assorted hallucinations

Oh PLEASE click HERE for a wonderful music video. In Disney's "Dumbo," nasty circus people have spiked the baby elephant's water with liquor, and he hallucinates the famous Pink Elephants. It's one of the greatest moments of animation, but this remix features the cover by the remarkable jazz musicians from Saturn, Sun Ra and His Arkestra.

Pink Elephants On Parade

from the Walt Disney
animated feature "Dumbo" (1941)

lyrics: Ned Washington

Look out! Look out!
Pink elephants on parade!
Here they come!
Hippety hoppety

They're here and there
Pink elephants ev'rywhere
Look out! Look out!
They're walking around the bed
On their head
Clippety cloppety

Arrayed
In braid
Pink elephants on parade!
What'll I do?
What'll I do?
What an unusual view!

I could stand the sight of worms
And look at microscopic germs
But Technicolor pachyderms
Is really too much for me!

I am not the type to faint
When things are odd
or things are quaint
But seeing things you know that ain't
Can certainly give you an awful fright!
What a sight!

Chase 'em away!
Chase 'em away!
I'm afraid!
Need your aid!
Pink elephants on parade!
Pink elephants!
Pink elephants!

==========

I'm a little long-winded, so maybe The Columbus Dispatch might not run my Letter to the Editor.

Sue me. Read it on Vleeptron.

==============

Letters to the Editor
The Columbus Dispatch
Columbus, Ohio USA

To the Editor:

Of all the tasteless and insensitive things I have ever read in a newspaper, your public humiliation of Professor John Burnham of Ohio State University, by running his column "Former Drug Czars Believe Their War Has Been Won" (30 June), is surely the most shameful.

Professor Burnham is clearly suffering from the most virulent hallucination I have ever witnessed, with or without LSD or liquor's pink elephants. He's convinced 35 years of America's War On Drugs have achieved Victory.

In 1965, when I graduated from high school, I had never met a human being who had ever smoked marijuana. I couldn't have found any marijuana, heroin or cocaine if I'd waved a hundred-dollar bill all over my large city for a week.

Now, with Victory achieved, these substances, plus methamphetamine and ecstacy, are a phone call or a 24/7 open-air drug market away throughout America, at prices to fit any teenager's allowance. (Legal, taxed, government-supervised alcohol is far more difficult for teens to obtain.)

I feel such sympathy for Professor Burnham's inability to notice the reality nearly every American, urban or rural, can see and, by gunshots in the night, hear.

The Nutty Professor looks back on America's 14 years of Alcohol Prohibition and concludes:

"Historians have established that the 1920s experiment in alcohol prohibition was successful and was repealed in 1933 only because of a massive, well-financed propaganda campaign."

In other words, Professor Burnham believes that if America had Done The Right Thing, it would still be a crime for an adult to drink a beer or a glass of wine. Franklin D. Roosevelt was an evil drug legalizer.

America's Drug War has achieved one Victory. Led by these remarkable Drug Czars, a bipartisan political emphasis on police, prosecutors and prisons has made my Land of the Free the world's largest prison system.

When I was growing up, this distinction belonged to the Siberian Gulags of the Soviet Union, and before that, to Nazi-occupied Europe. In 2000, under the leadership of Czar and former Army general Barry McCaffrey, this pathetic Gold Medal passed to the USA, and we now boast 2,300,000 children, women and men behind bars. We're Number One!

Stop shaming this troubled man and enabling his problems. Get the guy -- and the USA -- some help immediately!

Robert Merkin
Northampton, Massachusetts

*******************

Friday 30 June 2006
Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright 2006 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact: letters@dispatch.com
Website: http://www.dispatch.com/
Author: John C . Burnham
Note: John Burnham is research professor of history at Ohio State University, where he specializes in the history of medicine and American social history.

FORMER DRUG CZARS
BELIEVE THEIR WAR
HAS BEEN WON

The United States has won the war against illegal drugs. That was the conclusion of a unique gathering on June 17, which marked the 35th anniversary of the war's beginning in 1971 with the appointment of Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe, a psychiatrist, as the first White House drug czar.

Jaffe was joined at the the anniversary gatheing in by six other former czars, Dr. Robert L. Du Pont, Dr. Peter G. Bourne, Lee I. Dogoloff, Dr. Donald Ian Mac-Donald, Lee Brown and retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey. Also attending were 20 former staff members and a handful of experts, including me, a specialist historian.

The meeting, sponsored and hosted by the University of Maryland, was held for the purpose of making a historical record.

The seven former czars and former staff members held remarkably unanimous views, though they come from a variety of backgrounds and included Democrats and Republicans who worked for five very different presidents. And what they had to say was often surprising.

The main conclusion that we won the war on drugs was the biggest surprise, because advocates of illegal drugs have in recent years filled the media with rhetoric about "the failed war on drugs." The czars' straightforward conclusion may come as a shock, but, as they outlined what the war was about, what they had to say made a lot of sense.

Thirty-five years ago, the big worry was the veterans who were returning from Vietnam who had been using illegal drugs. And the drug causing overwhelming concern was heroin. A hard-headed public-health approach showed an alarming number of deaths directly related to heroin, not to mention crimes committed by addicts. As the veterans showed that their use did not continue after their return to the United States, and as methadone-maintenance programs came into place, along with enforcement and education, heroin use declined, and even more dramatic was the decline in heroin-related deaths. This was the great victory of the war on drugs. A recent small uptick in illegal drug use is remarkably insignificant compared with the original problem.

Only in the 1980s, when the price of cocaine, in the form of crack, went down did that drug become a significant public-health problem. But what about marijuana? At that time, the serious effects of pot smoking were largely unknown. But in the late 1970s, the parents movement developed parents who had seen what happened when their kids got addicted to marijuana and their young brains got fried. This was a huge group of very angry people, and they were political dynamite.

The main tension in the office of drug czar was between enforcement and treatment. Congress would fund enforcement but did not like treatment, although one czar told of taking a couple of reluctant members of Congress to view a treatment center and see how much money treatment was saving the public as addicts, often under court coercion, were enabled to work productively.

For historians like me, the collective experience of the former czars provides two lessons. The first is unwelcome to extremists of the right and left and their shady commercial allies: Prohibitory laws can work.

Historians have established that the 1920s experiment in alcohol prohibition was successful and was repealed in 1933 only because of a massive, well-financed propaganda campaign.
The leadership of the drug czars in reducing supply and demand of illegal drugs is reflected not only in the public-health statistics. They can also cite public opinion polls. Thirty-five years ago, illegal drugs were usually first or second and no lower than fourth as public concerns. Now the drugs issue trails many other problems.

Everyone at the conference knew that the problem is going to continue for American society, but at a much lower level than 35 years before. That is what laws do: They attempt to control problems, not bring perfection. Laws against murder provide hope to control the problem, not abolish murder.

The second lesson is more subtle. The title czar was ironic, because the appointees had no direct, executive power. Instead, they coordinated the many federal and local agencies dealing with aspects of the drug problem and drug-law enforcement. The czars used persuasion. They got a drug detection and treatment system into the armed services, where the programs served as models for private businesses and other units. When new substances of abuse came along, often the czar was able to get officials and private businesses, especially pharmaceutical companies, to get one substance or another restricted before it became a major problem.

So what if the amusingly designated czars had no real power? They proved that in American government, there can be impressive leadership beyond formal power.

2 poems; & what happened to the poet when he tried to go home

Tenzin Tsundue, Tibetan

poet in exile in India

NGO Vleeptron
Preliminary Report
on Global Terrorism

In the view of the government of the Peoples Republic of China, any Tibetan who objects to China's military occupation of Tibet is a terrorist.

In the view of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, any American who objects to Britain's military occupation of Britain's American colonies is a terrorist.

Well, after Americans defeated the British Army and won their independence, Britain doesn't think George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are terrorists anymore. They're ... well ... okay, if Britain can't bring itself to call these ex-terrorists freedom fighters or liberators, they're, uhhh, political leaders of a new, recognized sovereign nation. We exchange ambassadors now, and Britain doesn't try to hang our leaders or line them in front of a firing squad anymore.

This article about the exiled Tibetan poet Tenzin Tsundue is from the Belfast Telegraph in Northern Ireland. In the view of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, any Irish person who objects to Britain's military occupation of any part of the island of Ireland is a terrorist.

Well, after the British recognized the southern counties as the independent Republic of Ireland, the British government doesn't think the Irish freedom fighters were terrorists anymore.

In the view of the government of Israel, any Palestinian who objects to Israel's military occupation of the West Bank is a terrorist ...

In the view of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, any Jew who objects to Britain's military occupation of Palestine is a terrorist ...

In the view of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, any Egyptian who objects to Britain's military occupation of Egypt is a terrorist ...

In the view of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, any Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist who objects to Britain's military occupation of its empire in the Indian subcontinent is a terrorist ...

In the view of the government of the United States of America, any Filipino who objects to the US military occupation of the Philippines is a terrorist ...

In the view of the government of the Soviet Union, any Afghani who objects to the Soviet Union's military occupation of Afghanistan is a terrorist ...

In the view of the government of Myanmar, any Burmese who objects to the military junta which ignores, by force of arms, the overwhelming vote of the Burmese people to have a democratic government is a terrorist ...

Where the hell do all these fucking terrorists come from???????????

And how do so many of them end up as the political leaders of new sovereign nations? How do so many of them end up on currency and postage stamps?

And why do those damn Scandinavians keep awarding so many terrorists the Nobel Peace Prize?

====================

THE TIBETAN IN MUMBAI

by Tenzin Tsundue

The Tibetan in Mumbai
is not a foreigner.

He is a cook
at a Chinese takeaway.
They think he is Chinese
run away from Beijing.

He sells sweaters in summer
in the shade of the Parel Bridge.
They think he is some retired Bahadur.

The Tibetan in Mumbai
abuses in Bambaya Hindi,
with a slight Tibetan accent
and during vocabulary emergencies
he naturally runs into Tibetan.
That's when the Parsis laugh.

The Tibetan in Mumbai
likes to flip through the MID-DAY,
loves FM, but doesn't expect
a Tibetan song.

He catches the bus at a signal,
jumps into a running train,
walks into a long dark gully
and nestles in his kholi.

He gets angry
when they laugh at him
'ching-chong-ping-pong'.

The Tibetan in Mumbai
is now tired,
wants some sleep and a dream.
On the 11pm Virar Fast,
he goes to the Himalayas.
The 8.05am Fast Local
brings him back to Churchgate
into the Metro: a New Empire.

================

TERRORIST

by Tenzin Tsundue

I am a terrorist.
I like to kill.

I have horns,
two fangs
and a dragonfly tail.

Chased away from my home,
hiding from fear,
saving my life,
doors slammed on my face,

justice constantly denied,
patience is tested
on television, battered
in front of the silent majority
pushed against the wall,
from that dead end
I have returned.

I am the humiliation
you gulped down
with flattened nose.

I am the shame
you buried in darkness.

I am a terrorist
shoot me down.

Cowardice and fear
I left behind
in the valley
among the meowly cats
and lapping dogs.

I am single,
I have nothing -
to lose.

I am a bullet
I do not think

from the tin shell
I leap for that thrilling
2-second life
and die with the dead.

I am the life
you left behind.

================

Belfast Telegraph
Monday 3 July 2006

Tibetan dissident
to accuse Chinese
of torture and genocide

by Clifford Coonan

Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan poet and activist, takes his fight to Britain today when he files a sworn testimony detailing atrocities he says he saw and experienced while in prison in the remote Himalayan region.

Mr Tsundue’s testimony is a stark litany of beatings and torture doled out during his imprisonment without trial in 1999, and will be submitted today to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office legalisation office, where it will be officially notarised.

The testimony is for a criminal suit filed in Spain’s High Court by three Tibet support groups accusing former president Jiang Zemin and ex-parliament chief Li Peng, both of whom retired in 2003, of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Tibet.

"Many European countries speak of peace and human rights and harmony. But on business they all cosy up to China, it’s hypocritical. Through asking for justice in an international court I hope they will have second thoughts," Mr Tsundue said. "The Tibetan people should have the right to run their own country, not the Chinese people," he said. The case accuses the retired leaders, who were in office during the 1980s and 1990s, of authorising massacres and torture in Tibet. The court could call for the Chinese government to arrest those accused of human rights abuse -- and even impound their property.

Tibet has been under the control of China since 1950 when the People’s Liberation Army marched into Tibet. Less than a decade later the Himalayan region’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled [to India] after a failed uprising. Tales of torture and abuse have abounded over the past four decades.

China has condemned the lawsuit, calling it absurd, and Beijing has accused Madrid of meddling in its affairs. Madrid is also investigating charges of genocide against the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Emilie Hunter, a spokesperson for the Madrid-based Friends of Tibet Committee, said she hoped that the effect of filing the testimony in Britain would be to stimulate broader government and public interest in the issue.

The lawsuit coincides with the opening of a hi-tech train line between Beijing and Lhasa, which the Chinese say will give Tibet an economic boost, but which Tibetan activists fear will lead to a dilution of Tibetan culture.

"This is one way to fight Beijing -- they may not listen to us Tibetans but this is a way to speak to Beijing non-violently with law and show this is injustice and we want them to address this," Mr Tsundue said.

The activist lives, along with approximately 110,000 other Tibetans including the Dalai Lama, in Dharamsala, close to the border with India. He was arrested in 1999 while crossing into Tibet at Ladakh and held for three months in two prisons. Here he says he experienced, and witnessed, the treatment of Tibetans who had been jailed for "counterrevolutionary" crimes.

"Over three months I was beaten, starved, became infested with lice and had a red-hot poker brandished in front of my eyes. For me, those long sessions of interrogation were so intimidating, humiliating, and disturbing that many times I found myself crying in the middle of night in my dark prison cell," he said.

He said he fears for the life of one political prisoner, Dawa Gyaltsen, who was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to 18 years in prison for designing and distributing "free Tibet" posters. He is now being held in Lhasa’s notorious Drapchi prison.

