Stingrays Take First Shots in Revolution
From a news article posted on Yahoo October 19, 2006:
LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Fla. - An 81-year-old boater was in critical condition Thursday after a stingray flopped onto his boat and stabbed him, leaving a foot-long barb in his chest, authorities said . . .
Fatal stingray attacks like the one that killed "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin last month are rare, marine experts say. Rays reflexively deploy a sharp spine in their tails when frightened, but the venom coating the barb usually causes just a painful sting for humans . . .
Ellen Pikitch, a professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami, who has been studying stingrays for decades, said they are generally docile.
"Something like this is really, really extraordinarily rare," she said. "Even when they are under duress, they don't usually attack."
Everyone has a limit.
Fuck That Universal Rights Shit, This Is America
Just in case there was any confusion that treatment of suspected terrorists or enemies of this state which has declared war at large or "unlawful enemy combatants" was inadvertent or hasty or even just a special case, the Republican controlled government passed into law precisely the intention to set the U.S. apart from not only the Geneva Convention, but its own constitutional principle of due process and the legacy of habeas corpus. The Military Commissions Act was signed by George W. Bush on October 17, 2006.
Excerpts below are from an article by Jim Lobe posted September 30, 2006, on Antiwar.com, which can be read in entirety here: http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9775.
Passage of the MCA, which Bush said will "ensure (that U.S. troops) are prepared to defeat today's enemies and address tomorrow's threats," puts an end to a three-week Congressional debate over what to do about a July Supreme Court decision that found that, contrary to the administration's position, suspected terrorists in U.S. custody were entitled to the protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions as a matter of both U.S. and international law. . . .
One particular item of concern was the bill's expansion of the definition of "unlawful enemy combatants" who could be subject to detention under the MCA to cover persons – including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents – who have "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its cobelligerents," or anyone deemed as such by a "Combatant Status Review Tribunal," which is overseen by the Pentagon . . .
Moreover, it bars the Geneva Conventions from being invoked in any lawsuit against the U.S. government.
Yet another provision permits the government to introduce evidence in military tribunals that was coerced under torture or gathered illegally either here or abroad or based on hearsay.
"Nothing could be less American than a government that can indefinitely hold people in secret torture cells, take away their protections against horrific and cruel abuse, put them on trial based on evidence they cannot see, sentence them to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and then slam shut the courthouse door for any habeas corpus petition," said Christopher Anders, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "But that's exactly what Congress just approved."
Checking Out: The Cost of Wal-Mart
From an article by Kevin O'Hanlon of the Associated Press, September 19, 2006:
Counties with a Wal-Mart store experience slower growth in their standard of living than those without the world's largest retailer, according to a preliminary study released [September 19, 2006].
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln study compared growth in household income from 1979 to 2002 in 19 Nebraska counties with Wal-Marts to 74 without, after controlling for other economic variables that determine household income . . .
After accounting for the other variables, the UNL study found that the average annual growth in median household income, adjusted for inflation, in the 19 counties with a Wal-Mart was $142.62 below the average annual growth in the 74 counties without a Wal-Mart.
Universalization Is Universal Everywhere
A new study of universalizing studies has found the propensity for universalisms universal.
Conducted over 4 hours during a 1400-month period by the SUNY Baden-Baden Ouagadougou Research Facility with a direct imposition of funds from The Redundant Foundation, LLC, the study's results will be published in the much more important and scientifical journals *True Nature* and *Xtreme Science*, not just here.
The study was a statistical correlation of statistical correlation studies that found a preponderance of universalizing construals of traits statistically significant to be reported as positive fact.
"We can now say with the sort of air of verification we didn't care about before to say it anyway that the tendency to project our tendencies into everything is universal," said Dr. Sniv Ling-Wiesel, an expert in public relations science. "This proves what we've wanted all along, that what we want to see is what we get."
A measure before the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to back the absolute and incontrovertible validity and trueness of the results of the study by making it illegal to interpret it any other way, even by another branch of government that's supposed to have the power to do so. The bill will pass by a vote of 435-137 next week.
Bush to Invade Russia
An exchange with Vladimir Putin at a joint news conference in St. Petersburg, July 15, 2006:
"I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing," Bush said.
Putin replied: "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I can tell you quite honestly."
"Just wait," Bush said after Putin's remarks were translated into English.
Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo
[aka The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]
If the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan was a tribute to good will, sportsmanship, and a broader scope of world competition, the 2006 World Cup in Germany was a return of traditional powers, and a resurgence of the worst aspects of the sport. Though it was through no fault of the host country, this was a tournament that featured the ugly aspects of the game. A thuggish and weaselly activity, aimed at other players and the referee, still stands for football, as apparently winning at any cost for national honor (nationalism?) still stands for internationalism and cosmopolitanism in sport. While soccer's international governing body paraded banners of its official anti-racism and fair play prior to matches, the players threw elbows and insults in the matches.
In the ugly tournament, the ugly game prevailed, and the best at the ugly game triumphed. But even someone who might have been the good couldn't let the bad make off with all the ugliness, and gave the whole tournament its signature moment, away from the ball and while the action was stopped: Zinedine Zidane, named MVP in spite of it, finished the event and his career, and stole the thunder of the Italians, with a header of another player's chest.
Here's the less infamous record:
The Official Language United States of America
As part of the effort to eliminate immigrant influence from Our Country in this time of terror and evil axles, we present a United States purged of any words derived from languages other than fully approved, sanctioned, authorized and divinely ordained English. Of course, many of the words of this paragraph will have to be thrown out, too, due to Norman and Hun contamination, as we will explain further in a forthcoming essay, just as the name "America" will have to be pruned from the more proper name of Our Country. See the map at this link:
The Official Language United States
