Thursday - September 11, 2008
Obamania makes way for Palinmania - US Election 2008.
Is it being reported this way in the states as well?
This ticket is getting even more coverage it seems, then Obama did. Lots of folks here say they’re afraid of her. ?? Well, tough! She’s ours, we’re keepin’ her, we love her and really believe in her.
To give you folks at home an idea, even before Mrs. Palin was announced as a running mate, there were those here writing to papers wondering why TV was giving so much coverage to American election. They wanted a break from our politics and I can’t say I blame them. There is other news and it is a lot closer to home for these folks. But ... suddenly there’s Sarah and it starts all over again. I don’t see any TV here except what I can grab off the net and blog sites, but apparently our election this time around it getting even more coverage then usual (I am told), and they do cover us like a blanket even in normal times.
Obamania makes way for Palinmania - US Election 2008
We’ve been through Obamamania. Now a new phenomenon is sweeping America – Palinmania.
By Toby Harnden in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Last Updated: 12:58PM BST 11 Sep 2008
Vogue magazine Photo: JONATHAN BECKER/CONTACT FOR US VOGUE
(Isn’t she pretty? That isn’t a question open to debate. She’s awesome. I LOVE her!)Even before Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska had appeared on the stage to introduce Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, the chant went up around the hall: “We want Sarah!”
A tear rolled down the cheek of a middle-aged woman volunteer who moments earlier had been barking orders to keep the exits clear.
A mother clutched the hand of her 11-year-old daughter, whose face was made up like a clown with stars and the letters P-A-L-I-N painted across her face.
Outside, queues which began six hours earlier snaked around the sports hall as more than 9,000 people filed in. Hundreds would be left outside.
They held home-made signs with slogans like “God, guns, lipstick” and “Read my lipstick - Palin.”
One beaming woman wearing a “USA” baseball cap had scrawled a on a piece of cardboard: “A Real Woman = Governor, mom, CEO, pro-Life, God fearing, happy. GO SARAH!”
A vendor had run out of badges with Mrs Palin’s picture and the legend: “Coldest State, Hottest Governor.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said G. Edward LeFevre, a local Republican committee member. “The crowd, the enthusiasm, the upbeat feel and the emotion is unprecedented. Sarah Palin is quite a lady.”
Then the 44-year-old mother of five appeared, with her husband Todd, also 44, and Mr McCain, 72, alongside her.
The crowd went wild, the screaming and cheering eventually subsiding into a steady cry in unison of: “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!”
The Arizona senator, who just weeks ago was being greeted by crowds in the low hundreds, beamed like a father of the bride at the handsome young couple beside him, basking in the reflected glory of the woman he has brought into the world of presidential politics.
Mrs Palin spoke for 15 minutes, every sentence read from the teleprompter. The words were familiar because she gives the same similar speech at every stop.
She described how she “stood up to the special interests, the lobbyists, big oil companies and the good old boys network” as mayor of the small town of Wasilla and as Alaska governor.
She hailed Mr McCain as a selfless hero, someone who “would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war”.
“In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain who use their careers to promote change,” she said.
If Mr McCain was worried about being overshadowed by his number two, he did not show it. “Thank you,” he said five times. “Thank you to each and every one of you. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be introduced by Governor Palin today and I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington DC.
“We are the ones who will change Washington. She is the one who’s changed Alaska. She is the one that took on the old bulls in the Republican Party that cleaned up the state of Alaska and she’ll clean up Washington and we’ll restore trust and confidence in government and again on the part of the American people.”
Luke Hertzog, 53, said that McCain’s choice of Mrs Palin as his running mate was a “stroke of genius – she brings a new life, a vigour and energy and spine” to the campaign.
Mr LeFevre pronounced it a “clever chess move” that could upturn the conventional wisdom that a vice-presidential choice never really affects the outcome of the White House race.
Almost every woman asked about Mrs Palin used the word “real” to describe her.
“We can relate to her,” said Lori Ciarrocca, 40. “She’s like other moms out there. She’s a real person who speaks her mind and tells you how it is.”
Tom Bross, 62, a Vietnam veteran who was twice wounded in combat, said that it was not just women she appealed to.
“She’s going to get a lot of the women who went for Hillary Clinton,” he said.
“There are old rednecks who would have thrown me out of the local restaurant two weeks ago if I’d said they’d ever vote for a woman.
“Now Sarah Palin comes along and they’re like a bunch of school kids tripping over themselves to listen to her.”
