The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already. The countdown to climate-change catastrophe is spelt out by a task force of senior politicians, business leaders and academics from around the world - and it is remarkably brief. In as little as 10 years, or even less, their report indicates, the point of no return with global warming may have been reached. The report, Meeting The Climate Challenge, is aimed at policymakers in every country, from national leaders down. It has been timed to coincide with Tony Blair's promised efforts to advance climate change policy in 2005 as chairman of both the G8 group of rich countries and the European Union. And it breaks new ground by putting a figure - for the first time in such a high-level document - on the danger point of global warming, that is, the temperature rise beyond which the world would be irretrievably committed to disastrous changes. These could include widespread agricultural failure, water shortages and major droughts, increased disease, sea-level rise and the death of forests - with the added possibility of abrupt catastrophic events such as "runaway" global warming, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, or the switching-off of the Gulf Stream. Most of all, DON'T PANIC! We know how to spend your money.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
01/24/2005
9:57:51 AM ||
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#2
There have been more tidbits coming out recently on how this stuff is BS, and it seems like the more it gets questioned, the more outlandish these claims get.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/24/2005 10:09
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Idjits.
MT Etna spewed as much stuff between October 2002--January 2003 as all human caused emissions for 7 years worldwide.
A multi-million dollar study is being conducted in Aspen, for the leaders of this movement meet for a 3 month conference to further study the impact of decreasing temperatures and ice.
#6
And of course Mt Erebus in Antarctica erupting straight up into the "ozone hole" has no effect on things at all. It's spray cans and jet planes, man.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/24/2005 10:52
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#7
2b---a 3 month conference!!!!! WTF? What do you do at a conference for 3 months?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/24/2005 10:54
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#12
". . .why, it could mean the end of life as we know it."
"Oh, no! Not that! That's my favorite show!"
"Yeah, I know. That Kelli Osborne sure is hot."
"Yeah."
"Anyway, we need to convene a Plenary Conference to appoint a UN Working Group to flesh out a Preliminary Plan of Action so we can present it at the next Global Impending Doom Conference."
"Hey, right . . . and we can hold it in Los Angeles, charge it all to our expense accounts, and have Kelli Osborne be the honorary chairman."
"You're a genius!"
Posted by: Mike ||
01/24/2005 11:35
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#13
Jeepers, if it's that serious, then maybe they ought to get China and India on board their plan now instead of just urging the formation of "a climate group".
Re Seantor Snowe:
"Snowe is co-sponsor of the McCain-Lieberman 'Climate Stewardship Act of 2003' which calls for mandatory domestic reductions of carbon dioxide. In September 2003, the bill received 43 votes in the Senate, though could likely garner more support should the legislation be revisited in the next Congress."
Source: http://snowe.senate.gov/prt_environment.htm
Okay, junk science, no India, no China, and only 43 votes in the U.S. Senate. The only warming here is these do-gooders pissing in the wind.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 12:04
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#14
Doom de doom doom doom...
Will it be warmer? I'm so cold.
Posted by: Gir ||
01/24/2005 12:19
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#15
Did this announcement coincide with a viewing of "The Day After Tommorow", which just came out on DVD? I heard Al Gore was a guest speaker.
#17
Via Bros. Judd, maybe they know the jig is up and trying to grab all they can - and those are his comments, not mine:
SAVE CANADA: BURN YOUR (MAPLE) LEAVES.
Humans 'may have saved world from ice age': HUMANS may have unwittingly saved themselves from a looming ice age by interfering with the Earth's climate, according to a new study. (John von Radowitz, Irish Examiner, 1/24/05)
The findings from a team of American climate experts suggest that were it not for greenhouse gases produced by humans, the world would be well on the way to a frozen Armageddon. . . .
The research showed that without the human contribution to global warming, Baffin Island would today be in a condition of "incipient glaciation".
"Portions of Labrador and Hudson Bay would also have moved very close to such a state had greenhouse gas concentrations followed natural trends," said the scientists.
The experiment had probably underestimated the amount of ice that would exist today in north-east Canada without human interference, they said.
This has been obvious for a while to those paying attention (basically, just Harry and me).
New video pictures have been released of the Beslan school siege showing the faces of the hostage takers for the first time. It also features a negotiator talking to the terrorists as he tried to make a deal for a peaceful ending. The video comes as the families of victims continue a protest over the inquiry into the massacre. Around 100 angry parents from Beslan have blocked the motorway which passes through the town. Many have pitched tents across the road and are refusing to budge. More than 300 people taken hostage by pro-Chechen gunmen died when the siege came to a violent end.
Officially, although unofficial numbers go as high as 1800.
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised a full inquiry into the atrocity, last September. But residents say the ongoing investigation has failed to pinpoint those at fault. They are convinced that city officials in the town, near the border with Chechnya, were bribed by the killers to let them through. A spokeswoman said: "This demonstration is a result of of the parliamentary commission coming here this week and telling the mothers of the victims nothing but lies. "Many of them were inside that school and they say with their own eyes a lot of what is being denied."
EU is planning to lift arms ban on China in July 2005. This is in combination with the French-EU-China partnership on GPS Satellites.
US Could Shoot Down Euro GPS Satellites If Used By China In Wartime: Report
The United States could attack Europe's planned network of global positioning satellites if it was used by a hostile power such as China, The Business weekly reported Sunday. Galileo, a constellation of 30 satellites and ground stations due to go into operation in 2008, is being launched by the European Union and the European Space Agency to tap into a growing market of global satellite positioning. China last month became a partner in the Galileo program, which could help provide services such as communications for the 2008 Beijing Olympics but also has applications for strategic military use.
According to a leaked US Air Force document written in August and obtained by The Business, Peter Teets, under-secretary of the US Air Force wrote: "What will we do 10 years from now when American lives are put at risk because an adversary chooses to leverage the global positioning system of perhaps the Galileo constellation to attack American forces with precision?"
The paper also reported a disagreement between EU and US officials this month over Galileo at a London conference which led to the threat to blow up the future satellites. The European delegates reportedly said they would not turn off or jam signals from their satellites, even if they were used in a war with the United States. A senior European delegate at the London conference said his US counterparts reacted to the EU position "calmly".
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005
9:40:31 AM ||
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#1
Maybe threatening to destroy the ground control installations as well would get their attention.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/24/2005 10:08
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No need to threaten. Just do do the job that needs to be done at the appropriate time. The EU needs to learn that their projects with our potential adversaries do not come without risk. They apparently did not learn the lesson in Iraq.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 14:38
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"Various studies conducted within the Department of Defense (DoD) have pointed out that the economics and technologies to develop and field a credible threat to GPS are within the grasp of virtually any nation."
Source: http://www.gpsworld.com/; "GPS Vulnerability Testing: Jamming and Interference"; May 1, 2004; by Major West Kasper.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 14:49
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A senior European delegate at the London conference said his US counterparts reacted to the EU position "calmly".
EU delegate in London: "We will not deactivate the Galileo system if used by a party hostile to you."
U.S delegate in London: "No problem. We'll destroy it if we have to. Next subject?"
#5
A senior European delegate at the London conference said his US counterparts reacted to the EU position "calmly"
If used by a party hostile to the US, you can deactivate it or we can deactivate it. If you deactivate it, it will be able to turn on again. If we deactivate it, it will not turn on again. Take your choice.
[note to self, better develop inertial guidance systems on the head of a pin, in case they bump of f our GPS system.]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/24/2005 22:22
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#6
destroy? Hack em and use em!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 22:23
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January 24, 2005: One of the long time beneficiaries of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns will be the infantry. In addition to all the invaluable combat experience, the infantry is getting attention to its equipment needs in a way rarely seen, even in wartime. For the past sixty years, defense spending went into big ticket items, even for the ground forces. More expensive tanks and artillery got most of the cash, and things like better packs or weapons for the grunts took second place. The current infantry-intense wars have changed all that, and the army is under pressure to cut back on big ticket items, and put lots more money into what the infantry needs. The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut, and other high priced systems are threatened as well. Now the pressure is on to cut the billions budgeted for developing the next generation of armored vehicles (FCS, or Future Combat System.) The navy and air force are also being forced to make cuts, so the army, mainly the infantry, can have whatever they need or, increasingly, whatever they want.
Putting more money into the infantry seems like a good investment. The current generation of infantry are the best trained and most effective in American history. They get the job done quickly, while taking historically low casualties. All of this is not an unmitigated disaster for the other services, for one of the things the infantry want is better communications and sensors. The other services must be re-equipped so everyone can talk to each other. The infantry are getting individual radios, micro-UAVs (so a company commander can have his own little air force), better night vision equipment and small, rugged computers to run all the stuff. A generation of kids who grew up on PCs, cell phones and video games are now in the infantry, and they expect all these gadgets, and know how to use them. But to make all this battlefield Internet work, the other services need communications upgrades as well. So to provide the infantry with the "network-centric" tools they want, you have to equip everyone else in the army with the new radios and satellite communications. Same for the air force and navy. Everyone benefits, but they only get new stuff that makes it easier for the infantry to do their jobs.
It's about time. The infantry has been left in the dust for several centuries, as most money went into mobile forces (cavalry then, tanks now), artillery and, in the last century, the biggest money pit of all, air power. Ironically, precision weapons have made much of this shift towards emphasis on infantry possible. With things like inexpensive guided missiles and smart bombs, the infantry can quickly call in enormous amounts of fire power to eliminate enemy forces a hundred or so meters in front of them. Speed and accuracy changes everything. So does technology. New lightweight and strong materials make it possible to provide very effective body armor. The U.S. Army is also testing a new assault rifle, a multi-billion dollar project that has been put off for years because of the expense. But now it's the infantry that are the only ones who can do the fighting in low-intensity wars, so you put your money where it will do the most good.
Some credit has to go to the elite infantry of SOCOM (Special Forces, Rangers and Delta Force commandoes). They showed what could be done with an expense account. SOCOM has long had a pot of money they could use on any weapons or equipment they thought might be useful. Out of this came a lot of new stuff that would have never made it through the torturous army procurement process. But if something new works in combat, it's "combat tested" and the bureaucrats can't keep it away from the troops. All combat units now have mad money for whatever the commander wants to try out, and no one wants to reverse the practice.
The army knows it has good infantry, it's paying larger and larger reenlistment bonuses to experienced NCOs in uniform. Often the bonuses are larger than fighter pilots got in the past when such pilots were scarce. Billions are going into combat simulators for the infantry, again more money than the fighter pilots ever got for their simulators. Two decades of being selective about who they let into the infantry, and spending more money on equipment and training, has paid off. Of course if you ask a marine, he'll allow as how the GIs have gotten better, and some might even make it as marines. The marines have always stressed excellence in training, but, like riflemen everywhere, did it on a short budget. For too many generations, the infantry were seen as unlucky saps who got a bad break when they were handed a rifle and orders to the front. But infantry fighting is a complex business. Studies done during World War I and II showed that. But this realization that putting your best people into the infantry never translated into spending more money on them. Except for the development of "elite" infantry like commandos, it wasn't until recently that it was discovered that all infantry could be "elite" if you spent enough time and money training and equipping them. It's about time.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
9:18:50 AM ||
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#2
The navy and air force are also being forced to make cuts, so the army, mainly the infantry, can have whatever they need or, increasingly, whatever they want
No military expert here but what does htis mean for our ability to stay far ahead of the ChiComs in naval and air power? Don't let China sneak up on us while we're killing the jihadists.
#3
Unless the Chicoms engage in a crash program of a modern blue water Navy complete with aircraft carriers, most of their naval operations will be littoral in nature, and we are working out the doctrine for this type of naval warfare.
#4
Would most of that doctrine involve staying over the horizon in various directions, and shooting hellishly accurate boom-things at them, thus wiping out lots of them while our guys kvetch about the occasional stubbed toe?
#5
I hear ya lex & that's a good point. We don't want to get so bogged down in using Iraq/Afghan as the model for future conflicts when it's very likely China will be the next main opponent.
The USMC actually has what's called a LWTC, Littoral Warfare Training Center. As 80% of all the countries in the world have their capital within 200 miles of a major body of water/ocean (or some such stat I've heard.)
#6
China is building a blue-water navy. But they have no realistic naval target for the next generation but Taiwan, and they don't need a carrier for that. Don't let that fool you. Many in Peking still recall the last Chinese blue-water Navy which circumnavigated the world.
Posted by: Mac Suirtain ||
01/24/2005 14:17
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Hey Chuck, can you back up that statement? I have never heard that the Chinee Navy (even at its height sometime in the middle of the last MILLENIA) ever circumnavigated the earth. Can you back up this little bit of information?
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
01/24/2005 14:21
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James, while Chinese circumnavigating the globe may well be myth (many records were destroyed), in the fifteenth century China had the largest blue water navy the world had ever seen and certainly explored the Indian ocean.
China's decline and Europe's rise is an interesting study in culture wars with parallels for today with the technocrats on the Right versus the Green/Left 'stability' and change will take us down the road to disaster crowd (ref global warming). Link
#10
PB: James, while Chinese circumnavigating the globe may well be myth (many records were destroyed), in the fifteenth century China had the largest blue water navy the world had ever seen and certainly explored the Indian ocean.
China's decline and Europe's rise is an interesting study in culture wars
China dismantled its navy because it cost huge sums of money to maintain. (Today's navies are also extremely expensive). What is interesting is how the European powers found a way to pay for their navies, and how a remote island power on the northwestern edge of Europe became the greatest naval power of all, overawing Portugal, Spain and Holland in turn. How did Europe make naval expansion monetarily viable, where the legendarily commerce-minded Chinese empire was unable to?
#11
Zhang, arguably Britain's navy never made economic sense. They paid for it becuase they could (after the industrial revolution) and becuase preventing invasion was their over-riding geopolitical concern - security at any cost.
#12
IIUC the British navy allowed them (an island country of limited manpower, compared to, say Russia or China) to project that power/empire more than a bazillion troops
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 18:54
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Spot on Frank G.
A million man army is impressive if your worried mainly about defending your homeland or menacing bordering countries. However, if you've no realistic logistical means to move them or *project* power via naval transpo your military becomes a fairly one dimensional force.
#14
How did Europe make naval expansion monetarily viable, where the legendarily commerce-minded Chinese empire was unable to?
I'd have to guess it was related to the vast increase in wealth stemming from the extraction of huge quantities of gold and silver in the New World in the 16c and the vast increase in trade and productive activity that such hard assets financed. Capitalism more than mercantilism.
#15
arguably Britain's navy never made economic sense
I disagree. Britain in the 17-18c experienced an extraordinary increase in trade in the caribbean, north america and africa and india. Such trade could never have been possible without secure sea lanes. In that era piracy, including state-directed piracy, very easily and efficiently knocked out of the global maritime commerce game any nation that could not protect its commercial fleets.
#16
yes money, equipment , man/woman power is needed.
What should be done when they come home....to a broken household, maybe disabled veteran, and a society who wants nothing to do with them.
Andrea
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/24/2005 20:55
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#17
What should be done when they come home....to a broken household, maybe disabled veteran, and a society who wants nothing to do with them. Andrea
any examples of that Andrea? Other than the Dem/Antiwar leftists?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 21:02
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#18
"The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut"
I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress.
#19
apologies are for Republicans. The girl couldn't swim... I did make sure that, if she'd lived, her medicare would've covered drowning injuries, so, no harm, no foul
#20
"The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut"
I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress.
#21
"The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut"
I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress.
January 24, 2005: In Iraq, military intelligence specialists have been eagerly investigating how police in the United States investigate, and identify criminal gangs back home. That's because the enemy in Iraq typically belongs to a criminal, or terrorist group, that operates like a gang. There are cultural differences, and dealing with these quirks causes the most problems. On the positive side, there is a large industry in the United States that supplies special software to police departments, for handling investigations. This stuff is basically database software with formats and analysis abilities tweaked to assist police investigations. These programs have been revolutionizing detective work over the last two decades. It took a few months, after the invasion, for the intel people in Iraq to become aware of this software, and they were helped greatly by reservists who were police commanders or detectives in their civilian jobs.
It was discovered that the "gangs of Iraq" operated in a similar fashion to ethnic gangs (including Arab ones) in the United States and Europe. Thus genealogical software came in handy, as did new cell phone tracking and bugging software and equipment. Regular (land-line) phones are unreliable in Iraq, and the new cell phones services are more popular. Even when they discovered how easy it was to track cell phones, many Iraqi gangsters and anti-government fighters refused to give them up. The genealogy software is useful in tracking the relations between family members in gangs. Many gangs are basically family based, with many distant cousins coming together because of family loyalty.
Terrorist attacks are treated like serial criminals. This type of criminal behavior is most widely known when it is murder. But there are many kinds of serial crime, and U.S. intel specialists found that attacks on Iraqi police and U.S. troops was, in most cases, just another serial crime. The perpetrators would often follow a pattern, one that the software could pick out. One thing leads to another, and arrests often result. DNA analysis and all the tools you see on CSI, are brought to bear. It's no accident that the 4th Infantry Division captured Saddam Hussein. The 4th Infantry is the most high tech outfit in the army, with more geeks per battalion than any other combat organization.
Financial auditing and tracking assets also proved useful. Much of the violence in Iraq is financed by billions of dollars Saddam and his cronies stole. Over a billion dollars of that money, in U.S. currency, was discovered right after Saddam fell. There is a parallel effort to create Arabic interfaces for a lot of this software, so the Iraqi police can use it as well. There are a lot of new electronic tools being put to use. Cheap video cameras, especially those equipped with software that can identify some of what the camera sees, have been very useful. Many of these cameras have night-vision capability, and have caught a lot of the bad guys sneaking around, in what they thought was under the cover of darkness. These cameras have proved useful at checkpoints, providing a record of what went on, and a way to quickly refute charges that civilians were abused when they were stopped.
The computerized intel records also make it easier to get replacement troops up to speed quickly. This process begins before the new intel units arrive, as copies of databases can be transmitted back to the United States, and video conferences or chat room sessions held to discuss the data, and the current situation in Iraq. Thus the intelligence effort continues relentlessly, even with the American troops being replaced every year.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
9:08:31 AM ||
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AH HAH! [dislocates arm, patting myself on back]
I've been saying all along that the Tikrit thugocracy and its spawn were a criminal enterprise and not government. If the United States operated this way, Robert "Klucker" Byrd and Ted "Swim For It" Kennedy would be related by blood, rather than just having been sired by the same master vampire. BTW, just where is Buffy when you need her?
#2
I have long felt it would be a major breakthrough when Iraq stopped having the feel of a military campaign, and evolved into something like a big episode of "Cops". The psychology is completely different, as are the techniques. Eventually, the smarter criminals will realize that there is a lot more money to be made in "money", than there is in violence. In other words, smuggling consumer goods instead of weapons; drugs, gambling and prostitution instead of kidnapping and murder, etc.
#3
The real story in Iraq now is the contest between democrats and fascist gangs. This isn't civil war, this is the suppression of fascist criminals intent on strangling democracy in its crib.
#4
This is what would have happened had the federal German government had the strength to go after the brownshirts in the 1920's (instead of having their treasury looted paying reparations to the French).
#5
This is what would have happened had the federal German government had the strength to go after the brownshirts in the 1920's (instead of having their treasury looted paying reparations to the French).
#6
This is what would have happened had the federal German government had the strength to go after the brownshirts in the 1920's (instead of having their treasury looted paying reparations to the French).
Police have arrested the suspected killer of the imam of a mosque in Saudi Arabia, and are investigating a possible terrorist motive, reports said Monday. Saudi daily al-Watan said worshippers in the mosque of Afiriya in the western city of Ranya were stunned when a man barged in during Friday prayers last week, brandishing a pistol which he fired at the mosque's imam, killing him instantly. The killer was later captured by police and turned out to be the cousin of the victim.
Isn't everyone in the Magic Kingdom related to each other?
"The killer admitted his crime, but the motives were still not clear ... Police are investigating whether he had any links with terrorist groups or if his act was an act of vendetta," the paper said.
Or it could be over a girl cousin they both wanted
It also said the killer had a criminal record.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
9:03:53 AM ||
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(2005-01-23) -- In lofty language reminiscent of President George Bush's second inaugural address, Abu Musab Zarqawi tells the Iraqi people in a newly-released speech that Islamic rule is the antidote to democracy and the only hope for returning the country to its "pre-invasion glory days."
In a dramatic address reportedly crafted by a 'neoliberal' speechwriter within his administration, Mr. Zarqawi urged the Iraqi people to "throw off the oppressive mantle of self-determination."
"We are led," said Mr. Zarqawi, "by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of Islamic rule in our land increasingly depends on the success of Islamic rule in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the destruction of democracy in all the world. Freedom, after all, is just another word for 'nothing left to lose.'"
U.S. Senator John F. Kerry, D-MA, said the Zarqawi speech reinforced his own repeated calls to withdraw American troops from Iraq as quickly as possible, "to avoid imposing our culture-bound values on its people."
"Zarqawi offers a powerful alternative to Bush's provincial rhetorical hubris," Mr. Kerry said. "Even though Mr. Zarqawi is Jordanian, he has won the hearts, and often the heads, of the Iraqi people."
Posted by: Korora ||
01/24/2005
8:58:10 AM ||
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Brilliantly satirical, as always, but depressingly close to the truth: it really isn't that hard to imagine a dimwit like Kerry, or a Barbara Boxer, saying something that stupid.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/24/2005 10:17
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The Saudi interior minister has said the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, is an agent of an enemy of the oil-rich kingdom. Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said, "Bin Laden is the agent of a certain party, no doubt."
So he's a Zionist agent?
Nayef did not identify the suspected party, the daily newspaper Okaz reported Monday.
"I can say no more!"
"The threat of terrorism in the kingdom persists, but the security forces are even stronger in their bid to combat it and eradicate it altogether," Nayef said. "The shadow of terrorism will continue to exist as long as the sick and deviating minds are not eradicated and uprooted," he said, commenting on bin Laden's call to his followers to attack oil installations in Iraq and Gulf countries. Nayef said that the Saudi government would hold an international anti-terrorism conference Feb. 5. More than 100 people have been killed and dozens wounded in terrorist attacks that have swept Saudi Arabia over the past two years.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
8:47:13 AM ||
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It sucks when the chickens come home to roost. With car bombs.
SUPPORTERS of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have executed an Egyptian and two Iraqi drivers on a street in broad daylight, according to videos shown on a website.
A first grisly video showed a man identified as Ibrahim Mohammed Ismail, born in 1966, on his knees, handcuffed and blindfolded on a street before a masked man shot him in the head.
Mr Ismail was shown earlier saying he worked for a Kuwaiti company identified as Al-Shallahi, which provides US forces with drinking water, and urging his compatriots not to come to Iraq or work for the Americans.
"Despite all the warnings from the mujahedeen ... these apostates continue to help the occupier shed the blood of those who refuse to submit," the militants, identifying themselves as members of al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda Group in the Land of Two Rivers, said in a statement after the execution.
A second video showed the execution of two Iraqis.
The first was identified as Ali Hussein Jassim Mohammed al-Zubeidi, a resident of Sadr City, a Shiite district of Baghdad, who worked for a Lebanese company which supplies American troops in Ramadi.
The second Iraqi was named as Ahmad Alwan Hussein al-Mahmudawi, a colleague with the same company.
The pair said they were paid $US150 ($195) a month, compared with average public sector monthly salaries of between $5 and $10 during the final decade of ousted president Saddam Hussein's rule under international sanctions.
"We advise those working for the Americans to stop doing so. Don't come to Ramadi, the city of the mujahedeen, otherwise you will be killed," the two men could be heard saying.
They were then taken to a road, probably in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Ramadi, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs, and beheaded in public.
Al-Zarqawi, a Sunni extremist who has a $US25 million bounty on his head, called in an audiotape attributed to him on Sunday for an all-out war on the January 30 elections set to be won by members of Iraq's Shiite majority.
In the audiotape, the voice said the polls were a "wicked trap aimed at putting the Rafidha (a derogatory term for Shiites) in the seat of power.
"Four million Rafidhi have been brought in from Iran to take part in the elections so that they realize their aim of taking most seats in the pagan assembly," the voice said.
Also on Sunday, his group claimed in an Internet statement to have killed a leading member of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/24/2005
8:37:09 AM ||
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The pair said they were paid $US150 ($195) a month, compared with average public sector monthly salaries of between $5 and $10 during the final decade of ousted president Saddam Husseinâs rule under international sanctions.
"We advise those working for the Americans to stop doing so. Donât come to Ramadi, the city of the mujahedeen, otherwise you will be killed," the two men could be heard saying.
That's good pay. Are they trying to recruit or to discourage? Either way, they are recruiting. Jeeze, some of these guys will agree to blow themselves up for a not-so-hot lump sum.
Choices, choices these Iraqi's must make - take the lump sum from the Jihadi's or annunities with reduced risk from the Americans.
#8
2b, right on. We should be advertising that. Hell, pay them $195.00 a month, and a $25,000.00 life insurance policy. Make the mujahedeen compete. I'm sure we can beat them in a capitalist game.
#10
What are the police and army guys paid? That's their competition, and the lines are much longer to join the good guys. Not to mention that for the IP and the ING death is possible... but not certain.
I find it interestng that just prior to both their election and ours - there was a rumor of capture (OBL for USA, Zarqawi for Iraq), then a tape released and then.... I guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
IRAQ said today the arrest of two lieutenants of Islamic extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of whom was said to be plotting election day attacks and was implicated in the 2003 bombing of the UN Baghdad headquarters. "Iraqi security forces arrested January 15 Sami Mohammad Said al-Jaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, who was one of Zarqawi's deputies," the government said in a statement. "Abu Omar al-Kurdi was responsible for 32 attacks including the (August 2003) car bombing" of the UN headquarters in Baghdad that killed more 20 people including UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Kurdi was planning attacks on polling stations in Baghdad for election day, the statement said. A second man identified as Hassan Hamad Abdullah Mohsen al-Duleimi who was in charge of "propaganda" for Zarqawi, was arrested on January 14.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/24/2005
8:32:40 AM ||
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#1
hmmmm - seems like we're rolling up his command structure. That would be easier to do if he was already in custody, no?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 10:02
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maybe Frank. Or maybe we're just getting better overall, getting more tips from locals, conducting lots of raids, getting assistance from Iraqi forces, etc. I think that this is the announcement that the Interior Minister hinted at when we invoked the 48 hour rule - this is the substitute for getting Zarq, not the fruit of getting Zarq. Id be happy to be wrong though.
