Marine Corps Col. George Bristol was in a key position in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) chain of command the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As such, he's high on the list of people that some Republican members of Congress want to interview. But they don't know where he is and the Pentagon isn't telling.
Pentagon spokesman Major Robert Firman told CBS News that the Department of Defense "cannot compel retired members to testify before Congress." But they can give a last known address and telephone number. Bristol, a martial arts master, was commander of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara based in Stuttgart, Germany until he retired last March. In an article in Stars and Stripes, Bristol is quoted at his retirement ceremony as telling his troops that "an evil" has descended on Africa, referring to Islamic militant groups. "It is on us to stomp it out."
Members of Congress in both the House and Senate, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have asked the Pentagon for assistance in locating Bristol so that they can question him about events the night of the terrorist attacks in Benghazi. But those efforts have come up empty.
Posted by: Thruth Ulereper the one and only ||
07/05/2013
18:46 ||
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[NY Times] Islamist supporters of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's ousted president, held enormous demonstrations in Cairo on Friday, and thousands of them angrily confronted security forces guarding the compound where he was believed to be held. Witnesses said at least five demonstrators were killed by gunfire. Anger. It's Islamic, you know.
Many others were wounded in the confrontation, but the precise casualty toll was unclear. Reporters heard multiple volleys of gunshots and saw blood on the streets and demonstrators nursing what appeared to be birdshot wounds. Large numbers of soldiers, rifles at the ready, were perched behind sandbagged barricades in front of the Republican Guard barracks, ringed by barbed wire and believed to be housing Mr. Morsi. The smell of tear gas hung in the air. So the beardos attacked the place where Morsi's being held, and the Times is surprised that that cops/army/whoever used birdshot and tear gas to chase them off. Coulda been live rounds from those AK-47s they lug around all the time.
"Where's Morsi? Where's Morsi?" angry demonstrators screamed, shaking their shoes in disrespect at military helicopters circling them.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
13:54 ||
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#1
As per the pre-WW2/1939 Munich Conference, the Bammer can unilaterally surrender 1/2 of the Pacific to China, including soveriegn US Territories [Hawaii?], in lieu of debt.
Also, come 2015 the US National Debt will begin legal or "accounting" tranfer to the OWG + Global Fed Unions where the US may OFFICIALLY be responsible for only 25% of its original debt as like the UNO. THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT, AGAIN LIKE THE UNO, THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY ANTICIPATES THE USoAMERIKA TO BE DIRECTLY ANDOR INDIRECTLY PAYING WELL-BEYOND ITS "OFFICIAL" OWG NAU, ETC. SHARE AS BEFITTING A "SOLE" GLOBAL SUPERPOWER = PRINCIPAL.
Is Mexico + Canada, etc. going to help pay Amerika's debt vee their paying larger shares than at present vee the UNO + OWG NAU???
I suspect the OWG Mighty USSA = OWG Weak USRoA Global SSR will end up incurring not only massive new National Debt but will still have to be responsible for paying for its pre-2015 National Debt under OWG + NAU, etc. ALL THE US DID WAS CHANGE TO A NEW " GLOBAL/SPACE DEBT" ACCOUNTING LEDGER.
* TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CHINA EXCHANGING US DEBT FOR GOLD?
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Real Clear Politics] WILL AMERICA LOSE THE NAVAL WAR OF 2015?
IMO "America" won't - "Amerika" OTOH is a different question or animal.
* SAME > RUSSIA + CANADA THE FUTURE SUPERPOWERS IN YEAR 2100? | [AKarkin.com] FUTURE SUPERPOWERS: THE WORLD TO 2100 | ANATOLY KARKIN.
Whoa, does "post-US" China + the OWG Nuclear Caliphate know???
As the Instapundit says, it's pro'ly the best use of his time...
Secretary of State John Kerry is spending a sun-splashed Fourth of July on Nantucket, even as a chaotic overthrow of the government rocks Egypt and continues to test diplomatic relations in Washington.
Kerry, who has a house and a yacht on the ritzy island getaway, was seen strolling down Federal Street away from July Fourth festivities on Main Street, a source told the Herald.
Kerry, who has just completed a 12-day, 2,500-mile trip to the Middle East and Asia, was with his daughters, their husbands and a security guard, the source said.
Kerrys staff insisted the former Bay State senator is fully engaged.
Since his plane touched down in Washington at 4 a.m., Secretary Kerry was working all day and on the phone dealing with the crisis in Egypt, Kerry spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. He participated in the White House meeting with the President by secure phone and was and is in non-stop contact with foreign leaders, and his senior team in Washington and Cairo.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/05/2013
11:12 ||
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#1
That would be duty-free yacht after a day of catch up diplomacy.
#5
Not that I disagree RJ, but then there are uses for a useless man, as a fall guy. Or worse, as cover. "Oh, javalins meant for team syria rebels are blowing up egyptian tanks? Well, kerry, you know, people just don't seem to like him. Sorry about that, won't happen agains we swear."
#7
Many in the senate were glad to see him go (and not only Republicans) Once they get a load of Ed Markey, they may want Jawn Fn Kerry back...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/05/2013 16:16
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#8
Is it just me, or is anyone else suddenly flashbacking to the '80's + getting an image of Senator Gary Hart wid not-his-Wife sitting on his lap on the yacht???
[Jpost] Fatah expresses hope that the ouster of Morsi will aid efforts to end divisions among the Paleostinians.
Paleostinian Authority leaders on Thursday expressed joy over the downfall of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's regime, with some calling on Paleostinians in the Gazoo Strip to follow suit and topple the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, government.
Paleostinian analysts predicted that the collapse of the Moslem Brüderbund regime in Egypt would undermine Hamas, which in the past year has been emboldened by Morsi's rise to power.
PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... was one of the first Arab leaders to congratulate the Egyptians on the ouster of Morsi.
In a letter to acting President Adli Mansour, Abbas congratulated him on the appointment, expressing hope that he would fulfill the aspirations of the Egyptian people to "live in freedom, dignity and stability."
Abbas praised the Egyptian army and its commanders for preserving the country's security and preventing it from slipping toward the abyss.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a top aide to Abbas, saluted the Egyptian army for the "wonderful achievement."
Referring to Morsi and the Moslem Brüderbund, Abdel Rahim hailed the Egyptian army and people for refusing to be intimidated by those who "sow sedition, civil war and sectarianism."
Jamal Nazzal, a senior Fatah representative, called on Paleostinians to overthrow Hamas in the wake of the events in Egypt.
Fatah front man Ahmed Assaf expressed hope that the ouster of Morsi would aid efforts to end divisions among the Paleostinians.
"We hope that the historic victory of the Egyptian people's will would help our people get rid of the destructive division and restore national unity," Assaf said in an indirect reference to Hamas's control over the Gazoo Strip.
Several other Fatah officials expressed hope that Paleostinians in the Gazoo Strip would wage a revolution against Hamas.
"Now it's Gazoo's turn to get rid of the Moslem Brüderbund branch," said one official. "The dark era of political Islam has ended. The era of hypocrisy and lies has ended and Gazoo will soon witness its own revolution against Hamas."
Abdel Rahim Jamous, a Fatahaffiliated political analyst, urged Hamas to seize the opportunity and "return to Paleostinian national legitimacy before it's too late."
Addressing the Hamas leadership, Jamous said: "You have no future with the Moslem Brüderbund. They have failed even before they started. They are losers. Wake up before it's too late."
Paleostinian news hounds in the Gazoo Strip said on Thursday that top Hamas officials seemed to be very worried by the ouster of Morsi.
Unlike the PA leadership, Hamas did not rush to congratulate the Egyptian army and opposition.
But Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official, said his movement was worried not over the fall of Morsi's regime, but over the possibility that events could lead to bloodshed in Egypt.
The "whole world is hoping to see stability in Egypt," Youssef told the Ma'an news agency.
The crisis in Egypt had already resulted in a shortage of basic goods in the Gazoo Strip because of the closure of the Rafah border crossing, he said.
Paleostinians said that the Egyptian army had beefed up its presence along the border with the Gazoo Strip in the past few days.
Egyptian troops on Thursday destroyed six smuggling tunnels under the border, they said.
The Egyptian authorities have also imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Paleostinians through the Rafah terminal, they added.
There are unconfirmed reports that Cairo has also issued an order banning Hamas leaders and members from entering Egypt.
Ehab Ghissin, a front man for the Hamas government, condemned as "trivial" Fatah's call for an Egyptian-style revolution in the Gazoo Strip.
Ghissin said that Fatah's calls were intended to cover-up the continued PA security crackdown against Hamas supporters in the West Bank.
[Jpost] Some analysts suggest Brotherhood finished following Morsi's fall, others say movement to reorganize ranks, run in next elections.
The Moslem Brüderbund has called for mass protests following Friday prayers and this may provide a window into which direction the wind is blowing. Radical Salafi supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi have indicated that violence and terrorism will be their response.
Mohammad Zawahiri, the Egyptian-based brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... , called for the organization to wage a jihad to save Morsi and his Islamist agenda for Egypt, according to a report by Raymond Ibrahim at the Gatestone Institute.
Ibrahim cites another Arab report quoting Mohammad Zawahiri as stating, "If matters reach a confrontation, then to be sure, that is in our favor -- for we have nothing to lose. And at all times and places where chaos reigns, it's often to the jihad's advantage."
Zawahiri has reportedly fled to Sinai, which is not under the full control of the Egyptian government.
Ibrahim, a Shillman fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum, the author of a new book titled Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians -- which documents the suffering of Christians in the region -- said that "one of the consequences of Morsi's overthrow is 'retribution' against the nation's Christian Copts, whom Islamists always, and absurdly, portray as leading any anti-Islamist campaign, such as the June 30 protests."
He told The Jerusalem Post that before the coup, pro-Morsi forces threatened the Copts not to participate in the protests, or "their homes and churches would be burned down, and their children targeted."
The St. George Coptic Christian Church in a village in al-Minya "was just set on fire, July 3 -- right when Morsi was being ousted," he said. The fire was put out, but reports indicate that the Islamists are still adamantly trying to destroy the church -- and this is just for starters.
Ibrahim said the conditions for the Copts should improve now that the Brotherhood is out of power, as under its rule an unprecedented number of Christians were jugged Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! on accusations of blasphemy.
"Such 'legal' attacks will likely lessen," he said, "but in return, lawless attacks on Copts, such as this most recent church attack, will likely increase."
This pattern of attacking Christian minorities as a form of "retribution" is common across the Islamic world, said Ibrahim, noting that it has "centuries of continuity."
