A man who claims he was misdiagnosed as a transsexual will be allowed to sue the medical team that advised him to have a sex change, an Australian appeals court ruled on Friday.
"Hmmm... He's wearing a dress and ladies' underwear, he's got a moustache, and he wants us to cut his pee-pee off. I'd say he's a transsexual. What do you think, Doctor Bob?"
Alan Michael Finch was 21 years old when he underwent a sex change operation to become a woman in 1988. By 1996, however, Finch said he was "a mess" and struggling to live life as a woman named Helen. The following year, he began another round of surgery and reverted to life as a man.
"But keep those honkers in the fridge, okay? I might change my mind again."
Three doctors who performed the initial sex-change operation knew he was not a suitable candidate based on a medical report that described his masculinity as above average, Finch said.
No. Men with 'above average' masculinity join the Marines, or play football for Nebraska, or soccer for Arsenal, or at least hit the bars every night on Rush Street hoping to get lucky. Men with 'above average' masculinity eventually get married, get a decent job, gain fifty pounds and become decidedly, well, 'average'.
Last year, a court in Australia's southern Victoria state granted Finch an extension to the usual six-year time limit on such cases. On Friday, an appeals court rejected an application by the three doctors to have the extension overturned.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/20/2005 00:01 ||
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#1
changed his mind as a woman? Isn't that his perogative? I don't think he should be allowed to do it again, since he is now a man.
#2
On a related note, I'm of below average masculinity (though I've got a beard), and if I keep on getting fatter and fatter, I'll soon have sagging breasts.
A Kenyan priest and five other people were charged Friday with murdering a Roman Catholic bishop in a plot to control church funds.
"Bless me, father, for I have... ummm... Is that a gun?"
Luigi Locati, the Italian-born bishop of the Isiolo Diocese, was gunned down July 14 while walking with a guard to his house in an impoverished area of central Kenya where he had worked for decades. Court documents allege that the Rev. Guyo Wako Malley wanted to kill the 77-year-old Locati to ensure that funds coming to the diocese passed through his office rather than the bishop's. Senior State Counsel Jacob Ondari charged Malley and the others with murder. All six pleaded not guilty.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/20/2005 00:00 ||
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NOGALES, Arizona The governors of Arizona and Sonora on Friday announced new steps to make the border region safer and to combat border-related crime but said they want their federal governments to do more.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Sonoran Gov. Eduardo Bours spoke Friday at a news conference on a blocked off street at a border crossing point.
#1
It doesn't help when the US governors issue executive orders not to cooperate with INS officers in identifying illegals. The more you provide, in services and financial support, the more you're going to get. Of course in the alternate universe the Dems live in, this concept is beyond comprehension.
#4
Some big city police forces have a policy of not involving INS when they come across illegals. The rationale is that people will not cooperate with the cops otherwise.
As for the declaration of emergency, it *is* an out of control problem. The federal government *should* be involved with both money and manpower in securing our national borders. It is not like AZ is trying to keep out people from Ohio.
#5
they are doing PR for their own political lives. Polls show the number one concern in the southwest is illegal immigration, and both Richardson and Napolitano have done nothing to step up. Now, they each vow $1.5 Million in funds. Whoop-de-frigging-do! It's all about trying to get in front of the wave. Listening Karl?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/20/2005 12:05 Comments ||
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#6
I don't know what's worse. The Dem governors playing the illegal aliens care for their own personal political interests or doing nothing at all.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/20/2005 14:05 Comments ||
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#7
Sorry, Steve. The AZ and NM governors view border crime as a disaster, like flash-floods or a broken gasoline pipeline.
They are not concerned about illegal immigration, only that it's impinging on their political lives.
Soldiers, federal agents and police arrested 30 suspected drug hit-men and recovered dozens of high-powered weapons after a shootout that killed a bystander in Michoacan on Friday, investigators said.
Acting on a citizen's tip, authorities exchanged fire with gunmen aboard several sport utility vehicles in the community of Apatzingan, according to a statement released by the federal Public Safety Secretariat.
A person who happened to be in the area was shot and killed and two suspects were wounded during the gun battle, which began before midnight Wednesday but lasted into the early hours of the following morning.
