Earlier today, the port side of the blogosphere erupted in righteous indignation as reports that Air America radio host Randi Rhodes got mugged began to swirl. Many bloggers started blaming a nameless conservative mugger, and then began extending the indictment to the entire conservative movement. It served their prejudices to think that conservative meanies would lay in wait for Rhodes just to keep her from speaking Truth to Power, etc etc etc.
Air America radio host Randi Rhodes is temporarily off the air, but claims she was brutally attacked near her Manhattan apartment are bogus, her lawyer and a police source said today.
Fellow host Jon Elliott claimed on the liberal radio network that Rhodes had been mugged while walking her dog, Simon, on Sunday night. Elliot, who said Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack, waxed about a possible conspiracy. . . .
A police source said Rhodes never filed a report and never claimed to be the victim of a mugging. Cops from Manhattan's 17th Precinct called her attorney, who told them Rhodes was not a victim of a crime, the source said.
So what are we to make of this?
1. Air America lies, even when stories involve their own personnel. No one thought to give Randi a call to see how she was doing before Elliot decided to air his report? And no one thought to do so afterwards? The police ended up calling to see why no one reported the incident to them. That's just marvelous journalistic ethics.
2. Anyone who thinks that bigotry has no place in the liberal mindset has -- once again -- just received a material lesson to the contrary. Even without knowing anything about the attacker, several bloggers just decided that it had to be a politically motivated assault by a conservative. That's not leaping to conclusions, that's flying at jet speed to Paranoialand.
. . .
What an embarrassment, especially for Air America. They have once again demonstrated why no one listens to them, and it has nothing to do with the Fairness Doctrine. It has everything to do with credibility. They can't even do fact-checking with their colleagues, let alone anywhere else.
Addendum: I'm sorry to hear that Rhodes injured herself in a fall, and hope she feels better soon. I'm glad that she apparently still has all her teeth, too.
Michelle Malkin has more:
The nutroots are sorely disappointed. But the truth isnt likely to stop them from believing that its the Reich-wings fault.
Rush Limbaugh tripped her! Ann Coulter silenced her! Karl Rove poisoned her dog!
Newsday: Talk show host apologizes for faulty report of NYC mugging
Air America released a statement saying that the reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded. Elliott followed that up with a retraction.
I shouldnt have speculated based on hearsay that Randi Rhodes had been mugged and that it may have been an attack from a right wing hate machine. I apologize for jumping to conclusions based on my incurable chronic Bush Derangement Syndrome an emotional reaction, he said in a written statement.
#4
This is just too strange. How would that story line even get started? Did she make it up because she was drunk? Is she in an abusive relationship where she frequently "trips and falls down the stairs"?
She lost teeth! It's not like her co-workers would not ask, "How did it happen?" Enquiring minds want to know where/how the brutal mugging story got started.
#7
Why DID she name her dog Simon? how can he hold is little doggie head up at doggie day care whilst sniffing other dogbutts and have to listen to the taunts.....
Lefties have no shame limits.
#11
and drinking Ketel 1 in an Irish bar? Pushed her luck too many times
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/17/2007 18:34 Comments ||
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#12
BUT WHY WOULD RHODES PUT HERSELF IN SUCH A POSITION?
You know its bad for the post-9-11/Clinton US DEMOLEFT when even ANTI-US + NEUTRAL, WORLD-US NETTERS HARSHLY CRITICIZE THEM AS A CLASS FOR WANTING/CRAVING POWER SO MUCH AS TO RISK BETRAYING = DESTROYING THEIR OWN COUNTRY.
* NATIONAL REVIEW MAGZ Letter > TAIWAN versus CHINA > As a popular legitimate local democracy, Taiwan finds its Govt subject to serious Intra-Party = multi-Party infighting and sectarianism/
factionalism. IRONY > COMMUNIST CHINA, AS A "FALSE" DEMOCRACY, IS NOT SUBJECT TO SAME. * NEITHER ARE MANY ISLAMIC = ISLAMIST THEOCRACIES.
Unions representing BBC workers have warned that a strike within weeks is inevitable if Mark Thompson, the director general, presses ahead with plans for the largest number of compulsory redundancies in the corporation's history. Mr Thompson will tell the BBC Trust today that 2,000 employees almost a tenth of the workforce will be sacked in an attempt to find £2 billion in budget cuts. He will make a public announcement of the plans tomorrow.
BBC journalists and production staff gathered outside Broadcasting House in London today to lobby BBC Trust members as they arrived for a meeting to finalise plans to plug the funding shortfall. The action came as BBC inside sources said they believe management will call for staff to take voluntary redundancies on Friday.
Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of the broadcasting workers' union Bectu, said: "We are here to lobby them and to explain to them the damage these cuts will have to the liberal bias quality of BBC output, especially propaganda factual programming and left wing bias news programming." "At the moment we are prepared to sit down and have a dialogue with them, but if they are going to call for volunteers we would see that as a undermining our dialogue."
The decision is over the cuts is controversial, with senior broadcasters such as John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman criticising the management for planning to reduce news and current affairs while finding funds for less popular digital channels and internet sites.
