Climate Change: Did NASA scientist James Hansen, the global warming alarmist in chief, once believe we were headed for . . . an ice age? An old Washington Post story indicates he did.
On July 9, 1971, the Post published a story headlined "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.
The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees.
Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, "could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."
Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a "computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen," who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.
So what about those greenhouse gases that man pumps into the skies? Weren't they worried about them causing a greenhouse effect that would heat the planet, as Hansen, Al Gore and a host of others so fervently believe today?
"They found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere," the Post said in the story, which was spotted last week by Washington resident John Lockwood, who was doing research at the Library of Congress and alerted the Washington Times to his finding.
Hansen has some explaining to do. The public deserves to know how he was converted from an apparent believer in a coming ice age who had no worries about greenhouse gas emissions to a global warming fear monger.
This is a man, as Lockwood noted in his message to the Times' John McCaslin, who has called those skeptical of his global warming theory "court jesters." We wonder: What choice words did he have for those who were skeptical of the ice age theory in 1971?
People can change their positions based on new information or by taking a closer or more open-minded look at what is already known. There's nothing wrong with a reversal or modification of views as long as it is arrived at honestly.
But what about political hypocrisy? It's clear that Hansen is as much a political animal as he is a scientist. Did he switch from one approaching cataclysm to another because he thought it would be easier to sell to the public? Was it a career advancement move or an honest change of heart on science, based on empirical evidence?
If Hansen wants to change positions again, the time is now. With NASA having recently revised historical temperature data that Hansen himself compiled, the door has been opened for him to embrace the ice age projections of the early 1970s.
Could be he's feeling a little chill in the air again.
#1
Once a fearmongering, research money grubing, nanny state loving fucktwit, always a fearmongering, research money grubing, nanny state loving fucktwit.
#5
So global warming is the result of excessively effective particulate pollution control? It's a good thing we have China helping take up the slack or the coast would be up around St. Louis by now.
#6
Tell you what, if they can accurately predict the weather every day from now until christmas I'll start to take weather predictions for years out a bit more seriously. Until then I'm amazed these guys aren't tarred & feathered for their wild predictions. It just goes to show how some will believe anything if it otherwise fits their world view (aka USA bad, socialism good).
#7
Here on Guam this past weekend, the Sun's heat was strong enuff to cook/burn my skin off, even in the shade. The Sun also had obervable
"fingers/tongues" of flame emanating from it. LAST NIGHT after 8:00PM > THE DARK SKY over Guam started becoming LIGHTER, and IMO twasn't due to any local-military lights. Also were elec "sparks" in the atmosphere.
#8
LUCIANNE/SCIENCE > SCIENTISTS DISCOVER LARGE HOLES IN EARTH'S GRAVITY FIELD. Are amazed and perplexed at same time. *Among other reasons, holes are due to extra, overwhelming radiation waves coming from the Sun and "pushing/forcing" and penetratin' its way thru Earth's fields. FYI, AS A CHILD BACK IN LATE 1960's > ATMOSPHERIC
"RIPPLES" WERE OBSERVED BY ME HTH OVER GUAM AND WESTPAC.
#9
Here on Guam this past weekend, the Sun's heat was strong enuff to cook/burn my skin off, even in the shade. The Sun also had obervable
"fingers/tongues" of flame emanating from it. LAST NIGHT after 8:00PM > THE DARK SKY over Guam started becoming LIGHTER, and IMO twasn't due to any local-military lights. Also were elec "sparks" in the atmosphere
Joe, buddy,....cut back on the dosage.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/24/2007 20:51 Comments ||
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#10
Antbody else notice that Columbia University was a main player in this story?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/24/2007 21:03 Comments ||
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#11
I'd like a little of that "global warming", please. Today's HIGH was 71, and we're expecting a low of 40. It's 52 right now, just after 8PM.
Actually, I like cold weather, so I don't mind. My wife, however, is freezing to death. We also have a hairless cat right now that can't get warm enough. I don't think things will change much over the coming months, except to get colder.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/24/2007 22:01 Comments ||
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KINSHASA - More than 20 people have been killed in vicious battles over land between villagers armed with machetes and rifles in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said Sunday. The fighting broke out Wednesday when residents of Bena Muembia village attacked their neighbours from Bena Nishimba some 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of the Mbuji-Mayi provincial capital of Katanda, officials said.
