Hi there, !
Today Wed 12/31/2008 Tue 12/30/2008 Mon 12/29/2008 Sun 12/28/2008 Sat 12/27/2008 Fri 12/26/2008 Thu 12/25/2008 Archives
Rantburg
533692 articles and 1861928 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 102 articles and 342 comments as of 3:17.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion    Politix   
230 killed as Israel rains fire on Hamas in the Gaza Strip
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
0 [1] 
11 00:00 phil_b [4] 
0 [6] 
0 [3] 
0 [] 
6 00:00 Richard of Oregon [] 
8 00:00 Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division [] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
7 00:00 3dc [9]
7 00:00 Poison Reverse [5]
8 00:00 Jouridoto [5]
23 00:00 .5MT [8]
4 00:00 .5MT [5]
0 [4]
16 00:00 JosephMendiola [5]
1 00:00 Abu Uluque [6]
1 00:00 liberalhawk []
0 [1]
0 [4]
1 00:00 .5MT [2]
0 [2]
3 00:00 Abu Uluque [6]
0 [6]
2 00:00 Alaska Paul [3]
1 00:00 Frank G [2]
22 00:00 liberalhawk [3]
0 [3]
3 00:00 Frank G [6]
8 00:00 Rednek Jim [2]
1 00:00 rabid whitetail [10]
2 00:00 .5MT [7]
9 00:00 Frozen Al [4]
0 [2]
6 00:00 JosephMendiola [5]
7 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [7]
7 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
5 00:00 g(r)omgoru [2]
3 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [2]
0 [1]
Page 2: WoT Background
0 [10]
8 00:00 JosephMendiola [7]
2 00:00 Frozen Al [1]
4 00:00 JosephMendiola [4]
5 00:00 Nimble Spemble []
21 00:00 Poison Reverse [4]
0 [5]
7 00:00 European Conservative [1]
8 00:00 JosephMendiola [2]
1 00:00 3dc [4]
0 [6]
0 [5]
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru [3]
1 00:00 tu3031 [7]
5 00:00 tu3031 [3]
3 00:00 Besoeker [2]
3 00:00 Thavick Grundy3516 [2]
2 00:00 lotp [2]
8 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [1]
2 00:00 3dc [1]
2 00:00 3dc [1]
3 00:00 mojo [2]
3 00:00 rabid whitetail [1]
2 00:00 Grolush Darling of the Hatfields3195 [5]
2 00:00 Poison Reverse [4]
3 00:00 Thavick Grundy3516 [1]
2 00:00 Hellfish [2]
1 00:00 mhw [1]
4 00:00 ed [2]
0 [1]
0 [2]
5 00:00 Thrains Mussolini3996 [1]
0 []
3 00:00 Poison Reverse [1]
5 00:00 Rob06 [5]
0 [2]
4 00:00 Frank G [5]
1 00:00 Mike N. [5]
7 00:00 Grolush Darling of the Hatfields3195 [6]
Page 3: Non-WoT
6 00:00 JohnQC []
0 [2]
1 00:00 Glenmore []
0 []
0 []
0 [1]
1 00:00 ed [1]
0 []
1 00:00 P2k on holiday [6]
0 []
0 [1]
3 00:00 Rednek Jim [2]
1 00:00 rabid whitetail []
Page 4: Opinion
1 00:00 Poison Reverse [7]
2 00:00 Bulldog [6]
1 00:00 crosspatch [2]
2 00:00 JohnQC [2]
1 00:00 Excalibur [4]
0 [3]
0 [4]
4 00:00 Grunter []
1 00:00 ed [1]
1 00:00 john frum [5]
Page 6: Politix
6 00:00 JosephMendiola [9]
10 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Five go to jail for murder that wasn’t
Five men ended up serving life terms for a murder that never was. In 1996, Jagseer Singh, then 16, of Bhadaur village in Barnala district, was ‘murdered’. And five people were sentenced for life.

