An Arizona man who likes several drinks with his lunch has been arrested three times in the past week for refusing to pay at restaurants where he ate. Jefferson Parish sheriff's records show that a 36-year-old man was booked with defrauding an innkeeper after he ate at three restaurants, then laughed when asked to pay his bill.
The man allegedly ran up bills ranging from $23 to $31 including four beers with a lunch plate at one restaurant and four margaritas with a cheeseburger at another then said he was homeless and couldn't pay.
The man was being held Tuesday at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna in lieu of $1,000 bond. But he has been released on the same charges twice previously due to overcrowding.
#5
He's a drunk bum who knows how to work the system...
The first incident occurred June 22 at Melancon's Annex in Metairie, according to an incident report from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Bryant ordered a beer while he looked over the menu. He ordered a lunch plate and another beer, then two more beers while he ate his meal.
The report said that Bryant eventually began to fall asleep at the table. When the owner asked him to pay his $23 check and leave, Bryant allegedly laughed and told the owner he didn't have any money because he was homeless. When the owner threatened to call the police, Bryant again laughed and refused to pay.
Bryant is accused of pulling the stunt again at Pitre's Restaurant in Westwego on Thursday, and at Sun Ray Grill near Gretna on Monday, according to reports. At Sun Ray, he ordered four margaritas with his cheeseburger for a total of $30.99 and then tried to sneak out of the business. The report said that Bryant was chased down and detained until police arrived.
Col. John Fortunato said that Bryant has been released because overcrowding at the jail requires the Sheriff's Office to release many non-violent offenders. The jail must maintain a certain number of beds for violent offenders, such as those arrested on armed robbery charges, and officials there rate each offender based on their alleged crime. Bryant is accused of relatively minor offenses under the system.
#1
Ballsy move by Mr. Oglesbee and others on site.
But I fear OSHA will come down hard on his employer (Cramer & Associates) for not making him wear a hardhat, safety glasses AND an 'approved' safety harness for this task.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/01/2009 11:53 Comments ||
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#2
A construction worker just doing what real men do. Barry, Barney Frank, Reid, other limp dic*s in congress please disregard. You wouldn't understand.
Meet the "wonder weapon" that could have won the war for Hitler. Called the Horten 229, the radical "flying wing" fighter-bomber looked and acted a lot like the U.S. Air Force's current B-2 -- right down to the "stealth" radar-evading characteristics.
Fortunately for the world, the Ho 229 wasn't put into mass production before Nazi Germany surrendered in May 1945.
But American researchers boxed up and shipped home the prototypes and partially-built planes that existed -- and now the same company that builds the B-2 has rebuilt one.
Northrop Grumman Corp. spent its own time and money using the original German blueprints to replicate the wood-and-steel-tube bomber, right down to its unique metallic glue and paint, at its facility in El Segundo, Calif.
Using radar of the same type and frequency used by British coastal defenses in World War II, the engineers found that an Ho 229, flying a few dozen feet above the English Channel, would indeed have been "invisible" to the Royal Air Force -- an advantage that arrived too late for the Nazis to exploit.
"This was the most advanced technology that the Germans had at the end of the war, and Northrop solved the question of how stealthy it was and its performance against Allied radar at the time," documentary filmmaker Mike Jorgenson told the Long Beach, Calif., Press-Telegram. "It's significantly better than anything flying operationally probably until the 1960s."
The National Geographic Channel will next air Jorgenson's documentary, "Hitler's Stealth Fighter," on Sunday, July 5.
#1
This is yet another manufactured sensation aimed ultimately at discrediting American and British technical achievements.
The language and tone of this article and of the broadcast invite a whole raft of false assumptions about just how advanced and significant a technology this was.
There has been nothing secret or mysterious about the HO-229 for many, many years. The broadcast claimed, for example, that the HO-229 prototype (the real one) had been "hidden" in a hangar in Maryland after the war. It was actually stored at the NASM facility in Silver Hill, along with many other relics, and anyone who seemed to know what they were doing could go in and see it and take pictures. I have been aware of it for many years and there are sections on it in aviation history books dating back to the late 40s.
As for its sensational stealth performance, almost any aircraft "flying a few dozen feet above the channel" would have been invisible to radar in the days before pulse-doppler. It would scarcely have had the payload/range performance to do more than annoy the allies. Early jet engines used fuel at a prodigious rate and this was much worse at low altitude. The Horten's radius of action would have been quite short, especially carrying a bomb load and having to hug the ground to evade allied radar. An internal bomb bay would have reduced fuel capacity and range but would have been absolutely necessary if stealth characteristics were to be retained. It would also have been vulnerable to allied jets like the Meteor IV and P-80 by the time it entered service.
Northrop-Grumman's real finding was that its special glue reduced the radar signature by about 20%. The flying wing configuration and wooden construction, which it shared with Northrop flying wings built years earlier, account for most of its stealthiness. It is therefore largely serendipitous and not the result of Nazi era super-science which we primitive Americans then stole and exploited for our own purposes.
This is not to say that the Horten brothers didn't know about the design's likely stealth characteristics. Most likely they did, since they had built a number of flying wing gliders, and they just decided to tweak this advantage in a rather simple and obvious way by experimenting with glue formulations.
"It's significantly better than anything flying operationally probably until the 1960s."
It's worth noting that the prototype had flown just 2 hours during the war and was very far from being operational.
Northrop N-9M, 1942
This is also a wooden flying wing, though not a jet. It undoubtedly had, and still has, a very small radar cross section even though this was not a design consideration at all.
Northrop in fact designed a flying wing jet fighter of its own during the war, the XP-79. This was conceptually one of the most radical aircraft ever designed, for it was not only a flying wing and initially rocket powered, it was made of welded magnesium and and had a prone pilot position. The XP-79 failed largely because Northrop was too busy with other work and farmed it out it to an incompetent sub-contractor in LA. By the time the project was straightened out, the AAF had little need for a point defense interceptor, rocket or otherwise, and the XP-79 was re-engined with turbojets and completed as a test bed for the prone pilot configuration. It crashed fatally on its first flight, possibly because of a defective canopy latch installed by the sub-contractor. (This information comes from Rocket Fighter by William Green, Ballantine Books, 1967) More pics here.
It is a fact of history that Northrop's own XB-35 flying wing bomber was designed before any American could have known about the Horten (starting before Pearl Harbor in fact). Finally, the much maligned British produced a whole flock of tailless and flying wing aircraft during and just after the war.
#2
The XP-79 may have been a dismal failure but its science fiction looks did not go to waste. The Martian war machines in the George Pal movie version of War of the Worlds, made in 1953, bear a striking resemblance to the XP-79. There is another Northrop product in the film as well; the XB-49 flying wing was used to drop an atomic bomb on the invading Martians, though without much effect. The XB-49 had already been scrapped by the time the movie was made and stock footage was used.
