A KwaZulu-Natal teenager, who was caught having sex with a goat at the weekend, was charged with bestiality and ordered to appear in the Port Shepstone magistrate's court on Tuesday, police said.
Superintendent Zandra Hechter said the teenager was caught in the act in the early hours of Sunday morning by the owner of the goat, Thushni Mnyoni.
"He was caught with his pants down, having sexual intercourse with the goat in a kraal. Mr Mnyoni apprehended the teenager and the neighbours were called to validate the incident," she said.
Hechter said the teenager was handed over to police and was detained at the Port Shepstone police station until his court appearance on Tuesday afternoon.
Alligators have clashed with nonnative pythons before in Everglades National Park. But when a 6-foot gator tangled with a 13-foot python recently, the result wasn't pretty.
The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole _ and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.
The species have battled with increasing frequency _ scientists have documented four encounters in the last three years. The encroachment of Burmese pythons into the Everglades could threaten an $8 billion restoration project and endanger smaller species such as the pork laden politician, said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor.
The gators have had to share their territory with a python population that has swelled over the past 20 years after owners dropped off pythons they no longer wanted in the Everglades. The Asian snakes have thrived in the wet, hot climate.
"Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild only at Marine World. ... And we here are, it's happened for the fourth time," Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.
"They were probably evenly matched in size," Mazzotti said of the latest battle. "If the python got a good grip on the alligator before the alligator got a good grip on him, he could win."
While the gator may have been injured before the battle began _ wounds were found on it that apparently were not caused by python bites _ Mazzotti believes it was alive when the battle began. And it may have clawed at the python's stomach as the snake tried to digest it, leading to the blow up.
The python was found with the gator's hindquarters protruding from its midsection. Its stomach still surrounded the alligator's head, shoulders, and forelimbs. The remains were discovered and photographed Sept. 26 by helicopter pilot and wildlife researcher Michael Barron.
The incident has alerted biologists to new potential dangers from Burmese pythons in the Everglades.
"Clearly, if they can kill an alligator they can kill other species," Mazzotti , a certified Master of the Obvious, said. "There had been some hope that alligators can control Burmese pythons. ... This indicates to me it's going to be an even draw. Sometimes alligators are going to win and sometimes the python will win.
"It means nothing in the Everglades is safe from pythons, a top down predator," Mazzotti said.
Not only can the python kill other reptiles, the snakes will also eat otters, squirrels, endangered woodstorks and sparrows.
While there are thousands of alligators in the Everglades, Joe Wasilewski, a wildlife biologist and crocodile tracker, said its unknown how many pythons there are.
"We need to set traps and do a proper survey," of the snakes, he said. At least 150 have been captured in the last two years.
The problem arises when people buy pets they are not prepared to care for.
"People will buy these tiny little snakes and if you do everything right, they're six-feet tall in one year. They lose their appeal, or the owner becomes afraid of it. There's no zoo or attraction that will take it," so they release the snakes into the Everglades.
A reproducing snake can have as many as 100 hatchlings, which explains why the snake population has soared, Wasilewski said.
The Burmese snake problem is just part of a larger issue of nonnative animal populations in South Florida, he said. So many iguanas have been discarded in the region that they are gobbling tropical flowers and causing problems for botanists, Wasilewski said.
A 10- or 20-foot python is also large enough to pose a risk to an unwary human, especially a small child, he added.
"I don't think this is an imminent threat. This is not a 'Be afraid, be very afraid situation.'"
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/05/2005 15:47 ||
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#1
Thar it is.. Proof that global warming exists! Driving SUVs are creating suicidal carnivores!! I wonder if Mikey Moore ate Cindy Sheehan... hmm think about it..
Damn! I'm missing the conference! LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - One minute Jonathan Reed was hiking with his golden retriever in a forest in Seattle. The next, his pet was being torn apart by a "gray" -- an alien being with an elongated head, smelling of rotting fruit. A scene from a sci-fi film? No, maintains Reed, a former child-developmental psychologist who says he took the alien home and lived with it for nine days in which it communicated via telepathy and was able to pull thoughts from his mind. Wow! Just like Bush!
Reed and others -- including Uruguayan Rafael Ulloa who says aliens in spaceships spirited away people from New York's twin towers in the September 11, 2001, attacks -- gather in Lima this week for a world extra-terrestrial congress. Probably just the Mossad getting their people out...
Peru has long been a mecca for mystics and there have been abundant reports of flying saucers, especially over the southern town of Chilca. Some locals reckon aliens imbued mud springs there with special curative and fertility powers. Maybe they like a "certain powder" prevelant in Peru?
The congress, organized by the Alfa y Omega group that believes a fleet of UFOs will fly to Earth at the end of the world and Christ could use one for his second coming, during its October 6-9 run will pore over photos and grainy films of bright flashes and spooky shapes they say point to alien life forms. Maybe they can find the US government trained killer dolphins while they're at it?
Retired U.S. air force Lt. Col Donald Ware, 69, told a news conference Tuesday his first contact with aliens was in 1953, when he saw seven spacecraft flying over Washington,D.C. I saw that. Klattu Barratta Nicto, right?
He spotted no signs of extra-terrestrial life during his service, but said he had seen alien craft eight times since retiring in 1982. Yeah, the Air Force wasn't too crazy about Lt. Col's seeing UFO's back in the 60's. Or at least admitting it...
Seeing isn't always believing. Wendelle Stevens, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, said he believed in aliens after having investigated 100 cases, despite never having seen any himself.
Stevens, thought to have the largest archive of photographs of alleged UFOs in the world, says he worked from 1947-49 in Alaska with B-29 planes fitted with special scientific instruments to "detect the visitors." There's one! There's another one! Did you see him? There's another one!
His work there began the year the U.S. military is believed by some to have hushed up two purported crashes of alien spacecraft within a month. The Air Force denies the stories. They have to. If they don't, how else could they be accused of hushing them up?
Stevens, who said he did not believe in aliens before his work, said it was his job to debrief the crews of the B-29s and recounted how "the radio frequency spectrum went completely haywire ... and the temperature in the airplane increased. (The crew) looked out and there's a disc next door," he said. He said the crew shot photographs with four different types of camera, but the military suppressed the pictures. No Air Force spokespersons could immediately comment on his remarks. Another UFO story? You wanna handle it, Chuck? Just make sure you clear it with Rove.
One of the most unusual testimonies comes from Reed on his 1996 experience with the alien he came to call Freddie. Reed, who says he has a bracelet belonging to the extra-terrestrial, said Freddie had skin "almost like that of a pig." It breathed and had red blood, but did not speak. Tests showed he had 46 chromosomes, like humans, but 9 were different and resembled those of dolphins and sea turtles, Reed added. Do those tests yourself did you, Jonathan?
Aliens enthusiasts and UFO spotters are used to raised eyebrows, ridicule and worse. Reed says he was shot after his alien encounter and blames a "government faction which doesn't want this information out." Well now I definitely believe him! They always do that!
But his close encounter with the alien with slanting eyes and a slit mouth "proved to me we are living in a much bigger universe," he said. With big ass ugly things as neighbors...
#1
It shredded his dog and then he took it home? A bit more hospitable than I would be. Then again he might have been hankering for some anal probe action. Don't ask, do tell.
Paris, 5 Oct. (AKI) - The popular Saudi newsreader and women's rights activist Rania al-Baz has defied a travel ban imposed on her by the Saudi authorities by illegally smuggling herself into France. Al-Baz made headlines around the world last year when she allowed photographs of her bruised and swollen face to be published after her husband almost beat her to death. She was due to promote her new book in Paris and give a lecture on the situation of women in the Gulf.
However, London-based Arabic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reports that she has defied the authorities by leaving Saudi Arabia hidden in a goods lorry and travelling to neighbouring Bahrain. She then travelled on to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and from there made her way to France.
The editor who has published her new book in France says they now want to clarify her legal position and explained that the presenter had left her children in Saudi Arabia. He said the journalist did not intend to fight her country or Islam, but instead wanted to support women's rights around the world.
