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Leb army attempts to seize Fateh al-Islam positions inside camp
Today's Headlines
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Today's Idiot
>Man caught with 8,000 stolen women's clothes

TOKYO (Reuters) - Police found more than 8,000 pieces of women's clothing and lingerie in the home of a Japanese man who stole the items so he could sleep buried in them. Maeyasu Kawamura, 60, was indicted for theft on Friday, police in Osaka prefecture, western Japan, said.

Police found 2,400 pieces of lingerie, 600 kimonos and 5,200 items of other clothing all piled up high in his small apartment room. Kawamura has confessed to stealing the items, which included a wedding dress. "He seemed to get a thrill out of sleeping covered in women's clothes," a police spokesman said. "He seemed to like the smell."
Does that mean they were 'second hand?' Ewwww...
No further details were available.
For which we are grateful.
Posted by: Free Radical || 06/01/2007 09:48 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How did they catch him?
Posted by: Mark E. || 06/01/2007 13:14 Comments || Top||

#2  They monitored his enormous dry cleaning bill.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/01/2007 14:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Nothing this side of the ethereal Big Bang comes close to the sensation of being smothered in the succulent aromas of a female's essence!!
Posted by: smn || 06/01/2007 21:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Nothing this side of the ethereal Big Bang comes close to the sensation of being smothered in the succulent aromas of a female's essence!!
Posted by: smn || 06/01/2007 21:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Fred, your servers froze, then doubled my comment! Watch out for the hackers, again!
Posted by: smn || 06/01/2007 21:35 Comments || Top||


59 illegal immigrants found after shooting, assaults
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is investigating several assaults and a shooting in connection with 59 illegal immigrants found Thursday in two Litchfield Park-area houses.

Acting on a tip, deputies found 49 people in a house in the 6000 block of North Florence Avenue, with 10 more in the 12500 block of West Orange Drive, according to the Sheriff's Office. Both houses are in an unincorporated area northeast of Litchfield Park. One man had been shot while three others had been beaten, according to the sheriff's office.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio described the two busts as "typical" drop houses. The injuries are evidence that violence along the border in Mexico is moving north, he added. "Now that we have our deputies trained (in federal immigration enforcement) we're going to concentrate more on these drop houses," Arpaio said.

Arpaio said suspects in the assaults and shooting were included in the arrests. No details were available on the shooting or the assaults.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement-trained deputies arrested all 59 people on suspicion of violating federal immigration laws. They will likely be turned over to ICE for deportation, Arpaio said.
Posted by: Delphi || 06/01/2007 09:46 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's that time of year. More arrested in El Paso link:

Sixty-eight undocumented immigrants were picked up in the Gateway Hotel at 104 S. Stantona, a downtown hotel where a similar bust occurred last year, based on a tip received by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents working with the Border Enforcement Security Team (BEST). ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said the 68 immigrants included two Nicaraguans and 66 Mexican nationals, including three Mexican juveniles. She said the Mexicans would be returned to Mexico within 24 hours of the bust. "With Mexican illegal aliens, oftentimes they're removed to their country the same day," Zamarripa said.

Information from that raid led agents to six other undocumented immigrants staying at the Hotel Rainbow, 317 S. El Paso.

In March 2006, ICE agents and El Paso County sheriff's deputies detained 51 undocumented immigrants who had been staying in about 20 rooms at the Gateway Hotel.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2007 13:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Only doing the crimes that Americans can't be bother doing.

/sarc
Posted by: Delphi || 06/01/2007 13:52 Comments || Top||

#3  You gotta love Uncle Joe, he'll probably send them all back to Mexico wearing pink underwear.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/01/2007 14:27 Comments || Top||

#4  And this, from Oregon:

A Department of Motor Vehicles employee in Portland helped police catch a man accused of forgery.

Alvis Hall, an employee at the North Interstate DMV, said he noticed problems with William Da Silva’s proof of Oregon residency papers on Tuesday and called authorities. “I examined him and examined him, and I just wasn't comfortable with him, and I asked for more documentation, and he didn't provide any more,” said Hall.

According to the police report, Da Silva told officers he is from the East Coast and goes by the name Warlem Campos Jacomini, a name flagged by the U.S. Marshalls.

Police said Da Silva flew to Oregon and paid a man $1,100 for fake residency documents so he could get a driver’s license.

DMV employees said reporting forgery suspects is not linked to suspicion of illegal immigration but simply about the documents. Oregon is one of 10 states that does not require U.S. citizenship or legal immigration to apply for a license. That and the fact that vehicle registration fees are among the lowest in the nation is attractive to many people who cross state borders for an Oregon driver’s license.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2007 14:29 Comments || Top||


Man with bomb in his pants arrested
More at link with video
UPDATE 4:28pm - Sheriff's Deputies confirm the device found in the man's pants was an explosive. They described it as a small, homemade golf-ball like object. Deputies say the suspect arrested, Lloyd Gabel, told them the object was "for his protection."

UPDATE 4:12pm - The Bomb Squad has subdued the man and taken a device from his pants. The man is in custody but it is unknown what the device is. Roads that were closed in the area have re-opened.

