A recent Roman Catholic Churchs survey mentioned that Algeria and Yemen are the countries where the number of catholic Christians and the volume of associations social and educational activities are the lowest in the Arab world.
The survey said that the number of Christians in Algeria and Yemen is about 4 thousands each, which is far away from that provided by the latest US DOS report on religious freedom in Algeria. The same report, issued by Vatican Library of which the Palestinian Alquds Alarabi magazine reported a summary, mentioned that the number of baptised Christians in the Arab World reached 8.7 millions. The Vatican report added that Sudan embraces the majority of them with 2.4 ms; Lebanon comes second with 860 thousands; and Saudi Arabia third with 801 thousands.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Bakeries in Zimbabwe remained closed Sunday and shop shelves were empty of bread despite a 300 percent rise in the official price of a loaf.
The state Sunday Mail, a government mouthpiece, said the National Prices and Incomes Commission allowed the bread price to increase to Zimbabwe dollars 100,000 (US 20 cents) Friday as part of a review to help businesses remain viable. The rise came after the government slashed the price of bread by more than a half in June aimed at fighting the world's highest official inflation. Bread, the cornmeal staple, meat and other basics then disappeared from store shelves as businesses were forced to sell their goods at below production costs.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#3
Hey, give them a couple more days and the shelves should be filled to overflowing again. Zimbob himself has gone outside to order the wheat to grow itself faster.
(Xinhua) -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro spoke by telephone with his visiting Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez on Sunday in a live TV show, the first of its kind since July 2006. "There is electricity in the air," Chavez said during Castro's call to his "Alo, Presidente!" program, which means "everyone is electrified to hear Castro."
"Señor Presidente! What was it like, having sex with Señor Commandante?"
"When it was over, we enjoyed a good cigar. Now we are complete compañeros!"
Sunday's television show, broadcast from the eastern Cuban city of Santa Clara, also aired a 17-minute documentary on Saturday's four-hour Castro-Chavez meeting. Castro, 81, appears fragile but alert in the video, in which he discussed the Argentine guerilla leader Ernesto Guevara, better known by his nickname Che, who was a key figure in the 1959 Cuban revolution. "The ideas of the revolution have been sown all across Latin America and today's circumstances are more susceptible than ever for these ideas to sprout for the revolution that Che Guevara spoke of," said Castro. Chavez's program was meant to celebrate Guevara who died some 40 years ago in Bolivia, executed by Bolivian government forces while fighting alongside Bolivian insurgents.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I wonder which politicians and lefty celebrities will fly to Havana to pay their respects when the old murderer and pop-star finally does go back to hell?
Imagine the pious drivel we will hear from the likes of Barbara Walters and Sean Penn. (Walters once called Fidel "the sexiest man I have ever met.")
Will the media try to outdo each other in running 24/7 grief-a-thon coverage on the JFK/Princess Di model?
Will Bryan Williams and Keith Olbermann bring out their most reverentially hushed tones as they describe Castro's carcass wending its way past the weeping throngs in Havana?
Will a somber Katy Couric wear her black mourning dress again?
Btw, serious party-animals should do everything possible to be in Miami when Fidel does finally kick off.
The scene in the lab with the doctors :
------------------------------------------------
"Unfortunately, preparations for a successor...
have never been adequately clear.
In short, we have been in the throes
of a major crisis. As for our leader,
the emergency department rushed to the scene
of the accident immediately, but all that remained
of him was this -- this is our leader's nose.
(Nose was shown at this point)
Using great presence of mind, we rushed the nose
to our closest delta laboratory which is here...
Where, through massive biochemical effort,
It has been kept alive for nearly a year.
Our dream has been that by cloning,
we would reduplicate the entire leader again."
----------------------------------------------
from :
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/s/sleeper-script-transcript-woody-allen.html
-----------------------------------------------
To me this is proof that Happy Hugo was talking to an impostor....
BEIJING, China (AP) Chinese President Hu Jintao opened a major Communist Party congress Monday by promising modest reforms to make government institutions more responsive while strengthening one-party rule. "In deepening political restructuring, we must keep to the correct political orientation," Hu said in a speech opening the party's 17th congress.
The congress is a crucial test of strength for Hu after five years in power, especially his ability to maneuver allies, possibly including a designated successor, into key positions and assert the primacy of his vision of more balanced development.
Hu, who is expected to remain in power for another five years, said government advisory bodies, which include non-party members, should be given a greater role in decision making. He also supported holding more public hearings before laws and regulations are formulated.
He said the party had to pay more attention to taking a scientific outlook on development, a catchphrase for redistributing growth more equally and making more efficient use of energy. "A relatively comfortable standard of living has been achieved for the people as a whole but the trend of a growing gap in incomes distribution has not been thoroughly reversed," Hu said. "There are still a considerable number of impoverished and low-income people in both urban and rural areas, and it has become more difficult to accommodate the interests of all sides."
