from Islam Q&A
I am a young man and I have been letting my beard grow for nearly a year and I am trying to do acts of worship and keep away from forbidden things as much as I can. But I have been faced with the problem of finding work, until I found a job teaching in a high school for girls. I want to know whether it is permissible for me to carry on in this job. What is the ruling on the money that I have earned from it up till now?.
Answer : Praise be to Allaah. For a man to work as a teacher in a high school for girls, where he meets them with no barrier and most of them may adorn themselves and show their charms â as is the case in the country where the questioner lives â no wise man would doubt that this is haraam, because of the bad effects and evil results for both men and women. We have discussed these evil results in the answer to question no. 50398.
It says in Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daaâimah (12/149): It is not permissible for a man to teach girls directly because of the serious dangers and grave consequences involved in that.
It also says (12/156): Firstly: Mixing between men and women in schools and elsewhere is a great evil which may corrupt religious commitment and worldly interests. It is not permissible for a woman to teach or work in a place where men and women mix, and it is not permissible for her owner guardian to give her permission to do that.
Secondly: it is not permissible for a man to teach a woman who is not wearing hijab, and it is not permissible for him to teach her when he is alone with her, even if she is wearing proper hijab. When a woman is with a man who is a non-mahram her entire being is âawrah. As for covering the head and showing the face, this is not full hijab.
Thirdly: there is nothing wrong with a man teaching a woman from behind a screen in women-only schools, where there is no mixing between male and female students, or between the (male) teacher and (female) students. If they need to ask him questions, it should be means of closed circuit TV, which is well known and easily available, or via the phone, but the students should beware of speaking softly. End quote.
If I was talking about black men oppressed by whites, I would have the sympathy of the Western media.
But the sexist c**** don't give a c*** about women. We could be aliens or another species, in Australia particularly. Sorry for the swearing but it really irritates me.
#3
Yeah, you notice how NAG [National Association of Gals] cheered on the American military who liberated more females in a couple of years than they've liberated in decades? NOT.
#4
If the women are allowed to "show their charms", then this guy's in a western country.
So unemployemnt is the cause of "disenfranchised muslim youth" in various EU countries and points west, we've been told.
Perhaps the problem is that they CANT get jobs because fatwa's don't permit them to work with, or for, women. And women do make up 50% of the workforce in most "western" societies.
#6
I'm female and i applauded the US military for removing the Taliban. I went to anti-war rallies with a megaphone and a friend and shouted at the idiotarians. so it's not true that those who support women's rights don't stick up for the US: we do!
#8
so it's not true that those who support women's rights don't stick up for the US: we do!
Not a member of Women In Black, eh? Yes it is a generalization, but on the whole, the Left regards Bush HitlerBurton as a greater threat to human rights than the Islamofascists we are fighting a against. To call this behaviour naive is an understatement.
#9
I agree, Steve. Not all those who advocate women's rights are on the left thank goodness.
It is true, the lefties actually are quite retrograde on women's rights. THey ignore condoleeza, most powerful woman in the world right now as she is on the right. They ignore that Bush took out the Taliban. They ignore the chattel slavery of women in fundamentalist islamist nations because of PC imperatives to 'respect all cultures equally' even those that deserve a bollocking.
The left is actually the backwards looking brigade and the right has become progressive as far as individual liberties and equal rights is concerned.
#10
Another illustration of Islamic male mindset in action: i.e., take no responsibility for anything, and blame women for everythying.
These Islamic men seem inordinately horny--like it's all they ever think about, and secondly, it seems that they have a ridiculous time controlling themselves sexually once their horny mechanism has been switched to "on" (also out of their control). I'd advise them to get back in the driver's seat, but I don't think they have a vehicle.
A thought: send this question/answer to the girl's high school admin and see what happens.
What IS it with the Lancet? And with scientists faking research?
Happens much more often than you think. I've seen two instances of forged data in my career (one person got nailed by the NIH, the other person -- so far -- has gotten away with it). There is enormous pressure to get a finding out first, particularly if the finding is considered 'big' or if it is going to attraction grant or pharma dollars. There's no prize for coming in second to clone a given cell, for example. That's what happened here: the cancer researcher wanted to be first, and decided he could pull it off. It almost never works, just as a career criminial never thinks he'll be caught. Everyone else is too smart, and communications are so fast today.
A Norwegian cancer researcher has admitted fabricating data published in a renowned international medical journal, officials in Norway said Saturday. The researcher at Norway's Comprehensive Cancer Center, who was not identified, used faked patient data in an article on oral cancer published in the October 2005 issue of The Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal, said Stein Vaaler, strategy director for the cancer center.
