A few days old, but heck, great story. Check the comments, they tell lot about the PCness of official Britain (and Europe), where self-defense is a crime.
A 70-year-old former British soldier who fought guerillas in Aden and Triad gangs in Hong Kong showed four muggers how it doesn't pay to mess with the SAS.
Douglas O'Dell is past retirement age but the moves he learned as a volunteer in Britain's toughest regiment half-a-century ago stood him in good stead when he was ambushed near his home in Bielefeld, Germany, by four local toughs.
The former Provost Sergeant put paid to the danger on the street like he once took out bandits in hotspots across the globe.
THWACK! The first mistake came when one of the teenagers grabbed him around the throat and said in German: "Give my your money, grandad, if you don't want to get hurt."
"Bad move," said Douglas. "The only part he got right was grandad. If you're gonna grab someone from behind take their arms and pin them to their waist.
"This joker, I was able to grab his elbow, crouch down and throw him over my shoulder. He landed on his back on a fence and squealed like a stuck pig."
CRASH! As one went down another moved in and Douglas thought he saw him reaching for a knife. The Birmingham-born divorcee, who has a daughter and three grandchildren, said: "I had the measure of him but I slipped on some wet leaves as he came for me and bashed my face badly on the concrete.
"I saw his boot coming towards my face and I thought: 'No you don't, sunshine.' I grabbed his leg and twisted it until he too was screaming out in agony.
"Then I got to my feet and kicked him in the chest." "Now, let's get serious, where did I put my Fairbairn-Sykes?"
With two down the two remaining would-be muggers had enough. One peeled his groaning pal from the fence, the other picked up his crippled accomplice from the pavement.
"The last I saw of them they were limping down the pavement like a WW1 trench raiding party who got clobbered," said Douglas.
Douglas, who served nearly nine years with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment before leaving the army in the late 1950s, learned his combat moves when he was accepted for SAS training.
He completed the course and was to join the famous regiment when he contracted malaria and had to leave the army.
"I was upset at the time but I made the best of it. It's funny, but I never thought I would need to know that stuff again, the unarmed combat, but it came back just when I needed it."
The youths ambushed him just 60 feet from the flat he lives in in the British Army garrison town he has called home since 1961.
He went on: "The police only became involved because I went to the hospital with my face. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. They didn't get anything except a bloody good hiding.
"They were German, I think east Germans, from their accent. There have been a lot of break-ins in my road.
"I just didnt think this would happen to me. I was only returning from a pal's place after drinking a few beers."
Douglas, who spent three years as a policeman in Birmingham before returning to Germany to live after his marriage ended, shares his flat with a mongrel dog called Schnuffi.
He still works, as a delivery driver, "because my pension isn't very good."
Police in Bielefeld are still looking for his attackers.
But a spokesman said: "He had everything under control. These guys picked the wrong guy on the wrong night." "We certainly hope he won't go after them!"
From the most trusted name in Big Media: The Weekly World News
SAFFORD, Ariz.--A fugitive's abduction by alien beings has prompted a hasty interstellar extradition treaty, now under review by the U.S. Senate. Safford is a real place so this has to be true.
The abduction disrupted a high-speed police chase along Interstate 70. I-70 also exists, further reinforcing the credibility of this story. Unfortunately, it does not run through any part of Arizona, except perhaps fictitious parts
Police cornered the fugitive, thirty-seven year old Jonathan Lee Walden, but his stolen SUV suddenly vanished from the highway. Re-sold in Mexico "I saw some kind of metal craft hovering over the truck, then there was this intense white beam, and the truck disappeared," said one eyewitness.
Police dismissed the beam as a searchlight from the helicopter pursuing Walden. No police reports were filed after the chase, except for three documents almost entirely censored with black marker, and one report of a speeding fine issued, but not collected, for a vehicle exceeding 670,616,629 miles per hour in a 25 mile-per-hour zone.
Two of the censored documents mention a new law enforcement authority called 'Interplanetpol.'
Government officials denied that any non-terrestrial extradition treaty was in the works. But--in the words of one Capitol source--"it's right there on the books, ***Treaty Doc. 209-19, 109th Congress, 2nd Session.***"
The source also reported that members of the president's staff have extensively briefed Ambassador Richard L. Zlevin on US-extraterrestrial relations, and have reserved broadcast time on the Federal Radio Observatory's Red Bank transmitter for treaty negotiations.
Prior to the abduction, fugitive Walden was serving time for kidnapping--"so the aliens are unlikely to have much sympathy with U.S. law enforcement officials during the negotiations," said the source. Maybe we can negotiate with them for a new detention facility to replace Gitmo, one not even the ACLU and CNN can find.
