CaribPundit

2007-08-08T13:56:00.000-04:00

So, I literally faded from the blogging scene last year, thought to resume blogging at caribpundit.com only to discover that some joker had bought the domain name out of some mistaken belief that I'd pay him more than $10 to reclaim it. Dude, it ain't gonna happen. You could play as dead as you want, but you won't catch this corbeau alive.

2005-10-25T12:49:00.000-04:00

The wind-driven rain slaps trees, lawns, and roads breaking the quiet stillness of the neighborhood. As usual, the streets are bare; it's that kind of neighborhood and that kind of night. Occasionally a vehicle rolls through, its tires swishing and hissing on the wet pavement, fracturing the dark peace. Nights like these are a throwback to rain-filled Trini ones when the rain tumbled and fell, poured and drummed, bucket-a-drop, on the galvanize sheeting of the roof. The sweetest nocturnal sound it was and lulled many a Trini child to sleep, safe and sound, wrapped up warm and cozy in a coverlet.

Olive Walke and her La Petite Musicale used to sing a song about coverlets.

Bring back me coverlet, oh
Bring back me coverlet, ay.

It was a song about the classic war between the sexes in which the feminine voices would issue the challenge to "bring back me coverlet," and the masculine ones would retort scoffingly, by turns, "I en have no coverlet" or "which coverlet?". Olive Walke and her musical group fed a generation of Trinis on the rich musical folk heritage of TT.

She paved the way, perhaps, for Best Village competitions in which folks songs like Lillian could be heard and relished. Lillian is the story of a young woman who gets caught up in a relationship with a nowhereian. Dramatically, the song is rich; for though Lillian is silent throughout, yet she is addressed by the singer who invokes the girl's threatening parent as obstacle to Lillian's affair and depicts the nowhereian in a few cutting words.

Lillian, I go tell, I go tell, I go tell y' mama
Lillian, I go tell, I go tell, I go tell y' mama
Lillian, I go tell y' mama
You there with a worthless feller
Lillian, I go tell y' mama
This man he from down in the gutter.

As the song continues, the nowhereian is revealed not only as being unemployed and shiftless ("worthless"), but he is also of the lower class (the gutter) and, to make matters worse, is badly brought up, "this man he en got no behavior." The song closes with the despairing admonition, "Lillian, y' too bad, bad, bad, bad, baaad! baaad!" Essentially, Lillian is the story of the values and prejudices of a people for whom the worth of a person is determined by his place in the social order and his upbringing.

Of course, not all folks songs are in English. TT's history being what it is, some are in Spanish (the Christmas parang), and others are in French patois. In fact, the words of Maman moi are still elusive. However, there are other songs, war songs, stick-fighting song such as J'Ouvert that recounts the resolute despair of a fighter facing a battle at dawn with no one at his back, chanting: "J'ouvert parait yeux pas l'ame la main assuyer." However, more often than not, this line is set within the context of a description of long-time Carnival.

Long time Carnival
Had more excitement and bacchanal (repeat)
Don't doubt me
They had the diab'-diab' and the diab'-molassie
Pierrot grenade and moko-jumbie....
Chanting: "J'ouvert parait yeux pas l'ame la main assuyer."
A-diga-digi-digi-digi-digi
Digi-digi-digi-digi
That was the beat of the bamboo
"J'ouvert parait yeux pas l'ame la main assuyer."
A-ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling and she brac she brac-brac
The bottle and the stone and the tamboo-bamboo
"J'ouvert parait yeux pas l'ame la main assuyer."

This indeed is a fitting context in which to place this line from a stickfight chanson inasmuch as Carnival, in the old days, had not only displays of this martial art with roots in Nigeria and Ghana, but also evoked the slave rebellions that were its genesis.

So, tonight's rain is an avenue to the past, to a history and culture that yet lives on. TT has changed, but the sensibility that produced Lillian and J'Ouvert still survives.

This is cross-posted at CaribPundit.

Just musing

2005-10-24T20:15:00.000-04:00

Well, I finally broke down and got a domain name that is as same as the blog. CaribPundit. Note that. CaribPundit is now at http://caribpundit.com.

In spite of that, I'm going to hang out here a while at Blogger.com. Do reviews or something. Heck, do something. By the way, I've got another blog running, Theologica Crucis. I used to have that on the same site as the news blog, but then I decided to separate things. Yeah, I know that that means the blog is a lot less interesting. For a while there, I had news, short fiction, and theological writings all in the same place. No more. I've not put up the short fiction on its own site yet, but eventually, I'll get around to that.

I've got a stack of movies that I'm intending to review. Some are old, some are new. Who cares. I saw Kingdom of Heaven while I was in China and my off the cuff review? Hollywood kissing Islamic terrorist butt. Those cowardly weasels in Hollywood couldn't even get the known historical facts straight. The Crusades were never an offensive war; it was always defensive -- the same as the war we're fighting right now in Iraq. If Hollywood couldn't get past history right, it's no surprise that their view of history in the making is warped.

That's about it for blogging. I never promised that I'd make any lengthy posts.

China: CaribPundit rides again!

2004-09-29T11:06:00.000-04:00

CaribPundit is back up and running again. For the time being, we've lost our database files, but I'll settle for that (reluctantly) as long as the blog is operable. I'll worry about the DB later.

Visit us over at http://carib.us.

CaribPundit on our own domain again!

2004-09-28T03:54:00.000-04:00

We're back in the saddle again at our own domain, CaribPundit. HTTP://CARIB.US.

So far, there's not much cuz I just got the site up. I'll have to fiddle with the database once again; who knows, maybe this time I'll get it to upload. Hey, y' never know!

Looking forward to seeing all my rowdy friends again.

I'm off to a meeting. Later.

2004-09-26T13:04:00.000-04:00

China: Bad words

How many bad words can a person avoid saying? If anybody has a count, I want to know. You see, this weekend has been an exercise in self-restraint in trying to get CaribPundit up on its new server.

As if that weren't enough, I've not heard from fellow blogger, RTFM, in days. As you all know, he was carrying the weight of CaribPundit whilst I tried to get my online ducks in a row here in Nanning, China. Oooh, the stories I could tell, and I will, cuz it ain't easy.

But I digress. Since last week, just before Jeanne struck the USVI, RTFM went off the air, and I've not heard from him since. I've not been able to get much if any news cuz I'm on a nasty, slow and expensive connection here. Please join me in praying that RTFM is all right, and that he, his family, and his country came through the storm just fine.

It's now a little after 1AM, and I have to be up at 6AM for an early class. Tomorrow is a heavy schedule. Night and God bless.

2004-09-25T06:56:00.000-04:00

China: Getting my butt kicked!

I'm getting my butt kicked restoring the site's database. It's now Saturday evening. I started Friday night and worked until Saturday 7AM, when the lights went out. We had no power all day until a few minutes ago. Fourth world stuff.

Is there anybody out there who has a clue about MySQL DBs? I'm well nigh clueless but valiantly trying. Here's what I'm doing. I've loaded up the backup file to the server. I'm in phpMyAdmin doing a Choose File at the SQL line. Once 'Go' is clicked, that is supposed to reload the database. Theoretically. Somebody must've beaten me with a dumb stick cuz I sure ain't getting it right.

I'm also posting blind to the Blogspot site. Yep, that's how it is. You can post, but you can't see the thing. Fifth world stuff.

Meantime, The Bronzegod, he who has made the new spacious CaribPundit digs possible, is wondering what's up. Bronzegod, I love you, man, and I'll love you a whole lot better if you can restore the DB for me.

2004-09-24T12:58:00.000-04:00

China: Countdown to a bigger new home

I'm working on getting CaribPundit up and running over on a new server with lots of room and bandwidth.

The move should be accomplished by the close of the week-end. Meantime, the thing is driving me nuts!

We'll be at http://carib.us, the new home of CaribPundit

DR: Jeanne takes lives in the Dominican Republic

2004-09-19T03:39:00.000-04:00

SAN PEDRO DE MACORIS, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Tropical Storm Jeanne battered the Dominican Republic before heading to the Bahamas where the tempest, which has killed at least nine people, began to churn seas and stir deadly storm surges on Saturday.

Jeanne lost strength as it drove thousands of Dominicans from their homes Friday. But a few hours after being downgraded to a tropical depression, it strengthened again into a tropical storm with lashing winds.

Forecasters said it was too soon to predict if the storm would hit the United States. But Brian Jarvinen at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said he couldn't rule out the possibility that it might strike Florida, which has been struck by three hurricanes since mid-August.

The storm stalled over the Dominican Republic after coming ashore Thursday as a hurricane, with winds near 80 mph. It raged through Puerto Rico on Wednesday, dumping up to two feet of rain, flooding hundreds of homes and downing power lines.

Jeanne became better organized as it moved over the sparsely populated outer islands of the southeast Bahamas Saturday morning.

I know part of the hurricane rhyme goes "August, about just. September, remember; October, all over," but the Caribbean and Florida can't have October come too soon.

This has been a rough hurricane season, for Floridians, especially. Every bad wind coming off of the Atlantic seems to have Florida's name written on it. God give them, and those currently afflicted by all these hurricanes, the ability to endure and build again.

TT: Life after Ivan

2004-09-19T02:10:00.000-04:00

"STILL picking up the pieces in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, members of a Maraval family returned home on Friday to find their home virtually destroyed after a massive pile of debris came crashing down on top of their house following a sudden downpour of rain.

Michael Potts and his wife Margaret, of Upper La Seiva Road Maraval, said it was the second time for the month that misfortune had struck the family as the heavy rains and wind from Hurricane Ivan, had also brought down piles of debris onto their house, totally destroying the guest room.

'Thank God we had nobody there at the time because they would have surely died,' a visibly fatigued Mrs Potts told the Sunday Express yesterday."

Prayers ascending for all those families in the Caribbean and U.S. who have lost loved ones, homes, and other possessions.

TT: Go with a two-dollar whore...

2004-09-19T01:29:00.000-04:00

and you'll surely get crabs. Now TT is afflicted with crabs and other STDs because both political parties may have gone a-whoring after that old rowdy whore, the Muslimeen.

: "Long before Bakr and his group of insurgents shot their way into public notoriety by using murder, mayhem and terrorism in their attempt to overthrow a properly elected government, the self-styled imam was reported to have met with key figures of the then National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) party in the run-up to the December 1986 general elections.

Sources, who spoke on condition that their names not be used, identified a former mid-level NAR official in a gun distribution scheme aimed at buying protection for candidates and other party officials on the ground. The official (name given), is said to have handed over some 13 handguns to Mark Guerra in what sources say, was an initiative to provide safe passage for NAR candidates in what was expected to be a keenly contested, if not violent, election. Guerra, a gangland boss and then a top lieutenant of the Muslimeen leader, was shot dead last year.

Sources say the gun amnesty offered by the NAR Government in early 1987 was not unrelated to the distribution of guns to so-called bad boys in the run-up to the 1986 polls or the tacit support of Muslimeen 'soldiers' waiting in the wings, in the event of a NAR victory and the PNM's refusal to hand over the reins of power after a 30-year stranglehold on government."

"The idea then was the PNM was the problem," said one source, who pointed to the protracted legal wrangling between the Muslimeen and the PNM-controlled Port of Spain City Corporation over the disputed lands at No.1 Mucurapo Road.

. Now, everybody is denying Bakr's claims. Nobody went to the back-alley looking to turn a trick with him. Nobody was in league with him. So, how come Bakr and his thugs are still free, in spite of their endless games with arms, ammunitions, and other assorted types of smuggling? How come the Muslimeen can control the quarry in Valencia and Wallerfield and the government lets them get away with it? How come the government lets the Muslimeen get away with intimidating and threatening government officials? What does the Muslimeen whore have on the government and the opposition party of TT?

TT: Enough Grenadians, we don't want any more, says Sat Maharaj

2004-09-19T01:11:00.000-04:00

:"Let Grenadians remain in their hurricane-ravaged country, Sat Maharaj, general secretary of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS), has advised.

'We say to the Government: take our money, help the Grenadians, they are our brothers. But for God's sake let them stay home over there,' Maharaj told the congregation at Maraj Hill Mandir, Coalmine, on Thursday night.

He added: 'We have enough of them in Laventille and Morvant who have not yet fitted into the social structure in Trinidad and Tobago.'

Maharaj said it took two generations for a migrant to fit into the culture of the host country.

'It's like when our people go to Canada or the USA, it takes them about two generations to fit into the culture of those countries. Those who have come here have not fitted into the culture of Trinidad and Tobago yet, and it will take them about two generations to do so,' he argued.

Commenting on the devastation caused by recent hurricanes in several countries, Maharaj said he believed that prayers played a major role in sparing Trinidad from a similar fate."

Sat, would you say the same thing if Grenadians were Hindus? Admittedly, Sat has a point about new immigrants fitting in. The problem with the Grenadians in Laventille and Morvant is that many or almost all of them are illegal aliens. Thus, they lack the papers necessary to fit into TT, man, woman, and child.

For a child to enroll in a TT school, birth and baptismal certificates are necessary. The birth paper needs to be presented again before the child writes the exam to go to high school. It's impossible to open a bank account in TT without at least two official IDs, a passport and a national ID card, for instance. Everything requires official ID.

Therefore, the illegal alien must, of necessity, exist outside the bounds of society in some dim, grim limbo created by his choice to enter TT illegally. However, as with the U.S., children of illegal immigrants born in TT are automatically citizens of the country.

So, is Sat really afraid of more illegals who can't fit in, or is this plea really about maintaining that 50-50 balance of power between the country's two biggest ethnic groups?

China: Oh, woe!

2004-09-18T22:57:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like we chose a heck of a time to get hit with an excess bandwidth shutdown, which we got because we've exceeded our bandwidth by almost 100% in just about two weeks in September.

Here I am in China with a U.S. bank-card that has nothing much on it (the one with a few pennies on it is back home with my sister who will not enter banking information online) and a Chinese bank card that can't be used internationally. There is RTFM in the USVI, coping with the after effects of Ivan, Jeanne, and all those hurricanes he's been blogging about. I've not heard from him, so I don't know if he's been blogging (remember, I can't see this blogspot site).

Previous to this weekend, the only 'net service I had at my apartment was in-China; at the office, where I had international access, I could look at some sites on the web. No blogspot sites at all (I can't even see this one though I can blog to it using BlogThis! Thank you, Blogger!), no Baldilocks, no Iraqi bloggers, and so on. Reading Gmail was not an option, though I could access the account.

On Friday, after talking to a friend here, I discovered internet cards. Yes, Virginia, there is such an animal. You buy a card for 23 yuan, about $3 U.S., and it's good for a month. If you don't have a phone line, you buy a phone card and pay 1.5Y per hour. If you have a phone line, and I do, heaven knows what the cost is. I'll moan about it at the end of the month. With this new discovery, then, I could access the www from my apartment.

So, I managed to scout out a new web host that allows LARGE bandwidth. Donations helping us to get back up and running on the CaribPundit domain (http://carib.us) would be very much welcome. Please hit the tip jar if you like the blog.

U.S.: Bush served his country free of charge

2004-09-18T22:03:00.000-04:00

From the American Thinker who links to Polipundit on the issue of Bush's pay stubs for April-October, 1972.