They can soon start referring to it as "the formerly prestigious British medical journal"...
The article claimed that a certain kind of drug decreased the risk of getting oral cancer and referred to results seen in patients in two national databases, Vaaler said in an interview. A colleague raised questions about the article when it was published, and when the researcher was confronted this week about the data, he acknowledged the fabrication, Vaaler said. "All of it was fabricated," Vaaler said. "It was not manipulation of real data â it was just complete fabrication."
"Yeah. We needed some numbers, so I just polled some out of my butt..."
The Washington-based journal Science announced Thursday that it was unconditionally retracting two papers by South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk, who publicly apologized for faking data that purported to show the creation of stem cells from the world's first cloned human embryos.
He's toast, and so is his collaborator in Pittsburgh who was last seen backpedaling furiously.
Vaaler said the center has informed The Lancet about the fabrication, and an external review committee will examine the researcher's methods and his previous publications. A decision about whether the researcher should be fired will be made after the review committee issues its report, Vaaler said.
Oh, he'll be fired -- no journal will ever publish anything with his name on it ever again. And the journal editors talk to each other.
I'm sure he's got a rewarding career in the food service industry in front of him...
"This is a very serious situation for the hospital," the center's director, Aage Danielsson, said in a letter to colleagues that was posted on the Web site of The Norwegian broadcaster TV2. There was no immediate reaction from The Lancet.
Too busy going over the proofs for their Page 3 girl?
#1
Don't forget it was the Lancet that printed the phony 100,000 death toll figure for Iraq in 2004 when the actual death toll was more like about 20,000. The phony figure was seized on by the BBC of course who beat it up in anti-US style:
The report was discredited but of course it still pops up everywhere as people just LOVE to quote discredited figures when they agree with it.
You have to go a fair few pages in on Google before you find a result that exposes this phony figure as you'll be snowed under with search results repeating it as if it were fact.
Here's one debunking:
http://reclusiveantiquarian.blogspot.com/2006/01/fabricating-iraqs-death-toll.html
Here's the Washington Times debunking:
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060104-085709-7440r.htm
Here's the Andrew Bolt debunking (now removed from the herald sun but reprinted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1366322/posts
#2
Happens much more often than you think. I've seen two instances of forged data in my career
I don't know how often you have the chance to observe researchers in your career, Dr. White, but I suspect often enough that two instances isn't a lot. We're talking about human beings who are relatively unsupervised with substantial egos.
When you consider the lies the management of Enron, Tyco and Adelphia were able to perpetrate in the face of outside auditors, legal, SEC and analyst review it is surprising only that there is not more fraud in science and academics in general given the rather less stringent vetting.
#3
Maybe soon they will start to refer to it as the "influential" Lancet, like the "influential" Association of Muslim Scholars. You know, those lying loser guys.
#4
it is surprising only that there is not more fraud in science and academics
Science is a process and not a system of beliefs. It relies on reproducible experiments and testable theories. You can get away with scams and fraud, but eventually, you will get found out.
In the academic world in general, where the testing and checking is lacking, the situation is a little different.
A GREENPEACE activist was thrown overboard when a Japanese whale harpoon was launched across an inflatable boat in the Antarctic seas yesterday. Real shame it is, I tell you.
The incident has forced Greenpeace to rethink their human shield style protest against Japanese scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean. The Japanese says Greenpeace is taking the risks for the sake of public relations. The Japanese speak truth.
A harpoon from Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru No.2 was fired directly over the Zodiac inflatable boat, which was shadowing a minke whale in Antarctic seas. Greenpeace chief executive Steve Shallhorn said the harpoon had flown within a metre of the inflatable. "Greenpeace had been doing what it has been doing for three weeks â putting out inflatables between whales and harpoons," he said. Speechless, I am.
"The harpoon impacted on the whale but the towing rope got caught on our boat. And as the whale began to sink it put our boat in jeopardy. The rope got taut and threw one of our people into the ocean." Canadian activist Texas Joe Constantine, the second mate on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, struggled in the water for a short time before getting back into the boat.
Wait a minute! How does a "Canadian activist" get to be named "Texas Joe"? Maybe "Manitoba Joe", or even "Yellow Knife Joe," but unless he's from down Amarillo way or points south, "Texas Joe" should be out.
"He may have swallowed some seawater and whale blubber but he is all right," Mr Shallhorn said." Salt to taste.