On Sunday, congress spokesman Li Dongsheng said senior party members would put forth a blueprint for reforming political institutions, but the steps aimed to strengthen one-party rule and will not copy Western democratic models. Li told reporters the party has studied and drawn from other country's political systems, along with its own experiences. "But, we will never copy the Western model of a political system," he added. Why? Perchance do you feel that it may take away from government officials' ability to accumulate undue wealth? Look again, Hu . . . .
Li gave few specifics and declined to answer questions about expected retirements and promotions in the party's ruling Politburo, highlighting the secretive party's extreme sensitivity over personnel issues.
He said reforms would also aim to strengthen the legal system and decision-making, increase the government's responsiveness and "enhance supervision and restraint over the exercise of power." He was referring to Communist Party control over individual leaders, not an attempt to limit the party's unrivaled hold on power.
Li did not elaborate, but the congress is expected to address the case of former Politburo member and Shanghai party boss Chen Liangyu, who became the highest-ranking party member to fall in a decade when he was toppled amid a probe into wide-ranging corruption.
Although Hu's leadership has never been threatened, he is largely seen as weaker than past leaders, forcing him to compromise on some top appointments and other decisions. In a sign of possible constraints, Hu's retired predecessor, Jiang Zemin, was appointed to the committee handling the congress' arrangements, state media said Sunday.
Broadcast live on national television, Hu's opening speech was his highest-profile political address since taking power five years ago at the last party congress. It was heavy with Communist rhetoric, with numerous references to holding "high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics."
Hu largely reiterated goals of making China reasonably prosperous by 2020.
As opposed to Hong Kong and Taiwan which were reasonably prosperous in 1970.
He said the country would pursue a peaceful path internationally. He warned Taiwan against further secessionist activities, but emphasized China's desire for peaceful reunification.
Security was heavy in Beijing with police removing a group of older people who appeared to be carrying petitions from the crowds gathered near the Hall on the side of Tiananmen Square.
The congress' more-than 2,200 delegates will elect a new party Central Committee. That body in turn will approve a smaller Politburo and the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in China.
Deliberations over the lineup have been going on for months and will take place this week behind closed doors. Its makeup is officially announced after the congress ends.
Hu is expected to also push for the elevation of protege Li Keqiang onto the Politburo Standing Committee, while Xi Jinping, the party boss of Shanghai and the son of a revolutionary veteran, is also expected to get a seat.
#1
China's biggest problem seems to be that their central government is unable to control their regional and local governments. The vast majority of protests are from people who *want* the central government to stop its subordinate governments from violating the national law.
#3
One party rule is tyranny. Our traitor elite simply cannot bring themselves to say it aloud. Be it Chinese communism or Islamic theocracy they are all tyrannies and in need of demolition.
#5
If China was smart they'd enforce a sort of Federalism in that the states can elect who they want to run themselves but they have no say in who runs the central government and the states better listen to the central government on certain things (corruption for example).
Not saying I'd want to live under that sort of thing but if hte party wants to stay in power I think it's the best bet. It gives a sort of illusion of democracy and choice without any of those crazy ideas affecting the central government and the entire nation.
It also means you could declare Taiwan a Special Autonomous area (like Hong Kong) and keep the ficition going pretty strong for another decade, perhaps even convincing the Taiwanese to join up rather than fight.
#6
If China was smart...
good point but they're not smart, in fact they're kind of stupid overall. Unable to think independently and beyond personal self gain they remain mired in political tyranny and personal misery... They're rude and overpopulated with a massive ecological disaster looking them in the face, they've made a habit of lying and thuggery in their own country and around the region, The USA NEVER should have gotten in bed with them!!!!
Forget the general election that wasn't - the biggest political event of this autumn is about to take place. The 17th congress of the Chinese Communist party starts tomorrow in Beijing. Every important figure in communist China, ranging from city mayors to the chief executives of state-owned enterprises, will gather and politick for the next five days - and then choose a President of China to succeed Hu Jintao in 2012.
The character and aims of China's next President are important enough in themselves: having powered past Britain, by the end of this year, China will have overtaken Germany to become the third largest economy in the world after the USA and Japan. It is already the world's second military power, biggest exporter and owner of the largest foreign exchange reserves. But as every member of this week's congress knows, their choice has an additional and particular resonance. They are choosing the fifth generation of Communist party leaders after the 1949 revolution. These are no longer leaders legitimised by revolution or who have the same sense of communist mission. They are managers and administrators who want to make the system work.
In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev's readiness to question communism was intertwined with his membership of the Soviet Union's fifth generation of leaders. He did not champion perestroika and glasnost alone; much of the nomenklatura had decided that the Soviet economic and social model was dysfunctional, corrupt and endemically inefficient and had to change. Will one of Hu Jintao's two 'Lis', as the frontrunners to succeed him, Li Keqiang and Li Yuanchao, are popularly known, feel the same way as they walk out in front of the cameras in the Great Hall of the People on Friday? Will one prove to be China's Gorbachev?