Posted by Drew458
on 09/11/2008 at 07:51 AM
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Permalink • 9/11
CHAMPION, Pennsylvania — The seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is supposed to bring the heated presidential race to a screeching halt. But just for a day.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama were appearing together twice Thursday and agreed to suspend all TV ads critical of each other in honor of the day terrorists forced four airplanes to crash [; two] into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, [one in] a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and [the fourth into] the Pentagon in Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Neither candidate had any political events scheduled for the day. The 2001 attacks transformed the nation in many ways, and one is that every anniversary since has found those holding or seeking office struggling for ways to appropriately pay homage.
McCain was briefly speaking at a ceremony near the Shanksville crash site,
alongside other dignitaries and relatives of the 40 passengers and crew who were killed there. Investigators believe passengers rushed the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93 to thwart terrorists’ plans to use that plane as a weapon like the others.
In the afternoon, in New York, Obama and McCain were to visit ground zero together for a somber, silent wreath-laying in the pit that marks the largest loss of life in the attacks.
That appearance is to be followed by another in the evening at a Columbia University forum to discuss their views on public service. Obama’s only other planned outing Thursday was lunch in New York with former President Clinton.
A joint statement from the campaigns announcing their decision to visit ground zero together said they wanted to do so in thanks for all emergency responders who served during and after the attacks as well as the military troops still defending the nation.
“We will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity, to honor the memory of each and every American who died, and to grieve with the families and friends who lost loved ones,” the statement said.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/11/2008 at 07:42 AM
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Permalink • Next US terror attack ‘could be by white Americans or Europeans’, says US intel.
I see this story arrived after I shut down yesterday, so by now it might not be news to you folks back home. But it’s in this morning’s paper so I’m posting it.
The idea of course isn’t new and I had heard of this worry ever since that American kid (John Walker Lind?) was brought to book some years ago.
It is a very scary thought, and there has been some shock here seeing a few western looking terrorists and many black Brit born muslims who simply blend into the black community. It is a serious problem and I guess it’s just gonna get worse.
Next US terror attack ‘could be by white Americans or Europeans’
US intelligence officials increasingly fear that the next terror attack on the United States will be carried out by white Americans or Europeans.
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 7:38PM BST 10 Sep 2008As Barack Obama and John McCain head to New York’s Ground Zero seven years after 19 Middle-Eastern hijackers brought devastation to the US mainland, counter-terrorism experts believe that any future attack will be made by terrorists with an “American face”.
They point to reports of white faces in terrorism training camps in Pakistan - the so-called “white men of Waziristan”, a reference to the remote tribal area where both al-Qaeda and the Taliban have bases.
Experts believe that dozens of westerners have undergone such training as their leaders try to recruit non-Middle Eastern Asians, particularly ethnic Caucasians, who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.
Al-Qaeda’s recent decision to put out videos in English and a similar change on extremist “jihadi” websites have also been cited of evidence of a new strategy to find recruits who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.
Such concerns were sharpened last week after the arrest of three Germans over an alleged plot to destroy a club used by US servicemen.
Two of the three were white, ethnic Germans and all had allegedly been trained in camps in Waziristan.
“There is no bigger worry for the US counter-terrorism community than young Caucasian men who have turned to al-Qaeda,” Roger Cressey, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, told the US news network MSNBC.
Terrorism experts say such a threat has been known about even before the arrest of Richard Reid, the British shoe bomber. However, it was not until three weeks ago that a US official explicitly admitted that the government knew of such people being trained in significant numbers.
In a little reported speech, Ted Gistaro, the US national intelligence officer for transnational threats, said that al-Qaeda was training and “positioning” its operatives for attacks in the West, probably including the US.
He added: “These operatives include North American and European citizens, and legal residents with passports that allow them to travel to the United States without a US visa.”
Mr Cressey, the council’s director for transnational threats at the time of 9/11, said that President Bush last month hosted a joint meeting of the NSC and the Homeland Security Council to discuss current threats.
The training of the type of people identified by Mr Gistaro was “the single biggest concern” at the meeting because “they can’t be tracked and they’re not in anyone’s database,” said Mr Cressey.
Prof Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said that the Western al-Qaeda recruits probably “run into the dozens” and did not need to be white to be useful to the terrorist group.
“Europe provides a potentially large pool from which al-Qaeda can draw. It’s hard to put a figure on them but it’s certainly beyond the ones and twos,” he said.
“The group’s having to find new ways to penetrate our defences. So, in a sense, this is a consequence of our own success.”
Last month, the Homeland Security Department announced a plan to require visitors from 27 friendly countries, including Britain, to register online at least three days before flying to the US to allow more time for terrorism checks.
