easy-v
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Posts posted by easy-v
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So what's the "scandal"? "Neither Smith nor his wife have been accused of any wrongdoing"...and as far as I can read they're het ones who might be....and not Obama?
given 6 degrees of seperation the linking of all and sundry to their nearest political candidate (which is also happeneing here 'cos we have an election coming up too) is a pretty easy, normal and crappy part of the deal (alas)
Except that Chicago has 2 major newspapers, the Tribune is seen as traditionally a conservative and Republican bent, and the Sun Times as the Democratic paper.
True, one of his associates appears to have copped $97,000 for personal use, and not his senatorness. However, the affair reflects poorly on the man's judgement, and "knack" for "change".
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...another Obama scandle the national and international press will ignore:
My notes:
Englewood a notoriously poor and crime ridden neighborhood, barely a few square kilometers, yet claiming a disproportianite share of the city's crime.
A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.
Smith wrote another $20,000 in grant-related checks to K.D. Contractors, a construction company that his wife, Karen D. Smith, created five months after work on the garden was supposed to have begun, records show. K.D. is no longer in business.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan -- a Democrat who is supporting Obama's presidential bid -- is investigating "whether this charitable organization properly used its charitable assets, including the state funds it received," Cara Smith, Madigan's deputy chief of staff, said Wednesday.
In addition to the 2001 grant that Obama directed to the housing association as a "member initiative," the not-for-profit group got a separate $20,000 state grant in 2006.
Madigan's office has notified Obama's presidential campaign of the probe, which was launched this week. But Obama's actions in awarding the money are not a focus of the investigation, Smith said.
Questions about the grant, though, come as spending on local pet projects has become an issue in Obama's campaign against John McCain.
Obama and Kenny Smith announced the "Englewood Botanic Garden Project" at a January 2000 news conference at Englewood High School. Obama was in the midst of a failed bid to oust South Side Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush for a seat in Congress. The garden -- planned near and under L tracks between 59th Place and 62nd Place -- fell outside of Obama's Illinois Senate district but within the congressional district's borders.
Obama vowed to "work tirelessly" to raise $1.1 million to help Smith's organization turn the City of Chicago-owned lot into an oasis of trees and paths. But Obama lost the congressional race, no more money was raised, and today the garden site is a mess of weeds, chunks of concrete and garbage. The only noticeable improvement is a gazebo.
In a previous interview, Smith said the state grant money was legitimately spent, mostly on underground site preparation.
But no one ever took out construction permits required for such work, city records show. And a contractor who Smith said did most of the work told a reporter all he did was cut down trees and grade the site with a Bobcat.
Citing the garden's failure to take root, NeighborSpace -- an umbrella group for dozens of community gardens citywide -- moved Sept. 9 to return the site to the city. Its action followed a July 11 Sun-Times report on the grant.
Obama spokesman Michael Ortiz said Wednesday the senator's staff in Washington will monitor the Madigan probe and an additional review under way by Gov. Blagojevich's administration to make sure "the taxpayer funds allocated for the construction of the garden are recuperated from CBHA if the agencies determine that the funds were not properly spent." Obama's goal is to ensure the site "be used in a way that benefits the community and that any taxpayer dollars allocated are spent wisely," Ortiz said.
The relationship between Smith and Obama dates to at least 1997, when Obama wrote a letter that Smith used to help the housing association win city funding for an affordable-housing development near the garden site. Plans called for more than 50 homes; a dozen ultimately were built.
Smith also has donated $550 to Obama campaign funds.
The Sun-Times learned about Karen Smith's involvement in the project through an Aug. 12 Freedom of Information Act response from a lawyer for Blagojevich¹s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The department, according to the lawyer, had ³discovered² 52 pages of ³additional documents² ommitted from an initial response in May to a Sun-Times¹ Freedom of Information Act request about the grant.
Neither Smith nor his wife has been accused of any wrongdoing. Smith and his lawyer did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
In an interview in July, Smith said he was never able to raise the money needed for the garden. But the state grant awarded by Obama was spent properly, he said, on the underground work, with most of the work done by a contractor whose name Smith got wrong.
The Sun-Times tracked down the contractor, Rodolfo Marin, in Austin, Texas, where he now lives.
"What I was hired for was: Clean up the area and cut the trees -- that's all," Marin said. He said he rented a Bobcat -- a sort of small bulldozer -- for the project.
