Exploding toads, drunken monkeys, now unhappy cows...
Coulda wrapped it all up in a single story: "Unhappy drunken cows explode, injuring several. Steak for dinner. Film at 11."
Whether the cows in a state milk board's ads are really happy is apparently none of the California courts' business. The state Supreme Court denied review of an appeal Wednesday by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which sued the California Milk Producers Advisory Board in December 2002. The board's ads, funded by dairy farms, showed cows grazing in green pastures with the slogan, "Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California.'' Don't care: if they're happy. Care: if they're tasty...
Actually, PETA declared, California dairy cows commonly spend their lives in dirt and mud, are repeatedly impregnated and milked throughout their pregnancies, often suffer painful maladies and are slaughtered when they can no longer meet the industry's production demands. Hmmmmmmmm? Maybe that's because...THEY'RE FRIGGIN COWS!!!!
A court may not be able to tell whether cows are truly happy, the animal- rights group said, but it should decide whether consumers are being misled. As a consumer, my main concern is are they good eating?
But San Francisco Superior Court Judge David Garcia ruled that the milk board could not be sued for false advertising or unfair business practices, the two laws invoked by PETA. He said they can be used only against individuals, companies and private associations. A Court of Appeal panel in San Francisco agreed with Garcia in January, saying past rulings had established that government agencies are immune from lawsuits over their ads. Damn cow killing government!
Complaints about a state-run agricultural marketing program must instead be filed administratively with the state director of food and agriculture, the court said. PETA's appeal to the state's high court argued that the appellate court had improperly narrowed the law. By authorizing suits over unfair and deceptive practices, the Legislature intended "to give consumers the direct power to protect themselves from harm, even when that harm comes from the government,'' attorney Bruce Wagman said. The court denied review without comment. Baliff! Whack his pee pee!
Scientists in Hamburg, Germany, are baffled by the strange deaths of hundreds of toads after they apparently exploded in and around a pond, according to a Local 6 News report. As many as 1,000 toads have died after their bodies swelled to bursting point and then exploded, according to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians.The area around the pond in Hamburg has been cordoned off as experts investigate the dead toads. Scientists are looking at a fungus that may have been spread by foreign race horses from a nearby track, Local 6 News reported Sunday.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 8:35:46 AM ||
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Wahabi toads?
Posted by: ed ||
04/25/2005 10:13 Comments ||
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Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/25/2005 11:35 Comments ||
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For a minute I thought it was about this. WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announces the following recall in voluntary cooperation with the firm below. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. Name of product: Toad Lawn Ball Sprinkler Units: 4,000 Manufacturer: Midwest, of Cannon Falls, Minn.Hazard: A small hose inside the toad can fail, allowing water to fill the toad's cavity. The increased water pressure can cause the toad to explode, posing the risk of injury to anyone nearby.Incidents/Injuries: There have been eight incidents involving the lawn balls exploding, though no injuries or property damage have been reported.Description: The green, frog-shaped sprinkler is 6 1/2 inches long, 6 1/2 inches wide and 7 inches tall. The recalled lawn balls have a label on the bottom that includes the model number 738449 508893 and the words, "Made in China."Sold at: Drug, flower, garden, and gift stores nationwide sold the sprinklers from August 2002 through June 2003 for between $25 and $30.Remedy: The sprinklers should be returned to the place of purchase for a full refund.Consumer Contact: For more information about the recall, consumers can call Midwest at (800) 776-2075 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or log onto their Web site at www.midwestofcannonfalls.com
A group of monkeys descended on an Orissa village, quaffed down pots of an intoxicating brew lying in the open and then set upon the villagers, injuring three of them. The incident occurred in Baralapokhari village near Bhadrak town, 142 km from here. Irate villagers struck back at the inebriated monkeys with sticks and other weapons and drove them away. The injured have been hospitalised. The intoxicating 'pana' drink had been prepared from marijuana leaves as part of an offering to Hindu gods on the occasion of the Oriya new year Friday. The villagers had kept it in pots outside their huts to ferment, an official said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Canabis booze? Oh my. Sure they were making it for the "gods" LOL The Damn Simians stole their booze, some were so wasted the monkeys messed them up. It's all about face saving LOL.
Picked up some booze from the Dominican Republic called Mamajuana. But the only canabis is on the label showing a palm that looks suspiciously like the aforementioned plant.
Posted by: ed ||
04/25/2005 10:03 Comments ||
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Anybody remember Hemp Ale? Had a big ol' pot leaf on the side of the package. Never tried it myself - seemed like too much of a novelty to take seriously as beer.
More than 700 Bangladeshi workers ransacked their country's embassy here yesterday, smashing furniture and pulling down chandeliers until police restored order, the Bangladeshi ambassador said. The rioters slightly injured two Bangladeshi civilians who happened to be visiting the embassy, Ambassador Nazrul Islam Khan said. "Only 100-150 workers entered the embassy while the rest waited outside. They destroyed furniture, some computers and documents like passports," he said. Police arrested many of the attackers but most were later released and only a few still remain in detention. A spokesman for the some 1,000 protesters at the embassy said their employer had not paid them their wages for the last five months. "The embassy called the police, who evicted the workers and arrested some of them," Khan said. "The other rioters fled."
