News Stories

[flying ^]

the new iPad is thinner... and so is Steve Jobs!

[ganbaru]

Gunman kills two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7214L020110302

[sneaker]

Three dutch soldiers taken prisoners in Libya after failed rescue mission.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/9...in_Libi__.html

[ganbaru]

Gaddafi strikes oil areas, Arabs weigh peace plan
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNew...71G0A620110303

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Gaddafi strikes oil areas, Arabs weigh peace plan
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNew...71G0A620110303

Remember that if they are not fighting Israel, they would be fighting each other anyway. Bunch of retards doing a wangshow competition for 40 years at the expense of the rest of the world.

High time to switch out of oil reliance now.

Edit : This is funny.

Gaddafi parodies go viral

Libya's besieged leader Muammar Gaddafi is a big hit on the Internet as his rambling speeches have created endless fodder for spoofs.

The videos can be viewed on the Just For Laughs thread.

[sa547]

^
^
The best among them is Zenga Zenga.

[flying ^]

finally...
Senate GOP in Wisconsin Orders Police to Take AWOL Dems Into Custody

Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate passed a resolution Thursday calling for police to take 14 Democrats into custody for contempt after they fled to Illinois to avoid voting on a bill that strip public sector unions of nearly all their collective bargaining rights.

The vote taken Thursday comes two weeks after the Democrats left, effectively delaying the vote on Gov. Scott Walker's proposal.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said the action is legally different from an arrest, but "definitely a shift from asking them politely."

The resolution says the absent Democrats are determined to be guilty of contempt and disorderly content. It gives the sergeant at arms the authority to take any and all steps, with or without force and assistance from police, to bring the senators back.

see this clip?

...would be sweet if the other 12 get arrested with cameras rolling COPS-style!

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by flying ^

finally...
Senate GOP in Wisconsin Orders Police to Take AWOL Dems Into Custody



see this clip?

...would be sweet if the other 12 get arrested with cameras rolling COPS-style!

"Legally different from an arrest." Yeah, I'm not seeing how you can call that anything other than an arrest. What are they going to do, force them to vote at gunpoint? That will be a great day for democracy in the US.

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

"Legally different from an arrest." Yeah, I'm not seeing how you can call that anything other than an arrest. What are they going to do, force them to vote at gunpoint? That will be a great day for democracy in the US.

dunno how it works in other states, but check this out...

The Sergeant at Arms of the Wisconsin State Senate is selected by the Majority Caucus and then elected by the full Senate every two years. Besides ceremonial duties as outlined in the Senate Rules, the Sergeant at Arms executes all orders of the Senate connected with the police and good order of the body. The Sergeant at Arms supervises a large staff of assistants (Senate Messengers) and performs all other duties as indicated by the rules of the Senate.

[Ithekro]

Sort of like dragging someone back to court if they skip out on it. They actually don't have to vote, they just have to be present. Because they aren't their at all, the State Senate cannot hold a quorum and thus cannot do their job. A job they were elected to do.

I seem to recall something like this happening in Texas within the last 10 years.

Besides, if they want to fight this thing, that isn't the way to do it. That's what the people are for...and elections. But each state has different laws. In California, if the people were against it enough, they would write a Proposition for the next election (or hold a special election if there was enough money involved), or Recall the governor like we did with Grey Davis.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by flying ^

dunno how it works in other states, but check this out...

The Sergeant at Arms of the Wisconsin State Senate is selected by the Majority Caucus and then elected by the full Senate every two years. Besides ceremonial duties as outlined in the Senate Rules, the Sergeant at Arms executes all orders of the Senate connected with the police and good order of the body. The Sergeant at Arms supervises a large staff of assistants (Senate Messengers) and performs all other duties as indicated by the rules of the Senate.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Sort of like dragging someone back to court if they skip out on it. They actually don't have to vote, they just have to be present. Because they aren't their at all, the State Senate cannot hold a quorum and thus cannot do their job. A job they were elected to do.

I seem to recall something like this happening in Texas within the last 10 years.

Besides, if they want to fight this thing, that isn't the way to do it. That's what the people are for...and elections. But each state has different laws. In California, if the people were against it enough, they would write a Proposition for the next election (or hold a special election if there was enough money involved), or Recall the governor like we did with Grey Davis.