#4
Hassan Hamad Abdullah Mohsen al-Duleimi..... was arrested on January 14.
..arrested January 15 Sami Mohammad Said al-Jaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi
Had them in the jug for a week before announcing it, eh? Nice, Zarq will be wondering what they're saying, forcing him to move and change some plans.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005 12:32
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#5
We give them free dentistry, too? When word gets out, they'll be beating down the doors to surrender themselves :-P
I don't agree with the author's conclusions, and I think some of his premises are flawed, but he makes an interesting argument. From the Wall Street Journal, presented entire.
A hundred years ago, Republican presidential incumbent Theodore Roosevelt had just defeated the now obscure Judge Alton B. Parker, the army had long been fighting Muslim insurrectionists in the Philippines and was recasting itself to fight insurgencies, reformers were concerned with the environment and money politics, and the country's meat supply was viewed with suspicion.
Those absorbing passions would nonetheless prove completely irrelevant to the influenza pandemic that little more than a decade later would kill 50 million people, including half a million Americans; to the rise of Germany, Japan, and Russia; and to the century's three great wars.
Our own absorbing passions, which are remarkably similar, have blinded us in the same way. We have yet to find a serviceable framework for the application of our military power in the war on terrorism; in view of potential catastrophes of which we have a great deal of forewarning, we have yet to provide adequately for what used to be called civil defense; and we have no policy in regard to China's steady cultivation of power that soon will vie with our own. Some here have commented on this point at length. Though any one of these things is capable of dominating the coming century, not one has been properly addressed.
God help the army that must fight for an idea rather than an objective. After somehow failing to argue competently on behalf of a patently justifiable invasion, and as its more specious arguments were collapsing,Because everyone disowned the positions they'd taken up until the moment of invasion the Bush administration then pivoted with breathtaking enthusiasm to nation building, something so Clinton-tinged that it had previously been held in contempt. The more that nation building in Iraq is in doubt, is it? the more the mission creeps into a doubling of bets in hope of covering those that are lost. Now the goal is to reforge the politics, and perforce the culture, not merely of Iraq but of the billion-strong Islamic world from Morocco to the South Seas. That--evangelical democracy writ overwhelmingly large--is the manic idea for which the army must fight. I would have said the Army holds the ground while the politicians fight, but this is far outside my expertise. Oh, and we're seeing a remarkable number of calls for democratic involvement in countries where that was unthinkable, and fairly unsafe, just a few days ago.
But no law of nature says a democracy is incapable of supporting terrorism, true so even if every Islamic capital were to become a kind of Westminster with curlicues, the objective of suppressing terrorism might still find its death in the inadequacy of the premise. Even if all the Islamic states became democracies, the kind of democracies they might become might not be the kind of democracies wrongly presumed to be incapable of supporting terrorism. And if Iraq were to become the kind of democracy that is the kind wrongly presumed (and for more than a short period), there is no evidence whatsoever that other Arab or Islamic states, without benefit of occupying armies, would follow. And if they did, how long might it last? They do not need Iraq as an example, they have Britain and Denmark, and their problem is not that they require a demonstration, but rather their culture, history, and secret police.
If we could transform Germany and Japan, then why not Iraq? Approximately 150,000 troops occupy Iraq, which has a population of 26 million and shares long open borders with sympathetic Arab and Islamic countries where popular sentiment condemns America. The Iraqi army was dispersed but neither destroyed nor fully disarmed. The country is divided into three armed nations. Its cities are intact.
In contrast, on the day of Germany's surrender, Eisenhower had three million Americans under his command--61 divisions, battle hardened. Other Western forces pushed the total to 4.5 million in 93 divisions. And then there were the Russians, who poured 2.5 million troops into the Berlin sector alone. All in all, close to 10 million soldiers had converged upon a demoralized German population of 70 million that had suffered more than four million dead and 10 million wounded, captured, or missing. No sympathizers existed, no friendly borders. The cities had been razed. Germany had been broken, but even after this was clear, more than 700,000 occupation troops remained, with millions close by. The situation in Japan was much the same: a country with a disciplined, homogenous population, no allies, sealed borders, its cities half burnt, more than three million dead, a million wounded, missing, or captured, its revered emperor having capitulated, and nearly half a million troops in occupation. And whereas both Germany and Japan had been democracies in varying degree, Iraq has been ruled by a succession of terrifying autocrats since the beginning of human history.
To succeed, a paradigm of "invade, reconstruct, and transform" requires the decisive defeat, disarmament, and political isolation of the enemy; the demoralization of his population and destruction of its political beliefs; and the presence, at the end of hostilities, of overwhelming force. With U.S. military capacity virtually unchanged since the Clinton years, I thought that this year they begin upsizing? and a potentially heavy draw upon American forces in other crises, the paradigm is untenable. Though against all odds it may succeed temporarily in Iraq, it is premised upon succeeding in far too many other places of fierce and longstanding antipathy to what we represent.
An impressive civil-defense effort has been made, but only relative to the absence of anything before it. It isn't a question of gaps in the fence here and there, but of sections of the fence here and there. Four and a half years after September 11th, air cargo is still not x-rayed; illegal immigration and drug smuggling prove that the borders are porous; simulated attacks are almost always a walk-over for the red-teams; and the nature of chemical, nuclear, and biological terrorism remains such that merely rattling terrorist networks is insufficient.
Although nuclear detonations in American cities are not to be slighted, still, the greatest and most likely perils are natural epidemics and biological warfare. A common belief among public health experts is that a viral shift such as that which caused the 1918-19 pandemic is almost certain. Yes, but in the U.S. at least, the population is much more spread out, much healthier, and the epidemiologists are much better at recognizing and isolating early carriers. And lots of us have well-filled pantries, and our computers allow us to work in isolation at home. Estimates of the number of dead run to the hundreds of millions world-wide and scores of millions in the U.S. If nature fails to deliver an epidemic, it is unfortunately easy for a highly trained terrorist, by genetic manipulation, to create a super-virulent pathogen with a nearly 100% rate of mortality. From what I've read, it may be easy to create, but not as easy to spread. Natural or artificial epidemics are collectively the greatest threat this country has ever faced, ever? and will not be exceeded for decades to come. But though the biological sciences advance day by day and could put up a spirited defense, they can do so only if efforts are begun now on a scale several orders of magnitude beyond what is scheduled. Given current plans and preparations, this will not occur, and the greatest enemy the country has ever known will have no opposition.
By taking intelligent advantage of the fertile relation between economic development and military capacity, China will be able to leverage its extraordinary growth into superpower parity with the United States. Without the destruction of Chinese social and political equilibrium, this is only a matter of time. And just as we had no policy for dealing with the rise of Germany, Japan, and (prior to the late 1940s) Russia, we have none here.
But with the exception of South Korea, which chafes under our protection and may eventually break from the fold, tt seems to me we are slowly turnng SKorea loose our major allies in the Pacific are islands, and conveniently in this regard our strengths are the air, the sea, space, and amphibious warfare. We have not since the Korean War been able to face China on the mainland, but if we vigorously augment what we do best, we and our allies--by deterrence and maneuver rather than war--can hold the chain of islands well into the coming century or longer, after which our objective would be to contest the open ocean. China's objective is to establish a defensive line to the east of the chain, and it is building up its navy accordingly. But we, to prepare for the coming maritime century in the Pacific, are forcing naval strength to its lowest levels since the 1930s.
Uneven and ineffective application of military power, vulnerability to mass terrorism and natural epidemics, blindness to the rise of a great competitor: matters like these, that may seem remote and abstract, are seldom as remote and abstract as they seem. A hundred years ago, our predecessors, unable to sense what had already begun, did not know the price they would pay as the century wore on. But, as the century wore on, that price was exacted without mercy. I was under the impression that clearly seeing the future is the province of God, not Man. Certainly I'm generally surprised by what I find in the future when I finally get there.
Mr. Helprin is a novelist, a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/24/2005
7:49:56 AM ||
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#1
He's right on target re the biological threat. Any truly intelligent islamofascist has to be thinking of how to genetically engineer viruses that could wipe out millions of infidels in short order.
#2
The best hospitals and researchers are in the industrialized world. I think the third world would be the ones to truly suffer if such a pandemic were unleased.
#3
"...it is unfortunately easy for a highly trained terrorist, by genetic manipulation, to create a super-virulent pathogen with a nearly 100% rate of mortality."
Sounds easy, doesn't it! But how many "highly trained terrorists" do applied research in modern genetic weapons labs? And novelist Helprin doesn't even recognize that a pathogen with 100% mortality is useless as a weapon unless it produces a very slowly-developing illness. [Anybody in your neighborhood had ebola recently?] And if these highly-trained bio-chemist-genetic expert terrorists did manage to build such a superbug, it would take less than a day for it to fly on airplanes to their side of the world. So the point would be...?
Mr. Helprin, like the global warming crowd, has seized on a tabloid-grade non-issue that gains him print-space and fame from the science-ignorant MSM and will probably get grant money for researchers and bureaucrats too desperate and lame to tackle real problems.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 13:56
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#4
Why can't the terrorists simply connect with sympathetic scientists? Ever heard of Dr Khan? Surely eh must have his counterparts in the biological field.
#5
That's an interesting point, lex. Dr. Kahn found his place in the world by stealing existing enrichment technology and re-selling it. But what labs have this biological weapons technology and how easy is it to get a spy in and the details out? And how much human testing gets done? And how easy is it to limit the damage to the desired population?
No, if I were a terrorist mastermind I wouldn't bother. Radioactive contamination is easier to execute, easier to limit to the infidels, and lasts a long, long time.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 14:30
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#6
what labs have this biological weapons technology
Look North.
how easy is it to get a spy in and the details out?
Don't need spies. The Russian security forces are thick with oil trader middlemen who operate through Dubai and can get you nearly anything you like from the FSU. And the Russian biologists are looking for cash.
"Prior to joining TTDC, Dr. Sabetsky was the Head of the Laboratory for the âRussian Federation State Research Institute of Highly Pure Biopreparationsâ in St. Petersburg, Russia. There Dr. Sabetsky's research focused on novel delivery systems for vaccines, peptides, enzymes, cytokines and other biologically active substances...."
Get it?
#10
There is a vast difference between activities like making and spreading sarin or anthrax vs. lex's fear that some Islamofanatic might "genetically engineer viruses that could wipe out millions of infidels in short order".
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 16:16
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#11
The ratios are wrong. Historically, occupation/pacificatiopn.conversion have needed 1::9 ratio (WW2, Malaysia, etc), but we have less than 1::20 these days. Another 50K troops would have been ideal.
#12
The ratios are wrong. Historically, occupation/pacificatiopn.conversion have needed 1::9 ratio (WW2, Malaysia, etc), but we have less than 1::20 these days. Another 50K troops would have been ideal.
#13
The ratios are wrong. Historically, occupation/pacificatiopn.conversion have needed 1::9 ratio (WW2, Malaysia, etc), but we have less than 1::20 these days. Another 50K troops would have been ideal.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. ,20016
Dear Concerned Citizen:
Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Our administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear in Washington.You'll be pleased to learn that thanks to concerned citizens like you, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care.
Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.
Although Ahmed is sociopathic and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome these character flaws.
Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. He will bite you, given the chance. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We do not suggest that you ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.
Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters (except sexually) since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him, and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that Ahmed will recommend as more appropriate attire. I'm sure the women in your household will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka - over time. Just remind them that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" - wasn't that how you put it?
Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you, who know so much, keep us informed of the proper way to do our job.
You take good care of Ahmed - and remember...we'll be watching. Good luck!
Rear Adm. William Crowder, commander of the USS Abraham Lincoln, dismissed fears that the U.S. military is ending its relief effort for tsunami victims too soon, as a U.N. agency delivered aid on its own for the first time Sunday - a sign of civilian groups preparing to fill the gap as militaries pull out. On Sunday, a 400-ton landing vessel carrying World Food Program aid was due to arrive in Sumatra's coastal Calang city, said program spokesman Gerald Bourke _ the first time the U.N. agency has used its own ship to deliver aid in the disaster.
#2
This is great! Now we can pull out our personnel, and allow the affected countries to make their own comparisons between the responses as to efficiency. Needless to say, the matter of timeliness has already been settled.
#3
BAR - except by the end of 2005 when they are doing all the 'year in review' shows Dan Rather and the MSM will be telling now the Koffi and the UN were so quick to respond to the disaster rushing tons and tons of ai to the areas within days of the disaster while the Lincoln made a mere 'showing of the flag'....
Mark my words they will start spinning it in that direction by March, April at the latest....
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/24/2005 10:45
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#7
People always complain about the US spending too much money on hotels and lunches, but the UN's stragegy would have been much more cost effective overall, in the long run.
#12
Title that "UN delivers tsunami aid four weeks late".
Subtitle it "Has French aid ship left Mediterranian?".
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 11:28
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#13
After a "small" handling fee of say 50%.....
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
01/24/2005 11:46
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#14
And what does their aid relief consists of? "I support the U.N." bumper stickers, pet rocks, cans of dehydrated water, ping pong balls, swizzle sticks, remaindered "We Are The World" music CDs, and 50,000 copies of the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming.
#15
..except by the end of 2005 when they are doing all the 'year in review' shows Dan Rather and the MSM will be telling now the Koffi and the UN were so quick to respond to the disaster rushing tons and tons of ai to the areas within days of the disaster while..
Danny can put one hell of an artificial shine on the UN, but the blogosphere is more than a match for bullshit. The days of the MSM being largely unchallenged are over.
According to a poll by the University of Bielefeld, 62 per cent of Germans are "sick of all the harping on about German crimes against the Jews" - which is an unusually robust formulation for a multiple-choice questionnaire, but at least has the advantage of leaving us in no confusion as to how things stand in this week of panEuropean Holocaust "harping on". The old joke - that the Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz - gets truer every week.
I have some sympathy for that 62 per cent. Killing six million people is a moral stain on one's nation that surely ought to endure more than a couple of generations. But, on the other hand, almost everything else about the Germany of 60 years ago is gone - its great power status, its military machine, its aggressive nationalism, its need for lebens-raum. The past is another country, but rarely as foreign as the Third Reich. Why should Holocaust guilt be the only enforced link with an otherwise discarded heritage?
"Enforced" is the operative word. If most Germans don't feel guilty about the Holocaust, there's no point pretending they do. And that's the problem with all this week's Shoah business: it's largely a charade. The European establishment that has scheduled such lavish anniversary observances for this Thursday presides over a citizenry that, even if one discounts the synagogue-arsonists and cemetery-desecrators multiplying across the Continent, is either antipathetic to Jews, or "sick of all the harping on", or regards solemn Holocaust remembrance as a useful card to have in the hand of the slyer, suppler forms of anti-Semitism to which Europe is now prone.
From time to time, the late Diana Mosley used to tell me how "clever" she thought the Jews were. If you pressed her to expand on the remark, it usually meant how clever they were in always keeping "the thing" - the Holocaust, as she could never quite bring herself to say - in the public eye, unlike the millions killed in the name of Communism. This is a fair point, though not one most people are willing to entertain from a pal of Hitler. But "the thing" seems most useful these days to non-Jews as a means of demonstrating that the Israelis are new Nazis and the Palestinians their Jews. Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has told the Home Secretary that his crowd will be boycotting Thursday's commemorations because it is racist and excludes any commemoration of the "holocaust" and "ongoing genocide" in Palestine.
Ah, well. He's just some canny Muslim opportunist, can't blame the chap for trying it on. But look at how my colleagues at The Spectator chose to mark the anniversary. They ran a reminiscence by Anthony Lipmann, the Anglican son of an Auschwitz survivor, which contained the following sentence: "When on 27 January I take my mother's arm - tattoo number A-25466 - I will think not just of the crematoria and the cattle trucks but of Darfur, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Jenin, Fallujah."
Jenin? Would that be the notorious 2002 "Jenin massacre"? There was no such thing, as I pointed out in this space at the time, when Robert Fisk and the rest of Fleet Street's gullible sob-sisters were going around weepin' an' a-wailin' about Palestinian mass graves and Israeli war crimes. Twenty-three Israelis were killed in fighting at the Jenin camp. Fifty-two Palestinians died, according to the Israelis. According to Arafat's official investigators, it was 56 Palestinians. Even if one accepts the higher figure, that means every single deceased Palestinian could have his own mass grave and there'd still be room to inter the collected works of Robert Fisk. Yet, despite the fact that the Jenin massacre is an obvious hallucination of Fleet Street's Palestine groupies, its rise to historical fact is unstoppable. To Lipmann, those 52-56 dead Palestinians weigh in the scales of history as heavy as six million Jews. And what's Fallujah doing bringing up the rear in his catalogue of horrors? In rounding up a few hundred head-hackers, the Yanks perpetrated another Auschwitz? These comparisons are so absurd as to barely qualify as "moral equivalence".
I'm not a Jew, though since September 11 I've been assumed to be one. Nor am I, philosophically, a Zionist. Had I been British foreign secretary, I doubt I would have issued the Balfour Declaration. Nor am I much interested in whose land was whose hundreds or thousands of years ago. The reality is that the nation states of the region all date back to the 1930s and 1940s: the only difference is that Israel, unlike Syria and Iraq, has made a go of it.
As for the notion that this or that people "deserve" a state, that's a dangerous post-modern concept of nationality and sovereignty. The United States doesn't exist because the colonists "deserved" a state, but because they went out and fought for one. Were the Palestinians to do that, they might succeed in pushing every last Jew into the sea, or they might win a less total victory, or they might be routed and have to flee to Damascus or Wolverhampton.
But, whatever the outcome, it's hard to see that they would be any less comprehensively a wrecked people than they are after spending three generations in "refugee" "camps" while their "cause" is managed by a malign if impeccably multilateral coalition of UN bureaucrats, cynical Arab dictators, celebrity terrorists and meddling Europeans whose Palestinian fetishisation seems most explicable as the perverse by-product of the suppression of their traditional anti-Semitism.
Americans and Europeans will never agree on this, and the demographic reality - the Islamisation of Europe - will only widen the chasm in the years ahead. But, if I were a European Jew, I would feel this week's observances bordered on cultural appropriation. The old defence against charges of anti-Semitism was: "But some of my best friends are Jewish." As the ancient hatreds rise again across the Continent, the political establishment's defence is: "But some of our best photo opportunities are Jewish."
MEN frequently despair at women's map-reading skills - or rather their lack of them. Now scientists believe they have pinpointed the reason for this conflict between the sexes. Researchers say it is all down to differences in the reliance of the sexes on either grey matter or white matter in their brains to solve problems. They found that in intelligence tests men use 6.5 times as much grey matter as women, but women use nine times as much white matter. Grey matter is brain tissue crucial to processing information and plays a vital role in aiding skills such as mathematics, map-reading and intellectual thought. White matter connects the brain's processing centres and is central to emotional thinking, use of language and the ability to do more than one thing at once.
Professor Rex Jung, a co-author of the study at the University of New Mexico, said: "This may help explain why men tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing, like mathematics and map-reading, while women tend to excel at integrating information from various brain regions, such as is required for language skills. "These two very different pathways and activity centres, however, result in equivalent overall performance on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as those found on intelligence tests." Previous studies have shown that women have weaker spatial awareness than men, making it harder for them to read maps. Research has also found that in childhood, girls' vocabulary develops more quickly and that in later life women can speak 20,000 to 25,000 words a day compared to a man's 7000 to 10,000.
For the study, published in the online edition of the journal NeuroImage, researchers performed a series of brain scans on 26 female and 22 male volunteers using magnetic resonance imaging equipment. All the volunteers were in good health, had no history of brain injury and the average IQ scores of the two sexes were similar. Their brains were scanned while they carried out tests designed to assess their general intelligence. Researchers then created a map of a brain showing the varying levels of activity in the brains of men and women. About 40 per cent of the human brain is grey matter and 60 per cent white matter.
#5
yes but they were women scientists, so he didn't listen
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 21:03
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Correction..
"...in later life women can speak 20,000 to 25,000 words a day in a single sentence compared to a man's 7000 to 10,000 all day."
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005 21:07
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#7
Personal experience: I read maps very well (I even made some in college).
From my experience training ambulance attendants (vol. rescue squad), I can tell you that both men and women have a problem reading maps. It's been about equal in my trainees, and those who didn't learn very well were also deficient in other areas.
I think it's mostly about training and incentive to learn. For instance, I'm a bit of a control freak, so I always want to know where I'm going and what the alternate routes are. And I'm not willing to trust someone else to take care of it unless I know from experience they're good at map-reading and thinking in terms of alternative routes in case of problems on the main route.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/24/2005 21:27
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#8
Barb - good point - I know guys I wouldn't trust to park my car...
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 21:32
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#9
Of the people who've been with me travelling, the two who were actually the best navigators were both women. I'm always a bit skeptical with "brain scan" studies like this, and wonder how much is just cultural expectations steering people in a particular direction.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/24/2005 21:38
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#10
I've never had trouble reading a map. At least, one that's accurate.
#11
Another good question to ask is, just because something shows up on brain scans of 25 year old women (or 12 year old girls), doesn't mean it wasn't the result of socialization and reinforcement instead of the result of some sort of genetic destiny.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
01/24/2005 21:52
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#12
researchers performed a series of brain scans on 26 female and 22 male volunteers Bad science, guys, unless the purpose was to support the grant proposal for the definitive study. A study like this needs a huge base to account for the fact that the variation within each sex is about as broad as the average variation between the sexes. I conform to stereotype in this matter, Barbara and all those female engineers out there do not. And I don't think socialization factored into my own lack -- my father had me map out directions for every single bloody new location he drove me to, until I escaped to the college dorm, and I'm still hopeless as a co-pilot.
#13
Do a survey of 2nd Lts next... seems no gender bias there at all - the only difference I ever saw is that the West Pointers will be damn sure they know where they are and not listen at all when told where they REALLY are, especially by a corporal or sgt.
#14
Do a survey of 2nd Lts next... seems no gender bias there at all - the only difference I ever saw is that the West Pointers will be damn sure they know where they are and not listen at all when told where they REALLY are, especially by a corporal or sgt.
#15
Do a survey of 2nd Lts next... seems no gender bias there at all - the only difference I ever saw is that the West Pointers will be damn sure they know where they are and not listen at all when told where they REALLY are, especially by a corporal or sgt.
TWENTY-three terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay tried to hang or strangle themselves in co-ordinated actions in August 2003, it emerged today. The prisoners sought to "disrupt camp operations and challenge a new group of security guards" at the US detention site in Cuba, the US military said. Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Marshall, a spokesman for the US Southern Command (Southcom) in Miami, described the incidents as "simultaneous attempts at hanging or strangulation". He said the "self-injurious" actions by 23 detainees were conducted between August 18 and 26, 2003, and that 10 of them occured on August 22.
He said two of the incidents were listed as "suicide attempts", but there had been no successful attempts at suicide at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. About 550 suspects in the US "war on terror" are held at the US military enclave on Cuba's southeastern tip. The US military and the Justice Department are conducting separate investigations into allegations of prisoner abuse at the base.
#9
There's something that needs to be looked at here. If the attempts were indeed "coordinated", that means that prisoners are somehow communicating between themselves.
#10
They're jihadis. "You wanna kill yourself" is probably a gesture involving a single finger, and answering in the affirmative is accomplished by doing nothing.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/24/2005 21:56
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#11
"Mass hanging bid at Guantanamo Bay"
I bid $1650 a head in lots larger than ten. That's for a turn-key job, lumber for the scaffold, suitable rope, enthusiastic and willing hangmen (U of Florida students on summer-break), everything but disposal of the carcasses.
Hell, we'll even do that if it just involves heaving them off the dock for the sharks.
#12
Why not just leave a map pointing toward the Cuban side and 'forget' to lock the gates. If the US minefield doesn't get 'em, the Cuban one (and the Cuban guards) would. Allan's will if they make it.
#13
Of course they're communicating -- prisoners always find a way, and they are in those open cages, and speak a language the jailers don't understand.
I had an intriguing thought on reading this article, though: oxygen deprivation short of final asphyxiation results in brain damage, the amount of damage depending on how long oxygen was withheld. Almost makes me feel sorry for the nasty idjits, but that is how that cause/effect thingy works...
When U.S. troops pulled Saddam Hussein from a hole in the ground a year ago, the capture was described afterward as the work of a team of conventional and special operations troops. Nothing was said about an assist from an intelligence unit that the Pentagon created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to expand the military's ability to collect human intelligence — information from spies as opposed to listening devices or satellites.
The unit's existence was revealed by The Washington Post on Sunday. Pentagon officials said Monday that the unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, had a hidden hand in interrogations and other aspects of the clue-sifting work inside Iraq that narrowed the search for Saddam and led eventually to the cramped underground chamber where he was hiding. The Post said the unit also has been used in Afghanistan and other undisclosed locations. In addition to interrogation, it provides linguistic help and close-in surveillance of targets. On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers called for hearings on the matter, but Republicans took a quieter approach. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he did not know enough yet about the matter to judge whether Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had exceeded his authority. "I'm not sure whether it's going to require hearings or not," he said. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was confident the Pentagon was taking the right approach. "The notion by some that various steps taken by the Department of Defense to enhance such intelligence is somehow sinister and illegitimate is nonsense," Hunter said.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., wrote a letter to Hunter calling for hearings into the scope and capability of the unit. "While I fully support improving the ability of our men and women in the field to get accurate real time intelligence, the creation of this unit raises a number of questions that this committee has a duty to examine," Tauscher wrote. Larry Di Rita, spokesman for Rumsfeld, did not confirm the spy unit's role in Saddam's capture, but he acknowledged the existence of the Strategic Support Branch, which he said was managed by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Human Intelligence Service. "There is a desire to connect better intelligence to battlefield operations," Di Rita said, and the DIA unit is an example of ways that can be done in support of commanders in the field.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "Generally speaking, the president is aware of the Department of Defense's efforts to expand and enhance humanitarian intelligence capabilities. That was something that was emphasized in the 9/11 commission report. They said it needs to be improved across-the-board. So we support efforts by the Department of Defense to collect intelligence to enhance battlefield capabilities." Another official, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal details, said the unit's origins can be traced to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, when commanders of special operations forces found they lacked the interrogation experts they needed. This official, who has direct knowledge about the unit, said it is not a standing force but rather a "task-organized" group that is put together to meet a battlefield commander's special needs.
