Clam down MG, Eklek is from Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada (French-speaking), Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Iceland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, or Vietnam, so it's okay for him/her to use this convention.

I asked the internet.

Am not at all surprised she won Texas and Ohio, these states are very conservative and far more reluctant to vote for someone like Obama. I read an interesting analysis that stated that the more a voter knows about the campaigns the more willing he is to vote for Obama over Hillary, the vice versa holds true as well.

Clinton seems safe, besides the Lewinsky scandal most folks have a positive impression of Clinton years, no thanks to the economy boom that just happened to occur then.

I personally dislike the Clintons, they play just as dirty as the republicans, Clinton just could lie to you better then Bush can. This is the same person who went ahead and bombed Serbia bypassing the UN. Which is no better then Bush.

Purely on policy stances Obama and Clinton do not differ much at all, what we are voting for is character now. Compare how Obama handles himself and how Clinton does - the weeping tears stunt that somehow snowballed into a feminist voting block, the smear attacks such as the plagiarism thing against Obama. In this regard I admire the way Obama has conducted himself so far, his ability to create immense feelings of hope and change through rhetoric is especially admirably, even when he doesn't really say anything specific.

Between both of them however they don't really signal too much of a radical change from the Bush whitehouse, both candidates promise to reduce and not withdraw forces from Iraq. Both will probably support occupation status the likes of South Korea. Both are pro-Isreali candidates which would mean cooperation with Iran and Syria is probably out of the question. Both I believe will be middle of the road and centrist, nothing radical will happen, unlike Kunnich, Gravel or Paul.

Obama still has a numerical advantage on the number of delegates I believe, so it's not over yet. The magical unity pony might still make it.

Here's the full text of that article:

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A video of two young women looting with gay abandon during rioting in the Serbian capital Belgrade was becoming a Balkan smash hit on the video-sharing Web site YouTube Friday.

Police arrested some looters but public humiliation by YouTube may prove a far more painful punishment for the pair, whose spree Thursday night was also aired on local television stations and was being discussed across the Internet.

A persistent amateur cameraman followed the women as they loaded up with chocolates at a corner shop, came out giggling, then went after designer bags, shoes and clothes at Belgrade's swankiest stores in its vandalized main shopping street.

"Get lost, stop filming," one of them shouted, so laden down with booty that clothes and bags dripped to the ground amid the broken glass below emptied storefronts.

"But you are the heroines of this protest for me," the cameraman replied sarcastically above the din of burglar alarms.

Looters seized their chance as rioters attacked Western embassies during a mass rally to protest at U.S. and European support for Kosovo's independence.

The second woman covered her face with a pair of looted shoes when she saw she was being filmed.

"Have you found your size yet?" asked the cameraman.

YouTube viewers were not amused.

"Shame on you," was the general message of hundreds of comments about the women's behavior, though most used unrepeatable vocabulary.

The video was entitled "Swapping Kosovo for a pair of sneakers" and the person who posted it, "Gvantanamo," gave a description:

"Belgrade bimbos exploit unrest to steal from smashed-up boutiques without the slightest shame. They are so greedy they even have to carry things in their teeth."

The next day text-message jokes about the video and the looting swept around Serbia.

"Swap you 11 left Nikes for 11 left Reeboks," read one.

where were these people demonstrating when the army and serbian militia were killing innocent people in Bosnia and Croatia? serbs were always a minority in kosovo anyway, less than 10%, and most of them are gone now (since 1999), only some 100.000 remain in the northern enklaves. they'll just have to swallow it up and move the fuck on.
and as my friends from belgrade and novi sad tell me, the country is pretty much divided along those lines - the young urban population that just wants to move on and want serbia to eventualy join the EU on one side, and the nationalists, who want to "liberate" kosovo with AK's on the other...

