Monday - October 13, 2008

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS FOR REAL. BUT NO, I CAN. HAS ANYONE HEARD THIS YET. LISTEN, PLEASE!

HT/Jim Miller

It’s about 3am in NJ as I post this.  It’ shortly after 8am here. I received it from a trusted source.  My former neighbor.
There is no video. This is radio.

And these folks vote?  You bet your ass. And our country’s.

Taint Funny McGee.

http://www.bpmdeejays.com/upload/hs_sal_in_Harlem_100108.mp3

   Sunday - October 12, 2008

A BRIT BORN HOLLYWOOD HO OFFERS HER OPINION ON MCCAIN/PALIN.

Barack Obama remained unfazed

By Joan Collins
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 12/10/2008

The second presidential debate was a no-brainer. The lisping, obdurate McCain, who looks progressively unhealthier, did what I thought impossible - he made George Bush look human. Obama, meanwhile, was statesmanlike, youthful yet mature enough to project gravitas.

McCain even pointed a spiteful finger and referred to him as “that one” - how rude! But the cool Obama remained unfazed by that and many other slights thrown at him.

McCain’s demeanour was one of over-excited desperation. Behind Obama’s back he grinned maniacally with his newly whitened teeth, shuffling about impatiently while his opponent was speaking. He couldn’t possibly be president, but he’d make a superb garden gnome.

This was a view echoed by most of the distinguished guests at the Reubens’ party, who were extremely worried about the future of the US and how it will affect the rest of the world.

I am also troubled for the American people, for whom I feel a great affinity, and would be sorry if they had to endure four years of McCain and Palin - the Odd Couple.

Save your “great affinity” slag and please, hurry up and DIE!  We don’t need you or your affinity. 

OK, NOW I NEED DREW OR SOMEONE WHO KNOWS HOW, TO REPLACE THE NAME IRAN AND SIMPLY PUT IN islam. Or better yet.  muslims. either will do.
oh yeah,, the map should be europe and show the UK as well.  that’d be an accurate picture.

Drew - Ok, I “fixed” your map. I understand your idea: you want a world map, sort of like the RISK gameboard, only with roaches instead of armies. And all the roaches are heading outwards from Iran and Saudi Arabia. Big pile of them in UK and fwance, some up around Detroit, a handful in Norway, another pile in Holland and Belgium, a huge pile down in Indonesia. It’s a good idea, I like it. Heck, I’d leave the “RISK” label right on it too, maybe change it to BIG RISK.

   Thursday - October 09, 2008

AND ALL IN THE HOLY NAME OF RELIGION. THAT MAKES IT RIGHT TO THESE ANIMALS.

I don’t think I should demean animals. This is pretty damn bad. What the hell is it with these folks?  Wonder why it is the ppl in this part of the world, and not ALL of them to be sure but far too many, seem so insecure in their faith.  They outnumber Christians to a point where they, Christians, would never be a threat. But they somehow get it in their collective minds that they are a threat.

On the other hand, while not condoning what’s happened in any way, too many fundamentalist Christians don’t want to understand that going into a place where folks are happy with they already have, is not going to endear them when they talk conversation and a better way.

Whatever, it’s seems a damn shame in today’s you’d think more enlightened period, that humans don’t find it pointless to kill in the name of their religion.  ?  Maybe it makes em feel better.  These folks are surely stone age backward people.  And the civilized world has to deal with them as though they are normal everyday folks and heaven forbid, Do Not Offend.

I had thought the Hindus had gotten above that grade, but apparently not.

India terrorised by holy war
A holy war in India has left tens of thousands of Christians crammed into relief camps, too scared to return home following weeks of clashes with Hindu mobs in which at least 35 people have died.

By Rahul Bedi in New Delhi
Last Updated: 5:00PM BST 09 Oct 2008

More than 40,000 Christians have had to flee their homes in Kandhamal district, one of India’s poorest, in the eastern state of Orissa. Their homes have been systematically attacked, looted and burned down by Hindu mobs since the end of August as the local police have looked on helplessly.

“Villagers have threatened to kill me because I am a Christian. They have said I will be welcome back only if I change my religion and become a Hindu,” said Jibit Kumar Digal, 30, who has spent over a month in a relief camp at Baliguda, 200 south west of the provincial capital Bhubaneswar.

Aligned to the radical Hindu Opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the marauding mobs supported by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council, are alleged to have killed Christians by burnign them alive, gang-raped a nun and destroyed over 140 churches and orphanages across Kandhamal.

Following growing criticism of the provincial government for failing to curb the violence, police on Monday claimed to have arrested the man accused of the nun’s rape, but he is yet to be charged. Several human rights and non-governmental organisations have accused the predominantly Hindu police of conniving in the attacks, a charge the authorities reject.

