Clipmarks | 4ensic's clips

They Do Things Differently in Mindinao

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:12:16 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: Dirty politics doesn't mean breaking into a rival party headquarters, it involves killing everyone (including a dozen journalists) in a motorcade.

About 7,100 of the 7,107 islands are mostly inhabited by kind, civil people. The other places are known for kidnappings of foreigners and continual civil war. There is another characteristic of that minority that is mentioned in the article. Bet you can't guess what it is...

Clip Source: www.philstar.com

GENERAL SANTOS CITY , Philippines – Datu Unsay town Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., accused of masterminding an election-related massacre that left more than 50 people dead, was formally charged with multiple murder here by the Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday.

When Ampatuan was turned over to the custody of the NBI in Manila last night, he insisted that he was innocent and pointed to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) behind the carnage.

Ampatuan was accompanied by his elder brother, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan, and other relatives who presented him to Dureza at the provincial capitol grounds.

Mangudadatu accused Ampatuan of leading a hundred gunmen in abducting a convoy of supporters on their way to file his certificate of candidacy to contest the governorship now held by the elder Ampatuan for the next year’s elections.

Tags: massacre, philippines, mindinao, milf (the bad kind)

Learn to Rescue Yourselves

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:32:32 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: I'd liked to have seen FEMA issue a release like this before hurricane season. We still want to believe a magical white stallion will rescue us no matter how little we do to help ourselves.

FTA:
"“Within 72 to 98 hours from the time of impact of a disaster, you only have each other to depend on for help,” Cruz told The STAR in an interview.

“People are so reliant on (hotlines like) 911, thinking it’s (rescue) going to happen (soon). The fact is it’s not,” he added.

Clip Source: www.philstar.com

MANILA, Philippines - The destruction wrought by tropical storm “Ondoy” should be a wake-up call for Filipinos to be prepared to rescue themselves and not rely on authorities to survive, a disaster management expert said yesterday.

With hundreds of thousands of residents marooned and helpless on the roofs of their submerged homes and waiting for help from the government that did not seem to be prepared for the magnitude of disaster, Reigi Cruz, director of the non-government organization Emergency Resource Center Inc., said it was high time that people “learn to be self-reliant and protect themselves.”

Cruz noted that in other countries, particularly in the United States, there is an ongoing effort to educate people to shift from the usual practice of depending on rescue groups and do what he called “bystander rescue” among residents themselves.

Tags: philippines, rescue, typhoon

Anger in France and Poland after Polanski arrest

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:32:57 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: At least Reuters puts the blame on the "political elite".

A U.S. arrest warrant has existed since 1978 for Mr. Polanski. It's no secret that he's wanted.

He travels to Switzerland, which has an extradition treaty with the U.S. and gets arrested.

The elites have a major panty wad. I guess that whole "rule of law" thing doesn't apply when an artist is involved. He played the system for 31 years and got a bit too arrogant for even the Europeans.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

* French politicians seek release of Polanski

* Artists question Swiss motives for arresting director

* Poland considers appealing to United States

PARIS, Sept 27 (Reuters) - France's political elite rallied to the defence of Roman Polanski on Sunday, calling on Switzerland to free the 76-year-old film director rather than extradite him to the United States. Artists and film makers also urged the release of Polanski, who faces charges of having sex with a girl of 13 in 1977, accusing Switzerland of being overzealous in pursuing the case.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he was "stunned" by the news, adding that both he and French President Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to see the acclaimed director returned swiftly to his family.

"(Mitterrand) profoundly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already known so many during his life," the culture ministry said in a statement.

Tags: polanski, extradition, france, poland, snit

Hysteria, not H1N1, taxing healthcare

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:31:43 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: An outbreak of hovering parents nationwide causes the truly ill to wait for care.

There are fees for unnecessarily setting off burglar alarms and fire alarms, how about private MD's charging more for Helicopter Hannah bringing in her child during an epidemic of a viral disease which has no cure when the child is merely in discomfort.

What passes as "education" by the MSM is often just scaremongering to lift ratings. Maybe a set of guidelines for when to actually seek medical help in a report warning of deaths of toddlers would be responsible.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

After months of warnings and frantic preparations, the second wave of the swine flu pandemic is starting to be felt around the country, as doctors, health clinics, hospitals and schools are reporting rapidly increasing numbers of patients experiencing flu symptoms.

"We are mostly dealing with the worried well or kids who are mildly ill but not severely ill," he said.

