[Emirates 24/7] Soddy Arabia has blocked Facebook website which has become one of the most popular online activities in the Gulf Kingdom, a local daily reported on Sunday.
The Saudi Telecommunications Company blocked the site on Friday night and the blockage continued through Saturday, Alyoum said.
"Many visitors tried to access the site but it was giving them the following phrase 'sorry, the required page is not available," the paper said.
"Many visitors who are registered in Facebook could not access their account after the blockage, which started on Friday night without a prior warning."
The paper said the site reappeared briefly but went off most of the time, adding that it could be a technical problem or "a step to block it permanently."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Britain's Conservative-led government says tax havens offer a solution to the country's huge budget deficit. But some say the country's biggest problem is that it is no longer a major manufacturer.
Take the automobile industry. Time was when Britain was a leading manufacturer of cars, and Coventry - where many of the factories were located - was the nation's pride.
Even today, as Al Jizz's Laurence Lee reports from the town, local residents have not forgotten that the collapse of UK's industries coincided with Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
The 'collapse' preceded Maggie Thatcher. What Thatcher did was to end their protected and subsidized existence and consequently shift productive resources into growth industries like financial services.
#2
Time was when Britain was a leading manufacturer of cars, and Coventry - where many of the factories were located - was the nation's pride.
Really? In the late 60s both the Germans and Japanese gained a sufficient foothold in America which they would go on to exploit after the Arab Oil embargo that would propel their products into a larger share of the market. Where were the British? Something about quality control and reputation thereof?
#1
"Paul argues the Fed is making a serious mistake by pumping more money into the economy to try to spur more spending and growth. He predicts it will only lead to further declines in value of the dollar, inflation and higher interest rates rather than the lower rates the Fed is shooting for."
Well, the gold standard isn't feasable but he's right on QE
Posted by: European Conservative ||
11/15/2010 0:30 Comments ||
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[1] conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates FAIL
[2] supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers FAIL
[3] maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets FAIL
[4] providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation's payments system
#3
Even if the Gold Standard were feasible it would solve nothing.
All of the US financial crises through 1933 happened while the US WAS on the Gold Standard. Fat lot of good was that standard.
Note that the Fed makes all Treasury purchases through Goldman S. with fees instead of directly from Treasury.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
11/15/2010 1:58 Comments ||
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#5
of course they do. most of the fed bigwigs are GS guys.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
11/15/2010 2:11 Comments ||
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#6
The gold standard is an absolutely idiotic proposal. There is a reason why it has never worked. First of all, the US is not anywhere near the primary producer of gold. If you are on the gold standard, a country that produces a lot of gold can manipulate your currency value by manipulating the price of gold through either flooding the market or withholding gold from the market.
Secondly, your economy can only expand at the rate that your gold reserves do. If your reserves don't expand, you can not expand your economy. If I put a dollar in the bank, the bank can not lend that dollar out until another dollar's worth of gold is obtained. Otherwise, there will be two dollars in circulation backed by the same $1 of gold.
Lets say I put a dollar in the bank. The bank lends it to Bill who buys a shovel from Bob. Bob puts that dollar in the bank. Now that same dollar is in two different banks. With a gold standard, that dollar I put in the bank could not be lent until another dollar's worth of gold is obtained.
US Gold reserves are currently 8965.65 tons (or 26,1498,128) ounces and is valued at $358.63 billion. M2 money supply is currently at 871,280,000,000 dollars. In order to simply back M2, the dollar would have to be fixed at over $3000 dollars/ounce. To give some "breathing room" it would have to be valued at $4000 per ounce if we wanted to allow our money supply to grow.
How do you propose that we get the world price of gold up to $4000? We could devalue the hell out of our currency and inflate the economy by nearly 400 percent or we could try to "corner the market" in gold.
The gold standard fell apart once South Africa became the world's largest gold producer and could manipulate the global price of gold. We were able to "ignore" Russian gold production because after WWII their economy was segregated from the rest of the world. That isn't true anymore. The US also had the world's largest gold reserves at that time.
The US is currently the 4th largest gold producer, behind South Africa, China and Australia. To go on the gold standard, we would have to prevent Americans from owning gold again and every ounce produced in the United States would have to go to the US treasury.
