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These are answers that Mathatmacoat has provided in
| Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/12/09 - 'Overrun by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels' http://www.smh.com.au/world/overrun-by-hordes-of-nonwhites-and-mongrels-20090612-c5e6.html
Whilst it is a very offensive thought in a PC world, Von Brunn's outburst should give us all cause to think about the shape of our societies in a world run by UN decree.
In Australia we have had Indian students, quests in our country, demonstrating in the streets because another non-white non-indigenous group has made them the target of their criminal activity and the very real question I have is when did we invite either of these groups to come here? On the one hand we have allowed displaced persons to find a new home and what do they do, trash the place and try to convert it into the hell hole they came from, engaging in all manner of illegal activity, and we have another group who think that their particular type of political activism so favoured by their countrymen will be permitted here in our quite urban streets.
I don't want my country overrun by hordes of non-whites and mongrels. It's not a racist position but a position that peoples who don't integrate and take on the values of the society in which they live, arn't welcome, no matter how bad conditions are in their homeland. We have had it here with all manner of people who have imported their violent ideas and ideologies and who continue to fight their old wars on our streets whether it be Serbs, Croats, Tamils, Lebanese, Somalis, Thibetans and now Indians, we say please go home. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/12/09:yes we would like the lebanese muslim motorcycle gangs to leave and we would like the indian students who cannot behave to go home and not be trying to spin a student visa into an excuse to migrate. Just because we happen to be a successful society doesn't mean these people are welcome they have nothing to contribute here | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 05/15/09 - What a difference a few thousand years makes? I read recently where it is believed that the Pushtun people of Pakistan and Afghanistan are a lost tribe of Israel, a people displaced from Palistine by the Babylonians and Assyrians centuries ago. So the world watches and even applauds while the US and Pakistan battle these ideologically challenged people who truely think that their way is the right way. If the sort of campaign were being waged against jews in Palistine as is being waged in Pakistan then it would have world condemnation. But what is the difference here, it is religion. These people are on the wrong side of the religious divide, even though racially they may actually be jewish or should I even use the term semetic. It would seem the Pakistani campaign is anti-semetic. How difficult is it to discern where all of this fits today? Mathatmacoat answered on 05/16/09:I don't see the problem, Iran is anti-semetic, the Palistinian's, a semetic people, are anti-jewish, a semetic people, lot's of people are anti-semetic.
No, the problem here is ideological, The Taliban want to implement a radical, fundamentalist form of Islamic law which deprives a large part of the population of basic human rights, so let us applaud the Pakistani's for having the sense to oppose these people with military means. That part of the world is subject to anarchy and it must be opposed for the good of the population of Pakistan. These are a minority trying to impose their views on the majority by military means. Either give them their own state where they can fail miserably or utterly defeat them. The first is not an option because it was tried once and we have a region in chaos as a result. These are not reasonable people and the only answer is to meet force with overwhelming force. Like the American indian tribes of the nineteenth century, these tribal people need to be pacified if the nation of Pakistan is to progress.
Centuries ago a king said I cannot tolerate a barbaric society on my borders and this is equally true of Pakistan today. This is a problem created by both Pakistan and the US, a legacy of the cold war and perhaps the solution is overdue. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 05/15/09 - Where are the missing billions? the finance of nations is difficult to discern
for example Australians are being told that government revenue estimates have a short fall of $210 billion over the next four years but that government debt will rise to a peak of $188billion.
Okay so they started out with a 20 billion surplus which rapidly evaporated but they have trotted out a budget which spends many billions of additional stimulus in handouts and infrastructure so that the actual expenditure is some $50 billion or so more than they were spending before. Simple maths here says there is something they are not telling us and it has to do with why we can't afford a carbon trading scheme which subsidies the current inefficiencies Mathatmacoat answered on 05/16/09:Yes, the questions are being asked, apparently the budget speech didn't include the bottom line figure, if you want to know that you have to read the budget papers, a little bit of treasurer's slight of hand by Swanny, perhaps it is his swan song, we could only hope, and yes the budget didn't include the cost of Labor's flagship carbon reduction trading scheme, it has fortuitously disappeared.
But don't worry, what was it they said about Krudd, produced a deficit twice as large as sleezebag Keating in half the time and all for less just 5% of GDP. But excuse me, if revenues are dropping, doesn't that mean GDP is dropping too, so 5% of GDP could become 10% overnight, another treasurer's slight of hand?
But all this is very insignificant when we look at the figures the americans are wrestling with. We talk in billions and they talk in trillions, billion has become the new million. Why, you can't buy much more than a row boat for a million these days, so we can't even afford a fourth missile defense destroyer, and yet as it was being built here, it is justified as an economic stimulus. I wonder what happened to Labor's much touted coastal defence initiative and the new patrol boats they were offering before the election. What we could hope for is someone else wants to buy some missile defense destroyers.
I think it's interesting that Australia can no longer afford to be a banana republic and has to import bananas. Don't you just love the spin, I think these guys have been watching the comedy the Hollowmen and taking pointers | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 05/04/09 - was it a back flip or a slip or a flip flop? the Krudd who a short time ago had an uncompromising position on an emissions trading scheme, green house targets and all that, has just made a deal with the greens and a massive back flip, no longer will the ETS start in 2010 and no longer will the target be 15%, no; economic reality and political reality means a later start but with a higher target. It seems that that which was set in concrete was only in sloppy wet cement and I wonder how long will it be before this sham is shelved all together as the quicksand of further economic reality takes over? let's us hope it takes tree huggers Wong and Brown down with it.
Remember you heard it here, Australia is not about to abandon the only cost advantage it has just because it suits old europe. Call it Krudd if you like. Mathatmacoat answered on 05/04/09:It's extraordinary isn't it? Krudd does a double back flip worthy of olympic gold, but judge Malcolm doesn't applaud. Even the Greens are not applauding. It seems that in politics you cannot say to the opposition we have changed our approach to do what you are saying we should do without actually consulting with the opposition, how gauling, that you should actually have to talk to your opponents.
When you are the all powerfull Krudd you don't talk to those horrible people who find holes in your policies, long gone are the days of Hawke and the national concenscious. I think it's time that Hawke gave Krudd some lessons, perhaps a few beers in the parliamentary bar after a hard days talk would get better policy outcomes. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 04/04/09 - Krudd is just an angry little man? Evidence is emerging that our esteemed PM hasn't got it all together, that, in fact; the Krudd has spread to employee relations with few able to withstand his outbursts. I thought this idiot was a trained diplomat but his employee relations are far from diplomatic. Krudd is just a little Hitler, a small man in a big role and it is obviously too much for him. So much for his worldly aspirations, if he cannot master the local scene he won't get a gernsey at the UN Mathatmacoat answered on 04/04/09:we don't have much to worry about when all we have to worry about is whether our leader is pleasant or a pocket dictator.
It is interesting that the press have turned on Krudd and are now dissecting his every whim. There cannot be any crisis in the world that is newsworthy, Iraq is ho hum, Palistine is ho hum, Afghanistan is ho hum, shootings at home and in America is ho hum, the GFC is ho hum, Global warming is ho hum. We have had so much crisis news in the past decade that we have become blaisee, we don't want to hear about it anymore, we will just settle for some home grown gossip about our not so illustrious leader. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 04/03/09 - He Just Couldn't Help Himself? Barack Obama is on the nose for bowing the the Saudi King, particularly as he didn't show the same deference to the Queen(UK). Someone should instruct this "boy" on the correct protocol or keep the Obama's on a leash as Mr's Obama's snuggle with the Queen didn't go unnoticed. The American President is either the equal of any head of state or he is not, but he lowers the status of the US Presidency by forelock tugging with a foreign monarch, particularly a Muslim princeling.
The British people should rightly feel insulted by this turn of events and the American people feel demeened by them. The US is now a third class power. After eight years of Bush's gaffe's surely they could hope for better? Mathatmacoat answered on 04/03/09:It goes to show that the powerful don't have all the punch all the time. There must be something the US wants, like a safe route home out of Iraq through Saudi territory for its troops, wouldn't that send Osama bin laden frantic? Or a base just across the straits from Iran? He is currying favour with the Saudi's because he wants their influence, perhaps it is to end the war in Afghanistan, by leaning on the Taliban, afterall, the Saudi's and the Taliban are religious bedfellows. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 03/25/09 - US on a highway to hell? http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/03/25/EU.topolanek.us.economy/index.html
The President of the EU and the Chech Republic voiced this strong opinion in response to the US plans to stimulate the economy.
Economic pundits have suggested it is better to stimulate the economy now rather than later and this is what many countries have done, but there is growing reluctance in Europe to continue stimulatory efforts. No doubt he sees the possibility of hyperinflation in the mad dash to prevent unemployment and shore up failing enterprises. Europe understands the spectre of hyperinflation much better than the US, after all hyperinflation in Germany following WWI allowed the Nazi to gain a foothold there.
What he probally knows that Obama hasn't considered yet is that the growing nationalisation within the US to prevent business failure will change the face of US commerce. Will this be hell in a laissez faire economy or a socialisation decades overdue? Mathatmacoat answered on 03/30/09:Yes the US is on a highway to hell, they will spend Billions and in the end they will have to let go. Already they are ready to let Chrysler go and GM will be next. It's time for rationalisation in the US car industry and it looks like Ford is the winner.
You don't have to take over to nationalise and industry you just have to be the lender of the last resort and in GM the axe has already fallen on the management, next it will fall on the SUV and americans will be faced with driving sensible vehicles not tanks. This will be yahoo and rev head hell | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 03/27/09 - Shades of 1975? China bankrolling Kevin Rudd's stimulus plan by buying government bonds
By Steve Lewis
The Courier-Mail
March 27, 2009 12:00am
* China buying Australian Government bonds
* May make China our biggest lender
* Opposition says we're handcuffed to China
CHINA is secretly helping to bankroll Kevin Rudd's economic rescue plan as concerns grow over the relationship between the Communist superpower and the Labor Government.
The Courier-Mail can confirm that China is a significant investor in Australian government bonds -- used by Canberra to fund billions of dollars in emergency spending.
Market insiders believe China is buying 15 to 20 per cent of the $2 billion in Treasury securities being issued every week.
This would make China the single biggest lender to Australia, although details of who owns the bonds are cloaked in secrecy.
The program, authorised by Treasurer Wayne Swan, will leave Australia with a debt bill approaching $200 billion.
In response, the Opposition has raised concerns Australia could end up politically "handcuffed" to China as a result. China's appetite for Australian bonds comes just days after the Prime Minister secretly met China's fifth most powerful figure, Li Changchun, at the Lodge.
So not content with speaking Chinese the PM is getting into bed with them. The Labor Party is slow to learn. The Kemlani loans affair brought down the Labor government in 1975 and Australians have long memories, the Chinese loans affair could bring down the Labor government in 2011 it won't be Kevin in eleven Mathatmacoat answered on 03/30/09:This is just typical Labor Krudd; spend up big and don't worry where you get it from, It is just someoneelse's problem. In 1975, Whitlam and Cairns wanted to get it from the Saudi's, it's not suprising Krudd and Swan want to get it from the Chinese, afterall you have to get it from someone who's got it, and China is much closer to their ideology. This time round Krudd has the backing of no greater mind than the US President.
We should be glad they are not borrowing it from Putin and Medredev.
Herbert Hoover said "blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt" and Krudd is trying to make sure it's true | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 03/13/09 - take us seriously, Please? NZ, Kiwi or outer utopia, or what ever you want to call it, wants to be taken seriously. We took you seriously once and you shot it in our face, Mate, and didn't want to become the seventh state of Australia. We would have liked to have been Australasia. I mean, even that other islander utopia, Hawaii, had the good sense to become an American state, but not Maori land and now you want to be taken seriously by the big island to the west
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25181170-23109,00.html
Frankly, Australia has a hard time taking Kiwi seriously. You constantly come to us with the "everything you do we can do better" attitude and you want us to take you seriously. Kiwi is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there, and this appears to be a view shared by many New Zealanders. Go back to your fush and chupps, Mate, have a pint or two and chill out, you will soon be joined by many other returns as they lose their jobs here and having no dole must "GO HOME". Like the Yanks in WWII there is one thing wrong with Kiwis, they are over here. We wish you many happy returns! Mathatmacoat answered on 03/13/09:New Zealand is just one big joke, this is the type of joke they tell in New Zealand
IT WAS THE SUNNIEST DAY IN OTARA and this samoan guy was mowing his lawns and then this ambulance flew by with its sirens on and then the smoan guy start chasing the ambulance and threw his jandal at the ambulance and everything and then the ambulance finally stopped and the samoan went up to the ambluance driver, panting HARDOUT and goes "can i please have....50 cent....icecream?"
ahahahahahaha
Now that would have been funny if it had been a Maori guy, we would have all made the connection, but they can't even laugh at themselves, I mean everyone in NZ knows you get ice creams at the dairy. Missed that one did you, yes, so did I the first time I went to NZ.
So they don't want us to tell sheep jokes, why? is there truth in it. Here's another example
A tourist from the US was driving around NZ. He was a bit tired and thought he needed somewhere to stay the night before getting to Queenstown. Then out of the darkness ran a bull, he couldn't avoid it, drove into it and killed it. He was still able to drive the car, so feeling guilty he drove to the farm house. He knocked on the door, The farmer answered the door. The American said 'Im very sorry but I've killed your bull and would like to replace it.'
The farmer said 'No dramas mate, go around the back you'll find all the cows in the shed, go for your life'
and they expect us to take them seriously | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 03/12/09 - It's a Ruddy Great Recession? Here's the trick, how do you increase the number of jobs at the same time as you increase unemployment. Well it's easy if you use the latest economic technique; the Rudd technique. You stimulate the economy with short term spending and hey presto you get growth in part time and casual jobs but permanent employment just evaporates, Thus the employment statistics are clouded and the nation doesn't get to hear about those embarrassing job losses.
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25175631-462,00.html
Mr. Krudd could unfortunately give his name to the latest in economic theories and a era of economic khaos. Keating gave us "the recession we had to have" and "the banana republic", and Krudd is going to give us the Kruddy great recession. I notice how in the last month the "R" word has become politically acceptable but the "D" word remains unacceptable in polite company, unless of course you are a national leader when the "S" word becomes acceptable in describing the mess you are in. I expect that D=S in this world of polite expression Mathatmacoat answered on 03/13/09:Yes an interesting incendential effect of recession but the part time jobs won't last long. If they could be exported to India and China they will be. It is a national disgrace the way our local industries have been allowed to decline and important contracts have been sourced in India and China. 600 rail carriages being built in China, police uniforms being sourced in China and all from a government claiming to want to create jobs, yes they have created them in China, Now ANZ a bank with the name Australia in its name is moving back office functions to India. I don't want to talk to some ning nong who can't speak english. Shame Mr. Rudd, it's time to stop the Krudd and enforce a little buy Australian on the folkes back home. Government contracts should first and foremost support local industry, this nosense of buy at the lowest price is rediculous and destroys local industry. Soon the rest of Australia will sit in the dust with the Abo's and wonder where their country has gone. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 03/11/09 - 45% of the world's wealth destroyed and now we know who to blame. It wasn't corporate greed, it was the spineless rating agencies who set us up for the fall of the century. How could a few nameless men in their ivory towers create the situation where greed could abound without check.
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25170416-462,00.html
It works a little like this, you want to issue securities or borrow large sums of money. How do banks or investors know you are ok, they look at your credit rating which tells them what premium they should charge for risk. These rating are produced by specialists who supposedly sift through your business with a fine tooth comb and produce a rating. No company can have a higher rating than the rating of the nation they call home, no matter how good their business is. This is one reason why national governments are paranoid about their credit rating. Now it appears these rating agencies gave a good rating to these toxic mortgage backed securities that underlie the global financial crisis and of course to the organisations that issued them. The question becomes how could they get it so wrong.
If we cannot rely on the judgment of those who are part of the regulatory framework no amount of spending will provide an early end to this crisis. Rather than a lack of credit it becomes a crisis of confidence where all the work of determining risk must be done over again before the system can begin to recover. This is like shooting at a moving target, what is good today becomes toxic tomorrow and drags down everyone else. What is the solution? Is it to print money like the UK? that will quickly produce a drop in their sovereign rating and of every company in the UK and even more wealth will be destroyed. No, Kensyien economics must be reversed here and governments restrict spending on non essentials. Financial institutions must be allowed to fail and not be artifically propped up. If we start printing money then inflation will take over and we are dead Mathatmacoat answered on 03/11/09:Yes, a scapegoat will be found because a scapegoat must be found. If a scapegoat cannot be found then blame must be borne by those who truly failed and we all know who that is.
The buck must be borne at the very top, unfortunately the democratic system has allowed those at the top when this mess began to escape and let someone else mop up the mess.
So it was a failure of regulation, a failure of insight, a failure of the market, a failure of leadership and above all; a failure of common sense. Why did noone say; stop, you are going the wrong way! Because at the very heart of it all was aspirational politics, the wonderful idea that everyone should have the same benefits from our society. A wise man once said that he did not find the idea that all men were created free and equal to be a truthful proposition and yet it is this very idea which is at the root of the current crisis. Truth is the hiding place of the scoundrel and many scoundrels have contributed to this crisis, from the very top, the US presidency, to the lowliest mortgage broker
When will we deal with the reality that two-thirds of humanity don't have food, don't have adequate shelter, adequate health care while we worry about whether the top five percent have pension benefits and long "productive" lives stroking their egos. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 03/04/09 - The thin edge of the wedge Australian police have just been given powers of covert search. They say they will only us it against criminals but what if they get it wring, we could find them rummaging through our houses or even worse they could do it and we wouldn't even know.
Now this can't be a good thing, can it? Mathatmacoat answered on 03/08/09:No, It's not a good thing. Not because the police don't need to have smarter ways of dealing with the crims, but because the record of not going overboard is not good.
All this will do is make the crims store the incriminating evidence somewhere else and that will ultimately make the job harder. Of course there is always the dill, but they surely don't need covert search to catch those.
I expect this is about catching those with drugs and firearms. I don't expect it's about catching the petty crims | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/28/09 - The Iraq withdrawal Under the terms of the deal that President Bush negotiated ;and the Iraqi's agreed to in November all American troops are to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 .
Yesterday President Obama announced his long awaited Plan that he would withdraw combat troops and will leave behind up to 50,000 non-combat troops by 2012. He will take credit for ending the war. He is wrong.
The reason all this is possible is because President Bush defied pressure to surrender when combat was still ongoing and things did not look good . Instead he authorized implementation of the Petraeus plan ;the surge .
Yesterday President Obama proclaimed to the Marines at Lejeune "Today I've come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end."
But by all measure the war has been over for months now. Obama's plan is really, in most respects, Bush's policy. To the extent that he plans on leaving troops behind in a non-combat role ;I fully support him. Like Europe and Korea before ;victory must be preserved . It will not be an occupation ,but a security treaty between two allies.
Some on the internet proclaimed Victory in Iraq Day as November 22 . Hopefully NYC will host a ticker tape parade to honor our returning troops.
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/28/09:So yet another american president proclaims "mission accomplished" long before the troops are home. That american soldiers will leave Iraq is a good thing but it won't begin to happen until 2010 and I doubt it warrants proclaiming victory in Iraq. Obama was carefull to say the war will end. Obama should recognise that american soldiers in Iraq are an offense to the peoples of the region and the sooner they are removed the better.
Americans would do well not to think about Iraq as a victory but as an era they would rather forget | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 02/25/09 - It's time for America to lead again? So Omama thinks that more of the same is a good recipe. The rest of us say it's time for America to get out of the way and let someoneelse lead for a change. Let's ask ourselves, where have they led us excepting down a dirty great hole?
They led us into a war in Iraq and where did that get us, I see devalued currency and high fuel prices and a ruptured economy.
They led us into a banking free for all which under the guise of providing homes for more people actually made more people destitute.
Now after years of sticking their head in the sand they want to lead us into an ecologically sustainable future. What I say is not on your nelly, we don't want solutions which are good for American business. So they invented solar energy, did they? They only deploy it when it suits them. We don't need a corn led recovery Mr. Obama, we need America to dismantle it's military industrial complex and find peaceful industries and stop selling arms to the world, Then we might believe you Mathatmacoat answered on 02/25/09:Here's what some pundits are saying
All of the president's promises -- fixing health care, fixing the economy, halving the deficit, boosting funds to troops, curing cancer, achieving energy independence and solving Pakistan's problems, to name a few -- are just the markers in terms of his presidency, Martin said.
"Sort of when like Kanye West had his new album, and he said, 'I want to make it as bad as Stevie Wonder's [Songs in the Key of Life].' ... He said, 'If it doesn't get to that, it's still a great album.'
"[Obama] is a guy who is saying, a president who's saying, 'Look, I want to raise the stakes.' And, so, isn't it amazing that we're sitting here, saying, 'Wow, an ambitious president'? Well, shouldn't we have an ambitious president? Shouldn't we have a president saying, 'We can do more'?
Sounds like they bought it hook, line and sinker dispite all the numbers that just don't add up, you can't spend like man with no arms and reduce the deficit at the same time, it just doesn't work like that | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/19/09 - Today in Australian history Most Americans don't know the significance of this date but in Australia this is a the anniversary of a day that lives in infamy .
Ten weeks after Pearl Harbour at 9.58am on February 19,1942 the very same Japanese naval attack taskforce bombed Australia for the first time.
In fact it was the very first time that Australia had every been attacked in its history.
More ships were sunk, more bombs were dropped and more civilians died in Darwin, the Northern Terrority, than earlier at Pearl Harbour.
The man who had led the attack on Pearl Harbour, Mitsuo Fuchida, was in command of this first attack on Darwin. It had been launched from four carriers, Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu and Kaga, about 500km to the northwest.
The US destroyer Peary was sunk with the loss of 80 lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Darwin_(February_1942)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/19/2495794.htm Mathatmacoat answered on 02/20/09:Thank you for the rememberance Tom. It is not often those on the other side of the big pond remember that others bore the brunt of World War II attacks because of their proximity.
I think the Australia Aboriginee would differ with your statement that this was the first time Australia was attacked in history, they see January 26 as celebrating the invasion of Australia by Britain in 1788.
The Japanese were repaid for their sneak attacks at the battle of Midway and those carriers sunk by a US carrier group.
The Japanese attacked Australia, and specifically the insignificant port of Darwin not because they considered it a direct threat or because they intended to invade but to prevent it from being used as a base to oppose their plans in what is now Indonesia. Their strategy was to circumvent the US and Darwin just happened to be in the wrong place | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/21/09 - Is mankind just too arrogant? CNN Meteorologist: Manmade Global Warming Theory 'Arrogant'
Network's second meteorologist to challenge notion man can alter climate.
Business & Media Institute
12/18/2008 11:02:44 PM
By Jeff Poor
CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers had never bought into the notion that man can alter the climate. Myers, an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, explained on CNN’s Dec. 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that the whole idea is arrogant and mankind was in danger of dying from other natural events more so than global warming.
“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”
Myers is the second CNN meteorologist to challenge the global warming conventions common in the media. He also said trying to determine patterns occurring in the climate would be difficult based on such a short span.
“We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,”.
Dr. Jay Lehr, an expert on environmental policy, told “Lou Dobbs Tonight” viewers you can detect subtle patterns over recorded history, but that dates back to the 13th Century.
“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”
I don't know where this guy gets his history, but mongol hordes do not make for a prosperous time, unless you are mongolian. Who knows what climate change can bring, but arrogance has been with us always?
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/21/09:Yes mankind is arrogant, arrogant enough to think it can control climate. Maybe we did cause this because of our arrogant rape of the Earth's resources, but what is apparent is we might slow the trend but to reverse the effect requires population reduction on a massive scale. I don't thing we are prepared to go back to 1800, or even 1900 population levels so what will happen is pestilence and war will do the job for us.
The mongolian hordes changed the face of Asia and Europe in the thireenth century, with only western Europe and Africa immune to their influence, we will see the hordes again change the face of the Earth in the twenty-first century when crops fail, water becomes scarce and sea levels rise.
It will be interesing to see how national borders will be defended and how the UN will handle the refugees in those days. I think a new height will be set for human arrogance, but no one will be concerned about climate change as malaria ravages the population and starvation stalks every nation
| | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/21/09 - Does some actually know what is going on? Cooling = Warming?
Can anyone make heads or tails out of this paragraph from the Associated Press, especially the last sentence?
Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.
La Nina I get. "Slightly cooler" I get. But a "cooling trend" as an illustration of how fast the world is warming?
According to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, “the debate is over.” He believes – along with a large number of his co-Nobel Prize recipients who participated in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report – that his version of human causation-driven global warming has carried the day. All mounting evidence to the contrary has been pilloried as corporate-driven falsehoods designed to maintain the status quo.
Some top scientists, however, beg to differ. Whether under the auspices of academia, or in government, many scientists are pointing to faulty computer models that “predict” global warming calamity. Add to that, global cooling is back on the table, thanks in large part to the world’s four top climate monitoring centers, which registered record cold over the past few months. And let's not forget, many IPCC-reporting scientists vocally disagree with the conclusions in the final report that greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for current global warming trends.
Confused yet? I am. I know that statistics can be used to prove anything, just be selective about the data you want to present but data shouldn't be contradictory. Yes, we need to address oil dependency, coal dependency, rain forest destruction and over population. Summers are hotter, winters colder, lifestyle is unsustainable, what next?
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/21/09:Not surprised you are confused slick.
Much of what we are told is what someone wants us to know. It is not necessarily what we need to know, but what suits the political agenda of the day. Al Gore sat on on all that information until it was politically expedient for him to publish it.
So right now the political agenda favours promoting the fight against climate change and promoting new industries that will push the tired old industries aside.
This favours those who are set up to make the change and makes it harder for those who are not. America, which has had its head in the sand for so long, is bucking the trend and is slow to embrace the new reality. Their industries are in decline because they cling to tired philosopies. The reality is they can only fight one war at a time and the climate war is too expensive. Time and chance may just see their money diverted in green industries in a bid to revitalise their economy.
Australia is in much the same boat, change is easier for us because we have a wider range of possibilities, but we lack the will to commit. So we have politicians platitudes instead, pity we can't use them for fuel, Canberra would the centre of the energy revolution. A Krudd led resurgance. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/15/09 - It's official, there is life on Mars What an Earth shattering event
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24917099-401,00.html
apparently microbes or whatever are producing methane on Mars, Personally I can't get excited about methane producing microbes on Mars any more than I can get excited about methane producing animals on Earth. So Mars has a producer of greenhouse gas, doesn't seem to have produced a greenhouse effect on Mars but wait we will soon have a campaign to stamp out these methane producers just as we have a campaign to stamp them out on Earth.
Is this serious planet changing news or what????????????????????? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/20/09:Ah the fart; the ultimate expression of life and its presence has been detected on Mars | | Question/Answer | | dublin40 asked on 01/16/09 - Harry Truman's U.S. army pension We know that Pres. Truman was in the army during WW1. Why did he receive an army pension of $13.507.72 per year?
Thank you Mathatmacoat answered on 01/18/09:I'd like to receive a pension of $13507.72 a year right now.
I cannot see why what Truman did or did not do is of any interest 50 years on, the whole world has changed. nothing surprises me
Try this site
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/truman/truman.asp
Reading through the material I see that perhaps the decimal point is in the wrong place | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 12/24/08 - Now that's interesting? apparently it has been discovered that you don't need dams to produce energy from flowing water. Using the principles of wind generation, underwater generators are now being installed in the Mississippi River. This is called hydrokenetic energy. Just shows; when you think about a problen you can find a solution
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/hydrokinetic.html Mathatmacoat answered on 01/11/09:This means the floods caused by global warming will produce more power, a sort of zero sum game | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 12/24/08 - now they are calling him Kyoto Kev???? http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24820880-36418,00.html
Some think it will be easy to reach a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050 and applaud Kev's modest targets of 5-15% reduction against 1990 by 2020. With enegry emissions growing at 1% a year just putting the brakes on and going for 0 growth will be great achievement let alone achieving a 1.5% reduction a year between now and 2050.
I'm waiting for Kyoto Kev to don the blue and red and with cape flying in the wind singlehandedly accomplish what no man has accomplished before, taking the Australian snout out of the energy trough Mathatmacoat answered on 01/11/09:Kyoto Kev, are you sure that's not Koyote Kev?
Kev has been strangely silent on all things climate and greenhouse lately. Is he even in the country, or has Julia taken over? We have seen some "big" ticket promises and some small ticket efforts, like putting a few million gallons of water back in the Darling, then staggering silence. I expect Kev is waiting to see what Obama does so he can piggy-back on the publicity | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/22/08 - not in my backyard The UK Telegraph reported "the wind farm industry has been forced to admit that the environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as big as it had previously claimed."
The British Wind Energy Association has admitted to cooking the books on its calculations of the amount of carbon dioxide displaced by wind power. According to the report a wind farm industry source offered this bizarre excuse for the inaccurate figures:
"It's not ideal for us. It's the result of pressure by the anti-wind farm lobby."
It's the fault of the anti-wind lobby that the wind farm industry has been forced to tell the truth? Shame on those pro-pollution Neanderthals.
So how many windmills does it take to save the planet? (Or at least to make the "greens" on the tiny island of Britain feel good about themselves?) A lot.
Experts have previously calculated that to help achieve the Government's aim of saving around 200 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2020 - through generating 15 per cent of the country's electricity from wind power - would require 50,000 wind turbines.
But the new figure for carbon displacement means that twice as many turbines would now be needed to save the same amount of CO2 emissions.
That's at least 100,000 windmills to minimally reduce CO2 emissions. (All of these numbers assume, of course, that there is some wind to mill.) Picture it: a hundred thousand windmills doting the island. Should be a real boon for tourism.
ObamaNation wants to build a few windmills in America. Electrical generation in the United States releases just under 3 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. To reduce the amount of CO2 by just 10% would require at least 150,000 windmills.
Mathatmacoat answered on 12/23/08:This is precious, but if you attach that many windmills to Britain it might take off.
The issue shouldn't be how much carbon is saved but how efficient the windmills are, At best they are 20% efficient but in some parts of Britain the wind may blow all the time. Renewable energy generation is a difficult issue and wind is an expensive option when compared with nuclear but we must look to better options 100,000 windmills at 1 million pounds each is a very big bill for very little result just doesn't make sense. They should look to wave and tidal generation, they have the right environment for it | | Question/Answer | | labman asked on 12/16/08 - Goverment in action Lawmakers gather to discuss possible election to fill Obama's Senate seat — but instead vote to launch impeachment proceedings against Gov. Blagojevich | Mathatmacoat answered on 12/16/08:If the reports are true they should impeach him and rid politics of another corrupt official | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 12/07/08 - Can we spend our way out of depression? What is happening in the developed economies at the moment is compared with the Great Depression and the answer is suggested as a great spending spree on the part of both government and the people, but the problem isn't necessarily lack of demand, it's lack of finance, lack of confidence. Too many finance companies and banks have been burned by bad loans and as employment dries up so the availability of credit worthy borrowers dries up and the uncertainty grows so why lend to someone who may not have a job tomorrow?
In such an environment how can you spend your way out with infrastructure projects which take a long time to put in place? The stimulus is needed right now in the existing industries, not in industries which have to grow rapidly to meet a new demand.
The whole thing needs a radical change in thinking. To spend on consumer goods may actually mean supporting the job of someone in another country, not supporting the job of someone nearby.
So here is some radical thinking.
Governments should direct their spending to both fighting depression and fighting climate change by installing solar collectors on every building. I'm not talking about subsidising installation but actually owning the infrastructure so they can control what is actually done.
Governments should put every unemployed person immediately to work on community projects. Let's have the sense to realise that people need income and work not the soul destroying search for work in an economy that can't provide it. This may mean a great deal of concrete will get laid and many gardens planted but it is better. We need more white rocks and road verges mowed
Governments should immediately commence retraining programmes where trade and profession training is provided in existing educational institutions and no cost to the participant
so for the unemployed a system of national traineeships
two days work, two days training and one day to look for work Mathatmacoat answered on 12/09/08:Yes we need to learn some of the lessons of the past. regulation is important to keep business activity within reasonable bounds and government is there to provide guidence and a safety net. We cannot spend our way out of this, what is needed is to change the way our economies operate and find meaniful work for everyone. If this is too socialistic an approach for the free marketteers who like to exploit the little guy then tough they will have to learn to be more helpful | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/11/08 - Mass migration on a different scale? http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/maldives-may-buy-part-of-australia/2008/11/10/1226165481956.html
Appearently the Maldives, a small muslim nation in the indian ocean has sufficient resources to buy themselves a new homeland, but why should they think of the continent of Australia, the dryest contentent on Earth. To go from perhaps the wettest and most cramped place to the dryest and most open seems a contrast to large to comtemplate, nor would there particularly militant form of Islam be welcomed in Australia, even in the vast deserts of its uninhabited west. There is no support infrastructure available for thgis nation to simply buy and migrate too!
I think this is the height of arrogance, that this country should simgle out another as a target for migration Mathatmacoat answered on 12/05/08:Just like the Muslims, thinking they are welcome anywhere they would like to go. Well not here, buddy, not here. We already have enough, quota full. Let them go where they would be welcome. Do we see any Muslim nation offering to help out? | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/12/08 - Let's put the fear of God in them? http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24639985-421,00.html
Apparently the Mayor of Alice Springs, a central Australian city, thinks a month's stay by the riot squad should be sufficient to put fear into the hearts of some unruly youth who are making things unpleasant for the locals. One wonders where the local police are but then there are always motorists to prey on.
This is a new phase in dealing with disadvantaged youth and the aboriginal community and while we all
think strong measures are necessary to curb urban troublemaking, particularly from the aboriginal community who are the only group that behaves like this, surely a campaign of fear will not curb but escalate urban violence. What is probally needed is to round this lot up and send them back to their communities.
How do other communities deal with this, some constructive suggestions please? Mathatmacoat answered on 12/05/08:I know there will be howls of horror but didn't the South Africans have a remedy for this sort a thing, big canes with which they quelled civil unrest. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/27/08 - So now we know the real reason? Rolf Harris regrets the racist verse on Aborigines in Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, the song that made him famous in Britain and launched the wobbleboard on an unsuspecting music world.
In Melbourne yesterday to plug a book of illustrations of the same name, the singer and painter said he had tried to erase the lines "Let me Abos go loose" and "They're of no further use" from all recordings over the years, with limited success.
"It was a mark of the times, done totally innocently with no realisation that you would offend at all … Just trying to create a fun song for a bunch of Aussies who were drinking themselves stupid on Swan Lager in London at the time," he said.
But half a century after penning the controversial lyrics, the London-based expatriate has not succumbed to political correctness. He blames traditional Aboriginal values for the dire living conditions in many indigenous communities.
"The attitude is that in their original way of life they would really wreck the surrounding countryside that they lived in and they would leave all the garbage and they would go walkabout to the next place," he said. "The traditional attitude is still there and I wish there was a simple solution but I'm not certain."
He has strong views about some Aborigines lamenting the conditions of their communities.
"You sit at home watching the television and you think to yourself, 'Get up off your arse and clean up the streets your bloody self' and 'Why would you expect somebody to come in and clean up your garbage which you've dumped everywhere?' But then you have to think to yourself that it's a different attitude to life."
Aboriginal children were never disciplined or expected to adhere to rules until adulthood, he said. "[Until] then they have a totally carefree life to do what they want and that quite often involves smashing everything that they have."
So this is the answer to our problems, let the abo's go loose, the're of no further use, blue? Mathatmacoat answered on 12/05/08:well of course he has found the real reason why the abo's are of no use. They are a lazy lot because they have no work ethic.
They have been educated to expect handouts and someoneelse doing things for them. They think they are the centre of the universe and are owed something because they once wandered an empty continent living off what they could kill. All they are owed is a kick in the tail off the welfare gravy train.Then, perhaps, forced to work, they may find a way.
In every place where they go they are a nuisence, an undisciplined rabble, something like the gypsies of the sub-continent.So yes, turn them loose, and let them go back to chasing kangaroos and goanna's. In a land that doesn't run one bandicoot to the acre that should keep them busy and out of trouble | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/02/08 - Alinsky community organizing goes international http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24738950-5006786,00.html
Protesters have swarmed the Gold Coast City Council headquarters, and with blaring rock anthems vented anger over a planned Muslim school.
Almost 200 residents turned out for the demonstration, draped in Australian flags and shouting pro-Aussie slogans while Australian rock classics such as Down Under and Great Southern Land boomed across the parkland, The Courier-Mail reports.
Australian International Islamic College, planned for Carrara, has raised the ire of residents who fear it will lead to the local Muslim population withdrawing from the rest of the community. A rally last week attracted about 400 people, while people turned out yesterday carrying placards bearing slogans such as “no Muslim school, hell no” and “integration, not segregation”. Resident’s spokesman Tony Doherty said Muslim schools did not encourage multiculturalism. “It’s segregation, not integration,” he said.
lol
The interesting thing is their use of the terms “segregation” and “multiculturalism” to oppose the school.
Saul Alinksy ;the spiritual mentor of President-elect Barack Hussein Obama once wrote that you can beat the Establishment to death with their own book of rules. Now that the libs are the Establishment the lesson still holds.
In the name of diverity they have opened their tent to all types of special interest groups....militant gays,radical muslims, feminists, latte sucking atheists etc. As we saw in the primary contest between OB1 and Evita Clintoon it is a fragile alliance indeed that almost fractured because their various special interests conflict. Once in power they turn on each other . It will happen here in the US also.
Mathatmacoat answered on 12/04/08:It's time to become strong and resist Islam whereever it rears its ugly head. No more so than in Australia, a country that enjoys the blessing of its Christian heritage.
The mumbo jumbo of aboriginality hasn't been able to stop the advance of Christianity in Australia and nor will the mumbo jumbo of Islam. When will these people realise their religion is not welcome here? They are a fractious minority who should return to their oppressed homelands if they wish to enjoy an Islamic education | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 12/04/08 - Schools bans national anthem! and they wonder why we don't like Muslims?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24754060-1248,00.html
a school at the centre of a controversy to establish a new Muslim school has banned playing of the national anthem. Anywhere else in the world such people would be subject to an extreme reaction but they are permitted to conduct business as usual here. The values of these people are our values and therefore the establishment of their school is rightly opposed. Mathatmacoat answered on 12/04/08:Hey what's going one here?
Do these towel heads think they can make the rules?
Perhaps they need to be reminded of the freedoms they left behind to come here.
There is one flag flown here and one national anthem. It is not the flag of Islam and we do not sing the praise of Allah and his caliphate. Time to kick heads and send these idiots back where they came from, jihadistan complete with bombers and gun men, complete with the tyranny of Islam | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/07/07 - Where am I now? Oops, Dubya picks wrong PEC
George Bush and his "battler" buddy John Howard.
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Security talks ease Beijing's exclusion fears
Stephanie Peatling
September 7, 2007 - 11:00AM
United States President George Bush made one of his characteristic pronunciation bungles this morning welcoming business leaders to the "OPEC" meeting instead of the APEC meeting.
But with a dose of Texan charm Mr Bush grinned and said OPEC - which stands for Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries - was a meeting he is due to attend next year.
Sailing through an attempt at bidding everyone "G'day" Mr Bush gave a strong speech praising the development of democracy in the Asia Pacific region and a rousing defence of America's role in the war in Iraq.
Mr Bush described the ongoing war in Iraq as "the calling of our time" saying the fight to spread democracy must never be abandoned.
"Moms around the world share the same hope and that is for their kids to grow up in a free and safe society," Mr Bush said.
"Whenever they are given the chance the people of every culture and every region choose freedom over repression."
Mr Bush told delegates the "surest road to stagnation and instability is isolation".
He mentioned Burma and North Korea as countries America wanted to see open up and become fully functioning democracies.
He also said that even though he was looking forward to attending the Olympics in China next year it was an opportunity for China to become a more open society.
"Chinese leaders can use this opportunity to show confidence by demonstrating a commitment to greater openness and tolerance", Mr Bush said.
Mr Bush also lavished praised on Prime Minister John Howard saying he was "determined, courageous and steadfast" and that America could have "no better ally".
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/07/07:man is this guy savvy or what, Yes it was a secret meeting of OPEC and George gave it away | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 08/29/07 - Is this funny or the truth???????????????????????????? Tax truth
At first I thought this was funny...
then I realized the awful truth of it.
Be sure to read all the way to the end!
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he's fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries, then
Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers,
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.
Then tax his coffin ,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid.
Put these words
upon his tomb,
" Taxes drove me to my doom..."
When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State a ND Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago,
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt,
had the largest middle class in the world,
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What the hell happened? Can you spell "politicians!"
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/30/07:no fred the words are capitalism and liberalism put together to describe a liberal capitalist society | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/16/07 - Deje vu or sensing the moment? Hanson calls for halt to muslim immigration
August 16, 2007 - 9:14AM
Senate candidate Pauline Hanson has urged Federal Parliament to hold a moratorium on the number of Muslims entering Australia.
The right-wing former One Nation leader is seeking to register Pauline's United Australia Party in her bid for a political comeback by winning a Queensland senate seat in the upcoming federal election.
The 53-year-old former fish and chip shop owner, who won international notoriety during her brief spell as the independent MP for Oxley in the late 1990s, says she will targeting Muslims in her campaign.
"I want a moratorium put on the number of Muslims coming into Australia," Ms Hanson told the Nine network.
"People have a right to be very concerned about this because of the terrorist attacks that have happened throughout the world.
"I'm sick of these people coming out here and saying that our girls are like the meat market and the bible that is urinated on ... am I supposed to be tolerant?"
But Ms Hanson said she would have the support of Muslim women if they knew how oppressed they were.
"I think that if Muslim women realise how they have been treated I probably would get a lot of support," she said.
"Maybe we should look at the female genital mutilation that happens to young girls in this country ... if people want to live by these ways then go back to the Muslim countries."
Ms Hanson said immigration was not her only concern and she would campaign on other issues such as the privatisation of water.
She said many of the issues raised in her maiden speech to parliament in September 1996 had been adopted by the Howard government.
"Don't just say I'm simplistic and I don't know what I'm talking about. They said the same about the Aboriginal issue but the prime minister actually abolished ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) and that was in my maiden speech."
Ms Hanson believes her campaign is winning strong support among the people of Queensland.
"I wouldn't say I've got no chance ... I've travelled around Queensland quite extensively over the past six months. There is tremendous support from people."
"They are wanting someone else to vote for ... so they are looking at me."
Ms Hanson was elected to parliament as an independent MP for the Queensland seat of Oxley at the 1996 election after being disendorsed as a Liberal candidate because of her strong views on race and immigration.
She failed to win the neighbouring seat of Blair in 1998, a senate seat in 2004 and a position in the NSW upper house in 2003.
AAP
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/18/07:Pauline, the mouth from the north is at it again. She is out waving a red flag again trying to attract attention. The days are gone when red neck politics is likely to succeed, her One Nation Party failed dismally at the polls but to gain the right percentage of the vote can be lucrative.
As to being right in the past, she was right for the wrong reasons. ATSIC had to go because it was corrupt and failing, but not even Hanson recommended intervention, that would be too far in the wrong direction. Migration from the war torn middle east needed to be stemmed and has been because these people lack the skills a developed Australia needs.
I'm waiting for Hanson to announce a real policy instead of just a "we're not doing that" approach | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/17/07 - And now for the real news! When everything old is new again
Hold the front page - Costello wants top job
By Andrew Bolt
August 17, 2007 01:00am
Article from: Herald Sun
WOULD Kevin Rudd have been so cheaply betrayed by two ABC and Age journalists as Treasurer Peter Costello was this week?
And I have another question for those journalists who say it was fair enough to reveal what Costello said privately because it contradicts what he said publicly.
Am I really the only one who knows that not all that the Labor leader has said publicly matches what he's said privately, either?
So why not out Rudd, too? Hypocrites.
You've no doubt seen the headlines this week bringing you news as old as my couch - that Costello wants Prime Minister John Howard's job.
Hey, you're yawning when you should be gasping!
There were a couple of extra details this time.
Costello had told three journalists at a boozy dinner that he'd challenge Howard if he didn't quit by April last year (he didn't) or go to the back bench (he didn't) and carp (he didn't) until he destroyed Howard (which he hasn't).
Oh, and Howard would lose the election.
If that's news, let me tell you about a toenail I've got.
But what is news is how these journalists came to write this fluff.
The journalists' union, the MEAA, once thought the duty of journalists to protect sources was absolute, booming: "A journalist's obligation to protect the identity of their sources and their willingness to stick to the fundamental journalistic principle, regardless of the penalty is critical if whistleblowers are to keep talking to journalists."
But that sermon came when two Herald Sun journalists - Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus - risked jail rather than tell a judge who illegally leaked them information that mortified the - aha! - Howard Government.
Let's hear from the MEAA now.
Now back to the Costello story - to see how cheaply ABC and Age journalists blabbed their own sources, and for how little.
A week ago one of the journalists at that Costello lunch, Paul Daley, of The Bulletin, wrote about Costello's threat to challenge Howard and his belief at the time Howard couldn't win.
This was pushing it a bit.
After all Daley and the other dining journalists - the ABC's Michael Brissenden and The Age's Tony Wright - had agreed to Costello's request to treat what he'd said as strictly private.
The Bulletin story caused few ripples.
Mostly old news.
But asked about it on television, Costello made a mistake - flatly contradicting he'd said any such thing.
He even suggested journalists sometimes got such gossip from blokes in bars (pretty true, in this case).
Brissenden and Wright might have contented themselves with having got an insight into Costello's dishonesty, but instead got all self-righteous.
They decided they would go back on their word to Costello and reveal exactly what he said - or as best they could remember after all those bottles.
Costello had lied, Brissenden said, flourishing his notes of the dinner talk on television - notes so inaccurate they claimed the dinner was in March, not June.
The only excuse given by Brissenden for revealing this confidence is that Costello had denied the Bulletin report - and so insulted not just Daley and even Brissenden, but all journalists.
"He (Costello) was basically saying that people (journalists) got their information from blokes in pubs," he protested.
Brissenden wouldn't have his "integrity questioned so publicly" - "It's about honesty."
But how had Costello questioned Brissenden's integrity?
The only one to put that integrity in doubt is Brissenden, who will now have trouble persuading anyone he can be trusted to keep a secret, or his word.
Many journalists have been reluctant to criticise Brissenden and Daley.
Former Canberra press gallery president Malcolm Farr said merely that keeping sources confidential was a "grey area" - which some judges may note the next time a journalist refuses a court order to name names.
But I ask again. Why was it Costello who was betrayed?
Every senior journalist in Canberra will have heard Labor politicians say things they've privately disowned - like what a wonderful job Julia Gillard has done, and how good Labor's policies on climate change and industrial relations are.
So why no expose of Labor's forked-tongues, too?
Peter Costello's aspirations for the top job are almost as old as Hillary Clinton's but tell me why is it news when we hear of political duplicity? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/18/07:will he, won't he. Pete's opportunity will come when Johnny loses his seat to Maxime, as of this morning Kevin Rudd has lost the women's vote and will hand the election to Pete | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/10/07 - FAIR DINKUM? STONE THE BLOODY CROWS! What is America coming to? What happen to all that political correctness and nice manners, Ah wonder what U would do in the raal world
If you don't understand you might at least ask
Fair dinkum! Aussie lingo sparks security scare
Jano Gibson
August 10, 2007 - 3:10PM
Strewth. Crikey. Bloody hell. An Australian woman has reportedly sparked a security scare aboard a US flight after her use of a common Australian phrase was apparently misinterpreted as an act of aggression.
Sophie Reynolds, 41, from Queanbeyan, was flying aboard SkyWest Airlines from Atlanta to Pittsburgh this week when she asked a flight attendant if she could have a pack of pretzels instead of crackers.
"[The flight attendant] said they didn't have any [pretzels], and I said, 'Fair dinkum,' out of frustration," Reynolds was quoted as saying in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Before she knew it a second flight attendant asked her for her passport and copied down her name.
Then, when the flight landed, three uniformed officers greeted her.
"They said, 'You swore at the hostess and there are federal rules against that,"' Reynolds said. "And I said, 'I did not swear at the hostess, I just said 'fair dinkum."'
A spokeswoman for the airline said it was not simply a matter of misunderstanding the language.
"We witnessed aggressive behaviour throughout the flight," she said.
Reynolds was not charged and allowed to go on her way, she said. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/15/07:And well you might say FAIR DINKUM! BLODDY YANKS, incapable of civilised conversation.
Fair Dinkum sort of means is that a fact, is that right in this context, but real means true and good. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 07/22/07 - A different way of tacking the Iraq problem with one small drawback.
Australian chief lashes US on Iraq
Tom Allard in Baghdad
July 23, 2007
AUSTRALIA'S Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, has taken a swipe at the US military's strategy at the outset of the Iraq war, expressing disbelief that it has taken so long for commanders to realise the merits of engaging with the local population and winning their trust.
Visiting a counter-insurgency centre for excellence at Taji, just outside Baghdad, General Leahy was briefed by a US Army colonel, Manuel Diemer, on the new US strategy of schooling all unit commanders in the importance of developing a deep understanding of the culture of the communities in which they are conducting operations.
Colonel Diemer said the strategy meant combat units were now living among the population, doing more foot patrols, talking and interacting with the population well before they undertook any offensive operations.
This contrasts with the previous US practice of sending in forces with overwhelming firepower into trouble spots and then returning home to the relative comforts and security of a military base after blasting their way out of, or into, trouble.
The tactics have created huge resentment among ordinary Iraqis and helped fuel the insurgency. General Leahy expressed his strong support for the new strategy, but with an important, and thrice repeated, caveat. "I can't believe you guys weren't doing this two or three years ago," he said. Colonel Diemer concurred.
As he has travelled around the Middle East, General Leahy has emphasised to his troops how the nature of warfare has progressed from the Cold War principles of conventional warfare.
Rather than pitched battles between large militaries, soldiers were now working within and for communities.
"It's about protecting, supporting and persuading … and paving the way for reconstruction," he said.
Among soldiers anxious to be at the sharp end of a conflict such a message was not always warmly received, he said.
"Some of them think I'm a mongrel because I won't let them shoot the shit out of them [the insurgents]," he told Colonel Diemer.
In the two southern Iraqi provinces where Australians have been operating, they have achieved considerable success in developing links with tribal leaders and consulting widely before they undertake operations or reconstruction projects.
In Iraqi society, tribal affiliations are paramount, often trumping any loyalty to nation and even religious sect.
For Australian units patrolling in Iraq's south, a meeting with each village leader is essential.
Their efforts to reach out are usually met with traditional Iraqi hospitality, the slaughter of a goat and a long feast for the soldiers.
The only drawback, said the Australian commander in Iraq, Brigadier Gerard Fogarty, were the resulting bouts of diarrhoea many soldiers suffered.
Four Australians have been working with Colonel Diemer at the counter-insurgency centre since its inception eight months ago, a reflection that such policies have been an integral part of the Australian Army's doctrine for years, certainly well before the East Timor intervention in 1999. Mathatmacoat answered on 07/23/07:Yes there is a great difference between treating people like they are idiots and treating them with respect | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 07/22/07 - BUSH TO BE CENSURED--MY FINAL POST WASHINGTON — "Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution.
Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions _ measures that would amount to a formal condemnation of the Republican president.
The first would seek to reprimand Bush for, as Feingold described it, getting the nation into war without adequate military preparation and for issuing misleading public statements. The resolution also would cite Vice President Dick Cheney and perhaps other administration officials.
The second measure would seek to censure Bush for what the Democrat called a continuous assault against the rule of law through such efforts as the warrantless surveillance program against suspected terrorists, Feingold said. It would also ask for a reprimand of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and maybe others.
"This is an opportunity for people to say, let's at least reflect on the record that something terrible has happened here," said Feingold, D-Wis. "This administration has weakened America in a way that is frightful."
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Yeah, "somethng terrible" happened here in America....Shit for brains Christian voters electing a shit for brains President who fucked up everything he touched. Mathatmacoat answered on 07/23/07:if only we could be assured it is your final post but history tells us you will have more to say on this subject | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/12/07 - Cleaning House:
Let's bring all of our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Let's round-up all the illegals in America and send them back to where they came from. Let's get health insurance for everyone in the United States. Bottom-line: Let the greatest country on Earth take care of itself and allow us to quit worrying about everyone in the World. We should be spending more money on self-preservation instead of pooping it away on lost causes.
At least that's one scenario! However, not necessarily mine! Any comments?
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/16/07:Hank Al Qaeda and it's fellow travellers are still a problem in Afganistan as to Iraq get out now | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 07/14/07 - Urban terrorism the old fashioned way?
Man goes on rampage with tank
July 14, 2007 06:32am
Article from: AAP
A MAN has been arrested after an armoured personnel carrier (APC) was taken on a rampage in Sydney's western suburbs.
Mt Druitt police on patrol discovered the armoured vehicle destroying an electricity substation in Sterling Road, Minchinbury, at about 2am (AEST) today.
They followed the APC through several suburbs, including Mt Druitt, Dharruk, Emerton, Glendenning and Plumpton.
The APC left a path of destruction, bringing down a number of mobile phone towers and relay sheds, police said.
The pursuit ended in Dean Park after about 90 minutes, when the vehicle stalled as it was being driven towards another mobile phone tower.
Police arrested a 45-year-old Dharruk man and took him to Mt Druitt Police Station for questioning. Mathatmacoat answered on 07/16/07:an interesting comment on brain damage from mobile phones | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 07/15/07 - Aboriginal Peoples(Aus) and Native Americans I was watching a program on Discovery about Aboriginal Peoples of Australia in the last few days. In Australia, the white settlers set out to exterminate aboriginal people and almost succeded in a couple of areas. JUst plain exterminate.
IN America, the govermnemt and settlers engaged in warring and moving Indians to different locations.
IN both cultures, the original native cultures are really floundering.
So, do you think that the governments have a responsibility to these defeated subjugated peoples? Political responsibility?
MOral responsibility? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/16/07:Isn't it marvelous what ignorance abounds on cable television.
You suggest the white people set out to exterminate the aboriginal in Australia, from our perspective this is what the white people did to the Indian in the United States. There were some white settlers whose answer to conflict with native populations was extermination just as you would exterminate troublesome animals that raided your livestock. In a remote situation, when you are attacked you respond. Some went to extremes to ensure the problem would be solved. This was the mentality of the day. Inexplicable and unacceptable today, but what do you expect from an upper class willing to sacrifice millions on a battlefield.
Do the governments have responsibility today for the actions of more than a century ago? No more than they have to their entire population. Governments have a responsibily to alleviate poverty and disease no matter what the cause. They have a particular responsibilty to deal with ignorance both internally and externally. If equality is to truely exist then there must be equal treatment, one law for all.
We have seen the experiment of aboriginal self government and we have seen that they are incapable of governing themselves even at village level. Crime is rife, talk is cheap and nothing happens. I suspect this is not so for the Indian who seem to have thrived once they adopted the new ways. Does this mean there are not competent people among aboriginal populations, no, it simply means that ignorance abounds to the extent that a few educated people cannot overcome it. In Australia we have even had an aboriginal become President of the Australian Labor Party, one of the leading political institutions, but it has done nothing for the destitution of his people. I haven't heard him calling for exterminating the government. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/04/07 - FREEDOM:
What is the dialectic of freedom, and how is it achieved?
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/05/07:Freedom is the ability to act without restraint | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 07/02/07 - BRING THEM ON!!!! Today is the fourth anniversary of the famous Bush expression named above:
"..anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice. There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they're talking about, if that's the case.
Let me finish. There are some who feel like -- that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on!"
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Comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/02/07:well they came and you are still there does this tell you something.
a big mouth does not a victory make | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/28/07 - soul sustenance Amnesty would be foreign to founders
James P. Pinkerton
June 28, 2007
Remember, back in the ྖs, when then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was peddling the "politics of meaning"? Well, government-provided therapy is back in the White House once again, this time brought to you by President George W. Bush.
But there is a difference. When Clinton, guided by Rabbi Michael Lerner, spoke of "the politics of meaning," she was hooted off the national stage. But when Bush offers his vision of soulcraft, a majority of the Senate seems eager to go along with a plan to alter radically the population and character of America.
In the White House Tuesday, Bush cited immigration, believe it or not, as a source for soul sustenance. Celebrating the pending vote in the Senate that kept his amnesty - oops, "comprehensive immigration reform" - bill alive, Bush said that because of immigration, legal or not, "The country is better off. Our soul is constantly renewed. Our spirit is invigorated." Got that?
Or maybe Bush has the wrong idea. Maybe the real source of American strength is the American people, just the way they are, free from Washington-provided demographic shock therapy.
The nation's founders thought that the people should rule, which is why the Constitution begins with "We the People." Inherent in the idea was that "the people" would be a coherent group, with a common language and culture - the Constitution was written only in English. Mindful of history, the founders thought that each people ought to have their own state. In ancient Greece, for example, the Athenians had their own government, the Spartans theirs, the Corinthians theirs, and so on.
Why? Because different cultural groups would not fully participate in a unitary res publica. Instead, each distinct group would look to its own interests first, and only then, maybe, consider the well-being of the whole. It might not be politically correct, to borrow the jargon of today, to see the world in such unforgiving categories, but James Madison & Co. weren't interested in PC. They were hard-nosed and history-wise, and they were determined to build and keep their republic.
The same birds-of-a-feather-flock-together principle of politics holds true today. The people of Canada, for example, may be perfectly nice and just as determined as Americans to secure for themselves the blessings of liberty, but they are a distinct and different people. Canadians are not Americans, and vice versa. To combine the two peoples into one government would be a formula for chaos; indeed, the Canadians twice, during the American Revolution and the War of 1812, raised armies to repel invasions from the United States.
And so it is around the world: Are there Peruvians, for example, who share American values? Sure. But Peruvians, whether they believe in democracy or not, already have a country: Peru. And the same holds true for Nigerians or Indonesians or Estonians.
So why would Bush, and the 64 senators who voted this week to move his immigration bill forward, be so eager to legalize the 12 million foreigners who came into this country illegally? And thereby encourage tens of millions more to come here in the future, by hook or crook, in full expectation of getting amnesty in a decade or two? What message does that send - beyond contempt for the rule of law and disdain for good citizenship?
The answer is clear: The ruling class in Washington wants to see the American people fractionalized and multiculturalized - that is, the small "r" republican experiment in popular sovereignty brought to an end. That might seem like a harsh interpretation, but what else explains the determination to bring in 100 million foreigners, according to the Heritage Foundation, to an America that fails to teach newcomers English, let alone civics?
Bush calls it "soul renewing." But history will remember it as the moment when Washington drowned the American principle of informed self-government in a flood of foreigners.
Mathatmacoat answered on 06/30/07:In case you didn't notice Tom this one didn't get up, one day your rulers will give up partisan politics and opt for a little nation building | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/22/07 - A lesson for George and Condi on how to deal with the Iranians
'Robust' Aussies fend off Iranians
June 22, 2007 08:38am
Article from: AAP
* Colourful language helps Aussies avoid capture
* Aussies react quickly, Brits caught at most vulnerable
* Video: 'You can't take us, we're Aussies'
AN Australian Navy boarding crew in the Gulf of Persia repelled an Iranian gunboat that threatened them a matter of weeks before 15 British sailors were captured in a similar incident, it was reported today.
The capture of the British crew in March developed into a major diplomatic incident before their release was negotiated.
But BBC reporter Frank Gardner, a security specialist, reported the Australians managed to avoid a similar incident - pointing their guns at the Iranians and used "colourful language" before a gunboat withdrew.
Escape
"What I've been told by several sources, military sources, (is that) there was a similar encounter, in this case between the Royal Australian Navy and Iranian gunboats, some months ago, or at least some months prior to the seizing of the British sailors," Gardner said on ABC radio.
"The Australians escaped capture by climbing back on board the ship they'd just searched. I'm told that they set up their weapons.
"No shots were exchanged but the Iranians backed off and the Australians were able to get helicoptered off that ship and they didn't get captured."
Robust attitude
He did not mention the name of the Australian ship.
Australians ships rotate through duties in the Gulf, chiefly searching ships.
"What I'm hearing is that it was a pretty robust attitude by the Australians," Gardner said.
"The words that somebody said to me was that they used pretty colourful language but I'm sure that alone didn't make the Iranians back off.
"They reacted, I'm told, incredibly quickly, whereas the Brits were caught at their most vulnerable moment climbing down off the ship (and) getting into their boats."
Gardner said the British should be embarrassed about the incident, but the issue was whether military intelligence had been passed on.
Cowards
"The point of this story is not that the Aussies were fantastically brave and the Brits were a bunch of cowards, although I'm sure some people will interpret (it that way)," he said.
"Lessons should have been drawn from what happened to the Australian crew."
He said he had not been able to find out whether the information on the Australian incident had been passed on to the British.
Prime Minister John Howard said today he was not in a position to confirm the report, but told Channel 7: "I'll be getting some further advice on it later this morning.
"The only thing I can say is that the people we have in the Gulf are engaged in very dangerous work and the RAN has done a fantastic job and a very courageous job.
"As to the particulars of that claim, I'm not advised." Mathatmacoat answered on 06/27/07:Yes the way of the future, robust language, hey I though the yanks had already tried that, every second word an expletive | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 06/22/07 - Why do the European’s hate America?.............. I’m told it is because of capitalism; especially Germany, others say it is still a “Jewish” problem. That the moods of the rural populations reflect the mood of the thirties, and when the economy fails, and it will, there will be hell to pay.
Which brings me to the other question: Why don’t we pay attention to where our future lies, across the Pacific, and forget about the E.U. and especially Germany; where Democracy will soon end - That is, stop asking why certain people are not our friends (I already know, they have become Socialist.) .
Mathatmacoat answered on 06/27/07:this is a case of; if you have to ask, where have you been.
It's not just the Europeans, it's most of the world and the reason is because you are exploiters | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 06/22/07 - Why do the European’s hate America?.............. I’m told it is because of capitalism; especially Germany, others say it is still a “Jewish” problem. That the moods of the rural populations reflect the mood of the thirties, and when the economy fails, and it will, there will be hell to pay.
Which brings me to the other question: Why don’t we pay attention to where our future lies, across the Pacific, and forget about the E.U. and especially Germany; where Democracy will soon end - That is, stop asking why certain people are not our friends (I already know, they have become Socialist.) .
Mathatmacoat answered on 06/27/07:this is a case of; if you have to ask, where have you been.
It's not just the Europeans, it's most of the world and the reason is because you are exploiters | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/23/07 - You can't do it, it's racist The Australian government has a bold plan to stop abuse of aboriginal children but the opponents say that it's racist afterall these people have not been consulted yet again so should sensibilities be put aside and the laws continue to be flouted because to act to fix problems in a particular disadvantaged ethnic group is racist?
Howard's Aboriginal plan 'racist'
By Malcolm Farr
June 23, 2007 01:00am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
* Plan racist "by any definition of racism"
* Ruddock's defence - "special measures" clause
* Beattie concern over compulsory medicals
CONTROVERSIAL ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has stunned political leaders by calling the Goverment's plans to help Aboriginal children "racist".
Mr Stanhope said the proposals would not succeed.
"I think by any definition of racism, this is racist," he said.
"Give me an example of any racist action anywhere in the world that has ever successfully led to change."
Federal Attorney General Philip Ruddock said he was disappointed and hoped Mr Stanhope would co-operate if necessary.
"The Australian Government is taking action which can be properly characterised under the Racial Discrimination Act as 'special measures', aimed at ensuring the most vulnerable in our indigenous communities enjoy fundamental human rights which many of us take for granted," Mr Ruddock said.
Beattie claims 'silly gimmick'
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie called the Federal Government's six months alcohol ban in Northern territory communities a "silly gimmick".
Mr Beattie also had concerns about the provision for compulsory medical checks on children in those communities.
"I think most people would think, 'All right, we need to ensure that people are checked to ensure that there is no sexual abuse'," Queensland's Labor Premier said.
"But as a parent I wouldn't be terribly happy if my daughter was compulsorily medically checked without my permission."
'More than just child abuse'
Aboriginal activist Mick Dodson said the Government had to do more than address child abuse in indigenous communities.
Mr Dodson said there had to be offensives against other problems such as housing and employment.
"The sense of urgency has been with us for two decades. It's been a national emergency for two decades, with total inaction of governments at all levels," he said.
The NSW Aboriginal Land Council welcomed Prime Minister John Howard's "sudden realisation that child abuse is a national emergency after 11 years in power".
Members from the council said it had concerns about the "draconian response" and wondered why it has taken so long.
"Let us not forget the 'national summit' on violence in indigenous communities he held in July 2003 and his pledge to take action because, in his words, communities were being destroyed," it stated.
"The summit came and went; the violence and abuse continued."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So what does the aboriginal community want, why more talk, of course, the elders want the opportunity to discuss what is under their very noses and has been for years, that the race has a serious problem with self control, whether it's alcohol, drugs, sex, unemployment or violence, serious intervention is necessary and it's necessary now, they have talked for years now it's time for action Mathatmacoat answered on 06/27/07:of course they can do it and should have done it a long time ago. This one law for abo's and another for the rest of us has to stop. They have protected these wife bashers and child abusers for too long. The abo's are afraid all their men will be locked up, that's how bad the problem is.
The permit system has to go so that the whole of Australia is completely open otherwise let them susceed and run their own show. They won't last long before the exploiters are in there with sweat shops and brothels. Let's face it they can't survive without the handouts our taxes give them | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 06/14/07 - NEW MODERATOR TO BE MARYSUSAN I will be the new moderator for the Improved Policics Board when it opens. At that time, I will post the guide of conduct for discussing Politics here.
Cordially,
Mary Sue Mathatmacoat answered on 06/15/07:Zeig Heil, Frau Fuhrer | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 06/14/07 - SITE OF FUTURE IMPROVED POLITICS BOARD!! I plan on upgrading this Board by inviting new folks to participate, citizens who want a lively give and take about political issues that effect the lives of all decent citizens.
People who want to learn about the serious issues of our time, and people who want to share their knowledge (not propaganda and/or hate)with others for the betterment of all concerned.
STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE ANNOUNCEMENTS. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/14/07:I hope you don't plan to upgrade this board in the way you did the Christianity Board. We have been fine without your recent participation, You may notice no rubbish here | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/29/07 - What happened to that vaunted and anticipated Taliban Spring offensive ? While we continued to divert resources away from the "real " war on terror ;the Taliban prepared for an "intense " spring offensive .
Well ,so far things aren't going so well for Mullah Omar and his band of thugs . Mullah Dadullah ;the key military commander for the Taliban was killed by NATO troops May 12 .
“Mullah Dadullah was the backbone of the Taliban,” said Asadullah Khalid, governor of the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. “He was a brutal and cruel commander who killed and beheaded Afghan civilians.”
Another key leader ,Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani ,said to be a top aid to Mullah Omar ,was killed in December .
Evidently the killing of Mullah Dadullah has thrown the Taliban into disarray .The Economist reported that inside the Taliban there are rumors of him being betrayed . Something that the Guardian confirmed yesterday :
Taliban insurgents fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been hit by a wave of defections and betrayals that has resulted in a witch-hunt within the militant movement....
..two of the Taliban’s most senior commanders have now been killed after being betrayed by close associates. Up to a dozen middle-ranking commanders have died in airstrikes or other operations by Afghan, Nato or Pakistani forces based on precise details of their movements received from informers. Few details have been publicly released, but senior military sources speak of ‘major hits’ that they wish they could talk about openly…
‘There is a feeling that there are spies everywhere,’ said one tribal leader speaking by telephone from the violent and anarchic North Waziristan ‘tribal agency’ along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. ‘People are very worried and no one is trusting anyone any more.’…
According to Rahimullah Yusufzai, a senior Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban, ’suspicion is now falling even on trusted men and is creating tension in Taliban ranks’.
The coalition ,primarily led by the British contingent launched a major offensive of it's own im March called Operation Achilles ;an operation involving 4500 NATO troops and 1000 Afghan soldiers. Although much of the news from the front is subject to a black out,initial reports is that it has been decisive with reports that "scores" of Taliban rebels have been killed during heavy fighting. This is being conducted concurently with Operation Silicon . Effectively ,the Taliban Spring Offensive stalled before it began.
But ;when all else fails they always have that ole' back up plan ......targetting innocent civilians .....putting the emphasis on "offensive ".
Mathatmacoat answered on 05/30/07:it is good to hear there is some progress somewhere in this mess that is the war on terror, however the death of a few tribal types in some remote corner of Islamistan is limited progress at best. I would be cautious on believing the body count until there is some real change in the security of Afganistan, afterall the British killed hundreds in their time in Afganistan and still had to withdraw in the end, so did the Russians in more recent times.. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/16/07 - Pelosi's Nuclear Gambit From The Corner blog at NRO...
Boehner's office just sent this out:
DEMOCRATS TO CHANGE 185 YEAR-OLD HOUSE RULE TO ALLOW TAX HIKES WITHOUT HAVING TO VOTE
May 16, 2007
In a stunning move, House Democrats today revealed they will attempt to rewrite House rules that have gone unchanged since 1822 in order to make it possible to increase taxes and government spending without having to vote and be held accountable. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today vowed Republicans will use every available means to fight this unprecedented change.
“This is an astonishing attempt by the majority leadership to duck accountability for tax-and-spend policies the American people do not want,” Boehner said. “The majority leadership is gutting House rules that have been in place for 185 years so they can raise taxes and increase government spending without a vote. House Republicans will use every tool available to fight this abuse of power.”
Last November, House Democratic leaders promised the most open, ethical Congress in history:
“[W]e promised the American people that we would have the most honest and most open government and we will.” (Nancy Pelosi press stakeout, December 6, 2006)
“We intend to have a Rules Committee ... that gives opposition voices and alternative proposals the ability to be heard and considered on the floor of the House.” (Steny Hoyer in CongressDaily PM, December 5, 2006)
The rules House Democrats are seeking to change have not been changed since 1822.
Republicans have already achieved significant legislative successes on the House floor with 11 consecutive “motion-to-recommit” victories that exposed flaws and substantively improved weaknesses in underlying Democrat bills. But rather than living by the same rules which have guided the House of Representatives for 185 years, Democrats are proposing to change the rules in order to game the system and raise taxes and increase spending without a House vote. What are House Democrats afraid of?
Andy McCarthy responds:
Any chance the mainstream media will refer to Pelosi's procedural maneuver as "The Nuclear Option"?
I didn't think so. That's evidently only for right-wing maniacs who want to force an accountable vote on confirming Bush judges, not for right-thinking liberals who want to avoid an accountable vote on raising Americans' taxes. Good to get that straightened out.
The fox is guarding the hen house folks. Not six months into their "corruption sweep" the Democrats are pulling out all the stops and doing every single thing they've complained the Republicans were doing - and then some.
When will the drive-by media to get off their asses and start hammering the Democrats like they've hammered Bush and the Republicans? I'm just hoping the American people aren't so gullible as to fall for their dirty tricks like they fell for their Trojan horse campaign last year.
And maybe they're catching on ... it was just a few weeks ago the papers were reporting that congress' approval rating was higher than Bush's. Last I heard congress' approval rating was 29 percent - and yet they still preach of some alleged mandate from the voters. Apparently all of those voters wear tin foil hats... Mathatmacoat answered on 05/17/07:It begs the question, who's running that country over there. Strange system of government, two "Presidents" one who says "you do", and the other who says "I veto you", the last time we had this sort of nonsense here, one said to the other "you're fired" and there was an immediate election. What that meant was there was an immediate election for all the seats in both houses. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 05/17/07 - He's bad and mean, .. .. and worse than George Bush?
Does this mean he must be doing something right?
'Howard is a war criminal
Australia is funding terrorism and Prime Minister John Howard is a war criminal, Zimbabwe's Information and Publicity Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu says.
Zimbabwe's latest attack on the Australian government comes after Mr Howard banned the one-day cricket team from touring the southern African nation this September because of the despotic regime of President Robert Mugabe.
"The Australian people should really stand against John Howard's gestapo tendencies and interference with other states. He wants to cause insecurity in our country and that we will not allow," Dr Ndlovu told ABC Radio today.
"He is the international gestapo and a criminal ... he is worse than anybody else, his actions in banning the cricket is just one example of being the gestapo," Dr Ndlovu said of Mr Howard.
Last week, Mr Howard said he did not want the team to tour Zimbabwe because Mugabe was a "grubby dictator".
Cricket Australia was faced with the possibility of paying a multi-million dollar fine to the International Cricket Council for its failure to play the three one-day matches, but the council decided to not to impose the fine.
Dr Ndlovu said Australia was financing people who were destabilising the Zimbabwean regime.
"You continue to finance your puppets in our country who don't love their country.
"They are also the ... monies that come to them are to cause violence, you know, terrorist activities, I've got a long list of their terrorist activities here," Dr Ndlovu said.
AAP
Mathatmacoat answered on 05/17/07:Yes he's bad and mean and mighty unclean, Big Bad JOHN!
You would have to wonder why Mugabe would draw attention to himself by even mentioning the issue. Big ego! or he be just a big MUGHEBE | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/07/07 - Breaking news? Surely you've heard about the 'scandal' that is Fred Thompson playing a racist role on TV 19 years ago. Huffpo even had this 'scandal' link on their website as "breaking" news (thank you Google cached search) with minx' headline of "Fred Thompson's Campaign Ends In Racist Fireball: LAT Discovers Videotape of Him Using Anti-Semitic Smears, "Fondling" Mein Kampf.
How pathetic. Mathatmacoat answered on 05/08/07:what do you expect, all politicians are pathetic | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 04/29/07 - A little reality for the left to deal with... A bit long, but trust me, it's worth your time.
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When mass killers meet armed resistance.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
It took place at a university in Virginia. A student with a grudge, an immigrant, pulled a gun and went on a shooting spree. It wasn’t Virginia Tech at all. It was the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, not far away. You can easily drive from the one school to the other, just take a trip down Route 460 through Tazewell.
It was January 16, 2002 when Peter Odighizuwa came to campus. He had been suspended due to failing grades. Odighizuwa was angry and waving a gun calling on students to “come get me”. The students, seeing the gun, ran. A shooting spree started almost immediately. In seconds Odighizuwa had killed the school dean, a professor and one student. Three other students were shot as well, one in the chest, one in the stomach and one in the throat.
Many students heard the shots. Two who did were Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges. Mikael was outside the school having just returned to campus from lunch when he heard the shots. Tracy was inside attending class. Both immediately ran to their cars. Each had a handgun locked in the vehicle.
Bridges pulled a .357 Magnum pistol and he later said he was prepared to shoot to kill if necessary. He and Gross both approached Odighizuwa at the same time from different directions. Both were pointing their weapons at him. Bridges yelled for Odighizuwa to drop his weapon. When the shooter realized they had the drop on him he threw his weapon down. A third student, unarmed, Ted Besen, approached the killer and was physically attacked.
But Odighizuwa was now disarmed. The three students were able to restrain him and held him for the police. Odighizuwa is now in prison for the murders he committed. His killing spree ended when he faced two students with weapons. There would be no further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
You wouldn’t know much about that though. Do you wonder why? The media, though it widely reported the attack left out the fact that Bridges and Gross were armed. Most simply reported that the gunman was jumped and subdued by other students. That two of those students were now armed didn’t get a mention.
James Eaves-Johnson wrote about this fact one week later in The Daily Iowan. He wrote: “A Lexus-Nexis search revealed 88 stories on the topic, of which only two mentioned that either Bridges or Gross was armed.” This 2002 article noted “This was a very public shooting with a lot of media coverage.” But the media left out information showing how two students with firearms ended the killing spree.
He also mentioned a second incident. And while I had read many articles on this shooting for an article I wrote about school bullying not a single one mentioned the role that a firearm played in stopping it. Until today I didn’t know the full story.
Luke Woodham was a troubled teen. He felt no one really liked him. In 1997 he murdered his mother and put on a trench coat. He filled the pockets with ammunition and took a handgun to the Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi. In rapid succession killed two students and wounded seven others.
He had the incident planned out. He would start shooting students and continue until he heard police sirens in the distance. That would allow him time to get in his car and leave campus. From there he intended to go to the nearby Pearl Junior High School and start shooting again. How it would end was not clear. Perhaps he would kill himself or perhaps the police would finally catch up with him and kill him. Either way a lot more people were going to get shot and die.
What Woodham hadn’t planned for was the actions of Assistant Principal Joel Myrick. Myrick heard the gun shots. He couldn’t have a handgun in the school. But he did keep one locked in his vehicle in the parking lot. He ran outside and retrieved the gun.
As Myrick headed back toward the school Woodham was in his vehicle headed for his next intended target. Myrick aimed his gun at the shooter. The teen crashed his car when he saw the gun. Myrick approached the car and held a gun to the killer who surrendered immediately. There would be no further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
So you didn’t know about that. Neither did I until today. Eaves-Johnson wrote that there were “687 articles on the school shooting in Pearl, Miss. Of those, only 19 mentioned that” Myrick had used a gun to stop Woodham “four-and-a-half minutes before police arrived.”
Many people probably forgot about the shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. It was a school graduation dance that Andrew Wurst entered to take out his anger on the school. First he shot teacher John Gillette outside. He started shooting randomly inside the restaurant where the 240 students had gathered.
It was restaurant owner James Strand, armed with a shot gun, who captured the shooter and held him for police. There would be no further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
It was February 12th of this year that a young man entered the Trolley Square Shopping Mall, in Salt Lake City. The mall was a self-declared “gun free zone” forbidding patrons from carrying weapons. He wasn’t worried. In fact he appreciated knowing that his victims couldn’t defend themselves.
He opened fire even before he got inside killing his first victims immediately outside the front door. As he walked down the mall hallway he fired in all directions. Several more people were shot inside a card store immediately inside the mall. The shooter moved on to the Pottery Barns Kids store.
What he didn’t know is that one patron of the mall, Kenneth Hammond, had ignored the signs informing patrons they must be unarmed to enter. He was a police officer but he was not on duty and he was not a police officer for Salt Lake City. By all standards he was a civilian that day and probably should have left his firearm in his vehicle.
It’s a good thing he didn’t. He was sitting in the mall with his wife having dinner when he heard the shots. He told her to hide and to call 911 emergency services. He went to confront the gunman. The killer found himself under gun fire much sooner than he anticipated. From this point on all his effort was to protect himself from Hammond, he had no time to kill anyone else. Hammond was able to pin down the shooter until police finally arrived and one of them shot the man to death. There would be no further victims that day, thanks to armed resistance.
In each of these cases a killer is stopped the moment he faces armed resistance. It is clear that in three of these cases the shooter intended to continue his killing spree. In the fourth case, Andrew Wurst, it is not immediately apparent whether he intended to keep shooting or not since he was apprehended by the restaurant owner leaving the scene.
Three of these cases involved armed resistance by students, faculty or civilians. In one case the armed resistance was from an off-duty police officer in a city where he had no legal authority and where he was carrying his weapon in violation of the mall’s gun free policy.
What would have happened if these people waited for the police? In three cases the shooters were apprehended before the police arrived because of armed civilians. At Trolley Square the shooter was kept busy by Hammond until the police arrived. In all four cases the local police were the Johnny-come-latelys.
Consider the horrific events at Virginia Tech. Again an armed man enters a “gun free zone”. He kills two victims and walks away long before the police arrive. He spends two hours on campus, doing what is unknown. He then enters another building on campus and begins shooting. He never encounters a police officer during this. And all the students and faculty present had apparently complied with the “no gun” policy of the university. So no one stopped him. NO ONE STOPPED HIM! And when he finished his shooting spree 32 people were dead. It was the killer who ended the spree. He took his own life and when the police arrived all they dealt with were the dead.
There were many further victims that day. The shooter never met with armed resistance.
Mathatmacoat answered on 05/02/07:no one ever thought of the possibility they wouldn't be mass killers if they couldn't get guns in the first place? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/01/07 - The inherent contempt power option
This is what I see are Congress' options regarding the eventual citation of Contempt of Congress to members of the Administration that refuse a subpoena .
I've no doubt that the Democrats intend to force a constitutional crisis before the next 2 years are complete . The funding bill they passed last week is in itself a violation of the separations.
The Slimes logic as they state it is that although Condi was in a counselor position at the time frame that they want answers about;she is now in a position that required Senate confirmation so the Senate is in a postion to hold her in contempt if she refuses to testify . I don't know how the courts would interpret that . The last time the question came up the Court stayed out of it and instead dismissed it under the "political question doctrine." See example cited below .
What happens if this get's taken to it's logical conclusion ? Condi refuses to testify ....the House issues a contempt order ....the executive refuses to enforce it.
The last time the Congress actually voted to hold an executive branch official in contempt of Congress was in the 1982 case of EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford. Gorsuch was found in contempt by a House vote of 259-105 (with 55 Republicans voting in favor). The charges were referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution.
Being that Condi is in a position that required confirmation ,she ,I believe is subject to the impeachment option .
But Congress does have a little used option to enforce a contempt declaration on their own .
During the Senate Watergate hearings the White House said it might have presidential legal counsellor John Dean refuse to obey a Senate subpoena,
and the chairman of the commitee said the Sergeant at Arms would in that case be sent to White House to arrest Dean under the "inherent contempt"process . Dean ultimately testified .
Under the inherent contempt power, the individual is brought before the House or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be imprisoned. The purpose of the imprisonment or other sanction may be either punitive or coercive. Thus, the witness can be imprisoned for a specified period of time as punishment, or for an indefinite period (but not, at least in the case of the House, beyond the adjournment of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to comply. The inherent contempt power has been recognized by the Supreme Court as inextricably related to Congress’s constitutionally-based power to investigate. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30240.pdf
Mathatmacoat answered on 05/02/07:candidly I would be in contempt of a parliament that acts the way the american one does. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 04/27/07 - The Taliban leaves a calling card Read the gem that Wrechard at Belmont Club published today ...especially the excellent commentary (also do not neglect the followup comments ). The taking of Ghazni is not the relevent point (that will be retaken easily );it is the nature of how the war against jihadistan has evolved .As Wrechard points out ;if the jihadists are willing to invest so much in Afghanistan then what are they willing to invest in Mesopotamia ;the cradle of civilization and as Wrechard puts it "terra incognita"...that stretch of undiscovered country constitutes the single most valuable piece of real estate in the 21st century. America and radical Islam are locked in a battle for the future of Iraq and by extension the Middle East; for Afghanistan and by extension Southwest Asia; for the Horn of Africa and by extension for the vast swath of territory above the Sahara. Billions of people are watching to see what the outcome will be. Watching to see which side can lay claim on the future.
What is common in both the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns is that we have not developed a plan to cut off the enemy from it's supply source . When this began President Bush said it was a war against terror and State Sponsors of terror. I still say that the only way to settle Iraq (short of the white flag surrender option that Congress passed this week)is to engage Iraq's neighbors....diplomatically if possible ;but not likely ,or squash them . Mathatmacoat answered on 04/29/07:Tom your Hawkish comments do nothing to propose a solution, either for the US dilemma or for winning the "war on terror". Crushing Iran and Syria will not stop terrorism, all it will do is inflame the Islamic world and ensure the war will continue for another fifty years.
The US will embolden the Islamic world by retreating now, the only way to stop the slaughter is to have the Islamic states fight among themselves. The US must offer a smaller, not larger target in Iraq, confine itself to border security and reconstruction. If anything has been learned from Palistine it is that, deprived of a target, the Islamic militants implode. | | Question/Answer | | curious98 asked on 04/10/07 - 4th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad
When on occasion of the 4th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to the US forces hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the city of Najaf gather for a big anti-US rally called by fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, with the crowd burning US flags; while Baghdad has spent last Monday under curfew to avoid the risk of serious confrontations and while Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters yesterday “We acknowledge that while there have been substantial accomplishments in Iraq since 2003, but the past four years have also been very disappointing, frustrating and increasingly dangerous in many parts of Iraq”, is it not about time for Americans to start wondering what the heck are you doing there, risking every day the life of your soldiers, when the majority of the Iraqi population considers you as an invading force…?
Your mission is over. Saddam is no longer a menace. WMD have never existed. Whatever “democracy” that is possible in Iraq has already been established. Your forces cannot obviously cope with the latent civil war going on right now. And on top of everything a great part of Americans are yearning for a retreat of your troops…
Why is Bush so adamant to continue over there, come what may? What is he going to gain out of this stubburness?
Any comments?
Curious98
Mathatmacoat answered on 04/11/07:Yes time to go, all that is left is a police action, and that is better left to the police | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 04/10/07 - LOL remember Tomder's post of the poplar bears "stranded" on the iceberg.
Rush says they can swim 60 miles so animal instinct would probably tell them SWIM. Land being within 60 miles MIGHT be another story though! Mathatmacoat answered on 04/11/07:So, that photo was staged, they were not far from land and in no danger | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 04/10/07 - Sometimes you just have to get over the notion of freedom of speech?