The local police commander declined to answer any questions, referring The Associated Press to the Interior Ministry's spokesman, who was not available. When the AP entered the embassy shortly after the police intervened, it saw chandeliers had been ripped from the ceiling, chairs and tables had been smashed, official papers scattered across the floor, and framed tourism posters yanked off the walls. The door to the ambassador's office had been forced, but the office appeared to be unharmed. Khan said he did not know why the laborers had attacked the embassy, but he said he was sure they were people "who were suffering." He said Bangladeshi workers regularly came to the embassy to complain about their employers' failure to pay them, but "this time nobody came to discuss it." He said the protest must have been organized because the workers arrived in buses. After their arrival, the workers threw rocks at the embassy windows. They overpowered the guards and entered the embassy. They also smashed the windows of five cars parked outside the embassy.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 9:42:36 AM ||
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Once again, no one writes a obit like the British.
The 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, whose death aged 66 was confirmed yesterday, demonstrated the dangers of the possession of inherited wealth coupled with a weakness for women and Champagne.
"He spent most of his inheritance on booze and broads, the rest he wasted."
Shaftesbury, who disappeared last November prompting an international police investigation, was tall, debonair, affable and rather shy. He tried after his own fashion to be true to the liberal philanthropic family traditions of his ancestors, notably the first Earl (1621-83), founder of the Whig party in Parliament, and the 7th Earl (1801-85), the great 19th-century evangelical social reformer. He served as president of the Shaftesbury Society, which the 7th Earl had founded, and - as a keen music fan - was chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1966 to 1980.
He was also respected as a conservationist. On his 9,000-acre estate at Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, he planted more than a million trees and, in 1992, was joint winner of the Royal Forestry Society's National Duke of Cornwall's Award for Forestry and Conservation. He also served as president of the Hawk and Owl Trust and as vice-president of the British Butterfly Conservation Society. It was said, after his mysterious disappearance from a Cannes nightclub, that the 10th Earl, like Gladstone, had been devoting himself to helping vulnerable young girls working in nightspots on the French Riviera to start new lives.
A man after my own heart
But as the mystery deepened, it seemed that his interest was more than merely philanthropic.
Well, duh! Sorry, I forgot he was British.
Indeed, Lord Shaftesbury had always exhibited a weakness for exotic women.
Don't we all?
At Eton he had famously penned an article for the college magazine in which he described English debutantes as "round-shouldered, unsophisticated garglers of pink champagne". His subsequent amorous career was notable for his avoidance of the species.
Liked the import models, eh?
He met his Italian-born first wife, Bianca Le Vien, the ex-wife of an American film producer and 12 years his senior, during a skiing holiday. They married in 1966, but divorced, owing to his adultery with an unnamed woman, in 1976. The same year he married a Swedish-born divorcee, Christina Casella, the daughter of a diplomat, with whom he had two sons. That marriage, too, ended acrimoniously, in 2000, and he embarked on a string of short-lived and expensive love affairs with younger women distinguished by their exotic looks and equally colourful past histories.
Ok, coupled with how he died, this is just crying to be made into a movie.
I thought it had been, about 12,000 times?
He became a familiar figure in some of the loucher nightspots on the French Riviera, where he cut a curious figure in leather trousers, pink shirts and large red-and-black spectacles; he was notable for his habit of flashing his money around as he bought drinks for a succession of nubile female companions.
Money won't buy you love, but you can rent a close approximation
In 1999 he had begun a relationship with Nathalie Lions, a pneumatic 29-year-old whom he had met in a lingerie shop in Geneva, where she was working as a model. They became engaged, and he paraded her around London, Barbados and the south of France, maintaining that she was a member of the Italian royal house of Savoy. He admitted to lavishing some £1 million on her in cheques and expensive gifts, including a £100,000 Rolex watch and an Audi TT sports car. But their relationship came to an end in 2002 after it was revealed that she was, in fact, a French nude model and former Penthouse "Pet" with silicone-enhanced breasts.
And this is a problem, how?
How did he miss the silicone?
He was, um, pre-occupied.
Later that year, he married Jamila M'Barek, a Tunisian divorcee with two children, whom he had met in a Paris bar where she was working as a hostess. She separated from him in April 2004, claiming that he had become an alcoholic and "sex addict", regularly overdosing on Viagra and having testosterone injections.
What happens when one "overdoses" on viagra? Does it explode or something? Or do the paramedics bring a couple hookers?
No, but you do get a headache that's big enough to serve as a real excuse ...
Among several bizarre stories, she alleged that, on one occasion, she had returned unexpectedly to their flat in Cannes to find her husband in the company of a large Arab gangster and two Arab women who were rifling through the wardrobes. Her husband was on a stool singing and dancing; the women left with a car-load of her belongings.