It's odd that the much more recent Sci-fi movie Independence Day also has a scene in which a Northrop flying wing (a B-2 this time) ineffectively attacks the alien invaders with a nuke.
#4
AT, I hardly think the project was undertaken by NG to discredit American technology. The NG engineers who built the RCS replica certainly seemed to be under the impression that the Horton 229 was built with radar stealth characteristics in mind, and that its mission was to avoid British radar. I thought that was the whole point. Or are you saying that the Americans and British were also building aircraft designed for stealth at that time?
The Germans also had a rocket powered interceptor, the Me 163, that went into production and actually saw combat, in spite of its poor capability in that role.
I don't think anyone is claiming that these concepts were not being explored by the Allies as well, only that the Germans were a few months ahead in some areas, like jet fighers, rocket powered fighters, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and guided bombs.
#6
Actually, I'm sort of glad the Krauts built this one. Every pfennig they spent on immature, long-development-time technologies like this was another pfennig that didn't get spent on something with actual immediate military utility. No less a scientist than Freeman Dyson credited the V-2 project with being equal to "unilateral disarmament."
Posted by: Mike ||
07/01/2009 6:44 Comments ||
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#7
That may be true, but again the point of the NG exercise was to investigate the technology, not the wisdom or morality of the German war efforts which are obviously questionable.
#8
AC Says; before any American could have known about the Horten (starting before Pearl Harbor in fact). Finally, the much maligned British produced a whole flock of tailless and flying wing aircraft during and just after the war.
I loved your retrospective and your writing is so precise. Having said this the outtake copied above, must mean your not really cognizant of quantum potential...yet. Its functioned for ages without anyones official approval, acknowledgment or endoresment....
but then again, its easier to just follow the linear path.
#9
Mike, if the Germans had gotten the Horten into production in 1944 or 5, there were no Allied AAA or airplanes that could touch it, neither in speed or ceiling. Not even the XP-80. That's assuming it didn't crash on the way to the target because of flying wings' notorious stability problems. The "stealth" was incidental. All of England would have been one big target, including the millions of tons of supplies out in the open for the Normandy invasion.
For bombing the USA, Horten proposed a 6 engine flying wing, the Horten Ho XVIII that looked a lot like the YB-35/49.
A quick synopsis of Northrup's work. Notice the first flying prototype (with twin booms) in 1928.
As for what could have been, my favorite was the Lockheed L-133, a canard jet fighter proposed in the 1930's. The engines would have been the J-37.
Posted by: ed ||
07/01/2009 7:48 Comments ||
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Mike; No less a scientist than Freeman Dyson credited the V-2 project with being equal to "unilateral disarmament."
projective identification....hindsight in maintenace to ego.
#13
AT, I hardly think the project was undertaken by NG to discredit American technology.
I did not suggest that Northrop-Grumman itself had any such motivation; that is a strawman. I am clearly referring to the sensationalized and exaggerated media coverage of this project.
The NG engineers who built the RCS replica certainly seemed to be under the impression that the Horton 229 was built with radar stealth characteristics in mind, and that its mission was to avoid British radar.
Where does it say they were under that impression? They were aware that it had stealth characteristics, of course, but that is not the same as saying they believed this was the main intent of the design.
I thought that was the whole point. Or are you saying that the Americans and British were also building aircraft designed for stealth at that time?
The allies were certainly aware of the possiblities. They knew about the low RCS of wooden aircraft and flying wings. The Horten was designed as fighter, not a strike aircraft. I believe its stealth characteristics were largely serendipitous, since they are inherent in the flying wing configuration and the wooden structural material, neither of which was originated for that purpose. With the single exception of the special glue, there was nothing in the Horten that was not also available to the allies.
I don't think anyone is claiming that these concepts were not being explored by the Allies as well, only that the Germans were a few months ahead in some areas, like jet fighers, rocket powered fighters, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and guided bombs.
That is certainly not the thrust of the media coverage. An ill-informed poster at Free Republic spelled out the invited inference this morning: "The B-2 is a rip-off of the Horten bomber (sic)."
A wooden flying wing built in 1939 by and American, imagine that?
The N-1M that evolved from many design studies and model tests was the first such tailless configuration to appear in the United States. The experimental aircraft was distinguished by the absence of any of the unusual appendages; the pronounced anhedral, or downward droop, of the wing tips gave the airplane a distinctly bird-like appearance. Aircraft configuration could be varied on the ground between tests to permit in-flight evaluation of the many variables associated with wing sweep, dihedral, and the all-wing design. In effect, the N-1M was the forerunner of today's "variable geometry" airplanes.
Control of the N-1M was accomplished using many of the same techniques and methods employed by the Hortens in Germany and other European designers. Elevons operated together for pitch control and differentially for roll control. Rudder control was accomplished initially with a plain split flap or "clamshell" at each wing tip. Actuated independently by the rudder pedals, they opened to produce drag, which, in turn, induced yaw. Both split flaps could also be opened simultaneously to increase gliding angle or reduce airspeed, thus serving in the role of air brakes.
The ICI-1M was of wooden construction, and thus easily adaptable to the many changes in configuration to which it was subjected during the flight test program. The aircraft was initially powered by two submerged 65-hp Lycoming 0-145 four-cylinder, horizontally-opposed engines driving two bladed pusher propellers by means of extension shafts. The engines, which were later replaced by 117-hp six-cylinder, air-cooled Franklin engines driving three-bladed propellers, were cooled by means of slot-type intakes in the leading edge of the wing.
Engineering and construction of the N-1 M took exactly one year, beginning in July 1939. The first flight of the N-1M, nicknamed the "Jeep," was in July 1940, and indeed was an accidental one, as pilot Vance Breese bounced the airplane into the air during a high-speed taxi run on Baker Dry Lake, California.
#15
You see, GB, that just shows how dumb and backward those nefarious American military-industrial types really are. They didn't even know to rip off their own designs rather than stealing one from the Aryan supermen.
/Germanophile pidgin logic, courtesy of the Hitler History Channel
SDASM welcomes its newest addition, the Horten 229 Flying Wing. The National Geographic Channel and Northrop Grumman Corporation teamed up to build the Flying Wing replica for Hitler's Stealth Fighter, a new documentary premiering June 28, 2009 at 9:00 p.m. The top-secret Nazi stealth fighter was reconstructed to determine if Hitler's military had stealth capabilities three decades before the United States. The Flying Wing is scheduled to be unveiled as part of the Museum's World War II Gallery on Wednesday, June 24, 2009.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/01/2009 15:00 Comments ||
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I did not suggest that Northrop-Grumman itself had any such motivation; that is a strawman. I am clearly referring to the sensationalized and exaggerated media coverage of this project.
