President Hugo Chavez, the "socialist revolutionary" leading a global campaign against America's "empire", is facing a political crisis in Venezuela where crucial elections are approaching and old allies have turned against him.But then it veers quickly into anti-US/pro-Chavez territory:
Mr Chavez, a devoted admirer of Fidel Castro, has forged an anti-American front with leaders ranging from President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
At home, however, Mr Chavez is in trouble. State elections are due in November and Venezuela's opposition, which now includes former followers of South America's standard-bearer for socialism, is expected to perform well.
...General Raul Baduel, who served as defence minister and rescued Mr Chavez from an American-backed coup in 2002...Let's get one thing straight here. While it's pretty certain that the Bush administration favored the coup, there's not a shred of evidence that the US had anything to do with it. That the US "backed" the coup is vintage Chavez propaganda, which the Telegraph reporter here is only too happy to parrot.
Under Mr Chavez, Venezuela's government has become a one-man show. He takes almost every decision himself, working into the early hours, scrawling his signature on official papers. His ministers are powerless. Mr Chavez no longer chairs cabinet meetings, delegating that task to his vice-president.Shortly followed by:
Mr Chavez, who is a twice-elected leader, not a dictator...It's small wonder the world hates the US. They're lied to over and over again about US actions while every pissant commie is held up as a paragon of virtue.
Anti-drugs officials estimate that more than 50 per cent of all the cocaine consumed in Britain has been trafficked through Venezuela - under the "revolutionary" regime of Mr Chavez. The figure could be as high as two thirds.Something seems to have been lost in translation here. My understanding of the Bermuda Triangle is that a Bermuda Triangle for drugs would be a good thing. But I get his meaning...I think.
Senior commanders in Venezuela's security forces are thought to be profiting from the trade and actively helping the smugglers, notably by allowing them to use military airfields.
"Venezuela is a magnet for drug trafficking right now. It's a huge problem," said a senior member of another Latin American government. "Venezuela is a Bermuda Triangle for drugs."
A man alleged to be one of al-Qa'eda's most important operatives in Europe is due to be freed from a British prison next week, it was reported.Fercryin'outloud. The Brits aren't even trying any more.
After secret negotiations, the prisoner, identified only as U, is expected to be freed on bail from the high-security wing at Long Lartin jail in Worcestershire.
U, a 45-year-old Algerian, is alleged to be a terrorist leader who recruited, trained and facilitated operations.
Two Swedish nationals working for the United Nations mine action service were kidnapped in Somalia on Saturday by Islamist militants, a UN source told AFP.Of the few useful things the UN does, mine action is one of them. Mine action service workers not only carry out unexploded ordnance (UXO) disposal, they educate locals on how to avoid mines and treat and rehabilitate civilians who are too often the victims of forgotten landmines.
Local residents and aid workers said the insurgents attacked the town of Hodur, 370 kilometres west of the Somali capital Mogadishu, around 4:30 am (0130 GMT) but then withdrew.
"The two UN mine action workers were taken from the IMC (International Medical Corps) compound. We don't know their whereabouts and they were taken after Islamists took control of the town," a UN official told AFP on condition of anonymity, saying both were Swedish nationals.
Most of the ship's 300 crew members have never set foot in Sweden before, and their impression after sailing through Stockholm’s archipelago left them with heightened expectations.Life in the Navy can be pretty hard, but I've been to Sweden in the summer time...there is an upside to being a sailor, I guess.
“It was just beautiful,” said Fire Controlman 3rd Class Joshua Winkler of Illinois.
Commanding Officer Cary J. Krause was also struck by the archipelago, not only for its beauty, but also because of the challenge he faced in navigating the 150 metre-long destroyer through the vast collection of islands.
[ ... ]
Besides the current dollar-krona exchange rate, as well as the location of the nearest nightclub, sailors were also interested in having the chance to experience yet another port city.
“Business comes first, play comes later,” said Winkler with a smile.
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.I ain't buying it, and memory permitting, I'll follow up on this in August.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
Tom Bayliss, prosecuting, had told the court that Yasmin Khan was one of six children born to Pakistani parents living in Halifax.Positively medieval.
She attended a local school until the age of nine when she was taken by her mother to Pakistan.
Mother and daughter moved in with Miss Khan's uncle, Rehmat Khan, and her brother, Arza.
