The world is pretty sucky these days

Timber Loftis · 12-26-2002, 10:20 AM

I was travelling and in an airport yesterday the 25th. I took a peek at the front page of the newspaper (NY Times) and was SOOOO dismayed. It wasn't any one story, but the conglomeration that got to me. Top stories.

- North Korea threatens US with "merciless response" if it tries to make the current nuclear crisis on the peninsula an international issue rather than a US/NK issue.
- Bush considers new congressional proposal from congress to cut dividend taxes as economic stimulus. (Only those who already *have* money get dividends, and only stocks that *made* money pay dividends, you f-ing morons).
- Congress rejects proposals to limit prescription drug prices (guess which lobby influenced that decision? - please just bleed us middle class dry so some fat cat can piss away America's wealth)
- "Santa"-clad soldiers deliver Saddam's Christmas present (missiles, of course), to US soldiers in Kuwait

Add that to what I saw today in a Business Lawyer's magazine:
- CEO's actually got a *net* increase in total compensation of 7% last year.
- In fact, American Express CEO (don't get me wrong, I really like AMEX) Kenneth Chenault got a pay raise of 100% from the previous year - and now makes $14.5 million a year. Talk about winning the lottery.
- American businesses are running offshore at amazing rates - where they avoid taxes. Never mind that declaring bankruptcy protects businesses so easily it is second nature (unlike normal people, who just had the noose tightened on their declarations of bankruptcy). Never mind Bush wants to cut corporate taxes. None of it matters when you put your company in Bermuda. Enron has 8 subsidiaries there - oh, and Enron has paid NO taxes for four of the last five years in the states. Tyco International headquarters itself there as well, with only 2 of its 240,000 employees manning the office. This bullshit costs the government $70 billion last year.

Okay, this is becoming a [img]graemlins/rant.gif[/img]

Guess my question is simply wtf? No, let me say it clearer: W_T_F?????!!!!!!

Guees it's a repug world - hope you like it. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img]

Timber Loftis · 12-26-2002, 11:12 AM

Looks like no one's interested in this thread, but on the off chance anyone is reading it, here's more info on the North Korea crisis from today's NY Times. Notice that the DPRK's defense minister is basically threatening war on the peninsula.

Japan Fears North Korea; U.S. Promises Defense Shield
By JAMES BROOKE

OKYO, Dec. 25 — With Japan increasingly worried about North Korea's missile arsenal and nuclear bomb programs, the United States has offered assurances that its Aegis destroyers are capable of shooting down medium-range missiles, the Japanese Jiji Press news agency reported today.

Japan's defense minister, Shigeru Ishiba, won the assurances from Pentagon officials when he was in Washington earlier this month, the agency said. North Korea is believed to have about 100 missiles with a range of 800 miles, enough to cover most of the Japanese archipelago.

In 1998, North Korea alarmed Japan by sending a missile over its main island, Honshu. Although half a century has passed since the Korean War, Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations. In public opinion polls, North Korea consistently tops the list of countries seen as threatening by the Japanese people.

This week, news that North Korea is breaking international controls on its plutonium-producing reactors has dominated Japan's newspapers.

"It is extremely regrettable, and our country is concerned," a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hatsuhisa Takashima, told reporters today of North Korea's moves to break seals and disable surveillance equipment at three nuclear-related sites in Yongbyon, North Korea.

North Korean nuclear technicians there today moved in and out of a reactor that had been closed since 1994, apparently moving in fresh fuel, according to Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

The United States fears the plant could be used to make nuclear weapons. The atomic energy agency, which had been administering the controls, estimates that the North Koreans will have the five-megawatt reactor operational by the end of February.

In a telephone interview today, a senior South Korean official concurred with that estimate. "We believe it will take one or two months to restart the reactor," said the official, Chun Young Woo, director general for international institutions at the Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Chun scoffed at North Korea's claims that it decided to restart the reactor in order to generate electrical power. "The reprocessing facility doesn't produce electricity," he said. "Their objective has nothing to do with generating electricity."

