UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home.
Fifty-four-year-old William Maser fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away. The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities say nobody was hurt.
State police charged Maser with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
No one answered the phone Friday at Maser's home. He tells WPXI-TV recreating 19th century cannons is a longtime hobby. He says he is sorry and he will stop shooting them on his property, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Worst part is, we'd be doing this 'fun with cannons stuff' too, if we had the area to do so. Trebuchets only offer limited pleasure.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/04/2009 13:51 ||
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If you ever watched night fire training and the number of tracer ricochets this would be no surprise. Granted that tracers are fairly unstable it still amazing to me the spray of ricochets in all directions. Well designed bullet traps are a GOOD thing.
#2
When I was a young 'un, we had a friend with a 25mm French anti-tank cannon. Every 4th of July we would fire several rounds at a pond in his back yard. Consumption of large amounts of alcohol accompanied the firing.
To this day I am amazed that we did not hit anything valuable.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/04/2009 15:51 Comments ||
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400 yards with a two-pounder? Where was this guy during the Hundred Years War?
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/04/2009 17:54 Comments ||
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Wait till the BBC and AFP get a hold of this story!
Authorities are searching for a healthcare reform activist today who they said bit off the finger of a 65-year-old counter-demonstrator during a fight at a MoveOn.org rally in Thousand Oaks. Any relation to Mike Tyson?
I do hope the MoveOn.org gentleman isn't Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Jain. Human bits are forbidden to them all. Most of the rest of humanity must make do with the anti-cannibalism cultural imperative.
"It all started with their difference in philosophy over health care reform," said Senior Deputy Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. Wag your finger in my face and you'll lose it!
The incident occurred about 7 p.m. Wednesday at a "We Can't Afford to Wait Vigil" organized by affiliates of the activist group MoveOn.org, which drew supporters of President Obama's healthcare plan, Buschow said. The rally also attracted several counter-protesters, he said. Will Obamacare pay for having the finger re-attached?
During the rally at Lynn Road and Hillcrest Drive, near the Oaks Mall, the two men got into a heated argument and began fighting. "At which point, one man bit off the left pinky of the other," Buschow said. That was one nasty bite.
The injured demonstrator then drove himself to Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center about a mile away, he said. Ilyse Hogue, director of political advocacy and communications for MoveOn.org, called the incident "a regrettable act of violence" in a statement released this morning. "While we do not have any more facts about what happened than what we saw in press accounts, MoveOn condemns violence in all forms," Hogue said. Since when?
"We support the Ventura County sheriff's investigation into the situation. It is in our firm hope that this event does not detract from the tens of thousands who were out peacefully making their voices heard for health care reform and a public option." She must be cross-eyed. Tens of thousands?
Authorities said they are looking for a white male in his late 40s or 50s who was last seen wearing black shorts and a black shirt. "We're still trying to figure out who was the aggressor," Buschow said.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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Our local newspaper reported that Rice was just a guy who stopped to see what the fuss and commotion was all about. Whether he was for or against Obamacare was not reported or known.
#2
MoveOn.org, called the incident "a regrettable act of violence...that made the internet and not squashed or rewritten by our agents in the MSM" in a statement released this morning.
#4
If I were going to one of the town halls or a tea party, I would be tempted to have a sign saying that they could have my left pinkie but not the one on my gun hand.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/04/2009 15:29 Comments ||
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Silicon Valley billionaire Tom Siebel says he's recovering from broken ribs and legs after an elephant charged at him and a tour guide in the Serengeti a month ago.
The 55-year-old Siebel on Wednesday told the San Jose Mercury News that the animal plowed into the guide and then attacked him, breaking several ribs, goring him in the left leg and crushing the right leg.
The Siebel Systems software founder says the Aug. 1 attack occurred during a safari in Tanzania. He says he and the guide were watching a group of elephants from about 200 yards away when one animal charged at them without warning.
He says he expects to make a full recovery after reconstructive surgery and physical therapy.
Siebel's estimated worth is $1.9 billion as of 2008.
