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Thread Eighteen: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1198769/posts |
Posted on 08/10/2004 12:58:27 AM PDT by JustPiper
Here's a link to the photo:
http://miva.jacksonsun.com/miva/photos/200408226427486.jpg
I wonder what the pentagon and the American commanders over in Iraq think about this photo being online?
I think it is inappropriate -- at the very least.
PERSECUTION.ORG
http://www.persecution.org/newsite/
NY POST.com: "RADICALS PLOT BAD WEATHER" by Stefan C. Friedman (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Originally called "The Weathermen," the anarchist organization came into existence in June 1969 as a radical splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society.") (August 23, 2004) (Read More...)
ON THE NET..
http://www.islamicawakening.com/forums/
http://www.alshahd.net/vb/showthread.php?t=24348&page=2
?
http://binfreed.jeeran.com/tears.gif
http://forum.ymuk.net/showthread.php?threadid=4608
Earthquake coming?
This weekend I read Paul Williams' "Osama's Revenge", re: nuclear suitcase bombs, etc. I found it to be short on evidence of his assertion that there are 20-48 suitcase bombs ready to be detonated in CONUS. I have mentioned elsewhere that the working theory is that there are two suitcase bombs that have made it ashore. That is backed up by George Tenet's report to POTUS. Williams cites evidence that Chechens traded nuclear suitcase bombs for opium with street value in the hundreds of millions. Williams did not explain how a Russian military unit would dare to auction off a suitcase nuke to their avowed enemies, the Chechens, for any price. He also draws on one Russians testimony of "48 suitcases" as conclusive evidence that there are 48 nuclear suitcase buried here around the country. Further, he spent a good deal of the book discussing the ease of assembling a radiological bomb, which (between you and me) is pretty irrelevant if you're carrying around forty-eight nuclear suitcase bombs. All in all, it was a decent overview of Osama's "raison d'etre", but he offered nothing but "public statements" from shadowy Islamic clerics (who are TOTALLY reliable, as we all know) as proof that we were on the brink of a nuclear holocaust that would do away with Western civilization.
I am in agreement that an immense amount of nuclear material went missing after the fall of the USSR. I am in agreement that al Qaeda would gladly light up an American city when they deem the time is right. I am in agreement that even a one megaton explosion in NY would plunge the economy into a depression... I don't agree, however, that every Russian, Chechnyan, or Islamic radical that boasts of our doom should be taken as bearing the truth. I can see how people would become seriously frightened by what Williams asserts in this book, however, there's much more filler than substance when it comes to backing up his claim...
Do either of you have an opinion on his claims? If his warnings are correct, I can't imagine there's any hope for us but to continue the pre-emptive policy and declare war on Islam. Somehow, I don't see that happening...
I'm sure they're telling the truth. We can trust the Iranians when they say the nuclear reactor won't go live until 2006 due to some "delays". I'm thinking the delay has something to do with taking enriched uranium at another location and building a warhead.
We have had so much propoganda on greenhouse, ozone, etc. it is hard to know what's normal. I do know being in retail rx that each year see's new 'mystery illnesses'.
People who never suffered from allergies, are plagued.
People get viri when there is none going around, everything being passed off as a 24-48 stomach flu when one suffers immensely with gastric problems etc.
An alarming amount of new MS cases
Almost everyone seems to have a compromised immune system
And there are so many contrubuting factors Judith.
Many are corporate irresponsibility and food bacteria, etc.
And now I have feared deliberating poisonings by radical homegrown terrorists and bio/chem by AlQ etal
If Frank on that thread said he smelled something 'rotten' I'm certain he did and I would say it is nothing he has smelled that was toxic and familiar. Hopefully he called the EPA and the media?
I don't think he did, JP. He did call the police, to find out if any explanatory incidents had been reported, and none were. The odor apparently left.
I know I'm unduly suspicious, but the first thing I thought of was chemical warfare (or a dangerous industrial sabotage event. I also know that unusual and unpleasant odors are common due to normal industrial activity in and around Houston.
Frank's okay, and that's the important thing. No news otherwise this morning, or news about Houston.
But I do believe it will begin in just this way, should a chemical warfare attack on the US happen...one poster, smelling something unusual, then very bad news, for instance.
Exactly right, IMO.
It just stunned me "O" seeing a ballot called "Broken Arrows"
Palm Beach County's absentee ballot points voters to confusion, some say
By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Jim Kemp shuddered when he saw Palm Beach County's absentee ballot.
"People aren't going to understand this," he said of the ballot, which instructs people to connect an arrow to vote for the candidate of their choice. "It's just going to be a mess again."
From the butterfly ballot to the {{broken arrow,}} Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore is setting up the county for another election meltdown potentially, said the Delray Beach retiree, who was communications director for Children's Hospital in Miami and a communications specialist for the Palm Beach County School District.
Kemp and others wonder why LePore had to complicate matters by using the {{broken arrow}} when voters could be asked simply to fill in a circle to indicate their vote, known as bubbling in.