Government: stay out Hilaly
By David Cranshaw
April 09, 2007 12:00
OUTSPOKEN Muslim cleric Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly believes "enemies" are using "advanced sciences" to divide Muslims and called on the world's Islamic communities to unite.
His latest rant comes as Federal Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews yesterday issued the mufti with an ultimatum: Shut up or leave Australia.
The controversial imam used an appearance at an Islamic unity conference in the Iranian capital Tehran to attack those he said wanted to divide the Muslim world.
"(The) enemy is trying to postpone Muslims' awareness through his advanced sciences. Enemies are trying to create disunity in the Islamic world," the cleric said.
He then called on all Muslims to "stand in the trenches with the Islamic Republic of Iran" – a country which has declared its intention to manufacture nuclear weapons.
His latest comments come as federal leaders on both sides yesterday called on Australia's Muslim community to disown the "massive embarrassment".
Mr Andrews said Mr Hilaly should decide once and for all whether he wants to be Australian – otherwise he should pack his bags permanently and move to "some Middle Eastern country".
Mr Andrews admitted the Federal Government was powerless to strip the mufti of his citizenship or prevent his return to Australia.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer joined a growing chorus of people calling for the mufti to be sacked.
"Here is a man who travels the world making all sorts of completely absurd and incredible comments," Mr Downer said. "This man is a massive embarrassment. My view is that he has just got to be removed as the leader of the Islamic community in Australia and some moderate and reasonable person needs to take his place."
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said Mr Hilaly's comments "deserve condemnation and provide further reason why he should be removed as mufti of Australia".
The mufti's mouthpiece, Keysar Trad, again claimed the mufti had been misquoted and taken out of context.
"(He) is being watched for every comment he says and it is blown out of proportion by the media while he is away. It's not fair he is not here to explain what he means," Mr Trad said from Dubai.
When asked what the Sheik was referring to when he mentioned "the enemy", Mr Trad said: "The enemy of the Islamic nation is generally anything that is evil or by nature inherently bad or seen as malicious.
"Generally the Islamic translation for evil is Satan. It is metaphysical, not a physical being or reference to a person or country."
The mufti was due back at the end of the this week but is believed to have extended his stay overseas.
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How many times can you be misquoted? appearently everytime this dill opens his mouth. it is no wonder we have an intense distrust of Muslims Mathatmacoat answered on 04/10/07:is he still about I thought the lebs gagged him, something about not speaking to the press or anyoneelse, what an irrelevant idiot | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/20/07 - Let the whining begin Court: No habeas for Guantánamo captives
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
The federal appeals panel in Washington, D.C., sided 2-1 with the Bush administration today, upholding an act of Congress that stripped Guantánamo Bay captives of the right to challenge their detention in lower federal courts.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia handed the White House a key victory as it moves forward with plans to hold war-crimes trials for at least three Guantánamo captives at the remote Navy base in southeast Cuba.
It also sets the stage for an early decision on whether to intervene by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has twice before sided with the detainees.
Currently, three captives who have never been charged with crimes -- a Yemeni, a Pakistani and a Chinese citizen of the Uighur minority -- are asking the justices to consider their unlawful detention lawsuits.
''Federal courts have no jurisdiction in these cases,'' declared Judge A. Raymond Randolph for himself and Judge David B. Sentelle. Two successive acts of Congress, they said, had sufficiently stripped detainees of traditional recourse to the writ of habeas corpus.
''The arguments are creative but not cogent. To accept them would be to defy the will of Congress,'' Randolph wrote for the two men, who were appointed to the court by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
The Republican-led Congress twice passed legislation that removed so-called ''enemy combatants'' of their right to challenge their detention without charge in U.S. civilian courts -- the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006...
Judge Judith W. Rogers, a Clinton appointee, dissented, saying the Pentagon had failed to create a fair substitute outside the federal courts at which captives held without charge can challenge their detention.
''While judgments of military necessity are entitled to deference by the courts and while temporary custody during wartime may be justified in order properly to process those who have been captured,'' she said, ``the executive has had ample opportunity during the past five years during which the detainees have been held at Guantánamo Bay to determine who is being held and for what reason.''
The court ruled even as members of the Democratic-led Congress are crafting new detainee legislation to restore the civilian courts' jurisdiction in such cases and to more narrowly define an enemy combatant.
In New York, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed suits on behalf of many of the prisoners, issued a condemnation of the ruling.
''This decision empowers the president to do whatever he wishes to prisoners without any legal limitation as long as he does it off shore,'' said Shayana Kadidal, managing attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative.
Added CCR executive director Vincent Warren: ``Habeas corpus is a right that was enshrined in the Magna Carta to prevent kings from indefinitely and arbitrarily detaining anyone they chose. The combined actions of the Bush administration, the previous Congress and two of the three judges today have taken us back 900 years and granted the right of kings to the president.''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah well, don't fret Mr. Warren ... I'm sure you can count on this congress to continue undermining the president and siding with terrorists. Mathatmacoat answered on 02/21/07:What do you mean whinning, any person is entitled to face their accusers in a fair trial and the military courts process has been far from fair, if it were not so, would it have been overturned. George Bush and his cronies need to get perspective, it's apparent that just because they, or any other person, holds an opinion, that doesn't make it truth, which of course, has been demonstrated a number of times since 9/11. Some of these people may be innocent of the charges, there may be insufficient evidence to convict.
What we have seen is the normal conventions thrown away and arbitrary methods used in their place while america keeps telling everyone it wants democracy and the rule of law. George Bush is not a king but he is behaving like an emperor | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 02/20/07 - The time has come, the Walrus said Blair to announce Iraq troop withdrawal
February 21, 2007 - 9:24
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce a timetable for withdrawing British troops from Iraq, with 1,500 to leave in several weeks, the BBC reports.
(More to come.)
[img s http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/vsh0107l.jpg] Mathatmacoat answered on 02/21/07:showing some good sense, their job is done in the south | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/12/07 - The ABC All-Dictator tour Fresh off her chat with Bashar Assad (and gushing over the "tall, quiet" dictator and his wife who "famously live in a modest home...with three children they drive to school themselves, protecting family dinners, even biking together through villages"), Diane Sawyer visited with Mahmoud I'm-in-a-jihad.
Aside from his warm greetings to the good American people, denial of involvement in Iraq, repudiation of all conflict and a Clintonesque evasive action ("I do not know what you mean by militia.", the Mahdi Hatter gave Diane a bit of a smackdown...
Mahdi: "Well, are you here to solve the problem of the American government in Iraq?"
Sawyer: "I'm hoping that you can help solve the problem in Iraq."
Mahdi: "Well, these are some points that must be discussed at the diplomatic level. You're just a journalist."
I wonder why ABC left Diane's "I'm hoping that you can help..." line out of their transcript? But hey, didn't she look stunning in her hijab? Mathatmacoat answered on 02/12/07:Imamadjihad not looking for publicity, well who can blame him when some airhead interviews him | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/12/07 - Obama v. John Howard US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has blasted as "empty rhetoric" Australian Prime Minister John Howard's attack on Senator Obama's plan to bring US troops home from Iraq .
The 45-year-old senator waded into a major foreign policy row just one day after formally announcing his candidacy, telling Mr Howard he should dispatch 20,000 Australians to Iraq if he wanted to back up his comments.
"I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced," Mr Obama told reporters in the mid-western US state of Iowa.
"I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1400, so if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq.
"Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."
Mr Howard earlier attacked Senator Obama's plan to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008.
The conservative leader said on commercial television that Senator Obama's pledges on Iraq were good news only for insurgents operating in the war-ravaged country.
"I think he's wrong. I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," Mr Howard told the Nine Network.
"If I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."
Time for some math (I will round it out to make it simple for the Senator ):
Aussies population is around 20 million
The US has a population around 300 million .
That is 15 x more people.
Now Australia has 1,400 troops currently in Iraq which would be the equivalent if the US has 21,000 troops there . Obama's call for an additional 20 ,000 Aussie troops would equate to America adding 300,000 troops. The correct matching per capita contribution for the surge would be about another 1,400 additional troops for Australia .
Maybe Obama ,being a person who thinks he's ready for prime time should at least do his homework . If he did he would find that Australia has been in the front-lines in the war against jihadistan ,with commitments in Afghanistan, Fiji, East Timor, Indonesia and the Philippines.
I would also point out that since WWII Australia has sent troops in every major conflict we have been involved in the only ally who has done so. But then again ,because they have been our most consistent ally makes them a prime target for the Dhimmicrats .
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer reacted to Obama's rant by saying :
"That would be half of our army. Australia is a much smaller country than the United States and so he might like to weigh that up..."
"It's entirely appropriate the Australian Government expresses its view in a free world. You won't get anywhere trying to close down debate." ...
"A precipitous withdrawal by the United States from Iraq would be a catastrophe."
The linked article above also has some bizzare comments by other Democrats who felt compelled to weigh in on the issue . You can read them and judge them for yourself . I think Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter summed it up best :
"I think the Aussies have earned a right to comment on the world stage about their partner in this endeavour because they've been fighting side-by-side with us in Iraq"
Indeed . I did not hear the clamor of Democrats running o the microphones to comment on Vladimir Putin's comments this weekend . Nor did they oppose John Kerry sending his sister down under to try to influence their elections .Besides , President Bush has not been shy in offering his opinion of Australian internal politics just as I'm sure their labor party has no hesitation in attacking President Bush .
Obama's statements may best represent the Democrats vision of a "diplomatic solution" to Iraq. Insult our allies and inspire our enemies is one way to end the war....end it badly ....but end it nonetheless .The bottom line is that Australia has been with us from the beginning. They are entitled to their opinion.
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/12/07:Hey we do our bit, 1,400 Australians are more effective than large numbers of troops and they don't keep getting themselves killed. Our aim is good public relations and a good relationship with the Iraqi. Perhaps 20,000 Australian troops could pacify the whole country without the need for wholesale slaughter. We'll call it the Obama plan or how to show the Yanks how it is done.
As to Howard, he is an opportunist and what an opportunity to turn the debate in Australia from climate change to foriegn policy, Thank you Obama for the opportunity and the obvious success | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/12/07 - Now this is interesting... ...considering comments about the state of the U.S. from certain among us from down under.
Halal beef costs State $2000
Mark Oberhardt
February 12, 2007 01:38pm
Article from: NEWS.com.au
THE state government has been ordered to pay a former Muslim prisoner $2000 in compensation because it did not feed him Halal meat.
In the Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Ann Lyons dismissed an appeal by the state government against the decision of the Anti Discrimination Tribunal.
Last May, the Tribunal found the government directly discriminated against Sharif Mahommed during periods of his incareceration at the Wolston Correctional Centre and Palen Creek Correctional Centre.
The Tribunal further found the government had indirectly discrimininated against Mahommed also at Palen Creek.
Mahommed was jailed in March 2000 and released in April 2005.
As a Muslim Mahommed eats only Halal meat _ meat blessed and slaughtered by a Muslim slaughterman, cooked and stored in accordance with religious laws.
The court heard Mahommed had been the first prisoner in a Queensalnd (sic) jail to request Halal meat.
As a result of his efforts all Muslim prisoners are now provided wirth (sic) fresh Halal meat.
The court was told during the first 10 months of his jail term Mahommed was fed general prison food and later he was given tinned Halal meat which he had not been able to consistently eat.
It caused Mahommed to lose a substantial amount of weight.
Mahommed lodged an appeal with the Anti Discrimination Tribunal which found in his favor on two complaints.
The government was ordered to pay Mahommed $2000 as compensation.
The state government appealed to the Supreme Court seeking the decision be quashed and be remitted to the Tribunal for rehearing.
However, Justice Lyons found the government had not shown a basis for a successful appeal.
She said the tribunal finding had been on a purely factual basis and no question of law had arisen from the findings.
Will the Aussies now be employing 'Muslim slaughtermen' in the prisons sinced the canned stuff isn't good enough? I'd be careful who you give sharp knives to...
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/12/07:This is the sort of crap we have to put up with from Muslims down here. What a hide, a convicted felon telling us how he should be fed. I have no doubt we employ quite a few Muslim slaughtermen in prisons, just stamping number plates.
We have the answer, no costly appeal keeping Muslim lawyers rich, no, we will change the law, it's cheaper | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 02/12/07 - whose interfering? Howard - Obama stouse a journalistic beatup or Obama interfering in Australian politics.
Howard is undiplomatic but correct
Gerard Henderson
February 13, 2007
Other related coverage
* Howard blasts Obama
* Rudd attacks PM over Obama bashing
* Obama blasts Howard on Iraq
* Stars and swipes: Howard defiant
* PM not sorry for Obama attack
Ask a blunt question and, every now and then, there is an undiplomatic answer. Certainly this was the case with the inaugural Sunday program for this year. Laurie Oakes put it to John Howard that the policy on Iraq enunciated by the US Democratic Party presidential aspirant Barack Hussein Obama was basically in line with that of Kevin Rudd and Labor in Australia.
Obama says he has a plan to withdraw all American forces from Iraq by March 2008 - about eight months before the presidential election of that year. Interviewed on Meet the Press last Sunday, the Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, committed a Labor government to withdrawing most Australian troops in Iraq at the end of a designated six-month rotation.
If Labor wins the election, likely to be held between mid-October and the end of November, this would mean that the Australian Defence Force would probably exit Iraq sometime early next year. The only Australian troops remaining in Iraq would be those whose task is to defend the Australian embassy in Baghdad.
Howard viewed the Rudd interview on Meet the Press. He could have chosen to fudge his response to Oakes's question about Obama's plan. But Howard appeared to consciously choose not to do so. Instead he described Obama's position as "wrong" and said such a policy "would just encourage those who wanted to destabilise and destroy Iraq".
The Prime Minister added that al-Qaeda members in Iraq could "put a circle around 2008" in their diaries and "pray as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats".
Howard's comments were undiplomatic. It is unusual for an Australian political leader to support, or oppose, a particular candidate or party in another nation's election. It may have been for the better if the statement had not been made.
Yet it is a fact that Howard's comment has had such a big impact outside of Australia precisely because he was essentially correct. A designated and unconditional US withdrawal from Iraq by March 2008 would amount to a defeat for the multinational force and a victory for the insurgency, along with al-Qaeda, in Iraq. This should be recognised by those who oppose the allied commitment in Iraq as well as those who support it.
Howard is frequently accused by his political opponents of being poll driven. Yet there is scant evidence for such a proposition. It is understandable why many Australians oppose him - along with why many Australians support him. However, like it or not, Howard believes in the positions he has taken, including the Iraq commitment.
It seems he responded to Oakes in the manner in which he did because he genuinely believes Obama's plan would be disastrous for Iraq in particular and for the war against Islamist terrorism in general.
It is unlikely that he would have proffered a similar response if he had been asked to comment about Hillary Clinton's position in Iraq, simply because she has not designated a date for an unconditional US withdrawal from Iraq.
If Howard was undiplomatic in commenting on US domestic policies then the same can be said for Obama's response. Obama told reporters in Iowa that if Howard's comments were anything other than "empty rhetoric" he would commit 20,000 additional troops to the war. This is rhetoric in itself.
Australia has about 1500 men and women in Iraq. On a comparative population basis, an Australian force of 21,500 in Iraq would equate to some 320,000 Americans - almost double the US deployment.
It's a long time to the 2008 US presidential election. At the moment Obama is a high profile Democrat contender, as is Clinton. Yet it is not going to be an easy road for the African-American candidate. His government experience is confined to just two years in the US Senate, where he has not been associated with many prominent legislative initiatives.
Also, unlike Clinton, Americans as yet do not know much about Obama.
In his books The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, Obama indicates that he was brought up a Muslim and converted to Christianity. He is now a member of the United Church of Christ. There is no doubt that Obama will have a lot of appeal to the left of the Democratic Party. So did Howard Dean, who imploded during the 2004 US primaries, despite much support from the left.
If Howard wins in late 2007 and Obama prevails in late 2008 it is likely that both men will find a political accommodation. Likewise, a Rudd government would probably get along well enough with Bush during the final year of his presidency in 2008.
The reason why the Australian-American alliance works so well is because it is in the national interest of both nations. Sure, Australia benefits from the security and intelligence which the alliance provides. But the US also benefits from the alliance, with respect to its security and intelligence requirements.
The verbal punch-up between Howard and Obama indicates just how important the issue that divides them is to each man. Obama has consistently opposed allied intervention in Iraq. He is on record as saying that Saddam Hussein should have been left alone in Iraq, since he believed that he was no threat to the US.
On the other hand, Howard sincerely believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he was a threat to the West and some Muslim nations alike.
What is going on right now is an undiplomatic row. However, it is unlikely to have long-term outcomes - irrespective of which party governs in Canberra or Washington in a couple of years.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/12/07:I agree, OBAMA was sticking his big mug into Australian politics. Howard was responding locally to a local commentator and his remarks were perhiperal to debate with Rudd over policy on Iraq and Afganistan. But the want-to-be OBAMA saw the opportunity to make political capital in his campaign for a candidatecy "Even the Aussies are against me", what a pitiful bum! Let's hope america is never led by the likes of him | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/05/07 - Will global warming swamp new stadium? Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Monday, February 5, 2007
Everyone figures that nightmarish traffic jams are the worst problem the Oakland A's will face if they move to the bayfront wilds of Fremont. But their biggest challenge may be something they hadn't thought of -- global warming.
The A's want to build their ballpark and mall village on low-lying land west of Interstate 880, less than half a mile from a tidal channel. With ocean levels expected to rise as the globe heats up, the high tides that churn up that channel could turn the A's ballpark into prime waterfront property -- or into soup.
"You are talking about a meter rise of the sea level by the end of the century (around the bay),'' said Will Travis, executive director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which helps regulate shoreline construction.
Local effects of the rising waters were the subject of a global warming conference this past week at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center, hosted by the city's Public Utilities Commission. San Francisco and Oakland airports will be under water if no protective steps are taken, and areas of Silicon Valley that now are near the bay could "look like the Lost City of Atlantis" by 2100, in Travis' words.
It was widely reported that the Giants' AT&T Park could be vulnerable, but what hasn't been noticed is that the same rising tide could turn the A's Field of Dreams into Field and Stream.
The team and its fans don't have to wait decades to notice the changes along the local shoreline, Travis says -- they're already starting.
"It's a combination of a rising sea level, increased rain, high tide and wind -- and (the water) can come up unpredictably,'' Travis said.
If you don't believe it, Travis suggests you check out the occasionally flooded parking lots of Candlestick Point or the public promenade behind the just-opened Pier 1 1/2 in San Francisco.
Travis predicts "high value'' properties like the A's stadium will need to be protected by seawalls along the shore and lots of pumps.
And if that doesn't work?
Well, said Travis, "One of the things they could do is play water polo.''
The A's seem unfazed by the warming warning, saying they wouldn't be proceeding with planning for a Fremont ballpark if they thought water was a worry.
Besides, said team spokesman Jim Young, "a century is a long way off, and I won't be available for comment in a hundred years when it becomes a problem.''
How irresponsible. Why aren't the A's being more considerate of their children and grandchildren's futures? Maybe they just wanted to be like Monster Park (Candlestick) and enjoy a little flooding and muck of their own? Mathatmacoat answered on 02/05/07:well of course it will and sooner rather than later, you cannot preserve people from their own stupidity | | Question/Answer | | rannsingh asked on 02/03/07 - concentration how to concentrate on studies Mathatmacoat answered on 02/04/07:a good place to start is concentrating on what you are doing and ask the right questions in the right place. Now here on the politics board we concentrate on only one thing | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/04/07 - a 21st century answer to an age old question A little boy goes to his father and asks "Daddy, how was I born?"
The father answers: "Well son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:
'You got Male!' Mathatmacoat answered on 02/04/07:yes the proplem exists in many spheres | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/01/07 - John Edwards other America He delights to recount on the campaign trail of the 'two Americas' and that he is a champion of the "other America" .
Well .... here is a brief glance at the other America that John Edwards resides in :
![]()
102-acre spread is likely the largest home in Orange County, N.C., and tax officials say it's likely to be the most valuable. The 28,200 square-foot estate, expected to be valued at more than $6 million, includes:
The recreation building (15,600 square feet) contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated “John’s Lounge.”......
The heavily wooded site and winding driveway ensure that the home is not visible from the road. “No Trespassing” signs discourage passersby from venturing past the gate. Sure to keep the other America out .
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/01/07:big money, big ego and I suspect a new western white house. | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 02/01/07 - not guilty The Toon 'pranksters' found 'NOT guilty'
In one news report I heard I thought yeesh if the people reacted like that and had got any more hysterical it would have been an updated version of 'War of the Worlds' Mathatmacoat answered on 02/01/07:you have to ask, seeing as these signs have appeared in numerous places without incident, what is different about Boston that they should react in such an over the top manner. Wouldn't an order to remove have been sufficient | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/31/07 - Name that country. For more than sixty years it has been the recipient of aid from the United Nations, Europe and the United States. In fact, "the highest per capita aid transfer in the history of foreign aid anywhere." Statesmen all over the world have paid homage to it. It's leadership has been praised and defended by former American Presidents and world leaders . Charities have been established to support it. Fund raising in its name takes place every day. It has been provided with security training and weaponry by the International Community. If any country deserves to be called the proud creation of enlightened diplomacy and peacemaking, this is is it. Mathatmacoat answered on 02/01/07:what a waste of money that could be used to do something constructive, like fight aids in subsaharian Africa. Don't you just hate bleeding heart charities that fund terroritsts. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 02/01/07 - It's marvelous what a stay in prision will do for you? Mamdouh Habib for Parliament
By John Rolfe
February 01, 2007 12:00
FORMER Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib will stand as a candidate in the March NSW state election.
Mr Habib, who announced his candidacy this morning, will run in the seat of Auburn, which is currently held by the Labor Party's Barbara Perry. The ALP has held the seat since the 1940s and polled almost four times as many votes as any other party in the 2003 election.
Mr Habib's manager Raul Bassi of the "Auburn Human Rights Group" released a statement this morning saying: "We are supporting Mr Habib because the traditional parties have nothing new to offer."
Mr Habib's campaign platform includes working for "the right to freedom of expression and in opposition to the antiterrorist laws state and federal".
He is also promising to "fight racism, the end of scapegoting (sic) of Aborigines, Muslims and migrants" and the promote the "right to oppose Australia's involvement in the war in Iraq".
Mr Habib was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001 on suspicion of involvement in terrorism, specifically of having prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks in America.
He was held in Cuba for more than three years before being released in January 2005 without charge.
MORE TO COME
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/01/07:Mungo, that's the closest I can get to the pronounciation of his name, is a dill of the first order. I'll wager that even the Muslims won't want to be represented by him. If this is the best Hilaly can do to endorse candidates then they both need to go back to Egypt | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 02/01/07 - I'm doing my bit, now how about you? Feeling totally vindicated, I will go on sequestrating Carbon but what are the rest of you going to do?
No time for never-never solutions
Mike Archer
February 1, 2007
It was suggested recently that if everyone on the planet started gorging themselves on fatty foods, the amount of carbon sequestered could reverse global warming as long as no one did a stitch of exercise other than to produce more butterball humans. It's a tasteless idea, but it does raise some important themes that bear thinking about as scientists gather for the latest diagnosis of the state of the Earth's climate.
It seems pretty clear that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will tell us the patient is far worse than we thought and that her condition is deteriorating far faster than we thought when it releases its latest report tomorrow.
Naysayers and sceptics can argue all they like about how much of this change is "natural" and how much is the result of human activity: the bottom line, in terms of treating the patient, is that the hotter she gets the less time we have to fix her up. Likewise, our options become more and more limited the longer we stand around like stunned mullets. We need to take action, now.
The trouble is that most of the major solutions being suggested to Australians are of the never-never kind. Whatever the relative merits of carbon sequestration and nuclear energy, for example, they will take decades to develop and decades more to have any serious impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Worse still, these prescriptions carry an in-built assumption that we have the luxury of time in which to administer them. We don't.
More disturbingly, we now have plenty of evidence to suggest that swings in the global climate can happen faster than we previously believed. Much faster.
The US National Academy of Sciences' 2002 report Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises noted, for example, that although general global warming and a glacial meltdown began about 15,000 years ago, the process came to an abrupt halt about 3000 years later in the span of a couple of decades.
Known as the Younger Dryas event, it featured a rapid, steep drop in global temperature and an abrupt return to full-on glacial conditions for about 500 years. It ended even more abruptly than it began, with a return to global warming that took perhaps as little as one decade.
The Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow began with a climatologist lecturing thick-headed US politicians about the vital message of the Younger Dryas event that abrupt climate change could happen again just as quickly, with awesome consequences.
For example, if the Greenland and Antarctica icesheets melt (which they are doing in spectacular fashion), sea levels could rise, as they have done many times in the past, by 100 metres. If that were to happen, forget the metre-in-a-century mantra, and forget half of Sydney, along with most of the world's coastal populations. Why climates swing so violently is less relevant than the consequences when they do.
As a palaeontologist and geologist who has studied the history of climate change and its effects on life, it's clear to me from Earth's fossil record that major swings in climate have had massive consequences for living things. Extinctions are the most common outcome.
In short, if we don't want these consequences, we don't have the luxury of time to dither. We must respond now.
I don't have all the answers, but I remind everyone of the 2001 Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change, put together by an eminent group of scientists from four international global change research programs. It pointed out that the dynamics of global systems "are characterised by critical thresholds and abrupt changes" and that "human activities could inadvertently trigger such changes with severe consequences for Earth's environment and inhabitants". Those changes could be irreversible and will be far less hospitable to human life.
The broader message here is that we shouldn't focus on climate change as the only threat looming on the horizon. We need to look as well to the other ways humans are increasingly modifying the planet for their own purposes and question whether we're at risk of crossing other thresholds that may lead, faster than expected, to ugly outcomes.
As the Amsterdam declaration noted, the planet behaves as a single, self-regulating system, with complex interactions and feedback between its component parts.
Humans are influencing environments in many ways, not just the atmosphere but the oceans, fresh water, biological systems and so on. All the signals coming back are that the way we live as a species is not sustainable.
While some might take comfort in the thought that "ugly" will not happen in their lifetime, new studies of thresholds and accelerating rates of change suggest these are problems that will challenge all generations now living on the planet.
The Prime Minister has rightly acknowledged that our way of managing the Murray-Darling Basin has passed its use-by date. That's a step in the right direction. Next, we all have to acknowledge that the same is true of our overall environmental management. We must invest now in environmentally friendly technologies, such as solar hydrogen to produce energy that won't cost the world.
Sooner or later, we're all going to have to cease our collective state of denial and accept that business and technology as usual is not an option. We simply can't keep gorging ourselves on the world's resources (even if 6 billion obese, inactive humans would sequester a lot of carbon). Civilisations exist by the grace of Earth, subject to change without notice. Let's hope we all realise that in time.
Mike Archer is dean of science at the University of NSW.
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/01/07:It doesn't matter what you say, noone is going to do anything useful about it, because there is nothing we can do which will bring an immediate result. Even if you shut everything down right now, it's still going to happen, but people will have abetter life in 50 years. Look I just heard about a cosmic cloud which will bring another ice age, so we are going to be done by one cloud or another, take your pick | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 02/01/07 - You gotta be kidding me! Franken for Senate?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16910222/ Mathatmacoat answered on 02/01/07:Yes It's a joke | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/29/07 - one more post on waste contributing to pollution over the past half century many mechanics and so forth have invented cars that last forever (Tucker). Carboraters that will triple your gas mileage (the ones they have at Advanced Auto and so forth are inferior compared to the ones they don't want us to know about).
And back in the fifties and sixties (even since) several people have invented alternative fuels. My ex's grandfather invented a clean clear corn fuel in the fifties. But what happens to these inventions? NOBODY hears about them because the government pays them off to NOT market them. WHY? Because big business would suffer since people would not have to buy cars and gas as often.
This really applies to everything. If you notice the insulation in stoves and refridgeraters nowadays it is nothing compared to the old. I use to be able to buy brooms that lasted years, now the bristles start falling out within months or the handle swivels off and
taping or gluing it doesn't work.
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/31/07:waste conributing to pollution, wait, if we find out what causes waste we have the problem licked. I know what causes waste, it's prosperity, so what we need is a war on prosperity. No person with a 1000 Dollar suit will be allowed to own a car or ride in a aircraft. only those who havn't had a haircut for a year will be allowed on a bus, anyone seen in a fast food joint will automatically be assigned to planting a 1000 trees. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 01/30/07 - Where is the war on terror? Most members of the Democratic leadership have denounced the war in Iraq as not really part of the global war on terror. Nancy Pelosi in particular has argues that Iraq is not part of the war on terror, and others, like Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and more have followed suit. (The fact that the majority of Muslim terrorists in the world are currently fighting in Iraq doesn't seem to sway them at all.) They claim that oth Shia and Sunni Muslims are being alienated by the war.
During the war between the terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel this past summer, much of the same Democratic leadership called on Bush and Rice to negotiate a peace agreement between the two parties, saying that Israel fighting Hezbollah was not helpful to the global war on terrorism. They claim that not negotiating with Hezbollah alienates Shia Muslims.
For a while now, Democrats have criticized Bush for not regularizing diplomatic relations with the terrorist organization Hamas in the Palestinian Authority. They claim that not having open dialogue with Hamas is bad for the global war on terror because it alienates Palestinians.
Now we are hearing criticism of the posibility of open war with Iran, and criticism of Bush not negotiating with Iran. They claim that this is bad for the global war on terrorism, because it alienates Shia Muslims.
So the fighting in Iraq isn't good for the GWOT. Neither is fighting against Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran.
So where, exactly, is the appropriate place to fight the GWOT, according to the Democrats? Where do the Democrats, (who want us to believe that they support the GWOT but not the war in Iraq, and claim that they support the troops but not the war in Iraq), want us to fight the GWOT?
Just wondering.
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 01/31/07:where is the war on terror? was there ever a war on terror? a few skirmishes in Afganistan a war do not make | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/30/07 - United States stands resolute President George W. Bush is going to persevere and prevail in beating world terrorism and bringing stable democracies to both Afghanistan and Iraq.
There will be no wavering and no withdrawal.
These were the heartening words given me by U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David H. Wilkins.
So the mischief-makers, the defeatists, the fellow travellers and the Liberal-Left cabal better get out their handkerchiefs and start sobbing.
Their ignoble cause will fail.
The course of decency and democracy will win.
Now Wilkins, who visited the Sun for an editorial board meeting this past week, is a very astute and articulate fellow.
He spent 25 years in the South Carolina House of Representatives, 11 of them as Speaker of the House.
During those 25 years he was on the cutting edge of most major reform initiatives from welfare reform to property tax relief, and from educational accountability to truth-in-sentencing laws.
Wilkins is an affable, engaging man, but also one with a steel-trap mind.
In that, he's very much like his boss back in the White House.
As noted by Sun columnist Salim Mansur -- the best commentator by far in Canada on the Middle East and Islamic terrorism -- Michael Novak, the noted Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher, recently described Bush as "the bravest president" for staying firm in confronting the contemporary barbarians despite the venom of his peers.
The U.S ambassador echoed those sentiments, pointing out Bush will determinedly do what is right rather that what the polls may say is unpopular.
America's salvation matters more than what the temporarily up-and-down swings in the polls say.
The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon when Bush had been in the White House little more than one year changed the entire direction of the presidency.
Some 3,000 Americans died in those attacks -- more than in the attacks on Pearl Harbor, itself described by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as a "day of infamy."
Yet, despite repeated threats by Osama bin Laden and his associated adherents throughout the world, there have been no further Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
I note that in the 1930s, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and his associated henchmen in other dictatorships believed the western democracies too weak to fight back.
He was wrong. We did.
We won.
After the end of the Second World War, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and the Communist henchmen who followed him had the same attitude as the 1930s bunch of dictators towards the western democracies.
But they, too, were wrong, and we won the Cold War.
Is the radical Islamic terrorist movement as mistaken in its view of the western democracies being weak as were Hitler, Stalin as their fellow compatriots, I asked Wilkins.
He replied it would be a mistake for the world terrorist movement to underestimate the resolve of the U.S. and its allies.
Instead of the Taliban running Afghanistan, we now have a democratic government there.
And instead of Saddam Hussein running Iraq, and using weapons of mass destruction against his own people, we have a democratic government there, too.
True, these as yet may be fragile governments, and not exactly the kind of democracies with which we are familiar, but they are on their way to succeeding.
Wilkins noted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when asked about stability in the Middle East, declared the only way to achieve stability in the region is through democracy.
My friends, we are going to win this fight for civilization, and freedom for millions of men, women and children who never had it before, and George W. Bush will eventually be acclaimed as a great historic leader.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rush Limbaugh? Michael Medved? National Review? Freepers? Nope. Canadian columnist Paul Jackson in the Calgary Sun. It's a shame we can't get more Americans to recognize that Bush's resolve to do what's right in defeating the Islamic jihad is not 'arrogance.' It's a shame more Americans - our own media and congress included - can't applaud the president for pressing on in this noble and necessary cause in spite of the polls. It took a Canadian. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/31/07:"We are going to win this fight for civilisation" when did the war on terrorism turn into the fight the barbarians at the gate battle of all times.
It's shame more americans don't realise that what the world needs isn't more of the same, but a little leadership | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/30/07 - Boy, am I glad I DON'T LIVE THERE I left this place in 1979 and now I know why.
Climate change to 'devastate' Sydney
January 31, 2007 06:37am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
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SYDNEY is looming as one of the world's major climate change casualties, with temperatures expected to soar 50 per cent higher than the average rise forecast for the entire planet.
For the first time, Australian scientists have charted in detail, the impacts on the nation's largest metropolis of man's insatiable demand for energy and burning of fossil fuels.
The Daily Telegraph today exclusively reveals the landmark CSIRO report commissioned by the State Government which - for the first time - specifically details the impact of climate change on NSW.
It paints a picture of a city baking under average temperatures almost 5C higher than now - which will kill 1300 people a year - and one battered by extreme winds and permanent drought.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma said the report's findings were alarming.
"This might sound like a doomsday scenario, but it is one we must confront," Mr Iemma said.
And it will put pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to commit to the same tough targets set by NSW - to reduce greenhouse gases 60 per cent by 2050.
Comparing today's climate, the CSIRO predicted Sydney would resemble the harsh dry conditions of the tiny village of Paterson, 150km northwest of the state capital, in less than 25 years.
By 2070, average temperatures will have soared by 4.8C - compared with 3C forecast for the planet by the International Panel for Climate Change this week.
In summer, maximum temperatures could rise by as much as 7C by 2070. But heat-related deaths will jump from 176 a year - the current annual average - to 1312 by 2050.
Our dams will be drained of water as the city plunges into a virtually permanent dry spell and evaporation rates increase by 24 per cent.
The frequency of droughts now average three every decade. By 2070 there will be only one year out of 10 that is free of drought.
The bleak assessment suggested Sydneysiders would have to reduce water consumption by 54 per cent for the city to remain sustainable within the next 20 years.
Extreme weather events, including 110m storm surges by 2100, will devastate the coastline as well as property.
Bushfire frequency will almost double, with rainfall expected to be reduced by up to 40 per cent.
The report will prompt calls for the creation of a national emissions trading scheme to be put back on the agenda despite Mr Howard's reluctance to sign up.
"The Commonwealth can no longer put its head in the sand on this issue. I have repeatedly asked the Prime Minister to show national leadership by convening a climate change summit," Mr Iemma said.
"I do not want my kids to ask me in 10 years time why I didn't do more to address the issue of climate change."
The CSIRO report warned that the city must work out how to adapt quickly, with the impacts of human-caused global warming now apparently inevitable.
"The future climate of Sydney is likely to be warmer and drier," the report says. "Such trends would also increase evaporation, heat waves, extreme winds and fire risk.
"Nevertheless, despite this trend towards drier conditions, the possibility of increases in extreme rainfall events remain.
"Although average changes in temperature, rainfall and evaporation will have long-term consequences for the catchment, the impacts of climate change are more likely to be felt through extreme weather events."
Climate change forecasts for the coastal zone put Narrabeen and Collaroy on the hot zone for storm-inspired sea surges of about 22m - which would inundate homes.
Freak surges of 110m would be catastrophic.
"Such increases in storm surge in conjunction with sea level rises, would increase the risk of coastal inundation," the CSIRO said.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I can't help feeling someone left the decimal points out of those storm surges but 5'C is a big increase in summer temperatures which can already hit 105'F, from what I read the Tsumami has nothing on this and if it happens here it happens everywhere? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/31/07:Just a confirmation of the hell hole the place has become | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/26/07 - The lefties in Australia want to apologize. This is being circulated in a Sydney University :
Hi there.
You may have heard that Google intends to take high resolution photos of Sydney on Australia Day as part of its Google Earth project.
We think it’s a great opportunity for a bit of activism.
We’ll be chalking up the word “Sorry” in a bunch of places that are clearly visible from Google’s plane. Given our record on Aboriginal human rights, Iraq, Kyoto, East Timor’s Oil, &c. we have plenty to apologise for.
I for one think it is an excellent idea . I think we should come up with a whole list of things the left should apologize for. You could fill all the streets of Sydney with em with more to spare.
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/26/07:No way, Jose. I'm not sorry and I'm not apologising. | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 01/25/07 - Given that all human activity springs from two sources, which is the greater in man’-impulse or de . Mathatmacoat answered on 01/25/07:Dark Crow
You may be aware of the theory of the hierarchy of needs. The most basic needs are food and shelter it is not until these are satisfied that man can concentrate on higher values, such as health, security, knowledge, democracy is a long way up the chain.
This why Democracy cannot operate successfully in a place like Iraq at the moment.
As to your original question, desire overcomes impulse once basic needs are satisfied | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/23/07 - Have you got yours yet? Congratulations on the purchase of your genuine Government Official (TM). With regular maintenance your Government Official (TM) should provide you with a lifetime of sweetheart deals, insider information, preferential legislation and other fine services. Before you begin using your product, we would appreciate it if you would take the time to fill out this customer service card. This information will not be sold to any other party, and will be used solely to aid us in better fulfilling your future needs in political influence.
1. Which of our fine products did you buy?
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Mathatmacoat answered on 01/25/07:Oh yes I just bought three | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/24/07 - Who said that? Make the Pie Higher
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen
And uncertainty
And potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish
Can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/25/07:Are we once again referring to the madness of King George | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/24/07 - Is it all for nothing? Will climate change wipe out the gains in the middle east?
Climate change 'fanning conflict, terror'
From correspondents in London
January 25, 2007 05:43am
Article from: Reuters
GLOBAL warming could exacerbate the world's rich-poor divide and help to radicalise populations and fan terrorism in the countries worst affected, security and climate experts said today.
"We have to reckon with the human propensity for violence," Sir Crispin Tickell, Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations, told a London conference on "Climate Change: the Global Security Impact".
"Violence within and between communities and between nation states, we must accept, could possibly increase, because the precedents are all around."
He cited Rwanda and Sudan's Darfur region as two examples where drought and overpopulation, relative to scarce resources, had helped to fuel deadly conflicts.
Experts at the conference hosted by the Royal United Services Institute said it was likely that global warming would create huge flows of refugees as people tried to escape areas swamped by rising sea levels or rendered uninhabitable by desertification.
Sir Tickell said terrorists were likely to seek to exploit the tensions created.
"Those who are short of food, those who are short of water, those who can't move to countries where it looks as if everything is marvellous are going to be people who are going to adopt desperate measures to try and make their point."
John Mitchell, chief scientist at Britain's Met Office, said al-Qaeda had already listed environmental damage among its litany of grievances against the United States.
"You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries," al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden wrote in a 2002 "letter to the American people".
Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University, said any attempt by countries to build fortress walls to keep out climate change refugees - what he called the "barbarians at the gate" mentality - was doomed to fail.
"If you just take the example of Bangladesh, if 60 million of 140 million people could not survive in Bangladesh yet they were kept there, you would have A) gigantic human suffering and B) progressive very deep radicalisation - very, very angry people - and that is not in anybody's security interest."
Bangladesh, with a 580km coastline on the Bay of Bengal, is acutely vulnerable to rising sea levels, cyclones and droughts.
Climate scientist Mr Mitchell said the Mediterranean and Middle East were likely to receive less rainfall as a consequence of climate change, adding to existing tensions over water.
John Ashton, special representative for climate change at Britain's Foreign Office, voiced concern that this could further destabilise a region already beset by conflict.
"Given the volatile nature of that region, given the global consequences of that volatility, yes I'm hugely worried by that," he said.
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/25/07:Now I think we need to get this in perspective you can't wipe out what doesn't exist | | Question/Answer | paraclete asked on 01/24/07 - An development of this weapon will just stop at this???
Ray gun makes targets feel as if they are on fire
POSTED: 5:34 p.m. EST, January 24, 2007
Story Highlights
• Ray gun so hot it makes enemies drop their weapons
• Technology is supposed to be harmless
• Officials say it could save the lives
• System uses millimeter waves to barely penetrate skin
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Georgia (AP) -- The military's new weapon is a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they will catch fire.
The technology is supposed to be harmless -- a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons.
Military officials say it could save the lives of civilians and service members in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The weapon is not expected to go into production until at least 2010, but all branches of the military have expressed interest in it, officials said.
During the first media demonstration of the weapon Wednesday, airmen fired beams from a large dish antenna mounted atop a Humvee at people pretending to be rioters and acting out other scenarios U.S. troops might encounter.
The crew fired beams from more than 500 yards (455 meters) away, nearly 17 times the range of existing non-lethal weapons, such as rubber bullets.
While the sudden, 130-degree Fahrenheit (54.44 Celsius) heat was not painful, it was intense enough to make participants think their clothes were about to ignite.
"This is one of the key technologies for the future," said Marine Col. Kirk Hymes, director of the non-lethal weapons program that helped develop the weapon. "Non-lethal weapons are important for the escalation of force, especially in the environments our forces are operating in."
The system uses millimeter waves, which can penetrate only 1/64th of an inch of skin, just enough to cause discomfort. By comparison, common kitchen microwaves penetrate several inches of skin.
The millimeter waves cannot go through walls, but they can penetrate most clothing, officials said. They refused to comment on whether the waves can go through glass.
Two airmen and 10 reporters volunteered to be shot with the beams, which easily penetrated various layers of winter clothing.
The system was developed by the military, but the two devices being evaluated were built by defense contractor Raytheon.
Airman Blaine Pernell, 22, said he could have used the system during his four tours in Iraq, where he manned watchtowers around a base near Kirkuk. He said Iraqis often pulled up and faked car problems so they could scout U.S. forces.
"All we could do is watch them," he said. But if they had the ray gun, troops "could have dispersed them."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press
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Pull the other one. We are expected to believe the military want "non-lethal" weapons? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/25/07:ah, the Ray Gun, now they have the enemy on toast | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/25/07 - why do people dread jury duty? Replies for IF people dread jury duty and really don't want to do it.
A. I stick to my own race, I wouldn't know
B. I am all for profiling
C. I am for the little guy, companies have their racket.
D. Let the criminal rot in jail; at least send them all to their own island.
E. No I am not KKK, but I can't relate to anything outside my own problems
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/25/07:personally I prefer the Judge Dread approach with a few extra safe guards built in | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 01/25/07 - State of the Union Address ".....I thought of Willy Loman as I watched George Bush deliver his State of the Union address. Here was a man like Willy who was absolutely confident of his own charm, a personality man who had nothing of substance to sell; a man who brings ruin to all around him as he clings to his fantasies of success. Only unlike Willy, George Bush is our Salesman of Death. He stood there delivering his tired spiel, unpacking his tawdry goods; the misbegotten war, while peddling terror and no taxes as if they were shiny new stock. He dragged out all the initiatives that he should have considered six years ago, which now seemed shopworn, threadbare, and counterfeit in his hands, new sources of energy, health care, and his disastrous No Child Left Behind and its destruction of our educational system. Never has America had a leader who is so incorruptible, because there is nothing in George Bush that could be corrupted. To corrupt someone implies that they begin with some virtue, and it was difficult to think of any virtue known to man possessed by this President.
George W. Bush had death to sell to the Congress and the American people, the death of our young soldiers to be sacrificed to his desperate need for another chance, another big score, all part of his fantasy of success, and his dread of failure. As even the Democrats in Congress bobbed up and down in response to his lies and banalities, I was a bit confused, and annoyed; then I realized that nobody was paying close attention to his words, this sign of deference may have been an effort to stay awake, like the snoozing John McCain, or the jumping up and down of Nancy Pelosi to keep her foot from falling asleep. I expected Laura, like the loyal Linda Loman, to shout out from the balcony, "Attention must be paid," but instead she was playing a game of three card Monte, undoubtedly taught to her by Rove himself, exploiting the heroism of an African American working man, one who never enjoyed any of the benefits of Bush's America, to distract from her husband's failures and lend George some of this hero's aura. Perhaps the real Linda Loman was Condi Rice whose face was a mask of tragedy. Medea or Medusa, take your pick, it was awful to behold in its desperation for Condi like Laura and the Cheneys the tragedy wasn't what they had done to America, but what they had lost for themselves, power, respect, and honor. Perhaps the material profits of war are not enough for some people. Sadly, one knows that George W. will never have a moment when he understands how he went wrong, and what a disaster he has brought down on the American family. The big difference between that great play and this President is that you could weep for Willy Loman but never for this salesman of death."
Part of an excellent blog by Sherman Yellen.
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I was specially touched by his reference to the twisted, angonized face of Condi Rice when she was captured on camera. Her face told it all about the Bush years, the Bush failures...most specially the failure of the Iraqi War. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/25/07:well who wouldn't be bored, a mixture of more of the same followed by more of the same | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/22/07 - Has Global Warming/Climate Change been oversold ? Jan. 22, 2007, 9:45AM
Climate scientists feeling the heat
As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.
Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.
Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.
"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.
Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.
For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."
Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."
Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.
But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans? Is the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming or natural variability? Are Antarctica's ice sheets at risk for melting in the near future?
To the public and policymakers, these details matter. It's one thing to worry about summer temperatures becoming a few degrees warmer.
It's quite another if ice melting from Greenland and Antarctica raises the sea level by 3 feet in the next century, enough to cover much of Galveston Island at high tide.
Models aren't infallible
Scientists have substantial evidence to support the view that humans are warming the planet — as carbon dioxide levels rise, glaciers melt and global temperatures rise. Yet, for predicting the future climate, scientists must rely upon sophisticated — but not perfect — computer models.
"The public generally underappreciates that climate models are not meant for reducing our uncertainty about future climate, which they really cannot, but rather they are for increasing our confidence that we understand the climate system in general," says Michael Bauer, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.
Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, dismisses the notion of widespread tension among climate scientists on the course of the public debate. But he acknowledges that considerable uncertainty exists with key events such as the melting of Antarctica, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 200 feet.
"We honestly don't know that much about the big ice sheets," North says. "We don't have great equations that cover glacial movements. But let's say there's just a 10 percent chance of significant melting in the next century. That would be catastrophic, and it's worth protecting ourselves from that risk."
Much of the public debate, however, has dealt in absolutes. The poster for Al Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, depicts a hurricane blowing out of a smokestack. Katrina's devastation is a major theme in the film.
Judith Curry, an atmospheric scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has published several research papers arguing that a link between a warmer climate and hurricane activity exists, but she admits uncertainty remains.
Like North, Curry says she doubts there is undue tension among climate scientists but says Vranes could be sensing a scientific community reaction to some of the more alarmist claims in the public debate.
For years, Curry says, the public debate on climate change has been dominated by skeptics, such as Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and strong advocates such as NASA's James Hansen, who calls global warming a ticking "time bomb" and talks about the potential inundation of all global coastlines within a few centuries.
That may be changing, Curry says. As the public has become more aware of global warming, more scientists have been brought into the debate. These scientists are closer to Hansen's side, she says, but reflect a more moderate view.
"I think the rank-and-file are becoming more outspoken, and you're hearing a broader spectrum of ideas," Curry says.
Young and old tension
Other climate scientists, however, say there may be some tension as described by Vranes. One of them, Jeffrey Shaman, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University, says that unease exists primarily between younger researchers and older, more established scientists.
Shaman says some junior scientists may feel uncomfortable when they see older scientists making claims about the future climate, but he's not sure how widespread that sentiment may be. This kind of tension always has existed in academia, he adds, a system in which senior scientists hold some sway over the grants and research interests of graduate students and junior faculty members.
The question, he says, is whether it's any worse in climate science.
And if it is worse? Would junior scientists feel compelled to mute their findings, out of concern for their careers, if the research contradicts the climate change consensus?
"I can understand how a scientist without tenure can feel the community pressures," says environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes' at the University of Colorado.
Pielke says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to "dampen" the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.
"The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming," Pielke says. "But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake."
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/22/07:No it's been sold out | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/22/07 - President Bush deserves the Nobel Peace Prize ot at least some recognition for accomplishing what the UN and others have attempted by bribes and soft champagne diplomacy . First it was Libya ,and now it is North Korea who has decided that ...in the words of General Omar Bradley ;“If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”
According to the report :North Korea has reportedly agreed to halt nuclear activities including operations at a reactor in Yongbyon, and allow on-site monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency as the first steps to abandoning its nuclear program. The agreement came during a meeting of the chief nuclear negotiators of the U.S. and North Korea that ended Friday in Berlin, sources said.
All this of course remains to be seen and we would need to be constantly vigilant lest he think he is dealing with a President who would grant incentives without insisting that the NORKs keep their end of the bargain . Still ,President Bush insisted on the format for negotiations and despite all the critics harping ;it looks like something significant has been achieved .
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/22/07:There is nothing noble or peacefull about Bush. He has single handly reduced the world into theatres of war. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 01/21/07 - THE UNITED NATIONS:
What's this group of idiots doing these days?
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/21/07:Here's the URL you can work it out for yourself
http://www.un.org/ | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/19/07 - Space war heating up? Russia first denied it as a rumor, but...
Three nations join China test protest
CHISAKI WATANABE
Associated Press
TOKYO - Britain, Japan and Australia joined the United States on Friday in voicing concern about the rising militarization of space after China successfully carried out a test of an anti-satellite weapon.
But Russia expressed skepticism about the Jan. 11 test, in which an old Chinese weather satellite was destroyed by a ballistic missile.
In Beijing, meanwhile, a foreign ministry spokesman said Friday he was unaware of such a test. The spokesman, Liu Jianchao, added that China was against the militarization of space.
In Washington, Gordin Johndroe said the United States had expressed its concern to China.
"The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," Johndroe said Thursday.
Analysts said China's weather satellites travel at about the same altitude as U.S. spy satellites, so the test represented an indirect threat to American defense systems.
Officials in Japan, Britain and Australia immediately demanded China explain its actions.
"We must use space peacefully," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters. "We are asking the Chinese government about the test."
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso criticized Beijing for failing to give advance notice. He also said debris from the test could scatter in the atmosphere.
"We told China that we doubt if we could call this a peaceful use," Aso said at a news conference.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said diplomats had complained to their counterparts in Beijing about the lack of consultation with the international community.
They also relayed their concern that debris from the test would strike other satellites orbiting the Earth, said Blair's official spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
Blair's spokesman said the British government did not believe China's test contravened international law.
"However, we believe that this development of technology and the manner in which this test was conducted is inconsistent with the spirit of China's statement to the U.N. and other bodies on the military use of space," the spokesman said.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who was in New York, said his government opposed the test and had called upon Beijing's ambassador to Australia for an explanation.
"Our concern about this is that to have a capacity to shoot down satellites in outer space is not consistent with ... the traditional Chinese position of opposition to the militarization of outer space," he told reporters.
"So we've asked the Chinese for an explanation as to what this may mean," Downer said, adding that so far Chinese officials, including the ambassador in Canberra, said they were not aware of the test.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov voiced doubts about details of the test.
"I'm afraid that it didn't have an anti-satellite basis. And, maybe, it's good that it didn't," Sergei Ivanov said in televised remarks, adding that Russia was against militarization of space.
He did not elaborate and it was unclear whether he questioning the success of the test or its intent.
RIA Novosti news agency quoted retired Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, the former head of the Russian defense ministry's international military cooperation department, as saying that the Chinese weapon was modeled on the Soviet IS-1 missile designed to destroy satellites, developed in the 1970s.
Another Russian military expert, Maj. Gen. Vyacheslav Fateyev, criticized the Chinese test as "hooliganism," but added that "it shows that Beijing has a strong capability," ITAR-Tass said.
It also quoted Russian Lt. Gen. Leonid Sazhin as saying that the Chinese test was a response to the United States developing space-based weapons. "China tested anti-satellite weapons to ensure its security," Sazhin said, according to ITAR-Tass.
Russia and China have forged what they called "strategic partnership" after ending their Cold War rivalry, pledging commitment to a "multipolar world" - a term that highlights their opposition to perceived U.S. domination in global affairs.
South Korea has also conveyed its concerns to China, according to the Foreign Ministry.
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Comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/20/07:It will be interesting to see what the US does to counter this strategy. Interceptor missiles would be my guess, that has some possibility of working. How hard can ot be retrofit each satillite with it's own missile defense. The technology already exists, it's just the delivery that is a problem. Should give a boost to the post shuttle program | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/19/07 - WE could use some star wars technology about now. The NY Slimes is reporting today that China successfully carried out its first test of an antisatellite weapon last week .
Accordng to the Slimes ,Arms control experts called the test, in which the weapon destroyed an aging Chinese weather satellite, a troubling development that could foreshadow an antisatellite arms race.
Back in the 1980s ,Ted Kennedy and the rest of the appeasorcrats mocked Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative as "Star Wars" . Due to that ,the technology was not advanced at the pace Reagan desired ;Nor did Bush I or Clinton emphasis it. A 20 year advantage was squandered .
The world thus is less safe not because the US vigorously persued the technology but instead because we did not .
The Times notes that President Bush has picked up the mantle that was dropped by the 2 previous administrations .
The Bush administration has conducted research that critics say could produce a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would be used against enemy satellites.
The largely secret project, parts of which were made public through Air Force budget documents submitted to Congress last year, appears to be part of a wide-ranging administration effort to develop space weapons, both defensive and offensive.
The administration’s laser research is far more ambitious than a previous effort by the Clinton administration to develop an antisatellite laser, though the administration denies that it is an attempt to build a laser weapon.
The current research takes advantage of an optical technique that uses sensors, computers and flexible mirrors to counteract the atmospheric turbulence that seems to make stars twinkle. The weapon would essentially reverse that process, shooting focused beams of light upward with great clarity and force.
The Aussies are understandably upset about the Chinese test ;you know ..... falling debris and all that .
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/20/07:No falling debris here, we don't live at the North Pole, besides we have an excellent relationship with the Chinese, they don't send their gunboats here and we don't send our's there.
At no point can you prove that the world has been made safer by US technological research. In fact, the contrary is true. Every time the US gains a technological advantage, there is arms race to catch up and counter this technology.
The US would be better to put it's research into peaceful applications such combating Climate Change. In that way they may save many Chinese from inundation and improve relationships.I very much doubt that big lasers will do anything to help with the true problems of the 21st Century | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/18/07 - Hillary attacks Obama's backround.
Taken from Insight Magazine :
Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?
This is the question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp is asking about Sen. Barack Obama.
An investigation of Mr. Obama by political opponents within the Democratic Party has discovered that Mr. Obama was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia. Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia.
"He was a Muslim, but he concealed it," the source said. "His opponents within the Democrats hope this will become a major issue in the campaign."
When contacted by Insight, Mr. Obama’s press secretary said he would consult with “his boss” and call back. He did not.
Sources said the background check, conducted by researchers connected to Senator Clinton, disclosed details of Mr. Obama's Muslim past. The sources said the Clinton camp concluded the Illinois Democrat concealed his prior Muslim faith and education.
"The background investigation will provide major ammunition to his opponents," the source said. "The idea is to show Obama as deceptive."
In two best-selling autobiographies—"The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" and "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance"—Mr. Obama, born in Honolulu where his parents met, mentions but does not expand on his Muslim background, alluding only to his attendance at a "predominantly Muslim school."
The sources said the young Obama was given the name Hussein by his Muslim father, which the Illinois Democrat rarely uses in public.
His father was black and came from Kenya. Mr. Obama’s mother, the daughter of a farmer, came from Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Obama's parents divorced when he was two years old. His father returned to Kenya.
Later, Mr. Obama's mother married an Indonesian student and the family moved to Jakarta. Mr. Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his maternal grandparents.
The sources said the background check concerned Mr. Obama's years in Jakarta. In Indonesia, the young Obama was enrolled in a Madrassa and was raised and educated as a Muslim. Although Indonesia is regarded as a moderate Muslim state, the U.S. intelligence community has determined that today most of these schools are financed by the Saudi Arabian government and they teach a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.
Although the background check has not confirmed that the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended was espousing Wahhabism, the sources said his Democratic opponents believe this to be the case—and are seeking to prove it. The sources said the opponents are searching for evidence that Mr. Obama is still a Muslim or has ties to Islam.
Mr. Obama attends services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago’s South Side. However, he is not known to be a regular parishioner.
"Obama's education began a life-long relationship with Islam as a faith and Muslims as a community," the source said. "This has been a relationship that contains numerous question marks."
The sources said Mr. Obama spent at least four years in a Muslim school in Indonesia. They said when Mr. Obama was 10, his mother and her second husband separated. She and her son returned to Hawaii.
"Then the official biography begins," the source said. "Obama never returned to Kenya to see relatives or family until it became politically expedient."
In both of his autobiographies, Mr. Obama characterizes himself as a Christian—although he describes his upbringing as mostly secular.
In “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama says, "I was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother as secular, but says she had copies of the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita in their home.
Mr. Obama says his father was "raised a Muslim, but by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist...." Mr. Obama also describes his father as largely absent from his life. He says his Indonesian stepfather was "skeptical" about religion and "saw religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making one's way in the world ...."
In the book, Mr. Obama briefly addresses his education in Indonesia. "During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables."
Mr. Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School; he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. He later settled in Chicago, joined a law firm and began attending and helping local churches.
Mr. Obama is married to Michelle Robinson and they have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. In 1996, he was elected to the Illinois state Senate. Eight years later, he became a U.S. senator from Illinois.
The sources said Ms. Clinton regards Mr. Obama as her most formidable opponent and the biggest obstacle to the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination. They said Ms. Clinton has been angered by Mr. Obama's efforts to tap her supporters for donations.
In late 2006, when the Illinois senator demonstrated his intention to run for president, the Clinton campaign ordered a background check on Mr. Obama, the sources said. Earlier this week, Mr. Obama established an exploratory committee, the first step toward a formal race.
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I love it when they feat on their own !
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/19/07:What's the problem, isn't he black enough? | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/18/07 - Being a Christian is not a good idea for a politician? It appears that, if you are a politician, you need to be very careful which religious organisations you endorse. However fearless as ever, John Howard has demonstrated that the Muslim vote can do whatever it likes.
John Howard in religious hate row
By Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey
January 19, 2007 01:00am
Article from: Herald-Sun
JOHN Howard has been caught in a religious storm after taping a goodwill message for a fundamentalist Christian group accused of inciting anti-Islamic hatred.
Islamic leaders last night condemned the Prime Minister for appearing in a DVD message for Catch the Fire ministries.
The controversial movement has sponsored a major multi-denomination gathering in Melbourne on Australia Day.
But the PM's decision to back the event has been described as "dangerous".
Muslim community leaders said Mr Howard risked legitimising hateful anti-Islamic views.
"It sends quite a dangerous message to mainstream Australia that extremist views and hate speech is normal and justified," said former president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, Yasser Soliman.
The outcry comes as federal police launched an investigation into inflammatory comments by Sydney's Sheik Feiz Mohammed, which included a description of Jews as pigs and calls for children to die as "martyrs of faith".
The hateful comments appeared in DVDs of Sheik Feiz's lectures, being sold in Australia and the UK.
Acting Attorney-General Kevin Andrews said the Government was worried about a pattern of behaviour among outspoken Islamic leaders.
Mr Andrews described the comments as reprehensible and offensive.
Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd called the sheik's rant obscene and demanded action.
"As I see it, Sheik Mohammed's comments add up to an incitement to terrorism," Mr Rudd said.
Catch the Fire has been at the centre of accusations two of its pastors exposed Muslims to hatred and ridicule.
Friday's Christian rally at Festival Hall is expected to attract up to 5000 people of various denominations.
Mr Howard is being promoted in flyers as delivering a keynote message which will be "personally directed to Catch the Fire ministries".
The rally will also say prayers against terrorism, for divine protection for Australia's armed forces and for the Government, according to organisers.
Pastor Danny Nalliah, one of two Catch the Fire ministers charged with breaking state vilification laws in 2002, last night refused to release the PM's message.
"I am not at liberty to say what the Prime Minister says in the message," Pastor Nalliah said.
"We asked him to speak on Australian values.
"This is a really big breakthrough to have all Christian denominations working together.
"This has been my heart and passion."
Last month the Victorian Court of Appeal threw out the charges brought in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal which had sought to jail Pastor Nalliah and Daniel Scot for allegedly inciting hatred, contempt, revulsion and ridicule of Muslims.
The pair have endured a long-running legal case, which has cost them about $150,000, but pledged to go to jail rather than retract their views.
Mr Soliman, a member of the PM's Muslim Community Reference Group, said Mr Howard should think twice about addressing the group.
"It is a dangerous thing for a senior politician to do," he said.
"I can't stop the Prime Minister addressing who he wants to, but he should be very cautious, especially with groups which have a history of toxic-hate speech."
Islamic Council of Victoria board member Waleed Aly described Catch the Fire as "spectacularly ignorant", claiming its members were in alliance with the far-Right League of Rights.
"If the PM wants to associate with these people, it's not a good look," Mr Aly said.
Other leading politicians who have addressed Catch the Fire ministries include Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile and Treasurer Peter Costello.
Mr Howard was travelling last night and a spokesman said he was unavailable to comment. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/19/07:Little Johnny is more corageous than you give him credit for sometimes particularly as this is an election year. I wonder if this means Pete might get the guernsey sometime soon | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/17/07 - Now tell me this? Tell me why this religion of hate shouldn't be outlawed and wiped from the planet?
Use children as troops, says cleric
By Luke McIlveen
January 18, 2007 01:00am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
SYDNEY'S most influential radical Muslim cleric has been caught on film calling Jews pigs and urging children to die for Allah.
Firebrand Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, delivered the hateful rants on a collection of DVDs called the Death Series being sold in Australia and overseas.
"Today many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in the their hearts, the love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah," Sheik Feiz says in the video.
"We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid (holy warrior). Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom."
An Australian citizen born in Sydney who has spent the past year living in Lebanon, Sheik Feiz was exposed this week in a British documentary Undercover Mosque.
Investigators found Sheik Feiz's DVDs being sold by children in the carpark of the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham and other Islamic bookshops. The entire set can be bought online for $150.
"The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit of Islam is jihad," he declares in the film, before denouncing "kaffirs" (non-Muslims).
"Kaffir is the worst word ever written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt."
In an excerpt from a video lecture series called Signs of the Hour, Sheik Feiz then ridicules Jews as pigs.
Sheik Feiz - who just two weeks ago said he felt like an "alien" in his own country - leads about 4000 followers through his Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney's southwest.
He also accused Australian authorities of being over-zealous in their approach to clerics like him.
"There are no sheiks preaching chaos there. No one is telling people to raise arms against the Australian community," he said.
Sheik Feiz left for Lebanon just before the arrest of 23 men in Sydney and Melbourne in November 2005. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/19/07:I can't tell you, but we are moving closer. The Attorney General just publically told this idiot not to return to Australia. If he has an Australian passport I expect it will be cancelled and that's the way all of them should be treated. Hilaly next, please | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/18/07 - A plea from the darkness of Guantanamo Bay GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - I am writing from the darkness of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo in the hope that I can make our voices heard by the world. My hand quivers as I hold the pen.
In January 2002, I was picked up in Pakistan, blindfolded, shackled, drugged and loaded onto a plane flown to Cuba. When we got off the plane in Guantanamo, we did not know where we were. They took us to Camp X-Ray and locked us in cages with two buckets - one empty and one filled with water. We were to urinate in one and wash in the other.
At Guantanamo, soldiers have assaulted me, placed me in solitary confinement, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my daughter and told me I will stay in Cuba for the rest of my life. They have deprived me of sleep, forced me to listen to extremely loud music and shined intense lights in my face. They have placed me in cold rooms for hours without food, drink or the ability to go to the bathroom or wash for prayers. They have wrapped me in the Israeli flag and told me there is a holy war between the Cross and the Star of David on one hand and the Crescent on the other. They have beaten me unconscious.
What I write here is not what my imagination fancies or my insanity dictates. These are verifiable facts witnessed by other detainees, representatives of the Red Cross, interrogators and translators.
During the first few years at Guantanamo, I was interrogated many times. My interrogators told me that they wanted me to admit that I am from al-Qaida and that I was involved in the terrorist attacks on the United States. I told them that I have no connection to what they described. I am not a member of al-Qaida. I did not encourage anyone to go fight for al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden have done nothing but kill and denigrate a religion. I never fought, and I never carried a weapon. I like the United States, and I am not an enemy. I have lived in the United States, and I wanted to become a citizen.
I know that the soldiers who did bad things to me represent themselves, not the United States. And I have to say that not all American soldiers stationed in Cuba tortured us or mistreated us. There were soldiers who treated us very humanely. Some even cried when they witnessed our dire conditions.
Once, in Camp Delta, a soldier apologized to me and offered me hot chocolate and cookies. When I thanked him, he said, "I do not need you to thank me." I include this because I do not want readers to think that I fault all Americans.
But, why, after five years, is there no conclusion to the situation at Guantanamo?
For how long will fathers, mothers, wives, siblings and children cry for their imprisoned loved ones? For how long will my daughter have to ask about my return? The answers can only be found with the fair-minded people of America.
I would rather die than stay here forever, and I have tried to commit suicide many times. The purpose of Guantanamo is to destroy people, and I have been destroyed. I am hopeless because our voices are not heard from the depths of the detention center.
If I die, please remember that there was a human being named Jumah at Guantanamo whose beliefs, dignity and humanity were abused. Please remember that there are hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo suffering the same misfortune. They have not been charged with any crimes. They have not been accused of taking any action against the United States.
Show the world the letters I gave you. Let the world read them. Let the world know the agony of the detainees in Cuba.
Jumah al-Dossari is a 33-year-old citizen of Bahrain. This column was excerpted from letters he wrote to his attorneys and published originally in The Los Angeles Times. Its contents have been deemed unclassified by the Department of Defense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps you've already read al-Dossari's account - seeing as how it's been circulated worldwide by virtually every media outlet and left-wing blogger. I can't speak on Mr. al-Dossari's guilt or innocence, but
why are we allowing this guy to hold the U.S. hostage from his prison cell?
Seems we have some things terribly backward here, we have a guy from Bahrain that says he's been to the U.S., likes the U.S. and wants to become a citizen, yet in his lengthy account doesn't seem to tell us why he was in Afhganistan, headed to Pakistan precisely when we were prosecuting a war there.
Then, we have the story of a black college student in North Carolina that's been so oppressed to be - as Kathleen Parker put it - "reduced by centuries of white-male oppression to stripping for food and tuition."
Before any charges were filed, "students produced a "wanted" poster with photos of team members and demonstrated with signs reading, "It's Sunday morning, time to confess." Not only that, a "Group of 88" Duke faculty members "ran an ad demanding that the lacrosse team players confess."
So we convict the rich white kids, demanding a confession, but exonerate the guy in Afghanistan. Does that make sense? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/19/07:a nation that suggests it speaks for the free world has no authority while it treats it's enemies in this manner | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/17/07 - Sacre Blu - est impossible, mon ami?
French close to kissing Britain
January 16, 2007 12:00
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
WOULD France have been better off under Queen Elizabeth II?
The revelation that the French government proposed a union of Britain and France in 1956 - even offering to accept the sovereignty of the British Queen - has left scholars on both sides of the Channel scratching their heads.
Newly discovered documents in Britain's National Archives show how former French Prime Minister Guy Mollet discussed the possibility of a merger between the two countries with British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden.
"I completely fell off my seat,'' said Richard Vinen, an expert in French history at King's College in London. "It's such a bizarre thing to propose.''
Eden rejected the idea of a union but was more favourable to a French proposal to join the Commonwealth, according to the documents - one of which said Mollet "had not thought there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of her Majesty''.
While the two nations - separated by a thin body of water - have been bitter rivals since the Middle Ages, the two EU partners now concentrate on trading tourists rather than arrows.
What animosity remains has been relegated to name-calling, with the French and British reduced to froggies and rosbifs (roast beef) respectively.
But proposals for Anglo-French unity are not new.
Winston Churchill, in a last-ditch attempt to keep France on the side of the Allies in World War II, appealed for a full union of the two nations in June of 1940.
After the war, Ernest Bevin, Britain's foreign secretary, also toyed with the idea of a "Western Union'', a European - and African - bloc led by Britain and France.
The proposals all shared an element of desperation, said Kevin Ruane, a historian at Canterbury Christ Church University, England.
"It's so impracticable an idea that it has only been raised in extreme situations,'' he said.
Threatened by an Arab revolt in French Algeria and hobbled by instability at home, France was desperate to maintain its independence from both the Soviet Union and the United States, Ruane said.
Eden, who fought in France during World War I and spoke the language fluently, might have seemed particularly approachable to Mollet, a former English teacher.
But the former French leader's memoirs showed nothing about the proposal, said Francois Lafon, a history professor at La Sorbonne in Paris and a Mollet biographer.
Lafon suggested it was probably just a political tactic to press the British to firm up their role for the imminent attack on Egypt, whose leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the French accused of supporting the Algerian insurgents.
But even under the circumstances, the suggestion that France would accept the British Queen struck historians as bizarre.
Mollet was a socialist, and left-wing Frenchmen looked to the execution of French King Louis XVI as one of the crowning achievements of the French Revolution.
They would have been unlikely to welcome a foreign monarch with open arms. "It must have been some kind of eccentric gesture,'' Vinen said.
A year after Britain turned down France's proposed merger, the French joined the Common Market, the European Union's predecessor.
By the time Britain tried to join the group seven years later, Charles De Gaulle had largely revived France's international standing, even as Britain's economy continued to stagnate.
De Gaulle vetoed Britain's attempts to join the European Economic Community - twice.
"In retrospect, the irony of this was that the losers were the British,'' Vinen said. "Maybe we'd be in a better position being ruled by Charles de Gaulle in 1965 than Harold Wilson.''
Not all Frenchmen were so sure.
"Can you imagine?'' said Jose-Alain Fralon, author of Help, the English Are Invading!
"What would the English tabloids do if they could no longer tell stories about the froggies, and what about those French who blame everything on the English?''
The British, he added, are "our most dear enemies'' and "we would lose all of the saltiness in our relationship'' had the two countries merged.
Still, he said, the two peoples complement each other marvellously.
"Roast beef and frogs don't go together in the same dish. But frogs' legs as a starter and a good roast beef as the main dish - c'est merveilleux,'' he said.
The documents, which have been unclassified for over 20 years, were found by a BBC producer late last month.
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/19/07:What a stupid idea. They don't speak the same language. the French in Canada want to seperate from the "english" | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/19/07 - Come on now? Tell me this is a fundamentalist's plot to discredit Muslims?
Out of their own "BIG" mounths the condemn themselves.
Radicals vs. moderates: British Muslims at crossroads
POSTED: 1:50 p.m. EST, January 18, 2007
DUBLIN, Ireland (CNN) -- At a recent debate over the battle for Islamic ideals in England, a British-born Muslim stood before the crowd and said Prophet Mohammed's message to nonbelievers is: "I come to slaughter all of you."
"We are the Muslims," said Omar Brooks, an extremist also known as Abu Izzadeen. "We drink the blood of the enemy, and we can face them anywhere. That is Islam and that is jihad."
Anjem Choudary, the public face of Islamist extremism in Britain, added that Muslims have no choice but to take the fight to the West.
"What are Muslims supposed to do when they are being killed in the streets in Afghanistan and Baghdad and Palestine? Do they not have the same rights to defend themselves? In war, people die. People don't make love; they kill each other," he said. (Audio slide show: Preying on Britain's young Muslims)
But in the same debate, held on the prestigious grounds of Dublin's Trinity College in October, many people in the crowd objected.
"These people, ladies and gentleman, have a good look at them. They actually believe if you kill women and children, you will go to heaven," said one young Muslim who waved his finger at the radicals.
"This is not ideology. It's a mental illness."
'Foreign policy has a lot to do with it'
This war of words is part of a larger debate going on in Britain -- the war within the Muslim community for the hearts and minds of young people. The battle of ideas came to the fore again this week when the trial began for six men who are accused of an "extremist Muslim plot" to target London on July 21, 2005.
The Woolwich Crown Court was told the men plotted to carry out a series of "murderous suicide bombings" on London's public transport system, just 14 days after the carnage of the July 7 London bombings, which killed 52 commuters and four bombers.
While Islamic extremists are believed to be a tiny minority of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims, they have no problem having their criticism heard. They have disdain for democracy -- and, most of all, the Bush administration's war on terror policies.
A poll taken in June 2006 for the Times of London newspaper suggested that 13 percent of British Muslims believe the July 7 London bombers were martyrs.
"Foreign policy has a lot to do with it," said Hanif Qadir, a youth worker and a moderate voice for Islam in Walthamstow, one of London's biggest Muslim neighborhoods. "But it's the minority radical groups that use that to get to our young people."
In August, British police descended on Walthamstow, saying they had foiled a conspiracy to blow up a dozen U.S.-bound airliners with liquid explosives. That set off the biggest security alert since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Police arrested 24 people in connection with the alleged terror plot, although one man was released after it was determined he was an innocent bystander.
Britain's Scotland Yard and MI5 have also said they are aware of at least 30 terrorist cells and potential plots inside Britain.
'Blowing people up is quite cool'
Young Muslims are easy prey, Qadir told CNN, because they believe the British government crackdown has scapegoated them because of their religious beliefs. The youth also can empathize with those who castigate the Bush administration.
There are some who believe "blowing people up is quite cool," Qadir said.
Qadir asked them why that was justified.
"The answers that I got back is: When a bomb goes off in Baghdad or in Afghanistan and innocent women and children are killed over there, who cares for them? So if a bomb goes off in America or in London, what's wrong with that?" he said.
Qadir is trying to get mosque leaders, many still practicing the tribal traditions of Pakistan, to communicate with the younger generation. But he says it is an uphill battle when radicals like Choudary dominate the debate, getting their faces -- and their message -- out in the public.
"Our scholars ... are not coming out of their holes -- their mosques and their holes -- to engage with these people. They're frightened of that," Qadir said.
The message of extremism can also thrive among youth who see no way out of ethnic ghettos.
"They're into all kinds of vices -- street crime, gun crime, drugs, car theft, credit card fraud. But then now you've got another threat," Qadir said.
"The new threat is radicalism. It's a cause. Every young man wants a cause."
Activist calls for Islamic law
Choudary, whose group Al-Mahajiroun disbanded before the British government could outlaw it under its anti-terror laws, spoke to CNN and made clear he wants to see Islamic law for Britain.
"All of the world belongs to Allah, and we will live according to the Sharia wherever we are," said Choudary, a lawyer. "This is a fundamental belief of the Muslims."
Asked if he believes in democracy, he said, "No, I don't at all."
"One day, the Sharia will be implemented in Britain. It's a matter of time."
Choudary cited the videotaped "will" of one of the London subway bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, who said, "Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight."
Choudary said he sides strongly with that statement -- "we have everything we need in those wills" -- and he cited passages from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, that he says justify jihad.
"I happen to be in an ideological and political war," Choudary said. "My brothers in al Qaeda and other Mujahedeen are involved in a military campaign."
While Choudary and other radicals continue to try to spread their beliefs, others say there is no justification for jihad in England. Imam Usama Hasan memorized the Quran by the time he was 11 and at 19, he briefly fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
"If you have the wrong intention, you can justify your criminal actions from any text -- whether it's the Quran or Bible or Shakespeare," Hasan said.
He said it makes him "furious" when radicals quote the Quran out of context to justify killing of innocents. It's a "very tiny" minority with such beliefs, he said, but "it only takes a handful, of course, to create devastation."
"Many people are terrified of Muslims. They are terrified of a brother walking down the road with his eastern dress and his hat and his beard, because they have seen these images associated with suicide bombers," he said.
"It is up to us to dispel that fear -- to smile at people to tell them that ... the message of Islam is not about bits of cloth. It is not about the beard or head scarf or the face veil or violence. It is about peace."
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/19/07:They just can't help themselves, can they.
Every time they open their mouths they convict themselves, and we are expected to believe these are isolated individuals. If they are isolated individuals how come they are scattered throughout the world making trouble everywhere. no, sorry, I believe it's a subversive plot, probally originating in the bastion of Islamic ratbaggery, Saudi Arabia. There is only one reason every Muslim is expected to turn up in Mecca at least once and that is so they can be indoctrinated. This is why they are all potential radicals. They are dangerous because their allegiences are not their nation but to Islam, a faith spread by conquest. No sane person would willingly adopt Islam without coersion | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/16/07 - What exactly is... ...a "fact finding mission" anyway? And why are so many potential presidential candidates running around all over the globe? What business do they have injecting themselves in US foregin policy?
NM governor Bill Richardson has recently supposedly negotiated a ceasefire in the Sudan and met with the Norks over their nukes. Hillary is on a "fact-finding" mission to Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, calling for more troops to head off a "big spring offensive" by the Taliban and al Qaeda. Where will Obama go? Do any of these solo missions help further US interests? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:hey we like a good laugh, like america can do anything but add to the ills of the world, go ahead, export some more misery, like it's needed everywhere | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/16/07 - "Womb politics" Is that what we get - with the exception of Condi of course - for elevating so many women to such exalted places as senator and Madame Speaker, womb politics? A regular contributor to this board - who shall remain unnamed - posted about the lack of a rational, objective basis for Christianity. Let's apply that premise to politics.
We have of course already heard that the new Speaker is 'a grandmother.' Hillary has pointed out that "We've never had a mother who ever ran or was elected president...", and in the now infamous Boxer exchange we're aware that Mother Barbara is not going to pay a price over Bush's 'surge' in Iraq.
Is the Democratic party's strategic 'surge' nothing more than an emotional appeal? What have they offered in the way of a rational, objective plan for this country? Is ANY of it based on anything more than an appeal to the emotions of the American public? Is it even possible for those of us who get it to persuade the American public on the real consequences of failure in Iraq or is America doomed by the left's lack of fortitude and substance? I mean seriously, when the party of the underdog, affirmative action, tolerance, feminism tosses the highest ranking (single) black woman in the history of the nation under the bus, what would they do to you?
Steve Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:allowing women to come to power only demonstrates what wimps you have become, when the real men are doing the job there is no need for the women to feel they need to meddle. | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 01/16/07 - Cab wars Subject: Muslim cab wars in Dhimmiapolis - er, I mean, Minneapolis January 11, 2007
Muslim cab wars in Dhimmiapolis - er, I mean, Minneapolis January 11, 2007
By Greg Strange
By now you've probably heard about the Muslim cab wars in Minneapolis. If not, here's a quick synopsis. Seventy-five percent of the cab drivers servicing the Minneapolis International Airport are Somali Muslims and most of them have been refusing service to infidel passengers who engage in behaviors that aren't up to snuff when it comes to Islam.
For instance, let's say you're an average godless and contemptible infidel who just bought a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon at the duty-free shop and
then you try to hail a cab with that devil's concoction in your possession. You're committing a grave sin against the Religion of Peace and can't
possibly expect an observant Muslim to be complicit in your sin, not to mention defile his taxi by transporting you and your iniquitous liquid.
So what are you supposed to do? Well, apparently you're supposed to show your multicultural tolerance by acquiescing to the primitive customs of the
Islamic cabbies and finding some other means of transportation that won't involve giving offense to a person of another culture or faith.
As another example, let's say you're an unsighted person who gets around with the help of a seeing-eye dog. Yep, that's right. Don't expect to defile
the purity of a Muslim taxi with your filthy beast. Refusing service in that kind of situation is a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), but so far Islam trumps such infidel legislation.
Amazing, isn't it? In a world of political correctness gone mad, who could possibly mistreat the unsighted and get away with it? Muslims, that's who!
But imagine that the cab drivers, rather than being Muslims, were instead bible-thumping Christian fundamentalists who were refusing fares for the
exact same reasons. How long do you think they would get away with it before the ACLU would be all over them like white on rice and before Frank Rich,
New York times columnist extraordinaire, would write his umpteenth column about the Christian fundamentalist takeover of America? Half a day, maybe?
But for whatever unfathomable reason, the entire Western world, in its wretched multicultural misguidedness, seems to believe that it has to bend
over backwards to accommodate the primitive beliefs of Islamic religious fanatics. The question of our time, of the age, is, why? Why would self-proclaimed secular Western societies do this? Why, why, why?
It all stems from the cult of multiculturalism which basically says that any culture is as good as any other, so therefore all cultures must be
tolerated. Anything less would be intolerant and intolerance is evil. And since Islamic culture is just another culture that is as good as any other,
it must be tolerated in the name of multicultural tolerance, even if it is itself supremely intolerant and could eventually supplant the preexisting
culture of tolerance, which would, in effect, spell the end of all that cherished toleration.
It could be the ultimate paradox. The West commits cultural suicide in the name of tolerance and in so doing, leaves the world in the hands of its most
intolerant people. Brilliant!
Volumes are currently being filled with examples from all over the Western world of its groveling obsequiousness before Islam, all in the name of
extreme multiculturalism. It's everything from removing pork from hospital menus for fear of offending Muslims to banning the English national flag
from English prisons because it displays the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and is therefore deemed offensive by imprisoned Muslim criminals.
If you stop and think about it, given that Islamic law's top ten list of things to avoid includes not only alcohol and dogs, but infidels themselves,
it would seem that for observant Muslims there can only be one final and ultimate solution if there is ever to be a world that is pure. It's enough
to send a shiver down an infidel's back.
In the meantime, there may be a tiny smidgen of hope in Minnesota, at least for the moment, where it is still theoretically possible that Minneapolis
won't become Dhimmiapolis. The Metropolitan Airport Commission, which oversees policy at Minneapolis
International Airport, is going to conduct hearings to decide on a proposal that states that all cab drivers at the airport will be expected to carry
all passengers with alcohol and seeing-eye dogs. If there is any sanity left in the Western world, that proposal will pass.
That would no doubt upset the Somali cab drivers, but here's something for them to think about. If Islam was such a great thing, they could just get jobs at Mogadishu International instead of having to slink off to some infidel country to find a decent life. But Mogadishu International is almost never open for business because Somalia is a failed, war-torn Islamic state, and like so many other basket-case Islamic states, the only thing to be found there is misery, violence and hard times.
So Somalis, as well as other denizens of other failed Islamic states, fan out all over the globe seeking economic opportunity in non-Islamic countries, and in particular, Western countries since they tend to be the most prosperous. The amazing thing is that so many of them never seem to be able to put two and two together to figure out that if going to a non-Islamic country is the only way to get a decent life, then maybe Islam's not all it's cracked up to be.
So instead of adapting to their new environments, they continue right on with their primitive and irrational customs while their Western hosts, who
would never tolerate such nonsense from their own Christian populations, mouth vapid platitudes about tolerance and the splendor of diversity.
Maybe Minneapolis will draw the line at the mistreatment of blind people byIslamic primitives. On the other hand, Minneapolis was the chosen site of
the flying imams' mini-airport jihad, not to mention having just sent the first Muslim to the U.S. Congress. I guess you could say all bets are off
and there could still be a Dhimmiapolis in the future.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So how far off is this author? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:What happened to give us your poor... you wanted them, you keep them, and I've got 300,000 more you can have to go with them.
Sometimes countries drown in there own bullshit and this is a practical example | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 01/16/07 - Cab wars Subject: Muslim cab wars in Dhimmiapolis - er, I mean, Minneapolis January 11, 2007
Muslim cab wars in Dhimmiapolis - er, I mean, Minneapolis January 11, 2007
By Greg Strange
By now you've probably heard about the Muslim cab wars in Minneapolis. If not, here's a quick synopsis. Seventy-five percent of the cab drivers servicing the Minneapolis International Airport are Somali Muslims and most of them have been refusing service to infidel passengers who engage in behaviors that aren't up to snuff when it comes to Islam.
For instance, let's say you're an average godless and contemptible infidel who just bought a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon at the duty-free shop and
then you try to hail a cab with that devil's concoction in your possession. You're committing a grave sin against the Religion of Peace and can't
possibly expect an observant Muslim to be complicit in your sin, not to mention defile his taxi by transporting you and your iniquitous liquid.
So what are you supposed to do? Well, apparently you're supposed to show your multicultural tolerance by acquiescing to the primitive customs of the
Islamic cabbies and finding some other means of transportation that won't involve giving offense to a person of another culture or faith.
