spinning boxes
Tamworth, surge, sobriety, Baiji Dolphin, Diem, Sabang, Climate
The good ol'boys in Tamworth, home of Australian Country Music, have refused settlement of Darfur refugees, Aussie racist rednecks sing along...
sbs
15.12.2006 .. Tamworth City Council has voted to refuse an offer by the Immigration Department to resettle five refugee families from the war-torn African nation.
Tamworth in January hosts Australia's largest country music festival and recently won a tourism award naming the busy rural hub as the country's premier "Friendly Town".
juancole
The "surge" tactic is being generated by Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard and by Frederick W. Kagan and Bill Kristol, i.e. by the same plutocratic American Enterprise Institute (Likudnik Central) that brought you the Iraq War with champagne toasts in the first place.
..And you thought a mere election would make a difference. No one had to elect the American Enterprise Institute. No one needs to crown the emperor, he can do it himself. Welcome to Year 1 of the Empire.
“There really are no additional troops” to send, General Powell said, adding that he agreed with those who say that the United States Army is “about broken.”
seaton
French demographer Emmanuel Todd describes recent US power projection in Grenada, Panama and Kosovo as "theatrical micromilitarism", a strategy that neocon Michael Ladeen describes as, "Every now and then America needs to pick up some shitty little country and throw it against the wall just to show that it can".
I hear that all the bars in Sabang, Mindoro (nr Puerto Gallera) have been closed. I have not verified this. Is it true?
I suppose all the moralists are pleased, meanwhile the wife of my hipag is now out of a job and out of her house, I am told she is in a lean-to in the rain, and one of her children has a fever. The child's father is a rich Asian man living in the RP. Not the stereotypical eurotrash. However wealthy, his support for his child is nil. Hard to understand.
Unfortunately I have just lost my job, so my help is limited. I hear that a banka was lost recently and that Sabang has 'no tourists' - - I suppose that's an exaggeration, as scuba divers will surely continue to visit. But it looks like a tough Christmas. my wife says her street in Caloocan has no electric power, probably until January.
RP oil consumption has taken a dive, an indication of general economic activity. When I visit Manila I notice the traffic is lighter than 5 or 6 years ago. I predict dark days ahead for RP. When all the poor people snap out of their passivity, more coups ahead...
13 December 2006
the Baiji Yangtze Dolphin is functionally extinct
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The beatification of Ngo Dinh Diem
or how the East might have been won (Near,Far,..I know that my war will go on..")
The PRNs [ProfessionalRedNecks] are reviewing Diems reputation:
nysun
The overthrow of Diem on November 1, 1963, instigated by Lodge without the consent of President Kennedy, is seen by Mr. Moyarse as a terrible miscalculation that resulted in a needless defeat
................
Moyarse paints a picture of Ngo Dinh Diem, a man who unfortunately for all of us has no Iraqi equivalent, who was an ardent, incorruptible, extraordinarily savvy nationalist, who was ultimately murdered, and with him the future of South Vietnam, literally by the hands of his own people, but also thanks to the duplicity and hubris of almost every American of any influence.
.............
Moyarse again:
Through political acumen and force of personality, Diem gained the full cooperation of the National Army and used it to subdue the sects... In a culture that respected the strong man .. suppression of the militias gained him many new followers..
Diem went on to become a highly effective national war leader...
Some American officials and journalists, however, denounced him for what they mistakenly saw as counterproductive heavy-handedness, and the officials prodded South Vietnamese generals into overthrowing him
....................
OTOH another spectator PRN:
spectator
an American-run coup to overthrow Maliki would succeed as well as the coup as the November 1, 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem engineered by John Kennedy. (According to the George Washington University archives, a White House tape captured an October 1963 meeting in which Bobby Kennedy said, "I mean, it's different from a coup in the Iraq or South American country; we are so intimately involved in this....").... Jed Babblein - as rabid a PRN as you'll find. I'll wager poor Jed doesnt believe a word of the slimy words he extrudes, its all just to fire up the USAtrailertrashV8heads
...To win this war means removing the regimes in Iran and Syria and telling the rest of the world that they will be next
* Professional Red Neck: An educated person who enthusiastically plugs reactionary, warmongering cant. Imperialism posing as patriotism. The PRN doesnt hold these positions, he pushes them as a gimmick, to keep his slot on TV or in the yellow press. Has rarely served in a war. [Moyarse works at the MarineCorp U. Almost like serving, I suppose. Hey, I'm not about to criticise anyone for not signing up for EmpireArmy, its the moral evasion.]
