End of Issue #42 |

Any Questions?
Editorial and Rants
1. Iran's major trade partner is Eurosavage Land.
2. U.N. places sanctions against Iran.
3. Eurosavages need the money for their failing socialist policies.
4. Hey! Let's sue Microsoft!Do you think they'll ever pay back all that Marshall Plan money? Death to Europe!
Attack on U.S. Innovation in the Global Market
September 27, 2007 - From: www.sbecouncil.org
By Raymond J. Keating
The news out of Brussels last week was not good for innovation and U.S. market leading companies. On Monday, September 17, the European Court of First Instance rejected an antitrust appeal brought by Microsoft Corp., and thereby handed regulators at the European Commission an enormous amount of discretionary power to harass U.S. businesses.
In March 2004, the European Commission ruled against Microsoft, saying that the firm abused its market share by bundling its Media Player to Windows and supposedly refusing to provide interoperability information for Windows to competitors. With the European Court's decision, Microsoft could face fines reaching as high as $2.77 billion, according to news reports. And there could be more trouble for the software maker, as reports indicate that the European Commission is looking at interoperability regarding Microsoft Office products and the new operating system Vista.
What are some of the potential consequences of this ruling?
Innovation Suffers
Innovation could suffer in the high tech arena as companies will have to focus on what European regulators might think about various product designs, rather than focusing on customers/consumers, as should be the case. Indeed, leading U.S. companies even have to be concerned about their level of success. The Wall Street Journal reported that European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes declared that consumers are "suffering at the hands of Microsoft," and that "she would like to see a `significant drop' in Microsoft's nearly 95% market share in operating-system software." Apparently, Kroes fails to understand how markets work. That's a problem for a "competition commissioner." Microsoft gained market share by serving consumers well. And in the dynamic high-tech marketplace, the company will be toppled if it fails consumers.
I.P. Rights Undermined
Intellectual property rights will suffer a mighty blow as European regulators are forcing Microsoft to hand over its intellectual property to competitors, and apparently, the company will have to do so for free.
Protects Competitors Not Consumers
As bad as antitrust regulation is in this country, the European model is even worse. While antitrust policy in the U.S. is at least supposed to be about protecting consumers, the European Commission blatantly shows that antitrust regulation in Europe is about protecting competitors. That not only is dangerous for leading U.S. firms operating in Europe, but those doing business around the world as regulators in other nations could take their cue from Europe.
European regulators not only still have Microsoft in their sites, but also are pursuing chipmakers Intel Corp. and Rambus Inc. There also are concerns that Apple and Google could be next.
In the end, this is a form of protectionism through antitrust regulation. It is anti-free trade, and U.S. policymakers have to be aware of this and clearly communicate to our trading partners that this is not acceptable in a global economy. U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, correctly called the European court ruling a "dangerous precedent," and said he would soon hold hearings on this "new form of protectionism," according to a Wall Street Journal report.
One of the key competitive advantages that the U.S. holds in world markets is our ability to innovate. The European Court of First Instance's decision last week is directly targeted at undermining that U.S. edge.
The BBC gets caught helping terrorists... again!
"The British are responsible for destroying the Caliphate system. They are the ones who created the Palestinian problem. They are the ones who created the Kashmiri problem. They are the ones who put the arms embargo on the Muslims of Bosnia so that two million Muslims were killed. They are the ones starving Iraqi children."
--- Quote from Usama bin Laden in a June 2000 speech.
BBC's Newsround Fed Youngsters Al Qaeda Propaganda, Claims Ex-Spy Chief
September 29, 2007 - From: www.dailymail.co.uk
By James Chapman
Britain's former spy chief accused the BBC of "parroting" Al Qaeda propaganda to children as young as six.
Dame Pauline Neville Jones, who is also a former BBC governor, is infuriated at the stance the corporation's Newsround programme took on the September 11 attacks.