"People have to bubble in a lot of things today, but I've never seen where you have to connect an arrow," he said.
Debbie Dent, Martin County's deputy supervisor of elections, agreed.
"I just tell people it's like filling in a Lotto card, and they get it right away," she said.
Palm Beach County is the only county in South Florida where absentee voters are asked to connect the arrow next to a candidate's name instead of filling in a bubble. Miami-Dade, Broward, Martin and St. Lucie counties all ask voters to bubble in.
LePore defends the arrow method: "If I had used circles, they'd complain about the circles."
LePore opted to use the arrow format after tests showed it was easier for voters, she said. Indian River County Supervisor of Elections Kay Klem, former president of the Florida Association of Elections Supervisors, said she instituted arrows for the same reason.
But some who study voting behavior say the arrows aren't necessarily easier for voters. However, they are easier to read for optical scanners, which are used to count absentee ballots.
"People do the crazier things when they're asked to connect the arrows," said Stephen Ansolabehere, a former director of the Voting Technology Project, a collaboration between CalTech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
With absentee voting set for a sharp rise in the Aug. 31 primary and the Nov. 2 general election, many are wondering whether the arrow ballot could be the 2004 version of LePore's infamous 2000 butterfly ballot.
Absentee ballot demand up
Fueled by Democrats who say voters shouldn't trust touch-screen machines and Republicans who have long pushed absentee ballots as a way to increase voter turnout, elections supervisors say requests for absentee ballots are shattering old records.
With a week to go before Friday's deadline to request mail-in ballots, Palm Beach County had received a whopping 30,752 requests — nearly three times the 11,472 requested before the 2000 primary.
In Martin County, requests are up by a quarter from four years ago, and in St. Lucie County requests have more than doubled. In Broward County, a Democratic stronghold, requests have tripled.
A Palm Beach Post review of more than 300 absentee ballots cast in this year's March Democratic presidential primary showed that some people circle their choices, put check marks by them and wrote "yes" or "no" next to candidate names.
LePore said voters have carved holes next to candidate's names. If there's a way to do it wrong, some voters will find it, regardless of whether they are asked to fill in arrows or bubbles.
Ansolabehere of the Voting Technology Project said studies have shown that while arrows create more confusion, scanners can better process those that have been filled out correctly than ballots that have been bubbled in.
"Those two things cancel each other out," said Ansolabehere, a political science professor at MIT.
Ballots that are filled out improperly are kicked out by the scanner. A local canvassing board reviews the rejected ballots to determine what the voter was trying to do. If voter intent is determined, duplicate ballots are made and fed through the machine.
The only exception is if a voter properly filled out a ballot in some races and not in others. The scanners don't reject ballots simply because a vote isn't cast in one or more races. Undervotes, as they are called, are expected because many voters don't care about minor offices, such as a seat on a drainage district board or mosquito control board.
Klem, the Indian River County elections chief, said voter confusion has forced her workers to duplicate many absentee ballots. But, she said, the numbers are dwindling as voters become accustomed to the format.
Such duplication adds substantially to the time it takes to count ballots. However, even with record numbers of absentee ballots streaming in, elections supervisors said they expect to be able to handle the crush by hiring extra workers.
State law allows absentee ballots to be processed four days before the election, although the votes can't be tabulated. Elections officials said they are likely to begin opening ballots for the Aug. 31 primary on Saturday.
Some envision the absentee votes holding up the election results.
With close elections and absentee voting becoming the norm throughout the country, Ansolabehere acknowledged that people may have to get used to not learning who won within hours after the polls close.
"It's a very time-consuming process," he said, noting that in states like Oregon, a vote-by-mail state, and Washington, where absentee voting is used extensively, it takes weeks to count the votes. "We're going to have to learn to be more patient."
Actually, I wouldn't mind an earthquake if it were in any area I'd like to live in. The real estate prices would go down. I know that's a terrible thing to say but these home prices are just insane and impossible.
Re: compromised immune systems, I hear ya. Me and mine get SOMETHING every couple of months. When I was a kid, I almost never got sick. Now, it seems much, much more frequent.
It started when I moved back to Houston, and more specifically when I located to south of I-10. I hate it, and I am seriously considering moving far north of here, and just accepting the commute.
It's funny you should mention strange smells. Last summer at the Jersey Shore (Avalon), there was a TERRIBLE smell coming from the ocean which lasted at least a couple of days. I know the ocean sometimes has odors, not to mention New Jersey in general (;-)), but I have been going to the shore for over 30 years and I had never smelled anything like that. It smelled of rotting jelly fish, but there were no jellyfish at the beach. Also, there was something to the odor that made me think that it wasn't 'natural'. Though I found the smell to be very strong, there was only a small blurb in the local paper about a possible algae bloom, or something.
Only called the Pasadena PD, and the "aroma" was gone this morning, accept for a lingering bit in my car. *feh*
Ya THINK!?!?!
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