OK, I take it back. However I didn't see any intent on the part of Nat Geo to make it an "us vs them" story.
Where does it say they were under that impression?
I thought it was clearly stated, but I could be wrong.
They were aware that it had stealth characteristics, of course, but that is not the same as saying they believed this was the main intent of the design.
I didn't say they believed that was the main intent of the design, only that they believed that it was designed with stealth in mind.
The allies were certainly aware of the possiblities.
Yes, but the point is the Hortons actually built this thing.
I believe its stealth characteristics were largely serendipitous
The reason that the stealth aspect has been bandied about is that Reimar Horton stated this was an intentional design feature. He could have been lying of course. It may not have been the main design goal, but the point of the exercise was to measure that aspect of the design, not its flight characteristics.
That is certainly not the thrust of the media coverage.
I don't know what the media coverage is like, I only saw the program. I was referring to what I read in historical accounts. But I still don't see how hyped media accounts imply something negative about American technology.
#19
Cynicism, I understand and acknowledge that the Hortens were aware of the Ho-229's low RCS while it was still under design. Having this in mind doesn't make it the main thrust of the design. Horten has always said that, like other flying wing pioneers, that he was primarily interested in the low drag characteristics of the airframe as a way of approaching Goering's 1000/1000/1000 performance objective (1000Km/hr over 1000Km range with a 1000Kg bombload.)
I don't know what the media coverage is like, I only saw the program.
If you have read the posted article, you know what the media coverage has been like.
I was referring to what I read in historical accounts. But I still don't see how hyped media accounts imply something negative about American technology.
So, the claim that this was decades in advance of anything the allies had, and that it could have won the war for the Nazis doesn't imply anything negative about allied technology? Judging from the responses at various message boards, that is exactly the conclusion being drawn.
#20
AC, I agree from what I've read that the main design goal from the point of view of the RLM was to meet the three 1,000's spec. (which actually seems more like a bomber spec). What I meant to say was that the premise of the NG project was, based on how the program presented it, to test a mission scenario that called for eluding the British air defense system. One part of that requirement was reducing radar detection range, and another part was having speed sufficient to make intercept by British fighters difficult. So radar evasion and high performance were both part of the scenario. I agree that the sea skimming aspect of the scenario was kind of dubious, because any aircraft could get some degree radar invisibility that way.
Your complaint is with the written media articles, which, judging from statements like "could have won the war for Hitler" are indeed sensationalistic and ridiculous. But "what if" seems to be a commonly indulged-in mind game, even by serious historians, and others like alternative-history novelists. The same things have been said incessantly about the Me 262, the V2, and so on.
I take your point that there are ignoramuses out there interpreting this as reflecting negatively on American technology. Informed observers might interpret the German "super weapon" efforts as more like acts of desperation in the face of overwhelming Allied military power. Which does not take away from the ingenuity.
I have been reading about this aircraft and other experimental aircraft with fascination since I was about 12. That includes the even more fascinating saga of American advanced aircraft, missile, and rocket designs. So my defense of the the program comes from a many decades fascination with this subject.
#21
We're in agreement then.
(It's just like me to find myself in agreement with cynics, btw.)
Harry Turtldove's alt-history World War, in which a force of advanced but hardly invincible aliens invadethe Earth in the middle of World War 2, has many examples of brilliant historical and technical extrapolation. The aliens arrive in June, 1942 and the nations of the Earth set aside their various squabbles to confront the common enemy. Since the aliens have supersonic jets and SAMs, there is little point in going ahead with the bombers and piston engine fighters that took up such a large percentage of the production and engineering resources in the real universe of WW2. Advanced projects of every kind suddenly have the highest priority. Goddard and the Cal-Tech team provide crucial assistance to von Braun and the V-2 is operational by early 1943. Goddard's own missiles, an amalgam of the V-2 and his own ideas, are operational a few months later. The British Gloster Meteor team, working on a shoestring at a backwater aero company, suddenly find themselves the beneficiaries of the entire British aeronautical community. An aircraft very likely the Ho-229 makes an appearance in the series and enhanced models of the Me-263, 262, Gloster Meteor, and Bell P-59 are definitely on hand.
Turtledove is a professional historian. His research is amazingly detailed and accurate and his extrapolation wholly plausible, if one can swallow the alien invasion premise in the first place.
One example: American ground troops are mentioned as having huge numbers of .50 machine guns. Turtledove doesn't spell it out, but this would indeed have been the case if most fighter and all bomber production had been halted overnight, since each of these used anywhere from 4 to 13 such guns. With no aircraft to put them in, the guns would have been available to other forces.
A Los Angeles dermatologist who treated Michael Jackson for years is the biological father of Jacko's son and daughter, according to a bombshell new report. But... But... They're the spittin' image of The Late Michael! Why, they even got the same surgical masks! Us Weekly magazine reports in its upcoming issue, which hits newsstands tomorrow, that Dr. Arnold Klein is the man who fathered Prince and Paris. The kid's mother, Debbie Rowe, once worked for Klein. "He is the dad," a Jackson insider said of Klein. "He and Debbie signed an agreement saying they would never reveal the truth." And I, for one, would never have guessed it was him. I thought it was somebody else. Though I guess he had the same chance as anybody else, since I guessed it was anyone but The Late Michael. And I, for another, would never have guessed that either of them would ever reveal an agreement they signed in secret. Not even for money. Not even for a lot of money.
But the celebrity Web site TMZ.com reports today that Rowe is not the biological mother of the two kids she bore claims she for Jackson. What a devastating thing to be told: "Debbie, I don't know how to tell you this: You're not the mother!"
The site reported that all three of Jack's kids were conceived in vitro -- outside the womb with the help of an egg and sperm donor -- and that Rowe was just a surrogate. Following Jackson's death on Thursday, Rowe told London's News of the World that The Gloved One was not the children's biological father. Well, I am just floored. You could knock me over with a feather. I feel so betrayed.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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#3
With finalists selected, ugly battle now begins over funeral eulogy:
Rev. Billy Graham Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan Bishop Desmond Tutu Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson Rev. Jeremiah Wright Others failing to meet Joe's reserve bid
Rev. Al Sharpton
Rev. Jesse Jackson
#4
think of the games he could play with those two kids: "I've got your Dad's nose!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/01/2009 15:02 Comments ||
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FOX NEWS AM > I'd caught only a glimpse of the bottom-screen Newsline threads but IIRC Michael Jackson repor or allegedly may had named DIANA ROSS to be GUARDIAN for his kids and their Estates - however, IIRC FOX had also repor that Jackson's gross estate may be comprised mostly of NON-CASH = NON-LIQUID ASSETS???