Five people were killed as the fighting continued on Thursday and on Friday there were around 20 dead and about 500 huts burned, provincial Governor Alphonse Ngoy Kasanji said. Despite police reinforcements being sent to the area on Friday the people of Bena Nishimba attacked another neighbouring village, Bena Kapuya, he said.
There is an old land conflict in the region, Kisanji said.
The land has never been in conflict. The people have.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Dude, what the hell is wrong with African people?
Posted by: Stan Marsh ||
09/24/2007 18:42 Comments ||
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#2
what the hell is wrong with African people?
Nothing. That's the way people used to be everywhere, except that they didn't have machetes and rifles. The question is why did we change and how can we get them to change without the use of ugly tools like imperialism.
A new poll has given Labour a boost as Gordon Brown refused to rule out calling a snap general election. The poll, in Monday's Sun newspaper, gives Labour 42 percent - an eight percent lead over the Conservatives who have dropped two percent to 34 percent. The Liberal Democrats are also down two points, to 14 percent.
When the voters were asked who they would vote for if Gordon Brown promised to hold a referendum on the EU Constitutional Treaty it boosted the Labour margin considerably - Labour with 49 percent, 17 percent ahead of the Tories on 32 percent.
The Prime Minister insists he is "getting on with the job" and denied that his advisors want him to go to the country within weeks. "My focus is on the work ahead, the return of parliament, Iraq, the health service," he said. "Whenever the time comes for an election these will be the issues and the most important thing is I get on with the job.
"There's been speculation all the time but I think people know that over these summer months I just got on with the job."
Mr Brown is attending his first Labour conference as party leader and is stressing that health will be at the centre of any future election campaign. He will institute a new drive to combat hospital superbugs, including a ward-by-ward "deep clean" of all hospital premises.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
If the Conservatives had a candidate, this might be GWOT OPS related; but as it is, it's just leaves in the wind.
France is bankrupt and can no longer afford to pay its workers generous salaries and subsidies, its prime minister has declared.
Francois Fillon made the undiplomatic outburst during a trip to the French island of Corsica, where farmers were demanding more government money. "I am at the head of a state that is in a position of bankruptcy," he said. "I am at the head of a state that for 15 years has been in chronic deficit. I am at the head of a state that has not once passed a balanced budget in 25 years. This can't go on."
Mr Fillon's government is due to announce the 2008 budget this week with a deficit of 41.5billion (£29billion).
But his remarks drew immediate fire, both from within his own ranks and from the opposition. Francois Bayrou, the head of the centrist Modem party, said Mr Fillon seemed to forget that both he and Nicolas Sarkozy, who was finance minister before becoming president, had been in government since 2002 without improving the situation. He added that Mr Sarkozy's decision to spend up to 15billion (£10.5billion) on a package of tax cuts had only made things worse. One deputy from Mr Fillon's UMP party added: "This phrase was badly timed. The French are liable to ask why we committed all this spending on the fiscal package if we are in such a bad way."
It is the second time in two weeks that Mr Fillon has run into trouble over his tough-talking rhetoric. The first came when he announced that he only needed "the word" from Mr Sarkozy to roll out a plan to enact state pension reforms, even before trade unions had begun negotiations. They called a strike for Oct 18. This gaffe reportedly enraged Mr Sarkozy, who spent days reassuring the unions that they would be consulted.
There were rumours that Mr Fillon would be replaced in a reshuffle in the New Year. However, in an interview last week, the president showered his prime minister with praise, even describing the two men's views as "interchangeable".
Some observers say Mr Fillon has decided to speak out because he is tired of being stifled by the "hyper-president" and his media-friendly aides at the Elysee, and is keen to push ahead with reforms. One colleague from the Sarthe region, where Mr Fillon is a deputy, said: "Fillon has immense pride. While Sarkozy continues to stifle him and wants to do everything, Fillon will try and give provocative speeches in order to exist. It's a process that could get out of control."
