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Current time: Sat May 18, 2013 9:00 am
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Mike Burn
Generally Crazy Guy |
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 Wed Feb 23, 2005 12:01 pm Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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It was about 9:45 a.m. CET when I was sitting in traffic with my car, when
that blue little thing called Air Force One rushed directly over my head.
So, Mr. and Mrs. Bush are in Germany, city of Mainz near Frankfurt,
today! 
Let's see what comes out of it 
Bush so far said that Germany is the most important stop of his Europe
trip. He is obviously smiling all the time, mabye it's because of the
German beer? HAHA |
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| Wed Feb 23, 2005 4:17 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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wow
looks like he's getting a run for his money...
there were some real zinger quotes coming out of Belgium the other day. something about the Justice minister would rather be meeting with John Kerry 
(don't know about your publication laws, you can edit the image out if it puts you in a bad spot) |
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| Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:42 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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hahahaha !!!
Mr. Bush have a special wish on his mind : to be the new son........
What a bad guy !!!! |
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| Thu Feb 24, 2005 4:03 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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| Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:03 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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| I think he loves german beer |
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| Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:31 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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| IC-MM Kristina wrote: | | I think he loves german beer |
oh he hasn't had a drop to drink since Jesus saved him.
heh
I notice his skin colour improves on road trips. Maybe Rove's promptings aren't the only "lines" that are tough to come by when he's overseas.
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Mike Burn
Generally Crazy Guy |
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| Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:56 am Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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Now that George W. is at home again we Germans feel like a dangerous species.
While in the cities Wiesbaden and Mainz over 30,000 Germans were not allowed to leave their homes or to enter their homes between 7a.m. in the morning and 7p.m. while their cities looked like ghost towns, Bush took a bath in the crowd of over 4,000 in Bratislava.
Germans were even not allowed to wave froim their balconies.
On top of that a scandal took place in Mainz, where the mayor of the city was searched by CIA agents like a criminal. Well, at least our chancellor had not to put his hands up.
| Quote: | Mainz turned into a ghost town
Security for Bush visit on Wednesday causes air and shipping losses in the region
25. Februar 2005 By William Pratt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had plenty to smile about during President George W. Bush's visit to Mainz on Wednesday. The city's lord mayor did not.
”I really regret that Mainz residents had no chance to see the president for themselves,” said Jens Beutel, a Social Democrat like Schröder. ”It's just too bad. People have to be part of the visit.”
On Wednesday, though, the city resembled a ghost town. ”Mainz is just dead,” one 69-year-old man said.
The reason was simple: the security thrown up to protect Bush.
Residents of the city, just southwest of Frankfurt, began getting a feel for the restrictions that the visit would impose on their lives in the days that led up to it. As part of the prelude, manhole covers were welded shut and cars were towed away. Train travelers around the Mainz region were warned as well. ”Because of the visit by President George Bush, schedules may change and trains may arrive late,” according to a public service announcement made at the Frankfurt train station on the day before the visit.
Once Wednesday arrived, officials got serious.
First, they imposed their ”ring concept” on various regional autobahns early - at 1:30 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. The city of Mainz had said the ring was designed to ”permit continuous-flow one-way movement.” It encompassed portions of the autobahns A3, A66, A671, A643, A60, and A67, the city said.
One police spokesman acknowledged that the change would be a problem. ”Some commuters were caught on the wrong foot,” he said. One driver called a hotline to complain. In response, an official told him: ”You should be glad that you made it home at all.”
Autobahns in the region were shut down between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. when Bush's convoy was to travel from the Frankfurt International Airport to Mainz.
Similar shutdowns were imposed on air traffic, and on shipping on the Rhine and Main rivers.
At the Frankfurt airport, more than 150 flights to and from the facility were canceled on Wednesday. One reason for the cancellations was a change in plans made by German security officials. Originally, they planned to shut down just one of the airport's three runways for the arrival of Air Force One on Wednesday morning. But in response to a request by the German Transportation Ministry, all three runways were shut down for 38 minutes, said Anja Tomic, a spokesman for the country's air-traffic control operation.
The decision hit Lufthansa, the German carrier that uses Frankfurt as its base, particularly hard. Airline spokesman Michael Lamberty said 77 Lufthansa flights on which 5,000 people were booked had been canceled late in the day. The company's managers were fuming as a result. ”We are thinking about seeking damages from those officials who tightened the security measures at the last minute,” Lamberty said.