Where is the government going to get the money to buy that gold?
The US production currently is only 10% of global production.
Oops, that 8965 tons was old data. As of September 2010, the US reserves are down to 8133.5 tons, about 10% less than we had in 2008.
It is an emotionally appealing idea but idiotic in the logical sense. It can not be done.
2009 world gold production (newer data than that above)
China produces about 30% more gold than the US does. China will be able to control the dollar and there wouldn't be a damned thing we could do about it.
#7
Note that there was a relatively painless way the US could have prevented all of this. This started when the Fed needed to raise interest rates to protect the dollar. When that happened, variable interest rate mortgages adjusted. Sub-prime borrowers who could barely afford their mortgages as it was began to default when the loan payments adjusted upwards.
What the government COULD have done with the amount set aside for TARP was to buy those adjustable rate mortgages from the lenders, convert them to fixed rate mortgages, hold them for enough time to pay back any capital forgiveness than needed to happen to make those payments affordable, and then sell them back on the free market as fixed rate mortgages.
This would have stopped the flood of defaults, would have stopped the plunge in housing prices from the foreclosures flooding the market and stabilized the mortgage industry.
What they can do now is pretty simple. Start demolishing foreclosed properties and put the resulting property up for sale as a building lot. This will remove the excess inventory putting supply pressure on prices. The resulting sale of the building lot will not go against the median home price because a home is not being sold.
Any home over 10 years old in foreclosure should be razed. This will put a solid floor under housing prices as the supply of units on the market declines. It will stop the hemorrhaging.
Instead, what the Fed is trying to do is inflate the economy so that all those mortgages are again "above water" but because the people in them will also see all the rest of their expenses increase, they won't have any easier time making the payments than they do now.
This is the most idotic administration in history.
#8
The gold standard is an absolutely idiotic proposal
Well there are gold standards and gold standards and then there is the classic gold standard which was in force between 1880 and 1914.
#9
During that period of the Classic Gold Standard, the great Panics of 1893 and 1907 happened. That last Panic directly led to the creation of the Federal Reserve.
#10
Yup, that one lasted exactly 34 year before it blew up. It doesn't work. We were a huge gold producer in global terms in 1880. The California and Klondike gold fields were in production during those times.
#12
Ceosspatch,
You said, Any home over 10 years old in foreclosure should be razed.
Ummm, that will only raise home prices into the stratosphere, they're effectively unafordable now, your Plan would make home ownership Damn near impossible and cause a rift in civilization, where only a new Uber wealthy class could be home owners, and the rest of us would have to eiher rent, Squat, or live in our cars.
BAD, BAD, idea
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/15/2010 7:58 Comments ||
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#13
What the vid in #4 missed is that one major element in the economy is deflating. That is housing which is falling from artificially high prices created by speculation. The banks who own so much of the paper are in danger of outright insolvency. The Fed is trying to rescue those banks by inflation the economy to cover their situation. That means you, me and everyone else is being sacrificed for the bankers. The economic history of this country is rife with cyclic recessions, depressions, panics. Banks have come and gone through those years. However, this is an extraordinary act on behalf of, unfortunately, a business that has agents throughout the very mechanisms of government that are suppose to protect everyone's interests.
As for buying bonds from the Treasury, it makes no sense since the objective is to put cash in various forms into circulation. Purchasing bonds from the Treasury won't do that cause the money stays in the Treasury. However, by buying from the usual suspect, all the Fed is doing is not putting money into creating industry or productive jobs, but into the same speculative market that generated the dotcom and housing bubbles.
#14
As for buying bonds from the Treasury, it makes no sense since the objective is to put cash in various forms into circulation. Purchasing bonds from the Treasury won't do that cause the money stays in the Treasury.
What is the usual suspect using to compensate the Treasury for the newly issued bonds they're flipping to the Fed? Cash goes to the Treasury every time (sort of the point of a bond issue, no?) whether the Fed buys newly minted bonds directly or whether the usual suspect gets a cut on the flip.
#15
"Ummm, that will only raise home prices into the stratosphere"
In the places where foreclosures are hitting hardest, it would *not* drive prices into the stratosphere, it would simply stabilize prices. Also, the building lots would encourage new home construction so the inventory of houses would recover. It doesn't permanently remove anything from the market, it simply removes the oldest housing.
