via Xinhuanet (h/t Lucianne)
Instead of criticizing the US government, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he hoped ties with Washington can improve dramatically if John Kerry wins the US presidential election in November. "If Mr. Kerry wins, we hope that a new stage in relations can begin, of frank, sincere and friendly cooperation between the two governments," Chavez said. "Tell the US people and government that although we don't understand each other very well, we are their friends," said Chavez during a ceremony awarding a gas development license to a US oil company. "If Mr. Bush is reelected in November, we hope that those who advise him can think again," he added.
Chavez's remarks came nine days prior to the recall referendum on Aug. 15, in which he has to face a vote on his mandate. The ties between the two countries have become strained since late February after Chavez accused his US counterpart George W. Bush of financing the opposition's plot against his government. In addition, Chavez believed the United States was behind the coup in 2002, which briefly ousted him from office. Such denunciations have been denied by the United States, the principal purchaser of Venezuelan oil. In the run-up to the Aug. 15 recall referendum, Chavez increased his attacks on Washington. Also on Friday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jesus Perez said the US government has become less hostile against Venezuela as it realizes Chavez is certain to win the upcoming vote. The US interests are not under threat, "nor do we want to threaten the interests of anyone," Perez said. He's a wishin' and a hopin' for Skeery.
Posted by: .com ||
08/07/2004 1:35:37 AM ||
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#1
Kerry did say foriegn leaders wanted him to win. So far we've got Arafat and Chavez... I'm sure Kim the nut of North Korea should be on that list even if he hasn't said anything yet.
I am an Independent. I am not a registered Republican, nor a registered Democrat. In order to maintain my credibility I have taken a neutral stance regarding Kerry's War Record. Several disturbing questions need to be answered by Kerry.
1. Why did he serve only four months when the standard Tour of Duty was one year?
2. RE: His Purple Hearts. We understand the first was for a piece of shrapnel the size of a rose thorn; the second was when he got hit with rice that exploded on a Sampan; the third was when his butt got knocked against the Pilot House of his boat. Is he proud to have requested purple hearts for such minor injuries, none of which required any loss of duty time nor hospitalization.
3. Did he or did he not shoot a retreating Vietnamese teenager in the back?
4. Why does he disavow the word of over two hundred honorably discharged Vietnam Veterans who served on Swift Boats?
These questions would be asked by any serious Journalist. The hack from the Boston Globe who claims that a Veteran has retracted his criticism of Kerry has not done so.
One of the most common lies I am hearing coming out of the Demoncat Spoke-mouths is, "none of these men ever served with Kerry." That is false. Steve Gardner who says Kerry is a liar and a Coward was Kerry's Machine Gunner and was stationed on the same boat as Kerry.
"In May, 2004, 190 Members of this group signed a letter to Kerry asking him to sign a Navy Standard Form 180, which would authorize the independent public release of all Kerry's war records allowing them to be reviewed in full by the public and press, and allow people to better judge who is telling the truth in this controversy. Thus far, Kerry has not signed the form." --- Human Events Online
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
08/07/2004 5:47:57 PM ||
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#1
For me its not so much his war record as is its his after-war record with Hanoi Jane's crowd.
I don't care if he was Audie-Friggen-Murphy in Vietnam, what he did when he got home was despicable.
#2
Savage can't really expect Kerry to give a discrete answer to these questions, they would blow him "out of the water."
Posted by: Capt America ||
08/07/2004 20:37 Comments ||
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#3
Here are the answers you might expect:
1) Hey! I served in Vietnam! That more then George Bush did!
2) I am proud of my bronze and silver stars!
3) The Vietmanese was armed and could have turned and fired. (I think it was proper to shoot the VC -- *if* he was armed. There might have been no way to know of the launcher was loaded or not. I'll leave it up to other to comment on weather it was worthy of a silver star or not.)
4) Those 200 did not serve under me so they can't possibly have seen what happened from 20 feet away.
Ok, who the h*ll goes on vacation for a few days/weeks and takes $35K of valuables. Glad this maroon ain't the prez.
Posted by: Ol_Dirty_American ||
08/07/2004 10:50:36 AM ||
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to be fair, several Rolex models are more than $35k. So it wouldn't be tough to imagine that kind of loss for a guy who can afford a Rolex and probably wears one.
EFL from WND - this trip was ill-advised for a presidential hopeful with a questionable record for opposing communism.
The Kerry campaign currently is struggling with recent photographs of the candidate -- one dressed in a "bunny" suit at NASA and another on the bow of a ferry imitating a famous scene from the movie Titanic -- but a new photograph has emerged showing the Massachusetts senator in Beijing working with a company associated with the Chinese military.
The Kerry campaign and the Kerry Senate office both are refusing to comment on the Democratic presidential candidate's privately sponsored trade trip to China. Repeated phone calls both to Kerry's campaign headquarters and his Senate office were not returned.
During the late 1990s, John Kerry traveled on a "U.S. trade mission to the People's Republic of China organized and sponsored by a private corporation." The Kerry trip to Beijing was topped off with a "banquet in Beijing's legendary Great Hall of the People." To prove the trip was a success, the Massachusetts-based firm of Boston Capital & Technology photographed Kerry in the Beijing Great Hall of the People. The image and trip information appear at , Boston Capital's website
The photo shows Kerry, an unnamed Chinese government official and Paul Marcus, the head of Boston Capital & Technology. Marcus also refused to provide details of the China trip, including the time and date, whether the senator took money for his services, or the identity of the Chinese officials with whom Kerry met.