PREVIOUS REPORTS:

WEST SPOKANE --The Spokane Bomb Squad has been called to the Hilltop Mobile Home Park at 5314 W. Sunset Hwy after a man told Spokane Deputies that he has a bomb - in his pants. Deputies say the device was size of golf-ball.
"Smooth .. round .. firm .. small ...."
The man was being arrested by Spokane Deputies for unknown charges. He stopped and told them that he had a bomb. When deputies asked where, he said in his pants.

The Bomb Squad is enroute to the mobile home park. KREM 2 NEWS is heading in the other direction to the scene and will post updates right here on KREM.com.
Posted by: Flinese Whutch1826 || 06/01/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Is that a bomb in your pants or are you just glad to see me?"
Posted by: Jessica Rabbit || 06/01/2007 0:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Whoever took the inseam measurement deserves extra pay.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/01/2007 1:42 Comments || Top||

#3  [Lloyd Gabel] Man with bomb in his pants arrested!

When arrested Deputies say the suspect said, "the object is for my protection."


yep, and if anyone gets to close i'll blow my nuts off.
Posted by: RD || 06/01/2007 2:20 Comments || Top||

#4  if anyone gets to close i'll blow my nuts off

Easy for you to say.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/01/2007 7:10 Comments || Top||

#5  An Indian, a Rabbi, and a guy with a bomb in his pants walk into a bar.........
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/01/2007 12:35 Comments || Top||

#6  I can see blowing one's head off, but exploding one's balls into the next county...is down right unethical...neer to say wrong!!
Posted by: smn || 06/01/2007 21:48 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Kidney transplant TV show is a hoax
Posted by: ed || 06/01/2007 19:12 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:


Children Without Sex Is What the Future Holds
Why would one want to give up the fun part? And what sane 80-year-old wants to be dealing with a teenager?

Professor Djerassi is the man who invented the Pill, the first oral contraceptive, which triggered the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and which many would argue changed the face of society and sexual morality for ever — and not necessarily for the better.

The Pill gave us sex without children. Now Djerassi has turned that concept on its head. He believes the developed world is heading towards its next cultural revolution — children without sex.

"It is my own prediction that within the next 30 to 50 years in the Western world, many women, when young, will bank their eggs or ovarian tissue, have them frozen, and use them when they feel the time is right for them to have a child," he says. "It will become commonplace.

"The world has changed. The days are past in which women in countries like Britain have economic dependence on their husbands and take care of the children.

"The days are past when women looked after children and nothing else. Women have careers now. They are better educated, more affluent and healthier on the whole, and many are now living into their 80s.

Posted by: Glenmore || 06/01/2007 18:40 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


Italian prisoners want death penalty
Hundreds of prisoners serving life sentences in Italy called on President Giorgio Napolitano to bring the death penalty back, in a letter quoted by daily La Repubblica on Thursday. "We are tired of dying a little bit every day. We have decided to die just once and we are asking you to change our life sentence into a death sentence," the letter signed by 310 inmates said.

Italy abolished the death penalty after World War II. Life prisoners in Italy can obtain the right to brief periods of release after ten years and their conditional release after 26 years for good conduct, La Repubblica said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2007 14:54 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Breaking rocks in the hot sun,
I fought the law and the law won."
Posted by: Glenmore || 06/01/2007 15:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Jeez, almost sounds like...a Gulag, or sumthin...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/01/2007 15:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't be derceived. What those prisonners are trying to do is to have life sentences abolished so, like in Portugal, after say twenty years even serial killers are released (and to hell with theikr future victims).

After having death penalty abolished, European bleeding heart libearls are trying to have life sentences also abolished. This movement comes so opportunely ("life senttences are so inhumane people prefer death, we must abolish them") that IMHO it is 99.9% probable that it is being piloted by the abolitionists.
Posted by: JFM || 06/01/2007 16:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Hey. 45 days is like so inhumane. Give me death parole.
Posted by: Paris Hilton || 06/01/2007 17:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Who gives a rat's ass, if europe wants to turn loose all their mad dog killers to rape and murder, that is their business.
Posted by: Glatle Untervehr9447 || 06/01/2007 18:41 Comments || Top||


Today in History: The Glorious First of June
The Glorious First of June (also known as the Third Battle of Ushant and in French as the Bataille du 13 prairial an 2) was a naval battle fought in the Atlantic Ocean on 28 and 29 May and June 1, 1794 between the Royal Navy and the navy of Revolutionary France. It was the first major naval battle of the French Revolutionary Wars. . . .
Posted by: Mike || 06/01/2007 13:28 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Arrr! Take that ya skeevy pomms!
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/01/2007 14:29 Comments || Top||


Brits' teeth get brush off
AROUND 12 per cent of Brits never brush their teeth, a poll reveals. And those that do are also guilty of neglecting their gnashers.

Research by the British Dental Foundation found only 30 per cent said they brushed for two minutes — compared with 47 per cent last year. And 17 per cent could not remember changing toothbrushes.

Others admitted using items such as drill bits and saws to floss with.
I don't want to know more, I really don't ...
The foundation’s chief executive Dr Nigel Carter warned: “Failing to take care of your oral health can impact on your general health.”
Posted by: Flinese Whutch1826 || 06/01/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
but.. brushing makes my hair hurt
Posted by: Limey || 06/01/2007 2:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Socialized dentistry, and its inevitable result.
Posted by: no mo uro || 06/01/2007 5:36 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Epilogue of Monster Pig, the Hammus Alabamus
The Mystery of the Monster pig appears to have been solved. The 1,051-pound hog, shot and killed by 11-year-old Jamison Stone and the subject of a world-wide Web firestorm over the photo's authenticity, really is...