As another example, let's say you're an unsighted person who gets around with the help of a seeing-eye dog. Yep, that's right. Don't expect to defile
the purity of a Muslim taxi with your filthy beast. Refusing service in that kind of situation is a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), but so far Islam trumps such infidel legislation.
Amazing, isn't it? In a world of political correctness gone mad, who could possibly mistreat the unsighted and get away with it? Muslims, that's who!
But imagine that the cab drivers, rather than being Muslims, were instead bible-thumping Christian fundamentalists who were refusing fares for the
exact same reasons. How long do you think they would get away with it before the ACLU would be all over them like white on rice and before Frank Rich,
New York times columnist extraordinaire, would write his umpteenth column about the Christian fundamentalist takeover of America? Half a day, maybe?
But for whatever unfathomable reason, the entire Western world, in its wretched multicultural misguidedness, seems to believe that it has to bend
over backwards to accommodate the primitive beliefs of Islamic religious fanatics. The question of our time, of the age, is, why? Why would self-proclaimed secular Western societies do this? Why, why, why?
It all stems from the cult of multiculturalism which basically says that any culture is as good as any other, so therefore all cultures must be
tolerated. Anything less would be intolerant and intolerance is evil. And since Islamic culture is just another culture that is as good as any other,
it must be tolerated in the name of multicultural tolerance, even if it is itself supremely intolerant and could eventually supplant the preexisting
culture of tolerance, which would, in effect, spell the end of all that cherished toleration.
It could be the ultimate paradox. The West commits cultural suicide in the name of tolerance and in so doing, leaves the world in the hands of its most
intolerant people. Brilliant!
Volumes are currently being filled with examples from all over the Western world of its groveling obsequiousness before Islam, all in the name of
extreme multiculturalism. It's everything from removing pork from hospital menus for fear of offending Muslims to banning the English national flag
from English prisons because it displays the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and is therefore deemed offensive by imprisoned Muslim criminals.
If you stop and think about it, given that Islamic law's top ten list of things to avoid includes not only alcohol and dogs, but infidels themselves,
it would seem that for observant Muslims there can only be one final and ultimate solution if there is ever to be a world that is pure. It's enough
to send a shiver down an infidel's back.
In the meantime, there may be a tiny smidgen of hope in Minnesota, at least for the moment, where it is still theoretically possible that Minneapolis
won't become Dhimmiapolis. The Metropolitan Airport Commission, which oversees policy at Minneapolis
International Airport, is going to conduct hearings to decide on a proposal that states that all cab drivers at the airport will be expected to carry
all passengers with alcohol and seeing-eye dogs. If there is any sanity left in the Western world, that proposal will pass.
That would no doubt upset the Somali cab drivers, but here's something for them to think about. If Islam was such a great thing, they could just get jobs at Mogadishu International instead of having to slink off to some infidel country to find a decent life. But Mogadishu International is almost never open for business because Somalia is a failed, war-torn Islamic state, and like so many other basket-case Islamic states, the only thing to be found there is misery, violence and hard times.
So Somalis, as well as other denizens of other failed Islamic states, fan out all over the globe seeking economic opportunity in non-Islamic countries, and in particular, Western countries since they tend to be the most prosperous. The amazing thing is that so many of them never seem to be able to put two and two together to figure out that if going to a non-Islamic country is the only way to get a decent life, then maybe Islam's not all it's cracked up to be.
So instead of adapting to their new environments, they continue right on with their primitive and irrational customs while their Western hosts, who
would never tolerate such nonsense from their own Christian populations, mouth vapid platitudes about tolerance and the splendor of diversity.
Maybe Minneapolis will draw the line at the mistreatment of blind people byIslamic primitives. On the other hand, Minneapolis was the chosen site of
the flying imams' mini-airport jihad, not to mention having just sent the first Muslim to the U.S. Congress. I guess you could say all bets are off
and there could still be a Dhimmiapolis in the future.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So how far off is this author? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:What happened to give us your poor... you wanted them, you keep them, and I've got 300,000 more you can have to go with them.
Sometimes countries drown in there own bullshit and this is a practical example | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/16/07 - The madness of King George perhaps relecting the problems of his eighteenth century counterpart has king George finally lost it?
January 13, 2007
It’s One Thing to Flirt With Madness, but When Madness Starts Flirting Back?
— Eric Martin @ 6:28 am
“I call it the madman theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I’ve reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button’ — and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”
Richard Nixon to H.R. Haldeman, 1969 (via TCR)
It’s long been my contention that the vast majority of the Iran/Syria related bellicosity emanating from the White House over the past three years has been hollow saber rattling of one form or another. Roughly a year into the invasion of Iraq it became apparent to most observers (even in the White House) that our military options vis-a-vis Iran (and Syria to a lesser extent) were severely limited.
For one, our sizable and enduring military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan have limited our ability to take similar action against Iran/Syria. Not to mention the fact that Iran has a wide range of retaliatory options available - a menu made broader by the convenient proximity of so many American personnel right next door in Iraq (as well as a largely sympathetic Shiite faction in a hegemonic position in Iraq). Taking action against Syria, though perhaps less problematic than with respect to Iran, would nevertheless open a pandora’s box of potential regional destabilizations that we might not be able to contain (the usurpers of Assad, for example, would be far more hostile to our interests).
With those limitations in mind, the repeated threats (both veiled and overt), and consistent maintenance of a generally hostile posture, can mostly be interpreted in two ways (with various power nodes within the administration probably pursuing varying strategies in this regard):
First, the bluster can be seen as an attempt to augment the perception in Iranian/Syrian eyes that we still have a military capability to be reckoned with. This would be useful in order to compel Iran/Syria to offer better terms and concessions at the negotiating table. The problem with this reading is that those in favor of opening talks with Iran/Syria have thus far been unable to convince the President of the wisdom of this course. So to the extent that some Bush administration officials have been seeking to bolster our hand in negotiations by assuming a - somewhat hollow - threatening posture, the next step in this two-part strategy remains elusive. This renders phase one utterly counterproductive.
Second, there are elements (prominent ones, supported by forces like Cheney) that actually want military confrontation with Iran/Syria. So some of the heated rhetoric and associated provocations are indicative of a legitimate strategy to spark a war. Still, despite these belligerent intentions, Bush has thus far resisted commencing the final countdown, so to speak. At the end of the day, most high ranking military officials (including new Defense Secretary Gates) counseling Bush are most likely reminding him, repeatedly, that such an widening of the conflict could lead to an unprecedented catastrophe.
Due to the simultaneous pursuit of these diverging strategies, all we have been left with is an incoherent and muddled policy that juts out in various directions in fits and spurts: full of hostile rhetoric and provocation, yet without any discernible means or will to follow either course to fruition or productive resolution. All bad cop, no good cop. All preparation, no realization.
That being said, the flirtation with madness has taken on some truly ominous shades as of late. This is either the result of masterful subterfuge undertaken as a prelude to negotiations (now, from a position of perceived strength), the actual build up to war or, in the alternative, still more outward manifestations of the near-paralytic internal divisions in the White House’s policy making apparatus.
Steve Clemons yesterday offered a chilling bit of information:
Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.
The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.
That rather bold prediction comes in the context of several other actions, warnings and rhetorical escalations that seem to lend support to the most dire reading of events. There was the seizure of Iranian officials in Southern Iraq weeks ago, the storming of the Iranian consulate (lesser diplomatic outpost?) and capture of five Iranian citizens in Kurdistan, an inflammatory speech by President Bush on Wednesday, the appointment of a Navy man (well versed in the use of air power) to head CENTCOM, and some other military moves that would normally complement the preparation for war. Steve Clemons, again, this time quoting Flynt Leverett:
The deployment of a second carrier strike group to the theater — confirmed in the speech — is clearly directed against Iran. Since, in contrast to previous U.S. air campaigns in the Gulf, military planners developing contingencies for striking target sets in Iran must assume that the United States would not be able to use land-based air assets in theater (because of political opposition in the region), they are surely positing a force posture of at least two, and possible three carrier strike groups to provide the necessary numbers and variety of tactical aircraft.
Similarly, the President’s announcement that additional Patriot batteries would go to the Gulf is clearly directed against Iran. We have previously deployed Patriot batteries to the region to deal with the Iraqi SCUD threat. Today, the only missile threat in the region for the Patriot to address is posed, at least theoretically, by Iran’s Shihab-3.
On top of that, Garanace Franke-Ruta passes along some unsettling rumors that argue that the extra troops in Iraq resulting from the surge will be tasked with the mission of protecting the vulnerable military supply lines that stretch through southern Iraq that would be targeted pursuant an eventual strike on Iran. More preparations for war?
I readily admit that at least part of my assessment of the situation, and conclusion that confrontation with Iran/Syria is not in the cards, is born out of hope and necessity: the results from such a widening of the conflict could be near-cataclysmic. As such, I have put faith in the notion that even President Bush must appreciate this fact and thus avoid launching such attacks - even if, at times, his state of indecisiveness and desire to confront Syria and Iran lead to a schizophrenic translation into policy.
Still, I am growing increasingly worried that Bush might just be foolish and desperate enough to do the unthinkable. There are certainly enough committed zealots in his inner circle that would counsel him to act so rashly. Or at the very least, blunder his way into a regional war.
Doing so under any circumstances, however, would truly signify the all out madness of King George.
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so sports fans, what do you think, will King George do the unthinkable? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:you mean when don't you he has already done the unthinkable | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/13/07 - Interesting child custody battle A seven year old boy was at the centre of a courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him.
The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree
possible. The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her.
When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him.
After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the British Test Cricket Team, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:enjoyed your comment about those pommie wannabees. What a pathetic exhibition by a national team, they couldn't even manage a draw in a game designed never to come to a positive conclusion: out hit, out bowled, out fielded by a bunch of retiring geriatrics, just plain out and their stupid fans, the barmy army, what a load of dills
I expect we should be thankful that the fans were passive. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/14/07 - The meaning of life The Lone Ranger and Tonto are camping in the desert. They have set up their tent and are asleep. Some hours later, the Lone Ranger wakes his faithful friend. "Tonto, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." Tonto replies, "I see millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?" ask the Lone Ranger. Tonto ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Kemo Sabi?"
The Lone Ranger is silent for a moment, and then speaks. "Tonto, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent." Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:laughed long over that one
should we draw some conclusions from this camp joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto camping in the desert | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/15/07 - Bush on the climate change Reply to "BUSH TO REVERSE POSITION ON CLIMATE CRISIS "
Yes that is what the Guardian did indeed report yesterday,and I have no doubt that it's reporting is correct . Bush set us up for this by recently declaring his desire to add Polar Bears to the endangered species list .If the polar bear is listed as an endangered species, the US government must verify, by law, that nothing is being done to jeopardize the bears' existence. Just what protection we could give remains to be seen but animals designated to the list have fared well. 98 percent of those protected by the act have survived. But eliminating climate change is of course beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act.
Besides ,there is no reason why Polar Bears cannot adapt to a changing climate according to an editorial by Investors.com :
Taking a somewhat different view is Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist with the government of Nunavut, a territory in Canada. According to Taylor, and contrary to greenie hype, climate change — particularly in the Arctic — is not pushing them to the brink of extinction. They have adapted and will continue to adapt to their environment.
In a 12-page report to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Taylor stated: "No evidence exists that suggests that both bears and the conservation systems that regulate them will not adapt and respond to the new conditions." Taylor emphasized polar bears' adaptability, saying they evolved from grizzly bears about 250,000 years ago and developed as a distinct species about 125,000 years ago, when climate change also occurred.
Writing in the Toronto Star in May, Taylor opined: "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or are increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present."
The current population of polar bears is said to have dwindled to 22,000 to 25,000. A half-century ago, before SUVs doomed the planet, there were only 8,000 to 10,000 polar bears, according to science writer Theo Richel.
Much of this increase is due to hunting restrictions that were put in place. And if polar bears, as reported, seem to be losing weight, it may be because increasing populations are competing for the same food supply.
Actually, global warming might help in that area. A reduction in ice cover creates a better habitat for seals, which are the bears' main food. Less ice cover means more sunlight producing more phytoplankton, increasing the supply of other food sources.
On land, blueberries, which the bears adore, would become more plentiful. Taylor says he's seen bears so full of blueberries they waddle.
The debate is not centered around whether or not the globe is getting warmer. It is centered around the cause of the globe getting warmer. The Earth has been steadily warming since 1700 which was before the industrial revolution . This fact negates the idea that it is soley being caused by increased CO2 emissions .
So the question becomes really ;Why does the Bush Adm. appear to be shifting opinion on climate change ? I think it really has something to do with geo-politics more than science. The clue is which publication made the announcement.
The Guardian does have a pipeline to inside 10 Downing St.As you know Blair and Bush have consulted with each other on a number of issues .Now this is clear speculaton ,but knowing how important global climate initiatives are to Tony Blair ,it would not suprise me if there is a quid pro quo that British continued support for the coalition in Iraq may depend on Bush softening his resistance to Kyoto-like initiatives . Blair is said to be extending his term as PM until a post-Kyoto agreement is reached .Bush and Blair held private talks on climate change before Christmas and there was a sense that Bush would agree on a cap on emissions ;something that much of American industry is already compliant with . Individual States have already enacted restrictions and if I read the new Congress correctly they will also pressure for changes in existing US regulations .
One thing that is clear ,the Kyoto protocols will not survive past the 2012 expiration date as written. They are hopelessly flawed and even signatory nations cannot keep to their committments .
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:The day is coming and may have already come when the effect cannot be reversed without first bombing civilisation back into the stone age.
It is no longer about limiting emissions, it is about nil emissions | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 01/15/07 - A little late, but a good read: Made in the USA: Spoiled brats
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Posted: November 20, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right? The same magazine that employs Michael (Qurans in the toilets at Gitmo) Isikoff. Here I promised myself this week I would be nice and I start off in this way. Oh what a mean man I am.
The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the president. In essence 2/3s of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change.
So being the knuckle dragger I am, I starting thinking, ''What we are so unhappy about?''
Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter? Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job? Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?
Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all involved. Whether you are rich or poor they treat your wounds and even, if necessary, send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.
Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home, you may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of having a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving you, your family and your belongings. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes; an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.
How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world? Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy.
Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S. yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.
I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me?
Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an ''other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.
So why then the flat out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans? Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells. Just ask why they are going to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book and do a TV special about how he didn't kill his wife but if he did … insane!
Stop buying the negative venom you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad.
I close with one of my favorite quotes from B.C. Forbes in 1953:
''What have Americans to be thankful for? More than any other people on the earth, we enjoy complete religious freedom, political freedom, social freedom. Our liberties are sacredly safeguarded by the Constitution of the United States, 'the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.' Yes, we Americans of today have been bequeathed a noble heritage. Let us pray that we may hand it down unsullied to our children and theirs.''
I suggest this Thanksgiving we sit back and count our blessings for all we have. If we don't, what we have will be taken away. Then we will have to explain to future generations why we squandered such blessing and abundance. If we are not careful this generation will be known as the ''greediest and most ungrateful generation.'' A far cry from the proud Americans of the ''greatest generation'' who left us an untarnished legacy.
Craig R. Smith is an author, commentator and popular media guest because he instantly engages audiences with his common-sense analyses of local, national and global trends. Serving as CEO of Swiss America for nearly 25 years, Craig understands that Americans want solid answers to the tough questions and that real leadership begins with servanthood. Craig's most recent book is "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil," which he co-authored withWND columnist Jerome R. Corsi. For media interviews please call Holly at 800-950-2428.
Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:Yes by all means see yourself as others see you | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/15/07 - The race is over All those wannabe presidential candidates might as well stop and save their time and money, Ebony magazine has already declared a winner for 2008:
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Will America elect a smoker? At least he admitted he DID inhale. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/16/07:without seeming racist, doesn't that candidate have another disqualifying feature. His ancestors were not born in America | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 01/14/07 - Remarkable insights into the mind of a muslim? The sheik meant bent like Beckham
Aaron Timms
January 15, 2007
Once again, Sheik Taj el-din al-Hilaly has spoken the truth and been taken severely out of context. Once again, it falls to this column to clear things up.
We'll take a quick look at three of the comments he made last week on Egyptian TV, then provide explanations.
"[In the West] we have a third gender, of 'in between', people who are not male or female."David Beckham's recently announced transfer to the Los Angeles Galaxy has been a talking point for many Australians, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, over the past few days. The sheik is no different. He exfoliates. He cares. For him to describe a third gender category, as he has here, is merely his way of agitating for Beckham's unique chromosome configuration to be formally recognised in law.
"Anglo-Saxons came to Australia in chains, while we paid our way and came in freedom. We are more Australian than them."The sheik's logic is irresistible in its clarity: the more expensive the trip to a country, the better the claim of the traveller to that country's sovereign territory. Few would disagree that the Australian business-class traveller to Los Angeles, for instance, has a greater claim to California than the San Jose Okie who lives in a trailer home and is descended from some bunch of high-hair Puritans who caught a ride across the Atlantic in the early 17th century because they couldn't make any friends back in Europe. In drawing attention to the convicts' shameful exploitation of the early welfare state, the sheik has exposed the Pilgrim Fathers for what they really were: Pilgrim Bludgers.
"A young man can meet a woman, smile, arrange a meeting, and then end up in jail for 65 years."Here, the sheik outlines some of the employment opportunities that exist for those who pay their way to Australia. In grammatical terms, that "can" should be understand as a dynamic verb of opportunity, not as the bleak stative that many have assumed it to be. A better gloss might be: "Hey, kids, come to Australia! You can buy a boat, drive fast cars, smile, arrange a meeting with a woman and end up in jail for 65 years." At a time when Tourism Australia is in such an obvious shambles, forced to rely on a Test cricketer's potty-mouthed girlfriend for publicity, the whole of Australia should be sinking to its knees in gratitude for the fine promotional work the sheik is doing on behalf of our country.
Insensitive? The sheik? With a beard like that? The idea is ridiculous. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/15/07:Yes, he has a pecular twist to his thinking. I know where it came from. It comes from reading the quoran over and over again.
This idiot thinks it's ok for Muslims to deliberately raope Christian girls. where does he think he is? Saudi Arabia?
This idoit thinks that because he bought a ticket and got on a plane it entitles him to the place it lands. Where ever I set my feet, etc. What a ning nong.
This idiot thinks that criminality is hereditary. On that basis none of his theiving, killing, muslim mates should have been allowed in the country | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 01/10/07 - A name for the Mahdi Hatter In the prior post, Tom mentioned:
We have to settle on a name for the Mahdi Hatter
I kind of like Ahm~a~mad~jihad .I have been spelling it that way for a couple of weeks and nobody has seemed to notice.
I figure it's a topic worthy of its own string.
I actually did notice that Tom had been spelling it that way, and I approve.
I've actually been using "Ahmad-genocide", but I think Tom's is pretty good too.
Anyone else have an opinion? (What, am I nuts? Of course you all have opinions...)
ElliotMathatmacoat answered on 01/10/07:lets see how the count is going
we have
Ahm~a~mad~jihad
iminjihad
imamadjihad
ahminajahid
madmahdi | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/10/07 - Terrorists strike West Texas ***Breaking news***
By Karen Smith Welch
A tail-flicking terrorist cell knocked out power to Texas and New Mexico Xcel Energy customers 616 times in 2006.
Most were suicide missions.
"As far as I know, no squirrel ever survived the encounter with a power line," Xcel spokesman Wes Reeves said.
Amarillo customers found themselves the victims of 211 of those strikes last year.
Animalistic attacks on the power grid continued Tuesday when a suicide squirrel took out electric service to 4,564 customers in southwest Amarillo.
"The squirrel did not make it - one fatality," Reeves said.
This time, the perpetrator hit Xcel's Southwest 34th Avenue substation, shorting out the system and causing a 26-minute outage for neighborhoods within a mile in all directions, Reeves said.
"I'm always blaming my problems on a squirrel," he said. "It's kind of a utility spokesman's ongoing joke."
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Gotcha. Mathatmacoat answered on 01/10/07:All over the world these animal jihadists exist, waging a never ending war on the forces of energy distribution.
In New Zealand possums attack power lines, In Australia swarms of cockatoos destroy the insulation on domestic power supply, while white ants cut down power poles relentlessly. Obviously our american cousins have got the message and are doing their bit | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/10/07 - Questions Elliot asked this in my previous post and I thought I'd asked them here.
Why is Darfur the "right war" and Somalia the "wrong war"? Or Iraq, for that matter? Mathatmacoat answered on 01/10/07:War against Islamic extremism is right war. The war in Iraq had nothing to do with islamic extremism | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 12/14/06 - Are we responsible for global warming on other planets? SUV's On Jupiter?
Are humans responsible for climate change on the outer reaches of the solar system, or is it the sun?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Kofi Annan today slammed global warming skeptics as being "out of step" and "out of time," but how will altering human activity halt climate change when the evidence clearly indicates that the sun itself and not SUV's is heating up the entire solar system?
"The U.N. chief lamented "a frightening lack of leadership" in fashioning next steps to reduce global emissions. "Let us start being more politically courageous," he urged the hundreds of delegates from some 180 member nations of the 1992 U.N. climate treaty," reports Forbes.
But how do we square the fact that almost every planet in our solar system is simultaneously undergoing temperature change and volatile weather patterns. Does this not suggest that global warming is a natural cycle as a result of the evolving nature of the sun? Can Al Gore fill me in on this one?
- Space.com: Global Warming on Pluto Puzzles Scientists
In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement, astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit.
- Space.com: New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change
The latest images could provide evidence that Jupiter is in the midst of a global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit on different parts of the globe.
- Current Science & Technology Center: Global Warming on Mars?
A study of the ice caps on Mars may show that the red planet is experiencing a warming trend. If both Mars and Earth are experiencing global warming, then perhaps there is a larger phenomenon going on in the Solar System that is causing their global climates to change.
- United Press International: NASA looks at a monster storm on Saturn
NASA says its Cassini spacecraft has found a hurricane-like storm at Saturn's South Pole, nearly 5,000 miles across -- or two-thirds Earth's diameter.
- Science Agogo: Global Warming Detected on Triton
There may not be much industrial pollution on Neptune's largest moon, but things are hotting up nonetheless. "At least since 1989, Triton has been undergoing a period of global warming," confirms astronomer James Elliot, professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Percentage-wise, it's a very large increase."
- Associated Press: Study says sun getting hotter
Solar radiation reaching the Earth is 0.036 percent warmer than it was in 1986, when the current solar cycle was beginning, a researcher reports in a study to be published Friday in the journal Science. The finding is based on an analysis of satellites that measure the temperature of sunlight.
- London Telegraph: The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame
Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.
The simple fact is that throughout the ages the earth has swung wildly between a warm, wet, stable climate, to a cold, dry and windy one - long before the first fossil fuel was burned. The changes we are now witnessing are a walk in the park compared to the battering that our planet has taken in the past.
This is not a defense of the oil cartels or the Neo-Con wreckers, who would have every motivation to ignore global warming whether it is man-made or not.
Nor is it a blanket denial of the fact that the earth is getting very gradually hotter, but how do we reconcile global warming taking place at the farthest reaches of the solar system with the contention that it is caused by human activity? Have our exhaust fumes left earth's atmosphere and slipped through a black hole to Triton?
The assertion that global warming is man made is so oppressively enforced upon popular opinion, especially in Europe, that expressing a scintilla of doubt is akin to holocaust denial in some cases. Such is the insipid brainwashing that has taken place via television, newspapers and exalted talking heads - global warming skeptics are forced to wear the metaphoric yellow star and only discuss their doubts in hushed tones and conciliatory frameworks, or be cat-called, harangued and jeered by an army of do-gooders who righteously believe they are rescuing mother earth by recycling a wine bottle or putting their paper in a separate trash can.
Fearmongering about an imminent climate doomsday also hogs news coverage and important environmental issues like GM food, mad scientist chimera cloning and the usurpation and abuse of corporations like Monsanto flies under the radar.
Global warming is cited as an excuse to meter out further control and surveillance over our daily lives, RFID chips on our trash cans, GPS satellite tacking and taxation by the mile, as well as a global tax at the gas pump.
The extremist wing of the environmentalist movement, characterized by people like Dr. Erik Pianka, advocate the mass culling of humanity via plagues and state sanctioned bio-terrorism, in order to "save" the earth from the disease of humanity. Nazi-like genocial population control measures and the environmental establishment have always held a close alliance.
The orthodox organized religion of global warming and its disastrous consequences for our freedom of speech, freedom of mobility and our right to remain outside of the system, needs to be questioned on the foundational basis that the phenomenon is solar-system wide and it is mainly caused by the natural evolution of the sun and not human activity.
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I still question whether global warming is indeed taking place at all. I have been researching at this issue for several years now, looking at global mean temperatures, actual temperatures in specific locations at specific dates, number of heating or cooling degree days per year, and to date I have not found any sort of pattern or trend either upward or downward in global temperatures. And I've been trying.
But assuming there is indeed global warming (a point I am not ready to conceed), the article above shows that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with human activity, industrialization or any other such nonsense.
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 12/15/06:of course we are we have been poluting the neighbourhood for decades, send probes and observers to these places which have been undisturbed for millenia | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 12/15/06 - Perhaps Bush and Rice can explain this? Oh, I know, it isn't happening!
Leave it all behind and you'll live
December 16, 2006
Like Bosnia before it, Baghdad is being carved into sectarian territories as thousands of families are forced to flee their homes and livelihoods, reports Paul McGeough.
There is a broken man behind the steel door in al-Salam City. Until early this year, Raad Chasep was a prince of the farming plains in the Euphrates Valley west of Baghdad. But today he and his family are paupers, displaced and distraught as a deepening civil war tears Iraq apart.
On the verge of tears, the 39-year-old describes the transition from their rural mansion to a two-room hovel in this Shiite quarter of Baghdad's north-west: "We had three reception rooms, nine bedrooms and seven bathrooms. We had our own meat, vegetables, milk but tonight we have no dinner."
It literally was a swap. A Shiite, Chasep recounts how a friend introduced him to a Sunni family that needed to flee predominantly Shiite al-Salam City. He describes a numbing meeting at which the exchange was formalised: "I felt as if I was giving away my life and everything that my father built up over 50 years."
The cash-free swap was part of a vicious campaign of sectarian cleansing in Iraq that is fast creating one of the biggest refugee and internal displacement crises in recent time. But much of the flight goes under the international radar because of the manner in which it happens.
The moneyed and professional classes simply pack up and leave. Since the US-led invasion in 2003, nearly 2 million Iraqis have fled to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon where their numbers and, in many cases their money, are now causing new political and social tensions. The United Nations estimates the departure rate from Iraq at 100,000 a month.
The internal displacement is more harrowing. Localised, it starts with unexplained murders in minority quarters, visits by masked men, wall messages and - for those who still don't get it - mortars and rockets lobbed from adjoining neighbourhoods.
Thousands or families are believed to be resorting to house swaps like Chasep's arrangement. It's all done informally, each party agreeing to reverse the exchange when, or if, peace and security allow.
"Maybe in 25 years' time," Chasep complains.
The mainly Shiite district of Hurriyah, on the capital's westside, is the latest to have been near fully cleansed of Sunnis. Last Saturday militiamen of the Shiite Mahdi Army stormed into what locals say was the last pocket of Sunni homes in the area.
Amid a five-hour battle, about 100 Sunni families packed meagre belongings into a convoy which assembled outside the fortified Muhaimin Mosque. Refusing entreaties from the Iraqi Government and offers of protection from the Iraqi National Army, they waited until dusk and slipped out of the district under cover of curfew.
Under Saddam Hussein, an estimated 4000 Sunni families lived in Hurriyah, five kilometres from the sprawling, bunker-like Green Zone - the seat of Iraqi and US government and military power in Baghdad. Today there is said to be none.
As retaliatory attacks on Shiites in adjoining neighbourhoods were stepped up on Sunday, the newly displaced Sunnis from Hurriyah - some of them hooded and armed - marched in a Sunni quarter of the city in protest against inaction by the predominantly Shiite Government and its security forces.
Omar Abdul-Sattar, a spokesman for the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party, told local television that in the past five months more than 300 Sunni families have been driven from Hurriyah as more than 300 Sunnis have been killed or wounded, five Sunni mosques have been torched and homes and businesses destroyed.
On Monday, a hapless Defence Ministry spokesman was wheeled out to defend the Government's security efforts.
But Mohammed al-Askari seemed to make the Sunnis' point when he told reporters: "We can't deny the presence of the outlaws in Hurriyah who have managed to intimidate residents and force some out of their houses. But Hurriyah isn't the only area where this is happening in Baghdad. It's going on in other neighbourhoods, too, and all Iraqis are being targeted, not only one sect."
Ironically, Hurriyah means "freedom".
It was to Hurriyah that Raad Chasep and his wife and three children fled when they were driven out of Abu Ghraib, left at the mercy of a swap deal and charity from the Shiite mosques of al-Salam City.
In the social order of deeply tribal Iraqi, there are few who stand taller than men of the land, so Chasep's fall on hard times is especially humiliating. Previously a non-smoker, he now lights the next cigarette from the last as he explains: "We lived like kings I used to give orders. On the farm I would kill a sheep for a visitor like you, but now I can hardly afford to give you tea.
"This is so shameful for me; dignity is so important for an Arab. My honour is my home, my money and my reputation - I've lost it all. What is courage and bravery when you have nothing? Farmers don't cry, but now I do because I fear I will have to turn to crime to provide for my family.
"Sometimes, I just want to die."
He recalls a simple life among Sunnis he believed were "friends and brothers" on the Euphrates. The first interruption was the disappearance of a good friend and then, in quick succession, the murder of Ishmail Hamid Ali, his psychiatrist uncle, and of one of his cousins.
"At first I thought that these were revenge killings become of some old disputes, but then the faces of our neighbours changed," he says. "Wall messages ordered us out and then a masked man - whose eyes I recognised as my best friend - came and said that we had to leave in just the clothes we were wearing."
Chasep got his family out, thinking he would be able to return to Abu Ghraib to liquidate his animals and other assets for ready cash. But within days he took a phone call telling him everything had been stripped from his farm and home.
Chasep's family is one of tens of thousands that have been forced to move as mosaic-like, Iraq becomes like Bosnia of the 1990s. Violence is being used to carve out sectarian territories which, in turn, become launch pads for assaults on minorities in neighbouring districts. There is no good or right side; the Sunnis are as brutal as the Shiites and Iraq's significant Christian minority often is caught in the middle.
Going across the city, district by district, to explain the forced flight of Sunnis and Shiites from areas in which they were the minority, a well-informed local concludes: "The last Sunni in Shaab was the school guard, but the Mahdi Army killed him."
Chasep makes the reverse point about Abu Ghraib: "The only Shiites left in Abu Ghraib are the dead and our homes are taken by the Sunnis."
Under Saddam, Sunnis rarely accounted for more that 70 per cent of any local community. But the well-informed local rattles off the districts in which they now account for 95 to 100 per cent. He does the same for the Shiite enclaves; before the invasion they were anywhere between 40 and 75 per cent Shiite; now their numbers range from 70 to 95 per cent.
Simplistically, the division of the city is often described around the notion of the Tigris River as a new Berlin Wall.
But it is more complex. While the west bank, which is called the Karkh, is predominantly Sunni, there are significant Shiite enclaves and the weekend clean-out of Hurriyah is seen as a bid for a purely Shiite corridor that would run east-west across the whole north of metropolitan Baghdad.
The east bank, or al-Rusafa, is dominated by Sadr City, a Shiite stronghold of about 2.5 million that also is home to the Mahdi Army militia headed by the virulently anti-US cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr. More than 200 Shiites died in a series of co-ordinated bombings in Sadr City late last month.
A particular crisis point is right on the Tigris, just north of the city centre, where Shiite Khadamiya is on the predominantly Karkh side and Sunni Adhamiyah is on the mainly Shiite al-Rusafa bank of the river. Explosive tension between the two has forced the close of a bridge link.
But the very location on the western side of the Shiites' gold-domed al-Khadum Mosque and of the Sunnis' revered Abu Hanifa Mosque on the eastern side generates fierce fighting.
This week, the north-east of the city became a new flashpoint. The Mahdi Army blamed Sunnis for a series of car bombings which killed at least 15 people in the predominantly Shiite areas of Kamaliya, al-Obeidi and Baghdad Jadidah on Wednesday.
Claiming the rockets were fired from an apartment building housing Sunni Palestinian refugees in the mixed Baladiyat quarter, the Mahdi Army attacked with mortar fire, reportedly killing five Palestinians.
Like rural flashpoints around the city, much of Baghdad is policed by unofficial militia checkpoints and road blocks, at which Sunnis and Shiites alike risk kidnapping or death on the strength of the sectarian links revealed in their identity papers.
Unlike other Iraqis, Shiites and Sunnis alike, Chasep does not fall back on any romantic memories of life during the dictatorship of Saddam.
But at the same time he fears worse to come: "It is a disaster - Iraq is over, it has been destroyed. We're strangers in our own land. There will be civil war the sectarian fires are burning like never before in Iraq's history."
At first he disowns ideas of revenge, insisting: "Not all Sunnis are bad; not all Shiites are good." But as the conversation turns to the activities of the more notorious warlords now running rampant in Baghdad, the sectarian imperative kicks in: "We can't have peace with the Sunnis. Of course, they must die."
The entrenched tit-for-tat nature of the violence is not lost on him as Chasep reveals the reason for the flight of the owners of the home in which he is now lives.
As his wife, Miasa, makes tea, he takes the Herald to the other room to show the message that told the previous Sunni occupants of the home that time was up for them in al-Salam City - the walls are pockmarked by gunfire from the Mahdi Army and, just around the corner from the house, are the shot-up remains of their family car.
Mathatmacoat answered on 12/15/06:You know and I know they would have been better off left alone, ok Saddam wasn't pleasant but he kept them in line and without sanctions that was a wealthy nation.
The mistake was not to remove Saddam in 1990, but maybe GHW Bush was longsighted enough to see what might happen and left it to his imbecile son to take the fall | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 12/15/06 - PC police at it again Carolers told to stop singing at event
RIVERSIDE: After Sasha Cohen ice skates, a city staff member has a choir halted midsong.
12:17 AM PST on Thursday, December 14, 2006
By ROBERT P. MAYER and MARLENE TOSCANO
The Press-Enterprise
While an Olympic-medal-winning ice skater smiled and listened to Christmas carols, a Riverside city staff member silenced the singing group because she was afraid the skater would be offended because she is Jewish.
Sasha Cohen, the 2006 Olympic silver medalist and 2006 U.S. National Champion, had just finished her performance at the Riverside Outdoor Ice Skating Rink on the downtown pedestrian mall and had begun to sign autographs when the Rubidoux High School Madrigals began to sing a Christmas carol.
The choir had barely launched into "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" when a police officer and Michelle Baldwin, a city special-events employee, approached choir director Staci Della-Rocco and told her to stop the choir's performance.
Baldwin had contracted with the choir for the event.
Della-Rocco said she complied with the request "because a policeman told me to stop. I didn't want to have a big old huge scene in front of my kids," she said. "I figured I would deal with it later. I would give it some thought and deal with it later."
Amber Eyerly, with the New York-based PR firm that helped promote the event, said that Cohen didn't make the request.
Baldwin could not be reached for comment. City officials referred questions to Development Director Belinda J. Graham, who confirmed the incident.
"This request was simply made by a staff member who was attempting to be sensitive to the celebrity guest, without considering the wider implications...or consulting with her supervisor for guidance," Graham said in an e-mail.
Mayor Ron Loveridge said he was troubled by the incident.
"You kind of wish people do a little checking first. You certainly have my apology," he said, referring to the choir members. "It is unfortunate."
Steve Frasher, spokesman with the Riverside Police Department, said no report of the incident had been filed and that he could neither confirm nor deny that any officer was involved.
"I felt so bad for my kids and that whole situation," Della-Rocco said. "I mean, what kind of a lesson was that? A police officer and a city official telling my kids they can't sing Christmas music?"
Della-Rocco said the students were devastated.
"I just thought it was really rude," said Samantha Moore, a student in the choir. "Everyone basically thought it was really stupid."
Eyerly said she accompanied Cohen through most of the night and that the skater appeared to enjoy the carolers.
"The comical thing is that Sasha wished everyone a Merry Christmas," Eyerly said.
Reach Robert Mayer at 951-368-9455 or rmayer@PE.com
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We now have city officials - and by some reports police - crashing Christmas programs to prevent someone from being offended by those nasty Christians. Now isn't that special?
I thought we were supposed to celebrating the different cultures in this society - all but the Christian culture? Is that how it works? Mathatmacoat answered on 12/15/06:Just shows you what a stupid society you live in. You have tolerated petty fogging officialdom for so long it has taken over. You are the new communist state | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 12/13/06 - Does she have any substance at all? In contrast with the last post about Jeane Kirkpatrick, we are now saddled with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Soes Pelosi have ANY substance whatsoever? Please note the single common thread that runs through every interview, speech and story written about her.
I'm a mother of five. I have five grandchildren. And I always say: Think of a lioness. Think of a mother bear. You come anywhere near our cubs, you're dead. And so, in terms of any threat to our country, people have to know we'll be there to preemptively strike.
---Nancy Pelosi Interview on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Thursday, March 30, 2006
I have five grandchildren. My husband always says that he'd like to time my speeches to see how long it takes for me to mention my grandchildren. He knows it's going to be there. It's just a question of how soon. They live in Texas and Arizona, which is wonderful for them but a little far for us. My husband and I prayed for grandchildren; we not only prayed, we begged. It was not a pretty sight. But we forgot to pray that they live in California.
---A Conversation With Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Sunday, August 27, 2006; Page W08
And if all goes as expected, in less than 100 hours my sixth grandchild will be born.
I want my grandchild to be born into an America where government is for and by the people. I want my grandchild to be born into an America that rewards and values hard work. I want my grandchild to be born into an America where you are not labeled a terrorist coddler when you honor the Constitution.
I want my grandchild to be born into an America where if the U.S. Central Command judges the situation in Iraq to be near chaos, with "violence at all-time high, spreading geographically", if the top intelligence agencies tell you that the war in Iraq is inspiring the very terrorism it was purported to prevent, and if four highly respected military newspapers say of the Secretary of Defense that "his strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised...[he] must go" that you fire your Secretary of Defense and change the course.
I want my grandchild to be born into an America whose government honors its duty for accountability and oversight.
I want my grandchild to be born into an America that inspires innovation, that leads with dignity and diplomacy, that rejects fear mongering, and whose leaders start each day remembering that the Constitution begins with the simple but revolutionary phrase "We the people," which announced to the world that here, the people rule.
---The Huffington Post, One Hundred Hours, Nancy Pelosi blogging, 11/7/06
"Last week I celebrated by birthday and my grandchildren - ages 4 and 6 - called to sing 'Happy Birthday.' And the surprise, the real gift, was that they sang it in Hebrew."
---Jewish Telegraphic Agency November 8, 2006
I am a mother of five. We have five children and five grandchildren. We are expecting our sixth grandchild in October. And we certainly appreciate the value of family. We see family in our community as a source of strength, and a source of comfort to people. What constitutes that family is an individual and personal decision, but for all, it is a place where people find love, comfort, and support.
---Speech on House Floor regarding gay marriage, July 18, 2006
I'm a mom. I have five children, and I have five grandchildren. I always say to people, 'Think lioness.' This is how Democrats are. You threaten our children -- and that's American -- you threaten our country, you're dead. You're dead."
--- New Yorker interview, May 30, 2006
I have five children, five grandchildren; I try to abide by all the teachings of the church in relationship to family. I think my family speaks very clearly to that.
---National Catholic Reporter Online interview by Joe Feuerherd, 1/22/03
As a mother, I know the sacred and blessed choice of life. That decision does not belong to the politicians. It is ours to make - as women, with our families, our physicians, and our faith.
As a grandmother, I want my children and grandchildren to grow up in a society that respects their rights and values their health. The right to plan for healthy families. The right to privacy. The right to choose. These are fundamental American rights to be preserved for all time, for all generations.
I am a mother of five, a grandmother of five, and a devout Roman Catholic who supports a women's right to choose.
---March for Women's Lives Rally Sunday, April 25, 2004
Well, I appreciate your saying that and I think one of my first acts as -- post-election, will be to become a grandmother for the sixth time. We're anxiously awaiting the birth of our grandchild, who is due the first week in November, so a good omen. We get ready for our new grandbaby as we get ready for a new Congress.
---Interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNNs Situation Room, 11/6/06.
Okay, I get it. She's a grandmother, and therefore knows what's best for her grandkids. (Her kids must love it when she comes to visit... I wonder if she tells her children what they are "doing wrong" in raising her grandkids.) How does that qualify her to be the third in line for the Presidency?
And how does Pelosi "making decisions solely on the basis of being a grandmother" differ from Bush "making decisions based solely on his religious beliefs", as he has been accused of? It seems to me that Pelosi's grandchildren are her religion of choice, as opposed to Bush's Christianity. What's the real difference? I don't happen to agree with that assessment of Bush, but even assuming its true, how is Pelosi any different?
Just wondering.
ElliotMathatmacoat answered on 12/13/06:Most politicians have no substance, why do you expect this dotting grandmother to be any different | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/12/06 - Incoming House Intelligence Chief Botches Easy Intel Quiz WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite.
"That is wrong. Al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organization and views Shiites as heretics.
Reyes could also not answer questions put by Stein about Hezbollah, a Shiite group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations that is based in Southern Lebanon.
In an interview with CNN, Stein said he was "amazed" by Reyes' lack of what he considers basic information about two of the major terrorists organizations.
"If you're the baseball commissioner and you don't know the difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox, you don't know baseball," Stein said. "You're not going to have the respect of the people you work with."
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I wonder if he even knows if they're Muslims ????
The interview went like this :
Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
Al Qaeda, they have both, Reyes said. Youre talking about predominately?
Sure, I said, not knowing what else to say.
Predominantly probably Shiite, he ventured.
He couldnt have been more wrong.
Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, theyd slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.
Thats because the extremist Sunnis who make up a l Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.
Al Qaedas Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil.
Its been five years since these Muslim extremists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center.
Is it too much to ask that our intelligence overseers know who they are?
Civil War
And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?
Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...
He laughed again, shifting in his seat.
Why do you ask me these questions at five oclock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?
Pocito, I saida little.
Pocito?! He laughed again.
Go ahead, I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.
Reyes: Well, I, uh....
I apologized for putting him on the spot a little. But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now.
Its been 23 years since a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed over 200 U.S. military personnel in Beirut, mostly Marines.
Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, is close to taking over in Lebanon. Reports say they are helping train Iraqi Shiites to kill Sunnis in the spiralling civil war.
Yeah, Reyes said, rightly observing, but . . . its not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. Its a heck of a lot more complex.
And I agree with you we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, its hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.
So let me get this straight . Nancy Pelosi gets into a cat fight with the mildly non-partisan moderate Jane Harman ,who knows more about intel then any other demoncrat in the house and spitefully dismisses her from being Chairman . Now we get Silvestre Reyes who laughingly does not know the difference between Sunni and Shiite.Maybe after he gets out of terrorism 101 he can advance to 102 where he will learn about Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf .
Pelosi is looking more incompetent all the time.Next up on her docket ;William Jefferson to run the House Ethics Panel.
The next dem. I want to pass this quiz is the traitorous Jay Rockefeller who will now be handed the Senate Intelligence Committee next month .
Mathatmacoat answered on 12/13/06:so now we will have a rerun of dumb and dumber, but let's face it, he will make his boss look good. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 12/07/06 - The peril of Pauline, HELLO boys! I'M BACK? PAULINE HANSON, WHO 10 YEARS AGO FLAGSHIPPED THE MOVEMENT OF AUSTRALIAN POLITICS TO THE RIGHT IS BACK AND LOADED FOR ANYTHING THAT MOVES
Perils of Pauline out of Africa
By Nick Butterly
December 07, 2006 12:12pm
Article from: AAP
UP to a third of Black South Africans coming into Australia may have TB and some have AIDS, according to One Nation founder Pauline Hanson.
Flagging a political comeback at next year's federal election, Ms Hanson also said she was angry Australians were unable to swim in public baths because of the sensitivities of Muslims.
"You don't bend over backwards appeasing their demands because the politicians want their vote ... unless you change this you will have social incohesion which is already happening in this country," she said on Southern Cross radio.
"If they don't want it, then they can go back where they came from."
Related Blog: What do you think about Hanson's plan?
Ms Hanson said she was committed to running as an independent in Queensland at the next election, though she had not made up her mind if she would run for the lower house or the Senate.
She said she decided to make a political comeback after members of the public had urged her to do so.
"I have still got a lot of issues and I have still got a lot of concerns like a lot of Australians and I think that I would like to voice my opinions and have a say on behalf of the Australian people, to represent them," she said.
Ms Hanson said federal parliamentary secretary for immigration Andrew Robb had admitted on television that the Government was letting in many "black South Africans" with health issues.
"Andrew Robb actually admitted that a few months ago, it was on TV," she said.
"He indicated there was around about 37 per cent of black South Africans that were coming in with ongoing health issues."
Ms Hanson said she had been told by a hospital worker of an African woman with AIDS who had given birth to a child with AIDS.
"There's increasing numbers of TB (tuberculosis) and they have picked up ... it could be almost one third that actually carries TB," she said.
"I have got children, grandchildren ... I would hate to see anyone who may be subjected to catching TB or AIDS."
Questioned on her concerns about Muslims, Ms Hanson said she was angry that Australians were no longer able to sing Christmas carols in schools or swim in public swimming pools.
"What people are getting all upset about is the fact that you can't sing Christmas carols in schools because it upsets a certain amount of people," she said.
"You can't actually swim in baths because a certain amount of people want their privacy to swim in those baths, swimming baths and pools that have been paid for by the taxpayers over the years and yet they are closed to everyone to use at the same time."
Politicians were quick to rebuff Ms Hanson's comments.
Australian Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett , who faces a fight to retain his Queensland seat next year, said: "Once again Pauline Hanson opens her mouth and spreads offensive urban myths that bear no resemblance to reality.
"She brings no evidence to back up her claims. They are nothing more than hearsay.
"Her musings don't further debate or address community concerns, they only cause fear and division and they must be challenged."
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who has earned the ire of Ms Hanson for rejecting her bid to be compensated for wrongful imprisonment, said although he disagreed with her ideas he supported her democratic right to run.
Mr Beattie said disillusionment in Queensland with the Nationals would boost the cause of Ms Hanson and other right wing political movements such as Bob Katter's "The Beast".
"It's really going to be an interesting time in the next federal election," Mr Beattie said.
"I think the heart of it is disillusionment with conservative politics in the bush and the regions."
Ms Hanson said she would make an official announcement about her comeback next year. She said she would give herself plenty of time to campaign.
Ms Hanson was jailed in 2003 for fraudulently registering the One Nation party and spent 73 days in prison before her conviction was overturned.
She split from her former party and has spent the past two years writing her autobiography.
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Pauline is a colourful figure and not afraid to say what most of us are thinking, who's country is this anyway. It doesn't belong to the Lebs, it doesn't belong to the Abo's, it doesn't belong to the kiwi's, it doesn't belong to the yank's, it it belongs to those who have worked hard to preserve a particular way of life and a lifestyle which is the envy of the world. Mathatmacoat answered on 12/08/06:Yes, Let's have ONE NATION, it's the only thing that can save John Howard. It's time for the red necks from Queensland to rise again, led of course by the mouth from the north, the red headed bomb(shell) Pauline. She is sure to put those pesky Muslims, beligerant Abo's, and quivering Laborites in their place. Pauline for President! | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 12/08/06 - Is Rice the next victim of failure in Iraq? Dueling Views Pit Baker Against Rice
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: December 8, 2006
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 Many of the blistering critiques of the Bush administration contained in the Iraq Study Groups report boil down to this: the differing worldviews of Baker versus Rice.
Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III was the architect of the new diplomatic offensive in the Middle East that the commission recommended Wednesday as one of its main prescriptions for extracting the country from the mess in Iraq. Ever since, he has been talking on television, to Congress and to Iraqis and foreign diplomats about how he would conduct American foreign policy differently. Very differently.
At a midday meeting with reporters on Thursday, Mr. Baker insisted that the study group had rejected looking backward. But he then proceeded to make a passionate argument for a course of action he believed Condoleezza Rice, the current secretary of state, should be pursuing while carefully never mentioning Ms. Rice by name.
The United States should engage Iran, Mr. Baker contended, if only to reveal its rejectionist attitude; it should try to flip the Syrians; and it should begin a renewed quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that, he maintained, would help convince Arab moderates that America was not all about invasions and regime change.
Meanwhile, Ms. Rice remained publicly silent, sitting across town in the office that Mr. Baker gave up 14 years ago. She has yet to say anything about the public tutorial being conducted by the man who first knew her when she was a mid-level Soviet expert on the National Security Council. She has not responded to Mr. Bakers argument, delivered in a tone that drips with isnt-this-obvious, that America has to be willing to talk to its adversaries (a premise Ms. Rice has questioned if the conditions are not right), or his dismissal of the administrations early argument that the way to peace in the Middle East was through quick, decisive victory in Baghdad.
Aides to the 52-year-old Ms. Rice say she is acutely aware that there is little percentage in getting into a public argument with Mr. Baker, the 76-year-old architect of the first Bush administrations Middle East policy. But Thursday, as President Bush gently pushed back against some of Mr. Bakers recommendations, Ms. Rices aides and allies were offering a private defense, saying that she already has a coherent, effective strategy for the region.
She has advocated deepening the isolation of Syria, because she believes much of the rest of the Arab world condemns its efforts to topple Lebanons government, they said; and in seeking to isolate Iran, they said, she hopes to capitalize on the fears of nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan that Iran seeks to dominate the region, with the option of wielding a nuclear weapon.
Ms. Rice makes no apology for the premium she has placed on promoting democracy in the Middle East, even though that is an idea that Mr. Baker and his commission conspicuously ignored in spelling out their recommendations. I dont think that the road to democracy in Iraq is at all utopian, she said in April.
It is plenty utopian to Mr. Baker, who has made clear his view that the quest is entirely ill-suited to the realities of striking a political deal that may keep Sunnis and Shiites from killing each other, and that may extract American forces from Iraq.
Mr. Baker said nothing on Thursday about looking for Jeffersonian democrats in Iraq; he would be happy with few good Iraqi nationalists who can keep the country from splintering apart.
They start from completely different places, said Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator who worked for Mr. Baker years ago and left the State Department early in the Bush administration. Baker approaches everything with a negotiators mindset. That doesnt mean every negotiation leads to a deal, but you engage your adversaries and use your leverage to change their behavior. This administration has never had a negotiators mind-set. It divides the world into friends and foes, and the foes are incorrigible and not redeemable. There has been more of an instinct toward regime change than to changing regime behavior.
To some degree, the Bush administration has softened that approach in its second term, and Ms. Rices aides contend that much of what is recommended in the Baker report, including a regional group to support the country, is already under way.
Mr. Bush himself seems uncertain how to handle his always-uncomfortable relationship with his fathers friend. It was Mr. Baker who in 2000 ran the strategy for winning the Florida recount, but he has also made little secret in private that he regards the administration as a bunch of diplomatic go-cart racers, more interested in speed than strategy and prone to ruinous crashes.
The administration has sent out word that it regards Mr. Bakers recommendations as more than a little anachronistic, better suited to the Middle East of 1991 than to the one they are confronting and to some degree have created in 2006 three years after the Iraq invasion. It is a criticism that angers Mr. Baker, members of the study group say.
Iran and Syria illustrate the differing approaches of Mr. Baker and Ms. Rice. If you can flip the Syrians you will cure Israels Hezbollah problem, Mr. Baker said Thursday, noting that Syria is the transit point for arms shipments to Hezbollah. He said Syrian officials told him that they do have the ability to convince Hamas to acknowledge Israels right to exist, and added, If we accomplish that, that would give the Ehud Olmert a negotiating partner.
Ms. Rices allies argue that if it were all that simple, the Syrian problem would have been solved long ago. Stephen J. Hadley, national security adviser and Ms. Rices former deputy, said recently that the problem isnt one of communication, its one of cooperation. Now that Mr. Baker has taken his differences public, the mystery is this: is he speaking for Mr. Bushs father? We never figured that out, said one fellow member of the panel. There was always this implication that there was a tremendous amount of frustration from the old man about what was happening. But Jim was always very careful.
The elder Mr. Bush was careful, too. Asked if he wanted to offer his insights to the panel, he declined. Mathatmacoat answered on 12/08/06:Well the cricket is a foregone conclusion for the time being so I have time to comment on other world shattering events. Rice should certainly pay the penalty for the debacle in Iraq, there is no doubt she is one of the archietects of the Bush policies. Rummy took the fall, so should she. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/28/06 - Observation from inside Baghdad This is the latest post of Mohammed of Iraq the Model
The past four days during which we were under siege were long and rough for Baghdadis. Anxiety and fear haunted us at our homes and a flow of horrible news made the prison feel even tighterit was a material and psychological siege that will not be easy to forget.
Thursday began differently for me, first thing in the morning I received very troubling news that one of our friends has been kidnapped. His shocked, terrified father came to us looking for any bit of information that might be possibly helpful in the search for his son who vanished a day before. We in turn became anxious because we too would be in danger if that friend fell in the hands of very bad guys.
We decided to go home earlier than usual that day and then we were met by the terrible news about the savage massacre in Baghdad that took away hundreds of innocent lives. I avoided looking at the news after I heard of the open-ended curfew and we had to get prepared for the worse.
Terrorists and militias started an open war; the battlefield is our city and the fuel is innocent civilians as always since those criminal groups find it easier to kill civilians than to confront each other (and rid us of their evil). The big problem is that the security forces are not strong enough to stop them, worse than that, some members of these forces let themselves become partners to the criminals.
We had no choice but to rely on ourselves to protect our homes and neighborhood insurgents and militias alike. In our mixed block the elders met to assign duties and make plans in case things go wrong. They decided that people should all exchange cell-phone numbers as the fastest means to communicate at times of action, it was also decided that if someone calls to report an attack on his home, everyone else must go up to the roof and start shooting at the direction of the assailants.
More roadblocks were erected and older ones strengthenedstreets and alleys were blocked in any possible way to prevent any attack with vehicles.
They also agreed that no one moves on the streets after a certain hour at night and any moving person would be dealt with as a threat.
The situation was terrifying and the rattle of machineguns broke through the tense quiet of the night several times every night but perhaps the star of the latest show was the mortarthere has been a frenzy of mortar fire, gladly none struck our neighborhood but we could hear the stupid death packages pass by each other in the air across our neighborhood.
No major incidents happened near us except some shooting at a stranger vehicle which neighbors told me carried militants who were trying to launch mortar rounds from an abandoned space but were forced to run away by the shooting.
The other star of the crisis was rumors about ugly revenge attacks and I sometimes feel that those rumors are part of the terrorists and militias propaganda campaign.
Being unable to surf the web for news, TV and radio were the main sources for news and updates about what was going on in Baghdad's vast sides but I trusted the phone more; I was making frequent calls to friends and relatives to see how they were doing.
One of my aunts lives in Adhamiya, she told me they received heavy bombardment from mortars. Another friend from the same sector relayed some odd news to me "there's a war raging between the Islamists and the Baathiststhe Islamists have near full control now"
The phone brings only bad news most of the time but it's still better that to remain worried and disconnected from the surroundings.
Some news were really bad though, my uncle called on Friday to tell me that he and his family of eight were being forced to leave their neighborhood.
My Sunni uncle, his Shia wife and their children were told to leave because the head of the household is Sunni. His voice was filled with pain as he talked to me, I asked him who made the threat and he said ten cars filled with armed men came to our street shooting their guns in the air and announcing through a loudspeaker that all Sunni people must leave within 24 hours, then they went to the mosque and murdered the preacher's son.
The locals didn't like this of course since it was the first time they witness this level of violence and tension according to my uncle. Later that day the Shia in my uncle's neighborhood sent a delegation to the local Sadr office demanding the displacement order be cancelled. The guy in the office turned them down telling them these were "orders from abovewe will kick them out the same way they kick the Shia out in other areas. They shall remain refugees until Shia refugees return to their homes"
Ordinary people do not approve of such atrocities but they have no power over the murderersmy other aunt who lives in the same neighborhood of my uncle's was a bit luckier because she's married to a Shia so she volunteered to hold my uncle's furniture for him while his family sought refuge at several relatives' homes.
"I'm leaving Baghdad to another city, the situation has become unbearable here"
My uncle's words were killing me
He said the delegation was still trying to convince the Sayyid to reconsider this decision but he (my uncle) would not wait to hear back because his feelings were deeply woundeda teacher who spent 30 years teaching the kids of the neighborhood without any discrimination and now a bunch of thugs made him a target for their campaign of blind revenge.
A new fuel shortage complicated the situation in Baghdad and its effects were soon visible. Local 'street generators' that provide electricity for homes were also badly affected since the curfew stopped diesel fuel from reaching the consumers.
Large, main marketplaces became unreachable and people became more dependent on the smaller local store owners whose business activity spiked for a few days, but those too were anxious watching their shelves going empty.
The good thing was that bakeries didn't stop making bread.
We were having our small chitchat meeting everyday, and sometimes twice a day; friends and neighbors who can't venture outside the block but find some comfort and fun in talking to other friends and neighbors over tea or drinksbetter than staying alone at home after all!
Shia and Sunni we sit together wondering if there would be a day when we too fight each other. Of course not, some would rather run away and leave Iraq for a while many will try to continue their lives here accepting the risk and praying for things to calm down.
Not everyone can run away, most people are connected to work, kids, schools and homes; people are people everywhere, they all want to live a decent life and live it in a place they call home.
Criminals are always fewer than ordinary people but those criminals are willing and capable of doing harm and they would not hesitate to do anything to get what they want. In fact they did terrify us in the most vicious ways and this terror reached Sunni and Shia alike.
No one among this majority wants this madness to continue but how long can we take this, when will we feel safe? That's the question on everyone's mind.
As usual during times of crisis, people's morale takes a steep slide down and my friends who used to say they expected Iraq to stabilize within a maximum of 5 years are now talking about 10-15 years and some have reached total frustration and are comparing Iraq's future with Somalia's present.
Rough times blur the vision and disrupt reason, I understand that. When you hear stories about people burned alive or mass public executions it makes you imagine that the streets are full of monsters coming to predate everything and makes you shout calling for merciless punishment upon even those who are only suspects.
Being stuck at home for four days with all the violence going outside and the fear that it might reach you at home was a horrible experience. When the news came that the curfew was over and people began walking on the streets again there was a strange feeling that was particularly very strong this morning in Baghdad; despite all the rumors and fear from more wide-scale revenge attacks there was a feeling among the people that they must go out on the streets and live in all possible means.
The most beautiful scene was that of students going to their schools and colleges despite all what happened in the days before.
Not everyone will absorb the lesson but I'm sure that this last dose of terror has changed the feelings of so many people here, a change in favor of denouncing and rejecting violence, I hope.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sometimes feel that those rumors are part of the terrorists and militias propaganda campaign.
He doesn't know how right he is . The latest example happened during the media orgy about an alleged incident in Sadr City. AP claimed that innocent civilians were being burned to death in the sectarian violence. This was a total fabrication . The only official source for the account, however, was "Police Capt. Jammil Hussein." CENTCOM initially said that it had not been able to confirm the account of the burned-alive Sunnis ,but further investigation showed the story to be false. "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein" ,the major source of the story doesn't appear to exist at all. Details ,including CENTCOM's letter to AP here
The NY Slimes reported yesterday that Hezbollah is training the al-Sadr Mahdi Armi ;further proof that Iran and Syria are behind the violence in Iraq.
The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the official said.
Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said. Syrian officials have also cooperated...
This is no civil war (even though NBC used the false burning incident to make a corporate decision to start calling the conflict in Iraq as a Civil War). As Mohammed clearly demonstrates ,Sunni and Shia sit side by side both vicitims of what he accurately calls criminals on both sides of the slaughter .
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/29/06:Yes what is happening in Iraq is criminal and George Bush should stand beside Saddam Hussien for crimes against humanity and the Iraqi people | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/24/06 - Even the troops say it is wrong and all smoke and mirrors?
Iraq a moral blunder: war hero
By Patrick Walters
November 25, 2006 12:00am
Article from: The Australian
THE former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for Australia's special forces says that the nation's involvement has been a strategic and moral blunder.
Peter Tinley, who was decorated for his military service in Afghanistan and Iraq, has broken ranks to condemn the Howard Government over its handling of the war and has called for an immediate withdrawal of Australian troops.
"It was a cynical use of the Australian Defence Force by the Government," the ex-SAS operations officer told The Weekend Australian yesterday.
"This war duped the Australian Defence Force and the Australian people in terms of thinking it was in some way legitimate."
As the lead tactical planner for Australia's special forces in the US in late 2002, Mr Tinley was in a unique position to observe intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and the coalition's military preparations in the lead-up to the war.
Mr Tinley, 44, who retired from the army last year after a distinguished 25-year career, said the US-led coalition had been naive in its thinking about what it could achieve after a quick military invasion of Iraq.
"They never had enough troops to fully lock down the major centres and infrastructure or the borders," he said.
In Iraq in 2003, Mr Tinley served as deputy commander for the 550-strong joint special forces task group that took control of western Iraq.
Part of his command was 1 SAS Squadron, which was awarded a US Meritorious Unit citation for its "sustained gallantry", contributing to a comprehensive success for coalition forces in Iraq.
He served 17 years with the elite SAS regiment, leaving the army as a major last year. In 2003 he was appointed a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "dynamic leadership and consistent professional excellence".
His comments came as Baghdad experienced its deadliest day of sectarian violence since the coalition's March 2003 invasion, with 160 killed and 250 injured by five powerful car bombs in the Shia district of Sadr City.
In recent weeks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has conceded Iraq has become a "disaster", while the Iraq quagmire contributed to the swing against US President George W.Bush in this month's congressional elections.
Britain has set a tentative timetable this week for withdrawing some of its troops, while the US and coalition forces consider options to end the conflict, which could include a short-term lift in troop numbers.
John Howard said yesterday that despite all Iraq's problems, he still believed he had made the right decision to take Australia to war in 2003.
"Everybody back in 2003, including Kim Beazley and particularly Kevin Rudd and even (French President) Jacques Chirac, were all saying Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," the Prime Minister said.
He said Australia had not agreed to take on any new responsibilities in Iraq and any changes to Australia's 750-strong military presence would depend on a possible withdrawal of British forces.
During war planning with US and British special forces at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 2002, Mr Tinley says he never saw any hard intelligence that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.
"When I pressed them (US intelligence) for more specific imagery or information regarding locations or likely locations of WMD they confessed, off the record, that there had not been any tangible sighting of any WMD or WMD enabling equipment for some years," he said.
"It was all shadows and inferenced conversations between Iraqis. There was an overwhelming desire for all of the planning staff to simply believe that the Iraqis had learned how to conceal their WMD assets away from the US (surveillance) assets."
Coalition special forces troops were charged with hunting down Scud missiles and Saddam's suspected WMD arsenals, operating from just west of Baghdad all the way through to the Jordanian border, and between the Syrian and Saudi frontiers.
After the initial invasion, the search for WMD became something of a "standing joke" with neither coalition troops nor the Iraq Survey Group turning up anything of consequence.
"The notion that pre-emption is a legitimate strategy in the face of such unconvincing intelligence is a betrayal of the Australian way," he said.
Mr Tinley told The Weekend Australian he was now speaking out having expected people "far more capable and more senior than me" to have expressed serious reservations about Australia's involvement in Iraq.
"During our preparations for this war I remember hearing (ex-defence chief) General Peter Gration's misgivings and assumed he did not possess all the information that our Prime Minister did," he said.
"I now reflect on his commentary with a completely different view and am saddened that other prominent people in our society didn't speak louder at the time and aren't continuing to speak out in light of what we now know."
He said the Government had broken a moral contract with its defence force in sending it to an "immoral war".
The Government's stance on Iraq and later on issues such as the Tampa had gradually allowed fear to become a motivating factor in the electorate, he said.
Mr Tinley said the Howard Government had failed to be honest with Australians about Iraq and "you can't separate the sentiment of the defence force from that of the people".
He advocates an immediate pullout of Australia's 500-strong task force in southern Iraq but accepts that security forces must be kept to guard the embassy in Baghdad. "Our 500 troops are in the south-west of Iraq under British tactical command while our US partners are doing all the heavy lifting in the remainder of the country," he said.
A more meaningful contribution could be through providing defence and security force training in a safer neighbouring country, such as Kuwait. "This is no slur on our soldiers. (Brigadier) Mick Moon and his men have been doing a fantastic job."
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/29/06:Yes as time goes by more are prepared to admit it, particularly how they were duped by the system to shut up | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/21/06 - This just in from Atlantic Monthly The 100 most influential Americans ever . I am just posting the list without commentary at this time (except to say that Madison deserves a top 10 position ).
1 Abraham Lincoln
He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over Americas second founding.
2 George Washington
He made the United States possiblenot only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself.
3 Thomas Jefferson
The author of the five most important words in American history: All men are created equal.
4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
He said, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and then he proved it.
5 Alexander Hamilton
Soldier, banker, and political scientist, he set in motion an agrarian nations transformation into an industrial power.
6 Benjamin Franklin
The Founder-of-all-trades scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes.
7 John Marshall
The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of the other two federal branches.
8 Martin Luther King Jr.
His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real.
9 Thomas Edison
It wasnt just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history.
10 Woodrow Wilson
He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.
11 John D. Rockefeller
The man behind Standard Oil set the mold for our tycoonsfirst by making money, then by giving it away.
12 Ulysses S. Grant
He was a poor president, but he was the general Lincoln needed; he also wrote the greatest political memoir in American history.
13 James Madison
He fathered the Constitution and wrote the Bill of Rights.
14 Henry Ford
He gave us the assembly line and the Model T, and sparked Americas love affair with the automobile.
15 Theodore Roosevelt
Whether busting trusts or building canals, he embodied the strenuous life and blazed a trail for twentieth-century America.
16 Mark Twain
Author of our national epic, he was the most unsentimental observer of our national life.
17 Ronald Reagan
The amiable architect of both the conservative realignment and the Cold Wars end.
18 Andrew Jackson
The first great populist: he found America a republic and left it a democracy.
19 Thomas Paine
The voice of the American Revolution, and our first great radical.
20 Andrew Carnegie
The original self-made man forged Americas industrial might and became one of the nations greatest philanthropists.
21 Harry Truman
An accidental president, this machine politician ushered in the Atomic Age and then the Cold War.
22 Walt Whitman
He sang of America and shaped the countrys conception of itself.
23 Wright Brothers
They got us all off the ground.
24 Alexander Graham Bell
By inventing the telephone, he opened the age of telecommunications and shrank the world.
25 John Adams
His leadership made the American Revolution possible; his devotion to republicanism made it succeed.
26 Walt Disney
The quintessential entertainer-entrepreneur, he wielded unmatched influence over our childhood.
27 Eli Whitney
His gin made cotton king and sustained an empire for slavery.
28 Dwight Eisenhower
He won a war and two elections, and made everybody like Ike.
29 Earl Warren
His Supreme Court transformed American society and bequeathed to us the culture wars.
30 Elizabeth Cady Stanton
One of the first great American feminists, she fought for social reform and womens right to vote.
31 Henry Clay
One of Americas greatest legislators and orators, he forged compromises that held off civil war for decades.
32 Albert Einstein
His greatest scientific work was done in Europe, but his humanity earned him undying fame in America.
33 Ralph Waldo Emerson
The bard of individualism, he relied on himselfand told us all to do the same.
34 Jonas Salk
His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the worlds worst plagues.
35 Jackie Robinson
He broke baseballs color barrier and embodied integrations promise.
36 William Jennings Bryan
The Great Commoner lost three presidential elections, but his populism transformed the country.
37 J. P. Morgan
The great financier and banker was the prototype for all the Wall Street barons who followed.
38 Susan B. Anthony
She was the countrys most eloquent voice for womens equality under the law.
39 Rachel Carson
The author of Silent Spring was godmother to the environmental movement.
40 John Dewey
He sought to make the public school a training ground for democratic life.
41 Harriet Beecher Stowe
Her Uncle Toms Cabin inspired a generation of abolitionists and set the stage for civil war.
42 Eleanor Roosevelt
She used the first ladys office and the mass media to become first lady of the world.
43 W. E. B. DuBois
One of Americas great intellectuals, he made the problem of the color line his lifes work.
44 Lyndon Baines Johnson
His brilliance gave us civil-rights laws; his stubbornness gave us Vietnam.
45 Samuel F. B. Morse
Before the Internet, there was Morse code.
46 William Lloyd Garrison
Through his newspaper, The Liberator, he became the voice of abolition.
47 Frederick Douglass
After escaping from slavery, he pricked the nations conscience with an eloquent accounting of its crimes.
48 Robert Oppenheimer
The father of the atomic bomb and the regretful midwife of the nuclear era.
49 Frederick Law Olmsted
The genius behind New Yorks Central Park, he inspired the greening of Americas cities.
50 James K. Polk
This one-term presidents Mexican War landgrab gave us California, Texas, and the Southwest.
51 Margaret Sanger
The ardent champion of birth controland of the sexual freedom that came with it.
52 Joseph Smith
The founder of Mormonism, Americas most famous homegrown faith.
53 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Known as The Great Dissenter, he wrote Supreme Court opinions that continue to shape American jurisprudence.
54 Bill Gates
The Rockefeller of the Information Age, in business and philanthropy alike.
55 John Quincy Adams
The Monroe Doctrines real author, he set nineteenth-century Americas diplomatic course.
56 Horace Mann
His tireless advocacy of universal public schooling earned him the title The Father of American Education.
57 Robert E. Lee
He was a good general but a better symbol, embodying conciliation in defeat.
58 John C. Calhoun
The voice of the antebellum South, he was slaverys most ardent defender.
59 Louis Sullivan
The father of architectural modernism, he shaped the defining American building: the skyscraper.
60 William Faulkner
The most gifted chronicler of Americas tormented and fascinating South.
61 Samuel Gompers
The countrys greatest labor organizer, he made the golden age of unions possible.
62 William James
The mind behind Pragmatism, Americas most important philosophical school.
63 George Marshall
As a general, he organized the American effort in World War II; as a statesman, he rebuilt Western Europe.
64 Jane Addams
The founder of Hull House, she became the secular saint of social work.
65 Henry David Thoreau
The original American dropout, he has inspired seekers of authenticity for 150 years.
66 Elvis Presley
The king of rock and roll. Enough said.
67 P. T. Barnum
The circus impresarios taste for spectacle paved the way for blockbuster movies and reality TV.
68 James D. Watson
He codiscovered DNAs double helix, revealing the code of life to scientists and entrepreneurs alike.
69 James Gordon Bennett
As the founding publisher of The New York Herald, he invented the modern American newspaper.
70 Lewis and Clark
They went west to explore, and millions followed in their wake.
71 Noah Webster
He didnt create American English, but his dictionary defined it.
72 Sam Walton
He promised us Every Day Low Prices, and we took him up on the offer.
73 Cyrus McCormick
His mechanical reaper spelled the end of traditional farming, and the beginning of industrial agriculture.
74 Brigham Young
What Joseph Smith founded, Young preserved, leading the Mormons to their promised land.
75 George Herman Babe Ruth
He saved the national pastime in the wake of the Black Sox scandaland permanently linked sports and celebrity.
76 Frank Lloyd Wright
Americas most significant architect, he was the archetype of the visionary artist at odds with capitalism.
77 Betty Friedan
She spoke to the discontent of housewives everywhereand inspired a revolution in gender roles.
78 John Brown
Whether a hero, a fanatic, or both, he provided the spark for the Civil War.
79 Louis Armstrong
His talent and charisma took jazz from the cathouses of Storyville to Broadway, television, and beyond.
80 William Randolph Hearst
The press baron who perfected yellow journalism and helped start the Spanish-American War.
81 Margaret Mead
With Coming of Age in Samoa, she made anthropology relevantand controversial.
82 George Gallup
He asked Americans what they thought, and the politicians listened.
83 James Fenimore Cooper
The novels are unreadable, but he was the first great mythologizer of the frontier.
84 Thurgood Marshall
As a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice, he was the legal architect of the civil-rights revolution.
85 Ernest Hemingway
His spare style defined American modernism, and his life made machismo a clich.
86 Mary Baker Eddy
She got off her sickbed and founded Christian Science, which promised spiritual healing to all.
87 Benjamin Spock
With a single bookand a singular approachhe changed American parenting.
88 Enrico Fermi
A giant of physics, he helped develop quantum theory and was instrumental in building the atomic bomb.
89 Walter Lippmann
The last man who could swing an election with a newspaper column.
90 Jonathan Edwards
Forget the fire and brimstone: his subtle eloquence made him the countrys most influential theologian.
91 Lyman Beecher
Harriet Beecher Stowes clergyman father earned fame as an abolitionist and an evangelist.
92 John Steinbeck
As the creator of Tom Joad, he chronicled Depression-era misery.
93 Nat Turner
He was the most successful rebel slave; his specter would stalk the white South for a century.
94 George Eastman
The founder of Kodak democratized photography with his handy rolls of film.
95 Sam Goldwyn
A producer for forty years, he was the first great Hollywood mogul.
96 Ralph Nader
He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president.
97 Stephen Foster
Americas first great songwriter, he brought us O! Susanna and My Old Kentucky Home.
98 Booker T. Washington
As an educator and a champion of self-help, he tried to lead black America up from slavery.
99 Richard Nixon
He broke the New Deal majority, and then broke his presidency on a scandal that still haunts America.
100 Herman Melville
Moby Dick was a flop at the time, but Melville is remembered as the American Shakespeare.
..........................................
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/29/06:and who did all these americans influence, mostly americans. Tell us of their real contributions to the world at large | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 11/27/06 - Cut and Run, the Only Brave Thing to Do An addendum to my reply to Choux...
Sunday, November 26th, 2006
Friends,
Tomorrow marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II.
That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad.
And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from the airport into Baghdad is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride. And that doesn't even include a friggin' helmet.
Is this utter failure the fault of our troops? Hardly. That's because no amount of troops or choppers or democracy shot out of the barrel of a gun is ever going to "win" the war in Iraq. It is a lost war, lost because it never had a right to be won, lost because it was started by men who have never been to war, men who hide behind others sent to fight and die.
Let's listen to what the Iraqi people are saying, according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Maryland:
** 71% of all Iraqis now want the U.S. out of Iraq.
** 61% of all Iraqis SUPPORT insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.
Yes, the vast majority of Iraqi citizens believe that our soldiers should be killed and maimed! So what the hell are we still doing there? Talk about not getting the hint.
There are many ways to liberate a country. Usually the residents of that country rise up and liberate themselves. That's how we did it. You can also do it through nonviolent, mass civil disobedience. That's how India did it. You can get the world to boycott a regime until they are so ostracized they capitulate. That's how South Africa did it. Or you can just wait them out and, sooner or later, the king's legions simply leave (sometimes just because they're too cold). That's how Canada did it.
The one way that DOESN'T work is to invade a country and tell the people, "We are here to liberate you!" -- when they have done NOTHING to liberate themselves. Where were all the suicide bombers when Saddam was oppressing them? Where were the insurgents planting bombs along the roadside as the evildoer Saddam's convoy passed them by? I guess ol' Saddam was a cruel despot -- but not cruel enough for thousands to risk their necks. "Oh no, Mike, they couldn't do that! Saddam would have had them killed!" Really? You don't think King George had any of the colonial insurgents killed? You don't think Patrick Henry or Tom Paine were afraid? That didn't stop them. When tens of thousands aren't willing to shed their own blood to remove a dictator, that should be the first clue that they aren't going to be willing participants when you decide you're going to do the liberating for them.
A country can HELP another people overthrow a tyrant (that's what the French did for us in our revolution), but after you help them, you leave. Immediately. The French didn't stay and tell us how to set up our government. They didn't say, "we're not leaving because we want your natural resources." They left us to our own devices and it took us six years before we had an election. And then we had a bloody civil war. That's what happens, and history is full of these examples. The French didn't say, "Oh, we better stay in America, otherwise they're going to kill each other over that slavery issue!"
The only way a war of liberation has a chance of succeeding is if the oppressed people being liberated have their own citizens behind them -- and a group of Washingtons, Jeffersons, Franklins, Ghandis and Mandellas leading them. Where are these beacons of liberty in Iraq? This is a joke and it's been a joke since the beginning. Yes, the joke's been on us, but with 655,000 Iraqis now dead as a result of our invasion (source: Johns Hopkins University), I guess the cruel joke is on them. At least they've been liberated, permanently.
So I don't want to hear another word about sending more troops (wake up, America, John McCain is bonkers), or "redeploying" them, or waiting four months to begin the "phase-out." There is only one solution and it is this: Leave. Now. Start tonight. Get out of there as fast as we can. As much as people of good heart and conscience don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept defeat, there is nothing we can do to undo the damage we have done. What's happened has happened. If you were to drive drunk down the road and you killed a child, there would be nothing you could do to bring that child back to life. If you invade and destroy a country, plunging it into a civil war, there isn't much you can do 'til the smoke settles and blood is mopped up. Then maybe you can atone for the atrocity you have committed and help the living come back to a better life.
The Soviet Union got out of Afghanistan in 36 weeks. They did so and suffered hardly any losses as they left. They realized the mistake they had made and removed their troops. A civil war ensued. The bad guys won. Later, we overthrew the bad guys and everybody lived happily ever after. See! It all works out in the end!
The responsibility to end this war now falls upon the Democrats. Congress controls the purse strings and the Constitution says only Congress can declare war. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi now hold the power to put an end to this madness. Failure to do so will bring the wrath of the voters. We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans. The opening page of my website has a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, each made up by a collage of photos of the American soldiers who have died in Bush's War. But it is now about to become the Bush/Democratic Party War unless swift action is taken.
This is what we demand:
1. Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost. Sometimes you lose. This is one of those times. Be brave and admit it.
2. Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security. We must commit to taking care of them so that they suffer as little as possible. The mentally and physically maimed must get the best care and significant financial compensation. The families of the deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of for the rest of their lives.
3. We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie, invading another country because you want what they have buried under the ground. Now many more will die. Their blood is on our hands, regardless for whom we voted. If you pay taxes, you have contributed to the three billion dollars a week now being spent to drive Iraq into the hellhole it's become. When the civil war is over, we will have to help rebuild Iraq. We can receive no redemption until we have atoned.
In closing, there is one final thing I know. We Americans are better than what has been done in our name. A majority of us were upset and angry after 9/11 and we lost our minds. We didn't think straight and we never looked at a map. Because we are kept stupid through our pathetic education system and our lazy media, we knew nothing of history. We didn't know that WE were the ones funding and arming Saddam for many years, including those when he massacred the Kurds. He was our guy. We didn't know what a Sunni or a Shiite was, never even heard the words. Eighty percent of our young adults (according to National Geographic) were not able to find Iraq on the map. Our leaders played off our stupidity, manipulated us with lies, and scared us to death.
But at our core we are a good people. We may be slow learners, but that "Mission Accomplished" banner struck us as odd, and soon we began to ask some questions. Then we began to get smart. By this past November 7th, we got mad and tried to right our wrongs. The majority now know the truth. The majority now feel a deep sadness and guilt and a hope that somehow we can make make it all right again.
Unfortunately, we can't. So we will accept the consequences of our actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness.
We demand the Democrats listen to us and get out of Iraq now.
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I replied to the previous post prior to reading this email from Moore in which I said, "That is exactly what the left wants us to do, give up..."
Moore: As much as people of good heart and conscience don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept defeat...
"cut our losses..."
Moore: Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost. Sometimes you lose. This is one of those times. Be brave and admit it.
"add a good dose of self-chastisement..."
Moore: Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security...The families of the deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of for the rest of their lives...We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie, invading another country because you want what they have buried under the ground...The majority now feel a deep sadness and guilt and a hope that somehow we can make make it all right again. Unfortunately, we can't. So we will accept the consequences of our actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness."
"mind our own business"
Moore: We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans
"and opening the door to the full fledged civil war in Iraq they've bemoaned for the past year."
Moore: When the civil war is over, we will have to help rebuild Iraq.
So many questions on this pathetic tirade where does one start? How about, is it not rather callous and hypocritical to repeatedly throw tantrums over an alleged 髧,000' dead Iraqis and then resign oneself - in a rather cavalier way - to civil war?
And then we had a bloody civil war. That's what happens.
On his Afghanistan remarks, is Moore saying after the bad guys win in Iraq it will then be ok to come in and defeat the bad guys so everyone can live happily ever after?
Can anyone explain this mindset?Mathatmacoat answered on 11/29/06:Yes get out now, you have bigger fish to fry, you are going to need all your troops to repel mexicans | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/28/06 - Are you prepared for a cold bath? Antarctic ice shelf 'might break off'
November 29, 2006 - 7:44AM
The Ross Ice Shelf, a massive piece of ice the size of France, could break off without warning causing a dramatic rise in sea levels, warn New Zealand scientists working in Antarctica.
A New Zealand-led ice drilling team has recovered three million years of climate history from samples which gives clues as to what may happen in the future.
Initial analysis of sea-floor cores near Scott Base suggest the Ross Ice Shelf had collapsed in the past and had probably done so suddenly.
The team's co-chief scientist, Tim Naish, told The Press newspaper the sediment record was important because it provided crucial evidence about how the Ross Ice Shelf would react to climate change, with potential to dramatically increase sea levels.
"If the past is any indication of the future, then the ice shelf will collapse," he said.
"If the ice shelf goes, then what about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet? What we've learnt from the Antarctic Peninsula is when once buttressing ice sheets go, the glaciers feeding them move faster and that's the thing that isn't so cheery."
Antarctica stores 90 per cent of the world's fresh water, with the West Antarctic Ice Sheet holding an estimated 30 million cubic kilometres.
In January, British Antarctic Survey researchers predicted that its collapse would make sea levels rise by at least 5 metres, with other estimates predicting a rise of up to 17 metres.
Dr Naish, a sedimentologist with the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, said one day the drilling team retrieved a core of 83 metres, far greater than expected, which contained climate records spanning about 500,000 years.
"We're really getting everything we've dreamed of. What we're getting is a pretty detailed history of the ice shelf," he said.
"You go from full glacial conditions to open ocean conditions very abruptly. It doesn't surprise us that much that the transition was dramatic."
Scientists knew from the collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf in 2002 that expanses of ice could collapse "extremely quickly".
Once dating of the sample was completed, researchers would be able to look at what the ice shelf was doing during periods when scientists knew from other evidence that it was 2 to 4 degrees celsius warmer than today, Dr Naish said.
2006 AAP Mathatmacoat answered on 11/29/06:Not a problem I moved from the seaboard years ago in anticipation of sea level rise and associated problems. All those who, like King Canute, are saying the sea can go no further are in for a big suprise | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 11/17/06 - ONE vs THE OTHER:
What's the REAL difference between the President of a Nation and a Dictator of a Nation? (Remember the line-item veto comes into play)
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/19/06:In this present world situation not much. It seems when someone is given the position of President it is too much and they become meglomaniacs. How many have been in this supreme leadership position whatever it is called and become despots. We have quite a few in the world right now. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/17/06 - A question on Climate Change? Does this happen very fifteen hundred years? Every Century? Every Millenium?
Siberian heatwave brings chilling warning
Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
November 18, 2006
SIBERIA is basking in its warmest November for 70 years, putting its permafrost, wildlife and even the human population at risk.
Russian scientists warned on Thursday that southern Siberia, already known as one of the fastest warming regions on the planet, is facing grave consequences as a result of the unnaturally temperate start to its typically harsh winter.
November is normally a month when silence swathes the vast evergreen forests as migratory birds depart for warmer climes and resident mammals settle down to hibernate.
This year, though, the forests are alive with uneasy sound. Bears and badgers have yet to hibernate, while hares, whose coats have changed from grey to white in anticipation of snow, have become easy prey.
Even the plants seem confused. For the first time in memory, dandelions and raspberries have bloomed in several parts.
Some areas are recording highs of 12 degrees, with temperatures across southern Siberia seven to 10 degrees warmer than normal.
A 984,000-square-kilometre expanse of permafrost has started to melt, releasing into the atmosphere large quantities of methane and carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Insomniac bears are roaming the forests of south-western Siberia, scaring local people, as the weather stays too warm for the animals to fall into their usual winter slumber.
The furry mammals escape harsh winters by going to sleep in October-November for about six months, but in the snowless Kemerovo region where the weather is unseasonably warm, bears have no desire yet to hibernate.
If snow does not fall for another month, there is a risk that some bears and badgers could starve to death. "The longer these animals stay awake the less fat they accumulated over the summer to prepare for hibernation will be left," said Anatoly Lobanchuk, head of the veterinary department in the southern Siberian region of Kemerovo.
