This is an Open Thread. So start Yakking.
USA
Sheriff’s Fight With Paper Flares Up Again
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: October 20, 2007
A long-running dispute between a weekly newspaper in Phoenix and law enforcement officials took a series of sharp turns over the last two days, including the arrest of the newspaper owners, followed by the dismissal of charges against them and an investigation into their paper.
For years, prosecutors in Maricopa County weighed whether to take the rare step of charging the leaders of the paper, The Phoenix New Times, with a crime for publishing an article with the home address of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County. This week, that conflict abruptly escalated.
On Thursday, the newspaper accused the authorities of abuses of power in their investigation into The New Times, reporting that a prosecutor had obtained a subpoena for the Internet browsing records on thousands of its readers.
In Jena and Beyond, Nooses Return as a Symbol of Hate
By Darryl FearsWashington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 20, 2007; Page A01
When he reached his third-story workstation at a construction site near Pittsburgh two weeks ago, Errol Madyun saw the noose — thick, neatly knotted and strong enough to hang a man.
“It was intimidating,” said Madyun, a black ironworker.More than 400 miles south in North Carolina, Terry Grier, superintendent of Guilford County Schools, saw the same type of noose last month at predominantly black T.W. Andrews High near Greensboro.
Chain of errors blamed for nuclear arms going undetected
An Air Force inquiry says weapons officers failed five times to check missiles before they were flown across the country to another base.By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — Air Force weapons officers assigned to secure nuclear warheads failed on five occasions to examine a bundle of cruise missiles headed to a B-52 bomber in North Dakota, leading the plane’s crew to unknowingly fly six nuclear-armed missiles across the country.
That August flight, the first known incident in which the military lost track of its nuclear weapons since the dawn of the atomic age, lasted nearly three hours, until the bomber landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in northern Louisiana.
But according to an Air Force investigation presented to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Friday, the nuclear weapons sat on a plane on the runway at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota for nearly 24 hours without ground crews noticing the warheads had been moved out of a secured shelter.
Why America’s public highways are becoming private property.The process by which construction crews grind up rock with water to create cement is a relatively simple and ancient one. The process by which cement is turned into money for cash-strapped states and into a new asset class is a little more complicated, much newer–and far more controversial.
Across the country, from the Great Lakes to the shores of Southern California, the highways, roads, tunnels and parking garages that were built at public expense and for public benefit are being sold or leased to corporations. And in a related development, states with little cash but a big need for new infrastructure are partnering with private investors who are eager to ribbon states with toll roads. What’s driving this is supply and demand, or rather demand and supply.
Middle East
How Turkey Could Undermine Iraq
By NICK TIMIRAOS
October 20, 2007; Page A9
Turkey’s parliament voted overwhelmingly this past week to allow its army to cross the Iraqi border to fight Kurdish rebels, a move that President Bush warned against because it would threaten the stability of one of Iraq’s few relatively peaceful regions.
The vote comes in response to attacks by Kurdish rebels that killed at least two dozen Turkish civilians and soldiers two weeks ago, the deadliest such attacks in 12 years. The prospect of a cross-border Turkish campaign helped drive oil prices to an intraday high of $90 a barrel.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator resigns
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, has resigned, a government spokesman said Saturday.
The spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, gave no specific reason for the resignation, effective immediately, but said Larijani had cited a desire to focus on “other political activities.”
“Larijani had resigned repeatedly. Finally, the president accepted his resignation,” Elham told a press conference.
Elham said Saeed Jalili, a deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs, was to succeed Larijani.
Americas
Official: 24 drown off Mexico coast
MEXICO CITY – The bodies of two dozen people washed ashore Friday in southern Mexico, a state official said, after a boat believed to be carrying Central American migrants capsized in the Pacific Ocean.
Oaxaca’s state government later released a statement saying three people were confirmed dead and 20 others missing following the shipwreck. It said there was one survivor and authorities were searching for bodies near the towns of San Francisco Ixhuatan and San Francisco del Mar, about 200 miles from the Guatemalan border.
Locals retake Bolivia airport from army
By HAROLD OLMOS, Associated Press Writer
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia – Armed with clubs and waving provincial flags, thousands of residents of Bolivia’s wealthiest province seized control of the country’s busiest airport Friday from troops sent in by President Evo Morales.
The retaking of the airport was a victory for leaders of a province fighting for greater autonomy from the socialist central government.
Soldiers and military police melted away before the protesters flooded into Santa Cruz’s Viru Viru airport, avoiding clashes. It was not immediately clear if the troops had left the airport entirely or withdrawn to a distant part of the facility.
Asia
Myanmar protester says freed due to old age
YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military junta has freed an 82-year-old member of the opposition National League for Democracy who was sentenced to five years in jail for joining protests against the regime last month.
“They said it was because of my old age,” Sein Kyaw, among five members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party sentenced to long jail terms this week in Rakhine state, 250 miles northwest of Yangon, said after his release on Friday.