Airport officials blamed many of the cancellations on the snowy weather that swept over the area. But Lamberty rejected such arguments.
Shipping on the Rhine and Main rivers suffered as well, said Jörg Rusche, a spokesman for the Association of German Inland Waterway Transportation. Officials closed a 24-kilometer (15-mile) stretch of the Rhine, which flows by Mainz. A 15-kilometer stretch of the Main, which flows into the Rhine, also was closed. The shutdown affected about 100 ships and led to losses of about €500,000 ($622,250), Rusche said.
In Mainz itself, officials set up a security zone that forced about 40 streets to be closed. Garbage cans and mail boxes were removed, and schools were shut down.
Bush arrived at about 10 a.m., escorted by four helicopters and a convoy of security vehicles. The few citizens who showed up at the castle where the meeting with Schröder was held were unable to get much of a view of Bush thanks to the heavy police guard. But that did not bother one man who came to see Bush. ”The atmosphere created by all of the security is unique and great,” said Karl Günther Strub, 69.
Such feelings were not shared by a woman who expected to lose a day's pay because the school where she works as a cleaner was closed. ”The money (spent on the visit) could have been spent in a better way,” she said.
Other workers in the Mainz area had a forced day off as well. The automaker Opel, located in nearby Rüsselsheim, canceled two shifts on Wednesday. That decision affected about 5,000 employees who will have to make up the shifts on Saturdays.
The security measures put an extra strain on German police officers as well. Some came from as far as the northwestern cities of Essen and Bochum. But one said the assignment did not bother him much. ”Week before last, I was sent to Munich for the security conference,” he said. |
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| Quote: | Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Protesters urge Bush to go home
Polls find Germans distrust president
25. Februar 2005 F.A.Z. Weekly. Away from the secure summit site in Mainz on Wednesday, around 10,000 people gathered to roll out an unwelcome mat for President George W. Bush.
”Mr. Bush, you are not welcome in Germany,” said Jürgen Grässlin, a spokesman for the German Peace Association. The protests were a reflection of the anger Bush has caused in Germany since he began pushing in 2002 to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
And some of the protesters said they rejected the attempts of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, another opponent of the war, to repair relations with the United States. ”We don't want to come anywhere near these policies,” said Malte Kreutzfeldt, a member of the anti-globalization group Attac. ”That would be a step in the wrong direction.”
An American from New York also joined the protests. ”The United States should withdraw from Iraq. Otherwise, we will have a second Vietnam,” said Matthew Specter, who works in Frankfurt. The demonstrations were held several hundred yards from the castle where Bush and Schröder met.
Polls conducted before Bush's visit showed many Germans were wary of the president. A survey by the institute Infratest Dimap showed that three-quarters of the 500 people interviewed said they distrusted the president.
A separate survey conducted for the newspaper Die Welt found that 67 percent of Germans surveyed said they no longer felt any gratitude to the United States for its rebuilding of Germany after World War II and its support of reunification in 1990. The level of support fell with the age of the people surveyed, the poll showed. |
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Mike Burn
Generally Crazy Guy |
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| Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:59 am Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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| Quote: | DER SPIEGEL
During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice. Was Bush afraid the event might focus on prickly questions about Iraq and Iran rather than the rosy future he's been touting in Europe this week?
The much-touted American-style "town hall" meeting the White House has been planning with "normal Germans" of everyday walks of life will be missing during his visit to the Rhine River hamlet of Mainz this afternoon. A few weeks ago, the Bush administration had declared that the chat -- which could have brought together tradesmen, butchers, bank employees, students and all other types to discuss trans-Atlantic relations -- would be the cornerstone of President George W. Bush's brief trip to Germany.
State Department diplomats said the meeting would help the president get in touch with the people who he most needs to convince of his policies. Bush's invasion of Iraq and his diplomatic handling of the nuclear dispute with Iran has drawn widespread concern and criticism among the German public. And during a press conference two weeks ago, Bush said Washington is still terribly misunderstood in Europe. All the more reason, it would seem, for him to be pleased about talking to people here.
But on Wednesday, that town hall meeting will be nowhere on the agenda -- it's been cancelled. Neither the White House nor the German Foreign Ministry has offered any official explanation, but Foreign Ministry sources say the town hall meeting has been nixed for scheduling reasons -- a typical development for a visit like this with many ideas but very little time. That, at least, is the diplomats' line. Behind the scenes, there appears to be another explanation: the White House got cold feet. Bush's strategists felt an uncontrolled encounter with the German public would be too unpredictable.
