Rick Glen Strandlof, a former mental patient who posed as a wounded Marine captain to found a statewide veterans group and campaign for political candidates, is being prosecuted under the Stolen Valor Act for making claims he received a Purple Heart.
A federal arrest warrant was issued Thursday evening for Strandlof, who used the alias Rick Duncan when he was acting as a spokesman for veterans issues.
Strandlof will be charged with one count of making false claims about receipt of military decorations or medals, a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail and a $250,000 fine.
Strandlof, 32, had not been arrested as of Friday evening.
Jeffrey Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Colorado, would not say whether authorities know his whereabouts. Dorschner said only that Strandlof will be brought to Denver to appear before a federal magistrate after he is arrested.
Strandlof is the first person to be charged in Colorado under the Stolen Valor Act. The act, passed in 2006, made it possible to prosecute military fakers who make only verbal claims about earning military medals. Prior to the act, phony veterans had to be caught wearing the medals to be prosecuted.
"A lot of people wonder about the seriousness of this," said Pam Sterner, the Pueblo woman who wrote the Stolen Valor Act for a political science class. "What they don't understand is that to misrepresent yourself as someone who has earned a Purple Heart and to claim you are in the same league as someone who has sacrificed their life or lost a limb or something, that is uncalled for."
Strandlof was exposed in May after members of the group he founded, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, became suspicious of claims that he had served three tours in Iraq, survived the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the Pentagon, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and suffered a brain injury during the battle for the city of
Fallujah.
They searched military records and contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation after determining he had never served in the military. The FBI began investigating Strandlof and arrested him in May on an outstanding El Paso County traffic warrant.
In interviews with the FBI and local and national media outlets, Strandlof admitted making up the stories. He said he suffered from mental illness. He had previously been hospitalized in a mental institution in Nevada.
"I think he probably is a real con artist. It's tragic. His ideas were to do good and help the vets, but people were deeply hurt by what he did," said his grandfather Richard Strandlof, a veteran who lives in Montana and said he hasn't seen his grandson in 15 years.
The investigation of the phony veteran took five months because the FBI also was investigating whether Strandlof used any of the money he collected on behalf of the Colorado Veterans Alliance for personal gain. Dorschner would not comment on what the FBI found. But there are no charges relating to the fundraising.
The Stolen Valor case against Strandlof was helped by the Internet. Portions of speeches he gave as Rick Duncan are posted on YouTube videos. In one, he claims he was wounded and lost four Marines under his command. He also claimed to have a metal plate in his head from that injury and to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.
The affidavit noted that a month before his arrest, Strandlof had agreed to appear at a veterans event wearing his medals, but he showed up without them.
When asked why, he said he did not wear them because "it would appear egotistical."
#2
He is a Democrat - here is a comment from the original link @ the Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13475253
-
Rick Strandlof was loved, embraced, adored and used by the Dems and the liberal media when he came out and claimed to be a wounded vet who was anti war and wronged by the VA. They lapped it up.
He was all over Colorado in 2008 campaigning for Democrats with his made up stories speaking at a Barack Obama veterans rally in front of the Capitol, co-hosting several events with then congressional candidate Jared Polis, and attacked Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer in a TV ad paid for by the fake veterans group VoteVets.
And when Strandlof is finally charged The Denver Post doesnt feel the need to include any of his partisan politicking ANYWHERE in their report?
You can bet your bottom dollar if Strandlof was promoted by Repubs that info would be front and center IN THE HEADLINE, and be the focus of the story.
#3
Is the ObaMessiah himself a covert US soldier not on the public records - why should this man be arrested but not the Prez for treason and conspiracy?
Children who eat sweets and chocolate on a regular basis are more likely to be convicted of violent crimes as adults, a new study finds. Oh. Well. I guess that explains Bazooka Joe.
Previous studies had reported that anti-social behavior stems in social and environmental factors such as poor parenting and a deprived upbringing; the new study, however, believes offenders have very poor diets.