Others argue that his "spontaneous" outbursts are part of a co-ordinated double act, with Mr Fillon playing the tough guy and Mr Sarkozy the conciliator.
Either way, Le Monde praised Mr Fillon's "language of truth" in its editorial, adding that, given the parlous state of France's debt and deficit, he "had good cause for concern."
#2
France's tax burden is one of the highest in Europe -- welfare states don't come cheap. The top marginal income tax rate is 48 percent.
A typical low-income family of four has much of its rent subsidized by the French government and can receive more than $1,200 a month in various government benefits. The unemployed receive more. Much of France's Muslim community lives in areas overcome with poverty and unemployment. And in no small measure the blame can be attributed to France's prized welfare system.
Ah so much for the "Welfare State"; wet-dream of the liberals.
#3
So is pretty much every western nation. The entitlement crowd's bills will come due soon with major amounts of interest. Once the boomers are in full retirement I can see a severe recession or depression since the government banks will be going broke over the welfare programs.
#5
buy your guns and ammo now if you haven't already. Predictions of folks breaking and entering to get what they don't have will be on the rise. With the baby boomers retired no one left to pay for the high costs of welfare. Our poor kids.
Not to be paranoid, but to protect one self.
Posted by: Jan from work ||
09/24/2007 12:56 Comments ||
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#6
Until Sarkozy, bribing voters with their own money was the standard means of getting elected in France. Drastic measures need to be proposed, in spite of union and minority (Muslim) opposition. The plebiscite was invented in France; I suggest Sarkozy use it to put special interest parties in the role of counter-revolutionaries.
#8
Go Jan fromWork,#5: buy your guns and ammo now if you haven't already.
Likethats gonnahappenUK-side!!!, Negrodrive-by not gonnahapen either, not.
Predictions of folks breaking and entering to get what they don't have will be on the rise.
Already happening. What is new?
With the baby boomers retired,
(I don't say I retired until I say it),
"no one left to pay for the high costs of welfare. Our poor kids".
Well, my poor kid got a shit load more health care than Rocket-Boy from Paki-Waki, Splodey-Dope Land. And they can keep that shit to themselves.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times said on Sunday it made a mistake in charging a discounted rate for printing a political ad that attacked the top U.S. general in Iraq, angering Republicans and drawing charges the newspaper is politically biased.
Given the mistake, Moveon.org, the liberal anti-war group that purchased the ad on September 10 -- the day Gen. David Petraeus testified to Congress about the war in Iraq -- said on Sunday it was willing to pay the full price. Oh, that'll help immensely. Not.
The ad, headlined "General Petraeus or General Betray Us," accused Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House."
The New York Times' public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that in his opinion, not only did the advertiser get a discount it was not entitled to, but the ad violated The Times' own written standards. Written? Who cares about written? I care about practice.
"The ad does appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, 'We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature,"' he wrote, adding that the phrase "Betray Us" was "a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier." Must have read one of the emails.
He quoted Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis as saying the advertising representative who sold the ad failed to make it clear that for the standby rate of $65,000, The Times could not guarantee it would run it on the day of Petraeus' testimony. Avoidance of Responsibility 101, Tried and Proven Technique #4: Blame flunkie, fire/bribe flunkie. Make no mention that flunkie had little to do with it and probably would have made a better decision had they actually been the one in charge. And I'm quite sure that the entire chain of "management" knew that ad was coming and what day it was to appear in the paper. The editors verify that the correct spin has been applied to almost everything else, why stop at the ads?
That standby rate is offered to political and advocacy groups willing to be flexible about the day their ads run. Thought they'd both have their cake and eat it too, eh?
"We made a mistake," Mathis was quoted as saying. "We", meaning the flunkie, of course.
Moveon.org said that it would wire the difference between the standby rate and the full rate of $142,083 to The Times. Good news/bad news. MoveOn loses $$$, NYT gains.
"Now that the Times has revealed this mistake for the first time, and while we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by most organizations, out of an abundance of caution we have decided to pay that rate for this ad," it said in statement. Took them this long to figure out what happened? Or this long to cook the books until it was good enough for public scrutiny?
