Sri Lanka's Fonseka mulls options
-
General who quit as defence chief set to announce decision on his political
future.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thought For The Day
Our mind rebels at the notion that our fates are not guided by a greater purpose as much as the are constrained by the dictates of Murphy's Law.
Obama to allow the kangaroos to put on a show in the Big Apple
There are times a bleeding heart defender of rule of the law can only weep. This is one of them. Team Obama is going to follow the script laid down by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in their numerous movies: they are going to put on a show!
Granted this little bit of theater won’t be as hideous as the ones put up by Joe Stalin but any resemblance to legitimate and fair trial is purely accidental. Exactly where in the Big Apple will they managed to find twelve unbiased jurors?
Oh and let us not forget in times past no self-respecting judge would have allowed this trail to take place at all. The government’s case is poisoned by the massive misconduct of the Bush-Cheney administration. Talk all you please about “aggressive interrogation techniques” the accused were tortured and abused.
That core bit of prosecutorial misconduct can not be ignored. The massive violations of the norms of law have contaminated any and all evidence the government may have gathered. There is no fact that has escaped the taint of the corruption. Any courtroom following the long established norms of our legal system would have no choice but to dismiss the government’s case with extreme prejudice.
Thus the Administration will be forced to create some new “court” that can conveniently ignore the massive violations of basic human rights that were inflicted on the suspects. Call it a tribunal or a court of special purpose or whatever what makes one happy, it is the spiritual heir of the Court of the Star Chamber that our founders despised.
The only reason for this little charade is that Obama and his Administration can not release the defendants on their own recognacense. Not in a month of Sundays can that happen because adhering to the demands of the rule of law would doom Obama’s Presidency. Plus there is also the unfortunate likelihood that the defendants are every inch the evil bastards the government claims to them to be.
But that used to be one of the more impressive bits of our legal system: even evil bastards were accorded the full protection of our Constitution. They were shielded by the Forth and Fifth Amendments. They were guaranteed a speedy trial by a jury of their peers. But 9/11 changed all that didn’t it? Bush-Cheney was blind-sided by OBL’s box-cutter wielding nihilists and went into CYA overdrive. In the rush to prevent another oops-awe-shit failure of the “Bin Laden determined to hit the United States” variety they trampled the protections of the Constitution. In their flop-sweat determination to gather “intelligence” on Al Qaeda they not only violated both Federal and international norms and laws but also common sense and decency.
Thanks to the epic incompetence of Bush-Cheney there is no good end result to this affair. It is a pity that we could not find some shark infested atoll to dump these lads on and be done with it. As it stands there is no way to put this put this legal Humpty Dumpty back together again. Obama and his team are attempting to find the least distasteful end to this situation but that brings little cheer. Let’s be real, there is no way this trail does not do further damage to our standing.
Granted this little bit of theater won’t be as hideous as the ones put up by Joe Stalin but any resemblance to legitimate and fair trial is purely accidental. Exactly where in the Big Apple will they managed to find twelve unbiased jurors?
Oh and let us not forget in times past no self-respecting judge would have allowed this trail to take place at all. The government’s case is poisoned by the massive misconduct of the Bush-Cheney administration. Talk all you please about “aggressive interrogation techniques” the accused were tortured and abused.
That core bit of prosecutorial misconduct can not be ignored. The massive violations of the norms of law have contaminated any and all evidence the government may have gathered. There is no fact that has escaped the taint of the corruption. Any courtroom following the long established norms of our legal system would have no choice but to dismiss the government’s case with extreme prejudice.
Thus the Administration will be forced to create some new “court” that can conveniently ignore the massive violations of basic human rights that were inflicted on the suspects. Call it a tribunal or a court of special purpose or whatever what makes one happy, it is the spiritual heir of the Court of the Star Chamber that our founders despised.
The only reason for this little charade is that Obama and his Administration can not release the defendants on their own recognacense. Not in a month of Sundays can that happen because adhering to the demands of the rule of law would doom Obama’s Presidency. Plus there is also the unfortunate likelihood that the defendants are every inch the evil bastards the government claims to them to be.
But that used to be one of the more impressive bits of our legal system: even evil bastards were accorded the full protection of our Constitution. They were shielded by the Forth and Fifth Amendments. They were guaranteed a speedy trial by a jury of their peers. But 9/11 changed all that didn’t it? Bush-Cheney was blind-sided by OBL’s box-cutter wielding nihilists and went into CYA overdrive. In the rush to prevent another oops-awe-shit failure of the “Bin Laden determined to hit the United States” variety they trampled the protections of the Constitution. In their flop-sweat determination to gather “intelligence” on Al Qaeda they not only violated both Federal and international norms and laws but also common sense and decency.