When Mrs Khan returned to Britain her daughter spent her days doing housework. She was not placed in education again for three years.
At the age of 15 she was allowed to return to Britain, with the caveat that she would later return to Pakistan to marry one of her nephews.
Back in Yorkshire, she tried to regain control of her life, finding a job as a receptionist and studying for A Levels at Calderdale College.
Her family disapproved of her behaviour and she was sometimes beaten.
In 2002 she was taken back to Pakistan and told she would only return to Britain "when you start behaving yourself".
Arza Khan was violent towards her and in response to this she took an overdose.
While in Pakistan she met and fell in love with Mr Mehmood. She flew back to Britain and lived for a time away from her family in both Edinburgh and Cardiff.
During this period Arza Khan made telephone calls in which he threatened to kill her.
Miss Khan and her chosen lover were secretly married in Pakistan in October 2004.
However, she became homesick and once again flew home to Britain. He followed, and lived at a secret address in Halifax. It was from this house that he was taken away and executed on February 11 last year.
Dads visiting pornographic websites represented the most common complaint, while philandering fathers were also a cause for concern.It's a strange world we live in.
"It seems that my dad is 'unfaithful'," wrote one 15-year-old boy.
"I read his MSN conversation log. I was just curious. And then I saw that he was talking to, like, young girls. And the disgusting part is that he's 53!
"And they talk about sex and how they're going to meet and everything. It makes me want to puke. It really makes me feel bad.
"I don't know if I should tell mum because I'm worried they'll get a divorce. Please, what should I do?"
The report also made it clear that children were not the only ones spending inordinate amounts of time in front of the computer.
One 12-year-old girl called the organization to explain that she rarely got to speak to her mum anymore. Her mother spent most of her time sitting half naked in front of the computer and posting photos of herself on the internet, the girl said.
Another girl's mother had begun devoting all her attention to a computer game.
"I know it sounds ridiculous but my mother has started playing the computer game WoW, World of Warcraft," wrote the 13-year-old.
"This summer she has been sitting up all day and all night and she forgets what's important to me. And when she's not at the computer she's like a lost soul. She just looks straight ahead and says nothing. I'm not doing so well."
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.Clearly, this was a remark - made in response to the interviewer's question - about whether an attack on US soil would help or hurt McCain. Yet the context is completely omitted in all coverage of the "controversial" statement. In fact, the entire article is about how John McCain plans to win the election, and the context in which the interviewer posed the question to Black was all about how world events influence the campaign. But listening to the coverage today, one would think that Charlie Black and his henchmen were sitting around in their leather chairs, smoking cigars and drinking single malt scotch, when Black said "Hey...you know what would be a big help this fall?"
National Security AdvisersThat kind of "change", I think, we can do without.
Richard Danzig...was Navy secretary in the Clinton administration.
Sarah Sewall...was deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance during the Clinton administration.
Foreign Policy Advisers
Gregory B. Craig...a former Clinton White House aide, served as director of policy planning under former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Anthony Lake...a national security adviser to President Clinton.
Susan E. Rice...served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the later years of the Clinton administration.
Economic Advisers
Jason Furman...served as special assistant to the president for economic policy in the Clinton administration.
William M. Daley...served as chairman of President Bill Clinton’s NAFTA Task Force. A few years after the enactment of the trade agreement, Daley became Clinton’s secretary of commerce.
Daniel K. Tarullo...In the Clinton administration, Tarullo served as assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, deputy assistant to the president for economic policy, and assistant to the president for international economic policy.
The local council has hailed the experiment a success as not a single traffic accident was reported last month, compared to at least one serious crash every week before the change.
The Cold War is allegedly over, but Norway's special police unit in charge of intelligence (PST) is convinced that Russian spies are as active as ever. So active, that PST has warned Foreign Ministry officials about specific suspected spies working as Russian diplomats.Aftenposten ran a similar story back in February.
[ ... ]
The Russians are said to be especially keen on Norwegian views on possible attempts by Finland and/or Sweden to join NATO. Russia is opposed to expansion of the NATO defense alliance.
...the recent match between members of the 87th Infantry's 1st battalion and several young men from the Sons of Iraq meant much more than the 9-0 score.Someone forward this to Harry Reid, please.
For one thing, it was the third time in recent days when American soldiers donned shorts and "Salute to Our Fallen Heroes" T-shirts to go head-to-head and foot-to-foot with teams of opponents who, only months ago, may have been trying to kill them.