In Manhattan today, Mr McCain and Mr Obama have agreed to help keep the focus on remembering 9/11 rather than the election when they attend the ceremonial reading of victims’ names.
Detailed designs for a 47,500-sq ft pavilion for a Sept 11 museum at the World Trade Centre site were unveiled yesterday. The three-storey glass and steel building was inspired by the Twin Towers.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, said there should be “no more excuses, no more delays” on completing a memorial by the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
Progress on redeveloping the WTC site had been “frustratingly slow”, in large part because of administrative bureaucracy, he said.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/11/2008 at 07:20 AM
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists • War On Terror •
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Permalink • Immigrant mugger in Italy meets lady who is champion Karate (4 times) police officer.
I’m sorry she didn’t break his neck.
There’s mention in this story of gypsies btw. You folks at home in USA have no idea what a problem these folks can be. And they are VERY savvy about their rights and what the laws says and how far they can push,push the law.
I can’t see that problem (gypos) in the USA, at least not to the same extent, because back home we have guns. But you have to figure if those amnasty intl. SOBs defend them, they’re scum.
There’s quite a bit in the news today, especially of interest to Americans. But this story sidetracked me and I just had to share it.
I’m of the opinion and have been for years, that every female starting at a very early age be trained in self defense. We live in that sort of world.
Female karate champion defeats mugger
A mugger in Italy got more than he bargained for when the woman he tried to rob turned out to be a national karate champion.
By Nick Squires in Rome
Four times Italian women’s champion Lara Liotta, 29, was on a street in broad daylight in central Rome when the man, a Romanian immigrant of no fixed abode, approached her and asked her for a cigarette.
When she told him she did not smoke he allegedly lunged for her and grabbed her around the neck.
Miss Liotta, who works as prison officer, immediately put her black belt training to good use, delivering two swift jabs to the man’s face which sent him crashing to the ground.
The karate champion was fortunate she could rely on her skills to fight off her attacker because there was no assistance from passersby, despite the attack happening shortly after rush hour on Monday.
“No one helped me or stopped, even though there are lots of people around at that time of the day,” she told an Italian newspaper.
After punching the man to the floor, she ran to the nearby railway station of Termini and alerted police, who caught him before he could run away. He was arrested and detained on charges of assault.
“It could have been much worse. What would have happened if this person, instead of attacking me, a karate champion who knows how to defend herself well, had attacked a young girl?
“I’m lost for words,” Miss Liotta, who competed in the under 55kg weight category, said.
The incident comes at a time when there is mounting concern in Italy that crime levels are rising and that immigrants are largely to blame.
The fear has been fuelled by a number of recent high-profile crimes involving Roma gypsies, around 50,000 of whom have moved to Italy in recent years.
There was outrage in November when the 47-year-old wife of an Italian naval officer died after being savagely beaten and raped by a Romanian migrant in a once well heeled suburb of Rome.
In May a gypsy encampment in Naples was burned to the ground by vigilantes following the arrest of a Roma woman accused of trying to kidnap a child.
The right-wing government of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of exploiting concerns over law and order for political gain by targeting gypsies and immigrants in a widespread crackdown on crime.
Last month around 3,000 soldiers were deployed to the streets of Italy’s biggest cities in an initiative which the government said would deter criminals.
The soldiers, some of whom mounted joint patrols with police, are expected to remain on the streets for at least six months.
The government is also proceeding with a plan to fingerprint thousands of Roma gypsies who have no identity papers, many of whom live in makeshift camps around Italy’s big cities. The measure has attracted criticism from human rights groups such as Amnesty International.
Mr Berlusconi’s coalition also plans to tackle the problem of overcrowded prisons by deporting thousands of foreign criminals.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/11/2008 at 06:39 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - September 10, 2008
No Title Needed
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 11:31 PM
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Permalink • Burj Dubai Skyscraper Update
Still not finished, but it just gets taller every day!
From this perspective it almost looks like a rocket ship. Kewl!
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 11:29 PM
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Permalink • A Selection of Political Graphics
Who else? Rancino of course! Ain’t he just the greatest?
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 11:21 PM
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Permalink • Interesting Historical Bit
A guest post by Rancino. I helped a little. I tell ya, I’m gonna hafta hire that boy one of these days! 
UPDATE: Reader Tony has actually seen one of these things and sent me a pic. OUTSTANDING !!! Click the thumbnail for a much bigger picture. Tony, you are awesome!!