SHEIK Taj al-Din al-Hilaly should be stripped of his permanent residency and kicked out of the country, a prominent Liberal backbencher said today.
Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch said he understood the cleric was only a permanent resident, not a citizen, and his invitation to remain in Australia should be rescinded.
The mufti of Australia is under pressure to step down after suggesting in a sermon that immodestly dressed women invited sexual assault.
"My first reaction is to hell with him," Mr Entsch said in Canberra.
"Having citizenship is an absolute privilege, so is residency, and if he wants to abuse that privilege than he should suffer the consequences.
"I'm not too sure what the legal ramifications are, whether the Government has the capacity to do that once it's granted, but I think it's something that should be considered.
"He shouldn't be here."
But Mr Entsch said he had taken heart that the mainstream Muslim community had quickly stood up against the sheik.
He said high-profile leaders were speaking against the cleric and making strong moves to have him step down.
"From what I've heard within the Muslim community they are certainly lining him up to do a lot more than an apology," he said.
"And it's good to see the moderates and more mainstream Muslims in the community actually taking this character on and telling him it's totally unacceptable in this country to be making the statements he is."
Liberal MP Cameron Thompson said the cleric should listen to the groundswell of people in the Islamic community asking him to step down.
"From where I sit he's long outlived his usefulness as an effective leader of that religion," Mr Thompson said.
Labor's deputy leader Jenny Macklin said the Muslim community should show leadership and make it clear the sheik's views were not acceptable.
"I think this man needs to be condemned for his lack of moral leadership," she said.
"He certainly should go, from my point of view."
Ms Macklin said Attorney-General Philip Ruddock should actively investigate whether Sheik Hilaly had broken any laws with his comments.
#1
Chiraq: I've sold out France (in particular) and the West (in general) to islam, and before THAT the Soviets. Now I'm going for the trifecta: This time I'm selling out France and the West out to the ChiComs.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
10/29/2006 18:50 Comments ||
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#2
In particular, he wants to sell military electronics to them.
Russia's state arms exporter and a French defense company signed a cooperation document during an international arms show in France, a RIA Novosti correspondent said Friday.
Rosoboronexport and DCN signed a letter of intent aimed at establishing and developing export and technical cooperation in the naval sphere, particularly in R&D and the design of combat ships and submarines.
Vladimir Pakhomov, deputy general director of Rosoboronexport, said the signing of the document paves the way for the development of business contacts between the French manufacturer of advanced naval systems and leading Russian shipbuilding companies.
As a result of the cooperation, Russian and French partners will be able to develop a competitive edge on old and new markets of modern naval technology, the Russian official said.
DCN is one of the few naval defense companies in the world to propose an integrated approach to the construction of warships and their servicing. As a prime contractor, shipbuilder and systems integrator, the company offers resources and expertise spanning the entire naval defense value chain and product lifecycle, from design concept to decommissioning.
The 20th International Naval Defense and Maritime Exhibition and Conference is being held at the Paris-Le-Bourget exhibition center October 23-27.
"My pledge: As your Representative in Congress, I will vote exactly as you, the citizens in my district, direct me to vote through your participation on this website, or by secure telephone connection to my office in Washington: no ifs, ands, or buts."
...Thank you for your interest in Daniel Rosen, our candidate for U.S. Representative in Nevadas Second Congressional District. Mr. Rosens campaign is the first anywhere to offer a free state-of-the-art digital voting system that will enable citizens in his district to control his votes in Congress after he is elected. Please join with us in this unique and precedent-setting campaign. Together, we will demonstrate to the nation and the world that corruption in politics and government is obsolete. No special interest lobbyists will even attempt to buy Mr. Rosens vote when they learn that his vote is controlled by his constituents. Using the technology embedded in this web site, we intend to have honest and responsive government at last...
#1
....and if I can't be there in person to cast your vote in the way you have directed me to do, then my pet Brazilian pigmy monkey (whom I affectionately named Little Mohammed) will be there in my place, designated to carry out your wishes. I ask you, concerned voters of Nevada's Second Congressional District, what more could you ask of me?
Posted by: Mark Z ||
10/29/2006 20:30 Comments ||
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#2
There's a reason why we have representatives, and his ignorance of statistics, sampling error, and the give and take of politics should disqualify him from ever being one of those representatives.
If politics were fair, Lincoln Chafee, a maverick who declined to cast a ballot for President George W Bush at the last election and was the only senator in his party to vote against the Iraq war, would be cruising to victory. Instead, the blue-blooded scion of a prominent New England family who is the most popular politician in his state, is staring at defeat in next week's mid-term vote because of one most inconvenient fact he is a Republican.
