Sunday, October 30, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Parable of the Party Affiliation - in a balloon...
Thank you Mark D'Truth
A parable of Party Affiliation:A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. Spotting a man in a boat below, she descends to lower altitude and shouts to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at latitude 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north and longitude 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west."
She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."
"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."
The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."
"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going.
You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect ME to solve your problem. You're in EXACTLY the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now, it's MY fault."
Monday, August 01, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Can you name three "great" Conservatives? Churchill could not. He named three great Liberals!
Botha - The hero of the Boer War who captured Winston, and then proceeded to bring South Africa into the Commonwealth. He was not just a great guerrilla officer, but a real "community organizer". After becoming Prime Minister, he sought to eliminate racial barriers and create a unity of people. Nationalism, and Apartheit, was the failure of his reforms.
Baden-Powell - a gay husband and wife team, formed the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. The world's first international organization open to children of all creeds, colors, and financial straits.
Booth - husband and wife "community organizers", founded the Salvation Army to help the "undesirables" of the world. They formed Christian sharing communities with very little economic disparity, and with healthy lifestyles and diets.
These are the "conservatives" named by Winston Churchill after giving the question a lot of thought. All three persons he named were, in their lifetimes, attacked as "liberals".
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.437590727835.239797.11139837835&type=1
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://members.tripod.com/~kclocke/badenpowell.gif&imgrefurl=http://kclocke.tripod.com/index-6.html&h=232&w=200&sz=20&tbnid=IXR4e86gR-fRSM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=78&zoom=1&docid=VEMvFBE4Uqg5xM&sa=X&ei=IQApT87QE4ji2gWAn8DoAg&ved=0CFoQ9QEwBg&dur=649
https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQl9N70_zSqCumPssTXD1h5Cstev8IBIvrJcV-AN5Q1ha2TLgCpPg
Baden-Powell - a gay husband and wife team, formed the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. The world's first international organization open to children of all creeds, colors, and financial straits.
Booth - husband and wife "community organizers", founded the Salvation Army to help the "undesirables" of the world. They formed Christian sharing communities with very little economic disparity, and with healthy lifestyles and diets.
These are the "conservatives" named by Winston Churchill after giving the question a lot of thought. All three persons he named were, in their lifetimes, attacked as "liberals".
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.437590727835.239797.11139837835&type=1
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://members.tripod.com/~kclocke/badenpowell.gif&imgrefurl=http://kclocke.tripod.com/index-6.html&h=232&w=200&sz=20&tbnid=IXR4e86gR-fRSM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=78&zoom=1&docid=VEMvFBE4Uqg5xM&sa=X&ei=IQApT87QE4ji2gWAn8DoAg&ved=0CFoQ9QEwBg&dur=649
https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQl9N70_zSqCumPssTXD1h5Cstev8IBIvrJcV-AN5Q1ha2TLgCpPg
Monday, June 20, 2011
The First of the royal edicts guaranteeing religious freedom was Unitarian.
"A Unitarian, King John Sigismund of Transylvania -- now known as Romania -- pronounced the first edict of religious freedom in the year 1568. I traveled to Romania several years ago and stood in the church in Torda, where that proclamation was made. This was an almost unimaginable act in an age in which people were being burned at the stake for not getting their theology just right.
Francis David, King Sigismund's spiritual advisor, was the single greatest influence on the king's theological beliefs. After Sigismund's death, David lost favor and was finally arrested for his views. I made a pilgrimage to the town of Deva and walked up a long, dusty hill to the dungeon where he was imprisoned. It was actually a deep hole in the ground into which David was lowered, and there he sickened, and died. His famous words still live with us, though. He said simply, "You need not think alike to love alike." At the center of our faith is not belief, but love." -- Marilyn Sewell, in Huffpost
Francis David, King Sigismund's spiritual advisor, was the single greatest influence on the king's theological beliefs. After Sigismund's death, David lost favor and was finally arrested for his views. I made a pilgrimage to the town of Deva and walked up a long, dusty hill to the dungeon where he was imprisoned. It was actually a deep hole in the ground into which David was lowered, and there he sickened, and died. His famous words still live with us, though. He said simply, "You need not think alike to love alike." At the center of our faith is not belief, but love." -- Marilyn Sewell, in Huffpost
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The type of UN-believer who despises vicious little gods
I sat next to a Believer. After prodding, and only at the extremity of his relentless insistence, I revealed to him that I was an unrepentant sinner. Indeed, I certified that I was the very worst of the species: I was not only an atheist as to his god, but I positively despised such a god. If his god existed, it should be ashamed of itself and I would not forgive it. If there was a heaven, I would shake its golden dust from my sandals and take my place among the suffering sinners for my eternity.