The situation is of even greater concern in northern Siberia. Ice packs are failing to form, forcing polar bears, seals and walruses to remain on land, disrupting breeding cycles.
Telegraph, London; Reuters Mathatmacoat answered on 11/19/06:These are most disturbing developments, we know there was a warming period maybe 500 BC and a small one perhaps a thousand years ago, but we don't know what triggered them. The factor that is different is the concentrations of carbon dioxide are much higher now, the factors are not the same even though the outcomes might appear similar | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/19/06 - The Idea would be wildly unpopular with who? Only the US and Australia
US pours scorn on international greenhouse tax proposal
Peter Hartcher Political Editor in Hanoi
November 20, 2006
THE US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has described as unacceptable a French proposal to tax the imports of countries that refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol.
In the sharpest divide yet between the two main global approaches to dealing with climate change, Dr Rice said the idea would be "wildly unpopular" and predicted it would never be implemented.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, has claimed strong and unanimous support for his greenhouse policies from the summit of 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum leaders in Hanoi.
Mr Howard's position, which is identical to that of the US, stresses what he called yesterday "a balanced approach" that addresses climate change and energy security, not sacrificing economic growth in the interests of environmental responsibility.
He said he had the vocal support of the US President, George Bush, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and the Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, at the summit yesterday, and that no dissenting voices were raised.
Dr Rice's position is the first high-level US response to the French proposal last week. It marks a new level of tension between the European proscriptive approach to global warming and the US and Australian emphasis on voluntary, technology-based solutions.
Portraying the idea as anti-growth, Dr Rice told the Herald: "I don't think that would be a particularly useful or acceptable proposal in a world economy that is highly dependent on economic growth in the US and, increasingly, on economic growth in China."
The French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, proposed the tax as a Europe-wide measure to penalise what he called "environmental dumping".
It would be imposed on countries that did not agree to the carbon emissions limits decided for the Kyoto Protocol's next phase, from 2012.
"We have decided to reinforce the principle that the polluter pays," Mr de Villepin said. His proposed tax would hit exports from Australia if Canberra stayed outside the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr de Villepin's proposal, and Dr Rice's response, shows the potential for trade wars in the differing policy responses to global warming.
Mr Howard said he had spoken to the other Asia-Pacific leaders on the central importance of technological solutions, the desirability of nuclear power and the importance of the AP6 group, a kind of counter-Kyoto group that embraces Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the US and rejects proscriptive approaches.
"I reminded them to think about what their economies were like 30 years ago" and how they had been revolutionised by information technology.
"Think what technology can do to transform the environmental consequences of the use of fossil fuels."
When Mathatmacoat answered on 11/19/06:Let's not bother with the opinions of a has been, for Condi the run is all down hill from here | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/17/06 - Oh, it's us who are wrong, could it be the US is wrong? You're wrong on war: Rice
November 18, 2006
Dr Rice the US Secretary of State said withdrawal from Iraq would be irresponsible.
Hasty Iraq exit would taint US status:
PM THE US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has criticised as irresponsible the policy of the Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, to immediately withdraw Australian forces from Iraq.
Dr Rice said in an interview with the Herald that the US was unhappy with the lack of progress in Iraq and was taking "a fresh look", but it would not be making any precipitate withdrawal of troops.
"We do not believe that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq is going to do anything but cause chaos in Iraq; and I think that responsible voices are saying that from across the political spectrum, whether people favoured the war or didn't favour the war," she said when specifically asked about Labor's policy. "I think a precipitate withdrawal would be irresponsible. The Iraqis themselves recognise that."
She said the US's policy review would "recognise that, four years into the conflict, we do need to address problems in the way that this has evolved, and find solutions to what is a new phase with a new government that's very determined to have a lot of responsibility for its own affairs."
With the prospect of Australian and New Zealand intervention in Tonga, another South Pacific state racked by violence, Dr Rice described the spreading instability in the region as a wave.
She said yesterday the US greatly appreciated the Australian and New Zealand roles as regional stabilisers, but "I don't think this is a place where American forces are needed".
This seems to confirm a division of labour in the Australia-US alliance, with Washington happy for Canberra to take responsibility for the stability of the South Pacific.
But Dr Rice differed with her Australian counterpart, Alexander Downer, on the role of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in the world trading system. Mr Downer said on Thursday an APEC free trade agreement should be a "plan B" in the event that the global negotiations stalled.
But Dr Rice said that the APEC nations, which include Australia, should work towards their own free trade agreement parallel with global trade negotiations.
"I wouldn't even call it a fall-back. I think we ought to be pursuing both. I think to see the power of these APEC nations united economically would be quite something."
Dr Rice warned of a rising protectionist sentiment in the US. There was "an increasingly uphill American battle to stay on free trade". She said that it made it "ever more important" for the European Union and the major developing countries to show more flexibility in the ailing round of global negotiations.
"No one should take for granted that the US can continue its policies of very active free trade in an environment where there are questions of fairness of trade."
The US Secretary of State criticised the Kyoto Protocol as a way of dealing with global warming, even as negotiators in Kenya discussed a successor to the agreement for the years after 2012.
"Let's recognise the Kyoto limits haven't worked that well. People really ought to go back and do an audit of how the countries that signed up for Kyoto did - I think it'll be a surprising story. They're not going to make their targets."
She said the US was very active in dealing with the problem, and expressed enthusiasm for an Australian plan to promote climate change as an important item for next year's APEC summit in Sydney. "We are very interested in that."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Withdrawal from Iraq would cause chaos", let's get this straight, the cause of chaos in Iraq is the US foriegn policies in particular invasion of Iraq and the subjection of the iraqi people by the american administration. Why is it that the Bush administration is so blind. The answer is not to cut and run but get out quick. Did Vietnam suffer from a US withdrawal? NOT REALLY! the health of the population improved dramatically.
Let's also get something else straight, the US cannot expect Free Trade to operate if it is not a partner in the process, any withdrawal from this process will mean trade barriers against the US. We, in Australia, did not go through the pain of opening our markets, however small, to see the process abandoned on the whim of US politicians who don't have the guts to put their pocket where their mouth is. The US should realise that we don't really need them, our own inventors and those of Asia are far more dynamic Mathatmacoat answered on 11/19/06:Unrepentant to the end, when the helicopters leave baghdad, I wonder what she will say then | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/16/06 - Global Warming Happens According to a study by the Denis Avery and Fred Singer, adjunct scholars with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA*), human activities have little to do with the Earth's current warming trend.Warming and cooling seem to be part of a 1,500-year cycle of moderate temperature swings.
"The evidence supporting a 1,500- year cycle is too great to dismiss," said Singer, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia and president of the Science and Environment Policy Project. "Evidence from every continent and ocean confirms the 1,500-year cycle," added Avery, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute .
According to Avery and Singer, within the 90,000-year Ice Age cycles, the Earth also experiences 1,500-year warming-cooling cycles. The current warming began about 1850 and will possibly continue for another 500 years. Their findings are drawn from physical evidence of past climate cycles that have been documented by researchers around the world from tree rings and ice cores, stalagmites and dust plumes, prehistoric villages and collapsed cultures, fossilized pollen and algae skeletons, titanium profiles and niobium ions, and other sources.
According to the authors:
An ice core from the Antarctic's Vostok Glacier showed the same 1,500-year cycle through its 400,000-year length.
The ice-core findings correlated with known glacier advances and retreats in northern Europe.
Independent data in a seabed sediment core from the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland, showed nine of the 1,500-year cycles in the last 12,000 years.
Considered collectively, the author's findings are clear and convincing evidence of a 1,500-year climate cycle. And if the current warming trend is part of a natural cycle, then actions to prevent further warming would be futile, could impose substantial costs upon the global economy and lessen the ability of the world's peoples to adapt to the impacts of climate change. You can read their findings in detail in their book 'Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years '
More information here
[*The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D.C.] Mathatmacoat answered on 11/16/06:This is what I call a biased article, so we should ask who funds the studies of this research institute, I think if you look you might find the oil industry | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 11/13/06 - Have you seen the movie "United 93"? This guy, no ... Subject: Pilot's blog Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 16:31:32 +0000
This is the response from a retired Delta pilot in response to questions about whether he was planning to see "United 93."
I haven't seen the movie, yet, but I intend to when I get the chance. Retirement has made me busier than ever, and I haven't had the chance to see many movies lately.
As a Delta B-767 captain myself at the time of the attacks on 9/11 I was in crew rest in Orlando that morning. I had just turned on the TV in my hotel room only to see the World Trade Center tower on fire, and then saw the second airplane hit the other tower. My immediate reaction was
"Terrorists...we're at war", followed by the realization that we airline crew-members had all dodged a bullet; it could have bee any one of us flying those planes. As soon as the news stations flashed the first pictures of the terrorists I knew just how close and personal the bullet I dodged was. There, on the screen for all to see, was a man who had sat in my jump seat the previous July. His name was Mohammad Atta, the leader of the terrorist hijackers.
Atta had boarded my flight from Baltimore to Atlanta on July 26, 2001 wearing an American Airlines first officer uniform. He had he corresponding AA company ID identifying him as a pilot, not to mention the required FAA pilot license and medical certificate that he was required to how me as proof of his aircrew status for access to my jump seat.
An airline pilot riding a cockpit jump seat is a long established protocol among the airlines of the world, a courtesy extended by the management and captains of one airline to pilots and flight attendants of other airlines in recognition of their aircrew status. My admission of Mohammad Atta to my cockpit jumpseat that day was merely a routine exercise of this protocol.
Something seemed a bit different about this jumpseat rider, though, because in my usual course of conversation with him as we reached cruise altitude he avoided all my questions about his personal life and focused very intently upon the cockpit instruments and our operation of the aircraft. I asked him what he flew at American and he said, "These", but he asked incessant questions about how we did this or why we did that. I said, "This is a 767. They all operate the same way." But he said, "No, we operate them differently at American." That seemed very strange, because I knew better. I asked him about his background, and he admitted he was from Saudi Arabia. I asked him when he came over to this country and he said "A couple of years ago." to which I asked, "Are you a US citizen? He said no.
I also found that very strange because I know that in order to have an Airline Transport Pilot rating, the rating required to be an airline captain, one has to be a US citizen, and knowing the US airlines and their hiring processes as I do, I found it hard to believe that American Airlines would hire a non-US citizen who couldn't upgrade to captain when the time came. He said, "The rules have changed." which I also knew to be untrue. Besides, he was just, shall I say, "Creepy"? My copilot and I were both glad to get rid of this guy when we got to Atlanta.
There was nothing to indicate, though, that he was anything other than who or what he said he was, because he had the documentation to prove who he was. In retrospect, we now know his uniform was stolen and his documents were forged. Information later came to light as to how this was done.
It seems that Mohammad Atta and his cronies had possibly stolen pilot uniforms and credentials from hotel rooms during the previous year.
We had many security alerts at the airline to watch out for our personal items in hotel rooms because these were mysteriously disappearing, but nobody knew why. Atta and his men used these to make dry runs prior to their actual hijackings on 9/11. How do I know? I called the FBI as soon as I saw his face on the TV that day, and the agent on the other end of the line took my information and told me I'd hear back from them when all the dust settled. A few weeks later I got a letter from the Bureau saying that my call was one of at least half a dozen calls that day from other pilots who had had the same experience. Flights were being selected at random to make test runs for accessing the cockpit. It seems we had all dodged bullets.
Over the years my attitude towards the War Against Terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been known to be on the red neck, warmongering, rah-rah-shoot-em-up side of things. I've been known to lose my patience with those who say the war in Iraq or anywhere else in the Muslim world is wrong, or who say we shouldn't become involved in that area of the world for political correctness reasons. Maybe it's because I dodged the bullet so closely back in 2001 that I feel this way. I have very little patience for political rhetoric or debate against this war because for a couple of hours back in July 2001, when I was engaged in conversation with a major perpetrator in this war, I came so close to being one of its victims that I can think in no other terms.
I don't mind admitting that one of the reasons I retired early from Delta last May, other than to protect my disappearing company retirement, was because it became harder and harder for me to go to work every day knowing that the war wasn't being taken seriously by the general public.
The worst offenders were the Liberal detractors to the present administration, and right or wrong, this administration is at least taking the bull by the horns and fighting our enemies, which is something concrete that I can appreciate. Nobody was taking this war seriously, and it seems everyone found fault with the US government rather than with those who attacked us. I found that ncomprehensible.
I also found myself being scrutinized by TSA screeners more and more every day when I went to work, and suffered the humiliating indignity of being identified about half the time for body searches in front of the general flying public who looked at the entire process as being ludicrous. "They don't even trust their own pilots!" accompanied by an unbelieving snicker was the usual response. Here I was, a retired USAF officer who had been entrusted to fly nuclear weapons around the world, who had been granted a Top Secret clearance and had been on missions over the course of 21 years in the military that I still can't talk about without fear of prosecution by the DoD, who was being scanned by a flunky TSA screener looking for any sign of a pen knife or nail file on my person.
It wasn't until six months after my retirement when my wife and I flew to Key West, FL last November that I was finally able to rid myself of the visage of Mohammad Atta sitting behind me on my jumpseat, watching my every action in the cockpit and willing to slit my throat at the slightest provocation. I missed being a headline by a mere 47 days, and could very well have been among the aircrew casualties on 9/11 had one of my flights on my monthly schedule been a transcontinental flight from Boston or New York to the west coast on the 11th of September. Very few people know that, while only four airliners crashed that day, four more were targeted, and two of them were Delta flights. The only reason these four weren't involved is because they either had minor maintenance problems which delayed them at the gate or they were scheduled to depart after the FAA decided to ground all flights. Theirs are the pilots and flight attendants who REALLY dodged the bullet that day, and my faith in a higher power is restored as a result.
I will see United 93 when I get the chance, and I will probably enjoy the movie for its realness and historical significance, but forgive me if I do not embrace the Muslim world for the rest of my life. The Islamic world is no friend of the West, and although we may be able to get along with their governments in the future, the stated goal of Islam is world conquest through Jihad and it is the extremist Jihadists, backed and funded by "friendly" Muslim governments, whom we have to fear the most. We must have a presence in the Middle East, and we must have friends in the Middle East, even if we have to fight wars to get them. Only someone who has dodged a bullet can fully appreciate that fact.
Best to all, Pat Gilmore
Editor's Note: For some reason which is beyond me, some people do not want to believe this. Perhaps they do not want to believe that Jihadist terrorism actually exists, because it someone doesn't believe it yet, they never will. Capt. Gilmore himself posted this comment, in our comments below, but I will put it here for all to see:
I assure you this letter is true. As to the fact that I wrote that a holder of an Airline Transport Pi lot&nb sp;rating (ATP) must be a US citizen, I admit that I was mistaken here. I had always assumed so, because that's what I had heard, so I looked up the requirements for an ATP just now.
There is nothing that says that US citizenship is required. Okay, I'll bite the bullet on that one. I received my ATP back in 1975 and now that I think of it I do not remember having to prove my citizenship.
However, the rest of the story is true. As for my airline career, I worked for Western Airlines (who merged with Delta in 1987), Jet America Airlines (who was bought by Alaska Airlines in 1988), and Delta Airlines, as well as a few "fly by night" cargo airlines during my furlough period from Western from 1981 - 1985. I also flew in Vietnam as a transport pilot and retired from the USAF Reserve in 1991 after the Gulf War. I have 21,500+ flight hours in T-41, T-37, T-38, C-141/L-300, CE-500, CV-440, MD-80/82, B-727, B-737, B-757, and B-767 aircraft, all logged between 1970 and 2005 when I retired from Delta.
Trust me, folks, this was real. I must admit I am quite surprised that my letter made it this far on the internet. The letter was nothing more than an innocent reply to a group of friends, one of whom sent me a similar letter from another Delta pilot who had been flying the morning of 9/11 and who had experienced the flying that day for himself. His letter had detailed his thoughts as he viewed the movie "United 93", and he also told in detail how he had been diverted to Knoxville when the FAA shut down the airspace. My friend had asked me if I had known of any other similar experiences, so I wrote him what I had encountered myself a few months before. This was my letter to him.
Another retired Delta captain contacted me yesterday after reading this blog and related an experience his wife had on a flight from Portland, OR to Atlanta in August 2001, just a week or so after my experience with Atta. She was riding on a company pass and seated in First Class. A person of Middle Eastern" descent had sought permission to sit on the cockpit jumpseat, but was denied access by the captain because he did not have an FAA Medical certificate. She said he ranted and raved because he couldn't ride the cockpit jump seat, even though there were three empty seats in First Class, which the captain offered him. What pilot in his right mind would refuse a Fir st Class seat over a cramped cockpit jump seat? He stormed off the aircraft and they left him at the gate. You see, mine wasn't the only experience leading up to 9/11.
Delta Airlines Corporate Security even contacted me a few days ago to ask if I had, indeed written this letter. I wrote them back that I had.
They were worried that someone was using my name without my knowledge. I assured them I was the author.
Keep the faith, and don't let the bastards get you down.
Pat Gilmore Mathatmacoat answered on 11/14/06:I view these sorts of films as flag waving and propaganda, surely we have have had enough plane taken over by terrorist films without the need to relive the terrorfying last moments of some real victims | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/14/06 - Could this be the death of democracy in Australia? In a landmark High Court decision, the High Court of Australia threw out a century of progress and signed the death warrant of the Australian States which form the Commonwealth of Australia
The States are dead
By Tim Dunlop
Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 01:01pm
No matter what you think of the IR laws that were the basis of the High Court case decided today, the ruling is a blow to anyone who believes in the Australian Federation and the liberal principle that government power should be as dispersed as possible. Todays decision, granted by a 5-2 majority of the High Court, is yet another way in which political power in Australia is being centralised in the Federal Government. So while I have no opinion on the specifics of the legal argumenttheres no arguing with a 5-2 majority on that scorethe net effect is not something Im particularly thrilled about.
And when I say that power is being centralised in Federal Government, I mean the Federal Government, not just the Howard Government. As much as his boosters are loathe to admit it, one day there will be no Howard Government, there will be no Coalition Government, there will be a Labor Government in Canberra, and Mr Howards actions, which have precipitated this court case in the first place, have just handed that future Labor Government an enormous amount of power.
The issue, then, ultimately goes way beyond party politics.
To illustrate that, it is worth noting that two the dissenting Justices, Kirby and Callinan, are what you might call ideological opposites, but this issue has united them. Justice Kirby makes the point:
615 ...this is such an important case for the content of constitutional power in Australia. The majority concludes that not a single one of the myriad constitutional arguments of the States succeeds. Truly, this reveals the apogee of federal constitutional power and a profound weakness in the legal checks and balances which the founders sought to provide to the Australian Commonwealth.
Justice Callinan noted that, The act in its present form is well beyond, and in contradiction of, what was intended and expressed in the constitution by the founders.
I well remember all those Coalition politicians at the time of the Referendum on Australia becoming a Republic endlessly spouting the mantra that, The States created the Commonwealth; the Commonwealth didnt create the States, a mantra designed to stave off what they thought of as the centralising, anti-State tendencies of becoming a Republic. It is more than a little ironic that the Prime Minister who killed that referendum dead, partly on the back of the states rights argument, has just been the birthing partner to a decision that arguably does more harm to states rights than a Republic ever would have. Having helped God save the Queen, he has just helped hand a future Labor Government enormous power.
Beyond that, well, the ironies continue. Given that Labor is traditionally the party that wants to take power away from the States, as well being the ones keen to fight the next election in large part on Mr Howards draconian new industrial laws, I cant imagine that they are too upset about todays decision. Mathatmacoat answered on 11/14/06:You know democracy is dead in Australia already. How better to eliminate the Senate, the house that exists to protect states rights and democracy, than to strip away the powers of the states and then abolish them as meaningless. The States didn't create the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth didn't create the states, the "states" were already self governing colonies that yielded certain power to the Commonwealth. It was never envisaged that the Commonwealth would possess the power it does today | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/13/06 - The controversy rages I wonder if, now, Catholic nuns will remove their headgear in public too
Archbishop rails against Muslim veil
November 14, 2006
LONDON: The second-highest figure in the Church of England has waded into the row over Muslim veils, saying in a newspaper interview that they do not conform to "norms of decency".
John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, questioned whether Muslim women should expect public acceptance for wearing the veil in Britain. "Muslim scholars would say three things," Dr Sentamu told the Daily Mail in an interview published yesterday.
"First, does it conform to norms of decency? Secondly, does it render you more secure? And thirdly, what kind of Islam are you projecting by wearing it? I think in the British context it renders you less secure because you stick out and it brings unwelcome attention.
On the question of whether the veil conformed to norms of decency, he said: "I don't think it does conform."
The archbishop said he removed his cross when visiting mosques or synagogues and covered his head in Sikh temples "because I am going into someone else's home And I can't simply say, 'Take me as I am, whether you like it or not'.
"In British society you can wear what you want, but you can't expect British society to be reconfigured around you. No minority can expect to impose this on the public or civic life."
Integration of Muslims into Britain and extremists' links to violence came to the fore after the London bombings last year. The issue flared again last month when the former foreign secretary Jack Straw said he asked women visiting his constituency office to remove the full face veil.
Agence France-Presse
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/14/06:Don't be silly, you know the politics of political correctness would never go that far | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 11/07/06 - SHOULD I VOTE?
Since there's been so much corruption on all levels of government and corporations, why should I vote? This has been going on since the days of Al Capone. A virgin in politics will eventually turn into a gnome after he/she is in office a year or so. De-ja-vu anyone? Don't politicians have the ability to change their colors, their long sticky tongues, and their eyes which can be moved independently of each other? Doesn't this make a politician two-eyed? How about saying one thing and doing another? Why should I vote?
Your HONEST opinion, please!
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/08/06:Have a go, give George some support, he needs it | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/07/06 - It seems politicians and sleeze arn't confined to the US afterall? Sex charges: minister sacked
These allegations while yet to be heard in court would prevent him carrying out his duties as an MP and as a minister, that's why I am acting swiftly to dismiss him - NSW Premier Morris Iemma
Jano Gibson
November 8, 2006 - 11:59AM
NSW Premier Morris Iemma today dismissed Aboriginal Affairs Minister Milton Orkopoulos from the cabinet and as a Labor member of State Parliament.
The shock announcement follows the arrest and charging of 49-year-old Orkopoulos this morning for serious sexual offences, some of which relate to minors.
This is the third scandal to rock the Iemma cabinet in a matter of weeks. However Mr Iemma is denying that his Government, which goes to the polls in March, is crumbling.
When asked by reporters if his team was falling apart, he replied: "Absolutely not. Absolutely not."
Orkopoulos was arrested at 7.30am today by Strike Force Darook in Newcastle and taken to Belmont police station.
Shortly after Mr Iemma's announcement in Sydney, Newcastle Police took the former minister to Newcastle Local Court where he is expected to appear this afternoon facing about 30 charges for offences allegedly committed over a span of years.
The charges include counts relating to aggravated indecent assault, child prostitution, homosexual intercourse involving persons aged 10 to 18 and supplying prohibited drugs, a police statement said. At least 10 of the charges relate to sex offences against minors. He is also charged with supplying cannabis.
Orkopoulos is married with three children, and was first elected as the member for Swansea in 1999.
He has served as Aboriginal Affairs Minister since 2005, when he also took on the role of minister assisting the Premier on citizenship.
"These charges are extremely serious and warrant his immediate dismissal as a minister and an MP," said Mr Iemma.
He said the allegations would now be tested before the court.
Mr Iemma said he was not making any judgement as to the guilt or innocence of Orkopoulos by dismissing him but said he must face the court as a private citizen, not as a member of Parliament.
"The community must have full confidence in their elected representatives," he said.
"These allegations, while yet to be heard in court, would prevent him [from] carrying out his duties as an MP and as a minister; that's why I am acting swiftly to dismiss him."
Community Services Minister Reba Meagher will take over the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio, he said.
The Premier said with just 19 weeks until the election, a byelection would not be held in Swansea.
"I have asked adjoining MPs Matthew Morris and Jeff Hunter to help represent the people of Swansea during this time."
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Another reason why we don't need these ethnics here and how can a person actively engaged in child abuse administer a community accused of child abuse, you start to wonder what came first or who taught who Mathatmacoat answered on 11/08/06:I can't help but wonder, where does Labor get it's candidates from, how many now have we had who are poofers, pedaphiles or just plain queer. I think it must be a qualification, you can only join if you are not straight | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/07/06 - It's hard to keep religion out of politics out of religion? or even define the difference at times?
Game of religious semantics goes round in circles
Tony Abbott
November 8, 2006
RENEWING the Labor Party's ethical and philosophical foundation is a worthy and long overdue task. It's good that Kevin Rudd understands that it needs doing. His two recent essays in successive issues of The Monthly magazine are a striking contrast to the shallow and self-congratulatory speeches delivered by his leader.
Unfortunately, for someone who espouses both, Rudd has invested an enormous amount of intellectual energy attacking some forms of Christianity and market economics, at least to the extent that they are associated with the Howard Government.
Rudd claims the "religious right" has taken over the NSW Liberal Party. It's true members of Hillsong Church have joined party branches in northern Sydney, but since when has going to church on Sunday (even that church) been an indicator of political extremism? Rudd does not, in fact, think Hillsong members are outside the Christian mainstream but panders to the perception that they are.
His problem is not that these religious people have joined a political party but that they've joined the wrong one. It's hard to take Rudd seriously as an advocate for religious witness in public life when he often gives the impression the Christian church should be the Labor Party at prayer.
On ABC Radio National over the weekend, Rudd said "the starting point of Christianity is a theology of social justice". This is a novel re-interpretation of Jesus' twin commandment to "love the lord God with your whole heart" and then "to love your neighbour as you love yourself".
Of course, Christians have to be concerned about the vulnerable but the Sermon on the Mount is not coded support for compulsory collective bargaining. Rudd expects Christians to reject the Government's industrial relations changes as a matter of principle but neglects to point out that there have been 2 million new jobs since 1996, including 205,000 since Work Choices was introduced in April.
As another Labor leader, also a serious Christian, Tony Blair, said: "Fairness starts with the chance of a job." Even granting social justice advocates' perennial demand for more, halving the unemployment rate over the past decade combined with a 16 per cent increase in real award wages, and the recent $28-a-week pay rise is surely worth passing acknowledgement.
In a speech last week, Rudd invited me to answer his "key challenge to the centre right: namely, the destructive impact that market fundamentalism has on the family, the community and common goods such as the environment". But who are these "market fundamentalists" that Rudd finds so odious? If selling Telstra and Medibank Private makes the Howard Government "market fundamentalist", what about the Keating government's sale of Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank?
Why is deregulating the labour market (a process which the ALP began) "market fundamentalism" but deregulating the financial market not? Finding a perjorative tag for political opponents doesn't amount to a respectable argument unless it crystallises a sharp distinction between two sides. Rudd is trying to invest with theological significance what is, at most, only a difference of degree.
The Government supports markets but doesn't think they're perfect. The Fair Pay Commission exists to temper the excesses of the labour market. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission exists to restrain the excesses of financial markets. The courts exist to ensure that individuals can only exercise their freedom in ways compatible with equal freedom for others. No one, certainly no one inside the Howard Government, is suggesting that society should be ruled entirely by the law of contract.
Perhaps "market fundamentalism", if it existed, might have the dire consequences for families Rudd claims. The policies of the Government have made all households better off, according to NATSEM modelling released last week.
If Rudd's leader is to be believed, the only way to save the environment is to introduce a form of carbon trading. Presumably this is a non-fundamentalist market solution to the dire environmental consequences of fundamentalist markets. Or perhaps, in the Rudd framework, the very definition of fundamentalism is anything associated with the Howard Government.
To be fair, Rudd's deeper purpose is to rehabilitate the Labor Party with people who take their faith seriously and who think that communities can't survive without an economy to sustain them. Still, he's going about it the wrong way. Attacking the "religious right" and "market fundamentalism" will impress Labor's core constituency but is most unlikely to add to it.
Tony Abbott is the federal Minister for Health.
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/08/06:Ah yes, the one time priest and the would be messiah, the only question is which is which?
One day we can expect these two to be trading blows at the dispatch box, what at prospect, the abbott and elmer fudd, sorry, rudd | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/08/06 - Iran perfects the bomb?
Yes, according to this report:
Iran today announced successful testing of what it calls the worlds first bird flu-based weapons system.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, acknowledging that his nations campaign to develop nuclear weapons has ruffled feathers internationally, said Iran would abandon nukes in favor of bird flu bombs, which he claimed are just as effective and far less expensive.
"Cheap, cheap, cheap," said Ahmadinejad, who made the announcement with a brightly colored parrot perched on his left shoulder. "You just take some avian flu only the finest H5N1 strain of course swab it onto the tip of a missile and, kablooey, a million dead infidels."
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/08/06:And I expect he will use Hezbollah to test it on the Israelies | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/08/06 - QUACK.....QUACK? If it QUACKS like a DUCK?
If it WADDLES like a DUCK?
If it LOOKS like a DUCK?
It just might be a DUCK, ya Think?
Unless of course it's George Bush
The greatest DUCK of all time! Mathatmacoat answered on 11/08/06:I got a quack out of that | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/05/06 - Strange Diseases
Hello:
I wondered about the "disease" caused by Agent Orange. Of course, Agent Orange WAS a real poison. Gulf War syndrome caused me some concern. Now, there's this unknown disease that the rescuers from 9/11 are suffering from.
Do you think these are real diseases, or just ways to cash in?
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/05/06:Undoubtedly they are real diseases, particulate contamination and herbacide/insectacide poisons are well know. I knew a pastoralist who died suddenly after "dipping" his sheep, a process which required the handing of an insecticide, so I don't doubt the impacts of exposure to chemicals, heavy metals and particulate pollution | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/04/06 - I was wondering where the war is? Police seize scores of guns, ammunition
November 4, 2006 - 2:03PM
About 80 guns and 35,000 rounds of ammunition have been seized by police from a house in Sydney's south-west.
Officers found a "strong room" containing 65 unregistered rifles of various ages and calibre, some of which were banned weapons, during a search of the Sutton Forest property yesterday, police said.
Police also seized 11 registered rifles, two registered hand guns, around 35,000 rounds of ammunition and a large quantity of firearms parts.
A 66-year-old Sutton Forest man is helping police with their inquiries. Mathatmacoat answered on 11/05/06:The war is on the streets of Sydney, Haven't you noticed? Police stations shot at, homes fire bombed, people killed and when you enquire into the background of those who do these things, what do you find? muslims, lebanese, these people think they are still in Beruit | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/05/06 - How Bush can win once again! We didn't tell him earlier for the obvious reasons
Bush: woo the alien abductee vote!
Posted by Evan Maloney on Saturday, November 04, 06 at 11:45 pm
According to a study conducted in 2002 by the Roper Center for Public Opinion one in five Americans believes in Alien abductions, while 3.7 million Americans have been abducted by aliens. A potential slice of the swing-voting population in the USA.
My advice to George W. Bush is this: woo the alien abductee vote before the mid-terms, offer free counselling to any person of voting age who has been probed by an alien in the middle of the night and theres a good chance that both the Senate and House of Reps will remain in your parties culpable, I mean, capable hands. (Karl Roves response to this would probably be: Waste a time: any American who has been abducted by aliens is without a doubt already a hard-core Republican voter.")
Yes, there are some questions, too. Does anyone know if there were any UFO sighting before H. G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds? (excluding things like Apollo riding his fiery chariot across the sky) or did people just start to see UFOs after they had first been imagined by writers?
Secondly, how else might George W Bush woo the voters before the mid-terms? Mathatmacoat answered on 11/05/06:Ah at last an explanation, it was the alien vote | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/03/06 - Such largese is hitherto unknown? In a bold attempt to address the issue of reconciliation, whatever that is, the Government of the Soveriegn state of New South Wales, with a population of some 6 million people, 140,000 of them of indigenous extraction, or abstraction, according to circumstance, has decide to enter the area to address it's growing indigenous problems of riot, affray, general disorder and discontent. I am absolutely staggered by the sums of money put on the table here. These grants should be able to buy every indigenous person half a sausage at the next barbie, that is if someone provides the barbie.
Grants pool for NSW reconciliation.
4, 2006 - 10:30AM
The NSW government today announced $40,000 funding in small grants for programs to promote reconciliation between Aboriginal and main stream communities.
It is the first time the government has made all its funding available at once, in a bid to make it easier for community groups to apply for the grants, which are administered by the NSW Reconciliation Council.
Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Milton Orkopoulos said the NSW government over three years had previously handed out 37 grants, ranging from $500 to $5000 for reconciliation activities or events.
"By minimising red-tape, we hope more community groups will be aware of these funds and be able to utilise them more effectively," Mr Orkopoulos said.
Previous projects include the First Contact Memorial on Oxley Hill, overlooking Bowral in the Southern Highlands, and last month's Wollumbin Festival in the Tweed Valley, northern NSW.
Mr Orkopoulos today attended the opening of the NSW Reconciliation Council AGM, which runs until tomorrow at Darlington Public School in inner-city Darlington.
AAP
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/04/06:oh yes, reconciliation, I do think I have heard it spoken of in the corridors of power, somewhere in between desalination and chaplins for schools. It seems reconciliation is worth 1% of what chaplins are worth | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/02/06 - ???
Hello:
What hurts the troops worse? A botched joke, or a botched war?
I know what labman thinks. Bwa ha ha ha ha.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/02/06:fairly obvious isn't it | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/02/06 - ???
Hello:
What hurts the troops worse? A botched joke, or a botched war?
I know what labman thinks. Bwa ha ha ha ha.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/02/06:fairly obvious isn't it | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/02/06 - It seems Superman ain't dead yet he's just hiding out in Australia?
Mystery man in daring rescue
By Lincoln Archer
November 02, 2006 02:30pm
Article from: NEWS.com.au
THE hunt is on for a mystery motorist who jumped onto a moving semi-trailer and slammed on the handbrake after seeing the vehicle swerving across the road with the driver unconscious at the wheel.
The man was driving along a main road outside Cessnock in New South Wales at about 6.50am (AEDT) when he saw the truck driver slumped over the wheel of his semi, which was heading in the opposite direction, the NSW ambulance service has said.
The driver immediately did a U-turn, then drove past the truck and parked ahead of it. He then ran towards the out-of-control semi and leapt aboard.
"He climbed into the cab, pushed the driver aside and pulled on the handbrake," an ambulance spokesman has said.
The man called an ambulance and waited with the ailing truckie, a middle-aged diabetic who had fallen unconscious because of low blood sugar levels, until it arrived.
The spokesman has said the driver's action probably saved the truckie's life. "It was a huge semi so who knows what could have happened," he has said.
Without medical attention, an injection of glucose into a muscle, the truckie may have lapsed into a potentially fatal diabetic coma.
But despite his heroics, the Good Samaritan's identity remains unknown.
"He told the paramedics what had happened, then drove off. He didn't stick around," the spokesman has said.
It is believed the man is a miner and that he may have driven straight to work after his daring deeds.
"A lot of people are trying to contact him," the spokesman has said.
The driver was treated at the scene and had partially regained consciousness by the time he reached Cessnock Hospital.
However a hospital spokeswoman later said the man is in a serious condition in a "high dependency" unit, which she has described as "one step away from intensive care".
The ambulance service has said it is possible the truckie will not remember the actions of his mystery saviour.
He has said diabetics who have lapsed into unconsciousness are often "a little vague and disorientated" when they wake up.
He has said that even though ambulance officers had probably told him what had happened as he was regaining consciousness, "I doubt if he would remember anything about it". Mathatmacoat answered on 11/02/06:Hey Clete, is that fellow a relative of yours, I heard his name is Thompson too? | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 11/01/06 - A balanced view on multiculturism and immigration from a "liberal"?
Silver lining to Hilaly furore
By Chris Hurford
November 02, 2006 12:00am
Article from: The Australian
THE Australian people have rightly been up in arms over Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly's outrageous remarks about women and jihadists. But for all the fretting and wailing, there could be a positive side to the past week's events.
They may encourage political leaders to toughen our settlement policies and redefine multiculturalism. For too long, some uninformed commentators have preached diversity and tolerance at the expense of integration and social cohesion. That must change.
But first to Hilaly. The provocative sheik was clearly an unsuitable immigrant to this country. He came here in 1982 on a visitor's visa, which did not require an interview. A Liberal minister allowed him to stay on an extension to a temporary visa. But Hilaly should have been sent back to Egypt, where he could have applied for a visa. If proper procedures, including an interview with immigration officials, were enforced, Hilaly would probably have been denied entry.
In 1983 Bob Hawke was elected prime minister and my Labor predecessor wrongly allowed Hilaly another extension. But when I became the minister in 1985, I decided not to approve Hilaly's application for permanent residence or to renew his temporary visa. After all, he had a lengthy history of inflaming divisions in his community. He had made little effort to settle here, including by improving his ability to speak the English language. And he had persisted in offending, for instance, Jewish Australians in his sermons, in which he chose to get involved in the Middle East conflict, one of a number of old-world discords we discouraged from being imported into our society.
In the past week, columnists and politicians have speculated about who was right and who was wrong, and have sought to drive wedges between me and former colleagues. Paul Keating and Leo McLeay, the argument goes, undid all my good work and let their petty political interests override the national interest. To be fair, my former colleagues merely acted as any member of parliament would in the circumstances. Looking after one's constituents by introducing them to the minister is hardly a sin in public life. I do not know whether they went to Hawke behind my back. Nor do I know who made the decision to grant temporary visa extensions to Hilaly after I left the portfolio in 1987, before one successor unwisely granted Hilaly permanent residence in 1990. By then I had long gone to New York as consul-general.
What I do know is that Hawke removed my excellent head of department, Bill McKinnon, sending him to New Zealand as high commissioner a couple of months before moving me into another portfolio in March 1987. Hawke did not consult me about the McKinnon move. He told me that he wanted me in a more senior portfolio, community services, being vacated by Labor's deputy leader in the Senate, Don Grimes.
I believe the reason for these moves, and for the mistakes made because of them, are found in the then prevalent conventional wisdom that so-called ethnic leaders were complaining about the settlement policies I was pursuing and McKinnon was implementing.
The accepted wisdom was generated by a false belief that there were votes in paying homage to self-chosen ethnic leaders and continuing to muddy the real meaning of multiculturalism. My intuition told me they were wrong. And the vote in the republican referendum of 1999, in which significant groups of ethnic minorities supported the constitutional monarchy, (regrettably) confirmed that intuition: that ethnic leaders, with their personal agendas, were not representative of the vast majority of immigrants, who merely yearn to make a contribution to an Australian culture that they respect. But that was then. What to do now?
Well, for starters, we are in dire need of better settlement policies. That word settlement is jargon that describes policies devoted to integrating migrants into our society. It is very important that we, too, are happy about their settling here. After all, we need migrants to help address our economic and defence vulnerabilities.
We've made some awful settlement mistakes over the years.
One of the biggest was settling migrants in those enormous camps that spawned many of the ghettos in our mainland capital cities. After I took over the immigration portfolio, we closed many oversized camps. But the damage had been done. Some of that damage can be seen in the western Sydney area of Lakemba. There are too many in that Muslim community with inadequate education and training, and too many of them are underemployed or unemployed.
Another mistake is a more recent one: a development in the 20 years since I stopped minding that difficult portfolio. There has been a retreat from interviewing toughly and with good judgment those from overseas who apply to come here; but we must choose only those who are assessed as likely to integrate well. Furthermore, we have retreated from sending home more readily those who do not make the grade before being given permanent residence. They and we would be better off if that tougher approach were reinstated.
One of the reasons for the damaging retreat from applying the old toughness and good judgment has been the disgraceful outsourcing of so much of the administration to private-sector immigration agents. Since my day, this sadly has been adopted by Labor and Liberals alike. This policy is not only very unfair to poorer applicants, who cannot afford the large fees, but abandons so many of the necessary checks that need to be made to ensure that only people who are suitable come here.
Our leaders also need to define multiculturalism more appropriately. Of course, many of us want to feel a warm inner glow when considering our achievement of settling people with the cultures of 140 separate nations. That multicultural settlement has been aided by government programs aimed at helping newcomers to recognise that we respect their cultures and want them to feel at home here while pursuing chosen aspects of their former way of life, provided their contribution to our culture conforms with our core Western values.
By these measures they have settled better and more quickly, and have learned English more readily. Alas, some, particularly in the academic class, have gone over the top and converted the adjective multicultural into a noun, multiculturalism. They have left the impression that separate development of these cultures should be an objective of policy. But does separate development ring a bell with you? South African apartheid, perhaps? This has never been the objective of our policy, nor should it be. We are not, nor should we be, a nation of many cultures. We are a multiracial nation that strongly celebrates core Western cultural values of liberal democracy.
If the Hilaly episode helps us to toughen our settlement policies and turns us to developing a cohesion in our one-Australian culture, then there has been a silver lining to this dark cloud. A solution to the Lakemba problem will result only if we recognise our mistakes of the past. We also need to do a better job of encouraging Muslim integration into our and way of life.
Chris Hurford was a federal Labor MP for the seat of Adelaide from 1969 to 1987 and immigration minister in the Hawke Labor government from 1985 to 1987.
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I'm sure you can see parallels in this in the immigration problems of many countries today. Let's hope the lessons can be learned without repeating the mistakes of the past?
Mathatmacoat answered on 11/02/06:So what do we have here, someone who actually stood up to Hawke. I don't belive it. This is a case of hindsight, very belated hindsight. This fellow lost his seat in 1987, I wonder why | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 11/02/06 - Brand new book about the rescue dogs of 9/11 -- I just cataloged:
Dog heroes of September 11th: a tribute to America's search and rescue dogs
by Nona Kilgore Bauer, The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation
List Price: $29.95
Hardcover: 232 pages
Publisher: Kennel Club Books
ISBN: 1593789998
It's a "coffee table" type book with lots of beautiful photos of the rescue dogs plus text about each dog's role and efforts during the rescue efforts - a terrific Christmas gift for an animal lover. Mathatmacoat answered on 11/02/06:Just what I need, another book on dogs | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/31/06 - A storm in a teacup, perhaps?
World 'furious' over Aussie climate inaction
October 31, 2006 10:16am
Article from: AAP
THE rest of the world was furious at Australia's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the Greens said today.
A major report released in Britain overnight warns of economic and climatic disaster if urgent action is not taken to tackle global warming.
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change said action now would save about $US2.5 trillion ($3.25 trillion) compared with doing nothing, and would help avert catastrophe.
The report's author, British government Economic Service head and former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern, said the Kyoto Protocol should be seen as a first step towards global emissions trading.
However, the federal Government says there is no need for Australia to sign the protocol.
Greens senator Christine Milne said this worried the global community.
"The rest of the world community is, in fact, privately furious and despairing about Australia," Senator Milne said.
She said the Government just didn't understand the ramifications of global warming.
"When you come to climate change in the last five minutes as the Howard Government has done, I guess it is pretty difficult to absorb what those of us who have been studying for 20 years understand."
"It means the Great Barrier Reef dead; it means huge desert areas across the world, including expanded deserts in Australia; it's a massive sea level rise," she said.
Senator Milne said Sir Nicholas wanted to give Australia room to change its position on climate change.
"What Sir Nicholas Stern is doing is trying to create the space for Australia to change its position without losing face," she said.
But Australia had been given too much space already.
"What Sir Nicholas Stern doesn't understand is that appeasing Australia just encourages bad behaviour."
Greens leader Bob Brown it was a disgrace that Australia was not acting on climate change.
"Australia should be leading the world on climate change technology - we've got the best solar powered technology in the world. But it's all being exported to China and to Germany and elsewhere because this Government won't get behind it."
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Now I would have thought that if we have the technology and we were exporting it to the real polluters, this was a good thing, but appearently not. I think we are expected to turn the country into one vast solar cell, but who will turn the lights on at sundown?
Mathatmacoat answered on 10/31/06:definately, noone is interested in Australia's position on Kyoto, which is a european attempt to curb american economic imperialism.
Why would you want to turn the lights on after all we have daylight saving to provide light in the evenings and better things to do after dark than worry about lights | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/26/06 - Women responsible for fornication? Seeking to distance himself from his remarks and the furore they have created in Australia, a muslim mufti has made the situation even worse by stating that women are responsible for fornication 90% of the time. Tell me, do you think he is right, are women the problem in modern society?
Sheik fights critics from sickbed
Apology Sheik Hilaly in his bed yesterday.
Tom Allard and Alan Macarenhas
October 27, 2006
A LEADING Islamic cleric's explanation for his suggestion that women who were raped had their immodest dress to blame has been deemed unsatisfactory by the Federal Government.
The Lakemba-based imam Taj el-Din al Hilaly - said to be ill and depressed - issued a statement from his bed late yesterday saying he was shocked about how his remarks last month had been interpreted.
He was responding to a storm of protest, including widespread calls for his resignation, after he told a gathering that women were "weapons" used by "Satan" to control men and calling for Muslim women to cover their bodies.
"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?" he said. "The uncovered meat is the problem if she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."
Sheik Hilaly said the comments were made in the context of premarital fornication, which he said was caused by women ජ per cent" of the time.
"I condemn rape," he said in the statement yesterday. "I unreservedly apologise to any woman who is offended by my comments. I had only intended to protect women's honour."
The parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, Andrew Robb, rejected the explanation from Sheik Hilaly. "We wouldn't have this problem if Sheik Hilaly spoke in English. He has been here 30 years."
The Prime Minister, John Howard, described the remarks as "appalling and reprehensible", a sentiment echoed by the Labor leader, Kim Beazley.
Sheik Hilaly calls himself the Mufti of Australia, an honour given to him 17 years ago by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, but many Muslims do not recognise this status and have called for him to relinquish it.
But the federation's past president, Ameer Ali, backed Sheik Hilaly, saying he had used "over the top language" but remained "still the most knowledgeable cleric in Australia".
The Lebanese Muslim Association, which allows him to preach at its mosque in Lakemba, is considering its position. Mathatmacoat answered on 10/30/06:I could get myself into aweful trouble here with this one. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/30/06 - Why the Democrats cannot be trusted to run our foreigh policy The Democrats are loaded with people who have no clue about foreign policy .There are leaders of the party like Jack Murky Murtha who's brilliant plan for Iraq is to redeploy to Okinawa where our troops will be supposedly in a position to rapidly respond to events in the M.E.
Can he or someone like Harold Ford Jr really be trusted to make foreign policy decisions ? Harold Ford Jr. ;why single him out ?
Well because recent comments he has made have proven to me that he is unqualified to be a Senator .(the Aussies on the board will love this one )
Australia 'a nuclear threat'
By Geoff Elliott October 28, 2006 12:00am Article from: The Australian
Harold Ford, a handsome 36-year-old from Tennessee, has become one of the sensations of the mid-term elections in the US and a reason why Democrats are a good chance of winning back control of the US Congress for the first time in 12 years. But if Mr Ford, already a US congressman, wins his bid to become a more powerful senator, Australia had better watch out. Because according to Mr Ford, Australia has an interest in nuclear weapons and is part of the broader nuclear threat to the US.
He was speaking of the risk of nuclear proliferation which as we know has grown in the last decade. The article continues :
Yesterday he stumbled into gaffes on the North Korean nuclear tests and then mentioned Australia in the same breath as rogue nations wanting to go nuclear.......On North Korea, he claimed Pyongyang had conducted two nuclear tests, the first of which he said occurred on July 4. This confuses the ballistic tests Pyongyang carried out on that date with the single nuclear test earlier this month.
[He also erroneuosly mentions South Africa as desiring nukes .That was true during the apartheid regime but not since majority rule. He may be suprised to learn that they voluntarily gave up their program ;as did Australia ]
When the Aussie reporter attempted to get clarification Ford's handlers refused to allow it.
"You don't win us any votes," said his spokeswoman. And she might have added that it also means he is insulated from pesky questions probing his limitations on enunciating a foreign policy involving a trusted ally.
Now if asked ,Paraclete and Mathmacoat will tell you that Australia is and has been more than capable to build a nuke since the 1950s .Following World War II, Australian defence policy initiated joint nuclear weapons development with the United Kingdom. Australia provided uranium, land for weapons and rocket tests, and scientific and engineering expertise. Canberra was also heavily involved in the Blue Streak ballistic missile program. In 1955, a contract was signed with a British company to build the Hi-Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR). HIFAR was considered the first step toward the construction of larger reactors capable of producing substantial volumes of plutonium for nuclear weapons. However, Australia's nuclear ambitions were abandoned by the 1960s, and the country signed the NPT in 1970 (ratified in 1973).
Australia has 30% of the world known uranium deposits and one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world .I would shudder to ever think of them as a security threat to the US or a rogue nation.
Fortunately for us ,Australia is one of our best allies and someone who aspires to be a Senator of the United States should know that.Australians know that Australia since attaining independence in 1901 has always been America's absolute loyal ally .If I was an Australian I would not look kindly to an American who has aspirations of leadership placing an equivalency between them and a dispicable criminal rouge State run by Kim Jong Il . Australia is in fact the only nation post WWII that has actively supported the US in every major military initiative . It even sent troops to Vietnam (England never did ).Post 9-11 John Howard declared ""This is no time to be an 80% ally!" and he has backed up his words .It was Australia and India that assisted us in the Tsunami relief effort that rushed to the scene long before the UN managed to get boots on the ground . I guess that in Ford Jr's mind Australia is just another Bush poodle.
Certainly he should know before he speaks that Australia abandoned it's nuclear program long before it became fashionable to do so. Australia today does not even have a nuclear-power generating capacity. It has just one nuclear reactor, which is used exclusively for scientific research. (There is a growing debate in the country however over the need to build nukes for power generation .)
Certainly a gaffe such as what came out of the Senate-wanna be is something that the national press should've been quick to point out .They certainly would've seized the opportunity if President Bush had said something simular Did you see it on 'ABC World News' or 'Meet the Press 'or did Ford Jr. the 'dumbest man alive " during the Keith Olberman countdown ? I didn't.
Mathatmacoat answered on 10/30/06:stone the flaming crows, have you septic tanks gone mad or what?
you had better build a big fence of the California coast because the aussies are coming. What you don't realise is the Australians don't want America. When you have the best, why would you want second best? no, we'll leave you to the North Koreans and the Chinese, heaven only knows they need a better place to live. Yell if you need help, we know you will, need help that is! | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/29/06 - He has finally shown his true colours How many Muslins think the same but don't admit it?
Sheik Hilaly praises Iraq jihadists
By Richard Kerbaj
October 30, 2006 01:00am
Article from: The Australian
SHEIK Taj al-Din al-Hilaly has praised militant jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling them men of the highest order for fighting against coalition forces - which include Australian soldiers - to "liberate" their homelands.
In an interview on Arabic radio two weeks ago, the imam based at Sydney's Lakemba mosque said he was opposed to terror attacks in Madrid, London and New York but strongly endorsed fighters in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the interview, Sheik Hilaly pays tribute to Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood and intellectual mentor of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
"Jihad of the liberator of Palestine, that's the greatest and cleanest and highest ... jihad which lifts our heads (in pride) in south Lebanon," Sheik Hilaly says in the October 17 interview.
He tells broadcaster Abrahim Zoabi that he endorses jihad for liberation. "We are talking about ... jihad of liberating our land, jihad of Muslim Afghanis in their land - that's jihad.
"Jihad of Iraqi Muslims is jihad, but not when Sunnis and Shias are killing each other; that's not jihad."
The revelation comes as a neighbouring cleric from Sydney's Bankstown accused Sheik Hilaly of supporting military Islamic jihad against the West and called on imams from around the country to band together and force the mufti to step down.
Sheik Ibrahim El-Shafie yesterday said Sheik Hilaly was a follower of the Egyptian Islamic scholar Qutb, one of the founding fathers of modern jihad, whose teachings are seized upon by al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah.
In the radio interview, Sheik Hilaly says Qutb interpreted the Koran in the "finest manner". "Sayyid Qutb is an intellectual man who gave up his soul in ཾ (for Islam)."
Sheik Shafie told The Australian that Sheik Hilaly had since arriving in Australia in 1982 defended Qutb's radical ideology and praised him as a "martyr for Islam" and a "role model".
"Hilaly has since he got here (to Australia) been defending the ideology of Sayyid Qutb," he said.
Sheik Shafie said Sheik Hilaly's support of Qutb was effectively "encouraging" his followers to espouse the executed scholar's ideologies.
"And as you know, those responsible for Bali bombing are so called JI and (follow) the same ideology as Sayyid Qutb, which Hilaly is now defending," he said.
However, in the October 17 interview, Sheik Hilaly insists: "The thinking of the Islamic movement of jihad is the defence of honour, not jihad of killing innocents such as in London and Madrid and New York and Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt)."
And he adds, in the interview with Sydney-based Islamic community radio station Voice of Islam, "We don't condone, we don't accept anyone to kill civilians or innocents or blow up buses or whatever, not in America or in any place on earth."
As the Lebanese Muslim Association, which hosts the Lakemba Mosque, was last night still divided about how to handle the Hilaly crisis, Sheik Shafie launched a scathing attack on his fellow Sunni cleric.
Sheik Shafie said Sheik Hilaly was "extremist" who posed as a moderate for political advantage which ultimately gained him citizenship.
"This person is acting like a chameleon," he told The Australian yesterday. "The chameleon, if it stands on green spot it turns green. If it stands on a blue spot it turns blue - so he's camouflaging.
"He might say we condemn such and such but then on the other side, when he is with his followers in the mosque, he'll start expressing his anti-Western views."
Sheik Shafie said the nation's imams needed to unite to remove him as spiritual leader at Lakemba, where he presides over the largest group of Muslim worshipper in Australia.
As John Howard and Kim Beazley called for Muslims to act against Sheik Hilaly, Jamal Rifi, from the Australian Muslim Doctors Against Violence, pleaded with the mufti: "Please step down, I urge you to step down. Enough is enough."
The controversy over Sheik Hilaly flared last Thursday when The Australian published excerpts from a sermon he delivered last month in which he likened immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat and suggested rape victims were partly to blame for being attacked.
Aside from his strong support base in southwestern Sydney, the Islamic community has condemned Sheik Hilaly, and yesterday Queensland Muslims retracted an invitation for him to attend a Brisbane festival next week.
The mufti was scheduled to attend the Eid festival on Saturday to mark the end of Ramadan but organisers yesterday announced he would not be attending due to public outrage at his comments.
Organiser Sultan Deen said Sheik Hilaly had been asked not to attend because his presence would overshadow the event.
"It would totally take the focus away from what we are trying to do and what we are trying to achieve and we don't want that at all," he said.
The Islamic Council of Victoria has already demanded that he stand down.
Lebanese Muslim Association president Tom Zreika last night insisted that after a meeting over the weekend the body that runs Lakemba mosque had decided on a plan to handle Sheik Hilaly.
"The board has met. We have put together a plan and hopefully we can get ourselves out of this crisis," he said.
The Australian understands that the organisation will not move against their spiritual leader, fearing that it would cause unrest among his worshippers and hope that Sheik Hilaly can stay out of the limelight before heading to Mecca in December.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has vowed to abolish the title of mufti - the leader of the nation's Muslims - after new leadership is elected in February. Mathatmacoat answered on 10/30/06:Yes, he is a militant from way back. They should have chucked him out years ago. That Lakemba mosque has been a centre for troublemakers for years. "Scumbag" Keating kept him here to get the Muslim vote. Maybe the yanks are right, you can't trust those liberal thinking laborites | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/30/06 - Putting an end to a saga of hate and multiculturism? Sheik falls on his sword
Peter Hartcher, Phillip Coorey and David Braithwaite
October 31, 2006
PETER COSTELLO accused Australia's Muslims of tolerating a message of hate by Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly for a decade too long as the leading cleric stood down yesterday from preaching duties at Lakemba Mosque.
The Treasurer said tolerating Sheik Hilaly's speeches against women, Jews and the West had allowed him to influence behaviour in Australia, and could have contributed to the Cronulla riots and crimes such as the gang rapes led by Bilal and Mohammed Skaf.
"These kinds of attitudes have actually influenced people," Mr Costello said in an interview with the Herald. "So you wonder whether a kid like Bilal Skaf had grown up hearing these kind of attitudes and you wonder whether kids rioting down at Cronulla have heard these sort of attitudes."
Sheik Hilaly collapsed and was taken to hospital yesterday, then announced he was going on "indefinite leave" - the strongest indication that he will step down since he provoked controversy with his remarks on rape victims. Women invited rape by parading as uncovered "meat", he said.
Mr Costello said: "These views have been preached by Hilaly for a decade - he hasn't just had a bad day. I'm pleased that the Muslim community is finally dealing with this. I wish it had happened 10 years ago, frankly."
Under siege from some members of his community, Sheik Hilaly collapsed with chest pains during a meeting with the Lebanese Muslim Association to discuss his future at Lakemba mosque. Last night, he was in a stable condition in Canterbury Hospital, where he could be held for three days.
Outside the hospital the association's president, Tom Zreika, issued a statement from Sheik Hilaly - written before he was admitted to hospital - saying: "In due course I will take the necessary decision that shall lift the pressures that have been placed on our Australian Muslim community and that which will benefit all Australians."
He described women as "the cherished pearls, the dearest thing in the world" and said his likening of immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat was "inappropriate and unacceptable for the Australian society and the western society in general". He said this analogy was meant for the Muslims who attended the sermon and "not the general public and particularly not the general women of our Australian society".
The Prime Minister, John Howard, continued his condemnation of Sheik Hilaly, and Labor's deputy leader, Jenny Macklin, asked the Government to investigate whether he had breached terrorism laws by endorsing jihadists in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine during a recent radio interview.
The Australian Federal Police said they were monitoring the sheik but it was understood his comments about jihadists did not amount to incitement under the new sedition laws.
Mr Costello said the former prime minister Paul Keating should not have intervened to keep Sheik Hilaly in Australia when he was due to have been deported. "Keating wanted his votes, not just for the election but probably for branch-staking purposes."
Mr Keating refused to answer questions about the sheik yesterday, saying he would not be harassed by journalists.
Mr Costello added: "This sermon, it was preached to 5000 people, wasn't it? No-one seemed to complain when it was preached. It took a long time for it to come out. No people stood up in the middle of the sermon and said, 'This is unacceptable."'
Mr Zreika said Sheik Hilaly of last week "was not the person I saw this morning". "He was really, really tired and under the weather. He looked as though he was under intense pressure." Mathatmacoat answered on 10/30/06:The ole Pete is right, this only became an issue because the media made it an issue. Muslims were prepared to wear the bad attitude, afterall they had heard it all before and "The Shiek" was right anyway, by their standards the unbelievers deserved no consideration. Afterall they had discriminated against Muslims by making their rapists pay a heavy price.
This is where multiculturism leads you, into a mire where you no longer know right from wrong, where every thing is acceptable because if it is not then you are intolerant | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 10/29/06 - Osama joke to round out your weekend When Osama bin Laden died, he was met at the Pearly Gates by George Washington, who slapped him across the face and yelled, "How dare you try to destroy the nation I helped conceive!"
Patrick Henry approached, punched him in the nose and shouted, "You wanted to end our liberties but you failed."
James Madison followed, kicked him in the groin and said, "This is why I allowed our government to provide for the common defense!"
Thomas Jefferson was next, beat Osama with a long cane and snarled, "It was evil men like you who inspired me to write the Declaration of Independence."
The beatings and thrashings continued as George Mason, James Monroe and 66 other early Americans unleashed their anger on the terrorist leader.
As Osama lay bleeding and in pain, an angel appeared. Bin Laden wept and said, "This is not what you promised me."
The angel replied, "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you in Heaven. What did you think I said?" Mathatmacoat answered on 10/29/06:either way OBL has missed out, he won't die a martyrs death, Geogre isn't interested in him any more | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/23/06 - How much is too much? Howard's Pacific demands
The Prime Minister, John Howard, is in the South Pacific talking tough: if the region's impoverished countries want Australian aid their governments must govern better and stamp out corruption.
The main targets of Mr Howard's barbs are the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea both are at odds with Canberra over the Julian Moti affair.
The Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, is angry that his country's police commissioner, Shane Castles, (who was loaned by the Australian Federal Police) ordered a police raid on his office on Friday.
The raid was meant to find evidence that could link Mr Sogavare to Mr Moti's flight to Honiara on a PNG Defence Force aircraft this month.
By flying out of PNG secretly Mr Moti escaped proceedings in Port Moresby that could have seen him extradited to Australia to face child sex allegations.
Mr Sogavare who has already expelled Australia's high commissioner has labelled the raid as provocative. And there are rumblings that the Honiara governnment might pull the plug on the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission in Solomon Islands.
Critics say that while Australia's aid is welcomed, it should show more respect for Solomons' sovereignty.
Others, though, fear the island nation will again descend into chaos if RAMSI goes.
Another scenario suggests that if Australian aid is pulled from parts of the region, countries such as China and Taiwan will step in with fast bucks to buy diplomatic support for their rival causes. But do they have genuine regard for the long-term development of the problem-ridden islands?
Is Mr Howard right to lay down strict conditions on Australian aid? Or, as some Pacific leaders suggest, is he being too heavy-handed? Mathatmacoat answered on 10/26/06:These backwoods dudes don't like anyone telling them anything. The reality is they can't get it together because they have little experience in government. Australia now has three failed states on it's doorstep that it is actively involved in supporting and yet what do we get, critisism. All they want is our money, they are no more that prostitutes | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/11/06 - HERE OR THERE:
President Bush made a statement at his news conference this a.m. that went something like this:
If we don't beat them (Muslims/insurgents) over there, we'll have to beat them here (United States).
I agree 100%. How about you?
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 10/13/06:It appears George has not heard that Muslims don't float any better than anyoneelse. It has appearently escaped his attention that these people have little history of long distance seafearing and that there is an expanse of water between the US and Africa/Europe. The alternate route via the pole or Alaska requires the crossing of formidable natural barriers not to mention the hostile populations. So on examination this statement is unadultered crap. This is no suprise since Bush has been talking crap a long time.
What he is saying is the might of the US is insufficient to repel the few moth eaten camel herders who might be hopped up enough to think the trip possible. What a miserable excuse for a leader, a total defeatist. He is soft on border security, solving the problem is simple but there is no will to do it. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/12/06 - Global Warming alert Via National Weather Service
Earliest Measurable Snowfall in Chicago and DeKalbs History PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO/ROMEOVILLE IL 1030 AM CDT THU OCT 12 2006
...EARLY SNOWFALL HISTORY IN ROCKFORD AND CHICAGO AND DEKALB...
0.3 INCHES OF SNOW HAS FALLEN AT CHICAGO O`HARE THIS MORNING...BREAKING THE RECORD OF THE EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOWFALL IN CHICAGO`S HISTORY DATING BACK TO 1871. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS OCTOBER 18TH IN 1972 AND 1989 WHEN 0.2 AND 0.7 INCHES FELL.
ALSO...0.5 INCHES OF SNOW FELL IN DEKALB WHICH...DATING BACK TO 1895...IS THE RECORD FOR THE EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOWFALL IN ITS HISTORY.
TODAY IS THE RECORD FOR THE EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOWFALL FOR ROCKFORD AND SO FAR HAS ONLY RECORDED A TRACE SO FAR TODAY AT THE AIRPORT. IF ANY ACCUMULATIONS OCCUR...IT WILL TIE THE RECORD FOR EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOW ACCUMULATION.
Mathatmacoat answered on 10/13/06:there is climate change, 38'C in Sydney in October is unknown, and yet there are scientists who say it isn't happening. But that is a measurable statistic, documented, researched and confirmed. So what am I living in, an illusion?
I can understand why some people think this is important, I can also understand that some think the problem is too big and we can't do anything about it, but we can.
It's not hard just think;
Don't buy furniture, etc made from rain forest timber
Don't drive when you can walk, buddy up on trips, buy a smaller car and hire the big one for those special trips. You don't need to drive an SUV all the time
Don't use the Air Con unless you have to. Get a fan.
Don't buy products from countries that don't respect the environment. By the way that means China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, do your own research | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/13/06 - al qaeda has an unexpected ally? Canada troops battle 10-foot Afghan marijuana plants
POSTED: 5:12 p.m. EDT, October 12, 2006
Adjust font size:
OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.
General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.
"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. ... And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.
"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said dryly.
One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Call me a simple soul but I would have thought the solution was simple, use the Vietnam solution, and spray the country with Agent Orange, after all, there can't be any people there in such a barren place, can there, well friendly ones any way? Mathatmacoat answered on 10/13/06:hey what are they complaining about, it's not everyday you come across a cash crop | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/13/06 - It's not so much a war on terror as a war on culture? Howard's warriors sweep all before them
Peter Hartcher
October 14, 2006
THE leading Muslim cleric Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly was on the TV news a couple of weeks ago speaking about how important it is for immigrants to Australia to learn English. He was speaking in Arabic.
After living in the country for nearly 20 years, the voice of Islam in Australia was unable to speak in English. It was being relayed to the audience by a translator.
"It was really remarkable," says Murray Goot, a professor of political science at Macquarie University, who was watching it on TV at home. "Some people in the audience were laughing and even he was looking a little bit embarrassed."
For Goot it was a telling sign. "I followed Pauline Hanson quite closely and I was struck by the fact that, despite everything else she said, she never said that migrants should be speaking English.
"Yet we have now moved into this thing about migrants speaking English" - with the Federal Government mooting a tougher English citizenship test - "in a way that even Hanson didn't do."
This is not so much a critique of the sheik's linguistic skills as it is a marker in the progress of the so-called culture wars.
The idea that immigrants need to speak English, always strong in Australian society, has acquired an irresistibility. In 1995, the last year of the Keating imperium and while Hanson was still serving fish and chips, speaking English was the fourth-most important qualification to be considered "truly Australian", according to the Australian Social Attitudes Survey.
The top three? To "feel Australian", to respect Australia's political institutions and laws and to have Australian citizenship. By 2003, speaking English trumped everything; the percentage of people nominating it had moved from 86 per cent to 92 per cent. It is so irresistible that even an important Muslim leader who had not managed to do it himself felt obliged to prescribe it for others.
Australia has been reassessing its values with new intensity, and, says Greg Lindsay, the head of the libertarian Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US are a key reason: "In a period where the values which we're renowned for have come under challenge - especially from Islam - people are starting to ask the question, who are we?"
And, with new intensity, John Howard is providing the answers.
The culture wars predate the 2001 attacks, but the Islamist affront gives fresh energy and new purpose to the Howard Government's campaign to push back the boundaries of 1970s leftism and the remaining institutions of Labor power, to reshape Australia in Howard's ideological image.
Indeed, one of Howard's cabinet ministers, Tony Abbott, ranks this as the very highest priority in politics. "I have always regarded that fighting the good fight in the culture war to be the most important contribution one can make in public life," Abbott said yesterday.
Note that this comes from the Minister for Health and the manager of the Government's legislative program in the House of Representatives, onerous responsibilities yet ones that Abbott plainly considers to be second order.
Howard's speech to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the conservative magazine Quadrant on October 3 was much-remarked because of its ideological stridency. But much else is under way in the culture wars. There are two striking developments in recent months.
One is the sharp new cutting edge, not just rhetoric, that the culture wars agenda is assuming for the Government. In the year to the election it will bite especially hard in education and immigration policy.
There is a proliferation of Government ministers fighting the culture wars. Abbott has always been a warrior, together with the commander, Howard himself, and his other lieutenants: Alexander Downer, Peter Costello and Nick Minchin.
Yet we now see other ministers taking up parts of the agenda in an aggressive and public way. Julie Bishop's speech on schools reform, three days after Howard's Quadrant performance, was notable for its ideological edge: "Students should not be forced to interpret Shakespeare from a feminist or Marxist perspective." And the line in the text that she omitted to say: "Some of the themes emerging in school curriculum are straight from Chairman Mao." She chose not to deliver the Mao line, she says, because "after reading the room I decided to move on".
But Bishop, the Minister for Education, Science and Training and one of the brightest rising stars of the Government, will give a real-world edge to the rhetoric when she negotiates with the states next year a new four-year funding deal - the Commonwealth supplies 27 per cent of school finance. It will be on the proviso that they agree to a new national curriculum or, as she put it: "We need to take schools curriculum out of the hands of the ideologues in the state and territory education bureaucracies and give it to a national board of studies comprising the sensible centre of educators."
The states and teachers unions will resist ferociously. But, as with many elements of the culture wars, the Liberal Party has done its polling homework and Bishop knows she is on the right side of a popular cause.
"I know the Prime Minister has history wars and culture wars going, but this is about raising standards. I don't accept that we can be complacent with an international study showing that 35 per cent of Australian 15-year-olds don't have the literacy and numeracy skills they need."
The potency of this issue, however, is that while it is indeed a matter of educational standards, it is also a highly political agenda that will confront some of Labor's main power centres: the state governments and the teachers unions. And Bishop herself has made it part of the culture wars by posing it as, in part, an ideological challenge.
And what of universities, also in Bishop's portfolio? Howard said in the Quadrant speech that "we should not underestimate the degree to which the soft left still holds sway, even dominance, especially in Australia's universities, by virtue of its long march through the institutions." We can expect to hear from Bishop on the need for reform of the university sector before too long.
Together, the reform agenda for schools and universities will make Bishop one of the country's most important cultural warriors.
Another rising star of the Howard Government, Andrew Robb, the parliamentary secretary for immigration and former federal director of the Liberal Party, has also become a warrior with his discussion paper on citizenship. The mild-mannered Mal Brough has brought the warrior's chariot to the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio. Even the maladroit Joe Hockey, in a bumbling sort of way, sought to join the war this week by attacking the lack of work ethic among the unemployed.
The second striking development is Labor's attempt to do battle with the Government on values. Labor, long a bystander to Howard's victorious parade down the avenue of cultural conquest, has sought to enter the fray.
There were two notable Labor initiatives. One was Kim Beazley's effort to outflank Howard on the right. On the matter of citizenship tests, Beazley demanded that even tourists should be required to sign a form committing them to Australian values.
But Beazley was ridiculed, even within his own party. The reason? The electorate has long known that Howard is a conservative who has stuck by conservative ideals even when they were unpopular. When he speaks about values, he is seen as speaking his mind.
When Beazley tries to match him, it sounds like either me-tooism, or insincerity. Either way, Labor loses. This is fundamentally why it is impossible for Beazley to beat Howard in the culture wars as long as he seeks to fight on Howard's terms.
The other Labor event was Kevin Rudd's essay in The Monthly magazine, in which he sought to remind the churches and the Labor Party that the Government did not have a monopoly on the support of Christians in Australia.
Rudd yesterday gave this analysis of the culture wars: "The central rationale of John Howard's culture wars is to effectively mask the real battle of ideas for Australia's future: a battle between Hayek's ideology of me, myself and I, versus an idea that says rewarding hard work, achievement and success is entirely compatible with the idea of a decent society."
In short, while the Government is talking about Mao in the classroom or the laziness of the unemployed or the problems of Islam, it is not talking about its unpopular Work Choices laws. The culture wars can be debated as and when required as a tremendous subject-changing device.
Often, analysis of Australian politics requires the Zen principle: what is not being said can be even more instructive than what is being said.
But what to do about it, Kevin? "Part of Labor's challenge is to hang a lantern on the problem by exposing John Howard's culture wars for what they are: a masking device which distracts from the debates he doesn't want to have," Rudd says.
"The other part of the challenge is to continually define the real battle lines in the debate for Australia's future: between John Howard's rampant individualism as opposed to our view that in Australia we are still capable of achieving a balance between individual reward and social responsibility."
That will require Labor to seize the initiative. And that's something the Government, fighting the culture wars in rhetoric but also in policy, is determined to prevent. In any language.
Peter Hartcher is the Herald'spolitical editor. Alan Ramsey is on leave. Mathatmacoat answered on 10/13/06:Isn't that what the Muslims have been saying all along? This is a war on their culture?
I preferred the heady days of One Nation, the battle lines were clear, the enemy was multiculturism and privileged minorities, political correctness and leftist wankers. It may not be obvious but the battle was won, refugees are processed off shore, ATSIC has gone, English is the language, Australian values the norm.
Now we are unsure whether it's the enemy within, or the enemy without, we are fighting. There is a terrorist in every mosque, and an abortonist in every doctor's surgery, the population is called upon to have one for Australia, never mind the quality, the availability of education, employment, even basic care. Why we are even told not to worry about the drought, just move north to where there is more rain. Interesting principle, I wonder if our yankee counterparts think that philosophy is a great idea? | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/13/06 - NATIONAL DEBT ANSWER:
Collapse the multiple exchange rate into three rates. Institute a 'crawling peg' system of four monthly devaluations, different in each segment to achieve exchange rate unification.
(I couldn't make a clarification to the Board. So, I had to answer it this way)
Mathatmacoat answered on 10/13/06:what is this rubbish about National Debt and exchange rates. Yes there is a link but only for currency speculators.
Short economics lesson;
National debt is generated by selling Bonds and using the money to finance government. The money is borrowed at a rate of interest.
The economy is regulated by using various measures to apply pressure. Grants, Funding, inferstructure projects, interest rates, borrowings, taxation. These are all linked so that radical changes to one measure imbalances in the other and most usually inflation
Interest rates are adjusted to modify inflation and in the perfect pre Bush world taxation could also be used, but Bush lowered taxes and hey presto, interest rates rose to compensate. If you don't have National Debt you can no longer use the interest rate mechanism and goverment must get all it's money from taxation.
Exchange rates are determined by trade and internal factors which make holding the currency more or less attractive to various parties. Low interest rates usually mean outflow of capital to places where returns are higher and vise versa. They react to internal policy changes.
Lesson over.
The way to govern exchange rates is the trade weighted basket of currencies approach where the way you trade with others determines the exchange rate, this creates stability. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 10/09/06 - WAR ON IRAN IN THREE WEEKS "The aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason and the fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, is, as I write, making its way to the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it.
War with Irana war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle Eastis probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks. This administration, claiming to be anointed by a Christian God to reshape the world, and especially the Middle East, defined three states at the start of its reign as the Axis of Evil. They were Iraq, now occupied; North Korea, which, because it has nuclear weapons, is untouchable; and Iran. Those who do not take this apocalyptic rhetoric seriously have ignored the twisted pathology of men like Elliott Abrams, who helped orchestrate the disastrous and illegal contra war in Nicaragua, and who now handles the Middle East for the National Security Council. He knew nothing about Central America. He knows nothing about the Middle East. He sees the world through the childish, binary lens of good and evil, us and them, the forces of darkness and the forces of light. And it is this strange, twilight mentality that now grips most of the civilian planners who are barreling us towards a crisis of epic proportions.
These men advocate a doctrine of permanent war, a doctrine which, as William R. Polk points out, is a slight corruption of Leon Trotskys doctrine of permanent revolution. These two revolutionary doctrines serve the same function, to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to silence domestic critics who challenge leaders in a time of national crisis. It works. The citizens of the United States, slowly being stripped of their civil liberties, are being herded sheep-like, once again, over a cliff.
But this war will be different. It will be catastrophic. It will usher in the apocalyptic nightmares spun out in the dark, fantastic visions of the Christian right. And there are those around the president who see this vision as preordained by God; indeed, the president himself may hold such a vision.
The hypocrisy of this vaunted moral crusade is not lost on those in the Middle East. Iran actually signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has violated a codicil of that treaty written by European foreign ministers, but this codicil was never ratified by the Iranian parliament. I do not dispute Irans intentions to acquire nuclear weapons nor do I minimize the danger should it acquire them in the estimated five to 10 years. But contrast Iran with Pakistan, India and Israel. These three countries refused to sign the treaty and developed nuclear weapons programs in secret. Israel now has an estimated 400 to 600 nuclear weapons. The word Dimona, the name of the city where the nuclear facilities are located in Israel, is shorthand in the Muslim world for the deadly Israeli threat to Muslims existence. What lessons did the Iranians learn from our Israeli, Pakistani and Indian allies?
Given that we are actively engaged in an effort to destabilize the Iranian regime by recruiting tribal groups and ethnic minorities inside Iran to rebel, given that we use apocalyptic rhetoric to describe what must be done to the Iranian regime, given that other countries in the Middle East such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia are making noises about developing a nuclear capacity, and given that, with the touch of a button Israel could obliterate Iran, what do we expect from the Iranians? On top of this, the Iranian regime grasps that the doctrine of permanent war entails making preemptive and unprovoked strikes.
Those in Washington who advocate this war, knowing as little about the limitations and chaos of war as they do about the Middle East, believe they can hit about 1,000 sites inside Iran to wipe out nuclear production and cripple the 850,000-man Iranian army. The disaster in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli air campaign not only failed to break Hezbollah but united most Lebanese behind the militant group, is dismissed. These ideologues, after all, do not live in a reality-based universe. The massive Israeli bombing of Lebanon failed to pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 70 million people? As retired General Wesley K. Clark and others have pointed out, once you begin an air campaign it is only a matter of time before you have to put troops on the ground or accept defeat, as the Israelis had to do in Lebanon. And if we begin dropping bunker busters, cruise missiles and iron fragmentation bombs on Iran this is the choice that must be facedeither sending American forces into Iran to fight a protracted and futile guerrilla war or walking away in humiliation.
As a people we are enormously forgetful, Dr. Polk, one of the countrys leading scholars on the Middle East, told an Oct. 13 gathering of the Foreign Policy Association in New York. We should have learned from history that foreign powers cant win guerrilla wars. The British learned this from our ancestors in the American Revolution and re-learned it in Ireland. Napoleon learned it in Spain. The Germans learned it in Yugoslavia. We should have learned it in Vietnam and the Russians learned it in Afghanistan and are learning it all over again in Chechnya and we are learning it, of course, in Iraq. Guerrilla wars are almost unwinnable. As a people we are also very vain. Our way of life is the only way. We should have learned that the rich and powerful cant always succeed against the poor and less powerful.
An attack on Iran will ignite the Middle East. The loss of Iranian oil, coupled with Silkworm missile attacks by Iran on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, could send oil soaring to well over $110 a barrel. The effect on the domestic and world economy will be devastating, very possibly triggering a huge, global depression. The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, the Shiite majority in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey will turn in rage on us and our dwindling allies. We will see a combination of increased terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and the widespread sabotage of oil production in the Gulf. Iraq, as bad as it looks now, will become a death pit for American troops as Shiites and Sunnis, for the first time, unite against their foreign occupiers.
The country, however, that will pay the biggest price will be Israel. And the sad irony is that those planning this war think of themselves as allies of the Jewish state. A conflagration of this magnitude could see Israel drawn back in Lebanon and sucked into a regional war, one that would over time spell the final chapter in the Zionist experiment in the Middle East. The Israelis aptly call their nuclear program the Samson option. The Biblical Samson ripped down the pillars of the temple and killed everyone around him, along with himself.
If you are sure you will be raptured into heaven, your clothes left behind with the nonbelievers, then this news should cheer you up. If you are rational, however, these may be some of the last few weeks or months in which to enjoy what is left of our beleaguered, dying republic and way of life."Chris Hedges, blogging
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mathatmacoat answered on 10/09/06:Damn, he's early, you just can't get good help these days. What's a meglomaniac to do?
Does George want to go out with a BANG?. Does he think he can get more bang for his buck in IRAN. A perfect exit strategy for IRAQ, hey guys, you play here for a while, we are going to play next door and whoop the kid next door. After all, it worked in Saudi Arabia | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/08/06 - It's just not cricket, old chap? Al-Qaeda 'plotted Ashes attack'
By Andrew Ramsey and Simon Kearney
October 09, 2006 01:00am
Article from: The Australian
AL-QAEDA plotted to murder the entire Australian cricket team in their change rooms during last year's Ashes tour of Britain using sarin nerve gas sprayed by the men who bombed the London Underground.
A friend of one of the four bombers who killed 52 people when they bombed trains and buses in the British capital on July 7 last year told The Sunday Times newspaper that the al-Qaeda cell was initially ordered to kill the England and Australian cricket teams during the Edgbaston Test in Birmingham.
The claim was made by a family friend of bus bomber Hasib Hussain, who killed 13 people in London's Tavistock Square. According to the 32-year-old friend, whose family has links to a terrorist training camp in Kotli in northern Kashmir, the bombers were instructed to get jobs as stewards at the Edgbaston cricket ground and to spray sarin gas inside the changing rooms.
The second Test between England and Australia began in Edgbaston on August 4 last year.
The friend - whose real name was not published - said the attack may have been called off and the Tube bombings planned instead because one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, was a cricket fan.
British and Australian authorities were unable to confirm the claims last night, but The Australian understands agencies in both countries were launching investigations to check the information. The man said he would pass his information to police.
A Cricket Australia spokesman said team management had worked closely with security chiefs and the London Metropolitan police in the aftermath of the London bombings and had not heard any reports that the teams were targeted.
Terror expert Rohan Gunaratna said some of the information supplied by the newspaper's source was incorrect.
The source said that Mohammed Sidique Kahn and Tanweer were told of the plan at the camp near Kotli in northern Kashmir, but Dr Gunaratna said the men had spent time only in another camp at Malakand.
However, Dr Gunaratna said al-Qaeda had considered attacking sporting venues in Europe and had tried to develop the skills to use nerve agents such as sarin gas, but had been unable to achieve that capability.
Former ASIO protective security boss Michael Roach said such an attack was feasible and prominent sporting teams should be careful about enclosed spaces.
He said that because sarin gas had been used successfully in the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 12 people, al-Qaeda would consider it a potential weapon. "The fact is it has been used before with success," he said.
The management of prominent sporting teams should search and guard areas where the players gather, Mr Roach said.
Sarin is an odourless nerve agent that kills swiftly. It was first produced in 1938 in Germany as a pesticide and was believed to have been used in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Australia's limited overs cricket squad is in India for the Champions Trophy.
Officials briefed players about the story last night.
The Australian team was playing a one-day international against England in Leeds on the day the terrorists struck London.
At the time, team management and the Australian Cricketers Association liaised closely with CA and security officials over safety concerns for the rest of the three-month tour.
A bomb scare was triggered at the Australians' London hotel later that week when a bus was abandoned outside the hotel's foyer in Kensington High Street.
And the team received an email threat sent to CA during the fourth Test of that series in Trent Bridge, Nottingham.
Details of the threat were passed to Scotland Yard and a 32-year-old man from Stoke-on-Trent was charged with "making allegations with threats to kill". Mathatmacoat answered on 10/08/06:Now that's just going too far, murder on the hallowed turf. This means war, Pakistan is going down.
This shows how demented the Muslims have become. They would attack the only sport where they have demonstrated some ability to mix it with the rest of the world.
I just don't get it, why would they attack cricket. Is it in revenge for all the past defeats inflicted on them by the Australian and English teams? | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 10/07/06 - What dod you thing will happen if N. Korea tests???? Shots Fired Along Korean Border as Tensions Mount Over Nuke Tests
Saturday , October 07, 2006
SEOUL, South Korea Tensions mounted over North Korea's threat to test its first atomic bomb, with shots ringing out Saturday along the border with South Korea and Japan warning of harsh sanctions if Pyongyang goes nuclear.
With a possible test expected as early as Sunday, the U.N. Security Council issued a stern statement Friday urging the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions and warning of unspecified consequences if the isolated, communist regime doesn't comply.
Jittery nations have warned a test would unravel regional security and possibly trigger an arms race.
CountryWatch: North Korea
A midday incursion Saturday by North Korean troops into the southern side of the no-man's-land separating North and South Korea only stoked the unease.
South Korean soldiers rattled off 40 warning shots at the five communist troops who crossed the center line of the Demilitarized Zone, the inter-Korean buffer.
It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as a provocation, or was an attempt to go fishing at a nearby stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy. No one was hurt, and the North Koreans retreated.
While such border skirmishes are not unheard of, they are relatively rare. Saturday's incursion was only the second this year, the official said.
Meanwhile, world powers were stepping up diplomatic efforts to avert a nuclear test. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to visit Beijing on Sunday for talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and then proceed to Seoul for talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun the following day.
A State Department spokesman, Kurtis Cooper, said Saturday the United States was concerned about North Korea's threat to test its first atomic bomb and that the department was closely monitoring the high tensions.
Also Saturday, South Korea's nuclear envoy announced he will visit Beijing on Monday for two days of talks with Chinese officials about the threatened nuclear test.
In a separate statement from Tokyo, Japan's Foreign Ministry said it was prepared to push for punitive measures at the United Nations if the North goes ahead with the test.
"If North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test despite the concerns expressed by international society, the Security Council must adopt a resolution outlining severely punitive measures," the ministry said.
Japan plans to step up economic sanctions against North Korea, tighten trade restrictions and freeze additional North Korea-linked bank accounts should a nuclear test be carried out, Japan's Nihon Keizai newspaper reported.
The U.N. statement adopted Friday expressed "deep concern" over North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it is planning a test.
The council acted amid speculation that a nuclear test could come on Sunday, the anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997.
Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi told Japan's TV Asahi: "Based on the development so far, it would be best to view that a test is possible this weekend."
