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karl | 1 Nov 2005 01:10
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Maybe alcohol isnt the best comparison....


Alcohol-related deaths in Finland jump 20 pct

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/31/051031173726.k691fy35.html

Oct 31 12:37 PM US/Eastern

The number of alcohol-related deaths leapt a record 20 percent in Finland 
last year, comprising one-third of all deaths among men aged 45 to 49, the 
national statistics agency said.

In 2004, 1,860 deaths in Finland resulted from illnesses or injuries related 
to alcohol abuse. Two-thirds of the 1,477 men who died were between 45 and 
49 years old.

Cardiovascular disease, which can be caused by alcohol abuse, is the main 
cause of death in the Nordic country, followed by cancer and respiratory 
diseases.

A gradual increase of alcohol import quotas within the European Union along 
with dropping taxes on alcoholic drinks in Finland partially explain the 
tendency, according to experts.

Studies have also revealed a link between cycles of economic growth and 
increased consumption of alcoholic beverages.

The alcohol-related death rate has consistently risen over the past 20 years 
despite information campaigns and a clear trend among Finns to replace their 
hard liquor with beer and wine.
(Continue reading)

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karl | 1 Nov 2005 01:15
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Chavez: Halloween part of U.S. culture of terror

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/10/30/chavez.halloween.ap/

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez urged Venezuelan parents 
not to dress their children in costumes for Halloween, calling it a U.S. 
custom that has no place in the South American country's cultural 
traditions.

Speaking during his weekly radio and television show Sunday, Chavez called 
Halloween a "gringa," or North American, custom.

"Families go and begin to disguise their children as witches," Chavez said. 
"That is contrary to our ways."

Chavez said he was urging Venezuelans to reflect on the subject. In recent 
years it has become common to see Venezuelan parents holding parties for 
children dressed as ghouls, animals and witches.

In one odd incident a week ago, authorities found more than a dozen 
jack-o'-lanterns left in spots around Caracas bearing anti-government 
messages and what appeared to be bomb-like fuses. Police and firefighters 
removed the pumpkins with caution, though the jack-o'-lanterns reportedly 
bore messages saying they were not explosives.

Paper skeletons bearing anti-Chavez messages also have appeared in spots 
across Caracas recently, and government officials have blamed sectors of the 
opposition with aiming to create chaos.

Chavez did not refer to those incidents in his comments on Halloween. But he 
urged parents to think about whether it was appropriate to dress up their 
children as part of a foreign custom, calling it "the game of terror."
(Continue reading)

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karl | 1 Nov 2005 01:18
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Indonesia boosts security after girls beheaded

http://tinyurl.com/czwsn

By Ade Rina and Tomi Soetjipto

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian police increased patrols on Sunday in the 
Poso area, plagued by sectarian violence for years, after assailants in 
black beheaded three teenage Christian girls.

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict offered his deepest sympathies to the families 
of the 16 to 19-year-old students, who police said were attacked by six 
machete-wielding men as they walked to school on Saturday on Indonesia's 
eastern island of Sulawesi.

Police official Made Rai said about 1,000 police, including reinforcements 
from other parts of the country, were securing the remote regency of Poso, 
with more than 300 additional officers expected to arrive during the day.

"So far no witness has been questioned and no suspect arrested," Rai told 
Reuters by telephone from Poso, about 1,500 km northeast of the capital 
Jakarta. One student survived and had described the attack.

The Vatican called the killings "barbaric" and said in a statement that the 
Pope would pray for "the return of peace among the people" of the region.

Muslim-Christian clashes in the Poso area killed 2,000 people from 1998 
through 2001, when a peace deal was agreed.

While the worst violence abated after the deal, there have been sporadic 
outbreaks since. Bombings in May in the Christian town of Tentena killed 22 
people.
(Continue reading)

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karl | 1 Nov 2005 01:54
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Re: US prison population continued to grow in 2004

>> > Why?  Why tell people which drugs they can or cannot use in the first
>> > place?  Why should tobacco and alcohol be legal but marijuana be
>> > illegal?  Why should absinthe be legal in Canada but illegal in the
>> > U.S.?
>>>> every government, like it or not, draws up a list of controlled
>> substances.
>
> This does not answer the question.  The question is *why* governments do
> this, and *on what basis* they make this or that substance illegal.