#1
I doubt this will protect them from the law or a class action. This sort of thing has undoubtedly been going on for years and it will have left a long paper trail.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is considering a major tax hike on the rich to shore up the nation's Social Security system. "If we kept the payroll tax rate exactly the same but applied it to all earnings and not just the first $97,000," Obama wrote this week in an Iowa newspaper, "we could eliminate the entire Social Security shortfall."
Advocating tax increases works so well for Dhimmicrats in national elections. Just ask Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, and John Kerry. Notice Bill Clinton never made that mistake.
Obama's idea, which he described on the op-ed page of Friday's Quad City Times as being "one possible option" and not a formal plan, would raise more than $1 trillion over 10 years by subjecting income of more than $97,000 to a 12.4 percent tax. Half of the tax would be paid by employees and half would be paid by employers.
Obama is floating the idea of a tax hike on the rich as a way of assuring lower- and middle-income voters that he sees an option for ensuring Social Security's solvency that would not burden them. Obama has been indirectly criticized by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for suggesting on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that a higher retirement age should be "on the table."
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Strong and fair does not mean selling votes. A strong and fair country ensures that justice is true without regard to payoffs. That means making everybody work for their pay if they are truly capable. It also means personal responsibility. Something that has been lost over a short period.
I currently collect $1175 a month from this government "social security" account. That is enough to employ eleven Iranian families. If anyone has ever seen the third world, they would know that this and any other government program is helpful, but also dangerous.
#2
Obama is merely stating the obvious - this particular tax increase is inevitable. Think about it - the SS system is insolvent, and a tax on just the wealthiest few percent is not only politically harmless (they wouldn't have voted for you anyway), but is politically beneficial. It engages the 'wealth envy' classes and also shows people you are 'doing something' about Social Security.
#3
do you have ANY doubts that any tax raised to "make SS solvent" would be spent by the drunken sailors in Congress for something else? Mr. Lockbox was lying....
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/24/2007 9:13 Comments ||
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#4
I know I'm not likely to see a penny of the money Mr. Wife and I paid into Social Security over the years, no matter how high the tax is raised.
#5
Remember folks, money that the SSA takes in now over and above what's required to pay beneficiaries is used -- required by law, in fact -- to buy Treasury bonds. Those bonds are supposed to be redeemed when needed, but in the meantime the politicos -- both the Congress and the White House, and both parties -- use the money as they wish. There is and never will be a 'lock-box', per Al Gore.
So what Obama really wants to do here is inject a big chunk of cash into the Appropriations process. Oh, they'll give the SSA their bonds. And the next time it looks like those bonds might actually have to be cashed, they'll .. raise taxes again.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2007 11:25 Comments ||
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#6
It makes no difference whether YOU think increased SS taxes would just get urinated away, or whether YOU will ever see a penny back; it only matters that a majority of voters believe THEY will come out ahead. (And they don't even actually have to come out ahead, they just have to be convinced they will, and that, given the state of the education system today, is not hard.)
Got caught good so they have to toss some money into the pot. This is their press release.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Nope. No back tracking now. You are not only complicit, you are criminal. You actions get OUR Soldiers killed and I hold you personally responsible. Personally.
#5
The NYT guy should still swing. And they think Rudy should now pay the "corrected" amount! Except Rudy didn't cheat, he just took advantage of the 'sale'.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/24/2007 6:40 Comments ||
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#6
Freedoms Watch got a deal for an Ahmanutjob ad in today's paper, also. Good subsidization of the right by the leftwing establishment.
FromCompass Direct
A Pakistani judge this morning [September 17] unexpectedly cleared a Christian teenager of charges that he had ripped up pages containing verses from the Quran .... Judge Muhammad Abdul Sattar acquitted Shahid Masih, 18, at a lower court hearing in Faisalabad after prosecution witnesses changed their original testimonies. ....
Under oath, Mohammad Younis and Khalid Mehmood today dropped claims that Masihs co-defendant told them he had seen Masih tear pages from a tafseer, a book explaining Quranic verses.
Muslim teenager Muhammad Ghaffar had allegedly witnessed the act while he and Masih supposedly stole books from a medical clinic in Madina Town district of Faisalabad on September 10, 2006.