Morgan Tsvangirai pulled of Zimbabwe's presidential run-off election today, complaining that a campaign of violence by Robert Mugabe and his supporters made a free and fair vote impossible.Mugabe has to cling to power out of self-preservation. If the MDC ever came to power, he'd surely face a trial and ultimate execution.
Mr Tsvangirai announced the decision at a press conference in Harare after a meeting this morning of the national executive of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
“We in the MDC cannot ask them to cast their vote on the 27th when that vote would cost them their lives,” he said. “We will no longer participate in the violent illegitimate sham of an election process."
The opposition leader said that President Mugabe had “declared war by saying that the bullet has replaced the ballot".
Evil.'They're here,' my colleague whispered. It was 11am, exactly the time the Russian ministry officials said they would arrive at our office to carry out an 'unplanned audit' of our newspaper's articles.Read the whole thing.
A film of sweat hit my back.
The officials from what is known as the Federal Service for Mass Media, Telecommunications, and the Protection of Cultural Heritage had specifically requested my presence for the questioning, so that I might 'explain' our articles.
I had seriously considered absconding - and now that I was there, I wondered if I hadn't just made the biggest mistake of my life.
[ ... ]
A visit by four government officials to question you about your editorial content would be strange and worrying in any country. But in Russia, where over the past decade journalists and media outlets have been subjected to relentless pressure, brutality, forced exile and even death, it's much more serious.
Related?In addition to his father's village in Africa, Barack Obama may be able to add Montpelier and Stratford Hall to his list of ancestral homes.Madison's and Lee's descendants are having none of it:
According to a venerable genealogical society, the Illinois senator and presumptive Democratic nominee for president is a distant cousin of both President James Madison, who was born in King George County in 1751, and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who was born in 1807 at Stratford in Westmoreland County.
"We can't validate it one way or the other," an official of the Society of Lees of Virginia said of Roberts' findings. The official did not wish to be named.Genealogy is a funny thing. With my Dad's family being from Ireland and my Mom's from Sweden, I could probably trace some tenuous ancestry to both Brian Boru and the present King of Sweden. But I'm not gonna bother.
Frederick Madison Smith, president of The National Society of the Madison Family Descendants, said Roberts' claims are "without merit as now presented." Smith criticized a lack of genealogical documentation in Roberts' work.
"In the absence of a proved genealogy, fully documented for each generation and individual claimed, we cannot consider these celebrity claims to be either 'authoritative' or valid, Smith wrote in an e-mail.
Brainstorming, first coined in the 1890s, was used by psychiatrists to refer to severe nervous attacks. And although since the 1940s it has meant a meeting to produce new ideas, councillors are concerned it may prove offensive to epileptics.They should have checked first with the subject matter experts:
The National Society for Epilepsy said this was unlikely. It surveyed members three years ago to ask whether they found the phrase offensive.With so many people and special interest groups claiming to be chronically offended, why is it that some people feel the need to inform groups that they should be offended?
Spokesman Amanda Cleaver said: 'The answer was a resounding No. It certainly wasn't deemed offensive at all. People thought it was a great word to describe the coming together and discussion of ideas.'
A powerful Hindu-nationalist political party in western India has called for Hindu suicide squads to counter Islamic terrorism, causing outrage and embarrassing the national opposition with which it is allied.I suspect the response from the average Hindu will be something less than enthusiastic.
The inflammatory comments appeared on Wednesday in an unsigned editorial in Saamana, the official newspaper of the Shiv Sena, a regional party whose politics is based on nativist pride for the people of the state of Maharashtra.
"Islamic terrorism is on the rise in India and in order to counter Islamic terrorism, we should match it with Hindu terrorism," the unsigned editorial said in Marathi.
"Just like Islamic extremism, to safeguard the country and Hindus we must create Hindu suicide squads if Hindu society is to be saved."
Suspected Al Qaeda leader Abu Qatada is celebrating his release from prison with the release of a book in which he urges Muslims to commit terrorist attacks in the West.Making this even more outrageous is one of the conditions of his bail, which requires British Home Office permission before publication of any statement, article or book. So, either the government approved his incitement to violence or they're simply not enforcing the conditions of his release.
In the 71-page tract, published in English translation on the internet, he repeatedly claims that fighting jihad, holy war, is obligatory for all Muslims and urges them to 'terrorise' non-believers.
