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Thursday, September 22, 2005

Ray Nagin, Hero or Moron ?

We think (together with U.S. News) that he's a moron:


Which politician emerged from the mess of Katrina as the biggest bonehead involved? No, it's not Michael Brown, George W. Bush, or even the bumbling Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

But New York Times calls him "a folk hero"...

Read more on:

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Firefox users, never EVER install NewsMonster !

The reading of this post is reserved to geeks who use Firefox. The others may skip it.

NewsMonster is supposed to be sort of a Firefox extension that should act as a RSS reader.
Do you want my advice ? NEVER EVER install it !

Good reasons for not installing it:
- the uninstall procedure DOESN'T WORK. How would you want to install a thing you cannot uninstall ?
- After the installation, a wide sidebar appears on the right, approximately 30% the size of the window, NOT sizeable, not shrinkable.
- some of the menu items added by NewsMonster seem not to work (especially the "NewsMonster Preferences" menu item, from which, by the way, you are supposed to uninstall the product...)
- unlike other Firefox extensions, NewsMonster is not listed among the other installed extensions (via the "Tools | Extensions" menu item)
- the OPML import function doesn't work. I tried to import my RSS feeds in OPML format, and it imported only one of them.

I successfully uninstalled it by doing the following tasks:
- closed Firefox
- deleted the c:\newsmonster folder
- under "c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome", I deleted "newsmonster.jar"
- under "c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\components", I deleted a group of files (*.jar, *.js) last modified at 10/23/2003, 3:13 AM
- under "c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\ subdirectories, edited every recently changed *.rdf file, trying either to delete xml tags containing the "newsmonster" string, or turning them into comments, i.e. changing tags like


<RDF:li>
...newsmonster...
</RDF:li>

into

<!--RDF:li>
...newsmonster...
</RDF:li-->

Strangely, it worked. Once reopening Firefox, the NewsMonster disappeared, and everything else seemed to work fine.

I'd not generally advice to do what I did for erasing NewsMonster. Don't do this at home. You might get burned.
Instead, I'd suggest to uninstall Firefox and reinstall it.

If you want a fairly good RSS reader, try FeedDemon. It is not perfect, it has a few defects , but it's better than many other RSS readers.

And DON'T install NewsMonster, for Heaven's sake !


Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Simon Wiesenthal, 1908-2005

Yeetgadal v' yeetkadash sh'mey rabbah
B'almah dee v'rah kheer'utey
v' yamleekh malkhutei,b'chahyeykhohn, uv' yohmeykhohn,
uv'chahyei d'chohl beyt yisrael,
ba'agalah u'veez'man kareev, v'eemru: Amein.
(The crowd answers: Amein. Y'hey sh'met rabbah m'varach l'alam u'l'almey almahyah)

Y'hey sh'met rabbah m'varach l'alam u'l'almey almahyah.
Yeet'barakh, v' yeesh'tabach, v' yeetpa'ar, v' yeetrohmam, v' yeet'nasei,
v' yeet'hadar, v' yeet'aleh, v' yeet'halal sh'mey d'kudshah b'reekh hoo
(The crowd answers: b'reekh hoo).

L'eylah meen kohl beerkhatah v'sheeratah,
toosh'b'chatah v'nechematah, da'ameeran b'al'mah, v'eemru: Amein
(The crowd answers: Amein).

Y'hei shlamah rabbah meen sh'mahyah,v'chahyeem
aleynu v'al kohl yisrael, v'eemru: Amein
(The crowd answers: Amein).

Oseh shalom beem'roh'mahv, hoo ya'aseh shalom,
aleynu v'al kohl yisrael v'eemru: Amein

(The crowd answers: Amein)

Sunday, September 18, 2005

"Holocaust Remembrance Day Caused London Bombings, and Makes Muslims Upset"

A committee appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair to “decrease the level of Muslim extremism” in the UK has advised him to cancel Holocaust Day, which is remembered by most European countries on January 26, because it makes Muslims feel offended, and because it caused London bombings.

More here>>


Katrina Victims Praise Bush and Blame Nagin, Disappointing ABC

A stunning example of media bias. Dean Reynolds, for ABC News, interviewed some people at Houston Astrodome, where many New Orleans refugees are located. But he had the answers to his questions he didn't want to hear:

“I'd like to get the reaction of Connie London who spent several horrible hours at the Superdome. You heard the President say retpeaedly that you are not alone, that the country stands beside you. Do you believe him ?