"I am not doing an interview with you, and please don't call me again," Marcus declared.
-snip- plenty more details
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/07/2004 3:50:16 AM ||
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Hmmm... maybe he working on exporting MA brand iron rice bowl.
#2
The Boston-based consultant also has time for the arts. He and his wife are listed as founders of the nonprofit American Friends of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, a lovely place notorious for hiding and laundering money.
via Miami Herald Reg Req - EFL
Login: herald@miami.com / bogus1
The State Department has invited an international team to observe the presidential election in November, prompting a group of liberal Democrats in Congress to claim partial victory in what last month grew into a nasty partisan battle. The notion of calling in international election observers, usually reserved for fledgling democracies and Third-World hot spots, drew harsh debate last month in Congress, after 13 House Democrats wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and also asked the State Department to request U.N. monitors.
The Democrats said they want to avoid a repeat of 2000, when problems with voter rolls, ballot designs and recount standards in Florida left the outcome to the courts and gashed the nation's trust in fair elections. Republicans labeled the request a political stunt, coming in the wake of "Fahrenheit 9/11," the Michael Moore documentary that presented President Bush's election victory as a farce.
Only the executive branch can make a formal request for U.N. monitors. Paul V. Kelly, a State Department assistant secretary, responded to the Democrats in a letter dated July 30 that was released Thursday. Ignoring the U.N. issue, Kelly said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had been invited to send a team to observe. "It's a step in the right direction," said renowned village idiot Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland. "Given our position of strength in the world, we should be glad and happy for sunshine and transparency."
The OSCE, based in Poland, includes the United States among its 55 members and has sent teams to observe more than 150 elections in Europe and elsewhere, said Urdur Gunnarsdottir, spokeswoman for its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. She said a team would arrive in September to consider how many observers to deploy, and where. "We don't have any authority. We don't give them a yes or a no, or grade them," said Gunnarsdottir. "But we monitor, we publicize what we see. You can call it political pressure."
The OSCE sent a tiny team of 13 to observe congressional elections in 2002 and assess reforms made since the constitutional crisis of 2000. The group gave a largely favorable assessment. This time, a full-fledged team of 100 or more would likely be dispatched, she said. "We have access to all the voting stations, the counting, the tabulation," she said. "We have a lot of experience in this."
U.N. monitors would have no authority to alter elections in the United States, experts say, but their findings would likely hold greater political weight. Their presence here could also invite ridicule.
Last month, Republicans stonewalled the bid for U.N. monitors. Raising the specter of U.N. officials in blue helmets swarming polling stations, Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., won an amendment to the 2005 foreign aid bill barring U.S. funds from being used for U.N. monitoring of American elections. In a statement Thursday, Buyer said, "I welcome any outside entity to observe our electoral process, but I oppose what House Democrats asked, which was for the U.N. to come assess the validity of our elections."
Lee insisted that she and other Democrats would keep pushing. "This isn't done yet," she said.
We certainly should investigate voting irregularities in her district.
Either way, the OSCE will be among several groups who have vowed to closely monitor the November vote, including Global Exchange, the San Francisco human rights group, and the nonpartisan Votewatch, based in California. The Georgia-based Carter Center will not join them, saying former President Jimmy Carter's Democratic ties could make its involvement seem partisan.
"It saddens people to see the suspicion that's just pervasive in both parties over the conduct of their upcoming elections," said Susan MacManus, a government professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "The group I feel the most for are the honest local election officials who are just trying to get the job done, but every day there's another layer to deal with," she said. "It's like somebody's watching you and waiting for you to fall." It says the invite is from the State Dept, but I'll wager it came from Rove, lol!
The OSCE will end up monitoring the Democrat election judges in Miami and Palm Beach. I had no idea Karl Rove was this good.
Posted by: .com ||
08/07/2004 1:24:16 AM ||
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#1
Send 'em to Chicago, or the Indian reservations in S. Dakota. Or a hundred other places where dead people vote for the Dems...
#2
This is sick. People from outside this country are going to monitor OUR elections process? Oh, and HOW much are OSCE members going to be paid under the table for creating the right kind of "political pressure," and for WHICH party?
Who says a few million can't get the job done just the way the Dems want it. What a set up.
#3
yes it is sick. it is disgusting that the dems are so rabid to get Bush out that they would use our sovereignty as a political weapon..
and just exactly were the problems in 2000...the vote not going how the dnc wanted or thought it should!
just why didn't they do the same when Nixon won the pop vote but lost the electoral???because they won...
Posted by: Dan ||
08/07/2004 10:30 Comments ||
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I've been thinking about this recently. I do find it deeply offensive that we need "international observers" since we've been doing just fine for two hundred years, but if they want to come in under the idea that we could teach them a thing or two (I'd love to see Powell or Rice extend that invitation!), that's another thing. What worries me far more than the UN in this case is Michael Moore. You just know he's going to be going for footage to use in another f**kumentary (strong language, and I'd apologize since I usually don't go that far but the more I see of Moore the more I become convinced that's what his goal is). Someone needs to keep an eye on him, lest he actually interfere in the election process with one of his stupid stunts.