A search of the web led me to AF Form 1288 (front/back) in which 1LT Bush requests duty in Alabama on May 24, 1972. Block 17 shows that the request is "no pay, training category G." In the approval section, it is clearly disclosed that this is "pay group none." Why is this important? Regardless, of the ultimate unit he ended up training with, it shows that 1LT Bush was willing to train without pay. The old media remains focused on pay records!! In regards to pay records, USA Today states, "They show he was paid for 82 days in 1972 and 1973, but show no service for five months between April and October 1972." Pay records would show no service during this time period because he was not paid! 1LT Bush served his country without pay. That is why there is no pay record.

The emphases are mine.

Tropical Storm Jeanne: St. Croix feeling the effects.

2004-09-15T00:25:00.000-04:00

The wind has started snapping in the last half hour.
The St. Croix Weather page just recorded a peak gust of 74.7 mph and we are stil four hours out from the forecast closest point of approach.

I' don't know how much longer my wireless antennae is going to hold out but I'll keep posting for as long as I'm able.

Wow!

Tropical systems never fail to amaze me...

12:45 AM:
Power flickering...
Low rumble of thunder in the distance...

12:51 AM:
Bigger Gusts way more consistent!
Now I'm sure my connection will be knocked out at some point tonight. Still hours away from closest approach.

1:00 AM:
Rainband with some pretty strong colors moving in... Higest gust so far - now 75.3 MPH.

1:23 AM:
I'm gonna shut down for a while...Barometric pressure, which has been falling steadily since before 11:PM is now down to 29.435 (1:02 AM) and the winds are consistently in the high 30s and 40s MPH range.

1:50 AM:
So much for shutting down...Power seems a little more stable. and ther's not much thunder in this so far. still supposedly an hour or so until closest approach
Highest gust 79.5 MPH current windspeed 51.0 MPH at 1:47 AM. (From)

2:05 AM:
Goodnight...
Jeanne 35 miles south of us.

Tropical Storm Jeanne: St. Croix US Virgin Islands update

2004-09-14T23:36:00.000-04:00

The wind has really started picking up in the last half hour with a top recorded gust of 67.2 mph at 11:25 pm local time (GMT -4). There is sporadic lightning but little rain as of the time of this post. Here on out the conditions will deteriorate until TS Jeanne reaches its Point of closest approach which apparently is forecast to be around 3:00 AM in the morning.

The webcam on the Boardwalk in Christiansted is starting to show the effects.

Following are results based on Storm Carib's How Close Can It Get? tool and forecast track data from the 11:00 pm AST Forecast Advisory (#6):

Results for St.Croix (17.7N, 64.8W):
The approximate Closest Point of Approach (CPA) is located near 17.4N, 64.9W or about 21.3 miles (34.4 km) from your location. The estimated time of when the eye will be at that location is in about 5.4 hours.

Currently, you can really see the circulation on the San Juan Doppler radar loop as Tropical Storm Jeanne spins just to our (St. Croix) south..

I wouldn't be half surprised if Jeanne is upgraded to a category one Hurricane as it passes us.

Check out Storm Carib's St. Croix and St. Thomas threads for more local reports.

Be sure to check out http://hurricane-ivan.blogspot.com/ for a consolidation of news and useful information on Hurricane Ivan the Terrible. It looks as if they've been covering the storm since shortly after Jamaica was mashed.

It's not looking good for New Orleans.

Let us not forget Grenada and the rest of the Caribben Region. A good place to check up on the aftermath and relief efforts within the Caribben region would do well to check out Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) homepage.

Storm Carib also has a great page with information on how we can contribute toward helping people suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan.

Tropical Storm Jeanne: Ever wonder...

2004-09-14T20:27:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder what the birth of a hurricane looks like on doppler radar?

No...?

Then don't check here.

It's live so if you missed it...Oh well.

Here's the latest output from Storm Carib's - How close is it? - tool.

Results for St.Croix (17.7N, 64.8W):
The eye of the storm is about 67 miles (107 km) away. If the system keeps moving at its current speed of 10 mph and directly towards you, it will take around 6.7 hours (0.3 days) to reach you. Given the current windfield (40 miles from the center), tropical storm winds will be felt in 2.7 hours (0.1 days).

Latest max gust is 49.2 mph at 8:00 pm local (GMT -4).

Feel free to scroll down for more links and updated content on strengthening Tropical Storm Jeanne.

On this dark stormy night I would be remiss if I didn't point you toward some good news and hope via Arthur Chrenkoff's 10^th installment of his excellent Good News from Iraq series. With all the spinning from hurricanes and politicians going on it's always a refreshing link-rich read.

Tropical Storm Jeanne: Virgin Islands now under Hurricane Warning!

2004-09-14T18:49:00.000-04:00

The US Virgin Islands is now under a Hurricane Warning!

AT 5 PM AST...2100Z...A HURRICANE WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR PUERTO
RICO AND THE U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS.

A meteorologist out of Puerto Rico's National Weather Service office just said that soon to be Hurricane Jeanne will pass just south of St. Croix but that he expects that the wind shouldn't get much past 70 mph in gusts...But we know how that goes. Expect Hurricane conditions as per the Hurricane Warning the NWS placed us under at 5:00 pm .

Here's a webcam maintained by GoToStCroix.com that's focused on the boardwalk and harbour at Christiansted.

Providing the power and/or net connection doesn't go down, there should be lights all night and It could get interesting even though the town is on the leeward (north) side.

Here are some local streaming radio links:

WSTA 1340khz AM - St. Thomas.
ZBVI Radio - 780Khz. AM - Tortola.

As much as I love this island, St. Croix - as usual - just can't seem get it together to have radio streaming on the net.

Anyway, if anyone can point me toward a link to a St. Croix radio station with a working stream, please leave the URL in the comments section and I'll post it if I still have a connection to the net. Otherwise it'll just be there in the comments I guess.
;^)

Tropical Storm Jeanne: Strengthening...Heads for St. Croix U.S.V.I.

2004-09-14T14:53:00.000-04:00

Storm Carib's excellent How Close is it tool is a good way to get a handle on approaching tropical systems.

Entering the data from the ~~2:00 pm~~ UPDATED to: 5:00 pm AST National Weather Service advisory gives the following:

Results for St.Croix (17.7N, 64.8W):
The eye of the storm is about 86 miles (138 km) away. If the system keeps moving at its current speed of 10 mph and directly towards you, it will take around 8.6 hours (0.5 days) to reach you. Given the current windfield (40 miles from the center), tropical storm winds will be felt in 4.6 hours (0.2 days).

Latest Tropical Storm Jeanne Advisory - Automatically Updated

According to a local amateur weather station - as of 3:35 local time (GMT -4) winds have increased to 16-25 mph sustained with gusts to 44.1 mph!

(As of 5:00 pm local, the peak gust recorded still stands at 44.1 mph)

...And there are still supposedly five or so hours to go before we feel sustained tropical storm force winds.

CaribPundit slinks back in after a Hurricane Ivan - lanche

2004-09-14T11:20:00.000-04:00

Talk about a hurricane season...

Ivan, besides wrecking a good portion of the Caribbean, has swamped our carib.us digs with over 15 gigs of traffic (4gigs in one day!) effectively shutting us down.

On top of that our St. Croix annex (umm...me) is under a tropical storm warning!

Yep...Newly formed Tropical storm Jeanne is bee-lining it for St. Croix.

Refresh/reload the page to update animation graphics

Conditions are expected to deteriorate throughout the day as Jeanne approaches. By the time the center of TS Jeanne is over us here in STX, it's expected to pack Tropical storm force winds of 51.8 mph (45 knots) with higher gusts effecting us tonight and tomorrow. There is an even ten percent chance that the sustained winds will reach 70mph, so I'll be posting here until my wireless connection dinks out or I have to take my antenna down.

We have only just passed the halfway point of the 2004 hurricane season and if the second usually more active half keeps its climatological course, It's gonna be a windy fall.

U.S.: We've moved house

2004-08-07T01:19:00.000-04:00

Find us at http://carib.us.

USVI: CaribPundit scores a Wizbang Bronze.

2004-08-06T17:46:00.000-04:00

"Can you believe they actually bought that?"

Kevin Aylward's Wizbang weekly caption contest is a regular favorite here and getting mentioned on his site is akin to winning a Blog lottery - or something to that effect - so whilst we may not be quite as ecstatic as Lurch & Eddie were in this photo, we are pretty grinning happy for the Bronze.

The Gold medal caption goes to: sugarmama for -

"Irrational exuberance is more than a pipe dream - it can be yours with a simple visit to your psychiatrist.

Brought to you by the National Lithium Council."

The Silver to : boifromtroy for -

"They say that love don't pay the rent;
Before it's earned the money's all been spent"

Well I guess that we don't got alot;
But at least I'm sure of all the things we've got, babe...

"I've got you babe."

Henceforth the Award shall take an honorable spot right next to my cherished Teen Disco Trophy and the Frankie Valli record I won in 8th grade.
;^)

Thanks Kevin.
As Rtfm wipes brown stuff off nose...

Cross posted at our new digs

US: Closer, but keep fighting the good fight

2004-08-06T11:07:00.000-04:00

At this point the Donk leadership is depending on party loyalty and various media and celebrity help almost exclusively. They are depending on people's blind faith in their widely broadcast party line, and are banking on what they say not being verified in the liberal press.

Kerry is even now openly recycling themes from Michael Moore's discredited propaganda movie...

They depend on the press throwing softballs at their candidates and lending credence to all their specious claims whilst obfuscating things like Sandy Berger stuffing secret documents down his shorts, and the utter collapse of their Joe Wilson, and Clarke, and Moore, conspiracy pillars.

Lately the Donks in their desperation have taken to intimidation and Lawyerese to try to stifle both opponents and fact.

To whit:
DNC Lawyers Work To Muzzle Swift Boat Vets' Ad

Human Events has a scan of the letter the DNC's lawyers fax out to intimidate stations into not playing the Swift Boat Vereran's ad.

I wonder if they use the same cadre of DNC litigators they mobilized against Nader's ballot fights?

...Or are they the donk's Soros funded Moveon PAC lawyers who are trying to sue FOX into liberal line?

Their celebrity constituents blast on at every opportunity about Conservatives somehow stifling dissent in public forums, yet they are the foremost players in that field. And like petulant children they throw tantrums when [American] people call them on it or walk out of a concert they paid for, or otherwise express their distase.

I think it comes down to the fact that the liberal pollyanna's don't understand that by not being proactive and preemptive in taking the fight to Islam's fascists, they invite a hunkered down reduction of domestic civil liberties that will be incrementally eroded in response to continued domestic terrorist attack.

Apparently this is not a problem for the Dem's as it's one step closer to their nanny state ideal I guess.

Striking at Islam's fascist element is the only logical means to forstall the domestic effects of islamist terrorism.

...And it's working despite all the media's "quagmire" salesmanship.

Tens of millions of Iraqis and Afghanis are actively opposing/fighting al Qaeda right now...Even as they prepare for their own elections - and terrorists who once had safe haven are scurrying between safe-house and spider-hole to survive. That doesn't leave terrorists much "time-space" in which to flesh out new attacks against a hardened and free American homeland which is why they car bomb their [supposed] own in an attempt to derail the democracy train that's chugging right along.

Meanwhile, 55,000,000 people are free of totalitarian nooses and the nuclear mullahs of Iran are being boxed-in whilst other proliferation scams are being exposed and eliminated.

The DNC and all their lemmings of course call President Bush evil for this but the American people given the opportunity to think, aren't buying it...Hence the palpable desperation crackling through the ranks of the left.

Every liberal tantrum illustrates this rising desperation - which is why I absolutely love when they 'express' themselves.

We should start a 'How many states is George Bush going to win by' pool.

Cross posted at our new digs

Gya: You have mother, and then you have mother-***

2004-08-06T09:19:00.000-04:00

The police and probation services are investigating the circumstances which resulted in an eight-year-old boy suffering second-degree burns to his chest.

Akeem James of 263 Samatta Point, Grove, East Bank Demerara was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital on July 23 after being scalded on his chest apparently as punishment for losing $500 which he had been given to purchase chicken. Akeem's mother, who was held by the police and subsequently released, has denied this. She claimed that he accidentally came into contact with a stove.

According to reports, the child had been flogged twice prior to being dowsed with a hot liquid and was made to suffer other forms of punishment including kneeling as well as being barred from leaving his Grove home.

...Akeem's father Anthony James who is estranged from the boy's mother said he learned of the situation on July 23, when his mother (Akeem's grandmother), who also lives at Grove, called to inform him of the child's condition.

Gya: Oooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, what a few yen can do to you

2004-08-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

IT’S a non-issue.

That’s the line the main Opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) maintained yesterday on the recent controversial visit to Taiwan by its Leader, Mr Robert Corbin.

But the Guyana Government yesterday registered disapproval of the visit by circulating a motion in Parliament calling on the National Assembly to disassociate itself from the action taken by Mr Corbin, a PNCR Member of Parliament.

The Taiwan trip has chilled the once warm ties between the PNCR and China which has registered strong protest at the visit.

Chinese Ambassador, Mr Song Tao, whose tenure here ends on August 15, cancelled a scheduled Wednesday courtesy call on Corbin at PNCR headquarters because of “health reasons”, according to a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy here.

Yeah, don't piss off China.

Bdos: Independece in the Caribbean celebrated with silence on Darfur

2004-08-06T08:57:00.000-04:00

In a more civilised world the sheer savagery of what is occurring in Sudan, especially in its Darfur region, would attract the sternest, most sustained rebuke – if nothing else – by the international community.
...
The most visible of Barbados’ spokespersons on Emancipation, black empowerment and reparations apparently consider as guilty of crimes against humanity only those despots and political bandits who have their origin in predominantly non-black societies. The hypocrisy is all too transparent.

Emancipation Day in Barbados two days ago, following on Sunday’s call for social fracture [boycotting this country’s Whites], came and went without so much as a word of sympathy for Sudan’s millions of suffering Blacks or respect for approximately three million slaughtered, six million displaced, and the countless casualties of enforced exodus from their homeland.

But why should would-be separatists in Barbados show genuine interest in the fate of people thousands of miles away when they are busy attempting the kind of reverse racism that belies their sanctimonious utterances about Barbadian nationhood and, quite frankly, makes a mockery of their type of Emancipation celebration?

...Equally, do ordinary Barbadians recognise that Sudan has become the latest of mankind’s worst killing fields, where horrific butchery exceeds war deaths in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Yesterday’s mass demonstration by Arab militia, including large numbers of government troops, illustrates the degree of Khartoum’s bloody- mindedness.

, they vowed to die in a jihad [Islamic holy war] if there is international intervention, specifically by the UN, to stop what is happening in Darfur.

Unspeakably bad things are happening mainly to non-Arab, non-Muslim Africans not least to women and young girls upon whom government soldiers and what is to all intents and purposes the state’s ruthless enforcement arm, the Janjaweed, routinely satiate their sadistic lust.

Through its all, Khartoum is defiant, telling the United States to mind its own business and warning the UN not to meddle in Sudan’s internal affairs.

