More high quality "military news" from the Associated Press

Q: What's wrong with this story?

ABC Money

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Navy on Wednesday awarded a $29.8 million contract boost to a unit of General Dynamics Corp. for maintenance and repair on the USS Texas battleship.

General Dynamics' subsidiary Electric Boat Corp. will provide alterations and testing on the ship as part of an effort to correct deficiencies on one of the oldest battleships left since World War I [...]

A: BB-35 (the Texas) hasn't been an active fleet vessel in over 55 years, having been decommissioned in the late 1940's.

Apparently the military hardware mavens at AP have recognized this "slight error" and have issued a correction stating that its NOT a close to 100 year old antique being refurbished, rather the slightly more modern nuclear Virginia class SUBMARINE the SSN Texas. However, in the "correction" the AP still refers to the SUBMARINE Texas incorrectly as "USS Texas" rather than "SSN Texas".

Of course anyone can see how such a goof could be made, since submarines and 100 year old battleships look so similar. I mistake one for the other all the time. See for yourself:

This is BB-35, the battleship Texas

This is the SSN Texas

See what I mean? They're both kinda long and thinish, both involve water, both are made of metal. Pretty much the same thing, right?


H/T Murdoc

Fundamentally unserious and incompetent terrorists

Everyone has heard about the FAILED London car bomb by now right?

I have a real problem with this bomb not going off. Being an engineer, I favor things that work. Ineptly designed and constructed bombs are embarrassing. They demonstrate a lack of seriousness and poor craftsmanship that seems to be pandemic in the world today. Non-functioning bombs are a sort of "canary in the coal mine" indicator for general societal disfunction.

Seriously, at 12 years old I knew all sorts of things about proper bombs and explosives (thanks to encyclopedia Britannica) and could have offered a better effort than we had here. The messy terrorist aspect aside, this dud bomb concerns me because grown men who have been through any reasonable school system SHOULD be able to produce a simple bomb that actually works.

We can surely beat the terrorists eventually, but will we be able to beat the generalized level of mechanical incompetence that is permeating society these days?

Walk into any Home Depot and observe the customers for a while and what I'm saying will become readily apparent. The majority, unless they are tradesmen, don't have the slightest clue. Its really a wonder that they managed to drive their cars to get there.

50 years ago this wasn't the case. The males in our society were expected to demonstrate a certain level of mechanical competence. People changed their own oil in their cars. Having to take a car to some mechanic to have a busted fan belt replaced would have been considered embarrassing in most social circles. Decades ago, at an early age, our males were constantly exposed to information and experiences that built a modest level of competence even among those who would eventually become white collar office workers.

To a large degree this is gone today. To a large degree, society is indeed choosing to suppress this competence in our youth. How many towns have laws now that prohibit you from keeping a "junk car" around? Most of them. Junk cars, aside from being junk, were/are wonderful mechanical training grounds for youth. People don't need 10 of them, but one isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Some kid with grand hopes wrenching on some hopeless beater isn't out on the street doing drugs or mugging people - he's developing a "life skill" that will be with him for the rest of his life.

Its a loss that will be hard to replace.

Associated Press hires 9/11 truthers and commie sympathizers to report from Afghanistan

Michael Fumento

[...]One of the AP reporters says he believes 9/11 was a Bush administration conspiracy hung on al Qaeda. Slusher gives him hell about it – albeit in a good-natured way. I don't hear the other reporter sound out on the subject, but he never takes off his Che Guevara T-shirt. Maybe these two will provide unbiased footage and commentary notwithstanding their personal views – maybe not[...]

Also of interest -- can you tell the difference between the writing of Al Gore and the Unabomber manifesto?

I only scored 42% on that quiz. H/T American Digest on the Gore/Unabomber quiz

Greenpeace uses "laser graffiti" on stricken freighter

Leave it to the Greenpeace asshats to shoot lasers at people trying to perform a dangerous operation in difficult conditions to try and score some cheap political points. Just keeping it classy eh guys?

This sort of beclownment and fundamental unseriousness just confirms my decision to stop donating to Greenpeace 20 years ago.

NZ Herald

The salvage effort for the stranded coal carrier Pasha Bulker is in jeopardy after a second tow line snapped early this morning[...]

[...]Greenpeace protesters last night used a laser light to project the slogans "This is what climate change looks like" and "Coal causes climate chaos" onto the stricken vessel's damaged hull.

