A paediatric nurse died from heart failure brought on by the shock of hearing her alarm clock ringing, an inquest was told yesterday. Lisa Browne, 27, collapsed in bed on Jan 10, 1998, and was found by her husband an hour later.
An inquest held at the time was inconclusive. But yesterday the Cheshire coroner, Nicholas Rheinberg, accepted that Mrs Browne had been suffering from a rare hereditary disorder called Long QT syndrome (LQT2). The condition affects the electrical system of the heart, which can cause sudden unexplained death in young people.
Mr Rheinberg's verdict of death by natural causes brought to a close an eight-year campaign by Mrs Browne's mother to discover the true cause of her death. Doreen Harley, 58, of Connah's Quay, north Wales, had always suspected LQT2 and campaigned for a second inquest. At its conclusion she said she now hoped that other sufferers of the syndrome could be saved in the future. She also called on the Government to provide heart screening for young people.
Yup, the National Health Service will do that allright, just as soon as they learn to stay solvent.
After Mrs Browne's death it was discovered that her father, Terry, 61, her sister Rachel, 33, and her nephews Jack, nine, and Adam, six, all had the condition. They have all received treatment and are living normal lives.
Mrs Harley said: "Long QT Syndrome has affected five members of our family over three generations, and we now know that an ECG test could well have saved Lisa's life."
Mrs Browne's husband Stuart, 38, from Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, told the inquest in Warrington that he found his wife dead in bed after she failed to wake up for work. He said he believed that his wife had set her alarm clock for 6am but it was not ringing when he woke up. Dr Elijah Behr, a cardiac expert, said that in his view the alarm clock shocked her to death.
Hat tip: Registan
For the first time in history, the mysterious Puerto-Rican Chupacabra vampire has been spotted in Russia. Reports of a beast that kills animals and sucks on their blood came from a village in Central Russia back in March 2005, when a farm had 32 turkeys killed overnight. The beast left the corpses bloodless, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily said.
Then reports came from neighboring villages, where more than 30 sheep and goats fell victim to the vampire. Again, the blood had been drained from corpses but the flesh remained intact. All the slaughtered animals had similar puncture wounds on their necks, different from the marks that wolves, dogs or lynx leave on their victims.
Finally, eyewitness descriptions match the traditional description of the Chupacabra, said to resemble a kangaroo and a dog with huge teeth. I heard the sheep bleating loudly, and when I approached the barn I saw a black shadow, like a big dog standing on its hind legs. It leaped like a kangaroo when it spotted me it ran away, says Yerbulat Isbasov, 18, who guards sheep in the village of Gavrilovka. Yerbulat saw the beast again in a few days time, and described it as a 1.2 meter high animal with a hump on its back.
Alfia Makasheva saw a whole pack of vampires in her yard. One was a huge reddish thing, another was dark grey, and they were being followed by a pack of pups. In the middle of the yard the red one turned its head and got up on the hind legs, as if it was thinking.
When Dmitry Madinovsky from Orenburg heard about the beast, he suggested it could be the legendary Chupakabra, and set off to look for it. In the woods near the Sakmara river he discovered two rows of tracks that could belong to an animal of some 35 kilos in weight. The tracks were of five-toed paws with claws and webbed fingers, and a tail that dragged between them. Zoologists could not identify the animal from photos of the prints. It is definitely a Chupakabra! Small front and big hind legs, Madinovsky says. The animal first walked on all fours, near the water it got up on its hind legs, raised its tail and leapt away like a kangaroo.
This May Madinovsky and the Urals Anomaly Monitoring Station experts are determined to track the animal down.
Mexicans would be allowed to possess small amounts of cocaine, heroin, even ecstasy for their personal use under a bill approved by lawmakers that some worry could prove to be a lure to young Americans.
The bill now only needs President Vicente Fox's signature to become law and that does not appear to be an obstacle. His office said that decriminalizing drugs will free up police to focus on major dealers.
"This law gives police and prosecutors better legal tools to combat drug crimes that do so much damage to our youth and children," said Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar.
The Senate approved the bill Friday in the final hours of its closing session. Mexico's lower house had already endorsed the legislation.
The measure appeared to surprise U.S. officials. State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus said the department was trying to get "more information" about it. One U.S. diplomat, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said "we're still studying the legislation, but any effort to decriminalize illegal drugs would not be helpful."
Some worried the law would increase drug addiction in Mexico and cause problems with the United States. Millions of American youths visit Mexico's beach resorts and border towns each year.
"A lot of Americans already come here to buy medications they can't get up there ... Just imagine, with heroin," said Ulisis Bon, a drug treatment expert in Tijuana, where heroin use is rampant.
In off-the-record chats and through their communications with U.S. officials, Mexican officials tried to depict the drug bill as a simple clarification of existing laws. But the changes are clear.
Currently, Mexican law leaves open the possibility of dropping charges against people caught with drugs if they can prove they are drug addicts and if an expert certifies they were caught with "the quantity necessary for personal use."
The new bill drops the "addict" requirement, allows "consumers" to have drugs, and sets out specific allowable quantities, which do not appear in the current law.
Those quantities are sometimes eye-popping: Mexicans would be allowed to posses 2.2 pounds of peyote, the button-sized hallucinogenic cactus used in some Indian religious ceremonies.