Mr Tsundue’s views are more extreme than those of the Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese view as a dangerous separatist who wants to wrest control of Tibet away from China. Beijing accuses him of continuing to spark independence movements among the 2.7 million Tibetans and refuses to allow him back inside its borders.

For his part, the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, insists he is a moderate who preaches a "middle way," which seeks special autonomy for Tibet within China, not independence.

Many Tibetans, include Mr Tsundue, remain fiercely loyal to the figure they regard as a god-king. "For us Tibetans the Dalai Lama is our leader and he is our Buddha," Mr Tsundue said. "He has an immense sense of compassion and forgiveness. I don’t have the power of the Buddha to compromise on independence.

"On the political front I ask for independence for Tibet. The Tibetan people should have the right to run their own country and not China," he said.

- 30 -

© 2006 Independent News and Media (NI)
a division of Independent News & media (UK) Ltd

Tsundue’s testimony

My name is Tenzin Tsundue. I am a Tibetan born and brought up in India. On 4 March 1997, I walked across the India-Tibet border. I was apprehended at Cha-gang by border police. For eight days I was interrogated every morning for many hours and throughout these interrogation sessions, they kept asking me who sent me, who backed me in my mission, what was it about, who I was meeting in Tibet -- the interrogators, who were mostly Tibetans, would kick me, punch me in the chest and often slapped my face -- Sometimes, after a hard slap I would almost go deaf, and for a long time I remained dazed. These sessions of interrogation were very intimidating, humiliating and mentally so traumatising that sometimes in the middle of the night in my cell, I found myself crying -- I was never produced before any court nor given any opportunity for legal support. In the jail, the food was poor and served only twice a day, leaving us starved all the time.

===============

Friends of Tibet (INDIA)

Dear friend:

Friends of Tibet (INDIA) is an effort by individuals from India to help, preserve and spread awareness about the issue of Tibet and the unique cultural and religious identity of the Tibetan people.

Tibetans living in exile are spread across more than ten countries. Although faced with unforeseen problems and unpredictable circumstances beyond their control, they have held together as a community and kept alive their national identity. Also very much alive is their yearning to return to their homeland. Even among the fourth generation in exile they have successfully preserved their language, their culture and their religion.

Friends of Tibet (INDIA) was formed on March 9, 1999, at Dharamshala, and its website was inaugurated by Ven. Yeshi Togden, president of Gu Chu Sum Movement of Tibet

Sadly, the same cannot be said about the situation inside Tibet. Throughout the early decades of the occupation tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed and many more sent to prisons and concentration camps. During this period more than 6,000 temples and monasteries -- including vast Buddhist universities and ancient libraries were looted, burned and destroyed. Even today, despite some cosmetic changes, largely for the benefit of tourists or visiting dignitaries; Tibetan religion and culture has not recovered from the decades of suppression and continues to suffer from neglect and discrimination. Rampant and indiscriminate exploitation of Tibet's vast natural resources is also threatening the fragile ecological balance of the Roof of the World. However, the single biggest threat to the survival of the Tibetan people is China's policy of population transfer aimed at reducing Tibetans to an insignificant minority in their own country by sending in millions of landless and jobless Chinese.

The distinct cultural ties between India and Tibet, the most obvious being the spread of Buddhism from India to Tibet in the seventh century, is perhaps too well known to bear repeating here. The trade and economic ties between the two countries is perhaps even older. It is equally important to remember that India maintained independent relations with Tibet throughout our shared history. Never, until China's military occupation of Tibet after 1949, has India ever shared a common border with China. Today India spends more money to defend our northern border with Chinese-occupied Tibet than we do to protect our border with Pakistan. Even in the case of our western border, much of the problem is linked to the political, economic and the military support that China gives to Pakistan.

Joined together by almost the entire length of the mighty Himalayan range -- India and Tibet are also inseparably linked in a physical sense. With such an extensive common frontier, the environmental changes on one side inevitably affects the other. It is for this reason that China's destruction of Tibet's fragile environment not only through indiscriminate deforestation and mining but also by dumping nuclear and other toxic wastes -- should be a major concern to every Indian. It is no longer just a question of helping an oppressed people and supporting a peaceful and friendly neighbour. Today the question of Tibetan independence is inseparably linked to India's long-term future. The implications of having China as our permanent northern neighbour or even the single issue of any of the rivers flowing from Tibet to India becoming polluted by toxic waste is too serious to be left to chance.

We believe that all the issues raised above are of a global nature not only in terms of the principles involved but also in terms of their impact. We, therefore, call upon freedom-loving people everywhere to join hands with the Tibetan people. We believe that Tibet Can and that Tibet Will Be Free. So join us by sharing your ideas, your time and your talents. Together we can make a difference to the lives of our Tibetan friends and also secure the safety of our future generations. For too long China has taken India and Indians for granted. Let us act now to make Tibet free.

Friends of Tibet (INDIA) believe that all the issues raised above are of a global nature -- not only in terms of the principles involved but also in terms of their impact. We, therefore, call upon freedom-loving people everywhere to join hands with the Tibetan people. With your help

‘Tibet Can and Tibet Will Be Free.’

Regards,

Sethu Das

(President, Friends of Tibet INDIA)

[photo:] Friends of Tibet National Committee with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

stoned California pelican attacks car, detained

domoic acid





The Los Angeles Times (California USA)
Saturday 24 June 2006

Plastered Pelican
in Detox After Flying
Through Windshield

Domoic acid in algae is the likely
cause for inebriated seabirds

by Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer

Four pelicans were being detained in an animal drunk tank Friday on suspicion of public intoxication, authorities said.

One of the birds was in guarded condition after allegedly flying under the influence Thursday and crashing through the windshield of a car on Coast Highway in Laguna Beach.

The driver was rattled but uninjured.

The other California brown pelicans [Pelecanus occidentalis californicus] were nabbed in backyards or wandering local streets in a daze.

Although toxicology tests aren't complete (there are no bird breathalyzers), such behavior usually signals domoic acid poisoning from eating algae, said Lisa Birkle, assistant wildlife director at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, which is caring for the pelicans.

Domoic acid was also the likely culprit behind a 1961 seabird invasion that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror film "The Birds."

According to news reports, thousands of befuddled birds rained down on Northern California towns in August 1961, slamming into buildings and even pecking eight humans.

Nobody is predicting a Hitchcockian invasion here, but Birkle urged Southern California residents to be on the lookout for pelicans acting disoriented or turning up in unusual locations.

In the last week, the wildlife center fielded 16 calls of suspicious bird behavior. And more incidents are likely because ocean waters south of Los Angeles Harbor have tested positive for the poisonous algae, Birkle said.

The pelican that collided with the car is recovering from surgery for a broken foot and a 4-inch gash in its pouch.

"She's hanging in there," Birkle said. On Friday, the heavily sedated bird began eating on her own, a good sign for full recovery.

Blood tests for domoic acid will take about three weeks, but Birkle said she's never heard of a sober pelican crashing into a car.

The birds have phenomenal eyesight, she explained, noting that from high above the ocean, they are able to spot fish.

After the pelicans being held in Huntington Beach have sobered up, they will be released on their own recognizance.

Copyright © 2006, The Los Angeles Times

=========
from Wikipedia:

Domoic acid

Domoic acid, which causes amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP), is an amino acid phycotoxin (algal toxin) found associated with certain algal blooms [1].

In 1958, domoic acid was originally isolated from the red alga called "doumoi" or "hanayanagi" (Chondria armata [2]) in Japan. "Doumoi" is used as an anthelmintic [?] in Tokunoshima, Kagoshima.

Domoic acid is also produced by diatoms of the genus Pseudo-nitzschia [3][4]. The chemical can bioaccumulate in marine organisms that feed on the phytoplankton, such as shellfish, anchovies, and sardines.

In mammals, including humans, domoic acid acts as a neurotoxin, causing short-term memory loss, brain damage, and death in severe cases. Red tides are associated with the phenomenon of ASP. Considerable recent research has been carried out by the Marine Mammal Center and other scientific centers on the association of red tides to domoic acid and to resulting neurological damage in marine mammals of the Pacific Ocean.

In the brain, domoic acid especially damages the hippocampus and amygdaloid nucleus. It damages the neurons by activating AMPA and kainate receptors, causing an influx of calcium. Although calcium flowing into cells is a normal event, the uncontrolled increase of calcium causes the cell to degenerate.

On June 22, 2006, a California brown pelican, possibly under the influence of domoic acid, flew through the windshield of a car on the Pacific Coast Highway. The acid is found in the local seas.

Domoic acid poisoning was the most likely cause of a 1961 invasion of thousands of frantic seabirds in Northern California that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds.

my HTML ate a bad fig and was constipated. Cured now.

Okay, the original "Asymmetric Warfare" post seems to have eaten a rotten fig and caused a couple of days of Bad Constipation on Planet Vleeptron. Thus the re-post, and Vleeptron now believes the Constipation is Cured, and Vleeptron can now be accessed without problems.

Here is an original visual complaint about The Technical Problems Vleeptron's readers were experiencing the last day or two. Copyright (c) 2006 by Ron Bizer, All Rights Reserved.

The inevitable consequence of Asymmetric Warfare

General Jacob H. Smith's infamous order,
"Kill everyone over ten"
was the caption in The New York Journal cartoon
on May 5, 1902. The Old Glory draped an American
shield on which a vulture replaced the bald eagle.
Caption is:

"Criminals because they were born
ten years before we took the Philippines."

(from Wikipedia.) Click.

The inevitable consequence
of Asymmetric Warfare

Asymmetric Warfare -- I don't know which twerp first used the phrase -- is Military Gobbledyspeak for a superpower's high-tek military which bumbles into a war against dirt-poor barefoot guerrillas who have neither air force nor navy and who arm themselves with 1940- or 1910-era firearms and $30 worth of box cutters and duct tape from the Tru-Value.

If they can't make their own high explosives, they steal them from our military depots, which have tons of the shit, or from our duds -- our unexploded bombs and ordinance. Then they make vests of plastic explosive and a Tru-Value thumb switch and walk up to an army platoon and FOOMF. Six American flag-draped coffins fly back to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, and the bomber begins acquainting himself or herself with Paradise.

As a fine modern example of Corrupting The English Language, AW ranks with "Collateral Damage," which is Military Gobbledyspeak for a superpower's high-tek military dropping a planeload of bombs on a children's hospital. The bedridden children made the mistake of getting too close to bona-fide military targets.

This *quote,* as best I remember this startling live-TV moment, is very close to Ramsey Clark's outburst on CNN when some US Air Force fuckhead used the term during the NATO bombing of Belgrade (in which the Chinese Embassy was collaterally smithereened):

*Collateral damage -- for god's sake,
call it what it is:
Killing children, women,
civilians, old people.*

Here are our superpower military ideals and doctrine of warfare as we continue to teach them to the professional officer corps at Annapolis, West Point, the Air Force Academy, and the military staff and command colleges:

We go against some Third World nation with overwhelming destructive power -- the doctrine of Shock and Awe -- destroy their military's ability to continue fighting, accept their surrender in some insulting fashion, stand around waiting for the liberated native girls to throw their arms around our soldiers and kiss them in gratitude, and then cable the band to start rehearsing for the huge Victory Parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Mission Accomplished.

Asymmetric Warfare is Evil, because our enemy refuses to stay surrendered, and then refuses to stand up and face us fair and square like Americans. They are cowards and murderers.

They are also winning. Just tossing out figures, but I put the ratio this way. If the US has to spend $12,000,000 per day to fight the War in Iraq, our enemies are spending $3,751.16 per day, not including newspaper coupons redeemable at the hardware store for electrical wire and lantern batteries.

And they're winning. We're certainly losing. Do you think we're winning? Make Vleeptron wise: Leave A Comment.

(Calling me a traitor is not a persuasive argument that we're winning. Aim that intimidating crap at Natalie Maines instead, if you haven't already.)

Our Season of Whistleblown Atrocities began pretty early after Mission Accomplished, with Abu Ghraib. The universal Pentagon response, of course, is that the abuses are committed by a very few rotten apples, but 99.99993 percent of all American soldiers and Marines are Straight Arrow Decent Guys who would never do anything like that.

By an astonishing coincidence, all the rotten apples who end up getting court-martialed are low-ranking enlisted men and women, PFCs, corporals and 3-stripe buck sergeants. Commissioned officers (and gentlemen, by Act of Congress) never force prisoners to strip naked and masturbate for the camera while threatening the prisoners with unmuzzled attack dogs, nor would any American commissioned officer ever countenance or encourage such things by his or her subordinates.

Hardware War is incredibly frustrating for a modern superpower military which still thinks it's fighting World War Two in Europe.

We make a brigade-size battle plan, the helicopters, air support and wheeled and track vehicles all start to rock and roll at 04:45, we race into the sleeping town -- and find no one there whom we can unambiguously identify as enemy combatants. No one is standing up to fight us like Americans. They are all somewhere else, or are wearing sneaky, deceitful Civilian Costumes -- like little-girl and old-women dresses or schoolboy uniforms.

The week before Operation One-Two Punch, nine soldiers in the brigade were blown up or ambushed and killed and maimed. Everyone from Private to Major General, Commanding is Pumped and ready for Righteous American Military Vengeance. When the whistle blows on One-Two Punch, SOMEBODY's gonna be sorry. SOMEBODY's gonna wish they'd never been born.

Unfortunately, the Cowardly Fiends who killed our comrades are nowhere to be found. They've taken the day off to redeem their coupons at the hardware store and make some more Improvised Explosive Devices (MilGobble for Crude, Cheap Bomb).

But like 800 armored, locked-and-loaded, megapumped American soldiers all yelled at 04:45: SOMEBODY's gonna be sorry.

