Updating my
Something to Watch post yesterday.
Residents in north-eastern Australia have battened down and are preparing for the onslaught of Cyclone Ingrid, which, despite weakening, remains potentially the worst storm to threaten the region in 30 years.
While the cyclone has been downgraded from a category five to a severe category four storm, Queensland residents are preparing for the worst.
The Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Brisbane said Ingrid is moving towards the coast, near Cape Melville, at eight kilometres an hour, and is expected to make landfall overnight near the small community of Coen.
"Although Ingrid has continued to weaken a little, the cyclone still poses a serious threat to far north Queensland with a very destructive core and the potential to generate a dangerous storm tide," the Bureau of Meteorology said.
The storm is packing winds of up to 250 kilometres an hour near its centre. [Read stroy here]
Sunday I posted some pictures
here that were pulled from a video and disproved the "300 - 400 rounds fired" claim... Was it the car or not -- now the Italian
la Repubblica has pictures it says is the "real" car, still disproving the "300-400 rounds fired" claim. Here they are!
SYDNEY (AFP) — A severe tropical cyclone with winds of almost 180 miles an hour was gaining intensity Tuesday (U.S. time) as it moved steadily towards the northeastern coast of Australia.
I believe it a good move to include the Italian officials in the in investigation to clarify the events that lead to the "hostage shooting" incident… Do I expect the investigation to find the soldiers on the ground did anything wrong, no -- do I expect that we find that "no communication" is the primary reason, yes, please notice I did not say "miscommunication" but "no communication… I do ask all the "conspiracy birds" to consider a primary fact -- the car approached at approximately 75 feet per second (25 yards), that is football field in four seconds - not much time to make a life and death decision.
The US military in Iraq has begun an investigation into the shooting incident last week that killed Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari.
US Brig Gen Peter Vangjel has been appointed to lead the inquiry, expected to take up to four weeks to complete.
The US-led coalition command added in a statement that Italian officials had been invited to take part. [Read story here]
I consider Europe's concern over President Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations an endorsement -- but that is just me.
LONDON Mar 8, 2005 — President Bush's nomination of a tough-talking conservative as ambassador to the United Nations set off ripples of worry in some of America's allies Tuesday.
Critics who had hoped Bush would tend more carefully to ties with overseas friends in his second term feared the selection of John R. Bolton called into question the president's intention to do so.
Well I keep hearing the "protest" of the 1960(s) and early 70(s) will not be repeated, "it is not the same" -- but "things" keep pointing to the opposite. Last month we had the students that seemed coached in writing unpleasant letters, we have the "intentionally shooting journalist" claim, we have the "intentionally shooting civilians" claim and we have a story about "counter-recruiters". So how about reforming hippies you don't think this is sounding familiar and is all an effort to destroy military moral and citizens opinion of the military. Just curious?
NEW YORK — The Marines didn't have to recruit Greg McCullough. He signed a promise to enlist last year, while he was still in high school. But now McCullough has had second thoughts, and he's talking to a different kind of recruiter.
Jim Murphy is a "counter-recruiter," one of a small but growing number of opponents of the Iraq war who say they want to compete with military recruiters for the hearts and minds of young people.
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.
Well the
Ward Churchill issue cost somebody -- maybe not the right person or maybe one of the right people; nonetheless, the primary person [Mr. Churchill] appears to be staying which is a big hit against the university [IMO].
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]
Only in America --
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.
Here is another twist to an already spiraling story.
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."
There are claims that the car containing a released Italian hostage was fired upon with 300-400 rounds - here is the care what do you think? I think not -- but you be the judge... You can view the video this photo was taken from
here.
(Big hat tip:
Little Green Footballs)
Could this me a "comeback" year for him... Really, kind of kidding his bad year most professional golfers would love to have.
With all the reporting about the "Italian hostage shooting" I think some might miss this story, which is good news...
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.
Well do you remember the October surprise unleashed by the NY Times -- you know the colossal mistake made by the military, Rummy, and President Bush. I mentioned
here,
here, and
here… Well
Jonah Goldberg has some really interesting insight on what ever happened to the "end of the world" story…
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.
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.
Nice to see someone remember the "
story of the year and you can read about it
here.
I consider this story good 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.
This actually sounds good to me -- we must stay up with the job market (i.e. more high tech jobs less low tech)… I have heard criticism for this plan because it is part of a plan to "consolidate" federal job-training program. President Bush is attempting to increase effectiveness while decreasing cost -- well isn't this a novel idea, and I can see why people are upset - NOT! Now the "stealing from us" birds will start coming out of the woodwork -- I believe we need to educate Americans on how business are able to keep cost down while providing a better product -- kind of goes something like "increase effectiveness while decreasing cost" -- get real, this is exactly what we need to bring our budget back down, fiscal conservatism.
"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]
What do you think?
Technology is a wonderful thing -- little caveat to this statement; I believe technology is a tool and we should not be "totally dependant on it"… With that said this story is wonderful news for our men and women in Iraq.
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.
"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."
I am sure this is also a "field test" for the department of homeland security!
Well the poor "leftfield loonies" [Kerry, Kennedy, Moore, Boxer, New York Times etc.] have not had a good year -- their gloom and doom hopes are going down the drain… We have desires for free elections blossoming in the Middle East, military casualties in Iraq are down, and now 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.
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]
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.
