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Senate Panel Gives Rice Confirmation Nod
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Man taken to hospital after self-castration procedure
On the cutting edge of societal evolution, as it were . . .
A 50-year-old Reno man told authorities he castrated himself to lower his libido and learned of the procedure on the Internet, police said. . . . About 1:30 a.m. Monday, police said the man called 911 and asked for help because he could not stop the bleeding from a self-castration operation.
It must've been a eunuch experience.
Reno police and medics responded to the man's home near Brinkby Avenue and Robinhood Drive, and he was taken by ambulance to the hospital.
And now, the understatement of the year:
"The man obviously needs some sort of counseling," Reno police Lt. Ron Donnelly said.
Posted by: Mike || 01/20/2005 6:54:59 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The poor cigar cutter will never be the same...
Posted by: Dar || 01/20/2005 19:30 Comments || Top||

#2  " A 50-year-old Reno man told authorities he castrated himself to lower his libido"

Lower ?
Shit, eliminate would be the proper word.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 19:47 Comments || Top||

#3  The boss said we need more eunuchs programmers, so...
Posted by: jackal || 01/20/2005 20:47 Comments || Top||

#4  It's that damn internet again, lol!
Posted by: Spot || 01/20/2005 20:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Ouch!

That's gotta hurt.

Hee-hee-hee.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/20/2005 21:32 Comments || Top||

#6  what? He didn't have an ex-wife to do it for him?
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 21:36 Comments || Top||

#7  hmmmm. dont sayin if there sow it back on or hes pickle jar it
Posted by: muck4doo || 01/20/2005 21:41 Comments || Top||

#8  my relatives in Reno know what Rocky Mtn Oysters are....they'd decline...bet they went into the trash/disposal - good
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 21:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Dull knife or broken glass for scalpel. ****shudders****
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/20/2005 22:02 Comments || Top||

#10  Basis for a new survival series or an episode of DYI?
Posted by: John Q. Citizen || 01/20/2005 22:54 Comments || Top||

#11  Ooouuchh!
Posted by: John Q. Citizen || 01/20/2005 22:55 Comments || Top||


Ouch ! worlds biggest baby , no its not Aris.
Posted by: MacNails || 01/20/2005 12:57 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  :P
Posted by: MacNails || 01/20/2005 12:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Brazil. No custom for it, but I wonder if they could name him Huey... :-)
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 13:03 Comments || Top||

#3  As Sophia once said on Golden Girls "You hurt my hootie!"
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/20/2005 14:39 Comments || Top||

#4  The password is "epidural".
Posted by: Jules 187 || 01/20/2005 14:41 Comments || Top||


Dustmen sent to school after binning art
Posted by: tipper || 01/20/2005 10:07 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  i agree with the trashmen the shit looked like trash too me too
Posted by: smokeysinse || 01/20/2005 13:19 Comments || Top||


419 bait...
From: director muno
Subject: MR MUNO , SEND THIS PROVES (48 hours)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:24:33 +0100 (CET)
To: afdi@telkom.net

FROM MR MUNO E GOMEZ.

ATTENTION MR CHANDRA.

THIS ARE WHAT IS NEEDED FROM YOU BY THIS BANK AS PROVES IN OTHER TO ENABLE US TRANSFER YOUR INHERITANCE FUND TO YOU IMMEDIATLY.YOU HAVE TO BE QUICK WE WILL LIKE TO TRANSFER YOUR INHERITANCE FUND BEFORE THIS WEEK RUNS OUT.

AS SOON AS YOU SEND THIS 4 INFORMATION/ DOCUMENTS YOUR INHERITANCE FUND WILL BE TRANSFER TO YOU WITHING 24 HOURS, BE QUICK DELAY DELAY IS NOT PERMITED.

SEND ALL THIS INFORMATION AND DOCUMENT IMMEDIATLY.
1) DEATH CERTIFICATE
2) DEPOSITE CERTIFICATE
3) YOUR LATE UNCLES ACCOUNT ACESS SECREET CODE.
4) THE STATUS RECOGNITION CERTIFICATE
YOU DONT HAVE TO DELAY SEND ALL THIS INFO NOW SO THAT WE CAN BE ABLE TO TRANSFER YOUR INHERITANCE FUND THIS WEEK.

YOURS FAITH FULLY.
TINA EMMANUEL
PUBLIC RELATION MANANGER.

==== IS THIS RIGHT??

You're gonna share your newfound wealth with the rest of us, right?
Posted by: || 01/20/2005 3:21:15 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You want my abscess secreetions? Ew!
Posted by: BH || 01/20/2005 10:34 Comments || Top||

#2  My, my, doesn't that look official! ( shakes head sadly ) The only people you could fool with this work for 60 Minutes. or did.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/20/2005 10:41 Comments || Top||

#3  I'd get right on that before it's too late since delay delay is not permited.
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/20/2005 11:29 Comments || Top||

#4  Don't laugh. A letter like this ended up getting Dan Rather fired...
Posted by: Anonymoose || 01/20/2005 13:04 Comments || Top||

#5  My late uncle's secret password was "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 14:36 Comments || Top||

#6  DS - I thought it was 'Courage'. Did someone change it?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/20/2005 14:42 Comments || Top||

#7  CF - Yeah....Lucy Ramirez. ;)
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 16:24 Comments || Top||


Mother of all ducks shared a swamp with Tyrannosaurus Rex
PRIMITIVE ducks may have shared the same swamps as Tyrannosaurus rex, according to new research. The fossil remains of a 70 million-year-old bird that appears to be an ancestor of modern ducks and geese have been discovered in Antarctica, showing conclusively that the relatives of modern birds lived alongside the dinosaurs.

While the first known bird, Archaeopteryx, lived 147 million years ago, it is commonly recognised to have been a "dead end" species whose descendents died out and did not give rise to modern birds. The question of when today's birds started to evolve has long been the subject of scientific controversy. Some experts believe that they started to emerge alongside the dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period, while others insist that bird evolution started only after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The discovery of a new species, Vegavis iaai, appears to settle the argument, as it has been conclusively dated to 70 million years ago — comfortably before dinosaurs died out. Vegavis was found in 1992, but a new analysis of its bones has established it as a distinct species and established its date.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2005 00:00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Quackosaurus rex?
Posted by: Mike || 01/20/2005 11:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Tyrannosaurus! Duck!
Posted by: Sobiesky || 01/20/2005 11:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Stegoosesaurus webfootus
Posted by: Pappy || 01/20/2005 13:18 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Hajj Pilgrims Begin Stoning of Devil
Shuffling slowly but smoothly, huge crowds of people hurled pebbles Thursday at pillars representing Satan, symbolically stoning the devil in a final ritual of their pilgrimage, while Muslims at the hajj and around the world slaughtered sheep, cows and camels to mark the Feast of the Sacrifice holiday. Most of the 2 million pilgrims were expected to begin carrying out the ritual later in the day, historically one of the most dangerous because of stampedes as pilgrims elbow their way close to the pillars, then return to Mecca to circle the holy Kaaba in the final ritual of the pilgrimage. Others would wait or return in the coming days, drawing out their spiritual journey through Saturday.

As the hajj, which climaxed Wednesday with prayers on Mount Arafat, wound down, Muslims here and around the world began celebrating Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice. The holiday, the most important on the Islamic calendar, marks Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God. It began with mosques — and in places the streets around them — filling up for dawn prayers and to hear holiday sermons. Later, families visited the graves of loved ones, gathered for big family lunches with the meat of freshly slaughtered animals, took children dressed up in new clothes to parks. "I hope that next year the situation will have improved in Palestine and Iraq, so that their children can play, too," Samir Karim, a 38-year-old Syrian businessman, said at a Damascus park where he brought his four children.

Many holiday sermons on Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — issues dominating the Arab world. At a mosque in Beirut, Lebanon, Shiite Muslim cleric Sheik Ahmed Kourani blasted the U.S. occupation of Iraq and its "invasion of our lands ... seeking to humiliate us."
It's always Humiliate-a-Muslim week somewhere...
In Beirut and on the streets of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, extra police patrolled areas where people would gather to ensure smooth celebrations. Along the Nile in downtown Cairo, rows of police kept traffic moving as Egyptians flocked to waiting boats to spend the day enjoying music and a cruise to picnic sites. Streets in Baghdad, Iraq, were quiet Thursday in sharp contrast to Wednesday's wave of bombings. Iraqi cleric Mohammed al-Sumeidi spoke of the capital's plight in his sermon at a Baghdad mosque: "Baghdad is the city of science, city of kings, city of believers. It has now become the city of explosions and hideout of criminals."

At the hajj, a pilgrimage required at least once in the lifetime of every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it, a million animals were expected to be slaughtered, with much of the meat going to the poor. Many pilgrims will pay $120 at the hajj for an animal to be slaughtered and its meat shipped to needy nations. Unlike past years, pilgrims began the devil-stoning ritual just after midnight on Thursday, taking advantage of a religious edict permitting the stoning before dawn prayers. Saudi authorities have been looking at many improvements — including erecting wider and taller pillars and adding two new emergency exits — to avoid stampedes like those that killed 1,426 pilgrims in 1990 and 244 last year. "We were worried about the crowds and we had heard some real horror stories so we feel much better that we made it here early," said Ahmed Sodikin, 56, from Bandung, Indonesia, who came well before dawn.

About 10,000 forces — including traffic and crowd control — were patrolling the area Thursday to ensure the smooth flow of the ritual. Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said all was going smoothly as the day wore on: "Thanks be to God, no incidents so far."
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2005 9:53:45 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  savages prying to an asteroid.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 01/20/2005 11:03 Comments || Top||

#2  I used to watch this marching around the kabaa thingy on TV. It was, um, surreal.

Didn't get to see them "stone the devil", however. That, at least, might have been entertaining, since they all throw like gurlz.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 11:09 Comments || Top||

#3  At a mosque in Beirut, Lebanon, Shiite Muslim cleric Sheik Ahmed Kourani blasted the U.S. occupation of Iraq and its "invasion of our lands ... seeking to humiliate us."

I got yer panties right here!!
Posted by: Raj || 01/20/2005 11:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Dude! I'm like, so stoned!
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/20/2005 12:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Why don't they save their arms and just get him during the stampede?
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/20/2005 12:36 Comments || Top||

#6  " Muslims at the hajj and around the world slaughtered sheep, cows and camels to mark the Feast of the Sacrifice holiday "

Stone the devil, eat a camel steak ?
Wow, whose bringing the Cognac !!
Sounds like a party.

Posted by: Bill Clinton || 01/20/2005 12:48 Comments || Top||

#7  I think I'll go get the Mr to BBQ some pork and put some beer on ice. That's how I like to celebrate my holidays....
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 13:44 Comments || Top||

#8  You know, a lovely FAE or MOAB dropped on them might take them to meet the Devil and his boyfriend allan. We'll claim is was the pesky insurgents in Iraq, given how they like to kill other muslims in the name of allan.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 01/20/2005 23:55 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Nuggets from The Urdu Press PRAVDA
I figured it was about time...
  • Ukraine: The End of Electoral Crisis: Snipping down to the commentary: Mr. Yushchenko's inauguration - only the country's third since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 - will end a tumultuous electoral crisis that prompted huge public demonstrations and behind-the-scenes intrigue, deeply dividing the country and souring relations with Russia. There I was, sitting in the refrigerator, minding my own business....

  • Condoleeza Rice Off To Predictable Start:

    Arrogance, supercilious smarm, belligerence, intrusion and pig-headed idiocy all in one fell swoop. Not bad for a start.

    Not surprisingly, Condoleeza Rice's declarations during the process to select her as the next US Secretary of State, show a lightweight, insubstantial, sour female with a bigoted sense of her self importance and yet again a total absence of the skills for the job to which she has been appointed.
    For people who apparently think history began and ended in 1848 they seem rather concerned with credentials. Speaking for myself, she impresses me, but then again I'm just another redneck oilfield worker.
    Diplomacy, for Colin Powell, meant lying through his teeth at the UN Security Council, complete with satellite photographs of his magnificent evidence of Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction.
    Because, as we all know, there's no physical way to get chemical weapons over the Great Wall Of Syria.
    Diplomacy for Condoleeza Rice, apparently, is to shoot off in all directions before she has even been appointed, like somebody with either an acute case of PMT or a chronic case of the menopause. In a tantrum more befitting of a spoilt three-year-old brat, Ms. Rice declared yesterday that "in our world, there remain outposts of tyranny, and America stands with oppressed people on every continent, in Cuba, and Burma, and North Korea, and Iran, and Belarus, and Zimbabwe."

    What business has Condoleeza Rice to speak of Cuba, when she is not allowed to travel there freely as a US citizen? Has she ever spoken to Fidel Castro? Has she ever interviewed Cubans to find out whether they like their government or not? Or has she limited herself to her books, this perfect example of a laboratory politician, in a comfortable office, and been told by others that the Castro government is tyrannical, probably by the Cuban mafia which operates in Florida?

    I can't help but think that Dr. Rice has met many more Cubans than the author of this article has, and that they're not limited to high party officials there... which probably, in his mind, means they're part of the Great Cuban Mafia. Even the guys who try to get out in boats made out of pickup trucks.

    Good sources.

    Regarding Belarus, what has this to do with Condoleeza Rice? The people chose their leader in a free election. If they consider their leadership tyrannical, they voted for it.

    Ah, the left's famous "right to hold a Final Election." I believe Hitler worked under much the same theory. The rest of the article isn't anything to write home about, he attacks the US on Iraq as if that could defend Burma, North Korea, Iran, and Zimbabwe...

  • America's Biggest Problem:

    Americans feel quite comfortable with George Bush at power after they've re-elected him for the second term. George Bush in turn feels quite comfortable with the American people by his side.

    Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy to deploy troops to Afghanistan, Iraq and God knows where else. Rumor has it that Iran or Syria will be the next target. The rest of the world does not like the head of the White House to say the least. At least, such are the results of the public poll conducted at BBC"s request.

    Wait a sec. I thought everyone agreed that kicking the Taliban out of Afghanistan was a good idea.

    Actually, one could hardly hope for another kind of results. The rise of anti-American sentiments that have been provoked by the politics of current administration aren"t novel at all. This will hardly be an exaggeration to claim that the major problem of the US' foreign policy is George Bush himself. Such negative attitude towards Mr. President gets automatically applied to ordinary American civilians. So the BBC survey has once again presented a clear picture of rather steadfast negative attitude towards the US.I'm shocked, SHOCKED that BBC viewers might have a negative view of America...

    However, there still remain countries in the world which do not have any hard feelings against Americans in general and Bush in particular. These countries are Poland, Philippines and India. The remaining 18 states (out of 21 countries) demonstrated negative attitude towards America.

    I wonder how closely this maps with the presense of a real, competitive media industry.

    Obviously, Muslim states including Turkey, which is an American ally in NATO, do not tolerate American approach to politics.

    Residents of the two biggest states of Latin America: Brazil and Argentina (78 and 79% consequently) do not welcome Bush"s activity. Their point of view is shared by residents of Eastern European countries, including American closest partner - Great Britain, as well as Canada and Mexico.

    As far as Russia is concerned, 16% provided positive answers while 39% answered "no" when asked whether the world has become any safer after Bush"s re-election. 16% of Russians view American influence in the world as positive, whereas 64% regard it as negative.

    When you get through explaining the connection between buying an election in Ukraine with preventing another Beslan, let me know.

  • US Special Forces Inside Iran?: Is it only the US government that likes to tell lies?

    The famous story of the famous journalist nominated for famous Pulitzer prize for an infamous load of crap sticks into the minds of all journalists who strive to seek for the Truth. Today, breaks the story of US Special Forces operating inside Iran, for six months.