Fred.

That's "Fred" the pig, and according to Rhonda and Phil Blissitt their humongous hog escaped on April 29, four days before it was killed, according to the Star newspaper.

Late Thursday evening, their claims were confirmed by Andy Howell, Game Warden for the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. "I didn't want to stir up anything," Rhonda Blissitt said. "I just wanted the truth to be told. That wasn't a wild pig."

Her husband agreed. "If it went down in the record book, it would be deceiving, and we'd know that for the rest of our lives."

The monster hog gained worldwide acclaim after he was bagged by 11-year-old Jamison Stone, a Pickensville native, with a .50-caliber pistol on May 3 at the Lost Creek Plantation, LLC, a hunting preserve in Delta. The big boar was hunted inside a large, low-fence enclosure and fired upon 16 times by Stone, who struck the animal nearly a half-dozen times during the three-hour hunt.

The saga of young Jamison's hunt spread as the family posted the story and photos on their Web site, monsterpig.com.

The Blissitts said they were unaware that the hog generating all the media attention was once theirs. It wasn't until Howell spoke with Phil Blissitt that the pieces of the puzzle came together.

Phil Blissitt recalled Howell asking him about the now-famous hog. "Did you see that pig on TV?" Phil Blissitt recalled Howell asking him. "I said, 'Yeah, I had one about that size.' He said, 'No, that one is yours.'

"That's when I knew."

Phil Blissitt purchased the pig for his wife as a Christmas gift in December of 2004. From 6 weeks old, they raised the pig as it grew to its enormous size. Not long ago, they decided to sell off all of their pigs. Eddy Borden, owner of Lost Creek Plantation, purchased Fred.

While Rhonda Blissitt was somewhat in the dark about the potential demise of her pet, Phil Blissitt said he was under the understanding that it would breed with other female pigs and then "probably be hunted." Many other of their former pigs — like their other farm animals — had been raised for the purpose of agricultural harvest.

As the Blissitts recounted the events of the last two days, they told stories and made many references to the gentleness of their former "pet." From his treats of canned sweet potatoes to how their grandchildren would play with him, their stories painted the picture of a gentle giant. They even talked about how their small Chihuahua would get in the pen with him and come out unscathed.

"But if they hadn't fed him in a while," Rhonda Blissitt said, "he could have gotten irate."

Phil Blissitt said he became irritated when they learned about all the doubters who said photos of Fred were doctored. "That was a big hog," he said.

The information of the pig's previous owner came out on the same day that officials from the Fish and Wildlife concluded their investigation of the hunt. They concluded that nothing illegal happened under the guidelines of Alabama law. Allan Andress, enforcement chief for the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, said they learned the hog's origin as the investigation unfolded. "We were able to determine that he came from a domesticated environment," he said. "So, he was not feral to start with. Therefore, he would not violate our feral swine trapping and relocating rule."

Mike Stone, Jamison's father, contends that he was unaware of the origin of the pig. Before, during and after the hunt — and until late Thursday night, when contacted by The Star — Mike Stone was under the impression that the hog was feral. "We were told that it was a feral hog," Mike Stone said, "and we hunted it on the pretense that it was a feral hog."
The "Hammus Alabamus" was the pet pig of Lil' Abner's family.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/01/2007 19:20 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I say the kid and his dad owe that family 600 lbs of prime sausage. If the family 'raises' another Big Boy, they atleast need to radio tag him or let the authorities know of his existence to ward of similar 'accidents'!
Posted by: smn || 06/01/2007 21:44 Comments || Top||


Europe
Belgian soldiers to blowtorch caterpillars
A mini-platoon of soldiers wielding blowtorches will be deployed to the Belgian forests to tackle a plague of hairy caterpillars that are causing allergy outbreaks in humans.

Procession caterpillars, so called for the way they march in lines through forests, are covered in long, toxic hairs which cause dermatitis and respiratory problems and account for up to 80 per cent of doctor visits in the affected area.

The soldiers will spend six weeks in the eastern province of Limburg from Monday, waging a tree-by-tree war on the caterpillars, which cling in groups to trunks and branches.

"In teams of two people, they will go through the forests and burn the little animals off the trees," Belgian military spokeswoman Ingrid Baeck said.

"There have not been enough people to do this and I think we can make the difference."

Previous attempts to rid forests of the caterpillars, which number in the millions thanks to mild weather, have included spraying pesticide using a helicopter and setting hormone traps for the adult moths.

