Saturday - October 15, 2005

Russian Roundup

Racial profiling, torture, limited access to mosques and strict rules about Muslim women’s dress? Can this really be happening in Russia? Why are none of the mainstream media reporting it? Why does the US get dragged over the coals for pampering prisoners at Gitmo while this goes on in Russia ... ?

Russian Police Round Up Muslim Men
NALCHIK, Russia (AP)

When Zarema Valgasova last saw her son, he was semiconscious and bleeding profusely from a badly broken arm with cigarette burns on his body—the result, she says, of police torture after his arrest. After Thursday’s attack by dozens of Islamic militants on police and security facilities in the southern Russian city of Nalchik, police rounded up more than three dozen people—most of them Muslim men. The latest violence was in Kabardino-Balkiriya republic, a tense area ridden with poverty and corruption. It underscored the volatility of the Caucasus region where a long-running conflict in Chechnya is spilling over with increasing frequency to nearby republics.

At least 108 people, including 72 attackers, were killed in this week’s fighting, according to a tally of accounts by officials, news reports and an Associated Press reporter. Twenty-four law enforcement officers were killed and 51 were wounded, government officials said. Chechen rebels have claimed involvement in the attacks, raising fears that Islamic militants who have been fighting Russian forces for most of the past decade were opening a new front in the troubled Caucasus. Rebels for years have harassed Russian forces in Chechnya with roadside bombs and homemade explosives, but the Nalchik attacks appeared to be part of a strategy to target areas outside the volatile republic and keep Moscow off-balance.

The attack comes amid a long-running regional campaign aimed at undermining nascent Islamic extremism—which Russian officials describe as “Wahhabism”—a term stemming from the strict and austere form of Islam predominant in Saudi Arabia and practiced by Osama bin Laden. Rights lawyers and the region’s officially sanctioned Islamic leader say the campaign has caught up innocent, peaceful young Muslims, alienating and offending them as they rediscover their religious heritage. If police continue their crackdown on Kabardino-Balkariya Muslims, it could lead to renewed violence against authorities, said Larisa Dolgova, a lawyer who represents Muslims in their complaints about harassment and torture. “Muslims will exercise their right to believe,” she said. “If not, I promise there will be mass disorder.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/15/2005 at 07:08 AM   
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   Friday - October 14, 2005

Dear Muslims: Guess What?

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/14/2005 at 04:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Don’t Screw with the Librarian

Saw this over on Wiz Bang!

Seems that Matthew O’Neil, a Palm Harbour (FL) librarian, was getting junk faxes.  He didn’t like that.  They are illegal.  He has reference books.  He filed suit.  They ignored the librarian. 

Bad, bad, mistake.

After the first fax on August 7th I called the ‘removal’ number on the fax but it was busy. I tried about six times but it was always busy. I used nanpa.com to find out who serviced the number and complained to them (the faxer’s phone company). The faxes continued. I filed 1 small claims suit against the sender and subpoenaed the records of the CLEC (competing local exchange carrier- the faxer’s phone company) they sent me the records within 3 hours of receiving the subpoena. It seems that other had complained about the illegal faxing as well.

When I found out who was really sending the faxes I decided I should use my librarian super powers to find out more about them.

I found out the corporation holds assets in corporate name. The corporation has only one officer and for some reason he put both an automobile and an aircraft in corporate name.

Do you see where this is going?  Bwahahahahahahah.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/14/2005 at 02:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
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The Male Ego

Never underestimate the male ego. Especially if it belongs to a rich Russian oligarch who recently came into a lot of money with shady deals and crooked connections, in which case half-a-millions bucks will buy him a personalized statue with a huge penis and six testicles. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Every guy needs one of these statues in his living room as a conversation-starter, right ... ?

Russians Well Endowed In Art
(ANANOVA)

A sculptor is coining it in by making statues of wealthy Russian businessmen showing them with huge penises and six testicles. German artist Jonathan Meese makes sells his 500-kilo bronze statues of Russian oligarchs for about £350,000 each.

The artist said he decided to equip his creations with outrageously large phalluses and six testicles to emphasise virility. Russian newspaper Express Gazeta said already three of the country’s wealthiest citizens had spent hundreds of thousands on snapping up the artist’s works for private collections.

