NEWS That Caught Your Attention!

[spare_change]

Court Date for Owner of Horses in Illinois Trailer Accident

by: Pat Raia February 17 2008, Article # 11349
The former owner of 59 horses involved in a semitrailer rollover accident last October in Wadsworth, Ill., is slated to appear in Lake County Circuit Court on March 3 according to a spokesperson for the Lake County, Ill., County Clerk.

Keith O. Tongen, 49, of Minnesota faces four Class A misdemeanor animal cruelty charges and one Class B misdemeanor animal owner duties violation charge. According to Lake County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Christopher Thompson, each animal cruelty charge carries penalties of one year on prison and $1,000 in fines. The animal owner duties violation carries a penalty of six months in the Lake County Jail.

The accident occurred Oct. 27 when a truck hauling 59 draft horses in a double-decker trailer from Indiana through Wadsworth, Ill. to Minnesota overturned. A total of 17 horses perished, either on the scene or within days of the event due to accident-related injuries. The remaining surviving horses were adopted.

In advance of the court hearing, Donna Ewing, president of the Hooved Animal Rescue and Protection Society, where the injured horses resided after the incident, is rallying local horse enthusiasts to attend the proceedings.

"We want to get the judge's attention on this," Ewing said.

Meanwhile, legislation that would prohibit horse transport via double-decker trailers in the state is slated for a Feb. 21 hearing by the Illinois House of Representatives' Drivers Education and Safety Committee.

For more on the accident see Agriculture Officials Join Illinois Trailer Accident Investigation (http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=10717) and Some Illinois Trailer Accident Survivors Moved to New Homes (http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=10828). For more on the proposed legislation see Trailer Accident: Proposed Law Would Ban Illinois Double-Deckers (http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=10752).

As a horse owner, no one regrets the loss of a single one of these magnificent animals more than me, but I must admit, this sounds like a witch hunt of political correctness to me.

This guy was obeying the law, and an accident happened (if he broke a traffic law, then punish him for that), and some horses died. NOW, they want to crucify the guy for doing what was legal.

One of the problems we have today is that there are so many "squishy" laws on the books - nothing concrete, just something that can be pulled out of the drawer and applied if the public sentiment, or public protest, gets too strong.

At the risk of crossing animal strains, sounds like bullshit to me.

[Annie]

As a horse owner, no one regrets the loss of a single one of these magnificent animals more than me, but I must admit, this sounds like a witch hunt of political correctness to me.

This guy was obeying the law, and an accident happened (if he broke a traffic law, then punish him for that), and some horses died. NOW, they want to crucify the guy for doing what was legal.

One of the problems we have today is that there are so many "squishy" laws on the books - nothing concrete, just something that can be pulled out of the drawer and applied if the public sentiment, or public protest, gets too strong.

At the risk of crossing animal strains, sounds like bullshit to me. Thanks for responding... I know that you are quite the animal lover and I respect your opinion about this. This was just a tragic accident and the aftermath stinks of revenge.

How do you feel about banning the use double decker horse trailers?

[spare_change]

Thanks for responding... I know that you are quite the animal lover and I respect your opinion about this. This was just a tragic accident and the aftermath stinks of revenge.

How do you feel about banning the use double decker horse trailers?

Unquestionably. They are nothing but dangerous with horses. Course, horses don't move around much when the vehicle is in motion, but I can see where it could lead to bad situation - particularly because, most often, the horses are untethered.

I presume some mathematician in the group can tell us what the weight relationship between upper and lower decks would have to be in order to maintain stability. I have seen a lot of haulers with pigs on both decks, or cows below and pigs above. (That doesn't count the truck that dropped off the girls at my senior Homecoming dance!)

Got to admit, it ain't something that I've given a heck of lot of thought to.

[Pebbles]

Neighbors of the Cambria County Amish community complained about the bathroom facilities the Amish are using because they take waste from their outhouse and dump it onto their property.



The property is in the same area near underground wells for nearby residents.



The complaints made to the Cambria County Sewage Enforcement Agency were investigated and citations were filed against the Amish property owners.



The owners said they refuse to pay any fines, because it is against their religious beliefs, and will go to jail if necessary.



Deborah Sedlmeyer, of the Cambria County Sewage Enforcement Agency, said the law doesn't allow residents to discharge sewage onto their property and outhouses must have an approved containing device. The Amish community in question has neither, and nearby residents said that's what concerns them.



"Some of them have had concerns about water quality. There are some on-site wells, so obviously there's an issue. The sewage is often times discharged (and) placed onto the ground, so there are some water quality issues."



The Amish families in Barr Township said they are aware they are facing a list of charges, but said they would not compromise their beliefs because of it.



"If they don't comply, they will be fined. They don't believe in the payment of fines, so they've already attested that they will go to jail in lieu of paying fines," Sedlmeyer said.



The Amish families live a very simple lifestyle with no electricity or cars and said it is against their religion to make the upgrades. They also said they don't mean to bother anyone in the area and are just trying to live the way their forefathers did.



"We certainly respect them for their religious beliefs, but as Pennsylvania residents, they are required to follow state law," Sedlmeyer said.

http://www.wjactv.com/news/15305331/detail.html

[tiger50]

woohoo the g-spot has been found..

http://www.smh.com.au/news/health/weve-hit-the-g-spot-say-scientists/2008/02/21/1203467228605.html

:dl :hitit: :smdance:

[Pebbles]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/2008022...41f21e0_1.html (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080222/twl-girl-16-has-second-set-of-triplets-41f21e0_1.html)

I am just sorta shocked, she has 7 children,all under 2 years old at 16!!!!

[spare_change]

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/02/guns-in-the-des.php

[SirFox]

Red hot and Dutch: The designers who are moving into former brothels in Amsterdam

In the heart of Amsterdam's red-light area, prostitutes have been kicked out to make way for a controversial new scheme promoting the city's young fashion talent


By Celeste Charles
Sunday, 24 February 2008



The red-light district of Amsterdam, famous for its sex shops, brothels and "coffee shops", is relaunching itself... as a fashion hotspot. Last month a project called Redlight Fashion Amsterdam offered a group of young Dutch designers the chance to live and work rent-free for a year in the former establishments of prostitutes; their designs will be also be available to buy in a gallery store.

The project sits at the very heart of the Wallen (red-light district) and the result is a radical mix of hip, young Dutch designers and members of the world's oldest profession. Bathed in the neon glare of the sex shops, the work of these designers vies for space between windows displaying girls dressed in eye-popping underwear.

The initiative is a collaboration between the Dutch authorities and the fashion consultancy HTNK, which supports young designers. It has come about in part due to rising concern among city councillors about gang culture and crime in the area. Armed with new laws enabling the closure of establishments believed to be involved in criminal activity, last year the city bought 55 buildings from a former brothel baron; 16 of these are now to be handed over to the designers.

"Fashion designers have a lot of problems finding affordable places to live and display their work," explains Mariette Hoitnik, director of HTNK. "During a recent meeting with the authorities in the area, I suggested we put some designers there. It seemed to work well as a temporary solution."

Inevitably, the scheme has created controversy, with some claiming that it is an attempt to sweep controlled prostitution from the world's most famous red-light area. Hoitnik firmly disagrees. "I don't understand why the people think we want to get rid of it," she says. "The project is called Redlight Fashion Amsterdam, we have gone to great lengths to ensure the houses have been kept in their original state, and it is going on for just a year."

Brigitte Hendrix, one half of the partnership behind the label ...And Beyond, says she knows some people aren't particularly happy the designers are there, "but we haven't experienced that personally – the girls working alongside us are quite friendly. Having a workspace in the centre of Amsterdam helps to reconnect us to the city," she adds.

For Edwin Oudshoorn, who considers himself a tailor more than a fashion designer, the location does not feel controversial at all. "Tailoring and prostitution are both very old professions," he says. "To have an atelier next to a brothel feels quite natural."

Mada van Gaans, a graduate of the fashion institute of Arnhem, whose fantastical, feminine creations have graced catwalks in Paris and New York, agrees that the area is an ideal place to showcase her work. "At night, with all the lights and the crowds, it has a very filmic quality. I love using the window space to tell a story with my clothes."

Perhaps the most high-profile participant in the project is the award-winning designer Bas Kosters, also a graduate of the fashion institute of Arnhem. He uses recycled materials to create playful, flamboyant pieces. His graduate collection, "Two tea-cups and a frying pan", scooped the coveted Dutch Robijn fashion award, and gained him international renown.

Hoitnik believes the project's strength lies in uniting a diverse group of talents. "In Holland we don't have people such as Donatella Versace; someone like that couldn't exist here. There is not that sense of glamour. It's far more quirky."

Another contributing designer, Daryl van Wouw, concurs that it is the Dutch capital's offbeat character which makes it such an inspiration. "The mix of impressive old buildings on the canals, new hi-tech architecture and the cheesiest neon signs, make it like an urban collage with heart, soul and history," he says.

Van Wouw started his own label in 2005 after working for Donna Karan and Converse. In his last collection he used knitted fabrics made of silk, cotton, cashmere and, unusually, bamboo to create a mix of streetwear and couture. "My work has to have a refreshing, original quality that sets it apart," he says. "I pull from many subcultures and incorporate ideas that young people can recognise and identify."

While cities such as Paris or Milan may represent a more traditional couture fashion aesthetic, Amsterdam clearly offers a different dynamic. And just like St Martins in London and the Royal Academy in the nearby city of Antwerp, much of its current vibrant scene can be traced to one institution: the prestigious Fashion Institute of Arnhem – a college based in the eastern part of the Netherlands whose former alumni include Viktor & Rolf and Spijkers en Spijkers.

The 16 designers camping out in the old brothels have until 2009 to prove themselves. "I don't know what will happen," confesses Hoitnik. "We see it as a work in progress and an initiative to give world-class professionals an opportunity to finally show their work to a bigger audience."




This is indeed "terrible" news: the men and women who used the facilities will now have to look at finding new addresses...

[Sensual Woman]

www.readingeagle.com (http://www.readingeagle.com)

[Sensual Woman]

www.readingeagle.com (http://www.readingeagle.com/)


The school I work at made the front page of the newspaper and was on the local news yesterday for a riot involving 1500 students, police injured... school administrators stood by and did nothing to help police....I am gonna try for hazard pay:(

[VeryBlueEyes]

Remember when a teacher was considered someone you respected and admired. What ever happened to values we once knew.

[VeryBlueEyes]

Teachers should be paid so much more money and given support from administration.

[SirFox]

'Horror' of children's home haunts island

JERSEY, Channel Islands (CNN) -- Jersey has known trauma before. For five years during World War II, the Nazi flag flew over this British isle.



It was a time of jackboots, strict orders and tough punishments. Many here still talk about the occupation. Fred Carpenter lived through it.

And he did it harder than most, as a resident of the children's home that later became known as Haut de la Garenne, which is now at the center of an investigation into claims of child killing and abuse spanning decades.

"It was like a horror camp, what happened during the war," Carpenter told CNN. "After the war, the state's doctor examined all the boys, and I was so undernourished, they only gave me two months to be alive."

The 76-year-old tells stories of terrible beatings in the home, of young boys disappearing without explanation.

Today, he says: "I always knew it would take a dead body for people to go looking for the secrets in that building."

On Saturday, police found the remains of a child at Haut de la Garenne. They suspect that there could be more.

Jersey is now facing its dark side.

More than 150 residents have told police that they were abused in the island's institutions.

Every day, a growing number of journalists passes on to the world new stories of sexual and physical suffering.

Some people on Jersey are now sharing secrets they've been carrying for years.

It's enough to drive locals to prayer. At a special church service, they reflected on how a child in the community's care could just disappear unnoticed.

"We're thinking about these children who didn't have anybody to miss them," resident Peggy Stevens said. "And we're here to pray for them."

Others are fighting over them. Jersey's politicians are divided over how this was allowed to happen -- and it's getting ugly.

Island Senator Stuart Syvret believes that some of his colleagues are more worried about the island's international reputation as a friendly tourist spot and offshore tax haven, something the government's chief minister denies.

Syvret blames what he calls a culture of covering up. But despite the large number of allegations and their long history, he insists that there's nothing sinister to the people of Jersey.

"The community is a good community. The people here are ordinary, decent people like everywhere else," Syvret said. "The failure here is in the island's government in its system of administration."

The island's government has backed the police in efforts to find out how many child abusers could still be living among the people of Jersey.

The results are already proving traumatic. But Chief Police Officer Graham Power sees their work as a necessary, bitter medicine.

He said: "This will be a hard time for Jersey, but when we get it through to the finish, we'll be a better society because of it."

Where were the therapists, the psychiatrists?

[Barkiss]

www.readingeagle.com (http://www.readingeagle.com/)


The school I work at made the front page of the newspaper and was on the local news yesterday for a riot involving 1500 students, police injured... school administrators stood by and did nothing to help police....I am gonna try for hazard pay:(

Although the riot itself is horrendous, what really appalls me is that we are allowing these kids to celebrate another country's independence day, to wave another country's flag, and for the school to actually sponsor something of this nature, specifically when the actual day of independence happened in 1844, not exactly yesterday. Another prime example of why our borders need to be closed to these disrespectful heathens which are starting to take over every corner of our country.

[Sensual Woman]

Although the riot itself is horrendous, what really appalls me is that we are allowing these kids to celebrate another country's independence day, to wave another country's flag, and for the school to actually sponsor something of this nature, specifically when the actual day of independence happened in 1844, not exactly yesterday. Another prime example of why our borders need to be closed to these disrespectful heathens which are starting to take over every corner of our country.

Actually, the school had banned flags and hats and just settled on an assemby...the students brought them anyway, but they were not confiscated. but the mistake I agree was allowing it to be recognized, it was just asking for trouble.

[Sensual Woman]

Remember when a teacher was considered someone you respected and admired. What ever happened to values we once knew.

Many parents aren't instilling them in the children. Teachers them selves are no longer valued, but blamed for every child's failure. Authority is not valued. That is why violence erupts in schools, because the respect for authority is not there, and courts tend to be very soft on the students causing these problems.

[Sensual Woman]

Teachers should be paid so much more money and given support from administration.

My district is a poor urban school district. We are poorly paid and get no support from administration, which did nothing during the riot. I will have my second Master's degree in May. If I worked in the business world, I wouls me making two to three times as much money at least.

On the flip side, students in my district need good teachers more than ever because they are starting behind the eight ball. I can have a positive impact on lives of students who may have nothing positive in their lives.

[SirFox]

Actually, the school had banned flags and hats and just settled on an assemby...the students brought them anyway, but they were not confiscated. but the mistake I agree was allowing it to be recognized, it was just asking for trouble.

The problem is elsewhere SENSUAL and it exists worldwide. Let's start with the real respect of authority. I see this country, France, where EVERYTHING is up for graps in EVERYTHING. How can one administer a country when everything is always a 50-50 deal without the respect for authority, when EVERYONE has a RIGHT to challenge ANY authority?
Authority has to be legitimate. When that is not legitimate, how can the population accept assasine rules and laws that are no longer viable and adequate?

Teachers have to be protected. Placing policemen in the corridors, making them go through metal detectors to protect the lives within is not a solution.- What ever happened to the notion of a parent-teacher relationship in terms of education at ALL levels?

[Barkiss]

Actually, the school had banned flags and hats and just settled on an assemby...the students brought them anyway, but they were not confiscated. but the mistake I agree was allowing it to be recognized, it was just asking for trouble.

My apologies if my criticism seemed directed towards you or your school. I was more referring to country policy....although it will fall into the hands of local authorities.

[Sensual Woman]

The problem is elsewhere SENSUAL and it exists worldwide. Let's start with the real respect of authority. I see this country, France, where EVERYTHING is up for graps in EVERYTHING. How can one administer a country when everything is always a 50-50 deal without the respect for authority, when EVERYONE has a RIGHT to challenge ANY authority?
Authority has to be legitimate. When that is not legitimate, how can the population accept assasine rules and laws that are no longer viable and adequate?

Teachers have to be protected. Placing policemen in the corridors, making them go through metal detectors to protect the lives within is not a solution.- What ever happened to the notion of a parent-teacher relationship in terms of education at ALL levels?

You are so right. The problem is everywhere. It seems to stem from the fact that there is little respect for authority anywhere in the world. Our school has 4500 students and no metal detectors. We used to have police officers in the building, but the police depts are short officers so they were pulled. And the two officer we had last year told me the kids were not the least intimidated by their uniforms, nor by the sidearms and handcuffs they carried. Our administrators expects us to police the corridors. I am trained as an educator, not a secirity guard or law enforcement officer.

Since I work in a poor urban school district, parent apathy is a problem. Parent involvement is also a problem. I wish that we as teachers were protected. We are dedicated to doing the best for our students, and a a special education teacher, I face enough challenges as it is.

[Sensual Woman]

My apologies if my criticism seemed directed towards you or your school. I was more referring to country policy....although it will fall into the hands of local authorities.

No apology necessary, I was just clearing up some inconsistencies in the article.

[SirFox]

It is highly interesting to see how the various television channels treat various subjects. Take Prince Harry and his being in Afghanistan for the last ten weeks.

The story broke on ITV and it was carried on by CNN.
BBC World said nothing about it. I guess they wanted to downplay his role there, not a minor role either.
CNBC nothing.

TF1 nothing, A2 nothing, FR3, FR4 and FR 5 nothing. Not even France 24 yet.
TVE Internacional nothing yet.

We must remember that there are different susceptibilities when we read newspaers, watch television. This goes when we look at the World. We have to look at what is being said, what is not being said as well.

[SirFox]

I found out this evening here that one can purchase FAKE Maseratis. The Italian police just unmasked a group that makes them! Assuming that your Maserati costs Euros 500,00, wonder how much a fake one can go for... 300,000 Euros?

[Shafe]

It is highly interesting to see how the various television channels treat various subjects. Take Prince Harry and his being in Afghanistan for the last ten weeks.

The story broke on ITV and it was carried on by CNN.
BBC World said nothing about it. I guess they wanted to downplay his role there, not a minor role either.
CNBC nothing.

TF1 nothing, A2 nothing, FR3, FR4 and FR 5 nothing. Not even France 24 yet.
TVE Internacional nothing yet.

We must remember that there are different susceptibilities when we read newspaers, watch television. This goes when we look at the World. We have to look at what is being said, what is not being said as well.




I agree. Many times news sources have their own agendas, and you have to dig a little deeper sometimes to get the "whole" story.

I'm still a newshound. The best news, in my opinion, is the news that has no sensational qualities to it whatsoever. One of my favorite things to do is compare cnn.com with aljazeera.com.

[SirFox]

I agree. Many times news sources have their own agendas, and you have to dig a little deeper sometimes to get the "whole" story.

I'm still a newshound. The best news, in my opinion, is the news that has no sensational qualities to it whatsoever. One of my favorite things to do is compare cnn.com with aljazeera.com.

In order to treat internal American politics, I wish I had Fox news here and other channels. I have to resort to looking at Internet sites including Fox to see what much of America is watching.

The number of times when I have had to turn to Belgian and Swiss French, Ducth and German language news to obtain what they know in Paris. President Sarkozy's divorce was first related in the British press. It was announced in Le Temps first before any Frenchman could read it in his newspaper.

Similarly with the United States, besides the International Herald Tribune, we are able to obtain a lot of news from various news sources except Fox News that is unfortunately one of the most looked at channels in the US. Unfortunately.

[spare_change]

I found out this evening here that one can purchase FAKE Maseratis. The Italian police just unmasked a group that makes them! Assuming that your Maserati costs Euros 500,00, wonder how much a fake one can go for... 300,000 Euros?

They are called kit cars --- usually fiberglass, and usually VW powered, although many will have Chevy big block engines ... built to look just like the original.

Here's one for US$50K.

http://www.olympus.net/barchetta/

Lamborghinis and Ferraris are much more popular kit cars, as are American muscle cards like the Shelby GT.

[SirFox]

They are called kit cars --- usually fiberglass, and usually VW powered, although many will have Chevy big block engines ... built to look just like the original.

Here's one for US$50K.

http://www.olympus.net/barchetta/

Lamborghinis and Ferraris are much more popular kit cars, as are American muscle cards like the Shelby GT.

You mean I was in Sequim, WA just last month and didn't stop and look at one of these babies?

[spare_change]

I found out this evening here that one can purchase FAKE Maseratis. The Italian police just unmasked a group that makes them! Assuming that your Maserati costs Euros 500,00, wonder how much a fake one can go for... 300,000 Euros?

I assume these guys were marketing them as "real" maseratis --

But, there is a legitimate market for Maserati look-alikes ... at least here in the States. They are called kit cars --- usually fiberglass, and usually VW powered, although many will have Chevy big block engines ... built to look just like the original.

Here's one for US$50K.

http://www.olympus.net/barchetta/

Lamborghinis and Ferraris are much more popular kit cars, as are American muscle cards like the Shelby GT.

I'm curious if kit cars are legal in Italy.

[Barkiss]

In order to treat internal American politics, I wish I had Fox news here and other channels. I have to resort to looking at Internet sites including Fox to see what much of America is watching.

The number of times when I have had to turn to Belgian and Swiss French, Ducth and German language news to obtain what they know in Paris. President Sarkozy's divorce was first related in the British press. It was announced in Le Temps first before any Frenchman could read it in his newspaper.

Similarly with the United States, besides the International Herald Tribune, we are able to obtain a lot of news from various news sources except Fox News that is unfortunately one of the most looked at channels in the US. Unfortunately.


Is it unfortunate that you can't get Fox News, or that Americans look at it most, or both? And if it is because we watch Fox News more, then why?

[SirFox]

Is it unfortunate that you can't get Fox News, or that Americans look at it most, or both? And if it is because we watch Fox News more, then why?

It is most unfortunate that I can't watch Fox news live!:D

[Barkiss]

It is most unfortunate that I can't watch Fox news live!:D

I agree...it is quite entertaining. I've recently gotten into watching the BBC. It's very interesting to hear how another part of the world thinks and sees things.

[SirFox]

Woman to conduct Egypt marriages

By Frances Harrison
BBC religious affairs reporter
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/999999.gif

Egypt has appointed a woman to conduct Muslim marriages for the first time.

Amal Soliman, 32, has broken centuries of tradition by being chosen as a judicial assistant who officiates at weddings, known as a maazun.

Some commentators are saying she is the first female in the Muslim world authorised to conduct religious marriages.

The mother of three has a masters degree in law which helped her beat 10 male candidates to get the job.

As a maazun or notary, Ms Soliman will read verses from the Koran at ceremonies, sign marriage certificates and authorise divorce contracts.

She will work in the town of Qinayat east of Cairo where her father-in-law also conducted marriages until he died recently.

Ms Soliman has told the Egyptian press that as a woman she will be able to check the bride really wants to marry the groom and is not being forced by her family.

She also says she will be better able to dissuade women from seeking divorce.

One issue that has been raised is that a menstruating woman or one who has just given birth is not allowed to enter a mosque, but Ms Soliman has been quoted as saying that during such times she will conduct marriages in people's homes or wedding halls.

This is important news.

[Iwantutowantme]

Is it unfortunate that you can't get Fox News, or that Americans look at it most, or both? And if it is because we watch Fox News more, then why?

dumb and dumber...........FOX news is a corporate/republican spin of the current events.....nothing more....... and less.... lol

[SirFox]

Body in river may be missing model -French police

Thu 28 Feb 2008, 18:31 GMT


PARIS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - A body found in the river Seine is believed to be that of former top model Katoucha who disappeared near her houseboat in Paris earlier this month, French police said on Thursday.

She had been missing since returning to the houseboat moored near the city centre after a party earlier this month.

"There are indications that it is indeed her, but we are awaiting the results of forensic tests before we can confirm it officially," a police spokesman said.

Katoucha, aged 47 and originally from Guinea, was one of the first black African models to become a global catwalk star in the 1980s. She modelled for designers including Yves Saint-Laurent and Christian Lacroix.

Born Katoucha Niane, she became a campaigner against genital mutilation, a procedure she underwent herself at the age of nine. (Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

A crusader against genital mutilation, this model, incredibly beautiful with blue eyes and black skin made my tongue hang out when I first saw her. It is truly a GREAT loss. I wonder the reasons for her death.. could it be linked to traditional movements who wanted her killed?

[SirFox]

The French Prime minister, Mr. François Fillon visited the Yearly Agricultural show this morning in Paris and was given a "poule" (a hen) whose name was "Carla". Innocently enough, the giftmaker told Mr. Fillon that he was not aware whether "Carla" sang, but she certainly, if well taken care of, could lay one egg a day.

Reference is made to the current French first Lady who was a model, whose first album hit America's shores two weeks ago, and to the significance of "poule" in French.

Finally a little bit of humour to spice things up over here...:lmao

[Barkiss]

dumb and dumber...........FOX news is a corporate/republican spin of the current events.....nothing more....... and less.... lol

Is there a conspiracy theory that you haven't bought into?

[SirFox]

Is there a conspiracy theory that you haven't bought into?

Hello BARKISS. We can always create some of those theories: they are free and they harm everyone. Look at the advantages, yet, we should be scrupulous not to accept what everyone is saying, being spoon fed by the media...as you undoubtedly know.

[Barkiss]

Hello BARKISS. We can always create some of those theories: they are free and they harm everyone. Look at the advantages, yet, we should be scrupulous not to accept what everyone is saying, being spoon fed by the media...as you undoubtedly know.

Very true SirFox....

[Shafe]

dumb and dumber...........FOX news is a corporate/republican spin of the current events.....nothing more....... and less.... lol

I tend to agree with the spirit of this statement, though. I disagree that it's the republicans that spin the events. I think it's FOX News's need to jump on whatever sensational bandwagon they can find.

Case in point -- video game links to violent crimes. FOX News is always quick to point out any possible link they can find, either real or contrived. There was a recent interview with a book author that stated that the game "Mass Effect" included hours of what amounted to pornography, when the reality of the situation is that it includes a few minutes of sexual content in a "Mature" rated game.

The author has since recanted her claims.

[SirFox]

The northern European countries (Holland, Germany, Scandinavia) were battered by hurricane type winds this week end. A Lufthansa plane tried to land on its approach at Hamburg Airport. Take a look at this incredible video: the pilot had to be good, very good. Shot by a cellphone, this video was carried this evening on various European television channels. Enjoy..

http://youtube.com/user/braathens75 (http://youtube.com/user/braathens75)

[Barkiss]

The northern European countries (Holland, Germany, Scandinavia) were battered by hurricane type winds this week end. A Lufthansa plane tried to land on its approach at Hamburg Airport. Take a look at this incredible video: the pilot had to be good, very good. Shot by a cellphone, this video was carried this evening on various European television channels. Enjoy..

http://youtube.com/user/braathens75 (http://youtube.com/user/braathens75)

It has been on the news here too. That pilot deserves a huge raise.

[cherokeered]

"It's almost like a checklist," says Jon (who asked that his real name not be used) of their once-a-month

lovemaking. The problem, he believes, is a lack of desire.

Sexually unfulfilling marriages aren't limited to new parents or aging baby boomers with hormone imbalances. They

can ensnare even the relatively young and the recently married. When they are unable to blame kids, stress or

physical issues, many couples struggle unhappily to identify -- and resolve -- the problems behind their lackluster sex life.

Couples end up in sexually unfulfilling marriages for a variety of reasons, says Marty Klein, a licensed marriage counselor

and certified sex therapist in Palo Alto, California. One reason, he says, is America's obsession with marriage.

Laura Berman, a Chicago sex therapist and relationship expert, agrees. "We put the blinders on when we're dating," she says.

"We focus so much on the wedding, we don't notice the warning signs."

Those who believe passion inevitably fades may downplay the sex factor, picking someone they think would be a good father

or a good wife even if they're not an ideal lover, Berman adds.

"I chose her because I thought it would enhance me in some way," Jon says of his wife.

Berman has seen it before: "People choose partners who have the right resume but maybe not the entire package."

Other couples enter into relationships with so-so chemistry because they think they're in love and overlook key

differences, says Klein.

Bobbie Jonas, a holistic health practitioner in Calistoga, California, acknowledges she ignored obvious warning signs

during her courtship. "I was more interested in a way out from home," she says of her first marriage. Poor communication

compounded the effects of

weak chemistry. After 10 years, they divorced.

"Couples wondering where the sex went should be asking if it was ever really there," says Berman.

That explanation makes sense to Jon. Although he said he and his wife, who live on the West Coast, started

off with great chemistry, the cracks in the relationship began to show before they traded rings. After a four-month

dry spell during their engagement, his

wife brought up the idea of canceling the wedding. "I just really wanted to get married," Jon says. "I felt that it

was what I was supposed to do."