But I smiled gently into his dismay. I invited him to add the greatest of all jewels to his crown, and "warn" me. I echoed St. Paul's assurance that a Believer has only to warn those who have fallen away, so as to achieve further elevation in the hierarchies of heaven.
"For your own assurance," I said, "Give me a warning". He looked startled.
"Warn me!" I said. "But be specific. Recall that I am a righteous man. I struggle to avoid false pride and hypocrisy, and I treat others as I would be treated. What outcome awaits me that a god worthy of worship has prepared for me?"
The Believer eagerly stepped up to the bait of self-aggrandizement, and warned me of eternal damnation. He assured me, apparently without a hint of the irony, that my destiny would be made unpleasant at the hands of a god willing to torture a righteous man for the sin of refusing to worship at the feet of a torturer.
But I smiled gently into his dismay. I invited him to add the greatest of all jewels to his crown, and "warn" me. I echoed St. Paul's assurance that a Believer has only to warn those who have fallen away, so as to achieve further elevation in the hierarchies of heaven.
"For your own assurance," I said, "Give me a warning". He looked startled.
"Warn me!" I said. "But be specific. Recall that I am a righteous man. I struggle to avoid false pride and hypocrisy, and I treat others as I would be treated. What outcome awaits me that a god worthy of worship has prepared for me?"
The Believer eagerly stepped up to the bait of self-aggrandizement, and warned me of eternal damnation. He assured me, apparently without a hint of the irony, that my destiny would be made unpleasant at the hands of a god willing to torture a righteous man for the sin of refusing to worship at the feet of a torturer.
Monday, April 04, 2011
I like Unions. I dream of 200 stars on the flag.
There is a pendulum that swings between the fierce fight for independence, usually from the oppression of indifference, and the effort to find common ground and swell with being part of something bigger.
Sometimes the union is really not bigger, just a smaller pie for the parts while Tamerlane or a monopolist is made more imperial. That is a call for fraction, for freedom.
But there is a vector in history. We tend to look for each other and when we find each other we find comforts and amusements. Even with different instruments, we play the same songs. The vector leads to unity.
Now, after a million years of primates wandering over the cooling surfaces of this hot ball, the world really has become unified. Those who want to ignite fears of strangers, or to scape-goat a neighbor, have their own agendas, but their appeals are to a moot matter. The fact is, the world is unified.
The Founders decided to add a star to the flag for each State which joined the Union. The candy-stripes of course, give it away -- it is not a flag of war and conquest. Europe laughed at the party favor which was picked as the design for the American flag. In light of all things, in light of history and its direction, its irony, it is time to add stars.
Sometimes the union is really not bigger, just a smaller pie for the parts while Tamerlane or a monopolist is made more imperial. That is a call for fraction, for freedom.
But there is a vector in history. We tend to look for each other and when we find each other we find comforts and amusements. Even with different instruments, we play the same songs. The vector leads to unity.
Now, after a million years of primates wandering over the cooling surfaces of this hot ball, the world really has become unified. Those who want to ignite fears of strangers, or to scape-goat a neighbor, have their own agendas, but their appeals are to a moot matter. The fact is, the world is unified.
The Founders decided to add a star to the flag for each State which joined the Union. The candy-stripes of course, give it away -- it is not a flag of war and conquest. Europe laughed at the party favor which was picked as the design for the American flag. In light of all things, in light of history and its direction, its irony, it is time to add stars.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
We are Ibsen's Ghosts. Pitifully afraid of light.
GHOSTS. Henrik Ibsen wrote in Act 2: "I almost think we're all of us Ghosts. ... It's not only what we have invited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be Ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light."
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Quote: Goethe - words have been exchanged, now take action!
Der Worte sind genug gewechselt,
lasst mich auch endlich Taten sehn!