The 400 soldiers, federal agents and state and local police officers involved in the operation seized 13 vehicles, some of which were parked outside a Apatzingan hotel. Investigators found 36 guns, as well as bulletproof vests inside.
As Mexicans find it more difficult to obtain student visas to study in the United States, many are looking elsewhere to continue their education abroad.
Australia is one option. Although the country may be distant geographically (it's a 16-hour trip by air from Mexico), its reputation for welcoming foreigners and respecting diversity makes it attractive to foreign students.
âSydney is one of the most multicultural cities in the world with people from 180 nations speaking 140 languages,â says the catalogue from the University of Sydney.
In a recent interview with Benjamin de la Cueva, director of the office for Australian and New Zealand Education in Mexico, he spoke about the advantages of seeking higher education Down Under.
âAustralia is seen as an exotic paradise,â says De la Cueva. âSnow never falls and the cost of living is lower than in the United States or the United Kingdom.â Ditto, he added, for New Zealand.
There are 39 institutions of higher learning in Australia and they are cheaper than the top private universities in Mexico. The schools require a score of about 580 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), more than the standard 550 most other English-speaking countries call for.
âBecause Australian universities demand a high level of English, they tend to get a privileged Mexican student,â says De la Cueva.
Australians generally know very little about Mexico and often have stereotypical images of the country and people.
Heh, sounds familiar for many of us in the US...
âThey have rarely had the desire to go to Mexico but because they have met such outstanding Mexican students, they are now more willing to visit,â he said.
The Australian government is very conscious of the benefits of receiving foreign students. Aside from broadening the horizons of Australians, they boost the country economically, and help the tourism industry when their families come to visit. More importantly, the network of friendships established at a university has helped to encourage trade when foreign students return to their countries and become leaders in business and politics.
#2
I always thought it was difficult for foreigners to get visa to Oz. I think even Americans need visas to go there. Supposedly, they have the toughest immigration policies in the world. I would assume student visas are much the same.
#3
Why obtain study visas to study in the US. Merely come here illegally and then get in-state tuition. On the other hand, if you're a citizen defending your country ...
Mexico will have two new airlines operating by March, helping drive down airfare costs and diversifying flights away from Mexico City's airport, the transportation secretary said.
InterjetABC is scheduled to begin flights in December and Vuela Compania de Aviacion, owned by Carlos Slim's financial company and broadcaster Grupo Televisa SA, is expected to start operations by March, said Pedro Cerisola, Mexico's transportation minister in an interview yesterday.
"We've got appetite from investors in this area that we haven't seen in many years," Cerisola said.
Mexico's airline industry is entering a period of unprecedented competition, Cerisola said, with as many as five new airlines seeking to begin operations and the government's plan to sell by November its controlling stake in Aeromexico and Mexicana the country's two biggest airlines.
The new airlines will operate out of regional airports in the cities of Toluca, Puebla and Cuernavaca to lower costs and help ease congestion at the Mexico City airport, which now handles 20 percent of air traffic, Cerisola said.
The government in 2002 scrapped plans to build a US3 billion mega-airport to serve the Mexico City area, after machetewielding socialists farmers refused to sell their land at the planned site. Cerisola said the three regional airports may capture as much as 50 percent of the flights now landing in Mexico City.
A US300 million project to add a second terminal to the Mexico City airport is likely to be the airport's last expansion, Cerisola said. Construction of the terminal, which will serve Aeromexico and its SkyTeam Air Alliance partners, will begin at the end of August, he said.
Mexico will soon have to build a new airport near Cuernavaca, which is about 50 miles south of Mexico City, because of capacity constraint at the current airport, he said.
Mexico City as arguably the largest city in the world has a tremendous amount of air traffic. Funneling all that traffic into the single airport has been possible only because of the almost ideal weather conditions there.
With the highest average per capita income in Latin America, Mexico needs to better distribute its wealth to avoid being perceived as poor, said Thierry Lemaresquier, a United Nations development program representative.
And the last time the UN was right about anything was...
"Mexico has to be a country that distributes its wealth in a more equal way, or better said, whose wealth effectively serves to create a better condition of life for all its citizens," Lemaresquier said in an interview.