Continued on Page 49
#1
DIGG.com > THE SINO-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE LEAVES THE US OUT IN THE COLD > Chinese Poster - China's people only want peace in Asia and with USA, China + USA relationship is akin to a husband and wife. Can be very good for each other iff only both sides can understand and show the love.
#2
Joe, I'm trying to think of a suitable snark for that poster but instead of a husband and wife I keep visualizing a whore and a john. It makes me want to take a shower and then have myself checked for STDs.
#3
Sometimes neighbors get along (Canada/US) but more often then not centuries of history make a mockery of such alliances. That is why the US makes a good ally for some places.
#5
The history of China is to fly apart as local warlords refuse to obey orders from the far away center. If their bribery is threatened, how likely is it that the regional leaders will resist effective control from Peking to protect their fortunes? That seems like the most likely reason for the CCP to fall, not foreign adventurism that the Chinese are utterly incapable of sustaining if abandoned by risk averse international businesses and ostracized by the US. Just as the US cannot be defeated by an invader, so is China externally secure. But internally...
(KUNA) -- Bulgaria and Sweden have signed an agreement for military technology exchanges, Bulgarian Defense Minister Vaselin Siliznakov said on Sunday.
"Dobro!"
"Ja, sure!"
The minister, in remarks to KUNA after his comeback from Stokholm, said the accord was signed during the fresh three-day visit, paid by President Georgi Paranov, to Sweden -- with company of senior officials. The agreement stipulates establishment of military cooperation and upgrading communication networks for the military in the two countries. He added that the top-level Bulgarian delegation, during the mission, discussed with their Swedish counterparts European affairs, namely conditions in the Balkans.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/15/2007 00:00 ||
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ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works". But, but, it's a Nobel Prize! The distinguished folk that hand these things out are true scholars, not swayed by politics or emotions!
Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth. But why listen to him? He was too smart to want to be wasn't good enough to be VP.
His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming. Smack!
"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous." Yeah, they're being socialized which goes hand-in-hand with the erosion of common sense.
At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing." I wonder what Gore is invested in these days.
Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming. Hold on just a bit longer, W, help is on the way!
But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.
However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years. With the smell of imminent moonbat humiliation in the air, gorb rubs his hands together, smacks his lips, and settles down into his favorite recliner with a large bucket of popcorn. He realizes that it would be nice to discredit the fools now when it would do the most good on many fronts, but he is also patient.
"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said. By then they'll have gone on to something else and distracted their followers from the memory of all this foolishness, I assure you.
During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.
He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed. But the Goracle thinks Katrina counts for 30 hurricanes, thereby making him right again.
"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said. Except for maybe the hot air coming out of liberal mouths, of course. Better look into this, Gore could be right.
He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science. Except for the fact that they vote, who cares?
"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants." How about an anonymous vote?
#2
it's not science, it's a religion for those who don't have one
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/15/2007 8:15 Comments ||
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#3
I never thought I'd see the end of science in my lifetime. The scary part is the thousands of professional scientists choosing a quasi-religous ideology over the scientific method. The good news is that scientific scepticism is alive and well on the Internet.
#4
Unfortunately, science (for the most part) has become dependent on grants. Most of the grants come from the uninformed, therefore you get out what goes in. Crap.
#5
One of the problems with the global warming hytseria is that the day teh lie is exposed (IMHO in less then two years) then it will be difficult to get mobilization/funding for real enviromental problms like the exhaustion of ocean resources.
Another one is that lesser growth translates in lesser resources for investigation: maltusian politics induced by the global warming hysteria mens that in the future we will have less money for investigation. Also we should be spending on investigation on thorium-fed nucler plants (thorium does not produce plutonium and thus such plants cannot be used for making nukes) and on cold-fusion. Instead we are throwing money away at dead ends like windfarms, bio-fuels and similar crap.
Humankind could end losing the recae against the clock and Gore and his complices will be responsible for it.
#6
Totally agree with you on the Thorium plants, which are also breeders. My understanding is that the Uranium proponents jiggered the numbers by including the Uranium dissolved in ocean water in the numbers, because Thorium doesn't dissolve as much. Actual recoverable reserves of thorium are much larger than Uranium reserves.
The only maker of a thorium fueled reactor was General Atomics, which went out of business after building a gas-moderated reactor in Colorado, which also was taken off-line when, I believe, their helium pumping fan broke down and they couldn't make a replacement.
Don't forget the Candu reactors, which have anti-proliferation measures of their own.
#7
Gray is a top notch fellow on hurricane forecasting having founded the statistical-dynamic school on the subject.