Violence in Kandhamal erupted on Aug 23 following the killing of a local Hindu leader, who was heading a campaign to reconvert the Christian tribal people back to Hinduism.

Over 20 per cent of the mainly 650,000 tribal inhabitants in the Kandhamal area had converted over decades to Christianity under the influence of missionaries.

Police blamed the Hindu leader’s murder on local Maoist rebels, some of who even confessed to the crime on a local television news network, but Hindu organisations blamed the Christians and began attacking them.

Christians and their organisations have been periodically attacked in other parts of Orissa and across India by Hindu mobs particularly during the six-year rule of the BJP that ended in 2004.

They accused missionaries of using coercion and bribery to produce conversions, a charge they deny.

In 1999, a Hindu mob killed an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two children by burning them alive as they slept in their car in Orissa, allegedly for his proselytising activity. The crime shocked India.

Christians constitute around 2.5 per cent of India’s population of over 1.2 billion, the majority of whom are Hindu.

http://tinyurl.com/3zol6t

Nebraska parents abandon teens in backfire of newborn drop-off policy .  WhooHoo. news from the USA

I guess most have seen this right?
If not .... what a hoot.  Woody Allen used to joke about his parents hiring kidnappers to remove him.  But that was a gag. I think.
Anyway ... seems these folks are really serious about getting rid of troubling teens.

A scheme in Nebraska intended to allow desperate young mothers to abandon their newborn child without facing prosecution has backfired after a string of parents delivered their troublesome teenagers to the authorities.


By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 8:53PM BST 08 Oct 2008

Seventeen children - many of them in their teens - have been abandoned since a new law in July allowed parents and guardians to leave their children at drop-off points at hospitals.

The rash of older children deposited has left state authorities struggling to cope. In the latest case this week - and the first involving a child from outside the state - a 14-year-old girl from Iowa was dropped off at a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday.

State officials said the person who abandoned her could be prosecuted in the girl’s home state but authorities have so far been unable to do anything about the other cases because of the loose wording of its safe haven law.

Nebraska was the last state to introduce such legislation but it went much further than others. Instead of restricting those who could be abandoned to infants, as is the case elsewhere in the US, Nebraska effectively allowed it to apply to anyone up to the age of 18.

In the most serious case to date, a single father handed over nine of his 10 children - aged between 20 months and 17 - saying that he could no longer cope.

Other parents and guardians have brought in children, citing issues such as violence and disobedience as reasons for their abandonment.

The law stipulates that the child must be left in a state-approved hospital. A mother who tried to offload her 14-year-old son in September was foiled after she mistakenly tried to drop him off at a police station instead.

Dave Heineman, the state’s governor, has now pledged to tighten up the law so that it only applies to infants.

He appealed to fellow Nebraskans to take less drastic measures than abandonment if they were having trouble with children.

While conceding that raising a child can be “challenging at times”, he said: “Abandonment of an older child is potentially very devastating ... Nebraskans believe strongly in parental responsibility. The essential element defining any family is the knowledge that parents provide unconditional love for their children.”

http://tinyurl.com/4y9zjz

US intelligence: Afghanistan in ‘downward spiral’ under Hamid Karzai’s government.

There are those here who are saying we (USA) is wrong to believe that the war against the Taliscum can be won.  Who knows? I sure don’t have any sort of great insight into this thing.  I just want us to get it over with. And if that means NUKES, that’s okay with me. Why is our side so afraid to use them?
Look, like it or not and sooner or later, those folks are gonna find a way to get em too.  Isn’t it better we kill em all now, before they get that chance?

I am reminded of an old expression.  Crap or get off the pot.  Well, we need to crap on these life forms before they do it to us. And they surely will in time.

I heard a very interesting program on the BBC last week on the failure (possibly) of us “winning hearts and minds” over there.  It was not I want you to know, an anti American rant. Anyway, some administration spokesman said that we (Americans) invented public relations and now here we are being beaten at our own game by a guy in a cave.

There was an interview with some old guy over there who said (and honestly believed what he heard) that after 9/11 hundreds of thousands of Americans converted to Islam and that more were doing so every day. And he really did believe that because AlQueda told him so. It was being broadcast on their radio and spoken about in their mosques.

America’s intelligence agencies believe that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” and President Hamid Karzai’s government may be incapable of containing the Taliban’s challenge, according to an assessment now being drafted.

By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor
Last Updated: 5:16PM BST 09 Oct 2008

Facing a spreading Taliban insurgency, the White House has begun a comprehensive review of policy towards Afghanistan. A National Intelligence Estimate, representing the considered view of America’s 16 spy agencies, is now being prepared.