New "twinkie defense" : "train crash made me a killer"

Curiously, he offers no explanation as to why the other 400 or so survivors of the crash weren't rendered psychopathic murders as well.

Times Online

A man who claims he was turned into a killer by the trauma that he suffered in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash began an unprecedented claim for £300,000 in compensation yesterday[...]

[...]Gray jumped out and punched and kicked his victim before driving to a friend’s house for a kitchen knife and stabbing Mr Boultwood seven times[...]

Using nail polish can get Beijing cops fired

NZ Herald

[...]Male police officers cannot have long or curly hair, sideburns, shave their hair bald or have beards. And female police officers cannot have hair longer than shoulder length or wear nail varnish[...]

[...]Breaching the new rules, which take effect this month, could cost offending officers their job. "Minor offenders will be lectured and asked to mend their ways. Those who repeatedly break the rules or whose behaviour has a detrimental impact could be sacked," the guidelines say.[...]

Burn baby burn, Tehran inferno

When even a despised regime's enforcers are unwilling to wade in, the end is near.

From The Spirit of Man

[...]Angry people have blocked the main highway in Tehran and several serious clashes have occurred in gas stations across the capital. The amount of anger among the people is such that police forces have refused to intervene in some parts of the city where roads are blocked and people have shattered the buildings' windows. And some reports indicate that 50 petrol stations were set ablaze in Tehran alone and at least 3 people died in the clashes[...]

Ohhh -- Trilobite race pics!

CLICK HERE

Butts Charged With Stealing Toilet Paper

Retard. Everyone knows you steal your TP from WalMart because they won't call the police or prosecute if you shoplift under $25.

Morning Call

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa -- Police blame a woman named Butts for stealing toilet paper from a central Iowa courthouse, and while they're chuckling, the theft charge could put her in prison.

"She's facing potentially three years of incarceration for three rolls of toilet paper," Chief Lon Walker said, stifling a laugh as he talked to KCCI-TV about Suzanne Marie Butts. "See, I can't say it with a straight face."[...]

Dumber than a bag of rocks? or attempted murder?

There is a fine line between attempted murder and just too dumb to know any better. I think this moron is sitting right on it. Flip a coin.

Personally, I think the teen would benefit from say 9 months or a year in prison which would provide him the time necessary to reflect on what being a good citizen implies.

UK Metro

A teenager has turned off the life-support machine of a fellow hospital patient because he said he couldn't sleep with the noise.

Frederik Moelner's attempts to get some kip were interrupted by the noisy machine that was keeping the 76-year-old in the neighbouring bed breathing.

So the 17-year-old, who ended up in the intensive care ward after he was involved in a car crash decided to turn it off, reports Ananova.

Luckily medical staff at the hospital in Southern Germany quickly realised what had happened, and reconnected the lucky pensioner who survived.

They then contacted local police who are now investigating.

H/T Dr. Sanity

When your number is up, its up.

Not much you can do about that. The best planning, being aware, all that stuff, and whack a fire hydrant hits you in the head.

CBS47

Authorities say a 24-year-old man was killed in Oakland today when a fire hydrant dislodged during a car accident struck him in the head...

LA funded anti-gun group founder arrested on weapons charges

Lets see - you give a gang banger named "Big weasel" $1.5M for "anti-gun" efforts.

What could possibly go wrong with that, being that he's a sterling citizen and all...

Smart. Tough.

LA Times

The founder of an antiviolence group called No Guns pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal weapons charges.

Hector "Big Weasel" Marroquin is accused of selling an assault rifle, a machine gun, two pistols and two silencers to undercover federal agents last fall. He could face up to 50 years in prison if convicted.

Marroquin, 51, of Downey, is a onetime member of the 18th Street gang who founded No Guns in 1996. No Guns received $1.5 million from the city as a subcontractor on anti-gang efforts, but its contract was canceled last year.

Marroquin is charged with three counts of manufacture, distribution and transport for sale of an unlawful assault weapon, along with one count each of machine gun conversion and possession of a silencer. He remains free on $260,000 bail.

WWII MIA unearthed in Germany and returned home

The books are never "closed". Welcome home Lawrence.

DoD

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Pvt. Lawrence P. Burkett, U.S. Army, of Jefferson, N.C. He will be buried Saturday in Jefferson...

