Ramblings and Opinons of an old man!
Simple site to log thoughts on current events and activity. Please feel free to give your comments.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate panel says it has obtained Iraqi documents providing new evidence that the former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program made up to $1.2 million through oil deals with Saddam Hussein's government.This thing keeps going deeper and deeper into the UN leadership though I am not surprised it is worth reiterating this is the Organization that John Kerry and the democrats believe we should be totally dependent of for our protection among other things…
No mention of Sen. John Kerry, who shared the dais with Clinton, and who has been busily working to elevate himself to leader of the opposition nationally. Kerry is said by advisers to have been surprised that Clinton did not highlight him as a party leader to be respected and supported.
But perhaps most telling about Clinton's comments, which were warmly received, was the lack of anything new compared to his remarks at prior DNC functions pre- or post-November election. "He has said this before in just about every Democratic Party setting he's attended," says a Democratic National Committee member. "I've heard this speech ten times in the past couple of years. There is nothing new, and it's unfortunate that he keeps giving it, because it's clear that our leaders aren't listening."
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There are still so many doubts about Dean that that's the only thing Reid can say to allay concerns," says a Democratic Senate leadership source. "Dean is not the guy everyone wants. He has the backing of the state parties, but he's going to have to line up with the rest of the party leadership here in D.C."
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's top policymaker on North Korea said Monday North Korea's claim to have nuclear weapons was unproven and Seoul's controversial engagement policy with the North would remain, at least for now.
North Korea explicitly said for the first time last Thursday that it had atomic weapons. The reclusive communist state also said it was pulling out of six-party talks aimed at ending a two-year impasse over its nuclear programs because of what it called U.S. hostility.
"There is no doubt that North Korea has 10 to 14 kg (22 to 31 pounds) of plutonium, but there is no evidence that the North has turned it into plutonium bombs," Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young told parliament Monday.
TOKYO (AP) — A 17-year-old boy armed with a knife burst into a public elementary school in western Japan on Monday, stabbing one teacher to death and slashing two others, police said.See there is a history of knife welding, ban them now! We need to ban them in the US too, before the evil begins here!
No students were hurt in the attack in Neyagawa City outside Osaka, said Isoo Noda, spokesman for the Neyagawa City police, but the stabbings came as the latest in a series of rampages in Japan involving knives and children.
Police arrested a teenage boy who was a former student at the school in the faculty room, saying he used an 8-inch kitchen knife to stab two teachers and a school nutritionist. They found him smoking a cigarette in the room as frightened teachers looked on from afar, Noda said.
A 52-year-old male teacher was declared dead after the assault while a 57-year-old female teacher was seriously injured with knife wounds in her stomach, police said. The nutritionist, 45, was also being treated for injuries.
Also, in 2001 a Japanese man with a history of mental illness barged through several classrooms in Osaka in western Japan and stabbed dozens of children and teachers. Eight children died and 13 others, including two teachers, were injured. Mamoru Takuma was found guilty of the murders and executed last September.My point, evil is evil and a determined individual will carryout their plan with whatever is available - a car, a knife, a gun, a robe, gasoline, etc. - we cannot ban everything, but we can prosecute the criminals to the fullest extent of the law and the harshest penalties allowed under the law - but currently we are told to feel the criminal's pain and ban the instrument of their demise.
In June, an 11-year-old girl led a 12-year-old classmate into an empty classroom in southwest Japan and slit her neck and arms, leaving the girl to bleed to death. The attacker told police the other girl had been posting unfriendly notes on the attacker's home page on the Internet.
Earlier this month, a man armed with a kitchen knife went on a stabbing spree in the children's department of a supermarket in central Japan, killing an 11-month-old boy and injuring a 3-year-old girl and an adult woman, police said.
Six Moroccan soldiers serving as UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been arrested over sex abuse claims, Moroccan officials say.
The head of the Moroccan contingent of UN peacekeepers and his deputy have also been relieved of their duties. [Read story here]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved the release of 500 Palestinian prisoners in what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called a goodwill gesture to bolster new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and build mutual trust.
In a further step to support peace moves after Sharon and Abbas agreed on a ceasefire at a groundbreaking summit five days ago, Israel let more than 200 Palestinian laborers enter from the Gaza Strip for the first time in months.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.UPDATE: BTW good riddance.
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
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.I really do not mean to trivialize this - but I do want to call a duck a duck - it is blackmail!
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."
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.Read the entire column here.
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.
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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.
(CNN) -- A newborn baby boy who was tossed from a moving vehicle Thursday is in remarkably good shape, authorities say.Thank God the child appears to be OK!
First hospitalized in critical condition, the Broward Sheriff's Office said the baby is continuing to improve and was in serious condition late Thursday
WASHINGTON — Congress is only days away from handing President Bush and business groups a big victory by curbing multimillion-dollar class action lawsuits.Not sure if this goes far enough but it is a start!
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.
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.
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.