Henry Imler May 3rd, 2006

When I first heard of Wang Wenyi and her stunt with President Hu and
President Bush, I wrote it off as just that, a stunt. Then I came
across the follwing article from the Weekly Standard, Why Wang Wenyi Was Shouting. My jaw dropped and my stomach turned.

Here is more, but keep in mind the difficulties of the story from
the WS article and that the Epoch Times is a Falun Gong ran paper. Essential Information on Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong Practitioners in China

Update: Commenter Bobby Fletcher directs us to the following from the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State: U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alleged Concentration Camp in China. However, the Weekly Standard article addresses what the US report found here (click on read more)

=> Read more!

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Henry Imler May 3rd, 2006

Soda Distributors to End Most School Sales - Yahoo! News

That is awesome. Good job Clinton Foundation.

NEW YORK - The nation’s largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all sales of sodas to public schools — a step that will remove the sugary, caloric drinks from vending machines and cafeterias around the country.

The agreement was announced Wednesday by the William J. Clinton
Foundation and will also likely apply to many private and parochial
schools.

“This is a bold step forward in the struggle to help 35 million
young people lead healthier lives,” former President Clinton said at a
news conference. “This one policy can add years and years and years to
the lives of a very large number of young people.”

Under the agreement, the companies also have agreed to sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat milks to elementary and middle schools. Diet sodas would be sold only to high schools.

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Henry Imler April 18th, 2006

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Henry Imler March 19th, 2006

1994 album pulled for copyright violations

NASHVILLE,
TN, United States (UPI) — A federal judge`s order halting all sales of
a 1994 breakout rap album because of copyright violations could have a
widespread effect on the hip-hop genre.

U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell Friday put an immediate stop to
all sales of ‘Ready to Die’ by the late Notorious B.I.G. after a
Nashville jury ruled the title track illegally sampled ‘Singing in the
Morning,’ by the Ohio Players, the Nashville Tennessean reported
Saturday.

Bad Boy Entertainment, Universal Records and executive producer Sean
‘Diddy’ Combs were ordered to pay $3.5 million in punitive damages and
at least $733,000 in direct damages plus interest to Armen Boladian,
owner of Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records.

To ‘vindicate the integrity of the copyright law,’ Campbell banned
all store sales, Internet downloads and radio play of ‘Ready to Die,’
the newspaper said.

The ruling and harsh penalty are expected to make waves in the rap
industry, which routinely takes beats or melodies from older hits in
the practice known as sampling.

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Henry Imler March 9th, 2006

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Henry Imler February 9th, 2006

President Bush Responds to Cartoon Uproar

President Bush condemned the deadly rioting sparked by
cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Wednesday, and his secretary of
state accused Iran and Syria of trying “to inflame sentiments” across
the Muslim world.

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Henry Imler January 20th, 2006

I came across these two articles in further reading about Stossle and his view of the school system.

Myth: Schools Need More Money

Stupid in America

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Henry Imler January 19th, 2006

Google will fight Bush Administration demand for search records | UserSecurity.org

The US Government is taking legal action to gain access
to Google’s vast database of internet searches in an historic clash
over privacy.

The Bush Administration has asked a federal judge to order the
world’s most popular internet search engine to hand over the records of
all Google searches for any one-week period, as well as other closely
guarded data. The California-based company is to fight the move.

Damn you Bush Admin. I know in this case it is to curb child porn, but once the gates are open I don’t trust it to stop there.

Update: Good feedback from Danny:

This sucks. We’ve all known that Google has mad amounts
of information for anyone who uses their products, but I guess we’ve
just trusted them.

If the Feds get their grimy mitts on that info, then it’s bad news.
The fact that they’re fighting this may confirm their trustworthiness.
If they fail, then I’m taking my 600 MB of old email elsewhere.

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Henry Imler January 17th, 2006

Yesterday Mayor Nagin of New Orleans gave a pretty bizarre speech.
Not only did he call for a Chocolate New Orleans and called it “God’s
Will”. The funny thing is that he also said it was “God’s Will” that
hurricane struck.

Does that make God a racist since it was his will that New Orleans is under water.

Perhaps Nagin is just off a little bit in interpreting the divine
will. More importantly, where are the calls for Nagin to retract his racist comments?

boortz.com: NEW ORLEANS — THE “BIG CHOCOLATE!”

Now … before we move on, might I ask you to consider
an alternate scenario? What if the racial roles were reversed here?
What if it was a white Mayor looking at a diminution of the white vote
in an upcoming election? What if that white mayor stood up in front of
the media and said that his city was going to be white again? No need
to ask … you know what would happen. Bigots Al Sharpton and Jesse
Jackson would swoop down on that white mayor like a crow on a June bug.

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Henry Imler January 16th, 2006

Iran’s president says West has a `dark ages’ mentality

Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the hardline president of Iran, launched an angry tirade
against the West on Saturday, accusing it of a “dark ages” mentality
and threatening retaliation unless it recognized his country’s nuclear
ambitions.

Here is is specific threat language.