~ ~ ~

The problem is, these are Not Civilized, Gentlemen Warriors like we are. They are Barbarians, Savages. Massacre and Torture are the only language they understand. Their barbarian sneaky tactics are so frustrating that They are forcing Us to behave that way. We didn't want to. But it's All Their Fault. We came to Iraq to fight a gentlemanly, orderly, rational war with our overwhelming conventional forces vs. their pre-doomed silly antiquated tiny forces.

And we defeated them exactly as we predicted we would, for as long as the Fair and Square Phase lasted.

But they won't stop killing us. They lost. But they refuse to act like enemies who lost fair and square.

And now, if you are expecting SP5_Happy to launch into an Old Toothless Vet's Memoires of the Vietnam War, surprise: I'll skip MY Asymmetric War vs. the Cowardly un-American Barbarians (who won btw) for a change, and hurtle you back 65 years earlier, in the Heathkit TM-212 Time Machine, to America's first Asymmetric War.

They were barbarians. Torture and massacre were the only language they understood. They made us do those things to them. We didn't want to have to fight them that way. They forced us. We had no choice. What else could we do?

~ ~ ~

Agence-Vleeptron Presse Advisory

The following block of this Wikipedia article
runs stet, without changes.

A-VP has added only typographical emphasis:
boldfacing and supersizing.

To help readers recognize anything that might
sound faintly familiar to them.

Like the Army-organized campaign
of letter-writing --
identical language in
personal letters home --
by US soldiers early in the Iraq War.

~ ~ ~

from Wikipedia

The Philippine-American War

War Crimes

American torture and scorched-earth campaigns

In 1908, Manuel Arellano Remondo, in a book entitled General Geography of the Philippine Islands, wrote: "The population decreased due to the wars, in the five-year period from 1895 to 1900, since, at the start of the first insurrection, the population was estimated at 9,000,000, and at present (1908), the inhabitants of the Archipelago do not exceed 8,000,000 in number." [25]

U.S. attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into "protected zones" (concentration camps). Many of the civilian casualties resulted from disease and famine. Reports of the execution of U.S. soldiers taken prisoner by the Filipinos led to savage reprisals by American forces. Many American officers and soldiers called war a "nigger killing business."

American soldiers' letters and response

From almost the beginning of the war, soldiers wrote home describing, and usually bragging about, atrocities committed against Filipinos, soldiers and civilians alike. Increasingly, such personal letters, or portions of them, reached a national audience as anti-imperialist editors across the nation reproduced them. [26]

Once these accounts were widely reproduced, the War Department was forced to demand that General Otis investigate their authenticity. For each press clipping, he forwarded it to the writer’s commanding officer, who would then convince the soldier to write a retraction.

Private Charles Brenner of the Kansas regiment resisted such pressure. He insisted that Colonel Funston [27] had ordered that all prisoners be shot and that Major Metcalf and Captain Bishop enforced these orders. Otis was obliged to order the Northern Luzon sector commander, General [Arthur] MacArthur, to look into the charge.

Brenner confronted MacArthur’s aide with a corroborating witness, Private Putman, who confessed to shooting two prisoners after Bishop or Metcalf ordered, "Kill them! Damn it, Kill them!"

MacArthur sent his aide’s report on to Otis with no comment. Otis ordered Brenner court-martialed "for writing and conniving at the publication of an article which ... contains willful falsehoods concerning himself and a false charge against Captain Bishop."

The judge advocate in Manila convinced Otis that such a trial could open a Pandora’s box, as "facts would develop implicating many others."

General Otis sent the Brenner case to Washington writing: "After mature deliberation, I doubt the wisdom of court-martial in this case, as it would give the insurgent authorities a knowledge of what was taking place and they would assert positively that our troops had practiced inhumanities, whether the charge should be proven or not, as they would use it as an excuse to defend their own barbarities"; and Otis went on, justifying the war crimes, "and it is not thought that his charge is very grievous under the circumstances then existing, as it was very early in the war, and the patience of our men was under great strain." [28]

Towards the end of 1899, General Otis attempted to repair his battered image. He began to work to win new friends among the journalists in Manila and bestowed favors on any journalist who gave him favourable press. [29]

Concentration camps

As one historian wrote about Marinduque, the first island with concentration camps: "The triple press of concentration (camps), devastation, and harassment led Abad (the Marinduque commander) "to request a truce to negotiate surrender terms ... The Army pacified Marinduque not by winning the allegiance of the people, but by imposing coercive measures to control their behavior and separate them from the insurgents in the field. Ultimately, military and security measures proved to be the (essential element) of Philippine pacification." [30] This assessment could probably be applied to all of the Philippines.

Filipino atrocities

To counter the bad press back in America, General Otis stated that insurgents tortured American prisoners in "fiendish fashion," some of whom were buried alive, or worse, up [to] their necks in anthills to be slowly devoured. Others were castrated, had the removed parts stuffed into their mouths, and were then left to suffocate or bleed to death.

It was also stated that some prisoners were deliberately infested with leprosy before being released to spread the disease among their comrades. Spanish priests were horribly mutilated before their congregations, and natives who refused to support Emilio Aguinaldo were slaughtered by the thousands. American newspaper headlines announced the

"Murder and Rapine"

by the

"Fiendish Filipinos"

General "Fighting Joe" Wheeler insisted that it was the Filipinos who had mutilated their own dead, murdered women and children, and burned down villages, solely to discredit American soldiers. [31]

Other atrocities included those by General Vicente Lukban, the Filipino commander who masterminded the surprise attack in the Balangiga Massacre, that killed over fifty American soldiers. Media reports stated that many of the bodies were mutilated. [32]

Sergeant Hallock testified in the Lodge committee [that] natives were given the water cure, "in order to secure information of the murder of Private O'Herne of Company I, who had been not only killed, but roasted and otherwise tortured before death ensued." [33]

Reporters and Red Cross accounts contradict Otis

During the closing months of 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo attempted to counter General Otis’s account by suggesting that neutral parties -- foreign journalists or representatives of the International Red Cross -- inspect his military operations. Otis refused, but Emilio Aguinaldo managed to smuggle in four reporters -- two English, one Canadian, and a Japanese into the Philippines.

The correspondents returned to Manila to report that American captives were "treated more like guests than prisoners," were "fed the best that the country affords, and everything is done to gain their favor." The story went on to say that American prisoners were offered commissions in the Philippine army and that three had accepted. The four reporters were expelled from the Philippines as soon as their stories were printed. [34]

Emilio Aguinaldo also released some American prisoners so they could tell their own stories. In a Boston Globe article entitled "With the Goo Goo’s" Paul Spillane described his fair treatment as a prisoner. Emilio Aguinaldo had even invited American captives to the christening of his baby and had given each a present of four dollars, Spillane recounted.

Naval Lieutenant J.C. Gilmore, whose release was forced by American cavalry pursuing Aguinaldo into the mountains, insisted that he had received "considerable treatment" and that he was no more starved than were his captors. Otis responded to these two articles by ordering the "capture" of the two authors, and that they be "investigated," therefore questioning their loyalty. [35]

When F.A. Blake of the International Red Cross arrived at Emilio Aguinaldo’s request, Otis kept him confined to Manila, where Otis’s staff explained all of the Filipinos' violations of civilized warfare. Blake managed to slip away from an escort and venture into the field. Blake never made it past American lines, but even within American lines he saw burned out villages and "horribly mutilated bodies, with stomachs slit open and occasionally decapitated." Blake waited to return to San Francisco, where he told one reporter that "American soldiers are determined to kill every Filipino in sight." [36]

Ratio of Filipinos wounded

The most conclusive evidence that the enemy wounded were being killed, came from the official reports of Otis and his successor, General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., which claimed fifteen Filipinos killed for every one wounded. In the American Civil War, the ratio had been five wounded for every soldier killed, which is close to historical norm. Otis attempted to explain this anomaly by the superior marksmanship of rural southerners and westerners who had hunted all their lives.

MacArthur added a racial twist, asserting that Anglo-Saxons do not succumb to wounds as easily as do men of "inferior races." [37]

Muslims

In the south, Muslim Filipinos resisted until 1913 -- the so-called Moro rebellion. They were never part of Aguinaldo's movement. During this conflict, the Americans realized a need to be able to stop a charging tribesman with a single shot. To fill this need, the Colt M1911 Handgun was developed for its larger .45 caliber ammunition (45 ACP), resulting in additional stopping power.

English education and the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church was disestablished, and a considerable amount of church land was purchased and redistributed. However, the bulk of the land was quickly bought up by American companies with little going to Filipino peasants. [citation needed]

During the U.S. occupation, English was declared the official language, although the languages of the Philippine people were Spanish, Visayan, Tagalog, Ilokano, Pangasinan and other native languages. Also, six hundred American teachers were imported aboard the USS Thomas. The first task of the Thomasites was to reform the education system to one that maintained an anti-Spanish curriculum but glossed over existing American atrocities. [citation needed]

The English requirement barred many from political office and ensured a dependency on American administrators.

Quotes

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Philippine-American War

In the fall of 1899, [General Arthur] MacArthur, who was still loyal to General Otis, said to reporter H. Irving Hannock:

"When I first started in against these rebels, I believed
that Aguinaldo’s troops represented only a faction.
I did not like to believe that the whole population
of Luzon -- the native population that is --
was opposed to us and our offers
of aid and good government.

"But after having come this far, after having occupied
several towns and cities in succession, and having been
brought much into contact with both insurrectos
and amigos, I have been reluctantly compelled
to believe that the Filipino masses are loyal
to Aguinaldo and the government
which he heads." [38]

Further reading

* Agoncillo, Teodoro A (1997). Malolos: The crisis of the republic. University of the Philippines Press. ISBN 9715420966. Kenton J. Clymer States "The book provides the best account to date of the inner dynamics of the Filipino side of the war." -- Review: Not so Benevolent Assimilation: The Philippine-American War, Reviews in American History Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 547-552

* Brands, H. W. (1992). Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. Oxford University Press.

* Deady, Timothy K.; "Lessons from a Successful Counterinsurgency: The Philippines, 1899-1902" Parameters, Vol. 35, 2005

* Gates, John M. (1973). Schoolbooks and Krags: The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898-1902. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0837158184.

* Gates, John. "War-Related Deaths in the Philippines, 1898-1902", Pacific Historical Review 53:367+ (1983)

* Gates, John M., The US Army and Irregular Warfare, Chapter 3: The Pacification of the Philippines

* Linn, Brian McAllister (2000). The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899-1902. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807849480.

* May, Glenn Anthony (1991). Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300048505.

* Miller, Stuart Creighton (1982). "Benevolent Assimilation": The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300026978. Kenton J. Clymer States "The War Miller describes is a more believable one than the one Gates pictures."

* Schirmer, Daniel B. (1972). Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War. Schenkman. ISBN 087073105X.

* Schirmer, Daniel B. Stephen Rosskamm Shalom (1987). The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance. South End Press. ISBN 089608275X.

* Shaw, Angel Velasco (2002). Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999. New York University Press. ISBN 0814797911.

* Smallman-Raynor, Matthew, and Andrew D Cliff. "The Philippines Insurrection and the 1902-4 cholera epidemic: Part I-Epidemiological diffusion processes in war" Journal of Historical Geography, v 24, n 1, January, 1998, p. 69-89

* T.A. Agoncillo / M.C. Guerrero, History of the Filipino People, Quezon City,1987, pp. 159

* Twain, Mark and Jim Zwick (1992). Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815602685.

* Zwick, Jim. Friends of the Filipino People Bulletin

* Zwick, Jim. Militarism and Repression in the Philippines

* Zwick, Jim. "Prodigally Endowed with Sympathy for the Cause:" Mark Twain's Involvement with the Anti-Imperialist League" (Ephemera Society of America (January 1, 1992) ASIN B0006R8RJ8

* Young, Kenneth Ray; The General's General: The Life and Times of Arthur MacArthur, Westview Press, 1994

Government and contemporary sources

* The Philippine "Lodge committee" hearings (A.K.A. Philippine Investigating Committee) and a great deal of documentation were published in three volumes (3000 pages) as S. Doc. 331, 57th Cong., 1st Session An abridged version of the oral testimony can be found in: American Imperialism and the Philippine Insurrection: Testimony Taken from Hearings on Affairs in the Philippine Islands before the Senate Committee on the Philippines--1902; edited by Henry F Graff; Publisher: Little, Brown; 1969. ASIN: B0006BYNI8

* See the extensive Anti-imperialist summary of the findings of the Lodge Committee/Philippine Investigating Committee on wikisource. Listing many of the attrocities and the military and government reaction.

The President ... is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV ... and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land ...

cartoon by Spooner for The Age

Ah, screw it, I give up. I can't find this guy's e-mail addie anywhere on the website of Australia's national broadsheet The Age. I want to write the guy an e-mail but I can't.

So I'll just filch his column, post it on Vleeptron, and maybe he'll notice and contact me to complain.

Oh, I'll say I'm sorry and offer to buy him a pizza.

But I want to tell him what a great column this is.

Why should anybody care about a loop job like David Hicks?

Mr Shaun Carney, an Associate Editor of The Age, tells us why.

It's called The Rule Of Law. Our President Bush suspended it, and ceaselessly tells the American people why he suspended the Rule of Law, and why he doesn't care who objects, and promises to keep suspending the Rule of Law for as long as he's the worst president we've had in living memory, and for as long as he's the worst "Commander-in-Chief" we've ever had during a national emergency or two.

Yesterday five justices of the United States Supreme Court told President Lawless that he had to stop acting as if he were Above The Law.

And five is enough to mean that one of our three co-equal branches of the federal government demands he Straighten Up and Fly Right. The Supreme Court just told the president to Obey The Law. Or Else.

(Or Else what? Watch This Space.)

A little peek at the future.

In 2008, our Constitution says we must hold a presidential election, and Bush can't run for a third term. Our Constitution says that in January 2009, a new guy (or mebbe a lady) will take the oath and be sworn in as the new President of the United States.

