Ramblings and Opinons of an old man!
Simple site to log thoughts on current events and activity. Please feel free to give your comments.
KUWAIT (Reuters) - Around 500 Kuwaiti activists, mostly women, have demonstrated outside parliament to demand female suffrage amidst tensions in the Gulf Arab state over a government drive to grant women political rights.
"Women's rights now," chanted the crowd, which included women dressed in abayas, or traditional long black cloaks. Some of the demonstrators at Monday's protest wore veils over their faces.
The president of the University of Colorado submitted her resignation today amid allegations that the school's athletic department had used sex and alcohol as recruiting tools for its football program.
Elizabeth Hoffman, the president, told the university's board of regents this morning that she is stepping down effective June 30.
"It has become clear to me that, amid the serious matters the University of Colorado now confronts, my role as the leader of the university has become an issue," she wrote in a letter to the board. "It appears to me it is in the university's best interest that I remove the issue of my future from the debate so that nothing inhibits C.U.'s ability to successfully create the bright future it so deserves."
Ms. Hoffman has headed the state's largest public university system for five years. Her resignation comes as the university grapples with the issue of the athletic scandal and also as it awaits the results of a special chancellor's investigation to determine what action to take, if any, against a professor who referred to the victims of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 as "little Eichmanns." [Read the story here]
VIENNA (Reuters) - U.S. and Austrian lawyers have filed a lawsuit demanding Thailand, U.S. forecasters and the French Accor group answer accusations they failed in a duty to warn populations hit by December's Tsunami disaster, a lawyer said Monday.
The lawsuit was filed Friday at a New York district court on behalf of tsunami victims by lawyers including U.S. attorney Edward Fagan, internationally renowned for 1990s lawsuits against Swiss banks over Holocaust-era accounts. It demanded an account of their actions on Dec. 26.
[...]
The lawsuit suggests the Thai government and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which operates a Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, failed to issue the requisite warnings.
ROME -- Italian agents likely withheld information from U.S. counterparts about a cash-for-freedom deal with gunmen holding an Italian hostage for fear that Americans might block the trade, Italian news reports said yesterday.
The decision by operatives of Italy's SISMI military intelligence service to keep the CIA in the dark about the deal for the release of reporter Giuliana Sgrena, might have "short-circuited" communications with U.S. forces controlling the road from Baghdad to the city's airport, the newspaper La Stampa said.
That would help explain why American troops opened fire on a car whisking the released hostage to a waiting airplane, wounding Miss Sgrena and killing the Italian intelligence operative who had just negotiated her release.
[...]
"Italian intelligence decided to free Sgrena paying a sum to the kidnappers without informing American colleagues in Iraq who, if they had known about this, would have had to oppose it, to have impeded the operation," sources said.
"If this was the case, it could explain why American intelligence had not informed the American military commands about the operation and thus the patrol did not expect the car with the Italians."
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria vowed a complete and swift two-phased withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon but President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday Damascus would still play a role in the tiny neighbor it has dominated for 30 years.
Lebanese greeted Assad's announcement with screams of delight in central Beirut, while opposition figures in Lebanon and European leaders cautiously described the move as a positive start.
So, anyway, I'd forgotten about all this. Bush won the election despite the al-Qaqaa drumbeat from Kerry and his surrogates in and out of the press.Nice to see someone remember the "story of the year and you can read about it here.
But Byron York, my colleague at National Review, didn't forget. He wondered, whatever happened to The Biggest Story on Earth? The answer, it turns out, is nothing. The Times has not run a single story about the al-Qaqaa story since November 1. Nada, bupkis, zilch.
[...]
If the story was accurate, it should be important enough to follow up. If it wasn't, we should be told that.
There's also another news angle that might have been worth investigating. As Times columnist William Safire and Cliff May, a former Times reporter and contributor to National Review Online, have suggested, the whole al-Qaqaa story might have been orchestrated by Mohammed el-Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in order to influence the American presidential election. The Bush White House dislikes Baradei, and reportedly the feelings are mutual (largely because the White House wouldn't support Baradei's bid for another term as the head of the IAEA). According to the Wall Street Journal, Baradei triggered the process which resulted in the al-Qaqaa story getting leaked to the Times and CBS News.
