We're off the air!!!!!!

6 November 2007
Dateline....

Don't you miss that? Don't news outlets know how to be newsy anymore? Did Walter Cronkite take that with him when he retired?

Anyways, I've been out of it for a few weeks. I'm moving into the gritty part of the semester and I'm actually beginning to enjoy it. Granted, I'm jobless (which sucks) and I'm still nursing a perpetual broken hand. But no worries...

I have several things with which to undertake on this November day. They are as follows:

1. Hillary Clinton's "victimhood"
2. waterboarding
3. Writers' Guild Strike
4. My awesome presentation in Global Studies last week
5. Pakistan: 'nuff said

They will not be attacked in that order. Also, I will be writing another get to know the candidates here in a week. I will also be filling you in on some WWII stuff that is rather current. On Sunday, we will have Armistice Day which is a significant day and not just for veterans.

With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, we move on to the opinions.

Pakistan. Its not even the only one undergoing political upheaval. There is some going on in Georgia. Suicide bombings are taking place with more frequency in Afghanistan. First, a small history of this nation. The nation originally was two chunks sliced from India in 1947 in what is called Partition. This was a bloody birth for the young nations. In 1971, the eastern part split away and became Bangladesh. Pakistan has alternated since 1972 between Prime Ministers named Bhutto, first Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and then his daughter, Benazir Bhutto, and military leaders. In 1998, the nation became nuclear just after India did which led to a war particularly in the long contested borderland, Kashmir. In 1999, the current military dictator Pervez Musharraf took over in a bloodless coup. Since then he has reigned over the Muslim state with a heavy hand and yet, the current US administration has fostered a closer relationship than most would find comfortable. Benazir Bhutto returned from 9 years of exile just last month.

On November 1, Bhutto left Pakistan for Dubai. The following day the Supreme Court of Pakistan reversed an earlier decision to allow for an election to proceed in January without scrutinizing the previous election that was challenged by Wajihuddin Ahmad. At 1720, November 3, the Pakistani television reported that a state emergency was imminent. Twenty minutes later, the private media went off the air. At 10 minutes after 6 PM, local time, the state run stations reported that indeed the state emergency had been declared. At 7, it is reported that constitution has been suspended.

Musharraf has claimed that he declared martial law to protect the nation from terrorists. In reality, it is a power grab.. Bhutto has stated that Pakistan is returning to a dictatorship. Musharraf has expressed some dismay with the media's "negative" reporting. "The media could not lend a helping hand to improve the situation" said Musharraf in his speech to the people of Pakistan. The Army has entered the Supreme Court and detained detained Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry because the "judiciary is not working efficiently".

Since the emergency began, journalists, lawyers and other "terrorists" have been detained or in some cases, killed. As seen in other power grabs throughout history, liberal middle classes and the ‎educated classes have been targeted. These are the people who are going to object and will be able to do more than merely object but rally opposition. They pose a huge danger to the regime that Musharraf wants to hold onto. And of course, protests and violence as the Army cracks down on media outlets and regular citizens alike.

What may disturb many Americans is Musharraf's references to Lincoln. Lincoln, though credited with preserving the union and abolishing slavery, made some decisions that, in hindsight, are not considered the wisest. During the Civil War, as with any war, the executive retained certain powers that were stipulated under the constitution. One of these was Habeas Corpus. Over the course of American History, there have been several times when laws have been imposed and rights infringed. Presidents Adams (the first one), Wilson, Roosevelt (the second one) and Nixon have all made strides to make being American a lot tougher.

Bush is right in there who buttered up this military leader so that we could use Pakistan for our wars. Now, we don't even know what to do. The State Department tells Musharraf to knock it off. They keep expressing disappointment. Oh, like that's a threat? Well, yeah, it could be since their alliance was rather... lucrative on their end.

I want to send out a huge "oorah" (I'm ex Navy) to Geo TV and ARY one for deciding to continue reporting the news on the Internet. By doing so, they are working to keep not only their fellow Pakistanis informed but also the rest of the world. Otherwise, we are all stuck with Musharraf and the sanitized state-run media (which I'm sure even you guys are sick of). They're risking a lot to not be complacent and keep working to bring out the truth. For those who understand Urdu go for it. Even if you don't they do speak in English occasionally. For myself, I know Hindi and can make out some of the words and get the gist.