Sounds like Earl has been doing Moroccan magic powder. We'll get back to Jamila later.
In August 2004 Shaftesbury was reported as having taken up with a 33-year old Moroccan hostess known as Nadia.
Don't Moroccan hostesses all share the same name?
He installed her and her two children in their own flat and, a month later, asked her to become the fourth Countess of Shaftesbury. On the evening of November 5 2004, Shaftesbury left the Noga Hilton Hotel in Cannes and, as was his regular habit by this time, entered a basement hostess-bar nearby. Within 24 hours he had vanished, setting off an international criminal investigation. The saga of "le Lord disparu" sent the French media into a frenzy, and spawned a multitude of theories. In February his estranged wife, Jamila M'Barek, was arrested by French police and allegedly admitted that she was present when the Earl was killed in her home; but she insisted that she was only a witness to a fight involving her husband and his killer. She and her brother Mohammed have both been placed under investigation for murder, which is a step short of formal charges under French law.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper was born on May 22 1938, the elder son of Major Lord Ashley, elder son of the 9th Earl of Shaftesbury KP, PC, GCVO, CBE. Lord Ashley, who died in 1947 before he could inherit the earldom, had shocked London society by marrying the model and chorus girl Sylvia Hawkes. After their divorce she went on to marry Douglas Fairbanks Sr, followed by Clark Gable. Anthony was the son of his father's French-born second wife, Françoise Soulier.
So it runs in the family
He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, and, as a young man, was a keen climber and skier. He succeeded to the earldom aged 22 on his grandfather's death in 1961. The 9th Earl had, by prudent financial planning, arranged matters so that his heirs would avoid death duties. The young earl therefore came into an estate which included the family's 17th-century home and large estate in Dorset, several other properties and a collection of art and other valuables. By the 1990s his wealth was said to be in the "low millions".
It was another ancestor, the 3rd Earl, who had bequeathed to his wayward descendant the wisest counsel: "The extending of a single passion too far or the continuance of it too long," he observed, "is able to bring irrecoverable ruin and misery." Shaftesbury's body was found in the south of France on April 5; yesterday it was announced that DNA tests had confirmed his identity. By his second marriage, Lord Shaftesbury had two sons, the eldest of whom, Anthony Nils Christian, Lord Ashley, born in 1977, succeeds to the earldom.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 11:27:55 AM ||
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A fortune in the low millions is not enough to allow the young Earl to contnue for very long in the family habits. No doubt we will soon see him narrating BBC travelogues, a la one of the Windsor lads.
If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know theyâd never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white
#7
There is a connection with the story of freedom and America: John Locke's great Second Treatise of Government owes its existence to an Earl of Shaftesbury.
Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671-1713) was the grandson of the first Earl of Shaftesbury and John Locke's patron. He was an ardent student of the classics, and a devotee of liberty of thought.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that a woman linked to the U.S. military had been arrested while photographing a military installation, and several U.S. citizens were also arrested for taking pictures of a refinery, signs, he added, that Washington may be plotting an invasion of his country. Chavez's announcement, made during his weekly radio and television show, was thin on details and did not specify the woman's nationality or supposed role in the military. "We put her where we had to," Chavez said, without giving further details on when the incident took place or whether she had been released. "If she or any other U.S. official does this kind of activity again, they will be imprisoned and face trial in Venezuela." He also said that the other detained Americans were journalists caught while taking pictures of El Palito refinery, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Caracas. They were released, Chavez said. U.S. embassy officials could not be reached for comment Sunday about the incidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 8:39:11 AM ||
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THis nutball keeps trying and trying to provoke a war. Not too long for now, he will start recuriting peopel to fly planes into buildings, and blame it onthe US, in his despereate attempt to blind people to his power grab. He's using the US the way Hitler used Jews.
#4
He's getting there. Just give him some time, a few more decorations for the chest, and some jungle fatigues. His mental disorders will come to full bloom in time.
Norwegian embarrassment and US anger have resulted after six American military trucks given to Norway in the 60s have turned up in North Korea.
Ãøps.
Norwegian officials were prepared to apologize without reservation, though Norway's Red Thingy Cross claims that the US has been fully informed about the vehicles, newspaper VG reports.
The Red Thingy Cross, ya say?
Norwegian government sources told VG that the incident was "a serious and embarrassing glitch" and that the Red Cross should have taken the matter up with American authorities, but final responsibility is difficult to confirm. For decades after WWII Norway received US weapon and infrastructure aid via NATO, including several thousand American M-6 trucks produced in the 1960s. In 2002 the Norwegian Defense gave 203 discarded M-6 vehicles to Norway's Red Cross and about 1,000 more trucks in 2003. Formally these vehicles were still US property and the transfer required US clearance, something which is still lacking, VG reported. Norway's Red Thingy Cross has transferred many vehicles to the International Red Thingy Cross and six of these ended up in North Korea last summer. Even though these owned and administered by the Red Thingy Cross, the North Korean regime can reportedly use them when desired.
Four wheelin' with Lil Kim! Yee Haw...