There were about 100 fanatics inside and outside the courtroom who were astonished when their own witnesses claimed that the accused were innocent, defense lawyer Khalil Tahir said. They were very, very angry.
Tahir said he declined to cross-examine the witnesses, immediately filing a written petition to drop the case based on the new testimonies. After hearing the lawyers arguments, Judge Sattar deliberated for two minutes before clearing Ghaffar and Masih of both theft and desecration of the Quran. Masih could have faced a life-imprisonment if found guilty of blasphemy.
Tahir said that both Judge Sattar and the witnesses practically fled the court after the verdict was announced. ....
Lawyer Tahir said that he does not plan to open a case against the prosecution witnesses for falsely accusing Masih and Ghaffar. We could open a case against them, but I think it would create more harm, both for me and [Masihs] family, Tahir commented. The false accusations have already taken their toll on Masihs family.
A mob of Muslim fanatics attacked Masihs home in September 2006 after rumors of his alleged desecration of the Quran spread throughout the neighborhood. Police quickly arrived on the scene and arrested Masih, sparing his life, Tahir said. Upon visiting Masih in jail, however, Tahir found that the Christian teenager had been beaten by sub-inspector Muhammad Saffdar.
Masih was able to post bail in January, but he was forced to live separately from his parents and 12 siblings for fear of attacks by extremists. The teenager plans to stay in hiding for several months before once again looking for work.
Tahirs own wife and three sons have periodically been forced into hiding due to threats from Muslim extremists. The Christian is one of only a few lawyers in Pakistans third largest city willing to represent people accused of blasphemy.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
09/24/2007 00:29 ||
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#1
A very, very brave and ununusually honest Muslim judge (fawta on him in...). But notice that the people who slandered the Christain will go free out of fear of retaliation. Muslim tolerance at work.
Former Punjab chief minister and ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) Vice President Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo said on Sunday that there were bright chances of a coalition government of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the PML after the general elections, but the prime minister would be from the PML.
He told reporters here that the PML had not yet decided to repeal the sixth schedule of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution to allow two-time former premiers to contest for a third term. He said two-time former premieres Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif could only become prime minister for a third-time with the presidents consent through a bill passed by the parliament with a simple majority.
This article starring:
Benazir Bhutto
Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo
Nawaz Sharif
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif would announce his plan to return to Pakistan once again after spending Eid in Medina and returning to Jeddah,
Conspiracies were being hatched to pit the army against the nation.
Nawaz Sharifs spokesman told a press conference at the Quetta Press Club on Sunday.
What part about "and stay out!" don't you understand?
The spokesman, Dr Saeed Elahi, said that earlier, Nawaz had decided to return to Pakistan in the wake of the Supreme Courts decision, but the humiliation he had endured and the mass arrests of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers were tantamount to contempt of court. The government was not abiding by the law and a situation akin to civil war was prevailing in the country, he said, adding that conspiracies were being hatched to pit the army against the nation. Shahbaz Sharif and other family members, who were exiled forcibly, would return home one by one, he said.
This article starring:
Dr Saeed Elahi
Nawaz Sharif
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani opposition leader on Sunday accused President Pervez Musharraf of trying to crush dissent after police held dozens of people who vowed to protest against the military rulers re-election.
Police served four leaders of a pro-democracy alliance with 30-day detention orders on Saturday night and kept them under heavy guard at their parliamentary lodgings in Islamabad.
"Hokay, into da wagon wit yez!"
Security forces arrested dozens more activists in raids on their homes, while party officials said other opposition figures have gone underground to avoid being rounded up.
Javed Hashmi, the acting chief of exiled former premier Nawaz Sharifs Pakistan Muslim League party, said his lawyer would challenge his illegal detention in court. They want to crush every voice of dissent, Hashmi told AFP from the parliamentary apartment where he is being held.
The opposition coalition, called the All Parties Democratic Movement, has vowed to block Musharrafs bid to win another five-year term in a vote by the federal and provincial assemblies on October 6.
They have confined me for 30 days, but we will continue to raise our voice for the rights of the people of Pakistan, for democracy and against military dictatorship, Hashmi said. They want power by the use of force, not by the power of the ballot, added Hashmi, who was freed from jail by the Supreme Court in August after serving three years on sedition charges.