The U.N. statement also urged North Korea to return to six-nation negotiations aimed at persuading the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for security guarantees and badly needed economic aid.
Those talks, which involve the United States, China, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea, have been stalled since late last year, when North Korea boycotted the negotiations in response to American economic sanctions.
A North Korea expert in China, the North's closest ally, said only the removal of the sanctions could dissuade the North.
"North Korea has already made a decision to carry out a test," said Li Dunqiu of China's State Council Development Research Center, a Cabinet-level think tank. But "if the U.S. removes sanctions ... then tensions can be eased. Otherwise launching a nuclear test is unavoidable for North Korea."
The United States imposed economic restrictions on North Korea last year to punish it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering.
North Korea said Tuesday it decided to act in the face of what it claimed was "the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war," but gave no date for the test. Washington has repeatedly said it has no intention of invading North Korea Mathatmacoat answered on 10/08/06:the only thing the North Koreans are is a danger to themselves | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 10/08/06 - Animated map - shows the history of the Middle East in 90 seconds:
MapsOfConquest Mathatmacoat answered on 10/08/06:very interesting, about ready for the next persian attempt | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 10/05/06 - When ideology rules education Move over Chairman Mao, Johnny's on your case. Should governments dictate school cirriculum?
Canberra launches class action
By Justine Ferrari
October 06, 2006 08:12am
Article from: The Australian
A NATIONAL board of studies with control of a uniform school curriculum is being proposed by the Howard Government in an attempt to wrestle back control of schools from "ideologues" in state and territory education departments.
In a speech to the History Teachers Association of Australia today, Education Minister Julie Bishop will attack state education bureaucrats and accuse them of hijacking school curriculums, distorting them with "Chairman Mao" type ideologies.
"Some of the themes emerging in school curriculum are straight from Chairman Mao. We are talking serious ideology here," she will say.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) has called Ms Bishop's comments ill-informed and insulting, with AEU Victorian secretary Mary Blewett saying that the Minister's comments were "far from reality".
"Teachers are not ideologues or fad followers. They are educated, committed and caring professionals," said Ms Blewett.
And Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky has said that there were already similarities in state curricula as well as initiatives in place to develop national literacy and numeracy tests.
"But I really don't think that Canberra, by dictating what is essential in terms of learning, will actually make a difference to our students and indeed will not be beneficial for our students," said Ms Kosky.
In her speech, Ms Bishop continues to say: "Ideologues have hijacked school curriculum and are experimenting with the education of our young people from a comfortable position of unaccountability.
"We need to take school curriculum out of the hands of the ideologues in the state and territory education bureaucracies and give it to a national board of studies, comprising the sensible centre of educators."
Ms Bishop's attack comes after The Australian highlighted education bureaucrats who have failed to effectively monitor curriculums and the quality of education and who have become captive to teachers' unions.
Last month The Australian published the views of professor Ken Wiltshire, Australia's representative on the executive of the UN education body UNESCO and the architect of the Queensland curriculum under the Goss Labor government.
Professor Wiltshire argued that state Labor governments had relinquished control of any system that effectively measured the standard of what was taught in schools and teacher performance.
"Our school curriculums have strayed far from being knowledge-based," he said.
"Indeed, knowledge has been replaced by information. It is little wonder that the Howard Government's attempted reforms of schooling have gained traction with the Australian public."
In April, The Australian reported how literary study in Australia had been declared "dead" by Harold Bloom, one of the world's leading authorities on the works of William Shakespeare. After learning that a prestigious Sydney girls school had asked students to apply Marxist, feminist and racial analysis to the play Othello, the internationally renowned critic said: "I find the question sublimely stupid."
"It is another indication that literary study has died in Australia," the Sterling professor of humanities at Yale and Berg professor of English at New York University told The Australian.
Ms Bishop is calling for a national debate on the need for a common national school curriculum, saying there is widespread community concern about the content being taught in schools.
In her speech today, she will say that the commonwealth has to take the lead in fighting for a "back-to-basics approach" across curriculums and that parents are rightly concerned by educational standards.
"How is that we have gone from teaching Latin in year 12 to teaching remedial English in first year university?" she says.
"The community is demanding an end to fads and wants a return to a commonsense curriculum, with agreed core subjects, like Australian history, and a renewed focus on literacy and numeracy.
"The curriculum must be challenging, aiming for high standards, and not accepting the lowest common denominator.
"It seems we are lowering the educational bar to make sure everyone gets over it, not raising it to aspire to excellence."
A spokesman for Labor education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin accused Ms Bishop of contradicting herself.
"Julie Bishop has contradicted both the Prime Minister and the former education minister Brendan Nelson in her attempt to impose mediocrity on our school system," the spokesman said.
Ms Bishop says a national curriculum would be subject to greater public scrutiny and so would be more accountable to the community.
This would also remove removing the duplication of effort and resources currently spent by states developing individual curriculum.
She says the states and territories collectively spend more than $180 million running their boards of studies and curriculum councils to develop very similar curriculum in identical subjects.
"There are currently nine different year 12 certificates across Australia, each backed by separate curriculum developed by eight different education authorities," she says.
"Is it necessary for each state to develop a separate curriculum?
"Do we need to have a physics curriculum developed for Queensland, and another, almost identical physics curriculum for Western Australia?
"My comments are not directed at teachers. Our teachers are a precious national resource.
"Rather, I am critical of the social engineers working away in state government education authorities." Mathatmacoat answered on 10/06/06:oh no they are not having a go at teachers, not many of them anyway, just the homo, leso, pedo, pinko fringe who weedle they way into positions of power and try to turn the kids to their way of thinking. Has anyone ever asked where do all the tree hugghers come from in the uni vacations to make trouble and disrupt, they picket Pine Gap the picket the forestry industry, they picket uranium mines and they are teaching and sociology majors | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/29/06 - Yesterday WORSE than 9/11
Hello:
I always thought our rights were what made us different. And, WE are different (to those of us who see America as a beacon of light). To those of you who see us as no different than the rest of the world (and that's YOU Republicans), you're wrong.
I just don't understand. If you see Johnny hit Bill, and you say so at trial, then Johnny will be convicted. If you didn't see Johnny hit Bill (and nobody else did either), then Johnny won't be convicted.
The above has nothing to do with rights. It has everything to do with proof.
You wrongwingers think, that if you don't have enough proof, then instead of getting some, you think taking away rights will do the same thing.
It won't. As a matter of fact, it's going to be the downfall of America.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 10/01/06:I can't help feeling, excon, you are becoming increasingly rabid in your postings. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/30/06 - Shouldn't the shoe be on the other foot? Zawahri might be right, Bush may have failed to secure victory in the war on terror, but hasn't Zawahri failed also? Islam is under more scrutiny today and ever before and even moderates like the Pope are prepeared to say, however obliquely, that it is evil. Islam is fighting a war today it wasn't fighting five years ago, and all because of the actions of this man and his confederates, it has been exposed for what it is
Zawahri calls Bush a failure over war on terrorism
September 30, 2006 - 9:15AM
Al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri has called US President George W Bush a "lying failure" for saying progress has been made in the war on terrorism, according to a video posted on the internet.
"Bush you are a lying failure and a charlatan. It has been three and a half years (since the arrests) ... What happened to us? We have gained more strength and we are more insistent on martyrdom," the Egyptian militant leader said.
Zawahri was referring to the arrest of al-Qaeda figures such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"Bush, O failure and liar, why don't you be courageous for once and confront your people and tell them the truth about your losses in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said.
He also called Pope Benedict a "charlatan" because of his remarks on Islam.
"This charlatan accused Islam of being incompatible with rationality while forgetting that his own Christianity is unacceptable to a sensible mind," Zawahri said.
In a speech to a university in his native Germany on September 12, Pope Benedict quoted criticism of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who wrote that everything Mohammad brought was evil and inhuman.
The Pope said there was no room for violence in a religion based on reason.
Zawahri also urged Muslims in the same video to launch a holy war against proposed UN peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region.
"O Muslim nation, come to defend your lands from crusaders masked as United Nations (troops). Nothing will protect you except popular jihad (holy war)," Zawahri said.
The European Commission said today its President Jose Manuel Barroso and a top EU aid official would go to Sudan this weekend to try to convince Khartoum to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur.
The Sudanese government has repeatedly rebuffed a United Nations offer to send 22,000 UN peacekeepers to replace an ill-equipped and under-funded African Union force.
Sudan says the UN peacekeeping offer is motivated by Western colonial ambitions.
Reuters Mathatmacoat answered on 09/30/06:Yes the islamics have failed, they have failed to get the world to bow down and accept their views. The terrorists have failed to destroy a western economy. They made a dint, caused great disruption and hardship for a short time and suffered huge casualities | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/30/06 - ENDLESS WAR WAGED AGAINST AN UNSEEN ENEMY Since original poster apparently had no interest in responses here is this post again - with commentary of course.
"The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11, a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts -- Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia -- a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world.
Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued and, as our intelligence agencies have been telling President Bush, the terrorist threat has actually increased.
Unfortunately, the "war on terror" metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. Yet the war on terror remains the frame into which American policy has to fit. Most Democratic politicians subscribe to it for fear of being tagged as weak on defense. The "alternative treatment" of terrorist support has just been codified by Congress.
What makes the war on terror self-defeating?
First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.
Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush's global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly.
Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown by foiling a plan to blow up to ten airplanes, terrorists are best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.
Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between "us" and "them." We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.
Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation.
With American influence at low ebb, the world is in danger of sliding into a vicious circle of escalating violence. We can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor. If we persevere on the wrong course, the situation will continue to deteriorate. It is not our will that is being tested, but our understanding of reality. It is painful to admit that our current predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognize and correct its mistakes. That is the test that confronts us." George Soros, blogging
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps if the Jihadists wouldn't have unleashed their fury against innocent civilians, including the attacks that had already taken place across the globe for years prior to 9/11, there would be no "war on terror." Perhaps if the Jihadists hadn't declared a victory or death war on all the unbelieving 'infidels,' 'cross worshippers,' Jews - all of the west - and vowed to annihilate Israel there would be no need for a war on terror.
First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims.
How many innocent victims will there be if we do nothing?
Second, terrorism is an abstraction...President Bush's global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly.
Mahdi blows up a bus, Al Qaeda bombs a hotel, a Hamas suicide bomber blows up a crowded market, unprovoked, Hezbollah fires rockets into an Israeli village - what's the difference?
the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions...terrorists are best dealt with by good intelligence
The war on terror emphasizes doing everything possible to prevent attacks and kill or capture them. Politics isn't going to solve anything. As I've said before until so-called 'moderate' Muslims take back their religion and all the Madrassas are shut down the Jihadists will press on - facts acknowledged by the very report Soros uses to condemn the war on terror. Politics can't overcome hatred, as shown not only by the Islamists actions and stated goals, but by the pure hatred of the president from the left. They have no interest in working together for ANY solution, how can Soros have the unmitigated gall to expect a political solution to terrorism? The left's goal is no different from the Jihadists - power - and they don't care who they step on to get it.
the war on terror drives a wedge between "us" and "them." We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process...That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.
What pray tell, would remove that wedge between "us and them?" I'll tell you what, complete submission, that is the only thing that will pacify the Islamofascists. If you believe anything else you're kidding yourself. If the left would quit spending all their time and money telling the world how bad we are instead of how bad the terrorists are I have a feeling world opinion might be different. But since they won't stop I have no problem continuing the war on terror without them.
It is painful to admit that our current predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognize and correct its mistakes. That is the test that confronts us."
Typical, let's blame ourselves instead of those who truly are intentional perpetrators of terror against innocent victims. That is one mistake Soros needs to admit.
SteveMathatmacoat answered on 09/30/06:Let's face it Bush couldn't have called this war what it really is, the war on Islam. No he's not actually making war on Islam but since the people he is fighting are Islamic, that is what this war is in their eyes.
You cannot divorce the political and religious implications of Islam because they are interwoven so if you make war on an Islamic peopel you make war against the very ideology that underpins them. Their fascist philosophies deal only in absolutes. This is why it is an unwinable war, there is no one group or nation it is being waged against | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/30/06 - Is Maj. General William B. Caldwell IV in a stste of denial also ? Iraqis draw closer to self-sufficiency
By WILLIAM B. CALDWELL IV
Published on: 09/29/06
Let's put the bad news up front: Extremist elements in Iraq are vying for political and economic power and are seeking to take advantage of this delicate stage of transition in Iraq's history.
Sunni and Shia extremists are using brutal and provocative tactics against one another. Baghdad is the center of gravity for this increasingly sectarian conflict. There are also foreign terrorists infiltrating the borders, renegade death squads, an insurgency and foreign governments who seek to exert influence on Iraqi politics.
This, however, is only part of Iraq's present story. The violence belies the gradual but remarkable transformation this nation is experiencing.
Three years ago, there were virtually no security forces in Iraq. Today, Iraqis are standing up in military and police forces that number more than 300,000. In coming months, the coalition and the Iraqi government will reach the goal of 325,000 trained and equipped force members.
Quality is improving with quantity. In April 2004, almost all Iraqi forces fled in the face of a militia uprising in Najaf. This August, when militia attacked an Iraqi army outpost in Diwaniyah, the Iraqi army counterattacked and killed 50 militiamen.
By the end of August, Iraq's special-ops brigade, with U.S. combat advisers, had netted 1,320 detainees in 445 operations all over the country this year, including three senior militia leaders and 20 most-wanted individuals. This month, Iraqi forces provided a safe environment for more than 4 million Shiite pilgrims celebrating the birth of the 12th Imam. And it was Iraqi forces operating independently who recently captured a major al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Abu Hammam.
A functioning command structure is in place. This month, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki became commander in chief of Iraq's military in more than name only. That is, the Ministry of Defense and the Joint Headquarters who report to the prime minister assumed operational control of the Iraqi ground forces command, navy and air force. Before Sept. 7, coalition forces exercised control of all of Iraq's military. Now, two of Iraq's 10 army divisions fall under this command structure. More will soon follow.
Security will only improve with simultaneous political and economic progress. Under Saddam Hussein, government served the will of the dictator and primarily served one sect. Today, Iraqis are learning to share power and wealth.
Local governments provinces, districts or neighborhoods are beginning to take responsibility for their citizens. The government must work to heal the wounds of this fractured society by getting all factions to reconcile.
In Baghdad, several hundred Iraqi civil society representatives renounced violence this past weekend at the second of four conferences that are part of Maliki's overall 24-point national reconciliation and dialogue plan.
The Iraqi government met with representatives of neighboring and European countries to form an "international compact," aimed at getting help to transform Iraq's economy.
Iraq's new unity government is moving forward and will continue grappling with tough political challenges, such as how to balance power between central and regional governments (federalism) and how to divvy up the country's oil revenues. But Iraqis have succeeded in setting a road map for resolving these essential issues. We must maintain the patience to allow their critical efforts to come to fruition.
U.S. Army Maj. General William B. Caldwell IV is spokesman for Multi-National Forces-Iraq and is currently stationed in Baghdad.
...................................
I will not remove this question . All comments welcome
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/30/06:Rally round the flag Boys! | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 09/28/06 - TFAa Trans-Fatty Asses.
The NY Board of Health has begun the process of making the use of Trans-Fatty Acids illegal for use in restaurants. They unanimously passed a proposal banning the use of TFAs in restaurants in New York, and the proposal will be brought before lawmakers shortly.
All Hail the Nanny State of New York.
The basic concepts of free choice and personal responsibility are becoming endangered species in New York. And the majority of New Yorkers are (rather stupidly) going along with it. First came the Bloomberg smoking ban. Then Bloomberg's personal attack against gun ownership. Then there is the little-known "diabetes database" which is an effort to track diabetics and make sure they take their meds --- whether they want to or not. (Never mind that Diabetes isn't a communicable disease, and the only person hurt by not taking their meds is the diabedic.) And NYers seem to support these ideas.
What happened to the idea of taking responsibility for our own decisions. If I want to eat fatty fries or a Krispy Kreme doughnut, that's my choice. If I want to drink in a bar where smoking is permitted, that's my choice. If I refuse to take my medications for my non-communicable disease, that's MY CHOICE. And I have to live with the consequences of that choice. But why are so many people in favor of government regulation of these choices. (Notably, these are most often the same people who want the government to "stay out of their bedrooms" and "off their bodies" on the abortion and gay rights issues.)
What really gets me is that this ban on TFAs will have virtually no effect on the health of Americans in general or NYers in specific. It turns out that only about 2% of average caloric intake is from TFAs. And it doesn't address the issue of overall caloric intake, which is the real cause of obesity and a much greater contributor to heart disease than TFAs.
In fact, I suspect that if people believe that their fast food is healthier because of the removal of TFAs, they will actually eat more of it, and as a result they will get fatter and more prone to heart disease. Eliminating one specific (rather low-quantity) ingredient from our diets is NOT going to change our overall health. All it will do is make food taste different.
So in fact, the ban itself, while it might sound good in theory, is a useless jesture that serves only to increase the power of the Nanny State over the public... without any real benefit to the public.
So how do we fight this movement toward Nanny-Statehood? How do we get people to start taking responsibility for themselves instead of relying on corporations' warning lables and government agencies' regulations to keep them safe? How do we stop this trend toward Socialism and Big Government, and litigation/punishment of corporations for giving people what they want?
What's next? A ban on sugar? Meatless burgers? A soda prohibition?
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 09/29/06:TFA's have these replaced SFA's | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/28/06 - How well do you know your politics? match the quote with the quoter
It's tough to beat Bush's talent for cynical soundbites, but members of his administration have tried. Can you tell which quotes are truly presidential? match the quotes to their sources.
A. Vice President Dick Cheney telling a group of General Motors executives why the Bush administration opposes increasing automotive fuel-economy standards, June 18, 2001
B. George W. Bush expressing his support of domestic production of natural gas, December 20, 2000
C. George W. Bush explaining the California energy crisis to the New York Times, January 14, 2001
D. E-mail from senior Energy Department official Joseph Kelliher to a natural-gas industry lobbyist, March 18, 2001
E. Mike Smith, assistant secretary for fossil fuels at the Department of Energy, speaking to the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, January 30, 2002
F. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, April 9, 2002, explaining why she drives a Jeep that gets less than 20 miles to the gallon
1. "The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of the generating plants."
2. "I think we have to be very careful not to pass artificial, unfair standards that sound nice."
3. "If you were King, or II Duce, what would you include in a national energy policy, especially with respect to natural-gas issues?"
4. "Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods."
5. "It's probably not that fuel-efficient. But it's great for getting around in the snow in Colorado."
6. "The biggest challenge is going to be how to best utilize taxpayer dollars to the benefit of industry." Mathatmacoat answered on 09/29/06:Let's see now
A 2, B 4, C 1, D 3, E 6, F 5.
stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, need I say more | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/26/06 - If I were you - I'd move!
Hello Wingers:
You think Bush has made you safer. Youre wrong very wrong!! He is endangering the future of your country and your family.
He has categorized Saudi Arabia, the prime financier and propagator of jihad, as its ally. It has labeled Egypt, the epicenter of jihadist propaganda and incitement, a paragon of moderation and a stalwart ally.
Then there is Pakistan, which created the Taliban and has served as a refuge for Osama bin Laden since November 2001. Pakistan, too, is labeled a great ally, as are the Europeans and the Russians.
Bushs refusal to acknowledge the difference between its enemies and its allies was most pronounced last week in the president's meetings with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Musharraf signed an accord with the Taliban that gave the group control over the Pakistani territories of north and south Waziristan. This agreement, which also involved Pakistan's release of some 2,500 Taliban and al-Qaida fighters from prison, is the Taliban's and al-Qaida's greatest victory since September 11, 2001. Musharraf's decision to hand Waziristan over to the Taliban and al-Qaida makes clear that he is a major enemy of the US.
But Bush refuses to acknowledge this fact. Bush met with Musharraf in the White House and praised his leadership and his strong alliance with the US in fighting al-Qaida.
Likewise, Abbas has gone out of his way in recent months to forge an alliance between Fatah and Hamas on Hamas's terms. He agreed to form a unity government with Hamas that would unify their terror forces under one command to better wage war against Israel. He agreed that Hamas would not recognize Israel's right to exist. Fatah itself, which he commands, has committed more attacks against Israel than Hamas in recent years, and was involved in the cross-border attack on Israel in June where Cpl. Gilad Shalit was abducted. Under the agreement he offered, Fatah would maintain its terrorist agenda.
And yet, rather than announce that the US will have nothing to do with Abbas, Bush invited him to the White House and praised his commitment to peace.
From my perspective, I think weda done better with a KNOWN flipflopper.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/26/06:Bush hasn't made anyone safer, not the americans, not his allies, and certaily not the Iraqi. Now I expect the Saudi are resting a little easier with Saddam gone. What a price, so some overstuffed arabs could feel more comfortable in their air conditioned apartments.
As to the Palistinians, they get the government they deserve, living in terror ruled by terrorists. What goes around comes around | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/26/06 - Thanks again Mr. President Saturday I filled my ྎ Toyota pickup with gas at $2.14 per gallon - another 35 cents less than 2 weeks ago. I hear it's down to $1.97 in some places. Thanks Mr. President. No, you say? It's a conspiracy, you say? Some say...
Don't be fooled by low gas prices
I've done it. I've figured out how to bring gas prices down: Hold a national election where the political party in control might get its butt kicked...
So, why are gas prices here at home dropping faster than the sales of Ford SUVs?
I'll tell you why. Dick "Halliburton" Cheney.
Politics and the Price of Gas
In the midst of the back and forth on gas prices comes a new poll from Gallup that shows large numbers of the American public are skeptical about the timing of the cost cuts. Forty-two percent of the sample said that the Bush Administration had "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections," while 53 percent said the price drop had nothing to do with the President.
Barrel of theories for gas-price slide
Retired farmer Jim Mohr, of Lexington, Ill., rattled off a tankful of reasons why pump prices may be falling, including the end of the summer travel season and the fact no major hurricanes have disrupted Gulf of Mexico output.
"But I think the big important reason is Republicans want to get elected," Mohr, 66, said while filling up for $2.17 a gallon. "They think getting the prices down is going to help get some more incumbents re-elected."
Fifty-three percent did not believe in this conspiracy theory, while 5 percent said they had no opinion.
Almost two-thirds of those who suspect President Bush intervened to bring down energy prices before Election Day are registered Democrats, according to Gallup.
Sounds like it's time to invest in Alcoa, as the demand for tinfoil hats is on the rise.
Conspiracy or not? Vote now...or just show me your hat if you'd like.Mathatmacoat answered on 09/26/06:well arn't you lucky, it's a $1.31 a litre here, that's $5.60 a gallon, thank you! MR BUSH! for your oil war. If there's a conspiracy, we know exactly what it's about, lining the pockets of the Bush family and his Saudi buddies.
| | Question/Answer | | twelfth_imam asked on 09/26/06 - Free Press? Is the US media under the control of the White House? Newsweek features 'Losing Afghanistan' in international edition, celebrity photographer in U.S.
Muriel Kane - Raw Story research director
Published: Monday September 25, 2006
The United States edition of the October 2, 2006 issue of Newsweek features a radically different cover story from its International counterparts, RAW STORY has learned.
The cover of International editions, aimed at Europe, Asia, and Latin America, displays in large letters the title "LOSING AFGHANISTAN," along with an arresting photograph of an armed jihadi.
The cover of the United States edition, in contrast, is dedicated to celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz and is demurely captioned "My Life in Pictures."
The International cover story begins:
"You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban. In Ghazni province's Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents. It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village."
The United Story cover story begins:
"Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue. Like so many of her photo sessions, there was nothing simple about it. 'I talked with Angelina before the shoot,' says Leibovitz, who's famous for her preparation. 'She felt like she was coming back from having the baby and she felt very sexy and ready to go.' ... There were 50 people on the set, and racks of clothes from the New York spring collections to be tried and styled."
The story aimed at the United States then goes on to discuss the difficulties Leibovitz had in photographing Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' infant. The International story continues with difficulties of a very different kind:
"In Ghazni and in six provinces to the south, and in other hot spots to the east, Karzai's government barely exists outside district towns. Hard-core Taliban forces have filled the void by infiltrating from the relatively lawless tribal areas of Pakistan where they had fled at the end of 2001. Once back inside Afghanistan these committed jihadist commanders and fighters, aided by key sympathizers who had remained behind, have raised hundreds, if not thousands, of new, local recruits, many for pay. They feed on the people's disillusion with the lack of economic progress, equity and stability that Karzai's government, NATO, Washington and the international community had promised.
"NATO officials say the Taliban seems to be flush with cash, thanks to the guerrillas' alliance with prosperous opium traffickers. The fighters are paid more than $5 a daygood money in Afghanistan, and at least twice what the new Afghan National Army's 30,000 soldiers receive."
=====
What / who is controlling what Americans are allowed to read in the land of the free?
Sensible answers please.
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/26/06:It would be good to ask is the US media under control, the evidence would suggest not, it is only interested in money and appearently war doesn't sell | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/26/06 - Fighting the war you can afford? Bush releases Iraq intel papers
September 27, 2006 - 8:26AM
A declassified government intelligence report says the war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that is likely to get worse before it gets better.
In the bleak report, released on President Bush's orders, the nation's most veteran analysts conclude that despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.
"If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," the document says. "The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups."
Bush ordered a declassified version of the classified report released after several days of criticism sparked by portions that were leaked. Asked about those Tuesday, Bush said critics who believe the Iraq war has worsened terrorism are naive and mistaken.
The intelligence assessment, completed in April, has stirred a heated election-season argument over the course of U.S. national security in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Bush and his top advisers had said the broad assessment on global terrorism supported their arguments that the world is safer. But more than three pages of stark judgments warning about the spread of terrorism contrasted with the administration's glass-half-full declarations.
The report said:
- The increased role of Iraqis in opposing al-Qaida in Iraq might lead the terror group's veteran foreign fighters to focus their efforts outside the country.
- While Iran and Syria are the most active state sponsors of terror, many other countries will be unable to prevent their resources from being exploited by terrorists.
- The underlying factors that are fueling the spread of the extremist Muslim movement outweigh its vulnerabilities. These factors are entrenched grievances and a slow pace of reform in home countries, rising anti-U.S. sentiment and the Iraq war.
- Groups "of all stripes" will increasingly use the Internet to communicate, train, recruit and obtain support.
The assessment also lays out weaknesses of the movement that analysts say must be exploited if its spread is to be slowed. For instance, they note that extremists want to see the establishment of strict Islamic governments in the Arab world - a development they say would be unpopular with most Muslims.
"Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists' propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade," the report says.
It also argues that the loss of key leaders - Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - in "rapid succession" would probably cause the group to fracture.
Al-Zarqawi was killed in June, but the top two al-Qaida leaders have remained elusive for years. Mathatmacoat answered on 09/26/06:So the idea here is it's cheaper to hunt for bin Laden than to fight the war in Iraq. Now I would have thought that was self evident to those big brains in Washington, Bush and Rumsfeld, but no, they have to go for the big bang theory or how to get more bang from your buck | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/26/06 - I'm just quaking in my boots So an Islamist shouts and we are all supposed to be afraid, well I not afraid, I say why waste the expense of bringing him here just get the job done now. Out of his own words he has condemned himself?
Shooting suspect warns Australia over extradition
Sarah Smiles, and Ed O'Loughlin in Beirut
September 26, 2006
AN AL-QAEDA supporter about to be extradited from Lebanon has warned that Australia "will suffer" if he is deported.
Speaking from a jail in Beirut, Saleh Jamal, who professes admiration for Osama bin Laden, said Australia was an illegitimate state that should be ruled by Muslims. He is wanted in NSW after Lakemba police station was shot up in 1998.
NSW police officers had been preparing to collect him from Beirut - where he had served a jail sentence for a terrorism-related offence - in July when Israeli military aircraft bombed Beirut's international airport.
With the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict over and the airport open, NSW police say they will go ahead with the extradition.
It is understood Jamal will be handed to Australian police at the prison where he is held and taken to the airport. He will be put on a flight to Dubai, from where he will be flown to Australia.
The Lebanese prosecutor's office said that "in principle" he would be deported within 10 days, once Australian security officials arrived to collect him from Roumieh prison, near Beirut.
Other Lebanese security sources said Jamal could be extradited as soon as today.
Interviewed in prison this month, Jamal railed against the Australian Government and said the country would "suffer the consequences" if he was extradited. "I wouldn't mind going back to Australia. They're the ones that will suffer the consequences, not me."
But he conceded: "I've got 125 years probably waiting for me."
Surrounded by six armed guards, Jamal expressed bitterness that he had been left behind in jail during the war.
"I heard on the news that 25,000 Australians [in Lebanon] were contacted to be evacuated. They never came to see me. At least they could have asked if I needed a bullet-proof jacket."
Jamal, from Sydney, fled from Australia to Lebanon on a false passport in early 2004, while awaiting trial over the Lakemba police station shooting. He was arrested in Beirut soon after, and was convicted in Beirut's Military Court of planning subversive attacks against the state.
Beirut's Supreme Military Court cut his sentence in April but the authorities kept him detained at Australia's request, a Lebanese military court official said. There is no extradition treaty between Lebanon and Australia, but a spokeswoman for NSW police said it had received "formal written advice" from Lebanese authorities approving his extradition.
Lebanese authorities accused Jamal of being linked to a bombing in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in 2004. He was also recorded as having visited the Ain el-Helweh Palestinian camp in south Lebanon, a stronghold of Sunni Muslim extremists.
The Jordanian-born Jamal denied any involvement in the Damascus bombing and said he visited Ain el-Helweh to get forged Palestinian refugee travel documents so that he could escape to Europe. He denied involvement in the Lakemba attack.
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/26/06:So extraordinary rendition, Australian style. Australia has no extradition treaty with Lebanon and yet this Muslim country is going to let go one of it's own. What an embarrasment. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 09/25/06 - I am probably stepping over the PC line here... but this is too good to pass up.
The Hebrew word for "monkey" is "kof".
The Hebrew word for "cloud" is "anan"
Does that make Kofi Anan "The Monkey of the Clouds"?
Hey, I didn't make up the language. Don't shoot the messenger.
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 09/26/06:I think we should take your racist comment and ask you how it feels, does it make you feel superior to this dark skinned upstart from darkest africa who has led the UN | | Question/Answer | | twelfth_imam asked on 09/25/06 - Will the US still be in Iraq in 2050? Army considers more combat units for Iraq
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 25, 2006
The Army is studying whether to add more combat units to the rotation plan for Iraq and is considering accelerating the deployments for some brigades to meet a top commander's decision to keep more than 140,000 troops in the country through at least the spring of 2007, Pentagon officials say.
Rather than planning for a big drawdown of 30,000 Army soldiers and Marines this year to a level of 100,000, as field commanders had expected, the two services are now trying to figure out how to keep the equivalent of two extra divisions, or 40,000 troops, in Iraq.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, the top commander in the region, said last week he needed to maintain the higher-than-expected level because of increased sectarian violence in greater Baghdad between warring Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.
The Army has met Gen. Abizaid's immediate need for more forces by delaying the departure of a Stryker armored vehicle brigade to Alaska and by calling in a fast-reaction brigade combat team from Kuwait. But a longer-term solution may require the Army to look at adding more units to the rotation mix.
"It may accelerate the pace of deployments, or it may mean looking at calling up additional units," said a Pentagon official who asked not to be named.
That option may become reality in November, when the Pentagon is expected to identify units that will go to Iraq next year. Currently, Army units deploy for about a year, then spend one year at their home base before going back to Iraq or Afghanistan. The Marine Corps, which patrols restive Anbar Province west of Baghdad, rotates two expeditionary forces every seven months.
The Army is facing more demand for troops at a time when military analysts say it is nearly stressed to the breaking point.
Non-deployed combat brigades are experiencing low readiness ratings due mostly to a lack of usable weapons and equipment. The wear and tear in Iraq is ruining M1A1 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvee vehicles and other equipment at such a fast pace that the Army has neither the money nor the industrial base to replace them. A unit's functioning weapons systems are left in Iraq for use by replacement soldiers, leaving the stateside brigade well below the highest combat rating, according to Army officials and retired officers.
Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, this summer asked Congress for nearly $50 billion over three years to replace broken equipment in a process known as "resetting" the force.
"We have inadequate Army and Marine Corps combat power to sustain this level of deployment," said retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a highly decorated Vietnam combatant who led the 24th Infantry Division in Desert Storm.
Gen. McCaffrey, who has traveled to Iraq in his role as a West Point professor, said the Army needs an immediate infusion of 80,000 new soldiers added to the active force of about 500,000.
"Not since World War II have we asked the Army and Marine Corps to operate at such a high intensity of deployments with such an under-resourced force," Gen. McCaffrey said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has rejected calls from Gen. McCaffrey and other retired generals to increase what is referred to as the authorized end strength approved by Congress each year. Instead, he opted for authorizing the Army a temporary increase of 482,000 to 512,000 active-duty soldiers.
Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said, "The Army has been planning rotation of forces through the year 2007 and is fully prepared to maintain the commitment to press the fight against the enemy while also giving the soldiers as much predictability on future missions as possible. We will meet any need the American public asks."
Gen. McCaffrey said he considers the ongoing battle for Baghdad a "tipping point" which would decide the war's outcome. He applauded Gen. Abizaid for upping the force level.
"It clarified the situation," he said. "Abizaid wants to win. Ambassador [Zalmay] Khalilzad wants to win. What they are saying is [Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's] government is in a fragile state ... I think what they are saying is we can't allow this to come apart on us." Mathatmacoat answered on 09/26/06:there's nothing like being bogged down in an endless war, is there. The americans will be there as long as the oil flows and then they will leave | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/18/06 - Yeh like that's likely? Having shown it's true colours, Islam is on a collision course with the west
vow to 'conquer Rome' in Pope backlash
From correspondents in Basra, Iraq
September 19, 2006 03:25am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
POPE Benedict XVI's apology for remarks seen as critical of Islam failed to quell anger in the Muslim world overnight as Iraqis burned him in effigy and al-Qaeda in Iraq vowed to "smash the cross".
Despite appeals for calm from Islamic and Western leaders, protests were held from Indonesia to Iraq over the Pope's citing of a medieval text last week that criticised some teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as evil and inhuman.
The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics yesterday said he was deeply sorry for the offence caused by his remarks and the Vatican launched a diplomatic offensive to explain to Muslim countries his position on Islam.
A handful of Muslim groups welcomed the 79-year-old Pope's apology but it failed to stem the tide of anger in many Muslim nations.
Mohammed Habib of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood said they considered the apology a retraction of the Pope's statement, but some Egyptian lawmakers demanded diplomatic ties with the Vatican be suspended.
The powerful All India Muslim Personal Law Board based in the northern city of Lucknow called for an end to protests against the Vatican but demonstrations were held elsewhere.
In Jakarta, some 100 hardliners rallied outside the Holy See's mission in the Indonesian capital, waving a banner depicting the Vatican as an axis of Satan.
Some 150 protesters from a youth party marched through the Pakistani Kashmiri capital Muzaffarabad chanting Death to Pope and burned him in effigy.
The Pope was also burned in effigy in this southern Iraqi port city where hundreds of Iraqis staged a demonstration today and called for an apology.
The 500 protesters, followers of Ayatollah Mahmud al-Hassani, a mystical Shiite Muslim cleric, also burned German and American flags and called for the Pope to be tried in an international court.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq warned in an internet statement it would wage jihad, or holy war, until the West is defeated.
We say to the servant of the cross (the Pope): wait for defeat. We say to infidels and tyrants: wait for what will afflict you. We continue our jihad, said the statement attributed to the Mujahideen consultative council.
We will smash the cross, it added, and conquer Rome. Mathatmacoat answered on 09/18/06:wait for defeat, no we won't wait around for the mad madhi's mob to get their act together. When the MMM get to Rome wake me please, I think I will be a long time dead. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/18/06 - This must be driving the Mahdi-Hatter nuts . Anousheh Ansari was born 9/12/1966 Ansari witnessed the Iranian Revolution in 1979 as a young teenager. She emigrated to the United States in 1984 with her parents . She received her Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Mason University and her master's degree at George Washington University.
Ansari began work at MCI after graduation, where she met her husband, Hamid Ansari. In 1993, she persuaded her husband and her brother-in-law Amir Ansari to co-found Telecom Technologies, Inc. using their savings just as a wave of deregulation hit the telecom industry. The company was acquired by Sonus Networks, Inc. in 2000. Ansari was listed in Fortune magazine's ൰ under 40" list in 2001 and honored by Working Woman magazine as the winner of the 2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence award.
Prodea, the new Ansari business has announced the formation of a partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd. and the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (FSA) to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles (the Space Adventures Explorer) for global commercial use. Ansari is a member of the X Prize Foundations Vision Circle, as well as its Board of Trustees .
Ansari was in training as a backup for Daisuke Enomoto, a Japanese businessman for a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station. In August he was medically disqualified from flying the mission . Ansari was elevated to the prime crew.
Today she and the crew of the Soyez lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan .She became the first female space tourist, as well as the first female Muslim and the first Iranian in space. She has agreed to take part in several experiments for the European Space Agency ESA,even though she is technically only a space tourist .She will speak to students back on Earth. She has said that she hopes her trip will inspire Iranian girls to study science.
Ansari intended to wear the U.S. flag and the version of the Iranian flag that predated the 1979 Islamic Revolution, to honor the two countries that have contributed to her life But At the insistence of the Russian and U.S. governments, she is not wearing the Iranian flag.(she has told reporters that she will keep he flag stowed away in her gear). She was also asked, by Russian and US governments, not to make any political statements while on board the ISS. But her presence on the trip is statement enough .
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Mathatmacoat answered on 09/18/06:yes they don't like women to achieve, and that she has done it in america and doesn't accept their revolution must make it a double wound | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/15/06 - on political relevance? and just so you don't think american politics is the only game in town
Into the embrace of the unholy trinity
Hugh Mackay
September 15, 2006
John Howard is a political colossus. If he's not quite beyond politics, he's certainly risen above the party-political struggle. If he's not quite a statesman, he's become our quasi-president.
We know he's no visionary: his two big ideas for Australia - to introduce a GST, and to nobble the trade unions - have been implemented. There are no grand infrastructure plans on the horizon: the massive budget surpluses that could have gone into education, health or the environment have been squandered in tax cuts.
Given that the economy is relatively robust, it's as though Howard is preparing a different legacy: does he wish to be remembered not only as the great economic manager, but as the leader who helped clarify, and even redefine, what we Australians stand for? (Or is his pursuit of the values question a clever example of the politics of distraction, like Margaret Thatcher's infamous claim that "the things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us"?)
So what values does Howard personify? What is his values legacy likely to be? These are reasonable questions to ask of a leader who so obviously enjoys talking about such matters and who has cheerfully injected "un-Australian" into our vocabulary.
It has long been taken for granted that the holy trinity of Australian values is precisely the same as that enshrined in the French republic: liberty (expressed by us as the "fair go"); equality (once called "egalitarianism" here, in those heady days when we thought it was a dream that might come true); fraternity (given an idiomatic spin here as "mateship", perhaps the PM's official favourite).
But values are meaningless as slogans. "Watch my lips" is always a distraction: what we should be watching are the actions that express people's real values. Part of Howard's skill has been to sound as if he continues to espouse our traditional values while actually reinforcing a quite different set.
The core value in contemporary Australia, powerfully reinforced by spoken and unspoken messages from the PM, is materialism.
We are in the full flowering of the capitalist era and have been thoroughly seduced by the idea that wealth is the measure of our worth. Consumerism is rampant. Interest rates are our index of happiness. A nation of shareholders is no longer just a gleam in the prime ministerial eye. The US economy - ruthless and competitive, a place where rich people are proud of their wealth - is presented to us an example of what we could become if only we tried harder.
In the lexicon of politics, "society" has long since become "the economy". In the 'burbs, the search for the perfect bathroom tile to top off our renovations has nudged aside our interest in the health of our democracy. In academia, financial considerations are paramount. In business, the share price is king, even if a little moral queasiness has to be suppressed to achieve the result we aspire to.
In the distribution of wealth, we have steadily widened the gap between top and bottom. A new spirit of entitlement is emerging among the rich. Materialism strongly implies competitiveness; "survival of the fittest" is its mantra. (Egalitarianism was a hopelessly romantic idea, anyway - wasn't it?)
Second in Howard's trio comes pragmatism. If you need to bend the truth to suit the circumstances, so be it. But once you're committed, never yield. Tough it out; tough it out. Principles - whether involving human rights, ministerial propriety or care of the environment - are properly tempered by the shifting pressures of realpolitik. If expediency demands it, promises can be dismissed as "non-core".
Win at all costs; the end justifies the means; tactics before strategy. This is the language of pragmatism and it has become the language of Australian politics. Its seductive cadences can also be heard in sport, business and the Aussie backyard.
And the third of the trinity of Howard-endorsed values? Nationalism - described by Albert Einstein as an "infantile sickness" and by the English poet Richard Adlington as "a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill". Nationalism flourishes for all kinds of reasons, mostly to do with insecurity or triumphalism, or both. In the Howard era, the fires of nationalism have been fuelled by a rich blend of hubris and fear ("look how wonderful we are; look how threatened we are").
Our country - and the US - right or wrong. Tough on asylum-seekers: "We will decide who comes here and under what circumstances they come." Tough on dissent; dismissive of "mushy" multiculturalism; big on the "mainstream". (Howard-style nationalism permits an apology to Vietnam vets for not having been grateful enough to them, but not to Aborigines for dispossession and dislocation.)
Materialism, pragmatism, nationalism. They are not Howard's inventions, of course. To paraphrase Carl Jung, describing another leader in another era: "Howard is the loudspeaker that magnifies the inaudible whispers of the Australian soul until they can be heard in the Australian's unconscious ear."
Perhaps Howard already understood this when he said, all those years ago, "the times will suit me".
Hugh Mackay is a social researcher and commentator. Mathatmacoat answered on 09/18/06:your will never convince the yanks their politics isn't all that matters | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/16/06 - PC is dead, at least in Australia?
Imams told to preach in English
By Alyssa Braithwaite
September 16, 2006 04:50pm
AUSTRALIA'S Islamic clerics have been told they must draw on the teachings of Islam to condemn terrorism, and preach in English.
The federal Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Andrew Robb today called on more than 100 Australian imams and Muslim leaders attending a government-sponsored conference to denounce extremist misrepresentations of Islam.
We live in a world of global terrorism where vile acts are regularly being perpetrated in the name of your faith, Mr Robb told the two-day conference which started today.
Because it is your faith that is being invoked as justification for these evil acts, it is your problem.
You cannot wish it away or ignore it just because it has been caused by others.
The taxpayer-funded conference, which was intended for earlier this year, was initially the brainchild of the now divided Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
But organisation of the event was handed to the Muslim Community Reference Group members by Mr Robb after the AFIC failed to get it going.
A number of hardcore Islamists accepted invitations to attend.
Mr Robb urged delegates to do more to ensure young Australian Muslims knew the real meaning of the Koran.
I say to you speak up and condemn terrorism, he said.
I know many in your community are doing this ... but too many are silent or simply protest that they are being branded unfairly.
But conference keynote speaker SheikIbrahim Mogra from the Muslim Council of Britain said Muslim leaders and the Government had a shared responsibility to denounce terrorism.
We as imams and Muslim leaders have to shout out loud as loudly as we can that terrorism has no room in Islam, it is the exact opposite of what Islam stands for, Sheik Mogra said.
At the same time the politicians should hear our voice.
I have been very, very disappointed ... when the acknowledgment is not there that we are condemning the violence. It's as if we are not being heard.
Sheik Mogra told delegates they must encourage good government initiatives.
I called on them to proactively engage the Government, not to be cynical all the time but to pat the Government's back when they get it right and to help them when they get it wrong, he said.
With 50 per cent of the 360,000 Muslims in Australia under 25 years of age, and most born in Australia with English as their first language, Mr Robb said it was essential for imams to have effective English language skills.
For imams to present Islam in a truly Australian context, especially to second and third generation young Australian Muslims, it would seem essential that imams be able to preach effectively in English.
The fact that I needed to have my address translated into several languages very clearly highlights my concern.
(Young people's) view of Islam should come from the Mosque, not from the internet.
Share this article (What is this?) Mathatmacoat answered on 09/18/06:political correctness should have been still born, Muslims are a problem no matter where they are, whether it's in their home countries or the benighted places they have immigrated to. They are counter culture to everything but their own culture. As the the other uses of it such as not referring to race, well that goes without saying, people are people, but I draw the line at changing the the language to placate a few dills | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/17/06 - Kyoto is a slogan? Here's the first piece of common sense I've heard on this subject in a long time
Kyoto 'a slogan, not a solution'
September 17, 2006 09:23am
Article from: AAP
ENVIRONMENT Minister Ian Campbell today stood firm on Australia's long standing refusal to sign onto the Kyoto protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions, declaring it a slogan not a solution.
Senator Campbell, fresh back from the UN framework conference on climate change in Switzerland, backed urgent action on climate change but with better quality practical international action.
He said there was a sense of frustration that the whole process was becoming too bureaucratic and that more practical action was needed.
But for Australia, that would not involving signing the Kyoto accord.
"I don't think people who make alarmist predictions do us much of a favour because the public will switch off. There are going to be substantial serious consequences of not addressing climate change, urgently and with multiple billion dollar investments.
"The problem is too serious to offer up slogans as solution. Signing Kyoto is a slogan. It's not a solution. Investing billions of dollars in the technologies we need to transform the way we produce and use energy is a substantial solution."
Senator Campbell said Australia could end all carbon emissions overnight but growth in China alone would replace Australian emissions within 10 months.
"We could be the best climate change country in the world and we are one of the best but without cooperative effective action internationally we will not save Perth's beaches," he said.
Labor has strongly backed Australia signing the Kyoto Protocol but Senator Campbell said the reality was that protocol was being rewritten.
He said Kyoto signatories such as France were nine per cent over its Kyoto target, Norway 22 per cent, Portugal 26 per cent and Spain 36 per cent.
"The whole world is moving beyond Kyoto and Labor is saying sign up to something that was really drafted six, seven, eight years ago, which we know is not working," he said.
"There is no gain to ratifying. We are part of a process that is designing the post-Kyoto world."
Senator Campbell said the Switzerland meeting aimed to prepare a group of some 30 ministers for the next meeting in Nairobi in a few weeks.
He said what he sought to achieve was a new focus on technology transfer so that innovative technology could be speedily disseminated through the world.
Unlike many of his coalition colleagues, Senator Campbell backed the thrust of the movie An Inconvenient Truth by former US vice-president Al Gore.
He said respected scientists agreed with him that the science in the movie was sound and the consequences of not addressing the problems were very substantial.
"We have got to remember there are consequences of global warming. There will be sea level rises. There already have been," he said.
Share this article Mathatmacoat answered on 09/17/06:yes a slogan; get your carbon licence here | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/16/06 - Heres' a little thought on Australian mateship THE DAILY TRUTH
Friday, September 15, 2006
"Mates" my arse
Both John Howard and Kim Beazley weigh in with their opinions on what it means to be Australian. The answer? What a shock:
"mateship". Said Howard:
"Mateship is one of the values we as Australians hold most dear. Mateship crosses any boundaries set up by gender, or by ethnic origin, or political affiliation, or bank balance or street address."
And Beazley:
"But mateship is uniquely Australian. We are a country that celebrates individual achievement. But above all we are a country that knows we must pull together. We are a country of mates."
What a pair of shocking bullshit artists. more
* Posted by Jack Marx Mathatmacoat answered on 09/17/06:here's a liitle thought of Australian mateship; G'day Mate, didyuavagoodweeken?
I agree with you little John and big Kim are about as far from mates as you could get | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 09/11/06 - Are We Safer?
Are We Safer?
By Andrew Cline
Published 9/11/2006 12:08:01 AM
On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the great policy question is whether the Bush administration's approach to the War on Terror has made us safer. Prepping for his 2008 presidential run, Sen. John Kerry on Saturday asserted that Bush had made us less safe. Although the Bush administration has many notable failures, Kerry's case as he presents it is unconvincing.
By going to war in Iraq instead of concentrating on defeating al-Qaeda, Bush has "widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it," Kerry said.
"There is simply no way to overstate how Iraq has subverted our efforts to free the world from global terror. It has overstretched our military. It has served as an essential recruitment tool for terrorists. It has divided and pushed away our traditional allies. It has diverted critical billions of dollars from the real front lines against terrorism and from homeland security."
In an op-ed for the New Hampshire Union Leader this past weekend, Kerry said:
Iraq has made America less safe. The terrorists are not on the run. Terrorist acts tripled between 2004 and 2005. Al-Qaida has spawned a decentralized network operating in 65 countries, most of them joining since 9/11. Only Dick Cheney could call this a success.
It's time to refocus our military efforts from the failed occupation of Iraq to what we should have been doing all along: destroying al-Qaida. We need to redeploy troops from Iraq -- keep up the training and counter-terror operations, establish an over the horizon military capacity -- and free up resources to fight the War on Terror.
(Incidentally, Kerry launched this attack while slamming Bush for politicizing 9/11.)
But has the Bush administration really lost sight of destroying al-Qaeda? Has terrorism become more of a threat?
Since 9/11, the United States and its allies have destroyed more than 75 percent of al-Qaeda. That statistic does not come from the White House press office. Washington Post reporter Dana Priest noted it in a talk at the Cato Institute last week. Priest, whom no one would call an apologist for or ally of the administration, also noted how the Bush administration skillfully used diplomatic relationships -- particularly with France -- to pursue, capture, detain and interrogate al Qaeda terrorists. Through a combination of military force and diplomacy, the United States has crippled al Qaeda.
Not only has the United States done exactly what Kerry and his fellow Democrats claim has not been done -- use diplomatic relationships to decimate the group that attacked us on 9/11 -- but the war in Iraq has marginalized al-Qaeda in the Muslim world. That is one of the conclusions of a new report released last week by the UK's Royal Institute for International Affairs, also known as Chatham House
It certainly is true that the war in Iraq has to some degree hardened Muslim opinion against the United States and even radicalized a portion of the moderate population. But it also has turned Muslims off to al-Qaeda and even to the use of violence to pursue Islamic goals, Maha Azzam, a researcher at Chatham House, concluded. After noting that the War on Terror has significantly weakened al-Qaeda, Azzam's report finds three primary reasons for al-Qaeda's loss of support in the Muslim world, the first being that "for the vast majority [of Muslims] al-Qaeda is also seen as tainted by its perpetuation of sectarian violence in Iraq."
Secondly, there has been a heightened radicalization of the middle ground in the Muslim world. A growing number have embraced Islamist politics but will not sanction al-Qaeda's tactics and will pursue democratic avenues when they are made available. This radicalization may itself be a worrying development for the West, but it is also weakening al-Qaeda, whose legitimacy and ambition rest on approval from the Muslim masses....
Thirdly, there has been a growing discomfort and opposition religiously and morally to terrorism among Muslims. Al-Qaeda has driven a wedge between Muslim communities not about the importance of regional and international politics and the role of the US, but about the justification of violence in the name of Islam. This is perhaps one of the most significant ongoing developments and one which will determine the nature of the Islamists' struggle against their governments and the West in the future.
Azzam found that al-Qaida enjoyed a surge in popularity in the Muslim world immediately after 9/11, but that the war in Iraq turned the tide, significantly weakening Muslim affection for the terror group and terrorist tactics in general. Though the war has spawned a lot of al Qaeda imitators, none is as organized or capable of massive destruction as bin Laden's organization once was.
The Chatham House report concludes that
"Of the three main grievances held by the majority of Muslims against Western policy in the region, US involvement in Afghanistan (even within a NATO context) and in Iraq is likely to prove temporary, despite the present inability of the Iraqi government to gain control.
The two other issues may prove intractable. First, Muslim populations feel that their undemocratic regimes are supported by the West.... Secondly, the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to be a festering wound.
In other words, if the West succeeds in establishing a democratic government in Iraq that puts pressure on neighboring regimes to give their people more say, that will play in our favor among the majority of Muslims. If we pull out and let Iraq fall to the totalitarian thugs, as we did after the first Gulf War, it will confirm in Muslim minds that the West does not mean what it says about promoting democracy.
This is why Bush wants to keep the fight going in Iraq until its democracy can stand. Kerry wants out next year, no matter what. Based on Azzam's assessment, Bush's strategy is more likely to endear us to Muslims in the long run.
If the measure of success in the War on Terror is, as Kerry suggested, wiping out al Qaeda, then the Bush administration can hardly be called a failure, as Kerry did. Al Qaeda is, in fact, not only on the run but reduced to a fraction of its former self, which is almost certainly one of the major reasons there has been no al Qaeda attack on U.S. soil in five years.
AS FOR AFGHANISTAN, KERRY claims that it represents the real fight in the War on Terror and that Iraq is a sideshow that has diverted necessary resources. As evidence he cites NATO commander Gen. James Jones' call last week for more troops. But Jones asked only for 2,500 troops, and U.S. News & World Report reported that the real trouble was not a lack of U.S. troops, but reluctance to engage the enemy on the part of our allies: "An unspoken gripe: Some countries haven't made good on promised support, and a number -- among them Germany and Spain -- have held their troops away from the combat zone in southern Afghanistan where troops from Britain, Canada, and the United States are heavily engaged."
Kerry claimed that we were losing the fight in Afghanistan because Bush was too focused on the diversion of Iraq. But that's not what NATO is saying. Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, head of NATO's southern Afghanistan operation, said last week, "We've got the Taliban surrounded," the Calgary Herald reported. He called the recent rise in violence by Taliban forces their "last stand."
NATO Secretary General Jaap De hoop Schaffer told ABC News, "The resistance by the Taliban is more stiff than we expected when we went in. But that's the reason that General Jones, supported by me, is now asking for more.
"I can tell you that the nations, NATO allies, have already promised more forces than are on the ground actually in Afghanistan, so first of all they should fulfill their promises."
In short, it's not that the United States has troops in Iraq, it's that NATO countries have not sent the troops they promised in the first place.
There are lots of different ways one could measure success in the War on Terror. By Kerry's own measure -- defeating al-Qaeda -- the United States is hardly failing.
After five years it is too early to assert with confidence whether, on the whole, the War on Terror is headed for long-term success. But based on the available data, it does not seem farfetched to conclude that so far it has, despite the misjudgments and missteps, made us safer.
Perhaps another president, a Democratic president, would have handled everything better and made us even safer. But to assert that Bush's policies have endangered us because Osama bin Laden is still at large and al-Qaeda fighters are still running around is not a serious critique. The Bush administration has a long way to go to make us SAFE. That it has not done. But has the War on Terror made America less vulnerable to a massive terrorist attack than it was on September 10, 2001. It sure looks like it.
Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader.
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/12/06:irrespective of your party allegience, you have to admit it's "mission failed to date" for the war on terror.
Usama bin Laden is still at large and actively taunting the coalition
large scale terror attacks are still being put in motion.. (London Bombing, Transatlantic airlines)
America remains in "a state of emergency"
what has been accomplished?
al qaeda has been denied a safe haven in Afganistan, although perhaps not in Pakistan.
a number of high ranking al qaeda operatives have been captured.
some al qaeda plots have been circumvented.
a large number of terrorists have congregated in Iraq and daily subject the population to a reign of terror.
terrorists in Palistine have been denied funding by Saddam Hussein. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/09/06 - Kudos to the president. I saw Gasoline prices at $2.49 per gallon today, 54 cents per gallon less than last month. Good job Mr. President. Mathatmacoat answered on 09/11/06:you have to be joking he has done nothing to lower oil prices, in fact he is the cause of high oil prices. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/05/06 - Do we stay or do we go ? Jackson Diehl of the Washington Compost reports important leaders in the new Iraqi democracy want assurances that the U.S.will not cut and run.
Diehls report came out of a meeting he and several other journalists held with Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi in Washington prior to Labor Day. Mahdi is one of the Iraqis who have laid their lives on the line, working tirelessly to get this democracy off the ground.
According to Diehl, Mahdi called his meetings with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and key senators and congressmen in a private visit. His principal purpose was to deliver a message, and ask a question, on behalf of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Mahdi recounted Sistanis message at the reporters meeting that Iraqis are sticking to the principles of the constitution and democracy.
But the ayatollah wanted to know if the United States is still on board as well?
Its a critical moment. We want to be sure that we understand perfectly whats going on, and what is the real strategy of the United States in Iraq, Diehl indicated that Mahdi got Bushs commitment to stand by the government. Mahdi expressed a real sense of uncertainty on behalf of Sistani. When I read the [American] press, Im confused
Imagine that ! I feel his pain . I have to do alot of research to verify that much of the reporting is biased and factually flawed.
Diehl reports Mahdi, Sistani and other Shiite leaders in the government dont share Washingtons perception of a downward spiral. He says that the many ideas for silver bullets tossed around in the U.S. debate by the likes of Joe Biden and John Murtha mostly dont interest them.
Diehl then launches into a first person account of the Q & A session. He describes the journalists as peppering Mahdi with questions like: why has the formation of a unity government had failed to reduce the violence? What about all the options usually talked about in Washingtonfrom a rewrite of the constitution to a partition of the country; from an international conference to the dispatch of more U.S. troops?
Diehl said he and the other reporters queries were politely dismissed. Heres what else Mahdi said:
Iraq is not in a civil war.
Iraq doesnt need more U.S. troops.
It has a constitution and elected government, and thus there is no need for an international conference.
On constitutional reform: the Shiite and Kurd parties that wrote the charter last year are waiting for proposals from Sunni dissidents. So far we have heard nothing.
When one reporter asked What is the solution?;Mahdi replied Timethat is it,...A nation like Iraq needs time. The elections for a permanent government happened eight months ago. We have been in office a few weeks. The people who we have in office have never governed. These people come from oppression and a bad political system. We cant import ministers to Iraq.The Americans made many mistakes, and Iraqis had to support that
Our options as Iraqis are that we dont have an exit strategy or any withdrawal timetable, ...We simply go on. . . . It is a process, and brick by brick we are working on it.
Diehl ,who frequently tows the MSM line added his own commentary that I think is right on .
Mahdi is a brave man, with nerves of steel. Two years ago, while meeting with another group of journalists, he learned that his brother had been killed in an insurgent ambush; he stoically continued to answer questions. Though its not clear that the government to which he belongs is capable of transcending the sectarian passions of its various partieswho battle each other in the streets more than they bargain in the cabinettheres no question that Mahdi himself, and many other Iraqi politicians, remain deeply committed to the goal of Iraqi democracy.
Whether they can reach it will depend in large part on whether the political skills of leaders such as Sistani will be enough to stop the sectarian warfare before it destroys the political system they created. But it will also matter whether Americans are willing to go on believing in that project, and provide the time for which Mahdi asked.
I do not have an answer to that last proviso .Guess we'll find out in November .
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/06/06:go, go, go, what are you waiting for, another rocket up your a...... | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/06/06 - Let's get to the heart of the problem? Palestinians on the verge of civil war
Paul McGeough, Chief Herald Correspondent in Gaza City
September 6, 2006
The power fails. Abu Annis stabs at the keys of his mobile phone, sparking a glimmer of light as he and six hardcore fighters for Islamic Jihad talk about life on the Gaza Strip - bombs, death and the daily grind.
Anxious that the late-night movement of such a group of men might be detected by the Israeli surveillance drones which are overhead constantly, they straggled in one at a time to this cinder-block home in Gaza's Jabaliya City. All defer to Abu Annis who, at just 22, is their appointed spokesman.
The conversation begins as most do in the Occupied Palestinian Territories - on the mind-numbing minutiae of the conflict with Israel. But the stern-faced young man demands light so that nothing will be lost when he addresses an ominous new twist in the turmoil of the Middle East - the threat of a Palestinian on Palestinian civil war.
The Palestinians have been isolated by the world since early this year when they elected a government controlled by Hamas, an Islamist movement with ties to outcast regimes in Iran and Syria. Now, in Gaza and on the West Bank, many of them cower in their homes as Hamas gunmen clash almost daily with loyalists of the regime they defeated.
It is their worst nightmare. Caught between the secularists of the late Yassar Arafat's failed Fatah movement and the fundamentalists of Hamas, they fear that the dream of their own separate state might shrivel on the scorched earth of the on-going clash between radical Islam and the West.
Amid the distractions of the Iraq war and, more recently, the new Lebanon war, little attention has been given to overlapping efforts of Washington, Europe and Israel to weaken or destroy an Arab rarity - the democratically elected Hamas government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.
Since late June, when militiamen from Hamas and other factions tunnelled under the Gaza-Israel border to capture an Israeli soldier, Gaza has been subjected to unrelenting Israeli retaliation - aerial and tank bombardments and border skirmishing have killed almost 200; more than 30 Hamas Cabinet ministers and MPs have been snatched in Israeli raids on the West Bank; and border closures have made a virtual prison of Gaza.
Earlier in the year, Washington, Brussels and Tel Aviv paralysed the working of the new government - and the local economy - when they cut vital funds transfers to back their demands that Hamas abandon its refusal to recognise the state of Israel and that it renounce violence.
And because Hamas is radical and Islamist - with friends in Tehran and Damascus - other US-friendly but anti-democratic Arab regimes sit on their hands as Palestine burns.
This is how the stage is set.
The popularly elected president Mahmoud Abbas is from Arafat's long-dominant Fatah faction, a secular nationalist movement that traditionally had had a mortgage on Palestinian power and which, over the years, has committed itself to a negotiated peace settlement with Israel. Despite the swing to Islam in the election, Abbas retains control of Palestinian negotiations with Israel and the world.
More importantly, Abbas commands the loyalty of much of the 35,000-strong Palestinian security forces, almost exclusively Fatah loyalists, who have taken to launching armed attacks on government buildings because they have not been paid for six months as a result of the global funding freeze.
Abbas also has seized control of much of the government's finances and communications networks.
Embittered by defeat, Fatah refused an invitation from Hamas to join a government of national unity in the aftermath of the January poll, prompting the International Crisis Group to conclude: "It's a question of power, pure and simple. [For Fatah,] allowing their main rivals to exercise it is inconceivable and too great a threat to their own positions".
Some in Fatah advocate military confrontation with Hamas - soaring prices for black-market weapons suggest that both sides are stockpiling arms and each is blaming the other for attempted and successful assassination and abduction of key figures from the two camps.
Despite its legendary corruption and abuse of power in office, Fatah is unable to accept its electoral defeat. The inexperienced Hamas, on the other hand, did not expect to win government and has been slow to grasp the levers of power decisively but, in response to Abbas's grip on the security forces Hamas has started setting up its own parallel forces. The tension is nerve-tingling.
At the mobile-phone-lit meeting at Jabaliya, the seven from Islamic Jihad set out their own unambiguous position. They are fighting to the death for the liberation of all of historic Palestine - "this is a religious war against the Jews" - but for them the showdown between Hamas and Fatah is an unnecessary distraction.
The spokesman Abu Annis steeples his fingers as he explains: "The different militias run a joint operations room to coordinate attacks.
"We are trying to hold things together. The political leaders work all the time to stop Hamas and Fatah fighting each other and we work on heightening an atmosphere of war to make them focus on Israel as the enemy, instead of each other".
Among the ruins of Netzarim, utterly destroyed by the Israelis last year when they abandon all their fortified settlements in Gaza, the Herald chanced upon the 30-something brothers Rubin and Khalid Khadoura, who were picnicking with their families in the cool shade of a spreading tree.
As the children fossicked in the rubble that had been Israeli homes and workshops, the brothers complained about the new siege and Rubin had frank words of caution for the Hamas leadership: "If I was the Prime Minister, I'd be thinking about the plight of the people without salaries because Hamas will never change the ideology of the people unless we have a good life."
But this was leavened with criticism of the international community and contempt for Israel: "They have made a prison of Gaza with their checkpoints and border controls that block food getting in and our fruit and vegetables going to markets. What's wrong with our democracy that they think they can arrest our leaders? Jimmy Carter vouched for the fairness of the vote, but our democracy is not acceptable to the world - is it?"
Amid another pile of rubble, not far away in Beit Hanoon, 65-year-old Mohammad Hussein affirms his commitment after what he claims has been almost 30 years as a resistance agnostic.
The new fire in his belly is caused by an Israeli air-strike that pulverised a four-story building in which his children lived and from which he ran one of the biggest supermarkets in the area.
"I worked for 22 years in Saudi Arabia for the money to build it," he says. "The Israelis call at one o'clock in the morning on my 17-year-old son Hussein's mobile, saying everyone must be out of the building in 15 minutes.
"'You must leave immediately', they tell him. When Hussein asks if he can be sure the call is real, the voice tells him to go outside, to look up and he will see the F-16 circling.
"Minutes later two missiles hit one side of the house. Neighbours rushed in, trying to help us get stuff out of the rest of the building but the Israelis call again, saying to get the people away because there will be another strike - six minutes later two more missiles knock down the rest of the building."
Surrounded by several of his sons, the old man bounces his one-year-old grandson Osama on his knee. Shouting to be heard over each other, all argue that such attacks only drive them into the arms of the militias.
"They oblige us to join the resistance," he says, before he delivers the Palestinian distillation of decades of failed diplomacy and ineffectual war:
"We have made agreements with Israel, but it doesn't respect them ... they don't want peace, they just want to drive us from our land. We have had six years of fighting in this latest round because they would give nothing in the previous six years. Do you really think things would be any different if they could bring Fatah back?"
Then Ribhi, the father of little Osama, demands silence because he has something to say: "You see this one-year-old? He will grow up to a bomber in Tel Aviv if the Israelis keep killing our people. He is my boy, but he is not as priceless as Jerusalem."
The grandfather gets up to leave, closing the family's case as he wanders back into the rubble: "We have all travelled. My sons study in Greece and we know what a good life is. But we all come back here because we don't forget where our roots are; we return to where we want to die." As he goes, he jabs a finger at his collapsed building: "For us? This is nothing - we'll build again".
To another house on a rise overlooking the Mediterranean north of Gaza City - a palatial residence that has not been bombed.
It is the home of Dr Nabil Shaath, who was foreign minister in the Fatah-led former government. Here, the swimming pool, the manicured gardens and the Asian household staff are read by ordinary Palestinians as proof of the rampant corruption that caused voters to turn against Fatah.
A pistol-packing bodyguard hovers as a seemingly contrite Shaath canvasses his party's options: "We've made many mistakes. We were angry after the election, so we refused to be a part of a Hamas government ... but now they need partners and we might be able to help.
"But we can't make the government that Bush wants - that is not how democracy works. The US dictated that there had to be an election, but it can't dictate the outcome".
The former minister acknowledges - but denies - allegations that Fatah has been instrumental in US-Israeli efforts to bring down Hamas. He insists: "Not true. Our president is a good friend of the US, but he has not been clubbing together with Washington and the Israelis ... if fact, the Israelis knife him in the back almost daily. Our interest is in destroying the occupation - not Hamas.
"But these stupid sanctions and the jailing of their leaders are helping Hamas - it's an excuse for their failure as a government. Hamas doesn't suffer one bit - it gets funds from Iran and the Arab world and they make sure that their own people don't suffer."
Shaath warns of dire consequences. The American campaign, he says, is destroying civil society, governance and any remaining Palestinian support for the peace process. He seems to have one-year-old Osama in mind as he finishes: "They are radicalising people and creating a governless society - just as they have done in Lebanon and Iraq."
Despite Israel's round-up of Palestinian officials on the West Bank, Hamas' Minister for Refugee Affairs, Professor Atef Odwan, tools around Gaza in a beaten-up Volkswagen Passat.
The presence of just a single bodyguard supports the view of many Palestinians that the Israelis have snatched none of Hamas' Gaza-based ministers or MP because they see the whole strip as an effective prison. Odwan explains: "They control our borders, the sea and the air, so why would they bother coming back in to face hatred and resistance? So I can move around. "
In his spartan office, the minister sets out the various elements of an emerging Hamas compromise that remains unacceptable to Israel and the key international players: "We have offered a 30-year truce in exchange for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, freedom for Palestinians held by the Israelis and complete sovereignty."
He readily acknowledges the glaring omission - there is no explicit recognition of Israel. He adds: "Its ཿ borders is de facto recognition, isn't it?"
So what does the Islamist professor make of democracy when Washington is leading a charge that has paralysed the Hamas government? "We have discovered that the Americans are liars; the Europeans too - they are not the democracy lovers they claim to be. The all just push their own interests."
On the sidelines, there is a loud 'we told you so' from Islamic Jihad.
As four great speakers bounce thumping jihadi anthems off the drab walls of Jabaliya City, young men with AK-47s slung over their black-shirted shoulders gather for the funeral of a fighter who was killed in a border clash with Israeli forces the previous night.
Hundreds assemble in a big street tent in which the 20-year-old Mohammad Al-Nedar's family receive condolences. Overseeing it all, Islamic Jihad political leader Khalid Al-Batsh eyes the boy's father and explains: "We don't leave the martyr's family alone. He won't have time to think of his loss - people will keep coming for three days and slowly he will forget his sadness".
As meaty dates and bitter Arabic coffee are passed around, Al Batsh commiserates with Hamas for the pressure it has come under: "They were pushed into a corner after the election and ordered to give immediate answers, but Hamas can't deal that way. The Americans and the rest won't even let Hamas prove that it accepts democracy ... but the reality is that Israel will give nothing.
"The worry now is after their debacle in Lebanon, the Israelis will be looking for a quick victory in Gaza to prove to their people that they are not as weak as they were revealed to be in Lebanon. And the US will push for superficial movement in the peace process as a gift to those heroes in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman ..." - he is talking about Washington's key Arab allies - "for keeping their mouths shut during the destruction of south Lebanon."
Dr Ibrahim Ibrach, a political analyst at Gaza's Al Azhar University, comes at the crisis from a different angle: "This place wasn't ready for a vote - how do you have proper elections when the country is occupied and instead of political parties, we have militias?
"And now Israel wants the internal Palestinian friction - it doesn't want to give Mahmoud Abbas a peace deal and it doesn't want Hamas to falter completely."
The Herald recounts an exchange with medical officials at Gaza's Shifa Hospital - they spoke of Palestinians crying as they stood in ATM queues to withdraw the last funds from their bank accounts and of rising complaints that the electoral endorsement of Hamas had been a case of 'putting too many eggs in the one basket'.
Ibrach agrees that the current crisis has eroded some of Hamas' popular support. But he makes a bold prediction: "They remain strong and if an election was held tomorrow, Hamas would probably win ... because the Fatah factions are fighting among themselves and the Americans and the Israelis are not going to give Abbas any kind of winning peace deal.
"A government of national unity might work. But if Hamas fails - or if it is made to fail - Palestinian voters will not rush back to Fatah's corruption and its failed peace efforts. The voters will be looking for someone else - that's why the risk of civil war is so real".
In May, all sides in the Palestinian equation seized on help from an unlikely quarter - Israel's jails. Five revered Palestinians inmates representing the key factions drew up their own plan for national reconciliation and demanded that it be adopted.
Intended more to bring Palestinians together than to appease Washington, it called for an independent state on all of the land seized by Israel in 1967, a right for the millions of Palestinian refugees around the world to return and for resistance by all means within the Israeli-occupied territories - not in Israel proper.
The prisoners' document acknowledged the role of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, a bastion of Fatah power, but it argued that Hamas has to be brought into the PLO. Importantly, it urged the formation of a coalition government of Hamas and Fatah.
Abbas grasped the document and ran, proclaiming that if Hamas did not accept it, he would put it to a referendum within 40 days. It was a bold gamble - then president was banking on Hamas acquiescing or being seen by voters as the party-wreckers - and it didn't work.
Amidst the squabbling, the Hamas signatories to the prisoners' document withdrew their signatures. Abbas's objective was to see Hamas ousted, but as haggling continued it was overshadowed by renewed violence.
When Israel assassinated a key Hamas figure on June 9 and blame for the death of seven members of a single Palestinian family in a strike on a Gaza beach on the same day was laid at the Israelis' door, Hamas announced that its military wing was abandoning a ceasefire to which it had pretty well held for 16 months.
Hamas was playing hard ball. It had demonstrated that it could put its missiles on hold, and now it was sending a message through one of its senior MPs who told an International Crisis Group researcher: "The alternative to our government is a resumption of suicide attacks".
Finally, in the last week of June, virtually all the factions signed off on acceptance of the prisoners' initiative - but hardly anyone noticed because on the same day Hamas and two other militias mounted a combined operation in which the capture of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit brought down the wrath of Israel on all of Gaza.
Corporal Gilad remains a prisoner. And under constant Israeli fire, it is virtually impossible for the Palestinian leadership to deal with the immediate internal political challenge - to agree on the shape of a unity government. More difficult still, will be finding sufficient common ground between Hamas and Fatah for the two to work together, even in the short term.
Hamas believes it can retreat underground and still command broad Palestinian support - a poll in July found that almost 80 per cent of Palestinians supported the June 25 abduction of the Israeli soldier, a reflection of their deep bitterness over the detention of thousands of Palestinians by Israel.
Fatah might win back power. But if it is seen to have done so with foreign or Israeli support, it might well be a Pyrrhic victory ... particularly given the widespread acceptance in Gaza of evidence that Fatah officials urged European governments to tighten the screws on Hamas by withholding aid.
Both sides are counting and cursing - Tel Aviv says about a dozen Israelis have died and more than 300 Qassam rockets have lobbed into its territory since June 1. The Palestinians say more than 9000 Israeli missiles into its territory and almost 200 dead Palestinians.
Instead of joining forces to fight Israel, the Palestinian factions have turned on each other, with the president and his Fatah backers trying to undermine Hamas and Hamas accusing them of treason because of their support for the international effort to isolate the Hamas government. These days, their separate rallies condemn each other as often as they condemn Israel.
When the Herald interviewed Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas government's official spokesman, he claimed the local factions had seen the light and that they could sort out their differences. But a clearer indication of his thoughts appeared just days later in the newspaper Al Ayyam.
Billed as self-criticism, but directed at Fatah and some of the lesser factions, he was scathing: "Gaza is suffering under the yoke of anarchy and the swords of thugs. [After so much optimism when Israel pulled out a year ago] life became a nightmare and an intolerable burden".
Against the backdrop of Hamas' recently abandoned ceasefire, he admonished the others for the death and injuries inflicted by Israel's retaliatory attacks: "We've all be attacked by the bacteria of stupidity. Please have mercy on Gaza. Have mercy on us from your demagogy, chaos, guns, thugs [and] infighting. Let Gaza breath a bit - let it live.
""When you walk around in Gaza, you cannot help but avert your eyes from what you see: indescribable anarchy, policemen that nobody cares about, youth proudly carrying weapons, mourning tents set up in the middle of main streets ... Gaza has turned into a garbage dump, there is a stench ...
"The government cannot do anything, the opposition [Fatah] looks on from the sidelines, engaged in internal bickering, and the president has no power... We are walking aimlessly ... We applauded the elections ... but there has been a great step backwards. We spoke of national consensus, [but] it turned out to be like a leaf blowing in the wind..."
With all sides on a hair-trigger, the only identifiable circuit breaker is fear of the consequences of internal war - but despite local anger at the new levels of hardship, Hamas is judged to be the more popular and stronger and to be perceived by most Palestinians as the victim of foreign interference.
Fatah might regain power, but beset by its own internal factional and generational wars, the party's resurrection would do little to break the new hand of radical Islam in the Palestinian equation.
Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas is probably here to stay. Much is made of its refusal to explicitly recognise Israel, but local and international players can hardly be shocked - Washington's autocratic friends in Riyadh still refuse to do so; likewise Rabat; and Amman and Cairo both stonewalled on recognition until they negotiated their respective peace treaties with Tel Aviv.
After watching Israel's destruction of Lebanon, the Beirut-based Arab commentator Rami Khouri, upbraided the Americans and the Israelis for their obsessional interest in symptoms rather than root causes.
Noting that the Middle East crisis predated the arrival of both Hezbollah and Hamas on the scene, he writes: "Every tough issue in this region - Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, terrorism, radicalism, armed resistance groups - is somehow linked to the consequences of the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The politicians and government leaders who dominate the region, or engage it from Western capitals, all look like rank amateurs or intemperate brutes as they flail at symptoms instead of grappling with the core issue that has seen this region spin off into ever greater circles of violence since the 1970s."
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/06/06:yes they are amateurs, you only have to listen to George Bush to realise that. Amateurs have a singular ability to mess things up with simplistic solutions to complex problems. Has implementing the now defunct road map improved anything in the Israel/Palistinian conflict, No, it just gave the Palistinians unreal expectations. It would have been better had Bush avoided meddling. There is an easy solution to the whole thing. Give Gaza back to Egypt and the West Bank back to Jordan and let them police the Palistinians. Israel can then bomb Cairo and Amman if there are any more rockets fired, suicide bombers, or incursions | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/05/06 - No worries... ...the latest al-Qaeda was just a demonstration of the softer side of terrorism reports al-AP.
Latest al-Qaida message seen as PR bid
By SALAH NASRAWI Associated Press Writer
2006 The Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt The new al-Qaida video featuring an American calling for his countrymen to convert to Islam raised fears it signaled an imminent attack, but experts in the region said Sunday it is more likely a bid to soften the terror group's image.
Adam Yehiye Gadahn, a 28-year-old American who the FBI believes attended al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan and served as an al-Qaida translator, also urged U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
He appeared in a 48-minute video that was posted Saturday on an Islamic militant Web site along with footage of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, who gave only a brief introduction to Gadahn while also calling on Americans to convert to Islam.
There have been widespread reports that some Muslim religious figures strongly criticized al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden over the Sept. 11 attacks, saying he failed to follow directives in the Quran that require potential victims be warned that conversion to Islam could save them.
The criticism led to speculation after Gadahn's appearance that the Saturday video meant a warning was being issued and a new attack was imminent.
But experts discounted those fears.
"This is not a warning for an attack. It is rather a speech aimed at winning the Americans' sympathy and understanding," said Gamal Sultan, editor of the Islamic magazine Al Manar.
Columnist Mishari al-Thaydi of the London-based newspaper Asharq Al Awsat agreed, saying al-Qaida is trying to portray itself as a group with a religious mission, not a terrorist movement.
"They have always been accused of lacking a program, that they are just a bunch of zealots," al-Thaydi said. "People accuse them of forgetting the essence of Islam _ conversion of nonbelievers."
"By using this American," he added, "al-Zawahri is saying that he is a preacher and not a terrorist. He wants to take back the initiative which has been lost in the midst of terror."
Hani el-Sibaei, a former Egyptian militant who fought with al-Zawahri in Afghanistan and now lives in exile in London, said Gadahn's American roots make him the perfect spokesman.
"Al-Qaida uses him because he speaks their language and can convey the message better than others," said el-Sibaei.
It was the second time Gadahn appeared in a video with al-Zawahri. In a July 7 message marking the first anniversary of the terror attack on London commuters, Gadahn appeared briefly, saying no Muslim should "shed tears" for Westerners killed by al-Qaida attacks.
Some reports have identified Gadahn as al-Qaida's "propaganda chief," responsible for putting together the slick videos made by the group's al-Sahab media operation.
Thomas Hegghammer, a research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment who studies militant Islamic Internet sites and videos, said Gadahn "has been instrumental in the English-language productions" of al-Qaida.
"He has appeared on a few videos speaking himself, but you've also seen a few videos with speeches by bin Laden and al-Zawahri with subtitles in perfect English," Hegghammer said.
He said Gadahn was likely one of a very few Westerners in a senior position in al-Qaida _ if not the only one. "There are certainly Western converts who have played a role in militancy, but none who are that high up."
Hegghammer said Gadahn is "a remnant of the original al-Qaida" that has fragmented since the Sept. 11 attack into a loose network of cells.
"And I don't think there are many like him. That's why we've seen him many times," Hegghammer said. "The obvious advantage (of his appearances) is it makes headlines in the West. ... He is an asset to them, definitely. My guess is the Americans are extremely keen on capturing him."
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>>he failed to follow directives in the Quran that require potential victims be warned that conversion to Islam could save them.<<
And I thought Islam didn't teach violence. In spite of their effort to spin the softer side of al-Qaeda, this is a rather profound admission by al-AP. The "essence of Islam _ conversion of nonbelievers," apparently focuses on potential victims.
I reckon it should be comforting to know these Muslim "experts discounted those fears" of an imminent terrorist attack on those potential victims.
Comments? Come on now, tell me how Islam is a religion of peace again... Mathatmacoat answered on 09/05/06:there is nothing soft about terrorism, it's standard Islamic practice to call on their enemies to convert, they want to be sure they will join them in hell | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/05/06 - Sailboats
Hello:
I bought a pool table for my boat. However, my balls dont stay still. How do I keep my balls from moving about?
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 09/05/06:looks like you are behind the eight ball on that one | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 09/05/06 - Rummy More Chamberlain than Churchill Frank Rich on Rumsfeld: "More Chamberlain Than Churchill"
New York Times | Mother Jones | Posted Sunday September 3, 2006 at 08:24 PM
"Frank Rich turns a scathing eye on Donald Rumsfeld this week, writing an op-ed that Bush won't read about a guy Bush won't fire. Still, it needs to be said. Rich magnanimously declared that Rummy had outdone his previous gems of "stuff happens" and "you go to war with the Army you have" with his latest comparison of Iraq war critics to appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s. Rich reminds Rumsfeld that he has a long memory, aided and abetted by the Internet:
Here's how brazen Mr. Rumsfeld was when he invoked Hitler's appeasers to score his cheap points: Since Hitler was photographed warmly shaking Neville Chamberlain's hand at Munich in 1938, the only image that comes close to matching it in ***epochal obsequiousness*** is the December 1983 photograph of Mr. Rumsfeld himself in Baghdad, warmly shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein in full fascist regalia. Is the defense secretary so self-deluded that he thought no one would remember a picture so easily Googled on the Web? Or worse, is he just too shameless to care?
Rich notes that Rumsfeld was singularly lacking in tough talk back in that 1983 visit...."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think we have all seen that picture of Rummy shaking Saddam's hand....look it up if your memory fails.
How long do you think Rumsfeld has left on the job? Mathatmacoat answered on 09/05/06:about as long as Bush | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 09/03/06 - the Koran............................................ Does the Koran expressly say that the Holy Land is given by the Lord to the Jews for their dominion? Mathatmacoat answered on 09/04/06:The muslims know the Holy Land was given to the Jews, but just as they have usurped the Scriptures and twisted them to their own ends saying the Jews have corrupted the Scriptures, they have placed Ismael in ascendency over Issac and therefore claim what belongs to the Jews. At the same time they use this corrupt book to claim what belongs to everyoneelse.
At this point in time, as it has always been, Palistine belongs to those strong enough to take it and hold it. I have read Scripture, there is only one answer to this problem
Isa 13:8 Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labor.They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame.
Isa 13:9 See, the day of the LORD is coming a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.
Isa 13:10 The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light.The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.
Isa 13:11 I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/04/06 - Sad to relate,a great conservationist has gone? Well no doubt wildlife everywhere and particularly crocodiles in Northern Australia breathed a siegh of relief today when it was learned one of their own had had the last say. Crikey, it's not fair you know, Steve was a great advocate of wildlife protection but he went as he lived, doing what he liked to do.
Steve Irwin killed by stingray
It was quite rare for someone to die from contact with a stingray ... Stingrays were dangerous if provoked
David Williams
September 4, 2006 - 4:55PM
Television personality and environmentalist Steve Irwin has died after being stung by a stingray while filming off north Queensland.
Known worldwide as the Crocodile Hunter, the 44-year-old was famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchcry "Crikey!"
The Queensland Police Service issued a statement saying Irwin collapsed after being stung at Batt Reef, Low Isles, off Port Douglas about 11am. He had been filming a documentary.
"Steve was hit by a stingray in the chest," said local diving operator Steve Edmondson, whose Poseidon boats were out on the Great Barrier Reef when the accident occured.
"He probably died from a cardiac arrest from the injury," he said.
Police said that, after the attack, Irwin's crew called for medical treatment at 11am and the Queensland Rescue Helicopter responded with a doctor and paramedic on board.
Puncture wound
Irwin had a puncture wound to the left side of his chest and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said Irwin's family had been advised and Irwin's body was being flown to Cairns.
It is believed his American-born wife Terri was trekking on Cradle Mountain in Tasmania when the accident happened.
Police in Tasmania say she had been told.
The Irwins have two children, a daughter, Bindi Sue, 8, and a son, Robert Clarence, usually known as Bob, 3.
When asked if he had ever heard of anyone dying from a stingray barb, Matthew Hurley, general manager of Quicksilver Group, whose company has taken tours to Low Isles for 26 years, said: "No, definitely not.
"We've never heard of or been involved with anything like that."
Ross Coleman, acting director at at University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science, told smh.com.au it was "quite rare" for someone to die from contact with a stingray and he couldn't recall hearing of another incident.
Stingrays were "dangerous if provoked", he said.
"As a recreational diving instructor you hear of people getting injured by standing on them ... but they rarely die."