America's smallest state, Rhode Island, home to a well-heeled yachting set and peppered with sumptuous mansions once frequented by the Astors, Vanderbilts and Kennedys, prides itself on being insulated from the grubby machine politics of the rest of the country. Mr Chafee, who inherited his senate seat when his father John died in office in 1998, has typified this by repeatedly bucking the party whip. He is a strong supporter of legal abortion and is one of the few senators, and the only Republican in the Senate, to have expressed support for same-sex marriages.
The senator challenged Mr Bush on tax cuts and recently single-handedly delayed the appointment of John Bolton as the president's UN ambassador. But with Mr Bush slumping to a 22 per cent popularity rating in Rhode Island the lowest rating of all 50 states the Chafee balancing act appears to have come to an end. The Democrats need to gain six seats to take control of the Senate and Rhode Island, where Mr Chafee trails narrowly in the polls, is firmly in their sights.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Lady Karma, she is a bitch.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/29/2006 8:08 Comments ||
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#2
I can't see where he was doing the GOP much good anyhow. Kind of like McCain.
#3
I'd just as soon this traitor to the party begone. Not necessarily out of ideological purity, I just don't like the fact that he accepted all the party efforts to keep him in office, yet did his best to screw Bush and conservatives over at every opportunity. No thanks
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/29/2006 10:17 Comments ||
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#4
I can't see where he was doing the GOP much good anyhow. Kind of like McCain
Day-to-day I agree, but his (R) would go toward majority status and all the committee chairs based on that.
#9
"...inherited his senate seat when his father John died in office..."
I'm sorry, have we...or Rhode Island became a rotten borough, or some sort of malevolent aristocracy? Well, yeah, I know that Massachusetts belongs to the Kennedys, but Lord Above, citizens, have you no pride? No honor? Are you not willing to throw yourselves against an established, hereditary aristocracy? What is wrong with you, that this sort of thing can stand!!!
Citizens!! To the barricades! (exit, stage left, singing... well, not the Marseilles but something inspiring and uniquely American. Maybe the Battle Hymn of the Republic, or This Land is Your Land yeah, definitely This Land is Your Land... all together now, in an inspiring chorus This land is your land, this land is my land, from the New York Island .)
#10
Battle Hymn of the Republic, third verse, the really belligerent one:
I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/29/2006 22:30 Comments ||
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#11
Rhode Island...prides itself on being insulated from the grubby machine politics of the rest of the country.
#2
What a crock of shit.
The article is based on the following full faced lie. Many are disillusioned with voting after feeling shut out in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.
This soft racism should be rejected by every black person who can think for himself. This argument is based entirely on democrat distortions, without a single fact in support. This is an example of the kind of slanted bullshit introduced by Trotsky and Lenin to con the masses into believing that they would be better served under communism. The 2006 Communist Manifesto, brought to you by your local democrat party worker.
Half of America no longer know what the truth actually is. How can we ever get through this downward spiral ?
Keep working gang, maybe we can open one eye at a time.
#3
"How can we ever get through this downward spiral ?"
I had some ideas on that... The process was military in its precision, with each limo arriving at the tunnel entrance exactly one moment apart, the doors were opened, the occupants assisted in exiting, and the needle inserted at the base of the skull so quickly that few even felt the prick. The bodies were quickly drug away, preparing the scene for the next limo.
But it was only fiction. Pure fiction. Not real. Not possible. Don't think about it. Couldn't happen. Just kidding. No way, Jose. Just a joke. Funnin for fun's sake. I like fiction, don't you? It's all so fictional-like. Pretend. Not real. Nope. Uh uh.
#5
how about the Democrat full-throttle push to give amnesty to illegals (and keep open borders for more)? - they take jobs from blacks.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/29/2006 15:53 Comments ||
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#6
I've heard the question posed by several prominent blacks lately. Why do we vote democrat? What have we gotten from them in the past, what are we likely to get in the future? If you guarantee the democrats your vote, you have effectively alienated yourselves from both parties. Neither will compete for your votes.
#7
Bull's eye, Big Jim.
The last thing the democrats gave the blacks is they took away responsibility and replaced it with welfare. No more father to greet after a days work. No more family. No clawing your way out of poverty with hard work. No more learning to read, write or speak. Just midnight basketball and rap.
