He's "behind the at," as my English teacher used to say....
Information on the street has it that Al Gore is stuck in an airport, trying to charter a private airplane to take him back to Norway, where naïve-but-friendly natives thoughtlessly awarded him a Nobel Peace Prize for propagandizing the remote, but politically pregnant, possibility that our climate is getting dangerously warmer because we're eating too much meat, using old-fashioned light bulbs and driving cars not running on recycled garbage.
Poor Al is simply trying to redeem what little self-esteem he has left, after accepting that obviously misdirected and undeserved Peace Prize. Trouble is: Old Al can't find a charter flight out (not even one of those pedestrian commercial flights) because the U.S. of A. is suffering one of the coldest winters in recorded history.
Even our nation's capital is blanketed under snow making travel impossible, and freeze warnings once again extend clear into sunny Florida.
Apparently even died-in-the-wool, amoral politicians have their limits; No, unfortunately they don't
Al just seemingly wants to get that embarrassing Nobel Peace Prize rescinded, so that it doesn't become part of the inscription on his tombstone.
If only the freezing weather would let up!
We feel for you Al. Yeah we do. *snork*
Methinks Mr. Nash doesn't like AlBore very much. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/13/2010
19:46 ||
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Israel is conducting a secret war,' assassinating top officials in Hamas and Hizbullah in order to hamper the terror groups' communications with their backer Iran, the London-based Times reported Saturday.
There has been growing co-operation between Gaza and Iran. Israel can read the writing on the wall and they know that with the help of Iran, the Hamas government in Gaza will become stronger and will fight better. But Israel is overstepping their boundaries. Other countries don't want to become a killing field for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,' the paper quotes an unnamed Palestinian official in Ramallah as saying.
The official was referring to the assassination of Mahmoud el Mabhouh, a senior Hamas official who was liquidated in a Dubai hotel last month. Hamas has accused Israel of killing him.
The paper also cites an incident where a bus carrying Iranian officials and Hamas members exploded near Damascus, an attack on a meeting between Hizbullah and Hamas officials in the Hizbullah-controlled Dahiya district of Beirut and the killing of Hizbullah mastermind Imad Mughniyeh in February 2008.
The Times quotes Arab diplomats saying they are aware that covert Israeli operations had increased. We watch their comings and goings; we are aware that there is more activity both on our ground and other countries in the region,' an Egyptian diplomat told the paper. They are trying to embroil us all in their conflict.'
The incidents are often attributed to the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, which has seen a surge in reputation since Meir Dagan was appointed to lead the agency in 2002 by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Israeli officials never admitted that the Mossad was involved in any of the killings.
Dagan's tenure has been extended twice by Sharon's successor Ehud Olmert and again by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Dagan received praise recently from an unexpected source when he was described in an opinion piece in a leading Egyptian daily paper as "the Superman of Israel.
Victor Davis Hanson
The problem with Obama's new hedging on taxing those who make below $250,000, or his administration's taking credit for victory in the Iraq War that they so once fervently tried to abort, or the flip-flop on renditions and tribunals, or the embarrassments over closing Guantanamo and trying KSM in New York or Mirandizing the Christmas Day bomber, or trashing/praising Wall Street grandees, is not that presidents cannot change their minds as circumstances warrant, or even that all politicians are at times hypocritical.
No, the rub is that Obama is not merely flipping and triangulating on issues in a desperate attempt to shadow the polls, but he is doing so on matters that he once swore were absolutely central to his entire candidacy and his signature hope-and-change agenda, critical to the future of the U.S., and proof of his opponents' either ignorance or dis-ingenuousness.
Serially he once screamed about taxing only the wealthy and airing health care on C-SPAN. He advocated taking out all combat troops from Iraq by March 2008 and asserted the surge was failing at a critical time when our soldiers were in a life-and-death struggle to make it work. Obama built an entire narrative about Bush the Constitution Shredder who presided over Guantanamo and renditions.There was no place in his promised new politics for lobbyists and Chicago tactics.
After a single year of governance, there is now scarcely a single issue that Obama & Co. have not backtracked on, flip-flopped, redefined, or quietly dropped mostly matters that were once demagogued to score political points.
At some point I think it was around mid-January the public collectively shrugged and concluded of Obama, I don't trust anything that this guy says.' And when that happens in American politics, it is almost impossible to restore any modicum of credibility.
All we are left with now is three more years of the president's Bush did it' mantra and a buffoonish Robert Gibbs, like some strutting carnival barker, showing off ink on his palm to a bored press corps.
#1
a "complex" guy - pessimist on the VN war, and noted acquaintance of CBS newsmen and R.W. Apple of the NYT. He did some good things but one wonders how his background work helped undermine the war in political/cultural realm, which was how the war was lost
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 17:13
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Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/13/2010
15:24 ||
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#1
It appears she's had "issues" for quite sometime. Dateline: Braintree, MA. Statement from the current police chief...
The suspect in the Huntsville shooting, Amy Bishop had been involved in a shooting incident in Braintree, Massachusetts in December of 1986. I located the Day Log from December of 1986 and found that the incident had occurred on December 6th. After finding the report number I looked in our archived files for the report. I was unable to locate the report.
"Officer Ronald Solimini informed me that he wrote the report and said that I wouldnt find it as it has been missing from the files for over 20 years. He said that former Police Chief Edward Flynn had looked for the report and that it was missing. He believes this was in 1988.
"Officer Solimini recalled the incident as follows: He said he remembers that Ms. Bishop fired a round from a pump action shotgun into the wall of her bedroom. She had a fight with her brother and shot him, which caused his death. She fired a third round from the shotgun into the ceiling as she exited the home. She fled down the street with the shotgun in her hand. At one point she allegedly pointed the shotgun at a motor vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop. Officer Solimini found her behind a business on Washington Street. Officer Timothy Murphy was able to take control of the suspect at gunpoint and seized the shotgun. Ms. Bishop was subsequently handcuffed and transported to the police station under arrest.
Officer Solimini informed me that before the booking process was completed Ms. Bishop was released from custody without being charged.
I (Chief Frazier) spoke with the retired Deputy Chief who was then a Lieutenant and was responsible for booking Ms. Bishop. He said he had started the process when he received a phone call he believes was from then Police Chief John Polio or possibly from a captain on Chief Polios behalf. He was instructed to stop the booking process. At some point Ms. Bishop was turned over to her mother and they left the building via a rear exit.
Braintree Police Lieutenant Karen MacAleese was a high school classmate and confirmed from photographs that the suspect is the same Amy Bishop who lived in Braintree.
I was not on duty at the time of the incident, but I recall how frustrated the members of the department were over the release of Ms. Bishop. It was a difficult time for the department as there had been three (3) shooting incidents within a short timeframe. The release of Ms. Bishop did not sit well with the police officers and I can assure you that this would not happen in this day and age.
It is troubling that this incident has come to light. I can assure you that the members of the Braintree Police Department maintain the highest of integrity. Since it was discovered this morning that the report is missing, I have been in contact with Mayor Joseph Sullivan. Mayor Sullivan and I have spoken with District Attorney William Keating and we will be meeting with him next week to discuss this situation. The Mayor supports a full review of this matter and agrees that we want to know where the records are.
Right now, it appears the family had friends in high places, made a phone call, and had the case broomed. Getting a close look right now as folks that might have squashed the case are the Braintree police chief at the time and the DA at the time, who would be...current congressman William Delahunt.
So stay tuned. This could get very interesting. At the very least, right now, this has "stink" written all over it.
Dalrymple is a pen name for Anthony Daniels (no relation to C-3PO), a British doctor who has chronicled the nightmarish results of people dependent on the dole. Here is one brief excerpt from the main article.
Humanity, according to Rand, is divided into heroes, creators, and geniuses on the one hand, and weaklings, parasites, and the feeble-minded on the other. Needless to say, the latter outnumber the former by a very wide margin, but only the former are truly human in the full sense of the word. But let us leave aside for a moment the empirical justification for such a sharp division of mankind into two categories: it never seems to occur to Rand that her classification does not provide a very strong rationale for the limited government and free market that she claims so strongly to admire. On the contrary, it would seem to justify the reign of philosopher-kings, though she claims also to hate Plato passionately.
#1
This has been said before by others, but not in two sentences:
America could take Rand out of Russia, but not Russia out of Rand. Her work properly belongs to the history of Russian, not American, literatureand nineteenth-century Russian literature at that.
#2
Most peoplr fall in love with the pristine and stark ideals of Rand in their youth. Then the real world hits, and they outgrow her hostile edges, and realize that helping your neighbor is sometimes needed, and that altruism is a good thing so long as its truly voluntary, and religion is not the enemy of reason.
Eh, its been said before and far better. Rand is necessary, but not sufficient.
#3
... altruism is a good thing so long as its truly voluntary ....
It's been some years since I've read her but I never did manage to glean a prohibition on purely voluntary altruism from Rand. My recollection is that her characters typically noted that purely voluntary altruistic acts were just fine and dandy but [insert long diatribe here] whatever act was at hand was not purely altruistic but was rather being forced upon the actor.
There's been an odd amount of criticism of Rand from both the left and right in recent months. She just seems to keep popping up which is rather odd if her ideas are as thoroughly flawed as her critics believe them to be.
#4
The author of the article seems like an empty windbag. The author tart words against Rand for being hardened and uppity, should take into account that "disclaiming against pride is not always a sign of humility" and that he probably never has never lived through some of the travails Rand did. Much like Machiavelli, Rand is both admired and despised, and thrown on the trash heap when convenient. She is epic and will remain so.
Posted by: Marilyn Thrineper8949 ||
02/13/2010 22:16
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Jammu, Feb 13 (PTI) In yet another ceasefire violation, Pakistani troops tonight fired rockets on Indian posts along the Line of Control in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, a senior army officer said.
Pakistani troops from a forward post fired several rockets on three Indian posts along the LoC in Krishnaghati area of Poonch sector from 1815 hrs today, the officer told PTI.
The three posts targeted included Kranti, Kranti 1 and Kripan posts along the LoC, he said, adding, the rocket attacks were followed by heavy machine gun fire.
The rockets exploded away from the posts prompting Indian troops to fire in retaliation which resulted in an exchange of fire that is still on, the officer said.
This is a clear violation of the ceasefire as firing and rockets came from the Pakistani posts, he said.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010
13:15 ||
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#1
look forward to the "infiltrators killed in attack" story coming next week
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 13:43
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i would have never guessed the pkas would have violated a ceasefire. especiall against India. I wish India would just nuke the past the stone age and that would take care of the terrorism problem in a big way
Posted by: CHRIS ||
02/13/2010 16:06
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#3
Let's not nuke them. That would be .. unpredictable.
Instead, I wonder why India doesn't get some artillery in a position where it would do some good. Something beyond the range the Paks can touch, be it shells, missiles, whatever.
Every time a Pak machine gun post opens up to cover an infiltration, let the Indians shell it. Yes, yes, it might lead to an escalation, but one thing's for sure: Pak machine gunners would henceforth be reticent to open fire to cover infiltrators.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/13/2010 17:32
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Feb. 13, 2010 (Xinhua) -- The United States delivered 48 self-propelled field artillery cannons to the Pakistan Army on Saturday at the Malir Cantonment in the southern port city of Karachi, the U.S embassy said.
"These field artillery cannons are an important part of enhancing the capabilities of Pakistan's Army as it continues to wage its courageous fight against terrorists who seek to destroy Pakistan's people and way of life," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Michael Nagata, U.S. Office of the Defense Representative-Pakistan.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010 18:32
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Aug 25, 2009:
While India has not received even a single new artillery gun in the last two decades, Pakistan recently received a batch of 67 self-propelled artillery guns from the US using War against Terror funds granted by Washington.
Latest United Nations data reveal that delivery of the M-109 A5 self-propelled artillery guns took place last year. The guns were transferred under the US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme that was granted to Pakistan for the fight against militant groups on its border with Afghanistan.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010 19:03
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#6
sounds like a poor judge of character overrides strategic longview?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 19:08
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#7
And short-sighted Indian politicians who have derailed any artillery purchases for 22 years
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010 19:21
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#8
Sounds like a consolation prize to me. And I wonder which will have the better counter battery radar and software.
Bhubaneswar: Hardcore Maoist Sabita Munda, 24, surrendered before police in Keonjhar, northern Orissa, on Thursday, alleging sexual exploitation by seniors.
After the surrender, she narrated her sordid tale to the media in the presence of police. She said she joined Maoist ranks in 2005 and participated in a number of successful attacks, but soon became frustrated due to sustained sexual harassment by seniors.
My repeated pleas to stop the harassment fell on deaf as seniors in my camp continued to exploit me. I was so frustrated, I decided to surrender,' Munda said. Most women cadres face sexual harassment at nights,' she added.
Keonjhar SP Asish Kumar Singh said he never expected Sabita to level such allegations. He said Maoists from Chhattisgarh, Andhra and Jharkhand had sneaked into Orissa and were bullying cadres in the state.
They are exploiting innocent tribal women who have joined Maoist ranks,' Singh said.
When I was posted in Maoists-affected districts, I seized a number of condoms from the jungles,' he said, adding that Sabitas surrender would throw more light on sexual exploitation by Maoists.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010
12:31 ||
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#1
Mao Zedong himself heartily approves of this story.
#2
"I don't mind killing innocent civilians, women and children to advance the cause, but the sexual harrassment was too much"
hokay
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 13:41
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#3
It's all about her. What about the needs of the Commie bigwigs?
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 13:58
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I suspect translator delicacy. Did Ms Munda actually say "sexual harassment", with its implications of naughty jokes and girlie pictures, or did she speak about sex for favours or rape?
PUNE: In a suspected terror attack, eight people were killed and up to 40 injured in a bomb explosion in a popular bakery near a Jewish prayer house here in the first major strike after the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.
The blast occurred in the German Bakery, an old business establishment in the Cantonment area of the city, at around 1930 hours.
The famous Osho Ashram, frequented by foreigners, is also located in the vicinity of the blast site. US terror suspect David Headley is believed to have stayed at the Ashram during his visit to the city.
"It's most probably a terror attack. We are sending a forensic team of CBI and personnel of National Investigative Agency (NIA)", Union Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said in New Delhi.
Official sources said an Improvised Explosive Device was used to trigger the blast.
Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Ramesh Bagve, who is an MLA from the constituency, said upto 40 people were injured, three of them seriously.
A team of Anti-Terrorism Squad and bomb disposal squad visited the spot to ascertain the nature of the blast.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010
11:54 ||
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#1
Pune: The explosion, which left about 8 persons, including three foreign nationals and 33 injured here this evening at the German Bakery, was a bomb blast in which Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was used.
At least five to seven kilogram of IED was used in the bomb blast, which occured outside the German Bakery here, NDTV reported Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) sources as saying.
Initial reports suggested Indian Mujahideen is being suspected to be behind the blast, the report added.
At least eight persons, including three foreign nationals, have died and 40 injured, including a Sudan national, in the bakery blast which has occurred here at about 7.30 p.m. in Koregaon Park here.
NDTV report stated home ministry sources saying that it looks like a bomb blast and it doesnt look like any normal blast. The blast occurred when an unidentified bag was being opened by someone, the report added.
Meanwhile, another unclaimed bag has been found at the place of incident. The blast occurred at the German Bakery, Koregaon Park. It is located near Osho Ashram, which is visited by a lot of foreign nationals.
Germany Bakery is a popular venue here and is visited by a lot of foreign nationals. The injured, meanwhile, have been rushed to the nearby Sassoon Hospital. The number of the injured is expected to rise.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010 12:37
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#2
Sounds like the authorities know what happened, but, flour/grain dust is what led to the rash of silo explosions we've had in the not too recent past.
Pune is a huge city, and comparatively "western", which explains the Jewish center and German bakery.
#3
If the explosion occurred in the baking area then one could assume a gas explosion. If the explosion was centered in the public/dining area then one could make the prediction it was a bomb. Since half the dead are foreign tourists, the odds say bombing.
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 13:05
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#4
Just read he BBC report - definitely a bombing. ed describes what happened.
Again, a very "western" target, multinational city, lots of students/tourists/business visitors.
pretty obvious: you blame the presence of the Jewish Prayer House, which inflames pious muslims
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 13:15
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#7
Wonder how Pakistan handles this one?
Deny, deny, deny.
BTW, isn't Pune in India? Since there were no consequences for nearly 200 massacred in Mumbai, why worry about a few dead tourists?
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 13:33
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#8
Yes - in India, close to Bombay (oops - Mumbai), alternate spelling Poona - many western visitors from the 60's-70's on - may have been on the Beatles itinerary at one point.
Now a center of western hi-tech corps. and so forth.
This is all w/o visiting Wiki etc.. - always struck me as sort of the 2nd tier of large Indian urban areas - as Philly/Boston are to NY and DC.
SAVANNAH, Ga. A single-mom soldier who says she refused to deploy to Afghanistan because she had no family able to care for her young son will be discharged from the military instead of facing a court-martial, the Army said Thursday...
The decision still carries consequences for Hutchinson. She is being demoted in rank to private and will lose benefits afforded to military service members and veterans, Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson said...
Larson said the Army had evidence that Hutchinson, regardless of her family situation, would have resisted deploying "by any means."..."This case wasn't about a soldier having to choose between her duty to the nation and her family," Larson said. "There is evidence both from Pvt. Hutchinson and her fellow soldiers to indicate she had no intentions of deploying."
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 12:36
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#2
And from the mother:
Ms. Hughes has heard some of that criticism firsthand. People have said to me: She signed this contract. Shes supposed to go. Thats her first priority, Ms. Hughes said. My response is: I dont think so. This is her child. This is her family. This is her priority. The military is a job.
#3
now she can draw regular welfare benefits instead of whining and bitching. how many soldiers had too leave their kids too serve and never came back. too hell with the bitch
Posted by: CHRIS ||
02/13/2010 16:08
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#4
BESOEKER, HOW YA BEEN ? DID YALL GET SNOW DOWN YOU WAY BY THE WAY THIS FUNKY SKUNK OR RABID WHAITETAIL FELLOW ga boy
Posted by: chris ||
02/13/2010 16:09
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#5
trailing wife dont ban me again i leannt my lesson and will behave
Posted by: chris ||
02/13/2010 16:11
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#6
chris dear, as long as you behave I won't feel even the slightest temptation to ban you, I promise. On the contrary, it makes me proud when someone chooses to learn from experience. :-)
#7
*sigh* As heart-wrenching as it is ... being a professional military person means that you have to leave your family. For months, and (historically) sometimes years at a time. How mothers work this equation? It really is up to the mother. I took a year-long tour in Greenland when my daughter was 2 years old. Lucky me - I had already had a one-year suspension from an unaccompanied tour of duty, starting from the birth of my daughter in January of 1980. IIRC the AF personnel center allowed this routinely, citing the special bond between a mother and child. After that period - sorry, if I couldn't care for my child (or arrange care) and still fulfill my military duties - then the AF would have no more need of my services, thank you very much.
The military may be a "job," and one of those which offers adventure, honor, bennies and a nice pension at the end of it - but it is also one of those "jobs" which require one to take every effort to get your life and personal responsibilities in order before you embark upon it. Ms. Hughes has failed to live up to her side of the bargain. Good f***ing riddance.