#8
Well, (ducks for cover) I think it is stupid that the Japanese are still whaling. It's as popular as killing elephants for their tusks. Most people like and relate to elephants and whales and dolphins and don't like seeing them slaughtered.
There can't be that much money in whaling - except the money that groups like Greenpeace get for opposing it. The only accomplished here was publicity for Greenpeace.
#11
The Japanese rely on the sea to feed their people, they eat whales (And other things I don't even want to know about) as a necessary diet
This is stupid on the Greenpeace side, I for one, would sink their boats, try the survivprs for Piracy, and consficate their assets for damages, they have absolutely no business there.
Witness some of their past stupidities, the attempted stoping of the seal harvest, the spotted owl fiasco, the campaign to eliminate nuclear power (Just as it's most needed to reduce petroleum dependency)etc.
Note also the following excerpt from
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/save-our-seas-2
Quote
Whalers ram Greenpeace ship
This morning our ship the Arctic Sunrise was deliberately rammed and damaged by the Nisshin Maru, the factory ship of the Japanese whaling fleet. Straight after the ramming, the Nisshin Maru began to steam away from the "scene of the crime". However both the Arctic Sunrise and the Esperanza are in pursuit with every intention of continuing to peacefully protest the hunt.
Note especialy that while Greenpeace says it's ok for Greenpeace to ram and sink whaler ships, they're all bent out of shape when their own tactics are used against them.
And I don't call sinking ships a "peacefull protest"
Do you?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/15/2006 11:48 Comments ||
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#12
NS: I wonder how much of the whale they use anbd how much is chum.
They eat the whole thing. The meat from the catch usually winds up on dinner plates in the form of sashimi, bacon, or marinated with soy sauce at some of Japan's higher end restaurants.
#15
You forget: the Japanese are whaling in an international whale sanctuary.
They've even trespassed on Australian Territorial waters to hunt whales - in breach of our laws and our sovreign territory.
Sink the bastards! They can go catch whales in their own territorial waters and if they're too povvo and stupid to manage their fisheries so there aren't any left, too bad. They can eat rice.
#17
anon1, you shouldn't believe what the media says. Australian territorial waters only extend 12 nautical miles from the coastline. Australia has a claim to an exclusive economic zone in the area based on the Heard and McDonald Islands, although international law doesn't recognize such claims because they are based on 'uninhabited' islands. And then there is the even more dubious in international law, Australian claim to part of Antartica.
Greenpeace has it comming. They have been breaking law on the high seas with impunity. Stuff like this is bound to happen. They should be glad to be alive and not in jail.
#20
I find it no more "Evil" to hunt and eat Whales than to hunt and eat Deer, Elk, Sheep, Goats, Rabbits, Quail, other critters like possum crabs, crayfish, lobsters, oysters, clams, squid, octopus, and the various fishes of lakes and oceans.
If the Whales were hunted simply for sport, that would be different, but as food, no problem with that at all.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/15/2006 15:43 Comments ||
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#21
Given how leftist enviromentalists fight the evils of bathing in anything but patchouli oil, did the one that fall overboard file the enviromental impact statement of the oil slick his contact with the water was sure to have caused? I mean, who knows how many years he's not bathed and instead coated himself in the stuff.
#22
As there are "First Nations" that still hunt whales, why don't these activists go after them? Even if the tribes use the traditional Evinrude and explosive harpoon, it's gotta be easier to keep up with them and safer to interfere with them.
Probably not as photogenic or sympathetic, though.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/15/2006 19:29 Comments ||
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#23
"it's gotta be easier to keep up with them and safer to interfere with them"
Something tells me the second part of that statement is not true, RC. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/15/2006 19:58 Comments ||
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#24
Fine, but can we at least leave one whale alive so we can put its bones in a museum or something...
What Greenpeace needs are bigger and faster boats. Better equipped too.
You know, if they have simulated crab meat, maybe someone can come up with simulated whale meat? Worth millions...
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/15/2006 21:40 Comments ||
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#25
Dress up the Ainu in seal skins and claim whale hunting is an aboriginal right. Watch (non-whale) heads explode in cognitive dissonance.
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2006 22:19 Comments ||
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Posted on the off-chance that Europe still matters.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - MEPs will next week debate a report that is aimed at salvaging the EU constitution, and forming a clear decision byt the end of 2007 on how its core parts should be ratified despite last year's "no" votes in France and the Netherlands.