Have you seen home prices for places like Watsonville, California? They are still dropping.
A friend's neighbor bought their house for $600,000 three years ago. It sold in foreclosure for $230,000 last month.
What is causing all this problem is that the mortgage companies are holding a lot of mortgages where the underlying home is worth only half the mortgage or less.
Inflating the economy is going to make housing prices skyrocket.
#17
The major problem is that inflating the economy is a systemic fix for what is really regional problems. For example, Kansas and Nebraska haven't seen NEARLY the problems that California, Nevada, and Arizona have.
If you simply raze the houses in the areas where there is a problem, then you fix the problem in those areas without "fixing" a problem that doesn't exist in other ares where there aren't a deluge of foreclosures and where homes are holding their value.
For example, there has been absolutely no crash in home prices in Wichita, KS. I have picked about a half-dozen homes for sale on Zillow.
Now look at a town like Watsonville, CA or Henderson, NV where housing values are currently half of their last selling price in many cases.
You raze the home, sell a building lot, the sale does not cause a reduction in the "median home price" further depressing housing values in the region. And whoever buys it builds a house employing people.
#18
And whoever buys it builds a house employing people.
Ah yes, the "Broken Windows" theory of economic growth in which we simply employ public sector force to destroy private sector assets thereby forcing the private sector to reconstitute said assets. Clearly if we want to generate real wealth what we need to do is employ a few million browshirts to burn out cities to the ground! Imminently sensible.
#19
The banks who own so much of the paper are in danger of outright insolvency.
Those banks you refer to have been insolvent since about 2008. The bailouts have largely been dedicated to papering over that most inconvenient fact. That means you, me and everyone else is being sacrificed for the bankers. The awareness of this sacrifice seems to be spreading among the electorate. I believe it is the underlying source of the anger motivating the Tea Party. The bailouts, QE 1+2, and the other gov't sponsored financial shenanigans amount to an illegal taxation of the people, who are beginning to awake to this.
#1
California will be in a world of hurt within two years. First of all, the taxpayers in the rest of the states are going to tire of sending California $40 million *per day* to fund California's unemployment compensation. I think the House is going to put the clampdown on federal cash infusions to California and force it to live within its means.
#4
California will be in a world of hurt in 6 months when state income tax refunds are not forth coming and people start increasing their state withholding deductions to 99.
#5
The patient is dead, but it just refuses to acknowledge it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/15/2010 12:41 Comments ||
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#6
This hit the bond market like a brick, today. It drove even the gold plated USAA long term muni bond down 12 cents, which is a huge drop in a tax free bond.
The Irish government should tell the ECB and the IMF to go forth and recreate themselves.
Each Irish taxpaying family is already $50k in hock for the bailout of the banks and now they want them to take on more sovereign debt. Where are the IRA when you need them?
An increasingly isolated Irish government was coming under mounting pressure tonight to seek a European or International Monetary Fund bailout within 24 hours amid fears that contagion from its crippled banking sector might spread through the weaker eurozone countries.
Portugal, Spain, the European Central Bank and opposition parties all urged Brian Cowen's coalition government to remove the threat of a second crisis in six months by putting a firewall between Ireland and its partners in the 16-nation single currency.
With finance ministers from the eurozone due to hold emergency talks tomorrow night, financial markets were expecting Dublin to finalise negotiations with the EU over the terms of a deal to allow Ireland to rescue banks laid low by the collapse of the country's construction boom.
"The Irish problem is spreading, but it could get more volatile," said Ashok Shah, chief investment officer at London Capital, a fund management firm. "They have to get this bailout, they have a period of time before it gets impossible, before nasty things happen. The longer they leave it, the more difficult it will get."
(KUNA) -- The new French government will be announced either Sunday night or tomorrow, media reports said, suggesting the cabinet would not include Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon, reassigned by President Nicolas Sarkozy to form a government, is a leading member in the ruling right coalition, with public opinion showing his rising popularity among the right.
The media reports anticipated Fillon's cabinet to consist of 26 ministers instead of the current 37, noting Kouchner would be leaving the cabinet while former Prime Minister Alain Juppe would be joining the government.