American authorities were reportedly surprised to learn this and are displeased that US-made equipment is in North Korean hands. "We are investigating the matter closely. While this work is in progress we do not wish to comment," press spokesman Andrew Schilling at the US embassy in Norway told VG. A defense press spokesman said they considered the affair to be between the Norwegian Red Thingy Cross and US authorities. "We have received signals that the American embassy does not have a problem with this," said information consultant Morten Tønnessen-Krokan at the Norwegian Red Thingy Cross. "We have a good dialog with the American embassy about the process for using these vehicles. We have not been contacted by either Norwegian or American authorities about this," said Red Thingy Cross secretary general Jonas Gahr Støre. Støre said that the American embassy was aware of all truck transfers but would investigate the North Korean delivery further before commenting on it.
Posted by: seafarious ||
04/25/2005 10:02:16 AM ||
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"We have received signals that the American embassy does not have a problem with this," Yes, but clearly the boss back at the home office does.
#9
phil_b: The Chinese Communist regime has less than 2 years (read my recent comments on the coming worldwide recession).
I'll have to disagree. Chinese living standards are improving rapidly. The ingredients for a revolution aren't there. The conventional (Freudian) wisdom is that China's recent maneuvers are a sign of weakness. I would argue that they are a sign of strength.* The leadership feels confident enough about China's economic power to throw its weight around with respect to the second largest economy in the world. Note that China got Japan to back down, which says something, given the importance of face in Japanese culture - whatever anyone's perceptions, the Japanese felt that they had too much to lose from offending the Chinese.
* Some might say that the US decision not to ratify (or abide by) the Kyoto Accords or to withdraw from the ABM treaty are signs of weakness. I would say that they are signs of strength. Advancing one's national interests are signs of weakness only in the pseudo-sophisticated Freudian sense, where victory is defeat and defeat is victory.
#10
Chinese living standards are improving rapidly. Exactly my point. What happens when/if they stop improving? The world economy is about to hit an oil supply limit that will take at least 5 years to solve. During that time there will be little or no economic growth and globalization will be rolled back with China the main loser.
A day after reaching out to other Christians and to Jews in his installation Mass, Pope Benedict XVI met Monday with members of the Muslim community, assuring them the church wanted to continue building "bridges of friendship" that he said could foster peace in the world. I'm thinking of another bridge, in Brooklyn, that's for sale...
Benedict made the comments while meeting with religious leaders who attended Sunday's installation ceremony, saying he was particularly grateful that members of the Muslim community were present.
"I express my appreciation for the growth of dialogue between Muslims and Christians, both at the local and international level," he said.
He noted that the world is marked by conflicts started by Muslims but longs for peace.
"Yet peace is also a duty to which all peoples must be committed, especially those who profess to belong to religious traditions," he said. "Our efforts to come together and foster dialogue are a valuable contribution to building peace on solid foundations.
"It is therefore imperative to engage in authentic and sincere dialogue, built on respect for the dignity of every human person, created as we Christians firmly believe, in the image and likeness of God," he said. Here we go again.
Posted by: Spot ||
04/25/2005 8:41:35 AM ||
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The last phrase is the clincher. Has me grinning.
built on respect for the dignity of every human person
Pope Benedict is talking nice,but this is a direct swipe at Islams inability to treat every human with respect and dignity. It draws out the direct contrast of Islam's treatment of women, infidels, dhimmis, etc.
created as we Christians firmly believe, in the image and likeness of God
And a passing point for the charitable social work the modern Catholic church has done in the third world, versus the paucity of any effort from the rich wahhabists and others inside Islam. To help every one including non-beleivers as if he/she were in the likeness and image of God.
imperative to engage in authentic and sincere dialogue
I hope this is the Pope is saying "If you are religious and call yourselves beleivers in the God of Abraham, show it. We are willing to talk if/when you do".
#2
Another telling difference. When the Pope calls attention to the Jewish/Christian belief that humans are created in the image of God, this flies in the face of islamic theology which explicitly denies this.
In other words, Benedict did not dilute/avoid explicit Christian theology in favor of a more islamically-correct general or shared theology where the similarities between religions are stressed and the differences ignored.
The "Last seen bent over a desk being masturbated upon by James Spader" award goes to:
Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, star of a new flick about the aftermath of 9/11, believes the United States "is responsible in some way" for the devastating terror attacks. Gyllenhaal, 27, made the comments at the Tribeca Film Festival, where her new movie "The Great New Wonderful" - which has a plot centered on the destruction of the World Trade Center - premiered Friday. "I think what's good about the movie is that it deals with 9/11 in such a subtle, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated than just, 'Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for them,'" Gyllenhaal told the NY1 cable channel. "Because I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy with which it's dealt allows that to sort of creep in," she added.
Posted by: mojo ||
04/25/2005 10:52:14 AM ||
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She's making a play for the Fahrenheit 911 audience. I think it's a smart move on her part. Niche marketing.