Not even the slowly awakening African Union [AU] is fully welcome to play the role of peacemaker. Sudan, says President Omar al-Beshir, is quite capable of managing its own affairs. Indeed, setting aside the welfare of its sick, starving and dying millions, and an economy that gallops deeper and deeper into chaos, the president regime is managing in a way that is matched only by the misery that despotic ex-President Slobodan Milosevic and the authoritarian President Robert Mugabe have inflicted on their respective countries.

They should both be on trial for war crimes, which is Milosevic’s fate. But in this civilised, politically correct world, who would dare to touch the rampaging Arab militias in Africa?

Bdos: Oil for Food coming soon to a theater near you!

2004-08-06T08:56:00.000-04:00

IF they felt the award-winning film had no particular value for their party’s prospects in November’s presidential election, strategists for the opposition Democrats in the United States would not make “Fahrenheit 9/11” a major feature at their convention in Boston, Massachusetts, political stronghold of the Kennedy clan.
...
It would be interesting to see what sort of film the very creative entertainment industry, complete with its comedians who constantly bash Messrs. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, would produce on such massive wheeling and dealing when the ongoing UN investigation brings more facts to light.

TT: Down but not out?

2004-08-06T08:38:00.000-04:00

Despite US efforts to strangle the flow of dollars to Cuba and fresh exchanges of acrimony between Presidents George Bush and Fidel Castro, the cash-strapped Cuban government intends to make record US food purchases this year, according to its chief international shopper.

"By the end of August, Cuba will have purchased in eight months as much as it did in the whole previous year,'' said Pedro Alvarez, head of Alimport, the government's food procurement enterprise.

Cash purchases of US food have grown exponentially since November 2001, when hurricane-ravaged Cuba began taking advantage of the first breach of a trade embargo imposed in 1960 and maintained through ten successive US presidencies. Cuban purchases from what is now its biggest food supplier, already nearing the US$300 million mark by the end of July, are set to exceed US$440 million this year, Alvarez said in an interview.

TT: Impartial investigation of Grenada's Mitchell

2004-08-06T08:29:00.000-04:00

IN an effort to get to the bottom of the bribery allegations levelled against Grenadian Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, that country’s Governor General has appointed a Commission of Inquiry comprising lawyers from the Caribbean. No lawyers from Grenada will be involved in the Commission of Inquiry appointed to investigate allegations of financial impropriety against the Grenadian prime minister. Grenada’s Governor General Sir Daniel Williams, in an address to the nation on Wednesday night, formally announced the Commission of Inquiry. There will be a one-man Commission. That job goes to Barbadian Queen’s Counsel Dr Richard Cheltenham, a prominent and highly respected Caribbean jurist. Many will remember Dr Cheltenham when he teamed up with then Opposition Leader, now St Vincent Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves in 1997, to successfully defend Americans James and Penny Fletcher who were charged with murder on the island of Bequia.

Ja: Finally!

2004-08-06T08:18:00.000-04:00

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) - The government introduced legislation yesterday that would impose sentences of up to life in prison against people convicted of human trafficking, an attempt to deflect US criticism that Guyana is not tough enough on the crime.

Human Services Minister Bibi Shadick introduced the bill during a brief parliamentary session. The bill would impose a maximum sentence of life in prison on those convicted of kidnapping people for prostitution or other commercial purposes.

The bill would also create a witness protection programme for people who provide evidence against suspected traffickers and require the government to keep a registry of people convicted of the offence. It will be debated after parliament returns from recess in October.

U.S.: Back up and running

2004-08-05T23:58:00.000-04:00

Well, we're back up and running on http://carib.us.

After waiting in vain for the web hosts to do something besides send me silly little messages, I experimented with the config.php file one line at a time. Happily, on the first line, it all checked out.

Anyway, this site will remain up.

U.S.: Roman more bishops finally opt for fidelity to Church doctrine

2004-08-05T23:03:00.000-04:00

Roman Catholic bishops in three Southeastern dioceses said Wednesday they will deny Communion to lawmakers who consistently support abortion rights unless the dissenting politicians publicly recant.

The bishops said in a statement that Catholics who violate church teaching in policy-making were 'cooperating in evil in a public manner.'

The banned Catholic lawmakers could resume taking the sacrament 'only after reconciliation with the church has occurred, with the knowledge and consent of the local bishop, and public disavowal of former support for procured abortion,' the clerics said.

'There can be no contradiction between the values bestowed by baptism and the Catholic faith and the public expression of those values,' the bishops said."

The Lord's Supper or Holy Communion is not a right. Rather, it is a privilege the Lord conferred upon His Church for her salvation. Though all are to be baptized, not all are to be communed until they can understand the meaning and significance of the eating and drinking. Therefore, the Western Church does not commune children until after they have been instructed into the articles of the Christian faith. For, where baptism wipes away all sin, communion will condemn to damnation if partaken of unworthily.

Martin Chemnitz, in the Examination of the Council of Trent, discusses the importance of eating the Body and Blood of Christ worthily. This eating, Chemnitz notes, is not to be undertaken recklessly, for our very soul is at risk should we eat unworthily. He argues, like Paul, that the partaking of the Lord's Supper should be preceded by prayerful reflection. The man who is to commune must prepare himself for in the eating and drinking he is one with Christ through faith. No man ought to just go to Church and eat of the Body and Blood without considering that should he eat unrepentant, he damns his own soul to hell. No pastor should allow a man to eat of the Body and Blood while he is at odds with Scripture, that rule and norm for life and faith. For a pastor to allow such a one to commune is to be remiss in his responsibiity as a shepherd.

For, the priests of the Roman Church, like Christian pastors and ministers wherever they may be found, are shepherds and bishops of the souls of men. They are charged by Christ with responsibility for our souls' salvation, and He require an accounting of their stewardship of His flock. If the pastor is aware that a man consents to abortion, which is murder and is as the passing of children through fire, and he communes that man, then he receives on himself that man's blood because as pastor, he has failed to see to the safety of the sheep's soul.

Therefore, given the significane of the Lord's Supper to the Church, and the life-endangering penalty attached to eating unworthily of it, it is good that Roman bishops have decided to withhold communion from those who will not recant and repent concerning abortion. One of these days, the flock will realize that the Church is the Body of Christ, and that the smiling Savior born in a cradle in Bethlehem will be replaced by a fierce and frowning judge.

U.S.: Kerry to blacks, 'stay on the plantation!'

2004-08-05T20:43:00.000-04:00

"John F. Kerry today said entertainer Bill Cosby's recent admonition that black Americans need to take greater personal responsibility for poor education and high crime was 'excessively exclusive' and ignored the government's role in helping minorities.

I understand exactly where Bill is coming from in his comment,' Kerry said, measuring his words carefully as he spoke to a convention for minority journalists in Washington. 'It may be excessively exclusive in the breadth of it, in the sense that it sort of targets just the responsibility side, but that's an important side.'

Sen. John F. Kerry, speaking at a conference of minority journalists, said he was aware of 'the special challenges facing people of color.'

Cosby, a black actor and comedian, has recently harshly criticized the behavior of younger black males and scolded them in interviews for blaming their problems on everyone but themselves. Many blacks were highly critical of Cosby's remarks.

Kerry said government and society are to blame, too, for not providing adequate assistance and protections to minorities. 'We also need to do the things we need to do as a society to empower those people, have plans for those kids, to make the world safer,' Kerry said. 'It's all of us together.'"

What should the descendants do?

Easy. Flush the Johns.

U.S.: Jus' like dat!

2004-08-05T19:15:00.000-04:00

Jus' like dat! Jus' like dat! I en sleep for de night yet, but de blog on http://carib.us gone down. Jus' like dat. I don' even have to channel Paul Keens.

So, sleep, bustin' me arse, I decide to hold on till 'bout 9 or so to solve de problem. All I was doin' was settin' up another blog for this website mankind payin' I and I to build. It not official yet, y' know, but all you could check it out if all you want. Me ain' go stop yer. See yah, as me bredren from Ja would say, ayah.

So, I ups an' write de web host, y' know, cuz I and I want de blog up an' runnin'. So wha' yer t'ink dey say? Dey want to know if I, rahted wannabe geek I, got de file configgered right. I wanted to tell dem 'bout dey mooma, y' know, but I answer nice an' polite, like me ol' queen raise me.

Up to now, de dam t'ing still not up yet! An' I talkin' bout from since early o'clock dis mornin' when Rtfm write me and say how dis t'ing ain' wuckin'. Wha' me nephew does say? Good t'ing ain' cheap, an' cheap t'ing ain' good. I think if de good Lord bless me wit' a few pennies before I head off to furrin' that I go move de damn blog to a web host wha' know wha' they doin'.

In de meantime, we is CaribPundit, an' we here. Yah, mon!

US: Fakenshite 9/11 - Analysed

2004-08-05T09:01:00.001-04:00

Here's a great page that analyzes the various propaganda methods employed by Michael Moore in his ~~Fahrenheit~~ Fakenshite movie.

Of course there are those willfully blind volk who will "vote for Daffy Duck"...Imagine that?

Leftists ignoring fact...

Who would have thunk?

Wictory Wednesday: The Case for John Kerry

2004-08-04T20:14:00.000-04:00

Shoshanna at Dreams Into Lightning has posted the best arguments this vast internet thing can dig up to defend John Kerry’s bid for the Presidency.

Well stated.

I’m entirely convinced…
;^)

UPDATE Kat at The Middle Ground has more.

USVI: Would-be Tropical Storm 'Bonnie' Passing South

2004-08-04T17:01:00.000-04:00

Ahhhh…It’s a nice rainy day in the V.I.

Aug. 3, 2004 – V. I. weather should start going downhill Wednesday evening as Tropical Depression 2 approaches, said Rafael Mojica, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in San Juan.

The territory remains on a tropical storm watch.

Forecasters think the storm, Tropical Storm Bonnie, will pass 170 miles south of St. Croix around 8 p.m. Wednesday. St. Croix will get more rain and wind than St. Thomas and St. John.

"And tomorrow will be raining," Mojica said.

He said the picture is looking a bit brighter than it did on Tuesday, the day Tropical Depression 2 formed. Meteorologists then thought it would pass closer to St. Croix.

Reconnaissance aircraft are scheduled to fly into the storm later Wednesday.

«read the rest»

UPDATE: Poof! ~~Bonny~~ TD2 dissipating...

Cross posted to our new digs

US: Italians kick the crap out of the US basketball team.

2004-08-04T13:10:00.000-04:00

As a fellow Cruzan Virgin Islander, Tim Duncan (who I've had the honor to surf with *smirk*) is a super-hero down here and a great guy to boot - but damn! Show some shame Tim...

Associated Press
COLOGNE, Germany -- The U.S. Olympic basketball team quickly shrugged off its stunning exhibition loss to Italy.

"It doesn't hurt at all. It's great preparation," center Tim Duncan said. "If it happened to us in the Olympics, that's different. This doesn't hurt at all."
"This doesn't hurt at all."
- Tim Duncan

The United States was beaten 95-78 Tuesday, just 10 days before its first contest in the Athens Games. It was the most one-sided and embarrassing loss ever by an American team comprised of NBA players. The Americans will try to win its fifth straight Olympics gold medal and improve on its 24-0 record since allowing pro players to participate in 1992.

«read the Whole shameful thing»

Really...?

I would hope that getting slapped around and pelted with meatballs should hurt...Alot.

VIA Protein Wisdom who aptly summed it up with:

"Whipped by men who drive Vespas. How humiliating is that...?"

The entire US team has some serious making up to do to earn their gold stars...After they're done in the corner and take off the dunce caps.

UPDATE: Ok. That's a little better...

Cross posted to our new evolving digs at CaribPundit 2

2004-08-03T18:41:00.000-04:00

U.S.: The change from the dollar...

Is still making noise.

So, here's the deal. Check us out on here at http://carib.us.

The change over's gotta be fine tuned and stuff like that, but we're finally on our own domain, and we've shortened it so there'll be less typing to do.

Talking 'bout Carib ... that's us at CaribPundit.

Later!

USVI: Hurricane season heats up

2004-08-03T11:59:00.000-04:00

Well Alex is now category two and 30 or so hours to the east of Barbados we have TS 2:

WTNT42 KNHC 031510
TCDAT2
TROPICAL DEPRESSION TWO DISCUSSION NUMBER 1
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
11 AM EDT TUE AUG 03 2004

SATELLITE IMAGES SUGGEST THAT THE TROPICAL WAVE IN THE TROPICAL
ATLANTIC APPROACHING THE LESSER ANTILLES HAS BECOME A LITTLE BETTER
ORGANIZED AND IT IS BEING CLASSIFIED AS A TROPICAL DEPRESSION. IT
IS DIFFICULT TO ASCERTAIN IF THE SYSTEM...AN ESPECIALLY FAST MOVING
ONE...HAS A CLOSED CIRCULATION WITHOUT DATA FROM A RECONNAISSANCE
PLANE. YOU COULD MAKE THE CASE THAT A SMALL CIRCULATION EXISTS
USING QUICKSAT AMBIGUITY ANALYSIS. THE DEPRESSION HAS ENOUGH DEEP
CONVECTION...BANDING FEATURES AND GOOD OUTFLOW AND THE SHEAR IS
EXPECTED TO REMAIN ON THE WEAK SIDE. THEREFORE...A GRADUAL
STRENGTHENING IS INDICATED. THIS IS CONSISTENT WITH BOTH SHIPS AND
GFDL MODELS.

THE DEPRESSION IS MOVING WESTWARD OR 280 DEGREES AT 18 KNOTS...
STEERED BY THE WINDS SOUTH OF THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE. HOWEVER...
LARGE SCALE MODELS FORECAST A LARGE TROUGH OVER THE EASTERN COAST
OF THE UNITED STATES. THIS TROUGH WILL ERODE THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE
FORCING THE CYCLONE TO TURN MORE TO NORTHWEST AND NORTH DURING THE
LAST PORTION OF THE FORECAST.

PRELIMINARY COORDINATIONS HAVE BEEN MADE WITH THE METEOROLOGISTS
FROM THE LESSER ANTILLES TO ISSUE WATCHES AND WARNINGS LATER TODAY IF NECESSARY
.

I guess it's nearly time for a Hurricane related link dump.

2004-08-03T01:58:00.000-04:00

Gda: Carnival in Gouyave coming up

See and be there!

2004-08-03T01:53:00.000-04:00

Gya: U.S. funding regional anti-terror fight

GUYANA and other members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are in line for support from the United States for the regional anti-terrorism fight, the Organisation of American States (OAS) announced yesterday.

A press release from the organisation in Washington said the U.S. Government will contribute US$945,000 to the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) to help fund training of customs and border officials, an aviation security training programme, and assessments to enhance border management capacity.

CICTE coordinates anti-terrorism efforts and strategies among OAS member countries.

The U.S. donation will provide support for three programmes, according to the organisation.

2004-08-03T01:50:00.000-04:00

Gya: The government is to blame

So says George Bacchus's sister.

George Bacchus's family still blames the government for his death, which they think was orchestrated to stop an investigation of his claims of the existence of a death squad formed to kill fugitives.