As he outlines his cost-cutting blueprint, Mr Thompson will appeal to the BBC Trust, which replaced the board of governors, to stand firm in the face of sustained strike action. A large scale strike would see major programmes taken off air but the chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons insisted that the cuts were not yet finalised. "There are some difficult decisions to make and we will take all the issues into very careful consideration. This isn't a one-off exercise - we will approve the plan today, possibly with further changes," he said as he arrived for today's meeting.
A senior broadcaster, who declined to be named, predicted a furious response from even the less radical most moderate employees to the compulsory redundancies among the 23,000 work force. "There will be a strike. That is definite," he said. "Some big programmes will go off the air. "It's already been a shocker of a year with the rows over phone-in cheating and the Queen. Now they are going to sack 2,000 people. Management have a big fight on their hands."
The stand-off has been caused by Mr Thompson's determination to merge television, radio and online operations as part of the attempt to embrace the internet era. Battle lines have been drawn because following the Government's decision to sanction a much reduced licence fee settlement the BBC has to fill a £2 billion funding gap over the next six years.
The majority of the cuts will come in the 3,000-strong news gathering operation when radio, television and online operations are integrated for the first time. Several hundred jobs will go in the BBC's propaganda factual division, which makes programmes such as Planet Earth. Hundreds more staff will be redeployed in the biggest shake-up in work practices the BBC has undergone. An embargo is to be imposed on recruitment unless it has been sanctioned by the highest authority.
Mr Thompson will meet the unions at 7.30am tomorrow before addressing the staff and can expect to be made fully aware of the scale of hostility his proposals have provoked. The radio news sequences, from Radio 4's PM programme to the World Tonight and the three main BBC1 news programmes, appear safe. But they will pool more staff, resulting in job cuts.
A Spanish warship intercepted a U.S. treasure-hunting vessel that it suspects took gold and silver worth an estimated $500 million from a sunken Spanish galleon, the U.S. crew said on Tuesday. The Spanish Navy corvette blocked the Odyssey Explorer after it left the British territory of Gibraltar and threatened to open fire when the captain refused to let police board. Police later arrested the boat's American captain, Sterling Vorus, a company official said.
The warship had escorted the boat, which belongs to U.S. company Odyssey Marine Exploration, to the Spanish port of Algeciras so police could carry out a search. "They threatened that we must obey or they would use deadly force," Ali Nessar, a company representative on the boat, told Reuters by phone. "We were forced at gunpoint to come to Algeciras."
Wonder if the Odyssey Explorer is an American-flagged ship?
Not sure if the ship is flagged US, but it is definitely an American company. Rantburg covered the seizure of their other ship.
The incident is the latest in a dispute dating back to May when Madrid said Odyssey's discovery of the treasure trove might have come from Spanish waters or from a Spanish galleon in international waters. In both cases Spain remains the rightful owner of the booty, the government says. Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration has said it has legally discovered 17 tons of silver coins plus gold while working on a wreck code-named "Black Swan" at a secret location in the Atlantic Ocean. It says the discovery was made outside of any country's territorial waters.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Captain jack Sparrow + good pirate ship THE BLACK PEARL [late nite video last nite]???
#2
...might have come from Spanish waters or from a Spanish galleon in international waters. In both cases Spain remains the rightful owner of the booty, the government says.
Yeah? And why not the Mexicans?, or Peru? - which is where they stole it from before it was put on the galleons..
#3
IIRC, the admiralty law precedent from the Central America affair is that the cargo still technically belongs to whoever it belonged to (in that instance, the cargo insurer), but the salvager gets a cut of the goodies for having gone to the trouble of retrieving it (in the case of the Central America, 90%!).
Posted by: Mike ||
10/17/2007 9:05 Comments ||
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#4
Spain remains the rightful owner of the booty
Hey, that's our stuff! We stole it fair and square.
#6
I seem to recall the US went to war several times in her history when US ships were seized. Spain got any good properties worth seizing? How about Ibiza? Besides I'm waiting for the Peruvians to seize the Spanish navy as down payment for the stolen treasure.
Posted by: ed ||
10/17/2007 11:10 Comments ||
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#7
Maybe some South American Indian groups should put a claim in on it too, since it was dug out of the ground using them as slave labor.
#8
I read at another site that she is a Bahamas flagged vessel.
Posted by: Cowboy is a compliment ||
10/17/2007 12:56 Comments ||
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#9
Maybe the U.S. Navy could spare a carrier group next time Odyssey Marine Exploration goes out to that secret spot in the Atlantic.
The Spanish are getting to be a bother. It would make my heart feel all warm and fuzzy if they got stopped by one of them there new Goerge Bush class Supercarriers next time they tried to pull a stunt on an American company.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
10/17/2007 13:17 Comments ||
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#10
Why is that if it is "theirs" these countries, insurance companies and others don't develop the technology and the means to recover "their" property. If it sank yesterday I could understand but if it has been on the bottom for centuries then methinks it is abbandoned
Indonesia raised on Tuesday the alert level for Mount Kelud volcano to the highest level, as residents started fleeing amid signs an eruption could be imminent, officials and a witness said.
