The Truth Is Out There.
Btw, IIRC Jimmy Carter allegedly is a contactee (or at least saw an ufo) : now I understand better why he acts like he does, he's got a space worm parasiting his brain.
#6
Carter saw Venus. The few times Venus is visible at night (being closer to the Sun this is rare) it tends to be very bright and low on the horizon so that it is refracted by the atmosphere and skips. The nice thing about Venus is we can tell with absolute precision which nights Venus will appear and thus know ahead of time that a lot of UFO sitings are likley. The WW2 Foo Fighters were fighting Venus.
#7
I saw a UFO in 1973/4. Classic fat gray cigar shape that apparently accelerated away at high speed. I was outside about an hour after dawn. Watched it for at least a minute. I can tell you it wasn't a plane or ballon. Otherwise I have no idea what it was.
I think all this alien stuff is bollocks. My point being that there is no (necessary) relationship between seeing a UFO and believing this rubbish.
#8
I've seen strange lights that move at what appear as incredible speeds - but I've seen them in the high desert (Mojave) and So Nevada - I have no doubts they are terrestrial - and paid for with our tax dollars. I approve
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2006 22:31 Comments ||
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#9
Cold desert night air and a hot ground can cause thermal (and density) differentials that can cause light from headlight to be refracted and see miles away.
Posted by: ed ||
04/15/2006 23:09 Comments ||
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#10
My take on aliens is this:
I *know* there _really is_ a "great white father" in Washington, but I don't build my life around building a realistic-looking airbase out of bamboo and waiting for the cargo to come in.
WRT aliens, I think the same logic should apply. They may be out there but I don't think they're going to land tomorrow and save us from ourselves.
As for the Carter-is-a-Goa'uld idea, I doubt he'd be a very successful system lord.
Posted by: Phil ||
04/15/2006 23:53 Comments ||
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BUJUMBURA, Burundi (AP) - Burundi's government lifted a midnight to dawn curfew Friday for the first time since 1993, saying that most of the country is stable after years of civil war. The curfew was first imposed following the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president in 1993. He was a Hutu and was slain by Tutsi paratroopers, setting off a civil war that left more than 250,000 people dead.
A cease-fire was reached between the Tutsi-controlled government and the main Hutu rebel group in 2003 and rebel leader Peter Nkurunziza was elected president in August. One rebel group continues to fight, though in only one of Burundi's 17 provinces - rural Bujumbura. Provincial officials will have the option of maintaining a curfew there.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/15/2006 00:00 ||
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All right! Let the good times roll in Bujumbura!
A former Miss Italy beauty pageant contestant is set to grace Arab network al-Jazeera's upcoming 24-hour English-language news channel. Milan-born Barbara Serra, chosen by the Doha, Qatar-based network as a news anchor earlier this month, says she has no qualms with the network's reputation as al-Qaeda's preferred channel for propaganda messages. "It's true they have aired the material [first], but it makes news. That's why the BBC and Sky would pick up the items (video and audio messages from Osama-bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) immediately afterwards," she said in an interview with Milan-daily Corriere della Sera published on Thursday.
Serra who has broadcasting experience with the BBC and Sky, became the first, and to date the only, second-language English speaker to present a flagship news programme on British television as an anchor for private station, Channel Five.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2006 00:00 ||
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what good is it to be ex-Miss Italy if you have to put a bag over your head?
#2
Ms Serra has (TV) stars in her eyes and hasn't done the slightest bit of research into what it will be like for a western woman to live in an islamsist society.
#3
If she lives over there it will be in Qatar or Dubai, which will pretty much leave her alone. She'll dress some 'conservatively' but I suspect that won't bother her. And she's going to be driven around anyway as befits a 'star'.
Lovely cheeckbones.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/15/2006 14:06 Comments ||
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#4
How do I get me one of those dark-haired beauties? I mean, how much does she cost?
Posted by: Rich Saudi ||
04/15/2006 21:33 Comments ||
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#5
I don't know, what's a soul worth these days, anyways?
Posted by: Rich Saudi ||
04/15/2006 21:41 Comments ||
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#7
yeah, it would take about a gallon to be able to endure sleeping with the people (plural) who will make her a star. I hope she makes oodles of money, because I'm guessing 80 proof costs more than $3 per gallon over there.
Lieutenant-Commander Dicky Kendall, who has died aged 82, placed a two-ton mine under the German battleship Tirpitz in the Kaa Fjord of northern Norway.