Connie London: “Yeah, I believe him, because here in Texas, they have truly been good to us. I mean-”

Reynolds: “Did you get a sense of hope that you could return to your home one day in New Orleans?”

London: “Yes, I did. I did.”

Reynolds: “Did you harbor any anger toward the President because of the slow federal response ?

London: “No, none whatsoever, because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in. They should have been on their jobs.”

Reynolds: “And they weren't?”

London: “No, no, no, no. Lord, they wasn't. I mean, they had RTA buses, Greyhound buses, school buses, that was just sitting there going under water when they could have been evacuating people.”

Reynolds: “Now, Mary, you were rescued from your house which was basically submerged in your neighborhood. Did you hear something in the President's words that you could glean some hope from?”

Mary: “Yes. He said we're coming back, and I believe we're coming back. He's going to build the city up. I believe that.”

Reynolds: “You believe you'll be able to return to your home?”

Mary: “Yes, I do.”

Reynolds: “Why?”

Mary: “Because I really believe what he said. I believe. I got faith.”

Reynolds: “Back here in the corner, we've got Brenda Marshall, right?”

Brenda Marshall: “Yes.”

Reynolds: “Now, Brenda, you were, spent, what, several days at the Superdome, correct?”

Marshall: “Yes, I did.”

Reynolds: “What did you think of what the President told you tonight?”

Marshall: “Well, I think -- I think the speech was wonderful, you know, him specifying that we will return back and that we will have like mobile homes, you know, rent or whatever. I was listening to that pretty good. But I think it was a well fine speech.”

Reynolds: “Was there any particular part of it that stood out in your mind? I mean, I saw you all nod when he said the Crescent City is going to come back one day.”

Marshall: “Well, I think I was more excited about what he said. That's probably why I nodded.”

Reynolds: “Was there anything that you found hard to believe that he said, that you thought, well, that's nice rhetoric, but, you know, the proof is in the pudding?”

Marshall: “No, I didn't.”

Reynolds: “Good. Well, very little skepticism here. Frederick Gould, did you hear something that you could hang on to tonight from the President?”

Frederick Gould: “Well, I just know, you know, he said good things to me, you know, what he said, you know. I was just trying to listen to everything they were saying, you know.”

Reynolds: “And Cecilia, did you feel that the President was sincere tonight?”

Cecilia: “Yes, he was.”

Reynolds: “Do you think this is a little too late, or do you think he's got a handle on the situation?”

Cecilia: “To me it was a little too late. It was too late, but he should have did something more about it.”

Reynolds: “Now do you all believe that you will one day return to your homes?”
Voices: “Yes” and “I do.”

Reynolds: “I mean, do you all want to return to your homes? We're hearing some people don't even want to go back.”

Mary: “I want to go back.”

Reynolds: “You want to go back.”

Mary: “I want to go back. That's my home. That's all I know.”

Reynolds: “Is it your home for your whole life?”

Mary: “Right. That's my home.”

Reynolds: “And do you expect to go back to the house or a brand new dwelling or what?”

Mary: “I expect to go back to something. I know it ain't my house, because it's gone.”

Reynolds: “What is the one mistake that could have been prevented that would have made your lives much better? Is it simply getting all of you out much sooner or what was it?”

Mary: “I'm going to tell you the truth. I had the opportunity to get out, but I didn't believe it. So I stayed there till it was too late.”

Reynolds: “Did you all have the same feeling? I mean, did you all have the opportunity to get out, but you were skeptical that this was the really bad one?”

Unnamed woman: “No, I got out when they said evacuate. I got out that Sunday and I left before the storm came. But I know they could have did better than what they did because like they said, buses were just sitting there, and they could have came through there and got people out, because they were saying immediate evacuation. Some people didn't believe it. But they should have brung the force of the army through to help these people and make them understand it really was coming.”

London: “And really it wasn't Hurricane Katrina that really tore up the city. It was when they opened the floodgates. It was not the hurricane itself. It was the floodgates, when they opened the floodgates, that's where all the water came.”

Reynolds: “Do you blame anybody for this?”

London: “Yes. I mean, they've been allocated federal funds to fix the levee system, and it never got done. I fault the mayor of our city personally. I really do.”

Reynolds: “All right. Well, thank you all very much. I wish you all the best of luck. I hope you don't have to spend too much more time here in the Reliant Center and you can get back to New Orleans as the President said. Ted, that is the word from the Houston Astrodome. And as I said, when the President said that the Crescent City will rise again, there were nods all around this parking lot.”

