mummy

[quote name='jbarnych wrote: mummy']I was watching an Irish review of it on the telly the other night. It got slated for the following reasons: - It wasn't very funny - It was very repitious - It begged a reason for making it, given that the book was a flop. Any of you seen it to give an opinion on it? I wish I could say that I was going to see it, but unfortunately, it seems it will not be released in the US. Boo!! It's out here tomorrow... I guess we'll both just have to wait for Zhivvy's "review". I doubt it will be biased!

I was watching an Irish review of it on the telly the other night. It got slated for the following reasons: - It wasn't very funny - It was very repitious - It begged a reason for making it, given that the book was a flop. Any of you seen it to give an opinion on it?

Hi Jojes, According the Aljazeera, the radiation levels have reached more than 4,385 times the legal limit: http://english.aljazeera..../20113304449336317.html#

They are all up on a hill in Libertad doing some sort of seance.

Obama’s Libya speech answers some questions, but concerns remain By Scott Wilson, Tuesday, March 29, 2:30 PM President Obama appears to have answered some of the questions about his decision to intervene in Libya’s civil conflict in his speech Monday evening, but concerns remain among critics about how long the United States will be engaged in a third war and whom precisely the administration is supporting. Obama received mostly high marks for his address at the National Defense University, his first televised speech on Libya since he authorized military operations there 10 days ago. Most of the support came from members of his own party, who praised the president for explaining the moral and strategic rationale behind his decision. In a statement largely representative of the Democratic response, Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the House assistant minority leader, said Obama “made clear . . . that he acted in America’s values and interest and effectively led a limited and international effort supported by the Libyan opposition and the Arab league to do what he said we would do — stop Muammar al-Gaddafi’s deadly advance on his own people. “As a result,†Clyburn said, “thousands of lives have been saved.†But Republicans, though saying they were glad that Obama directly addressed the nation on his Libya policy, argued that the president remained ambiguous about the length of the American commitment and his preferred endgame. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said, “I didn’t see victory defined†in Obama’s speech. “The president has said in one instance that Gaddafi’s got to go and regime change is the goal. If that’s the case, what are the elements that we need to see come into play to make that happen? What about the rebels? Who is it that we’re going to see step into the vacuum if it were to be created by Gaddafi’s exiting?†Cantor said. “There’s all kinds of unanswered questions right now, and hopefully the White House can come and brief members and we can begin to get some clarity.†Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Obama did not say explicitly that military operations would continue until Gaddafi’s ouster, something that McCain has said he supports. Obama, in fact, said that expanding the military mission to include regime change would splinter the Arab and European coalition behind the effort, which he warned would leave the United States bearing the brunt of the costs. The president indicated that although he wants Gaddafi gone, a longer-term strategy involving sanctions and the threat of a war crimes indictment was in place to do that. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that reflected the Republican consensus on Capitol Hill, “Many questions remain about U.S. short, medium, and long term goals. “I will continue to press for more answers from the Administration on the U.S. political and military objectives going forward, the nature and extent of U.S. involvement, the potential implications for vital U.S. interests, and what would constitute the completion of the mission,†Ros-Lehtinen said. Until Monday night, Obama had been accused of beginning a war — America’s third military front in a Muslim nation — without fully informing the public of the U.S. interests at stake. In his 27-minute address, Obama outlined a moral argument for the intervention, saying that allowing Gaddafi to carry out his threatened reprisals against civilians in rebel-held territory would have been “a betrayal of who we are.†But he made clear that he acted only after securing broad international support, including from the Arab League, and with a plan to quickly turn over military command to NATO. That will happen Wednesday, he was able to announce, thanks in part to waiting as long as he did to deliver his first televised address on the issue. How those guidelines will shape Obama’s response to future civil conflicts, especially those underway in the Middle East, is unclear. His senior advisers say the American public should not expect consistency in Obama’s policy toward popular uprisings and autocratic governments. As deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough put it Monday to reporters at the White House, “We don’t get very hung up on this question of precedent. “We don’t make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent,†he said. “We make them on how we can best advance our interests in the region.†Those instructions are designed, in part, to quiet voices within Democratic Party that wonder why Obama has not done more to help the opposition in Ivory Coast now trying to push out incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to leave office after losing the November election. Scores of civilians have been killed by forces loyal to Gbagbo, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. Obama has issued several statements condemning the Gbagbo government’s crackdown. Practical questions also remain about the Libyan operation, including some being raised by Democrats. Those revolve around Libya’s rebel opposition, which is seeking to topple Gaddafi after 41 years in power. Little is known about the movement, particularly at the rank-and-file level, and fears are rising that some among them may be Islamist extremists. “I don’t want to equate success of the rebels with the success of the United States,†Rep. Robert E. Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat, told MSNBC. “I don’t know who these people are.â€

