Top News -- North Korea

Well it looks like North Korea got it's wish -- they are now top news and have been for at least two days... Along with "blackmail" and discrediting the Presidents policies, as I discussed here, the wanted attention - like a spoiled child...

1. China Says It Will Seek North Korea Talks
   
2. China Tells U.S. It Will Push for N.Korea Talks
   
3. North Korea rallies support for Kim

I do find it amusing that experts are all over the networks criticizing the Clinton administration's attempt at bilateral talks using words like failure and embarrassment while reiterating the Bush administration will not nor should not budge on this issue -- but this fact falls on deaf ears where liberals are concerned; why, because they marching orders are "hate Bush and disagree with him at all cost" - besides Kerry and the democrats campaigned on bilateral talks with North Korea.

Are you Surprised

NEW YORK - The U.N. oil-for-food program chief under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he's accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, according to investigators.

Let's Hope

Let us hope they prove ture to their word.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad reiterated their promise Saturday to halt attacks against Israel, but stopped short of joining an oral cease-fire pact reached four days ago between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

UN - World Outrage - Where is it?

Waiting for the outrage over the UN peacekeepers sexual abuse charges - for that matter where are the American haters, excuse me the American citizens demanding and investigation, demanding prosecution of the leaders, or demanding a "war crimes" hearing... Of course, jumping on this band wagon will show the inadequacies of the UN - you see where the American Military took action and is still taking action the UN does not have the authority and the it appears there is no "world outrage" demanding someone held accountable; go figure - guess America has to be involved for everyone to find their moral and ethical compass.

UNITED NATIONS — A scandal about the sexual abuse of Congolese women and children by U.N. officials and peacekeepers intensified Friday with the broadcast of explicit pictures of a French U.N. worker and Congolese girls and his claim that there was a network of pedophiles at the U.N. mission in Congo.
[...]
The U.N. has no power to prosecute peacekeepers or civilians. The organization can only repatriate individuals and waive their immunity so they can face trial at home. Whether they are punished depends largely on the politics and culture of their home country, and U.N. officials acknowledge that they have been lax in following up cases.

False Report

Seems this was not as bad as we were led to believe.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (CNN)-- A Florida woman who reported seeing a newborn tossed out of a moving car made up the story and is actually the boy's mother, Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne said Friday.

Patricia Pokriots, 38, "made up an incredible story," but acknowledged what she had done while being questioned by authorities Friday, he said.

Easy Way Out - Quit

NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.

Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.

UPDATE: BTW good riddance.

North Korea Want One-on-One

I did not blog anything about the North Korean claim yesterday, but did make some comments about my opinion being it is "blackmail" plain and simply - now we have it; "We go a nuke you got to talk to us"... Interestingly they are only want bilateral talks, go figure same thing President Bush's opposition talked about - you think it is a move to discredit the President, you think?

Presidents have been second guessed for half a century in regard to North Korea - the premise of the second guessing is that those doing the second guessing assume North Korea is trustworthy - they are not - it is a totalitarian government based on terrorizing it's citizens and the dictator is a total self absorb nut. Of course, this fact makes it even more dangerous if indeed there is a nuke - anyway here is the story.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has demanded bilateral talks with the United States to defuse tension created by its announcement that it is a nuclear power, the communist state's U.N. envoy said in a South Korean newspaper interview published Friday.

Han Sung Ryol, a senior diplomat at North Korea's U.N. delegation in New York, was the first North Korean official to speak to outside news media since Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry defied the United States and its allies by declaring Thursday that it has nuclear weapons, its first public announcement that it has weapons.

North Korea said the weapons are a deterrent against a U.S. invasion and that it doesn't intend to join six-nation disarmament talks any time soon.

"We will return to the six-nation talks when we see a reason to do so and the conditions are ripe," Han told Seoul's Hankyoreh newspaper in a Thursday interview in New York. "If the United States moves to have direct dialogue with us, we can take that as a signal that the United States is changing its hostile policy toward us."

I really do not mean to trivialize this - but I do want to call a duck a duck - it is blackmail!

Ollie on Eason Jordan

Oliver North has a great take on Eason Jordan's asinine statement. Highlights:

And therein lies the problem -- not just with Jordan's calumny about our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines, but with his colleagues in the so-called mainstream media.

The CNN executive's slander went unreported -- and apparently unchallenged -- by other potentates of the press who heard him accuse America's military of deliberately targeting and killing journalists in Iraq. Worse still, other "leaders" in the Fourth Estate are now rushing to Jordan's defense. David Gergen, editor-at-large for U.S. News & World Report and moderator of the discussion in Davos, now says Jordan had recently been to Iraq, and was "caught up in the tension of the moment" and "deserves the benefit of the doubt."