The Republican National Committee said Thursday it won't run any television ads in Ohio on behalf of Sen. Mike DeWine during the final week of the campaign. RNC spokesman Aaron McLear said the national party organization had reserved time to run statewide TV ads next week as DeWine tries to come back against Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, who leads in recent polls. But in the end, the RNC decided not to make the purchase, McLear said. National Democrats said it showed the Republicans were giving up on the two-term senator. The Democrats need to win six Republican seats and hold all of theirs to take control of the Senate.
Down by 12 in the RCP average of the latest polls. He's a goner.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Not so sure of that. DeWine's still running lots of ads; he's got buckets of money and can finance his own efforts; the RNC wanted to shift its money to help less well-financed candidates in other states.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/29/2006 0:12 Comments ||
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#2
Senator De Wine's tag line is, "Sherrod Brown let us down." Representative Brown is depicted as against all war/security measures, for increased taxes and standard Progressive issues. Mr. Wife deems the tag line extremely effective branding. We'll see if he's as clever as I think he is.
#3
I dislike Gang of 14 DeWine...see him as the Olympia Snow of Ohio. On the other hand, Sherrod Brown is a liberal hack of the very worst kind. DeWine gets my vote.
As the Dead Sea slowly shrinks towards extinction, fears are growing that the saltiest body of water on earth will not disappear without taking a few lives along with it.
The Dead Sea has fallen more than 20 meters over the past 40 years. Studies by scientists at the University of Jordan have shown that the sea now drops one meter in depth each year. The water level has declined faster than ever since Israel took control of the water resources that feed the Jordan River after occupying the West Bank after the 1967 Arab/Israel war.
"For at least 30 years, Israel diverted most of the Jordan River tributaries and controlled water coming from Tiberias Lake [the Sea of Galilee] in a way that the river level was heavily effected," said Najib Abu Karaki, head of the geology department at the University of Jordan.
...
The industrial use of the sea has also been blamed for the shrinking water levels. The Southern basin of the Dead Sea was converted to shallow salting lakes (evaporation ponds) -- a total surface area of approximately 255 square kilometers. Water is pumped from the Northern Dead Sea Basin to the Salting lakes to extract minerals such as potassium, magnesium and many others. The evaporation ponds are responsible for 25 percent to 30 percent of the total evaporation of Dead Sea waters.
There may be a glimmer of hope. Officials and scientists have been upbeat about a proposed project to inject life into the Dead Sea by linking it with a canal to either the Red Sea, in the south, or the Mediterranean sea, in the west. The multi-billion-dollar project, which was proposed when Jordan and Israel signed their peace treaty in 1994, could help Jordan put an end to its chronic water shortage and return the Dead Sea to its normal level.
However, environmentalists are concerned the project could bring other problems to the region.
"The canal could cause a massive disruption of natural landscapes, transport saline seawater over areas containing freshwater aquifers, and disturb the natural qualities of the sea," said Ahmed Abdul Rahman, Dead Red project manager at Friends of the Earth.
#1
At one time there was a proposal for a tunnel to be bored from the coast to the Dead Sea for the purpose of generating Hydro-Electric power. Similiar propsals have been put forth for the Qattara Depression in Egypt
#2
Just build a 48-inch pipeline and a pumping station in Eilat. The Dead Sea is the main source of supply for 40% of Israel's chemical industry. I'm not sure if Jordan uses it for anything. It's also a highly-prized vacation site. Guaranteeing its future should be seen as a life-insurance policy for both chemical and tourist industries.
(The Med is closer, but you've got to go quite a way uphill, and then downhill again. Takes far more energy than pumping salt water up from the Red Sea.)
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/29/2006 22:23 Comments ||
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#4
Just don't go swimming on it (not in it—on it) if you have any abrasions or chafing, OP. You'll end up running in pain to get it washed off with fresh water, and there isn't much of that around.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/29/2006 23:05 Comments ||
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JOHOR BARU: A man with three wives and 10 children is believed to have raped one of his daughters. The 56-year-old unemployed man allegedly took the 31-year-old woman in his car to undisclosed locations in Kulai and Kota Tinggi since September and raped her.
The victim, from the man's second marriage, finally lodged a report on Oct 24 at the Kulai police station. In her report, the unmarried factory operator alleged that she felt as though a spell had been cast on her, leaving her powerless to resist the man's advances.
Johor Baru (North) acting deputy OCPD Deputy Supt Baldev Singh confirmed the case and said a man had been detained to assist with investigations. He said the case was being investigated under incest.
#2
Lol, TW. Clearly, she's been just asking for it for at least 25 years. He's a martyr. A Muzzy* Guy can only take so much, y'know. He'll prolly get a medal for resisting his perfectly natural urges so long. Case dismissed.