update: taiwan recognised kosovo's independence yesterday and made china very angry seems like kosovo will be the next, european taiwan since this issue again divided the EU countries... who knows, maybe that's why the US put so much diplomatic effort into making kosovo an independent entity - it's always nice to have some leverage with your competitors... but i'm more interested in what will this mean for serbia since the nationalists are very strong there (serbians despite starting and eventualy loosing the 90s balkan wars didn't go through the same catharsis as the germans did after the fall of 3rd reich, the hague court can't even begin to compare with the nuremburg trials after the WW2 although the hague war crime tribunal was meant to be exactly it). i think the US made balkan it's playground back in the 90s, an expirement like the Mid-East. it's potential strategic value is great, since it covers the entrance from Mediterranean to the Black Sea and is also a buffer zone between the west and islam. US seeks control over the region cause of Caspian oil and whatever else it can squeeze out of it in the process - it's as simple as that. the old oil economy must be sustained for another decade or two for the US to survive it's own brutal economic policy. the only thing that for the moment keeps the dollar money machine going is US's military supremacy and this expansionist politics they run since before WW1. the problem is US has grown from a playground bully to a black trenchcoat kid with yielding a fucking shotgun...

>> ^kulpims:
^no, they wouldn't. not for Balkans. but they would for Caspian oil


I think that was a reference to WWI. Of course, we don't have empires now in this age of The United Nations, right?

>> ^kulpims:
Few years ago nobody in EU dared to stir this mess but seems US interest prevailed after all. Albanians in Kosovo wanted autonomy for a long time but I don't believe they would have gone for it without substancial US backing. Bare in mind that in Kosovo, after the 1999 bombing of Serbia, US has built the biggest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam war. There are two main reasons for building Camp Bondsteel:
1. Kosovo is rich in minerals such as copper, zinc and lead and even uranium
2. it is situated near AMBO (Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria Oil) pipeline project. This pipeline would supply oil (monthly deliveries valued at $600 million) from the Caspian Sea basin to Albanian shore and eventualy to the American market. The size restriction for tankers traveling through Bosporus is 150.000 tons while the Otrant straight from Adriatic to Mediterranean can accomodate 300.000 ton tankers. This will also ensure that in the future the US will be less dependant on oil from the Persian gulf. The main investor in this project is Halliburton.
Basicaly, if you look at this map, you can see that all diplomatic and military effort the US put in the countries around the Caspian sea basin, the so called central Asian countries, Pakistan, the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and current threats to Iran are all aimed at cutting off Russia and China from access to those rich reserves (many estimate them to be equal to those currently in the Gulf).
Great plan. And quite perverse. I can't blame the Russians for being so pissed off.


BTW, thanks for the background, that makes perfect sense. As usual, truth is found. On the sift.

Looks like one sifter recently added this story to his queue:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Kosovo-Declares-Independence-from-Serbia-Crisis-looming

Few years ago nobody in EU dared to stir this mess but seems US interest prevailed after all. Albanians in Kosovo wanted autonomy for a long time but I don't believe they would have gone for it without substancial US backing. Bare in mind that in Kosovo, after the 1999 bombing of Serbia, US has built the biggest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam war. There are two main reasons for building Camp Bondsteel:

1. Kosovo is rich in minerals such as copper, zinc and lead and even uranium

2. it is situated near AMBO (Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria Oil) pipeline project. This pipeline would supply oil (monthly deliveries valued at $600 million) from the Caspian Sea basin to Albanian shore and eventualy to the American market. The size restriction for tankers traveling through Bosporus is 150.000 tons while the Otrant straight from Adriatic to Mediterranean can accomodate 300.000 ton tankers. This will also ensure that in the future the US will be less dependant on oil from the Persian gulf. The main investor in this project is Halliburton.

Basicaly, if you look at this map, you can see that all diplomatic and military effort the US put in the countries around the Caspian sea basin, the so called central Asian countries, Pakistan, the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and current threats to Iran are all aimed at cutting off Russia and China from access to those rich reserves (many estimate them to be equal to those currently in the Gulf).

