A branch of the US government is expected today to offer black Americans what it gave American Indians earlier this year: an apology for their past mistreatment.
A formal apology to black Americans for "enslavement and racial segregation," sponsored by a white Jewish congressman who represents the majority-black city of Memphis, is slated for a vote today in the House of Representatives.
The apology resolution marks a unique step forward in the US, coming as the country embraces its first black presidential nominee in Barack Obama. It officially acknowledges that "lingering consequences" from slavery and segregation continue to haunt blacks in America.
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#1
these are the same people who fight to keep modern day slavery in operation. All of the same arguments used to justify slavery are the same ones that are used today to justify keeping an entire class of people without legal status. We all know that they are abused by employers who are aware that they can't complain without fear of extortion. The brothels are full of young mexican women (and boys) who are brought here with the promise of jobs and then held against their will.
Yes, many can choose to leave the country. But we all know about the child labor, the payment of wages that are below standard, the lack of basic legal protections and the other horrors these people endure because our leaders look the other way to provide businesses with a near slave-labor force. We know, but our leaders not only don't prevent it but encourage it.
It will ruin the economy. Only the little brown people will do these jobs. They are better off here than they would have been in their homeland. It keeps the price of lettuce down.
I'd gladly stop eating lettuce to prevent this legalized abuse of an entire labor force.
#2
My great great grandmother was an indentured servant when she came across in 1902. As long as we're at it why don't they give her an apology while they're at it. Same creature, different names, everybody's gotten a shitty deal at one time or another, get over it.
#5
So are we going to get an apology from the NAACP et al for the disproportional criminal destruction reaped upon the rest of American society by the 'other' group? If you can tag one group for the actions of a small proportion of that entire population, isn't that a principle to be applied to all groups?
#6
Oh, and by the way, the casualty figures of the North paid in blood for the slavery issue [and check the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments what would never had occurred without that payment]. Given that our current overall population is 10x the size of what it was in 1861, all you have to do is extrapolate to understand the magnitude of that payment.
#7
Yeah, I'm up for reparations. They can consist solely of a one-way plane ticket back to anywhere on the west coast of Africa and the costs of the paperwork for permanent revocation of U.S. citizenship. African-Americans in the nation's penal facilities should have acceptance of these reparations made mandatory.
The libs should love it; just imagine how empowering it will be for the recipients to no longer be hyphenated African-Americans but to again be pure, undiluted African Africans! Lift ev'ry voice and sing!
#8
Here is how I would change the holidays. I would take away MLK's Birthday federal holiday status and replace it with Juneteenth. A holiday that greatly appeals to my hebraic roots. It would kick off the American Patriot Holiday Period that would end two weeks later on the Fourth of July.
Our history should be embraced through family celebrations. What better time than the end of June?
#9
My ancestors and I have never owned slaves, so I demand an apology from all black Americans who lump us in with those whites who are guilty. I also demand reparations from the British for making my ancestor's lives so miserable that they were forced to risk their lives by crossing the Atlantic in the mid-1600's and squander away years as indentured servants. I also demand an apology from the House of Representatives for accomplishing almost nothing worthy of note in recent years.
#10
I would appreciate these "esteemed solons" in Congress to get on with dealing with the problems that face the Republic instead wasting time and money on absolutely USELESS and UNNECESSARY bullshit like this. They can't bring themselves to do anything about energy, about immigration, about defense, but they can put out this kind of crap. They should be embarrassed and ashamed about their uselessness instead of worrying about things that happened 200 years ago and that they only vaguely understand. They are either ignorant or think their constituents are ignorant or both. A pox on this House.
#12
concur Darrell. My family was too fucking poor to own slaves - it also didn't help that they landed in the North a few year before the CW - and still got to serve in a war not of their making.
(SomaliNet) According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), nearly 180,000 children in Somalia are acutely malnourished, with 25,000 severely malnourished. UNICEF has scaled up its nutrition operation to reach more than 50,000 children under the age of five.
Not that any foreign aid workers can live in Somalia, not that any ship with food aid can get to a Somali port without being attacked by pirates, and not that anyone in Somalia appears to be grateful for the aid ...
Meanwhile, a new survey carried out by the Food Security Analysis Unit in Somalia has found that there has been an 11 per cent increase in malnutrition in the last six months.
"So far we have been lucky to be strongly backed by our donors. However, with the recent increase in malnutrition rates and the need for accelerated humanitarian assistance, more funds are required for us to continue and expand our programmes effectively," said Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF Representative to Somalia.