Thanks to Newsbusters.


Read more on:

Friday, September 16, 2005

Cindy Sheehan Aide Claims New Orleans Flood Caused by Government That Dynamited Levees To Protect The Rich

Andrea Garland:

we have learned that the reason our part of the neighborhood flooded was not due to the hurricane, but rather to a misguided effort on the part of our government. Fearing that the flood waters would invade Uptown New Orleans (the wealthy, white part of town), they dynamited another hole in the levy on our side to let flood waters in there and keeping them away from Uptown. Apparently they over did it with the dynamite.

Thanks to Free Republic.



Cindy Sheehan: "Pull Our Troops Out of OCCUPIED New Orleans"

WONDERFUL !! She's my anti-hero !!

Evidently, she got an abstinence crisis from media under-exposure. Poor lady ! Hurricane Katrina must have been a strong psychological hit for her.


Read more on:

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Democrats Recommendations on How to Exploit Katrina

From democrats.org web site (via Behind Enemy Lines):

"Use FEMA's disastrous behavior in N.O. TO ESTABLISH A PLATFORM RE: What DEMS do better...."

"Be sure to emphasize that Bush cut funding for items that would have increased their flooding prevention.
ALSO please please do not let our Governer Dean dare say as did Bill Clinton just now..."there is no way they could have known." Don't say it, it is a lie. We all knew it was crisis time. So please don't pander to Bush and say there is no way he could have known. Bush did not prepare and he cut FEMA. When Bill Clinton said that today, I wanted to scream. He should not have said that...it was a lie."


Read more on:

After Bush, Blanco: The Buck Stops Here

"We all know that there were failures at every level of government: state, federal and local. At the state level, we must take a careful look at what went wrong and make sure it never happens again. The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility."

More here.


Read more on:

Louisiana Congressman Uses National Guard to Secure His Personal Belongings

The congressman is William Jefferson, D-La.

A military truck, a helicopter and a half dozen military police were employed for rescuing a laptop, three suitcases and a box.

The details here.


Read more on:

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Governor Blanco: You Know, Maybe I Needed To Ask for More Troops

Maybe.

Read more on:

Palestinians Get Organized: Massive Weapon Smuggling in Gaza

Link, thanks to Drudge Report.

Read more on:

Power Outage in L.A (It's Bush's Fault)

There was a large power outage in Los Angeles. More coverage on Bush's mishandling of this emergency at Patterico.


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Salman Rushdie: Islamic Enlightenment

Rushdie calls for Reform Muslims:

“There are hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Britain who do not follow their religion as strictly as do the older generations . . . We are the mainstream Muslims who are keen to live in peace and harmony with other faith groups, feel proud of being British and are patriotic . . . I know of no organisation that represents the secular and liberal Islam that the vast majority of Muslims follow.”

I'm quite skeptical about an important Islamic reform movement, similar to Reform Judaism, coming out in the short term... but it's nonetheless interesting.

(Hat tip: Dinocrat)

Read more on:

Katrina Survivors Buying Luxury Items with Charity Money

Hope that some of the money given to Red Cross won't be wasted this way.

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Roberts is unfit for Supreme Court because HE is RACIST, OR because GOVERNMENT is RACIST

Howard Dean said John Roberts must be rejected as Supreme Court judge because he's racist.

Speaking about the black residents of New Orleans, who were the storm's most visible victims, Dean said that Roberts' "entire legal career appears to be about making sure those folks don't have the same rights everybody else does."

Barack Obama said Roberts is unfit because federal government's response to Katrina emergency showed how racist it is.
"I think what we do need to ask ourselves is whether he has the heart, the breadth of perspective and the recognition that historically the role of the court has been to look out not just for the powerful but also the powerless.

"I think that Katrina does indicate that we've got a lot of problems in our midst … in terms of poverty, in terms of the differences in life opportunities for blacks, whites, Hispanics," Obama said. "That has to inform how we think about every branch of government and their functions, and I think that the Supreme Court is no different."


Read more on:

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Venice and Burano

Click on the photo to start a slideshow. Hope you'll enjoy it.




Category:

Monday, September 12, 2005

Blogs aren't enough

Blogs have been doing a fantastic job in trying to fill in the information gaps and correct the bias, both on the Tigris and on the Mississippi, but blogs can only go so far. Let's be honest about it - not many people read blogs. We are talking about the daily readerships in thousands, or tens of thousands; even less when you count unique visitors.
(...)