The Moslem Brüderbund, however, has given out mixed messages on how it will proceed.
Some leaders have called on their supporters to protest peacefully while others have called for martyrdom.
Perhaps the shocked leadership has still not decided on how to proceed with many of its leaders either arrested, hiding, or on the run. Some analysts believe the organization is likely to hunker down and try to win future elections.
Others analysts are claiming that the failure of the Brotherhood in Egypt signals the end of the movement as its brand has become badly damaged.
Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), told the Post that he does not think the coup against the Brotherhood signals the end of political Islam in the region as it still "is a strong force everywhere in the Middle East.
"If there will be elections in a month, there is a chance that the Brotherhood would win again," Inbar says.
In any case, he sees the continued "power of the people" as an important player in regional politics.
Prof. Meir Litvak of the department of Middle Eastern history and the director for the Alliance Center of Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University, told the Post that the setback for the Brotherhood is a serious one, but it "may not be the end of such a broad and deeply rooted movement."
Asked if the Moslem Brüderbund and other Islamist groups will suffer as well from this setback, Litvak responded that the crisis of one Islamic movement does not mean the others are in crisis.
"The Islamist movements in each of the Arab countries have their own distinct features, and each operates under different circumstances," he said.
Litvak argued that it is likely the Moslem Brüderbund in other countries may learn from the mistakes of the Egyptian movement and "be more cautious or prudent in their conduct.
But it is far too early to insist that they are finished."
As for the Moslem brothers in Egypt, Litvak said that they "did not resort to terrorism under worse circumstances in the past" and are "more likely to seek to reorganize their ranks and infrastructure and run in the next elections."
Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained that Islamists throughout the region see the coup and are nervous about its repercussions.
The Brotherhood-dominated opposition in Jordan could suffer as a result of the coup as well, he said.
Schanzer believes the Brotherhood will have to re-invent itself to stay relevant as its reputation for clean government has been tarnished. He noted that it will be interesting to see how Morsi's strongholds respond, particularly those in northern Egypt.
Islamists are already complaining, he said, that "the West does not respect the ballot box."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2013
09:30 ||
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#1
Zawahiri has reportedly fled to Sinai
Isn't it always the ones hiding under the daughters' beds that have the biggest mouths? Shades of Nasrallah
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2013 13:28
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[Ynet] Wrestling's governing body says it suspended an Egyptian athlete who allegedly bit her Israeli opponent during a bout.
Enas Moustafa Youssef Khourshid also reportedly disrespected wrestling protocol by refusing to shake the hand of Ilana Kartysh of Israel before or after their semifinal match at a Grand Prix event last month in Sassari, Italia.
FILA President Nenad Lalovic writes in an email to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that "the Egyptian female wrestler was immediately suspended."
The sanction prevented her competing at the Mediterranean Games which finished Sunday in Turkey.
Lalovic says "our legal commission will soon decide about the final fine" for Moustafa.
Despite allegedly being bitten, Kartysh won the 67-kilogram category match and went on to win the tournament, lifting her FILA world ranking to No. 2.
[Ynet] Islamist movement quotes senior Arab journalist as saying that Adly Mansour is of Jewish descent; journalist denies quotes
The Moslem Brüderbund's official website claimed that one of the senior most media figures in the Arab world said the interim president of Egypt, Adly Mansour, is considered to be a Seventh Day Adventist and is therefore of Jewish descent.
The website said Ahmed Mansour, an Egyptian television presenter and interviewer who hosts a live television talk show which airs on Al Jazeera, further claimed on his Facebook page that Adly Mansour, who was sworn in as interim president on Thursday following the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, wanted to move closer to Christianity, but the Coptic pope refused to baptize him.
According to the Brotherhood's website, in his Facebook post Ahmed Mansour also mentioned that senior Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei Egyptian law scholar and sometime Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. After the fall of Mubarak he ran for president. He lost. , the former head of the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency, has refused to take part in the Shura Council as long as it denies the Holocaust. The Islamist-led Shura Council served as Egypt's legislative branch for the past few months.
The Brotherhood's website claimed that Ahmed Mansour wrote: "This is a token gesture offered to the Jews by ElBaradei so that he can become President of the Republic in the fake elections that the military will guard and whose results they will falsify in their interests...All with the approval of America, Israel and the Arabs, of course.
"This is the glorious scene of the future of Egypt and the Arabs, who competed to recognize the coup, the coup whose drum the secularists are dancing to...even to the extent that one of them, who hates religion, Islam and the nation announced that he has been reborn...and that his date of birth is 30/6, that is, the day the army of defeats staged a coup against ballot box legitimacy."
However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... Ahmed Mansour denied the quotes attributed to him by the Brotherhood's website and wrote in his Twitter account, which appears to be real, that "I do not have a Facebook account and everything that was published in my name through Facebook is false." The Moslem Brüderbund eventually removed the "report" from its website.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2013
09:05 ||
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[Ynet] As rift with Iran, Hezbollah grows due to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,'s support of Syrian rebels, Morsi's fall deals Hamas harsh blow, leaving it more isolated, influencing ties with Fatah. Will Gazoo's residents attempt uprising of their own?
Only hours before Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed now ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and his party, the Moslem Brüderbund, senior Hamas official Ahmed Yusef said that the organization does not fear the fall of Morsi's Islamist regime.
"But we are afraid of dramatic changes," Yusef said, adding that Hamas "is afraid things will spiral out of control and that there will be bloodshed." He was right about the first part -- the military overthrow did have major implications and Hamas -- as a source close to the Gazoo government told Ynet -- "is in complete and utter shock."
The Paleostinian Authority welcomed the news of the second Egyptian revolution. Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... didn't miss a beat and by morning had already sent a congratulatory letter to interim Egyptian President Adli Mansour, expressing hope that he will succeed in realizing the Egyptian people's dream of freedom, honor and stability.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... more than 24-hours after the fall of Morsi's regime, not a single Hamas representative from either its Gazoo or international branches has said a word regarding the developments in Egypt.
Eventually, Hamas's leadership will have to release a statement welcoming the new president, a statement that will have very little to do with their true hearts' desire; however it is telling that on the night of Febuary 11 2011, the day Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... was ousted, Gazooks and their Hamas leaders were literally dancing on rooftops in celebration.
At the time, Hamas's leadership was quick to exhibit their schadenfreude and publicly exclaim what had up until then only been said behind closed doors. A year and a half later, when their brethren from the Moslem Brüderbund won the election and took the reigns of control, Hamas was ecstatic.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... the political events in Egypt had already begun exerting influence on life in Gazoo, even while Morsi's presidency was still intact. For more than a month, Egypt's army has been hard at work battling the systems of tunnels connecting the blockaded strip to the port city of Rafah.
For more than a week all tunnel movement has come to a complete standstill barring the transfer of small quantities of diesel fuel, official data published Hamas revealed; and a halt in the flow of goods immediately caused prices to skyrocket.
The Rafah crossing is open and operational, but according to Hamas's Deputy Foreign Minister Razi Hamed, last week only 600 people were permitted to pass daily into Sinai, as opposed to 1,200 usually allowed. In addition, the last few days have seen an influx in Paleostinians returning from Egypt to Gazoo fearing for their safety in light of the developments in the country and the anti-Hamas sentiment prevalent in Egypt. Both developments seem to work poorly for Hamas.
Gazoo spring? However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... not everyone is displeased. Those in Gazoo not affiliated with Hamas expressed hope that the events in Egypt would influence those taking place in Gazoo. According to a source from outside Hamas's ranks, the fact that Hamas has lost its largest patron makes the organization the first and possibly biggest loser of Morsi's historic fall.
The source also expressed hope that Gazoo would one day see the likes of a Paleostinian Tamarod ("rebellion") movement, active in protesting Gazoo's Hamas government.
According to the source, the basic condition that rendered the second Egyptian revolution possible -- namely the support of the military apparatus -- does not hold true in Gazoo. They understand that without military support -- in their case, without the support of Hamas's security echelon -- there is not even a sliver of hope for such a protest movement to materialize, let alone succeed in toppling Hamas's regime.
A Paleostinian source in Gazoo told Ynet that residents of the strip are wary of protesting against Hamas because it is almost certain that the group's security organization would arrest them immediately afterwards; nonetheless, he said there many other problems people could protest against.
Hamas, which even while Morsi was still in power was almost completely isolated from the Arab world, finds itself faced with an additional problem.
The group's ties with Iran and Hezbollah are at an all time low because of latter two's involvement in supporting Assad's regime, while Hamas has chosen to support the Syrian rebels.
Qatar and Turkey are now the only friendly faces the Islamist organization has in the region; however, unlike Iran, the two states make certain the funds they funnel into the strip are invested in civilian projects of rebuilding the strip, and not military ones.
Having no other choice, it is possible that these circumstances will force Hamas to reconcile with the rival Fatah movement. But, as the proverb goes, it takes two to tango and it is far from certain that Abbas is interested in granting the movement the support and legitimacy it so desperately needs, now more than ever.
[Ynet] Egyptian sources told state-run news website Al-Ahram that the Head of el-Dostour Party Mohamed Elbaradei rejected a proposal to head the country's interim government.
Did he turn the crown away three times?
The role of interim prime minister was offered to former Central Bank Governor Farouk Al-Aqda, who resides in London nowadays.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2013
09:05 ||
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[Ynet] Egypt's transitional government will be sworn in on Sunday before interim president Adly Mansour, the state-run Al-Gomhuria reported.
The paper also learned that Egypt's opposition has submitted the names of five potential candidates for prime minister, including former ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei Egyptian law scholar and sometime Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. After the fall of Mubarak he ran for president. He lost. and Kamal Ganzouri, who served as PM under former President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... between 1996 and 1999.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2013
09:05 ||
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[Ynet] An Egyptian army helicopter fired a missile at a car carrying Islamist gunnies who tried to attack the airport in the city of El-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula overnight, the Al-Ahram newspaper's website reported.
There were no reports of any deaths as a result of the missile fire.
So the Egyptian Army still can't shoot straight...
Clearing the decks for action means more than just Muslim Brotherhood yahoos, it appears.
[Ynet] Arab-language Sky News reported that Salafi leader Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, who was disqualified from the Egyptian presidential elections in the past, was tossed in the slammer Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! Abu Ismail's arrest is part of an arrests campaign run by the military and defense forces against bigwigs of the Islamist camp in the country. Earlier Thursday, several Moslem Brüderbund officials were arrested, including the organization's spiritual leader.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2013
09:05 ||
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#1
Free Market. Check what the (Professional Farm Team) coaches get. Now how does it compare to other 'Profs'* salaries and number of hours put in classrooms? No perspective relative to the university system in NY.