Mr Meese said: “One wealthy Russian told me he would like to purchase a statue to decorate the interior of his country house. “When I said that I wanted 500,000 euros for this work, the price did not trouble him at all. Russians have learnt to appreciate the arts.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/14/2005 at 02:08 PM   
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Sean Penn, Call Your Office

Newsbusters caught NBC in a little game of “staging” a scene, and the timing couldn’t have been worse.

In a deliciously ironic twist of fate, shortly before airing a segment aimed at embarrassing the Bush administration by suggesting that it had staged a video conversation between the president and soldiers in Iraq, the Today show was caught staging . . . a video stunt.

In the Bush/Iraq segment, Today screened footage indicating that prior to engaging in a video conversation with President Bush, soldiers on the ground in Iraq were given tips by a Department of Defense official.

But the only advice that the official was shown as giving was a suggestion to one solider to “take a little breath” before speaking to the president so he would actually be speaking to him. It was also stated that some of the soldiers practiced their comments so as to appear as articulate as possible. But there was no indication, or even allegation, that the soldiers were coached as to the substance of their comments or in any way instructed what to say.

A preceding segment focused on the incessant rains and ensuing flooding in the northeast. For days now, beautiful, blonde - and one senses highly ambitious - young reporter Michelle Kosinski has been on the scene for Today in New Jersey, working the story. In an apparent effort to draw attention to herself, in yesterday’s segment she turned up in hip waders, standing thigh-deep in the flood waters.

Taking her act one step further, this morning she appeared on a suburban street . . . paddling a canoe. There was one small problem. Just as the segment came on the air, two men waded in front of Kosinki . . . and the water barely covered their shoe tops! That’s right, Kosinski’s canoe was in no more than four to six inches of water!

Go watch the video and see if you can stop laughing. Apparently, Matt and Katie back in NY couldn’t hold it in either.

Matt: “Are these holy men, perhaps walking on top of the water?”

“Gee, is your oar hitting ground, Michelle?” inquired Katie, as she and Matt dissolved into laughter.

Priceless.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/14/2005 at 12:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • News-Briefs •  
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Too Much Information

How do astronauts in spacecraft keep themselves clean?
People’s Daily

Two Chinese astronauts, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, continued their space travel Thursday aboard the nation’s second manned spacecraft Shenzhou-6. How do they keep themselves clean during the planned 119-hour space flight?

According to Dr. Li Yongzhi, who is in charge of medical monitoring and guarantee for astronauts, the two men cannot brush their teeth as they did on the Earth. Scientists have prepared for them a sort of oral cleaner similar to chewing gum. It can be used after meal.

Alternatives include a kind of tooth cover made of germfree gauze and a sort of edible toothpaste, which can also kill odor in oral cavity, Li said.

“These approaches can make our astronauts more comfortable than their Russian peers, who use gauze soaked in physiological saline to clean their teeth,” Li said.

Since no shower is feasible in space, the two astronauts in Shenzhou-6 are provided with a sort of special tissue to clean their bodies and special cream to moisturize their skin, according to Li, adding that in the five-day flight, they will change their underwear once.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/14/2005 at 12:29 PM   
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Team Building with Al-Zarqawi

I Hate My Boss

A new intercepted memo from the desk of Al-Zarqawi.
Excerpt:

After lunch, the next round of stupidity: another one of those retarded “team building” activities. These consultants divided us into color-coded teams, and gave us big bags of styrofoam cups and tongue depressors. The idea was that we were supposed to compete to build the highest cup tower. What the fuck this had to do with restoring the caliphate, I had no idea, but during the debrief the consultant finally said it was “an exercise to help you discover cooperation strategies.” Oh brilliant. Maybe you could have told me that before I decapitated those three idiots on the Blue Team.

Anyway, after tea break we shuffled back to the conference room for Session 3 (“Caliphate? Let’s Motivate!”) and I swear, that shit was so bad it made me wish I was back in the morning session. First up was this middle aged infidel chick Cindy, who droned about how she came to support the jihad after we killed her crusader kid. I mean, this is supposed to be inspirational? We finally get one kaffir mom on our side, and she turns out to be a lunatic hippie egomaniac who won’t shut up, and with a voice like nails on a chalkboard. Jeesh.