Great plan. And quite perverse. I can't blame the Russians for being so pissed off.

Well, well... I'm from Serbia and actually I find this shit very funny... especially your comments. I like the comment about the Star Wars! Anyway, maybe the painter had a liter of Serbian brandy which could induce such visions :-)

choggie, that's such a lame argument "have you ever been shot at?"
if only veterans are allowed to have an opinion about the ethics of calling kids "fuckers" then you're talking about a military dictatorship not a democracy.

i served in the cadets for four years and met a lot of people who have been shot at, this was during the genocide in Serbia and all the servicemen I met were very very proud of their humanitarian service. They didn't seem to be uneducated hicks struggling to deal with the enormity of the situation they signed up to. Army recruitment adverts in the UK at that time were focussing on dealing with civilians, helping them rebuild, calming situations down with face to face negotiations.

So I have a choice, I can insult the soldier by blaming him for cracking under pressure in a job he swore to do properly, or I can insult his army for caring more about troop numbers than troop quality, or I can insult their political commanders for being ignorant idealists without a plan. Or I can blame all three. You don't have to have been in a trench to know this whole thing is bullshit, every last bit of it.

Poor soldiers getting shot at and going mental? Well that's exactly why I protested against sending them there in the first place.

Wow thanks for your post, thats was real informative it's odd that joedirt and I basically asked the exact same time of question...

When I visited my brother in Zurich I was struck by how on time, clean and nice everything looked. Then I met his girlfriend, Rachel, who turned out to be a sharp shooter and also like you had a rifle in her closet. I was fairly young at the time so I don't remember what they hell it was but for some reason FN Minimi keeps coming back to my mind....

How does Switzerland feel letting go off it's previous role of isolationist nation? It must be an interesting question that pervades the thinking, I mean imagine if Switzerland was part of NATO during the NATO assault on Serbia, would have the Swiss send their contingent of F-18 and F-5s?. And are you serious they still use F-5 Phantoms? Training? Wasn't it first used by the US in Vietnam?

Wish I could immigrate to Switzerland, but I heard that is hard and that the Swiss are a bit xenophobic. It was odd because one time walking around Bern, I saw these kids riding on their bikes besides me, and they were talking my language (uzbek), I was totally baffled as I never see people from my country anywhere else... I have been all over the world.

In reply to your comment:
“oops, sorry. maybe i took the german meaning of rhetorical (f***** false friend words). i was thinking of a question that stands for its own and doesnt't need (want) an answer...”

The American goverment has been playing puppet master with so many nations that eventually they will be targetted themselve.

Look at the level of paranoia displayed by the american administration during the cold war era, so fixated are they on assuring dominance that they go as far as intervening in other nations. Look at the Vietnam war, the administration thought that Hanoi would take Seoul, become a large communist state join with China and thus create a Iron Curtain in the east.

Yet had they investigated further they would realize that the East Asian rim is about as unified as Serbia, the Vietnamese were dominated by the Chinese and they would never ally themselves with them. Lack of local information cost them lives, money, and years tied up in a needless war. They werent fighting a communist war, the Vietnamese were fighting a war for freedom.

Then one brings up Bamdrew's point. Remember that Osama Bin Laden started a terrorist campaign against the US because of the military buildup in Saudia Arabia. Pick up a globe once in a while, look at the current spread of American military bases, it's astounding. The forces of the United States military are located in nearly 130 countries around the world. Some of these deployments have existed for nearly 50 years, as in Japan, Germany, and South Korea, while other deployments have more recent origins such as the current occupation of Iraq. This and unilateral actions that create these terrorists.

The videos provided on VideoSift clearly represent this, the documentary clips I posted, along with the defense budget displayed in Oreo cookies (LOL but very relevant really)

This is becoming almost cyclical now. The more pressure you apply in these and other regions the more you will beat the drums of war, its been nearly 5 years since 9/11 and what exactly has the administration achieved? Osama Bin Laden is loose, there is chaos in Iraq, the american economy went from a surplus to a huge deficit, the middle east is even more tense now with Iran.