Security sources say his clear incitement to violence makes a mockery of the decision to set him free.
The most complex, "mind-boggling" crop circle ever to be seen in Britain has been discovered in a barley field in Wiltshire.How tragic that these nefarious aliens chose a barley field. That's a lot of beer that will never be brewed.
The formation, measuring 150ft in diameter, is apparently a coded image representing the first 10 digits, 3.141592654, of pi.
It is has appeared in a field near Barbury Castle, an iron-age hill fort above Wroughton, Wilts, and has been described by astrophysicists as "mind-boggling".
Fans of the Age of Conan role-player game besieged internet forums with complaints after noticing that their custom-built characters had dropped several bra sizes.Now, get the hell out of the house and go find an actual woman.
Many were angry that their previously pert avatars - which they had spent hours creating into icons of exaggerated femininity - now appeared to have "saggy" breasts.
[ ... ]
Multi-player fantasy games like Age of Conan are particularly popular among teenage boys, but even some of the game’s female players were upset at the unannounced change.
"Funcom did reduce the size of the breasts. There is almost no cleavage, just a flat area between them. And YES they do sag," a player called Krystal wrote.
[ ... ]
In a message posted on a gamers' forum, it said that the maximum breast size had been reduced in error during a programming alteration carried out to fix other bugs.
It also promised that all affected characters would soon be re-enlarged
"Funcom can confirm that some of the female models in the game have had the size of their breasts changed," the statement said.
"This is due to an unintended change in data that was introduced in an earlier patch, data which controls the so-called morph values associated with character models and the size of their respective body parts.
"We are working on a fix for this and your breasts should be back to normal soon."
Like we did in Vietnam, al-Qaeda in Iraq has run afoul of nationalism and local culture, although in spectacular fashion. It has trampled on the prerogatives of tribal sheiks and issued lunatic decrees, like its banning of the local bread in Mosul — sammoun — because it did not exist at the time of the Prophet.Finally some parallel lines that don't intersect.
Like we did in Vietnam, it overrelied on favored tactics even after they proved ineffective or counterproductive; with us, it was ever more bombing runs in the North and search-and-destroy missions in the South, while in al-Qaeda’s it has been mass-casualty suicide bombings.
Like we were in Vietnam, al-Qaeda was sucked into a conflict not of its choosing by the geopolitical assertion of its adversary.
A biker is riding by the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage.
Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.
The biker jumps off his bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.
Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.
A New York Times reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter addressing the biker says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life.'
The biker replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars.I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right.'
The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist from the New York Times, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?''
The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'
The journalist leaves..
The following morning the biker buys The New York Times to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on front page:
U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH
Before the Brussels Conference, Hitler had stipulated three conditions for acceding to negotiations. Churchill must be replaced as prime minister and denied participation in the peace talks. Forced to hand in his resignation, Churchill and his family fled into exile to Canada the following day.Read the whole thing.
Second, neither the British nor French navies were to be moved from their present positions.
The third condition demanded the signing of the peace agreement in two locations. The British would sign at the war memorial on the Somme, where Hitler had fought and been wounded in 1916, while the French would sign in the same railway carriage in the forest of Compiegne, where the Armistice to end the Great War - the ultimate German humiliation from Hitler's point of view - had been approved in 1918.
[ ... ]
Although Hitler permitted the British Empire to survive, he reduced it to a mere semblance of what it had once been. British rights in the oil fields of the Middle East were to be ceded to Germany, along with the mandated territories in the region and control over the Suez Canal.
Backed by his bellicose foreign minister, Ribbentrop, Hitler insisted on acquiring a swathe of British, French and Belgian colonies in Africa, establishing German rule over much of the African continent.
With Malta, Gibraltar, Algeria and Tunisia in Mussolini's hands - his part of the spoils from the Brussels Conference - the Axis powers dominated the entire Mediterranean.
The complete subservience of the defeated Western democracies to the German Reich was most unmistakably advertised with the disbandment of the French and British navies.
[ ... ]
Soon it became abundantly clear that U.S. interests would be confined to the American hemisphere. Staying out of war was the crucial task.
The U.S. continued its rearmament in case a German-dominated Europe should at some point seek to attack America. But with Britain and France defeated, American interests lay squarely at home. There was to be no provocation of Hitler, no attempt to engage in a conflict in the Atlantic.