Now Jon is having an affair with a woman -- also in a sexually unsatisfying marriage -- for whom he feels intense

passion. "I didn't realize the importance of sex," he says.

It's not always a problem

On average, Americans report having sex 85 times a year, according to the 2007 Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey

conducted by Harris Interactive for Durex. The largely online survey polled 26,032 people in 26 countries using

random samples of those aged 16 and older.

Therapists generally define "sexless" marriage as having sex less than about 10 times a year, and they estimate 1 in 5

couples are in such a relationship.

But Klein cautions against looking for problems where there are none.

"A dry spell is only a problem if the couple thinks it is," he says. "There are plenty of couples who don't have sex and don't

think there's anything wrong with it. And there's others that are in a lot of pain about it."

Klein notes that the expectation of eternally passionate sex may be setting people up to fail. "People have the

assumption that you can have long-term, monogamous, hot sex," he says. "It's never been done (on a large scale)

in the history of the world."

Getting more sex

Berman offers at least one reason to resolve unsatisfying love lives: "Often, when you're not having sex, your

empathy and ability to connect is lower, and it's easier to have conflict," she says. "It amplifies (marital) problems."

At the Berman Center in Chicago, she counsels couples on repairing their sex lives. Some advice:

• Try traditional gender roles: Men may become more sexually assertive if they feel more in control, and women

may feel more desire for a mate with newfound machismo. "You don't have to get his slippers," explains Berman. "You

just have to give him some control." She suggests a date where the man chooses everything -- her clothes, the

restaurant, the food -- as a starting point.

• Engage in exciting activities: Whether it's trying an extreme sport like skydiving or snowboarding, or exploring new

options in the bedroom, activities that get the pulse racing can open the brain's dopamine centers and increases desire.

• Talk about it: Couples also would benefit from simply communicating with their partners about what they want in bed.

"There is no secret to hot sex," says Klein. "Sexy lingerie and dinners out are no substitute for an honest conversation about sex."

[PunkyBob]

It is most unfortunate that I can't watch Fox news live!:D

It is most unfortunate I can't undergo unanesthetized surgery twice a day...

[PunkyBob]

It has been on the news here too. That pilot deserves a huge raise.

Holy crap...that was some damn good flying!

[scoobertina]

Holy crap...that was some damn good flying!


You aren't kidding.. I just watched in amazement... I can imagine that poor man got out of there and had a shot of something afterwards... he did a great job... Congrats for saving the people and the plane Mr. Pilot...

[SirFox]

Clinton press corps gets commodious workspace (http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/03/03/clinton-press-corps-gets-commodious-workspace/)

March 3rd, 2008, filed by Ellen Wulfhorst (http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/author/ellenwulfhorst/)
AUSTIN — The press corps that follows Sen. Hillary Clinton (http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/hillaryclinton) found themselves on the eve of the Texas primary working in the most remarkable conditions to date — amid toilets and urinals.

While Clinton met with voters at a televised town hall meeting, the reporters and photographers watched from inside a locker room at an Austin recreation center, complete with full, exposed porcelain bathroom facilities.

The jokes abounded, from a campaign “in the toilet” to a press corp “flush” with excitement to campaign “leaks” to the unprintable.

One man, a voter attending the rally, wandered into the locker room, clearly looking for a bathroom and froze in his tracks, startled to find a couple dozen reporters typing away at laptops.

“These accomodations should in no way be taken as a commentary on the quality of our media coverage,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Doug Hattaway. The campaign arranges work spaces for the traveling press corps.

Interesting.
The way I see it: if I want the press to be good with me, you put them in the playpen rather than in the powder room. The laptop keys could get stuck..

[Shafe]

Talk about stage fright.

[SirFox]

Talk about stage fright.

I am partial and make no qualms that I cannot stand Mrs. Hillary Clinton. As someone who does political marketing, I have been an avid watcher of the Democratic party process. I will be watching this evening from over here in Europe the returns in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

I noticed that Mrs. Clinton uses the word "I" so much in her declarations. She will do that and she will do this. The usage of the word "I" prompted me to start thinking where I had heard the "I, I, I,I,I...."

It was in a Frito Lay advertisement years ago with the Frito Bandito. Remember him, "I, I I I, I am the Frito Bandito" That could have been a good advertisment for Mrs Clinton.

[SirFox]

$1 now equals 25,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- It's easy being a multmillionaire in Zimbabwe these days, at least if you're counting in local dollars.
Money traders in the economically depressed African country say the Zimbabwe currency has tumbled to a record low of 25 million for a single U.S. dollar.

With Zimbabwe dollars mostly available in bundles of 100,000 and 200,000 notes, one $100 note bought nearly 20 kilograms (40 pounds) of local notes at the new market rate Wednesday.

Currency dealers said uncertainties ahead of elections scheduled March 29 and the world's highest inflation of 100,500 percent led holders of hard currency to hang on to their money at the same time as the state central bank pumped more local cash into the market for election costs.

The price of the U.S. currency was also pushed up by central bank buying on the unofficial market to pay for power, gasoline and vehicle imports ahead of the polling, said one black market dealer who could not be identified out of fear of reprisals.

In the economic meltdown, the black market exchange rate for the U.S. dollar broke the 1 million Zimbabwe (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/zimbabwe) dollar mark for the first time in late October.

The value of the Zimbabwe dollar weakened steadily against hard currencies throughout last year but its fall quickened dramatically in recent weeks, the dealer said.

With industry and production collapsing, Zimbabweans have become heavily dependent on imports of the corn meal staple and basic goods. Until last year, the former regional breadbasket was self sufficient in canned and processed foods, household goods, soap, toothpaste, toiletries and other items now imported from neighbors Malawi, South Africa and Zambia and from as far afield as Egypt, Germany, Iran and Malaysia.

According to latest official poverty line data, an average family of five needs a monthly income $35 to survive while remaining living in poverty.

But most general hands and other lower paid workers earn less than the equivalent of $10 a month in an economy also suffering record formal sector unemployment of 80 percent.

[spare_change]

I am partial and make no qualms that I cannot stand Mrs. Hillary Clinton. As someone who does political marketing, I have been an avid watcher of the Democratic party process. I will be watching this evening from over here in Europe the returns in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

I noticed that Mrs. Clinton uses the word "I" so much in her declarations. She will do that and she will do this. The usage of the word "I" prompted me to start thinking where I had heard the "I, I, I,I,I...."

It was in a Frito Lay advertisement years ago with the Frito Bandito. Remember him, "I, I I I, I am the Frito Bandito" That could have been a good advertisment for Mrs Clinton.



.... But, in fairness, if she said "we", we would be all over her for just being a front man for Bill to get back into the White House. She needs to make her own mark.

[PunkyBob]

Where the hell is AL Sharpton when we need him???

[SirFox]

.... But, in fairness, if she said "we", we would be all over her for just being a front man for Bill to get back into the White House. She needs to make her own mark.

She changes with the wind like "blowing in the wind.."

I should perhaps calm down: she could be the next president....a

[PunkyBob]

She changes with the wind like "blowing in the wind.."

I should perhaps calm down: she could be the next president....a

Ohh, Canada...

[Annie]

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."

The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month's local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.

"It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me," he said.

[SirFox]

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."

The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month's local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.

"It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me," he said.

You mean this place is in the news in English? WOW:(

[Annie]

You mean this place is in the news in English? WOW:(well I just hope that this "harsh punishment" doesn't include capital punishment!


sheesh... and to think some people talk about beating a dead horse.

[SirFox]

well I just hope that this "harsh punishment" doesn't include capital punishment!


sheesh... and to think some people talk about beating a dead horse.

Dead horses? Oh no, please don't cut up my Arabian stallion! Annie.....:sc

[SirFox]

Jewish seminary attacked in Jerusalem (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/06/mideast/index.html)

Several people have been killed Thursday in what Israeli police are calling a "severe terrorist attack" at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said: "They opened fire on innocent youngsters studying. A number of students have been killed."

It is really amazing to hear the CNN anchorperson asking the Israeli Ambassador to the UN whether one can negotiate with terrorists in Gaza. Something escapes me here completely.

[spare_change]

Jewish seminary attacked in Jerusalem (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/06/mideast/index.html)

Several people have been killed Thursday in what Israeli police are calling a "severe terrorist attack" at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said: "They opened fire on innocent youngsters studying. A number of students have been killed."

It is really amazing to hear the CNN anchorperson asking the Israeli Ambassador to the UN whether one can negotiate with terrorists in Gaza. Something escapes me here completely.

They want us to negotiate with terrorists in Afghanistan, they want us to negotiate with terrorists in Iraq, they want us to negotiate with terrorists in Lebanon .... you don't negotiate, you kill them, because if you don't, they will kill you - or your children.

[SirFox]

They want us to negotiate with terrorists in Afghanistan, they want us to negotiate with terrorists in Iraq, they want us to negotiate with terrorists in Lebanon .... you don't negotiate, you kill them, because if you don't, they will kill you - or your children.

Indeed! This reminds of the Munich Accords of 1938. Seems no one understood that, and they still do not. History repeats itself so many times.

[Annie]

Dead horses? Oh no, please don't cut up my Arabian stallion! Annie.....:scWhy do you say that,Fox? Is it dead?

[SirFox]

Why do you say that,Fox? Is it dead?

I would NEVER consider that ANNIE..life is too precious

[SirFox]

Model, rights campaigner goes missing

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/.element/img/2.0/global/1x1pixel.gif
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Waris Dirie, a former model turned women's rights campaigner, has gone missing in Brussels, her manager said Friday.
Waris Dirie had been due to speak to two conferences on women's rights.
She has not been seen since the early hours of Wednesday morning, when police saw her getting into a taxi after a mix-up over a hotel room, Walter Lutschinger said in a telephone interview.

"We are really very scared," he said, adding that nothing similar had happened in the seven years in which he has been her manager.

Somali-born Dirie gained international fame as a model posing in Chanel ads and acting in a James Bond film before launching her campaign against female genital mutilation in 1996.

She recounted her own experiences of such treatment as a child in the book "Desert Flower," which became an international best-seller.

Dirie's disappearance came a week after French police said they had found the body of another former model of African origin who had campaigned against female genital mutilation. Guinean-born Katoucha Niane was discovered floating in the River Seine in Paris.

The French police said an autopsy showed no signs of foul play, raising the possibility that she may have fallen accidentally into the river.

Belgian police have launched an official missing persons appeal for Dirie, asking the public for information.

The police, who gave her name as Waris Dahir Jones, said the 43-year-old was last seen outside a luxury hotel in downtown Brussels. They said she was wearing brown pants, a violet hat and a black-and-white poncho-style jacket. They said they were also looking for the taxi driver who took her from the area between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

Dirie, who now lives in Vienna, was due to speak to two conferences on women's rights organized by the European Union (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/european_union) in Brussels this week, including one Thursday attended by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Lutschinger said Dirie had been involved in an altercation in a hotel reception area after a taxi driver took her to the wrong branch of the Sofitel hotel chain following a visit to a night club. The police were called and drove Dirie around Brussels looking for the correct hotel because she had apparently forgotten where she was staying.

At one hotel, while staff and police were checking for her name on a computer, Lutschinger said police told him that Dirie walked out and climbed into a taxi that drove away. He said hotel staff told him Dirie had said she was going to buy cigarettes.

Lutschinger said he thought she was carrying little money and no identification documents or cell phone when she vanished. As far as he knew, she had no friends in Brussels (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/brussels) -- a city Lutschinger said she had only visited once before.

"No telephone calls, nothing; she disappeared and we have no idea what happened to her," he said. "We don't know if she had money because actually she doesn't take money, or has little money with her, because we are always traveling with her."

EU officials said they had expressed concern when she did not show up Thursday at the conference and had been in touch with the police, but they had not had any news of Dirie's whereabouts.

Dirie is an Austrian citizen. "Our embassy in Brussels is in close cooperation with the Brussels police and state prosecutor ... they are trying to clarify the situation," said Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, a spokesman for Austria's (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/austria) Foreign Ministry in Vienna.

The U.N. office in Brussels said they had no information about where she might be.

Dirie was due to travel to the Netherlands to receive an award for her campaigning on Friday in the town of Kerkrade.

Dirie's description of how she had to endure having her genitals sliced off with a dirty razor blade without anesthesia, and then stitched together, shocked a world that knew her from glossy fashion magazine covers, Chanel perfume ads and her role in "The Living Daylights," a 1987 James Bond (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/james_bond) film.

She chronicled her own experience in "Desert Flower" and three sequels, "Desert Dawn," "Desert Children" and "Nomad's Daughter." She served as a U.N. goodwill ambassador to fight the practice.

"There are millions of children -- young, hopeless, desperate -- who need help, a voice, somebody, somewhere," she told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview

[VeryBlueEyes]

Bret Farve quit football

[SirFox]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fat compensation packages of three U.S. CEOs whose companies are being hammered by the widening mortgage crisis came under harsh criticism on Friday at a congressional hearing on executive pay.

In the last two quarters of 2007 alone, the three executives' firms lost more than $20 billion on investments in subprime and other risky mortgages, said the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Operations Committee.

Yet the three took home fortunes in 2007 -- $120 million for Countrywide Financial Corp CEO Angelo Mozilo; a $161 million retirement package for ex-Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal; and $39.5 million in stock, options, bonus and perks for former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince.


Denis Gautier Sauvagnac, head of an important patronal organisation here in France, UIMM, left with 1,5 million euros (2 million US?) as a departure present....

Somehow I think I had better find a better paying job than the one I have...so I don't have to worry about an old age pension...that I will never get anyway...:whee:

[mower]

while many of you will not reconize the Name Gary Gygax wasa founding father of the gaming world and on March 04, 2008 Gary rolled his final Thac0 die ( D20) and unfortuantly for the gaming world it was critical fumble and Gary passed away at the age of 69. I know that he will be missed and that I am glad to have been a student of his class on how to expand your imagination, even though we were thought of as Geeks and Nerds and that strange kid that plays that dungoens and Devils game. We all in the gaming world owe a debt of graditude to him as he brought the idea of getting together on a fridaynight and conversing to a whole new level.
MOwer

[SirFox]

while many of you will not reconize the Name Gary Gygax wasa founding father of the gaming world and on March 04, 2008 Gary rolled his final Thac0 die ( D20) and unfortuantly for the gaming world it was critical fumble and Gary passed away at the age of 69. I know that he will be missed and that I am glad to have been a student of his class on how to expand your imagination, even though we were thought of as Geeks and Nerds and that strange kid that plays that dungoens and Devils game. We all in the gaming world owe a debt of graditude to him as he brought the idea of getting together on a fridaynight and conversing to a whole new level.
MOwer

Gygax, a good Swiss name from the city of Bern, Switzerland.

[hoss]

A Surrey, B.C., couple has shattered the odds with the birth of naturally conceived identical triplets on Feb. 29.

The chance of having identical triplets is estimated at one in 200 million.

Thea and Phil Willson became the proud parents of Daniella, Alexis and Gemma on leap year day, 10 weeks before the babies' expected due date.

"We were totally shocked," Thea Willson said of the discovery she would be a mother of three. "Now we're just really happy we have all three of them and they are all healthy. What else can you say? We're really thankful."

"Things are going good. I was just worried about their health and that's all good now, so that's what mattered," Phil Willson added.

Thea Willson held her daughters for the first time on Wednesday. The babies weigh between two and 3.3 pounds, and are expected to remain in hospital at least until their original due date, in early June.

Selena Mohammad, an official with neo-natal services at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, where the babies were delivered, said even veteran staff members are awestruck.

"The rarity, it's amazing, it's huge. Especially babies of this size, born at 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds), only 10 per cent are conceived naturally. In other cases, 90 per cent are [born after the use of] fertility drugs. This is an extremely rare occasion."

Thea Willson took it in stride as she joked about her new family.

"We've always wanted to have more than one. So we had them all at once."

these kids were born before our son and were delivered by the same doctor -hoss

(http://www.cp.org/)

[Iwantutowantme]

They want us to negotiate with terrorists in Afghanistan, they want us to negotiate with terrorists in Iraq, they want us to negotiate with terrorists in Lebanon .... you don't negotiate, you kill them, because if you don't, they will kill you - or your children.

Good point. Anyone that instills fear is a terroist........... Let's start killing them at home first and see if any are left standing in foreign countries. Maybe the money trail would dissappear if we cut the head off the HEAD of the chicken.

[cherokeered]

Where the hell is AL Sharpton when we need him???

We don't ever need him.....:lmao :lmao

[Shafe]

We don't ever need him.....:lmao :lmao

:55

[Lethe]

We don't ever need him.....:lmao :lmao


....except when we need a good laugh. :lmao

[SirFox]

Good point. Anyone that instills fear is a terroist........... Let's start killing them at home first and see if any are left standing in foreign countries. Maybe the money trail would dissappear if we cut the head off the HEAD of the chicken.

I was about to reply with a snotty reply by saying that because most terrorists are men we men on this Planet would have more possibilities to find female companionship.
I thought the better of that and here's why.
Did you know that the real heads of the various heads of the Mafia are women?

[SirFox]

Cheney says Iraq changes "phenomenal, dramatic"

Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:02am EDT

By Tabassum Zakaria

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -Vice President Dick Cheney, an architect of the U.S-led invasion of Iraq, on Monday hailed "phenomenal changes" in Iraq on a visit to assess the success of a troop build-up five years after the war began.

Cheney arrived as Republican candidate John McCain (http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/johnmccain), who will be the Republican choice in November's presidential election, was meeting Iraqi leaders as part of a Senate Armed Services Committee fact-finding mission.

"Especially significant is to be able to return this week to mark the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the campaign that liberated the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein's tyranny," Cheney said after meeting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Cheney said he sensed "phenomenal changes" since his last visit 10 months ago and described security gains as "dramatic".

Like McCain, Cheney is in Iraq as part of a wider tour to the Middle East. Cheney will also visit Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories, Turkey and Oman on a nine-day tour.

Both men have been staunch supporters of a U.S. troop build-up that Washington says helped drag Iraq back from the brink of all-out sectarian civil war between majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Muslims who were dominant under Saddam.

"I'm happy to say Americans are more and more understanding of the success of this strategy of the surge," McCain, referring to the build-up, told U.S. soldiers in volatile Mosul in Iraq's north on Sunday, according to a video released by the military.

Cheney was met on his arrival in Baghdad by General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. He last visited Baghdad in May 2007, a month before the deployment of an extra 30,000 troops was completed
The U.S. military says attacks across Iraq have fallen by 60 percent since last June, when the troop build-up was completed, but says a spike in violence since January is not a trend.

Neighborhood security units set up by mainly Sunni Arab tribal leaders and a ceasefire ordered by anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for his Mehdi Army militia have also contributed to bringing down violence, the U.S. military says.

Violence remains a daily threat despite the security gains.

Roadside bombs and a minibus packed with explosives killed four people, including a policeman, and wounded 13 others in four attacks across Baghdad, police said. Neither Cheney nor McCain were in the area at the time.

PROGRESS

A senior U.S. administration official said before Cheney's trip that Middle East leaders would be interested in seeing what conclusions he draws now compared with a year ago and that it was expected he would say progress is being made.

Among the political issues Cheney is discussing with Iraq's leaders are a stalled hydrocarbon law, one of Washington's so-called reconciliation benchmarks, U.S. officials said.

The law will share revenues from Iraq's vast oil reserves, the world's third-largest, but remains blocked because of reluctance to compromise among Iraq's political blocs.

Cheney and Maliki also discussed security and the future relationship between Washington and Baghdad after the U.N. mandate for the U.S. presence expires at the end of 2008, with talks on that pact to include the presence of U.S. troops.

"This visit is important because it comes at a time when there's a great deal of progress taking place in Iraq," Maliki said through a translator after meeting Cheney.

Cheney and McCain were not expected to meet in Iraq.

McCain arrived on Sunday and has held talks with Maliki and other leaders. As well as Mosul, which U.S. commanders regard as al Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq, he has toured Haditha in western Anbar, once Iraq's most dangerous province.

Television footage showed McCain, surrounded by U.S. soldiers, buying a soft drink at a Haditha market.

He made an embarrassing gaffe on his last trip a year ago when, on a similar market tour, he said Americans were not being told the "good news" about the war in Iraq.

(Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)





Meanwhile the Red Cross says the following about the you and me in Iraq... next message...

[SirFox]

Millions of Iraqis lack water, healthcare-Red Cross

Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:01pm EDT

GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - Five years after the United States led an invasion of Iraq, millions of people there are still deprived of clean water and medical care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.

In a sober report marking the anniversary of the 2003 start of the war, which ousted dictator Saddam Hussein and unleashed deep sectarian tensions, the humanitarian body said Iraqi hospitals lack beds, drugs, and medical staff.

Some areas of the country of 27 million people have no functioning water and sanitation facilities, and the poor public water supply has forced some families to use at least a third of their average $150 monthly income buying clean drinking water.

"Five years after the outbreak of the war in Iraq, the humanitarian situation in most of the country remains among the most critical in the world," the ICRC said, describing Iraq's health care system as "now in worse shape than ever."

The Swiss-based agency is mandated to help victims of war and monitor compliance to international rules of war, enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.

Its report said tens of thousands of Iraqis have disappeared since the start of the war. The conflict was grounded in faulty U.S. intelligence suggesting Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction. No such arsenal was ever found.

"Many of those killed in the current violence have never been properly identified, because only a small percentage of the bodies have been turned over to Iraqi government institutions such as the Medical-Legal Institute in Baghdad," it said.



MATCHING DNA SAMPLES

The ICRC is providing forensic equipment to medical and legal institutes enabling them to examine DNA samples and match them with those of families searching for their loved ones.

Iraqi violence rates have fallen 60 percent since last June, but the U.S. military commander there, General David Petraeus, says the security gains are fragile and easily reversed.

Declining civilian casualties have been hailed by Iraqi and U.S. military officials as proof that new counter-insurgency tactics adopted last year have been working.

But Beatrice Megevand Roggo, the ICRC's head of operations for the Middle East and Africa, said those who have fled their homes to escape violence in Iraq, including many children, women, and elderly and disabled people, remained extremely vulnerable.

"Better security in some parts of Iraq must not distract attention from the continuing plight of millions of people who have essentially been left to their own devices," she said.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis -- nearly all men -- are in detention, according to the ICRC. They include 20,000 inmates at at the country's largest detention facility at Camp Bucca in the south near Basra, which is run by U.S.-led multinational forces.

The ICRC regularly visits people held by the multinational forces in Iraq, the Kurdish regional government and the Iraqi justice ministry -- altogether some 5,000 detainees last year.

It is still seeking a comprehensive agreement for access to all prisoners held by Iraqi authorities.

Iraq is the ICRC's largest operation worldwide with an annual budget of 107 million Swiss francs ($106 million). It deploys 600 staff in the country, including 72 expatriates. (Editing by Laura MacInnis and Jon Boyle)


Simple question: If Iraq had invaded us, would we want drinking water or would we prefer the bombastic absurdities of the Dick Cheney and George Bush Mafia?

We are not even able to get our economic house in order.

Is a change necessary? Everything from the President to the entire cabinet to and including the Federal Reserve speciality, BERNAKE.

It seems that like minds stick together.

[spare_change]

Millions of Iraqis lack water, healthcare-Red Cross

Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:01pm EDT

GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - Five years after the United States led an invasion of Iraq, millions of people there are still deprived of clean water and medical care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
And what was the condition prior to the beginning of the conflict?

(From the USAID website .... dated 2006 ....)

In 2003, Iraq's 140 major water treatment facilities were operating at about 35 percent of their design capacity (3 billion liters a day) due to inadequate maintenance, lack of plant operators, power shortages, and looting. USAID is helping improve the efficiency and reliability of existing treatment facilities, and is constructing several new facilities, especially in the south where water quality is particularly poor. Iraq has 13 major wastewater treatment facilities, operating at about a quarter of their design capacity. Baghdad's three sewage plants, comprising three quarters of the nation's total sewage treatment capacity, were not treating waste for more than six years before the conflict, allowing raw waste to flow into the Tigris River. In the rest of the country, most wastewater treatment facilities were only partly operational before the conflict, and a shortage of electricity, parts, and trained staff exacerbated the situation.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Nationwide:
* Restored or provided new water treatment to over 2.3 million Iraqis and sewage treatment to over 5.1 million.

Baghdad:
* Expanded Sharq Dijlah water plant by 50 MGD and rehabilitated three sewage plants, which serve 80 percent of Baghdad's population, thus eliminating dumping raw sewage into the Tigris.
* Kerkh wastewater treatment plant (WTP) began operating on May 19, 2004, the first major Iraqi plant to operate at full capacity in more than 12 years.
* Standby generators have been procured and installed at 27 Baghdad water facilities, ensuring continued supply of treated water in the event of power outages.
* Refurbished existing sewage lines and pump stations serving the Kadhamiya area of western Baghdad.

South:
* Rehabilitated the Sweet Water Canal system: repairing breaches, cleaning and repairing the main water storage and settling reservoir and refurbishing 14 water treatment plants around Basrah city.
* Treated water production increased by over 100 percent, serving over 1.1 million additional people.

South Central:
* Rehabilitated two water plants and four sewage plants.
* Najaf, Diwaniyah, Hillah, and Karbala sewage plants serve nearly 1 million people.
* Water treatment plants in Najaf and Karbala serve more than 375,000residents and pilgrims near one of Iraq's holiest shrines.

North:
* Provided major equipment for Mosul Water and Sewer Directorates. Refurbished the Kirkuk WTP.

Once again, we accept someone's politically motivated generalities as being gospel, and make judgments without actually looking at the facts.

What is also unsaid is that in 2007, the Democratic Congress of the United States cut back funds allocation for water treatment upgrades in Iraq (now for my opinion .... in an attempt to influence the presidential election by slowing progress in Iraq).

[Annie]

Gay ex-gov claims threesome tryst

By ANGELA DELLI SANTI,
Associated Press Writer
He says yes. She says no. He says yes. Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey said Monday he and his wife and a male aide engaged in sexual threesomes, contradicting a denial issued hours earlier by his estranged wife.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, the nation's first openly gay governor said published reports by former campaign aide Teddy Pedersen were true.

In interviews posted online Sunday night by The Star-Ledger of Newark and the New York Post, Pedersen said he had consensual sex with the couple for about two years before McGreevey became governor. He said he had contact only with Dina Matos McGreevey during the trysts, and wasn't sure whether McGreevey was gay.

In his statement, McGreevey said he and his estranged wife need to move forward for the sake of their 6-year-old daughter.

"This happened, this happened in the past, and now we need to move on with our lives," McGreevey, 50, said without being specific.

His e-mail to The Associated Press came shortly after one from Matos McGreevey. She said Pedersen's claims of consensual three-way sex "are completely false and were prompted by Jim McGreevey."

"Jim has had a close relationship with Pedersen since his days as mayor of Woodbridge, and arranged jobs for Pedersen from that time through his years as governor and beyond," said Matos McGreevey, 41. "They have continued their close relationship since Jim left office. This was obviously payback time for Pedersen."

The McGreeveys are in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. She accuses him of hiding his homosexuality before and during their marriage and has sued for damages. He has said she should have known he was gay.

Pedersen, 29, told the newspapers the threesomes went on for about two years during the McGreeveys' courtship and into their marriage. He said the trysts ended when McGreevey was elected governor in 2001.

Pedersen said he came forward because he was angry that Matos McGreevey was offering television commentary on the resignation of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who stepped down last week amid a call-girl scandal. During her commentary, Matos McGreevey said she was blindsided when her husband announced his homosexuality.

McGreevey resigned in 2004 after acknowledging an affair with a male staffer who he said was trying to blackmail him. The ex-staffer said he was sexually harassed by the Democratic governor.

The McGreeveys separated shortly after McGreevey's nationally televised speech in which he declared himself "a gay American."

[Iwantutowantme]

Millions of Iraqis lack water, healthcare-Red Cross

Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:01pm EDT

GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - Five years after the United States led an invasion of Iraq, millions of people there are still deprived of clean water and medical care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
And what was the condition prior to the beginning of the conflict?

(From the USAID website .... dated 2006 ....)

In 2003, Iraq's 140 major water treatment facilities were operating at about 35 percent of their design capacity (3 billion liters a day) due to inadequate maintenance, lack of plant operators, power shortages, and looting. USAID is helping improve the efficiency and reliability of existing treatment facilities, and is constructing several new facilities, especially in the south where water quality is particularly poor. Iraq has 13 major wastewater treatment facilities, operating at about a quarter of their design capacity. Baghdad's three sewage plants, comprising three quarters of the nation's total sewage treatment capacity, were not treating waste for more than six years before the conflict, allowing raw waste to flow into the Tigris River. In the rest of the country, most wastewater treatment facilities were only partly operational before the conflict, and a shortage of electricity, parts, and trained staff exacerbated the situation.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Nationwide:
* Restored or provided new water treatment to over 2.3 million Iraqis and sewage treatment to over 5.1 million.