During World War II, Japan had a secret weapon designed to spark a massive forest fire in the United States. Thanksfully, the device - which was partly made by Japanese schoolgirls - was a dud. Here’s the bizarre story of the Fugo killer balloons:
On May 5, 1945, Reverend Archie Mitchell, his wife Elsie, and five children from his Sunday school drove from the tiny southern Oregon town of Bly for a picnic on Gearhart Mountain. While Reverend Mitchell parked the car, his wife and the children explore. They came upon a device the U.S. government knew about but had kept secret. When one of them touched the device, it exploded: Mrs. Mitchell and the five children were killed. The six Oregonians became the only known fatalities on the U.S. mainland from enemy attack during all of World War II.
MADE IN JAPAN
The exploding contraption was a Japanese Fugo balloon bomb, the brainchild of Major General Sueyoshi Kusaba of the Japanese Ninth Army Technical Research Laboratory. The balloons measured 33 feet across and 70 feet long from top to bomb. They were constructed (by Japanese schoolgirls) from bits of a tough paper called washi, made from mulberry trees, and glued together with potato paste. The bomb parts were made in a factory - not by schoolgirls.
Filled with hydrogen gas, the payload consisted of 36 sandbags for ballast, four incendiary bombs, and one 33-pound antipersonnel bomb. Launched to rise 35,000 feet, the balloons were designed to use the prevailing Pacific eastward winds to reach the west coast of North America. As the balloons leaked gas and lost altitude, barometric pressure switches caused the sandbags to drop off and the balloons to rise back to the jetstream. The trip took three to five days. By the time they reached the United States, the baloons, now out of sandbags, were supposed to drop the bombs and then self-destruct. The Japanese hoped the bomb would cause forest fires and panic the American public.
FUGO, FUGO, FUGO!
Between October 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched 9,300 of these balloons. Estimates are that fewer than 500 balloons reached the United States or Canada; the rest fell into the Pacific Ocean.
The first discovery of a balloon in North America was made by two woodchoppers, who discovered a balloon on the ground near Kalispell, Montana in December, 1944. After it was determined that the balloon originated in Japan, tight censorship was imposed on further balloon sightings, since it was feared that disclosing when and where balloons were being found would encourage the enemy to launch more balloons and perfect their delivery. It was also thought that the balloons posed little danger to the public at large, so even though some government and military officials and newspapermen knew about the bombing balloons early on, the general public was not told about them until May of 1945, about six months after they were first launched.
In November 1944, one balloon was discovered in the ocean off San Pedro, California. In January 1945, a balloon bomb landed in Medford, Oregon, without exploding. At some point, a rancher in Nevada discovered a balloon and used it as a tarp to cover his hay; police later discovered that two bombs were still attached to it.
WHAT BALLOONS?
Most of the balloons either exploded harmlessly or failed to detonate on impact. Approximately 90 of them were recovered in the United States as far east as Michigan. Strict censorship kept their existence out of the newspapers, and those who knew of their presence were sworn to secrecy. It was feared that news of the balloons arrival would encourage the launching of more balloons. They weren’t seen as much of a danger, but the hush-hush handling of the situation worked: the Japanese abandoned the project because they didn’t hear of any success.
But after the Mitchell family tragedy in Oregon, the public was warned. The last balloon bomb was found in Alaska in 1955; its bombs were still capable of exploding. Ironically, on March 10, 1945, one of the last paper balloons descended near Hanford, Washington. The balloon landed on electrical power lines, shutting off the Hanford nuclear reactor for three days. The Hanford reactor, part of the top-secret Manhattan project, was producing plutonium for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, five months later.
The Fugo balloon bombs are considered a failure as weapons system. There were no proven bomb-caused forest fires, and they caused little other damage. Elsie Mitchell and the five children were the tragic exceptions.
On the West Coast of the US a secret mission was being done protect the country from the Fugos. It was called “Fire Fly” and included aircraft, to shoot down the balloons and a troop of fire fighters to put out the fires. These “Smoke Jumpers” were the first to jump to a forest fire and fight them the way we do today. They were called the “Triple Nickle” for the 555 designation their battalion was given. Here is their web site.
Many of the balloons had been made by patriotic Japanese school children as a part of the war effort. In 1987, several tried to atone. They folded 1,000 paper cranes, a Japanese symbol of healing and peace, and sent them to the families of the Oregon picnickers. Here is an excerpt from one of the accompanying letters:
“We participated in the building of weapons used to kill people without understanding much beyond the knowledge that America was our adversary in a war. To think that the weapons we made took your lives as you were out on a picnic! We were overwhelmed with deep sorrow.”