If you were Bush, and you were as self-hypnotized as Bush says he is that the entire safety of every citizen of the USA depends on his being Above The Law during a national emergency -- would you gracefully and happily turn your powers over to The Next Guy or The Next Gal? Would you gracefully and quietly go back to Texas and spend your days polishing up your Presidential Library?

Hmmm ... maybe, if the guy who wins in 2008 is another right-wing Republican pscyho loop job. Like his brother Jeb, the Governor of Florida -- just an example.

But what if the 2008 winner is a Democrat who ran on a platform of restoring respect for the U.S. Constitution and the Rule Of Law? What if the 2008 winner is sitting on a new Democratic majority in both houses of the U.S. Congress, after a flip in '06 and/or '08?

If I were as megalomaniacal as Bush -- I wouldn't go gentle into that dark Texas. America needs me! Only I can save America! America will be doomed if it votes mistakenly for some kommie pinko sissy liberal Democrat. And personally, I'd be convinced that it wasn't a fair vote, but that the Democrats won by rigging the election. I can't let them take over the reins of power if they stuffed ballot boxes and hung pregnant chads in some politically corrupt state.

More than that, Bush on several occasions has made it clear that he has a historically unique special mandate to be our President. A mandate from God. God specifically wants George Bush to be President of the United States.

If I were God, do you think I'd care about the U.S. Constitution? God is Above The Law. God IS The Law. God chose George Bush to be President. Four more years, says God -- or that's what The Voice of God in Bush's Head will be telling him.

By the way, this "There's a war on, I'm the President, I'm Above The Law" crap has been pulled before. Richard Nixon's lawyer specifically argued before the Supreme Court that, during a presidency, the President has the same powers as Louis XIV of France -- the original "We Are The Law" absolute monarch. Here is what Nixon's lawyer, James D. St. Clair, said to the nine justices:

"The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment."

This cartoon from The Age pretty much shows how the Supreme Court (unanimously, I think, 9-0) replied to Nixon's lawyer. A few months later Nixon climbed aboard the Marine helicopter and waved goodbye, the first and (so far) only president ever to resign while in office.

How can you compare a total fuckup (I don't exactly know what the Ozzie word "bogan" means, if you do, please Leave A Comment)

WIKIPEDIA: Bogan (pronounced ... to rhyme with slogan) is an Australian and New Zealand English slang term, at times derogatory, for a person who is, or is perceived to be, unsophisticated or of a lower class background. The stereotype includes having speech and mannerisms that are considered to denote poor education and uncultured upbringing. Mostly applied to white, working-class people.

Any discussion of the meaning of the term is likely to be controversial. Australians tend to have an image of their country as culturally egalitarian; by contrast, Britain and the United States are often stereotyped in Australia as obsessed with cultural and economic class respectively. The presence of an insulting stereotype for poor people is obviously in conflict with this self-image.

Like the British term chav and the American term white trash, the term is supposedly based on behaviour rather than class alone. It may be contrasted to the term 'povvo', which assumes that poverty as such is worthy of insult.

Further, the stereotype assumes a correlation between subcultural practices of particular working-class people (eg style of dress, accent, and musical tastes), and anti-social behaviour. It should thus be considered a slur.

The term, and the attendant stereotype, are far more acceptable in Australian culture than equivalent slurs. A person who used the term in the media, for example, would be unlikely to face similar consequences to if they had used a term such as nigger or kike. The popular Australian TV comedy Kath and Kim derived much of its humour from this stereotype. A TV comedy based on equivalent stereotypes of Aboriginal people, for example, would have been highly unlikely to be aired.

While it has been used as a derogatory term, the word 'bogan' is becoming much more accepted, particularly among bogans themselves. Many people proudly claim to be bogans, making a statement on their musical preferences, lifestyle and morals.

like the pathetic Australian David Hicks to Our Great and Mighty God-Chosen War President? What can possibly link these figures together?

Shaun Carney knows, and says so with such wonderful, amazing clarity.

It's the Rule Of Law. If we live under it, David Hicks is still pathetic -- but he's somebody, a recognized human being, and the Laws of the United States of America, and the Laws of Australia, say so, and require he be treated according to these laws.

Three associate justices (led by Clarence Thomas, who was such a sore loser he read his dissent from the bench, something he's never done before) say the hell with the Rule of Law, this president can ignore it, and this president should ignore it. We're at War, the president needs the unlimited powers of a Strong Man to defend the USA. Like Louis XIV, liked Mussolini, like Hitler. Bush is Above The Law.

Five associate justices said: No. The President is not above the law.

~ ~ ~

The Age (national Australian broadsheet)
Saturday 1 July 2006

Sacrificing David Hicks

by Shaun Carney

David Hicks must surely be the most celebrated Adelaide bogan ever. All that ink, all that air time, all the legal work done on his behalf. The protests, such as the mock prison cage set up on a Manhattan street. The high-level diplomatic representations. Now, even the loftiest jurists in the world's most powerful nation, the members of the US Supreme Court, have, by extension, considered his fate.

Many among us have, to varying degrees, made a mess of our lives. But Hicks has earned the right to be the poster boy for that particular subset of humanity. He could have evaded capture by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in late 2001 by staying out of that country. Instead, having taken off earlier, he went back in to get his meagre belongings.

That's when he was nabbed and eventually handed over to the United States. And his life, bad enough before -- with his poor schooling and ridiculous, possibly murderous adventures with al-Qaeda and the Taliban -- has been an utter nightmare ever since.

There can be no doubt that Hicks is the chief author of his own misfortune, which was to be consigned to a dismal existence in detention at Guantanamo Bay, and so much more. But he is not the sole creator of his own story.

It was Hicks' bad luck to hail from a country whose elected political leadership not only does not give a stuff about him or his legal rights, but appears to actively want his life to be broken as some sort of example or sacrifice. Or something.

If Hicks had been, say, a Saudi Arabian or a British citizen when he was captured, he would not be in Guantanamo Bay now. He would be back in his homeland.

I do not like what David Hicks did. I do not like the way he lived his life. I think many of his choices were stupid and wrong. In Afghanistan he made a conscious choice to do the bidding of very bad people. The Taliban are evil and Hicks appears to have taken up arms on their behalf. At the very least, he hung out with them and fashioned himself a fellow traveller.

Morally, there is no defence for that. But we long ago left behind the practice of deciding what to do with our citizens based solely on our judgement of their morals.

Instead, we have laws; they are the spine of our society. Laws are to be applied equally, free of political preferment and interference. If there is anything we are defending in our ongoing battle against the terrorists who try to attack our way of life, it is that.

Hicks has not broken any Australian laws. Prime Minister John Howard acknowledged this in a radio interview yesterday. "If he's brought back to Australia he can't be effectively charged because the crimes he committed were not, according to Australian law, crimes at the time he committed them," he said.

"It was not a crime back in 2001 to do as he admitted he did, and that is train with al-Qaeda and rejoin al-Qaeda even after the terrorist attacks (on the United States) on the eleventh of September."

For that reason, Howard says he has no interest in seeing Hicks returned to Australia. From that decision, that attitude, held widely at the senior levels of the Howard Government, everything about the Hicks case has flowed.

Because of it, Hicks has languished for 4 1/2 years at Guantanamo, first without charge and then awaiting trial before a US military commission. It was a remarkable thing to see: one nation effectively shopping around for a forum to which it could deliver one of its own citizens -- a citizen who had broken none of his own country's laws.

Whenever Hicks' plight was raised with the Government, the Prime Minister, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer would say there was nothing they could do. Hicks was the property of the US, where he would be dealt with fairly by that great democracy.

Oh, and the by the way, they always added, Hicks is a terrible person who did terrible things. Totally guilty, you understand, even if he hasn't been charged with anything.

On Thursday Washington time, this entire approach to Hicks collapsed when the US Supreme Court ruled that the military tribunal the Howard Government was happy to see pass judgement on him did not have proper legal status and breached the Geneva Conventions.

Defiant to the end, Howard said yesterday that Hicks should be brought to trial. "There clearly has to be another method of trial -- a court martial or a civilian trial -- which conforms with the Supreme Court decision."

Reports from Washington suggest that there was a desire on both sides of Congress to refashion the military tribunals, to give them a proper legal status. However, the same reports said the Supreme Court had warned that this would not be easy because of the requirements of the Geneva Conventions, which include proper protections for defendants.

Yesterday the Prime Minister said he had no sympathy for Hicks, adding almost comically "but that doesn't mean to say his rights should not be respected."

The Government's best course would be to swallow its pride, submerge its ego or whatever else its leading figures have invested in this thing, and repatriate Hicks.

After all, the Supreme Court ruling would seem to suggest that Hicks and the other Guantanamo detainees have been held illegally. That is, the Bush Government has locked them up for an illegal purpose.

Beyond that, however, there is the issue of Hicks' punishment. Is the four-and-a-half years of hard time he has already served enough? How does this square with his former Guantanamo inmates, British citizens, who are now free?

There will be no great public outcry from the Australian public in the coming days for Hicks to be either released or dealt with in some other more humane or legally decent manner, so the Government will not feel under pressure to change its approach.

For that, Hicks can take some of the blame. His bad choices marked his cards with many of his fellow Australians. The tragedy is that the nation's political leadership, which makes laws and expects those laws to be respected, continues to be so anxious to serve up one of its own citizens for its own political and diplomatic ends.

Shaun Carney is an associate editor.

Copyright © 2006. The Age Company Ltd.

Romeo and Ethel, Abdullah the grocery delivery boy and Katherine the Honor Student

My least favorite Shakespeare play. In Tom Stoppard's "Shakespeare in Love," the Bard is having writer's block with his first draft: "Romeo and Ethel." It couldn't have been worse than "R & J."

I don't know what Love is. But I know what it's Not. And it's Not anything you experience so wildly and violently at any age younger than 20.

Which isn't to say that the stuff you experience at 14, 15 or 16 isn't Fun. Teen Romance is the Theme Park Summer Thrill Ride of the emotions.

Too bad so many of the riders get thrown out of the cars and land on the concrete. But most of them manage to limp away from that.

Hmmmm a bit of Journalistic Subtext here. The family appeared on ABC TV's morning show and blabbed about their Family Problems to the televised world, but refused to talk to the Associated Press.

Is this because the AP doesn't bribe subjects with $$$$$ payoffs for interviews?

Next we turn to the Michigan prosecutor. Doesn't this asshole have anything better to do than torment this little girl? I mean, she just ran away from home to try to experience something she perceived as Love. She's not a Teen Thrill Killer. No Human or Animal Was Harmed in the Making of This Adventure. Doesn't this asshole prosecutor have any Real Crime in his county?

And Abdullah ain't no al-Qaida terrorist fiend, he's just your basic 20-year-old boy meatball, too, with a grocery delivery job and the confused and volcanic emotions of Youth. Romeo fell in love just like Juliet did. Leave him alone, too.

Poor little girl got caught at the Amman Airport and sent home, embarrassed, humiliated all over TV and the front page.

Now leave her alone, let her rents handle it. She gets good grades in school.

And stop blaming it all on MySpace. Jeez. Teenagers are just being teenagers. But the adults in this Adventure really need to Get Smart.

And the little girl needs a few lessons in How Not To Get Caught. I was pretty good at that when I was her age. Contact Vleeptron for free Teenage Sneakiness Lessons.

Although the scam she pulled on her rents to get herself a passport -- pretty slick! Only an Honor Student can get from Detroit, Michigan USA to Amman, Jordan on a teenager's allowance!

A cheerleader probably couldn't have made it to Indianapolis on a Greyhound bus.

==================

Associated Press
Thursday 29 June 2006

'MySpace' Teen's Trip
Leads to Family Court

by DAVID RUNK (Associated Press Writer)

GILFORD, Michigan USA -- Weeks after trying to get to the West Bank to pursue an online romance, a now-17-year-old girl was set to appear Thursday in Family Court, where authorities have filed a runaway juvenile petition against her.

A judge could ultimately place Katherine Lester under court supervision until she turns 18 next June 21.

Her secret was uncovered earlier this month, when she slipped out of her mother's home in rural Michigan and made it as far as Amman, Jordan, before being sent home by U.S. authorities.

Lester is now living with her father, Terry, near Flint. A judge ordered her to surrender her passport and undergo counseling. In an interview last week on ABC's "Good Morning America," she declared her love for Abdullah Jimzawi, a 20-year-old Palestinian who works in his father's business delivering goods to minimarkets.

They still talk online, her father and Jimzawi have said, and she says she wants to marry him.

"Now that this is all over with, I know that if I would have told them about him, they would have understood my feelings for him," she said in the appearance with her father and stepmother. "I wish I would have told them about him."

"Now that our relationship is out in the open, I feel like I don't have to go there to talk to him or to be with him," she said. "I plan on him coming here and us being together over here."

Her father has declined requests from The Associated Press to interview his daughter but says her story should serve as a warning to families -- not about the dangers of the Internet, but about the importance of good family communication.

"She's her same old self," said Terry Lester. "She knows what she did was wrong, and she's willing to accept the responsibility."

Authorities don't think any local or state laws were broken in Katherine Lester's disappearance, but the FBI continues to investigate.

[Thank God! America's Security is at stake! Add 20 more FBI agents to the case immediately!]

MySpace, a social networking Web site popular with teenagers, has raised concerns among U.S. authorities, with scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors on the site.

But Jimzawi has said his love for Lester is pure. In a recent interview with the AP, Jimzawi said he met Lester online about eight months ago and was devastated when he learned they would not meet face-to-face. Jimzawi's mother, Sana, said Lester intended to sign a marriage contract in Jericho.

"When I realized she wasn't coming, I felt my whole world collapse," he said. "My tears didn't stop and I couldn't sleep for three days."

Back home, those who know Katherine continue to be stunned. For months, Katherine Lester had kept her relationship a secret: the then-16-year-old girl appeared to have a typical teenage life. Family members say she kept up good grades and went on two dates. But all along, she was crafting a plan to visit him, authorities said, securing a passport by telling her parents she wanted to go to Canada with friends.