To avoid that messy scenario, the White House requested that rules similar to those applied during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit two weeks ago also be used in Mainz. Before meeting with students at Paris's Institute of Political Sciences, which preens the country's elite youth for future roles in government, Rice's staff insisted on screening and approving any questions to be asked by students. One question rejected was that of Benjamin Barnier, the 24-year-old son of France's foreign minister, who wanted to ask: "George Bush is not particularly well perceived in the world, particularly in the Middle East. Can you do something to change that?" Instead, the only question of Barnier's that got approval was the question of whether Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority might create a theocratic government based on the Iranian model?
The Germans, though, insisted that a free forum should be exactly that. Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany's Ambassador to the United States, explained to the New York Times last week: "We told them, don't get upset with us if they ask angry questions."
In the end, the town hall meeting was never officially dropped from the agenda of the trip -- instead it was dealt with in polished diplomatic style -- both sides just stopped talking about it. |
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Mike Burn
Generally Crazy Guy |
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| Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:05 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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| Quote: | Thursday, 24 February, 2005, 20:32 GMT
By Paul Reynolds , World Affairs correspondent, BBC News
He came, he saw, but he did not conquer.
Instead, on his visit to Europe, President Bush managed to achieve an uneasy truce.
The White House will be pleased that there were no major rows and that a confident president got his views over without giving too much ground.
For Mr Bush, this visit was about getting over the divisions of the past and projecting his vision of the future - "planting the flag of freedom" around the world, as he puts it.
But the empty streets in the German city of Mainz, which cheered Mr Bush's father as president in 1989, spoke volumes about how this American leader is perceived in parts of old Europe.
He did better in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. His speech there, sprinkled with his usual references to freedom and liberty - 24 of one and seven of the other - did win applause from the crowd.
This was new Europe after all. |
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| Sat Feb 26, 2005 12:50 am Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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| Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:14 am Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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 courage , oh yes !!!!!
We need more peoples on this world with it.....
I like Amerika and i have verry good friends from USA ( black soldiers , living after
army in germany ) !!!!!!!!!
But mr. G.W. Bush.......no , hes not a realy friend for modern - culture - world peoples !!!!
But he isent the lounly one ....we has in germany , france .....i think in al
States on this world to much bad politicans as him !!!
So , hallo American´s .......al we need is love..ra-ta-da-ta-da
Jaro |
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| Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:07 am Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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Mike has been making posts like this before Bush was elected
he hates the USA 
right mike?
I am very proud of my country and I love it ..
even tho we are misfits I love this land and i'm proud that this country leads the way ........................
love ya Mike anyway! |
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Mike Burn
Generally Crazy Guy |
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| Sun Mar 06, 2005 4:58 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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| softsong wrote: | Mike has been making posts like this before Bush was elected
he hates the USA |
Above, all quotes of mine are from major news services.
If you consider them "hateful" towards your country, well this isn't my problem but the problem of how the world looks at least at the current administration in Washington.
News today add more (notice: all quotes from BBC/London, a world acknowledged news service):
| Quote: | (BBC News/London)
Italian press shocked by shooting
Saturday's Italian papers are dismayed at the tragic sequence of events that followed the release of journalist Giuliana Sgrena, held hostage by insurgents in Iraq for a month.
"Giuliana Sgrena is free - her liberator is murdered," reads the simple, uncompromising headline in Il Manifesto, the Rome daily for which Ms Sgrena works.
"A hero dies to save Giuliana" is the message on the front page of another Rome paper, Il Messaggero.
For Sergio Romano, a former ambassador writing in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera, many of the events surrounding Ms Sgrena's abduction and release remain "murky". But one issue is quite clear.
"Like all hostages," he says, "Giuliana Sgrena has been used." |
| Quote: | (BBC/London)
The incident in Baghdad threatens to have continuing political fallout in Rome, says our correspondent there David Willey.
Pressure will grow on Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch ally of US President George W Bush, to reconsider the wisdom of keeping on Italian peacekeepers in Iraq, our correspondent says.
Already, the Italian foreign ministry has warned all Italian nationals to avoid travel to Iraq. |
| Quote: | (BBC/News)
In her account for Il Manifesto, Ms Sgrena said the kidnappers had released her willingly.