Why? Aren't news reporters supposed to have a thirst for truth? Isn't there some standard of proof or corroboration required before someone in the "news business" makes such a horrific accusation? Furthermore, why should any member of the media in attendance be let off the hook for failing to immediately jump up and demand: "Prove it!" when Jordan made his unsubstantiated charges?

Such damning allegations, if true, would make Abu Ghraib look like petty larceny. Yet, Jordan has offered no evidence to validate the alleged war crimes -- nor, apparently, has he ever proffered any witnesses or evidence of such crimes in Iraq or anywhere else.
[...]
According to Rony Abovitz, the Forum-sponsored blogger who first broke this story to the world, Jordan "repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience and cause great strain on others." According to Abovitz, Jordan's charges met with approval among Arab attendees "who applauded and called him 'a very brave man' for speaking up against the U.S. in a public way amongst a crowd ready to hear anti-U.S. sentiments."

There is a lesson in all of this, and not just for CNN, but for all the media. Jordan's disparaging duplicity wasn't exposed by the barons of broadcasting or the potentates of print, but by "amateurs" -- bloggers -- the same "unwashed masses" who brought down Dan Rather. These e-mailing, Web-surfing, call-'em as you see-'em bloggers are the electronic equivalent of the pamphleteers who brought about our revolution.

Read the entire column here.

Yet Another Sick Story

I posted earlier this week, this is simply sad, adults killing children is a sick, sick, thing - even worse killing their own... I don't want to rehash what I have already written but we have to stop devaluing life especially children and stop teaching the next generation it is easy and OK to fix a mistake... Another sad story.

(CNN) -- A newborn baby boy who was tossed from a moving vehicle Thursday is in remarkably good shape, authorities say.

First hospitalized in critical condition, the Broward Sheriff's Office said the baby is continuing to improve and was in serious condition late Thursday

Thank God the child appears to be OK!

Excellent - Tort Reform

WASHINGTON — Congress is only days away from handing President Bush and business groups a big victory by curbing multimillion-dollar class action lawsuits.

Despite complaints the legislation could hurt consumers, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill 72-26 on Thursday. The House will take it up next week and send it to the president to sign into law.

Not sure if this goes far enough but it is a start!

Let the Crying Begin

Well the Democrats have hit a new low - they are now crying foul - where were their concerns for personal attacks during the confirmation hearings where people's integrity was challenged. How about the personal "racial" attacks prior to the confirmation hearings? Besides Senator Harry Reid needing tougher skin to be considered a leader the Democrats as a whole need learn the old "do unto others" rule - start by putting Kennedy on a leash.

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats demanded Thursday that President Bush order a halt to personal attacks on the party's leader, Sen. Harry Reid and expressed regret they had failed to mount a stronger defense for his defeated predecessor.

"This is a new Democratic party," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a news conference called to release a letter telling Bush to muzzle his "political operatives."

"...It says to the president, `you will not intimidate us'," added Schumer, who likened the attacks on Reid to political knee-cappings.

Dems - Change Your Rhetoric

Thomas Friedman says Democrats should stop suggesting everything happening in Iraq is bad - I agree complaining, gripping, or simply devaluing every action simply discredits any possibly valid point. However, I guess to my delight, Mr. Friedman will be disappointed if he believes the Democrats with their new leader Howard Dean plan to change their rhetoric - maybe after the loosing more seats in 2006 - I say keep the vile hate speech like Howard Dean's, "I hate Republicans and what they stand for", coming! Some hightlights:

I think there is much to criticize about how the war in Iraq has been conducted, and the outcome is still uncertain. But those who suggest that the Iraqi election is just beanbag, and that all we are doing is making the war on terrorism worse as a result of Iraq, are speaking nonsense.

Here's the truth: There is no single action we could undertake anywhere in the world to reduce the threat of terrorism that would have a bigger impact today than a decent outcome in Iraq. It is that important. And precisely because it is so important, it should not be left to Donald Rumsfeld.

Democrats need to start thinking seriously about Iraq - the way Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton have. If France - the mother of all blue states - can do it, so, too, can the Democrats. Otherwise, they will be absenting themselves from the most important foreign policy issue of our day.

Good Deeds Punished - Rewarded?

I guess you all have heard the story about the two girls that made cookies for their neighbors - allegedly instead of going to a party where alcohol, drugs, and general parting would be taking place, I say allegedly because I do not know the "whole story" but if true I find it refreshing... Well they made the cookies and while secretly delivering them scared one of the neighbors who sued and won....[Read here]

These girls are now receiving donations to pay their fines... [Read here] I find this neat because if indeed the girls were doing the "right" thing and only wanted to perform an act of kindness, how disturbing is it for them to "get into trouble" - would kind of drive home the "don't do anything nice because it opens you up to a law suite" mentality, and that is sad.