The other four included 85-year-old Kyaw Khine who was jailed for seven and a half years. Relatives said he was not even in town during the protests against 45 years of military rule put down ruthlessly by the army.
Bhutto: Attack won’t stop campaign
KARACHI, Pakistan (CNN) — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has called the deadly terror strike on her convoy “an attack on democracy” and vowed it would not deter her political campaign or her fight for human rights.
Bhutto, 54, hopes to earn a third term as prime minister in January’s parliamentary elections.
She returned to Pakistan on Thursday after a self-imposed, eight-year exile.
“What does the attack last night signify? The attack was more an attack on the unity and integrity of the country than on any individual or any one political party,” Bhutto said at a news conference on Friday, a day after the terror attack that killed 136 people.
WaiWai Not For The Faint Of Heart Or The Closed Minded
Ditzy Edo damsels delighted in diddling with dildos
Among the scenes depicted in “Yuka no Okimono,” a 12-page booklet of monochrome prints that appeared around 1681, is a trio of giggling ladies poring over a selection of impressively large, phallic-shaped merchandise known as “harigata.”
Such goods, which in those days were produced from marble, ceramics and tortoise shell, could have no possible purpose other than self-abuse. And as historian Koshi Shimokawa writes in Asahi Geino (10/25), this particular booklet was indeed intended as a shopping guide to sex aids for females.
Europe
Gorbachev sets up Russia movement
The leader of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has founded a new political movement in Russia.
Mr Gorbachev told the founding congress of the Union of Social-Democrats that its mission was to fight against “negative tendencies” and corruption.
He said it supported President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reform Russia.
The new movement will not take part in general elections in December, which are expected to be won by the United Russia party, backed by Mr Putin.
Serbia war crimes suspects held
Serbian police have arrested four former members of the elite Scorpions paramilitary group for suspected war crimes against ethnic Albanians.
The four men are accused of gunning down 14 civilians in Podujevo, northern Kosovo, in March 1999, says Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic.
The arrests were made in the town of Sremska Mitrovica, 80 km (55 miles) northwest of Belgrade, on Friday.
The killings came at the start of Nato’s bombing campaign against Serbia.
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in these news stories. Violence, political violence, and the results of violence and economic despair. And then I read the dildo story,and I don’t know. Marble? On second thought, that does sound like a weapon. The “giggling ladies” may be just to distract to trick people into thinking this was not an instrument of torture and punishment, which would be my guess as to what these items actually were. Perhaps the laughing women are the ones who are using these things to hurt other women and to punish them for transgressions against the sexual order. That’s my guess. Maybe all the previous articles put my mind in that track, but I don’t think ceramic and marble dildos would be used for anything but to hurt someone–unless they were just used as statuary “art” or for religious purposes. Oh, it’s a gloomy Saturday morning. I’m listening to Brandi Carlisle “The Story” CD.
Yesterday afternoon I saw Ben Afflick’s “Gone, Baby Gone.” Anybody want to talk about it? His brother, Chris (?), the main character was SO GOOD–seriously, he should be up for some kind of award. I dont’ want to give anything away about the movie, but but the only criticism that I have–and it did not occur to me until I was driving home–was that no one in the movie smoked. That was not realistic. Funny that it did not hit me during the movie at all–I guess that is a testament to the movie, that I was so absorbed in the story that I did not notice that bit of incredibiltiy. Other than that, seriously, the movie–while I would not just genericallly tell the world to see it–was very much worth seeing. It was different. That’s all I’ll say, it is not just another version of a story you’ve heard many times. It was very different, and I think daring. I think Ben may have more in him. His brother was truly amazing–little tiny facial expressions, small ticks, lip quivers, an in-breath that said more than many words, so many of which I’m sorry to say could be difficult to catch because of the Southie accent, tight, pinched, choked.
I don’t know how to put this delicately, but I almost think they need subtitles for the Southie accents. At times, it gets tough to understand, but quite often the dialogue is not necessary–well it is, but you can get what is going on even if you miss a little of what is said here and there.
We all know about the Friday News Drop where stories that embarrass the White House are released on Friday afternoon when most people’s minds are not on political matters.
So, I’d like to propose a Monday News Drop from all Left Wing blogs. Wherein we save up the stories from Friday, analyze them and add our own perspectives.
This would have a serious impact on the way issues are discussed in America and would force the MSM to get deeper into important topics.
Anyone agree?
Post-US Scenarios in Iraq
The article examines various outcomes of a US withdrawal. It also examines who is supporting various post-US theories.
seeing how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers – by disguising herself as a vending machine.
I’d like my costume to be “Democrat with Spine.”
the theme here is regional reactions or local cultural conflicts which mirror our global,fearful, violent insanity. Liked this selection very much. My favorite was the ‘queer tools’ addition. Imagination, as an antidote to fear.