William Arkin, a former Army intelligence officer and author of a new book, "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9-11 World," said in a telephone interview Monday that the DIA unit may be a permutation of a secret intelligence unit known informally as Gray Fox, which reportedly has played a role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden Arkin said he is concerned that the Pentagon's expanding use of such secret intelligence units is blurring the lines between combatants and noncombatants, since some in these units don't operate in military uniforms but appear on the battlefield. Di Rita, while acknowledging the existence of the Strategic Support Branch, denied the Post's report that it answers directly to Rumsfeld. "There is no unit that is directly reportable to the secretary of defense for clandestine operations as is described in the Washington Post article," Di Rita said in a written statement. "Further, the department is not attempting to 'bend' statutes to fit desired activities, as is suggested in this article." The Post said the Pentagon was reinterpreting U.S. law to give Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad.
The Muslim Council of Britain are planning to boycott this week's commemoration of the Holocaust because they claim it is not racially inclusive. Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, says it will not attend because the event did not include what it described as continuing human rights abuses and genocide in the occupied territories of Palestine. There isn't much more they could do to heighten the rising Islamophobia they complain about, is there?
Posted by: Bulldog ||
01/24/2005
5:33:09 AM ||
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instead, they will be hosting a celebration of genocides conducted in the name of Islam.
#6
Document this crap so when future anthropologists wonder why muslims became the Mayans and Olmecs of the 21st century, it's understood: they pissed the planet off
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 20:19
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Arlan Specter hires Kennedy confidant. Guy who told Kennedy to delay Bush's judical nominees until NCAAP action was taken in Michigan. On Friday Republican staffers in a number of Senate offices were holding meetings to discuss how to proceed with Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter and his recent hire, Hannibal G. Williams II Kemerer, who until recently was the NAACP's assistant general counsel. Kemerer was hired by Specter against the advice of senior Republican Judiciary staff and was to serve as a key vetter of Bush Administration judicial nominations. As word of Specter's hiring decision leaked off Capitol Hill, Specter is said to have shifted Kemerer into a job that would not deal with judicial nominations. "That is not true," says a Judiciary Committee staffer. "Kemerer may have a different stated responsibility, but we've been told he will be working with Specter on judicial nomination issues regardless of what his stated role is supposed to be." More disturbing than the hiring itself was Specter's willful behavior in hiring the left-wing litigator. "I wish I could say this was a one time, freak event," says another Judiciary Committee aide. "But I don't think I can. We got the distinct impression that Specter is going to continue to hire people like this. If conservatives care, they need to mobilize now. Because it's largely out of our hands." Midday Friday there were unconfirmed rumors that Specter had spoken with ranking Judiciary Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy about shifting Kemerer into a Democratic staffer slot, but that Leahy was not receptive to the notion. Sure, ole Patty knows a fool when he sees one (he looks in the mirror, doesn't he).
Beyond an expected backlash against Specter, there was growing concern among aides to Sen. Rick Santorum, who chose not to support then-Rep. Pat Toomey, a conservative, pro-life challenger to Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary last year. Instead, Santorum backed Specter, campaigning and fundraising for him, and then openly backing him for Judiciary chairman when that position was in doubt. Santorum is preparing for a tough re-election campaign, and was counting on strong support among Catholics in-state for votes and across the country for fundraising. But Santorum's decision to put politics before core beliefs may now backfire. On Friday Santorum staffers were meeting with allies to discuss how best to deal with what could become a crisis for the conservative junior Senator from Pennsylvania. Compounding Santorum's Specter problem was word that Robert Casey, Jr., a pro-life Democrat and the son of one of Pennsylvania's most popular politicians, was poised to announce his decision to seek the Democratic Senate nomination. "To say that Santorum's people are upset does not quite portray what is happening up here," says a Senate leadership staffer. "Without Specter's thumbing his nose at conservatives, Santorum could focus on issues and his candidacy. Now he has to worry about fallout from every step Specter takes."
All of this adds to what appears is going to be a congressional session full of Judiciary issues. Some Judiciary Committee staffers are already looking at the calendar for spring and summer and telling friends and family that they can not make too many plans as they expect there will be a Supreme Court confirmation fight to be dealt with this summer, perhaps into August.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005
4:37:37 PM ||
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crap - should've backed Toomey and got this back-stabbing RINO out!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 23:01
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He has already cost Santorums seat by splitting the party, and cost Bush PA by failing to campaign at all in PA for Bush. Now he is back to his backstabbing of conservatives... "friends" liek that, who needs enemies?
Kick Specter out - let him go to the Dems or cozy up to Jeffords - if he walks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck...
#3
He has already cost Santorums seat by splitting the party, and cost Bush PA by failing to campaign at all in PA for Bush. Now he is back to his backstabbing of conservatives... "friends" liek that, who needs enemies?
Kick Specter out - let him go to the Dems or cozy up to Jeffords - if he walks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck...
#4
He has already cost Santorums seat by splitting the party, and cost Bush PA by failing to campaign at all in PA for Bush. Now he is back to his backstabbing of conservatives... "friends" liek that, who needs enemies?
Kick Specter out - let him go to the Dems or cozy up to Jeffords - if he walks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck...
MILWAUKEE - The sons of a first-term congresswoman and Milwaukee's former acting mayor were among five Democratic activists charged Monday with slashing the tires of vans rented by Republicans to drive voters and monitors to the polls on Election Day.
Sowande Omokunde, son of Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., and Michael Pratt, the son of former Milwaukee acting mayor Marvin Pratt, were among those charged with criminal damage to property, a felony that carries a maximum punishment of 3 1/2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The activists are accused of flattening the tires on 25 vehicles rented by the state Republican Party to get out the vote and deliver poll watchers Nov. 2.
Also charged were Lewis Caldwell and Lavelle Mohammad, both from Milwaukee, and Justin Howell of Racine. The GOP rented more than 100 vehicles that were parked in a lot adjacent to a Bush campaign office. The party planned to drive poll watchers to polling places by 7 a.m. and deliver any voters who didn't have a ride.
A criminal complaint said the defendants originally planned to put up Democratic yard signs, placards and bumper stickers at the Republican office in a scheme they called "Operation Elephant Takeover." But the plan was dropped when they learned a security guard was posted at the GOP office, the complaint said.
One witness told investigators the five defendants, dressed in "Mission Impossible" type gear, black outfits and knit caps, left the Democratic Party headquarters at about 3 a.m. on Nov. 2, and returned about 20 minutes later, extremely excited and talking about how they had slashed the tires.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesman Seth Boffeli said the five were paid employees of John Kerry (news - web sites)'s presidential campaign, but were not acting on behalf of the campaign or party.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 18:59
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This is also voter intimidation. The Republicans should sue their pants off too, for however much it cost to rent the vans.
Civil rights violations.
Whenever a Democrat is caught trying to rig an election -- or the evidence that he DID rig it bobs to the surface -- the Democrats trot out a hoary old line about Republicans being involved in "voter intimidation".
This year, though, we saw groups that operate in a lip-lock with the Democrats assault Republican campaign headquarters. We saw Democrats pull all the stops out to manufacture votes in Washington state and create TENS OF THOUSANDS of imaginary voters in Wisconsin.
All this gets ignored, though, so the Democrats can whine and moan about Ohio. Despite there being NO evidence of fraud, intimidation, or vote supression in Ohio, the press plays along so they can be sure to damage the political career of Ken Blackwell.
Anyone want to bet that a close look at Philadelphia would turn up some suspicious numbers? Or that the 2006 campaigns will be even more dirty -- and violent?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/24/2005 22:09
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Fundamentalist Islamic leaders in Saudi Arabia are telling militants intent on fighting "infidels" to join the insurgency in Iraq instead of taking up Osama bin Laden's call to oust the Saudi royal family at home, say Saudi dissidents who monitor theological edicts coming out of the kingdom. Iraq as a battleground offers the solution to a quandary facing the Saudi clerics who have to both placate the kingdom's rulers and keep their radical base happy. "If they preach that there ought to be absolutely no jihad, they would lose credibility and support among their followers. So what they do is preach jihad - not in Saudi Arabia, but in Iraq," said Abdul-Aziz Khamis, a Saudi human rights activist in London. "To them, Iraq is the answer to their dilemma."
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 gave the Saudi government the opportunity to send men there to wage holy war against communism, supported by the United States. It also opened the field for the Saudi regime to spread a rigid form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. The royal Al Saud family adheres to it, as do Saudi-born bin Laden and his followers. Today, Iraq, more than anywhere else in the world, is where the future of political Islam is being shaped. It has become a free-for-all for extremists and anti-American movements. Although there are reports that Saudis are among suicide bombers in Iraq, the most radical al-Qaida group isn't heeding the clerics' advice to give up the fight against the kingdom. In the latest strike in Riyadh, the "al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula" group claimed responsibility for a Dec. 29 attack in which five suicide bombers blew up two vehicles outside the Interior Ministry, wounding 17 police officers. The group said the intended targets were the interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz Al Saud, and his son. In the weeks before the bombings, bin Laden issued a statement calling on his followers to focus attacks on the kingdom. Bin Laden accuses the West of seeking to destroy Islam and criticizes the Saudi royal family for its allegiance to the United States.
The al-Qaida branch operating in Saudi Arabia, known as the Jihadis, has been behind a string of bombings and shooting attacks in the kingdom that began in May 2003, killing dozens of foreigners where they live and work. Last June it kidnapped American contractor Paul Johnson and posted three photos on the Internet showing his body and severed head. Following another series of attacks last May, several Saudi clerics promised the government not to wage jihad, or holy war, inside Saudi Arabia and to refrain from recruiting activists from the Jihadis group, say Saudi dissidents. Two of them, Salman al-Odeh and Safar al-Hawali, even agreed to fight the Jihadis, although they agree with their ideas, said Khamis. "Al-Hawali and al-Salman still believe in the principles of jihad. But now they link it with the authority of the ruler," said Khamis. "Al-Hawali finances and supports people who go to Iraq to fight there, but he is against fighting on Saudi soil."
In Iraq, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army - a group that follows Wahhabism, claimed responsibility for a Dec. 21 suicide bombing at a U.S. base in Mosul, Iraq, that purportedly involved a young Saudi. The bombing killed 22 people, mostly American troops, and was one of the worst attacks since the war started in March 2003. While Ansar al-Sunnah indicated the bomber was Iraqi, the London-based Saudi Asharq Al-Awsat daily identified him as Ahmed Saeid Ahmed al-Ghamdi, a 20-year-old Saudi medical student from Riyadh. Iraqi and U.S. authorities have said Saudis are among foreign fighters who have gone to Iraq, although the insurgency is mostly run by local Sunnis and disaffected Iraqis. Saudi authorities have been trying to smash the persistent al-Qaida branch for some years. The founding leaders are in jail in Saudi Arabia and some of their successors have been killed. "Bin Laden gave Wahhabism glory," said Hamza al-Hassan, a Saudi dissident in London, who noted the al-Qaida leader was inspired by his radicals beliefs to fight in Afghanistan. "Wahhabism produces an extremist version every 10 years, and each new one is more extreme than the previous one, making the previous ones seem like moderates," added al-Hassan. The Jihadis, now the most extreme al-Qaida group in Saudi Arabia, believe in global holy war. The government claims they were imported, but Khamis said they were homegrown.
In the 1980s, the late Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Baz, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, during the Afghan war urging Muslims to fight infidel Soviet occupiers on Islamic soil. Today, this fatwa applies to Iraq, say dissidents Khamis and al-Hassan. Saudi clerics such as Al-Odeh and al-Hawali have issued several fatwas saying jihad is legitimate in Iraq. Al-Hawali also opposes beheading foreign hostages for political reasons, even though he supports it from a religious point of view, said Khamis. Al-Odeh was among 26 clerics who called for jihad in Iraq last year. Saleh al-Owfi, believed to be al-Qaida's leader in Saudi Arabia, claimed in a Web site statement that al-Hawali had asked him not to fight at home but to go to Iraq, and that he would arrange for him to go there, says Khamis. But al-Owfi replied that everyone should fight on his own turf.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
3:33:32 PM ||
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Once Condi gets the abuse and delaying tactics advice and consent from the Senate and is conformed as Sec of State, she needs to talk to the Saudis and let them know that they need to SH*T or get off the pot with respect to their funding of terrorism and dealing with the cannon fodder exports to Iraq.
The Saudis also need to be put on notice that any of their princes flying into the US or within the US will get the air traffic controller on duty, be they male or female. If we have to respect their sennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnsibilities in Saudi, the obligation goes both ways, otherwise, FOAD and go home.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/24/2005 16:15
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Agree in general, but in this case we should applaud the dispatch of their nut cases to Iraq for rapid execution, a fate they would not suffer in the Magic Kingdom even if they were surrounded.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/24/2005 16:32
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Looks like the Jihad jungle drum beat is reaching a feverish pitch.
Let's invite them all to the Jihadi Roach Motel.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005 17:08
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I swear to goodness I've seen a pic or two over the years when Condi was wearing a small gold CROSS around her neck. I wonder...does she have the coviction of her beliefs to throw that in the face of the bastards that run the Kingdom specificlly while physically in the KSA?
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
01/24/2005 19:36
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conviction of her beliefs? I'd call it an affirmation of who she is. She'll do it
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 20:07
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Schadenfreude again. These next four years are going to be delicious! For us, anyway...
Anyone who can successfully run Stanford should have no problem putting a few superior-type diplomatic corp-ers firmly in their place -- ours and theirs. She's probably chuckling very quietly to herself in the night in anticipation. I know I am. ;-D
I know we're not supposed to post from blogs, but this is analysis a book on Saddam Hussein's WMDs written by the BBC's version of Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite (Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman). Long excerpts from the book, interesting discussion thereof. Hat tip Instapundit.
Opening statement: While I was trying to find out whether BBC reporter and presenter Jeremy Paxman had explicitly endorsed the idea that HIV is a manufactured virus (see previous post) -- apparently he did not -- I came across a new 2002 edition of his book, A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret Story of Chemical & Biological Warfare, with a newly written final chapter; and the final chapter said something which, in the context of the way the BBC has covered the Iraq war, is almost as startling.
Most of that final chapter is a strong argument trying to convince the reader that Saddam Hussein kept his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons after the first Gulf War, and that, at the time of the writing and publication of the new edition in 2001 and 2002, Saddam had an active program of producing chemical and biological weapons. Indeed, the new chapter is one of the most powerfully persuasive pieces of writing in favor of the idea of taking action against Saddam Hussein that I've ever seen. If I didn't know better, I might have guessed that Tony Blair or Christopher Hitchens had written it. snip
They're on the other side. Confirmation of everything the CIA and everyone else claimed, and the BBC chooses to lie.
#4
Confirmation of everything the CIA and everyone else claimed, and the BBC chooses to lie.
Well, from the available facts at the moment, it's more like, "Paxman and Harris were just as wrong as the CIA and every other Western intelligence service."
I was really struck, reading the excerpts from Paxman's book, at how the emphasis was not on the sinister intentions of Hussein, but on the guilt of the West. Western nations gave him (indeed, the entire world) the idea of CBW. Western companies were at fault for selling him harmless equipment which he turned to weapons use. Western intelligence was culpable for not realizing it sooner. The US is at fault for not signing on to disarmament treaties. Saddam himself comes in for far less criticism in these passages than does the West.
You read this sort of thing from fevered moonbats in blog comment sections, or deduce them from the signs carried by giant puppets in protest marches -- but here it is in one neat package, written by men who have some pretence to credible, sober journalism. It's absolutely jaw-dropping.
A trial opened Monday in a $3 million-plus lawsuit by 13 people who say they were injured or traumatized when federal agents seized a screaming Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives' home. The opening witness was neighbor Maria Riera, who testified that she clutched her chest and thought she was dying when an agent doused her with tear gas during the April 22, 2000, raid to reunite the 6-year-old boy with his father in Cuba. The 13 neighbors and protesters are seeking up to $250,000 each, claiming that agents used excessive force during the armed raid.
Look at the bright side, at least Reno's Raiders didn't burn your your houses down with you inside.
"I was stopped by a gentleman on my left approaching me with a shotgun," said Riera, who lived across the street from the home where the boy had lived since shortly after he was rescued from a shipwreck on Thanksgiving Day 1999. She said a black-garbed agent wearing a mask ordered her to "stand back" or he would shoot, adding a word of profanity. She said she complied, but a second agent approached with a gas gun as she stood in her driveway and left her in a gray cloud of tear gas. A total of 108 people sued over the raid, but U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore limited the case to people who were not on the Gonzalez family property and were beyond police barricades. Elian, now 11, was one of three survivors of a shipwreck that killed his mother. The raid took place after the family refused to return the boy so he could be taken back to Cuba.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
3:19:19 PM ||
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Edited for brevity. North Korea has cut food rations to just half the amount recommended by the World Food Programme, the UN food agency says. WFP monitors say government handouts have been cut from 300g (10.5oz) of cereals a day to 250g. Additionally, one may only eat TWO blades of grass and FOUR oz. of tree bark.
The UN says 16 million North Koreans rely on the rations. A WFP spokesman told BBC News that many people would be unable to supplement their allocation of maize, rice and potatoes with any meat or vegetables. "Prices of basic foods in private markets have increased substantially - they're beyond the means of many people. Supplementing the ration has been increasingly difficult," said Gerald Bourke, the WFP's public affairs officer for Asia. Most of the worst-affected people are in North Korea's cities, he told the BBC News website. A UN report last year said private farmers' markets, which were meant to alleviate chronic hunger, had instead sparked spiralling inflation. It said 1kg (2.2lb) of rice now costs 30% of the average monthly wage. That's okay--we're so busy developing nuclear weapons we don't have time to eat anyway!
Posted by: Dar ||
01/24/2005
3:17:10 PM ||
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"Prices of basic foods in private markets have increased substantially - theyâre beyond the means of many people..."
Wait a minute... is he trying to suggest that in this worker's utopia that they are not beyond the means of SOME people? Whatever happened to "From each according to his ability to each according to his needs?"
Something tells me it met up with "All people are equal, some are just more equal than others."
Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann announced this morning that five of the seven men arrested in the election-day slashing of Republican vehicles' tires - including the sons of two prominent Milwaukee Democratic politicians - have been charged with felonies and will appear in court this afternoon.The five who were charged with felony criminal damage to property for slashing 40 tires on 25 vehicles are:
* Michael Pratt, 32, of the 400 block of N. 16th St., Milwaukee. Pratt is the son of former acting mayor Marvin Pratt.
* Sowande A. Omokunde, 25, of the 4000 block of N. 19th Place, Milwaukee. Omokunde is the son of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore.
* Lewis G. Caldwell, 28, of the 2900 block of N. Summit Ave., Milwaukee.
* Lavelle Mohammad, 35, of the 4700 block of W. Lloyd St., Milwaukee.
* Justin Howell, 20, of the 2400 block of N. Olive St., Racine.
The vans had been rented by the state Republican Party to transport voters to the polls on election day Nov. 2. If convicted, each of the five faces up to a $10,00 fine and up to 3 1/2 years in prison. The crime met the $2,500 damage threshold as a felony because the slashed tires and towing costs totaled more than $5,300, according to the criminal complaint filed today. It says the men were caught after a security guard in the Republican Party headquarters parking lot saw the vandalism and wrote down the license-plate numbers of a fleeing car.
McCann said the state's relatively clean political history makes such election-day sabotage without precedent in his memory. "This isn't what goes on all the time in Wisconsin," he said, citing his recollection of contentious elections from the late 1960s. "... There might be signs town down in those campaigns, but never anything like this." He said the investigation had taken nearly 12 weeks because witnesses had dispersed after the election to states including Georgia, Virginia, Maryland and New York, and FBI investigators were sent to conduct the interviews. "Lying to an FBI agent is a federal offense," McCann explained. He said the FBI reports only got back to his office Jan. 14 because the slashings, though locally controversial, probably weren't the highest priority for federal investigators more concerned with terrorism threats. "You've got to understand how this looks elsewhere," McCann said. "It's a tire-slashing case. ... I never got a call from (Attorney General John) Ashcroft about the case."
Election 2004 - the gift that keeps on giving
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
3:14:47 PM ||
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With the trail of Osama bin Laden gone cold, the U.S. State Department is revving up a new publicity blitz to remind Afghans and Pakistanis of the $25 million bounty for al-Qaeda's chief. Bin Laden is still thought to be hiding somewhere along the 1,640-mile, mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but intelligence officials in Kabul and Islamabad say there has been no trace of him for the past 20 months. By the end of February, the White House is expected to double the sum on bin Laden's head, to $50 million, acting on legislation passed in November by Congress.
State Department ads began appearing this month in Jang, a widely circulated Pakistani newspaper, offering rewards for bin Laden, his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and 11 other suspected terrorists. The ads have elicited an average of 12 responses a day, and will be followed by an advertising barrage on regional radio and TV stations in the borderlands and cities where al-Qaeda's chief might be hiding, according to the State Department. snip
Those of you with a little time on your hands may find the US$50mil. reward a nice little addition to your retirement fund.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/24/2005
2:53:28 AM ||
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If it was my call I would reduce the reward.
Increasing the award gives a propaganda victory to bin Landen. Also if we cut the award, a potential agent might think, "gee I better turn him in now before they lower the reward again"
#3
I agree with mhw's take on this. I was disappointed to see the reward increase. This is a bad call on someone's part. I think it has propaganda value for the bad guyz. If you can't be induced to forward info to the appropriate authorities on OBL for $25M, then $50M isn't going to work either.
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
01/24/2005 10:55
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CNN hemorrhaged more than half their audience from the 2001 Inauguration, overnights show. The troubled news network only averaged 779,000 viewers during yesterday's Inauguration coverage from 10am-4pm with just 168,000 of those viewers landing in the coveted 25-54 demo.
Like CNN, MSNBC also suffered major losses, only averaging 438,000 viewers throughout yesterday's coverage (141,000 in 25-54), down a whopping 68% over 2001 and faring even worse in primetime with just 385,000 viewers.
In contrast, Fox News averaged 2,581,000 viewers from 10a-4p (up 30% over 2001) and their 25-54 demo average of 705,000 came close to CNN's total coverage ratings yesterday.
PRIMETIME:
FNC -- 2,439,000 (up 57% OVER '01)
CNN -- 1,353,000 (down 14% over '01)
MSNBC -- 385,000 (down 47% over '01)
Developing...
You don't suppose American viewers actually put a premium on truth telling by their favoured news organizations?
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/24/2005
2:47:55 AM ||
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It's been a long time coming, but we now have an approximate date for a confrontation in the Senate on judicial nominations. Majority Leader Bill Frist has announced that if Democrats filibuster the nominations he expects to bring to the floor next month, he'll take action.
Finally. Perhaps the biggest failure of Mr. Frist's leadership in the last Congress was his inability to corral Republicans and stop the Democrats' unprecedented filibuster of 10 of President Bush's appeals-court nominees. It was the first time in U.S. history that the filibuster had been used against nominees to the appellate bench, as a Congressional Research Service paper has amply shown.
Mr. Bush has said he will re-nominate those men and women left over from his first term who are willing, nyah, nyah and so the battle is about to be joined again. From the filibuster list, that includes Priscilla Owen, William Pryor, Henry Saad and Janice Brown. These highly qualified nominees had bipartisan support in the last Congress and would have won confirmation by majority vote, but they were denied up-or-down votes on the Senate floor.
Which brings us to the proposed change in Senate precedents that Democrats call the "nuclear option" to make it sound radical. If the Democrats filibuster again, Mr. Frist would ask for a ruling from the presiding officer that under Senate Rule XXII only a simple majority vote is required to end debate on judicial nominations. Assuming 51 Senators concur, the Senate would then proceed to an up-or-down floor vote on the nominee.
What this should really be called is the "majority-vote advice-and-consent" option. The aim is to restore the Founders' intent when they gave the Senate the responsibility of confirming or rejecting a President's judicial picks. The Constitution requires a simple majority vote and says nothing about a super-majority of 60 being needed to stop a filibuster.
Democrats inclined to cry foul would benefit from studying Senate history. They could start by querying their own Senator Robert Byrd who, during his years as Majority Leader, employed the same tactic four times to reinterpret Senate precedents. Martin Gold and Dimple Gupta detail this history in an essay in the current Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
The history of the filibuster itself also bears noting -- particularly by those Republicans who are worried about "giving up" a useful tool when they return to the minority. No one was more concerned with checking majority passions than the Founders, but even they never felt the need for a super-majority Senate voting requirement. The filibuster first appeared in the 1830s during the debates over the Bank of the United States and by 1917 had gotten so out of control that the Senate passed its first "cloture" rule limiting debate. It's been modified numerous times since then, and only in recent years has it evolved to where just about anything that passes (save the annual budget) needs 60 votes.
We don't agree, as some of our pro-filibuster friends on the right argue, that the filibuster was instrumental in stopping the New Deal and the Great Society. Those efforts ended as their excesses became clear and political support ebbed. Some argue that the threat of a filibuster saved us from HillaryCare in 1994, but we think that it was dying of its own weight and would never have had even 50 votes. In any event, no one is talking about doing away with the legislative filibuster. The "nuclear option" would stop only filibusters of judicial nominees.