600 people working around the clock in shifts.... who knows how long they will need to continue working at the plant(s). It's obvious we are not being told enough. 19 of the workers have received high doses of radiation. According to one worker, the operation is not going according to plan. Just as an FYI: The US has just under double the number of power plants than it's nearest rival with 104 plants. France is the closest to this number with 58. Japan has 54. Russia has 37. Uranium is mined in only a handful of countries, including Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia. Experts believe that there is enough uranium to last 85 years. Radioactive isotopes of Uranium have a half life of up to 4.5 billion years. Although Plutonium is an element, you can't get it without Uranium. Plutonium is achieved when a Uranium isotope absorbs a neutron within a nuclear reactor, changes its composition and then decays. Radioactive isotopes of Plutonium have a half life of up to 80 million years. There are three methods of Uranium or Plutonium getting into the body: ingestion, inhalation and through a break in the skin. Ingesting them has little or no impact on the body as your body only absorbs trace amounts of the elements. Inhalation is the easiest way for these radioactive isotopes to have an impact on the body. Covering your mouth and nose is a good method for preventing inhalation. If you have any cuts, keep them covered.

THE ROVING EYE There's no business like war business By Pepe Escobar To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click here. Lies, hypocrisy and hidden agendas. This is what United States President Barack Obama did not dwell on when explaining his Libya doctrine to America and the world. The mind boggles with so many black holes engulfing this splendid little war that is not a war (a "time-limited, scope-limited military action", as per the White House) - compounded with the inability of progressive thinking to condemn, at the same time, the ruthlessness of the Muammar Gaddafi regime and the Anglo-French-American "humanitarian" bombing. United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 has worked like a Trojan horse, allowing the Anglo-French-American consortium - and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - to become the UN's air force in its support of an armed uprising. Apart from having nothing to do with protecting civilians, this arrangement is absolutely illegal in terms of international law. The inbuilt endgame, as even malnourished African kids know by now, but has never been acknowledged, is regime change. Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard of Canada, NATO's commander for Libya, may insist all he wants that the mission is purely designed to protect civilians. Yet those "innocent civilians" operating tanks and firing Kalashnikovs as part of a rag-tag wild bunch are in fact soldiers in a civil war - and the focus should be on whether NATO from now on will remain their air force, following the steps of the Anglo-French-American consortium. Incidentally, the "coalition of the wiling" fighting Libya consists of only 12 NATO members (out of 28) plus Qatar. This has absolutely nothing to do with an "international community". The full verdict on the UN-mandated no-fly zone will have to wait for the emergence of a "rebel" government and the end of the civil war (if it ends soon). Then it will be possible to analyze how Tomahawking and bombing was ever justified; why civilians in Cyrenaica were "protected" while those in Tripoli were Tomahawked; what sort of "rebel" motley crew was "saved"; whether this whole thing was legal in the first place; how the resolution was a cover for regime change; how the love affair between the Libyan "revolutionaries" and the West may end in bloody divorce (remember Afghanistan); and which Western players stand to immensely profit from the wealth of a new, unified (or balkanized) Libya. For the moment at least, it's quite easy to identify the profiteers. The Pentagon Pentagon supremo Robert Gates said this weekend, with a straight face, there are only three repressive regimes in the whole Middle East: Iran, Syria and Libya. The Pentagon is taking out the weak link - Libya. The others were always key features of the neo-conservative take-out/evil list. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, etc are model democracies. As for this "now you see it, now you don't" war, the Pentagon is managing to fight it not once, but twice. It started with Africom - established under the George W Bush administration, beefed up under Obama, and rejected by scores of African governments, scholars and human rights organizations. Now the war is transitioning to NATO, which is essentially Pentagon rule over its European minions. This is Africom's first African war, conducted up to now by General Carter Ham out of his headquarters in un-African Stuttgart. Africom, as Horace Campbell, professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University puts it, is a scam; "fundamentally a front for US military contractors like Dyncorp, MPRI and KBR operating in Africa. US military planners who benefit from the revolving door of privatization of warfare are delighted by the opportunity to give Africom credibility under the facade of the Libyan intervention." Africom's Tomahawks also hit - metaphorically - the African Union (AU), which, unlike the Arab League, cannot be easily bought by the West. The Arab Gulf petro-monarchies all cheered the bombing - but not Egypt and Tunisia. Only five African countries are not subordinated to Africom; Libya is one of them, along with Sudan, Ivory Coast, Eritrea and Zimbabwe. NATO NATO's master plan is to rule the Mediterranean as a NATO lake. Under these "optics" (Pentagon speak) the Mediterranean is infinitely more important nowadays as a theater of war than AfPak. There are only three out of 20 nations on or in the Mediterranean that are not full members of NATO or allied with its "partnership" programs: Libya, Lebanon and Syria. Make no mistake; Syria is next. Lebanon is already under a NATO blockade since 2006. Now a blockade also applies to Libya. The US - via NATO - is just about to square the circle. Saudi Arabia What a deal. King Abdullah gets rid of his eternal foe Gaddafi. The House of Saud - in trademark abject fashion - bends over backwards for the West's benefit. The attention of world public opinion is diverted from the Saudis invading Bahrain to smash a legitimate, peaceful, pro-democracy protest movement. The House of Saud sold the fiction that "the Arab League" as a whole voted for a no-fly zone. That is a lie; out of 22 members, only 11 were present at the vote; six are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. The House of Saud just needed to twist the arms of three more. Syria and Algeria were against it. Translation; only nine out of 22 Arab countries voted for the no-fly zone. Now Saudi Arabia can even order GCC head Abdulrahman al-Attiyah to say, with a straight face, "the Libyan system has lost its legitimacy." As for the "legitimate" House of Saud and the al-Khalifas in Bahrain, someone should induct them into the Humanitarian Hall of Fame. Qatar The hosts of the 2022 soccer World Cup sure know how to clinch a deal. Their Mirages are helping to bomb Libya while Doha gets ready to market eastern Libya oil. Qatar promptly became the first Arab nation to recognize the Libyan "rebels" as the only legitimate government of the country only one day after securing the oil marketing deal. The 'rebels' All the worthy democratic aspirations of the Libyan youth movement notwithstanding, the most organized opposition group happens to be the National Front for the Salvation of Libya - financed for years by the House of Saud, the CIA and French intelligence. The rebel "Interim Transitional National Council" is little else than the good ol' National Front, plus a few military defectors. This is the elite of the "innocent civilians" the "coalition" is "protecting". Right on cue, the "Interim Transitional National Council" has got a new finance minister, US-educated economist Ali Tarhouni. He disclosed that a bunch of Western countries gave them credit backed by Libya's sovereign fund, and the British allowed them to access $1.1 billion of Gaddafi's funds. This means the Anglo-French-American consortium - and now NATO - will only pay for the bombs. As war scams go this one is priceless; the West uses Libya's own cash to finance a bunch of opportunists Libyan rebels to fight the Libyan government. And on top of it the Americans, the Brits and the French feel the love for all that bombing. Neo-cons must be kicking themselves; why couldn't former US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz come up with something like this for Iraq 