Amnesty questions claims about Libyan attrocities

Well, Maria Sharapova has sort of an old face. Or perhaps one that doesn't look like it would age all that well. Pity that Anna Kournakova has retired, not for the sake of tennis in general, but for lechers like you and I that watch it. I used to adore the way Anna's little skirt hiked up when she threw any one of her myriad double faults within a match.

But enough about tennis. Russian and Ukrainian women are some of the most beautiful in the world, and it would seem, they're certainly among the most willing to take their clothes off for the camera. So there you have it, the cream of the Caucasian crop, so to speak, and all a la carte.

The two handed backhand has only damaged the beauty of tennis. The distinction of a having completely destroyed the beauty of tennis, belongs solely to Serena Williams.

With respect, I'm not generally looking at Maria's face when i'm watching her.

I dunno...I would seriously consider adding Venus to that as well.

Well tru dat, maybe. But she isn't pure ghetto to the bone like her "little sister".

I really don't watch much women's tennis any more because of those two.

That said, I was flabbergasted when they made the Wimbledon payout the same for women as men. This under some BS, "equal pay for equal work" civil rights ruse.

From where I sit, the women still have to play only 2 out of 3 sets in the final, as opposed to best 3 out of 5 for the men. Plus, they don't hit as hard, or run as fast. So, to me, that means they're getting paid a hell of a lot more, for a lot less work.

I absolutely agree to this.

Also, I've noticed that in women's game, if a player takes the upper hand, the other player usually just give up too easily. Hence, women's games is pretty boring to look at and isn't worth the money one may pay to watch it.

Watching Serena play is like watching a big cow chasing a little ball, oddly enough it may be a funny proposition for some.

The "equal pay" thing is like a cancer spreading through sports; Darts is another area where it exists. It can even be more drastic than Tennis, example: Men's BDO final is best of 13 sets at best of 5 games per set, while the women's final is best of 3 sets, and yes, for the same £100.000 prize money. Also, the men's quarter's and semi's are best of 9 and 11 sets respectively, while the women's matchs all stay at best of 3 sets. The quality of women's Darts is also terrible...apart from the top seed Trina Guliver who's won it 9 times in the last 10 years.

Obviously as a man i'm really against this just like you two are.

I agree here, the men's Tennis isn't a patch on the women's. I personally think any of the top 10 men (even more maybe) could easily blow away the top women's seed without problem.

Yeah.....She almost throws physics out of the window how she can play being so fat.

Luckily (at least till now) we don't have any 'women F1 motor racing' or it will be just as ruined.

One area where I don't mind watching women in action is 'wrestling' :evil:


Edit:
Have a look at this as well. I must say the idea look very noble to me.

Good old Max knows what's best for F1...but then again, I suppose any old boot knows that women can't drive as good as men

Is that the women's wrestling where they just stand in the ring and 'jiggle up and down'?...I've heard that's a good watch.

Yeah, we can come back to Sharapova again with the grunting...there's just no need for it.

That's a nice little find. I'll admit i've never known about that.

No disrespect to older payers though, but todays Tennis is a far much higher caliber game with the men. You're probably right about any of the men beating the women...I wonder why there hasn't been a "battle of the sexes" since those? Maybe the answer is the proof that the women just have no chance against a 'well known' male tennis face.

+1 on caliber for men's game remark Benny.

Now back to topic

In a June 27 interview on National Public Radio, Ban Ki-moon, Washington’s South Korean puppet installed as the Secretary General of the United Nations, was unable to answer why the UN and the US tolerate the slaughter of unarmed civilians in Bahrain, but support the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Gadaffi for defending Libya against armed rebellion. Gadaffi has killed far fewer people than the US, UK, or the Saudis in Bahrain. Indeed, NATO and the Americans have killed more Libyans than has Gadaffi. The difference is that the US has a naval base in Bahrain, but not in Libya.

Another interesting piece from the above is:

A video taken by a US helicopter gunship, leaked to Wikileaks and released, shows American forces, as if they were playing video games, slaughtering civilians, including camera men for a prominent news service, as they are walking down a peaceful street. A father with small children, who stopped to help the dying victims of American soldiers’ fun and games, was also blown away, as were his children. The American voices on the video blame the children’s demise on the father for bringing kids into a “war zone.” It was no war zone, just a quiet city street with civilians walking along.

The video documents American crimes against humanity as powerfully as any evidence used against the Nazis in the aftermath of World War II at the Nuremberg Trials.

(I've heard about this video during some debate on one of the news channels here but never seen it, I wish I could find it on the net somewhere.)

That is pretty damning article from Paul in many respects including economical and political dimensions of such hypocrisy of western leaders/governments. But anyway, the real aim IMO is to 'awake' people and I hope some eventually may just do.

