That's right, Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, has lent his name to a brand of vodka. Might 'splain Fred's 2009/2010, er, party face?
The Czech Republic followed Portugal to become the second European country to formally decriminalise drug possession this week, announcing specific quantities beneath which users will not be prosecuted.
Under the new laws (which come into force on January 1) Czech people will be allowed to possess up to 4 ecstasy tablets. 15 grams (half an ounce) of marijuana, 5 grams of hash and 1 gram of cocaine with prison sentences still a potential threat for those in possession of more.
Legendary Czech club promoter Ales Bleha told Skrufff hes delighted about the new laws though said he expects them to have minimal impact on people in Czech.
Few people have any problems with drugs here already, unless they deliberately provoke the police or do stupid things and people who already smoke marijuana or use hard drugs will do so the same as before, he predicted. The Czech Republic is already sometimes called the 2nd Amsterdam or Amsterdam of the East.
HT: Atlas Shrugs (Pam "Yummy" Geller)
The woman did tell police that the rocket launcher belonged to Nabilaye I. Yansane, someone whom she allowed to store items at her apartment.
Police records show that she didn't want Yansane at her apartment, so she called them.
According to court documents, officers also found Jihadist writings that allegedly belonged to Yansane. The woman didn't want to talk to KPRC Local 2 about that, either.
A federal judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a deadly Baghdad shooting.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said Thursday the Justice Department overstepped its bounds and wrongly used evidence it was not allowed to see. He said the government's explanations have been contradictory, unbelievable and not credible.
Blackwater contractors were hired to guard State Department diplomats in Iraq. Prosecutors say the guards fired on unarmed civilians in a busy intersection in 2007, killing innocent people.
After the shooting, the guards gave statements to State Department investigators. Prosecutors were not allowed to use those statements in the case.
#2
"government's explanations have been contradictory, unbelievable and not credible"
Explanations, hell.
That's a description of our present gummint itself. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/31/2009 19:47
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Words fail me. I hope these five guys can put their lives back together because this has to have been as bad as combat, but it lasts a lot longer. And I hope Ridgeway gets hard time. He's pled for it.
#6
per later reports, the guy who killed the 7 cia employees was apparently NOT SEARCHED before being let into the compound. He had said he was a high level informant with urgent info.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/31/2009 19:42
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#7
A terrible mistake. So sorry to hear this.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/31/2009 22:18
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The British are all smiles over the release of Peter Moore, a British citizen who was held hostage by an Iranian-backed Shia terror group in Iraq. But there is little talk about the price paid to secure Moore's release. The US military has freed Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq, or League of the Righteous, as well as his brother Laith, several Qods Force officers, and more than 100 members of the terror group, in exchange for Moore. And that isn't all. The British also received the corpses of three security contractors who were working to protect Moore when he was kidnapped at the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in May 2007. The three contractors were executed by the Asaib al Haq; another is also thought to have been killed.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/31/2009
13:59 ||
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Ahhh, what the heck, Zero was gonna let 'em go without consideration anyways. Therefore BONUS....!
Officials in Bolivia issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for a leading political rival of leftist President Evo Morales, charging the conservative politician with tax evasion and election fraud.
Manfred Reyes Villa, a former governor of the state of Cochabamba who challenged Morales for Bolivia's presidency, has been in hiding since the December 6 election. An arrest order has also been issued for his wife.
Morales won the election in a landslide, which gave him unfettered control of Bolivia's legislature and a solid grip on the reins of governmental power.
Since the vote, regional prosecutor Mauricio Julio Quintana, whose jurisdiction covers Reyes's home province of Cochabamba, has stepped up his investigation of the former military officer, who was ousted from his governor's post in a January recall vote, along with several other "rebel" governors opposed to Morales.
Reyes -- who has called himself a "victim" of persecution at the hands of Morales's government -- has gone into hiding and is believed to be holed up somewhere in Bolivia, according to a few media outlets which report having had contact with him.
Reyes has filed a complaint pending against the Morales government with the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights.
His attorney, Daniel Humerez, decried what he called a "politicized" investigation, noting that Quintana has close personal and political ties with Morales. "We want the prosecutor to recuse himself" from the investigation against Reyes, Humerez said.
KABUL (AP) - The Taliban claimed responsibility Thursday for infiltrating a CIA post with a suicide bomber who set off an explosion that killed seven American intelligence staffers and wounded six others in an attack believed one of the worst in the agency's history.
In Washington, CIA director Leon Panetta said the seven killed in Wednesday's attack "were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism."
The attack was a blow to the CIA, which has lost only four operatives in this country since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It also was the deadliest for Americans since eight soldiers were killed Oct. 3 when insurgents attacked a remote base, also in eastern Afghanistan.
Among those killed was the chief of the CIA's operation at Camp Chapman in the Khost province of eastern Afghanistan, The Associated Press has learned. Former CIA officials said the base chief, a mother of three, would have directed and coordinated CIA operations and intelligence gathering in the province, a hotbed of Taliban and insurgent activity because of its proximity to Pakistan's lawless tribal region. The former officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Earlier, a U.S. official who was briefed on the blast said eight U.S. civilians and an Afghan were killed in the attack.
Among those killed was Harold E. Brown Jr., of Fairfax, Va., died in the attack, according to his father, Harold E. Brown Sr. The elder Brown said Thursday that his 37-year-old son, who grew up in Bolton, Mass., served in the Army and worked for the State Department. He is survived by a wife and three children ages 12, 10 and 2.
#1
If Americans weren't all PC and shit, CIA would just kidnap and kill a slew from the bomber's tribe. But most Americans just don't roll that way. Prolly a feature rather than a bug...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/31/2009 14:35
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Suicide bomber invited on base, was being cultivated as a source
A former senior intelligence official says the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp. An experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose was to gain intelligence, the official said. A separate U.S. official suggested the bomber may have set off the explosives as he was about to be searched.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that an Afghan National Army officer wearing a suicide vest entered the base and blew himself up inside the gym. A U.S. official briefed on the blast also said it took place in the gym.
The incident occurred at a former military base on the edge of Khost city, the capital of Khost province which borders Pakistan and is a Taliban stronghold.
It started with a cough, a cool-season hack that refused to go away.
Then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled the skinny frame of Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English. His lungs clattered, his chest tightened and he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m., Juarez felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood.
Juarez's strain -- so-called extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) TB -- has never before been seen in the United States, according to Dr. David Ashkin, one of the nation's leading experts on tuberculosis. XXDR tuberculosis is so rare that only a handful of other people in the world are thought to have had it.
"These are the ones we really fear because I'm not sure how we treat them," Ashkin said.
Isolation? That's what they did with Typhoid Mary. While harsh, it's not as bad now that there's the internet.
It's Not Yet Friday, But It Is New Year's Eve What Better Time To Release An Iran-Backed Terror Master Who Murdered American Troops? [Andy McCarthy]
I can't believe I am writing this while Iranian tyrants are brutally suppressing a revolt by the Iranian people ... and only days after the Obama administration made a fiasco of a terrorist attack that nearly killed 289 people.
Back in the early summer, I wrote about how, even as the Iranian regime continued killing American troops, the Obama administration had engaged in shameful negotiations with an Iran-backed terror network (the League of the Righteous) in Iraq negotiations that resulted in the release of Laith Qazali, one of the terrorists responsible for the murders of five American soldiers in Karbala, in exchange for the remains of two British hostages.
Shortly thereafter, the Obama administration released the "Irbil Five," commanders from the Iranian IRGC's elite "Quds Force" who had been captured by our military after coordinating terrorist attacks in Iraq that have killed hundreds of American soldiers and Marines.
Today, New Year's Eve, while everyone's attention is understandably on family and friends, we learn (thanks to the ever alert Bill Roggio, reporting on the Standard's blog) that the administration has now released Qais Qazali, Laith's brother, who is the head of the Iran-backed terror network, in addition to a hundred other terrorists. In violation of the long-standing, commonsense policy against capitulating to kidnappers and terrorists because it just encourages more hostage-taking and murder, the terrorists were released in exchange for a British hostage and the remains of his three contract guards (whom the terrorists had murdered).
So, as the mullahs, America's incorrigible enemies, struggle to hang on, we're giving them accommodations and legitimacy. And the messages we send? Terrorize us and we'll negotiate with you. Kill American troops or kidnap civilians and win valuable concessions including the release of an army of jihadists, and its leaders, who can now go back to targeting American troops.
As Bill elaborated in the Long War Journal: We let a very dangerous man go, a man whose hands are stained with US and Iraqi blood, a military officer said. We are going to pay for this in the future.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/31/2009
13:08 ||
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#1
I saw the video,
I have a mental image of the lady running the scanner smiling and going "Mmmm' when a well endowed man goes through.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 13:53
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#2
Fox has been running a clip showing a rotating view of a man being scanned. Doesn't leave much for imagination, he apparently was wearing briefs or wasn't wearing underwear at all.
I wonder how breast and other enhancements show up?
#3
My favorite airport security is in China, in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, anyway. If you set off the metal detector, young, very cute women will cheerfully pat you down regardless of your gender. I don't know why I keep forgetting I left my cell phone in my pocket.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% oppose the use of such techniques, and another 12% are not sure.
Men and younger voters are more strongly supportive of the aggressive interrogation techniques than women and those who are older. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party favor their use more than Democrats.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters think the attempt by the Nigerian Muslim to blow up the airliner as it landed in Detroit should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act. Only 22% say it should be handled by civilian authorities as a criminal act, as is currently the case. Jack Bauer to the white courtesy telephone, please.
#1
I see it as a glimmer of hope that the younger voters are for waterboarding. wonder how many opf them got suckered in during the Nobama campaign and are now feeling suckered and changed the ways of their thinking.
Posted by: chris ||
12/31/2009 13:13
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#2
Read a comment somewhere that used the term "knickerbomber". I like that.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/31/2009 22:31
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This administration is beginning to get far beyond just being frightening
On December 26, two days after Nigerian Omar Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to use underwear packed with plastic explosives to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight he was on, and as it became clear internally that the Administration had suffered perhaps its most embarrassing failure in the area of national security, senior Obama White House aides, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and new White House counsel Robert Bauer, ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns -- if any -- from the Bush Administration.
"The idea was that we'd show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could," says a staffer in the counsel's office. "We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we'd declassify it if necessary."
The White House, according to the source, is in full defensive spin mode. Other administration sources also say a flurry of memos were generated on December 26th, 27th, and 28th, which developed talking points about how Obama's decision to effectively shut down the Homeland Security Council (it was merged earlier this year into the National Security Council, run by National Security Adviser James Jones) had nothing to do with what Obama called a "catastrophic" failure on Christmas Day.
"This White House doesn't view the Northwest [Airlines] failure as one of national security, it's a political issue," says the White House source. "That's why Axelrod and Emanuel are driving the issue."
Axelrod, who has no foreign policy or national security experience beyond occasionally consulting with liberal or progressive candidates running for political office in foreign countries, has been actively participating in national security briefings from the beginning of the administration. He has also sat in on Obama's "war council" meetings, providing Obama with suggestions in both venues based on what he knows about polling and public opinion data, say several White House sources.
"[Axelrod] isn't sitting in the meetings telling the President, 'Do this because the polling shows that,'" says one source. "But we know that in less public settings, or on paper, David does provide guidance to the President that gives him added context to the recommendations and information our foreign policy and national security teams give him."
Axelrod's presence in the meetings has raised some eyebrows, as previous political advisers in the White House have typically not participated in such meetings. Bush Administration sources, for example, say that political adviser Karl Rove was not present at national security meetings.
#1
Dr. Goebbels advocated that propoganda was an integral part of national security.
Axelrod and Emanuel are indicating to me that to Obambi, every decision is a political decision. THis is exactly what I feared from him. The Dems played politics with National Security when Bush was President and now they are playing politics with national security under Obama.
They are playing with fire, all it will take is one successful terrorist act in the US under these guys watch, with the American public knowing how the Dems treated Bush's efforts to keep us safe, and all hell is going to break loose.
I do have one suggestion to AQ, whatever you do, I suggest ground zero should be the NYT...that'll MAYBE wake up the press to the reality of WAR...they can deny and ridicule Dick Chaney all they want but a majority of American's agree with him and their denial/ridicule only enflames the citizens of this country about the lack of seriousness by this administration about National Security
Posted by: Karl Rove ||
12/31/2009 12:28
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Missing from the analysis is recognition of the fact that Axelrod and Emanuel each have more brains, and bigger stones, than The One. Fortunately, both of these guys are small-time Chicago hatchet men. Just imagine if they were capable of conceiving and executing a grand strategy.
IOW, it's less "Manchurian Candidate" than "Being There."
Whiteriver, AZ -- A pregnancy center in rural eastern Arizona that serves a predominantly native American population was severely burned in what appears to be an arson attack. The Living Hope Women's Center clinic has closed indefinitely as a result of a fire that gutted a portion of the building on December 20.
Dinah Monahan, the former executive director and current board president of the group of pregnancy centers that operate as Living Hope, says it appears to her the fire was deliberate.
The center maintains a Fatherhood Store and Mommy Store to help low-income residents earn the ability to purchases critically needed pregnancy and other items and Monahan says they were raided.
She told the White Mountain Independent newspaper that whoever started the fire vandalized televisions, VCRs and other equipment before setting the blaze in the back of the building.
The board president indicated that a local resident who lives next door to the clinic heard and saw people at the scene and chased them away from the clinic after the fire began. The neighbor was able to wrestle one person to the ground and the newspaper indicates the individual is now in police custody.
Monahan indicated the fire did not burn the clinic to the ground but caused enough fire and smoke damage that the clinic facility is useless until it undergoes major repairs.
Monahan told the WMI the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is investigating the fire and that a representative from the Phoenix Bureau of Indian Affairs has investigate as well because the fire would be a federal crime since it occurred on an Indian reservation.
The center president told the newspaper that ATF officials asked her if the pregnancy center was involved in anything controversial that might have sparked a hate crime.
"The agent very gingerly asked if we were involved in 'anything controversial' in our ministry," she said. "You can imagine what they hear about Crisis Pregnancy Centers, abortion clinic bombings and the like. I assured him that even though we are a CPC ), our work was mostly pre-natal and parenting and that the culture in Whiteriver is very pro-life."
She told the newspaper the apparent arson will set the pregnancy center back quite a bit financially and logistically.
"When we think of everything we had in there it is a bit overwhelming. We had just gotten two new computers, a new ultrasound machine, a very large screen TV and of course our beautiful, huge Mommy Store. But these are things that can be replaced. One greater challenge will be where do we go from here?" Monahan asked.
She is concerned because the availability of buildings in Whiteriver is very scarce.
Monahan indicated the Whiteriver pregnancy center had 400-600 visits every month from the low-income people who live in the community. Pro-life is an understatement. If anyone dies in a building, that building becomes taboo. A common practice among the western tribes.
The body of a man who shot dead four people in a shopping centre after killing his ex-girlfriend has been found in an apartment on the outskirts of Helsinki.
Ibrahim Shkupolli, 43, killed his former partner before apparently hunting down her lover at the shopping mall where he worked. He took out out a 9mm pistol and started shooting early this morning as shoppers stocked up on food and drink for the new year holiday at the Prisma supermarket on the second floor of a mall in Espoo, a large town close to the capital Helsinki.
His body was found at his apartment in a suburb of Helsinki shortly after his ex-girlfriend was found dead in a house in Espoo. Police believe her killing had a domestic motive. It is thought the woman worked in the mall where Shkupolli embarked on his rampage, and that he was subject to a restraining order.
Jyrkky Kallio, a local police chief, said there were hundreds of people in the mall at the time of the shooting. One male victim had been shot twice in the head, said Stefan Soederstroem, head of Espoo police. It is believed that he was the lover of the gunman's ex-girlfriend. Altogether, four people appear to have been killed at the mall three men and a female shop assistant who was shot in the stomach.
After the shootings, police launched a manhunt for Shkupolli, issuing a picture of the suspect and advising people not to attempt to overpower him. They were able to narrow down the prime suspect relatively quickly on the basis of witness testimony. His name appears to be of Kosovan-Albanian origin and police said he was not born in Finland.
Members of Finland's anti-terror squad, wearing heavy body armour, scoured the labyrinthine shopping mall. Evacuated shoppers were told to leave their purchases and not to collect their cars. Trains were ordered not to stop at the station closest to the mall and armed units were stationed in Helsinki train station in case the gunman had already slipped into the capital.
Although Espoo is big by Finnish standards, the community is close and it is not a place associated with violent crime. Many of the 240,000 inhabitants work for Nokia, and the town has a university research centre and well-funded schools. It was, however, the third mass shooting in Finland in two years and is likely to prompt a new debate about gun control. Naturally, the rest of the article is about "the slow progress that has been made in tightening gun ownership" in Finland.
He's a liberal oreo with the proper credentials and a cool temperament. Or you could say he's the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.
#7
Funny that not just the Chinese, Saudis, Oogo et al but our allies' leaders treat him with such contempt. Sarko despises him. Brown humiliated him over the Lockerbie case. Bibi views him as a clown.
Prob'y time to just start viewing him as a token who achieved his purpose, of repaying our slavery debt, and let the nation get back to evaluating presidential candidates and every other candidate on his or her merits. (Merit... remember that concept?)
During the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, papal investigators would insert a pointed stick into the rectum; this interrogation technique became known as questioning somebody in the Spanish fashion. I was reminded of this arcane bit of history by the recent arrest of a suspect who was trying to blow up the Delta Airline jetliner as it approached Detroit airport.
The Nigerian passenger is supposed to have been carrying the deadly explosive PETN in a strap taped below his underwear. Covering himself with a blanket, he then tried to inject the chemical with a detonator, causing the whole device to catch fire and burn him badly. Luckily, the plane and the passengers survived the terrorist attempt.