The words are exchanged,
now at last show me what you can do! (Goethe, Faust I)
lasst mich auch endlich Taten sehn!
The words are exchanged,
now at last show me what you can do! (Goethe, Faust I)
Sunday, February 06, 2011
List of Cook Books that are healthy FUN sensual
OK start the list: [rougher than usual]
1. journalist Michael Pollan, (books by this author) born on Long Island, New York (1955). He's the author of best-selling books about food: The Botany of Desire (2001), The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), In Defense of Food (2008), and Food Rules (2010). His nutrition philosophy is: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
1. journalist Michael Pollan, (books by this author) born on Long Island, New York (1955). He's the author of best-selling books about food: The Botany of Desire (2001), The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), In Defense of Food (2008), and Food Rules (2010). His nutrition philosophy is: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Friday, February 04, 2011
Politics - not being disheartened
""The absurdity of politics is not new." Robert Coover.
And Aristotle said it so gracefully, before being murdered by henchmen of his rivals. "Man is a Political Animal".
And Aristotle said it so gracefully, before being murdered by henchmen of his rivals. "Man is a Political Animal".
Saturday, January 15, 2011
List of Assassins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Assassin(s) | Year (AD format) | Target | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ehud | ca. 1200 BC | Moabite king Eglon | Killed | Stabbed to death in his throne room (Judges 3:12-30). |
| Arda Mulissi | 681 BC | Assyrian king Sennacherib | Killed | Stabbed to death while at prayer in a temple, or possibly crushed under a winged bull colossus.[1] |
| Jing Ke | 227 BC | Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang | Survived | One of the earliest documented attempts. |
| A strongman hired by Zhang Liang | 218 BC | Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang | Survived | Long-distance heavy hammer (30-kg) throwing; the origin of a Chinese idiom 誤中副車 ("mistakenly hit the escort carriage"). |
| Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and others | 44 BC | Roman Dictator Julius Caesar | Killed | Resulted in Civil War and indirectly in the end of the Roman Republic |
| Fan Jiang, Zhang Da | 221 | military general of Shu Han Zhang Fei | Killed | |
| Hashshashin | 1192 | Conrad of Montferrat | Killed | |
| Pazzi Conspiracy | 1478 | Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici | See notes | Giuliano died, after being stabbed 19 times, but Lorenzo escaped. |
| Oda Nobunaga | 1557 | Sengoku period Oda Nobuyuki | Killed | |
| Balthasar Gérard | 1584 | Dutch Stadtholder William the Silent | Killed | The first assassination carried out with a firearm. |
| Jacques Clément | 1589 | King Henry III of France | Killed | Religious-political antagonism. |
| Guy Fawkes | 1605 | King James I of England, Parliament of England | Survived | See the Gunpowder Plot. |
| François Ravaillac | 1610 | King Henry IV of France | Killed | Religious-political antagonism. |
| Army officers | 1747 | King Nader Shah | Killed | He was able to kill two of the assassins before dying. |
| Jacob Johan Anckarström | 1792 | King Gustav III of Sweden | Killed | The king was shot at a masquerade ball and died two weeks later from his wounds. |
| Charlotte Corday | 1793 | French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat | Killed | Later often seen as a patriotic act. |
| François-Joseph Carbon | 1800 | French Emperor, King of italy Napoleon I of France | Survived | Detonated an explosion by the roadside in an attempt to kill Bonaparte, which he narrowly missed. The attempt is referred to as the Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise. |
| John Bellingham | 1812 | UK Prime Minister Spencer Perceval | Killed | First and only U.K. Prime Minister to be assassinated. |
| Richard Lawrence | 1835 | US President Andrew Jackson | Survived | First attempt to kill a US President, Jan. 30. Both guns misfired. |
| Edward Oxford | 1840 | Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom | Survived | Oxford fired twice, but both bullets missed. |
| Unknown | 1842 | Former Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs | Survived | Orrin Porter Rockwell, a close associate of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., charged but acquitted of all charges. |
| János Libényi | 1853 | Austrian Emperor, King of Bohemia Franz Joseph I of Austria | Survived | Attacked with a dagger to the back of the neck. Survived due to the thick collar of his uniform. |
| John Wilkes Booth | 1865 | US President Abraham Lincoln | Killed | First assassination of a sitting United States President. See Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. |
