Islam is a Religion of ______
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...itain_hamza_dc

Cleric Suspect Misses Hearing Due to Long Toe Nails


LONDON (Reuters) - Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri failed to appear before a British court Tuesday, complaining his toe nails were too long and he could not walk.


Someone help with the Re. line

Islam is a Religion of ______
 

"One-eyed clerics with no hands"?

we are stingy
 

The fee (anywhere between $9,500 to 30K) doesn't get itemized, but most of it is supposed to go to the orphanage where your child is adopted from. Not to reimburse the orphanage for its adoption services (the agency does the paperwork, not the orphanage, which merely houses the child and tells the agency that one is available). And caring for a child in these countries wouldn't ever cost the orphanage 9-30K, so the fee isn't meant to reimburse the orphanage for the care provided your child for the one month he/she was there (in my case, that was the length of time there). From an economic standpoint, you are removing an extra mouth to feed and the orphanage is less strained. The fee is supposed to be to improve conditions at the orphanage for the children left behind who may not be adoptable (many have family who visit them there and have not been relinquished), medical supplies, food, etc.

True. But a lot of aid is not funnelled through U.S. tax deductible charities. Those charities do not earmark the funds to specific places you want them to go and there are many cases where the givers want the funds to go to specific people or communities.

Islam is a Religion of ______
 

That's a seriously weird article. Assuming the problem really is "long toenails" (note that this explanation was offered by the prosecutor, not the defense). But according to the article:

• He had been due to make an appearance via video-link from the high-security Belmarsh jail in London where he is being held.

So, what the hell kind of prison can't get an inmate from one room to another because of his toenails?


eta: I guess my headline would be "Islam: A Religion whose Criminals are Smarter than the Average British Prison Warden."

we are stingy
 

If the fee has two components, they ought to break it in two and funnel them through. This would be similar to what is done on Old Home U Cruize to Belize -- you pay a fee to the charter company and there is a required contribution to the Alma Mater. I can't say doing this is a slam dunk legally, but it is done and there are lots of deductions taken on this basis.

I have seen charities that can earmark for specific foreign charities -- conditioned on the foreign charity meeting the charities' requirements (e.g., show in a budget where the money is going and represent that it will be spent for the good stuff). If no one is doing this, someone should set up a charity to do it. The idea that someone might cut a $30,000 nondeductible check when they could cut a $40,000 deductible check and still have money in their pocket seems tragic, especially for the orphanages. Of course, it does leave more money in the pot for Bush to refund to the millionaires.

Islam is a Religion of ______
 

British law recognizes all sort of rights, and imposes all sorts of protections, that we ignore. The prosecution of the 1979 IRA Belfast bombing cell took months longer than predicted, simply because the prisoners kept claiming "bad hair days."

Haven't we had the conversation at least a zillion times? The US has always used terror as a tactic, and always will.

What a Turkey
 

• The director of a Detroit food bank wants to know what happened to 60 turkeys -- 720 pounds of frozen birds -- that his charity gave to members of U.S. Rep. John Conyers' local staff two days before Thanksgiving to give to needy people.
  
  
  Conyers' Detroit office promised an accounting of any turkey distribution by Dec. 27, but the Gleaners Community Food Bank had received no paperwork as of Tuesday, said the charity's director, Agostinho Fernandes.
  
  
  Fernandes said he became suspicious that the turkeys didn't get to poor people after hearing from a friend that a federal court worker had said he was offered free turkeys from a member of Conyers' staff.

http://www.freep.com/news/locway/turkey5e_20050105.htm

I (obviously) don't know who those people are or how you know them, but if they are soldiers is it possible that they don't want to talk to you, or to anyone, about the kinds of abuses reported in the Economist?

Heck, American "insurgents" hid behind trees to shoot at the British. Some didn't even wear uniforms, and melted back into the local population.

S_A_M

Zarqawi Caught!
 

I can understand how you get to this characterization of the facts, but -- based on my recollection -- I don't think a neutral observer would put it this way. Be that as it may, whatever you think of Wilson's veracity, people weren't talking about his wife's role or lack thereof until Novak told everyone about her job.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Um, that's pretty much exactly how quite a few observers put it back then. Neutral? Dunno - is there such a thing? I think the NYT phrased this part this way.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

What does Wilson's veracity have to do with whether Novak outed Plame or not? Are you saying that Wilson was making assertions about his wife's role (or lack thereof) in getting him the job before it came out that she was CIA? I honestly don't know the chronology, and can't tell if the issue under discussion is (a) who is to blame for outing Plame or (b) whether or not she had a role in getting her husband his job/assignment (and the husband's truthfulness in discussing this).

Zarqawi Caught!
 