Jagseer, apparently faked his murder to teach his adversaries —Sheera Singh, Nachattar Singh, Surjit Singh, Amarjit Singh and Nika Singh — a lesson.

But 12 years later on Friday, the ‘dead’ man was found walking. His own siblings, following a property dispute, leaked his story to the police. Jagseer and five members of his family were arrested.

Of the five who had served life sentences, Sheera Singh committed suicide. The other four are now demanding compensation. “Who will compensate us for the mental agony our families went through all these years?” asked Amarjit Singh.

Presenting Jagseer before the media, district police chief Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said after he staged his murder, his family members arranged fake witnesses. Jagseer, alias Baldev, then settled in Balachaur.

Narrating his story, Jagseer said his family had a land dispute with another family in the village and wanted to settle score. “On June 11, 1996, our adversaries beat me up. My family asked me to go underground, so they could charge them with kidnapping. Later, they brought in the charge of murder.”

But a few days ago, he approached his family, demanding his share in the ancestral property and other assets, as he intended to marry a girl from Himachal. Turning him down, some members of the family said he couldn’t be given any share legally, as he was officially dead. But he insisted.

Jagseer was nabbed on Friday while he was returning to Balachaur after extracting Rs 1.24 lakh from his family.
Posted by: john frum || 12/28/2008 16:15 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Organizers strip Mexican beauty queen of title after drug bust
Follow-up. Besides, I like the pic, and it's not like we're going to see Laura in the Bloid anytime soon [sniff] ...
Laura Zuniga, the Mexican beauty queen jailed after she was picked up with an alleged drug cartel leader and heavily armed men, has been stripped of one of her titles, Bolivian organizers said Saturday.

Zuniga lost her title as Queen of Hispanic America, said Promociones Gloria, the Bolivian group that organizes the event. Vivian Noronha Cia of Brazil now takes the tiara "as consequence of the events known to the public in which Miss Laura Zuniga... was involved," Promociones Gloria said in a brief statement.

Zuniga "failed to follow the rules of the contest, which state that the winner must display correct behavior, stay away from scandals and bad habits, and be a good example to society," Tatiana Limpias de Tarabillo, who heads Promociones Gloria, told the Bolivian daily El Deber.

Zuniga, 23, was picked up late Monday at a military checkpoint in the western Mexican state of Jalisco while traveling with seven armed men in two vehicles carrying 100,000 dollars in cash. A judge on Friday ordered "the cautionary measure" of 40 days detention for Zuniga and the men "for probably committing crimes" relating to drug trafficking and transporting weapons, the office of Mexico's attorney general said.

Zuniga is originally from Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, birthplace of one of Mexico's most powerful cartels. There has been no word on whether Zuniga will keep her title as "Miss Sinaloa," which she won in July.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/28/2008 00:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If anyone finds any pix of her after she's been stripped please post them. Thx in advance.
Posted by: gorb || 12/28/2008 2:59 Comments || Top||

#2  A judge on Friday ordered "the cautionary measure" of 40 days detention for Zuniga and the men"..... "for probably committing crimes"

Mexican probably cause. I wonder if Patrick Fitzgerald could use an investigatory tool such as that?
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/28/2008 7:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Well, it's not like she was caught carrying a bag of little blue pills with a CIA operative in the Afghan highlands. I'm sure the NYT would have blamed it all on Bush.
Posted by: P2k on holiday || 12/28/2008 8:27 Comments || Top||

#4  P2K, looking like that she doesn't need any little bag of blue pills. That girl could probably raise the dead, as long as the corpse was male...
Posted by: Thaiting Grundy6566 || 12/28/2008 8:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Body cavity search?
Posted by: DarthVader || 12/28/2008 10:15 Comments || Top||

#6  How sad! Doesn't look like she has much more to strip.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 12/28/2008 14:08 Comments || Top||


Military Fake Nailed By Army Ranger
As an Army Ranger who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, Nick Ford thought there was something suspicious about the man seeking holiday donations for military families at Ford's local Stop & Shop.