When she got in the car, Calipari took off her blindfold and was "an avalanche of friendly phrases, jokes".
"Nicola Calipari was seated at my side. The driver had spoken twice to the embassy and to Italy that we were on our way to the airport that I knew was saturated with American troops. We were less than a kilometre they told me... when... I remember there was shooting.
"The driver began screaming that we were Italian, 'We're Italian! We're Italian!'"
Ms Sgrena has said the car was not going particularly fast.
Upon her release, she said, "They [the kidnappers] said they were committed to releasing me, but that I had to be careful 'because there are Americans who don't want you to go back'."
In another interview with Sky Italia TV, she said it was possible the soldiers had targeted her because Washington opposed the policy of negotiating with kidnappers.
Calipari: 'Extraordinary hero'
"Everyone knows that the Americans do not like negotiations to free hostages, and because of this I don't see why I should exclude the possibility of me having been the target," she said.
She said she did not know if a ransom was paid for her release - a policy the US does not approve either. |
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| Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:28 pm Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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The truth of Giuliana Sgrena
| Quote: | Rome, Mar 7 (Prensa Latina) Italian daily Il Manifesto published the first impressions of its correspondent in Baghdad, Giuliana Sgrena, after surviving the attack by US soldiers just 700 meters from the Baghdad airport, aimed to silence her forever.
"I"m still in the dark. Friday was the most dramatic day of my life. I had been in captivity for many days. I had just spoken with my captors. It had been days they were telling me I would be released. I was living in waiting for this moment.
They were speaking about things that only later I would have understood the importance of. They were speaking about problems "related to transfers."
I learned to understand what was going on by the behavior of my two guards, the two guards that had me under custody every day. One in particular showed much attention to my desires. He was incredibly cheerful. To understand exactly what was going on I provocatively asked him if he was happy because I was going or because I was staying.
I was shocked and happy when for the first time he said, "I only know that you will go, but I don"t know when." To confirm the fact that something new was happening both of them came into my room and started comforting me and kidding: "Congratulations they said you are leaving for Rome." For Rome, that"s exactly what they said.
I experienced a strange sensation because that word evoked in me freedom but also projected in me an immense sense of emptiness. I understood that it was the most difficult moment of my kidnapping and that if everything I had just experienced until then was "certain," now a huge vacuum of uncertainty was opening, one heavier than the other. I changed my clothes.
They came back: "We"ll take you and don"t give any signals of your presence with us otherwise the Americans could intervene." It was confirmation that I didn"t want to hear; it was altogether the most happy and most dangerous moment. If we bumped into someone, meaning American military, there would have been an exchange of fire. My captors were ready and would have answered.
My eyes had to be covered. I was already getting used to momentary blindness. What was happening outside? I only knew that it had rained in Baghdad. The car was proceeding securely in a mud zone. There was a driver plus the two captors.
I immediately heard something I didn"t want to hear. A helicopter was hovering at low altitude right in the area that we had stopped. "Be calm, they will come and look for you...in 10 minutes they will come looking for." They spoke in Arabic the whole time, a little bit of French, and a lot in bad English. Even this time they were speaking that way.
Then they got out of the car. I remained in the condition of immobility and blindness. My eyes were padded with cotton, and I had sunglasses on. I was sitting still. I thought what should I do. I start counting the seconds that go by between now and the next condition, that of liberty? I had just started mentally counting when a friendly voice came to my ears "Giuliana, Giuliana. I am Nicola, don"t worry I spoke to Gabriele Polo (editor in chief of Il Manifesto). Stay calm. You are free."
They made me take my cotton bandage off, and the dark glasses. I felt relieved, not for what was happening and I couldn"t understand but for the words of this "Nicola." He kept on talking and talking, you couldn"t contain him, an avalanche of friendly phrases and jokes. I finally felt an almost physical consolation, warmth that I had forgotten for some time.
The car kept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad and maybe wind up in a bad car accident after all I had been through would really be a tale I would not be able to tell.
Nicola Calipari sat next to me. The driver twice called the embassy and Italy that we were heading towards the airport that I knew was heavily patrolled by U.S. troops. They told me that we were less than a kilometer away...when...I only remember fire. At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit us, shutting up forever the cheerful voices of a few minutes earlier.