The principal of her 200-student school in Michigan's agricultural eastern region said he expects there will be a lot of questions from students when they return from summer vacation.

The teen is a member of the National Honor Society at Akron-Fairgrove Junior/Senior High School and was an intern at the radio station where her older sister worked.

"It was a little shocking," said Joseph Candela, the school principal and district superintendent. "Katherine is a very good student, an excellent student. ... You would have never known it."

Her 19-year-old sister, Mary Lester, said that before Katherine's trip, she thought of her as honest.

"This story has taken a toll on not only our family, but on our entire lives as well," she said. "The sister that I have been around since this all happened is not the sister I have known for the past 16 years."

"She is not an adult," said Prosecutor Mark E. Reene at the Family Court proceedings. "That is something that should not be lost -- even though she is making a decision that could affect her whole adult life."

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Oh absolutely, click several times,
it gets bigger and more detailed.
e-mail Vleeptron for ordering instructions
so you can hang this poster on the kids' bedroom wall.

You people laugh at me for spending half my time on Planet Vleeptron.

First, you think: Hey, that's ridiculous, nobody can travel to other planets.

But then you think: Now why would anybody ever want to leave this swell Earth planet?

I'm not posting this article to point any fingers at anybody. It takes two -- or three or four -- to start the Final Cataclysmic Apocalyptic Armageddon End Times Eschatological Global War prophesied by Saint John the Divine.

According to the Book of Revelations, after the Apocalypse, Colonel Harlan Sanders will climb out of his tomb and deep-fry us all a gigantic bucket of Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken, with our choice of 3 sides. Like my brethren and sistern in the Fundamental Evangelical branches of Christianity, I can't wait.

I just went surfing to The Jerusalem Post to check out the latest developments in the start of Armageddon. In a region not particularly noted for wise leadership or Ghandi's ideals of non-violence, some Palestinian rocket scientists decided to kidnap an Israeli Army private in Gaza.

The Israeli government -- a parliamentary democracy which consists entirely of six ancient Orthodox rabbis and the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) -- is now responding in a measured, thoughtful, diplomatic way.

By the way, Israel possesses about 200 fission bombs, but that's a secret, you're supposed to pretend you don't know that.

The Vleeptron Roadmap for Peace In The Middle East consists (see previous post) of United Nations distribution of massive amounts of hasheesh from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Hahahahahahaha! That's funny, isn't it?

Let me know how funny you think it is three days from now. Let me know how well you think Serious Reality's Plan (currently designed by Condoleezza Rice) is doing.

Back in the Ancient Days of the Woodstock Sixties, during the Vietnam War, John Lennon urged everybody to Give Peace A Chance, and Cat Stevens urged us all to Ride On The Peace Train.

Fucking stoned peacenik hippie Commies -- Thank God nobody listened! What a disaster that would have been! Blacks and whites and Asians getting along, Muslims, Christians and Jews having hackeysack picnics and Group Hugs. We avoided that Nightmare just in time!

Since then, the leaders of the world have substituted an Alternative Plan. It kicks off on the Gaza-Israel borders today. Body Bag City. Atrocityville. Bidirectional Genocide.

=================

The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Tuesday 27 June 2006

What Muslims think

by Daniel Pipes

To find out, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press [see Wikipedia article below] carried out a large-scale attitudinal survey this spring. Titled

"The Great Divide:
How Westerners and Muslims
View Each Other"

it interviewed Muslims in two batches of countries: six of them with long-standing, majority-Muslim populations (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey) and four of them in Western Europe with new, minority Muslim populations (France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain).

The survey, which also looks at Western views of Muslims, yielded some dismaying but not altogether surprising results. Its themes can be grouped under three rubrics.

A PROCLIVITY to conspiracy theories: In not one Muslim population polled does a majority believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The proportions range from a mere 15 percent in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48 percent among French Muslims.

Confirming recent negative trends in Turkey, the number of Turks who point the finger at Arabs has declined from 46 percent in 2002 to 16 percent today. In other words, in every one of these 10 Muslim communities, a majority views 9/11 as a hoax perpetrated by the American government, Israel, or some other agency.

Likewise, Muslims are widely prejudiced against Jews, ranging from 28 percent unfavorable ratings among French Muslims to 98 percent in Jordan (which, despite the monarchy's moderation, has a majority Palestinian population).

Further, Muslims in certain countries (especially Egypt and Jordan) see Jews conspiratorially, as being responsible for bad relations between Muslims and Westerners.

Conspiracy theories also pertain to larger topics. Asked, "What is most responsible for Muslim nations' lack of prosperity?" between 14 percent (in Pakistan) and 43 percent (in Jordan) blame the policies of the US and other Western states, as opposed to indigenous problems, such as a lack of democracy or education, or the presence of corruption or radical Islam.

This conspiracism points to a widespread unwillingness in the umma [Arabic: the community of Muslims, that is, the totality of all Muslims] to deal with realities, preferring the safer bromides of plots, schemes, and intrigues. It also reveals major problems adjusting to modernity.

SUPPORT FOR terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8 percent (in Turkey) to 72 percent (in Nigeria).

Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13 percent (in Germany) to 69 percent (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come.

BRITISH AND Nigerian Muslims the most alienated: The United Kingdom stands out as a paradoxical country. Non-Muslims there have strikingly more favorable views of Islam and Muslims than elsewhere in the West; for example, only 32 percent of the British sample view Muslims as violent, significantly less their counterparts in France (41 percent), Germany (52 percent) or Spain (60 percent).

In the Muhammad cartoon dispute, Britons showed more sympathy for the Muslim outlook than did other Europeans. More broadly, Britons blame Muslims less for the poor state of Western-Muslim relations.

But British Muslims return the favor with the most malign anti-Western attitudes found in Europe. Many more of them regard Westerners as violent, greedy, immoral, and arrogant than do their counterparts in France, Germany, and Spain. In addition, whether asked about their attitudes toward Jews, responsibility for 9/11, or the place of women in Western societies, their views are notably more extreme.

The situation in Britain reflects the "Londonistan" phenomenon, whereby Britons preemptively cringe and Muslims respond to this weakness with aggression.

Nigerian Muslims have generally the most belligerent views on such issues as the state of Western-Muslim relations, the supposed immorality and arrogance of Westerners, and support for bin Laden and suicide terrorism. This extremism results, no doubt, from the violent state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria.

Ironically, most Muslim alienation is found in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best -- where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in the UK, nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria.

Overall, the Pew survey sends an undeniable message of crisis from one end to the other of the Muslim world.

The writer, based in Philadelphia, is director of the Middle East Forum. www.DanielPipes.org

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885865749&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Copyright 1995-2006 The Jerusalem Post

===========

Pew Research Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the USA and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Pew Research Center is a strictly non-advocacy organization, while the Pew Charitable Trusts supports advocacy and non-advocacy projects.

The Center's work is carried out by six projects:

* Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
* Stateline.org
* Pew Internet & American Life Project
* Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
* Pew Hispanic Center
* Pew Global Attitudes Project

It's official: Pot-smokers are Communists, pot prohibitionists are Fascists.

Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime

Meanwhile, same plant, two different planets.

Same United Nations, but one agency protects refugees, another saves ancient art, architecture and natural wonders, another safeguards human rights, another provides health care to children -- and another runs around screaming like a retarded clown.

Nobody's ever died from smoking cannabis, and there is no such thing as cannabis addiction. Don't believe everything you hear from a white guy in an Italian suit who gets driven around Europe in a stretch limo.

============

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n838.a01.html

The Times (London, UK)
Tuesday 27 June 2006

Contact: letters@thetimes.co.uk
Website: http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Cited: UNODC's 2006 World Drug Report
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/world_drug_report.html
http://www.mapinc.org/topics/World+Drug+Report

Italy Relaxes
Cannabis Laws

by Richard Owen, in Rome

Boosted by its overwhelming victory in the referendum on devolution yesterday, the centre-left Government of Romano Prodi has moved to dismantle yet another legacy of the Berlusconi era by overturning its "zero tolerance" drugs policy.

The change will restore the distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs, and will increase the amount of cannabis a person can possess without being arrested as a suspected dealer.

During its first month in power the Centre Left, which won local elections last month as well as the general election in April, has reversed the policies of Silvio Berlusconi's five-year administration on issues from Iraq to significant infrastructure projects.

Livia Turco, the Minister of Health and a member of the former Communist Democrats of the Left, said today that she would act immediately on the amount of cannabis permitted, an administrative measure that does not require parliamentary approval.

She said the amount of cannabis allowed for personal use -- 500 mg -- would be doubled. Nearly 10 per cent of Italians smoke cannabis regularly, according to a recent survey. A third of Italian teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 say they have smoked it at least once.
Paolo Ferrero, the Welfare Minister, who is a Communist, said he would ask Parliament to repeal the "zero tolerance" policy and re-establish the distinction between hard and soft drugs. The emphasis would be on "prevention rather than punishment" and "treatment and rehabilitation rather than repression." This would help to fight illegal drug-dealing by the Mafia, Signor Ferrero said.

However, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, issued a warning this week that cannabis posed "health risks" similar to those caused by heroin.

In the 2006 World Drug Report, he said cannabis had become more potent in recent decades and Governments that maintained "inadequate" policies "get the drug problem they deserve ... Policy reversals leave young people confused as to just how dangerous cannabis is."
Daniela Santanche, a member of the Far Right Alleanza Nazionale -- the moving force behind "zero tolerance" -- said Signora Turco's decision would "send a terrible message to young people that drug use is OK."

The new drugs policy has also raised alarm among Catholic members of the centre-left coalition. The Vatican objected strongly this month when Signor Ferrero suggested that Italy might introduce supervised "shooting galleries" where heroin addicts could inject themselves in a controlled, hygienic environment.

A number of nations, including Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Australia and Canada, have supervised "drug-consumption centres." But the International Narcotics Control Board says this appears to condone hard drugs and thus undermines the UN's prohibitionist policies.

Signor Ferrero also caused a furore recently by declaring that "many professional people in Italy, including politicians" use cocaine.

Health experts say there has been an 80 per cent rise in cocaine use in Italy over the past ten years. There are also an estimated 300,000 heroin addicts.

Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd

- 30 -

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n837/a11.html

The Scotsman (Scotland)
Tuesday 27 June 2006

Contact: http://members.scotsman.com/contact.cfm
Website: http://www.scotsman.com/

CANNABIS AS BAD AS HEROIN,
WARNS UN DRUGS WATCHDOG

by Gerri Peev, Political Correspondent

THE drugs watchdog of the United Nations has rebuked the UK government's policy change on cannabis, saying it sent a confusing message to young people.

UN experts also warned that a major increase in the potency of cannabis means it now poses health risks similar to those of heroin.

The decision to reclassify cannabis as a Class C drug -- made by the Home Secretary in 2004 -- was implicitly criticised by Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, who warned of the growth in its use.

Cannabis had become more potent in the past few decades and governments that maintained inadequate policies got the "drug problem they deserve", Mr Costa said in the 2006 World Drug Report.

"Policy reversals leave young people confused as to just how dangerous cannabis is," he added. "

The cannabis pandemic, like other challenges to public health, requires consensus, a consistent commitment across the political spectrum and by society at large."

He warned governments against playing party politics with the classification of cannabis as its harmful effects were "no longer that different" to the damage caused by cocaine and heroin.
His remarks were made on UN Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

But the Home Office stood by its decision to maintain cannabis as Class C.

A spokesman said: "Cannabis is controlled as a Class C drug. It is harmful and illegal and no-one should take it. In January 2006 the Home Secretary accepted the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommendation that cannabis remain a Class C drug. This decision to retain its classification is supported by the police and by most drug and mental health charities."

The Home Office said that consumption of cannabis had fallen from more than 28 per cent to 24 per cent in 16-24 year olds.

Scotland has one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with an estimated 50,000 addicts. At least half a million Scots are believed to have smoked cannabis and 200,000 are believed to have taken cocaine.

Last week, Tom Wood, Scotland's drug tsar, sparked controversy by suggesting the nation had "lost the war on drugs."

The European Commission has admitted that drug abuse in the bloc and the deaths it causes have reached "unprecedented" levels and that in any given month, 1.5 million Europeans take cocaine and 12 million use cannabis.

Since David Blunkett, the former home secretary, downgraded cannabis to a class C, ministers have proposed much lower limits for possession of the drug before an individual is prosecuted as a dealer. In contrast, the Dutch parliament is considering allowing the controlled cultivation of cannabis while Italy has also taken a softer stance.

The European Commission is asking for input into its drugs policy review from July to September.

Copyright 2006 The Scotsman Publications Ltd

- 30 -

sportsman

European brown bear
Ursus arctos arctos

The Independent
& The Independent on Sunday (UK)
Tuesday 27 June 2006 00:29

The killing of Bruno:
act of cruelty,
or bear necessity?

by Tony Paterson in Berlin

Bruno, the first wild bear seen in Germany for 170 years, has been shot dead by hunters in the Bavarian Alps, prompting a public outcry and fury from conservationists who had fought in vain to capture the animal alive after it went on a month-long spree of farm livestock killing in the region.

The two-year-old bear, nicknamed Bruno by the German media but dubbed "rampant brown bear JJI" by the authorities, was killed by a marksman armed with a powerful hunting rifle at 4.50 am near the Spitzingsee lake in the Bavarian mountains yesterday, only hours after a ban on shooting the animal with live ammunition was lifted.

"The shot has been fired and the bear is dead," said Manfred Wölfl, a bear expert employed by the Bavarian government to track the animal. "Everyone knows that we would have preferred things to have turned out differently, but there was simply no other way of trapping the bear."

However, Bruno's death provoked a furious response from German and Austrian conservationists, who had enlisted a team of specialist Finnish bear hunters equipped with dogs, GPS position finders and anaesthetising stun darts in a forlorn attempt to take the bear alive.

