Today....
Happy birthday to me.
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Federalism, Free Markets and the Liberty To Let One's Mind Wander. I Am Very Worried About the Fate of Liberty in the USA, Where Government is Taking people's Lives ____________________________________________________________________________________________ "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue." -Barry Goldwater-
[Via News For Perverts]Wow, this has come as a surprise, since as Spike points out, there are lot of airports here in Hong Kong. Airports are the flat chested woman in Hong Kong, that are so flat that one could land an aircraft on their chests. Sorry, but I couldn't find the reference on his site. A little help here Spike?
Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.However, I suspect with the increase in bra size there has been a corresponding increase in butt size.
"It's so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras," Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China's commercial hub.
"You...never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic."
This phenomenon, it said, was due to women eating more nutritiously and taking part in more sport.
I think that having a home beer keg refrigerator would be very useful.
Ready for mushroom clouds? The holocaust is a hoax! Who are these clowns? If it was white folks speaking such hate and crap, it would be all over the news and people would be marching against them. Remember David Duke and KKK marches?
The First Amendment protects peaceful, not violent, assembly. However, there must a "clear and present danger" or an "imminent incitement of lawlessness" before government officials may restrict free-assembly rights. Otherwise, the First Amendment's high purpose can too easily be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
China's army is now banning recruitment of men that snore while sleeping or those that have tattoos.
China's army recruits can look forward to a better night's sleep thanks to a new regulation banning chronic snorers from joining up.Tough to get new recruits of your bunkmates are sawing wood all night! But what got me is that the Yiddish word "schnorer" is defined as--beggar; sponger, moocher, parasite. I guess that they don't want any schnorers either.
You Are 40% Weird |
![]() Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it! |
I got my haircut today and the chick cutting my hair was wearing an oversized bright blue sweatshirt with the word REDRUM on it. Of course in the mirror, I could see that it read differently. When I asked her to look at it, I think she was a little scared since she thought that I was trying to touch her chest. But my Cantonese being as it is, there was no way that I could adequately explain to her, what I was meaning to do. Somewhat an awkward moment it was.
Even French wigmakers in decline. I am a regular wearer as my picture above indicates.
Maybe I should sell those tradesports contracts that are trading at only 7 where there is a payoff in the event of an overt airstrike by either Israel or the US by June. But this article makes some convincing points for thought...
That, as it happens, is one excellent reason not to move forthwith to bomb Iran's nuclear installations. For the long-term consequences of any American military action cannot be disregarded. Iranians are our once and future allies. Except for a narrow segment of extremists, they do not view themselves as enemies of the United States, but rather as the exact opposite: at a time when Americans are unpopular in all other Muslim countries, most Iranians become distinctly more friendly when they learn that a visitor is American. They must not be made to feel that they were attacked by the very country they most admire, where so many of their own relatives and friends have so greatly prospered, and with which they wish to restore the best of relations.I like number 2. Since these guys want a fight, then lets NOT give it to them. They are involved in this hocus-pocus second coming of the Madhi horseshit that requires the Madhi to come to their aid in the event of attack from the great Satan [the US for those of you not in the know]. Additionally, number 3 basically says that they have been a failure so far in making the bomb even after 30 years and the writer, I think, is trying to make the argument that this bugling can be expected to continue. I don't know if its solid policy to think that they will continue to be the F Troup of the nuclear world.
There is a second good reason not to act precipitously. In essence, we should not bomb Iran because the worst of its leaders positively want to be bombed - and are doing their level best to bring that about.
When a once broadly popular regime is reduced to the final extremity of relying on repression alone, when its leadership degenerates all the way down from an iconic Khomeini to a scruffy Ahmadinejad, it can only benefit from being engaged or threatened by the great powers of the world. The clerics' frantic extremism reflects a sense of insecurity that is fully justified, given the bitter hostility with which they are viewed by most of the population at large. In a transparent political maneuver, Ahmadinejad tries to elicit nationalist support at home by provoking hostile reactions abroad, through his calls for the destruction of Israel, his clumsy version of Holocaust denial that is plainly an embarrassment even to other extremists, and, above all, his repeated declarations that Iran is about to repudiate the Non-Proliferation Treaty it ratified in 1970.
There is a third reason, too. The effort to build nuclear weapons started more than three decades ago, yet the regime is still years away from producing a bomb.