'The zoo will go on'
Irwin's wife Terri would not close down the zoo, predicted Jim Dalrymple, whose local irrigation firm helped maintain the water supplies to Irwin's Australia Zoo in Beerwah on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
The zoo is the biggest local employer with 550 staff, Mr Dalrymple said.
"I managed an irrigation business in Beerwah and had occasions where I served Steve personally. Mathatmacoat answered on 09/04/06:yes pity he should go so young, I guess he pushed the envelope once too often | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 09/03/06 - Life would be better under Saddam? Leading Shiite says militancy is winning
Something to smile about ... Iraqi soldiers celebrate after formally taking over Abu Ghraib prison from US forces. The notorious jail is empty.
Amit Paley in Baghdad and Julian Barnes in Washington
September 4, 2006
AS NEW figures show the numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq spiralling sharply upwards, the nation's most influential moderate Shiite leader has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.
At the same time, a coalition of 300 mainly Sunni tribal leaders has demanded the release of Saddam Hussein so that he can reclaim the presidency. They also called for armed resistance against US-led foreign forces.
The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is reported to be angry and disappointed that Shiites are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.
"I will not be a political leader any more," he told his aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters."
The clan chieftains calling on Saturday for the restoration of Saddam were mostly Sunni Arabs and included the head of the 1.5 million-member Obeidi tribe. They said they planned to hold rallies in Sunni cities throughout the country to insist that Saddam be freed and that the charges against him and his co-defendants are dropped.
"If the demand is not carried out, we will lead a general, sweeping and popular uprising," said Sheik Wassfy al-Assy, a brother of the chief of the Obeidi tribe.
In a dismal assessment, a new Pentagon report has revealed that the numbers of attacks and civilian casualties in Iraq have risen sharply in recent months as sectarian violence has engulfed larger areas of the country. Deaths have risen by 1000 a month.
The quarterly report shows that the number of attacks over the past four months increased by 15 per cent and the number of Iraqi casualties rose by 51 per cent to more than 3000 violent deaths a month.
Over the longer term, the surge is even more grim. Weekly attacks have doubled from about 400 in the northern spring of 2004 to nearly 800 in recent weeks. The number of daily casualties has increased from fewer than 30 a day in 2004 to more than 110 a day in recent weeks.
The Pentagon report says Iraq is not engaged in a civil war, but acknowledges that Iraqi civilians are increasingly worried about such a conflict. It reports that Iraqis are optimistic about the future, but cautions that the positive outlook is eroding.
The US President, George Bush, is trying to shore up sagging public support for the Iraq war in advance of elections, but by putting hard numbers to the perception that Iraq is increasingly chaotic, the Pentagon report stands to further undermine support for the Administration's strategy in Iraq.
* The second most senior figure in al-Qaeda in Iraq was arrested a few days ago, the Iraqi Government has said. He was named as Hamed Juma Faris al-Suaidi, also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, and is said to be the deputy to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over the Sunni Islamist insurgent group after US forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June.
* In a new video, al-Qaeda calls on non-Muslims, especially Americans, to convert to Islam or suffer the consequences. Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, introduced the speaker, who was identified as "Azzam the American", also known as Adam Yahiye Gadahn, an Islamic convert from California who is wanted for questioning by the FBI.
Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post Mathatmacoat answered on 09/04/06:Yes Saddam would sort those shiite militias out very quickly, using the sunni insurgents of course, tell me, if you can; how is this different? | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/03/06 - Convert, or else Sat Sep 2, 2006 9:06 PM BST
By Heba Kandil
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda called on U.S. President George W. Bush and non-Muslims especially in the United States to convert to Islam and abandon their 'misguided' ways or else suffer the consequences, according to a video posted on a Web site on Saturday.
The speaker was identified as Azzam the American, also known as Adam Yahiye Gadahn -- an Islamic convert from California wanted for questioning by the FBI and who U.S. authorities believe to be involved in a "propaganda" campaign for al Qaeda.
"If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like ... the crusader and chief George W. Bush were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam," Gadahn said in English.
"To Americans and the rest of Christendom we say, either repent (your) misguided ways and enter into the light of truth or keep your poison to yourself and suffer the consequences in this world and the next."
Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri made a brief statement at the start of the tape urging viewers to listen carefully to the message, entitled: "An Invitation to Islam".
"Our brother Azzam the American is speaking to you out of pity for the fate that awaits (unbelievers) and as someone who wants to lift his people out of darkness and into the light," Zawahri said.
Zawahri, like Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al Qaeda -- the group that masterminded the September 11 attacks on the United States -- is thought to be hiding in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Zawahri and Gadahn appeared to be speaking from different places, as Zawahri spoke in front of a black background.
The tape was dated September 2006 and appeared to have been recorded recently as Gadahn referred to Israel's war on Lebanon.
Gadahn appeared in the video dressed in a white turban and seated in front of a computer and books.
"But whatever you do don't attempt to spread your misery and misguidance to our lands," he said. The video carried Arabic subtitles of his English message.
FAITH AND JIHAD
Gadahn recited verses from the Muslim holy book the Koran in Arabic, then translated them into English and said Muslims needed to boost their faith to expel their countries' rulers.
"Muslims don't need democracy to rid themselves of their home grown despots and tyrants. What they do need is their Islamic faith, the sprit of jihad and the lifting of foreign troops and interference from their necks," he said, adding that God did not recognise a separation of religion and state.
"Those who think that democracy is synonymous with freedom are either people who haven't experienced life in America or Americans who haven't lived abroad."
Zawahri last appeared in a video in August in which he said that some leaders of Egypt's Gama'a Islamiya have joined al Qaeda. Gama'a Islamiya later denied his statement.
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He aslo reportedly said "Decide today, because today could be your last day."
Can anyone say "I told you so"? I can... Mathatmacoat answered on 09/04/06:It's not going to happen anytime soon | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/31/06 - US: Support for Britain, Canada and Israel Heard this on the way home...
WASHINGTON- Americans' support of Israel continues to be high despite, or perhaps even because of, the war in Lebanon, a new poll published Wednesday in the United States revealed.
From the results it emerges that Israel is ranked in third on the support scale, after Britain and Canada.
The Polling Institute of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut asked Americans to rank 15 countries, as well as the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations, on a scale of zero to 100. The results: Britain received 78.3 points out of 100, Canada, America's northern neighbor, received 71.7 points in second place, and after it, Israel in third place with 65.9 points. India was ranked fourth with 53.4 points, and after it, Mexico, with 51.4 points.
In contrast with the support of Israel, the Palestinians, Syrians, and Iranians lost points after the war in Lebanon. Among the last on the list, the Palestinians cash in with 22.8, with Syria trailing not far behind with 21.7 points. The very last on the list were North Korea with 15 points and Iran with only 13.9 points.
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As this article shows, support for Israel among Americans is on the rise.
My take? In spite of all the incoherent rhetoric from the pundits and the moonbats, Americans get it.
And you? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/31/06:I'm a litte perplexed here, Britian and Canada arn't under attack and why would 22% support Syria, a potential enemy.
I don't think Americans do get it, obviously this poll wasn't even handed, particularly, if Iran and North Korea wer actually allocted points by someone. I SUSPECT THIS WAS ONE OF THOSE RIGGED POLLS WHERE EVERY OPTION HAD TO BE ALLOCATED POINTS | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/31/06 - It may not be politically correct? But Australias Muslims have just been given a message from above, Learn English says PM
By Richard Kerbaj
September 01, 2006 12:40am
Article from: The Australian
JOHN Howard has singled out Muslim migrants for refusing to embrace Australian values and urged them to fully integrate by treating women as equals and learning to speak English.
The call for a shift in attitude among some Muslims infuriated community leaders last night, and comes as The Australian can reveal the Prime Minister's own Islamic advisers have already accused Mr Howard and senior ministers of fuelling hatred and mistrust by using "inflammatory and derogatory" language.
Mr Howard said: "There is a section, a small section of the Islamic population, and I say a small section, which is very resistant to integration."
"Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don't already speak it," the Prime Minister said during a radio talkback discussion.
"And it means understanding that in certain areas, such as the equality of men and women ... people who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia."
The comments prompted a fierce reaction from young female Islamic leader Iktimal Hage-Ali, a member of the Prime Minister's advisory group. She accused Mr Howard of threatening to further marginalise Muslims. "There's no value in pointing out the minority of the Muslim group," she said.
"There's a whole lot of other ethnic communities whose parents, whose grandparents don't speak the English language, and it's never a problem in the mainstream Australian community for them to go on living their everyday life without speaking language.
"Yet as soon as it's a person of a Arab descent or a Muslim person ... politicians feel like they need to bring it to mainstream attention as the only group, like marginalising us even more then we already feel marginalised today."
As Mr Howard's Muslim reference group prepares to hand over its long-awaited report on how to tackle extremism and other problems in the community, The Australian can also reveal that the Islamic leaders the Prime Minister asked to advise him were actually gagged when they raised concerns about Government remarks demeaning the community.
According to a draft of the final report of the Prime Minister's Muslim Reference Group - which will be handed to frontbencher Andrew Robb later this month - among the key problems identified by the community are isolation and radicalisation of converts and the treatment of women and young people.
But in the report, produced as part of the Government's $35 million Muslim strategy, the group criticises "government leaders" for public comments fanning conflict and says the issue has grown worse in the context of the Israel-Hezbollah war in southern Lebanon.
While the yet-to-be-released report does not identify the Government figures, The Australian has obtained a letter the reference group wanted to release in March attacking a speech by Peter Costello, in which he said many Australian Muslims had divided loyalties.
But the group, led by academic Ameer Ali and made up of clerics and community leaders, was stopped by the Government from publishing the letter.
The Australian understands the letter, which also refers to remarks made by Mr Howard, Philip Ruddock and backbenchers Bronwyn Bishop and Danna Vale, was sent to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs for release, but never went past Mr Robb's office.
The advisory group was furious about the Costello remarks and the furore that focused on Muslims when Ms Bishop called for traditional Muslim dress to be banned in schools and Ms Vale said Australia was in danger of aborting itself "almost out of existence" and becoming a Muslim nation.
They were also upset that Mr Howard singled out Muslims when he told The Australian in February: "You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or Lebanese (Christian), or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem."
The gagged letter says Mr Howard and the other MPs were "just a few" politicians who have made remarks against "Islam and Muslims".
"All we ask is that when Mr Costello, or any parliamentarian, wishes to have the debate about the citizenship of Australia or the 'mushy, misguided multiculturalism' they do so with the engagement of all Australians, rather than alienating any one community group," it says.
Yasmin Khan, a member of the reference body's seven sub-groups, said last night she wrote the letter on behalf of the group and sent it to a Department of Immigration employee who said she would have to send it to Mr Robb's office.
"She said ... 'We've got to release it through his (Mr Robb's) office' ... so we left it at that and I waited and waited and waited."
A spokesman for Mr Robb last night told The Australian that the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs, who is responsible for the reference board, had not received the letter. DIMA spokesman Sandi Logan said the department had received the letter and sent it back to members of the reference group.
Despite the dispute, the Federal Government - which through DIMA has worked closely with the reference group on the final report - has already agreed to a raft of proposals.
Under the $35 million strategy, the Government has agreed to a series of programs ranging from a university for imams to issuing police with a detailed booklet explaining Islam.
In a section titled "Addressing isolation and marginalisation", the group says society must be more inclusive to keep young Muslims away from radicalism.
"A more inclusive Australian society is a key issue in making rigid thinking and possible involvement in terrorism less attractive to those at risk," the 26-page report says.
Among other proposals from the group, set up in the wake of the London Tube bombings last year, research will be conducted by University of Western Australia and the West Australian Government into why young Muslims turn to militant Islam through extreme literature.
"The project aims to develop an understanding of the pathways whereby second and third-generation Muslim youth in Western liberal democracies move to a position of militant Islamic identity," the report says. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/31/06:Good on him, it's about time the old John stood up to be counted. We don't want Jihad Jack and his ilk here and we certainly don't want anyone who isn't committed to Australia and not some outdated ideas of a cave dwelling nutcase | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/31/06 - Bush polls It is a demonstrated fact that the popularity of the President rises and falls depending on the price of gasoline . See this graph for illustration .
The meme on the networks and cable casts is that Republicans are opting out of inviting the President to come to their States and campaign with them. I think that is a bad call on their part .
With gas prices falling ;and the prospect is for them to continue to fall throughout the Autumn baring some idiocy from the Mahdi-hatter ,I think they should reconsider .
Many Democrats plan on highlighting gas prices to try and get elected, though none can say what they would do to change the way the market is structured to improve prices.
Their only answer is 'Cater-esque' as in forcing people into tiny cars.
Must be a Rovian Cheney conspiracy to steal the elections again . Mathatmacoat answered on 08/31/06:So all the egotistical crap associated with large vehicles is finally coming out, you don't want a small vehicle because it makes you feel inferior, doesn't matter the world is going to hell in a hand cart.
Now how to turn it to political advantage | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 08/29/06 - Alternate Thinking About Terrorists There is one theory that 911 was Bin Laden's plan to scare America in to removing their troops and bases from the Islamic Holy Land.....there are now only 300 American soldiers there, and Bush said in a televised appearance some time ago when asked about Osama, "I dont' think about him any more"...we closed our Bin Laden office in the FBI....Bin Laden's mission accomplished?
AlQuaeda is splintered into various groups, the centralized leadership decimated...Bin Laden and the good Dr from Egypt making occasional television appearances.
We see the results of the Lebanon War. Israel was severely beaten because they couldn't FINISH OFF SUCH A PRIMITIVE, fighting force with sophisticated air power and weapons, an army of trained soldiers, a superior intelligence force.
I see no way to defeat terrorism by force and violence. Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanista has proven that.
Time for some serious thinking about American foreign policy. Note: nothing in the world will solve the violence problems between Jews and Palestineans. The reason, they are *both correct* in their reasons for the existence or non-existence of Israel.
Terrorism of all kinds has always been with us, and it will go on into the future, hopefully at a lesser pace, so time for creative approaches and super espionage and intelligence and police work to lessen the death.
Any comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/30/06:where do you get these theories from, the tabloid press?
Bin Laden wanted to scare america..
Boo! I'm the arab boogey man, the big, bad, genee from Arabia and if you don't go away, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down. Get a grip woman!
Israel was not severly beaten, Israel failed to achieve all it's objectives, but it did succeed in one thing, it got the world to take the Hezbollah threat to Israel seriously and to recognise Iranian aggression. That may be a victory in itsself.
Jews and Palistinians can't be both correct.
What we have here is an inability to communicate or an inability to hear.
I doubt Israel wants to be in a state of war with it's neighbours or the Palistinians but there are serious issues of security by having an indigenous muslim population in your midst that thinks it owns the place | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/28/06 - now we are persecuting terrorists? Curfew order for Jack Thomas
August 28, 2006 - 7:22PM
The Federal Government tonight defended the move to impose Australia's first control order on freed terror suspect Jack Thomas, saying the community needs to be protected.
The control order, the first granted under tough new anti-terror laws, was slapped on Mr Thomas this morning as he holidayed with his family in Victoria's South Gippsland, forcing him to quickly return to Melbourne.
Mr Thomas has been a free man since August 18, when the Victorian Court of Appeal quashed convictions for receiving funds from al-Qaeda and holding a false passport, and overturned a five-year jail sentence.
Mr Thomas, 33, was neither present nor represented when the Federal Magistrates Court in Canberra yesterday granted the control order, requested by federal police with the approval of Attorney General Philip Ruddock.
The court said because Mr Thomas had trained with al-Qaeda, the interim order was "reasonably necessary" to protect the public and prevent a terrorist act.
Under the order, the Melbourne father-of-three is confined to his house between midnight and 5am, must report to police three days a week, is banned from leaving Australia without permission, and is restricted in what phones he can use.
Mr Thomas is also banned from any contact with members of banned terrorist groups.
Jack Thomas' lawyer Rob Stary said his client would challenge the order at a directions hearing set down for later this week.
"We will be challenging it. We will be vigorously challenging it," Mr Stary said.
But if confirmed at a hearing due on Friday, the order will be in force for 12 months.
Jack Thomas' brother Les Thomas said the order amounted to the continuing persecution of his brother by the government and was nothing more than a political stunt.
"We just didn't expect them to stoop this low," he said.
"Obviously, the decision to quash my brother's convictions and make him a free man were a setback to the Australian Federal Police and the attorney-general's office, whose claims of Jack being some kind of terrorist sleeper were thrown out by a jury," Mr Thomas told AAP.
"There have been assorted claims made throughout the trial that have been proven to be false, yet the government is trying to save face in this case and score propaganda points.
"Fear is extraordinarily high in the community and people are frightened for all kinds of reasons.
"We are going to stand by Jack throughout this as we always have and see it through." Mathatmacoat answered on 08/30/06:I think it would be a great idea if we persecuted a few more, this one has the hide to suggest he is a patriot and the first in line to fight for his country.
If he wants to do that he doens't need al qaeda training, the army will give him first hand combat experience | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/29/06 - Why are americans so anxious to export their form of democracy? One in eight Americans in poverty: poll
August 30, 2006 - 7:39AM
In the world's biggest economy, one in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the US Census Bureau said, both ratios virtually unchanged from 2004.
The survey also showed 15.9 per cent of the population, or 46.6 million, had no health insurance, up from 15.6 per cent in 2004 and an increase for a fifth consecutive year, even as the economy grew at a 3.2 per cent clip.
It was the first year since President George W Bush took office in 2001 that the poverty rate did not increase. As in past years, the figures showed poverty especially concentrated among blacks and Hispanics.
In all, some 37 million Americans, or 12.6 per cent, lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income around $US10,000 ($A13,200) for an individual or $US20,000 ($A26,395) for a family of four.
The total showed a decrease of 90,000 from the 2004 figure, which Census Bureau officials said was "statistically insignificant."
The last time poverty declined was in 2000, the final year of Bill Clinton's presidency, when it fell to 11.3 per cent.
The stagnant poverty picture drew attention from Democrats and others who said not enough is being done to help the nation's poor.
"Far too many American families who work hard and play by the rules still wind up living in poverty," said Republican George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Around a quarter of blacks and 21.8 per cent of Hispanics were living in poverty. Among whites, the rate edged down to 8.3 per cent from 8.7 per cent in 2004.
"Among African Americans the problem correlates primarily to the inner-city and single mothers," said Michael Tanner of CATO Institute, a free-market think tank in Washington.
He noted that blacks also suffer disproportionately from poor education and lower quality jobs.
Black median income, at $US30,858 ($A40,720), was only 61 per cent of the median for whites.
Some 17.6 per cent of children under 18 and one in five of those under six were in poverty, higher than for any other age group.
Major cities with the highest proportions of poor people included Cleveland with 32.4 per cent and Detroit with 31.4 per cent under the poverty line.
2006 Reuters, Mathatmacoat answered on 08/30/06:They have to export it because it isn't working, but so far they haven't even managed to give it away in a fire sale.
Who would want to duplicate a system that sets a President up as a virtual dictator, draging his own nation as well as others into an unwanted war all the while tellin the world this is the war we had to have to preserve, of all things, democracy. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/30/06 - Sometimes, dispite our best intentions, idiots get elected? AUSTRALIAN Democrats MP Sandra Kanck was set to use the protection of parliamentary privilege today to detail ways of committing suicide.
Ms Kanck was to move a motion in the South Australian Parliament challenging Federal Government laws which make it illegal to distribute such information by electronic means.
Once she delivers her speech she expects it to be posted on Parliament's website, bringing the SA Parliament into direct conflict with the Commonwealth's Suicide Material Related Offences Act.
Ms Kanck said the federal laws undermined two fundamental human rights, the right to free speech and the right to die with dignity.
"I cannot, in good conscience, allow the attack on human rights to go unchallenged," she said.
"The effect of this odious legislation will be to force desperate people to commit suicide by the most appalling of means.
"As a consequence some won't succeed and will be left in awful agony.
"Others will die in grotesque ways that psychologically scar those who find the body."
Ms Kanck rejected suggestions her action might prompt more young people to access the information on suicide in a bid to take their own lives.
I sometimes think it's a great pity politicians wern't forced to practice what they preach? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/30/06:What do you expect in a place like SA. It's been a strong hold of the gay-fascist lobby since Dunstan was in power. Any bets her next act will be to make euthenasia not only legal, but compulsory, so everyone can "die with dignity" | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/30/06 - Lost opportunity at Diwaniyah There was a fierce battle going on in the Iraqi city of Diwaniyah between principly the Iraqi
Army 8th Division and elements of what was later described as "rogue break away elements (read Iranian surrogates if not Iranian regulars )of the Mookie Sadr Mahdi Army .Mahdi Army troops captured two neighborhoods in Diwaniyah,. The army responded by sealing the town and raiding three neighborhoods controlled by the Mahdi. The Army took back all the territory lost but as usual when the going got tough the militia terrorists were able to secure a cease fire ....but not before they were able to blow another hole in the oil pipeline there. Read this as ANOTHER time the enemy was on the ropes and the politicians let them off .
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/30/06:yeh what's with this, the americans just stood on the sidelines and cheered like a bunch of high school dropouts. | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 08/30/06 - ISLAMO-THEISM The Bush Propaganda and Noise Machine had a tough decision naming the religious terrorists. They are Islamo-Theists but, of course, that moniker was a no-starter. There was no way that the Bush Christian Republican Theist Party could use the word Islamo-Theists; it would remind every American that Bush was running a Theist Party of his own. A Theist Party that was attempting to turn the American Government into a virtual Dictatorship, a Fascist-Corporate State.
The solution, the same as all the Propaganda put out by the Bush Crime Family....call your opponents WHAT YOU ARE! Usurp the word.
That is the genesis of the incorrect term Islamofascists.
CORRECTLY, THEY ARE ISLAMO-THEISTS. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/30/06:What's this, more Bushcrap and Islamofundie bashing. If you want to invent names you need to become more inventive in your insults.
If you don't the camel-jockey-lookalikes will just ignore you. You are being too politically correct or is that pitifully carpist | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/26/06 - Taxpayers paying for soldiers' breast, nose jobs Associated Press
Aug. 25, 2006 07:10 AM
CANBERRA, Australia - Australian soldiers are indulging in expensive cosmetic surgery - including breast enlargements, nose jobs and face lifts - at taxpayers' expense, according to media reports Friday.
Official Australian Defense Force policy states that personnel can undergo plastic surgery at public expense for medical or psychological reasons that threaten their ability to work.
An army cook underwent a nose reduction operation Wednesday, while female service personnel have had breast enlargements after claiming that depression and poor confidence were hurting their work, News Ltd. newspapers reported.
Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said Friday he has ordered an investigation.
Cosmetic surgery consultant Pamela Noon told the newspapers her business has performed surgeries on six military personnel in the past year.
"While a feature might affect somebody's self-confidence, I can't see how it would help their ability to protect the country," Noon was quoted as saying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Breast enlargements? Interesting way to beef up your body armor... Mathatmacoat answered on 08/26/06:just a symptom of a peace time army without enough to do and after all, females can be self obcessive in or out of uniform | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/25/06 - Their man in Islamabad 20.08. 2006
BUSH,BLAIR: THEIR MAN IN ISLAMABAD
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.109
By B.Raman
A hilarious novel by Graham Greene titled "Our Man in Havana" became a best-seller in the 1970s. It was about a mediocre officer of the MI-6, Britain's external intelligence agency, posted to Havana as a punishment for failing to produce any worthwhile intelligence in his career. One day he sends to his headquarters a sensational report, which he claims to have obtained from a mole, about the arrival in Cuba of a highly lethal Soviet missile for use against the US.
2. The MI-6 and the CIA examine the report. There is excitement in both the agencies over this intelligence coup. They inform their respective political leaders. The MI-6's man in Havana is flooded with encomiums.The more the MI-6 asks him for further details of the missile, the more he gets from his mole.
3. One day, the excitement in the MI-6 breaks the ceiling when they receive from their man what he claimed was a copy of the diagram of the missile.The UK Defence Department, the Pentagon and the political leaders of the two countries are informed. The British and American analysts are mystified.The missile, going by the diagram, looks like no other missile the USSR was known to have produced before.Studies are ordered as to how to counter it.
4. One British analyst has a vague feeling that he had seen a similar diagram somewhere before, but he cannot recall when and where.One day the vacuum cleaner in his house goes out of order.He opens it. Hey presto, he finds inside a diagram of the vacuum cleaner. He realises that what their man in Havana had sent as the diagram of a new Soviet missile, was actually the diagram of a vacuum cleaner.
5.There is utter consternation in the MI-6 headquarters. They call their man to London and question him. He admits that he never had a mole in the Cuban security set-up and that he had fabricated all his reports. He got the idea about the new missile while repairing his vacuum cleaner one day.
6.The chief of the MI-6 and his officers ask him to wait outside while they discuss his cheating.The senior officers advise the chief not to admit to the Prime Minister and the CIA that there was no such missile and that their man had made an ass of them.It would destroy the organisation's credibility and that of the chief.
7.They decide to request their man to apply for premature retirement and recommend to the Government that his request be accepted despite his outstanding work. They also decide to recommend him for knighthood for his outstanding performance in Havana. He remains on the records of the MI-6 one of the greatest intelligence operatives produced by the British intelligence.
8. One is reminded of the MI-6's Man in Havana as one watches with amazement the encomiums being showered on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan as a stalwart ally in the war against terrorism by President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair despite an avalanche of evidence regarding his duplicity. What is the evidence available against Musharraf so far:
* His reluctance to hand over Omar Sheikh to the Americans for questioning regarding the kidnapping and beheading of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist.
* His continued refusal to hand over A.Q.Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, to the US for interrogation on his links with Iran,Libya,North Korea, Syria, Iraq and Al Qaeda.
* His non-co-operation in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri and other remnants of Al Qaeda, who are now operating from Waziristan in Pakistani territory.
* His reluctance to act against Mulla Mohammed Omar, the Amir, and other leaders and cadres of the Taliban, who are killing Americans, British, Canadians, Afghans and others from their sanctuaries in Pakistani territory.
* His refusal to act against the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and its mother organisation the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) despite the LET's global ramifications and its links with Al Qaeda.
* His indignant denials of Indian and Afghan allegations regarding the jihadi terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory, which continues to encourage terrorism in India and Afghanistan.
* His making a deal with the Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in Waziristan under which they have agreed to observe a cease-fire inside Waziristan in return for Musharraf's closing his eyes to their raids into Afghan territory
9. And, so on and so on and so on. In spite of all this, Mr.Bush and Mr.Blair keep showering praise on Their Man in Islamabad. Their praise shows no sign of stopping despite new evidence of the General's duplicity regarding the alleged plot to blow up 10 US-bound aircraft, the discovery of which was announced dramatically by the British police on August 10, 2006.
10.Musharraf and his officials proclaimed that it was Pakistan, which discovered the plot and alerted the British about it on August 9. They projected Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, as the chief co-ordinator of the plot on behalf of the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. What strip-tease they have been playing about Rashid Rauf!
* They said he was arrested while crossing into Pakistan from Afghanistan a week before the British announcement.
* Sections of the Pakistani media reported that he was actually arrested in Bahawalpur in southern Punjab on August 8. He had acquired an expensive house there and married the sister-in-law (wife's sister) of Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), which was designated by the US as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in December,2001.
* After the publication of the report of his arrest in Bahawalpur, the Pakistani officials changed their version. They said they had actually arrested an associate of Rashid Rauf while crossing over into Pakistan from Afghanistan and he led them to Rashid in Bahawalpur. They have not given the name of this associate.
* They said that the entire plot was conceived by the No.3 of Al Qaeda who, according to them, is based in Afghanistan, but they could not give his name except to say he was close to No.2 Zawahiri.
* Then, they said it was actually a son-in-law of Zawahiri, who conceived the plot and tried to use Rashid to have it executed. They gave the name of the so-called son-in-law. When it was pointed out to them that this son-in-law was reported by them earlier this year to have been killed in an American air raid in the Bajaur tribal agency, they have gone silent. Musharraf has advised his agencies not to give any more briefings to the media.
11.Musharraf has suddenly become a stickler for the law. In the past, the Pakistani authorities had informally handed over to the Americans without following the due process of the law Mir Aimal Kansi, Ramzi Yousef, Abu Zubaidah, Ramzi Binalshib, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Abu Faraj al-Libi and many others without informing their courts about their arrests.Abu Faraj was handed over despite the fact that he was the principal accused in the case relating to the plot to kill Musharraf in December,2003.
12.In the case of Rashid Rauf, they are following the entire procedure as laid down in the law. They informed a court of his arrest. They produced him before a magistrate and obtained his remand in police custody for interrogation. They have reportedly requested the British for a formal written application for handing him over so that they can put it up to the Magistrate for orders. A British police team is waiting in Islamabad patiently for an opportunity to question him.
13. Any police would have been anxious to question him as urgently as possible in order to neutralise any other threat before it materialises, but not the British. It is now 10 days since the plot was discovered, but the British are yet to interrogate the so-called principal co-ordinator of it. They are showing remarkable patience.It is like a clip in slow motion from a Charlie Chaplin movie. The whole case relating to Rashid is moving at a pace which would make the proverbial snail look a great sprinter.
14. Rashid Rauf may well go down in history as the terrorist, whom nobody wanted to interrogate. The Pakistanis don't want to interrogate him too much lest their duplicity be exposed.The British and the Americans don't want to be in a hurry to interrogate lest their own gullibility be exposed.Moreover, there is a great danger if it comes out that they again let themselves be taken for a ride by Musharraf.Not only will their credibility be in ruins, but they may even face claims for damages from airline companies and passengers, who incurred losses amounting to billions of dollars as a result of the drama staged by the British police.
15. The only way of avoiding all this is to persist with the drama and to go on showering encomiums and lollipops on Musharraf. It would be dangerous to admit that he was a trickster, who took them for a ride. Better to let him go down in history as the world's greatest warrior against terrorism and as the hero of the discovery of a plot to blow up 10 US-bound planes.
16. They sink or swim with Their Man in Islamabad.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: itschen36@gmail.com )
Copyright South Asia Analysis Group
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/26/06:It's the same game that has been played on the sub-continent for centuries | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/25/06 - Another US intelligence failure? When will Bush get his team together?
US spies slammed for Iran failures
Dafna Linzer in Washington
August 25, 2006
A KEY House of Representatives committee has issued a stinging attack on US intelligence on Iran, saying the CIA and other agencies lack the ability to acquire essential information necessary to make judgements on Tehran's nuclear program or even its ties to terrorism.
The 29-page report, principally written by a Republican staff member on the House of Representatives' intelligence committee, fully backs the White House position that Iran is moving forward with a nuclear weapons program and poses a significant danger. But it attacks intelligence agencies for not providing enough direct evidence to support that claim.
Little evidence has been found to tie Iran to al-Qaeda and to the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, says the report, which relies exclusively on public documents. Its authors did not interview intelligence officials.
But it warns the agencies to avoid the mistakes made over weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war, saying Iran could easily be engaged in "a denial and deception campaign to exaggerate progress on its nuclear program as Saddam Hussein apparently did concerning his WMD programs".
"We want to avoid another 'slam dunk'," the committee chairman, Peter Hoekstra said, explaining why the staff report was made public. "We think it's important for the American people to understand the kinds of pressures that we are facing and to increase the American public's understanding of Iran as a threat."
The then CIA director, George Tenet, had called prewar intelligence on banned weapons a "slam dunk", but no such arms were ever found.
The report comes as the Bush Administration scrambles for leverage in its bid to force Iran to halt its nuclear program. Some Republicans privately oppose President George Bush's policy of potential engagement with Iran and believe it is crumbling in the face of European reluctance to impose strict measures on Tehran.
A spokesman for the intelligence groups disclosed that the report's principal author was Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA officer who had been a special assistant to John Bolton, a former undersecretary of state at the State Department. Mr Bolton, now US ambassador to the United Nations, had previously influenced the crafting of a tough policy that rejected talks with Tehran.
Coinciding with the report's release, policymakers expressed anger that spy agencies were playing down intelligence - including from the Israeli Government - of extensive contacts between Hezbollah and members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. "The people in the community are unwilling to make judgement calls and don't know how to link anything together," one senior US official said.
"When they say there is 'no evidence,' you have to ask them what they mean? What is the meaning of the term 'evidence'?"
A separate report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London meanwhile has concluded that Iran has replaced the US as the most influential foreign power inside Iraq. It said the turmoil unleashed by the invasion of Iraq gave Tehran the chance to fill the void left by Saddam Hussein's downfall.
The Washington Post, The New York Times
This lack of ability is what has plunged the world into war once, it must not be allowed to do it again! Mathatmacoat answered on 08/26/06:Does anyone actually know what is going on? I have come to doubt it | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/25/06 - When sedition isn't enough Terror group not radical enough
August 26, 2006 - 8:26AM
A radical group with alleged links to the London bombings is reportedly distributing pamphlets through suburban Sydney calling for a holy war.
The leaflets, from the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahir, call for a jihad to destroy Israel and use key dates in the Muslim calendar to signal the coming destruction of the Jewish state, News Limited newspapers reported.
The group is banned in Germany and British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for Hizb ut-Tahir, which has alleged links to last year's London terrorist attacks, to be outlawed there.
It remains legal in Australia despite calls for it to be banned.
A spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's office said that security agencies were "very aware" of the pamphlets.
"In order for a group to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation it must be directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering a terrorist act," he was quoted as saying.
Hizb ut-Tahir spokesman Mohammed Abdalwahab told the papers the group called for the non-violent overthrow of governments and the rise of Islamic governments and Sharia law.
AAP Mathatmacoat answered on 08/26/06:Muslims at their cowardly best again. They seek to instil fear but all they do is expose themselves. I wish these fellows would just go back where they came from. If they want a fight so much, they should put their money where their mouth is. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/23/06 - A stiff upper lip old chap and don't mind those Paki wallahs, eh? US stumped by front page cricket news
August 23, 2006 - 3:05PM
Darrell Hair may not score a goodwill ambassador job in Pakistan anytime soon, but the Australian umpire has achieved something rare for cricket - front page news in the US.
Cricket seldom rates a mention in the US media.
Americans can't get over the fact a game can last five days, with breaks for "tea", and end in a draw.
Shane Warne may have made saucy headlines in Australia and England when he was caught in his Playboy underpants with two bimbos earlier this year, but thankfully for Americans, the story did not get a run in the US.
Shane who?
When the Ashes gets underway in Australia in November, Aussie and English expats in the US will be lucky to find a mention in American newspapers' sports pages.
But this week's ball tampering incident in London involving Hair and the Pakistan and English teams struck a chord with American editors.
Today's Los Angeles Times ran the story on its front page, relegating a killer bomb blast in Moscow, Saddam Hussein's genocide trial, the deaths of four US troops in Iraq and the Lebanon-Israeli conflict to its latter pages.
The New York Times also ran the cricket story.
"When a match becomes a scandal, that's just not cricket," the LA Times' headline read on the front page.
The US media was fascinated how the "genteel" game of cricket could get so ugly.
"An outsider - someone from the moon, say, or the United States - might imagine that this was merely a folly of the silly season in a game followed only by erudite aficionados of leg-byes, googlies and silly-mid-ons, to mention but a few of crickets more esoteric terms," the NY Times wrote.
"But that is not what this conflict turned out to be."
AAP Mathatmacoat answered on 08/24/06:Now look, far go. All Darrel did was stop the Paki's from cheating. But true to form the Paki's took their ball and went home | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/23/06 - wither goes the lebanon? Everybody got a bloody nose, except Iran and Syria
August 23, 2006
Israel's Lebanon adventure failed, but Hezbollah will not be seeking a return bout just yet, writes Tom Teepen.
SO WHO won in Lebanon? Israel? Hezbollah? Right question. Wrong time. Try again in a couple of years or in several. It will be a long time before this nasty little war's dust, swirled by the Middle East's ever contrary and battering winds, settles.
An even better question is rather longer than the terse one above: who won? Who lost? Hezbollah? Israel? Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the US? Moderate Islam or Jihadist Islam? Shiite Islam or Sunni?
In this short run, Hezbollah is crowing and the region's radicals quickly formed a chorale of concurrence. Hezbollah did hold off Israel, although an Israel that pulled up short rather than fully committing. Hezbollah's cadres showed themselves larger, better armed and more determined than just about anyone had expected.
And Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has emerged as the new poster boy for anti-Israel zealots.
Iran and Syria, Hezbollah's enablers, armers and eggers-on, gained regional stature, with Iran provisionally the area's go-to guy, a status that will be cemented if Iran goes nuclear. Pan-Arabism flopped 30 years ago and Arab nationalism never filled the void. Now supranational Islamism may. Hope that the widening Sunni-Shiite split bars that.
The Iraq war, which George Bush and his people still tout as the front line against terrorism, once again showed itself to be only an ugly sideshow sucking up US treasure and lives in the forlorn service of a sectarian civil war.
Israel failed in its strategic objectives of disarming Hezbollah and implicitly cautioning Iran against adventurism. And in failing, Israel lost its intimidating reputation for military invincibility, which had been a security deterrent in its own right. That just about guarantees that some fool in the region will soon give Israel a chance to re-establish that reputation.
Israel's legendary intelligence, this time askew, brought a microscopic review on itself. Its Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, stands on political quicksand. One "victory" Hezbollah may well have won for Islam and the Arab world is the election of a harder-line, more aggressive successor to Olmert.
Although giddy at the moment, Hezbollah is bloody as well. It survived but took huge losses in arms and personnel. Another similarly rash project is unlikely to appeal to Hezbollah's leadership any time soon.
Much will depend upon what the Lebanese make of the set-to in the long run. Right now they are furious with Israel, but they also know that Hezbollah brought this grief upon them, and an eager and skilled mercantile people cannot happily imagine the Islamist state Hezbollah and Iran intend for them. The key question then will be whether the West, with nothing less than its way of life at issue, will rally to the Lebanese if they send up flares.
Cox News Service Mathatmacoat answered on 08/24/06:It's gone mate, those keebob eaters have copped it this time | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 08/23/06 - The French Double-Cross From National Review online.
August 22, 2006, 6:05 a.m.
Youll Never Confuse George W. Bush for a Frenchman
The worlds sole responsible power.
By Rich Lowry
The United States is not just the worlds sole superpower, it is the worlds only responsible power.
Consider the recent action related to a peacekeeping force taking control of southern Lebanon from Hezbollah. France initially agreed with the United States on a United Nations resolution creating an international force that would operate with robust rules of engagement to confront the terrorist guerrilla group. When the Arabs balked, France insisted that the rules of engagement be made considerably vaguer. Since France was going to lead the force, the U.S. deferred to Paris, which has subsequently said that it will contribute only 200 combat engineers to the force because ... the rules on engagement are so vague.
This is a spectacularly bald-faced diplomatic double-cross that makes one wonder if Secretary of State Condi Rice was wearing a Kick Me sign when she voted for the resolution in New York. It sinks any hope of a lasting settlement in southern Lebanon and further undermines the credibility of the United Nations. But the French dont care. They were able to serve their political purposes in the Middle East by triangulating between the United States and the Arabs. Consequences be damned.
Say what you will about the efficacy or delicacy of U.S. foreign policy, this is cynicism, bad faith, and rank selfishness of which America is almost incapable as a world power. Indeed, in our willingness serially to believe the unreliable assurances of the French, we are an innocent abroad. First, they snookered us three years ago into believing that they wouldnt kick up trouble for us at the U.N. in the event Saddam Hussein didnt fully comply with his disarmament obligations. Now, we have been played the fool in Lebanon.
The root of our seeming navet is the earnest desire to deal with world problems. Saddam was a menace, but France and Germany were content to play diplomatic and political games at our expense. Southern Lebanon is, as we have seen in recent weeks, a deep source of instability in the region. The U.S. wanted to craft a long-term solution, but since we werent going to send troops ourselves, we needed a partner. Enter: France. Exit: any chance of a real settlement.
Civilization simply lacks backbone without the United States in the lead. Everyone agrees that a nuclear North Korea is a danger, but Russia and China play the role of enablers. Everyone thinks the same about Iran, but Europe is willing only to dither. Everyone thinks Iraq descending into chaos would be a disaster, but only the U.S. is pouring major resources into preventing it (granted, its our baby). Everyone supports the Afghan war, and NATO is actually pitching in there, but the Taliban is emboldened on the assumption that our European allies wont have the same commitment to doing the job that we do.
This is not to say that the U.S. is flawless. Our mistakes, however, tend to be the products of an excess of zeal and idealism. We dont do coldblooded calculation well. Some of this is the product of being a superpower dishonest diplomatic ploys are beneath us. Some of it is the nature of our democracy, which values openness and honesty.
Paranoid critics charge that we are in Iraq to control its oil. The French could have pulled off such a self-serving maneuver clothed in idealism, but we are in Iraq for exactly the achingly innocent reasons we say. We are spending and bleeding there trying to plant a liberal democracy in the hardscrabble soil of Mesopotamia.
When President Bush is gone, conservative foreign policy will change. But it wont be a change the foreign-policy establishment likes. It wont be toward a lets-talk-even-more-to-the-French multilateralism as represented by Nebraskas tiresome Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel. It will be something more selfish and hardheaded, something more French in its motivation Bush without the soft touches. Then, the world will miss the earnest do-gooding United States of old.
Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
2006 by King Features Syndicate
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Comments? Is the rest of the world as calculating as Lowry says? Do we lack that cut-throat calculation in the world of international politics? Is that idealism our great weakness?
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 08/24/06:ze frenchcy zis ze dirty rotten traitor No sacre blu | | Question/Answer | | Coup_de_Grace asked on 08/21/06 - Mexican Plan to Annex American Southwest PAT BUCHANAN: "The nature and character of the invasion is far different than anything that used to happen. 58% of the Mexican people in one survey indicated they believed that the American Southwest belonged actually to Mexico. It was stolen from them. It belongs to them and I think that the Mexican government has a direct program basically to push its poor, unemployed, and uneducated into the United States for a variety of purposes. And one of them, in my judgment in which I believe I documented it in the book is an attempt at the reconquista they call it, the reannexation of the seven days states of the American Southwest, link linguistically, ethnically and culturally to become as much a part of Mexico is they are a part of America. And I think that is well underway.
Filed under: Immigration
Pat Buchanan on a radio talk show.
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Waddaya think? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/21/06:I think you should give the whole place back to the indians | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/18/06 - Not happy Julian Al Kyder's Virgin on the ridiculous
Using names that could be genuine such as Al Kyder and Terry Wrist is hardly going to spark a global security alert, especially considering everyone goes through the same stringent security procedures
Jano Gibson
August 18, 2006 - 12:17PM
It's a prank Bart Simpson would be proud of. After several controversial stunts, including trying to flog knuckle-dusters outside a Bulldogs rugby league game and approaching the Prime Minister, John Howard, with an over-sized axe, ABC TV's Chaser boys have struck again.
The pranksters pulled off a stunt at Sydney Airport on Wednesday which saw Virgin Blue staff make a "final boarding call" announcement for five late passengers, including one which sounded suspiciously like Mr Al Qaeda and another which sounded like Mr Terrorist.
Less than a week since UK and US authorities foiled a plot to blow-up mid-air trans-Atlantic flights, The Chaser's War on Everything decided to test domestic airport security in the most "puerile" way possible.
The satirical show's executive producer, Julian Morrow, said two tickets were booked online under the names "Mr Al Kyder" and "Mr Terry Wrist" for an 8.30am Virgin Blue flight from Sydney to Melbourne.
He picked up the boarding passes using the airline's self-serve computers, which do not require proof of photo identification.
Then, after deliberately failing to board the plane, an announcement was made over the airport's loud speaker system.
"Good morning ladies and gentleman," the announcement said. "This is the final boarding call for [name withheld], [name withheld], Al Kyder, [name withheld], and Terry Wrist, all travelling to Melbourne today on Virgin Blue flight 822."
Julian Morrow told smh.com.au: "We've been following the media coverage about airline security and, in particular, whether domestic security is lighter, and we thought we would test that in the most puerile way that we could."
"We are giving Bart Simpson a writer's credit on the show," he said, referring to the cartoon character's penchant for prank calls.
Virgin Blue described The Chaser's stunt as "childish humour" but said security was never at risk.
"The Chaser guys could do well with using spell check. Using names that could be genuine such as Al Kyder and Terry Wrist is hardly going to spark a global security alert, especially considering everyone goes through the same stringent security procedures," the airline's spokeswoman, Amanda Bolger, said.
"They obviously have Bart Simpson as a consultant and while we are happy to take the $282 taxpayer dollars they spent on the bookings, we don't think in the current climate, their childish humour is appreciated by anyone."
Mr Morrow said the prank was approved by ABC management and was obviously meant in jest.
"I also assume that using a joke name is not really high up there in the list of serious terrorist strategies."
Earlier this month, The Chaser's Craig Reucassel approached John Howard during his morning walk with an over-sized axe - a reference to an incident in which a school boy hugged the Prime Minister while holding a screwdriver.
Mr Howard saw the funny side of the situation and accepted a hug from Mr Reucassel.
In July, The Chaser's Chas Licciardello was charged with offensive behaviour after a stunt in which he tried to give away fake knuckle-dusters, an imitation knife and flares to fans outside a Bulldogs versus St George Illawarra NRL game. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/21/06:Yes that was virgin on the rediculous | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/18/06 - How to be a superior failure? Islam needs to face up to its failures
Tanveer Ahmed
August 18, 2006
THE latest arrests in Britain and Pakistan relating to another possible terrorist attack by Western-raised Muslims are a pivotal point in the shaping of popular opinion and in setting a course of action for Muslims living in the West.
After the London bombings in July last year there were ceremonial hugs between sheiks and the Mayor, Ken Livingstone; not this time. Nor were there immediate police announcements in Muslim districts to avoid criminalising entire communities. In fact, quite the opposite.
The former Metropolitan Police chief, John Stevens, wrote in the News of the World: "When will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is their problem?"
The tone of opinion and editorial pieces has also become less sympathetic. Even progressive newspapers such as The Guardian have accused Muslims of burying their heads in the sand. To a large extent, it is justified.
Despite repeated terrorist attacks and the normality of radical views in the community, Muslims have done little to speak up about the extremists in their ranks or to condemn the abuses of radical Islamic groups and governments. Rather, their political voices have been limited to cries of discrimination and criticism of the foreign policy of the West.
This reached a climax in Britain this week after a council of Islamic representative groups handed a document to the Government outlining how British foreign policy needed to be altered, based not on any principle, but because it was increasing the appeal of extremism in their communities. Similarly, here the Federation of Islamic Councils has been lobbying the Federal Government to remove Hezbollah from a list of banned terrorist groups.
The claims that terrorism is linked solely to Western foreign policy look increasingly weak, especially since the latest investigations in Britain suggest there were plans for attacks on London from the mid-1990s.
When Muslim voices are heard, victimhood themes and, even worse, ludicrous levels of denial dominate. In London this week, interviews with Muslims revealed that large sections of the community still believe there was no proof that Muslims were behind the London bombings and that there was a Jewish conspiracy behind the World Trade Centre attacks.
Surveys in London's Daily Telegraph in February found 6 per cent of Muslims believed the London bombings were justified. This equates to about 100,000 people in Britain who could see nothing wrong with the July 7 attacks in their country. Almost 35 per cent were sympathetic. While no similar surveys have been carried out in Australia, I suspect the figures would be little different.
The groups that tend to harbour undesirable views see Islam as morally superior and believe it needs to be instituted at all costs. They take solace in their belief that despite the overwhelming economic, administrative and technological superiority of the West, at least they can hold on to their superior morals.
They create cultural fortresses to ward off the forces of their adopted home while still hoping to benefit from its economic advantages. It is the children who, raised in such cultural fortresses, feel few ties to their country of birth and are vulnerable to radical ideologies offering a higher, supra-national identity.
The time has come for Western Muslims to take a more aggressive stance, to take control of the institutions and commentary that demean them and accept that Islam is full of failures that require action.
Furthermore, there should be a growing sense that while Islam has been instrumental in offering meaning and purpose to billions, it has been more useful as a system of spirituality than as a system of jurisprudence.
This should be the new battleground between radicals, moderates and cultural Muslims, and recent events demand these issues be confronted directly and debated openly.
Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatry registrar who is writing a book that takes a comic look at Muslim life in Sydney, to be published early next year by ABC Books. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/21/06:We speak much of failed states today, and suprise, suprise, where do we find some, among the Islamic nations.
Somalia, Eriteria and so on, countries that only survive on aid like Iraq, Afagnistan, countries ruled by repressive regimes like Iran, Burma. Does anyone feel that the basic ideology relied on by these people has something to do with their inability to get it together | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/18/06 - A STATEMENT:
I live in America because I like my FREEDOM.
Why do you live in America ... if you do?
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/21/06:some do, some don't. Taken as a whole, less do. What does this say?. It say's most people like to stay put irrespective of circumstances, otherwise we might all migrate to this paragon of virtue and unbalance the planet. The planet would then need to be resettled by migrants from america who would be telling us of the virtues of their home. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/18/06 - Iran to wage 'war games' according to Radio Free Europe and AP ,Iran will begin a new round of war games this weekend "for an unspecified period of time;"and will begin missile tests .
How convienient to have the military mobilized and in exercises on the day the Madhi-hatter says he will respond to the EU about Iran's nuclear program .
My computer is screwing playing games ... more tomorrow . Mathatmacoat answered on 08/21/06:Now that's what you call great thinking | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/18/06 - UK Panel Asks: Why Do They Hate Airplanes? by Scott Ott
(2006-08-10) The British Parliament, in a rapid response to a terror plot foiled by Scotland Yard yesterday, announced formation of a study panel today to determine why some Muslims hate airplanes.
Early reports indicate 21 men have been taken into custody in connection with a plan to take down an unknown number of U.S.-bound passenger jets originating in Great Britain.
The expert panel will examine various theories about why airplanes engender such hatred among devoted followers of a peaceful religion.
Is it the horrendous noise? The speed? The condensation trails? said one unnamed source close to the panel, listing some of the areas of inquiry the experts plan to pursue. Because if its any of those things, we can get to work on engineering changes to make airplanes more tolerable to our Muslim brothers. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/21/06:Very Droll. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/14/06 - Here's a novel solution? Everyone wants an easy out and a solution to the current terrorist success in disrupting world air traffic. Well, here is the solution. Saves a lot of time. No Muslims allowed on aircraft. So all that has to be done is for passengers to be accredited by the local church, synagogue, temple and so forth, no accreditaion, no flight, it's money making and think how it will solve the problem of low attendence. A true win-win situation. There may even be a few conversions from Islam to more reasonable religions.
For those who say it's too harsh, Muslims can only travel on Muslim owned airlines. If they want to bomb those they will just be killing their own. Nothing new in that. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/14/06:Now there is an answer, segregate the Muslims, seperate development. Hang on a minute, haven't we tried that before. The Americans tried that with the negro and failed miserably, the South Africans tried that with the Kaffir and failed miserably, the Un tried that with the Israeli's and the Palistinians and we are still reaping the benefits, The only time a Muslim community has been successfully disengaged is in Pakistan and there have been some fireworks along the way. We could try it, what do you suggest, building a big fence along the 10th and fortieth parrells? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/11/06 - Multi-National Force to protect whom??? Hello:
If Israel accepts UN sponsored peace keepers on its northern border, its my bet that the intent of the force will be to prevent Israel from defending themselves rather than preventing Hezbollah from re-arming.
WHEN push comes to shove, this peace keeping force, will, in my view, aim its guns south. The placement of such a force, will be the first loss for the IDF.
Therefore, I suggest that Israel has painted itself into a corner. A corner not too different than the corner we find ourselves in, in Iraq. IF Israel would have invaded Southern Lebanon with everything they had, they would have won in 10 days. They didnt, and theyll lose.
Just like we didnt in Iraq, and are losing. The problem is that Iran is going to be the victor, and that spells very big trouble for the entire world.
How did things go so wrong?
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/14/06:It's a feel good solution, and it's cheaper than an armed intervention. When the bombing has stopped and no rockets fall on Israel, then the world leaders can go back to business as usual with a fresh opening in the arms market to replenish the arms used. No one benefits from instability in the middle east. Isreal will have tested it's army and can now fine tune. Hezbollah know their rockets can't reach Tel Aviv and will seek a longer range model. Their rocket attacks as a whole were relatively ineffective | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/10/06 - Is Marxism back in fashion? Why Islam is the new MarxBy Tanveer Ahmed
August 11, 2006 12:00am
THE central conflict in the war on ideas lies in the underlying stuff of man and how we think societies should be organised. Regardless of what ideology has ruled human affairs, they have all provided answers to this question. This is true in religion as it is in politics.
As the conflict in the Middle East continues, the secular influences of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah are not obvious to the neutral observer. Nor is their attraction to the young Muslim in the Sydney street or the professional living in Indonesia clear.
"The core problem," as Paul Kelly argued on this page on Wednesday, "seems to be the attraction of the Islamist movement."
The 20th century saw the demise of communism, despite its attraction to millions of people who felt poor or downtrodden. It was exposed as a totalitarian system that stifled the aspirations of man. But its stain is spreading within the casing of Islamic fundamentalism. This does not seem obvious, especially considering Osama bin Laden himself was instrumental in defeating the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan more than two decades ago. And the Iranian revolution of 1979 was in part a reaction to the perceived godlessness of communism knocking at its doorstep.
This was mimicked to a lesser degree throughout the Middle East, from Egypt to Jordan.
But the old Marxists are extending their influence in many of the Islamic political parties that are rapidly rising in popularity, in response to inept, autocratic Arab governments. Arab governments have closed off opportunity to such an extent that secular forces such as communism or liberalism have minimal outlets.
One of the few places for a political voice is at the mosque and through religion. Religion provides the cloak for what is essentially politics.
As a result, political Islam is on the rise throughout the Arab world. The first municipal election in Saudi Arabia delivered wins for Islamic parties and, of course, there was the election of Hamas by the Palestinians. Many of the leaders representing political Islam have previous ties to Arab socialism. This is particularly true in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood won one-fifth of the vote in elections last year.
Veteran foreign correspondent Mary Ann Weaver writes in her book A Portrait of Egypt: "A number of my former professors from the American University of Cairo were Marxists 20 years ago: fairly adamant, fairly doctrinaire Marxists. They are now equally adamant, equally doctrinaire Islamists."
The developments in Egypt are potent for it has long been a leader in the region.
The similarities of communism and Islam are considerable. Both are egalitarian and advocate radical economic change. They both demand a domination of the public space and share a dogmatic, ideological view of the world.
Political Islam is also supplying the social services in a collective context that communism promised, and the status of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah depends on this. Their facilities are often described by locals as superior to those provided by the ruling governments.
Islam also promises to deliver the poor masses from oppression, but there is a difference: instead of the working class rising up against the bourgeoisie, the uprising to be encouraged is by hapless, impoverished Muslims against their oppressive Western masters or puppet Arab leaders. And like communism, Islam believes the collective must be preserved at the expense of the individual. We are social beings first, individuals second.
Like communism, Islamism promises a better life for the poor, oppressed and alienated. It is cloaked in God, but its essence is strongly secular. Unless the West fights the war of ideas at this level, offering a competing vision of morality as well as economics and technology, the lure of Islamic extremism will continue to flourish.
And this will especially be the case as television shows the Western class oppressors dropping bombs on the Muslim proletariat.
Tanveer Ahmed, a Sydney psychiatrist, is writing a book that is a comic look at Muslim life in Australia. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/14/06:islam promises nothing to the poor and oppressed. Not a better life, not even salvation | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/13/06 - Bush Caught Lying From the President's Radio Address, August 12, 2006:
This plot is further evidence that the terrorists we face are sophisticated, and constantly changing their tactics... We're dealing with a new enemy that uses **new means of attack** and new methods to communicate.
From the New York Times, Aug. 12, 2006:
In 1995, a plot to bomb 12 American jumbo jets over the Pacific with a liquid explosive was discovered when the bomb makers accidentally set fire to their laboratory in Manila.
From the New York Times editorial, Aug. 12, 2006 :
The most frightening thing about the foiled plot to use liquid explosives to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic is that both the government and the aviation industry have been aware of the liquid bomb threat for years but have done little to prepare for it.
From the Associated Press:
As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology....Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks, and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short. ''They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using,'' Sabo said."
Lie in *****
Comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/14/06:There is only one solution (no pun intended) to the problem of explosives in solution on aircraft. There has to be a complete ban on all liquid and gel substances on aircraft. That means no water, no liquor, no liquid soap for the passengers and no mobile phones or electrical devices of any kind. That means no mobile phones, no battery powered cameras, no twenty-first centruy innovations. What the terrorists want is for us to abandon our civilisation.
You get to the point of saying why fly, or you get to the point of saying statistically very few people will be killed in a flying bomb | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/11/06 - AMAZING GRACE:
It's very hard to look into the soul of a person but perhaps it's much easier to appraise the thinking of a barbarian. I just heard over the news that Israel has AGREED to the cease fire terms laid down by the United Nations. It's 5:40 p.m. 8/11/06 where I live. I'll predict that the Hezbollah will NOT agree to the cease fire and continue to do what they do best -- kill, kill kill. Tomorrow just might be a very hard day for our Israeli friends.
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/13/06:now where did you hear that. It's just a rumour | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/13/06 - CONVICTION:
I have learned that peace at the individual, family, community and world levels are inter-related, and a natural progression. I have learned about the power of one person, with a conviction, to make a difference in our communities and world.
Do these words apply to President Bush?
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/13/06:well at least you are learning | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/13/06 - Iraq War is the Number One Issue "The war in Iraq is the No. 1 issue in the country today. Americans are no longer willing to accept the human suffering or the financial toll of a war that has lasted for 3 years with no end in sight.
The numbers speak for themselves. We've lost almost 2,600 Americans.
More than 19,000 have been wounded, 46 percent of them so badly they couldn't return to their units. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence. The U.S. is spending $11 million every hour - $8 billion every month. Yet the administration refuses to budge from its open-ended, stay-the-course policy. I know it and the American people know it: We need to redeploy our troops to the periphery and refocus on the real war against terrorism. It's long past the time for us to change direction." Murtha
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Can't argue with this, can we Sen Loserman? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/13/06:It's only an issue because it's front page news. Where I live we rarely hear the word Iraq these days. It has been pushed off the news by events in Lebanon, China, Britain and more importantly the great political debates of the nation.
Fuel costs
Industrial reform
participation in peacekeeping
interest rates
succession
all of which, of course, the government of the day is responsible for all negative impacts. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/13/06 - What Do You Make of This? LONDON - "NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.
A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.
In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.
The source did say, however, that police believe one U.K.-based suspect was ready to conduct a "dry run." British authorities had wanted to let him go forward with part of the plan, but the Americans balked.
At the White House, a top aide to President Bush denied the account.
"There was unprecedented cooperation and coordination between the U.S., the U.K. and Pakistani officials throughout the case," said Frances Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, "and we worked together to protect our citizens from harm while ensuring that we gathered as much info as possible to bring the plotters to justice. There was no disagreement between U.S. and U.K. officials."
Another U.S. official, however, acknowledges there was disagreement over timing. Analysts say that in recent years, American security officials have become edgier than the British in such cases because of missed opportunities leading up to 9/11.
Aside from the timing issue, there was excellent cooperation between the British and the Americans, officials told NBC....."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mathatmacoat answered on 08/13/06:Different points of view? The British like to be thorough, while the americans shoot from the hip. The americans believe a terrorist in a cage is worth ten in the bush, while the British believe that it isn't the terrorist in the cage who can harm you but the one in the bush, or is it the one who is Bush | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/07/06 - Iraq and the War on Terror
Dear Neocons:
You say the wars are one in the same, and you say we're winning. Here's why they're not, and here's why we're not winning.
When Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki addressed Congress last month, he declared Iraq to be on "the front line" of the war on terror, and proclaimed Iraqis to be America's "allies in the war on terror." But he also pointedly failed to condemn Hezbollah terrorism or, it seems safe to presume, to consider Hezbollah a terrorist group. Can the United States and Mr. al-Maliki really be talking about the same "terror" war?
Neo-cons never ask such a question, maybe because it leads to this one: Does propping up in Iraq what amounts to a proto-Shariah state that is reflexively anti-Israel if not reflexively pro-Hezbollah constitute victory in the "war on terror"? Call me crazy, but I don't think so.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/09/06:Iraq is a lost cause. It was a lost cause from the beginning. The Iraqi arn't interested in fighting america's war on terror. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/07/06 - Appeasement
Hello:
Once and it seems bizarre to have to point this out it was self-evident that Hezbollah was civilization's foe. Indeed, it was an unremarkable expression of civilization itself, to think so.
No more. Now, it is a measure of the moral attrition of the West that this "point of view" now becomes openly contested, a matter of nuance, degrees, and complexity, punctuated by clinking water glasses at conference tables the world over.
All of which leaves the so-called war on terror exactly where? Muddled beyond measure. For if the war on terror is against anybody, it is against Hezbollah.
Is this what appeasement looks like?
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/09/06:Is there a war on terror? Only in GWB's mind. A few skermishes in Iraq and Afganistan doesn't make a war. If there truely was a war on terror the US would have wiped out all of the organisations it has proscribed as terrorists. If five years isn't long enough, how long do they need?
The early successes in Afganistan blunted the US effort, it gave a false sense of success, of victory, when the battle was only beginning. This whole thing is an echo of vietnam where early successes drew the US into ultimate defeat | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/06/06 - Is this evidence for the clash of civilisations? "Islam," Edward Said reminds us, is an invention of Western colonialism which invented itself as "the West" in the same process.[1] When we in the West speak today of Islam and the West we are, therefore, already deeply inside our own cultural constructions, and all the ambitions of that imperial enterprise.[2] Just as in the formation of primitive Christianity the Jew became the other in reference to which we Christians constructed our identity (the "New Israel," the "old Adam" and so on), so in our own times Islam may become (still again) the preferred other (replacing the international Communist Conspiracy) in reference to which we Westerners identify our place in the trajectory of time and establish and name our hopes and fears.[3] To enter the language of Islam and the West is then, with Alice, to enter the Wonderland of the Looking Glass. It is an instructive perspective; but only if we Westerners know we are looking not at another but at ourselves.
Unfortunately, such a self-reflexive perspective eludes both proponents and opponents of the clash of civilizations thesis. Precisely because of this uncritical discourse, however, the argument lodged within it becomes instructive. What I intend, therefore, is, first of all, to outline that debate -- those who say "nonsense" to the whole idea of civilizations clashing -- and those who, with Sam Huntington of Harvard, find in that idea an illuminating hermeneutic. Then, I will take this debate and place it in the World of the Looking Glass, where we in the West can see what we usually do not see -- namely, the Western hegemony reflected back at us as we defend our own Western identity and destiny by debating about an other we have constructed as Islam.
A Clash on Truth's Surface
The "clash of civilizations" thesis was first presented in an article in the summer 1993 edition of Foreign Affairs. Sam Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard, argued that the end of the Cold War and the triumph of capitalism as an ideology over socialism cleared the space of history for a new form of conflict -- not a conflict between nation states over economic or geo-political advantages, but a conflict between "civilizations" contending for a new kind of supremacy -- a supremacy of legitimacy, a supremacy of cultural correctness. Following from that conclusion, Professor Huntington saw as major actors in this new historical contest not only presidents or prime ministers but also persons and groups speaking and acting in the name of religious identity and loyalty.
As evidence Huntington pointed' to the Middle East (also a Western construction-"middle" and "East" of where?) and the struggle there between Jews and Muslims, or to Bosnia and the struggle between Christians (of two different kinds) and Muslims, or to the Indian subcontinent and the struggle between Hindus and Muslims. or there is the cultural chauvinism of the new right in central Europe with its rage against "foreign workers" (most of whom happen to be Muslims working in historically Christian lands). In these examples it is Islam that appears, time and again, as one side of the equation of struggle. We could add to this list the rise in the United States of the Christian right with its search for a religiously correct politics and the political influence of religious conservatives who represent themselves as speaking authoritatively for Christianity, which in their eyes is the final and one true religion.
John C Raines
It has been long denied that what we see on the middle east is a clash of cultures, but have we too long buried our head in the sand and denied that the conflict we see cannot be resolved on the terms we have set. To impose democracy is to impose a set of values which don't exist, fairness v influence, ability v favour, decency v corruption, truth v deceipt, bureaucracy v autocracy, justice v vengence, compromise v abosulteism, liberalism v fundamentalism.
The divide is too great to be crossed in a single step and is it worth the cost in human misery? These are are questions which should be properly reflected on. Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:there is only one way to resolve this clash, a great big fence to keep the Muslims where they belong. Unfortunately we have an enclave in the middle of Muslim territory which will always be the source of trouble | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/07/06 - Has a solution to the fuel crisis already been found? This points to an interesting but little known fact, trials are underway for a radical solution to the fuel crisis, yet few know about it. Why?
Tuckey's fuel solution: hydrogen
August 7, 2006 - 1:07PM
The answer to high petrol prices is not ethanol or cutting the petrol excise but a radical hydrogen-based technology being trialled in Perth buses, a Liberal backbencher says.
West Australian Liberal Wilson Tuckey today said the hydrogen solution was the way forward, as politicians debated the petrol price crisis.
Several ideas have been put forward, including greater use of bio-fuels like ethanol, a cut to the petrol excise and better public transport.
But Mr Tuckey is the first to suggest hydrogen as the answer.
He said the CSIRO had developed a device the size of a small domestic microwave oven that runs on mains power or a solar panel to extract enough hydrogen from water to power a family car for up to 150 km per day.
Three buses in Perth are currently running on hydrogen, Mr Tuckey said.
"Furthermore, the BMW company has already produced ordinary motor cars running on hydrogen," he said.
He said parliament's refusal to invest in the technology was outrageous.
"What enrages me is that this parliament, because Labor is no better than us, is refusing to make the investment in a kit that would transfer the ordinary car to a hydrogen car."
AAP
So how come this is hiding in a backwoods trial? Is it because this solution is home grown and doesn't make profits for oil companies, or is it because it's application to the Northern Hemisphere and lack of sunlight is limited?
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:Yes Hydrogen is a great idea. It may not be mass market though | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/07/06 - Iraq is lost and gone forever.
Hello:
Did you see them? How many were there, 250,000 of them. Iraqi's, on the streets, carrying Hezbollah flags and yelling death to America.
If that's all you knew about Iraq, youd say, they should be on the list of countries that we're going to invade in the war on terror.
Youd never say, that we did invade them, gave our soldiers lives to do so, that they appreciate it, and that we're winning. You just wouldn't.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:Iraq was never won so how can it be lost? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/07/06 - Lebanon is *Not a Victim* "Lebanon has now declared war on Israel and its citizens are bearing the consequences. Lebanon is no more a victim of Hezbollah than Austria was a victim of Nazism. In fact a higher percentage of Lebanesemore than 80%--say they support Hezbollah. The figures were nearly as high before the recent civilian deaths.
This is considerably higher than the number of Austrians who supported Hitler when the Nazis marched into Austria in 1938. Austria too claimed it was a victim, but no serious person today believes such self-serving historical revisionism. Austria was not Hitlers first victim. It was Hitlers most sympathetic collaborator.
So too with Lebanon, whose president has praised Hezbollah, whose army is helping Hezbollah, and many of whose civilians are collaborating with Hezbollah. According to a news report in the New York Times on Sunday, August 6th, Hezbollah is Lebanon and Lebanon is Hezbollah. It is as much a part of society as is its Shiite faith. As a car mechanic put it, we are Hezbollah. A caf owner was even more direct: Just because Im sitting here in this caf doesnt mean Im not a resistance fighter. Of course if he were killed fighting Israel, his death would be listed as a civilian casualty. Nor is he alone. He continued: Everyone has a weapon in his houseThere are doctors, teachers, and farmers. Hezbollah is people. People are Hezbollah. Except, of course, when they are killed or injured fighting against Israelthen they become just people, just civilians. As a doctor asked rhetorically, as he pointed to dead bodies resulting from a battle between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, Do you see anybody from Hezbollah?
It is virtually impossible to distinguish the Hezbollah dead from the truly civilian dead, just as it is virtually impossible to distinguish the Hezbollah living from the civilian living, especially in the south. The civilian death figures reported by Lebanese authorities include large numbers of Hezbollah fighters, collaborators, facilitators and active supporters. They also include civilians who were warned to leave, but chose to remain, sometimes with their children, to serve as human shields. The deaths of these civilians are the responsibility of Hezbollah and the Lebanese government, which has done very little to protect its civilians.
Lebanon has chosen sidesnot all Lebanese, but the democratically chosen Lebanese government. When a nation chooses sides in a war, especially when it chooses the side of terrorism, its civilians pay a price for that choice. This has been true of every war.
We must stop viewing Lebanon as a victim and begin to see it as a collaborator with terrorism. Nor is there any excuse for this choice. Lebanon was not driven to support Hezbollah by Israel or the U.S., as some Lebanese leaders falsely claim. Lebanon included Hezbollah in its government, knowing that it is a terrorist organization. It abdicated the responsibility for providing social, economic and police services in the south to Hezbollah.
The Nazi party too provided social, economic and educational services to the poor in Germany and Austria. Yet the people who chose to submit to such evil paid a heavy price. People make choices and they bear the consequences of choosing to collaborate with terrorism. Lebanon has chosen the wrong side and its citizens are paying the price. Maybe next time a democracy must choose between collaborating with terrorism or resisting terrorism, it will choose the right side."===Alan Dershowitz
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Comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:you are right, any country which is a haven for terrorists deserves what it gets | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/07/06 - " "America leads the world in advertising techniques, and now we'll need every ounce of Madison Avenue's skill to sell a difficult product. That product is victory. From the beginning we were told that victory was the only acceptable outcome in Iraq, and now selling that message has become twice as difficult in Lebanon.
Insurgents an terrorists aren't giving up. The Islamic world celebrates their existence. At this moment the most popular figure among Muslims everywhere is Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the defiant Hezbollah leader who stands as tall as Osama bin Laden and has proved just as indestructible.
The reality of victory isn't even the point anymore. President Bush, in his surprise visit to Baghdad six weeks ago, announced a new plan to secure people's safety in Baghdad. He showed his total support for the al-Maliki government, which pledged to end the terror of Shi'ite militias on the street. A program of amnesty and national unification made headlines.
None of it has happened. But instead of saying so, which would be realistic, the image has to shift. The sales job needs tweaking. It's sad when image can't match reality. But isn't that the point in all wars? The home front must be sold the inevitability of victory and the impossibility of defeat. War-makers are frighteningly willing to sacrifice civilian lives while fiercely defending their own posturing. Thus Israel, with our backing, proclaimed that its Lebanon campaign could only end in the total destruction and disarming of Hezbollah. From the beginning some voices said this goal was impossible, and so it is proving. The image of victory was duly modified to lesser goals as things began to go contrary to plan. Israel next wanted a 15-mile safe zone in southern Lebanon, then a one-mile zone, then an international peacekeeping force. The reality is that there's nothing left to sell but the illusion that they will win.
Wars are places where illusions go to die. A great many died after the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam fiasco, but after thirty years a new crop sprouted again. Installing democracy by force in Iraq is an illusion; deep sectarian hatred is the reality. A government of national unity is an illusion; the U.S. putting a Shi'ite sectarian president in power is the reality. Iraqi security forces are an illusion; armed thugs dressed in police uniforms to make it easier to kidnap and slaughter innocent people is a reality.
These days I think I'm like most people, exhausted from criticizing the Bush war policy. All I really want now is an honest admission, first to all Americans and then to the world, that we've stirred up far more than we can handle. Let's stop fighting over WMDs and distorted evidence and yellow cake uranium. A real crisis faces the world on an order of magnitude no one ever anticipated. Every demon has flown out of Pandora's box, and trying to market the illusion that we're winning feels like a page from George Orwell. The citizens in " were trapped in a world where war never ended, yet they woke up every morning to the cheerful news of impending victory that was just around the corner." Deepak Chopra
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Have all you right wing guys finally come to your senses?? :) Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:well I suppose america has to lead the world somewhere, but where is it leading them to? America abdicated any pretense of leadership when it invaded Iraq | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/07/06 - Who'll be first? So Mel Gibson got drunk and said some stupid anti-Semitic things and the media and left-wing bloggers had a field day with it. Last week the Huffington Post had column after column blistering Mel.
Madonna stages a mock crucifixion - in Rome - after the Vatican condemned warned her, "To crucify herself during the concert in the city of Popes and martyrs is an act of open hostility."
Who'll be the first to take Madonna to task for her pre-meditated hostility? Any of you Mel critics here or out there in the liberal media and blogosphere willing to take a shot at Madonna as well?
Steve Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:another american slut demonstrating what she does best | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/08/06 - August 21.... be afraid The date is prominent in Islam
It is on that date that Muhammad was carried on a flying horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven to meet the other prophets after he visited the Temple Mount with the angel Gabriel .While he was visiting heaven the night sky was lit up over Jerusalem . It is from this tale that Islam lays claim to Jerusalem.
August 22 of this year corresponds with the Islamic date of Rajab 28, the day Saladin conquered Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
Rajab 28 is also the date the Imam Husayn (who started Shia Islam and who is revered as the precurser of the Hidden 12th Imam) started his journey to Karbala from Medina.
It is also the day before the Mahdi-hatter,Ahmadinejad , promises to have an appropriate reply to the UN's demand for accountability for Iran's nuclear program.
As the Shia legend goes ;Imam Mahdi will return at a time of great global chaos, oppression and bloodshed and usher in an era of Islamic justice.
Ahmadinejad sees himself as the instrument to pave the way for Imam Mahdi's return. Will he pave the way for the Mahdi's return by lighting up the Jerusalem sky ?
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:Oh, I think I'll just go over in the corner and eat worms. Do you think any date in Islam is of any interest to the rest of us. What poor benighted heathens do is of no interest | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 08/08/06 - This is disgusting and a very good reason why americans should leave Iraq? Rape: American soldiers 'took turns'
Baghdad
August 9, 2006
DRUNKEN American soldiers took turns to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, a military tribunal has heard. The men murdered her and her family and celebrated by grilling chicken wings.
The soldiers, from the 101st Airborne Division, were on checkpoint duty when they decided they "wanted to kill some Iraqis", the tribunal in Baghdad was told.
It was the first time that an account had been given publicly of what is alleged to have happened in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, on March 12.
Sergeant Paul Cortez, Specialist James Barker, Private Jesse Spielman and Private Bryan Howard are charged with conspiracy to rape and murder. A fifth man, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is charged with not reporting the attack. Former private Steven Green faces rape and murder charges in a civilian court.
Special agent Benjamin Bierce recounted the sworn testimony Barker had given him.
After two hours of interrogation, Barker said the men had been playing cards and drinking.
Green is alleged to have raised the idea of killing some Iraqis. The men changed into black clothing and ski masks and told Howard to stand look-out.
The girl, Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, and her father were standing outside a house. The soldiers allegedly dragged them inside and pushed the man, his wife and younger daughter, 6, into a side room where Green stood guard over them.
Barker's statement said Cortez pushed the girl to the floor and tore off her clothes as Barker held her down. She held her knees together and struggled as Cortez tried to rape her.
A gun shot came from the side room as the men switched places. More shots were heard from the side room and Green emerged with an AK-47. He allegedly said, "They're all dead," before raping the girl and shooting her several times.
Barker said her body was set alight. Green opened the house's propane tank to set it on fire.
They burnt their clothes, threw the gun into a canal and, back at the checkpoint, brought out the chicken wings.
TELEGRAPH
Mathatmacoat answered on 08/08/06:The yanks never did learn to keep their pants on, this once again demonstrates the attitude US troops have towards others. Would they act this way at home, maybe they would | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/31/06 - Suicide Bombers "The most horrifying case of testosterone gone mad, of course, is not the province of the West - it's the suicide bomber, the terrorist who wants to die. The effect of this fact on modern warfare and its practitioners is one of the most fascinating and bone-chilling aspects in the world today. One suicide bomber turns out to be worth as much as a boatload of conventional weapons; one suicide bomber evens the playing field in a way that none of our current leaders seems to understand, even now. Meanwhile, the Arab world is in the midst of its own Entebbe moment, and has fallen in love with Hezbollah.
In the end, it turns out that we're living in a world where there are almost no military operations that aren't suicide missions; the difference is simply that their guys know they're on suicide missions and ours don't." Nora Ephron Blogging
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I got to thinking. It does seem that land forces are mostly suicide missions today in the war against barbarians.
What do you think? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/31/06:suicide bombers have nothing to do with testosterone, there have been female suicide bombers, what was their problem estrogen gone mad?
Suicide bombers are a problem of religion gone mad. It isn't confined to the "arab" world but is a manifestation of the Muslim world | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 07/31/06 - Our war?
Hello:
Do you think Israel's war against Hezbollah is our (the US) war too? I do.
Yet when Tony Snow, the Bush administration's spokesman, was asked on July 19 whether the president believes "that this is as much the United States' war as it is Israel's war," he answered, "No," and then tried to change the subject.
Do you know, that before 9/11 Hezbollah killed more Americans than any terrorist group ever? Their motto continues to be, Death to America. Why wouldn't Bush believe them - especially since they've ACTED on it???
For my part, I cant understand why WE dont think theyre OUR enemy. Where are the neo-cons when you need them?
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/31/06:Ok so Hezbollah was a problem when america had a presence in Lebanon but when america pulled out, that conflict stopped, so, why not move on and recognise that some of these people are only concerned with their own territory and not with some global fight against "democracy".
This spokesman said that Hezbollah's fight with Israel isn't a fight against the US just because the US favours Israel. The middle east is not the US's playground. Israel is a client state of the US. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/31/06 - VERY STRANGE ?? WHY NOT ?? Hamas, Hizbullah not on Russia's terror list - Ynet News
Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations and did not include the Palestinian movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hizbullah group, both of which are regarded as terrorists in Washington. Groups on the list, published in the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, included al-Qaeda and the Taliban as well as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a rebel group fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, and Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Share your opinion!
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/31/06:Various organisations are not on particular countries terrorists organisations lists, sometimes inexplicabally. Take the situation of Indonesia and JI, quite inexplicable. Could it be that these organisations have no interest in directing their attacks against Russia or could it be that because these organisations are politically active and accepted in their own place that Russia sees advantage in not outlawing them. You know the saying one man's terrorist, etc.
Personally I'm not concered about who the Russians think are terrorists and who they do not, Russia has a vast expanse to govern and there may be many organisations in that place who use doubtful methods. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/30/06 - HELL & HIGH WATER:
I meditate every Sunday for an hour. That being said, I'm really wondering what the future will bring for those in the Middle East et al. If we have a full-scale war (World War III), does the United States have the resources to survive? I'd sure like to have Tom's input along with yours. Thanks.
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/31/06:and what has the meditation taught you hank? It would be better if you spent that time in prayer then you may have answers instead of questions.
You may be suprised to learn that the survival of the US concerns only a very small part of the population of the world. Some of us actually think that the US hasn't been a civilising influence despite all the verbal garbage that originates from that little town on the Potomac | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 07/30/06 - Just to reignite the immigration debate again? An example of where multiculturism doesn't work and why I would prefer Muslims to live somewhere else.
Sydney synagogue attack
Jano Gibson
July 31, 2006 - 8:02AM
A Sydney synagogue came under attack last night when a block of cement was hurled through the glass doors of an attached residence and the windows of two cars on the property were smashed, police say.
The attack happened at the Parramatta and District Synagogue on Victoria Street, Parramatta, about 9.10pm.
Police are investigating the possibility that the attack was religiously motivated.
"There's nothing to indicate that [but] that is obviously one of our lines of inquiry," Inspector Troy Platten said.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO, Vic Alhadeff, said the attack was "most certainly" related to the war between Israel and Lebanon.
"It's very unfortunate when the violence in the Middle East is played out in the streets of Australia and the Jewish community believes very firmly that the dispute in the Middle East should be resolved in the Middle East," Mr Alhadeff said.
"It's an unfortunate reality that when there is an upsurge in the Middle East, that there's a commensurate increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Sydney, in Australia."
Officers were called to the synagogue property after the 32-year-old who lives in the attached residence heard the sound of glass smashing on his property.
A cement block had been thrown through glass door of his house and two cars parked under a car port had had their rear windows smashed, police said.
A group of about ten men, described as being of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean appearance, were seen by witnesses laughing and running north along Mason Street.
Five the of the men were seen getting into a white car, believed to be a Nissan Pulsar or Toyota Corolla, before driving away.
The rest of the group ran to the end of the street before turning into Macarthur Street.
The occupants of the attacked residence declined to comment when contacted by smh.com.au this morning. Mathatmacoat answered on 07/31/06:it's time those camel drivers were put in their place again, perhaps they would appreciate some pigs delivered to Auburn.
If these fellows want to fight the Hezbollah-Israeli war I suggest they return to Lebanon, where they can demonstrate that they are not the cowards they appear to be. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/27/06 - Quotation !! "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." --Galileo Galilei.
Can I have your comments from a Political Perspective.
rolcam. Mathatmacoat answered on 07/27/06:simply put God is not going to do for us what we can do for ourselves by exercising our God given intelligence. He said SUBDUE the EARTH and RULE over it. THat's our job description. So you want to win a war, ask for inspiration, apply yourself, act in a forthright and merciful manner and who knows, you may win | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/27/06 - Call for All Out War So, now, alQuaeda leadership has called for all out Holy War on Israel by ALL MUSLIMS.
If this edict is a complete bust(as I think it will be), could this be considered the total defeat of Islamofascists/terrorists on our part? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/27/06:so what's new, how many times has Bin Laden done this, no they haven't been defeated, they are defeated when this voice no longer roars, and what that will take is the demise of Islam | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/26/06 - Middle-East, I'm so Confused My latest thoughts.
It seems to me that perhaps the Neo-Cons who Middle-East had as their ultimate goal----> Sunnis fighting Shi'a; in other words, Muslims killing Muslims.
I don't think this is too far fetched. OK, I'm upset about War.
Is this idea too far fetched??
Condi's face and words seem to back me up. That word "sustainable". Mathatmacoat answered on 07/27/06:There's nothing new about these cons, but if there has to be a war let someoneelse fight it - please | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 07/26/06 - It's really not a joke ~ we are a "banana" republic? Economy slips on banana skin
Hand to mouth Ali Elrich's Potts Point business has been open only two months, but with skyrocketing banana prices he is yet to turn a profit.
Matt Wade Economics Writer
July 27, 2006
SOARING petrol and banana prices have helped propel inflation to an 11-year high, squeezing family budgets and making another interest rate increase next week a near certainty.
The annual inflation rate has jumped to an uncomfortable 4 per cent, the highest since 1995 if the one-off price spike following the introduction of the GST is excluded. Prices rose 1.6 per cent in the June quarter alone.
The damage caused to north Queensland farms by Cyclone Larry sent the price of bananas up 250 per cent in the June quarter - which led to price rises for other fruit - while fuel rose 11.2 per cent in the quarter and nearly 25 per cent for the year.
The figures show price pressures in the economy are building.
Inflation is now a full percentage point above the Reserve Bank's target of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent and the bank's weighted median inflation rate, which allows for one-off price fluctuations, has risen to 3 per cent.
Economists said an interest rate rise next week to check inflation was almost certain.
"The case for a rate rise following the RBA August board meeting now looks complete," said the Commonwealth Bank chief economist, Michael Blythe.
Bond futures traded on financial markets have priced in a 100 per cent chance that the official rate will rise to 6 per cent from 5.75 per cent after the Reserve Bank's monthly meeting next Tuesday. There is also an 80 per cent chance of another rate rise before the end of the year.
Some analysts believe that for the first time in six years the bank may lift rates by half a percentage point instead of the normal quarter point.
Interest rates jitters caused the sharemarket's All Ordinaries Index to drop 52.3 points to 4907.6 and the dollar rose almost half a US cent on the expectation of higher interest rates.
As well as higher petrol and banana prices, the Bureau of Statistics' consumer price index showed significant increases for a range of household items.
Child care rose 12.4 per cent in the year to June and is up 82 per cent over the past decade. Food prices increased 8.3 per cent in the year, transport 7.7 per cent, education 5.8 per cent and health 4.6 per cent.
The Federal Government, which used the slogan "keeping interest rates low" in the last election campaign, played down the economic consequences of the inflation figures.
The Treasurer, Peter Costello, said the "temporary factors" affecting inflation were likely to abate. "Our unemployment rate remains low and looking through the one-off factors in this consumer price index, inflation remains moderate.
But the shadow treasurer, Wayne Swan, said the economy faced a serious inflation challenge. "With the ongoing threat of high petrol prices, Peter Costello has had the opportunity over the last few budgets to put in place policies to counteract inflationary pressure in the Australian economy," he said.
"Unfortunately his failure to address the skills crisis or infrastructure bottlenecks has now allowed these capacity constraints to push up underlying inflation."