Thanks to the epic incompetence of Bush-Cheney there is no good end result to this affair. It is a pity that we could not find some shark infested atoll to dump these lads on and be done with it. As it stands there is no way to put this put this legal Humpty Dumpty back together again. Obama and his team are attempting to find the least distasteful end to this situation but that brings little cheer. Let’s be real, there is no way this trail does not do further damage to our standing.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Once More With Feeling; The Great War Ends.
In considering WW1 and its aftermath it is important to understand why that war was so destructive. In many ways the horror of the Great War was an oddity of historical timing. Had the war began earlier or later than it had the results would have been much different.
WW1 was such a horrific war because it was fought in an odd cusp of military history. It was fought in a time where the defensive in military strategy had the upper hand. Most times in history the side that had the advantage of movement was the side that had the military victory. This is why the Huns, Mongols, Magyars and other people of the steppes were able to roll over their more settled opponents. Time and time again the mobile shock troops of “barbarian” horsemen were able to make short work of the entrenched defenses of their more settled and “civilized” opponents.
WW1 was different. Trenches, barbed wire, artillery fire, and machine guns tilted the tactical advantage to the defenders. Once the Germans exhausted themselves in the initial push of the Scheflin plan both sides had no more bright ideas. The front was stabilized and the attempt of both sides to outflank each other (the “race to the sea”) quickly failed because of geographic constraints.
Both sides now found themselves in a war of attrition. It was a situation that no one was really prepared for. The only historical references either side had was the US Civil war. As this war was far away in both time and geography it was treated as a curiosity by the Continental military schools if it were treated at all.
Thus all the combatants were left with the strategy of the “big push.” Armies would attempt near suicidal assaults for pitiful gains. The meat-grinder strategies and tactics left both military and general history with the name of battles that are by-words for futility.
As the war ground on and on the weaker political entities started to unravel. The first to show the strain was Russia. Russia in WW1 is the best example of the difference between power in theory and power in actuality. Russia looked absolutely awesome on paper. It had superfluity of men under arms. All those Russian Divisions looked terrifying to a military planner on the opposing side. In reality it was a totally different story. It is next to impossible to find a more incompetent political-military structure in history than the one that “lead” the Russians in WW1.
The Russian rot started right at the top. The Czar of all the Russians was the wrong man at the wrong time. In another time, in another social-political structure Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov, Czar and Autocrat of all the Russian, would have been a fine constitutional monarch. Nicholas II was a man of impeccable breeding and the finest of manners. He was a devoted family man and a deeply religious person. His effortless charm would be perfect for the daily routine that modern monarchs find themselves employed with: opening public buildings, making small talk with the unwashed masses, planting symbolic trees, visiting the odd school yard, meeting artistic types, and so forth. In short, he would be perfect for a position that did not require him to actually govern.
Alas for Nicky, he found himself in a position that he had neither the wit, nor the intelligence, nor the luck to manage. Not only was the man hopelessly incompetent, he was cursed. No matter which decision he made it was always the wrong one. His last words were both typical and pathetic. Informed of his immanent execution it is claimed that his last words where “what, what?” just before the bullets flew.
Placed under the unrelenting pressure that is a war of attrition Russia shattered. The implosion began in the Battle of Tannenburg and never stopped until near the end of the Russian Revolution. Only the ruthless actions of Trotsky and his Red Army finally stabilized the situation.
Russia was not the only country to come unraveled by the pressures of the Great War. The Hapsburg dominions also did not survive the stress. By the end of the conflict not only were ethnic grouping spinning away from Vienna forming their own political entities but the army was no longer under control of the Empire. The Germans, disgusted with the inefficient and inept leadership that the dual monarchy was providing had taken over the running of the Austro-Hungarian forces.
While the Germans were reorganizing their allies affairs they also decided to reorganized their own affairs. The Prussian generals who were running the war made one of the more rational decisions of the war: they consigned their monarch to the dust bin of history. The generals had a war to win and the German Keizer was a hopeless leader.
Wilhelm II was a constantly distracted and peripatetic leader. He was man bursting with an excess of ideas and catastrophic lack of follow through. His over-reliance on his personal relations with his fellow monarchs was one of the major caused of the move toward war. He never understood how his own government worked and how his elites had stolen the march on him. In this cluelessness he was matched by his good friend and fellow monarch “Nicky.”