Now, as an official investigation into alleged links between a government official and a death squad is set to begin, a relative has spoken out about the self-confessed informant, whose death she says was avoidable. Bacchus had credited the death squad with close to 40 murders over the last two years many of them well planned and still unsolved.

He also implicated Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj claiming that the official sanctioned a number of killings carried out by the group. The minister has maintained his innocence and has proceeded on leave to facilitate the investigation by a Presidential Commission of Inquiry.

2004-08-03T01:48:00.000-04:00

Gya: Lara in the dog house again

Read it here.

2004-08-03T01:40:00.000-04:00

St. Lca: Call it conchs and make conchs roti

Residents of Trouya and Bois Orange have joined forces with the Ministry of Agriculture to address the issue of the growing population of Giant African Snails in the community.

According to scientists the Giant African Snail is one of the most damaging land snails in the world. It is known to eat at least 500 different types of plants and each snail contains both female and male reproductive organs.

After a single mating session, each snail can produce 100 to 400 eggs. According to Emma Hippolyte a resident of Trouya the community will come together to design a plan of action against the snails.

The Ministry of Agriculture according to Hippolyte has provided hand outs and other material which will be used to educate residents on the effects the snail can have on the community. According to the Hippolyte residents will devise a way of collecting and disposing of the snails

Giant African Snails are also known to carry organisms, which can cause serious diseases in humans. These organisms can be transferred by ingesting improperly cooked snail meat or by handling live snails and allowing their mucous to contact human mucous membranes such a those in the eyes, nose and mouth.

It's got both female and male reproductive organs? Can somebody repeat Cheney's commet to Leahy?

Okay, so you need a hooked stick and a pot of boiling water nearby to dump the snail into it. I mean, it's food on the slow glide. If sushi can be a big deal thought it can be potentially deadly, so can a meal of this GAS.

2004-08-03T01:33:00.000-04:00

Ja: John Maxwell choking on his own anti-US bile

I thought age brought reason. Guess not.

2004-08-03T01:31:00.000-04:00

Ja: Wayne Brown talking thing he don' know 'bout

Read it here. It's the timing of things, doncherknow?

Brown is a good parrot for the liberal media. I'd expected better of him.

2004-08-03T01:27:00.000-04:00

Ja: No to affirmative action, er, preferential trading

BARBADOS' agriculture and rural development minister Erskine Griffith has criticised preferential trading arrangements, saying they hamper the development of regional agriculture by creating a false sense of comfort among our producers and discouraging the development of value-added or niche products.

Speaking on Sunday at the Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Show in Clarendon, Griffith said that the preferential trading agreements which were now being phased out had left the region's agriculture ill-equipped and unprepared to compete within the competitive trading environment of an emerging globalisation.

Citing the example of sugar, Griffith noted that the United Kingdom, for example, bought raw sugar from the Caribbean, processed it into refined sugar and then re-exported it to the region.

"Although regional producers would have benefited from stable prices under these preferential arrangements, such arrangements generally did not facilitate the development of value-added products or the use of newer technologies and methods, but shielded the agricultural sectors from regional and international competition.

2004-08-03T01:23:00.000-04:00

Ja: Sweet protest

Trade unions which represent sugar industry employees plan to stage peaceful demonstrations outside the European Union delegation offices this week to help press Jamaica's case for more time to adjust to Europe's planned sharp reduction in the price it pays Caribbean countries for sugar.

The unions - the National Workers Union (NWU), the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU) - also intend to take their protests to the embassies of EU members in Jamaica - France, Germany and Britain, officials said.

"We believe we should lend our support to government," said Vincent Morrison, the island supervisor of the NWU, one of the unions coordinating the protest. "We want to translate that support in some practical way."

Jamaica's sugar industry employs an estimated 40,000 people directly and tens of thousands more people in rural communities depend on the industry. Officials fear that a precipitate reduction in sugar prices could cause turmoil in these communities.

2004-08-03T01:21:00.000-04:00

Bhms: Hear them roar

As female police officers make plans to celebrate a milestone in the organisation a 38-year veteran envisions a limitless future for women.

"There is no stopping us now because if I am at this rank we can go to even Commissioner of Police," said Chief Superintendent Juanita Colebrooke in an interview on Friday.

She said the 40th anniversary of female officers on Nov. 23 will be marked with preceding events such as a church service, exhibition and a one day seminar to name a few of the events.

Chief Supt Colebrooke who is presently the highest-ranking female on the Royal Bahamas Police Force said the main problem faced in the early years was the lack of respect given to women police.

She said, as the organisation is male dominated, male counterparts as well as members of the public did not readily receive female officers in the early years.

"The difficulties were that female officers had to go on the street and never received respect," she said, "but we have grown in leaps and bounds."

However, she said many positive changes occurred in the organisation to engender a favourable atmosphere for women.

2004-08-03T01:18:00.000-04:00

Pnma: Mano dura only for the unprivileged

Mireya Moscoso has sounded the alarm about crime as her political swan song.

For the last three weeks or so, large groups of police officers, many of them wearing ski masks, have been swarming over the lowest-income urban neighborhoods, places where foreigners congregate and bars and brothels where prostitutes ply their trade, arresting dozens of people every night. There have also been frequent road stops on the Pan-American Highway, both to check drivers' licenses and to look for fugitives.

A few of the hundreds of people detained in the dragnet were the subjects of outstanding arrest warrants for serious crimes. Mostly, however, those caught in the net have been foreign prostitutes who have overstayed their visas, other undocumented immigrants found working here illegally, members of teenage street gangs, small-time drug dealers, homeless people who were living on the streets, individuals found inebriated in public, those caught holding illegal weapons or drugs and people who talked back disrespectfully to the police.

Meanwhile, the president says she'll call yet another special legislative session to take up tough anti-crime measures, the centerpiece of which is a proposal to increase the maximum penalty for juvenile offenders who commit murder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping or drug offenses to 20 years in prison.

(Kids with the proper family connections who run over little boys in daddy's BMW, dragging them 200 feet to their deaths and then fleeing the scene will, however, apparently retain their full immunity during what remains of the Mireyista regime.)

Mireya also proposes to increase the maximum penalty for adults who commit murder from 20 years in prison to life imprisonment, but it is unclear whether that, too, will be on a special session agenda.

2004-08-03T01:13:00.000-04:00

St. Maart: Labor woes at airport project

PHILIPSBURG--United Front, a consolidation of several heavy equipment operators, and union UFA have written a letter to Prime Minister Etienne Ys concerning the violation of labour laws and the airport expansion project.

2004-08-03T01:06:00.000-04:00

Vzla: Win by any means necessary

Only two weeks away from the recall referendum Venezuelan officials surprised everyone again. In clear violation to constitutional precepts Foreign Secretary Jesus Perez stressed upon the necessity of demanding proof of residence to those electors voting abroad. CNE’s Carrasquero, Rodriguez and Battaglini were of course customarily accommodative despite the illegal character of the measure. Article 7 of the new norms establishes that Venezuelans abroad will need to present proof of residence according to the regulations of the country in which they are residing. Not content with that they also declared recently that all of those citizens who register to vote abroad recently and that for some reason do not appear in the final database approved and announced yesterday will not be included and therefore their right to vote has, effectively, being forfeited.

However Venezuelan diplomats, who for one reason or the other did not have the time to register or whose registration did not reach the CNE on time to be included in the roll, were sent a memo assuring them that indeed they will be able to vote regardless of their appearance in the roll or not.

2004-08-03T01:04:00.000-04:00

USVI: Will trade food for vote

August 1, 2004 - St. Croix native Edward Browne will begin a protest he hopes will bring renewed attention to Virgin Islanders and other U.S. citizens living in unincorporated territories who don't have the right to vote for president of the United States. In a letter to the Source on Sunday, Browne, 29, said he would go on a hunger strike beginning Monday in hopes of making a difference.

"People may find this extreme," said Browne, "but sometimes you have to believe in something greater than yourself."

Browne contends, if we are citizens of the United States and are able to serve in the armed forces, we should have all the rights and privileges entitled to all citizens. "The constitution gives us these rights," said Browne, citing the 14th, 15th and 19th amendments. "These amendments govern the rights of citizens and state, "'no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,'" Browne quoted.

Sounds as though the USVI need to become the 51st state.

2004-08-03T00:51:00.000-04:00

TT: Fish in a bowl

[Victor] Alexander, of La Lune Village, Moruga, was 56 years old and the father of seven. He was the second fisherman to be killed by pirates this year in the sea off Venezuela's Orinoco Delta region.

In March, Cedros fisherman Rupert Bissoon, 55, drowned after pirates ordered him to jump off his boat.

President of the La Ruffin/Moruga Fishing Cooperative, Peter Glodan, wants fishermen to arm themselves in the absence of protection by "non existent" Coast Guard patrols.

"Bandits know Trinidad fishermen are like sitting ducks without a good piece of stick to defend themselves," said Glodan.

One of the things fisherfolk in TT can do is learn to swim. It's amazing how many of them can't. The next time a pirate orders a fisherman to walk the plank (which Alexander resisted doing because he couldn't swim), at least he might have a chance of surviving if he can swim or has a life-vest.

2004-08-03T00:44:00.000-04:00

TT: Work to rule quacks doing patients a favor

THE situation at San Fernando General Hospital is a sad illustration of two recurrent problems facing the public health sector.

In the face of long lines at the Accident and Emergency Department, doctors are denying that they are working to rule. The fact is, however, that they have been threatening to “forego,” as they euphemistically put it, working overtime or being on call.

This is because no negotiations with the joint negotiating team have taken place in the past month over the salaries of senior doctors, registrars and consultants. Junior doctors’ negotiations, however, have been concluded, and the result is that junior doctors are being paid more than registrars and only a fraction less than consultants.

Apparently, this is an unbearable affront to the senior doctors’ dignity. Head of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Unit Dr Jehan Ali was reported yesterday as saying, “Foregoing our duties will cause chaos in the health system. We know that, but the Minister of Health should try to resolve the situation, because nowhere in the world are subordinates paid more than their seniors.”

Maybe so, but the senior doctors must be perfectly well aware that this is merely a temporary anomaly and not a permanent situation, and that when negotiations are concluded they will once again be paid more than their juniors, and will also no doubt receive backpay.

I don't see what the big deal is. Doctors in TT forgo their duty all the time. In fact, sometimes the best thing some of them can do for patients is forego their duty; that way, at least, they don't do any harm.

This is not to say that all doctors in TT are quacks. Oh no. Rather, it is to acknowledge that good doctors are like gold in the hospitals, and people are taking their lives in their hands seeing the quacks. All of this makes me wonder how many lives were actually saved by this work to rule. Bet it's a lot.

2004-08-03T00:37:00.000-04:00

TT: Whe' we go' go if they send we back?

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO is not an African State, said Erica Williams-Connell, daughter of this country’s first Prime Minister, the late Dr Eric Williams. “The Trinidad and Tobago society is living a lie and heading for trouble if it seeks to create the impression, or to allow others to act under the delusion, that the country is an African society.” Speaking at the fourth annual Emancipation dinner hosted by National Association for the Empowerment of African People (NAEAP) at the Ballroom of the Cascadia Hotel and Conference Centre in St Ann’s, on Saturday night, Williams-Connell declared this country as a multi-racial society.

Borrowing those famous words spoken by her father on the eve of our nation’s Independence in 1962, Williams-Connell said: “there can be no mother Africa, there can be no mother India.”

This is the beauty of TT; it's racial diversity which can, if only people would let it, produce a beautiful society.

Playing the race and ethnic superiority card will yield for us the ethnic strife that plagues both Africa and India. TT is too small for that kind of tension and disharmony. For TT folk, there really ought be no Mother Africa or Mother India because, we were either sold or left in the bondage of indenture. The mother whose child we were was inhospitable and regarded us as ugly step children.

Though we ought not forget India and Africa, we must not let those countries affect how we live with each other in our new home. The problems that plague Africa and India must not be allowed to repeat in TT. Let us be no hyphenated anything, Just Trinis.

2004-08-02T23:23:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Fed Ex must hire lackwits

I swear!

I've been waiting patiently for my airline ticket to arrive, and it should have since last Friday. The day came and went, no ticket. Nothing on the weekend either. No attempted delivery notice, zippo, zilch, nada. Nothing yesterday either.

So, I get online today and write Orbitz. What's the deal? Where's the ticket? According to the retards at Fed Ex, somebody requested a future delivery. Somebody tried to deliver Friday at 2:30 and today before 4:30.

I live in a private house which contains four apartments. The entire ground floor is taken up by a magazine that regularly uses Fed Ex, UPS, USPS and all that. Yet, the lackwit Fed Exer didn't deliver the ticket there. If he had, my name is well known to them cuz I do some editing for them.

So, either the Fed Exer lied like a rug when he said he made two delivery attempts -- I mean, I'm always home. It's not as if I'm employed some place -- or he is plain and simply lack-witted and incapable of doing the most basic aspect of his job ... deliver a package or leave a notice for the client.

Nope, I'm not mad. Ignore the steam coming out of my ears.

US: Safeguarding Secure Information - the Sandy Berger method.

2004-08-02T23:05:00.000-04:00

Chapomatic has a great Military training Quicktime video highlighting the Sandy Burglar method of securing sensitive code word level information.

Check it out, it's well worth the 8 meg download.
;^)

US: The Election as market projection.

2004-08-02T21:53:00.000-04:00

Samizdatista Robert Clayton Dean has forwarded a prediction based on an analysis that makes a great deal of sense to me.

To whit:

The Dems and their allies in the press have thrown everything they have at W, beginning in the 2000 election, through the Florida recount, and right up to the present day. They have nothing new left to attack him with, I am quite confident. The persistently partisan and anti-Bush media has managed to inure the public to bad
"Kerry is notable for not exciting the Democratic base"
news from Iraq or elsewhere. The Bush campaign has not really activated yet, on the theory that nothing they do before Labor Day will really matter. In short, Bush has tested the bottom of his market for approval and votes, and it is somewhere in the mid to high 40 percent range.

By contrast, Kerry and Edwards are still pretty unknown to non-political-junkie Americans, and the Republican attack machine has (wisely, from a tactical point of view) held its fire on these two. They have enjoyed months of positive coverage and a showcase convention. However, their support even among Democrats is not particularly strong - Edwards never won a primary, and Kerry is notable for not exciting the Democratic base. The Democrats, in short, have tested the top of their market for votes, and it is somewhere in the high 40 percent range.

With the race statistically tied, Bush has nowhere to go but up, and Kerry has nowhere to go but down.

Yup...It appears that the Democrat machine has shot a great deal of their collective political wad in attacking Bush to little effect whilst calling for a unity that doesn't exist. Meanwhile the RNC has yet to even begin to sweet talk the electorate or to inform the American people on the 20 year record of obstructionist liberal mediocrity that Kerry 'forgot' to mention in his rather conventional choir-preaching acceptance speech.

Additional proof in the 'no-bounce' Convention pudding can be seen in how naturally the Fleet Center formality culminated in a single routine Kerry campaign photo-op at Wendy's degenerating into the triple embarrassment of a US Marine rebuffing Kerry, Tey-rey-suh wondering what a cup of Chili was, and the revelation that the cute Breck girl anniversary legend was not so special that they'd pass up campaign funded "five-star lunches" from the local yacht club.