* he does have a PhD and, unlike a lot of ivory tower personnel, real world practical experience.
#2
Gee, do you think Petraeus might help bring students to a class? He might even pay for himself!
Maybe all professors pay should be based on the number of students they attract.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/05/2013 13:26
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#3
Eisenhower took the president's office at Columbia in 1948 for $25,000 which with inflation would work out to around $241,000 a year today. The president of Columbia in 2010 garnered $1.7 million a year. Someone got a bargain.
#4
Advanced degrees and high military rank have never impress me a great deal.
This fellow holds two very important keys. One key is to the unbelievable degree of success the military enjoyed during the Ben Ladin raid at Abbattabad. The other is the unbelievable degree of failure and obfuscation experienced during the Benghazi debacle.
Following the Broadwell incident and his admissions, he is very lucky to still have his retirement, let alone financial tribute from colleges and other institutions.
#7
Since the only reason most go to college nowadays is to get the paper and could give a rats about the knowledge or whether they received marketable skills, of course they would only want easy A's.
or hotties that belong in a Gulf Bravo gam shot click through. ;)
;)
Posted by: abu do you love ||
07/05/2013 20:40
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[AnNahar] Anger gave way to gloom on Thursday as Islamists rallied at a Cairo mosque where thousands of supporters of deposed president Mohammed Morsi said they felt under siege and betrayed by the army.
Pictures of the ousted leader hung on walls, as protesters chanted against the military that removed Morsi from his post and outlined a roadmap for a political transition.
Inside the hall of the mosque, members of his ousted government and the leadership of his Moslem Brüderbund huddled together, planning their next moves and vowing not to deal with the new leaders.
"The whole guidance council is here," said Moslem Brüderbundfront man Gehad al-Haddad in reference to the Islamist movement's political bureau.
He slammed the army's removal of Morsi as "thuggery" and a violation of democratic principles.
Morsi was Egypt's first freely elected president. But his opponents accused him of betraying his promise as a president for all Egyptians by concentrating power in the hands of Islamists.
As the economy nosedived, inflation soared and fuel shortages drove large parts of the country to a standstill, public opinion became increasingly anti-Morsi.
Millions erupted into the streets to call for his resignation, but his supporters said he should have been allowed to see out his term and be removed only through future elections.
"President Mohamed Morsi is the elected legitimate Egyptian president. They imposed a new reality with force but legitimacy is on our side," said Brotherhood front man Ahmed Aref.
Outside the mosque, chants thundered against the military.
"Down with military rule!" they chanted, calling for an Islamic state.
In a statement read out to the Morsi supporters, the Brotherhood called for "peaceful protests" on Friday to defend Morsi's legitimacy.
"I'm ready to die for legitimacy, for my religion," said one student of medicine, carrying a shroud in a symbolic gesture.
Tents were pitched and street vendors sold food as the protesters settled in for the long haul.
"It's a soft military coup. The military was smart, using the cover of civilians," said Ahmed al-Sayyed, 26, in reference to the mass anti-Morsi protests the military used to justify their move.
"I was hoping to see an Islamic state in Egypt, but they aborted this dream," he added.
News of the arrests of Brotherhood leaders and the closure of Islamist television stations was a painful reminder for Morsi's supporters of the dramatic end to his turbulent year in power and their place in Egyptian politics.
"During all his time in power, Morsi never closed down one television channel. They closed down six channels in just one hour," said protester Ahmed Ali.
Morsi's government unraveled late on Wednesday after the army gave him a 48-hour ultimatum in the wake of massive demonstrations since June 30 against his tumultuous rule.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2013
08:28 ||
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#1
Why would youngsters want sharia law over freedom?
Posted by: Paul D ||
07/05/2013 8:47
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#2
As the economy nosedived, inflation soared and fuel shortages drove large parts of the country to a standstill, public opinion became increasingly anti-Morsi.
Not paying enough attention to Obama.
He slammed the army's removal of Morsi as "thuggery" and a violation of democratic principles.
Irony abounds.
"I was hoping to see an Islamic state in Egypt, but they aborted thisnightmaredream," he added.
a) they are young and ruled by their emotions and religion is all about emotions;
b) they always think that they'll be part of the ruling clique and THEY'LL be the ones issuing fatwas and raping slaves.
#4
It makes little difference who is in charge: Egypt is a basket case and CANNOT support itself. It needs massive foreign subsidies to prevent starvation. That or it needs to export and/or kill millions of its people. A massive assault on Israel could apply both 'solutions' simultaneously - a million dead and lots of aid from KSA etc.
#6
This was not an encounter between Islam and those who would be free, but between hungry people and those who had promised to feed them, but were not able to continue to do so. Look close to home, at all our inner cities - when the public dole eventually runs out there will be 25 million or more in the streets demanding heads.
#7
Whatever...in any case, the current crop can only feed 10% of the people but there is no fuel to gather it...these "good" people are the one raping all the women they could grab...women THEY had mutilated before(100% of egyptian muslim women are infibulated) DEAD MEN WALKING!!!
Posted by: Bob Snore6814 ||
07/05/2013 15:29
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#8
Why would youngsters want sharia law over freedom?
They're losers?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
07/05/2013 15:56
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#9
Why would youngsters want sharia law over freedom?
Why would western youngsters want almighty state over freedom?
#11
b) they always think that they'll be part of the ruling clique and THEY'LL be the ones issuing fatwas and raping slaves.
Same thing applies here. Every useful idiot believes he off she will be a commissar. Usually they are among the first to kneel at the edge of a ditch instead...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/05/2013 16:12
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#12
he or she...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/05/2013 16:12
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#13
Why would youngsters want sharia law over freedom?
[AnNahar] A jacket wallah killed 12 coppers in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan on Friday when he went kaboom! inside a cop shoppe as officers ate lunch in a dining hall, officials said.
The bomber targeted a base used to patrol the main road from Uruzgan to neighboring Kandahar province, through one of Afghanistan's most volatile regions where Talibs have a strong presence.
"A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a battalion station in Tirin Kot, the scenic provincial capital," Abdullah Hemat, the Uruzgan governor's front man, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The bomber, who was on foot and wearing a boom jacket, went kaboom! while the coppers were having lunch. As a result, 12 coppers were killed and five others maimed," he said.
The attack was the second suicide strike in Afghanistan on Friday after another bomber let 'er rip at a border crossing with Pakistain, killing two people including a senior Afghan police commander.
The attacker had crossed from Pakistain to Spin Boldak on the Afghan side, Afghan officials said.
The Chaman crossing is a key route from the Pak city of Quetta, which gives its name to the Taliban leadership council, and Kandahar, the insurgency's heartland in southern Afghanistan.
"A suicide bomber wearing a vest of explosives crossed the border into Kandahar's Spin Boldak district this morning and went kaboom!, killing two," Javed Faisal, front man for the Kandahar governor, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"A top border police commander and a civilian were killed, and eight others, including two border police and civilians were maimed," he added.
Kandahar police chief General Abdul Raziq confirmed the attack. Pak officials gave no immediate comment.
Afghan officials say many suicide kaboomers who strike in Afghanistan are trained in Pakistain, where the Taliban have rear bases and where some its leaders are believed to be based.
Islamabad denies allowing the Afghan Taliban to operate bases in its territory and says it will do everything asked to facilitate Afghan attempts to broker a peace deal to end 12 years of war.
In recent weeks, Taliban bully boyz have accelerated their campaign of suicide attacks and roadside kabooms against Afghan officials and Afghan and U.S.-led NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... troops.
On Monday, a Taliban suicide attack killed nine people in Kabul including four Nepalese, one Briton and a Romanian.
Around 100,000 NATO troops based in Afghanistan are handing over security responsibility to Afghan forces before the international combat mission ends next year.
[AnNahar] Battles between rival warlords in Somalia's key southern port city of Kismayo killed at least 71 people last month, U.N. officials said Friday, festivities Mogadishu has accused Kenyan troops of encouraging.
"Recent fierce fighting... continues to have a profound impact on civilians and humanitarian aid work in the Lower Juba region," the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO) said, adding the festivities also left more than 300 injured in June.
"Injuries and deaths outside the hospital are estimated to be much higher but cannot be confirmed," the WHO added, which supports hospitals treating the war-maimed in Kismayo.
Clashes have put on hold a vital mass polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... vaccination campaign, after the first cases were confirmed six years after Somalia was declared free of the crippling virus.
"Kismayo remains a volatile area, with observed increase in fighting among warring factions, and other incidences of violence such as landmines and hand grenade attacks," the WHO added.
Several rival factions are battling for control of Kismayo, a strategic and economic hub in the southern Jubaland region. They include former Islamist chief Ahmed Madobe, who in May appointed himself "president" of Jubaland, and Bare Hirale, a former Somali defense minister who also leads a powerful militia.
Somalia's government has demanded that Kenyan troops stationed in Kismayo as part of an African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... force be replaced, accusing them of backing Madobe's Ras Kamboni militia, which opposes Mogadishu's rule.
Kenyan troops, which invaded Somalia in 2011, fought alongside Madobe's troops to oust al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab fighters from Kismayo, before joining the 17,700-strong AU force.
The AU force is mandated -- and funded by the U.N. and European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... -- to support central government.
[AnNahar] Attacks killed five people in town squares in Iraq on Friday, including four who died when a jacket wallah set off his vehicle rigged with explosives just before midday prayers.
The latest violence, which left dozens maimed, comes as Iraq struggles with a surge in violence coinciding with a long-running government deadlock and months of protests among the Sunni Arab minority.
The deadliest of the attacks on Friday struck Samarra, a predominantly Sunni town north of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , when a suicide bomber detonated a boom-mobile near Al-Haq square, a focal point for anti-government protesters for months.
The attack took place just before Friday prayers near the Al-Razzaq mosque, killing four people and wounding 12, police and medics said.
The suicide bomber wore an army uniform, police said.
In the predominantly Shiite town of Kut south of Storied Baghdad, a bomb set off in al-Amil square at around 10:00 am (0700 GMT) killed one person and maimed 17 others.
Two gunnies also died in the northern town of Hawijah when the bomb they were trying to plant unexpectedly went off, officials said.
Iraq has seen a surge in violence since the start of the year, with the U.N. reporting more than 2,500 people killed from April through June, the highest such level since 2008.
The increase in unrest has coincided with ongoing protests in the Sunni Arab community that analysts and diplomats say have boosted recruitment to Sunni myrmidon groups and given them room to maneuver.
[AnNahar] An Egyptian soldier was killed early Friday in coordinated rocket and machinegun attacks by Islamist hard boyz on army checkpoints and a police base in the restive Sinai, medics said.