And how much did Smith pay him? "If he spent about $3,000 with me, that was too much."
Chris Fusco and Dave McKinney
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What's there for an American to detect?
Here in the Netherlands you have a fair chance to find something medieval or Roman era, if you manage not to kill yourself digging up the copious amounts of WW2 stuff. Heck, I found several pre-historic hand axes (still sharp!) digging up my fathers vegetable patch, along with a piece of a 5cm mortar round and 20mm and .303 casings.
What's there to find?
One of my friends told me that at the end of WWII, crates of new equipment werer buried on the sites of many army bases...as some of these former bases are now state parks....
Finding a crate of buried garands, without risk of blowing myself to kingdom come is something that has me interested in this topic.
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I seem to recalll that you need to be E5 (though I think you can do so while an E4, as long as you are eligible to be promoted to E5) to volunteer for SF in the Army, and you can volunteer for the Rangers in Airborne school (and I don't believe there are any rank restrictions).
In any case, to be in SF, you need to have some tread worn on your boots so to speak AIUI.
As far as Force Recon goes, when I went to Jungle Warfare School in Panama, I recall seeing some Recon Marines (I think they were), among them some E-2 privates with Scuba bubbles.
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I hope that CoFarmer's ISP has been sent to whatever local law enforcement jurisdiction he lives in. Not that anyone as pathetic and attention starved as him would actually be important enough to be dangerous, but weaklings like him sometimes do get recruited by local chapters of Aryan Nations-type organizations and occassionally do odd jobs for larger neo-Nazi type organizations until someone important realizes they're too stupid to do much but run for coffee and sandwiches. Still, just to be on the safe side....
You are just as far out of line as CoFarmer is.
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I'm curious as to how the posters that are shocked would have handled this man, and what they would have done to prevent recidivism (or if he was a taliban/al qaeda, a return to arms).
Compare and contrast:
What would have his fate been if this man had been in N. Ireland and IRA?
What would have his fate been if a Palestinian, in Isreal?
I imagine he probably will get off with a few years time at most. Where's the horror in that?
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I just traded in my '07 Ranger XLT/2.3L/manual 5spd (which I bought in 2006) for a F150 SLX 4x4/4.6L today. I've been thinking about all the obscene rebates and incentives Ford has on the F series and I was thinking it would be a crime not to get one.
MSRP was ~$33000
After discounts and rebates, my new F150 went home with me for $19500 (exclusive of trade-in)
I blame this thread and forum for planting the idea in my head to do so...
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To my mind, the big problem with Patten's article is that the huge question of WTF the Georgians were thinking, opening fire with artillery on the Russians, is glossed over.
When you view this in the context of the fact that they knew that:
A Russian Armored column was at various times heading for, in, and crossed, the Roki tunnel
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Commando raid on bridge, which purportedly destroyed 15 armored vehicles and delayed the Russian column 24-48 hours.
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Air strike on the tunnel mouth on the Georgia side.
After you see that, you get to what the Georgians may have been thinking:
1. We destroy the Roki tunnel, cutting the Russians 'peacekeepers' off from reinforcement
2. We pound the piss out of them with artillery
So, the questions are:
Is that the best plan they could come up with in 24-48 hours?
Let's say the Georgians were able to seal the tunnel, were they expecting the Russian force to roll over and surrender after an artillery barrage?
Why didn't they AT mine the roads too?
Why doesn't Georgia have any AT weapons?
I would love someone to lay out a time line of all of these events, so we can see if it all lines up.
-When was the failed air strike on the tunnel?
-When was the raid to blow the bridge?
-Was the artillery barrage before or after the Russians emerged on the Ossetian side of the tunnel???
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By no means as colorful as your 'painter, public speaker and charity worker', a former high-school classmate, and former little-league baeball team mate who is quite a piece of work himself:
http://www.skcentral.com/news_by_cat.php?cat_id=75
I believe he still has an upcoming date with the hangman
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Interesting article on the start of this whole disaster:
It also hints at a ground operation to attack the Kurta bridge, in conjunction with the Roki tunnel air attack.
A flat tyre on a Russian diplomatic car triggered the slide to war in Georgia after it forced the cancellation of key peace talks the day before fighting erupted, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
Trouble had been brewing in the disputed South Ossetian region for weeks as Moscow-backed militias skirmished with Georgian troops, yet Russian-brokered negotiations between the Georgian government and the separatists had continued.