You never used to hear about this sort of thing happening when Indonesia was a bunch of Buddhist and Hindoo kingdoms...
... no tsunamis, either ...
The number of volcanic earthquakes at Mount Kelud, 90 km (55 miles) southwest of Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya, had soared to more than 300 in a six-hour period from late morning, the country's top volcano expert said by telephone. "An area 10 km from the crater should be evacuated," said Surono, head of the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation in Bandung.
The alert level was raised to maximum "based on the seismic activity, deformation, visual observation and the temperature of the crater lake going up", according to the centre's Web site. An estimated 350,000 people live within 10 km of the volcano on Java island, growing coffee, sugar cane, pineapples and papayas on the rich volcanic soil or feeding their cattle on the volcano's slopes.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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from http://exoticjava.blogspot.com/
Mt. Kelud Volcano
KELUD, East Java
GENERAL INFORMATION
Kelud Volcano (7° 56 ' S and 112° 18' E) is an active strato andesitic volcano located in Kediri, East Java. It's rising of about 1731 m above sea level. The volcano has a crater lake at the summit with the water volume of about 36 million cubic metres at 32 - 35°C and PH of 5.1 before the 1990 eruption (Alzwar,1985).
Reksowirogo(1979) has reported the historical activity of Kelud Volcano since 1000 AD. The largest number of people killed (10,000) was caused by the eruption of 1586. In this century, Kelud erupted in 1901, 1919, 1951, 1966, and 1990 killing a total of 5,400 people.
#2
DRUDGEREPORT . Flame photo allegedly emulates now-deceased John Paul waving to a crowd.
EARTH CHANGES > Indonesia-Sumatra - region is large enuff such that [post earth changes] there will still be habitable areas despite large loss in total-gross geologic/natural land mass. HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, however, will not be so lucky.
*ODYSEUS > "WHY, POSEIDON, WHY!" Poseidon > Becuz without the Gods [God] mankind is nothing.
10 km evac radius. How about 100 km? Indo volcanoes go off with a vengeance. They are not your pretty Hawaii volcanoes with rivers of lava to the sea, ya know. They are like Mother Nature wearing a suicide vest that goes off.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/17/2007 22:30 Comments ||
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The lawyer representing the 75 activists from Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise who were arrested in Harare on Monday has reported that he was assaulted by a senior police official while attending to his clients.
Lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe said he was patiently waiting inside the station for an Inspector Shumba, who was processing arrest sheets for WOZA coordinator Jenni Williams and other members who had been arrested. A Superintendant Tendere arrived with some riot police officers and began interrogating Tafadzwa about his presence at the Station. The Police Superintendant's words soon turned to physical pushing and shoving. Tafadzwa said Tendere then hit him on the jaw with a left jab and ordered the riot police to throw him off the premises.
Fortunately Williams and the WOZA members were released without charge Monday evening. The group had staged a peaceful demonstration earlier to protest police brutality against its members. They marched up First Street to the parliament building's steps where they intended to handover a report on political violence against their activists. It was here that they were arrested, after sitting down instead of dispersing when police arrived.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Army chief General Moeen U Ahmed yesterday dismissed speculations about his becoming president, saying that he has no such intentions. "Many questions are lurking in many people's minds, but time will give answers to all those questions I have no desire to become president," he told reporters at Bangladesh High Commission.
General Moeen, who arrived in London on Monday en route to the USA, said there is no scope for considering army as a separate entity. The army is part of government. Like general people, the army also wants clean democracy in Bangladesh.
He said appointment of consultants is being considered to make the caretaker government more dynamic. Constitutional provisions are being examined in this regard. Narrating the background of declaration of the state of emergency and installation of a new caretaker government, the chief of army staff said the country was heading for a civil war in the wake of violent political activities, absence of law and order and distrust about voter list. General Moeen said priority of the incumbent government is to restore democracy through free and fair elections and transfer of power.
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General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: "If the Trust really believe quality news and current affairs is at the heart of what the BBC does, and viewers say such programmes are what they value most about the BBC, it makes no sense to sack hundreds of staff in these core services.
Got in one. Could be the Brits are tired of being taxed to support supercilious apparatchik twits and their Goebbels-like view of world events.
My prediction: Communists win. Big...
HAVANA (Reuters) - There are no campaigns or TV ads and only one party gets to field candidates in Sunday's local elections in communist Cuba, the first without ailing Fidel Castro in charge. Yet Cubans are expected to turn out massively to elect 15,236 municipal council members in a pyramidal voting process that will culminate in a new National Assembly in March. ...or else.
The legislature, a rubber-stamp parliament until now, could well become an important resonance chamber for debate on Cuba's future as the 81-year-old Castro, who has led the country since a 1959 revolution, fades from the political stage. Yep. Sure could. Uh-huh. Probably about the same time Reuters does a pro American story...
With Castro sidelined by illness and his low-profile brother Raul Castro running Cuba since last year, the Communist Party has urged young Cubans to stand in this year's elections to pump new blood into the country's political leadership. New blood. That's kinda an ominous hint...
"We are young and fresh, the relievers, ready to guarantee that the Revolution continues," said Jose Angel Garcia, 41, a carpenter who repairs doors and shutters of schools in dilapidated central Havana, Cuba's most crowded district. ...as we want our piece of the action.