Kerry seems to be a Weapon of Massachutan campaign Destruction...

Link ho' h/t's to Wizbang - Baldilocks - Samizdata

Vzla: Union Threatens Strike Over Recall

2004-08-02T17:40:00.000-04:00

Hugo has some allies.

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's Sutiss union, which represents workers at the country's largest steel company, said it will call for a nationwide strike if President Hugo Chavez loses an Aug. 15 recall vote, Globovision television reported.
``Not one drop of oil, gasoline or lubricants will go to the U.S.,'

Sutiss President Ramon Machuca, who is also running for the governorship of the southeastern state of Bolivar, said the strike would be in support of democracy, and be industrywide. ``Not one drop of oil, gasoline or lubricants will go to the U.S.,'' Machuca said, Globovision reported.

The only way that Chavez can lose the recall is by fraud, he said. Machuca has repeatedly led strikes that have led to frequent shutdowns of Siderurgica del Orinoco, the country's largest steelmaker.

Polls show a close race as Chavez, 50, attempts to stay in power two years after being removed in an unsuccessful military coup.

Food for though or idle threat?

2004-08-02T04:35:00.000-04:00

Vzla: Do not pass go, do not collect $200!

Henrique Capriles Radonski, mayor of the wealthy Caracas municipality of Baruta, Venezuela, stands accused of instigating a riot at the Cuban Embassy there during a coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez in 2002.

Chavez opponents say the continued confinement of the well known politician proves that the leftist-populist president abuses the legal system for political ends, and that he plans to impose a Cuba-style authoritarian regime,...

Read the rest.

2004-08-02T01:11:00.000-04:00

U.S.; Blog matters

The big issue with setting up the blog at its own domain and publishing it from a server other than Blogger is simply this: will I be able to post to CaribPundit from China, in light of China's embargo on blogspot, even as RTFM and Eleanor have unfettered access, too?

That's the big problem that's giving the greatest headache right now.

So far, here's what's up. CaribPundit has a new domain name; however, neither Blogger, RTFM, nor Eleanor can access the server at which the domain name points because of the way it's set up. So, either a work around, or a new server.

Once that issue is addressed, then there is this that yet remains: I use Brad Rhine's program, Frequency, to post to the blog. Whether CaribPundit is published from blogspot or from another server, it will still be powered by Blogger. That most likely means that, even using Frequency, I won't be able to connect to Blogger to post.

Brad Rhine has a new piece of blogging software called Tangelo; however, that is for a one person blog.

If anybody has any suggestions, I'd be really happy to hear them.

Anyway, that's what I'm busting my chops on in between bouts of packing and reading so I don't get stressed out.

So, bear with us while we're in this transitionary period.

2004-08-01T13:09:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Our own domain

Okay, you can now find CaribPundit at its own domain: http://www.carib.us or http://carib.us.

We're still available at the Blogger address; however, that will change in the near future. So, please change your bookmarks to reflect our new address.

Now, to get the really difficult part done ... fixing things so I can post to and see the blog over the coming year.

2004-08-01T01:16:00.000-04:00

U.S.: The Commander-in-Chief Test

Take the quiz and see how you do.

Rush Limbaugh delivered the test during a segment of his Open Line Friday show. In taking the test, consider that we are in a post-9/11 world; think, therefore, of the character of the two men who are running for president.

"The Commander-in-Chief Test lets you be the history maker," Limbaugh began.

"First question: You're George Washington in 1776. You've lost every battle. The Revolution seems a bust. Your spies tell you that the British officers are wintering in Trenton. You think that means that the Germans are going to get falling-down drunk on Christmas Eve and sleep it off the next morning. However, they are the world's best soldiers and they'll beat you if they're awake, sober or not. Also, the Delaware River is full of ice and your guys have no food or shoes. Many New Jerseyites are Tories who might rat you out. Do you roll the dice to change the course of the war, figuring the Germans don't like fighting on Christmas, or do you wait for springtime rather than risk what little is left of the Continental Army?

"I just want to stress," the top talker interjected, "the answer to none of these [questions] is 'Call the United Nations.'

"Second Question: If you're Abe Lincoln in 1863, General Lee has crossed into the North, but no one knows where he's going. The Union Army has been beaten in most every battle so far, and if you lose on your own ground, the Union is likely lost to the South. Do you keep the Army away from Lee until he gets tired and heads back South, or do you send General Meade out looking for Lee even if they find that rascal in some crossroads town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg?

"What do you do? What would Senator Kerry have done? "Third Question: You are the duty officer in Honolulu, December 7, 1941. Two soldiers manning the newly invented radar call to report a lot of blips on the screen. Headquarters had already advised you to expect a flight of American bombers from California that morning. So, do you sound the alarm to the fleet? Do you scramble the fighter planes and hope Rear Admiral Kimmel and General Short don't yell at you if you're wrong, or [do you] tell the radar guys their shift is ending anyway and not to worry about it?

"If you're John Kerry manning the radar, what do you do?

"Fourth Question: You are Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939. You've received a letter from the famous quirky physicist Albert Einstein recommending building an atomic bomb in order to beat the Nazis to the punch. Not really knowing what an atomic bomb is and not yet at war, do you ask Congress to study the matter and ask your intelligence operation to confirm if the Nazis are building one of these weapons themselves, or do you order secret development with money skimmed from other projects and hidden through phony congressional appropriations? Do you do the Manhattan Project?

"What do you do if you are John Kerry? Remember now, you can't call the U.N. At this point, it's the defunct League of Nations anyway.

"Fifth Question: You are Admiral Nimitz in 1942. Navy intelligence intercepted coded messages they reveal shows Japanese plans to steal the American island of Midway, but they also tell you Japanese could be planning attacks elsewhere. You know that banking on Midway would leave the door open elsewhere. Do you risk your aircraft carriers that escaped the Pearl Harbor attack, perhaps leaving no U.S. Fleet in the Pacific, or do you try catching the Imperial Fleet with the kimono open and reverse the course of the war at Midway?

"What do you do if you're John Kerry? Remember now, you can't call the United Nations. You can't call the French.

"Sixth Question: You are Dwight Eisenhower in June of 1944. Your weatherman tells you he sees a break in the bad weather and a narrow window for your landing forces to get on the beaches of Normandy. You hope, but you can't confirm, that allied disinformation has convinced Hitler the real invasion will be north. Do you risk a quarter million troops and the possibility of a stalemate in Europe, or do you say, 'Let's go,' rather than wait another month or two for D Day? (Remember, you can't call the United Nations.)

"What do you do if you're John Kerry? Remember, there's no turning back.

"Seventh Question: You're also Eisenhower in December 1944. Intelligence says the Germans are on the run. They're low on gasoline and ammo. The men deserve a break, and many officers want to leave for Christmas in Paris. How can the Germans possibly break through that dense forest? and knowing what we know from test question one, the Germans don't like to fight on Christmas. Do you ignore the intelligence and figure that Hitler will try to catch you with your pants down and inflict on the American Army its worst-ever disaster?

"What do you do faced with the Battle of the Bulge if you are John Kerry? "Eighth Question: You are Harry Truman in August of 1945. FDR's atomic bomb recommended by Einstein is tested successfully, and you have two more of bombs ready to use. The scientists who build the bomb are opposing its use. Intelligence reports suggest the Japanese are starving and on their last legs ready to talk turkey. American bombers are already turning many Japanese cities into cinders. Do you secretly advise the Japanese they can surrender now before you drop the bomb, or do you drop the bomb and ask questions later?

"What do you do if you're John Kerry?"

Limbaugh cited several other examples where presidents took critical risks that saved both America and the world, before delivering the coup de grace:

"You are President Bush in early 2003, just months after September 11 and anthrax. The Clinton administration had indicted Osama bin Laden, citing ties to Saddam Hussein, and had bombed a suspected bioweapons plant in Sudan with ties to Iraq. ...

"Intelligence suggests that terrorists met with others in Prague. U.N. weapons inspectors are being frustrated in Iraq. British intelligence says Saddam was trying to buy uranium in Africa. Saddam invaded Kuwait a decade before. He had used chemical weapons on his own people. One of the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing had taken refuge in Baghdad. Families of Palestinian suicide bombers were paid by Iraq. The CIA director â originally appointed by Clinton â tells you it's a "slam dunk" that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.

"The French are opposed to war with Iraq, saying their intelligence service believes Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction. Russian President Putin, [also] opposed to war with Iraq, tells you Russian intelligence believes Iraq has plans for terror assaults in the U.S. Most of the CIA contacts in Iraq are murdered.

"Do you wait to get more spies in the country to confirm the other intelligence, or do you go to Congress for a resolution supporting the use of force and then use the force?

"What would you do if you are John Kerry?" [End of Excerpt]

2004-08-01T00:52:00.000-04:00

U.S.: A whole FOUR points!!!

MSNBC is calling it a 'baby bounce.'

H'tip to Drudgereport.

To make his day a really great one, he received a resounding ~~rallying~~ Bronx cheer from a group of Marines in upstate New York. Do I love NY? Yes, I do!

John Kerry's heavily hyped cross-country bus tour stumbled out of the blocks yesterday, as a group of Marines publicly dissed the Vietnam War hero in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

Kerry was treating running mate Sen. John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, to a Wendy's lunch in Newburgh, N.Y., for their 27th wedding anniversary â an Edwards family tradition â when the candidate approached four Marines and asked them questions.

The Marines â two in uniform and two off-duty â were polite but curt while chatting with Kerry, answering most of his questions with a "yes, sir" or "no, sir."

But they turned downright nasty after the Massachusetts senator thanked them "for their service" and left.

"He imposed on us and I disagree with him coming over here shaking our hands," one Marine said, adding, "I'm 100 percent against [him]."

A sergeant with 10 years of service under his belt said, "I speak for all of us. We think that we are doing the right thing in Iraq," before saying he is to be deployed there in a few weeks and is "eager" to go and serve.

The Marines â all of whom serve at nearby Stewart Air Force Base â wouldn't give their names.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but....

2004-07-31T20:14:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Still working...

On moving the blog.

It's turning into a nightmare.

What a bloody happy birthday to me.

2004-07-31T13:35:00.000-04:00

U.S.: MOVING...

It's not just me; it's also the blog.

We're in the process of moving the blog to its own domain name. There'll be a number of hitches and glitches until then.

2004-07-31T11:38:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Alive again

My network connection went down yesterday. The IT guy came out, pulled the plug on the NetGear/NetWare router, and voila! Connected to the world again.

It's amazing how cut off from the rest of the world you can feel without a 'net connection. Well, at least I got lots of packing done. Lots more remains, but I'm on track to be out of the house by the 12th.

PR: Researchers Develop Shark Repellent

2004-07-30T17:24:00.000-04:00

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Excited by the scent of blood, a dozen sharks dart about in a frenzy as a researcher dips a pole in the sea and squirts out a clear, yellowish substance. Within seconds, the sharks jerk their snouts away and vanish.

Researchers say they finally have found a potent repellent to drive away sharks, after testing off Bimini island in the Bahamas. It's a goal that's eluded scientists for decades.

If proven effective, the repellent one day might protect divers, surfers and swimmers. But researchers say that would require much more study. First they hope it can protect sharks -- in decline worldwide due to overfishing -- by reducing the numbers caught needlessly by long-line commercial fishermen.

"You introduce this chemical, and they all leave," said lead researcher Eric Stroud, a 30-year-old chemical engineer from Oak Ridge, N.J. "It works very, very well."
"You introduce this chemical, and they all leave,"

The repellent, called A-2 because it was the second recipe tried, is derived from extracts of dead sharks that Stroud gathered at New Jersey fish markets and piers. Fishermen and scientists have long noted sharks stay away if they smell a dead shark.

"We have something that really works, but research remains," said Samuel Gruber, a University of Miami marine biologist and shark expert who is helping conduct tests at the Bimini Biological Field Station.

Tests have found the repellent effective on three species: the Caribbean reef, blacknose and lemon sharks. Studies are needed on other species such as the great white, mako and oceanic whitetip.

Gruber said the repellent seems to carry a chemical messenger that triggers a flight reaction. He said more studies are needed to pinpoint the active molecule among a dozen or so.

«read the rest»

VIA: Drudge Report

Maybe extract of Al-Qaeda will work...

2004-07-30T11:25:00.000-04:00

U.S. Most memorable line heard at Kerry's big night

"Go balloons. Go balloons. ... I don't see any balloons....I want some goddamn balloons..... Where the f**k are the balloons?...." -- Convention Director Don Mischer via open mike

USVI: Boston is for Conventional Democrats.

2004-07-30T11:05:00.000-04:00

The sweet symbolism just struck me.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, The Republicans, by choosing New York for their National Convention, have gained the initiative to set the tone for the campaign - with a little help from their DNC 'friends' across the aisle.

...And what an accurate crystalline tone it is.

I mean no disrespect toward the many fine Bostonians who have a clue and a spine upon which to support that bit of clue...but...The terrorists who struck New York killing 2800 people on that September 11 morning in America beat their chests for collective courage, and then lied their way onto those doomed jets - they shortly went on to capture - at Boston Logan International airport.

The Fleet Center where the Democrats attempt to whip themselves into their frenzy is only 1.57 miles away, and sure enough the soaring rhetoric of their convention has been Hijacked by extremists.

There are sinewy threads of symbiosis connecting the fortunes of America's enemies with the Democratic Party leadership, and judging from their convention and through various interviews I've heard on Hugh Hewitt's fine show, I'd say that this fact is beginning to dawn on some of the party's most faithful.

Ignorance is bliss I suppose and not a bit dishonorable if unintentional, but the repulsive shame exposed in this is that the Democrat Party's string-pullers, if not entirely self-deluded, are fully aware of how this great unwinding will play to the electorate if their media shell game can't manage to continue to supress the truth. Fortunately, the truth will out, and the timing is slipping from their grasp.

Control of the national debate's information stream is increasingly falling into the hands of the people - through alternatives to the traditional liberal media hegemony. There exist alternatives such as FOX News, free market Radio, Bloggers, and media hybrids such as Hewitt who is absolutely brilliant at letting the elite hang themselves by their own rhetorical noose. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I'm also not so dense that I can't see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears the tone of near panic that is crackling across the surface of every smiling delegate he interviews.

It has just recently become rather healthily obvious to me that I'm far from alone in seeing the months of flip-flopping, dumbing-down of issues, and manufactured malaise that the Democrat perception machine has been engaged in creating, coming home to roost in Boston's Fleet Center.

Knowlege is on the side of the Republicans.
Best of all, recent polling and personal experiences back my perception up - even through the smoke and mirrors of the established media's spin cycle whose kiberal editors I don't even need anymore.

Talk about speaking truth to power..

I recently spoke with a dear old lefty friend who had returned to the states after ten years living and working in Germany. The pleasantries of catching up and reminiscing inevitably yielded to politics wherein she recycled the familiar Euro perception that the "Democrats and Republicans are basically alike". It took no small amount of work to illuminate and inform her on the stark contrasts evident between the two American parties.
I'm sure she's seeing some of them now.