She had been due to fly to Paris from Jeddah airport on Tuesday, to take part in a seminar called 'Neither Subservient Nor Submissive', organised by the French Women's Organisation at the Autumn University, for whom she is the Middle East spokesperson. However, she was stopped at the airport by the authorities, who said her papers were not in order. She was then told she was banned from leaving the kingdom for an indefinite period.
In her book 'The Disfigured', al-Baz talks of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband, and how he used to violently beat her, particularly on the face. She also explains the situation for women in Saudi Arabia.
Last year her husband left her unconscious at the local hospital with 13 facial fractures after a particularly vicious beating. She had to undergo reconstructive surgery, but agreed to release photographs of her swollen face, thereby highlighting the issue of domestic violence against women, which had long been a taboo subject in the Saudi kingdom. Her husband eventually surrended to the police and was sentenced to six months in prison and 300 lashes after the charge was reduced from attempted murder to severe assault. He was released a little over half way through his sentence at al-Baz's request, in return for her getting full custody of their two children.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 14:15 ||
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AZ ZUHRAH, Yemen (AP) - Ahmed Ali Taher laid his wailing granddaughter in the shade of a barn, held out her limp legs and pleaded for a miracle. In this dirt-poor region along the Red Sea, 1-year-old Ismaa is one of hundreds of Yemeni children struck down this year by polio - four years after the country thought it had beaten the disease forever.
"We've had Rift Valley Fever, dengue fever and malaria. But polio is the worst thing to ever hit our village," said Taher, who believes he is over 70 years old, but has no birth records to be sure. "Some might have died from the others, but then their suffering is over. Polio leaves children paralyzed like this, with no hope."
Yemen got rid of polio once - for a period of four years after the last case was reported in 2001. But since late February, more than 470 Yemeni children have been hit with the disease, more than one-third of the total 1,273 cases detected worldwide this year.
Virtually all in Muslim countries, but the AP doesn't mention that.
The Yemen cases all stem from an outbreak in Nigeria two years ago, which occurred after Islamic clerics urged parents to boycott the vaccine for fear it was part of an American anti-Muslim plot. The polio that then erupted in Nigeria spread first to Chad, then to nearby Sudan - and then across the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
In some cases, the virus was carried by jobseekers and in others by Muslim pilgrims. "The Islamic world took a real beating because of the idiocy of what the clerics did in northern Nigeria," said Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the World Health Organization's Global Polio Eradication Program. But, he added: "Islamic countries should be praised for doing so much to bring the spread of polio back under control."
Guess the vaccine wasn't so un-Islamic after it reached the master land.
Intense international efforts are under way. In Yemen, health officials backed by WHO and UNICEF recently held the fifth nationwide vaccination round this year. A total of about 3.8 million children under age 5 received two drops of vaccine each.
Thousands of health workers and volunteers, many of them Yemeni women dressed in head-to-toe black chadors, went door-to-door checking for children to vaccinate. In some of Yemen's remote mountain areas, the people carrying the vaccine were hoisted up in baskets to villages perched on rocky outcrops to reach children.
The number of new cases has plummeted, with the last Yemeni child testing positive Aug. 11. Health experts predict polio could be wiped out here - again - by later this year.
But the upcoming Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia could prove a key test. Saudi authorities now demand that all children under age 15 who enter the country prove they've been vaccinated before obtaining a visa - and then receive another vaccination on arrival.
Such measures will come under close scrutiny during the pilgrimage in January, when more than 2 million Muslims are expected to travel to the country.
In another effort, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated half the $50 million needed by WHO to vaccinate 50 million children during an 18-month global eradication project.
Wonder if the Saudi press will thank the infidels?
In more than 30 developing nations, polio has either never been wiped out or threatens to re-emerge, as it did in Yemen.Here, the low immunization rates, poverty and limited health services were the factors behind the rapid spread. Many ill-informed Yemenis also believe the vaccine causes the virus, which has meant thousands of children have gone without proper immunization.
Nationwide polio vaccination programs stopped in 2001 after the last polio case was reported, leading to a massive fall in immunization levels among almost 4 million Yemeni children under age 5.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Thus, when the virus was carried here by Sudanese traveling across the Red Sea on centuries-old sea routes, there was little defense in this village of clay and straw huts, built on the flat plains of Yemen's steaming hot and humid western Hudaydah province. Hudaydah's 2.1 million people live in Yemen's poorest and most underdeveloped region, where oppressive heat, crowded towns and woeful sanitation provide perfect viral breeding grounds.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:12 ||
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#1
The Yemen cases all stem from an outbreak in Nigeria two years ago, which occurred after Islamic clerics urged parents to boycott the vaccine for fear it was part of an American anti-Muslim plot. The polio that then erupted in Nigeria spread first to Chad, then to nearby Sudan - and then across the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
#2
Many ill-informed Yemenis also believe the vaccine causes the virus,
Actually the vaccine does cause a mild form of the disease which is transmitted to others who have not been vaccinated. /Long lecture on how vaccines work avoided/
Why am I not surprised that Yemeni peasants are better informed than MSM journalists.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/05/2005 2:10 Comments ||
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Voice of America should be explaining to one and all how the stupid Mullahs illiterate 7th Century worldview saved this once endangered disease from extinction and made their lives so... much... worse!
THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true. The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect "total accuracy" from the Bible.
"We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision," they say in The Gift of Scripture.
The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious Right, in particular in the US. Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwinâs theory of evolution in schools, believing "intelligent design" to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.
But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this countryâs Catholic bishops insist cannot be "historical". At most, they say, they may contain "historical traces".
#2
'Moose, this is utterly un-newsworthy. This has been the stance of the Catholic Church for decades.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/05/2005 12:20 Comments ||
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But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this countryâs Catholic bishops insist cannot be "historical". At most, they say, they may contain "historical traces".
This is the critical point that I think is the most important. This is also the part of the Bible which is most troubling to me, and has been all my life. Too much a feel of Mythology in the first part of Genesis. It seems we are too much like other cultures. We diminish the messages elsewhere by sticking to that as literal rather then allegorical. People get too lost on 4004BC, and have less time to promote the message of Jesus, which had it's foundations with that "little mountain hike" Moses took...
God made the Earth, but I believe it was 4.5 billion years ago, not 6000...
#4
And then God looked at primitive man and said I have all the time in the world but not the patience required to explain evolution and DNA and all that to these near-cavemen. Time for metaphors to explain things quick in a way they can understand.
When they've advanced far enough they'll understand. Mostly.
#5
A close readingof the both the Old Testament and the New Testament reveals all sorts of contradictions between the various books. Comparison with archeological evidence throughout the regions covered by the various tales reveals even more, plus some unexpected confirmations. So what?
#6
Anonymoose, I was taught even as a tiny little girl that not everything in the Bible is literally true, especially in the book of Genesis. There's a lot of symbolism throughout the book. (See Song of Solomon for further....er....erudition on this point. Or Revelations.)
Besides, even granting the point that it is all true for the sake of argument, consider that there have been many translations from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. There are, and always will be, some concepts and ideas that cannot be exactly translated from one language to another, no matter how gifted the translator.
Case in point: My old parish supported a missionary in Papua New Guinea who was working on translating the Bible for the tribe he worked with. Instead of using "Lamb of God", he used the next closest idea that they could understand. He came up with "Small Furry Pig of God". Hardly kosher, but he defended it as saying they could understand that concept since they had never seen sheep and had no idea what a lamb was.
Plus, the idea that there would never be an error that worked its way into the "original" over the years is nuts. To use a non-Biblical example, remember the "72 virgins or 72 crystal raisins of clarity" debate earlier this year.
(Fatwa coming any day now on my a$$, I'm sure.)
Very, very few Catholics believe the Bible is literally true. This is why some Fundamentalists have decided that we aren't real Christians.