Soundslike a male elephant in musth. They do things like that, which is why American circuses don't take male elephants on the road.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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Trailing, don't male humans behave somewhat that way too when their 'desires' are frustrated?
Libya's Col. Moammar Khadafy has a beef with Switzerland and plans to ask the United Nations to abolish the tiny Alpine home of milk chocolate, cuckoo clocks and yodeling. According to Swiss minister Christa Markwalder, Khadafy will demand that Switzerland be wiped off the map when he comes to New York Sept. 23. He apparently wants the country to be dismembered and the land parceled out among neighbouring France, Germany and Italy.
We get the gold, Israel gets the vaults with the 1940s treasures ...
Him and what army? Is Switzerland even a member of the UN?
The Libya-Swiss kerfuffle began a year ago, when Khadafy's youngest son, Hannibal Khadafy, and his pregnant wife were arrested in a Geneva luxury hotel for beating two servants with a belt and a coat-hanger. Hannibal Khadafy had previously been busted in both France and Italy for beating a woman and fighting a cop, and once for driving drunk down Paris' Champs Elysee at 90 mph - the wrong way.
Libya retaliated with fury, recalling some diplomats, suspending visas for Swiss citizens, withdrawing funds from Swiss banks, shuttering the Tripoli office of Nestle and threatening to cut off oil deliveries to Switzerland. Two Swiss businessmen were barred from leaving the country until Libya received an apology for Hannibal's arrest.
Two weeks ago, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz sought to win their release after a year by traveling to Triploi to apologize for the arrest. Libya promised to let the hostages go by Sept. 1 - but reneged. Now Merz is fending off calls for his resignation.
Perhaps Switzerland ought to consider changing oil suppliers. I hear Nigeria and Iraq should both soon have more to sell.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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This IS Bizarro Wolrd stuff, but, at the same time, it's a great insight into both the mindset of K-Daffy and assorted tinpot third world dictators (who REALLY are feeling their oats when it comes to dealing with whitey, aren't they???), and of the role the UN is playing into that mindset (IE it's a tribune, soapbox and enabler, first phagocyted by the commies, and now, by third-wolrdism - not very PC to say, but it's what happens when you allows people and Nations or supposed Nations that should NOT deserve it to be treated as your equal and think that they are "as you" and will playn the game by the rules, instead of subverting it and dragging the field down to their level).
[Mail and Globe] supporters in Gabon's capital on Thursday after Ali Ben Bongo, son of long-time ruler Omar Bongo, was declared the winner of a disputed presidential election.
Protesters targeted facilities owned by French oil giant Total and United States oil field services firm Schlumberger in the Port Gentil oil hub, and ex-colonial power France's consulate there, the French Foreign Ministry said.
But a Reuters witness touring the capital Libreville after anti-riot police had dispersed protesters said its streets were largely deserted, in what could prove an early sign that former defence minister Ben Bongo was asserting his authority.
"I want to be president of all the Gabonese," Ben Bongo (50) declared on his family television network TeleAfrica after the interior minister declared him victor of Sunday's poll with 47,1% of the vote.
Ex-interior minister Andre Mba Obame scored 25,9% and Pierre Mamboundou, one of the few main Gabonese politicians with no ties to the Bongo family, scored 25,2%. Both had also declared victory before the results were known and immediately said they rejected the outcome.
Mombo told Reuters by telephone that Mamboundou had been "seriously injured" in clashes with security forces in the capital earlier but gave no details of his condition.
"This is just what happens in Africa," Angel Nzeg, a female opposition supporter in Libreville said of the chaos surrounding the poll announcement. "What do you want us to do?" she said.
Ben Bongo's rivals accuse him of rigging the result to ensure a dynastic transfer of power from his father, who brought stability during nearly 42 years of rule but faced accusations he used petrodollars to enrich family and friends.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Thursday that the United States would formally suspend nearly $30 million in aid to the coup-installed government in Honduras. She also suggested for the first time that the United States might not recognize the country's elections this fall if the ousted president was not returned to power by then.