Police would no longer bother with possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about one-fifth of an ounce, or about four joints), or 0.5 grams of cocaine - the equivalent of about 4 "lines," or half the standard street-sale quantity.
The law lays out allowable quantities for a large array of other drugs, including LSD, MDA, MDMA (ecstasy, about two pills' worth), and amphetamines.
However the bill stiffens penalties for trafficking and possession of drugs - even small quantities - by government employees or near schools, and maintains criminal penalties for drug sales.
Sales of all those drugs would remain illegal under the proposed law, unlike in the Netherlands, where the sale of marijuana for medical use is legal and it can be bought with a prescription in pharmacies.
And while Dutch authorities look the other way regarding the open sale of cannabis in designated coffee shops - something Mexican police seem unlikely to do - the Dutch have zero tolerance for heroin and cocaine.
Sen. Miguel Angel Navarro of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party argued against the bill. "This authorizes the consumption of opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, and a variety of drugs that can only be bought illicitly."
Roman Catholic Bishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago, president of the Mexican Council of Bishops, also expressed concern.
"It's not by legalizing the possession or use of drugs that drug trafficking is going to be combatted," the bishop told reporters, "and that's why the government should be cautious about implementing this measure..."
...Ethan Nadelmann, director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, said Mexico's bill removed "a huge opportunity for low-level police corruption." Mexican police often release people detained for minor drug possession, in exchange for bribes.
Posted by: john ||
04/29/2006 12:41 Comments ||
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a token bone thrown to the Doritos, Cheetos and Lil Debbies industries.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2006 14:14 Comments ||
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If its legal then Don Patron can operate legally in Mexico his drug business. So the Mexican government won't be spending too much time helping the American DEA. Meanwhile, the Mexican Army will continue to assist Don Patron and his fellow legal producers in their 'export' business.
#9
He wants them in. They'll be a source of foreign exchange and an embarassment when they re-enter. Look for Mexico to apply for statehood after it has completed its conversion to an Indian Reservation.
#10
If widely reported, this and the Monday walkout should combine to do more for bringing the border issue to the boil than anything I could've dreamed up.
I find myself marveling at the sheer stupidity of our enemies, from the jihadists to the Mullahs to the tranzis. If they had any sense, we'd be in a LOT more trouble.
DUESSELDORF: A secondary school in the German city of Bonn suspended two Muslim girls over their wearing of the burqa, an education official said on Friday. The two teenagers were considered to have disturbed the peaceful running of the school and were handed initial suspensions of two weeks, the official said. Their choice of clothing had spurred disruptive debate in the school and what the official described as the girls' "Islamic-fundamentalist behaviour" had prevented normal classes from taking place. The two were free to return to school provided they abandoned wearing the burqa, the official added.
Here's hoping the Fritzies' patience has run out for good with this sort of nonsense.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2006 00:00 ||
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Pull their parents' residence permits. They will be happier back in burkha land.
Posted by: ed ||
04/29/2006 1:04 Comments ||
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If they wanted to keep wearing the burqua, they clearly didn't want to assimilate. If these people want to move to the west, they should leave their old ways behind. If they want to keep the old ways, they should stay where they came from. We need to make it clear that they can join our culture but we want nothing to do with theirs.
#7
I agree, NS. But there is a sizeable group of fundamentalist muslims in Germany who insist they will NEITHER leave NOR assimilate - and I'm betting the Germans will give way.
Posted on the off chance that Europe still matters.
Romano Prodi's candidate failed early Saturday to win the necessary votes to become Senate president during Parliament's chaotic first session, a sign of potential trouble ahead for the incoming government in the divided house.
The outcome of the third inconclusive ballot capped a confused voting session that began nearly 13 hours earlier. Prodi's forces narrowly won April 9-10 elections, although outgoing Premier Silvio Berlusconi has refused to concede. While Prodi's allies have a workable majority in the lower Chamber of Deputies, they have only a two-seat majority in the Senate, and the Senate president vote was seen as a test of his coalition's ability to remain united.
During a third ballot, Prodi's pick for the post, Franco Marini, won 161 votes compared to 155 for former Christian Democrat premier Giulio Andreotti, the nominee of Berlusconi's coalition. Marini needed 162 to get the presidency. Five ballots were blank and a sixth was declared void. The Senate's provisional chief, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, scheduled a new round of voting for later Saturday morning.
The close votes and the tensions that arose as ballots were being cast reinforced the impression that with such a slim majority in the house, Prodi's forces will find it exceedingly difficult to push through legislation assuming Prodi is given a mandate to form a government.
In the lower house, the president is expected to be Prodi's ally and nominee, Communist leader Fausto Bertinotti. However, Bertinotti failed to garner the necessary two-thirds of the votes in the first three rounds of balloting. A fourth round - in which Bertinotti only needs a simple majority - was scheduled for Saturday.
Prodi's Union coalition ranges from pro-Vatican moderates to Communists, and already has shown signs of fraying over which politician gets which post under his tenure.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/29/2006 00:00 ||
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Wah, not. I hope his attempts to form a government fail. I hope he and his socialist scum comrades rot in hell as well.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/29/2006 5:52 Comments ||
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How long until their next election? I seem to remember one Italian government in office only eleven days...
CHERBOURG, France - Frances state shipbuilder DCN began on Friday manufacturing parts for the first of six Scorpene submarines ordered by India. New Delhi agreed in October 2005 to buy six of the Franco-Spanish submarines for 2.4 billion euros.
