Posting Towards Gomorrah

[SlaveNoMore]

The machine keeps turning:

Years after alternative media pointed out the virtual impossibility, Sen. Hillary Clinton finally has admitted she was not named for the famous conqueror of Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary.

The New York Times, which repeated the claim as fact in a story just one week ago, reported Sen. Clinton's campaign issued a correction yesterday.

"It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add," said spokeswoman Jennifer Hanley.

For more than a decade, Sen. Clinton's informal biography repeated the story, and it was recounted in former President Bill Clinton's 2004 autobiography, "My Life."

The problem with the tale, however, is one of timing. Sir Edmund and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, became known to the world only in 1953, after becoming the first men to reach Everest's summit. Sen. Clinton was born in 1947.

Nevertheless, Clinton recounted to the press her meeting with Sir Edmund in 1995, during an Asian tour, in which she told the mountain climber how her mother had named her.

"It had two l's, which is how she thought she was supposed to spell Hillary," she said. "So when I was born, she called me Hillary, and she always told me it's because of Sir Edmund Hillary."

In 1947, Sir Edmund was an unknown beekeeper, but Clinton had explained her mother read about him in a publication while pregnant and liked the name.

The Oct. 10 Times story – about Sen. Clinton's mother moving in to the family's house in Washington – stated "her mother named her for the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary."

Two questions:

Does the NYT actually have editors these days or have the 100 chimpanzees on keyboards finally taken over?

Will she now also recant how she "guessed correctly" on the cattle futures deal?

[SlaveNoMore]

Caption please:

[Tyrone Slothrop]

North Korea's bomb was made of plutonium:

• American intelligence agencies have concluded that North Korea’s test explosion last week was powered by plutonium that North Korea harvested from its small nuclear reactor, according to officials who have reviewed the results of atmospheric sampling since the blast. . . .
  
  The intelligence agencies’ finding that the weapon was based on plutonium strongly suggested that the country’s second path to a nuclear bomb — one using uranium — was not yet ready. The uranium program is based on enrichment equipment and know-how purchased from Pakistan’s former nuclear chief.
  
  Nuclear experts said that the use of plutonium to make the bomb was important because it suggested that North Korea probably had only one nuclear program mature enough to produce weapons.
  
  “This is good news because we have a reasonably good idea of how much plutonium they have made,” said Siegfried S. Hecker, the former chief of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a visiting professor at Stanford University. Mr. Hecker, who has visited North Korea and is one of the few foreigners to have seen parts of its nuclear infrastructure, said that it was his guess that “they tried to test a reasonably sophisticated device, and they had trouble imploding it properly.”
  
  The supply of plutonium materials is known from the days when international inspectors kept tabs on the fuel rods in the North’s reactor, and intelligence analysts estimate that North Korea has enough material to make 6 to 10 plutonium bombs.
  
  Politically, the results of the test may revive last week’s finger-pointing about who is more responsible for the Korean test: Bill Clinton or President Bush.
  
  As president, Mr. Clinton negotiated a deal that froze the production and weaponization of North Korea’s plutonium, but intelligence agencies later determined that North Korea began its secret uranium program under his watch. The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal.
  
  Unlike the Clinton administration in 1994, the current Bush administration chose not to threaten to destroy North Korea’s fuel and nuclear reprocessing facilities if they tried to make weapons.
  
  That threat in 1994 — which was ultimately resolved with an agreement to freeze the weapons program — was made by William J. Perry, who was the defense secretary then. In an interview on Monday, Mr. Perry said: “There was a brief window to catch this plutonium before it was made into bomb fuel. It’s gone. It’s out of the barn now.”

NYT

eta: By popular demand, here is a particularly good blog post about our policy on the subject under Clinton and Bush, including a few very well-put paragraphs responding to Spanky's complaints about the 1994 agreements.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

We are ruled by idiots:

• Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.
  
  “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.
  
  Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”
  
  To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
North Korea's bomb was made of plutonium:

• American intelligence agencies have concluded that North Korea’s test explosion last week was powered by plutonium that North Korea harvested from its small nuclear reactor, according to officials who have reviewed the results of atmospheric sampling since the blast. . . .
  
  The intelligence agencies’ finding that the weapon was based on plutonium strongly suggested that the country’s second path to a nuclear bomb — one using uranium — was not yet ready. The uranium program is based on enrichment equipment and know-how purchased from Pakistan’s former nuclear chief.
  
  Nuclear experts said that the use of plutonium to make the bomb was important because it suggested that North Korea probably had only one nuclear program mature enough to produce weapons.
  
  “This is good news because we have a reasonably good idea of how much plutonium they have made,” said Siegfried S. Hecker, the former chief of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a visiting professor at Stanford University. Mr. Hecker, who has visited North Korea and is one of the few foreigners to have seen parts of its nuclear infrastructure, said that it was his guess that “they tried to test a reasonably sophisticated device, and they had trouble imploding it properly.”
  
  The supply of plutonium materials is known from the days when international inspectors kept tabs on the fuel rods in the North’s reactor, and intelligence analysts estimate that North Korea has enough material to make 6 to 10 plutonium bombs.
  