In contrast to the dissonat denial out of Boston, the Republicans are to have a New York Convention wherein the Bush administration will be able to offer a record of National courage, steadfastness in the face of crushing adversity, and through it all, an innate trust in America that transcends the gloom and hatred oozing from the self-destructive political party that has happily positioned itself with the likes of chief propagandist Moore.

Whether the Democrat party realizes this or not, and despite the media faithfully riding shotgun for them at every pass, they've just pitched their balled-up national conversation from some vague position only halfway to the mound...And they've thrown it into the dirt like so many billionaire gimps playing with playing the national pastime.

2004-07-30T01:50:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Democrat delegate sees Al Qaeda as just another political party

John Kerry is trying to show he’s "tough on terrorism."

But with delegates like Ismael Ahmed, it’s a tough sell.

Ahmed, a Michigan delegate to this week’s Democratic National Convention, is a long-time Democratic activist and a repeat delegate.

But the Democrats aren’t touting him to the media. In fact, the only place you’ll read about Ahmed’s delegate credentials is on Al-Jazeerah’s website.

In this first Presidential nominating convention since 9/11, Ahmed’s presence at the convention and his views are more disturbing than ever.

Ahmed is the founder and executive director of ACCESS â the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, based in Dearborn, Michigan.

Under Ahmed’s leadership, ACCESS paid for commercial driving lessons and attempts at hazardous material hauling certificates for two men convicted as part of the Detroit Al-Qaeda sleeper cell. Testimony at their trial revealed that the men planned to bomb the MGM Grand Casino and a host of other prominent US sites.

More chilling is that since ACCESS’ multi-million dollar budget is largely tax-funded, tax dollars likely paid for these men to get their "job training" organized by ACCESS.

When confronted with this, Ahmed made no apologies. On the contrary, he was defiant in defending his organization’s aid to the Qaeda sleepers, comparing their membership in the terrorist group to mere "political credential," such as Democrat or Republican.

Read the rest and see how taxpayer dollars are being used to fund terror-related groups. Even GWB is taken in by Ahmed and his ACCESS to terror.

Yup, Democrats in charge of national security is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

2004-07-30T01:40:00.000-04:00

U.S.: HSD compiling data on Arabs in the U.S.

The Census Bureau has provided specially tabulated population statistics on Arab-Americans to the Department of Homeland Security, including detailed information on how many people of Arab backgrounds live in certain ZIP codes.

The assistance is legal, but civil liberties groups and Arab-American advocacy organizations say it is a dangerous breach of public trust and liken it to the Census Bureau's compilation of similar information about Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The tabulations were produced in August 2002 and December 2003 in response to requests from what is now the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security. One set listed cities with more than 1,000 Arab-Americans. The second, far more detailed, provided ZIP-code-level breakdowns of Arab-American populations, sorted by country of origin. The categories provided were Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian, Syrian and two general categories, "Arab/Arabic" and "Other Arab."

Hermann Habermann, deputy director of the Census Bureau, said such cooperation was standard practice. "We are required to provide information to other federal agencies," he said. "This is not a cabal calculating secret tabulations."

But Mr. Habermann also expressed concern over application of the data, adding: "We do worry about how information will be used. However, we have not been given the authority to determine which organization gets which information."

Census tabulations of specialized data are legal as long as they do not identify any individual.

Christiana Halsey, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, said the requests were made to help the agency identify in which airports to post signs and pamphlets in Arabic. "The information is not in any way being used for law enforcement purposes," she said. "It's being used to educate the traveler. We're simply using basic demographic information to help us communicate U.S. laws and regulations to the traveling public."

But critics of the information sharing said general demographic snapshots could be derived without such detailed information and that the ZIP-code-level data with its breakdowns of ancestral origin seemed particularly excessive because for all of the groups only English or Arabic need be used.

"The real question is to Homeland Security," said Samia El-Badry, an Arab-American member of the Census Bureau's decennial census advisory committee. "What are they hiding? Why do they need this?"

What am I missing? Why is this unreasonable?

2004-07-30T00:33:00.000-04:00

U.S.: How to disassociate?...

Boston Pops played Tchaikovsky's Overture 1812 tonight for Kerry. One of my favorite pieces. Going to have to scrub my mind to not think of him when next I hear Eduardo Mata conducting it.

The bit from Carmina Burana wasn't so bad. Secular piece of music that pokes a finger in the eye of serious religious music and the Church. Somehow quite appropriate for Democrats. I still like it, though. The Carmina Burana, I mean.

2004-07-30T00:28:00.000-04:00

U.S.: The Democrats have forgotten this

We have not.

H'tip to Charles at LGF.

This is where the rubber meets the road, IMO.

NRO: Why does my life depend on W. winning?

HEWITT: Because hundreds of thousands of Islamists are trying to kill you. George W. Bush isn't going to try and stop them on the cheap or pray that we get lucky. He's committed to preemption when he believes it is necessary.

John Kerry is not so committed. In his acceptance speech he said "[a]ny attack will be met with a swift and certain response." This is not the question, and by refusing explicitly to answer the question of when if ever he would act preemptively, we can only conclude that Kerry will not move preemptively against gathering threats. Like Clinton, he will judge the intelligence too vague, the country insufficiently prepared for battle, or the undeniable costs in the lives of Americans and American dollars too great.

George Bush is trying to kill the terrorists before they kill more Americans. He will not always succeed. But I think fewer Americans will die from such attacks if Bush wins reelection, far fewer in fact.

2004-07-29T23:14:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Final word

Kerry has such contempt for GWB that he misunderestimates him. This will affect how Kerry prepares and responds to GWB during the debates. He will repeat Gore's mistake because he might believe that Bush's success there was attributable to nothing that Bush did but to Gore errors only.

How does Kerry express his contempt for GWB? In a number of ways amongst which are: 1) in his reference to GWB's faith and values. Kerry's opinion is clear. Bush does not think; he has no regard for science; instead, he allows religious sentiment to cloud rationality.

2) In his insistence, despite evidence to the contrary, that GWB is a liar who is allied to the attackers of America.

3) In his assertion that GWB is not a systematic thinker, is not a man capable of planning, but is a man who acts out of some strange sense of the divine that is devoid of rationality.

One and three, in particular, are significant because they are the basis for his misunderestimation of GWB. As long as Kerry's contempt for GWB clouds his ability to see his opponent on these two points, Kerry will be unable to defeat Bush.

One may say what one wishes, but an important feature of Bush's character is his indifference to the opinion of others. He listens to people, yes; however, other people's opinions of his intellect are not likely to sway him. I would suggest that Bush fosters that misunderestimation of his intellect.

Word to Kerry: the higher they are, the harder they fall. You've stepped into a minefield of GWB's making, confident that your contemptuous assessment of him is the right one. The only way you can make it out of there, is if GWB lets you, and he will not. Next time, if there is ever a next time, a little humility and a respect for your fellow man, whatever you think of his brain-power, will serve you in better stead.

2004-07-29T21:57:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Democrat Con

Kerry can't even call God 'God.' He calls Him a 'higher being.' Who is that higher being?

Did Bob Dole and GWHBush use their military service in such a self-serving fashion? This intro film on his life glosses over much and is a slick, glossy lie. Where's the mat to wipe the stuff off my shoe?

He cried like a baby when his daughters were born. To whom? The dude never mentions his first wife. Never mentions how he dumped her, like so much garbage, and got an annulment, which effectively made both his daughters illegitimate. Instead, the slick glossy film moves on to Teresa.

His run for president was born out of frustration and a desire to make the country safer. Was this desire born after 1993, when Al Qaeda hit the WTC the first time? Or was this a desire he had when he went into Vietnam with a camera to take home movies of him, a Naval officer, striding through the jungle like an infantry man?

Pah. Mara Eliasson thinks the film is touching. Would that my brain would stop working long enough to be touched.

Update: Jim Rassman says he volunteered to speak up for Kerry. Why so defensive. To make the comment is to call his presence into question. Did he contact Kerry, or did Kerry contact him? Where was he when Kerry was running for other offices? Somehow, it doesn't sit right.

Update 2: Max Cleland who got his legs blown up going for beer, or coming from beer, is spoken of in terms that imply a negative contrast with the incumbent president. Hey, Cleland served his country honorably, as did Kerry, and Bush. However, the man who is not shot at serves as much as the man who is.

Update 3: Cleland is depicting Kerry's volunteering as though it were intentional from the outset rather than a consequence of realizing that being drafted was imminent. The difference between picking one's assignment and being assigned, I guess.

Update 4: Max Cleland sounds like he's reciting lines. The 'enthusiasm' of the crowd sounds forced. It could be my tv. Okay, so Cleland tells us that America will be a socialist paradise if Kerry becomes president.

Update 5: Kerry introduces himself and says he's reporting for duty. What a part that you wipe!

Update 6: Kerry is offering politics as theology and a life shaped by government as heaven. He is reiterating the lie that 'Bush lied.'

Update 7: He's lying like a rug about his efforts in relation to Vietnam. He's busy banging Bush. No wonder he didn't want the others to do the bashing. He wanted to offer the crowd red meat himself.

So far. What has Kerry to offer? I don't hear it. He's offering the politics of despair. We're in a depression folks.

Update 8: Slogans instead of a plan. He says Democrats are the optimists. Democrats as savior of America. The crowd is going wild.

Here's the rub in what he's saying -- it's September 10th all over again. A time out from history.

Update 9: Look, I've no problem with Democrats talking domestic policy. All well and good. However, their instincts and policies are socialist veering on communist. All that aside, we are at war. If we can't defend ourselves, then we will not need a domestic agenda. That's the bottom line.

Is Kerry and Theresa headed for divorce? What's this line about what the future holds?

Update 10: Now he's talking defense and saying nothing much. Just a bunch of assertions without a road map.

Well, he blew it. Kerry had his chance, and he blew it. GWB will wipe the floor with him next month.

Update 11: Kerry has blown it by ignoring everything that has been discovered about so-called allies unwillingness to help. He has ignored what the soldiers in the field are saying about the plan under which they operated and its success.

Worse yet, Kerry has had the sheer folly to say that America will wait to be attacked rather than respond aggressively to threats. The crowd has grown cold as he continues talking about defense, they cheer his lie about stop-loss; he calls it a "back door draft."

Kerry has blown it.

Update 12: Post 9/11, we cannot afford to wait to be attacked, especially when terrorists talk about nuclear and biochemical weapons. In a nutshell, Kerry is willing to put up with mass American casualties before he mounts a defense.

He's recycled all the old lines that kept him equal with GWB in the polls. This election will be a blowout. Kerry will be lucky if he wins Massachusetts.

Update 13: Here's the question for Kerry -- what is the role of the federal government? Should the feds intrude on states and city rights? That's what the issue of fire-houses is about. Defense is a federal issue; fire protection is a city issue.

Update 14: Here's what sinks Kerry, apart from defense. He cannot resist making a speech like a macomere man. He cannot resist making class warfare.

He's talking about Enron; what about Global Crossing and Terry McAuliffe who made $18M, just like that?

Right now, he's doing the usual Democrat BS. Frighten the elderly. Stress out the moms. Set people against each other. Class warfare. Rank. Stink. Partisan. Say whatever it takes.

Update 15: Not a new idea in the bunch. He's using Cheney's promise to the military as a device in his class warfare strategy.

Not good enough.

Defense is secondary. Reference to the military is in a social services context.

Update 16: Economic plan. Vague Bill Clinton retreads. He ought to tell Teresa about that outsourcing and taxing of companies thing.

Just remember, that the Bahamas is shuddering at the thought of a Kerry presidency.

The problem with American jobs is a lousy education system, unions, and a set of OSHA and medical policies that increase the cost of work horrendously.

Update 17: Oh man, no more jails!

Update 18: Name of this speech "promise 'em anything."

Question: buying American drugs from Canada, what will that do to the American drug industry? How many jobs will be lost in the pharmaceutical industry? How will that affect the stock market? How many ancillary jobs will be lost in other industries, as in factories that make containers, labels, produce plastic, etc.

He's pulled the Michael Moore thread now, and the crowd is loving it. Bush KNEW! Bush was in cahoots! That's not said, but that's the intent.

The hypocrisy of this liberal SOB, to talk about not being dependent on foreign oil when Democrats have stymied every effort at energy independence.

After he's trashed and bashed Bush, he's trying to cover his arse by asking Bush to make nice.

The disrespect for the Office of the President that has come from this candidate makes him unfit for office.

Update 19: After engaging in the worst, shabbiest, and most divisive politics of class warfare, this &$%# has the nerve to call for an end to it.

Update 20: Kerry wants us to believe that he's offering optimism by preaching pessimism.

Update 21: Now he's playing the stem cell research card and impugning GWB's religious belief. Kerry's point is that because Bush's respect for life inhibits the use of embryonic stem cells, he's a backward retard from the Dark Ages. The message is that with Kerry, nothing is off limits. Slippery slope? What slippery slope. It's cure at any costs. Hitler's Mengele will be our surgeon general and head of NIS.

2004-07-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Democrat Con...

Carole King is singing "You've Got A Friend." Unfortunate choice.

Every time I hear that song (I used to like it, too), I think of the bums and hustlers who frequent the NYC subways. In the ten years between 1990 and 2000, every stumble bum and pissin' tail junkie tried to hustle funds from riders by hurriedly parrotting that song.

It drove me nuts. At first, I gave. Then realization struck. This was not a one time request; this was an every day, 365 days a year hustle. This was a bunch of winos and junkies and plain ol' lazy bastards levying a tax on already over-burdened subway riders. One for which we could present no receipt to the IRS at either the city, state, or federal level.

Then, one day, a further epiphany. The people panhandling (once upon a time this was an honorable word that referred to people who bust their arses to find gold) received some form of welfare, some kind of SSI benefits, or some kind of monthly check which they lined up outside the check cashing office to convert into quickly disposable dollars. You saw them. They hustled past you with that precious check in their hands, focused like a bird-dog on the game, and they stood in a malodorous line leading into the check cashing place.

That was the last day I gave a penny to any bum either on the street or in the subways. If they wanted a meal, I would purchase it. However, there was a catch to that, too, cuz a meal was legal tender on the streets, as good as money for scoring a few rocks or a joint. The war that waged in my soul. What should I do? Should I continue to give knowing that gifts of food would soon be pumping crazily in some junky's veins, pulling him further down into degradation? It would be oozing corrosively through some wino's liver bringing him closer to the edge.

I couldn't give. So, I didn't. I spoke with them and explained why I would not give. If I were carrying a heavy load and some street hustler offered to bear it for a couple of bucks, I'd not deny a man a chance to earn an honest living. How he used the dollar he earned was his business.

One morning, I was riding the #3 train from New Lots heading in to work. There I am, sitting at the end of a seat, my head buried in the Bible cuz I was trying to memorize the Book of Galatians. I was so totally caught up in what I was doing that I didn't even see the hand that inserted itself under my nose. It took a beat or five for the intrusion to register and for me to realize that not only was someone standing expectantly in front of me, but a number of people were gazing in our direction with the same air of expectation. Raising my head, I saw the Caribbean bum who had begun to haunt the New Lots to Nevins part of the line.