Baghdad:
* Expanded Sharq Dijlah water plant by 50 MGD and rehabilitated three sewage plants, which serve 80 percent of Baghdad's population, thus eliminating dumping raw sewage into the Tigris.
* Kerkh wastewater treatment plant (WTP) began operating on May 19, 2004, the first major Iraqi plant to operate at full capacity in more than 12 years.
* Standby generators have been procured and installed at 27 Baghdad water facilities, ensuring continued supply of treated water in the event of power outages.
* Refurbished existing sewage lines and pump stations serving the Kadhamiya area of western Baghdad.

South:
* Rehabilitated the Sweet Water Canal system: repairing breaches, cleaning and repairing the main water storage and settling reservoir and refurbishing 14 water treatment plants around Basrah city.
* Treated water production increased by over 100 percent, serving over 1.1 million additional people.

South Central:
* Rehabilitated two water plants and four sewage plants.
* Najaf, Diwaniyah, Hillah, and Karbala sewage plants serve nearly 1 million people.
* Water treatment plants in Najaf and Karbala serve more than 375,000residents and pilgrims near one of Iraq's holiest shrines.

North:
* Provided major equipment for Mosul Water and Sewer Directorates. Refurbished the Kirkuk WTP.

Once again, we accept someone's politically motivated generalities as being gospel, and make judgments without actually looking at the facts.

What is also unsaid is that in 2007, the Democratic Congress of the United States cut back funds allocation for water treatment upgrades in Iraq (now for my opinion .... in an attempt to influence the presidential election by slowing progress in Iraq).

The severe US sanctions on Sadam's Iraq didnt help the water or electrical situations prior to the invasion. In fact, the sanctions helped to eliminate any efforts to develop or import WMD by Sadam's leadership. Efforts to help the Iraqi people to become independant was not a priority of the invadors. Bush's CAN DO man, Bremmer, made sure that Iraq would not be a very nice place to live, for a very long time to come. Disbanding the Iraqi Army was one of his choices for making sure there would be little chance of a 'quick' return to 'normal' life, for the Iraqis. Building a dozen PERMANENT bases was priority for the present administration's corporate elite, not the water and electrical problems that the Iraqis still have. It hasnt been until lately that the Bush administration even cared about how the Iraqis are doing and that is only because of the 08 elections in November. If McCain succeeds in succeeding Bush as president, I am sure that an Iran war policy will be implemented just as the Iraq War Policy was before it........ kripto

[Annie]

The severe US sanctions on Sadam's Iraq didnt help the water or electrical situations prior to the invasion. In fact, the sanctions helped to eliminate any efforts to develop or import WMD by Sadam's leadership. Efforts to help the Iraqi people to become independant was not a priority of the invadors. Bush's CAN DO man, Bremmer, made sure that Iraq would not be a very nice place to live, for a very long time to come. Disbanding the Iraqi Army was one of his choices for making sure there would be little chance of a 'quick' return to 'normal' life, for the Iraqis. Building a dozen PERMANENT bases was priority for the present administration's corporate elite, not the water and electrical problems that the Iraqis still have. It hasnt been until lately that the Bush administration even cared about how the Iraqis are doing and that is only because of the 08 elections in November. If McCain succeeds in succeeding Bush as president, I am sure that an Iran war policy will be implemented just as the Iraq War Policy was before it........ kriptoI don't think that's true at all. I ask you to think about not only the infrastructure, as Spare's posts shows (dated 2006) but also the fact that kids are now going to school... and this includes girls! Maybe I'm in the minority, but to me this is huge. Not only for the education, but the fact that the parents feel they are safe enough to send them!!

There have been many improvements... it's not so often the press wants to publish the good stuff... almost like you have to actually pay attention to hear about it... or go looking for it.... keep your mind open to the fact improvements are being made. It's there, believe me it is.

[SirFox]

French woman with rare facial tumor, who had sought euthanasia, found dead

http://img.iht.com/images/dot_h.gif
The Associated Press
Published: March 20, 2008
PARIS (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/20/news/France-Euthanasia.php#): A woman who suffered from a painful facial tumor and had drawn headlines across France with her quest for doctor-assisted suicide was found dead Wednesday, an official said.

Chantal Sebire, a former schoolteacher and mother of three, was found at her home in the eastern French town of Plombieres-les-Dijon, a government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The circumstances of her death were not immediately clear.

Sebire, 52, was diagnosed nearly eight years ago with esthesioneuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer. The illness left her blind, and with no sense of smell or taste, her lawyer said. She could not use morphine to ease the intense eye pain because of the side effects.

On Monday, a court in the city of Dijon rejected Sebire's request to be allowed to receive a lethal dose of barbiturates under a doctor's supervision. It refused the request for doctor-assisted suicide because of French law and out of concern for medical ethics.

Sebire's case revived a debate in France about the right to die. She received national attention after the media published heartbreaking before-and-after pictures that made her suffering instantly apparent. The tumor had burrowed through her sinuses and nasal cavities, causing her nose to swell to several times its original size, and pushing one of her eyes out of her head.

Unlike in France, euthanasia is legal in both Belgium and the Netherlands, and Luxembourg is in the process of passing a law to allow it. In Switzerland, counselors or physicians can prepare the lethal dose, but patients must take it on their own.

It is to be hoped that the country will rise against this utter nonsense of makingf it illegal to wish to die. It seems to me that if I am so sick, cannot be cured, am in pain, and am in a coherent state of mind, I should be able to place a needle in my arm to let myself die.

Life is precious. Doctors should not take life.


A special body of people, should exist to help people who wish this, and very reglemented. This has to be studied very, very carefully.


A very touchy subject indeed but society must discuss this issue. :55




(http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/20/news/France-Euthanasia.php#)

[Cotties]

Saudi Arabia to teach its 40,000 imams moderation in hopes that Islam can change, a week after one of those imams called for beheadings of those who think Islam can change

Saudi Arabia is to retrain its 40,000 prayer leaders - also known as imams - in an effort to counter militant Islam.


Details of the plan were revealed in the influential Saudi newspaper Al- Sharq al-Awsat.

The plan is part of a wider programme launched by the Saudi monarch a few years ago to encourage moderation and tolerance in Saudi society.

The ministry of religious affairs and new centre for national dialogue will carry out the training, the paper said.

The centre was created five years ago to disseminate a moderate interpretation of Islamic tradition.

There is growing awareness in Saudi society that security measures alone are not enough to counter the threat of Islamic militancy.

Scepticism

Saudi clerics have long been accused of encouraging Saudi youth to join global jihad and of inciting hatred of non-Muslims.

Nearly 1,000 imams have already been sacked over the past few years.

The Saudi royal family has come under increasing pressure - mainly from Washington - to change religious textbooks and to rein in militant clerics.

But critics are sceptical about whether such initiatives would work as long as the powerful, and ultraconservative, religious establishment in Saudi Arabia continues to exert enormous influence over society. Only last week, a prominent cleric called for the beheading of two liberal writers who had questioned the orthodox view that Muslims can not change their religion.

[spare_change]

Unlike in France, euthanasia is legal in both Belgium and the Netherlands, and Luxembourg is in the process of passing a law to allow it. In Switzerland, counselors or physicians can prepare the lethal dose, but patients must take it on their own.

It is to be hoped that the country will rise against this utter nonsense of makingf it illegal to wish to die. It seems to me that if I am so sick, cannot be cured, am in pain, and am in a coherent state of mind, I should be able to place a needle in my arm to let myself die.

Life is precious. Doctors should not take life.


A special body of people, should exist to help people who wish this, and very reglemented. This has to be studied very, very carefully.


A very touchy subject indeed but society must discuss this issue. :55




(http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/20/news/France-Euthanasia.php#)


This is one of those subjects that I am of two minds about -- I absolutely understand someone not wanting to suffer intolerable pain the rest of their life, and I also understand the value of a human life.

I guess it's issues like these that take me back to my Christian teachings -- all life is sacred. I have to oppose assisted suicide.

[SirFox]

This is one of those subjects that I am of two minds about -- I absolutely understand someone not wanting to suffer intolerable pain the rest of their life, and I also understand the value of a human life.

I guess it's issues like these that take me back to my Christian teachings -- all life is sacred. I have to oppose assisted suicide.

You know that there are no easy answers to this question. In Belgium and The Netherlands, there is assisted death. In Switzerland, death can be taken by your good self. The notions of assisted suicide are interesting concepts in light of various religions, traditions and human life that should be sacred.

Certainly no easy questions or answers.

[Annie]

This is one of those subjects that I am of two minds about -- I absolutely understand someone not wanting to suffer intolerable pain the rest of their life, and I also understand the value of a human life.

I guess it's issues like these that take me back to my Christian teachings -- all life is sacred. I have to oppose assisted suicide. Spare, I know that you have a deep love for animals. You have always loved your dog and horses....

Would you have a problem putting one of your horses down, if life meant enduring great pain? What about that dog.... you know... the one that loves you beyond reason?

I have put animals down before, and though the loss was great, in my heart I know I did the right thing and I did it out of my love for them.

[Cotties]

on the topic of assisted suicides

Man kills wife because she turned off TV


Published: March 19, 2008 at 7:33 PM
ROSTRAVER, Pa., March 19 (UPI) -- A Pennsylvania man faces 40 years in prison after admitting in court that he was driven to kill his wife after she turned off the television set.

Thomas Gay Wickerham, 58, of Rostraver, Pa., gave no reason for killing his wife as their children looked on, other than an argument about the TV, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.

"I went berserk. She made me shoot her," Wickerham told authorities.

Wickerham pleaded guilty to a third-degree murder charge and awaits a June sentencing in Westmoreland County by Judge Rita Hathaway.

Wickerham was drunk when he opened fire on his wife, Katherine, 48, in February 2005, said defense attorney Amy Keim. He chose to enter a guilty plea for the safety of his relatives, she said.

"He has five kids and they were there when it happened. He didn't want to put them through a trial," Keim said.

[Annie]

on the topic of assisted suicides

Man kills wife because she turned off TV


Published: March 19, 2008 at 7:33 PM
ROSTRAVER, Pa., March 19 (UPI) -- A Pennsylvania man faces 40 years in prison after admitting in court that he was driven to kill his wife after she turned off the television set.

Thomas Gay Wickerham, 58, of Rostraver, Pa., gave no reason for killing his wife as their children looked on, other than an argument about the TV, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.

"I went berserk. She made me shoot her," Wickerham told authorities.

Wickerham pleaded guilty to a third-degree murder charge and awaits a June sentencing in Westmoreland County by Judge Rita Hathaway.

Wickerham was drunk when he opened fire on his wife, Katherine, 48, in February 2005, said defense attorney Amy Keim. He chose to enter a guilty plea for the safety of his relatives, she said.

"He has five kids and they were there when it happened. He didn't want to put them through a trial," Keim said. I think it was repressed, and misplaced anger toward his parents, for giving him the middle name Gay.

[spare_change]

Spare, I know that you have a deep love for animals. You have always loved your dog and horses....

Would you have a problem putting one of your horses down, if life meant enduring great pain? What about that dog.... you know... the one that loves you beyond reason?

I have put animals down before, and though the loss was great, in my heart I know I did the right thing and I did it out of my love for them.


A problem? Yes -- I've had to do it, and it's an incredibly emotional and heart-wrenching thing to do. But, I've done it ...

Does that mean I should apply the same logic to the decision for my mother or brother? A good point --- and one i don't have an answer to. I guess I just couldn't give up hope ....

[spare_change]

on the topic of assisted suicides

Man kills wife because she turned off TV


Published: March 19, 2008 at 7:33 PM
ROSTRAVER, Pa., March 19 (UPI) -- A Pennsylvania man faces 40 years in prison after admitting in court that he was driven to kill his wife after she turned off the television set.

Thomas Gay Wickerham, 58, of Rostraver, Pa., gave no reason for killing his wife as their children looked on, other than an argument about the TV, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.

"I went berserk. She made me shoot her," Wickerham told authorities.

Wickerham pleaded guilty to a third-degree murder charge and awaits a June sentencing in Westmoreland County by Judge Rita Hathaway.

Wickerham was drunk when he opened fire on his wife, Katherine, 48, in February 2005, said defense attorney Amy Keim. He chose to enter a guilty plea for the safety of his relatives, she said.

"He has five kids and they were there when it happened. He didn't want to put them through a trial," Keim said.


I think it is extremely considerate of him to not want to put the kids through a trial ..... of course, he didn't have any problem killing her in front of them, but a trial ... that would just be too much.

[Annie]

A problem? Yes -- I've had to do it, and it's an incredibly emotional and heart-wrenching thing to do. But, I've done it ...

Does that mean I should apply the same logic to the decision for my mother or brother? A good point --- and one i don't have an answer to. I guess I just couldn't give up hope .... I understand the emotions involved in euthanizing a pet... I've gone through that with several of my animal "family members"... always knowing in my heart that I was I was doing the compassionate thing, the right thing.

Could I pull the plug on my husband, or my mother... I honestly don't know.

[spare_change]

A woman’s trip to the Magic Kingdom was hardly a walk in the park after she says she was beaten up by a woman in a ‘line rage’ incident.

Aimee Krause says Victoria Walker accused her of cutting into the line at the Mad Tea Cup ride last year at Disney World, MyFOXOrlando reports.

Walker, an Alabama native, could face 15 years behind bars if convicted of battery with a deadly weapon.

Krause has now filed additional charges claiming her children were also attacked.

“She came from behind just screaming,” Krause told MyFOXOrlando. “Next thing I knew she kicked me in my left leg, threw me to the ground and at that point I was pinned between the teacup and the saucer and she continued to beat up on my body.”

In the incident report, Krause claimed Walker tried to choke her with a lanyard she wore to hold water bottles around her neck, MyFOXOrlando reports.

During a deposition Monday, Walker declined to accept a plea deal that would have given her a one-year jail sentence.

Jury selection for the ‘Tea Cup Madness’ trial will begin in April.

[oldandnaked]

A woman’s trip to the Magic Kingdom was hardly a walk in the park after she says she was beaten up by a woman in a ‘line rage’ incident.

Aimee Krause says Victoria Walker accused her of cutting into the line at the Mad Tea Cup ride last year at Disney World, MyFOXOrlando reports.

Walker, an Alabama native, could face 15 years behind bars if convicted of battery with a deadly weapon.

Krause has now filed additional charges claiming her children were also attacked.

“She came from behind just screaming,” Krause told MyFOXOrlando. “Next thing I knew she kicked me in my left leg, threw me to the ground and at that point I was pinned between the teacup and the saucer and she continued to beat up on my body.”

In the incident report, Krause claimed Walker tried to choke her with a lanyard she wore to hold water bottles around her neck, MyFOXOrlando reports.

During a deposition Monday, Walker declined to accept a plea deal that would have given her a one-year jail sentence.

Jury selection for the ‘Tea Cup Madness’ trial will begin in April.


Things like this are the very reason I go to Sea World. Well, things like this and the free beer.

[SA007]

MANATEE COUNTY - Prosecutors are moving ahead with a case against one of two 93-year-old men picked up during undercover prostitution stings.
In the case of Frank Milio, prosecutors have issued subpoenas and plan to take him to trial in April.
Milio, according to police records, tried to pay $20 in November to an undercover officer on 14th Street West.
Milio recently told the Herald-Tribune he was only flirting with the woman.
"I haven't had that in years," he said. "Ninety-three is kind of old."
Carlos Underhill, 93, will not be charged, although he does not deny stopping to chat with the "good-looking girl" who made eyes at him and turned out to be an undercover officer.
Police say Underhill was willing to pay $30 for sex and that he promised to come back a few hours later to consummate the deal.
Prosecutors say that they cannot move ahead with the criminal case because there is no way to prove Underhill planned to come back.
Underhill was fined $150 for trying to pick up a prostitute in 1990, when he was 75. In the latest case, he says, he was not cruising Tamiami Trail for sex: He just wanted to chat with the buxom woman who smiled at him as he drove past.
"All I was going to do was talk," he said Monday. "It wasn't for sex. I am 93, you know."

[SA007]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4

:D

[Cotties]

leave the poor fella aloneMANATEE COUNTY - Prosecutors are moving ahead with a case against one of two 93-year-old men picked up during undercover prostitution stings.
In the case of Frank Milio, prosecutors have issued subpoenas and plan to take him to trial in April.
Milio, according to police records, tried to pay $20 in November to an undercover officer on 14th Street West.
Milio recently told the Herald-Tribune he was only flirting with the woman.
"I haven't had that in years," he said. "Ninety-three is kind of old."
Carlos Underhill, 93, will not be charged, although he does not deny stopping to chat with the "good-looking girl" who made eyes at him and turned out to be an undercover officer.
Police say Underhill was willing to pay $30 for sex and that he promised to come back a few hours later to consummate the deal.
Prosecutors say that they cannot move ahead with the criminal case because there is no way to prove Underhill planned to come back.
Underhill was fined $150 for trying to pick up a prostitute in 1990, when he was 75. In the latest case, he says, he was not cruising Tamiami Trail for sex: He just wanted to chat with the buxom woman who smiled at him as he drove past.
"All I was going to do was talk," he said Monday. "It wasn't for sex. I am 93, you know."

[Iwantutowantme]

I don't think that's true at all. I ask you to think about not only the infrastructure, as Spare's posts shows (dated 2006) but also the fact that kids are now going to school... and this includes girls! Maybe I'm in the minority, but to me this is huge. Not only for the education, but the fact that the parents feel they are safe enough to send them!!

There have been many improvements... it's not so often the press wants to publish the good stuff... almost like you have to actually pay attention to hear about it... or go looking for it.... keep your mind open to the fact improvements are being made. It's there, believe me it is.

I am glad improvements in Iraq have been made. I care about the welfare of the people of Iraq. I also care about the welfare of American soldiers and thier families. I care about the welfare of the US taxpayers which have yet to pay for this unnecessary war. I feel that since we cannot afford this unnecessary war we need to get out before the US economy is bankrupt and we cannot even help ourselves. It's a very very tough decision. It has to be made before our economy is in shambles and our military is streched to the breaking point. Our security is not dependant upon Iraq and never has been. With a civil war in the making, we must get out.

The military is not attacking the 'sourse' of the terrorist. The TRAINING CAMPS in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria. As long as they exist, there will be no end to the war......and no end to the war on terrorism. It's really ironic that these terorist camps still exist........... think about it.

regards..

[SirFox]

I am glad improvements in Iraq have been made. I care about the welfare of the people of Iraq. I also care about the welfare of American soldiers and thier families. I care about the welfare of the US taxpayers which have yet to pay for this unnecessary war. I feel that since we cannot afford this unnecessary war we need to get out before the US economy is bankrupt and we cannot even help ourselves. It's a very very tough decision. It has to be made before our economy is in shambles and our military is streched to the breaking point. Our security is not dependant upon Iraq and never has been. With a civil war in the making, we must get out.

The military is not attacking the 'sourse' of the terrorist. The TRAINING CAMPS in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria. As long as they exist, there will be no end to the war......and no end to the war on terrorism. It's really ironic that these terorist camps still exist........... think about it.

regards..

And why do terrorist camps exist?

They exist because of rampant unemployment, living standards that are way below the poverty line, education that is at best, uncertain, men adn women who are swayed by glorious times once "service" is given for God or country or nation.

[SirFox]

French couple face trial for serial killings

Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:39pm EDT
By Thierry Leveque

PARIS (Reuters) - A self-confessed killer dubbed the "Ogre of the Ardennes" faces trial on Thursday for raping and murdering seven young women with the help of his wife in one of the worst serial murder cases in recent French history.
Michel Fourniret, 65, has admitted killing seven women in the heavily wooded Ardennes region of northern France and Belgium over a 14-year period between 1987 and 2001.
His wife, Monique Olivier, 59, is accused of complicity in the murder of five of the women but has said she acted under the influence of Fourniret.
The case, among the worst seen in France since World War Two, helped lead to a shake-up of the way French police investigate serial murders including better coordination between different authorities.
The couple, linked by what prosecutors call a "criminal pact", became acquainted after Fourniret placed an advertisement for correspondents while serving a prison sentence for sex crimes in the 1980s.
If convicted, they face life imprisonment.
Fourniret, described by investigators as narcissistic, authoritarian and manipulative, has previously said he would not apologize to relatives of his victims but that he should face the death penalty.
"I dream of a guillotine whose blade would be controlled by a rope long enough so that all the people who have something against me can join together and eliminate me. I owe them that," he told investigators.
In addition to the cases being tried this week, Fourniret is suspected of a number of other killings, including that of 20-year-old British woman Joanna Parrish in 1990.


Hundreds of journalists are expected at the trial in Charleville-Mezieres in northern France, which is expected to last two months and takes place not far from where Belgian serial killer Marc Dutroux was convicted in 2004.
Fourniret, a former industrial draughtsman who also worked as a forest warden and school supervisor, was arrested in Belgium in 2003 after one of his prospective victims escaped and called the police. He was extradited to France in 2006.
He has a long history of sexual offences and told investigators that he was fascinated by virgins, but psychologists concluded that he was not insane. Instead they believe he took a sadistic pleasure in rape and killing.
He has admitted abducting, raping and killing Isabelle Laville in 1987, Fabienne Leroy in 1988, Jeanne-Marie Desramault and Elisabeth Brichet in 1989, Natacha Danais in 1990, Celine Saison in 2000 and Mananya Thumpong in 2001.
He has helped police find some of the bodies buried in the heavily wooded region that straddles the Belgian-French border but has also made a series of what authorities consider evasive and even provocative comments before the trial.
(Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Tim Pearce)



Imagine that blade coming down on your neck, and proud of it!

[spare_change]

And why do terrorist camps exist?

They exist because of rampant unemployment, living standards that are way below the poverty line, education that is at best, uncertain, men adn women who are swayed by glorious times once "service" is given for God or country or nation.


And, to follow that train of thought, why do those conditions exist? Because a small element is allowed to take control, siphoning off the riches of the land for themselves, with no consideration for their countrymen. Removing a savage is NEVER a bad thing.

[SirFox]

Cohen: The French, the Americans, and affairs of the heart

WASHINGTON. You can view France and the United States in various ways - antagonistic allies, intimate adversaries, sulking lovers or competing conveyors of a universal message - but whatever prism you view them through has to allow for a large measure of recurrent friction.

Nowhere has that friction been more recurrent than in matters of the heart and the bedroom. The French had affairs; that was the way of the world. What their politicians did in bed - from François Mitterrand's siring of an illegitimate daughter to Jacques Chirac's dalliances - was their own affair.

John F. Kennedy, of course, got away with his share of womanizing, but that was then. Gary Hart's Monkey-Business political implosion and Bill Clinton's near-impeachment for his human stain, defining adulterous events of the 1980s and 1990s, left the French shaking their heads again at the silly Yankees.

The Americans were Puritans or adolescents or naïve or God-fearing moralizers. The French were cynical, incorrigible, suave and hypocritical. Sex on the Seine and sex on the Potomac were distinct sensations, the former enriched by intrigue, the latter threatened by exposure.
Images such as these comforted the French and Americans in their different views of civilization. There was no point in the two countries both having universal messages if they were not dissimilar even at the very point of Yeats's "shudder in the loins."]

But of late some of these images, stereotypes if you prefer, have begun to blur or even cross over.
Which president, after all, currently speaks of God as the "the rampart" against "the folly of men"? Which president is suffering heavily in the polls for the roller coaster of his amorous adventures? Which public seems more concerned with the personal sexual foibles of its political leaders?
It is Nicolas Sarkozy who has become the God-invoker par excellence; it is he who seems to have broached more bed than France felt ready to absorb; and it is the French who are lamenting "la pipolisation" - the "people-ization" - of political life and seem put out, for now, by Cupid's constant cavorting at the Élysée.
Americans, by contrast, seem to have grown up. Or at least, that's the way the French might put it. A baby boom generation, now pre-geriatric, has adjusted the national moral prism: The boomers mostly grew up with experimentation on the sexual and drug fronts rampant around them.

These boomers seem uninterested in the fact that Barack Obama said he smoked marijuana and tried cocaine as a youth. An exhaustive front-page piece on this in my own newspaper reached the shattering conclusion that he might actually have used fewer drugs than he claimed. Perhaps some diehard hippies will be disappointed and decide not to vote for him! Otherwise, outside Haight-Ashbury, nobody seemed to care.

As for John McCain's supposed extra-marital "romantic" relationship a decade ago with an attractive lobbyist more than 30 years his junior, who cares? This unproven teaser on another long New York Times piece that was really about McCain's susceptibility to lobbying from the rich and powerful he claims to have taken on, has been widely criticized as an unfair, unfounded or uninteresting distraction from the serious essence of the story.
In other words, Americans care about conflict of interest; they care less about infidelity itself, especially at the level of innuendo or rumor.

"France and America are at different points in the curve," said Pamela Druckerman, the author of "Lust in Translation," a global survey of adultery. "Sarkozy has crossed some boundary parading around with Carla Bruni at the beach. Americans, by contrast, after 20 years of working with sex and scandals, no longer view infidelity in itself as a firing offense."

Now that Bruni has married Sarko, three months after he got divorced, the couple seems intent on quieting things down. The beautiful model-turned-singer has gone from declaring that "burning desire" lasts maybe "two or three weeks" and expressing a preference for "polygamy and polyandry" to saying that she is "the first lady until the end of my husband's mandate and his wife until death."No wonder the French are cringing.
I suspect what they're upset about is the way the thrice-married Sarkozy has devalued an institution they respect - marriage - by bouncing from one wife to another. The reciprocal and public infidelities of his previous relationship to Cécilia, his ex-wife, hardly hurt him.

As for Americans, the experience of eight years with a teetotaler president, consistent in his mediocrity, has apparently filled them with a thirst for humanity above all. If there's one thing McCain the Republican, and Obama the Democrat, share, it's the palpably human feeling they exude.
To be human is to be fallible.
So, for a dose of uptight God-fearing morality, try the Rive Gauche. But if you want to get a little wild and louche, take to the Potomac.

[SirFox]

And, to follow that train of thought, why do those conditions exist? Because a small element is allowed to take control, siphoning off the riches of the land for themselves, with no consideration for their countrymen. Removing a savage is NEVER a bad thing.

Could there be a future for you and me, SPARE? I cannot believe that we agree 100% there. One point for you...How's it going Cowboy?

[SirFox]

The new Diana? In Britain, Carla Bruni steals the show

By Alan Cowell[/URL][/B]
Published: March 27, 2008

LONDON. Was she the new Kennedy-Onassis or a reborn Diana? With her flat Dior pumps and calf-length gray overcoat, was she a high-school student on vacation or, as one columnist asked, "Jackie O dressed as a nun"?

When Carla Bruni, the 40-year-old former supermodel and new first lady of France, arrived here Wednesday with her husband on a state visit, her risqué image had been molded in advance, mostly by breathless accounts of her serial celebrity lovers and disparaging remarks about the value of monogamy.

But after appearances with the British royals, in Parliament and at a state dinner - with different Dior outfits for each event - Bruni emerged Thursday as the star of the visit, supplanting affairs of state with an affaire d'amour among British newspaper reporters wistfully competing for the fondest declaration of praise.

Indeed, if her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, had come here to woo his British hosts with a flattering speech to Parliament - compared by one writer to a "torrent of crème Chantilly sprayed from a high-pressure hose" - then his wife's slender frame and twinkling eyes upstaged his bid for elusive gravitas.

"Nicolas Sarkozy's seduction of the British started yesterday at 11.26 a.m. when his plane landed at Heathrow," Andrew Gimson wrote on the front page Thursday of The Daily Telegraph. "He brought with him his latest conquest, Carla Bruni, and many of us decided at once that if we were going to be seduced by anyone, we would rather be seduced by her."