  Politically, the results of the test may revive last week’s finger-pointing about who is more responsible for the Korean test: Bill Clinton or President Bush.
  
  As president, Mr. Clinton negotiated a deal that froze the production and weaponization of North Korea’s plutonium, but intelligence agencies later determined that North Korea began its secret uranium program under his watch. The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal.
  
  Unlike the Clinton administration in 1994, the current Bush administration chose not to threaten to destroy North Korea’s fuel and nuclear reprocessing facilities if they tried to make weapons.
  
  That threat in 1994 — which was ultimately resolved with an agreement to freeze the weapons program — was made by William J. Perry, who was the defense secretary then. In an interview on Monday, Mr. Perry said: “There was a brief window to catch this plutonium before it was made into bomb fuel. It’s gone. It’s out of the barn now.”

NYT

eta: By popular demand, here is a particularly good blog post about our policy on the subject under Clinton and Bush, including a few very well-put paragraphs responding to Spanky's complaints about the 1994 agreements.

you can post 100 things from the last month. they do not outweigh the stuff I posted that was published in 2000.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you can post 100 things from the last month. they do not outweigh the stuff I posted that was published in 2000.

"The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal."

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

He was generally correct, however.

Personally, I have a hard time distinguishing Mennonites from the Amish.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
He was generally correct, however.

Personally, I have a hard time distinguishing Mennonites from the Amish.

If the Mennonites and Amish were key sects involved in a conflict killing American solidiers and threatening our strategic interests, and if you were a government official with responsibilities relating to that conflict, I would be bothered by that.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
"The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal."

Hmmm.

Are these the same"intelligence" estimates that the Dems are now running around calling a pack of lies that unwittingly duped them into voting for the Iraq war (until they voted against it)?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
We are ruled by idiots:

• Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.
  
  “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.
  
  Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”
  
  To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

How do we get them all in remedial Middle East classes?

And then how do we get the journalists to attend, too?

But I don't worry too much about idiot Congressmen, since they rarely have directly authority. It's idiots like Rummy that worry me more.

[Replaced_Texan]

Question: Is this similar to Christian pharmacists refusing to fill morning after pill presecriptions?

A two-tiered airport taxi system could lead to 'Chapter Two'
Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune
Last update: October 16, 2006 – 12:02 AM

Imagine you're returning from a trip with a bottle of French wine to celebrate your wedding anniversary. At the airport, you drag your bags out to the taxi stand in the cold breeze. As the cab pulls up, you hoist your suitcases, eager to get home.
But when the driver spots your wine, he shakes his head emphatically. The Qur'an prohibits him from accepting passengers with alcohol, he tells you. OK, so you'll take the next cab. But the next driver waves you off, and the next.

Scenes like this have played out hundreds of times at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport over the last few years. About three-fourths of the 900 taxi drivers at the airport are Somali, many of them Muslim. In September, the Star Tribune reported that one flight attendant had been refused by five drivers, because she had wine in her suitcase.

Taxi drivers who refuse a customer, except for safety reasons, must go to the end of the taxi line.

They face a potential three-hour wait for the next fare. Muslim drivers asked for an exemption, and officials of the Metropolitan Airports Commission proposed color-coded lights on cab roofs to indicate whether the driver would accept a passenger carrying alcohol.

But last week, the MAC announced that it would not adopt the new policy. Officials cited an overwhelmingly negative public reaction, among other reasons. "I've had over 500 e-mails and calls, and not one supported the change," said Patrick Hogan, MAC spokesman.

Why? Aren't Americans accustomed to granting modest legal accommodations to groups or individuals on the basis of their religious beliefs?

For many people, Hogan speculates, the issue may have been bigger than drivers' reluctance to transport alcohol. "I think people were afraid there would be a Chapter Two."

In some other cities, "Chapter Two" has already begun. Muslim cab drivers elsewhere, for example, have refused to transport blind customers with seeing-eye dogs, which they say their religion considers unclean. On Oct. 6, the Daily Mail of London reported that two cab drivers had been fined for rejecting blind customers. In Melbourne, Australia, "at least 20 dog-aided blind people have lodged discrimination complaints" after similarly being refused service, the Herald Sun reported.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
"The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal."

it also says:

• That threat in 1994 — which was ultimately resolved with an agreement to freeze the weapons program —

after everything that was posted how can you read "factual" statements like this, or the ones you quote, and see the "news article" as anything other than lite fiction- or maybe op-ed?

[nononono]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Question: Is this similar to Christian pharmacists refusing to fill morning after pill presecriptions?

What it is is dead in the water. For now, anyway.

But I don't know about the comparison - just how evil is (sealed, bottled) alcohol per the Koran, compared to "thou shalt not kill"? And the difference is, the pharmacists lose the business; the cab drivers wanted an exception to having to go to the back of the line (ie., weren't willing to lose the business but instead wanted the world to change for them).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
it also says:

• That threat in 1994 — which was ultimately resolved with an agreement to freeze the weapons program —

after everything that was posted how can you read "factual" statements like this, or the ones you quote, and see the "news article" as anything other than lite fiction- or maybe op-ed?

I can't even figure out what you think is wrong with that sentence.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I can't even figure out what you think is wrong with that sentence.

mores the pity.