I will concede the point about Wilson's testimony, whatever it was, in exchange for your concessions that the NYT is neutral and (implicitly) that none of this mattered until after Novak defenestrated Plame.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

I threw in the NYT as a source that you probably wouldn't call a right wing hacksheet. And I still don't know what a fenster is.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

My understanding was that the conversation started with the applicability of the specific statutory language, and then sort of wandered from there.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Ground Hog's (or is it Hogs') Day

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Applicability of what statutory language to what? The "don't reveal our spies" language as applicable to Novak?

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Well, he definitely outed Plame--the question is whether that was illegal, or the outing to him was.

But none of it's relevant to that question, just to the question of who's the most odious in the whole debacl--Wilson, the WH, or Novak, and whether one person's odious behavior justifies the same from another.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Bilmore seems to think that the non-veracity of what Wilson later said to people about how he got the gig justifies what Novak et al. did to his wife. Even if you think Wilson is not odious -- and I
haven't seen anyone around here bothering to defend him in quite some time -- this strikes me as peculiar for at least two different reasons that bilmore is not bothering to respond to.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Yes. I asked why Novak wasn't in jail. (OK, I "asked" by way of ranting that he should be.)

And I though Novak outed Plame, but I didn't know he threw her out a window. Surely he could be nailed for battery or something if that's the case.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Not to agree with Bilmore, but I took it to be a justification for the WH's leak of the name to Novak.

Novak's no Bob Woodward--he got a juicy tidbit thrown in his lap by someone in the WH with an agenda, and he ran with it. The greatest moral culpability is the WH leaker, not Novak, although Novak runs a close second for not saying right away to the leaker "why are you giving me what seems to be confidential intelligence information--are you trying to use me as a conduit to avoid restrictions on your diseminating directly?" Then he could have turned one scoop into two.

(cue fringey and mmmm, two scoops.)

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Well, the White House is accountable to us, the voters, in a way that a former Ambassador and a journalist are not.

Novak was the guy the White House used in this case, though apparently they had to leak the info to about a half dozen journalists before they found one who would be their tool in outing a CIA operative.

And why again is Wilson relevant to this particular violation of law? Fine if you don't like him (insert rant here about various assholes I don't like, starting with Rummy and Cheney, and throwing in Delay for good measure (Hi RT!)), but I just don't see the relevance.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Ah, so this is it! They're arguing that W didn't like Wilson, so his minions get to violate US law and go all Nixon on his wife?!

Did someone dig up Spiro Agnew here? Who else is on the enemies list? Why can't they just arrest them on their European vacation and send them to Gitmo?

Zarqawi Caught!
 

I'm not a huge raisin bran fan.

Wow. I thought that would just be a Tucker-gets-fired story, but Tucker's boss says this clearly was a point in Stewart's favor:I must remember to keep telling my boss every April that I'm "interested in doing something different", so I can have a face-saving explanation when I get fired.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

you would never be this careless on FB, or here if I hadn't gone all nicey-nicey.

Counterintuitive?
 

I am familiar with the premise (it is hardly a new idea - I recall this very conversation with a friend at least a year ago). It is just how him will demostrate it statistically that I am curious about. How do you predict how a kid who funked out of Georgetown would have done had he gone to Catholic, "where he belonged?" But then again, now that I think about it, you can probably come up with some decent predictions based on grades and LSAT scores. At least the law schools think you can.

I am a little surprised that that the drop out rates, at least at the top end of schools (i.e. ones where they don't teach ballet) would be high enough to make up for the lower rates of admission.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

Maybe I'm drunk, but what is the relevance of her recommendation?

caption, please
 

Islam is a Religion of ______
 

And vice versa. We also do not yet imprison citizens indefinitely without charges either (yet). Nor do we "try" people in closed sessions without a jury of their peers (yet).

Islam is a Religion of ______
 

The toenail thing would be considered bad taste here.

Zarqawi Caught!
 

You think he needed to ask?

Islam is a Religion of ______
 

Well, can you really complain about toenails when you are also regularly being anally violated??

Then again, some of the stuff that was smuggled into IRA prison wings....

Islam is a Religion of ______
 

According to my sort-of-uncle, my uncle seems to manage this quite easily.

I Am Joe's Hysteria
 

If someone's bored, and doesn't mind reading 17 pages, here's an excellent paper (speech, actually) on the British press:

(The Reporting Of Iraq and Israel: An Abuse of Media Power)

http://www.melaniephillips.com/artic...ud%20media.pdf

(Surprisingly, I think it applies quite well to our media.)

caption, please
 

"Hey, Clinton was right! These guys are OK."

Get Fucking Over It
 

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...vote&printer=1

Get Fucking Over It
 

they do not get it, and they will continue to lose seats. I bet they lose 2 Senate and 6-12 house seats at mid-term; but it is well worth to air the voting irregularities, right?