No, working for Burger King or Walmart is a job - being in the military is a commitment. If you're not up to that commitment, don't join.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/13/2010 21:10
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#10
Any other 'job', to include our police and firemen, can walk in tomorrow and turn in their papers. The Constitution, Article 1 Section 8, grants Congress the power and authority to make a separate law for those who serve in the military. You can not 'quit'. You can not go on strike. You do not retain the 'rights' of other citizens. And as the paper you sign and the oath you swear before others you do so "without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion".
#11
The Army goes rolling along. Theres many who don't complete their entire commitment for a huge variety of reasons. Death, illness, mental incapacity, injury, winning the lottery. Next!
Posted by: Marilyn Thrineper8949 ||
02/13/2010 22:20
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#2
Telling, how decades of this have gone by and nary a word of it is mentioned in our national media. Evidently the cup of diversity and equality pours only one way.
#5
Anyone with skills and ability is getting out. A common way is to join a multi-national then get transferred overseas. Often this leaves 2nd and 3rd rate people in charge. In response, multi-nationals then run their SA operations using their migrated SA staff from overseas. This has just happened with my wifes company, which of course shall remain nameless.
#1
"Hate Speech" is a modern example of Newspeak, used to silence critics of social policies that have been poorly implemented in a rush to appear politically correct.
In the 1980s and 1990s, more than 350 public universities adopted "speech codes" regulating discriminatory speech by faculty and students. These codes have not fared well in the courts, where they are frequently overturned as violations of the First Amendment.
Debate over restriction of "hate speech" in public universities has resurfaced with the adoption of anti-harassment codes covering discriminatory speech.
Under the plan, India wants to develop a former Royal Air Force base on the islands, and integrate the Maldives into its own coastguard system.
The Indian defence minister, A.K. Anthony, visited the islands to discuss the deployment of surveillance aircraft and ships.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010 12:17
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#4
Thanks, Trailing Wife. Actually, it's the fiance's idea. I think I will be bored out of my skull.
I can't stand more than 3 days on any beach, no matter how pretty. I'm more of an explorer type than a lay-in-the sun type. Last year, in Albania (where the question was popped), I was as happy as a pig in mud.
A Palestinian man who tried to stab an IDF soldier on Friday afternoon died on the way to an Israeli hospital, the army said in a statement. Soldiers opened fire on the man after he drew out a knife and lunged at a soldier who was on patrol near a mosque in Hebron. No soldiers were wounded in the incident, which took place as soldiers were scouring the area for Palestinians who hurled rocks at Jewish houses in the West Bank city.
The 41-year-old Palestinian man's family in Hebron confirmed that he had died, but denied that he attempted to attack a soldier.
The incident came two days after a Palestinian Authority police officer stabbed an IDF soldier to death while he was sitting in a jeep stopped at a traffic light at the Tapuah junction, also in the West Bank.
On Friday morning, IDF soldiers from the Golani Brigade opened fire on four armed Palestinians who were apparently trying to plant an explosives device along the Gaza border fence. The army confirmed that the terrorists were hit by the mortar and rifle fire, though no IDF soldiers were hurt in the incident.
Also in the Hebron area, IDF soldiers arrested a Palestinian terror suspect in an operation overnight Thursday. The detainee was transferred for interrogation.
#1
I'm having trouble believing Obama has actually done something That I approve of, we NEED nuke plants to free us from Mideast Oil.
I suggest all future Nuke power plants be on Military bases, using the military as (Somewhat) free security, and as uninterruptible base power
selling power to the surrounding civilians as a reduction of base overall costs, plus government Income and resultant tax reduction.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/13/2010 14:57
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#1
Inadvertently a Kenyan cop explains all the evil in Africa. This holds for Zimbobwe and the lateste on SA and all the other failed and failing states. This has nothing to do with race. As the cop says Its culture, just culture,
#3
Shoudla gone with the 777 base to begin with instead of the 767.
Bottom line, the original Northrop-EADS bid was better against Boeings short-legged, lower capacity, higher maint old 767 airframe based bid in an effort to save their 767 line instead of producing what the USAF needed.
If its 777 based, then I think they will probably win it on merit. As long as they don't get arrogant again.
#1
Especially this horse because hes like the really smart, high-energy kid in the classroom. If hes not challenged he gets into trouble. He gets bored and then starts acting up, Jensen said.
Maybe some of our Congresscritters need to take up a hobby. Besides philandering.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/13/2010 12:50
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#2
Does this say more about the intelligence of horses or of artistes?
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 13:36
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#3
As Buggs' agent I think you'll find you'd like what Buggs blurts onto canvas better than a spitting Llama.
You may marvel how did he get into such a challenging profession? Being a handsome and a furry munster only takes you so far. And Buggs is not in the paint by number profession. He is a real avante garde wunderkind.
The Justice Department and the FBI will consult with the intelligence community on information about terrorism suspects arrested in the United States before deciding whether to read them their Miranda rights under a plan now under review in the White House, according to senior administration officials.
The proposal follows a controversy over the handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused in the attempted Christmas Day bombing and who was read his constitutional rights 10 hours after his arrest.
Some law enforcement officials have expressed concern that public pressure is pushing the White House to establish new standards based on the Detroit incident, even though the nature of the case might be unique. One senior law enforcement official pointed out that authorities had immediate access to Abdulmutallab's passport and to background information on him that had only recently been entered into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center.
"But what if that person has a false passport and fingerprints are not in our files?" the official said, adding that it takes time just to get an identification, and U.S. law sets tight time rules for when someone who has been arrested must appear before a judge. "How can you have meaningful consultation [within government agencies] when you don't have a good handle on facts and when the clock is ticking?"
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said he does not think new administration protocols will solve the problem of the treatment of terrorism suspects. "This attempt to finesse it is not going to fix it," he said. "A captured high-value al-Qaeda member should be immediately placed in military custody and should be immediately interrogated vigorously in a sustained interrogation."
Although Sessions and others have recommended that terrorism suspects arrested on U.S. soil be immediately put into military custody, such an action could take place only if the suspects are found to be enemy combatants.
Senator Sessions has the right of it. Are terrorists criminals or enemy agents/combatants? If the latter, the only right they have is to be treated as spies, ie interrogated and shot. If the former, Miranda is the least of it.
But Cunit has gained a new distinction: It is famous in Spain as the town where a Moroccan-born Muslim woman with a master's degree and a head of curly hair says she was threatened by Muslim fundamentalists because she took off her veil and tried to live like a Spaniard.
The treatment of Fatima Ghailan, 31, prompted an investigating magistrate to bring charges against the sheik of the local mosque, Mohamed Benbrahim, and the head of the Islamic Association, Abderraman el-Osri, the leading figures in Cunit's Muslim community.
The case also generated demands for the resignation of Mayor Judit Alberich, a liberal Socialist who, her political opponents said, catered to her Muslim constituents at the expense of respect for the law.
In many ways, Ghailan was an unlikely champion of assimilation when she arrived in Cunit as a teenager. Her father had been the sheik of a mosque in Morocco, and until recently, she dutifully wore a scarf.
But things began to change several years ago. Ghailan received a master's degree in Barcelona, and before long she stopped wearing a scarf, letting her hair move freely. She began driving a car.
Then she got a job at City Hall, assigned to work with the town's approximately 1,000 mostly Moroccan Muslims as a "cultural mediator." Her job was to encourage Muslims, particularly cloistered women, to participate in the life of the town, to take advantage of language classes and to leave their homes to attend festivals.
Benbrahim organized a petition demanding Ghailan's firing. Ghailan said the dispute soon escalated; she lodged a formal complaint against Benbrahim in November 2008, charging that he had harassed, threatened and attacked her and her family.
A local court issued a restraining order, barring the sheik from going near Ghailan or her family, and launched a formal investigation in which procedure dictated that Benbrahim be taken into custody. But, Ghailan said later, the mayor, Alberich, intervened to prevent the arrest, saying that it would disrupt relations with Cunit's Muslim community. At the same time, Alberich undertook to mediate directly with Benbrahim. In her mind, she said, the issue was a personal dispute, not a clash of values.
"There is no coexistence problem in Cunit," she said. "We have never had that."
The situation remained tense but quiet until the magistrate announced two weeks ago that his investigation was finished and that Benbrahim should be jailed for five years on charges of harassment, defamation and threats and that Osri should be sentenced to four years for harassment and defamation.
Spain's national newspapers took notice, and TV crews arrived. Soon afterward, Ghailan's friends said, she was threatened in the street again, this time by some of Benbrahim's followers.
Ghailan, who was briefly hospitalized for anxiety attacks, was unavailable to relate what happened, as was Benbrahim. But Ghailan told local reporters last week that she had been approached by Alberich after the magistrate's announcement with a suggestion that she withdraw her complaint to foster improved relations with the Muslim community and get the problem behind her.
Allegations that Alberich had sought to exempt the Islamic leadership from the legal system were the main issue that generated the calls for her resignation.
#1
good job , the spanish nipped the culprits in the bud but it sounds like there's a festering issue at large in Cunlit with the remaining Muslims monkeys. She at least had the balls to tell them to get Fuqued, good for her!
#2
One thing about her doing this is to be under accordence not to be singled out by the underlining current malcontent miscreants from the debacle about : 911 ! The people would feel the veil is a discomfiture from the : Decadent West ! She could resolve this by wearing the : Appropriate Wardrobe : Not Having : Francophile Probelmo : Style ! Si , Senorita : Si ! Lest Relax & : Take It , Easy ! Allah O Akbar ! She'll wear it : Safely : Health Reasons : Assilimate : Wastern Style : Stay Good : Muslim : Never Lead : Wastern : Tempation : She Does ! Smart lady : Good Muslim : Allah O Akbar !
Posted by: Unoluting Prince of the Leprechauns7471 ||
02/13/2010 16:34
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#3
#2 - Huh?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/13/2010 17:28
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#4
A fancy form of spam, Barbara dear. I pooplisted it.
#1
This seems like a good outcome. Obama's abuses of executive power will be much easier to undo than legislation while still having the same damaging effects on the nation. Thus we get to sample the disaster and enjoy the suicide of the Democratic Party all wrapped in a neat relatively easily reversed package. Break out the popcorn!
#2
For what its worth, Obama signed (38) Executive Orders during his first calendar year, 2009. I don't know how that stacks up with previous presidencies. Here is a list, if you are interested. LINK
#3
Nothing will endear Americans to the Marxists running the USA more than giving them a good glimpse of the precipice. Kill more industry since 18% unemployment/underemployment is not enough. Say "Hello" to $5 gas and $.25kWh electricity and 25% un/under employment. Spit.
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 13:18
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#4
BTW, the 9.7% unemployment rate the Obama admin was crowing about: An exodus of discouraged workers from the job market kept the U.S. unemployment rate from climbing above 10 percent in December, economists said.
Had the labor force not decreased by 661,000 last month, the jobless rate would have been 10.4 percent, according to economists including David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff & Associates in Toronto and Harm Bandholz at UniCredit Research in New York.
...
About 1.7 million Americans opted out of the workforce (therefore not counted) from July through December, representing a 1.1 percent drop that marks the biggest six-month decrease since 1961, the Labor Department report showed. The share of the population in the labor force last month fell to the lowest level in 24 years.
The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers whod prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- rose to 17.3 percent in December from 17.2 percent.
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 13:26
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#5
Nothing will endear Americans to the Marxists running the USA more than giving them a good glimpse of the precipice
What I was thinking. It'll be interesting to see where his poll numbers go once this gets wide recognition.
#8
By my count -- 19 of those 54 (count from a quick look) included were a direct result of the tragedy of 911 -- putting into place, structure for fighting the War on Terror
Math -- 54-19=35 (less than The One's 38 without 911)
10 of them put in an Order of Succession for 10 Departments of the government. Pre 9/11, there were no plans for who is now in charge. (I think the House even tightened up their succession plan)
#9
It's not the number, it's the content. GW signed a bunch in his first year of course- 2001 was a doozy for all kinds of federal action. The question is whether a president uses any of them in ways that remove legislative oversight.
#10
RF - your right, it is all in the content -- and the Obama "content" is one of expanding government offices, protecting unions, and the revoking of Bush's This, and Bush's That
10 -- "not Bush" or "amend Bush" or "revoke Bush"
6 -- concerning Unions
11 -- expansion of government by committee or department
(not an in-depth reading, of course. Amending this up to as many 10 amending EO's in one EO.)
#11
And... at least 20 of Bush's were concerning national security -- 0 of Obama's concern national security, except the ones he revoked or amended of Bush's.
#12
Sherry- that's sort of what I figured; I didn't have the energy to dope-fiend the contents of either Obama or Bush. If there was such a thing as a 'newspaper' here in the US, someone could probably write an interesting story just tearing the EOs apart and getting comments on their meaning.
The Obama administration on Friday invited 12 Democratic members of Congress and nine Republicans to a Feb. 25 conference on healthcare and said it would post its proposal for a legislative overhaul online before the event.
President Barack Obama has asked Republicans to bring their best healthcare ideas to the conference on revamping the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system. The issue, critical to his domestic agenda, has floundered since Democrats lost their crucial 60th Senate vote last month, in the face of united Republican opposition and public skepticism.
The meeting will be broadcast live, answering criticism that the Democratic president did not engage Republicans and instead negotiated backroom deals in an effort to get legislation passed.
The invitation letter said the White House will post the text of its proposed health overhaul package online before the meeting, and invited Republican leaders to post their own bill online as well. Already been done. Or is he really that out of touch with reality?
His people don't read *that* kind of website.
"Now is the time to act on behalf of the millions of Americans and small businesses who are counting on meaningful health insurance reform," said the formal invitation, from Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, and Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services.
Republican leaders have said they will attend, but expressed skepticism about whether Obama will work with them. We already pretty much know what the Dems' bill is about. According to the Dems, though, they have no clue what the GOP bill is about. Shouldn't the Dems be more interested in what the GOP has to say? But then again, they think I'm too stoopid to vote.
"The existence of any kind of backroom health care deal among the White House and Democratic Leaders would certainly make a mockery of the President's stated desire to have a 'bipartisan' and 'transparent' dialogue on this issue," House Republican leaders wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday. It certainly would. Good thing they aren't so stoopid as to try someting that stoopid.
OUT WITH THE OLD?
Republicans have called for healthcare bills crafted by the House of Representatives and Senate, after six months of tough compromises by Obama's fellow Democrats, to be thrown out.
The White House has said it does not intend to do so, and the invitation seemed to confirm that. "In the last year, there has been an extraordinary effort to craft effective legislation," it read, referring to hundreds of hours of activity in both the House and Senate on the two bills. Effective for what? And why?
"The Blair House meeting is the obligatory next step in this process," the letter said.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said his party would continue to offer "the types of ideas and step-by-step approach" to cut costs and increase coverage without cutting benefits for older Americas or raising taxes.
He said the Republicans would consult with the White House about the meeting format and topics, but made clear they were ready for a fight. And they'll be more ready come November if things continue along the track they have been on this last year.
"Nearly one year ago, the President moderated a health care summit that kicked off a national debate that has led us to where we are today: a partisan bill devoid of support from the American people and a diminished faith in this government's capacity to listen," he said in a statement.
"Let us not make the same mistake twice." What's this us?
With about 46 million people lacking health insurance, polls show a high level of frustration as Americans watch the abortive reform process at a time of economic crisis and high unemployment that has eroded support for Obama. Obama's Democrats are under pressure to produce results before elections in November in which the entire House and more than a third of seats in the Senate will be up for grabs.
The administration's letter invited Democrats Pelosi and Reid, McConnell and House Republican Leader John Boehner, and asked each to designate four other members of Congress to participate.
The invitation list also includes Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Finance Committee; Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; House Ways and Means Committee; House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the House Education and Labor Committee, all of which oversaw the health legislation in both chambers.
The White House said Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Sebelius, and Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the Office of Health Reform, would also attend.
Obama will make clueless but uplifting opening remarks, followed by remarks from a Republican leader and a yes man Democratic leader chosen by leaders of their parties, and then the president will open discussion on insurance reform, cost containment, expanding coverage and the effect of health reform legislation on deficit reduction geared towards what he thinks he can sneak by ignorant voters.
#1
Republicans have called for healthcare bills crafted by the House of Representatives and Senate, after six months of tough compromises by Obama's fellow Democrats, to be thrown out.
Al-Rooters' bias is evident. Those eeeevil Rethuglicans just don't wanna accept the bills the Donks can't themselves agree on. This kabuki for the cameras. The Reps need one effective knowledgeable spokesman to stand up to Bambi and point out that the GOP proposals have been available all last year but were spit on by Pelosi, Reid and Obama.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 8:13
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#2
would post its proposal for a legislative overhaul online before the event.
at least this will give the Democrats a chance to finally read what they were voting on last year
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 8:58
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#3
--they can post it before the meeting, but the first thing they should do to open the meeting is to 'shred' it.
#4
I hope all the prok that was stuffed into it is available to view as well.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/13/2010 11:36
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#5
I liked Karl Rove's method for the meeting:
Take in paper copies of both bills -- place them on the table up front (that's over 6000 pieces of paper)-- then lay a Republican plan beside them (there are several that have been presented, notably Paul Ryan's) Roadmap for American
Then, appoint only ONE member to do all the talking. That way, no one is vying for time with each other. And let that person be the most knowledgeable person on the health care issue. Like Paul Ryan.... he has a plan.
Me --- notice how in the last meeting Obama had with the Pubs, he wouldn't go up against Paul Ryan then! He knew Ryan knows the Budget and health care.
(I'm not politicking for Ryan for anything, just think this it is an overall good idea. If not Ryan, then another person.)
#6
I agree. I've got serious reservations about Ryan's plan, but I think he would be a great challenger whom the President could not measure up to and whom the MSM could not diminish remaining reasonable and non-combative throughout.
One big advantage is that it would further diminish OB1. Last weekend he had to share the stage as an equal with a failed vice presidential candidate. Next with a Rep? And coming up short again? Priceless.
A judge's race or gender makes for a dramatic difference in the outcome of cases they hearat least for cases in which race and gender allegedly play a role in the conduct of the parties, according to two recent studies.
The results were the focus of a program about Diversity on the Bench: Is the Wise Latina' a Myth?,' sponsored by the ABA Judicial Division at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Orlando on Saturday afternoon.
In federal racial harassment cases, one study (PDF) found that plaintiffs lost just 54 percent of the time when the judge handling the case was an African-American. Yet plaintiffs lost 81 percent of the time when the judge was Hispanic, 79 percent when the judge was white, and 67 percent of the time when the judge was Asian American.
The comprehensive study, by professors from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, examined a random assortment of 40 percent of all reported racial harassment cases from six federal circuits between 1981 and 2003.
A second study (PDF), looked at 556 federal appellate cases involving allegations of sexual harassment or sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The finding: plaintiffs were at least twice as likely to win if a female judge was on the appellate panel.
University of Pittsburgh School of Law Professor Pat K. Chew, who co-authored the racial harassment study, said she found the rule of law is intact' in the cases she reviewed. Judgesno matter which side they ruled fortook the same procedural steps to reach their decisions, she said.
But judges of different races took different approaches on how to interpret the facts of the cases,' she said.
Pressed on whether the rule of law could actually be considered intact when outcomes varied so much depending on the race of the judge, she replied: "It's always made a difference who the judge was. We've long known, for instance, that a judge's political affiliation makes a difference."