Under posters of Fidel and Raul Castro pinned to the walls of his workshop, and the slogan "A better world is possible," Garcia says if elected he will press for repairs of the drains in his neighborhood, where sea water comes up the toilets when waves pound the Malecon sea wall a block away. Hey, almost beachfront property in the Worker's Paradise. What are they bitching about?
Around the corner, five-term incumbent Felix Revilla, 72, is a veteran of the Sierra Maestra guerrilla war who sticks to the well-worn official line that all Cuba's problems are the fault of its arch-enemy, the United States."We've endured great hardships due to the American blockade," Revilla said, blaming U.S. trade sanctions for Cuba's crumbling and overcrowded housing, poor public transport and the lack of consumers goods longed for by many Cubans. Probably makes his job a helluva lot easier.
Felix, the trash never gets picked up.
Goddam Americans!
Sitting outside the Palace cinema, where the last picture show was in the mid-1960s and a homeless family now lives with pig and chickens, Revilla points at a crippled building across the street, promising "We're going to build apartments there." When, Felix?
Ummmmmmmm...soon. Goddam Americans!
The former Romeo and Julieta cigar factory, built in 1905, was declared too dangerous to live in two decades ago, but 31 families are still there because authorities have nowhere else to house them. Another 51 families were finally evacuated last month when a floor caved in. Relax, folks. Here, have a cigar. It's a Cuban...
Angry occupants said Sunday's elections were pointless."I won't vote for anyone. What for? Our delegate is useless. Nobody has helped us. Look at where I live," said Ivon Santana, 29, a hospital auxiliary. Hey, Ivon, just shut up and be grateful that you work in the finest health care system in the world. Mikey Moore told me.
She and other women in the building accused Revilla, who heads a construction brigade, of selling on the black market materials handed out by the state, a charge he denied when he heard about it through an informant. Corruption and informants in the Worker's Paradise, Felix?
Goddam Americans!
Campaign publicity is limited to the candidate's photograph and CV stuck to shop windows. Candidates do not have to be card-carrying members of the Communist Party, but most are. Nominations were handled by the Committees to Defend the Revolution, neighborhood watch groups set up by the government on almost every block in Cuba. Probably makes that exit polling so much easier...
So what do your numbers say, Pedro?
This just in Jose! Looks to me like it's an upset! The...no... wait. Nope. Communists win! Again!
Voting is not obligatory in Cuba, but officials expect 95 percent of the voting population to turn up at polling stations. Staying away can raise eyebrows in the neighborhood. And I'll bet there's a lotta eyes under those eyebrows. And loose tounges.
Cuba says its electoral system, set up in 1976, is the most democratic in the world because money cannot buy votes and delegates are chosen at the neighborhood level and then get elected to the provincial and national assemblies. Kinda like the Mass State Rep elections, except they keep all the money, stash their relatives on the campaign commitee and pay them with it...
Critics call it a travesty of democracy that should be replaced by multi-party elections. "The Communist Party wants to make it look like a new generation is emerging," said Cuba's best-known dissident, Oswaldo Paya. "Cubans are tired of this system and want to see real change."
#3
did President Bush just get a 4-bagger?
-show support for the Buddhists and their current struggles
-showcase China and its aggressions
-highlight what a real nobel peace laureate is
-flip off China for that air collision crap at the beginning of his administration
personally, I would like to know if the 'free tibet' people in blue kansas are
a)replacing their faded bumper stickers
b)tearing them off because it was something Booosh did
c)completely unaware because John Stewart didn't tell them
The Hague (AKI) - The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today upheld the acquittal of a former deputy army commander for the Bosnian Muslim forces during the Balkan wars on charges related to a massacre of 13 Bosnian Croat civilians in 1993.
The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), sitting in The Hague, found that the trial chamber was correct in November 2005 to acquit Sefer Halilovic.
Halilovic, 55, had pleaded not guilty to the charge of command responsibility in the murders committed by Bosnian Muslim troops in the village of Grabovica, about 30 kilometres north of Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina in September 1993.
He served as chief of the main staff of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, and prosecutors alleged that he was the commander of a military operation known as Neretva-93 that led to the killings in Grabovica by troops billeted in the village.
But the appeals chamber said prosecutors had failed to show that it was not reasonable of the trial chamber to find that Halilovic did not have the required degree of effective control over the troops to establish his superior responsibility under the law.
Meanwhile, the ICTY's chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte addressed EU foreign ministers on Monday, saying that although Serbia has provided some of the requested documents and archives, its overall cooperation does not match its stated commitments to the tribunal.
Full access to some crucial archives has been denied so far, while a number of important documents have not yet been provided, she said.
She also criticised Serbias efforts to secure the arrest and extradition of the four remaining fugitives from the ICTY: Ratko Mladic; Radovan Karadzic; Goran Hadzic; and Stojan Zupljanin.
I confirm that the situation today is better than it was a year ago, Del Ponte said. However, cooperation is still too slow and not yet sufficient. The fact that Ratko Mladic is still at large after all the promises and declarations that have been made over the years clearly demonstrates that fact.