#3
Brother Ackmed is forbidden to molest the meat tube's sisters until he marries her off to a first cousin or sells her to a neighboring village. If the meat tube was in the unclean time, then Our Brother must perform the wudu three times using only the finest imported Arabian dirt.
#4
Well you know, it's 90% her fault, 10% his. So that tallies out to about 5 years in jail for him, 45 for her. Maybe she should think about withdrawing her complaint.
Vietnam on Thursday completed its protracted negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation, putting it on track to become the WTOs 150th member. Hanoi, which has been negotiating entry since 1995, has accepted tough conditions as the price of joining the world trade club and the more favourable trade terms offered to members.
While Vietnams competitive clothing manufacturers will benefit from fewer restrictions on their exports to the US and Europe, other sectors in the still heavily state-dominated economy will face stiffer competition from foreign suppliers and the removal of many government subsidies.
Vietnam, with a population of 84m, has experienced rapid growth since economic liberalisation policies were put in place in the early 1990s, and is now the best performing economy in Asia after China. Exports have grown by leaps and bounds, despite restrictions such as US anti-dumping duties on catfish imposed three years ago and a recent decision by the European Union to impose duties on Vietnamese and Chinese shoes.
Truong Dinh Tuyen, Vietnamese trade minister, said he hoped his countrys extensive and far-reaching WTO commitments would allow its economic momentum to continue.
The WTOs governing council is due to endorse Vietnams accession terms at a special meeting on November 7. The Vietnamese National Assembly is expected to ratify the accords by December 5, and Vietnam will become a member 30 days after ratification is notified to the WTO.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/29/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Sheesh. Another totalitarian state-controlled economy to ankle-bite, triangulate, and dilute the forum away from the only system which rewards individual effort: capitalism.
Is that immediate reaction completely wrong?
My BS detector pegs regularly regards "international" forums. I do not have confidence (lol, it's a boggle where my cynicism originates) that the US gains more than it loses in such things. The WTO strikes me as something a State Dept asstard would love, so my first reaction is that it's a negative indicator - take the opposite view by default. I understand what it's supposed to do, from the link, but still my doubts stubbornly persist, lol...
Perhaps some of our obviously well-tutored RBers can make simple for / against cases regards the WTO to counterbalance the standard and expected propaganda version available at their site.
I'm just looking for the 90K ft view of reality here, not expecting anyone to write a book. From what I've seen in the news, it seems to work against the US, especially very large & successful US Corps, such as the EU mugging, threatening, and successfully black-mailing MS, and I'm wondering if that view is accurate. The UN of Trade, with all of the connotations that entails, describes my cynical view fairly well.
TIA to anyone who tosses in some learned real-world info.
#2
I've been saying for years that we are simply going to have to give up manufacturing cheap items. It can be done cheaper in other countries. We have lost it, it is gone, get on with bigger and better things. That kind of manufacturing is not the mainstay of a mature economy, it is for developing economies and underdeveloped countries. Not everyone can make brakepads for a living. Not everyone can be in manufacturing.
Perhaps so, but manufacturing still represents a strategic asset in times of war. Even in relative peace the ability to fabricate high speed integrated circuits is critical to national security. We must not rely on any other nation, ally or foe for mission critical components. America must always be able to produce its uniforms, ordnance and other warfighting materiel.
Far too much of our manufacturing base is being eroded by China and other WTO participants who do not interact on a level playing field. China is by far the worst of them, but has bought off such a huge portion of our government as to be relatively immune.
Should we ever go back to another real World War, our lack of massive manufacturing base will come back to bite us hard. Why communist Vietnam is being granted accession into the WTO is a big WTF. I'd wager it has more to do with post-Vietnam War angst than any realistic economics.
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.
"I saw some kind of metal craft hovering over the truck, then there was this intense white beam, and the truck disappeared," said one eyewitness. 
If politics were fair, Lincoln Chafee, a maverick who declined to cast a ballot for President George W Bush at the last election and was the only senator in his party to vote against the Iraq war, would be cruising to victory. Instead, the blue-blooded scion of a prominent New England family who is the most popular politician in his state, is staring at defeat in next week's mid-term vote because of one most inconvenient fact he is a Republican.
The Republican National Committee said Thursday it won't run any television ads in Ohio on behalf of Sen. Mike DeWine during the final week of the campaign. RNC spokesman Aaron McLear said the national party organization had reserved time to run statewide TV ads next week as DeWine tries to come back against Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, who leads in recent polls. But in the end, the RNC decided not to make the purchase, McLear said. National Democrats said it showed the Republicans were giving up on the two-term senator. The Democrats need to win six Republican seats and hold all of theirs to take control of the Senate.