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 11:02 PM
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Permalink • If You Can’t Take The Heat
The vacuous talking heads on the TV news are going on and on and on about Obambi’s line about lipstick on a pig. And the other one about something stinking like fish. Oh noes, the McCain staff is talking about going to the lawyers and suing!
The Obama folks get really riled up when somebody mentions his great big Dumbo ears. Or his record. Or his background. Or his wife. Or his patriotism. Or his anything. But the rules only apply to them it seems.
Both campaigns now have “fight the smears” websites. I’m sure nasty things are being said somewhere about Joe Biden too. Nastier than just looking at his record I mean.
Allow me to quote Joan Rivers: “Oh grow up!”
When just one of these four has been publicly berated in the manner or to the extent that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been, or had the things said about her that Hugo Chavez has said, and hardly had a single person come to her defense other than the not well known Project 21, then maybe they will have an actual complaint. As far as I’m concerned, she has taken a dose of shit bigger than any other world leader or political figure in America, and she’s just shrugged it all off. As far as I know, not once has NOW or the NAACP objected to any of it.
There will always be mud slinging in politics, and there will always be yellow journalism. Neither one is a good thing, but watching how the candidates react to them is very telling.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 02:05 PM
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Permalink • What hope is there if we can’t bring to justice those accused of wanting to destroy us.
What hope is there if we can’t bring to justice those accused of wanting to destroy us
By Max Hastings
Last updated at 2:10 AM on 10th September 2008If you or I were arrested tomorrow, in possession of a video in which we announced an intention to kill for Jesus and with a bomb-making kit in the living room at home, we would not expect to fare well in the dock by shrugging that we were not really serious.
Yet the jury at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday failed to convict eight defendants of charges against them of conspiring to blow up airliners.
Despite the discovery of seven ‘martyrdom videos’, a bomb-making factory and detailed airline flight lists, the jury found only three men guilty of conspiracy to murder, and failed to agree on charges of conspiracy to detonate explosives on aircraft against any of those accused.
Abdulla Ahmed AliRant: Abdulla Ahmed Ali pledged ‘revenge’ on the British people in a video found by police.
Yesterday, the police and security authorities were stunned by the half-cock outcome of a prosecution for which they believed the evidence was overwhelming.
It has important implications for the struggle against terrorism; for the credibility of Britain’s anti-terrorist operations; for airline security; and maybe also for our faith in the jury system.
We must say ‘maybe’ about juries, because unless one was present in court, heard every scrap of evidence and saw what sort of people were sitting in the jury box, it is impossible to be certain about the justice of the findings.
But what is plain is that at least some of the 12 men and women rejected the judgments of the police and Security Service about the threat which the defendants posed to public safety.
Since the issue at stake was one of life and death, this is frightening.
The verdicts may leave us to assume either that those responsible for protecting us do not know what they are doing; or that some jury members are stunningly indifferent to the activities of allegedly would-be mass-murderers.
Recent controversy about anti-terrorist legislation, criticism of allegedly intrusive surveillance methods, and attacks on the credibility of police evidence, have damaged the image of the security authorities.
More than a few British Muslims believe the police to be prejudiced against them. Polls show that hundreds of thousands publicly or privately sympathise with young jihadis who want to wage war on the West.
It is three years since the London bombings which caused 52 deaths. Some otherwise sensible people would like to believe that the terrorist threat is not now so grave; that some of the young Muslims scrutinised by the police and MI5 are not really serious about their plots.
However, the truth is that the Security Service believes there are more young jihadis in Britain than ever before. Many are committed to killing innocent people in the name of their religion, using airliners if they can, because 9/11 showed these to be the most effective weapons.
Read a book like Ed Husain’s The Islamist, a memoir by someone reared in Britain who became an Islamic fundamentalist and which tells of the murderous groups he met during his years of commitment.
Ed Husain recanted. Today, he cannot understand why the British government and people are so absurdly laid-back about militants who preach hate and death in British cities.
Husain writes that he still cannot understand why the Government gave a knighthood to Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain, who applauded the 1989 Iranian fatwa on Salman Rushdie, and refused to renege on his view in 2006.
Husain writes that he still cannot understand why the Government gave a knighthood to Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain, who applauded the 1989 Iranian fatwa on Salman Rushdie, and refused to renege on his view in 2006.
Listen to any policeman involved in monitoring the traffic of young men between Britain and Pakistan. Hear accounts, supported by first-hand evidence, about the training camps and indoctrination sessions which recruits attend, the murderous ambitions they bring back to London.
Intelligence officers acknowledge that there have always been wild young zealots out there, of all races and promoting many causes, who wanted to vent their rage upon society.