The explosive carried by Umar Farouq Abdulmuttaleb was the same chemical used a few months ago by Abdullah Asieri to try and kill Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi prince who heads the countrys counter-terrorism efforts. In this case, the device did explode and injure the prince who was saved only because the body of the would-be assassin absorbed most of the blast. A pound of PETN was hidden in Asieris anal cavity, and was triggered by a mobile phone.
When Richard Reid concealed explosives in the soles of his shoes and tried to blow up a passenger jet in December 2001, he caused millions of pairs of shoes to be removed ever since, inconveniencing passengers for the foreseeable future.
However, while taking off your shoes before boarding a flight is easy, even though it might be a hassle, how does airport security cope with a possible bomb taped under your underwear? Worse, how can aspiring suicide bombers be kept off planes when they are carrying explosives in their rectums?
The reason Abdulmuttaleb was able to board the Delta Airline flight in Amsterdam is that the explosives detector couldnt pick up the chemical taped against his body under his underwear. Similarly, Asieri was able to spend hours with the Saudi prince because security devices and guards failed to detect the PETN secreted in his anus.
So where does this leave airport security? Even worse, where do these dangers leave the travelling public? As somebody who takes international flights quite regularly, I am selfishly concerned about the additional time security checks will now need. Already, passengers are being warned to report to the airport even earlier; henceforth, the lines at the security checks can only grow longer.
According to the internet, US-bound passengers will have to remain in their seats for the last hour of the flights, and they will be unable to use blankets and pillows, or access their hand-held luggage in that period. A CCTV camera may soon be placed in all the toilets. While I can cope with these inconveniences, what are we to do about being searched in the Spanish fashion?
If airline security staff can ask us to take off our shoes, will they next ask us to strip to our underwear? And what comes next? A more serious and real concern is the stereotyping of suspected suicide bombers. Whether we like it or not, the only ones who have either carried out, or plotted, the mid-air destruction of passenger aircraft have been Muslims.
Given the persistent targeting of US-bound aircraft, it is a matter of time before passengers with Muslim names flying to American destinations have to undergo even more stringent security checks. As it is, they are facing increasing difficulty in obtaining US visas, even though this is not true of Abdulmuttaleb whose multiple-entry visa was not revoked despite a warning about his militancy from his own father.I often wish these angry, unhinged terrorists would pause for a moment and reflect on what they are trying to achieve. Just suppose the Delta flight to Detroit had tragically gone down with its 278 passengers and crew. Did Abdulmuttaleb really think his act would change American policies any more than 9/11 did? In the event, the people who will suffer most from his insane attempt are fellow Muslims.
This is true of all extremist attacks the world over. While I separate resistance struggles and nationalist movements involving Muslims from the global jihad led by Al Qaeda, the fact is that ultimately, random violence targeting the innocent gains nothing.
We in Pakistan have become hardened to suicide attacks carried out by poor, uneducated teenagers who have been brainwashed by their cynical mentors. But Abdulmuttaleb was a privileged young man enrolled at University College in London. In this sense, he was similar to the 9/11 bombers, most of whom were highly educated and extensively travelled people.
If there are any profiles to be drawn here, it is that educated young Muslims are most likely to get visas to travel to the US, and will therefore be the subjects of special scrutiny. Already, a Muslim male between 18 and 40 attracts the attention of security staff at airports in the West. This is likely to increase manifold.
As airlines and airports tighten security still further, all passengers are going to be inconvenienced. Although the cause of this travel misery is a handful of misguided idiots, most passengers will blame Muslims, not entirely without reason. This will feed into the Islamophobia that is inexorably rising in the West.
Ever since 9/11, many Americans have eyed fellow-passengers with long beards with suspicion and fear. Some captains have had Muslims off-loaded because other passengers refused to fly with them. This media-fuelled environment of fear and distrust will widen the growing divide between Muslim immigrants and their Western host communities.
Muslim students wishing to study in the States will be the other big losers. Already, they undergo tough visa checks after getting admission; now, security-related procedures will make the whole experience a nightmare. Even when they have their visas and their admissions, actually getting into the US will be problematic with Homeland Security officers having the authority to refuse anybody entry.
Before we begin accusing Americans of being anti-Islamic in the wake of this latest attempted terrorist atrocity, we should consider the responsibility every government has to protect its citizens. Just because ours has been unable to prevent repeated attacks does not mean others should fail in this duty as well.
Given all these likely new obstacles to getting into the United States, its just as well that the country does not figure on my travel itinerary in the near future. Somehow, I do not think I would enjoy being searched in the Spanish fashion.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/31/2009
10:02 ||
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This environment of fear and distrust will widen the growing divide between Muslim immigrants and their Western host communities
I bet if we study the teacings of Bin Laden & Zawahiri we will find part of their plan is to emplace a wedge between Muslim immigrants and their host countries - these random attacks may really be for the purpose of stoking anti-Muslim attitudes so they can exploit the 'poor, downtrodden' Muslim sentiments.
#3
how can aspiring suicide bombers be kept off planes when they are carrying explosives in their rectums?
Easy. Use Israeli-style screeners to ask every passenger a few simple q's while they're waiting in line at security. No bags for a 1-way trip, you paid cash, you have no business or family ion Detroit, you're sweating, sir? Step over here, please....
Works for the Israelis and can work for us. If we ever get over our stupid tech fetish and rely on old-fashioned face-to-face humint, that is.
#4
The problem comes down to this: when you have to make command decisions, you will make some people happy and you will pi$$ off others. In this case, your job is to protect the citizens of the United States from terrorist acts. Based upon your available knowledge, Muslim males between the ages of 18 and 40 are historically prime suspects, and the lassies are starting to show up on the radar screen, so you put your resources where they are best used.
So will you do your job and pursue potential terrorists with logic and techniques that have been shown to work, or will you do nothing but play with your techno toys (the technological imperative) and try not to antagonize your potential terrorist?
The Israelis chose the former, and the TSA the latter. This comes down to the quality of leadership at the top, which is presently in short supply, and to the rest of the world is weak and ripe for attack.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/31/2009 15:14
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I'm impressed that it took 12 comments before anyone at Politico said that (or anything like that) after a report that Rush Limbaugh has been hospitalized with chest pains and is in "serious" condition.
AND: Rush Limbaugh has said on his show many times that once the government runs health care, there is a threat that life-or-death decisions will be made based on politics, and people will worry that if they criticize the government or espouse the wrong opinions decisions will go against them.
#4
We have a most challenging year coming up in the latest dance around the sun. Might as well get started right. Heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Kotzebue, AK ||
12/31/2009 13:01
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#5
My sincere wish for the New Year and the next couple of months is that all of you stay warm and safe, and that you can AFFORD to stay warm and safe!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/31/2009 13:47
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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has said that Indian Army's new military doctrine including scenarios such as a two-front simultaneous war with both China and Pakistan "betrays a hostile intent" and a "jingoistic mindset".
Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said in a statement that the Indian Army's new military doctrine "betray a hostile intent as well as a hegemonic and jingoistic mindset which is quite out of step with the realities of our time".
Pakistan is prepared to defend itself in the face of all contingencies, Basit said. "No one should ever underestimate our capability and determination to foil any nefarious designs against the security of Pakistan," he said.
Indian Army officials have said that the doctrine, which is reviewed every five years at the Army's Shimla-based Training Command, will now include scenarios such as a two- front simultaneous war with both China and Pakistan.
Basit called on the world community to take "due notice of such statements".
He added: "Pakistan remains mindful of the threats posed to its security as well as the importance of promoting peace in South Asia."
The spokesman also told a weekly news briefing at the Foreign Office that Pakistan's desire for peace should not be mistaken for weakness
Posted by: john frum ||
12/31/2009
09:29 ||
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AFCEA Intelligence India: Update. The Times of India reported today the Indian Army is revising its five-year-old doctrine to meet effectively the challenges of a possible 'two-front war' with China and Pakistan. The Army has identified five thrust areas that will propel the new doctrine be ready for a two-front war, to optimize capabilities to fight asymmetric warfare including cyber and electronic warfare, to enhance strategic reach and capability to fight a war away from Indian shores particularly in the Indian Ocean Region, tri-services joint operations including space-based capability, and to achieve technological edge over the enemy, according to a military spokesman.
Work on the new war doctrine -- to reflect the reconfiguration of threat perceptions and security challenges -- is on under the aegis of the Shimla-based Army Training Command, headed by Lt-Gen A S Lamba, Times sources reported. The doctrinal revision is the next step after multiple war games during the past five years to practice the Armys pro-active or cold start strategy to mobilize and move fast and strike hard. A review of warfighting doctrine is mandatory every five years, Brahmand.com reported.
The cold start strategy, including provisions for operations in NBC (nuclear-chemical-biological) warfare conditions, emerged from the 'harsh lessons' of Operation Parakram, during which the Army took just under a month to prepare 750,000 soldiers for war with Pakistan in January 2002, after the attack against the Indian Parliament by Pakistani Muslim terrorists in December 2001.
The Army has been developing and testing the new doctrine for nine years. In the past two years it began significant reinforcement of forces on the China border in eastern India and in the disputed Aksai Chin region, adjacent to Jammu and Kashmir State in the west.
The new doctrine assumes that in any conflict Pakistan and China will coordinate their military moves. Pakistans forces act as pawns in Chinas drive for dominance of Asia. The news is that India perceives no reason to change its strategic assumptions and directions. The aim is to knock Pakistan out of a war through surprise, speed and combat power, before it can retaliate and before outside political intervention produces another inconclusive outcome.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/31/2009 9:34
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Phoenix -- A man in his late 30s was roasting a pig at a family gathering Wednesday night when he somehow fell into the cylindrical pit. It happened on East Kristal Way in North Phoenix.
Despite the fact that the pit was only 3 feet deep, the man was overcome by the heat and failed to get out. Neighbors heard his screams for help, but by the time his family got to him, it was already too late. A spokesman from the Phoenix Fire Department told CBS 5 News that one of the victim's friends was so distraught, he had to be transported to the hospital.
Phoenix police are investigating to see if alcohol may have been a contributing factor, but at this time, they believe it was just a horrible accident.
Four Canadian soldiers and a Canadian journalist were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by a bomb in southern Kandahar province on Wednesday, the Canadian Defense Ministry said.
Four other Canadian soldiers and a Canadian civilian official were wounded in the blast, which occurred about four km (2.5 miles) outside the city of Kandahar, the ministry said in a statement.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009
07:42 ||
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Three men suspected of being al-Qaida associates have been indicted on charges they plotted to ferry drugs through the Sahara Desert to raise money for terrorist attacks.
Authorities say the case marks the first time the U.S. has captured and charged al-Qaida suspects in a drug trafficking plot in Africa. They were brought to the U.S. this month after being arrested in Ghana.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009
07:38 ||
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A British computer expert and his four bodyguards kidnapped in Iraq in 2007 were seized in an operation masterminded by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, and were held in Iran, media reported Thursday.
Peter Moore was released unharmed Wednesday after an "unspeakable" two-and-a-half year kidnap ordeal during which at least three of the bodyguards died.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his government hailed Moore's release, which it said was due to improved reconciliation in the violence-scarred country.
But there is speculation a deal has been done as it emerged the leader of the group which took Moore from a government building in Baghdad was being transferred from US to Iraqi custody.
The Guardian newspaper reported that the Revolutionary Guard led the operation and took the five to Iran within a day of their abduction.
The BBC also quoted the US's former commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, as saying he was "90 percent certain" that the group was held in Iran for part of their time in capitivity.
Petraeus was quoted telling a correspondent earlier this month: "I'm absolutely certain. I'm 90 percent certain" when asked if they were taken to Iran, adding: "I'm pretty sure I've seen hard intelligence on it."
Moore was targeted because he was installing a computer tracking system that would show how vast amounts of international aid money to Iraqi institutions was diverted to Iran's militia groups in Iraq, according to the Guardian.
A former unnamed Revolutionary Guard said the five were held in two camps including one known as Qasser Shiereen close to the Iraqi border. "It was an Iranian kidnap, led by the Revolutionary Guard, carried out by the Al-Quds brigade," he was quoted saying on the paper's website.
"My contact works for Al-Quds. He took part in the planning of the kidnap and he watched the kidnapping as it was taking place. He told me that they spent two days at the Qasser Shiereen camp. "They then took them deep inside Iran."
An unnamed Iraqi government minister reportedly backed up the claims. "This was an IRG (Iranian Revolutionary Guard) operation," he said.
Britain's Foreign Office told the paper: "We have no evidence that the British hostages, including Peter Moore, were held in Iran. "We are not in a position to say with any certainty where they were held during each and every single day of their two-and-a-half years in captivity."
The US confirmed Thursday that the leader of the group behind the kidnapping was being transferred to Iraqi custody, amid speculation, denied by Britain, that a deal was done to secure Moore's release.
"The United States has complied with an Iraqi government request in accordance with the US-Iraqi Security Agreement and the rule of law to transfer AAH (Asaib al-Haq) members, to include Qais al-Khazaali, from US custody to Iraqi custody pursuant to an Iraqi arrest warrant," the US spokesman said.
Although it was not immediately clear if Khazaali was still in US custody, the BBC reported that he had been handed over "very recently", citing a senior British government official.
Moore had thought he was about to be shot shortly before being set free, his family told British media. "He did think he was going to get a bullet in the head. He was very frightened. He thought he was going to be killed. Then he realised he was to be released," his stepmother Pauline Sweeney said.
Meanwhile, Moore's father Graeme, who he has not seen for 15 years, told the Times that efforts to free the group, which were kept low-profile throughout their ordeal, had been botched. "If they had done it properly, all five would be walking out of there," he said.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009
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...that patina of cosmopolitanism in President Obama's background concealed the isolationism of the liberal coalition that brought him to power. The tide had turned in the congressional elections of 2006. American liberalism was done with its own antecedents--the outlook of Woodrow Wilson and FDR and Harry Truman and John Kennedy. It wasn't quite "Come home, America," but close to it. This was now the foreign policy of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. There was in the land a "liberal orientalism," if you will, a dismissive attitude about the ability of other nations to partake of liberty. It had started with belittling the Iraqis' aptitude for freedom. But there was implicit in it a broader assault on the very idea of freedom's possibilities in distant places. East was East, and West was West, and never the twain shall meet.
We're weary, the disillusioned liberalism maintains, and we're broke, and there are those millions of Americans aching for health care and an economic lifeline. We can't care for both Ohio and the Anbar, Peoria and Peshawar. It is either those embattled people in Iran or a rescue package for Chrysler.... Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/31/2009
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#1
A courageous man, with a name like that.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/31/2009 8:35
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#2
when one utters the Islamic-Manchurian candidate, who comes to mind?
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
12/31/2009 10:06
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#3
"Ideology is so yesterday," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed not long ago, giving voice to the new sentiment.
Spoken like a true tranzi. Absolutely frightening. The weak horse left and the Obami may believe this, but rest assured not one of our enemies does. Friends either for that matter.
We're threatened by backward 7th century savages worldwide. Oderint dum metuant is a far safer attitude for US foreign policy. I won't hold my breath.
h/t Instapundit
America still has a race problem, though not the one that conventional wisdom would suggest: the racism of whites toward blacks. Old fashioned white racism has lost its legitimacy in the world and become an almost universal disgrace.
The essence of our new "post-modern" race problem can be seen in the parable of the emperor's new clothes. The emperor was told by his swindling tailors that people who could not see his new clothes were stupid and incompetent. So when his new clothes arrived and he could not see them, he put them on anyway so that no one would think him stupid and incompetent. And when he appeared before his people in these new clothes, they toonot wanting to appear stupid and incompetentexclaimed the beauty of his wardrobe. It was finally a mere child who said, "The emperor has no clothes."
The lie of seeing clothes where there were none amounted to a sophisticationjoining oneself to an obvious falsehood in order to achieve social acceptance. In such a sophistication there is an unspoken agreement not to see what one clearly seesin this case the emperor's flagrant nakedness.
America's primary race problem today is our new "sophistication" around racial matters. Political correctness is a compendium of sophistications in which we join ourselves to obvious falsehoods ("diversity") and refuse to see obvious realities (the irrelevance of diversity to minority development). I would argue further that Barack Obama's election to the presidency of the United States was essentially an American sophistication, a national exercise in seeing what was not there and a refusal to see what was thereall to escape the stigma not of stupidity but of racism.
When the US Goverment allows 25% of political asylum seekers to come from countries that admire al-Qaeda, have no educational system, arrive in the US and establish a parallel society, send boys home to fight along side of al-Qaeda or Islamist regimes, well yes that can breed ill-will on behalf of the host citizenry.
h/t Instapundit
This new French carbon tax was scheduled to go into law on Jan1, 2010. The tax was steep: 17 euros per ton of carbon dioxide (USD $24.40). In a stunning move, and surely a blow to warmists everywhere, the tax has been found unconstitutional and thrown out.
As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident. Once again, wrong target.
TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.
Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his lap top computer. Frischling said the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn't cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo. This does not pass the smell test. Not sure any of those threats are legal. Has TSA been granted law enforcement authority to support this type of action outside of an airport? He should have contacted local law enforcement and an attorney immediately.
"It literally showed up in my box," Frischling told the Associated Press. "I do not know who it came from." He said he provided the agents a signed statement to that effect.
In a Dec. 29 posting on his blog, Elliott said he had told the TSA agents at his house that he would call his lawyer and get back to them. Elliott did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
The TSA declined to say how many people were subpoenaed.
The directive was dated Dec. 25 and was issued after a 23-year-old Nigerian man was charged with attempting to bomb a Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam. The bomb, which allegedly was hidden in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's underwear, malfunctioned and no one was killed. Authorities said the device included a syringe and a condom-like bag filled with powder that the FBI determined to be PETN, a common explosive.