Roosevelt looked to secure a naval agreement with Hitler that provided for the demilitarisation of the western Atlantic, leaving the U. S. Navy to concentrate on the looming danger from Japan in the Pacific.
[ ... ]
By early August, German forces reached Moscow. Stalin fled from the city, leading to the complete demoralisation of a Soviet population further threatened by the news that Japanese forces attacking through Mongolia and into Siberia had prompted the Red Army's headlong retreat from its eastern front. Forced back on the Central Asian republics, Stalin saw no other option but to sue for terms.
The subsequent territorial subtractions made the calamitous concessions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 look like minor losses.
Most important, the oil of the Caucasus fell to Germany. So did the granary of Ukraine.
[ ... ]
Japan also had greatly extended its material resources by virtue of its brutal occupation of much of South-East Asia.
Deprived of assistance from the Allies, Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek felt compelled to accept the harsh terms that the Japanese sought to impose.
These included China's joining the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the euphemism chosen by Japan to designate the huge area of its newly captured 'living space'.
[ ... ]
What has happened to the Jews remains unclear. They have disappeared from sight, rounded up by the Germans and their collaborators in the occupied territories of Western Europe and shipped eastward. No one is sure of their subsequent fate. Terrible rumours circulated by underground resistance movements and intercepted by U.S. intelligence indicate that up to 11 million have been exterminated.
A lawyer who represents high-profile terror suspects was paid nearly £1million in legal aid in just 12 months.I'm sure British soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan would just love to hear about this.
Official figures show that taxpayers have handed Mudassar Arani's firm £3.5million to defend extremist suspects over recent years.
The Ugandan-born solicitor tells Muslims never to talk to police and warns that those who speak out against Islamic terrorists 'are playing into the hands of the Government'.
Her clients include hate cleric Abu Hamza, dirty bomb plotter Dhiren Barot and three of the 21/7 attackers.
How could things have gotten so bad that it has come to this? This sort of decay doesn't happen in a few years. It is most emphatically NOT due to OPS TEMPO from 2003.He makes some very valid points. Of course, many of the problems he rants about started with McPeak, and those that didn't, well, he's definitely the one who set the precedent for those who came after.
It goes back farther. Like 1992 and the administration of Bush 41. Nuclear "incidents" in SAC would NEVER have been tolerated. Had "special weapons" been loaded on a BUFF when they shouldn't have been, every unit even tangentially connected to the incident would have had their commander replaced within days. Back in the day they may have tossed the Chaplains too, just to make sure.
But a poorly conceived re-organization started the decline. Its poor execution and revision under the Clinton administration hastened it.
The "Frenchification" of the Air Force was complete when they did away with regulations. We are quite possibly the only military orgainzation on the planet that has "intructions" instead of regulations. I still don't know what "Air Force Instruction" replaced 35-10. [AFR 35-10 was the regulation that prescribed dress and appearance. Everyone knew it. I don't know which "instruction" replaced it, either, and that came more than 10 years before I retired. --ed.] But what do I mean by the "Frenchification" of the USAF? Consider the reputation of the French military. Then consider the reputation of the French soldier. The individual soldier, and up to small units, are well regarded. For generations the French soldier, sailor and airman has performed on par with or better than his peers in other nations. So why the low regard for the French military as a whole, if it's made up of quality service men? Because as an organization it is brittle.
Steel is made by adding carbon to iron. It must be done right in order to get the desired change at the molecular level. If too little carbon is added the iron becomes the stuff used for wrought iron gates... Yes it's iron, but it's soft. It doesn't take much for a 7th grade girl to twist it. Add too much carbon and you skip the steel stage and go to cast iron. Take a sledge hammer to a steel pipe and you dent it. Take a sledge hammer to a cast iron pipe and you shatter it. There are many good uses for cast iron... but if you need flexibility and a sharp edge, cast iron is a loser.
The organizational fabric of the French military has been brittle since World War I. And now the USAF is headed down the same path.
It's not going to get better any time soon. Here's my prescription:
- Get rid of the Hollywood logo. Go back to the WWII winged star. The one MEN wore on their uniforms when they had higher casualty rates than all others in WWII.
- Train the way you want to be able to fight... Because you fight the way you train. Nuff said.
- Review every "instruction" - If it's any good, reissue it as a regulation. If it sucks delete it.