    Seymour Hersch, who writes for the New Yorker magazine, quotes unnamed former intelligence officials and anonymous consultants who work with the Pentagon. What reliable sources.

    How about "Unnamed sources, who insisted on remaining anonymous, said to be close to the White House by local gossips, claim to have seen President George Bush being kidnapped by aliens from the Oval Office, while wearing a green tunic smothered with swastikas, from where he was taken to a flying saucer and gang-raped by triple-breasted jelloid octopuses wearing orange wigs and screaming 'We hate Baseball!' "
    Now that's the Pravda we've all come to know and love.
    Or how about "US Secretary of State shows satellite photos of Iraqi WMD to UN Security Council, complete with arrows and labels, claiming that the USA knows where these systems are, but that they are waiting for Hans Blix to find them". Later, Colin Powell, when confronted with growing evidence that WMD did not exist because Saddam had indeed destroyed them a decade earlier, defended himself by stating that they were being driven around the desert, "in vehicles".
    I think this is the same writer who wrote the previously-quoted article on Dr. Rice. If Hussein destroyed his weapons, the burden of proof was on him to prove it, not us. Where did the chemical weapons for the attempted attack in Jordan come from, anyway? There's plenty of interesting indications that something was going on, if you're not just looking for reasons to let the Mullahs get the bomb.
    Then there was always the one which stated that Niger had sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq for Saddam Hussein to make nuclear bombs, the documents being complete with signatures of the ministers of Niger and Iraq which when shown to Mohammed El Baradei and were greeted with the loudest Egyptian snort in history, with the disclaimer "They are forged". End of story. Only Pravda.Ru has been reporting this one since then.
    Your proof that Iraq wasn't seeking yellowcake is that you think a memo was forged?
    The question is, anyone who has access to an internet site can write what he or she wants and pass it off as credible until someone finds to the contrary. And thankfully, there's nothing that you can now do to stop it. Unlike the bad old days.In this case, the evidence appears at least a trifle flimsy, because either you quote reliable and accredited sources, or else the whole piece falls flat, into the "they told me so" heap, along with the rest. The question is how many readers believe it.

    Certainly Seymour Hersch is not a nobody, yet this does not mean anything. Hence the references at the beginning of this piece to other well documented cases of journalistic fraud.

    Certainly nobody these days would be surprised if the USA had operationals inside Iran targeting future strikes. However, for six months? Although CIA operationals these days do not have to wear dark suits, dark glasses, have a bulge in the left inside pocket of the jacket and wear an arrow on their backs, saying "CIA agent" and while such agents these days would be
    recruited among Iranian professionals working inside Iran, six months is a long time for such an unnecessary "operation".
    I sincerely doubt the US would do such things if they thought it was unnecessary. The forces present were described by Hersch as Special Forces, which are military in nature.
    After all, the US satellites would only have to look at their photographs to know where the strike areas are.
    Satellites have limitations. And I believe that US Special Forces are trained for much more than providing targeting data for laser-guided bombs.
    To begin with, the Iranians have refuted the news by quoting this time a named source, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Masood Khan, who denies that there is any collaboration between the Pakistanis and Americans, as Hersch's unnamed sources state.
    "No such secret mission exists at this time!"
    "There is no such collaboration" he stated, adding that "I categorically reject the report".
    And because it's traditional: "I can say no more!"
    As for Washington, the White House spokesperson Dan Bartlett has stated that the report is "riddled with inaccuracies". After the hype and lies concerning Iraq, Washington these days is favouring the diplomatic channel, which it should have used first time around, however, full marks for the turnaround in policy. All George Bush had to do was listen to the international community.
    Right about now I'm reminded of Fezzo the Sicilian in The Princess Bride.
    Finally, if such were the case, Moscow would already have got wind of what was going on in its back yard and traditional area of influence.
    I'm sure they're very aware of the situation, having sold them the equipment...
    The feeling in the journalistic community is that Hersch is a well-known name, having had many famous scoops, among which was Abu Ghraib. But this time maybe his unnamed and anonymous sources got the wrong flying saucer and the wrong triple-breasted aliens.

  • Venezuela Halts Ties With Colombia Over Guerrilla Leader Kidnapping:
    Kidnapping?
    Caracas took the decission to protest a Colombian special operation in which a top FARC leader was arrested from Venezuelan soil

    Tension between Colombia and Venezuela steamed up last weekend, as Caracas announced the halting of bilateral accords and business deals to protest a special operation of the Colombian police in which the foreign relations chief of the Colombian FARC rebel group was kidnapped from Venezuelan soil. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, in turn, offered to meet his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, but refused to apologise for the operation.
    You know, I think I missed it when Pravda called the perpetrators of Beslan rebels instead of terrorists. Is it remotely possible Columbia, and more importantly Columbians, have a Right To Exist?

  • Russia's Far North to promote "American" governor?

    The last governor elections in the foreseeable future of Russian history to be determined by the joint venture of major Russian and American oil companies.

    You know, way out here in the rest of the world, elections are scheduled at regular intervals. In the US, we even held them in the Civil War.

    Attempting to condense the article: there are two major candidates for governor, one of whom is being portrayed as a puppet of Lukoil and Conoco, and the other of whom supposedly represents Russia's interests.


  • Russia To Sell Strategic Bomber Planes To China

    It is not ruled out that Russia might arm a potential enemy.

    The article contains a general summary of the state of the Russian Air Force:

    he Russian government has been assigning considerable funds for the needs of the Armed Forces recently, although it still leaves many unsolved financial problems. The most important one of them - a lack of combustive and lubricating materials - exerts a direct influence on the level of pilots' professionalism. The current situation is a lot better in comparison with the end of the 1990s, of course, when training flights were minimized to the maximum so to speak. Vladimir Mikhailov said that the situation has been improving considerably over the recent years. It is impossible, however, to say that the Russian Air Force is completely satisfied with fuel supplies - they are still insufficient. It became quite a surprising revelation, when the general said that the Air Force had acquired almost 65 percent of kerosene owing to commercial transport flights. "Such measures give pilots a possibility to train their piloting skills at international flights," Vladimir Mikhailov said. The general, however, hopes that the vital problem of the Russian aviation would be solved.

    And acquisition plans:

    The modernization of MIG-29 pursuit planes will start in 2005 too. The renowned Russian helicopter Mi-28 will also be modernized in compliance with modern requirements. ABM troops will have a new S-400 missile system in the arsenal, which has no analogues anywhere in the world. The tests of the Su-34 bomber plane are to be over in the near future too.

    Vladimir Mikhailov touched upon the military hardware of the future too. It goes about a universal jet of the fifth generation, which is tentatively called "The perspective aviation complex." According to the general, an electronic model of the future plane has been recently presented for the Air Force command. "The work of the complex is being conducted strictly according to the schedule. The tests are slated for 2007," Mikhailov said.

    Experts and scientists, however, say that it will be possible to create a pursuit plane of the fifth generation only by 2012-2015. Americans plan to launch the serial production of a new jet already in four years.

    He must be talking about the F-35. The F-22 is under production now. Finally:

    In addition to all above-mentioned facts, the Russian Air Force Commander does not exclude a possibility to sell Tu-22M3 and Tu-95 bomber planes to China. "We could sell a certain quantity of Tu-22M3 and Tu-95 planes to China," Mikhailov told reporters at the press conference. "We will demonstrate the planes at a joint military exercise to make China get interested. If they have money, let them buy the planes," Mikhailov said. Spokespeople for the Russian defense export enterprise Rosoboronexport refused to comment the general's statement.

    It is noteworthy that China does not have up-to-date bomber planes of a large range. It only has the outdated Tu-16: the USSR handed over the production license for this bomber plane to China in the 1950s. Tu-16 planes do not pose any serious danger to China's major potential enemy - Taiwan. The Tu-22M3 outfitted with modern Russian missiles, can be a threat even to the vessels of the US Navy approaching Taiwan. Until recently, Russian military men refused to sell the Tu-22M3 bomber to China on account of the plane's power, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote.

    The serial production of the Tu-22M3 was ceased in Russia in 1991. China, therefore, will be able to buy the planes of the Russian Air Force arsenal, which currently counts 130 planes of this particular model. It would be reasonable for China to purchase not less than 40 planes - this would be a group of planes to guarantee the destruction of a group of American aircraft carriers. A batch of 40 planes would cost over a billion dollars.

    The state needs money, of course, albeit not at the expense of the national security. It is not ruled out that Russia might arm a potential enemy.

    Well, it's your chance to feel really important in between the fight over Taiwan and the fight over Siberia.


  • Gay Marriage Issue Raised in Russia as Two Men Try to Wed Each Other:

    ...The application was accepted, but the men are certain that the paper would soon be returned to them with an official denial. "Me and Ed Mishin have different sexual orientations, but the goal of our action is to amend the Russian law for the benefit of those people who are referred to as sexual minorities," Bashkirian deputy Edward Murzin said. Murzin, a straight man, decided to participate in the daring adventure in order to obtain a formal document, which denies a gay marriage registration.



  • And now on to science... Autotrophs: New Kind of Humans Appears Who Neither Drink nor Eat:

    It is not ruled out that they will replace us at a new evolution stage.

    Well, I, for one, welcome our new autotrophic overlords...

    ..."Russia's most famous autotroph's name is Zinaida Baranova. The old lady from the city of Krasnodar is 67 years old. She was approaching her new existence very slowly. At first she gave up meat, then she turned vegetables down. She has been living without food and water for 4.5 years already. Scientists of the Bauman Institute examined her organism and were very surprised to find out that the woman's biological age corresponded to 20 years. Professor Spiridonov came to conclusion that the pensioner was a perfectly healthy lady; all her systems and organs, except for the stomach, were functioning normally. Indeed, she is a very energetic and bubbly person. She got rid of all diseases, even chronic ones. She said, however, that it was rather hard for her to get used to the new lifestyle. She was suffering from cramps, exhaustion, dry mouth, etc. There were moments, when she thought she was dying. The woman's health improved in 1.5 months.

    "Doctors say that autotrophs make a fundamentally new type of self-sufficient human beings. It is not ruled out that they will replace us at a new evolution stage. Modern science has already confirmed the ability of a human being to maintain itself. Dietitians were recently saying that the B12 vitamin was naturally contained only in animal foods. Vegans, therefore, were supposed to die, since they could not receive the vitamin. However, doctors found out that the concentration of the B12 vitamin was fine with vegans. The situation became clear, when scientists discovered the synthesis process in the intestines. It became known that human beings could live on their own microflora. Medics have already discovered that the human intestines produce microorganisms that can synthesize amino acids."


  • Russia and Iran Join Efforts to Struggle Against Invasion of UFOs:

    If a UFO appears in the sky above Iran, anti-aircraft systems will most likely down it.

    Unidentified flying objects continue terrorizing the Eastern hemisphere of planet Earth. No one knows what to do with them, although it is obvious that something has to be done with the problem. Russia and Iran agreed to join efforts to study the mysterious phenomenon. The news may seem to be ridiculous at first sight, but it is actually a rather serious matter: UFOs pose a big threat to Iran in connection with its growing nuclear potential.

    The UFO mania has gripped Iran. The Air Force command of Teheran has recently been given an order to down any unknown or suspicious object seen in the air space of Iran. If a UFO appears in the sky above Iran, anti-aircraft systems will most likely down it.

    Iranian mass media, meanwhile, are distributing more and more information about extraterrestrial threats to the nation's nuclear objects. The flights of unknown objects in the air space of the country have become much more frequent lately, the Resalat Daily wrote. According to the newspaper, unusual luminous objects were spotted above Busher and Natanza, where nuclear facilities are located. One of the objects exploded in the sky, eyewitnesses said. The Iranian defense department is trying to pacify the anxious population. "We have developed plans to protect nuclear objects from any danger. The Iranian Air Force is on alert and ready to fulfill the duty," General Qarim Gavani stated.
    Are these the same nuclear objects which the previously cited article implied didn't exist?
    The interest in UFOs started growing very fast in Iran more than a year ago. News agencies reported dozens of incidents, when people could see strange objects flying above their heads. The state television of Iran aired the footage of a shimmering white disk above Teheran. People ran out of their houses in eight cities to see the bright extraterrestrial light in the clouds. IRNA reported about multicolored objects with green, red, blue and violet rays seen above the towns of Tabriz and Ardebil and above Golestan Province in the area of the Caspian Sea.
    So they're certain they're objects of extraterrestrial origin? And that maybe they don't believe Pravda about Iran's nuclear programs, either?
    Russia promised to help Iran in the struggle with UFOs. Russia put an end to the anomalous problem in the beginning of the 1990s, when the entire population of the Soviet Union was panicking over strange flying objects. Both Russian and Iranian officials emphasize the fact of expanding the bilateral cooperation, particularly in the field of space exploration and the development of satellites. In addition to UFO-related contracts Russia and Iran are working on the details of the agreement to launch the Zohreh satellite.
    Are the Russians now publicly saying that they have the ability to shoot down extraterrestrial craft?


  • Gazprom Finances Anti-Putin Opposition?

    Now here's something that's really strange. Especially the choice of headline.

    Gazprom, Menatep, Ilim Pulp and many others finance "Going Without Putin" Movement?

    We hereby would like to unveil a little secret that we managed to obtain from rather well-informed sources: recent natural disasters were not incidental. They were supposedly organized by the Kremlin in response to the US-led "orange revolution" in Ukraine. Moscow arranged the disasters to let the US administration know that Russia could adequately respond to both Ukrainian events (recent devastating hurricanes in the USA caused multi-million damage) and attempts to export it to Russia. In order to remind world governments and millions of Internet users of its power, a Kremlin agent visited Portland at the end of last week and pushed the Six Apart red power supply button. The latter was also organized to destroy only one record among thousands of LiveJournal diaries: a subtle boy, who heads the most massive movement in Russia's recent history called "Going Without Putin."

    You know, the last time I checked, the hurricanes happened before the recent events in Ukraine. As a lifelong resident of the gulf coast, I find this claim hilarious. And I do suspect that Six Apart backs up their data... and I know that individual weblog authors can create backups of their weblogs to their own computers. I just did :-)

    It has recently transpired that the Russian administration hacked the LiveJournal website because of the diary published by an identified individual, a member of the "Going Without Putin" movement. The rumor about it appeared at 8 a.m. on the air of the Echo of Moscow radio station with reference to the Ukrainian-Israeli website MigNews. The radio station continued reporting the message every hour during the day. Even when the primary source informed about the true reason of LiveJournal's inaccessibility, other news sources of the Russian Internet continued reported about its original version with reference to MigNews. It brings up the idea that there was someone's certain interest involved in the matter.

    We had to surf several St.Petersburg-based websites to be able to answer the question. As it turned out, the message about the hacking of the above-mentioned diary appeared on January 14th on the Zaks.ru webpage. The page is sponsored by Cross-Media information group. The group unites a series of publishing projects, incorporating Novaya Gazeta, Lenizdat.ru, the North-Western department of the Federal Investigation Agency. Zaks.ru also mentions Cross-Media's sources of income: such well-known business structures as Gazprom, Ilim Pulp Enterprise, North-Western Telecom, Baltica Brewery, LSR group of companies, Balt-Trade, Temp construction company, Rustrubprom, banks Menatep and BaltOneksimBank, Parnas-M meat-processing factory and many others.

    It is not ruled out, of course, that Cross-Media decided to support the website of the movement just because of its passion for democratic principles, although the movement existed for only two weeks. However, it somehow seems that Cross-Media is the main figure of the PR campaign for "Going Without Putin."