Its conclusions are thought to be deeply pessimistic, stressing the systemic weakness of Afghanistan’s central government and the damage caused by the burgeoning narcotics trade, which may account for about half of the country’s entire economy.

This assessment is expected to be completed after next month’s presidential election – and may remain classified. But officials told yesterday’s New York Times that its conclusion was that Afghanistan was in a “downward spiral”.

The assessment stresses two key trends: the increasingly sophisticated nature of the Taliban insurgency and the structural weakness of Mr Karzai’s government. Taliban fighters are now thought to have a permanent presence in 17 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

As well as conducting a classic insurgency – notably by killing 10 French troops in an ambush outside Kabul in August – they have also branched into urban terrorism against high profile targets. This year, attacks have been launched against the Serena Hotel and the Indian Embassy in the capital, Kabul.

But Mr Karzai’s government, mired in corruption, has little control over large areas of the country. The Afghan National Army (ANA) will have 86,000 troops by next summer and should eventually deploy 134,000 soldiers.

Yet foreign troops still bear the brunt of counter-insurgency efforts. In Iraq, US forces managed to pacify large areas by arming local militias. They may decide to do the same in Afghanistan, despite the danger that this will simply undermine the ANA and further weaken the central government.

Moreover, Afghanistan’s security is inextricably linked with the situation in neighbouring Pakistan. At present, Taliban fighters enjoy a haven in the Tribal Areas on Pakistan’s north-west frontier, where they are able to rearm and regroup before launching cross-border attacks. Pakistan’s lawless enclaves may also host al-Qaeda’s core leadership, possibly including Osama bin Laden.

American officials believe that Pakistan’s authorities have failed to cope with this threat and some elements of their security services, notably the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, may be covertly helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in the last six months is the Taliban getting more organised and to some extent having more co-operation with al-Qaeda,” said a senior US official.

He added that the “dangerous elements are very entrenched” and Pakistan’s security agencies were not fully engaged in the struggle, despite assurances from President Asif Ali Zardari.

“Getting all the people and all the instruments of government to line up in that direction is not as simple as giving a speech,” said the official. “We are not at the point where every instrument of national power in Pakistan is lined up to fight terrorism.”

http://tinyurl.com/4l8qjn

   Wednesday - October 08, 2008

POLICE PROTECT CITIZENS BY ARRESTING CITIZENS WHO CHOP DOWN TREES USED BY THUGS. HUH?

Just another example of (one of many) when a law abiding citizen has had too much.
Guy kills trees,,, guy gets arrested.

Bet the punks are laughing.

Resident who chopped down trees used by yobs to hide from CCTV camera is arrested and charged with criminal damage

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:30 PM on 08th October 2008

A public spirited resident chopped down two trees to stop yobs sheltering behind them - and was promptly arrested by police.

Keith Best, 42, took the law into his own hands because the trees were obscuring the view of a crucial CCTV camera.

He acted because louts and vandals have been making life hell for fed-up families in his street - and they were not being captured red-handed on film. 

Furious Mr Best, who has lived in the street for 20 years, decided enough was enough and cut down the two trees in a bid to stop the trouble.

But he was shocked to be confronted by four police officers at his front door after he’d acted for the good of the neighbourhood in Dagenham, Essex, .

‘I thought they were knocking the door in,’ said Mr Best. ‘I opened it and there were four police officers standing there.

‘I let them in as I had nothing to hide. One of the officers said ‘Did you cut a couple of trees down?’ and I said, ‘yes, I did’.

‘He said, ‘I’m arresting you for criminal damage’ and read me my rights. I near enough fell through the floor.

“They said I could pay an £80 penalty notice or they would take it to court. I said, ‘fair enough, I’ll take it to court’.’

Mr Best said the yobs had turned his once peaceful neighbourhood into a war zone and had assaulted a pensioner and two young people.

‘People don’t feel safe sitting in their own back gardens,’ he said.

‘People have had bottles thrown at their cars, others have had abuse shouted at them.

‘One boy was beaten up and another stabbed. There are a lot of older people who are afraid even to open their doors.’

He said when people phoned the police they were routinely told a response unit would be sent but it never turned up. Complaints to the local council and the Safer Neighbourhood Team had also done little to help, he said.

Mr Best said that about a month before he chopped down the trees which had been obscuring the cameras for three years he phoned Barking and Dagenham Council and asked them to take them down but nothing was done.

He said: ‘The trees are a meeting point for the youths - we get between a dozen and 25 of them.

‘It is where they drink and take drugs - we have actually found used syringes down there. They use it as a toilet and we have even seen them having sex around there.

‘Up until three weeks ago it was pretty much every night.

‘I went out there on September 6 at about 11am, in full view of everyone, I wasn’t hiding anything, and cut them down.

