Ex-FBI official says he's 'Deep Throat'
Magazine quotes him as saying he was 'doing his duty'
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 12:23 p.m. ET May 31, 2005
W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday.
'"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John D. O'Connor, the author of Vanity Fair's exclusive that appears in its July issue.
Felt, now 91 and living in Santa Rosa, Calif., reportedly gave O'Connor permission to disclose his identity.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Headless Goat
DEPT. OF FOREIGN RELATIONS
THE BORAT DOCTRINE
Issue of 2004-09-20Posted 2004-09-13
Roman Vassilenko, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan, wants to clear up a few misconceptions about his country. Women are not kept in cages. The national sport is not shooting a dog and then having a party. You cannot earn a living being a Gypsy catcher. Wine is not made from fermented horse urine. It is not customary for a man to grab another man’s khrum. “Khrum” is not the word for testicles.
These falsehoods, and many others, have been spread by Borat, a character on “Da Ali G Show,” which recently finished its second season on HBO. Like Ali G, Borat is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, a British comedian who specializes in prank interviews. As Borat, Cohen has told a dating service that he is looking for a girl with “plow experience,” persuaded a meeting of Oklahoma City officials to observe a ten-minute silence in memory of the (fictitious) Tishnik Massacre, and, most notably, led a country-and-Western bar in a sing-along of “In My Country There Is Problem,” whose chorus goes: “Throw the Jew down the well / So my country can be free / You must grab him by his horns / Then we have a big party.”
It was partly Borat’s casual but relentless anti-Semitism that led Vassilenko to object publicly, in a letter to The Hill, a Washington weekly. (In real life, Cohen is an observant Jew, but the Anti-Defamation League also condemned him, arguing that “the irony may have been lost on some of the audience.”) “He says things that make people think that Kazakhstan really is a backward country,” Vassilenko said last week from his office in Washington. In Borat’s Kazakhstan, Jews attack people with their claws, and “Dirty Jew” is a popular film. But the real Kazakhstan has long embraced its thriving Jewish community, according to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and earlier this month the country dedicated the largest synagogue in Central Asia. “The President of the country came down, as well as the chief rabbi of Israel,” Vassilenko said. “There were all kinds of rabbis from around the world, and a New Yorker. He was not a rabbi, but you might be interested to know the name. The name is Ronald Lauder.”
Vassilenko is also chagrined at Borat’s portrayal of women in Kazakh society, epitomized by his claim that “in Kazakhstan we say, ‘God, man, horse, dog, then woman, then rat.’ ” Vassilenko said, “I don’t think our women like that, not to mention the men. We have women ministers, women judges, businesspeople.” Nor should Borat have been appalled, as he was in one episode, to learn that American women can vote. American and Kazakh women both got the vote, Vassilenko pointed out, on August 26, 1920.
It turns out that almost nothing about Borat’s Kazakhstan withstands scrutiny. Borat doesn’t look like an ethnic Kazakh. His Kazakh words “resemble some gibberish Polish,” Vassilenko said. And, while Borat has claimed that “in Kazakhstan the favorite hobbies are disco dancing, archery, rape, and table tennis,” Vassilenko concedes only the first and the last. Archery is “not prominent,” he said, and statistics show that the Kazakh sexual-assault rate is far lower than the United States’. (That may be because the crime is more likely to go unreported.)
So what is the national sport of Kazakhstan? “The most known ones are wrestling and all kinds of sports that try people in how they master horses,” Vassilenko said. “Kazakhs were traditional nomads, so there are various sports like horse races. Another horseback sport is called something like Catch a—what is name?—Catch a Bride. And that is that a group of young guys race to get a bride, and she races away from them and they have to catch her while she fends them off with a whip.” This sport does not result in actual matrimony—just a kiss.
According to Borat, a Kazakh man gets a wife by buying a woman from her father for fifteen gallons of insecticide. Vassilenko disputes this, too: “The men propose marriage with engagement rings.” There is an old tradition—“maybe a hundred years ago,” Vassilenko said—of men kidnapping their brides, but he claims that the practice is virtually obsolete. Also, he said, “If you want to do it for fun, you can do that,” but the woman has to be in on it.
Travel guides mention a Kazakh sport called kokpar, a precursor of polo. When Vassilenko was asked about it, he hesitated, then explained, “That’s the one where a goat, a dead goat”—a headless dead goat—“is, um, being held as a sort of a prize. And then one rider has it, and he has to run away with it from others who seek to catch it and snatch it from him.” And then they have a party.
THE BORAT DOCTRINE
Issue of 2004-09-20Posted 2004-09-13
Roman Vassilenko, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan, wants to clear up a few misconceptions about his country. Women are not kept in cages. The national sport is not shooting a dog and then having a party. You cannot earn a living being a Gypsy catcher. Wine is not made from fermented horse urine. It is not customary for a man to grab another man’s khrum. “Khrum” is not the word for testicles.
These falsehoods, and many others, have been spread by Borat, a character on “Da Ali G Show,” which recently finished its second season on HBO. Like Ali G, Borat is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, a British comedian who specializes in prank interviews. As Borat, Cohen has told a dating service that he is looking for a girl with “plow experience,” persuaded a meeting of Oklahoma City officials to observe a ten-minute silence in memory of the (fictitious) Tishnik Massacre, and, most notably, led a country-and-Western bar in a sing-along of “In My Country There Is Problem,” whose chorus goes: “Throw the Jew down the well / So my country can be free / You must grab him by his horns / Then we have a big party.”
It was partly Borat’s casual but relentless anti-Semitism that led Vassilenko to object publicly, in a letter to The Hill, a Washington weekly. (In real life, Cohen is an observant Jew, but the Anti-Defamation League also condemned him, arguing that “the irony may have been lost on some of the audience.”) “He says things that make people think that Kazakhstan really is a backward country,” Vassilenko said last week from his office in Washington. In Borat’s Kazakhstan, Jews attack people with their claws, and “Dirty Jew” is a popular film. But the real Kazakhstan has long embraced its thriving Jewish community, according to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and earlier this month the country dedicated the largest synagogue in Central Asia. “The President of the country came down, as well as the chief rabbi of Israel,” Vassilenko said. “There were all kinds of rabbis from around the world, and a New Yorker. He was not a rabbi, but you might be interested to know the name. The name is Ronald Lauder.”
Vassilenko is also chagrined at Borat’s portrayal of women in Kazakh society, epitomized by his claim that “in Kazakhstan we say, ‘God, man, horse, dog, then woman, then rat.’ ” Vassilenko said, “I don’t think our women like that, not to mention the men. We have women ministers, women judges, businesspeople.” Nor should Borat have been appalled, as he was in one episode, to learn that American women can vote. American and Kazakh women both got the vote, Vassilenko pointed out, on August 26, 1920.
It turns out that almost nothing about Borat’s Kazakhstan withstands scrutiny. Borat doesn’t look like an ethnic Kazakh. His Kazakh words “resemble some gibberish Polish,” Vassilenko said. And, while Borat has claimed that “in Kazakhstan the favorite hobbies are disco dancing, archery, rape, and table tennis,” Vassilenko concedes only the first and the last. Archery is “not prominent,” he said, and statistics show that the Kazakh sexual-assault rate is far lower than the United States’. (That may be because the crime is more likely to go unreported.)
So what is the national sport of Kazakhstan? “The most known ones are wrestling and all kinds of sports that try people in how they master horses,” Vassilenko said. “Kazakhs were traditional nomads, so there are various sports like horse races. Another horseback sport is called something like Catch a—what is name?—Catch a Bride. And that is that a group of young guys race to get a bride, and she races away from them and they have to catch her while she fends them off with a whip.” This sport does not result in actual matrimony—just a kiss.
According to Borat, a Kazakh man gets a wife by buying a woman from her father for fifteen gallons of insecticide. Vassilenko disputes this, too: “The men propose marriage with engagement rings.” There is an old tradition—“maybe a hundred years ago,” Vassilenko said—of men kidnapping their brides, but he claims that the practice is virtually obsolete. Also, he said, “If you want to do it for fun, you can do that,” but the woman has to be in on it.
Travel guides mention a Kazakh sport called kokpar, a precursor of polo. When Vassilenko was asked about it, he hesitated, then explained, “That’s the one where a goat, a dead goat”—a headless dead goat—“is, um, being held as a sort of a prize. And then one rider has it, and he has to run away with it from others who seek to catch it and snatch it from him.” And then they have a party.
Mmmmmmm, Peppermint
Peppermint, cinnamon lower drivers' frustration, increase alertness
The scent of peppermint or cinnamon in a vehicle might make driving less frustrating and keep drivers more alert behind the wheel. That's according to the results of a recent study led by Dr. Bryan Raudenbush, an associate professor of psychology at Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, W.V. According to the study, drivers demonstrated decreased levels of frustration, anxiety and fatigue when exposed to peppermint and cinnamon scents. The study also revealed that drivers were more alert.
I will have to test this theory. Have you ever noticed cinnamon bathroom sprays just make the room smell like....well....
The scent of peppermint or cinnamon in a vehicle might make driving less frustrating and keep drivers more alert behind the wheel. That's according to the results of a recent study led by Dr. Bryan Raudenbush, an associate professor of psychology at Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, W.V. According to the study, drivers demonstrated decreased levels of frustration, anxiety and fatigue when exposed to peppermint and cinnamon scents. The study also revealed that drivers were more alert.
I will have to test this theory. Have you ever noticed cinnamon bathroom sprays just make the room smell like....well....
Not my Governor!
Pathetic litany of a bungled election
By CHI-DOOH LISPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER
I once thought there was a glittery silver lining in all the controversy over counting and recounting after last November's gubernatorial election. The tiny leads for Dino Rossi in the first two counts, and the razor-thin edge for Christine Gregoire in the final recount, proved, it seemed, the adage that every vote counts.
Wasn't this a great real-life civics lesson? How could anyone say that they wouldn't bother voting because it did not matter? But the lesson lost its punch over the past six months. What appeared to be a healthy and robust electoral system has been gradually bled to anemic stupor by incremental disclosures of staggering incompetence in the King County elections department. Behold the pathetic chronological litany:
Dec. 12-13 -- King County Councilman Larry Phillips discovers his name on a list of 561 (later raised to 573) absentee voters whose ballots were rejected because their signatures were not logged into the computer.
Dec. 14 -- 22 ballots are found sitting in counting machines, uncounted.
Dec. 17 -- 150 more mistakenly rejected ballots are found. Elections workers explain that they were in trays overlooked because they were under other trays.
Jan. 5 -- An unknown number of provisional ballots (later set at 348) are found to have been mistakenly counted.
Jan. 7 -- 22 dead people are discovered to have votes recorded in their names.
Jan. 11 -- More than 1,800 more votes are recorded than voters who cast ballots.
Jan. 20 -- An unknown number of federal ballots (issued overseas and allowing straight party preference vote) are rejected, in violation of both federal law and King County policy.
Jan. 23 -- first public disclosure that an unknown number of convicted felons voted.
March 12 -- 40 provisional voters are identified as having cast more than one vote; considerably more provisional ballots were put through counting machines than previously acknowledged.
March 15 -- 660 more provisional ballots were counted mistakenly.
April 2 -- 87 more absentee ballots (later increased to 95) are discovered uncounted. These were actually found a week earlier, but not publicly acknowledged until a snooping reporter asked the right question.
April 5 -- Four election workers are put on leave for mishandling absentee ballots for a special levy election in Renton. Problems included mailings to absentee voters that did not enclose ballots.
April 26 -- A deposition transcript is released, in which King County elections chief Dean Logan discloses (1) another 125 provisional ballots were mistakenly counted; (2) 122 provisional ballots from unregistered voters were counted; (3) 208 absentee ballots set aside for signature verification were forgotten and not counted.
May 19 -- Absentee ballot supervisor admits under oath that (1) she collaborated with her boss to file a false report showing all absentee ballots were accounted for; (2) at least 566 valid absentee ballots were not included in the counts because it was mistakenly believed no signatures were on file.
The trial that began this week in Chelan County Superior Court may disclose irregularities in other counties, but King County stands alone in bungling this election. This is not fraud, as the Republicans claim, but mind-boggling ineptitude. The claim by county elections officials that they performed with 99.8 percent accuracy rings badly off-tune when Gregoire's margin of victory statewide required the system to be 99.999 percent accurate. Space shuttles and tight races have this in common: the error tolerance is minuscule.
No doubt there are many elections workers in King County who toiled long and hard hours trying to do their job properly and conscientiously. They, and the 900,000 of us who voted in King County last November, were betrayed by the indifference or callous disregard of duty by other election workers.
A close and hard-fought election should be an exhilarating exercise in democracy.
But the 2004 governor's race leaves us all with a sour taste in our mouths. Regardless of official and certified results, even sanctioned by the courts, we will never know who really had the most votes.
We saw in the 2000 presidential election how a very close race tainted by controversy resulted in deepened and embittered partisan division. Partisan rancor plagues us more than ever at a time when the issues and the people cry out for bipartisan solutions. The civics lesson is reduced to this: Every vote does count, if it's counted. Hope and pray that every vote that shouldn't count is not counted.
I'll have to file a police report that the silver lining from the 2004 governor's race was stolen.
By CHI-DOOH LISPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER
I once thought there was a glittery silver lining in all the controversy over counting and recounting after last November's gubernatorial election. The tiny leads for Dino Rossi in the first two counts, and the razor-thin edge for Christine Gregoire in the final recount, proved, it seemed, the adage that every vote counts.
Wasn't this a great real-life civics lesson? How could anyone say that they wouldn't bother voting because it did not matter? But the lesson lost its punch over the past six months. What appeared to be a healthy and robust electoral system has been gradually bled to anemic stupor by incremental disclosures of staggering incompetence in the King County elections department. Behold the pathetic chronological litany:
Dec. 12-13 -- King County Councilman Larry Phillips discovers his name on a list of 561 (later raised to 573) absentee voters whose ballots were rejected because their signatures were not logged into the computer.
Dec. 14 -- 22 ballots are found sitting in counting machines, uncounted.
Dec. 17 -- 150 more mistakenly rejected ballots are found. Elections workers explain that they were in trays overlooked because they were under other trays.