Can we please give up this stupidity? It's really not the way to make friends and influence people. Not the kind of friends worth having or influencing, anyway.
Senior administration officials said she was sending a "powerful signal" of their commitment to the restoration of democracy in Honduras, which has been the object of international condemnation since June 28, when soldiers rousted President Manuel Zelaya from his bed and loaded him onto a plane leaving the country.
Some outside the Obama administration, however, wondered whether it was much of a signal at all, saying that formally terminating the money would not have much of a practical effect because the aid had been suspended immediately after the coup. In addition, the United States will continue providing tens of millions of dollars in development and humanitarian aid.
Oh. Just posturing for the peanut gallery, then.
"They are doing these piecemeal steps to see how the de facto regime responds," said Vicki Gass of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group. "And each time the de facto regime remains intransigent, they up the ante, but it takes them way too long."
Ms Gass seems to thing the right response is a Dresden-style fire bombing as a first step. Ms Gass is either a vicious idiot or a fool, but definitely a bully wannabe.
Mrs. Clinton's announcement came as she met with Mr. Zelaya, who had urged the administration to issue a finding that his ouster fit the legal definition of a military coup. Senior administration officials said such a determination -- which was not made -- would not have obligated the United States to cut aid further.
Since we haven't, I assume the powers that be do not actually believe his ouster was a military coup. They just want to be accepted by the cool countries.
A legal determination would have required certification by Congress, where some Republicans support Honduras's de facto government. Reaction to Thursday's announcement suggested that there might be a fight brewing anyway.
"Today's decision by the State Department to cut aid to Honduras is an outrage," said Representative Connie Mack, Republican of Florida, who called the cuts "simply over the top."
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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I'm not necessarily averse to cutting the aid, here or elsewhere (most of it ends up in dictators pockets anyway), but I don't like doing it using this as the excuse.
#6
So, it's official: The United States of America (under the leadership of Bambi, Shrillary, Penisi, Hardly & Skerry) no longer supports the actions of democratic sovereign nations.
Grab onto something...a million fallen soldiers are stirring...
Everyone here is clear that this is a propaganda piece and there was no 'coup', right???
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Americans with relatives in Cuba can send them unlimited cash and visit the island as long and often as they would like under new rules that fissured a nearly five-decade trade embargo on Thursday.
The rules, made effective immediately by the U.S. Treasury Department, fleshed out an announcement by President Barack Obama in April to ease U.S. trade restrictions imposed on Cuba after Fidel Castro's leftist revolution half a century ago.
Until now, Cuban-Americans had been allowed to travel to the island only once a year and were limited to sending only $1,200 per person in cash to needy family members in Cuba. But now they can send as much money as they want to a larger group of relatives that includes aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins, a reversal of a restriction introduced by the Bush administration in a bid to squeeze Cuba's communist government financially.
"That is something that will help a lot," said Enrique Gonzalez, a 64-year-old military retiree in Havana. "Despite the global financial crisis, the relatives will send a lot of remittances, which will help everybody here," he said.
But the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which has policed the trade embargo and fined Americans caught spending money in Cuba, said U.S. visitors could only spend $179 a day on trips to the island. That is the same amount as the U.S. State Department's per diem rate for official visits. Previously, family travelers were allowed to spend just $50 a day.
Separate regulations issued by the U.S. Commerce Department doubled the value limit for gift parcels sent to Cubans to $800 per month and widened the allowed recipients. Non-monetary gifts could only be sent previously to immediate family members and they may now be sent to any individual or to independent religious, educational and charitable organizations in Cuba.
The Commerce Department also eliminated a 44-pound limit on personal baggage to Cuba and allows visitors to bring donated personal communications devices such as mobile phone systems, computers, software, satellite receivers and digital cameras.
But the loosening of the rules for Cuban-Americans did not affect a general ban on travel by American citizens to Cuba and tight restrictions on academic and cultural exchanges.