The two co-rapporteurs of the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee, the UK liberal Andrew Duff and the Austrian Green Johannes Voggenhuber, on Friday (13 January) joined the choir of EU leaders expressing their opinion over the fate of the text since the beginning of this year. The MEPs described the interventions so far as "simplistic" and presented instead a report setting out a specific roadmap for the resuscitation of the constitution in a revised form.
The Duff-Voggenhuber report, on which the parliament will vote on Thursday, proposes to intensify the so-called period of reflection on the constitution, agreed by EU leaders after French and Dutch voters rejected the text in referendums last year. According to the plan, the European Parliament will this year and next year together with national parliaments promote a series of parliamentary forums, which the MEPs hope will be echoed by a series of national debates.
Yeah, more talking, that will get the process back on track.
The reflection period should then be "brought to an end in the second half of 2007 with a clear decision how to proceed with the constitution".
Is dumping it and starting over an option?
The MEPs urge the plenary session of parliament to adopt their call for a "revision process" of the present constitutional text, which "nevertheless respects the constitutional core". "The eventual constitution will have to be modified", they said in a statement.
Mr Duff suggested to EUobserver that for example, as a means of wooing Dutch voters, provisions on the stability pact (the rules underpinning the euro) could be enforced, and accession criteria for new member states clarified in the constitutional text. The call for modification of the current constitutional text is set to be one controversial aspect of the parliamentary debate on the Duff-Voggenhuber report next week, with many MEPs still demanding the salvation of the entire current text, perhaps clarified with interpretative annexes.
Because after all, the EU Constitution as it stands isn't long enough and it's still too easy to read.
German leader Angela Merkel has proposed attaching a declaration on the "social dimension of Europe" in a bid to save the charter in its entirety. French president Jacques Chirac, by contrast, has urged closer co-operation in individual policy areas covered by the constitution.
To be done the French way, of course.
The Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot has said the constitution is "dead", after the Austrian leader Wolfgang Schussel declared that it is "not dead", but "in the middle of a ratification process."
After negotiations on improvements in 2008, a revised text should be put to European citizens in an EU-wide consultative referendum on the same day as the European elections in 2009.
At which time a sufficient number of people will vote 'non' as to make the whole process a farce.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/15/2006 01:47 ||
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#1
No problem:
Step 1. Bring in Carter
Step 2. Rig vote
Step 3. Rinse and repeat
#1
MLK was a lying, swearing, plagiarizing womanizer who deserves a national holiday named after him just about as much as J. Edgar Hoover deserves a Federal building named after him. Both of them were frauds who will cause future generations of Americans to wonder what the hell this generation of Americans was thinking when we lionized such worthless bastards. We won't be on the track to REAL racial equality until BLACKS lead the charge to end the big lie and dump all the honors given to MLK in favor of awarding them to some other, truly deserving black person.
Posted by: mac ||
01/15/2006 0:59 Comments ||
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#2
I gotta disagree, Mac. So the man couldn't keep it in his pants... that doesn't invalidate King's courage, leadership and vision. He had enough sense not to bay for blood in the streets, and enough pride to refrain from demanding reparations for slavery. America needs leaders like him, despite regrettable personal flaws.
My favorite quote from the article: Three-quarters of those surveyed say there has been significant progress on achieving King's dream. But only 66 percent of blacks felt that way. "Only" two-thirds. Heh.
#3
I agree with Rory. If not for Mr. King's non-violent demonstrations we would not be where we are today. Is it perfect? of course not but having been born and grown up in and around Selma, Alabama, I can tell you if the Civil Rights Movement had been hijacked by anyone advocating violence as a way to achieve equality there would have been a bloodbath. Would those non-violent tactics have worked 10 or 15 years earlier? I doubht it. The advent of NAtionally televised news let the entire Nation sit in on what was happening and, in my opinion, guarenteed the success of Mr. King's movement. That he was murdered and the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton took over was, again in my opinion, a tragedy. It set the Civil Rights Movement back decades and paved the way for Affirmative Action and PCism.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/15/2006 9:01 Comments ||
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#4
Agreed about Hoover, and people are now talking about renaming the FBI building. King did make a substantial contribution the the US and the World, regardless of possessing human failings as do we all. Nobody is talking about changing his holiday.
#5
When self appointed 'leaders' of the black community demand(!) that Washington and Jefferson's names be struck from schools and streets cause in their day they had slaves [like the rest of their contemporary world], the rationalization of MLK's sexism doesn't wash. If we accept people for who they were in the times they lived, yes, by all means let us celebrate and recognize each achievement and contribution. However, if that same community demands perfection by modern standards of others, then their heros too must meet the same standards they themselves demand.