The near-miss attack has prompted President Barack Obama to order a review of what intelligence information the government had about Abdulmutallab and why it wasn't shared with the appropriate agencies. He also ordered a review of U.S. aviation security. The government has spent billions of dollars and undergone massive reorganizations since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
The TSA directive outlined new screening measures that went into effect the same day as the airliner incident. It included many procedures that would be apparent to the traveling public, such as screening at boarding gates, patting down the upper legs and torso, physically inspecting all travelers' belongings, looking carefully at syringes with powders and liquids, requiring that passengers remain in their seats one hour before landing, and disabling all onboard communications systems, including what is provided by the airline.
It also listed people who would be exempted from these screening procedures such as heads of state and their families. People of privilege already being given priority listing, how lovely.
#1
The bloggers should all point to a mole deep within TSA named Strep Throat.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 7:54
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#2
That or give the http link to the TSA's top secret procedures manual.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 7:56
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#3
Claim it was CAIR.
I suspect that all new procedures get reviewed and approved by CAIR first before implementation. -- You know to make sure the Terrorist's sensibilities are not offended.
#4
This relates to non-classified Sensitive Security Information (SSI), but when the New York Slimes, Washington Composite or Congressional aids reveal Secret and Top Secret info, then the Government is paralyzed since issuing a subpoena might inflict a "chilling affect" on media or hurt a political agenda. This country is a joke and in trouble.
#5
knee-jerk response by an embarrassed and incompetent org. The one-hour no-blankie or magazine or book on the lap rule is something an idiot would devise to look "like we're doing something".
Fire Napolitano Now!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2009 9:15
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The one-hour no-blankie or magazine or book on the lap rule
Unlike the TSA flavor, even your plain garden variety of idiot would realize how stupid this is.
As security guy Bruce Schneier has pointed out, the only things that have made air travel safer are reinforced cockpit doors and passengers realizing they need to fight back.
#8
Shades of Iowahawk's satire. From "Man, Do I hate Holiday Travel":
by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
...The US State Department agent asked to see my passport, and the concierge explained that I was a Somali refugee. So she looks at her computer screen and says, "um, I'm afraid there's a problem, this passenger's name is on a watch list." Oh, great. Looks like my dad is playing Mr. Buzzkill again, just because I took that semester off from Oxford to go backpacking in Yemen. So I showed her my official State Department visa.
So I'm like, "honey, do I look like I'm a US military veteran?"
"No."
"Do I look like I'm some sort of right wing anti-tax teabagger?"
"No."
"Do I look like anybody else on the DHS terrorism danger list?"
"No, but..."
"Then I suggest that unless you want a nasty anti-discrimination lawsuit on your hands, you'd best give me an aisle seat. With extended legroom."
#9
The leak (Strep Throat, LOL!) was from the NYT. You will have to talk to 'Throat to find out who the leaker is. I only have second hand information. Hearsay in a court of law. Waterboard me and I will tell you anything you want.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Kotzebue, AK ||
12/31/2009 13:26
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#10
The US is soooo close to being a dictatorship.
In Kismayu town, 500 kilometres south of Mogadishu, the authority of al-Shabaab, the strongest Islamist movement opposing the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), issued orders to be observed by the people. Sheikh Ibrahim Hassan, the Public Awareness Officer of the Authority, announced through a local Radio, Al-Andalus that male inhabitants in Juba regions including Kismayu must grow beards, shave moustaches and shorten their trousers to above the ankles. Sheikh Ibrahim stated that all adult men in the area ought to comply with the directives within three days, effective December 19. Any opposition to the orders would bring punishment.
Although al-Shabaab (youth in Arabic) rules many parts of southern and central regions of Somalia, the Juba regions with a long border with Kenya appear to have attracted the full authority of the movement. On December 10, the administration recently appointed by al-Shabaab at Dhobley border town, next to Liboi in Kenyas North Eastern Province introduced restrictions on a number of social aspects. All businesses are to close during the prayer times that are observed by Muslim faithful.
Daud Hassan Ali, the new administrations Defence Officer, had announced that anybody found running a business as the muezzin calls for prayers would be penalised. When the muezzin calls the worshippers to prayers, not even a single person is allowed to wander in the streets, said Mr Ali. The next target had been the female lot. Women had been ordered to cover their bodies from head to toe with extra heavy clothing.
This is the notation of Islam on women, said Ali. They should not fail to observe the dress code, he added.The Al-Shabaab officer indicated that his administration had allocated a place for smokers and Khat (miraa) chewers to buy and consume the commodity. No one is allowed to sell or consume the stuff in public, remarked Ali.
The latest orders involving beards, moustaches and trousers as imposed on men generated heated reactions. Opponents insist that only a nationwide, stable Islamic rule can issue such directives. Their view is that al-Shabaab or any other authority in Somalia is not very permanent. Hence, could not introduce decisions with lasting effects.
Some of the instructions given by al-Shabaab are so personal that even an Islamic State could not introduce, commented Mr Aw Ali Husein Garweyne, a moderate Islamist in Mogadishu. Our Prophet Mohammed gave us the faculty to use some of his examples like beard and moustache, but never made it mandatory, he added.
According to Aw Ali, some of the directives being enforced by al-Shabaab cannot be justified by the Islamic books of reference. He cited the Jihad, suicide missions or single dress rule as example. Even President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of the TFG recently labelled un-Islamic the strict dress code enforced by al-Shabaab. He noted that Islam only tells women to cover themselves properly, locally known as asturaad, without dictating specific type of clothes and design. Addressing the city council in Mogadishu, President Ahmed joked that the Islamist militants even want to know the underwear of women to note whether they match their standard. It is neither religious nor cultural to ask about underwear, said the president.
Meanwhile, tittle-tattle has recently been circulating that a woman was killed at Yakhshid district in North Mogadishu by al-Shabaab. The owner of a teashop at a mechanical garage, her crime was to have had a radio and listening to Radio Mogadishu, a government controlled broadcaster.
On Sunday December 27, Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Raghe alias Sheikh Ali Dhere, the Spokesman of Al-Shabaab held a press conference in Mogadishu. He stated that listening to Radio Mogadishu amounted to a crime and anybody found tuning to the station would be treated like being a government partisan.
Radio Mogadishu has an un-Islamic agenda, said Sheikh Raghe. Listening to it is like directly helping the enemy of Islam, he said. Al-Shabaabs statement looks to have had an immediate negative impact because more people are now curious to listen to the radio.
Continuing his argument, Aw Ali says that neither growing beard nor trimming the moustaches is mandatory. They are the best way to appear, but not necessarily compulsory, remarked Aw Ali. I believe these people are working for gaalo (non-Muslims) to spoil our religion, said the manager of a teashop in South Mogadishu. According to other sceptics, al-Shabaab is imposing orders and restrictions in order to show their power to command.
#1
All pious women must grow beards as long and luxurious as that of the finest goats. Moustache trimming is mandatory. That is all. Inshallah.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 6:36
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#2
This little bit of religious insanity will likely backfire.
They're threatening punishment, I suspect a number of MEN are going to first say F-U then if pressed further simply Kill the bastard trying to force beard trimming, pants shortening and other insanity, watch for unexplained bodies here and there as one by one the "Overly Religious" Fall.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 13:39
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On this small base surrounded by a mixture of enemy and friendly territory, a memorial has been erected just next to the Chapel. Inside the tepee are 21 photos of 21 soldiers killed during the first months of a year-long tour of duty. The fallen will belong forever to the honor rolls of the 1-17th Infantry Battalion, 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and they will join the sacred list of names of those who have given their lives in service of the United States of America.
Beautiful photos at the link.
The internal security apparatus of Hamas claims to have foiled an Israeli attempt to collect intelligence on where kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit is being kept. According to the head of Hamas' internal security service, Abu Abdullah, the Shin Bet security service has tried collecting intelligence through members of the rival Fatah organization who have operated in the Gaza Strip in the past.
The report appears to be mostly an attempt to smear the Palestinian Authority and its activities. Abu Abdullah said in an interview to a Web site affiliated with Hamas, Falastin Alan, that the Fatah operatives hired a house and cars in the eastern part of Gaza City and planned to kidnap a senior figure in the military wing of Hamas and bring him to Israel. He did not specify when the operation was to take place.
Meanwhile, the Hamas Web site reported that the negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit have met with Israel's refusal to release four "senior" prisoners. The four are: Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Sa'adat, and two of the heads of Hamas' military wing in the West Bank, Ibrahim Hamad and Abdullah Barghouti, who are responsible for the murders of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.
On the other hand, a member of the Hamas politburo, Izzat al-Rishq, stressed in an interview to the Arabic language TV station Al-Jazeera that the Islamist Palestinian group is continuing consultations on the proposal relayed to it by the German mediator.
Rishq rejected the report Tuesday by TV station Al-Arabiya that Hamas had turned down the proposal.
The Hamas official refused to offer details on the substance of the proposal from Israel or comment on problems that Hamas may have with it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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#1
I am proud of Israel for standing strong and refusing the swap deal.
Shalit isn't in any real trouble.
Hamas will have to keep him alive and well.
Sooner or later Israel will find his location.
You cannot pet rabid dogs (or negotiate with them)
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 1:13
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North Korean electricity supply decreasing again. According to a source on December 20, the electricity supply is low again, after some improvement in September.
According to the source, North Korean citizens are experiencing inconveniences even in the areas that never experiences black-outs, such as Gwanmoon dong, Chaeha dong, Haebang dong, Yeokjun dong, Chungsong dong.
The source stated that he used candles for 2-3 days around December 15.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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#1
Very soon now the people of North Korea will not be able to take any more pressure, and they will take matters into their own hands. Count on it.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 1:07
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#2
Kimmie will just order the peasants to peddle faster.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 6:44
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#3
Hmmmm....maybe they should get in touch with Iran for assistance in developing nuke-generated electrical power...?
#5
citizens are experiencing inconveniences even in the areas that never experiences black-outs, such as Gwanmoon dong, Chaeha dong, Haebang dong, Yeokjun dong, Chungsong dong.
I assume "Dong" means area, county, or parrish.
That's how it's used here.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 13:57
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#2
Ha! Story was just like I called it. Right up to the point where Erin didn't get arrested for assault, whereas Tiger would have (and promptly been defended by Jessie and Al for daring to strike a white woman).
#7
Y'know, I think most of us would have tried to find a way to be _happy_ with a blonde swedish model-type for a wife and 700 million in the bank. Or at least I would have.
#8
Y'know, I think most of us would have tried to find a way to be _happy_ with a blonde swedish model-type for a wife and 700 million in the bank. Or at least I would have.
Since my wife is, to me, far more beautiful than any swedish model-type let's split it. You can have the blonde and I will take the 700 millions.
#9
If he didn't like scandis he shouldn't have married one. He did. Given that situation, I think most of us would have tried to "make do" instead of thinking, "gee, y'know, that cocktail waitress/ihop waitress/'hostess' is looking pretty good..."
#11
Maybe she should be, but this article is just third hand rumor. A friend of a friend who knows somebody who ... type of thing.
That said if Mr. Lotp were whoring around and went so far as to text a mistress from the family sofa on Thanksgiving, I would't use violence, except perhaps in slamming the door on my way out.
At least one Colorado Department of Transportation employee is being investigated for sending an inappropriate email featuring President Barack Obama and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
When we got our hands on the email Tuesday, we immediately contacted CDOT.
They tell us at least one employee could be fired for this.
"We're taking this very seriously," said Mindy Crane, Spokesperson for CDOT.
The attachment is a photo-shopped picture of President Barack Obama shining the shoes of former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The sender of the email is a 73 year-old CDOT supervisor.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/31/2009
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#1
If he is 73 as stated he won't give a sh#t. He's probably been there 45 years minimum. While it's probably against State policy for use of State computers I suspect it really comes down to NO sense of humor on the part of the Colorado liberals in CDOT and the State Capitol.
#3
I think Karl Rove II (Rahm Emanuel)planted this to distract from the Christmas Bomber disaster.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/31/2009 7:23
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President Barack Obama shining the shoes of former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
pretty obviously that's a photoshop. Shining shoes is hard work
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2009 9:24
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#5
He claims to be good with a mop too.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/31/2009 12:17
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#6
I wonder what would happen to him if it was the other way around?
He'd be on the NEA call-down list, of artists rallied to support The One. If he could learn a bit of graphic design, he could follow in Shep Fairey's footsteps.
#8
if he is smart he can get placed on administrative leave with pay for a while
The Colorado DOT is in an unfortunate position also. Surely this is not the only fellow who has sent non work email with a non work attachment during biz hours. Almost every large company acknowledged that employees use their computers for some non work functions and, as long as it is minor (say done during lunch), that there should be no penalty.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/31/2009 13:47
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HONOLULU (AP) - A Honolulu television station is reporting that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was taken to a hospital with chest pains.
KITV reported Wednesday that paramedics responded to a call at 2:41 p.m. from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing. The station, citing unnamed sources, said paramedics treated Limbaugh and took him to The Queen's Medical Center in serious condition.
Queen's spokesman N. Makana Shook says the hospital is unable to comment on the report.
Limbaugh was seen golfing at Waialae Country Club earlier this week. The country club is next to the Kahala Hotel and Resort. Just hope Obama doesn't see this as an opportunity to drop by to "wish him well", eh?
North Korea has expressed to the U.S. that concluding a peace treaty is more important than normalizing its relationship with Washington, according to a Japanese media report.
Kyodo News said Pyongyang informed U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth during his visit there earlier this month that diplomatic ties can be broken at any time. The report added, citing various diplomatic sources, that Pyongyang is keener on abolishing the current armistice agreement and replacing it with a formal peace treaty and that the normalization of ties is not the regime's top priority.
North Korean officials also said that it could return to the six-party nuclear talks when it is "interested," maintaining a cautious approach to incentives such as economic support and the establishment of a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang.
However, the sources explained that U.S. President Barack Obama did not mention such an office in the recent letter he wrote to Kim Jong-il, but instead he urged the North to give up its nuclear ambitions and return to the negotiating table.
Meanwhile, government officials in Seoul said Bosworth, after returning from Pyongyang, relayed that when the six-way talks resume, four countries -- the two Koreas, the U.S. and China -- will separately discuss peace on the Korean Peninsula, including the peace treaty.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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#1
It always is when winter sets in and the aid is needed.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ron Smith today told the Detroit News that the second person taken into custody Christmas Day at Detroit Metropolitan Airport had nothing to do with the attempted bombing aboard Flight 253.
In a comment made Saturday on MLive.com, Kurt Haskell, a Taylor attorney, said he saw authorities handcuff a second man after a bomb-sniffing dog alerted them to something in the man's carry-on bag.
Smith confirmed for MLive.com yesterday that a second person had been taken into custody, but today tells the News the person was a passenger on a different flight. "There was a second person taken into custody, but it had nothing to do with Flight 253," he said. "They did see dogs, but again, it was a totally different incident."
When asked whether the incident was drug related, Smith told the newspaper, "Something like that."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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Perhaps the fine Nigeria fellow barricaded in the lavatory for an hour was rearranging the body capsules of heroin. Remember he said that he had a stomach problem.
OTTAWA, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday asked the governor general to prorogue Parliament until March when the Vancouver Olympics are complete, his press secretary said. The new session of the parliament will resume on March 3 and the government will present a new budget by then, said Dimitri Soudas.
Harper spoke with Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean Wednesday morning by telephone, Soudas said.
Canada's Parliament is currently on Christmas break and the parliament members were scheduled to return to the House on January 25. But speculation has been rampant in recent weeks that Harper would ask to shut down Parliament until at least after the Winter Olympics in Vancouver are complete.
Although in the name of the winter Olympics, Harper's act is seen as a strategic move to gain a majority on Senate committees while possibly avoiding criticism over the Afghan detainee issue. The Conservative government has been under attack over allegations that it ignored warnings about the torture of Afghan detainees and allowed the Canadian military to continue with the transfer of detainees to local police. A parliamentary committee is now looking into the accusations.
Meanwhile it would also help the Conservatives to gain a majority in the Senate committees. Reports indicate the parliamentmembers would not come back to work until early March, when the government would present a speech from the throne and its 2010 budget. By then, Harper would have had time to ask Gov. General Michaelle Jean to name five new senators, which would give the Conservatives a majority on the newly formed Senate committees and greater control for passing its own legislation.
Harper successfully appealed to Jean to prorogue Parliament last December, thwarting all three opposition parties in their attempt to defeat his government in a non-confidence vote, and replace it with a proposed coalition between then Liberal and the NDP, with support from the Bloc Quebecois. The move means a halt to the work of Parliamentary committees, including one that is investigating Afghan detainee abuse, an issue that has been plaguing the Conservatives for months.
Canada's opposition parties on Wednesday criticized Harper's move. Leader of the biggest opposition group the Liberal Party Michael Ignatieff called the prorogation undemocratic. Paul Dewar, the New Democrats' foreign affairs critic, said the decision to prorogue Parliament also delays important legislation from being passed such as the pension reform, the unemployment benefit reform.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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Can't wait for the women's ski jump competition. Oh, wait.
Okay, I'll settle for curling.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/31/2009 10:50
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For all their railing against the evils of big bad banks, Democrats aren't shy about jumping into bed with them when the price is right. And they don't much care whether taxpayers lose out in the process. Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, and his cohort Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, are leaders in making support for delinquent banks into a respectable progressive cause.
OneUnited Bank, based in Mr. Frank's home state, landed more than $12 million in Troubled Asset Relief Program money last winter thanks to the congressman's insertion of language into the bill that gives the bank special consideration. Mrs. Waters, whose congressional campaigns benefited from OneUnited executives' donations of more than $12,000, also helped the bank by arranging a meeting between bank executives and government officials shortly before the bailout bill's passage.
Congressional financial-disclosure forms showed Mrs. Waters had up to $500,000 worth of stock in the company until 2004 and that her husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor who profited to the tune of $250,000 from a related bank merger. Mr. Williams also served on the bank's board until early 2008.