On Tuesday, North Korea removed United Nations seals and surveillance cameras from a fourth nuclear site, including a reprocessing plant that produces weapons-grade plutonium. In the past few days, North Korea has cut seals and cloaked cameras at the Yongbyon reactor and its spent-fuel pond, as well as a fuel-rod fabrication plant and a reprocessing plant, according to Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the atomic energy agency.

"This rapidly deteriorating situation in the D.P.R.K. raises grave nonproliferation concerns," Dr. ElBaradei said in a statement, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

In the interview today, Mr. Chun said the atomic energy agency's inspectors had been "walking around freely," unimpeded by the North Koreans, to try to see what was going on since the monitoring cameras were disabled.

A two-person team from the agency has been rotating in and out of Yongbyon since the reactor was shut down in the 1990's, but the agency now has three people at the site in hopes of offsetting the loss of the surveillance cameras, Mr. Chun said.

Britain's foreign minister, Bill Rammell, said today that North Korea's recent actions were "very worrying."

"I think it is probably a fairly ham-fisted attempt to gain international leverage," he told BBC radio, "but our best analysis at the moment is that this is not a regime that is hell-bent on confrontation."

President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea is reportedly planning an emergency security meeting with his cabinet on Thursday.

United Nations officials said today that the atomic agency's governing board was planning to meet on Jan. 6 to discuss North Korea.

The board could decide to give the North Korean government a chance to begin cooperating through high-level talks with agency officials. But it might decide to bring the matter before the Security Council.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned North Korea on Monday not to take advantage of the Iraq crisis to further its nuclear ambitions. He asserted that American forces were capable of fighting two wars at once.

North Korea's defense minister, Kim Il Chol, was quoted on Tuesday by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency as attacking "U.S. hawks who are pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war."

Sir Krustin · 12-26-2002, 11:19 AM

Typical "Democratic Peoples Republic" (ie, socialist dictatorship) crap.

Nothing but trouble is going to come from this.

Dreamer128 · 12-26-2002, 12:23 PM

Latest news from Holland; Two Santa's just robbed a video store here and the CIA is torturing Taliban prisoners [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img] !!! No way you can compete with that.

[ 12-26-2002, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

Timber Loftis · 12-26-2002, 12:27 PM

Not to doubt you, but you got a link to an article regarding the CIA torture of Taliban? Thanks if you do.

J.J. · 12-26-2002, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dreamer128:
Latest news from Holland; Two Santa's just robbed a video store here and the CIA is torturing Taliban prisoners [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img] !!! No way you can compete with that.

don't those santas know that video is a declining consumer product?

don't YOU know that I hope to hell SOMEBODY is torturing those taliban turkeys, and I would gladly lend a hand - I'm pretty good with a rubber hose and selectively applied variable voltage.

[img]tongue.gif[/img]

johnny · 12-26-2002, 01:40 PM

J.J. I'm sure the two Santa's know that too, but it was money they're after, and cashregisters in videostores are pretty full during Christmas, so i guess they got what they were looking for.

Dreamer128 · 12-26-2002, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Timber Loftis:
Not to doubt you, but you got a link to an article regarding the CIA torture of Taliban? Thanks if you do.

Of course, if you can read the Dutch language

To all the Dutchies who don't trust me; check 12move news...

Timber Loftis · 12-26-2002, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dreamer128:

quote:
Originally posted by Timber Loftis:
Not to doubt you, but you got a link to an article regarding the CIA torture of Taliban? Thanks if you do.

Of course, if you can read the Dutch language
To all the Dutchies who don't trust me; check 12move news...[/QUOTE]Damn. Actually, though, if you have the link, I'll be happy to run in through the babelfish translator. Please provide it.