Go Read.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/14/2005 at 12:13 PM   
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Advice For Kings

Here’s our advice to King Abdullah: I don’t know about that “driving” thing, Chief. I mean hey, look at all the really bad women drivers we have to put up with over here. I haven’t met a broad yet who could parallel park to save her life ... and don’t even ask one of those hare-brained dames to read a road map properly or know how to use a turn signal. Don’t even get me started on the lame-brained females applying makeup while they drive. Damn!

Next thing you know, they’ll start speaking before they are spoken to and insisting on the right to vote. Before you know it the ditzy broads will be lining up for bikini wax jobs, protesting for equal wages and just generally stinking up the whole joint. You’re much better off to lock the dames in the kitchen - keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant and you can’t go wrong.

_{-- the preceding message was brought to you by Male Chauvinist Pigs Anonymous (MCPA) .. the Skipper had nothing to do with it!}

Saudis: We May Eventually Let Women Drive
CAIRO, Egypt (AP)

The king of Saudi Arabia says women may eventually be allowed to drive in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia will fight the “madness” of Islamic terrorism for 30 years if necessary, but it will expand the rights of women and eventually allow them to drive, Saudi King Abdullah has told an American TV channel. In an interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, the king denied assertions that his government finances schools that teach a fundamentalist philosophy of Islam which can lead to militancy.

Saudi Arabia “will fight the terrorists, and those who support them or condone their actions, for 10, 20 or 30 years if we have to, until we eliminate this scourge,” the king said, according to an ABC report of the interview which is due to be broadcast on Friday night. When asked why groups such as al-Qaida, the terror network led by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, had taken root in the kingdom, the king replied: “Madness and evil, it is the work of the devil.” Foreign observers and liberal Saudis have long contended that the way Islam is taught in Saudi schools encourages attitudes that may lead students to become terrorists later.

“For those who level these charges against us, I say provide us with the evidence that this is happening and we will deal with it,” the king said. “It is not logical or rational for us to be supporting it. “We have also regulated our charities and we have closed offices around the world, and we have withdrawn support for institutions that we found to be extremist,” he added. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the kingdom took steps to prevent money collected by Islamic charities from being diverted to terrorist groups.

The kingdom was initially faulted for being slow to clamp down on militants and their financing, but it drastically stepped up its measures after al-Qaida-linked groups launched a series of terror attacks on Saudi soil in May 2003. Abdullah, who became king on the death of his half-brother Fahd in August, told ABC that he was committed to increasing the rights of Saudi women, who are currently not permitted to drive cars and who need a male relative’s permission to travel abroad or attend university. “I believe the day will come when women drive,” he said. “In fact, if you look at the areas in Saudi Arabia, the deserts and in the rural areas, you will find that women do drive.

Driving licenses for women “will require patience. In time, I believe it will be possible,” the king said in the ABC report, which was posted on the Internet. But when pressed on whether he would legalize female driving, Abdullah indicated Saudi men were too conservative for such a step any time soon. “I value and take care of my people as I would my eyes ... I respect my people,” he said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/14/2005 at 12:09 PM   
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Adrift in a Sea of Phoniness

LA Times

DAVID GELERNTER
Our willingness to traffic in such nonsense shows a dangerous tendency to disregard reasoning, logical context, the meaning of words. How else to understand the latest Bill Bennett story? It reads like science fiction — live from the planet Bozo, a man whose enemies know by magic that he actually means the exact opposite of what he says.

A few weeks ago, Bennett said on his radio program that X is a stupid idea; then he said that if you believe X, you might as well believe Y. But Y is “impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible.” One thing we know for sure: Bennett is against Y. He thinks that Y is “impossible,” is “ridiculous,” is “morally reprehensible.” “Y” was the idea that aborting all black babies would cut the crime rate.

So the left jumped all over him. Bizarrely enough, the White House chimed in. (A Republican White House opening fire on Bennett is like the Joint Chiefs bombing their own front lines.) Yet no one who read or heard Bennett’s actual statement in context could possibly have believed that Bennett is racist or had talked like a racist.

But our public life is so deeply phony that, although a few stalwarts defended him, no one pointed out the gross hypocrisy of his accusers. (No one I’ve heard, anyway.) Those accusers knew perfectly well that he was not promoting a racist view of American life, he was denouncing a racist view — loudly and clearly, without a shadow of ambiguity.