Deputy information minister Tariq Azeem said the preventative detentions were justified. These people were threatening to storm the Supreme Court and attack the election commission. No government can allow them to take the law into their hands, Azeem told AFP. Some leaders are under preventative detention to ward off any threat to law and order to protect the sanctity of the institutions, he said.
Because the sanctity of the institutions could be sullied by having, you know, a fair vote ...
The alliance staged protests on Friday and says that it will blockade the election commission to stop Musharraf filing his nomination papers on Thursday. It has also vowed to resign from parliament.
Don't they threaten that about every other week or so? Somehow they never seem to get around to actually doing it ...
As police sources said that more arrests were likely, Sharifs party and the biggest coalition of religious parties, the Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Front, said most of their leaders had gone into hiding. The leadership has gone underground to keep the movement alive. Hundreds of our workers have been detained, said Shahid Shamsi, a spokesman for the Islamist alliance.
Sharifs party said its leaders have left their homes for safer places while several dozen had been detained. This is sham democracy, spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said. The regime is proving our point that it is autocratic not democratic.
Police would not confirm the full number of arrests.
Coppers in a police state generally don't.
Musharraf has faced mounting protests and slumping popularity ever since his failed bid to sack the Supreme Court chief justice in March.
Dumb, dumb, dumb move; beginning of the end for him right there.
The Supreme Court has shown increasing autonomy, ruling in August first that Hashmi could be freed and then that party leader Sharif himself was allowed to return from seven years in exile. But when he did so nearly two weeks ago Pakistani authorities immediately dumped Sharif, the man Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, on a plane to Saudi Arabia.
"But they said I could stay!"
"And we say you go! Into the baggage compartment wit yez!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Note the common thread: the leaders, be they alleged Democrats or Islamists, all want to prevent the elections from taking place in the first place.
This points to a fear that Musharraf, who actually isn't too unpopular right now, at least compared to the other candidates, might actually *win*, and reasonably fairly. This would be a disaster for them.
#2
What would happen to Benzir Bhutto's ambitions should President Gen. Dr. Musharraf actually win re-election? Question: I seem to recall that Mushharraf was constitutionally forbidden from taking office for another term?
#4
Don't they threaten that about every other week or so? Somehow they never seem to get around to actually doing it ...
It's a lot like how all these radical imams keep threatening to fight us to their followers' last drop of blood while throwing their bodiesplus those of their entire family'supon our swordpoints but somehow never manage to find any time to actually do so.
Buddhist nuns joined the growing protests against Myanmars ruling generals on Sunday, a day after a dramatic appearance by detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to pray with monks now leading the marches.
About 100 nuns joined more than 2,000 monks to pray at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, devoutly Buddhist Myanmars holiest shrine, before marching to the centre of the former capital. It was one of three protest marches by monks in the city and there were at least two in Mandalay, a major centre of the monkhood, but there were no signs of trouble. Plainclothed police kept watch, but there were no uniformed officers or soldiers in sight and people on the streets applauded as the marchers passed. The mood was cheerful, with many people in Yangon seeing the emergence of Suu Kyi from her lakeside villa as a sign the military was being flexible.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad underwent surgery and was back on a respirator on Sunday after a recent heart bypass led to a chest infection, a hospital statement said. Mahathir, 82, who ruled for 22 years until 2003, went back into the operating theatre at Kuala Lumpurs National Heart Institute around midnight on Saturday to have infected tissue cut out of his chest, an aide to the former premier added. He is on full support, the aide said, adding that Mahathir was still not conscious and was breathing with the support of a respirator in the institutes intensive-care unit.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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Quick! Name me another kind of junta other than military. Go on...
YANGON, Myanmar - About 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks demonstrated against Myanmars military junta Sunday, in what has quickly become the countrys largest anti-government demonstrations since the failed democratic uprising in 1988.
Some 10,000 monks marched from the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmars biggest city, Yangon, to the nearby Sule Pagoda before passing the US Embassy, witnesses said. The monks shouted support for detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while a crowd of about 10,000 people protected them by forming a human chain along the route.