The NSW Treasurer, Michael Costa, said Mr Costello's budget spending had put pressure on interest rates.
What average earners picked up on the tax cut swing they would lose on the interest rate roundabout, he said.
"Workers on average incomes of around $56,000 received a $10 weekly tax cut in the federal budget. If interest rates rise by 0.25 per cent, families with an average new mortgage in NSW will have to find an extra $60 in interest repayments each month."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This has to be the biggest joke of all time, since Cyclone Larry wiped out the Australian banana crop and bananas are $14 a KG if you can find them, they certainly haven't been on my menu in months and we have a government willing to move interest rates on the strength of the price of non existant bananas Mathatmacoat answered on 07/27/06:Work all night on a drink a'rum
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Stack banana till thee morning come
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
ay-W-ay-o
Daylight come and he wan' go home
Day, he say
Daylight come and he wan' go home
Come, Mr. RBA Mon, tally me banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Come, Mr. RBA Mon, tally me banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
It's six percent, seven percent, eight percent, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
It's six percent, seven percent, eight percent, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
he say
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
ay, he say ay, he say ay, he say ay,
He say ay, he say ay
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
It's six percent, seven percent, eight percent, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
It's six percent, seven percent, eight percent, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
A beautiful bunch a'ripe banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Hide three deadly black treasurer
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Day, he say day-ay-ay-o
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Day, he say day-ay-ay-o
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Come, Mr. RBA Mon, tally me banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Come, Mr. RBA Mon, tally me banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Day-o, ay-W-ay-o
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Day, he say ay-W-ay-o
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
| | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/24/06 - Back to the OLD DAYS : Please see a back to the old days maxim:-
DIVIDE AND CONQUER.
see:- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/washington/23diplo.html?th&emc=th
Any reason why the U S A should be putting
their NOSE where it is not really required? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/24/06:which old days are these? the days when america could speak and someone was listening? I don't think we will return to those days.
I thought you wanted hostilities to end in the middle east why do you reject any initiative | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/24/06 - UN official: Israel action illegal !!
THE United Nations' top humanitarian official yesterday accused Israel of violating international law, as at least ten more civilians died on both sides of the Lebanese border and diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensified.
Do you consider it illegal ?
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/24/06:there are many illegal things done in the world, the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers is illegal, the firing of rockets into civilian populations is illegal, suicide bombing is illegal, I don't know, it may even be illegal to get up in the morning under UN rules.
If conflicts in recent times have taught us anything they have taught us that the UN is a paper tiger with no teeth and no ability to enforce peace. The build up of Hezbollah was allowed by UN peacekeepers, for them to now come along and say this is illegal is contemptable. Most recent conflicts have been the result of UN failure.
What is the point here when the speaker of the Lebanese parliament on behalf of Hezbollah rejects peace initiatives with more Hezbollah rhetoric | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/22/06 - I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED !! This statement is very disappointing:-
QUOTATION OF THE DAY N Y TIMES. July, 22 2006.
"What I wont do is go to some place and try to get a cease-fire that I know isnt going to last."
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, the secretary of state, on the fighting in Lebanon.
Are you disappointed??
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/23/06:Not at all, the world doesn't need another talk fest. For once let us see the thing played out to it's conclusion. Intervention only allows a terrorist organisation to continue to exist. I have no sympathy for those who harbour terrorists | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/23/06 - Your View ?? Are Israel's military tactics justified? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/23/06:Yes as military tactics they are justified.
Identify the enemy
Attack the enemy
Destroy the enemy
Now as to Israel's political objectives, surely there may have been alternatives, but they have yet to be identified, even by you. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/23/06 - Lebanon: pity the nation !!
There seems to be no end in sight to the war in Lebanon. The situation seems to be getting worse by the day. I have yet to meet any level-headed analyst or observer who believes that Israel's response was not disproportionate.
The whole issue is intolerable.
rolcam
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/23/06:This is, of course, what to expect when you allow Muslim extremeists to take over your country.
You find the situation intolerable, and I wonder why?
Where were you when the extremeists bombed the US buildings in Beruit? That was intolerable!
Where were you when Saddam launched missiles against Israel, that was intolerable!
I think you understand exactly how the Israeli's feel. They find the situation intolerable! | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/23/06 - ISRAEL'S RESPONSES !! Comments about the latest happenings :-
EXAMPLE 1.
"If I punch you in the face, you have no right to shoot me with a revolver."
eXAMPLE 2.
"It was not a case of an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. In this case we have ten eyes for an eye and ten teeth for a tooth."
rolcam Mathatmacoat answered on 07/23/06:So, you would like the law of Talon to be applied. I heard Israel have captured two Hezbollah, now what do you think they should do with them?
It might be time to call checkmate do you think? | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/19/06 - WORLD WAR III:
If the United States participates in World War III, who would be our allies? (Hypothetical question)
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/19/06:You are already participating in WWIII Hank and your allies are Britain and Australia and the other members of the coalition, but if You are thinking of taking on N. Korea then you could add Japan. You would be better to ask who might your enemies be. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 07/17/06 - The Global War? Chaos rules in this borderless war
July 17, 2006
The renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is detail in a much bigger picture, writes Paul Sheehan.
When historians narrate the beginnings of the third global war, a war already under way with more than 200,000 killed, they may choose the moment on October 12, 2000, when a small fishing skiff sailed up to an American destroyer, the USS Cole, at anchor off Aden harbour in Yemen.
As the skiff approached, the two Arabs on board smiled and waved at the sailors on deck. Then the two men stood to attention.
In the next instant, the Cole was gutted by an enormous bomb. It liquefied the bombers, killed or wounded 56 sailors, and disabled a heavily armoured state-of-the-art warship. Other suicide bombs had exploded before, and many more since, but the attack on the Cole was the first frontal assault on the US military by al-Qaeda, and the emergence of al-Qaeda globalised and modernised the cause of jihad.
War and murder have been carried out in the name of Allah in Thailand, Bali, Sumatra, the Philippines, Nigeria, Algeria, Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Bosnia, Albania, Kenya, Tanzania, France, the Netherlands, Britain, Spain, Denmark, Russia, the United States and Sudan, where mass murder and mass rape have been the tools of cultural war.
What makes this global war different from the First and Second World Wars is that there are tens of thousands of combatants who actually want to die, and in the process kill as many non-believers as possible. As the bombs, missiles and rockets have been exploding in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, medievalists who are key drivers in this cultural struggle have been ecstatic. You can hear it in the rhetoric of Hezbollah's spiritual leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Most disturbingly, jihad is being driven by three separate, distinct and often competing strands of Islam: Sunni, financed by the oil-powered Wahabist fundamentalists of Saudi Arabia, and dominated by the ideology of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden; Shiite, an extension of the theocracy of Iran, and highly active in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories; and Pakistani Muslim nationalism, the wellspring of jihad in Kashmir, support for the Taliban, and terrorist attacks in India and Britain, with its large Pakistani emigre community.
What these distinct mutations of Islam have in common is an appetite for war and murder and sexual oppression. It is no coincidence that the governments in all three of these wellsprings of jihad have weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan has the first "Islamic bomb", acquired through a campaign of theft, stealth and illegality. Saudi Arabia and Iran have a different kind of bomb - oil in immense and strategic quantities.
Iran, the prototype of the modern Islamic theocracy (which also wants the nuclear bomb to match and trump Israel's nuclear option), is stronger today than it was a week ago. It already wields disproportionate power in the Middle East through its proxies helping to tie down 150,000 US troops in Iraq, which is 60 per cent Shiite. Now, thanks to its proxies in Lebanon, Israel has been goaded into an attack on a democratic neighbour.
At the weekend, the foreign ministers from 18 Arab League nations held an emergency meeting in Cairo after which the Secretary-General of the League, Amr Moussa, declared that the Middle East peace process was "dead".
Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, said that Israel's "war machine" had turned his country into a "disaster zone".
Another victory for the provocateurs of Islamic fundamentalism. Every time chaos has engulfed the Middle East, militant Islam has emerged with greater power. Creating chaos is thus the modus operandi of jihadists.
Lebanon's newly reborn democracy and stability, after 20 years of civil war, has been the greatest act of national reconstruction in the Arab world, an enormous achievement. The Government in Beirut relies on a detente between former enemies, Christians, Sunnis, Shias and Druze, some 18 separate factions.
No one in this fragile democracy is willing or able to disarm the Hezbollah militia dominant in the Shiite south of Lebanon. Far more important has been the multibillion-dollar rebuilding of the economy.
The United Nations may have passed Resolution 1559 calling for the disarming of Lebanon's militias, but who in Lebanon would be willing to go into that hornet's nest? Who would be willing to plunge the nation into another civil war? By blaming the Lebanese Government for Hezbollah's actions, Israel has demanded the impossible from its neighbour.
Hezbollah has been thriving on chaos since it began in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion. When it launched its first major suicide attack in the region on April 18, 1983, killing 63 people at the US embassy in Beirut, it created the template for the borderless war we are part of, whether we want to be or not.
The only glimmer of good news at the weekend was the criticism of Hezbollah by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. And to put the current mayhem in perspective, the Cold War was waged for more than 50 years between democratic capitalism and totalitarianism, with nuclear weapons massed on either side. It was not a cold war for the tens of millions of people who died in purges within China and the Soviet Union, and in wars or civil wars in Vietnam, Korea, Latin America and Africa.
The Cold War ended with no nuclear weapons being used. But compared with medievalists waging jihad, the communist powers of the Soviet Union and China were prudent, rational players. In today's global struggle, the objective evidence is overwhelming that where militant Islam goes, bloodshed follows. In a whole range of different settings, for many adherents of Islam the Koran is not a book of peace but a call to war.
Is that the way you see it?
Where Islam goes, bloodshed follows? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/19/06:Yes, so it seems. Sooner or later the world will find it cannot afford freedom of religion and will move to contain Islam. Unfortunately when this happens, other religions will also be affected | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/17/06 - Ten more years ... or longer? Military leaders foresee Iraq exit in 2016
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published July 17, 2006
U.S. war commanders think some level of American forces will be needed in Iraq until 2016 and those forces will receive continued support from the vast majority of Iraqis.
At the tactical level, the U.S. is getting better at detecting deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs), especially using unmanned spy planes. But the enemy is growing more sophisticated. A raid on an IED factory earlier this year netted two bomb-makers who hold master's degrees in chemistry and physics -- from U.S. colleges.
These were among the points made by Iraq war commanders at a closed-door conference last spring at Fort Carson, Colo., home to the 7th Infantry Division. Maj. Gen. Robert W. Mixon Jr., the division's commander, invited scores of retired generals and admirals in the Fort Carson area to hear the commanders and give them feedback.
Lt. Col. David Johnson, division spokesman, said the session was the second held this year at Fort Carson. A third is planned for the fall.
"The whole point is to share knowledge of what is going on in the Army today and to share ideas in an open forum," Col. Johnson said. The Fort Carson-area retired community has "a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience, and we wanted to tap into that," he said.
The seminar is just one example of how the Army is constantly re-examining how it conducts the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and worldwide.
Some say the military has a near-obsession with scrutinizing each and every mission and listing things that could have been done better. At Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the Center for Army Lessons Learned collects volumes of after-action reports and commanders' insights and turns them into "lessons learned" reports distributed throughout the Army.
Out in the field, commanders learn lessons on the spot. When Brig. Gen. Kurt Cichowski, chief of staff for strategy at the U.S. Iraq command, was asked earlier this month by reporters how the security crackdown in Baghdad was going, he answered, "I will tell you that there's an evaluation that is going on right now about the entire operation that has started, and those are the kinds of lessons learned that we hope to tease out of what has happened in order to improve it for the future."
At Fort Carson, among the featured combat veterans was Col. H.R. McMaster, whose 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment gained fame by liberating the northern town of Tal Afar from foreign terrorists and Iraqi insurgents. The town's mayor, Najim Abdullah Abid al-Jibouri, penned an open letter in February thanking the American troops for his people's liberty. The mayor visited Fort Carson in May to personally thank the soldiers and their families.
One retired officer attendee made notes and e-mailed his minutes of the session to other officers. The notes say there was general agreement on one issue: the "mainstream media" largely ignores progress. A commander said an embedded reporter filed a generally positive story on the operation in Tal Afar, only to see his stateside editors gut it and apply a negative spin.
In fact, editors have grown increasingly resistant to embedding reporters with combat units, something they demanded be done before the invasion in March 2003. The purported reason: They think contact with U.S. service members hurts the reporters' objectivity.
"They come to see the world through the eyes of the troops," said the retired officer's e-mail. Now, newspapers and magazine rely heavily on Iraqi stringers who telephone in reports from various combat scenes.
"We are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents, but we are losing the public relations battle, both in the war zone and in the States," said the e-mail.
Insurgent infiltration of the Iraqi Security Forces is also a big problem. A Green Beret caught a police lieutenant directing by telephone the placement of an IED so it would damage a coalition convoy.
Copyright 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
===
Is withdrawal by 2016 too optimistic? Mathatmacoat answered on 07/19/06:far too optimistic. The oil in Iraq is too valuable to leave it entirely to the Iraqi. Those oil fields and pipelines need protecting | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 07/18/06 - Boy George has a solution for everything?
Bush's solution: 'stop doing this s---'
A microphone picked up an unaware George W Bush saying that Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon.
The US president was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East.
Neither immediately realised a microphone was transmitting their candid thoughts on that and other issues.
"I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go (to the Middle East) pretty soon," Bush said.
Blair replied: "Right, that's all that matters, it will take some time to get that together".
Rice headed back to the United States after the G8 summit closed yesterday and will decide when to make her Middle East trip, a State Department spokeswoman said.
Blair added: "See, if she (Rice) goes out she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk".
Bush replied: "See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over".
Blair eventually noticed the microphone and hastily switched it off but not before the conversation had reached news media.
When Bush learned the microphones were on, he asked what he had said, and after being shown a transcript "he rolled his eyes and laughed," White House spokesman Tony Snow said aboard Air Force One returning to Washington.
While his language was salty, the message from Bush was what it had been throughout the summit - that Syria is supporting Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and should force them to stop shelling Israel and return abducted Israeli soldiers.
US officials believe that if Hezbollah did so, Israel's military strikes on Lebanon might stop.
Bush also seemed to complain about UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wanting an immediate ceasefire to stop the violence between Israel and Hezbollah.
"I don't like the sequence of it," Bush said.
"His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens."
Blair said: "I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed".
A G8 statement yesterday suggested the UN Security Council should consider an international security and monitoring presence on the Lebanon-Israel border, an idea Blair is pushing.
Later, Bush said he felt like telling Annan to telephone Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "and make something happen".
"We're not blaming Israel and we're not blaming the Lebanese government," he said.
Snow said Bush was reiterating his view and Hezbollah should return the soldiers and stop firing rockets before talking about a ceasefire.
"He likes Kofi Annan and he is not only happy to work with him but has been supportive from the very start of the UN mission to the region," Snow said.
The United States would wait and see what the UN recommends about a stabilisation force, he said.
"I think it's awfully premature to be talking about US troops," Snow said.
"Let's just wait and see what the UN has to recommend ... and the means by which they hope to achieve it."
The discussions were not about "armies marching in and trying to fight Hezbollah," Snow said.
"What they're looking for is a stabilisation force to try to be able to support the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army clearly is not capable at this point of keeping peace in southern Lebanon."
Reuters
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/19/06:the mouth from the south has spoken again | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 07/18/06 - Eyes wide shut on the issue of the century? Climate change has even US conservatives worried, but here the hip pocket still rules, writes Elizabeth Farrelly.
Australia is unusual among First World countries in combining a relatively educated populace, an extraordinarily fragile environment and a crude mining mentality. It's not a good mix. Indeed, as Jared Diamond pointed out in Collapse, our ruthless extension of the mining mind-set from minerals to renewable resources such as soil, fisheries and forests has only intensified our continental fragility.
Yet we go on exploiting our land rather than our intelligence, global warming or no, and choosing our leaders accordingly.
This is the mystery. Polls show we worry about climate change, but we vote from the hip pocket. John Howard, the polls tell us, makes us feel safe. But we blind ourselves to the yawning chasm between feeling safe and being safe. Ask the ostrich.
Howard is right to berate the states for their pathetic record on environmental initiatives, but wrong to attack their push for carbon trading (worth $13 billion worldwide last year). He is right to suggest Australia could become an energy superpower but it is reprehensible of him to focus the strategy on grubby old non-renewables such as coal, oil and uranium. Right to press the climate-change button, however tentatively; wrong to offer the nuclear solution.
Climate change has become a moral issue. Maybe the moral issue. If, as is arguable, morality is no more (or less) than a herd survival code, we might reasonably see all wars as the discordant death rattles of opposing fundamentalisms, soon to be replaced by some clean new enviro-religion. This new faith will make sacraments of rainwater, commandments of cycling and recycling, and prophets of well, there's the rub.
In Australia, where governments quail before moral issues, the vacuum is filling with an unlikely alliance of business and philanthropic lobby groups. The Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change argued in April that a 60 per cent cut in Australia's emissions is compatible with strong economic growth. Westpac's chief executive officer, David Morgan, known for lampooning emissions proposals as Mein Kampf and seeing carbon trading as a European conspiracy, notes that "the next president of the United States [is expected] to initiate urgent action on climate change".
Now at last, the Climate Institute of Australia, has launched its Top Ten Tipping Points on Climate Change. Headed by the Australia Institute's Clive Hamilton, the institute is intelligent, purposeful, well placed. Never mind that the best it can do in the profit, sorry, prophet department is Bob Carr, whom you will remember as the man who turned a decade-long opportunity to green NSW into a filthy enviro-mess.
Any church is more than the sum of its saints, and there are bigger issues at stake. As Tipping Point says, we are entering the "oh shit" phase of global warming. Pretty much everyone is taking it seriously except us.
Our colleagues in climate crime are vanishing faster than the ice caps. Britain may be underachieving on its emissions targets, but business there is pushing Tony Blair for stronger regulations. In the US, where the writer Elizabeth Kolbert argues the need for an "environmental Churchill", an obstructionist Bush White House is nevertheless ringed by cities, states, Congress and the courts, plus a few inner-Republican colleagues, determined to make change.
Last year, California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, launched a plan to cut state emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. "The debate is over," he said. "The science is in. The time to act is now." Right-wing evangelical leaders of 30 million people marched on Capitol Hill, urging leadership on climate change. Since then, 238 US mayors have pledged to "meet or beat" Kyoto; the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has supported emissions caps and the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether CO 2 regulation should be mandatory.
The climate-change climate is changing, fast, and Australia is being left out in the warm. Ostrichised. It's a leadership thing, and it is dangerous - politically, morally, existentially. More, it's bad finance, with renewables - in which Australia could so easily excel - reaping $74 billion globally in 2005.
The US developer-turned-greenmeister and World Green Building Council president, David Gottfried, argued in Sydney earlier this year: "Green is the new black. All the big businesses are in the game, and it's for the benefit of everybody." Gottfried had one small goal in Australia: a tax credit for five-star green buildings. The Howard Government's Sustainable Cities report noted last August the "need for the Australian government to assume a leadership role". Yet the opposite is happening. Said Gottfried: "I don't see your Federal Government involved they're not at the table."
We've just had the hottest year on record. Atmospheric CO 2 is at its highest for 650,000 years. The seas are rising, the ice melting. Most scientists believe we have underestimated the impact. Yet we do nothing. The clever country, if we ever were that, has succumbed to waste, greed and denial. This is not just laziness. It's officially required, as the ABC's Four Corners demonstrated in February, documenting government pressure on CSIRO scientists to zip up on climate.
Yet we in Australia no longer care if our politicians lie. We don't mind if they peddle influence at $5000 a pop. In fact, we like it. At state and federal levels we consistently choose leaders who offer feelgood delusions and lugubrious denials over the truth of survival. Even David Attenborough, a long-time climate sceptic, has finally come round. As ever, he goes to the heart: "How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew about this and I did nothing?"
Elizabeth Farrelly writes on planning, architecture and aesthetics for the Herald. Mathatmacoat answered on 07/19/06:Of course we care if our politicians lie but we know when they are lying, that's why we arn't listening.
This climate change is a strange thing, we can have the hottest year on record and record low winter temperatures, we have rain and yet the drought never ends, it just gets worse. Fuel prices don't stop us buying gas guzzlers either, Holden has just unveiled the gas guzzler of all time and it took six years to build, you would think that car makers would be looking at the trends, but perhaps they are looking at the american market. We are all in denial, because we know our way of life has to be good for the planet, afterall it's so much better than the other 90% has. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/02/06 - Bush's Anti-Media Attack seen openly for what it is ....
Bush's present attack on the NYT is patently politically motivated to please the Repuiblican right and give a little solace to his own Republican critics in the run-up to mid term elections.
If he wants to attack the NYT for running a story about Bush & Co. tracking the bank accounts of his fellow Americans, then he is free to do so - this is the Land of the Free, and even the president gets freedom of speech, right?
But why os why does he absolve the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal - both Republican conservative rags - from any culpability when they ran the same story? The LA Times was just a couple of hours away from reaching its independent decision to run the story - which it did run - and the NYT pipped it at the post, hitting the streets first.
Does this show Bush's desperation, his favouritism, his need to attack any liberal media for reporting the truth?
Where is his sense of moral outrage at the LAT and the WSJ?
Curious minds want to know.
Mathatmacoat answered on 07/03/06:what a beat up | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/28/06 - What'cha think? Asked Ted Nugent if he could condense and clarify his core political beliefs.
So what are they? Read:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>Those that claim they disagree with my politics are unAmerican, even antiAmerican, or just plain stupid. Heres my politics-
1-able bodied people deserve no welfare
2-the gvt owes us accountability for our tax dollars, nothing else
3-free people have the right to self defense & to keep & bear arms
4-criminals must be severely punished & payback their victems
5-unsafe, abhorent, dangerous behaviour must be criminalized & laws enforced
6-courts & judges & prosecutors must be held accountable to we the people
7-free people own their private property & public property to be managed for sustain yeild productivity
for starters. disagree & xpose your soulesness.<<
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mathatmacoat answered on 06/29/06:This fellow is almost right, I will risk being antiamerican to disagree.
1. the right of free speech and discent is the most basic of all rights
2. able bodied people sometimes need help to find employment, this can be because their skills have no immediate outlet in their community
3. The government owes accountability for its policies
4. free people have the right to live without unwarrented interference
5. Criminals should be permanently removed from society
6. courts, etc should be accountable to the leglisature who make the laws, not the reverse as exists in the United States
7. public property should only exist to serve an immediate need, otherwise it should be returned to the people
8. there is a better way and it demands selflessness | | Question/Answer | | Judgment_Day asked on 06/21/06 - AMERICANS THAT WORK FOR A LIVING.... ...AND that includes working legally and earning an honest crime-free living. OK I think most people want the personal immediate relief of tax-cuts. However beyond tax relief discussions (which is a moot point for me personally since I've never received much if any relief from any of the presidents including Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton or GW)....I would like to propose that our United States should stop promoting hand-outs. I'm a proponent for having a president that would fight for cutting back on some programs and tightening qualifications. I would especially like to see time limits placed on how long an individual could benefit from the welfare system. Besides the hand-outs to our own society we should also consider all the money allocated via budget spending that will eventually come out of our pockets for rebuilding Iraq and other foreign infrastructure.
*I do think we should have funds raised (even if by taxation) and placed in budget for disaster relief, etc... So just to be clarify I believe some programs are good and necessary.
Comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 06/21/06:Hello Joseph Stalin where do you propose to put your slave labour force to work? perhaps constructing a wall to keep their hapless brethern from falling into the same poverty trap. How do you distinguish between someone out of work because of national disaster and some one who cannot find work since the impact of a national disaster isn't just localised. The US is already the least generous in international aid and you would cut that back too no doubt. You want to put people to work, stop buying imported goods | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 06/15/06 - Arctic dips as global waters rise Arctic sea level has been falling by a little over 2mm a year - a movement that sets the region against the global trend of rising waters.
A Dutch-UK team made the discovery after analysing radar altimetry data gathered by Europe's ERS-2 satellite.
It is well known that the world's oceans do not share a uniform height; but even so, the scientists are somewhat puzzled by their results.
Global sea level is expected to keep on climbing as the Earth's climate warms.
To find the Arctic out of step, even temporarily, emphasises the great need for more research in the region, the team says.
"We have high confidence in the results; it's now down to the geophysics community to explain them," said Dr Remko Scharroo, from consultants Altimetrics LLC, who led the study.
Next year has been designated International Polar Year, and major oceanographic expeditions are planned to take research vessels into the northern region to sample its icy waters.
"This may provide clues as to what is causing the changes we're seeing," explained co-researcher Dr Seymour Laxon, from University College London (UCL). "I think it's a true statement to say the Arctic Ocean is the least well understood body of water out there."
The recent trend could be linked to changes in the temperature and salinity (saltiness) of Arctic waters. This would have to be investigated, he said.
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Ok you smart people, help them out here. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/19/06:you appearently haven't heard the theories of the Flat Earth Society. Appearently the Earth is flatter at the poles than in other places, although looking at Europe I don't know how they could have arrived at this theory, however, this means that tidal and other influences will differ there. Could it be that the water drains away from the poles towards the equator because of the effects of the spin of the Earth. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/18/06 - Schools out for Summer Richard Lederer of St. Paul's School has compiled a unique history of Western Civilization based on a compilation of answers students from 8th grade through college tests :
The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cul- tivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fougth with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.
In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.
Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrany who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote liter- ature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Vir- gin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself be- fore her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Mac- beth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miquel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey Hote". The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife dies and he wrote "Paradise Regained."
During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and the was called the Pilgrim's Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by Indians, who came down the hill rolling their was hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porposies on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post with- out stamps. During the War, Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.
Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented elec- tricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Them the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a sup- posedl insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are flaling off the trees.
Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolu- tion, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children.
The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. He reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailst who wrote the "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.
The First World War, cause by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.
Mathatmacoat answered on 06/19/06:now where have I heard that before, I think some radio commentator used excerpts from it the other day | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/16/06 - Is the 4th Estate the 5th Column ? Suppose that you were a newpaper editor and you were confronted with the facts of a story that reveals a correlation Between coverage of terrorist attacks linked directly to an increase in terrorist attacks ? What would you do ?
It's a macabre example of win-win in what economists call a "common-interest game," say Bruno S. Frey of the University of Zurich and Dominic Rohner of Cambridge University.
"Both the media and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents," their study contends. Terrorists get free publicity for themselves and their cause. The media, meanwhile, make money "as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and the number of television viewers."
The researchers counted direct references to terrorism between 1998 and 2005 in the New York Times and Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a respected Swiss newspaper. They also collected data on terrorist attacks around the world during that period. Using a statistical procedure called the Granger Causality Test , they attempted to determine whether more coverage directly led to more attacks.
The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage -- a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.
You would think this would prompt editors and producers to think hard about how they cover terrorism ,but as the saying goes "if it bleeds it leads " . Funny ;I thought the press was sensitive to charges that it can be manipulated .
Mathatmacoat answered on 06/19/06:the only thing that manipulates the media is money | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/17/06 - Can you recognise this state of affairs? C. S. Lewis:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/19/06:Yes, living in that benign dictatorship which is Australia we recognise these characteristics in the new labour relations legislation which is allowing employers to effectly strip conditions and reduce real wages | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/17/06 - What happened to the dream of a liberal democracy George Washington:
As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/19/06:hey, don't you know the americans had their own dreamtime, just like us. The difference is, they are still living in it. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/17/06 - If you live by the sea it's time to move, by the way I did years ago Thawing icy plains a threat as rot sets in
Janet Wilson in Los Angeles
June 17, 2006
ANCIENT woolly mammoth bones and grasslands locked in a 1 million-square-kilometre stretch of Siberian permafrost are starting to thaw, with the potential to unleash billions of tonnes of carbon and accelerate global warming, Russian and American scientists have concluded.
"It's like taking food out of your freezer leave it on your counter for a few days and it rots," said a University of Florida botany professor, Ted Schuur, describing the process in which bacteria convert decaying animal and plant matter in the soil into carbon dioxide, methane and other harmful greenhouse gases.
The study, published in yesterday's issue of the journal Science, concluded that while other global warming researchers were factoring carbon reserves in the ocean, and in current soils and vegetation on the earth into their calculations, they had overlooked vast amounts of carbon trapped in permafrost in the northern plains of Siberia and central Alaska.
If all the permafrost thawed and was released as heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it could nearly double the 730 billion tonnes of carbon now in the atmosphere, the scientists said.
What was most surprising, they said, was the size and depth of the terrain that they found could be affected, at an average of 25 metres deep and containing about 500 billion tonnes of carbon.
"It's like finding a new continent under the earth," said the lead author, Sergey Zimov. He said the vast, carbon-rich area had been buried over many millenniums by a unique layer of windborne "loess" dust that covered bones of mammoth, bison, sabre-toothed tiger and abundant grasses they fed on, then froze about 10,000 years ago into permafrost.
The research team also found that carbon stored over tens of thousands of years could bubble up from thawed soil in as little as 100 years.
Los Angeles Times Mathatmacoat answered on 06/19/06:I'm with you on that, weather conditions are becoming more unpredictable, only the other day Perth had the coldest day ever recorded | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/18/06 - It's enough to make a president paranoid(if he wasn't already?) Julian Borger
June 18, 2006
Are world leaders trying to tell George Bush something, asks Julian Borger in Washington.
A BRAIDED leather whip, a sniper rifle, six jars of fertiliser and a copy of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook were among the presents foreign leaders have given George Bush. They are clearly trying to tell him something.
The inventory of official gifts from 2004, published by the State Department, reads like the wish list of the sort of paranoid survivalist who holes up in his log cabin to await Armageddon.
The President received a startling array of weapons, including daggers and a machete from Gabon. The braided whip was from the Hungarian Prime Minister.
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, a gift from the Sultan of Brunei, has tips on how to use some of these weapons in a tight spot. It also explains how to wrestle an alligator, escape from a mountain lion and take a punch.
But the small arsenal of guns presented by Jordan's King Abdullah, including a $10,000 sniper rifle, would presumably render much of that advice unnecessary. The king also gave Mr Bush six jars of "various fertilisers" on a rotating wooden stand.
According to the Jordanian embassy, the jars contained neither manure nor the sort of chemicals that can be turned into bombs but rather an array of volcanic soils found around the country.
In each instance listed by the State Department, acceptance of the gift is justified by the phrase "non-acceptance would cause embarrassment to donor and US Government".
But acceptance clearly has its own embarrassments. Mr Bush received a vocabulary-expanding game called Forgotten English, from Brunei.
Meanwhile, it is hard to imagine Donald Rumsfeld summoning much enthusiasm for an aromatherapy gift set from the Jordanians. That gift was passed on to the government department that disposes of unwanted presents.
If the top members of the Bush Administration met to compare gifts, Donald Rumsfeld would no doubt have been looking enviously over the President's shoulder at some of his weapons, or at the special edition of The Art of War Dick Cheney got from the Chinese Vice-President.
But Mr Cheney also received presents for his fun-loving side: a "Happy Day" clock from the Swiss President, gold silk pillows, scented candles and a pottery incense burner (the Jordanians again).
It is apparent that a lot of the foreign dignitaries do not do much research before buying gifts. Mr Bush, a reformed drunk, was given a cellarful of wine in 2004.
Officials are only allowed to keep gifts worth under $US305 ($A413) after they leave office. Others are consigned to libraries or archives, where they are occasionally displayed to show the America's warm ties with the rest of the world.
Despite standing shoulder to shoulder in 2004, Mr Bush got nothing from Tony Blair, for Christmas or his birthday.
GUARDIAN Mathatmacoat answered on 06/19/06:You would have to be paranoid to invade a country thousands of miles away on the pretext that they possessed a weapon(s) that might be used against you while you are being invaded by thousands who originate right on your own doorstep | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 06/13/06 - The Real Iraq Long, but a must read.
By Amir Taheri
Spending time in the United States after a tour of Iraq can be a disorienting experience these days. Within hours of arriving here, as I can attest from a recent visit, one is confronted with an image of Iraq that is unrecognizable. It is created in several overlapping ways: through television footage showing the charred remains of vehicles used in suicide attacks, surrounded by wailing women in black and grim-looking men carrying coffins; by armchair strategists and political gurus predicting further doom or pontificating about how the war should have been fought in the first place; by authors of instant-history books making their rounds to dissect the various fundamental mistakes committed by the Bush administration; and by reporters, cocooned in hotels in Baghdad, explaining the carnage and chaos in the streets as signs of the countrys impending or undeclared civil war. Add to all this the days alleged scandal or revelationan outed CIA operative, a reportedly doctored intelligence report, a leaked pessimistic assessmentand it is no wonder the American public registers disillusion with Iraq and everyone who embroiled the U.S. in its troubles.
It would be hard indeed for the average interested citizen to find out on his own just how grossly this image distorts the realities of present-day Iraq. Part of the problem, faced by even the most well-meaning news organizations, is the difficulty of covering so large and complex a subject; naturally, in such circumstances, sensational items rise to the top. But even ostensibly more objective efforts, like the Brookings Institutions much-cited Iraq Index with its constantly updated array of security, economic, and public-opinion indicators, tell us little about the actual feel of the country on the ground.
To make matters worse, many of the newsmen, pundits, and commentators on whom American viewers and readers rely to describe the situation have been contaminated by the increasing bitterness of American politics. Clearly there are those in the media and the think tanks who wish the Iraq enterprise to end in tragedy, as a just comeuppance for George W. Bush. Others, prompted by noble sentiment, so abhor the idea of war that they would banish it from human discourse before admitting that, in some circumstances, military power can be used in support of a good cause. But whatever the reason, the half-truths and outright misinformation that now function as conventional wisdom have gravely disserved the American people.
For someone like myself who has spent considerable time in Iraqa country I first visited in 1968current reality there is, nevertheless, very different from this conventional wisdom, and so are the prospects for Iraqs future. It helps to know where to look, what sources to trust, and how to evaluate the present moment against the background of Iraqi and Middle Eastern history.
Since my first encounter with Iraq almost 40 years ago, I have relied on several broad measures of social and economic health to assess the countrys condition. Through good times and bad, these signs have proved remarkably accurateas accurate, that is, as is possible in human affairs. For some time now, all have been pointing in an unequivocally positive direction.
The first sign is refugees. When things have been truly desperate in Iraqin 1959, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1988, and 1990long queues of Iraqis have formed at the Turkish and Iranian frontiers, hoping to escape. In 1973, for example, when Saddam Hussein decided to expel all those whose ancestors had not been Ottoman citizens before Iraqs creation as a state, some 1.2 million Iraqis left their homes in the space of just six weeks. This was not the temporary exile of a small group of middle-class professionals and intellectuals, which is a common enough phenomenon in most Arab countries. Rather, it was a departure en masse, affecting people both in small villages and in big cities, and it was a scene regularly repeated under Saddam Hussein.
Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003, this is one highly damaging image we have not seen on our television setsand we can be sure that we would be seeing it if it were there to be shown. To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark. Many of the camps set up for fleeing Iraqis in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia since 1959 have now closed down. The oldest such center, at Ashrafiayh in southwest Iran, was formally shut when its last Iraqi guests returned home in 2004.
A second dependable sign likewise concerns human movement, but of a different kind. This is the flow of religious pilgrims to the Shiite shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Whenever things start to go badly in Iraq, this stream is reduced to a trickle and then it dries up completely. From 1991 (when Saddam Hussein massacred Shiites involved in a revolt against him) to 2003, there were scarcely any pilgrims to these cities. Since Saddams fall, they have been flooded with visitors. In 2005, the holy sites received an estimated 12 million pilgrims, making them the most visited spots in the entire Muslim world, ahead of both Mecca and Medina.
Over 3,000 Iraqi clerics have also returned from exile, and Shiite seminaries, which just a few years ago held no more than a few dozen pupils, now boast over 15,000 from 40 different countries. This is because Najaf, the oldest center of Shiite scholarship, is once again able to offer an alternative to Qom, the Iranian holy city where a radical and highly politicized version of Shiism is taught. Those wishing to pursue the study of more traditional and quietist forms of Shiism now go to Iraq where, unlike in Iran, the seminaries are not controlled by the government and its secret police.
A third sign, this one of the hard economic variety, is the value of the Iraqi dinar, especially as compared with the regions other major currencies. In the final years of Saddam Husseins rule, the Iraqi dinar was in free fall; after 1995, it was no longer even traded in Iran and Kuwait. By contrast, the new dinar, introduced early in 2004, is doing well against both the Kuwaiti dinar and the Iranian rial, having risen by 17 percent against the former and by 23 percent against the latter. Although it is still impossible to fix its value against a basket of international currencies, the new Iraqi dinar has done well against the U.S. dollar, increasing in value by almost 18 percent between August 2004 and August 2005. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis, and millions of Iranians and Kuwaitis, now treat it as a safe and solid medium of exchange.
My fourth time-tested sign is the level of activity by small and medium-sized businesses. In the past, whenever things have gone downhill in Iraq, large numbers of such enterprises have simply closed down, with the countrys most capable entrepreneurs decamping to Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Turkey, Iran, and even Europe and North America. Since liberation, however, Iraq has witnessed a private-sector boom, especially among small and medium-sized businesses.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as numerous private studies, the Iraqi economy has been doing better than any other in the region. The countrys gross domestic product rose to almost $90 billion in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), more than double the output for 2003, and its real growth rate, as estimated by the IMF, was 52.3 per cent. In that same period, exports increased by more than $3 billion, while the inflation rate fell to 25.4 percent, down from 70 percent in 2002. The unemployment rate was halved, from 60 percent to 30 percent.
Related to this is the level of agricultural activity. Between 1991 and 2003, the countrys farm sector experienced unprecedented decline, in the end leaving almost the entire nation dependent on rations distributed by the United Nations under Oil-for-Food. In the past two years, by contrast, Iraqi agriculture has undergone an equally unprecedented revival. Iraq now exports foodstuffs to neighboring countries, something that has not happened since the 1950s. Much of the upturn is due to smallholders who, shaking off the collectivist system imposed by the Baathists, have retaken control of land that was confiscated decades ago by the state.
Finally, one of the surest indices of the health of Iraqi society has always been its readiness to talk to the outside world. Iraqis are a verbalizing people; when they fall silent, life is incontrovertibly becoming hard for them. There have been times, indeed, when one could find scarcely a single Iraqi, whether in Iraq or abroad, prepared to express an opinion on anything remotely political. This is what Kanan Makiya meant when he described Saddam Husseins regime as a republic of fear.
Today, again by way of dramatic contrast, Iraqis are voluble to a fault. Talk radio, television talk-shows, and Internet blogs are all the rage, while heated debate is the order of the day in shops, tea-houses, bazaars, mosques, offices, and private homes. A catharsis is how Luay Abdulilah, the Iraqi short-story writer and diarist, describes it. This is one way of taking revenge against decades of deadly silence. Moreover, a vast network of independent media has emerged in Iraq, including over 100 privately-owned newspapers and magazines and more than two dozen radio and television stations. To anyone familiar with the state of the media in the Arab world, it is a truism that Iraq today is the place where freedom of expression is most effectively exercised.
That an experienced observer of Iraq with a sense of history can point to so many positive factors in the countrys present condition will not do much, of course, to sway the more determined critics of the U.S. intervention there. They might even agree that the images fed to the American public show only part of the picture, and that the news from Iraq is not uniformly bad. But the root of their opposition runs deeper, to political fundamentals.
Their critique can be summarized in the aphorism that democracy cannot be imposed by force. It is a view that can be found among the more sophisticated elements on the Left and, increasingly, among dissenters on the Right, from Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska to the ex-neoconservative Francis Fukuyama. As Senator Hagel puts it, You cannot in my opinion just impose a democratic form of government on a country with no history and no culture and no tradition of democracy.
I would tend to agree. But is Iraq such a place? In point of fact, before the 1958 pro-Soviet military coup detat that established a leftist dictatorship, Iraq did have its modest but nevertheless significant share of democratic history, culture, and tradition. The country came into being through a popular referendum held in 1921. A constitutional monarchy modeled on the United Kingdom, it had a bicameral parliament, several political parties (including the Baath and the Communists), and periodic elections that led to changes of policy and government. At the time, Iraq also enjoyed the freest press in the Arab world, plus the widest space for debate and dissent in the Muslim Middle East.
To be sure, Baghdad in those days was no Westminster, and, as the 1958 coup proved, Iraqi democracy was fragile. But every serious student of contemporary Iraq knows that substantial segments of the population, from all ethnic and religious communities, had more than a taste of the modern worlds democratic aspirations. As evidence, one need only consult the immense literary and artistic production of Iraqis both before and after the 1958 coup. Under successor dictatorial regimes, it is true, the conviction took hold that democratic principles had no future in Iraqa conviction that was responsible in large part for driving almost five million Iraqis, a quarter of the population, into exile between 1958 and 2003, just as the opposite conviction is attracting so many of them and their children back to Iraq today.
A related argument used to condemn Iraqs democratic prospects is that it is an artificial country, one that can be held together only by a dictator. But did any nation-state fall from the heavens wholly made? All are to some extent artificial creations, and the U.S. is preeminently so. The truth is that Iraqone of the 53 founding countries of the United Nationsis older than a majority of that organizations current 198 member states. Within the Arab League, and setting aside Oman and Yemen, none of the 22 members is older. Two-thirds of the 122 countries regarded as democracies by Freedom House came into being after Iraqs appearance on the map.
Critics of the democratic project in Iraq also claim that, because it is a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state, the country is doomed to despotism, civil war, or disintegration. But the same could be said of virtually all Middle Eastern states, most of which are neither multi-ethnic nor multi-confessional. More important, all Iraqis, regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, and sectarian differences, share a sense of national identityuruqa (Iraqi-ness)that has developed over the past eight decades. A unified, federal state may still come to grief in Iraqhistory is not written in advancebut even should a divorce become inevitable at some point, a democratic Iraq would be in a better position to manage it.
What all of this demonstrates is that, contrary to received opinion, Operation Iraqi Freedom was not an attempt to impose democracy by force. Rather, it was an effort to use force to remove impediments to democratization, primarily by deposing a tyrant who had utterly suppressed a well-established aspect of the countrys identity. It may take years before we know for certain whether or not post-liberation Iraq has definitely chosen democracy. But one thing is certain: without the use of force to remove the Baathist regime, the people of Iraq would not have had the opportunity even to contemplate a democratic future.
Assessing the progress of that democratic project is no simple matter. But, by any reasonable standard, Iraqis have made extraordinary strides. In a series of municipal polls and two general elections in the past three years, up to 70 percent of eligible Iraqis have voted. This new orientation is supported by more than 60 political parties and organizations, the first genuinely free-trade unions in the Arab world, a growing number of professional associations acting independently of the state, and more than 400 nongovernmental organizations representing diverse segments of civil society. A new constitution, written by Iraqis representing the full spectrum of political, ethnic, and religious sensibilities was overwhelmingly approved by the electorate in a referendum last October.
Iraqs new democratic reality is also reflected in the vocabulary of politics used at every level of society. Many new wordsaccountability, transparency, pluralism, dissenthave entered political discourse in Iraq for the first time. More remarkably, perhaps, all parties and personalities currently engaged in the democratic process have committed themselves to the principle that power should be sought, won, and lost only through free and fair elections.
These democratic achievements are especially impressive when set side by side with the declared aims of the enemies of the new Iraq, who have put up a determined fight against it. Since the countrys liberation, the jihadists and residual Baathists have killed an estimated 23,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, in scores of random attacks and suicide operations. Indirectly, they have caused the death of thousands more, by sabotaging water and electricity services and by provoking sectarian revenge attacks.
But they have failed to translate their talent for mayhem and murder into political success. Their campaign has not succeeded in appreciably slowing down, let alone stopping, the countrys democratization. Indeed, at each step along the way, the jihadists and Baathists have seen their self-declared objectives thwarted.
After the invasion, they tried at first to prevent the formation of a Governing Council, the expression of Iraqs continued existence as a sovereign nation-state. They managed to murder several members of the council, including its president in 2003, but failed to prevent its formation or to keep it from performing its task in the interim period. The next aim of the insurgents was to stop municipal elections. Their message was simple: candidates and voters would be killed. But, once again, they failed: thousands of men and women came forward as candidates and more than 1.5 million Iraqis voted in the localities where elections were held.
The insurgency made similar threats in the lead-up to the first general election, and the result was the same. Despite killing 36 candidates and 148 voters, they failed to derail the balloting, in which the number of voters rose to more than 8 million. Nor could the insurgency prevent the writing of the new democratic constitution, despite a campaign of assassination against its drafters. The text was ready in time and was submitted to and approved by a referendum, exactly as planned. The number of voters rose yet again, to more than 9 million.
What of relations among the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurdsthe focus of so much attention of late? For almost three years, the insurgency worked hard to keep the Arab Sunni community, which accounts for some 15 percent of the population, out of the political process. But that campaign collapsed when millions of Sunnis turned out to vote in the constitutional referendum and in the second general election, which saw almost 11 million Iraqis go to the polls. As I write, ,b>all political parties representing the Arab Sunni minority have joined the political process and have strong representation in the new parliament. With the convening of that parliament, and the nomination in April of a new prime minister and a three-man presidential council, the way is open for the formation of a broad-based government of national unity to lead Iraq over the next four years.
As for the insurgencys effort to foment sectarian violencea strategy first launched in earnest toward the end of 2005this too has run aground. The hope here was to provoke a full-scale war between the Arab Sunni minority and the Arab Shiites who account for some 60 percent of the population. The new strategy, like the ones previously tried, has certainly produced many deaths. But despite countless cases of sectarian killings by so-called militias, there is still no sign that the Shiites as a whole will acquiesce in the role assigned them by the insurgency and organize a concerted campaign of nationwide retaliation.
Finally, despite the impression created by relentlessly dire reporting in the West, the insurgency has proved unable to shut down essential government services. Hundreds of teachers and schoolchildren have been killed in incidents including the beheading of two teachers in their classrooms this April and horrific suicide attacks against school buses. But by September 2004, most schools across Iraq and virtually all universities were open and functioning. By September 2005, more than 8.5 million Iraqi children and young people were attending school or universityan all-time record in the nations history.
A similar story applies to Iraqs clinics and hospitals. Between October 2003 and January 2006, more than 80 medical doctors and over 400 nurses and medical auxiliaries were murdered by the insurgents. The jihadists also raided several hospitals, killing ordinary patients in their beds. But, once again, they failed in their objectives. By January 2006, all of Iraqs 600 state-owned hospitals and clinics were in full operation, along with dozens of new ones set up by the private sector since liberation.
Another of the insurgencys strategic goals was to bring the Iraqi oil industry to a halt and to disrupt the export of crude. Since July 2003, Iraqs oil infrastructure has been the target of more than 3,000 attacks and attempts at sabotage. But once more the insurgency has failed to achieve its goals. Iraq has resumed its membership in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and has returned to world markets as a major oil exporter. According to projections, by the end of 2006 it will be producing its full OPEC quota of 2.8 million barrels a day.
The Baathist remnant and its jihadist allies resemble a gambler who wins a heap of chips at a roulette table only to discover that he cannot exchange them for real money at the front desk. The enemies of the new Iraq have succeeded in ruining the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis, but over the past three years they have advanced their overarching goals, such as they are, very little. Instead, they have been militarily contained and politically defeated again and again, and the beneficiary has been Iraqi democracy.
None of this means that the new Iraq is out of the woods. Far from it. Democratic success still requires a great deal of patience, determination, and luck. The U.S.-led coalition, its allies, and partners have achieved most of their major political objectives, but that achievement remains under threat and could be endangered if the U.S., for whatever reason, should decide to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory.
The current mandate of the U.S.-led coalition runs out at the end of this year, and it is unlikely that Washington and its allies will want to maintain their military presence at current levels. In the past few months, more than half of the 103 bases used by the coalition have been transferred to the new Iraqi army. The best guess is that the number of U.S. and coalition troops could be cut from 140,000 to 25,000 or 30,000 by the end of 2007.
One might wonder why, if the military mission has been so successful, the U.S. still needs to maintain a military presence in Iraq for at least another two years. There are three reasons for this.
The first is to discourage Iraqs predatory neighbors, notably Iran and Syria, which might wish to pursue their own agendas against the new government in Baghdad. Iran has already revived some claims under the Treaties of Erzerum (1846), according to which Tehran would enjoy a droit de regard over Shiite shrines in Iraq. In Syria, some in that countrys ruling circles have invoked the possibility of annexing the area known as Jazirah, the so-called Sunni triangle, in the name of Arab unity. For its part, Turkey is making noises about the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which gave it a claim to the oilfields of northern Iraq. All of these pretensions need to be rebuffed.
The second reason for extending Americas military presence is political. The U.S. is acting as an arbiter among Iraqs various ethnic and religious communities and political factions. It is, in a sense, a traffic cop, giving Iraqis a green or red light when and if needed. It is important that the U.S. continue performing this role for the first year or two of the newly elected parliament and government.
Finally, the U.S. and its allies have a key role to play in training and testing Iraqs new army and police. Impressive success has already been achieved in that field. Nevertheless, the new Iraqi army needs at least another year or two before it will have developed adequate logistical capacities and learned to organize and conduct operations involving its various branches.
But will the U.S. stay the course? Many are betting against it. The Baathists and jihadists, their prior efforts to derail Iraqi democracy having come to naught, have now pinned their hopes on creating enough chaos and death to persuade Washington of the futility of its endeavors. In this, they have the tacit support not only of local Arab and Muslim despots rightly fearful of the democratic genie but of all those in the West whose own incessant theme has been the certainty of American failure. Among Bush-haters in the U.S., just as among anti-Americans around the world, predictions of civil war in Iraq, of spreading regional hostilities, and of a revived global terrorism are not about to cease any time soon.
But more sober observers should understand the real balance sheet in Iraq. Democracy is succeeding. Moreover, thanks to its success in Iraq, there are stirrings elsewhere in the region. Beyond the much-publicized electoral concessions wrung from authoritarian rulers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, there is a new democratic discourse to be heard. Nationalism and pan-Arabism, yesterdays hollow rallying cries, have given way to a big idea of a very different kind. Debate and dissent are in the air where there was none beforea development owing, in significant measure, to the U.S. campaign in Iraq and the brilliant if still checkered Iraqi response.
The stakes, in short, could not be higher. This is all the more reason to celebrate, to build on, and to consolidate what has already been accomplished. Instead of railing against the Bush administration, Americas elites would do better, and incidentally display greater self-respect, to direct their wrath where it properly belongs: at those violent and unrestrained enemies of democracy in Iraq who are, in truth, the enemies of democracy in America as well, and of everything America has ever stood for.
Is Iraq a quagmire, a disaster, a failure? Certainly not; none of the above. Of all the adjectives used by skeptics and critics to describe todays Iraq, the only one that has a ring of truth is messy. Yes, the situation in Iraq today is messy. Births always are. Since when is that a reason to declare a baby unworthy of life?
Amir Taheri, formerly the executive editor of Kayhan, Irans largest daily newspaper, is the author of ten books and a frequent contributor to numerous publications in the Middle East and Europe. His work appears regularly in the New York Post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you paying attention Mr. Murtha? Mathatmacoat answered on 06/15/06:More Bush propaganda | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 06/12/06 - Is this man mad?
Guantanamo Bay suicides 'an act of war'
ANDREW SELSKY AND JENNIFER LOVEN
* Suicides bring renewed condemnation of US base in Cuba
* US authorities describe the deaths as 'asymmetric warfare against us'
* Pressure sure to increase to close facility
Key quote
"They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us"
-- Navy Rear-Admiral Harry Harris, base commander
THREE Guantanamo Bay detainees hanged themselves using nooses made of bedsheets and clothes, the commander of the facility confirmed yesterday, describing the suicides as "an act of asymmetric warfare" against the United States.
The suicides, which US military officials said were co-ordinated, have triggered further condemnation of the isolated detention centre in Cuba, which holds some 460 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda and the Taleban. Only ten have been charged with crimes and there has been growing international pressure on the US to close the prison.
Two men from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen were found dead shortly after midnight on Saturday in separate cells, said the US Southern Command, which has jurisdiction over the prison. Attempts to revive the men were unsuccessful.
"They hung themselves with fabricated nooses made out of clothes and bed sheets," Navy Rear-Admiral Harry Harris, the base commander, said. "They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."
Military officials said the men had been held in Guantanamo Bay for about four years. The Saudi authorities identified their dead citizens as Mani bin Shaman bin Turki al Habradi and Yasser Talal Abdullah Yahya al Zahrani. The identity of the Yemeni is not yet known.
All three detainees had engaged in a hunger strike in protest at their indefinite imprisonment and had been force-fed before giving up their protest.
One of the detainees was a mid or high-level al-Qaeda operative, while another had been captured in Afghanistan and participated in a riot at a prison there, Rear-Admiral Harris said. The third belonged to a splinter group.
Detainees have not been allowed to know about classified evidence of allegations against them and thus are unable to respond.
"They're determined, intelligent, committed and they continue to do everything they can to become martyrs in the jihad," said General John Craddock, commander of the Miami-based Southern Command. All three men left suicide notes, Gen Craddock said. He refused to detail the contents of the contents.
Pentagon officials said the three men were in Camp 1, the highest-security area at Guantanamo, and that none of them had tried to commit suicide before. To help prevent more suicides, guards will now give bed sheets to detainees only when they go to bed and remove them after they wake up in the morning, Harris said.
George Bush, the US president expressed "serious concern" over the suicides and directed his administration to reach out diplomatically while it investigates the incident.
Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, has taken a cautious line on Guantanamo Bay, calling it an "anomaly" but not demanding its immediate closure.
Some of his ministers take a harder line, however, with Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister and possible contender for the Labour deputy leadership, yesterday calling for immediate action over the prison.
"If it is perfectly legal and there is nothing going wrong there, why don't they have it in America and then the American court system can supervise it?" she said.
"It is in a legal no-man's land. Either it should be moved to America or it should be closed."
Guantanamo officials have reported 41 unsuccessful suicide attempts by 25 detainees since the US began taking prisoners to the base in January 2002. Defence lawyers contend the number of suicide attempts is higher.
Another embarrassment for Bush
THE three suicides at Guantanamo Bay have achieved a victory in death that they failed to find in life: their actions embarrass the US and seem likely to increase the pressure on Washington to close the facility.
The rights and wrongs of the situation scarcely matter: the US has been tried and found wanting in the court of public opinion. For Washington there is one simple question: are the advantages of Guantanamo Bay now outweighed by the international opprobrium the prison attracts?
It would be out of character for the Bush administration to change its mind because of pressure from the international community, but the camp gives the US's critics a stick with which to beat Washington.
President Bush has said: "We'd like it [Guantanamo] to be empty. Trouble is, there are some that, if put out on the streets, would create grave harm to American citizens and other citizens of the world." (Does it have to be Guantanamo or nowhere? Is Bush that short of imagination?)
And the view among many ordinary Americans is that these three inmates have set an ideal example for the remaining 460 or so prisoners incarcerated on Cuba. Only human rights lobby groups and hand-wringing liberals are much concerned by the fate of prisoners whose living conditions are, in most respects, little worse than those in ordinary American jails.
The difference is that those prisoners have been tried and convicted of specific crimes.
American officials will protest that the suicides are no more than a political protest. (Thery aslready have!) But no matter how grisly it may be, as publicity stunts go, those dead inmates have the whip hand. That this should be the case is perhaps the biggest defeat and embarrassment the US has suffered in the post-9/11 world.
Its stubbornness and indifference to the opinion of the rest of the world have helped foster a situation in which, grotesquely, terrorists have become the sympathetic victims.
That, more than anything else, has been Washington's most disastrous defeat in the war on terrorism. This weekends' deaths at Guantanamo Bay seem likely, alas, to confirm that.
ALEX MASSIE IN WASHINGTON
===
Is the Admiral completely MAD?
Mathatmacoat answered on 06/13/06:given this is the new enemies plan of attack could we invite them to make a full on attack immediately. All "Acts of War" should be like this one, what a way to win a victory, hang yourself and leave your enemy to pay the burial costs. I'm amazed someone hasn't thought of this strategy before, imagine the cost of burying 1.2 Billion Muslims. At, say, $2,000 A HEAD, IT'S ENOUGH TO BANKRUPT THE US! Only the Pentagon could have thought of this one. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 06/12/06 - Is this man mad?
Guantanamo Bay suicides 'an act of war'
ANDREW SELSKY AND JENNIFER LOVEN
* Suicides bring renewed condemnation of US base in Cuba
* US authorities describe the deaths as 'asymmetric warfare against us'
* Pressure sure to increase to close facility
Key quote
"They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us"
-- Navy Rear-Admiral Harry Harris, base commander
THREE Guantanamo Bay detainees hanged themselves using nooses made of bedsheets and clothes, the commander of the facility confirmed yesterday, describing the suicides as "an act of asymmetric warfare" against the United States.
The suicides, which US military officials said were co-ordinated, have triggered further condemnation of the isolated detention centre in Cuba, which holds some 460 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda and the Taleban. Only ten have been charged with crimes and there has been growing international pressure on the US to close the prison.
Two men from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen were found dead shortly after midnight on Saturday in separate cells, said the US Southern Command, which has jurisdiction over the prison. Attempts to revive the men were unsuccessful.
"They hung themselves with fabricated nooses made out of clothes and bed sheets," Navy Rear-Admiral Harry Harris, the base commander, said. "They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."
Military officials said the men had been held in Guantanamo Bay for about four years. The Saudi authorities identified their dead citizens as Mani bin Shaman bin Turki al Habradi and Yasser Talal Abdullah Yahya al Zahrani. The identity of the Yemeni is not yet known.
All three detainees had engaged in a hunger strike in protest at their indefinite imprisonment and had been force-fed before giving up their protest.
One of the detainees was a mid or high-level al-Qaeda operative, while another had been captured in Afghanistan and participated in a riot at a prison there, Rear-Admiral Harris said. The third belonged to a splinter group.
Detainees have not been allowed to know about classified evidence of allegations against them and thus are unable to respond.
"They're determined, intelligent, committed and they continue to do everything they can to become martyrs in the jihad," said General John Craddock, commander of the Miami-based Southern Command. All three men left suicide notes, Gen Craddock said. He refused to detail the contents of the contents.
Pentagon officials said the three men were in Camp 1, the highest-security area at Guantanamo, and that none of them had tried to commit suicide before. To help prevent more suicides, guards will now give bed sheets to detainees only when they go to bed and remove them after they wake up in the morning, Harris said.
George Bush, the US president expressed "serious concern" over the suicides and directed his administration to reach out diplomatically while it investigates the incident.
Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, has taken a cautious line on Guantanamo Bay, calling it an "anomaly" but not demanding its immediate closure.
Some of his ministers take a harder line, however, with Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister and possible contender for the Labour deputy leadership, yesterday calling for immediate action over the prison.
"If it is perfectly legal and there is nothing going wrong there, why don't they have it in America and then the American court system can supervise it?" she said.
"It is in a legal no-man's land. Either it should be moved to America or it should be closed."
Guantanamo officials have reported 41 unsuccessful suicide attempts by 25 detainees since the US began taking prisoners to the base in January 2002. Defence lawyers contend the number of suicide attempts is higher.
Another embarrassment for Bush
THE three suicides at Guantanamo Bay have achieved a victory in death that they failed to find in life: their actions embarrass the US and seem likely to increase the pressure on Washington to close the facility.
The rights and wrongs of the situation scarcely matter: the US has been tried and found wanting in the court of public opinion. For Washington there is one simple question: are the advantages of Guantanamo Bay now outweighed by the international opprobrium the prison attracts?
It would be out of character for the Bush administration to change its mind because of pressure from the international community, but the camp gives the US's critics a stick with which to beat Washington.
President Bush has said: "We'd like it [Guantanamo] to be empty. Trouble is, there are some that, if put out on the streets, would create grave harm to American citizens and other citizens of the world." (Does it have to be Guantanamo or nowhere? Is Bush that short of imagination?)
And the view among many ordinary Americans is that these three inmates have set an ideal example for the remaining 460 or so prisoners incarcerated on Cuba. Only human rights lobby groups and hand-wringing liberals are much concerned by the fate of prisoners whose living conditions are, in most respects, little worse than those in ordinary American jails.
The difference is that those prisoners have been tried and convicted of specific crimes.
American officials will protest that the suicides are no more than a political protest. (Thery aslready have!) But no matter how grisly it may be, as publicity stunts go, those dead inmates have the whip hand. That this should be the case is perhaps the biggest defeat and embarrassment the US has suffered in the post-9/11 world.
Its stubbornness and indifference to the opinion of the rest of the world have helped foster a situation in which, grotesquely, terrorists have become the sympathetic victims.
That, more than anything else, has been Washington's most disastrous defeat in the war on terrorism. This weekends' deaths at Guantanamo Bay seem likely, alas, to confirm that.
ALEX MASSIE IN WASHINGTON
===
Is the Admiral completely MAD?
Mathatmacoat answered on 06/13/06:A better question, is he alone? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/12/06 - Trans-Texas Corridor I made mention of this in my response to Mathatmacoat about border security .
Many of them are also peeved over Perry's plan to build a trans-Texas corridor which will no doubt open many eminenent domain issues. I have not studied the issue fully but I have seen other highway projects like 'The Big Dig ' in Boston turn into big buck boondoggles . It appears that it will be so expansive as to make many small Texas towns drive over country .
How does this connect to the border issue ? Well evidently part of this super-highway will go through Mexico and connect with Mexican ports .Part of the deal would be to allow Mexican trucks to cross the border on the highway with minimal electronic inspection. So what you have in Texas is the government of the state giving lip service to border securtiy while at the same time promoting a highway system that would make the border even less secure.
From what I read this will cut a massive Sherman like swath through the State ( a little exageration maybe but it will be four football-fields-wide )from Laredo and ultimately connecting in Duluth Minn. at the Canadian border .Others have called it a NAFTA Super Highway . It will allow goods to enter the US from the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas (without American security or union supervision);cross the border into the US in FAST lanes,without the ususal border inspection; checked only electronically by a SENTRI" (hearby dubbed virtual check point ),and will not be subject to ANY customs inspection until it reaches KC .
To understand how soon this is going down consider that an Environmental impact Statement has Already been approved and that public hearings will be scheduled next month in Texas .It will be operated by a Spanish company ,Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A.,as a toll road .
Somehow I missed all the debate and Congressional hearings on this proposal . Mathatmacoat answered on 06/13/06:Now that's really the sort of road we could use here, then our road trains could really transverse the country without raising the dust | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/11/06 - If you can't win ~ then suicide, that'll fix em?
Inmate suicides 'an act of war'
From: Reuters
June 11, 2006
THE commander of the US Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris has described the overnight suicide of three inmates "as an act of war".
Three foreign prisoners were found dead overnight after hanging themselves with clothing and bedsheets in the first deaths at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since the prison opened in January 2002, US defence officials said.
The military said two Saudis and one Yemeni were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards and that attempts to resuscitate the detainees failed.
They were pronounced dead by a physician at Guantanamo, which holds just under 500 foreigners captured mainly in the US war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The suicides have thrown a spotlight on the camp that has drawn widespread criticism against the Bush administration from foreign countries, including some allies, and human rights advocates.
Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of Guantanamo, described the suicides were an act of warfare.
"They are smart. They are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us," Rear Adm. Harris said.
The suicides threw a fresh spotlight on the camp that has drawn widespread criticism against the Bush administration from foreign countries, including some allies, and human rights advocates.
Facing indefinite detention with none of the rights afforded formal prisoners of war or criminal suspects in the US justice system, dozens of the detainees have undertaken hunger strikes and attempted suicide.
Guantanamo has been one of string of issues that have undermined support abroad for Washington's war on terrorism, declared after the Sept. 11 attacks. The deaths come as President George W. Bush faces growing public doubt about the war in Iraq.
The US military said the bodies were being treated "with the utmost respect." An investigation has begun, it said.
A White House spokesman said Bush expressed serious concern on Saturday when he was told about the three suicides.
Spokesman Tony Snow said Bush, who is at Camp David this weekend, was told of the deaths by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"He expressed serious concern," Snow said, adding that US officials made a round of telephone calls to notify American allies abroad.
Bush has said he would like to close the detention center and spoke of Guantanamo on Friday at a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who raised concerns about it with the US president.
"We'd like it to be empty," Bush said. "And we're now in the process of working with countries to repatriate people."
Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch in New York, said the suicides at Guantanamo likely were driven by despair.
"Sadly suicides like these are entirely predictable when people are held outside the law with no end in sight. They despair of spending the rest of their lives detained at the whim of their jailer with no sense of when it would end," he said. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/11/06:Blame the victim, that's the psychology of the military. After four years some people would do anything to get out of that place so they took the only option they had. Suicide is not a weapon of war in this context. What have they deprived the US of? The opportunity to rub their superiority in a little deeper? Now if they blew themselves up in an attack you could say it was an act of war, but this was an act of dispair.
Why not see it for what it was?. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/08/06 - Are we on the eve of WWIII?
WND Exclusive FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
'We're on the eve of World War III'
Ex-Mossad chief urges West to unite, warns of Muslims imposing ideology
Posted: March 28, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
2006 WorldNetDaily.com
JERUSALEM Global civilization is on the verge of "World War III," a massive conflict in which the Islamic world will attempt to impose its ideology on Western nations, according to Meir Amit, a former director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.
Amit, one of the most esteemed figures in the international defense establishment, warned Islamic nations and global Islamist groups will continue launching "all kinds of attacks" against Western states. He urged the international community to immediately unite and coordinate a strategy to fight against the "Islamic war."
"We are on the eve of war with the Islamic world, which will wage a war and all kinds of actions and attacks against the Western world. We already noticed the terrorists in the world hit Spain, England, France. I call it World War III. You must look at it from this angle and treat it wider, not as a problem of terrorism here and there," said Amit, speaking during an exclusive interview with WND's Aaron Klein and ABC Radio's John Batchelor broadcast on Batchelor's national program, for which Klein serves as a co-host. (Listen to the Amit interview.)
Amit served as Mossad chief from 1963 to 1968. He directed some of the most notorious Mossad operations during that time and pioneered many of the tactics currently used by intelligence agencies worldwide. The subject of multiple books and movies, Amit is routinely described as a "living legend." Now in his mid-80s, Amit serves as chairman of Israel's Center for Special Studies.
The former intelligence chief referenced recent terror attacks against Israel, Europe and the United States; Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions; the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan; and worldwide Muslim riots.
"It looks to me like it is a kind of coordinated or contemplated problem to somehow impose the Islamic idea all over the world," Amit said.
Israel is routinely attacked by Palestinian terror groups. Since December 2000, 993 Israelis have been killed. Spain in March 2004 was struck by a series of coordinated bombings on its commuter train system, killing 192 people. London was rocked last July by bombings on its transportation system. France has been the scene of violent Muslim riots and attacks. And on Sept. 11, 2001, 2,986 people were killed when the U.S. was hit with coordinated terror attacks.
Violent Muslim riots erupted last month in the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon after cartoon images of Muhammad were printed in a Danish newspaper. The riots spread across the Middle East and throughout Europe.
At least 40 people were killed yesterday in a blast north of Mosul in Iraq. Iran and Syria have been accused of aiding the insurgency there and in Afghanistan against U.S. and European troops.
Amit urged Western nations to "unite and work together. Unfortunately, the world is not uniting. China and Russia are problems. This should be taken into consideration."
Both China and Russia have been aiding Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran claims is intended for peaceful purposes only. Russia last month received a delegation of Hamas leaders, and pledged to maintain diplomatic relations with the terror group in spite of efforts by the U.S. and Israel to isolate the newly elected Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Amit said Iran currently poses the most serious threat to the international community.
"The Iranians [are] financing terrorists in Israel and sending money," Amit said. "This is [my country's] immediate problem. But I think the most serious problem is Iran developing nuclear power."
Amit said Israel should not lead a military attack against Iran's suspected nuclear facilities, instead urging support for the course of diplomacy and sanctions.
"The problem of [Iranian] nuclear armaments is not an Israeli problem; it is a worldwide problem. Your question refers to what Israel can do. It shouldn't do anything by itself. It should maybe throw the idea that this is a world problem and all the Western world should unite, join hands and work together," said Amit.
"I am not sure whether a military operation would be the best solution. At least not the first solution. But you can put sanctions on Iran."
With regard to his warnings of a new world war, Amit clarified he was not advocating the international community take measures against all Arab countries:
"I know very well the Arab world. I have many friends in Arab world leaders. Not all of them think the same. They are also split in different groups. ... Although I think they will wage an Islamic war against the Western world, we must take into account they are not one piece. Somehow we must learn the differences between different sections and parts of the Arab world."
Related special offers:
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)"
"Mohammed: The Ugly Truth About the Founder of the World's Most Violent Religion" Mathatmacoat answered on 06/10/06:Are you kidding WWIII won't be a conventional war, WWIII is a war of idiology, Islam v democracy | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 06/08/06 - Notorious Beheader - Deader 'n a doorknob. Terror Leader Al-Zarqawi Dies in U.S. Air Strike
By PATRICK QUINN, AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq (June 8) - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and kidnappings, has been killed in an air strike, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday, adding his identity was confirmed by fingerprints and a first-hand look at his face. It was a major victory in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror.
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Will he receive 70 virgins in his heaven? Is it right for us to celebrate his demise? Should we declare a holiday? Mathatmacoat answered on 06/10/06:Good ridance to bad rubbish | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/06/06 - How does one prove a negative? Or rather, how does one prove that he/she is NOT what he/she is being accused of being, such as a racist, for example?
Would one mention the fact that one grew up in a small town that didn't even have paved roads until 1980, where one ran around all summer long with all the kids that were on their side of the tracks (literally)? Those kids being white, black, brown, and red? By the summer's end, we all looked pretty much alike, covered in head to toe with the red clay dust from the roads, smelling strangely similar to the catfish and crawdads we fished for endlessly.
Or would one mention later serving 12 years in America's armed forces, alongside black, white, hispanic, Native American, and Asian brothers? And doing so gladly, and with honor, not giving a rat's ass about the skin color or hometown of a brother, but whether or not he, too, would serve with honor and do his job as best he can?
Or would one mention dating lovely ladies from all across the racial spectrum, even though going to her parent's house for dinner was often interesting, because her mom and/or dad was PO'd that she brought a "foreigner" or a white boy home? Or would one mention cherishing the lovely relationship had with that women, despite her parent's problems?
Or would one mention later in life finally getting married, and adopting a Hispanic stepson with tears of joy and overwhelming love for him, and granting him all the full rights and privileges of the firstborn son?
Or would one mention working in a community agency, and being responsible for raising literally tens of thousands of dollars for scholarships and awareness programs to show minority students that despite what they may have been taught, they deserve all the same chances to succeed as anyone else?
Nah, never mind. It doesn't matter. I'm a white male, therefore I am an evil racist to some.
An accusation which is, of course, racism at it's most pure.
DK Mathatmacoat answered on 06/07/06:Know yourself. This is the most racist piece I have seen in some time. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 06/04/06 - HELP IS REQUIRED !! A Talk at Lunch That Shifted the Stance on Iran
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 4, 2006
A discussion between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush two months ago led to an effort to devise a different policy toward Iran.
This article recently appeared in the N Y Times.
No general access was afforded.
Can you please help.
rolcam. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/07/06:well it needed to shift didn't it. That's the problem with the US too much rhetoric, too little action | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/06/06 - Got time for a small rant? So I'm sitting in my office, recovering (slowly) from a long night of tending to my sick wife, who was up all hours of the night with some stomach thing. My secretary beeps me to tell me my 9 o'clock appointment is here. Stifling the urge to swear out loud, I push my personal fatigue and concerns aside to tend to the business at hand.
In walks a young "gentleman" (a term I use very loosely), who happens to be African-American. I use that term simply because it's the current PC term of the hour. Whether or not the young man has ever even been to Africa is unknown to me, though after three minutes of conversation with him, I would be profoundly shocked if he could even locate Africa on a globe. But I digress. What really caught my attention was his T-shirt, which stated boldly with very well-done background graphics: "If you see the cops, warn a brother."
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to not lay into this obviously misguided young man. By wearing statements such as these, aren't members of the black community advertising themselves as someone who NEEDS to be warned if the police are around? If I, a white American (oh, I could say "Irish-American," but never having lived in or even visited Ireland, that would be just silly) wore such a shirt or made such a statement, I would be immediately crucified by virtually everyone for being "racist." If I were conversing with this young man about the missing baby from our town (who has been found and is safe and healthy, thank God), and said something like "it was probably some black person that took her," would I not be labeled a racist? Sure I would, and rightfully so.
So is it just me, or does it seem like certain ethnic groups are their own worst enemies when it comes to race issues? In the circles where I live and have lived, which include military, blue collar, farming and ranching, law enforcement, faith communities, the "for profit" world, education, and institutes of higher learning, most of the white people I've ever talked to say that race is pretty much irrelevant to them, it's the quality of the person and their actions that matter. WHich sounds to me an awful lot like what Dr. King said in his most famous speech.
I personally think Dr. King would literally vomit if he saw how a great many black people were conducting themselves today while at the same time praising him and his actions, and continually shooting themselves in the foot.
Love me, hate me, disregard me. I don't care. That's what I have to say for the moment.
DK Mathatmacoat answered on 06/07/06:I sense your frustration and identify with it and I suppose you are obliged by affirmative action to hire someone like that, a total asset to your business. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/06/06 - The UN is beyond contempt this is a followup to Clete's posting about the massacre of E.Timor police by their army while they were under the escort of UN "peace keepers".
It appears that the UN is conducting a cover up of the incident .
An email from the UN's deputy representative in Timor, Pakistani General Anis Bajwa, had been circulated to all staff, including employees evacuated to Australia, directing them not to assist AFP detectives investigating the worst atrocity since the violence of 1999.
First they denied that the e-mail existed ,but then when confronted with the evidence ,UN spokesman Bob Sullivan admitted it had been circulated .An now when cornered said the UN would now cooperate in the investigation.
This incident was not a mistake by a bunch of teenaged soldiers .A senior UN commander on the scene ignored the advice of his advisers. This caused an incident that threw an entire country into civil war. Then they tried to cover it up ;and when caught first denied it ,and finally cooperate when there is nowhere else to hide .If that aint the UN in a nutshell I don't know what is .
For the record ,the Aussie troops have rules of engagement that prohibit them from firing on looters. Therefore the looters and arsonists pretty much ignore the Aussie troops and go about their business. When all the dust is settled the second guessers will claim that the Aussies did not do enough to prevent looting ...but if they took action necessary to prevent it then the nay-sayers would simularily object to their strong-armed tactics (sound familiar ?)
It is reported that John Howard will go to Dili to see the sitaution first hand .I wish him a safe trip ;he is already having to defend his position in the media who started asking when the troops would leave shortly after they had landed . The unenvious fact is that Australia needs to be there until a stable governement is established but they also apparently need to walk a fine line so as not to be accused of manipulating East Timor's politics to solve the problem.
If Australia wants to get a grip on the security situation of E. Timor then they should abandon any illusion that the UN will act promptly on a resolution . They should instead get a coalition of the willing from ANZUS and wrest control away from the UN. Mathatmacoat answered on 06/07/06:Yes the UN is beyond contempt, but isn't a good thing US troops arn't helping in Timor. The US wanted to get involved but Australia said no, this is our back yard.
Rules of engagement are a problem but if they are not to fire, Aussie troops might consider what can be accomplished with a rifle butt or a good kick up the backside with hobnailed boots. The way to deal with these looters and rioters is with batons an tear gas and water cannon, very effective in making idiots rethink their life | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/06/06 - Combating Racism Some real ugly stuff is going on here, so I have to speak up.
I have known many fine middle class black people, professionals and CHRISTIANS.....many black working class people, CHRISTIANS, all kinds of African Americans.
I have known poor black people and poor white people....it's about surviving for poor people no matter what color.....
jack Mathatmacoat answered on 06/07/06:now that's an odd admission to hear, nasty stuff going on here, you don't hear that everyday now. One could think that you are being negative, admitting that all is not well in the land of light. But are you blaming Christians for this problem or is it you are blaming coloureds or are you blaming both, saying coloured Christians arn't doing enough? I just want to be clear now on what you are saying here. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/03/06 - The dirty war? Iraqi Assails U.S. for Strikes on Civilians
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: June 2, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.
As outrage over reports that American marines killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha last year continued to shake the new government, the country's senior leaders said that they would demand that American officials turn over their investigative files on the killings and that the Iraqi government would conduct its own inquiry.
In his comments, Mr. Maliki said violence against civilians had become a "daily phenomenon" by many troops in the American-led coalition who "do not respect the Iraqi people."
"They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion," he said. "This is completely unacceptable." Attacks on civilians will play a role in future decisions on how long to ask American forces to remain in Iraq, the prime minister added.
The denunciation was an unusual declaration for a government that remains desperately dependent on American forces to keep some form of order in the country amid a resilient Sunni Arab insurgency in the west, widespread sectarian violence in Baghdad, and deadly feuding among Shiite militias that increasingly control the south.
It was also a sign of the growing pressure on Mr. Maliki, whose governing coalition includes Sunni Arabs who were enraged by news of the killings in Haditha, a city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province. At the same time, he is being pushed by the Americans to resolve the quarreling within his fragile coalition that has left him unable to fill cabinet posts for the Ministries of Defense and the Interior, the two top security jobs in the country.
Military and Congressional officials have said they believe that an investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis in Haditha on Nov. 19 will show that a group of marines shot and killed civilians without justification or provocation. Survivors in Haditha say the troops shot men, women and children in the head and chest at close range.
For the second day in a row, President Bush spoke directly about the furor surrounding the case. "Obviously, the allegations are very troubling for me and equally troubling for our military, especially the Marine Corps," President Bush said Thursday, in response to a question from a reporter after a meeting of his cabinet. Referring to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, he added, "I've spoken to General Pace about this issue quite a few times."
Investigators are examining the role of senior commanders in the aftermath of the Haditha killings, and trying to determine how high up the chain of command culpability may rest.
Marine officials said Thursday that Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, who was the top Marine Corps commander in Iraq during the Haditha killings, had been set to be promoted to become the service's senior officer in charge of personnel, a three-star position.
General Johnson is widely respected by the Marine Corps' senior leadership, yet officials said it was unlikely that the Pentagon would put him up for promotion until the Haditha investigations were concluded.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that a parallel investigation into whether the killings were covered up has concluded that some officers reported false information and that superiors failed to adequately scrutinize the reports about the two dozen deaths.
The newspaper said that the inquiry had determined that Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, a squad leader present at Haditha, made a false statement when he reported that a roadside bombing had killed 15 civilians. The inquiry also said that an intelligence unit that later visited the site failed to highlight that civilians had gunshot wounds.
In Baghdad, senior Iraqi officials demanded an apology and explanation about Haditha from the United States and vowed their own inquiry.
"We in the ministers' cabinet condemned this crime and demanded that coalition forces show the reasons behind this massacre," Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie, one of the most powerful Sunni Arabs in the new government, said in an interview.
It seems the US has lost the war for the hearts and minds of the People in Iraq? Mathatmacoat answered on 06/03/06:Yes, the longer they stay there the more respect will be lost. The US military among any civilian population eventually wears out it's welcome. Troops are to be given ethics training, you would have thought their upbringing would have taugh them that you do kill non combatants, but let's face it they are dealing with sub humans, no different to home. | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 06/03/06 - Here's a QUIZ for you? Bush Administration
Policy
Bush administration policy towards the United States is best described as
* bait and switch
* divide and conquer
* last man standing
* malign neglect
* scorched earth
* self-inflicted wounds
* my way or the highway
War
* How many wars did Bush start in his first term?
* How many wars will he start in his second term?
* How many wars can Bush fight without a draft?
If the draft is resumed, will all of these groups will be required to serve? in combat?
* women
* drug users
* high-school dropouts
* avowed homosexuals
If homosexuals are required to serve, will they still be excluded from the officer corps?
Regarding the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, Vice Admiral Albert Church said
I don't think you can hold anybody accountable for a situation that maybe if you had done something different, maybe something would have occurred differently.
The chain of command still operates within the United States military
* true
* false
Finance
Taking out a cash advance on someone else's credit card is fraud.
* Is it still fraud if you peel off a $20 and return it to the cardholder?
* How does this differ from the Bush tax cuts?
Environment
Complete the analogy
Bush is to environment as
* hand is to till
* fox is to henhouse
* victor is to spoils
* catastrophe is to success
* hurricane is to Florida Mathatmacoat answered on 06/03/06:Bush Administration
Policy
Bush administration policy towards the United States is best described as
* my way or the highway
War
* How many wars did Bush start in his first term? Two
* How many wars will he start in his second term? who knows
* How many wars can Bush fight without a draft? none
If the draft is resumed, will all of these groups will be required to serve? in combat?
* women
* drug users
* high-school dropouts
* avowed homosexuals
obviously, howelse do you rid society of undesirable elements in time of war
If homosexuals are required to serve, will they still be excluded from the officer corps?
are you kidding?
Regarding the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, Vice Admiral Albert Church said
I don't think you can hold anybody accountable for a situation that maybe if you had done something different, maybe something would have occurred differently.
that's Different
The chain of command still operates within the United States military
* false
Finance
Taking out a cash advance on someone else's credit card is fraud.
* Is it still fraud if you peel off a $20 and return it to the cardholder?
* How does this differ from the Bush tax cuts?
All conservative governments are into this slight of hand, liberals just take the money
Environment
Complete the analogy
Bush is to environment as
* catastrophe is to success | | Question/Answer | BeelzeBUSH asked on 05/25/06 - Mexico Braces for "Day Without Gringos"
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO- Every day they come by the thousands, throngs of people streaming across the US/Mexican border virtually unimpeded by law enforcement, and now average citizens are taking notice of the terrible damage left behind by these obnoxious American tourists. They come to this country to drink cheap beer that no self-respecting Mexican would consume, refuse to learn Spanish or assimilate, and generally lower the quality of life for Mexicans everywhere.
In response to popular outrage, the country's legislature recently passed a measure to look into building a thousand-mile-long fence in order to keep them out, an act that many Americans see as disrespectful, even racist. In response, a group of American tourists have staged a protest of their own for this Monday, an event called "A Day Without Gringos" designed to show angry Mexican citizens what their lives might really be like if they got their wish and their Northern cousins disappeared from local bars, hotels, and jails.
Bucking the current political trend in his country, President Vicente Fox has sided with the tourists in this case, calling for what he calls a "guest guest" program.
"We think we would be better off without the Gringos, but that is a naive point of view," said Fox during his weekend radio address. "The hard truth is that if it were not for the American presence in our country, our fragile economy would collapse. Who would eat our day-old tortillas or buy those petrified frogs? Mi dios, if we kicked out all the Americans we would be hip-deep in petrified frog figurines within a week."
While the notion of a Gringo-free Mexico terrifies officials like Fox, most Mexicans remain furious over what they see as a lax immigration policy. More than just an economic or cultural issue, many now see the leaky border as a security problem as well. In towns all up and down the Rio Grande, municipal jails are packed with hapless American tourists, proof, some say, that a fence is necessary to prevent the American criminal element from sneaking in from the North.
According to Fox and his supporters, this sort of anecdotal argument is short-sighted. "I know it is hard for many folks to understand this, but we need Americans in our jails," said Fox. "Incarceration is the fastest growing industry in our country today. Besides, without Gringos our police would have to harass other Mexicans and hold them for bribery ransom. Only a fool would advocate such an outcome."
Pro-tourism activists hope that Monday's mass boycott results in a deeper appreciation of noisy American tourists and all they do for Mexico every day.
"Face it, Mexico, you need us," said organizer Mark Garita. "You'll be shocked to see what your lives would be like without us. The whole thing is a bit like It's A Wonderful Life but with frozen drinks and fireworks rather than bankruptcy and suicide. In fact, I think if the original movie had been more like that I would have liked it a lot better."
Unfortunately for Garita and his supporters, their large-scale boycott may be off to a rough start due to a lack of cooperation from tourists already in Mexico. So far not a single visiting American has agreed to cut their vacation short in the name of tourist rights.
For the sake of accuracy, the group has considered changing the name of the event to "A Day With Not Quite So Many Gringos" but felt it was too wordy and didn't sound strong enough.
At the moment, Mexican legislators plan to go ahead with the construction of a fortified wall between the US and Mexico. While that prospect may sound daunting to some Americans, experts say there is still hope that the steady flow across the border will continue. As luck would have it, the fence will be made in Mexico.
*fictitious story from a silly website :) Mathatmacoat answered on 05/25/06:Look it's definately the way to go, we closed our borders to those annoying Iraqi and Afgan tourists and our economy is booming. Next we think we should close our borders to yankee carpet baggers and we should really take off. Will we regret it, no, it will make room for chinese tourists who are much politer and who have a liking for exotic food, like cane toads | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/16/06 - Bush, Cheney Drop Huge Cake On Iraq, Crush Power Plant In celebration of the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and Vice President Cheney dropped an enormous three-tiered anniversary cake on central Iraq, accidentally crushing the only working power plant in the area.