#3
Yeesh. She's just popping off, 'cause Arianna Huffington is using her in some dopey website of "celebrity opinions." Article was too long for me. Better things to do. But for those who want to hear what the Hollywood Elite have to say about it, here ya go: LINK.
Can't wait for the Bloggers to attack these dinks for getting their facts wrong. That'll be entertaining.
#7
Given the girth of his gut and equally swollen ego I'd doubt the "casting couch" with the red M&M carries the same meaning as it might with others. She does have her charms (see Secretary) but the recent timid attempt at political punditry cannot be counted among them. Too bad she can't just stick to acting (she has some talent there) and looking nice. Get them off the set with their mouths open and things get silly fast.
#8
I saw an article recently (Instapundit link, perhaps?) that the F911 audience was never very big, and that Mr. Moore was keenly aware of that fact, even as he boasted of his film's popularity. Miss Gyllenhaal is doing her career no favours by explicitely appealing to such a small niche.
AKI is reporting that Iranian heavy metal band KOHT MIAN has released its first album in Tehran to great success. The instrumental album, entitled "Eksir", has proved very popular with young Iranians who queued up outside local stores to buy a copy of the new release. Dancing and singing to Western music in the Islamic republic is punishable by flagellation and CDs featuring only music, without lyrics, often do not require authorization to be published. The mind boggles.
SHARES in a high-fly ing penny stock called Ionatron Inc. had been climbing for months on a steady flow of press releases about the company's opportunities at the sword's point of high technology in the post-9/11 world of homeland defense.
Then suddenly, on March 18, with Ionatron's shares having climbed to a high of $10.41, the company's stock was hit with an avalanche of insider selling, as more than 50 Wall Streeters privy to Ionatron's innermost secrets bailed out of nearly every share of stock they held, knocking more than 30 percent off the price in the days that followed.
Another cautionary tale from the pump-and-dump annals of the penny stock market? In fact, it's a lot more than that, for behind last month's bailout at Arizona-based Ionatron Inc. lies an astonishing tale of taxpayer-financed intrigue on capitalism's street of dreams.
In reality, nearly every one of the more than four dozen insiders who dumped their Ionatron shares on March 18 have now been identified by The Post as employees of a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group that is owned, operated and financed out of the black box budget of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Much more at link. This really reaches new heights in breaking the law. DIRCIA had better heavily purge before the indictments start flowing. Either that, or it's going to be one HECK of a cover-up.
Eva Kataja remembers the day more than two decades ago when she told a friend of her desire to become more active in liberal causes — to "take responsibility" and help make the world a better place. The friend, a longtime activist, leveled with her. Don't do it, he advised. You'll lose friends. You'll become isolated. People will see you as a downer. You'll regret it.
Kataja was taken aback but vowed that she would never become burned out and embittered. Fast-forward two decades through countless meetings, protests, projects, petitions, phone banks, wars, elections and Sept. 11. Now Kataja, a marriage and family therapist in West Los Angeles, says: "As the years have gone by and I've gotten in deeper, I'm beginning to experience what my friend talked about. I feel discounted and marginalized a lot of the time."
Championing a particular cause or course of action often can be a lonely crusade, but these are particularly tough times for liberal activists. Red-state dominance in the last election, the war in Iraq, changes in environmental policy and the possibility of a more conservative Supreme Court have left many local activists feeling as blue as the state they live in. What they need, one longtime activist recently decided, is some therapy — a good old-fashioned support group tailored for the liberal activist in need of emotional rejuvenation.
In February, the Activists' Support Circle was born. The group is the brainchild of L.A. peacenik Jerry Rubin, who said he saw his friends and colleagues hit an emotional low after the tensely fought fall presidential election. To his knowledge, he says, it's the first self-help support group in the country for activists. "Some people were talking about leaving the cause," says Rubin, who runs the Alliance for Survival, a grass-roots peace and environmental organization in Los Angeles. "But we need a healthy progressive movement. We need to share our frustrations in a safe environment and be there for each other."
So far, the Activists' Support Circle has drawn about 40 people to its first few monthly meetings at the Friends Meeting Hall in Santa Monica. The meetings are informal; you won't find any 12-step program for the weary activist. But the support group functions, in many ways, like any group therapy. Participants talk, listen, cry, hug and complain. "There are so many activists who express just abject despair about what's going on in the world and in the country," says Kataja, who acted as a facilitator at a recent meeting. "It's a kind of paralyzing despair that makes it hard to get up in the morning and do the normal things in life, not just the activists' work."
For some, the emotional pain related to their work is deep and long-standing. There is still bitter talk of the "stolen election" of 2000. The war in Iraq is a sore spot, as is their perception that America's international reputation has been damaged. The gathering is not aimed at work goals, however, but at the feelings generated by their work.
"Feelings, nothing more than feelings......."
"It's not about pushing your own agenda," says Rubin, who founded the group with his wife, Marissa. "Activists are very committed people. They push themselves. That is a good attribute, but it has a negative side too. We all need to have support and to be able to share our frustrations."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 2:00:59 PM ||
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Another echo chamber... yup, that ought to do it.
