| Despicable and inexcusable. "The US military has stopped evacuating Haitian earthquake victims to the US in a reported dispute over medical costs. Flights stopped on Wednesday because some hospitals were reluctant to take patients from Haiti, a US military official told the New York Times. A doctor in the quake zone warned 100 of his patients would die in the next 48 hours unless they were airlifted. Meanwhile, only women will be allowed to collect food from new UN distribution sites in Haiti's capital. Hundreds of patients with spinal injuries, burns and other wounds have been evacuated to the US since the 12 January quake that killed up to 200,000 people."
Where "alternative transportation" is cross-country skis. "Heavy snow and high winds have caused traffic chaos across Germany with at least three deaths reported nationwide. Conditions closed some motorways and caused long traffic jams on many others. North Rhine-Westphalia, which includes the cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf, recorded 300 accidents on Friday night and Saturday morning. Public transport in some areas has been shut down and police have advised people not to travel if possible. The traffic chaos in North Rhine-Westphalia led to one death and 40 more people injured, while in Bavaria another two people were killed on frozen roads. Flights at some airports were cancelled or delayed."
Why negotiating with the Taliban won't change much. 'A suicide bomber has killed at least 16 other people at a checkpoint in a market in north-west Pakistan. More than 20 people were also injured when the bomber, on foot, detonated at a bazaar in Khar, the main town in the troubled Bajaur tribal region. Only last year, Pakistan's military declared victory over militants in the district, following a ground offensive. Meanwhile, nine militants died in a US drone air strike in North Waziristan, local officials said. In Saturday's suicide blast, the bomber is said to have been heading for government buildings and military barracks when he was stopped by soldiers."
Definitely the way to go. 'Some of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi's ashes, kept for decades by a family friend, have been scattered off the South African coast. The ashes were sprinkled on to the Indian Ocean in a Hindu ceremony attended by about 200 people to mark the 62nd anniversary of Gandhi's death. They were handed over to the family last year after the family friend died. After Gandhi's assassination, his body was cremated and the ashes distributed among family, friends and followers. According to Hindu custom, ashes are scattered over a body of water shortly after cremation. Correspondents say it is difficult to estimate how many people received a portion of Gandhi's ashes. Boats carrying about 200 family members and friends were joined by South African navy vessels in the sea near Durban for the ceremony."
The last industry impervious to economic downturns. "Russia is to supply Libya with small-arms and other weapons to the value of $1.8bn (£1.1bn, 1.3bn euros), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced. The contract is worth nearly a quarter of the Russian state arms exporter's entire sales last year, which were put at $7.4bn. Mr Putin said the deal had been signed on Friday during a visit by the Libyan defence minister. There was no immediate word from the Libyan side on the deal. Abu Bakr Yunis Jaber, Libya's defence minister, has been in Moscow for several days, meeting defence officials."
The lottery is no-win. "The body of a former truck driver's assistant who won $17m in a lottery in 2006 has been found buried under a concrete slab in a backyard in Florida. Abraham Shakespeare, who was barely literate, went missing nine months ago after complaining of being exploited by hangers-on who tried to take his money. His body was found on Friday behind a home belonging to the boyfriend of a woman who befriended him in 2007. Police believe he was murdered, but have not yet arrested anyone."
Trials are an improvement over torture and execution, we guess. "Iran has put 16 people on trial after anti-government protests in December, when eight people died in some of the most violent clashes seen in months. Five of the defendants are charged with "waging war against God" while the others are accused of public order and national security offences. They were all arrested over protests on 27 December when Shia Muslims gathered for the religious festival of Ashura. Street protests have recurred in Iran since the disputed election in June. Hardline leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected for a second term in a poll marred by allegations of fraud. Hundreds of people were detained in the immediate aftermath of the Ashura Day protests."
Where the heartbreak never ends. "In post-earthquake Haiti, theirs is perhaps the most important and grisliest of professions: body hunters for hire. They dig through the rubble looking for corpses. Some wear socks on their hands and rags over their faces as they tug decaying bodies from shattered buildings. Others wrap their fingers in plastic bags. Seventeen days after a massive earthquake turned much of Port-au-Prince into rubble, most of the international rescue teams have packed up and gone home. Some 200,000 people are feared dead, and the stench of the city suggests many are still entombed beneath the concrete. Emanuel Bruno, 19, lost his mother, father and his home to the quake. A few days later, with two siblings to support, he was hiring himself out for the equivalent of $3 a day to recover bodies."
UN Agency calls for preemptive cyberwarfare treaty With the internet representing the next frontier in warfare, terrorism and criminal enterprise, the International Telcommunications Union, the United Nations communications and technology agency today issued a dire warning at a World Economic Forum debate where experts said nations must now consider when a cyber attack becomes a declaration of war,.and called for a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war.
