model for an Iraq with little recent experience of free elections. Freed from direct governmental control in 1996, Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute has overseen a series of elections widely praised for their credibility. Among those was the 2000 election of the first opposition-party presidential candidate, Vicente Fox.

Carina Perelli, director of the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division, said Mexico's experience over the past 10 years as an adviser in foreign elections made it a natural choice to hold the workshops. She cited "a strong and respected tradition of independent elections." Institute officials have advised 22 countries - including Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Bolivia and East Timor.

Argentina, Spain, Mauritius, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority are also here to help Iraq in the Mexico-based workshops, which are expected to last more than two weeks.
The Paleos? BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!
Training in Mexico will cover voter registration, counting votes and resolving election disputes. U.N. representatives said the seven officials on the Iraqi electoral commission will not make public appearances during their stay in Mexico.

The commission's work is only just beginning as Iraqis prepare to take over power, at least formally, from the U.S.-led occupation on June 30. According to the U.N. deadline, they are to hold elections by the end of January 2005.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/22/2004 1:07:19 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is a joke, right?
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 2:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Captain A - The issue came up is State Department Daily Press Brief. The jounalists seemed to agree with you:

QUESTION: Richard, this is a question regarding Iraq and Mexico. The Mexican authorities, federal electoral authorities, will start training some Iraqi officials for the electoral process in Iraq. I wonder if there is something that was coordinated by the UN, Mexico and the U.S. Or what is your comments or reaction about it, how Mexico is going to train Iraqis when Mexico used to have a very corrupted electoral process?

MR. BOUCHER: They know how to fix the process and get a good one.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: But didn't the Iraqis turn down the Florida help?

(Laughter.)

MR. BOUCHER: I had not heard about the idea. It sounds like a great idea.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/22/2004 3:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Sounds like the screwy UN babe, Carina Perelli. The one who says she doesnt want a "Micky Mouse election" but won't leave the Green Zone.
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 3:55 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
In pictures: Bakassi dispute in oil rich Nigeria
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/22/2004 12:47:42 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Central Asia
Love and Marriage, Karakalpak-style
Murojon-khoji Abdiev, a representative of the official Muslim body for Karakalpakstan, is critical of bride-stealing, which is not sanctioned by Islam.
Dare I hope?
He explained, "People are committing a great sin when they steal a girl,
Yes! YES! WOO-HOO!
because after the kidnapping the couple lives for some time without the ‘nikoh’ or sharia blessing."
DOH!!
"Hey! Youse can't do dat! You ain't got no license!"
"Piss off! Can'tcha see we're busy?"
Posted by: Colour Sgt. Bourne || 06/22/2004 12:09:27 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  OK, don't steal her. What if you just borrow her for a bit?
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 06/22/2004 8:49 Comments || Top||

#2  When in Rome.....
Posted by: Don || 06/22/2004 8:56 Comments || Top||

#3  "Bring me the sultry wench, with the fire in her eyes!"
Posted by: Fred || 06/22/2004 9:29 Comments || Top||

#4  Latka Gravis: We make Nikoh NikNik?
Posted by: Frank G || 06/22/2004 9:31 Comments || Top||

#5  I thought it was "zug zug"...
Posted by: .com || 06/22/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#6  "...Have her scrubbed and sent to my tent.."

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 06/22/2004 10:16 Comments || Top||

#7  In case you're wondering, Karakalpakstan is really Uzbekistan. I can't pronounce either of them so it doesn't matter to me.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/22/2004 15:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Okay, let's go get married and get bombed together.
Posted by: Capt America || 06/22/2004 16:15 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2004-06-22
  Korean beheaded in Iraq
Mon 2004-06-21
  Iran detains UK naval vessels
Sun 2004-06-20
  Algerian Military Says Nabil Sahraoui Toes Up
Sat 2004-06-19
  Falluja house blast kills 20 Iraqis
Fri 2004-06-18
  U.S. hostage beheaded
Thu 2004-06-17
  Turks Nab Four In Nato Summit Bomb Plot
Wed 2004-06-16
  Hosni shuffles off mortal coil?
Tue 2004-06-15
  Zarqawi sez jihad's not going great
Mon 2004-06-14
  Somali charged in plot to blow up Ohio mall
Sun 2004-06-13
  Iran sez no to nuke oversight
Sat 2004-06-12
  Brahimi hangs it up?
Fri 2004-06-11
  Dagestani Duma turns down ban on Wahhabism
Thu 2004-06-10
  UN experts find evidence of WMD
Wed 2004-06-09
  Boom in Cologne
Tue 2004-06-08
  Yargulkhels get 24 hours to surrender Nek


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