Posted by: The Doctor ||
08/07/2004 14:24 Comments ||
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Bloggers, other non-conformist media, and private freedom fighters should subject the individual backgrounds of these "impartial" observers to the most searching and comprehensive examination possible. Special attention should be given to business relationships; particularly in regard to Saddam, Castro, and Chavez; and membership in fifth column activist groups.
You decide, then try your own hand at this form of ignoble equivalency. If Cagle spent more than ten minutes researching and drawing this scrawl, he is either mentally retarded or drunk or possibly both. Our time limit is therefore 5 minutes:
Amazing Similarities between.....
John Kerry and Saddam Hussein:
Both have French-speaking wives
Both are well-liked in Europe
Both are enemies of GW Bush
Both have praised European economic models.
Both have been photographed in green fatigues
Both opposed the Vietnam War
Both have given speeches about alleged American war crimes
Neither will admit to having met Osama bin Laden
Both claim religious beliefs but avoid public displays of piety.
Both have been targeted by hostile artillery.
Both would be President of their respective countries in 2005 if prominent lefties had their way.
or Darrel Cagle (Slate cartoonist) and Julius Streicher (Nazi propagandist hanged for inciting genocide)-----
Cagle, like Streicher:
relies on crude caricature to make his points.
opposes a war against Jew-haters.
is not a Republican.
has been published in two-bit weeklies.
habitually uses facetious half-truths.
would be applauded in Arab countries
accuses his enemies of plutocratic conspiracies.
favors pen and ink over other media
finds the Kennedy family favorable to his viewpoint (Joe in the 30s, Ted today)
makes demonizing comparisons (well, ok, maybe that one's not so bad)
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
08/07/2004 12:22:55 AM ||
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Another one, from the thespian world
Martin Sheen and John Wilkes Booth
attacked a Republican President...
belonged to a family of actors...
had dark hair...
were regarded as handsome...
opposed the war of the time...
accused the US military of atrocities...
associated with homeless people....
#2
Kennedy and Lincoln both have the same number of letters in their last names. K and L both were assasinated while in office. K and L blah blah blah blah ..........
Each and every human has literally hundreds of thousands of facts about them. It would be an impossibility NOT to be able to find dozens of these facts that "line up" between any two humans on this planet.
#4
Speaking of demonizing comparisons, I actually heard a history teacher (at the McKenzie Jr High in Lubbock Tx) compare the current generation of Vietnam War historians (who dispute the orthodox media-left interpretation) to Holocaust denialists simply because the term "revisionist" has been applied to both at one time or another.
#5
Craig writes: "Kennedy and Lincoln both have the same number of letters in their last names. K and L both were assasinated while in office. K and L blah blah blah blah"
Craig, you forgot the most eerie--
Lincoln was once in Monroe, Maryland; JFK was once in Maryland Monroe.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - With crude oil prices at a record high, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) on Friday offered a 10-year, $30 billion proposal to move the nation toward energy independence.
Under the measure, aides said, American companies and consumers would receive financial aid to develop and buy more fuel-efficient motor vehicles. In addition, it would set twin goals to have, by the year 2020, an even 20 percent of the nation's motor fuel and electricity come from alternative sources such as solar, wind, ethanol and biodiesel fuel.
Kerry, on a cross-country campaign tour, arranged to formally announce the proposal during a visit to a family farm outside Kansas City.
The measure would provide $10 billion to help automakers retool plants to build high-technology, fuel-efficient vehicles, and give consumers a tax credit of up to $5,000 to buy them.
Where's the money come from for the tax credit? Oh, right, all but the upper 2%.
It would also earmark $5 billion for a research partnership between government and industry into fuels made from agricultural waste, and $10 billion to transform the current generation of coal-fired utility plants into cleaner and more efficient facilities.
The Massachusetts senator has made energy independence a centerpiece of his campaign for the White House and his proposal fleshed out earlier ones he has promoted on the campaign trail. The cost of the measure would be partially offset by raising taxes on everything in sight reinstatement of a tax on polluters, aides said. Kerry has contended greater energy independence would create jobs, provide for a cleaner environment, bolster security and (Punch-Line in 3...2...1...)make sure American soldiers do not have to go to war over Middle East oil.
President Bush has said a massive energy bill blocked by Kerry and other Senate Democrats would help reduce the demand for foreign oil largely by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
In early trading Friday, oil prices climbed close to $45 a barrel, the highest level in 21 years for U.S. light crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
#1
"The measure would provide $10 billion to help automakers retool plants to build high-technology, fuel-efficient vehicles, and give consumers a tax credit of up to $5,000 to buy them. "
This is similar to Gore's idea which has put in position to have hydrogen cars within the next 20 years. Of course hydrogen cars were 20 years out before Gore was in in office as well. They appear to always be 20 years out which is a nice way to ensure the current administration doesn't have to actually be accountable.
The other answer is you could legislate that gas stations need to have one pump with biodiesel by 2006 and watch the auto manufacturers start to produce a larger number of diesel SUVs (which would run on Biodiesel or regular diesel fuel). Then sit back and watch the market economy do the rest. You'd probably have a ton of biodiesel SUV's by 2009 and be well on the way towards realistic energy independence by 2014.
#2
I love magic wands. They're soooo easy to use and nothing is impossible.