#11
I intend to see you in an even deeper state of dispair as we roll back the stupidity you have foisted on the nation. Get used to it Twinkie it's going to become your constant companion.
We need to get their address so we can semd them news clippings to not cheer them up.
#12
"We're so happy to be talking together about the feelings we've bottled up." - siad the sheep on their way to the stainless-steel rooms for slaughter....
#13
First we read the by-laws and discuss. Later we will break into sub groups to read and discuss. Now let me say that at these meetings we can't all have our own collection basket. Mine is the official one so before we start drop a 10 spot please. No checks, credit or debit cards. No change cash only. Come find a higher progressive or what have you. Read the bylaws.
Posted by: Kitty D ||
04/25/2005 16:03 Comments ||
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#14
My that's a fine smelling perfume you have Lefty, is it Elderberry based? Please... if I may....
Posted by: Kitty D ||
04/25/2005 16:04 Comments ||
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#15
"Keep working, keep drinking and - take your television's advice.
You know, more TV's reccomend Faith In The System.
Yes, Faith In The System - in easy to swallow Propaganda form, or new fast-acting Thought Control..."
#18
The vicious cycle of BDS kept me from self-determination independency for years. I'm better now though. Wanna buy my book? Perhaps a video? Please?!
#21
Keep whining, you clueless leftie moonbats: your pain nourishes me, it feeds me, its rich, heady liqueur infuses my veins with energy and fills my spirit with hope.
But don't waste too many tears on the present; because the future is going to be much, MUCH worse. Bank on it.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/25/2005 18:23 Comments ||
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#23
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid...
Posted by: Moonbat Hal ||
04/25/2005 18:50 Comments ||
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#24
Despair is good. Only by reaching the deepest depths can the necessary path outward be accepted (yes, I do mean becoming a reality-based neocon, and voting Republican!)
For those Rantburgers who are union members. Editorilal from page A14 of the Wall Street Journal's dead tree version. Registration req'd, so given uncut.
Among the endless piles of paper that make up Washington, a new stack has been rising in a corner of the Department of Labor. But these forms, known as LM-2 disclosure reports, are actually news, especially if you're a dues-paying union member.
The first George W. Bush Administration took a fresh look at the LM-2, which is supposed to reveal how unions spend member dues. The form had remained virtually unchanged since 1959, and today's union leaders were required to provide only the barest details. So in 2004 the Labor Department began to require expanded forms and, while the filing requirement doesn't officially kick in until this summer, a few early birds have started shipping their information.
Talk about eye-openers. Consider a LM-2 filed by a California local of the Communication Workers of America. While the union's spending is fairly routine, its dues base certainly isn't; 47% of its members are "agency fee payers." In plain English, these are members who, exercising their right under the Supreme Court's 1988 Beck decision, have withheld any dues that go to political or non-bargaining-related activity.
This suggests either that the members disagree with their leaders' agenda, or resent their forced enrollment in the union in the first place. It is especially notable because a vote of only 50% of a union's participants can oust the current leadership, or more drastically decertify the union altogether. Evidence of such disgruntlement in the ranks is exactly the sort of information that union chiefs would prefer to keep quiet.
The rank and file are also beginning to see a precise breakdown of how their money is spent. Prior to the new form, unions could lump millions into vague categories such as "overhead," or the ever-favorite "other disbursements." Unions must now account for dollars spent on anything from the grievance process to organizing to politics. This will help to keep leaders accountable and perhaps reduce such fraud as the officials of a Washington, D.C., teachers union who apparently bought mink coats and alligator shoes with dues money.
The forms will also shine a light on one of labor's darkest, dampest, corners: trusts. These affiliates are barely regulated slush funds into which unions funnel dues and then spend at will. The Detroit Free Press ran articles in 2001 detailing three such funds that the United Auto Workers ostensibly set up to finance worker training but in fact were also used by the top brass to sponsor Nascar racing, host political parties and underwrite trips to Palm Springs. Under the new rules, unions will have to account for this trust spending.
The AFL-CIO has branded the new rule "anti-union" but it's hard to see how. Unions exist to benefit their members, not their leaders. It's especially odd to see AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney, who stumps for greater corporate disclosure, demanding that labor chieftains be exempt from comparable transparency. As it is, the new disclosure rules apply only to the largest unions, those with annual receipts over $250,000 (about 5,000 of 30,000 unions).
None of this has stopped the AFL-CIO from attempting to block the regulation in court on grounds that Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao lacks the authority to order such disclosure; a panel of appellate judges will rule on the case soon. Assuming Ms. Chao prevails, unions will begin delivering their first required reckonings this summer.
The battle over the future of the New York Stock Exchange took an unusual twist last week when a former director and close friend of the ousted chairman, Richard A. Grasso, reached out to Wall Street executives, suggesting that he might pull together a competing bid for the Big Board, executives close to the talks said yesterday.
The New York Stock Exchange announced last week that it would buy Archipelago, an electronic trading firm, and become a public company.