2003? The French Oh la la, this could be material for a Proustian novel. The top spring collection in Paris catwalks is the President Nicolas Sarkozy fashion show - a no-fly zone model with Mirage/Rafale air strike accessories. This fashion show was masterminded by Nouri Mesmari, Gaddafi's chief of protocol, who defected to France in October 2010. The Italian secret service leaked to selected media outlets how he did it. The role of the DGSE, the French secret service, has been more or less explained on paid website Maghreb Confidential. Essentially, the Benghazi revolt coq au vin had been simmering since November 2010. The cooks were Mesmari, air force colonel Abdullah Gehani, and the French secret service. Mesmari was called "Libyan WikiLeak", because he spilled over virtually every one of Gaddafi's military secrets. Sarkozy loved it - furious because Gaddafi had cancelled juicy contracts to buy Rafales (to replace his Mirages now being bombed) and French-built nuclear power plants. That explains why Sarkozy has been so gung ho into posing as the new Arab liberator, was the first leader of a European power to recognize the "rebels" (to the disgust of many at the European Union), and was the first to bomb Gaddafi's forces. This busts open the role of shameless self-promoting philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, who's now frantically milking in the world's media that he phoned Sarkozy from Benghazi and awakened his humanitarian streak. Either Levy is a patsy, or a convenient "intellectual" cherry added to the already-prepared bombing cake. Terminator Sarkozy is unstoppable. He has just warned every single Arab ruler that they face Libya-style bombing if they crack down on protesters. He even said that the Ivory Coast was "next". Bahrain and Yemen, of course, are exempt. As for the US, it is once again supporting a military coup (it didn't work with Omar "Sheikh al-Torture" Suleiman in Egypt; maybe it will work in Libya). Al-Qaeda The oh so convenient bogeyman resurfaces. The Anglo-French-American consortium - and now NATO - are (again) fighting alongside al-Qaeda, represented by al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQM). Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi - who has fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan - extensively confirmed to Italian media that he had personally recruited "around 25" jihadis from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against the US in Iraq; now "they are on the front lines in Adjabiya". This after Chad's president Idriss Deby stressed that AQM had raided military arsenals in Cyrenaica and may be now holding quite a few surface-to-air missiles. In early March, AQM publicly supported the "rebels". The ghost of Osama bin Laden must be pulling a Cheshire cat; once again he gets the Pentagon to work for him. The water privatizers Few in the West may know that Libya - along with Egypt - sits over the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer; that is, an ocean of extremely valuable fresh water. So yes, this "now you see it, now you don't" war is a crucial water war. Control of the aquifer is priceless - as in "rescuing" valuable natural resources from the "savages". This Water Pipelineistan - buried underground deep in the desert along 4,000 km - is the Great Man-Made River Project (GMMRP), which Gaddafi built for $25 billion without borrowing a single cent from the IMF or the World Bank (what a bad example for the developing world). The GMMRP supplies Tripoli, Benghazi and the whole Libyan coastline. The amount of water is estimated by scientists to be the equivalent to 200 years of water flowing down the Nile. Compare this to the so-called three sisters - Veolia (formerly Vivendi), Suez Ondeo (formerly Generale des Eaux) and Saur - the French companies that control over 40% of the global water market. All eyes must imperatively focus on whether these pipelines are bombed. An extremely possible scenario is that if they are, juicy "reconstruction" contracts will benefit France. That will be the final step to privatize all this - for the moment free - water. From shock doctrine to water doctrine. Well, that's only a short list of profiteers - no one knows who'll get the oil - and the natural gas - in the end. Meanwhile, the (bombing) show must go on. There's no business like war business. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