Of course all the conspiracy theorist Democrats will look at David Corn's piece on the release of NIE excerpts following Joeseph Wilsons Op-ed in the New Tork Times and go... yea. yea. So why does David Corn not even mention some of the material in the British Butler report released a year later in mid-2004 that supports the President's postion? Because it just doesn't fit his story line. So is David Corn a pundit or a jouranlist. Definately not a jouranlist given the weak research of his piece and the lack of opposing evidence readily available.
492. In the course of the first Gulf war, the facilities involved in this indigenous route were severely damaged. Subsequently, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervised the dismantlement of all the facilities that Iraq had built to process, enrich and fabricate uranium, and removed all potentially fissile material. Some unprocessed uranium ore was left in country, but under IAEA safeguards and subject to regular inspections. Iraq would therefore have had to seek imports of uranium or uranium ore if it wished to restart its nuclear programme covertly.Its astonishing that this story is still being peddled by the press the way it is.
493. In early 1999, Iraqi officials visited a number of African countries, including Niger. The visit2 was detected by intelligence, and some details were subsequently confirmedby Iraq. The purpose of the visit was not immediately known. But uranium ore accounts for almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports. Putting this together with past Iraqi purchases of uraniumore fromNiger, the limitations faced by the Iraq regime on access to indigenous uranium ore and other evidence of Iraq seeking to restart its nuclear programme, the JIC judged that Iraqi purchase of uraniumore could have been the subject of discussions and noted in an assessment in December 2000 that: ...unconfirmed intelligence indicates Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium.
494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.
495. During 2002, the UK received further intelligence fromadditional sources which identified the purpose of the visit to Niger as having been to negotiate the purchase of uranium ore, though there was disagreement as to whether a sale had been agreed and uranium shipped.
497. In preparing the dossier, the UK consulted the US. The CIA advised caution about any suggestion that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring uranium from Africa, but agreed that there was evidence that it had been sought.
499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:
The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
was well-founded.
503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.
b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.
d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
Its not enough to just attack, but Palestinians want to make sure that they kill as many as possible....
They also soak the shrapnel in rat poison, because it causes hemorrhaging - victims may bleed to death before they can get to the hospital.Muslims and Arabs are just barbarians, plain and simple. Palestinians deserve to be a vanquished people.
It not as if the recent saber rattling is a new phenomenon in Iran, they have been making the same noises for nearly 2 years now, even under the former moderate regime. This material is from mid-2004
To repel the Western threat, Iran's conservatives are recommending intimidating Europe and the U.S. This is the backdrop to the following:I wonder what those 29 sensitive targets are in the West? Maybe one near you, your family or friends?A growing number of reports about the recruitment and training of thousands of Iranian volunteers by Iran's Revolutionary Guards for suicide attacks against Western, European, and U.S. targets in Iraq, and their dispatch to Iraq.
Reports on the resumption of Iran's project for long-range Shihab 4 and Shihab 5 missiles, by order of Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei - with Europe and the U.S. as its strategic targets.
Statements by senior Revolutionary Guards officials about the existence of a plan to eliminate Anglo-Saxon civilization using missiles and suicide bombers against "29 sensitive targets" in the West, which have already been identified by Iranian intelligence.
Statements by conservative papers calling on Iran to quit the NPT, and not to ratify the Additional Protocol.
1. Deal with Iran now.I know what you will do. Its 2. Do nothing and take the personal easy road and blame someone else.
2. Do what you always do, nothing, then when the bomb goes off, blame George W. Bush.
Last Monday, just before he announced that Iran had gatecrashed "the nuclear club", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disappeared for several hours. He was having a khalvat (tête-à-tête) with the Hidden Imam, the 12th and last of the imams of Shiism who went into "grand occultation" in 941.World War 4 is not far off and we had better be prepared instead of the usual liberal Democratic dillying.
According to this analysis, spelled out in commentaries by Ahmadinejad's strategic guru, Hassan Abassi, known as the "Dr Kissinger of Islam", President George W Bush is an aberration, an exception to a rule under which all American presidents since Truman, when faced with serious setbacks abroad, have "run away". Iran's current strategy, therefore, is to wait Bush out. And that, by "divine coincidence", corresponds to the time Iran needs to develop its nuclear arsenal, thus matching the only advantage that the infidel enjoys.We are well positioned with a large force on Iran's Western border in Iraq and on it's Eastern border in Afghanistan. Let's assist them in fulfilling their wish to become martyrs.