A plan is more than a set of goals. It's more than an outline of gosh-gollies & gee-whizzes. It requires a lot of advice from those that actually know the relevant technologies, a clear head with no axes to grind to make sense of it, and the authority to issue marching orders. It happens in private industry everyday. It could happen in government, but it does require someone with vision, the balls to shame politicians into line, and the will to make the hard choices...
Lessee, is there anyone running for President who has any of those qualities? Do any of them have them all? It's a tough world, we have to work with what we've got - perfection is pretty thin on the ground. Sigh.
#3
Kerry will drill asap. He could care less about anything other than Kerry.
BTW, this swiftboat scam is really interssting. The action reports about the infamous water rescue, the incoming fire, the shady reports about valour. Kids got some splain'n to do. But I think the hard questions get kicked, like a can, down the road. Eastern hobnobs need to feel the love.
#4
So the plan is to tax me heavily, skim off a bunch for auto manufacturers to retool (and probably to fund public works in Byrdland, West Virginia) and then give me back $5000 to spend on a vehicle from the retooled plant. Will we be changing base lead into gold as well?
Another question is whether we will be retooling just Ford and GM or is Daimler still elligible for a public handout in the US? Will Nissan and Toyota gets some too?
I work in a plant that manufactures Silverado pick-ups. We are now producing a small number of parallel hybrid units. They are an interesting product in that the bed of the truck now has a large outlets where the owner can plug in stuff (I think the outlet produces 112VAC.) I imagine we will produce more diesels if the Energy Plan ever gets signed.
Note - an intersting feature of our plan is that within the last several we have installed a piping system from the city landfill that provides a high percentage of the methane that we use for heating the plant and our process ovens.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/07/2004 2:37 Comments ||
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#5
So, with just a few billion here and a few billion there, John Kerry can just wave a wad of my cash to give away to "solve" our energy problems. What an idiot. If those other technologies were cheaper than $50/barrel oil... we'd already have implemented them.
Leave the market alone to solve the cost of fuel problems. Either: fuel will become cheaper, or alternative fuel vehicles will become cost-efficient. It's just STUPID to artificially force us into inefficient/expensive alternative fuel vehicles WHEN WE DON'T WANT TO GO. When it's cost effective, the auto companies will offer the better cost-efficient products and I will beat a path to their door to buy them.
Otherwise: HANDS OFF! (Damn! Don't the 'rats know that command economies suck?)
#8
.com> I think your analysis about vision and planning vice pie in the sky goals is right on. Hard choices is the key - most politicos avoid them like the plague. Which is because most politicians only care about being re-elected and retaining power vice doing what's neccesary for the country. Wich is why Bush is getting my vote again - the man seems to have no problem making hard and often unpopular choices and then sticking by them.
#9
SH,saw this truck(called the contractors special)on the History Cannel.The truck also has a system that stores hydralic pressure when braking at stop lights/signs then releasing the pressure to assist when starting from the stop.I would give the a few years to iron out the bugs beforew trusting this system.
#10
Yank,
Just where the heck are the hundreds of millions of barrels of biodiesel supposed to come from? Sure we can get a few hundred thousand or so barrels from old french fry oil, but even that puny source is already being used in such things as pet foods. Fine, we probably can recover some in 15 years or so from the turkey gut type processing (TDC), but it will still just be chicken feed compared to what we will need.
#12
of course windfarms every where but off his and Teddy's property on the Vineyard. Thet're for the little people, dontcha know?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/07/2004 11:00 Comments ||
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You people don't understand physics, if we have cheap french fry grease diesel we will be able to freely roam the back roads of America running over spring gobblers (they are mindless then) throw them in the trunk with the cold fusion machine and ziola! The fish carbureator will do the rest.
#16
Bravo, Leigh. Let the market sort itself out. If gasoline prices were truly high, then people would start conserving, which they have not. We don't need to bankroll the auto makers or the windmill enthusiasts or the hydrogen economy BS. The alternative technologies will blossom when they are weaned from government pork and when they are truly economically viable. The less government involvement the better.
Posted by: Tom ||
08/07/2004 13:52 Comments ||
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#17
Craig: âJust where the heck are the hundreds of millions of barrels of biodiesel supposed to come from?â
Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
Advanced biotech applied to algae might lead to economical production of biodiesel.
(I donât support Kerryâs plan and I donât believe biodiesel is ready for large-scale production. However people should be aware that the future prospects for large-scale renewable production of fuel are good.)
#18
SH, I work in your sister plant in Ontario. Keep up the good work.
We build lots of crew cab Silverados. Gas prices don't seem to be stopping people from buying.
Posted by: john ||
08/07/2004 16:40 Comments ||
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"Let the market sort itself out.
Foreign affairs and wars are typically not left to "market forces", AFAIK.
So, if U.S.A's "energy independence" is not considered merely for the sake of economics as they stand by themselves, but rather as part of no longer being dependant on Middle-earth dictators, that clearly suggests to me that such an "energy independence" shouldn't be left to market forces either.
#20
Well, it shouldn't be left to be managed by the politicians that have worked hardest to shut down drilling in territory of the United States, either.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/07/2004 18:05 Comments ||
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#21
So, with just a few billion here and a few billion there, John Kerry can just wave a wad of my cash to give away to "solve" our energy problems.