Hubert Weinzierl, the President of Germany's Nature Protection Circle, described the shooting as: "The most stupid solution of all." He added: "I am deeply sad. The Germans should have taken a more relaxed attitude. In other countries bears and humans live peacefully alongside each other. Only in Germany are bears liquidated."

In Schliersee a press conference was interupted by self-described bear liberationist Bruno Engelhard, wearing a bear costume.

Spokesmen for the Bavarian and Austria hunters' associations said their organisations had been flooded with e-mails from the public, some of which threatened to murder hunters in retaliation for the bear's death. They said that as a result they were keeping the identities of hunters secret.

Germany's Nature Protection Association said the shooting was a "tragedy." A spokesman added: "In Austria, where bears were introduced several years ago, the animals walk past picnic tables and nobody bats an eyelid."

In Italy, Bruno's birthplace, Fulco Pratesi, the head of the country's World Wildlife Fund, described the shooting as an "act of barbarism."

Bruno wandered into Germany across the Austrian Alps from his birthplace in the Trentino district of Italy on 20 May. He was welcomed by the Bavarian state authorities as a sort of ursine prodigal son. Officials noted that the last wild bear was killed in the region in 1835.

But within days the animal started on a killing spree which led to the deaths of more than 35 sheep, dozens of chickens and domestic rabbits and the destruction of a beehive. Farmers in the region demanded the animal be shot on sight.

Bavaria was forced to admit that Bruno had become a "problem bear" but agreed to join forces with the WWF in an attempt to capture the animal alive, despite fears that its next victim would be human.

In the meantime, Bruno turned into a media celebrity, with reports of his whereabouts vying with the World Cup's progress on television. Germany was flooded with "Bruno T-shirts" and a mock "Bruno hunt" game featured on the internet.

The team of Finnish bear hunters was flown to Bavaria a fortnight ago. Equipped with a bear trap imported from the US, they covered more than 500 kilometres in the high Alps in a search for Bruno.

However, the bear eluded his pursuers at every turn. On one occasion Bruno managed to hunker down in a reception "blind spot," which made tracking him with GPS equipment impossible. Later, the bear was hit by the wing mirror of a car and was even seen sitting down outside a police station.

Bruno was last seen alive on Sunday evening by the owner of an inn located about 5,000 feet up in the Bavarian Alps. "My guests were having supper. I told them to stay inside. Then I went out and shouted at the bear and he ran off," the innkeeper said. The police were informed and hunters sent to track down the bear.

Several tourists in the Bavarian village of Schliersee, near where Bruno was shot, said they were relieved that the animal was dead. "It was high time that something was done. Any one of us could have been attacked," said one. But others said they were dismayed.

A spokeswoman for the Austrian WWF conceded that Bruno had become a threat to humans and said shooting the animal had always been an option. However, she insisted that the 20 wild brown bears ranging the Austrian Alps would not meet a similar plight. "They all live far from human habitation and pose no threat," she said.

In a gesture that seemed destined to provoke further outrage from animal lovers, Bavaria announced that Bruno's corpse would be delivered to a taxidermist and that a stuffed version of the bear would eventually be displayed at the state's "Museum for Man and Nature" in Munich.

- 30 -

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

I made the green in 2!!! I dropped the putt! I got a birdieAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

click if you have time
before you're vaporized

It's Sports Time on Vleeptron!
All the Sports from Vleeptron!
We've got the latest Qx'ii scores!
Guys playing golf in rivers of Lava!
Bear-baiting, fish-shooting,
cockfighting too!
Bare-knuckle boxing from 1902!
A fifth of our Sports
all take place in the Zoo!
Get your Sports on Vleeptron!
Get your Sports on Vleeptron!

This is a stale story from mid-May, but just last week I saw TV news film of this golf course, filled again with happy golfers.

Or maybe they weren't happy. Who knows who's happy? Who knows what happiness is?

All I can say for sure is that they were playing golf while, 5 miles off, Mount Merapi was the most violent, dangerous, earthquake-generating volcano on Earth.

I love erupting volcanos.

They love golf.

We have much in common.

=========================

Associated Press
Monday 15 May 2006

Play abandoned at erupting
Mount Merapi's golf course

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia -- The caddies have fled. A pair of cleaning ladies squat beneath the shade of a tree close to the 18th hole. The club's manager sits and smokes, knowing he is in for a quiet couple of weeks.

When dormant, the volcano that gives Golf Merapi club its name is its biggest draw.

Golfers from around the world come for the unique experience of playing on the flanks of a still active volcano, the crater of which is just five miles from the course.

But when the mountain is erupting, it stops play like nothing else.

"I tell people, it is probably safer to stay at home," said manager Sukirman, as the 9,800-foot peak belched out massive clouds of ash and sent searing hot gas clouds rolling down its slopes on Monday.

The club, which is situated just outside the peak's mandatory evacuation zone, is not the only business that is suffering because of Merapi's wrath, which scientists say could last for several weeks.

Scores of guesthouses popular with adventure tourists are now off limits, as are camp sites and restaurants catering for day trippers from Yogyakarta, the nearest city to the volcano.

The peak sputtered into life several weeks ago and activity has steadily increased.

On Saturday, officials hiked its alert status to the highest level, and more than 5,000 people were evacuated from their homes.

Many are staying in temporary shelters close to Merapi Golf.

Sukirman said the caddies that ply the 6,969-yard, par-72 course ran home when a particularly large eruption shook the mountain on Monday. The club closed its gates, and most of its 250 staff were told not to come to work.

"This is the risk of putting a club here," said Sukirman, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name. "When there is an eruption, it can make the future look pretty unclear."

© The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

=====================

Merapi Golf:
Golfing on The Top of Jogja

Merapi Golf: A Golf sitting on 800 meters above sea level, with just the perfect climate and the most breathtaking panoramic view of Mount Merapi with the hinterland of Yogyakarta and the Indian Ocean, is worth trying to play on.

Merapi The Perfect Golf Course

These 18 holes, 6370 meters par 72 course is located only 30 minutes drive from the ancient city of Yogyakarta. The stunning design of MERAPI GOLF COURSE is truly masterpiece of golf course, created by the golf course master: Thomson, Wolveridge & Perrett

The blend of the natural beauty and the freshness of mountainous weather, the challenging hilly landscape with Volcanic rocks of million years makes the golf course one of the most attractive courses in Central Java and difficult to forget.

Each hole is carefully planned and positioned, and is distinctly different with its own difficulties, serving a superb test for clubbing.

The quiet and peaceful surrounding, the spectacularly beautiful view, make the golfers enjoy the game and certainly would not miss this challenging course. This is really the place where golf lovers could play without being bothered by the heat and pollution.

Green Fee:
Weekdays : IDR 150,000 + V.A.T
Weekends : IDR 300,000 + V.A.T
Golf Car : IDR 100,000 + V.A.T (member)
IDR 100,000 + V.A.T (non member)

Golf Equipment, Pro Shop and Restaurant available.

PT. MARAPI GELANGGANG WISATA
Jl. Golf No. 1 Kepuharjo-Cangkringan
Kab. Sleman, Yogyakarta 55281
Phone: +62 274 896176, +62 274 896177, +62 274 896178
Fax: +62 274 896179
Shortcut URL:
http://www.yogyes.com/merapi-golf

Visit Yogyakarta / Jogja. Copyright © 2003-2006 YogYES.COM.

filching stuff from Asia again

Some asshat left an anonymous Driveby Comment and told me I had a stupid blog.

Above, my new Feedback Software. It collects all the readers of Vleeptron and asks them what they think of it.

If it doesn't wiggle for you, go HERE.

okay i steal things god made me this way

Grrrrrrrr I tried to filch this image and post it here, but it is Resisting me. If it's not here and if it's not wigging, go HERE it's wiggling like crazy here.

giggle i really like this. perhaps The Artist will tell Vleeptron a little bit about it, what its Title is (if it has one), how he made it, what it means, and perhaps show us some of his Other Stuff.

This is the first entry in The Vleeptron Animated Film Festival.

Postalo Vleeptron / 1st Day Issue: Henri Dunant / No. 1 in series: Very Very Big Swiss Cheeses

Cliquez ici svp
Klicken Sie hier bitte
Scattare qui per favore

Okay I hope this image is viewed as Respectful. Vleeptron does not want to start a new violent Cartoon Riot with the good Volk von CH, one Cartoon Riot per year is more than enough. Having only Today discovered Herr/M. Dunant, Vleeptron is already a Big Fan from what we are reading and learning about him.

Like the USA Postal Service's simultaneous issuing of Young Svelt Exciting Elvis and Old Corpulent Disgusting Elvis, we present the Old and Young Henri Dunant; clearly these are the two most famous and recognizeable Icons of Dunant.

Respectful but also in Vleeptron's slightly verkakte avant-garde Wortspiel kind of way. We hope M. Dunant would appreciate a good joke. And also the design of his Memorial seems to be in the spirit of contemporary Public Outdoor Taxpayer-Subsidized Art by sculptors like Oldenburg.

Jetzt ist alles klar mit diese PizzaQ: Up from the fœtid Comment Sewers that flow deep beneath Ciudad Vleeptron

bien sur cliquez ici svp

Okay okay The High Non-Junk Science Council of Vleeptron is pleased to announce that The Pizza with Tofu & Pineapple has been jointly awarded to Adam and PatfromCH. Adam had the right hunch, and Pat actually supplied the URL which makes Alles Klar Perfekt.

Originally when I saw the Imperfekt graphic from the Associated Press, I thought: Uh-oh, this is an entirely New Religion or Belief System somewhere. First I thought it was what Hindu ambulances look like in India or Bali or something. (I ain't never Wanderlusted to them places.) Or maybe Druse??? It just made me feel Stoopid.

Pat gets an extra slice for providing Vleeptron with the longest goddam URL in the history of the Internet. (abbas/hulleye uses TinyURL for these 211-meter anacondas.)

================

4 Comments:

adam said...

Palestine, I'm pretty sure, and it means the ICRC hasn't yet gotten around to giving the workers the red diamond, since while the symbol is meant to show unity between Christians and Muslims, it kinda leaves the Jews (and Hindus, or pagans, or Pastafarians, whoever else) out of the mix.
14:02

Bob Merkin said...

I LIKE IT!

but no pizza yet. i need a citation. a url. proof. i ain't giving pizza away without proof.
16:51

patproudlyfromCH said...

I have no blasting idea whatsoever. seen that one before though. could well be that this one is not in use anymore (like the red lion). maybe I can find out more about the origins of that little bugger. In the meantime hereßs some histrory on ICRC emblems
http://images.google.ch/imgres?imgurl=http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/emblem-questions-answers-281005/%24File/crystal_cross.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/emblem-questions-answers-281005&h=200&w=200&sz=5&hl=de&start=1&tbnid=Cz47YNNllX51RM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2Bicrc%2Bemblems%2B%2B%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Dde%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG
06:07

Bob Merkin said...

AHA! Danke! In the URL you sent me, they reproduce this same symbol -- BUT look! The cross and the crescent are separated, there is a white gap between them. In the original Associated Press news story graphic, THEY screwed up, it was All One Continuous Red Thing with no gap. So yeah, I think Adam had the right guess -- it's for ambulances in (Palestinian) neighborhoods which serve both Muslim and Christian customers, and don't want to piss off either.

I will make my necessary drafting corrections.

Hey -- another gap in my History of Yerp, Helvetia, etc. Is this Henry Dunant guy a Very Big Swiss Cheese? Is he like one of your George Washingtons, a nationally beloved and venerated guy?

Or does the average Swissperson say, "Who?"

patmadeinswitzerland said...

yup, looks like Adam gets the Pizza. Congratulations !
here's a link (lotsa text though, but you can download the official emblems))
http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/emblem?OpenDocument
and here's another one on the icrc in israel and the occpied territories (also lotsa text and
htthttp://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine?OpenDocument#Key%20documentp://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine?OpenDocument#Key%20document

oh yes, Henri Dunant is a very very BIG swiss cheese. One of our few National Heroes. We are very proud of him
17:12

htthttp://

are you trying to mess with my head?

=========================

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Henry Dunant, Author of "A Memory of Solferino"

Up until the middle of the 19th century, there were no organized and well-established army nursing systems for casualties and no safe and protected institutions to accommodate and treat those who were wounded on the battlefield. In June 1859, the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant traveled to Italy to meet French emperor Napoléon III with the intention of discussing difficulties in conducting business in Algeria, at that time occupied by France. When he arrived in the small town of Solferino on the evening of June 24, he witnessed the Battle of Solferino, an engagement in the Austro-Sardinian War. In a single day, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were left wounded on the field. Henry Dunant was shocked by the terrible aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers, and the near-total lack of medical attendance and basic care. He completely abandoned the original intent of his trip and for several days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment and care for the wounded. He succeeded in organizing an overwhelming level of relief assistance by motivating the local population to aid without discrimination. Back in his home in Geneva, he decided to write a book entitled A Memory of Solferino which he published with his own money in 1862. He sent copies of the book to leading political and military figures throughout Europe. In addition to penning a vivid description of his experiences in Solferino in 1859, he explicitly advocated the formation of national voluntary relief organizations to help nurse wounded soldiers in the case of war. In addition, he called for the development of international treaties to guarantee the neutrality and protection of those wounded on the battlefield as well as medics and field hospitals.

On February 9, 1863 in Geneva, Henry Dunant founded the "Committee of the Five" (together with four other leading figures from well-known Geneva families) as an investigatory commission of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare. Their aim was to examine the feasibility of Dunant's ideas and to organize an international conference about their possible implementation. The members of this committee, aside from Dunant himself, were Gustave Moynier, lawyer and chairman of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare; physician Louis Appia, who had significant experience working as a field surgeon; Appia's friend and colleague Théodore Maunoir, from the Geneva Hygiene and Health Commission; and Guillaume-Henri Dufour, a Swiss Army general of great renown. Eight days later, the five men decided to rename the committee to the "International Committee for Relief to the Wounded." In October (26-29) 1863, the international conference organized by the committee was held in Geneva to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battle field. The conference was attended by 36 individuals: eighteen official delegates from national governments, six delegates from other non-governmental organizations, seven non-official foreign delegates, and the five members of the International Committee. The states and kingdoms represented by official delegates were Baden, Bavaria, France, Britain, Hanover, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and Spain.