Japan signs up for another two years supporting Iraq

The American MSM remains largely silent about this extension of course -- because we're supposed to have nobody helping us and are world pariahs.

Japan Times

The House of Councilors enacted a special measures law Wednesday designed to extend the Air Self-Defense Force's Iraq airlift mission by two years[...]

[...]The ASDF unit in Kuwait is engaged in airlifting supplies and personnel in Iraq for U.S.-led multinational forces and the United Nations between Baghdad, Taril in the south and Irbil in the north. The operations and coverage are expected to remain unchanged after an extension[...]

Oh, and the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia is sending a 3,000 man brigade to help interdict Iranian meddlers and arms flow...because they hate us too.

Showdown: 20 year old Mac+ vs 2007 dual core

I'm not surprised in the least, but you probably won't believe the results.

The 20 year old antique fares VERY WELL indeed doing some common tasks.

Taliban uses 6 year old kid as suicide bomber

Quality folks those Taliban.

Actually, this smells a lot like AQ imported talent to me. They've shown repeated disregard for the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NATO Press release

[...]“They placed explosives on a 6-year-old boy and told him to walk up to the Afghan Police or Army and push the button,” said Capt. Michael P. Cormier, company commander. “Fortunately, the boy did not understand and asked patrolling officers why he had this vest on[...]

H/T Peace Like a River

Bobby Kennedy "personally managed" Castro hit attempt

Recently declassified documents released at George Washington University's national security archives suggest Bobby Kennedy personally managed at minimum one hit attempt on Castro. Bobby and JFK had stones. Teddy not so much.

These revelations will of course revitalize conspiracy theorists bolstering the notion that the JFK hit was "payback".

Curiously, we have here a case of a republican administration willing to cover up for the sins of a previous democrat administration. What are the chances of such a thing happening in the other direction today? Slim? None? Think about this -- failing to exploit this may have been enough to allow Carter to win.

My dad always said "no good deed goes unpunished."

Henry Kissinger Oval Office conversation with Ford and Scowcroft:(PDF file)

"Helms said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg. If they come out, blood will flow. For example, Robert Kennedy personally managed the operation on the assassination of Castro..."

Fred! overtakes Rudy, McWhatshisname and somebody fade

Rasmussen

Fred! 28%
Rudy 27%
The seven dwarfs 10% each

This has to scare the crap out of the democrats. Two strong republican contenders, both "electable", are now leading and pulling away.

The left tries to spin Rudy as somehow damaged because of his personal life, but that's a crock of shit. Everyone knew Clinton was a tomcatting scum when they elected him twice, so the bar of what's acceptable has been permanently lowered. I certainly don't care about Rudy's private life, nor does his stance on abortion concern me much because I know in my heart that, like it or not, that issue is settled with SCOTUS. I'd make book at 10:1 odds that Roe v Wade isn't going to be revisited in any significant manner in the next 20 years.

Mahmoud Abbas: dead man walking

Now that Abbas has outlawed Hamas, how much longer can it be until he gets his 72 virgins delivered in the form of a car bomb?

I must admit, the guy has a lot more stones than I ever thought he did. He'll never make it until new years of course, and the corpse won't be fit for viewing, but its a heckuva gesture.

What happens when 2 combat models occupy the same space

I've had a few midair collisions over the years. Usually the engine survives...but not always if it takes a direct hit from the other guy's crankshaft.

CL Combat

These are models in the 4' wingspan range with motors .35 cubic inch that can generate in the range of 1hp when run on fuel that's maybe 40% nitromethane 40% methanol and 20% oil (I prefer pure Castor oil , others use synthetics or a blend)

Swedish reporter smacked for using racist derogotory terms

Not very politically correct. Even to my not very sensitive ears that's pretty cringe inducing.

The Local

The editor of a newspaper in western Sweden has said he will slap down a reporter after he described a robber as a 'blackie' in a news article.

The journalist was reporting on a robbery that had taken place in the town of Kungsbacka, 30 kilometres south of Gothenburg.

The journalist's report, in the Kungsbacka Tidning newspaper, repeatedly used the word 'svarting'. The word roughly translates as 'blackie' and is considered a racist term[...]

Israeli market chain goes kosher to not "provoke" muslims

WTF? The Muslims will see this for exactly what it is - a capitulation. And they will push for even more. The owner of this market chain will come to regret this.