Posted by: Delphi || 06/01/2007 16:23 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  1 platoon vs millions of bugs? I keep getting this scene from Starship Troopers when they first land on the bug planet for some reason
Posted by: Valentine || 06/01/2007 17:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Nuke the site from orbit. It is the only way to be sure.
Posted by: DarthVader || 06/01/2007 18:10 Comments || Top||

#3  At least they have found an enemy they are willing to deploy their army against. Now if we can only convince the muzzies to grow a bunch of legs and hairy spines on their backs.
Posted by: Glenmore || 06/01/2007 18:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh mercy, I pray no bunnies get harmed in this horrible undertaking.
Posted by: Grusosh Borgia9229 || 06/01/2007 19:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Soylent Green is caterpillars!
Posted by: Thorn || 06/01/2007 20:00 Comments || Top||

#6  What is a Belgian mini-platoon?
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2007 20:07 Comments || Top||

#7  #6 tw - a group of little tiny chocolates.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/01/2007 21:51 Comments || Top||

#8  How about DDT?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 06/01/2007 23:09 Comments || Top||

#9  They're going to blowtorch insects? That has GOT to steam the nature freaks.
Posted by: Mike N. || 06/01/2007 23:45 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Pro-Troop Group Wants Sheehan's Land
Days after Cindy Sheehan announced she was stepping down as the face of the anti-war movement, a pro-troop organization said Friday it plans to buy her protest site outside President Bush's ranch.

But Sheehan doesn't want to sell to just anyone.

"It'll be a cold day in hell before she sells it to them," her sister, Dede Miller, told The Associated Press. "She'll sell it to them for $5 million."

Move America Forward wants to place a monument to the troops on the 5-acre site in Crawford, about 100 miles south of Fort Worth.

"There's definitely symbolism behind being able to take that land and being able to put up a monument that supports our troops," said Robert Dixon, executive director of the Sacramento, Calif.-based group. "It's purely symbolic. We're not going to be holding any rallies there."

Sheehan, who was unavailable for comment, plans to sell the land on eBay as early as next week with a starting bid of $80,000, Miller said. Since buying the property last year for $52,500, Sheehan's group has made many improvements, including putting in gravel roads, clearing brush and planting gardens, Miller said.

Dixon said that after Sheehan's announcement Monday, he was flooded with e-mails from Move America Forward members who thought the group should buy the land. The nonprofit organization had planned to erect a monument to honor U.S. troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly in Crawford, so "we figured this is the perfect thing to do," he said...
Sheehan probably doesn't know, but it is highly illegal to refuse to sell land for sale in the US to someone with the money to buy it. The Fair Housing Act includes vacant land, and is viciously enforced by HUD. And no matter what reason she might give, such as "politics", the legal *assumption* would be that she is doing it because of race, religion, or other such illegal reasons.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 06/01/2007 09:14 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hell, the city can use that eminent domain thing to take her land for the memorial.
Posted by: Penguin || 06/01/2007 10:27 Comments || Top||

#2  "It'll be a cold day in hell before she sells it to them," her sister, Dede Miller, told The Associated Press. "She'll sell it to them for $5 million."

Well at least we've established the price of a cold day in hell.
As I remember, wasn't Ma Sheehan a bit devious in the way she originally acquired this property?
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/01/2007 10:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Dixon's plan seems like a great one.

Yup, tu, you're right. An excerpt from a 7/28/06 by KXXV Channel 25 report as posted on Ankle Biting Pundits: Peace Supporter, Gerry Fonseca, says he purchased the 5-acre parcel, which cost more than $52,000. It was bought with the money from her son, Casey’s, life insurance policy. “I doubt they would have sold her the property if she tried to buy it herself,” said Foncseca. “I feel deceived,” said Celia Ramsey, who sold the land to Cindy Sheehan through a third party. She talked to News Channel 25 exclusively on the matter. “I would have never sold it to Sheehan. Nobody wants them here.” The Ramsey’s claim Fonseca told them he was an evacuee from Hurricane Katrina. Fonseca told News Channel 25 he “apologized to the Ramsey’s for the inconvenience, but we (Gold Star Families For Peace) are going to do everything in our power to not disturb them.”
Ramsey told News Channel 25, she plans on talking to a lawyer over the matter.

Devious bitch. What goes around comes around.
Posted by: GK || 06/01/2007 11:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh, please put the land on the market and then refuse to sell to a ready, willing, and able buyer.

Even better, the pro-troops group should have a several people, each with their own real estate agent, make a legitimate offer (in writing, of course), one at a time. If I understand it correctly, if she refuses, she will still owe the buyer's real estate agent (and her own) their commission. Every time. :-D

Of course, she's special - laws obviously don't apply to her.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/01/2007 17:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Why give her a profit? Wait till she ignores paying property taxes and the county seizes it for a tax sale.
Posted by: ed || 06/01/2007 18:29 Comments || Top||

#6  Why give her a profeet? Wait till she ignores paying property taxes and the county seizes it for a tax sale.
Posted by: ed || 06/01/2007 18:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Why give her a profit? Wait till she ignores paying property taxes and the county seizes it for a tax saele <- (Roadside America?! Glad I didn't write benis).
Posted by: ed || 06/01/2007 18:32 Comments || Top||

#8  What's going on? Being sent to the Roadside but the comment still went through.
Posted by: ed || 06/01/2007 18:33 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Mullahs hindering humanitarian work in Bagh
The Mullah threat that brought the reconstruction and rehabilitation work in the quake-hit Bagh district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to a halt earlier this month is still a danger to the national and international agencies that hire female staff for their projects.

It has been learnt that clerics have been exploiting the people’s sentiments for their vested interests. On the other hand, the AJK government and the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) have been making efforts to thwart their designs, with the implicit support of the army, to ensure continuity of the reconstruction work.