#2
By 1952 South Korea was basically zero'd out in economic terms because of the war. South Korea lacks the natural minerial or petroleum resources of Mexico, lacks the vast ariable lands for agriculture, and far less land mass. Circa 2000, South Korea per capita income $16,100; Mexico pci $9,100. Kleptocracy is not an equal opportunity provider.
Tell you what Mexico needs, a true democratic government, free trade, low taxes and better access to health care. Mexico would do just fine on its own after getting those things.
#4
Yeah brilliant that way everyone will be equally poor. Of course thou that will only apply to the common folk peasant class. After all the nobles cough "political leaders" have to be able to have Dasha's all over the world and top of the line wine, food, cloths, ect... but of course this is in the "motherlands best interest" only has nothing to do with personal wants.
Socialism looks great on paper the only problem is we are human beings that are naturaly defected. Without reason to drive ourselves we don't and of course power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutley. The Russian workers learned that the hard way after the revolution.
#5
Yes and no, in the case of Mexico. For example, in the same country where you have "el Juppies" with MBAs in the city, with statues to Pasteur, Beethoven and Ghandi; in the countryside, you even have a few tribes that are literally stone-age troglodytes. Huge numbers are subsistance farmers who live on tortillas and beans, for which the subsidy is the most winning campaign platform there is in the whole country.
To totally restructure the country, you need what I would call "Jeffersonian socialism", that is, to force *all* children to attend school, where they would get at least a minimum education, minimum food and clothing, and minimum health care. That is, put them in barracks and keep them there until they are 16 years old.
Of course, if their parents could afford better, they should be able to give it to their kids. But for the agonizingly poor it does several things.
It takes the pressure to raise the kids off of parents, so they can build up their family resources. It breaks up the inefficient family farm that is reliant on child labor and wastes arable land on subsistence farming. It gives the children the health care, food and clothing they need to eliminate many diseases of malnutrition and poverty. Lastly, it gives the children a strong national identity at the expense of racism and tribalism.
Talk about your brutalitarian government! But it is about the only thing that could break the back of the many demons that haunt Mexico. With one generation of suffering, perhaps two, it would propel the country from the 18th century into the 21st.
#7
Hey Moose, that usually occurs in revolution. However, dumping vast numbers of their poor, uneducated, unemployed on the US solves that problem for the ruling class of Mexico.
#8
Thierry Lemaresquier---isn't that a Fred Subroutine-generated name on Rantburg? But the algorithm should have generated a number, like 7734*. Fred, check your code.
*"hell" upside down.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/20/2005 12:49 Comments ||
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#9
Wealth redistribution - a phrase that causes investment to flee.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/20/2005 13:35 Comments ||
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#10
Replace a corrupt latin goverment with Socialism.
Thats crazy enough to work. Look at Cuba. Whoops bad example...Uh how bout Venezuela? Let me get back to ya on this one.
Officials at Australia's Parliament House on Friday overturned a day-old ban on guards and attendants using the word "mate" to address lawmakers and visitors after the new rule sparked outrage among prime ministers past and present. The U-turn came after Australian Prime Minister John Howard said it was "absurd" to require security guards at the country's Parliament House to stop addressing visitors and lawmakers as "mate".
I think it sounds a lot friendlier than "Bub," and so much more Australian than "señor"...
One of his predecessors called the ban "rampant pomposity."
It's a bit more formal that "honey," of course, or "sweetheart," and much more folksy than "yer honor"...
I always thought the WWII term "mac" would be appropriate for just about any occasion ...
On Thursday, guards and attendants at the building in Canberra were told to stop using the common Australian expression of endearment following a complaint from a senior civil servant, media reported.
"Yer honor, them guards and attendants called me 'mate'! Like I was some kinda mate o' theirs!"
"Okay. I'll write a memo, effendi."
"These things are all a matter of context, and that's why it's impractical and absurd to try and ban something," Howard, who in the past has used the term to describe President Bush, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
I can certainly agree with that, sweetheart...
Hilary Penfold, secretary for the Department of Parliamentary Services, said the ban was intended to ensure staff do not offend visitors.
"I am so offended! That guard called me 'mate'!"
"Did he? I'll write a letter to the management, snookums!"
By Friday afternoon, staff had been issued fresh written instructions to "be aware when a degree of informality may be acceptable and when a more formal approach is required."