“You need us more than we need you. All of you today
need the Iranian nation,” Ahmadinejad said. “Why are you putting on
airs? You don’t have that might.”

Reminding the West that it had supported the monarchical regime of
the former Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi — overthrown in the 1979
Islamic revolution — he went on: “Those same powers have done their
utmost to oppress us, but this nation, because of its dignity, has
forgiven them to a large extent. But if they persist with their present
stance, maybe the day will come when the Iranian nation will
reconsider.”

He added: “If they want to deny us our rights, we have ways to secure those rights.”

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Henry Imler January 10th, 2006

“The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a
desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand… But a
judge can’t think that way. A judge can’t have any agenda . . . and a
judge certainly doesn’t have a client. The judge’s only obligation –
and it’s a solemn obligation — is to the rule of law.

Alito on Day 1: ‘A Judge Can’t Have Any Agenda’

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Henry Imler January 5th, 2006

Mere Rhetoric: Disaster Updates:

UDPATE
22: Terrible news is tempering the euphoria of a couple minutes that
Sharon would likely live. Half of Sharon’s body is paralyzed, he is
having trouble speaking, and the prognosis for a full recovery is very
poor.

For More on the Situation:
Sharon’s Political Career Over, Likely Caused by Poor Medical Judgment

A Tidbit from LGF:

The leader of the PFLP, currently hiding from justice in Syria, calls Ariel Sharon’s cerebral hemorrhage a gift from God.

Pan-Arab satellite television broadcasters beamed out
largely straightforward, nonstop live coverage early Thursday from
outside the hospital where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon struggled for
his life.

But a radical Palestinian leader in Damascus, the Syrian capital, called Sharon’s health crisis a gift from God.

“We say it frankly that God is great and is able to exact revenge on
this butcher. … We thank God for this gift he presented to us on this
new year,” Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Syrian-backed faction Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small radical
group, told the Associated Press.

I must admit that I had mixed feeling when Arafat went under. While
a man was dying, I felt like Israel and the Palestinians were much
closer to finding real peace and it made me glad. With the perceptions
that many Palestinians and other Arabs have of the Israeli Prime
Minister, one should not be surprised or hold with too much suspicion
or judgment their reaction to the situation.

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Henry Imler January 4th, 2006

Check for updtaes: Mere Rhetoric: Disaster:

UPDATE 3:
YNet: : “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s condition is very serious…
severe stroke. Walla (Hebrew): Sharon suffered damage to several bodily
functions and its reasonable to expect he will not be returning to
normal functionoing any time soon.

UPDATE 4:
Worse and worse. Walla (Hebrew): “Sharon suffered massive bleeding in
his brain and everyone can understand what that means”. This is
devestating

.UPDATE 5: Sharon’s people are now speaking of needing a miracle.

UPDATE 6:
Things “don’t look good”. Sharon’s condition is life-threatening.
Security has been boosted around Ehud Olmert’s residence in
anticipation of him assuming the office of the Prime Minister.

Right now things are not looking good for the man. I wish him well, but it looks like his time has come.
Anytime there is a political shakeup in the Middle East, I get edgy.

UPDATE
12: We finally got the Channel 10 feed working off of Walla. They’re
talking about the political consequences of Sharon’s condition. Kadima
is already making contingency plans. There was a question on this just
emailed to us, so quick synopsis: elections are set for late March in
Israel after Sharon’s request to dissolve the Israeli government was
granted by President Katsav last December.

The expectation had
been that Sharon would personally lead his new party - Kadima - to an
(at least recently) unprecedented level of control. However, that
relied on his personal popularity with the Israeli public. In the
short-term, Deputy Prime Minister Olmert will take over the government.
In the long-term, even the talking heads on Israeli TV are baffled
right now.

=> Read more!

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Honzo November 20th, 2005

Telegraph | Opinion | China is the perfect enemy… almost.

…Which is perhaps why Sinophobia has become so popular
in America, in the run-up to George Bush’s visit to China this weekend.
China has got pretty much everything you want in an enemy: the world’s
largest population, the fastest growth rate of any of the bigger
economies, an impressive record of human-rights abuses, nuclear weapons
and the world’s largest army. Best of all, it’s Communist.

What’s more, China has been enthusiastically fuelling American hostility recently.

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Honzo October 11th, 2005

The following came up at Hippy Dave’s : Bolton and Sudan

At first it seemed like John Bolton had participated in blocking a UN briefing on the situation in the Sudan which is worsening (thanks to Dave
for the link). However, after reading the article, he blocked it not
because he is a bad person or does not care about what it happening,
but because he thinks that something needs to be done about the situation and not just more of the same idle talk.

Bolton said: “How many officials of the secretariat does it take to have a briefing?”

He added that council members already know that the situation in the
Darfur region continues to deteriorate, and added “real action needs to
be taken.”

According to media reports, The U.S. is demanding tougher measures against Sudan and not just condemning statements by the UN.

Bolton was quoted as saying: “We have to consider whether the
sanctions we have in place are working and whether other measures
should be taken.”