In the past, however, such people lacked means. Even getting a gun was hard, because they seldom lived among criminals.
Today, by contrast, the internet empowers fanatics. Information is out there, and can never be suppressed, to show men like those in court at Woolwich how to build almost undetectable bombs. Liquid explosives remain a threat — and thus restrictions will continue upon millions of airline passengers.
Of course, the airport security process exasperates us all. My stepdaughter left her baby’s suncream in his pushchair as she boarded the plane for a summer holiday. It went smartly into the trash can, as do tens of thousands of such items every day. This is the way things are going to stay.
The experts say neither scanners nor passenger ‘profiling’ are discerning enough to offer any option. Airport screening is the relatively easy part. It is much harder to sustain surveillance of embittered young Muslims who wish us harm, some of them born and brought up in Britain.
The confusion of their objectives would invite mockery, if their purposes were not so terrible. Some attend training camps run by Kashmiri separatists, who are waging a war against India which they are happy to promote by killing British people.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali, one of the men convicted on Monday, accused the British people in his suicide video of caring more about foxes than Muslims, because they attend anti-hunting demonstrations.
Optimists say that many Muslim militants eventually come to their senses, grow out of their rage, as did Ed Husain. They discover better purposes in life. They decide that, perhaps, Britain and the West are not quite as evil and decadent as they were led to suppose.
But what happens meanwhile? What is to be done about the alarmingly large number of twenty-something-year-old would-be martyrs who want to kill us in the name of Allah?
The only possible answer is that they must be identified, arrested, charged — and convicted. If they are not, if British society shows itself incapable of defending itself against mass killers, however half-baked their ideas and methods, then we are all at risk. The Woolwich verdicts, or rather lack of them, suggest that something is badly wrong somewhere.
Some claim that premature American-inspired action in Pakistan, to arrest a local militant involved in the London plot, forced the hand of British anti-terrorist forces before their evidence against the Walthamstow group was complete.
Whatever the case, it is plain that public confidence in the Government’s judgment — for instance, about the need for 28-day detention of terror suspects and ID cards — and in police evidence is badly shaken.
We live in a world in which many people, especially the young, are reluctant to believe what they are told by anyone in authority. They are unconvinced that anything, save perhaps climate change, is really serious.
They half-expect jihadis staring madly out of police identification photographs to turn out to be Rory Bremner or John Fortune doing a turn for a comedy programme. Maybe there were some people who think like that among the Woolwich jury.
No responsible person wants innocents convicted of terrible crimes, nor an exaggerated climate of public fear. But if half the evidence produced against the defendants in the Walthamstow bomb plot was true, then we have reason to be deeply dismayed by the inconclusive outcome.
The prosecuting authorities must demand a retrial. We have got to do better than this, if we are to protect ourselves from the real and present danger of Islamic terror.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 12:30 PM
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Permalink • Thanks Chris!
Two very worthwhile posts up this morning at cmblake6’s blog.
The first is a link to a newspaper article. From the Telegraph, “Britain’s No.1 quality newspaper website”, the author writes about Our Sarah. And the amazing thing is ... he gets it!
It is clear that few in America, let alone Britain, have any idea what to make of Sarah Palin. The Republicans’ vice-presidential candidate confounds the commentators because they don’t understand the forces that shaped her in the remote state of Alaska.
...
But, having worked with Alaskans, I know something of the challenge she has faced, and why - contrary to what Democrats think - it could make her a powerful figure in the White House.
...
Her rise from parent-teacher association to city council gave her a natural political base in her home town of Wasilla. Going on to become mayor was a natural progression. Wasilla’s population of 9,000 would be a small town in Britain, and even in most American states. But Wasilla is the fifth-largest city in Alaska, which meant that Palin was an important player in state politics.
The second one is for this video:
My hope is that neither of these are voices in the wilderness. The first one probably is. The second one is not, but I wish a couple hundred million folks on the left would watch it and actually understand. I don’t have high hopes for that.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 11:24 AM
Filed Under: • Patriotism • Politics • War On Terror •
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Permalink • Don’t be stoopid, spelling matters. (just what I needed to see today after Drew’s post yesterday.)
OK Drew and all. Take note. Except for an occasional lapse where I forget to use the spell check, I really think I need to stop spelling things the lazy way.
Even if I still think English spelling is illogical. No matter. Drew started it yesterday and now this lady (whose name is Pearson) has made me see the light of day.
Harrumph ... we’ll see. It isn’t comfortable discovering one has bad table manners. In public yet.
Don’t be stoopid, spelling matters
By Allison PearsonLast updated at 2:14 AM on 10th September 2008
Professor John Wells says teaching students spelling is a waste of time.