Paul K. Guilmain Jr. told shoppers that he was an Iraq veteran and National Guard member, but to Ford he didn't look like anyone who'd seen duty in years. The paunchy 44-year-old slouched, went hatless, and wore outdated woodland camouflage fatigues - the kind with the green, black, brown, and beige pattern, not the more modern design. The rank on his sleeve, corporal, didn't fit with his age.

"It took every ounce of restraint not to rip this guy's face off," said Ford, who opted instead for friendliness and a discreet investigation. His sleuthing led to Guilmain's arrest on Christmas Eve at the Woburn Super Stop & Shop, near Ford's home. Guilmain, who lives in Lynn, was arraigned yesterday on charges that he posed as a representative of a national veterans organization and pocketed the money for himself.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Anonymoose || 12/28/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A spokesman for Stop & Shop said the chain employs a "fairly rigorous vetting process" for charity requests, but the policy would now be reviewed.

Rigorous? Yeah, I believe it.
Posted by: gorb || 12/28/2008 3:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Outanding warrant in Salem eh? Well, you know what happens to witches and warlocks in Salem. Take him away.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/28/2008 7:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Whatever happened to your 3 strikes and life rules?

Society + this guy is less than Society without this guy.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 12/28/2008 8:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Bright Pebbles, I don't think Massachusetts has any such law.

Anyway, you really should recognize that based on his personal history (22 convictions, supposed need for medication, multiple aliases, inability to get $500 to post bail even from a bondsman, poor grammar), he is a true "victim" of society who just needs another chance to rectify all of the injustices thrown his way.
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie || 12/28/2008 9:48 Comments || Top||

#5 
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 12/28/2008 11:05 Comments || Top||

#6  the 3 strikes rule usually just goes for violent crime and major drug convictions
Posted by: rabid whitetail || 12/28/2008 13:05 Comments || Top||

#7  Felonies
Posted by: Frank G || 12/28/2008 13:43 Comments || Top||

#8  $500 Bail? What's the point of that? Either >$10k or nothing serves the purposes - seems the judges or Mass. law are confused, which is not surprising.


Posted by: Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division || 12/28/2008 17:21 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Marriage between cousins is fine, say scientists
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts in Boston have called for the taboo on first-cousin families to be lifted.

They claim that the risk of giving birth to babies with genetic defects is no greater than that run by women over 40 who become pregnant.

First-cousin marriages are legal in the UK but there have been calls to ban the practice because of the number of genetic defects recorded in some communities.

Professor Diane Paul of the University of Massachusetts in Boston and Professor Hamish Spencer of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand have looked at the risk of defects in such babies.

They claim that the risk of congenital defects is about 2 per cent higher that average, and the infant mortality rate about 4.4 per cent higher, for babies born to first-cousin marriages.

This is on a par with the risk to babies born to women over 40, they claim.

Professor Spencer said: "Women over the age of 40 have a similar risk of having children with birth defects and no one is suggesting they should be prevented from reproducing."

The study is published in the online journal Public Library of Science.

MP Phil Woolas, now the Immigration minister, claimed earlier this year that first-cousin marriages within Asian communities in Britain resulted in an increasing number of children with health problems.

Most states in America have either outlawed or restricted the practice, as has China, Taiwan and both North and South Korea.

Professor Spencer, an evolutionary zoologist, said these laws should be repealed, especially in America, where he said they were drafted in a way that discriminated against the rural poor and immigrants.

He said: "Neither the scientific nor social assumptions behind such legislation stand up to close scrutiny.

"Such legislation reflects outmoded prejudices about immigrants and the rural poor and relies on over-simplified views of heredity.

"There is no scientific grounding for it."