Fox is not enough. We need a bigger media presence on TV, and even more so in print. That, again, will not be easy. The money, I believe could be found, but the bigger problem is the overwhelmingly left-liberal political culture of journalism. This is a pretty sad state of affairs, because we are not looking for propaganda mouthpieces, but simply enough forums that will give equal time and consideration to both sides of the story.


Interesting. From Chrenkoff.

Gone Fishing in Nawlins

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Al-Qaida Financers That Operate in Italy

...like Ahmed Idris Nasreddine. Links in English and Italian.

Read more on:

Not All Muslims are Terrorists, not All Terrorists are Muslims

...and not all terrorists are Arabs.

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and convert to Islam, be kept detained for terrorist activities.

Padilla was suspected by U.S. officials of plotting with al Qaeda to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.

In 2002, Padilla was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after returning from Pakistan.

Hat tip: Jawa.

Category:

Thursday, September 08, 2005

German minister Hopes Bush is "Shot Down"

Is Germany a U.S. ally ? With allies like these, who needs enemies ?

If you want someone to lose elections, you never use the expression "shot down". I never heard that. Just try to go around Germany and say: "you know, I wish Chancellor Schroeder to be shot down", and see what happens.

More here...

Category:

Don't Lick Your Ice Cream Like That !

In Saudi Arabia...

The muttawa—or religious police—are a self-elected goon squad of fundamentalists who surveil the Magic Kingdom's inhabitants, particularly its expatriates. The purpose of their scrutiny is to ensure conformity to their own warped, narrow-minded interpretation of Islam. Their scrutiny is often asinine and always absurd, as the following mundane example illustrates.

A woman and her female friend were sitting on a bench in the Kingdom Mall, eating ice cream cones, when along came a muttawa, accompanied by a police officer. (...) The muttawa approached the women, pointed a menacing claw, and hissed, "Don't lick it that way!"

Not being an authority on the subject, I can't with any confidence say there isn't a sura buried somewhere in the Qur'an covering the moral etiquette of licking ice cream.


More here...

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Wednesday, September 07, 2005

To Defeat Hamas, Compete with Hamas' Charity

From Counterterrorism Blog:

The need for humanitarian support is indeed acute in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where in 2004 47 percent of Palestinians were reported to be living below the poverty line. (...) The international community should launch a cooperative effort to create a trustworthy, transparent humanitarian relief system that fills the welfare void Hamas exploits that does not promote support of 'martyrs' families.'



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Anti-Imperialist Camp: Italy-Based Pro-Terrorist Group

A 2002 article from National Review:

While many Europeans have been vocally opposed to the war in Iraq, there is evidence that some have gone beyond simple disapproval and are actively supporting armed resistance against U.S. forces. In fact, throughout Europe, hardcore fascists and Communists have formed an unusual coalition whose purpose is to morally and financially support terrorist organizations, and, in particular, the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance: a coalition of Iraqi groups carrying out attacks against American and allied targets.

The IPA is a small group of mainly Communist Iraqi dissidents spread throughout Europe. It was virtually unknown before November 2002, when its leader, Abdul Jabbar Kubaisi, travelled to Baghdad to meet with high-ranking Iraqi officials. The move was part of Saddam Hussein's strategy to bury the hatchet with opposition groups and put together the widest coalition possible in case of an attack from the United States. According to IPA members, Saddam promised democratic reforms and Kubaisi, purportedly out of his love for Iraq, decided to side with the former Iraqi dictator against the American invasion. In February 2003 the IPA held a conference in Paris where its delegates pledged to fight the "American imperial aggression."

After the war began Kubaisi returned to Iraq, but left his lieutenant, Awni al Kalemji, in Europe to garner support for the IPA. After being arrested by Danish authorities for recruiting Iraqis in Denmark to fight alongside Saddam's fedayeen (a charge that was later dropped), Kalemji sought support from those Europeans who most viscerally opposed the war, especially the militants of the extreme Left who harbored a deep hatred of the U.S. and Israel. At summer's end Kalmeji was invited to the Anti-Imperialist Camp, a three-day conference held in the Italian town of Assisi, where militants from several extremist and terrorist organizations indulged in anti-American and anti-capitalistic rhetoric.