The rules provide for some changes that could lay the groundwork for future trade links between the United States and Cuba in banking and telecommunications. Relaxation of the remittance rules allow U.S. banks to set up exchange arrangements with Cuban institutions to handle the transfers. The lack of such financial exchanges was considered a hindrance to the growth of agricultural trade with Cuba that was first allowed nearly a decade ago.
The Treasury rules allow U.S. telecommunications companies to set up fiber-optic cable and satellite links and enter into cell-phone roaming service agreements with Cuba. They allow U.S. residents to pay for satellite radio and television services provided to Cuban individuals by third-country firms.
The rules allow transactions and travel related to establishing telecoms services between the two countries.
Washington attorney Robert Muse, who specializes in Cuba issues and closely follows the Cuba embargo regulations, said he was encouraged by this provision, which could mean a genuine loosening of the U.S. trade sanctions in the telecoms area. "If they have allowed the U.S. telecommunications industry to actually provide real technology in pursuit of telecommunications projects in Cuba, then ... it opens a market for U.S. suppliers that had been shut out of Cuba," he added.
The Treasury also established a general travel license to Cuba for U.S. employees of firms seeking to sell agricultural and medical products there.
Companies providing charter flights between the United States and Cuba said they expected a spike in passenger business as a result of the new regulations. "There will definitely be a rush," said Vivian Mannerud, President of Airline Brokers Company, which has been operating since 1982.
"It was absolutely needed whether it be for business or from the humanitarian aspect, or just plain old freedom to travel and being able to visit your family whenever you want to," Mannerud told Reuters.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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(Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday it was in the final stage of enriching uranium, a process that would give it a second path to making a nuclear weapon. "Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase," its KCNA news agency quoted its U.N. delegation as saying in a letter to the head of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC).
The North has already tested two plutonium-based nuclear devices, the one in May triggering resulting on tightened international sanctions against the reclusive state.
The United States has long suspected the North has a secret programme to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, though experts say it has not developed anything near a full scale enrichment programme.
#1
In honor of MEL BROOK's "YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN" + HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I" via last nite TV, "AIRPLANE" > POINT COUNTERPOINT = "D *** NG IT, THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING, THEY BOUGHT THEIR PLANE TICKETS FAIR AND SQUARE - I SAY, LET 'EM CRASH"!
The United States plans to call on the Group of 20 to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies in five years and increase oil market transparency when the group meets at the end of the month, according to a source familiar with the proposal.
The world's biggest energy user intends to argue fuel subsidies distort oil and product markets and artificially raise fuel demand, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions, said the source, who asked not to be named.
This proposal -- which could rankle G20 states with big fuel subsidies such as China, Russia, and India -- calls on members to eliminate subsidies in five years. It argues non-members should end subsidies by 2020.
The plan for the September 24-25 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, also says members should provide more timely and accurate information on the notoriously murky oil market, including on inventory levels and positions held in the futures markets.
Transparency and speculative activity have become an issue in commodity markets following the six-year record run that sent oil to all-time highs near $150 a barrel last year, battering the economies of import-reliant nations.
#1
See also INSTAPUNDIT > NYT: GLOBAL WARMING COULD FORESTALL ICE AGE [minimal = Global SLushy], + INTERNATIONAL LAW AND GEO-ENGINEERING TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE.
More importantly, would it cover putting down rabid leftist moonbats? MoveOn: California fracas, finger-biting 'regrettable'
A spokeswoman for MoveOn responded to an incident this morning in which a supporter allegedly bit the finger off a conservative demonstrator amid a health care-related fracas in Ventura County, calling the violence "regrettable."
KTLA in Los Angeles reported, citing law enforcement officals, that a 65-year-old man had his finger bitten off Wednesday evening at a health care rally in Thousand Oaks, and a witness described a confrontation that began with the man who would lose his finger striking another man on his way to the MoveOn vigil.
Posted by: ed ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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More importantly, would it cover putting down rabid leftist moonbats?
It would depend on their life expectancy v/s expected annual cost of medication.
[The News (Pak)] A special international mission, assigned by the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to identify barriers to polio immunisation in Pakistan, has termed accountability as a major concern at the implementation level.