That's Democrat 101. Throw tax money in a rat hole in the hope it grows smaller. When it doesn't, reward failure, and throw in more money. Continue until Republicans cut the program, declare them the enemy of the middle class, and blame them for the program's failure.
It's kept Ted Kennedy in a job for 42 years.
#22
Resurrect the GM Diesel engined autos from the '70's!
__________The elderly among us lived through all this same B.S. IN THE 1970'S...MUTATIS MUTANDIS..
#23
Aris, don't know how to say this...
but the US is pumping ME oil reserves like a French mistress, cheap, wholesome and socialally acceptable. When she's dry we will look around the neighborhood for a higher quality of petro. I'd be looking at Mexico again. It's a shame, but hell, that's just the way it is.
#24
I think Biodiesel will expand as the market requires. Initially there will probably be fairly limited demand even if the government mandates one pump should be biodiesel, if the idea takes off a lot of money will be made by whomever can answer your question effectively. That probably meanst the oil companies. They may buy all the used McDonalds' fry oil, or they may set up biomass farms out in Imperial valley, or they may come up with something nobody has really considered yet.
The advantage of all of this is it trusts the market rather than fighting against the market, and it allows the oil companies to provide the infrastructure and thus gives them the opportunity to be involved with the next generation of fuel rather than fighting aganst it as they would other possible options.
If it all falls flat and their isn't enough biodiesel the diesel engine SUVs would still run on regular diesel.
#25
On Thursday Ford started production of a hybrid SUV for the 2005 model year. They plan on producing 20,000 vehicles in Year 1. Hybrid models already in production are being sold faster than they roll off the production line. I don't think we need to wait for biodiesel to become a working proposition -- the market has already begun it's work.
EFL - hattip to WND.
September 11 Commission member John Lehman Thursday criticized so-called "sanctuary" practices in Houston and elsewhere that restrict cooperation between local police and federal immigration officials as an invitation to terrorists looking to enter the United States. "It is ridiculous that five cities in the United States do not allow local police to cooperate with the federal immigration service," said Lehman, visiting Houston to lobby for Sept. 11 commission report recommendations. "The terrorists know" which cities have such policies, Lehman said, naming Houston and Los Angeles among those cities.
Normally I am against hardball tactics by the federal government to suppress states rights. For instance, I disagreed with the withholding of road funds from states that refused to raise the drinking age to 21 or refused to implement a 55 MPH speed limit. Even today I feel that presenting an active duty military card ought to be enough to allow a kid to buy a beer. In this case though, I would like to see these cities hurt monetarily in a bad way for compromising our collective security.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/07/2004 3:40:52 AM ||
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I think federal funds should be withheld until the city stops picking-and-choosing which federal laws they will implement (We will enforce Affirmitive Action but not Immigration.)
We should also make it *VERY* clear that we will hold the elected officals (Mayors, City Councelpersons, etc..) *personally* responsible (for example being charged as an accessory to 2,000 counts of murder) if someone dies as a result of a terrorist act which would have been prevented were it not for their sanctuary laws.
#2
Yes, withhold fed funds. Withhold international air landing rights and shipping. If near a border, close border crossings. Run military convoys on the fed funded highways through town at 10mph during rush hour.
Posted by: ed ||
08/07/2004 12:09 Comments ||
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#3
"Sanctuary?" "Matricula?" Who comes up with this sh!t?
WHY DON'T WE JUST PAINT A BIG F%&KING BULLSEYE ON OUR BACKS AND GET THIS OVER WITH?
KINSHASA, Congo (Reuters) -- The United Nations said on Friday it could not forcibly disarm rebels accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide, amid anger that 25 militiamen it interviewed later escaped with their weapons. Rwanda has complained bitterly that neither U.N. troops nor the Congolese are rooting out extremist Hutu rebels, or Interahamwe, who fled to Congo after the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 people died in 100 days of ethnic slaughter.
The latest row centers on 25 Rwandan rebels who were surrounded by Congolese forces Sunday and interviewed by U.N. civilians but held on to their weapons and escaped the next day. "Our position is very clear. We only have a mandate for voluntary disarmament and repatriation," Patria Tome, spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Congo, said. "What! You expect us to actually do something?"
"I mean, cheez, these guys have guns!"
"We did our job and spoke to these people but they did not want to disarm or go back to Rwanda," she said. The rebels had been in the hands of the Congolese army, not the United Nations, she added. "We shook our fingers at them and even resorted to a stern lecture!"
The presence of thousands of Rwandan rebels in eastern Congo during the last 10 years has fueled ongoing regional instability and was specifically used by Kigali as justification for invading Congo in 1996 and 1998. "It is neither understandable nor acceptable that a U.N. force that is over 10,000 strong in the Congo and on which the international community spends close to $700 million every year can fail to disarm 25 men," Richard Sezibera, a Rwandan presidential envoy to the Great Lakes Region, said Thursday.
"But, but, they have guns!" reiterated the U.N. spokesperson.