"Everything's just great in Iraq," said Cheney, who was so thrilled with the progress of the country that he was "planning to winter there someday."
"Things are so good now," said President Bush, "just imagine how fantastic it will be when they have a McDonald's on every corner."
Mohammed dar al Salim, a former baker whose shop had been destroyed by looters a year ago, agreed. "The future is certainly bright," he told reporters. "It's the present that worries me."
Fifty people who were killed yesterday as a result of the civil war could not be reached for comment.
===
Comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 05/17/06:yes what a marvelous future | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/16/06 - What Conservatives are really up to!
Professor Galbraith said,
"The modern conservative is engaged
in one of man's oldest exercises
in moral philosophy; that is,
the search for a superior
moral justification for selfishness."
How is this demonstrated by the Bush administration?
Mathatmacoat answered on 05/17/06:yep | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 04/30/06 - Bomb, bomb, bomb - bomb, bomb Iran - to the tune of "Barbara Ann"
Hello asleepatheswitchers:
Heres what to do with Iran. Mad. It worked with the commies. Look, I dont think were gonna prevent them from getting a bomb. Frankly, Im not sure they dont already have one. What? You trust the intelligence??? No, I dont think they made one, but I sure think they coulda bought one.
Let em get it. Then we tell em that if you use it, well blow YOU off the map and all your Muslim neighbors too. The only problem with that, is that were dealing with religious fanatics who think that being blown off the map is a GOOD thing.
excon
PS> How come I always have the solutions to the worlds problems?
Mathatmacoat answered on 05/01/06:I just love the way your solution works by creating a bigger problem, you must lie awake at night dreaming of how you can stuff things up, or is it that you have been smoking that weed again? What was you name again, Bush? | | Question/Answer | | fredg asked on 04/19/06 - Gas Prices in US Hi,
Gas at one service station in Brooklyn, NY, went to $4.50 per gallon today, Wed.
Do you agree with these:
1. Iran will continue increasing it's oil prices.
2. Since the United States only uses 25% of the World oil, the United States has to "bite the bullet", watch gas prices go higher, and can't do anything about it.
3. The only time the United States will seriously start converting vehicles to non-oil use, will be when oil reaches at least $100 per barrel, causing gas prices at the pump to go to probably $8.00 a gal; with American Citizens being in a complete uproar. Now, citizens just complain, taking no action of any kind.
fredg
Mathatmacoat answered on 04/19/06:well isn't it time you started to pay prices which are something like the rest of the world and yet you have a long way to go. These prices will help to level the playing field and you may become realisic about consumption.
It's likely that Iran will use oil prices as a weapon against the United States and the effect will be felt by everyone even though you don't use much Iranian oil, where are your Saudi allies now, counting their money no doubt.
It's time the US stopped driving gas guzzlers and down sized their vehicles to more efficient vehicles, when you do this these vehicles will disappear from markets world wide and it will become economic to drive fuel efficient vehicles. | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 04/17/06 - Would you have believed this a few years ago? Thursday, April 13, 2006 10:53 p.m. EDT
Bill Clinton Aided Iran in Quest for Nukes
Then-President Clinton, the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program.
The allegation, detailed recently in the book "State of War," by New York Times reporter James Risen, comes as the Iranian nuclear crisis turns white hot, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasting ominously on Wednesday that his nation has joined the world's nuclear club.
Reports Risen: "It's not clear who originally came up with the idea [to give Tehran nuclear blueprints], but the plan was first approved by Clinton."
Beginning in February 2000, the CIA recruited a Russian scientist who had defected to the US years earlier. His mission: Take the nuclear blueprints to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Dubbed "Operation Merlin," the plan was supposed to steer Iranian physicists off track by incorporating design flaws in the blueprints that would render the information worthless.
But in what may turn out to be one of the greatest foreign policy blunders of all time, Operation Merlin backfired when the Russian scientist spotted the design flaws immediately - and even offered to help Iran fix the problems.
Risen said the Clinton-approved plan ended up handing Tehran "one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short."
He noted that thanks to the bizarre operation, Iran could now "leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon." Mathatmacoat answered on 04/19/06:Is there a disconnect here somewhere? It's not hard to find plans on how to build an atomic bomb, the hard part is not to kill yourself doing it. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/17/06 - Especially for "WE" ........................................................................
As policy decisions loom, a code of silence is broken
by Richard Holbrooke
The calls by a growing number of recently retired generals for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have created the most serious public confrontation between the military and an administration since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951.
In that epic drama, Truman was unquestionably correct -- MacArthur, the commanding general in Korea and a towering World War II hero, publicly challenged Truman's authority and had to be removed. Most Americans rightly revere the principle that was at stake: civilian control over the military. But this situation is quite different.
First, it is clear that the retired generals -- six so far, with more likely to come -- surely are speaking for many of their former colleagues, friends and subordinates who are still inside. In the tight world of senior active and retired generals, there is constant private dialogue. In the tight world of senior active and retired generals, there is constant private dialogue...
Recent retirees stay in close touch with old friends, who were often their subordinates; they help each other, they know what is going on and a conventional wisdom is formed. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, who was director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the planning period for the war in Iraq, made this clear in an extraordinary, at times emotional, article in Time magazine this past week when he said he was writing "with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership." He went on to "challenge those still in uniform . . . to give voice to those who can't -- or don't have the opportunity to -- speak."
These generals are not newly minted doves or covert Democrats. (In fact, one of the main reasons this public explosion did not happen earlier was probably concern by the generals that they would seem to be taking sides in domestic politics.) They are career men, each with more than 30 years in service, who swore after Vietnam that, as Colin Powell wrote in his memoirs, "when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons." Yet, as Newbold admits, it happened again. In the public comments of the retired generals one can hear a faint sense of guilt that, having been taught as young officers that the Vietnam-era generals failed to stand up to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson, they did the same thing.
Second, it is also clear that the target is not just Rumsfeld. Newbold hints at this; others are more explicit in private. But the only two people in the government higher than the secretary of defense are the president and vice president. They cannot be fired, of course, and the unspoken military code normally precludes direct public attacks on the commander in chief when troops are under fire. (There are exceptions to this rule, of course: In addition to MacArthur, there was Gen. George McClellan vs. Lincoln; and on a lesser note, Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, who was fired for attacking President Jimmy Carter over Korea policy. But such challenges are rare enough to be memorable, and none of these solo rebellions metastasized into a group, a movement that can fairly be described as a revolt.)
This has put President Bush and his administration in a hellish position at a time when security in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to be deteriorating. If Bush yields to the generals' revolt, he will appear to have caved in to pressure from what Rumsfeld disingenuously describes as "two or three retired generals out of thousands." But if he keeps Rumsfeld, he risks more resignations -- perhaps soon -- from generals who heed Newbold's stunning call that as officers they took an oath to the Constitution and should now speak out on behalf of the troops in harm's way and to save the institution that he feels is in danger of falling back into the disarray of the post-Vietnam era.
Facing this dilemma, Bush's first reaction was exactly what anyone who knows him would have expected: He issued strong affirmations of "full support" for Rumsfeld, even going out of his way to refer to the secretary of defense as "Don" several times in his statements. (This was in marked contrast to his tepid comments on the future of his other embattled Cabinet officer, Treasury Secretary John Snow. Washington got the point.)
In the end, the case for changing the secretary of defense seems to me to be overwhelming. I do not reach this conclusion simply because of past mistakes, simply because "someone must be held accountable." Many people besides Rumsfeld were deeply involved in the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan; many of them remain in power, and some are in uniform.
The major reason the nation needs a new defense secretary is far more urgent. Put simply, the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. Rumsfeld's famous "long screwdriver," with which he sometimes micromanages policy, now thwarts the top-to-bottom reexamination of strategy that is absolutely essential in both war zones. Lyndon Johnson understood this in 1968 when he eased another micromanaging secretary of defense, McNamara, out of the Pentagon and replaced him with Clark M. Clifford. Within weeks, Clifford had revisited every aspect of policy and begun the long, painful process of unwinding the commitment. Today, those decisions are still the subject of intense dispute, and there are many differences between the two situations. But one thing was clear then and is clear today: Unless the secretary of defense is replaced, the policy will not and cannot change.
That first White House reaction will not be the end of the story. If more angry generals emerge -- and they will -- if some of them are on active duty, as seems probable; if the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan does not turn around (and there is little reason to think it will, alas), then this storm will continue until finally it consumes not only Donald Rumsfeld. The only question is: Will it come so late that there is no longer any hope of salvaging something in Iraq and Afghanistan?
***
Original article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401451.htmlMathatmacoat answered on 04/19/06:Don shoudl join his friend Colin and quick | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 04/17/06 - Do you agree with Teddy??????????????............... Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
English as the sole language for schools, newspapers and other usage in this country was urged by Theodore Roosevelt in an address here tonight under the direction of the National Security League.
In voicing his approval of the recent proclamation by Gov. Harding, ordering that English be the only medium of instruction in public or private schools in Iowa, Roosevelt said:
"This is a nation not a polyglot boarding house. There is not room in the country for any 50-50 American, nor can there be but one loyalty to the Stars and Stripes." Mathatmacoat answered on 04/19/06:No room for 50-50 americans. how politically incorrect, afterall what would the italian-americans, native-americans, hispanic-americans, irish-americans, etc, etc, etc do for an identity. They would just have to become americans, how deary | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/17/06 - How far should the "Don't criticise the President" movement go? Does censorship by the
If you are not for us you are against us
by Nick Farrell
US Marines stationed in Iraq are complaining that the US government is restricting access their access to websites too much.
Along with porn sites, on the Armys list of banned sites include mail sites such as Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail. The censors are also blocking blogs and sites that do not agree with the current administration.
One marine wrote to a site called Wonkette to tell them that it was on the banned list. He said he didnt mind The Army blocking access to porn sites, because it was a government network but he and the troops were getting miffed that access to email and possibly-not-toeing-the-government-line websites was a bit much.
Apparently the censorship is being done by the USMC Network Operations Center in Quantico, VA.
They dont like it when troops want read minute-by-minute updates of Anna Nicole Smith's appearance before the Supreme Court or read birthday cards to disgraced lobbyists.Mathatmacoat answered on 04/19/06:I think it should go far enough to get him reelected. Well that's no longer possible, so who needs it | | Question/Answer | | paraclete asked on 04/19/06 - Got a problem with Iran, We know whose fault that is, don't we? Iraq war empowers Iran: Beazley
From: AAP
April 19, 2006
MISJUDGEMENTS over the war in Iraq have handed enormous political power to Iran, federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said
"The one thing that we know definitely has come out of the Iraq war so far is a massive increase in Iranian power," Mr Beazley said in Perth.
"They've got enormous political power as a result of our misjudgements in the war in Iraq.
"At the same time as that has occurred, we have got an argument with the Iranians about whether or not they should have nuclear weapons.
"Frankly they should not have nuclear weapons," he said. Mathatmacoat answered on 04/19/06:That would be a first for Kim, to be right on the button, that is. | | Question/Answer | | BeelzeBUSH asked on 04/07/06 - Globalization... Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?
Answer: Princess Diana's death.
Question: How come?
Answer: An English princess
With an Egyptian boyfriend
Crashes in a French tunnel,
Driving a German car
With a Dutch engine,
Driven by a Belgian who was drunk
On Scottish whisky, (check the bottle before you change the spelling)
Followed closely by Italian Paparazzi,
On Japanese motorcycles;
Treated by an American doctor,
Using Brazilian medicines.
This is sent to you by an American,
Using Bill Gate's technology,
And you're probably reading this on your computer,
That use Taiwanese chips,
And a Korean monitor,
Assembled by Bangladeshi workers
In a Singapore plant,
Transported by Indian lorry-drivers,
Hijacked by Indonesians,
Unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen,
And trucked to you by Mexican illegals.....
That, my friends, is Globalization
Mathatmacoat answered on 04/07/06:yes it's a good one | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 03/24/06 - Blog responses to reporters of the Iraqi war. http://news.aol.com/dailypulse/032306?id=20060323102509990001&ncid=NWS00010000000001
Do you trust the media or the Bush administration more when it comes to information about the war?
- How much does the media influence your views on the war?
Tell us, below.
dailypulseblog at 10:08:00 AM EST Link to this entry | Blog about this entry | Notify AOL
This entry has 500 comments: (Add your own)
I think the media is very much biased against anything the current administration does or will do. If there were a democrat president in office with the very same current world and national events, everything you see or read in the national news media would be slanted as very positive for him (president).
There will have to be some drastic changes in the national media before I will ever believe anything they say again.
Comment from bellrngr - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
It doesn't matter whether you are talking about the war in Iraq, Social Security, cleanliness of hotels, or the price of pickles, the media has no vested interest in presenting a fair, unbiased report. There's no ratings, and therefore no prime commercial time, in unbiased reporting. I'd like to believe that journalists enter the field with the altruistic goal of reporting and presenting the news fairly and accurately, but that is probably soon dashed by the demands of editors and producers whose salaries and bonuses depend on ratings shares. Sad commentary, if you ask me. But I truly believed in justice before I became a practicing lawyer. How dumb is that? I guess all "professionals" feel the same way about their professions.
Comment from beboesq - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
The media is interested in it's own personal gain. The media is biased. The media grandstands for money and ratings. The media is arrogant, self centered, ill informed, and sensational. they use sex as their marquee and they exagerate.
I have quit watching because the media is a scandall. May God have mercy on them.
Kathleen Shelton
Wichita, Kansas
Comment from resort1987 - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
The media is overwhelmed with itself in reporting all the negative aspects of our conflict in Iraq. We are helping the Iraqis get their feet back on the ground and get their new government set up. Our troops are doing a fabulous job! We should welcome them home as heros and true patriots. God bless them and God bless America. The media needs to bring the heartening news of boys and girls getting back to school in Iraq. We have done immense work in rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraqi's cities. The media always paints the most gruesome picture of Iraq and nothing about the great accomplishments there. What makes news? Shouldn't it be fair and equitably done?
Comment from myronp6464 - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
Quite frankly, I believe that most of the media should be charged in FEDERAL COURT for aiding the enemy! With these parasites clinging to your ass, it's no way to fight a war!
Comment from dpr36regal - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
As long as can remember the media has been one sided. If they always take the liberal (anti-war) point of view, how can ANYONE trust the to tell the truth. I know they have news to "SELL" but I think the American people are smart enough to determine the truth if the CORRECT facts are given.
Who knows how our present press would have reported WWII? By present standards the Nazi and Japanese was machines would have been "misunderstood freedom fighters".
Hey press, JUST BE HONEST
Comment from dd823 - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
I believe that the vast majority of the media would like to see us fail in Iraq. They are motivated mostly by hatred of the Bush administration. They would rather see us fail, simply because it would make the President look bad. This is more important to them than seeing our efforts succeed.
murraytur
Comment from mcdclc - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
War is never nice. I do believe the media only shows what will get attention.
When I travel I have meet many soliders returning home. They are glad to come home to their familys, but have said we are their for a good reason. And when the people in Iraq say Thank You. It makes them very happy knowing that they are helping people to someday be able to live like we do. And how the soliders appreciate what we have here that other places don't.
Comment from klr376 - 3/23/06 7:05 PM
There is an old saying among journalist, "If it bleeds, it leads!" and that was never more true than when it comes to the media's reporting of the war in Iraq. I have spoken with a large number of veterans who have returned from Iraq, who speak of all the progress that has been made, schools built, roads built or rebuilt, and you never hear a word about it in the press. You don't see stories about people having clean water and electricity for the first time.
I read reports coming in from Iraq reporting how well our service men and women are doing and how high morale is, and I see pictures of Iraqi civilians thanking soldiers and displaying signs thanking our President and America for helping them. Why don't we see that on the news? Journalists seem to excel in selling out our men on the ground and our President at home. They did it in Vietnam and they are trying to do again in this war. Thank God for the internet because I've lost all faith in the media.
John E. Touchton Sr. M.Ed., Ph.D.
Former Captain, U.S.A.R. , Handicapped Veteran
Comment from johntouchton - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
A note of sanity in what it means for the media to cover a war. A war is sanctioned violence. A war involves armies, not just the threat but the use of deadly force. A war is not giving candy to children or paying a shopkeeper $200 for destroying his means of livlihood. It's a war folks, not a picture show. Actually, the media is not being negative enough if negative means showing what happens in a real war. If they were really doing their job, the public would be totally traumatized. It is not the task of the press to sanitize a war, any war.
Peter
Comment from steager - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
The media pushes the 1st ammendment toooo far. They print what looks good to them whether it's right, wrong or in the middle. I feel the media is a big bag of wind and should report and not make up what they feel is their opinion. They should let the opinion reporting to the EXPERTS. MOST of the media people aren't anywhere close to being an expert.
One of the comments was that the media is leftist. They're just on the bandwagon against President Bush, because there are people that listen to them. The more people react to their comments the more they put out out to read or listen. That fuels the fire. That's a shame. I think the radicals that protest are not doing all their homework and are believeing everything the media puts out. (Maybe they aren't smart enough to do their own homework)
It's like the Eagles hit "Dirty Laundry", the media reports with a gleam in their eye. I check out more news sources than the American media. After Rather had 2 minutes of silence on national TV for the death of Jim Brady when Pres Reagan was shot, I lost ALL confidence in the American media. It just race to see who can get the "ratings". Ratings and polls are like sports announcer's predictions of how a game will come out. They have a 50/50 chance of getting it right or predicting the future.
Comment from osudave99 - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
The media just reports the bad stuff, why are they so negative, we need positivness spoken about too. Like when you see the soldiers with the children, those soldiers don't want to be killing peole and risk being killed too, but you don't see the compassion the soldiers have for the Iraq's you ar only told the bad and negative stuff. The media needs to wake up and smell the roses, and believe they are out ther to smell and talkl about.
Comment from ukusa65 - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
The media complains that 60 of it's personnel have been killed and many other kidnapped while reporting 'on the street.' So they have chosen to hide and show the daily 'car bombing' instead. Does anyone think that perhaps the terrorists are killing the press for exactly that reason? Isn't better for the terrorist cause to have the press muzzled and running scared? Instead of showing what is really going on throughout the country, the good and the bad, the press runs nightly footage of whatever car bomb went off and how many were killed. Looks like the big bad press ended up looking through the peep-hole of their door instead of getting out on the street. If you expect all the other agencies of the government to provide 'transparent' access to the power of the press. Then perhaps you should admit what has happened in Iraq and quit pretending the only thing that happens everday in the whole country is another car bomb or IED. Why is there nothing about the people in the new government? Why is there nothing about the schools, the repair to infa-structure and commerce? Stop being the shill of the terrorists and get out and do your job, or admit you're not.
Comment from lscbc - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
Coverage may be OK, but the actual reporting by the media is obviously filtered, slanted, and biased; that is to say, awful.
I trust Bush more than the media. He may at times have incorrect information, but he does not try to deceive, which can't be said about the media. The "major" media are laughable.
If the club - NBC,CBS,ABC,PBS, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and CNN, and their leader BBC - are against what's transpiring, I know we are doing the right thing. In short, the Media don't influence me much.
Comment from jeanlaw - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
I think the media is doing as fair a job as they can, reporting on a war that never should have happened in the first place--I'm neither a Democrat, or liberal, and I agree that Saddam Hussein is evil, and should have been driven out--but I feel that over 2,000 young American lives lost, and BILLIONS spent on the war will one day show this to be one of the worst mistakes ever made by a U.S. Pres.--
Mr. Bush took some unreliable information, jumped prematurely into a war, when he should have explored other ways to rid the world of Hussein--America CANNOT be the savior of the entire world--our FIRST obligation is to the United States--I pray God will be with our troops, and bring ALL of them home soon.
Roy Parks e-mail beecherhillart@aol.com
Comment from beecherhillart - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
I concider myself a news junky. However, I have to critisize the media not only the war, but in all news in general. Part of the problem in this country is that when something big happens or down to general crime. The media always has to sugar coat the story, afraid of stepping on someones toes or insulting someones race or culture. Then we have the news talk shows. Again, a handful of professional people sitting around talking about the problem. Is that really fixing the problem?
This country is based of freedom of speech. I suggest the media get with it, and start saying things like it is.
David H.
Phila.
Comment from dwh12562 - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
The media shows us what they want, you can never fully understand what it's like over there and what the soldiers endure every day regardless of politics. I spent 10 months in Baghdad until injured. Support the troops!
Comment from harrylampus - 3/23/06 7:04 PM
Since Bush is so unpopular, the reporters take advantage by reporting only negatives. I know positives exist in Iraq because I've seen photos of the new parks, roads and school buildings, and the children hugging the soldiers while their parents smile. Otherwise I'd think America had taken it's troops into pure hell without a reason.
I'm really tired of biased, politcally based reporting that negates any good achieved by this administration, and in fact this country.
I'm glad we have a president who's shown strength to the Islam Fundamentalists. Otherwise we'd probably all be dead by now. War is always hell, but sometimes the only answer to stop a life of hell for others.
Comment from lororow921 - 3/23/06 7:03 PM
I got so sick of negative only reporting from the local news. NBC being the very worst. I now only watch the fox station, where I can get balanced reporting. It's a shame everyone doesn't have cable or satelite, so they could see fair reporting,and not be kept ignorant by the Bush hating main stream.
Comment from peacefrogzzz - 3/23/06 7:03 PM
I feel that the journalist have slanted the news. You can watch CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and you can tell all most all are Democrats. Listeing newspeople bad mouth Bush on all channels. I never voted for him, but...... every channel sounds degradeing of our President. All I can say is God Bless America and all the other countries and bring peace. KYCRAFT
Comment from kycraft - 3/23/06 7:03 PM
Imagine if these reporters were covering the AMERICAN REVOLUTION ??
"things are spiraling out of control"
"there's no consenus"
"the british are coming"
"general washington has failed again"
"washington has no army"
"washington's troops deserting"
"congress split into factions"
"consitution not in sight"
ETC.
Comment from mrjoeamato - 3/23/06 7:03 PM
We only get fair and balanced news from internet blogs such as Lucianne.com and Townhall.com and from the FOX news channel. Radio talk shows are a mixed bag, but the network news is pathetic. They are damned and determined to find some way to help impeach President Bush because their favorite, Bill Clinton, was impeached. It is the don't get mad, get even mind set.
No good news on the networks, because if it bleeds, it leads.
Comment from lubyagain - 3/23/06 7:03 PM
Ah, blame it on the media, bombs going off, soldiers fighting insurgents, children dying and being dismissed as collateral damage, yeah, must be actors and movies scenes the media shows us.
Bush would have us believe that before the war Iraq had no commerce, no schools, no oil production, no electricity and no children playing in the streets, which was certainly not the case.
Blaming it on the media is just a last ditch to hold onto less than erudite supporters of the war and Bush.
Simply put, no matter what adancements have been made, if any, nothing matters unless civility and sanity
What would your response be?
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/27/06:I see you have no interest in following the rules | | Question/Answer | | HerrAirhorn asked on 03/24/06 - SERENITY NOW! "Did you catch yesterday's news conference (3/21/06), the one where Little George casually passed on responsibility for getting US troops out of Iraq to "future presidents" -- the same presidents to whom he is passing on responsibility for his monumental deficit?
Of course, he never intended to get the troops out of Iraq at all.
The whole point, as I argued long ago, was to create permanent bases in the broader Middle East as a bulwark against what far-sighted US imperialists have always understood to be the real threat -- not Islamo-fascist terrorists, but an oil-hungry China which will be in a position to challenge the US for global supremacy on every front in the coming decades. That is what this war is really about, and always has been.
But the heck with facts. Let's move on to something interesting. Personality.
Did you notice Little George's mood? He seems finally to be approaching, insofar as his temperament allows, the "serenity" he was pretending to enjoy in the lead-up to the war. Of course, what passes for serenity in Little George's prosaic soul is not much more than indifference, a shrugging off of consequences -- a gesture that feels perfectly justified to him, by the way, because he is absolutely certain about the one thing he relies on: he has followed his heart.
He has prayed, and he has followed his heart.
So the rest is up to God.
That's what that news conference was really about. Little George has been praying again and his prayers have been answered again. The comfort of the Lord has descended upon him. He has been absolved. That's what accounts for his new mood. He is indifferent to his poll numbers. He is indifferent to the fate of his party in the coming elections. He is indifferent to the carnage in Iraq. He knows things will come right in the end. He has fallen back on his faith.
Since the rest is up to God, Little George is now feeling like his work is done. He has made all the decisions that matter, and he will not turn back. That would be weak. But he is strong. There's 3 years left in his presidency, but mentally he's already turned over his responsibilities. You could just sense the relief in his manner when he mentioned "future presidents." He's already outta there, heading home to Crawford, back to his pick-up trucks and mountain bikes, his special pillow, and Laura in the morning".
THOMAS DE ZENGOTITA Blogger Mathatmacoat answered on 03/24/06:Little George now that's a new one. What are your referring to, the size of his intellect?
Yes, we all saw that one, with George not sure which country he was talking about. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/23/06 - Will the US have to liberate Afghanistan again?
You might have heard the disturbing news that an Afghan Christian is on trial for his life for apostasy from Islam. His family turned him in (ratted him out) during a custody dispute, and the case is being handled by a religious judge who leans heavily towards Sahariaism.
The US is pressuring the Afghan goverment to maintain the right of religion that is part of their constitution, but Afghan politicians wring their hands and say it is part of the judicial process and they can't interfere.
There is a move to have the man, who converted sixteen years ago, declared insane, thus sparing him from death by the sword of justice.
Would you support an American army of liberation attacking Afghanistan so that democracy and freedom can be established?
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/24/06:been there, done that, moving right along. The US will just have to get used to democracy not meaning rule of US law. It's unfortunate that the US allowed the Afgans to implement Islamic law, but what are you going to do with an Islamic nation? | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/22/06 - Right or Wrong? Bush still sees no reason to apologise
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 20 March 2006
If anyone was looking for even the slightest hint of second thoughts from those led the US into Iraq, they would have been sorely disappointed on the third anniversary of a war that is eating into America's soul and that may well reshape its political landscape.
More sacrifice would be required, but "our goal is nothing less than complete victory", President George Bush declared in his weekly radio address yesterday.
Ignore the doom-mongering, Dick Cheney urged his countrymen on CBS's Face the Nation programme. This was no civil war; rather the insurgents had reached "a stage of desperation". On both the security and political fronts, Iraq was showing "major progress".
Writing in The Washington Post, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary - blamed by many for the absence of post-invasion planning - was equally unrepentant. The big picture would be determined by history, "not by daily headlines, website blogs, or the latest sensational attack", Mr Rumsfeld declared. To retreat now would be "the modern equivalent of handing post-war Germany back to the Nazis, or of asking the former Communist states of eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because the West did not have the patience to see through the job of turning them into free countries".
The plain fact, however, is that back in March 2003, almost no Bush administration policy-maker could even imagine that yesterday the country would be in agonising debate over a conflict three years old with no end in sight - in an Iraq that even the pro-American former prime minister Iyad Allawi said was in the midst of a civil war.
When Mr Bush triumphantly proclaimed an end to the war in May 2003 from the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, the Pentagon's expectation was that by the end of that year no more than 30,000 US troops would be deployed in Iraq. Today 130,000 are still there - and General George Casey, the senior US commander in the country, warned yesterday that he saw "a couple of more years of this". The war has been a drain on American blood, treasure and morale. As of yesterday, at least 2,311 US servicemen had died there, and more than 13,000 had been wounded. By the end of 2006, the conflict will have cost $320bn (183bn).
The psychological cost is unquantifiable, but enormous. For a minority the war has brought bereavement and personal sadness. Half of all Americans know someone who has served in Iraq; some 10 per cent of them had a relative or friend who had been killed or wounded there, according to a poll by USA Today.
Mr Bush's place in history will be determined by his decision to invade. Back in March 2003, his approval ratings stood at 70 per cent. Now they have dropped to less than 40 per cent. Two-thirds of the public believes the country is "on the wrong track". Iraq sweeps every other issue off the table.
This November's mid-term elections meanwhile may well turn into a referendum on Iraq, and the Republican Party may lose control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate, conceivably both.
Even among the Republican faithful, support for Mr Bush is starting to erode. "If you demand complete victory, you'll never leave," Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who is mulling a 2008 White House run, said yesterday.
The war, he declared, was helping to bankrupt the country. "And if you ask, are we better off, is the Middle East more stable than three years ago, the answer is, 'Absolutely not'."
If anyone was looking for even the slightest hint of second thoughts from those led the US into Iraq, they would have been sorely disappointed on the third anniversary of a war that is eating into America's soul and that may well reshape its political landscape.
More sacrifice would be required, but "our goal is nothing less than complete victory", President George Bush declared in his weekly radio address yesterday.
Ignore the doom-mongering, Dick Cheney urged his countrymen on CBS's Face the Nation programme. This was no civil war; rather the insurgents had reached "a stage of desperation". On both the security and political fronts, Iraq was showing "major progress".
Writing in The Washington Post, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary - blamed by many for the absence of post-invasion planning - was equally unrepentant. The big picture would be determined by history, "not by daily headlines, website blogs, or the latest sensational attack", Mr Rumsfeld declared. To retreat now would be "the modern equivalent of handing post-war Germany back to the Nazis, or of asking the former Communist states of eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because the West did not have the patience to see through the job of turning them into free countries".
The plain fact, however, is that back in March 2003, almost no Bush administration policy-maker could even imagine that yesterday the country would be in agonising debate over a conflict three years old with no end in sight - in an Iraq that even the pro-American former prime minister Iyad Allawi said was in the midst of a civil war.
When Mr Bush triumphantly proclaimed an end to the war in May 2003 from the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, the Pentagon's expectation was that by the end of that year no more than 30,000 US troops would be deployed in Iraq. Today 130,000 are still there - and General George Casey, the senior US commander in the country, warned yesterday that he saw "a couple of more years of this". The war has been a drain on American blood, treasure and morale. As of yesterday, at least 2,311 US servicemen had died there, and more than 13,000 had been wounded. By the end of 2006, the conflict will have cost $320bn (183bn).
The psychological cost is unquantifiable, but enormous. For a minority the war has brought bereavement and personal sadness. Half of all Americans know someone who has served in Iraq; some 10 per cent of them had a relative or friend who had been killed or wounded there, according to a poll by USA Today.
Mr Bush's place in history will be determined by his decision to invade. Back in March 2003, his approval ratings stood at 70 per cent. Now they have dropped to less than 40 per cent. Two-thirds of the public believes the country is "on the wrong track". Iraq sweeps every other issue off the table.
This November's mid-term elections meanwhile may well turn into a referendum on Iraq, and the Republican Party may lose control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate, conceivably both.
Even among the Republican faithful, support for Mr Bush is starting to erode. "If you demand complete victory, you'll never leave," Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who is mulling a 2008 White House run, said yesterday.
The war, he declared, was helping to bankrupt the country. "And if you ask, are we better off, is the Middle East more stable than three years ago, the answer is, 'Absolutely not'."
Right or wrong? Mathatmacoat answered on 03/22/06:Bush has said one thing right in recent days, and this is the man who couldn't remember which country he went into to attack terrorists, and that was that it would not be him who would make the decision to withdraw from Iraq. How pitiful for a man who exudes confidence about teh conduct of the war in Iraq. | | Question/Answer | | JBodine asked on 03/20/06 - How 'bout a little perspective here? Perspective is the single most important thing that modern western media seem totally incapable of providing.
Although I don't agree with every detail of this lawyer's attempt to provide it, his work is worth your time.
If anyone doubts what our world would "look like" under a successful Wahabbi Muslim jihad, please relook at the video smuggled out of Afghanistan by a female western journalist just prior to the Allied invasion of same. Dragging innocent women out into the middle of a soccer stadium in Kabul and murdering them to the cheers and songs of the crowd looks like something out of ancient Rome, but it is not. It is what our world will look like if we don't destroy these murderous thugs before they win.
A California Lawyer's Perspective on Iraq War.
Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk more than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and America for food and war materials.
Bushido Japan had overrun most of Asia, beginning in 1928, killing millions of civilians throughout China, and impressing millions more as slave labor.
The US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans and Congress wanted nothing to do with the European war, or the Asian war .
Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, which had not attacked us.It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.
France was not an ally, the Vichy government of France aligned with its German occupiers. Germany was not an ally, it was an enemy, and Hitler intended to set up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, it was intent on owning and controlling all of Asia. Japan and Germany had long-term ideas of
invading Canada and Mexico, and then the United States over the north and south borders, after they had settled control of Asia and Europe.
America's allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia, and that was about it. There were no other countries of any size or
military significance with the will and ability to contribute much or anything to the effort to defeat Hitler's Germany and Japan, and prevent the global
dominance of Nazism. And we had to send millions of tons of arms, munitions, and war supplies to Russia, England, and the Canadians, Aussies, Irish, and Scots,
because none of them could produce all they needed for themselves.
All of Europe, from Norway to Italy, except Russia in the east, was already under the Nazi heel.
America was not prepared for war. America had stood down most of its military after WWI and throughout the depression, at the outbreak of WWII there were army units training with broomsticks over their shoulders because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have tanks. And a big chunk of our navy had just been sunk and damaged at Pearl Harbor.
Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England that was the property of Belgium and
was given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler - actually, Belgium surrendered one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day anyway just to prove they could.
Britain had been holding out for two years already in the face of staggering shipping loses and the near-decimation of its air force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later and turning his attention to Russia, at a time when England was on the verge of collapse in the late summer of 1940.
Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.
Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow, 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a million soldiers. More than a million. Had Russia surrendered, then, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire campaign against the Brits, then America, and the Nazis would have won that war.
Had Hitler not made that mistake and invaded England in 1940 or 1941, instead, there would have been no England for the US and the Brits to use as a
staging ground to prepare an assault on Nazi Europe, England would not have been able to run its North African campaign to help take a little pressure off Russia while America geared up for battle, and today Europe would very probably be run by the Nazis, the Third Reich, and, isolated and without any allies (not
even the Brits), the US would very probably have had to cede Asia to the Japanese, who were basically Nazis by another name then, and the world we live in
today would be very different and much worse. I say this to illustrate that turning po ints in history are often dicey things. And we are at another one.
There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical
weapons, almost anywhere in the world, unless they are prevented from doing so.
France, Germany, and Russia, have been selling them weapons technology at least as recently as 2002, as have North Korea, Syria, and Pakistan, paid for
with billions of dollars Saddam Hussein skimmed from the "Oil For Food" program administered by the UN with the complicity of Kofi Annan and his son.
The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs - they believe that Islam, a radically conservative (definitely not liberal!) form of
Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world, and that all who do not bow to Allah should be killed, enslaved, or
subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, purge the world of Jews. This is what they say.
There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East - for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its
Reformation today, but it is not yet known which will win - the Inquisition, or the Reformation.
If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, and the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies, the
techno-industrial economies, will be at the mercy of OPEC - not an OPEC dominated by the well-educated and rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by
the Jihadis.
You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want jobs? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim
Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.
If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a moderate and
prosperous Middle East will emerge.
We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda, the Islamic
terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We cannot do it nowhere. And we cannot do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle now at the time and place of our choosing, in Iraq.
Not in New York, not in London, or Paris, or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we did and are doing two very important things.
(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the
terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist.
Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.
(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad guys there and the
ones we get there we won't have to get here, or anywhere else. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst
for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is
needed.
The Euros could have done this, but they didn't, and they won't. We now know that rather than opposing the rise of the Jihad, the French, Germans, and
Russians were selling them arms - we have found more than a million tons of bsp;weapons and munitions in Iraq. If Iraq was not a threat to anyone, why did Saddam need a million tons of weapons?
And Iraq was paying for French, German, and Russian arms with money skimmed from the UN Oil For Food Program (supervised by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
and his son) that was supposed to pay for food, medicine, and education , for Iraqi children.
World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the
Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 - a 17 year war - and was followed by another
decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again . a 27 year war.
World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP - adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars, WWII
cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.
[The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $160 billion, which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost about 2,200 American lives, which is
roughly 1/2 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11.] But the cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been unimaginably greater - a world
now dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.
Americans have a short attention span, now, conditioned I suppose by 60 minute TV shows and 2-hour movies in which everything comes out okay.
The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain,and sometimes bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.
If we do this thing in Iraq successfully, it is probable that the Reformation will ultimately prevail. Many Muslims in the Middle East hope it will. We will be there to support it. It has begun in some countries, Libya, for instance. And Dubai. And Saudi Arabia. If we fail, the Inquisition will probably
prevail, and terrorism from Islam will be with us for all the foreseeable future, because the Inquisition, or Jihad, believes they are called by Allah to kill all the Infidels, and that death in Jihad is glorious.
The bottom line here is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away on its own. It will not
go away if we ignore it.
If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an "England" in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help
modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians
clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in this ancient and never-ending war. And now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to
get nuclear weapons. Unless we prevent them. Or somebody does.
The Iraq war is expensive, and uncertain, yes. But the consequences of not fighting it and winning it will be horrifically greater. We have four options -
1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.
2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).
3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.
4. Or we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France
and Germany and maybe most of the rest of Europe. It will be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier then.
Yes, the Jihadis say that they look forward to an Islamic America. If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren,
may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.
We can be defeatist peace-activists as anti-war types seem to be, and concede, surrender, to the Jihad, or we can do whatever it takes to win this war
against them.
The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization
should be like, and the most determined always win.
Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.
In the 20th century, it was Western democracy vs. communism, and before that Western democracy vs. Nazism, and before that Western democracy vs. German
Imperialism. Western democracy won, three times, but it wasn't cheap, fun, nice, easy, or quick. Indeed, the wars against German Imperialism (WWI), Nazi
Imperialism (WWII), and communist imperialism (the 40-year Cold War that included the Vietnam Battle, commonly called the Vietnam War, but itself a major battle in a larger war) covered almost the entire century.
The first major war of the 21st Century is the war between Western Judeo/Christian Civilization and Wahhabi Islam. It may last a few more years, or most of this century. It will last until the Wahhabi branch of Islam fades away, or gives up its ambitions for regional and global dominance and Jihad, or until
Western Civilization gives in to the Jihad
Senator John Kerry, in the debates and almost daily, makes 3 scary claims:
1. We went to Iraq without enough troops.
We went with the troops the US military wanted. We went with the troop levels General Tommy Franks asked for. We deposed Saddam in 30 days with light
casualties, much lighter than we expected.
The real problem in Iraq is that we are trying to b e nice - we are trying to fight minority of the population that is Jihadi, and trying to avoid killing
the large majority that is not. We could flatten Fallujah in minutes with a flight of B52s, or seconds with one nuclear cruise missile - but we don't. We're
trying to do brain surgery, not amputate the patient's head. The Jihadis amputate heads.
2. We went to Iraq with too little planning.
This is a specious argument. It supposes that if we had just had "the right plan" the war would have been easy, cheap, quick, and clean.
That is not an option. It is a guerrilla war against a determined enemy, and no such war ever has been or ever will be easy, cheap, quick, and clean. This
is not TV.
3. We proved ourselves incapable of governing and providing security.
This too is a specious argument. It was never our intention to govern and provide security. It was our intention from the beginning to do just enough to
enable the Iraqis to develop a representative government and their own military and police forces to provide their own security, and that is happening. The US and the Brits and other countries there have trained over 100,000 Iraqi police and military, now, and will have trained more than 200,000 by the end of
next year. We are in the process of transitioning operational control for security back to Iraq.
It will take time. It will not go with no hitches. This is not TV.
Remember, perspective is everything, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.
The Cold war lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany.
World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the
death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million people, depending on which estimates you accept.
The US has taken a little more than 2,000 KIA in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 Killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the
Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In WWII the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years. Most of the individual battles of WWII lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.
But the stakes are at least as high . . a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . or a
world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the J ihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).
I do not understand why the American Left does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis. In
America, absolutely, but nowhere else.
300,000 Iraqi bodies in mass graves in Iraq are not our problem. The US population is about twelve times that of Iraq, so let's multiply 300,000 by twelve.
What would you think if there were 3,600,000 American bodies in mass graves in America because of George Bush? Would you hope for another country to help
liberate America?
"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate where it's safe, in America.
Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places in the world that really need peace activism the most?
The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the
Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming
down on the side of their own worst enemy.
If the Jihad wins, it is the death of Liberalism. Everywhere the Jihad wins, it is the death of Liberalism. And American Liberals just don't get it.
Raymond S. Kraft is a writer and lawyer living in Northern California.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not bad for a) a lawyer; and, b) a lawyer living in the Republic of Kalifornia.
Thoughts?
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/22/06:well he has some things right but nice doesn't get the job done. The US failed to nail the insurgency quickly and is paying the price, in fact all of Iraq is paying the price. Iraq should have been disarmed, by house to search if necessary. by allowing the malitia to exist they have set the scene for civil war. I might do the job they couldn't or wouldn't do.
Being nice to the Saudi won't get rid of wahhabism, we need to strike there too. Islam is not peacefull, the view that that it is a small number is a lie, and while ever we believe it we will be at war with Islam. What is needed is a decisive strike at the heart. Hiroshima defeated bushido Japan, Take out Mecca and you take out the problem. Without the pilgrimage Islam will loose it's cohesion. Millions of pilgrims are placed in a postion where they can be recruited every year | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/21/06 - In case you missed this Ben Stein: Troops Were Snubbed at Oscars
The Associated Press
Saturday, March 18, 2006; 3:38 PM
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Ben Stein says the people who were snubbed on Oscar night weren't the stars who were passed over for Academy Awards, but American troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The conservative humorist, writer and political pundit said movie stars and film industry professionals failed to highlight the sacrifices of soldiers during the awards ceremony on March 5.
"Not one prayer or moment of silence for those who have given their lives," Stein said, speaking Thursday at a Republican Party fundraising dinner.
He said the real stars aren't his Beverly Hills neighbors but the soldiers "wearing body armor in 130-degree heat, pulling 24-hour shifts" in the Sunni triangle, the dangerous area of armed insurgents in Iraq.
Stein, who starred in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and hosted a game show titled "Win Ben Stein's Money," noted that Hollywood executives have complained about falling box office revenue.
"Stop spitting in the face of Americans and maybe we will go to the movies," he said.
Damn right on all counts, Ben. Mathatmacoat answered on 03/21/06:I think the actors got it right | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 03/19/06 - Done!
Hello:
No question - just a statement.
I used to be a proud American. Now I'm an embarrased American. Pretty soon, I'm not even gonna BE an American.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/20/06:what's you going to do? shoot yourself? | | Question/Answer | | HerrAirhorn asked on 03/19/06 - Asking... more and more, we hear people asking themselves about the war going on and on and on......."Would you want to be the last soldier to die in Iraq?"
These people remember Viet Nam.
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/20/06:there is only one answer, get out now | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/18/06 - Bush Increasingly Focused On How Revisionist History Will See Him
March 13, 2006 | Issue 4211
WASHINGTON, DCWith many of his administration's policies facing growing public disapproval, President Bush is reportedly becoming more concerned with how he will be portrayed by future revisionist historians. "Just last summer, the president never reflected on how apologists would spin his increased lobbying for an unpopular war, or how future far-right generations would justify his failed domestic policy initiatives," presidential scholar Dr. Robert Dallek said. "He reportedly asked an aide if, decades from now, the deluded would see him as great, like Ronald Reagan, or merely as a fully redeemed elder statesman, like Richard Nixon." Margaret Meehan, a spokesman for the National Board Of Historical Revision, offered no comment on any future portrayal of "America's most beloved and accomplished president."
===
Should he be worrying about anything else?
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/20/06:they will see him as the Butcher of Baghdad, that is unless he does something more spectacular in his last days. Perhaps he will just be know as goofy | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/16/06 - Sounds like a plan? Movie theaters may ask to jam cell phones
Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:28 AM GMT10
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Movie theater owners faced with falling attendance are considering asking federal authorities for permission to jam cell phone reception in an attempt to stop annoying conversations during films, the head of the industry's trade group said on Tuesday.
Industry leaders at the ShoWest conference for theater owners want to find ways to win back crowds.
"I don't know what's going on with consumers that they have to talk on phones in the middle of theaters," John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, told the ShoWest conference in Las Vegas.
Theaters are trying a number of ways to silence cell phones, from sweeps by ushers to funny fake movie trailers urging viewers to shut off phones.
Fithian said owners were considering other steps if that does not work.
"We will actually petition the Federal Communications (Commission) to remove the block" on jamming cell phones, he said.
That may be difficult, since federal law and FCC rules prohibit the use of cell phone jammers.
The industry is broadly trying to increase interest in the movies.
Motion Picture Association of America Chief Executive Dan Glickman told ShoWest that the industry is researching why and when people go to the movies and might consider an advertising campaign to encourage people to go out to the movies, just as the milk industry has succeeded with its Got Milk? campaign.
Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok, this is more thinking out loud than a question, but are these people just that stupid? They want to broadly "increase interest in the movies" and the best they can come up with is to jam cell phones? Granted, nobody wants to hear a cell phone - or the conversation - when they go to the movies so the moviegoers have some responsibility, but is this even remotely going to increase attendance?
How about making better movies?
How about making more movies that entertain instead of indoctrinating or making political statements?
How about making more movies a family can watch together as opposed to expressing the depth of the filmmaker's grasp of vocabulary?
How about treating us as customers instead of criminals? For crying out loud I can't even make a backup copy of a DVD.
How about letting us go to a show for less than an arm and a leg?
Your thoughts?
Steve Mathatmacoat answered on 03/17/06:sounds like a great idea, to curtail freedom to speak anytime an empty thought comes into your head | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/16/06 - Bush Confirms His Policy of Pre-emptive Use of Force By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago
WASHINGTON -
President Bush on Thursday renewed his administration's strike-first policy against terrorists and other U.S. enemies and rebuked
Iran over allegations it is secretly amassing nuclear weapons.
The White House said that by reaffirming the pre-emptive policy, the United States was not targeting Iran. Yet the national security strategy includes harsh words for the Iranian government, which Bush says may pose the greatest challenge to the U.S.
"Our preference is to act through diplomacy in conjunction with friends and allies. That is our preference. That is our preference,"
Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, said about the doctrine of pre-emption.
"It simply says, that one cannot let dangers grow to the point of eminent threat to the United States without taking action, and if other measures fail, obviously we retain the right to use force."
The 49-page report also said:
"North Korea poses a serious nuclear proliferation challenge; expresses dismay at rollbacks in democratic reform in Russia; brands Syria a tyranny that harbors terrorists and sponsors terrorist activity; and warns China against denying personal and political freedoms.
"China's leaders must realize, however, that they cannot stay on this peaceful path while holding on to old ways of thinking and acting that exacerbate concerns throughout the region and the world," Bush wrote.
The report accuses Iran of meddling in Iraq and equipping the insurgency, which is threatening a fragile democracy in Baghdad. The report was released as U.S. and Iraqi forces launched the largest air assault mission against insurgents and terrorists in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in April 2003.
The administration is working to persuade Russia and China to support a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that Iran end its uranium enrichment program.
"This diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided," Bush said. He did not elaborate on what would happen if international negotiations with Iran were to fail.
Hadley said the international effort must speak with one voice if diplomacy can succeed in getting Iran to curb this step in nuclear weapons development.
"We are, I think, beginning to get indications that the Iranians are finally beginning to listen," Hadley said. "There is beginning to be a debate within the leadership and I would hope a debate between the leadership and their people about whether the course they're on is the right course for the good of their country."
The report is an updated version of one Bush issued in 2002 that outlined the pre-emptive policy, marking an end of a deterrent military strategy that dominated the Cold War.
The latest report makes it clear Bush has not changed his mind, even though no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
"Obviously, we didn't have the intelligence we needed in that particular instance," Hadley said. "In some sense, those countries that pursue weapons of mass destruction in secret also learned an important lesson that there are risks of that kind of behavior and that kind of activity."
Susan Rice, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution, an independent policy research group, said the report echoes the 2002 version "by reaffirming the discredited doctrine of pre-emption, while shifting the presumed target of that doctrine from Iraq to Iran."
"This shift is ironic since the administration's all-encompassing, four-year preoccupation with Iraq afforded Iran the time and space to pursue its nuclear ambitions and undermine U.S. security interests in the Middle East," Rice said.
___
More of the same from Johnny-One-Note!
Are you ready for more wars?
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/17/06:meglomania is a progessive disease, now if we can just survive the next two years | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 03/15/06 - The Oscars
Hello Politicos:
What is the enduring legacy of the second place finish of Brokeback Mountain?
It's ok to come in number two.
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/16/06:I'd say it's that someone had the good sense to see the value of pandering to minorities | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 03/16/06 - Yogi-ism "Hey, we're lost, but we are making good time"! >Yogi Berra.
Applying this quote to the War in Iraq, are we:
Lost and making good time?
Lost and making bad time?
Not lost and making good time?
Not lost and making bad time? Mathatmacoat answered on 03/16/06:I'd put it as bottom of the ninth and seven down. Let's face it, Iraq was just an exhibition game that became a grudge match | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 03/15/06 - Expel the Yale Taliban? I don't get it . A dream of most American parents is to be able to send their kids to an Ivy League school . It takes a strong commitment to schooling by the child .They have to be tops in a very competitive environement to even be considered ;and a way to fund a very expensive (almost $160,000 for four years ) 4 + year higher education.
I'm sure you have heard that Yale University has in it's student roster Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban . I can just see all the Taliban jihadi sitting in Gitmo donning "I'd rather be at Yale " tee shirts .
This is a story that goes back a few weeks now and no one mentioned it yet ......not suprising with things like Cheny shooting his buddy with bird shot and all the other national security priorities that needed to be disected to death . Why would one of the major Taliban players being in the Unites States and attending one of the most presigious schools raise anybody's antenna ? Certainly the MSM has not kept the fire of this story stoked.
Yale University enrolls the Taliban's former spokesman as a student, but continues to prohibit other students from organizing a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC)chapter on campus and also seeks to deny students the right to hear from military recruiters about employment opportunities.Under the guise of alleged sex discrimination as a result of the military's so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards homosexuals, Yale and other universities have blocked their students from partaking of ROTC training on campus. Yet Yale University is allowing a member or former member of a group that not only discriminated against gays, but actually stoned them to death.
Believe it or not ;One of the courses he has taken is called 'Terrorism-Past, Present and Future'. Geeze ;why bother ....just quizz out !!! Rahmatullah is the Joseph Goebbels to one of the most evil regimes .This is the clown who stood in front of the world and tried to justify the blowing up of the huge Bamiyan Buddah statues carved out of rock that had stood majestically for over 1000 years .
John Fund has more to say .
This Taliban scum bumps an American student off the accepted list at Yale and that by itself is an injustice.
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/16/06:Know your enemy, I expect the talaban has learned that in order to defeat capitalism and George W Bush and his little mates, they need to know more about them and where to learn but in that bastion of hyprocacy, the Ivy League. What is interesting is what sort of deal has been done with Washington to allow this fellow into the country? | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 03/13/06 - Got the following from KINDJ An interesting e-mail:
Live in the country you support
Try Doing This...
Try driving around as a Gringo in Mexico with no liability insurance and have an accident...
Enter MEXICO illegally. Never mind immigration quotas, visas,international law, or any of that nonsense...
Once there, demand that the local government provide free medical care for you and your entire family...
Demand bilingual nurses and doctors...
Demand free bilingual local government forms, bulletins, etc...
Procreate abundantly. Deflect any criticism of this allegedly irresponsible reproductive behavior with, "It is a cultural United States thing. You would not understand, pal."...
Keep your American identity strong. Fly Old Glory from your rooftop, or proudly display it in your front window or on your car bumper...
Speak only English at home and in public and insist that your children do likewise...
Insist that all products' labels, owner's manuals, instructions, etc., be written in English as well as Spanish...
Demand classes on American culture in the Mexican school system...
Demand a local Mexican drivers license. This will afford other legal rights and will go far to legitimize your unauthorized, illegal presence in Mexico...
Insist that local Mexican law enforcement teach English to all its officers.
Good luck! Because it will never happen. It will not happen in Mexico or any other country in the world... except right here in the United States... Land of the naive.
If you agree, pass it on. If you don't, go ahead and try the above in Mexico or Iran, or just about any other country in the world, for that matter.
Words of Wisdom: "Support the country you live
in...or live in the country you support"
---------------
I take no responsibility or credit for authoring the above statement. I just thought it was interesting enough to post here and offer up for discussion.
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 03/14/06:interesting, so let me get this straight, are you telling me you actually put up with sucn nonsence? | | Question/Answer | | sissypants asked on 03/10/06 - the deal is dead With the arab company pulling out because of the political unrest in this country over the whole thing, Mr. Bush got on tv and said his administration will continue to work closely with the congress to try to educate them as to why he felt and still feels it is safe to have an arab company in charge of 6 u.s. ports. i feel he should be focusing more on convincing the people of the united states, not just the congress. then maybe even thou i still think it was a bad idea, then maybe his ratings wouldn't be so low. he still seems so arrogant to me. any comments? Mathatmacoat answered on 03/14/06:for once you know Bush is right, it isn't really a problem who the ultimate owner is so long as the jobs stay where they are | | Question/Answer | | fredg asked on 03/09/06 - American Ports; no take-over The American People have spoken; through emails, phone calls, letters to Congress. Foreign take-over of American Ports is dead. Republicans added an Amendment to the current Iraqi spending bill, stating NO take-over of American Ports by a Foreign Country.
Republican voting was something like 62 - 2 in favor of not letting this happen.
Democrats were already opposed, naturally.
President Bush was ready to OK the take-over; using "trust in this foreign country" and "good will" as reasons. Main unspoken reason was the hugh amounts of oil money that are involved with this foreign country.
The President can't Veto the Bill, cause he would be vetoing his own Iraqi spending Bill.
Congressional elections are this year, and Republicans in Congress don't want to lose their seats; more important than being loyal to their President.
Do you agree or disagree with this take-over being stopped?
fredg
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/10/06:are you guys racist or what? It's ok for the British to own it but not an arab. You really should have gotten your head out of you know where by now. Business is business, they can't physically pick the thing up and take it away. There is no profit in stuffing up the operation of their port. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/09/06 - US Ambassador says Iraq could still descend into civil war. Disturbing events reported.
By Lutfi Abu Oun - Wed Mar 8, 4:45 PM ET
The bodies of 18 men, bound, blindfolded and strangled, were found in a Sunni Arab district of Baghdad, apparent victims of sectarian turmoil gripping Iraq and threatening the formation of a coalition government.
Iraq's Shi'ite interior minister, a hate figure for many Sunnis who accuse him of condoning death squads, escaped an apparent assassination attempt when a roadside bomb blasted his convoy. Minister Bayan Jabor, however, was not in his car.
In its annual report on human rights abuses worldwide, the U.S. State Department said reports increased in 2005 of killings by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government or its agents and members of sectarian militias dominated many police units.
"Police abuses included threats, intimidation, beatings, and suspension by the arms or legs, as well as the reported use of electric drills and cords and the application of electric shocks," the State Department said of Iraqi human rights three years after U.S. troops invaded to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
About 50 Iraqi private security guards were seized at their compound by men in police uniform on Wednesday -- but Interior Ministry officials said they were unaware of any formal arrests.
The bombing of an important Shi'ite shrine in Samarra on February 22 has pitched Iraq toward civil war, unleashing reprisal sectarian killings and deepening the mutual suspicion between the country's majority Shi'ite Muslims and minority Sunnis.
The violence has complicated faltering efforts to form a government of national unity three months after elections. Iraqi leaders, struggling to agree on who should hold the top posts, are due to meet President Jalal Talabani on Thursday to decide on a way forward. Parliament is supposed to meet by Sunday.
The dumping of bodies bearing signs of torture and killed execution-style is a feature of the violence.
The 18 bodies discovered by U.S. troops in western Baghdad late on Tuesday had all been garroted and had their hands bound with plastic ties, police and hospital officials said.
The victims, a mixture of middle-aged and young men in civilian clothes, carried no identifying papers, police said.
A policeman at the Yarmuk hospital morgue pointed to their clothing and long hair as an indication some may have been religious extremists linked to al Qaeda. Reuters reporters who saw the bodies said many appeared to be Iraqis.
Police sources said only one had so far been identified by a relative. He was a guard at an oil refinery in southern Baghdad.
The policeman at the hospital said many of the bloodied bodies appeared to have been beaten while some had small burn marks, suggesting they were tortured before being killed.
Senior officials, aware of the potential for sectarian anger if it becomes clear all are either Sunni or Shi'ite Muslims, made no formal comment on the religious identities of the dead.
Iraqi police said the bodies were dumped near the Amriya district, a stronghold of Sunni insurgent groups.
MINISTER'S CONVOY ATTACKED
Sunnis have accused the Shi'ite-led government's police and other security forces of abducting and killing Sunni civilians -- an accusation Interior Minister Jabor and the police deny.
Interior Ministry vehicles normally used to transport Jabor and his aides were attacked as they left the ministry on Wednesday. A roadside bomb destroyed one car in the convoy, killing two and wounding five, a police source told Reuters.
It follows the assassination of the top Iraqi general in Baghdad, a Sunni, by a sniper in the capital on Monday.
The U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, described Major General Mubdar Hatim al-Dulaimi at his funeral as "a courageous soldier, a passionate leader and an Iraqi hero."
More than 500 people have been killed since the Samarra bombings, according to the most conservative official figures.
Despite the daily bombings and shootings there is a relative lull in the violence and officials have said the immediate crisis seems to be over -- for the time being at least.
But the U.S. ambassador conceded on Tuesday Iraq could still descend into civil war, saying Americans "opened Pandora's Box" when they toppled Saddam in 2003 and another incident like that in Samarra could push it to the brink of war again.
Eight people, including four policemen were killed in bombings in Baghdad and the western town of Falluja on Wednesday. The bodies of two people were found bound and blindfold and shot dead in eastern Baghdad, police said.
In political negotiations, Sunni and Kurdish parties refuse to accept Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari should stay on. His critics say he has failed to bring security or prosperity during the year in which he has been interim prime minister.
(Additional reporting by Faris al-Mehdawi, Mariam Karouny and Aseel Kami)
===
What can/should the US do to avert civil war in Iraq?
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/10/06:you want a solution
withdraw the troops, the Iraqi will quickly get it together or Iraq will break up, which might be a better solution as the sunni will then get what they deserve, incorporation into Jordan or Syria. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 03/08/06 - An al-jazzera exclusive interview Check out the interview of Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan by an Algerian radical Islamist host[Dr. Ahmad Bin Muhammad] on al _jazzera . I think you can view it but the transcripts are there if you can't .
Wafa ..you go girl!! Karen Hughes did you take notes ? Mathatmacoat answered on 03/09/06:I think he said it all Tom
Wafa Sultan: "The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete."
certainly a clash between barbarity and civilisation | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/09/06 - DP World to Transfer Control of U.S. Ports to U.S. `Entity' March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Dubai-owned DP World, facing congressional opposition to its operation of six U.S. ports, will transfer its ownership of those terminals to a U.S. entity, Virginia Senator John Warner said.
Warner, reading a statement from Edward Bilkey, the chief operating officer of the company, said the sale was intended to preserve ``the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States.''
DP World, which completed its acquisition of U.K.-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., said it ``had decided to transfer fully the U.S. operation of P&O Ports North America to a United States entity,'' Warner said, reading from Bilkey's statement.
The company planned to make the transfer ``in an orderly fashion'' so it ``will not suffer economic loss,'' the statement said.
The decision was announced as the congressional Republicans told President George W. Bush today that Congress was prepared to pass legislation to prevent the company from operating the U.S. port terminals, a congressional aide said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pending notice of what 'U.S. entity' we're talking about it looks like DPW has made a move that should please the critics...and hopefully pulled the rug out from under a whole slew of opportunistic politicians.
Steve Mathatmacoat answered on 03/09/06:is this the first nail in the coffin of multinationals | | Question/Answer | kindj asked on 03/07/06 - Oscar acceptance speech we'd like to hear:
March 7, 2006
Speech We'd Like to Hear From an Academy Award Winner
By Dennis Prager
Here's a speech we would like to hear from an Academy Award winner:
I thank you for this wonderful award. Receiving an Academy Award gives the recipient an almost unique opportunity to speak to hundreds of millions people around the world, so I would like take this once-in-a-lifetime moment to say this:
First, I want to thank my country, the United States of America. Every one of us here has this country to thank for enabling us to live lives of unprecedented freedom and unimaginable affluence. Too many of us forget that no other country in history has offered such opportunities to people in our profession or in any other profession, for that matter.
Second, I want to thank the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. While we bask in freedom and spend a good part of our lives going from party to party and award show to award show, tens of thousands of my fellow Americans are confronting a menace to our world as great as that fought by previous generations fighting Nazism and communism.
At the same time, I also want to apologize to these troops for my profession not having made even one motion picture about any of the heroic American fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq. This country is fighting a war, Hollywood. You may think this war is unwise, waged under mistaken, or even false, pretenses. And as an actor in Hollywood, you are overwhelmingly likely to hate this commander in chief. But even the men and women of Hollywood must recognize that America is fighting the worst people of our time, people who hurt every group Hollywood claims to care about -- minorities, women, gays -- people who engage in the sins Hollywood most professes to oppose -- intolerance and violence -- far more than anyone else on the planet.
In another era, when what many have labeled "the greatest generation" fought the German Nazis and the Japanese fascists, Hollywood made movie after movie depicting that great war and our great warriors. And Hollywood showed freedom's enemies as the cruel and vicious people they were. We have not produced one film yet depicting this war in positive terms or one depicting this generation's enemies of freedom as the cruel and vicious people they are.
In fact, the only nominated film about people who slaughter children at discos, blow up weddings, and bomb pizzerias and buses filled with men, women and children is one that attempts to show these murderers in God's name as complex human beings. Just imagine how the Academy would have reacted 60 years ago to a film depicting Nazi murderers as complex human beings. We have descended far.
We in Hollywood walk around thinking we are very important. That is why this year's nominated films for best picture are largely pictures with messages, pictures that relatively few people actually see. But although Hollywood was always concerned with politics, we have let ourselves be taken over by those for whom their message is more significant than the primary purposes of film -- to illuminate life and to entertain. Yes, entertain.
You know, entertainment is actually a noble pursuit. Life is difficult for almost every human being on earth. And if we can offer people an elevated way to divert their attention for a couple of hours from their troubled child, their marital tensions, their ill parent, their financial woes, we have rendered the world a greater service than by making another message-film against racism in America, the least racist country in the world.
My fellow actors, we walk around feeling that we are very important. But we do so only because we confuse fame with significance. We do have more fame than any other human beings in history. Far more people have heard of any actor here tonight than of any of the discoverers of any medication saving billions of lives, of any teacher of the disabled, of any nurse tending the aged, of almost any national leader.
But the truth is that, as noble a calling as acting can be, all we do is make-believe: We portray other people, and we speak words written by other people. Everyone knows our names, but almost no one knows us. All they know are the characters we play.
Thank you again. I hope I haven't ruined your evening.
Copyright 2005 Creators Syndicate
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Any bets on how long it'll be before we hear that one?
DK
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/08/06:never, but all the world's a stage and the men and women merely players | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 03/06/06 - Gotta love Ralph Peters. Another great article from Ralph Peters.
DUDE, WHERE'S MY CIVIL WAR?
By RALPH PETERS - In Iraq
BAGHDAD
I'M trying. I've been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it.
Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view's clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn't give me the right skills.
And riding around with the U.S. Army, looking at things first-hand, is certainly a technique to which The New York Times wouldn't stoop in such an hour of crisis.
Let me tell you what I saw anyway. Rolling with the "instant Infantry" gunners of the 1st Platoon of Bravo Battery, 4-320 Field Artillery, I saw children and teenagers in a Shia slum jumping up and down and cheering our troops as they drove by. Cheering our troops.
All day - and it was a long day - we drove through Shia and Sunni neighborhoods. Everywhere, the reception was warm. No violence. None.
And no hostility toward our troops. Iraqis went out of their way to tell us we were welcome.
Instead of a civil war, something very different happened because of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra. The fanatic attempt to stir up Sunni-vs.-Shia strife, and the subsequent spate of violent attacks, caused popular support for the U.S. presence to spike upward.
Think Abu Musab al-Zarqawi intended that?
In place of the civil war that elements in our media declared, I saw full streets, open shops, traffic jams, donkey carts, Muslim holiday flags - and children everywhere, waving as our Humvees passed. Even the clouds of dust we stirred up didn't deter them. And the presence of children in the streets is the best possible indicator of a low threat level.
Southeast Baghdad, at least, was happy to see our troops.
And we didn't just drive past them. First Lt. Clenn Frost, the platoon leader, took every opportunity to dismount and mingle with the people. Women brought their children out of their compound gates to say hello. A local sheik spontaneously invited us into his garden for colas and sesame biscuits.
It wasn't the Age of Aquarius. The people had serious concerns. And security was No. 1. They wanted the Americans to crack down harder on the foreign terrorists and to disarm the local militias. Iraqis don't like and don't support the militias, Shia or Sunni, which are nothing more than armed gangs.
Help's on the way, if slowly. The Iraqi Army has confounded its Western critics, performing extremely well last week. And the people trust their new army to an encouraging degree. The Iraqi police aren't all the way there yet, and the population doesn't yet have much confidence in them. But all of this takes time.
And even the police are making progress. We took a team of them with us so they could train beside our troops. We visited a Public Order Battalion - a gendarmerie outfit - that reeked of sloth and carelessness. But the regular Iraqi Police outfit down the road proved surprisingly enthusiastic and professional. It's just an uneven, difficult, frustrating process.
So what did I learn from a day in the dust and muck of Baghdad's less-desirable boroughs? As the long winter twilight faded into haze and the fires of the busy shawarma stands blazed in the fresh night, I felt that Iraq was headed, however awkwardly, in the right direction.
The country may still see a civil war one day. But not just yet, thanks. Violence continues. A roadside bomb was found in the next sector to the west. There will be more deaths, including some of our own troops. But Baghdad's vibrant life has not been killed. And the people of Iraq just might surprise us all.
So why were we told that Iraq was irreversibly in the throes of civil war when it wasn't remotely true? I think the answers are straightforward. First, of course, some parties in the West are anxious to believe the worst about Iraq. They've staked their reputations on Iraq's failure.
But there's no way we can let irresponsible journalists off the hook - or their parent organizations. Many journalists are, indeed, brave and conscientious; yet some in Baghdad - working for "prestigious" publications - aren't out on the city streets the way they pretend to be.
They're safe in their enclaves, protected by hired guns, complaining that it's too dangerous out on the streets. They're only in Baghdad for the byline, and they might as well let their Iraqi employees phone it in to the States. Whenever you see a column filed from Baghdad by a semi-celeb journalist with a "contribution" by a local Iraqi, it means this: The Iraqi went out and got the story, while the journalist stayed in his or her room.
And the Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don't pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad.
And some of them have agendas of their own.
A few days ago, a wild claim that the Baghdad morgue held 1,300 bodies was treated as Gospel truth. Yet Iraqis exaggerate madly and often have partisan interests. Did any Western reporter go to that morgue and count the bodies - a rough count would have done it - before telling the world the news?
I doubt it.
If reporters really care, it's easy to get out on the streets of Baghdad. The 506th Infantry Regiment - and other great military units - will take journalists on their patrols virtually anywhere in the city. Our troops are great to work with. (Of course, there's the danger of becoming infected with patriot- ism . . .)
I'm just afraid that some of our journalists don't want to know the truth anymore.
For me, though, memories of Baghdad will be the cannoneers of the 1st Platoon walking the dusty, reeking alleys of Baghdad. I'll recall 1st Lt. Frost conducting diplomacy with the locals and leading his men through a date-palm grove in a search for insurgent mortar sites.
I'll remember that lieutenant investigating the murder of a Sunni mullah during last week's disturbances, cracking down on black-marketers, checking up on sewer construction, reassuring citizens - and generally doing the job of a lieutenant-colonel in peacetime.
Oh, and I'll remember those "radical Shias" cheering our patrol as we passed by.
Ralph Peters is reporting from Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where he's been riding with the 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03052006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64677.htm
Hmmm... I wonder... could it be that the information we're receiving from the various mainstream news outlets are something less than fully accurate? Nah, they wouldn't do that, would they?
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 03/07/06:marvellous what you can see when you drive around the green zone isn't it? so I wonder; where is it that these car bombs happen, where is it that people get killed,
could this be a US military disinformation campaign or at least a pain anyway? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 03/04/06 - All Out War in Middle East "A civil war in
Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's rival Islamic sects against each other, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said in an unusually frank assessment Tuesday.
"If chaos were to descend upon Iraq or the forces of democracy were to be defeated in that country ... this would have implications for the rest of the Middle East region and, indeed, the world," Negroponte said at a hearing of the
Senate Armed Services Committee."
I'm having trouble imagining what an all out war war in the Middle East would be like, should it happen. I don't think that all that many people would be involved. What is your take on this?
Jack Mathatmacoat answered on 03/06/06:Muslim hoards. I recall it's been done before. Yes, the shiites of Iran/Iraq v the rest. The outcome would not change much. The interesting question is what would Israel do? | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/04/06 - Bush Reveals USA's New Secret Policy For Al Qaeda!
Speaking in Pakistan, Bush said in essence that his policy for dealing with Al Qaeda is to:
1. Find then
2. Charge them.
Now he knows how to deal with them their days are numbered!
What a masterful plan, eh?
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/06/06:yes and it only took five years to get that one together, now if there had been more than half a brain working on it, who knows | | Question/Answer | | HerrAirhorn asked on 03/04/06 - The Sky is Falling... The sky is falling. No, the oceans are rising. The latest on the effect of Glabal Warming.
"The Antarctic ice sheet is losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year in a trend that scientists link to global warming, according to a new paper that provides the first evidence that the sheet's total mass is shrinking significantly.
The new findings, which are being published today in the journal Science, suggest that global sea level could rise substantially over the next several centuries.
It is one of a slew of scientific papers in recent weeks that have sought to gauge the impact of climate change on the world's oceans and lakes. Just last month two researchers reported that Greenland's glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed, and a separate paper in Science today predicts that by the end of this century lakes and streams on one-fourth of the African continent could be drying up because of higher temperatures.
The new Antarctic measurements, using data from two NASA satellites called the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), found that the amount of water pouring annually from the ice sheet into the ocean -- equivalent to the amount of water the United States uses in three months -- is causing global sea level to rise by 0.4 millimeters a year. The continent holds 90 percent of the world's ice.
Will candidates for federal office have an anti-Global warming in their planks soon in order to gt elected? Mathatmacoat answered on 03/06/06:Yes the sky is falling, why only the other day I learned of yet another planet killer on near Earth orbit. What will kill us first? our own stupidity or God? I would like to hold out for God to do it sometime so what's the hurry. Let's go slow on the hydrocarbons and just maybe the situation might stabilise. If we don't try we will never know. So get rid of your 4x4 and get a nice littlehybrid.
Rising sea levels will do much damage but the real danger is the realise of carbon diooxide from natural sinks like the ocean if the temperature rises causing a runaway effect. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 03/05/06 - Bush
Hello experts:
Are you guy's the only ones left who support this guy? I think so.
Given that right now, nobody likes him much, do you think the Republicans will lose, gain, or stay the same in the next congressional election?
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/06/06:Hello there Yo. When did I say I supported Bush?
Assume nothing and you will not be thought a fool. It's time,as they say, for a change, certainly a change of direction. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 02/24/06 - Interesting article from James Pinkerton of Newsday. Bush won't fight ports deal
President's 'different standard' spin doesn't fly; U.K. looks sterling, UAE looks unfriendly
James P. Pinkerton
February 23, 2006
George W. Bush is ready to fight for the Dubai-buying-U.S.-ports deal. But a growing bipartisan grouping, in regard to that fight, is saying, "Bring it on."
Defending the proposed sale, Bush said Tuesday, "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a great British company."
OK, I will step up. Let's begin by noting that the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates are different countries, with different histories.
For 400 years, England has been America's mother country and English our mother tongue. Yes, we fought a war or two against each other, but they were "cousins' wars," more akin to family feuds than wars of annihilation. And even during wartime, Americans have naturally looked to Britons for inspiration on law and culture; from William Shakespeare to the King James Bible to C.S. Lewis to J.K. Rowling, British letters have been America's letters.
And in the past century the U.S. and U.K. were shoulder to shoulder in two hot wars and one cold war. Few Americans can forget the oratory of Winston Churchill, who rallied English speakers against Nazism. (And who were the Arabs rooting for in World War II? Just asking.)
In the decades since, Washington and London have stayed close. The friendship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher is the stuff of legend, but if anything, the bond between President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair is even stronger. So strong, in fact, that Blair's critics call him "Bush's Poodle." That's not nice, but it should still be a source of reassurance to Americans.
Now to the United Arab Emirates. First and most obviously, it's Arab. That's not a statement of racism; that's an observation about ethnicity and the culture that comes with it. Virtually all UAE-ers are Arab Muslims, and many probably watch Al-Jazeera TV, which serves up a steady diet of anti-American "newsaganda." That's the reality of multiculturalism on a planetary scale: People in different countries are different, see things differently, react to things differently. That's why consumers in the UAE eagerly joined in the boycott of Danish goods in the wake of the Muhammad cartoon controversy; The Associated Press reports that Denmark's exports to the UAE are down 95 percent.
Of course, it could be argued that public opinion doesn't matter much in the UAE because that country has never held an election. Freedom House, the human rights watchdog, labels the country "not free" - the lowest category. But even in dictatorial countries culture matters. The UAE was the hub of the BCCI scandal in the ྖs, which spun a web of money-laundering, embargo-evading and gun-running all the way to New York and Washington.
Later, the UAE had warm relations with the Taliban when it ruled Afghanistan and played host to the likes of Osama bin Laden. And nobody quite knows when and if all those cozy relationships were ever shut down; here's a headline in the Feb. 17, 2002, Washington Post: "Al Qaeda's Road Paved With Gold/Secret Shipments Traced Through a Lax System in United Arab Emirates." Indeed, the U.S. government is still trying to unravel UAE banks' relationships with terrorists, both Arab and Iranian.
So in challenging critics of the port deal, the president actually put the issue the wrong way. The critics aren't holding the U.K. and the UAE to a different standard; they are holding the two countries to the same standard. And according to that single standard, Britain and the UAE look different: The British look sterling, while the Arab Emirates look mottled, at best.
Bush pledges to fight to the bitter end on this issue, but I'll bet he won't. In the mordant phrase of conservative blogger Robert A. George, "'Dubai Ports World' is Arabic for Harriet Miers."
James P. Pinkerton's e-mail ad- dress is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
--------------------
Hmmmm. Interesting. Another case of "watch what he does not what he says"? Possibly. And Pinkerton seems to be right, considering that the deal has suddenly been put on the back burner as the Port Authority of NY's lawsuit is reviewed and congressional "leaders" (can anyone actually name a true "leader" in congress these days?) review the facts. So it may be that Bush decides not to fight for this deal after all.
Elliot Mathatmacoat answered on 03/03/06:just another case of the Bush sell out to the Middle East | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 03/01/06 - Iraq Is the Iraq Civil War a creation of the media?
Jack Mathatmacoat answered on 03/03/06:No the iraq civil war is a legitimate expression of the aspirations of the people. When you have a majority who have been oppressed for a long tome and a minority who have lost power because of outside interferrence it's not suprising you will get conflict. the big question is what is fueling it al quaeda, Iran, Syria or something else.
One thing is certain, the democratic model may not work on the first implementation, it might have to be forged in blood as it has in other places | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/24/06 - GOOGLE & CHINA:
"For the first time in what some fear will signal a growing trend, Google Inc. has banned and removed a mainstream news website from all its worldwide search engines, seemingly due to the website's reports on China's geopolitical affairs and military technology."
Source: Prison Planet.com (Propaganda Matrix)
Do you think this is a good move if it's true?
HANK
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/03/06:well what do you expect, money is involved | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/27/06 - Ecoterrorism After watching Seinfeld last night I happened upon a program called Source Code on the Free Speech Network. The episode was discussing how the Bush administration and the Patriot Act had criminalized the "free speech" of environmental activists. After all, these people aren't terrorists, they're just engaging in "civil disobedience" as their preferred method of exercising their right of "free speech." One of those interviewed described how the Patriot Act was eroding our rights, right down to "freedom of thought."
The show then went on to inform us that "Former Animal Liberation Front Warrior Rodney Coronado" was indicted for making a speech. That of course got me curious.
So who is this Coronado guy? He's quoted in the above linked article above as saying activists are "doing the only thing they know to do and that is strike a match and draw a whole lot of attention to their dissatisfaction with protecting the environment" (but destroying a human's environment is apparently ok).
Coronado was found guilty of "Conspiracy to Impede or Injure an Officer of the United
States, Interfering with a Forest Officer and Depredation of Government Property" in December of last year. Coronado served four years in prison for his part in burning down an animal-testing lab at Michigan State University in 1992. The current charge, "the felony charge of demonstrating the use of a destructive device. Though he isn't charged in the fire, he gave the speech "as the University City housing complex smoldered from an arson 2 years ago," a $50 million arson job in the San Diego area where the Earth Liberation Front left a 12 foot banner reading "If you build it, we will burn it."
Should "Teaching people how to build explosives in order to commit violent crimes" or threatening "If you build it, we will burn it" be illegal, or is it protected free speech?
Is burning down a housing complex, spiking trees, setting lab animals free, etc. acceptable" civil disobedience"?
Is ecoterrorism really terrorism?
Steve Mathatmacoat answered on 03/03/06:of course ecoterrorism is terrorism. It's an attempt to interfer with the communities freedom of action for political purposes and if it danages property, causes people to fear what action might be taken next, it's terrorism | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 03/02/06 - Itty bitty pussy cats
Hello experts:
George W. Bush and a secret service agent are taking a stroll when they come upon a little girl carrying a basket with a blanket over it. Curious, Bush asks the girl, "What's in the basket?"
She replies "New baby kittens", and she opens the basket to show him.
"How nice", says Bush. "What kind are they?"
The little girl says, "Republicans". Bush smiles, pats the little girl on the head and continues on.
Three weeks later, Bush is taking another stroll, this time with Karl Rove. They see the little girl again with the same basket.
Bush says, "Watch this Karl....it's really cute." They approach the little girl. Bush greets here and asks how the kittens are doing and she says "Fine".
Then, smirking, Bush nudges Rove with his elbow and asks the little girl, "And can you tell us what kind of kittens they are?".
She replies "Democrats".
Aghast, Bush says, "But three weeks ago you said they were Republicans!"
"I know" she says, "But now their eyes are open".
excon
Mathatmacoat answered on 03/03/06:good one ex | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/02/06 - This is just wrong Teacher's anti-U.S. diatribe caught on tape
America 'probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth'
Posted: March 2, 2006
2:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A high school teacher caught by a student on audiotape in an anti-U.S. and anti-capitalism diatribe was placed on administrative leave after the recording was made public.
In the tape (website, or download here), Jay Bennish – teaching a 10th grade world geography class at Overland High School in Aurora, Colo. – called the U.S. "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth" and described capitalism as a system "at odds with human rights."
Bennish told students Jan. 29 he found "eerie similarities" to Bush's statements in his State of the Union speech and things Adolf Hitler said, i.e., "We're the only ones who are right. Everyone else is backwards. And it's our job to conquer the world and make sure they live just like we want them to."
"Now, I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same," Bennish said. "Obviously, they are not. OK. But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very ethnocentric. We're right. You're all wrong.
Twenty minutes of the class was recorded on an MP3 player by student Sean Allen, who can be heard at several points questioning Bennish's declarations.
Bennish has been with the school's social studies faculty since 2000, according to the Denver Post.
An Overland student told KUSA-TV in Denver Bennish's rant was "the usual thing in our school," the only difference being that a tape recorder was there.
"Three quarters of the teachers are anti-Bush – very much so," she said.
Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole said officials are probing the incident but have taken no disciplinary action. The teacher was placed on leave "to take some of the pressure off of him" during the investigation, Amole said, according to the Post.
After listening to the tape, Superintendent Monte Moses told the Denver paper "a breach of district policy" occurred.
"Our policy calls for both sides to be present ... in the interest of intellectual discourse," Moses said.
The 16-year-old student told talk host Mike Rosen of KOA in Denver yesterday he had been disturbed by the "political rants" he heard in Bennish's class.
"If he wants to give an opinion in class, I'm perfectly OK with that," he said. "But he has to give both sides of the story."
Allen said he often has used a recorder to help take notes.
During the Jan. 29 class, the student argued that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were responses to unprovoked attacks on American soil.
Bennish replied that to al-Qaida, 9-11 was a response to U.S. involvement in the Holy Land and to missile attacks during the Clinton administration in Afghanistan and Sudan.
In the mind of al-Qaida, the teacher said, the World Trade Center, the White House, the Pentagon and other buildings are "military targets."
At one point, according to the tape, Bennish asked:
Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?
(Unidentified student responds: We are.)
The United States of America! And we're a democracy.
Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? The United States.
Who's continuing to develop new weapons of mass destruction as we speak? The United States.
So, why does Mr. Bush think that other countries that are democracies won't wanna be like us? Why does he think they'll just wanna be at peace with each other? What makes him think that when the Palestinians get their own state that they won't wanna preemptively invade Israel to eliminate a potential threat to their security just like we supposedly did in Iraq?
Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their sovereignty in the name of protecting us against a potential future – sorry – attack?
On capitalism, Bennish said:
If you don't understand the economic system of capitalism, you don't understand the world in which we live. OK. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing profit.
Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.
Anytime you have a system that is designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive – money – that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etc.
According to the Rocky Mountain News, the school district first learned about Bennish's lecture Feb. 22 when someone forwarded an online column by Walter Williams. The same day, Allen's father contacted the school's principal, who forwarded the complaint to the district.
The district says its investigation will be completed this week.
As WorldNetDaily reported in November, talk host Sean Hannity urged college students to fight back against left-wing indoctrination in class by recording professors' lectures.
"All you college kids out there, check your state laws, check your campus laws," said Hannity on his national radio program.
"Get your little tape recorders if legal, and I want you to start recording these left-wingers. Bring it to this program and we'll start airing it every single time on this program. I'm sick of this indoctrination. I'm sick of this left-wing propaganda."
Hannity's call to action came in the wake of the case of Rebecca Beach, a 19-year-old freshman at Warren County Community College in Washington, N.J., who, as WorldNetDaily first reported, was rebuked sharply by an English professor for her announcement of a campus program featuring a decorated Iraq war hero.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is this what we pay our public school teachers for? If I still had kids in school I would be visiting their classes. Mathatmacoat answered on 03/03/06:what do you mean diatribe, it's the truth. Even Michiel Gorbachov former Russian leader has said that the end of the cold war left America with a superiority complex.
Teachers should tell children the truth, that society isn't perfect and that changes are necessary. If it's done constructively, then perhaps there will be change. Don't you think the kids know they are being lied to when they get the rosie flag waving from the school and yet there is bullying and violence in the schools | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 02/25/06 - Who wrote these words and in what context ?? "We should not confine ourselves within narrowly-defined frontiers because this would mean we would be going voluntarily to that form of internal exile... called the homeland".
Mathatmacoat answered on 02/27/06:Salman Rushdie | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 05/05/05 - How to destroy the USA We all know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of American's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor named Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, "Mexifornia," explaining how immigration - both legal and illegal - was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.
Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that 'An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.'"
"Here is how they do it," Lamm said:
First to destroy America, "Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.
"The historical scholar Seymour Lipset put it this way: 'The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.' Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans."
Lamm went on:
Second, to destroy America, "Invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.
Third, "We could make the United States an 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: 'The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.'"
Lamm said, "I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America reinforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."
"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school."
"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology.' I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population."
"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other - that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games. A common enemy Persia threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to over come two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell. "E. Pluribus Unum" -- From many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'Unum,' we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo."
"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits ~ make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity.' I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century - that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' or 'xenophobe' halt discussion and debate."
"Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of 'Victimology,' I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them."
In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said, "Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."
There was no applause. A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today. Every discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate 'diversity.' American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America - take note of California and other states - to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell's book ��." In that story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: "War is peace," "Freedom is slavery," and "Ignorance is strength."
Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy is deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don't get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream. Mathatmacoat answered on 05/05/05:Well, at last someone is thinking clearly, this fellow is to be applauded for his williness to standup and be counted and to actually say, stem the tide of multiculturism. It's too bad he will be like King Canute. | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 10/27/04 - Just heard this today Might apply to politics, might not:
"People are nothing but bastard-coated bastards, with a bastard filling."
Agree or disagree?
The way my day has gone today, I'm gonna agree for now.
DK Mathatmacoat answered on 10/27/04:I think you are too cynical DK, now if you were referring only to politicans but it's too general |
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