The mission has called for placing institutional mechanisms in place to ensure effective accountability of officials implementing the polio drive at different levels.
Sharing its preliminary findings at the National Inter-Agency Co-ordination Committee Meeting held here on Wednesday, the mission called for deployment of Lady Health Workers in poorly-performing districts to upscale routine immunisation. The meeting was attended by international partners of the government in the health sector, senior officials from the Ministry of Health and provincial health departments and experts.
The mission also called for greater investment in culturally-sensitive and locally appropriate communication strategies and approaches to mobilise the masses and increase their knowledge of immunisation while addressing public misconceptions and suspicions vis-a-vis immunisation.
Pakistan has reported 45 cases of polio so far this year. The North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), as well as Quetta and Karachi are conspicuous for persistent poliovirus circulation. Of the 24 cases reported from the NWFP and the Fata, 23 are officially stated to be from inaccessible to partially accessible areas whereas 3 out of the 4 cases in Karachi are amongst the Pashtun families.
The meeting was informed of the government's intention to strengthen routine immunisation, which has long been neglected. In this context, the federal and provincial health departments have declared October 2009 as the "immunisation month." During the month, an intensive advocacy and public awareness drive will be launched to highlight the issue.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
greater investment in culturally-sensitive and locally appropriate communication strategies
Whatever you do, don't say "juice cooties", fer cripe's sake!
#2
greater investment in culturally-sensitive and locally appropriate communication strategies
But for God's sake don't tell them that they're dark age religion is butt stupid and they are too for following it. The link between theo-cultural stupidity and polio must NOT be mentioned.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Iraqi anti-graft officials have reportedly arrested a deputy transport minister after an under cover operation in which he purportedly tried taking bribes from a firm.
Head of Iraq's corruption watchdog, the Integrity Commission, Rahim al-Ugaili, told Reuters that Adnan al-Ubaidi was caught taking the bribe on camera on Wednesday.
The foreign security firm in coordination with the commission arranged a shell game acting as if it was paying the first installment of an agreed half-a-million-dollar payment for the renewal of a security contract.
"He was blackmailing the firm, which is owed $2 million by the government, when it wanted to renew its contract," said the head of the Iraqi parliament's Integrity Committee, Sabah al-Saedi, said.
An epidemic of corruption continues to plague war-shattered Iraq as billions of dollars in government funds go missing each year.
According to the global civil society organization leading the fight against corruption, Transparency International, the country stood behind Somalia and Myanmar last year. Although several authorities have been caught diverting funds or extorting bribes each year, only a handful have been prosecuted so far.
Iraq's former trade minister was arrested in a burgeoning corruption scandal after his plane was ordered back to Baghdad while en route to the United Arab Emirates.
Abdul-Falah al-Sudani, who resigned on May 14 after allegations of massive corruption in the Trade Ministry, was taken into custody after his commercial flight returned to Baghdad International Airport.
The 62-year-old dual British-Iraqi national is accused of stealing public money and mismanaging the ministry by importing expired foods and employing his relatives, including two brothers.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2009 00:00 ||
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Fascinating stuff but I must confess I have no idea what impact, if any, this might/will have on humanity.
(Although I'm secretly hoping that a discovery like this is just one in a long series that eventually leads to the development of technology which will enable us to teleport, travel at the speed of light, time travel, or all three.)
Perhaps one of RBs resident science scholars can elaborate on the potential implications of this discovery?
#2
OK I work with magnetics (Alternators and starter motors)
Monopoles could easily be used for levitation, take a positive monopole and whichever way you turn it it's still positive, this means Jetson type flying belts with NO energy expenditure stay up as long as you like.
No running out of FUEL.
there's thousands of uses, but that one anyone can understand, crash less aircraft, Maglev vehicles and all without using a drop of fuel.
You can't do this with conventional Magnets because the other pole has to be damped.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/04/2009 12:43 Comments ||
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Says here (http://arxiv.org/ps/0908.3568v2) that what they are observing is "analogs of magnetic monopoles." It seems to be collective phenomena of the spin system that look like free magnetic monopoles. Not elementary particles. Fun, but no home fusion yet.