The soldier was killed when the hard boyz fired on an army checkpoint near the north Sinai village of al-Gura, medics said, adding two other soldiers were maimed in the attack.
Following president Mohammed Morsi's ouster by the military on Thursday, several hard boyz have publicly threatened violence in retaliation
Militants attacked a police base with rockets and attacked military intelligence headquarters in the border town of Rafa, security sources said.
A security source said hard boyz were attacking army and police checkpoints in several towns in north Sinai.
Hardcore Islamist hard boyz have used the sparsely populated north of the peninsula as a launching pad for attacks on security forces and neighboring Israel.
Morsi, elected in June 2012 and deposed on Wednesday after mass protests, had himself ordered a crackdown on Sinai hard boyz after an August 2012 attack killed 16 soldiers.
No group claimed credit for that attack. But Sinai based hard boyz have taken responsibility for rocket attacks and cross border attacks against Israel.
[AnNahar] Senior Gulf Cooperation Council officials met in Riyadh on Thursday to coordinate sanctions in the six member states against Hizbullah over its support for the Syria regime.
The meeting was "to develop mechanisms to monitor movements, financial transactions and business operations of Hizbullah," said Bahraini deputy interior minister Khaled al-Absi.
The GCC monarchies decided on June 10 to impose sanctions on Hizbullah, targeting residency permits and its financial and business activities in reprisal for the group's armed intervention in Syria.
Absi told news hounds two expert teams will be formed: one to "coordinate with central banks" and the second to review "legal, administrative and financial matters" linked to the sanctions.
Last month's measure was taken "after the discovery in GCC states of several terrorist cells linked to the group," said Absi.
However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... he did not say how many Hizbullah "suspects" would be affected by the sanctions or their estimated assets and financial and commercial operations in the region.
The sanctions would be implemented "in coordination... with ministers of commerce and the central banks of the GCC," the council's Secretary General Abdullatif al-Zayani has said.
The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and the United Arab Emirates.
Qatar expelled 18 Lebanese citizens from the gas-rich Gulf state on June 20, a government source in Beirut told Agence La Belle France Presse.
An estimated 360,000 Lebanese work in the Gulf, according to the daily An-Nahar, remitting some $4 billion (three billion euros) annually.
A staunch ally of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... , of the Alawite sect of Shiite Islam, Hizbullah has backed him since protests erupted in March 2011, openly declaring its military involvement last month.
The Sunni monarchies of the Gulf back the mostly Sunni rebels, and the GCC has warned that it might add Hizbullah to its list of terrorist groups.
[AnNahar] Fierce festivities erupted between Hizbullah fighters and the Free Syrian Army rebels in several Bekaa towns, media reports said on Friday.
So lots of bullets. Any bad guys dead?
The festivities took place overnight Thursday in the Bekaa towns of Nabi Sheet and Brital and al-Khodr, according to the reports.
However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... sources denied to Voice of Leb (100.5) the reports, saying that gunbattles erupted at night in Syrian territories.
Hizbullah fighters are playing a prominent role in supporting regime troops against the rebels seeking to topple Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr...
Last month, Syrian soldiers and Hizbullah members recaptured Qusayr following a more than two-week assault on the strategic town on the border with Leb.
In June, festivities erupted between Hizbullah and Syrian rebels on the eastern mountain range on the Lebanese-Syrian border after several rockets fired from the Lebanese-Syrian border area landed in several towns in the Bekaa Valley.
[AnNahar] Caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil issued a warning on Friday that the army and the resistance have the ability to protect Leb's oil reserves from Israel after he accused it of digging a well 4 kilometers from Lebanese offshore reserves.
During a presser he held at the ministry, Bassil said: "Israel now has the ability to reach Leb's oil reserves."
But "the army and the resistance have the capability to protect them," he said. "We won't allow it to encroach on our natural resources."
Bassil urged President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... and Caretaker Premier Najib Miqati to hold an extraordinary cabinet session to approve two decrees needed to move the oil exploration process forward, saying "Leb's reputation was at stake."
Holding such a session is "politically and constitutionally possible," he said, adding he would coordinate with Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... and Miqati in that regards.
If adopted by the government, the decrees require the approval of the parliament.
Leb has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel, Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas.
Leb and Israel are bickering over a zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves there could generate billions of dollars.
Beirut argues that a maritime map it submitted to the U.N. is in line with an armistice accord drawn up in 1949, an agreement which is not contested by Israel.
In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Leb, Israel, Syria and Cyprus.
The formation of the Petroleum Authority in November was the first major step in future oil exploration since parliament passed a law in 2011 setting the country's maritime boundary and Exclusive Economic Zone.
The country will witness the first oil exploration process in 2015 and it will take a year to enter the production stage.
#5
#4 - see? The sneaky Joooo Drillers have already moved it!
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2013 16:45
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#6
What "Lebanon Oil Reserves"?
And how the hell do you weenies propose to steal Israel's oil/gas "protect" it?
I'll double my popcorn order . . . .
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/05/2013 18:55
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#7
For answers to your questions see the USGS report which was quoted here : In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Leb, Israel, Syria and Cyprus.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
07/05/2013 19:35
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#8
OTOH TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > ASSIR: LEBANESE ARMY CONTROLLED BY IRAN.
I suppos it shouldn't be really surprising given pro-Iran Hezbollah's domination of the Leb Govt. in Beirut.
LEBANON = SYNONYMOUS NOW ID IRAN = IFF SYRIA IS "IRAN'S 35TH PROVINCE", IS LEBANON IRAN'S "36TH"???
#9
Au Auric - the USGS report is about potential resources, the article cites reserves; the two are entirely different things under investment law definition.
Arab leaders from Saudi Arabia to Syria rushed Thursday to congratulate Egypt for deposing its elected Muslim Brotherhood president, signaling a rare moment of unity in the divided and still overwhelmingly undemocratic region. I wonder what Obumble says to that? Seems nobody likes your guy. The enthusiastic response to the Egyptian military's ouster of President Mohamed Morsi underscored the extent to which the Islamist leader had failed to win allies abroad, much as he had at home, alienating Egypt's traditional friends and foes alike with an often erratic foreign policy.
The acclamations put Sunni powers on a par with the leader they are trying to topple, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who gloated at the Brotherhood's failures in an interview Wednesday.
"The Muslim Brotherhood's experiment fell quickly because it is wrong, and what is built on a wrong principle will definitely fall," said Assad, who has cast his country's civil war as a battle between secularists and Islamists. I am afraid Pencilneck is on to something there.
Only in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings two years ago, did the elected, Brotherhood-affiliated government condemn Morsi's ouster, calling it a "flagrant coup." Non-Arab Turkey, whose Islamist government has a history of strained relations with the country's own military, also warned about the implications for the future of democracy in Egypt.
Much of the relief elsewhere was rooted in anxieties about the challenge posed by local Brotherhood affiliates. But Morsi had won few friends with a foreign policy that zigzagged from an attempt to mend Egypt's historically poisonous relationship with Shiite Iran to an endorsement of jihad against Shiite "infidels" in Syria. Maybe that's why O-boo-boo felt a rapport with Morsi - he was erratic?
That policy switch, announced last month, may have sealed his fate by sending signals to the Western-backed military that he was becoming more radical in ways that could entangle Egypt in the region's brewing sectarian conflict, said a Bahrain-based analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "It was an incredibly foolish mistake by Morsi," he said. "He supports a rapprochement with Iran, then veers 180 degrees in the other direction and goes for jihad in Syria."
Israel's government remained conspicuously quiet about Egypt on Thursday, with analysts saying Israel's chief concern was that its neighbor does not become dangerously destabilized. Israel will also want to be sure that any leader who replaces Morsi will uphold the two countries' peace treaty, as Morsi had done.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip and faces increasing isolation in the region, insisted in a statement that Morsi's downfall would have little impact in the enclave. That's interesting.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/05/2013
06:33 ||
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Facing tight deadlines and daunting workloads, states across the country are scaling back ambitions for implementing the Affordable Care Act. At a monthly board meeting of Connecticut's health insurance exchange, members of the standing-room-only crowd got a reminder that they, too, were behind schedule. The insurance marketplace they were working on nights and weekends won't be completely ready on time.
"It is highly complex, it's unprecedented and it's not going to be smooth," Kevin Counihan, chief executive of the state's exchange, Access Health CT, told the group. The man whose job didn't exist until O-care. Who is paying HIS salary?
That's why Connecticut -- like other states across the country -- has lowered the bar, doing what it can in the time it has left before the health-care law's major programs are launched Oct. 1. Although the states are promising to provide new marketplaces for individuals to compare and buy health insurance plans, the Web portals will be a bare-bones version of what was initially envisioned. Can't you already get comparisons at Progressive?
And then there are the federal setbacks. The Obama administration has put off significant aspects of the health-care overhaul as it races to finish provisions that will give Americans more insurance options and provide many with financial assistance to buy coverage. On Tuesday, the White House announced a decision to delay the "employer mandate," a requirement that employers with 50 or more workers provide coverage. Once again demonstrating it is harder to actually govern than to bloviate.
"In 2011, there was this 'we're going to save the world' mentality," said Rebecca Pearce, executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange. "In 2013, it focuses more on how do we deliver on the requirements of the law." Another executive's salary paid by borrowing from the Chinese.
The District of Columbia and 15 states -- including Connecticut -- are building their own marketplaces. Those jurisdictions, among the Affordable Care Act's most ardent supporters, took on the responsibility of building Web portals that are at the heart of the federal health-care overhaul. Most states, eschewing the heavy workload, left the task to the federal government.
The White House expects 7 million people to buy health insurance or enroll in Medicaid through these Web portals. Millions more are likely to browse these sites for health plans and explore possible options under the federal law, which imposes an "individual mandate" requiring most people to obtain coverage or pay a penalty. Or be excused through a political favor. In Oregon, officials decided to delay a feature that would allow consumers to customize searches for rating the coverage provided by insurers. And a feature for insurance brokers to track the consumers they enroll will wait for two to four months.
How will brokers keep track of potentially thousands of customers in the interim? Cover Oregon's executive director, Rocky King, suggested that they might use "index cards". "I know the agents will have all their Excel worksheets," King said. "We've gone to them and said: You're our priority sales force, but you're not necessarily the priority for how you access the system. The consumers are. "
Connecticut has made progress. It was the first state to complete an intensive technology test in which the state's portal successfully connected to a federal data hub. But officials have learned that good news can have a downside. The state agency spent weeks reprogramming its Web site after the federal government shrank the insurance application from 21 pages to three.