Jan. 5 -- An unknown number of provisional ballots (later set at 348) are found to have been mistakenly counted.
Jan. 7 -- 22 dead people are discovered to have votes recorded in their names.
Jan. 11 -- More than 1,800 more votes are recorded than voters who cast ballots.
Jan. 20 -- An unknown number of federal ballots (issued overseas and allowing straight party preference vote) are rejected, in violation of both federal law and King County policy.
Jan. 23 -- first public disclosure that an unknown number of convicted felons voted.
March 12 -- 40 provisional voters are identified as having cast more than one vote; considerably more provisional ballots were put through counting machines than previously acknowledged.
March 15 -- 660 more provisional ballots were counted mistakenly.
April 2 -- 87 more absentee ballots (later increased to 95) are discovered uncounted. These were actually found a week earlier, but not publicly acknowledged until a snooping reporter asked the right question.
April 5 -- Four election workers are put on leave for mishandling absentee ballots for a special levy election in Renton. Problems included mailings to absentee voters that did not enclose ballots.
April 26 -- A deposition transcript is released, in which King County elections chief Dean Logan discloses (1) another 125 provisional ballots were mistakenly counted; (2) 122 provisional ballots from unregistered voters were counted; (3) 208 absentee ballots set aside for signature verification were forgotten and not counted.
May 19 -- Absentee ballot supervisor admits under oath that (1) she collaborated with her boss to file a false report showing all absentee ballots were accounted for; (2) at least 566 valid absentee ballots were not included in the counts because it was mistakenly believed no signatures were on file.
The trial that began this week in Chelan County Superior Court may disclose irregularities in other counties, but King County stands alone in bungling this election. This is not fraud, as the Republicans claim, but mind-boggling ineptitude. The claim by county elections officials that they performed with 99.8 percent accuracy rings badly off-tune when Gregoire's margin of victory statewide required the system to be 99.999 percent accurate. Space shuttles and tight races have this in common: the error tolerance is minuscule.
No doubt there are many elections workers in King County who toiled long and hard hours trying to do their job properly and conscientiously. They, and the 900,000 of us who voted in King County last November, were betrayed by the indifference or callous disregard of duty by other election workers.
A close and hard-fought election should be an exhilarating exercise in democracy.
But the 2004 governor's race leaves us all with a sour taste in our mouths. Regardless of official and certified results, even sanctioned by the courts, we will never know who really had the most votes.
We saw in the 2000 presidential election how a very close race tainted by controversy resulted in deepened and embittered partisan division. Partisan rancor plagues us more than ever at a time when the issues and the people cry out for bipartisan solutions. The civics lesson is reduced to this: Every vote does count, if it's counted. Hope and pray that every vote that shouldn't count is not counted.
I'll have to file a police report that the silver lining from the 2004 governor's race was stolen.
Eurocopter
MARIGNANE, France: On May 14th, 2005 at 7h08 (local time), a serial Ecureuil/AStar AS 350 B3 piloted by the Eurocopter X-test pilot Didier Delsalle, landed at 8,850 meters (29,035ft) on the top of the Mount Everest (Kingdom of Nepal). This tremendous achievement breaks the World Record for the highest altitude landing and take-off ever, which sets an ultimate milestone in the History of Aviation. Fabrice Brégier, President and CEO of the Eurocopter Group, world leading helicopter manufacturer, immediately congratulated the pilot and his team for this extraordinary feat. After taking off from its base camp Lukla on May 14th, 2005 at 2,866 meters (9,403ft) Didier Delsalle onboard his Ecureuil AS350B3 reached the top of Mount Everest. As required by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI - International Aeronautical Federation), the aircraft remained landed on ground more than 2 minutes on the top of the world before flying back to Lukla. This feat was renewed the day after.
Fwance
French in disarray as they admit EU treaty vote is lost
By Charles Bremner in Paris and Philip Webster, Political Editor
THE leader of France’s ruling party has privately admitted that Sunday’s referendum on the European constitution will result in a “no” vote, throwing Europe into turmoil.
“The thing is lost,” Nicolas Sarkozy told French ministers during an ill-tempered meeting. “It will be a little ‘no’ or a big ‘no’,” he was quoted as telling Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, whom he accused of leading a feeble campaign.
Although Europe would be thrown into disarray, the Government would be greatly relieved if M Sarkozy were right. Ministers have privately told The Times that Britain is prepared to ditch its commitment to a referendum if France, or the Netherlands next Wednesday, vote against the constitution. They believe that if the French say “no”, President Chirac will have to declare the constitution dead or promise a renegotiation. Because French voters consider that the treaty has already given too many concessions to Britain, ministers see no likelihood of the Government being able to put a renegotiated treaty to the country.
Tony Blair would instead have to use Britain’s imminent EU presidency to try to save those parts of the constitution that can be enforced without a treaty. That could mean that mechanical changes, such as ending the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, could go through.
The mood of pessimism that descended on the French Government after ten successive polls showing the “no” camp leading was echoed by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President, who drafted the constitution. He blamed the failures of the “yes” campaign on the half-heartedness of France’s leaders. “Our current leaders are of course believers in the idea of Europe but in their heart of hearts they are not men and women who are inspired by a European feeling,” he told a French newspaper. President Chirac will go on television tonight to deliver a last-ditch appeal to his country to resist the temptation to vote “no” and trigger a crisis for the whole European Union.
By Charles Bremner in Paris and Philip Webster, Political Editor
THE leader of France’s ruling party has privately admitted that Sunday’s referendum on the European constitution will result in a “no” vote, throwing Europe into turmoil.
“The thing is lost,” Nicolas Sarkozy told French ministers during an ill-tempered meeting. “It will be a little ‘no’ or a big ‘no’,” he was quoted as telling Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, whom he accused of leading a feeble campaign.
Although Europe would be thrown into disarray, the Government would be greatly relieved if M Sarkozy were right. Ministers have privately told The Times that Britain is prepared to ditch its commitment to a referendum if France, or the Netherlands next Wednesday, vote against the constitution. They believe that if the French say “no”, President Chirac will have to declare the constitution dead or promise a renegotiation. Because French voters consider that the treaty has already given too many concessions to Britain, ministers see no likelihood of the Government being able to put a renegotiated treaty to the country.
Tony Blair would instead have to use Britain’s imminent EU presidency to try to save those parts of the constitution that can be enforced without a treaty. That could mean that mechanical changes, such as ending the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, could go through.
The mood of pessimism that descended on the French Government after ten successive polls showing the “no” camp leading was echoed by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President, who drafted the constitution. He blamed the failures of the “yes” campaign on the half-heartedness of France’s leaders. “Our current leaders are of course believers in the idea of Europe but in their heart of hearts they are not men and women who are inspired by a European feeling,” he told a French newspaper. President Chirac will go on television tonight to deliver a last-ditch appeal to his country to resist the temptation to vote “no” and trigger a crisis for the whole European Union.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Famous Oregonians
Ramblin' Rod?
A
Derroll Adams
Obo Addy
Danny Ainge
Erik Ainge
Ramblin' Rod Anders
B
James Beard
Brad Bird
Meredith Brooks
C
John Callahan (cartoonist)
C cont.
Rod Chandler
D
George Dantzig
Dan Dickau
Mike Dunleavy, Jr.
E
Neil Everett
F
David B. Frohnmayer
G
Slats Gill
Matt Groening
H
Tim Hardin
Mark Hatfield
Howard Hesseman
Ben Howland
I
Terri Irwin
J
Luke Jackson
K
Phil Knight
M
Brent Musburger
O
Austin O'Brien
Dan O'Brien
P
Linus Pauling
Steve Prefontaine
S
Rachael Scdoris
Damon Stoudamire
Sally Struthers
V
Will Vinton
A
Derroll Adams
Obo Addy
Danny Ainge
Erik Ainge
Ramblin' Rod Anders
B
James Beard
Brad Bird
Meredith Brooks
C
John Callahan (cartoonist)
C cont.
Rod Chandler
D
George Dantzig
Dan Dickau
Mike Dunleavy, Jr.
E
Neil Everett
F
David B. Frohnmayer
G
Slats Gill
Matt Groening
H
Tim Hardin
Mark Hatfield
Howard Hesseman
Ben Howland
I
Terri Irwin
J
Luke Jackson
K
Phil Knight
M
Brent Musburger
O
Austin O'Brien
Dan O'Brien
P
Linus Pauling
Steve Prefontaine
S
Rachael Scdoris
Damon Stoudamire
Sally Struthers
V
Will Vinton
NP motherf#cking R
I am losing my mind. After hearing a NPR story this morning by Deborah Amos about the elections in Lebanon, I lost it. How long do we have to stand editorial masquerading as report?
Here is what I sent to their website. I need a vacation.
"Would it be possible to at least attempt objectivity? The use of loaded terms and frankly one-sided analysis make this the kind of report that makes people question NPR's slant. The idea that the "Cedar Revolution" had little to do with the administrations policies in the middle east- from rhetoric to action in Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not realistic, no matter what people who oppose that policy say. I doubt you would have had to look very far for a quote supporting that, but somehow we didn't hear one after a "wide sample" was polled, including some choice words from American professors; supporters of administration policies, no doubt. Also, the editorial/report seemed to indicate the only the administration "labels" Hezbollah a terrorist organization. If they don't fit the definition, who does?
Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States [1] (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2450.htm) the United Kingdom [2] (http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/lebanon/intro/), Canada [3] (http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/publications/advisories/index_supervisory.asp?#Supter)[4] (http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/documents/advisories/docs/entstld.txt) and Australia- the U.S. Department of State notes that Hezbollah has killed more than 300 American citizens (over 200 of whom were Marines in Lebanon.) Russia has only recently begun to draw up a list of organizations it classifies as terrorist, which may reflect that of the EU [6](http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7029-5.cfm). The European Union has designated Hezbollah's so-called External Security Organization or international wing as "terrorist," which can be construed to afford legitimacy to the group's political wing. On March 10, 2005 the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly (473 in favor 33 against) on a resolution branding Hezbollah in whole as a terrorist organization. The resolution stated that the "Parliament considers that clear evidence exists of terrorist activities by Hezbollah. The (EU) Council should take all necessary steps to curtail them"[7] (http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/550729.html). The EU has also decided to block Hezbollah's Al-Manar television from European satellites due to its anti-Semitic content[8] (http://www.daneshjoo.org/publishers/currentnews/printer_1668.shtml). The United Nations has not included Hezbollah on its list of terrorist groups (which is just being drawn up). However it has called for the disbanding of Hezbollah's military wing in the UN Security Council Resolution 1559. Hezbollah has denounced some acts of terror, like the September 11 attacks[9] (http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/hezbollah2.html) and the murder of Nick Berg[10] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3710057.stm). However, as a stated aim of Hezbollah is the destruction of the state of Israel, it expresses support [11] (http://www.unb.ca/web/bruns/9900/issue14/intnews/israel.html) for the activities of Hamas, an Islamist group responsible for suicide attacks inside the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as inside Israel itself.
To give the impression that only America has this view is shoddy reportage."
Here is what I sent to their website. I need a vacation.
"Would it be possible to at least attempt objectivity? The use of loaded terms and frankly one-sided analysis make this the kind of report that makes people question NPR's slant. The idea that the "Cedar Revolution" had little to do with the administrations policies in the middle east- from rhetoric to action in Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not realistic, no matter what people who oppose that policy say. I doubt you would have had to look very far for a quote supporting that, but somehow we didn't hear one after a "wide sample" was polled, including some choice words from American professors; supporters of administration policies, no doubt. Also, the editorial/report seemed to indicate the only the administration "labels" Hezbollah a terrorist organization. If they don't fit the definition, who does?
Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States [1] (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2450.htm) the United Kingdom [2] (http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/lebanon/intro/), Canada [3] (http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/publications/advisories/index_supervisory.asp?#Supter)[4] (http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/documents/advisories/docs/entstld.txt) and Australia- the U.S. Department of State notes that Hezbollah has killed more than 300 American citizens (over 200 of whom were Marines in Lebanon.) Russia has only recently begun to draw up a list of organizations it classifies as terrorist, which may reflect that of the EU [6](http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7029-5.cfm). The European Union has designated Hezbollah's so-called External Security Organization or international wing as "terrorist," which can be construed to afford legitimacy to the group's political wing. On March 10, 2005 the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly (473 in favor 33 against) on a resolution branding Hezbollah in whole as a terrorist organization. The resolution stated that the "Parliament considers that clear evidence exists of terrorist activities by Hezbollah. The (EU) Council should take all necessary steps to curtail them"[7] (http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/550729.html). The EU has also decided to block Hezbollah's Al-Manar television from European satellites due to its anti-Semitic content[8] (http://www.daneshjoo.org/publishers/currentnews/printer_1668.shtml). The United Nations has not included Hezbollah on its list of terrorist groups (which is just being drawn up). However it has called for the disbanding of Hezbollah's military wing in the UN Security Council Resolution 1559. Hezbollah has denounced some acts of terror, like the September 11 attacks[9] (http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/hezbollah2.html) and the murder of Nick Berg[10] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3710057.stm). However, as a stated aim of Hezbollah is the destruction of the state of Israel, it expresses support [11] (http://www.unb.ca/web/bruns/9900/issue14/intnews/israel.html) for the activities of Hamas, an Islamist group responsible for suicide attacks inside the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as inside Israel itself.
To give the impression that only America has this view is shoddy reportage."
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Gordon Smith
Here’s something you don’t read every day—straight talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict:
U.S. Senator Tells Arabs to Focus on Home. (Hat tip: LGF)
Gordon Smith, a Republican senator from Oregon, said the peace process aimed at bringing about an independent Palestinian state is unlikely to win serious backing from the Bush administration without a demonstration of commitment from both sides.
“Until we have someone on the other side who is willing to say ‘Yes,’ we’re not going to continue to prostitute the American presidency to people who aren’t serious,” said Smith, one of six U.S. congressmen who attended the forum. “It’s a mystery to me why Arab countries can’t work on their own countries before Palestine is fixed,” he added.
“Obviously one of the greatest commitments that we have is to the Jewish people and the state of Israel, to try and manage the difficult process of the peace there and securing that nation, and doing so in a way that, if possible, is just to the Palestinians,” Smith told a panel that included Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, top officials from Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as academics from Iran and Turkey.