"There appears to be a link between childhood diet and adult violence, although the nature of the mechanism underlying this association needs further scrutiny," said lead researcher Simon Moore. Thus justifying more nanny-state laws ...
According to the study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, kids with the worst impulsive behavior have the most terrible diets such as having a Coke and a bag of chips for breakfast.
Which is not at all the same as having a single Leonidas truffle every day for a week after Daddy gets home from a business trip, or a couple of cookies for an afternoon snack.
Some 69 percent of adults considered to be violent at the age of 34 were reported to have had eaten sweets and chocolate nearly every day during childhood.
The main reason contributing to the condition is not well recognized; many, however, believe confectionery make adults addicted to certain additives, leading to aggressive behavior in the long run. Others, however, believe rewarding bad behavior in childhood with confectionary is the main cause, adding that instant gratification stops the children from learning how to wait to obtain something, nurturing their impulsive behavior.
Or it could be as simple as properly fed children knowing that they're loved, and so are willing to learn self-control from parents modelling that behaviour. Also, parents who feed their children inappropriately tend to have other parenting skill lacks, and too often model exactly the behaviour these above researchers decry, so clearly there is a constellation of causes leading to a constellation of undesirable effects. It's a good thing I'm not on the grant committee.
Scientists concluded that improving the children's diet may improve health and reduce aggression later in the life.
Improving the children's diet would certainly be A Good Thing, and definitely would lead to all sorts of improved outcomes, including a reduction of the incidence of rickets and common cold infections.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
You may not know me but I find children absolutely wonderful - From the Movie "Silence of the Lambs"
-Jack Crawford: Just do your job, but never forget what he is.
Clarice Starling: And what is that?
[cut to Clarice's first trip to the psychiatric prison]
Dr. Frederick Chilton: Oh, he's a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.
Likely to work for this Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services
#2
Yeah, but kids who are overfed with candy turn to become obese criminals, so, at least, they don't get to snatch your purse and run away, fat slobs. Here, fatso, help yourself with a cookie, I see that you are hungry, you hog.
#6
When did the distinction between correlation and causation stopped being one of the basic principles of research?
It's an important distinction that too often is forgotten, to be sure. I haven't read the underlying journal article so don't know if it is solid research or crap. The link here goes to an Iranian news service, which may not be reporting the article correctly.
That said, there is a fair amount of recent neuroscience that demonstrates the effects of nutrition and certain early habitual experiences on brain structure and function. The structures are distinct areas in the brain ... functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)has identified, for instance, that the area of the brain structure that allows us to exercise self-control differs from the area that plans/executes actions. IF the former is underdeveloped or functioning erratically, it means poor impulse control -- a key trait of many violent criminals.
Functions such as the ability to postpone immediate gratification, identify longer term consequences of actions, judge risks, take responsibility and exercise self discipline all depend on neural development and brain chemistry. Those in turn are shaped heavily by repeated experiences and by nutrition. They can be learned, but it's a catch-22 situation: if the basics aren't in place, then learning these traits is less likely and harder to do. Young brains are developing rapidly ... they either do so as a result of favorable experiences and nutrition or they are shaped by the lack of those.
Our ancestors ate far less sugars than we do, including during the critical years of brain development. So it's a reasonable research question to ask whether a diet that is very far from what we evolved to eat, or what our ancestors ate regularly, might not have significant lasting effects on the brain.
I suspect that what's really bad here is not the candy and chips per se but rather that they are eaten instead of foods containing nutrients that are critically important for proper development.
#9
My wife has a degenerative eye disease, she's near blind.
Last night we were eating out, she needed help and a 12 (Or so) Year old black kid came to her aid unasked. I made a point of congratulating his parents in his hearing, told them they had raised an outstanding young man, and I meant every word.
They should be very proud of him.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/04/2009 11:16 Comments ||
Top||
#10
That's why my children always had Diet Coke (later Coke Zero) with their breakfast Whiskey-and-Coke. Cuz that's what good parenting is all about..."for the chilruns"
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/04/2009 12:47 Comments ||
Top||
#11
This article is from Iran.... All us EVIL candy eating Americans!
