Bus Plunge!

Another bus plunge.

This AP report appeared in the International Fishwrap, The WaPo, and The Paper Of Record .

42 dead as bus plunges off mountain road in Nepal
The Associated Press
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2006
KATMANDU, Nepal At least 42 people were killed and another 45 wounded Saturday when an overcrowded bus plunged off a mountain road in western Nepal, police said.

The bus was traveling near the town of Tribeni, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of the Nepalese capital, Katmandu, when it skidded off the road, plunging about 250 meters (950 feet) into a ravine bellow, said local police officer Birkha Bahadur Rawal.

Police are investigating the cause, he said adding that an initial probe indicated the driver may have lost control of the vehicle because it was overloaded with passengers.

Police did not yet know if the driver was among those who survived.

The bus was traveling toward the southern town of Dang when the accident occurred.

Among those killed, 32 died on the spot while eight died on the way to the hospital, Rawal said. Another two died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Dang.

About a dozen more were in a critical condition and hospitalized at Nepalgunj, he said.

Police official Rawal said some of the passengers managed to jump and survived, indicating there were several people traveling on the roof, a common practice in rural Nepal where not much public transportation is available.

A bus ticket attendant who survived the crash, Jeevan Nepali, Told the Associated Press by mobile phone from his hospital bed that the bus was unable to pick up speed on the slopes and the driver stopped. It then rolled backward and off the road.

He said he and some of the passengers managed to jump off.

Deadly road accidents are common in Nepal, often caused by poor roads and aging overcrowded vehicles.

The POfR used the same wire service story and its supplied caption, but the entry in the index to "The World" section was tastefully re-written:

Nixon Redux

The Lamont campaign has created a brilliant ad revealing Lieberman's word-for-word echoing of Milhouse's mewlings during the Vietnam war. Take a look.

You can't spell 'Saturday" without 'turd'

Our keen-eyed correspondent in Sappy Valley spotted this in their local fishwrap.

He supplied the headline, too. Thanks, Reidar.

Do you use the Google on the Internets?

ThinkProgress reports that Bush says he uses “the Google.” See it here.

HOST(CNBC): I’m curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

an amusing campaign ad

Apparently the Republican nominee in Idaho's first congressional district hasn't always gotten along well with his colleagues in the state legislature...

No longer a free nation, nor a nation of laws

Ave atque vale, habeas corpus. We are no longer a nation of laws. WaPo reports that we have now become a dictatorship:

Bush Signs Bill Authorizing Detainee Interrogations, Military Commissions

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 17, 2006; 10:52 AM

Invoking the memory of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush today signed into law a bill that allows tough interrogation of terrorist suspects and establishes military commissions to try them.

In a speech before signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bush said the new law "is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the war on terror" and "will save American lives."

But none of the mainstream press is mentioning this part of the legislation:

(2) RETROACTIVE APPLICABILITY- The amendments made by this subsection, except as specified in subsection (d)(2)(E) of section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, shall take effect as of November 26, 1997, as if enacted immediately after the amendments made by section 583 of Public Law 105-118 (as amended by section 4002(e)(7) of Public Law 107-273).

You've read this correctly! Der Führer just signed a law that immunizes against prosecution all of those responsible for the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the rendition of the innocent, going back to November 26, 1997. No war crimes trial for this administration!

But other than the fact that it totally sucked, it was OK

In today's WaPo, Tim Page roasted a performance at the Kennedy Center, saying of the soloist,"About the only thing Vavic managed with professional confidence and composure were her bows." Ouch!

Something Amiss in The WPAS Piano Series

By Tim Page
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 16, 2006; Page C05

Anika Vavic's Saturday afternoon recital at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater proved a shocking deviation from the extraordinarily high standards that the Washington Performing Arts Society's Hayes Piano Series has set for itself.

If her concert had been an audition for admission to a conservatory, it is possible that Vavic might have won a place, but I doubt if any leading music school in the country would have accepted the results as a credible graduation recital. The program -- Mozart's Sonata in B-flat, K. 333, Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35, and Prokofiev's Sonata No. 6 in A, Op. 82 -- was a succession of missed notes, memory slips, motoric rhythms, clattering fortes and sketchy phrasing. About the only thing Vavic managed with professional confidence and composure were her bows.