"And stop offering them sudsers, too!"
Former prime minister Bob Hawke was enraged by the ban. "It's pomposity gone mad," Hawke told ABC radio. Hawke, a former union leader famous for his down to earth approach and for holding a beer drinking record while studying at Oxford University, said the term had been useful to him at official functions. "It gets you out of all sorts of embarrassing situations," he said. "It's got a nice neutrality about it. I mean, it doesn't imply any intimacy, it shows a reasonable level of respect. I think it's one of our great words."
Whartever you say, infidel.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/20/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh, fercrissakes.
Talk about a legend in their own minds.
Sounds like Australia has some DemocRats, god help them. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/20/2005 0:53 Comments ||
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#6
It seems that these Australian Parliament House chaps have a lot of extra time on their hands, mate. Hell, me pap picked up quite a bit of the lingo and held on to it after being there with the Marines in WW2. They were cobbers back then, ya know.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/20/2005 14:43 Comments ||
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A Complaint From A Senior Civil Servant
Sung to "Waltzing Matilda"
Once an angry bureaucrat sat behind his lonely desk,
Ticked off so bad âcause the internet was out.
And he fussed to the IT boys who just simply blew him off,
Couldnât access porn on his desktop today!
Ban the word âmateâ, mate!
Ban the word âmateâ, mate!
I teach âem all not to make fun of me.
And he planned carefully which leftist member he would ask
âCalling someone âMateâ is offensive to me".
The bureaucrat found his sympathetic member there,
Entering the Sydney branch; A C L U,
âIâm offended that these folks are callinâ each other "mate",
Is there a way we can make âmateâ hate speech?"
Ban the word âmateâ, mate!
Ban the word âmateâ, mate!
I teach âem all not to make fun of me.
And they planned carefully which day they would request the vote
âCalling someone âMateâ is offensive to me".
The A C L Us really thought idea was brill-e-ant,
So they lobbied with a million dollars worth of gifts.
Then they found a time when the quorum was majority
For a day the word âmateâ was but a sad memory
Ban the word âmateâ, mate!
Ban the word âmateâ, mate!
I teach âem all not to make fun of me.
And I got my vote â revenge! revenge is the sweetest thing!
âCalling someone âMateâ is offensive to me".
The publicâs anger drove bureaucrat to hide away,
Though he got invites to a shark infested beach,
Old Howard reversed it in but a blink of an eye,
The ban was removed in less then a day!
Use the word âmateâ, mate!
Use the word âmateâ, mate!
An Aussie cultural âthingâ that sets them apart.
And the ban is on the ash heap of his-toe-ree
And the straight jacket fits the bureaucrat so well
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Carbon monoxide did not knock out some of the passengers and crew of a Cypriot airliner before it crashed in the Greek mountains, coroners said Friday, deepening the mystery as to what caused the disaster that killed all 121 people on board.
Fillipos Koutsaftis, chief coroner of Athens, said tests were carried out on the remains of the co-pilot, three female flight attendants, an infant and an adult who were on the flight that went down Sunday about 25 miles north of the Greek capital. More tests were being conducted to determine what could have rendered crew and passengers aboard the Helios Airways Flight ZU522 from Larnaca, Cyprus, unconscious during the flight. The plane flew on autopilot before crashing.
Koutsaftis said a few more days were needed to run the toxicological tests. "This was the fastest test and the most secure," he said after meeting Justice Minister Anastasios Papaligouras. "We are still doing tests for other gases, poisons, drugs and alcohol."
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/20/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Martian Secret Service still not ruled out. This finding doubles the odds of my theory.
Story also put in the hopper by Jackal; I combined the comments and note his link.
The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, suffered a brief mini-stroke Tuesday, but doctors found no complications and he feels fine, aides said Friday. ``He has undergone evaluations this week, and his doctors have recommended that he take advantage of the summer congressional recess for some downtime,'' press secretary Tessa Hafen said. Reid is not hospitalized. I hope this is the only event and he stays healthy for decades. I hate his politics but he's father with a family.
Her statement said Reid felt lightheaded Tuesday night and sought medical attention at the urging of his wife, Landra. He was told he had experienced a transient ischemic attack. ``It's being described as a mini-stroke ... , but he is feeling just fine,'' Hafen said.