One of the weakest objections offered by some Republicans is that Democrats will do the same thing in some future Senate. Well, yes, but we doubt Republicans would ever have the nerve or unity to filibuster a Democratic nominee, and Democrats have shown in their willingness to filibuster that they don't need a GOP precedent to do whatever they want. They'll "go nuclear" if it suits Ted Kennedy's purposes, whether Republicans do it first or not.
It's possible Mr. Frist won't have to pull this trigger, or at least he won't if his 55 Republicans hold firm. It hasn't escaped the notice of the 17 Democrats up for re-election in 2006 that obstruction of Mr. Bush's judicial picks was one reason Tom Daschle was defeated last November. Colorado's newly elected Democrat, Ken Salazar, has said he hopes all nominees get an up-or-down vote.
Democrats may decide the wiser course of action is to agree to limit debate on judicial nominations. If so, there's a ready-made, face-saving proposal at hand. In the last Senate, Mr. Frist and Democrat Zell Miller proposed a three-step process to gradually cut off debate on judicial nominees. This was based in turn on a plan put forward a few years earlier by Democrats Joe Lieberman and Tom Harkin. Whether it's nuked or not, the judicial filibuster deserves to be defeated.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/24/2005
2:24:03 AM ||
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At this point, the "nuclear option" is a requirement. What good would it have been for President Bush to push his original slate again if the Reps weren't willing to bust the filibuster?
President Bush won the election with the original slate already fully vetted. Let's have an up or down vote, now!
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005 10:03
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Frist should give them one chance to do the right thing and then go with thei majority option. I would love to hear Hillary or any other Dem defend the filibuster rules.
So says historical data from the U.S. Treasury. From the WSJ, reprinted in full.
Some people continue to believe, or at least still assert, that tax rates don't influence taxpayer behavior all that much. We therefore direct their attention to the Treasury Department's latest historical data on revenues from taxes on capital gains.
The numbers look like a 25-year demonstration of the Laffer Curve in action. Taxes paid on capital gains have been highly responsive to the maximum capital gains tax rate. Especially notable is how, over the years, capital gains realizations and the taxes paid on those gains have tended to increase in the years following a cut in the capital gains tax rate.
The reductions highlighted in the chart include the famous William Steiger tax rate cut that passed Congress in late 1978 over Jimmy Carter's objections, the Reagan tax cut passed in 1981, and the cut that was part of the Clinton-Gingrich balanced budget deal of 1997. All of those reductions caused taxpayers to cash in more of their gains and thus yielded revenue windfalls for the federal Treasury in succeeding years.
On the other hand, the capital gains tax increase of 1986 -- which moved the rate back up to 28% from 20% -- proved to be a revenue disaster. Taxes paid on long-term capital gains (those typically held longer than one year) fell off a cliff to $33.7 billion in 1987 from $52.9 billion a year earlier. And they stayed at close to that mediocre lower level for nearly another decade. In other words, higher rates didn't do anyone any good, not even the politicians who thought they'd be getting more tax revenue to spend.
We aren't asserting that tax-rate changes have been the only factors influencing revenue changes. The performance of the broader economy and the stock market have also mattered a great deal. Capital gains revenues boomed in the late 1990s after the 1997 rate cut, but they fell abruptly with the bursting of the dot-com and tech bubbles in 2001.
The evidence is overwhelming, however, that lower rates induced more taxpayers to realize their capital gains, and thus produced more tax revenue despite the lower rates. The top capital gains rate was cut again in 2003, to 15%, and it is likely that Treasury will also report an increase in revenues in that year and in 2004 as the stock-market rebounded smartly.
In each of these episodes, we should add, Congress's Joint Tax Committee predicted more or less the opposite. Wedded to its static models that underestimate the impact of behavioral incentives, Joint Tax predicted revenue losses from tax-rate cuts and revenue gains from tax-rate increases. In recent years Joint Tax has finally acknowledged some "unlocking" effect on capital gains realizations from lower rates, but it still refuses to recognize any revenue impact from faster economic growth or from a stronger stock-market that tax reductions on capital help to promote.
The refusal to take control of Joint Tax has been a major failure of the GOP Congress, and should be a priority as it contemplates tax reform that President Bush has said must be "revenue neutral." Republicans will have a much better chance of passing a pro-growth tax reform with lower rates if they have a revenue-estimating bureaucracy that is pledged to accuracy instead of to its old habits. Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, take note.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/24/2005
2:19:16 AM ||
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Thanks TW, the supply siders prevail. Not on page one of your friendly MSM publications was how increased revenue into the US coffers has decreased the budget deficit by roughtly $20B.
Could it be the MSM unintentionally forgot to mention this?
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005 9:54
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I'd consider the Wall Street Journal to be pretty mainstream, in a conservative, business-specialty, we tell the truth because otherwise our readers lose money, which really annoys them kind of way, Captain A. But the New York Times it admittedly is not.
#4
TW: I'd consider the Wall Street Journal to be pretty mainstream, in a conservative, business-specialty, we tell the truth because otherwise our readers lose money, which really annoys them kind of way, Captain A. But the New York Times it admittedly is not.
Editorial pages are conservative - news pages are more liberal than the NYT - with writers like Yochi Dreazen, Andrew Higgins (ex-Guardian), Hugh Pope, Greg Ip, et al...
#5
Also, let's distinguish between the WSJ print and on-line editions. The on-line edition includes articles and commentary written exclusively for the online edition. Perhaps not held to the same standard as the print edition.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 14:04
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January 24, 2005; Page A18 This article appeared in the print edition, too. Also, the reporters may be as liberal as they like (and I agree that they are), but articles like this involve money, not world events.
#7
Liberals hate the Laffer curve so much that they become hysterical at its mention. "It has been disproven!", said one, "By who and how?", I asked. "It just has! By economists!", was the informative comeback. Another insisted that Arthur Laffer worked for Reagan, not Carter, until I showed him a reference book. Then he mumbled something about a conspiracy, implying that Laffer had been sent to sabotage the Carter administration by Reagan.
#8
As if Carter needed outside help! Thanks, Anonymoose, I didn't know that about liberals and Laffer. Up 'til now I've had no reason to know about his curve, let alone discuss it in putatively polite company ;-) Google, here I come!
We are not alone (yes, I know we knew that, but like being told we're beautiful, its always good to hear it again). From the Wall Street Journal, reprinted in full.
'The time has come to take a stance . . . the choice is between dictatorship and democracy." These words were spoken almost two years ago, shortly after George W. Bush had given Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to come clean or face war. But it was not the U.S. president who made this statement -- although it very much sounded like him. It was Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
And indeed, Mr. Rasmussen did take a stance. Denmark was one of only five countries that actually sent fighting troops to Iraq -- the others being of course the U.S., Britain, Poland and Australia. When, after last year's Madrid train bombings, the new Socialist government in Spain decided to hastily withdraw its troops from Iraq, Mr. Rasmussen dismissed speculation that his country might cut and run as well: "That would be a victory for the terrorists and be a fatal sign that terrorism pays," he said.
At the moment, 525 Danish troops are serving in Basra under British command. Just two months ago, the Danish parliament overwhelmingly voted to extend the contingent's stay in Iraq. Lawmakers also voted to increase the number of Danish soldiers serving in Afghanistan fivefold -- from 50 to up to 250. And last year, this country of only 5.5 million people decided to increase its defense budget and reorganize its military so it can double the number of soldiers it can dispatch on international missions to 2,000.
Being a staunch U.S. ally has not hurt Mr. Rasmussen's popularity -- to the contrary. Last week, the prime minister decided to hold early general elections on Feb. 8. Opinion polls suggest that his governing coalition will retain its majority in parliament. Opposition Social Democrats plan to make the war a campaign issue, but it is not likely to be decisive in the election.
Danes have been about evenly split on Iraq, making this probably the most pro-U.S. country in Europe. The general public is much more concerned about the economy, jobs, immigration and the welfare system. And here Mr. Rasmussen and his Liberal Party score high marks.
Like the other two war leaders who recently won re-elections, Mr. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Mr. Rasmussen is also an economic reformer -- albeit a more cautious one. Introducing true free-market policies is much more difficult in this Scandinavian country with its strong welfare tradition than it is in the Anglo-Saxon world. So Mr. Rasmussen has toned down his policy proposals somewhat from his time in opposition -- although they still mark a dramatic change in Denmark.
The government introduced tax cuts last year worth 0.7% of GDP, not much compared to Mr. Bush's tax cuts, worth 2.5% of U.S. GDP, but quite a lot in a country where for decades tax rates have been rising along with the expansion of the welfare state. And it was enough to help boost the economy. After near stagnation in 2003, the economy recovered last year to grow 2.2% and is expected to improve further to 2.5% growth in 2005. Q.E.D.!
This year, Mr. Rasmussen is also planning public-sector spending cuts and a shake-up of the health-care and education systems. Mr. Rasmussen seems to have succeeded in convincing his countrymen that change is necessary if they want to keep their welfare state in some form. "Ironically, the Liberals, not the Social Democrats, are seen as the best guarantors of the welfare state," said Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, who teaches political science at the University of Southern Denmark.
So economic reform and the participation in the Iraq war are the major policy decisions that define Mr. Rasmussen's first term. It can be no trivial matter that just nine days after Iraq's first free vote in decades, Danes are poised to re-elect the man who ensured that their country would play an important role in making the Iraqi elections possible. No doubt, were Mr. Rasmussen to lose the poll, the antiwar crowd would surely blame it on his support for President Bush's Iraq policy. On the other hand, if he wins it must be seen as confirmation that many ordinary Danes are proud that two years ago, Mr. Rasmussen took a stand. Thank you, Denmark, for once again standing firmly on the side of honour.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/24/2005
2:12:02 AM ||
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According the the EU's Eurobarometer, the Danes are also the most anti-Constitution population in the Union. Smart economics, sensible leadership, high optimism and a disdain for the European suicide pact. Denmark's got a lot going for it at the moment.
#6
And, in my experience, it isn't only their military assistance that shines a positive light on the Danes. In the 90s, they were heavily involved in getting the Baltics up on their feet, through trade and volunteer/other humanitarian services...they walk the walk and talk the talk.
#8
Worked with the Danish Air Force in the 80's and found them to be some of the most energetic, innovative, resourceful people around. There aren't many of them, but the ones there are are true professionals and fun to work with. A friend, who at 55 was at that time the oldest fighter pilot on flight status in the Danish AF, almost got booted from the TRIAL MACE exercises for attacking a radar station in his F-35 Draaken at 50 feet. He flew right up to the station, went vertical and lit the afterburner. He left a 50 foot circle of scorched grass and a number of British radarmen in need of fresh underwear. Saw the video, it was awe inspiring.
#9
In the 1960s and even earlier, Denmark was one of the first countries to adopt pop-lefty think as its national philosophy: hostility to national and collective defense, repeal of pornography and drug laws, saturation media, social welfare taken to the limit.
It was therefore well ahead of the rest of Europe on the idiotarian learning curve, and has now progressed very far down the reverse slope. In most of Europe, 60s Think is still fresh, radical, cutting edge cool; in Denmark it is laughable, a relic of a national binge. The rest of the Euros has not even peaked and may not have time to catch up.
#11
I was in Denmark in the late 70s and worked with the Danish army. RWW's observations about the professionalism and enthusiasm of the RDAF would also apply to the ground forces. At the time, lefty peace-think was in full force and the army bore the brunt of it.
The appeasement lobby was willing to fund the RDAF and the navy, but even having an army implied that there might actually be fighting on Danish soil. Conventional wisdom at the time held that it was better to run up the white flag if things went that far. This reached its nader when a prominent candidate for PM promised to replace the nation's armed forces with a telephone recording that played "I surrender" in Russian.
The troops did the best they could under this regime, which was very well indeed. Among other things, they were still using the WW2 vintage Achilles tank-destroyer. This was the lend-lease M-10 with its American 76mm gun replaced by the British 17-pounder, a much higher velocity gun of the same caliber. The Danish anti-tank types were quick to point out that the APDS round for this could go right through a T-62.
They also used the M-41 light tank, which had basically the same 76mm gun as the original M-10. This used the same APDS projectile as the 17-pounder but with a smaller propelling charge. The Danes were completely fascinated by my observations of the M-41 in ARVN hands in Vietnam. It had made short work of the theoretically superior T-55s when these dared to show themselves.
The Danish troops largely shared my opinion that Soviet armored superiority was a giant mountain of bullshit, promoted by all sides for their own purposes---by the left to strengthen the appeasement lobby and by the right to get more funding. In all humility, I think events have vindicated that judgement.
#12
IIRC: the Danes also make (at least they used to) a point to commemorate the Fourth of July every year.
My mother is from Sweden (the southern tip which has been part of Denmark as much as it's been part of Sweden), and she always preferred the Danes to the stuffy, pompous, self-righteous Swedes.
Via Drudge:
Central banks are shifting reserves away from the US and towards the eurozone in a move that looks set to deepen the Bush administration's difficulties in financing its ballooning current account deficit. In actions likely to undermine the dollar's value on currency markets, 70 per cent of central bank reserve managers said they had increased their exposure to the euro over the past two years. The majority thought eurozone money and debt markets were as attractive a destination for investment as the US. The findings emerge from a survey of central bank reserve managers published today and conducted between September and December of last year. About 65 central banks, controlling assets worth $1,700bn, took part and the results showed a marked change in attitude over the past two years. SNIP
#1
Article: Central banks are shifting reserves away from the US and towards the eurozone in a move that looks set to deepen the Bush administrationâs difficulties in financing its ballooning current account deficit.
I don't think these guys understand. A current account deficit comes from imports that are priced too low in dollar terms - meaning US demand is high for foreign goods, and exports that are priced too high in foreign currency terms, meaning foreign demand is low for US goods. When the dollar weakens, that helps to resolve current account deficits by lowering American demand for the now-more-expensive foreign goods and raising foreign demand for the now-cheaper US goods.
#2
The issue is the long-term debt we've taken on and whether there is sufficient savings or other capital within the US to finance it, if the foreign banks don't.
Shorter term, this is an income issue for the central banks: More than 90 per cent of central bank reserve managers said that the income from reserve management was "important" or "very important".
In the two years since a similar survey was conducted, reserve managers had begun to seek higher returns for the money under management.
For these managers, dollar assets have become less attractive because the fall in the dollar since 2002 has reduced the yield they received and, in some cases, has led to negative real returns. With their economies in trouble, for the most part, they can't afford to lose income from their reserves.
#3
They do indeed understand, but I agree that this is a bullshit issue so long as the japanese and the chinese and koreans do not shift massive funds out of Treasuries, which is unlikely. The issue is that the bond markets have been mispricing euro-denominated debt for years, on the low side.
The majority thought eurozone money and debt markets were as attractive a destination for investment as the US.
"Attractive" depends of course on the price. Is eBay attractive at 100x earnings? Of course not? At 40x earnings? Maybe. It depends on the price, and the bond markets have been systematically overvaluing US debt and undervaluing eurodebt for years. This will not last forever, and presents a nice arbitrage opportunity that smart fund managers like Bill Gross of PIMCO picked up on two years ago. This is a matter of bond arbitrage, not a US-vs-Europe fundamanetal competitiveness issue.
#4
lex: They do indeed understand, but I agree that this is a bullshit issue so long as the japanese and the chinese and koreans do not shift massive funds out of Treasuries, which is unlikely.
Even if they do, I don't see a long-term dislocation, although leveraged players will get creamed. During the Long Term Capital imbroglio, Russian debt went through the floor. It has recovered considerably since - yields on benchmark Russian sovereign (government) dollar bonds due 2030 plunged to about 8.1 in July 2004 from 17.4 percent in March 2001. We're not Russia. I don't see US long bond yields going to 7%, let alone 8%.
There's an asset base of 34 trillion dollars available to finance the federal budget deficit. If yields become more attractive (i.e. rise), domestic (and foreign) investors will jump in. There's no shortage of capital - it's just that an overabundance of it has led yields to plunge.
Will a rise in yields trigger Armageddon? I doubt it - Volcker pushed yields to double-digit levels without triggering it.
#5
The dollar was also undermined by a report from Central Banking Publications, which showed that of 65 central banks surveyed, 39 increased exposure to the euro in their forex reserves between September and December, while 29 cut their exposure to dollars.
Breaking news.... a little bit of surfing across the FT's various reports on this survey of central bank managers indicates that it's bullshit. Under the rubric of "lex" (not me), another FT article notes halfway through that:
More importantly, a third of those who responded said they would raise the proportion of non-dollar currencies in 2005. The survey did not include Japan or China, the countries with the largest forex reserves
In other words, the FT blares headlines in several places that "70% of Central Bank Fund Managers" are reducing dollar holdings and buries the fact that this survey did not even include the central banks that between them hold more than half of US Treasuries!
What's going on? Partly this is simply the traditional pessimism and caution of the British banker mentality-- glass half full. But I suspect there's also an effort to snipe at Bush. Note that this other article describes several "event risks", including not just the Iraqi elections but "Bush's inauguration speech"!
Do they really mean to argue that Bush has the same effect on the markets as terrorist attacks?
#7
I see the falling dollar as an intentional, guided policy to both slap Europe and settle down China, who had figured out how to use the strong dollar to boost their economies at the expense of the US. Not only does this force Europe to cut expenses, read "welfare", but it makes the Chinese economy cool *naturally*, instead of violently bursting its bubble and crash all of the Asian markets. Neither Europe or China had the will to take the measures neccessary on their own, so Bush is using the invisible hand to both clear the new path and make it the unavoidable choice.
Hat tip: Instapundit. EFL. HUMANS may have unwittingly saved themselves from a looming ice age by interfering with the Earth's climate, according to a new study. The findings from a team of American climate experts suggest that were it not for greenhouse gases produced by humans, the world would be well on the way to a frozen Armageddon. Scientists have traditionally viewed the relative stability of the Earth's climate since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago as being due to natural causes, but there is evidence that changes in solar radiation and greenhouse gas concentrations should have driven the Earth towards glacial conditions over the last few thousand years. What stopped it has been the activity of humans, both ancient and modern, argue the scientists. Ya' don't say! Heh. I've been doing my bit. :-D More at the link.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/24/2005
2:06:02 PM ||
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I looked into this a half dozen years ago, but couldn't find one critical piece of information.
We've got a good collection of numbers on solar output (TSI) cycles, as well as variations on our orbit. What I couldn't find was something that tied them all together, showing where we are in them now. The book I found useful was The Sun in Time.
If anyone knows where to find better data, I'm interested.
From the Wall Street Journal. Behind the subscription wall, so given here uncut.
The United Nations Oil for Food scandal continues to effloresce, moving last week into the criminal realm. Iraqi-American Samir Vincent's guilty plea shows that Saddam Hussein was indeed exploiting the program to buy influence around the world--including in the U.S.--and suggests there is far more to be uncovered.
Mr. Vincent pleaded guilty Tuesday in Federal District Court in New York to acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Saddam's Iraq and to related conspiracy and tax-evasion charges. According to the charge sheet prepared by U.S. Attorney David Kelley, he "consulted with and repeatedly received direction from the Government of Iraq in the course of lobbying officials of the United States Government and the United Nations." For his efforts, Mr. Vincent confesses, he was personally awarded five separate oil allocations worth millions of dollars under Oil for Food. He faces potential penalties of up to 28 years in prison.
So, precisely what services did Saddam Hussein deem that valuable? A full answer likely will have to wait for what U.S. Attorney Kelley tells us is an "ongoing investigation"--in which Mr. Vincent has agreed to cooperate--to further its course. But the charge sheet refers tantalizingly to efforts by Mr. Vincent and unnamed others "including United Nations officials . . . to secure terms favorable to Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of [Security Council] Resolution 986," which created the Oil for Food program. That suggests Saddam understood from the start that Oil for Food was a chance to evade U.N. sanctions and prop up his regime.
The charge sheet also describes what appear to be extensive lobbying efforts over many years involving "former officials of the United States Government who maintained close contacts to high-ranking members of both the Clinton and Bush Administrations" in an effort to fully repeal sanctions. "Vincent reported the results of those consultations to the Iraqi Intelligence Service," the charges state.
Like any good prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Kelley refuses to speculate on the next steps in his investigation. But another American whose name has surfaced in connection with Oil for Food is Detroit-area businessman Shakir al-Khafaji. Like Mr. Vincent, Mr. Khafaji appeared on lists of individuals alleged to have received oil allocations from Saddam.
As our Robert Pollock reported last March based on information from an Iraqi intelligence source, those oil vouchers may have been similarly intended as part of an influence-buying campaign here in the U.S. Mr. Khafaji financed an anti-sanctions documentary by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, and he brought a Congressional delegation headed by former House Minority Whip David Bonior to Iraq, among other activities. A third American alleged to have received oil vouchers is Texas tycoon Oscar Wyatt, a longtime acquaintance of Saddam who opposed the first Gulf War.
Saddam's influence-buying was ineffective when it came to the U.S. But remember that prior to 9/11 and President Bush's decision to promote democracy in the Middle East, there was a growing consensus in the U.S. foreign policy establishment in favor of "smart" (i.e., relaxed) sanctions on Iraq. We'd be curious to know if the smart sanctions proponents were among Mr. Vincent's associates.
And of course Saddam's buy-them-off strategy was far more extensive--and arguably successful--as regards the rest of the world. Why did France, Russia and the U.N. Security Council refuse to approve force despite Saddam's flagrant violation of 17 different resolutions? Last week's news makes it still harder to claim with a straight face that this type of corruption, or at least fear of its exposure, had nothing to do with the refusal to oust Saddam.
The Oil for Food scandal is at its roots about whether the current U.N.-centric global security architecture is hopelessly vulnerable to corruption or can be trusted to perform. That's why every serious internationalist should be paying close attention to investigations like Mr. Kelley's and that of the U.N. panel led by Paul Volcker.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/24/2005
2:01:00 AM ||
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Two suspected members of the Al Qaeda network alleged to have planned a suicide attack in Iraq were arrested in Germany yesterday, the German Federal Attorney said here. Police in the western city of Mainz, where US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are due to meet in February, arrested a 29-year-old Iraqi identified only as Ibrahim Mohamed K., said Attorney-General Kay Nehm.
Ibrahim Mohamed K. was strongly suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, and was believed to have attended a training camp and had been in touch with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Germany's top law officer told reporters. A second man, identified as Yasser Abu S. and described as a stateless person aged 31, was arrested in the former West German capital Bonn.
Nehm said Ibrahim Mohamed K. was understood to have settled in Germany in September 2002 in order to assemble financial and logistical support for Al Qaeda. With the aim of executing a suicide attack in Iraq, he had allegedly recruited Yasser Abu S., born in Libya but described as a stateless person, said Nehm whose federal department has charge of investigation into "terrorist" offences in Germany.
Nehm said Ibrahim K. had also allegedly planned to get a hold of 48 grammes of highly enriched uranium from a group in Luxembourg. Investigations were continuing, the attorney general said.Â
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/24/2005
1:29:58 AM ||
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His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, has donated medical and food supplies worth of Dh500,000 to the humanitarian programme of the UAE Red Thingy Crescent Society (RtCS) to support the Iraqi affected families from the recent events in Fallujah. Khamis Mohammed Al Suweidi, head of the RtCS in Sharjah, commended the Sharjah Ruler's continuous support for the society's humanitarian programme and its charitable projects which reflects the noble values he endeavoures to inculcate among the local society members. "This gesture is in line with Shaikh Sultan's deep understanding and initiatives to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi families in Fallujah and improve their living conditions," Al Suweidi said.
"Think of the rifles and grenades we will be able to buy for these suffering families!" he added.
He added that the society had taken necessary measures to deliver the assistance to its beneficiaries as soon as possible.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/24/2005
1:26:53 AM ||
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And there will be loud objections to their having to leave their vehicles at the entrance to Fallujah, being fingerprinted and retina-scanned and given an ID card to wear at all times in the city. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if when they came to the first inspection point, they didn't just turn their vehicles around and leave, later either claiming that "The Americans didn't let us in", or that they "Delivered everything to the grateful Fallujans."
#2
Anyone heard of a donation from Al Quasimi to Saddam's victims? to the victims of Soudanese genocide? to the victims of Tsunami? No? Just what I thought.
Now anyone has an objection to this guy being beheaded?
Iraqi insurgents appear to be holding back on their violence in order to make a "more spectacular" attack just before or on next Sunday's national elections, a U.S. general said on Monday. Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy director of operations in Iraq, said in an interview from Baghdad with CNN said that there had been a 50 percent drop in attacks by insurgents in recent days... "We've had nearly 2,000 suspects detained just in the last two weeks. We've been discovering nearly a 100 weapons caches each week and every day more and more Iraqis are coming forward with more intelligence information," he said. Of course, capturing the #1 car-bomb maker and rounding up 2,000 boyz and their toys has nothing to do with it...
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A powerful earthquake rocked parts of Indonesia's Sulawesi Island on Monday, damaging houses and triggering widespread - but unfounded and certainly justified - fears of another tsunami in a country still traumatized by last month's disaster. No injuries were reported.
The epicenter of the 6.2-magnitude quake was in central Sulawesi, about 10 miles southwest of the seaside city of Palu, said Suharjono, a seismologist in Jakarta. It struck just before dawn. ``It was very strong. I felt the bed and the ground shaking and rushed out of my house. I saw everyone panicking,'' said Huwal Hayun, a 19-year-old student in Palu. Around 30 houses and shops in Palu, which is home to some 270,000 people, suffered minor damage, police said.
Thousands of residents in Palu ran to higher ground following the quake, witnesses and police said. Most of the patients at the city's main Undata hospital fled the building, said Dr Riri Lamadjido. ``They were shouting water, water because they feared waves after watching so many news reports about the tsunami,'' she said, adding that the hospital had received no injured patients as a result of the quake.