She accused the flagship children's news bulletin of feeding an "ugly undercurrent" which suggests the terrorist outrage was somehow justifiable.
Newsround is aimed at viewers aged between six and 12.
On its website it answered the question concerning 9/11, "Why did they do it" by saying: "The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al Qaeda - who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks."
After the public complained, the text was amended.
It now reads: "Al Qaeda is unhappy with America and other countries getting involved in places like the Middle East.
"People linked to al Qaeda have used violence to make this point in the U.S.A, and in other countries."
Dame Pauline, who headed the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee and is described as the most formidable female diplomat Britain has produced, said the new version was even worse.
"It still says it's all America's fault, and now for daring to be involved in the Middle East at all," she said.
"It wasn't 'people linked to' al Qaeda who killed 3,000 people that day, it was al Qaeda itself.
"Osama bin Laden even boasted of the attacks. Is the BBC really saying that if you're 'unhappy' it's quite normal behaviour to murder people?
"Is the BBC so naive as to take al Qaeda's propaganda at face value? Or is there something more sinister at work here?"
Dame Pauline, who is now a shadow security spokesman, added: "Al Qaeda make the manifestly false claim that America is part of an enormous Jewish-Christian conspiracy to dominate the world and kill Muslims.
"This is no secret - Osama bin Laden has said as much himself.
"We know that in the long run the struggle against terrorists is a battle for hearts and minds.
"How can we expect to win when our national broadcaster is parroting their line to our own children?
"There is only one set of people who are ever to blame for terrorist attacks and that's the perpetrators themselves."
Dame Pauline said the BBC was a "national treasure" and she had been proud to serve as a governor.
"But from time to time I have found myself asking questions about BBC's attitude to terrorism. It even orders its journalists not to use the word terrorist," she added.
"Although almost everyone in Britain quite rightly reacted with horror to the attacks of September 11, there was an ugly undercurrent that blamed America for being attacked.
"Just two days after the attacks the BBC screened an edition of the Question Time programme where they invited an anti-American audience that laid into the American ambassador, leaving him close to tears. In fairness, the BBC apologised for that outrage.
"Even though this was an appalling example of knee-jerk prejudice, at least it was meant for adults.
"I never imagined the rot would spread to the BBC's children's programmes. I was wrong."
Dame Pauline has complained to the BBC's head of journalism Mark Byford, who is understood to have defended the text as "clear and concise".
Sinead Rocks, editor of the Newsround programme, said the first version of the text was several years old and should no longer have been available.
But she defended the new version, insisting it was not an attempt to "justify" the events of September 11.
"We feel it is entirely legitimate to question the motives of the people who carried out the attacks," she said.
"Our contact with our audience has shown that their understanding is helped by events being put into some kind of context.
"We often have to translate complex and emotive issues into language appropriate for children. It's a responsibility we take very seriously."
San Francisco values invade the midwest.
First Jell-O, Now Santa
September 28, 2007 - From: www.suntimes.com
By Angela Caputo
So long, Halloween parade. Farewell, Santa's gift shop.
The holiday traditions are facing elimination in some Oak Lawn schools this year after complaints that the activities are offensive, particularly to Muslim students.
Final decisions on which of the festivities will be axed will fall to the principals at each of Ridgeland School District 122's five schools, Supt. Tom Smyth said.
Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since officials agreed earlier this month to change the lunch menu to exclude items containing pork to accommodate Muslim students. News that Jell-O was struck from the menu caused such a stir that officials have agreed to bring it back. Gelatin is often made with tissue or bones of pigs or other animals.
That controversy now appears to have been been dwarfed by the holiday debate, which became so acrimonious Wednesday that police were called to Columbus Manor School to intervene in a shouting match among parents.
"It's difficult when you change the school's culture," said Columbus Manor Principal Sandy Robertson.
Elizabeth Zahdan, a mother of three District 122 students, says she took her concerns to the school board this month, not because she wanted to do away with the traditions, but rather to make them more inclusive. "I only wanted them modified to represent everyone," she said.