    When LiveJournal website was back online, it became possible to get acquainted with the diary of the above-mentioned boy. It is easy to grasp the essence of his intellectual capacity from the following line: "People talk about freedom and have certain convictions. How can it be? Freedom is here and now, freedom is not only meant for Khodorkovsky, it is meant for all people - for you first and foremost. It is about being free of convictions, hopes, attachments, some mythical beliefs."

    There is another interesting point in the boy's diary - his friends. A well-known spin doctor Marat Guelman, who was noticed in Ukraine during the peak of the "orange revolution," was listed among them. The young man wrote in his diary that as soon as he created the webpage on the free hosting of Yandex.ru, when the Kommersant newspaper (the paper belongs to Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky) informed about it and even presented several opposition-oriented opinions.

    The subtle boy's archive page (the person refers to himself this way) is curious too. The most curious feature about it is that the Echo of Moscow radio station's label is seen at the bottom of the page, in the copyright section. One can imagine the boy listening to the radio all day long taping all programs, where spokespeople for so-called rightist forces participate.

    Everything is clear with the "movement." The webpage was created on January 13th. The Kommersant newspaper, Grani.ru website (controlled by Berezovsky), as well as Zaks.ru, Lenizdat.ru, Cross Media, Newsru.com (controlled by media tycoon Vladimir Gusinky) and Echo of Moscow radio (the station belongs to Gazprom) informed about it next day. These companies presented the event as the birth of the "Going Without Putin" movement. On January 15th, the above-mentioned publications reported about the Kremlin's implication in the matter. It was said that the Russian administration disabled the entire LiveJournal portal because of the boy's diary (the boy was portrayed as the movement's ideologist).

    One should bear in mind the appearance of such a PR technique.

    It may also be that not everyone dissatisfied with the politicians in Russia, even random people with weblogs, is in the pay of the 'oligarchs.'

  • Time Can be Turned Back

    Includes reports of alleged time travel experiments in Antarctica. I'm going to pass on posting excerpts, the important thing is they still don't know about the Stargate.


And that's all that's interesting there, at least today...
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 01/20/2005 6:53:13 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
"Take Two Rocks And Call Me In The Morning"
Pyongyang, January 20 (KCNA) -- Scientists of the Geological Survey Faculty in Kim Chaek University of Technology of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has succeeded in developing portable medicinal stone for deoxidized drinking water. It is made of natural minerals which contain rich ingredients good for human body. It not only instantly removes active oxygen but also contains 13 kinds of elements including Ca, Mg, Fe, Cu and Se. One can easily make deoxidized water as fresh as natural mineral water with the stone in any place. Drinking the water every day improves health, prevents aging and controls cancer cell. It is also efficacious for such diseases as colitis, chronic diarrhea and constipation, circulatory disorder, diabetes and inflammation.
Posted by: Steve || 01/20/2005 9:49:47 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How's it work on starvation?
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/20/2005 11:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Quack quack quack
Posted by: Korora || 01/20/2005 13:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Prevents aging? Completely?

Paging Cortez! We found the fountain of Youth!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/20/2005 13:37 Comments || Top||

#4  I think you mean Ponce de Leon.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/20/2005 15:33 Comments || Top||

#5  De-oxidized water? Gotta wash your rocks down with a coupla atoms of Hydrogen. Sounds good to me; organic, even.
Posted by: Seafarious || 01/20/2005 15:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Selenium? That's one of those elements in which a very small amount is necessary for life, but the maximum amount is also pretty small (hundreds of micrograms, IIRC).
Posted by: jackal || 01/20/2005 20:53 Comments || Top||

#7  hmmm - how's that lead, bentonite, and silicon content?
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 21:01 Comments || Top||


Don't Let China Off The Hook
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 01/20/2005 01:33 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Registration required (bummer).
Posted by: Crusader || 01/20/2005 11:58 Comments || Top||

#2  By WaPo's Jim Hoagland:

"The European Union should pause in its determined march to lift the arms embargo that it imposed against China for the Tiananmen Square killings of 1989. Europe is set to prove the wrong guys right about the world's willingness to put aside outrage over human rights atrocities when business beckons.

The 25-nation confederation also risks introducing new controversy into European-American relations just as the Bush administration mounts an "outreach" effort toward its E.U. and NATO partners. Rather than new competition over global strategy, Washington and Brussels need a coordinated approach to the still unstable conflict between China and Taiwan." (snip)
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 12:59 Comments || Top||


Europe
Hookers Take Dim View of Bright Lights
Posted by: God Save The World || 01/20/2005 21:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Inauguration Day Set for Sun. in Ukraine
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2005 9:50:27 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe doubles China arms sale licences
Posted by: ed || 01/20/2005 05:57 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "European leaders faced embarrassment yesterday when figures showed a doubling in approvals of arms sales to China, despite an embargo imposed after Tiananmen Square."

-- Anyone else see the parallel here between increased arms sales to China (supposedly outlawed) and the Oil-for-Food program?
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 9:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Add in the attitude of The Heiress so clearly expressed the other day and one could get the impression that, in Europe, laws are merely for the little people.

The elitists write them, but need not abide by them. Perhaps this is why they have so many, heh.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 9:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Ah, the great transatlantic "alliance" once again shows its incomparable worth.

When will this nation finally get serious about reprienting itself toward Japan and India?
Posted by: lex || 01/20/2005 9:15 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Liberal Financier Accused of Violating Federal Election Law
Via The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid:
A conservative legal group has accused billionaire investor George Soros of violating federal election law. The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) on Tuesday filed a 41-page complaint against Soros with the Federal Election Commission, alleging "extensive apparent violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act." The NLPC alleges that Soros failed to disclose a series of expenditures stemming from his October 2004 speaking tour to several swing states, where he called for the defeat of President Bush. Soros is a major financier of liberal causes. "This is possibly the largest off-the-books independent expenditure ever run. It's especially important that the FEC look at it, because [his media tour] occurred the month before a very close election in key swing states," Ken Boehm, chairman of the NLPC, told Cybercast News Service.

NLPC is alleging that Soros did not file the transportation and administrative costs associated with his October political media campaign with the FEC. The NLPC says those costs included telephone, photocopying, commercial press release services, subsidies for groups hosting Soros, and press luncheons. Soros also allegedly failed to disclose the cost "to purchase or rent the mailing lists required for the two million-piece mailing of a brochure entitled, 'Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush,' according to NLPC. "Disclosure is the absolute heart of campaign finance law, and Soros' anti-Bush campaign could have potentially shifted the outcome of the presidential election," Boehm added.

Boehm also accused Soros of 'hypocrisy.' "Since Soros has spent $18 million promoting campaign finance law, it's the height of hypocrisy for him to run an off-the-books campaign," Boehm said. "Soros has bankrolled the groups that have lobbied for limits on political giving and for disclosure. But he apparently believes that the law should only apply to other people, and not to himself," he added. The NLPC complaint also named as respondents Fenton Communications, which helped promote Soros' media campaign; and two non-profit groups that hosted Soros speeches: The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia and the Metropolitan Club of Columbus, Ohio. Several calls to Soros' Open Society Institute, a part of Soros Foundation network, seeking comment were not returned as of press time. Calls to Fenton Communications were also not returned by press time.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 01/20/2005 5:13:45 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I doubt the charge'll stick, but it's sure nice to dream . . . .
Posted by: Mike || 01/20/2005 18:50 Comments || Top||

#2  $18 Mill for George Sorass is pocket change. At least he can wear the "$18 Million invested and all I got was this stupid T-shirt" Would love to see an investigation of this....maybe dissuade him from doing the same in 2008. Probably not...irreversible severe brain damage does not heal
Posted by: Warthog || 01/20/2005 18:51 Comments || Top||

#3  his name and money could be tainted for legitimate candidates, though....Hillary will take it
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 19:21 Comments || Top||

#4 
Liberal Financier
They misspelled "Far-left Moonbat"
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/20/2005 21:34 Comments || Top||


Krutzed-up judge
Truncated for length
As the nation's capital prepares itself for the presidential inauguration by going into lockdown mode and placing portable Stinger missile launchers throughout the city, Americans may be stunned to learn that the District of Columbia has been forced by a federal judge to hand over intelligence data on police tactics, training, and strategies from the last inauguration to an organization with documented ties to terrorist groups and Saddam Hussein.

The District of Columbia was forced by court order to turn over this information to the International Action Center (IAC), a group involved in Thursday's protests of the second Bush inaugural through the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition. The anti-Bush groups expect as many as 100,000 will converge on the nation's capital and they intend to get as close to the presidential motorcade as possible. Some media pundits have expressed surprise that the District has offered protestors "prime real estate" along the parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue. But this is largely because of legal pressure exerted by the protesters and their radical law firms.

Given that videotaping a monument can get one arrested in the post-9/11 world, it is stunning that surveillance tapes and other security data can be handed over by court order to an anti-American pro-terrorist organization. But that is how extreme the federal courts have become.

The portrayal of the U.S. as the foremost human rights violator in the world is a familiar theme of the IAC. Days after 9/11, IAC leaders (along with their current attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard) gathered with other activists to announce a demonstration in the capital to protest the "criminal conduct" of the United States. Speakers suggested the U.S. had invited the 9/11 attack.
Then the beauzeaux's lips fell off.
Additional concern is generated by the fact that the IAC is linked to Colombian terrorist groups now said to be involved with Islamic terrorists. Terrorism experts cite the secretive tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, where Colombian and Islamic terrorists are said to be coordinating their activities. Other reports suggest the presence of Islamic terrorist groups in Venezuela, where the anti-American regime headed by Hugo Chavez is also said to be aiding and providing sanctuary for Colombian terrorists.

Here Comes the Judge

The court orders were related to a lawsuit filed by the IAC in 2001 [International Action Center, et al., v. United States of America, et al., Case no. 01CV00072] against federal and local agencies that handled security for the 2001 inaugural. The IAC describes itself as a political association that fights racism, war and militarism, and the program of the Bush administration. In fact, it is linked through overlapping personnel to the communist Workers World Party (WWP), a group that came under investigation by the Congress in 1974 and the FBI.

IAC founder and director Ramsey Clark recently made worldwide headlines when he joined Saddam Hussein's defense team. The IAC boasts of having a relationship to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army―both of which are labeled terrorist groups by the State Department. The International Action Center has sent delegations to meet with FARC soldiers and leaders in the Colombian jungle and lauds their military victories, including "spectacular raids" on U.S.-trained battalions. Last November Colombia's defense minister claimed that FARC had targeted President Bush for assassination.

Despite its vocal support of and connections to terrorist groups, the IAC has succeeded in obtaining, by court order, large amounts of security data related to D.C. police operations and the presidential inauguration.

According to court documents, D.C. has already provided "thousands of pages of documents," 38 videotapes and numerous photographs and audiotapes related to D.C. police tactics, training and planning and the 2001 presidential inauguration

The information provided by the D.C. Metro Police Department by court order to the IAC so far includes:

• Lesson plans and handbooks on use of aerosol sprays, force and tactical batons;
• Management of Mass Demonstrations, Civil Disturbance Units training documents;

• Metro Police Department (MPD) instruction on use of firearms and other service weapons;

• Portions of Operations Plan, Parade Manual and Civil Disturbance Unit Response Plan for the 54th Inauguration of the President of the United States;

• All rooftop and street-level surveillance videotapes of the presidential inauguration;

• Redacted logs from the Synchronized Operations Command Center and the Running Resume for the Inauguration Day intelligence teams; and

• The identification of all plainclothes MPD officers who were detailed to intelligence teams for the Inauguration.
S says that the police force will make a number of stupid mistakes.
The plainclothes intelligence officers identified by name were stationed at various locations along and near the presidential parade route in order to monitor the crowds and to report any information heard or observed concerning plans, attempts or actions that might disrupt Inaugural events and/or violate the law and to take law enforcement action, if needed.

Judge Gríma son of Galmód Gladys Kessler, who handled the case, issued the orders disclosing the security data. (Kessler was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in July 1994 by former president Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate.)
Posted by: Korora || 01/20/2005 12:05:51 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fire her ass.
Posted by: raptor || 01/20/2005 8:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Congress can impeach any judge. It by its own actions, to impeach, defines what constitutes bad behavior. Our representative, both parties, have no guts. Its easier for them to default to someone sitting, defacto, for life to make decisions than really do their own jobs.
Posted by: Don || 01/20/2005 12:50 Comments || Top||


Michael Moore's Bodyguard Arrested on Airport Gun Charge.
For your "too good to be true" department, Fred:Fox News

NEW YORK — Filmmaker Michael Moore's bodyguard was arrested for carrying an unlicensed weapon in New York's JFK airport Wednesday night. Police took Patrick Burke, who says Moore employs him, into custody after he declared he was carrying a firearm at a ticket counter. Burke is licensed to carry a firearm in Florida and California, but not in New York. Burke was taken to Queens central booking and could potentially be charged with a felony for the incident. Moore's 2003 Oscar-winning film "Bowling for Columbine" criticizes what Moore calls America's "culture of fear" and its obsession with guns.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 01/20/2005 3:50:57 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Michael Moore: Guns for me, but not for thee.
Posted by: badanov || 01/20/2005 3:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Just like any rich liberal guns are only for us "special" people.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 01/20/2005 4:23 Comments || Top||

#3  If you believe that Bush = Bin Laden, than it is only reasonable to believe Moore = Theo Van Goch.
Posted by: gromgorru || 01/20/2005 4:38 Comments || Top||

#4  If he was that bothered , he could have hidden it somewhere in MM's ample body . Would have taken teams of sniffer dogs weeks to have found it in that stench .
Posted by: MacNails || 01/20/2005 7:18 Comments || Top||

#5  That gun-obsessed culture apparently isn't such a bad thing when it serves your needs, is it, Fat Bastard™?
Posted by: Dar || 01/20/2005 9:23 Comments || Top||

#6  Bowling for the Ham-Ass terrorist.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 01/20/2005 9:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Man, Michael Moore and Jimmah Cahtah being punked out on the same day. Now all we need is Hillary thrown in there and we'll be set.

Wait a minute. Is that what I think it is? I think it might be a soft chant of "Vast Right-wing Conspiracy" in the distance. Really, how long will it be until the MSM starts talking of the attacks on these "fine, upstanding" "men?"
Posted by: nada || 01/20/2005 10:35 Comments || Top||

#8  Michael Moore must be a long lost relative of Dianne Feinstein.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/20/2005 11:08 Comments || Top||

#9  This more than exceeds the minimum daily requirement for irony in my diet.
Posted by: Mike || 01/20/2005 11:41 Comments || Top||

#10  Carl Rowan, Take II...
Posted by: Raj || 01/20/2005 11:49 Comments || Top||

#11  Burke is licensed to carry a firearm in Florida and California, but not in New York

The "Full faith and credit" clause doesn't come into play when it comes to guns, eh?
Posted by: eLarson || 01/20/2005 16:22 Comments || Top||

#12  Bush planted that gun on him.
Hell tsunamis, planting guns, is there anything King George cant do.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 16:33 Comments || Top||

#13  Bush planted that gun on him. Hell tsunamis, planting guns, is there anything King George cant do.

Cut NPR from the budget. ;o)
Posted by: badanov || 01/20/2005 16:51 Comments || Top||

#14  Thats Good Bad.
uh, I mean, badanov



Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 16:57 Comments || Top||

#15  Wonder if he dropped Mikey's name at the counter?
If he did, I wonder if that helped get him busted?
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/20/2005 17:45 Comments || Top||

#16  Damn - seems the story isn't true
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 20:01 Comments || Top||

#17  Frank, what's your point?
Posted by: Matt || 01/20/2005 20:12 Comments || Top||

#18  did you read my link?