The president of the Spelling Society says we should stop teaching our children correct English spellings because it is holding the little darlings back at school.
Learning to use the apostrophe is also far too much trouble, apparently.
Unlike John Wells, I cannot claim to be a distinguished professor at University College London, but even I can see the flaw in his brilliant plan.
Theres only wun problem if there not gunna teach kids how to spell there own language and use the apostrophe. No one will have a klew wot there on about, innit?
See. That’s what English looks like if you spell words according to sound rather than meaning.
It may make things easier for the lazy writer, but it’s far harder for the poor reader who is forced to think twice.
Correct spelling and grammar are the table manners of the written word. They may seem petty, but without them you end up with an almighty mess.
Yet the prufessa, as I suppose we must call him, insists that this country’s appalling illiteracy problem is caused by having to learn those pesky irregular spellings.
He says they place a ‘burden’ on children and damage their education.
Funny how every previous generation and tens of millions of English speakers around the world have somehow survived this intolerable imposition.
Blaming tricky spellings for illiteracy is like blaming cars for lousy driving. It neatly shifts the responsibility away from where it belongs.
If Prufessa Wells was a lone crackpot it really wouldn’t matter all that much.
Unfortunately, he is part of an educational establishment which seems to want to remove all difficulty from schooling in the name of social equality.
Garlanded with degrees and boasting minds as well stocked as the finest library, these men and women choose to vandalise the body of knowledge which got them their prestigious jobs in the first place.
What you end up with is the situation we saw over the summer where one examiner came across a boy who had just written ‘F*** off ‘ on his English GCSE paper.
Was he, as you might hope, instantly failed? No, on the instructions of the chief examiner, he was awarded marks for successfully conveying his meaning!
My kids laugh at me for using punctuation in text messages. ‘Like, Mum, how uncool is that?’ Tragically uncool, actually.But as a former English teacher and full-time grown-up, I know that my job is to hold the line on appropriate language and to defend what’s valuable in our culture.
Let the kids get on with trashing it, as they always have. It’s the privilege of each new generation to refashion English in their own private world.
But it’s up to their parents and teachers to explain that a more formal standard, which everyone can agree on, is called for in college and in work.
Prufessa Wells and his kind do the younger generation no favours by expecting less and less of them.
When I hear Prufessa Welz say that spellings used in e-mail and text messaging ‘show the way forward for English’ I want to skewer him on a sharpened quill.
If university professors aren’t in the business of telling young people that some things are worth making an effort to acquire, then who the hell is?
He should try saying that to the editor of a newspaper on which I once worked. Every week we got a pile of job applications and there was a simple rule: if they contained a single spelling mistake, they went straight in the bin.
Give a job to someone who can’t spell standard English? Uv got 2 b kiddin.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 10:25 AM
Filed Under: • Colleges-Professors • Education • UK •
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Permalink • Council threatens families with a £1,000 fine… for parking on their own driveways. BAT ALERT
OK, here we go again. Never heard of such an outrageous ruling and especially as the council, years ago, was responsible.
I know we (USA) come in for a lot of criticism here, but I can tell you there isn’t any town council anywhere in the US that would even dream of this bit of lunacy. Hey, can the town council be issued with an ASBO? Seems they deserve one.
Council threatens families with a £1,000 fine… for parking on their own driveways
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:31 AM on 10th September 2008Furious residents have been left stunned after a council threatened to fine them £1,000 - for parking on their own driveways.
Homeowners in a quiet village have been told they have the wrong type of kerbs, despite having driven over them for the 50 years since the properties were built.
Councillors are using a law passed 30 years ago to stop them from parking beside their own homes.
Furious: Ken Laverack has been told he faces a £1,000 fine for parking on his own driveway as he has ‘the wrong type of kerb’But residents each face a £1,200 bill if they install ‘dropped kerbs’ that allow easier access to their driveways.
The council threat came in a letter delivered to 12 houses on Pinfold Street, a quiet road with smart semi-detached houses worth around £200,000 in Eastrington, East Yorkshire.
The properties were built between 1949 and 1952. Some were built with driveways and others were added years later.
Two of the houses are council-owned, but they still received the letter - including baffled Ken Laverack, whose drive was built by the council 20 years ago after the 1980 Highways Act was introduced.
Retired Ken, 61, said: ‘I just couldn’t believe it when the letter arrived.
‘The council themselves put my drive in 20 years ago and now they’re saying I can’t use it. It’s absolutely ridiculous, my car is just on the road now.‘It’s crazy that they didn’t tell me about this when the drive was built.