Elizabeth's many roofs at Windsor Castle west of London - was designed in part to draw France and Britain much closer after centuries of see-sawing relationships across the English Channel, which divides them with much more than water and geography.
Indeed, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said Thursday that he wanted to update the 104-year-old "Entente Cordiale" between the two countries with an "Entente Formidable."
But if anyone was going to do that, it was Bruni, who spent Thursday visiting with the prime minister's wife, Sarah, at a charity lunch while their spouses attended to their business, not in the confines of 10 Downing Street but at the Emirates soccer stadium in north London. The stadium is home to the Arsenal club whose manager, like some of its top players, is French.
The new romance began to bud within seconds of her arrival.
As she stepped from the plane on Wednesday, a gallant Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips. "Enchanté," The Sun tabloid had him saying in a photograph of the episode dubbed with cartoon bubbles of imagined conversation that showed Charles's wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, murmuring to her husband, "Easy, tiger."
Then Bruni was photographed and filmed beaming with Prince Philip, the queen's husband, while her husband looked on uneasily. "I do not like ze look of zees," The Sun had Sarkozy saying.
Among columnists, royal-watchers and exponents of hyperbole, it was a race for the most cloying of verbal cotton candy. "Were we looking at a new Jackie O or more of an Audrey Hepburn or perhaps, even, a touch of Diana," Robert Hardman wrote in The Daily Mail.
Another of the same newspaper's writers, Amanda Platell, struck a more skeptical note, reaching for the history books to describe Bruni's curtsy to the queen as the most calculated act of homage to a British monarch since Anne Boleyn bowed to Henry VIII to become his second wife in 1533.
"She has mastered the transformation from rock chick to chic - and she pulled it off before the most unforgiving audience in the world," Platell wrote.
Even Sarkozy seemed bowled over anew by the reception accorded to his wife of two months in Britain, especially when compared with scathing coverage in some French publications. "I am proud that people have seen her for what she really is and that there is a sense of justice," he told a French reporter at a news conference alongside Brown.
It seemed clear that the visit to London had been carefully prepared by the French president's aides as a kind of international coming-out party for the new first lady, who thoughtfully included her mother, Marisa Bruni-Tedeschi, in her entourage.
The fuss, however, could not cloak fissures in what was choreographed as a remarkable bonding between the two countries as Sarkozy prepares for France's six-month stint in the rotating presidency of the European Union beginning in July.

The sharpest distinction seemed to lie in their responses to China's crackdown on unrest among Tibetans. With London due to host the 2012 Olympics, Brown insisted that Britain would not boycott the opening session of the Games in Beijing.
But Sarkozy said he would "reserve the right to say whether I will attend the opening ceremony."



I doubt very much that anyone could replace Princess Diana, not even if she were Italian which is what Mrs. SARLOZY is. It is nice to see a beautiful lady be at the helm of a country who is respectful of honours. A relife actually that she will not put her foot in her mouth each time she goes somewhere.

[Annie]

The new Diana? In Britain, Carla Bruni steals the show

By Alan Cowell[/url][/b]
Published: March 27, 2008

LONDON. Was she the new Kennedy-Onassis or a reborn Diana? With her flat Dior pumps and calf-length gray overcoat, was she a high-school student on vacation or, as one columnist asked, "Jackie O dressed as a nun"?


I doubt very much that anyone could replace Princess Diana, not even if she were Italian which is what Mrs. SARLOZY is. It is nice to see a beautiful lady be at the helm of a country who is respectful of honours. A relife actually that she will not put her foot in her mouth each time she goes somewhere. She may be able to copy Jackie O's look, but I think that's about as far as the comparison goes! Jackie O's elegance went far beyond looks.

[Lethe]

Just got an email from a relative about a identity theft scam going around. This is mostly for U.S. citizens, although I have no doubt it will morph into other countries if it hasn't already.

You receive a call from someone identifying themselves as a jury coordinator wanting to know why you did not report for jury duty. When you protest saying you did not receive a summons, this person will ask for your social security number and date of birth so they can cancel the arrest warrant. If you give out this info, BOOM, your identity has just been stolen!

This scam is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving this info by claiming they are with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have placed nationwide alerts on their web sites warning people about this fraud.

Here is the FBI site: www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm (http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm)

Also: www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp (http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp)

[SirFox]

She may be able to copy Jackie O's look, but I think that's about as far as the comparison goes! Jackie O's elegance went far beyond looks.

I wonder if that was because Jackie O was French and Carla Bruni is Italian...( A lot of nationalism will get me NOWHERE...) :D

[Annie]

Cops bust high school root beer kegger
By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer

Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands.

But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer.
The party was held by a high school student who wanted to show that teens don't always drink alcohol at their parties. It has gained fame on YouTube.com.

Dustin Zebro, 18, said he staged the party after friends at D.C. Everest High School got suspended from sports because of pictures showing them drinking from red cups.

The root-beer kegger was "to kind of make fun of the school," he said. "They assumed there was beer in the cups. We just wanted to have some root beer in red cups and just make it look like a party, but there actually wasn't any alcohol."

Zebro purchased a quarter-barrel of 1919 Classic American Draft Root Beer, and by 10 p.m. Saturday, the scene outside his rural Wausau home had all the makings of a teen drinking party — cars, noise and kids.
Kronenwetter Police Chief Daniel Joling said an officer was dispatched to the home March 1 on a complaint of cars blocking the road.

Juveniles began coming out of the house after the officer used his squad car's loudspeaker to warn that cars would soon be towed, Officer Jason Rasmussen wrote in his report.

Nearly 90 breath tests were done, and officers even searched locked rooms for hiding teens.

"It was a tremendous waste of time and manpower, but we still had a job to do, and our officers did it," Joling said. "If one kid had come there, even hadn't drank there, but had come there and had been drinking and had left and crashed and burned, then what would the sentiment be? Why didn't the police check everybody out?"

D.C. Everest schools Superintendent Kris Gilmore did not immediately return a message Friday.

[spare_change]

Cops bust high school root beer kegger
By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer

Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands.

But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer.
The party was held by a high school student who wanted to show that teens don't always drink alcohol at their parties. It has gained fame on YouTube.com.

D.C. Everest schools Superintendent Kris Gilmore did not immediately return a message Friday.


Gotcha!

[Annie]

Feds sue Wal-Mart over airman's job

Mon Mar 31, 10:26 PM ET
ORLANDO, Fla. - The Department of Justice has sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on behalf of a former airman, claiming the company didn't give him his job back after he was discharged from the military, the department announced Monday.

The lawsuit on behalf of Sean Thornton, a former airman with the United States Air Force, alleges Wal-Mart violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 by failing to reinstate him as a cashier at an Orange City store after he was discharged.

The act requires that workers who leave their jobs to serve in the military be given their job back when they return, the statement said.

"No person should be disadvantaged in the workplace for serving our country in the military," Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker said in the justice department statement.

The Justice Department said it filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Orlando. A Wal-Mart spokesman declined comment on the allegations Monday because he couldn't confirm Wal-Mart had received a copy of the complaint.

The Justice Department didn't say whether it is claiming Thornton was not rehired at all.

[spare_change]

THIRD GRADERS PLOT ATTACK

WAYCROSS, Georgia (AP) -- A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday.

The third-graders' alleged crime kit included this steak knife, which was confiscated by officials.

The plot involving as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said.

School officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school.

Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a crystal paperweight, bind her with the handcuffs and tape and then stab her with the knife.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."

The children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn't take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate.

"Some of the kids said, `We thought they were just kidding,"' Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn't bring it because he thought he would get in trouble."

Currie said the children are too young to be charged as adults, and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention center.

Police seized a steak knife, steel handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and the paperweight from the students, Tanner said.

Currie said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages 9 and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an 8-year-old boy who brought tape. He said all three students faced charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and both girls were being charged with bringing weapons to school.

Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case came to light.

The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack.

"We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

He said the teacher told detectives the children involved weren't known as troublemakers.

"You can't dismiss it," Tanner said. "But because they are kids, they may have thought this was like a cartoon -- we do whatever and then she stands up and she's OK. That's a hard call."

The parents of the students have cooperated with investigators, who aren't allowed to question the children without their parents' or guardians' consent, he said. Authorities have withheld the children's names.

Martin told The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that administrators would follow school system policy and state law in disciplining the students.

"From what I understand, they were considered pretty good kids," Martin said. "But we have to take this seriously, whether they were serious or not about carrying this through, and that's what we did."

Four mothers of other third-grade students at Center Elementary called for the immediate expulsion of the suspected plotters.

Stacy Carter and Deana Hiott both cited school system policy stating that any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.
advertisement

"We don't want our children around them," Carter told the Times-Union. "The one with the knife could have stabbed my child or someone else's child at lunch or out on the playground."

"This is an isolated incident, an aberration. ... We have good kids," Center Principal Angie Coleman told the newspaper

[tiger50]

[quote=spare_change;930001] THIRD GRADERS PLOT ATTACK

Fark.... :sc

[tiger50]

some nasty weather in oz today.... we finally got precipitate.. but most of it was dust... with a tease of rain to make our cars muddy.... sadly 2 people killed.....
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23471857-2,00.html

[spare_change]

some nasty weather in oz today.... we finally got precipitate.. but most of it was dust... with a tease of rain to make our cars muddy.... sadly 2 people killed.....
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23471857-2,00.html

Global warming, right?

[spare_change]

By Grant McArthur

April 03, 2008 01:38am
Article from: Herald Sun

HUMAN-cow embryos have been created in a world first at Newcastle University in England, hailed by the scientific community, but labelled "monstrous" by opponents.

A team has grown hybrid embryos after injecting human DNA into eggs taken from cows' ovaries, which had most of their genetic material removed.

The embryos survived for three days and are intended to provide a limitless supply of stem cells to develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries, overcoming a worldwide shortfall in human embryos.

Dr Teija Peura, director of human embryonic stem cell laboratories at the Australian Stem Cell Centre, said somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) had been done between animal species, but the "99 per cent human" embryos could boost research.

"If successful, they would provide an important additional research tool to help realisation of stem cell-based therapies for human diseases," Dr Peura said.

"All avenues of research, including SCNT . . . need to be encouraged if we want to fulfil the promises of stem cell technologies."

But her colleague, Dr Andrew Laslett, warned the process was yet to yield a stem cell line

and so it remained only an academic possibility.

In January, the Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gave Newcastle University a licence to do the work, but the British Parliament would debate the longer-term future of such research next month.

Under the licence, embryos are not allowed to be developed beyond 14 days.

Preliminary findings of the embryo program were presented in Israel last week, and the head of the university's Institute of Human Genetics, Prof John Burn, said further evaluation would be done before the full details were published.

"If the team can produce cells which will survive in culture, it will open the door to a better understanding of disease processes without having to use precious human eggs," Prof Burn said.

"Cells grown using animal eggs cannot be used to treat patients on safety grounds, but they will help bring nearer the day when new stem cell therapies are available."

The Catholic Church in Britain branded the creations as "monstrous" - a view supported by Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics director Fr Kevin McGovern.

"An almost-human embryo is being created and then it's being destroyed," he said.

"I cannot see that that respects human life or the dignity of human life.

"Human beings - or even almost human embryos - are not just things that you can use in a laboratory experiment.

"What is being created is life.

"No one knows exactly what would grow from these embryos.

"If this is approved in the UK, there will be renewed pressure to permit it here, and we will travel further down the slippery slope of allowing just about anything."

It is not the first time hybrids have been created.

The method was pioneered by Dr Hui Zhen Sheng's team at the Shanghai Second Medical University, China, where she fused human cells with rabbit eggs to produce early stage embryos, which in turn yielded human stem cells.

[spare_change]

Taliban Militants Reportedly Stone to Death Pakistani Couple Who Committed Adultery

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

A couple found guilty of adultery by an Islamic "qazi" court was stoned to death by Taliban militants in Pakistan's northwest border region, according to a report in Dawn, Pakistan's English-language newspaper.

The execution, which reportedly took place Monday, is the first by stoning reported in the region, which borders Afghanistan. "Qazi" courts, which are allowed to administer Islamic law outside the Pakistani judicial system, traditionally have ordered execution by firing squad in cases of adultery.

The married woman, identified as Shano, had allegedly eloped on March 15 with Daulat Khan Malikdeenkhel.

A spokesman for the Taliban said a complaint had been received from the woman's family that she had been abducted by Daulat Khan. They later changed the report to say she had run away with him.

Taliban militants captured the couple as they were returning from Karachi, the spokesman said.

Dawn reported that the woman's body was buried by local residents not far from the execution site. The man's body was handed over to his relatives for burial.

[spare_change]

Report: Non-Muslims Deserve to Be Punished

A report posted on Islam Watch, a site run by Muslims who oppose intolerant teachings and hatred for unbelievers, exposes a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer who support extreme punishment for non-Muslims — including killing and rape.

A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch.

"Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain."

The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent.

"You are innocent if you are a Muslim," Choudary tells the BBC. "Then you are innocent in the eyes of God. If you are not a Muslim, then you are guilty of not believing in God."

Choudary said he would not condemn a Muslim for any action.

"As a Muslim, I must support my Muslim brothers and sisters," Choudary said. "I must have hatred to everything that is not Muslim."

[SirFox]

Report: Non-Muslims Deserve to Be Punished

A report posted on Islam Watch, a site run by Muslims who oppose intolerant teachings and hatred for unbelievers, exposes a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer who support extreme punishment for non-Muslims — including killing and rape.

A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch.

"Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain."

The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent.

"You are innocent if you are a Muslim," Choudary tells the BBC. "Then you are innocent in the eyes of God. If you are not a Muslim, then you are guilty of not believing in God."

Choudary said he would not condemn a Muslim for any action.

"As a Muslim, I must support my Muslim brothers and sisters," Choudary said. "I must have hatred to everything that is not Muslim."

There is intolerance everywhere based on elementary or no education at all, SPARE. There are Moslem people who wish Islamic courts in their countries: I am of the opinion that they can have them if they wish, HOWEVER, they should not believe for one minute that they will be able to transcend the laws of the UK, the USA or the "Western World".

There is intolderance here in Europe, in the US, and it is usually based on generalisations, and misinformation.

Reading an interesting article on the Shariah at the moment.

[Annie]

Experts dubious of Ga. 3rd-grader plot
By RUSS BYNUM and MIKE STOBBE
Associated Press Writers
WAYCROSS, Ga. - Allegations that third-graders hatched an elaborate plot to knock out, handcuff and stab their teacher were met with shock by neighbors and with doubt by psychiatry experts who said it is unlikely that children that young seriously intended to hurt anyone.

Police say the plot at Center Elementary School began because the children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently angry after the teacher disciplined one of the students for standing on a chair.

Students brought a crystal paperweight, a steak knife with a broken handle, steel handcuffs and other items as part of last week's plot, police said Tuesday. They said nine students were involved, but prosecutors are seeking juvenile charges against only three of them.

Experts said children that age are certainly imaginative and capable of creating elaborate games. But Dr. Louis Kraus, a child psychiatry expert at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said he doubts they would have actually attacked.

"The reality is it is highly unlikely they would have been successful at this," Kraus said. "Even if it had begun, it's unclear whether they actually would have followed through with it."

Most premeditated acts of student violence in schools usually don't occur until high school, Kraus said. Younger children have been known to bring knives or other weapons to school, experts said, but often it's more a matter of showing off or acting tough than part of a deliberate assault attempt.

Police said the plot had been organized enough that some students were assigned specific roles such as covering classroom windows and cleaning up any mess.

Most children under the age of 12 don't generally experience the kind of long-standing anger necessary for a premeditated crime, said Dan Mears, an associate professor at Florida State University's College of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

"Kids tend to be more spontaneous," Mears said. "If they're angry, they act on it right then."

The district attorney is seeking juvenile charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault against an 8-year-old boy and two girls, ages 9 and 10. The girls are also charged with bringing weapons to school.

News of the alleged plot spread quickly through this small south Georgia city on the northern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, where residents are preparing for their annual SwampFest celebration this weekend.

"They were so young, I just couldn't believe it," said Euleathia Harris, 50, who lives in a public housing complex near the school. "I wouldn't think anything like that would happen in little ol' Waycross. I guess if it can happen in the big cities, it can happen here."

Police Chief Tony Tanner said the plot unraveled when a student reported to school officials Friday that a classmate had a knife in her backpack.

School officials say they punished all nine students, and some received long-term suspension, but they would not be more specific. Under school system rules, children who bring weapons to school may also face expulsion.

Tanner and District Attorney Rick Currie did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Shavette Owens, whose 7- and 8-year-old children attend the school, said she was glad officials had taken action, but was still somewhat shaken.

"Where were my kids at when these kids had all those weapons?" Owens said. "My heart just dropped, I didn't know what to think."

Georgia law prohibits bringing adult criminal charges against children under 13, but places no age limit on children sent to juvenile court.

Although juvenile offenders can be locked up in detention centers, Randee Waldman, director of the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic at Emory University School of Law, said the children accused in Waycross seem far too young for that.

"It would take an extraordinary circumstance for a child under the age of 10 to be detained," Waldman said. "Juvenile court is rehabilitative in nature. It's not designed to be punitive."

Children so young often aren't considered competent to stand trial, Waldman said, because they lack the maturity to understand even the basics of the legal system. They may also be deemed too young to have had criminal intent, she said.

[SirFox]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Maybe men had it right all along: It doesn't take long to satisfy a woman in bed.

It's difficult for men of all ages to make sexual intercourse last much longer, a psychologist says. A survey of sex therapists concluded the optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes. The findings, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, strike at the notion that endurance is the key to a great sex life.
If that sounds like good news to you, don't cheer too loudly. The time does not count foreplay, and the therapists did rate sexual intercourse that lasts from 1 to 2 minutes as "too short."
Researcher Eric Corty said he hoped to ease the minds of those who believe "more of something good is better, and if you really want to satisfy your partner, you should last forever."
The questions were not gender-specific, said Corty. But he said prior research has shown men and women want foreplay and sexual intercourse to last longer.
Dr. Irwin Goldstein, editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, cited a four-week study of 1,500 couples in 2005 that found the median time for sexual intercourse was 7.3 minutes. (Women in the study were armed with stopwatches.)
It's difficult for both older men and young men to make sexual intercourse last much longer, said Marianne Brandon, a clinical psychologist and director of Wellminds Wellbodies in Annapolis, Maryland.
"There are so many myths in our culture of what other people are doing sexually," Brandon said. "Most people's sex lives are not as exciting as other people think they are."
Fifty members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research in the U.S. and Canada were surveyed by Corty, an associate professor of psychology at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, and student Jenay Guardiani. Thirty-four members, or 68 percent, responded, although some said the optimal time depended on the couple.
Corty said he hoped to give an idea of what therapists find to be normal and satisfactory among the couples they see.
"People who read this will say, 'I last five minutes or my partner lasts eight minutes,' and say, 'That's OK,' " he said. "They will relax a little bit."

[SirFox]

Bush appears out of touch on U.S. economic woes

http://img.iht.com/images/dot_h.gif

WASHINGTON (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/03/america/assess.php#):
The first hint that President George W. Bush might be detached from the nation's economic woes was in February, when he conceded that he had not heard about predictions of $4-a-gallon gasoline.
Then Bush went to Wall Street to warn against "massive government intervention in the housing markets," two days before his administration helped broker the takeover of the investment bank Bear Stearns.
Now Bush is in Eastern Europe, one of eight foreign trips he is taking this year. As he delivered his farewell address to NATO on Wednesday, Senate Democrats and Republicans were scrambling to produce a bill to help struggling homeowners, the kind of government intervention Bush had cautioned against.
For a man who came into office as America's first MBA president, Bush has sometimes seemed invisible during the housing and credit crunch. As the economy eclipses Iraq as the top issue on most voters' minds, even some Republican allies of the president say Bush is being eclipsed and is in danger of looking out of touch.
"He's over there arguing about who should get into NATO, and the American people are focused on what's in their pocketbooks," said Kenneth Duberstein, who was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan in Reagan's second term. "He has talked about the economy, but it is not viewed as being a satisfactory response. Unfortunately, the lasting image is of not knowing of $4-a-gallon gas."

http://www.iht.com/images/dot_h.gif

http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/ad/americas.iht.com/article;cat=article;sz=190x90;ord=123456789? (http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/jump/americas.iht.com/article;cat=article;sz=190x90;ord=123456789?)

With the nation riveted by the race to succeed him, it is growing increasingly difficult for Bush to command the national stage. In addition to being upstaged by the candidates, Bush has ceded his bully pulpit on the economy to other Washington figures, including congressional leaders, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve.
While Bush was in Romania on Wednesday, Bernanke was on Capitol Hill delivering a far more pessimistic vision of the economy than the president - who has said the country faces "a rough patch" - has allowed.
When the White House announced its plan to overhaul the financial regulatory system, it was Paulson, not Bush, who did the talking. And the Paulson plan, by the secretary's own account, is not aimed at offering immediate assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure.
"I think for the most part the administration is doing the right thing in addressing the economic problems we have," said Representative Peter King, Republican of New York. "But I think tactically it would be better if the president himself was more out front, rather than leaving it so much to Paulson. When there is a perceived national crisis, it's important for the president to be the point man."
Still, because the public has little faith in Bush, it may be tough for him to be the point man on the economy, even with a Harvard business degree. Just 25 percent of the public approves of the way Bush is handling the economy, a figure even lower than his overall job approval rating, according to a CBS News poll in mid-March.
So it is no wonder, some Republicans say, that Bush is letting others do the talking.
"The good news for Bush is he's got Paulson, who's got some real credibility on these issues," said John Feehery, a Republican strategist. "Paulson is doing a pretty good job of looking like he's doing something."
Other presidents have tried, with varying degrees of success, to use their platforms in tough economic times. Franklin D. Roosevelt famously used his fireside chats to calm a nation traumatized by the Great Depression. But Gerald Ford was ridiculed for his WIN buttons (Whip Inflation Now), as was Jimmy Carter for his call to set winter thermostats at 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 Celsius).
Bush, by contrast, has been loath to sound downbeat. He has yet to use the word recession publicly, for instance. Two months ago, he drew praise for bringing together Republicans and Democrats on an economic stimulus package including rebates for taxpayers. (The checks will go out in May.)
But he has resisted calls from Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, to hold a top-level bipartisan economic meeting to address the growing mortgage crisis.
And now, with Congress trying to come together around some kind of plan, James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, says Bush should take the lead.
"He has the chance to show that he's bipartisan and he can be above it all and solve things," Thurber said. "The American people want a leader right now."


White House officials fiercely reject the contention that Bush is not showing leadership, or is out of touch. They say he has been unfairly treated for his $4-a-gallon gasoline comment. The average price was nowhere near $4 when Bush was asked the question, though the predictions were all over the news. (The national average is $3.29 a gallon, or 87 cents a liter, the Energy Department says.)
The White House officials also note that in August, Bush announced a package of proposals intended to help low-income homeowners that the Democratic Congress has yet to adopt fully.
When the president visited a debt-counseling center on Friday, in Freehold, New Jersey, it did not generate major headlines.
"He has to get back in the public conversation again," said Duberstein, the former Reagan chief of staff.
"All the conversation going on now is Obama, Clinton and McCain, and people are not talking about 'What's George Bush thinking? What's George Bush going to do?' "



The World is not confident is that it has little faith in its leaders.

[pagirl]

The World is not confident is that it has little faith in its leaders.

Leaders we have do not deserve faith!

[SirFox]

81% in U.S. poll say nation is on the wrong track

By David Leonhardt and Marjorie Connelly
Published: April 4, 2008

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country's direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.
In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track," up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.
Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.
The dissatisfaction is especially striking because public opinion usually hits its low point only in the months and years after an economic downturn, not at the beginning of one. Today, however, Americans report being deeply worried about the country even though many say their own personal finances are still in fairly good shape.


Only 21 percent of respondents said the overall economy was in good condition, the lowest such number since late 1992, when the recession that began in the summer of 1990 had already been over for more than a year. In the latest poll, two in three people said they believed the economy was in recession today.
The unhappiness presents clear risks for Republicans in this year's elections, given the continued unpopularity of President George W. Bush. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they approved of the job he was doing, a number that has barely changed since last summer. But Democrats, who have controlled the House and Senate since last year, also face the risk that unhappy voters will punish congressional incumbents.
Bush and leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill have moved in recent weeks to react to the economic slowdown, first by passing a stimulus bill that will send checks of up to $1,200 to many couples this spring. They are now negotiating over proposals to overhaul financial regulations, blunt the effects of a likely wave of home foreclosures and otherwise respond to the real estate slump and related crisis on Wall Street.
The poll found that Americans blame government officials for the crisis more than banks or home buyers and other borrowers. Forty percent of respondents said regulators were mostly to blame, while 28 percent named lenders and 14 percent named borrowers.
In assessing possible responses to the mortgage crisis, Americans displayed a populist streak, favoring help for individuals but not for financial institutions. A clear majority said they did not want the government to lend a hand to banks, even if the measures would help limit the depth of a recession.
"What I learned from economics is that the market is not always going to be a happy place," Sandi Heller, who works at the University of Colorado and is also studying for a master's degree in business there, said in a follow-up interview. If the government steps in to help out, said Heller, 43, it could encourage banks to take more foolish risks.
"There are a million and one better ways for the government to spend that money," she said.
Respondents were considerably more open to government help for home owners at risk of foreclosure. Fifty-three percent said they believed the government should help those whose interest rates were rising, while 41 percent said they opposed such a move.
The nationwide telephone survey of 1,368 adults was conducted from March 28 to April 2. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
When the presidential campaign began last year, the war in Iraq and terrorism easily topped Americans' list of concerns. Almost 30 percent of people in a December poll said that one of those issues was the country's most pressing problem. About half as many named the economy or jobs.
But the issues have switched places in just a few months' time. In the latest poll, 17 percent named terrorism or the war, while 37 percent named the economy or the job market. When looking at the current state of their own finances, Americans remain relatively sanguine. More than 70 percent said their financial situation was fairly good or very good, a number that has dropped only modestly since 2006.

Yet many say they are merely managing to stay in place, rather than get ahead. This view is consistent with the income statistics of the past five years, which suggest that median household income has still not returned to the inflation-adjusted peak it hit in 1999. Since the Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, there has never been an extended economic expansion that ended without setting a new record for household income.
Economists cite a variety of factors for the sluggish income growth, including technology and globalization, and it clearly seems to have made Americans anxious about the future. Fewer than half of parents — 46 percent — said they expected their children to enjoy a better standard of living than they themselves do, down from 56 percent in 2005.
Respondents were more pessimistic when asked in general terms about the next generation, with only a third saying it would live better than people do today. (Polls usually find people more upbeat about their personal situation than about the state of society, but the gap is now larger than usual.)
Charles Parrish, a 56-year-old retired fireman in Evans, Georgia, who now works a maintenance job for the local school system, said he was worried the country was not preparing children for the high-technology economy of the future. Instead, the government passed a stimulus package that simply sends checks to taxpayers and worsens the deficit in the process.
"Who's going to pay back the money?" Parrish, an independent, said. "We are. They are giving me money, except I'm going to have to pay interest on it."
Democrats have asserted recently that the lack of wage growth has made people more open to government intervention in the economy than in the past, and the poll found mixed results on this score.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would support raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 to pay for tax cuts or government programs for people making less than that amount. Only 38 percent called it a bad idea. Both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidates, have made proposals along these lines.
More broadly, 43 percent of those surveyed said they would prefer a larger government that provided more services, which is tied for the highest such number since The Times and CBS News began asking the question in 1991. But an identical 43 percent said they wanted a smaller government that provided fewer services.
And although both Clinton and Obama have blamed trade with other countries for some of the economy's problems, Americans say they continue to favor trade — if not quite as strongly as in the past. Fifty-eight percent called it good for the economy; 32 percent called it bad, up from 17 percent in 1996.
At the same time, 68 percent said they favored trade restrictions to protect domestic industries, instead of allowing unrestrained trade. In early 1996, 55 percent favored such restrictions.
Dalia Sussman and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

A poll is a poll, however does this ring a bell?

[spare_change]

81% in U.S. poll say nation is on the wrong track

By David Leonhardt and Marjorie Connelly
Published: April 4, 2008

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country's direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.
In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track," up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.
Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.
The dissatisfaction is especially striking because public opinion usually hits its low point only in the months and years after an economic downturn, not at the beginning of one. Today, however, Americans report being deeply worried about the country even though many say their own personal finances are still in fairly good shape.