Minister of Economy Christine Lagarde is set to keep her portforlio as France is chairing the G-20 and is set to take over presidency of G-8 next January.
The new government will also work on improving image of Sarkozy, whose public opinion ratings plunged after defeat of center-right parties in last May's regional and local elections, coupled with the new law to raise retirement age.
Fillon tendered his resignation to Sarkozy last night, after three-and-a-half years in office.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2010 00:00 ||
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(KUNA) -- Leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) nations pledged Sunday to work toward creating a vast free trade area in the Pacific Rim region and adopted growth strategy.
"We have agreed that now is the time for APEC to translate the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) from an aspirational to a more concrete vision. To that end, we instruct APEC to take concrete steps toward realization of an FTAAP, which is a major instrument to further APEC's regional economic integration agenda," 21 leaders from countries around the Pacific Rim said in a joint declaration at the end of a two-day summit in the port city of Yokohama near Tokyo.
"We believe that an FTAAP should be pursued as a comprehensive free trade agreement by developing and building on ongoing regional undertakings, such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus three, ASEAN plus six, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)," they said in "Yokohama Vision" declaration.
China favors the 13-nation "ASEAN Plus 3" trade initiative, which includes the 10-member ASEAN and China, Japan and South Korea, and ASEAN plus six includes the ASEAN plus three in addition to India, Australia and New Zealand, while the US-backed TPP includes Brunei, Singapore, Chile and New Zealand.
"It is clear that APEC members cannot continue with growth as usual and the quality of growth needs to be improved, so that it will be more balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative, and secure," the leaders said. "This is essential even as we pursue APEC's core objective of a vigorous trade and investment agenda aimed at strengthening economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region," the leaders said.
"To promote liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, we will seek to become a close community that promotes deeper economic integration," Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who chaired the summit, said as he unveiled "Yokohama Vision" at the end of the talks. "To realize this, we will make an FTAAP the goal for APEC," Kan said.
The declaration also seeks to ban member countries from introducing new trade barriers by the end of 2013 in order to deter protectionism.
Established in 1989, APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Vietnam. The region accounts for 53 percent of the world's gross domestic product and 40 percent of population.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
A good thingy for OCEANIA = PACIFICA becuz
To wit,
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > AS [world] GLACIERS MELT, SCIENTISTS SEEK NEW DAT ON RISING SEAS
[change of 2-1/2 to 6-1/2 feet by Year 2100, flooding = forcing underwater many a World landlubber coastal area].
E.g. GUAM = UMATAC CEMETERY IS SINKING [Slowly being lost to erosion vee storms, rising seas]. Both Village + Cemetery are histor important to Guam.
A sea level change or rise of 3-7 feet by Year 2100 will fundamentally alter the Map(s) of Guam + other Lands.
and
* DEUTCH WELLE > [OpEd] CLIMATE CHANGE A CATALYST FOR NEW BEGINNING(s), for Humanity + World. RISE OF UNIVERSAL/GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCY.
WHICH IS WHY, AMONG OTHER, THE TRAPPED CHILE MINERS IS IMPORTANT TO ME BECAUSE OF HOW THEY SOCIALIZED BETWEEN EACH OTHER WHILE TRAPPED = LIVING DEEP UNDERGROUND - "living underground" in turn also relates to why it is important for US-World = future OWG-NWO Perts to be correct as per their CLIMATE + SUN + RESOURCES + SPACE ROCK, ETC. MATH, MODELS.
Lest we fergit, so-called "OWG-NWO" = means any ERRORS OR DEFECTS, in Math + Political Decision, Will etc., WILL HAVE DE FACTO WORLDWIDE CONSEQUENCES, DA "GLOBAL" IN GLOBAL OOOOPPPSIES + THINGS-THAT-CAN-GO-BOOM-BOOMS!
CHINA overtook the US at the head of the world of supercomputing today when a survey ranked one of its machines the fastest on the planet.
Tianhe-1, meaning Milky Way, achieved a computing speed of 2570 trillion calculations per second, earning it the number one spot in the Top 500 (www.top500.org) survey of supercomputers.
The Jaguar computer at a US government facility in Tennessee, which had held the top spot, was ranked second with a speed of 1750 trillion calculations per second.