However, some clerics of the area have been expressing reservations about female workers and demanding they should be replaced with male staff as, they think, that their culture is being tarnished and obscenity is being promoted due to women’s working alongside men.

Sources said that these religious elements backed by chief cleric of the city’s Jamia Masjid, Maulana Abdul Manan, and some other clerics affiliated with a religio-political party, made a so-called Awami Action Front (AAF) in collaboration with some locals.

The AAF had organised several protests in Bagh a few months back and threatened the relief organisations in the district, but the local administration did not pay any heed.

The issue caught the media’s attention when on May 9 the UN announced to suspend work and pulled back its entire staff, citing “security” reasons from the area. The UN did not provide further details about its decision and the authorities kept mum due to the sensitivity of the issue.

According to UN sources, miscreants set ablaze the house of UNDSS official Kamran Khan on May 7, who was chief of security affairs of these organisations, working in a cluster.

“The house located only a few metres from the office of UN Habitat was apparently set on fire by unidentified persons and was completely gutted,” said the UN documents based on the notes taken during the proceedings of an internal meeting of the humanitarian community held at the American Refugee Committee’s (ARC) Islamabad office on May 7.

According to the documents, two local female staff of the ARC went for a picnic to Sudha Gali near Bagh with a male official of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) on May 1. The AAF informed the police, who arrested all the three on alleged charges of promoting vulgarity.

After this, the UN Habitat’s vehicle was damaged and the driver was beaten up. On the night of May 6 when the ARC vehicle was dropping the kitchen worker at his house, unidentified people threw stones at the vehicle. On the morning of May 7, the house of an official from the UNDSS was gutted.

After all this, the ARC suspended its operations in the district and stopped all types of field and vehicle movements. The agency that had 575 staff in Bagh evacuated all but four staff members, citing serious security concerns.

In a panic, all relief agencies including WFP, UN Habitat, Save the Children, Islamic Relief, Mercy Corps, Action Aid and others also suspended their activities and asked the local female staff not to come to offices till the situation improved.

The international agencies in their meeting held at ARC office in Islamabad on May 7 also complained that the local administration was not extending cooperation to ensure security of their staff.

“One way to solve these issues is to write a consolidated letter from all INGO/NGOs to the AJK chief secretary as the Bagh DC does not seem to be supportive,” the minutes of the meeting quoted the participants as saying.

Then a high-level delegation of the organisations led by UNDSS chief security advisor met with AJK chief secretary in Muzaffarbad and discussed the situation.

The chief secretary directed the DIG police and commissioner to take immediate measures to control the situation and “sternly deal with the clerics causing unrest in Bagh”.

The international donors had threatened that if the situation did not improve all the operations would be rolled back, which could cause a great loss to the Bagh people.

It is further learnt that after intervention of the government at highest level and the ERRA ensuring security to all the humanitarian community in Bagh, these agencies agreed to resume their work again a week ago, but still the staff, especially the local women, were concerned about their security.

Daily Times has also learnt that the clerics have also lured some local opportunists into exploiting the situation by managing to lease out their buildings and open plots at high rents to international agencies.

Sources said that the clerics were also exploiting sentiments of the people over, what they term, slow pace of reconstruction work in the area.
Posted by: Fred || 06/01/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not surprising, they want to live like the 1200's, so let them. How can people who still shit on the ground be worried about women helping rebuild their villages?
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/01/2007 12:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Let the locals starve long enough until they realize how important it is to kill these obstructionist mullahs. This is what needs to happen with Islam in general. Sufficient numbers of Muslims must be made to suffer for the atrocities of their jihadist indoctrinators until they start killing them in large numbers. Nothing else promises even minor results.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/01/2007 23:38 Comments || Top||


Olde Tyme Religion
Nessie Caught On Tape
"While many sightings can be attributed to a drop of the local whisky..."
Well, I'll get my chance in a few weeks to see the Lochness monster myself. I'll just have to try some of the local whiskey as advised heh. Here's my arm, twist at will ;)


EDINBURGH, Scotland - The Loch Ness monster is back — and there’s video. at link

A man has captured what Nessie watchers say is possible footage of the supposed mythical creature beneath Scotland’s most mysterious lake.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water,” said Gordon Holmes, a 55-year-old lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.

rest at link
Posted by: Jan || 06/01/2007 13:36 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  sorry for the duplicate
Posted by: Jan || 06/01/2007 18:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Why don't the Scottish just come out and say, they would appreciate if more tourists come to their country. Even if they did have an unusual animal 'back stroking' in their waters, how do I know they won't have a 16 year old with a 50 caliber handgun pop a cap in him like the kid in Alabama with 'Hogzilla' before I can get over there to see him in the zoo?!!







Posted by: smn || 06/01/2007 21:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
More on that N.Y.C. Arabic school
In September, New York City will open the nation's first public school dedicated to teaching Arabic and Arab culture. Named after the Christian Arab poet Khalil Gibran, it's one of 65 specialty dual-language schools in New York. But it's the only one that has sparked a public controversy.