The deal is a technology transfer agreement: the Scorpenes will be assembled in India, but the Direction des Compagnies Navales (DCN) will produce various key parts that require equipment unavailable at Indian shipyards. Some 200 technicians and engineers at the DCN will be working full time on the submarine parts for the next eight years, the projects director, Xavier lHelgoualch, said at a ceremony to mark the cutting of the first plate in the northern port of Cherbourg.
The Scorpene is a 1,750-tonne (1,929-ton) submarine, 67 metres (220 feet) long and capable of diving to a depth of 300 metres. Designed for coastal defence, it can stay at sea for up to 45 days with a crew of 31.It is equipped with modern sonar detection equipment, six torpedo tubes and missile launchers; these are among the parts being produced in France, along with the propellers, hatches and front and back bulkheads.
DCN developed the submarine jointly with the Spanish shipbuilder Navantia (formerly Izar), with the French defence group Thales providing the electronics. Work on assembling the first Scorpene is scheduled to begin in December 2006 at the Mazagaon shipyard in Mumbai (Bombay). The vessel should be ready by 2012, the Indian defence ministry said, with the remaining five being delivered at intervals of one per year thereafter.
India will be the third country to equip itself with Scorpenes, following Chile and Malaysia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/29/2006 00:00 ||
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The Indian Navy wants a second sub production line - the Russian Amur subs were favored but HDW is now pushing hard with their type 214. India operates two HDW type 209s and many in the Navy would prefer these to the Russian boat.
One advantage the Russian subs have is capability to fire Klub and Brahmos cruise missiles, which the Indians have begun manufactuing (and have probably modified for extended range).
The Project 17 destroyers being built at Magazon shipyard are being fitted with VLS cells for these missiles.
They will probably arm the land atack versions of these cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
Reports from Russian media are that work has recommenced on two "Schuka" type nuclear attack subs that were discontinued a few years ago.
These two SSNs will apparenltly be leased to the Indian Navy.
The Indian Engineering Firm Larsen and Taubro is reportedly fabricating the hull of the ATV (the Indian nuclear submarine project) at its Hazira shipyard.
Posted by: john ||
04/29/2006 8:21 Comments ||
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At this time 1969 the French governemnt had not had time to brainwash the citizens gainst Israel. There was sympathy and, after the Six Days admiration for the valiant country who had just crushed vastly more numerous enemies. Also in the Army there weres till vivid memories of the de facto alliance from the fifties.
One of the consequences of Cherbourg was the purging of Israel's sympathizers from teh army.
BRUSSELS A Ghent doctor did not break the law in helping an 87-year-old dementia patient to die on 20 January this year, the public prosecution office has said. But the case has not yet been dismissed. The euthanasia supervision and evaluation commission must still give advice on the case. The doctor, Marc Cosyns, gave his patient a drink of barbiturates in January and she died shortly after.
Euthanasia laws ban mercy killings on dementia or Alzheimer's patients, unless they are consciously aware. Cosyns claims the woman had requested euthanasia at a moment in which she had clarity of thought. Moreover, strictly speaking her death could be seen as a form of suicide, because she drank from the cup herself. Cosyns has said he wants to spark public debate about the ethics of allowing dementia patients to undergo euthanasia.
Sort of how a large part of their country is going to ponder euthanasia if they don't protect their nuclear facilities?
Methinks the doctor performed a murder for political objectives. Fry 'im.
Posted by: DanNY ||
04/29/2006 7:01 Comments ||
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Was it Holland or Belgium that advocated killing babies with severe birth defects without securing the parents' permission first? It's not much different than this situation, except he offed an adult.
#6
well, I hope when I have zlzheimer's in a year or two, and I'm wandering around the neighborhood half naked scaring the children, I hope this guy's around to offer me in for a drink.
A German trade union on Friday threatened to blockade a World Cup stadium unless they manage to end a tariff conflict before the start of the World Cup finals. An official for the Unified Service Sector Union (ver.di), Peter Schmitt, said that they do not want to blockade the entrance to the Kaiserslautern World Cup stadium. "We don't want that. We would much rather enjoy good games there, but if the tariff conflict is not ended by the start of the World Cup we cant rule out blocking the stadium entrance with thousand of striking workers." The conflict between ver.di and the employers organisation have stalled and there is no new date yet. One of the reasons for the conflict is a planned increase in working hours.
Saddam Hussein's lawyer is walking in Greenwich Village, admiring the brave buds of a skeletal tree slowly stirring from winter sleep. In the twilight of his life, he notices such things: the advent of spring, the daily opera that plays on the streets of Manhattan, the small, simple pleasures that still stir his soul.
He is an old man, untroubled by the fact that his latest client is a former dictator. In his 78 years, he has represented many infamous men and many divisive causes, the latest of which is to impeach President Bush and dispatch his administration.
"So, Mr. Clark," yells a young man standing on the sidewalk. "Are we going to get those (expletives) out of office?" Ummmmmmmmmmmm...nope.
Texas gentility rarely fails Ramsey Clark U.S. attorney general under Lyndon Baines Johnson even when strangers hurl vulgarities on the street."I hope so," he answers, in a polite voice branded by a Dallas drawl. Ever been accused of any war crimes, kid? Here's my card, just in case...