Equally out of sorts was the leader of the Dual Monarchy Franz Joseph I. The Octogenarian Monarch lost control of the ship of state and let his fragile nation be lead into a war that it could not possibly survive. The pressures of the War to End All Wars allowed the centripetal forces always working underneath the grand façade of the empire to rip apart the Hapsburg dominions into its constituent and sub-constituent parts. The only way Austria-Hungary would have survived WW1 was to never get involved in the first place. The irony is that it was Vienna’s insistence in the extermination of Serbia that cause the obliteration of the Empire.
At the core of the disaster of the First World War were the machinations of the great Empires and the crass calculations of political power. Those calculations caused great nation states to come to blows over ephemera. The rise of Serbia in the Balkans was never an existential threat to the Hapsburg position in Europe. The Dual Monarchy was a solid, if shabby, fourth place power in the pecking order of the day. Serbia, at best, barely rated being a fly in the ointment for the Austrians. It was Austria’s insistence of using a sledgehammer on the gnat of Serbia that caused the situation to get out of hand.
The alliance structure of the time and the time-tables of the involved militaries caused an unstoppable momentum of their own. Plans that had been on the drawing boards for a generation took on a life and an awful logic of their own. With each “logical” step dictated by the last, the European powers found themselves in a conflict that none of monarchs actually wanted. The nations involved found themselves in a nightmare war of attrition that had no good end for any of them.
The Western front became a vast charnel house because neither side had any other option other than tossing more men into the gaping maw of trench warfare. As the losses mounted up each side was that much more unwilling to accept any other result than full victory. The stalemate was only broken by two things, the development of the tank and the entry of the United States. The tank finally allowed a war of movement and the US Doughboys weight of numbers wrenched the scales of war in favor of the allied governments.
Unfortunately for the great Colonial European powers by the time the hostilities had ended they had managed to thoroughly discredit the prewar status quo. The rule of the prewar elites was prefaced by the claim that they had superior knowledge and abilities to ordinary people. The obvious disaster of WW1 belied such claims. The highly bred, highly trained, “natural leaders” managed to drive their respective nations off a cliff. Instead of brilliant performance, the status quo power structures had delivered breathtaking incompetence. A mountain of young mens' deaths had achieved a mole hill of results. The long twilight struggle of attritional warfare either destroyed the great powers of Europe or hollowed them out to the point that they were walking corpses. As noted before, the leadership that somehow managed not to get themselves killed in the trenches, a very small cohort, had lost all legitimacy with base population; the ordinary citizens had lost all enthusiasm for dying for king and country in obscure parts of the world. The ordinary citizen was no longer interested in glory unless it could be purchased on the cheap.
If there is one thing that stands out from WW1 more than anything else is how conventional thinking by the “right kind of people” can place blinders on people and nations. The nostrums of great power politics in 1917, the calculus of power, lead to results that were catastrophic. Bismarck saw this all too clearly and moved heaven and earth to make sure that Germany did not get involved in some “damn fool thing in the Balkans.” He correctly surmised that the entire area was not "worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier.” With his departure Europe was soon to be buried in the bones of millions of men. The awful illogic of preserving the power and prestige of the various participatory Empires quickly drowned out any still small voices pleading for reason.
Thus in order to prevent a decline of their relative power and position in the grand game of European statecraft the participants of the Great War managed to not only totally erase that power but themselves too. It is a harsh warning to our times : by trying to maintain global leadership you can actually managed to completely undermine one’s leadership position.
Cross Posted at History Isn't What It Used To Be
WW1 was such a horrific war because it was fought in an odd cusp of military history. It was fought in a time where the defensive in military strategy had the upper hand. Most times in history the side that had the advantage of movement was the side that had the military victory. This is why the Huns, Mongols, Magyars and other people of the steppes were able to roll over their more settled opponents. Time and time again the mobile shock troops of “barbarian” horsemen were able to make short work of the entrenched defenses of their more settled and “civilized” opponents.
WW1 was different. Trenches, barbed wire, artillery fire, and machine guns tilted the tactical advantage to the defenders. Once the Germans exhausted themselves in the initial push of the Scheflin plan both sides had no more bright ideas. The front was stabilized and the attempt of both sides to outflank each other (the “race to the sea”) quickly failed because of geographic constraints.
Both sides now found themselves in a war of attrition. It was a situation that no one was really prepared for. The only historical references either side had was the US Civil war. As this war was far away in both time and geography it was treated as a curiosity by the Continental military schools if it were treated at all.
Thus all the combatants were left with the strategy of the “big push.” Armies would attempt near suicidal assaults for pitiful gains. The meat-grinder strategies and tactics left both military and general history with the name of battles that are by-words for futility.
