GOP Vixen

New Juan Valdez!

After an exhausting search, Colombia has found a new Juan Valdez to promote its coffee all around the world. And get this -- he's actually a farmer, not some washed-up actor! Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper dishes the scoop on Carlos Castañeda:

"Un pequeño cultivador de Andes (Antioquia) es el nuevo ícono del café colombiano. Fue elegido por su tranquilidad, honestidad y liderazgo.

Indudablemente, para Carlos Castañeda Ceballos, la celebración de su cumpleaños número 40 será diferente en esta ocasión, pues el 10 de octubre próximo, fecha de su aniversario, no sabrá en qué lugar del mundo se encontrará el nuevo Juan Valdez y quiénes lo acompañarán.

... Castañeda es un cafetero de pura cepa, a quien siempre la suerte lo ha acompañado. Su primera finca la pudo comprar luego de que se ganara, junto con su padre, una rifa de un carro Renault 9, el cual vendieron por 14 millones de pesos y con lo que le tocó se compró su finca de cuatro hectáreas donde tiene sembrados 7.000 palos de café que producen 20 cargas al año. ..."

Oh, you wanted it in English? Well, new Juan is pretty cool, no?

Arrest of Hamas leaders brightens my week

And what is Israel going to do with the 64 lawmakers, including eight cabinet ministers, seized? Charge them. Oh, and arrest more! From Haaretz:

"... Attorney General Menachem Mazuz refused a request by the Shin Bet security service and the government to place dozens of senior Hamas officials under administrative detention or hold them as 'bargaining chips' under the Unlawful Combatants Law.

Mazuz insisted that the arrests be carried out under ordinary criminal warrants that would require legal proceedings against the Hamas officials under the Prevention of Terror Ordinance. They will probably be charged with membership in or leadership of a terrorist organization.

The detainees will be brought before a judge for a remand hearing within the next 96 hours, and legal proceedings against them will be carried out in military courts in the territories.

Israel intends to arrest more senior Hamas figures in addition to the dozens of Palestinian lawmakers and ministers arrested in a predawn raid Thursday, the Justice Ministry said Thursday.

The detention of Hamas parliamentarians in the early hours of Thursday morning had been planned several weeks ago and received approval from Mazuz on Wednesday. The same day, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the list of Hamas officials slated for detention.

The Group of Eight industrialized countries said Thursday that the Hamas arrests raised 'particular concerns.'

A Justice Ministry spokesperson said that the change in policy towards ministers and parliamentarians who are members of Hamas was carried out with the approval of and in coordination with the judiciary, and that Israel intends on arresting more Hamas officials. ..."

Can we pass along a Hamas-arrest request list? How about Ismail Haniyeh? Ooh, wait:

"... On Thursday morning, National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer hinted that Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is not exempt from arrest or harm.

'No one is immune... This is not a government. It is a murderous organization,' Ben-Eliezer said."

 

U.N. bashing!

I always find it interesting to try to interpret cartoons from Arab publications. This Arab News cartoon today appears to have the United Nations meeting a World Trade Center fate. Is it a fantasy of theirs? Is Saudia Arabia sending over more deviant wannabe crash pilots? Or maybe a commentary on U.N. remodeling plans?

News flash: Bin Laden, five years on, still has nothing important to say!

As noted by AP:

"... 'We will continue to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan to run down your resources and kill your men until you return defeated to your nation,' he said, addressing Bush. His voice sounded breathy and fatigued at times.

... In the tape, bin Laden effusively praised the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, often in rhyming couplets. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a June 7 airstrike northeast of Baghdad by U.S. warplanes.

'Al-Zarqawi's story will live forever with the stories of the nobles, so don't cry over one who is not missing,' bin Laden said. 'He can teach the world a lesson on how to seize freedom ... and how to resist tyrants.'

'Even if we lost one of our greatest knights and princes, we are happy that we have found a symbol for our great Islamic nations, one that the mujahedeen will remember and praise in poetry and in stories secretly and aloud,' he said.

The tape comes exactly a week after bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri issued his own tribute video to al-Zarqawi, extolling him as 'the prince of martyrs.'

... In the new tape, bin Laden addressed 'those who accuse Abu Musab of killing certain sectors of the Iraqi people,' referring to the campaign of suicide bombings against Shiites.

'Abu Musab had clear instructions to focus his fight on the occupiers, particularly the Americans and to leave aside anyone who remains neutral,' bin Laden said.

'But for those who refused (neutrality) and stood to fight on the side of the crusaders against the Muslims, then he should kill them whoever they are, regardless of their sect or tribe. For supporting infidels against Muslims is a major sin,' he said."

To that I just have to say aklfjioawejevawevnhjwoevnh;wevwe ... oh, sorry, fell asleep on the keyboard...

Kuwaiti women get to vote!

And the Arabic nation didn't implode, whaddya know! From the Arab News:

"Kuwaiti women went to the polls yesterday for the first time to elect a 50-seat Parliament.

Driven by excitement over the new experience, some women queued at polling stations exclusively for women at least two hours before the polls opened at 8 in the morning. 'I haven’t slept all night and have been waiting for the polling to start,' said Nadia, a voter in Bayan electoral district.

