St. George's, Grenada -- It's not an ironclad rule or anything, but in general I try to avoid cranky-looking women with machetes.
(New York- WABC, December 8, 2005) - Equipment shortages within the New York and New Jersey National Guard are raising serious questions about their ability to respond to disasters.
A month-long investigation by Eyewitness News has discovered large quantities of equipment to be used for "at home" emergencies, are now in Iraq.
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When national guard troops come home from Iraq, much of the critical equipment that makes them an effective force stays behind.
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Since the war, New Jersey National Guard has left one thousand humvees and trucks back in Iraq.
And during the past year, 16 of its 20 helicopters were in Iraq. They are now being shipped home, but it could be months before they're operational.
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A more revealing picture of New York equipment shortages are found in numbers we obtained from the House Armed Services Committee.
They reveal New York is authorized to have more than 900 humvees, but currently have only 266. They are also authorized to have more than one thousand night vision goggles, but have only 264.
Rep. [Steve] Israel [D-Suffolk]: "Humvees and night vision goggles are mission critical equipment. If the New York National Guard only has 25 percent of what it needs that suggest a real problem."
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This article brings up a central question we should all be asking now that Saddam is on trial--"Who in the U.S. brought Saddam to power and kept him there, in spite of the atrocities?"
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Ford Motor Co. executives will meet early next week with leaders of gay rights organizations to discuss the automaker's decision to pull advertisements for its Land Rover and Jaguar lines from gay publications, a Ford spokesman said Friday.
"We look forward to the dialogue with the leadership of the gay community," said spokesman Mike Moran.
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If you would like to have a surreal experience akin to the effects of downing ten shots of cheap tequila, tune in to FoxNews as they eulogize Richard Pryor. Apparently he invented dirty words. (It's going to come as a helluva surprise to Lenny Bruce --- not to mention Redd Foxx.) He rejected the comedy of the good comedian, Bill Cosby, and went down the "wrong path" that led us to where we are today with all this R rated badness. One of the commentators said that when he went on TV in the mid 70's he "wasn't ready for prime time." (Actually, prime time wasn't ready for him.) Another said that "every black comic owes him something."
(Is it possible that right wingers are all actually zombies who died sometime before the 60's and have been walking among us as the undead ever since then? I just don't know what else can explain their terminal cultural obtuseness.)
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KANSAS CITY, Kan., Dec. 8 -- Most of the time, 16-year-old Zach Rubio converses in clear, unaccented American teen-speak, a form of English in which the three most common words are "like," "whatever" and "totally." But Zach is also fluent in his dad's native language, Spanish -- and that's what got him suspended from school.
"It was, like, totally not in the classroom," the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. "We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he's like, 'Me prestas un dolar?' ['Will you lend me a dollar?'] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I'm like, 'No problema.' "
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) made that point this summer when he vetoed a bill authorizing various academic subjects to be tested in Spanish in the state's public schools. "As an immigrant," the Austrian-born governor said, "I know the importance of mastering English as quickly and as comprehensively as possible."
Hispanic groups generally agree with that, but they emphasize the value of a multilingual citizenry. "A fully bilingual young man like Zach Rubio should be considered an asset to the community," (damn right! my em) said Janet Murguia, national president of La Raza.
Rubio, a U.S. citizen, credits U.S. immigration law for his decision to fight his son's suspension.
"You can't just walk in and become a citizen," he said. "They make you take this government test. I studied for that test, and I learned that in America, they can't punish you unless you violate a written policy."
"So I went to the principal and said, 'My son, he's not suspended for fighting, right? He's not suspended for disrespecting anyone. He's suspended for speaking Spanish in the hall?' So I asked her to show me the written policy about that. But they didn't have" one.
Rubio then called the superintendent of the Turner Unified School District, which operates the school. The district immediately rescinded Zach's suspension, local media reported. The superintendent did not respond to several requests to comment for this article.
Said Rubio: "I'm mainly doing this for other Mexican families, where the legal status is kind of shaky and they are afraid to speak up. Punished for speaking Spanish? Somebody has to stand up and say: This is wrong."
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Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.
But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo. John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.
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You have to wonder what's happened to the whole Casualty Assistance Calls Officer program, that used to be sort of the province of local reserve units (now probably in Mess O'Potamia), and local active duty folks (if any). I'm sure that Dancing Donnie has found some local CheneyBurton affiliate to outsource it to, on no-bid basis of course, and they don't work evenings or weekends.