ABC News doesn’t describe the audience reaction, but I don’t think it was a standing ovation.
U.S. Senator Tells Arabs to Focus on Home. (Hat tip: LGF)
Gordon Smith, a Republican senator from Oregon, said the peace process aimed at bringing about an independent Palestinian state is unlikely to win serious backing from the Bush administration without a demonstration of commitment from both sides.
“Until we have someone on the other side who is willing to say ‘Yes,’ we’re not going to continue to prostitute the American presidency to people who aren’t serious,” said Smith, one of six U.S. congressmen who attended the forum. “It’s a mystery to me why Arab countries can’t work on their own countries before Palestine is fixed,” he added.
“Obviously one of the greatest commitments that we have is to the Jewish people and the state of Israel, to try and manage the difficult process of the peace there and securing that nation, and doing so in a way that, if possible, is just to the Palestinians,” Smith told a panel that included Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, top officials from Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as academics from Iran and Turkey.
ABC News doesn’t describe the audience reaction, but I don’t think it was a standing ovation.
Germany/America
In case you missed what happened in Germany yesterday
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110006726
this analysis might be a tad simplistic - and who knows how nasty the federal election campaign will be - but it clearly demonstrates the sick scapegoating that has been going on here for far too long.
For those of you who think that this is REALLY just about the relationship between President George W. Bush and Europe, I humbly ask you to reconsider. The animosity and resentment being fermented and exploited are - I put to you - of a far more serious caliber.
Carl
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110006726
this analysis might be a tad simplistic - and who knows how nasty the federal election campaign will be - but it clearly demonstrates the sick scapegoating that has been going on here for far too long.
For those of you who think that this is REALLY just about the relationship between President George W. Bush and Europe, I humbly ask you to reconsider. The animosity and resentment being fermented and exploited are - I put to you - of a far more serious caliber.
Carl
Friday, May 20, 2005
Portland Judge Anti-Chiefing
A West Linn High student, 17, accused of violating her probation will spend at least a few days behind bars
Thursday, May 19, 2005
AIMEE GREEN
OREGON CITY -- A Clackamas County Juvenile Court judge sent a 17-year-old girl to jail Wednesday for violating her probation after she was accused of drinking at the West Linn High School prom April 30.
"Either you have a drinking problem beyond your control or you don't have regard for probation," Judge Deanne Darling told the teen before sending her to Donald E. Long juvenile detention center until her next court appearance Monday.
Darling sentenced the teen last month to probation for using permanent marker to scribble an obscene message on the genital area of a girl who passed out at a post-prom party in May 2004. The message implied that the girl had been raped.
The teen's attorney at the time said the teen was drunk that night, and that contributed to her bad judgment. As part of the teen's probation, Darling had ordered her not to use alcohol, to receive a drug and alcohol assessment and to complete 80 hours of community service.
The Oregonian is not identifying the teen because she is a minor.
According to court files, West Linn High officials at this year's prom suspected the teen of being drunk because she smelled of alcohol. A handheld Breathalyzer indicated that her blood-alcohol level was between 0.10 and 0.20 percent. In Oregon, the legal limit is 0.08 percent.
The teen was one of five West Linn High students ticketed at the prom on accusations of alcohol possession.
Gay Canaday, the teen's attorney for the recent charge, asked the judge to place the girl under house arrest except during school hours. "I know she is willing to accept the consequences," Canaday said.
Darling told the teen that if she's found guilty, she could spend a year in jail for violating her probation. For underage drinking, the teen could lose her driver's license for as much as a year and pay a fine.
The judge said that for the next five days, she thought it would be best to send the teen to the detention center.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
AIMEE GREEN
OREGON CITY -- A Clackamas County Juvenile Court judge sent a 17-year-old girl to jail Wednesday for violating her probation after she was accused of drinking at the West Linn High School prom April 30.
"Either you have a drinking problem beyond your control or you don't have regard for probation," Judge Deanne Darling told the teen before sending her to Donald E. Long juvenile detention center until her next court appearance Monday.
Darling sentenced the teen last month to probation for using permanent marker to scribble an obscene message on the genital area of a girl who passed out at a post-prom party in May 2004. The message implied that the girl had been raped.
The teen's attorney at the time said the teen was drunk that night, and that contributed to her bad judgment. As part of the teen's probation, Darling had ordered her not to use alcohol, to receive a drug and alcohol assessment and to complete 80 hours of community service.
The Oregonian is not identifying the teen because she is a minor.
According to court files, West Linn High officials at this year's prom suspected the teen of being drunk because she smelled of alcohol. A handheld Breathalyzer indicated that her blood-alcohol level was between 0.10 and 0.20 percent. In Oregon, the legal limit is 0.08 percent.
The teen was one of five West Linn High students ticketed at the prom on accusations of alcohol possession.
Gay Canaday, the teen's attorney for the recent charge, asked the judge to place the girl under house arrest except during school hours. "I know she is willing to accept the consequences," Canaday said.
Darling told the teen that if she's found guilty, she could spend a year in jail for violating her probation. For underage drinking, the teen could lose her driver's license for as much as a year and pay a fine.
The judge said that for the next five days, she thought it would be best to send the teen to the detention center.
Powerline
Great reponse to the Saddam/underoos story from Powerline:
As you've undoubtedly heard, someone took photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear in his prison cell and sold them to the New York Post the London's Sun newspaper. The Sun published one photo today, and announced it will have more tomorrow. The Army is investigating to find out what happened, as taking and disseminating the photos is a violation of Army policy. Everyone is denouncing the violation of Saddam's rights, talking about the Geneva Convention, etc.
Whatever. Saddam used to have his minions make videos when they would torture, rape and murder his political opponents (or anyone else who happened to run afoul of the ruling gang of criminals). Saddam and his cohorts would watch these videos for fun. (Hitler did the same thing, by the way--one of the rare Hitler analogies that is actually justified.) So do I have a lot of sympathy because Saddam got photographed in his underwear, folding a pair of slacks in what looks, not like a jail cell, but like a hotel room? Um, no. I don't.
The usual suspects are invoking the usual litany of horrors. The Associated Press reports:
Saddam's chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team would sue The Sun because the photos represent "an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people." "It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."
He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So Saddam will sue the Sun and the Post? Can I volunteer to be on the jury?
Al Jazeera's reaction was puzzling, to say the least:
Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for the Al-Jazeera network, said his network did not show the pictures because it had ethical and professional concerns. "The photo is demeaning to Iraqis," he said, adding that "from the professional side, it is not news."
It's nice to know that Al Jazeera has "ethical and professional concerns." I hadn't noticed that before, especially when they were showing videos of Westerners having their heads cut off, or photos of captured and dead American soldiers.
Finally, note this bit of editorializing by the AP reporter:
"President Bush said Friday he did not believe the photos would incite further anti-American sentiment in Iraq, which is edging toward open sectarian conflict."
Really? Open sectarian conflict? If it were true, that would seem to be a news flash worth a story of its own, not a snarky aside in an article on Saddam's underwear.
As you've undoubtedly heard, someone took photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear in his prison cell and sold them to the New York Post the London's Sun newspaper. The Sun published one photo today, and announced it will have more tomorrow. The Army is investigating to find out what happened, as taking and disseminating the photos is a violation of Army policy. Everyone is denouncing the violation of Saddam's rights, talking about the Geneva Convention, etc.
Whatever. Saddam used to have his minions make videos when they would torture, rape and murder his political opponents (or anyone else who happened to run afoul of the ruling gang of criminals). Saddam and his cohorts would watch these videos for fun. (Hitler did the same thing, by the way--one of the rare Hitler analogies that is actually justified.) So do I have a lot of sympathy because Saddam got photographed in his underwear, folding a pair of slacks in what looks, not like a jail cell, but like a hotel room? Um, no. I don't.
The usual suspects are invoking the usual litany of horrors. The Associated Press reports:
Saddam's chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team would sue The Sun because the photos represent "an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people." "It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."
He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So Saddam will sue the Sun and the Post? Can I volunteer to be on the jury?
Al Jazeera's reaction was puzzling, to say the least:
Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for the Al-Jazeera network, said his network did not show the pictures because it had ethical and professional concerns. "The photo is demeaning to Iraqis," he said, adding that "from the professional side, it is not news."
It's nice to know that Al Jazeera has "ethical and professional concerns." I hadn't noticed that before, especially when they were showing videos of Westerners having their heads cut off, or photos of captured and dead American soldiers.
Finally, note this bit of editorializing by the AP reporter:
"President Bush said Friday he did not believe the photos would incite further anti-American sentiment in Iraq, which is edging toward open sectarian conflict."
Really? Open sectarian conflict? If it were true, that would seem to be a news flash worth a story of its own, not a snarky aside in an article on Saddam's underwear.
Jim Morrison
Filmmaker Claims Jim Morrison Is Alive In Oregon NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) – Here’s news that will light the fire of Jim Morrison fans: A filmmaker claims The Doors’ frontman is alive and raising horses on a ranch in southern Oregon.
Rodeo photographer Gerald Pitts insists Morrison didn’t die in July of 1971 and he has current photographs and film footage of the rocker to prove it.
Pitts, who met Morrison in 1998, says the rocker staged his death because of a French conspiracy to kill him, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix with narcotics because they were all Vietnam war protestors.
These days, Morrison isn’t the drug user he once was, although Pitts says when he goes over to Jim’s house he’ll “maybe have an occasional beer.”
Now Pitts claims that Morrison is announcing he’s alive, in part, to promote his recent agreement to star in a rodeo shoot-out movie based on events that actually happened to Pitts.
Pitts’ whole story airs on A Current Affair tomorrow (May 20).
Rodeo photographer Gerald Pitts insists Morrison didn’t die in July of 1971 and he has current photographs and film footage of the rocker to prove it.
Pitts, who met Morrison in 1998, says the rocker staged his death because of a French conspiracy to kill him, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix with narcotics because they were all Vietnam war protestors.
These days, Morrison isn’t the drug user he once was, although Pitts says when he goes over to Jim’s house he’ll “maybe have an occasional beer.”
Now Pitts claims that Morrison is announcing he’s alive, in part, to promote his recent agreement to star in a rodeo shoot-out movie based on events that actually happened to Pitts.
Pitts’ whole story airs on A Current Affair tomorrow (May 20).
Religion of Peace
Protesters chant 'bomb New York' 20 May 2005
A crowd of hardline Islamic protesters chanted the name of Osama bin Laden outside the US Embassy in London today. The protesters included many men whose faces were covered by their headscarves and at least a number of women. Their demonstration "against the desecration of the Koran" was being held yards from the steps of the Embassy in Grosvenor Square, which was guarded by a small detail of police.
The crowd, led by a man on a megaphone, chanted "USA watch your back, Osama is coming back" and "Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush". They also chanted "Bomb, bomb New York" and "George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head". Angry demonstrators waved placards which included the message: "Desecrate today and see another 9/11 tomorrow."
Such a charming people. Remember this blast from the past? As Islamist groups rage and riot and declare holy war over Newsweek’s now-retracted “Quran desecration” story, it may be helpful, for the sake of clarity, to remember what happened in April 2002 when Palestinian terrorists took over Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and held priests and nuns hostage for weeks.
On April 24, the Jerusalem Post reported on the damage that the PA forces were causing:
Three Armenian monks, who had been held hostage by the Palestinian gunmen inside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, managed to flee the church area via a side gate yesterday morning. They immediately thanked the soldiers for rescuing them. They told army officers the gunmen had stolen gold and other property, including crucifixes and prayer books, and had caused damage.... One of the monks, Narkiss Korasian, later told reporters: “They stole everything, they opened the doors one by one and stole everything....They stole our prayer books and four crosses...they didn’t leave anything. Thank you for your help, we will never forget it.” Israeli officials said the monks said the gunmen had also begun beating and attacking clergymen. When the siege finally ended, the PA soldiers left the church in terrible condition: The Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity seized church stockpiles of food and “ate like greedy monsters” until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry. They also guzzled beer, wine, and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests’ quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol. The indulgence lasted for about two weeks into the 39-day siege, when the food and drink ran out, according to an account by four Greek Orthodox priests who were trapped inside for the entire ordeal.... The Orthodox priests and a number of civilians have said the gunmen created a regime of fear. Even in the Roman Catholic areas of the complex there was evidence of disregard for religious norms. Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed. “Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold,” said a Franciscan, the Rev. Nicholas Marquez from Mexico.
Wake up and smell the hypocrisy
A crowd of hardline Islamic protesters chanted the name of Osama bin Laden outside the US Embassy in London today. The protesters included many men whose faces were covered by their headscarves and at least a number of women. Their demonstration "against the desecration of the Koran" was being held yards from the steps of the Embassy in Grosvenor Square, which was guarded by a small detail of police.
The crowd, led by a man on a megaphone, chanted "USA watch your back, Osama is coming back" and "Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush". They also chanted "Bomb, bomb New York" and "George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head". Angry demonstrators waved placards which included the message: "Desecrate today and see another 9/11 tomorrow."
Such a charming people. Remember this blast from the past? As Islamist groups rage and riot and declare holy war over Newsweek’s now-retracted “Quran desecration” story, it may be helpful, for the sake of clarity, to remember what happened in April 2002 when Palestinian terrorists took over Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and held priests and nuns hostage for weeks.
On April 24, the Jerusalem Post reported on the damage that the PA forces were causing:
Three Armenian monks, who had been held hostage by the Palestinian gunmen inside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, managed to flee the church area via a side gate yesterday morning. They immediately thanked the soldiers for rescuing them. They told army officers the gunmen had stolen gold and other property, including crucifixes and prayer books, and had caused damage.... One of the monks, Narkiss Korasian, later told reporters: “They stole everything, they opened the doors one by one and stole everything....They stole our prayer books and four crosses...they didn’t leave anything. Thank you for your help, we will never forget it.” Israeli officials said the monks said the gunmen had also begun beating and attacking clergymen. When the siege finally ended, the PA soldiers left the church in terrible condition: The Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity seized church stockpiles of food and “ate like greedy monsters” until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry. They also guzzled beer, wine, and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests’ quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol. The indulgence lasted for about two weeks into the 39-day siege, when the food and drink ran out, according to an account by four Greek Orthodox priests who were trapped inside for the entire ordeal.... The Orthodox priests and a number of civilians have said the gunmen created a regime of fear. Even in the Roman Catholic areas of the complex there was evidence of disregard for religious norms. Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed. “Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold,” said a Franciscan, the Rev. Nicholas Marquez from Mexico.