Judge Carol E. Jackson of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri said she was heartened that diversity has crept into the federal court system, where today 20 percent of judges are women and 15 percent are members of minority groups.
"It's important that different voices are being heard," she said.
The program took its title from a much-debated comment made years ago by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor : I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.'
The participants never answered the question of whether a Latina judge reaches better conclusions, but at least in some cases, it appears likely that she would reach a different conclusion from a white male jurist hearing the same evidence.
#1
University of Pittsburgh School of Law Professor Pat K. Chew, who co-authored the racial harassment study, said she found "the rule of law is intact" in the cases she reviewed. Judges--no matter which side they ruled for--took the same procedural steps to reach their decisions, she said.
It's just "intact" for some a bit more than others.
#3
You are certainly correct g(r)om. If the study is valid, it simply highlights the fact that in a land where justice was designed to be blind, judicial diversity impacts legal outcomes.
#4
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
"We don't need no stinking Constitution" - your diverse Federal judiciary.
If there's one thing that stinks even more than Climategate, it's the attempts we're seeing everywhere from the IPCC and Penn State University to the BBC to pretend that nothing seriously bad has happened, that "the science" is still "settled", and that it's perfectly OK for the authorities go on throwing loads more of our money at a problem that doesn't exist.
The latest example of this noisome phenomenon is Sir Muir Russell's official whitewash -- sorry "independent inquiry" into the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) scandal.
The inquiry has not even begun and already it has told its first blatant lie -- seen here on its official website.
Do any of the Review team members have a predetermined view on climate change and climate science?
No. Members of the research team come from a variety of scientific backgrounds. They were selected on the basis they have no prejudicial interest in climate change and climate science and for the contribution they can make to the issues the Review is looking at.
By what bizarre logic, then, did Sir Muir think it a good idea to appoint to his panel the editor of Nature, Dr Philip Campbell? Dr Campbell is hardly neutral: his magazine has for years been arguing aggressively in favour of the AGW, and which published this editorial in the wake of Climategate:
The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists' scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial 'smoking gun': proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.
This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real -- or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.
Dr Campbell has since resigned his post -- and rightly so, as the Global Warming Policy Foundation makes clear. But are we to feel any more confident about the alleged neutrality of another of Sir Muir's appointments, Professor Geoffrey Boulton?
Bishop Hill certainly doesn't think so. He notes that Professor Boulton....
spent 18 years at the school of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia
works in an office almost next door to a member of the Hockey Team
says the argument over climate change is over
tours the country lecturing on the dangers of climate change
believes the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2050
signed up to a statement supporting the consensus in the wake of Climategate, which spoke of scientists adhering to the highest standards of integrity
could fairly be described as a global warming doommonger
is quite happy to discuss "denial" in the context of the climate debate.
You wonder, if Sir Muir really is that determined to keep his inquiry totally unbiased, independent, above-board and scrupulously neutral why he just doesn't go the whole hog and appoint Al Gore, James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri. I doubt the conclusions they'd reach would be any different.
Reid playing politics with real issues. Throw the bums out. We need people who care about our country, not about their political kingdoms.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led colleagues and the White House to believe he supported a bipartisan jobs bill -- only to scuttle the plan as soon as it was released Thursday over concerns it could be used to batter Democratic incumbents, according to Senate sources. Better to do something wrong than to actually be wrong, I guess.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) worked for weeks with Reid's blessing and frequent involvement to craft an $85 billion jobs bill, a measure that seemed destined to break the partisan logjam that has ground the Senate to a halt.
But as Baucus, Grassley and President Barack Obama were preparing to celebrate a rare moment of bipartisan Kumbaya on Thursday, Reid stunned a meeting of Senate Democrats by announcing he was scrapping Baucus-Grassley, replacing it with a much cheaper, more narrowly crafted, $15 billion version.
"Grassley and three to four Republicans would have voted for it, but all the other Republicans would have beaten the living s--t out of us [during the 2010 midterms], claiming the bill was too bloated," said a Democrat who supported Reid's decision, explaining the leader's logic. Don't you mean s#!t there?
Few felt as good about the decision: Republicans say the about-face will only add to an already poisonous partisan atmosphere, liberal Democrats think the bill is too small to do much good and the powerful negotiators of the bipartisan package were left embarrassed, demoralized and befuddled.
Aides to Baucus and Grassley said their bosses didn't know of Reid's decision when they unveiled their bill early Thursday -- and expected it to have the leader's support.
"Sen. Reid's announcement sends a message that he wants to go partisan and blame Republicans," Grassley spokesperson Jill Kozeny said in a statement.
Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who supported the bipartisan effort, said her boss was "deeply disappointed that the majority leader has abandoned a genuine bipartisan compromise only hours after it was unveiled in favor of business-as-usual, partisan gamesmanship."
The White House also appeared to be caught off guard.
Moments before Reid announced his decision, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs released a statement, saying, "The draft bill released today by Sens. Baucus and Grassley includes several of the president's top priorities for job creation. [T]he president is hopeful that the draft language presented today will lead to a bipartisan Senate bill."
An unapologetic Reid told reporters Thursday that he'd made his decision before walking into the Democrats' Thursday lunch at the Capitol -- a lunch that began just as the White House sent out Gibbs's message.
"I made the decision before I came to the caucus," Reid said. "I just wanted to make sure that [members of the caucus] were supportive of what I was doing, and they are very supportive."
Reid spokesman Jim Manley later said that Reid had decided Thursday morning to push his package and had entered the lunch meeting with the intention of offering those gathered a choice between Baucus-Grassley and his own stripped-down bill.
"In the end, this is the direction the caucus decided to go," said Manley, who emphasized that many of the elements stripped from the bipartisan measure will be appended to later bills.
But people who were in the room painted a somewhat different picture, saying Reid's proposal was met with a mixture of confusion and outrage from senators upset about having their pet projects redacted -- even after Reid promised to include their proposals in subsequent jobs bills. Aww, did the poor little piggies cry wee wee wee all the way back to their taxpayer-funded offices?
California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she'd like more provisions increasing lending to small business and fewer tax cuts. And Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin argued passionately that, if lawmakers plan to extend corporate tax breaks, they should also extend employment insurance.
"[Reid's] trying to keep it simple," Harkin said emerging from the meeting, "but what I think ought to be in the package is unemployment insurance for one year."
And Baucus seemed puzzled by the change in course, particularly Reid's decision to drop a package of tax extenders from the bill -- a piece with strong bipartisan backing.
"Every senator has a different idea," said Baucus, emerging from the meeting. "There's been no decisions made."
But aides said that Reid was tired of constant lobbying from Democrats who wanted a bigger package and a long list of specific provisions included in the bill. Reid complained that the various requests had "watered down" the Democrats' job-creation message and wanted to present voters with a more streamlined bill.
Staffers added that the Nevada Democrat, fighting an uphill reelection battle, was frustrated that Republicans leaders, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), weren't fully committed to the bill.
In what appeared to be an attempt to isolate the majority leader, McConnell pushed to offer the Baucus-Grassley plan on the floor Thursday night, saying it would allow the Senate to work on unemployment insurance -- something left out of Reid's plan.
Aides involved in the negotiations say that Republicans in leadership and on Baucus's Finance Committee emerged from a meeting Tuesday saying they were close to agreement on the Baucus-Grassley bill -and that McConnell just needed to brief his caucus before signing on, a process slowed by a week of crippling snow storms.
"They came out and said we are in a good place we are just making sure we are talking to people," said a Republican aide. "All sides wouldn't have worked this long and this hard on this unless they were committed to making this happen."
#3
Staffers added that the Nevada Democrat was frustrated that Republican leaders weren't fully committed to the bill.
The article fails to mention that his plan is to introduce a series of smaller bills with Reid controlling ALL the amendments. Another bogus stimulus bill you ask? Certainly not! Its a ah um its systematic Jobs package yeah, dats da ticket.
Carbon dioxide is "essentially harmless" to human beings and good for plants. So now will you stop worrying about global warming?
Utah's House of Representatives apparently has at least. Officially the most Republican state in America, its political masters have adopted a resolution condemning "climate alarmists", and disputing any scientific basis for global warming.
The measure, which passed by 56-17, has no legal force, though it was predictably claimed by climate change sceptics as a great victory in the wake of the controversy caused by a mistake over Himalayan glaciers in the UN's landmark report on global warming.
But it does offer a view of state politicians' concerns in Utah which is a major oil and coal producing state.
The original version of the bill dismissed climate science as a "well organised and ongoing effort to manipulate and incorporate "tricks" related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome". It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a "gravy train" and their efforts would "ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty".
In the heat of the debate, the representative Mike Noel said environmentalists were part of a vast conspiracy to destroy the American way of life and control world population through forced sterilisation and abortion.
By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heats apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word "conspiracy", and described climate science as "questionable" rather than "flawed".
However, it insisted -- against all evidence -- that the hockey stick graph of changing temperatures was discredited. It also called on the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency to order an immediate halt in its moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions "until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated".
As Noel explained: "Sometimes ... we need to have the courage to do nothing." The only thing we need to fear is fear itself? What a concept.
#1
nice Al-Grauniad sneering: "political masters", "against all evidence". The lying fuckwits at East Anglia and their "green" "watermelon" supporters in the media are having a hard time with the exposure of their fraud. Careers need to be ruined over this
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 7:22
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However, it insisted -- against all evidence -- that the hockey stick graph of changing temperatures was discredited.
If you actually look at the evidence, it is damning - for the people trying to commit the biggest scientific fraud since the Piltdown Man. It is a pity that journalists ran with the scary end of the world story and have not shown the least bit of scientific curiosity. But then they are journalists, aren't they?
#3
I've been pointing out that these AGW con artists are in it for the money and political power, so just proving them wrong accomplishes nothing--they already know it is all lies--so will continue to push for it despite all evidence to the contrary.
What will stop them is to remove them from their positions of authority, as the mildest rebuke, and to criminally sanction them for fraud, on the extreme.
Those that are at least halfway honest give it away when they say, that "Even if AGW is wrong, we should still shift all this money and power, because it's the 'right' thing to do."
Their religious beliefs are such that once they have emotionally invested in some stupid idea, they will follow it off a cliff, and try to drag as many of us with them as they can. "But it's for the environment!" is just as pathetic an emotional manipulation as "But it's for the children!"
They are firm believers in "emotionalism", that it is even *more* important that "everyone cares", than if anything tangible is accomplished at all. It is a bizarre and twisted psyche that demands emotional taxation--that everyone else must feel as they feel, on command.
This is why for them, stoicism, skepticism and cynicism of their ideas are almost criminal, and must be roundly cursed.
"You are not of the body! Landru! Help us, Landru!"
#4
Their religious beliefs are such that once they have emotionally invested in some stupid idea, they will follow it off a cliff, and try to drag as many of us with them as they can.
It's the same mindset as the Left's after the Florida vote. As they've amply demonstrated, there can be no negotiations or rational dealing with them. Their minds are closed to reason.
With breaking news out of Palestine today that a top aide to President Mahmoud Abbas has been literally caught with his pants down, rape tapes seem to be popping up all over the pious Muslim world. And some are horrifically worse than others.
Last month on the FOX Business Network, Colonel Oliver North revealed a startling piece of information. Conservative mullahs and elements within the Haqqani terror network -- known as the backbone of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the Af/Pak theater -- are working to take the Haqqanis down from the inside. Their key weapon is a disturbing video that shows the serial sexual assault of several young girls.
Colonel North explained that no one in American intelligence had yet seen this video. Here it is: Click the link for several interesting links in article. Some may be familiar to long-time readers. :-)
When I travelled to Afghanistan to research my novel, The Apostle, contacts of mine introduced me to a mid-level Taliban commander in the Haqqani network. Over tea and considerable time talking together, he provided me with some very good, inside-baseball information on the Haqqanis and how their network operates.
I soon realized that he was part a burgeoning movement of disillusioned fighters, mullahs and commanders who have lost faith in both the network's founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani and its Chief Operating Officer, Siraj Haqqani, Jalaluddin's son.
Recently, this mid-level Taliban commander shared a chilling story with me. He told me it was a scandal that would rock the Muslim world like nothing before and that it would "devastate" the Haqqani network. "What Abu Ghraib was for you Americans," he said, "this will be for the Haqqanis; only worse."
A Muslim Abu Ghraib? Considering the horrific violence that the Haqqanis had perpetrated to date, I had trouble imagining what they could have done now that would suddenly have the power to enflame the Muslim world. After all, that kind of outrage is normally reserved for terrible insults by the West, like cartoons, operas, or free speech. Then, my contact told me his story. It made me absolutely sick to my stomach.
As Siraj Haqqani moved from village to village, rounding up the sons of poor Muslim families to fight for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he offered the villagers free medical care. He even sent his physician, Dr. Hassan Duraz to conduct the clinics. There was a horrific catch, though. Duraz was a monster.
He arrived in each village with Siraj Haqqani's uncle, Ibrahim, and Siraj's cousin, Ishak, in tow. With them, the Haqqanis brought along their own very special tools of terror -- a video camera and an eye for human flesh. You see, with Haqqani healthcare, you not only received a medical exam, if you were an attractive young girl, you also got a screen test. And heaven forbid you passed.
For those women and girls unfortunate enough to catch the good doctor's fancy, it was show time. The Haqqani uncle and cousin would be brought into the exam room, they would set up their video equipment, and Duraz would drop his trousers and go to work.
The Haqqanis and Duraz sexually assaulted poor women throughout the tribal regions and captured every moment of their degradation and humiliation on video to enjoy over and over again.
Times were good for the Haqqani pornography ring. Their enterprise thrived until someone slipped up and word leaked out. In the blink of an eye, Siraj Haqqani was in big trouble.
And what's a good and pious Muslim warrior to do when his moral authority and the very existence of his terror network are at stake? There's only one answer of course. Kill everyone involved. (Everyone that is, except for family.) And that's exactly what Siraj Haqqani did.
Haqqani not only killed the women in the video, but he also killed his own physician, Dr. Duraz. After all, dead men (and dead women for that matter) tell no tales, right?
The only thing left to do was to visit the Haqqani home theater and destroy all the evidence. With that task complete, Siraj Haqqani could sit back and relax. There was just one problem. He didn't get all of the tapes. My contact managed to rescue some.
With the help of a prominent Pakistani Mullah, he put together the video we have linked here, extolling all Muslims to condemn and abandon the Haqqanis. In Islam, there is only one thing worse than the sins the Haqqanis committed -- Siraj Haqqani's sin of trying to cover it all up.
As the video is disseminated throughout the bazaars of Pakistan and Afghanistan, I can only hope that it will result in a death sentence for the Haqqanis and their entire terror network. According to the tenets of Islam, Siraj Haqqani, his cousin, and uncle will spend an eternity roasting in hell. Anyone who supports them, now that this video has come to light, will be subject to the same fate under Islam, which will hopefully serve as a significant disincentive to join or continue working for the Haqqani network.
Siraj Haqqani, like the uncle and cousin he protects, is a monster. I can only hope that he witnesses the collapse of his organization as his followers tear him limb from limb and that the experience will be repeated daily in the afterlife, with two matinees on Sundays.
As you watch the video (or don't watch it), keep in mind one thing. None of this terrible evil would have been possible without Siraj Haqqani.
For the record, through independent sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I have confirmed that the women who appear herein, as well as Dr. Duraz, have all indeed been murdered.
#1
I find this story unlikely for several reasons:
We have to believe that the men in ultra-conservative rural Afghanistan would allow their women to be alone with an unrelated man, in the form of a male doctor who simply appears out of the blue one day. Women in these areas generally don't walk around without a male relative or husband, so what are the men doing while their women are being forced to appear porn movies? When they discovered this outrage against their honor, wouldn't they have killed the women and the doctor too?
If, as the article claims, Siraj killed everyone involved including the rapist doctor (something that sets my BS meter ringing) how do we know such specific details of what they got up to? And the explanation of how this footage was leaked: "The only thing left to do was to visit the Haqqani home theater and destroy all the evidence. With that task complete, Siraj Haqqani could sit back and relax. There was just one problem. He didnt get all of the tapes. My contact managed to rescue some." is pretty weak.
If I had to guess, i'd say this involves footage from a standard sex ring in either Afghanistan or Pakistan that has had the Haqqani name grafted onto it. Which is fine if those people in the bazaars believe it, it's good to have propaganda running the other way for a change.
#2
Skepticism is fine, BUT, if that video has recognisable faces.........
Also, the women are dead now and that Dr. As far as men "letting" their women go I'd be surprised if these scum didn't have the entire area totally cowed. Think of the type of control that the drug gangs in LA have over neighborhoods.
#3
I've enjoyed Brad Thor's well researched novels, including The Apostle , and think he is very credible. The hero and his friends are loosely disguised Blackwater contractors, complete with an Asian cook/concubine, as real as the headlines lately. This is a break that could help turn the Taliban on themselves, breaking the terror network from the inside out.
China makes good on its promise to crack down on online pr0n.
The comments in the linked story are... interesting
China shut down 16,000 more web sites which are found to contain lewd or pr0nographic content as of Wednesday during the latest crackdown.
Statistics from the International Communication Office of the CPC Central Committee show that, since the crackdown was launched in last December, more than 850,000 pictures and 1.3 million messages with lewd or pr0nographic content were deleted.
Also, more than 30 online novels and 15 mobile phone games were halted.
An official with the office said the campaign made significant breakthroughs in striking the profit chains for pr0n web sites as the lewd content on the Internet in the country were obviously reduced and the tendency of spreading such information through cell phones was kept under control.
According to the official, 24 network operators were named and shamed for providing services for such web sites.
Since the country issued measures on rewarding tip-offs on pr0n web sites in last December, a total of 476 whistlers had been rewarded 395,000 yuan ($57,800).
Earlier this month, the country issued a judicial interpretation which further clarified that production, replication, publication, sale and spread of obscene electronic information (video) involving minors aged under 14 via Internet or mobile WAP sites will be recognized as a crime.
China has more than 338 million Internet users, and more than 60 percent are younger than 30, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
On December 8, the country launched a new round of crackdown on spread of pr0nographic contents through Internet or mobile WAP sites to "purify the social environment." The campaign is expected to run through May.
#2
Given that Chinese policies have led to there being 26.5 million more Chinese men ages 15-64 than women ages 15-64, one must conclude: the Chinese need pr0n. Stats taken from the CIA World Factbook.
As the song goes, "The Internet is for Pr0n."
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/13/2010 7:04
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#3
With that many surplus men of fighting age the Chinese might find war a beneficial activity, and pr0n in conflict with it.
#4
The Chinese may as well try war. They will never catch up in the boobage race.
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 11:31
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Where there's a will, there's a way. Just going to make Chinese hackers focus on cracking the Great [Internet] Wall to get to the stuff outside. And if you can get outside, you can get inside. Then it'll be a real race between the authorities and the hackers in plugging and hacking.
An Iranian cleric on Friday hailed the high turnout in the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution as an "epic" manifestation of "national unity."
"The epic [turnout] of the highly dignified Iranian nation [in 22 Bahman rallies] was a manifestation of power, solidarity and national unity," Tehran's Interim Friday Prayers Leader Hojjatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi said.
He said that the "fervent participation" of the Iranian nation had once again disappointed the enemies of the Islamic Republic.