[Al Arabiya Latest] Michael Jackson's fans who had planned to attend his comeback tour this summer in London learned Tuesday they could either get a refund on their ticket or receive a physical ticket, but not both, organizers said in a statement.
Concert promoter AEG Live (UK) Ltd. said full refunds including service charge would be available to anyone who purchased tickets for any of the 50 'This is It' concerts from an authorized dealer.
Fans could also keep the ticket that cost between £70 ($116) and £700 ($1,160) and were printed with a specially designed hologram "inspired and designed by Michael Jackson" as memoribilia. "[F]ans will have the option to be sent the actual tickets they would have received to attend the shows in lieu of the full refunds which are being offered," AEG Live announced in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.
This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN's major conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the world's leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week's meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with those of the rest of the group.
Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.
Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not to rising levels of CO2 as is dictated by the computer models of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues but to currents bringing warm water into the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea.
He has also observed, however, how the melting of Arctic ice, supposedly threatening the survival of the bears, has rocketed to the top of the warmists' agenda as their most iconic single cause. The famous photograph of two bears standing forlornly on a melting iceberg was produced thousands of times by Al Gore, the WWF and others as an emblem of how the bears faced extinction until last year the photographer, Amanda Byrd, revealed that the bears, just off the Alaska coast, were in no danger. Her picture had nothing to do with global warming and was only taken because the wind-sculpted ice they were standing on made such a striking image.
Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week's meeting of the PBSG, but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor's, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: "it was the position you've taken on global warming that brought opposition".
Dr Taylor was told that his views running "counter to human-induced climate change are extremely unhelpful". His signing of the Manhattan Declaration a statement by 500 scientists that the causes of climate change are not CO2 but natural, such as changes in the radiation of the sun and ocean currents was "inconsistent with the position taken by the PBSG".
So, as the great Copenhagen bandwagon rolls on, stand by this week for reports along the lines of "scientists say polar bears are threatened with extinction by vanishing Arctic ice". But also check out Anthony Watt's Watts Up With That website for the latest news of what is actually happening in the Arctic. The average temperature at midsummer is still below zero, the latest date that this has happened in 50 years of record-keeping. After last year's recovery from its September 2007 low, this year's ice melt is likely to be substantially less than for some time. The bears are doing fine.
[Mail and Globe] Zimbabwe has secured $950-million in credit lines from China to help rebuild the country's economy, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe has appealed to the world for a "financial stimulus package" for its devastated economy, saying lack of foreign support put a recovery plan drawn up by the unity government in peril.
The Southern African country says it needs $10-billion to rebuild dilapidated infrastructure and ease a 90% unemployment rate.
"The government, through the minister of finance, secured credit lines of almost $950-million from China," Tsvangirai said in a news conference.
Tsvangirai, who shares power with President Robert Mugabe, said a three-week tour he conducted of the United States and Europe had yielded pledges totalling more than $500-million.
"The amount of assistance that was raised on my visit to Europe and the United States does not reflect the enormous support we will be able to utilise if we are to fulfil all our political obligations," he said.
He said other promises of aid would be fulfilled only when Zimbabwe created a democracy and improved human rights after what critics say is Mugabe's repressive rule.
"If we want outside assistance, we must first prove that we are able to fulfil the obligations we have undertaken within the agreement that was brokered by the Southern African Development Community," Tsvangirai said.
"Actions speak louder than words, and while I was away there were instances of peaceful protesters being beaten by our police, innocent individuals arrested on trumped-up charges and continued vilification of the Movement for Democratic Change by the state media."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
949m of which promptly vnished into Muggabe's Swiss accounts.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/01/2009 1:41 Comments ||
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#2
No way, RJ---he's to split it with his support staff.
A member of the Saudi royal family has called for the assets of his brother to be frozen.
Prince Khaled bin Talal denounced his brother's media empire in an unprecedented public attack from within the ruling family. Prince Khaled accused Prince Walid bin Talal of disseminating vice and violating the rules of Islamic Sharia in the conservative kingdom.
Prince Walid is one of the richest businessmen in the world.
It has long been known that there is a split within the ranks of Saud family between liberals and conservatives. But, until now, they have always managed to keep a lid on the problem.
Prince Khaled said he had been forced to speak out after quiet efforts to advise his brother to mend his ways had fallen on deaf ears. Prince Walid, known for his liberal lifestyle, owns a media empire which features entertainment channels that have long angered conservative Saudis.
Prince Khaled, told an Arabic website that his brother's plan to introduce cinema into Saudi society was the straw that broke the camel's back. This was a reference to a Saudi film financed by Prince Walid, and shown in Saudi Arabia late last year despite fierce opposition from Islamist activists.
Nearly all forms of modern entertainment - particularly those that bring men and women together - are regarded by conservative Saudis as morally corrosive and can, in their eyes, undermine the religious foundation of the Saudi society and state.
[Al Arabiya Latest] 14-year-old girl who survived the Yemenia airline crash Tuesday is being treated in a hospital in the Comoros where she is in a state that is "not worrisome", a Comoros Red Cross spokesman told AFP.
"The young girl, aged 14, has arrived at the El Maarouf hospital. We were told that her condition is not worrisome," said Red Cross spokeswoman Ramulati Ben Ali.
A man identified as one of the girl's rescuers told France's Europe 1 radio that the teenager was seen swimming in choppy waters in the middle of bodies and plane debris around 4:20 am (0120 GMT). "We tried to throw a life buoy. She could not grab it. I had to jump in the water to get her," the rescuer said. "She was shaking, shaking. We put four covers on her. We gave her hot, sugary water. We simply asked her name, village."
Yemeni Transport Minister Khaled al-Wazir had said that a five-year-old boy among the 142 passengers and 11 crew on Flight IY 626 had been rescued alive. Arfachad Salim, a rescue coordinator for the Comoros Red Crescent, had said the child was brought ashore. However a Comoran government spokesman confirmed that the teenage girl is the only survivor so far and that she is from the southeast village of Nioumadzaha. "She is conscious, she is speaking, but we are trying to warm her" after being pulled from cold sea waters, said Ada Mansour, the examining doctor at the hospital where the girl is being treated.
Mansour added that earlier reports of a five-year-old boy surviving the crash were "based on information received from boats near the search site. But I have not seen him."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Nice job by the Yemeni Coasties (or whatever they were).
Posted by: Mike ||
07/01/2009 6:47 Comments ||
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It was the second time in less than a month that an Airbus has crashed into the ocean. This time French authorities said the Yemeni carrier had been under surveillance and that the 19-year-old jet had been banned from French airspace.