More to the point, does the Government have a responsibility to do so.  And 
think carefully before you answer, because it affects other areas of 
government intusion doesnt it?  I mean if you decide the government cannot 
regulate pot or other drugs, well should it regulate asbestos?  Or Red Dye 
#2?  DDT?  All exist in a place where the government has determined them to 
be a risk, even if a remote one.

Should the government regulate this stuff, or just let the buyer beware?

Philosophically speakign does it have an obligation to do so?

>> for me, the alternative of having the government decide which chemicals
>> are legal and which are not is either to declare all substances illegal
>> or to declare all substances legal.  neither of these options can be
>> considered by a reasonable person to be preferable to the option of
>> having the government declare some to be legal and others to be illegal.
>
> This still does not answer the question.  Why why why why why.  *That* is
> the question.  *Why* is it so "unreasonable" to believe that all drugs
> should be legal?  The burden of proof is on the one who makes the
(Continue reading)

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John Crawford | 1 Nov 2005 07:41

&*^% <at> Jerks!

<rant>
Ok, I never was one to prank very much, and I don't have a problem with 
harmless stuff.  But if you mess with my family, I'll get upset.   To 
preface this, we spent the evening at my mother-in-law's house, since her 
neighborhood has more people in it for trick-or-treating.  Since we have a 
5 and 2 year old who I was taking out, it made more sense to go 
there.  When we returned, we found the remains of our 5 pumpkins (one for 
each member of our family) that lined our driveway busted in the middle of 
the road.   What someone must have thought of as an innocent prank has my 5 
year old in tears!  Those pumpkins had meaning to her, and we also had 
plans after Halloween to cut them open and cook up the seeds.  I just don't 
get it how kids go around trespassing and vandalizing other peoples 
properties.  To top it off, there was miscellaneous candy scattered in our 
driveway and in the street in front of our house, so I have to wonder if 
these people also were bag smashing.  At least I had the sense to make sure 
my dog and cat were locked up in the house.  Next year, I'm hoping to have 
cameras set up as well.
</rant>

    John

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Peter T. Chattaway | 1 Nov 2005 10:49
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THE PERFECT PHONY STORM

http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=21

In the mood for a “national conversation about race”? Me neither. America
has many delightful attributes but the ability to discuss race honestly is
not one of them. Instead, it has an ongoing pseudo-discussion of race. You
know the sort of thing: a District of Columbia public official gets fired
for using the word “niggardly” in a budget meeting with an
African-American, who takes umbrage at the allegedly offensive term; Harry
Belafonte, the elderly singer of Caribbean calypsos for suburban whites,
dismisses Condi Rice, Colin Powell and other blacks in the Bush
Administration by observing that “Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the
hierarchy of the Third Reich”.

News to me. But no doubt the bananas boat-singer would be happy to produce
a list of names. Oh, and speaking of names, back in 2003 Congresswoman
Sheila Jackson-Lee complained about the racist nomenclature of hurricanes.
As I recall, she argued that blacks are being discriminated against
because hardly any devastatingly destructive meteorological phenomena are
given African-American names. The black community can’t relate to some
white-bread wind like Hurricane Andrew. Why are there never any Hurricane
Leroys? It’s deeply racist and insulting to imply that only forces of
nature with effete WASPy appellations are capable of inflicting billions
of dollars of coastal damage.