But the first substantial face-to-face talks on August 7 fell through after a farcical chain of events in which the top Russian diplomat claimed he was unable to attend the meeting in South Ossetia because his car tyre had run flat.
Refusing to take his excuse at face value, the Georgian delegation then assumed they were being lured into a trap, and began the shelling that invited the Russian invasion.
Details of how such a mundane incident sparked the crisis that now threatens to redraw global East-West relations emerged during an interview given to The Sunday Telegraph last week by Timur Yakobashvili, Georgia's chief negotiator. He recalled how on August 7, he traveled to the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, for what he hoped would be a ground breaking round-the-table meeting. Waiting for him was a Russian General, Marat Kulakhmetov - but there was no sign of his Russian diplomatic counterpart, Yuri Popov, who was supposed to be chairing the talks, nor were any South Ossetian officials present.
"It was disturbing atmosphere," recalled Mr Yakobashvili. "Two days before, the South Ossetians had started using Russian positions to shoot at our troops. But we decided to make the trip anyway because a direct meeting would have been a breakthrough."
Asked as to whereabouts of the rest of the delegation, General Kulakhmetov was polite but blunt. He held up his phone to the Georgian negotiator's ear to demonstrate that the South Ossetian delegate had turned his mobile off.
A second mobile phone call to Yuri Popov, the Russian diplomat, chairman of the talks, added an element of the ridiculous to the impasse. "I called and spoke to Popov and he said he could not get to the office because his car had a flat tyre," said Mr Yakobashvili. "This was preposterous. I said the delegation must have more cars. He said there is another car but its tyre is flat too. At this point I knew it was a trap and I was very angry."
But Gen Kulakhmetov was not finished. "He had a message for me," said Mr Yakobashvili. "He said he could not control the South Ossetians while there was Georgian military on the boundary. He said we must declare a unilateral ceasefire before the Russians could push them back."
Before Mr Yakobashvili left the South Ossetian capital, Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili was preparing to make a ceasefire declaration on national television.
But as he came off air, he was handed a folder containing what the Georgians claim were US-provided satellite photos of a column of Russian armour advancing towards the Roki tunnel, the passageway that links South Ossetia to Russia.
In the volatile and paranoid world of Caucasian politics, there was only one way in which such photos would be interpreted. The Georgian government concluded Russia had devised a premeditated exercise to humiliate its envoy during his trip to Tskhinvali, and in the heat of the moment, the flat tyre was interpreted as a contemptuous first move for a well-planned invasion. The Georgians also realised that they had only one opportunity to stop the Russian column - at the Kurta bridge, which straddles a high ravine south of the tunnel.
"This was a heavy armoured Russian column, moving slowly, on very rugged terrain," said Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze, who is adamant that the Russians had intended an ambush. "Think about how many hours of preparation, assembly, then marching, it would take for that column, moving at that speed on rugged terrain to be at the Kurta bridge at six in the morning. If that isn't a premeditated invasion, I don't know what is."
Georgia also calculated that by dawn the following the day, the world's attention would be focused on Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games. Its US-trained Georgian army therefore formed an audacious plan to sabotage the bridge more than 100 miles behind enemy lines. The operation, however, was a only a partial success. The bridge was damaged and almost one dozen Russian vehicles were blown up, but the Russians then regrouped and repulsed the Georgians.
From a trival beginnings, war had ignited in the tiny mountainous statelet.
Georgia decided to establish a defensive line north of Tskinvali, the self-declared capital of South Ossetia. By midnight shelling on both sides was intense. Russia's version of events has it that the Georgians were already on the move while Mr Yakobashvili met the Russian general. "They moved their forces into positions on high ground around Tskinvali," a Russian official claimed. "It's very simple: The Georgians decided to take South Ossetia by force. They thought we'd whine like over Kosovo, but our response was very tough."
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Big Duke-
I read a comment about "baltic mercenaries" being used by the Georgians...any word on that?
Aside from that, it would be interesting getting a post with any rumors, fables or urban legend stuff going around, just to get a feel for how things are going over there
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She is a teacher, so she isn't exactly about the $. In fact, she works in the school in the lowest socio-economic sector in the area and teaches special ed. Not the fast track to riches.
I think that was a general statement regarding women, and what they chase after, and less a judgement of your friend
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she may prefer going with the honesty of the NoBull in your face $$$ symbol.