- Worry less about off-duty "hurt feelings" and concern yourself more with on-duty killing of the enemy.
- If basic trainees are taught one thing, it should be "The planes come first." Not a database, not a pee test, not even the soft ball game between CE and Supply.
- STOP changing the uniform... We are screaming to the world, and all of our members, that the Air Force doesn't "like itself". Well, it's just the idiots on the Uniform Board. If the AF leadership insists on a redesigned uniform, hire a couple of wardrobe guys from Hollywood (as long as they aren't connected to the new logo). Then promise to stick to the design for at least 10 years.
The military expects a confrontational hearing when the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and four alleged confederates are brought before a Marine colonel presiding over their war-crimes tribunal.Expect howling and teeth-gnashing on a grand scale from the left on this. They'll say the trials are rigged and will, of course, completely ignore the fact that their earlier complaints were that these dirt bags were being held without trial.
At an arraignment scheduled for Thursday, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was expected to make his first public appearance since being captured in Pakistan in 2003, held in CIA custody at secret sites and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
[ ... ]
The four defendants due to appear with Mohammed are: Ramzi Binalshibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaida leaders; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew and lieutenant of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; al-Baluchi's assistant, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi; and Waleed bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who allegedly selected and trained some of the 19 hijackers.
Detective Sergeant Gurpal Virdi has been awarded £70,400 after being passed over for promotion for having exposed racial discrimination at Scotland Yard.Good work if you can get it.
[ ... ]
In August 2000, Sgt Virdi was awarded £150,000 by a tribunal for racial discrimination by the Met when he was unfairly dismissed from the force.
[ ... ]
Sir John Stevens, then Commissioner, apologised and agreed Sgt Virdi should be paid another £90,000 compensation by the force for 'injury to his feelings'.
Swedish tax authorities have informed a couple in Stockholm that they may not keep the name Elvis for their five-month old daughter. The girl's parents have appealed the decision, Metro reports.I don't know which party to rant about more...the couple whose "most important factor" in naming the baby was gender neutrality, or the state for presuming to dictate to its citizens what they can and cannot name their children.
"We talked about lots of names and then Elvis popped up. We thought it was a name that was both pretty and gender-neutral. We're not Elvis Presley fans at all," the infant's mother, Linda, told the newspaper.
The most important factor for the couple, who do not own any of The King's records, was for the name to be "gender-neutral".
Eleven Danes have been summoned to appear before the Jordanian pubic prosecutor to answer charges of blasphemy and threatening the national peace. They include the cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons and editors from 10 of the 17 newspapers that reprinted them.None of that will matter to the Islamist freakazoids, of course. Don't those silly Danes know that Islamic law knows no international boundaries?
[ ... ]
Osama al-Bettar, the group's lawyer, said that if the Danes do not appear, the next step will be to inform Interpol and seek their arrest.
[ ... ]
However, the Danish foreign ministry has said that a forced deportation is not a possibility. It would require that the printing of the Mohammed cartoons is punishable in Denmark, which is not the case.
'It isn't just the people of Pakistan that feel they have been harassed by what your newspaper has begun,' she said. 'I'd like to know if your newspaper is satisfied with what it has done and what it has unleashed?'Do the words persona non grata mean anything to you, Ms. Abbas?
[ ... ]
'Danes know that they have insulted people around the world by printing and reprinting the Mohammed cartoons, which were done in poor taste.'
The judge ruled that it couldn't be proved that either Bhatti or accomplice Andreas Bog Kristiansen entered into a binding and intentional agreement to carry out terrorist acts on the Israeli and American embassies. Heger said he could see no hard evidence for that, nor could he see that the shots fired at the synagogue amounted to a terrorist act.This dirtbag doesn't get to walk, though. The article notes that he was convicted for other shootings and for attempted murder, and the court ordered him held under a Norwegian law for up to eight years or more.
Rather, he said, the court viewed the synagogue shooting as an act of serious vandalism. He conceded that the taped recordings of Bhatti’s verbal threats contained frightening thoughts and ideas, but ruled that they needed to be understood in their proper context.
Bhatti, who has a long criminal record, was thus ordered held in preventive custody for up to eight years, and possibly longer under the relatively harsh Norwegian sentence known as forvaring. It can result in indefinite custody.