People who married their first cousins include rock'n'roll singer Jerry Lee Lewis, American outlaw Jesse James, Charles Darwin and H G Wells.
Posted by: john frum || 12/28/2008 15:58 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  are they trying too appease the muslims already
Posted by: rabid whitetail || 12/28/2008 16:27 Comments || Top||

#2  No, Kennedys.
Posted by: ed || 12/28/2008 16:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Were we in danger of running out of Kennedys?
Posted by: Formerly Dan || 12/28/2008 16:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Better check the lineage of these UoM scientists, or soon they'll end up like Berkeley.
Posted by: gorb || 12/28/2008 17:20 Comments || Top||

#5  1st cousin marriages actually decrease genetic defects in the long term (over tens of generations), because the defects are expressed, and hence eliminated from the gene pool, sooner.
Posted by: phil_b || 12/28/2008 18:07 Comments || Top||

#6  That assumes the defects are expressed prior to having children and are seen as disqualifying for having children. Neither is necessarily true.
Posted by: lotp || 12/28/2008 18:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Now they tell me.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 12/28/2008 19:32 Comments || Top||

#8  Uh, not exactly, phil_b. I would think that the spectacular results of the various royal family branches in Europe would prove you wrong on that account. Hemophilia wasn't the only thing wrong with that brood.
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie || 12/28/2008 20:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Can't help but notice that Doc here says that all countries should ease these laws "especially in America".

Ima spot me a 'Blame America Firster'. My hunch does, anyway.

Master! Master!

Wrong hunch...

Dated a girl that went to college there one time...

Master! Master!
Posted by: Mike N. || 12/28/2008 20:21 Comments || Top||

#10  I concur with Cornsilk Blondie. The first cousin marriage might work if the bloodline is "clean and healthy" in the first place. If not, it reinforces the problems that exist in that lineage. And there can be a lot of problems now that babies with genetic problems survive and live to procreate due to modern medicine and technology.

Sorry; not PC, just a statement of fact.
Posted by: tipover || 12/28/2008 20:30 Comments || Top||

#11  CS, the relevant question is what was the survival rate of the offspring of those carrying the haemophilia gene and who married fist cousins, versus those who didn't marry first cousins.

Note, it's not the number who survived. Offspring of royalty had many survival advantages over the hoipolloi, which would have made the number surviving relatively high.
Posted by: phil_b || 12/28/2008 23:29 Comments || Top||


Nostalgic Progressive Haikus of 2008
Barry elected
I am still miserable
Why the hell is that?
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 12/28/2008 04:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Family tells SIT: ‘riot victim’ already dead, of TB
Ahmedabad: Zarina Mansuri, a 30-year-old Muslim woman who was believed to have been brutally hacked to death and later burnt to ashes by a mob in the Naroda Patiya massacre of February 28, 2002, was not even alive at that time. She had died of tuberculosis (TB) some four months earlier.

Zarina’s brother-in-law, Yunus Mansuri, made this startling revelation before the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing cases of the 2002 post-Godhra communal riots, during his recent deposition.

Deposing before the SIT on June 24 this year, Yunus had disclosed that Zarina was suffering from chronic TB and that she had succumbed to her ailment while under treatment in civil hospital here. He further stated that Zarina died in the month of Ramzan in 2001, which was roughly four months before the post-Godhra communal riots broke out in Gujarat.

The SIT has appended Yunus’s statement in the case chargesheet it filed before a city court here about a fortnight ago, a copy of which is available with The Indian Express. The 44-year-old Yunus works as an autorickshaw driver and stays with his wife and three kids in their ancestral house at Pandit Ni Chali area in Naroda Patiya.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Yunus said Zarina’s daughter, Anisha, who was then 12 years old, had told the police that her mother was murdered and her body was burnt by the rioting mob that day. Anisha is now 18 and stays with her in-laws in Kumbharvas area in Gomptipur here.

Yunus added he came to know about his niece’s ‘incorrect’ statement only this year, when the SIT summoned him in connection with further investigations in the case. “I was shocked to know that she (Anisha) had said all this about her mother. I told SIT that someone in the relief camp might have tutored Anisha to say all this. It is strange that the police relied on the 12-year-old’s statement and never cross-checked it with us.”