| Patrick J. Whelan | 1868 | Canadian Member of Parliament Thomas D'Arcy McGee | Killed | Only Canadian victim of assassination at the federal level. |
| Charles J. Guiteau | 1881 | US President James Garfield | Killed | Died 80 days following the shooting. See James A. Garfield assassination. |
| Ignacy Hryniewiecki | 1881 | Tsar Alexander II of Russia | Killed | Assassination plot concluded with bombs. |
| Tsuda Sanzo | 1891 | Tsar Nicholas II of Russia | Survived | The Tsar was attacked with a sabre during a state visit to Japan. |
| Mirza Reza Kermani | 1896 | King Naser al-Din Shah Qajar | Killed | Ironically assassinated on the day of his fiftieth kingship ceremony. |
| Frederick Russell Burnham | 1896 | Mlimo, the Ndebele religious leader | Killed | Effectively ended the Second Matabele War. |
| Luigi Lucheni | 1898 | Empress Elisabeth of Austria | Killed | Lucheni attacked the Empress randomly on the street of Geneva, in a senseless act of violence. Elisabeth was stabbed in the heart once with a sharp needle file. Due to her extremely tight corset, she had no idea she has been wounded and collapsed suddenly two hours later due to slow internal hemorrhaging. |
| Gaetano Bresci | 1900 | King Umberto I of Italy | Killed | |
| Leon Czolgosz | 1901 | US President William McKinley | Killed | See William McKinley assassination. |
| Eugen Schauman | 1904 | Governor-General of Finland Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov | Killed | Happens on day described in James Joyce's novel Ulysses, is briefly mentioned in the book |
| An Jung-geun | 1909 | Prime Minister of Japan Itoh Hirobumi | Killed | |
| John Schrank | 1912 | former US President Theodore Roosevelt | Survived | Shot at campaign event; Roosevelt continued with his speech. |
| Alexandros Schinas | 1913 | King George I of Greece | Killed | Possible conspiracy. |
| Gavrilo Princip | 1914 | Austro-Hungarian Archduke Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria | Killed | Considered the start of World War I. |
| Raoul Villain | 1914 | French socialist leader Jean Jaurès | Killed | The assassin was tried and acquitted in 1919. |
| Fritz Joubert Duquesne | 1916 | Lord Kitchener, British Field Marshal and Secretary of State for War | Killed | Killed on the HMS Hampshire after the cruiser struck a mine; Duquesne falsely claimed to have sabotaged Hampshire. |
| Fanny Kaplan | 1918 | Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin | Survived | Shot on factory meeting, Fanny Kaplan was captured and executed by Bolsheviks. Lenin died 6 years later due to unrelated causes, but within Russian pop culture, Kaplan is still widely considered to have killed him. |
| Unknown | 1922 | Michael Collins | Killed | Killed in an ambush firefight near the end of Irish Civil War. |
| Eligiusz Niewiadomski | 1922 | First Polish President Gabriel Narutowicz | Killed | Killed five days after his inauguration, while attending the opening of an art exhibit at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw. |
| Giuseppe Zangara | 1933 | Anton Cermak | Killed | Killed in Miami, Florida during a visit of president-elect of Franklin Roosevelt. |
| Vlado Chernozemski | 1934 | Alexander I of Yugoslavia | Killed | Killed in Marseille during a state visit. |
| Carl Weiss | 1935 | US Senator Huey Long | Killed | Shot in a Louisiana State Capitol hallway. |
| Ramón Mercader | 1940 | Lev Bronstein Trotsky | Killed | Killed by a pick-hit on head. |
| Vasil Laçi | 1941 | Victor Emmanuel III | Survived | |
| Jan Kubiš, Jozef Gabčík | 1942 | SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich | Killed | |
| Claus von Stauffenberg | 1944 | Chancellor and Führer of Germany Adolf Hitler | Survived | See the July 20 plot. |
| Nathuram Godse | 1948 | Political and Spiritual Leader Mahatma Gandhi | Killed | |
| Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola | 1950 | US President Harry S. Truman | Survived | Attempt to draw attention to the Puerto Rico independence movement, in which both attempted killers were active. See Truman assassination attempt. |
| Talduwe Somarama | 1959 | Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Solomon Bandaranaike | Killed | Assassinated by a Buddhist monk as part of a conspiracy. |
| Otoya Yamaguchi | 1960 | Inejiro Asanuma | Killed | Asanuma was pierced to assassin's bayonet while making a speech. |
| Richard Paul Pavlick | 1960 | US President-elect John F. Kennedy | Survived | Dec. 11 See: John F. Kennedy |
| Jean Bastien-Thiry and the OAS | 1962 | French President Charles de Gaulle | Survived | |
| Nguyen Van Cu and Pham Phu Quoc | 1962 | President of the Republic of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem | Survived | See 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing |
| Byron De La Beckwith | 1963 | Medgar Evers | Killed | Evers, an African American activist and NAACP leader, was shot by De La Beckwith, a Ku Klux Klan member, who was convicted in 1994. |