It was the sixth straight day monks have marched in Yangon, and came a day after they were allowed to walk past Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Suu Kyis compound in a symbolic gesture of support. Their defiant activities have given new life to a protest movement that began a month ago after the government raised fuel prices.
A monk gave a speech Sunday calling for Suu Kyis release and national reconciliation before the monks set off from the Shwedagon Pagoda, the witness said. The protest was the largest in the latest series to erupt in Yangon.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said he wanted to restore the vote in Iran to young people aged 15 and upwards less than a year after parliament raised the minimum voting age to 18.
The government will soon present a bill to reduce the voting age from 18 to 15. It is a present to young people to mark the first day of the school year, said Ahmadinejad, according to the IRNA agency. When the voting age was 15, we saw how our young people acted with fervour and chose the right way for the independence and greatness of Iran, he added, speaking on the day Iranian children traditionally return to school.
Parliament in January voted to raise the minimum voting age to 18, despite the opposition of Ahmadinejads government which argued that young people were the pillar of the revolution.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
And are easily manipulated. Who would know better than Ahmadinutjob, who was involved in the no-kid-left-intact program during Iran/Iraq war in the capacity of counsellor (motivator/indoctrinator) to the soon-to-be-dismembered young Basij members. The plastic key they wore, I think, was his idea.
Didn't the Ayatollah Khomeni lower the age of marriage for girls to 9, using the precedent of Mohammed and Aisha?
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2007 8:10 Comments ||
Top||
#4
"A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual acts such as foreplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed. A man having intercourse with a girl younger than nine years of age has not committed a crime, but only an infraction, if the girl is not permanently damaged. If the girl, however, is permanently damaged, the man must provide for her all her life. But this girl will not count as one of the man's four permanent wives. He also is not permitted to marry the girl's sister."
Fatwa by the Ayatollah Khomeini
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2007 8:12 Comments ||
Top||
#5
It is not illegal for an adult male to 'thigh' or enjoy a young girl who is still in the age of weaning; meaning to place his penis between her thighs, and to kiss her.
- Ayatollah Khomeini
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2007 8:12 Comments ||
Top||
#6
How about asking Dinner Jacket about this at Columbia?
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.
Climate Change: Did NASA scientist James Hansen, the global warming alarmist in chief, once believe we were headed for . . . an ice age? An old Washington Post story indicates he did.
KINSHASA - More than 20 people have been killed in vicious battles over land between villagers armed with machetes and rifles in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said Sunday. The fighting broke out Wednesday when residents of Bena Muembia village attacked their neighbours from Bena Nishimba some 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of the Mbuji-Mayi provincial capital of Katanda, officials said.
France is bankrupt and can no longer afford to pay its workers generous salaries and subsidies, its prime minister has declared.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times said on Sunday it made a mistake in charging a discounted rate for printing a political ad that attacked the top U.S. general in Iraq, angering Republicans and drawing charges the newspaper is politically biased. 
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is considering a major tax hike on the rich to shore up the nation's Social Security system. "If we kept the payroll tax rate exactly the same but applied it to all earnings and not just the first $97,000," Obama wrote this week in an Iowa newspaper, "we could eliminate the entire Social Security shortfall."
Former Punjab chief minister and ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) Vice President 
ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani opposition leader on Sunday accused President Pervez Musharraf of trying to crush dissent after police held dozens of people who vowed to protest against the military rulers re-election.
Buddhist nuns joined the growing protests against Myanmars ruling generals on Sunday, a day after a dramatic appearance by detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to pray with monks now leading the marches. 
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad underwent surgery and was back on a respirator on Sunday after a recent heart bypass led to a chest infection, a hospital statement said. Mahathir, 82, who ruled for 22 years until 2003, went back into the operating theatre at Kuala Lumpurs National Heart Institute around midnight on Saturday to have infected tissue cut out of his chest, an aide to the former premier added. He is on full support, the aide said, adding that Mahathir was still not conscious and was breathing with the support of a respirator in the institutes intensive-care unit.
YANGON, Myanmar - About 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks demonstrated against Myanmars military junta Sunday, in what has quickly become the countrys largest anti-government demonstrations since the failed democratic uprising in 1988.