The problem is that action is explicitly illegal under Wisconsin law. The state constitution forbids arresting serving state representatives for matters like this. That's why they're playing semantics and saying "well, it's not really an arrest" as if calling it something else makes it not an arrest and thus legal.

[Vexx]

I thought about putting this in the Japan Culture or the "Learning Japanese" thread but its somewhat related to global book publishing in general:

Kodansha International to Close its Doors in April

At a Feb. 23 press conference, incoming President Yoshinobu Noma said he would focus on digital publishing and overseas markets. To that end, he announced that Kodansha and Dai Nippon Printing had acquired Vertical Inc., a New York-based publisher of contemporary Japanese books, mainly popular and graphic novels.

[ganbaru]

Venezuela's Chavez talks up Libya peace plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7224IY20110304

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez pushed a vague peace plan for Libya on Thursday, saying his friend Muammar Gaddafi supported foreign mediation and accusing the West of eyeing the North African nation's oil.

Not really surpising from Chavez...

[Asuras]

Originally Posted by flying ^

the new iPad is thinner... and so is Steve Jobs!

Hey man that's not cool...

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

The problem is that action is explicitly illegal under Wisconsin law. The state constitution forbids arresting serving state representatives for matters like this. That's why they're playing semantics and saying "well, it's not really an arrest" as if calling it something else makes it not an arrest and thus legal.

Taking into custody doesn't mean arrest, so.....yeah.

But nonetheless, it is like a little bastard dictator trying to get his way around with a "supposed democracy". I would rather one of the dems take a revolver loaded with cyanide/tetradioxin tipped rounds and unload that into him.

[Ithekro]

We will see. While the law will be the law, the people can change things via their own power of voting. Question is, do they actually want this? They might, at least in enough numbers that the State Senate and Governor won't be changed out the next election so the law can be repealed.

Only time will tell on that one.

From my expericances though, Unions of today are not helpful for the workers, but only for the Union bosses and maybe the lawyers. Most seems to fuction as a company in a company were the Union is in it for the money from its dues and nothing else.

From my experiance only.

[flying ^]

one only has to look @ sorry places like Detroit to see what happens when you let unions have a bit too much power

[don_Durandal]

Originally Posted by flying ^

one only has to look @ sorry places like Detroit to see what happens when you let unions have a bit too much power

And one look at the XIXth century lets you see what happens to the workforce when corporations have all powers and unions are inexistent.

Surely there must be a middleground between legal mafia and quasi-slavery exploitation. (and no, I'm not calling you Shirley)

[ganbaru]

Payrolls jump, jobless rate near 2-year low
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...71R3OO20110304

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

We will see. While the law will be the law, the people can change things via their own power of voting. Question is, do they actually want this? They might, at least in enough numbers that the State Senate and Governor won't be changed out the next election so the law can be repealed.

Only time will tell on that one.

From my expericances though, Unions of today are not helpful for the workers, but only for the Union bosses and maybe the lawyers. Most seems to fuction as a company in a company were the Union is in it for the money from its dues and nothing else.

From my experiance only.

Corporate versus union has been a pendulum... when unions were first created they were desperately needed tools to fight what was basically "the worst of feudalism" in corporate and plutocrat tyranny. Over the decades, union leaders tended to head towards corruption themselves. In the course of trying to be "constructive" with the corporate plutocrats, the union leaders often ended up playing "Animal Farm" (pigs==humans) towards their own members. I was pretty anti-union myself in the 90s as mostly what they did was interfere with an individual's attempts to do the best work they could. I was a fan of co-ops and guilds for benefits (company benefits are just another version of the "company town -> you're pwned, dude") and guilds for quality/working/product standards.

Now, the corporations and plutocrats are trying to replay the 1890s and 1920s in spades -- they appear just fine with vaporizing the middle class while chanting their mantra of 'maximize my profit no matter what the cost to others or to the community that lets me thrive'. They appear to drool at the prospect of a new feudalism where 99% of the country struggles and fails, fights each other while they laugh and loot. They are co-opting the government to achieve these ends by buying out all the politicians thanks to our equivalency of corporate artifacts with people and our interesting notion that $$$==free-speech. Governor Walker is a posterchild for a tool of the Koch Brothers and their ilk.

So Unions may have a purpose again.