#12
(a) Lotp, it's not the biochemical effects of the candy, it's the parents who take the easy way---producing offspring who'll grow up to take the easy way (genes + eviro). Which, under proper circumstances translates into criminality.
(b) That said, there is a fair amount of recent neuroscience that demonstrates the effects of nutrition and certain early habitual experiences on brain structure and function.
Lotp (going by the hint's you've dropped over the years) you grew in academic community. Well, things have changed since then. Research, both scientific and scholastic, is no longer a vocation---it's a profession. And, because of the explosion of knowledge, it's no longer a profession where one's colleagues in the same institution are capable of evaluating one's competence directly. That is, it's a profession whose major component is salesmanship.
Now, let us consider a hypothetical case. What is more likely to gain one recognition, grants, etc....
(i) Investigating an issue whose importance is clear to, say, 5 people worldwide.
(ii) Providing evidence (it doesn't have to be a very strong evidence: cf. Global Worming) that some common dietary component is injurious to "the children".
#13
You've misread the hints, g(r)omgoru. I grew up in a blue collar family of people who built things with their hands, hunted, fished and worked in the day to day world.
OTOH I do have education including through the doctoral level. My research is in a science area and I currently manage some basic science research, including decisions about what research to fund and why.
You'll forgive me then if I say that it's quite likely I'm at least as familiar as you are with how research topics are chosen, vetted, funded and results published.
Maybe even a little more familiar. And yes, my research area draws on neuroscience as well as several other foundational disciplines. It's not my specialty but I'm familiar with some parts of the scholarly literature and the state of research questions and results in the field.
#15
You cross-correlated your Rantburg females slightly incorrectly, g(r)omgoru. I'm the one who grew up in the ivory tower then left for the outside world, ending up in the sheltered rose garden of suburban housewifery and corporate spousery. Daddy used to write grant proposals though, back in the day. Lots and lots of grant proposals. Followed by preliminary papers, definitive papers, summary papers... the game was to see how many papers could be gotten out of each datum. I edited many of them for language usage as I was a native English speaker, unlike my terribly highly educated parents. Based on your description I'd say the rules haven't changed much since I was a girl.
"Nude" is wearing nothing, sitting in an artistic position, and holding a rose or a petunia or something.
A man who told officers he was a medical marijuana provider has been arrested for allegedly standing naked in a Colorado highway, pounding on passing cars and spitting at a state trooper. "Naked" is wearing nothing and having people drive by you hollering "put it back on!"
Dustin Robbins, 27, of Westminster, faces 13 counts including indecent exposure, assault and driving under the influence of marijuana. That's "under the influence of medical marijuana." He needs it because he gets a lot of colds.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
At least he wasn't "pounding" on something else. :))
Roman Polanski agreed to pay the victim in his child-sex case at least $500,000 as part of a civil settlement, but then failed to live up to the terms of the agreement, according to court filings reviewed Friday.
The documents leave open the question of whether the fugitive filmmaker has ever paid the money he promised in the confidential 1993 settlement with Samantha Geimer, but a change in her approach to Polanski in subsequent years suggests they may have resolved the issue.
In 1996, she was still trying to get the funds and even attempted to garnish his pay from movie studios. By the following year, she had stopped asking for court help to get paid and wrote a letter to a judge in support of Polanski returning to the United States and settling his criminal case without spending more time behind bars.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Some of the hollywierd hasbeens should read the court transcript. There is a reason the original judge was going to throw the book at him: HE FRIGGING DESERVED IT!
#3
Given the wide-spread (heh!) support for Polanski's egregious behavior, perhaps a tax on boinking under-age children would yield greater budget reductions than a tax on sugary beverages.
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the ill-fated 1943 Warsaw ghetto revolt against the Nazis, died Friday at the age of 90.