... Candidate of the 7th constituency, Shariah professor and former Islamist MP Waleed Al-Tabtebaei told Arab News that the fact that women voters (57 percent) outnumber the men would surely affect the composition of the coming Parliament. Yet, Waleed stressed that women’s chances in this particular election process were feeble."

Of course he stressed that... "Shariah professor and former Islamist MP..."

"... There was no immediate official figures on the turnout but Kuwait TV reported that it was more than 80 percent in many of the 25 constituencies as voters braced searing temperatures close to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit)."

Things like that make me feel guilty for being a lazy absentee voter...

Groooaannnn....

This is the picture Pravda ran today with the headline "Will George W. Bush surpass Hitler with regard to criminal effects?"

Get over yourselves, Ruskies!

Operation 'Summer Rain'

Yep, that's what the Israeli forces have dubbed the act of opening a can on the Gaza Strip in response to the kidnapping and subsequent refusal to release soldier Gilad Shalit. Here's what Haaretz quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saying about the frilly-named military action:

"We won't hesitate to carry out extreme action to bring Gilad back to his family. All the military activity that started overnight will continue in the coming days. We do not intend to reoccupy Gaza. We do not intend to stay there. We have one objective, and that is to bring Gilat home."

Haaretz is also reporting that the 2,500 Egyptian troops massed along the border aren't just there for an anticipated influx of Palestinians, but have been deployed due to fears that Shalit's kidnappers may try to smuggle him into Egypt. And:

"... According to information gleaned by the Palestinian Authority, Shalit is being held in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza. His captors may be considering moving him elsewhere, possibly to the Jabalya refugee camp, on the outskirts of Gaza City in the northern Strip."

At this point, I really hope he's alive. It's easy to see the Palestinians killing the young soldier, then claiming it was retaliation for the rescue incursion into Gaza and knocking out a few bridges. Then the real whoop-ass would commence from the Israeli forces.

What's up, G-had?

The Guardian even seems (slightly) shocked at this guy -- a rapper who likens Osama to Che. More:

"Two record company executives are threatening to resign from a label over an album by a radical Muslim musician which has tracks about the immorality of the west, suicide bombers and Osama bin Laden.

Aki Nawaz is determined to release what is, by anyone's standards, a phenomenally angry album. He says he fully expects a knock on the door from MI5. As the main component of the band Fun-da-Mental, Nawaz has been producing politically challenging music since 1991 but accepts he is pushing those boundaries further.

The album, All is War (The Benefits of G-had), contains one track which uses the words of Bin Laden issuing 'a statement of reason and explanation of impending conflict' and equates him with Che Guevara. Another forensically recreates a suicide bomber at work. The opening song is a rejection of what Nawaz sees as the hypocrisy and immorality of the west. One supposedly dream-like track predicts the demise of America at the hands of Islam.

Nawaz, a former drummer in the Southern Death Cult, said yesterday: 'I have a right to push the boundaries as much as anyone else has, whether it's Ken Loach or Harold Pinter or George Galloway or Neil Young or the Sex Pistols.'

... Nawaz describes the songs Che Bin Parts 1 and 2 as a discussion on resistance and terrorism. He uses the words of Bin Laden and Che Guevara to suggest that they have more in common than differences. Nawaz said he challenged anyone to disagree with the statement by Bin Laden that he uses."

Perhaps the Che/Bin Laden comparison isn't so far off, but I suspect he's lauding the devious duo whilst I would call them murderous turds. But I find the "G-had" extremely funny -- for those of you not familiar with da hood, "G" means gangsta and is used in rap songs such as Dr. Dre and Snoop's "Ain't Nuthin' But a G-Thang." Not exactly sure the street-slang forefathers would be up for holy war/beheadings/suicide bombings...

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills

Love it when a bureaucracy takes a page from "Napoleon Dynamite" when crafting policy. From the Telegraph:

"Traditional subjects are being squeezed out of school timetables to make room for a new focus on 'skills'.

Changes to the national curriculum mean more lesson time is being given to personal, social and health education (PSHE), which covers sex and drugs advice and vocational courses.

Timetables from a range of secondary schools, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, show that new areas, such as media, technology, 'life skills' and citizenship, are being allocated precious lesson slots and academic disciplines are abandoned or lumped together."

Surely they'll include nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... and if you haven't seen the movie, you'll understand none of that.

Railroad Killer's lame appeal

Angel Maturino Resendiz, a.k.a. the Railroad Killer, savagely murdered at least 15 people in a 1998-99 spree in Texas, Illinois, Florida, Kentucky, California and Georgia. The serial killer is set to die by lethal injection tonight in Texas for the stabbing, beating and rape of Houston doctor Claudia Benton, and of course his lawyers are trying the last-minute appeals. But one cited by the AP is especially rich:

"... Several appeals were pending in the federal courts. Resendiz's lawyer argued that Resendiz could not be executed because he did not believe he could die. The condemned man had described himself to psychiatrists as half-man and half-angel."

He can't be executed because he doesn't believe he can die? Huhhhh? Since when does one's opinion on one's mortality affect punishment?