#3
I have been reading about famine in Africa for the last 50 years. The problem is cause or at least exacerbated by the total lack of self control exhibited by most African governments and peoples by punishing any tendencies towards productivity exhibited by any individual. This isn't going to get better by itself. If we are unwilling to take the requisite actions to impose order and stability, then we should just back away and let nature take its course and quit publishing articles like this. Further, the idiocy exhibited by some of their governments in being selective about the kind of food aid (nonGM) they are willing to accept makes it just too hard to help these fools. Darwinism at its finest.
Nice haul...
LONDON (AFP) Hijackers made off with boxes of blank British passports worth a fortune on the black market in a raid on a delivery van, police said Tuesday. Detectives said the 24 boxes of about 3,000 passports and visa documents, destined for British embassies around the world, were worth some 2.5 million pounds .
The theft occurred when the van driver stopped to buy a newspaper in Oldham, north Manchester. The raider jumped in the van and assaulted a second delivery man in the passenger seat before speeding off onto an unmarked road. The robber then ran off, and when the second delivery man felt safe enough, he checked the van and found that several boxes had been stolen. If I'm a British cop, I'd be shoving a microscope up the driver and his backup's asses.
"The actual value of the passports themselves is around 2.5 million pounds," said Detective Chief Inspector Bill McGreavy, adding that he had no significant information to suggest it was a targeted theft. "The commodity stolen is unusual. Whether the commodity was the intended items I don't know," he said. "The offenders in this incident have not taken all the items from the van. They've not cleared the van out." He said detectives were hunting at least two suspects. "The passenger has told us that both doors were opened simultaneously so I think there was a minimum of two offenders." The van was being forensically examined, he added. The passports were "very secure" as they contained a micro-chip which can be encrypted, he said. Nuthin to see here, right, Chief Inspector?
Cabinet minister Harriet Harman, filling in while Prime Minister Gordon Brown is on holiday, called it a "serious crime". But the deputy leader of the governing Labour Party did not think it "necessarily shows a sloppy attitude". So...what kinda "attitude" does it show?
Dominic Grieve, home affairs spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party, branded it the "latest in a long line of security disasters to hit the government". In December last year, the government was forced to admit that two data discs containing personal details of some 25 million people were lost in the post. Top secret files on Al-Qaeda and Iraq were left on a train earlier this year, while hundreds of government laptops and memory sticks have been either lost or stolen in recent years.
The passports were on route to the RAF Northolt air base in northwest London.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office, which was responsible for the delivery, said: "The security vans we use have an array of security features." Yeah. Looks like they worked really well.
"China reported that approximately 20 days ago, a man suddenly died from an unidentified disease in Wanjiakou Village, Xiaoguan Town, Wendeng City, Shandong Province. His entire body turned dark purple, and he bled from his mouth, nostrils, ears, and eyes just as he died. "
#3
When you visit a Chinese city
You will find it very pretty
Just two things of which you must beware
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!
#4
ION CHINA > CHINESE MIL FORUM > STEP BY STEP DEMOCRACY IN CHINA [ Commie China slowly but surely becoming more democratic], + 1421: THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED THE WORLD [Australia; NORAM 300 years before Columbus?], + THREATENING TAIWAN WITH ANNIHILATION PARTS I,II. JAPAN fears an IRREVERSIBLE BALANCE OF POWER SHIFT IN EAST ASIATO CHINA IFF THERE EVER IS A DE FACTO CHINA-TAIWAN PEACE AGREEMENT???
* WAFF.com > SOUTH KOREA DEVELOPS 1000-KM [Army-Navy]LAND ATTACK CRUISE MISSLE [Can hit Beijing, JAPAN, and of course NOKOR].
(ANSA) - Vicenza, July 29 - Italy's highest administrative court on Tuesday overturned a regional court's ruling against the planned expansion of an air base here to make room for American military personnel.
Upholding an appeal from the Italian government, the Council of State said the TAR of Veneto, which came out against the expansion on June 20, had no remit for political questions involving Italy and the United States. It also stressed that there was no legal requirement to sound out the local population, which is believed to be largely against the expansion.
The Council of State said there was no ''hard evidence'' for the kind of environmental damage protesters claimed the expansion of the Dal Molin base would bring. But the Codacons consumer group which filed the original suit against the project said it was ''not bothered'' by the Council's ruling.
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More than 300 Pakistanis deported from Turkey for illegally trying to reach Europe arrived in Lahore and were questioned by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and immigration personnel at the airport on Monday. The 319 deported Pakistanis were brought home aboard a special flight earlier in the day. Sources said that the deported persons planned to enter Europe via Turkey, but were arrested at Turkey's border with Greece. They were jailed in a Turkish prison for a year. They were expelled after the Pakistan embassy issued emergency papers for their travel back to Pakistan, sources said. They said that most of the expelled persons aged between 18 and 28 years and were from Gujranwala Division, while two persons belonged to Karachi.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I remember seeing "Midnight Express." I'm sure those Pak boys had a real good time servicing their Turkish masters in prison.