Oddly enough, Hurricane Sheila did not reprise this argument when Karl
Rove’s secret Republican wind machine sent the racist Hurricane Katrina
zapping in to take out New Orleans. And, as with most of these
“controversies”, Republicans are well advised to steer clear. The guy
fired for using the word “niggardly” was a gay Democrat, and, while one
sympathizes with the poor fellow, it’s easiest to chalk up the episode to
(Continue reading)

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Peter T. Chattaway | 1 Nov 2005 10:54
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Confrontation is a good thing

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/11/01/do0102.xml

By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 01/11/2005)

According to The Sunday Telegraph, on this week's whirlwind tour of the
Great Satan, the Prince of Wales "will try to persuade George W Bush and
Americans of the merits of Islambecause he thinks the United States has
been too intolerant of the religion since September 11". His Royal
Highness apparently finds the Bush approach to Islam "too
confrontational".

If the Prince wants to take a few examples of the non-confrontational
approach with him to the White House, here's a couple pulled at random
from the last week's news: the president of Iran called for Israel to be
"wiped off the map". Kofi Annan expressed his "dismay".

Excellent. Struck the perfect non-confrontational tone. Were the Iranian
nuclear programme a little more advanced and they'd actually wiped Israel
off the map, the secretary-general might have felt obliged to be more
confrontational and express his "deep concern".

In Sulawesi, Indonesia, three Christian girls walking home from school
were beheaded.

"It is unclear what was behind the attack," reported the BBC, scrupulously
non-confrontationally.

In the Australian state of Victoria, reports the Herald Sun, "police are
being advised to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of
(Continue reading)

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Peter T. Chattaway | 1 Nov 2005 17:22
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#614: Pipes in NY Sun on "Iran's Final Solution Plan"


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 10:33:14 -0500
From: D. Pipes Mailing List <dplist@...>
To: peter@...
Subject: #614: Pipes in NY Sun on "Iran's Final Solution Plan"

Iran's Final Solution Plan

by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
November 1, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3100

"Iran's stance has always been clear on this ugly phenomenon [i.e.,
Israel]. We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumor of a state
should be removed from the region."

No, those are not the words of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
speaking last week. Rather, that was Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic of
Iran's supreme leader, in December 2000.

In other words, Ahmadinejad's call for the destruction of Israel was
nothing new but conforms to a well-established pattern of regime rhetoric
and ambition. "Death to Israel!" has been a rallying cry for the past
quarter-century. Mr. Ahmadinejad quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, its founder,
in his call on October 26 for genocidal war against Jews: "The regime
occupying Jerusalem must be eliminated from the pages of history,"
Khomeini said decades ago. Mr. Ahmadinejad lauded this hideous goal as
"very wise."
(Continue reading)

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karl | 1 Nov 2005 23:40
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Cost of killing two children: $5 for gas, $3.20 for lighter fluid, $120 for crack

More strong evidence to support legalization?

*

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051101/ARSON01/TPFront/TopStories

CALGARY -- It cost just $128.20 to kill five-year-old Ali Al-Mayahi and his 
four-year-old sister, Saja.

Five dollars was spent on gasoline. Another $3.20 was spent on a tin of 
lighter fluid.

And after the single Molotov cocktail was thrown through the living-room 
window of the siblings' Calgary townhouse, their bodies burned beyond 
recognition, two men with a craving for crack cocaine were paid $120 for 
completing the job -- cash that they used to get a fix.

Yesterday, Manar Hussein and Abdulaziz Ellahib, the couple that allegedly 
ordered the attack, sat impassively in a Calgary courtroom on the first day 
of their trial for arson and two counts of manslaughter as the Crown 
outlined the case against them.

Prosecutor Beth Miller told the court that the Nov. 18, 2004, tragedy 
followed a love affair that went sour.

About five years ago, the children's father, Tahsin Al-Mayahi, became 
romantically involved with Ms. Hussein. The children's mother, Salima Barih, 
30, repeatedly confronted Ms. Hussein about the relationship with her 
husband and entered into a peace bond promising to keep her distance.
(Continue reading)

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karl | 1 Nov 2005 23:47
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justice in iran?

This is shocking to the extreme, and I can only hope it is faked.

The link puports to show a series of pictures showing what happens to an 8 
year old boy in Iran caught stealing bread.

I wont post them here just the link, but to suffice to say it makes me wanna 
beat the shit out of someone.

http://bareknucklepolitics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=126#126

karl 
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