#10
I'm old enough to remember walking into a beer joint in Louisville with some other guys from Fort Knox - in uniform - and walking out again when the bartender told us he couldn't serve the colored guy.
There was real, live racial injustice in the country that most of us started working really hard to get rid of in the late fifties and early sixties. I class the people who deny the progress with the people who were obstructing it back then.
I wasn't particularly fond of MLK when he was alive, but most people could accept the idea of one man (or woman) being as good as another. The idea was more important than the man. Since he died the man has been conflated with the idea. It's still a good one, even though it brings with it undesirable side effects, starting with the Revs. Jesse and Al.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2006 12:43 Comments ||
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#11
What MLK did above all was use television to show racism in its ugliest light and non-violence to show blacks in the best. The nation was ready to listen after WWII and he seized the moment. But plenty of ground work was laid by the A. Philip Randolphs and Rosa Parks before he hit the scene. Perhaps no Washington, but he did bring back in us the better angels of our nature.
#13
That's what I ment when I said Mr. King used National Television to further his cause. Most people are decent people and when National TV (use of sattelites) made it possible to get information virtually as it happened more and more people were made aware of the inequities of race. The video of the violence on the first Selma to Montgomery March and the use of fire hoses and police dogs against peaceful demonstrators brought the violence right into everyone's living room. We decided this was not what America was supposed to be about. Liberty and Justice for All.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/15/2006 15:24 Comments ||
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#14
Nope, you haven't convinced me. I always figured that anyone who purported to be a man of God and took pay for the job ought to be providing an example of probity and honor. Somehow repeatedly cheating on your wife, plagiarizing not only your dissertation but the thing you're most remembered for (the dream speech), and being a race hater yourself (the FBI tapes show this) doesn't quite seem to meet the requirements for the position. The REVEREND MLK broke every principle he ever espoused. He was a sleazy, lying media whore and the only thing that has people remembering him is the MSM's continuing admiration; same thing goes for Jack Kennedy. Assassination bought them both 50 years of fame but their actual accomplishments were damned small. Both of them were guys who wanted the power and perks that came with popular adulation but at bottom didn't have a principle to their names and wouldn't know one if it came up and bit them.
As for King's advocating nonviolence, give him what little credit is due for recognizing the alternative had absolutely no chance of success. Black revolutionaries in this country don't do well; they end up dead in a hurry. Ask anyone who knows the story of the Black Panthers in Oakland. If blacks had started a violent uprising in 1960's America anywhere but in their own communities they'd have been shot down in the street like dogs to the point of extermination. As it was there were plenty of whites who cheered them on as blacks burned their own neighborhoods and killed each other.
Most whites still don't give a damn about blacks because they've been conditioned by experience to expect no better from them. This has much to do with the people who, like King, have supposedly represented the black community. They've been lying, deluded, self-aggrandizing clowns as bad or worse than King was. You want to sing praises to honorable and decent black men who have done something admirable with their lives and stand as an example to all, not just their race? Start with Ralph Bunche and Thomas Sowell. Continue on with Shelby Steele and Ron McNair. Those are true black heroes and there are plenty of them out there. King just isn't one of them and continuing to praise a guy who just doesn't deserve it is doing nothing but perpetuating a a truly pernicious lie.
What's more, what happens when the black kid who has been raised his whole life on what a great example MLK was actually comes to find out the truth? Does he say to himself, "Gee, the REVEREND MLK whored and lied and cheated but everybody still says he's a hero. Why can't I do that and succeed? He did." Is that really a good thing to pass on--that blacks can't be held to the same moral standards as everyone else because they just can't measure up? Or do we just call that moral affirmative action? Other places (like DU) might but here on the 'Burg I don't think so. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, no matter what the color of the bird. If the REVEREND MLK's failings would have precluded his being honored if he was white, he doesn't get a pass just because he's black.
Posted by: mac ||
01/15/2006 15:25 Comments ||
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#15
"If the REVEREND MLK's failings would have precluded his being honored if he was white"
Three words for you, #14 mac: J. F. K.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/15/2006 16:26 Comments ||
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#16
Bingo, Barbara.
I've worked for several Black men over the years - two business entrepreneurs and an Army full colonel with a PhD in engineering. All 3 got some help from the initial stages of affirmative action, when the country as a whole woke up to how bad things were in some places for Blacks.