Karadzic, 62, the former Bosnian Serb president, and Mladic, 65, the former military chief, each face numerous charges, including genocide, extermination, murder, persecutions, deportation, taking of hostages and inflicting terror on civilians.
Hadzic, 49, is charged with murder, persecutions, torture, cruel treatment and other war crimes and crimes against humanity related to his role as president of a self-proclaimed breakaway state of rebel Serbs in southern Croatia during the early 1990s.
Zupljanin, 56, has been indicted on many counts, including murder, torture, forcible transfers and the wanton destruction of towns and villages. He served in the senior leadership in the Autonomous Region of Krajina, part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an area that became notorious for its treatment of non-Serbs.
#1
From the Bush White House to the EU to the UN to the Russian President, when Muslims hold up a hoop depraved world leaders jump through it. When will the public become sick of this cockroach feeding?
Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire stake today, according to a person briefed on the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years. The person declined to be identified because Morgan Stanley hasn't made the sale public yet. Traders with knowledge of the transaction said Merrill Lynch & Co. sold New York Times stock worth $183 million in a block trade.
#1
New York Times shares slid 54 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $18.37 at 2:51 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and fell as low as $18.24, a level not seen since January 1997.
heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/17/2007 15:09 Comments ||
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#2
Got to find the fool*, there's a lot of subprime loan corporate fronts that need a buyer too.
#7
Apparently they sold to Merrill Lynch who will remarket. Could be at a substantial discount to market and may be held to speculate on going private or to sell to NYT direct if not to public in smaller lots (though this is hard to imagine). The test will be tomorrow when other institutional holders start to unwind their positions.
#8
CHIN MIL FORUM > UNCONFIRMED > Poster claims to had heard news BOMBAY [India] STOCK MARKET HAD JUST CRASHED TODAY. Initially lost over 50 % of value but may have begun a recovery of yet undetermined scale. See also TOPIX > THE BATTLE OVER CURRENCIES.
#7
NATIONAL REVIEW MAGZ CARTOON > Couch Patient says to PsychoAnalyst/Psychiatrist - "It was horrible - I dreamt the Bushes and Clintons intermarried". LOOKS LIKE THE CHENY-OBAMA NEWS HAS INDUCED SOME NETTERS TO BEGIN INVESTIGATIN' THE GOP-DEM USG-NPE GENE POOLS.
#10
USN, Ret/Biged - Whe I first saw the article I was afraid this would be a dem's wet dream come true - I imagined it would make some assertion that a Cheney family member owned a slave ancestor of Obama.
Yes, the black sheep comment would've been very bad. Unless it's a dem who says it.
Outbreak of temporary sanity in the Dhimmi leadership.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution supported by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago.
Almost a dozen lawmakers had shifted against the measure over the last 24 hours, accelerating a sudden exodus that has cast deep doubt over the measures prospects. Some representatives made clear that they were heeding warnings from the White House, which has called the measure dangerously provocative, and from the Turkish government, which has said House passage would prompt Turkey to reconsider its ties to the United States, including logistical support for the Iraq war.
Until today, the resolution appeared to be on a path to House passage, with strong support from the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California. It was approved last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But this evening, a group of group of senior House Democrats had made it known they were planning to ask the leadership to drop plans for a vote on the measure. Turkey obviously feels they are getting poked in the eye over something that happened a century ago, and maybe this isnt a good time to be doing that, said Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat who dropped his sponsorship of the resolution Monday night. .
Others who took the same action said that while they deplored the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, beginning in 1915, the modern-day consequences in the Middle East could not be overlooked. We simply cannot allow the grievances of the past as real as they may be to in any way derail our efforts to prevent further atrocities for future history books, said Representative Wally Herger, Republican of California.
Attaboy, Wally. Keep making sense, you never know when it will stick.
I think it is a good resolution and horrible timing, said Representative Mike Ross, Democrat of Arkansas.
The Turkish government has lobbied heavily against the resolution, which is nonbinding and largely symbolic. But lawmakers attributed the erosion in support mainly to fears about a potential Turkish decision to deny American access to critical military facilities in that nation and its threat to move forces into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels. This vote came face to face with the reality on the ground in that region of the world, said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and an opponent of the resolution.
Think maybe next time you guys could reason these things through before putting them on the floor?
The Bush administration and top American generals have been vocal in warning that passage of the resolution could cause great harm to the American war effort in Iraq and have put significant pressure on Republicans to abandon their support for the measure. President Bush called Ms. Pelosi today and asked her to prevent a floor vote on the resolution. The president and the speaker exchanged candid views on the subject and the speaker explained the strong bipartisan support in the House for the resolution, said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi.
The Democratic leadership has been examining the exact level of that support to gauge its next step, but lawmakers and officials said it was now unclear whether the resolution could be approved, given Republican resistance and Democratic defections. We will have to determine where everyone is, said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader.
Ms. Pelosi, who has promised a vote on the resolution if it cleared the Foreign Affairs Committee, said she was leaving it to its chief backers to round up votes. I have never known a count, she said.