In the meantime, the story is receiving little coverage here in the United States. The Cable News outlets are barely mentioning it. CNN has paid it some attention whilst Fox has devoted nightly opinion shows to Dog the Bounty Hunter. Bill O'Reilly is a lost cause: his show is an excuse to show banned or salacious material that his stooges find on the Internet that "we should not see" and then are shown anyways.

I need to move on. What else is on the list? Hillary Clinton. Lately she has found that the rest of the Democratic candidates are ganging up in her like the Republicans have been. There has been some call that its an "Old Boys Club" and they are ganging up on her cause she's a chick. Well, I don't know about her being a woman, but I don't think that's why. Its called ganging up on the guy in the lead. Or in football, the guy with the ball.

She's the receiver and the ball slips. She dives as does everybody else, those on the team, on the opposing team and the kickers (Paul and Kucinich). They all pile up on the ball. Its going to be about who has the ball when the ref pulls the bodies off.

So, why the complaining? Because it works! By playing the victim she gets women who know what she means. Women can't get a decent run for anything in this country. Men are unable to claim that they are just ganging up on the leader because it sounds sexist. They're screwed.

But is it that tough for a woman in a man's world? Can a woman become the leader of a country? I would like to take this time to point out that both India and Pakistan have elected women as leaders. These are two nations considered far more conservative than the United States. In addition, the first elected women Prime Minister (Ministress?) was Sirivamo Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka in 1960, the same year the United States elected its first Roman Catholic. 1974 saw the first women president in Argentina, Isabel Perón, otherwise known as Evita.

On top of all this there are currently 7 female presidents worldwide: Chile, Finland, India, Ireland, Liberia, The Philippines and Switzerland. There are 4 Prime Ministers: Germany, New Zealand, Mozambique and The Netherlands Antilles. Only Suadi Arabia and Monoco have never had a female anywhere in government. Sweden became the first to recently have their "cabinet" be more female than male with an 11-9 count. If these women can make it, what's wrong with Hillary? If Benazir Bhutto could make it?!?!?!? Hell, some countries who've managed to be led by a woman have been Norway, Canada, Ukraine, Panama, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Peru, Latvia, Yugoslavia, Indonesia, Malta, Turkey, Portugal, France, Jamaica, and I don't know... GREAT BRITAIN!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I need to get onto other things. Like Waterboarding. Yeah, Waterboarding. The practice is torture. Messing around with the legal terminology all you want does not change the fact that it is torture. It is also form of coercion.

You hold a gun to a person's head and tell them to tell you what you want to know or they die. Hmm... tough choice. Either they bet you bluff or they spill their guts/lie. They more than likely lie. When you say "tell me what I want to know!!!" Gee, ok. I'll tell you. And we have laws to reject confessions from being admissible as evidence. So, what makes the evidence gleaned from this practice any more credible? Because its the CIA?!?!?! Oh God, we're all fucked!!!!!!

Now, the Writer's Strike. Beyond the fact that I've waited long enough for Battlestar Galactica. The writers have now seen fit to stop working. As ticked some of us may be, there is a point to this madness. It is the fees that are made off internet and DVD sales. These writers create material that is, like it or not, intellectual material. Depsite the traditional way of seeing the writing as a product for the show and therefore, the show's property, we've changed where something conceived in someone's mind is now their property. Even if they were paid a salary to do it and should be happy.

But with the MPAA and RIAA raising a ruckus about intellectual property and the copyrights it is now coming back to bite them. Well, its biting the MPAA. The RIAA has its own hydra to worry about. It cannot have it both ways. The writers want to have some of the take when it becomes natural that a film or TV show which 20 years ago made a splash at the box office, faded, maybe made some money in Video sales and rentals then died, is now making killings years after its wrap party. These goods now make money in perpetuity and the writers feel they should, too. So, in essence I agree with them. I just hope that people start watching more news or something.

All Right... last thing... I think.... well two. I had to give a presentation in class on Thursday. My topic was the Global Civil Society and particularly warfare of modern era. I stood up at the front of the classroom and lectured on this with a 72 count powerpoint presentation. I went to town and talked about everything. And when I was done speaking there were a lot of questions. I spent another 45 minutes discussing those.