Millions of people, some carrying Iranian flags, pictures of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and banners in support of the revolution, took to the streets Thursday to celebrate the overthrowing of the US-backed Pahlavi monarchy.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed a crowd in Tehran's Azadi square, disclosing latest updates on country's nuclear drive.
Ayatollah Khamenei also praised the high turnout of the Iranians in the rallies.
"The friends and enemies of the Iranian nation should know that this nation has found its way and made the decision to reach the peak of development and welfare, and will overcome any obstacle in their path," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Afghan protesters have taken to the streets to voice their anger at the foreign forces' brutal killing of civilians in their homes.
The protesters took to the streets of Gardez, the capital of Paktia Province on Friday -- a day after US Special Forces killed two senior government officials and three women in the city.
The demonstrators were carrying the bodies of victims and were chanting anti-occupation and anti-American slogans, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Gholam Dastgir Rostamyar, Paktia's deputy police chief told reporters that the US Special Forces had carried out the military operation Thursday night on a residence in a village seven kilometers (4 miles) east of Gardez city.
He added that among the dead were a government prosecutor named Dhaher Khan, local intelligence officer and his brother Dawood Khan as well as three women related to them.
The raid took place as the victims were celebrating the birthday of Dawood's infant son.
The angry locals said the killings had been "deliberate" and called for the legal action against the perpetrators. At one point, they began throwing stones at a convoy of the US-led troops.
The foreign forces have confirmed the incident but described the attack as a counterinsurgency one and claimed in a statement that "several insurgents engaged the joint force in a fire fight and were killed," read a statement by the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The provincial governor's spokesman said the incident was under investigation.
However, CNN later quoted ISAF as saying that the bodies of two men and two women had been found southeast of Afghanistan, and cited an unnamed senior US military official's claim that they victims had been shot "execution-style."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Members of Tehrik-e Taliban group reject Pakistan's announcement that Hakimullah Mehsud was dead, saying their leader is still alive.
Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, announced on Wednesday that there was "credible information" that pro-Taliban leader Hakimullah Meshud had died of wounds inflicted in a US drone attack in January.
According to the local media, high-profile members of the group have met and decided to release a video of Mehsud on Friday or Saturday to confirm that Mehsud is alive.
The rumors about his fate began last Tuesday after another Taliban official, requesting anonymity, told journalists that Mehsud had died of wounds.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
"He was at the opening of the Winter Olympics last night. Surely you saw him?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 7:23
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[Straits Times] THAILAND on Friday deported a five-man plane crew that it detained with a 35-tonne cache of sanctions-busting arms from North Korea after charges against them were dropped.
The Belarussian pilot and four Kazakh crew flew out of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport on a commercial flight bound for Almaty, the Kazakh capital, said an immigration official who refused to be named.
They were detained in December after flying into Bangkok to refuel with a cargo that included missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The United States applauded the seizure as an achievement in enforcing North Korean sanctions and is believed to have played a role in tipping off Thai authorities.
Thailand initially charged the men with possessing illegal weapons and ammunition, smuggling weapons and other banned products and failing to report the cache. But on Thursday, the attorney-general's office said it was not in the national interest to pursue the case and that the five would be deported.
Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters that officials had already coordinated with the men's home countries to organise their reception.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Rajshahi city Jamaat Ameer Ataur Rahman and 10 other Shibir men were taken on a five-day remand yesterday in connection with three cases filed for February 9 RU violence.
The court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate granted the five-day remand while the police sought for 10 days.
Ataur Rahman has been shown remanded in Faruk Hossain killing case. BCL activist and Rajshahi University student Faruk was hacked to death during the RU rampage.
Police charged the Jamaat leader with ordering and provoking Shibir cadres to go berserk and perpetrate the murder.
With the 11, the number of arrestees in Rajshahi following the RU incident has reached 46.
Meanwhile, two injured BCL workers, Rahedul Islam Rahi and Ruhul Amin, earlier admitted to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, lodged two more cases against some 90 Shibir leaders and activists with Motihar Police Station yesterday.
Rahi accused 34 Shibir men, including RU Shibir president Shamsul Alam Golap and general secretary Mobarak Hossain, and 25 other unknown persons. Ruhul accused 31 Shibir men.
The complainants said the accused persons had attacked them during the overnight clash between BCL and Shibir on RU campus.
Including these two cases, a total of five cases have been filed against 700 persons for their alleged involvement in the RU violence.
An unprecedented number of police and Rab members were deployed at different points of the city, especially the Shibir strongholds and mosques, to prevent Shibir from staging protest programmes.
Shibir men have fled the city locking up their messes at Meherchandi, Budpara, Binodpur and several other places. Police raided some of the dens last night.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Straits Times] MUSLIM leaders in Indonesia on Friday told the faithful not to celebrate Valentine's Day because it is sinful and leads to 'free sex'. They're right, of course. I've seen this with my own eyes. The Pajamagram arrives, she puts it on, she takes it off, and Allen's averting his eyes.
'We forbid Muslims to celebrate Valentine's Day,' said Mr Abdullah Cholil, an East Java leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the mainly-Muslim country's biggest Islamic organisation. "No Pajamagrams, damn you!"
'The day is often celebrated by young, unmarried people. They celebrate Valentine's Day by holding hands or having free sex, which they are not supposed to be doing,' he said. That hand-holding is guaranteed to ruin virtue.
Mr Lalilurrahman, the East Java branch chief of the country's highest Islamic body, the Indonesian Ulema Council, said the celebration of romance and love was a Western tradition and therefore should not interest Muslims. 'Valentine's Day originated from Western culture. It's not in accordance with Islamic and Eastern culture,' he said. "We Muslims have no tradition of romance or love, both of which are rooted in respect of a man for a woman and vice versa. We work toward a sterile, loveless world in which women are breeding stock and men are cannon fodder. It is the Islamic way."
Shopping centres in Indonesia's major cities are decked out with Valentine's Day gift offerings as well as displays marking Chinese New Year. Most Indonesians are moderate Muslims and few pay much attention to the moral edicts of local Islamic leaders.
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Media sources in Huntsville, Alabama report that the faculty shooter who opened fire during a biology dept. meeting today was Dr. Amy Bishop, who had learned she would not receive tenure. Bishop allegedly shot and killed 3 fellow faculty members and wounded as many as 6 others, one critically.
Amy Bishop received her Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard and had previously been an instructor of medicine at the Ivy League university.
According to AL.com's Breaking News' blog, Amy Bishop and her husband, Jim Anderson, were co-inventors of InQ, a new cell growth incubator which promised to cut the costs, size and maintenance involved in the mechanics of cell generation'
An older version of Bishop's UAH Biology Dept. web page listed her interests in the way neurons utilize free radicals, in particular nitrous oxide, and how understanding the process could eventually help treat injuries to the central nervous system. In the past, Bishop had taught a number of courses at UAH in anatomy and physiology as well as an introduction to neuroscience.
Professors going nuts and opening fire are the most rare kind of campus shooter. It does happen, though. Most recently: George Zinkhan, a well-regarded marketing professor at the University of Georgia in Athens (UGA), lost his damned mind and opened fire on his estranged wife and two others, killing all 3. Zinkhan was later found dead in a patch of woods outside Athens. He'd meticulously planned his suicide, setting it up so that he virtually buried himself before pulling the trigger.
If Dr. Amy Bishop did go nuts and try to kill her colleagues today as alleged, it wouldn't be the first time a former Harvard professor has gone so dramatically, violently bananas, either.
UPDATE: From Ratemyprofessors.com: This class was great. Bishop makes the class interesting by talking about her research and her friends research. That speaker she had for class was hard to understand but smart. She expects alot and you need to come to every class and study. She is hot but she tries to hide it.And she is a socalist but she only talks about it after class.
Reader George Berryman writes: Im guessing the shes a socialist part wont get talked about much in the MSM. But if she had been a conservative itd lead every evening news cast for two months.
#8
Famous Harvard grad J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1925 gave a poisoned apple to his head tutor Patrick Blackett, while Oppie was in grad school in England. Somehow he was not expelled or criminally charged, just sent to a psychiatrist who diagnosed Oppie as having 'dementia praecox.' This was mentioned in the book Outliers and elsewhere. This stuff has happened before & regrettably will happen again.
#13
Shipman, from the picture in the referenced article, she looks white.
Can't tell if she is a democrat, although if she is a socialist, she probably votes that way, I would guess.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/13/2010 15:42
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#14
Apparently, Bishop has been linked to the murder of her brother in 1986
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 17:03
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#16
Wow. Let me straighten out my tin foil hat.
The problem with the connections is that Delahunt has not been raising campaign funds much this term. Why not? Bishop probably hasn't been planning this shooting for months. Brown only won six weeks ago. He can't be upset with Barry, the closest we'll ever come to Oogo. Weird.
Legislation giving Washington D.C. a firm tongue lashing was approved Thursday by the Kansas Senate.
The resolution calls on the federal government to "cease and desist" from passing onerous mandates on the states. If passed by the House the resolution would be sent to the President and other federal leaders.
It demands that Washington repeal existing mandates and respect Kansas' sovereignty under the 10th Amendment, which reserves for the states rights not delegated to the federal government.
Supporters note that while the resolution can't force Washington to do anything, it sends a message for Kansans upset with overreaching mandates like health care reform legislation, gun control, abortion rights and immigration policy.
"It ... speaks loudly for the freedom of the citizens of the state of Kansas," said Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook, a Shawnee Republican and the main sponsor of the resolution.
Seven of the 40 members of the Senate voted against the resolution. One of them, Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City, Kan. Democrat, called it "sort of sad" and noted that the Senate had pledged allegiance to the U.S. flag just minutes before the vote.
"I've been unhappy with the federal government," he said. "But not to the point of secession or sedition."
Similar bills are pending in Missouri.
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#1
We need more states doing this. Obama and his cronies will start cranking out executive orders and regulations instead of legislation, since they cannot get their sh*t sandwich legislation passed through congress.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/13/2010 0:38
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#2
If the federal government has to work hard to find some way to foist their mandates on states, it's probably unconstitutional.
#3
The 10th Amendment movement is well underway, and has plenty of momentum in the States. Since the national government is oblivious, the next step is for individual States to create delegations to confer with each other.
This amounts to "pre-constitutional convention" discussions. It is akin to straw polling, to come up with a concise list of constitutional changes that have to be made, a process of how to both make them, and how to insure they are carried out before the convention ends.
Unless agreement exists between 3/4ths of the States before the convention even begins, even if the 2/3rds of the States that are willing to call a convention, it would not be productive.
Many States would be nervous about holding an "open convention", so want a minimum of debate, except to enunciate the agreement, vote on it, and return it to the States for approval.
Once that is done, the convention becomes a simple majority vote overseeing authority, to insure the changes are made to the letter of the new constitution.
As needed, they can relieve and replace any elected or appointed official who interferes with the convention, refuses to carry out its directives, or does not carry them out expeditiously or correctly.
Security for a constitutional convention will have to be insanely strict, as every villain on the planet would sell their soul to get involvement with it. Any federal employee or official would have to be excluded, and there would have to be severe penalties, which cannot be appealed, to anyone who violated the rules.
#4
State soverneinty resolutions; a growing movement among States to send a message to Washington. Needs to be done. Other (but not inclusive of all issues) are: firearms freedom acts, medical marijuana, National Health Care and Cap and Trade nullification.
#6
We have been working on this for several years, and have finally joined Ok. and Tex. with our own 10th. amendment bill.
I do not expect Missouri to join in since Kansas and Missouri do not agree on anything including the number of victories on the football field.
Bipartisanship in kansas can be described as Wildcats and Jayhawks joining together against anything.
House Joint Resolution No. 125, House Resolution No. 5, and Senate Joint Resolution No. 17 have been introduced. The House resolutions have been reported out of committee and now go to the floor for a vote. The Senate joint resolution is still in committee. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
I think there are 2 House bills because the Senate is slightly majority Democrat and the sponsoring House Delegates may suspect the bill might not make it through the Senate (the sponsoring Senater is a Republican), so if they can't get a joint resolution passed, at least they can send a House resolution to D.C.
Not that D.C. is going to care. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/13/2010 14:29
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#9
Just to take the cynical, devil's advocate approach here:
States want to be free from Federal mandates and restrictions, but seldom refuse Federal handouts in the form of grants, earmarks, highway building money, etc.
In the past, the Federal government has responded to uppity states refusing federal mandates by withholding Federal money. States that refused to lower their speed limits to 55 were threatened with the cutoff of Federal highway funds. Most of them immediately caved in.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/13/2010 15:52
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#10
In the past, the Federal government has responded to uppity states refusing federal mandates by withholding Federal money.
Barry would never consider doing something like that now would he?
#11
This seems to be to be foolish and a bit backward. It also seems a bit on the shortsighted scale to say, DC is out of touch. Before you shoot me, hear me out. If Kansas was so damn worried about DC then they need to take a good look at their Congressmen and Senators, same for Texas, Arizona and Missouri. They need to pass new state laws allowing for removal of the idiots they elected and to hold their representatives accountable. We as a nation do not do that. Once Mr Smith goes to DC it seems the states give up on him. Congressmen should answer to the governors and the people in open forums on a regular basis as directed by state law. We bitch about congress, call them out of touch, and then we elect comedians, old guard pork hounds, and WWF wrestlers into power. Congress and Senate elections are more popularity contests than choosing real leaders. We hold someone that is a great speaker in higher regard than someone who manages and leads. We get the legislation we deserve by allowing them to divide up out states districts so they will stay in power forever. We elect their children, like they are smarter because their dad was in Washington DC. We listen to people like Hannity and Olberman, believe their propaganda without question and let them divide our nation further and further toward a point where any real compromise in government is impossible. Now we are letting Palin become the self appointed leader of the tea party movement. Her agenda is not based on tackling issues, hers is pointing fingers.
Ok, my rant is over. I believe the great document that starts with We the people means just that and until the American people take a long hard look in the mirror we the people will continue down this road of ignorance toward another civil war.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/13/2010 18:08
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#12
The only way we'll get rid of the feds blackmailing the states will be to take the tax out of the hands of the fed gov. They invented ridiculous tax rates leaving states with little ability to control their own destiny. Sure, states cave in to fed blackmail, the feds take money from the people and give some of it back to state polititions
The jury of five men and seven women deliberated for three days, at times asking that testimony be read back or video be played to them. Thursday morning they requested to see a portion of surveillance video taken outside the club, but by the time the footage was delivered to the jury room, they canceled the request, announcing they had reached a verdict.
A sentencing hearing before Superior Court Judge Susan M. Speer has been scheduled for March 4, and the prosecutor is seeking a life sentence.
Theriault-Odom testified that "I felt offended - I felt she was trying to punk me. I had to stand up for myself. That's the way it is on the streets."
During the trial, witnesses said that Theriault-Odom, who had been rejected for a job at the Babes N'Beer Bar in Tarzana, had feuded with Busby and felt disrespected by her. Theriault-Odom testified that "I felt offended - I felt she was trying to punk me. I had to stand up for myself. That's the way it is on the streets." Oh, I think she'll do just fine in prison. Probably be running the place in a few weeks... I've seen this movie! It was at a drive-in ...
She also testified to being "very drunk" on the evening before the 1:45 a.m. attack, saying she had consumed two double shots of Russian vodka, half a fifth of Patron tequila and five shots of Hennessey cognac.
She denied, however, setting the dancer on fire.
Instead, she testified that while she scuffled with Busby outside the club, she was not the one who doused her with gasoline and set on fire.
But witnesses identified Theriault-Odom as the assailant, saying they saw her douse Busby with gasoline from a bottle, pull out a
"There isn't any doubt in my mind that my daughter didn't do this, knowing how she was raised," said Elizabeth Odom of Van Nuys. I think she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time."
lighter and try three times before setting her on fire.
Surveillance video was shown of Busby running into the bar on fire - "like a human torch," Musante said - as frantic club workers tried several times to put out the flames.
The defendant's mother was not in the courtroom Thursday, but said in an interview Wednesday that she did not believe her daughter committed the attack.
"There isn't any doubt in my mind that my daughter didn't do this, knowing how she was raised," said Elizabeth Odom of Van Nuys.
"I think she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. She's a sweet girl. Never in my mind would I think that she would be somebody who could do anything like this."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
"There isn't any doubt in my mind that my daughter didn't do this, knowing how she was raised," said Elizabeth Odom of Van Nuys. I think she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time."
How'd she know? Was she dancing at the club when this happened? And speaking of being in the wrong place . . . .
#3
she had consumed two double shots of Russian vodka, half a fifth of Patron tequila and five shots of Hennessey cognac.
She may be one crazy-ass biotch, but she has good taste in booze. I do like how Mom sticks up for her - sweet girl, wrong place wrong time. Nothing like mother's love.
#5
If this ho had cut back on the high end hootch to something less than Kimmie-esque maybe she wouldn't need to shake her moneymaker or set the competition on fire.
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 12:39
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Seven shots and half a fifth of tequila? How the hell was she standing up after all that? What is she, over three hundred pounds or something?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/13/2010 22:54
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World leaders applauded the unofficial winner of Ukraine's presidential elections, Viktor Yanukovych, in an apparent attempt to force Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to concede defeat.
Presidents Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy along with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and EU President Herman Van Rompay forwarded congratulatory notes to Yanukovych on Friday.
In a statement released on Friday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the UK "has long supported Ukraine's EU aspirations and we will continue to do so. A broader EU is a stronger EU.''
Preliminary reports indicated that Tymoshenko, who was one of the leading figures in the Ukraine's pro-democracy revolution of 2004, lost the election by a 3.5 percent margin.
Even though international observers have regarded the presidential elections as accurate and just, Tymoshenko's allies began questioning counts at various polling stations in court on Friday.
''Ukraine needs a president who was elected fairly,'' said Tymoshenko's campaign chief, Alexander Turchinov.
Turchinov has demanded a recount at 1,200 polling stations in Ukraine.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Opium production in Afghanistan, the world's largest producer, will continue to fall this year thanks to poor weather, the U.N. office on drugs and crime predicted.
"There is a good chance that Afghanistan will produce less opium this year," UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement.
Last year, Afghan farmers produced some 56 kilograms (124 pounds) per hectare of opium bulbs, which are used to make heroin. But bad weather was likely to reduce that figure and thus the quantity of opium produced this year, the Vienna-based UNODC said in a new report published this week.
This would continue the drop in Afghan opium production, which already fallen from 8,200 tons in 2007 to 6,900 tons in 2009, the U.N. office noted. The area dedicated to opium cultivation, however, was expected to remain stable after decreasing by 36 percent, from a record 193,000 hectares in 2007 to 123,000 last year.
And a reversal in opium prices, which are starting to increase again after staying low for two years, could persuade farmers to pick up cultivation again, the UNODC warned.
In a country still troubled by a Taliban-led insurgency, security played an important role in farmers' thinking: "Almost 80 percent of villages with very poor security conditions grew poppy, while opium only grows in seven percent of villages unaffected by violence," the report said.
Where governance was most effective, Afghan farmers also seemed less willing to defy a ban on poppy cultivation, unlike in south-west Afghanistan, where the central government has less power.
"The message is clear: in order to further reduce the biggest source of the world's deadliest drug, there must be better security, development and governance in Afghanistan," said Costa.