Only 21 percent of respondents said the overall economy was in good condition, the lowest such number since late 1992, when the recession that began in the summer of 1990 had already been over for more than a year. In the latest poll, two in three people said they believed the economy was in recession today.
The unhappiness presents clear risks for Republicans in this year's elections, given the continued unpopularity of President George W. Bush. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they approved of the job he was doing, a number that has barely changed since last summer. But Democrats, who have controlled the House and Senate since last year, also face the risk that unhappy voters will punish congressional incumbents.
Bush and leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill have moved in recent weeks to react to the economic slowdown, first by passing a stimulus bill that will send checks of up to $1,200 to many couples this spring. They are now negotiating over proposals to overhaul financial regulations, blunt the effects of a likely wave of home foreclosures and otherwise respond to the real estate slump and related crisis on Wall Street.
The poll found that Americans blame government officials for the crisis more than banks or home buyers and other borrowers. Forty percent of respondents said regulators were mostly to blame, while 28 percent named lenders and 14 percent named borrowers.
In assessing possible responses to the mortgage crisis, Americans displayed a populist streak, favoring help for individuals but not for financial institutions. A clear majority said they did not want the government to lend a hand to banks, even if the measures would help limit the depth of a recession.
"What I learned from economics is that the market is not always going to be a happy place," Sandi Heller, who works at the University of Colorado and is also studying for a master's degree in business there, said in a follow-up interview. If the government steps in to help out, said Heller, 43, it could encourage banks to take more foolish risks.
"There are a million and one better ways for the government to spend that money," she said.
Respondents were considerably more open to government help for home owners at risk of foreclosure. Fifty-three percent said they believed the government should help those whose interest rates were rising, while 41 percent said they opposed such a move.
The nationwide telephone survey of 1,368 adults was conducted from March 28 to April 2. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
When the presidential campaign began last year, the war in Iraq and terrorism easily topped Americans' list of concerns. Almost 30 percent of people in a December poll said that one of those issues was the country's most pressing problem. About half as many named the economy or jobs.
But the issues have switched places in just a few months' time. In the latest poll, 17 percent named terrorism or the war, while 37 percent named the economy or the job market. When looking at the current state of their own finances, Americans remain relatively sanguine. More than 70 percent said their financial situation was fairly good or very good, a number that has dropped only modestly since 2006.

Yet many say they are merely managing to stay in place, rather than get ahead. This view is consistent with the income statistics of the past five years, which suggest that median household income has still not returned to the inflation-adjusted peak it hit in 1999. Since the Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, there has never been an extended economic expansion that ended without setting a new record for household income.
Economists cite a variety of factors for the sluggish income growth, including technology and globalization, and it clearly seems to have made Americans anxious about the future. Fewer than half of parents — 46 percent — said they expected their children to enjoy a better standard of living than they themselves do, down from 56 percent in 2005.
Respondents were more pessimistic when asked in general terms about the next generation, with only a third saying it would live better than people do today. (Polls usually find people more upbeat about their personal situation than about the state of society, but the gap is now larger than usual.)
Charles Parrish, a 56-year-old retired fireman in Evans, Georgia, who now works a maintenance job for the local school system, said he was worried the country was not preparing children for the high-technology economy of the future. Instead, the government passed a stimulus package that simply sends checks to taxpayers and worsens the deficit in the process.
"Who's going to pay back the money?" Parrish, an independent, said. "We are. They are giving me money, except I'm going to have to pay interest on it."
Democrats have asserted recently that the lack of wage growth has made people more open to government intervention in the economy than in the past, and the poll found mixed results on this score.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would support raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 to pay for tax cuts or government programs for people making less than that amount. Only 38 percent called it a bad idea. Both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidates, have made proposals along these lines.
More broadly, 43 percent of those surveyed said they would prefer a larger government that provided more services, which is tied for the highest such number since The Times and CBS News began asking the question in 1991. But an identical 43 percent said they wanted a smaller government that provided fewer services.
And although both Clinton and Obama have blamed trade with other countries for some of the economy's problems, Americans say they continue to favor trade — if not quite as strongly as in the past. Fifty-eight percent called it good for the economy; 32 percent called it bad, up from 17 percent in 1996.
At the same time, 68 percent said they favored trade restrictions to protect domestic industries, instead of allowing unrestrained trade. In early 1996, 55 percent favored such restrictions.
Dalia Sussman and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

A poll is a poll, however does this ring a bell?

Actually, the bell it rings has three tones:

1) The polls by CBS News and New York Times are consistently manipulated to arrive at a preconceived answer.

2) This poll indicates the relative level of ignorance by the American constituency, who don't bother to actually learn about something, but rather, parrot what is said in the mass media.

3) If the population believes something, it will come true. It is called a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is never more evident than in economic trending.

[SirFox]

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- At first glance, the man and woman at the nightclub look like any other couple on a date. He flirts and pours champagne. She looks at him and laughs.

This isn't a date, though. It's business.
The woman, a successful executive, has joined a growing number of professional women in Japan in forking out from $1,000 to $50,000 a night for male companionship.
They meet their "hosts" in hundreds of clubs that have sprung up around Tokyo - the industry says only compliments are exchanged. The women pay for a man to lavish them with undivided attention.
"There's nothing wrong with a woman paying to be entertained by a man," one female client says. "It's just another step in equality."
It's a dizzying reversal of traditional gender roles in a country long known for geishas pampering male clients with conversation, singing and dancing. Now a new breed of entertainer has cropped up -- think of them as male geishas.
"I give women things that men normally don't do, like complimenting their appearance," says one host, 24-year-old Yunosuke, who only goes by his single host name. "I make women happy."
And they make him happy: Yunosuke says he earned more than $200,000 last year, enough to let him visit a salon once a day to have his hair dyed and blow-dried.
"Women see us as one of their accessories," he says. "They like to wear nice things, so I try to look prettier for them all the time."
What drives the business boom is an increase in the earning power of Japanese women, according to Air Group, a company that owns a chain of "host" clubs.
"Japanese women are now working hard and making more money," says Yuko Takeyama, a woman in her early 30s who manages Air Group. "They see this as a way to de-stress."
Women love being treated well without the pressures that come with dating, she says.
Yunosuke's customer from the nightclub agrees.
"This is a gift for myself," she says. "It's the same as spending money on a trip or buying something."

[spare_change]

Man allegedly groped deceased woman's sister, showed mother porn

By Vanessa Miller (Contact)
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Marlos Hernandez, 31

A Boulder man was arrested early Thursday after police said he crashed a memorial service, grabbed the breast of the deceased woman's sister and showed her mother pornographic pictures.

Marlos Hernandez, 31, faces possible charges of unlawful sexual contact, first-degree burglary and harassment after police said he entered a memorial gathering in another unit of his apartment building that had started Wednesday evening and extended past midnight.

When Hernandez upset the mother of the woman who recently died, other grieving guests became upset and a "physical confrontation" ensued outside the apartment complex in the 700 block of Mohawk Drive, according to police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley.

Hernandez was treated and released from Boulder Community Hospital for a cut to the face. He then was taken to Boulder County Jail, where he remained late Thursday on a $20,000 bond, Huntley said.

The deceased woman whose life was being celebrated Wednesday hasn't been identified. Details of her death aren't known.

Her mother, who hosted the memorial gathering, told police she didn't know Hernandez but wasn't suspicious when he came into her home because lots of people she doesn't know have paid their respects, Huntley said.

Upon entering the apartment, Hernandez went first to the kitchen and put his arm around the deceased woman's teenage sister "as if to comfort her," Huntley said.

But the woman told officers it made her uncomfortable.

"Then he reached down and grabbed one of her breasts," Huntley said.

The sister told police she didn't want to start a confrontation, so she left the kitchen. Hernandez then went near a display of pictures and memories of the deceased and pulled out a cell phone, Huntley said.

"She thought he was going to take a picture of the shrine with his cell phone," Huntley said. "But he showed the mother a pornographic picture instead."

That, Huntley said, upset the mother and her guests, who forced Hernandez outside and started fighting with him.

Police were called to the scene about 12:10 a.m., Huntley said.

"Some people had some physical injuries," she said. All of them were minor.

[PunkyBob]

Man allegedly groped deceased woman's sister, showed mother porn

By Vanessa Miller (Contact)
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Marlos Hernandez, 31

A Boulder man was arrested early Thursday after police said he crashed a memorial service, grabbed the breast of the deceased woman's sister and showed her mother pornographic pictures...

Police were called to the scene about 12:10 a.m., Huntley said.

"Some people had some physical injuries," she said. All of them were minor.

No...this guy should have been taken to the hospital for extensive, possibly permanent, injuries...

[Krystal]

Wow. Just wow.

[Krystal]

This lady is out of her tree! I'm 34 and I dont' ride the subway alone! She says its like the 1960's in NY again? I wanna know where she's living!

Mom lets 9-year-old take subway home alone

Columnist stirs controversy with experiment in childhood independence


updated 9:49 a.m. ET, Thurs., April. 3, 2008

Once upon a time in New York City, it wasn’t a big deal if pre-teen kids rode the subways and buses alone. Today, as Lenore Skenazy has discovered, a kid who goes out without a nanny, a helmet and a security detail is a national news story, and his mother is a candidate for child-abuse charges.

A columnist for The New York Sun, Skenazy recently left her 9-year-old son, Izzy, at Bloomingdale’s in midtown Manhattan with a Metrocard for the subway, a subway map, $20, and told him she’d see him when he got back home. She wrote a column about it and has been amazed at the chord she struck among New Yorkers who remember being kids in those more innocent times.

“So many people – the ones who aren’t castigating me as crazy – are all regaling me about the first time they took the subway,” she told TODAY’s Ann Curry on Thursday in New York. “And for most people, it’s a great, happy memory. People love that independence.”


Izzy, who is now 10, nodded in agreement and insisted it was no big deal. He had been nagging his mother for a long time to let him ride home alone, and finally she agreed to let him take the downtown Lexington Avenue subway and then transfer to a crosstown bus to get home from Bloomingdale’s.

“I was like, ‘Finally!’ ” Izzy said of his reaction when his mom finally caved in to his nagging. “I think that it’s a really easy, simple thing to get home.”
And that was Skenazy’s point in her column: The era is long past when Times Square was a fetid sump and taking a walk in Central Park after dark was tantamount to committing suicide. Recent federal statistics show New York to be one of the safest cities in the nation – right up there with Provo, Utah, in fact.

“Times are back to 1963,” Skenzay said. “It’s safe. It’s a great time to be a kid in the city.”

The problem is that people read about children who are abducted and murdered and fear takes over, she said. And she doesn’t think fear should rule our lives.

As she wrote in her column about Izzy’s big adventure: “Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating — for us and for them.”

When she said goodbye to Izzy in the handbags department, Skenazy didn’t even leave him with a cell phone. Instead, she gave him a couple of quarters so he could call home on a pay phone if he got lost.

Dr. Ruth Peters, a parenting expert and TODAY Show contributor, agreed that children should be allowed independent experiences, but felt there are better – and safer – ways to have them than the one Skenazy chose.
“I’m not so much concerned that he’s going to be abducted, but there’s a lot of people who would rough him up,” she said. “There’s some bullies and things like that. He could have gotten the same experience in a safer manner.”

“It’s safe to go on the subway,” Skenazy replied. “It’s safe to be a kid. It’s safe to ride your bike on the streets. We’re like brainwashed because of all the stories we hear that it isn’t safe. But those are the exceptions. That’s why they make it to the news. This is like, ‘Boy boils egg.’ He did something that any 9-year-old could do.”

Addressing the same subject in her column, she had written: “These days, when a kid dies, the world - i.e., cable TV - blames the parents. It's simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, ‘The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can't protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.’ ”
She said that people ask her how she would feel if one of those terrible and rare events happened to her son.

“It would be horrible,” she said. “But you can’t live your life that way; you could slip in the shower.”

“I don’t think this is just about the subway,” Peters countered. “I think it’s a difference of opinion of when is the child able to have independent activities. My thought on it is, it’s not just the child, it’s the other environment. If you can do something more safely, it’s just more appropriate.”

Said Skenazy, “I just think about all the college kids who are still sending their essays home to be edited by their parents. I talked to one lady whose daughter sends her pictures when she’s trying on clothes: ‘Mom, what do you think of this? What do you think of that?’ At some point you have to let go and let them live their life.”
Or ride the subway alone.

[SirFox]

Cashing in on the Clinton campaign

Where do all those little-guy donations go? Ask top strategist Mark Penn, as he exits with millions in consulting fees.
By Mike Madden

Redux/Jocelyn Augustino
Former Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn faces reporters.

April 8, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- It should have been easy to predict, in retrospect, that Mark Penn would get himself into trouble (http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/06/penn/index.html) for moonlighting while he served as Hillary Clinton (http://dir.salon.com/topics/hillary_clinton/)'s chief strategist. After all, his firm had billed only $14 million for his work on the campaign. How's a guy supposed to live on that?
Actually, for Penn, who resigned Sunday night, Clinton's campaign for the White House has been about as effective an economic stimulus program for himself as anything his clients have ever proposed for the nation. Clinton paid Penn a total of $8.9 million for direct mail, according to CQ MoneyLine. She paid Penn for polling, at $2.8 million. She even paid Penn $160,000 for consulting about polling, which presumably involved his telling her what an excellent pollster she'd hired. By Feb. 29, she also owed Penn's firm another $2.5 million for "consulting/polling," federal records show. March expenditures won't be revealed for another few weeks -- but through February, Clinton spent nearly 9 percent of the $138 million she's burned through in the race on Penn's firm alone.
Penn is this year's glaring example of a problem that has dogged American politics for years: the runaway costs of campaign consultants. But at a time when both Democratic presidential campaigns are boasting about riding a tide of small-dollar donations from everyday folks, out-of-control consultant fees seem to be an even more egregious waste of cash, undermining rhetorical claims that every supporter's dollars count.
Strictly speaking, all that Clinton money didn't go to Penn himself, but to Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, (http://www.psbresearch.com/) which Penn runs. It's a branch of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, (http://www.burson-marsteller.com/Default.aspx) which Penn also runs, and which the government of Colombia (http://www.burson-marsteller.com/Global_Network/Lists/OurOffice/dispform.aspx?id=87&nodeName=Latin%20America,2&subTitle=Bogot%C3%A1) hired to promote a free-trade deal that Clinton, like many of her supporters, opposes -- which is what led to Penn's resignation. It remains unclear how much money Penn got directly from the campaign. But considering he bought his Georgetown home for $5.1 million in 2003 (after which he proceeded to irritate his neighbors (http://dcmetrocentric.com/2008/03/06/clinton-campaign-construction-in-georgetown-ruffles-feathers/) by building an underground garage), it's safe to say that his personal bank account hasn't suffered from his campaign work.

http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/news/content/large.html@Right (http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/news/content/large.html@Right)
Getting rich off free-spending campaigns is, of course, a time-honored tradition in politics, and it isn't just Mark Penn who does it. Consultants typically take a percentage of the money (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/09/campaign_consultants/index.html) a candidate spends on whatever service it is they provide. Media consultants make more whenever they convince their clients they need to cut another ad, pollsters make a profit on each survey, and so on. Penn's counterpart as chief strategist on Barack Obama's campaign, David Axelrod, has seen at least $1.2 million paid to his Chicago-based firm, where David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, was a partner until he left to go work for the campaign. (Plouffe makes $12,000 a month in salary.) Obama has paid his chief pollster, Joel Benenson, $635,000 so far. Bob Shrum made at least $6 million for not getting John Kerry elected president four years ago. Raise your hand if you think you could have accomplished the same job for less.
Campaign finance (http://dir.salon.com/topics/campaign_finance/) experts say most people who give to candidates figure it's being spent on TV ads. What few of them know is how much of the "TV ad" budget winds up paying for a consultant's beach house. It's just about impossible to figure that out from public filings the way things stand now -- the Federal Elections Commission is far more concerned with where political money is coming from than where it's going. Candidates disclose in broad categories how they spend their cash -- like "media," "polling," "consulting," etc. It's up to the operatives to decide how much detail to provide, and most provide none at all. So the public is left with rough metrics to go by.
"We all know that these guys are making this much money," said Democratic election lawyer Leslie Kerman. "You can tell by the houses they buy and the vacation homes. They're all talkers. They don’t talk about how much money they make, but they talk about what they buy with all the money they make."
The Clinton team seems to have been loose with the purse strings even by current standards. With less money to spend, Clinton has paid her top officials more than Barack Obama (http://dir.salon.com/topics/barack_obama/) has paid his, winning fewer elected delegates in the process. Besides Penn, there's Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson. He appears to have set up a consulting firm for the sole purpose of working for Clinton, called Gotham Acme, which has taken in more than $700,000 since the race started. No other client has paid the firm a cent since 2003. (Meanwhile, John McCain (http://dir.salon.com/topics/john_mccain/)'s team has probably made the least money of any successful candidate's team in history; his senior advisors -- mostly well-compensated lobbyists in their day jobs -- worked without salary for months after his campaign's near-collapse last summer. Some are still not getting paid now.)
All this overspending used to be more or less a victimless crime, back when campaigns were funded almost entirely by lobbyists and rich supporters who could afford to send in a $2,300 check for the primaries and another $2,300 check for the general election without worrying how the money was spent. But this is the year of the small donor. Contributions of less than $200, small enough that federal regulators don't track them individually, have accounted for 41 percent of Obama's budget (http://www.cfinst.org/president/pdf/Pres08_M3_Table2.pdf) so far, and 26 percent of Clinton's. In February, for the first time ever, small donors made up the majority of contributions (http://www.cfinst.org/president/pdf/Pres08_M3_Table1.pdf) to both candidates. Suddenly, political fundraising is a game for the masses. ..................

.............But what are they getting for their money? Do the seniors who aren't taking medication really think Wolfson's daily conference calls with the press are worth the $8,000 a week he made while Clinton lost primary after primary in February? Did Penn's direct mail really give Clinton an edge worth $8.9 million in the race against Obama? Don't candidates who are suddenly raising most of their money from people who can barely afford to send it in have some responsibility not to waste it once they get it? The sheer amount of money raised -- and spent -- this election ought to finally focus some attention on the consultant pay scales quietly established over the years in Washington.
Of course, since Clinton never felt the need to fire Mark Penn, the overpaid pollster, until he turned into Mark Penn, the overpaid pollster with a politically inconvenient client, maybe not much will change. Even if campaign aides wanted to rein in consulting fees, they might not have time to do anything about it. "There's so much going on in the campaign that they don't usually have the financial controls to go back and say, 'Wait a minute, this consultant's making $500,000 in profits this month,'" said Kerman, who tries to push her clients' consultants to take flat fees instead of percentages.
Maybe the whole Penn saga will encourage some donors to contact campaigns to demand more accountability regarding overpaid consultants. As for Penn himself, he isn't even really departing. He may be out as chief strategist, but reportedly he'll keep providing polls and advice to Clinton.
For a fee, of course.

Anybody give a damn about the issues? Money is the name of the game.

[pagirl]

Cashing in on the Clinton campaign
Anybody give a damn about the issues? Money is the name of the game.

:spbx: Politicians are all bought and when they talk (if they talk) on the issues it's just a bunch of BS anyway...

[Sexy Kitykat]

Politicians are just like teenagers. You know they are lying because their mouth is moving.

[yaser]

Politicians are just like teenagers. You know they are lying because their mouth is moving.

Kity,I wonder if we encourage them to do so..

[Cotties]

wow...I'm thinking you 2 ladies have issues:spbx: Politicians are all bought and when they talk (if they talk) on the issues it's just a bunch of BS anyway...

Politicians are just like teenagers. You know they are lying because their mouth is moving....as most women do:sc

[SirFox]

This may not be news for some. We will have to watch Iran, Israel in the next few days.
New centrifuges being installed in Iran, and Israel saying that it will not hesitate to bomb Iran...in self defence.

[Annie]

wow...I'm thinking you 2 ladies have issues

...as most women do:sc
Excuse me? Did I read that right?

[SirFox]

Currently the Armed Services report by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker with a statement by Senator McCain. Waiting for Hillary....

[Annie]

Racially tinged comment may be end of Carpentersville trustee's career

By her own admission, the comment Carpentersville Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski made over the weekend to her African-American neighbors' children spells the beginning of the end of her political career.

On Saturday, police issued the first-term trustee a $75 citation for disorderly conduct after Ramirez-Sliwinski compared her Sparrow Road neighbors' tree-climbing children to monkeys, Sliwinski said Sunday afternoon.

The neighbors say it was a racist comment, but Ramirez-Sliwinski maintains that her comment was misinterpreted.

"Technically, I don't consider it a mistake because that's not what I meant," she said. "They're children. They're climbing in a tree. What would you think?"

Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Hispanic who has been a strong advocate for the village's illegal immigrant population, says she has no plans to challenge the citation. She's already decided this will be her last term, believing this incident won't do her any good in the court of public opinion. Her term expires in April 2009.

"After this incident, I probably will not run again," she said through tears. "In the eyes of the public, this is wrong."

Police had no comment Sunday. They are expected to release a report on the incident today.

Village President Bill Sarto could not be reached Sunday.

The incident took place on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Ramirez-Sliwinski's next-door neighbors, Dametta Stewart and Georgia Lockett, were letting their children enjoy the warm temperatures outside their homes, they said.

Their sons were climbing a tree in front of the Stewart house, Stewart said. Stewart says she was in the house when she heard the trustee tell the boys they were "making the neighborhood look bad and they're a bunch of monkeys."

Georgia Lockett, who lives next door to Stewart, said she heard the whole thing and called the police.

"Why would anyone speak to a kid like that? I feel that was a racist statement," Lockett said Sunday.

The very idea that someone could ever accuse her of being racist is absurd, Ramirez-Sliwinski said.

"If anyone knows what it's like to be discriminated against, I do," she said.

To drive her point home, she singled out the Barack Obama campaign sign on her front yard.

"I support African-Americans," she said, adding that she's an Obama delegate in the upcoming Democratic convention.

Ramirez-Sliwinski says her neighbors have got her all wrong.

"My comment was, 'This is not a tree for them to be climbing in like monkeys,'" she said, adding that she calls her own grandchildren monkeys. "I would have said the same thing if they were Mexican kids."

Ramirez-Sliwinski says she told the boys to get out of the tree because she didn't want them to fall and hurt themselves. And, as head of the village's park committee, she has a duty to protect trees as well, she said.

The bad blood between the neighbors has festered for years. Lockett and Stewart, who together have lived on Sparrow Road for five years, charge that Ramirez-Sliwinski frequently complains about their children and inserts herself into the family's personal affairs, including the way they sort their garbage on trash pick-up days.

Ramirez-Sliwinski says she's only doing her part to keep Carpentersville beautiful and says it would reflect badly on her if her street was left untidy.

The next village board meeting on April 15 is expected to be a tense one for Ramirez-Sliwinski.

Last week, she backed an ordinance to declare Trustee Paul Humpfer's seat vacant after he was convicted of domestic battery. The resolution came nearly a month after Humpfer was found guilty on four counts of domestic battery, including hitting his wife with a baseball bat during a May 2007 argument.

Ramirez-Sliwinski has previously locked horns with Humpfer and Trustee Judy Sigwalt over how best to handle the village's illegal immigration issues.

After the board failed to support her on the Humpfer issue last week, she rebuked the trustees, accusing them of not caring about Carpentersville's image.

Going into the next meeting, Ramirez-Sliwinski expects that she, too, will be asked to resign, something she says she will not do.

"I'm not going to pull a Denny Hastert and just walk away," she said.
If other trustees try to force her off the board, Trustee Ed Ritter says he will not participate in such efforts.

"I'm not willing to hang someone over one misspoken word," he said. "I'm not going to pass judgment on her based on one small incident."

[spare_change]

Racially tinged comment may be end of Carpentersville trustee's career

By her own admission, the comment Carpentersville Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski made over the weekend to her African-American neighbors' children spells the beginning of the end of her political career.

On Saturday, police issued the first-term trustee a $75 citation for disorderly conduct after Ramirez-Sliwinski compared her Sparrow Road neighbors' tree-climbing children to monkeys, Sliwinski said Sunday afternoon.

The neighbors say it was a racist comment, but Ramirez-Sliwinski maintains that her comment was misinterpreted.

"Technically, I don't consider it a mistake because that's not what I meant," she said. "They're children. They're climbing in a tree. What would you think?"

Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Hispanic who has been a strong advocate for the village's illegal immigrant population, says she has no plans to challenge the citation. She's already decided this will be her last term, believing this incident won't do her any good in the court of public opinion. Her term expires in April 2009.

"After this incident, I probably will not run again," she said through tears. "In the eyes of the public, this is wrong."

Police had no comment Sunday. They are expected to release a report on the incident today.

Village President Bill Sarto could not be reached Sunday.

The incident took place on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Ramirez-Sliwinski's next-door neighbors, Dametta Stewart and Georgia Lockett, were letting their children enjoy the warm temperatures outside their homes, they said.

Their sons were climbing a tree in front of the Stewart house, Stewart said. Stewart says she was in the house when she heard the trustee tell the boys they were "making the neighborhood look bad and they're a bunch of monkeys."

Georgia Lockett, who lives next door to Stewart, said she heard the whole thing and called the police.

"Why would anyone speak to a kid like that? I feel that was a racist statement," Lockett said Sunday.

The very idea that someone could ever accuse her of being racist is absurd, Ramirez-Sliwinski said.

"If anyone knows what it's like to be discriminated against, I do," she said.

To drive her point home, she singled out the Barack Obama campaign sign on her front yard.

"I support African-Americans," she said, adding that she's an Obama delegate in the upcoming Democratic convention.

Ramirez-Sliwinski says her neighbors have got her all wrong.

"My comment was, 'This is not a tree for them to be climbing in like monkeys,'" she said, adding that she calls her own grandchildren monkeys. "I would have said the same thing if they were Mexican kids."

Ramirez-Sliwinski says she told the boys to get out of the tree because she didn't want them to fall and hurt themselves. And, as head of the village's park committee, she has a duty to protect trees as well, she said.

The bad blood between the neighbors has festered for years. Lockett and Stewart, who together have lived on Sparrow Road for five years, charge that Ramirez-Sliwinski frequently complains about their children and inserts herself into the family's personal affairs, including the way they sort their garbage on trash pick-up days.

Ramirez-Sliwinski says she's only doing her part to keep Carpentersville beautiful and says it would reflect badly on her if her street was left untidy.

The next village board meeting on April 15 is expected to be a tense one for Ramirez-Sliwinski.

Last week, she backed an ordinance to declare Trustee Paul Humpfer's seat vacant after he was convicted of domestic battery. The resolution came nearly a month after Humpfer was found guilty on four counts of domestic battery, including hitting his wife with a baseball bat during a May 2007 argument.

Ramirez-Sliwinski has previously locked horns with Humpfer and Trustee Judy Sigwalt over how best to handle the village's illegal immigration issues.

After the board failed to support her on the Humpfer issue last week, she rebuked the trustees, accusing them of not caring about Carpentersville's image.

Going into the next meeting, Ramirez-Sliwinski expects that she, too, will be asked to resign, something she says she will not do.

"I'm not going to pull a Denny Hastert and just walk away," she said.
If other trustees try to force her off the board, Trustee Ed Ritter says he will not participate in such efforts.

"I'm not willing to hang someone over one misspoken word," he said. "I'm not going to pass judgment on her based on one small incident."

Political correctness run amok.

[Annie]

Political correctness run amok.I had no clue at all when I nick-named my kid "Monkey Boy" for all the climbing he did!

[thebouncer]

Tony Blair looks like that dude from the public service announcments on drug use. It was like early 80's anyone remember those? I made be making this up the 80's are a bit of a blur

[thebouncer]

This lady is out of her tree! I'm 34 and I dont' ride the subway alone! She says its like the 1960's in NY again? I wanna know where she's living!

Mom lets 9-year-old take subway home alone

Columnist stirs controversy with experiment in childhood independence


updated 9:49 a.m. ET, Thurs., April. 3, 2008

Once upon a time in New York City, it wasn’t a big deal if pre-teen kids rode the subways and buses alone. Today, as Lenore Skenazy has discovered, a kid who goes out without a nanny, a helmet and a security detail is a national news story, and his mother is a candidate for child-abuse charges.

A columnist for The New York Sun, Skenazy recently left her 9-year-old son, Izzy, at Bloomingdale’s in midtown Manhattan with a Metrocard for the subway, a subway map, $20, and told him she’d see him when he got back home. She wrote a column about it and has been amazed at the chord she struck among New Yorkers who remember being kids in those more innocent times.

“So many people – the ones who aren’t castigating me as crazy – are all regaling me about the first time they took the subway,” she told TODAY’s Ann Curry on Thursday in New York. “And for most people, it’s a great, happy memory. People love that independence.”


Izzy, who is now 10, nodded in agreement and insisted it was no big deal. He had been nagging his mother for a long time to let him ride home alone, and finally she agreed to let him take the downtown Lexington Avenue subway and then transfer to a crosstown bus to get home from Bloomingdale’s.

“I was like, ‘Finally!’ ” Izzy said of his reaction when his mom finally caved in to his nagging. “I think that it’s a really easy, simple thing to get home.”
And that was Skenazy’s point in her column: The era is long past when Times Square was a fetid sump and taking a walk in Central Park after dark was tantamount to committing suicide. Recent federal statistics show New York to be one of the safest cities in the nation – right up there with Provo, Utah, in fact.

“Times are back to 1963,” Skenzay said. “It’s safe. It’s a great time to be a kid in the city.”

The problem is that people read about children who are abducted and murdered and fear takes over, she said. And she doesn’t think fear should rule our lives.

As she wrote in her column about Izzy’s big adventure: “Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating — for us and for them.”