Unless patients are seriously ill or have other conditions that put them at risk, Brown and other doctors say they tell parents to take their children home, give them Motrin or Tylenol for their fevers, headaches and body aches, and lots of fluids, and wait it out. Some doctors report that children tend to recover within about four days, a day or two shorter than with the typical flu.

Nevertheless, "people are so worried about this," Brown said. "There's clearly a certain level of hysteria."

Tags: h1n1, hysteria

Students in Belleville school bus attack are charged

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:12:30 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: How long until someone says that charging the thugs is racist?

Clip Source: www.stltoday.com

Two Belleville West students were charged Friday with felony counts of aggravated battery stemming from the violent beating of a 17-year-old student on a school bus earlier this week.

The incident grabbed national headlines and incited a heated debate about race when police said the incident, involving a white victim and black assailants, may have been racially motivated. They later recanted that claim.

The two teenagers—who are 14 and 15 years-old—were charged as juveniles because they are under the age of 17. Illinois law shields the disclosure of their names because they are minors.

Robert Haida, the St. Clair County state's attorney, said Illinois law does not permit him to charge the teens in adult court. Illinois law mandates that a minor can be charged in adult court only if the case involves certain crimes, such as murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault, or armed robbery with a firearm.

Tags: schoolbus, attack

Endangering Species: Listing Can Make Animals Valuable Black Market Commodities

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:02:59 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: More unintended consequences of good-intentioned govermnent intervention.

Clip Source: www.scientificamerican.com

Through most of the last century, Javan hawk eagles (Spizaetus bartelsi) flew unnoticed through the dwindling forests of Indonesia's principal island of Java. Their prominent head crest and multi-toned plumage didn't attract attention, bird markets didn't sell them, nor did zoos have them on display. Then in 1993 the Indonesian government awarded Javan hawk eagles special protected status. That's when the bird's fortune turned—for the worse.

The official listing of an animal as endangered can promote poaching, says Max Abensperg-Traun of the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Environment and Water Management, author of a study on this topic that was published in the May 2009 issue of Biological Conservation

Tags: conservation, poaching, unintended conequences

MD's Intentionally End Lives in 1 in 6 UK Deaths

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:08:25 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: The last paragraph is really shocking. Before the whole debate over state healthcare started in the US, 16.5% all deaths were physician assisted. And that's only mentioned in passing, not as the lead in the article.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."

They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication.

In 2007-08 16.5 per cent of deaths in Britain came about after continuous deep sedation, according to researchers at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, twice as many as in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Tags: assisted homicide, putting granny to sleep

African American beaten, NAACP didn't get involved because it "wasn't asked"

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:44:37 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: This refers to Mr. Gladney, who was roughed up outside the town hall meeting in St. Louis.

Not very activist of the NAACP, is it?

Clip Source: www.stltoday.com

ST. LOUIS -- An African-American social networking group set out Monday morning to criticize the city NAACP chapter for not getting behind a black man who said he was beaten outside a forum on aging earlier this month. But their efforts were cut short when the head of the civil rights group showed up at the news conference and said that no one had asked the NAACP to investigate the claims.

"The St. Louis branch of the NAACP will and does accept and investigate all written complaints filed with us, regardless of the complainant’s ideology," said Claude Brown Sr., president of the St. Louis City NAACP. "We regret that a group has decided to protest outside our office before contacting us or filing such a complaint."

That is not how the procedure works, Claude Brown said. "We don’t respond to headlines."

Tags: naacp, townhall, activism

When the "option" to die becomes a duty

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:22:56 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: Of course the law was proposed as giving a choice to die with dignity, but appears to be on the road to becoming a case of "We will not treat you, so it's your choice to die in pain or commit suicide - which we'll foot the bill for."

The spokesman for the State health plan called the letter " a public relations blunder and something the state is 'working on"'.

Apologising for the manner in which the actions are communicated is NOT the same as apologizing for the action. Still, that's all the State has done.

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

Terminally Ill Denied Drugs for Life, But Can Opt for Suicide

The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing.

The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

"It was horrible," Wagner told ABCNews.com. "I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won't give you the medication to live."

Tags: suicide, failure-to-treat, oregon

Misandry - An encouraged prejudice

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:33:19 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: Mr. Rudov is controversial because he has the audacity to believe women are equals and that both men and women suffer when they are not treated as such.