As the war ground on and on the weaker political entities started to unravel. The first to show the strain was Russia. Russia in WW1 is the best example of the difference between power in theory and power in actuality. Russia looked absolutely awesome on paper. It had superfluity of men under arms. All those Russian Divisions looked terrifying to a military planner on the opposing side. In reality it was a totally different story. It is next to impossible to find a more incompetent political-military structure in history than the one that “lead” the Russians in WW1.
The Russian rot started right at the top. The Czar of all the Russians was the wrong man at the wrong time. In another time, in another social-political structure Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov, Czar and Autocrat of all the Russian, would have been a fine constitutional monarch. Nicholas II was a man of impeccable breeding and the finest of manners. He was a devoted family man and a deeply religious person. His effortless charm would be perfect for the daily routine that modern monarchs find themselves employed with: opening public buildings, making small talk with the unwashed masses, planting symbolic trees, visiting the odd school yard, meeting artistic types, and so forth. In short, he would be perfect for a position that did not require him to actually govern.
Alas for Nicky, he found himself in a position that he had neither the wit, nor the intelligence, nor the luck to manage. Not only was the man hopelessly incompetent, he was cursed. No matter which decision he made it was always the wrong one. His last words were both typical and pathetic. Informed of his immanent execution it is claimed that his last words where “what, what?” just before the bullets flew.
Placed under the unrelenting pressure that is a war of attrition Russia shattered. The implosion began in the Battle of Tannenburg and never stopped until near the end of the Russian Revolution. Only the ruthless actions of Trotsky and his Red Army finally stabilized the situation.
Russia was not the only country to come unraveled by the pressures of the Great War. The Hapsburg dominions also did not survive the stress. By the end of the conflict not only were ethnic grouping spinning away from Vienna forming their own political entities but the army was no longer under control of the Empire. The Germans, disgusted with the inefficient and inept leadership that the dual monarchy was providing had taken over the running of the Austro-Hungarian forces.
While the Germans were reorganizing their allies affairs they also decided to reorganized their own affairs. The Prussian generals who were running the war made one of the more rational decisions of the war: they consigned their monarch to the dust bin of history. The generals had a war to win and the German Keizer was a hopeless leader.
Wilhelm II was a constantly distracted and peripatetic leader. He was man bursting with an excess of ideas and catastrophic lack of follow through. His over-reliance on his personal relations with his fellow monarchs was one of the major caused of the move toward war. He never understood how his own government worked and how his elites had stolen the march on him. In this cluelessness he was matched by his good friend and fellow monarch “Nicky.”
Equally out of sorts was the leader of the Dual Monarchy Franz Joseph I. The Octogenarian Monarch lost control of the ship of state and let his fragile nation be lead into a war that it could not possibly survive. The pressures of the War to End All Wars allowed the centripetal forces always working underneath the grand façade of the empire to rip apart the Hapsburg dominions into its constituent and sub-constituent parts. The only way Austria-Hungary would have survived WW1 was to never get involved in the first place. The irony is that it was Vienna’s insistence in the extermination of Serbia that cause the obliteration of the Empire.
At the core of the disaster of the First World War were the machinations of the great Empires and the crass calculations of political power. Those calculations caused great nation states to come to blows over ephemera. The rise of Serbia in the Balkans was never an existential threat to the Hapsburg position in Europe. The Dual Monarchy was a solid, if shabby, fourth place power in the pecking order of the day. Serbia, at best, barely rated being a fly in the ointment for the Austrians. It was Austria’s insistence of using a sledgehammer on the gnat of Serbia that caused the situation to get out of hand.
The alliance structure of the time and the time-tables of the involved militaries caused an unstoppable momentum of their own. Plans that had been on the drawing boards for a generation took on a life and an awful logic of their own. With each “logical” step dictated by the last, the European powers found themselves in a conflict that none of monarchs actually wanted. The nations involved found themselves in a nightmare war of attrition that had no good end for any of them.
The Western front became a vast charnel house because neither side had any other option other than tossing more men into the gaping maw of trench warfare. As the losses mounted up each side was that much more unwilling to accept any other result than full victory. The stalemate was only broken by two things, the development of the tank and the entry of the United States. The tank finally allowed a war of movement and the US Doughboys weight of numbers wrenched the scales of war in favor of the allied governments.