When the Supreme Court struck down a key element of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Access Health CT board members cheered. Then, they remembered that it would add to the workload: The marketplace would now need to recognize same-sex marriages, a coding change unlikely to be ready for October.
Whoopsie!
"Everything continues to change all the time," Van Loon told his staff at a job-security meeting later that day. "We're going to have to adjust some processes around that. If DOMA requires a manual work-around, we'll do that." Van Loon. He's in the right place!
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/05/2013
06:15 ||
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#1
The District of Columbia and 15 states -- including Connecticut -- are building their own marketplaces. Those jurisdictions, among the Affordable Care Act's most ardent supporters, took on the responsibility of building Web portals that are at the heart of the federal health-care overhaul. Most states, eschewing the heavy workload, left the task to the federal government.
Web portals can be damnably difficult to build, maintain and protect from hackers. Expensive too. Just serving up static web pages is hard enough but when you put a database and a whole lot of programmed, interactive features into it you go to a whole other level of complexity. I suppose it is the contemporary way to do business but you run into a whole lot of very contemporary problems too. I wonder if they'll outsource any of the programming to foreign countries? Maybe they'll hire some H1B workers. At any rate, it will cost a fabulous amount of money.
#3
We discussed this at great length here some months ago, but I can't find the link -- sorry. As I recall, a number of Rantburgers have direct experience with this kind of thing at both the state and federal levels, and concluded bluntly that the project is not do-able for any amount of time or money.
If someone could find the link, I would be grateful. It would be useful, particularly for Lex, who has a background in government and computer stuff, but wasn''t around at the time.
#4
There is the Right way and the lex way, and I too am interested in the difference.
I have been expecting a 30% increase to supply chain costs, and have seen 10% over the last 18 months. But hey, glaad to see hooters turned into poles on the employee I can't hire's dime. Wait, that person is unemployed so its on my quarter.
#5
Any number of competent systemengineers could have looked at the requirements, timeline and resources, and told you that this was impossible. Oh wait, THEY DID! But Obama, Reid, Pelosi and company ignored them.
If we had a truly free press (not the self-enslaved one we have now), those 3 people would be getting hammered for their malfeasance in passing Obamacare before they read it and adequately discussed it with the public.
#6
Heck OS, even the people who rattle for collectivization had to concede that in order for it to be implimented it had to be done right the first time.
They got palosi the carrot, reid the stick, and obama the cart driver. Sebilius was almost immediately handing out do not have to follow the law cards, obama who thinks the best way to promote this law is to be so involved with golfing that there is no way he has enough time to actually oversee this historical tax, and at its peak crises point decides a tour de afrique is the right thing to do.
I'm sure they have their top. men. earnestly trying to get this put together, and here they decide to punt until after the next election cycle.
And who is going to data entry those techno illiterates into the databank? How many languages? How many people will need to be hired to do the data entry? If its a tax issue and people cannot afford the accountants to figure this out for them, will there need to be a taxpayer funded free tax accounting service available? For those who have large dependant small income tax files will the tax be deducted from their underemployment compensation? Will the people who refuse to work get free passes, while those who attempt to increase their personal wealth and therefore the nation's wealth owe 2 1/2 pounds of flesh? You know, if and until they reach that made enough money point of taxation?
#7
I might add that, for some strange reason, whenever any level of government gets involved in a computer project you can multiply the cost by about a million.
#8
TW, I'm one of those that commented before if my memory is correct.
You are absolutely correct. I worked for SAP trying to help guide the SAP portals package of "tools" for Naval Aviation.
The fustercluck was mind-boggling and the "solution" was for contractors to be hired enmasse with contractors hiring contractors. It was a total disaster living up to every nightmare of an out of control IT project; and even inventing a few new nightmares.
#9
Imagine my surprise when assigned to a $ 4.5m SW development project under DIA when it is discovered that the Army had already developed [and was using] a nearly identical, but infinitely more advanced capability. Funding and research grants for the DIA program continued, and may yet continue today. Sadly, the waste to be found in SW and IT development project within the beltway is legion.
#10
I ask you, if the system is this complicated, what guarantee do we have that the boodle will wind up in the pockets of Democratic voters, like Congress intended?
Posted by: Matt ||
07/05/2013 15:30
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#11
None, Matt. After all, they are just voters and peasants. But you can bet that contractors who contributed to the cause will get some very lucrative contracts.
#13
Trailing wife - I'm well aware of IT implementation cloosterphuques. Fear of same and their massive price tags are what keeps single-source IT vendors in business.
Re the source of the article, Sarah Kliff, interesting that the 'burgers have yet to post any of her articles or the many others detailing California's and Oregon's huge success so far in attracting exceptionally affordable plan bids from insurers participating in the states' ACA exchanges.
As usual, the defenders of our current Frankenstein-kloodge have it backwards: instead of collusion, price-gouging, DOB for people who deserve benefits and predatory behavior of all kinds, we now are seeing real competition among ethical plan providers in a transparent and properly regulated market.
And slimeball firms like UnitedHealth are exiting the market, leaving a cleaner and more consumer-friendly marketplace.
Again, to make it really simple, the predatory old system gave Californians 170% price INCREASES over the last decade. The new ACA exchanges are bringing price DECREASES, plus access to insurance hundreds of 000's of Californians whom the old system cruelly allowed the rapacious providers to deny altogether due to the BS pretext of a "ore-existing condition."
Do you guys like having your pockets picked? Why on earth would you stand up for the broken, ridiculously wasteful, financially ruinous old non-system?
#16
"Beavis" lives up to his namesake. Avik Roy's ridiculous pseudo-analysis is a joke. if Beavis actually knew what he was talking about, he would not be cutting and pasting from Roy's ridiculous pseudo-analysis.
Clue #1 for Beavis: numbers scraped by an aggregator for complex insurance plans have little relationship to actual, final quotes. Only a fool or a hack would rely on these bogus numbers.
Clue #2: even if one were to get a low rate from one of the old, unregulated, pre-ACA plans, the old system allows insurers to rapidly jack up the new policyholder's rates. Bait-and-switch is not only legal under the current joke of a system in CA, it's routine. Yours truly signed up with Anthem last year and saw them raise rates on us TWICE, by 24% and then another 23%, WITHIN SIX MONTHS.
Somehow your brilliant Forbes magazine analyst - the guy you think is so eloquent and insightful that you put aside your own vaunted expertise and let him do all your talking for you - failed to understand this most basic of all the shitty stunts routinely pulled by the health insurance mafia.
There are plenty of additional errors in this joke of a piece, but I'll leave it here for now. Someone who doesn't even grasp the concept of bait and switch (perfectly legal under the current system btw), who relies on BS from an aggregation site rather than actual contracted rates, isn't to be taken seriously. (And yet even Roy had to gently remind his clueless NRO readers that, er, they too are recipients if taxpayer-subsidized insurance: $300 billion per year from tax-exempt subsidies for employer-sponsored plans; $700 billion per year from th Social Security Act aka Medicare.)
Beavis, come clean. You're not really an expert. You're just shilling for one of the current system's birds of prey. Anthem? UnitedHealth? Do tell, frontman.
#17
Re Beavis's second cut-and-paste effort, from Glenn Kessler, this is more credible - at least these are closer to actual contracted rates - yet Kessler, too, is engaged in a sleight-of-hand. Argument by individual anecdote won't cut it here. It's to be expected that rates will rise for SOME - not most, not all - people, specifically ultra low-risk, younger, healthy plan members like the single 25 year-old that Kessler cherry-picks as his sole example. The whole point of a large risk pool is that healthy people subsidize the people who are very ie very expensively sick. So a small sliver of the population - young healthy singles - that's been paying nothing or close to nothing is now going to pay something closer to a reasonable rate in line with what everyone else pays so as to ensure access to people who've had been shut out of the system entirely by rapacious, cherry- picking for-profit insurers.
The ACA should have eliminated profit altogether from the private insurance sector, but the political reality is that, alone among industrial democracies, we've allowed these jackals to buy off our political class, so the ACA is a compromise that, alas, preserves the worst feature of the system.
Fortunately, next year Californians will vote to FINALLY at least introduce some effective insurance regulation to healthcare, so the worst effects of for-profit insurers' tricks will be mitigated from 2015 onward.
Of course, the smart, fair, efficient and effective way to expand the risk pool to the max is through single payer, funded by a generalized tax such as a VAT. Your healthy single 25 year- old would end up paying even more into this system than he would via higher premiums as per the ACA.
But single payer, ah, that's the road to serfdom, right? Can't have a rational, efficient, equitable system now, can we? How would Beavis earn his keep?
#18
I'm sorry I do understand this better than you ever will Lex or is it Chesney Elmeter4351 now? Ever figure out if Ezra Klein is Kliff in drag? BTW your 2 day tirade has been with UHC now suddenly it's Anthem, they deny your lithium?
#20
Of course, the smart, fair, efficient and effective way to expand the risk pool to the max is through single payer
This proves you don't understand risk pools. Insurance is the transference of an unknown, risk, for a known, money. If I underwrite Dolly Parton's tits for x amount of money and charge y, my exposure for the next pair hasn't changed.
The guy made famous by telling secrets -- about U.S. surveillance programs -- has managed to keep his own whereabouts hush-hush. Somehow, he has made himself lost for nearly 12 days in a mile-long transit corridor dotted with six VIP lounges, a 66-room capsule hotel, assorted coffee shops, a Burger King and about 20 duty-free shops. Unless he's across the runway in private Terminal A, in the watchful company of Russian officials.
Everybody wants to find him. Journalists want to interview him. The United States wants to prosecute him. And now Anna Chapman wants to marry him. Come out, come out - wherever you are!
Last week, journalists staked out a chain called Shokoladnitsa, hoping they would find Snowden drinking a $7 cappuccino. Nyet. The capsule hotel rents tiny rooms for about $15 an hour, oh, one of those with a four-hour minimum. No one was spotted going in and out Thursday, and the clerk on duty frostily declared that she wasn't allowed to talk with reporters. Smart answer.
Russians are a little bemused at all that fuss over surveillance. Many believe that the authorities can read their mail at will, listen in on their calls and sprinkle bugs around as they please. "Wiretapping is so common, so this is not news," said a 48-year-old account manager who stopped to chat on a city street.
What doesn't seem normal to many is why Snowden decided to go to Ecuador, his original destination, through Russia. Maybe it's on the great circle route?
Once he arrived here, with his U.S. passport revoked, Ecuador has grown less enthusiastic. Russia says he can go anywhere he likes -- he just needs a destination and authorized travel documents. So why doesn't he go? Or show his face? Catch 22. Travel papers require a passport. Eddie doesn't have one. So he can't go, but he can't stay.