No surprise for a country that treats its own citizens like chattel, but China has again blocked UN intervention in the genocide taking place in Sudan...
China and Russia last night thwarted a year-long diplomatic drive by Britain to impose United Nations sanctions on the perpetrators in of the violence in the Darfur province of Sudan.Not one word on this in China's official news agency, Xinhua. And nothing in China Daily on it either. For the Hong Kong newspapers, The Standard is self-censoring like a good sucking up newspaper should do, and no mention in the tool for real estate tycoons newspaper, unlinkable South China Morning Post.
The two powers, joined by Qatar, used their position on a UN sanctions committee to block the imposition of a UN travel ban and asset freeze on four unnamed Sudanese, including one government official, proposed by Britain.
Sudan is China's largest overseas oil project. China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms, according to a former Sudan government minister. Chinese-made tanks, fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have intensified Sudan's two-decade-old north-south civil war. A cease-fire is in effect and a peace agreement is expected to be signed by year-end. But the fighting in Sudan's Darfur region rages on, as government-backed Arab militias push African tribes off their land.These guys embrace every two-bit dictator and high risk regimes like Iran, formerly Iraq and the useless Zimbawean government led by the silly President Robert Mugabe.
China in October signed a $70 billion oil deal with Iran, and the evolving ties between those two countries could complicate U.S. efforts to isolate Iran diplomatically or pressure it to give up its ambitions for nuclear weapons. China is also pursuing oil in Angola.
The wealthiest tycoons and taipans in Hong Kong are again screwing consumers by selling tainted and poisonous produce in their stores according to Greenpeace...
Greenpeace today exposes Parknshop and Wellcome, the biggest supermarket chains in the territory, are selling problem vegetables containing illegal pesticide and excessive pesticide residue. Greenpeace's sampling and investigation was conducted from November 2005 to March 2006, the findings are alarming. In one Choi Sum sample collected in Wellcome's store, dangerously high level of pesticide residue -- 240 times over the EU standard -- was found.Tycoons and the big conglomerates believe it is their right to screw consumers in the territory of Hong Kong. Since the supermarket business is effectively a monopoly, it is very difficult to get them to comply with being good corporate citizens.
Interesting that they are starting to do this now.
The bombing of an Israeli fast-food shop that killed nine people drew condemnation Tuesday from some Arab newspapers and commentators Tuesday, while others praised it as an act growing out of Palestinian despair.I have never been a stronger supporter of Israel than I have been of late. I think that Arabs and their religious ferocity and intolerance is a recipe for global disaster.
Muslims are defining the debate without even participating. Its amazing to me how spineless American businesses have become.
Iran boasted yesterday it could defeat any American military action over its nuclear drive, in one of the Islamic regime's boldest challenges yet to the United States.These guys are just bucking for a fight. The spineless Europeans just want to appease these clowns. I wonder what they will say when there is a mushroom cloud over some annihilated city someplace. Probably they will blame America or GWB for not taking action sooner. Europeans are nothing but worthless scum these days.
"You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it," said Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime's most powerful figures.
"The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran.
With all the blah, blah coming out of Democrats mouths these days, I am frightened on their lack of comprehension of what has to be done about the enemy that we face. Additionally, the American press agenda laden reporting on the issue and their inability to report on wiretapping without leaving out vast swathes of information is amazing. The press even has defined the NSA program as domestic wiretapping when it clearly is not [a long winded post here. Its all near the end after the rant about Google]. So, this actually came as a surprise to me...
Since the September 11 attacks and the terrorist bombings that followed in Madrid and London, authorities across the Continent are getting more powers to electronically eavesdrop, and meeting less public opposition than President Bush has over his post-September 11 wiretapping program.The great socialist heaven of Europe has dealt with the internal security issues surrounding Muslim fanatics with out the juvenile debate that we in the US has endured.
And I have always had faith that people will do the right thing. But Muslims have really dented my faith in the inherent goodness of people. They think that the world has to completely acquiesce to their sometimes bizarre and many times barbaric behavior. Why don't they take to the streets when one of their own, claiming to speak and fight for the Muslim people, commits atrocious acts of violence? I think that it is largely that they are taught that this is acceptable behavior by their bloodthirsty Imams and clerics. And why are these Imams and clerics such rabble rousers? Particularly in the Sunni dominated Arab world? Because they really do not have a high place amongst the believers in traditional Sunni Islam and really are not important to the relationship between the individual and his or her creator. As written here on the Sunni/Shia split....