Edelman died of old age at the family home of his friend Paula Sawicka, where he had lived for the past two years. "He died at home, among friends, among his close people," Sawicka told The Associated Press.
Most of Edelman's adult life was dedicated to the defense of human life, dignity and freedom. He fought the Nazis in the doomed Warsaw ghetto revolt and later in the Warsaw city Uprising. And then for decades he fought communism in Poland. His heroism earned him the French Legion of Honor and Poland's highest civilian distinction, the Order of the White Eagle.
Former Israeli ambassador to Poland Shevach Weiss paid tribute to Edelman. "He will remain in my memory as a fighting hero, a man of great courage," Weiss said. "He never ceased in his struggle for human freedom and for Poland's freedom."
The uprising at the Warsaw ghetto was the first act of large-scale armed civilian resistance against the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II.
One of the few survivors of three weeks of uneven struggle in the Warsaw ghetto, Edelman felt obliged to preserve the memory of the fallen heroes of that first large-scale Jewish revolt against the Nazis. Each year, on the revolt's anniversary, he laid flowers at Warsaw's monument to the ghetto heroes, and called for tolerance.
"Remember them all - boys and girls - 220 altogether, not too many to remember their faces, their names," he said of the young fighters in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press.
'Man is evil, by nature man is a beast," he said then. Therefore people "have to be educated from childhood, from kindergarten, that there should be no hatred."
He also felt obliged to appeal repeatedly to the world for freedom and peace - even when it had to be won in a fight.
"When you cannot defend freedom through peaceful means, you have to use arms to fight Nazism, dictatorship, chauvinism," Edelman said in the 2008 interview in his apartment in the central city of Lodz, which was filled with portraits of Jews and of scenes reminiscent of the Holocaust.
He worked at a city hospital Lodz, almost to his last day.
Edelman was born Jan. 1, 1919 in Homel, which was then in eastern Poland and is now in Belarus. His family soon moved to Warsaw. When the Nazis invaded Poland on Sept.1, 1939, Edelman was member of Bund, a Jewish socialist organization that later masterminded plans for resistance against the occupying Germans.
The Germans set up the Warsaw ghetto in November 1940, cramming some 460,000 Jews from the city and from across Poland in inhuman conditions. After a year, almost half the people there had died of disease and starvation.
The resistance plans were implemented April 19, 1943, when the Nazis moved to liquidate the ghetto by killing or sending some remaining 60,000 residents to the death camps. Thousands were put on regular transports to the death camps of Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibor.
But that April, the well-trained German troops encountered unexpectedly fierce resistance from a few hundred young, poorly armed Jewish civilians, determined to die fighting rather than in gas chambers.
At the age of 23, Edelman took command of a brush-makers unit, based at a brush factory.
"No one believed they would be saved," Edelman said. "We knew the struggle was doomed, but it showed the world there was resistance against the Nazis, that you could fight the Nazis."
"Every moment was difficult. It was two or three or 10 boys fighting with an army," Edelman said in 2008. "There were no easy moments."
They had few guns and no food but were driven by a goal. The Nazis "wanted to destroy the people and we fought to protect the people in the ghetto, to extend their lives by a day, or two or five," he said.
The ghetto fighters inflicted heavy losses on the Germans, but eventually succumbed. More than 55,000 people were killed or deported to Nazi concentration camps when the uprising failed. The uprising's leaders were rounded up in a bunker and, seeing no chance of escape, committed suicide on May 8, 1943.
The Nazis razed the ghetto street by street, as part of their so-called "final solution" in which they killed 6 million people in their efforts to wipe out European Jewry.
Edelman was not in the bunker. With a small group of survivors, he left through the sewers to the Aryan side of Warsaw, where he found places to hide and helped coordinate Jewish partisan groups in nearby forests.
The deadly struggle was "worth it ... even at the price of the fighters' lives," he said later. "They could not be saved, anyway."
In August and September of 1944, Edelman fought in the Warsaw Uprising, another ill-fated revolt meant to free the capital from Germans ahead of the advancing Red Army.