#7
Good points, Desert Blondie. In fact, hand written copies of the Jewish Bible can be dated by the errors (each copy is supposed to be exactly like its predecessor), and its chain of descent traced. So the chain of copyists in Iran had a different collection of errors than the chain of copyists in Egypt, than those in Spain who escaped to Turkey in 1492... Which is one reason, besides the Christian-like eschatological writings, that the Dead Sea Scrolls are so fascinating: ~250 years of copies of Old Testament and Apocrypha scrolls, which ended in 70 A.D. Lots of errors could be cleared up, you see, not merely compared and debated. ;-)
#8
Desert Blonde ... I knew a few old time New Guinea missionaries.... and well ... they really liked Christianity because of well.. this little bit about the Body and Blood of Christ in the communion service.... er.. well sorry... I will just slip away....
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez defended his administration Tuesday, denying he's seeking a dictatorship and accusing local media of falsely portraying him as authoritarian.
Chavez, a fervent Bolshevik nationalist who was first elected in 1998 and is up for re-election next year, says he fully backs democracy. His critics claim that he holds increasing dictatorial power over the national legislature, the courts and the electoral council.
"From North America and parts of South America, they continue attacking Venezuela, trying to say there is a dictatorship here," Chavez told oil company executives in the northwestern state of Falcon. "Those who say I want to lead Venezuela toward a dictatorship are the same ones who tried to establish a dictatorship here, and they were defeated."
Chavez, a former paratrooper with strong ties to Cuba's Fidel Castro, accuses Venezuelan television channels of playing a role in a short-lived 2002 coup against him and a devastating national strike that ended in early 2003. He took aim in particular at the Venezuelan television channel Globovision, which regularly broadcasts critical coverage. He said the private channel is a "lackey" of the U.S. government.
Leopoldo Castillo, a Globovision talk show host, said Chavez often criticizes the media because he objects to unfavorable news and opinions. "The president doesn't like bad news," Castillo said in a telephone interview. "He likes to control everything, even information."
Well yeah, that's what dictators do.
Relations between Caracas and Washington have been tense, with U.S. officials expressing concern over the health of democracy in Venezuela and Chavez criticizing "imperialist" U.S. actions in places from Latin America to Iraq.
In a related development, a former director of the nation's anti-drug authority said Tuesday that Chavez was given false information, which he then used to accuse U.S. drug agents of espionage. Thank you, ABC. Your LLL credentials have been renewed. Oh, and Hugo? Keep looking over your shoulder...
The return of the islands is the basis of the peace treaty with Russia, Japanese politicians say
The scandal between Russia and Japan regarding the sovereignty of Kurile Islands has resumed this week again. Answering a question from a resident of Sakhalin in Russia's Far East during a call-in conference held on September 27, President Vladimir Putin stated that the sovereignty of Russia's four Kurile Islands was not to be discussed. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said two days later, though, that Japan would continue to insist on the return of the islands. According to Koizumi, it would be the mandatory condition upon which Japan would agree to sign the peace treaty...
...The territorial dispute heats up around the four islands: Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai ridge. Russia considers the four islands its own territory. According to the peace treaty signed after the end of WWII, all Kurile Islands were put under the USSR's sovereignty. Japan, however, differentiated the legal and geographical notions of Kurile Islands and emphasized that it always distinguished them from the remaining group of islands. Japan agreed once for the return of only two islands, Shikotan and Habomai, which used to be a part of Hokkaido prefecture. However, when Junichiro Koizumi took the office, the Japanese administration demanded the return of all the four islands and refused to sign the peace treaty with Russia.
Japan obviously has its weak points in the dispute, the energy dependence on Russia, first and foremost. Japan is not rich with mineral resources, but there is also a question of defensive weakness as well: Japan has been deprived of the right to have a real army for more than 50 years already... You know, I just realized: I don't care if the author of this piece doesn't think they're real; I really wouldn't want to fight them.
...The Japanese government is not likely to change its standpoint regarding the future of South Kurile Islands. To crown it all, EU and US officials in the face of the Pentagon chief, Donald Rumsfeld, advised Russia should return all the four moot islands to Japan. Russian President Putin was supposed to visit Japan in the beginning of the current year, but the trip was not meant to take place. It brings up the idea that Putin's scheduled visit to Tokyo in November is not likely to bring any positive results either.
The West is interested in Russia solely as an exporter of natural resources, oil and gas first and foremost
Excerpting some interesting paragraphs; read the whole thing...
...International cooperation is generally built on either bilateral or coalition grounds (Moscow-Warsaw, Kiev-Tel Aviv or NATO, EU, etc). There can be another variant in the organization of international relations, when one state has to deal with a coalition of other states. A small single Baltic state (Lithuania), for example, made it clear to Moscow after the accident with the crashed Russian Su-27 aircraft that Russia would have to deal not only with a small state, but with the big NATO block...
...Russia currently faces a similar problem too. When the USSR broke up, a lot was said about the need to integrate in the global economic system. The wording implied the incorporation of something new in a stable system. It is possible to become a part of a system either wholly or partially. It is noteworthy that a system always takes what it needs and disregards everything else. Examples can be found on the American continent. Venezuela is rich with oil resources, which makes it highly attractive for the USA. Cheap and skilled labour force is available in Mexico, where it is possible to establish the car production and earn millions of dollars of profit on it. It goes without saying that many Latin American states do not wish to make up with such a situation. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez set forth an initiative to form a closed market of oil for 16 countries of Latin America. According to Chavez's ideas, members of such an association would be able to purchase oil at special prices which would be lower than their market versions...
...Current anti-Russian policies run by many states of the former USSR can be explained with the fact that the republics were completely deprived of any choice when the Soviet Union broke up. Russia's suggestions seemed either unacceptable or nonviable to them. Choosing between Washington/Brussels and Moscow, Kiev, Chisinau and others were forced to look westwards. Russia has a good chance to become the center of attraction to its neighboring states again, when advantages of the strong pro-American orientation have been weakening steadily. Unlike Venezuela and Cuba, the masterminds of anti-American policies in Latin America, Russia has been a strong superpower for centuries. Moscow only needs to gain more political will.
Tabare Vazquez may oust top military commanders after weeks of unsuccessful search for the remains of people detained and disappeared in military grounds
The USA's attitude to Uzbekistan turned to negative when Uzbek President Karimov did not let the US army base stay on the republic's territory longer
So there he was, sitting in the refrigerator, minding his own business...
The European Union is expected to make a decision pertaining to the imposition of sanctions against Uzbekistan. EU's ministers for foreign affairs are holding a meeting in Luxembourg, at which they are supposed to vote for the resolution to impose a weapon sales embargo against Uzbekistan, cut the volume of financial help to the former Soviet republic and bar Uzbek officials from visiting European states.
The imminent sanctions mark the continuation of tough measures, which are currently being taken against Uzbekistan on the US initiative. A draft resolution to file a criminal case against the incumbent President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, was submitted to the US Congress on September 30. Legal proceedings against Karimov are to be instituted at the International Criminal Court. According to the document, the US administration intends to impose international sanctions against the Asian republic of Uzbekistan in general and against President Karimov in particular. The Committee for International Affairs of the Congress demands President George Bush use the US influence in the UN Security Council and to apply penalties against Islam Karimov in connection with a mass uprising in the town of Andijan that took place in May of the current year.
According to official information, 169 people died as a result of the mutiny in Andijan. A mutiny? Were military forces in revolt, or was some other definition being used?
Western observers and local human rights activists affirm, though, that the number of victims reaches 800 people. Wait... the article subtitle implied that all that was going on was power politics in what was otherwise a vacuum...
Until recently, the Bush's administration insisted on the need to conduct an international investigation of the Andijan tragedy. An official spokesman for the US State Department, Sean McCormack, said that the USA was willing to render all adequate help to Uzbekistan. The administration of the former Soviet republic turned down the suggestion, though. In return, Washington decided to freeze the financial help of $22 million to Uzbekistan.