Unfortunately for the great Colonial European powers by the time the hostilities had ended they had managed to thoroughly discredit the prewar status quo. The rule of the prewar elites was prefaced by the claim that they had superior knowledge and abilities to ordinary people. The obvious disaster of WW1 belied such claims. The highly bred, highly trained, “natural leaders” managed to drive their respective nations off a cliff. Instead of brilliant performance, the status quo power structures had delivered breathtaking incompetence. A mountain of young mens' deaths had achieved a mole hill of results. The long twilight struggle of attritional warfare either destroyed the great powers of Europe or hollowed them out to the point that they were walking corpses. As noted before, the leadership that somehow managed not to get themselves killed in the trenches, a very small cohort, had lost all legitimacy with base population; the ordinary citizens had lost all enthusiasm for dying for king and country in obscure parts of the world. The ordinary citizen was no longer interested in glory unless it could be purchased on the cheap.
If there is one thing that stands out from WW1 more than anything else is how conventional thinking by the “right kind of people” can place blinders on people and nations. The nostrums of great power politics in 1917, the calculus of power, lead to results that were catastrophic. Bismarck saw this all too clearly and moved heaven and earth to make sure that Germany did not get involved in some “damn fool thing in the Balkans.” He correctly surmised that the entire area was not "worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier.” With his departure Europe was soon to be buried in the bones of millions of men. The awful illogic of preserving the power and prestige of the various participatory Empires quickly drowned out any still small voices pleading for reason.
Thus in order to prevent a decline of their relative power and position in the grand game of European statecraft the participants of the Great War managed to not only totally erase that power but themselves too. It is a harsh warning to our times : by trying to maintain global leadership you can actually managed to completely undermine one’s leadership position.
Cross Posted at History Isn't What It Used To Be
The Eleventh Hour Of The Eleventh Day Of Eleventh Month
This is no ordinary fall day it is quite special. In the United States Europe , today is more properly called Memorial Day or Remembrance Day. What is being remembered is the end of one of the greater disasters of history. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh day of 1918 is when the armistice of WW I was signed.
Europe entered a butcher shop of horrors because the conventional wisdom and the status quo of Power Politics lead it there. If there is a lesson to be gained from this date it is to be constantly wary of people who blithely try to explain why we must spend lives and treasures in obscure parts of the world for supposed grand strategic designs. Often the best and the brightest are the most ignorant of people.
Cross Posted at History Isn't What It Used To Be
World War One was the great game changers of history. At the beginning of the “War to end all Wars” there were five empires in Europe . There was Austria-Hungary , Germany , Russia , the United Kingdom Austria-Hungary had shattered, Germany became a republic, the Ottomans were in the process of becoming Turkey and Russia U.K.
Looking at a map the British Empire looked to be the big winner. It had expanded into what it called the Near East . It controlled either directly or indirectly all of the Ottoman areas between Anatolia (Asia Minor) to Egypt Syria and Lebanon
The U.K. Canada , New Zealand and Australia
Those foreign masters and foreign elites no longer had their previous gumption and will to power. Large portions of those elites had died in the trenches and survivors had lost their claim to leadership. By leading their nations into the meat grinder that was WW 1 they had evaporated any claims of superior ability or superior knowledge.
The cat was out of the bag as far as aristocratic power went. WW1 started in Europe because two great nation-states had laid dynastic eggs. If Germany or Russia
Cross Posted at History Isn't What It Used To Be
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A little too much enthusiasm
Noisy sex woman loses appeal bid
Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s love-making was described as “murder” and “unnatural” at Newcastle Crown Court.
Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise.
Mrs Cartwright, 48, from Washington on Wearside, lost the appeal against a conviction for breaching a noise abatement notice.
Recorder Jeremy Freedman, sitting with two magistrates, rejected her claim that she could not help making the loud noise during sex.
He said: “We are in no doubt whatsoever about the level of noise that can be heard in neighbouring properties, in the street and in the back lane.
“It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance. It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration – this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.
“It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.”
Mrs Cartwright was appealing against the abatement notice, which was imposed in November 2007, and a subsequent Asbo, banning the couple from “shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance”.
She has since been accused of three counts of breaching the Asbo, but has denied the charges and will stand trial at Newcastle Crown Court on 14 December.
Snip
This is a definite case of far too much gusto. Still a nearly fifty year old woman “enjoying” herself “nearly every night.” sometimes for “hours at a time” is very impressive.
Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s love-making was described as “murder” and “unnatural” at Newcastle Crown Court.
Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise.
Mrs Cartwright, 48, from Washington on Wearside, lost the appeal against a conviction for breaching a noise abatement notice.
Recorder Jeremy Freedman, sitting with two magistrates, rejected her claim that she could not help making the loud noise during sex.
He said: “We are in no doubt whatsoever about the level of noise that can be heard in neighbouring properties, in the street and in the back lane.
“It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance. It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration – this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.
“It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.”
Mrs Cartwright was appealing against the abatement notice, which was imposed in November 2007, and a subsequent Asbo, banning the couple from “shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance”.