Kenneth G. Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot and chief executive of a boutique investment banking firm, contacted a handful of Wall Street executives to gauge their support to mount a rival bid, these people said. He and an unidentified investor are willing to put up $200 million in cash, they said. The news was first reported yesterday on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal.
It is unclear whether the executives he has contacted will join the effort. Indeed, Mr. Langone would have to match the value of the deal struck last week. The combined entity is valued at $4.7 billion and the Big Board at $3.3 billion, based on the market value of Archipelago on Friday... "Turn those machines back on!"
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
04/25/2005 10:34:47 AM ||
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#1
(1) This is Not a Good Thing.
(2) This story has all the earmarks of an anti-CIA leak in the ongoing CIA vs. DOD/the Administration war.
Posted by: too true ||
04/25/2005 19:08 Comments ||
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ISLAMABAD - The IMF expects robust economic growth in Pakistan but called on Monday for tighter monetary policy to control inflation, currently running at its highest annual rate since 1997. Pakistan's gross domestic product is expected to grow by 7.0-7.5 percent in the financial year ending in June, but the country needed to increase the rate of growth while reducing poverty and tackling inflation, IMF regional director, Mohsin S. Khan, said.
Seven percent? Are they using Monopoly money?
"Rapid import and credit growth and rising core inflation indicate that the economy continues to heat up," Khan said at the beginning of a two-day annual conference of Pakistan's international donors and lenders. "There is a growing risk that expectations of higher inflation become entrenched," he said.
If that happened, Pakistan would need a harsher tightening of monetary policy, he said. "Higher price and wage pressures, combined with limited exchange rate flexibility, as witnessed since the beginning of the year, could eventually hurt Pakistan's competitiveness," he said.
As if the Bugtis have any notion of 'exchange rate flexibility'.
Pakistan's consumer price index rose 10.25 percent in the 12 months through March, its highest inflation rate since 1997. With a 12.7 percent increase in money supply in the first three quarters of the financial year, most industries operating at full capacity, and a large monetary overhang from the last three years, the Asian Development Bank last week projected full-year inflation for the fiscal year would exceed 7.5 percent.
Khan said Pakistan had convincingly recovered from the financial crisis of the late 1990's—when foreign exchange reserves shrank to the equivalent of a few weeks imports—and was on a higher growth rate. But poverty remained a problem. About 30 percent of Pakistan's 155 million people live below the poverty line, official estimates show.
And about 97% of them live in conditions that you and I would never tolerate. The rest are holy men and Army officers ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2005 9:11:11 AM ||
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XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN APRIL 24, 2005 17:00:28 ET XXXXX
NYT: PANIC HAS SET IN A ROCKEFELLER CENTER OVER NBC 'TODAY' SHOW
NEW YORK TIMES writer Alessandra Stanley is set to kick NBC's TODAY show host Katie Couric when she is down -- kick her hard! The whole MSM should get the same treatment until the media-droids are reduced to begging outside porn theaters and living under bridges.
Facing audience erosion, Couric "has grown downright scary: America's girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall," Stanley is planing to smack in Monday editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE. "Hopefully" she can escape to Syria, a wish she expressed on behalf of the Saddam devil-spawn a couple of years ago.
"At the first sound of her peremptory voice and clickety stiletto heels, people dart behind doors and douse the lights." She-wolf of the MSM
NBC has turned TODAY and Couric "into a Marxist-style cult of personality. Taking her role-models too seriously, eh?
The camera fixates on Couric's legs during interviews, she performs in innumerable skits and stunts, and her clowning is given center stage even during news events. TODAY hit a low point in July, when Saddam Hussein appeared in a Baghdad courtroom to hear the charges he will face when he goes to trial as a war criminal. She was almost literally in sackcloth and ashes the day after he was captured, funereal black dress, puffy reddened eyes, tone of near-despair; you would think that her best friend had just died--rather than just being thrown in jail.
"All the networks interrupted their programming to show live images of Saddam -- all except NBC. TODAY stayed on Couric swatting shuttlecocks with the U.S. Olympic badminton team." Stanley punches: "Something has to be very wrong with NBC's TODAY if viewers are turning to ABC's Diane Sawyer as a refreshingly wholesome, down-to-earth alternative." Well, there are reported to be nude pics of Sawyer ("hopefully" very old pics) on the net and none of Al-Qatie.
Impacting late Sunday...
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Filed By Matt Drudge
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
04/25/2005 12:17:18 AM ||
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#1
There's something exceedingly pathetic about Couric's precipitous slide from cutesy cheerleader to the bitch from Hell.
Okay, that's as close as I'll get to caring. Ax her ass. Give us another smarmy uber-sincere fake to not watch. Pay her a ton. Who cares? No one. No one at all, NBC.
#3
Not suprising at all. They should kick her down the stairs sooner rather than later. She'll land on her feet and the brain damage won't alter the end product she'll produce at some other media outlet/sewer opening.
#5
Well, that's what they all get for trying to "re-create" "news" as "info-tainment". What will be hilarious is if someone creates a low-budget program of 'dry' news with a minimum of news wire pap, and read by an ugly guy with the delivery of Jack Webb. At it is a huge hit.
