#2
Candorville - seems an appropriate name. Brings to mind the old Soviet saying about their newspapers Pravda (Truth) and Izvestia (News): In truth, there is no news, in news there is no truth.
#6
I do like the way the media starts off the strip giving contradictory views of McCain. Showing they are a mess that happens to look somewhat respectable. And to be honest the number of blogs that promote wacko crap far outnumber those that cover news or meaningful political debate so the strip doesn't really seem offbase.
#7
What's over the top about it? I spend at least ten minutes a day deleting wild rumors people forward to me, and I've given up reading most of the blogs I started on because there are so many lies.
No, McCain did not have a black baby. No, Bush did not order the Twin Towers bombed. No, Obama is not a Muslim, he is a citizen, his wife never spoke at that event where they say she said "whitey." No, he wasn't sworn in on a Koran, he doesn't refuse to say the pledge of allegiance, and I've seen plenty of pics of him wearing a flag pin.
I've got enough reasons to vote against Obama (like his lack of experience and like my being one of the people whose taxes he wants to raise), I don't need all this nonsense along with it.
I got a laugh out of that Candorville because it's true. Still isn't going to make me vote Obama, though.
Posted by: Big ||
06/16/2008 17:32 Comments ||
Top||
#8
I think the MSM and 'Internet' persona should be reversed - the MSM should be the 'drunk and disorderly' looking one.
I think a lot of these 'rumors' are being deliberately placed. The rumor of Michelle and whitey tape was started by a Liberal (and a supporter of Billary) but the MSM keeps reporting it as coming from the right - in an effort to smear the blogs.
#9
Gore was the first to bring up Willie Horton but you ask anyone and I bet you Bush Sr gets credit. Rewriting history is nothing new and those that control the media control the memes. of course the right will get blamed for the Michelle Whitey thing eventually.
The words came from Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the weekend, threatening to send troops into Pakistani territory in hot pursuit of the Taliban, but Islamabad has no doubts Karzai was reading from a script prepared by the United States.
The message is crystal clear: Pakistan's failure to cooperate at the sub-strategic level leaves the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with no alternative but to mobilize the newly trained Afghan National Army into Pakistan whenever it sees fit.
Karzai said his country had the right to "self defense", adding, "When they [militants] cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and to kill coalition troops it gives us the right to go back and do the same.
"[Pakistani Taliban leader] Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house. And the other fellow, [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar of Pakistan, should know the same," said Karzai.
Karzai was reacting to a bad week for the Afghan government and NATO, which lost at least 15 troops in various incidents. Kabul was embarrassed by a carefully planned operation in the southern city of Kandahar in which suicide bombers and about 100 Taliban attacked a jail, resulting in the death of nearly 20 security forces and the escape of over 1,000 prisoners, including 380 Taliban. And in another attack on Saturday, the governor of Helmand province was injured and the police chief killed.
NATO headquarters see the spate of violence as the result of the Taliban's training in Pakistani territory and their ability to easily cross the border into Afghanistan.
The Taliban completed their launch of men last month, promising specific, target-oriented attacks such as the jail operation.
In response, NATO wanted to catch the Taliban in a pincer movement, with Pakistani forces operating from the Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies and NATO across the border in Kunar and Nooristan provinces. (See Pakistan's grand bargain falls apart Asia Times Online, March 6.)
Asia Times Online was the first publication to write about US strikes using Predator drones and later a detailed story was published in the New York Times citing US officials who confirmed plans to target Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal areas, with Pakistani help.
Following US pressure, Pakistan prepared its plan, which Asia Times Online outlined on March 6:
According to Asia Times Online contacts, a military operation is imminent, starting from a base camp in Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The main focus will be Mohmand and Bajaur agencies, and some other tribal areas, to pre-empt the Taliban's spring offensive in Afghanistan.
Under the initial plan, the operation would have been largely symbolic and the militants had been convinced that if they remained at the forefront and fought against Pakistani troops, their positions would be exposed to the foreign supervisors and they would sustain huge losses.
Instead, if they struck ceasefire deals and retreated from forward positions to the border regions, they would be helped with advance information about possible raids and they could take alternative measures for their survival. They were categorically told that the operation was inevitable, so it would be best for them to take rear positions and flit on both sides of the border for their survival.
The military rationale for adopting this approach was based on pragmatic grounds - that it would cause the militants to evacuate the main tribal areas for Afghanistan or the tribal fringes. This would allow secular Pashtun sub-nationalist forces to regain a hold in the area and develop an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation.