The story goes on to say that the complainant is getting harassing phone calls - don't support the phone calls, but what did she expect? Although, every neighborhood I guess has a "mean old lady" - the neighborhood I grew up had one and she never figured out that your "hatred of children" actually kept us coming back to "annoy her" (i.e.: knocking and running, yelling in the street in front of your house late I night, generally anything to annoy her); guess they will never learn. Funny thing my parents keep telling us we misjudged the "mean old lady" until one day we were forced to perform "an act of kindness" and her "hatred of children" was exposed to the "adults in the neighborhood" who eagerly watched from afar; of course, believing they were right but learned instead the children of the neighborhood were correct... To each their own I guess?

Embryo Legally Human

Chicago, IL (LifeNews.com) -- A county judge in Chicago has ruled that the parents of a frozen embryo which was accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic have the right to file a wrongful death suit.

Legal experts say the case, which is drawing nationwide attention, could affect the debate over embryonic stem cell research, which involves the killing of human embryos to obtain their stem cells.

Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence said in his decision that "a pre-embryo is a 'human being' ... whether or not it is implanted in its mother's womb."

Maybe the Democrats can Finally "Lick" Reagan

The post office annouces stamp honoring Ronald Reagan.


Read article here.

Journalist Dies in Mogadishu (note to Eason Jordan)

Mr. Jordan - do you think the US Military was responsible for this death too? Just curious since you obviously don't know how dangerous your chosen career field is. Further, you do not know how much having a reporting present during a mission jeopardized the military members lives - I have been involved in missions of this type and I can assure you sir that I and the other military member do everything possible to ensure the journalist safety up to and including jeopardizing our own safety. Journalist compromise missions, they are a hindrance, and should feel honored and thankful to be allowed to accompany the military not to mention thankful for the added attention they get over and above the units members!

A BBC producer has died after being shot while making a series of reports in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. [Read story here]

I really was going to let this Jordan thing go and not say much about it - however, I remember being "ordered" to take a reported or assist a reporter and how much the "order" irritated me. I remember the added pressure we all felt having this journalist with us and the added attention we gave the journalist when dangerous situations presented itself, and for some idiot to make a claim like this and then go into hiding is the most reprehensible, no treasonous to the highest degree - a disservice to the military, the journalistic profession, and our country!

BTW: Keep up with the Eason Jordan story at Easongate.com.

Dems Loose Ground Over Iraq

Well with support for the war waning and the democrats rejoicing some conservatives felt depressed - this was when for/against totals were roughly 50/50. Now, more than "two-thirds" are either "very" or "somewhat" satisfied - what does this tell me; the majority of Americans were/are steadfast in their support for what we are doing in Iraq with a minority staunchly against and an even smaller number that goes as the news goes....The story:

(CNN) -- Nearly two-thirds of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the war on terrorism, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Tuesday.

Sixty-four percent of those polled said they were "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with the way things are going in the war on terrorism, while 35 percent said they were dissatisfied.

That is a significant change from October, when 53 percent said they were satisfied and 47 percent were dissatisfied with the war on terror.

Should Equal Better Customer Service

This is a neat idea - currently none of my Customer Service calls sound as if they are answered in the United States, but we will see if this will be a growing idea... I think it is good because the customer service representative can only be in a "happier spirit". The only downside I see is if you are working through something and a young child or someone the individual is caring for has an emergency - and that would not bother me personally, I don't think, I hope I am a bigger person then that.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - People who reach Esther DeJesus when they call Office Depot Inc.'s customer service center have no idea that she's sitting at home in a room decorated with pictures of Garfield and Betty Boop.

The Orlando, Florida, resident, who works on the retailer's account for call center contractor Willow CSN, is one of a new breed of customer service representative.

Rather than commuting to a crowded office, she puts in 37 to 40 hours a week at home and sets her own schedule.

Eason Jordan Should Talk of This

I have already posted, Michelle Malkin called Eason Jordan out for his ridiculous comments about US Military targeting members - maybe it would have been better had Mr. Jordan reported accurately on this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Gunmen burst into the home of an Al-Hura TV correspondent in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, shooting him to death, an Iraqi army official said.

Looks like it isn't the US Military that is targeting media members!

UPDATE: USA Today has the story too.

It (See Previous Post) Could Stop This

McMINNVILLE, Tenn. A Tennessee elementary teacher has been charged with multiple counts of sexual battery and statutory rape for her alleged involvement with a 13-year-old male student.

I mean these teachers "carrying on" - to sound like an old man - with these children, yes kids, is getting ridiculous and has to stop!