However, he keeps making statements (e.g., anthropomorphic warming is zero) or making forecasts on climate (a cooling cycle is starting) based on some theory (or theories) about the ocean/atmosphere interaction. Unfortunately he hasn't published an article laying out his theory in detail nor has he released whatever calculations his forecasts are based on.
In his own way, Dr. Gray is as big a violator of science as Al Gore.
#8
When scientists refuse to speak up because of fear of funding or political expediency they should not be surprised when science is hijacked by politics and we all take a step backwards.
#10
The great irony in all of this is that Gore was V.P. when Kyoto was signed and he and Clinton were unable to convince a Democratically controlled Congress to pass the treaty. But its W's fault for agreeing with the Dems that the treaty was based on fiction less facts and would be crippling to our economy if the 3rd world (i.e India and China) were not included in the high level of first emitters. Hypocrisy rules and that is why you win the Nobel, the Congress and the admiration of the NYTs and Harry Reid.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/15/2007 14:18 Comments ||
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#11
Didn't Dr. Gray get fired from the Hurrican sevice for speaking out against administration weather-related policies? Seem to remember other scientists in the gov't employ also being shown the door when they stepped on the holy grail......
#12
The great irony in all of this is that Gore was V.P. when Kyoto was signed and he and Clinton were unable to convince a Democratically controlled Congress to pass the treaty.
IMO, Bubba pushed the bill only because he knew it had a snowball's chance in Iraq of actually passing. Then he could say: Shucks, I tried.
#13
#11 - I read an interview with Gray some months ago. He wasn't shown the door, but his grant money went away - under Clinton - and who was his Vice President again?
So he retired.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/15/2007 17:09 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON (CNN) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she intends to move ahead with a vote on a resolution that labels the deaths of more than a million Armenians during World War I as genocide.
The resolution has strained U.S. relations with Turkey and drawn criticism from the Bush administration. "This resolution is one that is consistent with what our government has always said about ... what happened at that time," Pelosi said on ABC's "This Week." And it's critical and I do mean criticalto liberal interests that we bring this up now.
When asked about criticism that it could harm relations with Turkey, a key ally in the war in Iraq and a fellow member of NATO, Pelosi said, "There's never been a good time," adding that it is important to pass the resolution now "because many of the survivors are very old." There's never a good time, but some times are worse than others.
"When I came to Congress 20 years ago, it wasn't the right time because of the Soviet Union. Then that fell, and then it wasn't the right time because of the Gulf War One. And then it wasn't the right time because of overflights of Iraq. And now it's not the right time because of Gulf War Two. Oh, I'm sure you could have found a point or two in there that you could have hurled this insult at a nation too proud to want to acknowledge this and willing to retaliate somehow to prove it.
"And, again, the survivors of the Armenian genocide are not going to be with us." Neither will we if you keep things up. But who's counting?
The survivors of countless genocides that occurred throughout human history are no longer with us, and we're not passing resolutions about them.
But if Nancy wants to do something positive about responding to a genocide, she could praise George W. Bush for stopping Saddam's genocidal rule in Iraq. But I guess the "time isn't right" for that one either.
But White House Spokesman Tony Fratto said bringing the resolution to a vote "may do grave harm to U.S.-Turkish relations and to U.S. interests in Europe and the Middle East."
Turkey's top general warned Sunday that ties with the United States will be irreversibly damaged if Congress passes the resolution, The Associated Press reported. Turkey has recalled its ambassador from Washington for consultations and warned of cuts in logistical support to the United States over the issue. The recall is only for a limited period of time, said a U.S. State Department official who talked to the ambassador. Yeah, she knows. And is counting on it.
The Turks aren't handling this well, not that one would expect them to. They could have said, look, this happened during a World War in the time of our predecessors, the Ottomans. Of course we deplore genocide as much as the next person. And that would have been that. Instead, they've allowed their pride to think for them.
"If this resolution [that] passed in the committee passes the House as well, our military ties with the U.S. will never be the same again," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit told the daily Milliyet newspaper, according to AP.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27-21 Wednesday to approve the nonbinding measure, which declares the deportation of nearly 2 million Armenians from the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 was "systematic" and "deliberate," amounting to "genocide." The deportations led to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people. But Sunday, Pelosi stood by her previous assertion that the measure would be taken to a full vote if it passed the committee.
Newly installed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, tried to calm tensions by phoning his Turkish counterpart shortly after Wednesday's vote. "What can we do? She's an idiot but SF voted her in."
Mullen told Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, Turkey's chief of staff, that the Pentagon is working hard to inform Congress of what the military implications might be if the Turks were to respond by cutting off U.S. access to the air base at Incirlik in Turkey. Seventy percent of U.S. air cargo bound for Iraq passes over or through Turkey.
Say, you don't suppose Nancy is using the resolution as a back-door attempt to stop our good work in Iraq, do you?