This is what I want from my ambassador to the United Nations. More action and less talking.

Update: I guess I need to be clear that it is too early at this stage to congradulate Bolton. He has only said
the right things so far. I (and everyone) need to suspend judgement on
this case until we see if he tries to have something else done,
something that actually helps the situation.

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Honzo October 10th, 2005

Watched the movie Crash
tonight. Saw the cast on Oprah yesterday. During the Opera show, the
topic of the term “nigger” being used by black people came up. The cast
and Oprah have disagreeing opinions on the issue.

Oprah hated the word because of all the history associated with it.
She saw all the evil associated with the term and wanted to banish it.

Don Cheadle and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges
were in the other camp. They saw the word as an escape from the past.
They saw it as way of transforming the word from a negative to a
positive. They were taking something that was used in the past to
degrade the black race and redefining it into a word of comradely. They
also wanted to distinguish “nigger” from “nigga“. The “er” form of the word was still inappropriate, even for a black man to use, but the “a” variation was the good form.

I can almost accept this line of thought. However, the word is still
a racist one, only in the opposite direction for different reasons.
Before, the word was used to demean all blacks as a race, because of
their race. This is what made it racist. It singled out one race and
judged the entire race based on race.

Now, the situation has changed. A person of race A is allowed to use
the word, but not the a person of race B. All other points of context
are the same, meaning, inflection, situation, ect… The reason that
race B cannot use the word is because of person B’s race.

That is why either form of the word is still racist, only now, it is
racist towards all other races except blacks. In it’s other context, it
is still as racist, if not of a higher degree.

1. Something is racist if it unduly discriminates against something solely due to a person’s race.
2. Only the black race may use the term nigga in an unoffensive manner
3. The determining factor in the morality of the use of the word nigga is solely the race of the person using it.
4. ∴ The term nigga is a racist word.

The only way for the word to truly be non-racist is for it to be
used in a positive sense by all races. However, there would still be
the historical value of the word, which greatly diminishes this
possibility.

Side Note: I was kinda worried about what AdSense
would pick for adds because of some of the words used in this post.
However, all the adds so far show up as adds for diversity training.
Good job Google, that make be proud of you!

Update: My wording has hastily written and was not
clear. I have tried to re-word it to display my thinking on this as
close as possible.

Update 2 I have noticed that quite a few of you have come here from Newyork.Craigslist.org.
Please feel free to add your thoughts. As you can see, there are a
couple of different ways people view this topic. Other ideas are very
welcome here.

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Honzo October 8th, 2005

China prepares for second manned space flight.

Cartoon about first space flight.

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Honzo October 8th, 2005

Why doesn’t George Bush make more speeches like this?

President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy

He finally said some things that he has been needing to say.

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Honzo October 5th, 2005

The Parableman takes a look at Bennett and his recent comments: Parableman: Bill Bennett, Abortion, and Race

The role his example has in the argument is that it’s a counterexample to a particular claim. To serve as such a counterexample, it needs to be a very bad action with a good consequence.
The worse the action, the better the example. The more sophisticated
complaint against Bennett understands the nature of the argument but
has trouble with his consequence. They don’t think it’s very nice, or
polite, or something to use a particular empirical fact in his
argument. That empirical fact is that more crime takes place in
predominantly black neighborhoods, more crime takes place at the hands
of black people, and more crime is against black people than is the
case in white neighborhoods, by white people, and against white people.
This is a fact that’s been observed by empirical study and is not
disputed by anyone…

…Now there’s one slightly more reasonable complaint someone might
make, and I’ve only seen it suggested just once. Someone might argue
that everything Bennett said was true and not deriving from some racist
view of blacks as criminals, but it could have a bad effect on whoever
might hear it. It might promote the view that black people are by
nature criminals. I don’t think this is a good complaint, however, even
though it’s a much better argument than the other two. I don’t much
like any argument of this form. It basically amounts to saying that we
should give in to simplistic thinking and not bother to make careful
distinctions because people might misunderstand you. It’s tantamount to
saying that we shouldn’t prmote careful thinking because people don’t
know how to think carefully.

Also check out the conversation on this issue at Hippy Dave’s to get a rounder sense of how people are taking this.

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Honzo August 29th, 2005

I like Neal Boortz a lot. Most of what he says makes sense to me.
However, he is prone to saying some outlandish thinks sometimes. Today
on his Neal’s Nuze, he gave the following list of purported WMD that have been found in Iraq, but not had press coverage¹.

1. 500 tons…that’s right…TONS…make that
   1million pounds of yellow cake uranium. It was found at Saddam’s
   nuclear weapons facility (yup…he had one of those too.) ^{2 3 4}
2. 1.8 tons of partially enriched uranium found at the same place. You know, the stuff you need to make nukes ⁵.
3. Hidden centrifuge parts and blueprints.
4. Two dozen artillery shells loaded with Sarin and mustard gas. ^{6 7}

Anyone ever heard of this? I am highly skeptical.

Update: See my follow-up post to this topic

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