About the rape of one of her friends, Shabana (15), which Anisha is said to have witnessed (according to her statement recorded by police on May 15, 2002), Yunus’s deposition said: “This, again, is wrong. Anisha had witnessed nothing like that that day. We, along with several others, were hiding on the same terrace of a house in Gangotarinagar at that time and none of us had seen anything like that.”

However, “after the riots, while my family stayed in the Shah-e-Alam relief camp, Anisha along with her father and others was in the relief camp near Sonal Cinema. Her statement was recorded that time and it seems to have been fabricated,” he told The Indian Express.

“I even scolded Anisha for having said all this. But then there was a second thought that she was only 12 then and might not have even known all that was written in her name,” Yunus’s deposition said. When asked if Anisha could be contacted, Yunus said she was pregnant and should not be disturbed at this stage.

Yunus, who owned a kerosene business in Naroda Patiya area in 2002, recalled: “I remember distinctly that she (Zarina) died on the 9th day of Ramzan in 2001. She was buried in the Kabaristan (Muslim cemetery) near Naroda Gam bus stand. I was present during her last rites and also have the cemetery’s receipt.”

“Some people even suggested that I should remain mum and seek compensation for Zarina’s death. But I am a God-fearing man and cannot do what Islam does not allow. I, therefore, told SIT the truth,” Yunus added.

More than 90 people were killed in Naroda Patia in the post-Godhra riots. While Zarina had died of TB four months earlier, according to Yunus, her husband — Yunus’s elder brother and Anisha’s father — Kasam Mansuri had succumbed to the same disease in 2003.
Posted by: john frum || 12/28/2008 12:02 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:


Student trespasses defence area in Bangalore, shot dead
A 20-year-old student was shot dead early on Sunday by army guards after he hid in the compound of an army officer's house in the high security defence area in Bangalore while trying to escape from the police, officials said.

The youth, Mohammed Mukharram, was apparently participating in a motorbike drag race past midnight and to escape the police, he entered the restricted defence area in Ulsoor in the eastern part of the central business district, police said.

"He was asked to surrender. Guards on duty fired three rounds in the air but even then he did not surrender and tried to escape. He was fired upon and was hit in the stomach," Deputy Commissioner of Police BK Singh, under whose jurisdiction Ulsoor area falls, told IANS.

The incident occurred at around 2 am on Sunday, he said.

"The body has been handed over to the parents," Singh said. Mukharram's father works as a driver, he added.

"We have registered a case of criminal trespass on the complaint from defence authorities," Singh said.
Posted by: john frum || 12/28/2008 12:01 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
66[untagged]
20Hamas
4Govt of Pakistan
3TTP
2Palestinian Authority
2Taliban
1PLO
1Islamic Courts
1Govt of Syria
1DFLP
1Govt of Iran

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2008-12-28
  230 killed as Israel rains fire on Hamas in the Gaza Strip
Sat 2008-12-27
  Israel Launches Unprecedented Series of Strikes on Gaza
Fri 2008-12-26
  Spokesman: Somali President not resigning
Thu 2008-12-25
  Pak in war frenzy; intensifies troop movement
Wed 2008-12-24
  Æthiops to withdraw all 3000 troops from Somalia by end of year
Tue 2008-12-23
  Pak air force on alert for Indian strike
Mon 2008-12-22
  Israel threatens major offensive against Gaza
Sun 2008-12-21
  Truce ends with airstrike on Gaza
Sat 2008-12-20
  Delhi accuses Islamabad of failing to deliver on promises
Fri 2008-12-19
  Guantanamo closure plan ordered
Thu 2008-12-18
  Johnny Jihad's Mom and Dad ask Bush to let him go
Wed 2008-12-17
  Life for doctor in Glasgow airport terror bid
Tue 2008-12-16
  Bomb Found at Paris Department Store
Mon 2008-12-15
  Somali president fires PM, who refuses to go
Sun 2008-12-14
  Frontier Corps refuses security to NATO terminals


Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
3.146.105.137
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (31)    WoT Background (39)    Non-WoT (13)    Opinion (10)    Politix (2)