| Generally believed to be Nguyen Van Nhung and Duong Hieu Nghia, on orders from Duong Van Minh | 1963 | President of the Republic of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem | Killed | Part of the 1963 South Vietnamese coup. See Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. |
| Believed to be Lee Harvey Oswald | 1963 | US President John F. Kennedy | Killed | For general information on the incident, see John F. Kennedy assassination. The US Government's official report concluded that Oswald acted alone, however a subsequent investigation contradicted the Warren Commission's findings. See: House Select Committee on Assassinations (1979) |
| Jack Ruby | 1963 | Lee Harvey Oswald | Killed | First live murder ever seen on US television |
| Norman 3X Butler, Thomas 15X Johnson, Talmadge Hayer | 1965 | Activist Malcolm X | Killed | Tensions and departure from the Nation of Islam |
| Uncertain, believed to be James Earl Ray or Loyd Jowers | 1968 | Political activist Martin Luther King, Jr. | Killed | Ray was convicted on a guilty plea but later recanted, while a 1999 civil trial convicted Jowers and 'unknown others', while also noting that 'governmental agencies were parties' to the plot. See Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| Sirhan Sirhan | 1968 | US Senator Robert F. Kennedy | Killed | See Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. |
| Huang Wen-hsiung | 1970 | Vice Prime Minister of Republic of China Chiang Ching-kuo | Survived | |
| Members of the Front de libération du Québec | 1970 | Vice Premier of Quebec Pierre Laporte | Killed | Kidnapped and later killed. One of only two political assassinations in Canadian history. |
| Arthur Bremer | 1972 | US Presidential candidate George Wallace | Survived | Wallace was paralyzed for life |
| ETA | 1973 | President of the Government of Spain Luis Carrero Blanco | Killed | The murder of Luis Carrero Blanco was, according to ETA, then to intensify existing divisions within the Franco regime between the "openness" and "purists". |
| Samuel Byck | 1974 | US President Richard Nixon | Survived | Attempted to hijack a commercial jet with the intention of crashing it into the White House. |
| Prince Faisal bin Musa'id | 1975 | Saudi King Faisal | Killed | |
| Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad and coup | 1975 | First Bangladeshi President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman | Killed | The coup was planned by disgruntled Awami League colleagues and military officers who were led by Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, and they targeted to exterminate his entire family. |
| Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme | 1975 | US President Gerald Ford | Survived | |
| Sara Jane Moore | 1975 | US President Gerald Ford | Survived | |
| Chilean DINA agents | 1976 | Orlando Letelier | Killed | Killed by a car bomb, September 21, 1976, along with his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt. |
| Dan White | 1978 | San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk | Killed | Killed over not reappointing Dan White supervisor. See Moscone–Milk assassinations. |
| Larry Layton and other members of the Peoples Temple | 1978 | Leo Ryan, Congressman from California | Killed | Killed in Guyana during an official visit to investigate allegations of abuse of American citizens at the Jonestown compound of the Peoples Temple religious organization. See Leo_Ryan#Jungle_ambush. |
| Kim Jae-kyu | 1979 | South Korean President Park Chung-hee | Killed | See Park Chung-hee assassination. |
| Thomas McMahon | 1979 | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Killed | Killed along with three others while on a fishing trip with his family by a bomb planted onto his boat by McMahon. McMahon was a member of the Irish Republican Army, who claimed responsibility for the attack. |
| Mark David Chapman | 1980 | John Lennon | Killed | Obsession with The Catcher in the Rye. See Assassination of John Lennon. |
| John Hinckley, Jr. | 1981 | US President Ronald Reagan | Survived | To impress actress Jodie Foster. See Reagan assassination attempt. |
| Khalid Islambouli | 1981 | Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat | Killed | Rare attack carried out by a group. |
| Mehmet Ali Ağca | 1981 | Catholic Pope John Paul II | Survived | See Pope John Paul II assassination attempt. |
| Group of army officers | 1981 | Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman | Killed | Plotted by a faction of officers of Bangladesh Army led by General Abul Monjur. |
| Habib Tanious Shartouni | 1982 | Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel | Killed | Bomb explosion in the Phalange's Beirut headquarters. |