Wake up and smell the hypocrisy
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Speedway Togs
“Is that a Langlitz?”
In the bustling pavilion of New York’s Grand Central Terminal, an unlikely place for conversation between strangers about leather jackets, a stylish woman in Prada stops me midstride. Her husband wears a Langlitz, both on and off his Harley, she informs me, and she recognized the craftsmanship and distinctive fit.I am indeed wearing a Langlitz, a symbol of vigor and cool since Marlon Brando was The Wild One. Clark Gable wore one, and Springsteen wears one now. Its 10 pounds of leather hug my torso like a bespoke suit, shielding me from any harm, and giving me that same sense of swagger and resolution one feels when wearing a Patek Calatrava or a pair of John Lobbs.The Langlitz family has been making leather jackets at its shop in Portland, Ore., since Ross Langlitz created the pattern in 1947. Seated at wooden benches scarred by decades of craftsmen’s toil, 16 seamstresses and leather cutters construct jackets whose design has changed little over the past 55 years. They hammer and stitch carefully selected hides into modern-day gladiatorial armor that allows you to walk away from a 40-mph slide across asphalt.A devout motorcycle racer, Langlitz recognized that jackets popularized by World War II aviators were inadequate for riding a motorcycle in the wind or rain. His solution remains the quintessential design for almost all riding jackets: offset front zipper and wind flap, zippered wrist openings, cantilevered sleeves to accentuate the riding position, lengthened rear panel to cover the lower back, and side and armpit gussets for maneuverability.When I arrive at the shop for my fitting, manager Dave Hansen has me take a seat on the saddle of a vintage Harley Springer. Evel Knievel was here in the shop almost 30 years ago for a last-minute fitting just before going to Los Angeles to jump 50 cars at the Coliseum. Hansen tells me this as he records the 12 measurements that he will use to create my personal pattern. He also shares the stories of a rider who was injured in an accident and refused to allow the paramedics to cut off his Langlitz, and of the bank robber whose first stop after serving a nine-year prison sentence was to Langlitz to get measured for a new jacket. I don’t doubt the veracity of any of Hansen’s stories.A custom Langlitz costs about $1,000—more if you want hidden sleeve pockets, extra padding at the shoulders and elbows, goatskin, or a leather-lined gun pocket. Almost anything is possible, as long as it doesn’t tamper with the jacket’s basic structure.After the fitting, leather cutters spend a half-day producing the pattern, and seamstresses take at least a day sewing the pieces together. Jackets are usually delivered about six months after the fitting. Stitched into the map pocket of each jacket are its serial number, the date the jacket was made, and the owner’s name.The first time you lift it onto your shoulders, the perfect fit, its craftsmanship, its heritage, and, of course, its cool factor give you a sense of invincibility, a feeling that there’s no road you can’t handle on your bike and no challenge you can’t conquer off of it. Call it confidence or call it bravado, but it is probably what gave me away at Grand Central.
Langlitz Leathers, 503.235.0959, www.langlitz.com
In the bustling pavilion of New York’s Grand Central Terminal, an unlikely place for conversation between strangers about leather jackets, a stylish woman in Prada stops me midstride. Her husband wears a Langlitz, both on and off his Harley, she informs me, and she recognized the craftsmanship and distinctive fit.I am indeed wearing a Langlitz, a symbol of vigor and cool since Marlon Brando was The Wild One. Clark Gable wore one, and Springsteen wears one now. Its 10 pounds of leather hug my torso like a bespoke suit, shielding me from any harm, and giving me that same sense of swagger and resolution one feels when wearing a Patek Calatrava or a pair of John Lobbs.The Langlitz family has been making leather jackets at its shop in Portland, Ore., since Ross Langlitz created the pattern in 1947. Seated at wooden benches scarred by decades of craftsmen’s toil, 16 seamstresses and leather cutters construct jackets whose design has changed little over the past 55 years. They hammer and stitch carefully selected hides into modern-day gladiatorial armor that allows you to walk away from a 40-mph slide across asphalt.A devout motorcycle racer, Langlitz recognized that jackets popularized by World War II aviators were inadequate for riding a motorcycle in the wind or rain. His solution remains the quintessential design for almost all riding jackets: offset front zipper and wind flap, zippered wrist openings, cantilevered sleeves to accentuate the riding position, lengthened rear panel to cover the lower back, and side and armpit gussets for maneuverability.When I arrive at the shop for my fitting, manager Dave Hansen has me take a seat on the saddle of a vintage Harley Springer. Evel Knievel was here in the shop almost 30 years ago for a last-minute fitting just before going to Los Angeles to jump 50 cars at the Coliseum. Hansen tells me this as he records the 12 measurements that he will use to create my personal pattern. He also shares the stories of a rider who was injured in an accident and refused to allow the paramedics to cut off his Langlitz, and of the bank robber whose first stop after serving a nine-year prison sentence was to Langlitz to get measured for a new jacket. I don’t doubt the veracity of any of Hansen’s stories.A custom Langlitz costs about $1,000—more if you want hidden sleeve pockets, extra padding at the shoulders and elbows, goatskin, or a leather-lined gun pocket. Almost anything is possible, as long as it doesn’t tamper with the jacket’s basic structure.After the fitting, leather cutters spend a half-day producing the pattern, and seamstresses take at least a day sewing the pieces together. Jackets are usually delivered about six months after the fitting. Stitched into the map pocket of each jacket are its serial number, the date the jacket was made, and the owner’s name.The first time you lift it onto your shoulders, the perfect fit, its craftsmanship, its heritage, and, of course, its cool factor give you a sense of invincibility, a feeling that there’s no road you can’t handle on your bike and no challenge you can’t conquer off of it. Call it confidence or call it bravado, but it is probably what gave me away at Grand Central.
Langlitz Leathers, 503.235.0959, www.langlitz.com
http://www.chicagocrime.org/types/
If you want to know where to buy street drugs or hire the services of a prostitute in Chicago, this web site, which pinpoints the location of crimes using Google maps, would certainly be helpful.
Free books online
This site is pretty cool- 70+ books for free in PDF-
http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1
http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1
Short Story
Let's get some culture up in this bizzatch. Hit the link for the whole story. Word.
The Harvest
by Amy Hempel
The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.
The man was not hurt when the other car hit ours. The man I had known for one week held me in the street in a way that meant I couldn't see my legs. I remember knowing that I shouldn't look, and knowing that I would look if it wasn't that I couldn't.
My blood was on the front of this man's clothes.
He said, "You'll be okay, but this sweater is ruined."
I screamed from the fear of pain. But I did not feel any pain. In the hospital, after injections, I knew there was pain in the room — I just didn't know whose pain it was.
What happened to one of my legs required four hundred stitches, which, when I told it, became five hundred stitches, because nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.
The five days they didn't know if they could save my leg or not I stretched to ten.
The Harvest
by Amy Hempel
The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.
The man was not hurt when the other car hit ours. The man I had known for one week held me in the street in a way that meant I couldn't see my legs. I remember knowing that I shouldn't look, and knowing that I would look if it wasn't that I couldn't.
My blood was on the front of this man's clothes.
He said, "You'll be okay, but this sweater is ruined."
I screamed from the fear of pain. But I did not feel any pain. In the hospital, after injections, I knew there was pain in the room — I just didn't know whose pain it was.
What happened to one of my legs required four hundred stitches, which, when I told it, became five hundred stitches, because nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.
The five days they didn't know if they could save my leg or not I stretched to ten.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
American Spectator
This is a good column re: the Newsweek scandal-
"The mainstream media often denounce conservative criticism of Islam as "inflammatory." Then they make sure it is inflammatory by broadcasting the criticism in tabloid form to the ends of the earth so that Muslims will be properly inflamed. A few years ago, for example, Jerry Falwell's critique of Islam as a violent religion was beamed to the Muslim world by media outlets very deeply concerned about Muslim-Christian concord, and bloody riots followed. Falwell had provoked the riots, the media piously reported even as they happily stoked them.The oh-so-irenic media seem to delight in inflaming Muslims by letting them know what America has said or done that should inflame them. The media express anger that George Bush has "alienated" the Muslim world while they simultaneously distort what Bush has done in the war on terrorism so as to guarantee that alienation. This is a very cynical game, and it has caught up with at least one publication now, Newsweek. Its editors, expecting to spend this week castigating the Bush administration for causing discord in the Muslim world by permitting anti-Islamic abuse at its Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, had to admit that their false report about U.S. military interrogators' desecration of the Koran sparked rioting across the Middle East. But like Dan Rather, Newsweek is allowing itself an array of defenses it would never extend to the conservatives it covers."
"The mainstream media often denounce conservative criticism of Islam as "inflammatory." Then they make sure it is inflammatory by broadcasting the criticism in tabloid form to the ends of the earth so that Muslims will be properly inflamed. A few years ago, for example, Jerry Falwell's critique of Islam as a violent religion was beamed to the Muslim world by media outlets very deeply concerned about Muslim-Christian concord, and bloody riots followed. Falwell had provoked the riots, the media piously reported even as they happily stoked them.The oh-so-irenic media seem to delight in inflaming Muslims by letting them know what America has said or done that should inflame them. The media express anger that George Bush has "alienated" the Muslim world while they simultaneously distort what Bush has done in the war on terrorism so as to guarantee that alienation. This is a very cynical game, and it has caught up with at least one publication now, Newsweek. Its editors, expecting to spend this week castigating the Bush administration for causing discord in the Muslim world by permitting anti-Islamic abuse at its Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, had to admit that their false report about U.S. military interrogators' desecration of the Koran sparked rioting across the Middle East. But like Dan Rather, Newsweek is allowing itself an array of defenses it would never extend to the conservatives it covers."
All your base belong to us
The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.
The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.
A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.
Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.
The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.
A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.
Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.
Things we don't understand-
"Over the past decade, physicists have come to appreciate, to an even greater degree than in Einstein's day, just how little they know about how the cosmos works. The latest observations indicate that 95 percent of the universe consists of stuff we don't understand:
Dark matter, which can only be detected through its gravitational effect, makes up about 25 percent.
Dark energy, a property of empty space that seems to be pushing galaxies farther apart at an increasing rate, accounts for the other 70 percent.
"In a sense, it's the ultimate Copernican revolution," says Sean Carroll, a physicist at the University of Chicago. "Not only are we not at the center of the universe — we're not even made of the same stuff as most of the universe is made of."
Dark matter, which can only be detected through its gravitational effect, makes up about 25 percent.
Dark energy, a property of empty space that seems to be pushing galaxies farther apart at an increasing rate, accounts for the other 70 percent.
"In a sense, it's the ultimate Copernican revolution," says Sean Carroll, a physicist at the University of Chicago. "Not only are we not at the center of the universe — we're not even made of the same stuff as most of the universe is made of."
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
How to love a woman and scold a child
Third Friend of Brasky: You know how Brasky served three tours in 'Nam?
Fourth Friend of Brasky: Uh-huh!
Third Friend of Brasky: Well, I'm in Corpus Christi on business a month ago, and I had this eight-foot tall Asian waiter.. which made me a little curious, so I asked him his name, and sure enough it's Ho Tran Brasky!
First Friend of Brasky: To William Robert Brasky!
Second Friend of Brasky: Oh, yeah!
Fourth Friend of Brasky: Hey, you ever go camping with Brasky?
Third Friend of Brasky: Many times.
First Friend of Brasky: I went camping with Brasky, his wife, and his daughter Debbie!
Third Friend of Brasky: Debbie Brasky?
First Friend of Brasky: Debbie Brasky. She's 7-years-old, goes about 3'5", 55 pounds. So, I'm in the back of a pickup with Bill Brasky and a live deer! Well, Brasky, he grabs the deer by the antlers, looks at it and says, "I'm Bill Brasky! Say it!" Then he squeezes the deer in such a way that a sound comes out of its mouth - "Billbrasky!" It wasn't exactly it, but it was pretty good for a deer!
Fourth Friend of Brasky: I once saw him eat a whole live chicken.
First Friend of Brasky: His favorite movie is "One on One" with Robby Benson.
Fourth Friend of Brasky: Bill Brasky once gave me a videotape of him having sex with my wife, and it was the most beautiful damn thing I ever saw!
Second Friend of Brasky: I have that tape!
Guy At Bar: [ turning around ] So do I!
Oil Vouchers
http://www.itv.com/news/world_186338.html
http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Live
LIVE right now! and it will be archived for subsequent viewing pleasure...
http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Live
LIVE right now! and it will be archived for subsequent viewing pleasure...
Monday, May 16, 2005
Oops!
May 16 (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday that a Newsweek report based on an anonymous source had damaged the U.S. image overseas by alleging that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. The May 9 report triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and other countries in which at least 16 people were killed. Newsweek's editor, Mark Whitaker, apologized to the victims on Sunday and said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.
"It's puzzling that while Newsweek now acknowledges that they got the facts wrong, they refused to retract the story," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "I think there's a certain journalistic standard that should be met and in this instance it was not." The report sparked violent protests across the Muslim world -- from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan, Indonesia and Gaza. In the past week the reported desecration was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League. McClellan complained that the story was "based on a single anonymous source who could not personally substantiate the allegation that was made." "The report has had serious consequences," he said. "People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged." Newsweek said in its May 23 edition that the information had come from a "knowledgeable government source" who told Newsweek that a military report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay said interrogators flushed at least one copy of the Koran down a toilet in a bid to make detainees talk. But the source later told the magazine he could not be certain he had seen an account of the Koran incident in the military report and that it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts, Newsweek said.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Operation Matador
For news about Operation Matador, the anti-jihadi offensive near the Syrian border, The Adventures of Chester is the place.