But the sweetheart deals aren't the worst of the bank-bailout story. Now OneUnited, which, as a decidedly unhealthy bank never even met the criteria for bailout funds in the first place, is failing to pay interest on its government handout - and it probably never will.
In November, the bank missed its third dividend payment in a row. Not counting the most recent sum it failed to fork over, the bank now owes the U.S. government more than $300,000. But because OneUnited has no holding company, it is not bound to pay dividends at all, which means it is essentially getting an interest-free loan, courtesy of Mr. Frank and Mrs. Waters.
Central Pacific Financial of Hawaii, which also has missed multiple dividend payments, was the only bank besides OneUnited to get funds from the bill following questionable congressional intervention. In July, it reported a loss of $146 million - due in large part to investments in the collapsing California housing market - and before receiving federal aid had been told by its primary regulator it did not meet standards for receiving help. A federal funds injection looked far from likely for Central Pacific - until Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat and one of the bank's founders, made a call to federal regulators. Two weeks later, the bank announced Treasury would give it $135 million.
The moral of the story is simple: When Democrats rail about the evils of unregulated business and the need for federal controls, remember that this is what they have in mind.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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USA been converting Latin America to Democracy for 100 years (at least). Look who's got converted!
The British hostage Peter Moore was dramatically set free yesterday after the United States handed over an Iraqi insurgent suspected of planning the deaths of five American servicemen. Mr Moore, an IT consultant, was freed by League of the Righteous, or Asaib al-Haq (AAH) -- an extremist Shia group allied to Iran -- after 31 months and spent his first night of freedom at the British Embassy in Baghdad. He is expected to fly home today.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that officials had worked tirelessly to secure his release but strongly denied that the British Government had given ground to his captors. He said: "There were no concessions in this case. There was no -- quote, unquote -- deal."
Foreign and Commonwealth Office sources confirmed, however, that the transfer from US custody a few days ago of Qais al-Khazali, a cleric and commander of AAH, helped to pave the way for Mr Moore's release. They also admitted that British diplomats had been pressing the US to hand over al-Khazali to the Iraqi administration.The insurgent leader, who is suspected of helping to plan an attack that killed five US servicemen in Karbala in 2007, is set for release as part of reconciliation talks between the Iraqi Government and extremist groups.
Mr Moore, 36, was abducted with four British security guards at the Finance Ministry in Baghdad on May 29, 2007, by members of AAH posing as policemen. Three of the guards are known to have been killed. The family of the fourth, Alan McMenemy, were told in July that it was "very likely" that he had been killed as well.
Double-plus ungood deal for all concerned to let the insurgent go.
Mr Moore told relatives that he feared that he was about to be shot in the head when instead he was handed over to Iraqi officials and then into the care of British embassy staff.
In February last year a video released by AAH showed a haggard-looking Mr Moore asking Gordon Brown to arrange the release by the US of prisoners affiliated to the group. He said: "All I want is to leave this place. I tell Gordon Brown the matter is simple: release their prisoners so we can go."
When Laith al-Khazali, a brother of Qais al-Khazali, was released in June, the remains of two of the dead hostages, Jason Creswell, 39, and Jason Swindlehurst, 38, were surrendered by the group. Inquests heard that each died from a gunshot wound to the head. The body of Alec MacLachlan, 30, was handed over in September.
Under the status of forces agreement, which came into force in January, the US must transfer all its detainees to the Iraqi authorities by the end of 2011. Commanders aim to complete the handover by early next year. It is believed that the transfer of al-Khazali was delayed because of his suspected involvement in the death of US troops. Sami al-Askari, an Iraqi MP involved in the negotiations for the hostages, said that al-Khazali and other members of AAH were transferred to Iraqi custody a few days ago.
A spokesman for the Iraqi administration said that Mr Moore's release was secured by Iraqi mediators.
At a press conference in London, Mr Miliband appealed to AAH to release Mr McMenemy's body. "For Peter's family the pain and the anguish is over. For the other families it endures," he said. He alluded to the negotiations surrounding the release, saying that it was made possible by Iraq's process of reconciliation with groups prepared to renounce violence.
Mr Miliband said that he had had a "very moving" conversation with the freed hostage, who was in a "remarkable frame of mind". Mr Brown also spoke to Mr Moore by telephone.
Foreign Office officials rejected accusations that Britain had done a deal "by proxy". A senior figure said: "We would support the efforts of the Maliki Government to bring about national reconciliation regardless of the hostage situation."
There were unconfirmed reports that Iran's Revolutionary Guard was involved in the kidnapping operation and that the hostages were smuggled into Iran the day after they were taken. According to The Guardian, they were held in two prisons run by al-Quds, which specialises in foreign operations. The Foreign Office said: "We have no evidence that the British hostages were held in Iran."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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We're releasing them from Guantanamo and getting nothing in return at least this release got us a hostage back.
I still think we should emplant tiny rdio-controlled explosive stents in their aortas before release - ObamaCare!
#2
The British hostage Peter Moore was dramatically set free yesterday after the United States handed over an Iraqi insurgent
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary said,"There were no concessions in this case. There was no -- quote, unquote -- deal."
LYING BASTARD
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 13:15
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#3
We need to nuke Qom. It would solve a lot of problems in the world, and would show a bunch of jihadis that we'll do anything to end the terror problem. The fact that we haven't done so thus far is one of the main reasons they keep pushing our buttons. One large nuke would be all it would take.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/31/2009 20:11
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#4
shoot a small one would probably do it OP
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/31/2009 23:10
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Consumer confidence and expectations have risen, and more employers are planning to hire workers in 2010, according to studies released Tuesday, signaling increasing economic strength. A consumer expectations index formulated by the Conference Board rose to its highest level in two years, but Americans still feel pessimistic about their current state. The nonprofit organization's "present situation index" fell to its lowest point in 26 years.
The consumer confidence index rose to 52.9 in December, a three-month high after increasing to 50.6 in November from October's 48.7 and February's historic low of 25.3. But confidence is still shaky, according to the index, which last reached a "stable" 90.6 reading in 2007. The data are based on a monthly survey conducted by research firm TNS covering a sample of 5,000 U.S. households.
Consumer spending, however, is still moving ahead at "fairly respectable rates," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist for IHS Global Insight. But the steep discounts and inventory clearance sales that are helping spending now could create a vacuum in early 2010.
"Barring a New Year's miracle in the labor markets, it will be an enormous challenge to maintain forward momentum on real consumer spending early next year," he said in a statement.
Still, expectations are high for the next six months, buoyed by improvements in the business and labor markets. The Conference Board expectations index jumped to 75.6 from 70.3 in November, reaching the highest level since the 75.8 recorded in December 2007.
But worries about short-term income, which Franco said probably would affect spending early in the new year, dragged down the present-situation index to 18.8 from 21.2 in November. The index hit a low of 17.5 in February 1983.
A separate report by online jobs site CareerBuilder.com had more mixed news. While 20% of employers said they would add full-time, permanent workers in 2010, compared with 14% who said they would do so in 2009, actual job growth probably won't arrive until the second quarter.
Just 9% of employers intend to cut workers in 2010, while 16% said they would swing the ax in 2009. Another 61% said their staffing levels probably would stay the same, according to the study, which surveyed more than 2,700 hiring and human resource professionals in November.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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Today I went out and bought a new kitchen range. Not because I was optimistic, but because my old one died.
Rush was admitted to a Honolulu hospital today and is resting comfortably after suffering chest pains. Rush appreciates your prayers and well wishes. He will keep you updated via RushLimbaugh.com and on Thursday's radio program.
As a fresh poll measured the political cost of Sen. Ben Nelson's health reform vote, he prepared Tuesday to take his case directly to Nebraskans during Wednesday night's Holiday Bowl game.
Nelson will air a new TV ad in which he attempts to debunk opposition claims that the Senate legislation represents a government takeover, and he makes the case for health care reform.
"With all the distortions about health care reform, I want you to hear directly from me," the Democratic senator says in the ad.
Nelson, dressed in an open-necked shirt and sweater, speaks directly into the camera during the 30-second ad.
The message will be launched during the Nebraska-Arizona football game and continue to air statewide for an undisclosed number of days.
The political damage Nelson may have incurred in providing the critical 60th vote that cleared the way for Senate passage of the health care reform bill showed up Tuesday in a poll released by Rasmussen Reports.
The telephone survey of 500 Nebraskans, conducted Monday, suggested Republican Gov. Dave Heineman would defeat Nelson in a potential 2012 Senate race by a 61-30 margin.
The poll showed Nelson with a 55 percent unfavorable rating and 64 percent disapproval for Democratic health care reform legislation.
"The good news for (Nelson) is that he doesn't have to face Nebraska voters until 2012," Rasmussen Reports stated in posting results of the survey on its Web site.
Nelson would be seeking a third term should he choose to be a candidate for re-election three years from now.
Heineman is seeking re-election as governor in 2010 and would be at mid-term if he chooses to enter the Senate race in 2012.
Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, said the Rasmussen results demonstrate that Nelson's votes on health care are "clearly out of touch with the majority" of Nebraskans.
Earlier, Schmit-Albin said Nelson betrayed his pro-life supporters when he agreed to compromise language prohibiting federal funding of abortions.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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The telephone survey of 500 Nebraskans, conducted Monday, suggested Republican Gov. Dave Heineman would defeat Nelson in a potential 2012 Senate race by a 61-30 margin.
Not something a pricey TV add and a cardigan are likely to fix. You can stick a fork in it Ben, you're DONE!
....No tie? How very Obamisch, I'm on holiday you know.
#6
Rantburg should have a graphic of toast popping up out of a toaster...or maybe some toast on a plate with butter on it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/31/2009 11:45
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Dave Heineman would defeat Nelson in a potential 2012 Senate race by a 61-30 margin.
These donks certainly seem to be on a suicide mission. Let's hope the voters don't forget by election time. Not likely since the economy is in the dumper and assured to go further in the dumper with the really dumb economic policies that are being pursued. There are few jobs aside from government jobs. These jobs don't create any wealth--only suck money from any taxpayers who are left. We've managed to give away to our economy to foreign countries such as India, China, and third-world countries. More taxation will only make things worse. Out-of-control spending money we don't have will make the economy worse. No, I don't think the voters will forget. So the burnt toast pic is appropriate for Nelson.
Not that I believe this, but if the economy does start to recover in mid 2010 you can be sure Bambi and the Dhimmicrats will jump all over it. This is why the Pubs and Tea Party folks had better be focused on spending, corruption and deficits and not just the failing economy.
(Bloomberg) The U.S. economy next year will turn in its best performance since 2004 as spending perks up and companies increase investment and hiring, says Dean Maki, the most-accurate forecaster in a Bloomberg News survey.
The world's largest economy will expand 3.5 percent in 2010, according to Maki, the chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. The rebound in stocks and rising incomes will prompt Americans to do what they do bestconsume, said Maki, a former economist at the Federal Reserve. Faced with dwindling inventories and growing demand, companies will soon become confident the expansion will be sustained, he said.
Household spending "will pick up steam as we move into the second half of 2010," said Maki, 44, who topped all 60 forecasters in the Bloomberg News ranking of gross domestic product projections for the first three quarters of 2009. "The overall picture for 2010 will be an economy growing rapidly enough to bring down the unemployment rate" to an average of 9.6 percent. The rate will reach about 9 percent by the end of 2010, he said today in a Bloomberg Television interview.
Maki, who specialized in researching household finances at the Fed from 1995 to 2000, said the economic recovery this time will be similar to past rebounds. Consumer purchases improved after last year's 61 percent plunge in gasoline prices and will keep growing in 2010, reflecting the surge in stocks. Faster growth will push Treasury yields higher and help the dollar strengthen as the Fed raises interest rates, he predicts.
"One area that we put more weight on perhaps than others is the stock market," he said in a telephone interview last week. The 67 percent gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index since a 12-year low on March 9 has helped shore up family balance sheets, putting Americans in a better position to spend. "That's going to help consumer spending as we move through 2010," he said today in a separate interview with Bloomberg Television.
The prospects for a stronger rebound are consistent with recoveries from past recessions, he said.
"We don't believe this time is different from all other business cycles," said Maki. "The consensus view that growth will stay subdued all through next yearthere's no parallel to that in modern U.S. history."
Maki's forecast for 2010 is among the highest of the 58 economists in a Bloomberg News survey this month. He is more optimistic than Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) in New York, who was No. 1 among forecasters of GDP during the 12 months through June 2009. Hatzius, 41, estimates the economy will expand 2.4 percent in 2010, and his 2.5 percent first-quarter growth forecast is half the pace Maki anticipates.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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I'm not an economist, but I strongly suspect that most of those who were unemployed when 0 was sworn into office will still be unemployed next year.
#5
Good thing we're at 7.75% unemployment according to Obama administration forecasts. Can't wait for next Christmas when unemployment goes down to 6.9%.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 8:10
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Economic recovery is a matter of perception. When people believe that they will have/keep jobs they will borrow and spend. Or when they believe that their money will have no value in the future they will borrow and spend. Either way, the economy will improve - or appear to. The government will keep shoveling our money to banks until they will loan it to people to borrow and spend. And the government will hire people until the unemployment rate goes down. In the end we'll all work for the government and be dependent on our plantation masters for our subsistence.
#9
Either way, the economy will improve - or appear to. The government will keep shoveling our money to banks until they will loan it to people to borrow and spend. And the government will hire people until the unemployment rate goes down. In the end we'll all work for the government and be dependent on our plantation masters for our subsistence.
The government of both parties have been cooking the books since at least the Carter years.
I have a theory about the Obamanation:
These guys for all their gold plated academic pedigrees don't really know what they are doing.
They all grew up in the hyper bright glow of the fantasy that FDR saved the nation with the New Deal, and they read about the the budget busting that went on.
The fact is FDR hired a buncha leftist writers to give them employment/income, and they paid him back with fawning and false stories of government bravado in the face of evil capitalists.
The guys who read this garbage, bought and paid for by FDR, to them it's an article of faith that the whole economy improves when government whips out the ol' plastic, regardless of actual conditions on the ground.
It's like a three year old who watches his father get into a fight with company thugs in a labor action.
The three year old only knows what he's been told, so when he grows up, he's gonna be ready to deliver the trimmin' his Daddy suffered.
There's no context for them. There's no there there. There's only what they are told and that is all.
They read about the old times and they are gonna do the same things the forefathers did regardless or actual conditions come hell or high water.
If you owned a machine shop and a recently minted graduate from a university came calling looking for work, would you hire him, as smart as he may be? Chances are if you did within a day or two the new hire's nickname may as well be "Stumpy."
Welcome, if you will, Barak Hussein "Stumpy" Obama, a guy so smart he couldn't keep his hands out of the machinery and now he is as worthless as a leader as we have ever had.
The Upshot, is that these people really don't known what they are doing: Ideology prevents them from doing the things we all know will work and hubris prevents them from admitting that maybe they should try something else.
#10
Isn't Business Week the old media dinosaur that fetched $1 when it went on the block this year?
Couldn't be that they've decided on stock-touting as a hail-mary strategy to increase readership, could it, now?
Consumer purchases improved after last year's 61 percent plunge in gasoline prices and will keep growing in 2010
um, price of crude's soon going to be back into the triple digits.
Also, most companies are using internal transfers to fill vacancies now, and, as always in US big-company capitalism, are using the downturn to relentlessly reduce their domestically-based payrolls and shift functions overseas.
Add the above to the fact that the REAL unemployment rate is north of 15% when you factor in the BLS's bogus baseline assumptions, the off-the-radar discouraged workers, and all the slack left to be filled due to unpaid furloughs, and there's no way that the unemployment rate will be below 12% nine months from now.
BW is a dying publication that has always served as the Democratic Party's #1 booster in the business press. Means, motive, opportunity for shameless BS'ing to support The One.
#11
A U-3 rate of 9% (the U-3 is the rate the media usually quote)would imply about a 16% U-6 rate.
This doesn't seem unreasonable for the end of 2010. However, it hardly amounts to a surge and I think most people would consider it anemic. On the other hand, at 9%, the interest rates wouldn't climb very much.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/31/2009 13:53
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence chief Admiral Dennis Blair faced tough questions about his future on Wednesday as the Obama administration fended off criticism over the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25.
Publicly, the White House was standing by Blair, the United States' top spymaster who is responsible for coordinating intelligence gathering between 16 agencies, saying the four-star admiral had the full confidence of the president. "This is not about one person or one agency," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
But speculation was rife that Blair or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano could be forced to resign after President Barack Obama said on Tuesday there had been a systemic failure by the country's security agencies to prevent the botched Christmas Day attack.
"Our nation is becoming safer every day because we are aware that information increases in power only when it is shared."
Adm. Dennis Blair
Napolitano has been lambasted by Republican critics, and in the media, for initially saying the air security system worked, and then backpedaling and saying she had meant the system of beefing up measures worked after the incident had occurred.
Kurt Volker, a former CIA analyst and until recently U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Blair and Napolitano were facing the traditional Washington blame game.
"That's politics. It's the way politics goes, that you look for whom you can blame so you can say, if my party had been elected instead of yours, things would have been better," said Volker, now at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
A senior aide said Obama would seek accountability at the highest levels for the failure, a remark some observers took to mean that heads would roll.
Obama, a Democrat, is under pressure from Republicans, who fault his administration for not preventing the attack and the president for keeping silent about it for three days while on vacation in Hawaii. The Republicans portrayed Obama as weak on national security even as he campaigned for last year's presidential election, and have sought to push that point before mid-term elections in November, when they will challenge the Democrats' control of both houses of the U.S. Congress.
"The terrorist plot to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 exposed a near-catastrophic failure at every level of our government," the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, said in a statement.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who staked out a position as a leading security hawk under President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks and is a vocal critic of Obama's national security policies, also weighed in. He told Politico news website: "As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war."