"Patrick Burk is not Michael Moore’s bodyguard, nor was he protecting Michael Moore or in any way involved with Michael Moore on Wednesday night, when he (Burk) was checking in at JFK for a flight to Los Angeles"

Moorewatch is in NO WAY a Moore-loving site, so when they print a retraction/clarification, we should note so. To do less is to be on a par with lying scum like Moore
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 20:18 Comments || Top||

#19  goddamit.
Posted by: muck4doo || 01/20/2005 21:39 Comments || Top||

#20  The real issue is: does Michael Moore have a bodyguard and does the bodyguard carry a handgun?

Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/20/2005 22:06 Comments || Top||

#21  that appears to be true, AP
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 22:07 Comments || Top||

#22  Heh. Less "haha, Michael's bodyguard got arrested for an unlicensed gun" and more "Michael Moore with armed guards = Kofi Annan's guards wield MP5s in NYC" ...
Posted by: Edward Yee || 01/20/2005 22:45 Comments || Top||

#23  true EY
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 22:48 Comments || Top||

#24  I had to do a double take when I received my copy of the Rifleman. A ballot was contained within the magazine to vote for directors. I saw Carl Rowan was running for NRA director. I recalled that a Carl Rowan had a gun in Washington, DC and he shot someone in his swimming pool many years ago. Turns out, thank God, it was a different Carl Rowan running for director.
Posted by: John Q. Citizen || 01/20/2005 22:50 Comments || Top||


Great White North
Canada, here they come...
Fred, maybe you need to add a "crybaby" option - or don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Via Lucianne:

They threatened to run for the border if Bush was re-elected. But how many did? Today, as the President is sworn in on the steps of the Capitol, Andrew Buncombe meets the Americans who are choosing to begin new lives in self-imposed exile...
Posted by: anonymous2u || 01/20/2005 1:37:08 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You might know the "couple" is Moe and Larry. Get outta town you clowns.
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 1:51 Comments || Top||

#2  "...Ian Robinson, a columnist with The Calgary Sun, who wrote: "I hope I'm not alone in gently suggesting to those considering coming to Canada: stay home, you pathetic whining maggots."

No kidding a bunch more moobats is all they need up north. If my friends are any indication up there they can all stay home instead of traveling north to steal jobs. Most ofd them will never be accepted to imigrate. Fat chance for the IT fags, the job market is over saturated.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 01/20/2005 1:55 Comments || Top||

#3  I wish all of the LLL whackos had the integrity of Mike and Bob -- and would follow-through with their pledge to leave the US.

Sadly, 99% of them are all talk and we Americans will be forced to listen to their whining for another 4+ years.
Posted by: Rearden || 01/20/2005 2:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Europe is so much nicer this time of the year. hint hint.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/20/2005 2:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Oh, well, consider me a replacement for Moe and Larry (Mike & Bob). I'll be moving to US in a few months.
Posted by: Sobiesky || 01/20/2005 2:13 Comments || Top||

#6  maybe they're moving for the hockey--wtf--no hockey--get the sweeping broom mate
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 01/20/2005 2:14 Comments || Top||

#7  Gratz, and welcome, Sobiesky.
Posted by: Dishman || 01/20/2005 2:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Dishman, I wish you were working for INS! LOL!
Posted by: Sobiesky || 01/20/2005 2:19 Comments || Top||

#9  Sobiesky, no worries, I am sure you will get it in the end.
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 2:31 Comments || Top||

#10  Just what we would expect from the Home of Fisk, the veritable belly of The Beast, Al-Independent:

"The vociferous, increasingly intolerant right-wing commentator Ann Coulter said recently on Fox News: 'It's always the worst Americans who end up going [to Canada] - the Tories after the Revolutionary War, the Vietnam draft-dodgers after Vietnam. And now, after this election, you have the blue-state people moving up there. They better hope the United States doesn't roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent.'"

Intolerant? They're the ones leaving the country because they lost a freakin' election, fer pity's sake.

"To many people planning their move, such comments are merely another reason to get packing. As soon as they can."

Good, that's the whole idea.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 01/20/2005 2:33 Comments || Top||

#11  Personally, I think Coulter is demented (though less so than the Moonbat self-exiles) but if her words will get them out of the country, more power to her.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 01/20/2005 2:46 Comments || Top||

#12  Southern France is gorgeous...much prettier than Quebec even.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/20/2005 3:06 Comments || Top||

#13  My favorite part of Quebec is the north-central region south of the tundra line, a gigantic and practically uninhabited wilderness. It is fascinating to historical geologists, the least disturbed area of the oldest stable land-mass on Earth, the Canadian Shield. It is covered with evergreen forests and little glacial lakes, the rocks under your feet are not millions, but billions, of years old. The oldest dated specimen in my collection (-3.2 billion years) is a gneiss from a site on the eastern shore of Nichican Lake, almost in the center of the province.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 01/20/2005 3:39 Comments || Top||

#14  It's a process of natural selection.
Canadians who want to live in capitalist society move south.
Americans who want to live in a socialist society move north.
Posted by: gromgorru || 01/20/2005 4:35 Comments || Top||

#15  I agree with you on Coulter, AC.
Posted by: rkb || 01/20/2005 5:37 Comments || Top||

#16  And on other news , Canada was once a nice place to live . :)
Posted by: MacNails || 01/20/2005 7:29 Comments || Top||

#17  But I like Ann,my kind of no-nonsense,take no prisoners gal.
Posted by: raptor || 01/20/2005 7:32 Comments || Top||

#18  I don't know why they're describing Ann Coulter as "increasingly intolerant." Within hours of the 9/11 attacks, she'd already written a column demanding that we invade every Muslim country, kill their leaders, and forcibly convert their people to Christianity. That was over three years ago - love her or hate her, can anyone really believe she's growing more extreme?

And just to be clear - I'm a fan.
Posted by: Captain Pedantic || 01/20/2005 8:51 Comments || Top||

#19  Well, if she's gone from threatening the invasion of every Muslim country to threatening the invasion of Canada, I'd say she did find the only way possible to increase her intolerance.

For all the supposed patriotism, red-state conservatives seem to enjoy watching the dissolution of their nation into red and blue.

Is this truly patriotism or do you simply desire
Southern culture triumphant over Northern in a rematch of the civil war, no matter what it may cost to the United States as a whole?
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 9:15 Comments || Top||

#20  Lol! You don't have a clue about what makes America, or Americans, tick.

Patriotism has *zero* to do with the accident of birth that one is born into a given country. Being born (or naturalized) an American does not make one a patriotic American. Look it up in a dictionary: n : one who loves and defends his or her country.

The Blue Staters are Europeans who, unfortunately for both sides, happen to be here. Ann has merely suggested, in her personal inimitable style, that they repatriate themselves.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 9:33 Comments || Top||

#21  Aris, sigh. It is better to keep your mouth shut and let people suspect that you are an idjit, rather than open it and provide confirmation.
Posted by: Sobiesky || 01/20/2005 9:34 Comments || Top||

#22  Aris, precisely where did you learn your US History, anyway? Howard Zinn?
I live out in the West. Red out here as it can be. It was never part of the Confederacy. Matter of fact, the reddest state, Utah (Bush won with 71% and never even visited the place), was traditionally Democrat for the longest time. You trying to seriously claim that UTAH was part of the Confederacy?
Red-staters haven't been the ones talking about secession. That's blue-state talk.
Aris, every now and then, you have a point. But stick to things that you know something about (the American Civil War obviously isn't one of them).
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 9:37 Comments || Top||

#23  ...seem to enjoy watching the dissolution of their nation into red and blue.

No, we don't. We enjoy finally being able to fight back against the red staters who have been pretending for the last twenty years that they're more tolerant.

Just a small aside... over the past fifteen years, a lot of people in my state (Louisiana) who were mainstream Democrat have become conservative Republicans, without changing their positions. With corrupt machine Democrats like Edwards and his useful idiots in the Republican Party like Duke BOTH in jail, ideology became more important than patronage, at the same time that the national-level Democratic party was taking a sharp turn to the left on a large number of domestic issues.

Now this is going to look disconnected, but I suggest reading the following article before I continue:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_urbanities-dresden.html.

OK... assuming you read the whole thing, including the bits about David Irving...

Do you realize that a lot of conservatives (which in the South, encompasses the center, and moderate democrats to a large extent) look on Kerry as a sort of David Irving of the Vietnam War, except he did his propagandizing while the war was still on, and was successful in helping North Vietnam achieve victory?
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 01/20/2005 9:46 Comments || Top||

#24  --Within hours of the 9/11 attacks, she'd already written a column demanding that we invade every Muslim country - working on it


, kill their leaders,

- working on it

and forcibly convert their people to Christianity - decisions, decisions
Posted by: anonymous2u || 01/20/2005 9:48 Comments || Top||

#25  Sobiesky - Welcome! From your posts, you will find several tens of millions of friends, lol! And we aren't the fair-weather types, either.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 9:53 Comments || Top||

#26  red-state conservatives seem to enjoy watching the dissolution of their nation into red and blue.

I'll wager that your experience of the US is limited to what you've read, Aris. Anyone who's spent a significant amount of time between the coasts (college-towns-with-a-foreign-policy don't count) knows that "red" and "blue" are intermingled in nearly every county, every block and even in many households. The really important vote in the last election-- JFK-Truman Dems who split their tickets and voted for Bush-- was almost totally ignored by the media. These "purple" voters are the reason that Bush gained 50,000 votes, and Kerry lost 100,000 votes, in New York City alone vs the Bush-Gore results in 2000. It's safe to say that at least 1 million, as many as 2 million, hawkish Democrats switched from Gore in 2000 to Bush in 2004.

Is this truly patriotism or do you simply desire Southern culture triumphant over Northern in a rematch of the civil war, no matter what it may cost to the United States as a whole?


Another media canard. There is no more "southern culture" in the sense of a distinct and coherent value set and outlook. As is obvious to anyone who has actually lived in the southern states during the last twenty years, any decent-sized southern city today has a large concentration of high technology, banking and other professionals, many of them relocated northerners and Californians. Most of the nation's top pharma and many biotech companies are located in North Carolina. The best-managed, fastest-growing major tech company is located in Texas, which is also the biggest technology hub outside silicon valley. Most of our telecommunications giants are located in the south, and much of their cutting-edge research takes place in Texas (which is also the Americas headquarters for many European technology giants such as Nokia and chipmaker ST Microelectronics). Two of the five largest banks in the US are located in North Carolina.

The notion of the south as a backwater was outdated twenty years ago. Along with the Rocky Mountain states, it's cutting edge. It's Massachusetts and Michigan whose population is shrinking; were it not for Asian and latin immigrants into NYC, New York state would likely be shrinking as well. Please update your stereotypes.
Posted by: lex || 01/20/2005 9:57 Comments || Top||

#27  Hi Aris,

While I almost never agree with you on issues I'm glad you comment as I enjoy a reasonable exchange of different views. I hope you read Desert Blondie's and Phil's and even .com's response and think about it.

"Red State" Americans ( I'm about as Red as you can get even though I live in the Bluest state, Massachusetts ) have been patronized, condescended to and insulted by our "betters" in the academic and media elites for decades. Basically, now that the worm has turned, we are returning some of the favors and the elites are whining and crying like we never did proving that those blowhards don't have the guts to standup for whatever it is they believe in. If they lose, they run and cry to papa. This time though there is no institutionalized Papa in this country for them to run to. So, rather than grow up themselves, they run to Canada or Europe for protection.

By and large the Red don't hate the Blue, but, I think that we do find them mostly to be despicable.

NOTE: Blue here repreresents the LLLs and especially their elites in MSM and academia, NOT everyone that voted Democrat.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2005 9:57 Comments || Top||

#28  They better hope the United States doesn't roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent.

Has she not seen South Park: the movie?
Posted by: Winged Avenger || 01/20/2005 10:03 Comments || Top||

#29  Aris, american politics has very little to do with North vs. South. It has everything to do with socialist liberalism vs. the rest of us. Even most "Conservatives" are somewhat liberal on certain issues. I have lived and worked in 9 states on both coasts and north and south and found there really isn't much difference in people. I lived in Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Escanaba Michigan, central Maine, Oklahoma, New York City, and various places in the deep south and although there are minor cultural differences we are all Americans. If you have never lived here for any length of time you have as much chance of understanding Americans as we do understanding what it is to be Greek. Your view is extremely simplistic and just plain wrong.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 01/20/2005 10:03 Comments || Top||

#30  They must have gotten Phil Hartman to pose for that cover photo before his wife killed him.
Posted by: Tibor || 01/20/2005 10:05 Comments || Top||

#31  "even .com"

ROFL!!! Byte me, AlanC!
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 10:05 Comments || Top||

#32  .com> The Blue Staters are Europeans who, unfortunately for both sides, happen to be here.

The Blue Staters' home seems to be (by definition) in the blue states. If you don't want the Blue Staters in America, it's difficult to see how you justify wanting the Blue States in America.

That'd be similar to me saying that I want the British outside of the European Union but also the United Kingdom itself to remain a part of it. IT'S NOT AN OPTION.

You trying to seriously claim that UTAH was part of the Confederacy?

Well Utah was a territory back then and not a state at all. So, difficult to know. Besides Utah, like Hawaii, is one of the few places that has a third subculture of its own, due to the Mormonism. So more than one factors at work.

Red-staters haven't been the ones talking about secession. That's blue-state talk.

Well sure, that's because it's always the side that loses the national contest that decides it can't accept the result and wants to make a break for it. South couldn't accept the defeat for them that Lincoln represented last century, blue states now can't seem to accept the defeat for them that the victory of Bush represents. Then it was the South that wanted out, now it's the North.

But you people seem to think that you can speak "go away, we don't want you here" to a large percentage of the *people* of those states, without actually speaking it to those states as a whole.

You can't have both ways. You either want the blue-states (and the people in them) to be a part of your nation or you don't.

Matter of fact, the reddest state, Utah (Bush won with 71% and never even visited the place), was traditionally Democrat for the longest time.

I'm sure that was when Democrats itself were the party (pre-Kennedy) that represented the conservatism of "Southern Culture".
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 10:06 Comments || Top||

#33  AC-For me, the stretch between La Malbaie and Ile D'Orleans is pure magic. The color of the sky and the weird green of the water around La Malbaie in fall is incredible. That is my vacation paradise.
Posted by: Jules 187 || 01/20/2005 10:08 Comments || Top||

#34  *sigh*

Aris, please stop making an ass of yourself. It's just getting old.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/20/2005 10:10 Comments || Top||

#35  Good argument, Robert.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 10:11 Comments || Top||

#36  And as for the purplishness of most of the USA, I agree with it, which is why *I* think United States should still try to stick together.

But when you argue that USA is actually purple, and then use terms like blue-staters and red-staters, and want the blue-staters to leave, then it's *you* who undermine your own argument.

As for me not knowing what I'm talking about because I've never lived in America, that'd be a point worth making, except that there's no point I've made that I haven't seen atleast a half dozen places elsewhere by actual American citizens.

By "Southern culture" I didn't mean technological backwardness, .com -- that was *your* assumption. All cultures evolve, and Southern culture isn't where it was a hundred or even twenty years ago.

But as long as the terms red-states and blue-states keep on being used as a term that represents a solid permanent or semi-permanent cultural division, rather than a temporary political outcome, you can't claim that no such thing as "Southern Culture" exists, even if the PC term now becomes "Red-state culture".
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 10:17 Comments || Top||

#37  It's not an argument -- it's advice.

For that matter, I was unaware YOU were making an argument. From what I can see, you're just making an ass of yourself, lecturing people to stop doing something they're not doing in the first place.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/20/2005 10:20 Comments || Top||

#38  Lol! Aris. Your typical endless thread of infinite hair-splitting, strawmen, canards, and to complete the spectrum (hitting for the cycle) - sweeping generalities which are, as many are earnestly trying to tell you, stereotypes only a moron buys into. I guess they're either eternal optimists or just don't realize how insecure you truly are. Sad.