Italian intelligence officials noted that several well-known militants from the extreme Right decided to join the conference, their hatred of America trumping their differences with the Left. The list of official attendees reads like an extremist honor roll: Some are known members of fanatical right-wing organizations that openly support revisionist theses on the Holocaust and blame the world's evils on a "Zionist conspiracy." Their leader is university professor Franco Cardini, who has recently declared that the latest videos featuring Osama bin Laden were fabricated by the CIA to foster anti-Islamic sentiment. Another famous participant was Father Benjamin, a French priest who for years lobbied against the Iraq embargo and organized former Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz's visit to the Vatican in February of 2003, just before the war. Recently, the Iraqi newspaper Al Mada revealed that Father Benjamin was allegedly among the Westerners who had received funds from the Iraqi regime, but the French cleric denied such allegations. UCOII, an Italian Muslim organization whose members have openly supported suicide bombers in Israel, has also supported the initiative.

Also very active in the initiative were Suzanne Scheidt and Miguel Martinez, the curators of the extremist pro-Palestinian website of al Awda, a group that is linked with the Palestinian terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Scheidt, a German Communist, and Martinez, a Mexican right-wing activist who has flirted with both radical Christian and Muslim groups and who admitted to training Argentine fighters in Mexico with the sponsorship of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, are quintessential examples of this new alliance. Al Awda, which advocates the end of the "apartheid state of Israel," has managed to join, under the banner of anti-Americanism and a common hatred for Israel, radicals from various walks of life.

The organizers of the Anti-Imperialist Camp decided to collect money for the IPA, starting with a symbolic donation of ten euros for each participant. Given the success of the initiative, a bank account was created in Italy where donors could contribute through a toll-free number. The promoters of the initiative also created a website that is linked to from the websites of several left-wing organizations throughout Europe. And while the leaders of the initiative operate in Italy, militants in at least two other countries are actively supporting the IPA. In Austria, more than one hundred have donated money to the cause, and some local militants traveled to Baghdad with members of the IPA as human shields before the war. In Germany, students have set up stands in the historic centers of more than one city to collect money for the initiative.

European members of the IPA make no attempt to hide the fact that they are raising money for an organization that is carrying out attacks on Coalition forces, as Moreno Pasquinelli, one of the leaders of the group, made clear in a recent interview with Italian press. Pasquinelli, who was arrested in Italy on April 1 as part of a multinational police operation against the Turkish Marxist terrorist group DHKP-C, said that "it is none of our business to know how they will use (the money). They could print newspapers or buy weapons, for us it's the same."

Reading interviews with Kalemji published on several websites, it looks like the group prefers the weapons. After expressing hope that the Iraqi resistance resemble the "Vietnamese liberation war," Kalemji declared that the IPA has several hundred armed men fighting in Iraq, targeting all Western forces that have joined the American-led coalition and "anybody that cooperates with them." Kalemji is also careful to distinguish between what his group is doing and terrorism, saying that the IPA's actions are legitimate resistance and that the group does not attack civilians. Nevertheless, sources close to the Pentagon revealed on condition of anonymity that American military intelligence is actively looking into the IPA's activities in Iraq.

In December, Kalemji was received as a hero at a highly publicized event organized by the Anti-Imperialist Camp in Rome, and has traveled to other European countries to meet with other supporters and donors. Even though the activities of the IPA clearly fall under the definition of fundraising for a foreign terrorist organization according to German and Italian law, authorities in both countries have not acted. As a result, the IPA was able to organize another event in one of Milan's main squares on February 14. Under the watchful eyes of Italian authorities, new money continues to be collected to defeat the "arrogant American invader."


Category:

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Funding Improvements to New Orleans Levees Would Have Been Good or Bad ?

Good:

the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

New York Times, September 1, 2005

or bad:

Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America's rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects -- this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences.
The Government Accountability Office and other watchdogs accuse the corps of routinely inflating the economic benefits of its projects. And environmentalists blame it for turning free-flowing rivers into lifeless canals and destroying millions of acres of wetlands -- usually in the name of flood control and navigation but mostly to satisfy Congress's appetite for pork.

This is a bad piece of legislation.

New York Times, April 13, 2005

(Read for yourself at Eu Rota, thanks to Power Line)

Category:

Italy: Woman Too Sexy to Teach Religion

A woman was fired from her job for being 'too sexy':

Caterina Bonci said Church authorities decided she was just too attractive and dressed too sexy to teach religion after 14 years on the job.
The Church says it sacked the 38-year-old blonde from the central Adriatic city of Fano because she is divorced.
She said she has never hidden her 2000 divorce from Church authorities, dresses down when teaching and defended her right to dress how she likes in her private life.
"In school, I dressed normally. In my private life, I have every right to dress any way I want."