On the evening of September 20 1942, after being towed 1,200 miles from Scotland in an attack submarine, Kendall boarded the miniature sub X-6. While his captain, Lt Don Cameron, navigated through a minefield on the surface, Kendall had to trim the craft to counterbalance a leak in one of the two-ton explosive charges fixed to its sides.
As the diver in the four-man crew, Kendall's job was to don a heavy diving suit and enter a flooded compartment. He then had to open the hatch to climb on to the casing to manoeuvre a heavy pneumatic cutter and its hose; his task was to cut through the heavy wire nets protecting the battleship. At 0200 hours, the nets opened for a coaster, and Cameron followed through in the boat's wake. When the periscope fogged up, Kendall had to hold it in position with his foot on the brake, his back to the chart table, while Cameron eyed the target.
Suddenly X-6 struck a shoal, and was forced to the surface by Tirpitz's port bow; all Kendall could see was the ship's grey paint. As X-6 scraped down the battleship's side, Kendall released the starboard mine under Tirpitz's B turret.
After opening the buoyancy tanks to scuttle their craft, Cameron, Kendall and the two other crew members clambered on to the casing to be hauled aboard a German picket boat, where all four saluted as X-6 sank.
Kendall was locked in a small compartment on board Tirpitz, but refused to speak to his captors, despite threats of summary execution. Then, at 0812, there were two violent explosions, and she heaved upwards several feet, throwing him and his guard to the deck. As the ship listed heavily, Kendall knew that the attack had inflicted serious damage.
Cameron was awarded the VC; Lt John Lorimer and Kendall received the DSO; and Engine Room Artificer Edmund Goddard the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
The Germans billeted Kendall and Lorimer in a prison camp outside Bremen with the survivors of Operation Principal, the human torpedo attack in the Mediterranean; and for several months all the most highly decorated officers in the RNVR shared the same hut. Afterwards Kendall rarely talked about Operation Source (the Tirpitz attack) or his captivity, except to boast of bribing a guard for a bottle of Champagne to celebrate his 21st birthday. He was released after 18 months, and left the Navy in 1946.
The son of a master draper, Richard Haddon Kendall was born at Palmers Green on March 2 1923 and educated at Epsom College. Young Dicky was southern counties' junior cross-country champion in wartime England, and, while reading for a BSc in Forestry at Aberdeen, he captained the Scottish Universities team at the World Student Games in 1947.
He enjoyed travelling, playing golf and curling as well as tending his impressive gardens. A modest man, with a dry wit, he would change the subject when his wartime service was mentioned.
#2
sometimes I think it is a blessing that the MSM ignores the soldiers. This way, they do their job, the people that matter know and care and they don't get their lives totally screwed up with all of the baggage that instant fame can bring. It's often the worst thing that can happen to someone.
The good Lord works in mysterious ways. I think this is one of them.
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba ordered the expulsion of a Czech diplomat Friday, accusing him of spying for the United States. Stanislav Kazecky, who was in charge of political, cultural and media affairs for the Czech embassy, was given 72 hours to leave the Caribbean island. He said he plans to leave Saturday evening.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Kazecky was repeatedly spotted attempting to photograph and enter military installations. ``These are places where he has no reason to be,'' Perez Roque said. ``We have decided not to renew his visa.'' The visa expired Friday. ``He carries out orders by American special services, works closely with the United States subversive apparatus, distributes money and materials to mercenary groups and helps the government of the United States,'' Perez Roque said.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he had not heard of any reports of a Czech diplomat spying for the United States.
"Say, that's a new one on me!"
Kazecky said the expulsion is a result of the human rights work the Czech Republic has done. ``I've never knowingly been at a military installation,'' Kazecky said.
The Czech government repeatedly has criticized Fidel Castro's government and offered moral support to Cuban dissidents. The Czech Republic said it was responding by refusing to renew a Cuban diplomat's visa. The Cuban diplomat, who has not been identified, can stay in the Czech Republic until April 19, when the visa expires.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/15/2006 00:00 ||
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must be looking into those universally applauded education and health care systems
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2006 0:25 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2006 00:00 ||
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"The surgery really did happen," a nurse at the hospital's plastic surgery institute said.
She says the doctors involved in the surgery are not immediately available for comment.
Methinks the wench doth protest too much. And the doctors not available for their moment of fame?