"He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war."
White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer retorted that it was "telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the administration than condemning the attackers."
Because we all know where Cheney stands on the attackers. The issue, Mr. Pfeiffer, is where you and your boss stand.
"Unfortunately, too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer," he said in a blog post on whitehouse.gov.
In candid criticism of the failures that could have led to disaster, Obama said U.S. security agencies had failed to piece together bits of information to prevent Abdulmutallab from boarding the flight with explosives.
As director of national intelligence, it is Blair's job to connect the dots. The position was created by Congress in an effort to correct the intelligence failures blamed in part for the September 11 hijacked plane attacks on the United States eight years ago.
Writing in the Washington Post on December 18, Blair said, "Our nation is becoming safer every day because we are aware that information increases in power only when it is shared. But, he acknowledged ongoing problems "in our technologies, business practices and mind-sets."
Blair said on Tuesday that while the intelligence community had dramatically improved information sharing since September 11, "it is clear that gaps remain and they must be fixed."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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Comments published today in the NY Times: Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, [said] it is the fathers role that should have moved even the most jaded bureaucracy.
Think of what it took for the father, one of the most respected bankers in Nigeria, to walk into the American Embassy and turn in his own son, Mr. Kean said. The fathers a hero. His visit by itself should have been enough to set off all kinds of alarms.
#2
Kurt Volker, a former CIA analyst and until recently U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Blair and Napolitano were facing the traditional Washington blame game.
You might correctly refer to it Kurt as a search for those RESPONSIBLE. People in 'leadership' positions are traditionally the first to be questioned. Nonsensical denials, the daily changing of stories, and statements indicating that "the system worked" do not instill much confidence. Please keep in mind if you will, that 300 people quite nearly died.
#3
Obama, a Democrat, is under pressure from Republicans,
Obama, a Democrat? I would never have guessed!
Thanks for framing this discussion in political terms. Clearly the average sheeple in the skies is more concerned about which party is at fault than ensuring actual safety.
#4
"Unfortunately, too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer," he said in a blog post on whitehouse.gov.
I believe the solutions are available; it is the politcal masterbation that is getting in the way of implementation. This adminstration can not even define the problem let alone craft a solution.
Still nothing from WH for Flying Dutchman
ATLANTA -- Delta Air Lines Inc. is offering travel credits to passengers on the Amsterstam-to-Detroit flight that a suspected terrorist tried and failed to blow up on Christmas. Spokeswoman Susan Elliott told The Associated Press on Wednesday the world's biggest carrier is notifying passengers about the vouchers. The amount wasn't disclosed.
Delta is offering its gratitude to one of the passengers who subdued the suspect. Elliott declined to say whether that passenger would receive additional compensation beyond the travel voucher.
The 23-year-old suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, arrived in Amsterdam on Friday from Lagos, Nigeria, on a KLM flight. After a layover of less than three hours in the international departure hall, the suspect passed through a security check at the gate in Amsterdam, including a hand baggage scan and a metal detector, and headed to the Northwest flight. He did not pass through a full-body scanner.
Officials said Abdulmutallab apparently assembled the explosive device, including 80 grams of Pentrite, or PETN, in the aircraft toilet, then planned to detonate it with a syringe of chemicals. Passengers intervened, and the plan failed.
#1
If I were CEO of DELTA, I'd issue your Dutch Hero with a "Fly Free Forever, laminated picture ID, and about a million bucks (Or so) not to mention a hearty "Well Done",
Allow him one other (Girlfriend/spouse) passenger along for ANY free ride.
(Reservations Required so he can be greeted and wined/dined)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 0:38
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Invite the Dutchman to lunch with Neapolitano so she could explain "how the system works".
#6
Y'all miss the point, when Heroism is rewarded, there will be more Heroes, a very GOOD and desired result.
It's plain Any Government, (Not just the Obamanation's LOOK AWAY, is NOT CAPABLE of stopping this shit, so the passengers who want to live another day MUST be on guard
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 13:25
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#7
Redneck Jim: I'd add on to the voucher any children he might have in the future, up until they reach the age of 18.
#8
At the risk of commenting here upon a story or two that may be posted further on ( i hate reading ahead and spoiling the ending) Drudge has two intersting srticles relative to 253 and TSA; the interview of a Michigan Attorney that states there was more than one person hauled away and responses to the FBI's U-turnable stories about it, and the two bloggers supeaned by the TSA, one lost his laptop and the other is counter suing....
any bets that there is some Chicago style justice in play here?
But don't worry, the federal government will get the new health care system right.
CHICAGO -(Dow Jones)- Members of the Allied Pilots Association, the pilots' union at American Airlines, said Wednesday that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration didn't do enough to warn in-air flight crews of the Christmas Day terrorist threat on a Northwest Airlines flight.
In a letter to American Airlines pilots, the APA called for better communications at the time of potential security threats. "Some pilots were left out of the loop" when the TSA told management at American, a unit of AMR Corp. ( AMR), and other airlines, to contact only the pilots of inbound transatlantic flights. The Northwest flight came into Detroit from Amsterdam. To ensure overall safety, "The TSA should have mandated that information about this security event be passed on to all airborne flights," the APA Government Affairs Committee wrote.
The group said it has contacted the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security to suggest policy changes. The pilots recommend that "airline managements immediately notify all airborne flights any time there is a Level 3 or Level 4 event."
The U.S. is reviewing security glitches at many levels following the Christmas Day incident. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the International Air Transport Association said Wednesday that "effective security needs a system that is built on global harmonization, effective information exchange, industry/government cooperation, risk assessment and efficient technology."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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And by the way, whatever happened to the plan of arming flight crews?
#6
For several years in the middle of this decade Delta had a course in unarmed fighting for airline stewards/stewardesses, designed and led by one of the senior blackbelts from the Tae Kwan Do school Mr. Wife and the trailing daughters attend. They focussed on techniques for use in airplane aisles. I understand it was quite popular. Cincinnati is (or perhaps was, things change so rapidly) one of Delta's international hubs since the early 1990s, so one can understand the staff's interest.
Washington - Eight American civilians were killed today when a lone suicide bomber struck a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The attack, which took place at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khowst province, also injured an undisclosed number of civilians, the officials said. No military personnel from U.S. or North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces were killed or injured in the attack, they said.
Officials declined further immediate comment today, saying many details of the attack remained unclear and that relatives had not yet been notified. Asked by Reuters news service if the blast occurred inside the base, one official said: "That's my understanding."
Khowst province, which is located on the Pakistani border, has been a prime target of attacks from militants operating in eastern Afghanistan and just across the border in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The base is part of NATO's Regional Command East, which is supervised by the U.S. military. It also houses Western civilians working on reconstruction projects in the war-torn nation. The main U.S. base in the province, known as Camp Salerno, has been the target of frequent attacks. Suicide bombers on a number of occasions have blown themselves up just outside its gates while trying to penetrate the heavily fortified installation. Afghan civilians usually bear the brunt of such attacks.
Just last week, Taliban militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and suicide vests entered a building near a police station in the nearby city of Gardez, setting off a battle with U.S. and Afghan security forces that lasted all morning.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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#1
The eight dead were CIA officers, the former official said. "They were all career CIA officials."
The U.S. official said the bomber detonated his explosives vest in an area that was used as a fitness center.
CIA veterans were stunned by the news and at a loss to explain how a bomber was able to penetrate the security.
"It's a forward operating base in a dicey area, but to get a suicide bomber inside the wires -- it's hard to understand how that could happen," the former official said.
Presumably these guys were involved in work with the local population and are fluent. A big, as well as tragic, loss. Almost sounds like an inside job by a local employee. There are only 90 stars at Langley. This is a big increase. God bless them, their spouses and children.
On Wednesday, progovernment militia attacked and beat students at a school in northeastern Iran. Since last Sunday's massive protests nationwide, dozens of university students have been arrested as part of an aggressive policy against what are known as Iran's "star students."
In most places, being a star means ranking top of the class, but in Iran it means your name appears on a list of students considered a threat by the intelligence ministry. It also means a partial or complete ban from education.
The term comes from the fact that some students have learned of their status by seeing stars printed next to their names on test results.
Mehrnoush Karimi, a 24-year-old law-school hopeful, found out in August that she was starred. She ranked 55 on this year's national entrance exam for law schools, out of more than 70,000 test-takers. That score should have guaranteed her a seat at the school of her choice. Instead, the government told her she wouldn't be attending law school due to her "star" status.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/31/2009
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Emile Hokayem
The popular movement in Iran is rapidly transforming from protest into uprising. Since the death of its spiritual mentor, Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri, there have been the most intense and violent confrontations yet with the Iranian security forces. The question is whether it will become a revolution; and if so, when.
Judging from the slogans -- Marg bar dictator (Death to the dictator), once a rarity, is now heard as often as Allah-u-Akbar, a rallying cry intended to deny religious legitimacy to the regime -- and the unrelenting mobilisation of the Green movement, the tipping point may not be far away.
" Many observers expected the movement, a disparate mix of opposition groups that has taken to the streets since the fraudulent presidential elections of June 12, to lose momentum after the initial protests "
Many observers expected the movement, a disparate mix of opposition groups that has taken to the streets since the fraudulent presidential elections of June 12, to lose momentum after the initial protests. Repression, intimidation and disorganisation would lead to resignation among the movement's followers. Some argued that because it was bourgeois (for which read illegitimate and superficial) and apparently confined to urban areas, it did not reflect any genuine popular desire to shake the system. In fact, the protesters were the ones rejecting the democratic return of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency.
The opposition's leaders -- under constant surveillance, cut off from their base and with no plan (or intention) to overturn the system put in place by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- could be punished, perhaps even lured back. The regime could count on Iran's rural poor, who had benefited from the largesse of Mr Ahmadinejad's populist policies, and on the republic's committed security apparatus.
That expectation and these assumptions have proved wrong: the depth of discontent with the nature and workings of the regime clearly cuts across social and regional divides. It may seem to be on a roll in the Middle East, boasting of regional political successes against the US and technological prowess in its nuclear programme, but there is something rotten at the heart of the Islamic Republic.
" The best gift for Tehran would be the perception that the world is indifferent to its internal convulsions and the promise of the Green movement, but ratcheting up the pressure could achieve the same negative result. The opposition itself is calling for targeted sanctions that would focus on the security structure, and for diplomacy that would prioritise human rights over security issues "
The demonstrations have now spread to the entire country, and anger at the security forces has overcome fear. Poor, it turns out, does not mean blind or stupid. The underprivileged can see that their lot has not improved during the Ahmadinejad years, and that cash handouts are a stopgap measure that cannot compensate for the corruption and mismanagement that plague Iran's economy.
Extraordinary reporting and footage on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, the main means of communication with the outside world, are evidence of that. A few days ago a crowd attacked Bassiji militiamen and released two men from the gallows. Demonstrators overwhelmed policemen, and then proceeded to protect them.
Faced with a potential loss of legitimacy, the regime could resort only to force. In recent weeks, the reaction has ranged from the petty (stripping the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of some of his titles and seizing the Nobel medal from Shirin Ebadi) to the criminal (the murder of the opposition leader Mir Hosein Mousavi's nephew, the killing of a young doctor who refused to whitewash the evidence of a prisoner's death). In addition, the regime has intimidated Iranians abroad, allowed torture and rape in prisons and ordered thugs to destroy the offices of senior dissident clerics such Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei.
This behaviour is an indication more of desperation than of confidence. With little popular or religious support, the leadership finds itself at the mercy of its security apparatus. There is a significant consensus among Iran-watchers that the management of the crisis is now solely the responsibility of the Revolutionary Guard force, which has the most to lose from political upheaval. The commanders of the Bassiji and Pasdaran forces have issued the starkest warnings, deliberately conflating opposition protests and foreign pressure.
These are signs that the regime can escalate its response in coming days, from declaring martial law and intensifying repression to jailing the opposition's principal leaders -- Mir Hosein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami. Yesterday, pro-regime demonstrators in Isfahan and Hamdan even demanded their execution for treason.
Not everyone in decision-making circles would welcome such aggravation. There are many conservative politicians, still loyal to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who question the merits of supporting Mr Ahmadinejad at any cost and are concerned by the militarisation of the regime. The loyalty of the security forces, especially the police and the regular military, cannot be assumed. And the memory of the fall of the Shah in 1979 is never too far away.
Just as the international community has no business encouraging or provoking regime change in Iran, it should now refrain from unwittingly extending a lifeline to a government under duress. If the Islamic Revolution falls, it should be under the weight of its own contradictions and failures.
Just as the international community has no business encouraging or provoking regime change in Iran, it should now refrain from unwittingly extending a lifeline to a government under duress. If the Islamic Revolution falls, it should be under the weight of its own contradictions and failures.
Fixated on the threat of Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions, Washington is having a hard time navigating Iranian politics. Barack Obama finally spoke on Monday of Iran's iron fist. In fact, the US can undercut the opposition by doing too much to engage Tehran; with, for example, the ill-advised idea of sending Senator John Kerry on a mission there.
The best gift for Tehran would be the perception that the world is indifferent to its internal convulsions and the promise of the Green movement, but ratcheting up the pressure could achieve the same negative result. The opposition itself is calling for targeted sanctions that would focus on the security structure, and for diplomacy that would prioritise human rights over security issues. It may achieve the former, but not the latter as long as the opposition does not define what the broad tenets of its foreign policy would be if it came to power.
And that, of course, is expecting far too much from a movement that as yet has no political platform on either domestic or foreign matters.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
I suppose it's better than being Nuked by the Israelis.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 0:50
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#2
Bull. Less that 10% of Iran's population are Urban. And less than 1% of these are rioting.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The US intelligence agents have interrogated the father of the Nigerian who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.
The FBI and CIA agents met with Umar Mutallab, father of the purported bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, at the US embassy in Abuja.
"I can confirm that Umar Mutallab was summoned to the desk office of the US embassy in Abuja, where he was interrogated by men from the CIA and FBI on Monday," a Nigerian intelligence source told AFP on Wednesday.
The CIA and the FBI wanted to know more about his background and that of his son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Reports suggested that the father had warned the US intelligence earlier this year against radical inclinations of his son.
Abdulmutallab allegedly worked with Al-Qaeda in last week's bid to bomb the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route to Detroit by igniting explosives stitched into his underwear.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#4
"Interrogate" suggests duress & that, in fact, the man is in US custody, IE, under arrest.
I hope that's not the case, seeing as he's apparently done absolutely nothing wrong, and how he sounds to have been the only one in the whole sorry process trying to connect the dots, even if he was effectively pushing a wet noodle in doing so.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/31/2009 11:59
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#5
#1 This man has honor.
Indeed. And more intelligence, and more value to us than Janet Napolitano.
Same thing that has been happening for decades -I've been observing for at least three and half decades- Liberalism/Progressiveism, multiculturalism, political correctness, diversity or name your own -ism.
And people believe that it can all be turned around during the 2010-2012 elections. Hogwash. Nothing short of ruthlessly cutting the heart out of the left will even begin to set things on the right track. And, that is going to mean violating some peoples Constitutional Rights.
Very interesting (hard) times ahead. You can expect at some point RWDS just like they had in some South American countries. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't already organizing.
#7
Now, who in Iran might have a collection of rare firearms?...
Ummmm, the museum?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 12:52
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#8
Seriously, damn near every movie I've seen in the area, some sheiks home is shown with arms, (Swords,daggers, and very old guns hanging on the walls)
Place is an antique weapons jackpot.
And when they executed that assassin who killed the sheik, didn't they have to get a sword from a museum to do it? (I remember because they said it was dull and took three strokes to do the beheading correctly)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 13:04
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[Dawn] The Taliban claimed responsibility on Wednesday for the suicide attack on an Ashura procession which killed 44 people in Karachi and injured 60 others. The terrorist organisation threatened more attacks over the next 10 days.
The claim was made by one of the country's most wanted commanders of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). "We carried out the suicide bombing in Karachi," Asmatullah Shaheen, a top militant commander based in South Waziristan, told news agencies by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"We will carry out more such attacks and also target government installations."
The government announced a Rs10 million bounty for Shaheen when it published a list last month of 19 most-wanted TTP warlords, for whom it offered combined rewards equivalent to five million dollars.
Shaheen does not normally claim responsibility for attacks on behalf of the militants. But he said that Monday's bombing had been assigned to his group, and so he was making the claim.
However, investigators in Karachi are not ready to believe it was a suicide attack and have called in their NWFP counterparts to help them determine the nature and make of the explosives used in the bombing.
Although Karachi city police chief Waseem Ahmed has set up two teams with different tasks related to investigations, he said he had sent an urgent request to the NWFP police chief to send in a team of experts who could help determine the nature of the blast.
"Several aspects need to be checked thoroughly and until that (is done) we cannot say with authority anything about the (blast's) execution," said Mr Ahmed.
Meanwhile, Muttahida Qaumi Movement leaders at a press conference called upon President Asif Ali Zardari to constitute an inquiry commission comprising judges of the Supreme Court to investigate the Ashura attack and the incidents of arson so that culprits behind these incidents could be unmasked.
The party's coordination committee member Raza Haroon demanded of the government to declare the Boulton Market a calamity-hit area and urged it to exempt from taxes the traders from there.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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[Kyodo: Korea] North Korea will ban the use of foreign currencies beginning on New Year"s Day on Friday, China Central Television reported Wednesday, quoting an undated announcement by the North Korean Ministry of People"s Security. North Korean nationals will be banned from using the dollar, euro or any other foreign currency at shops and restaurants, while foreigners will be required to exchange their money into the local currency, the won, to make payments, CCTV said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
Kim Ill was never very smart.
Think how that will work out. Just ask the Cubans.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 1:04
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BAQUBA, Iraq, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Six Shiite worshippers were killed and 18 others injured when a bomb explosion hit their procession in Diyala province on Wednesday, a provincial police source said.