Police later toured the city in a car with a loudspeaker on top, telling residents there was no threat of a tsunami, said Sgt. Fandi Tuna. Some then returned to their homes, he said. It was highly unlikely the quake would cause a tsunami because its epicenter was not under the seabed, said seismologist Suharjono, who goes by a single name. Quakes measuring 6.2 rarely cause tsunami even if centered under the ocean.
Good luck convincing anyone in Sumatra of that.
Palu is 1,000 miles northeast of the capital, Jakarta.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/24/2005
12:48:48 AM ||
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The U.S. ambassador to Iraq acknowledged serious problems ahead of next weekend's election but gave assurance Sunday that ``great efforts'' were being made so every Iraqi can vote. In an audiotape posted on the Web, a speaker claiming to be Iraq's most feared terrorist declared ``fierce war'' on democracy, raising the stakes in the vote.
Z-man just blew it big time.
Rebels who have vowed to disrupt the balloting blew up a designated polling station near Hillah south of Baghdad and stormed a police station in Ramadi west of the capital, authorities said.
U.S. and Iraqi officials fear more such attacks in the run-up to the Jan. 30 election and have announced massive security measures to protect voters. Iraqis will choose a 275-seat National Assembly and provincial councils in Iraq's 18 provinces in the first nationwide balloting since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Large turnouts are expected among Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims in the south and minority Kurds in the northeast. But the big question in the minds of the MSM handicappers is whether Sunni Arabs, who form the core of the insurgency, will defy rebel threats and their clergy's calls for a boycott and participate in substantial numbers. Failure of significant numbers of Sunnis to participate would call into question the legitimacy of the new Iraqi leadership according to the MSM handicappers, widening the gulf among the country's ethnic and religious groups and setting the stage for leaving the truculant Sunnis behind even more turmoil.
``The Iraqis will be - will be just fine,'' Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice told reporters Sunday at the White House. ``They're starting a process and this is an important step, a first step for them in this democratic process.''
In a series of interviews Sunday on American television talk shows, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte acknowledged an increase in rebel intimidation of Iraqi officials and security forces and said serious security problems remain in the Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad. ``But security measures are being taken, by both the multinational forces here in Iraq as well as the Iraqi armed forces and police,'' Negroponte told ``Fox News Sunday.'' ``There will be some problematic areas ... But even there, great efforts are being made to enable every Iraqi eligible to do so to be able to vote,'' he said.
Underscoring the threat, a speaker identifying himself as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the leader of Iraq's al-Qaida affiliate - condemned the election, branding candidates as ``demi-idols'' and saying those who vote for them ``are infidels'' - a clear threat to the safety of all those who participate in the balloting. ``We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology,'' the speaker said in an audiotape posted Sunday on an Islamic Web site. ``Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it.''
80% of the people want to vote. Always a good idea to put yourself in league with the other 20%, eh?
The speaker warned Iraqis to be careful of ``the enemy's plan to implement so-called democracy in your country.'' He said the Americans have engineered the election to install Shiite Muslims in power. Al-Zarqawi has in the past branded Shiites as heretics.
Most of the terrorists insurgents are believed to be Sunni Arabs, who lost influence and privilege with the fall of their patron Saddam. Their ranks have been reinforced by non-Iraqi Arab terrorists extremists who have come to wage holy war against the Americans.
To encourage as big a turnout of Sunnis as possible, U.S. and Iraqi troops have stepped up security operations in Baghdad, Mosul and other tense areas, rounding up hundreds of suspected terrorists insurgents. The U.S. command announced Sunday it had arrested an undisclosed ``top terrorist insurgent suspect'' in Baghdad after hunting him for nearly a year.
Sunni elder statesman Adnan Pachachi, who is running for the National Assembly, predicted a bigger Sunni turnout than expected due to recent improvements in the security situation in some areas. ``There is evidence that participation in the elections will be broader than expected,'' Pachachi told Al-Arabiya television. ``I call on the parties that planned to boycott the elections to show some flippin' commen sense for a change urge their followers to vote.'' He also told CNN's ``Late Edition'' that it was important to maintain adequate Sunni representation in the new assembly.
Light dawns in the east.
The United States hopes that an elected Iraqi government might command broader public support in the campaign against the terrorists insurgents, hastening the day when the 150,000 American troops could go home.
However, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said it was too early to talk about a withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. ``The terrorists and the evil forces are trying to break our will. They are trying to stop democracy from happening in Iraq,'' Allawi said in an interview Sunday on British Broadcasting Corp. television. Allawi said Iraqis ultimately want to see their own forces tackle the country's security problems. ``But it is too premature to talk about withdrawal,'' Allawi said.
``We wouldn't like to set a time at all. We would like to have the multinational forces helping us and training and developing both our army as well as our internal security forces.''
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/24/2005
12:41:12 AM ||
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#1
The U.S. command announced Sunday it had arrested an undisclosed ``top terrorist insurgent suspect'' in Baghdad after hunting him for nearly a year.
The poor accordian lady must be getting tired of warming for the fat lady.
A Sri Lankan government plan to build entire new towns for homeless tsunami victims has infuriated Muslims unwilling to live in mixed neighborhoods.
Muslims don't mix well with others
The uproar began last week when President Chandrika Bandaranaike laid the first brick for a brand new town to be called Siribopura, two miles in virgin jungle from what used to be the southern coastal town of Hambamtota.The blueprints call for housing 6,000 people left homeless in the Dec. 26 tsunami, The Independent reported. Siribopura will be multi-ethnic, mixing Muslim, Tamil and Singhalese communities in three-story blocks of apartments, and will also contain a "multi-ethnic religious center," the first of its kind to be built in Sri Lanka. In the rubble of Hambamtota, the mosque was about the only structure not washed away. "This is where we've always worshipped," said one local Muslim man. "We don't want that to change." The government plans to build about 60 other "harmonized" towns inland from other devastated sites.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/24/2005
12:36:04 PM ||
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They aren't willing to walk two bloody miles down a lovely jungle path to the beach in order to pray at the old mosque?? Then let them rebuild their old homes on the beach, and pray five times a day that Allah approves their decision.
Thousands of rent-a-mob demonstrators backed President Hugo Chavez, who accused US and Colombian officials of provoking a diplomatic crisis between the Caribbean neighbors.
'Cos the US really needs a diplomatic crisis in South America right now.
"I know where this provocation comes from: from Washington, not from Bogota!" Chavez said before a crowd of paid-for cheering supporters. Chavez said Sunday that the United States was behind Colombia's arrest, on Venezuelan territory, of a Colombian rebel, triggering a diplomatic crisis with Bogota. "This [kidnap] thing was not planned by Bogota," Chavez said. He also predictably criticized his counterpart, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, for "ignoring moi" "not having a moment" to address Chavez' charges. Last week, Chavez demanded an explanation and said he would freeze business between the two countries, which have a free-trade agreement. On Sunday, he threatened to freeze bilateral projects. "It is up to the Colombian government to admit to its error," Chavez said told a crowd of supporters. Chavez repeated a threat of canceling several bilateral infrastructure projects. "I am not going to have open and frank relations with a government that does not recognize the error that a group of its officials has committed. "I have ordered several measures be canceled: the international bridge, the binational oil pipeline and highways. "Binational trade will drop to a minimum," Chavez told the crowd.
"And you stupid peasants will bear the brunt of my unilateral trade embargo," he forgot to tell the admiring throngs.
A Las Vegas law prohibiting strippers from fondling customers during lap dances is unconstitutionally vague, a judge ruled.
Ohfergawdsake! There's nothing vague about a lap dance!
District Court Judge Sally Loehrer affirmed a lower court ruling that as many as five misdemeanor criminal cases filed against Las Vegas strippers should be dismissed. Friday's ruling affects only dancers within city limits. The Clark County Commission in 2002 limited touching between strippers and patrons during private lap dances, specifically barring strippers from touching or sitting on the customer's genital area. But the municipal code was not as specific, saying only that strippers and their patrons should not ``fondle'' or ``caress'' each other. City attorneys told Loehrer touching is illegal when dancers engage in contact aimed at sexually arousing the customer. But defense lawyer James Colin argued the lack of specifics makes it impossible to enforce the law. ``It's too confusing,'' Colin said. ``No one knows.''
He's just doing his job, honest.
Under Loehrer's ruling, no dancer in the city can be arrested for violating the municipal code. The city is considering an appeal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/24/2005
1:23:14 AM ||
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#1
Surely male arousal is fairly easily gauged? At least for the purposes of the policeman making the arrest.
#2
More important than any of the above: Who wants to be the first to codify in state law that: Sexual arousal in a male is defined as an erection. The arresting officer must gage the 'quality' of the erection before an arrest can be made and must testify in court the touching did not contribute to the erection.
#3
I am certain that someone is out there doing plenty of research, groping for an understanding, straining to gauge the depths of the problem, thrusting with all of their might to reach . . . ummm . . . what was I talking about . . . ?
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
01/24/2005 7:02
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#4
I thought that was the point of a lap dance. Not that I would personally know or anything, I mean , oh, forget it.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/24/2005 7:33
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oh please...
come on guys, you've beat it long enough. Get off it already.
#6
Oh come on. This is a victimless crime, if it is even a crime. For those thinking that lap dancing will lead directly to sex with a stripper, you couldn't be more wrong. I spent a lot of time researching this in my younger years and just because she will do a lap dance doesn't mean she will have sex with you. The could have the same contact (or more) in any one of the many dance clubs in Vegas or any other city.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/24/2005 10:43
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#8
Lap dancing and strip clubs are a municipal nuisance, no worse than islamist terror.
Posted by: Do You Know Who I Am? ||
01/24/2005 10:47
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#9
More people transfer AIDs with contacts begun at straight and gay bars in Las Vegas, than any establishment offering lap dances. One establishment operates on setting up people for potential exchanges of precious body fluids. The other only offers teasing. Now, which is a real threat to public health and safety?
#14
Prostitution is no worse than terrorism. A nuisance, really, and one we need to learn to live with.
Posted by: Do You Know Who I Am? ||
01/24/2005 15:07
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#15
The few tittie bars I've been in,if you so much as look like your going to touch one of the girls your going to have a big ass,mean mofo yanking your ass up by the short hair.
In case you were wondering what the "Crossfire" gang looks like. Money quote: Human rights groups want to know why more than 180 suspects have died in its custody since last June.
EFL. The whole article is worth reading Al-Zarqaa Sent the Most Youths to Wage Jihad in Iraq
According to the inquiry, "Al-Zarqaa, located near the Al-Ruseifah Palestinian refugee camp, is the capital of the Salafi Jihad movement in Jordan, and the place from which it emerged. Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi grew up in one of its neighborhoods, and from there set out for the Jihad in Afghanistan, and then for the Jihad in Iraq." Likewise, the cities of Al-Zarqaa, Al-Ruseifah, and Al-Salt are "the Jordanian cities that sent the most youths to fight in Iraq⊠The well-known Al-Zarqaa residents who were killed in Iraq were supporters of Al-Zarqawi, Abd Al-Hadi Daghlas, Yassin Jarrad, and Yazan Nabil Jarada. This is in addition to the dozens [from Al-Zarqaa] who were martyred before, in Afghanistan."
Al-Zarqaa Residents Figure Prominently at Herat Camp, Afghanistan
"It appears that it was at the Herat camp [in Afghanistan] that Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi became the field commander of the groups [of Jihad fighters]. This is also the camp that the Jihad fighters from Al-Zarqaa have mentioned repeatedly throughout the history of their movement. Anyone who follows the Salafi Jihad stream agrees that the Herat camp in Afghanistan is a major episode in the building of Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's organization in Iraq today. Al-Zarqawi founded this organization in 1999, when he went to Afghanistan. The nucleus of the camp consisted mostly of those from the city of Al-Zarqaa, such as Abd Al-Hadi Daghlas, a Palestinian who was recently killed in Iraq; Khaled Al-Arouri, currently being held in Iran; and Yassin Jarrad, the father of Al-Zarqawi's second wife and the one who, according to the Jihad fighters in Al-Zarqaa, carried out the [September 2003] suicide attack that caused the death of Muhammad Bakr Al-Hakim and the deaths of dozens of Iraqis in the city of Najaf.
Al-Zarqawi's Organization: Made Up of Extremist Palestinian Sheikhs Who Emigrated from Kuwait to Jordan
The inquiry noted that following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War, 250,000 Palestinians emigrated from Kuwait to Jordan. This phenomenon was called "those who returned from Kuwait." The inquiry stated: "According to calculations by Jordanian experts and researchers, some 160,000 of these displaced persons came only to Al-Zarqaa. The experts noticed a connection between their return and the flourishing of the Salafi Jihad trend in Jordan, particularly in Al-Zarqaa." According to the inquiry, the phenomenon of "the returnees from Kuwait" was perceived by many in Jordan as "a turning point in social change." The Jordan Center for Research at the University of Jordan conducted a survey on the matter and found that beginning in 1993, "the youth [in Jordan] became more conservative than the youth of preceding generations, and a large percentage of them supported polygamy and gave priority to educating boys rather than educating girls."
Among the returnees from Kuwait were "a number of people belonging to the Jihad stream, and at their head Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, [whose real name is] Issam Muhammad Taher Al-Burqawi. [He is] a Palestinian who lived in Kuwait, who later became the spiritual teacher of this stream in Jordan, and in 1989 became Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's teacher. "[Al-Maqdisi] went from Kuwait to Afghanistan with the Palestinian sheikh Omar Mahmoud Abu Omar, known by the nickname Abu Qatadah. When Al-Maqdisi returned to Kuwait and then to Jordan, Abu Qatadah found refuge in London. [But] these two figures became the main source of authority of the Salafi Jihad ideology in JordanâŠAlso among the returnees from Kuwait was Abu Anas Al-Shami, the jurisprudence authority of Al-Zarqawi's organization, who was killed several months ago in Baghdad, as well as Abu Qutaybah, senior military official in the Al-Qa'ida organizationâŠThese and others, with Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] at their head, constituted the nucleus of the Salafi Jihad movement. They met in the mid-1990s at one of the mosques in the Ma'ssoum neighborhood in the city of Al-Zarqaa."
Working Together: Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi and Al-Zarqawi
The inquiry also examined the relationship between Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, currently behind bars in Jordan, and Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi: "Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi arrived in Jordan as an immigrant from Kuwait in 1991. At that time, he was known only amongst the Salafi Jihad circles, particularly among a few hundred Jordanians who had heard about him or met him in Afghanistan where he had gone [to wage] Jihad. The Afghan Palestinians and Jordanians among them Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi constituted the nucleus of the stream that Al-Maqdisi had begun to organize. The Jordanian Jihadis spoke of this period as 'the beginning of the Da'wa [Islamic propagation],' and they described Al-Maqdisi's rounds starting from his home in the Al-Ruseifah camp next to Al-Zarqaa. He would visit their homes in the various Jordanian cities, usually joined by Abu Mus'ab Al-ZarqawiâŠ.According to the inquiry, after Jordan signed the peace agreement with Israel in 1994, "the Salafi Jihad movement was being nourished by a new wellspringâŠThe most prominent of the clandestine organizations established in Jordan was perhaps the Bayat Al-Imam organization, founded by Al-Maqdisi and Al-Zarqawi. Some time after the establishment of [this organization], the Jordanian security apparatuses uncovered weapons and explosives in the possession of Al-Maqdisi and Al-Zarqawi, and both were imprisoned until 1999. During the period of their incarceration, the two managed to organize a not inconsiderable number of activists⊠In their activity among the prisoners, the two relied on Abu Mus'ab's strong-arm tactics and his familiarity with the world of the criminals amongst whom he had lived in his youth.
The inquiry related that "[a man called] Abu Othman said that Abu Muhammad [Al-Maqdisi]'s personality was kind and good, and non-confrontational, while Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] showed strength and toughness in the prison. Abu Othman added that the tribal personality of Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] made it possible for him to obtain oaths of allegiance from others within the prison, and that he was confrontational. The youths surrounding him in prison were actual Jihad fighters, and thus they rejected the command of Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, preferring Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] because of his strength and determination. They thought that if [Al-Zarqawi] was [their] imam, Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi would have spare time for engaging in independent judicial ruling [ Ijtihad ] and [religious] study."
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
01/24/2005
1:20:38 AM ||
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#1
Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, [whose real name is] Issam Muhammad Taher Al-Burqawi. [He is] a Palestinian who lived in Kuwait, who later became the spiritual teacher of this stream in Jordan, and in 1989 became Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's teacher.
I'm confused. Where was Zarqawi that he met Maqdisi in 1989? Maqdisi didn't go to Jordan until 1991.
And a stupid question, no doubt, but the article doesn't say, and I don't know.... why did all of those Palestinians extremists go to Kuwait in the first place and why did they leave Kuwait after the Gulf war? And why Jordan?
#3
I'm not sure why the extremists congregated in Kuwait specifically, but all the Pals were kicked out of Kuwait after the Gulf War because they were a little too enthusiastic in their support of Saddam.
Jordan has a Palestinian majority so there was never really anywhere else they could go.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
01/24/2005 7:40
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#5
I suppose that they hated the American infidels more than they hated secular Sadaam....but it seems odd that they would cheer Sadaam against Kuwait ....being they were so devout and all.
#6
Saddam was paying large sums of money to the families of suicide bombers ($10-25,000 per), and had a pet colony of Palestinians in Baghdad -- subsidized housing, subsidized schooling, subsidized jobs... he bought Palestinian support, fair and square. And post-invasion, the Iraqis kicked them out just as quickly as the Kuwaitis had after Gulf War I. The poor dears lived for a while in an open soccer stadium until they could figure out how to get themselves to wherever they went next.
Query: Does anybody know where they went after being kicked out of Iraq?
#10
Saddam being a pragmatist had no purpose for the Palestinians any longer. He had enough problems with sanctions, no fly zones, Kurdish and Shite uprisings and Iranian eastern pressure and the Syrian and Jordanian western movements to deal with "humanitarian" issues. I believe he sent them packing to the Jordanian border. His end game there is to creat instability for the Hashemites by infusing all of these radicalized Palestinians. If the US was depending on Jordan as a launch point for Gulf War II then the Kingdom would have to deal with internal instability.
#11
The Paleos have been abused terribly for decades by their Arab "brothers," and are brainwashed from birth to think it's all the Jooos' Israel's fault.
Condi attacked me, damn it. Can I count on your sympathy?
Yours truly,
Senator Barbara Boxer
_________________________________________________
Sen. Barbara Boxer says she is the real victim of last week's confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, yet continued yesterday to question the national security adviser's honesty. "She turned and attacked me," the California Democrat told CNN's "Late Edition" in describing the confrontation during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "I gave Dr. Rice many opportunities to address specific issues. Instead, she said I was impugning her integrity," Mrs. Boxer said.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005
10:32:08 AM ||
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#1
Can we just have her declared insane and let Arnold appoint her replcement?
"I just hate it when a domestic gets all insubordinate, don't you Robert?"
"Ah do agree, Mizz Barbara, ah do. Down in Wes'-by-God Virginny, we-all got verruh, verruh effective ways o' dealin' with them types. Y'all hand me that white hood on that hook over deah, if'n you please? It's part uh mah outfit."
Posted by: Mike ||
01/24/2005 11:24
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#4
Babs is just a little to the left of Mao Tse Tung...
#5
She turned and attacked me," the California Democrat told CNNâs "Late Edition" in describing the confrontation during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
I call it counterfire, Ms. Boxer. You had it coming.
#6
yes, Babs is a weird one, unfortunately a bunch of people in CA voted her into office. Doesn't say much for CA. IIRC she is the third highest vote getter behind W and f'n kerry for a public office. Now that is disturbing.
#7
Will noone rid me of this meddlesome senator? Hey...I'm jus' sayin'. Part of the problem with Boxer's continued reelection is that the CA GOP continually fails to field a worthy candidate. Hell, this last time around I did not see a single TV add....absolutely pathetic. Try this one on for size....six years from now...Condi goes up against Boxer. Now that's a fight I'd buy tickets to.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/24/2005 12:55
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#8
I got $20 that sez Boxer goes down in the first round.
#9
A persistent problem in the GOP out west is their adamant *refusal* to give money to their candidates. So the #1 discriminator for candidates is that they have to have enough money to pay their own way. This is why canker sores like John McCain get re-elected (his wife's money).
#10
My wife commented,"She (Boxer)knows she's going to be on national telivision, and she shows up with that awful haircut!?!"
My wife turned on her before Dr Rice even had a chance...
#11
One of the frustrations of being a Republican in California is the smug, self-satisfied "I'd rather be idealogically pure than elected" mentality of the party hierarchy. People like Howard Kaloogian and Tom McClintock are one of the reasons the Democrats have been able to run this state into the ground. Hopefully Arnold Schwarzenegger can turn things around and replace these bozos with someone that people might actually vote for.
#12
Actually, it's the huge number of Dems in the LA and Bay Area counties that causes the election of Dem candidates. Same reason LA gets to steal all the North's water, rather than having to build actual, y'know, resivoirs in LA...
#13
AMEN RWV! However, I think the last Senatorial candidate would have lost no matter how much he tried. The vote to give Kerry California was just too large for him to overcome. He didn't help himself by trying to on all sides of the issues. Boxer actually looked sane in comparison to her challenger. He never once put her on the defensive about any of her kooky ideas or conspiracies.
#14
mojo there are resivoirs in LA, that hold the water brought from the colorado river and from up north..mono lake, the largest resivoir for LA, is filled from the colorado and not from the northern part of the state.
As much as southern california 'steals' (as you say) the water from the north the south sends (including LA, Riverside and San Diego) tax dollars to the north. So in that respect you would say the north is 'Stealing' the souths money. If it were not for the business of the south california would not be one of the largest economies in the world. The south could do without the northern water but the north could not do without the souths money.
The problem with republicans in california is that we have been under the liberal yoke for so long it seems like a lost cause. But it is improving, just look at the voter stats for the last election. GW increased his voter share of california a few points.
Posted by: Dan ||
01/24/2005 15:38
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#15
The reason that the Republicans in Ca always lose is because the party money flows to the more conservative republicans whom are unnacceptable to the average CA voter.
CA are interested in environmental issues, mass transit, and are more liberal on social issues such as choice and gay issues - but still much more conservative than Boxer, as a whole.
Republicans seem to grasp that the Dem's keep losing because they prefer "party purity" over actually winning. But they don't seem to grasp the idea that another McCain or Snow is preferable to a joke like Boxer in CA.
The reason Arnold won was because Grey Davis was impeached and Arnold did not need to win party support, had plenty of his own money and star appeal to pull it off in a run-off election.
CA Repubs will continue to lose until the party backs candidates that can actually win in CA v/s those that are deemed "pure" enough for the Republican party.
#16
When she was first elected (as a replacement for Wilson), she was up against Ed Zschau. Zschau had defeated Herschennsohn in the primaries. A number of people said "Well, it's only a two year term, we can take her out then. Better than letting a moderate like Zschau have the seat."
#17
#14 Dan,
As a former NoCal who was a confirmed LA Hata', I did find myself in many water resource debates in my days in the Golden State. It took a crotchety old lifelong Angeleno to stop me dead in my tracks by saying "Listen here, you little peckerwood, check out who paid for the entire Hetch Hechy - central valley canal system to be built, and you will find it was the 7-10 million Southern Californians who paid the taxes and did the heavy financial lifting on what was one of the great water resource projects of its time. I looked it up and he was right, taxes weighed much heavier on the southland than to "noisy neighbors" to the north. The water resources are exceptional for the 15 Million people expected to one day live in California when the designers laid out the plans.
#18
"I gave Dr. Rice many opportunities to address specific issues. Instead, she said I was impugning her integrity," Mrs. Boxer said.
Maybe because you WERE, Skank.
The previous sentence said it all:
Sen. Barbara Boxer says she is the real victim of last weekâs confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, yet continued yesterday to question the national security adviserâs honesty.
#19
Bill Jones was the last candidate to run against Boxer. He was the moderate. Kaloogian and McClintock did not receive the support of either the state or national republican party. Jones got the nomination and then proceeded to dissapear. I don't know that adherence to idealogical purists holds any longer.
#20
Dan - Mono is snow-filled runoff. The brand new reservoir in Temecula is Colorado water as are most of San Diego's reservoirs....LA's water tastes great - snow runoff. SD's sucks...too many minerals and alkaline
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 18:40
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#21
But OT - Boxer is harmed most by letting her run her mouth, brain disengaged, before the widest possible audience. Truly an idiot. The national GOP didn't put $ into Jones' campaign as tehy considered it lost before it began. Too many SF/LA Dems with money
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 18:42
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#22
The national GOP didn't put $ into Jones' campaign as tehy considered it lost before it began.
Before CA can be reclaimed from the grip of the Lefies that are in control of it now, it needs to be allowed to run itself into the ground.
I can see that you will not extend your sympathies upon me during the grevious time.
Especially for my beloved California constituents, I am pleased to remind you that I can be seen live on C-SPAN tomorrow on the Senate floor moaning and wailing the Gitmo-like treatment that Condi gave to me.
It's all her fault, damn it!
Yours truly,
Senator Barbara Box (a.k.a. Condi's victim)
Posted by: Senator Barbara Boxer ||
01/24/2005 22:48
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A British terror suspect captured and held by British forces in Iraq could be brought back to London to face trial, it has emerged. The man, named in reports as Mohamed Ali Abdul Razaq, 48, is being held at a detention facility near Basra. He was seized by British forces in November, reportedly during an SAS raid in Baghdad. It has been claimed that Razaq is suspected of funding and aiding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian fugitive who heads al Qaida in Iraq and leads the terror group which beheaded British engineer Ken Bigley.