The Armenian government and Armenians around the world, including many Armenian-Americans, have been pressing for international support for their contention that Armenians were the victims of genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Then what?
Then they can feel good about themselves, particularly since the Turks are bellowing Dire Revenge. They'll pat themselves on the back and say that they avenged the spirits of their great-great-grandparents, or some such. They'll have perpetuated the millenium-long grudge match for another generation. And they'll call themselves Americans.
The Ottoman Empire disintegrated in 1923, replaced by the modern republic of Turkey, where the Armenian issue remains sensitive. Turks reject the genocide label, insisting there was no organized campaign against the Armenians and that many Turks also died in the chaos and violence of the period.
The latter is true, the former is false, and the Turks should just say so and be done with it. Kinda hard to keep flogging the horse once you've said, "gee, you're right, we're sorry about what people did ninty years ago."
Speaking later on ABC's "This Week," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell denounced the House committee's vote, despite agreeing with the assertion that the killings amounted to genocide. "I think it's a really bad idea for the Congress to be condemning what happened 100 years ago," the Kentucky Republican said Sunday. "We all know it happened. There's a genocide museum, actually, in Armenia to commemorate what happened. Yeah, but Pelosi wants libs to be able to feel good about something, even if it involves shooting her country in the foot.
"But I don't think the Congress passing this resolution is a good idea at any point. But particularly not a good idea when Turkey is cooperating with us in many ways, which ensures greater safety for our soldiers."
It's a deliberate stick in the eye, calculated to inflame and perhaps calculated to cause us problems in Iraq. Keep your eye on the narrative here, folks ...
Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham echoed those comments on CNN's Late Edition. "I'm not worried about World War I. ... I'm worried about what I think is World War III, a war against extremists, and Iraq is the central battle front and Turkey has been a very good ally," Graham said Sunday. "We've had problems with Turkey, but the problem that Turkey has with the northern part of Iraq, if you think it is bad now, let the country fail." Personally, I don't think this has a chance in hades. The Donks have really outdone themselves this time and if this actually passes and gets onto peoples' radar the fallout would only further reveal predatory liberal duplicity and reckless attempts to grab power. Or cluelessness. Uh oh . . . .
Even if this is legitimate, I can't imagine what she is trying to prove and to whom. She won't buy enough votes to stick in her closedelegant ear. There is no way that this resolution will prove anything about a situation from so long ago. Perhaps she is trying to divert attention. I think she'd do a better job by jumping off the rotunda for all the good it would do. Maybe she thinks she has the power to write history, I don't know.
#1
I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it's for the children and grandchildren. Oh, and the missed window after the Gulf War 1, was because all the good liberal women in Washington were practicing their Lewinski techniques.
#4
It seems to me that they could alter the resolution, estimate the total number of deaths, label the deaths the result of a series of government and religiously instigated progroms (which is at least as historically accurate as the word genocide) and condemns the government of Turkey and its religious leaders for their failure to admit complicity.
#5
The Armenian genocide was horrific, which makes it doubly EVIL that SanFranNan, would insist on this now,and upset things. In truth the Treasonocratic Party cares more about power than our soldiers, because they are playing on the low IQs of the uninformed to get votes. They know what the truth is, and SanFranNan will have blood on her hands, if Turkey pulls the plug, and our soldiers are hurt/killed because of these shennanigans.
#6
Well, I have to disagree with some of the comments here.
The Armenian genocide DID happen, and there are plenty of newspaper articles from Turkey advocating the indescrimate killing of Armenian *Christians.*
If the Donks want to pass this, I am going to think a little better of them.
Odell Roberson Jr., a transient who kept to himself, was shot and killed on a July evening as he walked the streets of North Oakland.
Four nights later and a few blocks away, Michael John Wills Jr., a gregarious sous chef, was shot to death a few minutes after he left his home.
The attacks initially seemed unconnected, just two more killings in a city plagued by street homicides. But Oakland police soon found that the same AK-47 assault rifle was used to kill both men. That weapon, they learned, also had been fired seven months before in an attack associated with members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, according to documents in the case.
Oakland investigators were already preparing to search the bakery for evidence in the kidnapping and torture of a mother and daughter in May.
The AK-47 connection to the two homicides added a new urgency to their efforts - they said they feared bakery members were trying to "cleanse" the area around their San Pablo Avenue headquarters of undesirables.
But as investigators prepared to raid the bakery, word spread within the group that Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey was working on a story about its troubles. On Aug. 2, three days after police obtained search warrants for the bakery, Bailey was gunned down as he walked to his office. The next day, police stormed the bakery and arrested its leader and two members of his entourage in the kidnap-torture case. They also arrested a bakery handyman in Bailey's killing.