The normal bum approach is to extend a hand and to withdraw it when nothing came. This Caribbean bum put me on the spot because I sat there with my little Bible open clearly concentrating on it. He sought to determine if my faith was backed up with works. Unknown to him, that morning, cockroaches could've broken their necks in my pocket. I didn't have a penny on me besides my tokens. Moreover, I did not like it that he thought he could force me into making a gesture to prove something to the audience of commuters. Nobody defines my faith for me.

So, I looked up into his eyes, looked at his hand, and bent my head over the Bible again. I'm a July-born woman with a wide streak of stubborn (talk about a war between the flesh and the Spirit!) and am usually happily indifferent to what other people think about me. In leaving his extended hand before me, the bum converted request into demand. Where I would have smiled and offered a brief apology at request, I thought that Christian liberty left me free to ignore demand.

So, I did.

That's what Carole King's song evokes; that whole era of forced generosity, the growing consciousness that straphangers were being abused financially, and the efforts of the bums, winos, and junkies to use our faith towards a perverted end.

2004-07-29T21:09:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Muslims in America complain their "religion" is misunderstood

So, quit yer bitchin' and give people a reason to think otherwise.

DES MOINES--Michael Wagner lied about his name.

He told the trooper who stopped him for not wearing a seat belt that he couldn't find his identification.

Then, Iowa State Patrol Trooper Kenneth Haas found a gun, three bulletproof vests, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a flight simulator and a bag of flight manuals dating to 2001.

Haas testified at a federal court hearing Tuesday that he also found a 5-foot telescope hooked to camera equipment, night-vision goggles and a night-vision rifle scope when searching Wagner's sport utility vehicle on July 14 on Interstate 80 near Council Bluffs.

The materials, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Rothrock, were "all of the equipment necessary for sniper attacks."

Haas said a tape showed that when Wagner was alone with his wife in a cruiser after they were stopped, he spoke of killing the officers at the scene to get away.
...
His attorney, Angela Campbell, said the items found in Wagner's vehicle weren't illegal for average citizens to own and suggested that Wagner and his wife, Linda Maguire, were targeted because they are Muslim.

Books written in Arabic, including the Koran, along with hundreds of pages printed from the Internet on the Iraq war and terrorism, were found in Wagner's vehicle.

Wagner and his wife, who was at the court hearing, are both Muslim converts.
...
In the interview, he talked about a man in San Diego who he said wanted him to shoot at trolleys there, White said. Wagner also told the agent "he knew of activities and people involved in al-Qaida and Taliban."

2004-07-29T19:22:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Round-up

Hammorabi claims that Alzarqawi may be Arrested!

There are unconfirmed news published in the IrakanaÂ news siteÂ that the son of a bitch Al Zarqawi has been arrested in Hadietha close to the Syrian border after they arrested one of his closest aides 2 days ago.Â It also added that a blood sample has been taken to confirm the genetic ID of the named terrorist.Â According to the same news Zarqawi has admitted that he received one milliard dollar from Udy Saddam before the fall of the regime and confessed about his relation with Fidaiyi Saddam.Â He also confessed about the net works of his cells in Iraq.Â

The news not yet confirmed so we have to follow what that site will come with or other sites.

Hmmm. Big Pharaoh in the Arab world thinks like I do.

Let us look at another forgotten area of this world, Sudan, Darfur to be precise. The central government of Sudan assisted Arab militia to literally wipe out the black Africans in Darfur. Villages were burned and leveled to the ground, women were raped, and black skeleton-like children are left to die from malaria and malnutrition in the refugee camps on the Sudan-Chad borders.Â Human Rights Watch labeled the actions of those militias as “genocide”. Kofie Annan, awaken from his long siesta and finally discovered that it is OK to agree once with the US, threatened military intervention in Darfur unless the government of Sudan halt the killing machines there. And how did my Egyptian government respond? It said that a UN resolution is not needed. Oh, how interesting! So, my fellow Egyptians at the foreign ministry think that making the lives of a few thousand Palestinians inconvenient is much more disastrous and barbaric than mass slaughtering non-Arab black Sudanese in Darfur. Egyptian newspapers display the most gruesome images coming from the Palestinian areas almost on a daily basis, yet up until this very hour, I haven’t seen a single picture of a dead black skeleton even though I am sure there are thousands upon thousands of them. Why are we allowed to see pictures of Israeli bulldozers demolishing a number of Palestinian homes to prevent weapons smuggling, yet we never see a single picture of how the government-backed militias in Sudan are burning down entire villages in Darfur? Are the Palestinians more valuable than the black Darfurians? Are there important and unimportant corpses?

The answer to that is yes. Arab ones are important. Black ones are not. Not to Kofi Annan and the majority of theArab world.

Iraqi Dude has a wowser of a post. It's must reading.

2004-07-29T19:16:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Packing pains

I went out and scored 13 banana boxes in one fell swoop, and 3 in another. That means I actually have to put stuff in them, now, especially since I've got 14 days to go before I head home to spend some time with my family, then, about a week later, off to China.

Chiquita banana boxes are really good for moving. They're very sturdy and they're usually lined with an equally sturdy sheet of brown paper. They're the Timex of packing boxes ... take a licking and keep on ticking.

Just looking at the pile of books is giving me shivers. Maybe I should have a packing party and invite a few friends over. But, then, I won't know where things are. Not a good idea.

By tonight, my bedroom should be packed up. I can only hope.

USVI: Scarcity of black Kerry staffers rankles V.I. Democrats

2004-07-29T13:28:00.000-04:00

Possibility of jumping ship to Republicans is slight, though, as fear of another Bush term outweighs the criticism

By JEREMY W. PETERS
Wednesday, July 28th 2004

BOSTON - When Barack Obama, a U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, delivered the keynote address Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention, Virgin Islands delegates saw something they had desperately wanted to see - a black person taking center stage in the 2004 presidential election.

V.I. Democrats, along with other black Democrats nationwide, are concerned about the lack of prominent blacks in key roles in the presidential campaign. In particular, many blacks have found that as they turn on the evening news and see the faces of Sen. John Kerry's top advisers, the faces do not look like theirs.

"There's nobody in the campaign who seems to be the average person," Gov. Charles Turnbull said. "For the masses of the African-American community, it seems like they've been left out."

Desiree Hill, a Democratic delegate from St. Thomas, said many feel the party has taken the black vote for granted.

"I'm encountering a lot of black people, African Americans, who say, 'I'm not voting for Kerry.' What do we tell people when they come to us and say, 'What has he done for black people?'"

«read the rest»

What Indeed...

2004-07-29T13:11:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Say what?!?!?!

Which key Democratic voting block believes in overwhelming numbers that John Kerry will cut taxes - and also thinks that Democrats are pro-life and have a good record on national defense and terrorism?

The answer: African Americans.

A full seventy-five percent of black voters actually expect Democrats to lower taxes, according to an exhaustive study by Republican consultant Richard Nadler, who cites stunning support for GOP policies in a poll conducted by Kellyanne Conway following the 2002 midterm elections.

The survey shows that 69 percent of African Americans believe that Democrats will also better "protect the rights of the unborn." And 62 percent of blacks say Democrats are "more likely to reduce terrorism by strengthening the national defense.”

Some things don't need further comment.

2004-07-29T13:01:00.000-04:00

U.S.: The picture John F. Kerry doesn't want you to see

Drudge reports that NASA has been ordered to pull the pixes of Kerry looking like spermatozoa.

2004-07-29T12:27:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Okay...

After the Democrat Con... is over, I'll get back to blogging Caribbean news predominantly.

Won't be doing much today cuz I've gotta go find boxes to pack up stuff. Man. Any packing volunteers?

2004-07-29T12:25:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Three dollar bill!

John Kerry's family dumped millions of dollars of foreign holdings as he launched his White House bid, gobbling up Made in the USA stocks in a huge politically savvy international-to-domestic shift.

The investments, mostly in the name of Kerry's multimillionaire wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sold stock in massive overseas players like Heineken, Sony, British Petroleum and Italian Telecom for red, white and blue companies like McDonald's, Dell and Kohls.

In all, the Kerrys dumped as much as $16 million worth of international stock and bought between $18 million and $32 million in domestic holdings between 2002 and 2003, records show.

The swaps, detailed in Kerry's financial disclosures for the presidential race, come to light as the Bay State senator tonight wraps himself in Americana to accept the Democratic Party nomination.

The senator's campaign said the investments are managed not by the Kerrys but by professional investment managers for the family trustees - of which Heinz Kerry is only one.

Marla Romash, a senior adviser to Kerry, said the financial decisions aren't political.

Is this another Kerry SUV story? When questioned, will he say, "I don't own the stocks, my family does"?

Dare he say that, especially after Teresa's self-centered performance two nights ago? Frankly, she made the dude look bought and paid for ... I won't use the 'g' word.

2004-07-29T11:33:00.000-04:00

U.S.: King of multilateralism

For all the abuse that the Bush administration receives for its conduct of the war on terrorism, the Proliferation Security Initiative and Caspian Guard stand as examples of the other side of the war as conducted by a serious administration that knows we are all in for a long twilight struggle. Only by removing or intimidating terror-sponsoring states into renouncing terrorism, and only by stopping the spread of nuclear and other mass killing technology in its tracks, can the free world hope to win this war without incredible loss of life. Bush administration critics and the media -- often one and the same -- consistently fail to take the existence of the PSI and its start-up sister Caspian Guard into account when assessing how we are doing in the war. The existence of these organizations indicate that for all the squabbling over Iraq, most of the world's major powers do regard terrorism and weapons proliferation as serious conjoined threats, and are willing to band together to do something about it. And they are willing to be led by the unilateral cowboy from Texas who defied several of them to topple Saddam Hussein.

Read the whole story here.H'tip to Instapundit. Read the whole piece

2004-07-29T04:37:00.000-04:00

U.S.: What, pray tell,...

is so cute about John Edwards?

I am a healthy heterosexual woman whose primary weakness is my healthy appreciation for the opposite sex. So, why oh why am I unable to see the cuteness of John Edwards?

It's not because he's white. I've drooled over white guys I've found drool-worthy. Heck, a fine looking man is a fine looking man whatever his race. I mean, I have to watch The Last Samurai with a bath towel cuz of Ken Watanabe. Tom Cruise? Who's that? He's got fat, square buns, and Watanabe acted him off the stage. I've even drooled over an Indian friend from the sub-continent, guy named Rohit. Not a muscle in sight. A long, lean, silent type. Very sweet. I'm an equal opportunity drooler.

So, why does John Edwards not get my salivary glands going? I don't see the boyishness that other women see when they look at the Breck Girl. Instead, I see a slickster with a line of patter designed to tug at the heart strings. A smart-man, as we'd say in TT. I see a lightweight who masks lack of depth with appeals to emotion. None of this is helped by my discovery that in almost six years in the Senate, Edwards hasn't done anything of substance, and he's been well nigh missing for the last year and a half. I look at his face in repose before he flashes the high wattage smile, and I don't like what I see there. The smile is a mask. The smile as mask.

C'mon, tell me, do I need to change my glasses? Do I need to clean them? What am I missing? Do tell. What?

Lemme go get a towel, turn the DVD on, and watch The Last Samurai.

2004-07-29T01:48:00.000-04:00

Hti: The cult of Aristide

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Hundreds of supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched through the slums of Haiti's capital Wednesday to demand his return.

Even as the crowd rallied against Haiti's new U.S.-backed interim government, a group of Caribbean nations announced that it would make a decision in about two weeks on whether to recognize the new leadership.

About 2,000 people, many waving posters, marched through the narrow streets of several Port-au-Prince slums before filing past the U.S. Embassy, where they burned small coffins bearing the names of interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and other officials. One coffin simply said, "U.S.A."

A U.S.-led multinational force of 3,600 troops arrived in Haiti after a three-week rebellion that culminated in Aristide's Feb. 29 ouster. Aristide, in exile in South Africa, has accused the United States of being behind his overthrow, a claim Washington has denied.

The U.S.-led force was replaced by a Brazil-led U.N. peacekeeping mission at the end of June.

"We cannot live without Aristide," said 70-year-old demonstrator Solange Michel, who said her son was killed by soldiers during a 1991 coup that ousted Aristide for three years.

"We think he will return if we keep protesting," said Bob Fonfon, 34, a former port worker who said past protests brought Aristide back to power.

Meanwhile, leaders in the 15-member Caribbean Community met in Grenada Wednesday, saying they would announce their decision on whether to recognize Haiti's U.S.-backed government on Aug. 16.

Relations between the 15-member bloc and Haiti collapsed after rebels ousted Aristide.

They cannot live without Aristide? Give the people what they want, I say. Let them find out how many of them will wind up living under Aristide.

2004-07-28T23:58:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Al Qaeda woman with South Africa passport arrested in TX

A South African woman picked up in Texas almost 10 days ago may turn out to be a key, high-level al-Qaida operative.

Her name is Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19. She was headed to New York.

Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas, tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns.

"In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States," says Flores.

Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to London. Six days later, Ahmed traveled from London to Mexico City before attempting to travel from McAllen to New York.

Government sources tell FederalNewsRadio.com that capturing this woman could be comparable to the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. It was revealed in court Tuesday that she was on a watch list and had entered the U.S. possibly as many as 250 times.

Tuesday, the South African government issued a warning that al-Qaida militants and other terrorists traveling through Europe had obtained South African passports, and authorities believe they got them from crime syndicates operating inside the government agency that issues the documents.

2004-07-28T23:32:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Oh, jeezan!!

Lying is a talent.

Madeleine Albright is talking to Greta van Susteren and blaming GWB's administration for North Korea's development of nukes. She's saying that the best thing to do is have bilateral talks with the NKos.

Where in hell was this woman when the Clinton administration had bilateral talks like the NKos demanded and GAVE them a light water nuclear reactor, GAVE them food, GAVE them a whole bunch of stuff in exchange for promises. Then, when the NKos had everything they wanted, they turned their backs and farted in Clinton's face and said, dude, to hell with you; we've never stopped building nukes?

Where was she? Madeleine Albright was the Secretary of State under Clinton; she was the one who, along with that sanctimonious old crock, Jimmy Carter, who never met a despot he didn't like, brokered this ridiculous deal that resulted in the NKos having nuclear arms. Now, she has the nerve to blame the Bush administration for Slick Willie's foreign policy failures?

The Bush adminstration is the one that has refused to hold bilateral lying talks with the NKos and have instead insisted that since this is an Asia problem, NKo's neighbors (China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) must be at the table so that little lying sot Kim Jong Very Ill can pull his nutty little stunts on them, not the U.S.

Maybe the lying goes with the political party cuz if she were a Republican, the media would ream her over it. Since she's a Dem, she can bend the truth with impunity.

2004-07-28T22:57:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Did Dem donor make them an offer they couldn't refuse?

B O S T O N, July 28, 2004 â As Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards arrived in Boston today for the Democratic National Convention, so did the California man who is their single biggest contributor.

He is Stephen Bing, a wealthy film producer who, with little fanfare, has managed to steer a total of more than $16 million of his money to Democratic candidates and the supposedly independent groups that support them.

"To most of the people who track money and politics, they're like, who the hell is Steve Bing?" said Chuck Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog organization.

Bing is perhaps best known for sparking a tabloid frenzy when he publicly expressed doubt that he was the father of actress Elizabeth Hurley's baby. (A paternity test proved he was indeed the father.) He repeatedly has refused to say why he is funneling millions of dollars to the Democrats.