Tianhe-1 does its warp-speed "thinking" at the National Centre for Supercomputing in the northern port city of Tianjin - using mostly chips designed by US companies.
Another Chinese system, the Nebulae machine at the National Supercomputing Centre in the southern city of Shenzhen, came in third.
The US still dominates, with more than half of the entries in the Top 500 list, but China now boasts 42 systems in the rankings, putting it ahead of Japan, France, Germany and Britain.
It is not the first time that the US has had its digital crown stolen by an Asian upstart. In 2002, Japan made a machine with more power than the top 20 American computers put together.
The supercomputers on the Top 500 list, which is produced twice a year, are rated based on speed of performance in a benchmark test by experts from Germany and the US.
#1
OK, I have to ask.
Is this simply to obtain the record (Pride) or are they actually using this supercomputer?
And if so, for WHAT?
I can think of only a very few legitimate reasons to use something that fast, and NONE deal with Commerce.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/15/2010 8:05 Comments ||
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#2
My brother's supercomputers are used to to predict the weather, Redneck Jim. Supercomputers also seem to make themselves useful for engineering (civil, industrial, material, chemical), biomedical research, physics and astronomy, etc., at least according to one of his recent research grants. He is able justify building a newer, bigger, faster one every three to five years, and has found a ready market for his old ones.
#3
They will actually use it. However, the design may not in fact generate more throughput than the IBM supercomputers deliverd to the NNSA and others. And it generates a lot more heat.
#4
...and used in medical studies, for which in this case is studying the action of proteins. Stanford has coordinated the use of personal computers and Playstations to crunch numbers. The distributive network of Playstations from peoples homes provides support that is currently generating around 1650 TFLOPs of processing.
He says he was victim of a palace plot. They say they were just faithful servants. The tabloids say it's New York's trial of the year. Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of the Sultan of Brunei, is suing his British former financial advisors for allegedly cheating him out of some $7 million between 2004 and 2006.
Faith Zaman and her husband Thomas Derbyshire insist they did nothing wrong and even claim to be owed millions more by a prince whose lavish lifestyle, said to include everything from harems to gold toilet paper holders, is legendary.
On Friday they all appeared in New York state Supreme Court.
The short scrawny little diminutive prince looked dapper in a trim blue suit and neat moustache as jurors listened to witnesses lay bare the intimate financial dealings of one of the world's richest men.
What jurors were not hearing was anything about Prince Jefri's even more intimate details.
Justice Ira Gammerman, an irascible judge famous for once barking at Woody Allen during a trial that "I'm the director," prevented defense attorneys from mentioning the royal's playboy ways. That meant jurors have been among the few New Yorkers not exposed to lurid debates over pornographic statues formerly kept at a Long Island property belonging to the prince.
The prince's lawyers had accused the defense team of wanting to embarrass him by dredging up photographs of the life-size, flesh-colored sculptures depicting the prince and an equally bared woman engaged in sex.
"This case is not about sex," Gammerman said earlier in the trial this week, adding, with his characteristic humour: it might be "much more interesting if it was."
Prince Jefri, in his mid-50s, is no stranger to controversy over money and sex. He reportedly has four wives, although that is not unusual for a Muslim, and 17 children. Former American stripper Jillian Lauren, says that for a year and a half she was part of a 40-strong harem, an experience she describes in this year's book "Some Girls: My Life in a Harem"
Members of a Kansas church that protests at military funerals may have found themselves in the wrong town Saturday.
Shortly after finishing their protest at the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey of McAlester, a half-dozen protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., headed to their minivan, only to discover that its front and rear passenger-side tires had been slashed.
To make matters worse, as their minivan slowly hobbled away on two flat tires, with a McAlester police car following behind, the protesters were unable to find anyone in town who would repair their vehicle, according to police.
The minivan finally pulled over several blocks away in a shopping center parking lot, where AAA was called. AAA members should call AAA and ask why they allow Westboro as a member.
AAA probably doesn't check the backgrounds of people who want maps and help changing flat tires. On the other hand, there is a limit to the number of rescues a AAA membership will buy. One can only hope the Westboros don't make a habit of getting their tires slashed.
A flatbed service truck arrived and loaded up the minivan. Assistant Police Chief Darrell Miller said the minivan was taken to Walmart for repairs. Picket that Wal*Mart. WM customers won't want their cars serviced in unclean bays.