"Rwanda and the entire region have said the international community needs to forcibly disarm these groups, repatriate them, demobilize them and stop their completion of the genocide which they want to carry out," he told Rwandan radio. Congo's partially reformed army is still weak and remains largely divided as Africa's third largest nation struggles to recover from its own five-year war that killed 3 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
The army, which has pledged to investigate the affair, has in the past collaborated with the Hutu rebels but denies it still does so. The U.N. mission estimates that about 10,000 rebels remain in eastern Congo. For the moment, however, its mandate only allows it to disarm and repatriate combatants that put themselves forward for the process. EMPHASIS ADDED
Does anyone actually think that the UN will get some results in Sudan?
Do the French get a say?
Posted by: Zenster ||
08/07/2004 3:36:56 AM ||
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The UN weenies give a whole new meaning to the words "clueless" and "loser."
Not to mention IDIOT.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/07/2004 11:09 Comments ||
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Despite its WTF? title, the article has merit. Fri Aug 6, 1:11 PM ET
MOSCOW (AFP) - Environmentalists accused Russia of treating victims of nuclear catastrophes as experimental subjects, saying hundreds of thousands of Russians still lived in irradiated zones. Greenpeace blamed the Russian government for failing to evacuate the hundreds of thousands of people who still live in the country's numerous regions hit by nuclear accidents. "According to a federal decree, thousands of towns and villages and hundreds of thousands of people are still officially situated in areas that were exposed to nuclear radiation," said Greenpeace's Vladimir Chuprov Friday. This remains one of Russia's dirty little secrets. America's superfund toxic waste sites look like nursery school flower beds compared to many of Russia's old Soviet-era radiological and chemical dumps. Baikonour launch emissions and re-entering booster components have poisoned vast areas.
Siberia has few sights more spectacular than the soaring peaks, thick forests and fast-flowing rivers of the Altai region - but they come complete with chunks of rockets streaking across the sky before crashing into the world's largest space junkyard. As dramatic as the rockets' lift-off can be, their booster engines' free fall to earth is likened by locals who have seen the show to "an angry red eye in the night", "a comet" and, on impact, "a small earthquake".
Having put up with the downpour for decades, local people are sounding the alarm at an increase in cases of cancer and other illnesses in the valleys bordering the drop zone. In particular, they fear heptyl, the highly toxic fuel used in the huge Proton rockets that sends their second-stage engines shattering into remote terrain north of Mongolia in what are known as Fall Areas 310, 326 and 327, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Western experts describe heptyl as "supertoxic, nerve-paralysing and carcinogenic", deadlier than phosgene gas and a cause of hepatitis, immune system problems, blood disease and mental illness. Yellow patches on pastureland, raging fires on the hillside and high concentrations of the chemical that remain in the permafrost on mountain tops for up to 30 years are all part of heptyl's legacy in the Altai.
The group gathered in front of the Japanese embassy in Moscow to mark the 59th anniversary of the 1945 Hiroshima nuclear bombing and to protest Russia's nuclear policy. Instead, the group claimed, Russia is carrying out research to study the impact of radiation on people. Greenpeace cited the example of the village of Muslyumovo, in Russia's Chelyabinsk region in the Urals, where thousands of people continue to live after a site containing nuclear waste exploded in 1957. "What can inhabitants think when they constantly see people in white coats taking samples of the water and the air, people who don't have enough money to go to hospital or buy medicine," he demanded. Perhaps the inhabitants should think that Russia's government has yet to abandon their elitist mentality which has always characterized it from its earliest history.
He said locals received between 40 and 200 rubles (about one and seven dollars) compensation per month for having been exposed to radiation. Greenpeace also criticised a proposed 60-billion-dollar (50-billion-euro) programme to build 60 new reactors in the next 20 or 30 years. Given the track record for Chernobyl, a large degree of concern might be in order.
The group said the Siberian regions of Krasnoyarsk and Tomsk were most affected by radiation, along with Russian areas near the border with Ukraine. Ukraine suffered the world's worst nuclear accident after a nuclear power plant exploded in the city of Chernobyl in 1986, killing 30 people immediately and irradiating thousands. Although from a rabid ecological site, here is a sampler of Soviet environmental disasters:
1957: September 29, 2000 was the 43th anniversary of the terrible explosion at Mayak facility, for the whole nuclear history of USSR it's the only accident that can be compared to Chernobyl catastrophe. As consequence of Mayak explosion tens of thousands of people were resettled from contaminated areas, many thousands died as direct consequence of contamination (a tank at the plant containing radioactive waste exploded, releasing several million curies of radioactivity into the atmosphere - Thousands of square kilometers were polluted.) ...
Chelyabinsk (Mayak) USSR located its nuclear bomb production at one site, - "pork" not being a factor in the more centralized nation. During the cold war Russia routinely dumped radioactive materials in the Techa River. Three disasters with Mayak's nuclear waste--in 1946, 1957 and 1967—have caused cumulative damages comparable to, and probably worse than, the Chernobyl meltdown. Even today, some 100 million curies of radioactivity, including six Chernobyls' worth of strontium 90 and cesium 137, remain in Mayak's Lake Karachay, which scientists from the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council have called "the most polluted spot on Earth." The groundwater is already contaminated, and the area is subject to Cyclones and earthquakes that could further spread the radioactivity.
Rivaling Chelyabinsk is the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia, near the border with Norway. During the Cold War, the harbors of Kola were home to the Soviet Union's Northern Fleet, which dumped used submarine reactors, spent fuel and other nuclear debris into the sea with abandon. The waters now contain two-thirds of all the nuclear waste dumped into the world's oceans.