"The Afghan authorities must lead and own their drug control strategy: the rest of the world has a vested interest in its success."
One of the main concerns now was to root out poppy cultivation in eight "swing" provinces where production was "negligible", the UNODC chief said.
"With appropriate local community-inspired measures, such as shura-driven (tribal council) campaigns, governor-led eradication and development assistance, three quarters of the country (25 out of 34 provinces) could become poppy-free in the near future," Costa predicted.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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[Maghrebia] Algeria is a religiously tolerant nation that will never encroach on the rights of non-Muslims to worship, Religious Affairs Minister Bouabdellah Ghlamallah told participants at an Algiers seminar on Wednesday (February 10th).
Under the banner of "Religious Worship: A Right Ensured by Religion and by the Law", the February 10th-11th conference convened representatives of several religions and government officials to ease relations after a Christian church was attacked and desecrated in Tizi-Ouzou in December 2009.
Emphasising Algeria's long history of religious acceptance, Ghlamallah declared that the country is "receptive to all religions" and pointed to a February 2006 law that protects the right of Christians and Jews to practice their faith.
Algeria has "never closed down a single church", the minister told participants. "Rather, Christians were ensured the right to practice their religious rights freely and peacefully in the designated places, and in accordance with the act regulating the practice of religious rites issued in 2006."
The defiled Protestant church had defied orders by the government to shut down, as it was not registered properly.
Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, account for less than 1% of the Algerian population, according to recent statistics. The Ministry of Religious Affairs officially recognised Judaism in July 2009, and allowed 25 synagogues to open their doors.
Catholic Archbishop Dr. Ghaleb Bader, also at the symposium, affirmed that religious tolerance does exist in Algeria, but urged Algerian legislators to revisit the details of the February 2006 Act on religious freedom.
"It is difficult to provide a minister or an archbishop in every place," Dr. Bader told seminar participants, as he pointed out the problems in current legislation requiring registration for every religious community and barring religious meetings in halls and houses.
"Therefore, it's not easy for Christians to find places of worship in Algeria that meet the conditions stipulated by the Algerian government in the act."
He urged the Algerian community to recognise churches as a "neutral place" that "will never be a spot for opposing Algerian interests". He added: "The act regarding non-Muslim worship practices is a constriction on the Church in Algeria."
Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Algiers Henri Teissier implored religious leaders at the conference to embrace inter-faith dialogue. "Establishing peace in the world hinges on representatives of the religious sects, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews."
Teissier also joined other Catholic bishops last month in denouncing the attack on the Tizi-Ouzou church and urging Algerians to follow the principles of "coexistence" and "respect".
A December 26th statement from Catholic bishops denounced the attack, while calling attention to "the obstacles hindering the practice of Christian worship" in Algeria.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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#1
In the west we build Saudi funded Mosques galore but we struggle to build any churchs in any muslim majority country!
#2
Why do you sound surprised? Not to say that you shouldn't BE surprised. But let's be honest; this is what we have all come to expect. Sad - yes. But true.
#4
What is the purpose of such treaties in a post-cold war world?
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010 12:04
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#5
to get a photo op while bargaining away any military/tech advantages for a pack of lies?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 13:02
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#6
Worse, Obama and his Commissars have linked defensive anti-missile systems as the equivalent of city destroying ICBMs.
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 13:07
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#7
John, the previous disarmament treaty had expired. This time around the Russians demanded new negotiations and O caved because it fits his agenda and those of his appointees. The ASD for Nuclear, Bio and Chem and the head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency both come from the Nunn Lugar crowd on Capitol Hill. They believe that if we just show we're not threatening the other sides will happy set aside their own capabilities - and they point to the previous treaties with Russia as proof, IIUC.
[Maghrebia] In a newly-released document titled "Letter to Youth", al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb called on Algerian university students, chemists, physicists, doctors and IT specialists to join the terrorist group, AKI reported on Thursday (February 11th). The AQIM statement posted last week-end on jihadist websites was signed by Abu Muslim al-Jazairi ("the Algerian").
"You want a job? We got jobs! Use your skillz, have fun, get paid! For more information, call 555-Al Qaeda."
In related news, an Algiers court on Thursday sentenced four terrorists to prison terms ranging from 20 years to life for abducting 32 German and other European tourists in the Algerian desert. Their leader, the notorious Algerian terrorist known as "El Para", is already serving a life sentence for the kidnappings. Last May, the former paratrooper and one-time top militant in the Sahara region renounced terrorism, saying that by indiscriminately killing civilians, al-Qaeda had chosen a path far removed from religion.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
FATA continues to be used and abused as a strategic space by the security establishment of Pakistan in violent pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan. In short, strategic depth means Pakistan must have a pro-Pakistan government in Afghanistan by any and all means. People of FATA have suffered more than people in any other part of Pakistan due to this policy. They dread and hate strategic depth'.
Some people of FATA drew my attention towards Zaid Hamid, who, they said, is a new charm offensive of the military establishment to popularise the notion of strategic depth among the youth from affluent families in the big cities of Pakistan. He is frequently given air time by the electronic media, also an evidence that the media, especially the Urdu media, is not free and has to toe the establishment's line in security matters. Show biz celebrities have joined him. Those who oppose the strategic depth, especially the Pakhtun, who are the biggest casualty of it, are never given so much media attention.
The main concern of the people of FATA vis-a-vis Zaid Hamid is his use of a particularly narrow interpretation of Islam that proposes a belligerent agenda for the Pakistan Army and drawing on controversial Islamic literature. Thus the authenticity of the hadiths sayings of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) on Ghazwa-e-Hind that he often refers to in terms of the ultimate defeat of the Indians at the hands of the Pakistan Army is highly questionable.
Zaid Hamid claims in his speeches to young people that God determines the destiny of Pakistan. Pakistan will become a grand Caliphate. Pakistan army will cut India down to the size of Sri Lanka. Pakistan will lead the entire Muslim world and its army will be deployed in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and Afghanistan. The corrupt judicial system, consisting of the lawyers and the Supreme Court of Pakistan, will be replaced by an Islamic judicial system that would ensure Taliban style speedy and cheap justice. He claims that the current elected set up in Pakistan is implanted by the CIA and prophesies that the current rulers in Pakistan will have their dead bodies hanging on poles in Islamabad, an indirect appreciation of what the Taliban did in Afghanistan with the dead body of Dr Najibullah, the then Afghan president. He openly threatens the nationalists, especially the Pakhtun and Baloch nationalists, for their aspirations. The Taliban government in Afghanistan, he declares, was Pakistan-friendly and condemns its removal by the US in the post-9/11 attack on the country. He glorifies the biggest mass murderer of the Pakhtun General Zia, the former dictator of Pakistan.
Judging by the obscurantist message that he communicates, Zaid Hamid does not seem to be a new invention of the establishment. He is an addition to the long list of people who have been handpicked to promote an anti-people agenda in the name of religion and hate of India, like the people from the Jamaat-e-Islami. What seems to be new is his apparent tolerance' of the un-Islamic' lifestyle of the urban youth and in this context there are some interesting discussions about Zaid Hamid on some blogs and mailing lists. One blogger writes that Zaid Hamid is using a new strategy to communicate the same old conspiracy theories to young people. The strategy is that unlike classical Islamic scholars, joining Zaid Hamid's group does not necessarily require the youth to shed their sophisticated lifestyle and adjust to hijab, a ban on music and gender segregation. The only thing they have to do is to glorify the Pakistan Army, including its pursuit of strategic depth, and hate Jews, Americans and Indians.
A writer on one of the mailing lists argues that Zaid Hamid is a Pied Piper for our youth from the prosperous sections of Punjab who have no dreams to be proud of. Zaid Hamid sells the dreams of conquering the world, though they are nonsense, yet still work for the youth who are now caught up in an identity crisis, continues the writer. The writer understands that the fault lies with the leftist intellectuals who have lost direction by joining NGOs and leaving the anti-imperialist struggle open for people like Zaid Hamid or Imran Khan.
Zaid Hamid, in his show, sets a dangerous agenda for the youth of Pakistan; the very same youth who are living a comfortable life in poverty-stricken Pakistan. They lack any ambitions in life to give it some purpose. This lack of goals is rooted in the identity crisis being faced by the Pakistani youth. The crisis is expressed in questions like these: what are we first of all: Muslim or Pakistani? Is our ultimate commitment with Pakistani citizenship or a global Muslim brotherhood? What kind of Pakistan should we aim at: a progressive multi-ethnic social democracy or some kind of medieval caliphate?
Secondly, one has to strive very hard for ideals. If the ideal is the former (multi-ethnic social democratic Pakistan), the youth from affluent families will have to share their riches with the poor, downtrodden fellow citizens. This is very hard for this class of people, otherwise I would at least have seen them working for bringing normalcy in the shattered lives of the people of FATA, who have been living in deplorable conditions in refugee camps for over two years now. In the latter case (caliphate) they can placate their conscience by attaching themselves with the higher ideal without having to give up something from their comfortable lives. The only thing they have to do is to support the belligerent agenda of the military establishment and their poor fellow Pakistanis can go to hell. Zaid Hamid's campaign is like opium for the young that makes them run away from reality, i.e. Pakistan is a class-based multi-ethnic society that cannot be held together with mere Islamic rhetoric and military ambitions.
What is even more dangerous is the fact that Zaid Hamid is glorifying the same Taliban that the people of FATA hold responsible for their massacre at the behest of the military establishment of Pakistan. Case in point, Jalaluddin Haqqani who occupies North Waziristan. I would invite the young fans of Zaid Hamid to take a tour of FATA, or at least FATA IDP camps in various parts of the NWFP, to observe firsthand what the Taliban and the military did to these people. I would remind the youth that people all over FATA hold the generals of the Pakistan Army more than the Taliban responsible for the death and destruction in their area. They view the Taliban all Taliban, good, bad, Afghan or Pakistani as a creation of the intelligence agencies of our country. How much more do the people of FATA need to sacrifice for strategic depth in Afghanistan? The never-ending human sufferings in the area could transform into widespread anti-state sentiments. The youth around Zaid Hamid must know that the current pursuit of strategic depth may turn into as rightly described in this paper's editorial Strategic death'? (Daily Times, February 3, 2010) 'strategic death' for Pakistan rather than securing a friendly Afghanistan.
The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010
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#1
As the old saying goes the problem with Afghanistan is Pakistan!
For years we have been fighting a proxy war against the Pakistani army!
Posted by: john frum ||
02/13/2010 9:59
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#3
Goodness, john, what a picture! Check out the tragic brow, the proudly jutting chin, the stern expression, the nobility of mien. That, my friends, looks to be truly a man among men.
#3
I wonder if, in the back of the design engineer's mind, there was a subconscious effort to design a "flying sub", as was used in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea?
Though, even as a kid, the use of those glowing nuclear reactor dampening rods freaked me out. Nuclear + glowing did not equal "good".
1) the 'kinetic weapon' Skidmark notes, from carrier deck to target a thousand miles away, guided by someone on the carrier (or in a lawnchair in Vegas). Just hit the target.
2) a more typical UAV for reconnaissance and perhaps task force defense.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/13/2010 11:13
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#6
Steve - it is suppose to be fully capable as a fighter to protect the carrier.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The euro has hit a nine-month low against the dollar after the European Union failed to ease worries of a debt default in Greece.
Euro fell roughly one percent on Friday to one-dollar-35 cents, euro's weakest record since May 2009.
Analysts say the common currency for 16 European countries is getting weaker because of concerns about the fragile finances of several nations in the euro-zone.
European leaders on Thursday offered support for Greece, but a lack of detail on the subject has kept investors worried.
EU leaders said Greece has to take further measures to tackle its huge debts such as cutting its budget deficit by four percent this year.
"Greece is a living example of why you should never give up control of your own currency," said Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the British Taxpayers' Alliance.
"The British economy and public finances are in a bad enough state as it is, without dishing out yet more of our money to solve the EU's self-inflicted problems."
Meanwhile, the economies in other European nations, including Germany, have remained static throughout the last quarter of 2009.
"Today's data shows that the recovery in the euro area is a long way off from being self-sustained," said Jorg Radeke, an economist at the Centre for Economic and Business Research.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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#1
"The continent of Europe is so wide, mein herr."
#2
I've read comments for the past year from others beyond our borders questioning why the dollar hasn't completely tanked it. It's the old story about being chased by a bear. You don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than someone else in the party.
Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities.
Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel's Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging assassinations across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.
The current spate of killings began in December when a tourist bus' carrying Iranian officials and Hamas members exploded outside Damascus. The official report by Syria claimed that a tyre had exploded but photographs surfaced showing the charred remains of the vehicle prompting speculation that a much larger explosion had taken place. Pic at the link. That must've been quite a "blow out"...
Several weeks later a meeting between members of Hamas, which controls Gaza, and their counterparts from Hezbollah in its southern Beirut stronghold in Lebanon was also attacked, resulting in several deaths.
Hamas had sought to cover up the incidents because it was embarrassed, a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah told The Times. There has been growing co-operation between Gaza and Iran. Israel can read the writing on the wall and they know that with the help of Iran, the Hamas Government in Gaza will become stronger and will fight better. But Israel is overstepping their boundaries. Other countries don't want to become a killing field for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.'
Most recently, the top Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in Dubai on January 19, 2010. He is believed to have been poisoned by a woman who visited his room at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai. Israeli officials said that Mabhouh had been a key figure in procuring Iranian-made longer-range rockets for Hamas that could be fired at targets in central Israel.
The exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal has vowed revenge for Mabhouh's death. He has also suggested that the current fighting between Hamas and Israel will become more regional. In an interview with the London-based al-Hayat newspaper, Mr Mashaal said that future wars with Israel would not be fought solely in the Gaza Strip.
Under the current Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, Israel is believed to have renewed efforts to kill high-level opponents. Only months after the former paratrooper assumed leadership of the intelligence service in October 2002, senior Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon began to be targeted. He was credited with ordering the killing of two relatively senior Hezbollah members who were killed in southern Beirut in July 2003 and August 2004.
More recently, Israel has been accused of planting a car bomb in Damascus that killed the top Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah in February 2008. The Israeli Cabinet minister Daniel Herschkowitz last week praised the Mossad chief as one of the agency's most successful leaders.
When asked about Mossad's involvement in the Dubai slaying, Eli Yishai, the Interior Minister, smiled and said: All the security services make, thank God, great efforts to safeguard the security of the state of Israel.'
While some countries are questioning whether Israel isn't taking credit to increase the reputation of its defence establishment, other moderate Arab States are now describing the assassinations as a covert war' between Israel and Hamas. Diplomats said they were aware that covert Israeli operations had increased. We watch their comings and goings; we are aware that there is more activity both on our ground and other countries in the region,' said an Egyptian diplomat. They are trying to embroil us all in their conflict.'
Tensions between Israel and Hamas have remained high, despite the relative quiet that has ensued since the end of Israel's offensive in Gaza last winter. Israeli troops were placed on alert yesterday after intelligence suggested that Hamas planned to abduct soldiers. Israel said this week that it had foiled a kidnapping in December by arresting the Hamas operative Slaman Abu Atik on the Israeli-Gaza border. He planned to enter Israel via Egypt, said the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service.
The Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, has called on all devout supporters to conform to a ceasefire proclaimed by the Yemeni government.
"The Houthi movement, hereby, calls on all devout supporters to break off fighting on all fronts and conform to a ceasefire earlier proclaimed by the government," said a statement released by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi's office on Thursday.
"All roads will be open, roadblocks removed and tranquility and stability will prevail once the ceasefire is in effect," the statement added.
On Thursday, Sana'a reached an agreement with the Houthis to put an end to a long-running government offensive that claimed the lives of civilians and displaced thousands from their homes in northern villages.
"The ceasefire is going to be in effect at 12 midnight local time (2100 GMT)," a Yemeni official had said on Thursday.
The Yemeni government and the northern Shia resistance fighters, known as Houthis, had been involved in exchanging proposals in recent days to settle the conflict.
The conflict in northern Yemen began in 2004 between Sana'a and Houthi fighters. The conflict intensified in August 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa'ada.
Riyadh joined Yemen's offensive against the Houthis after accusing the Shia fighters of killing a Saudi border guard and occupying two border villages on November 3, 2009. Saudi jets began bombing Yemen's northern villages the following day.
According to Houthi fighters, Saudis have used toxic materials, including white phosphorus bombs, indiscriminately in northern Yemen.
Houthi fighters said that the US military also was involved in bombing the northern Yemen conflict regions of Amran, Hajjah and Sa'ada.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that since 2004, up to 250,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Sa'ada and take refuge in overcrowded camps set up by the United Nations.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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[ADN Kronos] (AKI) - Heavy fighting between Somalian government troops and Islamist fighters have killed five people and injured at least 10 others north of the capital Mogadishu, witnesses were quoted as telling Radio Shabelle on Friday.
Gunfights broke out in the Yaqshid, Bondere and Shibis districts north of Mogadishu, according to local residents.
Also on Friday, the deputy governor of Somalia's southern Gedo region, Mohamed Abdi Kalil, told Radio Shabelle that forces from the interim government were ready to attack Islamist fighters in southern Somalia in a bid to regain several provinces from Islamist control.
"We welcome any troops or anyone against those who are against the transitional government," said Kalil.
Government troops trained in the Somali region under the control of Ethiopian and Somali officers have reportedly reached El-berde village in Gedio.
In recent days, the transitional government has signalled it is planning a major military offensive to expel Islamist fighters in Mogadishu.
Thousands of people living on the city's outskirts reportedly fled their homes on Thursday ahead of the imminent offensive.
More 30 people were killed and 80 others were wounded in heavy mortar shelling in Mogadishu late Wednesday, causing the capital's few remaining residents to flee their homes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of militia men from the Al-Qaeda aligned Al-Shab group and its Islamic Party ally are reported to have been heading via truck towards the capital from southern Somalia, including the port city of Chisimaio.
"We are ready to send other fighters to thwart fresh attacks by government and foreign forces," Islamist militia leader in Chisimaio, Sheikh Hasan Yaqub was quoted as saying on Thursday.
Fighting has continued in Somalia between warring Islamist rebels, since the country's new president Sharif Sheik Ahmed took office on 31 January last year.
Al-Shabab and its Islamic Party ally regularly strike government forces and installations and African Union peacekeeper bases.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Iraq has officially kicked off the election season ahead of the March nationwide vote.
Campaign posters were plastered across Baghdad and other cities on Friday, urging people to the polls. In Basra, one poster read: "Your city needs someone who knows what Basra needs."
But in a move likely to raise tensions between the Shiite-led government and Sunnis who claim they are politically undermined, an Iraqi panel on Thursday barred two prominent Sunni politicians from running in the March 7 election.
The announcement came after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that judges would resolve a simmering row over who can stand in the elections before official campaigning starts on Feb. 12.
"Evidence"
The back-and-forth over a decision to blacklist hundreds of candidates from the March 7 vote because of ties to Saddam Hussein's former Baathist regime has threatened to mar the balloting process, which U.S. officials hope could be a milestone in reconciliation among Iraq's rival religious groups.
Sunni lawmakers Saleh al-Mutlaq and Dhafir al-Ani, who are members of Iraq's parliament, were disqualified from the vote because of "overwhelming" evidence of their Baathist loyalty, according to the panel.