Clip Source: thenononsenseman.mensnewsdaily.com

When Projections Become Policies

Team Obama is, perhaps, the most-misandrist bunch ever running American government. Few are familiar with the term misandry: hatred of men. Ask your friends; you’ll get blank stares — because misandry is both accepted and acceptable in our culture, as TV sitcoms and commercials prove by endlessly featuring moronic husbands and fathers.

Employing the anti-male projections of Vice President Joe Biden and almost-confirmed US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sototmayor, as well as his own, President Barack Obama is operating a veritable misandry cineplex at the White House.

Mr. Obama was raised, for the most part, by his grandparents. Why? His mother abandoned him. Yet, we hear only that his father abandoned him. Obama has a lot of anger towards his father, and I sympathize — but I shouldn’t have to suffer for it. When Obama projects his pain, his autobiography, onto all men, he jeopardizes them. Four examples:

Tags: misandry, equality, gender relations

When a "stable" environment isn't a good one.

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:01:48 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: And a repeat offender with the SAME HORSE. Talk about failure to learn...

Clip Source: www.breitbart.com

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A South Carolina man was charged with having sex with a horse after the animal's owner caught the act on videotape, then staked out the stable and caught him at shotgun point, authorities said Wednesday.

But this wasn't the first time Rodell Vereen has been charged with buggery. He pleaded guilty last year to having sex with the same horse after owner Barbara Kenley found him in the same stable and was sentenced to probation and placed on the state's sex offender list.

Kenley said she noticed several weeks ago her 21-year-old horse Sugar was acting strange and getting infections again. She noticed things in the barn had been moved around—dirt piled up and bales of hay stacked near the horse's stall at her Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach.

"Police kept telling me it couldn't be the same guy," Kenley said Wednesday. "I couldn't believe that there were two guys going around doing this to the same horse."

Tags: bestiality, abuse

Angry "victim" of racism is half Irish...

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:57:17 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: What an opportunist. He trumpeted his Irish heritage with one face and then demeaned "Whitey" when it serves him.

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black professor at the center of the racial story involving his arrest outside his Harvard University-owned house, has spoken proudly of his Irish roots.

Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages.

In a PBS series on African-American ancestry that he hosted in 2008, Gates discovered his Irish roots when he found he was descended from an Irish immigrant and a slave girl.

He went to Trinity College in Dublin to have his DNA analyzed. There he found that he shared 10 of the 11 DNA matches with offspring of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fourth century warlord who created one of the dominant strains of Irish genealogy because he had so many offspring.

Tags: gates, irish, hypocrite

The right to cellphone service?

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:32:09 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: But why stop at 68 minutes a month?

Clip Source: www.denverpost.com

Poor in Colorado may get free phones

Thousands of low-income Coloradans reliant on public assistance could get a free cellphone under a plan before the state Public Utilities Commission.

TracFone's subsidized program, called Safelink Wireless, gives users at least 68 minutes of free cell service each month — in Colorado, it would be 83 minutes — and unlimited access to 911 service even if the minutes are used up.

Users also get a free Motorola phone worth $50, according to the company's PUC filing. As long as subscribers are on the welfare rolls, they get the phone subsidy.

Tags: moonbat, rights

When Errors Become Facts, Correction is Heresy

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:05:06 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: A researcher tries to correct data on domestic abuse, but the "facts" are dogma and therefore unquestionable.

Clip Source: chronicle.com

Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship

"Harder to kill than a vampire." That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K.D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.

"I appreciate and share your concern for veracity in all of our scholarship. However, I would expect a colleague who is genuinely concerned about such matters to contact me directly and give me a chance to respond before launching a public attack on me and my work, and then contacting me after the fact."

One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack.

Tags: feminism, correction

Crabs vs. babies. Guess whose rights are violated?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:09:09 GMT

clipped by: 4ensic
clipper's remarks: Of course, it's a trick question. Viable fetuses have no rights, but your dinner tonight does.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Do crabs have rights?

ANIMAL welfare legislation generally applies only to vertebrates. There are, however, moves to include invertebrates. Proposed changes to European law, for example, would extend welfare laws to crabs and lobsters. Up to now the only invertebrate protected is the common octopus.

"Invertebrate rights" has become a campaigning issue. Advocates for Animals recently produced a report which concludes that there is "potential for experiencing pain and suffering" in crustaceans. The group is particularly concerned about boiling lobsters alive. The wider public is also showing interest. Research supposedly demonstrating that hermit crabs feel and remember pain received worldwide news coverage (Animal Behaviour, vol 77, p 1243). I find the evidence unconvincing.

Tags: abortion, crustecean rights