She had been working at that specific diocese for 14 years. What did she look like in the preceeding 13 years? Dirt?
Anyway, the fired woman is 38. Even though she is sexy according to the Catholic Church, she will find it next to impossible to find a job. Most places in Italy looking to hire specify a maximum age of what they require their applicant to be. Most of these are 25, so by Italian standards, that 38 year old, sexy or not, is over the hill.

(Source: CNN)


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New Orleans mayor : "Governor Blanco Said She Needed 24 Hours to Decide to Bring Troops In"

A CNN interview to mayor Ray Nagin.

(Thanks to LGF)

Category:

Monday, September 05, 2005

More photos of New Orleans buses

After that JunkYardBlog showed in his blog some aerial images of buses in New Orleans that could have been used for ridding thousands out of town, here are some other images taken by means of Google Earth.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

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Saturday, September 03, 2005

Telnet

For those of you who don't know what the heck telnet is, it's kind of what there was on the internet when there wasn't the world wide web yet.
Anyway.
If you have Windows XP, try to do this:
1. Press Start.
2. Press Run.
3. Type telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
4. Press OK.

And see what happens.

(Found on Uzyn.com).


Category:

Friday, September 02, 2005

To Kill an American

There's a text that has been circulating for years as an email:


You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper there an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So I just thought I would write to let them know what an American is, so they would know when they found one.

An American is English…or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them choose.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.

An American does not have to obey the mad ravings of ignorant, ungodly cruel, old men. American men will not be fooled into giving up their lives to kill innocent people, so that these foolish old men may hold on to power. American women are free to show their beautiful faces to the world, as each of them choose.

An American is free to criticize his government's officials when they are wrong, in his or her own opinion. Then he is free to replace them, by majority vote.

Americans welcome people from all lands, all cultures, all religions, because they are not afraid. They are not afraid that their history, their religion, their beliefs, will be overrun, or forgotten. That is because they know they are free to hold to their religion, their beliefs, their history, as each of them choose.

And just as Americans welcome all, they enjoy the best that everyone has to bring, from all over the world. The best science, the best technology, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.

Americans welcome the best, but they also welcome the least. The nation symbol of America welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed.

These in fact are the people who built America. Many of them were working in the twin towers on the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo and Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world.

But in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

So look around you. You may find more Americans in your land than you thought were there. One day they will rise up and overthrow the old, ignorant, tired tyrants that trouble too many lands. Then those lands too will join the community of free and prosperous nations.

And America will welcome them.

I liked it and I wanted to make a post out of it. I found it on the blog of Esperimento, but originally it was an article written in 2001 by Peter Ferrara, called What Is An American ?



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Thursday, September 01, 2005

Bush urges Americans conserve gas

What!? Is he thinking people will make supplies of gas ? And how ? By putting it in their closets ?

... urged Americans not to buy gasoline if they do not need it because of looming shortages


Does he think people fill up because they need to, or he thinks some fill up for fun ??
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Desperate SOS

Link:

Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday.
(...)
Anger mounted across the ruined city, with thousands of storm victims increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to take them out.
(...)
"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and the and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing — no food, no water, no medicine.
(...)
About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.
(...)
A military heliocpter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.
(...)
An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.
(...)
"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."
(...)
The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.
(...)
"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said.
(...)
The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, descended into chaos as well.
(...)
Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door — a seething sea of tense, unhappy, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder up to the barricades where heavily armed National Guardsmen stood.
(...)
At the front of the line, heavily armed policemen and guardsmen stood watch and handed out water as tense and exhausted crowds struggled onto buses. At the back end of the line, people jammed against police barricades in the rain. Luggage, bags of clothes, pillows, blankets were strewn in the puddles.
(...)
Many people had dogs and they cannot take them on the bus. A police officer took one from a little boy, who cried until he vomited. "Snowball, snowball," he cried. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.
(...)
In Texas, the governor's office said Texas has agreed to take in an additional 25,000 refugees from Katrina and plans to house them in San Antonio, though exactly where has not been


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1,400 National Guard troops per day are being sent in New Orleans

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

Hope it will be useful to something, to regain control of New Orleans in DAYS, not WEEKS. To save as many lives as possible.

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Katrina Hurricane Relief Effort

Donate to http://www.redcross.org.

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a terrorist, according to State Department...

...but he'll have a visa to speak at the United Nations on the day after September 11: he got an exception to terror laws.

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