Sunday, March 16, 2008

Happy Sunday Morning

Here is some Chuck Mangione:

Did anyone not see this coming?

McCain Makes Unannounced Trip To Iraq

With 13 U.S. Troops Killed This Week, GOP Candidate Who Supports Bush's War Makes "Fact-Finding" Visit

Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president, was in the Iraq on Sunday for meetings with Iraqi and U.S. diplomatic and military officials, a U.S. government official said.

Details of McCain's visit were not being released for security reasons, the U.S. embassy said. (Click here for more)

Unreal...

So our government won't help people after a natural disaster, hello New Orleans and now they won't even warn people?? A tornado ripped a 6 mile path through Atlanta. It hit two adjacent sports arenas filled with fans for a NCAA tourney and a Hawks game. The fans in the stadium were not told of the tornado. They were not moved or warned. Two people have died because of the tornado. From Yahoo News:

About 18,000 people were watching the Southeastern Conference men's tournament Friday night at the Georgia Dome when its fabric roof began rippling, the catwalks above the court started swaying and chunks of insulation rained onto the players.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning about eight minutes before the twister hit, but it wasn't clear when or if that alert was passed on to fans, said Katy Pando, a dome spokeswoman. Fans claimed they never heard or saw one.

Really!?! I'm sorry but if I was at that game I would be pissed. A tornado is barring down on me while I watch hoops and they get an 8 minute warning of it and they don't notify me? Unreal.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

On Air Cat Fight..

This has to be the best on air fight I have ever seen. I wish I could edit it down. You have to wait till the last 30 seconds or so but it is soooooo worth the time. I just can't figure out who owned who. Priceless.

Up to 100 Killed in Tibet

Tibet protest crackdown claims up to 100 lives

By David Eimer in Beijing

Tourists were warned that if they ventured beyond their hotels they risked being shot. Yesterday morning there were soldiers and police posted on every street corner, Mr Plooj said. "They had a circle around the very centre and no-one could get in there."

In a now-practised formula for dealing with internal protests, one that was copied by Burma's ruling junta last year when they cracked down on protesting Buddhist monks, the Chinese authorities have moved to isolate Tibet from the rest of the world. There is no internet access to Tibet-related websites anywhere in China and mobile telephone coverage is spotty. (Click here for more)

*UPDATE* -The Dalai Lama is arguing (and I think correctly) that China is commiting cultural genocide. (click here for more)

Mitch Hedberg Sat Tribute

I have no idea what this guy is talking about....

....but he seems to not like McCane:

Two great stories from this month's Vanity Fair

The $3 Trillion War
After wildly lowballing the cost of the Iraq conflict at a mere $50 to $60 billion, the Bush administration has been concealing the full economic toll. The spending on military operations is merely the tip of a vast fiscal iceberg. In an excerpt from their new book, the authors calculate the grim bottom line. (click here for more)

II)

The Gaza Bombshell
After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever. (click here for more)

China has killed up to 30 in Tibet:

BEIJING (AFP) - Tibet's exiled government said Saturday that about 30 people had been killed during unrest in Lhasa, as Chinese troops locked down the city amid fierce international scrutiny ahead of the Olympics.
Witnesses said tanks and soldiers were out in force in Lhasa following Friday's protests, the biggest against China's controversial rule of Tibet since 1989, as authorities set a Monday deadline for perpetrators to surrender.
"We are confirming approximately 30 deaths, and we are even hearing numbers of over 100 dead, but this number we are unable to confirm," Tenzin Taklha, a senior official of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamshala in northern India, told AFP. (click here for more)

The global front for NAMBLA, ie, the International Olympic Committee, has stated that there should be no boycott of the 2008 games:

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge (turd on the right) poured cold water
Saturday on calls for a boycott of the Summer Games in Beijing over China's
crackdown in Tibet, saying it would only penalize athletes. (Click
here for more)

This is absurd, offensive to the very concept of reason, and downright flabbergasting. They should just cancel the damn games altogether and instead spend a month having people in the West manufacture their own textiles. That would make much better television than 14 year old girls playing with monkey bars. Besides, doesn't Mr. Rogge (and I use the title Mr. very, very loosely) have a conflict of interest here? He has no soul and no rational for speaking at all. I highly recommend ignoring him whenever and wherever possible.