Posts from — December 2007

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends. I miss the latkes and jelly doughnuts my roommates received for the holiday at college. [Their grandmothers were afraid they wouldn’t celebrate or couldn’t get “real” food at that terrible Baptist university.] It was a great break.

One of the nice things about Hanukkah is that there are established “gifts”, so you don’t have to rack your brains about what to get: a card and gelt covers just about everyone.

General background at Wikipedia’s entry for Hanukkah and even more at Chabad’s Chanukah page.

[Note: on the Jewish calendar the day changes at sundown, not midnight, so it’s now the 5^th.]

In another unbelievable display of the separation from reality by the Hedgemony, the US releases portions of a National Intelligence Estimate that says Iran stopped its nuclear weapons research in 2003, and then says Iran must be punished for developing the nuclear weapons that we admit they aren’t developing.

CNN reports: U.S. report: Iran stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says.

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In the Venezuelan referendum the BBC reports: Chavez defeated over reform vote

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has narrowly lost a referendum on controversial constitutional changes.

Voters rejected the reforms, which included allowing a president to stand indefinitely for re-election, by 51% of the vote to 49%, officials said.

Mr Chavez accepted the result and urged his followers to remain calm.

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The Pacific Northwest is being hit with an Arctic hurricane-like storm: Pacific storm brings mudslides, blackouts to Northwest

OLYMPIA, Washington (AP) — A powerful Pacific storm battered the Northwest on Monday, blocking roads near the coast with fallen trees and flooding, blacking out thousands of customers and icing up mountain highways.

Mudslides halted north-south Amtrak passenger train service between Eugene, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Wind gusts to 100 mph were reported along the Oregon coast, with the highest reading at 129 mph at Bay City, the National Weather Service said. It said gusts hit 81 mph at Hoquiam, Washington.

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In Belarus they overdid it and decided to get an 85% victory, but Putin is more polished in his theft. The BBC reports: Monitors denounce Russia election

With nearly 98% of ballots counted, Mr Putin’s United Russia had 64.1% of Sunday’s vote.
…

The election “was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections,” the observers from the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly told a news conference in Moscow.

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So, a teacher ends up in jail with a mob screaming for execution and diplomats and legislators flying around the globe, and what was characterized as an anti-religious assault turns out to be a disgruntled ex-employee: Grudge sparked teddy bear crisis

KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) — In an effort to shut down Khartoum’s Unity High School, a disgruntled former employee alerted Sudanese officials that a British teacher had allowed her class to name a teddy bear “Mohammed,” a British source and Sudanese presidential palace source told Time magazine’s Sam Dealey.

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This time it really isn’t about the sex, it’s about the money.

I’ve seen people saying that “Sex On The City” [Tryst Fund, Shag Fund, whatever] is like Bill and Monica. Au contraire, from the point of view of tax dollars Monica was the ultimate cheap date, costing no tax money. Judi, on the other hand, cost the treasury of the city of New York tens of thousands of dollars in personnel and transportation costs, that doesn’t include the increase in potential liability by having NYPD officers on duty outside their jurisdiction.

No doubt a police officer was necessary to protect Judi’s dog because of the threat posed by ferrets in New York, but this claim that Judi was due police protection and transportation because of threats would come as a major surprise to the thousands of women in New York City and State who have received orders of protection because of actual abuse by former spouses. It was misappropriation of funds, plain and simple. Rudy abused the system to impress his latest girlfriend, and now wife. It also shows how little regard Rudy had for the officers of the NYPD.

Via both Rubber Hose and Shakesville The Times [the original in London] reports US says it has right to kidnap British citizens.

Oh, yes, this is really going to make the US a welcome guest, wandering about grabbing people in other countries. And what can we say when it happens to a US citizen? How do we complain about an American arrested on trumped up charges in a foreign country, when we claim for ourselves, despite treaties and protocols, despite having fought the War of 1812 over this very issue, that we can grab anyone we want, anywhere we want?

They are intent on making the United States a outlaw nation. That is the goal of the Hedgemony.

Katerina Ossenova writing for the PAPER CHASE blog (University of Pittsburgh, School of Law) reports Canada court strikes down refugee agreement with US:

[JURIST] The Federal Court of Canada [official website] Thursday struck down a refugee agreement [judgment, PDF] between Canada and the US, noting that the US does not meet international refugee protection requirements or respect international conventions against torture. Justice Michael Phelan [official profile] essentially nullified the 2004 Safe Third Country Agreement [text], which barred foreign refugees who first arrived in the US from seeking refugee status in Canada and vice versa. Phelan noted that the US has not been compliant with the Refugee Convention or the UN Convention Against Torture [texts]. The court also held that the agreement discriminates against refugees based on how they first arrived in Canada and thus violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text].

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Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

Mark Paul of Moonbats & Wingnuts, one of McClatchy’s alt.campaign blogs reviews the blog reaction to the Repub YouTube debate and it isn’t pretty: The blogs flunk the media again.

In case you didn’t notice, the Wingnuts thought the candidates were sandbagged by allowing obvious Democrats to ask questions, while the Moonbats thought the questions were inane and pointless for a Presidential primary.

I’m firmly in the camp that believes all of the legacy media™ coverage has been inane and pointless. You have to do a lot of searching to find out where any of the candidates in either party stand on any important issue, and there is no information about the stands of several candidates on many issues.

Usually the League of Women Voters sends questionnaires to candidates and then prints a booklet with the answers. No one seems to have been able to do that for the primaries. Apparently, primary voters are expected to take their best guess and select someone, and then the questionnaires will be sent to the candidates selected. This is not a reasoned process, the debates have been of absolutely no help.

Locals, especially local developers, look at the stretch of the barrier island [the East half is called Okaloosa Island, and the West, Santa Rosa Island] that is still occupied by the Air Force and lobby for it to be made available for development. They don’t think people will mind being microwaved by the various radars watching tests over the Gulf, or the low flying aircraft landing and taking off from Hurlburt Field, to be first people to see the hurricanes coming roaring in over the emerald green waters that are about to inundate their condo.

But there are other problems when the military turns over land for civilian use: Key West Landscapers Uncover 30 Unexploded World War II Mortar Shells. It’s amazing how you can forget where you left things when the terrain is altered by hurricanes, especially things that aircraft in trouble dump as they attempt to land.

The thing about following someone’s lead is to avoid following those who are heading over a cliff.

Reading that Democrats punish Michigan for early primary, is not exactly a surprise as this has already happened to Florida for daring to attempt to be relevant in the process of selecting a President.

Since Florida delegates can’t attend the convention, I wonder if the Republican Florida secretary of state will decide that the Democratic nominee doesn’t qualify to be on the state’s ballot unless they qualify separately through a petition drive, or must run as a write-in candidate? Anyone who thinks that’s a crazy idea hasn’t been watching Florida elections this century.

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The 2007 Hurricane season is over and it wasn’t as bad as people assumed for the US, but the people on the Yucatan Peninsula will remember getting smacked by two category 5 monsters, Dean and Felix and the Caribbean will mourn the losses caused by the rains of Noel. It is probable that all three names will be retired from the list.

Dr. Jeff Masters has his 2007 Hurricane Season wrap-up out and looks at some of the reasons that the season was not what everyone thought it would be. We are in an active cycle for storms, the La Niña keeps down wind shear, the surface water temperatures were up – everything was set for a really bad season for the US, but the action was all to the South and things went very quiet at the end. One of the big factors was African dust which cooled the surface temperatures, and isn’t predictable.

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