Ain't that the truth.
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Dames co-founded his RV company with Ingo Swann. Isn't Ingo the man when it comes to RV?
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One thing is for sure, is that it is going to be interesting to see how this all came about.
If Saakashvili expected a measured and restrained response from Putin, he must have been smoking something.
The entire affair looks like there was no preparation done from the Georgian side (example: emergency pullout of troops from Iraq).
From the Russian side, there is nothing but atrocity and genocide stories, and there appears to be an orchestrated propaganda effort underway (I got a rare chuckle from that War Nerd article where he talks about where he was told to be sympathetic to the Russians, and his last paragraph was surely put there to pass some sort of censorial muster.)
Did Saakashvili and Georgia simply "step in it"? No doubt Russia has been provoking them recently, but are the Georgians that stupid to think that they could wrest these disputed areas away from the Russians by force? I am not sure I can buy that on the face of it.
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I checked my local Ural dealer, and they also carry Royal Enfields:
Looks like the Urals start at $12000.
The Ural site says both the Patrol and Gear Up have 2 wheel drive though. What are the other differences are?
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She should try looking up some Baltic pagan symbols, as the Danes, Poles and Latvians are all in that area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dievtur%C4%ABba
What about getting a "Veni Vedi Veci" tattoo?
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I'll have to try the carmelized onion thing. I didn't want anything identifiable as an onion in this batch, as my daughter does not like onions. If she cant see them, she won't know its in the sauce
On a food-quality related question, does anyone have any tips on buying high quality Olive Oil? How can you tell when Olive Oil is "fresh" or "rancid" before you buy it?
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BigDuke6 said "add more tomato or (if no one was looking) a bit of sugar".
In most dishes where I cook with tomatoes I like to add a pinch of sugar, even if someone is looking! The sugar balances out the acid in the tomatoes, and you're just left with the tomato flavour. The only exception to this rule is that sometimes I also add a touch of chilli powder, say when making tomato-based sauces for pasta. Not too much chilli, just a bit.
I was experimenting today, after having bought a load of fresh veggies from farms in SW Michigan yesterday (including some onions as big as softballs) making some marinara. The tomatoes were beefsteaks, which I was a bit apprehensive about- unneccessarily as it turned out.
I took several tomatoes, threw em in a blender, and into the crockpot. Took half a head of the fresh, farm bought garlic, put the cloves (about 6 or 7) through the garlic press. Tossed that into a pan with some EVOO, low-med heat til it turned gold.
Threw that into the crockpot. It was looking a bit pink and soupy now, so I added a couple cans of tomato paste. Now it was a bit too thick, so I poured a scotch glass full of water in it. Threw a bit of red pepper powder, a swig of black pepper (not too much), some salt, a bit of oregeno, a bit of chopped basil, and a single bay leaf.
Took one of the gargantuan onions, and put it to a grater and added it. At this point, I looked at the bag of beautiful, fresh, gargantuan onions and thought to myself that I needed to put another onion in it. So I cut another giant sweet onion up, tossed into the blender, and added it to the crock pot.
Cooked it on low for 4 or 5 hours, and OMFG, it is awesome. The sweet onions add the sweet part to the sauce, without having to use sugar. I completley hit the nail on the head with this one.
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Only $230-$300 a pop.
The only difference I can tell is that this one filters to 3 decimal places:
99.999% of bad microorganisms.
Would it also filter out gasoline, oil, fertilizer, feces?
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I know, but I couldn't resist starting a thread with a title that matched the Russian Tanks invade Georgia. Thought I'd have some fun with it
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Do you listen to Coast to Coast AM at all? Isn't the whole RV thing with Maj. Ed Dames almost a running joke on that program? As he and his team of remote viewers have never had a success with any of the things they said they were going to RV on the show?
I recall hearing George Noory on the air commenting on the validity of RV and how he may drop RV from the show as they had never delivered.
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Looked a bit further. Apparently, these guys are not just your run of the mill re-enactors.
http://www.2ndpanzerdivision.com/index.htm
They are elite re-enactors
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Looks like there is a group around Chicago which does the 2nd Pzr that has a Hetzer, and "several" 251's
Meet John Holdren
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
Wow, judging by the tone of this thread, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised about the absence of discussion of the CRU documents here.
Keep that head firmly implanted in your fourth point of contact.