Puffery and a failed op. His wife doesn't have to "get used" to a different man's face. The flesh will follow his contours as we've already learned. The Chicoms should have read the reports a little more carefully for the details.
AN immigration detainee at Sydney's Holsworthy Army Barracks has tried to commit suicide by swallowing razor blades, a refugee advocate said. An immigration department spokesman today said a detainee had been taken to hospital but declined to give details. "I can confirm a detainee has been taken to hospital and is being treated there," the spokesman said without elaborating.
Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Mark Goudkamp told about 80 protesters outside the Villawood detention centre, in Sydney's west, one of the detainees temporarily housed at Holsworthy had tried to commit suicide. "One of the Chinese detainees at Holsworthy has just attempted to commit suicide by swallowing razor blades," Mr Goudkamp said. "So it is clear that the mental illness inducing conditions that exist here at Villawood also exist out there at Holsworthy."
The 160 detainees at Holsworthy are among 260 temporarily relocated after asbestos was found at Villawood. Police this morning closed off streets surrounding the Villawood detention centre in Sydney's west as the protesters marched to the gate from a nearby park about 11am (AEST) without incident.
A line of riot police are standing shoulder-to-shoulder across the entrance within metres of the protesters as they began chanting slogans and delivering speeches. No arrests have been made.
A large police contingent including mounted police is on hand to monitor the protest and they say any illegal behaviour will be swiftly dealt with. The activists, some of whom camped in a park near the Villawood detention centre overnight, were protesting the federal Government's decision to process offshore all asylum seekers who arrive by boat.
Mark Goudkamp, a spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition, said the federal Government's tough new immigration laws would turn the country into "fortress Australia". "We are not take this decision, to lock up any future asylum seekers overseas, lying down," Mr Goudkamp said.
Another Refugee Action Coalition spokesman, Alex Leszczynski, said today's protest, on Easter Saturday, one of Christianity's holiest days, was religiously symbolic. "For those Christians out there, they should realise it is against Christian values to lock people up who have committed absolutely no crime," Mr Leszczynski said. "They should also realise that this government does not represent Christian values.
"It is opposed to everything Christianity stands for equality and love for all your fellow human beings."
Well then, ship the refugees back to Indonesia.
The Sydney action is part of a weekend of protests, which will take place in several states. About 80 refugee activists gathered at the Holsworthy army barracks, in Sydney's southwest, yesterday demanding access to 160 immigration detainees temporarily held there. A protest outside Kirribilli House, the Prime Minister's official Sydney home, is planned for tomorrow morning.
Tehran, 14 April (AKI) - Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has apparently been incensed by an anonymous text message suggesting he does not wash enough. Ahmadinejad has taken legal action over the offending text, has fired the president of a phone company and has had four people arrested and accused of colluding with the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, the anti-government website Rooz Online reports.
Poking fun at the president, the regime's senior figures and its policies, has reportedly become a national pastime in Iran. The Iranian authorities are paying particular attention to jokes comparing Iran's nuclear programme with sex. Several people are widely believed to have received court summonses for sending nuclear-related jokes, according to Rooz Online.
"While the outcome of the recent arrests in connection with SMS messaging is not clear yet, what is certain is that SMS jokes have already put some people into serious trouble," wrote Rooz Online.
The clampdown is in line with the authorities' uncompromising stance on Internet bloggers. Large numbers of the nation's estimated 70,000 to 100,000 bloggers have faced harassment or imprisonment. The regime has acknowledged monitoring text message traffic. This apparently began in the run-up to the presidential election last June.
Furious tsunami survivors living in a village in Indonesia's Aceh have told an international aid agency that they no longer want their help after waiting a year for them to build promised houses. British-based Oxfam has closed their office overseeing Pasi - and the rest of Aceh Besar and Banda Aceh districts - as they investigate what has gone wrong.
But, no matter the outcome, fed-up residents say they do not want Oxfam back. The unprecedented rejection of promised aid by a community in devastated Aceh, where some 168,000 people were killed by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, highlights mounting frustration among homeless tsunami survivors. Last month, the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency for Aceh and Nias (BRR) said some 127,000 houses were yet to be built. Also, the cost of building a home has jumped from 28 to 50 million rupiah.