Even before the protesters discovered their damaged tires, they faced off with a massive crowd of jeering and taunting counterprotesters at Third Street and Washington Avenue, two blocks from the First Baptist Church, where the soldier's funeral was held.
Miller estimated that crowd to number nearly 1,000 people, and they not only drowned out the Westboro protesters with jeers, but with raucous chants of "USA, USA."
A few motorcyclists interspersed among the crowd also revved up their engines to muffle the protests.
More than two dozen law-enforcement officers - state troopers, sheriff's deputies and city police - formed a security cordon around the Westboro protesters. "We're here to protect everyone," Miller said.
I'll make an exception here, except I would rather have the best of both worlds. How about loosen the valve stems and also gouge a deep groove in the sidewall near the valve stem? Makes for maximum inconvenience for those WBC idiots both ways. The only thing they could have done better would have been to spray paint "Westboro Baptist Church" on the side so even AAA and Walmart wouldn't want to touch them.
#4
...They were supposed to be here at FT Jackson a few months back, then at the very last minute they backed out. Local rumor has it that a couple of the local cycle clubs (VERY heavily made up of vets, especially from 'Nam) made it clear that their BS wouldn't be tolerated and that the Columbia PD basically said, "Well, we might just be real busy that day...could be a while before we get to you."
They're bullies hiding behind Scripture and the First Amendment. They need to be dealt with as bullies should.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/15/2010 10:52 Comments ||
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#5
Slashing tires is wrong.
When it comes to the Westburo Traveling Freak Show, I'd err on the side of making an exception, myself.
What about discretely pouring sugar into the gas tank?
#6
I can't endorse vandalism. Non-violent confrontation is the better way to go. Block these idiots, keep them as far away as possible from the funerals, and make enough noise to drown them out.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/15/2010 11:35 Comments ||
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#7
See, Doc, that's why loosening the valve stems is the way to go - no damage, just the delay of refilling the tires would make them late to the target funeral. Though soaping Westboro Baptist on their vehicles is also appealing.
#9
Don't slash their tires. They've been in town too long already.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/15/2010 12:33 Comments ||
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#10
Deacon - what about if they're in Boston or San Francisco? Would slashing tires THERE be OK? Or would you have to sugar their gas tank? Epoxy their door locks? Sand in their crankcase?
#11
If you want to do a pro job on a vehicle, the CIA used a trick of removing spark plugs, then pouring a half cup of gunpowder into the cylinder, and replacing the plug. The damage to the engine is special.
My favorite is a pint of linseed oil in the gas tank, which requires every millimeter of every engine part to be hand scrubber with a toothbrush and solvent to remove the tar.
But a true champion that causes no damage at all, except to the sanity of the driver, is to put an unrolled condom in the gas tank. It slowly swims to the gas intake, clogging it, and the engine just stops. But that frees the condom from the intake, so it floats away, and the engine starts right up again.
Totally unpredictable, and utterly maddening. Few mechanics will figure it out until thousands of dollars have been spent.
#13
Back in the WWII days, these people having slashed tires for protesting a soldier's funeral would have been the best they could have hoped for. At least the van and its occupants didn't dissappear after leaving the city limits.
Posted by: Unolusing the Full Bosomed4806 ||
11/15/2010 14:05 Comments ||
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#14
Glenmore, I wasn't advocating slashing their tires or any other kind of vandalism. By the way, Myth Busters busted the bit about sugar in a gas tank.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/15/2010 15:08 Comments ||
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#15
I was hoping to find video of the van limping away from the protest. My heart goes out to the family. They has got to be a way to stop this nonsense. If you can't should fire in a crowded theater, you shouldn't be allowed to start a riot at a military funeral.
#18
I expect that the Westboro people would have already bugged their vehicle with audio & video recording of events in its vicinity. Perhaps they will be able to identify & sue the perps for some kind of tort. Setting up a vehicle to do this is trivially easy.
What would be illegal / litigable about a crowd simply surrounding and boxing in the Westboro vehicle so that it not only could not move, but also that the doors could not even be opened? Just keep the evildoers sitting inside until they foul themselves. Those protesting the protestors could work in shifts to keep the Westboro crowd confined, perhaps for days.