Telegraph Mohamed Yahya, former director of Comoros civil aviation department, who was also present, said the engines sounded in difficulty. "It looked to me as though the plane was having difficulties landing," he said.
Too much koran, not enough maintenance manual.
Posted by: ed ||
07/01/2009 8:48 Comments ||
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#3
One memorizes the Koran by ear, ed. Maintenance manuals must be read, an entirely different skill.
#4
Another on time (actually about 10 miles early) arrival by Air In'Shallah. Troubling reports on French news about the upkeep of this A-310. RIP to those who lost their lives regardless of their faith.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
07/01/2009 19:48 Comments ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] A Dhaka court yesterday sent former forest and environment minister Shajahan Siraj to jail in a tax evasion case in which he was earlier sentenced to eight years" imprisonment in absentia.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Detective Branch (DB) of police yesterday arrested Sultanganj Union Parisad Chairman Monir Hossain on charge of firing gunshots on a crowd in Keraniganj on June 9 that left a man dead and another wounded.
I'm sure he didn't realize the bullets would come down again.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of DB police arrested Monir who is also the president of Kamrangirchar thana unit BNP at a house in the city's Maddhya Badda area around 7:30am and seized his licensed pistol and eleven bullets.
On June 9, some local people encircled Monir Hossain in Lohar Bridge area when he was passing through it by his private car at about 1:45pm. The UP chairman was then locked in an altercation with them and at one stage, he pulled his pistol and sprayed five to six rounds of bullet on them, leaving Mohammad Hasan, 18, dead on the spot and another wounded.
After the firing, Monir fled the scene by his private car. In reprisal, agitating people attacked the residence of the chairman and set fire to his garage and damaged his private car. They also torched an umbrella factory, owned by a brother of Monir, at Nurbag.
Monir at DB office told the reporters that he did not kill the man as he sprayed bullets on them only for dispersing them.
"Once ze rockets go up
Who cares ver zey come down?
Dat's not my department," says Werner von Braun
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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Honduras' interim leader warned that the only way his predecessor will return to office is through a foreign invasion -- though a potential showdown was postponed Wednesday when the ousted president delayed plans to return. A defiant Roberto Micheletti said in an interview with The Associated Press late Tuesday that "no one can make me resign," defying the United Nations, the OAS, the Obama administration and other leaders that have condemned the military coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya.
The U.N. General Assembly voted by acclamation Tuesday to demand Zelaya's immediate restoration, and the Organization of American States said Wednesday that coup leaders have three days to restore Zelaya to power before Honduras risks being suspended from the group. That period for negotiation prompted Zelaya to announce he was putting off his plans to return home on Thursday until the weekend.
Micheletti vowed Zelaya would be arrested if he returns, even though the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador have signed on to accompany him along with the heads of the Organization of American States and the U.N. General Assembly. Zelaya "has already committed crimes against the constitution and the law," said Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's Liberal Party who was named interim leader by Congress following the coup. "He can no longer return to the presidency of the republic unless a president from another Latin American country comes and imposes him using guns."
One of several clauses that cannot be legally altered in the Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single, 4-year term. Congress claims Zelaya, whose term ends in January, modified the ballot question at the last minute to help him eventually try to seek re-election. Chavez has used referendums in Venezuela to win the right to run repeatedly. "I'm not going to hold a constitutional assembly," Zelaya said. "And if I'm offered the chance to stay in power, I won't. I'm going to serve my four years."
Gosh, why did former President Zelaya change his mind about something that was so important to him a few days ago?
OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza delivered what he called "an ultimatum" during a marathon session in Washington. "We need to show clearly that military coups will not be accepted. We thought we were in an era when military coups were no longer possible in this hemisphere," he said.
France and Spain announced Wednesday they are recalling their ambassadors from Honduras as part of international efforts to reinstate Zelaya.
Zelaya's popularity has sagged at home in recent years, but his criticism of the wealthy and policies such as raising the minimum wage have earned him the loyalty of many poor Hondurans, and thousands have rallied to demand his return. Thousands of others rallied in favor of Micheletti on Tuesday, accusing Zelaya of trying to bring Venezuelan-style socialism to Honduras. Yet beyond the demonstrations at the presidential palace and the capital's central square, there has been little sign of major disruption to daily life.
Micheletti said he would not resign no matter how intense the international pressure becomes. He insisted Honduras would be ready to defend itself against any invasion. He did not name any specific countries, but Chavez has vowed to "overthrow" Micheletti and said earlier Tuesday that any aggression against Zelaya by Micheletti's government should prompt military intervention by the United Nations. "No one can make me resign if I do not violate the laws of the country," Micheletti said. "If there is any invasion against our country, 7.5 million Hondurans will be ready to defend our territory and our laws and our homeland and our government." Micheletti said it was too late for Zelaya to avoid arrest.
His foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, threw a wild card onto the table, telling CNN en Espanol that Zelaya had been letting drug traffickers ship U.S.-bound cocaine from Venezuela through Honduras. Ortez said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was aware of Zelaya's ties to organized crime. DEA spokesman Rusty Payne could neither confirm nor deny a DEA investigation.
The U.S. government stood firmly by Zelaya, however. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington saw no acceptable solution other than Zelaya's return to power. He said the United States was considering cutting off aid to Honduras, which includes $215 million over four years from the U.S.-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation.
Micheletti said he had no contact with any U.S. official since assuming the presidency. The interim leader, who now occupies the same office in the colonial-style presidential palace that Zelaya did, insisted he was getting on with the business of governing. He and his newly appointed Cabinet ministers were settling in, even as soldiers wandered the ornate hallways and manned barricades outside to keep Zelaya's supporters away.
Micheletti, who promised he would step down in January and had no plans to ever run for president, said a key goal of his short term in office would be fixing the nation's finances. Zelaya never submitted the budget to Congress that was due last September, raising questions about what he was spending state money on.
We know he was spending money to get those oh-so-clever ballots printed up...
Asked if Zelaya could one day return to power stronger than ever, Micheletti said that "it's not about sympathy, it's not about being a martyr, but simply that we are following the letter of the law which he did not respect."
Posted by: ed ||
07/01/2009 09:55 ||
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#1
I just got this email from a friend who lives in Birmingham, Alabama and does a lot of mission work. Hi family and friends! Well, my life is occasionally boring, but not the past few days. I just returned, along with my youngest son and 64 other people from a mission trip to Honduras. Yep! We were in the middle of the political uprising. We arrived last Friday in Tagucigalpa, the capital of the country and drove about 3 hours north to a ranch. We had planned to stay until this coming Sunday. We got in a very good days work in the surrounding towns on Saturday, then went to church on Sunday with a local congregation, got in some horse back riding and planned to start again on Monday with the labor. We were laying a brick wall at the church..I discovered I can sling mortar with the best of them, delivered food and clothes to needy families, helped get a good start on a water system for a village that had been entirely displaced due to floods and planned to deliver about a 1,000 pairs of shoes we took down to school kids. If you can get shoes on their feet, you can stop a lot of the illnesses they experience.