Some conservative critics have warned it could breed home-grown extremists. Others have attacked it for balkanizing public education, which has historically played a primary role in helping the nation's many immigrants assimilate. Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes wrote that "Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage." He pointed to a column in the Middle East Quarterly about Middlebury College's prestigious language schools. It contended that the Arab language curriculum there "indoctrinated [students] with a tendentious Arab nationalist reading of Middle Eastern history." Jeff Wiesenfeld, trustee of the City University of New York, said "Other ethnic schools have never been infused with this ethnic triumphalism which you have in many of the Islamic academies that are known around the world as madrassahs. We recognize that most Muslim people are as law-abiding as anyone else and abhor terrorism, but most terrorists today, as they are defined today, are Muslims."

Supporters deny both claims and say the academy is designed to educate world citizens and bridge Eastern and Western cultures, something sorely needed in today's increasingly global world. Mr. Ibrahim of the Arab American Institute hopes the school will not only help train Arabic speakers, but also help dispel the myths that he contends feed fear in the nation. He likes to point out that madrassah is the Arabic word for school and that the majority of Arabs in the US, like Khalil Gibran, are Christians. At the same time, US intelligence and law-enforcement agencies desperately need qualified Arab speakers to navigate the changed world.

There are more than 60 other dual-language schools in New York, notes Joel Klein, New York schools chancellor. Most are for Spanish, but others focus on cultures as diverse as Creole, Chinese, and Russian. At the same time as they teach language and culture, they also prepare students to pass the rigorous New York State Regents Examinations. He has promised that the school's curriculum would be monitored. That assuaged Mr. Wiesenfeld's concerns. The Department of Education also moved the school to another location with more space.

The Education Department continues to stand by the school, which is slated to start with 60 sixth-grade students from diverse backgrounds. Applications are still being processed.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2007 14:57 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Department of Education also moved the school to another location with more space.

Like where? The hole at Ground Zero?
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/01/2007 15:48 Comments || Top||

#2  It's going to be a den of vipers, everyone knows good and goddamned well what they will be teaching there. Maybe not when the state examiners are there, but bet your boots they'll get around to it soon enough.
Posted by: Glatle Untervehr9447 || 06/01/2007 18:39 Comments || Top||

#3  What are you talking about? If I lived in NYC and was a kid, I would want to go there. Three years of arabic and an understanding of the culture could get you in a position to make good money. Think of it as a trade school for future military types.
Posted by: Penguin || 06/01/2007 19:30 Comments || Top||

#4  and that the majority of Arabs in the US, like Khalil Gibran, are Christians

I'd like to see some data that support that statement. Most US Arabs are Christians?

I've been in a thousands of schools throughout the USA, from the ghettos of any large city, to the French speaking bayous of LA, to the Indian reservations, to one and two room schools in WVa, and yes, to that one "famous" Saudi school just out of Washington DC, that hit the news that senior students were supporting terrorists.

And let me tell you this, that visit to that Saudi school, on the same location grid as Mt. Vernon, was a goose bump feeling.... one that happened long before 911... and, one, I won't ever forget. At that point in my professional career, I could walk into a school, and within 5 minutes, give you a complete summation of the administration, the teachers and the students. Schools have feelings. This Arab school outside of DC? Out of my league.

With my incessant questioning (cause I didn't know no better, it was 8-9 years ago) I was finally told, that this was the school that was supported by the Saudi government, and this was where the Washington Saudi's sent their kids. They wanted to adhere to the Saudi culture, and that was the purpose of the school. I couldn't get any direction from the administrator I was meeting with, as to what it was, they wanted to achieve, that brought me there for that visit. Really strange. The building was in a V shape.... girls to the right, boys to the left.... okay.... I could handle that.... but when we got down to the curriculum, of what I could do for them.... well....

It was a strange experience, and the administrator I met with had set up the appointment..... Having been in schools and meeting administrations, teachers and students in most of the 50 states.... well.... when I got back in the car.... I was shaking..... there was nothing "normal" about the feeling in that school. Hey, I've been in the worse inner city ghettos we got..... including Watts, LA... after the riots... Detroit... the list goes on and on.

This one in NY... can't be much different from the DC one. The DC one has made the news about its students..... this one? I still draw my shoulders up around my head, in a coward position, cause I so still remember that visit. That visit had to do with teaching their teachers how to teach their curriculum using the Internet!
Posted by: Sherry || 06/01/2007 23:03 Comments || Top||


The Full Rosie
To Fred and the other Mods. I sent this a couple of days ago. It may been have sent with a anonymous nym. Because I did not see it on Rantburg, I wasn't sure if it got posted, you were hanging on to it, or discarded the post. I know you guys have been having problems with DDOS recently. BTW, great job with recovering the site and keeping the bots away. I am a Network Admin myself, and understand how annoying this stuff can be.
Formatting was the problem, I didn't have time to fix it then. Please see what I had to do now. Thx. AoS.
As co-host of ABC’s The View, Rosie O’Donnell has used her daytime perch to push an array of extreme left-wing and anti-American views. Soon after her debut in September 2006, O’Donnell used the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to insist that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam." In a similar vein, she advised her audience: "Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers," while suggesting that "the Patriot Act has robbed us of us our civil liberties in this country, that fear has taken over from faith in democracy, in the Constitution" In March, O’Donnell even suggested that the government was hiding the truth of 9/11 attacks, arguing: "Miraculously, for the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible."