Razaq, said to be a former professional basketball player and father of six, was born in Iraq but fled Saddam Hussein's regime in 1991. He came to Britain as a refugee, and was reportedly given citizenship in 2000. After living in London, he returned to Iraq following the fall of Saddam's regime. Reports claimed he could be brought back to Britain to face treason charges at the Old Bailey. However, it is understood that no decisions have yet been taken on how Razaq will be dealt with. The Ministry of Defence confirmed that a "UK Iraqi national" was being held at a Divisional Temporary Detention Facility (DTDF) at its Shaibah base near Basra. "He is being interned as an imperative threat to security and not because he has been accused of any criminal offences," the spokesman said. Under a United Nations Security Council resolution, Coalition forces in Iraq are entitled to use "all necessary means" to deter terrorism and are able to intern those who pose a threat to security.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/24/2005
10:26:05 AM ||
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He came to Britain as a refugee, and was reportedly given citizenship in 2000. After living in London, he returned to Iraq following the fall of Saddamâs regime.
About time we considered refugees' status more carefully methinks. Treason still have the death penalty over here?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/24/2005 11:13
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State Sen. John Ford testified in a juvenile court hearing that he keeps two homes, living with two different women whose children he fathered. Ford's testimony was part of his defense in a child support case. The Memphis Democrat heads a Senate committee that guides the state's child welfare policies, and for the past year he's tried to make use of a law he authored that keeps court-ordered support lower when a father is financially responsible for other children.
In a Juvenile Court hearing last year that is set for a follow-up hearing on Tuesday, Ford said he lives some days with ex-wife Tamara Mitchell-Ford and the three children they had together. On others, he stays with his longtime girlfriend, Connie Mathews, and their two children. Ford and Mitchell-Ford went through a bitter divorce in 2002 that led to Mitchell-Ford's jailing after she plowed her car through Mathews' Collierville home. Ford said he pays nearly all bills for both families. They stay in houses he owns and where he also lives, though neither home is in his South Memphis Senate district. "You have two homes?" Referee Felicia Hogan asks during the tape recorded hearing from November. "Well, that's unusual."
"Not necessarily," Ford shot back. "I know people who got five." Hogan responded: "For child support purposes that's unusual, let me put it that way then."
Ford is battling a suit by a third woman, Dana Smith, who is trying to increase his court-ordered support of a 10-year-old girl he fathered. Smith, a former employee under Ford when he was General Sessions Clerk, won a 1996 sexual harassment verdict against him. Ford contends that any increase for Smith should be tempered by his financial obligations to his other five minor children. None of those children is subject to child support orders. In the hearing, Ford argued all five children live in his household — a household that encompasses two homes — and because of that he is exempt from rules requiring strict proof of his financial support of them. Hogan rejected Ford's request, saying he must produce evidence of bills paid if he wants credit to lessen any modification of Smith's child support.
Mitchell-Ford told The Commercial Appeal newspaper last week said she can verify at least some of Ford's contentions. She said she is six months pregnant, and the father, she said, is John Ford, now 62. "John is over here every single day, if not staying here," she said. Ford did not respond to messages left at his Nashville and Memphis offices. Mathews could not be reached. Ford's comments were part of a hearing more than two years after Smith first petitioned Juvenile Court to increase the senator's $500-a-month support. Ford's income has risen dramatically in recent years. Evidence presented in the hearing showed Ford's gross income reached $356,899 in 2003 and $255,752 in 2002. Ford said most of that comes from his private insurance and real estate consulting business, though specific sources remain a secret. At Ford's request, Hogan ordered state's attorney Joseph Little to keep confidential receipts and documented expenses Ford was ordered to hand over.
Disclosure "would expose all of my business interests and everything. It would put me in imminent danger of a lot of different things I don't want to explain in here," Ford told the court.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
01/24/2005
10:25:30 AM ||
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#2
On hearing the reason that a woman and her husband had twelve children was because "I love children and I love my husband" Groucho Marx sai, "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/24/2005 12:07
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Must have gone to the Bill Clinton Parenting and Marriage School. Poor ladies-where that thing has been...Poor kids-they may end up confused their whole lives about what a father is supposed to be...
#4
This is not surprising when you consider it's Ford. The guy is a certified crook from the Communist Enclave of Memphis. He views the State budget as his own personal slush fund.
Securitymen have intensified efforts to track down accomplices of militants involved in the twin shoot-outs in Maidan Hawally and Umm Al-Haiman. The securitymen were said to have combed Andalus, Jaber Al-Ali and Riqqa and are said to be on high alert in Ahmadi and Jahra for people either having relations or belonging to terrorist groups. However, these persons are described as "not dangerous." The police said they will only raid houses after obtaining warrants from the public prosecution.
At least until the Bad Guyz start shooting...
In another development two suspects were arrested in separate incidents in South Surra by the police. One was arrested driving a green Maxima car and the other was arrested near a Kuwait Finance House branch for possessing a revolver, reports Al Anba. Sources told the daily another suspect was arrested in a jeep in Al-Qurain. They said police are now tracking down suspected vehicles and arresting the drivers. They added that car rental offices are cooperating with the police by providing information on their customers. Meanwhile, a member of the family whose house was used by militants in Jaber Al-Ali says the family will file a lawsuit against the tenants for using the house for other purposes and storing explosives thereby endangering the lives of neighbors in violation of the lease contract.
Good idea. Take 'em to court, by Gum!
A brother-in-law of the landlady, a widow of a martyr who is currently in Makkah performing the Haj, said the house was hired by 'an office' and the family had no idea about the persons who hired the house. The owner of the office is also in Makkah for the Haj. Police have since handed over the house to the owner. Meanwhile, a half brother of Hammad Al-Enezi who was killed during the Umm Al-Haiman shoot-out told Al-Anba he will not receive the remains of his brother for burial because of the shame he brought on the family and tribe.
Oooh. Some of them do feel shame like we do...
Khaled Al-Enezi said he had lost contact with his brother for many years and the family was granted Saudi citizenship two months ago. Another brother of the deceased, identified as Farhan, aware of his brother's radical ideas, informed Saudi security authorities of his absence from home. Hammad, at the time, was believed to have left Saudi and crossed the border into Kuwait but it was not known whether Saudi officials alerted their Kuwaiti counterparts about the presence of Hammad in the country. Khaled, a former military official, said he is proud of his participation in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and Kuwait's liberation war in 1991 but abhors his brother's actions.
Sounds like Khaled's only offense is having a nutbag for a brother...
Police have arrested a GCC youth, whose identity has been withheld for security reasons, for allegedly driving among a US military convoy on the Sixth Ring Road, reports Al-Rai Al-Aam daily. It has been reported the suspect believed to have links with terrorists ignored police warnings to pull over and instead crashed into a police patrol escorting the convoy. During interrogations it was discovered the man was driving under the influence of drugs.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
10:18:10 PM ||
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Links with terrorists and driving while drugged? Not a good day to be him, I think.
From 123India.com. The article includes a photograph of Deeyah.
A sultry pop singer dubbed the "Muslim Madonna" is facing the wrath of religious fundamentalists after releasing a sexy video for her first British single. Deeyah, 27, has become the target of violent threats from members of the Muslim community offended by her glamorous image. Her video is reportedly being shown on Indian channels. The singer, of mixed Pakistani, Afghan and Persian descent, has received intimidating phone calls, aggressive emails and verbal threats from Asian youths warning her to "tone down and cover up".
When Deeyah did a tour of junior schools, including some Muslim schools in Bradford, her performances provoked several boys to leave the room and fights broke out as tensions rose among the students. Since then, her sexy, urban style has divided young Muslims.
She said: "Over the past few months my single has been played on Indian cable channels and I have started to get recognised. That's when the threats began. I had to change my phone number and I am always wary about where I can go on my own."
Deeyah grew up in Norway and says she had problems there too. "I released two albums and was spat at in the street and threatened at school. In the end, it was one of the main reasons why I left Norway and moved to Britain. All I am doing is expressing myself," she said.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/24/2005
10:12:13 PM ||
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yeow! She's en fuego! MS - are due for areappraisal?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 22:48
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A Sydney-based terror suspect, who jumped bail and fled Australia on a false passport, appeared before a Lebanese military tribunal Wednesday to face charges of planning terrorist attacks and forging official documents. Jordanian-Australian Saleh Jamal, 29, testified alongside Lebanese-Australian, Haithem Melhem, 28, from Dinniyeh, and Australian Zuheir Mohammed Issa, both accused of assisting Jamal. Jamal was arrested on May 8, 2004 at Beirut International Airport on his way to Paris by Lebanese secret services, acting upon information provided by Australian authorities. The suspect was traveling on a false Australian passport, under the name of "Ahmad Kak." Although the precise nature of the terrorist attacks he is accused of having planned to perpetrate in Lebanon and Syria remains unclear, Jamal has admitted to meeting with the Sunni extremist group Usbat al-Ansar (Band of Partisans) during his stay in Lebanon.
Usbat al-Ansar is reported folded into Jund al-Sham, which is now supposed to be nearly defunct, although there are apparently enough of them left for today's shoot-em-up...
Usbat al-Ansar, which operates out of the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in South Lebanon - a no-go area for local authorities - is composed primarily of Palestinians associated with Osama Bin Laden. The group's area of operations has so far been limited to Lebanon, with a series of attacks conducted in the 1990s here.
The Lebanese seem to be using Fatah to keep them in check...
Flanked by an assistant lawyer and a translator, a defiant Jamal denied the terrorist conspiracy charges against him, changed previous statements made under interrogation and displayed an irreverent attitude toward the President of the Court, General Safi al-Din, on more than one occasion. Having previously testified to having been brought to Ain al-Hilweh by Issa, Jamal retracted his statement under interrogation Wednesday, after Issa denied any involvement in the matter before the President of the Court. "You told the court last time that Issa brought you to the camp," Safi al-Din said. "I lied," said Jamal. "So if he didn't take you there, who did?" Din asked. "A NASA spaceship," replied Jamal.
He'll look nice with a neck that's three feet long, won't he?
According to the military tribunal's investigative report, Jamal previously admitted during interrogation that he had received military training for three weeks in Ain al-Hilweh, before leaving the camp for Syria to deliver "a package" for Isbat al-Ansar. Jamal's Syria visit coincides with the time of a terrorist attack that took place in Damascus in late April 2004, when a shoot-out occurred between Syrian security forces and unknown assailants. Jamal rejects any involvement in the incident, claiming he only performed a service for one of Isbat al-Ansar's camp leaders, Abu Tarek, in exchange for refuge. Upon returning to the camp, he claims he had a disagreement with Abu Tarek, and therefore decided to go to Europe. In court on Wednesday, Jamal insisted that he was desperate and solely working on trying to find shelter somewhere in Lebanon.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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How come no outcry like there was for Mr. Hicks? I guess only America is evil when it holds Australian terrs.
McCain preens for MSM once again, goes after Rummy over WaPo Defense Humit story. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on a Washington Post report that the Defense Department is reinterpreting U.S. law to give the secretary broad authority over clandestine operations abroad. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has created a new espionage unit called the Strategic Support Branch, according to the news report, but McCain, speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," said he doubts Rumsfeld has broken any laws. So why the committee hearing, Johnny? Add more tar with those feathers, Johnny, they'll stick to Rummy better heh.
"I'm always pleased sorry to read about things in The Washington Post when they affect a committee that I am a member of," McCain said. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. DiRita issued a carefully worded statement yesterday that appears to dispute parts of the Post article. "There is no unit that is directly reportable to the secretary of defense for clandestine operations as is described in the Washington Post," he said. In addition, DiRita said, "the Department is not attempting to 'bend' statutes to fit desired activities, as is suggested in this article." At the same time, DiRita said: "It is accurate and should not be surprising that the Department of Defense is attempting to improve its long-standing human intelligence capability."
DiRita said the war on terror necessitates "a framework by which military forces and traditional human intelligence work more closely together and in greater numbers than they have in the past. These actions are being taken within existing statutory authorities to support traditional military operations and any assertion to the contrary is wrong." The Strategic Support Branch, according to The Post, was designed to expand the Pentagon's use of "humint" or human intelligence operations, including the recruitment of spies and interrogation of prisoners. The recruited agents could include "notorious figures" whose ties to the United States would be embarrassing if revealed, according to a Pentagon memo. They make such a nice couple don't they: WaPo and Johnny.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005
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I am so damned tired of McCain - from his belittling of POW/MIA activists years ago and his sucking up with Kerry prior to the election, to this kind of crap - time to show him the door and force him to do a Jeffords if he cannot walk the line.
#3
I really can't agree, OS.
Yes, he is a grandstander, and of course the MSM play right into it when it can hurt the GOP. Yes, he sometimes votes based on ego or something rather than what we elect him for. Still, his record is usually good, unlike Arlan S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
The majority party is going to have flakes on both sides (and in the middle). The Democrats, in their heyday, had communists (OK, they still have those) to liberals (lots of those) to conservatives (those are gone) to racist Dixiecrats (Byrd is about the only one of those left). Sometimes there were desertions and even breakaway movements. Yet, the coalition survived for decades and was able to get legislation through. The lost tribes were welcomed back every time without (much) penalty.
Let's say we get rid of McCain, and S.P.E.C.T.R.E., and Chafee, and perhaps Snowe. We are now down to 51 seats. Maybe Hagel should go, too, as he is an another Daschle (talks conservative at home, talks and votes liberal in DC). Now we're at 50. Perhaps, in several years, they will be replaced by real Republicans, but in the meantime our agenda are stalled.
While I would prefer it that we had 55 (heck, 100) people who agreed with Me on every issue, we have to take what we can get.
#4
id be happy to take McCain, even if most my fellow dems find him way to conservative. Thats why i part company often with so many of my fellow dems.
#5
McCain is unacceptable because of his hatred of free speech.
And, no, I'm not overstating it. His attitude and statements make it clear he cannot stand being criticized and will gleefully criminalize lese majeste.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/24/2005 10:36
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McCain sounds liberal, but votes conservative. I'll take him over Hillary or Lieberman - who sound conservative, but vote liberal - any day.
#8
I am so damned tired of McCain - from his belittling of POW/MIA activists years ago and his sucking up with Kerry prior to the election, to this kind of crap - time to show him the door and force him to do a Jeffords if he cannot walk the line.
#9
I am so damned tired of McCain - from his belittling of POW/MIA activists years ago and his sucking up with Kerry prior to the election, to this kind of crap - time to show him the door and force him to do a Jeffords if he cannot walk the line.
From the Rantburg Diplomacy Desk:
United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has cancelled a planned visit to Munich. Rumsfeld has informed the German government via the US embassy he will not take part at the Munich Security Conference in February, conference head Horst Teltschik said. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed a complaint in December with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Rumsfeld had made it known immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal action.
The organisation alleges violations of German legislation which outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused. The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe reportedly is examining the roughly 170-page complaint to see if an investigation is warranted. The Center for Constitutional Rights said it and four Iraqis tortured in US custody had filed a complaint with German authorities against Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet and eight other senior military and civilian officials over abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq. The organization said it had turned to German prosecutors "as a court of last resort" because the US government "is unwilling to open an independent investigation" and had "refused to join the International Criminal Court". Several of those it wants investigated are stationed in Germany, it added.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
01/24/2005
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Several of those it wants investigated are stationed in Germany
As I understand it, American army bases, like Ami embassies, are considered to be American soil, and German courts do not have jurisdiction.
#8
Not welcome in Turkey, not welcome in Germany...
Fine, we will deal with world problems using missiles and very large bombs instead of troops and small weeapons. I would just as soon level the targets in Iran and Syria as occupy them anyway.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 14:18
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Wasn't this the conference that TGA was going to attend? Darn.
Posted by: Matt ||
01/24/2005 18:08
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I dunno if this is a true story or not. Sounds pretty fishy to me...
Some workers at a warehouse in Fredrikstad had a mess on their hands last week, after a production mistake caused 1,650 cans of mackerel in tomato sauce to literally explode.
"Ãøps."
Authorities are floundering for an explanation...
More than a thousand of these exploded in a warehouse in Fredrikstad, creating a mackerel mess. Canned mackerel filets in tomato sauce are a dietary staple for many Norwegians. While part of the national heritage, the product is also fondly ridiculed at times and nicknamed "plane crash" because of the silvery fish's appearance in the red sauce when opened.
Ãrk.
Food producer Stabburet always uses a heating technique in the canning process to help preserve the fish, but somehow, the 1,650 cans that blew up missed out. That meant the fish started rotting in the cans, which in turn set off gases that caused the cans to swell until they eventually burst. "It was a highly unfortunate accident," Robert Rønning of Stabburet told VG.
Whatever happened to the highly-trouted Norwegian safety procedures they're always carping about?
Posted by: Seafarious ||
01/24/2005
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I sent the story off to UrbanLegends@about.com for examination. I'll check their site later to see what they have to say.
#6
Ladies and gentlemen, we have here the world's first successful tesing of the terrifying new biological weapon known as the TMBBB (Tinned Mackerel-Born Botulinum Bomb). Hithertofore existing only as wild speculation in the fevered minds of non-conventional weapons specialists, the TMBBB was believed to be too unstable and unpredictable for practical use.. It now appears that the Norwegian military, in collaboration with the white coats and sou-westers of Stabburet's Gubbins, Pilchards 'n' Biowarfare of Fredrikstad, have overcome the formerly-considered insurmountable obstacles to harnessing the awesome power of oily fish, ketchup and anaerobic bacteria. Temptingly tasty yet capable of spreading biotoxins with deadly efficiency over a wide area, the TMBBB is indisputably the acme of culinary and bioweapons technology synthesis.
It's not yet known whether the Norwegians intend to use the new fiendish addition to their military arsenal to blackmail the world, or merely as a so-called Doomsday Device with whch to fend off EU neighbours greedily eyeing Norway's fish stocks having disastrously mismanaged their own.
#56
You've scrod to be kidding me. Is this thing still going?! I thought we'd shad enough. Seafarious has spawned a whopper of a thread... but you should have seen the one that got away!
From the Rantburg Diplomacy Desk:
President George W. Bush tried to bully Canadian officials on missile defence during his visit last month by linking Canada's participation to future protection from the U.S., the Washington Post reported Sunday.
He made Canada give him their lunch money too.
The newspaper quoted an unidentified Canadian official who was in the room as saying Bush waved off their attempts to explain how contentious the issue is for Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government. "(Bush) leaned across the table and said: `I'm not taking this position, but some future president is going to say, Why are we paying to defend Canada?'" the official was quoted as saying.
Dubya, holding the high card, rasies the bet.
"Most of our side was trying to explain the politics, how it was difficult to do,'' he said.
"Mais non, monsieur President, ees non so simplisme!"
But Bush "waved his hands and remarked: `I don't understand this. Are you saying that if you got up and said this is necessary for the defence of Canada, it wouldn't be accepted?'"
Then he got up from the table, put on his hat, stopped to look at the testicles in the jar on the mantle, shook his head and left.
The White House refused comment on the surprisingly pointed remarks. "I'm not going to comment on an unnamed source in a newspaper,'' spokesman Ken Lisaius said Sunday. "The president has been quite clear about the strong relationship with Canada." Amy Butcher, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's Office, said she couldn't talk about the particulars of the missile defence discussion. "Our position is clear. We'll make a decision based on Euroweenie Canadian interests," said Butcher, adding that the House of Commons will participate in the debate. Martin has told reporters that Bush's position at the meeting was one of incredulity that anyone would oppose the system, aimed at knocking out supersonic missiles launched by terrorists or rogue states. But the Post report suggests the meeting was far more tense than that. U.S. diplomats had assured their Canadian counterparts that the prickly issue wouldn't be raised during Bush's visit. But it came up at the private meeting with Martin and the president unexpectedly raised it during a major foreign policy speech in Halifax the next day. Paul Cellucci, America's ambassador to Canada, said earlier this month that the U.S. is optimistic Canada will sign on to the missile defence plan before the end of March. The system will rely on interceptors based in underground silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Pentagon officials blamed an unsuccessful test launch last month on a "minor glitch'' in computer software. They say they may never publicly declare when the shield is fully ready.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
01/24/2005
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Seafarious, thy comments made me laugh out loud!
Posted by: N by NW ||
01/24/2005 1:16
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41 billion loonies over 10 years to improve their national health care. No armed forces to speak of, and I don't mean to degrade the people who've chosen that line of work.
Used subs for what????
2+++ billion loonies on a gun registration that didn't work.
The Canuckistan senate finally got its head out of its rear and discussed upgrading their side of the border.
Wonder what kind of balls Alberta has since they're assuming more burdens since they have the oil.
#3
"President George W. Bush tried to bully Canadian officials on missile defence during his visit last month by linking Canada's participation to future protection from the U.S."
Somebody needs to look up "reciprocity" in a dictionary.
#4
All you have said is quite correct #2. The gun registry is a bust. It cost $2 Billion even though Canada had no need for it because its homicide rate from gun deaths is very low. It plans to pay out $41 Billion over 10 years for health care, but on the otherhand everyone has free health care in Canada and its per capita life expectancy rate is better than the USA's, a country which spends significantly more on health care per capita than Canada. Canada spends very little on military technology but it has one of the most respected group of soldiers in the world. A US soldier would gladly have a Canadian soldier by his side - ask Jarhead or other US military posters. Canadian soldiers are smart, well disciplined, and brave. Their snipers are the best in the world.
Canada's pension plan[like social security] is fully funded. Canada's deficit is being paid down steadily year after year. This past year the Government of Canada announced that it had recorded a surplus of $9 Billion, the seventh consecutive year that it had recorded a budget surplus. As of 2003 Canada has started to reduce personal and corporate taxes. Canada's dollar has steadily increased against the value of the US dollar, as the latter tumbles to new lows. As for Alberta, for Alberta to show some "balls" as you say, it would mean the dissolution of Canada. Therefore Alberta will not show some "balls" and it has nothing to do with masculinity or lack thereof. It has alot to do with Canadian patriotism. Canada has complied with border security requests from the USA, unlike a certain corrupt bunch of bums south of the border which RB'ers are loathe to criticize, because Mexico after all is such a super duper example of an ally.
So before you lambast Canada for being less than our perfect selves in the USA, try to be a bit more realistic about our situation and how we take Canada for granted as our friend. Our deficit is growing like Topsy 24/7. Our Social Security is bust. Our medical system is on a collision course. Our Yankee dollar is losing value consistently but this has not helped our trade imbalances. We have 20 Million illegal aliens living in our midst and that's only counting Mexicans, God only knows how many illegal Chinese and illegal Arabs have come across our porous southern border the past few years. We are in 2 wars and the one in Iraq is costing us $1 Billion a day.
So Canada's "foolish" expenses on a gun registry and on health care adds up to what we spend on the Iraq War in 43 days. Our other perfect ally, Israel, second only to Mexico for its perfection, is thinking of plunging us into a 3rd war with Iran on top of the 2 we are in.
So parden me if I say I think you should show a bit more humility about how Canada is running its country and be a little more circumspect about mocking Canada as being a persnickity ally for not saying I'm your man re: missile defense. Canada is a far better ally than some we go to the wall for and Canada is not running its country any worse than our politicians are running the USA. Moral of the story: Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.
#6
A couple of minor quibbles with your post, 2xstandard.
everyone has free health care in Canada True, but wait times for appointments are so long that those who can afford it go south of the border to American doctors, and entirely too many others die before their Canadian doctor has a chance to try to cure them.
Canada spends very little on military technology but it has one of the most respected group of soldiers in the world Again true, but they must use chartered airplanes to move the troops to the battlefield, or hitch a ride with their American admirers, and entirely too often borrow bullets, or so I've heard. And recent moves to increase spending so that the troops have proper gear and training show that the current government realizes military spending has been entirely too low, even at recently reduced troop levels.
Our deficit is growing like Topsy 24/7 No. As a result of Bush's tax cut, our deficit topped out in 2004, and is set to shrink in 2005 as tax revenues continue to significantly outpace expectations. This has been posted on recently here at Rantburg (by me among others, as it happens).
Our Social Security is bust No, our Social Security is threatened if it continues unchanged for the next generation. That is why Bush wants to change it, proposing introducing means testing, delayed retirement, tying COLAs to actual funds received rather than inflation, and allowing those not immediately approaching retirement to invest some of their SS funds in the stock market. And that's why Mr. Wife and I max out our IRAs and 401k investments every year, and set aside funds should our parents need supporting later. What are you doing to stay off the dole in your old age?
Our medical system is on a collision course Really? With what? Do you have references for this statement? Is that must be why all those rich foreigners come here for treatment?
Our other perfect ally, Israel, second only to Mexico for its perfection, is thinking of plunging us into a 3rd war with Iran on top of the 2 we are in. You have evidence for this, do you?
Honestly, 2xstandard, you really are bent on demonstrating exactly how little you actually know. Not at all wise in a forum such as Rantburg, where you can be caught out even by little housewives like me, while the truly clever members save their fire for those worthy of their attention.
You are not pardoned. You'll have to do much better for pardon to be considered.
As for Alberta, for Alberta to show some "balls" as you say, it would mean the dissolution of Canada.
And that would be bad because....??
Being by one foot in US already, this issue is not as hot for me as it were time ago, but I think the Western Canada should separate, the sucking sound of Eastern leech is very loud. WC would be a much more viable entity.
What about the Easterners? What about them, they can leech each other!
#9
Canada spends very little on military technology but it has one of the most respected group of soldiers in the world. A US soldier would gladly have a Canadian soldier by his side - ask Jarhead or other US military posters. Canadian soldiers are smart, well disciplined, and brave. Their snipers are the best in the world.
Our military are smart, well disciplined and brave too.
Can Canada defend itself as a nation with its military expenditures as low as they are? It doesn't really matter how respected soldiers are in the world if they are outgunned.
So before you lambast Canada for being less than our perfect selves in the USA, try to be a bit more realistic about our situation and how we take Canada for granted as our friend
Our situation is that we are at war with Muslims and Canada is turning itself into a haven for the class of people most likely to attack the USA. Real enough for you?
As for taking Canada for granted, didn't we just go through four years of hostile talk from Canadian leaders, one way talk; talk our own leaders would not engage in? That kind of friendship?
So Canada's "foolish" expenses on a gun registry and on health care adds up to what we spend on the Iraq War in 43 days
Canada would rather spend a billion dollars for a boondoggle rather than to spend money for national defense, even in the midst of evidence that Canada too is on Al Qaeda's target list. If Canada doesn't get hit, then you can parade around telling us how good Canada is and how foolish we are to take on terrorists our own selves.