On vacation in Texas, President Bush was told of Reid's situation. ``The president is glad to hear that Sen. Reid is feeling fine and looks forward to working with him this fall,'' said White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he spoke with Reid since the episode and Reid was ``showing his usual strength of spirit.'' Frist said he was ``looking forward to continuing our work together when the Senate meets in September.''
The National Stroke Association says transient ischemic attack, considered a type of mini-stroke, is a brief episode of stroke symptoms that usually last less than 24 hours and usually does not involve any permanent loss of abilities. One in three people who experience a TIA go on to have an actual stroke, the NSA reports on its Web site.
Reid is 65. Same age at which My dad died.
A TIA is nothing to fool around with. Let's hope he gets well without complications.
His deputy as leader of the Senate Democrats is Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. Orp. Please stay healthy, Senator Reid.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/20/2005 00:00 ||
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He's irritating, but I hope he'll be ok. (Not because of Durbin, although in a weird way I admire the Machiavellian strategy of picking that dork as second in command. Bravo, sir.)
Hope he recovers fully and that it is a quick road to recovery.
The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of the nation's most deadly military accidents.
Veterans groups and history buffs had hoped that tourists in San Francisco could walk the same teak decks where sailors dodged Japanese machine-gun fire and fired 16-inch guns that helped win battles across the South Pacific.
Instead, it appears that the retired battleship is headed about 80 miles inland, to Stockton, a gritty agricultural port town on the San Joaquin River and home of California's annual asparagus festival.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.
But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things.
"If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.
Feinstein called it a "very petty decision."
"This isn't the San Francisco that I've known and loved and grew up in and was born in," Feinstein said.
San Francisco's maritime museum already has one military vessel _ the USS Pampanito, an attack submarine that sank six Japanese ships during World War II and has about 110,000 visitors a year.
Officials in Stockton couldn't be happier. They've offered a dock on the river, a 90,000-square-foot waterfront building and a parking area, and hope to attract at least 125,000 annual visitors.
After the Korean war, the Iowa was decommissioned and placed in reserve in a Philadelphia shipyard for three decades. In 1988, it was recalled to duty escorting oil supply ships safely in and out danger in the Persian Gulf. In 1989, 47 sailors were killed in an explosion that tore through a gun turret during a training exercise.
The warship, decommissioned by the Navy in 1990, is currently anchored with a mothballed fleet in Suisun Bay, near the mouth of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta.
San Francisco's rejection of such a storied battleship is a slap in the nation's face, said Douglass Wilhoit, head of Stockton's Chamber of Commerce.
"We're lucky our men and women have sacrificed their lives ... to protect our freedom," Wilhoit said. "Wherever you stand on the war in Iraq ... you shouldn't make a decision based on philosophy."
Rep. Richard W. Pombo, R-Calif., has sponsored legislation authorizing the ship's permanent move to Stockton. Feinstein has countered with a bill to open bidding to any California city.
The two versions will have to be reconciled by a House-Senate conference committee considering the Pentagon spending bill.
#1
Typical asshatedness that is in the liberal areas nowadays. Never mind the fact that the USS Iowa helped free millions of people from tyranny and kept our homeland (especially SF) from being conquered by the Japanese. Hypocritical fuckwads.
#2
I wanted to jump on the bandwagon on hating SF city council but this also had to do with economics. The other Naval display in the bay area are losing money and it would be wrong to bring the ship there just to have nobody visit. Stockton just refurbished their port and it would make a nicer home for this ship. I had hoped that they would bring it to Sacramento but that would be too much to ask for given we have a witch for a mayor and her coven ould rather make sure the homeless use the sidewalks as their bathrooms than support a project like this. Friggin liberals.
#3
One of these days San Francisco will have to be taken by force.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/20/2005 18:17 Comments ||
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#4
Oops...I meant re-taken.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/20/2005 18:18 Comments ||
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#5
These SF clowns have any idea of the revenue they lost?
A battleship on the waterfront is perhaps the most popular of attractions. Most cities would kill for such an opportunity.