After the war, Edelman became a cardiologist in Lodz. He joined the democratic opposition and the Solidarity freedom movement, and was interned under the Dec.13, 1981, martial law aimed against Solidarity. In the end, the Solidarity movement led to the ouster of communists from power in Poland in 1989.
Edelman's wife, Alina Margolis-Edelman, worked as a nurse in the Warsaw ghetto and after the war became a pediatrician. With their son, Aleksander, and daughter, Anna, she left Poland for France following the communist-sponsored anti-Semitic purges of 1968. She died in Paris on March 23, 2008.
But Edelman never wanted to leave Poland.
"When you were responsible for the life of some 60,000 people, you don't leave and abandon the memory of them," he told the AP.
He held honorary doctorate of the Yale University.
He is survived by his son, Aleksander, his daughter, Anna, and grandchildren Liza and Tomek.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Kudos to him. I'm sick & tired of the WWII overbearing shadow, but as people who went through it are passing away, it moves in History, and Mr. Edelman had a role in a tragic yet heroic part of that History.
another ill-fated revolt meant to free the capital from Germans ahead of the advancing Red Army.
Polish fighters were slaughtered as the "advancing" red army stopped advancing for that very purpose, an another unpunished communist mass crime.
#3
I have always recalled a line of poetry, supposedly written during the Warsaw Uprising, when the Soviet Armies were just over the horizon, "We are waiting for thee, Red Pest,
To save us from the Black Death."
The Soviets, of course, were just waiting for the Uprising to be put down, before "liberating" Warsaw.
#2
ION WAFF > SYRIA SEESK TO REGAIN INFLUENCE IN LEBANON. Its been maintaining its foothold via HEZBOLLAH - Lebanese News Daily [anti-Syrian] AL-NAHAR believes that SYRIA COVERTLY DESIRES NO REAL END TO INSTABILITY IN LEBANON UNLESS SYRIA CAN WHOLLY REGAIN ITS FORMER INFLUENCE WITH = WITHOUT ITS ARMY???
[Iran Press TV Latest] Hungarian archaeologists have found a cellar which they believe to have belonged to Wallachian Duke Vlad III, known as Dracula.
Researchers at Pecs University, where the cellar was found, say Vlad III Tepes lived in a two-story town house on what is currently the central square of the southern city of Pecs.
According to tutor of medieval and early modern history at Pecs University Tamas Fedeles, there is a document containing a detailed description of the house and referring to it as the "Drakulya House."
Authorities, meanwhile, are going to fill in the newly discovered site after the official archaeologist of the Cultural Heritage Protection Service, Zoltan Karpati, said the excavations did not yield any items related to an individual owner.
Karpati also rejected the position of the house as referred to in the medieval document, but agreed that the cellar could have been part of the "Dracula House" of the document, Digital Journal reported.
It was the 19th Century English novelist Bram Stoker who first put the character of Count Dracula under the spotlight.
The book, however, was not closely based on the life of Voivode (Duke) Vlad III (1431 to 1476), who is said to have been very cruel and stories of his cruelty were circulated in pamphlets in as far away as Germany and Russia.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Cruel is pretty subjective.
He did a pretty good job keeping the turks at bay.
Posted by: James Carville ||
10/04/2009 1:20 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I'm a Prince but don't get the publicity this guy gets - perhaps I should impale several thousands like this guy did in 1450 - after allthey were only captured MOOOOOSLEMS
#4
I was told the word Dracula was their word for "Count", so "Count Dracula" was Redundant.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/04/2009 11:27 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I have long thought that the Dracula mythos needs a rewrite. Either they try to be true to the original novel, which has some serious problems; or they just use cheesy pulp plots.
Instead what they need to do is to go the way of 'The Company of Wolves' for the werewolf concept. Blended with the story of Little Red Riding Hood, you needed hip waders to get through the symbolism and psychology. A great movie even if you didn't understand the nuances--you still knew that they were there, and they were kinky.