#20
well crazyfool lets send them ovber too pakistain or saudi arabia and see if their tires just get slashed there.Or Iran or Somalia they like too throw rocks alot.
Your first comment about "slahing throats" was deleted.
That's one strike, chris.
Posted by: chris ||
11/15/2010 16:25 Comments ||
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#21
I think a couple of slashed tires is a pretty mild and reasonable response to these loons' provocations. They just won't take "no" for an answer.
Thats a fine start, but dont forget sugar in the gas tank, motor oil in the wiper fluid container, potato in the tailpipe, rattlesnake under the drivers seat, dead fish under the passenger seat
#23
I really like AH9418's suggestion - no one actually touches their vehicle. There is no damage to the vehicle. No one touches the Westboro pukes. Yet, they can't get out, they can't move without running someone down. They can't open the doors. If they call the police, the police should be very busy guarding the funeral, and it would take them several hours or longer to get there. And, when they do, how can they force the people surrounding the van to move? Those people aren't doing anything to the pukes - they aren't even touching them. Beautiful.
This would work in cooperation with the motorcycle clubs, who could park their bikes right next to the van so the pukes couldn't get out - I like it.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/15/2010 17:14 Comments ||
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#24
I'm sure the crime will be thoroughly investigated (*snicker*), but these kinds of cases are hard to crack. No fingerprints, no witnesses, no informants, crime lab is on vacation this month, and so on.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/15/2010 17:20 Comments ||
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#25
Deacon Blues: 'Nother CIA trick is to save the table sugar for wet concrete. Just throw a 10# sack into the mixer, and the concrete will set normally, but it will be water soluble.
As concrete sets, it forms long chains of molecules that make it durable. Sugar upsets this process, forming much smaller chains.
Modern technology is ridiculously dependent on concrete.
#26
Anarchist cookbook is what some old radicals would use (but be careful, a lot of the stuff they have in there is either ver dangerous or doesn't work, and no real warning as to which)
#27
How about putting oilfield pipe dope under the door handles. From the average person's perspective it looks like a practical joke, which it is, and it could take weeks before the compound is fully cleaned.
Latinos now make up a majority of California's public school students, cracking the 50 percent barrier for the first time in the state's history, according to data released Friday by the state Department of Education. I wonder about their percentage in remedial and/or ESL vs. honors classes. Even more interesting would be comparing those results to the percentages for Indians or Orientals.
Almost 50.4 percent of the state's students in the 2009-10 school year identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino, up 1.36 percent from the previous year.
In comparison, 27 percent of California's 6.2 million students identified themselves as white, 9 percent as Asian and 7 percent as black. Students calling themselves Filipino, Pacific Islander, Native American or other total almost 7 percent.
It's no surprise that Latinos make up the new majority in California schools, considering that their numbers have grown by leaps and bounds in recent decades. In 2009, Latinos made up 37 percent of the state's population, a number that continues to increase, according to the California Department of Finance.
But their electoral sway has not grown by similar amounts, because almost 40 percent of adult Latinos in California are ineligible to vote, said Lisa Garcia Bedolla, an associate professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education. This means California's Undocumented Democrat population is at 5.67 million. (38,292,687 x 37%) x 40% That exceeds the population in 32 of the 50 states.
#3
The new data revealed high dropout rates for minority students: 41.3 percent of black students, 31.3 percent of Native Americans, 30.3 percent of Hispanics, and 27.9 percent of Pacific Islanders. White students had a 15.2 percent dropout rate, while Asians had a 10.2 percent rate.
#4
Make all the jokes you want, people. It could happen where you live just as easily. You want to abandon California? Then what? Arizona? New Mexico? Texas? Colorado? New York? I keep trying to tell you this is NOT a California problem, this is a federal problem. The federal government, YOUR government, is responsible. California just got screwed sooner than your state. But just wait. It's happening all over.
#6
While underrepresented on the voting rolls, Latino voters are an increasingly important factor in California elections.
Notice the word "underrepresented". It is the favorite term used by those in promotion of "non-citizen voting". There was a recent a ballot provision in San Francisco that would have allowed non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote in school board elections. I suspect politics - not population - was the motivation for this entire artcle.
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.