Posted by: john ||
08/20/2005 18:18 Comments ||
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#6
They should take the WWII submarine away also. Great exhibit. San Francisco can rot in its syphalitic stew. A once proud city reduced to a town run by for and of asshats. Maybe Bechtel, Bank of America, et al should find a new headquarters. Hit them in their pocketbooks. A pox, a proletariat pox upon the SF board of supervisors.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/20/2005 18:28 Comments ||
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#7
the Midway museum on SD's waterfront is doing great, and expanding their exhibits and number of planes
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/20/2005 18:34 Comments ||
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#8
How far up river (Mississippi) could a lightened Iowa get?
#9
The Iowa would look great in San Diego on the Waterfront, eh, Frank? With the Midway and HMS Surprise as neighbors. Ima think that is a good idea.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/20/2005 19:06 Comments ||
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#10
I'd go for it, but welcome Stockton's efforts first - they stepped right up to the plate and should be rewarded. Nice town too.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/20/2005 19:28 Comments ||
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#11
A plan: We hunt up one of those ultra-nationalist Japanese whacko groups; you know, like the writer dude who got his followers to cut his head off when the cops came after them back in the 70s. We open secret negotiations with them, extend diplomatic recognition, and conclude a treaty giving them sovereignty over the Moonbat areas of SF. We then fly them across the Pacific en masse to take possession of their new domain, the Greater East Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere. They can stop off at Midway Island on the way and pick up suitable weapons and NBC gear*. We don't announce this until they have surrounded City Hall and begun cleaning up.
Think: samurai swords, San Francisco, a very necessary precaution withal.
#12
Hell Fire, Mate! San Francisco would be a saner place with the late, great Emperor Norton as mayor.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/20/2005 21:31 Comments ||
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#13
Looks like Norton didn't leave any heirs.
I see no reason, therefore, that I cannot proclaim myself Emperor of these United States, those United States, Protector of Mexico (another of Norton's titles), Latin King of Jerusalem, and Governor-General of Mars and Ceres.
My first proclamation will be to order the construction of a dike (not dyke) and large nets around and over San Francisco to contain the Moonbat population. This will be followed by an executive order and Imperial rescript abolishing the Board of Supervisors, with all legislative functions to be taken over by 11 people randomly selected from the Stockton telephone directory.
Seattle Monorail Board member Cindi Laws, running for re-election, has incurred the official opposition of organized labor for reportedly making lengthy, repeated anti-Semitic remarks during a candidate interview.
The King County Labor Council, which has endorsed no one in Laws' race yet, took the rare step of voting to oppose her candidacy Wednesday night.
"She linked opponents of the monorail to the Jewish community in what we felt was an inappropriate way," Labor Council Executive Secretary Steve Williamson said Thursday. Laws made the comments Aug. 9 during an interview with seven members of the labor council's political committee, including Williamson, who sits on the monorail board with her.
Several of those present, two of whom are Jewish, said Laws made offensive comments in the context of discussing her differences with Beth Goldberg, an election opponent. Goldberg is Jewish and a self-described "longtime monorail skeptic."
Laws is one of the monorail board's two elected members and an ardent supporter of the financially floundering project.
In the interview, said Marc Auerbach, an interview panelist, Laws was asked about her opponent and said she "was worried because she perceived that Jews have contributed a lot of money to the anti-monorail campaigns in the past, that Beth Goldberg is Jewish, and that will make it easy for (Goldberg) to potentially raise a lot of money because of those connections."
"I'm just mortified about this," Laws said Thursday.
"It's very frustrating for me because I have such a record of work on civil rights and working against discrimination," she said in an interview. "But I said some things that were taken as an offense. It was not intended to be so ... It was absolutely not meant to be offensive, and when I tried to explain the situation, it became mired worse."
Several interview panelists agreed that when they told Laws her remarks were offensive, her attempts to explain herself compounded the problem.
Williamson said he was shocked by Laws' comments, not only because they were uttered by a public official trying to win the support of organized labor but also because he has regarded her as an opponent of bias.
"I've worked with Cindi for three years on the monorail board," he said. "I know that Cindi's interactions in terms of her work on the board has been to be someone who looks out for people of color, their interests, the disadvantaged community."
According to notes taken by three interview panelists during the meeting, and confirmed by them Thursday, Laws said that 75 percent of the money spent on last year's unsuccessful monorail-recall ballot measure came from the "Jewish community."