What part of “impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible” did they not understand?

I find it harder and harder to take any accusation or criticism of any public figure seriously anymore.  It’s nothing but a bunch of phony-boloney, I am more honest than you, scream-in-your-face-so you-can’t talk, yank-fest.  Where has the serious discourse of ideas gone?  The University was where the “court of ideas” was supposed to be held, right?  Isn’t that where the freedom to express your individual thoughts and ideas should be fostered and encouraged?  right.

Richard Lamm is the former Democratic governor of Colorado (1975-1987), now a free-thinking, self-described “progressive conservative” who teaches public policy at the University of Denver. In the journal of the conservative National Assn. of Scholars, Lamm has written about the time he submitted an article about racism to a university publication called the Source — which is run by the administration, not by students.

Lamm’s submission compared the harm wrought by racism to the good that comes out of working to overcome obstacles. His article discussed the success of the Japanese, Jews and Cubans in the U.S.; all three have suffered bigotry and prospered. Mexicans in America have done less well. But Mexicans and Cubans are equally Latino and face similar kinds of prejudice. If Cubans have thrived and Mexicans haven’t, racism can’t possibly be the whole story.

Exactly the sort of provocative, challenging article any university would be proud to publish, right?

Only kidding. Lamm reports that the Source rejected his piece: “too controversial”; then he appealed to the provost, and then the chancellor. They agreed with the editors. Too controversial.

I like to think about new ideas.  I admit that I don’t accept many.  In my “middle age”, I have pretty much decided what I think and am comfortable with it, but I certainly don’t shout-down anyone with an opposing idea.  I’d much rather discuss the merits of both arguments and even agree-to-disagree if necessary, but lately it seems like the only valid debate tactic is yelling louder.  What say you?

Posted by Drew458     on 10/14/2005 at 09:04 AM   
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Band Of Brothers Unit Reactivated

OK, it’s time for the latest generation to step up and show us what they’re made of. It is a proud name to carry. I’m sure all of them will live up to the unit’s reputation. They always do ....

Historic Unit Reactivated for Iraq Mission
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP)

The 101st Airborne Division on Thursday reactivated a historic unit whose actions during World War II were the subject of the book “Band of Brothers.” The 506th Regimental Combat Team—also known as the “Currahees,” a Cherokee Indian word meaning “stands alone”—returned to the division just as its soldiers were completing final preparations to return to Iraq.

“Our Currahees have trained hard and are ready to join their brothers,” Col. Thomas Vail, said as the unit’s 3,500 soldiers stood behind him. “They are ready to sacrifice their personal comfort and safety to answer a call to duty.” The reactivation is part of the 101st Airborne Division’s recent expansion from three to four brigade combat teams under a Pentagon plan to reorganize the Army into smaller, easily deployable units.

The unit—then called the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment—was among the first to land in Normandy during World War II. The Army deactivated and reactivated the unit several times, sending its soldiers to Korea and Vietnam, where the unit was critical to winning the battles on Hamburger Hill. First Sgt. Edward Lawrence, the brigade’s rear detachment commander, said the reactivation brings instant identity to a brigade whose current members have yet to be tested.

“It gives these young soldiers the history that they know about. It gives them something to base all further accomplishments on,” he said. While long famous for its missions inside the military, little was known about the unit until Stephen E. Ambrose published “Band of Brothers” in 2001. The book was later adapted for an HBO miniseries.

Veterans attending the reactivation ceremony applauded when the brigade accepted the 506th flag. “The unit’s colors stay alive,” said Brice Bickerton, of Clairton, Pa., a Vietnam veteran from the unit. The deployment to Iraq later this fall will be the division’s second; more than 60 soldiers based at Fort Campbell have died in the war.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/14/2005 at 06:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Military • War-Stories •  
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Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day (so far)

This story first surfaced back in September and the food is still sitting out there in Arkansas, thanks to government rules. Key quote: “There was a careful review of the law to determine whether there was some flexibility, and at this point that has not been the case.” No one has ever, in the entire history of mankind, accused government of being “flexible”. It has always been “my way or the highway”. What happened to Ronald Reagan’s concept of smaller government ... ?