VDH
Victor Davis Hanson’s Friday column is about the new wave of World War II revisionism:
Remembering World War II
"There are two disturbing things about the current revisionism that transcend the human need to question orthodoxy. The first is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. Whatever mistakes and lapses committed by the Allies, they pale in comparison to the savagery of the Axis or the Communists. Post-facto critics never tell us what they would have done instead — lay off the German cities and send more ground troops into a pristine Third Reich; don’t bomb, but invade, an untouched Japan in 1946; keep out of WWII entirely; or in its aftermath invade the Soviet Union?
Lost also is any sense of small gratitude. A West German intellectual like Grass does not inform us that he was always free to migrate to East Germany to live in socialist splendor rather than remain unhappy in capitalist "subservience" in an American-protected West Germany — or that some readers of the New York Times who opposed Hitler might not enjoy lectures about their moral failings from someone who once fought for him. Such revisionists never ask whether they could have written so freely in the Third Reich, Tojo’s Japan, Mussolini’s Italy, Soviet Russia, Communist Eastern Europe — or today in such egalitarian utopias as China, Cuba, or Venezuela.
Second, revisionism requires knowledge of orthodoxy. One cannot dismiss Iwo Jima as an unnecessary sideshow or allege that Dresden was simple blood rage until one understands the tactical and strategic dilemmas of the age — the hope that wounded and lost B-29s might be saved by emergency fields on Iwo, or that the Russians wanted immediate help from the Allied air command to take the pressure off the eastern front in February 1945.
But again, most Americans never learned the standard narrative of War II — only what was wrong about it. Whereas it is salutary that an American 17-year-old knows something of the Japanese relocation ordered by liberals such as Earl Warren and FDR, or of the creation and the dropping of the atomic bomb by successive Democratic administrations, they might wish to examine what went on in Nanking, Baatan, Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Manila, or Manchuria — atrocities that their sensitive teachers are probably clueless about as well."
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson051305.html
Remembering World War II
"There are two disturbing things about the current revisionism that transcend the human need to question orthodoxy. The first is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. Whatever mistakes and lapses committed by the Allies, they pale in comparison to the savagery of the Axis or the Communists. Post-facto critics never tell us what they would have done instead — lay off the German cities and send more ground troops into a pristine Third Reich; don’t bomb, but invade, an untouched Japan in 1946; keep out of WWII entirely; or in its aftermath invade the Soviet Union?
Lost also is any sense of small gratitude. A West German intellectual like Grass does not inform us that he was always free to migrate to East Germany to live in socialist splendor rather than remain unhappy in capitalist "subservience" in an American-protected West Germany — or that some readers of the New York Times who opposed Hitler might not enjoy lectures about their moral failings from someone who once fought for him. Such revisionists never ask whether they could have written so freely in the Third Reich, Tojo’s Japan, Mussolini’s Italy, Soviet Russia, Communist Eastern Europe — or today in such egalitarian utopias as China, Cuba, or Venezuela.
Second, revisionism requires knowledge of orthodoxy. One cannot dismiss Iwo Jima as an unnecessary sideshow or allege that Dresden was simple blood rage until one understands the tactical and strategic dilemmas of the age — the hope that wounded and lost B-29s might be saved by emergency fields on Iwo, or that the Russians wanted immediate help from the Allied air command to take the pressure off the eastern front in February 1945.
But again, most Americans never learned the standard narrative of War II — only what was wrong about it. Whereas it is salutary that an American 17-year-old knows something of the Japanese relocation ordered by liberals such as Earl Warren and FDR, or of the creation and the dropping of the atomic bomb by successive Democratic administrations, they might wish to examine what went on in Nanking, Baatan, Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Manila, or Manchuria — atrocities that their sensitive teachers are probably clueless about as well."
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson051305.html
Those Krazy Krauts!
BERLIN - Within hours of the opening of Germany’s national Holocaust memorial to the public, a vandal scratched a swastika into one of the 2,711 gray slabs, a spokesman for the memorial said Friday. The small swastika was spotted by security guards and quickly removed, though the vandal was not caught, spokesman Uwe Neumaerker said. "What else can we do?" he said. "There are some security forces and they walk through and if they find something they remove it. ... You can’t be everywhere at once."
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Lions' Den
I'll believe it when I see it, but British M.P. and Saddam Hussein supporter George Galloway says that he will appear before Norm Coleman's Senate Subcommittee on Investigations on May 17 to rebut charges that he took bribes from Saddam via the oil-for-food program. Galloway vowed to take "them on in their own lions' den."
As I said, I'll believe it when I see it. But if Galloway does show up, you won't want to miss it.
As I said, I'll believe it when I see it. But if Galloway does show up, you won't want to miss it.
Friday the 13th
The origins of Friday superstitions are many. One of the best known is that Eve tempted Adam with the apple on a Friday. Tradition also has it that the Flood in the Bible, the confusion at the Tower of Babel, and the death of Jesus Christ all took place on Friday.
Friday came to be called "witches' Sabbath." For it was believed that on this day, each week, twelve witches and the Devil met - thirteen evil spirits up to no good!
Friday came to be called "witches' Sabbath." For it was believed that on this day, each week, twelve witches and the Devil met - thirteen evil spirits up to no good!
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Interview with Bonnie Prince Billy
Because I am good or bad
FW: You're about to leave for a tour of Japan. Are you looking forward to it?
BPB: Yeah, its my first time in Japan—I am. I know it'll be a nonstop barrage on the senses as well as a work trip. But I'm looking forward to that.
FW: My girlfriend was visiting Kyoto a while back, and she said it was incredible — that the temples were incredible it was one of the only cities in Japan that had not been bombed in World War II, and the temples are still standing. And she was there when the Iraq War broke out. And it was tough being in a place as an American and trying to represent to an international community, because that's who she was there with, why Americans were doing this thing. Because you as an American carry that responsibility with you.
BPB: Yeah yeah totally.
FW: Do you feel like you identify yourself as an American?
BPB: Yeah, totall. I mean I've been in similar situations. I was in Prague just before the first Gulf War. Or within three or four weeks after Sept 11th, flying to Europe to do shows and interacting with an international community there. Or not long after that going to Morocco for a month and being one of few American tourists there at the time. Or being in France not long after the most recent Iraq War began. I was taking a subway—I got into the Metro and came up, came up in the middle of tens of thousands of people demonstrating against the war. And just how, walking in the demonstration for the next hour and a half, fully afraid of being an American, but fully aware of it and also knowing its fine. Frank Capra you know did a good job, you know infusing me with a degree of patriotism, if not just responsibility for saying, I'm not going to hate men, I'm not going to hate the masculine dominance of world culture, I'm not going to hate America because I am all those things, and I can't do anything productive if I hate what I am.
FW: If there is something you as a person visiting Japan, or even Iraq, what would you want someone to know about you as a songwriter, an American?
BPB: I don't have that kind of agenda, you know? Its basically just accepting that I have certain privileges… you know you have increasingly things that are negative—actively negative things about being an American. Definitely, there was a lot of fear in people's voices when I was in Morocco… but basically, people stated the obvious, which was, you know, "I don't really care." I mean somewhere out the blue, someone would say, "I don't really care." I'd be like, what do you mean? And they'd be like "It doesn't matter to me, let's have some tea." Yeah, totally, let's do it. I'm not gonna prove to anybody that I'm good or bad. Because I am good or bad.
FW: You're about to leave for a tour of Japan. Are you looking forward to it?
BPB: Yeah, its my first time in Japan—I am. I know it'll be a nonstop barrage on the senses as well as a work trip. But I'm looking forward to that.
FW: My girlfriend was visiting Kyoto a while back, and she said it was incredible — that the temples were incredible it was one of the only cities in Japan that had not been bombed in World War II, and the temples are still standing. And she was there when the Iraq War broke out. And it was tough being in a place as an American and trying to represent to an international community, because that's who she was there with, why Americans were doing this thing. Because you as an American carry that responsibility with you.
BPB: Yeah yeah totally.
FW: Do you feel like you identify yourself as an American?
BPB: Yeah, totall. I mean I've been in similar situations. I was in Prague just before the first Gulf War. Or within three or four weeks after Sept 11th, flying to Europe to do shows and interacting with an international community there. Or not long after that going to Morocco for a month and being one of few American tourists there at the time. Or being in France not long after the most recent Iraq War began. I was taking a subway—I got into the Metro and came up, came up in the middle of tens of thousands of people demonstrating against the war. And just how, walking in the demonstration for the next hour and a half, fully afraid of being an American, but fully aware of it and also knowing its fine. Frank Capra you know did a good job, you know infusing me with a degree of patriotism, if not just responsibility for saying, I'm not going to hate men, I'm not going to hate the masculine dominance of world culture, I'm not going to hate America because I am all those things, and I can't do anything productive if I hate what I am.
FW: If there is something you as a person visiting Japan, or even Iraq, what would you want someone to know about you as a songwriter, an American?
BPB: I don't have that kind of agenda, you know? Its basically just accepting that I have certain privileges… you know you have increasingly things that are negative—actively negative things about being an American. Definitely, there was a lot of fear in people's voices when I was in Morocco… but basically, people stated the obvious, which was, you know, "I don't really care." I mean somewhere out the blue, someone would say, "I don't really care." I'd be like, what do you mean? And they'd be like "It doesn't matter to me, let's have some tea." Yeah, totally, let's do it. I'm not gonna prove to anybody that I'm good or bad. Because I am good or bad.
110 lbs of C@ck-
Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan
Frank Sinatra was famously well-endowed and a voracious womaniser. A new biography details his string of lovers
"FRANK SINATRA rarely shared his thoughts about women and sex. In his youth, when he was starting out, he voiced his current view to a friend, Joey D’Orazio. “We’re animals,” he said, “each and every one of us, that’s what we are, and we’re damn proud of it, too . . . I’m just looking to make it with as many women as I can.” Nancy Venturi, barely into her teens, was one of those who fell. “He had sex on the brain,” she recalled. “He would make love to anyone who came along . . . There was something unusually intensive about his lovemaking. At least it was with me.” She remembered Frank’s seduction technique, his sexually direct lines. Other guys, she thought, “didn’t talk like that back then”.
Venturi contributed to the legend that Sinatra was hugely well endowed sexually. “There’s only ten pounds of Frank, but there’s 110 pounds of cock,” Ava Gardner once told a British diplomat at a social function...He also constantly pursued other women. Frank might date a celebrity, or a hatcheck girl, or pay for sex with a whore."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-1605403,00.html
Frank Sinatra was famously well-endowed and a voracious womaniser. A new biography details his string of lovers
"FRANK SINATRA rarely shared his thoughts about women and sex. In his youth, when he was starting out, he voiced his current view to a friend, Joey D’Orazio. “We’re animals,” he said, “each and every one of us, that’s what we are, and we’re damn proud of it, too . . . I’m just looking to make it with as many women as I can.” Nancy Venturi, barely into her teens, was one of those who fell. “He had sex on the brain,” she recalled. “He would make love to anyone who came along . . . There was something unusually intensive about his lovemaking. At least it was with me.” She remembered Frank’s seduction technique, his sexually direct lines. Other guys, she thought, “didn’t talk like that back then”.
Venturi contributed to the legend that Sinatra was hugely well endowed sexually. “There’s only ten pounds of Frank, but there’s 110 pounds of cock,” Ava Gardner once told a British diplomat at a social function...He also constantly pursued other women. Frank might date a celebrity, or a hatcheck girl, or pay for sex with a whore."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-1605403,00.html
Free blow and a Texas sized Rack
"So we are all whoring it up at the Rainbow in Hollywood a couple weeks ago, when i was approached in the mens room by the one and only Anna Nicole Smith. First she offers me some blow, and before I have a chance to refuse, she pulls it out of her handbag, only to spill most of it on the floor and lose her balance and slip half way into what was probably some dude's piss. At this point I am just laughing right in this woman's face as I help her up and realize that she is so fucked up that she probably doesn't even realize she is in the men's bathroom. Right then I was content with thinking that this experience is almost over as I am planning my polite escape back into the club, when all of a sudden she asks me the GOLDEN QUESTION. What might this question be you ask? Well, Anna Nicole Smith grabs my arm (half out of intensity of what she is about to ask me, and half to maintain balance and not to fall down again) and asks, 'Who is that boy sitting next to you outside?' that boy? I'm thinkin, what fuckin BOY can this crazy lady be talkin' about.... the only person I was sitting next to was [Casey] Chaos [AMEN singer].... so I go on to describe Casey to her, and she just begins nodding her head and smiling this big stupid grin. At this point I feel like I have won the lottery and quickly rush her out off the bathroom to introduce her to our unsuspecting friend, Casey Chaos. What followed was utterly fucking priceless."
Read the rest. The comments are great-
Read the rest. The comments are great-
Mi Estomago es Malo
US taxpayers baby. Gracias!
"The Bush administration announced Monday that it would start paying hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants. The money, totaling $1 billion, will be available for services provided from today through September 2008. Congress provided the money as part of the 2003 law that expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, but the new payments have nothing to do with the Medicare program. Members of Congress from border states, like Sen. Jon Kyl, R- Ariz., had sought the money. They said the treatment of illegal immigrants imposed a huge financial burden on many hospitals, which are required to provide emergency care to patients who need it, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay."
"The Bush administration announced Monday that it would start paying hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants. The money, totaling $1 billion, will be available for services provided from today through September 2008. Congress provided the money as part of the 2003 law that expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, but the new payments have nothing to do with the Medicare program. Members of Congress from border states, like Sen. Jon Kyl, R- Ariz., had sought the money. They said the treatment of illegal immigrants imposed a huge financial burden on many hospitals, which are required to provide emergency care to patients who need it, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay."
How We Will Fight China
From cover article in current Atlantic- here is a good excerpt:
"The Asia expert Mark Helprin has argued that while we pursue our democratization efforts in the Middle East, increasingly befriending only those states whose internal systems resemble our own, China is poised to reap the substantial benefits of pursuing its interests amorally—what the United States did during the Cold War... We also need to realize that in the coming years and decades the moral distance between Europe and China is going to contract considerably, especially if China's authoritarianism becomes increasingly restrained, and the ever expanding European Union becomes a less-than-democratic superstate run in imperious regulatory style by Brussels-based functionaries. Russia, too, is headed in a decidedly undemocratic direction: Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, reacted to our support of democracy in Ukraine by agreeing to "massive" joint air and naval exercises with the Chinese, scheduled for the second half of this year. These unprecedented joint Russian-Chinese exercises will be held on Chinese territory. Therefore the idea that we will no longer engage in the "cynical" game of power politics is illusory, as is the idea that we will be able to advance a foreign policy based solely on Wilsonian ideals. We will have to continually play various parts of the world off China, just as Richard Nixon played less than morally perfect states off the Soviet Union."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200506/kaplan
If you can't access the site and want to read the whole thing-let me know and I can e-mail it.