Lewis thinks it is cause for concern.

"We can identify who the big donors are, but how much do we really know about any of them?" he said.

In fact, Democratic Party officials said they knew nothing about the man who law enforcement officials tell ABC News is Bing's friend and business partner â Dominic Montemarano, a New York Mafia figure currently in federal prison on racketeering charges.

Montemarano has a long criminal record and is known to organized crime investigators by his street name, Donnie Shacks.

"Donnie Shacks' main activity was murder. No question about it. That was his main function for the Colombo family and for organized crime in general. He was one of the top hit men in the New York area," said Joe Coffey, a former NYPD investigator.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Bing paid Montemarano's legal fees after his most recent scrape with the law. Montemerano's lawyer said his client was an employee of Bing's.

After a recent private lunch with Democratic vice-presidential candidate Edwards, Bing also declined to answer questions about his relationship with Montemarano.

2004-07-28T22:29:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Democrat Con....

John Edwards is speaking.

I thought he was supposed to be a great rhetorician. So far, it's been pap. SOSDD. Same old tired Democrat sizzle, no steak. Light on facts, heavy on emotion.

Update: Edwards caught in a retrospective lie. His mom worked in the post office so the family could have health care. That wasn't how it went 40-50 years ago. You paid a doctor when you went to visit.

Update 2: Here comes his two Americas speech. Who's dividing the country? His one united America is a socialist state in which the state provides for our every need. I'm from TT. Idon't want state run health care.

Update 3: Edwards is going on abouttwo school systems. One for the rich and one for the poor.Has this guy forgotten that the schools are controlled by the NEA which is in cahoots with the Democrats? If the schools suck, who's to blame? Just so.

Update 4: Get rid of tax breaks for companies outsourcing. Somebody ought to tell him Teresa won't like that.

He's talking about hard work should be valued in America. Yet, which party imposed the welfare state that undermined the work ethic, especially in black communities.

Edwards has a goodie bag chock full of cash. He's the Democrat Santa Claus. And he's playing class warfare games meaning to tax the 2% of the wealthiest tax payers. Newsflash, if those tax payers do like Edwards (incorporated himself so that though he's a mega-millionaire, he doesn't pay too much taxes) and Kerry and his wife (owning billions but paying less taxes than President Bush cuz of having all that money in some kind of tax dodge -- this in spite of the tax cut for ALL taxpayers), then there will be very little money to fund the list of goodies Edwards is proposing.

Update 5: Edwards is revving the crowd on the basis of class warfare and pandering to the socialist something-at-somebody-else's-expense sensibility of Democrats.

Frankly, I had expected better than a feel-good assortment of half-truths and tired old socialist pandering. I had expected new ideas. Nothing new. SOSDD.

Update 6: He's talking about the WoT. Brother, he's promising they'll do whatever it takes as long as it takes to make sure another attack never happens. Does that mean that Democrats will strengthen the Patriot Act, will deport illegals, will patrol the borders, will wage war if necessary? The crowd is growing wild while Edwards is saying pretty much what President Bush has been doing. I guess the problem they have with the WoT is that a Republican president is prosecuting it. What a friggin' bunch of hypocrites.

Update 7: Here is what Edwards is good at -- his talent is making the abstract concrete through emotional word pictures. Just imagine, the no-war Democrat crowd are cheering this guy's pro-war rhetoric. Incredible BS. Incredible hypocrisy.

How will Edwards fare against Cheney? Cheney will wipe the floor with him. Edwards is light on substance.

He kinda lost the crowd when he talked about increased funding for a bigger and better military. That was too much for them.

Oh, wow! The Arabs in the crowd are going to kill him. He talked about a more secure and safer Israel. What are the Arabs going to do now?!?!

Update 8: Pie in the sky chatter about convincing allies. Get real, dude.

Update 9: Ah, there's the trial lawyer creating pictures about the hardship of the military family. Says they've got friends amongst Democrats. ROFLMAO! I damn near died laughing when Edwards talked about funding the military cuz the guy he's running with has done everything he could to defund the military and the CIA.

He's given the dummy Democrat crowd a new mantra to repeat, and, like lemmings, they're parrotting it after him. 'Hope is on the way.'

BS stuff. A person has to be oblivious to facts and reality to be a Democrat.

Update 10: If you can't dazzle them details, baffle them with BS. Edwards has done the latter.

2004-07-28T21:34:00.000-04:00

U.S.: 16 good solid reasons to vote for GWB for president of the U.S.

1) Bush would not place American troops under United Nations command. John Kerry would. In 1970, he said: "I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."

2) President Bush has abandoned the economy crushing Kyoto Protocol, the ABM Treaty which would have prevented us from building a missile defense, and the International Criminal Court which could have put our military & government officials under threat of frivolous prosecution.

3) President Bush is a strong supporter of a Federal Marriage Amendment which is the only way to stop liberal judges from imposing gay marriage on the states against the wishes of the voters and State Legislatures.

4) "President Bush's overall Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 budget represents a 49% increase for elementary and secondary education since FY 2001". (Yet liberals, like Oliver Twist, cry for 'more.')

5) President Bush is a staunch supporter of the pro-life movement and signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban into effect.

6) A rudimentary nuclear missile defense system will for the first time go online later this year thanks to President Bush.

7) President Bush's five-year, $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the most significant strike against the spread of AIDS/HIV in the history of mankind.

8) When the going got tough, George Bush got going and fought tooth and nail to give tax relief to American families. He worked hard to end the marriage penalty, increased the size of the child tax credit, gave Americans their hard earned tax dollars back in the form of rebates, and saw to it that 92 million Americans got to keep an average of $1,083 more of their own money.

Most importantly, by taking the government's hand out of the American's people's pockets, George. W. Bush gave the American economy the stimulus it needed to grow and create jobs again.

9) We've had 10 straight months of job growth and over a million jobs have been created this year so far thanks to George Bush's tax cut.

"The 17 percent productivity growth from the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2004 stands head and shoulders above the growth rate for any comparable period. In fact, it is better than any eight-year period since 1976. In the first 13 quarters of the Bush Administration, the basic determinant of our standard of living increased by almost as much as during the entire 32 quarters of the Clinton Administration." (Arnold Kling at Tech Central Station)

Over the last nine months, the economy has been booming. In the 80s, the average GDP was +2.9%. In the 90s, the average GDP growth was 3.1%. Over the last three quarters, the average GDP growth of the economy has been a sizzling 5.4%.

10) In Afghanistan, we were told going in that the war would be long, difficult, and perhaps even unwinnable. A lesser man than George Bush might have gotten weak kneed at the prospect of sending our troops into a "mountainous Vietnam" and found some sort of excuse not to go. But, not only did we take the fight to our enemies in Afghanistan, we bombed Al-Qaeda's camps, decimated the Taliban, drove them out of power in less than two months, and sent our enemies running to Pakistan and remote caves on the Afghan border, where they live even today as hunted men. This is even more impressive than it sounds since our defeatist press was crying "quagmire" & "Vietnam" as we bombed our enemies into oblivion.

11) Because of President Bush's planning, strong and steady leadership, Iraq is moving towards freedom and democracy, and the country will have national elections in January.

"A new poll of Iraqis shows that 68 percent have confidence in the interim government, 73 percent approve of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and 84 percent approve of President Ghazi Yawar. Nearly 80 percent of Iraqis expect that the new government will “make things better” for Iraq after the handover." (Larry Kudlow)

12) Thanks to President Bush, Saddam and his WMDs, wherever he has hidden them for future use and however many they are, will no longer be a threat to global stability.

In Iraq, we removed Saddam Hussein, an anti-American tyrant & sponsor of terrorism who started two wars of aggression in the region while he simultaneously raped, tortured, and butchered his own people with a zeal matched by few figures in modern history. Once the war began, the performance of our military was incomparable. Saddam's forces were defeated, scattered to the four winds in less than a month, even as the press, a week into the war, was again baying the dreaded "V word" loud and often.

So far, artillery shells containing mustard gas, sarin, & cyclosarin have been found in Iraq. Furthermore, former chief weapons inspector David Kay also pointed out that Iraq was "working to produce a (chemical) weapon using the poison ricin until the American invasion last March". Also, Kay noted in his interim report that the Iraqis planned to produce more weapons,

"Even those senior officials we have interviewed who claim no direct knowledge of any on-going prohibited activities readily acknowledge that Saddam intended to resume these programs whenever the external restrictions were removed.".

13) President Bush has been a strong leader and a relentless prosecutor of the war against Islamic terrorism. Because of his efforts, we are slowly but surely winning the war on terrorism.

Without question, Iraq was a nation that provided "safe haven" for terrorists with "global reach". Among them were terrormaster Abu Nidal, Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the conspirators in the 1993 WTC bombing, "Khala Khadr al-Salahat, the man who reputedly made the bomb for the Libyans that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over...Scotland,"Abu Abbas, mastermind of the October 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer," & "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, formerly the director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan" who is now believed to be leading Al-Qaeda's forces in Iraq. Quite frankly, any war on terrorism that didn't tackle that nest of vipers would have been a war in name only.

We smashed Al-Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan, killed or captured more than 2/3rd's of Al-Qaeda's leadership, have blocked Al-Qaeda from attacking inside the US for more than 2 1/2 years, and according to the 9/11 commission, Al-Qaeda's funding has started to dry up,

"Since the September 11 attacks and the defeat of the Taliban, as Qaeda's funding has decreased significantly. The arrests or deaths of several important financial facilitators have decreased the amount of money al Qaeda has raised and increased the costs and difficulty of raising and moving that money.

14) The Bush Administration's support of the Patriot Act has helped to make America safer from terrorist attacks. "The USA Patriot Act brought down the artificial wall (created by Jaime Gorelick, formerly of the Clinton Justice Dept. and a 9/11 commissioner) separating law enforcement and intelligence officers and allowed them to talk to each other as they work to prevent future attacks."

15) Thanks to President Bush's diplomacy, Libya gave up its WMD program and a nuclear arms ring run by a Pakistani scientist has also been put out of business.

16) President Bush is a genuinely compassionate man. "...Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."

Bush stopped and turned back.

"He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."

Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.

"I could hear her say, 'I'm OK,' " he said. "That's more emotion than she has shown in 2 1/2 years. Then he said, 'I can see you have a father who loves you very much.' "

"And I said, 'I do, Mr. President, but I miss her mother every day.' It was a special moment."

Special for Lynn Faulkner because the Golden Lamb was the place he and his wife, Wendy Faulkner, celebrated their anniversary every year until she died in the south tower of the World Trade Center, where she had traveled for business.

..."The way he was holding me, with my head against his chest, it felt like he was trying to protect me," Ashley said. "I thought, 'Here is the most powerful guy in the world, and he wants to make sure I'm safe.' I definitely had a couple of tears in my eyes, which is pretty unusual for me." -- More stories like this here

Adapted from a list found at Right Wing News.

Wictory Wednesday!

2004-07-28T21:27:00.000-04:00

As my late Wictory Wednesday contribution toward boosting Conservative morale through bewildered laughter...

I give you - Theresa Heinz Kerry's 21 minute 34 second 'Mystic Angel' Convention speech.

Doesn't she come off very much like a completely stoned Scientology-inclined, transvestite Jackie O impersonator who's just now discovered that he, sorry...she, is accepting ~~an Oscar~~ a Nobel Peace Prize?

I guess the Dems have the eccentric foreign multi-Millionair vote locked up...

Contribution #2 - Listen to Hugh Hewitt audio blogging the Convention.

Here ( 5am - 8am & 8pm - 11pm)

or

Here (Archived).

Regional: Jeb Bush promotes Fla. "Gateway to Caribbean" in Canada.

2004-07-28T19:55:00.000-04:00

Let's settle down, relax, and read a little Canadian article that promises to inform us on an important conference just held in that future 51'st (...or was that 52nd?) state regarding the "Caribbean" Gateway's investment opportunities.

Governor Jeb Bush promotes 'gateway to the Caribbean'

MIKE DE SOUZA
The Gazette

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Florida Governor Jeb Bush danced around political questions as he opened a three-day trade mission to Montreal and Ottawa yesterday.

Bush promoted his state as a gateway to the Caribbean for investors as he addressed a lunchtime crowd of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.

But when pressed by reporters, he refused to speculate on his brother George W. Bush's chances of being re-elected as U.S. president later this year.

Well that was quick...From "Gateway to the Caribbean", and then BAM!

Like a beleaguered shrimp in Louisiana...The topic of helping his brother is slammed on the press-boards...

"I will do what any brother would do," Bush said.

"My first duty is to be the best governor I can be. Hopefully that helps him, but I will be a volunteer - I am a volunteer - in his campaign and (will) work hard in his re-election."

Duh!
Did they think he was going to let slip the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy's Secret World Domination Starting With Canada...Plan?

Anyway, the reporter sums it all up with Canadian Premier Jean Charest:

Charest welcomed Bush by praising his family saying he was a great admirer of his father, the former president Bush.

«Don't bother reading the whole thing»

Canadian liberal knives..Zeh steeeng so sweet...Eh?

2004-07-28T19:39:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Hot new movie

See it here.

USVI: Definitly NOT an anti-quiz elitist.

2004-07-28T18:16:00.000-04:00

Scarily accurate result - except for the karaoke part...

What Kind of Elitist Are You?

Your Cd Mp3 collection is almost as big as your ego, and you can most likely play an instrument or ~~three~~ 1½. You're a real hit at parties, but you're SO above karaoke.

What people love: You're instant entertainment. Unless you play the obo.

What people hate: Your tendency to sing louder than the radio and compare everything to a freaking song.

Brought to you by Quizilla

This kinda reminds me of a Missing Persons song...

Via: Booker Rising, Parableman, & Uncle Sam's Cabin

2004-07-28T16:54:00.000-04:00

U.S.: Cry shame on these mediaeval barbarians!

NAIROBI (AFP) - The African Union (AU) accused Sudan's pro-government militias of burning civilians alive in Darfur and sent out a clear signal it was considering sending in a peacekeeping force to the crisis-hit region.
...
The Sudanese government, which has repeatedly pledged to disarm the Janjaweed, said Tuesday it would face down any foreign military intervention in the crisis.
...
AU monitors declared on Wednesday that government-backed Arab militiamen chained and burned alive civilians in a raid on a market in Darfur.

"The attackers looted the market and killed civilians, in some cases chaining them and burning them alive," said a report released in Nairobi by AU ceasefire observers in the region.

The report said the African Union monitors went to Suleia village, where the militia raid occurred July 3.

It said the raid was carried out by "militia elements believed to be Janjaweed."

"This was an unwarranted and unprovoked attack on the civilian population," the report said. However, it could not substantiate allegations that Sudanese government forces took part in the raid alongside the Janjaweed.

Why are black people Muslim? Why are black people Muslim when, in the view of Arab Muslims (who control Mecca and Medina), the only good Muslim is an Arab Muslim? When will these backward barbarians abandon their barbaric and blood-thirsty ways and join the human race? Good heavens! To do such an evil thing to defenceless civilians. Hitler had nothing on these barbarians; in fact, in him they find their equal.