When she said goodbye to Izzy in the handbags department, Skenazy didn’t even leave him with a cell phone. Instead, she gave him a couple of quarters so he could call home on a pay phone if he got lost.

Dr. Ruth Peters, a parenting expert and TODAY Show contributor, agreed that children should be allowed independent experiences, but felt there are better – and safer – ways to have them than the one Skenazy chose.
“I’m not so much concerned that he’s going to be abducted, but there’s a lot of people who would rough him up,” she said. “There’s some bullies and things like that. He could have gotten the same experience in a safer manner.”

“It’s safe to go on the subway,” Skenazy replied. “It’s safe to be a kid. It’s safe to ride your bike on the streets. We’re like brainwashed because of all the stories we hear that it isn’t safe. But those are the exceptions. That’s why they make it to the news. This is like, ‘Boy boils egg.’ He did something that any 9-year-old could do.”

Addressing the same subject in her column, she had written: “These days, when a kid dies, the world - i.e., cable TV - blames the parents. It's simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, ‘The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can't protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.’ ”
She said that people ask her how she would feel if one of those terrible and rare events happened to her son.

“It would be horrible,” she said. “But you can’t live your life that way; you could slip in the shower.”

“I don’t think this is just about the subway,” Peters countered. “I think it’s a difference of opinion of when is the child able to have independent activities. My thought on it is, it’s not just the child, it’s the other environment. If you can do something more safely, it’s just more appropriate.”

Said Skenazy, “I just think about all the college kids who are still sending their essays home to be edited by their parents. I talked to one lady whose daughter sends her pictures when she’s trying on clothes: ‘Mom, what do you think of this? What do you think of that?’ At some point you have to let go and let them live their life.”
Or ride the subway alone.
I am 6' 220 and grew up in Brooklyn and I'm not comfortable in the subway alone

[marriedwomanchaser]

I seen on msn where a 16 year old woman was beat up by her husband in Texas, I still am pulling it up to read about it

[Cotties]

I thought we were all playing a game of stereotypes...and it was my turnExcuse me? Did I read that right?..maybe I should have said most women have issues with me...

[SirFox]

Court terminates 8-year-old girl's marriage

Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:21pm EDT

SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni court ordered the marriage of an eight-year-old girl terminated on Tuesday because she had not reached puberty.
The court also ordered the child's family to pay about $250 in compensation to the 30-year-old ex-husband.
The girl's lawyer and human rights activist Shatha Nasser said the minor had filed a suit in April asking for divorce and told the court that her husband had been physically abusing her and forcing her to have "sex with him after hitting her."
One of the people attending the trial volunteered to pay the compensation, the lawyer said, but did not explain the reason why the court ordered the compensation.
The ruling terminated the marriage instead of granting a divorce to prevent the husband from seeking to reinstate the marriage, according to the lawyer.
Many minor girls in Arab countries that observe tribal traditions are married to older husbands but not before puberty. Such marriages are also driven by poverty in countries like Yemen, one of the poorest countries outside Africa.
(Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; writing by Inal Ersan)


© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved


You are asking about various cultures, habits? This may seem extreme to you and to me. These are some of the concepts that we need to work with when we go there. The sooner we realise that, the sooner the West will have a much more coherent set of foreign policies towards these cultures, and countries .

[Sensual Woman]

Court terminates 8-year-old girl's marriage

Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:21pm EDT

SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni court ordered the marriage of an eight-year-old girl terminated on Tuesday because she had not reached puberty.
The court also ordered the child's family to pay about $250 in compensation to the 30-year-old ex-husband.
The girl's lawyer and human rights activist Shatha Nasser said the minor had filed a suit in April asking for divorce and told the court that her husband had been physically abusing her and forcing her to have "sex with him after hitting her."
One of the people attending the trial volunteered to pay the compensation, the lawyer said, but did not explain the reason why the court ordered the compensation.
The ruling terminated the marriage instead of granting a divorce to prevent the husband from seeking to reinstate the marriage, according to the lawyer.
Many minor girls in Arab countries that observe tribal traditions are married to older husbands but not before puberty. Such marriages are also driven by poverty in countries like Yemen, one of the poorest countries outside Africa.
(Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; writing by Inal Ersan)


© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved


You are asking about various cultures, habits? This may seem extreme to you and to me. These are some of the concepts that we need to work with when we go there. The sooner we realise that, the sooner the West will have a much more coherent set of foreign policies towards these cultures, and countries .


Call me old fashioned, but a thirty year old guy marrying a girl the same age of my daughter who hasn't reached puberty yet does not sit well with me, regardless of what culture they are from:nu

[SirFox]

Call me old fashioned, but a thirty year old guy marrying a girl the same age of my daughter who hasn't reached puberty yet does not sit well with me, regardless of what culture they are from:nu

SENSUAL: I WAS NOT CLEAR....and so this is an UPDATE...

I am not thinking of the court and what it decided. What I am saying is that we have to consider as acceptable ( even if we disagree with the concept) that an eight year old little girl can get married with an old guy...( Holy Cow...just realised that I am 55 years old).....

[Sensual Woman]

SENSUAL: I WAS NOT CLEAR....and so this is an UPDATE...

I am not thinking of the court and what it decided. What I am saying is that we have to consider as acceptable ( even if we disagree with the concept) that an eight year old little girl can get married with an old guy...( Holy Cow...just realised that I am 55 years old).....


I still can't accept it...12 or 13, even 11 maybe...but not 8 year old girls. It really bothers me.

[spare_change]

SENSUAL: I WAS NOT CLEAR....and so this is an UPDATE...

I am not thinking of the court and what it decided. What I am saying is that we have to consider as acceptable ( even if we disagree with the concept) that an eight year old little girl can get married with an old guy...( Holy Cow...just realised that I am 55 years old).....

Absolutely. We don't have to AGREE, we only have to ACCEPT.

We cannot judge them by our standards, just as they can't judge us by theirs. We have to ignore the differences, accentuate the commonalities, and move toward a working relationship.

[SirFox]

If we have problems understanding the Middle East, its traditions, its ways, I think we may have not seen anything at all.

China and its deployment of power will make it a MAJOR player in the coming years. CHINA is able to call the shots over reporters who disagree with it. Students are vilified by Internet web sites, and, China is also there for keeps as we see its strategy over Iran.

It is to be hoped that there are many Chinese experts out there, who have learned Chinese, its various customs as it may come in handy in the coming days in understanding their line of thoughts.

One thing is certain: a new superpower exists, and they will flex their muscles on an international and national basis. They will start calling the shots.

[spare_change]

If we have problems understanding the Middle East, its traditions, its ways, I think we may have not seen anything at all.

China and its deployment of power will make it a MAJOR player in the coming years. CHINA is able to call the shots over reporters who disagree with it. Students are vilified by Internet web sites, and, China is also there for keeps as we see its strategy over Iran.

It is to be hoped that there are many Chinese experts out there, who have learned Chinese, its various customs as it may come in handy in the coming days in understanding their line of thoughts.

One thing is certain: a new superpower exists, and they will flex their muscles on an international and national basis. They will start calling the shots.


I quite disagree. Over the next couple years, you will hear about China, but the reality is that it is just another two-bit oppressive regime. It doesn't have the economic or political base necessary to put it into a position to have a long term impact. It will always be a big nation that relies on grunt labor because it will always have to restrict the education of its citizenry in order to keep them in line. There's a lot of potential there, but it won't be realized.

[pagirl]

I quite disagree. Over the next couple years, you will hear about China, but the reality is that it is just another two-bit oppressive regime. It doesn't have the economic or political base necessary to put it into a position to have a long term impact. It will always be a big nation that relies on grunt labor because it will always have to restrict the education of its citizenry in order to keep them in line. There's a lot of potential there, but it won't be realized.


I have to go with Sir Fox on this one. China has been silently sneaking up in the world financially and will have a major impact on the years to come. I believe they are a nation to worry about.

[Cotties]

as the Tetris champion I do respect your ass and point of view....I do think China has been a major player for quite a few years now but it will take 20 plus years to see how far they can develop their true mightI have to go with Sir Fox on this one. China has been silently sneaking up in the world financially and will have a major impact on the years to come. I believe they are a nation to worry about.

[cherokeered]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24183188&GT1=43001

Sigh, thanks a lot for this war........

Mental health injuries scar 300,000 U.S. troops
Only half of vets have sought help for depression, post-traumatic stress

[Momma]

I'm not sure how many of you have heard about this....but a little over a week ago....In Merritt, B.C., Canada....3 little children were found dead, Murdered, in their home and their Father was the prime suspect, he had disappeared....Well....They found him, he had been hiding out in the wooded area surrounding Merritt....A man who does tracking for a living found him and placed him under citizens arrest....They took this man into custody then to the Hospital to be checked out....but all I can say is that if he is the person who did this....I'm just glad they got him

[cherokeered]

I'm not sure how many of you have heard about this....but a little over a week ago....In Merritt, B.C., Canada....3 little children were found dead, Murdered, in their home and their Father was the prime suspect, he had disappeared....Well....They found him, he had been hiding out in the wooded area surrounding Merritt....A man who does tracking for a living found him and placed him under citizens arrest....They took this man into custody then to the Hospital to be checked out....but all I can say is that if he is the person who did this....I'm just glad they got him

yup, read about it on the internet....glad they got him too...either way, if he is guilty or not, they need to find out

[fever]

SENSUAL: I WAS NOT CLEAR....and so this is an UPDATE...

I am not thinking of the court and what it decided. What I am saying is that we have to consider as acceptable ( even if we disagree with the concept) that an eight year old little girl can get married with an old guy...( Holy Cow...just realised that I am 55 years old).....

Absolutely. We don't have to AGREE, we only have to ACCEPT.

We cannot judge them by our standards, just as they can't judge us by theirs. We have to ignore the differences, accentuate the commonalities, and move toward a working relationship.

Does the same hold true for FLDS in Texas? Personally, I'm equally as uncomfortable with the choices they make regarding young girls...but I wonder if a moral code is universal or specific. Can they too not be judged by external standards?

[spare_change]

Does the same hold true for FLDS in Texas? Personally, I'm equally as uncomfortable with the choices they make regarding young girls...but I wonder if a moral code is universal or specific. Can they too not be judged by external standards?

Actually, the two much different ----

The FLDS incident happened within our society, and as such, should be judged by our standards, whereas the other happened in an Arab society, and should be judged by their standards.

I must admit, though, that I am a bit disconcerted by the government action on the FLDS. Moral crimes are not necessarily civil crimes ... and until a civil crime occurred, the government should stay out of it. This definitely smacks of using the government to impose our moral standards. I suspect the civil rights of the FLDS people have been violated, without probably cause.

[SirFox]

South Africa permits Chinese arms headed for Zimbabwe APA-Johannesburg (South Africa)

The South African government has defended the releasing of a Chinese consignment of arms destined for Zimbabwe which is on board a Chinese ship moored in the eastern port of Durban, APA learnt here Friday.

The ship, christened An Yue Jiang and which is reportedly loaded with 77 tons of mortars, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades, was boarded by the South African Police Services (SAPS) explosives experts on Thursday.

Reports of the arms shipment has sparked a political outcry here, with opposition parties calling on the government to block the consignment to Zimbabwe\’s army.

The ship\’s master, a Captain Sunaijun, confirmed that the cargo was destined to Zimbabwe.

Inspector Nicholas Gunther of the South African Explosives Unit in Durban confirmed the vessel was carrying a shipment of arms.

The Chinese had been in Durban waters since Monday.


Robert Mugabe is destroying his own country. With a current 165,000% inflation, if the international community does not do anything, there will be famine like that in Haiti.
Don't count on President Mkei of South Africa to do anything.

[fever]

Actually, the two much different ----

The FLDS incident happened within our society, and as such, should be judged by our standards, whereas the other happened in an Arab society, and should be judged by their standards.

I must admit, though, that I am a bit disconcerted by the government action on the FLDS. Moral crimes are not necessarily civil crimes ... and until a civil crime occurred, the government should stay out of it. This definitely smacks of using the government to impose our moral standards. I suspect the civil rights of the FLDS people have been violated, without probably cause.

I could not agree more about the FLDS civil rights issue...and w/the number of people involved in this one I doubt we'll never know what happened. Too many defendents and lawyers (who rightfully must protect their clients first and foremost) to get to the "truth." However, I suspect that this community, like other fundementalist religious groups, often place themselves above civil law and voilations will be found. Whether they will rise to the spectular level required to justify the state's action (a la Branch Dividians) remains to be seen.

My question is, where do you draw the morality line? What is the source of a moral code? There are some violations that simply lie beyond cultural norms...that are so abhorent that you can't help but say it is wrong -- Nazi Germany and Darfur today are painfully obvious examples. As the mother of a young son, I hope that whether this 8 year old girl deserves protection is above any particular society's norms. JMHO

[Barkiss]

I must admit, though, that I am a bit disconcerted by the government action on the FLDS. Moral crimes are not necessarily civil crimes ... and until a civil crime occurred, the government should stay out of it. This definitely smacks of using the government to impose our moral standards. I suspect the civil rights of the FLDS people have been violated, without probably cause.

Shouldn't they be held to the same marital and child protection laws that any other citizen of the U.S. would be held to?

[spare_change]

Shouldn't they be held to the same marital and child protection laws that any other citizen of the U.S. would be held to?

Obviously yes ... but I'm not sure the question is quite that simple.

These people have a right to live their lives as they see fit ... within the constraints of current law. If there is proven to be violations of the law, of course they should be punished.

But .. on the other side ... they have a right to live their lives as they see fit ... without interference from the government or the rest of society. For the government to create a reason to go in there and disrupt their lives just because they don't fall within societal norms is just plain wrong. To date, they haven't been able to validate the justification for the search warrants .. the supposed 16 yr old girl doesn't seem to exist. There seems to be no mass exodus of women from the place ... in fact, they seem to be returning to the safety and comfort of the place. We see the state taking 400 children away from their parents, but we don't see any proof of wrongdoing to make that an appropriate course of action. It just seems like we are using government law enforcement to impose a societal viewpoint, rather than impose the rule of law.

I am not pro-polygamy, nor am I in favor of marrying off 15 year old girls. But, I am in favor of personal freedom, free choice, and non-interference from the government. I'm just not sure these people are getting a fair shake.

[Barkiss]

Obviously yes ... but I'm not sure the question is quite that simple.

These people have a right to live their lives as they see fit ... within the constraints of current law. If there is proven to be violations of the law, of course they should be punished.

But .. on the other side ... they have a right to live their lives as they see fit ... without interference from the government or the rest of society. For the government to create a reason to go in there and disrupt their lives just because they don't fall within societal norms is just plain wrong. To date, they haven't been able to validate the justification for the search warrants .. the supposed 16 yr old girl doesn't seem to exist. There seems to be no mass exodus of women from the place ... in fact, they seem to be returning to the safety and comfort of the place. We see the state taking 400 children away from their parents, but we don't see any proof of wrongdoing to make that an appropriate course of action. It just seems like we are using government law enforcement to impose a societal viewpoint, rather than impose the rule of law.

I am not pro-polygamy, nor am I in favor of marrying off 15 year old girls. But, I am in favor of personal freedom, free choice, and non-interference from the government. I'm just not sure these people are getting a fair shake.

Isn't that the reason they are now in court?...to determine if any laws have been broken? I guess I would be more prone to declare their rights have been violated if they children are kept without any reasoning; however that is yet to be determined. If any of these kids have been abused or forced to marry at young ages, then I applaud the Texas legal system for getting involved in a truly no-win situation.

[spare_change]

Isn't that the reason they are now in court?...to determine if any laws have been broken? I guess I would be more prone to declare their rights have been violated if they children are kept without any reasoning; however that is yet to be determined. If any of these kids have been abused or forced to marry at young ages, then I applaud the Texas legal system for getting involved in a truly no-win situation.


Go to court to prove that they might have broken a law? Charge into their house, take all the kids away, lock everybody up because they MIGHT have broken a law? Sounds kinda bass-ackward to me.

How do you square parents rights with society overview? The only difference between being hauled into court for spanking your child in KMart (because you believe he needs to feel the consequences of his actions) and raising your child in an environment you believe is beneficial for the child is a matter of degree. Forced to marry at young ages? Who decides? Obviously, in Arab countries, 8 isn't too young. Is 12? 14? 16? 25? 30?

What if they taught these girls that if they got pregnant, they had to marry the father, even if they didn't love them, and couldn't get an abortion? Clearly, those two tenets defy societal norms. What if they taught these girls that the highest calling is to forsake all men and give their lives over to spreading their religious beliefs? (Oh wait -- that's the Catholic church -- my mistake).

I think you see my point .... we are telling them how they may, or may not, practice their religion, how they may, or may not, practice their religion, and what they may, or may not, teach their children. But, we won't prosecute parents who deny their sick children adequate medical care because of their religious dogma? That's a pretty slippery slope, and I'm not sure I want the government deciding what is appropriate, and what is inappropriate, religious practice or appropriate, or inappropriate, parental oversight.

[SirFox]

Psychics see big trouble over new laws

Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:52am EDT By Peter Griffiths
LONDON (Reuters) - Fortune-tellers, mediums and spiritual healers marched on the home of the British prime minister at Downing Street on Friday to protest against new laws they fear will lead to them being "persecuted and prosecuted".
Organizers say that replacing the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 with new consumer protection rules will remove key legal protection for "genuine" mediums.


They think skeptics might bring malicious prosecutions to force spiritualists to prove in court that they can heal people, see into the future or talk to the dead.


Psychics also fear they will have to give disclaimers describing their services as entertainment or as scientific experiments with unpredictable results.


"If I'm giving a healing to someone, I don't want to have to stand there and say I don't believe in what I'm doing," said Carole McEntee-Taylor, a healer who co-founded the Spiritual Workers Association.


The group delivered a petition with 5,000 names to the prime minister's office, although Gordon Brown is away in the United States.
With the changes expected to come into force next month, spiritualists have faced a barrage of headlines gleefully suggesting that they should have seen it coming.

But many don't see the funny side. They say the new rules will shift the responsibility of proving they are not frauds from prosecutors and onto them.

"By repealing the Act, the onus will go round the other way and we will have to prove we are genuine," McEntee-Taylor told Reuters. "No other religion has to do that."


The government said the new regulations form part of a European Union directive that is meant to harmonize unfair trading laws across the EU. It will introduce a ban on traders "treating consumers unfairly".


The British Humanist Association, a charity which campaigns against religion and supernatural beliefs, said stricter regulations were overdue because the current laws don't work.


"It is misleading for spiritualists to claim that, as ‘religious' practitioners they should not be regulated under consumer laws," said Chief Executive Hanne Stinson.


"The psychic industry is huge and lucrative and it exploits some very vulnerable, and some very gullible, people with claims for which there is no scientific evidence."
(Editing by Steve Addison and Paul Casciato)

[Barkiss]

Go to court to prove that they might have broken a law? Charge into their house, take all the kids away, lock everybody up because they MIGHT have broken a law? Sounds kinda bass-ackward to me.

Isn't that what "innocent until proven guilty" means?

The police are not the jury. They are taught to react to people breaking the documented law. In this case it is perceived that children were being abused, and in those circumstances it is the legal responsibility of our justice departments to remove any and all children who are in jeopardy. It's now the court's problem to decide if the law was actually broken, and how to handle it. If the courts find that no documented law was broken, but that we just don't like the way they lead their life, so we are going to keep the kids....I'll join you in the declaration their rights were unjustly stepped on. Until then...I'll sleep soundly knowing those children are safe and away at "camp" until it can be proven they are safe with their parents.

[spare_change]

Isn't that what "innocent until proven guilty" means?

The police are not the jury. They are taught to react to people breaking the documented law. In this case it is perceived that children were being abused, and in those circumstances it is the legal responsibility of our justice departments to remove any and all children who are in jeopardy. It's now the court's problem to decide if the law was actually broken, and how to handle it. If the courts find that no documented law was broken, but that we just don't like the way they lead their life, so we are going to keep the kids....I'll join you in the declaration their rights were unjustly stepped on. Until then...I'll sleep soundly knowing those children are safe and away at "camp" until it can be proven they are safe with their parents.

Good idea!! Go ahead and do it .... we'll apologize later.

[Barkiss]

Good idea!! Go ahead and do it .... we'll apologize later.

Exaggeration at its finest. The Texas police department had reason, obtained a warrant, and fulfilled the judge's request. Unless I missed something, this is how the law portion of our legal system works.

[spare_change]

Exaggeration at its finest. The Texas police department had reason, obtained a warrant, and fulfilled the judge's request. Unless I missed something, this is how the law portion of our legal system works.

You ain't even begun to see exaggeration!!! (Do the words "9 inches" mean anything to you?)

The "reason" would seem to be a mysterious series of phone calls from an unknown cell phone from an unknown, and not to be found, 16 year old girl? That would be sufficient cause? I don't think so -- unless, of course, you tie it to the rumors going around the town about sex orgies and human sacrifices and grave robbing and animal mutilations.

So, let's see -- why were they such a private organization, barricading themselves in a compound, collecting weapons, and separating themselves from regular society? Perhaps it's because they feared that the police would come storming in, take their kids, seize their possessions, for no apparent reason!! Oh wait -- that's what it appears to have happened, wasn't it?

[Barkiss]

You ain't even begun to see exaggeration!!! (Do the words "9 inches" mean anything to you?)

The "reason" would seem to be a mysterious series of phone calls from an unknown cell phone from an unknown, and not to be found, 16 year old girl? That would be sufficient cause? I don't think so -- unless, of course, you tie it to the rumors going around the town about sex orgies and human sacrifices and grave robbing and animal mutilations.

So, let's see -- why were they such a private organization, barricading themselves in a compound, collecting weapons, and separating themselves from regular society? Perhaps it's because they feared that the police would come storming in, take their kids, seize their possessions, for no apparent reason!! Oh wait -- that's what it appears to have happened, wasn't it?

Not from my perspective, nor obviously the opinion of multiple Texas legal departments.

It might be suggested that a small group of men have found a way to brainwash and control a small community. Where the heirarchy of that community reaps all the benefits. Where they use "religion" as reason to break laws and control their population.

I heard one of the ladies of that community this evening on the news ask the question (and I paraphrase): What would you do if your twelve year old told you she wanted to get married? Would you tell her know, or grant her wish if that's what she wants?

To be honest, I really do not need to hear anymore. I do not care if it is their beliefs or religious callings, if a child is being abused, sexually or mentally, we have not only the right, but the obligation as a society to get involved.

[spare_change]

Not from my perspective, nor obviously the opinion of multiple Texas legal departments.

It might be suggested that a small group of men have found a way to brainwash and control a small community. Where the heirarchy of that community reaps all the benefits. Where they use "religion" as reason to break laws and control their population.

I heard one of the ladies of that community this evening on the news ask the question (and I paraphrase): What would you do if your twelve year old told you she wanted to get married? Would you tell her know, or grant her wish if that's what she wants?

To be honest, I really do not need to hear anymore. I do not care if it is their beliefs or religious callings, if a child is being abused, sexually or mentally, we have not only the right, but the obligation as a society to get involved.

Afraid the opinion of the "numerous Texas legal departments" doesn't carry a hell of a lot of weight --- they might be the problem, and they are certainly motivated to justify their own actions.

Didn't need to hear more? I've heard of a rush to judgment and a leap to conclusions, but I get the impression you're doing both at the same time!

Cheers.

[Misty]

Here is my two penny and a bob on the subject.

First, polygamy or monogamy or any such thing between consenting adults is just fine as far as I am concerned.
However, the taking of child brides (no matter in which culture) I do not think is justified .... I can make myself understand the context and circumstance of such an act but will not condone it ... and I do happen to be from a country where this is still common practice.
I DO feel that free choice and freedom to live and do as we please is a very neat privilege indeed .... however, it also involves knowing our rights and duties as a civil human being.
I am famous for saying that I dont give a damn for what anybody (society) has to say about me ...... yet even I know and willing toe certain lines that give me the privilege of being a member of it


aaah what the hell :crs

[Cotties]

Weight Watchers demonstrator accused of shoplifting cupcakes at Port St.

http://media.tcpalm.com/tcp/content/img/photos/2008/04/18/kelly%20barber-9940_t220.JPG (http://www.tcpalm.com/photos/2008/apr/18/72505/) Kelly L. Barber





PORT ST. LUCIE — A woman involved in a Weight Watchers demo at a Publix was arrested after shoplifting cupcakes and other items, according to a police report obtained Friday.
A loss prevention official told police that Kelly L. Barber, 47, was in the store in the 3200 block of Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard Thursday “conducting a demo for Weight Watchers.”
The loss prevention official said she saw Barber “conceal store items” in a blue bin and leave the store without paying for the goods, which included Weight Watchers cupcakes, a book and teeth whitening strips.
“When questioned, Kelly explained she just wanted to whiten her teeth and stated it was stupid she stole the items as she had never done this before,” the report states. “Kelly did not have an explanation for all the other items.”

[SaltyLime]

Weight Watchers demonstrator accused of shoplifting cupcakes at Port St.

http://media.tcpalm.com/tcp/content/img/photos/2008/04/18/kelly%20barber-9940_t220.JPG (http://www.tcpalm.com/photos/2008/apr/18/72505/) Kelly L. Barber





PORT ST. LUCIE — A woman involved in a Weight Watchers demo at a Publix was arrested after shoplifting cupcakes and other items, according to a police report obtained Friday.
A loss prevention official told police that Kelly L. Barber, 47, was in the store in the 3200 block of Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard Thursday “conducting a demo for Weight Watchers.”
The loss prevention official said she saw Barber “conceal store items” in a blue bin and leave the store without paying for the goods, which included Weight Watchers cupcakes, a book and teeth whitening strips.
“When questioned, Kelly explained she just wanted to whiten her teeth and stated it was stupid she stole the items as she had never done this before,” the report states. “Kelly did not have an explanation for all the other items.”

Thank you Cotties for sharing this. Now I don't feel so alone anymore for my petty book and food "adventures" --- :lf Mmmm cupcakes.

[Cotties]

Chicago Police tout that shootings are down in 2008, just before about 20 people are shot in a 12-hour period across city. Awkward

[Annie]

Chicago Police tout that shootings are down in 2008, just before about 20 people are shot in a 12-hour period across city. Awkward
I think a total of about 30 Chicago Public School students have been killed so far this year. It's really sad. If those f*cking gangbangers only knew how to take better aim, and shoot their target... another gangbanger! Instead they manage to get the decent kids hanging out on the porch, or the ones walking home from school.

[Cotties]

Chicago is so famous for shootings...then followed by big buildings...

but 20 in one city in 12hours...30 school kids in a year...doesn't make it sound like a good place to live even if it does look pretty in the cityI think a total of about 30 Chicago Public School students have been killed so far this year. It's really sad. If those f*cking gangbangers only knew how to take better aim, and shoot their target... another gangbanger! Instead they manage to get the decent kids hanging out on the porch, or the ones walking home from school.

[Annie]

Chicago is so famous for shootings...then followed by big buildings...

but 20 in one city in 12hours...30 school kids in a year...doesn't make it sound like a good place to live even if it does look pretty in the city
It's getting back to the point that was in the 1970's during the race riots. Last week an entire school district shut down due to threats of violence, several small colleges closed for a few days for the same reason and then a slew of copy-cat threats followed.

I spent a lot of time in Chicago when I was growing up. We moved back to the suburbs when the race riots started to get bad in the early 70's. I'm so grateful that I can raise my son without that kind of fear.

[Annie]

Chicago Police tout that shootings are down in 2008, just before about 20 people are shot in a 12-hour period across city. Awkward
At least 30 wounded in weekend violence
Sunday, April 20, 2008 | 11:47 PM

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Gun violence made it a deadly weekend on some of Chicago's streets. Police Superintendent Jody Weis places the blame on too many guns and gangs. The victims have ranged in age from 12 to 65.

The Chicago Police Department says it definitely has a plan. By ABC 7 News' count, six shootings were fatal over the weekend. CPD puts that number at four. Regardless of the number, after another weekend of gun violence, Chicago Police blame a rash of shootings on too many guns and the gangs that use the weapons illegally

"You just have too many guns and too many gangs and too much drugs on the street," said Weis.

By at least one unofficial count, more than 30 people were either wounded or shot to death since Friday, including Marcus Hendricks, who was murdered allegedly at the hands of a former employee firing an AK-47 assault rifle.

Sunday, Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis called for more common sense gun legislation to help control the violence.

"Police are placing themselves in harm's way 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, confronted by AK-47s and other powerful weapons," Weis said.
The victims of this latest wave of gun violence includes innocents and gang members alike.

Sunday afternoon, 17-year- old Marcus Greer, the 24th Chicago Public Schools student this year to be killed by gunfire, was laid to rest, as the city geared up to combat the violence that claimed his life.