Katrina Food Aid Blocked by U.S. Rules
Meals From Britain Sit in Warehouse
(WASHINGTON POST)

In the early days of September, as military helicopters plucked desperate New Orleanians from rooftops and Red Cross shelters swelled with the displaced, nearly 400,000 packaged meals landed on a tarmac at Little Rock Air Force Base and were whisked by tractor-trailer to Louisiana. But most of the $5.3 million worth of food never reached the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Instead, because of fears about mad cow disease and a long-standing ban on British beef, the rations routinely consumed by British soldiers have sat stacked in a warehouse in Arkansas for more than a month.

Now, with some of the food set to expire in early 2006 and U.S. taxpayers spending $16,000 a month to store the meals, the State Department is quickly and quietly looking for a needy country to take them. In a disaster recovery effort that has been widely criticized as slow, inefficient and at times wasteful, the long and costly journey of the British rations is a tale of good intentions colliding with a cumbersome bureaucracy. No fewer than six federal agencies or departments had a role in accepting, distributing and rejecting the food. Even now, there remains a disagreement within the Bush administration over which office shipped the meals to 14 locations in Louisiana and which is responsible for paying the mounting storage fees.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees domestic disasters, “knew from e-mails the stuff was moving out there, but we never had control or said anything about it,” said spokesman Kim Pease. “It was under control of” the U.S. Agency for International Development, he said. But USAID spokesman Kevin Sheridan said his agency simply provided logistic support, helping deliver to the Gulf Coast region foreign donations that were acquired by the State Department. A spokesman for the British Embassy, citing diplomatic protocol in requesting anonymity, said he was puzzled by the turn of events.

“There was a specific request for emergency ration packs, and we responded to that,” he said. “We had no reason to believe there would be a problem.” What is clear is that by late on Sept. 8, inspectors from the Agriculture Department halted the distribution because the packaged meals violated import laws that “no beef or poultry of any kind is accepted from Great Britain,” spokeswoman Terri Teuber said. Since 1997, the United States has banned beef products from Britain and several other European countries that have been affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known as mad cow disease. A degenerative disease of the central nervous system, BSE is fatal in cattle and can lead to a similar illness in humans called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. “There was a careful review of the law to determine whether there was some flexibility, and at this point that has not been the case,” Teuber said.

Remote Villages in Kashmir Await Aid
DRINGLA, India (AP)

Even in the best of times, it’s an arduous journey into India’s Tangdar Valley—a region cut off from the rest of Kashmir by a treacherous 10,000-foot-high mountain pass. Here earthquake survivors in need of food, medicine and blankets have had to go and get it themselves. Six days after the quake, three of Tangdar’s most remote villages remain largely inaccessible, while only a trickle of aid reaches a number of others, Indian officials say. Every day villagers stream down from the mountains in search of food, medical care and the comfort of sharing their grief with others who have lost everything.

“I just wanted something to eat,” said Abdul Rashid, a 54-year-old who had spent the first nights after the quake camped on a frigid mountainside alongside the ruins of his home. In his hand, he carried a bundle of clothes donated by aid workers in the town of Tangdar, at the mouth of the valley, where most of the aid is being handed out. The evergreen slopes of the Tangdar and Uri valleys, both close to the heavily militarized Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, were the parts of India worst hit by Saturday’s 7.6-magnitude quake. Both are tightly restricted zones controlled largely by the military.

The quake killed more than 35,000 people in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and more than 1,300 in Indian Kashmir. But while aid has flooded into Uri—where most villages are now thought to have been reached—it took at least two days after the quake before help started to reach Tangdar. Geography, said officials in the valley, was the main culprit for the slow pace of relief. Military helicopters are ferrying aid to the most remote villages, but Indian officials acknowledge that not all have been reached.

“We are one of the most isolated parts of Kashmir,” said Sunil Dutt, a senior police officer in the main town of Tangdar. Unlike Uri, which is 60 miles from the state’s summer capital of Srinagar and takes two to three hours to reach, getting to the edge of Tangdar takes a drive of more than five hours, much of it spent negotiating narrow and steep mountain switchbacks. At the 10,000-foot Sadhna Pass, from where the descent into the valley begins, Tangdar’s isolation is clear. Snowcapped Himalayan peaks provide a skyline for the pass’s only residents—a contingent of soldiers who keep a wary eye on Pakistan, visible in the distance.