BERN, Switzerland (AP) — Swiss authorities said Friday they have detained five Islamic extremists suspected of using the Internet to show the killing of hostages — which reportedly included the beheading of an American — and to give bomb-making instructions.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A couple’s plans for a birthday party for their former pet chimpanzee turned tragic when two other chimps at an animal sanctuary escaped from their cage and attacked. The man was critically injured with massive wounds to his face, body and limbs, and the attacking animals were shot dead.Video below.
What do you think?
"We must never lose sight of the need to have an education system ... that's capable of keeping this country competitive by adjusting to the workplace as it really is," Bush said at Anne Arundel Community College. "I have come to herald success."
Bush has proposed doubling the number of Americans who get job-training help from the government, as a way to restore lost jobs. He aims to do that in part by consolidating federal job-training programs, but is also striving for broader change. [Whole story here]
FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) - With U.S. deaths in Iraq topping 1,500, the commanding general of allied troops in Baghdad said Thursday he expects casualties will soon decline because of bomb-detecting technology and emboldened Iraqi informants.I am sure this is also a "field test" for the department of homeland security!
"My expectation, not just a hope, is that over the coming months we'll see the number of casualties go down," Maj. Gen. William G. Webster said in a teleconference from Baghdad. "Now, I'm knocking on wood at the same time, because the enemy gets a vote in this."
The initial estimate of 3.1 percent GDP growth for last year’s fourth quarter was revised upward to 3.8 percent. Business investment was revised higher to 18 percent from 14.9 percent. Included in this, the rise in non-high-tech business investment outstripped high-tech investment (by 15.2 percent to 13.7 percent, both at annual rates) for the first time since 1994. Private-sector domestic output -- what Economics 101 students might remember as consumption plus investment (or C+I) -- came in at an outsized 5.5 percent growth.What is a good liberal to do -- idea stop hoping for gloom and doom so you can have a good day -- kind of selfish don't you think.
So what did the New York Times do with this upbeat economic story? It buried it. Rather than place the news on the front page of the business section, the Times editors shoved it on page B4. Instead of carrying a senior reporter’s byline, the copy came from Reuters News Service. [Read here]
During President Bush's State of the Union Address, CNN was soundly beaten by Fox, and even lost the key 25-54 demographic to third-place MSNBC.
In contrast, Fox News was the only news network on cable to see viewership increases in February, as it outpaced all other cable news companies combined for the sixth straight month.
"FNC averaged 1.57 million viewers in primetime, up 18 percent from the same period last year, while CNN fell 21 percent to 637,000 viewers from the same time period," Variety stated. [Read story here]
WASHINGTON - Sen. Robert Byrd description of Adolf Hitler's rise to power was meant as a warning to heed the past and not as a comparison to Republicans, a spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat says.
Wise's official biography on WREG's Web site has changed in recent weeks. At the time of his interview with Marsh, his bio said, "My work is dedicated to the service of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" and included his favorite Bible verses.In other reports the station's manager claims that an e-mail being posted on one of Mr. Wise's peer's blogs was the reason for the suspension -- however; if this is the case why would the manager make this statement.
The bio now contains no references to his religion.
Walter said it is a longstanding general rule that the station is not a forum for a reporter's personal beliefs: "We have a policy of our reporters being neutral as it relates to political, social or religious points of view. We're in the business of reporting news from an informative standpoint."It is worth noting that the statement Mr. Wise made in the posted e-mail in question was basically the same statement made "on air" February 11, 2004 explaining he felt compelled to be "bold" in his faith.
The UN has warned peacekeeping forces operating under its banner to obey strict rules on sexual conduct.
UN deputy head Louise Frechette said soldiers would be punished if they had sex with minors or prostitutes or if they traded sex for aid or favours. [Story here]
WASHINGTON - A survey of mostly undocumented Mexican immigrants found that a majority want to stay in the country permanently, but many more would be interested in signing up for temporary work permits even if it requires them to eventually return to Mexico.
"I want to reach out to people who are worried about values," Dean said. "We are going to embrace pro-life Democrats because pro-life Democrats care about kids after they're born, not just before they're born."Oh no - was this a slip or did he just admit that a baby is a baby [Webster's "an extremely young child"] - maybe Dean to is going through an "Extreme Makeover" like Hillary but I doubt it… Read the story here.