The attack took place in the town of Khalis, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, when the worshippers were taking part in the religious ritual of Ashura, said the source who declined to be named.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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More than half of the new armoured vehicles sent to Afghanistan are out of service, the Ministry of Defence has admitted.
Only 134 of the 271 Mastiffs, the heaviest and most protective of the Armys armoured vehicles in Afghanistan, are fit for purpose, figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats have revealed.
The same poor service history is also affecting the new Ridgeback vehicles which are being used for the first time by 11 Light Brigade in Afghanistan. In written Commons answers, the Liberal Democrats were told that nearly 40 per cent of Ridgebacks were not operational at present.
The Mastiff and Ridgeback are examples of the new type of heavily armoured, mine-resistant, wheeled patrol vehicles used by the Army on operations in Afghanistan.
They provide much greater protection to personnel than the lightly armoured Snatch Land Rover which has proved so vulnerable to roadside bombs.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 6:32
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#3
More likely a combination of rotten roads, heavier armor creating more mechanical stress, and the fact that we're not getting the out-of-service numbers for the lighter vehicles. It's a war zone, and not one suited to vehicular transport. It's going to eat up equipment like nobody's business.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/31/2009 13:14
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#4
Thank you for the useful perspective, Mitch. :-)
FALLUJAH, Iraq, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Ten people were killed, including the governor of Anbar province, in twin bombing attacks in Iraq's western city of Ramadi on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry source said.
A car bomb went off in the morning outside the provincial council in Ramadi, the capital city of Anbar province, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Afterwards, Qassim Mahmmed Abid, governor of the province, and some senior officials of the provincial council left their offices to the entrance of the council to see the site of the car bombing. Suddenly, a suicide bomber blew his explosive vest among the group, killing the governor and Brigadier Abbas, a senior provincial officer, along with eight others, the source said.
More than 30 people were also wounded by the blasts, the source added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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By Tariq Alhomayed
[Asharq al-Aswat] How disturbing was the initial statement attributed to a Yemeni source that was published in the Washington Post following the young Nigerian Omar Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to blow up a US Delta plane. The official told the newspaper, "If and when the would-be bomber's alleged link to Yemen is officially identified, authorities will take immediate action." The source added that the Americans are yet to present any information [on the incident] to his country.
What is worrying is that in our Arab world, there are still people among us who are asking for proof; as if all these crimes being committed in the name of religion and in our countries and elsewhere are not enough that we still [need to] look for evidence. It's as if we're talking about a shop burglary or an ordinary murder case.
It is enough to look carefully at the initial response from Nigeria in comparison to the response from Yemen; Nigerian officials were the first to provide the media with information on the terrorist's identity and that in fact, his father was the first one to alert the US embassy of his son's intentions before the incident took place. Moreover, religious figures in Nigeria condemned the terrorist act and warned of its danger. Yemen, on the other hand, spoke about evidence and we have Sanaa admitting that the young man visited Yemen and stayed there on the pretext of studying the Arabic language!
The problem here is that the size of Al Qaeda in Yemen and the spread of this group is no longer a secret. We have recently seen how some leaders of the organization are coming out openly in front of the television cameras and the Yemeni government itself revolted against Al Qaeda last week and carried out major operations against the organization; so why the hesitation and hypersensitivity?
The comments made by a security official last Monday were comforting when, in response to the statement released by Al Qaeda that claimed [responsibility for] the failed attempt to blow up the US airplane, he stressed that his country, "will never be a safe haven for those killer terrorists and drug traffickers, and its [Yemen's] mountains will never be a Tora Bora for them."
I have no doubt that Yemen wants to combat Al Qaeda but that will not happen if there is hesitation and hypersensitivity, especially as some regions in Yemen [already] pose more of a threat than Tora Bora. Al Qaeda is a plague, which [Yemen] should not be sensitive about declaring war upon and the first stage of that war is about information and exchanging information quickly. The best example here is the US Delta plane incident as it is evidence of a gross security error and negligence. The father of the young Nigerian man himself informed [authorities] of his son and the British refused him a visa to enter their country. However, the US security apparatus failed in using the information [it had] and only by the grace of God was a major disaster prevented.
Today, after all the terrorist acts we have seen, it is no longer acceptable to justify terrorism or to be hyper sensitive about fighting terrorism because we have all become victims. It is true that Yemen needs friendly states to stand by it against terrorism but Yemen must firstly stand by itself by providing its friends with information, not only in terms of security but also in terms of the media in order to mobilize public opinion against terrorism and terrorists.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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India is preparing for a possible two-front war with China and Pakistan, Geo News quoted an Indian newspaper as saying on Wednesday.
The newspaper said the Indian Army is now revising its five-year-old doctrine to effectively meet the challenges of war with China and Pakistan, deal with asymmetric and fourth-generation warfare, enhance strategic reach and joint operations with IAF and Navy.
Work on the new war doctrine to reflect the reconfiguration of threat perceptions and security challenges is already under way under the aegis of Simla-based Army Training Command, headed by Lt-Gen A S Lamba, sources told the Indian newspaper.
It comes in the backdrop of the 1.13-million strong army having practiced through several wargames over the last five years its pro-active war strategy to mobilise fast and strike hard to pulverize the enemy.
This cold start strategy, under a NBC (nuclear-chemical-biological) overhang, emerged from the harsh lessons learnt during Operation Parakram, where it took armys strike formations almost a month to mobilise at the border launch pads after the December 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament.
This gave ample opportunity to Pakistan to shore up its defences as well as adequate time to the international community, primarily the US, to intervene. The lack of clear directives from the then NDA government only made matters worse.
A major leap in our approach to conduct of operations (since then) has been the successful firming-up of the cold start strategy (to be able to go to war promptly), said Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, at a closed-door seminar on Tuesday.
The plan now is to launch self-contained and highly-mobile battle groups, with Russian-origin T-90S tanks and upgraded T-72 M1 tanks at their core, adequately backed by air cover and artillery fire assaults, for rapid thrusts into enemy territory within 96 hours.
Gen Kapoor identified five thrust areas that will drive the new doctrine. One, even as the armed forces prepare for their primary task of conventional wars, they must also factor in the eventuality of a two-front war breaking out.
In tune with this, after acquiring a greater offensive punch along the entire western front with Pakistan by the creation of a new South-Western Army Command in 2005, India is now taking steps albeit belatedly to strategically counter the stark military asymmetry with China in the eastern sector. There is now a proportionate focus towards the western and north-eastern fronts, said Gen Kapoor.
Two, the army needs to optimise its capability to effectively counter both military and non-military facets of asymmetric and sub-conventional threats like WMD terrorism, cyber warfare, electronic warfare and information warfare.
Three, the armed forces have to substantially enhance their strategic reach and out-of-area capabilities to protect Indias geo-political interests stretching from Persian Gulf to Malacca Strait. This would enable us to protect our island territories; as also give assistance to the littoral states in the Indian ocean region, said Gen Kapoor.
Four, interdependence and operational synergy among Army, Navy and IAF must become the essence of strategic planning and execution in future wars. For this, joint operations, strategic and space-based capability, ballistic missile defence and amphibious, air-borne and air-land operations must be addressed comprehensively, he said.
And five, India must strive to achieve a technological edge over its adversaries. Harnessing and exploitation of technology also includes integration of network centricity, decision-support systems, information warfare and electronic warfare into our operational plans, he added.
Apart from analysing the evolving military strategy and doctrines of China and Pakistan, the army is also studying the lessons learnt from the US-launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and their relevance to India.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The governor of Iraq's Anbar province survived twin suicide attacks that killed 30 people and injured more than 100 on Wednesday, police said.
Anbar is strategically important because it was once considered the heartland of the al-Qaeda-linked insurgency before American officials paid fighters to join a pro-government force.
Police official Lt. Col. Imad al-Fahdawi said two bombs exploded in Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad. He says a suicide bomber in a car caused the first blast on the main road near the provincial administration buildings.
Governor Qassim al-Fahdawi, the deputy police chief and other officials came to inspect the damage, al-Fahdawi said, when a suicide bomber on foot detonated a vest full of explosives nearby.
The deputy police chief was killed and the governor and other officials wounded, al-Fahdawi said. Police have put a curfew in place, he added.
Dr. Ahmed Abid Mohammed confirmed the casualties and said the governor had suffered burns on his face, injuries to his abdomen and other areas.
There are 18 provincial governors in Iraq. Anbar is primarily Sunni. The province was the former stronghold of the insurgency before the U.S. military began paying fighters to participate in the pro-government Sons of Iraq program, also known as the Awakening Council.
The Sons of Iraq have been widely credited with stabilizing the country after joining up with U.S. and Iraqi forces in the anti-al-Qaida drive about three years ago. But they have been hit by a steady barrage of revenge attacks since then and five of them were killed at a checkpoint Tuesday in central Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
Al Arabiya says 30 killed, governor injured.
Xinuanet says 10 killed, including governor.
Fog of war.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran's state news agency IRNA said on Wednesday that two leaders of "sedition" in the country have fled to a northern province as tens of thousands of government supporters rallied in cities across the country.
"Two of those who played a major role in igniting tension in Iran following the (June presidential) vote, fled Tehran and went to a northern province because they were scared of people, who demanded their punishment," IRNA reported.
The two mentioned were believed to be opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi who were reportedly in the Mazandaran province, north of the country.
" You should repent ... otherwise the system will confront you as an enemy of God "
Cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda
Earlier on Wednesday, Iran's police chief warned Mousavi's supporters to expect harsh treatment if they joined illegal anti-government rallies, three days after eight protesters were killed in demonstrations.
Tens of thousands took part in the government-organized demonstrations, which state television broadcast live, chanting slogans against Mousavi and Karroubi.
"You should repent ... otherwise the system will confront you as a 'mohareb' (enemy of God)," cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda told reformist leaders at a Tehran rally, state TV reported. Under Iran's Sharia, or Islamic law, the sentence for a mohareb is death.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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[Dawn] The government on Wednesday handed down a list of 378 wanted Mehsud tribesmen to the elders of the Mehsud tribe.
They demand the wanted men's unconditional surrender, along with seven conditions calling for respecting the law of land, assuring to live in peace and not providing shelter to the elements involved in anti-state activities.
The elders of the Mehsud tribe however sought time till Jan 20 to thoroughly review the seven point conditions handed over by the political authorities at a grand jirga held at Political Compound Tank, winter headquarters of South Waziristan.
"We will respond to the conditions made for unconditional surrender of the wanted persons after reviewing and discussing it in detail with our elders of the sub tribes of Mehsud", they told the jirga.
Over 400 leading tribal elders participated in the jirga including former MNA Maulana Mairajuddin, Malik Abdul Masood Alaai, Maliak Rapa Khan, Malik Boghi Shah and Malik Saeed Snwar Mehsud.
The seven conditions include:
1. Unconditional surrender of the wanted persons.
2. A total ban on the display of weapons,
3. A ban on setting up a parallel administrative and judicial system in the agency.
4. Shelter would be provided to only the local Mehsud tribesmen who opted for seeking refuge for settling internal disputes.
5. No foreigner and non-local would be provided any shelter.
6. No person involved in anti-state elements would be given shelter.
7. No person from settled parts of the country would be provided refuge.
Political Agent of SWA Shahab Ali Shah in his address on the occasion said the government has taken measures for resettling the Mehsud tribe in Waziristan so that they could restart their lives afresh.
All the tribes were bound not to overlook their territorial responsibilities, he maintained.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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Top|| File under: TTP
#1
How about until Jan 2nd?
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 0:37
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Trying to bring in Iran to support the Somali 'government' against Al Qaeda (in the Arabian Peninsula) proxy Al Shabaab? Ethiopia did not fix things, after all.
Somalia's foreign minister has called on Islamic states to assist his country as it tries to move toward lasting peace and stability.
Ali Ahmed Jama made the comment during a meeting with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani in Tehran on Tuesday afternoon.
The Somali foreign minister said that Mogadishu was currently passing through a transition stage that involved rebuilding government institutions and securing calm.
In an earlier meeting with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki, Ahmed Jama also explained that at the moment setting up government and public service institutions was Mogadishu's leading reconstruction priority.
"Somalia is experiencing a harsh period after two decades of crisis and disorder. Extremism, internal strife, organized crime and terrorism are not only threatening Somalia, but the whole region," he said, according to a translation of his comments.
In both meetings, the Iranian side also noted that a stable and secure Somalia was important for Tehran.
Mottaki and Larijani both said that the Islamic Republic was ready to offer any form of assistance and support to Somalia through the African Union.
The Iranian parliament speaker said that Tehran was happy to see a central government in place in Somalia, adding that he hoped lasting peace would return to the African state.
Mottaki pointed out that Iran was serious in its pledge to assist Mogadishu, while sending out an appeal to all "Somali groups, regional states, and members of the international community" to do the same.
"We believe that extremism and terrorism will not only have an adverse effect on the people of Somalia, but will also impact the region and the international community."
"It will especially have negative outcomes for trade and shipping. So, we must all try to help restore peace and security to Somalia through diplomacy and cooperation," said the top Iranian diplomat.
Mottaki also said that Iran's private sector was ready to participate in industrial and economic reconstruction projects in Somalia, particularly those that involve building hospitals and schools.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
Iranian police have detained the owner of the car involved in the shooting of the nephew of former Iranian Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi. "After thorough investigations, police have identified the owner of the car involved in the suspicious killing (of Mousavi's nephew)," an informed source told Fardanews website on Wednesday.
The source added that the car owner claimed that his black Nissan Patrol was stolen a few days before the incident and could not find it. However, the car owner is currently in detention because he failed to report it missing. Police say he is one of the people suspected to be behind the killing.
Seyyed Ali Habibi Mousavi Khamene, the defeated presidential candidate's nephew, was killed in Tehran on Sunday. On Tuesday, Tehran's police said the 42-year-old Mousavi's nephew was not involved in the Ashura unrests in Tehran and was the target of a drive-by shooting. "Seyyed Ali Habibi Mousavi Khamene, without being present in the riots, was assassinated by assailants driving a vehicle in one of Tehran's side streets known as Shademan," a police statement read.
The Iranian police force has described Mousavi's nephew's death as "suspicious," saying that investigations into his "assassination" are underway.
The deaths came as anti-government protestors took to some central and downtown streets in Tehran on Sunday, chanting slogans against top Iranian government officials. Iranian police forces used tear gas to disperse protestors. Seven people were confirmed dead during the Sunday unrest.
Iran's Deputy Police Chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said earlier that the force under his command did not use violence against protesters, denying any involvement in the killings.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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There was a lot of love in the room for U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd Tuesday as he addressed the New Haven Democratic Town Committee, which will bring the largest number of delegates to the party's nominating convention this spring.
Dodd, fresh from the Senate's passage of a major health care package on Christmas Eve morning, was the only speaker at the committee's holiday party at the Shubert Theater. The event also brought together most of the gubernatorial contenders and other statewide office-seekers.
That health care bill will be a big part of his campaign for re-election to a sixth term. Many think it will be his toughest battle yet, with his poll numbers down and several well-funded Republican challengers waiting.
"It ought to be true that every child in America, regardless of their circumstances, has a right to a doctor when he gets sick, and that's what we are about to do in this country. It will be the single most important vote that will have occurred since Social Security and the adoption of Medicare," Dodd said.
The bill is now headed for a conference committee of House and Senate leaders for some tough negotiations on sticking points, such as abortion coverage. That work will start today.
The first thing Dodd said he did after the Senate vote last week was to visit the gravesite of his good friend, the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who made health care reform a central part of his agenda for four decades in the Senate.
Dodd said he got a call from President Barack Obama while he was at Arlington National Cemetery to thank him for his efforts on the legislation.
"Tell the old guy I was asking for him," Dodd said the president remarked to him about Kennedy.
The largest plurality of votes for Obama in the state came from New Haven in 2008, and the city will play a big part in determining the party's slate in this year.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
"Tell the old guy I was asking for him," Dodd said the president remarked to him about Kennedy.
Look for Ted Kennedy the next election; it's too early now.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Protest leaders stranded in Cairo accepted an Egyptian offer early Wednesday to allow only 100 out of about 1,300 protesters into blockaded Gaza after the activists staged demonstrations and a hunger strike.
The decision split delegates from more than 40 countries who came to Cairo planning to reach the Palestinian enclave, which shares the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said earlier at a press conference that his country would allow some of the protesters to enter Gaza.
"We are looking into allowing a limited number...in the coming days," he said. He accused other protesters of "conspiring" against Egypt and said they could remain "on the street."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
Better yet, don't let them back out.
A few weeks living there and their attitude will change, if they live through it, that is
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 0:46
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#2
Nothing like liberal activist tools coming to grips with reality.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 0:53
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#3
Wuestion: Why Gaza and not Darfur? In addition to the Palestians not looking precisley as if they were starving it doesn't look normal to feel such symathies for people who try to blow maternities and after sixty fricing years are still living from our money instead of their work buit have plenty of it for building Kassams.
Nw teh answer why Gaza instead of Darfur is because Plaestinans want to finish Hitler's work.
#4
Better yet, don't let them back out.
A few weeks living there and their attitude will change, if they live through it, that is
Nope. Have yo seen a starving Palestiaian? Instead let's send them to Darfur. Have them experience first hand teh murders and rapes in addition of eating like Darfur people do.
Washington and Sana'a are reviewing targets for a possible retaliation strike on Yemeni soil in the wake of a failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, which al-Qaeda in Yemen claims to have organized.
Two senior US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN on Tuesday that the effort is aimed at devising options for the White House, in case President Barack Obama orders a retaliatory strike.
The officials added that the effort is to see whether targets can be specifically linked to the airliner incident and its planning.
US special operations forces and intelligence agencies, and their Yemeni counterparts, are working to identify potential al-Qaeda targets in Yemen, one of the officials said.