‘The council had done nothing to make things better for us, so the residents had had enough.

‘They couldn’t be bothered to get off their backsides to protect us and our property, or even their own property, so I decided to do something. The residents said, ‘good for you’.’

Mr Best has been given 21 days to pay the fine but has decided to make a stand and force the issue to court. He and his neighbours are lobbying their Safer Neighbourhood Team and council for better lighting and fencing and more police patrols at night.

‘I was only trying to make the situation better for those living in the area and for those who use the community hall,’ he said.

His neighbour Julie Reynolds, 37, a child minder and mother of two teenage sons, said the residents backed Mr Best and were disgusted with his treatment.

She said: ‘It is utterly ridiculous. He’s trying to help the council and the neighbours - these youths have been causing chaos.

‘He’s the only one who’s doing anything to help. No one wants to help so he took it into his own hands.

‘Now he’s been arrested and fined, it’s just ludicrous.

‘The kids are getting away with criminal damage, aggravating everybody and causing a nuisance. All Keith has done is cut trees down to make way for the CCTV.

‘He has been punished and the kids are getting away scot free.

‘We call the police and it takes them three or four hours to get here and it’s too late. But they send four officers to arrest Keith.

‘I think he did the right thing and I think the way he has been treated is disgusting.’

Fanshawe Community Hall chair Tracey Benson said the vandals had badly damaged the wall at the back of the building, hacking at it with a scaffolding pole.

She said: “They keep coming back and making it worse. It’s a mess. We’ve had a lot of graffiti as well.”

Other buildings in the area have also been targeted, including an NHS clinic which had water pipes ripped from its walls and a shop where cardboard boxes stored outside were set light.

Mr Best added that since the trees had been cut down there has been no more vandalism or new graffiti on the community hall.

PC Anthony Roll of the Met’s Safer Neighbourhood Team said they would tackle the problems.

He said: ‘We are aware of the campaign. Teams have got on top of the problems in other wards and we are confident we will get on top of the problems in this ward as well.’

http://tinyurl.com/3mwwa2

   Monday - October 06, 2008

FROM THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY …. A $20,000.00 LAPTOP COMPUTER … WHOO HOO

Looks like a handbag to me.  I guess it’s for the girl, or the guy who thinks he’s a girl, who already has everything.
For 20G though, I’d want it to fly and have a kitchen and bath. So forget the flight. At least a kitchen. 

Bentley create £10,000 luxury laptop

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/09/2008

In these straitened times, it’s hardly the kind of gift that is going to feature on many people’s Christmas lists. But Bentley, the luxury car manufacturer, is hoping to entice the world’s super rich with the release of a new £10,000 laptop computer.

Bentley lap top by ego
The Bentley laptop is hand-built

Hand-built with white-gold frames and the Bentley logo, the exclusive computer comes in a leather case cross-stitched like the cars’ seats.

The exterior is in Bentley leather and the laptop’s handle is modelled on the company’s trademark door handles.

Only 250 of the computers will go on sale worldwide from this autumn. However, if the blogosphere is anything to go by, there are unlikely to be many takers.

One unimpressed blogger said: “I’m sorry, but that really is one of the ugliest laptop form factors I’ve ever seen. But, then again, if you can afford a Bentley, you might as well throw heaps of cash on this thing, as well.

“You’ll be the butt of plenty of cruel sniggers, but what the hey…you’ll be chic. And that’s all that really counts, isn’t it?”

Another disgrunted blogger wrote: “This is a pointless product. Anyone who buys this laptop has too much money for his/her own good.”

(Now that last remark is dead wrong. One can NEVER have too much money.  Money does not buy poverty. The more, the better. And the more toys you can buy. )

http://tinyurl.com/4a3le5

Fifty people who have wrecked Britain.  (I don’t think American papers would do it this way)

BUT I SURE WISH WE DID!

I will not list all of them here, but some that will be familiar to Americans. Possible exception is John Prescott.
I was gonna joke about the ruinous SOB and say he was a favorite of Lyndon & Chris.  But the thought of being hunted down just for a bad joke
and being badly beaten about the head decided me against such folly.
Anyway ... I am not listing in order the way the Daily Mail has it.  But you can go there for the entire list. It is interesting.

Fifty people who have wrecked Britain
• Abridged extract from FIFTY PEOPLE WHO BUGGERED UP BRITAIN by Quentin Letts, published by Constable & Robinson on Thursday, October 9, at £12.99.  Quentin Letts 2008.

Last updated at 3:27 AM on 06th October 2008

So much money, so many high-tech advances - yet today Britain is such an unhappy country, so drained of community, so robotic as it staggers towards oblivion. Who landed us in this mess? Who are the halfwits, the mooncalves, the clotpolls whose touches and yanks on the national tiller steered us onto the rocks?

