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Israeli cabinet okays Fatah prisoner release
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
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14 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [] 
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1 00:00 Glusorong the Slender4698 [4] 
4 00:00 tu3031 [4] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 4: Opinion
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3 00:00 Cindy Sheehan [3]
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14 00:00 JosephMendiola [17]
2 00:00 Excalibur [1]
38 00:00 mcsegeek1 [18]
3 00:00 Angaiger Tojo1904 [11]
-Short Attention Span Theater-
Newspaper Demographics
The latest survey revealed the following:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country . . . or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. The Cleveland Daily Banner is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 07/09/2007 15:43 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  *giggle*
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/09/2007 19:30 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Two Billion Chinese Mice Overrun Lake Area
BEIJING -- People living in communities surrounding a large shallow lake have been overrun by field mice after floodwaters drove the rodents out of islands on the lake, state media reported Monday.

The mouse invasion began on June 23 when the Yangtze River flooded, raising the water level in central China's Dongting Lake and submerging mouse holes on lake islands, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Now, an estimated 2 billion mice are ravaging crops in 22 counties around the lake, and authorities were rushing to construct walls and ditches to keep the rodents out. Residents have killed more than 2.3 million field mice -- or 90 tons of the rodents, Xinhua said.

In Hunan province's Yiyang County, a ditch along the lakeshore was filled with mice. Residents were using clubs and shovels to beat them to death, while others scooped the furry animals out using fishing nets.

Mice have already damaged dikes and ruined crops in areas where authorities were slow to build walls and ditches, Xinhua said.

The rodent problem was expected to worsen as more floods were forecast for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and Dongting Lake.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 07/09/2007 10:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reminds of the tale of the Bishop of Bingen, and his mouse tower on the Rhine.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 07/09/2007 10:58 Comments || Top||

#2 

:: shudder ::
Posted by: Seafarious || 07/09/2007 11:38 Comments || Top||

#3  Note to chinese : if you hire a certain pied piper of unknown and mysterious background, make sure you pay him as agreed, your one-child policy would mix badly with his reaction, should you not abide to the contract.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 07/09/2007 12:05 Comments || Top||

#4  Note to self: Don't buy any foodstuff made in China which lists chicken as an ingredient.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 07/09/2007 12:13 Comments || Top||

#5  Time for China to import cats
Posted by: 3dc || 07/09/2007 12:40 Comments || Top||

#6  Time for China to import cats

They would just eat them.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 07/09/2007 12:44 Comments || Top||

#7  Must be time for the Hajj.
Posted by: Icerigger || 07/09/2007 14:49 Comments || Top||

#8  Let them eat flied mice.

Posted by: Zenster || 07/09/2007 15:57 Comments || Top||

#9  mmmm....

Fried Mice.
Posted by: DarthVader || 07/09/2007 16:10 Comments || Top||

#10  Mouse flambeaux. Nutritious, tasty rodent. NuTaR bar is in your future.
Posted by: zazz || 07/09/2007 16:43 Comments || Top||

#11  How do they know the mice are Chinese?
Posted by: gorb || 07/09/2007 18:25 Comments || Top||

#12  If any of you girls need a big strong man to hug you during this crisis, I'm available.
Posted by: wxjames || 07/09/2007 18:33 Comments || Top||

#13  They need some WMD's. Weapons of Mouse Destruction.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 07/09/2007 20:44 Comments || Top||

#14  *grooaaaaan*

Go to your room, DB. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/09/2007 22:04 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Turkmenistan TV erases face of former leader
The image of Turkmenistan's late autocratic leader, long shown on television screens during most programmes, disappeared from broadcasts yesterday, the latest of his successor's steps to diminish Saparmurat Niyazov's personality cult.

The gold-coloured profile of former president Niyazov, who died in December after two decades of iron-fisted rule in the natural gas-rich Central Asian country, had been a symbol of Turkmenistan's four government television channels. It appeared in the right-hand corner of the screen during virtually all broadcasts. The authorities did not comment on its removal yesterday.

Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, Niyazov's successor, has scrapped some of his least-popular policies and moved toward greater transparency. However, he has given no sign that he will scrap one-party rule. In recent months, the new president has removed his predecessor's name from a patriotic oath and some of his once-ubiquitous portraits from streets and newspapers.
Although Mr Berdymukhamedov has told ministers that he should no longer be met by singing schoolchildren, dancers and oaths of loyalty, some of his portraits have replaced those of Niyazov in government buildings. The new leader has awarded himself a massive gold and diamond pendant and issued silver and gold coins with his portrait on his 50th birthday, in what analysts said were efforts to begin a new personality cult.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/09/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Niyazov, we'll miss ye. *tear*

This new fellow Berdymukhamedov is just a lame copycat. Personality cult, my ass. Niyazov had more personality in his fingernail clippings than this new guy.
Posted by: gromky || 07/09/2007 2:29 Comments || Top||

#2  I can say one good thing about Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov - his name would net you a sh*tload of points in a game of Scrabble.

Other than that, one cult of personality is just as good as another.
Posted by: Glusorong the Slender4698 || 07/09/2007 3:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Names and other proper nouns aren't acceptable in Scrabble. Lose a turn, and take the tiles back into your hand.
Posted by: gromky || 07/09/2007 6:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Did they get rid of that big gold statue of him that rotates with the sun? Or did they just replace the head with the new guy's?
Posted by: tu3031 || 07/09/2007 10:40 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Kamikaze Cult Revived in Japan
CHIRAN, Japan — On April 12, 1945, Lt. Shinichi Uchida faced a terrifying mission — crash his plane into a U.S. warship. But the young kamikaze's final letter to his grandparents was full of bravado. "Now I'll go and get rid of those devils," the 18-year-old wrote shortly before his final flight, vowing to "bring back the neck" of President Roosevelt. He never returned.

For many, such words are redolent of the militarism that drove Japan to ruin in World War II. But for an increasingly bold cadre of conservatives, Uchida's words symbolize something else: just the kind of guts and commitment that Japanese youth need today.

Long a synonym for the waste of war, the suicidal flyers are now being glorified in a film written by Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, a well-known nationalist and co-author of the 1989 book "The Japan that Can Say No." And a museum about the kamikazes in the southern town of Chiran, near the airstrip where Uchida and others took off, gets more than 500,000 visitors a year.

"The worries, sufferings, and misgivings of these young people ... are something we cannot find in today's society," Ishihara said when his movie, "I Go to Die For You," opened this spring. "That is what makes this portrait of youth poignant and cruel, and yet so exceptionally beautiful," he said.

No one is publicly calling for young Japanese to kill themselves for the nation these days. But the renewed hero-worship of the kamikazes coincides with a general trend in Japanese society toward seeing the country's war effort as noble, and mourning the fading of the ethic of self-sacrifice amid today's wealth.

The government has stepped up efforts to expunge accounts of Japanese atrocities from history books and reinstate patriotic instruction in the public schools. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, like his popular predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, is pushing to revise the pacifist constitution.

The estimated 4,000 kamikaze — or "divine wind" — pilots were named after a legendary typhoon that foiled the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan's invasion of Japan in 1281. Chiran museum officials say as many as 90 percent failed to reach the U.S. warships they were meant to attack.
Posted by: McZoid || 07/09/2007 08:44 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Chiran museum officials say as many as 90 percent failed to reach the U.S. warships they were meant to attack

So it might take 20 kamikaze (two get through) to take out a ship with 500 sailors. Pretty good odds.
Posted by: KBK || 07/09/2007 18:23 Comments || Top||

#2  If you considered how many US flight crews perished to sink the 4 Jap carriers off Midway in June 1942, the odds for the kamikazes seem pretty good.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/09/2007 18:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Next step: Raise the YAMATO!
Posted by: borgboy2001 || 07/09/2007 20:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Nothing wrong with kamikazis that the right target won't cure - just point them to a certain couple of cities in the ME.... :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/09/2007 22:07 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Dingell to propose 50 cent gasoline tax increase
Posted by: 3dc || 07/09/2007 15:18 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) will propose a new carbon tax that would increase the gasoline tax by 50 cents, the lawmaker said in an interview on C-SPAN's ‘Newsmakers’ airing Sunday.