I am on the bridge of the massive Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, and the tension is palpable. We have hit ice - thick ice.I read not long ago a book by Dan Simmons entitled The Terror. It's a work of fiction about the actual ill-fated Northwest Passage exploration by HMSs Erebus and Terror in the mid 19th century. In those days, England actively sought a shorter passage to the Pacific, and it was believed that the Northwest Passage was just the ticket. Years of exploration of the Arctic seas and land masses showed even then that in some years, the summer ice opened up more than enough for the passage of ships, and other summers the ice never relented. The ships Erebus and Terror, along with their crews, were lost when they were locked in the sea ice for two or three straight summers after previous years of easy summer going.
The ice master studies the mountains of white packed around the ship while the 24,000-horsepower diesel engines work at full throttle to open a path. The ship rises slowly onto the barrier of ice, crushes it and tosses aside blocks the size of small cars as if they were ice cubes in a glass. It creeps ahead a few metres, then comes to a halt, its bow firmly wedged in the ice. After doing this for two days, the ship can go no farther.
The ice master confers with the captain, who makes a call to the engine room. The engines are shut down. He turns to those of us watching the drama unfold, and we are shocked by his words: “Now, only nature can help this ship.” We are doomed to drift.
What irony. I am a passenger on one of the most powerful icebreakers in the world, travelling through the Northwest Passage - which is supposed to become almost ice-free in a time of global warming, the next shipping route across the top of the world - and here we are, stuck in the ice, engines shut down, bridge deserted. Only time and tide can free us.
An Anglican Bishop has compared people who fail to take action to prevent global warming to the Austrian man who allegedly locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years, repeatedly raping her and fathering seven of her children.Yup...that goes a real long way to enhancing the credibility of the global warming/climate change crowd.
The Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell, said that by failing to face up to the truth about climate change, we were - like Josef Fritzl - denying our children a future.
An airline passenger claimed that a security guard threatened to arrest him because he was wearing a T-shirt showing a cartoon robot with a gun.Ridiculous.
Brad Jayakody, 30, from London, said he was stopped from passing through security at Heathrow's Terminal 5 after his Transformers T-shirt was deemed 'offensive.'
The IT consultant was set to fly off on a business trip to Dusseldorf in Germany when he was pulled to one side.
Mr Jayakody said the first guard started joking with him about the Transformers character depicted on his French Connection T-shirt.
'"Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I'm not allowed to fly,' he said.
Neo-Soviets to gay demonstrators: Nyet!Russia's gay rights movement faces oblivion after riot police and the Orthodox Church joined forces to stifle a protest in Moscow.The government there today is pretty much like the one there pre-1990 or so, but without all the catchy slogans and red banners.
Yuri Luzkhov, Moscow's mayor, had already banned the city's third Gay Pride march after dismissing homosexuals as Satanists.
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The manner in which the demonstrations were held reflects the Kremlin's increasing intolerance for all forms of public protest.
Political demonstrations in the past two years have been stamped on by the police with increasing brutality.
Missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have "decapitated" the Taliban and brought the war in Afghanistan to a "tipping point", the commander of British forces has said.So much for the dreaded 'Spring Offensive' inaccurately predicted by the left-wing media every year.
The new "precise, surgical" tactics have killed scores of insurgent leaders and made it extremely difficult for Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to prosecute the campaign, according to Brig Mark Carleton-Smith.
In the past two years an estimated 7,000 Taliban have been killed, the majority in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But it is the "very effective targeted decapitation operations" that have removed "several echelons of commanders".
This in turn has left the insurgents on the brink of defeat, the head of Task Force Helmand said.
There are at least eight dead and four wounded after an explosion outside Denmark's embassy in Pakistan, reports Danish television news TV2, citing local sources.And so it
The explosion caused extensive damage to the embassy building and nearby cars. Large back clouds of smoke could be seen high above Islamabad.
Benedict XVI has cancelled meetings with seven world leaders to avoid an encounter with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.Good move. That Pope Benedict refused meetings with heads of state he clearly would have otherwise met with sends a more clear message, I think, than just refusing Ahamadinejad alone.
Mr Ahmadinejad is one of 40 heads of state arriving in Rome on Tuesday for a vital United Nations summit on the world’s food crisis.
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President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina, President Evo Morales of Bolivia and several African leaders also asked for a papal meeting.
The Vatican briefly considered a single audience for all the heads of state.
However, it eventually decided to refuse all the requests in order to avoid any potential embarrassment. It did not comment further on the decision.