Our other perfect ally, Israel, second only to Mexico for its perfection, is thinking of plunging us into a 3rd war with Iran on top of the 2 we are in.
Iran has been at war with the west since 1979. Israel, when it does strike will be in defense of itself from hostile Muslims, not because it is 'plunging us into a 3rd war' as you say.
So parden me if I say I think you should show a bit more humility about how Canada is running its country and be a little more circumspect about mocking Canada as being a persnickity ally for not saying I'm your man re: missile defense.
If Canada doesn't want to be protected from Nork missiles, I am down for that: Less money for us to spend
Canada is a far better ally than some we go to the wall for and Canada is not running its country any worse than our politicians are running the USA.
They are worse. It's just the bill hasn;'t arrived yet and when it does it will be a doozie.
Moral of the story: Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.
#10
Gromgorru, 2xstandard's either a moonbat or perhaps rather misinformed. There are still people in the second category, albeit getting more rare.
I had a discussion with my 1st X about Israel, a couple of years ago. She partook on the MSM el cubo version quite happily for years. I showed her the maps, going back more than a century, with some narrative. It dented her a bit. Then she watched on TV that splodeydope boy caught on the crossing. "Disgusting", she said.
Scales fell off completely.
#11
2X I call bullshit. I have friends in B.C. and Alberta. They are very liberal fellows. They have a major rant going on Health Care. First it's not free they pay out the ass for mandatory health insurance premiums that are very, very high. The average wait for a simple hip replacement is 18 months. As I understand it this wait is even if it is not elective surgery. It's called rationed health care. Sorry this wonderful national health system has lots of people pissed off and it is considered a joke by many Canadian citizens.
#12
2x would like us to believe that Canadian policy is based on principle and leads to utopia.
That's not what I hear from Canadians I know. They believe that their government has kept Quebec in the federation through massive bribes and that they can't actually get medical and dental care for their kids in ways that matter.
But the more insidious issue comes with the linkage between various current and previous Canadian leaders and a whole mess of international corruption.
It's true that Canada has been a good ally of the US in the past. It's also true that the US has been a good ally of Canada in the past -- NORAD was mostly paid for by us, but protected them, particularly against circumpolar nuclear strikes during the Cold War.
Bush may have pushed missile defense with Martin. But the bigger issue is that Canada seems happy to sink into the Euro morass. Okay for them, if that's what they want -- but when it spills over onto us, when there are 22,000 stolen blank passports in a year in Canada, when their immigration personnel protect people with direct ties to terrorism financing, then the issue goes way beyond the price of lumber. In this instance "missile defense" is a proxy for "get serious".
#13
SPoD, right you are. It is free for welfare recipients, but otherwise the premiums are quite steep. Although it is mandatory in general, you may stop paying under certain circumstances (I did), but then you have to shell a mighty bundle for medical services, or for reinstating the insurance. It is far cheaper for me to purchase medical services in US, in fact about 6-10 times cheaper. The equivalent insurance in US would be between 50%-63%.
Another aspect of the stellar canuckistan heatlh care is the lack nurses. The reason is that they are underpaid, and there has been a steady stream of them leaving for greener pastures south of the border. Thre is probably enough foreign-educated nurses that could step in, but the inane canuck policy regarding acknowledging foreign educational degrees is mindboggling--it is simply not considered/counted at all (only in rare instance of academic exchanges), one must have a canuck degree, whole nine yards, basta!
#14
Sorry about that, 2xstandard (which you donot appear to be, by the way). It looks like some of the more clever Rantburgers decided to answer you as well.
#16
and in addition to all things already pointed out - imagine how much better things would be in the US if we didn't have to pay for Canada's defense in addition to our own.
#17
And nobody has mentioned Rantburg's ranting on illegal immigration from Mex,you haven't been here long enough to know this 2x.Another thing on the health care issue,prescription drugs.How about Canada's threat not to allow American's to buy low cost Canadian meds.Why are they low cost?Because if U.S. drug company's do not sell to Canadian companies at below rock bottom prices then Canada will steall the formulas.Forcing American's to pay 4-5 times what they should(something I learned at Rantburg U).Given all that has been said,no I don't think I will pardon you.
#19
Wow, 2x got hammered and appears to have left, all before I woke up. Looks like Rantburg does more stomping before 8 am than most sites do all day. :)
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/24/2005 8:52
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#20
Or, I do not doubt his sincerity, Sobiesky.
Other things that we usually associate with genus Homo, yes. Sincerity, no.
#21
Victimhood is woven into the fabric of the LLL.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005 9:45
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#22
da boss is a good boss, but sometimes da boss, he goes off a little half cocked, and says things that aint diplomatic, and dont help. Which is ok, in the big picture we're better off having prez who sees the big picture, and isnt a glorified deputy asst secretary of State (er did anybody say John Kerry). Which is not to say we wouldnt have been better off he HAD been more diplomatic in this particular instance. Reconciliation with Canada on Iraq, the Mideast etc is worth more than one snarky (even if true, which is one debate im NOT getting into) remark on missile defense.
Wow. Free? Really? How do you suppose they did that? I mean, health care in this country costs a lot of money. So, they really don't have to pay anything? That's simply amazing.
#24
LH: Reconciliation with Canada on Iraq, the Mideast etc is worth more than one snarky (even if true, which is one debate im NOT getting into) remark on missile defense.
Iraq is a nit. Missile defense is way more important than Iraq, which we have under control.
#25
even if so, ZF, did the snarky remark make getting Missile defense more likely? And is getting missile defense in CANADA essential to missile defense overall? If so, we might want to offer them something substantive, like agreement on softwood lumber, rather than idle threats.
#27
LH, the brouhaha over Bully Bush is meaningless. If missile defense is in Canada's national interest, then Canada will support it. And of course they will extract some kind of concession on a side issue. This virtually certain outcome will not be affected in the slightest by Bush's remarks, which were obviously the bluff of a master poker player. Tempest, teapot.
#30
For 2x about Canadian health care: as a doc and researcher, I've done the visiting professor thing in a few places in Canada. Basic health care is impressive; specialty care is severely stressed and getting worse.
Example: Manitoba had, on my visit a couple years back, exactly one sleep specialist for the entire province. As a result patients with sleep disorders (4% of a western population) could get a clinic appointment once every two years. Not good.
I have research colleagues in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Toronto, and their message is, things aren't good. Pouring more money into the system probably won't fix it, but it will bankrupt the country.
I'm not smart enough to know how much money Canada needs to spend on its defense -- I'm a doc, not a policymaker. But it strikes me that if you're going to depend on a partnership with your big neighbor to the south for a big part of that defense, you shouldn't be throwing stones.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/24/2005 10:51
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#31
so does any major Canadian political party want to drop their system, and go to the US system?
and 4% of the population has sleep disorders? I really doubt that 4% of the US population has been treated for sleep disorders, so I expect either theyve got more of em, or not many people take advantage of treatment even when its available, or we have our own forms of rationing.
#32
Canada has a tough decision to make. Does it want to be part of European world or part of the American world. Bush's comment should stimulate some explicit thinking by Canadian planners on this subject.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/24/2005 11:02
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#33
Canada's not going anywhere. The less time wasted on the excitable ones, the better. Let's start focusing on the truly significant ASIAN threats and opportunities and stop wasting so much time on euros and canadians who cannot or will not seriously help or harm us regarding the Asian threats.
#34
LH: and 4% of the population has sleep disorders?
It is more comon than you think.
Approximately 70 million people in the United States are affected by a sleep problem. About 40 million Americans suffer from a chronic sleep disorders, and an additional 20-30 million are affected by intermittent sleep-related problems. However, an overwhelming majority of sleep disorders remain undiagnosed and untreated (National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, 1992).
I trained w/the Canucks about 7 yrs back. Good lads, take their job serious and are about 10 times more hygenically aware then the Turks. However to quibble - the USMC has the best snipers in the world (I'm obviously biased).
I'm not an expert on health care, I've read/heard that their basic health care is very good but the waiting list for serious operations is quite long. I believe free health care isn't free, just as freedom isn't free. In the end, someone somewhere payed/invested into it. One of my buddies who lives in MT on the canuck border found it cheaper to get rk over there then in the states but would not advise doing anything more serious w/canadian doctors. Again, one man's opinion; I've never had the need to go over there for any length of time.
If what 2xs says is true about them being good on paying down their debt then I say kudos to them.
Other then their insane immigration policies I don't have much issue w/canada. Yes, I think their gun laws are stupid and their sometimes anti-American attitudes bug me but other then that I harbor no ill will toward them. I believe people ultimately get the type of government they're willing to put up with. Same goes w/Mexico whom I definitely not loathe to criticise wrt illegal immigrants. Time to build the wall on the so.border imho. I'm sick of paying for their inept and corrupt governmental policies.
#39
All this talk diverts from the obvious defensiveness of both DoubleStandard and the Canuckistan politicos: They KNOW the situation is essentially parasitic, exploitative, and very one-sided. Defense is a primary duty of the government, while "free" health care is secondary ("Too bad he didn't survive the Terrorist's bomb: It wouldn't have cost him a cent for us to patch him up!").
Now, I like the Canadians. However, sniping does seem to be a national skill of theirs that they practice assiduously, and not just with guns.
My dad was a doctor, and viewed Nationalized medicine as involuntary servitude under masters with half his intelligence, a tenth of his education, and possessing the skill of promising benefits to gullible voters paid for out of someone else's pocket. Better to be treated by a free man who feels he's respected, and paid accordingly, than by a resentful proto-serf who knows he's being exploited. (And worse than both is the doctor or nurse who is delighted with what they get, since it's more than what they are really worth or are capable of...)
#41
As commenters have already noted:
1. Article is evidently in the Bush-hating WaPo..
2. ...and quoting unnamed Canadian gov't source
3. Canada does deserve kudos for better budget discipline than us.
4. The U.S. would certainly be in better *deficit shape* if we had the same per-capita spending on defense as Canada. But could Canada exist safely with a tiny armed force if the U.S. wasn't the providing both a lightning rod and a proxy defense?
Actually I think it would be a canny political move for Canadian leaders to kick back and let the U.S. shoulder the cost of all North American defense. It just wouldn't be right.
Posted by: sf ||
01/24/2005 13:38
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#42
Sobiesky: I've been hearing gripes about overstressed nurses here in the US (specifically Madison, WI). It seems hospitals don't have quite enough nurses, so they stretch the shifts of those they do have. Whether this is due to nursing shortages or bean counters in the back office I couldn't tell you.
Posted by: James ||
01/24/2005 13:39
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#43
Its the bean counters, James. And money preferentially spent on lovely decorations for the birthing rooms. (One born here, one in Germany. Here the decor was tasteful and soothing in my private room; there they were repainting the concrete walls for the first time in 20 years, but we had lots of nurses coming through that double!)
"Free defense" is kinda like "free health care". It's ok for the routine stuff - but not life-threatening delays, inadequate staffing and overall just not so hot when your family's lives most depends on it.
#45
Canada is not a sovreign country. Even tiny Denmark can hoist a flag on Canadian Arctic territory whenever they please.
As I have said before, Canada is but a collection of badly run health care providers. The ultimate socialist disaster.
Posted by: john ||
01/24/2005 14:43
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#46
SW:I have research colleagues in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Toronto, and their message is, things aren't good. Pouring more money into the system probably won't fix it, but it will bankrupt the country.
If you have any doctor friends in Ontario ask them why they have rejected a deal with the government about more spending for health care, because it didn't include a pay raise in the first year of the increased spending. Ontario in particular needs more doctors, not doctors making more money. Keep in mind, the pay raise would not have been large enough to attract more doctors to Ontario, as they claim.
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/24/2005 14:48
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#47
Oh, you mean President Bush got them to go beyond ...eh...
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/24/2005 16:53
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#48
What do people here know about Canada's Education System?
I have a Canadian friend who decided to enroll her daughter in a private school rather than send her to public school. The reason being schools are not so good.
#49
My #4 post was a direct response to #2 post. I think it's inappropriate for any American to mock Canada especially since the USA is hardly a study in perfection.
Gun boondoogle of $2 Billion. Big deal. That's chump change as compared to the pork barreling done by US politicians like Trent Lott and John McCain and others.
A non-partisan group called Citizens Against Government Waste has identified $22.9 billion in pork barrel spending crammed into the $388 billion omnibus spending package recently passed by Congress.
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=11456
As for the wise crack about the Canadians investing $41 Billion over 10 years, hey who are we to criticize Canadians about health care waste of money?
U.S. health expenditures rose by 7.7% in 2003 to nearly $1.7 trillion, and for the first time exceeds 15% of the gross domestic product. Health spending grew by 9.3% in 2002.It is disturbing that private health insurance premiums continue to grow at a faster rate than health insurance benefit outlays," said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund. Premiums rose 9.3% in 2003, compared with benefit outlay increases of 8.2%."One consequence is that the net cost of private insurance and program administration is the fastest growing component of total health expenditures at 13.2%," she said. In 2003, health care costs averaged $5,670 per person in the United States, adding up to a total of nearly $1.7 trillion spent on health care.
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/01/24/gvsc0124.htm
Here's some Canadian statistics:
Regardless of the political debate, Canada does boast one of the highest life expectancies (about 80 years) and lowest infant morality rates of industrialized countries, which many attribute to Canada's health care system.
Health care expenditures in Canada topped $100 billion in 2001.
Approximately 9.5% of Canada's gross domestic product is spent on health care. In comparison, the United States spends close to 14% of its GDP on health care.
Individually, Canadians spend about $3300 per capita on health care.
http://www.canadian-healthcare.org/index.html
Canadians consistently chose to have the single payer system, so who are we to say our system is better? When Canadians do not want to wait in lines they come to the US and pay out of pocket unlike Mexicans who come across the border so often for medical care that border states are shutting down hospitals due to illegals using emergency care and not paying for the services. As for prescription drug free-loading, blame our own politicians' protectionist policies to the pharmaceutical industry. Canadians are no more "free loading" than Mexico or Israel or the entire world, for that matter, is "free loading" as a result of our being willing victims of pharmaceutical lobbies in Congress.
Pouring more money into the system probably won't fix it, but it will bankrupt the country.
That's a ridiculous doomsday scenario. Canada will never go bankrupt over the funding of its medical system. Canadians will come around to voting in a dual system of health care before such a banqruptcy crises rears its head, much like what what some of the European nations have in place -like Sweden or Switzerland.
As for Canadians not pouring a lot of their tax money into the military, once again that's a pragmatic choice on their part so why do we blame them? Each country does what is their best interest. Mexico issues comic book instructions on how to make best use of US largesse. Israel is contemplating an attack on Iran even though it may put coalition troops in harm's way in Iraq. I've not heard much criticism of either Mexico or Israel on this board for choosing to follow a path that's best for them even if it means down sides for America. Canada does not have to fear terrorism as much as the USA. It rarely interferes in global politics. It is self-sufficient in energy so the need for ME positioning is not necessary.
The USA would need to pay for the missile defense system whether there was Canada next door or whether the USA were an island. I don't see GWB putting Mexico on the spot for paying its share of missile defense, even though Mexico benefits from the US's defense needs. I don't see GWB putting Israel on the spot for all the freebie foreign aid we give it which by and large picks up the tab for Israel's defense system. The USA has some other notable defense free-leading allies and yet only Canada is dumped on. Why is that? And here's a news flash to the usual suspects who peddle their well worn anti-semeticism baiting whenever a criticism of Israel is made - perhaps you should examine your own bigotry against Christians before smearing others.
The fact remains that Canada is our best ally and to consistently find fault with Canada, as appears to be the habit on RB, is unfair especially in light of the fact that allies like Israel and Mexico are given passes for identical or worse behavior.
#50
sf: Canada does deserve kudos for better budget discipline than us.
Canada doesn't have better budget discipline - it has tax-and-spend policies - the kind of thing that Reagan decisively stopped by pledging an end to tax hikes. A better budget discipline would involve cutting government spending and taxation in lockstep.
#52
DS: Regardless of the political debate, Canada does boast one of the highest life expectancies (about 80 years) and lowest infant morality rates of industrialized countries, which many attribute to Canada's health care system.
How much of this is attributable to Canada's lower homicide rate? And to the fact that Canadians have fewer road accidents because they drive less? As to infant mortality rates, how much is due to the fact that the US has inner city parents who can't even take care of themselves, let alone their babies - but Canada doesn't? How about the fact that the US takes in low-skilled immigrants from all over the world whereas Canada only takes in college grads?
#53
The only thing I know about education up north is that anti-Americanism is as much a part of the curriculum as anti-Zionism/semitism is part of the Palestinian curriculum. That is, not a separate course, but part and parcel of everything else. On the other hand, Canadian maps do note the existence of the U.S.
2xstandard, the point of Rantburg is to tease out critical reality from all the information hemorrhaging over the web. As such, criticism of friend and foe alike is a necessary tool. (Snarky comments are just a pleasant bonus.) Both Israel and Mexico have been criticized here, even lambasted, for actions/decisions/policies that they've taken. And Canada, much as you may like it, richly deserves the relatively mild criticism it has received in this particular thread. Oh, and given how rude Canadians are about their southern neighbor, they and you should be glad we as a group choose to address real issues rather than answering in kind as they, and you so richly deserve.
2xstandard, I very strongly recommend you spend some time in Rantburg's archives, say the past few months, and learn enough that you merely sound inquisitive, rather than a self-righteous boor not nearly as knowledgeable as you think you are.
Oh, and with regard to Israel? They get loans from the U.S. to purchase U.S. weaponry, which they have always repaid with interest, as well as being a primary weapons supplier to the U.S. Defense Dept. for the many systems they've developed that are better than the domestic product. The ignorant shit you are spouting walks, talks, and quacks like antisemitism, buddy, if only because you choose to believe hateful falsehoods rather than bothering to determine the truth from primary sources.
#54
Gun boondoogle of $2 Billion. Big deal. That's chump change as compared to the pork barreling done by US politicians like Trent Lott and John McCain and others.
---
You're comparing a country of 31.5 mil to a country of almost 300m w/different GDPs?
What's 2 b in Loonies?
And if their NHS is so wonderful, why forking out MORE money to get their surgery faster here?
Why have they contracted w/hospitals on our side of the border?
They've lost 20% of their neurosurgeons, IIRC.
Start perusing The Frasier (sp) Institute. I keep a file on Anglosphere socialized medicine. I have a separate file for Canada. You had a better chance of getting an MRI more quickly if you were a dog or cat in one province.
When Canada starts taking in in proportion the amount of immigrants we do, then we'll compare apples to apples.
Canada also has OIL it can tap into and we can't. Would that help our budget?
They free-ride on our military and prescription drugs.
If they start paying their fair share of either, then let's see budget numbers. And again, approx 85% of their trade is w/who?
IIRC, Alberta's starting to take more responsibility for its' citizens itself.
#55
The only thing I know about education up north is that anti-Americanism is as much a part of the curriculum as anti-Zionism/semitism is part of the Palestinian curriculum
I doubt you have ever spent any time in Canada much less researched its education system to have any support for your know-it-all declaration that the Canadian education system teaches anti-Americanism in the same vein as anti-Zionism is taught in Palesinian schools. What a pantload of narrow minded crap.
As such, criticism of friend and foe alike is a necessary tool. Both Israel and Mexico have been criticized here, even lambasted, for actions/decisions/policies that they've taken.
Pray tell when has that happened? When can anyone say anything in the way of criticism of Israel without the usual it's all about the Jews rants from people like you. And how often are articles posted about the ongoing terrorism threat posed by our porous southern border with Mexico, although this is supposedly a political discussion board about the the threat from terrorists? Open borders with Mexico is a major threat to the US yet I've not seen more than a couple of articles on that subject the past few weeks. The most coverage came from the unverified threat of Chinese nationals smuggled across the Mexican border and supposedly targeting Boston.
The ignorant shit you are spouting walks, talks, and quacks like antisemitism, buddy, if only because you choose to believe hateful falsehoods rather than bothering to determine the truth from primary sources.
You have self-centered paranoia complexes that I have zero interest in exploring on a political discussion board, tw. I am not going to back off from criticizing Israel as a nation because of your unreasonable religious chauvanism or sensitivity or whatever baggage you carry in your psyche. Your bigotry to Christians on a personal level on recent threads defines the phrase "ignorant shit" far better than my objective comments about Israel or Mexico as self-serving nations and imperfect allies.
#56
Canada or Mexico an ally? Their neighbors and as JFK's poet said, good fences make good neighbors.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/24/2005 20:34
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#57
2x,
I do not know if the Canadian Education system teaches anti-Americanism as intensely as Palestinian schools do but I do know that my friend's daughter's teacher spends about 20 minutes of the class period criticizing America. It is so bad that my friend is about to complain to the School Master. She feels that she should not be paying for an indoctrination in anti-Americanism. She can get that anyway in Canada for free.
Moreover, my observation when living in Saudi was that Canadians were just behind the Saudis when it came to anti-Americanism.
#58
2X - caught with your pants down. I, for one example, live in San Diego, but support Israel rabidly as the only democracy in the ME (and no, I'm Roman Catholic). I do want our military to close our border with Mexico to only legal immigrants and worker-visas. I also condemn Israel for working defense tech with China, against our interests. You've been called, culled, dissected, and exposed, pal
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 20:55
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#59
sf: Canada does deserve kudos for better budget discipline than us.
It has just occurred to me that governments have budget discipline the way people have budget discipline when they're spending somebody else's cash. Canada doesn't have budget discipline - it has a gun pointed at taxpayers' heads and empties their pockets every chance it gets. Stateside, the government is at least trying to place strict limits on spending by avoiding tax hikes - meaning that any pork gets seriously scrutinized because the funding has to be borrowed.
#60
You have self-centered paranoia complexes that I have zero interest in exploring on a political discussion board, tw.
It appears to me the 'self-centered paranoia' is a good deal closer to you than you would like us to know.
I am not going to back off from criticizing Israel as a nation
Nor should you...
because of your unreasonable religious chauvanism or sensitivity or whatever baggage you carry in your psyche.
Let me get this straight. You think that YOUR views of tw will affect whether you continue to post? Really? That's about as dishonest a thing I have ever seen posted on a public board.
Your bigotry to Christians on a personal level on recent threads defines the phrase "ignorant shit" far better than my objective comments about Israel or Mexico as self-serving nations and imperfect allies.
At least you admit your posts are ignorant 'sh*t.' TW speak/writes from the heart.
#62
Thank you, badanov. As always you are kindness personified.
As for you, 2xstandard, perhaps someday I'll allow you to talk to my Catholic husband about my bigotry to[ward] Christians. Or my darling born-again mother-in-law. But I'd suggest you stand well back, and keep your hands in view. They're very protective of me.
Shit I might well be; but unless you are a professor of theology or a priest, it is highly unlikely you are qualified to call me ignorant on this particular subject.
#63
I do know that my friend's daughter's teacher spends about 20 minutes of the class period criticizing America
Go to any American public school classroom and you'll discover that there's more than 20 minutes devoted to dissing America.
Moreover, my observation when living in Saudi was that Canadians were just behind the Saudis when it came to anti-Americanism.
Did you ever live in Canada? If not, how do you come to the conclusion that Canada is behind S. Arabia for being anti-American?
2X - caught with your pants down. You've been called, culled, dissected, and exposed, pal
Say what? How have been caught with my pants down - in what regard? Defending Canada as a good ally? Suggesting that Canada not be continually dissed for things that other allies are given a free pass for doing?
Let me refresh your memory on the article and specific post that started this whole thread.
The article said that GWB put the Cdn. gov't on the spot for not paying its share of national defense. Post #2 then proceeded to mock Canada on some other issues, which the US itself is not a shining example of perfection - the pot calling the kettle dirty - political boon doogles, costly inefficient health system. Canada is no more free-loading on the USA's defense budget than Mexico is so why should GWB dump on Canada? Even if the USA were an island it would need to spend the identical amount on self defense regardless of Canada being its neighbor. Canada has always pulled its fair share in international affairs. Canadian troops are in Afghanistan and Kosovo unlike either Israeli or Mexican troops. Canada protected Americans in its embassy after the fall of the Shah at great peril to its embassy employees. Canadian airports welcomed US flights and took in American travellers on 9/11. Did Mexico do the same? I think not. As for Israel's foreign aid and military aid from the USA, Congressional records do not support tw's bravado about loans paid back "with interest":
http://www.usembassy.at/en/download/pdf/israel_asst.pdf Since 1985, theUnited States has provided $3 billion in grants annually to Israel. Since 1976, Israel has been the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, and is the largest cumulative recipient since World War II.
In January 1998,Finance Minister Neeman proposed
eliminating the $1.2 billion economic aid and
increasing the $1.8 billion in military aid by
$60 million per year during a 10-year period
beginning in the year 2000. The FY1999,2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 appropriations bills included cuts of $120 million in economic
aid and an increases of $60 million in military aid for each year. U.S. aid to Israel has some unique aspects, such as loans with repayment waived, or a pledge to provide Israel with economic assistance equal to the amount Israel owes the United States for previous loans. Israel also receives special benefits that may not be
available to other countries, such as the use of
U.S. military assistance for research and
development in the United States, the use of
U.S. military assistance for military purchases
in Israel, or receiving all its assistance in the
first 30 days of the fiscal year rather than in 3
or 4 installments as other countries do.
In addition to the foreign assistance, the
United States has provided Israel with $625
million to develop and deploy the Arrow antimissile missile (an ongoing project), $1.3
billion to develop the Lavi aircraft (cancelled),
$200 million to develop the Merkava tank
(operative), $130 million to develop the high
energy laser anti-missile system (ongoing),
and other military projects. In FY2000 the
United States provided Israel an additional
$1.2 billion to fund the Wye agreement, and in
FY2002 the United States provided an
additional $200 million in anti-terror
assistance.For FY2004, the Administration
requested $480 million in economic, $2.16
billion in military, and $50 million in migration
resettlement assistance. The United
States would continue to allow Israel to spend about 26.3% of the military aid in Israel rather
than in the United States for U.S. produced military equipment Israel is an exception to the
general practice that all U.S. foreign military financing is spent in the United States.