The Shia Imam has come to be imbued with Pope-like infallibility and the Shia religious hierarchy is not dissimilar in structure and religious power to that of the Catholic Church within Christianity. Sunni Islam, in contrast, more closely resembles the myriad independent churches of American Protestantism. Sunnis do not have a formal clergy, just scholars and jurists, who may offer non-binding opinions. Shias believe that their supreme Imam is a fully spiritual guide, inheriting some of Muhammad's inspiration ("light") . Their imams are believed to be inerrant interpreters of law and tradition. Shia theology is distinguished by its glorification of Ali. In Shia Islam there is a strong theme of martyrdom and suffering, focusing on deaths of Ali and, particularly, Hussein plus other important figures in the Shia succession.The way I see this is that one's relationship with God is that person's business. But Imams and clerics need to insert themselves into this relationship in order to create a need and place for themselves. It would be fine if they were just like shepherds tending a flock, but they also appear to have high political aspirations like bin-Laden who wants to recreate the Muslim caliphate such as existed with the Ottomans.
The conference stressed that Muslims might better adapt to Europe, which some of them see as corrupt and immoral, if imams stressed in their sermons that core Western values of democracy and freedom meshed with their own faith.In reality, the Western values that make democracy and liberty possible can be found in the writings of Hobbes and Locke where they promoted the concept of religious tolerance to avoid chaos caused by religious conflict.
"Imams, as teachers and preachers, have a duty to emphasize to their congregations to play a positive role ... in addressing the plagues of Europe -- hate, bigotry, racism, extremism and terrorism," said British imam Abduljalil Sajid.
Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society. Socrates uses something quite like a social contract argument to explain to Crito why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty. However, Social Contract Theory is rightly associated with modern moral and political theory and is given its first full exposition and defense by Thomas Hobbes. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best known proponents of this enormously influential theory, which has been one of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the history of the modern West.Its at least food for thought, and if European Muslims can form a contract with the West, they will be able to form a social contract in other places that they live. Maybe I should keep my faith in people for a little bit longer.
My birthday is coming. I realized on that day that I will have been alive 1,482,192,000 seconds. I will mediate on that.
Apparently, up until now, China has refused to accept back any of the overstayers or illegal immigrants that have been caught in the US. There are over 39,000 of them living there now...
The Department of Homeland Security is near an agreement with China to return up to 39,000 Chinese illegally living in the U.S. to the communist country, which previously had refused to accept deportations.As I have complained about before, it is irritating that I have to pay HK$780 [US$100] for my 6 month visa for China. It is more expensive for Americans than most other nationalities and more difficult to get a visa. For example, they won't process an American on a Saturday and one cannot get an on-the-spot visa in Lo Wu. The reason being, is that China has cited diplomatic reciprocity. Diplomatic reciprocity is a concept that a country is justified in charging or making it difficult for one countries nationals in retaliation for the treatment of their own people. Well, well, we are in a low level diplomatic spat with China since the US, due to troubles with overstaying and illegal Chinese nationals, finds it necessary to retaliate against Americans. I wonder how much China has to spend on overstaying or illegal Americans in China? How about a wild guess of.....nothing?
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday said the tentative agreement, which would let the U.S. deport Chinese illegals as they are arrested, will act as a deterrent to other foreign nationals contemplating illegal immigration.
"We can't be in the position any longer where we are paying the burden and bearing the burden for countries that won't cooperate with us and take their own citizens back," said Mr. Chertoff as he completed a weeklong tour of China, Japan and Singapore to discuss security and immigration issues.
Mr. Chertoff said nearly 700 Chinese nationals held in U.S. detention centers are clogging the system and that more than 38,000 have been released on bond after spending the maximum 180 days in lockup.
China has declined to accept the illegals, citing uncertainty about their identities.
On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.
Hundreds fall ill in central China with the Flu.
"There were over 400 students that became feverish with the flu," a university official who declined to be named told AFP when contacted by phone.Good luck everybody!
He refused to detail what type of flu it was or how the outbreak had succeeded in infecting so many students.
Local health officials were currently trying to identify the flu strain, Xinhua said.
The temperatures of some of the students reached 39.6 degrees celsius (103.3 degrees Fahrenheit), it said.
Bush was right. Catchy toe-tapping tune.