Backers of the resolution, which has the fervent backing of the Armenian-American community, described the loss of support as slight and attributed it to the intense lobbying by the Turkish government, the Bush administration and their allies. They said they would try to change the minds of some of those who were wavering. This is what happens when you are up against a very sophisticated multimillion-dollar campaign, said Representative Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, who chided the Turkish government. Since when it has become fashionable for friends to threaten friends.
Explain why this is so important to you, Brad, this particular genocide and none of the others in the world. Perhaps you could condemn the Great Leap Forward, the Pol Pot Genocide and Ukraine famine first?
But he acknowledged there was little margin of error for backers of the resolution, which had once boasted 225 co-sponsors. If the vote were held today, I would not want to be my house on the outcome, he said.
Mr. Sherman and others noted that Turkey, at the start of the Iraq war, had refused to let American forces operate from its territory, and that Turkeys intentions toward the northern border of Iraq had clearly captured the attention of Congress.
American military officials in Iraq and in Washington said today that they were concerned about possible Turkish military incursions into northern Iraq against the Kurdish rebels, which the Turkish government blames for a wave of attacks in eastern Turkey. At the moment, these officials said, they did not see many indications that Turkish military was preparing for large-scale incursion into the mountainous strongholds of the Kurdish rebels. They d expressed hope that diplomatic efforts under way between Iraqi and Turkish officials would ease the crisis.
We see no signs that theres anything imminent by Turkey, one senior military officer said. So theres time for the diplomacy to work for a few more days, if not weeks. But, he added, the situation could get ugly if Turkey sent troops across the border and they clashed with Kurdish militias or Iraqi forces.
The biggest fear, several former officials said, is that Turkish forces could push past the border and head for Kirkuk, forcing Iraq to respond and presenting the United States with mediating between two allies and a decision about whether to commit American troops. Such a crisis could also draw in Iran, which has also had growing problems with Kurdish groups crossing into its territory from Iraq.
In addition to the potential movement of Turkish forces, opponents of the Armenian genocide resolution continued to point to Turkeys role as a prime staging area for moving American military supplies into Iraq.
This happened a long time ago and I dont know whether it was a massacre or a genocide; that is beside the point, said Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is urging Ms. Pelosi to keep the resolution from the floor. The point is, we have to deal with todays world.
Lawzy lawzy, even John Murtha sees the light.
While the resolution enjoyed more than enough support to pass earlier this year, about two dozen lawmakers have removed their names from the official list of sponsors of the resolution in recent weeks as a vote on it grew more likely and the reservations grew more pronounced.
I think there was genocide in Turkey, in 1915, but I am gravely concerned about the timing, said Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat who said she would l remain a co-sponsor of the resolution but at the moment would oppose it were it to reach the floor. I see no compelling reason to do this right this minute.
Representative Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Republican who dropped his backing of the measure today, said, Nothing changes the fact that mass killings and unspeakable acts of brutality occurred. However, passing this nonbinding resolution at this critical time would be a destabilizing action when the United States needs the help of its allies, including Turkey, in fighting the global war on terror.
For some history on the Armenian atrocities committed against Turks in WWI (yes, you read that right) go here. Adds a different perspective, doesn't it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Mr. Sherman and others noted that Turkey, at the start of the Iraq war, had refused to let American forces operate from its territory
#4
The Democrats' only real concern is that the effort to bring this vote to the floor is too transparently an attempt to subvert the mission in Iraq.
Dead U.S. soldiers attributed to the mistimed rightful condemnation of Turkish genocide would undermine all the political gains made by Pelosi and Reid's antiwar hordes.
#7
Now it looks like all we need is a few veiled threats and we roll over, naked bellies gleaming in the sunset.
That, and the fact that the Turks can now argue that the U. S. House of Representatives took up the question of the Armenian genocide and decided it hadn't happened. I'd hope the donks'd learn a lesson, but I doubt it.
#8
Ms. Pelosi, who has promised a vote on the resolution if it cleared the Foreign Affairs Committee, said she was leaving it to its chief backers to round up votes. I have never known a count, she said.
that's BS - any politician with a brain knows exactly how many votes they have on an issue. She's clueless, but even she's been there long enough to know from repetitive losing that it takes enough votes. Her quote shows she's losing votes by the hour. Now she's blaming the Senate for a general lack of seriousness legislative progress....way to deflect blame, Nan. Loser
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/17/2007 9:22 Comments ||
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The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Tuesday he expects retired judge Michael Mukasey to be confirmed as U.S. attorney general, succeeding Alberto Gonzales who resigned under pressure.
On the eve of the Mukasey's confirmation hearing before Chairman Patrick Leahy's panel, the senator also said he believes Mukasey, unlike Gonzales, would be independent of the White House. "There are still some within the administration that want the Department of Justice just to be a political arm of the White House," Leahy said. "I want that to change. I think he can change it," Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, told reporters after a private meeting with the former federal judge.