At least Israel votes 92% of the time along with the USA. However, Mexico gets approx. $15 Million of US foreign aid each year and yet Mexico votes against the USA more than 60% of the time in the UN. This is based on statistics compiled by the Heritage Foundation.
Canada does not receive any foreign aid from the USA nor does it cause the US antagonism. The Israel-Palestinian conflict has brought a lot of heat to the US, which is perceived by Muslim countries as favoring Israel. Mexico has not helped the US's situation with S. American and Central American countries. In fact, Fox and Chavez and Castro have been known to be rather chummy.
I stand by my position that Canada is a good long standing ally and if it makes self-serving decisions for its country, it certainly is not any worse and in some ways is more circumspect about causing negative baggage for the USA than either Mexico or Israel. Canada gets dissed alot by RB'ers, and yet I believe we should consider ourselves very fortunate to have Canada as a neighbor and an ally.
fyi, frank, if you want to talk about pants in regards to me, please use the word panties because I am a woman.
I stand by my statements - Canadians can be our friends - it's a two-way street, and while they ignore the protective umbrella (which FAR overshadows otheefforts and expenditures) we provide, the relationship is in denial. Better to call them on it
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/24/2005 22:37
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#65
Canada does not receive any foreign aid from the USA nor does it cause the US antagonism.
That is a lie. Plenty of Canadian politicians have publically voiced their disdain for the USA since 911.
The Israel-Palestinian conflict has brought a lot of heat to the US, which is perceived by Muslim countries as favoring Israel
Call it what it is. Not a war but Islamic terrorism. And guess what? I favor Israel, no perceptions nor illusions.
I stand by my position that Canada is a good long standing ally and if it makes self-serving decisions for its country, it certainly is not any worse and in some ways is more circumspect about causing negative baggage for the USA than either Mexico or Israel.
#66
Ms 2xstandard, thank you for the information on US/Israel funding. I was wrong.
Frank, my mother always said that ladies always wear clean panties under their pants. Being the gentleman that you are, I'm sure that's what you meant by your original statement.
Former ambassador Khalil Kazem Khalil said on Sunday the anti-armor mines placed outside a building he owned in Maarakeh are only available to military organizations and called for getting rid of such organizations, in an indirect reference to Speaker Nabih Berri's Amal Movement.
The "militias" — bands of fascisti — are why Lebanon isn't stable. Thank God the "militia movement" in the U.S. seems to have faded away after the Oklahoma City bombings. They're a recipe for anarchy.
Early Saturday morning, an anti-armor landmine exploded at the building while explosive experts dismantled four other similar mines, all Russian made. Speaking during a news conference held at his home in the presence of some 150 supporters, Khalil said: "It is time to get rid of those militias." He urged the government to prevent the hegemony of a certain category over public administrations and institutions, such as the Regie and the Council of the South, which are known to be under Berri's influence. Khalil said the building was intended to host an agricultural project that would provide job opportunities in the area for the youth. He also said that his brother Nasser has been the target of an assassination attempt during the 1992 parliamentary elections campaign.
Khalil urged authorities to assume their responsibilities and expose those who tamper with internal security. "The president, the premier and the interior minister ... have a historic responsibility at this moment, especially toward the South, the responsibility to ensure security and put an end to intimidation," Khalil said. Commenting on the electoral law, Khalil said he preferred small- or medium sized-districts over the mohafaza (large electoral districts), saying that mohafaza - called for by Berri - were aimed at "manipulating the will of the people."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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I would suggest that the militia movement in the United States faded, as well, because the United States continues to be a multi-cultural society. With all our imperfections, we still have more tolerance for eachother than many other nations with diverse ethnic populations. Our cultures are here voluntarily. In most other similar situations, force was used to create a multi-cultural nation and that is a recipe for conflict.
I would also suggest that the parlimentary method of governing is also a source of such conflicts. By winning a narrow majority or creating a coalition, a given ethnic group can control both the legeslative and executive branches of government. Our constitutional checks and balances are unique in the world.
#3
I would also suggest that the parlimentary method of governing is also a source of such conflicts. By winning a narrow majority or creating a coalition, a given ethnic group can control both the legeslative and executive branches of government.
Diplomatic efforts gained steam in easing separatist conflicts Sunday in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, two countries battered by last month's tsunami that has focused international attention on their decades-long insurgencies. Finnish officials confirmed that the Indonesian government and rebels will meet this week in Helsinki to discuss a formal cease-fire in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province, where separatists have been fighting for an independent homeland for nearly 30 years. Finland's Crisis Management Initiative, headed by former President Martti Ahtisaari, confirmed that Indonesian government officials and Aceh rebel leaders would meet this week in Helsinki, but declined to provide more details "due to the delicate nature" of the negotiations.
They'll agree to a cease-fire, and then a holy man will issue a fatwa, and then all hell (i.e., life as usual in Aceh) will break loose. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
01/24/2005
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#1
"...Aceh province, where separatists have been fighting for an independent homeland for nearly 30 years."
And receiving zilch international attention. I wonder why?
Kuwait, facing an increase in militant violence, is hunting between eight to 10 Saudis and Kuwaitis suspected of links to al-Qaeda and a local anti-US network. "Among the Kuwaitis and Saudis being sought by state security are three individuals who have been wanted since the summer as part of a network that trained and sent youths to Iraq to fight US-led forces," the source told Reuters. Adel Al-Shimmari, Khaled Al-Dosari and Ahmad Al-Mutairi have been sought by the authorities since August for indoctrinating youths in radical Islam and facilitating their entrance to Iraq, the source said.
Cue the Family Affair theme. Dosaris and Mutairis are almost as common in the Wonderful World of Terror as the al-Ghamdis.
They are also leading suspects in two deadly clashes between police and gunmen in the state earlier this month, blamed on Muslim militants believed to be sympathetic to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The source identified a fourth suspect as 29-year-old Kuwaiti national Amer Al-Enezi.
"All the men being sought have links to hostile activity in either Afghanistan or Iraq," the source said. Kuwait has boosted security and cracked down on Islamists opposed to the US military presence. Police have seized weapons and munitions in a series of hauls and have so far detained up to 25 suspected militants for questioning. Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef, whose country has been battling al-Qaeda linked violence for nearly two years, has been quoted as saying that the attacks in Kuwait were an extension of events in Saudi Arabia and were "from the same source".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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#1
Hopefully the Dosaris aren't related to Dorsai or something like that...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
01/24/2005 1:21
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#2
The Unspeakable in hot pursuit of the Inedible?
At least two people including a child were wounded during clashes between rival groups in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp.
"One false move and the kid [BLAM!] gets it!"
According to witnesses and Palestinian security sources, fighters from late Palestinian President Yasir Arafat's Fatah faction traded fire with supporters of an Islamist group that has often feuded with Fatah in the camp and relatives of a member of that group. A Palestinian child and a man in a part of the camp away from the scene of the fighting were injured by stray fire, Palestinian security and medical sources said on Sunday. The fighting was the most recent in a tedious long string of skirmishes between Islamist factions and mainstream Palestinian groups led by Fatah that have effective control of the camp, which Lebanese forces dare do not enter. The Ein el-Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon is the largest of a dozen in Lebanon where some 350,000 Palestinians are registered among the refugees displaced after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. The camp is a sensitive issue in Lebanon where authorities fear that the Palestinian refugees could threaten the delicate sectarian balance of power in the country.
At least two people were wounded Sunday in clashes between members of the Palestinian mainstream Fatah faction and Islamic extremists in Lebanon's largest refugee camp, officials said. Fatah guerrillas battled members of Jund al-Sham, a small, radical Palestinian group based at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon. It was not clear what triggered the fighting, in which heavy machine-guns and shells were used, but tensions had been simmering for months. Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fatah military officials were storming houses of Jund al-Sham members in an attempt to crack down on the group. At least two Fatah members were wounded, they said.
Jund al-Sham is a little-known Sunni Muslim fundamentalist group that emerged in Ein el-Hilweh last year. Its estimated 50 members, who brand Christians and Shiite Muslims as "infidels," have had tense relations with Fatah supporters. The group's former leader, Mohammed Ahmed Sharkiyeh, resigned last October, citing health reasons, but Palestinian officials at the time said Fatah's threats to liquidate Jund al-Sham were behind the resignation. His resignation followed clashes between Jund al-Sham gunmen and Fatah guerrillas in the camp in which at least two people were killed and several wounded.
The fighting started around 3 p.m., when an armed group wearing Jund al-Sham masks broke into the house of Fatah military chief captain Lino, who lives in the Safouri quarter, and started shooting at his guards. As the conflict developed, the two groups used B.7 missiles, automatic weapons and hand grenades. Palestinian sources said the fighting came as a response to a previous dispute that occurred during the day between a member of Fatah movement and members of Jund al-Sham. The initial dispute resulted in the arrest of Wissam Ahmed - thought to be a Jund al-Sham member - by some of Lino's supporters. The fighting's soon spread throughout the camp, prompting many citizens there to flee to Sidon. The National and Islamic Forces issued a statement calling for a cease-fire and citizens took to the streets demonstrating against the fighting.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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#1
Bin Laden is keeping his promise! Just last week he threatened to waste Fatah over a killing at that camp of his agent. I had posted his threat here (from debka) with the popcorn image. It appears he is not wasting his time -- so enjoy the corn! A beer would be nice to go with it!
Iran's Information Minister Ali Younessi said in Tehran Sunday that threats issued by US officials were part of a psychological war waged on Iran.
No, we're not. You just think we are...
"The Americans issued those statements to influence ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the Europe," Younessi told reporters, according to the official IRNA news agency. Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said in the capital Sunday that threats recently hurled by US officials against his country are part of a psychological war aimed at exerting pressure on Europe to tow the US line.
Interesting concept, though. How does one carry out psychological warfare against people who're psychoceramics? Do the rules change for the unhinged?
Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Asefi said that the United States actually wants Europe to fail in its talks with Iran. "American accusations (against Iran) are not new. Washington wages psychological wars against Iran every now and then. Militarism is the main reason behind those remarks. No country listens and even European states and President Bush`s comrades have rejected those remarks and consider them to be declarations of all-out war against the whole world," Asefi said, according to IRNA news agency.
Oh, I don't think anybody but the French go that far. Still, it's interesting to see the way Iran's lapsed further into its national psychosis in the past year. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king; in a country full of nutbags, the guy with all his marbles doesn't stand a chance.
He further said that remarks of this kind are clear examples of a desire to wage religious and cultural wars against supporters of other religions and cultures, adding that they will bear no fruit except hatred at US policies at the regional and international levels as well as isolation for the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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#1
No it isn't: can't wage a psych war on a mind that spend a lot of time studying Koran, without actually hitting --- words just don't register.
#2
People who repeatedly lose often have the bad habit of loudly complaining when their opponent nails them a good one. This is not a good idea, like a boxer who says to his opponent, "Ow, you really hurt my ribs with that punch! Stop hitting me there!"
#3
Personally, I would have used the Baghdad Bob picture. Iran's Information Minister is getting to be about as silly. "No country listens and even European states and President Bush`s comrades have rejected those remarks and consider them to be declarations of all-out war against the whole world," Asefi said, according to IRNA news agency." Honestly, the man's a comic!
Posted by: Tom ||
01/24/2005 11:22
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Whether used as a diversionary tactic or to gain an advantage in the ongoing jostling for majority representation in the upcoming May parliamentary elections, the sharp increase in sectarian innuendo is too dangerous to ignore. Many agree that Lebanon's confessional diversity sharply differentiates the country from its surrounding Arab neighbors, acknowledging that such a religious plurality is more of an asset than a handicap. However, in an environment in which politics is so closely entangled with religion sentiment, any cracks surfacing in this fragile bond could lead to catastrophe.
Following a 15-year bloody civil war, Lebanese are hoping they bid farewell to sectarianism and now shudder at the mere thought of going back to that dreadful part of Lebanon's history. In fact, the 1989 Taif Accord was introduced to end the cycle of sectarian violence and ensure proper confessional representation in government and guarantee coexistence among Lebanese of all religions and sects. Orthodox Archbishop Roland Abu Jaoude was visibly shaken and angry Sunday at sectarian remarks floating ever since talks of a new electoral law that would divide Beirut into three confessional electoral districts emerged. Beirut's division has been viewed as an attempt at "clipping" former Premier Rafik Hariri's wings, in essence limiting his dominance in Parliament. This has been further reinforced upon Prime Minister Omar Karami's cancellation last Monday of a Hariri-backed "Conference Palace" project "due to dire economic conditions."
Describing talk of the division as only demagogy, Abu Jaoude said that those speaking a sectarian language are themselves sectarian and can give lessons in it. On Monday, Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh will announce his proposal to the Cabinet, which is expected to endorse the electoral law on Thursday, with the qada to be recommended as the next electoral district. Nabatieh MP Qassem Hashem expressed on Sunday fears that this type of districting will encourage sectarian sentiments, while Tripoli MP Najib Mikati warned that the absence of "state logic" and escalating sectarian language are creating a political atmosphere that is regulated and driven by confessional impulses and not by national interests. Hizbullah officials had warned that reverting to the 1960 qada law would ultimately "polarize" the Parliament and bring into it fundamentalists who do not represent or reflect national sentiments. Nevertheless, Abu Jaoude's remarks were more in reference to remarks made by Beirut MP Nasser Qandil over a week ago when he said that one Christian vote would equal two Muslim votes in the event small electoral districts are adopted, as smaller districts tend to favor minorities.
These remarks were followed by Metn MP Pierre Gemayel's argument during a Phalange Party dinner that "if they have a majority, we have quality." Although Gemayel clarified last week that his statement was in response to political statements made by Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and not based on sectarian considerations, the damage was already done. Karami's political adviser, Khaldoun Sharif attacked Gemayel and his father, former President Amin Gemayel, accusing them of stirring sectarian sentiment. Now, the issue of voting age is threatening to take the sectarian tone to new levels. Last Friday, Baalbek-Hermel MP and former Speaker Hussein Husseini addressed a letter to Franjieh explaining the rules and measures required for the new electoral law. Among the suggestions is a proposed draft constitutional amendment to lower the voting age from 21 to 18.
Such a proposal is not new. It emerged in 1998 and was endorsed by 102 MPs including Husseini and Karami. However, the Parliamentary petition was consequently shelved by Parliament in 2002 because of fears mainly expressed by Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir and Christian MPs that the law would radically alter voter ratios in favor of Muslim voters. Sfeir has long contended that Maronites make up the majority of Lebanese emigrants - totaling about eight million - and should be given Lebanese citizenship and be allowed to participate in the electoral ticket in tandem with the reduction of the voting age, in order to maintain the electoral demographic balance. Whatever the face of the new electoral law turns out to be, many are hoping it will not disfigure the current coexistence picture that Lebanese swear and live by.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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Newly inaugurated President Viktor Yushchenko has told a vast crowd of supporters in Kiev's main square on Sunday he aims to secure Ukraine a fully-fledged place in a united Europe. "Our way to the future is the way of a united Europe. We, along with the people of Europe, belong to one civilisation. We share similar values," Yushchenko told hundreds of thousands in Independence Square after his swearing-in in parliament. In his 20-minute address he made no direct mention of Russia, where he meets Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin on Monday on his first foreign trip abroad before launching a tour of western and central Europe. But he said Ukraine would act strictly in its own interests. "Our place is in the European union," Yushchenko said, his wife standing with their five children nearby. "We are no longer on the edge of Europe. We are situated in the centre of Europe. "Ukraine will not be a buffer zone or a testing ground for anyone else," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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A number of men of thought and preachers agreed in one voice to fight those who promote radical ideas which lead to a confrontation between security authorities and promoters of radicalism. Such incidents were recently witnessed in Maidan Hawalli and Umm Al-Haiman. While condemning the terrorists acts in the country, Dr Mohammad Al-Tabtabaei, Dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Islamic Studies, said Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) had warned those who terrify and threaten the lives of Muslims. He added scholars and media men must work hand-in-hand to fight these 'alien' ideas. Dr Jamaan Al-Harbash, of the same faculty, preachers Badr Al-Hajraf and Nazem Al-Misbah also condemned these acts. The daily quoting these persons compared radicals to 'idiots' who misrepresent the basic principles of Islam which forbid killing of innocent people.
They called upon the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs to play a vital role by launching awareness campaigns. Mohammed Baqer Al-Mahri, secretary-general of the Congregation of Shiite Ulema in Kuwait, said radical ideas were the fruits of the school curricula. He said the Minister of Education caves in to pressures from certain quarters to adopt these ideas. Al-Mahri said some textbooks implant radical ideas in the minds of students. Dr Hmoud Al-Khattab, an education expert was recently quoted as saying Islamic studies textbooks, particularly those used by the fourth year elementary schools encourage extremism, reports Al-Seyassah daily. As an example, Dr Khattab cited a lesson which urges schoolboys to offer money and weapons to 'Mujahedeen'.
Dr Khattab stressed on the part played by some influential personalities in the Ministry of Education who brainwash the schoolboys by implanting radical thoughts in their minds either directly or indirectly. He added these persons belong to the Social Reform Society in Kuwait whose members adopt the ideas of the 'Muslim Brotherhood' group of Egypt which strongly believes in Jihad inside and outside the country. He was also quoted as saying Dr Rasheed Al-Hamad, Minister of Education and Higher Education, is not in a position to 'confront' these persons who spare no efforts to impose their ideology on school curricula. He pointed out the schoolboys are hypnotized and are left with no choice but to accept the teachings and believe in what the teachers say as facts.
Naming names. You don't usually see that. It must be time for another attempt to bump off Jarallah.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2005
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Local coverage of the coming Iraqi Election. This is a new site which you enter by selecting English or Arabic. The information is straight from the voting disticts. Good to bookmark for the next few days.
Posted by: TomAnon ||
01/24/2005
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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.
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.
New video pictures have been released of the 
Police have arrested the suspected killer of the imam of a mosque in Saudi Arabia, and are investigating a possible terrorist motive, reports said Monday. Saudi daily al-Watan said worshippers in the mosque of Afiriya in the western city of Ranya were stunned when a man barged in during Friday prayers last week, brandishing a pistol which he fired at the mosque's imam, killing him instantly. The killer was later captured by police and turned out to be the cousin of the victim. 
The Saudi interior minister has said the world's most wanted terrorist, 
IRAQ said today the arrest of two lieutenants of Islamic extremist 
Rear Adm. William Crowder, commander of the USS Abraham Lincoln, dismissed fears that the U.S. military is ending its relief effort for tsunami victims too soon, as a U.N. agency delivered aid on its own for the first time Sunday - a sign of civilian groups preparing to fill the gap as militaries pull out. On Sunday, a 400-ton landing vessel carrying World Food Program aid was due to arrive in Sumatra's coastal Calang city, said program spokesman Gerald Bourke _ the first time the U.N. agency has used its own ship to deliver aid in the disaster.
TWENTY-three terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay tried to hang or strangle themselves in co-ordinated actions in August 2003, it emerged today. The prisoners sought to "disrupt camp operations and challenge a new group of security guards" at the US detention site in Cuba, the US military said. Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Marshall, a spokesman for the US Southern Command (Southcom) in Miami, described the incidents as "simultaneous attempts at hanging or strangulation". He said the "self-injurious" actions by 23 detainees were conducted between August 18 and 26, 2003, and that 10 of them occured on August 22.
The Muslim Council of Britain are planning to boycott this week's commemoration of the Holocaust because they claim it is not racially inclusive. 
On Friday Republican staffers in a number of Senate offices were holding meetings to discuss how to proceed with Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter and his recent hire, Hannibal G. Williams II Kemerer, who until recently was the NAACP's assistant general counsel. Kemerer was hired by Specter against the advice of senior Republican Judiciary staff and was to serve as a key vetter of Bush Administration judicial nominations. As word of Specter's hiring decision leaked off Capitol Hill, Specter is said to have shifted Kemerer into a job that would not deal with judicial nominations. "That is not true," says a Judiciary Committee staffer. "Kemerer may have a different stated responsibility, but we've been told he will be working with Specter on judicial nomination issues regardless of what his stated role is supposed to be." More disturbing than the hiring itself was Specter's willful behavior in hiring the left-wing litigator. "I wish I could say this was a one time, freak event," says another Judiciary Committee aide. "But I don't think I can. We got the distinct impression that Specter is going to continue to hire people like this. If conservatives care, they need to mobilize now. Because it's largely out of our hands." Midday Friday there were unconfirmed rumors that Specter had spoken with ranking Judiciary Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy about shifting Kemerer into a Democratic staffer slot, but that Leahy was not receptive to the notion.
Iraq as a battleground offers the solution to a quandary facing the Saudi clerics who have to both placate the kingdom's rulers and keep their radical base happy. "If they preach that there ought to be absolutely no jihad, they would lose credibility and support among their followers. So what they do is preach jihad - not in Saudi Arabia, but in Iraq," said 
A trial opened Monday in a $3 million-plus lawsuit by 13 people who say they were injured or traumatized when federal agents seized a screaming 
North Korea has cut food rations to just half the amount recommended by the World Food Programme, the UN food agency says. WFP monitors say government handouts have been cut from 300g (10.5oz) of cereals a day to 250g. 
Milwaukee County District Attorney 
With the trail of Osama bin Laden gone cold, the U.S. State Department is revving up a new publicity blitz to remind Afghans and Pakistanis of the $25 million bounty for al-Qaeda's chief. Bin Laden is still thought to be hiding somewhere along the 1,640-mile, mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but intelligence officials in Kabul and Islamabad say there has been no trace of him for the past 20 months. By the end of February, the White House is expected to double the sum on bin Laden's head, to $50 million, acting on legislation passed in November by Congress. 
HUMANS may have unwittingly saved themselves from a looming ice age by interfering with the Earth's climate, according to a new study. The findings from a team of American climate experts suggest that were it not for greenhouse gases produced by humans, the world would be well on the way to a frozen Armageddon. Scientists have traditionally viewed the relative stability of the Earth's climate since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago as being due to natural causes, but there is evidence that changes in solar radiation and greenhouse gas concentrations should have driven the Earth towards glacial conditions over the last few thousand years. What stopped it has been the activity of humans, both ancient and modern, argue the scientists. 
Two suspected members of the Al Qaeda network alleged to have planned a suicide attack in Iraq were arrested in Germany yesterday, the German Federal Attorney said here. Police in the western city of Mainz, where US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are due to meet in February, arrested a 29-year-old Iraqi identified only as Ibrahim Mohamed K., said Attorney-General Kay Nehm.
Iraqi insurgents appear to be holding back on their violence in order to make a "more spectacular" attack just before or on next Sunday's national elections, a U.S. general said on Monday. Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy director of operations in Iraq, said in an interview from Baghdad with CNN said that there had been a 50 percent drop in attacks by insurgents in recent days... "We've had nearly 2,000 suspects detained just in the last two weeks. We've been discovering nearly a 100 weapons caches each week and every day more and more Iraqis are coming forward with more intelligence information," he said.
Thousands of 
A Las Vegas law prohibiting strippers from fondling customers during lap dances is unconstitutionally vague, a judge ruled. 
Al-Zarqaa Sent the Most Youths to Wage Jihad in Iraq
State Sen. John Ford testified in a juvenile court hearing that he keeps two homes, living with two different women whose children he fathered. Ford's testimony was part of his defense in a child support case. The Memphis Democrat heads a Senate committee that guides the state's child welfare policies, and for the past year he's tried to make use of a law he authored that keeps court-ordered support lower when a father is financially responsible for other children. 
A Sydney-based terror suspect, who jumped bail and fled Australia on a false passport, appeared before a Lebanese military tribunal Wednesday to face charges of planning terrorist attacks and forging official documents. Jordanian-Australian 
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on a Washington Post report that the Defense Department is reinterpreting U.S. law to give the secretary broad authority over clandestine operations abroad. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has created a new espionage unit called the Strategic Support Branch, according to the news report, but McCain, speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," said he doubts Rumsfeld has broken any laws. 
Some workers at a warehouse in Fredrikstad had a mess on their hands last week, after a production mistake caused 1,650 cans of mackerel in tomato sauce to literally explode.
Former ambassador 
Diplomatic efforts gained steam in easing separatist conflicts Sunday in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, two countries battered by last month's tsunami that has focused international attention on their decades-long insurgencies. Finnish officials confirmed that the Indonesian government and rebels will meet this week in Helsinki to discuss a formal cease-fire in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province, where separatists have been fighting for an independent homeland for nearly 30 years. Finland's Crisis Management Initiative, headed by former President Martti Ahtisaari, confirmed that Indonesian government officials and Aceh rebel leaders would meet this week in Helsinki, but declined to provide more details "due to the delicate nature" of the negotiations. 
Kuwait, facing an increase in militant violence, is hunting between eight to 10 Saudis and Kuwaitis suspected of links to al-Qaeda and a local anti-US network. "Among the Kuwaitis and Saudis being sought by state security are three individuals who have been wanted since the summer as part of a network that trained and sent youths to Iraq to fight US-led forces," the source told Reuters. 
At least two people including a child were wounded during clashes between rival groups in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp.
Iran's Information Minister 
Whether used as a diversionary tactic or to gain an advantage in the ongoing jostling for majority representation in the upcoming May parliamentary elections, the sharp increase in sectarian innuendo is too dangerous to ignore. Many agree that Lebanon's confessional diversity sharply differentiates the country from its surrounding Arab neighbors, acknowledging that such a religious plurality is more of an asset than a handicap. However, in an environment in which politics is so closely entangled with religion sentiment, any cracks surfacing in this fragile bond could lead to catastrophe. 
Newly inaugurated President 
A number of men of thought and preachers agreed in one voice to fight those who promote radical ideas which lead to a confrontation between security authorities and promoters of radicalism. Such incidents were recently witnessed in 