People have said worse things to him and about him. In his very public life, he has been called misguided, a traitor, a Communist and a fool. People have said good things, too the NAACP and the ACLU have lauded his civil rights work. Well, then I'm sold...
So have despots and dictators like his newest client, Saddam Hussein, who faces death by hanging if convicted in a chaotic Baghdad trial marked by assassinations of attorneys, emotional meltdowns and shouting matches with the judge. There have been many others in the last 40 years. Clark has offered legal counsel and advice to a rogue's gallery of the accused: Nazi concentration camp boss Karl Linnas; Liberia's Charles Taylor, now charged with crimes against humanity; Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, on the run from charges of genocide; former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who died last month in his cell in The Hague while on trial for war crimes; Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, the Rwandan Seventh Day Adventist pastor convicted by the U.N., with his son, of herding thousands of Tutsis into a church compound and then calling in rival Hutus, who killed them in an all-day massacre. Are you a homicidal dictator? Facing charges on crimes against humanity? Being accused of genocide? Then call me at 1-800-RAMSEY. Operators available 24 hours a day. Se habla espanol...
He accepts these clients, he says, for the sake of justice and to uphold the right of every person to a fair and impartial trial. "Especially those people," he says, "who allegedly did terrible things." I think he has some bizarre attraction to them myself. He's like a serial lawyer.
William Ramsey Clark is a complicated and contradictory man. Wow. Like Shaft?
A conversation with him entails listening to legal constructs and the rules of justice as they pertain to his clients. Is Saddam's prosecuting body, the Iraqi Special Tribunal, a legal entity? No, in his view. Is Saddam getting a fair trial? A resounding no. Is there any evidence that Milosevic, whose funeral he attended, actually ordered mass rapes and killings in the former Yugoslavia? Absolutely not, he says. Other then all those dead people? Nope. But there is no mention of the humanity lost under the rule of his clients, or of the evils of genocide and murder. Or of what should be done with people who commit them. Instead, he lives in a reality of his own making, where the rules of rhetoric and logic apply to circumstances of his choosing. There is no evil. There is no death penalty. There are no prisons. He hesitates when asked what should replace the later two. "I don't believe in punishment," he says. Pressed to be more specific, he thinks a long while. Finally, he describes a place with "quarters that are reasonably comfortable, where guests can be received. Adequate food and clothing and health care. Where the family could come and live." ...and we could all just sit around and talk about all the thousands of Rwandans and Kurds and Liberians and Yugoslavians and all the other millions they butchered not so long ago. Good times...good times...
Such thoughts have fueled some of the more benign criticism of Clark over the years that he is gullible and misinformed. New Yorker correspondent Jon Lee Anderson, in his book "The Fall of Baghdad," described Clark as "well intentioned but morally blind." Hearing that line, Clark appears wounded. "Well," he says softly. "That's interesting." Honestly, Ramsey? I think your mentally ill.
He was born in Dallas to a privileged family. He married his college sweetheart, Georgia Welch, and recently celebrated his 57th wedding anniversary. They have two children a son who is an environmental lawyer and a daughter, who suffers from mental retardation and has lived her entire life in the care of her parents. "She is the joy of our life," says Clark.
He is the son of Tom Clark, whom Harry Truman appointed attorney general and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. As I remember, I think Truman thought this was one of the worst decisions of his presidency.
Ramsey Clark, at age 18, joined the Marine Corps when his parents moved to Washington, D.C. Gung-ho and ready to fight, Clark said seeing the reality of war changed him on the spot. "I was appalled at what I saw. I couldn't hardly stand it."
Honorably discharged, he studied law at the University of Chicago. He practiced at his family's well-established Dallas law firm, then followed his dad's footsteps to the Justice Department. In 1967, President Johnson appointed Clark attorney general. It is said in Washington circles that Johnson had an ulterior motive. He wanted to appoint the first black to the Supreme Court. Tom Clark had to step down when his son was appointed the country's top prosecutor, to avoid a conflict of interest. Johnson replaced him with Thurgood Marshall.
As attorney general, Clark resisted J. Edgar Hoover's efforts to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. (Hoover did it anyway) and championed civil rights. Then, in 1968, he prosecuted Vietnam war opponent and pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock on charges of conspiracy to counsel, aid, and abet resistance to the draft.
He sees no contradictions in the narrative of his life. "I can't tell you that I've changed all that much," he says. "I wouldn't call it radical change. I would call it growth." Nonetheless, leaving Washington in 1968, Clark took a decided turn to the left. And kept going.
He joined the anti-war movement and traveled to North Vietnam in 1972. He ran twice for the U.S. Senate and lost both times.
In 1980, at the height of the hostage crisis, he visited Tehran to attend a forum about U.S. crimes against Iran. Later he voiced support for Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. If you've got a show trial and you need a prominent "American" to embarrass the United States, call 1-800-RAMSEY. Operators on duty 24 hours a day, se habla espanol.
In 1992, he represented Karadzic, who arrived in New York for United Nations deliberations and was handed federal subpoenas for a civil suit filed by Bosnian refugee women accusing him of ordering mass rapes and other war crimes. Karadzic, indicted three years later for genocide and crimes against humanity, now tops the most-wanted list at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Clark also represented Charles Taylor, who was arrested in New York in the 1980s on charges of looting his country. Taylor escaped from jail via knotted bedsheets and fled the United States.