Der Führer's Birthday Present to The Twins

The Wurst President will be giving a special present to his daughters, Jenna and Barbara on their 25th birthday, this coming November 25, 2006:

At 7:24 AM EST November 25, 2006, we will have been at war in Iraq longer than our involvement in the Second World War.

United States involvement in the Second World War extended for1346 days, 9 hours, and 7 minutes, from the attack at Pearl Harbor at 7:53 AM Hawaiian Standard Time (UTC-10) on December 7, 1941 to the surrender of Japan in the radio broadcast of the emperor, 12:00 Noon Japan Standard Time (UTC+9), August 15, 1945.

At 7:23 AM EST November 25, 2006, the length of the Iraq war , starting from the 10:16 PM EST March 19, 2003 announcement by Der Führer will be equal to the length of time of our participation in World War II.

Newsweak sez Americans are stupider

Rising Hegemon spotted this anomaly on September 25.

The geeks at Wonkette have spotted another.

So why does Newsweak water down their news for native consumption?

We suspect that the domestic version has plenty of monosyllabic words, and all of those nasty compound sentences have been eliminated so that the final product resembles a Dick and Jane book. In other words, something that our our leader, Der Führer, can read.

Wonkette has much more to say:

The cover’s art direction is aimed at the crucial retard demographic, too: Giant Leering Foley Face with a little cut-out Bush figure running from Giant Leering Foley Face and two great big simple words, one of which starts with a freakin’ smiley instead of the actual letter. It gets worse. The international edition has the damning background to the North Korean nuke test: One year ago, Washington and Pyongyang made a deal and everybody was happy:

On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang pledged to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations.”

Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country’s access to the international banking system, branding it a “criminal state” guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.

In other words, for some perverse reason we’ll never know, Washington signed the thing and then deliberately provoked Lil’ Kim so he’d break the deal and let the neo-con nuts have a new “regime change.”

That seems like something a few people in America might like to know, right?

Wrong! It would only confuse and anger Americans, who have enough problems already!

That’s why the new U.S. edition is filled with important little tiny short articles such as “Parties: How to Have Fun,” “Rock Music: Secrets of ‘Shredding’” and a very special 400-word article about how 77% of Americans spend most of their time praying to their dead relatives’ ghosts, which are everywhere these days.

Another Plunge

This seems to be the day for plunges, but not of the bus plunge variety. This was reported in The Telegraph. I like the tasteful, low-keyed headline.

Woman, 34, impaled in hotel plunge

By Paul Anast in Athens
(Filed: 11/10/2006)

A British holidaymaker was fighting for her life last night after her boyfriend allegedly pushed her out of a second-floor window at their hotel on the Greek island of Crete.

Sarah Maskell was impaled on a pole, which pierced her leg and exited through her lungs, in a fall from her room in Malia on Monday.

The incident was witnessed by the British man's five-year-old son, believed to be from a previous marriage, police said.
advertisement

Miss Maskell was in a critical condition in hospital.

A man, believed to be Miss Maskell's 37-year-old boyfriend, was in custody after appearing in court to face attempted murder charges yesterday.

In a statement, police at Iraklio said that it appeared Miss Maskell had been hit and pushed in a "violent row".

An Invitation from the World League of Despots

Terry Jones has written this fine letter in the Guardian:

Dear President Bush,

I write to you in my capacity as secretary of the World League of Despots.

It is with great pleasure that I am finally able to extend an official invitation to you to join our ranks. For many years, we have watched your efforts to fulfil the requirements necessary to join our number. From the start, we were greatly impressed by your disdain for democratic principles - the way you wrested power from the democratically elected candidate in the 2000 election, and again in 2005 when you managed to swing what was clearly going to be a victory for your opponent.