#1
Some of the only good news coming out of this is that a coalition of local journalists have banded together and vowed to carry on with all of the investigations that Chauncey Bailey was conducting at the time of his murder. The Black Muslim Bakery has been a blight on Oakland for decades. Its closure and the organization's dismantling is long, long overdue.
#2
used the AK-47 to shoot up a car owned by a man who once had dated the wife of Yusuf Bey IV, who became CEO of the bakery after Antar Bey was killed. The man, whose name has not been made public, was not injured.
I small quagmire/FMS opportunities! When are we ever going to stop openly interferring in the tribal affairs of foreing nations.
Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz ordered police on Sunday to launch a third criminal investigation into the affairs of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The investigation will deal with various allegations involving conflict of interest, cronyism and political appointments allegedly perpetrated by Olmert during the period in which he served as minister of industry and commerce between 2003 and 2005 under then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Police are already investigating Olmert regarding his actions in the sale of the controlling share of Bank Leumi and for alleged misconduct in the purchase of his home on Cremieux St. in Jerusalem's German Colony. "The main suspicions include Olmert's involvement in the decisions of the [Industry and Commerce Ministry's] Investment Center, and in political appointments and other help to political supporters in various public bodies, which allegedly took place during his term as minister of industry and commerce," read a statement issued by Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen.
"The suspicions are based on all the material that we gathered on these matters, including state comptroller reports regarding the Investment Center and the Authority for Small and Medium Businesses; the material gathered during these investigations; and additional information from other sources," Cohen said, referring, among other things, to investigative reports on Olmert's activities published by Ha'aretz and Channel 10 News.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement calling the new investigations, as well as the previous one, "unnecessary."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The only unnecessary investigations are those that start after you sign a confession and resign.
Knesset members from both the right and the left lashed out at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling on him to suspend himself after it was announced on Sunday that he was to be investigated for a third time. "The most ever investigated prime minister in the history of Israel with the least public support in the history of Israel has no legitimacy to negotiate the fate of Jerusalem and I doubt that he can continue to run the affairs of the country when there are so many criminal investigations against him," Likud faction chairman Gideon Saar said shortly after the public was made aware of Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz's decision to order the investigation.
State Control Committee Chairman Zevulun Orlev echoed Saar's words, saying that "no human being can run a country with so much hanging over his head.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Myanmar's state-controlled media said Sunday that a Japanese journalist, killed during a crackdown on recent pro-democracy protests, was to blame for his own death because he put himself in harm's way.
Kenji Nagai, 50, a video journalist for Japan's APF News agency, was among at least 10 people killed in the Sept. 26-27 crackdown, when soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of pro-democracy demonstrators. "This was an accident. The journalist was not deliberately targeted," said an editorial in The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a junta mouthpiece. "The fact that the Japanese journalist was among the protesters amounts to inviting danger." The editorial also said Nagai had entered on a tourist visa. "He should have come in with a journalist visa, since he was a journalist," it said. "If he had behaved like a tourist he would not have faced this tragic end." Myanmar is believed to have rejected all visa applications from journalists during the pro-democracy protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah, that's why we have pics of him on his back, still taking photos with a soldier above him, and ten seconds later he's a corpse.
Deborah Solomon's weekly short interviews in the New York Times Magazine are the most irritating possible example of the snotty, smarmy, smug and holier-than-thou attitude that pervades the entire enterprise that is the Times. Now "public editor" Clark Hoyt has exposed her for the fraud she is.
Though presented in a way that suggests a verbatim transcript, the order of the interview is sometimes altered, and the wording of questions is changed.. And, Solomon told me, Very early on, I might have inserted a question retroactively, so the interview would flow better, a practice she said she no longer uses.
Questions For came under fire recently when a reporter for New York Press, a free alternative weekly, interviewed two high-profile journalists Amy Dickinson, the advice columnist who followed Ann Landers at The Chicago Tribune, and Ira Glass, creator of the public radio program This American Life who said their published interviews with Solomon contained questions she never asked.
...The Times Magazine published an angry letter from NBCs Tim Russert, who said that the portrayal of his interview with her was misleading, callous and hurtful.
Here's the best part, where Solomon is caught bragging about her lack of journalistic ethics:
In an interview with Columbia Journalism Review in 2005, Solomon said: Feel free to mix the pieces of this interview around, which is what I do.
Is there a general protocol on that? her questioner asked.
Theres no Q. and A. protocol, Solomon replied. You can write the manual.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/15/2007 06:08 ||
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#1
Apparently, the difference between 'journalism' and 'just making stuff up' is that there isn't one.
#2
Good to see that some of the old traditions haven't gone away.
One helpful hint though, honey? If ya gonna get caught, it's better if you're dead...
Posted by: The Ghost of Walter Duranty ||
10/15/2007 10:50 Comments ||
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#3
Quality control problems at the NYT ("fake but accurate" without the "accurate" part)
It's a feature, not a bug.