Clark first met Saddam in 1990, when the Iraqi leader sought advice on how to deal with Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who was threatening war over Hussein's invasion of neighboring Kuwait. "I told him that I thought he had no possibility of defending himself against an American invasion and that his country would be destroyed," recalls Clark. He also remembers the dictator agreeing with him. Though Saddam didn't agree for long, to disastrous effect. "An arrogant person would have been upset," Clark says. "He's a listener. First and foremost, he's human being." A real... people person, right, Ramsey?
They met again last year. This time, the dictator was deposed and in jail, charged with human rights abuses before the Iraqi Special Tribunal. He faces death by hanging if convicted; even if acquitted, he faces more trials. Most recently, he has been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity in a 1980s crackdown against the Kurds.
His first trial began in October, a contentious and cantankerous proceeding televised live. Saddam has ranted, prayed, refused to enter court, gotten into shouting matches with the judge who responded by emptying the court room and holding the hearing in secret.
Clark, too, has lost patience. He and other defenders have stormed out of the courtroom, he has assailed the judge, on more than one occasion demanding an opportunity to address the court.
There has been bloodshed and murder. Days after the court convened, an Iraqi defense lawyer was dragged from his office and shot to death. A second lawyer was assassinated in Baghdad by gunmen who also wounded another member of the defense team.
Proceedings were adjourned until replacements could be found for the two dead men and for a third attorney who fled the country fearing for his life.
"It is a three-ring circus," Clark says, and a travesty. But the problem, to Clark's mind, is not Saddam's behavior but the trial itself. Saddam is charged with the deaths of 148 Shiites who were tried and executed after an alleged assassination attempt on Saddam in 1982. Saddam and Clark acknowledge the deaths, but say that the dictator acted within the law. See, it says right here, "Saddam can kill anybody he wants." So I move for dismissal, your honor. And could you make it quick because I have to get back to Washington to impeach the evil Bushitler...
Clark's fundamental criticism is that the Iraqi Special Tribunal established and trained and funded by the United States is an illegal entity that follows no legal procedures, most notably the right to due process. "I've never seen the crime scene, we can't get a transcript (of the hearings), the translation is terrible," he complains. "We know nothing about the witnesses' backgrounds. We don't know if they're actors or not. All we've got is people crying and talking about things that aren't always coherent." Then you should fit right in...
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cliff Wardlaw, who spent a year in Iraq helping prosecutors and judges establish an open judicial system, has little patience with Saddam's lawyer. "All I have to do is see some quote from Ramsey Clark and I tune out," said Wardlaw, the federal prosecutor in Minnesota. Good policy. I try to practice it myself.
Tribunal members were taken to The Hague and to London, where they observed "other bodies that are doing the same thing," Wardlaw said. "We're not telling them how to do it. We showed them how Nuremberg worked. It's providing a foundation of knowledge to them."
Nuremberg also holds great meaning for Clark. As a young Marine courier, he spent two days at the Nazi war crimes tribunal. At the defense table in Baghdad, he recalls the words of prosecutor Robert H. Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, in his opening statement at the trial of Hermann Goering, Albert Speer and 19 others:
"We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well." But Jackson also said some wrongs are "so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored."
And these are words that Clark does not quote. Guess they just don't fit the agenda, do they Ramsey? So we'll ignore them...
#2
It is said in Washington circles that Johnson had an ulterior motive. He wanted to appoint the first black to the Supreme Court.
There are actual tape recordings of the manipulations of LBJ on this.
"Clark, I really want you as AG, but what are folk gonna say about your daddy? He's hearing cases that you're presenting. There're gonna say 'conflict of interest'. It looks real bad for him"
Clark's claim to fame was being AG. He only got the job because LBJ wanted Thurgood Marshall as SC justice and Clark's father was occupying the chair.
Posted by: john ||
04/29/2006 15:01 Comments ||
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He looks so ugly these days too....like a catfish extruding whiskers.
#4
Appointed Attorney General by President Harry Truman in 1945, Clark was appointed to the court in August 1949, filling the vacancy left by the death of Frank Murphy. Truman later came to regret his choice; he remarked to a biographer many years later that "Tom Clark was my biggest mistake." But, he insisted: "It isn't so much that he's a bad man. It's just that he's such a dumb son of a bitch." The basis for the change in Truman's attitude stemmed from Clark's vote to strike down as unconstitutional Truman's seizure of the nation's steel mills to avert a strike in 1952's Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer after having advised Truman as attorney general that he had legal authority to do so.
Must've been a helluva attorney general. Like his kid...
Lookism aside, this commie fuck Rhamses Klinton-Klark, your rotting hero has provoked a LOT of anti-American aggitation over the years. I'd bet that you've done your share as well, Heh??
#10
But it's a moral position! When they came for the dictators and despots, I said nothing...
Mr. Clark, esq. has plenty to say. But in support of the d's and d's, not in opposition. The gentleman (all lawyers being gentlemen by courtesy) is a moral boil. I'm quite certain his dear friends, that he defended so very unsuccessfully in the end, will keep a place for him at their table in Hell.
The California State Assembly regularly holds floor session on Mondays and Thursdays to vote on bills. However, Monday May 1st they will not be meeting, as the Democrats have chosen to participate in the work stoppage supporting illegal immigration which is planned for that day. But instead of canceling session all together, they changed to a check-in session so that they could still collect their per-diem ($459 tax-free for the weekend and Monday) .