O’Donnell’s mean-spirited approach was known before she was hired by ABC. Guest-hosting The View back in 2005, she railed against FNC’s Sean Hannity, calling President Bush "a war criminal" and demanding to know "how many American poor children are dead, fighting a war that was never needed?" In an appearance on FNC’s At Large with Geraldo Rivera earlier in 2005, O’Donnell similarly foamed: "He is basically a war criminal. Honestly. He should be tried at The Hague."

Here are some of O’Donnell’s more noteworthy left-wing outbursts, many accompanied by audio and video clips, and with links to more detailed descriptions from MRC’s CyberAlert newsletter or our NewsBusters blog.
Site contains videos and audio sound bites
Posted by: Delphi || 06/01/2007 09:47 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All 250 pounds of that gas-bag.
Posted by: McZoid || 06/01/2007 11:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Coming up next: Obese, uninformed deviant offers loud opinions on subjects she knows little about. Right after this from "Kool Aid"...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/01/2007 12:07 Comments || Top||

#3  I always find it curious that the biggest extollers of the islamonuts are the first ones that they would pick out of the crowd and execute with a dull sword.
Is it just a muslim thing, or do they love ANYONE who hates America?
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/01/2007 14:24 Comments || Top||

#4  As co-host of ABC’s The View, Rosie O’Donnell has used her daytime perch...

I doubt she could sit on a perch without breaking it...
Posted by: Raj || 06/01/2007 14:24 Comments || Top||

#5  After reading your post, tu, I immediately began to wonder....Has anyone seen Rosie and Mikey Moore in the same place at the same time? Could be the same person (a'la Jacko and his sis, LaToya).

Enquiring minds and all. Carry on. It's been a long while since I posted, but figured I'd pop in on a Friday!
Posted by: BA || 06/01/2007 15:05 Comments || Top||

#6  We missed you, BA. I'm glad you popped in!
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2007 15:51 Comments || Top||

#7  Nero in drag. Such a drama Caesar queen.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/01/2007 15:58 Comments || Top||

#8  #3 bj: "Is it just a muslim thing, or do they love ANYONE who hates America?"

Why can't it be both? >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/01/2007 17:30 Comments || Top||

#9  How exactly does Rosie think society left the bronze age?
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/01/2007 19:22 Comments || Top||

#10  Rosie = bull = dyke
Posted by: Captain America || 06/01/2007 22:49 Comments || Top||


Science
DARPA to create brain-chipped cyborg moths
Famed US military mad-scientist bureau DARPA (the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency) is engaged in an effort to grow/build cyborg moths for use as spies. No, really.

The program is called Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems, or HI-MEMS. In it, the arguably over-caffeined DARPA boffins aim to construct a tiny lepidopterine infiltration borg by growing a living moth around a "micro-mechanical system".

"Animal world has provided mankind with locomotion over millennia,"* says Dr Amit Lal, DARPA HI-MEMS program manager. "For example we have used horses and elephants...olfactory training of bees has been used to locate mines and weapons of mass destruction. The HI-MEMS program is aimed to develop technology that provides more control over insect locomotion, just as saddles and horseshoes are needed for horse locomotion control."

Except that, rather than saddling up a moth and riding off, DARPA wants to implant a metallic core which will wear their bodies like a living cloak. Sound familiar? It does to us. If Dr Lal was using vast Austrian bodybuilders rather than moths, we'd be talking Terminator yet again (this happens rather a lot when one starts looking at the US defence establishment).

In a Times article today, Rod Brooks of MIT's computer science and artifical intelligence lab (CSAIL), was quoted on the insectoid cyber-infiltrator project. "This is going to happen," said Mr Brooks. "It's not science like developing the nuclear bomb, which costs billions of dollars. It can be done relatively cheaply."

"A bunch of experiments have been done over the past couple of years where simple animals, such as rats and cockroaches, have been operated on and driven by joysticks, but this is the first time where the chip has been injected in the pupa stage and 'grown' inside it.

"Once the moth hatches, machine learning is used to control it."

The Times doesn't say, but we get a strong impression that Mr Brooks began waving his arms wildly around at this point.

"Biological engineering is coming," he went on, gathering pace. "There are already more than 100,000 people with cochlear implants, which have a direct neural connection, and chips are being inserted in people's retinas to combat macular degeneration. By the 2012 Olympics, we're going to be dealing with systems which can aid the oxygen uptake of athletes.

"There's going to be more and more technology in our bodies...there's going to be a lot of moral debates."

For now, DARPA only aims to manufacture chipped moths, which it reckons to send into suspected terrorist facilities (presumably including al-Qaeda linen cupboards - that'll show them). The bot-cored lepidoptera will be controlled by various methods such as "electrical muscle excitation, electrical stimulation of neurons", or the intriguing "presentation of optical cues with micro-optical visual presentation", suggesting miniscule displays strapped over the hapless creatures' eyes. Our personal favourite means of moth control, however, is "projection of ultrasonic pulses simulating bats".

The tiny Terminators will be worthwhile because "insect cyborgs...could carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone...to relay back information gathered from the target destination."
Just don't connect them to Skynet. Nothing good comes from that.
Talk about a bug problem. Etc.

Worryingly, MIT's Brooks adds: "The [Defense Department] has said it wants one third of all missions to be unmanned by 2015, and there's no doubt their things will become weaponised, so the question comes: should they be given targeting authority?"