The scheme was a blueprint to get rid of the Taliban-led insurgency from Pakistan and force it back into Afghanistan, but NATO considered it a betrayal on the part of Pakistan, especially it turning a blind eye to the Taliban crossing the border with impunity.
Faced now with the very real threat of coalition raids into its territory, Pakistan might be forced to restart military operations in the tribal areas. Meanwhile, President Pervez Musharraf will have to play a significant role in reassuring Washington that Pakistan is still on board in the "war on terror" and that the Americans need to be patient. Time is not on his side, though.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/16/2008 15:37 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"US runs out of patience with Pakistan"
I thought that was evident last Wednesday when they waxed the 11 Talipaks or Pakibans or whatever the proper term for Pak Army personnel moonlighting as Taliban is.
#2
Compare wid KHALEEJ TIMES [Paki] > PEOPLE'S DAILY [China] OP-ED = OBAMA IS NO REVOLUTIONARY, unlikely to bring out Self-desired
"transformation" in America. Further, Op-Ed argues Obama is NOT s symbol of RACIAL HARMONY IN AMERICA AS RACIAL "ASSIMILATION" [White Values by Black America?]???
#1
Jewish-Presbyterian relations have suddenly plummeted to "a new low point." Rather than explain how to avoid anti-Jewish bias, they complain, the new document "reads as a blueprint for how to engage in anti-Israel activity without being accused of anti-Semitism."
This should not have happened suddenly because the descent of the PCUSA into anti-Israelism and the attendant soft core anti-semitism have been going on for what seems like decades. It is a major reason why I have never reassociated myself with the PCUSA when moving after having been brought up in it as a child.
#2
Agreed, Nimble Spemble. The is another Presbyterian organization, which I believe originally separated from PCUSA because of disagreements on the Israel/antisemitism issue, which has been quite admirable in its statements and behaviour, from what I can recall. You might want to look into finding a congregation associated with them, instead.
#6
If Koufax is pitching for the Jews, they've got to be favored by at least three runs.
Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 ||
06/16/2008 19:05 Comments ||
Top||
#7
In my lifetime my family has wandered through Quakerism, Presbyterianism and Methodism, and each are prime examples of O'Sullivan's law. Worse yet, apparently, are the leftovers of the congregationalist churches - so crucial to the founding at settling of the original 13 colonies, only to have "evolved" into their present state as the welcoming home of the likes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
What is it with the pessimism of the overclass? If it wasnt for doom and gloom, they wouldnt have a reason to live. The latest example comes from ABC News, and suggests that this century may be the last one for civilization. Who says? Scientists! Ah, well, if its scientists, wed best pay heed. Or perhaps you disagree; the centurys still fresh and young. It still has that new century smell. Warrantys good for another few years, and besides, we havent dumped the trunk-junk accumulated in the previous century. Well figure something out. We always do.
But you dont get publicity by suggesting this century might be better than its predecessor, or by asking people to envision how cool the future might be. There are dozens of websites and Flickr sets devoted to retrofuturism, to the art of describing what things might be like. If you grew up in the 60s, youll remember all the paintings of space useful space full of gleaming silver ships. That all ended with 2001: A Space Odyssey which suggested that the future of space was long, dull, and lonely, punctuated with homicidal computers, trippy FX and enormous wise space-fetuses. Great film, but from then on, something seemed different about the future. Did we really want to live there?
By the seventies, wed starting looking back. The media remade the 30s and 50s in forms neither decade would have recognized, and sold them to folks who were disenchanted with the future and none too cheerful about the present. Now we have the disenchantment with progress combined with a grim, oddly self-satisfied form of pessimism, sprinkled with a little hysteria for that extra zing. Its almost as if some would be delighted if this were civilizations last century, for one of three reasons:
1. I told you so
2. We deserved it
3. The planet is better off without us. This last one is always an interesting assertion, because it suggests that the universe would be a better place if it had dodos, but no Beethoven. You could make the argument that we have vastly improved the universe, simply by adding Beethoven where none existed before, but no. Humanity is a virus, and perhaps this will be the century when the cure is found.
The best anecdote for this nonsense is the weekend. Its time for the simple human joys: hours spent with family or friends, gardening, a book, a meal taken in leisure, conversation, and all the other boons of civilization, hard-fought and hard-earned. If youre not an optimist on Saturday night, youre doing it wrong.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/16/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