Nixing them isn't the response she was looking for. "Now the kids are not being educated about other people," she said.
There's just not time in the six-hour school day to celebrate every holiday, said Smyth, who sent the message to principals that they need to "tone down" the activities that he sees as eating too much into instructional time. "We have to think about our purpose," Smyth said. "Are we about teaching reading, writing and math or for parties or fund-raising during the day?"
Robertson is hoping to strike compromises that will keep traditions alive and be culturally acceptable to all students -- nearly half of whom are of Arab descent at Columbus Manor, she says. Fewer than a third of students districtwide are of Arab descent, according to Smyth.
Following the example of Lieb Elementary School, Columbus Manor School will exchange the annual Halloween parade for a fall festival next month. The holiday gift bazaars at both schools also will remain, but they'll likely be moved to the PTA-sponsored after-school winter festival. And Santa's annual visit probably will be on a Saturday.
More money taken from our schools to cover for those assholes in Europe. We should have killed every one of those bastards during WWII.
Funny how German "pacifism" has no problems selling weapons to the Arabs and Iran.
NATO Staggers in Afghanistan as Some Can't Fight On
October 8, 2007 - From: www.bloomberg.com
By James G. Neuger
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- NATO's campaign in Afghanistan is under threat from member countries on the front lines clamoring to get out and others on the sidelines refusing to go in.
With military casualties on the increase this year, the Netherlands and Canada are weighing full or partial pullouts within the next 18 months. Meanwhile, leaders in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, mindful of polls showing a majority of Europeans oppose the conflict, are resisting calls to send troops to relieve them.
The European reluctance to fight is making it harder for the 41,000-strong force to consolidate gains against the Taliban, which is battling on in the rugged terrain of southern Afghanistan six years after the U.S. drove it from power in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. It is also endangering the unity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, raising the stakes for a meeting of defense ministers later this month.
``If NATO can't succeed with the task that it's been given, it's had it, it's lost all credibility,'' says Frank Cook, 71, a U.K. Labour member of Parliament who toured the war zone with allied lawmakers last month. ``Certain NATO members haven't fulfilled their NATO commitment.''
As the U.S. military hunkers down in Iraq, President George W. Bush is trying to shift more of the Afghan burden to Europe. The U.S. remains the dominant force in Afghanistan, with 15,000 soldiers under NATO command and another 11,000 in a separate counterinsurgency mission. Britain, which is shifting forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, now fields 6,700, the second-largest contingent.
Trainers and Helicopters
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will use the Oct. 24-25 NATO meeting in Noordwijk, Netherlands, to prod the allies to provide another 3,200 trainers -- to build up Afghan military and police forces that are understaffed, underequipped and underpaid -- and 20 helicopters to relieve an American unit in Kandahar.
``We have been very direct with a number of the NATO allies about the need to meet the commitments that they made,'' Gates told a Sept. 27 press conference.
``It's important that the full coalition show as much solidarity as possible,'' NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference in Copenhagen today. ``Winning and keeping the hearts and minds of the NATO nations is as important as winning and keeping the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.''
Under Strength
Afghanistan's army now numbers 50,000 soldiers, according to NATO. It won't reach the desired strength of 70,000 combat- ready troops until 2009 at the earliest, the NATO commander in the country, U.S. General Dan K. McNeill, said last month.
As a result, NATO is conducting a two-tiered war, with the U.S., Britain, Canada and the Netherlands doing most of the fighting and dying while troops from countries such as Germany are confined to safer areas. In the first nine months of this year, 110 NATO soldiers were killed in action, almost double the 58 for all of 2006. The U.S. tops the casualty list, having lost more than 440 men and women since 2001.
The government of the Netherlands, with 10 of its soldiers killed and its reserves depleted, is weighing a cut in its force to around 1,200 soldiers from 1,700 next August and is negotiating with Norway, Slovakia and Ukraine to fill the gaps.