Welcome home from the Vet, Elmer! Great to see you recovering and murdering things again!

Vleeptron recommends: Click.

I Can't Give You
Anything But Love

music by Jimmy McHugh
lyrics by Dorothy Fields

from the Broadway review
"Blackbirds of 1928"

I can't give you anything but love, baby
That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby
Dream a while, scheme a while
We're sure to find
Happiness
And I guess
All those things you've always pined for

Gee I'd like to see you looking swell, baby
Diamond bracelets Woolworth's doesn't sell, baby
Till that lucky day you know darn well, baby
I can't give you anything but love

In the beginning, Bill created the Heavens and the Earth (virtually)

Yeah yeah just click 2 times
& fine things will happen

giggle I stumbled into this last night on IRC Undernet #pakistan. Buncha guys chattering on in Urdu

{incrediblysexyfellow} yadda yadda Bill Gates

{handsomebrilliantguy} yadda yadda MITS Altair yadda

{incrediblysexyfellow} yadda yadda 1976 yadda

and then one of them put up a URL and I clicked on the URL and found this rather amazing typewritten pissed-off letter from the ancient past, from a Time that kneweth not Britney Spears nor Beyonce.

I'm sorry, but this is why I admire this guy.

I built me a kit computer about two years after he wrote this letter, not a MITS Altair, but an IMSAI (the computer in the kid's bedroom in "War Games"), and it used the same chip (Intel 8080) as the MITS Altair -- the world's first home computer.

Well, my amazing incredibly expensive home computer mostly just sat there doing nothing -- I called it The $3000 Alarm Clock, because that was the fanciest thing I could make it do in Machine/Assembly language, I had to program it in 0010010011110001110 off the front panel switches. (I am slightly grateful that I had to learn Machine Language to make it do something more than be plugged in and make 16 little red lights glow oooooooooooooooo)

Bill Gates' first BASIC compiler/interpreter/whatever was the first piece of software I ever bought. I could afford it, it worked, and suddenly my IMSAI could do interesting, even useful stuff. Bill Gates brought my home computer to life, like Dr. Frankenstein brought the monster to life.

In the 28 years since then, whenever I've needed software, Microsoft has had it, they've charged me a price I could afford, and the stuff worked -- if not perfectly, better than anything else I could find. (And usually there was nothing else to find. A million other companies have sold software, but a day late and a dollar short.)

But mostly I admire Bill Gates because in 1976, better than anyone else on earth, he saw the Future so clearly that he was able to Shape it largely the way he wanted. Who cares if I don't like the way he created the Virtual World?

Visionary. Prophet. If you think those words give him too much credit -- well, who's been better at seeing 28 years into the Future?

If you think he's just a greedy capitalist pig, compare what he does with his life and his fortune to that Publicke Asshole Donald Trump.

I apologize that The World Is Not A Simple Place. Bill Gates is doing more to help sick kids in the Third World than the US Government (Bush Administration). He and Melinda pay for their medical care, and they don't make them swear on the Bible to abstain from premarital sex before they can get the medicine.

First Day Issue: Postalo Vleeptron / Symbol Proliferation / 911 or 999 millidwings

Sure, click. Who knows?

I think I've indicated now and then that, in contrast to the orderly Utopia of Vleeptron, its neighbor planets Yobbo and Hoon have a bit of a rough edge to them. They can indeed be a lot of fun to visit, but they're a bit wild, goofy, lawless, anarchic and meshuge.

This is often Good for their music scenes and clubs, not so good always for innocent backpacking tourists who don't know the ropes or don't have a native guide. For an Earth metaphor, think: Kaliningrad. Or maybe contemporary Praha. Or Hamburg, if the rest of it is anything like the neighborhood around the Bahnhof.

The Intergalactic Committee of the Dwingeloo-2 Red Cross also tried to pull that Symbol Proliferation crap, but the Yobbos and Hoons told them to shove it up their Võrkþ. On Yobbo and Hoon, the humanitarian emergency services are a fiesta of symbols festooning their ambulances and emergency relief autogryos. Few of the symbols make much sense to visitors. The $ is pretty obvious, but there was a misunderstanding, and somebody thought somebody was saying "Manet" rather than "Money," so that explains the symbol to the upper right of the $.

As for the symbol to the right of Melanchthon Mouse, the Administrator of Hoon Humanitarian Services delegated the design of their symbol to the teenage hoodlums Lenny and Spike, who volunteer as autogyro rescue pilots, and this was the rather predictable result. By the time complaints about the new symbol surfaced, all 293 emergency aircraft and vehicles had been plastered with the symbol and the budget could not afford to change the symbol.

Any questions about the other symbols, Leave A Comment, or make up your own story.

Bob is mementarily klooless: PizzaQ

Okay, I give up. 3 Pizza Slices with Tofu. If an ambulance comes screaming around the corner and it has this Red Cross affiliate symbol on it -- WHERE ARE YOU?

Extra pineapple if you can also tell us anything extra about this symbol, what faith or belief system it represents, what the symbology reflects -- any stuff you know.

Bush's bonehead footshooting stunt; & a symbolic but important humanitarian leap forward

The Red Whatchamacallit, or in Red Cross parlance:

The third protocol emblem, also known as the Red Crystal.
Graphic shows various Red Cross emblems.

(Agence-Vleeptron Presse
modification of AP Graphic)

Of all the bonehead stunts the Bush administration ever pulled, capturing and detaining human beings in the Afghanistan and Iraq war and the War on Terror (whatever the fuck that is) and refusing to permit the International Red Cross to serve as neutral inspectors of the conditions in which we detained them pretty much tops the list.

Now, five years after leaping into the pit to wrestle this Global Tar Baby, the absence of IRC inspections of our detainees has been a guarantee that we have utterly no credible evidence of how we have been treating these human beings. When anyone in the world accuses the USA of torturing, mistreating, abusing them or denying them the most fundamental human rights, the USA can only reply that the world will have to take our word for it that we're treating them humanely. In lieu of regular IRC inspections of our detention facilities like Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, the USA offers the world The Honor System. Just take our word for it. Trust Us.

In all American history, we never faced a more demonizeable enemy than the Third Reich -- the Nazis. Here's an odd little thing about our war with the Nazis. When the Nazis captured American and British and Canadian soldiers, sailors and airmen, they permitted the International Red Cross to inspect Allied prisoners, observe the camp (Stalag) conditions where they were held, and listen to and try to address treatment complaints by our prisoners.

And the German military personnel we captured and detained and held in camps in the UK, Canada and the United States -- we permitted the same IRC inspectors to visit them.

As a result, American and Allied POWs don't recall having a nice holiday in the Stalags. But they remember being safeguarded and fed, their wounds and medical needs attended to, and not being abused, terrorized, tortured, degraded or humiliated. They were treated with a fundamental respect.

And our side did the same with German POWs. All watched over by the International Red Cross and its inspectors from neutral nations (Switzerland and Sweden).

More lessons from World War II show this current bonehead, foot-shooting refusal to allow the International Red Cross to inspect our detainees in even greater relief and contrast.

First, the Japanese treated Allied POWs horrifically, scoffed at the notion of IRC inspection -- and Japan is remembered for its POW atrocities with great and enduring bitterness and disgust, a stain and shame that their allies the Germans don't have to share. "King Rat," book or movie, by a Brit who survived Singapore's Changi POW Camp, James Clavell, is a very good and ghastly snapshot, as is "The Bridge on the River Kwai," book or movie.

But the Third Reich did not extend the inspection and treaty umbrella of the International Red Cross to their millions of civilian detainees/prisoners throughout occupied Europe. That earned Germany a stain and shame they are still struggling with and suffering politically and diplomatically from sixty years later.

Hitler is long dead and gone, but the Germans who became leaders after him must endure and cope with the Nazi mess.

How a government treats its prisoners and detainees now is an investment in history. Any government which claims it faces a crisis too dangerous and imminent to allow compromises like International Red Cross inspections has guaranteed its nation and people a harvest of shame for the rest of living memory.

Bush must leave office in January 2009. Whichever presidents follow him -- great statespersons or more Psycho Loop Jobs -- the statespersons will have to do their work shackled to a fœtid cannonball stenciled BUSH, and the Loop Jobs will have to employ propaganda morons and Professional Liars like Tony Snow to answer all world complaints with: "Fuck 'em, who cares what they say?" as America's reputation as a great historical advocate for human rights and dignity continues to spiral down the world toilet.

The IRC has won more Nobel Peace Prizes than I own cats. I could write an essay this size about the IRC's historical shortcomings, goofs and blunders.

But it's still in business, and IRC inspections of detainees, and its stewardship of the Geneva Convention ideals, are still the Hot Button at the Center of the world Cyclone, because the IRC's fundamentally important work is conducted so well that a world which still generates war, genocide, famine, plague and strife but has no IRC would be ghastly beyond imagining.

I don't like it when nosey people insist on going down in my basement to see how I treat my detainees, but when I grudgingly allow them access to my amateur home dungeon, they tell the world that I'm treating my detainees okay, and then they go inspect the other amateur dungeons in my neighborhood.

Even the Psycho Loop Job Bush administration should figure out this simple historical lesson and open Guantanamo and every detainee facility to the International Red Cross. Immediately. Why do they wait, stall and resist? Because it felt so good to shoot America's reputation in the foot that they want to do it more?

If anyone has a passionate rebuttal of why America should continue to tell the IRC and the Geneva Convention to go fuck itself, please Leave A Comment. No anonymous Drivebys. Make your case but sign your fucking name or identify yourself in some authentic way.

And now, some rather important news about the International Red Cross in a world still filled with war, genocide, famine, strife, plague, flood, tsunami, torture and human rights abuses. A new Symbol for an affiliate of the Red Cross may start appearing on ambulances in the Middle East soon. Symbols are important. I don't know why, but apparently they are.

=============

Associated Press
Wednesday 21 June 2006

Red Cross admits
Israel to organization

by Alexander G. Higgins

GENEVA, Switzerland -- The Red Cross admitted Israel to the worldwide humanitarian organization early Thursday, ending decades of exclusion linked to the Jewish state's refusal to accept the traditional cross symbol.

The approval came in the early hours Thursday following a two-day International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

With a round of applause the Red Cross federation admitted Israel's Magen David Adom society simultaneously with the Palestine Red Crescent. An optional new emblem was adopted so that Israel could retain its red star of David instead of having to adopt the red cross or crescent used by the 184 other societies in the global movement.

"This has been going on for 58 long years. It's time. It's overdue," said Bonnie McElveen Hunter, chairman of the American Red Cross, which had been campaigning for years for the Israeli society's admission.

Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon said the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent had earlier rejected a Muslim amendment that would have challenged Israel's occupation of Arab territory since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. The vote was 72 votes for the amendment and 191 against, he said.

Then the conference passed by a 237-54 vote a resolution setting up the legal basis for Israelis' admission and making an exception to the rule that societies have to be under a sovereign state so that the Palestinians could join as well.

Magen David Adom has sought membership in the Red Cross movement since the 1930s -- even before Israel became a state -- but has been barred from entry because it objects to using the traditional symbols of the movement to identify its medical and humanitarian workers.

The decision early Thursday completed a complicated process that included the creation of the optional, third emblem -- a blank, red-bordered square standing on one corner -- that could stand alone or frame the Israeli society's red star.

The emblem -- dubbed the "red crystal" -- was approved over Muslim objections in a hard-fought diplomatic conference last December. But that was only the first step, and the conference was called to complete the job.

Conference organizers said their aim was to make the movement universal.

The simple red cross on a white background -- the reversal of colors of the Swiss flag -- was adopted as the emblem of the movement when it was founded in 1863 by Swiss humanitarians trying to care for battlefield casualties who otherwise were left to suffer.

But the symbol unintentionally reminded Muslims of the Christian Crusaders, and they insisted on their own red crescent in the 19th century.

When Israel's society bid for membership was turned down in 1949, it objected to using either the cross or the crescent, and the Red Cross movement refused to admit yet another emblem.

The society and its friends have been campaigning for years to find a way out of the stalemate, and the new emblem was designed primarily to meet Israel's objections. Magen David Adom can combine it with the red star to create a new logo.

Israel's military will be able to use the crystal by itself on a white flag to protect medics and other humanitarian workers helping war casualties. But any society could combine the emblem with the cross or crescent -- or both -- for temporary use.

- 30 -

==================

International Committee of the Red Cross
Press Release 06/65
Thursday 22 June 2006

International conference
paves the way for red crystal

The 29th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent has amended the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to incorporate the additional emblem of the red crystal, which now has the same status as the red cross and red crescent. In addition the participants to the International Conference requested that the ICRC and the International Federation recognize and admit the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PCRS) into the Movement.

As a consequence of this successful outcome the ICRC has now recognized the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the Israeli National Society, Magen David Adom (MDA), and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies will admit both National Societies. This outcome extends the universality of the Movement to an important area of Red Cross and Red Crescent operations and strengthens the operational cooperation of the two National Societies with each other and with their international partners in the Movement.
The Conference had been convened as a follow-up to the diplomatic conference of States in December 2005, which adopted the Third Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, creating an additional protective emblem for the Movement, known as the red crystal.

The chairman of the International Conference Mohammed Al Hadid declared that: ‘‘This is an historical moment for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. We urge all governments to respect the red crystal, in addition to the red cross and the red crescent’’.

The acceptance by States party to the Geneva Conventions of the Movement’s amended Statutes also means that National Societies can benefit from the flexibility afforded by the Third Additional Protocol in the use of the red crystal or of a combination of emblems recognized by the Conventions.