You don't know dick about it and you should impress the shit out of everyone in RB by, for once, admitting it and asking questions instead of pretending you're well-informed.

Sadly, this thread is dead. All further posts will be convulsive death rattle and pointless - for Aris The Grate wants a parade.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 10:24 Comments || Top||

#39  Hey .com you keep rolling on the floor you're gonna get dirty. What you don't understand irony? ;^)
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2005 10:25 Comments || Top||

#40  I love this article and it really brings up some concerns:
In a Seattle suburb, “Mike Teller and his partner Bob Vesely will not be cheering today.”
Does this mean that Seattle will have lack of Homo IT professionals?
Americans began focusing in earnest on a better, brighter life north of the border.
In the article every American talks about leaving the U.S. not in a “better or brighter” light, they sound more like the dread heading North.
Ian Robinson, a columnist with The Calgary Sun, who wrote: "I hope I'm not alone in gently suggesting to those considering coming to Canada: stay home, you pathetic whining maggots."
And I thought we had nothing in common with our cousins up north, I often refer to these people as “pathetic whining maggots.”
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 01/20/2005 10:28 Comments || Top||

#41  Keep on believing that you want the blue staters out, but the blue states in. Keep on thinking that you can both call blue staters "European", but you really seek the USA's unity.

The doublethink required for that is fascinating to watch, in a morbid and depressing sort of way.

As for the typical flamage of Robert, .com, Sobiesky, and the usual gang, still boring.

It's not an argument -- it's advice.

Keep your advice for your friends, Robert, which is defined in my hair-splitting sort of way, as people who've not been called "cunt" by you.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 10:30 Comments || Top||

#42  Here is a link to a small .pdf showing the 2004 election results by county rather than by state.

As you can see, it is not a North/South division at all, no matter how often it gets presented that way.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/20/2005 10:32 Comments || Top||

#43  AlanC - Okay, I'll just LOL, then! You caught me before I abandoned this Thread of Doom for good. BTW, your comment was spot-on - as are so many others. Pearls before a swine, however. Live long and prosper - on other threads, heh. See you there... ;-)
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 10:32 Comments || Top||

#44  "Then it was the South that wanted out, now it's the North."

Sorry, Aris, but you're just wrong on this one. The "red staters" are more comparable to the Northerners who supported the Civil War, and the "blue staters" are like the Northern copperheads who undermined the effort, and nearly defeated Lincoln's reelection.

There's no doubt that you're a smart guy, but please don't presume to lecture Americans on our own history -- I'm pretty sure you'd be equally miffed if the situation was reversed.

Posted by: docob || 01/20/2005 10:40 Comments || Top||

#45  Keep on believing that you want the blue staters out, but the blue states in. Keep on thinking that you can both call blue staters "European", but you really seek the USA's unity.

The doublethink required for that is fascinating to watch, in a morbid and depressing sort of way.


This is what pisses me off about you, Aris. YOU HAVE THIS EXACTLY BACKWARDS.

The "Blue Staters" are the ones who want out. They're the ones who giggled over the "Jesusland" crap, they're the ones whining about leaving. They're the ones dreaming about disenfranchising Christians, writing editorials about mass-murdering Republicans.

You're getting on your high horse over people saying, in response, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" Go lecture the whiners -- the DUers, the types quoted in the original article -- about being divisive.

That's why you're making an ass of yourself. You act as if you know what's going on, when you clearly don't.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/20/2005 10:45 Comments || Top||

#46  --The Blue Staters' home seems to be (by definition) in the blue states.--

I live in a blue state, Aris, getting more socialistic blue by the day, but I have a red heart.

You guys elected for you a "right-winger" how's your press been?

The "progressives" have been in control for 70 years, not their time anymore and their manners are lacking.

I don't recall any of this bile growing up. Presidents took presidents to task privately, didn't interfere by going to the UN.

It just wasn't done, but they had to push it, so now they live w/the lowest common denominator standards they set.

Petulant 3 y.o. who can't take "no" for an answer, but they're in their 50/60s - 60s boomers attitude all of them.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 01/20/2005 10:47 Comments || Top||

#47  docob" There's no doubt that you're a smart guy...

Ahm, [raising a hand] ... I have some doubts. :-)
Posted by: Sobiesky || 01/20/2005 10:47 Comments || Top||

#48  The "red staters" are more comparable to the Northerners who supported the Civil War, and the "blue staters" are like the Northern copperheads who undermined the effort, and nearly defeated Lincoln's reelection

Yours is not a good analogy, because it compares a regional/cultural division (blue states vs red states) with a mere political choice of individuals in a single instance of time. The North-South division preexisted Lincoln's election, even as the blue state-red state division preexisted Bush. Those are both regional/cultural divisions that simply become evident through political choices.

It's the rhetoric that has simply gone more virulent lately.

It's been stated, and NOT by me, that "blue staters" are truly Europeans. It's hardly hair-splitting to see that as an argument that undermines the very core of the unity of your nation.

You may also want to read this: http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/11238.html , which has been one of the main articles that helped me develop these opinions.

The other main source ofcourse, has been the rhetoric of Rantburg itself.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 10:53 Comments || Top||

#49  I didn't say it was a perfect analogy, just a better one. Which is what it is. =)
Posted by: docob || 01/20/2005 10:57 Comments || Top||

#50  Robert> The "Blue Staters" are the ones who want out.

Well, duh! That's what I've been saying from the start, if you were literate enough to read it. See #32 where I said: "Then it was the South that wanted out, now it's the North".

It's always the defeated that want out, it's never the victors.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 10:57 Comments || Top||

#51  ignore
Posted by: Tom || 01/20/2005 11:02 Comments || Top||

#52  But you people seem to think that you can speak "go away, we don't want you here" to a large percentage of the *people* of those states, without actually speaking it to those states as a whole. You can't have both ways. You either want the blue-states (and the people in them) to be a part of your nation or you don't.

Um, Aris....it's more like this......they're ranting and raving like two year olds having a temper tantrum that they didn't get their way. They start screaming that they're moving to Canada/Australia/some other country that speaks English --so that heaven forbid they don't have to learn a new language-- and has all the modern conveniences (so that means India's out, even though it has this groovy religious vibe). Well, even little Purple me has had it with them and their whining and bitching, so when I hear them start up with that crap, yeah, I've said, "Why don't you move then? I'll help you pack, and here's $50 for the airfare out." Hmm...no takers so far. Wonder why? Maybe because it's just another tantrum. We all know that 99.9% of them don't mean it, and so do they. We're just hoping they get over it sometime before, say, 2007.

I'm sure that was when Democrats itself were the party (pre-Kennedy) that represented the conservatism of "Southern Culture".

Even post-Kennedy, Aris. Up until about Reagan. And that was dating back to statehood. On occasion they voted Republican, but it hasn't been a given till then.
Plus, the very idea that a bunch of polygamists and the descendents thereof would be enthralled with "Southern Culture" is, to put it nicely, a hoot. None of their (Mormon) church leaders has been anything but a Utah-born male or one of them Damn Yankees (like NY-born Joseph Smith, the founder).

Allow me to help you a bit with the definitions:
Red Stater: Generally found in the suburbs or the country, maybe has a couple of kids, watches NASCAR while eating Doritos and drinking beer
Blue Stater: Generally found in the larger cities, no kids, didn't know what NASCAR was until this election and is frankly horrified by it. Still drinks French wine.
Purple Stater: Found all over, either has kids or is working on it, likes to drink a fine California wine while secretly watching NASCAR. But only until some other foofy program comes on....ok, maybe they switch back during the commercials.....
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 11:06 Comments || Top||

#53  "I hope I'm not alone in gently suggesting to those considering coming to Canada: stay home, you pathetic whining maggots."

Bwaaahahahahahaaahahahaahahaaaa!!!!
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/20/2005 11:11 Comments || Top||

#54  Aris, stop and think for a sec. I think I have a way of explaining why the red-state/blue state divide doesn't match Yankees vs. Confederates.

Look at William T. Sherman, for example. Today, would he be a red-stater or a blue-stater? (OK, maybe that's a funny example to pick, since Gen. Sherman was living in Louisiana at the time that secession occured, and then moved to Missouri, which is today counted as a "Red" state)... Anyway, he did burn Atlanta to the ground without bothering to get permission first from Kofi Annan.

It's also bothering me that the "Red Staters" (as defined politically, not geographically) seem to want to repeat in the current war a lot of the mistakes that led to the failure of Reconstruction in the South, starting with the assumption that the masked bands of extorsionists and terrorists roaming the countryside really are representative freedom fighters of some sort, and the idea that we could just withdraw, give the masked horsemen what they want, and let the situation fester another sixty years.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 01/20/2005 11:18 Comments || Top||

#55  Well, duh! That's what I've been saying from the start, if you were literate enough to read it. See #32 where I said: "Then it was the South that wanted out, now it's the North".

It's always the defeated that want out, it's never the victors.


No -- that's simply not true. While some idiots said they were leaving after Clinton's victories, they tended to be the types that consider Bush a Marxist. They certainly didn't get nearly as much press attention, let alone favorable press attention. Most of the US can deal with the idea of not winning every election, and for MOST of the country, we've been OK with the idea of not winning MOST elections.

As for why the "blue staters" get described as European -- dig around a bit more. You'll find that's how they describe themselves.

Desert Blondie has it exactly right -- the "I'm leaving" crowd is throwing a tantrum. They're like two-year-olds kicking and screaming because they didn't get a lollipop.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/20/2005 11:19 Comments || Top||

#56  Don't get me wrong, NASCARs is a fine spectacle, but the technology was designed in the 1950s with the advent of the V-8 small block. That's why I sometimes prefer sports car racing, although you could make the point that Morgans and MG (SCCA) use 1930s technology.

Fnord
Posted by: Shipman || 01/20/2005 12:15 Comments || Top||

#57  You'll love them Canada. Just wait until they start telling you how to live. They do know best you know, eh?
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/20/2005 12:19 Comments || Top||

#58  Aris, our republic, our form of democracy is raucus. I believe Europeans have always mentioned that and it's not something they're used to.

At this point in time, it's louder than usual.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 01/20/2005 12:21 Comments || Top||

#59  Please stop trying to describe/justify/define America to Aris, in thread after thread, week after week, it always ends with him wagging his superior Euro finger at us neanderthals and promising never to post again. RBer's are describing colors to a blind man.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 01/20/2005 13:02 Comments || Top||

#60  Let em leave
check the link

http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/taxes2.htm
Posted by: Puff The Magic Dragon || 01/20/2005 13:11 Comments || Top||

#61  Are you a pot-smoker, Focker?
Posted by: nada || 01/20/2005 13:15 Comments || Top||

#62  Anon2u has it pegged; we are a noisy bunch.

Aris, its the elitist Liberals who have run the Democratic party, and thus the government, as their own private fiefdom for a generation who are the real "Blue Staters." The staunch supporters of the Democrat Party -- the trade union members, the African Americans, the Jews, the Hispanic Americans, they are actually "Red State" in outlook... well, except for many of the Jews I suppose. That's why a fine-grained map of vote results shows a lot of red even in the blue states, and some blue even in the deepest red. Or both red and blue as in my own house.

The ones who are talking about secession or moving abroad (to a civilized, English speaking country that is presumed to appreciate their finer qualities), those are the Liberal elites cannot accept that their "inferiors" made a choice opposite to the one they dictated, wresting their natural possession, the Government, from them. In 2000 they were able to fool themselves that Bush stole the election via the courts, but that doesn't work this time, and so they are stuck with a painful cognitive dissonance: they are the intelligent ones, the educated ones, the wise ones -- so how could it be that their man was rejected? And so they shriek and moan, go to therapy for comfort, and make idle threats of secession or emigration that they will in the main never carry out.

Not that it matters: while they may have carried the Electoral College votes, they do not have enough of the population even in the Red States to make secession a realistic threat. Joe Plumber and Jane Bookkeeper would never stand for such nonsense. Not to mention the Soccer Moms ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2005 13:16 Comments || Top||

#63  #61 Are you a pot-smoker, Focker?
Posted by: nada 2005-01-20 1:15:27 PM Comment

Haha Gaylord Focker , is that your name ?!

Great movie - every groom-to-be 's worst nightmare ..
Posted by: MacNails || 01/20/2005 13:21 Comments || Top||

#64  Mac -- I saw a post by "Puff the Magic Dragon" and couldn't resist.
Posted by: nada || 01/20/2005 13:29 Comments || Top||

#65  No -- that's simply not true. While some idiots said they were leaving after Clinton's victories, they tended to be the types that consider Bush a Marxist.

A Southern Democrat, whose terms I believe were mostly concurrent with Republican control of the Houses. I gather Republicans didn't feel that Clinton's election began a permanent trend against them either.

Bush is a Texan Republican with Republican control of the houses. Also see talk on "permanent conservative majority", talks again NOT made by me, but rather by conservatives and gleefully so.

The reason that *I* don't support division, is because I believe that this conservative trend is reversible. Democrats who don't feel likewise, want to leave either individually or as states, or atleast limit the control of conservative national control over the states (see revived blue-state talk on "federalism", again paralleling Southern Civil-war era talk on "states' rights).

Or parallel it with parts of Eastern Ukraine talking about secession but only *after* their candidate lost.

Phil Fraering> "Look at William T. Sherman, for example. Today, would he be a red-stater or a blue-stater? ... Anyway, he did burn Atlanta to the ground without bothering to get permission first from Kofi Annan"

I think I get what you are saying, which I guess is similar to the analogy that docob made before. Red-state/Blue-state seen not as (civil war era) South/North but rather as the interventionist militant and the isolationist pacifist factions within the (civil war era) North alone.

It's a good point.

But my argument against that is that difference in peacetime culture seems to me much more indicative of *permanent* cultural divisions rather than difference in how one deals with occasional wars. Even people that have the exact same morals and societal attitudes can differ on how they feel a threat should be dealt with.

Democrats have often also been quite interventionist, with Republican being isolationists in turn. On different matters, on different wars, the situation changes. Nothing permanent here, with either the Republican/Democrat or the Northern/Southern division.

I'd be supporter of a war against Syria, but not against Iraq. Does that qualify me as a red-stater or a blue-stater? It's only when you see my societal attitudes, in favour of same-sex marriage, against gun-obsession, in favour of limited socialdemocracy instead of capitalism-uber-alles that I'd be seen as much more "blue" (Northern states or European-like) than "red" (Texas-like).

The fact that interventionism-vs-isolationism is incidental rather than permanent in culture can again be seen in a parallel to the Civil War: Europe in the Civil War was prepared to support the *South*'s right to separate. Since it had abolished slavery on its own right that actually would bring her politically closer to Lincoln's Northern opponents -- the pacifist non-interventionist faction.

But when Lincoln passed his emancipation proclamation, Europe supported the North instead because it felt that this proclamation changed "the moral character of the war". In short it became a supporter of the interventionist pro-war pro-Lincoln Northern faction.

And in the Iraq War itself, Europe, which is generally more "blue" than the blue states themselves, has likewise divided between supporting and opposing it. Such issues are *temporary*. The attitudes towards socialdemocracy and liberalism seem more permanent and indicative of cultural divisions.

Actually the fact that the war on terror and the war on Iraq has been so prominent, is the exact *reason* that I believe Bush's victory has little to do with a permanent conservative turn for America, and the exact reason that I believe USA can turn towards liberal societal values yet again. (Or indeed why I feel its move towards these has never truly stopped).
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 13:30 Comments || Top||

#66  too long
Posted by: Tom || 01/20/2005 13:30 Comments || Top||

#67  dude, *ignore*. Remember?
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 13:35 Comments || Top||

#68  Tom, you pleb! This is an official Katwalk. Posturing is in progress.
Posted by: Bulldog || 01/20/2005 13:44 Comments || Top||

#69  I'd be seen as much more "blue" (Northern states or European-like) than "red" (Texas-like).