Observers say, however, that the USA has taken such a negative attitude towards Uzbekistan shortly after unsuccessful attempts to convince Uzbek President Karimov of the need to extend the term for the US army base to stay on the territory of Uzbekistan... So the shooting happens, and then by sheer coincidence Karimov decides to get rid of the US bases, and then relationships deteriorate?
I'm surprised. Aren't you surprised?
...To crown it all, the current trial of 15 men accused of May's unrest in Andijan, which currently takes place in Tashkent, added more fuel to the fire: it was said during the process that the US embassy in Uzbekistan had sponsored the mutiny. What would be the purpose? So the US could protest and get itself kicked out?
Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Daniel Fried attempted to bring Islam Karimov to reason last week. Fried had to acknowledge later, though, that negotiations with the Uzbek president did not bring the desired result. Daniel Fried stated during a press conference in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, that US troops were going to leave the territory of Uzbekistan without any additional talks on the matter. The US official said that Uzbekistan and the USA had experienced a rather complicated period of their relations, which was additionally aggravated with serious concerns of the US administration about human rights in Andijan. The US diplomat did not specify if the period was still going on or not.
Russia has thus remained the only reliable partner of Uzbekistan. "We approach the events in Uzbekistan as a tragedy, although our estimations of the basis of this tragedy are absolutely different from the opinion of Western organizations," Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Friday. The minister added that Russia did not practice any restrictions regarding arms deliveries to Uzbekistan. "Our relations with Uzbekistan have been strengthening in all areas, including the defense field. There are no restrictions on arms deliveries to the republic, except for globally recognized international rules," Ivanov told reporters.
It is worthy of note that the USA has imposed economic and other sanctions against a wide range of countries. Such measures are presumably instigated by foreign states' activities to violate the non-proliferation regime and human rights, support terrorism and conduct anti-American actions. The scale of sanctions differs in every particular case: there can be both universal and selective restrictions introduced. The USA imposed all-embracing sanctions against Cuba, for example, but barred weapon sales and other defense contracts with China. The USA imposed export trade sanctions (they are considered most comprehensive restrictions) with the following states: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Serbia, Afghanistan and certain African states. The list is complete with China, India, Pakistan and Syria, with which the US administration practices restrictions on certain goods only.
Powerful explosions blew out windows and shook houses not far from the site of the accident
"The territory near the arms depots, where explosions continue to occur, has been cordoned off, local residents have been evacuated, no one has suffered as a result of the accident," Georgy Romanovich, the chairman of the press service of the North-Eastern Armed Forces of Russia said.
Vice Governor of the Kamchatka region, Yevgeni Laukhin, stated before that over 1,200 of 4,500 residents living close to the site of the tragedy had been evacuated. "Other people preferred not to leave their homes being afraid of looters," the vice governor said.
According to Georgy Romanovich, explosions have become less powerful. "The last powerful explosions rocked the burning ammunition depot two or three hours ago," said he.
The burning ammunition depots are located some 50 kilometers far from the regional center, the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Officials say that it is still impossible to start extinguishing the fire because of ongoing explosions. "Special services can only observe the area for the time being," said he...
...No one has been reportedly killed with the explosions. A source from the Internal Affairs Ministry of the region told Interfax that there could be five security guards staying on the site during the time when the depot went ablaze and explosions started. "The security guards could use a bomb shelter on the territory of the ammunition depot. There is no information about them due to the absence of communication," a spokesman for the source said...
Experts state that in 100 million years a day will last for 25 hours
But probably not long enough for me to get caught up.
Earth is a living body: its form varies from time to time, its continents go apart and crawl against each other, whereas earthquakes and convulsions of nature shake Earth on a regular basis. NASA's recent research works show that Earth is stretching to the sides. Furthermore, there is every reason to believe that some day the planet will inevitably become brighter than the Sun and the latter will turn into a cold planet. There wouldn't happen to be a more specific cite than "NASA Experts," would there?
The shape of the planet determines gravity, and consequently it influences the trajectories of satellite orbits and the accuracy of telecommunication signals going to space centers on the surface. This explains why NASA is so much anxious about the problem. In the mid-19th century, artillery general Alfred Drayson studied bomb trajectories and arrived at a conclusion that the planet was getting wider, a rather courageous statement for that epoch indeed. The great spirits have spoken! Wider is better!
Sorta like my old AMC Pacer ...
NASA experts have modernized the old theory. The ice melting on the poles results in the elastic return effect in the mantle. The mantle, a thick layer of melted rock between the core and the earth's crust, acts like a sponge ball recovering after squeezing during glacial periods and global warming. In the recent years, the planet has suddenly started to swell. The phenomenon is even registered with high-accuracy lasers tracing satellites in the orbit. None of the surface processes can entail such an effect. The Earth's radius increases by about one millimeter a year and the ocean level goes up. For example, the Baikal Lake gets 2 centimeters wider every year. The NASA statements are also confirmed by paleo-magnitology experts restoring continents outlines as they were millions of years ago. Getting serious for a second... the Earth might become minutely more oblate as material moves from the poles to the equator, or less oblate as the reverse happens, but it's a very small process, that we can only notice now that we're measuring ocean surface elevations to the millimeter. This article also doesn't mention that the polar ice caps shrink or grow depending on the various ice ages, which are generally thought to have been caused by the Milankovitch Cycles; more can be read about them here
Paleo-magnetologists have determined that the speed of the Earth's rotation dropped in the prehistoric times already. The reconstruction demonstrates that the planet rotated very quickly 3 billion years ago. At that time, the day lasted for 19 hours, and experts state that days will last for 25 hours in 100 million years.
It is difficult for the "swelled" planet to rotate around the Sun; the day becomes 0.0023 seconds longer every century. As a result, the Earth is inevitably moving away from the Sun. In addition to tectonic processes, the planet gets wider also thanks to the interstellar dust coming to its surface. According to even modest estimates, this dust adds at least 1 billion tons every year. Some experts say that dinosaurs became extinct because of the planet's growth and the proportional increase of gravitation; under those conditions dinosaurs could no longer bear their own weight.
How long will the Earth's swelling last? In several billions of years, collapse processes typical of all stars will begin on the heavy Earth. When the planet's weight exceeds the breaking point, a chain reaction will start inside the planet. The Earth will become some sort of an atomic bomb under the enormous pressure and will reach the temperature of the Sun. This means our planet may become another star.
People on this planet will be able to witness a similar process when Jupiter, the biggest planet of the Solar system, will become a star. In some parts of Jupiter the surface temperature reaches 1,000 degrees. Astrophysicists believe that Jupiter will become a star, move away from the Sun together with its 12 satellites and form a new planetary system. Huh. Where's the Mayan Calendar? Where's 2012? Where's John Titor? Where's the Bible Code And The Great Pumpkin?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
10/05/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Hey, I thought there was a "USA Global Dictatorship"? What's all this pissing and moaning from the downtrodden masses? Back to work, global peons! I DEMAND PIE!
You have to understand, it was a Different TimeTM, when the greater acceptance of hallucinogenic drugs uniformly lead to the belief that not only was the gnosis of classical times achievable, but that it was best achieved in cars made by AMC... the wraparound windows of the Pacer were thought to promote awareness, not only of the neighboring traffic, but of neighboring realities. The Man retaliated the only way he could, by corrupting the design process. Thus the Gremlin was born...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
10/05/2005 7:41 Comments ||
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#6
Oh, I almost forgot...
I'm suprised. Aren't you suprised?
Maybe someone should check the meter.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
10/05/2005 8:48 Comments ||
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#7
The creative unreformed communist/nationalist writers of Pravda are a good example of how those suffering from severe organic brain damage can still lead fulfilling and productive lives in a capitalist society. Read the staff bios if you get a chance. Pathetic wankers and nutters all of them.
Zhengzhou, Henan: Though 30 years have passed, remorse, sighs and sympathy were common feelings among attendees who convened a seminar in this capital city of central Henan Province to commemorate an accident that had long been ignored nationwide.