NZ Herald

[...]No more highly convenient - if defiantly non-religious - opening on Shabbat. No more ham, salami, shellfish, pork sausages and all the other non-kosher food - that has brought Schlinger and tens of thousands of her Israeli fellow shoppers to the 24-store chain over the past 15 years[...]

[...]Gaidamak was not at Rishon Letzion to hear these complaints. But he flatly gave his answer, in an interview to Army Radio on Sunday. "I believe that in a Jewish state," he declared, "in which there is a large Muslim minority, selling pork is a provocation."[...]

Canada responsible for global warming

I suggest invading Canada.

Reuters

TORONTO (Reuters) - Even Canada's thinly populated Arctic regions can play a role in curbing global warming, by reducing soot from dirty, old cooking stoves which are blackening snow and making it melt faster[...]

[...]"Canada is special because it's so far north and when you look at climate change prediction, the global mean temperature changes,"[...]

[...]Arctic temperatures have risen by 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1700s, with filthy snow accounting for a degree of that alone[...]

Denver mandates urban blight and eyesore vacant lots

Recycling is good, I like recycling. HOWEVER, when you charge people extra to get rid of stuff, it invariably backfires. What happens IN REALITY is that the unwanted stuff get chucked in to the nearest vacant lot, pond, or WalMart parking lot in the dead of the night.

My uncle lives in a town that charges $5 for every tire someone wants to get rid of. As a result, the ditches along the roads are littered with tires and he has to clean a half dozen of them out of his pond every spring.

Albany NY tried a similar scheme with disposal of appliances - they wanted to charge people to get rid of a fridge, stove,etc. What happened IN REALITY was every vacant lot in the city became a dumping ground for dead appliances. Amazingly, Albany eventually realized the folly of this approach and now offers free dead appliance pickup as part of normal garbage collection. The vacant lots and back alleys of Albany are no longer dead appliance graveyards.

"do gooders" ignoring basic human nature seem inclined to repeat this failed policy time and time again. None seem to learn a thing from places that tried it.

In related news - Japan's Mount Fuji has become a massive garbage dumping ground for exactly the reasons I've outlined.

Rocky Mountain News

[...]Recycling plays a crucial role in Denver's plan. It would join other Colorado cities that already have moved to aggressively to foster recycling.

Fort Collins, for one, has set an ambitious goal of diverting 50 percent of its waste from landfills. As part of the effort, the city recently banned throwing away old computers, TVs, cell phones and other electrical items, requiring that they be recycled instead.

Fort Collins also has mandated that people who leave extra bags of trash for pickup be charged by the bag. [...]

Ten million gallons of toxic gunk

This is a very long piece, but worth a read. It makes you wonder what's lurking underneath where you live. It also brings up issues of how far back notions of "legal liability" should be allowed to go. Much of the gunk apparently dates back to the 1800's.

Is it reasonable to hold descendant companies, several times removed, and a century+ distant from the original offenders liable? Taken in the extreme, could say the city of Albany NY sue the Netherlands for shoddy sewer construction on State St that happened 350 years ago? (Albany very recently had some sewer lines still in operation that were built hundreds of years ago by the Dutch). As the detritus of progress grows more dangerous and toxic, this is a legal issue that will need addressing.

At what point does punishing people/companies, who had no direct complicity what so ever in some incident, become excessive and patently unfair?

Society loves to identify scapegoats for everything and "make them pay", but what about when the responsible parties have been dead for 100+ years and nobody really knows who they were anyway? Something to think about.

New York Magazine

[...]a thin dribble that betrays the presence of a supertanker’s worth of the stuff submerged in the age-old geology of Greenpoint. It’s actually more than a century’s worth of spills, leaks, and waste dumped by oil companies that has pooled into a vast underground lake, more than 55 acres wide and up to 25 feet thick. First discovered by the U.S. Coast Guard in 1978, the Greenpoint spill has been estimated at anywhere between 17 million and 30 million gallons—three times more oil than the Exxon Valdez spill. That makes it the largest known oil spill in American history[...]

Iran tries to buy weapons grade uranium from Brit company

Given that this is the Guardian reporting it, and it had to PAIN THEM GREATLY to write a story casting a negative light on Iran, one must conclude that its probably quite accurate.

The Guardian

[...]During the 20-month investigation, which also involved MI5 and Customs and Excise, a group of Britons was tracked as they obtained weapons-grade uranium from the black market in Russia. Investigators believe it was intended for export to Sudan and on to Iran[...]