Once into the Tangdar valley, the roads deteriorate and past Tangdar, the road has been blocked by landslides. The obstacles can be surmounted on foot, but that means scrambling over the mounds of loosely packed dirt and stones that now cover roads and paths. If the ground gives way, the fall could easily be fatal. Sadiq Shaw was desperate enough to risk it. “Stones were falling from under my feet,” he said of his six-hour journey down into the valley below his mountainside home.

He had made it to the safety of the village of Dringla—a hamlet of collapsed wood and stone homes—and was planning to hike into Tangdar town. “There is nothing left, there is nothing to eat out here,” Shah said, pointing up at his village of Bahari, a small cluster of homes high a steep, forested slope. As he spoke, villagers in Dringla gathered around. “Even we are left with nothing,” said a woman whose home had been destroyed. She and her family were sleeping in a maize field that had been harvested just days before the quake.

Crossing the deep valley and a river, Ali Azqar, 33, hiked for five hours to reach Tangdar from his village of Thamani, carrying his 6-year-old daughter Aciaa—her ankle crushed in the quake—on his back. “We have not seen any doctors, they have passed by our village,” Azqar said. “I had to take her to have her ankle fixed.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/14/2005 at 06:07 AM   
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Rear Ended

_{Mike Keefe, The Denver Post}

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/14/2005 at 06:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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   Thursday - October 13, 2005

Criminal Of The Day

This Police Chief wins the Mister Obvious Award for the day with this quote: “Five days later, he is at it again. There’s a good sign he’s not rehabilitated.”

Cops: Man Robs Bank 5 Days After Release
MERRILLVILLE, Ind. (AP)

An Indianapolis man robbed a Lake County bank less than a week after he finished a sentence for another bank robbery, police said. Police officers arrested Mark Konefsky, 41, minutes after a robbery Wednesday at a Fifth Third Bank branch in Merrillville. He was freed from an Indiana Department of Correction work release center on Oct. 7, police said

Konefsky entered the bank about 12:50 p.m. and handed a teller a note demanding money, Police Chief Nicholas Bravos said. No weapon was displayed, and branch managers sounded an alarm as the robber fled, Bravos said. Officers reported seeing Konefsky flee the bank and captured him after a brief foot chase. Konefsky was being held in the Lake County Jail on bank robbery charges.

Konefsky had pleaded guilty to a June 2003 bank robbery in Indianapolis and was sentenced to six years in prison, Bravos said. Konefsky had been released from the state’s South Bend Work Release Center. “Five days later, he is at it again,” Bravos said. “There’s a good sign he’s not rehabilitated.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/13/2005 at 10:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
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Quote Of The Day

It’s The Kerry Gigolo versus The Governator: Kerry thinks unions should spend all the money they want on political campaigns without bothering to get union members’ permission. The Governator thinks otherwise. Key quote from The Governator: “I don’t pay much attention. He has his beliefs, I have mine.”

Kerry Criticizes Calif. Union Dues Proposal
LOS ANGELES (AP)

Sen. John Kerry said Thursday that a ballot initiative on union dues backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could end up depriving working people of having a say in politics. Proposition 75 would require public employee unions to seek written permission from members before using dues for political purposes. Kerry, speaking outside a downtown firehouse, said the initiative would condemn workers to “a completely unfair system.”

The proposal “represents part of an ongoing effort by the Republican Party to create an unfair playing field, to change the balance of democracy in America,” the former Democratic presidential nominee said. “They want a one-sided argument—their side.” While pharmaceutical, insurance and other industries pump millions of dollars into political races, the California proposition would “take away the voices of the firefighters, the police officers, the teachers, the nurses,” the Massachusetts senator said.

Schwarzenegger, on a campaign stop in Burbank, said little when asked about Kerry’s criticism. He noted that he skis and plays hockey with Kerry—they both vacation in Idaho. Kerry never mentioned Schwarzenegger by name, but focused his criticism on the proposition.

“I don’t pay much attention,” Schwarzenegger said. “He has his beliefs, I have mine.” Schwarzenegger has argued that the initiative is not about workers but union bosses who have frustrated his agenda in Sacramento. Public employee unions see it as a threat to their political strength.

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/13/2005 at 10:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics • Unions-Labor •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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