Then the world got the idea that there had been a military coup..not quite accurate according to the locals. The way it works there is the people vote and the military implements. The people voted to remove the president because he was trying to change the constitution to become more socialist. The military escorted him out of the country because that is their job. But our president did not help when he said it was military coup and Chavez took that as an invitation, thinking that America would not step in to protect Honduras. So he mounted his troops on the boarder and was threatening to invade last night. That did not happen, not yet anyway, but because we had so many young people with us, we decided to get out while we still could. The very real possibility existed that the airports could have been closed for weeks. A curfew had been implemented and demonstrations were taking place in the streets.
So we got out yesterday morning. We had at least 8 check points where either the local police or the military stopped our bus and vans to see who were were. We never felt like we were in danger, really making it all the more difficult to leave. We spent the night in Houston, and flew out on different flights all day today. Please pray for the beautiful people and for their country. They are defenseless as no one but the military are supposed to own guns. May we never give up that right to be able to protect ourselves. I plan to return next year and hopefully get to stay the entire time.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/01/2009 11:09 Comments ||
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#2
Stand your ground, Honduras. You did the right thing. Screw the US lawmakers. We may be learning from your example soon.
#3
I don't think this will end well for the Hondurans.
For some strange reason all the usual suspects (and others) are determined to assist Chavez in this case.
My prediction:
Zelaya will return (mainly due to pressure by the Obama administration, maybe an intervention.), and the Honduran people will feel his wrath (and that of Chavez, the Castros, and Obama.)
For some strange reason it is beyond the pale to impose basic norms of Western Civilization on the Afghans (who attacked NATO on 911), while it seems to be perfectly acceptable to impose Communism on the Hondurans (who have done no harm to any NATO country.)
#5
Per local reports, anti Zelaya demos of 10,000 plus have been taking place today. Much bigger than the pro Zelaya demos.
Let's see whether this gets covered in tomorrows WaPo and NYTimes.
Also, a compromise is possible to let Zelaya serve as President while being essentially under house arrest and having no authority.
Posted by: Lord garth ||
07/01/2009 13:04 Comments ||
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#6
Deacon, is your letter-writer confused, or did he mean that Ortega is threatening to invade from Nicaragua? Venezuela not having any more of a common border with Honduras than we do with El Salvador....
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/01/2009 13:40 Comments ||
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#7
Mitch, I believe she was relating what the locals told her. She knows Venezuela does not have a border with Honduras but the locals there are really afraid Hugo and Ortega will conduct military operations to restore Zelaya. And it looks like The One is willing to go along.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/01/2009 15:27 Comments ||
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#8
In the bad old days of the Soviet Union Cuba intervened in Southern Africa.
Could Venezuelan-Cuban forces threaten Honduras from Nicaragua? Would US assistance (short of an actual military conflict) for such forces make a difference?
A U.S. federal probe has found that about a third of American Apparel's factory workers in the Los Angeles area had supplied suspect or invalid records and were not authorized to work in the United States. The findings, from a January 2008 federal investigation, may deal a blow to the corporation's image as a proponent of immigration reform. But the company said on Tuesday the potential loss of those 1,800 workers would have no significant impact on its results.
With sales down, we don't need the extra manufacturing capacity the illegal workers supplied, so we won't fight this.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency found that some 1,600 current employees at American Apparel's Los Angeles factories appeared to have gained employment due to "suspect and not valid" eligibility documentation, the company said in a filing. The probe also found that the employment eligibility of an additional 200 workers could not be verified due to discrepancies, it said.
American Apparel said it could not accurately assess the impact on its operations from losing the employees, but said it did not believe any such loss would have a materially adverse impact on financial results. "The company believes that its current surplus levels of inventory and manufacturing capacity would mitigate the adverse impact of any disruption to its manufacturing activities that may potentially result from the loss of these employees," American Apparel said in the filing.
"ICE's notification provided no indication that the company knowingly or intentionally hired unauthorized aliens and no criminal charges have been filed against the Company or any current employees," it added.
A key point. The company complied with the law by demanding Social Security numbers and suchlike information from their employees, then passing it on to ICE for verification. Now that they are being informed that some employees lied, they are quite willing cut the lying illegals loose. The journalist ought to be ashamed of propagandizing so unsubtly.
The company, known for its colorful T-shirts and other basics worn by urban hipsters, has made immigration reform a central theme of its corporate message. Chief Executive Dov Charney has called for the legalization of foreign workers, and the company has used "Legalize LA" as a slogan on billboards and T-shirts.
American Apparel's Los Angeles operations, which employ some 4,500 workers, churn out some 230,000 garments per day in an environment in which workers are paid above minimum wage, enjoy subsidized health care and meals, and take part in free English classes. In the past, the company has let go of workers whose papers were proven false. Company executives say American Apparel diligently complies with the law, but have pointed out that papers can easily be faked.
The U.S. co-sponsored a successful U.N. resolution supporting Honduras's ousted leader Tuesday as Republicans began to speak out against the Obama administration's condemnation of the overthrow.
Really? But why would they do that, when the case is so clear?
Manuel Zelaya, who was arrested and forced into exile Sunday, addressed the U.N. General Assembly after the unanimous vote on the resolution sponsored in part by Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela and the United States. "The resolution that the United Nations has just adopted unanimously ... expresses the indignation of the people of Honduras and the people worldwide," said Zelaya, who began his speech by thanking Venezuela and Ecuador.
Of course he did. They're birds of a feather ...
President Obama, meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Monday, said the U.S. would "stand with democracy" in the face of the overthrow. "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there," Obama said. "It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backward into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections."
Again, for the journalist who wrote this little piece: why are the Republicans objecting, and which Republicans: Congressional leadership or some sillies out on the fringe?
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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The Hondurans followed their constitution and removed the former president for violating the constitution. The Honduran Congress voted for it, the Supreme Court ordered it, and the military carried it out as provided for in the Honduran constitution.
They did this because the Former president had violated the laws several times in attempting to change the constitution illegally, and in illegally firing a General after the Supreme court ordered that General reinstated. He fired the General because the General refused to carry out the illegal order the former president gave him to continue with an illegal plebiscite. He was replaced by a member of his own party, duly elected by the Congress in conformance with the Honduran Constitution, who plans to hold elections as scheduled this November.
OK Obama apologists, explain that one to me. Is Obama in love with would-be dictators and socialists, or is he just that fucking stupid?