Posted by: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr ||
10/15/2007 10:58 Comments ||
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#7
Okay, I admit I get the NYTs but only the Sunday edition - for the crossword (this is the political equivalent of saying you only read Playboy for the stories). Each Sunday I read Solomon's Q&A feature to see if somehow she is able to weave in an anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-WoT, anti-Iraq or pro-NYT progressive humanist secularist agenda. Even if the interviewee is a fashion designer, condo developer, hotel magnate, investor, etc. She never fails to disappoint. Its for that reason, that I always felt her interviews were contrived. Good to know, I wasn't the only one believing that.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/15/2007 14:14 Comments ||
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#8
Jack, Jack, Jack....
How long have you had this problem?
Do you want to talk about it?
Have you sought professional help?
Maybe we at the 'Burg can be of assistance?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/15/2007 17:12 Comments ||
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#9
Jack, there's a cure for NYT addiction.
Cancel your subscription.
That's all. No withdrawal symptoms, no methodone--just quit cold turkey.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/15/2007 17:20 Comments ||
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#10
Ten things the NYTs can be used for:
1. Kitty litter box liner
.
.
.
I can't think of another nine. Oh well.
Capping their pay would certainly help slow graft and corruption. Serious prison sentences in general population would, too. But prison is only for the little people who can't afford a team of highly paid lawyers who were born without a conscience.
Most US corporate leaders believe chief executives are overpaid and do not provide value for money for their companies, according to a study that will embolden critics of excessive compensation.
The findings to be published today by the National Association of Corporate Directors are likely to strengthen calls by investors and politicians, including George W. Bush, US president, for restraint on executive pay at a time of growing income inequality in the US.
Top executives criticism of their peers compensation levels could also encourage activist investors and hedge funds to target underperforming companies with highly-paid leaders at shareholder meetings.
Four out of six chief executives or company presidents polled by the NACD in July and August said the compensation of top executives was high relative to their performance. Only 2.2 per cent of the nearly 70 chief executives and presidents involved in the survey said compensation was too low, while a third deemed it just right.
Their views were backed up by outside directors, with more than 80 per cent of them saying chief executives were overpaid.
None of whom actually do anything about it.
There is an overall realisation that executive compensation is an area that boards and management are struggling with, said Peter Gleason, chief operating officer of the NACD.
The issue is particularly sensitive because the gap between rich and poor in America has reached its widest point in more than 60 years. Figures released last week showed the share of national income claimed by the wealthiest 1 per cent of Americans had reached 21.2 per cent a postwar record partly because of booming company profits.
Mr Bush last week told The Wall Street Journal that he thought some executive compensation was excessive and that some boards needed to improve their oversight of this.
Nearly 60 per cent of the directors polled by the NACD said the reason for excessive pay packages was the absence of objective ways to measure an executives performance. Nearly half criticised the use of options and equity awards that reward executives when the companys share price goes up, rather than when its operations improve.
Investors have become more vocal in attacking what they often call pay for failure large severance packages awarded to ousted chief executives. Maybe I could get me one of those packages?
#1
CEOs and the top five managers of US corporations have increased their total share of national income from around $50 billion a year in 2001 to more than $140 billion a year in just five years;
[..]
Income disparity has now reached obscene levels. Capital One Financial CEO Richard Fairbank exercised 3.6 million options for gains of nearly $250 million, on which he pay tax on the lower capital gain rate rather the income tax rate. His personal take exceeded the annual corporate profits of more than half of the Fortune 1000 companies, including Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Reebok and Pier One.
[..]
Median pay among chief executives running most of the nation's 100 largest companies soared 25% to $17.9 million in 2005, dwarfing the 3.1% average gain by typical US workers.
#2
From what I remember, you pay ordinary income taxes on the exercise of options- unless they changed the laws in the last 5 years I will have to call that inaccurate reporting, though I agree with the premise that executives are overpaid...
Posted by: Ol Dirty American ||
10/15/2007 14:08 Comments ||
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#3
One more thing, Richard Fairbanks made a fortune because his company did very well. What is worse is the executives that pay themselves 10s of millions when profits are down or the company is losing moeny.
Posted by: Ol Dirty American ||
10/15/2007 14:10 Comments ||
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#4
Investors have become more vocal in attacking what they often call pay for failure large severance packages awarded to ousted chief executives.
Just wait until you get to the part about Michael Ovitz! I've posted this before and submit it once again for your perusal.
The issue of CEO overcompensation is one that really does need to be addressed. A standard practice among newly hired CEOs is to cut expenses by immediately eliminating the most seniorread: highest paid workers. This supposed cost-saving measure is one of the most damaging to the vast majority of businesses.