Afterwards, I was outside with many of my classmates. I got a bunch of good reviews and was even told I should teach the class. So, I feel pretty good about that. I did very well when I thought I might not.

Today, in my Comparative Constitution class, a question was posed to us in the course of debating headscarves in Germany. The Metric system has yet to be adopted in the US making us the lone holdout against the rest of the world. What was brought up was our reason for not jumping on the bandwagon. It would cost trillions to change over all the measurements in the entire country. Well, other western nations have done that and we wouldn't be talking about a 2 year switchover plan. More like 20 year.

And, those trillions would create jobs. Which would create taxes. So, the trillions would end up in government coffers in some way. The government could even go so far as to offer tax deductions to companies who such and such money to implement the plan especially if they do so quicker than mandated by the 20 year plan. We'd start saving money because we spend gobs of money every year on conversions. Yes, conversions!!! In the end companies would save moeny. They also wouldn't have to make things like speedometers in two sets of numbers!

Ok, on this day in 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America.

A scant four years later, the last unit to surrender after the Civil War was the CSS Shenandoah. It circumnavigated the globe and went looking for ships to sink. Um, kind of sounds rednecky if you ask me, which you didn't. And it managed to fire it guns off the coast of Alaska.

On this day in 1917, the third battle of Ypres ends as does the irregular papers printed celebrating the "entrenched" battle being waged there.

Back in 1935, Edwin Armstrong revealed his radio discovery called Frequency Modulation aka, FM.

In 1985, "Irangate" was undergoing and it was uncovered that Reagan authorized shipments of arms to Iran.

Time to blow this popsicle stand.

Smoking Lamp is out!

Remember Dru

Its a Friday and therefore, don't give me a lot of news to ponder over the weekend. However, having said that, I know I will ponder away and listen to NPR because I cannot get my XM to work at my job (deep in the bowels of a pool hall kitchen) so I'm without my beloved CNN. One could do with worse things...

First off, the major international shakeup in diplomacy. Ya gotta love "he said, he said, denial" moments even if they aren't on a sitcom or soap. The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, remarked to CBS that a US official (Richard Armitage, who was Deputy Secretary of State to Colin Powell) told Musharraf that he had to cooperate with the US or Pakistan would be bombed "back to the stone age". Whether this can be done is not a question. Look at what a hurricane did here! The question is did he? Armitage may have made the comment but everyone is deying it in a scramble to cover their own ass...ets. Armitage would never have had the authorization to implement force of any kind and so making a comment like this would have been foolhardy. Food for thought: If one makes threats he can't fullfil, he's a jackass. If one believes them, he's an idiot. Regardless, this will play out as the current administration takes criticsm from foreign leaders visiting the US and from even our allies. There isn't a lot of room for latitude and this only adds to the melee.


Like they say on NPR: Science Friday. In many ways it was the newsmaker today. One of the astronauts who returned from their 12 day mission aboard Atlantis collapsed not once but twice today during a ceremony to welcome the crew home. Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper collapsed once after beginning to appear confused. After being revived she attempted to continue speaking only to collapse again in a similar manner less than a minute later. She was then escorted through the side door at Ellington Air Base. NASA officials are citing fatigue and adjustment from the Cosmic Electricians 2 grueling spacewalks and her time in zero gravity.

The First Iraninan into space is a woman. She's also the first woman who is a space tourist. Iranian-born US citizen Anousheh Ansari has been enjoying herself aboard the International Space Station after arriving on a Soyuz spacecraft with a cosmonaut and astronaut. She is taking photos, listening to amateur radio and staying out of the way of those trying to actually work. She is a 40-year-old telecoms entrepreneur by day.

Twenty-three people died in a accident involving a maglev train in Germany. The train wsa only warrying 15 passengers since it was testing the track. Reportedly, the accident was caused by human error after the train struck a mainenance vehicle on the track. In addition to the 23 fatalities, 10 others are also listed as injured. These numbers may change. This is the first such incident in the life of the Magnetic Levitation trains. The train was estimated to be travelling at 125mph at the test track in northwestern Germany. Currently, the only commercially operated train is in Shanghai and the trains may reach up to 270mph. That being said, the Japanese have clocked one going as fast as 361mph. At thi time, German officials are laying blame on Human Error. It seems there may have been a series of failures leading to the vehicle being on the track.