Today during closing statements, Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R- Monrovia) chastised Assembly Democrats. He asked why they would collect per-diem when everyone else who is taking the day off will not be getting paid at all?
He went on to suggest that Republicans come to the capital on Monday, the day of protest and demand that they be allowed to work in the place of Democrat legislators because they are willing to do the work the Dems are unwilling to do. And they will do it at half the pay!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/29/2006 18:49 ||
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Let Vice President Cheney unload a hail of buckshot - and it makes mainstream media headlines as a defining moment is his failed vice presidency.
Let him file his federal tax return and it is reported by CBS News that "Cheney tops Bush in the battle of the bucks."
Let him donate what was the largest amount of bucks in history to charity by any public servant, and you guessed it - nary a headline.
But then again it was a paltry $6.87 million, more than three-quarters of the reported income of the Cheneys.
Read this again: The Cheneys gave $6.87 million to charity in 2005.
A small story perhaps, but come on - doesn't a multimillion dollar contribution to charities by a vice president deserve special recognition? Frankly, I was astonished when I first read this and thought it was a typo because it was buried in a column that leads off with President Bush's tax return - which wasn't even newsworthy - just the typical annual report on the tax returns of the president and vice president.
As a matter of fact, the AP headline read "Cheney's income 10 times the Bushes'. And the L.A. Times reported: "Bush pays taxes, Cheney awaits refund,"
I could go on with other headlines, but you get the point. Not one headline in the mainstream media that Cheney gave $6.87 million to charity. The "refund" headline by the L.A. Times is laughable. The reason he's getting a refund is because he overpaid in estimating his taxes and had too much withheld.
Another paper spun the AP story by saying not only did Cheney make ten times as much as Bush, but "He is looking for a $1.9 million refund." What gall.
Another equally compelling headline would have been when a former vice president's tax return - Al Gore's - reported a paltry $367 in charitable contributions in 1997. Of course this item never made the headlines either - given the bias of the mainstream media.
The Cheney's income was largely the result of his exercising stock options from his stint at Halliburton, some deferred compensation and royalties from three books written by Mrs. Cheney.
Of interest, the AP story referred to Cheney's adjusted gross income as "largely padded" with income he received by exercising stock options that had been set aside for charity. Here's a guy that sets up a gift arrangement for charity with Halliburton when he took office in 2001 and the AP elects to describe his return as being "padded" -- this was income earmarked for charity in 2001.
Why the use of such a pejorative term? (Like padding an expense account.)
The Washington Post couldn't resist referring to Halliburton as "a large military contractor in Iraq," as if Iraq had something to do with this story. And so as to belittle this astounding donation, the Post said "the Cheneys appear to have taken advantage of a special tax break." Hey, anybody who gives three quarters of what they've earned too charity deserves a tax break.
The majority of Americans do not realize how devastatingly effective the media is in shaping attitudes. They can and will destroy the reputations of those they oppose. What is so alarming is that the media mistakes their limitations for high standards.
#1
Astonishing but pretty much what we have come to expect (if that makes any sense!) since the media has switched over from reporting events and facts to promoting a narrative.
Any accusation of bias would provoke squeals of innocence. Certainly, all the facts contained in the story are true. Just some important bits have been overlooked to make the point that Chainey is an evil rich bastard. Even eviler than BushHitler because Chainey got a tax refund! Sheesh. Like someone said about film making, the camera never lies but the director chooses what story to tell.
Crap like this is one reason I appreciate alternative news sources like Rantburg.
#2
But AlGore and Kerry gave, what $400? And Mizz Hillary was deducting the value of donated boxers (sans DNA.... I hope). The party of the Hypocritical Assholes the Peeps
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2006 18:37 Comments ||
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#3
Hmph, Cheny got the fat refund BECAUSE he gave the 6.87 Million: The estimate is based on what he expects to earn that year, and with sums that high, the IRS wants it paid quarterly, not annually. The estimates DO NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT ITEMIZED DEDUCTIONS, which includes charitable donations.
I give 10% on my Gross, and I can tell that Cheney got LESS money back per charitable dollar than I did: at those levels, he's paying the AMT, which has a top rate of 25%, while mine is 33%. Thus, he gets back 25 cents per dollar given, while I get 33 cents back.
Reminds me of what happened to President Reagan (GBH (God bless him)). He once told the Press corps that he gave 10%. When he was challenged based on his tax return, he said he gave money to individuals not approved charities, but would re-route his donations next year.
Come next year, and nary a peep from the press: the Evangelical press reported that Reagan (GBH) gave the full 10%.
WASHINGTON: Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan declared at a press conference on Thursday that Pakistan is "not in the business of transforming governments or changing regimes" when asked about Islamabad's views about the current US passage-at-arms with Iran.
At least we know which side you're on. We'll remember, by the way...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan is "not in the business of transforming governments or changing regimes"
HYDERABAD: A Pakistani couple, jailed after the womans father objected to their love marriage, appeared in court on Friday after spending five years in prison without trial.