And a 45-year-old tour agency manager, found it strange that an American carrying U.S. secrets would travel by way of Russia, where security agencies are very much in control. "I don't understand what he was thinking," she said. "Is he a little boy with no idea about the consequences?" Is it THAT obvious?
Olga, deputy director of a pharmaceutical company, said the Snowden affair sounded like a fairy tale. "How long will he have to stay in the transit zone? What is he eating there, and where does he sleep? Has anyone seen him at all? Strange." Yes, strange indeed, Olga. Who is paying for his groceries? Who is running the Keep Eddie Free charity?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/05/2013
05:56 ||
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"To me, Snowden is a hero, because he revealed secrets that we should all know, that the United States has repeatedly violated the Fourth Amendment."
"He should be welcomed, and offered asylum," Stone continued, "but he has no place to hide because every country is intimidated by the United States. This should not be. This is what's wrong with the world today, and it's very important that the world recognizes and gives asylum to Snowden. Everyone in the world is impacted by the United States' Big Brother attitude toward the world."
But he didn't stop there.
... "And the world is in danger with our tyranny."
#7
Nicaragua, Bolivia, + Venezuela repor now want to offer Snowden formal asylum - the question is whether Vladvedev will allow him to leave widout Russia seeing the contents of his briefcase???
[PJMedia] Two years after the collapse of Egypt's sixty years of military rule, the largest Arab country has come full circle. The population has had enough. Beans (not to mention animal protein) have been priced out of the budget of the poorer half of Egypt's citizens for weeks, and the country is nearly out of fuel -- which means, in the middle of the wheat harvest, nearly out of bread. There isn't much to hope for here, but there are best and worst case scenarios.
The worst case scenario is the status quo: chaos in politics, violence in the streets, complete cessation of tourism, and economic breakdown. This is not an economy with a lot of buffer. Nearly a fifth of Egyptians were suffering from malnutrition when the World Health Organization surveyed the country in 2011. WFP estimates that two of five Egyptian adults are mentally and physically "stunted" by inadequate diet. The slow starvation of Egyptians under successive military regimes is gradually turning into actual hunger.
Sadly, military government probably is the best case scenario.
There is only one reason the military might do a better job than the Moslem Brüderbund or the liberal opposition, and that is because Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and other Gulf states (besides tiny Qatar) might decide to provide funding for a military regime that suppressed the Moslem Brüderbund, which the Saudi regime rightly fears as a competitor to its medieval form of monarchy. That is why Saudi aid to Egypt has been insignificant, while tiny Qatar has committed $5 billion--nearly a fifth of its total foreign exchange reserves--to keep Egypt afloat during the past year.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2013
01:11 ||
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#3
I sense a gradual transition from "The US must keep its evil hands off Egypt" to "Why hasn't the evil US prevented this humanitarian crisis from happening?"
Posted by: Matt ||
07/05/2013 14:10
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#4
Looks to me like the Egyptian Army is now working for the Saudis.
#6
It's easier to pry blood out of a stone than money from the saudi fat creeps...give it a year and Egypt will be in the same spot as Syria...ANOTHER LOVELY WAR!!!
Posted by: Bob Snore6814 ||
07/05/2013 15:54
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WASHINGTON: The United States recognises the importance of its relationship with Pakistan and is not seeking to downgrade the ties, says the State Department.
At a Wednesday afternoon briefing, the departments spokesperson Jen Psaki rejected suggestions that a reduction in the Obama administrations aid requests for Pakistan indicated Washingtons desire to downgrade its relationship with Islamabad.
The US aid to Pakistan has been very extensive over the course of the last several years and Secretary of State John Kerry, when he was in the Senate, was a very big advocate of this assistance, Ms Psaki said.
Absolutely not, said the US official when asked if a reduction in US aid requests to Congress for Pakistan indicated the desire to lower its relationship with the country.
She confirmed media reports that Secretary Kerry might soon visit Pakistan, possibly on July 28, but did not announce a date. The secretary is looking forward to visiting Pakistan. He would like to be able to spend some time on the ground, Ms Psaki said.
He recognises the important relationship we have with Pakistan. As you know, he also has spoken [to] the prime minister several times, actually, since he was elected. And I think that further confirms the importance of the relationship.
Responding to another question, she said were eager to go to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, other US officials said that there was no real reduction in US aid requests for Pakistan for 2014. They pointed out that the aid requests met the $1.5 billion annual target specified in the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.
They noted that Washingtons highest priority in the new fiscal year was supporting power generation projects in Pakistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday during an official visit to Beijing focused on courting Chinese investment in his country's ailing transport and electricity generating sectors. The visit is Mr Sharif's first to his country's close ally since he returned to power last month. The nations cooperate closely in diplomatic and military affairs, and share a common rival in mutual neighbour India.
Mr Sharif said he chose China for his first overseas visit to strengthen and develop friendly neighbourly ties between the two countries, according to Chinese state television. Pakistan hopes to expand economic exchanges, especially in developing basic infrastructure, and welcomes Chinese businesses to invest there, he added. Mr Sharif's visit follows one by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Pakistan in May.
Mr Sharif is hoping to attract greater Chinese investment to revive Pakistan's moribund economy that has pushed the country to accept a fresh International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. An earlier, partially disbursed US$11.3 billion (S$14.4 billion) IMF programme expired in September 2011 after Pakistan failed to meet the conditions attached to it.
Pakistan hopes to boost its economy by building rail and road links linking the Chinese border to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, control of which was transferred to a state-owned Chinese company in February.
The country is also seeking Chinese help in overcoming a chronic energy shortage, while China wants Pakistan to crack down on insurgents from China's Muslim Uighur minority who have taken refuge in Pakistan's lawless north-west alongside Al Qaeda-linked extremists. Pakistan says it has killed or extradited several of those militants over the past few years, but acknowledges that some still remain at large in the area.
China provides Pakistan with aid and foreign investment, while Islamabad offers Beijing important diplomatic backing in the face of Muslim-majority nations who might otherwise criticise China's handling of its Muslim population. Pakistan has viewed China as an important counterweight to the United States, which provides valuable aid but often pressures Islamabad to do more to crack down on Islamic militants. The two countries have also been close because of their mutual distrust of their common neighbour India.
#1
China is none too happy about the killing of its best mountaineers near Nanga Parbat recently. Pak needs to clean up its act with respect to the Taliban.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/05/2013 1:26
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#2
OTOH DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > INDIA SHOULD NOT "STIR UP" [new] BORDER TROUBLE, SAYS PLA GENERAL AHEAD OF ANTONY VISIT.
* REALTED SAME > [Rediff] CHINA WARNS INDIA: "DON'T PROVOKE US"!
IMO also read, SSSSSHHHHHH INDIA BFF JAPAN.
Controversial PLA MGEN. Luo Yuan.
I suspect post-2014 Pakistan [Afghanistan?] will likely the one(s) to initiate any shennanigans between China + India, once the Taliban, etal. Hard Boyz start participating in the normal Govt. + begin to assert pro-Radiclaist/Jihadist control over Pakistan's LRBMS + Nukes.
In the late 1950s, a design competition was held for a self-loading (semi-automatic) sniper rifle for the Soviet Army. The winning team was led by designer Evgeny Dragunov. In 1963, the rifle (SVD), named after its developer (literally the Dragunov sniper rifle), was inducted into the military.
The tactical role of the SVD rifle in the Soviet and then the Russian Army is somewhat different from the traditional 'sniper' role in other armies. The SVD rifle's main designation is to extend the effective range of a rifle unit to beyond the standard range of automatic weapons, up to 600-700 metres.
The SVD proved itself in the Afghan and Chechen wars and throughout many military conflicts around the world. It is one of the most coveted military trophies. Various modifications of the SVD and its local versions can be found across the globe. It is used in Russia and the former Soviet Union, India, Finland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Albania, China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The African Union is likely to suspend Egypt after what it called the "unconstitutional" removal of President Mohamed Mursi by the army, AU officials said on Thursday. The AU's Peace and Security Council (PSC) will discuss the Egyptian situation on Friday and, according to an AU source, is likely to implement the usual response to any interruption of constitutional rule by a member state, and suspend it.
The AU issued a statement saying said the organization's head, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, "observes that the removal of ... Mursi was in violation of the provisions of the Egyptian Constitution and falls under the AU doctrine on unconstitutional changes of Government."
It said the PSC "will deliberate on the situation in Egypt and take the required decisions."
Egypt's military has boosted its presence in the Sinai Peninsula near the border with Gaza, a source in the Hamas movement that controls the territory said on Tuesday, in a move that Israel said had its blessing.
The Israeli military confirmed that Egypt had boosted its military presence in the Sinai, where the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries imposed strict controls on deployments, but said the action had been coordinated with Israeli leaders.
The Sinai has seen an upsurge in lawlessness since the ouster of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011 that has sparked warnings from Western governments against travel to most parts of the peninsula. Criminal activity like drugs smuggling and human trafficking has flourished alongside a growing presence by militant groups that has seen attacks on Egyptian security personnel and across the border against Israel.
In August 2012, suspected Islamist militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers near the border before commandeering an armoured vehicle which they drove into Israel where they were killed in a helicopter strike.
#1
See also FREEREPUBLIC > EGYPT DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY FOR SUEZ AND SOUTH SINAI, after the latest attacks agz its personnel + outposts earlier this week.
That sound you're hearing is ISRAEL + IDF getting more twitchy.
Turkey, which had formed an emerging alliance with Egypt's ousted Islamist leader Muhammed Morsi, on Thursday slammed the democratically elected leader's overthrow by the military as "unacceptable" and called for his release from house arrest. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government has been watching developments in Egypt with concern as the armed forces ousted Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt's first democratically elected president.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a televised statement that Morsi was deposed illegally through a "military coup" and said democratically elected leaders should only be ousted through elections. Underscoring the importance he attached to ties with Egypt, Davutoglu said he had cut short a visit to Asia to return to Turkey for consultations with Erdogan on developments. Davutoglu also called for the start of the election process so that power in Egypt is immediately returned to "elected authorities.
Earlier, Turkey's all-party parliamentary human rights commission also denounced Morsi's ouster while small protests were held in Ankara and Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE threw their weight and purses behind Egypts generals aiming to put their first big spoke in the US-sponsored Arab Revolt (or Spring), after they failed to hold the tide back in Libya, Egypt and thus far Syria.