It’s time to name and shame the guilty. This is my personal roll call of the people who made our country the ugly, ignorant, beer-ridden and brawling place it is today.

Here are the fools, knaves and vulgarians who ripped up British honour and glory and set in its place the tawdry and the trite. Will my list of prime suspects match your own? Read on and find out ...

12 John Prescott

Prescott was the most gormless and ineloquent person yet to hold the non-office of Deputy Prime Minister.

This so-called statesman spoke English like a bibulous chimp. In his Labour Party conference speeches, he cranked up class hatred in an era when most adult Britons were trying to place such social insecurity behind them.

He debased himself and his rank by thumping a member of the public in the 2001 General Election campaign, by bedding his secretary, by flicking V-signs on the steps of 10 Downing Street and by licking the plate of privilege until it was almost spotless.

In all these matters, Prescott, a revolting specimen with the manners of a flatulent caveman, demeaned our public life.

5.  Diana

The ‘People’s Princess’ was a liability, a souffle of false ideas, a supermodel with all that that entails. She was the glamorous tool of cleverer men, a plaything for the powerful, a delusion worshipped only by the impressionable.

The Princess may have been a loving mother. She may also have been photogenic and able to convey an easy charm. But the sorry truth is that this adored concept, this packaged, airbrushed Diana, weakened our society. She made us more neurotic.

After Diana, it became so easy to emote it was hard to tell if people meant their tears or if they were simply trying them on. Diana robbed us of the stoicism and understatement which had served Britain well.

Thanks largely to Diana we have become a country in which the words ‘crisis’ and ‘disaster’ are devalued from overuse, a country of emotional incontinence where adults will weep if they fail to win a talent competition yet where no one bothers to welcome home soldiers from a war zone.

Diana was a danger to the stability of our kingdom. She mixed in circles that were disreputable and, in some cases, neurotically anti-British. Her death was shocking, horrible and a waste of beauty.

But Diana was a naive menace, an odd mixture of simpering shyness and galloping egomania. God rest her soul, she was a mirage, a false harbinger of egalitarianism, and we were foolish ever to think otherwise.

10.  John McEnroe

Any young games player today soon learns the ways of modern Britain: the referee’s word may well not be final.

This widespread undermining of the referee (and other official authority figures) as a font of impartiality can be traced back to an afternoon at the Wimbledon tennis championships in 1981.

A call had gone against a young American player and he refused to accept it without a fight. ‘Man,’ he screamed, ‘you cannot be serious.’ Rant, rant, rant. Pout of lip. ‘Man.’ Ugh.

John McEnroe, the American in question, was one of the most skilful tennis players not only of his era but probably of all time. But he cannot properly claim to be a ‘sporting great’.

No one who shrieks at officials, ‘You guys are the pits of the world, you know that?’ can rightly be called a ‘great’, unless ‘great pain in the backside’ is intended.

McEnroe helped spread bad sportmanship to a generation of youngsters.

3.  Howard Schultz

Once upon a time, not so long ago, it was routinely possible to buy a cup of coffee for the price of a popular news paper and in a container which did not contain nearly a pint of liquid so scaldingly hot it was undrinkable for at least ten minutes after you had bought it.

Once upon a time. The time before Starbucks.

The man to blame? Howard Schultz, who did not start Starbucks, but bought the company in 1987 and focused on global domination.

In 1995, the company conceived a ‘ Synergistic Rollout Program’ under which one new store was opened somewhere every day. Now look at them. Not even the grey squirrel spread and bred this fast.

The trend may well pass. Brands are notoriously fickle things. So we must not despair.

But for the meantime, Schultz is the king of the caramel macchiatos and there seems to be nothing to stop him. Unless he drinks one too many of his filthy brews and has a fatal seizure from all the palpitations.

More Here => http://tinyurl.com/3vvakq

Who’ll be next for a lambasting by Letts? The list of shame continues tomorrow.

   Sunday - October 05, 2008

A Pep Talk

Campaign gusto flagging? Debates got you down? The whole 2 friggin year long election cycle wearing you out?

NRO’s Mark Levin gives us a little pep talk in his October 1 address. 10 minutes. With the sound track from Patton. Or was it Police Story?

Might want to mosey on over and check out the rest of his stuff too.

h/t to reader Richard K.

   Friday - October 03, 2008

Barack Obama is ‘aloof’ says British ambassador to US .

Revealed: UK ambassador’s verdict on Barack Obama
Posted By: Toby Harnden at Oct 2, 2008 at 21:10:29 [General]
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents

The following is the full text of a July 2008 letter sent by Sir Nigel Sheinwald, British ambassador to the United States, to Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, shortly before the visit of Senator Barack Obama, then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to London.