"More than 1,200 incidents have taken place at Russian nuclear reactors, according to co-author Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of Ecodefense! and director of Anti-nuclear Campaign of the Socio-Ecological Union
EMPHASIS ADDED
Russia's legacy of environmental rape will haunt them for decades to come. Only the vastness of their Asian territory prevents these catastrophes from taking a more immediate toll.
#1
Google "Three Mile Island Catastrophe" and compare the returns to those for any of the above incidents.
What would be the response if American industries dumped over a thousand tons of uranium, and twice that much thorium, into the environment every year? Exactly that is really happening, year in and year out, but it remains unknown because it is not the nuclear industry that is involved.
#2
The Soviets spent a lot of time and energy rerouting rivers to irrigate their farmland. Why didn't they build dams and hydroeletric projects in the process? I know they probably loved the idea of nukes and nuclear knowledge and all of that but perhaps some dam building practice would have helped them win projects in the third world (aka Egypt).
#3
The Soviets spent a lot of time and energy rerouting rivers to irrigate their farmland. Why didn't they build dams and hydroeletric projects in the process?
Great question, yank. I'd wager it had something to do with the cost ratio of labor and materials. The labor was probably much cheaper. Here's an old Soviet joke:
Aparatchik: Comrade Commander, the canal excavation is off schedule!
Commander: Well then, arrest another thousand people!
There was an overabundance of strong backs in the Soviet Union, just not strong rational minds or wills. The materiel needed to construct a hydroelectric dam far outweighed the cost of arresting another thousand or two more people to divert the course of an entire river.
This reminds me very little of how (paraphrasing) Gorbachev told off an audience that was grilling him over shortages of government supplied bread. He replied, "So, how many of you should I arrest in order to bake the bread on time?"
Anecdotes like that sketch out the current form of theological facism even though it still embodies the almost incomprehensible mentality of viewing human life as an entirely disposable asset. It's not as if Europeans weren't also adept at same, merely that it rarely matched in scale (if one disregards the Nazis).
The disregard for human life that fascism breeds (let's face it, Nazism, Communism, Theocracy, [Non-Democratic] Socialism, Dictatorship, Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism are all essentially facism and nothing else), and therefore self-defeating.
Atomic Conspiracy, most excellent article! Your link is precisely the sort of information I come to Rantburg for. No better proof of why America needs to shift towards high reliability (safety + security) nuclear power generation. While fusion is more desirable, we need to go with slightly-upgraded conventional technology to begin weaning ourselves off the oil teat.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some TV shows offer an extreme makeover, others a bid for pop stardom. But the hottest reality show in the U.S. Hispanic market is offering the ultimate prize -- a potential green card to immigrants desperate to pursue the American dream.
"Gana la Verde" ("Win the Green") has attracted big audiences and hundreds of contestants willing to eat burritos crammed with live worms, jump off high-speed trucks or wash sky-scraper windows in exchange for a year's legal help in speeding up their visa or green card cases.
The show, run five times a week on small Spanish-language television channels in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston and Dallas, was the brainchild of Lenard Liberman, executive vice president of the independent TV and radio company Liberman Broadcasting.
"When you are in the Hispanic market, you realize that immigration and legal status is the number one issue ... They want to be able to earn a living and not have the pressure of wondering if they are able to stay or not," Liberman said on Thursday.
"We could do a show and give the winner a cash prize, or a toaster oven. But I thought, what would be the ultimate prize for someone living in the United States as an immigrant? ... To have a prestigious law firm handle their case would be something invaluable," he said.
The show started running on July 1 and Liberman said it had been consistently No. 2 in prime-time Los Angeles Spanish language stations.
"The response has been outstanding. We have a waiting list. We get letters in the mail, hundreds if not thousands of phone calls, and had people flying in from places like Chicago who want to be in the show," he said.
An estimated 2 million immigrants, most of them Latino, live and work in California and millions more are trying to extend or alter their visas to remain in the country legally.
"It is a sad commentary ... You can't really blame the program makers," said Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition which campaigns for positive Hispanic representation in the U.S. media.
"But how humiliating it is, and how desperate do people have to be, to get something that is so necessary to your life and to the future of your children. It is heart-wrenching," he said.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
08/07/2004 5:28:46 PM ||
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#1
"It is a sad commentary ... You canât really blame the program makers,"
#3
Speaking of "sad commentary", we have the tale of California Alternative High Schools...
CAHS targeted Hispanic immigrants, charging students between $450 and $1,450 for a course school officials said would lead to a valid diploma and help the recent immigrants get into college, find better jobs and get financial aid. The Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs investigated after getting numerous complaints that "graduates" from CAHS courses couldn't get admitted to vocational programs or were fired for not having a valid high school diploma. Investigators said the inaccurate lessons that were taught include:
There are 53 states in the United States, but that the "flag has not yet been updated to reflect the addition of the last three states" - Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico.
World War II began in 1938 and ended in 1942.
There are two houses of Congress - the Senate and the House, and "one is for Democrats and the other is for the Republicans, respectively."
""He may well also be an egomaniac, although he professes to be puzzled when he reads that: "Clearly, I am a person who suffers from a lack of ego. I mean, if I felt better about myself I wouldn't look this way."" Moore, in an Australian newspaper.