The coup leader, Defense Minister and army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, had two more Saudi-Gulf commitments in his pocket:
1. Should the Obama administration cut off the annual US aid allocation of $1.3 billion, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would make up the military budgets shortfall;
2. The Saudis, UAE and other Gulf nations, such as Bahrain and Kuwait, would immediately start pumping out substantial funds to keep the Egyptian economy running. The Egyptian masses would be shown that in a properly managed economy, they could be guaranteed a minimal standard of living and need not go hungry as many did under Muslim Brotherhood rule.
According to sources, the Saudis and the UAE pledged to match the funds Qatar transferred to the Muslim Brotherhoods coffers in Cairo in the past year, amounting to $13 billion.
#3
13 billion, the Arab way. The Obama way. A select few make the big bucks. I have no doubt Erdie and Obama will continue to muck up the works. I am convinced the Saudi are on borrowed time as well.
How Jordon has avoided issues I don't understand.
#4
For Erdogan, Morsi's ouster is a setback for the Islamist project. However, there isn't anything he can do and besides that Turkey gets aid indirectly from the Saudis because the Saudis buy up the Turkish debt instruments.
As for Jordan, the security services are well equipped, well trained and well staffed by Christians, Hashemites and Bedouins who have their own reasons to fear Islamism.
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/05/2013 8:29
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How Jordon has avoided issues I don't understand.
There's a reason it's call Black September.
The anti-West Judases talk up the taint of the Crusade but never mention Tamerlane who made the body count and wanton destruction among his fellow Muslims really horrific. The Crusaders were bush league in comparison.
#6
Erdogan and Obama better take notice. Just because you win the election, you do not have a free hand to do whatever you want. Even monkeys know when they are cheated. Nation of laws, not men. The Fraternal Order of Legitimacy be damned.
[Dawn] IT could be a scene from a book or a film: a man sets up shop and begins to do well. But all too soon, the stranger of whom he has been warned arrives -- the goodwill of the gang dominant in the area must be bought. Or, the entrepreneur receives a note demanding money. Taped to the paper is a bullet. In fact, this is one of the most basic realities of operating a business, no matter what the scale, in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... . Ironically, it is in the days leading up to Ramazan and Eid that the operations of various extortion gangs in the city are in full swing. And because many areas in the city are the domain of more than one gang, trading and business concerns often find themselves having to pay up to several different parties.
It is well known which groups run extortion rackets: they range from quasi-criminal gangs allegedly supported or even run by mainstream political parties to criminal rings and, in recent years, bully boy/militant outfits that are increasingly flexing their muscles. What is shocking, though, is the fact that while the racket is expanding, there are few signs of an effort to crack down on it. Figures collected by the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee show that so far this year, 630 extortion-related complaints have been registered, as compared to 589 last year; the police say that this racket runs into hundreds of millions of rupees annually, and that this will be a record year. But businesses and law-enforcement authorities seem to have reached a point where they treat the shakedowns as routine and even build the cost into their financial outlay estimates. Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... the impact this practice has on the country's economy goes unremarked, although it includes implications for everything from investment levels and insurance to the banks' risk assessment and loans. Unless the country's financial hub stops resembling gangland, can a positive long-term projection of the economy really be made?
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
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[Dawn] Two key myrmidon commanders of the Pak Taliban were killed in a successful operation by security forces in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. on Thursday, security officials said.
Security officials told Dawn.Com that security forces were conducting a search operation in the Frontier Region of Peshawar near Mattani when they clashed with the myrmidons, leaving one security personnel and two snuffies dead in the exchange of gunfire.
Officials identified the two key myrmidon commanders as Rooh ul Amin and Adnan alias Hurera, both belonging to the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP).
The operation follows a late night attack by dozens of suspected Talibs on a security check post at Shamshato area near Peshawar Frontier Region (FR), killing six Frontier Constabulary (FC) soldiers and leaving 12 others injured.
Police said the snuffies had also managed to kidnap two security forces' personnel. A front man for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain, Ehsanullah Ehsan, had grabbed credit for the attack Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Bugs Moroni was holding Slats from behind while his brother Greasy Thumb was pounding his face into paste ... officials said snuffies had killed the two FC personnel kidnapped from Shamshato area on Tuesday. "The myrmidons have thrown their bodies in Mattani area of Peshawar," said one security official.
Clashes between snuffies and security forces during the ongoing operation continued at the time of filing of this report.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
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[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] A jury deciding whether to sentence a convicted cop killer to death today saw a CCTV recording of the 31-year-old and a 29-year-old prison guard rendezvousing in the prison 'activity room'.
The CCTV video shows a two-minute incident between Ronell Wilson and Nancy Gonzalez, 29, which occurred at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center on July 15, 2012 in New York.
The prison guard has pled guilty while on trial for the affair and possesses the full evidence of her crime: in March this year she gave birth to Ronell Wilson's son, whom she named Justus.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
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#5
You can hardly get your pants down in 2 minutes. Nancy must be the original fertile Myrtle. Ronell is not shooting blanks either. I suppose DNA establishes the owner of the one in the oven.
[Dawn] Four security personnel were killed in a bombing at a checkpost in the North Wazoo tribal region on Thursday, DawnNews quoted government sources as saying.
Sources said the blast, said to have been a suicide kaboom, took place after security personnel directed a suspicious looking vehicle to stop at the Boya checkpost in the tribal region's Dattakhel tehsil.
Upon the vehicle's failure to stop, security personnel fired shots at the car, following which the bomber inside the explosives-laden vehicle went kaboom!.
Following the blast, the checkpost caught fire. Moreover, security personnel cordoned off the area and started an investigation.
North Waziristan is one of seven regions in Pakistain's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) governed by tribal laws. An hard boy insurgency led by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) plagues the region and the area is known to be infested with Death Eaters, including those from Al Qaeda and other armed hard boy organizations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
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[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] A 32-year-old woman who fainted while she was riding an escalator got her hair caught in the teeth of the metal stairs, suffering severe injuries.
The woman, who has not been named, collapsed at the West 125th Street station at Broadway, in New York, about 3.30pm yesterday. The escalator continued to drag her body up as it moved. She is believed to fainted because she suffers from epilepsy.
Emergency workers had to shut down the escalator so they could free the woman, who suffered cuts to her face, legs and arms. A large chunk of her hair was ripped out of her head.
She was taken to hospital and is said to be in stable condition.
'She seemed in pain,' Mark Viloria, 30, who saw the woman as medics brought her to an ambulance told the New York Daily News. No! Re-e-e-e-ally?
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
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#1
Police state alert! Thus is it ever with "public" transit.
Woe and betide: verily, we are all on the escalator to serfdom.
Obviously you have never seen a person scalped, neverming having gloves on the blood while trying not to hear the screams.
Instead you gloat over this person's misery, and at that totally off topic. Here you have a chance to donald duck about the greatedness of her having auto cover and you: police state?
#6
Not me, Jack. I and my family live in a state that's finally throwing off the yoke - of corrupt and predatory insurers like UnitedHealth. No more DOB for the made-up, BS notion of a "pre-existing condition." No more signing up for a plan and then seeing the insurer jack up our rates over 50% within four months of our signing.
Of course, my tax dollars will still heavily fund the plans of millions of ACA-haters who rely on a trillion in annual taxpayer subsidies, but whatever. We're finally moving in the right direction, thank God. With effective insurance regulation after next year's ballot initiative passes, it'll get even better - for every Californian, R or D or whatever.
#7
Swks - spare me the faux-earnestness. Black humor is Rantburg's calling card, from the snarky comments interspersed with each story to the bad puns to the fake dime novel witticisms.
This particular story was posted after one on Anna Chapman's love-tweet and before the one titled "tea Homeowner Hogties Attempted Burglar." So enough with the fake piety and crocodile tears.
#10
Hey Bucko, I was commenting on you, and your foe earnestness proves my point. See, you were all caught up in trying to poke someone in the chest and missed the easy layup of your door-to-door vacuum salesman zeal.
So yeah, kinda sound like a dork. The caterwauling seems fit.
Disqualified (on 19 June 2012)
Pakistan Prime Minister Gilani said the PAKSAT-1R satellite (launched August 12 2012 on a Chinese Long March 3B)
project is yet another manifestation of the long-standing strategic relationship between Pakistan and China, taking their time-tested friendship to new heights.
The occasion was the inauguration of Satellite Ground Control Station & Commencement of PAKSAT-1R Communication Services. He expressed pleasure that PAKSAT 1R has reached its intended orbit and all subsystems are functioning perfectly well. He said the presence of many Chinese dignitaries in this ceremony is indicative of the commitment of China and the importance it attaches to Pakistan's space program. I bet that China cares deeply about ... how much closer to Iranian oil Pakistan brings them. Oh yeah, and encircling India
#1
IMO read, POTUS BAMMER = USA COVERTLY RECOGNIZES THAT IRAN + OWG CALIPHATE W-I-L-L BE NUCLEAR.
Once again, welcome to "Globalism", OWG-NWO, + "Multipolar World" where Amerika is just one Nuclear Power or SUperpower, + OWG "Sub/Co-Leader", among several or many.
A crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood movement got underway in Egypt on Thursday with the arrest of several leading members following the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his replacement by a top judge.
A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood warned that the ouster of Morsi, a member of the movement, could prompt some groups to resort to violence, although he said the Brotherhood wouldn't do so. A coalition led by the Brotherhood called on Egyptians to mobilize peacefully in a "Friday of Rejection."
Let's see how the crowds compare to what we saw earlier this week. And whether camel riding hard boyz with polo mallets wade into them...
The deposed president was under house arrest at the Republican Guard Club, and most members of presidential team had also been placed under house arrest, a
Judge Tharwat Hammad said Thursday that judicial authorities had opened an investigation into accusations that Morsi and eight other senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood had defamed the judiciary. All were banned from traveling. The prosecutor expects to question Morsi some time next week.
Next thing you know Morsi will be accused of offending the judges' dignity...
A prosecutor also ordered the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme guide, Mohammed Badie, and a top deputy, Khairat el-Shater, for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters outside the Brotherhood's headquarters Sunday, judicial sources said. It wasn't known where the two men were.
Hint: they aren't in Israel...
The action was taken as a judge appointed to Egypt's constitutional court by Hosni Mubarak -- the strongman leader ousted by the Arab Spring uprising -- was sworn in as interim president Thursday.
Adly Mansour, chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court, pledged to look after the interests of "the great people of Egypt," promised new elections and urged the revolutionaries who helped topple Morsi to stay in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Mansour, 67, said he would respect the rule of law and "look after the interests of the people," according to a live translation by BBC News.
Said interests of the 'people' just happen to coincide with his own. A happy coincidence, is it not?