We say: please God, no. Except maybe in the case of eating holes in Osama bin Laden's clean keffiyeh.

Meanwhile, in what can only be yet another chilling media coincidence, other cyborg-related news broke today. Reuters reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger - the man who gave such a convincing portrayal of a soulless killer machine wearing human flesh as a disguise - is spearheading a new biological research initiative as governor of California. "We are as powerful as any one can ever be on stem cell research," Mr Terminator reportedly said.

Reuters also noted that: "Stem cells are a kind of master cell for the body, capable of growing into various types of cell or tissue and cell. Scientists hope to use the cells to repair tissue damaged by disease or injury."

Terrifyingly, this mirrors the language of DARPA's Lal as he describes his process for chipping-up innocent creatures and turning them into zombie slaves under computer control.

"The renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface..."

That's it. We're down to the bunker with a whole lot of survival rations. And bug spray. ®

*Verbatim. Go on, check the page.
Posted by: Flinese Whutch1826 || 06/01/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Though well-intentioned, their experiments would one day lead to a terrifying result.
Posted by: Mike || 06/01/2007 6:16 Comments || Top||

#2  At least it's a good job that there's no skynet.

SHIT!

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=392522007
Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan || 06/01/2007 7:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Paging Mothra to the white courtesy phone.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/01/2007 7:51 Comments || Top||

#4  The reporter needs to have his bias chip removed.
Posted by: 3dc || 06/01/2007 8:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Lots of robotics research in the last few years on how insects fly, recognize food etc. It's been sucessful, but not as efficient as the real thing so far. This is just one more cut at the issue.

Give it a couple years and the jihadis should (if they're savvy) start getting paranoid whenever a bug flies through the window or crawls across the wall. Watch out for those birds in the tree out there too, and the 'lizard' that just crawled up and out on the limb.

The question of autonomy is going to be the hot policy issue in robotics soon, as in over the next few years. Autonomy is pretty much moving beyond the technical issue of constructing robotic systems or hybrids that can move without direct operator command. Soon the policy issue will be what they are allowed to decide and do with little or no human judgement in the loop.

Aan aside, knowing the seminal role of Rodney Brooks and MIT's CSAIL in robotics, I'm pretty sure he didn't bother "waving his arms wildly around" when interviewed. idiot reporter.
Posted by: occasional observer || 06/01/2007 10:01 Comments || Top||

#6  What a way to die, being killed by a remote controlled bug! YEESH
Posted by: Ulavimp Dingle7880 || 06/01/2007 11:30 Comments || Top||

#7  I think it's great. Can't you just see the jihadis running around swatting moths and stomping rats in a paranoid fit?
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 06/01/2007 12:50 Comments || Top||

#8  If they do, bigjim-ky, no doubt the disease rate will go down significantly in their communities -- at least until they all die of strokes and heart attacks from the unremitting stress. Rather like when Mao decreed every Chinaman had to bring in x dead flies per day... only without the coercion and the lies.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2007 14:19 Comments || Top||

#9  Mosura ya Mosura
Dongan kasakuyan Indo muu
Rusuto uiraadoa
Hanba hanbamuyan
Randa banunradan Tounjukanraa
Kasaku yaanmu!

Posted by: The Peanuts || 06/01/2007 14:55 Comments || Top||

#10  I'll bet if you combine HI-MEMS with Bush's Hunter/Killer Dolphins and the Divine Spiders of Allah, you could probably rule the world...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/01/2007 15:21 Comments || Top||

#11  I heard that they've perfected the moth and are now working on a new system that can kill 90% of terrorists where they sleep! It's an exploding bat.
Posted by: gorb || 06/01/2007 15:44 Comments || Top||

#12  I heard that they've perfected the moth

Nothing a really big candle can't cure.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/01/2007 16:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Now I understand why the Belgian Army is at war with the procession caterpillars - DARPA's moths have gotten loose and reproduced!
Posted by: Glenmore || 06/01/2007 18:49 Comments || Top||



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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.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
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tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
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trailing wife
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2007-06-01
  Leb army attempts to seize Fateh al-Islam positions inside camp
Thu 2007-05-31
  UNSC approves Hariri court
Wed 2007-05-30
  Maliki is conducting "reconciliation" talks with Izzat Ibrahim
Tue 2007-05-29
  Iraqi Kurdistan to take charge of own security
Mon 2007-05-28
  14 Arrested in Spain on Terror Charges
Sun 2007-05-27
  U.S. Military Rescues 41 Iraqis From Al Qaeda Prison
Sat 2007-05-26
  Nangahar big turban snagged
Fri 2007-05-25
  Dems blink: House Approves War-Funding Bill
Thu 2007-05-24
  Israel seizes Hamas leaders in West Bank
Wed 2007-05-23
  PLO backs army entry into Nahr al-Bared
Tue 2007-05-22
  Hamas threatens new wave of suicide attacks
Mon 2007-05-21
  Leb army lays siege to camp as fight continues
Sun 2007-05-20
  Leb army takes on Fatah al-Islam at Paleo camp
Sat 2007-05-19
  White House rejects Democrats' offer on war spending bill
Fri 2007-05-18
  9 dead after bomb explodes at India's oldest Mosque


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