#3
What's really happening here, Oblahblahblah wants badly to set a precedent where the President (Doesn't matter where) "Can ignore both the constitution and the law with impunity".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/01/2009 1:50 Comments ||
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#5
That pick speaks volumes. If I were running the Republican elections I would pound home the theme: "Do we want to become Cuba or Venezuela?" or "When you find yourself aligned with Cuba it's time to change direction." Mr. Steele feel free to use these.
#8
What's really happening here, Oblahblahblah wants badly to set a precedent where the President (Doesn't matter where) "Can ignore both the constitution and the law with impunity".
Redneck Jim, you took the words right out of my mouth.
#9
"Is Obama in love with would-be dictators and socialists, or is he just that fucking stupid?"
Yes
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/01/2009 13:19 Comments ||
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#10
Here's an English translation of one of the relevant articles of the Honduran Constitution.
Article 239 â No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President.
Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.
This is certainly not something that would be compatible with the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. However I believe it is a legitimate safeguard against a descent into dictatorship, especially in a political culture that has already made plenty of bad experiences with "Caudillos/Presidents for Life".
In any case if that provision of the Honduran Constitution is so offensive to the "international community", why has no one objected until now?
Given the nature of e.g. the Karzai regime (The penalty for leaving or criticizing Islam is death!), that is not only tolerated but actively supported by NATO this mobbing of Honduras simply disgusting.
If "Realism" dictates we support Karzai, it should logically dictate that we at least tolerate the Hondurans and respect their sovereignty.
The regime that ousted Manuel Zelaya in Honduras claimed Tuesday that the deposed president allowed tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the United States. "Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds ... and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking," its foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, told CNN en Espanol. "We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it," he added.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne in Washington said he could neither confirm nor deny a DEA investigation. Zelaya was traveling from New York to Washington and could not immediately be reached to respond to the allegations.
Honduras and other Central American nations have become major transshipment points in recent years for Colombian cocaine, particularly as Mexico's government cracks down on cartels. The drugs arrive in Honduras on non-commercial aircraft from Venezuela and increasingly in speedboats from Colombia, according to the Key West, Florida-based Joint Interagency Task Force-South, which coordinates drug interdiction in region.
In its most recent report on the illicit narcotics trade, the U.S. State Department said in February of Honduras that "official corruption continues to be an impediment to effective law enforcement and there are press reports of drug trafficking and associated criminal activity among current and former government and military officials." The report did not name names.
Drug-related violence appears to be up in Honduras. Homicides surged 25 percent from some 4,400 in 2007 to more than 7,000 in 2008 while more than 1,600 people were killed execution-style, suggesting drug gang involvement, according to the Central American Violence Observatory. In October, Zelaya proposed legalizing drug use as a way of reducing the violence, and doubling the country's police force, which reached 13,500 last year, up from 7,000 in 2005, according to the State Department report.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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Jeebus, no wonder Obama wants him back. The Hondurans seized his dealer.
Posted by: ed ||
07/01/2009 8:50 Comments ||
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Wrong dots connected Ed. Barry is very outspoken about illegal substances and drug trafficing, etc....speaks about it seldom often. Very high on his agenda. Right up there with Catfish Grappling, Confederate Memorial Day (Apr 26), and NASCAR.
The U.S. administration made it clear to Congress that it is against restoring South Korea's peaceful nuclear program by means of reprocessing spent fuel, advanced mainly by the ruling Grand National Party. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher made the point in an 85-page answer to Senator Richard Lugar, the secretary of the Foreign Relations Committee, in the course of her confirmation hearing on June 9.
The relevant section has two parts. Lugar asks, "Does the administration contemplate any changes in existing nuclear cooperation agreements, in particular those with Taiwan and the Republic of South Korea, to allow reprocessing of U.S.-origin materials in those nations?"
Tauscher replied that "programmatic consent" for reprocessing given to the EU, Japan and India under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 cannot be extended to South Korea and Taiwan. "The administration does not believe that such programmatic consent to reprocessing is necessarily appropriate in other cases, including Taiwan and the Republic of Korea," she said. In other words, Washington sees no need to revise the Seoul-Washington nuclear cooperation agreement so the South can reprocess nuclear fuel.
She also agreed when asked, "Do you believe that an agreement that allowed any form of reprocessing to take place in South Korea would violate the 1992 Joint Declaration, in particular its clean statement that 'the South and the North shall not possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities'?"
Coinciding with North Koreas second nuclear weapons test and resumption of nuclear programs, the answer sends a clear message that no reprocessing of spent fuel can be allowed to South Korea and Taiwan even in these circumstances.
The Barack Obama administration apparently feels the call by South Korean conservatives for Seoul to resume its own nuclear program would send the wrong message to the world.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress largely agree.
Cheong Wa Dae and the South Korean Embassy in Washington have made it clear that a call for nuclear armament in the South is not the official government position. "If South Korea violates the denuclearization treaty by reprocessing spent fuel and enriching uranium in the face of U.S. opposition, the price will be high," a diplomatic source in Washington warned.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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But North Korea's nuclear weapon program is A-OK with the Obama Administration right? And the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorist states is just fine with Big-OH.
I swear - there isn't a totalitarian, brutal Dictator Obama isn't in love with. Not a single one.
#1 But North Korea's nuclear weapon program is A-OK with the Obama Administration right? And the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorist states is just fine with Big-OH.
ARMS RACE IS FINE BY YOU I SEE DIP$%&*
I swear - there isn't a totalitarian, brutal Dictator Obama isn't in love with. Not a single one.
Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-07-01 01:12
#3
All things considered, Play4, there are worse things than a nuclear arms race (which this isn't, at least not yet). Conceding the race to your psychopathic enemy is worse, unless you are one of the old 'Better Red than dead' folks from the sixties.
#4
It's clear countries determined enough to do so are able to acquire nuclear raw materials, and those determined enough to get proper scientists trained -- or purchased -- along with sub rosa purchases of refining equipment. Especially countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. We all seem to think Japan could assemble a working device on very short notice, but has not because they've thus far trusted America to handle such things on their behalf, and it seems likely Taiwan and South Korea have not embarked on that path for the same reason. However, after the positions enunciated by President Obamaa over the past few days, what odds Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan continue to remain sanguine that America will actively protect them at the moment they should come to need protection that extends beyond speeches and stern letters to the appropriate foreign minister?
#5
Obama is the best guarantee Japan S Korea and Taiwan will go nuclear. Anticipating when Europe's #1 Love Interest withdraws American nuclear guarantees for NATO.