The use of the red crystal will also provide additional protection to war victims and humanitarian workers in conflict situations where the red cross or the red crescent cannot be used.

The ICRC, the International Federation and the National Societies might use the red crystal temporarily and in exceptional circumstances. However no State or National Society is obliged to make any change to the emblem it uses. The ICRC and the International Federation will not change their respective names and emblems.

The International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent brings together representatives of the national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, the International Federation and the ICRC, with representatives of the States that are party to the Geneva Convention. In total 178 National Societies attended and 148 States.

For further information, or to set up interviews (ISDN lines available in Geneva), please contact:

Ian Piper, ICRC Tel: +41 22 730 2063 or + 41 79 217 3216 (mobile)
Marie-Françoise Borel, International Federation Tel: +41 22 730 4346 or + 41 79 217 3345

The International Federation, Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross together constitute the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

See also:

# Resolution 1, 29th Conference, 22 June 2006

# Additional Protocol III relating to the adoption of an additional distinctive emblem

# List of signatories and ratifications of Additional Protocol III (in French on the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) site)

# Design of the additional emblem

# Memorandum of Understanding between the Magen David Adom and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (on the Swiss FDA website)

# Council of Delegates: bulletin 1

# International Conference bulletin 2

# International Conference bulletin 3

# Statement by ICRC President Dr Jakob Kellenberger, 20 June

More information on the 29th International Conference page

Other documents in this section:

Focus\RC Movement\International Conference\29th Conference
Focus\RC Movement
Focus\Emblem
Humanitarian law
ICRC Activities\Humanitarian diplomacy
Humanitarian law\Emblem

Copyright © 2006 International Committee of the Red Cross 22-06-2006

================

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running!

Magen David Adom

This article documents a current event.
Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

The Magen David Adom (Hebrew: מגן דוד אדום ) is Israel's national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service. The name means "Red Shield of David" but is usualy translated as "Red Star of David".

History

The Magen David Adom organisation was formed in 1930 as a volunteer outfit with a single branch in Tel Aviv. After opening branches in Jerusalem and Haifa, it was extended nationwide five years later, providing medical support to the public and the Haganah. In 1950 the Knesset passed a law making MDA's status as Israel's national emergency service official.

Current status

Though MDA currently staffs approximately 1200 emergency medical technicians, paramedics and doctors, it still relies heavily on over 10,000 volunteers who serve in both operational and administrative capacities. MDA operates 95 stations with a fleet of over 700 ambulances, mobile intensive care units and armored ambulances nationwide. Unique among civilian emergency medical services, MDA can become an auxiliary arm of the Israeli Defense Forces during times of war.

Involvement with the Red Cross

Since its creation, Magen David Adom has been denied membership in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) since it has refused to replace its red Star of David emblem with a pre-approved symbol.

The official reason for the denial of membership is concerns about symbol proliferation; at the same 1929 conference which granted use of the Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun, a limitation was placed on acceptance of any further emblems. The "Red Star of David" symbol was not submitted to the ICRC until 1931.

Similar concerns of India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics regarding the use of non-Hindu and seemingly religious symbols were also dismissed by the ICRC, but their national bodies chose to adopt the Red Cross as their official emblems in order to gain entry. The Red Cross -- the inverse of the Swiss flag, the country of origin of the founder of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement -- is not intended as a religious symbol, but is often perceived as such.

Critics of the ICRC assert discrimination since Turkey, Iran and Egypt were granted membership in 1929 while using the Islamic Red Crescent as their emblem, citing the same concerns about the cross.

In her March, 2000 letter to the International Herald Tribune, doctor Bernadine Healy, then president of the American Red Cross, wrote:

"The international committee's feared proliferation
of symbols is a pitiful fig leaf, used for decades as
the reason for excluding the Magen David Adom
-- the Shield (or Star) of David."

In protest, the American Red Cross withheld millions in administrative funding to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) since May 2000.

Despite the continued lack of official recognition, the IFRC has increased assistance to MDA by helping with organizational development, and identifying opportunities to incorporate MDA staff and volunteers in trainings and deployments during international disasters.

Since the mid-1990's, there has also been extensive and growing co-operation between MDA and the ICRC including, among other things, a USD$2.2 million expenditure on strengthening ties between the two organisations, the signing in 2000 of a two year co-operation statement, the permanent placement of an ICRC co-operation officer in MDA headquarters, and extensive support of the MDA's blood bank activities. In addition, there are bilateral cooperation agreements between MDA and a number of national Red Cross societies.

In 2005, the ICRC added the third Protocol emblem, famously dubbed the "Red Crystal," hailed as a truly universal emblem free of religious, ethnic, or political connotation. The new symbol is a red square frame tilted at a 45 degree angle. MDA has adopted this symbol in addition to their pre-existing emblem. The third Protocol Emblem went into effect after final approval by the Geneva Conventions on December 7, 2005, establishing a solid foundation in international law for its use and recognition. Relief societies already using the red cross or crescent need not adopt the new emblem.

In the mean while, the MDA is recognised by the ICRC, and the Red Crystal symbol has been adopted in the ICRC statutes on the same level as the Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols. [1]

On June 22, 2006, the ICRC officially admitted Magen David Adom as a full member of the organization, together with the Palestine Red Crescent society. [2]

References

1. ^ ICRC website - Press Release 06/65, 22-06-2006
2. ^ CNN.com news release, 22-06-2006

External links

* MDA Israel (in English)
* MDA Israel (in Hebrew)
* Hatzolah Israel Affiliate of Magen David Adom that provides first response to medical emergencies.
* MDA, USA - A Support Site in English
* The Archetypal Mandala of India of the Star of David
* ICRC page discussing relationship with the MDA
* MDA page discussing relationship with the ICRC
* American Red Cross page discussing relationship with MDA
* IRC Discrimination, Jewish Virtual Library
* Canadian Court Denies Charity Status of Israel's Red Star of David

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magen_David_Adom"

* This page was last modified 14:12, 22 June 2006.
Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

A-VP Sports presents the Offside Rule. You have until Thursday 10 am USA East Coast time to learn this.

Offside (football)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Offside is a Law in football (soccer) which effectively limits how far forward attacking players may be when involved in play. Simply put, a player cannot gain an advantage by waiting for the ball with only the goalkeeper between him and the goal.

Application

The application of the offside rule is best considered in three steps; Offside position, Offside offence and Offside sanction.

* Offside position

A player is in an offside position if "he is nearer to his opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second to last opponent," unless he is in his own half of the field of play. A player level with the second last opponent is considered to be in an onside position. Note that the last two opposing players can be either the goalkeeper and an outfield player, or two outfield players. Also note that offside position is determined when the ball is touched/played by a team-mate -- a player's offside position status is not then altered by them or opposing players running forwards or backwards. It is important to note that being in an offside position is not an offence in itself. Another important point to note is that any player's offside position status is reset when an opponent touches the ball and is deemed by the referee to be in control of the ball.

* Offside offence

A player in an offside position is only committing an offside offence if, "at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team", the player is in the referee's opinion involved in active playing with play; interfering with an opponent; or gaining an advantage by being in that position.

Determining whether a player is in "active play" can be complex. A player is not committing an offside offence if the player receives the ball directly from a throw-in, goal kick or corner kick.

FIFA World Cup issued new guidelines for interpreting the offside law in 2003 and these were incorporated in law 11 in July 2005. The new wording seeks to more precisely define the three cases as follows:

* Interfering with play means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a teammate.

* Interfering with an opponent means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent's line of vision or movements or making a gesture or movement which, in the opinion of the referee, deceives or distracts an opponent.

* Gaining an advantage by being in an offside position means playing a ball that rebounds to him off a post or crossbar or playing a ball that rebounds to him off an opponent having been in an offside position.

In practice, a player in an offside position may be penalised before playing or touching the ball if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.

The referees' interpretation of these new definitions is still proving controversial until this day, largely over what movements a player in an offside position can make without being judged to be interfering with an opponent.

Offside sanction

The sanction for an offside offence is an indirect free kick to the opposing team, at the spot where the offence occurred. Most referees use their discretion and let play go on if the "offended" team already has the advantage or ball, in order not to slow down play with redundant free kicks that achieve the same purpose of giving the advantage or ball back to the "offended" team.

Officiating

In enforcing this rule, the referee depends greatly on an assistant referee, who generally keeps in line with the second last defender in his relevant end (exact positioning techniques are more complex). An assistant referee signals that an offside offence has occurred by raising his flag in a manner that signifies the location of the offence:

* Flag pointed downwards: offence has occurred in the third of the pitch nearest to the assistant referee.

* Flag horizontal to the ground: offence has occurred in the middle third of the pitch.

* Flag pointed upwards: offence has occurred in the third of the pitch furthest from the assistant referee.

The assistant referees' task with regards to offside can be difficult, as they need to keep up with attacks and counter attacks, consider which players are in an offside position when the ball is played, and then determine whether the offside positioned players become involved in active play. The risk of false judgement is further enhanced by the foreshortening effect, which occurs when the distance between attacking player and the assistant referee is significantly different from the distance to the defending player, and the assistant referee is not directly in line with the defender. The difficulty of offside officiating is often underestimated by spectators. Trying to judge if a player is level with an opponent at the moment the ball is kicked is not easy: if an attacker and a defender are running in opposite directions, they can be two metres apart in a tenth of a second.

History

It is often assumed that the offside rule is a recent addition to combat "goal scrounging", "cherry picking", "goal hanging" or (in Canada) "goal sucking", where attacking players hang around near the opposing goal in case the ball gets kicked upfield, but in fact it dates back to the early years of the game, and was much stricter in the past than it is today. A player was "off his side" if he was standing in front of the ball (compare with the current offside law in rugby -- a game descended from the same roots), that is, between the ball and the opponent's goal. This was by no means universal -- the original Sheffield Rules had no offside, and players known as "kick throughs" were positioned permanently near the opponents' goal.

In 1848, HC Malden held a meeting at his Trinity College, Cambridge rooms, that addressed the problem. Representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury attended, each bringing their own set of rules. They sat down a little after 4pm and by five to midnight had drafted what is thought to be the first set of "Cambridge Rules". Malden is quoted as saying how "very satisfactorily they worked".

Unfortunately no copy of these 1848 rules exists today, but they are thought to have included laws governing throw-ins, goal-kicks, halfway line markings, re-starts, and the disallowing of holding and pushing. They even allowed for a string to be used as a cross bar.

Slowly, as these rules were tried, tested, written and re-written over the following years, a revised set of Cambridge Rules was drawn up in 1856. A copy of these rules, thought to be the oldest set still in existence, can be found in the Shrewsbury School library.

As football developed in the 1860s and 1870s, the offside law proved the biggest argument between the clubs. Sheffield got rid of the "kick throughs" by amending their laws so that one member of the defending side was required between a forward player and the opponent's goal; the Football Association also compromised slightly and adopted the Cambridge idea of three. Finally, Sheffield came into line with the F.A., and "three players" were the rule until 1925.

The change to "two players" rule led to an immediate increase in goal scoring. 4,700 goals were scored in 1,848 Football League games in 1924/25. It rose to 6,373 goals (from the same number of games) in 1925/26.

In 1990 the law was amended to consider an attacker to be onside if level with the second last opponent. This change was part of a general movement by the game's authorities to make the rules more conducive to attacking football and help the game to flow more freely.

In 2003, FIFA issued more stringent guidelines for penalising offside infringements, to encourage attacking play. As such, whether a player in an offside position is penalised depends on his actions and location. With this modification, attackers are no longer penalised when they get behind the defenders from an onside position while having a passive teammate in an offside position. Thus there are more goals scored through legitimate defence-splitting passes without being penalised.

Offside trap

The offside trap is a defensive tactic. When an attacking player is making a run up the field with a team-mate ready to kick the ball up to him, the defenders will move up-field in order to put the attacker behind them just before the ball is kicked, hence putting the attacker in an offside position when the ball is kicked. Defenders using this tactic often attempt to bring an attacker's potential offside status to the attention of the assistant referee, typically by shouting or raising their arm.

The use of the trap is often derided as making for boring football. However, it can be a risky strategy as all the defenders have to move up together, otherwise the attacking players will not be in an offside position; if the offside trap fails, the attacking players will have an almost clear run towards the goal. The 2003 rule changes have made it even more perilous as a tactic.

One of the best-known defenders to employ the offside trap was Billy McCracken of Newcastle United. It is claimed his play pressured officials to modify the laws in 1925, reducing the required number of defenders between the attacker and the goal line from three to two.

The offside trap has become riskier since the 2003 law interpretation in which the definition of active play was made more stringent. Thus, teams attempting an offside trap are less likely to have an offside offence called when they have caught a player in an offside position if he was deemed to be not in active play.

Trivia

The offside trap is often used in a humourous manner; it is joked that Women are incapable of understanding the offside rule. Also in the Budweiser adverts during the FIFA 2006 World Cup one of the American commentators says "So if he, moves across here and he's back here. Is that offside?" to which his partner replies "Beats the hell outta me".

External links

* Laws of the Game - Offside (from FIFA)
* Offside Presentation June 2005 - PDF file (from FIFA)
* Flash Animation detailing the Offside law (from FIFA)
* Detailed history of the offside rule

* This page was last modified 20:03, 21 June 2006.

Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Die viele Gesichter von Heidi

Danke Man-on-the-Ground in CH!

Bitte, translate the belly and t-shirt messages.

these hats? & more Suisse footie fans & a poodle

Hmmm that's a Swiss Poodle on her lap.

On the right, she's not holding up her
red shirt to get a small tattoo.
The red shirt IST her tattoo.

Are these the Helvetian sombreros you're talking about? Compared to that nude Yank at the USA-Italy match who painted himself the color of our flag, these gentlemen look very refined and dignified. Do you have a Footie Costume? Any fotos of yourself?