You probably like your women with hair under their arms dont you Aris ... your a long winded SOB also ...
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 13:56 Comments || Top||

#70  Another good point, tex!
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 14:04 Comments || Top||

#71  Hey guys let's drop the civil war analogies.

Aris, the key points to remember is that this is the first time since the '20s that the Republicans have controlled both the Presidency AND both houses of Congress. For much of that 80 years the Democrats had it all or at least most.
They long ago forgot what it means to be a loyal opposition party.

The worst of them are the LLLs and the elites who would MUCH prefer an oligarchy, as long as they were in charge. The almost perfect analog is the pigs in Animal Farm. The Democrat elites truly behave as though "some animals are MORE equal" and they are them. Reality has given them a swift kick in the ass and they are crying like little children.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2005 14:13 Comments || Top||

#72  Ok, forgive me, RB'ers....

Aris, do not take this as an insult, but you really need to visit America one of these days before you go spouting off about us.

I've been to Europe five times, myself. I enjoyed myself immensely almost every time (Finland being the sole exception....if I never go back, I won't regret it at all.)

America may have gotten her basic cultural heritage primarily from Europe, but we are not Europeans, nor do we want to be. Not even the blue-staters. The ones who do want to live like Europeans are over there already.

You write English very well, and I'm sure you would speak it very well too (after the first few hours of culture shock....hey, at least that's what's happened to me every time I had to switch to another language while traveling).

Visit a red-state area and see if you really have as much in common with the blue-staters as you think you do. You might be surprised. I know the media over there paints us all as dumb, illiterate cowboys (ok, the French media do, since they think no one over here has the internet or could read anything other than English). Come over and find out for yourself.

BTW, Europe (ok, France and England) supported the South for access to cotton and other raw materials, plus for England it was a bit of payback for the Revolution. They saw the North as more of a threat militarily and wanted to weaken it if they could. They did not come over to the Northern side because of the Emancipation Proclamation. Actually, Lincoln was holding off on that until the North started to rack up some significant victories, and it looked inevitable that they would win (didn't want to start a slave rebellion in the border states....slave states on the Northern side....that's why it didn't apply to them). France and Britain saw the inevitable, and then more or less supported the North.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 14:24 Comments || Top||

#73  Red-"Live and let live, but be decent human beings. If you're not, you'll pay a price." Hypocrisy-"we don't believe in abortion or premarital/recreational sex and regularly speak out/march against it. But what we do behind the curtains may be another story entirely-we may have recreational sex sometimes and don't always use protection (while we are against abortion) and don't always intend to marry the girl who gets pregnant. The kid is not my son."

Blue-"Live but make sure other people believe what you do. Feel guilt-you deserve it because you are an American. Don't worry about being decent human beings-there is no good or evil, except for Republicans-which are all evil." Hypocrisy-"We fight for justice in the world, but make sure you're politically correct-or else you do not deserve justice. If your beliefs do not match ours, we'll splatter your furcoat with paint, damage the vehicles in your car dealership, or drag you from your car and hit you with a brick in the head during the riots."

Between the two, I'll take the red staters-they are more likely to extend the length of my life than blue staters. RS'ers aren't so dull-witted as to think there is no such thing as good and evil. I'll agree to disagree where that is the case and live my life according to my beliefs around the red staters. Have done so for much of my life and as long as they don't start getting interventionist in my individual life, I will continue to do so.
Posted by: Jules 187 || 01/20/2005 14:36 Comments || Top||

#74  Napoleon III supported the South, the French supported the North. He was the starter of "organized Anti-americanism" in France as he needed to turn French public opinion against the North in order to be able to help the South. The state-controlled press started a campaign depicting Yanks in the blackest colors (greedy, uncultured, egoistic) and that the fight was not about slavery but about toll rates.
Posted by: JFM || 01/20/2005 14:38 Comments || Top||

#75  My experience with Finland was much the same, which was a great disappointment to me. It is a very beautiful country, but I found the people (in the mid 1990s) highly aloof and concurrently anti-American.
Posted by: Jules 187 || 01/20/2005 14:38 Comments || Top||

#76  Welcome, Sobiesky.

Hope it's forever. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/20/2005 14:59 Comments || Top||

#77  Jules 187 - I was there in the late 80's. Four times (just before and just after visiting the then-Soviet Union). Couldn't wait to get outta there. Sweden is a completely (or at least was) a completely different story. Beautiful country, gorgeous people who would actually look you in the eye and not give you crap if you couldn't speak their language (I look sort-of Scandinavian, but I'm not....in Finland, they would rattle off to me in Finnish, then when I had to say "sorry, I don't speak Finnish. Do you speak English?" I constantly got treated like crap. The Swedes would just laugh it off and then switch to English. Besides...arriving in Stockholm on the ferry, past all those beautiful little islands.....damn, it was gorgeous. Plus they weren't drunk all the damn time like it seemed the Finns were.)

JFM - ok, maybe the French people were pro-North. I stand corrected on that. However, the organized anti-American crap dates back to that time period....and has never really abated.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 15:03 Comments || Top||

#78  For those of you who are wondering about this Ian Robinson fellow, here's his "maggot" column. Pretty hot stuff, for a Canadian.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 01/20/2005 15:06 Comments || Top||

#79  Me, too, DB! Stockholm made for one of the best vacations I have ever had.
Posted by: Jules 187 || 01/20/2005 15:09 Comments || Top||

#80  Aris: I'm on deadline, and I'm sick, so I'll make this short:

Re: the social issues you mentioned: they don't even map to red and blue, or republican vs. democrat, as cleanly as many people think. The one example I have time for is Oregon, which Kerry won by about 10%, if memory serves me, and which passed a gay marriage ban by a larger margin. (I'd also mention the social conservatives who wind up voting Democrat because of reasons of family loyalty/patronage/etc reasons, but I don't have time).

Regarding Syria, I haven't had time for a while, but I have been meaning to ask you for about the past year whether it's possible that Syria looks easier or better to you because neither you nor anyone else has actually had to come up with a plan to invade Syria.

I suspect that invading Syria would have been a great deal like invading Iraq, except it would have had to be an amphibious invasion on top of everything else. We wouldn't have been able to stage through Turkey, same as with the Iraq invasion, nor could we have gone through Israel, and Lebannon is more-or-less part of Syria, so it's just another part of Syria that would have to be invaded amphibiously.

We wouldn't have been able to get UN approval, and Syria is in bed with all the same terrorist groups we're currently facing in Iraq. And they'd have had cross-border support from Iraq. And we wouldn't have been able to count on having large parts of the country being mostly-friendly like the Kurds and Shi'ites in Iraq.

We'd still have terrorists pretending to be freedom fighters, we'd have the risks of WMD being used, and also the risks that they'd all have been shipped to Iraq, with the CIA standing around afterwards with their hands in their pockets saying "Gee, I guess we were wrong and they never existed!"

(I'm not saying it would have been a horrible idea, just that it wouldn't have been any easier than what we're going through now.)
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 01/20/2005 15:21 Comments || Top||

#81  Angie - Well, he is a western Canadian....not to be confused with the Quebec/Ontario crowd....
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/20/2005 15:28 Comments || Top||

#82  LOL Angie Schultz , thanks for the link , reminds me of a colomnist (gary bushell) over here , hell they even look the same ..
Posted by: MacNails || 01/20/2005 15:32 Comments || Top||

#83  Usually a lurker here, but am driven to post ...

I agree with a few others, Aris, it seems time you start visiting America and speaking with Americans rather than speaking ABOUT America TO Americans ...

Perhaps a few questions are in order, so I better understand your basis of expertise regarding America:

- How many times have you been to America
- Where have you visited in America
- How many Americans have you met
- Where did you meet these Americans

Seriously curious about this ...
Posted by: bombay || 01/20/2005 17:04 Comments || Top||

#84  Phil,



"I suspect that invading Syria would have been a great deal like invading Iraq, except it would have had to be an amphibious invasion on top of everything else."

Aris has had that explained to him, by myself and others, for months now. If we had invaded Syria, he'd be whining about Iraq.

"We piped for you and you did not dance...
We wept for you and you did not mourn..."
Posted by: Ernest Brown || 01/20/2005 17:09 Comments || Top||

#85  Oh, yeah, Syria would have been *exactly* the same as Iraq.

Except that it's one third the size.

Except that the population is much more homogeneous, making democracy much more easy to apply without threat of civil war.

Except that it offers much more direct and constant support to terrorism, both Palestinian and international. Syria is, you know, an *actual* part of a axis of tyrannical dictatorships, rather than a Milosevic-style (Saddam-style) isolated lone tyranny, despised by all its neighbours.

Except that you'd have only one border to watch out for, and that'd be with Iraq, which'd probably be minding its step as it was already isolated internationally (as noted above). You'd not be surrounded by enemies on all sides, you'd be taking them one at a time.

Except that the positive results like the liberation of Lebanon, and the ease of pressure on Israel, would have been immediate rather than needed two decades to occur.

Yes, there might have been the need for an amphibious invasion. But since it's not been the invasion phase that has been the cause of all our problems, why don't you take a glance at the OCCUPATION PHASE instead? Even if the invasion phase was four more times more difficult than was the case with Iraq, what would be the counterbalance at the occupation?

And that's only assuming that you couldn't have used Israel as a launching pad (which everyone's been saying, but I'm not convinced) or Turkey either (which everyone wants to believe, but it's not certain either -- I see Turkey having more reasons to object to Iraq invasion than Syria invasion)

If we had invaded Syria, he'd be whining about Iraq

When you claim to know what I would have done, why should I not treat you with the utter contempt you deserve? I objected to the Iraq War before it was launched, and as now I was objecting to it on practical rather than moral reasons. It wasn't an immoral war, it was a *bloody stupid* war.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 17:34 Comments || Top||

#86  *bloody stupid*

Aris is right in some respects - if Bush simply hadn't given a damn about international-, Muslim-, or domestic public opinion he could probably have got more done, more quickly, against a smaller enemy. I mean, who would have cared if the US had gone to war, with no allies besides Israel, against a relatively popular, 'networked' Muslim leader? It would have been a walk in the park, and Saddam (although he'd still be around) would almost certainly be 'minding his step' and not making a nuisance of himself. The US would have a stepping stone on the Med. LOL! I think Aris will be a General before his national service is up.
Posted by: Bulldog || 01/20/2005 18:33 Comments || Top||

#87  Make that "...no allies besides possibly Israel..."
Posted by: Bulldog || 01/20/2005 18:34 Comments || Top||

#88  Think how much more support Bush might have had among the Democrats if he'd invaded Syria instead of Iraq. And from the U.N., too!
Posted by: Dave D. || 01/20/2005 18:48 Comments || Top||

#89  Your correct Bulldog.
" if Bush simply hadn't given a damn about international-, Muslim-, or domestic public opinion he could probably have got more done, more quickly, against a smaller enemy "

Could you imagine the Backlash he would have gotten domestically. You think it is bad now.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 18:54 Comments || Top||

#90  If you cared more about winning the global popularity contest, you wouldn't have invaded either nation. And your response after 9/11 would have probably been to withdraw all support from Israel.

Can we agree such a thing is not an option?

If on the other hand you cared more about defeating Islamic terrorism and the Syria-Iran-Sudan axis of Islamofascist terror, then you should have made the smart moves and let *success* bring popularity back. Rather than let your defeats destroy it.

And the public relations campaign before, would have been "Syria supports terrorists-terrorists-terrorists" instead of "Saddam has WMD-WMD-WMD", which is an accusation regarding Syria which is actually a bit more connected to a supposed war-on-Terror.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 19:09 Comments || Top||

#91  ignore....for the love of God, please ignore
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 19:23 Comments || Top||

#92  Aris, I bet you would just love it if all those who disagree with your liberal mindset left Greece, right? Would you be too terribly sad if they decided to move to Mexico? Thought not. American isn't on the verge of civil war. Calm down. The point is, leftists in this country are developing an elitist, totalitarian, European-socialist type mindset that we here abhor.

I was thinking the same thing, .com--Welcome Sobiesky.
Posted by: ex-lib || 01/20/2005 19:33 Comments || Top||

#93  Unfortunaly Bush had to care about Global Popularity Aris. He thought he had the UN on his side when he first entered office. The UN passed all the resolutions warning Iraq to allow inspections or face the consequences. When it came time to bite ( not bark ) The UN, France, Germany, Russia,you can name many others, bailed. Bush, Blair and various other smaller Coalition partners were the only ones with enough BALLS to do what needed to be done.He never waivered, changed his mind, coward down.
There were no resolutions or UN mandates forcing Syria to do anything. Attacking Syria would have been a tough sale to the Senate and the House (who I might add, passed overwhelmingly to use force against Iraq) To invade Syria at that time would not have been the right move.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 19:35 Comments || Top||

#94  Aris, ex-lib is correct
" The point is, leftists in this country are developing an elitist, totalitarian, European-socialist type mindset that we here abhor"
That is what the whole " run to the border" ideal represents.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 20:01 Comments || Top||

#95  Frankly, I would like to see the Moe and Larry or Harry and Curly bolt to Canada. Take your bath house loyalties with you'll.

You will find better queerness up North, eh?
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 20:02 Comments || Top||

#96  He thought he had the UN on his side when he first entered office.

Well, that was stupid. The UN has always been about preservation of the status quo, not about upsetting it.

Attacking Syria might have been a tough sale to the Congress, but it would have been the right sale.

No, you'd never have gotten UN authorization for such an attack. You shouldn't have even tried to seek it. As the most forceful single act of Islamic terrorism was committed against USA, and the most repeated acts of Islamic terrorism are commited against Israel, your two nations would have claimed the *right* to stop Syria's dealings with terrorists once and for all, regardless of UN resolutions or lack thereof.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 20:14 Comments || Top||

#97  The UN has always been about preservation of the status quo, not about upsetting it.

Wrong in part! The UNSC in particular is more about individual country self interest than preserving the status quo. The Pollyannish assumption that it is for the common good is pure fantasy. We are talking motives here, Aris, motives.
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 20:21 Comments || Top||

#98  Now it's you who's splitting hairs. The big powers have as their self-interest to remain big powers, the tinpot dictators want to prevent other nations from overthrowing them, human rights abusers want to preserve their right to abuse human rights.

Yeah, self-interest -- but in the actual functioning of the United Nations that is translated as preservation of the status quo.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 20:32 Comments || Top||

#99  Back on topic... although I might visit the chicken-walk later on...

One thing many people wanting to emigrate to Canada don't realize, is that unless you can claim asylum (good luck, unless you're a homocidal muslim!), you MUST maintain a residence in America. (a.k.a. "The States") Even if you don't want to become a Canadian citizen, even if you don't want to work in Canada---you still have to pay rent in America. Unless of course you can afford to go on permanent vacation, which isn't exactly the same thing.
Posted by: Asedwich || 01/20/2005 21:09 Comments || Top||

#100  Phil-23-Thank you so much for posting that City Journal article (excerpts are posted below in quotation marks). A fascinating, insightful article, wonderfully written.

I am going to say something now that may feel like a lancing to some, so those who feel assaulted, I am sorry to be causing you pain, but the anguish and inertia in the story point out so well that movement has to come, if for no other reason than to make sure Germany doesn’t remain in this desolate psychic place forever by making the same mistake again.