#9
I remember about six years ago when she came into town for a local-hosted Today show feed (in Providence). The way the local staff oohed and ahhed and fawned all over her was nauseating. Of course, she just sucked it all up like she was the Queen.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 ||
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There are widespread problems in taking samples and confirming the presence of the virus. Its unclear to what extent the reduction in cases is due to tigher classification criteria. The government has removed from the total about half the previously reported cases outside Uige.
#2
Phil, when you look at the SARS numbers, you find the same thing. The ending total was no where near the number originally reported. Also, remember that about 1/3 of the cases are "presumed" to have happened before the virus was identified on March 21. Sloppy data from WHO and an initial and understandable urge to classify everything as Marburg.
#3
Chuck, I agree, but my point was the increase in cases may have been overstated previously and now the decline may be understated becuase of reclassification of cases. Hence the decline in new cases may be more apparent than real. It does look like it is declining but there is still plenty of opportunity for Marburg to spread to places that are much harder to access than the provincial capital. North east Angola is a big place with almost no roads. What will WHO, MSF do with an outbreak in a place (or places) that can only be accessed on foot.
Former Israeli President Ezer Weizman, a flying ace and crack military commander who built up the nation's air force and helped bring about the Jewish state's first peace treaty with an Arab country, has died, Israeli officials said Sunday. He was 80.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 ||
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An Afghan man killed his daughter for allegedly committing adultery, officials said Sunday, but denied reports that she was stoned to death.
"Whaddya think we are? Barbarians?"
Media reports had said the woman was stoned to death in the Badakhshan province by villagers who caught her in the home of a man other than her husband — a punishment allowed under Islamic law and more commonly reported under the former Taliban government. But police said the reports were mistaken and that Aslam carried out the killing alone on Thursday. The man she had visited was beaten as a warning but remained alive. "With the fundamentalists and the hardline mullahs who are in that area, these things are not impossible," Shah Jahan Noori, the provincial police chief, told The Associated Press. "But I know that in this case she was not stoned."
The reaction to this story is significantly different than the reaction to similar incidents in Pakland, I note...
Deputy Gov. Haji Shamsul Rahman said the woman went to the house of a man called Mohammed Karim last Wednesday evening. He said Karim's father had spied the couple, locked them in the house and called people from the village to witness their supposed crime. Mohammed Aslam was then summoned. "According to our report, when Amina's father took his daughter back home, the father killed his daughter out of shame," Rahman said. Neither he nor the police chief knew exactly how she was killed. Mohammed Karim was beaten by the villagers "as a lesson to the other young people" but escaped with his life, Rahman said. The officials said authorities were on their way to the village to detain Mohammed Aslam, Mohammed Karim, Karim's father and the woman's husband, who had recently returned from Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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...the woman's husband, who had recently returned from Iran. Hmmm...
#2
I think it would be nice if they displayed the balls of the perpetrators at the gates of the city as a warning for future perpetrators of "honor" (1) crimes.
(1) Anyone noticed that the guy was allowed to escape. Anyone noticed that when hear we hear about the murder of a raped girl, in Turkey, advanced and liberal Turkey, we never hear of the relatives having tried to kill the man? (2) Would it be because hunting a man is dangerous business so her loving father and brothers prefer killing the girl and settle at it?
(2) There was a time where honor killing was not unheard of in Spain. But the relatives would go after the man too.
#3
I'm told that it's commonly accepted in parts of the U.S. that whoever the husband finds in bed with his wife gets to die with her. Immediately. It's considered temporary insanity.
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.
Scientists in Hamburg, Germany, are baffled by the strange deaths of hundreds of toads after they apparently exploded in and around a pond, according to a Local 6 News report. As many as 1,000 toads have died after their bodies swelled to bursting point and then exploded, according to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians.The area around the pond in Hamburg has been cordoned off as experts investigate the dead toads. Scientists are looking at a fungus that may have been spread by foreign race horses from a nearby track, Local 6 News reported Sunday.
A group of monkeys descended on an Orissa village, quaffed down pots of an intoxicating brew lying in the open and then set upon the villagers, injuring three of them. The incident occurred in Baralapokhari village near Bhadrak town, 142 km from here. Irate villagers struck back at the inebriated monkeys with sticks and other weapons and drove them away. The injured have been hospitalised. The intoxicating 'pana' drink had been prepared from marijuana leaves as part of an offering to Hindu gods on the occasion of the Oriya new year Friday. The villagers had kept it in pots outside their huts to ferment, an official said.
More than 700 Bangladeshi workers ransacked their country's embassy here yesterday, smashing furniture and pulling down chandeliers until police restored order, the Bangladeshi ambassador said. The rioters slightly injured two Bangladeshi civilians who happened to be visiting the embassy, Ambassador 
Venezuela's President 
An Afghan man killed his daughter for allegedly committing adultery, officials said Sunday, but denied reports that she was stoned to death.