At some point there comes a realization that maybe the policies adapted for the last 60 years do not benefit the american people or the world. Instead of creating allies, we have gone back to the days of pre-colonial isolationism.

This clip is rubbish and absolute propaganda. Talk about leaving out facts! One small example of its omission of major facts is that it does not mention the six soldiers who were killed when they kidnapped the other two in Israeli borders! This clip mentions so many incorrect things that I don't know where to start to criticize it. Here is an article with some sense: Frederick Forsyth (Daily Express, 11/8): “It must surely be true that the level of lies and hypocrisy that a society can tolerate is in direct proportion to the degeneration of that culture.

Personally I am not particularly pro or anti Israel, pro or anti Arab or pro or anti Islam. But I do have a dislike of myth, hypocrisy and lies as opposed to reality, fairness and truth.

Watching the bombing of Lebanon it is impossible not to feel horror and pity for the innocent civilians killed, wounded or rendered homeless. But certain of our politicians, seeking easy populism and the cheapest round of applause in modern history, have called the Israeli response “disproportionate”. Among thee politicos are Jack Straw and that master of EU negotiations William Hague.

That accusation can only mean: “disproportionate to the aggression levelled against them”. Really? Why did the accusers not mention Serbia? What has Serbia got to do with it? Let’s refresh our memories.

In 1999 five Nato air forces – US, British, French, Italian and German – began to plaster Yugoslavia, effectively the tiny and defenceless province of Serbia. We were not at war with the Serbs, we had no reason to hate them, they had not attacked us and no Serbian rockets were falling on us.

But we practically bombed them back to the Stone Age. We took out every bridge we could see. We trashed their TV station, army barracks, airfields and motorways.

We were not fighting for our lives and no terrorists were skulking among the civilian population but we hit apartment blocks and factories anyway. There were civilian casualties. We did not do it for 25 days but for 73. We bombed this little country economically back 30 years by converting its infrastructure into rubble. Why?

We were trying to persuade one dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, to pull his troops out of Kosovo, which happened to be (and still is) a Yugoslav province. The dictator finally cracked; shortly afterwards he was toppled but it was his fellow Serbs who did that, no Nato.

Before the destruction of Serbia, Kosovo was a nightmare of ethnic hatred. It still is. If we wanted to liberate the Kosovans why did we not just invade? Why blow Serbian civilians to bits?

Here is my point. In all those 73 days of bombing Serbia I never heard one British moralist use the word “disproportionate”.

The entire point of Hezbollah is not to resolve some border dispute with Israel; its aim is to wipe Israel off the map, as expressed by Hezbollah’s master, the crazed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. That aim includes the eradication of every Israeli Jew; i.e. genocide.

Serbia never once threatened to wipe the UK off the map or slaughter our citizens, yet Straw, in office in 1999, and Hague, leading the Conservative Party, never objected to Serbia being bombed.

As an ex-RAF officer I am persuaded the Israelis fighter pilots are hitting civilian-free targets with 95% of their strikes. These are the hits no TV network bothers to cover. It is the 5% that causes the coverage and the horror: wrong target, unseen civilians in the cellar, misfire, unavoidable collateral casualties. Unavoidable?

Israel has said I effect, “If you seek to wipe us out we will defend ourselves to the death. You offer us no quarter, so we will offer none to you. But if you choose intentionally, inadvertently, or through the stupidity of your government to protect and shelter the killers among yourselves then with deepest regret, we cannot guarantee your exemption.”

Yesterday we Brits learned that certain elements in our society had tried to organise a mass slaughter of citizens flying out of our airports. We will have to take draconian measures against these enemies in our midst. Will Messrs Hague and Straw complain our methods are disproportionate? Not a chance. Now that, dear readers, is blatant hypocrisy.”

too bad he doesn't play in Serbia's national team yet.. i bet on them