In Auerbach's notes, and according to his and other panelists' recollections Thursday, Laws went on to say, "A Jewish candidate can get that money more easily," and noted that Goldberg has a Jewish surname.
Auerbach quoted the candidate as saying further, "Two things that terrify me: Without making it sound anti-Semitic, overwhelmingly the Second Avenue property owners ... they are very effective if you get into their group."
Auerbach said Laws mentioned that downtown businessman Ken Alhadeff "is a very active fund-raiser within the Jewish community and other circles" and that he kicked the Rainier Institute -- the think tank Laws directs -- out of the building where it was renting office space because he opposes the monorail.
Neal Safrin, who also took notes and who, like Auerbach, is Jewish, said Laws said her greatest fear was that downtown developers, whom she characterized as mostly Jewish, would join forces with anti-monorail groups to oppose her candidacy.
Willliamson said he told Laws "on behalf of the labor council that I found her remarks offensive and that we will not tolerate discrimination of any kind." Others also expressed indignation.
Interviewers said Laws apologized and, in trying to explain her remarks, said, "It probably is a poor reference," but that Joel Horn, former executive director of the Seattle Monorail Project, used to joke that he and another staffer were the only Jews who supported the project.
They said she went on to say that Horn would refer to the opposition as "Jews Against the Monorail," but that she was not anti-Semitic and that she once was engaged to a Jew.
Williamson said the labor council's executive board voted to recommend the action opposing Laws' candidacy -- an act that requires at least a two-thirds vote of the members -- to the council's delegate body Wednesday night, and it was ratified.
Williamson said the council hasn't endorsed a candidate in Laws' race because she was the only one who sought an endorsement, and "we only endorse candidates who come to us."
Goldberg, a King County budget supervisor, said she would ask for labor's endorsement. She said that when she heard about Laws' remarks, "I laughed. The Jews have been blamed in history for a lot of things over the years, but this is the first time I've heard we were involved in the monorail."
Robert Jacobs, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he was shocked, after reading transcripts of the interview panel's notes, "to hear a candidate for public office who still is saying ... traditionally anti-Semitic statements about Jews having money, about Jews controlling politics. It's horribly disappointing."
Laws also has a second election opponent, Stan Lippmann, a perennial candidate. But when will they stop being in denial, and truly embrace what they really feel? When will we see "Jews Get Out!" signs at moonbat rallies, meaning not "out of Palestine", but "out of the U.S."?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/20/2005 11:47 Comments ||
Top||
#2
When the Jews abandon the Democratic party these moonbats will be shuffled off to obsecurity and the madness over Palestinian support will wither. As long as they are a silent source of money the rest will no really see the problem.
#5
Amish and Menonites excepted, I am struggling to see a religious connection to either the "pro" or "anti" side of a mass transit project. That said I would understand why a devotee to Posiden might have strong feelings about jet ski's, for instance.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/20/2005 13:11 Comments ||
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#6
Seattle is the hands down the moonbat capitol of the world. Why am I not suprise at their tieing the monorail to religion. Call it a liberally gay and diverse monorail system and it will get tons of dollars and become a state monument to diversity.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
08/20/2005 17:38 Comments ||
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#7
Call it a liberally gay and diverse monorail system and it will get tons of dollars and become a state monument to diversity.
And in three years would be the monument to state stupidity and wastefullness.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A man who claims he was misdiagnosed as a transsexual will be allowed to sue the medical team that advised him to have a sex change, an Australian appeals court ruled on Friday. 
A Kenyan priest and five other people were charged Friday with murdering a Roman Catholic bishop in a plot to control church funds.
Officials at Australia's Parliament House on Friday overturned a day-old ban on guards and attendants using the word "mate" to address lawmakers and visitors after the new rule sparked outrage among prime ministers past and present. The U-turn came after Australian Prime Minister John Howard said it was "absurd" to require security guards at the country's Parliament House to stop addressing visitors and lawmakers as "mate".
The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, suffered a brief mini-stroke Tuesday, but doctors found no complications and he feels fine, aides said Friday. ``He has undergone evaluations this week, and his doctors have recommended that he take advantage of the summer congressional recess for some downtime,'' press secretary Tessa Hafen said. Reid is not hospitalized.