Posted by: James ||
09/04/2009 13:38 Comments ||
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#8
But will they get me laid?
If you have to ask..... I have bad news... :)
My question is how will this work with the Conservation of Energy?
#10
this research seems to deal with virtual pairs similar to electron and electron-hole pairs seen in semi-conductors.
The first benefit is that the measured "forces" between the "poles" would be the same as real poles.
This gives a real number that was always just an unknown constant in Maxwell's Equations....
Now you can do a "curl" equation for magnetic factors too.
To quote a slashdot poster: A magnetic monopole is to a magnetic field what an electron is to an electric field.
This will, amongst other things, mean that Maxwell's equations become more symmetrical.
div D = rho; div B = 0
Will become
div D = rho_e; div B = rho_m
And there will be a magnetic current term for curl H.
It's long been known that if a magnetic monopole exists then charge must be quantized.
currently looked at: div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,
but now div B can = something.
#11
Get in on the ground floor of the monopole revolution! It's a new world and you can be a part of it! But act fast before everyone else catches on!
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/04/2009 16:02 Comments ||
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#12
more substantial, at least in my mind," says Peter Schiffer, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University
From what I've been reading (see Dr. Smolin) this is all too true with too much of physics these days. What with all these postulated entities (strings, Mbranes, dark matter and energy) for which there is zip, zero, zilch hard evidence it seems that physics is digressing to the status of mathematical parlor games.
#14
Even without directly seeing one, Bramwell says that he is certain that the monopoles are there. "I don't think anybody could question it after this flurry of papers," he says.
Not to debate this - heck my Physics stops at Quarks - but does this sound like a certain Ex-Vice-President's pronouncements on Globull Worming to anyone else?
#17
Even better with the pairs behaving like electron and electron-hole pairs on semi-conductors (what the modern world is built on) you could make magnetic devices similar to semiconductors devices but doing other types of complex stuff.
The parents of an Ohio teenager who claims her father threatened to kill her because she converted from Islam to Christianity denied Thursday all allegations against them.
Rifqa Bary, 17, ran away from her family in Columbus, Ohio, in July and took refuge in the home of the Rev. Blake Lorenz with the Global Revolution Church in Orlando, Florida. The teen heard of the pastor and his church through a prayer group on Facebook. The girl's parents reported her missing to Columbus police, who found her two weeks later in Florida through cell phone records.
The teenager, in a sworn affidavit, claims her father, Mohamed Bary, 47, was pressured by the mosque the family attends in Ohio to "deal with the situation." In the court filing, Rifqa Bary stated her father said, "If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me!" The teenager claims her father added, "I will kill you!"
At a juvenile court hearing in Orlando Thursday, through their attorney the teenager's parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, denied all the allegations against them. The parents could not attend the hearing in person but listened through a telephone conference as their lawyer spoke for them. They denied they ever threatened to kill their daughter because she converted to Christianity
Mohamed Bary told CNN he believes a lot of false information has been circulated about the case and he said, "We wouldn't do her harm." He said he knew his daughter was involved with Christian organizations. "I have no problem with her practicing any faith," he said. But Bary conceded he would have preferred that his daughter practice the Muslim faith first.
Judge Daniel Dawson of the Orange County Juvenile Court ordered the girl and her parents seek mediation within 30 days. The judge previously ruled the girl will continue to stay in foster care until the allegations are resolved. The judge also sealed a report on the girl from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and issued a gag order for attorneys in the case.
At one point during the hearing the girl's court-appointed guardian, Krista Bartholomew, told the court, "This is not a holy war but a case about a broken family." Outside the courthouse following the hearing a Muslim activist and several Christian activists exchanged words over the case.
Another hearing is scheduled for September 29 if the family is not able to resolve the conflict through mediation.