Al-Mutlaq and al-Ani are the most prominent Sunni lawmakers to be disqualified. Their initial rejection weeks ago was seen by many Iraqis as proof of a campaign against Sunnis, even though many Shiites also are on the blacklist.
Al-Mutlaq, a fierce critic of Shiite Prime Minister Maliki, has acknowledged he was a Baathist until the late 1970s but quit the party.
Al-Ani took the helm of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament after its moderate leader Harith al-Obeidi was assassinated in June 2009. He said he had not yet been officially informed about the decision but said it was politically motivated and called it "a gift to the Iranian government" -- a jab accusing the panel of being influenced by Tehran's Shiite leadership.
The judicial panel issued the order as part of its review of 177 candidates who have appealed a decision to exclude them from the ballot. More than 200 other candidates have either failed to appeal or were replaced by with other hopefuls by their party alliances.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Asharq al-Aswat] The man described as the father of the internet, Vinton Cerf, has said that Arabic language content on the internet is far below the level of requirement, and confirmed his desire to provide better internet services to Arab language speakers in the region.
Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist Vinton Cerf told Asharq Al-Awsat that "we at Google strive to improve connection with Arabic language users in the region, and we are working to achieve this via two methods; firstly through clearing the way for Arab users to pose questions and initiate searches in Arabic, and secondly by providing an Arabic language version of all date and information. We rely upon automated translation software rather than the human element with regards to translation."
However Google are also facing a number of problems with regards to providing these translations, and Cerf said "we are encountering a problem in the process of automated translations as this relies on statistical methodology, and this is via the collection and analysis of a large number of documents that contain translation data in order to obtain a more accurate translation in the end."
However Cerf also revealed that a number of problems had been resolved with regards to this issue "enabling us to translate into the Arabic language, overcoming a number of stages that we were not able to achieve with regards to other languages, such as Korean for example."
He added that "during my forthcoming visit to the [Middle East] region I will work to strengthen the capabilities of automated translation by looking for good and strong resources for Google Taareeb."
Vinton Cerf was in Dubai to attend the "Google Arabia 2.0" forum which took place on Wednesday 10 February. Cerf addressed the audience that was comprised of Middle Eastern and North African [MENA] decision makers on the future of the internet and the areas of innovation in the emerging markets.
The Google Arabia 2.0 forum, which is aimed at executives and government officials, focused on defining future prospects and challenges facing the region and methods of stimulating innovation and development on Arab language internet content. As for the services provided by Google to the MENA region, Cerf said "the company attaches great importance to the services that it provides to users in the region and Arab users in particular. My personal concern for this issue is one of the reasons for my forthcoming visit to Dubai, and I will try to focus on the aspects of development and improvement that we can add to the services and information that we provide to the region."
Google provides the "Google Taareeb" service which can be used to write emails in Arabic if an internet user does not possess an Arabic language keyboard, and for example should one wish to write an email in Arabic or post a comment on an Arabic language forum, one can simply phonetically transliterate the Arabic text in the English language.
It appears that the Arabic language is virtually absent from the international search engine, and Cerf said that "It is a widely known fact that the MENA region currently produces less than 1 percent of content online in Arabic." Cerf said that he considered this to be "both a challenge and an opportunity for the region to take a leap of faith and embrace the benefits of the Internet."
Cerf also described the internet as being "an amazing tool that encourages the free flow of information, the sharing of ideas, the ability to advance businesses across geographical borders and ultimately empower more individuals in their everyday lives."
It seems that the Google search engine has become aware of the importance of the Arab region and the potential opportunities that are present there, according to Cerf, who said "as you know, in general the people in the Middle East rely heavily on mobile phones in obtaining information, which highlights the importance of accessing information via handheld devices on the move, as the phone in some cases becomes the means to connect you to the information that you require. Therefore we must develop this service in line with the region that it is used in, and this is what we are seeking to do."
In Cerf's opinion, developing the previously mentioned services for regional internet users "is important for a number of reasons, the first reason is in order to ensure that these services are viable and practical in the MENA region, and which will result in the further development of the company's operations in the region." Cerf added that "providing useful local information helps us to find new clients who may wish to display their ads through the various services that we offer in the region."
Google's efforts are not limited to providing appropriate services to users in the region, with respect to Google Taareeb and others, and in fact Google goes much further than this. For instance Google provides a special Arabic language interface for its search engine for users in the Arab world, providing different results then the English language version.
Vinton Cerf is known across the world, and he, along with his colleague Robert E. Khan helped to create the Internet Protocol Suite or TCP/IP. Khan and Cerf were awarded the highest civilian award in the US, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in recognition for their work which made it possible for data to be transmitted across the internet. This placed Khan and Cerf at the forefront of the digital revolution that transformed the face of global commerce, communication, and entertainment.
Founded in 1988 by Stanford University PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google is now one of the largest internet companies in the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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#1
Cerf also described the internet as being "an amazing tool that encourages the free flow of information, the sharing of ideas, the ability to advance businesses across geographical borders and ultimately empower more individuals in their everyday lives."
No wonder it's not popular among Arabs. Those are *our* values.
#15
Saudi Arabia didn't make the list? I'm shocked. Still, they're a small-population country, which limits total number of minutes that could be devoted to such activities, no matter how devoted the participants.
Amazing to me this story was not posted anywhere, not just not on rantburg.com What is believed to be the country's biggest hacker training site has been shut down by police in Central China's Hubei province.
Three people were also arrested, local media reported yesterday.
The three, who ran Black Hawk Safety Net, are suspected of offering others online attacking programs and software, a crime recently added to the Criminal Law. A total of 1.7 million yuan ($249,000) in assets were also frozen.
According to the provincial public security department of Hubei, the closure of the website had its roots in a previous Web attack and virus dissemination case in the city of Macheng in 2007, when police found some of the suspects caught were members of Black Hawk Safety Net.
Hubei province named Black Hawk Safety Net as the largest hacker training site in China, which openly recruited members and disseminated hacker techniques through lessons, trojan software and online forum communications.
Since it was established in 2005, the site had recruited more than 12,000 VIP members and collected more than 7 million yuan in membership fees. More than 170,000 people registered for free membership.
Police said more than 50 officers had been investigating the case.
#1
I posted something on this a couple of days or so ago, but it didn't have this kind of detail. I wouldn't be overly surprised if the guys who run this operation end up getting government jobs.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops killed at least five people on Friday in a raid on suspected members of what Washington calls an Iranian-backed terrorist group, the U.S. military said.
While overall violence in Iraq has fallen over the last two years, attacks and fighting remain common as Iraq gears up for a March 7 election and U.S. troops prepare to stop combat operations ahead of a withdrawal by the end of 2011.
The firefight with suspected members of Kata'ib Hezbollah, a group that the U.S. State Department says has ties to Lebanon's Hezbollah, occurred 265 km (165 miles) southeast of Baghdad in a village near the Iranian border. Twelve people were arrested. "The joint security team was fired upon by individuals dispersed in multiple residential buildings ... members of the security team returned fire, killing individuals assessed to be enemy combatants," the U.S. military said in a statement.
"While the number of casualties has not yet been confirmed, initial reports indicate five individuals were killed," it said without specifying who was killed in the raid.
Maitham Laftah, a member of the provincial council of Maysan province, said 10 people were killed, including two women, and five people wounded in the village 75 km (46 miles) north of the city of Amara. Eleven people were arrested, he said.
Hospital sources in Amara put the death toll at eight killed, including a woman, and three wounded.
A Reuters photographer who arrived after the firefight saw bloodstains on the ground and bullet holes in the walls.
The U.S. military said that Iraqi and U.S. intelligence sources have spotted a recent increase in weapons smuggling by Iranian-backed militia like Kata'ib Hezbollah. It gave no further information.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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[Dawn] Three Pakistani soldiers were killed and two others were injured when a truck carrying supplies for Nato forces crashed into a Pakistan Army vehicle near Chaman on Friday.
Local police said that a truck carrying supplies for Nato forces in Afghanistan crashed into a military vehicle near the border.
Police official Zia Mandokhel said the brakes failed on the truck that hit the Pakistan army's vehicle on Friday.
Another police official, Mohammad Rafiq, said two more Pakistani soldiers were injured.
The Chaman district of the Balochistan province is a supply route to US and Nato military forces in southern Afghanistan.
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02/13/2010
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[Al Arabiya Latest] About 3,000 people protested in Oslo on Friday over the printing of a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad as a pig by a Norwegian newspaper.
Demonstrators held up signs reading "We are Muslims, not terrorists" and "Stop denigrating Muslims.
The Dagbladet tabloid printed on Feb. 3 a cartoon drawing of Prophet Mohammed portrayed as a pig, his feet on the Koran.
The drawing was to illustrate an article about the Facebook page of the Norwegian police security service (PST) that contains a link to the cartoon, judged offensive by many Muslims.
The link was posted on the Facebook page by a user but removed, along with other comments deemed offensive, as soon as the police service became aware of it.
Norwegian media reported that Dagbladet had been manipulated by a man named Arfan Bhatti, whom police say is known to have shot at an Oslo synagogue in 2006.
Bhatti allegedly informed Dagbladet of the link on PST's Facebook page and then called for a protest when the newspaper ran the story with the illustration in question.
Norway's main Muslim associations had told their members not to take part in the protest.
"According to our estimates, there were up to 3,000 protesters. Everything went well. The crowd dispersed and nothing indicates there will be trouble," police spokeswoman Kari Huseby said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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#2
The Dagbladet tabloid printed on Feb. 3 a cartoon drawing of Prophet Mohammed portrayed as a pig, his feet on the Koran.
Norwegian media reported that Dagbladet had been manipulated by a man named Arfan Bhatti, whom police say is known to have shot at an Oslo synagogue in 2006.
Here's a cogent comment from an earlier Alarabya article:
40 - IF ANYONE ON THIS EARTH EVER NEEDED OFFENDING, THE ARROGANT MUSLIMS DO!!!!!
JIM M [ Wednesday, November 11, 2009 ]
THEIR ARROGANCE IS OFFENSIVE TO FREE PEOPLE! THEIR VIOLENCE IS OFFENSIVE TO CIVILIZED PEOPLE! THEIR THREATS ARE OFFENSIVE TO MOST OF THE PEOPLE ON THIS EARTH! MUSLIMS DESPERATELY NEED TO BE OFFENDED AND SOBERED UP TO REALIZE THEY DON'T OWN THE WHOLE DAMNED WORLD AND ALL THE PEOPLE IN IT!!! MUSLIMS NEED TO MIND THEIR OWN DAMNED BUSINESS AND STAY AWAY FROM CIVILIZED COUNTRIES AND CIVILIZED PEOPLE.!!
#6
The editorial cartoonists have missed a bet by not portraying the protesters themselves as pigs. Even more, to create caricatures of prominent Muslim individuals morphed with pigs.
Take for example Hookhand in England. Instead of Abu Hamza, he could be labeled "Abu Porkza". Gobbling from a trough of public money while cursing England and calling for murder of Englishmen, for "oppressing Muslims".
[Straits Times] ONE man was killed as two feuding Muslim clans involved in a political massacre last year that left 57 people dead clashed again, police said on Friday.
Two policemen assigned to protect one of the clan leaders, Esmael Mangudadatu, have been arrested after a follower of the rival Ampatuan family was shot dead in a shopping mall in Davao city on Thursday, they said.
Mr Mangudadatu's wife, pregnant sister and other female followers were among 57 people allegedly abducted and shot dead by the Ampatuan clan in the nearby southern province of Maguindanao in November.
Andal Ampatuan Jnr, who was Mr Mangudadatu's rival for the post of governor in national elections to be held in May, is on trial for the murders, while other clan members have also been charged.
Tamano Mamalapat, a former bodyguard of Ampatuan Jnr, was shot dead while grappling with the two Mangudadatu bodyguards at the mall, Davao city police chief Senior Superintendent Rene Aspera told reporters.
Mr Mangudadatu, who was at the mall with his two daughters, claimed the slain man had tried to assassinate him, but local authorities appeared not to back up his assertion. 'Definitely he (Mamalapat) was not carrying a gun at the time,' Davao city mayor Rodrigo Duterte told reporters. '(But) he tried to grab the gun of one of the two (Mangudadatu) police bodyguards.'
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[Bangla Daily Star] An Awami Swechchasebak League activist was beaten to death by a mob after he stabbed a man to death for refusing to pay extortion money at Omorpur Haat of Nandigram upazila here yesterday.
The deceased were identified as Habibur Rahman Jewel, 28, president of Awami Swechchasebak League Nandigram unit and supervisor of Omorpur Haat Yusuf Ali, 50.
Yusuf's son Shamsul Alam was also injured in the incident as he tried to resist the extortionists.
A group of extortionists including Hasan Mahmud, Abdul Wahed and Nur Islam led by their leader Jewel demanded money from Yusuf around 3:00pm at Omorpur Haat. They tried to snatch the receipt book from Yusuf's possession, as he refused to pay the amount, witnesses said.
At one stage of brawl, Jewel knifed Yusuf and grievously injured his son Shamsul.
Yusuf died on way to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College and Hospital while Shamsul was undergoing treatment at the hospital.
Hearing the news, local people and businessmen rushed to the spot and beat Jewel up severely.
Jewel succumbed to his injuries after he was admitted to the Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College and Hospital, sources said.
Monirul Islam, officer-in-charge of Nandigram Police Station, confirmed the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Perhaps the Awami Swechchasebak League should try a more civilized form of extortion, the $1000 chicken plate fund raiser.
Posted by: ed ||
02/13/2010 11:29
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Israel has rejected United Nations demands of an independent probe into its last year war on the Gaza Strip which claimed the lives of more than 1,400 Palestinians.
A senior official in the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Friday that the report Israel gave UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the investigations it is conducting into Operation Cast Lead earlier this month is sufficient.
"Israel feels the report it gave was a serious, comprehensive, credible and complete answer to the UN secretary-general," the official said.
"We believe that we conduct credible investigations and that we have procedures in place to investigate these types of matters that are as good as exist in any country in the world," he added.
Israel's rejection comes as Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly urged Tel Aviv to allow an independent inquiry into the Gaza war.
The United Nations blasted Israel last week for what it called Israel's un-reliable report.
The UN report led by former South African judge Richard Goldstone concluded last September that Israel carried out "deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects" in January-December war on Gaza.
The 575-page UN-ordered report asserts seven incidents in which Palestinian civilians were shot while leaving their homes, trying to run for safety or waving white flags.
In November 2009, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that accuses Israel of war crimes and criminal acts against humanity during the weeks-long onslaught on the Gaza Strip.
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Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter says the truth about Iran's nuclear program is prevailing over the hype the western media is creating against the country.
The former UN official took aim at the existing western media hype against the Iranian nuclear program and some personalities who are very good at marring the image of Iran, including David Albright, whose "commentary and analysis is more colored by the opinions of his US and Israeli contacts and connections than it is by his first hand experience."
"I see the truth about Iran's nuclear program prevailing over the fictions David Albright and others are putting out there," Ritter told Press TV.
Ritter made the remarks after Albright, who is the head of a nuclear think-tank close to the White House, claimed that Iran is on course to produce enough highly-enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons.
Ritter ruled out any likely military offensive against Iran, as he said Iran had law and facts on his side.
Albright was described by Ritter as a person who "can not be seen as an unbiased personality" regarding Iran's nuclear program and a person who relies on other people's information.
"He is specialized in exploiting the preconceived notions that exist in the West, in the United States and elsewhere about the evil intent of Iran. It is not a fact based analysis. This is faith-based analysis," the ex-UN official added.
"When it comes to Iran, the truth does not matter. What matters is that the public has been conditioned by the media and the media uses personalities like David Albright to create hype, to create a mythology of wrong-doing that does not focus on the facts of the situation," he maintained.
"Albright, definitely has an agenda and he is somebody who is not willing to put the facts on the table and let the facts drive you towards conclusion. He is obviously a person who has a bias against Iran. It's a built-in bias that presumes guilt on the part of Iran; therefore he interprets every piece of data that is coming out of Iran as being evidence of wrong doing on the part of Iran."
He accused Albright of taking advantage of Iran's nuclear dispute to get his name and his organization's name in the spot light on a frequent basis through the "fantastic quotes" he provides for reporters to use in their articles.
"It's all about image as opposed to substance. That's unfortunately where we are today when it comes to mainstream western media analysis of Iran and Iran's nuclear program. It's not about the substance. It's not about the reality, it's about the image," he opined.
Prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter publicly argued that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He became a popular anti-war figure and talk show commentator as a result of his stance.
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Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 7:09
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#4
Always the compensator that Scottie. High-speed, low-drag, fast track to publicity. I might suggest he try Olympic Luge racing. I hear they've got a very 'fast track' at Whistler.
Iran's Parliament Speaker says his country will 'speed up' its nuclear work if the Obama administration continues to threaten the country with a new round of sanctions.
"Even if US President Barack Obama dares to repeat threats of tougher sanction against us as much as ten times, we will still be determined to pursue our enrichment program, but with a much faster pace," said Ali Larijani on Thursday.
Only hours after Iran announced a decision to domestically produce higher-enriched uranium under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog, Obama warned that the US is preparing a "significant regime of sanctions" against the Tehran government.
The US president, who was speaking to reporters on Tuesday, went on to accuse Iran of spurning his offer of engagement in order to continue what he called Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Larijani responded to the US allegations, warning that if continued, the threats will have heavy consequences in both Iran and the US.
"Whenever we make a significant breakthrough, whether it is launching a satellite into space or any other technological or scientific achievement, they quickly demonize it and claim that it is aimed at military or spying purposes," said Larijani.
"But their problem really lies with the fact that our status in the international scene is changing for the better," added the Iranian Parliament Speaker. "They can not bear to see our progress, which is why they want to keep us as an underdeveloped country."
Larijani noted that Western superpowers have ceaselessly sought to sow discord among Iranians in order to "fish in troubled waters."
The Iranian official made the comments in a large crowd marking the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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#1
Iran's Parliament Speaker says his country will 'speed up' its nuclear work if the Obama administration continues to threaten the country with a new round of sanctions.
If their "nuclear work" is for peaceful purposes as they have time and time indicated, why should a 'speed up' be a concern or threat to anyone?
Rep. Patrick Kennedy's decision not to seek re-election will leave Washington without a Kennedy in political office for the first time in more than 60 years.
The Rhode Island Democrat's term ends early next year but he says in a television message viewed by The Associated Press on Thursday that his life is "taking a new direction" and he will not seek a ninth term. The video was provided to the AP by Kennedy's congressional office.
The 42-year-old son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy does not give a reason for the decision but says it has been a difficult few years for many people and he mentions the death in August of his father.
"Illness took the life of my most cherished mentor and confidante, my ultimate source of spirit and strength," he said, as a black-and-white photo of him as a boy sailing with his father appeared on the screen. "From the countless lives he lifted, to the American promise he helped shape, my father taught me that politics at its very core was about serving others."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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#1
The 42-year-old son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy does not give a reason for the decision but says it has been a difficult few years for many people and he mentions the death in August of his father
I think we can rule out "spend more time with family."
#5
I can't figure it out. Must be, someone showed him the tapes and told him to retire, or else. Has to be the first time in ages that a Kennedy has taken the classy way out.