Well at least we won't have to play "Guess that party".
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Ted Stevens, the nation's longest-serving Republican senator and a major figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, was indicted Tuesday on seven counts of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in services from an oil services company that helped renovate his home.
Prosecutors said Stevens received more than $250,000 in gifts and services from VECO Corp., a powerful oil services contractor, and its executives. From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said, the 84-year-old senator concealed "his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation."
The indictment unsealed Tuesday says the items included home improvements to his vacation home in Alaska, including a new first floor, garage, wraparound deck, plumbing and electrical wiring, as well as a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools. He also was accused of failing to report swapping an old Ford for a new Land Rover to be driven by one of his children. What an idiot.
#3
Well, as long as the 'Refrigerator' Jefferson is serving, I no longer care about resignations. If the Donks are only concerned about power then you'd better be prepared to play that game or cut your own throat.
Guwahati, India: The Gauhati High Court has said that Bangladeshis in Assam had become the kingmakers and a strong political will to free Assam from illegal Bangladeshi[s] is the need of the hour coupled with public activism in that direction.
In his 95-page judgment and order passed on Friday, Justice B.K Sharma directed the police to immediately take into custody 49 of the 61 petitioners, who were declared as foreigners by the court, and to keep them in police custody till their deportation. The respective Superintendents of Police have been asked to furnish report about the implementation of the direction.
The judgment and order was passed by the court while disposing of a total of 23 petitions moved by 61 petitioners after they had been declared as foreigners by the respective Foreigners Tribunals. The High Court upheld the tribunal judgments in most of the cases.
Till now, the petitioners have been successful in avoiding the proceedings against them as well as their deportation from India. In the process, they have incorporated their names in the voters lists on the basis of which they must have cast their votes. Thus the petitioners and such other large number of Bangladeshis present in the State of Assam have a major role in electing the representatives both to the Legislative Assembly and Parliament and consequently, in the decision-making process towards building the nation. They have become the kingmakers, the judgment stated.
The court has asked the State Home Department and the Director-General of Police to furnish report on the action plan towards detection and deportation of foreign nationals from Assam. The State government was also directed to furnish report on the action plan and the time limit within which the names of illegal voters in various voters list would be deleted. The court directed that all the reports be submitted on or before September 30.
Justice Sharma observed: It is no longer a secret or in the domain of doubt that illegal Bangladeshis have intruded every nook and corner of Assam, including forest land. In some of the cases, the petitioners themselves stated before the police during investigation that they were living in government and forest land. If reports are to be believed, they have even intruded upon the most sacred Xattra lands. Very often, they are protected by extending the protective lands of secularism branding them to be Indian minorities in Assam. A strong political will to free Assam from illegal Bangladeshi[s] is the need of the hour coupled with public activism in that direction.
The court warned that if the phenomenon continues, the day is not far off, when the indigenous people of Assam, both Hindus and Muslims and other religious groups will be reduced to minorities in their own land and the Bangladeshis who are freely and merrily moving around the fertile land of Assam, will intrude upon the corridors of power.
On the role of the Central and the State governments, the judgment and order stated that the foremost duty of the Central government was to defend the borders of the country, prevent any trespass and make the life of the citizens safe and secure. The State government was also equally responsible for taking effective measures to stop the unabated influx of Bangladeshi nationals to Assam threatening the very existence of the indigenous people in their own State. Neither the Central government nor the State government can disown such solemn responsibilities, they being the protectors of the citizens.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/29/2008 13:04 ||
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#1
Damn... that is a court judgement for the law books.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/29/2008 13:21 Comments ||
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ISLAMABAD: United States Central Command Acting Commander Lt Gen Martin E Dempsey on Monday handed over four F-16 jet aircraft to Pakistan Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed in a ceremony at the Pakistan Air Force Base Mushaf, Sargodha.
With the handing over of the four jets, the delivery of 14 upgraded F-16 aircraft has been completed. Earlier the US had agreed to give Pakistan these aircrafts under the Foreign Military Sales Programme, which was singed in 2005.
The air chief said the Pakistan Air Force would remain vigilant for the defence of the nation by ensuring the highest level of combat readiness.
The US embassy said in a statement that the US government provided the aircraft to Pakistan at no cost except for transportation expenses.
The four aircraft presented on Monday are valued at approximately $6.4 million each, it said.