Actually, there is no contradiction here. Both aspects are explicable once we look at what is classified as Nacissistic Personality Disorder. The personality disorders (which also include the antisocial personality, the borderline, the histrionic and others) are not delusional. Rather, they are disorders in personality or character. If we could talk in the language of ethics rather than of medicine, we might say that personality disorders comprise patterns of knowing, evil conduct"
via Mercury News (h/t Lucianne) Reg Req
Login: birdgibson@hotmail.com / tarzan Opposition to agriculture biotech is biggest pest of all BILLIONS WORTH OF GRAPES COULD BE LOST, BUT HARDIER GENE-SPLICED VARIETIES ARE BLOCKED
By Henry I. Miller - Fri, Aug. 06, 2004
California is under attack by terrorists. Not political, but biological ones: glassy-winged sharpshooters, leaf-hopping insects that are among the state's most insidious agricultural pests. They carry Pierce's disease, a lethal bacterial infection of grape vines and other major crops, for which there is no cure. Although there are technological fixes that could protect California's agriculture, local anti-biotechnology referendum measures and federal regulations are making them unavailable.
The infestation, which has been creeping northward inexorably from Mexico, threatens the San Joaquin Valley's 800,000-acres of table, raisin and wine grapes and has been found in Santa Clara, Monterey and Solano counties.
Inevitably, the premier winemaking regions of Napa and Sonoma will be next. A January 2004 report from the California Department of Food and Agriculture offered this dire assessment: ``Counting only grapes, the disease now threatens a crop production value of $3.2 billion and associated economic activity in excess of $33 billion. Other crop and ornamental plant resources such as almonds ($897 million) and susceptible species of citrus ($1.07 billion), stone fruits ($905 million), and shade trees are also at risk.''
Ironically, this peril to California agriculture has been aggravated by federal and local regulatory policies that have been condemned repeatedly as unscientific, anti-farmer and anti-consumer. These policies prevent the newest and best techniques of biotechnology from being applied to the genetic improvement of grapes.
The meager weapons currently available to attack the sharpshooter include the inspection of plants shipped from areas known to be infested by glassy-winged sharpshooters and the testing of potential chemical and organic control agents. In the long run, however, these will fail. As acknowledged by Dale Brown, president of the Napa Valley Grape Growers Association, ``Genetic resistance is where we want to go.''
There are several ways to introduce or enhance the resistance to Pierce's disease in new variants, or varieties, of grape vines. Conventional methods of genetic improvement are notoriously slow and uncertain, and attempts to use the more sophisticated and efficient gene-splicing techniques have run afoul of the Environmental Protection Agency and local regulatory policies.
The EPA discriminates against gene-spliced varieties. Any plant that has been modified with gene-splicing techniques to enhance pest- or disease-resistance is regulated even more stringently than chemical pesticides.
This policy, which has been attacked repeatedly by the scientific community as unscientific and irrational, has badly damaged agricultural research and development. It flouts the widespread scientific consensus that gene-splicing is more precise, circumscribed and predictable than other techniques. New gene-spliced varieties can not only increase yields, make better use of existing farmland and conserve water, but -- especially for grains and nuts -- are a potential boon to public health, because the harvest will have lower levels of contamination with toxic fungi and insect parts than conventional varieties.
Yet the EPA holds genetically modified plants to an inappropriate, extraordinary standard, requiring hugely expensive testing as though these plants were highly toxic chemicals. In effect, these policies impose a hugely punitive tax on a superior, and badly needed, technology.
There is an even worse threat to the use of new, environmentally friendly, disease- and drought-resistant plant varieties: local referendum issues that ban any cultivation of gene-spliced plants, the prototype of which was the misguided Measure H passed in Mendocino County in March.
These ballot measures, which are introduced and promoted by misinformed, misanthropic activists, are logically inconsistent, in that their strictures are inversely related to risk: They permit the use of microorganisms and plants that are crafted with less precise, less predictable techniques, but ban those made with highly precise and predictable ones. They turn science-based regulation on its head.
Most important of all, they block sophisticated genetic approaches to the eradication of blights such as sudden oak death, phyloxera and powdery mildew, as well as Pierce's disease.
Agbiotech's potential is not just theoretical. A decade ago, an epidemic of papaya ringspot virus had virtually destroyed Hawaii's $64 million-a-year papaya crop, but by 1998 biotech researchers provided virus-resistant varieties that have preserved the industry.
California is just beginning to reap the bitter harvest that activists and regulators have sown. Their anti-social agenda should be exposed, and they should be held accountable.
HENRY I. MILLER, a physician, is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and the author of ``The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution.'' He headed the FDA's Office of Biotechnology from 1989-1993. Just as with other state industries, the Loonies have set the state up for failures, shortages, and huge potential losses. I hope it felt good. Was it good for you?
Posted by: .com ||
08/07/2004 1:42:48 AM ||
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Ya'll I guess we should do what the judges say....
They know what is best of course, rockin the boat only causes problems and makes them hate me more.
But I guess if it were up to me, I would let John sKerry deal with it, he is our savior and has 4 months of Vietnam disturbance to back it up. I rely on him and his word in any battle we fight. He has medals and everything....He impresses me so much when he wears his flip flops on the campaign trail.
What a man.
I know he will round up the top US killers to take care of this problem.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