I have committed no adultery, 23-year-old Sodi wept in a courthouse in Hyderabad as she recounted her ordeal to journalists. I was 18 when I got married of my own free will with Kashkeli. Our marriage was contracted before a maulvi (preacher) and registered, said the woman, who has been held in a separate jail from her husband. The couple were arrested in October 2001 on adultery charges after the womans father, a farmer, lodged a report with police accusing the man of abducting his daughter and committing adultery with her.
The Supreme Court ordered the civil court to expedite a decision on the case after receiving an appeal smuggled out of jail by the woman. The girl has filed an application for justice as she has been kept apart from her husband for five years without a decision on the case, defence lawyer Khuda Baksh Leghari said, adding that a decision was expected within a few days.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2006 00:00 ||
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DIR: Anyone reporting an honour killing case to the police or filing a case with the court will be killed by the jirga (tribal court) since the publicising of such cases has brought a bad name to the area, Malik Faiz Muhammad, a member of the Nihag-Wari jirga in Upper Dir, said on Friday.
Good move. Direct. To the point. Y'see, it's not the fact that women are chopped up, splashed with acid, shot, or stabbed for trading smiles with a fellow that causes people to regard the area as a stench and a pestilence, but the fact that those actions are publicized.
The Nihag-Dara Wari jirga had issued a controversial verdict in favour of honour killing around 15 days ago, declaring it a permissible act.
"Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Chop their heads off. We got plenty of women to go around, since our menfolk kill each other in large enough numbers in pointless violence..."
A Wari police station official said that over 150 people had attended the jirga, but Malik Faiz told Daily Times that the jirga consisted of more than 4,000 people representing the entire area. We stick to our verdict that honour killing is permissible and those who commit it will not be liable to any punishment. We will also not allow the aggrieved party to report the case to the police or file the case before a court. We will kill those who will violate the jirga verdict, he said. Malik Faiz said that the jirga would investigate such cases and punish those found guilty on its own. He said that the jirga members were ready to sacrifice their lives to uphold their verdict.
Not that they're drama queening or anything, mind you...
Certain union council nazims also attended the jirga called by the Painda Khel tribe and endorsed the decision of the jirga.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2006 00:00 ||
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#4
We will kill those who will violate the jirga verdict
...and anyone who doesn't kill those who violate the jirga verdict will also be killed as will those who don't kill those who don't kill those who don't kill those who violate the jirga verdict.
PBUH.
THE imminent eruption of three powerful volcanoes is endangering the lives of more than 70,000 people and threatening to affect the global climate by ejecting millions of tonnes of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.
The most serious threat is posed by the Merapi volcano in central Java, one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", which was yesterday throwing out ash and small rocks. Geologists believe that the 1.7-mile high volcano could violently erupt at any time.
Two other volcanoes also giving cause for concern are the Galeras volcano in Colombia - expected to erupt within a matter of days or weeks - and the Urbinas volcano in southern Peru, which also appears to be gearing up for an eruption.
Aid workers have voiced concerns about the threat posed to the thousands of people living in the vicinity of the volcanoes and the Foreign Office has issued a travel warning advising British citizens to avoid the area around Mount Merapi.
It said the Indonesian centre for vulcanology had raised the alert status for the volcano and warned that an eruption might be imminent.
It added: "Indonesian authorities have evacuated the villages closest to the volcano and some flights over the area have been cancelled."
Aid agencies are preparing for the worst. Oxfam has briefed staff that up to 60,000 people in four districts around Merapi are at risk and that several hundred have already been relocated.
Most of those relocated are women, children and the elderly, but some are returning to their homes near the volcano during the day to feed livestock.
Yesterday, the tower of sulphurous smoke over the volcano had risen to 1,640ft and a rain of ash fell on one village on its slopes, which overlook the ancient city of Yogyakarta.
The volcano has a history of violent eruptions. In 1994 it killed 70 people and a 1930 eruption cost the lives of 1,300 people.
Government officials, including Hamengkubuwono X, the sultan of Yogyakarta and provincial governor, have been urging residents to leave the foothills, saying Merapi could erupt any time. Local vulcanologists have also noted the magma inside the volcano is reaching its peak.
The Galeras volcano in Colombia began erupting in 1988 after a period of dormancy and it has a history of large-scale eruptions. About 7,000 people are thought to be at risk if, as expected, it erupts in the near future, and aid workers report that many of those directly at risk have not left their homes.
The potential eruption of the Urbinas volcano in southern Peru puts some 4,500 people at risk. The volcano, about 470 miles from Lima, has triggered earth tremors which have been felt in the capital.
Peruvian authorities have declared a state of emergency in the area after the volcano started to eject gas and ash over a radius of 3.5 miles. Geologists report a dome of lava appears to be building in the crater, a sign that an eruption is imminent.
The eruption of any volcano can have an effect on local and global climate and three large eruptions close together could have a significant impact, leading to cooler temperatures.
The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 led to a drop in global air temperature over the next three years of between 0.2 and 0.5 °C, according to NASA, which conducted a study into the effects of the millions of tonnes of ash and sulphur dioxide blown into the atmosphere.
Yesterday David Crichton, visiting professor at the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College London, said it was possible that the three volcanoes now expected to erupt could have similar effects.
"Volcanoes can have an impact on climate," he said. "Sulphur dioxide can have a cooling effect and there is also a dimming effect on the sun caused by the clouds of ash."
The eruption of any volcano can have an effect on local and global climate and three large eruptions close together could have a significant impact, leading to cooler temperatures.