"It takes 24 students to get killed for some action to be taken ," said Harold Greer, victim's uncle.

Although the number of murders in Chicago have declined in recent years, based on population, the murder rate is higher in Chicago than in New York City or L.A. New York had 496 murders in 2007. Los Angeles had 349. Both L.A. and New York have significantly larger populations. So, proportionally speaking, Chicago has a homicide rate 3 times higher than New York and nearly 70 percent higher than L.A.

"I don't really like to compare different cities because we can find different ones that will have a greater murder rate per capita than Chicago has. I think we need to just focus on Chicago and do whatever we can to take the weapons off the street," said Weis.

Some victims' families say they wish the solution was that simple.

"It's really a broader problem. It's really an economic and political problem. It's too many people with hopelessness and despair in their lives. They don't value life," said Cynthia Flowers, relative of gun violence victim.

CPD says it intends to put more officers around schools and also in high-crime areas where they particularly believe there's a possibility of gang retaliation. They are also asking the community to continue to be involved-- especially parents, to make sure that they know where their children are.

[spare_change]

At least 30 wounded in weekend violence
Sunday, April 20, 2008 | 11:47 PM

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Gun violence made it a deadly weekend on some of Chicago's streets. Police Superintendent Jody Weis places the blame on too many guns and gangs. The victims have ranged in age from 12 to 65.

The Chicago Police Department says it definitely has a plan. By ABC 7 News' count, six shootings were fatal over the weekend. CPD puts that number at four. Regardless of the number, after another weekend of gun violence, Chicago Police blame a rash of shootings on too many guns and the gangs that use the weapons illegally

"You just have too many guns and too many gangs and too much drugs on the street," said Weis.

By at least one unofficial count, more than 30 people were either wounded or shot to death since Friday, including Marcus Hendricks, who was murdered allegedly at the hands of a former employee firing an AK-47 assault rifle.

Sunday, Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis called for more common sense gun legislation to help control the violence.

"Police are placing themselves in harm's way 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, confronted by AK-47s and other powerful weapons," Weis said.
The victims of this latest wave of gun violence includes innocents and gang members alike.

Sunday afternoon, 17-year- old Marcus Greer, the 24th Chicago Public Schools student this year to be killed by gunfire, was laid to rest, as the city geared up to combat the violence that claimed his life.

"It takes 24 students to get killed for some action to be taken ," said Harold Greer, victim's uncle.

Although the number of murders in Chicago have declined in recent years, based on population, the murder rate is higher in Chicago than in New York City or L.A. New York had 496 murders in 2007. Los Angeles had 349. Both L.A. and New York have significantly larger populations. So, proportionally speaking, Chicago has a homicide rate 3 times higher than New York and nearly 70 percent higher than L.A.

"I don't really like to compare different cities because we can find different ones that will have a greater murder rate per capita than Chicago has. I think we need to just focus on Chicago and do whatever we can to take the weapons off the street," said Weis.

Some victims' families say they wish the solution was that simple.

"It's really a broader problem. It's really an economic and political problem. It's too many people with hopelessness and despair in their lives. They don't value life," said Cynthia Flowers, relative of gun violence victim.

CPD says it intends to put more officers around schools and also in high-crime areas where they particularly believe there's a possibility of gang retaliation. They are also asking the community to continue to be involved-- especially parents, to make sure that they know where their children are.


Look at the positive side. That's 25 less Bears fans.

Sorry --- didn't mean to be flip.

Urban violence is a significant issue everywhere. But, history proves that gun bans accomplish nothing other than to actually increase the violence.

"It's really a broader problem. It's really an economic and political problem. It's too many people with hopelessness and despair in their lives. They don't value life," said Cynthia Flowers, relative of gun violence victim.

Clearly, the people on the street know better than the police. You don't cure the disease by treating the symptoms. We need to figure out how to help people move beyond the hopelessness and despair. The answer isn't government handouts -- we've seen how well that doesn't work. The answer is an opportunity, an avenue, a chance.

[PunkyBob]

Cool! So we simply rework the entire fear-soaked American society...we take away all the ads and stimuli that induce fear...fear of turrists waiting to bomb YOUR neighborhood...poor ghetto folk trying to steal yer car, yer wallet, yer wife...fear of you-freakin'-name-it-they'll-freakin'-sell-it-to-ya...and then nobody will need guns anymore for protection, so we can all just blast away at what...tin cans...????

[spare_change]

Cool! So we simply rework the entire fear-soaked American society...we take away all the ads and stimuli that induce fear...fear of turrists waiting to bomb YOUR neighborhood...poor ghetto folk trying to steal yer car, yer wallet, yer wife...fear of you-freakin'-name-it-they'll-freakin'-sell-it-to-ya...and then nobody will need guns anymore for protection, so we can all just blast away at what...tin cans...????

You lost me ... try it again?

[PunkyBob]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_west/7360871.stm

Drunk Darth Vader's Jedi assault
A man posing as Darth Vader attacked a Star Wars fan, who had founded a Jedi Church, a court has heard.
Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, from Holyhead, Anglesey, admitted assaulting Barney Jones and cousin Michael with a metal crutch. They suffered minor injuries.
Hughes, who was drunk and dressed in a black bin bag, shouted "Darth Vader!"
Earlier, when Hughes failed to arrive on time, District Judge Andrew Shaw issued an arrest warrant, adding: "I hope the force will soon be with him."
In the event, Hughes turned up and the case at Holyhead magistrates court resumed.
The court heard he had jumped over a garden wall wearing the bin bag before the attack.
Outlining the case againt Hughes, prosectutor Nia Lloyd said Barney Jones had recently started the Jedi church in Holyhead - in honour of the Star Wars' good knights.
It had about 30 members locally and "thousands worldwide".
The cousins had been filming themselves playing with light sabres in the garden before the attack.
Hughes admitted two charges of common assault.
The court heard he has a "chronic alcohol problem" and had drunk the best part of a 10 litre box of wine.
Mrs Lloyd said: "He was wearing a black bin bag and a cape and had a metal crutch in his hand."
Mrs Lloyd said he was shouting "Darth Vader".
She added that Hughes hit Barney Jones over the head with the crutch, leaving him with a headache.


He then laughed and hit Michael Jones in the thigh, causing bruising.
Both men were left upset by the incident and they believed it was pre-planned.
She added that the pair believe "very strongly in the church and their religion".
Hughes could not remember the incident and only realised what had happened when he read about it in local newspapers, the court told.
Defending, Frances Jones said alcohol was "ruining his life" and he had no idea where he got the crutch from.
The court head Hughes had previous convictions, including affray, assault and disorderly behaviour.
The judge warned Hughes that jail remained a possibility before adjourning for pre-sentence reports until 13 May.

[Krystal]

Earlier, when Hughes failed to arrive on time, District Judge Andrew Shaw issued an arrest warrant, adding: "I hope the force will soon be with him."


:lmao

[SirFox]

Foxiest woman in the world
April 24, 2008 - 9:28AM

Transformers actress Megan Fox is the sexiest woman in the world - at least according to FHM magazine.
Fox tops FHM's annual 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll of its readers. The 21-year-old model-actress beat out the likes of Angelina Jolie (No. 12), Rihanna (No. 14), Kim Kardashian (No. 17), Paris Hilton (No. 77) and last year's champion, Jessica Alba (No. 3).
Fox debuted on the annual list in 2006 at No. 68 and ranked at No. 65 in 2007.
Joining her in the top 10 this year are - in descending order - Jessica Biel, Alba, Elisha Cuthbert, Scarlett Johansson, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Hilary Duff, Tricia Helfer, Blake Lively and Kate Beckinsale. Britney Spears came in last place at No. 100.
Current US Dancing with the Stars contestant Shannon Elizabeth (No. 46) returned to the ranking after being absent last year, joining professional dancers Cheryl Burke (No. 40) and Karina Smirnoff (No. 78).
FHM said nearly nine million votes were cast for the 14th edition of the annual poll.
AP

[SirFox]

Dozens hit by Japan 'suicide gas'



A Japanese teenager has committed suicide by mixing common household cleaners, releasing fumes that made dozens of people sick, officials said.
About 100 people in Konan City, in western Japan, fled their homes after smelling the toxic hydrogen sulphide the 14-year-old girl had made.
There has been a spate of similar suicides since details of the technique were posted on the internet.
Japan has one of the developed world's highest suicide rates.
At least 30,000 people have killed themselves every year since 1998, according to national statistics.
Toxic chemical
The unidentified girl in Konan City left a note on the bathroom door of her family's flat saying "poison gas being produced", Japanese media said.
About 90 neighbours went to hospital feeling ill, including the girl's mother, who was out of the flat during the suicide but later returned.
Most people complained of sore throats but none was severely ill, officials said.
Police said the teenager mixed detergent with a liquid cleanser to make hydrogen sulphide. The gas is colourless but smells like rotten eggs and is highly toxic, leading to suffocation or brain damage.
In small doses, it leaves people with sore throats, nausea and irritated eyes.
Japanese authorities have set a goal of cutting the country's high suicide rate, through counselling programmes and blocking websites that offer suicide tips.

Let me see... A dozen were harmed, right? No, read on and the figure in the article is 90. To increase the effectiveness of this article, we add a nice figure of 30'000 people who commit suicide each year. I love the word, "most people"...

My question: what really happened??

[cyclops]

Bionic eye returns sight to blind

Breakthrough surgery at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital

Lyndon da Cruz Moorfields Eye Hospital




UK scientists have successfully implanted an artificial eye in two patients that has given them limited vision.
The eye uses images from a tiny camera mounted on the wearer's glasses which are then fed to a series of electrodes at the back of the eyeball.
Two patients now have the Second Sight Argus II implants inserted and working normally after operations at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital.
Lyndon da Cruz, a consultant retinal surgeon, said: "Moorfields is proud to have been one of only three sites in Europe chosen to be part of evolving this exciting new technology.
"The devices were implanted successfully in both patients and they are recovering well from the operations.
"It is very special to be part of a programme developing a new type of treatment for patients who would otherwise have no chance of visual improvement. "
The device is only useful for those blinded by Retinitis Pigmentosa but can return a degree of sight to other sufferers, allowing them to see light and shade and in which direction an object is moving.
The two patients are now being monitored for long term use, and it is hoped that the treatment will be available on the NHS within the next three to five years.

[spare_change]

Dozens hit by Japan 'suicide gas'



A Japanese teenager has committed suicide by mixing common household cleaners, releasing fumes that made dozens of people sick, officials said.
About 100 people in Konan City, in western Japan, fled their homes after smelling the toxic hydrogen sulphide the 14-year-old girl had made.
There has been a spate of similar suicides since details of the technique were posted on the internet.
Japan has one of the developed world's highest suicide rates.
At least 30,000 people have killed themselves every year since 1998, according to national statistics.
Toxic chemical
The unidentified girl in Konan City left a note on the bathroom door of her family's flat saying "poison gas being produced", Japanese media said.
About 90 neighbours went to hospital feeling ill, including the girl's mother, who was out of the flat during the suicide but later returned.
Most people complained of sore throats but none was severely ill, officials said.
Police said the teenager mixed detergent with a liquid cleanser to make hydrogen sulphide. The gas is colourless but smells like rotten eggs and is highly toxic, leading to suffocation or brain damage.
In small doses, it leaves people with sore throats, nausea and irritated eyes.
Japanese authorities have set a goal of cutting the country's high suicide rate, through counselling programmes and blocking websites that offer suicide tips.

Let me see... A dozen were harmed, right? No, read on and the figure in the article is 90. To increase the effectiveness of this article, we add a nice figure of 30'000 people who commit suicide each year. I love the word, "most people"...

My question: what really happened??


Another example of fine reporting ---

The headline says "dozens" ... which, obviously is anything from 24 on up ---- but, in common parlance, usually means about 30-50. However, the use of the words "dozens" is just below "hundreds", which is the next threshold, and is used as an attention getter.

Quoting the 30,000 figure, on the other hand, is just simply sloppy journalism. It's accurate, but it doesn't reflect the significance of the number. In the US, for example, 30,000 carries much less weight since it is .001% of our population. In Japan, however, it's about .01% of the population.

More significant, though not highlighted in the article, is the significant increase in suicides beginning in 1997, which some attribute to the ascendancy of the liberal government that year. The liberal government made it easier to be non-self sufficient, and people took advantage of the government handouts. However, that apparently violates the Japanese code of honor and "face", and some weren't able to live with their "shame" or the ridicule of their neighbors. Others would claim that it is due to the "Westernization" of their society.

All in all, a very poorly researched, and presented, news article.

[spare_change]

Bionic eye returns sight to blind

Breakthrough surgery at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital

Lyndon da Cruz Moorfields Eye Hospital
UK scientists have successfully implanted an artificial eye in two patients that has given them limited vision.
The eye uses images from a tiny camera mounted on the wearer's glasses which are then fed to a series of electrodes at the back of the eyeball.
Two patients now have the Second Sight Argus II implants inserted and working normally after operations at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital.
...............


Amazing ... and magnificent!!

And, to think it all started because I wanted to flash my dick on the Internet!!!

[cyclops]

Amazing ... and magnificent!!

And, to think it all started because I wanted to flash my dick on the Internet!!!

LOL I knew your John Thomas would come in handy sometime :D

[SirFox]

CNN now sued for $1.3 billion - $1 per person in China

Thu Apr 24, 2008 5:25am EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Chinese primary school teacher and a beautician have filed a suit against CNN in New York over remarks they say insulted the Chinese people and are seeking $1.3 billion in compensation -- $1 per person in China, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.
The case against the Atlanta-based cable channel, its parent company Turner Broadcasting and Jack Cafferty, the offending commentator, comes after 14 lawyers launched a similar suit in Beijing alleging that Cafferty's remarks earlier this month violated the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people.
Cafferty said the United States imported Chinese-made "junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food" and added: "They're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years".
CNN said Cafferty was expressing an opinion about the Chinese government, but the Foreign Ministry demanded an apology and accused the network of trying to drive a wedge between the Chinese people and leadership.
The lawsuits come amid a wave of criticism in China against Western news outlets in the wake of recent unrest in Tibet and disruptions to the Beijing Olympic torch relay abroad.
In New York, Liang Shubing, the beautician, and Li Lilan, a Beijing-based elementary school instructor, claimed Cafferty's words insulted all Chinese people and "intentionally caused mental harm" to the plaintiffs, the Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported on Thursday.
Six lawyers were handling the case for Liang and Li, it said.
"The $1.3 billion averages out to $1 per Chinese person, so it isn't much," the newspaper quoted a lawyer as saying.
Asked if China supported the action against CNN, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu characterized it as "spontaneous activity by Chinese civilians".


"We will wait and see CNN's response," Jiang told a news conference, referring to the Foreign Ministry's request for a full apology.
"We hope CNN will take this seriously, because what CNN said and did has not only hurt China's feelings, but also CNN's own image."
(Reporting by John Ruwitch and Lindsay Beck in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie)

[SirFox]

WASHINGTON (AP) The Bush administration, responding to pleas from the U.S. textile industry, is imposing a temporary tariff on socks imported from Honduras.

I love this! Isn't that a way of copping out on the real cilprits? Poor Honduras...:sc

[PunkyBob]

WASHINGTON (AP) The Bush administration, responding to pleas from the U.S. textile industry, is imposing a temporary tariff on socks imported from Honduras.



About time we cracked down on the evil Honduran footwear cartels!!

[SirFox]

About time we cracked down on the evil Honduran footwear cartels!!

And I think the next country to really see some seroous consideration is MONACO for her rocks..

[spare_change]

WASHINGTON (AP) The Bush administration, responding to pleas from the U.S. textile industry, is imposing a temporary tariff on socks imported from Honduras.

I love this! Isn't that a way of copping out on the real cilprits? Poor Honduras...:sc


Copping out on what?

[mrh50]

Oil a 125 $ a barell:spbx:

[dixiechiknga]

I think the government is sending me my $1200.00 this week, whooo Hoooo
that will cover my gas for a month.

[SirFox]

Copping out on what?

Copping out on the real culprits who are countries like Mexico and of course, the American businesses that are located in those rich cotton countries. A major culprit may very well be China as well in terms of cheap manufactured cotton imports.

[spare_change]

Copping out on the real culprits who are countries like Mexico and of course, the American businesses that are located in those rich cotton countries. A major culprit may very well be China as well in terms of cheap manufactured cotton imports.

Culprits? Culprits at what? Where's the crime?

Maybe you can explain to me ... you want maximum value for your dollar. You want to be able to buy something at a reasonable price. In order for a business to keep its costs down, and deliver the product at the price you demand, they open a factory in Mexico, Honduras, wherever, or buy materials from the cheapest source. So, you get your product at a reasonable value.

If, on the other hand, the business is required to pay an artificial wage that drives the cost up, you complain that the cost of living is too high, and you need a salary increase to offset the rising costs. Of course, this increase is factored back into the products you make, and it drives the price even further out of line.

So, tell me --- which scenario do you prefer?

[SirFox]

Culprits? Culprits at what? Where's the crime?

Maybe you can explain to me ... you want maximum value for your dollar. You want to be able to buy something at a reasonable price. In order for a business to keep its costs down, and deliver the product at the price you demand, they open a factory in Mexico, Honduras, wherever, or buy materials from the cheapest source. So, you get your product at a reasonable value.

If, on the other hand, the business is required to pay an artificial wage that drives the cost up, you complain that the cost of living is too high, and you need a salary increase to offset the rising costs. Of course, this increase is factored back into the products you make, and it drives the price even further out of line.

So, tell me --- which scenario do you prefer?

You are correct that I want businesses to keep their costs down. On a micro-level, I can live with 10 shirts instead of 50. I prefer 10 good shirts to 50 lousy shirts. That goes for my entire wardrobe and everything that I buy.

Each time that I go Stateside, I am struck by the amount of things that people have in their homes, in their supermarket caddies, the waste in restaurants. I am struck by the American machine that needs to run at 200% in order to survive.

While it is a fantastic process, the Earth and Man simply cannot keep up with this incessant product of goods. We have to change this society that is based on consuming.

America has shown Europe that it can also consumem and it has partaken of that type of society based on consuming.

I believe in moderate capitalism that takes into account market forces in line with some of the environmental finite forces that God has given us, that Man is rapidly dwindling.

[spare_change]

You are correct that I want businesses to keep their costs down. On a micro-level, I can live with 10 shirts instead of 50. I prefer 10 good shirts to 50 lousy shirts. That goes for my entire wardrobe and everything that I buy.

Each time that I go Stateside, I am struck by the amount of things that people have in their homes, in their supermarket caddies, the waste in restaurants. I am struck by the American machine that needs to run at 200% in order to survive.

While it is a fantastic process, the Earth and Man simply cannot keep up with this incessant product of goods. We have to change this society that is based on consuming.

America has shown Europe that it can also consumem and it has partaken of that type of society based on consuming.

I believe in moderate capitalism that takes into account market forces in line with some of the environmental finite forces that God has given us, that Man is rapidly dwindling.

And how would you propose to regulate capitalism? Are you going to have the government assign me a shirt quota? Tax all underwear in excess of 4 pairs per week? What you say sounds nice - but totally impossible to implement.

As for "environmental finite sources", is the complete consumption of something a bad thing if we find an alternative to replace it? What is the downside of no more oil on the planet if we have an alternative energy souce to replace it? Where there is a need, "unmoderated" capitalism finds something to replace it - to do the same job.

The supposed oil crisis is an excellent example of "moderated capitalism" -- US citizens need to realize that the ONLY reason they are being held hostage by OPEC is because they choose to be held hostage. They asked for these high prices .... when they banned drilling in ANWR, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, etc., when they refuse to develop nuclear energy. Not only did we ask to be overcharged, we made it even worse when we then tax it into the stratosphere. You want cheap oil? Go to Montana, go to Alaska, go to Colorado, go to Oklahoma, and drill for it.

[SirFox]

And how would you propose to regulate capitalism? Are you going to have the government assign me a shirt quota? Tax all underwear in excess of 4 pairs per week? What you say sounds nice - but totally impossible to implement.

As for "environmental finite sources", is the complete consumption of something a bad thing if we find an alternative to replace it? What is the downside of no more oil on the planet if we have an alternative energy souce to replace it? Where there is a need, "unmoderated" capitalism finds something to replace it - to do the same job.

The supposed oil crisis is an excellent example of "moderated capitalism" -- US citizens need to realize that the ONLY reason they are being held hostage by OPEC is because they choose to be held hostage. They asked for these high prices .... when they banned drilling in ANWR, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, etc., when they refuse to develop nuclear energy. Not only did we ask to be overcharged, we made it even worse when we then tax it into the stratosphere. You want cheap oil? Go to Montana, go to Alaska, go to Colorado, go to Oklahoma, and drill for it.

Do you need underwear? I have several pair that I could send you a in a HOPE package....:rofl1: Oh...and if you need...I need to get rid of the bras that were left behind here....so that can also go....

[PunkyBob]

The supposed oil crisis is an excellent example of "moderated capitalism" -- US citizens need to realize that the ONLY reason they are being held hostage by OPEC is because they choose to be held hostage. They asked for these high prices .... when they banned drilling in ANWR, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, etc., when they refuse to develop nuclear energy. Not only did we ask to be overcharged, we made it even worse when we then tax it into the stratosphere. You want cheap oil? Go to Montana, go to Alaska, go to Colorado, go to Oklahoma, and drill for it.

SO are you saying that we are supposed to keep drilling to satisfy the energy needs of the world and sacrifice the health of the planet? I agree with your statement that we are held hostage by Saudi Arabia (et al) because we asked to be. BUT there are alternatives...private- and town-based windfarms (not corporate thank you), solar panels, all these new green energy sources...yes, many of which still need development and refinement. Personally I'd like to not see drill rigs in the ANWR and other places...the dragon just eats its own tail that way.

[spare_change]

SO are you saying that we are supposed to keep drilling to satisfy the energy needs of the world and sacrifice the health of the planet? I agree with your statement that we are held hostage by Saudi Arabia (et al) because we asked to be. BUT there are alternatives...private- and town-based windfarms (not corporate thank you), solar panels, all these new green energy sources...yes, many of which still need development and refinement. Personally I'd like to not see drill rigs in the ANWR and other places...the dragon just eats its own tail that way.

I think you misstate the question .... what you should ask is: Do we want to sacrifice the health of the Middle East, where environmental controls are virtually unheard or, or do you want to drill in ANWR where we implement environmental controls, and try to mitigate environmental impact as much as possible?

The use of alternative energy sources is, of course, preferable, but generally remains economically unfeasible. The ethanol fad, for example, costs far more fossil fuel energy to create than energy created (which should come as no surprise, since the only energy source that creates more energy than the energy input is nuclear energy - which, of course, has its own ecological issues). The proliferation of fossil fuel consuming vehicles means there will be a need for oil for many years to come. So, do we ignore that reality, and continue to be held hostage, or do we move in a direction that will allow us more control of our future?

Of course, everything has a price ... there are thousands of bird collisions per year with wind turbines, and there are early indicators that the turbines are having an effect on weather patterns by disrupting the energy flow of wind. The impact of solar panels absorbing heat originally intended for the earth's surface seems to be adversely impacting plant growth cycles and underground water creation.

'Tis a conundrum ... I suspect it's a case of picking your poison.

[PunkyBob]

I think you misstate the question .... what you should ask is: Do we want to sacrifice the health of the Middle East, where environmental controls are virtually unheard or, or do you want to drill in ANWR where we implement environmental controls, and try to mitigate environmental impact as much as possible?

And whom should I trust to control the environmental impact? The oil companies? The Bush administration?


The use of alternative energy sources is, of course, preferable, but generally remains economically unfeasible. The ethanol fad, for example, costs far more fossil fuel energy to create than energy created (which should come as no surprise, since the only energy source that creates more energy than the energy input is nuclear energy - which, of course, has its own ecological issues). The proliferation of fossil fuel consuming vehicles means there will be a need for oil for many years to come. So, do we ignore that reality, and continue to be held hostage, or do we move in a direction that will allow us more control of our future?

Of course, everything has a price ... there are thousands of bird collisions per year with wind turbines, and there are early indicators that the turbines are having an effect on weather patterns by disrupting the energy flow of wind. The impact of solar panels absorbing heat originally intended for the earth's surface seems to be adversely impacting plant growth cycles and underground water creation.

'Tis a conundrum ... I suspect it's a case of picking your poison.

Agreed. But you may agree that whatever course we choose, the fossil-fuel road has an end. We can see it, in fact. Our world is energy-driven and energy-hungry (how much fossil fuel does it take to power everything needed to enable this site??) Finding an alternative is imperative. And ensuring the health of the ME while endangering another is academic and moot. Sooner or later, if we do not bite the bullet and make the changes, places will start to go dark. There are answers. Granted, some still need to be found, but unless we look clearly at the situation and get a jump on the inevitable instead of tearing the joint up any further as a stopgap measure...we're screwed. Correction: our grandkids are screwed. You're right: everything has a price. I think my question stands.

[SirFox]

Austrian 'hid daughter in cellar'


A 73-year-old Austrian is under arrest on suspicion of hiding his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children with her, police say.
The existence of the woman, believed missing since 1984 and now 42, emerged after a teenager said to be her daughter was taken to hospital.
Both the woman and teenage girl are receiving medical treatment and the other children are in care.
A police investigation in Amstetten, Lower Austria Province, is continuing.
The suspect, named only as Josef F, was arrested on suspicion of incest and keeping his daughter in captivity. He has not responded to the charges against him, police say.
One of the children the man allegedly fathered died in infancy, police believe.
Three children, including the 19-year-old who was taken to hospital, were allegedly kept in the cellar with their mother while the other three reportedly grew up with their grandparents.
DNA tests will be taken to establish whether Josef F was indeed their father.
Placed in care
The alleged crimes came to light after the teenager, named as Kerstin F, was dropped off at the Amstetten hospital last weekend.


Finding Kerstin seriously ill, doctors appealed for her mother, who at that time was assumed to be missing, to come forward to provide more details about her medical history.
Josef F allegedly then released the mother and two other children from the cellar, telling his wife Rosemarie that she had chosen to return home, police say.
It was not immediately clear how police were alerted.
The mother, named as Elisabeth F, has been receiving medical and psychological treatment since being discovered.
She appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically during questioning and agreed to talk only after authorities assured her that she would no longer have to have contact with her father, and that her children would be taken care of, police added.
The six children are three boys and three girls aged between five and 20.
Police spokesman Franz Polzer told reporters they were now all in "psychological care in a secure institution in a clinic here in this area".
"They are being cared for individually - those between 12 and 16 years of age who grew up with their grandparents, and two boys who, when they came out yesterday with their mother, saw the daylight for the first time in their lives," he said.
Police said three of the children were registered with authorities and lived with the grandparents.
According to police, Josef F and wife Rosemarie had told authorities the three had been abandoned at birth outside their home - in 1993, 1994 and 1997 - each time, the couple claimed, with a note from Elisabeth saying she could not care for the babies herself.
'Dead baby burnt'
The police issued a statement giving details of the alleged abuses Elisabeth recounted to them.

She said she had been sexually abused by her father since the age of 11.
Josef allegedly lured her into the cellar of their house in Amstetten on 28 August 1984, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.
It was assumed she had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her asking them not to search for her.
"Abused continuously during the 24-year-long imprisonment", Elisabeth bore six children while a seventh, one of a set of twins, died soon after birth.
The dead baby was allegedly taken out of the cellar and burnt by Josef.
Elisabeth said Josef had provided her and three of her children, who were locked up along with her, with clothing and food.
His wife Rosemarie had allegedly not been aware of what was going on.
The discovery of another Austrian woman, who was held captive in a cellar by an abductor for more than eight years, gripped the country in 2006.
Natascha Kampusch finally escaped from her kidnapper, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself shortly afterwards.
Ms Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10 in 1998 and held in a small, windowless cellar beneath Priklopil's garage in the commuter town of Strasshof, near Vienna.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7369851.stm

[SirFox]

Miley Cyrus apologizes for sexy photos

Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:11pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Teen idol Miley Cyrus, the fresh-faced star of Disney's "Hannah Montana" television franchise, has apologized for two sets of photos in which she flashes her bra, lies across a boy's lap, and appears semi-nude.
The 15-year-old churchgoing daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus said in a statement on Sunday that she was embarrassed about some photos released on the Internet and others to be published in Vanity Fair magazine.
The first series of photos, which circulated on the Internet last week, showed Cyrus draped over the lap of her then-boyfriend, her producer's son, while another showed her revealing part of her green bra.
She is also starring in some as-yet released shots by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz in which she appears to be topless and wrapped in a blanket. These are set to be published in Vanity Fair magazine's June edition.
"For Vanity Fair, I was so honored and thrilled to work with Annie. I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed," Cyrus said in a statement published on People magazine's Web site.
The Disney Channel backed up the rising star saying in a statement that "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines."
No one from Vanity Fair was immediately available to comment.
But in a statement to the TV show "Entertainment Tonight," Vanity Fair defended itself.
"Miley's parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley," said the magazine's statement.