‘They could easily have done so because the act was in place then.
‘We’ve sent a letter of complaint off to the council and will have to see what happens.
‘I’ve lived here over 30 years, I’ve raised a family here yet I’m being told I can’t park in my own drive.’
Neighbour Adam Stroud said: ‘I think it is scandalous. My wife has lived here for 29 years and has driven all that time and I have been here for 18 years.
‘It’s madness to clamp down on it now.
‘The Highways Act was issued 28 years ago so why were the kerbs not dropped then if the act is so vital. Why should we have to pay to have this work done to council property - the footpath - just so we can cross it to get to our private land?’
Roy Poulter, 63, an IT consultant who has lived on the street for 11 years, added: ‘It’s absolute nonsense. I’ve been driving over the kerbs for all these years with no problems and now they have sent us a letter aggressively ordering us to stop parking on our own drives.
‘I was quoted £1200 to have the work done by a contractor which is a huge amount of money.’
CouncillorsThreat to fine: Twelve homes in Pinfold Street have been targeted by the council for parking in their own drives
Grandad Roy, who lives with wife Ellen, 60, added: ‘People cannot afford to have the work done or the cost of a fine so are forced to park their vehicle on the street.
‘Where do they expect people to find this amount of money - especially in the current climate?
‘This is a farming village and Pinfold Street is regularly used by farmers as a route to get to the fields but with parked cars on the road they just cant get through.
‘We need to sit down and talk to the council sensibly to find a solution.’
People have now been forced to leave their vehicles on the road after receiving the controversial letter from East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
Local Tory Councillor Mark Preston said: ‘The current policy of East Riding Council in threatening residents with fines of up to £1000 to any household that does not comply with the regulation is heavy handed, and is ill-timed in light of the current economic pressures on many households.’
The letter claims that under the Highways Act, they must stop using their drives ‘until a satisfactory means of access to the kerb of verge has been constructed.’
A spokesman for East Riding Council said: ‘It is illegal under the 1980 Highways Act to drive a vehicle over a kerbed footway or verge which has become an increasing problem leading to sustainable damage to highways and cost to council taxpayers services including electrical cables and water pipes which are put at risk as a consequence of this inadequate use of the highways.
‘The legislation deals with the use of the highways including verges and footways, it does not relate to private land.
‘The council regularly takes action relating to unlawful access from the public highways throughout East Riding.
‘This problem has been brought to our attention recently. Homeowners are able to apply for a properly constructed drop kerb to provide vehicular access to property and many thousands of East Riding residents have followed this procedure.’
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 08:43 AM
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous • Outrageous • UK •
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Permalink • Barack Obama preferred over John McCain in world poll.
Must mean America will be on the right track when we elect Palin/McCain ticket to the White House.
Barack Obama preferred over John McCain in world poll
Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, is the world’s choice for the next American president, according to an international poll.By Tom Peterkin
Last Updated: 10:57AM BST 10 Sep 2008A Barack Obama presidency would improve America’s relations with the world, according to more than half of people surveyed in a BBC poll Photo: AFP
The 47-year-old Illinois senator was preferred by an average margin of four-to-one across the 22,000 people who took part in the survey of 22 countries conducted by the BBC World Service.
More than half of those surveyed in the United Kingdom (54 per cent) thought an Obama presidency would improve America’s relations with the world.
Doug Miller, chairman of GlobeScan which carried out the survey for the BBC World Service, said: “Large numbers of people around the world clearly like what Barack Obama represents.
“Given how negative America’s international image is at present, it is quite striking that only one in five think a McCain presidency would improve on the Bush Administration’s relations with the world.”
On average, 49 per cent of those surveyed preferred Mr Obama, compared with 12 per cent for Mr McCain, in the race to the White House.
The survey also found that an average of 46 per cent thought US relations with the world would get better under Mr Obama. Twenty-two per cent thought that relations would stay the same, and seven per cent thought that they would get worse.
Only 20 per cent thought relations would get better under Mr McCain. A total of 37 per cent of those surveyed thought a victory for the 72-year-old Arizona senator would keep US relations with the rest of the world the same as they are now and 16 per cent thought they would get worse.
Those most optimistic about an Obama presidency included America’s Nato allies - Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Italy as well as Australia and the African countries Kenya and Nigeria.
(yeah and Americans really need to give a damn about what Kenya and Nigeria think. Or any of the others come to that.)• The results were drawn from a survey of 22,531 adult citizens across 22 countries conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan, together with the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland.
http://tinyurl.com/6ao9jt
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2008 at 06:21 AM
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