The CNN report added that "by all accounts, the agreement would allow the US to fly cruise missiles, fighter jets or unmanned armed drones against targets in Yemen with the consent of that government."
Investigators believe the Flight 253 bomber suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was radicalized before he went to Yemen, Fox News reported citing unnamed sources. According to one source, Abdulmutallab traveled to Yemen sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.
He was there for several weeks or months, and investigators believe Abdulmutallab was 'vetted for the mission' while in Yemen.
Abdulmutallab, 23, told US officials after his arrest that he had received training and instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.
Evidence collected shows that Abdulmutallab also was a 'big fan' of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen, who the US Department for Homeland Security claims had acted as a spiritual leader for three of the 9/11 hijackers.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been the scene of several attacks claimed by the group on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
The officials added that the effort is to see whether targets can be specifically linked to the airliner incident and its planning.
So if one can't figure out exactly which scum-bag ordered it will HopeyChangey not order any retalliation? What does it matter whether or not you kill the particular terrorists that planned this one? They are all the same. Kill this one or kill that one, makes no difference to me. My preference would be to just kill any and all the terrorists one has an address for. There is no baby in the bathwater. Just drain the whole tub.
#3
I;m sure the ones responsible are just sitting in place waiting for the missiles too fall.
Posted by: chris ||
12/31/2009 11:11
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#4
the effort is aimed at devising options for the White House, in case President Barack Obama orders a retaliatory strike.
Dreamer
I want some of what you're smoking, must be good shit.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 13:48
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#5
ION, Waffle House just announced a new location: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, WA, DC.
[Maghrebia] The Spanish government on Wednesday (December 30th) confirmed that one of the three Spanish aid workers kidnapped in Mauritania by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was seriously wounded during his abduction. On Tuesday, Spanish daily El Pais reported that 45-year-old Albert Vilalta was shot three times in his leg on November 29th while trying to flee an ambush on the Nouadhibou-Nouakchott road. The government has sent medicine "through open channels with tribal leaders in northern Mali", the newspaper added.
While al-Qaeda released a photograph earlier this week of an Italian couple abducted December 18th near the Mauritania-Mali border, the terror group has given no "sign of life" regarding the fate of the three Spanish hostages. "Why would AQIM diffuse a picture of the Italians and not the Spanish hostages captured a month earlier?" Journal Tahalil asked on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
I'm gonna hafta rethink that camping trip I planned to Mali. It's a shame cuz my travel agent Sayid had got me a great deal.
Posted by: American Delight ||
12/31/2009 0:53
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The Treasury Department announced Wednesday the U.S. government would take a majority ownership stake in the troubled auto financier GMAC.
Treasury will provide $3.8 billion to the auto lender, which has struggled to raise private funds.
Treasury's equity ownership of GMAC will increase from 35 percent to 56 percent under the transaction, making the government and taxpayer the majority owner.
Treasury previously had invested $12.5 billion in preferred stock in GMAC. It owns a total of $13.1 billion in preferred stock in GMAC, which includes purchases, the exercise of warrants and 35 percent of common equity.
The U.S. government's unprecedented intervention in the auto sector earlier led to the dismissal of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner, who was ousted by the Obama administration.
Treasury said it had initially thought it would have to provide $5.6 billion to GMAC, and cast the $3.8 billion in support as a reduction in its expected expenditures under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. It said less money would be needed because the restructurings of General Motors and Chrysler had been less disruptive than expected.
While other large banks such as Wells Fargo and Citigroup have recently paid back billions in government funds, GMAC has sunk deeper into need. GMAC is also a centerpiece of the American auto industry the Obama administration has attempted to rejuvenate.
GMAC is the primary lender to General Motors and Chrysler customers.
GMAC will become the sixth company the U.S. has taken control of in the past two years.
It joins mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, auto manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler and the largest commercial insurer in the U.S., American International Group.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
Remainds me of my childhood (I lived in Soviet U. until 13).
#3
Treasury will provide $3.8 billion to the auto lender, which has struggled to raise private funds.
Hmm. You don't think that large, institutional investors might be a tad skittish about Government Motors after having seen other large, institutional investors get hosed in the bankruptcy proceedings might have something to do with that?
#4
large, institutional investors might be a tad skittish
They might be, but the investment managers will buy anyway, once they receive the 'right' personal compensation. Now the small, individual investors...we aren't buying. And we aren't putting as much in the hands of the large institutions either.
#6
Two strikes, one more and they're OUT.
I see hordes of potential buyers refusing GMAC financing, go with your home bank, not Government Motors. (Anybody else remember Al Capps "General Bullmoose Motors"?
"What's good for General Bullmoose, is good for the USA")
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 14:32
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[Iran Press TV Latest] The Viva Palestina aid convoy, en route to the Gaza Strip, is set to leave Syria for the Egyptian port city of El-Arish where it might face interception by Israeli forces.
The convoy of 250 vehicles will leave Syria's Lattakia port and head for the Egyptian port city of El-Arish to enter the Gaza Strip, the official Syrian SANA news agency reported on Wednesday.
According to Zaher an-Birawi, the convoy's spokesman, the Viva Palestina faces the risk of interception by the Israeli military forces at the sea.
"Any Israeli aggression on the convoy during sailing to Egyptian El-Arish port will be condemned and will unveil the truth of its perpetrators," he said.
The convoy, which departed from London on December 6, returned to Syria on Tuesday from the Jordanian port city of al-Aqaba after the Egyptian authorities refused it permission to enter the Gaza Strip through Nuweiba.
The convoy was scheduled to deliver medical, humanitarian and educational aid to Gazans on December 27, which marks the first anniversary of Israel's three-week war against the sliver.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
What a crock of Horsesh!t'
Viva Propaganda more like it.
One part of me wants the Israelis to take them up on their dare. Destroy the whole convoy and everyone on it. To the ground.
But as always, cooler heads will prevail, and they will be denied their propaganda victory.
The Israelis should keep the convoy parked in the desert and prevent it from moving. Play a wait and see game and see who blinks first.
Usually the agitators start crying after a few days without a shower and rest room facilities.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 0:34
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Someone should send these idiots a map. You can't drive from Syria to Egypt without crossing both Jordan and Israel.
Loaded on some boat. Have fun. It aint over yet. And the horse you rode in on....
who's paying for all this? Oh, the poor Palestinians... I sure am glad I am not some wog who needs to be wiped like a Palestinian. But they suckasuck and that's why Yassirs lips were so big.
Spend most or their Palestinian time sleeping in holes and doing suckasuck on their knees. A proud people.
The Palestinian state motto (its even on their flag) :Gimme. And when the Gulf Hotels in all the Emirates send some girl up to your room...its always a Palestinian.
But they sure command respect as soldiers.Yeah.
If big nosed greaseballs ran the world...
Posted by: George Flusotch6820 ||
12/31/2009 6:15
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#4
phil_b,
As I pointed out the other day, Arab maps clearly show you only have to cross Palestine to get from Syria to Egypt. So they HAVE maps, just bad ones.
#6
El arish was almost 'conquered' by Gazans in 2008 after the break in the Egyptian barrier. Many of the locals have retained bad memories of that time.
"In Arish alone, Gazans spent some US$250 million over five days.[7] Palestinians and Egyptians complained about soaring prices and shortages, especially of food.[42] Enormous demand for staple products from Gaza caused rampant inflation, as did the Egyptian government's decision to restrict goods coming into the border region in an effort to encourage the Palestinians to go back home.[42] Palestinians also accused Egyptians of price gouging, where prices have risen to the point where the cost of goods is suffiently high that supply matches demand."
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/31/2009 11:54
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#7
Israel has submarines, and it's difficult to determine where a particular torpedo was manufactured after they explode. Just saying...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/31/2009 20:14
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#8
Who needs torpeodoes? There's this little device called a limpet mine...
[Iran Press TV Latest] Informed sources have denied earlier reports that Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi have fled Tehran amid security concerns.
"Reports about the riot leaders' escape from Tehran are denied," Fars news agency reported late on Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday, IRNA reported that "two of those who played a major role in igniting tension in Iran following the (June presidential) vote fled from Tehran to northern Iran because they were scared of angry people who had called for their punishment," in an indirect reference to Karroubi and Mousavi.
The report claimed that the two opposition leaders were staying in a western region of Mazandaran Province in northern Iran.
People who took part in protests in Tehran on Wednesday to condemn tensions during Ashura mourning ceremonies on Sunday had signed a petition calling for a "strong reaction" to Karroubi and Mousavi.
Fars news agency reported that the petition will be handed to judicial officials on Thursday.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Former Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) will run for Congress in 2010, according to a media report Wednesday. "I'm going to run," Traficant said before about 35 members of The Biz Society, the Youngstown Business Journal reported Wednesday.
The former lawmaker's words come almost four months after he was released from federal prison after he served part of a seven-year sentence on a racketeering conviction. Traficant was removed from Congress in 2002.
Traficant, who used to represent Ohio's 17th district, said he has not yet made up his mind on which district to run in.
The 17th district is now represented by his former staffer, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). The Journal reports that Traficant has nominating petitions circulating in the 17th, 16th and 6th congressional districts.
The 16th and 6th districts are represented by Democratic Reps. John Boccieri and Charlie Wilson, respectively. "I'm going to run for Congress somewhere," Traficant said. It is unclear if he will run as a Democrat, Republican, independent or under a third party.
During his time in Congress, Traficant was known as a colorful character known for his offbeat attire and his penchant to quote from "Star Trek," frequently saying "beam me up" at the conclusion of his floor speeches.
At the speaking engagement, Traficant vowed revenge on the individuals who provided information about him to federal investigators. "I want to get these suckers!" he said. "You are being addressed by a very bitter guy."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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[7 views]
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#8
God, I hope the state GOP's barred the doors against that felon. Bad enough we have Andy Martin running around without a leash in Illinois, getting rabies-infected foam all over the place.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/31/2009 13:21
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[Al Arabiya Latest] An Afghan government investigation into the deaths of 10 civilians in the country's east found they were dragged from their homes and shot dead by foreign troops, the president's office said Wednesday.
The dead included eight school students aged between 13 and 17 years old, a statement from President Hamid Karzai's office said.
International forces based in Kunar province, where the alleged incident took place, told government investigators "they were unaware of the incident", the statement said.
" The president assured them that the government will seriously investigate the incident and deal with the culprits in accordance with the law "
Statement from the office of President Karzai
"A unit of international forces descended from a plane in the Narang district of Kunar province and took 10 people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead," the statement said, quoting the head of the investigating team.
The investigation was headed by Asadaullah Wafa, an advisor to Karzai and a former governor of Kunar province.
The presidential statement said Wafa was shown documents by the head teacher of the school attended by the students, proving their status.
"Those people that were killed were innocent civilians," Wafa told reporters. The victims were eight boys, aged between 13 and 18, and two men in their 20s, he added.
Karzai had spoken with the father and uncles of the students, offering his condolences and promised a full investigation.
"The president assured them that the government will seriously investigate the incident and deal with the culprits in accordance with the law," the statement said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which has 113,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting a Taliban insurgency, has told AFP that it had no activities in the area at the time the alleged incident took place.
A senior Western military official said that U.S. Special Forces have been conducting operations in the area, along the border with Pakistan, and that they operate separately from ISAF.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
ENEMY PROPAGANDA ALERT
The m/o of the crime only fits one group of people.
Me thinks the kids were murdered by the Taliban/ Al Qaeda in retaliation for their parents cooperating with the NATO troops.
The crime scene was then set up (as usual) and the gullible government officials called in to "investigate".
Sounds more plausible, yes?
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 1:02
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#2
This the same incident where the Afghan police general confirmed photos of 9 dead twenty-something men with guns and explosives.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 6:30
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[The News (Pak) Top Stories] Two militants were killed and their training base was destroyed when security forces pounded various areas in Mamond subdivision of Bajaur Agency on Wednesday, official sources said.
The sources said that groups of militants simultaneously attacked security forces' checkposts in Kamar Sar and Omari areas with rocket launchers and automatic weapons. Security forces, the sources said, repulsed the attack and heavily shelled their hideouts with artillery guns. Two militants were killed and another sustained injuries in the attack, the sources added.
Gunship helicopters also pounded a training camp of militants in Kharkay area, destroying it completely. No casualty was, however, reported in the action. The sources said that the body of a tribesman, whose name could not be ascertained, was found in Bar Khlozo area.
The slain tribesman belonged to Balam Khar area of Salarzai subdivision, but the motive behind his killing could not be known immediately. The sources added that a group of unknown assailants had been killing innocent tribesmen for quite some time and then dumping their bodies in deserted places of the tribal region.
The increasing incidents of killing of tribesmen have sent a wave of fear among the residents. They demanded of security forces and political authorities to take prompt action to apprehend the killers.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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Top|| File under: TTP
[Dawn] With the help of intelligence agencies, police have captured Khalilullah, the Punjab chief of the proscribed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, and a young man trained for suicide bombing.
Khalil, who was said to be the right hand of late Baitullah Mehsud, allegedly masterminded the twin suicide bombings at Iqbal Town's crowded Moon Market.
Police found explosive material and sensitive documents in the place where he was living.
According to sources, the cantonment division police and agency personnel had raided an outhouse of Malik Nazir in a Manawan locality 12 days ago and detained Khalil and the 17-year-old would-be suicide bomber, Usman alias Shahbaz.
On information provided by Khalil, police captured another eight terror suspects, three of them from Tandlianwala in Faisalabad district.
During interrogation, the suspects disclosed that they were to attack the flag-lowering ceremony at the Wagah border two days later.
Khalil told investigators that he had a team of 600 suicide bombers. According to sources, Khalil was on the US list of most-wanted terrorists.
Capital City Police Officer Pervez Rathor told Dawn that Khalil was involved in all terror acts in Punjab. He masterminded the Moon Market suicide bombings and provided logistic support to suicide bombers. He said Khalil arranged food, accommodation, weapons and vehicles for the bombers for attacks across the province.
This article starring:
Baitullah Mehsud
Khalilullah
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
the cantonment division police and agency personnel had raided an outhouse of Malik Nazir
Two men in an outhouse? Some "personal training" going on? What a POS country Pakistan is.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/31/2009 14:13
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#2
Indian Subcontinent dialect of English, Old Patriot. They meant outbuilding, very probably a guest house.
[Asharq al-Aswat] The attempted kidnapping of Saudi nationals in Niger, which left several of them dead, was intended to sell the victims to al-Qaeda's branches in Africa, Asharq al Awsat has learned.
Sources in Algeria's Sahara familiar with the smuggling activities associated with armed groups have stated that Touareg merchants who returned from Niger talked about the ambush of Saudi nationals, which took place the day before yesterday when it reached the borders between that country and Mali.
The sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that a gang of Niger's Arabs lead by an arms smuggler called "M.A." set up an ambush for the Saudis at dawn the day before yesterday and their aim was to kidnap and sell them to the terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the leaders of Al-Qaeda branch in Africa's Sahel. They said the plan was for the gang to take the six Saudis alive and hand them over to Belmokhtar, alias Khalid Abi al-Abbas and a veteran of the Afghanistan war who is 38 years old, but the Saudis' use of their weapons prompted the gang to open fire on them, killing three and wounding two. The Saudis were on a hunting trip for rare birds which live in the region.
Fred did mention bustards when the story first surfaced.
The sources estimated the number of the gang at 30 persons who mostly move between the border areas of Mali and Niger and in the latter's tourist areas to follow foreign tourists, especially Western ones, and then sell them to the armed organizations associated with Al-Qaeda organization in return for a percentage of the possible ransom which the terrorists obtain from the hostages' governments in exchange for releasing them.
The ambush prepared for the Saudis was similar to a successful kidnapping carried out by a gang at the end of 2008. The victims of that kidnapping were Robert Fowler, the UN secretary general's envoy to Niger, his assistant Louis Guay, and their Niger driver. The diplomats were handed over to Belmokhtar who released them four months later in return for a ransom, whose value is unknown, paid by the Canadian Government, and the release of three jihadists detained in Mali.
In a related development, the security forces in Niger arrested three persons in connection with the attack targeting the Saudis, according to "Reuters" report which cited military sources. The sources, which asked to remain unidentified, said the three persons were arrested near the borders with Mali and taken to the capital Niamey for questioning. The sources said the suspects were probably foreigners.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
Think this might be a wake-up call to the Saudis?
ya think?
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 1:08
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#2
One wonders, how much a Saudi goes for these days?
#8
I will be quite happy to see the Saudis on the receiving end of all the mischief they've had a hand in sowing. It will be justice (only a down payment) served.
[Bangla Daily Star] A Rab team yesterday busted a forged money factory in the city's Dakshinkhan area and seized fake notes worth Tk 2.3 lakh.
During an hour-long raid at Faidabad Madhyapara from midnight on the third floor of a four-storied building, Rab members also recovered some equipment and chemicals used in printing fake notes and arrested two people in this connection.
Detained Jahirul Islam, 27, and his wife Ayesha Akter, 25, had been involved in the fake note scam for the last one and half a year, Rab sources said.
Maj Mohammad Mahbubul Haque of Rab-3, who led the drive, told The Daily Star that the forgers had spread their network in the capital.
Fake notes worth around Tk 1.5 crore put by them in circulation are still in the market.
Maj Haque suspects that international gangs might have connection with the local syndicate. Replying to a query he however said the equipment and raw materials used in forging notes are available in local market.
Rab sources said the gang was capable of printing Tk 50, Tk 100, Tk 500 and Tk 1000 notes worth Tk 10 lakh a day. They recently have developed the technology to make the fake notes as strong as the real ones.
Rab members also found huge amount of papers to print notes, half-printed forged notes, one computer monitor and two CPUs, three colour printers and several scanning machines.
"We have also seized some embossers and computer software needed for making Indian notes," Maj Haque said.