"The Asia expert Mark Helprin has argued that while we pursue our democratization efforts in the Middle East, increasingly befriending only those states whose internal systems resemble our own, China is poised to reap the substantial benefits of pursuing its interests amorally—what the United States did during the Cold War... We also need to realize that in the coming years and decades the moral distance between Europe and China is going to contract considerably, especially if China's authoritarianism becomes increasingly restrained, and the ever expanding European Union becomes a less-than-democratic superstate run in imperious regulatory style by Brussels-based functionaries. Russia, too, is headed in a decidedly undemocratic direction: Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, reacted to our support of democracy in Ukraine by agreeing to "massive" joint air and naval exercises with the Chinese, scheduled for the second half of this year. These unprecedented joint Russian-Chinese exercises will be held on Chinese territory. Therefore the idea that we will no longer engage in the "cynical" game of power politics is illusory, as is the idea that we will be able to advance a foreign policy based solely on Wilsonian ideals. We will have to continually play various parts of the world off China, just as Richard Nixon played less than morally perfect states off the Soviet Union."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200506/kaplan
If you can't access the site and want to read the whole thing-let me know and I can e-mail it.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Ummm-Bacon Steak
"IF PIGS could fly, Michael Strahan wouldn't be peddling "pork wings," the signature dish of his new line of porcine products, Michael Strahan Master Grill Foods. "You hold it just like a chicken wing, but it's a lot bigger," says the Giants sack king. "It gives you a greater amount of meat. It's tasty. It's great for tailgating and barbecuing." Strahan is also hawking pre-cooked St. Louis-style ribs and something called "dinner bacon." "I call it bacon steak," he said. "It's a very thick cut. You don't need eggs with it. This is truly a meal." Strahan isn't concerned that his oinking edibles might turn off health-conscious shoppers: "So long as you exercise, you should be able to eat whatever you want."
Monday, May 09, 2005
American Idol is making me smarter
MALCOLM GLADWELL
Is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up?
Twenty years ago, a political philosopher named James Flynn uncovered a curious fact. Americans—at least, as measured by I.Q. tests—were getting smarter. This fact had been obscured for years, because the people who give I.Q. tests continually recalibrate the scoring system to keep the average at 100. But if you took out the recalibration, Flynn found, I.Q. scores showed a steady upward trajectory, rising by about three points per decade, which means that a person whose I.Q. placed him in the top ten per cent of the American population in 1920 would today fall in the bottom third. Some of that effect, no doubt, is a simple by-product of economic progress: in the surge of prosperity during the middle part of the last century, people in the West became better fed, better educated, and more familiar with things like I.Q. tests. But, even as that wave of change has subsided, test scores have continued to rise—not just in America but all over the developed world. What’s more, the increases have not been confined to children who go to enriched day-care centers and private schools. The middle part of the curve—the people who have supposedly been suffering from a deteriorating public-school system and a steady diet of lowest-common-denominator television and mindless pop music—has increased just as much. What on earth is happening? In the wonderfully entertaining “Everything Bad Is Good for You” (Riverhead; $23.95), Steven Johnson proposes that what is making us smarter is precisely what we thought was making us dumber: popular culture.
Is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up?
Twenty years ago, a political philosopher named James Flynn uncovered a curious fact. Americans—at least, as measured by I.Q. tests—were getting smarter. This fact had been obscured for years, because the people who give I.Q. tests continually recalibrate the scoring system to keep the average at 100. But if you took out the recalibration, Flynn found, I.Q. scores showed a steady upward trajectory, rising by about three points per decade, which means that a person whose I.Q. placed him in the top ten per cent of the American population in 1920 would today fall in the bottom third. Some of that effect, no doubt, is a simple by-product of economic progress: in the surge of prosperity during the middle part of the last century, people in the West became better fed, better educated, and more familiar with things like I.Q. tests. But, even as that wave of change has subsided, test scores have continued to rise—not just in America but all over the developed world. What’s more, the increases have not been confined to children who go to enriched day-care centers and private schools. The middle part of the curve—the people who have supposedly been suffering from a deteriorating public-school system and a steady diet of lowest-common-denominator television and mindless pop music—has increased just as much. What on earth is happening? In the wonderfully entertaining “Everything Bad Is Good for You” (Riverhead; $23.95), Steven Johnson proposes that what is making us smarter is precisely what we thought was making us dumber: popular culture.
Ice update
To all:
In regards to the shares, we ended up losing 30% of the pool but I will not be charging anyone because my phone didn't work in Kentucky and I couldn't access my email to send out the picks. Everyone was better off not knowing what was going on anyway so you didn't have to endure the heartbreak that occured Saturday. We lost a little bit on Friday after I rallied back from an early pummeling then on Saturday we hung tough until the last three races where it got real interesting. The collected pool for the shares was $20,000 and going into the ninth race I had it up to $40,000 and we were alive in the pick four and the pick three. Our horses in the ninth race ran second and third which knocked us out of both pools. We had 50-1 Giacomo in both the pick four and the pick three. That second place in the ninth race cost us $2 million in the pick four and $800,000 in the pick three. Then to make things even more painful, if the #12 horse Afleet Alex, who got beat by half of a length, holds on for second in the Derby we hit the superfecta that paid $1.7 million. This is by far the worst beat I have ever experienced, and I don't know if you all know, I have bet a few races in my lifetime. Thanks to everyone who invested in me and we will try again next time. I have to go throw-up now. P.S. For those of you who sent me a check, I will rip it up. If you gave me cash I will give it to you when I see you.
In regards to the shares, we ended up losing 30% of the pool but I will not be charging anyone because my phone didn't work in Kentucky and I couldn't access my email to send out the picks. Everyone was better off not knowing what was going on anyway so you didn't have to endure the heartbreak that occured Saturday. We lost a little bit on Friday after I rallied back from an early pummeling then on Saturday we hung tough until the last three races where it got real interesting. The collected pool for the shares was $20,000 and going into the ninth race I had it up to $40,000 and we were alive in the pick four and the pick three. Our horses in the ninth race ran second and third which knocked us out of both pools. We had 50-1 Giacomo in both the pick four and the pick three. That second place in the ninth race cost us $2 million in the pick four and $800,000 in the pick three. Then to make things even more painful, if the #12 horse Afleet Alex, who got beat by half of a length, holds on for second in the Derby we hit the superfecta that paid $1.7 million. This is by far the worst beat I have ever experienced, and I don't know if you all know, I have bet a few races in my lifetime. Thanks to everyone who invested in me and we will try again next time. I have to go throw-up now. P.S. For those of you who sent me a check, I will rip it up. If you gave me cash I will give it to you when I see you.
Friday, May 06, 2005
CFR/Iraq
INSURGENT ATTACKS CONTINUE IN IRAQ
"For all the frustration and anger there is toward the United States, there is real hatred toward the terrorists and what they are doing to Iraq," says Leslie H. Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, who recently spent 10 days touring the country.
Interview with cfr.org's Bernard Gwertzman
"For all the frustration and anger there is toward the United States, there is real hatred toward the terrorists and what they are doing to Iraq," says Leslie H. Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, who recently spent 10 days touring the country.
Interview with cfr.org's Bernard Gwertzman
Frickin Laser Beams
Wed May 4, 2005 03:39 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army officials so far have balked at deploying an experimental laser weapon to guard against insurgents' mortar and rocket fire in Iraq, the system's builder said Wednesday. "We've talked to them about it," said Art Stephenson, a vice president at Northrop Grumman Corp., which built the Tactical High-Energy Laser, or THEL.THEL, a short-range air defense system made up of several components, is the laser weapon closest to possible use in the field. It ties an advanced radar that detects and tracks incoming rockets to a chemically-generated high-power beam that destroys them. The system's development was jointly funded by the U.S. Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defense.Army officers had lots of questions about logistics and safety, Stephenson told reporters at a Northrop briefing titled "Directed Energy: Out of the Lab -- Onto the Battlefield.""And there are answers to all those questions that alleviate those concerns," he said. "It's up to the military to decide how they want to use this capability."Army officials involved in the matter would not be available for comment until Thursday, said Nancy Ray, an Army spokeswoman. In tests at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, THEL has destroyed 46 targets in flight, including mortar rounds fired singly and in salvos, artillery shells and rockets, Northrop officials said. A target is zapped by the real-life equivalent of a Star Trek-like beam of light. The highly focused beam, generated by a mix of hydrogen fluoride and deuterium fluoride, focuses enough energy to heat the target until it explodes in mid-air.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army officials so far have balked at deploying an experimental laser weapon to guard against insurgents' mortar and rocket fire in Iraq, the system's builder said Wednesday. "We've talked to them about it," said Art Stephenson, a vice president at Northrop Grumman Corp., which built the Tactical High-Energy Laser, or THEL.THEL, a short-range air defense system made up of several components, is the laser weapon closest to possible use in the field. It ties an advanced radar that detects and tracks incoming rockets to a chemically-generated high-power beam that destroys them. The system's development was jointly funded by the U.S. Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defense.Army officers had lots of questions about logistics and safety, Stephenson told reporters at a Northrop briefing titled "Directed Energy: Out of the Lab -- Onto the Battlefield.""And there are answers to all those questions that alleviate those concerns," he said. "It's up to the military to decide how they want to use this capability."Army officials involved in the matter would not be available for comment until Thursday, said Nancy Ray, an Army spokeswoman. In tests at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, THEL has destroyed 46 targets in flight, including mortar rounds fired singly and in salvos, artillery shells and rockets, Northrop officials said. A target is zapped by the real-life equivalent of a Star Trek-like beam of light. The highly focused beam, generated by a mix of hydrogen fluoride and deuterium fluoride, focuses enough energy to heat the target until it explodes in mid-air.
Dutch Oven (something stinks!)
America can now relax; a Dutch court has decided not to throw President Bush in the clink.
THE HAGUE (AFP) - A court in The Hague turned down a demand by a dozen plaintiffs who wanted to force the Dutch government to arrest US President George W. Bush when he visits the Netherlands Saturday, the judgement made public said. ...
The plaintiffs, mostly left-wing organisations and activists [...curiously unnamed in this AFP report. —ed.], accused Bush of “numerous grave violations of the Geneva Conventions”. They also said the president is responsible for the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and Washington’s refusal to recognize the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world’s first permanent war crimes court.
THE HAGUE (AFP) - A court in The Hague turned down a demand by a dozen plaintiffs who wanted to force the Dutch government to arrest US President George W. Bush when he visits the Netherlands Saturday, the judgement made public said. ...
The plaintiffs, mostly left-wing organisations and activists [...curiously unnamed in this AFP report. —ed.], accused Bush of “numerous grave violations of the Geneva Conventions”. They also said the president is responsible for the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and Washington’s refusal to recognize the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world’s first permanent war crimes court.
N.J. Beach Town Repeals 30-Year Speedo Ban
CAPE MAY, N.J. - Come on in, Speedo wearers, the water's fine: Your skimpy little swimsuits are legal now. For more than 30 years, this quaint little Victorian-themed resort at the southern tip of New Jersey said no to "skintight, formfitting or bikini type" bathing attire on males over the age of 12.
For an ocean resort that once required men and women to swim at different times of day, wearing heavy woolen, cover-everything swimsuits, it made sense to modernize.
"It's a beach town, for God's sake," said Police Chief Diane Sorantino. The town also agreed to lift a rule that stopped bare-chested men from strolling along the beachfront promenade.
Not that everyone's cheering. It's often the older guys - the ones with beer guts, or wrinkly skin, or unsightly tufts of hair - who wear the tiny swimsuits.
"The people you want to see in the Speedos, you don't," said Maggie Creighton, 19, who works in a downtown lingerie store.
Locals who share the beaches with tourists said that despite the ban, the itsy bitsy suits have been a common sight in summer, even though most surf shops and beachwear retailers here don't sell them.
"A lot of people do come in and say `Do you carry Speedos?' said Becky Fitzgerald, sales clerk at Della's General Store. "It's the 40- to 50-year-old group who ask. And it's funny, their bodies aren't the shape for Speedos."
The swimsuit ban was enacted in the 1960s in response to complaints about gay men who wore the suits on the beach, according to former mayor Robert Elwell, who writes a Cape May history column for a local newspaper.
But the ban was rarely if ever enforced, according to the city, which voted to amend its beach regulations last week.
City Administrator Luciano Corea Jr. said the skimpy swimsuit ban was largely unknown. There was no push to eliminate it, but doing so made sense, he said.
"We had no complaints, and we've never issued a summons for it, to my knowledge," said Corea. "Technically, we could've left it on the books. It was never enforced anyway."
Vince Grimm, executive director of GABLES of Cape May County, a gay advocacy organization, said the ban was outdated and holds no particular significance for gays.
"We're no different than anyone else. If they (the suits) are in style, we wear them," said Grimm.
Charlotte Beheler, owner of Sports `n Stuff, which sells Speedos for $25.95, said they're not among her top sellers.
She doesn't expect any big boom in sales this summer - or an explosion of skin on the beaches. Neither does Speedo, which says the men's brief-style suits make up only 1 percent of the Los Angeles-based company's sales.
"I could see that people may buy more, but I don't think it'll be a huge dramatic change," said Speedo marketing manager Lesley Benko.
Still, some people will be watching the beaches this year just to see who's wearing what.
"I haven't been to the beach in years, but now I'm thinking I'll go down there this year," said Joann Quinn, of North Cape May. "The beach ought to be interesting this year."
For an ocean resort that once required men and women to swim at different times of day, wearing heavy woolen, cover-everything swimsuits, it made sense to modernize.
"It's a beach town, for God's sake," said Police Chief Diane Sorantino. The town also agreed to lift a rule that stopped bare-chested men from strolling along the beachfront promenade.