| Uncertain believed to be Rogelio Moreno instead of Rolando Galman | 1983 | Philippine Senator Ninoy Aquino | Killed | Believed to have been ordered by then President Ferdinand Marcos. |
| Satwant Singh and Beant Singh | 1984 | Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi | Killed | Assassinated by personal bodyguards. |
| Provisional Irish Republican Army | 1984 | British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher | Survived | Detonated a bomb at the Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. |
| Unknown | 1986 | Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme | Killed | Shot on his way home from a cinema on a street in central Stockholm. See Assassination of Olof Palme. |
| Dieter Kaufmann | 1990 | German Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble | Survived | Shot in back and face after an election campaign event in Oppenau. Has been paralysed and confined to a wheelchair ever since. |
| Provisional Irish Republican Army | 1991 | British Prime Minister John Major | Survived | Mortar attack during a meeting at 10 Downing Street |
| Thenmuli Rajaratnam | 1991 | Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi | Killed | Killed in an explosion triggered by a LTTE suicide bomber. See Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. |
| Janusz Walus | 1993 | South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani | Killed | Anti-Communist killing |
| Unknown | 1993 | Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa | Killed | Attack carried out by an LTTE suicide bomber on May Day parade. |
| Mario Aburto | 1994 | Mexican Candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio | Killed | |
| Uncertain; see main article for theories | 1994 | Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira | Killed | Plane carrying the two leaders shot down by unknown attackers with a surface-to-air missile. The attack was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. See Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira. |
| Yigal Amir | 1995 | Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin | Killed | Attack carried out by Israeli opposed to Oslo Accords. See Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. |
| Michael Abram | 1999 | George Harrison | Survived | Abram broke into Harrison's house and repeatedly stabbed him. |
| ETA | 2000 | Member of the Basque Parliament Fernando Buesa | Killed | Car bombing |
| Dipendra | 2001 | King Birendra of Nepal and other royal family members of same country | Killed | See Nepalese royal massacre. |
| Volkert van der Graaf | 2002 | Dutch Election Candidate Pim Fortuyn | Killed | The attack took place in a parking lot outside a radio studio in Hilversum, where Fortuyn had just given an interview. |
| Maxime Brunerie | 2002 | French President Jacques Chirac | Survived | Brunerie attempted to shoot the President during the Bastille Day Military Parade. |
| Mijailo Mijailović | 2003 | Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh | Killed | Lindh was stabbed while visiting a shopping centre in Stockholm. She died the following morning. |
| Zvezdan Jovanović | 2003 | Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić | Killed | Jovanović killed his victim with a sniper rifle (a relatively rare type of assassination); he is suspected to have acted for organized crime backers. See Assassination of Zoran Đinđić. |
| Chen Yi-hsiung | 2004 | President of Republic of China Chen Shui-bian | Survived | See 3-19 shooting incident. |
| Unknown | 2005 | Former Lebanese Prime Minister and billionaire Rafik Hariri | Killed | Assassination via car bomb in Beirut. |
| Vladimir Arutyunian | 2005 | U.S. President George W. Bush and Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili | Survived | Threw a hand grenade at Bush, which failed to detonate. |
| Unknown; many theories | 2006 | Journalist Anna Politkovskaya | Killed | Shot in the elevator block of her apartment in Moscow. See Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. |
| Unknown, though believed to be figures within the government of Russia | 2006 | Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko | Killed | Acute radiation syndrome via ingestion of polonium-210. See Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. |
| Unknown, widely believed to be Islamic militants | 2007 | Former Prime Minister of Pakistan and Pakistan Peoples Party Chair and Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto | Killed | Killed while entering a vehicle upon leaving a political rally for the Pakistan People's Party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. See Assassination of Benazir Bhutto. |
| Soldiers | 2009 | President of Guinea-Bissau João Bernardo Vieira | Killed | Hacked to death during armed attack on his residence in Bissau. |
| Karst Tates | 2009 | Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and royal family | Survived | Attempted to ram the Queen's bus with his car. See 2009 attack on the Dutch Royal Family. |