Village chief Muhammad Hatta says about 150 of those homes are in Pasi. He says Oxfam workers first promised in April last year to build half of them. The laying of foundations for 11 houses is the only evidence of progress so far. "Residents here have agreed to demand a divorce from Oxfam," the 40-year-old, who lost his wife and three children to the tsunami, said. Some 315 survivors from both Pasi and nearby Meunasah Lhok - which together had a combined population of just over 1,000 before the tsunami - now live in makeshift tents and huts strung together from tarpaulins and whatever else they have got hold of. "My people have all agreed they no longer want Oxfam in our village, although they did help us a lot in the past," the chief said.
He says Oxfam were among the earliest relief groups to provide desperately-needed aid to the area, providing clean water, sanitation facilities and helping residents in cash-for-work projects from February last year. Lilianne Fan, Oxfam's advocacy coordinator in Aceh, says that Oxfam only officially committed to building the houses in June 2005 "but on condition that the problem of land first be settled." She says the chief eventually bought land for the new houses on October 17, 2005.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
Are mozzies inclined to be grateful to infidels? Don't count on it and you won't be disappointed. They always think in terms of "us and them". This never eventually vary.
#3
Check out The Road to Hell by Michael Maren. Could be the villagers came to the same conclusion he did: NGO help can be worse than the original problem.
Posted by: James ||
04/15/2006 23:08 Comments ||
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A right-winger determined to undermine Left-wing bloggers could not have written a better piece. Amazingly, or perhaps not, Leftist blogging crackpot Maryscott O'Connor immolated herself and pretty much the entire far-left blogosphere without any help from the right.
The Left, Online and Outraged
Liberal Blogger Finds an Outlet and a Community
By David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 15, 2006; Page A01
SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. -- In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.
Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.
Posted by: Lancasters Over Dresden ||
04/15/2006 15:26 ||
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I'd be pissed off too if my name was "Maryscott".
#3
OK - this is proof that these clowns definitely need their meds adjusted.
What a pathetic oxygen thief loon.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/15/2006 16:01 Comments ||
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#4
The cigarettes are because of a personality that she describes as compulsive. The nonalcoholic beer is because for several years she drank to excess.
The note that says "Why am I/you here?" is because she is in constant search of an answer.
And the photo album is because of a 25-year-old Marine who died fighting in Vietnam three months before she was born, which she thinks helps explain the note, the alcohol, the cigarettes and the very first piece of writing she ever published online, a rant against the war in Iraq that began, "Every single millisecond of my life was directly affected by the nightmare that was Vietnam."
As for the keyboard, it is where O'Connor finished her evolution from lost soul to angry soul, beginning with that very first rant, which concluded with a wish that Bush, "after contracting incurable cancer and suffering for protracted periods of time without benefit of medication," go to hell.
She wrote it, sent it to Daily Kos, saw it appear online, watched as people responded to it -- and learned something about the effect of being both heartfelt and vicious. "It's impactful," she says. "It gets attention."
check out the photo - Sheehan with an anger control and abuse problem. Think her kids can't wait to get out of the house? A divorce coming soon?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2006 16:22 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A former Miss Italy beauty pageant contestant is set to grace Arab network al-Jazeera's upcoming 24-hour English-language news channel. Milan-born Barbara Serra, chosen by the Doha, Qatar-based network as a news anchor earlier this month, says she has no qualms with the network's reputation as al-Qaeda's preferred channel for propaganda messages. "It's true they have aired the material [first], but it makes news. That's why the BBC and Sky would pick up the items (video and audio messages from Osama-bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) immediately afterwards," she said in an interview with Milan-daily Corriere della Sera published on Thursday.
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba ordered the expulsion of a Czech diplomat Friday, accusing him of spying for the United States. Stanislav Kazecky, who was in charge of political, cultural and media affairs for the Czech embassy, was given 72 hours to leave the Caribbean island. He said he plans to leave Saturday evening.
AN immigration detainee at Sydney's Holsworthy Army Barracks has tried to commit suicide by swallowing razor blades, a refugee advocate said. An immigration department spokesman today said a detainee had been taken to hospital but declined to give details. "I can confirm a detainee has been taken to hospital and is being treated there," the spokesman said without elaborating.
Furious tsunami survivors living in a village in Indonesia's Aceh have told an international aid agency that they no longer want their help after waiting a year for them to build promised houses. British-based Oxfam has closed their office overseeing Pasi - and the rest of Aceh Besar and Banda Aceh districts - as they investigate what has gone wrong.