And finally, in legal (and local news), Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr. was given the Death Penalty for his kidnapping, beating, raping and later stabbing of University of North Dakota student, Dru Sjodin. This story has been huge around here. Almost as big as the psycho hmong hunter last fall. The case, though tried in North Dakota, was a federal case. The man is from Crookston, MN and crossed state lines. Since the case was federal, a death penalty was always possible. In North Dakota, the death penalty is not legal. It has been nearly a century since such a fate has been handed out by a jury in North Dakota.

Please remember the bright, wonderful person that was Dru Sjodin. She had her whole life in front of her and had it ended so mercilessly.

How thick could you get?

The baggage of one Howard McFarland Fish, 21, of Conncecticut, was found to have dynamite in it. Yeah, the stuff created by some Swedish guy named Nobel to blow shit up with. Reportedly there was a half stick as well as other bomb making components. The man was on his way back to college presumably. Though authorities don't believe he was engaged in terrorism nor planned any terrorist acts, his motives are unknown as well as his intentions. All I know is, he's a dumbshit.

Following up on a story reported here, the FDA's controversial decision to allow drugmaker Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. to make the drug over-the-counter has some reactions. Time Magazine is running a story on its website that "both sides of the debate were quick to decry the FDA's ruling as political." Andrew von Eschenbach, the acting FDA commisioner is still in the running to be confirmed as the commisioner. After the drug was aprroved, two senators namely Patty Murray and Hillary Clinton withdrew their objections to his nomination. They both were adamently opposed to von Eschenbach unless he aprroved the pill. In response, fatih-based groups called on President Bush "to withdraw von Eschenbach's nomination altogether because of the pills that, if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, can greatly reduce the chance of pregnancy". So now the truth comes to light. Its all political maneuvering. The FDA did limit the purchase of the drug to those 18 and older though the drug company is still targetting those as young as 16.

Now here I will editorialize: I understand the faith-based groups desire to make sure every life is born regardless of it being wanted, cared for and nourished, but saying a woman cannot get a pill to prevent conception in an emergency is insane. THere is no life killed; just prevented. Also, they are currently limiting the purchase to those who are adults, who've acheived majority. This means they are supposedly capable of taking their own matters into their own hands. I needed to after my stupid boyfriend at the time decided to take the condom off when I had been out of my pills for a week or so. I was worried and I had to run around and spend a lot of money to get the stupid thing.

Now, I also have a problem with Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. You want to to market this drug to 16-year-olds? You also would like to due clinical studies on 15-year-olds!?! I see serious ethical dilemnas on the horizon for you. And social conservatives worried that this will encourage promiscuity: If you don't want it, don't have it. Promiscuity is very old. Older than you.

Former Prime Minister of Ukraine (Україна) was jailed here in the US on charges of fraud, extortion and money-laundering. The guy is a real winner. Pavlo Lazarenko (Павло Іванович Лазаренко) has also been convicted of laundering $6.6M through Swiss banks and with ordering the 1996 killing of a prominent politician, Yevhen Shcherban, and two failed assassination attempts on high-ranking officials in Ukraine. He has been sentenced to nine years prison time and a fine of $10M.

According to the BBC, Pakistani born Javed Iqbal stands accused of offering the Hezbollah (حزب الله) run station al-Manar (المنار) to consumers in New York. The man claims its a violation of his first amendment rights. First of all, it is not. It is a violation of his right to make a profit. However, I do agree that he has the right to broadcast the station for interested persons in New York. Secondly he was doing business with a terrorist group. That is what he is officially charged with. Its gonna be a tough one to fight that. Even though I think he shouldn't be charged with anything, I can't see the courts being unbiased enough.

On this day back in 1718, the port city of New Orleans (Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in Louisiana, then territory of France.

Conicidently, on this day a year ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Florida before returning to the water, that being the very steamy Gulf of Mexico, where it would strengthen to a Category 3 storm the following day and proceed on its fateful and fatal clash with New Orleans.