I think the meaning of ‘Europe’ must somehow be “The continent that forgets then repeats” when I follow the history and the human story of Germany in WWII by Germany's role in the current Israel-Palestine conflict. That Europe spawned The Absurd is fitting, given that Germany is currently shouting out the plight of the Palestinians while striking a familiar hostile pose towards Jews (Zionists, Israelis).

***
"...The historiography that sees in German history nothing but a prelude to Hitler and Nazism may be intellectually unjustified...but it has emotional and psychological force nonetheless, precisely because the willingness to take pride in the past implies a preparedness to accept the shame of it. Thus Bach and Beethoven can be celebrated, but not as Germans; otherwise they would be tainted..."

Tainted by being German? When can Germany be celebrated again? Is there some kind of date to get out of ethnic jail? The WWII guilt yoke is starting to fall apart-it hung correctly on Germany’s shoulders for decades, but it is getting too old to hang from so many young shoulders.

Unless it is not merely a WWII yoke. If anti-Semitism lingers still and lies at the root of many Germans' taking up the cause of the Palestinians, how will Germans ever be free of the WWII yoke of shame and guilt? It’s a question of whether anti-Semitism has been faced fully, the lessons learned, amends made. Do the German youth get a chance renew the definition of Germany?

"Vonnegut, an American soldier who was a prisoner of war in Dresden at the time of the bombing, having been captured during the land offensive in the west, writes of the war and the bombing itself as if it took place in no context [sound like the Left’s misguided pontificating on Iraq, folks?], as if it were just an arbitrary and absurd quarrel between rivals, between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, with no internal content or moral meaning [like the assassination of Hamas leaders?]— a quarrel that nevertheless resulted in one of the rivals cruelly and thoughtlessly destroying a beautiful city of the other. [like Jenin, Ramallah, or dozens of other places laid siege to in the pursuits of terrorists?]..."
Posted by: jules 2 || 01/20/2005 21:15 Comments || Top||

#101  Yeahhhhh!!! I made it 100!!!!! How about we all move on?
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/20/2005 21:15 Comments || Top||

#102  Damn. I missed by just 20 seconds.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/20/2005 21:16 Comments || Top||

#103  Aris, sounds like it is you who is splitting hairs, nasal hairs at that.

Get real, the notion of "preserving the status quo" on its own is laughable. Each country acts in its own self interest, and is why the UNSC stays in an inactive state, no matter how compelling the issue at hand. To wit, the UNSC would not have voted to engage in the Korean War had Russia not missed the vote.

You should take the time to learn some substantive historical facts before proving yourself void.
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 21:37 Comments || Top||

#104  "Self-interest" is nothing but the working of *all* politics, so that you attribute it to the United Nations specifically, as if you're telling us something unique about it, is laughable.

Yeah, self-interest -- that's what leads every nation in the whole damned world. Now that we've spoken the obvious why don't we see how that self-interest is translated in *different* organizations? How is it translated in the Council of Europe, how is it translated in NATO, how is it translated in the United Nations? Because of their structural differences?

Instead of just saying "self-interest", as if you told us something new.

Five vetoes to preserve exactly the status quo of the great powers -- and in the Security Council needing nine votes out of 15 before deciding anything, *besides* ensuring also the agreement of the Big Five.

That's the institution of the United Nations, and this translated into "preservation of the status quo". The United Nations is *designed* to be immobile.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 01/20/2005 21:53 Comments || Top||

#105  Haaahahahahahaaa...
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/20/2005 23:38 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
super slide show pix of President Bush and Laura at the Inaugural Ball
Posted by: 2xstandard || 01/20/2005 21:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Sen. Clinton urges use of faith-based initiatives
On the eve of the presidential inauguration, US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton last night embraced an issue some pundits say helped seal a second term for George W. Bush: acceptance of the role of faith in addressing social ills. In a speech at a fund-raising dinner for a Boston-based organization that promotes faith-based solutions to social problems, Clinton said there has been a "false division" between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state. "There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles," said Clinton, a New York Democrat who often is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008.
Addressing a crowd of more than 500, including many religious leaders, at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza, Clinton invoked God more than half a dozen times, at one point declaring, "I've always been a praying person."
"Please God, don't let me get caught."
She said there must be room for religious people to "live out their faith in the public square."
Unless, of course, you're a Republician
The issue of faith in politics has been at the center of debate following the presidential election, with some arguing that Bush's strong identification with religious values was a key to his victory over Senator John F. Kerry.
That and the fact that Kerry had no values of his own.
The dinner was a fund-raiser for the National TenPoint Leadership Foundation and the Dorchester-based Ella J. Baker House. Both youth outreach programs are directed by the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers 3d, a leader of the clergy-based efforts to stem youth violence in Boston in the 1990s that has become a national model for community-police partnerships.
A black minister, of course. That makes it safe for the Hildabeast to support him.
The minister has often criticized established black leaders and liberal politicians, saying they have failed to deal honestly with the problems of youth violence. Rivers said he hoped Clinton's appearance last night would build broader support for an issue on which some Democrats have been skittish. "She is in a position to articulate a progressive vision around this issue of faith and values," Rivers said. "The Clintons, on faith-based solutions to Bill's personel problems, have always been way ahead of the curve," said Rivers, citing President Clinton's running to the closest black church when he got caught with his pants down support of a 1996 law banning the federal government from discriminating against religious organizations seeking funding available to groups delivering social services.
It's OK to do that when you're a Democratic president.
In her speech, Clinton praised the efforts of Rivers and others working to curb youth violence, saying those of faith are often most willing to walk the streets of the country's most dangerous neighborhoods to try to reach young people. Where others "see trouble," she said, Rivers and faith-based soldiers "see God's work right in front of them."
Posted by: Steve || 01/20/2005 10:05:32 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  She deserves an Oscar.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 01/20/2005 10:33 Comments || Top||

#2  "Please God, don't let me get caught."

********** C O F F E E --- A L E R T **********

Steve - sometimes you really do slay me!

a2u - Agreed, if I can stop laughing, lol! This woman has more balls and ambition than any other femalian on the Planet. Hell, I'll even include my ex. Hillary has no shame, just raw naked ambition. Dick Morris, whom I thought was just peddling books until now, has this bitch ranged and bracketed. Wow.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 10:48 Comments || Top||

#3  .com, please don't ever use "Femalien" in connection with Hillary ever again.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/20/2005 10:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh shit, you're right! Now I gotta apologize to half the phreakin' planet!

Gulp! I apologize It won't happen again, I promise! And nobody tell Glorious Golden Gloria, K?
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 10:58 Comments || Top||

#5  "I've always been a praying person."

Sounds like a NY Yankees sort of thing....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/20/2005 11:13 Comments || Top||

#6  She's getting geared up for 2008 already. Kerry waited too long to pander to the religious, and then he flip-flopped way too much on what he, uh, "believed." What an awful human being.

I googled "Femalien" for some more info. Very nice...
Posted by: nada || 01/20/2005 11:17 Comments || Top||

#7  nada - Turned off that "Safe Search Filtering", didya? Heh.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 11:23 Comments || Top||

#8  Having admistered Federal money from the Clinton Administration, I can tell you that he did use faith-based organizations to provide services. In fact this continues today in California Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and others get Federals $$$ each year to provide services in community areas. I know it's only News when a Republican suggests such ideas, but the Democrats have done the same thing.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 01/20/2005 12:05 Comments || Top||

#9  .com -- I hope I never have to turn on a "Safe Search Filtering" option.
Posted by: nada || 01/20/2005 12:49 Comments || Top||

#10  You BITCH! I'll get you for this!! ME!! MIKE NEWDOW!!! I'll show you!!! I'll show ALL of you!!!
Posted by: Michael Newdow || 01/20/2005 12:55 Comments || Top||

#11  Like the French, don't judge Billary by what she says, but what she does. Like sKerry, she has a long record of socialist liberalism.

For her to suggest that American people are so gullable to buy this stuff simply demonstrates her condescension. She is toast.
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 13:17 Comments || Top||

#12  "I've always been a praying person."

Praying Mantis maybe...blood thirsty and always ready to bite the head off the nearest male....
Posted by: Warthog || 01/20/2005 18:43 Comments || Top||


Report Acknowledges Inaccuracies in 2004 Exit Polls
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 01/20/2005 01:36 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What a completely farcical performance by our MSM in the recent election... Tendentious and routine distortions of polling results (Nagourney, NYT) leading up to the election, spiking the Swifties' story, pushing non-stories with forgeries, planting more non-stories the week before the election, and then swallowing completely bogus exit polling data on election day.

Screw these fools. Give us back our democracy.
Posted by: lex || 01/20/2005 9:09 Comments || Top||

#2  This may seem trivial at this time. However, had the bloggers not outted Rather and had the exit poll results not been proven a farce so early on election day, the results may well have been different.

Personally, I believe both were contrived and well orchestrated to produce a different election day outcome. There should be legal action taken.
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 9:37 Comments || Top||

#3  They almost fooled enough... but they failed, again.

Time to remove the "ic" from the Democratic Party. They obviously don't understand democracy - demonstrated in two consecutive Presidential elections. And it's obvious that the IC will be needed for their treatment. We've always had some form of permanently deluded segment in the electorate. It started out as a Royalist faction but has been in transition for two centuries - taking many forms and names. During eight years of Clinton, it metastasized into our very own little Fascist / Socialist / Communist / Tranzi Tumor. A mirror of the coalitions of insanity and failed ideologies which have brought Europe to the brink of collapse.

Chemo is unacceptable - the majority (a democratic concept) of the electorate should not be and will not be punished and sickened for the vile spew of the tumor. No, surgery is the answer - targeted and terrible. The MSM, now a wholly-owned pocket of pus within, will continue to magnify the tumor's suicide siren call, but it will fail, just as it has failed in the last two major election cycles. They never leave their little Blue State Media Centers and live in a constant onanistic feedback loop. Thus they don't have a clue what flyover America thinks, wants, believes in, and will support. Ah, but flyover America gets it - they see very clearly both sides: their neighbors and friends versus the Tranzi media, their vacuous and fucked up Hollyweird "stars", the lie through their teeth legislative fools, and the crass and brazen attempts of a very few mulitzillionaire Kool Aid vendors to literally overthrow the US Govt (the one that was democratically elected - every time, not just this time) -- and they will hand them a defeat, again and again. Because Americans are not onanistic wankers who believe "anything goes".

Most Americans, that majority thingy, have a value system. It's internal, not on some placard or poster. It does not include suicide.
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 9:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Report says they got it wrong because they interviewed too many Democrats.

No duh.

So why did they interview too many Democrats?
Posted by: Floting Thrinelet3172 || 01/20/2005 13:14 Comments || Top||


Condi admits: no hearing exit strategy
ScrappleFace
(2005-01-19) -- On Day Two of her confirmation hearings, Condoleezza Rice admitted today that she has "no exit strategy" to extricate herself from what has already become a "pointless, hopeless quagmire."

"I'm bogged down, taking wearying fire from the opposition," said the Secretary of State nominee. "Even though the outcome is certain, I confess that I failed to anticipate the intensity of the resistance, and contrary to our pre-hearing intelligence, there are no stockpiles of No-Doz or other anti-soporifics in the chamber."

Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, a new face in 108th Congress, called for "an immediate withdrawal of the nominee and an end to Republican ideological hegemony in the Bush administration."
Posted by: Korora || 01/20/2005 12:07:13 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Once again Scrappleface inches closer to reality. he may have to chaneg the format during the next four years as the LLL get really loopy.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 01/20/2005 10:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Lol! Oh baby, Ott rules!
Posted by: .com || 01/20/2005 10:25 Comments || Top||

#3  "Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, a new face in 108th Congress"

Ouch ! Like a shiv to the kidney !
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 01/20/2005 12:41 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
FBI hunts Chinese 'terror gang'
The FBI wants to question four Chinese nationals amid fears of a plot to explode a "dirty bomb" in Boston. Police and FBI agents in Massachusetts were issued with photographs of two men and two women wanted in connection with an "unspecified threat". Earlier on Wednesday US TV networks reported that agents with radiological sensors were on patrol in Boston. The FBI and city officials in Boston played down fears, saying reports of a dirty bomb were "uncorroborated". The four Chinese were named as Zengrong Lin, Wen Quin Zheng, Xiujin Chen and Guozhi Lin. None of the four were understood to have appeared on FBI "watch lists". The FBI issued a statement acknowledging that an "unspecified" threat had been received, adding that the information came from "an unknown and uncorroborated source regarding an unspecified potential threat".
"As soon as we heard there were Chinese women involved, we felt we had to nail them. It's a tradition in the FBI."
Earlier, CNN reported that the group were smuggled over the border from Mexico and planned to receive some unspecified dangerous materials. Despite the FBI's caution, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney returned to Boston from Washington DC, where he had travelled to attend President George W Bush's inauguration on Thursday. Mr Romney said officials did not think the four Chinese nationals were in Massachusetts, but said there were suspicions they could be on their way to the state. "To assure the people of Boston and Massachusetts that it is safe to be at home, I am going to be sleeping in my bed in Massachusetts tonight and I feel perfectly safe doing so," Mr Romney said. More staff would be placed on duty at the state emergency bunker, he said, but added that Massachusetts' terror alert level would not be raised.
Posted by: Steve || 01/20/2005 8:53:56 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Steve: As soon as we heard there were Chinese women involved, we felt we had to nail them.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/20/2005 9:42 Comments || Top||

#2  A-Q recruitees? Who be they? Seems top be a lack of information concerning their motives..
Posted by: Howard UK || 01/20/2005 9:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey...can't fault the FBI for that kind of tradition.
Posted by: gromky || 01/20/2005 10:33 Comments || Top||

#4  If they're driving up from the Mexican border, they're probably a bigger threat to more Americans then if they had the bomb.
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/20/2005 10:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Do these Chinese come from the only Muslim province (cannot spell name)in China?
Posted by: Gruck Snetle5118 || 01/20/2005 11:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Sounds like the old Red Army Brigade terrorist hit at the Israeli airport luggage pickup scenario.
Posted by: Glavising Flineng2775 || 01/20/2005 12:20 Comments || Top||

#7  Perhaps AQ is subcontracting their work these days. Wouldn't that make this un-islamic? They could be Uighers from the ethnic Turkic people from Western China who's ETIM movement is looking to set up an Islamic Autonomous Zone. Very common amongst these followers of Allan - Aceh, Chechnya, Thailand, etc. etc. Judging by their ethnically Han names it's not likely they are Uighers. Zei feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Posted by: Rightwing || 01/20/2005 12:21 Comments || Top||

#8  Rightwing: Judging by their ethnically Han names it's not likely they are Uighers. Zei feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

The Han names don't mean that they are Han Chinese. Confucius was the Latin name for Kong Fuzi. Doesn't mean that Confucius was Roman. Minorities that are absorbed into the Chinese empire have typically taken up Chinese names. Uighurs should look different, though - Caucasoid - more like Afghans than like the Han Chinese. If they're Uighurs, it'll be a lot harder to find them. However, Uighurs are not the only Muslims in China. The Hui number in the millions and look as Chinese as everyone else.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/20/2005 12:42 Comments || Top||

#9  Saudis often rely on contractors...
Posted by: Tom || 01/20/2005 12:46 Comments || Top||

#10  Thanks for the clarity Zhang. Now that you mention it I believe I saw a piece about sectarian violence between the Han and the Hui. Is it safe to assume the Hui feel persecuted even though all practiced religon is subject to persecution. Also, I heard on NPR that Christianity is widely practiced, albeit underground in much of the countryside. My questioning is purely interrogative.
Posted by: Rightwing || 01/20/2005 14:56 Comments || Top||

#11  Underground? There's a giant Catholic cathedral in the middle of my town. It's quite open, though I'm sure if you start making trouble they'll come down on you. There's even an evangelical congregation, which I passed the other day and noticed the cross on the door and singing coming out of the place. My girlfriend said something about them, to the effect that they were weirdos :).
Posted by: gromky || 01/20/2005 15:10 Comments || Top||

#12  gromky: Underground? There's a giant Catholic cathedral in the middle of my town. It's quite open, though I'm sure if you start making trouble they'll come down on you. There's even an evangelical congregation, which I passed the other day and noticed the cross on the door and singing coming out of the place.