It remains a simple fact that an overwhelming number of companies have poor quality documentation. Too often it results from an attitude of; "Get the job done and worry about documentation later." This sort of shortsighted management is incredibly toxic to real productivity as it inhibits expedient streamlining of manufacturing processes. This in turn inhibits ROI (Return On Investment) based upon legitimate increases in productivity and decreased cost of manufacturing. It remains a simple fact thatin nearly every casethe cost of labor is a tiny fraction of overall expenses and even a significant reduction in workforce generates little to no actual increase in true profitability.
Lack of adequate documentation automatically engenders the growth of "tribal lore" amongst workers with respect to methodology and solutions. This knowledge usually concentrates in senior employees and is forever lost in the usual initial round of cost-cutting layoffs. While a CEO may appear to have reduced expensesexcepting his own, of coursein reality this attempt to weather economic downturns leaves companies completely crippled once the marketplace recovers. Bereft of seasoned talent, labor costs and operating losses soar due to poor outgoing quality, expensive rework to correct the mistakes of new-hires and NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) costs related to recapturing the manufacturing knowledge lost by reductions in the experienced workforce.
None of this stops the new CEO from being awarded lavish stock options and bonuses despite having gutted the company's talent pool. Even incompetent CEOs are rewarded by massive "golden parachutes" inserted into hiring contracts to lure them into joining the firm. Anyone who doubts this need only examine how Michael Ovitz was given a 90 million dollar severance package for 14 months service at Disney Studios.
Any significant compensation to top executives must be tied to long term profitability and viability. This is rarely the case and thereby encourages artificial "turnaround" strategies like the one mentioned above. The damage done to the working class and society in general by CEO overcompensation cannot be overstated. It is absolute poison to the growth of overall wealth and is a direct byproduct of a corrupt and self-shielding good old boy network that exists within the top echelons of Americas executive and political community. Through their collusion they have become a traitor elite that threatens the very survival of our nations economy.
#5
Board level rewards should be tied to stock price OUTPERFORMANCE of peers.
It's time to let the people who own businesses (i.e. those investing in pension funds) have more of a say in running the companies, as there is definetly a bad smell coming from wall street.
#6
I don't believe in stock price outperformance as a measure of pay. Sometimes you can be a great promoter and your stock price can outperfom your peers for years in the stock market without doing so in the market place.
I do agree with Zenster. What he says is true in many cases.
I think the most overpaid people in the world are hedge & pe fund managers though. I think most of them are very average.
Posted by: Ol Dirty American ||
10/15/2007 15:27 Comments ||
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Tie board level compensation to the increasing amount of dividends paid the stockholders & everyone will be happy.
Many CEO's are just looting the till because they are able to.
#8
Tie Board compensation to dividend increases and payouts will increase at the expense of current business. Not a good idea. The problem is that whatever compensation is tied to is what will be done, in too many cases regardless what is best for the long term growth of the company. The other problem is how to motivate senior management and the Board to go for the best mix of current profitability and long term growth... which benefits share price, employees and society at large. I don't think anyone has found the answer to that, though.
#9
I'll also note that the republican party is often connected with big money. Taking into account CEO over-compensation, it is their alliance with the top corporate echalons that continues to drive middle class workers into the arms of the democratic party. If the republicans could just get over their obsession with big business, they might find a whole lot more support for their platform.
Consider this: Probably some 90% of democrat scandals involve sex while an equal number of republican scandals involve money.
#10
I've got a revolutionary new idea. Let's let the market figure this one out.
The boards of American corporations are getting tired of being taken for a ride by their CEOs. Soon enough they'll get tired of hiring a new one every couple of years and will catch on to keeping CEOs around for a while so they can tie pay to "real" performance.
The nice thing about a big time CEO having stable employment is that they tend to give back more in the form of charity. Some of you might recall who built the public library system in this country. A good modern day example of this would be Bill Gates.
The last thing we want to do is regulate CEO compensation. How the hell can someone have put an accurate dollar value on Jack Welch?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
10/15/2007 23:05 Comments ||
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#11
How the hell can someone have put an accurate dollar value on Jack Welch?
I don't know but limiting the ability of people like Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski use of company funds to pay for a $6,000 gold-and-burgundy floral patterned shower curtain, a $15,000 umbrella stand for his apartment, and throwing a $2.1 million fortieth birthday party for his wife on the isle of Sardinia seems like a damn good place to start.
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.
(KUNA) -- Bulgaria and Sweden have signed an agreement for military technology exchanges, Bulgarian Defense Minister Vaselin Siliznakov said on Sunday.
ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".
Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz ordered police on Sunday to launch a third criminal investigation into the affairs of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The investigation will deal with various allegations involving conflict of interest, cronyism and political appointments allegedly perpetrated by Olmert during the period in which he served as minister of industry and commerce between 2003 and 2005 under then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. 
Myanmar's state-controlled media said Sunday that a Japanese journalist, killed during a crackdown on recent pro-democracy protests, was to blame for his own death because he put himself in harm's way. 