Regarding the photos on the Internet, Cyrus said these were "silly, inappropriate shots" and she was sorry if she had disappointed anyone.
"I appreciate all the support of my fans, and hope they understand that along the way I am going to make mistakes and I am not perfect," she said.
"Most of all, I have let myself down. I will learn from my mistakes and trust my support team. My family and my faith will guide me through my life's journey."
Late last year, some candid photos of Cyrus frolicking with a female friend during a sleepover raised some eyebrows. She said at the time that there was "nothing wrong" with those photos.
Cyrus rocketed to fame as "Hannah Montana" on the Disney Channel's TV show of the same name about a girl who leads a double life as a teenager and singing sensation.
"Hannah Montana" ranks first among TV series of U.S. cable television for children aged 6 to 14. Her concert tour last year, "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds" was a sensation, sparking a 3D movie that topped the box office chart.
(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Dean Goodman)



One must really wonder what this is: is this part of media blitz, or is this an example of someone who did not realise she was doing something improper and is really embarassed...

Somehow I get the feeling that this is all hype and very hypocritical, a sign of the times...

[Cotties]

Buswell breaks down over chair sniffing

West Australian Liberals have rallied behind their leader despite his admission he sniffed the chair of a female party staffer.
Senior MPs and state Liberal president Barry Court expressed their disappointment at the incident involving Opposition Leader Troy Buswell, but denied it would hurt the party's election chances.

[SirFox]

Buswell breaks down over chair sniffing

West Australian Liberals have rallied behind their leader despite his admission he sniffed the chair of a female party staffer.
Senior MPs and state Liberal president Barry Court expressed their disappointment at the incident involving Opposition Leader Troy Buswell, but denied it would hurt the party's election chances.

So you have political figures in OZ that have an acumen of sorts, do you? Was Buswell able to decipher whether the lady was a real female or???

[cyclops]

A dog in the house keeps allergies at bay


By Natalie Paris
Last Updated: 11:49am BST 29/04/2008


Parents who own dogs reduce the chances of their children growing up with allergies, research has shown.
Young children who grow up with a dog in the house are less likely to develop allergies such as asthma, eczema and hay fever, according to the results of a six-year study.
German researchers believe that having a pet around trains the immune system in youngsters to be less sensitive as they develop.
advertisement

The benefits of being introduced to germs early on in life have been shown in previous studies but these have relied on the retrospective questioning of subjects about their exposure to pets.
Heinrich's study, by contrast, was a more reliable prospective study designed before the data was collected.
"Our results show clearly that the presence of a dog in the home during subjects' infancy is associated with a significantly low level of sensitisation to pollens and inhaled allergens," said Joachim Heinrich of the National Research Centre for Environmental Health in Munich.
The same protective effect was not seen in children who had frequent contact with dogs but did not have one at home.
Parents answered detailed questionnaires about possible allergic symptoms in their children, from birth to the age of 6, and blood samples were also taken from a third of the group to test for antibodies to common allergens.
The group's findings were published in the European Respiratory Journal.

[OnceAKing]

Buswell breaks down over chair sniffing

West Australian Liberals have rallied behind their leader despite his admission he sniffed the chair of a female party staffer.
Senior MPs and state Liberal president Barry Court expressed their disappointment at the incident involving Opposition Leader Troy Buswell, but denied it would hurt the party's election chances.

Ahhhh, a man after my own heart...What? He wasn't applauded? WTF

:lmao

[Barkiss]

Afraid the opinion of the "numerous Texas legal departments" doesn't carry a hell of a lot of weight --- they might be the problem, and they are certainly motivated to justify their own actions.

Didn't need to hear more? I've heard of a rush to judgment and a leap to conclusions, but I get the impression you're doing both at the same time!

Cheers.

So...in light of last night's news that over half of the girls between the ages of 14 and 17 removed from the pedophile liberation camp (Polygamist Ranch) have either already had children or are pregnant...do you still feel rights were violated?

[SirFox]

So...in light of last night's news that over half of the girls between the ages of 14 and 17 removed from the pedophile liberation camp (Polygamist Ranch) have either already had children or are pregnant...do you still feel rights were violated?

I for one would say that the bodies (excuse me) were violated.

[spare_change]

So...in light of last night's news that over half of the girls between the ages of 14 and 17 removed from the pedophile liberation camp (Polygamist Ranch) have either already had children or are pregnant...do you still feel rights were violated?

Absolutely.

The end justifies the means, now?

[Barkiss]

Absolutely.

The end justifies the means, now?

Oh...you never admit you are wrong. ;)

Excellent twist; however I'm more confident now than ever that they knew what they were doing when they did it, and had all legal rights to do it.

Using your logic, we would have spent years attempting to prosecute individuals in a closed and private society with little to no assistance from the inside. If we were speaking about the rights of an individual, we wouldn't be having this discussion. However considering it is regarding an entire community, I think the severity justifies the beginning, middle and end.

[pagirl]

Well, I have a hard time with this situation... I do not like to push my views on others nor do I like having their views pushed on me. But I do believe that the extremity of this case warrants involvement from the authorities. Children / girls of that age are not mature enough to be making sexual decisions. Decisions that will definitely affect who they become.. That is why there are so many laws in place to protect under-aged children. The accusations that were brought to the authorities warranted an investigation... Now they have to follow through with what needs to be done.

[spare_change]

I'm going to try to word this so that I don't come off looking like a pedophile (just how DO they look, anyway?)

The state seems to have trumped parents' rights. It was the parents' decision to raise these kids in that environment, with all its implications. They picked the religion; they picked the society; they picked the environment. By all indications, save the issue of early/forced marriage, the children were well cared for, well loved, and well educated.

If we accept that marriage is a religious issue, then the state shouldn't being passing judgment on it. We do not prosecute people who refuse their children medical assistance because of religious views. Why would this be any different? Those kids DIE! We do not prosecute people who refuse to allow their children to attend public schools, go to movies, go to dances, or drive cars, all because of religious views.

I'm not convinced that membership in a society that condones arranged marriages constitutes child abuse.

[Barkiss]

I'm going to try to word this so that I don't come off looking like a pedophile (just how DO they look, anyway?)

The state seems to have trumped parents' rights. It was the parents' decision to raise these kids in that environment, with all its implications. They picked the religion; they picked the society; they picked the environment. By all indications, save the issue of early/forced marriage, the children were well cared for, well loved, and well educated.

If we accept that marriage is a religious issue, then the state shouldn't being passing judgment on it. We do not prosecute people who refuse their children medical assistance because of religious views. Why would this be any different? Those kids DIE! We do not prosecute people who refuse to allow their children to attend public schools, go to movies, go to dances, or drive cars, all because of religious views.

I'm not convinced that membership in a society that condones arranged marriages constitutes child abuse.

Considering we have laws forbidding sexual intercourse with minors, your argument stands with little merit.

Comparing a parent's right to medically treat their children with whatever means they deem suitable, and a parent's "right" to subject their children to sexual activities without consent from the child (please say we agree that a 14 year old girl cannot consent to sex) with an adult man....well there is no comparison.

[SirFox]

I'm going to try to word this so that I don't come off looking like a pedophile (just how DO they look, anyway?)

The state seems to have trumped parents' rights. It was the parents' decision to raise these kids in that environment, with all its implications. They picked the religion; they picked the society; they picked the environment. By all indications, save the issue of early/forced marriage, the children were well cared for, well loved, and well educated.

If we accept that marriage is a religious issue, then the state shouldn't being passing judgment on it. We do not prosecute people who refuse their children medical assistance because of religious views. Why would this be any different? Those kids DIE! We do not prosecute people who refuse to allow their children to attend public schools, go to movies, go to dances, or drive cars, all because of religious views.

I'm not convinced that membership in a society that condones arranged marriages constitutes child abuse.

You accept tacitly that the United States that can from emigrant stock, from many societies will allow not only freedom of religion but freedom arranged marriages of minors, and by annexation, you also accept that there be different laws for different folks, that there will now be many Hummarabi laws?

[Jezabella]

Back to the 73 yr old man who kept his daughter and children/grandchildren in a basement for 24 years...um...what the h*** is up with Austria, anyway? There was that girl who was kidnapped in 2006 and kept in a cellar -- also in a small town in Austria...and wasn't that where one of the most evil leaders the world has ever seen came from?

I'm just sayin'...

[Krystal]

Back to the 73 yr old man who kept his daughter and children/grandchildren in a basement for 24 years...um...what the h*** is up with Austria, anyway? There was that girl who was kidnapped in 2006 and kept in a cellar -- also in a small town in Austria...and wasn't that where one of the most evil leaders the world has ever seen came from?

I'm just sayin'...

Something in the water??

[Lacey]

I'm going to try to word this so that I don't come off looking like a pedophile (just how DO they look, anyway?)

The state seems to have trumped parents' rights. It was the parents' decision to raise these kids in that environment, with all its implications. They picked thereligious ; they picked the society; they picked the environment. By all indications, save the issue of early/forced marriage, the children were well cared for, well loved, and well educated.

If we accept that marriage is a religious issue, then the state shouldn't being passing judgment on it. We do not prosecute people who refuse their children medical assistance because of religious views. Why would this be any different? Those kids DIE! We do not prosecute people who refuse to allow their children to attend public schools, go to movies, go to dances, or drive cars, all because of religious views.

I'm not convinced that membership in a society that condones arranged marriages constitutes child abuse.



They picked their religion? Those children didn't. And you can argue all day long about religious rights. It's not a God given right to have a 14 year old having babies with 50 year old men. And whether it's me allowing my child to believe it's the right thing to do or a pastor........doesn't make it right! And law enforcement or children welfare have every right to step in and stop it!

[ldon]

Speaking of news, can anyone confirm that some politicians have voted to give illegal immigrants social securtiy benefits? I prsonally would like to find a publication that tracks how our polictians are voting and identify which ones are spcial intererst catering to lobbyists.

[Good_Lad]

Some news that caught my attention today is a story that Albert Hofmann died. He was the man who invented LSD. Died of a heart attack at the age of 102.

[SirFox]

Some news that caught my attention today is a story that Albert Hofmann died. He was the man who invented LSD. Died of a heart attack at the age of 102.

I just looked up his biography. He worked for Sandoz (Novartis) and he discovered LSD in the 1940s. Imagine how he discovered it.

What did he die of?

[Good_Lad]

He first discovered it in 1938 (quite by accident). Died of a heart attack.

[spare_change]

They picked their religion? Those children didn't. And you can argue all day long about religious rights. It's not a God given right to have a 14 year old having babies with 50 year old men. And whether it's me allowing my child to believe it's the right thing to do or a pastor........doesn't make it right! And law enforcement or children welfare have every right to step in and stop it!

It IS a God-given right that I be allowed to provide my children with religion training that I feel appropriate. You, or the government, don't get to make that decision.

It is also NOT a function of the government to impose a belief system, or a social code of conduct, on me or my family.

Am I repulsed by what they do? Absolutely -- but then, I'm also repulsed by the KKK, the American Nazi Party, the Aryan Nation, and a hundred other religious and quasi-religious organizations in this country. That just doesn't give me, or the government, the right to force them to stop. If you want the government to take over responsibility for the raising and education of all children - then, say so. But, until them, the government needs to mind its own business ... and this ain't their business.

[Good_Lad]

Teaching your children your religious beliefs is waaaayy different than having sex with them in the name of religion.
Our whole way of life is based on all of us following laws. These people broke those laws.
I'm not for or against polygamy. How other people choose to live their lives doesn't make a bit of difference to me. You want to be polygamist? At least wait until she's of legal age.

[Barkiss]

It IS a God-given right that I be allowed to provide my children with religion training that I feel appropriate. You, or the government, don't get to make that decision.

It is also NOT a function of the government to impose a belief system, or a social code of conduct, on me or my family.

Am I repulsed by what they do? Absolutely -- but then, I'm also repulsed by the KKK, the American Nazi Party, the Aryan Nation, and a hundred other religious and quasi-religious organizations in this country. That just doesn't give me, or the government, the right to force them to stop. If you want the government to take over responsibility for the raising and education of all children - then, say so. But, until them, the government needs to mind its own business ... and this ain't their business.

I understand your point. I have one question, and then I'll drop this conversation and agree to disagree with you.

Regardless of your moral beliefs, you feel it is their right to have sex with their children, regardless of age, all in the name of religion?

[spare_change]

I understand your point. I have one question, and then I'll drop this conversation and agree to disagree with you.

Regardless of your moral beliefs, you feel it is their right to have sex with their children, regardless of age, all in the name of religion?

Absolutely not!

But then, I don't believe in stoning people for adultery, cutting off their hands for theft, or a myriad of other atrocities committed in the name of religion.

BUT -- I do believe it is not the province of government to dictate what is "appropriate" religious doctrine.

[Barkiss]

Absolutely not!

But then, I don't believe in stoning people for adultery, cutting off their hands for theft, or a myriad of other atrocities committed in the name of religion.

BUT -- I do believe it is not the province of government to dictate what is "appropriate" religious doctrine.

Spare...I've known you long enough to say this....BULLSHIT! I don't believe for one second that you truly believe that is ok for any community in the United States to allow members of that community to perform sexual acts on minors, regardless of their reasoning.

But I'm going to stick to my word and not comment anymore. ;) So ignore the above message. :)

[Good_Lad]

spare, if I understand you correctly, you feel that it would be ok for me to start my own religion, have as it's doctrine that it's ok to kill people who don't believe what I believe, and that no one should be able to stop me.

You may disagree, but I feel it is the governments job to step in when it's citizens are being harmed.

[spare_change]

Spare...I've known you long enough to say this....BULLSHIT! I don't believe for one second that you truly believe that is ok for any community in the United States to allow members of that community to perform sexual acts on minors, regardless of their reasoning.

But I'm going to stick to my word and not comment anymore. ;) So ignore the above message. :)

LOL -- I hate it when you waffle!

Of course, I don't believe that it is okay -- but I also don't believe it is the province of the government to dictate behavior, particularly in a religious environment.

[spare_change]

spare, if I understand you correctly, you feel that it would be ok for me to start my own religion, have as it's doctrine that it's ok to kill people who don't believe what I believe, and that no one should be able to stop me.

You may disagree, but I feel it is the governments job to step in when it's citizens are being harmed.

You know, it's interesting that you should mention this ... there are thousands of churches, and millions of people who believe, and practice, exactly what you refer to, and the government doesn't do a single thing to stop it.

It's called Islam ... perhaps you can explain why your all-knowing government hasn't moved in to stop them.

[Misty]

You know, it's interesting that you should mention this ... there are thousands of churches, and millions of people who believe, and practice, exactly what you refer to, and the government doesn't do a single thing to stop it.

It's called Islam ... perhaps you can explain why your all-knowing government hasn't moved in to stop them.

Come again!! Islam does what?
LOL for a minute there I actually thought you were serious ... my bad

[spare_change]

Come again!! Islam does what?
LOL for a minute there I actually thought you were serious ... my bad

Surely you jest -- have you not seen the accounts of women stoned for daring to show their hands, and men burned alive just for associating with the wrong religion, cartoonists with death decrees because they dared to draw a picture of Allah, speeches from the Iranian president calling for your death?

Their own book commands them to kill the infidels if they do not convert.

From the Koran (thanks, Shiane!):


3:151
We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, because they set up with Allah that for which He has sent down no authority, and their abode is the fire, and evil is the abode of the unjust.

8:60
And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to terrorize thereby the enemy of Allah...

8:12
I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

4:89
They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them,”

2:193, And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression

2:216, Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you


5:33, The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;


8:12, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them

8:15-16, O ye who believe! when ye meet the Unbelievers in hostile array, never turn your backs to them. If any do turn his back to them on such a day - unless it be in a stratagem of war, or to retreat to a troop (of his own)- he draws on himself the wrath of Allah, and his abode is Hell,- an evil refuge (indeed)!

8:17, It is not ye who slew them; it was Allah: when thou threwest (a handful of dust), it was not thy act, but Allah’s: in order that He might test the Believers by a gracious trial from Himself

8:60, Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.

8:65, O Prophet! rouse the Believers to the fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a thousand of the Unbelievers

9:5, But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem.

9:3, And an announcement from Allah and His Messenger, to the people (assembled) on the day of the Great Pilgrimage,- that Allah and His Messenger dissolve (treaty) obligations with the Pagans. If then, ye repent, it were best for you; but if ye turn away, know ye that ye cannot frustrate Allah. And proclaim a grievous penalty to those who reject Faith.

9:14, Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you (to victory) over them, heal the breasts of Believers,

9:23, O ye who believe! take not for protectors your fathers and your brothers if they love infidelity above Faith: if any of you do so, they do wrong.

9:28, O ye who believe! Truly the Pagans are unclean; so let them not, after this year of theirs, approach the Sacred Mosque.

9:29, Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

9:39, Unless ye go forth, (for Jihad) He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least.

9:73, O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge indeed.

9:111, Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur’an

9:123, O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.

22:9, (Disdainfully) bending his side, in order to lead (men) astray from the Path of Allah: for him there is disgrace in this life, and on the Day of Judgment We shall make him taste the Penalty of burning (Fire).


"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."
(Qur'an/Koran, Repentance 9:5)

"Lo! Allah loveth them who battle for His cause in ranks, as if they were a solid structure."
(Qur'an/Koran, The Ranks 61:4)

"Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That (is the ordinance). And if Allah willed He could have punished them (without you) but (thus it is ordained) that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He rendereth not their actions vain."
(Qur'an/Koran, Muhammad 47:4)

"When thy Lord inspired the angels, (saying): I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger."
(Qur'an/Koran, Spoils of War 8:12)

There are 123 verses in the Qu'ran about killing and fighting, these are just a few, none of which sounds very peaceful to me.

[Misty]

hehehehehe

and I could go ahead and quote a string of variations on any ancient scripture ... we interpret as we see fit

nice stock of quotes there Spare :d it must be nice to have a solid wall to chuck blame on :D:D:D

btw ... I am not of the Islamic faith ...in case you think I have taken personal offence at all this.

Any religion has the potential for driving people up in arms ... I believe in the maxim dont chuck stones don;t eat dirt :)

cheers and adieu .... I also believe more fool he that argues with a fool

:)

[spare_change]

hehehehehe

and I could go ahead and quote a string of variations on any ancient scripture ... we interpret as we see fit

nice stock of quotes there Spare :d it must be nice to have a solid wall to chuck blame on :D:D:D

btw ... I am not of the Islamic faith ...in case you think I have taken personal offence at all this.

Any religion has the potential for driving people up in arms ... I believe in the maxim dont chuck stones don;t eat dirt :)

cheers and adieu .... I also believe more fool he that argues with a fool

:)

So now I'm a fool? Noted. I'll work on that ...

[Good_Lad]

It's called Islam ... perhaps you can explain why your all-knowing government hasn't moved in to stop them.


My all knowing government? So you use no services the government provides? I don't agree with everything they do, but it's better (in my opinion) than the absolute chaos caused by the lack of a central government.

Oh, and the government did step in. We are currently fighting 2 wars in the middle east.

Let's not start quoting bible verses about who it's ok to kill. We would be stoning people in our streets if we all followed the bible to the letter.

I think there's a big difference between regulating religion and protecting children from abuse.

[spare_change]

My all knowing government? So you use no services the government provides? I don't agree with everything they do, but it's better (in my opinion) than the absolute chaos caused by the lack of a central government.

That would be a "lack of a central government" that was one of the defining goals of the structure our forefathers put forth, and has been perverted over the last 75 years. You might want to read Jefferson's opinions, and others, about states rights versus a central federalized government.

“The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs.” - Thomas Jefferson

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion." - Thomas Jefferson

"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error." - U.S. Supreme Court in American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382,442

"We, the People, are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the Courts. Not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who have perverted it." - Abraham Lincoln

"If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last." - Ronald Reagan, 1964

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men." - Abraham Lincoln

Oh, and the government did step in. We are currently fighting 2 wars in the middle east.

You didn't understand. I was speaking of the Islam movement in THIS country, where our own people provide aid, funding, and sustenance to a religious zealotry whose stated goal is your death. But, that's okay, the government shouldn't get involved in THAT religion, right? Just the other ones.

Let's not start quoting bible verses about who it's ok to kill. We would be stoning people in our streets if we all followed the bible to the letter.

Yeah -- what was I thinking? The quoted text IS the basis of their theocracy. It dictates their motivation, and their actions. It is just like our constitution; it's the underpinning of their social and federal policies and positions. Of course, we should ignore it, because, after all, WE don't use religion as the basis for our government, so surely, they wouldn't do that either, would they?

I think there's a big difference between regulating religion and protecting children from abuse.

You digress. Obviously, I do not condone child abuse - for any reason. I worry, though, at the leap in power of the federal government to attempt to dictate acceptable religious practices. They have now set the precedent that they can shut down a religious activity if it does not fit the accepted social norms. So, as norms shift, and they always do, they now have precedent to invoke their authority.

Simply, this was a fishing expedition - they based their intervention on an unsubstantiated phone call from a psychotic who has never been involved with the religion, has never been to the compound, has never even been in the state of Texas, and only knew of it thru jail house comments with a former member/drug addict. That smacks of an excuse - not a reason.

There is ample legal precedent for prosecuting the people based on information found once they were inside the compound - even though the search will eventually be found to be unwarranted and illegal. Right will win out in the end - those who committed child abuse will be punished. But, the long range impact of the government's actions will go unchecked for some time.

[Cotties]

You probably shouldn't be smoking while applying rubbing alcohol to your legs and groin

EASTAMPTON -- A 47-year-old township man sustained severe burns to his legs
and groin areas Wednesday night when he accidently ignited rubbing alcohol he
was applying to his body with a cigarette that fell into his lap, a township
police clerk said.

Joseph Russell, of the 600 block of Powell Road near Smithville Road, was
flown to Temple University Hospital shortly after the incident, which was
reported at 11:49 p.m.

Russell had second-degree burns after the shorts he was wearing apparently
ignited from the dropped cigarette.

The helicopter landed on a ballfield at Rancocas Road for the airlift,
police said.

[Good_Lad]

spare, I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree. I seem to have a much different world view than you, and we're never going to see eye to eye.

[Good_Lad]

Perhaps he should have tried smaller amounts, like 360 seperate $1 billion checks. Maybe that would have raised less suspicion??? :sg



Police: Man Attempts To Cash $360 Billion Check :lmao

FORT WORTH, Texas - Fort Worth police arrested a Crowley man accused of trying to cash a stolen check for billions of dollars. Police said Charles Ray Fuller, 21, tried to cash the check at a Chase Bank, but the teller did a double take after noticing the check was for $360 billion.
The check was made out to "Fulla Comp and Entertainment," the record company Fuller wanted to start, NBC 5 reported.
Police said Fuller stole the check from Paula Prettyman, the mother of Fuller's girlfriend, Andrea Greer.

"I wouldn't picture him doing something that stupid, I mean, hurting me and my family," Greer said.
Greer and her family said they don't know what Fuller was thinking.
"I didn't think he'd do this, something this dumb. I think it shocked everybody that knew him," Greer said.
Her grandmother Sharon Laird agreed.
"I said, 'Do what? Is he crazy? We were just in awe," she said.
Laird said if her family had $360 billion, "I wouldn't be sitting here. I'd be somewhere drinking margaritas. It's five o'clock somewhere, sometime."
Authorities said Fuller also had a gun and marijuana in his possession at the time of his arrest.
Fuller told NBC 5 police caught him with a gun and a small amount of marijuana, but he denied trying to cash the $360 billion check.

[GeauxGirl]

You digress. Obviously, I do not condone child abuse - for any reason. I worry, though, at the leap in power of the federal government to attempt to dictate acceptable religious practices. They have now set the precedent that they can shut down a religious activity if it does not fit the accepted social norms. So, as norms shift, and they always do, they now have precedent to invoke their authority.

Simply, this was a fishing expedition - they based their intervention on an unsubstantiated phone call from a psychotic who has never been involved with the religion, has never been to the compound, has never even been in the state of Texas, and only knew of it thru jail house comments with a former member/drug addict. That smacks of an excuse - not a reason.

There is ample legal precedent for prosecuting the people based on information found once they were inside the compound - even though the search will eventually be found to be unwarranted and illegal. Right will win out in the end - those who committed child abuse will be punished. But, the long range impact of the government's actions will go unchecked for some time.

First of all, let me make it very clear that I do not condone polygamy
or child abuse of any kind. That said, Spare makes a very good point,
one that I have been arguing with family members since this story
broke. This is Waco without the guns and murder. It could have and
should have been handled differently.

[spare_change]

spare, I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree. I seem to have a much different world view than you, and we're never going to see eye to eye.

Never fear -- stick around -- I'll straighten you out! LOL! :yks

[Good_Lad]

Never fear -- stick around -- I'll straighten you out! LOL! :yks


LOL!! Good luck, spare. many have tried. In the end, they all realize how correct I am!

[PunkyBob]

You probably shouldn't be smoking while applying rubbing alcohol to your legs and groin

EASTAMPTON -- A 47-year-old township man sustained severe burns to his legs
and groin areas Wednesday night when he accidently ignited rubbing alcohol he
was applying to his body with a cigarette that fell into his lap, a township
police clerk said.

Joseph Russell, of the 600 block of Powell Road near Smithville Road, was
flown to Temple University Hospital shortly after the incident, which was
reported at 11:49 p.m.

Russell had second-degree burns after the shorts he was wearing apparently
ignited from the dropped cigarette.

The helicopter landed on a ballfield at Rancocas Road for the airlift,
police said.

Repeat after me...Darwin was right...Darwin was right...

[PunkyBob]

Quote:
Originally Posted by spare_change http://www.marriedandflirtingchat.com/forums/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.marriedandflirtingchat.com/forums/showthread.php?p=965032#post965032)
Never fear -- stick around -- I'll straighten you out! LOL! :yks


LOL!! Good luck, spare. many have tried. In the end, they all realize how correct I am!

Got my popcorn...recliner...beer...okay boys..go for it!!!

[bk_mojo]

Perhaps he should have tried smaller amounts, like 360 seperate $1 billion checks. Maybe that would have raised less suspicion??? :sg



Police: Man Attempts To Cash $360 Billion Check :lmao

FORT WORTH, Texas - Fort Worth police arrested a Crowley man accused of trying to cash a stolen check for billions of dollars. Police said Charles Ray Fuller, 21, tried to cash the check at a Chase Bank, but the teller did a double take after noticing the check was for $360 billion.
The check was made out to "Fulla Comp and Entertainment," the record company Fuller wanted to start, NBC 5 reported.
Police said Fuller stole the check from Paula Prettyman, the mother of Fuller's girlfriend, Andrea Greer.

"I wouldn't picture him doing something that stupid, I mean, hurting me and my family," Greer said.
Greer and her family said they don't know what Fuller was thinking.
"I didn't think he'd do this, something this dumb. I think it shocked everybody that knew him," Greer said.
Her grandmother Sharon Laird agreed.
"I said, 'Do what? Is he crazy? We were just in awe," she said.
Laird said if her family had $360 billion, "I wouldn't be sitting here. I'd be somewhere drinking margaritas. It's five o'clock somewhere, sometime."
Authorities said Fuller also had a gun and marijuana in his possession at the time of his arrest.
Fuller told NBC 5 police caught him with a gun and a small amount of marijuana, but he denied trying to cash the $360 billion check.

I bet this guy wore a helmet as a kid.

[Good_Lad]

Quote:
Originally Posted by spare_change http://www.marriedandflirtingchat.com/forums/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.marriedandflirtingchat.com/forums/showthread.php?p=965032#post965032)
Never fear -- stick around -- I'll straighten you out! LOL! :yks




Got my popcorn...recliner...beer...okay boys..go for it!!!


Might actually have to use a few brain cells for this one....

[Cotties]

lol...not bad at allRepeat after me...Darwin was right...Darwin was right...

[Cotties]

In a pretty clear omen from the gods, Hillary Clinton's Kentucky derby pick finished a close second, collapsed and was killed on the spot

sad but true..and Spare...you'll love this link
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/The_horserace.html

[spare_change]

In a pretty clear omen from the gods, Hillary Clinton's Kentucky derby pick finished a close second, collapsed and was killed on the spot

sad but true..and Spare...you'll love this link
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/The_horserace.html

I saw the race .... damn sad. But, that's what happens when you breed them to race, not to survive it.