Time magazine reporter spied for north Vietnam

40 years later, not much has changed. The MSM are still treasonous.

OC Register

A black wall in Washington, D.C., bears the names of more than 50,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. Many owe their fate to Pham Xuan An, the communist spy who masqueraded as a reporter for Time magazine.

That cover gave him access to classified information. This he passed to the communist forces, enabling them to win key battles. That is why, in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Pham Xuan An needs no introduction.

There he is subject of two officially sanctioned books and a 10-part documentary produced by Ho Chi Minh Television in 2005. When An died last September, Vietnam proclaimed two days of public tribute before a funeral with full military honors. [...]

eBay seller fined $400,000 for price manipulation

Its been a while since I did anything on eBay, but even a few years ago it was plain that some sellers were shill bidding and complaints were falling on deaf ears at eBay.

There's no real motivation for eBay to crack down on shill bidding -- it drives up their commission revenues.

Apparently pressure from the NY AG's office and the magnitude of this fraud was enough to finally get eBay's attention...it certainly wasn't complaints from ordinary users.

eBay is an evil company with the ethics of a $5 crack whore.

PC World

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A jewelry company on eBay Inc. that allegedly bid on its own auctions to illegally drive up prices by as much as 20 percent agreed to pay $400,000 in restitution and penalties, the New York state attorney general's office said on Saturday[...]

Much more info here at FireMeg.com

Science is one step closer to StarTrek teleportation

When they can teleport me into and out of a bank vault in the middle of the night, I'll be impressed ;->

NZ Herald

[...]A team of physicists have teleported data 143km from the Canary Island of La Palma to the neighbouring island of Tenerife, which is 10 times further than the previous attempt at teleportation through free space.

The scientists did it by exploiting the "spooky" and virtually unfathomable field of quantum entanglement - when the state of matter rather than the matter itself is sent from one place to another[...]

Studies Say Death Penalty Deters Crime

I don't suppose it would be too much to trot out the old "if it saves one life argument" eh?

Associated Press

[...]What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument - whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer[...]

Puppy sodomized. WTF?

Heh, I'm told this is a C.S. Lewis quote

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

NY supreme court shows uncommon common sense

Newsday

ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York has the right to deny driver's licenses to immigrants who can't prove they are in the country legally, the state's highest court ruled Thursday[...]

[...]"To state the obvious, undocumented aliens lack documents," wrote Judge Robert Smith in the 5-2 decision, "And the DMV's right to insist on such documents is undisputed." [...]

John Edwards revisionist history

John Edwards is a pathetic piece of shit.

07 JUN 07 John Edwards: "There was no group called al-Qaida in Iraq before this president's war in Iraq."

25 OCT 04 Wall Street Journal: "...The Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002, giving the administration a series of options for a military strike on the camp Mr. Zarqawi was running then in remote northeastern Iraq, according to generals who were involved directly in planning the attack and several former White House staffers. They said the camp, near the town of Khurmal, was known to contain Mr. Zarqawi and his supporters as well as al Qaeda fighters, all of whom had fled from Afghanistan. Intelligence indicated the camp was training recruits and making poisons for attacks against the West.

Senior Pentagon officials who were involved in planning the attack said that even by spring 2002 Mr. Zarqawi had been identified as a significant terrorist target, based in part on intelligence that the camp he earlier ran in Afghanistan had been attempting to make chemical weapons, and because he was known as the head of a group that was plotting, and training for, attacks against the West. He already was identified as the ringleader in several failed terrorist plots against Israeli and European targets. In addition, by late 2002, while the White House still was deliberating over attacking the camp, Mr. Zarqawi was known to have been behind the October 2002 assassination of a senior American diplomat in Amman, Jordan.

But the raid on Mr. Zarqawi didn't take place. Months passed with no approval of the plan from the White House, until word came down just weeks before the March 19, 2003, start of the Iraq war that Mr. Bush had rejected any strike on the camp until after an official outbreak of hostilities with Iraq. Ultimately, the camp was hit just after the invasion of Iraq began..."

Sick auction listings : flowers from Sharon Tate's grave

What can I say? These are sick, sick people.

Murderauction.com

Authentic flowers from the grave of Sharon Tate. Grave was being cleaned by staff asked permission to take as they were throwing them away.