Idolizing Absolute Power too is an interesting read, I am still in process of checking on some facts about it, but most of it seems plausible at this stage.

Edit: Another amusing but unrelated fact, excerpts from another article paints the picture bit more clearly

"The world got another look at the US exercise of good governance in Iraq, courtesy of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The George W Bush administration had airlifted $12 billion in cash into post-conquest Iraq. $6.6 billion - more than half - cannot be accounted for. It is now assumed that it was stolen, perhaps "the largest theft of funds in [US] national history.

U.S. officials often didn't have time or staff to keep strict financial controls. Millions of dollars were stuffed in gunnysacks and hauled on pickups to Iraqi agencies or contractors, officials have testified.

House Government Reform Committee investigators charged in 2005 that U.S. officials "used virtually no financial controls to account for these enormous cash withdrawals once they arrived in Iraq, and there is evidence of substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and disbursement of the Iraqi funds."

Pentagon officials have contended for the last six years that they could account for the money if given enough time to track down the records. But repeated attempts to find the documentation, or better yet the cash, were fruitless.

In the requisite ironic coda, it turns out that the billions weren't even American taxpayers' money. The US government pulled the cash from the Development Fund for Iraq administered by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The fund accumulated the proceeds from Iraq's energy exports during the Saddam Hussein oil-for-food sanctions years for eventual disbursement for the benefit of its true owners: the citizens of Iraq.

Tough luck, Iraqi citizens.

For those keeping score, $6.6 billion is 66 million $100 bills. It is 72 tons of shrink-wrapped cash. It is the payload of three C-130 Hercules transports.

Topic?..What was that again?

Oh right, I remember...

Personally i feel that this is just a case of awful red tape (the UN), the US, like you say, having a base in Bahrain, and the fact that NATO, although may well try, can't be everywhere at once. Money may also be a factor, but then you wouldn't think so really.

I've seen this video. It just shows what US ego really is, not a very nice watch if you like to see people getting killed (although there's not that much "gore" in it)...I could easily give you a link, but with this being a more 'family friendly' website, I would probably only want to give you it in an inbox. (if you do want it then i'm afraid you'll have to wait untill about 7pm UK time, when i get back in tonight )

Yeah, alot of cash gone without a trace, nasty!

They might as well just close the investigation now, they wont find anything. Bush made sure they wont.

Its okay, there is not much point in seeing it anyway, having seen these soldiers kill countless other civilians, bombing, beheading, torturing them to death etc. You can search and will easily find such horrific war crimes being repeated again and again.

May be that was the real intention from the start any way, keep them going in circles while the beneficiaries make merry with their prized loot

I think, if the Afghan war is dissected, the facts tells one that Taliban (a creation of Saudis/Americans/Pakistanis) were 'pro Americans' to start with, and were not aligned with Bin Laden and his band of self proclaimed jehadis. Incidentally when 9/11 came to pass, provided that if US had the luxury of having an intelligent president at the helm, they would not have bracketed talibans and al-qaida militants as one entity, and may not have indulged in this war, simply put, they could hunt down bin laden without getting into war.

If I could, I would summarize the Afghan war (as someone has already said): The Americans have watches, but the Taliban has time.

What irritates me most is, since how so called logical foundations to wage these wars has been destroyed, there are certain political and military classes in these countries which mindlessly want to continue to wage new wars.

I'm always talking about the wars and the Taliban with the family. Everyone pretty much agrees that the US just has no chance in winning Afghan through force; all a Taliban fighter has to do is put down his weapon and he immediately becomes a civilian, It's that simple. Why it has taken so long for them to see this, is just madness...and the money they've spent in that stupid mindset is another story in itself.

Yeah, when the Ruskies invaded, the Americans were pumping millions into Taliban coffers...then not long after the invasion, Bin Laden came along and allied with the Americans.

Alot of people think Bin Laden was just a scapegoat for 9/11...

Quick, someone ban him! :haha:

Ah Ruskie invasion ........ well they too were lured into this war by two factors a) they thought they can win and get away with it easily b) they were 'made to think that americans are increasing their influence in their backyard', hence the scare factor.

Good point about Bin Laden, and I will agree with your point of view about him being made a scapegoat. If you look at it as a neutral observer, it is amusing to note that (as far as I remember) not one american security official resigned in the aftermath of that tragedy. For they too were just as much at fault as the instigators were. Accountability with just punishment is very much essential in ensuring long term health of any nation.

I haven't been banned from anything sofar ......... I wonder how it will feel like. Although I must admit one thing, for a brief period many many many years ago I used IRC, and it was fun to kick and ban people

Edit:
Thank goodness that Rafa didn't win the Wimbledon, well it was like cheering for the lesser evil in the end anyway.