More than anything else, Dracula is a symbol of severe romance and sexuality. Women find him sexually irresistible, and men find him sexually threatening. This is why he fits in so well in sexually repressed Victorian England.
Today this seems outdated, but only because there is confusion between sexuality and sex. The truth is that we are just as repressed as the Victorians, but in a different way.
But Dracula needs to be rewritten to reflect that.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/04/2009 15:48 Comments ||
Top||
#7
The Victorian women in the Count Dracula story, Barbara. Such characters, like their counterparts in the pulp romance novels and films of today, are completely unlike real, live, adult female humans.
Golf star Greg Norman and tennis legend Chris Evert have announced they are splitting up after just 15 months of marriage. The pair, who are considered one of the most high-profile couple's in sport, did not reveal why they were separated - but said they would 'remain friends'. But friends of the couple reportedly said the breakdown was due to a 'clash of egos'.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
[Straits Times] THE death toll caused by Typhoon Ketsana in Vietnam rose to 122 on Saturday, an official said. In addition to confirmed deaths, 12 people remained missing after the typhoon, said the Hanoi-based official from the national flood and storm control committee, who declined to be named.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Anybody else remember the typhoon that hit Vietnam in 1968? Completly stopped the war in I corp.
Zebulon Simentov lives, eats and prays alone as he is the last known Jew in a country dominated by conservative Muslim culture. Mr Simentov is the caretaker and sole member of Afghanistan's only working synagogue. The last eight or nine Jewish families left after the 1979 Soviet invasion, he said.
Fond of whisky and aged about 50, Mr Simentov lives in the dilapidated two-story synagogue in Kabul and gets by on donations from Jews abroad and sympathetic local Muslims.
In the late 19th century, Afghanistan's Jews numbered about 40,000, many of them Persian Jews who had fled forced conversion in neighboring Iran. Beginning with an exodus to Israel after it became a state in 1948, the community has been in decline ever since. Mr Simentov's wife and children moved to Israel years ago, but he stayed even through the Taliban regime.
He was born in the western Afghan city of Herat in 1959 and says Afghanistan is home. But having survived numerous beatings under the Taliban, he now only wears his yarmulke, or skullcap, in private.
Until 2005, Mr Simentov shared the house with one other Jew, but the two feuded and lobbed allegations at each other of having let a sacred Torah scroll go missing and of having spread rumours that resulted in Taliban beatings. When his 80-year-old housemate died, Mr Simentov said he was happy to be rid of him.
Though Mr Simentov has a Muslim friend who visits a few times a week, he spends most of his days in the company of his pet partridge, reading a Hebrew prayer book and watching Afghan TV in a small room whose pink walls are adorned with an Afghan flag and the picture of an orthodox rabbi. There are some interesting photos at the link.
#2
Likely a cousin of the President of the United States and will be invited to stay in the Lincoln Bedrooom or on the Front Lawn, which ever suits his fancy ---- I love the Obama Administration -- 4 More Years -- 4 More Years !
#4
Someone can only rebuild a part of Africa if they follow African rules. For example, US Special Forces trained Samuel Doe tried to do everything the modern American way, and failed terribly despite having every potential in the world.
While fully supported by Ronald Reagan, he also focused much too much on military instead of civilian evolution of Liberia. He tried to advance his people faster than they could develop, instead of incrementally.
By the time the coup overthrew him, he was exhausted and still on square one. He waited in his palace for death instead of trying to flee.
#5
Quote: A Somali-American's Improbable Return
After returning to Somalia in 2008 to aid victims of a drought, the locals asked Mohamed Aden to become their leader. In less than a year, he has transformed Adado, Somalia, into an enclave of peace."
Are you KIDDING ME? Crucifying hundreds of Christians is peace - burning their churches is Peace? Murdering thousands of non Muslims is Peace?