Rab said the busting of the forgery factory is an outcome of three months of investigation by the Rapid Action Battalion members who contacted with the syndicate to purchase Tk 10 lakh counterfeit notes in exchange of Tk 2 lakh.
Rab said apprehending the arrest, the gang used to shift residences every three months and use pseudonyms.
Maj Haque said, "The amount of fake currency notes seized from the market in different times suggests that a number of gangs are active in this illegal business."
THE FORGERY GANG
The two arrestees, now under intensive interrogation, disclosed to the elite force members that they had also a plan to forge Indian notes.
Zahurul hailing from Charghat in Rajshahi passed diploma from Government Commercial Institute in Rangpur in 2003 and then worked at the Proshika, an NGO, for four years.
He admitted to Rab that he got involved in the illegal business through their ringleader Rana in 2008.
The syndicate led by Rana has around 50 members in three groups -- general workers, team leaders and suppliers, Rab sources said.
They added the gang worked so secretly that even their neighbours did not know anything about their clandestine activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
In the US police should be searching for the person who printed 10 trillion dollars.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The Venezuelan government says the US is trying to "spread violence" in Iran to destabilize the Islamic Republic.
"The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically rejects the attempts at destabilization promoted by the US government against the people and government of Iran," Reuters quoted Venezuela's foreign ministry as saying in a statement on Wednesday.
"The Bolivarian government is surprised that a group of governments, led by the US empire, are echoing a campaign to divide and spread violence among Iranians, in contravention of elemental norms of peace, non-interference and respect for sovereignty," it added.
The statement also expressed solidarity with Iran and praised the country for "its tireless struggle for the consolidation of the Islamic Revolution."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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[7 views]
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#1
tHugo needs a severe beatdown, and soon.
I think even his own people are getting very tired of his antics.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/31/2009 0:56
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#2
It's all about getting off the foreign oil teat and the massive merchandise imports that fuel the worldwide purchase of the oil. Do those two things and most of our enemies will revert to North Korean status.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 6:43
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#3
Hugo's busy cutting his own throat. Don't disturb him.
#4
Does Venezuela produce enough of that tar that every time this idiot says something it gets immediate news coverage? I f the media would quit giving him attention then more than likely he would shut up or at least we wouldn't have too read or listen too it.
Posted by: chris ||
12/31/2009 11:09
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[Dawn] Four children, a woman and two security personnel were killed in an exchange of fire and shelling in Mohmand tribal region on Monday and Tuesday.
Local people said the children were killed when a mortar shell hit a playground in Sagai Bala area of Safi tehsil on Tuesday. Another shell hit the house of Qazi in Chamarkand area, killing the woman.
The two security personnel were killed when suspected militants attacked a checkpost in Chamarkand with rockets on Monday night. Five personnel were injured.
Troops hit back, killing one militant and injuring several others.Militants' hideouts were pounded with artillery, but there was no report about casualties.
Local Taliban spokesman told newsmen on phone that one militant had been killed and one injured. He claimed that 14 security personnel were killed in the attack.
Helicopter gunships pounded militants' positions also in Shiekh Baba, Soran Dara, Golono and Sagai.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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[Quqnoos] There have been protests over the reported deaths of 10 civilians in a foreign military operation in eastern Afghanistan.
President Hamid Karzai says 10 people, including eight children, were killed by US-led forces in Kunar province on Saturday.
The US military and NATO have not confirmed whether the incident took place.
Hundreds of people, including university students, blocked the main roads in Jalalabad, shouting "death to Obama" and calling for an investigation into the deaths.
"The government must prevent such unilateral operations otherwise we will take guns instead of pens and fight against them [foreign forces]," students from the University of Nangahar's education faculty said in a statement.
"Our demonstration is against those foreigners who have come to our country," student organiser Safiullah Aminzai said.
"They have not brought democracy to Afghanistan but they are killing our religious scholars and children."
Yesterday, the United Nations announced that the number of civilians killed in the war in Afghanistan is up by 10 per cent compared to last year.
Figures released by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) put civilian deaths in the Afghan war at 2,038 for the first 10 months of 2009, up from 1,838 for the same period of 2008 -- an increase of 10.8 percent.
Civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces fuel distrust between the Afghan population, the government and US and NATO troops, even though most of the deaths are caused by insurgent tactics such as homemade bombs.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
President Hamid Karzai says 10 people, including eight children,
He indignantly sprayed saliva and snorted "Why every one of those children were under the age of 21".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 12:57
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So once again I ask the question: What is the point of trying to build a democratic nation in Afghanistan?
If there is something covert going on across the border in either Pakistan or Iran so that we need a base in Afghanistan I can accept our presence there. Something, that is, that has a chance of success. Otherwise, I would say we lost that war when bin Laden eluded us at Tora Bora. We should have crossed the Pak border and kept on chasing him then but now that's water under the bridge. Now we should leave Karzai to the tender mercies of the Taliban.
But if, for some reason, it is in the vital interest of the United States to stay in Afghanistan we should shoot Karzai and all of his brothers and install a U.S. general as governor.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/31/2009 16:18
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Attorneys General from 13 states penned the top two Democrats in Congress Wednesday requesting they remove extra Medicaid funds directed toward Nebraska.
The attorneys general, all Republican, say that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) tacked on extra Medicare funds to the Senate bill to buy the vote of holdout centrist Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)
The state officials, led by South Carolina Attorney General, Henry McMaster, say that the provision is unconstitutional and ask that Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) remove it as to avoid a lawsuit.
"We ask that Congress delete the Nebraska provision from the pending legislation, as we prefer to avoid litigation," they wrote. "Because this provision has serious implications for the country and the future of our nation's legislative process, we urge you to take appropriate steps to protect the Constitution and the rights of the citizens of our nation."
Critics, who have dubbed the funds as the "Cornhusker Kickback" say that the $100 million deal is emblematic of Washington wheeling and dealing and that it is not fair to other states who have to use their own funds to pay for the Medicaid expansion included in the healthcare overhaul.
The letter comes just weeks before the Senate and House will meet to merge their two healthcare reform bills.
Nelson defended the deal on the Senate floor several weeks ago, saying that other states could have access to such federal funds. Critics disagree, claiming that Nelson received it exclusively in exchange for his vote.
The 13 GOP attorneys general argue that the provision runs up against Supreme Court decisions banning the "display of arbitrary power" and violates other Constitutional protections.
"The fundamental unfairness of H.R. 3590 may also give rise to claims under the due process, equal protection, privileges and immunities clauses and other provisions of the Constitution," they wrote.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
The other 36 states, where are their AG's? Oh, only Republican AG's are speaking out. I get it.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar says one of those killed in Tehran on Ashura day has been shot with a "rare gun."
He said that there was a "Western scenario" aimed at inciting violence in Iran through killing people on Ashura day. "McGinty, go to Teheran and assassinate somebody! We want to make the Iranians look bad."
"Right, chief!"
"And make sure you use a rare and special gun. That way nobody will connect the killing with us!"
"Right, chief! Got it!"
"After close reviews it was revealed that he has been assassinated by a rare and special gun," Iran's interior minister said in remarks that seem to be an indirect reference to Mir-Hossein Mousavi's nephew. "And don't get too close to the actual protests."
"Right chief. I'll pick somebody at random in the airport parking lot!"
"He was assassinated in an area that was not the scene of protests," Mohammad-Najjar added.
"Foreign agents assumed that they could incite tension by making such moves," IRNA quoted the Iranian officials as saying on Wednesday. Damn them and their perfidious ways!"
According to police reports two of those killed on Ashura day lost their lives in accidents, one fell from a high altitude, one was stabbed to death, two were killed during the unrest after receiving hard blows and one had records that showed he was a drug addict, Mohammad-Najjar stated.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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#1
The rare Saturday Friday Night Special.
Posted by: ed ||
12/31/2009 6:25
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The freaking Persians are running around with lots of old crap up in the more "tribal" areas...Webleys, PPK's, SSK's, Mausers...they still shoot muskets at each other for crap sake...why does a bullet from some obscure weapon make this a "western" plot?
Tell Mahmoud to put the Moisin away and to quit playing with his Brown Bess and get real.
Posted by: Karl Rove ||
12/31/2009 12:17
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As for making the Iranians look bad, well I have a news flash for these cretins, in the age of the internet, mobile broad band, satellite phones and cell phones, you can't muzzle the truth and control the news.
Methinks this is all leading to a big civil war in Iran. When that happens you might find Hamas and Hezbully hung out to dry...maybe even the number of kabooms going down in Iraq?
Posted by: Karl Rove ||
12/31/2009 12:19
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Progressives are taking aim at some of their closest allies in the Senate, pressuring liberals to demand a public option in healthcare reform. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is launching a series of robocalls and ads in Vermont and Wisconsin asking Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to vote against any bill that does not contain a government-administered insurance plan.
The pressure is part of the group's "Be a Hero" campaign. The PCCC hopes that by demanding public option, a single liberal senator can exert the same influence on the legislation that centrists have. The group will also deliver petitions to Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
All four of the targeted senators voted both for cloture and the Senate bill itself. PCCC is hoping that at least one of them will hold out for some kind of public plan during negotiations with the House.
Sanders, Feingold and other Senate progressives have strongly supported a public option, but their desire to see some legislation passed has so far stopped them from issuing an ultimatum on the issue.
"Bernie Sanders can be a hero at this historic moment by declaring that any final bill must have a public option to win his support," said PCCC co-foudner Adam Green. "That would change the entire calculus in House-Senate negotiations and force President Obama to finally fight back against Joe Lieberman's threats."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009
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Obama fundamentally altered the culture and risk-taking incentives of the intelligence community with policy and personnel changes. The sense of urgency is gone, and he's made it uncool to call the war on terror a war at all. If he wants to treat terrorism like a criminal act, rather than an act of war, we should not be surprised when the results look a lot like the bureaucratic foul-ups that happen all the time in law enforcement. He gutted the Homeland Security Council coordinating role, he diluted the focus of the daily intel brief, he made CIA officials worry more about being prosecuted for doing their jobs than capturing terrorists. He's so worried about the political consequences to his administration of a terrorist attack on our home soil that he denies the obvious -- that Major Hasan is a jihadist terrorist -- and he wants to shut down GITMO and bring terrorists here. He's made it his business to turn much of the national security apparatus set up by Bush and Cheney upside down and has succeeded....
On the comparisons to how the shoe bomber was treated, it's important to note that the shoe bomber was arrested in December 2001. President Bush's order authorizing detentions of enemy combatants was issued in mid-Nov 2001 and there was scant infrastructure in place or much precedent a month later to hold a terrorist in custody as an enemy combatant. Of course, by 2002 there was GTMO and the CIA program overseas, and President Bush started designating terrorists as enemy combatants, including Jose Padilla (a US citizen), al-Marri, and detainees at GTMO. Most important...I bet that if the administration had thought the shoe bomber had more information to provide under interrogation, President Bush would not have hesitated to order the Justice Dept to have the criminal charges dismissed and designate him as an enemy combatant. Will Obama take that step if his investigators tell him that's the only way to get more info from Abdulmutallab? The point is that we're eight years down the road from 9/11 and the shoe bomber, and Obama refuses to use the authority he has to get the intelligence we need.
#1
We can't have horrible facts/slurs like this floating around. The One will need to find a sacrifice and somehow drown out any ideas that he might have somehow - anyhow - been even partially responsible.
I wonder if the plane had gone down, would Obama wake up? I suspect this Christmas incident just irritated him. He'll go back to sleep as soon as he can control the media spin on this.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/31/2009 6:04
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He didn't go back to sleep, he went snorkeling. {8^P
Apparently whoever in the US government who heard about this wasn't allowed to share it with DHS, TSA, FBI and the Trilateral Commission. Firewalls, you know.
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The Somali man -- whose name has not yet been released -- was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off.
An actual arrest? Well done, O AU Peacekeepers! Would that Dutch airport security had done as much.
It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. A Somali police spokesman, Abdulahi Hassan Barise, said the suspect is in Somali custody.
"We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaida or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," said Barise.
Of course, the actions of a terrorist, caught red-headed, in Detroit make you a criminal defendant. See how much more enlightened we are?
A Nairobi-based diplomat said the incident in Somalia is similar to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in that the Somali man had a syringe, a bag of powdered chemicals and liquid -- tools similar to those used in the Detroit attack. The diplomat spoke on condition he not be identified because he isn't authorized to release the information.
Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the African Union military force in Mogadishu, said the chemicals from the Somali suspect could have caused an explosion that would have caused air decompression inside the plane. However, Bahoku said he doesn't believe an explosion would have brought the plane down.
I'll trust the airplane engineers on this one -- they seem to think that an explosive decompression in an airplane at high altitude is a real bad idea ...
A second international official familiar with the incident, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to discuss the case, confirmed that the substances carried by the Somali passenger could have been used as an explosive device.
In the Detroit case, alleged attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid explosive PETN in a condom or condom-like bag just below his torso
A overly refined locution compared to "sewn into his undies"
when he traveled from Amsterdam to Detroit. Like the captured Somali, Abdulmutallab also had a syringe filled with liquid. The substances seized from the Somali passenger are being tested.
The November incident garnered little attention before the Dec. 25 attack aboard a flight on final approach to Detroit. U.S. officials have now learned of the Somali case and are hastening to investigate any possible links between it and the Detroit attack, though no officials would speak on the record about the probe.
Just don't breach any firewalls. We wouldn't want to violate Abdulmutallab' rights after all ...
U.S. investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen -- which lies across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Similarly, large swaths of Somalia are controlled by an insurgent group, al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaida.
Western officials say many of the hundreds of foreign jihadi fighters in Somalia come in small boats across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. The officials also say that examination of equipment used in some Somali suicide attacks leads them to believe it was originally assembled in Yemen.
How about that. Yemen is the new capital of al-Qaeda it seems, though al-Q may be basing a fair bit of the farm team in and around Mog.
A Somali security official involved in the capture of the suspect in Mogadishu said he had a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) package of chemical powder and a container of liquid chemicals. The security official said the suspect was the last passenger to try to board.
Always put yourself in the middle, Mahmoud, that way you don't call attention to yourself.
Once security officials detected the powder chemicals and syringe, the suspect tried to bribe the security team that detained him, the Somali security official said.
You'd think that would have worked; it's Mog after all ...
The security official said the suspect had a white shampoo bottle with a black acid-like substance in it. He also had a clear plastic bag with a light green chalky substance and a syringe containing a green liquid.
It sounds like there was no attempt at concealment here as there was for the Detroit knickerbomber. (A wonderful term, Skunky Glins****.)
The powdered material had the strong scent of ammonia, Bahoku said, and samples have been sent to London for testing.
The Somali security officials said the Daallo Airlines flight was scheduled to go from Mogadishu to Hargeisa, to Djibouti and then to Dubai.
A spokeswoman for Daallo Airlines said that company officials weren't aware of the incident and would have to seek more information before commenting. Daallo Airlines is based in Dubai and has offices in Djibouti and France.
Let me guess: they fly the vaunted Ilyushin-74 with maintenance handled by Air Ukraine ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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Once security officials detected the powder chemicals and syringe, the suspect tried to bribe the security team that detained him, the Somali security official said.
Shades of the "well dressed man" who assisted the Detroit knickerbomber on to Flt 253?
Reports from Iran indicate that the Supreme National Security Council has ordered a complete check-up of the jet which is on standby to fly Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei and his family to Russia should the situation in Iran spiral out of control. The order, to the Pasdaran Revolutionary Guard Corps, was dated on Sunday, 27 December.
A fax containing the order was sent to Dutch-based Shahrzad News.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/31/2009
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Just proves who is the power behind the Iranian regime-Russia,hardly an Islamic paradise!
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.
Officials in Bolivia issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for a leading political rival of leftist President Evo Morales, charging the conservative politician with tax evasion and election fraud. 
Phoenix -- A man in his late 30s was roasting a pig at a family gathering Wednesday night when he somehow fell into the cylindrical pit. It happened on East Kristal Way in North Phoenix.
North Korean electricity supply decreasing again. According to a source on December 20, the electricity supply is low again, after some improvement in September.
Consumer confidence and expectations have risen, and more employers are planning to hire workers in 2010, according to studies released Tuesday, signaling increasing economic strength. A consumer expectations index formulated by the Conference Board rose to its highest level in two years, but Americans still feel pessimistic about their current state. The nonprofit organization's "present situation index" fell to its lowest point in 26 years.
As a fresh poll measured the political cost of Sen. Ben Nelson's health reform vote, he prepared Tuesday to take his case directly to Nebraskans during Wednesday night's Holiday Bowl game.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence chief Admiral Dennis Blair faced tough questions about his future on Wednesday as the Obama administration fended off criticism over the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25.
FALLUJAH, Iraq, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Ten people were killed, including the governor of Anbar province, in twin bombing attacks in Iraq's western city of Ramadi on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry source said.
Iranian police have detained the owner of the car involved in the shooting of the nephew of former Iranian Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi. "After thorough investigations, police have identified the owner of the car involved in the suspicious killing (of Mousavi's nephew)," an informed source told Fardanews website on Wednesday. 
There was a lot of love in the room for U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd Tuesday as he addressed the New Haven Democratic Town Committee, which will bring the largest number of delegates to the party's nominating convention this spring.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Informed sources have denied earlier reports that Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi have fled Tehran amid security concerns. 
Former Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) will run for Congress in 2010, according to a media report Wednesday. "I'm going to run," Traficant said before about 35 members of The Biz Society, the Youngstown Business Journal reported Wednesday. 
[Dawn] With the help of intelligence agencies, police have captured 
Reports from Iran indicate that the Supreme National Security Council has ordered a complete check-up of the jet which is on standby to fly Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei and his family to Russia should the situation in Iran spiral out of control. The order, to the Pasdaran Revolutionary Guard Corps, was dated on Sunday, 27 December. 