She has since been accused of three counts of breaching the Asbo, but has denied the charges and will stand trial at Newcastle Crown Court on 14 December.
Snip
This is a definite case of far too much gusto. Still a nearly fifty year old woman “enjoying” herself “nearly every night.” sometimes for “hours at a time” is very impressive.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Lawyers Guns And Money
Money quote from Bloomburg ( http://bit.ly/1HZtzT ) about the Fort Hood Shooting “General Will Grimsley, deputy commander of III Corps, said Hasan fired only one weapon, a Belgian-make semi-automatic machine pistol with an extended magazine. He said Hasan reloaded and fired more than 100 rounds. Investigators are still finding shell casings, he said.
Hasan also carried a .357 magnum handgun but apparently didn’t fire it, Grimsley said.
Weapon Ownership
Rossi, at his press conference last night, said the weapons weren’t issued by the military. They were owned by Hasan and bought locally.”
This tragedy got a big assist from our gun-crazy culture. A culture that can not ask the common sense question “why would anyone ‘need’ a semi-automatic machine pistol?” or “exactly what is the point of a civilian having that kind of fire-power?” The good doctor was casually allowed to purchase an offensive weapon. The only screening for the purchase was “cash or charge?”
Hasan also carried a .357 magnum handgun but apparently didn’t fire it, Grimsley said.
Weapon Ownership
Rossi, at his press conference last night, said the weapons weren’t issued by the military. They were owned by Hasan and bought locally.”
This tragedy got a big assist from our gun-crazy culture. A culture that can not ask the common sense question “why would anyone ‘need’ a semi-automatic machine pistol?” or “exactly what is the point of a civilian having that kind of fire-power?” The good doctor was casually allowed to purchase an offensive weapon. The only screening for the purchase was “cash or charge?”
Saturday, October 31, 2009
All Trick No Treat
Quentin Patrick, 22, an ex-convict in Sumter, South Carolina shot and killed a trick-or-treater T.J. Darrisaw who came to his home on Halloween — spraying nearly 30 rounds with an assault rifle from inside his home after hearing a knock on the door. T.J.’s 9-year-old brother, Ahmadre Darrisaw, and their father, Freddie Grinnell, were injured but were released after being treated at a hospital.
T.J.’s 9-year-old brother, Ahmadre Darrisaw, and their father, Freddie Grinnell, were injured but were released after being treated at a hospital.
Patrick left his porch light on — a general signal for kids that the house was open for trick and treating. The boy’s mother and toddler sibling were in the car.
Patrick emptied the AK-47 — shooting at least 29 times through his front door, walls and windows after hearing the knock. He said that he had been previously robbed. That may be so, but it is unclear what an ex-con was doing with a gun, let alone an AK-47.
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/11/02/south-carolina-man-shoots-and-kills-12-year-old-trick-or-treater/
T.J.’s 9-year-old brother, Ahmadre Darrisaw, and their father, Freddie Grinnell, were injured but were released after being treated at a hospital.
Patrick left his porch light on — a general signal for kids that the house was open for trick and treating. The boy’s mother and toddler sibling were in the car.
Patrick emptied the AK-47 — shooting at least 29 times through his front door, walls and windows after hearing the knock. He said that he had been previously robbed. That may be so, but it is unclear what an ex-con was doing with a gun, let alone an AK-47.
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/11/02/south-carolina-man-shoots-and-kills-12-year-old-trick-or-treater/
Dude, you do understand the concept of "Haunted House," Right?
ESSEX, Md. - An off-duty Baltimore city police officer delivered the fright of a lifetime to a haunted house employee, pulling a gun on the chain-saw-wielding man at the end of his act, authorities said Monday.
Sgt. Eric Janik, 37, was charged with assault and reckless endangerment for pointing his service handgun at the worker, who was dressed as Leatherface, the killer from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," Baltimore County police said.
The employee, Mike Morrison, followed Janik and several other people up a staircase Sunday night at the end of the haunted house tour in a bid to get "one last scream" out of them, police said.
When the group exited into a parking lot, Janik pulled his gun and pointed it at Morrison from less than 10 feet away, according to police and Morrison, who said he dropped the chain saw, put his hands up and backed away. The saw had no chain.
Only then did Janik identify himself as a police officer, said Morrison, who retreated into the building.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Yup, nothing but good christian family values here
Relations between the former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Levi Johnston, the teenager who almost became her son-in-law, have deteriorated to the point that a court battle is now inevitable, he has told the Guardian.
The dispute is over Tripp, his infant son by Palin's eldest daughter, Bristol: he claims Palin is preventing him from seeing the child.