The driver started yelling that we were Italians. "We are Italians, we are Italians." Nicola Calipari threw himself on me to protect me and immediately, I repeat, immediately I heard his last breath as he was dying on me. I must have felt physical pain. I didn"t know why. But then I realized my mind went immediately to the things the captors had told me. They declared that they were committed to the fullest to freeing me but I had to be careful, "the Americans don"t want you to go back." Then when they had told me I considered those words superfluous and ideological. At that moment they risked acquiring the flavor of the bitterest of truths, at this time I cannot tell you the rest.
This was the most dramatic day. But the months that I spent in captivity probably changed forever my existence. One month alone with myself, prisoner of my profound certainties. Every hour was an impious verification of my work, sometimes they made fun of me, and they even stretch as far as asking why I wanted to leave, asking me stay. They insisted on personal relationships. It was them that made me think of the priorities that too often we cast aside. They were pointing to family. "Ask your husband for help," they would say. And I also said in the first video that I think you all saw, "My life has changed." As Iraqi engineer Ra"ad Ali Abdulaziz of the organization A Bridge For [Baghdad], who had been kidnapped with the two Simones had told me "my life is not the same anymore." I didn"t understand. Now I know what he meant. Because I experienced the harshness of truth, it"s difficult proposition (of truth) and the fragility of those who attempt it.
In the first days of my kidnapping I did not shed a tear. I was simply furious. I would say in the face of my captors: "But why do you kidnap me, I"m against the war." And at that point they would start a ferocious dialogue. "Yes because you go speak to the people, we would never kidnap a journalist that remains closed in a hotel and because the fact that you say you"re against the war could be a decoy." And I would answer almost to provoke them: "It"s easy to kidnap a weak woman like me, why don"t you try with the American military." I insisted on the fact that they could not ask the Italian government to withdraw the troops. Their political go-between could not be the government but the Italian people, who were and are against the war.
It was a month on a see-saw shifting between strong hope and moments of great depression. Like when it was a first Sunday after the Friday they kidnapped me, in the house in Baghdad where I was kept, and on top of which was a satellite dish they showed me the Euronews Newscast. There I saw a huge picture of me hanging from Rome City Hall. I felt relieved. Right after though the claim by the Jihad that announced my execution if Italy did not withdraw the troops arrived. I was terrified. But I immediately felt reassured that it wasn"t them. I didn"t have to believe these announcements, they were "provocative." Often I asked the captor that from his face I could identify a good disposition but whom like his colleagues resembled a soldier: "Tell me the truth. Do you want to kill me?" Although many times there have been windows of communications with them. "Come watch a movie on TV" they would say while a Wahabi roamed around the house and took care of me. The captors seemed to me a very religious group, in continuous prayer on the Koran. But Friday, at the time of the release, the one that looked the most religious and who woke up every morning at 5 a.m. to pray incredibly congratulated me shaking my hand, a behavior unusual for an Islamic fundamentalist -- and he would add "if you behave yourself you will leave immediately." Then an almost funny incident. One of the two captors came to me surprised both because the TV was showing big posters of me in European cities and also for Totti. Yes Totti. He declared he was a fan of the Roma soccer team and he was shocked that his favorite player went to play with the writing "Liberate Giuliana" on his T-shirt.
I lived in an enclave in which I had no more certainties. I found myself profoundly weak. I failed in my certainties; I said that we had to tell about that dirty war. And I found myself in the alternative either to stay in the hotel and wait or to end up kidnapped because of my work. We don"t want anyone else anymore. The kidnappers would tell me. But I wanted to tell about the bloodbath in Fallujah from the words of the refugees. And that morning the refugees, or some of their leaders would not listen to me. I had in front of me the accurate confirmation of the analysis of what the Iraqi society had become as a result of the war and they would throw their truth in my face: "We don"t want anybody why didn"t you stay in your home. What can this interview do for us?" The worse collateral effect, the war that kills communication was falling on me. To me, I who had risked everything, challenging the Italian government who didn"t want journalists to reach Iraq and the Americans who don"t want our work to be witnessed of what really became of that country with the war and notwithstanding that which they call elections. Now I ask myself. Is their refusal a failure? (*) Published by Il Manifesto on March 6, 2005.
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| Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:02 am Re: Ooops.. Air Force One flew directly over my head today! |
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shove your copy paste crap Mike and Brian
the USA will alway's be there to fight for freedom
i'm proud to be an American
Love my land .. the Home of the Brave
no whimps allowed! |
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Germany
Canada
USA