My news story about the leaked document is here.  http://tinyurl.com/49rtwk

BARACK OBAMA

This letter contains sensitive judgements. Please limit copying, and protect the contents carefully.

1. Ahead of Senator Obama’s visit to London next week, I thought it would be useful to give you a snapshot of his personality, politics and emerging policies.

Background and Personality

2. The key themes which are important in understanding Obama’s political makeup are the following:

- His struggle to understand his racial identity. His first book “Dreams from My Father” (1995) traces this struggle through Hawaii, New York, Chicago and Kenya. Raised by his white Kansas-born mother and her parents after his Kenyan father left, Obama made a conscious decision in the 1980s to choose his African-American identity – he worked as a community organiser in the poorest areas of Chicago, and went on to travel to Kenya to learn about his father. His decision after Harvard Law School to settle back in Chicago led to growing integration into the city’s black middle class culture and provided him with the political laboratory from which his career was launched;

- His personal makeup drives his view of politics. Obama talks of wanting to reach out to all Americans (“no red states or blue states, only the United States”). “I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible. It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story which has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many we are truly one.” The race issue is present in the campaign – the debate continues to rage over how much. Obama wanted to avoid it as much as possible until the Reverend Wright videos forced him to make his elegant speech on race in March and then, when this was clearly not enough for the latest Wright outburst, to disown him completely and leave his church;

- Star quality. Obama has always had it, at least since his arrival at Harvard. A friend in the progressive Chicago establishment said, “I honestly don’t remember what it was about him, but I was absolutely blown away. I said to several people that this guy, who is now 30 years old, is some day going to be President. He will be our first black President”. That was in the 1990s. His rise has been meteoric. He first came to the notice of the national political establishment when he won the Illinois Democratic primary for the US Senate in early 2004. But it was his mesmerising speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston which propelled him to stardom, at a low point for his party. He is the only black member of the Senate. He is already the most successful black elected politician in American history, to the discomfort of Jesse Jackson and others;

- The promise of post-partisanship. Throughout his career, from the time he won over the conservative board of the Harvard Law Review to today, Obama has succeeded in crossing traditional boundaries, and making a virtue of it. His political personality is much more difficult to define than McCain’s. His campaign has the features of a movement, but he has himself said that “without organisation, without policy, without plans”, movements will dissipate. He uses Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign as his example. More broadly, he is a mixture of idealism and progressive politics on the one hand and pragmatism and disciplined organization on the other. He resists pigeon-holing. People disagree about how sincere his post-partisanship is, and how successful his attempts to reach across the aisle would be, given his mixed record in the Senate;

- Obama is highly intelligent. Not just savvy – which most people at this level of American politics have to be. But intellectually smart; cerebral. His manner is frequently interrogative. He is a quick learner. He has the confidence to surround himself with bright people, and is said to listen carefully to and weight thir views. This can have its downsides – he can seem to sit on the fence, assiduously balancing pros and cons. He can talk too dispassionately for a national campaign about issues which touch people personally, eg his notorious San Francisco comments about small-town Pennsylvanians “clinging” to guns and religion. The charge of elitism leveled by both Clinton and McCain was rich coming from them, but not entirely unfair. Despite his blue-collar upbringing. Obama does betray a highly educated and upper middle class mindset;

- He is a supreme organiser and networker. Obama has 20 years’ experience of organising from the grassroots up. He has surrounded himself with experienced, creative campaign organisers, particularly David Axelrod and David Plouffe. He has broken all the financial records, especially for donations via the internet and from younger people. His campaign has been a brilliant combination of the strategic and emotional on the one hand (“change you can believe in”) and state-by-state organisation on the other. The latter, as much as the former, beat Hillary Clinton; and that remains in place against McCain;

- He is tough and competitive. That is of course the Chicago school. You don’t beat Clinton without being resilient (but, like her, his energy levels do dip and he can be uninspiring e.g. in debates). He loves basketball and poker. He demands loyalty.

- Ambition. Of course. He has talked at least since the 1980s about a shot at the Presidency. He plans each move carefully, and incrementally. The 1995 book was a very clever platform.

- Obama is cool. He looks cool, tall, slim. He is temperamentally cool (by any standards, not just in comparison with the more impetuous McCain). And maybe aloof, insensitive – see above. Friends like Tom Daschle told me that he demands calm and “no dramas” from those around him. That will, I think, be an important criterion for his choice of running mate;

- Luck. Obama has had his fair share, but also made his own. He was certainly lucky in having Democratic and Republican opponents for the US Senate in 2004 who were tarnished. He was lucky that Hillary Clinton had such a bad organisation in the primary campaign, and took so long to respond to Obama’s threat.