Do you think you might raise more money if it wasn't a collection for Bono's Birthday? I mean Bono's birthday might be a big deal to some people, including the man himself, but when you look at the logo it looks like the charity is building a well FOR Bono's birthday, as opposed to building a well for the African folk in Benin who need clean flowing water. I personally wouldn't donate money to a rich dude and his birthday. I definitely would donate money for folk who are less fortunate than me and have no clean water. So, for that reason, I'm out.

LOL Babs, You got a point! I wouldn't mind some ... well, if I could have them at 3pm, I'd be sorted!

They lost. Yay!!!!!

[quote name='barbara1 wrote: mummy wrote: U2LAWoman']Do Irish people eat churros or donuts?! Wait..I think I know that answer already, because whenever I go to Disneyland I see Irish people eating them on the way to "It's a Small World." I have no idea what churros are. Donuts? Well EVERYONE loves donuts. You seem to know more about Irish people than me. I didn't even know Irish people went to Disneyland! really??? churros are the spanish version of donnuts. fried, curly and delicious!! in spain they have them for breakfast with sugar or chocolate-paste. ... not sure if I'd like them, babs... sounds like fried mars bars!

[quote name='U2LAWoman wrote: mummy wrote: U2LAWoman']Hmm......I thought only mexicans got drunk at wakes and funerals!! Irish and Mexicans must have a lot in common! lol The only difference between a wedding and a funeral in Ireland is that there is one less at a funeral to enjoy the drink! Do Irish people eat churros or donuts?! Wait..I think I know that answer already, because whenever I go to Disneyland I see Irish people eating them on the way to "It's a Small World." I have no idea what churros are. Donuts? Well EVERYONE loves donuts. You seem to know more about Irish people than me. I didn't even know Irish people went to Disneyland!

If this is true, it's disgusting: A distraught Libyan woman has told journalists in Tripoli how she was raped by government troops, before being bundled away by officials. Iman al-Obeidi sought out foreign reporters in the capital's Rixos hotel on Saturday morning, weeping and claiming that troops had detained her at a checkpoint, tied her up, abused her and then led her away to be gang-raped. As al-Obeidi spoke she was tackled by hotel staff and government minders dragged her out of the hotel. Her story could not be independently verified, but the incident is being reported as an indication of the crackdown on dissenters ordered by Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader. At a hastily arranged press conference following the incident, Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said investigators had told him that the woman was drunk and possibly mentally challenged. Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tripoli, said: "The government initially suggested that she was drunk ... but when they [officials] came back to the journalists later to reassure them that she was being well cared for ... they did describe this as a case of rape." Before she was dragged out of the hotel, al-Obeidi was able to tell journalists that she was detained by a number of troops at a Tripoli checkpoint on Wednesday. She said they were drinking whiskey and handcuffed her and that 15 men later raped her. "They tied me up ... they even defecated and urinated on me," she said. "The Gaddafi militiamen violated my honor." Victim intimidated Al-Obeidi, who appeared in her 30s, wore a black robe and a floral scarf around her neck. She had scratches on her face and bruises on her body. She said neighbours in the area where she was detained had helped her escape. She said that she was targeted by the troops because she is from the eastern city of Benghazi, the stronghold of rebel fighters battling Gaddafi. The Associated Press news agency reported that waiters called her a traitor and told her to shut up. She retorted: "Easterners - we're all Libyan brothers, we are supposed to be treated the same, but this is what the Gaddafi militiamen did to me, they violated my honor." Government minders attacked al-Obeidi and pushed out of the way journalists who tried to protect her, smashing some of the journalists' equipment. Media restrictions Eventually the minders overpowered the woman and led her outside, shoving her into a car that sped away. The woman shouted that she was certain she would be thrown in jail and begged photographers to take her picture, raising her robe to show them her bruised body. A minder tried to cover her mouth with his hand to keep her from talking. "Look at what happens - Gaddafi's militiamen kidnap women at gunpoint, and rape them ... they rape them," she screamed. Government minders in Tripoli have sought to keep a tight rein on what journalists there see and who they talk to

I totally forgot it was memory's day! Another reason we need a day for memory! :-)

You know, fighting for peace is like f*cking for virginity.