All 3 used that to move forward, and to contribute to society as a whole and to their communities in particular. And none likes what affirmative action has become. All give a lot of their time and effort to serve as positive role models for Blacks, especially young Black boys and young men. And 2 of the 3 rank among the best bosses I've ever had.
All 3 would and do honor MLK for his non-violent leadership. I do too.
Former United States president George Bush senior is arriving today (Sunday) in Pakistan on a three-day visit. He will visit the earthquake-devastated areas in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the NWFP. Sources said he would be briefed on the donations given by the international community for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the earthquake survivors. He will also be briefed on the rehabilitation efforts being made by the government of Pakistan and various international organisations. Bush will also meet Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and President Pervez Musharraf.
Wonder in what context Iran will come up?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The old agency head will go and smooth over the complaints of our air strikes. Go dad!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/15/2006 0:05 Comments ||
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#2
He's there to hand carry back Z-man's DNA samples.
Female soldiers have long fought off perceptions that their bodies just aren't equipped to handle the rigors of training and warfare. But a decade's worth of research suggests that women are hardly as fragile as critics once thought. A new study by military researchers found that many assumptions about female bodies are "astoundingly wrong." Women are just as good as men -- in some cases, perhaps even better -- at handling intense exercise and decompression sickness.
The findings, reported in the Journal of Women's Health, don't change the fact that women -- on the whole -- are smaller and less powerful than men. Still, they suggest "that human physiology is more consistent than would be suggested by the social embellishments and exaggerations" that come about when there isn't any actual research, said Col. Karl Friedl, commander of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine and co-author of the report (.pdf).
Friedl examined the results of more than 130 studies that followed a 1994 order from Congress to spend $40 million on biomedical research into women in the military. One of the most surprising findings "was the reversal of the age-old belief that high-volume exercise would be harmful to the reproductive system of women" and hurt their bones, Friedl said.
Continued on Page 49
#2
TW-My stick buddy in flight school was a woman, go ahead I've heard all the jokes. She is a solid officer. When the bomb went off in Zamboanga it was a woman that convinced the locals to talk to the FBI. There is a place for all on this GWOT, but in management? Come on, my frail ego can't take that! :)
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/15/2006 23:49 Comments ||
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George Clooney is convinced he ruined John Kerry's chances in the race for US president in 2004 - by snubbing an invitation and hurting his feelings.
The Ocean's Twelve actor was one of several screen stars invited to ride on Kerry's election train, but it all went downhill for the Democrat when Clooney stayed away.
He recalls: "Kerry asked me to ride on his train - he had a train going cross-country after he was nominated and some actors went on board. I called him and explained that I couldn't do it. I'd hurt him. I'd actually caused him harm at the polls."
#1
And what happened then...?
Well...in Hollywood they say
That the Clooney's small ego
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute his ego didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load-o-shite through the bright morning light
And he brought back the girls and boys! The votes for the election!
And he...HE HIMSELF...!
The Clooney, led the revolution!
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2006 11:44 Comments ||
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#2
Yes, without the support of the Film Actors Guild (FAG) the Democratic nomination was doomed. Maybe this year the the Dems can partner up with FAG and ride it to a great win in November. I only hope that FAG stands firmly behind the Dems and penetrates the electorate in a way that ensures that satifaction of both parties.
#6
cripes....what a massive ego. BTW - very funny, "Jake" :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2006 13:24 Comments ||
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#7
Hold on here! The article is not clear. It quotes Clooney using the conditional, i.e. "I would hurt him." implying that Clooney realizes how stupid it is for Dems to position themselves as the party of Hollywood and self-righteous celebrities. Clooney seems vaguely aware of his own limitations. He strikes me as marginally smarter than Affleck, et al.
Quietly some professionals are getting the work done.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
It's a waste of time and money. NOLA isn't worth what it's going to cost to save it from a Cat 5. Let it go and let anyone who wants to live there simply take their chances. No Federal flood insurance, either. If the state of Louisiana's taxpayers want to throw their money into a bottomless pit in NOLA, they're welcome to. The rest of us who have sense enough to live in places that aren't below sea level shouldn't have to pay for the folly of those who choose to do something that stupid.
Posted by: mac ||
01/15/2006 1:12 Comments ||
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#2
But make damn sure the grain is exported and the oil is refined.
#4
But no one says that we should tear down San Francisco because the big one is coming any day now.
No one's offering to subsidize stupidity via federally subsidized earthquake insurance, either. Californians now pay about 2% per year on the value of their physical home (as opposed to the land value) in state mandated and operated earthquake insurance. There is also a very strict building code that increases the cost of construction there.