President George W. Bush nominated Mukasey, who also served as a U.S. prosecutor, last month after the resignation of Gonzales, Bush's longtime friend and former White House counsel.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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In the continuing effort to clear his name, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, this week filed an appeal to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport men's room sex sting. But many Republicans are furious that he's still around at all, drawing media attention and, in their view, embarrassing the Republican Party. The four-page appeal does not explain under what basis Craig is filing his appeal to the order issued Oct. 4, 2007, by Hennepin County District Court Judge Charles Porter for Craig's original guilty plea not to stand. Craig must prove that Porter committed an "abuse of discretion" in his ruling. "The facts in the case speak for themselves, and we are confident the senator's guilty plea will stand," said Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission.
In an interview with Idaho's KTVB to air this evening, Craig said he is merely exercising the same rights available to any citizen. "It is my right to do what I am doing," Craig said, suggesting that since he is retiring from the U.S. Senate at the end of his term, "I am no longer in the way. I am no longer blocking the political process of Idaho, but I am pursuing my constitutional rights."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Self centered sekf-entitled asswipe.
TYpical old senator. See Kennedy, Stevens, Lott, etc.
Thousands of Pakistan Peoples Party workers left for Karachi on over 100 buses from here on Tuesday, to take part in the welcome reception of PPP Chairwoman Benazir Bhutto at Karachi Airport. PPP Lahore President Haji Azizur Rehman Chan left by train accompanied by over 1,000 workers and zonal presidents.
PPP Secretary-General Jehangir Badr told Daily Times that every party candidate had been asked to send at least one bus full of workers to Karachi, and, all of them had dispatched more than one bus. He said hundreds of people left for Karachi on their own vehicles to welcome Benazir Bhutto. He said the welcome reception would be bigger than the last one in 1998 and those who claimed that people were not with Benazir would see for themselves.
He said party workers were law-abiding citizens but would not tolerate any hurdles created by law enforcement agencies to stop them from welcoming their leader. Badr said it was the moral duty of every party worker to reach Karachi and like other party leaders and workers, he and his son have dispatched two buses for Karachi.
Lahore President Haji Azizur Rehman Chan, at the Railways Station, said nobody could stop Benazir from coming to Pakistan and people wanted genuine democracy, which could only be possible under her leadership.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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The Dalai Lama said on Tuesday the Myanmar junta's beating of protesting Buddhist monks was "very bad" and reminded him of China's treatment of Tibetans.
The exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, in Washington to receive a Congressional award that has angered China, said he had expressed to U.S. President George W. Bush gratitude to First Lady Laura Bush for championing democracy in Myanmar. "When I saw the picture of (a) Burmese monk, like the Tibetan monk, like myself," the Dalai Lama told reporters, pausing as he pointed to his maroon robes and shaved head. "That reflects beating by Chinese (of) Tibetan monks -- very similar -- so therefore, naturally, I felt some very, very strong sort of feeling."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Bold statement there. Really went out on a limb and risked offending world wide public opinion.
Posted by: anonymous5089 ||
10/17/2007 07:41 ||
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#1
There is speculation in Iran that the latest kidnapping may be resolved during Onodera's stay, because in the Belgian case, Tehran invited the Belgian foreign minister to visit the country and timed the trip to coincide with the release of the male victim. But a Japanese government source has dismissed the speculation as "no more than a rumor."
Grovel at the feet of Baal, infidel.
Posted by: ed ||
10/17/2007 9:02 Comments ||
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Lebanon has rebuffed a high level request by Australia to drop its rival extradition bid for crime boss Tony Mokbel, also known as "Fat Tony". The knock-back has handed Mokbel a glimmer of hope that he may end up in a Lebanese jail from where he would not be extradited to Australia to face murder charges.
Canberra has protested against the mysterious eleventh-hour attempt by Lebanese prosecutors to seek the extradition of Mokbel - a move that directly competes with Australia's own bid to extradite the underworld king from Greece back to Melbourne. Greece has not yet received a formal application from Lebanon for Mokbel's extradition but Lebanese prosecutors late last month gave notice of intent to lodge an extradition request.
The Australian understands that vigorous high-level representations to Lebanon to drop its request to Greek authorities for Mokbel's extradition have so far fallen on deaf ears. The rebuff came despite Canberra stating that Mokbel was arguably Australia's most wanted criminal and his case was an important one.
Australian officials are not sure why Lebanon would seek to extradite Mokbel, who also holds a Lebanese passport and has family in the north of the country. They are also puzzled by the lack of details provided by Lebanon about the extradition request. It is still unclear what crimes Lebanon wants to extradite him for, and why that country would challenge Australia on a case of such importance.
Under Lebanese law, a citizen with joint foreign nationality can be subject to extradition for offenses committed overseas. No evidence has emerged to support speculation that Mokbel's connections may have bribed officials in Lebanon to make the extradition request.
Lebanon's rival extradition bid means Greece may be forced to make a choice between the two countries. Mokbel was arrested in Athens in June after 15 months on the run and is exhausting every legal processs available to delay being sent back to Australia, where he faces a further 18 charges, including two for murder.
Mokbel's Australian lawyer, Mirko Bagaric, said yesterday he had still not received details about the Lebanese extradition bid. But he said that if there were rival extradition bids, Greece would be under no legal obligation to choose one side over the other and it would come down to which country Greece wanted to please the most. "There are no internationally recognised standards when requests compete - it becomes a matter of international politics rather than international law or which country has more clout,' he said.