In the interview, Dingell acknowledged that voters may not be willing to bear the cost of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and that he would propose the new tax “just to sort of see how people really feel about this.”


Here we go. Dirty politicians trying to line their couffers through a ficticious "global warming" lie.
Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for Chusoling1715 || 07/09/2007 16:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Here we go. Dirty politicians trying to line their couffers through a ficticious "global warming" lie.

I call for hearings into Congress's outrageous windfall gasoline profits.
Posted by: xbalanke || 07/09/2007 17:54 Comments || Top||

#3  D-Mich.
That's good, John. Help put another coupla nails in the US auto industry coffin.
I'm sure your constituents won't mind...
Posted by: tu3031 || 07/09/2007 18:02 Comments || Top||

#4  You'd think he'd realize that a $20/bbl tariff would make a lot more sense.
Posted by: KBK || 07/09/2007 18:11 Comments || Top||

#5  Just what we need--another damned tax. Trying to slow down the economy John? How about stuffing this tax?
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/09/2007 18:27 Comments || Top||

#6  And some of us are worried about a donk victory ?
I say the trunks should vote 'present' and let the tax pass. Then remind everyone who brought us the great gas tax increase of 2007.
Posted by: wxjames || 07/09/2007 18:36 Comments || Top||

#7  I want free gasoline. And a Cadillac.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/09/2007 18:42 Comments || Top||

#8  It's designed to fail. Dingell represents the auto industry and is proposing this knowing it will be massively shot down. The strategy is by showing massive voter disapproval, smaller incremental carbon taxes also get killed.
Posted by: ed || 07/09/2007 23:13 Comments || Top||

#9  Maybe he's looking to retire and just doesn't give a rat's ass any more? Hell, he's been in longer than I've been alive, so he must have a nice pension in place.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie || 07/09/2007 23:48 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Teenage girl axed to death in karo kari
MIRPURKHAS: A teenage girl was axed to death for karo kari by her elder brother who injured her alleged paramour Saturday in village Laldin, Taluka Kunri, district Umerkot. According to reports, accused Prem Kolhi alias Pumyo suddenly attacked his eighteen-year-old sister Shremti Leela Kolhi in their house. He then went to his neighbour Gulab Kolhi’s house and attacked him for allegedly having relations with his sister. Gulab was rushed to Taluka Hospital Kunri from where he was referred to LMUH Hyderabad. The body of Shremti Leela was moved to Civil Hospital Umerkot by the Kunri police where a post mortem was carried out before her body was handed to her family. The Kunri police have lodged a murder case against Prem Kolhi and arrested him in a raid along with the murder weapon.
Posted by: Fred || 07/09/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Karaoke kills!
Posted by: Glusorong the Slender4698 || 07/09/2007 3:48 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
44[untagged]
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2007-07-09
  Israeli cabinet okays Fatah prisoner release
Sun 2007-07-08
  Pak arrests Talibigs
Sat 2007-07-07
  100 Murdered in Turkmen Village of Amer Li
Fri 2007-07-06
  Failed assasination attempt at Musharraf
Thu 2007-07-05
  1200 surrender at Lal Masjid
Abul Aziz Ghazi nabbed sneaking out in burka
Wed 2007-07-04
  12 dead as Lal Masjid students provoke gunfight
Tue 2007-07-03
  UK bomb plot suspect 'arrested in Brisbane'
Mon 2007-07-02
  Algerian security forces bang Ali Abu Dahdah
Sun 2007-07-01
  Lebs find car used in Gemayel murder
Sat 2007-06-30
  Car, petrol attack at Glasgow airport terminal
Fri 2007-06-29
  Car bomb defused in central London
Thu 2007-06-28
  Brown replaces Blair
Wed 2007-06-27
  Lebanon arrests 40 Fatah al-Islam gunnies
Tue 2007-06-26
  Tony Blair to be confirmed as Middle East envoy
Mon 2007-06-25
  Boomer kills 6 UN soldiers in south Lebanon


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