#6
I'm beginning to get somewhat concerned about the increasing number of these beltway vermin jumping off the ship. Do they know something we don't know?
#10
Besoeker: A much worse problem is relatively invisible. That is the "K Street" lobbyists, lawyers, consultants and Hill Rats that make up the Beltway Bandits. Average pay in the 1980s was over $100k.
The only comparable organisms are the Futurama brain slugs. But these are the people who actually write the laws, and shovel the pork for their elected and appointed bosses.
They believe in AGW, why shouldn't they believe in 2012? Would you really want to be caught there? You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
#13
I'm beginning to get somewhat concerned about the increasing number of these beltway vermin jumping off the ship. Do they know something we don't know?
Seems fairly obvious to me, the Democratic Party is crumbling, they figure to get out before the final disaster ans claim "NOT MY FAULT" as loudly as possible, Many sheeple will believe them.
I won't.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/13/2010 15:12
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#14
Either The burg has a glitch , or the Comments are very slow, there's a 20 second delay between pushing the Submit button and anything happening, I thought it didn't work, and clicked again.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/13/2010 15:15
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#15
RJ,
When they leave office the money in their campaign fund is theirs. They've spent the last 15 months shaking down contributors. Now the fund is fat. Spend it on a campaign that will be a probable loss or spend it on a nice villa for retirement? Hmmmm.
#16
A Washington without Kennedys...
Is like a day with sunshine.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/13/2010 15:46
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It's like having a permanent disease clear up. Think Herpes
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 16:23
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#18
FrankG: Are you suggesting that all the herpes cases in DC have cleared up in the last 24hours? Because there are alot less manageable diseases out there. Like Barney Frank.
Posted by: Charles ||
02/13/2010 17:59
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#19
I was only referring to the Kennedy parasite
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 18:05
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#20
Just like herpes, we need to be on the lookout for the next round of herpes, er kennedys, flairing up.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/13/2010 21:35
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Three international broadcasters on Friday accused Iran of deliberately jamming their output as Tehran marked the 31st anniversary of 1979 Islamic revolution.
Britain's BBC, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and the Voice of America said the interference began on Thursday.
They accused Iran of broadcasting freely around the world while denying the Iranian people programs coming from outside the country.
BBC World News was the latest TV channel to be jammed this week.
"We condemn any jamming of these channels," said a joint statement by Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC World Service, Erik Bettermann, Director of Deutsche Welle and Dan Austin, Director of Voice of America.
"It contravenes international agreements and is interfering with the free and open flow of international transmissions that are protected by international treaties."
"The jamming violates article 45 of the constitution of the International Telecommunication Union that prohibits signal interference and we look to the international regulatory community to take a firmer stance on this deliberate act of jamming."
The broadcasters called on satellite operators and regulators to take "urgent action to put pressure on Iran to stop this activity."
"The Iranian authorities are using the same satellite services to broadcast freely around the world including broadcasts in English and Arabic; at the same time they are denying their own people programs coming from the same satellites from the rest of the world," they added.
BBC Persian, the corporation's London-based Farsi-language TV channel, has angered Iranian authorities by broadcasting interviews and comment from opposition supporters.
The contested re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June sparked the most serious unrest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Hamas is conducting its own internal inquiry into the killing in Dubai last month of one of its top militants, the Palestinian Islamist group's exiled head said in an interview published Friday.
"We are carrying out an internal investigation, within our own procedures," Khaled Meshaal, whose movement accuses Israeli agents of having assassinated Mahmud al-Mabhuh, told the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat.
"We are in contact with our brothers in Dubai ... but we have not yet been able to reach a formula for cooperation" with authorities in the Gulf emirate, Meshaal said.
"We respect the sovereignty of the (United Arab) Emirates and of Dubai, and we will not interfere in the affairs of others. But this issue concerns us ... and requires a high level of cooperation," he said.
Dubai police have said Israel's spy agency Mossad may have been behind the murder of Mabhuh, whose body was found in a luxury hotel room on January 20, having apparently been strangled.
The killing was carried out by a seven-member hit team, including three Irish passport-holders, according to news reports. But there has been no confirmation from police.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Yemeni Houthi rebels opened fire on an official at the Interior Ministry, violating a ceasefire with the government, Al Arabiya television said on Friday. Wasn't there a cease-fire or something?
The provincial commander of the Yemeni army said the rebels tried to kill him as they killed several soldiers in a spate of attacks that breached a ceasefire just hours after it came into force.
"I escaped an assassination attempt by the rebels who opened fire on my car," the head of army operations for Saada province, General Mohammed Abdullah al-Qussi, told AFP. "The rebels broke the ceasefire and carried out a series of attacks in Iqab district which resulted in dead and wounded among our troops," Qussi added.
A government official told Reuters the rebels killed one soldier and wounded seven others.
It was the first report of violations of the ceasefire between the government and the rebels which came into force at midnight (2100 GMT Thursday).
In the far north hard by the Saudi border, the Saada province has been one of the bastions of the rebels.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh had announced on Thursday a ceasefire in Yemen's six-month campaign against rebels in a conflict that spilled over into Saudi territory in the north. The ceasefire would kick in from midnight (212D GMT on Thursday), Saleh had said in a decree that was read out on state television.
"We decided to stop military operations in the northwest from midnight," the president declared.
The leader of Houthi rebels in turn ordered his fighters to abide by the ceasefire with the Yemeni government, a rebel statement had said. "According to what was agreed upon, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi issued instructions to all fronts and fighting sites to stop firing coinciding with the timing announced by the government," the statement had said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Reeeaalllyy? just hours into the ceasefire, huh? Go medieval and finish them
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2010 7:49
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#2
I thought a hudna had an upper limit of 10 years, not 10 minutes.
[Maghrebia] Al-Qaeda released a new video of the four Spanish aid workers abducted in Mauritania on November 29th, AFP quoted a Malian government hostage negotiator as saying on Thursday (February 11th). While the video shows that the Spaniards are well, "it is necessary to move fast on the French hostage", the Malian official said. AQIM has threatened to kill French hostage Pierre Camatte if the Malian government fails to release four terrorists from prison by February 20th. Camatte and the Italian hostages were not shown in the video, but the negotiator said that a member of his team has recently seen them.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement failed to narrow their differences Friday after two days of informal talks on the disputed Western Sahara in suburban New York, a U.N. statement said.
Christopher Ross, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's personal envoy for the Western Sahara, said in a statement at the end of the talks that "neither party had accepted the proposal of the other as the sole basis of future negotiations."
He said the two sides however reiterated their commitment "to continue their negotiations as soon as possible" and added that, to that end, he planned to travel to the region for further consultations with the parties and other stakeholders.
Ross said the discussions "took place in an atmosphere of serious engagement, frankness and mutual respect."
The closed-door meeting at the IBM Learning Center in the hamlet of Armonk was modeled on a similar informal session held in Austria last August. It aimed to clear the way for a fifth round of formal talks between the parties.
Four previous rounds held in the New York suburb of Manhasset since June 2007 have failed to resolve the dispute over the phosphate-rich territory annexed by Morocco in 1975 after colonial power Spain withdrew.
Morocco's annexation of the territory sparked a war between its forces and Algerian-backed Polisario guerrillas. The two sides agreed to a ceasefire in 1991 but the U.N.-sponsored talks on Western Sahara's future have since made no headway.
Rabat has pledged to grant Western Sahara widespread autonomy but rules out independence.
The Polisario Front, with the support of Algiers, wants a referendum on self-determination, with independence as one of the options.
Mohammed Khadad, a senior Polisario official who attended the Armonk meeting, said the parties on Wednesday focused on human rights and confidence-building measures.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I lived in Morocco fopr about six months in 1975 and was told that Morocco didn't annex half of the Spanish Sahara, they got a part of Morocco back.
Morocco had several Spanish enclaves: Tangiers and Sidi Ifni are now Moroccan, while Melilla and Cetua remain Spanish.
So another point of view is that the Moroccans only want a part of their pre-colonial country back. Algerian support was viewed as more anti-Moroccan than pro-Polisario.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/13/2010 13:07
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[Al Arabiya Latest] U.S.-led NATO troops launched an offensive early on Saturday designed to seize control of the Taliban's last big stronghold in Afghanistan's most violent province, a Reuters witness said.
The assault, the first since U.S. President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan in December, is the start of a campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas this year, before U.S. forces start to withdraw in 2011.
About 4,500 U.S. Marines, 1,500 Afghan troops and 300 U.S. soldiers are taking part in the offensive in Marjah, in Helmand Province.
One local Taliban commander, Qari Fazluddin, told Reuters earlier some 2,000 fighters were ready to fight in Marjah, a densely populated area.
Marjah is an area of lush farmland criss-crossed by canals is located in the centre of Helmand province in Afghanistan's south. It has been a recruiting ground for insurgents and has been known for poppy cultivation for many years. Troops began an assault on the town on Saturday in an effort to demonstrate the Afghan government's ability to reinforce its own security.
Hundreds of families in Marjah have fled their homes and farms to neighboring districts for fear of the operations. Fleeing villagers said the Taliban fighters were gathering and had planted roadside bombs in farmland and roads.
Marjah is near the dividing line between the northern part of the province, patrolled by a nearly 10,000-strong British-led NATO contingent, and the southern area patrolled by around 15,000 U.S. Marines.
The U.S. military said its goal was to take control of the town quickly to re-establish the presence of the Afghan government and to provide public services to the estimated 100,000 residents in the area. British and Afghan forces last week said they launched part of an initial phase of Operation Mushtarak, or "Together," the name of the offensive to seize Helmand's Nad Ali district.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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#1
from 6hr ago ...
Michael Yon The weather is perfect for the attack now underway. Cool, clear, bright. Good timing by the commanders. (Insofar as weather -- I do not know about other matters.)
[Straits Times] MYANMAR'S military ruler said on Friday that long-awaited elections planned for sometime this year will take place 'soon' but shed no light on exactly when. If it's gonna be "soon" maybe I should hold my breath...
Myanmar's military government announced in early 2008 that the country's first elections in two decades would take place in 2010. But the junta still needs to pass necessary election laws to pave the way for the vote and then set a date. Or maybe I won't hold my breath...
The opposition party of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi overwhelmingly won the last elections in 1990, but the results were never honoured by the military, which has ruled the country since 1962. 'A free and fair election will take place soon,' Senior General Than Shwe said in his annual message marking Union Day, a national holiday, on Friday. "If we don't like the results we'll ignore them."
He went on to explain what an election is. 'That means national people will have the rights to elect representatives, and stand for election,' the 77-year-old Than Shwe said in remarks published in state-controlled media. 'So, members of parliament, who the voters think will be capable of generating a prosperous future for the nation, will be elected by ballot.' "If they elect us they'll be very happy, I'm sure. If they don't, they'll still get us, so likely they'll still be happy."
Ms Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, has not yet decided whether to take part in the elections. If you don't run you're sure not to get elected.
The party says the new constitution of 2008 is unfair and will perpetuate military rule - a claim backed by international rights groups. The constitution guarantees that 25 per cent of parliamentary seats will go to the military. It also has a clause that would effectively bar Ms Suu Kyi from holding office.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Looks like it's started.
NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines and Afghan troops swooped down on the Taliban-held town of Marjah before dawn on Saturday, launching a long-expected attack to re-establish government control and undermine support for the militants in their southern heartland.
Marine commanders say they expect between 400 to 1,000 insurgents to be holed up inside this southern Afghan town of 80,000 people in Helmand province, including more than 100 foreign fighters. Marjah is the biggest southern town under Taliban control and the linchpin of the militants' logistical and opium-smuggling network.
"The first wave of choppers has landed inside Marjah. The operation has begun," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, which was at the forefront of the attack. Several hundred U.S. Marines and some Afghan troops were in the first wave of troops, flying over minefields the militants are believed to have planted around the town, 360 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul.
The operation, codenamed "Moshtarak," or Together, was described as the biggest joint offensive of the Afghan war. Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, says 15,000 troops were involved, including some 7,500 troops fighting in Marjah and British forces to the north in the district of Nad Ali.
The helicopter assault was preceded by illumination flares which were fired over the town about 2 a.m. In the pitch darkness of a moonless night, the roar of helicopters could be heard overhead, flying in assault troops from multiple locations. The white flash of Hellfire and TOW missiles could be seen exploding over the town as flares illuminated the darkness to help assault troops spot targets in the town.
The White House on Thursday said Iran's declaration of producing first stock of enriched uranium for a research reactor was based "on politics", and "not on physics."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that Iran had produced the first stock of 20 percent enriched uranium at the Natanz enrichment facility.
But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs cast doubt on Ahmadinejad's announcement.
"The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year," Gibbs said. "We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching."
After potential suppliers failed to provide fuel for Tehran's research reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer patients, Iran announced Tuesday it had started enriching uranium to the level of less than 20 percent.
The announcement prompted President Barack Obama to threaten Iran with "significant regime of sanctions."
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Iran could not wait for Western countries to "waste time" as the Tehran research reactor ran out of fuel.
He said a fuel swap with Western countries did not require Iran to relinquish other ways of supplying the fuel.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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By Amir Taheri
"When you find yourself in a corner, provoke the adversary to change the situation."
This piece of advice comes from Nechaev, the 19th century anarchist and ideological father of several generations of European anarchists and provocateurs.
His advice has been heeded by many politicians and activists who, with no credible program to offer, tried to hide their ideological nakedness behind a fig leaf of provocation.
The so-called developing world, including our own region has also seen a number of provocateurs, almost always ending in disaster.
There was Jamal Abdul-Nasser who provoked a war that he knew he could not win. We had General Yahya Khan of Pakistan who dragged his country into a war with India, knowing that the result would be tragic for his side. The Ugandan despot Idi Amin provoked a war with Tanzania just as the Khmer Rouge tyrants triggered a military conflict with Vietnam, both knowing full well that they were committing political suicide. The Serbian tin-pot despot Slobodan Milosevic proved equally suicidal when he refused to understand that Europe, indeed the world as a whole, had become a different place. Moe recently, we had the monster of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, who dug his own grave with a policy of deliberate provocation.
It now seems that Nechaev may have acquired an Iranian disciple in the person of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From the start of his presidency less than five years ago, Ahmadinejad decided to dig himself a hole by scrapping an agreement that his predecessor Muhammad Khatami had reached with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding a temporary suspension of Iran's programme for enriching low-grade uranium. Iran did not, and still does not, need such uranium. Most Iranian experts agree that spending vast sums of money and provoking conflict with the outside world to acquire a stockpile of enriched uranium makes no sense unless the regime's ultimate aim is to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Thus the Khomeinist regime's latest decision to scrap the latest talks with the IAEA and start producing a stockpile of higher grade enriched uranium, up to 20 per cent, is nothing but a deliberate provocation. Having dug a hole for himself and the country, Ahmadinejad has decided to continue digging even deeper.
The latest provocation means that the United Nations' Security Council must ignore five of its own resolutions all passed unanimously, and surrender to Mr. Ahmadinejad or to meet Tehran's challenge with stronger measures that could ultimately lead to military action.
Tehran's latest move has drawn negative responses even from Russia and China, the only two of the permanent members of the Security Council that had so far tried to placate the Islamic Republic through diplomatic moves.
Tehran may have also lost the opportunity offered it by the advent of barrack Hussein Obama as President of the United States. Obama was the only high rank American politician prepared to bend backwards to accommodate the Khomeinist regime. Today, even he cannot continue peddling the illusion of a settlement with the Khomeinists without risking a Jimmy Carter-style fate. Thirty years ago, Carter ensured his own political destruction by trying to woo the Humanists right to the end. It is not certain that Obama would deliberately repeat that tragic-comic experience.
Ahmadinejad's claim that Iran needs the 20-per cent enriched uranium for peaceful domestic does not stand to close examination. Iran's only atomic plant is the 43-year old reactor at Amirabad in Tehran. Built by the Americans, the "safe lifespan" of the reactor ended in 2003. Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, then head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency announced that the plant would be decommissioned by 2006, three years later than its "safe life-span".
Ahmadinejad decided to keep the reactor going until the end of this year, although many Iranian experts warn that it may break down in an accident and cause a catastrophe in the heart of the nation's capital.
In any case, the reactor has enough fuel for another four years. Thus, Iran does not need higher-grade uranium for that purpose.
Even supposing that Tehran decides to keep the dying reactor going for a few more years, the uranium being enriched at Natanz would still be useless for Amirabad. Iran does not have the technology and the industrial base needed to transform the enriched uranium into fuel rods. Te uranium enriched in Iran would still have to be shipped to one of the seven countries that could transform it into the needed fuel rods.
There is one more curious fact. Tehran has decided to enrich twice as much uranium up to 20 per cent as the Amirabad plant needs, at the rate of five kilograms a month.
Ahmadinejad's decision to reassert his reputation as a professional provocateur may have two other reasons unrelated to the nuclear issue itself.
First, he may have moved to pull the carpet from under the feet of those within the regime who have been trying desperately to negotiate a compromise with the IAEA by accepting the Russian-sponsored idea of exchanging Iran's low-grade uranium for higher grade material from Russia and France. Such a compromise would have defused the situation and silenced those who call for tougher sanctions or even military action against the Islamic Republic. In fact, at a Conference in Germany, Ahmadinejad's own Minister of Foreign Affairs, the hapless Manuchehr Mottaki had announced Iran's acceptance of the Russian formula less than 48 hours before being overruled by his boss in Tehran.
A second and more sinister reason for Ahmadinejad's provocative move may be related to his growing isolation within the Iranian political scene.
Starting this week and continuing until the Iranian New Year on 21March, the opposition intends to keep the pressure on by street demonstrations, workers' strikes and efforts to persuade the regime's coercive forces to change sides.
By provoking a more intense conflict with the outside world, Ahmadinejad may be hoping to provoke Iranian nationalistic sentiments and divert from the current domestic political crisis. If that is the case, Ahmadinejad has made yet another political miscalculation. The Iranians are not naive enough to abandon their democratic aspirations in the name of national unity behind a policy that could only lead to disaster for their country.
Rightly or wrongly and in my opinion the letter rather than the former, Ahmadinejad has lost the confidence of the Iranian people. He has dug himself two holes deep enough to bury a dozen political careers. The trouble is that he keeps digging.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2010
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Q Robert, the Vice President last night said that Iraq could end up being one of the President's great achievements. Given that the Vice President was in favor of a partial partition of the country and the President opposed the surge that helped stabilize it, how is that one of the President's great achievements?
MR. GIBBS: Well, putting what was broken back together and getting our troops home, which we intend to do in August of this year.
Q But the Status of Forces Agreement to bring troops home was signed before the President took office.
MR. GIBBS: Something that -- something that I think the political pressure that the President, as a then-candidate, helped to bring about.
Look, I think that we will long debate Iraq. We will long debate whether at a very important moment in our efforts to root out terrorism particularly in Afghanistan and on that border region with Pakistan, whether we took our eye off the ball.
I think historians will debate that long after we're gone. I think they will come likely to the conclusion that no single event took our eye off of what needed to be done in order to -- in order to occupy a country that, until we got there, didn't have a single member of al Qaeda.
So, look, obviously -- look, the Vice President has been deeply involved in fixing the political process there so that elections can be held and so that our troops can come home as scheduled this summer.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Another example of how this administration squirms when it gets caught, err, "exaggerating."