A miserable story about China's most devastating dams bursts that caused thousands of lives in the province in August 1975 was unfolded by 150 officials, meteorologists, hydrologists from China, the United States and Italy at the seminar on Sept. 15, only three days after China announced to declassify its natural disaster death tolls.
The 24.5-meter dam of Banqiao Reservoir which took over the most rain from the typhoon first breached at wee hours of Aug. 8, 1975 releasing within six hours 700 million cubic meters of floods that wiped Daowencheng Commune downstream immediately from the map, killing all 9,600 citizens. "The blare of the dam burst sounded like the sky was collapsing and the earth was cracking," survivors recalled. "Houses and trees disappeared all in a instant. Numerous corpses and bodies of cattle floated in water amid people's wailing for help."
To worsen the situation, the dams of the city's other 61 reservoirs collapsed one after another within a short period, unleashing about 6 billion cubic meters of floods to an area of about 10,000 square kilometers.
Official statistics recorded 30 years after the dams bursts show more than 26,000 people were killed in the floods, the life of more than 10 million people was affected and all communication to and from the city were cut off. But some meteorologists and researchers said the figure might be even bigger. "The number may be revised some day in future," said Wang Yanrong, an official with Henan Province Department of Water Resources who has studied the province's flood disaster death tolls for years. "It depends on further and more thorough study of related files, documents and our data."
#1
Surprise, surprise. The Chinese have got a million and one little secrets like this one. The latest was that owners of mines involved in fatal accidents were actually local Party officials who had used their positions to prevent safety inspections.
#3
Truth and free trade go hand in hand. Better prepare for it and the demand for free information if you continue this route China, or your government will fall.
#4
Accident like this, in the middle of the carnage caused by Mao's Great Leap forward are insignificant statistics. Sad, and amazing in light of the three-rivers dam.
#5
I don't think this was a secret, at least not in its general outline, at least not to the international community. I seem to remember this incident being mentioned prominently in a number of articles and critiques on the construction of the Three Rivers Gorge Dam back in the 90s.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/05/2005 10:50 Comments ||
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French President Jacques Chirac launched a fierce attack on the European Union on Tuesday, accusing its executive Commission of failing in its duty to defend European interests and jobs.
Brussels had failed to protect European interests in world trade talks and its defence of European jobs had been weak, fuelling public hostility towards the once popular European ideal, the French leader said. "The vocation of Europe and of European institutions is also, and above all, to defend Europe, to defend the economic, financial and social interests of Europe," Chirac said, as workers across France went on strike over his government's economic reforms. "Is it normal for the Commission to be disinterested in a problem?" he asked. "This is one of the reasons that explains the current disavowal of Europe ... It is a problem that must be looked at."
But the Commission said it was unfair to blame it for Europe's problems. "It's a bit simplistic to make the Commission the scapegoat," chief Commission spokeswoman Francoise Le Bail said. "We have always defended European interests, but within the limits of our responsibilities."
French policy on Europe has been in disarray since voters rejected the EU constitution on May 29, a result due in part to anger over domestic reforms but also to anxiety over the loss of jobs to low-income countries outside the 25-nation bloc.
The vote considerably weakened Chirac at home and allowed British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose euro-sceptical country opposes the sort of political integration favoured by Paris, to demand reforms to ensure leaders listen more to voters. Um, did he say Chirac was being simplismÚ? Heh.
#2
The EU is doing what it was designed to do wonderfully. Protect bureaucratic jobs, protectionism for state businesses, high welfare handouts, and high taxes; maintain the status quo, etc.
Those things just don't bode well for a flourishing economy.
4 October 2005 -- The Bosnian Serb commission investigating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre today said it has identified more than 17,000 participants in the killings. The Special Bosnian Serb Government Working Group said participants included Bosnian Serb soldiers and civilians whose names would not be made public, but would be turned over to the state prosecutor's office for review and possible charges.
Gee, lotsa participants. As if the prosecutor is going to try 17,000 of them.
The commission said it submitted its report to the office of Bosnia's top international official, Paddy Ashdown, who requested it as part of efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the killings.
The Srebrenica massacre, which was the worst slaughter of civilians in Europe since World War II, claimed the lives of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:40 ||
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Well, that's permanent job security for the ICC, ICJ, Carla del Ponte, everyone at The Hague, everyone in Brussles, hell, shitloads of EU wanks and wonks. Pahtee!
#2
The Srebrenica massacre, which was the worst slaughter of civilians in Europe since World War II,
I wonder how it compares with what has been going on in the Soviet block 1945 to the end.
claimed the lives of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Did they (Serbs) took the Muslims' women to slaves as the Prophet commands?
France needs a cultural revolution to avoid becoming Frankistan. Your point?
Turkey will have to undergo a "major cultural revolution" if it is to realise its 40-year dream of joining the EU, Jacques Chirac warned yesterday.
As a leading Turkish politician spoke of a "rocky" road ahead, the French president said that Ankara's membership talks could last up to 15 years and might fail. "Will [Turkey] succeed?" Mr Chirac asked at a press conference in Paris with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. "I don't know. I hope so but I'm not at all sure." His remarks were echoed by Ilter Turkmen, a former Turkish foreign minister, who told the Guardian: "There's no doubt that Turkey's path to the EU is going to be very rocky." Their honesty highlights the huge task facing Ankara.
Turkey has already undertaken big reforms, such as abolishing the death penalty and opening its market to European goods, which allowed the EU to open membership talks. Over the next decade, however, it will have to open every area of its public life to EU inspectors. Turkey will have to show that across the board it is matching, or at least making irreversible progress towards, EU levels.
It faces the toughest test of any aspiring EU country because of fears that Europe cannot absorb such a large and relatively poor country. There is also the unspoken fear of up to 100 million Muslims - the country's population will soar in the coming decades - joining the EU.
Not that this has stopped the Euros from allowing tens of millions of Muslims into the currrent EU countries.
In common with any country that wants to sign up, Turkey must satisfy the EU that it is meeting European standards in 35 areas known as chapters. These range from free movement of goods to judicial reforms. Its supporters hope that progress in these areas will ease Ankara's path. A steady flow of reforms, such as improving the rights of the Kurds and ending state subsidies to flagging industries, will soften opposition, they hope.
Unlike any other country, however, Turkey is offered no guarantee that the talks will lead to full membership. It also faces the real threat that negotiations will be postponed or called off at a moment's notice. The EU can, for example, refuse to open chapters unless Turkey proves that it is up to scratch in that area.
"Nope, nope, ain't ready, nope, nope."
Supporters are hopeful that a strong momentum will soon build up, not least because Turkey's Islamic-oriented Justice and Development (AK) party has, since assuming power in 2002, passed reforms that have transformed the political landscape. With the death penalty abolished and cultural rights broadened for Kurdish, Arabic and Bosnian communities, analysts speak of a "rebirth". Last year, under pressure from Brussels, the government enacted a penal code that ended Turkey's semi-democratic past and aligned it with EU states.
But Turkish officials accept that immense headway is still needed. Human rights violations and curbs on freedom of expression persist; crimes against women remain widespread, and discrimination against minorities is a fact of life. Last year Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, proposed criminalising adultery. Amid protests, this was dropped. An EU diplomat said: "It's our great fear that, under pressure from his traditional-minded support base, he could cave in again."
Most liberal Turks believe Mr Chirac was right to demand a "cultural revolution". Levent Korkut, of the Ankara branch of Amnesty International, said: "Across the bureaucracy the culture needs to change. Judges with very old mindsets remain a real problem. They need to be trained in EU laws, sensitised to human rights issues and stopped from always seeing national security as a priority."
With anti-EU feeling growing in Turkey, the task would be herculean for any government. Mr Erdogan, a devout Muslim with a pious following, could find it particularly hard. Many Turks already feel they have made too many concessions.