[ 12-26-2002, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Dreamer128 · 12-26-2002, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Timber Loftis:

quote:
Originally posted by Dreamer128:

quote:
Originally posted by Timber Loftis:
Not to doubt you, but you got a link to an article regarding the CIA torture of Taliban? Thanks if you do.

Of course, if you can read the Dutch language
To all the Dutchies who don't trust me; check 12move news...[/QUOTE]Damn. Actually, though, if you have the link, I'll be happy to run in through the babelfish translator. Please provide it. [/QUOTE]Oki.. here is the latest politic topic; http://www.12move.nl/content/article/588349.htm
And for a good laught, the criminal Santa's as well; http://www.12move.nl/content/article/598283.htm

12-26-2002, 10:20 AM	#1
Timber Loftis 40th Level Warrior Join Date: July 11, 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 11,916	I was travelling and in an airport yesterday the 25th. I took a peek at the front page of the newspaper (NY Times) and was SOOOO dismayed. It wasn't any one story, but the conglomeration that got to me. Top stories. - North Korea threatens US with "merciless response" if it tries to make the current nuclear crisis on the peninsula an international issue rather than a US/NK issue. - Bush considers new congressional proposal from congress to cut dividend taxes as economic stimulus. (Only those who already have money get dividends, and only stocks that made money pay dividends, you f-ing morons). - Congress rejects proposals to limit prescription drug prices (guess which lobby influenced that decision? - please just bleed us middle class dry so some fat cat can piss away America's wealth) - "Santa"-clad soldiers deliver Saddam's Christmas present (missiles, of course), to US soldiers in Kuwait Add that to what I saw today in a Business Lawyer's magazine: - CEO's actually got a net increase in total compensation of 7% last year. - In fact, American Express CEO (don't get me wrong, I really like AMEX) Kenneth Chenault got a pay raise of 100% from the previous year - and now makes $14.5 million a year. Talk about winning the lottery. - American businesses are running offshore at amazing rates - where they avoid taxes. Never mind that declaring bankruptcy protects businesses so easily it is second nature (unlike normal people, who just had the noose tightened on their declarations of bankruptcy). Never mind Bush wants to cut corporate taxes. None of it matters when you put your company in Bermuda. Enron has 8 subsidiaries there - oh, and Enron has paid NO taxes for four of the last five years in the states. Tyco International headquarters itself there as well, with only 2 of its 240,000 employees manning the office. This bullshit costs the government $70 billion last year. Okay, this is becoming a [img]graemlins/rant.gif[/img] Guess my question is simply wtf? No, let me say it clearer: W_T_F?????!!!!!! Guees it's a repug world - hope you like it. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img] __________________