The American intelligence services came to the 'Bin Laden' conclusion so fast in the beginning, It was kinda suspicious. This is part of the "prior knowledge" theory that people keep coming with. I'll admit that reading these theorys about 9/11 are interesting, but most are hardly convincing, for me personally.

"A" in your Ruskie invasion reasons isn't far from what the American mindset was is the early days of the Afghan war...It can be thought of as ironic sometimes.

It does also make me wonder just what the Irainian's are doing behind the scenes in Iraq and Afghanistan; seen as the American's were supplying a Taliban to fend off a Soviet invasion in the 80's, you wouldn't bet against Iran supplying - or at least providing something - to the Taliban of today to fend off the old ally of America.

Same here. Not one black mark.

I don't think Iranians have been or would want to help Taliban in anyway, reason being, the two are totally different ideologically. In fact, Iran has been at loggerheads with Americans/Saudis/Pakistanis over their help to Taliban in the 1990s. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they are helping the 'northern alliance' elements in or outside of government.

Having said that, I don't think Iranians would let go of any chance of hurting the americans in their backyard in some way, so they can find political ways and economical reasons to do so. One example of this is they are building a network of highways to connect Iranian ports with Afghanistan.

The great game is being played in that area, but this time around, I'm afraid the Americans are no longer in control, neither they are the masters of their destiny any more. How things will turn out to be in few years time can be anyone's guess.

Oh and one more thing, Taliban factions don't really need to be funded for arms from anywhere else to survive, everything they need can be and is built in the tribal belts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, so they can sustain this war infinitely.

Although religion and ideologically are very powerfull, especially in the middle east, I would think the natural hatred for the west Iran has would compel it to aid the Taliban in some form or another. We can say for certain that Iran would not like America taking over in Afghanistan, that's for sure.

Well if that's the case, you would think they would be, and would have been for some years, a top priority for the Americans. They don't really care for boundries, as we know with the killing of Bin Laden.

I'm slightly dubios with this sort of fact though. Pakistan has a very well equipped army thanks to NATO and America's fear of Pakistan 'losing' any nuclear bombs to any nearby enemys. Weapons such as anti-aircraft guns, even tanks and other vehicles, don't seem to make it through the numorous rogue elements in the Pakistan army to Taliban lines...Hell, even if they did, there's no cause for concern in Pakistan because the world knows how corrupt the place is and how much it's 'battling' to control it. Small arms though, I agree, those can be easily made in small discrete places. However, the base materials are coming from some sort of pipeline...I would put money on a pipe from Iran.

You know, all of you are wasting time, effort, and concern for human rights on a country whose chief export is illegal drugs. I think that's about the only viable industry they have.

Afghani "Primo" hashish, (laced with opium), was, at least at one time, the world's finest.

One reason we were unsuccessful in Viet Nam, is the weed was too good. An army runs on its stomach, not on its burned out head..

Well, the fact that there were 3 billion Chinese helping to finance and arm the NVA, may have factored into it also. We smartened up after that, surrendered, and decided to give the Chinese all our money. Much more civilized, wouldn't you say?

For all the corruption you've been railing about, we're all responsible in some part. We elect these morons, worship capitalism, and yet when we see it in action, we piss and moan like a bunch of infants with s****y diapers. As for the news media, they've lost so much credibility pandering "entertainment news and fluff BS, why would anyone concern themselves with what they have to say on important issues? Al-Jeezera tells it's listeners what they want to hear, and Fox does the same to us.

"Monday morning quarterbacking" doesn't work with politics. You have to get involved.

Trouble is when you do, you become a politician.

As I said earlier I am sure Iranian wouldn't waste an opportunity to hurt them, but I don't think they will go the Taliban route.

Beside I missed an important fact in my last post, i.e. NATO pays 2,000$ (2009 rate, so you can add escalation to this amount as well) for each container passing into Afghanistan to Taliban. Hence in a very unique way, Americans are funding both sides of the war, how umm ..... intelligent a military hierarchy they have in place which make such ludicrous decisions. In that period the total amount was something like 100+ million each year.

If they have continued using that stuff, I am sure we would never ever have another war.

I completely agree with you on this one captain. However, leaving space for these crooks is also a huge part of this problem. Perhaps the best solution can be to eliminate the current crop of these thugs, and fill the void with well there is no other way of putting it .......... you know what I mean.

Well, there's obviously a difference of opinion here. (and as i said earlier) I don't feel Iran would put religion before a common enemy. There will be people in Iran behind the scenes with brains on this one.

Sorry, I don't really understand that; I mean, why would they?...It's daft isn't it.

Why are all politicians nice when you first elect them, then almost straight away turn sour they step into 'halls of power'?...It's almost like it's not the people, It's the forever present system itself.