Shoplifting -- You can do it. We can help™

I'm thinking this changes the whole financial equation when it comes to doing "home improvement".

KOKO

An internal memo from Home Depot outlines that associates cannot accuse, detain, chase or call the police on any customer for shoplifting. However, one of the fired employees said the company is selective in enforcing that policy.

"The loss-prevention guy at our Shields (Boulevard) store turned around and told me all we need to do is tell the shoplifter to have a good day as they leave the store.

H/T Digital Brownshirt

What childhood toy from the 80s are you?

What childhood toy from the 80s are you?

You're a Speak & Spell!! You nerd, you. Just because you were disguised as a toy doesn't mean you weren't educational, you sneaky bastard.
Take this quiz!








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Ordinary 9V battery supplied lethal jolt

This is the lowest voltage electrocution I've come across so far.

1999 Darwin Awards

A US Navy safety publication describes injuries incurred while doing don't's. One page described the fate of a sailor playing with a multimeter in an unauthorized manner. He was curious about the resistance level of the human body. He had a Simpson 260 multimeter, a small unit powered by a 9-volt battery. That may not seem powerful enough to be dangerous… but it can be deadly in the wrong hands.

The sailor took a probe in each hand to measure his bodily resistance from thumb to thumb. But the probes had sharp tips, and in his excitement he pressed his thumbs hard enough against the probes to break the skin. Once the salty conducting fluid known as blood was available, the current from the multimeter travelled right across the sailor's heart, disrupting the electrical regulation of his heartbeat. He died before he could record his Ohms.

The lesson? The Navy issues very few objects which are designed to be stuck into the human body.

Why are the Kiwis so interested in bomb making?

My first thought is that one might check the specific IP's making the requests to see if there are some stable high bandwidth open anonymous proxy servers in those locales that the hits are coming from. I'm sure terrorists and such are aware of anonymous proxy servers and the advantage of using them. If that is not the case, then WTF?

NZ Herald

Internet users in New Plymouth and Auckland are the keenest in the world to find recipes for making bombs, according to a leading counter-terrorism expert.

Nicholas O'Brien, a former Scotland Yard terrorism expert, told a security conference in Sydney yesterday that the popular internet search engine Google had recorded an extraordinary number of NZ-based searches for bomb-making techniques, the West Australian newspaper reported.

Professor O'Brien, from Charles Sturt University in NSW, said data provided by Google's online statistics web page, Google Trends, showed Auckland and New Plymouth recorded the highest volume of per capita hits for the search term "make bombs" of any cities in the world.

New Plymouth was ranked first, then Auckland, and then Perth. Brisbane was the fourth highest ranked city for that search term, followed by Auckland's North Shore, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Halifax (Canada) and Salt Lake City (Utah).

Amnesty Intl honcho: David Hicks should get "reparations"

REPARATIONS. FOR. CONVICTED. TERRORISTS.

Spend a moment and get your head around that one. I guess we know pretty definitively who's side Amnesty International is on now.

The Australian

[...]IRENE Khan, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, was interviewed on ABC radio's AM program by Stephanie Kennedy last week[...]

[...]Khan floated the idea that the convicted terrorist supporter could be "entitled to reparations". Not even members of Australia's David Hicks fan club have raised the notion that he should be compensated, courtesy of the taxpayer[...]

Swiss "death tourism" being questioned

I can see where having an already dead client might make it difficult to do proper evaluations and/or counseling. Thorny matter that.

As a more practical matter, I simply don't see why people would chose this method of suicide to check out. If any life insurance policies exist, many have suicide exemptions on payouts. Wouldn't it be better to concoct an "accident" so the insurance will pay off?

Like maybe chugging a bottle of Jack and take a run at a bridge abutment at 100mph while not wearing a seatbelt. Seriously, that would have to be more thrilling in the last few seconds than any E-ticket ride at Disney.

Telegraph

Prosecutors are calling for tougher regulations on Switzerland's assisted suicide clinics after uncovering evidence that some of the foreign clients they help to die are simply depressed rather than suffering incurable pain.

The clinics, which attract hundreds of foreigners, including Britons, every year, have been accused of failing to carry out proper investigations into whether patients meet the requirements of Switzerland's right-to-die laws.

In some cases, foreign clients are being given drugs to commit suicide within hours of their arrival, which critics say leaves doctors and psychologists unable to conduct a detailed assessment or to provide appropriate counselling[...]