chaos and honey

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/international/africa/29darfur.html?hp

why ask why?
why do we need to investigate sudan for 'possible' int'l criminal proceeding regarding darfur when we already know the answer?
why can't the u.n. send in troops and put the massacres to an end?
why, because it is the u.n. and as always it would prefer to look good than actually work hard.
is there the slightest possibility too that it would be impolite to actually list the reasons why this genocide is taking place?
could it be that we don't want to rankle the temper of the african continent for once again failing its people? but who are the african people?
actually africa is made up of the widest distribution of racially diverse people on the planet.
so what can it be?
could it be that this is a massacre taking place by 'arabs' against 'blacks' that we are trying to publicly not discuss? probably not because massacres in africa seem to occur by just about all the ethnic divisions against others at some point.
OR IS IT THAT NO BODY REALLY CARES, and that the world simply accepts this type of bloodshed in africa because it has nothing to do with us and our day to day lives in the 'modern' world. afterall it is not the middle east where the entire planet focuses its cameras while waiting for the messiah and apocalypse.
africa, particularly eastern africa is nothing but people who are meant to kill each other in annonynimity and we are too busy to keep score apparently.
real work apparently is only for low level people and not for those in the u.n. occupying air conditioned offices in new york and geneva who are supposed to do something about this.
while the people of darfur are raped, mutilated, murdered, and burned the u.n. and world continues to turn a blind eye to an actual solution and instead worries about the ABSTRACT.
congratulations are in order to this fine institution once again for being 'better' than us all........

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/international/europe/25amsterdam.html

article on the mayor of amsterdam from the ny times........

anyone besides me who thinks that the states is on the verge of loosing any grasp whatsoever that it held in iraq?
perhaps i am wrong but it seems that the states is playing a game of blind man's bluff and wishing away what appears to be massive military & pychological vulnerablilities 'a la vietnam'.
does the united states actually know that it is fighting a war and that to win a war sometimes an army needs to be aggressive and kill the enemy in the ugliest of ways?
time = victory........
unfortunately the insurgents/terrorists seem to have more of it than any policy that 'exist/existed' to fight them.
downfall of civilizations occur when 'they' dont take the 'risks' seriously enough, or worse simply dont understand what they are up against.
the united states seemingly is intent on looking good while chaos reigns and repeating a mantra as if that somehow will make all of the problems go away.
please note, i said when civilizations dont understand. i believe that there are people and organizations that do get the 'point' but on a whole it appears that by and large many people dont quite understand that the 'west' is at genuine risk and this puts all of us in danger.
many of you will not agree with this and i understand this too, believing that others have the desire to destroy you will never make any sense because we live isolated from the abyss of the enemy. we do not understand them because we try to always think the best about things. optimism of the human spirit works against us in this case. this is not an easy notion to simply discard because to be cynical goes against most things we have been taught about.
this is a LARGE problem and if correct it spells huge trouble in many different ways........
as i pointed out long ago, the big question was if the states had the stomach for the fight.
bush and rumsfield seemingly are content with transforming the u.s. army and all of its mechanisms into nothing but a large police force.
can you say MISTAKE?
in other words it appears the u.s. is losing control of the crowd and trying to deal with with the situation as if it were nothing more than a riot caused by hooligans.

and on cue the chicago tribune has a few stories on vietnam today and this one including its impact on the american mind......
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0504240308apr24,1,4149413.story?coll=chi-news-hed

amazing to me that within the article in the tribune speaking about how divided america still is over the issue of vietnam that there was not one mention of iraq and the effects that are being felt now due to this malaise of intent which still lingers........

the following explains why i sat in traffic last night from midnight until 3 in the morning........ i hope those around me enjoyed the jimi hendrix concert i provided for them with my car stereo......

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/568469.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/national/23wendys.html

above is a link regarding the woman who claimed that she bit into a finger while eating at wendy's.
my question is this, if in fact she is guilty - which i highly suspect she is - what is the proper punishment for her?
this woman has probably cost wendy's over fifty million dollars in damages. and i presume that even though she has been arrested that the chain can expect to continue to take a hit financially for a while since people tend to believe and remember the ugliest type of lies and trickery.
my point is that through the years we have seen people awarded a hundred million dollar lawsuits against large corporations as if candy was being handed out. just how in the world does a large corporation get its reputation back and make up for earnings when a low-level criminal such as this woman single handily almost destroys its company's name?
she should go to jail in my estimation for at least twenty years. problem is that from what i gather she may only be able to be sentenced up to six for this escapade.
if i were in charge of wendy's i would be livid with anger about this.........
maybe she should have one of her fingers chopped off......

i have a very simple solution for the mayhem the woman caused.
for every million dollars worth of damage wendy's and their holding corp. can prove she has contributed to, she should be fined that amount of money. then she should be sentenced to one year of prison for every one million dollars she is not able to pay.
that would be justice.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/568774.html
the above written by ha'aretz 25 april 2005 regarding the lebanese pro-syrian security minister, who has decided to leave lebanon along with the syrian army, except he has chosen to 'retire' in paris.
seems the fellow might have had something to do with the hariri assassination.
interesting that one can be implicated in this sort of affair which meets criteria for int'l criticism and then be extended a welcoming hand by the french and not have anyone else cause a stink about it.
one wonders why the chap didnt decide to move to damascus. probably not enough good wine there for a civilized soul such as this.....
hariri job now has the smell of an int'l job carried out in agreement by an assortment of the 'upstanding'.

an opinion piece from ha'aretz on what is happening in lebanon..........a hopeful note.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=567114&contrassID=2&subContrassID=20&sbSubContrassID=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/science/19salmon.html?8hpib

can a movie help to change palestine? can a movie hope to change any of us? following is about showing the movie 'ghandi' in the quest for inspiration....

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=561997&contrassID=1&subContrassID=9&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050403-093741-7287r.htm

article about bias of opinions in american universities......

http://www.mkaku.org/articles/hyper_sci_odyssey.shtml

http://www.matter-antimatter.com/white_hole.htm

http://home.flash.net/~csmith0/black.htm

worms, white holes, black holes, and no longer a one universe reality........

tradesports has begun a "betting line" on the next Pope at
http://www.tradesports.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/
under "current Events" and sub-category "The Papacy"

as odd as it is people are wagering on this, better than betting when so and so is going to pass which happens too. if you do take a look at this you will notice that there is a group for betting on when palestine will become a nation and other assorted bits of life.

in the spirit of being interested in who is going to be the next pope, i will list in the order of what i think is most likely to unfold.........
1) a cardinal from mexico 2) a cardinal from brazil 3) a cardinal from italy

some talk has it that the vatican wants someone to merely keep the seat warm and not have a twenty year reign like john paul II in order to iron out some of the cumbersome issues that certain factions within the vatican do not agree on.

sometimes we as a civilization make mistakes, the following is an article from the ny times on some of the buildings that have been razed or altogether changed in manhatten.
our culture is often interpreted through our architecture, what can we decipher from this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/nyregion/03feat.html?8hpib