"I'm up to the point where I can't see my kid again. I'm done. I'm sure we'll end up in court. We're definitely going to court," Johnston, 19, said in an interview in Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2009/oct/30/levi-johnston-sarah-palin
Johnston said there had been times when he had been allowed to see Tripp about once a week, but there had also been periods when he had had virtually no access. He said: "They started letting me see him and everything was fine. But everything got bad again. So I said screw them."
Johnston said his relationship with the Palin family was entering another bad phase where his calls were not being returned, even though he said he was now paying child support.
Johnston said he recognised that taking the legal road would be hard. "It's going to be a tough battle. Basically, it's down to who has the better lawyer. I can just imagine all the cameras that are going to be there – it's going to be crazy," he said.
Palin has responded to Johnston's recent criticisms by using the American media to accuse him of peddling flat-out lies and exaggerations, adding it was unfortunate that he chose to exploit his former relationship with Bristol than care for the wellbeing of their child.
Sarah Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, said: "Other than noting that Tripp's father is always welcome to visit his son, we are unable to respond to these allegations as it is inappropriate to discuss child custody matters publicly."
The dispute is over Tripp, his infant son by Palin's eldest daughter, Bristol: he claims Palin is preventing him from seeing the child.
"I'm up to the point where I can't see my kid again. I'm done. I'm sure we'll end up in court. We're definitely going to court," Johnston, 19, said in an interview in Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2009/oct/30/levi-johnston-sarah-palin
Johnston said there had been times when he had been allowed to see Tripp about once a week, but there had also been periods when he had had virtually no access. He said: "They started letting me see him and everything was fine. But everything got bad again. So I said screw them."
Johnston said his relationship with the Palin family was entering another bad phase where his calls were not being returned, even though he said he was now paying child support.
Johnston said he recognised that taking the legal road would be hard. "It's going to be a tough battle. Basically, it's down to who has the better lawyer. I can just imagine all the cameras that are going to be there – it's going to be crazy," he said.
Palin has responded to Johnston's recent criticisms by using the American media to accuse him of peddling flat-out lies and exaggerations, adding it was unfortunate that he chose to exploit his former relationship with Bristol than care for the wellbeing of their child.
Sarah Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, said: "Other than noting that Tripp's father is always welcome to visit his son, we are unable to respond to these allegations as it is inappropriate to discuss child custody matters publicly."
Lady This Is The United States, Just File For Divorce.
NEW YORK — A devout Muslim woman forced by her newlywed husband to eat pork, wear short skirts and drink alcohol slashed his neck with a kitchen knife as he slept, according to a statement she gave to police.
Rabia Sarwar, 37, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and was freed on $25,000 bail. She told police in a written statement that she was emotionally abused by her husband, Seikh Naseem, and forced to violate her religious beliefs.
"He made me do so many things that are against Islam," she wrote in a statement to police.
"I did all that just to make him happy but inside me there was a war," she continued.
Naseem suffered cuts to his neck, cheek and hand early Wednesday before fighting Sarwar off and dialing 911 from his Staten Island home, authorities said.
"I did my best to cut his throat," Rabia Sarwar wrote. "But the next moment he jumped on me and grabbed me."
Sarwar's attorney, Joe Licitra, said she had previously been treated for depression. Her husband told the New York Post that Sarwar, a native of Pakistan, was having a hard time adjusting to American culture.
Snip
Having a hard time adjusting to the U.S. is an understatement. Here you are not allowed to knife your husband for going off the rails. OK, maybe in Texas but that hardly counts.
Rabia Sarwar, 37, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and was freed on $25,000 bail. She told police in a written statement that she was emotionally abused by her husband, Seikh Naseem, and forced to violate her religious beliefs.
"He made me do so many things that are against Islam," she wrote in a statement to police.
"I did all that just to make him happy but inside me there was a war," she continued.
Naseem suffered cuts to his neck, cheek and hand early Wednesday before fighting Sarwar off and dialing 911 from his Staten Island home, authorities said.
"I did my best to cut his throat," Rabia Sarwar wrote. "But the next moment he jumped on me and grabbed me."
Sarwar's attorney, Joe Licitra, said she had previously been treated for depression. Her husband told the New York Post that Sarwar, a native of Pakistan, was having a hard time adjusting to American culture.
Snip
Having a hard time adjusting to the U.S. is an understatement. Here you are not allowed to knife your husband for going off the rails. OK, maybe in Texas but that hardly counts.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Does The Obama Administration Have ANY Learning Curve What So Ever?