#9
So if we see that start of a Little Ice Age, does that mean we can do back to coal fired generation plants, remove the cat converters from our cars, and start chugging unblended gas again?
#10
I keep telling you folks, the operative phrase among the "experts" is now "climate change", not "global warming". That way, they're never wrong, which makes them "experts"...
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/29/2006 13:43 Comments ||
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#18
I propose sacrificing AlGore to the Volcano Gods. Should be an even swap in gaseous emissions spewed
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2006 14:10 Comments ||
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#19
Let's see, now. There's an active volcano in Nicaragua puffing steam and gasses, one on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, one in Ecuador, two or three on the Kamchatka peninsula, AT LEAST one in Hawaii (plus one bubbling beneath the surface to the southeast of the big island of Hawaii), Mount Etna is bubbling and churning, and the New Zealanders have an active volcano. Mt. St. Helens is growing/shrinking, indicating it's still pretty active. There's a good chance that Mt Rainier and Mt. Hood could explode in the next 100 years, and the Yellowstone Caldera continues to be active.
There's increasing evidence of additional volcanic pressure in the old Silveton caldera, and there's been some tectonic activity near Trinidad, in southern Colorado that many call the preludes to volcanic activity in the area (the nearby Spanish Peaks are leftovers from a late-Pliestocene volcano). Now, why should non-locals be worried about these particular three again?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/29/2006 17:33 Comments ||
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#20
OP, stratovolcanos can explosively erupt injecting large quantities of material into the atmosphere. Some people think we are overdue for a VEI5+ eruption. There were none in the 20th century, while there two in the 19th century. A VEI5+ eruption would have a global impact.
Otherwise, the writer is wrong to characterize the effect of a large eruption as just climate cooling. Recent research strongly indicates that while the initial effect is cooling from dust in the atmosphere, there is a longer term warming effect from the gases ejected. Because the dust is removed from the atmosphere faster than the gases.
Some people think the increase global temperatures we saw in the mid 1990s, peaking in 1998 was from Pinatubo.
#22
75,000 years ago the Toba volcano in Indonesia erupted, spewing 2,800 cubic kilometers of material in a plume some 25 km high. That's 2800 times the output of the Mt. St. Helens eruption a few years ago. The ash has been measured to be over 15' deep in most parts of India and Pakistan.
Estimates are that Toba also emitted 10 to the 12th power kilograms of sulfuric acid into the atmosphere.
The result was pretty dramatic. A 6 year global winter. And a major genetic bottleneck as temperatures dropped 5 degrees C, on average, accelerating an ice age that was just getting started.
Geneticists estimate that most hominid lines died out at that point and that the population of homo sapiens (i.e. us) was reduced to fewer than 2,000 in east Africa and less than 10,000 worldwide.
This was not the first eruption known at Toba. An earlier one 788,000 years ago also spread magma and ash thousands of kilometers.
Merapi is in the same system as Toba. It and its neighbors have a nasty habit of occasional massive eruptions that have a worldwide impact (although not usually as huge as Toba's). Doesn't mean it will happen soon, but it's definitely not out of the range of possibility.
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.
DUESSELDORF: A secondary school in the German city of Bonn suspended two Muslim girls over their wearing of the burqa, an education official said on Friday. The two teenagers were considered to have disturbed the peaceful running of the school and were handed initial suspensions of two weeks, the official said. Their choice of clothing had spurred disruptive debate in the school and what the official described as the girls' "Islamic-fundamentalist behaviour" had prevented normal classes from taking place. The two were free to return to school provided they abandoned wearing the burqa, the official added.
Romano Prodi's candidate failed early Saturday to win the necessary votes to become Senate president during Parliament's chaotic first session, a sign of potential trouble ahead for the incoming government in the divided house.
BRUSSELS A Ghent doctor did not break the law in helping an 87-year-old dementia patient to die on 20 January this year, the public prosecution office has said. But the case has not yet been dismissed. The euthanasia supervision and evaluation commission must still give advice on the case. The doctor, Marc Cosyns, gave his patient a drink of barbiturates in January and she died shortly after. 
A German trade union on Friday threatened to blockade a World Cup stadium unless they manage to end a tariff conflict before the start of the World Cup finals. An official for the Unified Service Sector Union (ver.di), Peter Schmitt, said that they do not want to blockade the entrance to the Kaiserslautern World Cup stadium. "We don't want that. We would much rather enjoy good games there, but if the tariff conflict is not ended by the start of the World Cup we cant rule out blocking the stadium entrance with thousand of striking workers." The conflict between ver.di and the employers organisation have stalled and there is no new date yet. One of the reasons for the conflict is a planned increase in working hours. 
Saddam Hussein's lawyer is walking in Greenwich Village, admiring the brave buds of a skeletal tree slowly stirring from winter sleep. In the twilight of his life, he notices such things: the advent of spring, the daily opera that plays on the streets of Manhattan, the small, simple pleasures that still stir his soul. 
HYDERABAD: A Pakistani couple, jailed after the womans father objected to their love marriage, appeared in court on Friday after spending five years in prison without trial. 
DIR: Anyone reporting an honour killing case to the police or filing a case with the court will be killed by the jirga (tribal court) since the publicising of such cases has brought a bad name to the area, Malik Faiz Muhammad, a member of the Nihag-Wari jirga in Upper Dir, said on Friday. 