I'm not personally familiar with Chinese churches, but I have heard that as in the Soviet Union, only official churches are permitted. These churches deny the Virgin Birth, and the Second Coming. According to ethnic Chinese pastors in NYC, the underground churches have been subjected to persecution, and various church members have been beaten to death in an attempt to get them to renounce their faith.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/20/2005 15:31 Comments || Top||

#13  The official churches boil the religion down to a bunch of moral precepts, which is clearly not what Christianity is all about. This persecution is why Chinese Christians can be extremely anti-government.

gromky: My girlfriend said something about them, to the effect that they were weirdos :).

No surprise here. Classes in Ideology, which are taught from first grade onwards, tend to refer to Chinese Christians as the running dogs of the Western barbarians - i.e. betrayers of China and slaves of the West. The Boxer Rebellion, in which tens of thousands of Chinese Christians and a few hundred European clergy and bystanders were hacked to pieces, is celebrated as a glorious moment in Chinese resistance against the West.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/20/2005 15:41 Comments || Top||

#14  These might be Chinese sleepers to mirror the Russian sleepers who were supposed to conduct acts of sabotage on US soil in the event of war. The authors of Unrestricted Warfare seemed to think that nothing was off-limits. We may yet find out what the Chinese government considers acceptable, if war breaks out over Taiwan. (Maybe Ted Kennedy will call a defense of Taiwan a distraction from the War on Terror).
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/20/2005 15:50 Comments || Top||

#15  I can't imagine China would test the waters with th US via blackmail or domestic terror threats. The US is China's #1 business partner. With it's surging ecomony and current population swell why would they ever want to return to the agrarian days of ole Mao?
Posted by: Rightwing || 01/20/2005 16:22 Comments || Top||

#16  Rightwing: I can't imagine China would test the waters with th US via blackmail or domestic terror threats. The US is China's #1 business partner. With it's surging ecomony and current population swell why would they ever want to return to the agrarian days of ole Mao?

The sleeper scenario has nothing to do with trade and everything to do with war. If they can carry off an attack and blame it on Muslim terrorists, it slows the US down and makes the US more wary of foreign entanglements, since the charge from liberals will be that security begins at home.

The stagnation under Mao had little to with trade (or the lack of it) with the US. Mao came up with cockamamie economic schemes that killed tens of millions. China, like the US, is pretty much self-sufficient (except in several commodities which are purchased from abroad for cost reasons) - continental-scale countries tend to be that way.

China is now a capitalist country. Relative to China today, the US is the socialist country. Hiring and firing at will with zero separation benefits is the trend in China. Unemployment benefits do not exist, except for those who formerly worked at state-owned companies, and even then, many companies tend to shirk these obligations.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/20/2005 17:31 Comments || Top||

#17  Rightwing: I can't imagine China would test the waters with th US via blackmail or domestic terror threats.

This isn't about blackmail or domestic terror threats. It's about deniable sabotage that can be fobbed off on Muslim terrorists. The Russians weren't in-country to start a war - they were here in the event that war started, in which case they would carry out the sabotage operations for which they had been trained. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Chinese operatives had been deployed in-country waiting for the moment that the balloon goes up. I don't think it's prudent for them to do it, because of the danger of discovery or defections, but that may not stop them.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/20/2005 17:44 Comments || Top||

#18  There are 60 million muslims in China.
( see themodernreligion.com ) easy for a few of these to go loco Im sure. At one time or another I hear even Bin Laden could be hiding in remote southern China. Could be a new extremeist hot bed.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 17:52 Comments || Top||

#19  Tex, since the latest head count is 1.3 billion, 60 million is about 4.62%. Sizable, yes, but when push comes to shove...21:1... there are probably no muslims in PLAoC and the army wouldn't be having much qualms about putting them mooselimbs in their right place=>whiteraisinland... you get the idea.
Posted by: Sobiesky || 01/20/2005 18:12 Comments || Top||

#20  Certainly see the point Sobiesky.
But with 1.3 billion, a little hard for them to know exactly what everyones doing everywhere.
Remote China is not a civilized place. Easy to hide. And they appear to be travelers if they came up thru Mexico. The Chinese military would have no problem squashing any sizable terrorist threat within country. But Chinese who travel out is another scenario. There were Chinese Muslim fighters in Afghanistan when we first invaded in 2001.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 18:32 Comments || Top||

#21  But Chinese who travel out is another scenario.

Right you are there, tex.
Posted by: Sobiesky || 01/20/2005 18:34 Comments || Top||

#22  Thanks Sobie.
Im kinda new to this posting world.
A little hard to get what your thinking into words.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 18:42 Comments || Top||

#23  Xinjiang, far western China and Uighur homeland, is rough and ragged in places, rundown in the cities, so has plenty of places for thugs to breed and hide. Han racism is legendary in that area, and the Han glommed the good jobs during Mao's day. Nobody ever accused Muslims of being a forgiving or tolerant people; they hate back with great gusto.

My friend who lived there for 5 years accidentally bought a case of canned pork, thinking he had pears. Fortunately for him, a Uighur friend pointed out the mistake before the rest of the Muslim neighborhood heard about it and worked up a snit about it.

Nestorian Christians gave the Uighurs their faith and an alphabet in about the 6th century. Muslims came along the Silk Road in the 13th Century and uprooted the Christians. Swedish missionaries reestablished a church in the 19th C. While Chiang Kai-Shek was fighting Mao and the Japanese, the Muslims massacred the Uighur Christian men and forced the women and children into Muslim families. Several surviors of this pogrom, now grown old, are the backbone of a severely pressured church in Uighur country.

Hui have been making noise about being an oppressed minority. They live on the other side of the bay from Shantung Province, I think. Both areas fertile ground for Islamofascism.
Posted by: Mom || 01/20/2005 18:45 Comments || Top||

#24  Thanks for history lesson Mom.
Hey Sobie, Mom explained it for me.
Posted by: tex || 01/20/2005 18:57 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
UNforgivable
The wall of water that swamped South Asia carried away lives and buried the dreams of a generation. The only thing it uncovered: the lethargy of the United Nations. The world`s global body may yet become another victim of the crisis. Paul Toohey reports.

THE UNITED NATIONS is good with red tape but it also likes black. When staff arrive in a crisis area before its Land Rovers are shipped in, they commandeer local vehicles and use gaffer tape to fashion the initials “UN” on door panels, letting everyone know Kofi Annan’s people are around. But two weeks after the tsunami hit Aceh in north-western Indonesia, there were no black initials to be seen. Nor was there a single UN plane or helicopter at Banda Aceh airport – even though the UN was pumping out press releases from New York claiming credit for saving Acehnese lives.

“I can’t tell you that we’ve actually reached every spot but we’re closing in, if you will, on the spots we’ve not reached before, particularly on the western coast of Sumatra, with great help from the foreign militaries and utilising their helicopters,” said UN Coordination and Response Director, Kevin M. Kennedy, from New York on January 10. The UN’s use of “we” and its claim that foreign militaries were offering “help” to the UN relief effort was deceptive. The UN was not controlling the rescue; at that stage, it was not even involved.
Posted by: tipper || 01/20/2005 8:56:25 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The only thing it uncovered: the lethargy of the United Nations.

The tsunami didn't uncover anything that anyone with half a brain didn't already know.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/20/2005 11:25 Comments || Top||


Indonesia's missing push quake toll up to 220,000
THE death toll in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster rose to more than 220,000 yesterday when the Indonesian Government declared that 70,000 people previously listed as missing were now regarded as among the dead. Three weeks after the Boxing Day earthquake some 3,500 bodies are still being recovered each day from the debris of towns and villages in the province of Aceh, the region worst hit by the disaster. It is a task that, along with distributing emergency relief aid, is becoming more difficult with the hazard of flooding caused by the monsoon. The Indonesian Health Ministry said the number of dead in Aceh was now 166,080, with another 240 dead in northern Sumatra. It reached the figure by cross-checking numbers at the government task force centre in Banda Aceh and the Home Affairs Department. The United Nations listed the number of dead at 165,493.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2005 00:00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Tech
No Girlie Cars Please -- We're Dodge!
Posted by: God Save The World || 01/20/2005 21:55 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Kuehl Pushes for State-Run Health Plan
or Economics, not sure where to put this except in the trash, via Lucianne:

Despite the ballot defeat last fall of a plan requiring that most California businesses provide employee healthcare, some Democratic lawmakers are considering an even broader insurance overhaul that would replace private companies with one government-run program.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), its chief legislative proponent, released a study Wednesday that said her proposal could save $8 billion of the $184 billion expected to be spent on healthcare in California next year. It would also reduce the state's ranks of 5.3 million uninsured (how many of those are illegal???) residents, one of the highest levels in the country.

SNIP

Let's get to the wallet:


Kuehl's proposal would establish a single health plan that would replace private insurance, as well as Medicare and Medi-Cal and other state-run programs. There would be no deductible or co-payments, but instead a patchwork of taxes: an employer payroll tax equal to 8.2% of salaries; an employee payroll tax of 3.8% of salary; a 12% tax on the net business income of the self-employed; a 3.5% tax on unearned income; and a 1% surcharge on all income of more than $200,000 a year.

Does CA have a personal property tax??? Then you'd capture Babs' Toms' Susan's, Steven's Ron's Rob's and all those Silicon Valley assets. Makes more sense.

SNIP

Posted by: anonymous2u || 01/20/2005 4:55:54 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  12% net business income on the self-employed...
That includes every single contractor.
We're already taxed at 8-10% by the state ...
She wants to push my tax rate over 60%??!?
FYVM.
Posted by: Dishman || 01/20/2005 18:08 Comments || Top||

#2  I'd move to Nevada.
Posted by: eLarson || 01/20/2005 19:07 Comments || Top||

#3  She wants me to give up my cadilac insurance for state insurance. FOAD bitch. If I had to rely on state insurance I would be dead from cancer and not here. She can go screw herself.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 01/20/2005 19:32 Comments || Top||

#4  I could shave a LOT more than $8 Billion by ejecting every illegal from the (hyper)expensive emergency room care that they use as their primary physician. Sheila's a fav of the Limousine Liberal set in the People's Republic of Santa Monica™ - a carpet-munching stalinist liberal (not that there's anything wrong with carpet-munching...heh heh)
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2005 19:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Didn't they just elect Arnold in part because employers were fleeing the state? What is it about the Dummycrats and the interest in a Nanny state?

They are so foreign to economics and commerce. They think business owners are evil, but who pays the check?
Posted by: Captain America || 01/20/2005 20:10 Comments || Top||

#6  Bring it on, California. You'll add to my state's employer base.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/20/2005 21:19 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
Amazing hominid haul in Ethiopia
Posted by: tipper || 01/20/2005 10:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Promise of Free Electricity Backfires As Costs Spiral
Posted by: tipper || 01/20/2005 09:20 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Tech
Hurtubise says invention sees through walls
Posted by: Bernie || 01/20/2005 02:39 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like BS, but this was worth the time to read the article:
BayToday.ca has obtained documentation confirming that the former head of Saudi counter-intelligence, who asked that his name not be used, has been in regular contact with Hurtubise regarding the Angel Light, fire paste, and the Light Infantry Military Blast Cushions (LIMBC).

Still trying to see what's under the burkha?
Posted by: ed || 01/20/2005 7:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Hurtubise said he could see into the garage and read the licence plate on his wife's car....But a strange thing happened to the car, it stopped working.
Next up: Hurtubise reinvents the dog house.
Posted by: Mr. Oni || 01/20/2005 7:37 Comments || Top||

#3  ...It's okay, Mister Hurtubise. Just sit right there and some very nice men will be along to help you. They're going to have a sport coat that fastens in the back for you...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/20/2005 7:49 Comments || Top||

#4  “It’s amazing what you can get across the border on a Greyhound bus,” Hurtubise said.

and

"They said 'Troy, this is unbelievable.'"

'Bout sums it up.
Posted by: longtime lurker || 01/20/2005 9:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Where's the pictures or video of the effect? Seems to me that if one wants to convince skeptics (and there will be a lot of them), undoctored photos or video would be available, shot by third parties.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/20/2005 11:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Is this the guy with the grizly suit?
The Canadian with the death wish?
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 01/20/2005 11:42 Comments || Top||

#7  We call it:

"window"
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/20/2005 12:28 Comments || Top||

#8  That's him, Sock. Real interesting Googlage on him.
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/20/2005 18:01 Comments || Top||

#9  'Angel Light' Invention
2nd half-hour guest, inventor Troy Hurtubise shared details about the 'Angel Light', a device he built that allegedly sees through walls. The 14 ft. long machine, which he said he constructed using "black market" parts, runs on various properties of light and electromagnetism and uses plasma chambers and inert gases, he detailed.

In addition to making solid walls appear transparent, Angel Light can render anything electronic inoperable, including a plane flying at a high altitude, Hurtubise said. The device also has a negative "Hyde effect," he added, which causes those who come in contact with machine when it's running to become ill.


www.coasttocoastam.com

Great interview last night on 2nd half hour of George Noory show. I now see this as a probable hoax, but never the less, the interview was fascinating superb entertainment.

IIRC Tesla got many or all of his inventions via dreams or visions. Hurtibise claims to have gotten the plans for the 'Angel Light' in multiple dreams.

Posted by: Bernie || 01/20/2005 18:18 Comments || Top||

#10  Wow! Finally figured out how to do a link properly.
Posted by: Bernie || 01/20/2005 18:22 Comments || Top||

#11  If George Noory is talking about it you know it is crap.
Posted by: Remoteman || 01/20/2005 18:31 Comments || Top||

#12  Maybe I should have done "Nuggets from The Urdu Press PRAVDA Rense" instead... they've covered the angel light thing, an upcoming asteroid impact, allegations that Bush is taking antidepressants to control mood swings (repeated from Capitol Blue), mysterious objects seen over E. Texas, "Freemasonry: Mankind's Death Wish," and speculation that Jihad Unspun's casualty counts are correct. Not to mention a bit saying Bush is some sort of vampire...

George Noory is relatively respectable...
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 01/20/2005 23:47 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2005-01-20
  Senate Panel Gives Rice Confirmation Nod
Wed 2005-01-19
  Kuwait detains 25 militants
Tue 2005-01-18
  Eight Indicted on Terror Charges in Spain
Mon 2005-01-17
  Algeria signs deal to end Berber conflict
Sun 2005-01-16
  Jersey Family of Four Murdered
Sat 2005-01-15
  Agha Ziauddin laid to rest in Gilgit: 240 arrested, 24 injured
Fri 2005-01-14
  Graner guilty
Thu 2005-01-13
  Iran warns IAEA not to spy on military sites
Wed 2005-01-12
  Zahhar: Abbas has no authorization to end resistance
Tue 2005-01-11
  Abbas Extends Hand of Peace to Israel. Really.
Mon 2005-01-10
  Sudanese Celebrate Peace Treaty Signing
Sun 2005-01-09
  Paleos vote
Sat 2005-01-08
  Commander of Salafi Forces in Fallujah Killed
Fri 2005-01-07
  Abbas Calls for Peace Talks With Israel
Thu 2005-01-06
  Kerry Trashes Bush in Baghdad

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