(This is a very long but interesting read. Therefore, see the link for the rest. There really is too much to post it all here)

http://tinyurl.com/4gubxs

   Thursday - October 02, 2008

It does NOT MATTER if you’ve been dead 200 years. Your bills must still be paid!

A bit of silly stuff here.  ALways have a laugh over these things. Of course the thought does occur that the same folks who do this are running govts. and and making decisions that others must live by. 

Poet dead for 200 years told to pay TV licence
Friedrich Schiller, one of Germany’s favourite poets and playwrights, has received reminders to pay his television licence - despite having been dead since 1805.

By Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 9:58AM BST 02 Oct 2008

Two notices were delivered by GEZ, a licence-collecting agency, which threatened to mount legal action against the literary hero, who is best known for his poem Ode to Joy, which was put to music by Beethoven, unless he quickly settled his monthly €17 (£14) bill.

They were sent to a primary school bearing Schiller’s name in Weigsdorf-Köblitz, a town in the eastern state of Saxony.

The second came despite the school’s headteacher sending the agency a letter informing them that “the addressee is no longer in a position to listen to the radio or watch television”.

GEZ replied saying Schiller would only be exempt if he could prove he did not own television or radio sets.

After the confusion was settled, a spokesman for the agency apologised. “We have to deal with such a huge amount of data, that something like this can happen, and the name Friedrich Schiller is not so unusual that it stood out as strange,” she told The Guardian. “We will now alter his status in our computer system.”

Michael Binder, the headteacher, said: “I told the GEZ that Herr Schiller has not been with us for quite some time, and included his curriculum vitae with my letter.”

http://tinyurl.com/3nj2y9

   Tuesday - September 30, 2008

THIS IS BIZARRE! >> An amateur chef died the day after eating a “superhot” chilli in a bet .

I once lost a chocolate ice cream bet ... I was just a kid going on 25 at the time.  Got kind of sickly as I remember. 

Chef dies after eating ‘superhot’ chilli for bet
An amateur chef died the day after eating a “superhot” chilli in a bet with his friend over who could make the hottest dish, an inquest heard.

By Jessica Salter

Andrew Lee was in perfect health before he ate a chilli

Andrew Lee, 33, suffered heart failure the morning after he ate the chilli.

Toxicology tests are now being carried out to see if the fork lift truck driver suffered a fatal reaction to the dish or whether anything else contributed to his death.

Mr Lee, of Edlington, Doncaster was apparently in perfect health and had just passed a medical at work, the opening of the Doncaster hearing was told.

Cooking was one of his main interests and he went to his girlfriend Samantha Bailey’s house to make a chilli.

His father John Lee told the inquest: “He had a bet with Samantha’s brother who could make the hottest chilli then went back to her house to stay.”

Mother-of-four Miss Bailey called the emergency services to her home nine days ago.

Police officers were called to the house after receiving reports of a man suffering a cardiac arrest and Mr Lee was found lying on the floor.

Paramedics failed to revive him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A full post-mortem examination is underway and further inquiries are being carried out.

Deputy Doncaster coroner Fred Curtis granted a burial order and adjourned the inquest for further evidence.

http://tinyurl.com/4tdlx6

   Sunday - September 28, 2008

British children as young as nine are being forced into marriage by their families.

Yep ... a posting from the other side of the world because I don’t think this makes the evening news in America.

Further proof should anyone still need same, that some cultures cults just do NOT fit into a modern western society.
Of course, who says they want to?  Not many of them. They want to come here and change things and make em the way they are in the place they left.  ??  Good thinking folks. Duh.

Nine-year-old Midlands girl rescued from forced marriage
British children as young as nine are being forced into marriage by their families, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:57AM BST 28 Sep 2008

The disclosure comes as official figures show that nearly 60 children aged 15 or under have been rescued by the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit in the past four years.

The cases are feared to be the tip of the iceberg. They will fuel concerns, first raised earlier this year, that large numbers of children are disappearing from British schools to be forced into wedlock overseas.

A charity which runs a national helpline on forced marriage and “honour"-based crimes, Karma Nirvana, revealed that in one incident a nine-year-old girl from a Pakistani family in the east Midlands was taken into council care after her parents told her she was to wed.

Jasvinder Sanghera, director of Karma Nirvana, said that on average four children a month aged under 16 have contacted its helpline since it launched in April.

“The youngest child we have dealt with was nine years old,” she said. “The girl told her teacher she was going to be forced to marry someone and initially she was not believed.

“Ultimately, with the help of the Forced Marriage Unit, she was dealt with through child protection procedures. She was assessed and, thankfully, taken into foster care.”

Ms Sanghera called on ministers to make sure primary school children are taught about forced marriage and given advice on how to avoid becoming a victim.