On a separate matter, Mr Bagaric said his client was likely to appeal to the Australian High Court to avoid being extradited back to Melbourne. This follows last week's decision by the full bench of the Federal Court in Melbourne to reject Mokbel's appeal against an earlier Federal Court ruling that the Australian Government's extradition request was valid.
Mokbel's legal team had argued that the extradition request should be declared invalid because the wrong minister had signed it - they claim the request should have been signed by Attorney-General Philip Ruddock rather than Justice Minister David Johnston.
Spokeswomen for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Justice Minister declined to comment on the case yesterday. Mokbel is due to appear in the Greek Supreme Court in Athens again on December 4. While on the run last year, he was sentenced in absentia to a minimum of nine years' jail for importing almost 2kg of cocaine from Mexico. He has since been charged with the murders of underworld rival Lewis Moran and drug dealer Michael Marshall during Melbourne's gangland war.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
LUCIANNE/OTHER > DICK CHENEY, BARACK OBAMA ARE EIGHTH COUSINS. You just know a GOP-DEM family andor Global Illuminati-NWO barbecue is being planned, or is it - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA........
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC[Correctness]...........???
D *** NG IT, WHO FORGOT TO BRING THE RIBS AND STEAK SAUCE - WE'RE TELLING GRANDMA = PUTIN'S MOM, etc.
#2
and now there are four gold stars left by General Pace who was a platoon leader in the Nam with a note that said "these are for you" strategically located beneath the names of those who he served with and lost in battle.
#1 And we can only hope that someone catches that SOB who defaced it.
As you well know Mooses, No one can carve away the memory, service and love we all have for our fallen men and women..
No moron or group of twisted fuckwits can deface anyone of their 50,000 selfless acts of stepping forward and joining service for our Flag and Nation and then paying the ultimate price for it.
*************
Hey I'd like to catch the the perps who did this...who wouldn't.. OP do you still have that Barbed Wire Bat around?
Quite possibly one of them will brag about it.. lets hope the Park Police and Federal prosecutors put some sustained effort into catching the bastards.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
10/17/2007 18:50 Comments ||
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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.
Earlier today, the port side of the blogosphere erupted in righteous indignation as reports that Air America radio host Randi Rhodes got mugged began to swirl. Many bloggers started blaming a nameless conservative mugger, and then began extending the indictment to the entire conservative movement. It served their prejudices to think that conservative meanies would lay in wait for Rhodes just to keep her from speaking Truth to Power, etc etc etc.
Unions representing BBC workers have warned that a strike within weeks is inevitable if Mark Thompson, the director general, presses ahead with plans for the largest number of compulsory redundancies in the corporation's history. Mr Thompson will tell the BBC Trust today that 2,000 employees almost a tenth of the workforce will be sacked in an attempt to find £2 billion in budget cuts. He will make a public announcement of the plans tomorrow.
A senior broadcaster, who declined to be named, predicted a furious response from even the 
A Spanish warship intercepted a U.S. treasure-hunting vessel that it suspects took gold and silver worth an estimated $500 million from a sunken Spanish galleon, the U.S. crew said on Tuesday. The Spanish Navy corvette blocked the Odyssey Explorer after it left the British territory of Gibraltar and threatened to open fire when the captain refused to let police board. Police later arrested the boat's American captain, Sterling Vorus, a company official said.
Indonesia raised on Tuesday the alert level for Mount Kelud volcano to the highest level, as residents started fleeing amid signs an eruption could be imminent, officials and a witness said.
The lawyer representing the 75 activists from Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise who were arrested in Harare on Monday has reported that he was assaulted by a senior police official while attending to his clients.
The Hague (AKI) - The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today upheld the acquittal of a former deputy army commander for the Bosnian Muslim forces during the Balkan wars on charges related to a massacre of 13 Bosnian Croat civilians in 1993.
In the continuing effort to clear his name, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, this week filed an appeal to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport men's room sex sting. But many Republicans are furious that he's still around at all, drawing media attention and, in their view, embarrassing the Republican Party. The four-page appeal does not explain under what basis Craig is filing his appeal to the order issued Oct. 4, 2007, by Hennepin County District Court Judge Charles Porter for Craig's original guilty plea not to stand. Craig must prove that Porter committed an "abuse of discretion" in his ruling. "The facts in the case speak for themselves, and we are confident the senator's guilty plea will stand," said Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission. 
Thousands of Pakistan Peoples Party workers left for Karachi on over 100 buses from here on Tuesday, to take part in the welcome reception of PPP Chairwoman Benazir Bhutto at Karachi Airport. PPP Lahore President Haji Azizur Rehman Chan left by train accompanied by over 1,000 workers and zonal presidents. 
The Dalai Lama said on Tuesday the Myanmar junta's beating of protesting Buddhist monks was "very bad" and reminded him of China's treatment of Tibetans.
Lebanon has rebuffed a high level request by Australia to drop its rival extradition bid for crime boss Tony Mokbel, also known as "Fat Tony". The knock-back has handed Mokbel a glimmer of hope that he may end up in a Lebanese jail from where he would not be extradited to Australia to face murder charges. 
