Today's news included RIP Harold Pinter whose quote I included at the end of
this post

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.dance/msg/e628d15238b2a715?hl=en

Actree Eartha Kitt also passed.

I will spare you the stuff I posted about her in the past,but I think it is
funny that I called her a neko mimi because that is something Japanese that
someone once told me about - cat ears - some sort of cult in Japan of people
who wear cat ears. Eartha Kitt was one of the women who played Cat Woman in
Batman in the 60s
You can google for a photo of this to see if I am not correct in my
characterization

mk5000

"It's one of those few things that is a universal experience. I find you
can instantly start an argument by bringing up driving"--Tom Vanderbilt

En yararlı amerikalı güfteyi 1987
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-691KqcDttE

Bernie Madoff: How He "Made Off" with $50 Billion

Unless you've been living under a rock, you all should know by now that
financier Bernard "Bernie" Madoff was arrested for running a Ponzi
scheme. There are four notable facts about his operation:

1. It was the largest (dollar-wise)
2. It was the longest-running (known) Ponzi scheme in history.
Investigators sifting through the record found evidence of hanky panky
since the 1970s
3. It was perpetrated by one of the pillars of Wall Street - Madoff
was a former chairman of NASDAQ
4. His victims are some of the most financially savvy and rich
people in the world (you need at least $20 million to "invest" with him)

We're not going to talk about Madoff (this news is all over the
Internet), but let me just re-print what his website used to say before
it was taken over by authorities:

In an era of faceless organizations owned by other equally faceless
organizations, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC harks back to
an earlier era in the financial world: The owner’s name is on the door.

Another Isolated Incident

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at
Emily Milburn’s home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children
for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond,
to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three
men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying,
“You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy,
Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about
the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police
officers who had been called to the area regarding three white
prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

But scholars, some of whom were quoted in a recent story by The New
Republic, have been highly skeptical, saying the layout of the camp -
Schlieben, a sub-camp of Buchenwald - made it virtually impossible that
Rosenblat could have approached the fence without being spotted.

"Some serious historians as well as other historical sleuths have done some
pretty serious research on this story," Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of
Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, wrote on her blog
on Dec. 15.

"There are also survivors who are very upset about this story. They just
don't believe it."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081226/ap_on_en_ot/books_holocaust_memoir

Author, publisher defend disputed Holocaust memoir

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer .

NEW YORK - The author and publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir defended
the book's story of love between two survivors, but also called it a work of
memory and not of scholarship.

"This is my personal story as I remember it," Herman Rosenblat said in a
statement issued Thursday through Berkley Books, which will release his
"Angel at the Fence" in February.

Fill 'Er Up With Human Fat
(obese pigs!)
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/12/21/fat-fuel-biodiesel-tech-sciences-cz_pcb_1222fatfuel...

Careful with your chickens, South Americans, Asians, Africans, Third World
Countries and so forth! They will keep going after your food.

NYT

Hallo,

Deze Frankrijk-België website bevat verscheidene pagina's met telkens
twee vergelijkende (gelijkaardige, contrasterende, ...) foto's. Laat
je gedachten de vrije loop en geniet:
http://www.dongo.org/frankrijk-belgie/lijst_5_nl/een_franse_toren_en_belgische_torens...
Klik op de "-->"-knop in de geopende pagina voor de volgende nieuwe
foto's.

Mvg, BoBi

Bijlage: overzicht van de nieuwe foto's:

de Franse Toren SwissLife en Belgische torens:
http://www.dongo.org/frankrijk-belgie/lijst_5_nl/een_franse_toren_en_belgische_torens...
Openbaar vervoer met een Bus en Openbaar vervoer met De Lijn en...

FBI files indict Bush, Cheney and Co. as war criminals

The most stunning revelation in a 370-page Justice US Department
Inspector General’s report released this week was that agents of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation had formally opened a “War Crimes” file,
documenting torture they had witnessed at the Guantánamo Bay US prison
camp, before being ordered by the administration to stop writing their
reports.

The World Socialist Web Site, together with human rights groups and
other opponents of US militarism and repression, has long insisted that
the actions of the Bush administration—the launching of wars of
aggression, assassinations, the abduction and detention of civilians
without trial and, most repugnant of all, torture—constitute war crimes
under any legitimate interpretation of longstanding international
statutes and treaties.

Lingering questions about Robin Cook's death

I would rather not be having these thoughts but, as I am, I reckon it's
time to commit them to writing. This extended entry builds upon 'Robin
Cook, the Database and Secrets', which itself derived from 'Warning to
Labour Politicians' (and the thread began with 'John Prescott and
National Security'). It raises questions about Robin Cook's death, ones
I've not seen addressed elsewhere. In life, I was never Cooky's biggest
fan. But if there were the slightest possibility that his death was not
naturally caused, then the man deserves better than for the official
version to be believed without question.

It's been about 9 months since the passing of Robin Cook MP. I have
suggested previously that, one month before he died, Cook may have
started to divulge confidential information, despite having signed the
Official Secrets Act. His sudden and unexpected death might have saved
MI6/MI5/DIS/whomever from having to resolve the problem of how to stop
him doing it again.