Israel is close to reaching a deal with the United States that will accommodate the so-called "natural growth" of settlements in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, the Israeli ambassador to Washington has told Al Jazeera.
Michael Oren said on Tuesday that the US had agreed with Israel to a temporary halt to settlement building activity in the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, rather than a total freeze.
"The agreement was a time-limited halt - or a pause, if you will - to the settlement construction, that would allow for a certain amount of what we would call 'certain life growth' in the territories," Oren said.
Snip
Sometimes the only option for Analysis viz the Mid East is total despair. To limit a Likud government to "natural growth" viz the settlement is to impose no limits at all. This is a favorite con of Likud governments going all the way back to Menachem Begin. It is a loophole that the Israeli government will drive untold number of moving vans through. Sweet Baby Jesus on a Pogo Stick what is Obama thinking?
Michael Oren said on Tuesday that the US had agreed with Israel to a temporary halt to settlement building activity in the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, rather than a total freeze.
"The agreement was a time-limited halt - or a pause, if you will - to the settlement construction, that would allow for a certain amount of what we would call 'certain life growth' in the territories," Oren said.
Snip
Sometimes the only option for Analysis viz the Mid East is total despair. To limit a Likud government to "natural growth" viz the settlement is to impose no limits at all. This is a favorite con of Likud governments going all the way back to Menachem Begin. It is a loophole that the Israeli government will drive untold number of moving vans through. Sweet Baby Jesus on a Pogo Stick what is Obama thinking?
Lost in Translation-- Gates Foolishly Tries to Read Japan The Riot Act.
The US defence secretary has called on Japan to honour existing agreements on military bases in country.
Speaking in Tokyo after talks with his Japanese counterpart, Robert Gates said it was "time to move on" and implement a deal on a realignment of US forces based in Japan.
"This may not be the perfect alternative for anyone, but it is the best alternative for
Everyone," he said.
Three years ago US defence officials agreed a broad plan with the then Japanese government to reorganise US forces based in the country.
But in August a landslide election win swept a new government to power in Tokyo led by Yukio Hatomaya, the new prime minister.Hatomaya has said he wants to revise the US-Japan alliance, making for a more equal partnership with Washington and making Japan less dependent on the US.
Some members of his cabinet have gone a step further, demanding that all troops leave the country.
Central to the 2006 deal is a plan to shift the US Marine air base at Futenma on the southern island of Okinawa to a less crowded part of the island.
Hatoyama has said he wants the base moved off the island, but the US has ruled that out, saying that would undermine broader security arrangements that took more than a decade to negotiate.
Source Al Jazeera
Snip
Please, please, please dear god or goddess let the stance of Gates be only a negotiation tactic and not policy. Please let there be some wiggle room here. Elections have consequences and the people of Japan just signaled that the old ways of doing business are over.
Gates, Hillary Clinton and the President are big-footing around some very delicate toes. Japan can not be pushed around or brow-beaten by the United States. The new Japanese administration has no obligation to adhere to a deal worked out by the previous LDP Administration. Washington can not dictate terms to Tokyo and should not even try. If Gates and others continue this tone-deaf policy, Japan may just tell us to leave and take our toys with us.
Speaking in Tokyo after talks with his Japanese counterpart, Robert Gates said it was "time to move on" and implement a deal on a realignment of US forces based in Japan.
"This may not be the perfect alternative for anyone, but it is the best alternative for
Everyone," he said.
Three years ago US defence officials agreed a broad plan with the then Japanese government to reorganise US forces based in the country.
But in August a landslide election win swept a new government to power in Tokyo led by Yukio Hatomaya, the new prime minister.Hatomaya has said he wants to revise the US-Japan alliance, making for a more equal partnership with Washington and making Japan less dependent on the US.
Some members of his cabinet have gone a step further, demanding that all troops leave the country.
Central to the 2006 deal is a plan to shift the US Marine air base at Futenma on the southern island of Okinawa to a less crowded part of the island.
Hatoyama has said he wants the base moved off the island, but the US has ruled that out, saying that would undermine broader security arrangements that took more than a decade to negotiate.
Source Al Jazeera
Snip
Please, please, please dear god or goddess let the stance of Gates be only a negotiation tactic and not policy. Please let there be some wiggle room here. Elections have consequences and the people of Japan just signaled that the old ways of doing business are over.
Gates, Hillary Clinton and the President are big-footing around some very delicate toes. Japan can not be pushed around or brow-beaten by the United States. The new Japanese administration has no obligation to adhere to a deal worked out by the previous LDP Administration. Washington can not dictate terms to Tokyo and should not even try. If Gates and others continue this tone-deaf policy, Japan may just tell us to leave and take our toys with us.
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