12-26-2002, 11:12 AM	#2
Timber Loftis 40th Level Warrior Join Date: July 11, 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 11,916	Looks like no one's interested in this thread, but on the off chance anyone is reading it, here's more info on the North Korea crisis from today's NY Times. Notice that the DPRK's defense minister is basically threatening war on the peninsula. Japan Fears North Korea; U.S. Promises Defense Shield By JAMES BROOKE OKYO, Dec. 25 — With Japan increasingly worried about North Korea's missile arsenal and nuclear bomb programs, the United States has offered assurances that its Aegis destroyers are capable of shooting down medium-range missiles, the Japanese Jiji Press news agency reported today. Japan's defense minister, Shigeru Ishiba, won the assurances from Pentagon officials when he was in Washington earlier this month, the agency said. North Korea is believed to have about 100 missiles with a range of 800 miles, enough to cover most of the Japanese archipelago. In 1998, North Korea alarmed Japan by sending a missile over its main island, Honshu. Although half a century has passed since the Korean War, Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations. In public opinion polls, North Korea consistently tops the list of countries seen as threatening by the Japanese people. This week, news that North Korea is breaking international controls on its plutonium-producing reactors has dominated Japan's newspapers. "It is extremely regrettable, and our country is concerned," a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hatsuhisa Takashima, told reporters today of North Korea's moves to break seals and disable surveillance equipment at three nuclear-related sites in Yongbyon, North Korea. North Korean nuclear technicians there today moved in and out of a reactor that had been closed since 1994, apparently moving in fresh fuel, according to Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The United States fears the plant could be used to make nuclear weapons. The atomic energy agency, which had been administering the controls, estimates that the North Koreans will have the five-megawatt reactor operational by the end of February. In a telephone interview today, a senior South Korean official concurred with that estimate. "We believe it will take one or two months to restart the reactor," said the official, Chun Young Woo, director general for international institutions at the Foreign Ministry. Mr. Chun scoffed at North Korea's claims that it decided to restart the reactor in order to generate electrical power. "The reprocessing facility doesn't produce electricity," he said. "Their objective has nothing to do with generating electricity." On Tuesday, North Korea removed United Nations seals and surveillance cameras from a fourth nuclear site, including a reprocessing plant that produces weapons-grade plutonium. In the past few days, North Korea has cut seals and cloaked cameras at the Yongbyon reactor and its spent-fuel pond, as well as a fuel-rod fabrication plant and a reprocessing plant, according to Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the atomic energy agency. "This rapidly deteriorating situation in the D.P.R.K. raises grave nonproliferation concerns," Dr. ElBaradei said in a statement, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name. In the interview today, Mr. Chun said the atomic energy agency's inspectors had been "walking around freely," unimpeded by the North Koreans, to try to see what was going on since the monitoring cameras were disabled. A two-person team from the agency has been rotating in and out of Yongbyon since the reactor was shut down in the 1990's, but the agency now has three people at the site in hopes of offsetting the loss of the surveillance cameras, Mr. Chun said. Britain's foreign minister, Bill Rammell, said today that North Korea's recent actions were "very worrying." "I think it is probably a fairly ham-fisted attempt to gain international leverage," he told BBC radio, "but our best analysis at the moment is that this is not a regime that is hell-bent on confrontation." President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea is reportedly planning an emergency security meeting with his cabinet on Thursday. United Nations officials said today that the atomic agency's governing board was planning to meet on Jan. 6 to discuss North Korea. The board could decide to give the North Korean government a chance to begin cooperating through high-level talks with agency officials. But it might decide to bring the matter before the Security Council. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned North Korea on Monday not to take advantage of the Iraq crisis to further its nuclear ambitions. He asserted that American forces were capable of fighting two wars at once. North Korea's defense minister, Kim Il Chol, was quoted on Tuesday by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency as attacking "U.S. hawks who are pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war." __________________

12-26-2002, 11:19 AM	#3
Sir Krustin Symbol of Cyric Join Date: September 15, 2002 Location: Peterborough, ON, CANADA Age: 61 Posts: 1,394	Typical "Democratic Peoples Republic" (ie, socialist dictatorship) crap. Nothing but trouble is going to come from this. __________________ If I say \"Eject!\" and you say \"Huh?\" - you\'ll be talking to yourself! - Maj. Bannister, <b>Steel Tiger</b>

12-26-2002, 12:27 PM	#5
Timber Loftis 40th Level Warrior Join Date: July 11, 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 11,916	Not to doubt you, but you got a link to an article regarding the CIA torture of Taliban? Thanks if you do. __________________

12-26-2002, 01:40 PM	#7
johnny 40th Level Warrior Join Date: April 15, 2002 Location: Utrecht The Netherlands Age: 59 Posts: 16,981	J.J. I'm sure the two Santa's know that too, but it was money they're after, and cashregisters in videostores are pretty full during Christmas, so i guess they got what they were looking for. __________________

12-26-2002, 12:23 PM	#4
Dreamer128 Dracolisk Join Date: March 21, 2001 Location: Europe Age: 40 Posts: 6,136	Latest news from Holland; Two Santa's just robbed a video store here and the CIA is torturing Taliban prisoners [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img] !!! No way you can compete with that. [ 12-26-2002, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

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