Posted by: ed ||
07/01/2009 8:54 Comments ||
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#6
I was attempting to show the contrast between Obama's apparent support for North Korea's Nuclear weapons development (and exportation of nuclear tech) and his objection to the south even reprocessing fuel (which Japan, another non-nuclear-armed country, does already).
Like the contrast between his strong support of a wanna-be dictator and his limp d-k 'support' of the people of Iran.
There are worse things then a Nuclear arms race. Having your freedoms stripped away from being under the gun of a nuclear armed Psycho is one. Being on the receiving end of a nuclear attack is another. Kimmie is both desperate enough and Obama whimpy enough that the north might feel that they could get away with either option.
[ADN Kronos] Eight Turkish colonels arrived at a civilian court on Tuesday for questioning by prosecutors assigned to the country's controversial Ergenekon probe, Dogan News Agency reported. Navy Col. Dursun Cicek, who is suspected of drafting an alleged anti-government document, was not among the military officers who were to appear before the prosecutors.
Ergenekon prosecutors had summoned Cicek and eight other colonels for questioning as part of the controversial probe.
More than 200 people have been detained in the Ergenekon case launched in 2007. They were arrested on suspicion of forming an illegal organisation to provoke a series of events that would pave the way to a military coup. About 140 people are already on trial in the case, including retired generals, lawyers and journalists.
The Ergenekon operation was revealed in June 2007 when grenades were allegedly discovered in a house in Istanbul's Umraniye district. It is alleged to have exposed an illegal organisation that was planning events that would pave the way for a military coup to overthrow the ruling AKP government.
The controversial case, however, has divided Turkey, as many believe it has turned into a witch hunt targeting government critics.
Turkey's military has staged three coups and pressured a fourth government, the first led by Islamists to step down in 1997.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] THAI premier Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Tuesday he would invoke a harsh internal security act to prevent protests at a regional summit in Phuket which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to attend. The move comes after an incident in April when anti-government protesters loyal to ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra forced the chaotic cancellation of a major Asian summit in the Thai resort of Pattaya.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] A RARE survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime's main jail told on Tuesday how torturers ripped out his toenails and gave him electric shocks to try to make him confess to being a CIA agent. Former mechanic Chum Mey told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal how he pleaded for his life as he was tortured for 12 days and nights at the 1975-1979 communist movement's Tuol Sleng detention centre.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2009 00:00 ||
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I would've loved to been a fly on the wall for this...
CHICAGO (AP) There was no tear gas anywhere, and some of those who showed up for a reunion of Chicago Police officers who worked during the 1968 Democratic National Convention hung up their badges and their billy clubs a long time ago. But if this looked like just a gathering of retirees who came to knock back a few drinks and swap stories Friday night "I was just looking to see who's still alive," joked retired patrolman Jeff Norris it was much more than that.
Between men who almost spit out words like "scum" to describe demonstrators who descended on the city 41 years ago to the small crowd of protesters across the street, it was clear the days when the streets became a battlefield remain one of the most divisive chapters in Chicago history.
From the former cops came recollections, one after another, about what the cameras didn't capture, what the world didn't see on television along with the images of police wading into crowds of protesters, knocking them down and bloodying them with flailing billy clubs. They told of bags of urine and feces, and bricks that were thrown at them, the heavy glass ashtrays dropped on them from hotel windows high above, the nail-spiked rubber balls laced behind their car tires and sometimes thrown at them.
And they dismissed any talk of a "police riot," as a commission famously called the scene, speaking with pride about how they conducted themselves. "We were doing what we were supposed to do," said John Murray, a 62-year-old retired detective. "No regrets."
It was absolute chaos, they said, but they did not lose control even when faced with situations they never thought they'd ever see.
Like the woman disguised as a nun who punched Joe Mescall when the young patrolman wouldn't let her into the Conrad Hilton Hotel where he was stationed. Mescall laughed when he told of responding with a punch that was hard enough that she "landed on her keister right on Michigan Avenue," but he turned serious when he said that neither he nor any of his fellow "coppers" pulled their guns. "Not one shot was fired," he said, a sentiment echoed several times.
On the other side of the street, protesters say all this talk about doing their job and putting the blame for the rioting on the demonstrators amounts to a whitewash of history. That is obvious, they say, by the reunion organizers who did not just promote the gathering on a Web site called Chicagoriotcops.com, but promoted it as a way to honor those who protected the city from "Marxist street thugs."
"The language makes it very clear that this is a celebration of violence, of brutality and an attempt to rewrite history," said Jose Martin, a member of Chicago Copwatch, which organized a march that ended with a rally across the street from the Fraternal Order of Police lodge where the reunion was held. Wonder if thay want a rematch?
Martin said he wasn't sure if there would still be a march had the reunion been simply advertised as a reunion, but he said that kind of language sealed the deal."It was too golden," he said.
G. Flint Taylor, a prominent civil rights attorney whose clients include former death row inmates who have sued alleging police torture, saw his participation as his duty. "We have to constantly set the record straight, set the historical record straight," he said. "This new generation, half don't know what happened," he said, surrounded by a few dozen protesters, many of whom were not yet born when the 1968 convention occurred. And why miss a chance to break in a new crop of useful idiots...
That was one thing that even the former cops could agree to. "I don't think the young kids could tell you who was even running for office (in 1968)," said retired detective, Tom Flanagan, 67.
The other thing everyone agreed on is that the now-gray or balding men who were on duty during the 1968 convention remain a source of fascination for those who lived through it or studied it.
"Did you beat up anybody famous?" a young woman who rode up to the officers on her bicycle asked Murray.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Los Angeles dermatologist who treated Michael Jackson for years is the biological father of Jacko's son and daughter, according to a bombshell new report.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Michael Jackson's fans who had planned to attend his comeback tour this summer in London learned Tuesday they could either get a refund on their ticket or receive a physical ticket, but not both, organizers said in a statement.
[Al Arabiya Latest] 14-year-old girl who survived the Yemenia airline crash Tuesday is being treated in a hospital in the Comoros where she is in a state that is "not worrisome", a Comoros Red Cross spokesman told AFP.
[Bangla Daily Star] Detective Branch (DB) of police yesterday arrested Sultanganj Union Parisad Chairman Monir Hossain on charge of firing gunshots on a crowd in Keraniganj on June 9 that left a man dead and another wounded.
The U.S. co-sponsored a successful U.N. resolution supporting Honduras's ousted leader Tuesday as Republicans began to speak out against the Obama administration's condemnation of the overthrow.
[Straits Times] A RARE survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime's main jail told on Tuesday how torturers ripped out his toenails and gave him electric shocks to try to make him confess to being a CIA agent. Former mechanic Chum Mey told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal how he pleaded for his life as he was tortured for 12 days and nights at the 1975-1979 communist movement's Tuol Sleng detention centre.