In a post quake San Francisco, the free market should make the assessment of what should be rebuilt, just as in NOLA. Whenever the government gets involved, the decisions are made worse.
#5
IIRC the port facilities are not in New Orleans but a good way upstream. 60 years ago New Orleans and suburbs were needed at least as living spaces for dock workers who numbered in the thousands. This is no longer the case. Automation and computerized tracking have reduced the work force to several hundred. We don't need to abandon New Orleans but neithe do we need to completely restore it. Rebuilding every, or most, residential areas will only precipitate another disaster in the future. Limited rebuilding is what should be done.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/15/2006 8:50 Comments ||
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#6
A little over decade ago the Mississippi overflowed its usual banks. Has the federal government spent billions on those local levees? I do recall the government making available monies for small communities to displace to higher ground. Is all of New Orleans entitled to more than those residents of the shores of the upper Mississippi were?
#8
I wish this guy were here to participate in the discussion. But next time I see his grieving father I'll tell him how stupid his son was.
(Rant begins here)
I've lived in New Orleans all my life, and my family lived in south Louisiana for 200 years before I was born, so I guess I come from a long line of stupid people. Although the city is my home and I am as attached to it emotionally as a man might be to his horse, I don't mind discussions about to what extent the city might be rebuilt or what practical considerations should govern the rebuilding (improved building codes ae essential in my view, for example, and I agree that not every part of the city should be rebuilt.) What I do resent are comments that imply that people from south Louisiana not quite American enough to warrant consideration, or are genetically corrupt.
I've worked hard all my life and I suspect I've paid as many federal tax dollars as most here. So if anyone doesn't want their tax dollars going to rebuilding New Orleans, hey, I feel your pain. I don't expect your sympathy and I don't expect a handout. But along with a million of your fellow Americans I expect your respect.
(Rant ends)
And my public thanks to the very many people out there who have helped in so many different ways.
Posted by: Matt ||
01/15/2006 12:05 Comments ||
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#9
I think when disasters that size happen the Prez needs to declare Martial Law for reasons other than looters.
The prime one being that it keeps lawyers and local pols at bay by being able to say "thus and this will now happen regardless"
I would say they should start by repairing the levees then filling the city with fill to the level of the repaired levees.
Next build more levees higher then then newly filled land.
Make sure to keep the property records so even though the house might be under the fill the vertical rights continue on up. (maybe adjusting some roadway paths with trades.)
Now you have virgin property to rebuild on.
BTW... if you were even wiser you filled around new storm sewers, sewers, waterpipes, electrical and gas lines and fiber-optics outlets to each lot.
Now the lot owners would have prime real-estate worth building on. They could build themselves or sell prime land to developers and such.
Remove the Martial Law at this point with the lawyers and pols successfully bushwacked.
#10
good rant, Matt. Selected rebuilding is in order IMHO, and the f*&kers who put levee walls in short should be shot, contractors and the engineers who colluded with them
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2006 13:51 Comments ||
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#11
Desert Blondie,
Yes, I've been in New Orleans. As a matter of fact I spent three months there in 2001 building a ship in Avondale Shipyard. I used to go running along the tops of the levees. It didn't take rocket science to see that the water on the lake/river side was well above the level of the houses on the city side and that if the levee broke those houses were going to get real wet real fast. THE PLACE IS BELOW SEA LEVEL!!!! How much more do you need to know before you realize that sooner or later the defenses are going to fail? I spent most of my adult life going to sea; the sea is a dangerous and unforgiving enemy that never sleeps and its wave action, when really fired up, is arguably the most devastating natural force on the planet. When you put those things up on the board and combine them with the fact that Louisiana is the northernmost banana republic and NOLA was the most corrupt part of that state, it was a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Again, if the citizens of Louisiana want to rebuild down there and pay for it themselves, more power to them. If the Federal Government is supposed to support the reconstruction, I'm adamantly opposed. It's simply throwing good money after bad and if the people of NOLA don't like it, they can console themselves with the fact that politics can't trump physics.
Posted by: mac ||
01/15/2006 21:13 Comments ||
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#12
I am against rebuilding sea level areas. The rebuilding cost figure of $200 billion tax dollars is being thrown around. That comes around to $400,000 per man woman and child. Relocate the flooded out people and return the land to the swamps. A smaller New Orleans can survive on it's critical industries, French and Garden tourist districts.
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2006 22:10 Comments ||
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Long Guardian piece on how New York City beat the crime problem. Usual progressive handwringing near the end but surprisingly balanced most of the way.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/15/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Stopping crime is simple.