Not that everyone's cheering. It's often the older guys - the ones with beer guts, or wrinkly skin, or unsightly tufts of hair - who wear the tiny swimsuits.
"The people you want to see in the Speedos, you don't," said Maggie Creighton, 19, who works in a downtown lingerie store.
Locals who share the beaches with tourists said that despite the ban, the itsy bitsy suits have been a common sight in summer, even though most surf shops and beachwear retailers here don't sell them.
"A lot of people do come in and say `Do you carry Speedos?' said Becky Fitzgerald, sales clerk at Della's General Store. "It's the 40- to 50-year-old group who ask. And it's funny, their bodies aren't the shape for Speedos."
The swimsuit ban was enacted in the 1960s in response to complaints about gay men who wore the suits on the beach, according to former mayor Robert Elwell, who writes a Cape May history column for a local newspaper.
But the ban was rarely if ever enforced, according to the city, which voted to amend its beach regulations last week.
City Administrator Luciano Corea Jr. said the skimpy swimsuit ban was largely unknown. There was no push to eliminate it, but doing so made sense, he said.
"We had no complaints, and we've never issued a summons for it, to my knowledge," said Corea. "Technically, we could've left it on the books. It was never enforced anyway."
Vince Grimm, executive director of GABLES of Cape May County, a gay advocacy organization, said the ban was outdated and holds no particular significance for gays.
"We're no different than anyone else. If they (the suits) are in style, we wear them," said Grimm.
Charlotte Beheler, owner of Sports `n Stuff, which sells Speedos for $25.95, said they're not among her top sellers.
She doesn't expect any big boom in sales this summer - or an explosion of skin on the beaches. Neither does Speedo, which says the men's brief-style suits make up only 1 percent of the Los Angeles-based company's sales.
"I could see that people may buy more, but I don't think it'll be a huge dramatic change," said Speedo marketing manager Lesley Benko.
Still, some people will be watching the beaches this year just to see who's wearing what.
"I haven't been to the beach in years, but now I'm thinking I'll go down there this year," said Joann Quinn, of North Cape May. "The beach ought to be interesting this year."
Time Travel
Time Travelers to Meet in Not Too Distant Future
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: May 6, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 5 - Suppose it is the future - maybe a thousand years from now. There is no static cling, diapers change themselves, and everyone who is anyone summers on Mars. "The odds of a time traveler showing up are between one in a million and one in a trillion," says Amal Dorai, who conceived the convention.
David Nelson demonstrated the motorized couch in his M.I.T. dorm, which also features the "pizza button." What's more, it is possible to travel back in time, to any place, any era. Where would people go? Would they zoom to a 2005 Saturday night for chips and burgers in a college courtyard, eager to schmooze with computer science majors possessing way too many brain cells? Why not, say some students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who have organized what they call the first convention for time travelers.
Actually, they contend that theirs is the only time traveler convention the world needs, because people from the future can travel to it anytime they want.
"I would hope they would come with the idea of showing us that time travel is possible," said Amal Dorai, 22, the graduate student who thought up the convention, which is to be this Saturday on the M.I.T. campus. "Maybe they could leave something with us. It is possible they might look slightly different, the shape of the head, the body proportions."
The event is potluck and alcohol-free - present-day humans are bringing things like brownies. But Mr. Dorai's Web site asks that future-folk bring something to prove they are really ahead of our time: "Things like a cure for AIDS or cancer, a solution for global poverty or a cold fusion reactor would be particularly convincing as well as greatly appreciated."
He would also welcome people from only a few days in the future, far enough to, say, give him a few stock market tips.
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: May 6, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 5 - Suppose it is the future - maybe a thousand years from now. There is no static cling, diapers change themselves, and everyone who is anyone summers on Mars. "The odds of a time traveler showing up are between one in a million and one in a trillion," says Amal Dorai, who conceived the convention.
David Nelson demonstrated the motorized couch in his M.I.T. dorm, which also features the "pizza button." What's more, it is possible to travel back in time, to any place, any era. Where would people go? Would they zoom to a 2005 Saturday night for chips and burgers in a college courtyard, eager to schmooze with computer science majors possessing way too many brain cells? Why not, say some students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who have organized what they call the first convention for time travelers.
Actually, they contend that theirs is the only time traveler convention the world needs, because people from the future can travel to it anytime they want.
"I would hope they would come with the idea of showing us that time travel is possible," said Amal Dorai, 22, the graduate student who thought up the convention, which is to be this Saturday on the M.I.T. campus. "Maybe they could leave something with us. It is possible they might look slightly different, the shape of the head, the body proportions."
The event is potluck and alcohol-free - present-day humans are bringing things like brownies. But Mr. Dorai's Web site asks that future-folk bring something to prove they are really ahead of our time: "Things like a cure for AIDS or cancer, a solution for global poverty or a cold fusion reactor would be particularly convincing as well as greatly appreciated."
He would also welcome people from only a few days in the future, far enough to, say, give him a few stock market tips.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Carl's Germany update-
Friends,
I include some articles about the latest craze in Germany, anti-capitalism. Anti-Americanism helped Schroeder stay in office last time and ahead of upcoming regional elections he´s just as desperate. This will, and in my eyes should, infuritate some of you. Others may beg to differ. But it is worth sinking your teeth into. Some of the opposition, sniffing vacuous but fertile good ol' populism, embraces parts of this nonsense. But in general, they are keeping sane. Don´t know what to think yet...the rhetoric is escalating and getting kinda weird. I mean, comparing investors to locusts and the ones who said that to Nazis, is simply madness. And all this in the run-up to 60th anniversary of VE Day on Sunday. Then I will heading to the Bundestag, to listen to what will hopefully be a sober and calming speech by President Koehler.
Carl
-----
John Vinocur always has good stuff in the IHT, this is background on a troubled place.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/05/02/news/politicus.php
i am one of those quick-to-theorize types i guess...
then more specifically:
Schroeder Aide Steps Up Broadside On Unbridled Capitalism
DOW JONES NEWSWIRESApril 27, 2005 11:21 a.m.
BERLIN (AP)--A senior aide to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Wednesday stepped up the governing party's criticism of unbridled capitalism, which has become a centerpiece of campaigning for key state elections next month, declaring that "the state must set limits." Schroeder's Social Democrats have taken a rhetorical swing left as they try to hold off a strong conservative opposition challenge May 22 in the industrial western state of North Rhine-Westphalia - Germany's most populous and for decades a stronghold of the center-left party.
That has drawn a sharp response from German industry, which has accused Schroeder's party of endangering already shaky business confidence as it struggles with poll ratings undermined by a jobless rate of 12.5%.
Social Democratic Chairman Franz Muentefering , who launched the debate two weeks ago in a speech declaring that "international profit maximization strategies endanger our democracy in the long term," was unapologetic in an interview Wednesday with Germany's biggest-selling daily. "Business is there for people, not the other way round," he told Bild. "Anyone who thought that business could do everything better if only people would let it must see that this is wrong." "The state must set limits," he added. "And it must be in a position to enforce adherence to them." The interview came as Schroeder's Cabinet approved a plan designed to curb cheap labor from new, lower-wage members of the European Union by requiring foreign companies who have workers in Germany to pay them German wages. Germany's main employers association said the plan was counterproductive. "If it is implemented in this way, more jobs will be forced abroad or into the shadow economy or cut altogether," it said in a statement. In a separate interview with the weekly Die Zeit, Muentefering urged industry to create more jobs and charged that some companies are relocating jobs abroad "simply for profit." "It is indecent when one leaves in the lurch the place that made one great - in some cases rich - and where employees have their home," he was quoted as saying. He stopped short, however, of a suggestion last week by a regional Social Democratic leader that Germans boycott companies that lay off workers. Amid a steady flow of dismal economic news, the conservative opposition contends that the government is merely seeking to deflect attention from its own failings. This week, a closely watched survey showed German business confidence sinking to a 19-month low and the country's leading economists halved their 2005 growth forecast for Germany. Despite Schroeder's efforts to boost the economy by trimming the welfare state and implementing limited labor-market reforms, the economists argued that "no coherent concept designed to tackle the growth problem is visible. "This misery is homemade," said Volker Kauder, the general secretary of the opposition Christian Democrats. "Instead of putting the blame on others, this government should finally get to work itself." The Federation of German Industry said this week that Muentefering 's words were just adding to the problems. Schroeder's party "is doing everything it can at the moment to gamble away completely with class-war slogans confidence in business, which is in any case dwindling," said the organization's head, Juergen Thumann.
Europe Inc. Gets An About-FaceFrom Politicians
By MARCUS WALKER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNALApril 20, 2005; Page A14
FRANKFURT -- Gerhard Schroeder used to present himself as a business-friendly centrist politician, but mass unemployment and impending defeat in a key regional election are pushing the German chancellor and his Social Democratic party into a more old-fashioned policy: Blame the bosses. Across much of Europe, politicians are retreating to antibusiness rhetoric, portraying free markets and international competition as threats to the social fabric. That is bad news for the prospects for further economic restructuring in Continental Europe, where many economists blame stagnation and unemployment on overregulation, rigid labor markets and unaffordable welfare states. "Reform is out of fashion in Germany," said Thorstein Polleit, an economist at investment bank Barclays Capital in Frankfurt. "We are heading for a year of political standstill," until national elections next year. Senior figures from Mr. Schroeder's SPD party are lining up to lambast German business, which they accuse of greed in laying off German workers and moving production to low-wage countries. Yesterday, the party's deputy head, Ute Vogt, encouraged consumers to boycott the products of companies that lay off large numbers of staff. Monday, the chancellor said he supported a speech last week by SPD Chairman Franz Muentefering , which argued that "the growing power of capital" needed curtailing. Mr. Muentefering said corporate "short-term profit-seeking" was in danger of undermining people's faith in democracy, by treating workers as dispensable commodities. The quest to blame business for the weak economy is picking up just as data show growth running out of steam. German economic sentiment nosedived in April, according to the ZEW survey of financial analysts, while industrial output across the 12-nation euro currency area fell 0.5% in February. The euro-zone economy is forecast to expand only 1.6% this year, despite the fast expansion of the global economy, and many economists predict Germany will expand 1% or even less. In France, too, leaders are treading carefully on economic restructuring for fear of a public backlash. Polls suggest a majority of French voters, partly driven by economic discontent, will reject the European Union's proposed constitution in a May referendum. France's conservative government is struggling to persuade voters that the EU won't import raw Anglo-American-style capitalism to the country.
Meanwhile, failure to deliver a promised revitalization of the Italian economy, including tax cuts, has hit the popularity of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose governing coalition nearly collapsed Monday after it suffered heavy defeats in recent regional elections. Economists warn that Italy also is likely to make little headway on economic restructuring before new elections are held. In his speech, SPD boss Mr. Muentefering attacked "certain financial groups" for cutting workers despite rising profits as part of a strategy to compete abroad -- a thinly veiled reference to Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's biggest bank and erstwhile flagship for national economic strength. In February, Deutsche Bank provoked union anger for announcing 6,400 job cuts on the same day as it published an 87% increase in annual profit to €2.5 billion ($3.25 billion). The bank's chief executive, Josef Ackermann, argued that greater efficiency was needed to keep up with global players -- a logic that has made Mr. Ackermann a target for German critics of globalization. Chancellor Schroeder's problem is how to win back lost voters by next year. The ruling coalition is widely expected to lose a bellwether regional election next month in the country's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, traditionally an SPD stronghold. The government's market-oriented changes in recent years, including lowering business taxes while cutting welfare benefits, have alienated traditional working-class supporters, but haven't gone far enough to lift the economy out of the doldrums
Carl Bergquist
temporary address:
Koertestrasse 30, QU
10967 Berlin
Germany
I include some articles about the latest craze in Germany, anti-capitalism. Anti-Americanism helped Schroeder stay in office last time and ahead of upcoming regional elections he´s just as desperate. This will, and in my eyes should, infuritate some of you. Others may beg to differ. But it is worth sinking your teeth into. Some of the opposition, sniffing vacuous but fertile good ol' populism, embraces parts of this nonsense. But in general, they are keeping sane. Don´t know what to think yet...the rhetoric is escalating and getting kinda weird. I mean, comparing investors to locusts and the ones who said that to Nazis, is simply madness. And all this in the run-up to 60th anniversary of VE Day on Sunday. Then I will heading to the Bundestag, to listen to what will hopefully be a sober and calming speech by President Koehler.
Carl
-----
John Vinocur always has good stuff in the IHT, this is background on a troubled place.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/05/02/news/politicus.php
i am one of those quick-to-theorize types i guess...
then more specifically:
Schroeder Aide Steps Up Broadside On Unbridled Capitalism
DOW JONES NEWSWIRESApril 27, 2005 11:21 a.m.
BERLIN (AP)--A senior aide to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Wednesday stepped up the governing party's criticism of unbridled capitalism, which has become a centerpiece of campaigning for key state elections next month, declaring that "the state must set limits." Schroeder's Social Democrats have taken a rhetorical swing left as they try to hold off a strong conservative opposition challenge May 22 in the industrial western state of North Rhine-Westphalia - Germany's most populous and for decades a stronghold of the center-left party.
That has drawn a sharp response from German industry, which has accused Schroeder's party of endangering already shaky business confidence as it struggles with poll ratings undermined by a jobless rate of 12.5%.