The Forced Marriage Unit has helped rescue 58 underage children since it was set up in January 2005, including 11 under-16s so far this year. The youngest victim this year was 13, one was 14 and nine were 15.

The unit deals with 5,000 inquiries and 300 cases of forced marriage a year. A third of inquiries come from under 18s.

The youngest victim repatriated by the unit, which is jointly funded by the Home Office and the Foreign Office, was an 11-year-old girl who was flown back to Britain from Dhaka, Bangladesh, last year after her parents had agreed to marry her to a local man.

Ms Sanghera, who herself fled home after being threatened with forced marriage at the age of 15, said: “I currently have cases involving four children aged 11 to 14 who were forced to marry or were at risk, and have now been made wards of court.

“You don’t just get forced into a marriage at 16 or 17; this is happening to very young children. We certainly have had cases of minors being sexually abused.

“If you are forced into marriage as a minor you will be multiple-raped, because as a child you are legally unable to give consent.

“But we have no idea how many children under 16 are at risk, and this is compounded by a reluctance of schools to engage with the issue. Many schools shy away due to supposed cultural sensitivities.”

She went on: “There will be children sitting in our classrooms this week who have already had identified for them a husband or a wife.

“These marriages can be prevented by identifying the signs in school or teachers believing pupils when they raise it.”

The problem is particularly prevalent in Pakistani communities, where betrothing offspring to their first cousins is common practice, said Ms Sanghera.

“It happens across all races but there is a disproportionate number of cases within the Pakistani community, and we need to recognise that,” she said.

“At Karma Nirvana we have noticed a significant trend of young people aged 14, 15 and 16 coming forward for our services.

“We need reassurance from schools, especially headteachers, that existing Department for Children, Schools and Families posters giving advice about forced marriage are displayed in primary and secondary schools.

“We also believe there should be proper headcounts of pupils after the summer holidays, so that steps can be taken if any children have disappeared from the register. I think what the schools discover will alarm them.”

She estimated there could be a dozen cases a year in some medium-sized comprehensive schools with significant numbers of Asian children.

A nine-month study by Karma Nirvana in 2006 followed the fortunes of 15 girls aged 10 to 18 in Derby, where the charity is based. By the end of the study, four had been taken abroad including a 17-year-old who had subsequently returned to the UK after being wed to a 35-year-old man.

Earlier this year a report by the Commons’ all-party Home Affairs Select Committee said 2,089 pupils were unaccounted for in just 14 local council areas of England and Wales. A proportion of these are believed to have been children removed from education and forced into marriages overseas.

http://tinyurl.com/3wcqjd

   Thursday - September 25, 2008

A village expecting a scooter and music festival found itself hosting an 800-strong Nazi rally .

“We are conducting a thorough investigation into a complaint about racist chanting.”

Oh good. I’m happy the police are right on top of this.  No comment about investigating property damage or drunks threatening ppl.
Oh goodness no.  But we’ll investigate race chants.

Somerset village ‘invaded’ by Nazis
A village expecting a scooter and music festival found itself hosting an 800-strong Nazi rally instead.

By Ben Leach
Last Updated: 1:33PM BST 25 Sep 2008

White supremacists from Britain, Germany and Eastern Europe arrived in Redhill, Somerset, draped in swastika flags.

The skinheads, wearing leather jackets and army boots, were heard by residents chanting: “Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil.”

Locals claimed they urinated over cars and threatened anyone who dared intervene.

Mother of two Sarah Gooding - who filmed the rally - said her family had had to flee their cottage in fear.

Sarah, 39, said: “It was like a miniature Nuremberg rally. I ran inside, burst into tears and said to my husband, ‘We’ve got to go, I don’t feel safe’.

“Our daughters were really, really frightened. They were in tears as we were packing our bag to flee.”

Debbie Johnson, another resident in Redhill, Somerset, said she left her home as drunks took over her garden.

She added: “It was disgraceful behaviour. I was very upset that anyone can hold those views after what’s happened in the past. I found it incredibly distressing and so did my family.”

The Bungalow Inn had provided a two-acre field with a marquee for the weekend-long “scooter and music festival” after being contacted by record company ISD.

Bosses were unaware that ISD bills itself as the world’s “oldest and most dependable White Nationalist Movement CD label” – or that the event marked the 15th anniversary of the death of a cult skinhead band’s frontman.

Pub manager Ian Saunders said: “If I knew that this would happen I would never have allowed it.”

North Somerset Council unwittingly granted a “temporary events notice” allowing live music and the sale of alcohol.

Police received dozens of complaints, but no arrests were made.

Police inspector Steve Date said: “We are conducting a thorough investigation into a complaint about racist chanting.”

ISD records were unavailable for comment.

http://tinyurl.com/3mgckw

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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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