| Men under his aide de camp | 2009 | President of Guinea Moussa Dadis Camara | Survived | Currently in Burkina Faso |
| Unknown, widely believed to be Mossad agents | 2010 | Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, senior Hamas military commander | Killed | Exact cause unknown; possibilities include suffocation, strangulation, and electrocution. See Assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. |
| Casey Brezik | 2010 | Missouri Governor Jay Nixon | Survived | Mistakenly stabbed a college dean in a hallway by a lectern where Nixon was to speak. Brezik told police that he thought he had stabbed Nixon. |
| Unknown, believed to be two ranch workers | 2010 | Eugène Terre'Blanche, founder of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging in South Africa | Killed | He was found hacked and beaten to death at his farm, allegedly killed by two of his workers. |
| Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri | 2011 | Salmaan Taseer, 26th Governor of Punjab | Killed | |
| Jared Lee Loughner | 2011 | Gabrielle Giffords, U.S. Representative from Arizona | Survived | Shot, along with several staffers and U.S. District Judge John Roll (killed), at a constituent event in her district. There were a total of at least 6 deaths and 12 injured. |
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/introduction/murderersennacherib.htm Parpola, Simo, "The Murderer of Sennacherib", from Alster, Bendt (ed.), "Death in Mesopotamia", XXVIème Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Akademisk Forlag, 1980.
Constitution Worship: Jill Lepore in The New Yorker
Worth reading is a commentary by critic Jill Lepore in the January 17 issue of The New Yorker entitled The Commandments: the Constitution and its worshippers.
Lepore (pictured right) puts the current highlighting of the Constitution, including its (edited) reading in the House of Representatives, in historical and critical perspective. Lepore writes:
If you haven’t read the Constitution lately, do. Chances are you’ll find that it doesn’t exactly explain itself. Consider Article III, Section 3: “The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.” This is simply put—hats off to the committee of style—but what does it mean? A legal education helps. Lawyers won’t stumble over “attainder,” even if the rest of us will. Part of the problem might appear to be the distance between our locution and theirs. “Corruption of Blood”? The document’s learnedness and the changing meaning of words isn’t the whole problem, though, because the charge that the Constitution is too difficult for ordinary people to understand—not because of its vocabulary but because of the complexity of its ideas—was brought nearly the minute it was made public. Anti-Federalists charged that the Constitution was so difficult to read that it amounted to a conspiracy against the understanding of a plain man, that it was willfully incomprehensible. “The constitution of a wise and free people, ought to be as evident to simple reason, as the letters of our alphabet,” an Anti-Federalist wrote. “A constitution ought to be, like a beacon, held up to the public eye, so as to be understood by every man,” Patrick Henry argued. He believed that what was drafted in Philadelphia was “of such an intricate and complicated nature, that no man on this earth can know its real operation.”
This could be the basis for a great first assignment for the new semester's Constitutional Law class, in law school or as an undergraduate offering, as a way to open a discussion of the Constitutional text and its interpretations.
RR
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What a refreshing look at our sacred bovine of bloviators!
Few documents cry out for clinical and expert modification more than this wonderful creature. Nothing would honor it more than its informed modification, and nothing insures its irrelevance like the almost universal indifference to its currency, which it now suffers.
Few documents cry out for clinical and expert modification more than this wonderful creature. Nothing would honor it more than its informed modification, and nothing insures its irrelevance like the almost universal indifference to its currency, which it now suffers.
President Obama as a Constitutional Law Professor:
President Obama as a Constitutional Law Professor:
Here is one of his Exams - and the outline of suggested answer providing his feedback to students.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2009/05/obamas-constitutional-law-exam-and-feedback-.html
Here is one of his Exams - and the outline of suggested answer providing his feedback to students.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2009/05/obamas-constitutional-law-exam-and-feedback-.html
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