California Senate ignores veto threat from Schwarzenegger and passes single-payer healthcare legislation Fearing that the effort to overhaul the healthcare system at the national level is faltering after the voters in Massachusetts changed the calculus by electing Scott Brown who ran on a pledge to kill healthcare reform, the state senate in the largest state struck out on their own. "If it's not to be done at the national level, let us take the lead," said state Sen. Christine Kehoe, a Democrat from San Diego.
Economic warfare is still warfare Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson alleges in his new book that Russian interests attempted to force the U.S. government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by selling off its holdings in the two entities in 2008, then urging China to do the same. Bloomberg adds that during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Bush that "war has started," according to Putin's spokesman. The Chinese declined, and Russia now denies that the conversation took place.
Have we grasped the holy grail of physics and acheived fusion without a nuclear detonation? ""For the first time ever in the 50-year journey of laser fusion, these laser-plasma interactions have been shown to be less of a problem than predicted, not more," said Mike Dunne, director of the UK's Central Laser Facility and leader of the European laser fusion effort known as HiPER. ... "I can't overstate how dramatic a step that is," he told BBC News. "Many people a year ago were saying the project would be dead by now." ... Adding momentum to the ignition quest, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced on Wednesday that, since the Science results were first obtained, the pulse energy record had been smashed again. ... They now report an energy of one megajoule on target - 50% higher than the amount reported in Science."
One way or another, Blanche Lincoln will be an ex-Senator this time next year and we won't shed a tear. The worst that could happen is the republicans gain nothing because even if John Boozman, the only republican in the Arkansas delegation, runs against her and wins (presuming she survives a primary challenge, and we doubt she gets past Lt. Governor Bill Halter in a primary) the republicans gain nothing. Whereas if Halter whoops her ass then beats the piss out of Boozman, the Democrats gain a seat. So whatever.
Give it up, fellas. Just like in high school, she is a tease and she is never, ever, ever gonna touch your fun parts. "Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said Friday that she has been in conversation with Democrats and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus about a way forward on health care reform. ... "I have talked with several of my Democratic colleagues, including the chairman of the Finance Committee, just sorting through these issues, and the process, and what will unfold," Snowe told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC Friday afternoon. "Hopefully, [Democrats] will take measure of what needs to happen now, build some support, those things can happen so that it's not [so] breathtakingly expansive that [it] creates consternation by the American people at a time will can ill-afford intrinsic costs.""
Fire Geithner and nominate Brooksley Born for Treasury Secretary and do it NOW "In 1997, Brooksley Born warned in congressional testimony that unregulated trading in derivatives could "threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it." Born called for greater transparency--disclosure of trades and reserves as a buffer against losses. ... Instead of heeding this oracle's warnings, Greenspan, Rubin & Summers rushed to silence her. As the Times story reveals, Born's wise warnings "incited fierce opposition" from Greenspan and Rubin who "concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market." Greenspan deployed condescension and told Born she didn't know what she doing and she'd cause a financial crisis. (A senior Commission director who worked with Born suggests that Greenspan and the guys didn't like her independence. " Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys. There was a little bit of the feeling that this woman was not of Wall Street.")"
We always suspected that 'Rip' Torn didn't have to dig too deep to find the creepy and the crazy that leaps off the screen "Actor Elmore "Rip" Torn has been charged with breaking into a Connecticut bank and carrying a loaded handgun while intoxicated. ... State police say the 78-year-old Salisbury resident was arrested Friday night after police found him inside the Litchfield Bancorp with a loaded revolver. ... The "Men in Black" actor has been taken into custody and booked on charges including burglary and possession of firearm without a permit. He is being held on $100,000 bond and is scheduled for a Monday appearance in Bantam Superior Court."
An anti-drug message that has a prayer of working "Just say no" was a joke. When Blue Girl's kids were in high school the handed out ribbons during some awareness week or another that said "I have better things to do than drugs" and the kids immediately folded them so they read "I have better drugs" and gleefully pinned them to their uniform polos. You can not appeal to a teenagers common sense because they don't have any. You have to appeal to what they have in spades: Vanity. Show a vain teenager who spends all their money on hair products and spare time in the mirror what a meth habit will do to their looks and their vanity kicks in. No one likes how they look with droopy grey skin, open sores, or gaunt and emaciated features, and the sheriff who came up with "This is your face on Meth" says that kids see themselves morphed into what they will become if a meth habit takes hold they burst into tears. "I can tell you that the software is having more of a positive effect than anything that I've ever been involved with on the drug fight."
And finally...
Self-important Johnson County assholes briefly thought themselves sponge terror-worthy Saturday Panic gripped the Kansas City suburbs of Perfect Village (Prairie Village on maps) and Leawood Saturday morning when a 'pipe-like object' was discovered in the parking lot of the Hen House at Mission and 83rd. Police cordoned off the area, the bomb squad was summoned and Turkey Lurkey and Foxy Loxy were dispatched. Turned out, though, that it wasn't a pipe bomb after all. It was inspection documents from a milk delivery truck that had fallen off when the bracket that held it in place broke. |
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Best New SoapBlox - 2008