Jeez, next thing you know, Nobama will try to take credit for inventing the internet or something equally stupid.
#3
If Nixon can be blamed by the left for getting us into Vietnam when he inherited the conflict it is not really inconsistency to give Obama credit for winning in Iraq when he inherited that conflict. inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds and the Democrats are certainly hobgoblins.
A Port St. Lucie first-grade student was handcuffed and committed to a mental health facility because of her classroom behavior, and her parents are furious that the school took such extreme measures. I know we don't spank children anymore, but wouldn't a spanking have done the job better, quicker, and cheaper?
Mickey Shalansky explained Wednesday what he said happened to his 6-year-old daughter at Parkway Elementary. "She couldn't put her in two handcuffs because her wrists are that small, so she put them both in the same handcuff and left marks on my daughter's arms," Shalansky told WPBF 25 News' Bob Kaple. Sounds like the Mickey's one of those who doesn't believe in spanking...
But a St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office report paints a much different picture. Of a six-year-old desperado?
Deputies said his daughter, Haley, got upset and stormed out her classroom when her teacher asked her to do something. The report said it then escalated into a temper tantrum in the principal's office. Whoa! That's never happened before, has it? That's not the sort of thing you could train teachers and principals to deal with!
According to the incident report, a deputy said Haley was out of control. A six-year-old going out of control isn't a long trip.
It said she "kicked the wall, went over to the desk and threw the calculator, electric pencil sharpener, telephone, container of writing utensils and other objects across the desk." And they let her do that. Nobody even took her firmly by the arm and told her to stop it. Nobody picked her up and parked her butt in a chair and hollered "knock it off!" loud enough to get her attention...
Nobody hugged her firmly from behind, controlling her arms so she couldn't move, quietly and calmly saying, "Shhh, honey, shhh... I'll let go when you are quiet... Shhhh"
She was then handcuffed. A smack on the wrist would have resulted in a lawsuit. A bruise would have guaranteed a multimillion dollar settlement. A crack on the butt would have resulted in hard time with the Amiraults...
"I don't think it should have had to come to this -- you know, to put a little girl, 6 years old, 37 pounds in handcuffs and take her away in a police car," Shalansky said. If you take away all reasonable responses to childish temper tantrums then all that's left are the unreasonable responses...
Even worse is what happened the next day, Haley's parents said. Mom and Pop didn't come to the school to ask what was up with their darling getting hauled off in cuffs?
A deputy was called to the school again after Haley had another tantrum in the classroom and principal's office. The child doesn't learn very well, does she? Mom must have forgotten to say "be a good girl" when she dropped her off.
The child was probably terrified the handcuff/police thing would happen again, and nobody bothered to reassure her.
The sheriff's report said she was yelling, throwing things and hit the principal, who is eight months pregnant. No one was legally able to crack her butt to get her attention and holler "Siddown, y'little brat!" It's too bad there wasn't a grown-up in the room.
Anyone was legally able to smack the desk, making a startlingly loud sound, and shout, "Be quiet! Sit!" It is too bad there wasn't a single grown-up in the room.
This time, she wasn't handcuffed. She was committed to a mental facility. They put a six-year-old in the nut house. Likely she was transported by ambulance, strapped down on a gurney...
"I was terrified," mother Kathy Franklin said. "I left work crying, terrified.
Who cares if you are terrified, Mother? You need to think about your child's feelings at this moment.
Where is my baby? What are they doing with my baby?" Not spanking her, obviously. It's better for them if you give them a sedative and an IV and keep them strapped. Anybody can see that.
Haley's parents said their daughter has a temper problem, but has no history of mental illness. Bullies her Mom and Dad and all around her, but that's not mental illness. That's just doing what she's allowed to do.
Her mother said the school should have called her so she could pick up her daughter rather than have her committed. "Hello? Is this Haley's Mom?... Come and get your pride and joy or it's off to the nut house with her!"
"They have looked at her here," Franklin said of the New Horizons mental health facility. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with my child. I work in daycare. I know what a child that has problems -- you know, I know how to deal with them. I know what they act like." Does she projectile vomit before or after her head spins around 360 degrees?
Shalansky said to have his daughter committed is "just wrong." As is shrieking, hollering, kicking the walls, throwing things, and peeing yourself.
The report also said the school has contacted Haley's parents several times about setting up a meeting to discuss her behavior, but they have never shown up. "A meeting? Hmph. Nuttin' wrong wid my girl! Whudda we need a meeting fer?"
Franklin said she was supposed to meet with school officials Tuesday but had to cancel because she had car problems. Meanwhile, her parents have kept Haley and her sister home from school. Good idea. School's all the better for it.
Probably so are the children. It's hard to focus on learning when one might be hauled off to the loony bin at any moment.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Franklin said she was supposed to meet with school officials Tuesday but had to cancel because she had car problems.
It would appear she has much more than... "car problems."
#6
They probably come from the same "parenting philosophy" that says the mere act of raising your voice to your child is abuse. Somehow you are supposed to "reason" with the child in the middle of their tantrums and get them to willingly go along with normal, civilized behavior.
I'm not kidding. My idiot sis in law tried that with my boy once when he was acting up and teasing his cousin. I guess she thought it was a "teachable moment" for this barbarian in child rearing or something because she jumped in before I had a chance to do anything. Naturally it didn't work. He wasn't paying attention to her at all, but she thought she got through to him how his behavior was "not optimum" (her words).
She later saw me temporarily take away his beloved stuffed duck and raise my voice to get him to stop making fun of his cousin when he did it again.....and for the rest of the day she looked at me like I had just tortured a kitten in her presence. It worked, and he didn't do it again during his cousin's visit, but apparently I'm not allowed around my niece alone because of my "brutal" way of dealing with behavior problems. (BTW, my boy's three. Didn't lay a hand on him.)
You think there are some brats in the teens/twenties right now? Just wait....it's gonna get worse. God help us all.
#7
I got spanked as a kid, quite a few times. And you know what - I deserved every damn one of them. Some kids don't need spanked, some do. Some kids just need a stern voice & some need a swat on the backside. In any case, all need a parent w/a spine.
#10
When I was teaching school I saw scenarios like this as almost a daily occurrence. And, usually, without fail the parents were the cause of the child's' actions/performance(s). The parents are too lazy/stupid/uncaring to discipline/raise their children and expect others (school/daycare/baby sitter) to do it ... until the parent feels they (school/daycare/baby sitter) cross the (unknown) line set by the parents. Until the parents grow up themselves and accept their responsibility the situation(s) will only get worse.
#11
an estimated 98 percent of children under the age of 10 are remorseless sociopaths with little regard for anything other than their own egocentric interests and pleasures.
What's the percentage for children democrats over the age of 20?
#13
My wife is a special ed. aide in Kindergarten. She works up close and personal with these situations daily, not just with the specials but with the normals too.
It is invariably parental driven. She has been accused of hitting a child because she restrained him from hitting another student with a truck. Who made the complaint? The student to the parents. Did the parents talk about it? No, they stormed the school lawyer in tow. Luckily the (most of the) school backs up the teachers on these cases. The one administrator that doesn't? The Special Needs Regional Coordinator, a bureaucrat with no real training or experience.
And many of whom act younger than some of their offspring. Am I alone in thinking it is odd to see seventy years olds tearing up keyboards to update their facebook?
#19
Dealing with the school dist is a painful event for both teachers and parents. The legal trap the teachers are in is a no win for them. Grab the kid and you get an assault charge. For god sake not little Jenny, her head spins because you teachers just dont understand her. Calling the police was the right call for a violent child in school nowadays. Sad but true, no longer can they yell at them, grab them, or paddle them.
I believe there is a lot more to this story. Parent meeting already set means they have had problems before. The school admin must have been tired of the lack of parent involvment.
I only wonder who made the call to send her to the psyc wards. Must have been the police, certainly not the school. Violent and out of control I believe they made the right call, concidering the legal fallout that will follow. Now they will have professional doctors saying its the parents fault.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/13/2010 21:51
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[Maghrebia] The Mauritanian government is reporting positive results from a "spiritual dialogue" between moderate religious scholars and imprisoned Salafists, with nearly all the inmates involved declaring their "repentance".
To initiate the dialogue, Sheikh Mohamed El Hacen Ould Deddew led a panel of scholars that debated with 68 Salafists in a two-day event that began on January 18th. An earlier Nouakchott conference on tolerance set the stage for the debate, which challenged inmates to take more moderate stances.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Ould Deddew said that most of the prisoners had vowed they would quit Al-Qaeda.
The prisoners included three men who declared their repentance for the 2007 killing near Aleg of a French family of tourists. "In addition, they pledged not to return to [these activities], and not to carry arms in Mauritania against either Muslims or infidels," Ould Deddew added.
Mauritania would "continue to rid its soil of Al-Qaeda and acts of violence," he said, adding that authorities have to "accelerate the arrangement of positive steps based on that dialogue".
A spokesperson for the scholars, Mohamed El Mokhtar Ould Mbale, said in a press conference on February 4th that the dialogue tackled topics including allegiance, baraa (disavowal), governance, democracy, positive laws, isteaman (pledge of security) and aggression. The scholars presented Sharia rules, "and the young men dealt so positively with them that some of them asked God for repentance and said they had previously had a confused understanding of these concepts".
"The dialogue is not just an occasion that starts and then ends; rather, it's an option and approach adopted by the state in dealing with all issues on the table in the country," added Ould Mbale. "It will be renewed on an as-needed basis."
Ould Mbale declined to comment on when or how the prisoners would be released now that they have signed declarations of regret for resorting to arms and violence as the means of achieving their goals.
"We have advised the president of the dialogue's results, which have been good," the rapporteur of the scholars committee, Abdellahi Ould Aminou, told the state media on February 3rd. "We can say that it had a 90% success rate, and that the goals set will have a good effect, not just on those who were the target of the dialogue, but also on those who may embrace these ideas, the public arena, and on all the Mauritanian people who were impatiently waiting for this dialogue".
Ould Aminou said that 90% of the Salafists involved in the dialogue had declared their "repentance".
During a February 3rd meeting with members of the scholars committee, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz promised to continue the dialogue with the Salafists in order to resolve outstanding issues.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Regrets for being caught, or regrets for not killing more before being caught?
[Bangla Daily Star] Police arrested around 200 people, mostly leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir, in the capital, Chittagong, Sylhet and several other districts yesterday after Jamaat-Shibir men clashed with the law enforcers and Bangladesh Chhatra League.
The police arrested 96 Jamaat-Shibir leaders and activists, including Chittagong city Nayeb-e-Ameer Ahsan Ullah, in the Port City when they clashed with the law enforcers during a demonstration over the killing of Chittagong University student AAM Mahiuddin Masum on Thursday night.
The clashes left at least 30 people including 15 policemen injured.
In separate drives as part of a countrywide combing operation following violence at Rajshahi University and Chittagong University, the law enforcers arrested 61 other Shibir men at different dormitories and Shibir dens in the capital's Paribagh and Uttara, and 35 others in Sylhet, Pabna, Tangail, Brahmanbaria, Chandpur and Rangpur districts.
"Police arrested those who were making preparations to destabilise the law and order situation in the country and also have links to the killings of two students at Rajshahi University and Chittagong University," Inspector General of Police Nur Mohammad yesterday told The Daily Star.
Our Chittagong office reports: Leaders and activists of Jamaat and its student wing Shibir brought out a procession from the Chittagong Medical College morgue, claiming killed CU student Mahiuddin a Shibir activist and blaming Chhatra League for his murder.
Chittagong Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Ahsan Ullah led the procession of several hundred Jamaat-Shibir leaders and activists from Chittagong University, Chittagong College, Mohsin College and other units of the organisation.
When police intercepted them in front of Ideal School and College, the unruly Jamaat-Shibir men pelted brickbats at the law enforcers prompting them to go into action.
Police fired teargas shells and rubber bullets and charged truncheons to disperse the demonstrators and brought the situation under control. They rounded up 96 Jamaat-Shibir leaders and activists from the street and took them under custody of Kotwali police.
Around 30 people including 12 policemen were injured during the clash.
Additional Police Commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police Abdul Jalil Mandal said they arrested the Jamaat-Shibir men for attacking policemen and attempting to destabilise law and order.
CU Proctor Prof Jasim Uddin said the university authorities suspended all classes and postponed scheduled examinations to avert any untoward incident in the wake of the situation.
Police filed three cases with Kotwali, Panchlaish and Doublemooring police stations against leaders and activists of Jamaat-Shibir for attacking law enforcers and disrupting law and order.
In Dhaka, police arrested 21 Shibir leaders and activists at two dens in Paribagh early yesterday. They detained nine other Shibir cadres from Baitul Mukarram Mosque area after the cadres clashed with the law enforcers and went on a rampage after Juma prayers.
Among the detained, 19 are Dhaka University students and three are Mohabbat Ali, publicity secretary of DU Shibir unit and a student of chemistry, Abul Kashem, finance secretary and a student of Islamic studies, and Jalal Uddin, publication secretary and a student of Islamic history and culture at DU.
Shahbagh police raided the two dens in Paribagh around 3:00am and arrested them. The Shibir activists were holding a meeting at that time.
Officer-in-Charge of Shahbagh Police Station Rezaul Karim told The Daily Star that they also recovered various documents on party activities from the dens.
Police said some DU teachers, who are also leaders of the BNP-Jamaat white panel, were lobbying to get the detained Shibir men freed. The teachers include a hall provost and a former acting president of Dhaka University Teachers' Association.
Uttara zone Deputy Commissioner Nisharul Arif told The Daily Star that they held 50 people from a four-storey building at Uttara sector-14. Later, they showed 31 arrested for their connection with Shibir and destabilising law and order.
He said the arrestees are students of different private universities and Islamic educational institutions.
According to police Shibir leaders and activists carry out their activities staying in different messes and coaching centres around DU campus.
Paltan police said they arrested nine Shibir cadres after the rampage in front of the national mosque and attack on police after Juma prayers.
Witnesses said the Shibir men damaged several vehicles during the clash.
Our Sylhet correspondent reports: Police detained 18 Jamaat-Shibir adherents on charge of attacking law enforcers.
Witnesses said Jamaat men pelted bricks on police prompting the law enforcers to charge batons. At least five photojournalist and two policemen were hurt in the clash.
Jamaat-Shibir men attacked police from a procession brought out after jum'a prayers in the city's Kudrat Ullah Jame mosque area claiming deceased CU student Masum their party man.
They paraded on streets, held a brief rally at Chouhatta point to end the programme and exploded three firecrackers.
Our Chandpur correspondent adds: Police arrested nine Shibir activists from Hajiganj upazila for clashing with Chhatra League and destabilising law and order.
Our Pabna correspondent reports: law enforcers arrested an accused in RU Chhatra League leader Faruk murder case at the remote village of Faridpur upazila yesterday around 2:00pm.
Arrestee Ramjan Ali, son of Nazim Uddin of village Par, is a student of Islamic Studies at RU and a Shibir activist. He fled from the university after the killing incident.
According to our Pabna, Rangpur and Tangail correspondents police raided different dormitories and messes to nab the Shibir activists who fled from RU campus and took shelter outside.
Meanwhile, police held seven alleged Shibir cadres from Residential School and College dormitory in Brahmanbaria Thursday night following a bomb explosion, reports UNB.
Police said they arrested the seven in connection with the explosion.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Greenpeace and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office are in a battle of words over her effort to block U.S. EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
An aide to the Alaska Republican condemned Greenpeace yesterday after PolluterWatch, a project of the environmental group, launched a Web site called PolluterHarmony.com, a take-off on the matchmaking site eHarmony.com.
PolluterHarmony.com calls itself "the #1 matchmaking site for polluters, industry lobbyists, & politicians!" and features a photo of Murkowski along with a video with a man who says he is a corporate lobbyist and is matched with "Lisa," who "likes to stay up late at night and gut clean energy bills." The man speaks in romantic tones about his match with Lisa, saying, "It's been just magical." A picture shows a man and woman holding hands as they walk.
The PolluterWatch site is one of a number of ads targeting Murkowski for her plan to offer a resolution that would essentially veto EPA's finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. Released last December, EPA's determination opens the door for rules aimed at slashing emissions from a broad range of sources.
Environmentalists yesterday said they planned to erect a billboard criticizing Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, one of three moderate Democrats who has signed on in support of Murkowski's measure. Environmental and faith-based activists this week launched radio advertisements targeting eight senators seen as key in a vote on Murkowski's measure, which the groups coined the "Dirty Air Act." Last month, the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund released a television ad and Friends of the Earth Action Fund aired radio ads in Alaska, both attacking Murkowski.
"This type of personal attack is highly offensive and clearly crosses the line," Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon said. "This is a perfect example of what's wrong with Washington. Too often outside groups go for the personal attack when they can't win on the merits. Rather than have a legitimate debate about the policy, they launch a smear campaign."
Dillon said the site featured "insults to the senator and her family -- as if these people have no bounds, no sense of truth, and no interest in meaningful climate policy. Greenpeace should be downright ashamed to be associated with, let alone paying for, these ads."
PolluterWatch director Kert Davies responded today by saying that "what crosses the line is Senator Murkowski's blatant attempt to gut the Clean Air Act in order to satisfy her dirty industry lobbyist backers."
"If she objects to the scrutiny her conduct has received, she should consider putting her constituents ahead of Washington lobbyists," Davies said. "Until then, we will continue to hold her accountable for her close ties to influence peddlers like Jeffrey Holmstead."
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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.
The Obama administration on Friday invited 12 Democratic members of Congress and nine Republicans to a Feb. 25 conference on healthcare and said it would post its proposal for a legislative overhaul online before the event.
Carbon dioxide is "essentially harmless" to human beings and good for plants. So now will you stop worrying about global warming?
With breaking news out of Palestine today that a top aide to President Mahmoud Abbas has been literally caught with his pants down, rape tapes seem to be popping up all over the pious Muslim world. And some are horrifically worse than others.
Iran Press TV Latest] Members of Tehrik-e Taliban group reject Pakistan's announcement that Hakimullah Mehsud was dead, saying their leader is still alive. 
[Straits Times] MUSLIM leaders in Indonesia on Friday told the faithful not to celebrate Valentine's Day because it is sinful and leads to 'free sex'.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iraq has officially kicked off the election season ahead of the March nationwide vote.
What is believed to be the country's biggest hacker training site has been shut down by police in Central China's Hubei province.
[Al Arabiya Latest] About 3,000 people protested in Oslo on Friday over the printing of a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad as a pig by a Norwegian newspaper.
Israel has rejected United Nations demands of an independent probe into its last year war on the Gaza Strip which claimed the lives of more than 1,400 Palestinians. 
Rep. Patrick Kennedy's decision not to seek re-election will leave Washington without a Kennedy in political office for the first time in more than 60 years.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Hamas is conducting its own internal inquiry into the killing in Dubai last month of one of its top militants, the Palestinian Islamist group's exiled head said in an interview published Friday.
[Straits Times] MYANMAR'S military ruler said on Friday that long-awaited elections planned for sometime this year will take place 'soon' but shed no light on exactly when.
A Port St. Lucie first-grade student was handcuffed and committed to a mental health facility because of her classroom behavior, and her parents are furious that the school took such extreme measures.
Greenpeace and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office are in a battle of words over her effort to block U.S. EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