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- The factions fighting for control of Honduras have begun talking days before a meeting that many hope will end a political crisis sparked by Central America's first constitutional ouster coup in more than a decade. Interim President Roberto Micheletti told reporters that a dialogue is "beginning" between his supporters and those of President Manuel Zelaya, who was forced from office on June 28 by a military-backed coup and is now holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
"We are having talks with different sectors officially, with people from Mr. Zelaya's side and with others," Micheletti said Friday outside the presidential palace, hours after meeting with a delegation of four Republican members of the U.S. Congress.
Zelaya supporters expressed skepticism about Micheletti's willingness to compromise.
"We do not believe in this coup government because they say one thing and do another," said Juan Barahona, who led a protest of about 200 people Saturday at a small, unpaved square in Pedegral, a working-class neighborhood of Tegucigalpa. "The resistance is going to be in the streets fighting permanently against this coup regime. It's our right."
No security forces were present at the protest, despite an emergency decree banning gatherings of more than 20 people.
A delegation from the Organization of American States, which has taken the lead in pushing for a negotiated resolution that restores Zelaya to power, was in the country ahead of a visit by OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza scheduled for Wednesday.
Micheletti said Friday that he had met with Insulza in recent days and, that while no agreement was reached, it was a sign of progress and that "peace is coming back to our country."
Insulza confirmed Saturday the two had held talks "in the last few days" in Honduras. "The meeting was aimed at promoting a dialogue between the parties in the conflict with the goal of restoring democracy and the constitutional order in Honduras," Insulza said in a statement issued by the OAS headquarters in Washington.
Honduras has both already. Mission's over. Lunch!
John Biehl, an OAS special envoy, said both sides have expressed a willingness to start talks next week. "There will be a call next week for dialogue between the acting government and the other side and it will be accepted. That has already been agreed," Biehl told reporters.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Ma'an -- An elderly farmer sustained moderate wounds on Friday after a boar attacked him at his olive grove in the village of Nazlat Zeid, southwest of Jenin.
Officials at the Khalil Suleiman Hospital in the northern West Bank district identified the farmer as 75-year-old Mustafa Zeid Al-Kilani.
After the incident, the head of Palestine's Agriculture Workers Union warned farmers about the wild animals, about which locals continuously complain to the Palestinian Authority.
Hundreds of boars have been spotted roaming fields and have caused severe injuries, according to the union, which cited the case of a child who "narrowly escaped death" just days earlier.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
all those negative bad vibes again.... think baby back ribs.. be a man.
#2
Oh, I see that the local teevee aired "Razorback" a while ago (kewl movie, btw), and the area rubes & rustics are all worked out... again. Ok. Please, let's all hope they don't air "Dawn of the Dead" or a zombie flick like that, or the paleos will get all hysterical about Zionist Zombies prowling around (and th eUN will take that seriously).
LAST Sunday's column about the coverage of Acorn prompted nearly 400 messages and online comments from readers, some convinced that The Times is suppressing news that might damage liberals, and others equally convinced that The Times is about to cave in to extremists on the right.
When The Times misses or is slow on a story that is boiling elsewhere -- and Acorn was having real-world impact, with Congressional votes and a criminal investigation -- it lets its readers down. Don't worry, Hoyt - they're used to it by now.Here's an example, from Leigh Allen of San Francisco, who said she relies on The Times to keep her informed: "I often don't hear about the latest conflict until I read a Facebook rant from an old high school friend or talk on the phone with my mother (both in conservative Orange County, Calif.). It's embarrassing not to be able to respond with facts when I hadn't even heard about the issue." Michele Cusack of Novato, Calif., said that when someone asked if she had heard the latest about Acorn, "I had to answer 'no' because I get all my news from The New York Times." Yee-ouch. That's gotta leave a mark.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/04/2009 15:33 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Their journalism job is to bring the news, not Donk/Lib propaganda. They've decided to do the latter to even a greater extent than before (can you say "in the tank"?). At this point, with their credibility in shreds, their stock tanking, and other sources running circles about them, they go all in, head down, ass in the air, and biting the pillow.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/04/2009 16:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Its embarrassing not to be able to respond with facts when I hadnt even heard about the issue.