Added to this, says political commentator Cengiz Aktar: "Convincing the man in the street that Turkey is not a burden but an asset will be one of our biggest challenges. In the coming years, the most difficult issue will be for old Europe to mentally digest Turkey."
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:01 ||
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#1
You say you want a revolution?
Well, you know, we'd all like to see the plan.
#3
Added to this, says British political commentator Bright Pebbles: "Convincing the man in the street that the EU is not a burden but an asset will be one of the impossible challenges. In the coming years, the most difficult issue will be for the Anglosphere to remain on good terms with it."
PARIS (AFP) - French commuters faced serious travel disruptions from a one-day nationwide strike that was also expected to ground hundreds of flights from Paris' two main airports. France's civil aviation authority predicted that 175 short- and medium-haul flights would be cancelled from Orly airport south of Paris and 212 from Roissy Charles de Gaulle north of the capital. No disruptions were expected on long-haul flights.
In the capital, around one underground metro trains in two were operating, while only one third of suburban trains were in service. Outside the greater Paris area, transport authorities said that 40 percent of regional services were up and running as well as 60 percent of high-speed intercity lines.
Outside Paris disruptions were also reported in southeastern Marseille, eastern Lyon, and in Nantes, Rennes and Rouen in western France.
As well as transport workers, around half of all teachers were also striking, and most post offices and government buildings and some banks were to remain shut while most national newspapers failed to appear.
Five of the country's biggest trade unions called the stoppage to protest policies the centre-right government has brought in to invigorate France's sluggish economy and to push for public sector pay rises.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:00 ||
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Is this the kind of "revolution" that Chirac wants to take effect in Turkey?
#3
The article is pure unadulterated BS. Parisian public transportation is in the hands of two companies: long range and low frequency lines are in the hands of SNCF (who also ensures national-wide railways) transportation and these had a strike rate while intra-muros transportation and high frequency lines (ie one train every two minutes in the rush hours) are in the hands of RATP and these were nearly unaffected. In fact RATP trains were less crowded than usual. Busses are in the hands of RATP and were also unaffected except for trafic conditions who were worse than in a normal day.
#4
Ooops post should have read "long range, low frequency lines are in the hands of SNCF and those had a high strike rate while intra-muros and high-frequcny, shorter range regional lines are in hands of RATP and those had a low strike rate.
I suspect that the AFP reporter is a leftist aiming to gibve the impresion that the strike was an unmitigated success
That any reporter is a leftist is a pretty safe assumption.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/05/2005 8:09 Comments ||
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#6
"That's the way to help your country get out of a sluggish economy - increase public debt while making it impossible for people with real jobs to do anything." - Vodkapundit
Oct. 5, 2005 â Both the FBI and CIA are calling it the first case of espionage in the White House in modern history. Officials tell ABC News the alleged spy worked undetected at the White House for almost three years. Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was a U.S. Marine most recently assigned to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. "I don't know of a case where the vetting broke down before and resulted in a spy being in the White House," said Richard Clarke, a former White House advisor who is now an ABC News consultant.
Federal investigators say Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines, used his top secret clearance to steal classified intelligence documents from White House computers. In 2000, Aragoncillo worked on the staff of then-Vice President Al Gore. When interviewed by Philippine television, he remarked how valued Philippine employees were at the White House. "I think what they like most is our integrity and loyalty," Aragoncillo said. I think that just ended.
Officials say the classified material, which Aragoncillo stole from the vice president's office, included damaging dossiers on the president of the Philippines. He then passed those on to opposition politicians planning a coup in the Pacific nation. "Even though it's not for the Russians or some other government, the fact that it occurred at the White House is a matter of great concern," said John Martin, who was the government's lead espionage prosecutor for 26 years. Last year, after leaving the Marines, Aragoncillo was caught by the FBI while he worked for the Bureau at an intelligence center at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
According to a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was arrested last month and accused of downloading more than 100 classified documents from FBI computers. "The information was transferred mostly by e-mails," said U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie at the time of Aragoncillo's arrest.
Since that arrest, officials say Aragoncillo has started to cooperate. He has admitted to spying while working on the staff of Vice President Cheney's office. Give him a couple years of probation and suspend his clearance until January 20, 2009.
Two days after he was placed on probation last month for taking classified documents, former national security adviser Sandy Berger was accused of reckless driving in Virginia by police who said he was traveling 88 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone.
On Wednesday, Berger appeared before the same federal magistrate who had sentenced him on Sept. 8 in the documents case. Deborah Robinson admonished Berger, and she will decide eventually whether to punish him further.
The traffic offense occurred while Berger, the former national security adviser to President Clinton, is on a two-year probation handed down as part of his sentence in the document case.
Berger is scheduled to appear Oct. 18 in local traffic court in Fairfax County, Va., on the reckless driving ticket.
He was stopped on Sept. 10, and two days later he informed the probation office of the U.S. District Court that he had been speeding because he was late to a meeting and was unaware of how fast he was traveling.
The probation office "reiterated to Mr. Berger" that all violations of the law and probation are taken seriously, the office said in a two-page report to the federal magistrate dated Sept. 28. Berger had been headed east on Interstate 66, a major highway into Washington.
Berger's Sept. 8 sentencing capped a bizarre sequence of events in which he admitted to sneaking classified documents out of the National Archives in his suit, later destroying some of them in his office and then lying about it.
"I let considerations of personal convenience override clear rules of handling classified material," Berger said at the time. "In this case, I failed. I will not again."
He called his actions a lapse of judgment that came while he was preparing to testify before the Sept. 11 Commission last year. The documents he took contained information on terror threats in the United States during the 2000 millennium celebration.
The Bush administration disclosed the investigation of Berger in July 2004, days before the Sept. 11 commission issued its final report. Democrats claimed the White House was using Berger to deflect attention from the harsh findings, with their potential for damaging President Bush's re-election prospects.
Initially saying his actions were an "honest mistake," Berger pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.
In the documents case, Robinson also fined Berger $50,000 and sentenced him to 100 hours of community service.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/05/2005 18:12 ||
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"The probation office "reiterated to Mr. Berger" that all violations of the law and probation are taken seriously"
I'm sure he had a good giggle at that...
Posted by: DanNY ||
10/05/2005 21:13 Comments ||
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#2
"do you know who I am? I stole national security documents and stuffed them in my pants and socks before shredding them. you wanna bitch about a SPEEDING ticket?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/05/2005 21:41 Comments ||
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Carlton Sherwood, Red, White and Blue Productions, Inc. and Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation v. John F. Kerry and Anthony T. Podesta
On October 3, 2005, Carlton Sherwood, Red, White and Blue, and the VVLF filed suit in Federal court against Sen. John Kerry and Anthony Podesta for events relating to the suppression of the documentary film Stolen Honor.
#1
As U.S. Circuit Court Judge of Appeals, Moore was kicked off the bench for defying a federal court order.
Funny thing is, this probably wont hurt his election bid in Alabama. Then again, smoking crack with a hooker didn't hurt Marion Barry's re-election in DC either. Go figure.
#4
Sorry guys, I live down here in Alabammy and we don't want him on a bet.
He's so sure that "GOD IS ON MY SIDE" that hes's a full certified wacko, he has no chance, it's all in his mind that all the "God Fearing" will vote for him.
Gawd what a Maroon.
And yes, I'm ashamed that he's an Alabamian.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/05/2005 22:05 Comments ||
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Was on team that developed Patriot Act
As President Bush's counsel, Harriet E. Miers continued the expansive interpretation of presidential powers favored by her predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, who backed Bush's authority to hold terrorist suspects without trial, as well as the White House's right to withhold more administration documents from public disclosure than in the past. Miers has also been outspoken in her support of reauthorizing the Patriot Act, which gave the executive branch new powers of surveillance over US citizens.
Now, Miers is Bush's choice to join the Supreme Court, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor.
That selection determines how much power a president can wield under the Constitution. Her nomination, announced Monday, followed the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who supported broad war powers for the president in a case he heard during his brief tenure as an appellate judge.