The PAF said the newly delivered aircraft would significantly augment its operational and combat capabilities.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/29/2008 07:43 ||
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#3
I think these are the 28 F-16A and Bs that were embargoed after the Paki nuke tests and are therefore are not free. The Paks had already paid for them. The US tried to sell them to a third nation w/o success and refunded the Paks only about 1/2 the money.
The F-16s were stored at the boneyard and then used by the aggressor squadrons (hard flying hours) and as Edwards chase planes. These F-16s just got the MLU upgrades which the Paks also paid for (with aid money).
Posted by: ed ||
07/29/2008 11:29 Comments ||
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#4
With the special X-Box remote-control system installed?
#5
WTF? Free of charge. Why doesn't Bush just get down on his knees and do some bone gargling while he's at it?
Consider it a bribe to the Pak military. We still have to use Pakistan as a cost-effective logistics route into Afghanistan. There aren't a lot of other options unless you really want to put stress on an already heavily-loaded airlift capability.
But I suspect that with your knowledge of the strategic and tactical situation in Southwest Asia, you'd already taken that into consideration.
#6
From Pakistan's Addiction in the Opinion Section: Here we have yet another case of an addict trying to fulfil its decadent addiction - in this case weapons - through any sort of manipulation and extortion it can think up. In fact, the truth is that the military's claims that F-16s are essential the war on terror is an outright lie. First of all, Pakistan's military doesn't very much directly engage with Taliban warlords. When military action does take place, it is usually the poor kids from the paramilitary (which means: not fully military) Frontier Corps that do the dying. F-16s don't enter the picture.
Second, Pakistan doesn't fight the Taliban militants the way the US in Afghanistan does. The Americans like to surround the militants with armoured vehicles, then hit them with airstrikes, then follow this up with a ground assault and helicopter gunships. Pakistan usually foregoes the use of airstrikes and gunships. F-16s don't enter the picture.
Third, dropping bombs from up high on the Taliban would be a self-defeating exercise because it would further increase the impression that Pakistan's war on warlords is a job outsourced from Washington DC, when in fact it must be something the Pakistanis want. F-16s shouldn't enter the picture.
In other words, F-16s have nothing to do with the most pressing national security issue afflicting the Pakistani nation, yet here I am, thousands of miles from Pakistan, listening to the pre-eminent news station in the world, and the lead story about Pakistan isn't the oil-food-currency crisis in the country or the economic development in NWFP or the issue of Pashtun nationalism, it is a squadron of airplanes.
What for?
The Neo-Cons New World Order?(See Soviet/Indian Plan for dismemberment of Pakwakiland article)
NEW YORK - Oil prices tumbled more than $2 a barrel Tuesday, finishing at their lowest level in seven weeks as a stronger dollar and beliefs that record prices are eroding the world's thirst for energy sparked another dramatic sell-off. The drop -- which surpassed $4 a barrel at one point during the day -- was a throwback to oil's nosedive over the past two weeks and outweighed supply concerns touched off by a militant attack Monday on two Nigerian crude pipelines. It was oil's seventh decline in the last 10 sessions.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $2.54 to settle at $122.19 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the lowest settlement price for a front-month contract since June 10. Earlier, prices fell to $120.42, also the lowest level since June 10. Oil has now fallen more than $25 from its trading high of $147.27, reached July 11. More concerns that crude's run-up over the past year has pushed prices to unsustainable levels fed Tuesday's decline. The U.S. Transportation Department said Monday that U.S. drivers logged 9.6 billion fewer vehicle miles in May -- or 3.7 percent -- compared to the same period last year, the biggest drop ever for the historically busy summer driving month. And demand for oil in the U.S. -- the world's thirstiest consumer -- continues to fall, dropping by 891,000 barrels per day in May compared the same month a year ago, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said Monday.
The declines accelerated after oil briefly dipped below $122, a key resistance level that triggered technical selling by computers programmed to dump oil contracts once prices fall under a certain threshold. "Once we break through $120, we could easily slide through to $100," said Darin Newsom, senior analyst at DTN in Omaha.
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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.
More than 300 Pakistanis deported from Turkey for illegally trying to reach Europe arrived in Lahore and were questioned by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and immigration personnel at the airport on Monday. The 319 deported Pakistanis were brought home aboard a special flight earlier in the day. Sources said that the deported persons planned to enter Europe via Turkey, but were arrested at Turkey's border with Greece. They were jailed in a Turkish prison for a year. They were expelled after the Pakistan embassy issued emergency papers for their travel back to Pakistan, sources said. They said that most of the expelled persons aged between 18 and 28 years and were from Gujranwala Division, while two persons belonged to Karachi.