Methinks Leigh has confused 'facts' with 'talking points'.
#3
Ms. Leigh is clearly the kind of person who religiously reads the NYT's Review of Books so she can talk intelligently about all the books she bought in hardcover for her bookshelves that she never had any intention of reading.
#6
pappy, self reinforcement ...
leftist articles draw leftist readers.
leftist readers lead to more leftist authors and articles...
pretty soon they EVOLVED to a readership with no money!
HAH!
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is lobbying for such taxes and has even suggested a national excise tax on sugary drinks to reduce consumption. It's pretty much guaranteed that such a tax wouldn't close any kind of budget gap. It would put money into the boodle, which would then be pissed away in the form of contracts sent the way of the pols' supporters along with any other funds the pols could lay hands on, the while watching any deficit as a percentage of revenues expand at precisely the same rate it did before. One of these times when I get some free attention span I'm going to set this to mathematics, publish it as Pruitt's Law, get some major grant money, and spend the rest of my life on easy street. Or at least having more money to piss my way into debt at the same or greater percentage rate I'm going now.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Since their objection is to "sugary" drinks, can I presume my Diet Coke will be tax-free?
And how will a tax that reduces consumption (and therefore progressively produces less money for the gummint) fix anybody's budget "gap"?
Besides, the last time I heard anything about a national excise tax, the money went to the feds. And this is supposed to help the states how, exactly?
Another excuse to force more of their nannyism on the proles. >:-(
A better idea would be to tax nannies - or those who act like nannies.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/04/2009 0:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Just enacted here in Illinois. Result.
Drop in sales(and previous tax revenue), folks near the border are buying out of state (loss of sales tax revenue, and gas tax revenue and tobacco tax revenue). Diet pop and bottled water subject to special tax in Chicago on top of the other taxes since they have no calories.
Halloween candy being smuggled from WI and IN into Illinois.
Women and minorities hit hardest.
#5
Tax soda and consumption drops so demand for corn drops so corn sugar diverts to ethanol production so gasahol production increases so gas prices drop so driving increases so CO2 emissions increase so global warming increases. Oh, and increased driving means decreased walking and increased obesity. That all means we need more taxes on gas to re-modify behavior and to replace the revenues lost to decreased soda consumption.
#9
I wonder if some of the more enterprising tribes will start selling Coke and Pepsi alongside the cigs? Yeah, the margins probably aren't that great, but a sale's a sale, right?
There! Thought I'd give that cliche a shout-out and mention that others could do what me and the ole ball and chain wife do, brew more tea or make more Kool-Aid.
#11
Taxing soda is like chasing a bubble around a linoleum floor. We are rapidly heading toward the situation that King George III was facing in the colonies. Taxation without representation.
This stupidity will just go to drive the Underground Economy. If the governments cannot get a consumer tax on soda, then they will go federal and tax the bottlers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/04/2009 15:00 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Solution - tax soda using corn sucrose made by the pols pocketbook "Archer D. M"....
No tax on real sugar or diet...
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.
Children who eat sweets and chocolate on a regular basis are more likely to be convicted of violent crimes as adults, a new study finds. 
Roman Polanski agreed to pay the victim in his child-sex case at least $500,000 as part of a civil settlement, but then failed to live up to the terms of the agreement, according to court filings reviewed Friday.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Hungarian archaeologists have found a cellar which they believe to have belonged to Wallachian Duke 
Here's an example, from Leigh Allen of San Francisco, who said she relies on The Times to keep her informed: "I often don't hear about the latest conflict until I read a Facebook rant from an old high school friend or talk on the phone with my mother (both in conservative Orange County, Calif.). It's embarrassing not to be able to respond with facts when I hadn't even heard about the issue." Michele Cusack of Novato, Calif., said that when someone asked if she had heard the latest about Acorn, "I had to answer 'no' because I get all my news from The New York Times."
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is lobbying for such taxes and has even suggested a national excise tax on sugary drinks to reduce consumption.