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WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's prime minister said Saturday he has ordered an investigation into whether the CIA ran secret prisons for terror suspects in the country _ an allegation the government repeatedly has denied.
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More than a half-dozen investigations are under way into whether European countries may have hosted secret U.S.-run prisons in which al-Qaida suspects were allegedly tortured, and whether European airports and airspace were used for alleged CIA flights transporting prisoners to countries where torture is practiced.
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UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan defended his high commissioner for human rights on Thursday after U.S. ambassador John Bolton rebuked her for criticizing the U.S. stance on torture, a U.N. spokesman said.
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Many of our favorite sex toys are made with decidedly unhealthy chemicals. Is it time to kick the toxins out of the sack?
So you're an Enlightened Green Consumer. You buy organic food and carry it home from the local market in string bags. Your coffee is shade-grown and fair-trade, your water's solar-heated, and your car is a hybrid. But what about the playthings you're using for grown-up fun between those organic cotton sheets -- how healthy and environmentally sensitive are they?
Queen thinks the lack of agreed-upon standards is a major problem. She and the staff at Good Vibrations have often had to fall back on marginally relevant regulations. "I remember trying in the early '90s to track down information on an oil used on beautiful hand-carved wooden dildos -- was it safe to put into the body?" she says. "The closest comparison we could find was the regulation governing wooden salad utensils!"
Choosing the most eco-correct erotic toy can seem fraught with compromises -- more akin to picking the most fuel-efficient automobile than buying a bunch of organic kale. With no government assessment or regulation on the immediate horizon, it's up to you, the consumer, to shop carefully and select a tool that's health-safe, fits your budget, and gets your rocks off. Meanwhile, pack up that old mystery-material toy and send it back to the manufacturer with a note that they can stick it where the sun don't shine.
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But this report was strictly focused on the Administration's response to 9/11; the Commission totally ignored other areas of the job. So, in the interest of a more informed nation, and a fully rebuked President, I'm here to do the rigorous work of finishing off the Bush Administration's Report Card.
IRAQ: F.
Got us a new strategy for victory. Apparently our old strategy for victory was defective. You know what? Custer had a strategy for victory too.
TORTURE: F.
Administration promotes most torture friendly atmosphere since William Shatner ended his singing career.
ETHICS: D.
Would have been an F, but the main reason it is mostly Republicans caught taking bribes is because nobody wants to bribe a Democrat -- they can't get anything done.
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The single mother from Medford has been unexpectedly pulled from the inactive Army reserve and ordered to report for active duty by Feb. 5.
As Christmas nears, Arndt, 43, is trying to sell the Medford home she says she will not be able to keep on an Army salary of approximately $60,000 a year, and is searching for someone to care for her 13-year-old son, Shane. She expects to train for an 18-month tour of duty that could take her to Iraq or Afghanistan.
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Bush-administration officials privately threatened organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, telling them that any chance there might've been for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak at the gathering today in Montreal, according to a source involved with the negotiations who spoke to New York Magazine on condition of anonymity.
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The threat set in motion a flurry of frantic back-channel negotiations between conference organizers and aides to Bush and Clinton that lasted into the night on Thursday, and at one point Clinton flatly told his advisers that he was going to pull out and not deliver the speech, the source said.
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"I think it's crazy for us to play games with our children's future," Clinton said in a folksy speech before delegates that prompted a spirited ovation.
Alluding to Bush's rationale for the Iraq war as a bulwark against terrorism, Clinton said, "There is nowhere in the world where it is more important to apply the principle of precaution than in fighting climate change." Arguments that capping greenhouse gases would harm the economy, were "flat wrong," he said.
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"It's astonishing to me that former President Clinton, the same President Clinton that refused to submit the Kyoto treaty to the United States Senate for ratification, today attacked President Bush," [Sen. James] Inhofe [R-Delusional] said.
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...Lust: Unlawful sexual desire, such as desiring sex with a person outside marriage.
This one is a no-brainer. The list of adulterers on the right is seemingly endless.
...Greed: A desire to possess more than one has need or use for
The whole right-wing philosophy in America seems to be based on greed. Pro-corporation, pro-tax cuts for the rich, pro-anything is okay if it makes a profit.
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Since 1998, there has been an ethics "truce" in the House of Representatives, under the terms of which no member will file an ethics complaint against another member. Because outsiders are prohibited from filing complaints with the House ethics committee, this has effectively shut down the ethics process.
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