Social Democratic Chairman Franz Muentefering , who launched the debate two weeks ago in a speech declaring that "international profit maximization strategies endanger our democracy in the long term," was unapologetic in an interview Wednesday with Germany's biggest-selling daily. "Business is there for people, not the other way round," he told Bild. "Anyone who thought that business could do everything better if only people would let it must see that this is wrong." "The state must set limits," he added. "And it must be in a position to enforce adherence to them." The interview came as Schroeder's Cabinet approved a plan designed to curb cheap labor from new, lower-wage members of the European Union by requiring foreign companies who have workers in Germany to pay them German wages. Germany's main employers association said the plan was counterproductive. "If it is implemented in this way, more jobs will be forced abroad or into the shadow economy or cut altogether," it said in a statement. In a separate interview with the weekly Die Zeit, Muentefering urged industry to create more jobs and charged that some companies are relocating jobs abroad "simply for profit." "It is indecent when one leaves in the lurch the place that made one great - in some cases rich - and where employees have their home," he was quoted as saying. He stopped short, however, of a suggestion last week by a regional Social Democratic leader that Germans boycott companies that lay off workers. Amid a steady flow of dismal economic news, the conservative opposition contends that the government is merely seeking to deflect attention from its own failings. This week, a closely watched survey showed German business confidence sinking to a 19-month low and the country's leading economists halved their 2005 growth forecast for Germany. Despite Schroeder's efforts to boost the economy by trimming the welfare state and implementing limited labor-market reforms, the economists argued that "no coherent concept designed to tackle the growth problem is visible. "This misery is homemade," said Volker Kauder, the general secretary of the opposition Christian Democrats. "Instead of putting the blame on others, this government should finally get to work itself." The Federation of German Industry said this week that Muentefering 's words were just adding to the problems. Schroeder's party "is doing everything it can at the moment to gamble away completely with class-war slogans confidence in business, which is in any case dwindling," said the organization's head, Juergen Thumann.
Europe Inc. Gets An About-FaceFrom Politicians
By MARCUS WALKER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNALApril 20, 2005; Page A14
FRANKFURT -- Gerhard Schroeder used to present himself as a business-friendly centrist politician, but mass unemployment and impending defeat in a key regional election are pushing the German chancellor and his Social Democratic party into a more old-fashioned policy: Blame the bosses. Across much of Europe, politicians are retreating to antibusiness rhetoric, portraying free markets and international competition as threats to the social fabric. That is bad news for the prospects for further economic restructuring in Continental Europe, where many economists blame stagnation and unemployment on overregulation, rigid labor markets and unaffordable welfare states. "Reform is out of fashion in Germany," said Thorstein Polleit, an economist at investment bank Barclays Capital in Frankfurt. "We are heading for a year of political standstill," until national elections next year. Senior figures from Mr. Schroeder's SPD party are lining up to lambast German business, which they accuse of greed in laying off German workers and moving production to low-wage countries. Yesterday, the party's deputy head, Ute Vogt, encouraged consumers to boycott the products of companies that lay off large numbers of staff. Monday, the chancellor said he supported a speech last week by SPD Chairman Franz Muentefering , which argued that "the growing power of capital" needed curtailing. Mr. Muentefering said corporate "short-term profit-seeking" was in danger of undermining people's faith in democracy, by treating workers as dispensable commodities. The quest to blame business for the weak economy is picking up just as data show growth running out of steam. German economic sentiment nosedived in April, according to the ZEW survey of financial analysts, while industrial output across the 12-nation euro currency area fell 0.5% in February. The euro-zone economy is forecast to expand only 1.6% this year, despite the fast expansion of the global economy, and many economists predict Germany will expand 1% or even less. In France, too, leaders are treading carefully on economic restructuring for fear of a public backlash. Polls suggest a majority of French voters, partly driven by economic discontent, will reject the European Union's proposed constitution in a May referendum. France's conservative government is struggling to persuade voters that the EU won't import raw Anglo-American-style capitalism to the country.
Meanwhile, failure to deliver a promised revitalization of the Italian economy, including tax cuts, has hit the popularity of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose governing coalition nearly collapsed Monday after it suffered heavy defeats in recent regional elections. Economists warn that Italy also is likely to make little headway on economic restructuring before new elections are held. In his speech, SPD boss Mr. Muentefering attacked "certain financial groups" for cutting workers despite rising profits as part of a strategy to compete abroad -- a thinly veiled reference to Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's biggest bank and erstwhile flagship for national economic strength. In February, Deutsche Bank provoked union anger for announcing 6,400 job cuts on the same day as it published an 87% increase in annual profit to €2.5 billion ($3.25 billion). The bank's chief executive, Josef Ackermann, argued that greater efficiency was needed to keep up with global players -- a logic that has made Mr. Ackermann a target for German critics of globalization. Chancellor Schroeder's problem is how to win back lost voters by next year. The ruling coalition is widely expected to lose a bellwether regional election next month in the country's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, traditionally an SPD stronghold. The government's market-oriented changes in recent years, including lowering business taxes while cutting welfare benefits, have alienated traditional working-class supporters, but haven't gone far enough to lift the economy out of the doldrums
Carl Bergquist
temporary address:
Koertestrasse 30, QU
10967 Berlin
Germany
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Asskicking is on the march
Al Qaeda Leader Caught
Abu Farraj al-Libbi, said to be al Qaeda's number three leader and a long-time associate of Osama bin Laden, has been captured in Pakistan, following a firefight near Peshawar. The arrest reportedly took place earlier this week.
President Bush called al-Libbi's apprehension a "critical victory in the war on terror," and praised Pakistan's President Musharraf. Of course, Musharraf had plenty of incentive to go after al-Libbi, who is believed to have masterminded two assassination attempts on Pakistan's President. Speculation about whether al-Libbi might lead authorities to bin Laden and Zawahiri is inevitable, but fruitless, at this point.
Abu Farraj al-Libbi, said to be al Qaeda's number three leader and a long-time associate of Osama bin Laden, has been captured in Pakistan, following a firefight near Peshawar. The arrest reportedly took place earlier this week.
President Bush called al-Libbi's apprehension a "critical victory in the war on terror," and praised Pakistan's President Musharraf. Of course, Musharraf had plenty of incentive to go after al-Libbi, who is believed to have masterminded two assassination attempts on Pakistan's President. Speculation about whether al-Libbi might lead authorities to bin Laden and Zawahiri is inevitable, but fruitless, at this point.
300 Reasons to love the Simpsons
The list is hilarious-
The 'three little sentences' that Homer argues will get you through life.
1: 'Cover for me.'
2: 'Good idea, boss.'
3: 'It was like that when I got here.'
The 'three little sentences' that Homer argues will get you through life.
1: 'Cover for me.'
2: 'Good idea, boss.'
3: 'It was like that when I got here.'
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
By the beard of Zeus!
Pa. Eatery Offers New 15-Pound Burger
CLEARFIELD, Pa. (AP) - The burger war is growing. Literally. Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, which lost its crown as the home of the world's biggest burger earlier this year, is now offering a new burger that weighs a whopping 15 pounds.Dubbed the Beer Barrel Belly Buster, the burger comes with 10.5 pounds of ground beef, 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, a cup-and-a-half each of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, mustard and banana peppers - and a bun.It costs $30."It can feed a family of 10," said Denny Liegey Sr., the restaurant's owner.Denny's Beer Barrel Pub had offered a 6-pound burger - with 5 pounds of toppings.In February, a 100-pound female college student became the first to eat the burger within the three-hour time limit. Kate Stelnick, of Princeton, N.J., was awarded a special certificate, a T-shirt and other prizes and Leigey picked up the $23.95 tab for the burger.One month later, the Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, N.J., introduced a 12.5-pound burger dubbed Zeus.So Liegey responded, and the Belly Buster was born.Over the weekend, four men took the challenge, but couldn't get through the entire burger. They opted for doggie bags, instead."It's a little too much for me to handle," said Steve Hepburn, of Clearfield. "It's like trying to eat half a cow."
CLEARFIELD, Pa. (AP) - The burger war is growing. Literally. Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, which lost its crown as the home of the world's biggest burger earlier this year, is now offering a new burger that weighs a whopping 15 pounds.Dubbed the Beer Barrel Belly Buster, the burger comes with 10.5 pounds of ground beef, 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, a cup-and-a-half each of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, mustard and banana peppers - and a bun.It costs $30."It can feed a family of 10," said Denny Liegey Sr., the restaurant's owner.Denny's Beer Barrel Pub had offered a 6-pound burger - with 5 pounds of toppings.In February, a 100-pound female college student became the first to eat the burger within the three-hour time limit. Kate Stelnick, of Princeton, N.J., was awarded a special certificate, a T-shirt and other prizes and Leigey picked up the $23.95 tab for the burger.One month later, the Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, N.J., introduced a 12.5-pound burger dubbed Zeus.So Liegey responded, and the Belly Buster was born.Over the weekend, four men took the challenge, but couldn't get through the entire burger. They opted for doggie bags, instead."It's a little too much for me to handle," said Steve Hepburn, of Clearfield. "It's like trying to eat half a cow."
Argument by Metephor
The left may lack substantive heft, but it's not short on figures of speech.
by Paul Mirengoff
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY professor Alex Hinton has warned that our government's prosecution of the war on terror may be causing us to resemble the Khmer Rouge, the genocidal gang that once ran Cambodia. In a piece titled "Lessons from killing fields of Cambodia--30 years on," published in the Christian Science Monitor last month, Hinton concluded that "the Khmer Rouge teach us difficult lessons about ourselves and the world in which we live." The chief lesson, according to Hinton, is that we risk heading down "their path to evil" through our conduct "right now in the war on terror." Hinton's piece, of little consequence in its own right, represents a specimen of the left's use of the war on terror to deconstruct American values.
To negate Hinton's bizarre analogy, one need only recall the history of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. Hinton, without irony, does this himself. The Cambodian government, he notes, collectivized production and consumption, forced essentially its "entire population" into backbreaking and unceasing labor, abolished freedom of worship, cut off contact between its citizens and the outside world, attempted to control what the public "ate and did every day," and--oh yes--caused the death of more than 1.7 million of the country's 8 million inhabitants.
Inasmuch as the U.S. government has done none of the above, in what respect does Hinton think we are coming to resemble the Cambodian mass murderers? Well, for one thing we are not always politically correct. Hinton notes that most of us have
"used euphemisms and stereotypes, followed instructions better questioned, succumbed to peer pressure, disparaged others, and become desensitized to the suffering of others." Not only that, but we have "turned a blind eye to what our government should not be doing." Specifically (and this is the only specific Hinton supplies) our government has engaged in torture, as did the Khmer Rouge. But we have we hardly turned a "blind eye" to this. The disgraceful conduct at Abu Ghraib was widely condemned; indeed, our government began investigating the matter even before it came to light. Where's the Cambodian analog? More fundamentally, it would be obscene to compare the actions at Abu Ghraib with genocide. In fact, Hinton presents no evidence that our government has intentionally killed even one foreign terrorist in our custody, much less 1.7 million of its citizens.
If Hinton had really been interested in finding a current version of the Khmer Rouge, or a regime of a different sort that engaged in genocide, he would have looked no further than the Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq. But then he would have had to acknowledge that the United States has toppled both of these monstrous regimes and has held free elections for the liberated citizens of both countries. Hinton prefers to turn a blind eye to these accomplishments.
Unfortunately, Hinton's piece is symptomatic of a disturbing trend in leftist thinking. For a while now, the left has been fond of argument by creative metaphor--Zionism equals racism; pornography equals sex discrimination or even rape; and, more recently, Bush equals Hitler. In this way, a controversial phenomenon is equated with one that everyone agrees is bad. Leftists in the academy particularly favor this show-stopper approach, since they are used to having their theories evaluated not for their objective validity (a hopelessly passé concept), but rather for their creativity.
by Paul Mirengoff
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY professor Alex Hinton has warned that our government's prosecution of the war on terror may be causing us to resemble the Khmer Rouge, the genocidal gang that once ran Cambodia. In a piece titled "Lessons from killing fields of Cambodia--30 years on," published in the Christian Science Monitor last month, Hinton concluded that "the Khmer Rouge teach us difficult lessons about ourselves and the world in which we live." The chief lesson, according to Hinton, is that we risk heading down "their path to evil" through our conduct "right now in the war on terror." Hinton's piece, of little consequence in its own right, represents a specimen of the left's use of the war on terror to deconstruct American values.
To negate Hinton's bizarre analogy, one need only recall the history of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. Hinton, without irony, does this himself. The Cambodian government, he notes, collectivized production and consumption, forced essentially its "entire population" into backbreaking and unceasing labor, abolished freedom of worship, cut off contact between its citizens and the outside world, attempted to control what the public "ate and did every day," and--oh yes--caused the death of more than 1.7 million of the country's 8 million inhabitants.
Inasmuch as the U.S. government has done none of the above, in what respect does Hinton think we are coming to resemble the Cambodian mass murderers? Well, for one thing we are not always politically correct. Hinton notes that most of us have
"used euphemisms and stereotypes, followed instructions better questioned, succumbed to peer pressure, disparaged others, and become desensitized to the suffering of others." Not only that, but we have "turned a blind eye to what our government should not be doing." Specifically (and this is the only specific Hinton supplies) our government has engaged in torture, as did the Khmer Rouge. But we have we hardly turned a "blind eye" to this. The disgraceful conduct at Abu Ghraib was widely condemned; indeed, our government began investigating the matter even before it came to light. Where's the Cambodian analog? More fundamentally, it would be obscene to compare the actions at Abu Ghraib with genocide. In fact, Hinton presents no evidence that our government has intentionally killed even one foreign terrorist in our custody, much less 1.7 million of its citizens.
If Hinton had really been interested in finding a current version of the Khmer Rouge, or a regime of a different sort that engaged in genocide, he would have looked no further than the Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq. But then he would have had to acknowledge that the United States has toppled both of these monstrous regimes and has held free elections for the liberated citizens of both countries. Hinton prefers to turn a blind eye to these accomplishments.
Unfortunately, Hinton's piece is symptomatic of a disturbing trend in leftist thinking. For a while now, the left has been fond of argument by creative metaphor--Zionism equals racism; pornography equals sex discrimination or even rape; and, more recently, Bush equals Hitler. In this way, a controversial phenomenon is equated with one that everyone agrees is bad. Leftists in the academy particularly favor this show-stopper approach, since they are used to having their theories evaluated not for their objective validity (a hopelessly passé concept), but rather for their creativity.
No mention of the Pahlke/Zerzan act of 1995
The Supreme Court has agreed to review a court of appeals decision holding that the Solomon Act is unconstitutional. The Solomon Act cuts off federal funding to schools that inhibit or bar military recruiting. A group of law schools argued that threat of losing federal funds effectively forces them to support, accommodate and even endorse discrimination against gays and lesbians in violation of their First Amendment rights of free speech and association. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. Orin Kerr predicts that the Supreme Court will reverse and that the vote won't be close.
Monday, May 02, 2005
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