Contempt for human life has always been a priority requirement for membership of the league, and I and my fellow adjudicators were well aware of your record as governor of Texas when you quadrupled the number of state executions. But your record since seizing power has surpassed even our expectations. The thousands of innocent people in Iraq, who have died so that you could fulfil your declared political objective of establishing "an American force presence in the Middle East", attest to your eligibility to join our ranks.

I cannot, however, disguise the fact that we adjudicators were extremely anxious when you announced your intention to remove from office one of our most stalwart members, Mr Saddam Hussein. However, we need not have worried. According to a recent UN report, you have ensured that there are now even more human rights abuses in Iraq than there were under Saddam. No less than 10% of those in custody are being physically or psychologically abused. Well done!

Of course, your unstinting efforts to make torture an internationally accepted aspect of human life have surpassed everything we could have ever hoped for. I don't think there is a single member of the league who could have imagined, six short years ago, that our activities in tormenting our fellow creatures would once again be recognised as acceptable, civilised behaviour, as it once was in the middle ages.

Despite these achievements, we had, until now, felt unable to extend our invitation to you because you had been unable to fulfil one of our basic requirements: the ability to carry out arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trial, secret torture and executions at will.

We approved of your attempts to establish the principles of arbitrary arrest under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, but unfortunately it was still restricted to terror suspects. We appreciate that you were hampered by the US constitution, but the restrictions this imposed on your arbitrary powers kept you below the threshold requirements for qualification as a despot.

Now, however, all that has changed. At the end of last month you persuaded the Senate to pass a bill regarding the treatment of detainees. Illegally obtained evidence can now be used against suspects, even if it has been gathered abroad under torture. Anyone you care to accuse can be thrown into prison without the right to a trial or the right to represent themselves.

Officially the legislation is restricted to "enemy combatants", but you have skilfully adapted this definition to include anyone who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the US". This presumably means that anyone who publicly criticises your conduct can be defined as supporting hostilities to the US. You are now free to arrest and imprison anyone you don't like. You've got it in the bag!

It is with great pleasure that we in the World League of Despots note that you have now appropriated to yourself all the powers of arbitrary arrest and torture that Saddam once enjoyed. You are now one of us. Congratulations!

another one for the plunge archives

I know a middle-aged woman isn't a vehicle, but the headline does include "plunge"...

Woman who takes fatal plunge from university building hits walking student

TOKYO - A woman who plunged from a university building in western Tokyo on Wednesday in an apparent suicide bid died after hitting a student walking on the campus, police said.

At about 5:40 a.m. on Wednesday, a 55-year-old unemployed woman fell from the University of Electro-Communications' building that houses laboratories in Chofu, and hit a 20-year-old female student who was walking on its premises, local police said.

The older woman died while the student suffered serious head injuries and was rushed to hospital.

A pair of sandals belonging to the woman who fell was left on the landing of an emergency stairway between the ninth and 10th floors, leading investigators to suspect that she committed suicide.

The student who was injured was on her way home after finishing preparations for an upcoming university festival, according to police. (Mainichi)

WTF: More Fox Follies. Chafee is now a D.

Crooks and Liars has it here.

WTF: The O'Reilly Fuckter calls Foley a Democrat!

Brad Blog reports this.

LOGGED BY Brad ON 10/3/2006 6:07PM

INCREDIBLE! FOX 'NEWS' LABELS FOLEY AS DEM DURING O'REILLY FACTOR!

Three Different Video Cutaways, 15 Seconds or More Each, Credit Disgraced REPUBLICAN Congressman as Being a Florida DEMOCRAT!

Just amazing. Fox's O'Reilly Factor just covered the Mark Foley (R-FL) issue in two different segments, one of them with a page who says he received communications from Foley, and another with Ann Coulter.

Never mind the content of either segment for now. Incredibly during a total of three different cutaways to video footage of Foley, he was labelled at the bottom of the screen eachtime as "(D-FL)" !

indecision 2006

Via Steve Gilliard, and courtesy of the Mark Foley mess, the new House GOP slogan for 2006:

No one could have anticipated the breach of the Levi's.

Why there is beer

From here