Muoyarse is a young man, claims he has no axe to grind, expects to get on the best-seller list via the outrageous revisionist redneck route ..
timesargus
Kennedy's government backed a coup by Vietnamese generals who were being advised by a French-born C.I.A. operative named Lucien Conein. The Diem government was quickly removed and replaced, but in the process Diem and his brother were brutally murdered. The war went better for a while, and then didn't, in a pattern that repeated itself many times.
About 20 years ago, a friend and I were picking up a takeout dinner from a Vietnamese restaurant in Washington run by Tran Van Don, one of the generals who organized the 1963 coup. Tran pointed out a portly, white-haired man at a table overlooking the room, dining alone: it was his old friend, Lucien Conein.
[I expect that in 40 years time, some slimebag will be ranting about how the USA wouldnt be the 3rd rate country it is, if only they had stuck with Chalabi...ardent, incorruptible, extraordinarily savvy nationalist blah blah.
Face it the USA is finished, its a global laughing stock. And in 40 years their wheatbelt will be up in Canada. The place will be a waste dump, the jobs available: waste dump guard.
nationalgeographic
small nuclear war not so hot
The view from 2003: obsolete optimism? . June 5, 2003
For most of the world's plant life, the effect of the pace of climate change over the past two decades has been productive, according to an analysis of climate and satellite data collected between 1982 and 1999.
..global climate change has eased climatic constraints on plant life around the globe, allowing vegetation to increase 6 percent over the study period.
..in the Amazon ..cloud cover has declined and solar radiation has increased," said Nemani.
..The most pronounced effect of increased plant growth as a response to global climate change is in the Amazon basin, where increased sunshine combined with no reduction in rainfall allowed the region to flourish.
[it is likely that rainfall is now decreasing, and the forest is drying out, to the point of flammability]
In other parts of the world such as Australia, India, and southern Africa, water is the primary driver for vegetation growth. In the last few decades these regions have experienced wetter weather, and thus, increased plant production
[this is a 3yr old report... Aus now looks like its shriveling up and burning]
India had good monsoons even during the El Niño years of the 1990s. ..India is supposed to have weak monsoons when the weather pattern is in effect.
.. However, over the last two decades Eurasia has warmed up, which apparently maintained the heat gradient required for the monsoon even during El Niño years
[If Canada,India & Northern Europe actually benefit from the first 1.5° of global warming, then there is no chance of the world taking united action against excess-carbon. It is likely that the entire world will suffer later, from the 6-11° increase, but by then it will be too late]
Circumcision is safer:
he two trials.. 3,000 men in Kisumu, Kenya.. 5,000 men in Rakai, Uganda...
..the Ugandan men a 48% reduction. [in HIV infection]
In Kenya, 22 of the 1,393 circumcised caught the disease, cf 47 of the 1,391 uncircumcised
..a trial completed last year in the town of Orange Farm, South Africa.. demonstrated a reduction of 60% among circumcised men.
blogspot
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monkey
"He was a little loaded. It was early in the morning, too, you know."
US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners. The American incarceration rate is seven times higher than that of European countries
monkey
Alcohol
Brain Volume after 38 days of sobriety, increased by two per cent
.. (MRI) and proton MR-spectroscopy
N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and choline.. NAA can indicate how intact the brain’s nerve cells are ..choline provides hints at how cell membranes are being broken down and repaired.
brain volume had increased by 1.82% range of -0.19 to 4.32%. ..
..cerebellar choline +20% NAA in the cerebellar and frontal and frontal choline +10%. .. volume regain is driven ..by rising choline .. the more the NAA recovered, the better the patients performed on the d2-test."
lefty™
lawrenceofcyberia
Tamworth, surge, sobriety, Baiji Dolphin, Diem, Sabang, Climate
posted by giordano bruno @ Monday, December 18, 2006
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