`They Can Do It'
For Hans van Baalen, a Dutch opposition lawmaker, there's one European country that can make a difference: France.
France's military is ``well-equipped, well trained to go down south -- they can do it,'' says van Baalen, 47, who chairs the Dutch Parliament's defense committee. ``The French should reconsider, the same with the Germans.''
So far, France has confined its 1,000 soldiers to the relatively safe Kabul region, and new President Nicolas Sarkozy's offer of six Mirage fighters to patrol the southern skies won't alter the balance of power on the ground.
Canada's 3,000-strong contingent has suffered more than 70 dead, on a par with Britain. With resentment brewing over the performance of other allies, the war may now claim a political casualty: Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The three opposition parties that hold a majority in the House of Commons are pressing Harper to pull the troops out by February 2009. Confidence votes in late October may bring down the government and force new elections.
Hostage-Takings
War fatigue has gripped Europe, with the public troubled by the guerrilla fighting with no fixed front lines or exit strategy and by constant hostage-takings and casualties.
In the latest kidnapping involving westerners, four Red Cross workers were abducted southwest of Kabul on Sept. 27. At least 900 Afghan civilians were killed in 2006, Human Rights Watch estimates; for the first eight months of 2007 alone, the United Nations puts the figure at over 1,000.
``This was sold as an easier mission than it turned out to be, and once things got difficult, the governments have done a miserable job of explaining why we've got to be there,'' says Tomas Valasek, a former Slovak Defense Ministry official now at the London-based Centre for European Reform.
Opposition on the European continent to a shooting war -- 60 percent are against in France, 70 percent in Italy, according to a poll last month co-sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States -- raises questions whether Europe has the muscle to back up its foreign-policy ambitions.
German Attitudes
In Germany, the culture of pacifism that took root after the two world wars is clashing with 21st-century realities. Opposition to the Afghan war is highest there, with 75 percent of people against active combat, the poll found.
Germany's parliament has to approve the dispatch of troops overseas, and some Social Democrats in the ruling coalition plan to vote against reauthorizing the 3,000-strong mission on Oct. 12, firing a warning shot at Chancellor Angela Merkel. More resistance is likely next month when the Bundestag considers whether to yank 100 elite German troops from the U.S.-led counterinsurgency force.
``It may in the end just be a purely symbolic gesture, but it won't help Germany down the road if the image that's given by the government is that Germany's commitment to Afghanistan will be costless, non-violent and purely humanitarian,'' says John K. Glenn, director of foreign policy at the German Marshall Fund in Washington.
Economy Neglected
One Social Democrat who plans to vote no, Klaus Barthel, blames the U.S. for overemphasizing military solutions and neglecting the buildup of Afghanistan's economy, which is still riddled with corruption and heavily dependent on poppy production.
``I don't detect readiness among the allies, rather a reliance on the military card in an increasingly fragile environment,'' says Barthel, 51. ``The policy doesn't seem to have any answers to the growing influence of the Taliban.''
One index of the Taliban's resurgence is the opium harvest, which rose 38 percent to a record 8,200 tons this year. Afghanistan produces 93 percent of the world's opium, the UN says, warning that the Taliban-infested southwest is taking on the traits of a narco-state.
Under pressure from Europe, the U.S. this year backed a ``comprehensive approach'' -- code for putting more resources behind civilian reconstruction.
``Insurgency, weak governance and the narco-economy'' may stall progress or throw Afghanistan back to where it was five years ago, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon wrote in a Sept. 21 report. One warning sign: Economic growth slipped to 8 percent in 2006-7 from 14 percent in 2005-6, according to the UN.
What remains, for visitors like Cook, the U.K. lawmaker, is a country reminiscent of 12th-century Europe: a ``positively feudal, pre-Magna Carta system.''

"They're always after me Lucky Charms!"

"Ummm..... No!"