He said he had received an "order" to become interim president from "the great people of Egypt" and that Egypt should stop producing "tyrants" and worship only God, not "any president."
"We look forward to hold presidential and parliamentary elections based on a genuine people's will," Mansour said.
Which will, amazingly enough, reflect the will of the army general staff...
Shortly afterward, he told journalists that the Muslim Brotherhood was "invited to participate in building the nation, as nobody will be excluded," Reuters reported.
The National Coalition in Support of Legitimacy, a coalition led by the Brotherhood, said its "Friday of Rejection" was meant to say "'No' to the military coup."
Sheikh Abdel Rahman al-Barr, a member of the Brotherhood's executive board, said Thursday that the movement wouldn't work with "the usurper authorities."
"We call on protesters to show self-restraint and stay peaceful. We reject the oppressive, police state practices: killing, arrests, curbing media freedom and closing TV channels," he added.
"Unlike when we had power," he added softly...
Mohamed Beltagy, a leading member of the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, told reporters that Morsi's overthrow could lead to violence -- although not by his group.
No, not us. It's them others. We'd never call for violence. Please put those pliers down!"
"The issue now is the position of the free world that is pushing the country to a state of chaos and pushing groups other than the Brotherhood to return to the idea of change by force," he said.
He said Morsi's followers hadn't resorted to violence but "our leaders and youths were killed, our offices -- and even our homes -- stormed, ransacked, burned and totally destroyed -- not to mention the insults and obscenities we had to suffer."
Oh, so they insulted your dignity too, did they?
The Brotherhood said a "new era of repression and tyranny, of an impending authoritarian police state" had begun, according to the Brotherhood's website, with TV channels shut down, arrests of politicians and "many citizens killed as they demonstrated peacefully."
Sorta like when Anwar and Hosni were in charge. Maybe they knew something about you guys...
A statement from Morsi's office's Twitter account Wednesday quoted the deposed president as saying the military's measures "represent a full coup categorically rejected by all the free men of our nation."
The U.S. was keeping a close eye on developments. President Barack Obama met with top advisers in the White House Situation Room to discuss the crisis Thursday, and members of his national security team "have been in touch with Egyptian officials and our regional partners to convey the importance of a quick and responsible return of full authority to a democratically elected civilian government," the White House said in a statement. Meanwhile, Back in Worshington...
The State Department ordered "the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members from Egypt due to the ongoing political and social unrest."
It remained unclear whether the U.S. would define the military's decision to oust Morsi as a coup. This could affect the $1.5 billion in aid given to Egypt annually. U.S. law bans military or financial assistance "to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree."
Champ is an expert at ignoring laws he doesn't like. This shouldn't be a problem...
Obama said in a statement that he had "directed the relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the government of Egypt."
The Egyptian army insisted that it hadn't carried out a coup but had acted on the will of the people to clear the way for a new leadership.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/05/2013
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So here's how Baltimore's 10 days of gun violence from hell went: About 40 people shot, 16 of them fatally.
Baltimore police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts has decried the violence, as has Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Several members of the Baltimore City Council have also weighed in. But, so far, there's been nothing but silence from the one group of politicians Baltimore citizens need to hear from.
That would be Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who was mayor of Baltimore before he was elected governor. And it would be nice to hear from members of Baltimore's delegation to the state Legislature.
[THE-REVIEW] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... said in an interview published Thursday that his government had fended off everything his enemies had thrown at him and that the only remaining threat to his rule was a far-off -- and improbable -- foreign intervention. Drat! And I was so looking forward to using the headline "Syrian Dictator Ousted by Cannibals."
In comments to the state-run Al-Thawra newspaper, Assad rejected the idea that what has transpired in Syria for more than two years is a revolution. Instead, he reiterated his past claims that it is a conspiracy by Western and some Arab states to destabilize his country.
He also praised this week's massive protests by Egyptians against their Islamist leader and said the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi meant the end of "political Islam."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
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[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
More bad news for the Bammer + US Foreign-Terror Policy.
* See also RELATED DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Reuters.UK] SYRIA'S ASSAD SAYS ONLY FOREIGN INVASION CAN THREATEN HIM, as any + all other Material, Emotional, + Psychological, etc. means to defeat or remove him have failed.
Thinking like IRAN? NORTH KOREA???
* SAME > ASSAD: WEST SENDS [foreign] JIHADISTS TO SYRIA TO GET RID OF THEM.
* SAME, WORLD NEWS > [Independent.UK] FAISAL MEKDAD: US HAS NO CONTROL OVER THE SYRIA REBELS IT IS ARMING - IFF CAMERON + HAGUE THINK [US, NATO-EU supplied] WEAPONS CAN FORCE ASSAD'S DEPARTURE, THEY ARE STUPID + FOOLS.
Ouch.
Throwing down the gauntlet in no nuncertian terms to the Bammer + SecState Jaawhn Kerry.
* SAME > JORDAN NEXT TARGET FOR "ARAB SPRING"? | ISRAEL: "ARAB SPRING" IS NOT OVER.
versus
* TOPIX > [Stars-N-Stripes] ALAWISTAN: SYRIA'S ONCE AND FUTURE STATE?
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > VIDEO: HENRY KISSINGER: "BALKANIZED" AND BROKEN-UP SYRIA IS "BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME" | GLOBAL REAEARCH.
TULSA, Oklahoma - A burglary suspect got quite the surprise Wednesday morning. Police say Robert Cole tried to break into a home, but ended up hogtied in the front yard. Police say Cole was bum-rushed and hogtied by the homeowner, after he tried to break in to the house in the 2600 block of East 54th Street North.
"He's like a superhero," said Denay Houston.
She said she is awfully proud of her husband and how this would-be burglar ended up.
"I got adrenaline running through me like nobody's business right now, and being nine months pregnant doesn't help any," Houston said.
It all started when the Houstons heard the glass break outside their daughter's bedroom around 6 o'clock Wednesday morning.
"That folding chair was in her bedroom, shattered glass all over the place, and I said, 'A raccoon didn't do that.' And he was just like, 'Oh God,'" Houston said.
They heard rustling inside the garage and Houston's husband went to the front door.
"And then he waited for him to come out and then he bum-rushed him," she said.
He did more than just bum-rush him--her husband tied Robert Cole's hands and feet behind his back; hogtied him.
"I was like, 'That's my man!' I was really proud of him," Houston said.
As soon as Cole was tied up, Houston said her husband turned to her and said he had to leave, had to go work. So, he called police and let his wife watch over his catch.
"That's just the type of person he is, you know? That's just the type of person he is. Business is business. 'I got to take care of business, he's safe, the police are coming, I got to go,'" Houston said.
Houston said her husband was never into rodeo or anything, but he does work with horses and knows his way around a rope.
Robert Cole faces one charge of first degree burglary. Police at the scene say he appeared to be on drugs. He is being held at the Tulsa County jail in lieu of $32,079 bond.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/05/2013
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#2
Is the hogtier white or black? White? Could be problems. Is the hogtiee white or black? White? O.K. Looks like an honest-to-goodness hogtie. Jesse and Reverand Sharpton will not show up. The MSM will pay scant attention.
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Former Russian spy Anna Chapman has proposed marriage to NSA leaker on the lam Edward Snowden via Twitter. The flame-haired femme fatale was short and sweet: 'Snowden, will you marry me?!' The tweet came just as the world began to wonder if Edward Snowden was still in Chapman's country of Russia--where he's been holed up in a Moscow airport for days--or if he'd managed to sneak aboard the flight of Bolivian President Evo Morales headed for South America.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2013
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[3 views]
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#1
Well, ya know, after all they both were just toddlers at Penn State.
Personally I blame Professor Muhammed Atta + of course Rap.
#4
I can recommend a sleeveless Congo Casablanca 2013, and a Joesph and Feiss gray cutaway for the groom. Catering by Paula Deen of course. She too, is looking for work.
#12
IIRC Chapman is divorced - she married her husband to get a UK passport (which was revoked). I don't think Snowden is married - all the stories talk about his pole dancer girlfriend.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/05/2013 13:29
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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.
Marine Corps Col. George Bristol was in a key position in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) chain of command the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As such, he's high on the list of people that some Republican members of Congress want to interview. But they don't know where he is and the Pentagon isn't telling.
[NY Times] Islamist supporters of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's ousted president, held enormous demonstrations in Cairo on Friday, and thousands of them angrily confronted security forces guarding the compound where he was believed to be held. Witnesses said at least five demonstrators were killed by gunfire.
[Jpost] Fatah expresses hope that the ouster of Morsi will aid efforts to end divisions among the Paleostinians.
Zawahiri
[Ynet] Wrestling's governing body says it suspended an Egyptian athlete who allegedly bit her Israeli opponent during a bout.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Najib Miqati
The enthusiastic response to the Egyptian military's ouster of President Mohamed Morsi underscored the extent to which the Islamist leader had failed to win allies abroad, much as he had at home, alienating Egypt's traditional friends and foes alike with an often erratic foreign policy. 
In Oregon, officials decided to delay a feature that would allow consumers to customize searches for rating the coverage provided by insurers. And a feature for insurance brokers to track the consumers they enroll will wait for two to four months.
The guy made famous by telling secrets -- about U.S. surveillance programs -- has managed to keep his own whereabouts hush-hush. Somehow, he has made himself lost for nearly 12 days in a mile-long transit corridor dotted with six VIP lounges, a 66-room capsule hotel, assorted coffee shops, a Burger King and about 20 duty-free shops. Unless he's across the runway in private Terminal A, in the watchful company of Russian officials.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday during an official visit to Beijing focused on courting Chinese investment in his country's ailing transport and electricity generating sectors. The visit is Mr Sharif's first to his country's close ally since he returned to power last month. The nations cooperate closely in diplomatic and military affairs, and share a common rival in mutual neighbour India.
[Dawn] Two key
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] A jury deciding whether to sentence a convicted cop killer to death today saw a CCTV recording of the 31-year-old and a 29-year-old prison guard rendezvousing in the prison 'activity room'.
[Dawn] Four security personnel were killed in a bombing at a checkpost in the North 
A crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood movement got underway in Egypt on Thursday with the arrest of several leading members following the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his replacement by a top judge.
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Former Russian spy Anna Chapman has proposed marriage to NSA leaker on the lam Edward Snowden via Twitter. The flame-haired femme fatale was short and sweet: 'Snowden, will you marry me?!' The tweet came just as the world began to wonder if Edward Snowden was still in Chapman's country of Russia--where he's been holed up in a Moscow airport for days--or if he'd managed to sneak aboard the flight of Bolivian President Evo Morales headed for South America.