The two appointments, both of lawyers with extensive White House experience, have raised alarm among critics of the Bush administration's broad reading of executive branch authority.
"The fact that the president is now seeding the Supreme Court with people who have been handmaidens in his efforts to increase the power of the executive without any check or oversight whatsoever is very disturbing," said Bill Goodman, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which sued Bush on behalf of prisoners at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Supporters of Miers, too, have invoked her work on Bush's terrorism policies to assuage fears among some conservatives that she may be too moderate. "In her work respecting the War on Terror and the threats posed to our country by misuse of foreign and international law, Ms. Miers has applied the Constitution as the Framers wrote it," wrote Leonard Leo of the conservative Federalist Society.
A New York University law professor, David Golove, said executive power is emerging as a defining issue for the Supreme Court in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era. In case after case, the Bush administration has argued that it has the authority to take measures it deems necessary to stop terrorists, while others have insisted on maintaining checks and balances. "Executive power issues are going to be coming before the court that are of tremendous significance," Golove said, pointing to challenges to Patriot Act surveillance powers, the treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and the case of Jose Padilla, a US citizen being held without trial under the authority asserted by Bush to imprison anyone whom the government suspects of being a terrorist.
As the lineup of the Supreme Court evolves, so may its rulings on how much power the Constitution gives the president. That prospect has sent analysts hunting for clues in the records of Bush's nominees. This summer, for example, when Roberts was still an appeals court judge, he was part of a three-judge panel that ruled that Bush could bypass the Geneva Conventions, which require that prisoners of war be given court-martials, and could instead try a detainee before a military commission. Their holding reversed a district court's finding that the president had exceeded his authority.
And in a speech in April 2005, before a GOP lawyers' group, Miers said that reauthorizing the Patriot Act was "critical," because it "has been used in so many ways to help protect this nation and its people and in the war on terror." Miers made her speech in the context of bipartisan calls to amend the law with checks on new surveillance powers. Miers was also part of the administration's legal team when it developed both the Patriot Act and the detention policy for suspected terrorists. Her role in those internal deliberations, however, is unknown to the public.
Some conservatives wonder whether Miers personally supports the administration's approach or is just backing her client's official policy.
Among those raising questions is John Yoo, a former Justice Department official who helped to draft the Patriot Act and who wrote a memo arguing that Bush could authorize aggressive interrogation techniques, despite laws against torture. Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote in an article appearing yesterday in The Washington Post that Miers might shore up conservative support if the White House disclosed her private advice to the president about the extent of his executive power. "She may be one of the key supporters in the Bush administration of staying the course on legal issues arising from the war on terrorism," Yoo wrote. "But it is hard to see how the administration could reveal Miers's position on these issues, given its tough, five-year struggle to preserve the confidentiality of executive-branch deliberations."
Years ago, Miers argued against expanding government powers in the face of [sic] despite security threats. In July 1992, as the president of the Texas Bar Association, Miers warned against responding to a courtroom shooting spree by infringing "on precious, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. The same liberties that ensure a free society make the innocent vulnerable to those who prevent rights and privileges and commit senseless and cruel acts," Miers wrote in Texas Lawyer. "Those precious liberties include free speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of liberties, access to public places, the right to bear arms, and freedom from constant surveillance. We are not willing to sacrifice these rights because of the acts of maniacs."
With no one sure where Miers would stand on executive power as a justice, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said he will question her on the issue to make sure she is capable of "judicial independence."
As she prepares for such questions, Miers may look to Roberts's testimony last month. Promising the Senate that he would bring an impartial look to cases that involve challenges to executive power, Roberts cited the late Justice Robert Jackson as a role model. Before he joined the Supreme Court, Jackson was attorney general under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1940, before the US was involved in World War II, Jackson adopted an expansive reading of executive power by arguing that Roosevelt had the authority to defy the Neutrality Act by sending destroyers to Britain for use against Nazi Germany, Golove said. Yet years later, as a justice on the court during the Korean War, Jackson ruled that President Harry Truman lacked the authority to seize steel mills in the name of national security, even in wartime.
"The Constitution is the only interest I have as a judge," Roberts said. "The notion that I would compromise my commitment to that principle that has been the lode star of my professional life since I became a lawyer . . . is one that I reject entirely. That would be inconsistent with the judicial oath. And Justice Jackson is a perfect example of that." The seething is now in harmony - on both fringes.
#1
Both side's "fringes" have the money and influence to scuttle this nomination, and if they do, Bush may well have a Jesus moment, in which he gets to ask himself: Which is easier to win? When both side's "fringes" are after my nominee, or when just the left is?
#2
Don't know, but I'll tell you this: if the fringes on the right kill Miers' nomination, they *will* lose a lot of the middle who voted for Bush.
It will put Hillary in the White House - guaranteed.
Posted by: Fed Up ||
10/05/2005 16:00 Comments ||
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#3
That last comment needs more explanation.
There are a lot of moderately conservative people like me who moved a bit more to the right in response to the irresponsible, polarizing, ideology-driven idiocy of the left.
If we see the same thing driving the right in practical ways - such as torpedoing Miers because she doesn't offer the opportunity for an open ideological battle, as so many on the right have openly admitted they want - then a good many will move back to the middle and might well decide Hil is the better of two bad options.
Posted by: Fed Up ||
10/05/2005 17:08 Comments ||
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#4
Dear God, Please have the Republicans nominate Giuliani in 2008 so that Hil cannot seem the lesser of two evils. Amen.
Note: The information contained in this report is the best available as of June 2005 and is subject to change.
[..]
Although Iraq's unemployment rate remains high (perhaps 30 percent or more), the overall Iraqi economy appears to be recovering rapidly from its condition just after the war, fueled in large part by U.S. and international reconstruction aid. For 2004, Iraqi real GDP growth was estimated by Global Insight at 54 percent, with 34 percent growth forecast for 2005. This follows a 21.2 percent decline in 2003, on top of more than a decade of economic stagnation and decline. On October 15, 2003, a new Iraqi currency -- the "New Iraqi Dinar" (NID) -- was introduced, replacing the "old dinar" and the "Swiss dinar" used in the north of the country. Since then, the NID has appreciated sharply, from around 1,950 NID per $U.S. in October 2003 to around 1,538 NID per $U.S. by mid-May 2005.
[..]
Total, long-term Iraqi reconstruction costs could run to $100 billion or higher, with an October 2003 donors conference in Madrid resulting in pledges of $33 billion (channeled partly through the International Reconstruction Facility Fund for Iraq -- IRFFI). In mid-October 2004, donor countries meeting in Tokyo agreed on the need to speed up the disbursement or promised assistance to Iraq. To date, only a small fraction of the money pledged in Madrid has been disbursed.
[..]
OIL
According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Iraq contains 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the third largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia and Canada), concentrated overwhelmingly (65 percent or more) in southern Iraq. Estimates of Iraq's oil reserves and resources vary widely, however, given that only about 10 percent of the country has been explored. Some analysts (the Baker Institute, Center for Global Energy Studies, the Federation of American Scientists, etc.) believe, for instance, that deep oil-bearing formations located mainly in the vast Western Desert region could yield large additional oil resources (possibly another 100 billion barrels or more), but have not been explored. Other analysts, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, are not as optimistic, with median estimates for additional oil reserves closer to 45 billion barrels.
[..]
As of May 2005, Iraqi production (net of reinjection) had reached perhaps 1.9 million bbl/d, with "gross" production (including reinjection, water cut, and "unaccounted for" oil due in part to problems with metering) of around 2.1 million bbl/d. Most analysts believe that there will be no major additions to Iraqi production capacity for 2-3 years, but that 4.0 million bbl/d is possible by the end of the decade.
only 17 of 80 discovered fields having been developed
[..]
Lots more info at the site..
#1
I used to think we should let Eurabia help with reconstruction of Iraq but maybe we should plan on staying so we can be sure of an oil supply in case terrorism shoots while we're down. We alone deserve the spoils of this war.