#1
Anyone else get the feeling that this doesn't make sense, and that there is a lot more to the story? If the father threatened to kill the daughter, why did she go to a rather radical sounding church in Florida instead of the police? Are/were the Columbus police likely to throw her back into a life-threatening situation? (dalmer comes to mind here.)
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/04/2009 8:47 Comments ||
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#2
Whiskey Mike: Well, if I had to choose where to go for protection, the police or a religious group, my choice would be the latter...do you think that the PC indoctrinated police understand that a father is capable of killing a daughter for such things?
#3
If they don't recognize the situation as dangerous, then yes they would send her back.
As for the on-line connection, on-line contact is considerably less intimidating that walking into a building, and less likely to be noticed by parents.
#4
What she did was very smart. The police would be neutral in the deal, but the religious people would advocate for her. And across State lines, any good lawyer should be able to run the clock out for a year.
The worst threat she faces is if some organization like CAIR leans on a politician to do an Elian Gonzalez, in exchange for support by Muslims. But being in a different State makes that very unlikely.
#5
Oh, and once she is 18, if her family or others in her mosque do anything to try and get to her, she will need to go the equivalent of witness protection.
#6
The police would not have protected her, they would have referred her to juvenile authorities. A social worker would then have investigated. She might have been put into a foster home or group juvenile home for a period of time, but if the parents parroted said the right things, she would have been required to return to them.
And then she would have accidentally fallen on a kitchen knife.
Whereas, getting away from the home to another state is pretty smart -- now the Florida juvenile authorities are involved, and any time you get more bureaucrats involved, the slower things are going to move, as witnessed. That's smart if her goal is to run out the clock.
Just wondering why she didn't try to get the court to declare her an emancipated minor.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/04/2009 10:53 Comments ||
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Whiskey Mike,
Atlas Shrugs has been commenting on this issue extensively.
Apparently the girl had been beaten on many ocasions and had the bruises to prove it. This HAD been referred to the juvinile authorities several times, and they sent here back to her parents.
My take on this is that it is a fairly conventional parental physical abuse case. The only complication seems to be that the Ohio child protective services are afraid to appear "culturally insensitive" and are thoroughly intimidated by the Muslim Thing.
As for the "Kooky Christian Sect", the girl does not seem particullarly attached to it. The only reason she went there was because she and some members had exchanged emails. They were the only people she knew outside the state of Ohio.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/04/2009 11:42 Comments ||
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#8
as a minor, and against her father's wishes, she would have had the full support and protection of the state if she was just trying to get an abortion
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/04/2009 12:25 Comments ||
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#9
I suspect Frozan Al is onto something. She's 17 and desparate to get out of the situation she was in and this option was what she felt was best.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/04/2009 12:40 Comments ||
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#10
I read this as she's highly intelligent to have figured out to set one religion against another fir her own safety,
Most 17 year olds don't have this quality of reasoning available in their heads, most would simply die and be unnoticed.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/04/2009 12:49 Comments ||
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#11
Thank you all. Atlas Shrugged does have a lot of info. I am glad she got away alive.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/04/2009 13:30 Comments ||
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#12
If she didn't come from a Moslem family there wouldn't be any question. A 17 year old can declare herself emacipiated from her family for virtually any reason. If your or my kid can do this for reasons of incompatibility why can't she? Religious discrimination fueled by fear.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/04/2009 15:51 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.
A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home.
Silicon Valley billionaire Tom Siebel says he's recovering from broken ribs and legs after an elephant charged at him and a tour guide in the Serengeti a month ago.
Libya's Col. Moammar Khadafy has a beef with Switzerland and plans to ask the United Nations to abolish the tiny Alpine home of milk chocolate, cuckoo clocks and yodeling. According to Swiss minister Christa Markwalder, Khadafy will demand that Switzerland be wiped off the map when he comes to New York Sept. 23. He apparently wants the country to be dismembered and the land parceled out among neighbouring France, Germany and Italy.
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Thursday that the United States would formally suspend nearly $30 million in aid to the coup-installed government in Honduras. She also suggested for the first time that the United States might not recognize the country's elections this fall if the ousted president was not returned to power by then.