Find the people commiting crimes, and bust their heads.
It has been shown to be effective all over the country.
#2
NYTimes is constantly amazed that we have such full prisons while the crime stats keep dropping, never seeing the connection. Some people are just bad and will continue to offend (aka recidivism) unless locked up like animals...A small percentage of prisoners does the majority of crimes, over and over again. Rudy understood
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2006 14:16 Comments ||
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#3
I learned of a "New Crime" yesterday.
Most automotive gas tanks are now heavy plastic, this makes a great deal of sense as plastic will not rust, shrugs off scrapes and dings that would make a stamped steel tank dent, rip, or leak. And are a hell of a lot longer lived than steel tanks.
But we have some thieves who are now taking a 1/4 inch battery powered electric drill, drilling a hole in the thick plastic tank (Easier than drilling a steel tank) puting a bucket under the hole and stealing the gas.
I sincerely hope that these thieves don't realise that that 1/4 inch drill motor sparks, and can easily light the gas and burn them to death, those tanks are selling at the dealership for around 300 to 500 dollars including installation.
One hell of a lot of damage for 30 bucks worth of gas.
Burn in hell bastards.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/15/2006 16:03 Comments ||
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The government, for the first time, is urging doctors not to prescribe two antiviral drugs commonly used to fight influenza after discovering that the predominant strain of the virus has built up high levels of resistance to them at alarming speed.
A whopping 91 percent of virus samples tested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this flu season proved resistant to rimantadine and amantadine, a huge increase since last year, when only 11 percent were.
The discovery adds to worries about how to fight bird flu should it start spreading among people. Health officials had hoped to conserve use of two newer antiviral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, because they show activity against bird flu, unlike the older drugs. Now, because of the resistance issue, the newer drugs are being recommended for ordinary flu, increasing the chances that resistance will develop more rapidly to them, too, as they become more commonly used. The newer drugs work against Type A and B influenza strains; the older ones work only against Type A, but cost less and are available in generic form.
CDC officials took the unusual step of calling a Saturday news conference to announce that the predominant strain this season â the type A H3N2 influenza strain â was resistant to the older drugs. "Clinicians should not use rimantadine and amantadine ... because the drugs will not be effective," said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding. She said the lab tests, which CDC scientists had been analyzing since Friday, surprised health officials and the health agency rushed to get the word out.
The CDC tested 120 influenza A virus samples from the H3N2 strain and found that 109 were resistant to the two drugs. Two years ago, less than 2 percent of the samples were resistant. Last year, 11 percent were.
Gerberding said the agency didn't know how the resistance occurred, saying it may have been the result of a mutation in the virus or overuse of the drugs abroad, such as in countries that permit the drugs to be purchased without a prescription. One flu expert, Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, said the development was "disconcerting" as flu now has joined the ranks of other diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV, that recently have acquired the ability to resist front-line medications. But Schaffner said doctors have other options to fight influenza.
The CDC said that all H3 and H1 influenza viruses the agency has tested so far are susceptible to the newer antivirals: Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, and Relenza, also called zanamivir. "Tamiflu is now readily available everywhere â in most places, it is the primary antiviral being used" against flu, Schaffner said. "But we're always a bit frustrated when one of the therapeutic agents is foreclosed. It makes every infectious disease doctor worry a little bit."
That's especially worry with fears that bird flu could become turn into a human epidemic. The bird flu spreading through Asia infects people relatively rarely, but officials worry that it might morph into a form that spreads more easily, triggering a worldwide super-flu outbreak.
#2
BTW, Debka had a ticker that Iran was culling chickens near the border with Turkey. Nothing on Google news, but Turkish cases are close to the border, so it's likely Iran has cases also. Iran will keep this secret until its too late. For a while in a different forum I have been saying watch equally secretive Myanmar. If you are worried about a bird flu pandemic, then watch the news out of Iran.
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.
For a man to work as a teacher in a high school for girls, where he meets them with no barrier and most of them may adorn themselves and show their charms â as is the case in the country where the questioner lives â no wise man would doubt that this is haraam, because of the bad effects and evil results for both men and women. We have discussed these evil results in the answer to question no. 50398. 
A GREENPEACE activist was thrown overboard when a Japanese whale harpoon was launched across an inflatable boat in the Antarctic seas yesterday.
The government, for the first time, is urging doctors not to prescribe two antiviral drugs commonly used to fight influenza after discovering that the predominant strain of the virus has built up high levels of resistance to them at alarming speed.