Scientists who re-created the 1918 Spanish flu say the killer virus was initially a bird flu that learned to infect people. Alarmingly, they find that today's H5N1 bird flu is starting to learn the same tricks.
The work involves researchers from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), the CDC, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jeffery K. Taubenberger, MD, PhD, chief of molecular pathology at the AFIP, is one of the study leaders.
"These H5N1 viruses are being exposed to human adaptive pressures, and may be going down a similar path to the one that led to the 1918 virus," Taubenberger said in a news conference. "But the H5N1 strains have only a few of these mutations, whereas the 1918 virus has a larger number." In 1918-1919, the so-called Spanish flu killed some 50 million people -- including 675,000 Americans. Most of the victims were healthy people in the prime of life.
The researchersâ findings -- published this week in the journals Nature and Science -- come from a remarkable decade-long effort to unlock the secrets of the most deadly flu bug ever known. To do this, the researchers used a technique called reverse genetics to re-create a living 1918 virus. To do this, they gathered viral DNA from the preserved tissues of people who died in 1918 and 1919 -- including a woman whose body was frozen in the Alaskan permafrost.
The resurrected virus now lives in high-level containment within the CDC. But that's not what worries public health officials. The 1918 flu, analysis shows, is a bird flu that learned how to spread among humans. Genetic analysis shows that the deadly H5N1 bird flu now circulating in Asia seems to be learning the same thing. Like the 1918 virus, the milder pandemic flu bugs of 1957 and 1968 also had bird flu genes. But they picked up the ability to spread in humans by swapping genes with a human flu virus. That could still happen to the H5N1 bird flu. But even if it doesn't, the bug seems to be slowly adapting to humans.
The good news is that the H5N1 flu bug still has a long way to go. The 1918 bug seemed to need several changes in every one of its eight genes. The H5N1 virus is making similar changes but isn't very far along.
"So, for example, in the nuclear protein gene we speculate there are six genes crucial [for human adaptation]," Taubenberger says. "Of those six, three are present in one or another H5N1 strain. But usually there is only one of these changes per virus isolate. That is true of other genes as well. You see four, five, or six changes per gene in the 1918 virus, whereas H5N1 viruses only have one change or so. It shows they are subjected to similar [evolutionary] pressures, but the H5 viruses are early on in this process."
More backround at the link
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 14:45 ||
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Read the same thing in Scientific American a few months back, but this seems to indicate the human version is some time away. I remember a picture from the SciAm article showing the shape of the two viruses, suggesting shape is a factor! (Mebbe if I had read all the words, not just the pictures?)
OTOH, I just saw the Senator from Iowa (Harkness?) complaining the bird flu would come, and Bush isn't doing enough. He had a plan, a real four-point plan, but Bush dodn't even respond to his letter! Oh, the horror.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/05/2005 16:36 Comments ||
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On the other hand, the steady drumbeat by the Government, the WHO, the scientific community, the media, and Hollywood about the coming pandemic is disquieting. Makes you wonder what their motivation is.
Authorities in northeastern Ethiopia have advised 50,000 people to evacuate from a remote region following a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, an official said Wednesday.
Yeah, I'd say that's a good idea
The evacuation advice was given in the Afar region after a Sept 24 earthquake triggered an eruption of the previously dormant Mount Arteala. Another quake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale struck Tuesday, leading to another eruption, said Manahlo Belachew from the Seismology Department of the Addis Ababa University.
A thick layer of ash that has spewed from the volcano has covered grazing grounds, preventing nomadic cattle herders from feeding their livestock. Several hundred cattle have already died in the region, which borders Eritrea and Djibouti, the AP reports. Afar authorities have advised the 50,000 people living in the stricken area to travel 400 kilometers (249 miles) south of the region to save their lives and cattle, Belachew said.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 14:30 ||
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Ah. I thought they were talking about the entire country.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/05/2005 15:02 Comments ||
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Let's send Ethopia Ray Naggin. It would improve the situation in both countries.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/05/2005 15:19 Comments ||
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Oh. There's actually a reason for evacuating.
Nevermind...
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. peacekeepers preparing to pull out of Sierra Leone say they have completed the mission they began six years ago but warn the country still has a long way to go before it recovers from one of Africa's most brutal wars.
Along with crushing poverty and illiteracy, one of the most daunting challenges will be finding jobs for the huge population of unemployed youths, many of them former child soldiers, said Daudi Mwakawago, the top U.N. representative in Sierra Leone. "We have kept the peace," he told a news conference Monday. "The country is fragile. We can't continue with the peacekeeping. We need peacebuilding."
Sierra Leone has a population of 5 million, about 2 million of whom are unemployed youths, Mwakawago said, describing the situation as "very explosive." "And some of those youths were involved in the civil war. So they have one trade they know - and we don't want them to go into that trade."
Most people - 70 percent - live on less than $1 a day and are illiterate, he said. Roads are so bad it's nearly impossible to move crops agricultural products from the richest farming areas in the corners of the country to the capital, Freetown.
Still, Sierra Leone has come a long way from the 1991-2002 civil war. Peace took hold only in early 2002 with the intervention of U.N. and British forces. Since then, the government has extended its authority throughout the country, disarming 70,000 combatants who are now being reintegrated into society. Nearly 9,500 police have been trained and equipped, and the army has been reduced, from 14,500 to 12,000 with further cuts to come, Mwakawago said.
Occasionally the UN does something useful. In this case the Brits stiffened the necessary spines.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:28 ||
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What? Are they done raping all the children already?
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/05/2005 2:08 Comments ||
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council late Tuesday warned Ethiopia and Eritrea against reigniting their border war and urged Eritrea to immediately reverse its ban on all helicopter flights by U.N. peacekeepers.
In a tough statement approved by all 15 council members and read at a formal meeting, the council called on both countries "to show maximum restraint and to refrain from any threat of use of force against each other."
Boy, that's a tough statement.
Council members expressed "grave concern" at Eritrea's decision to restrict all helicopter flights by U.N. peacekeepers in Eritrean airspace effective Wednesday. The ban violates Security Council resolutions calling on the country to provide access so the U.N. mission can perform its duties, the statement said.
Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, head of the U.N. mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, warned less than two weeks ago that the border dispute could lead to a new war, and he urged the Security Council and African Union to take urgent steps toward a resolution.
U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno it was very difficult to tell how serious the threat of renewed conflict is. "What I can say is if we are not able to move around effectively with our helicopters we will have much less visibility on what's going on the ground, which can in turn create suspicions and more instability," Guehenno said.
Get ready for another tough statement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:23 ||
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Legwaila Lgwaila: "Uh oh, I smell trouble..."
J-K Guehenno: "*sniff* Without our helicopters, we're blind!"
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.
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - One minute Jonathan Reed was hiking with his golden retriever in a forest in Seattle. The next, his pet was being torn apart by a "gray" -- an alien being with an elongated head, smelling of rotting fruit. A scene from a sci-fi film? No, maintains Reed, a former child-developmental psychologist who says he took the alien home and lived with it for nine days in which it communicated via telepathy and was able to pull thoughts from his mind.
THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true. The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect "total accuracy" from the Bible.
French President Jacques Chirac launched a fierce attack on the European Union on Tuesday, accusing its executive Commission of failing in its duty to defend European interests and jobs.
PARIS (AFP) - French commuters faced serious travel disruptions from a one-day nationwide strike that was also expected to ground hundreds of flights from Paris' two main airports. France's civil aviation authority predicted that 175 short- and medium-haul flights would be cancelled from Orly airport south of Paris and 212 from Roissy Charles de Gaulle north of the capital. No disruptions were expected on long-haul flights.
Authorities in northeastern Ethiopia have advised 50,000 people to evacuate from a remote region following a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, an official said Wednesday. 
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council late Tuesday warned Ethiopia and Eritrea against reigniting their border war and urged Eritrea to immediately reverse its ban on all helicopter flights by U.N. peacekeepers.
