| To: blind alley racer who wrote (1684) | 8/28/2002 8:56:21 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: In May, President Bush signed the $190 billion 10-year farm bill that will continue to give the nation's biggest farmers $19 billion in subsidies, perpetuating a Depression-era program of direct financial aid to encourage production of grain and cotton. Some critics call that a welfare system, and some of the most important developing nations with big agricultural exports - Brazil, Thailand and South Africa - spoke up loudly, charging the Bush administration with hypocrisy.
Well, there's no point in trying to cast the US's farm welfare as a better case than Europe's.... Both keep subsidizing their respective farmer constituencies shamelessly BUT, at least, the US CAN AFFORD IT!! Here're a few key data most European media NEVER blurt out:
Message 15544861
Get the picture? The EU currently panders to THREE times as many farmers as the US's... on an area that's barely a THIRD the size of the US's. The elephantine size of European agriculture is a LIABILITY to the overall EU competitiveness. While the US brazenly subsidizes its farmers, it STILL has the world's best high-tech industry, it still splurges on Defence contractors more than the EU, Russia and China combined... And the US doesn't fuss over genetically-engineered foodstuffs --the US still has more GM-plant schemes than China.
Gus |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (1699) | 8/28/2002 10:11:15 AM | | From: lorne | | | | French surrender to new language.
Talking back in France.
Immigrants assert their own identity with `reverse speech'
" Within a couple of decades, Verlan has spread from the peripheral housing projects of France's poorest immigrants, heavily populated with Africans and North African Arabs, and gained widespread popularity among young people across France. "
Full story >>>
thestar.com |
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| To: lorne who wrote (1701) | 8/28/2002 10:20:33 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | LOL! No, verlan is a much older story than France's postwar immigration --if anything, it's been merely adopted by the latest wave of North African immigrants... but they didn't invent it!
Verlan
The re-ordering of syllables to form new words is not a new innovation, it is thought to date back to the 12th century (see Lefkowitz,1991 pp50-54 for an account of the historical evidence for verlan). The current enthusiasm for 'verlan' among young people living in the 'banlieues' arose in the climate of social unrest in the seventies. It was adopted both as a means to obscure meaning, by those who wished to communicate about taboo or private matters, from sex to drugs, and as a means of identifying others with common interests or live-styles, in other words as an in-group marker of social identity. It is thus used in playful contexts, or in contexts where there is some threat of aggression or danger from outsiders to the group.
[...]
well.ac.uk |
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| To: Spytrdr who wrote (1695) | 8/28/2002 11:04:14 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | OOOoops....
China deals U.S. blow over Iraq
August 27, 2002 Posted: 11:38 PM EDT (0338 GMT)
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
CNN Senior China Analyst
(CNN) -- In a further blow to Washington's effort to get global support for a possible war on Iraq, Beijing has indicated it is against the use of force to resolve Baghdad's differences with the West.
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told visiting Iraqi counterpart Naji Sabri on Tuesday that using force or threats of force could not solve the Iraqi problem and "would only cause regional tension and instability."
The official China News Service on Wednesday quoted Tang as saying questions about Iraq should only be resolved within United Nations mechanisms, and "only political and diplomatic methods should be used."
Tang added Beijing was concerned about the suffering of the Iraqi people who had lived under conditions of Western embargoes for a long time.
[...]
cnn.com
Right now, I'm afraid the ONLY sensible strategy for the US is, FIRST, to nuke Europe, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Switzerland... and then, take on the pièce de résistance, namely, Iraq.... |
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| To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (1693) | 8/28/2002 12:25:07 PM | | From: Thomas M. | | | | There is no dispute. Israel was the aggressor, as agreed upon by the U.S. as well as the UN. Was it a preemptive strike? Perhaps, but the evidence is extremely shaky, and you certainly have not provided any.
If Israel was worried about its security, and launched the war as a preemptive strike, then Israel would obviously have been delighted when the Arab countries offered them peace treaties and recognition. Israel was not.
On the issue of Jews being barred from the Wailing Wall, that was indeed an injustice. But, given the hostile manner in which the Zionists treated the indigenous Moslems, it is understandable. Remember that Jewish community got along fine with the Moslems before the Zionists came along. And during this period of injustice, these indigenous Jews were supporting the PLO.
Tom |
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| To: Thomas M. who wrote (1692) | 8/28/2002 1:28:56 PM | | From: blind alley racer | | | | LOL
We should attack before Iraq attacks us! Lets call it preventive maintenance and while we have the jet engines warmed up, lets do North Korea later in the day. |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (1699) | 8/28/2002 1:48:18 PM | | From: blind alley racer | | | | The American farmer, most likely corporate, is efficient and providing foodstuffs, but it seems to be slowly killing its people causing obesity and diabetes at alarming rates.
Are Europe's farmers primarily corporate entities?
"And the US doesn't fuss over genetically-engineered foodstuffs"
The US doesn't fuss over much as long as the profits continue to roll in. The FDA is supposed to be a watchdog, but seems to be a corporate shill for the agribusiness. |
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