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Suspected Iranian Agent Bungles Bombing in Bangkok
Today's Headlines
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Europe
Round-up: Greece faces death by a thousand cuts unless it leaves the euro
Lucas Papademos was suitably apocalyptic. If the terms of the second Greek bailout were not approved, the Greek prime minister warned over the weekend, there would be a "disorderly bankruptcy that would create conditions of economic chaos and social explosion.

Greece won't see a cent of the great bail-out
MPs in Athens may have voted for austerity, but the reality is that default is looming.

Greek economy spirals down as EU forces final catharsis
A Greek default and traumatic ejection from the euro moved a step closer last night after eurozone finance ministers cancelled a crucial meeting, accusing Athens of failing to flesh out austerity cuts.
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 15:56 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The 'true' reality is that the Greek default is ongoing, and Euro movers and shakers are trying to conceal this in order to save the banks and to leave Europeans holding the bag of bad debts.
This is more of what's been going on for many months now.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 16:45 Comments || Top||

#2  The solution to 100% of the fiscal problems of 100% of Western democracies is: end 100% of triple and quadruple pension "dipping." 80% of non-governmental US workers will receive only 1 pension. 100% of them would want pension receipts limited to 1% for each year of service (max: 45%), and would base receipts on the basis of the average of the 6 highest years of earning. If that average was $50K then the pension would be 22.5K, plus the government pension. California is shelling out half million pensions to retired chiefs of police. Can't afford it; and it was gained by extortion and cozying up to corrupt politicians. LA cop pensions equal 90% of wages.

Would anyone here deny a teacher who works 40 years, a pension equal to 40% of the allowed income average? I wouldn't.
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Forgot to mention that many second-pension Americans receive peanuts for the 2nd. I know someone who gets a private pension of $12 per month. Civil service workers rake in huge sums, if they move from one package to another. I know someone who receives 5
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Would anyone here deny a teacher who works 40 years, a pension equal to 40% of the allowed income average? I wouldn't.

I would. If self-funded 401k plans and IRAs are good enough for the private sector they're damn well good enough for the public sector as well. Let them exist on Social Security, Medicare & whatever they can accumulate in their private self-funded retirement accounts just like the rest of us.
Posted by: AzCat || 02/14/2012 18:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Would anyone here deny a teacher who works 40 years, a pension equal to 40% of the allowed income average? I wouldn't.

Make it two. In addition to AC's point, of the teachers I've seen with 40 years, 90% should have been gone after 20 years and probably 50% after 10. Teaching is a hard job, not a sinecure. Teachers burn out. They should not stay in a job after they destroy the joy of learning for youngsters just because they need the pension. Pay them market rate, get rid of the union, and no life time employment. Like the rest of us.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/14/2012 19:32 Comments || Top||

#6  I would too.

Let them have a visible pay and let teachers decide what fraction to put towards a pension.

Better yet, get teaching away from the state.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 21:15 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Gaza power plant stops due to smuggled fuel shortage
Gee, I wonder if they are friendly with any Arabs who might be able to provide them with fuel?
The Gaza Strip's only power station, which supplies the Palestinian enclave with up to two-thirds of its energy needs, was shut down on Tuesday because of a shortage of fuel smuggled in from neighboring Egypt.

The closure led to widespread blackouts for Gaza's 1.7 million inhabitants. The local power company warned that households would receive only six hours of electricity a day until the problem was resolved.

Gaza's Energy Authority, which is run by the Islamist Hamas group, said "measures taken" on the Egyptian side of the border meant not enough fuel was entering the territory.

It did not provide further details. Some local experts said Hamas had mismanaged Gaza's power needs by failing to provide a viable alternative to the precarious smuggling routes.
Related
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 15:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Some local experts said Hamas had mismanaged Gaza's power needs by failing to provide a viable alternative to the precarious smuggling routes.

Like buying fuel via that pipeline they keep blowing up, fer instance?
Posted by: SteveS || 02/14/2012 16:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Awww that's too sad!
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/14/2012 16:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Like buying fuel via that pipeline they keep blowing up, fer instance?

Be fair, SteveS. It's not Hamas blowing up the pipeline, it's some queer, inbred Muslim Brotherhood offshoot living on the Egyptian side of the Sinai Desert. Besides, how could Hamas in good conscience take fuel from Israel when they refuse to hook up to Israeli sewage lines, though offered for free?
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2012 16:34 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Oliver Stone's son converts to Islam in Iran
Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's son Sean has converted to Islam in Iran. Stone, whose new Muslim name is Ali, is making a documentary in the Islamic Republic.
"The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with," he told AFP.

"It means I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets," he said in while in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, where he underwent the ceremony.

Sean Stone's famous father is Jewish, while his mother is Christian.

The 27-year-old filmmaker did not say why he converted.

According to Iran's Fars news agency, Sean Stone had become a Shiite.
The younger Stone has acted in minor roles in several of his father's films, and has directed a handful of documentaries.
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 14:44 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Congratulations! Please don't come back!
Posted by: Fat Bob Unotch3711 || 02/14/2012 15:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Good for you!

Now fucking stay there.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/14/2012 15:27 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm surprised that they allow secret MOSSAD agents to convert to Islam.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 16:19 Comments || Top||

#4  hey Basij! He's a Jooooo and secretly gay too ...i heard
Posted by: Frank G || 02/14/2012 16:20 Comments || Top||

#5  He'll love the Ashura bloodletting and the Basij strike-breaking for billionair ayatoilets.
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:14 Comments || Top||

#6  "The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with," he told AFP.

I dunno, kid, they're kinda touchy about that. Might wanna read the manual again.
What do you figure he'll be into next year? Spinning? Full contact mountain biking? Heroin?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/14/2012 19:20 Comments || Top||

#7  As Grandma used to say "Poop don't fall far from the a-hole". (OK, I cleaned it up a bit.....)
Posted by: Daffy the Eponymous4768 || 02/14/2012 20:24 Comments || Top||

#8  When your parents are rabidly anti-west it makes sense to see Islam as some kind of viable option.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 20:51 Comments || Top||

#9  "The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with," he told AFP.

Great now he is apostate in three religions. Off to India to eat a cheese-burger.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/14/2012 21:00 Comments || Top||

#10  sublime, SH
Posted by: Frank G || 02/14/2012 21:54 Comments || Top||

#11  The March of Folly continues apace; across the entire Globe...
Achtung,Baby!

We've had it. Aloha.
Posted by: Chesh Squank6666 || 02/14/2012 23:50 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Thailand blasts: 'Iranian' bomber injured in Bangkok - Game ON!
A man thought to be Iranian has had both legs blown off after attempting to throw a bomb at police in the Thai capital, Bangkok, officials say.

Two other explosions were reported in the same busy commercial district of the city, injuring four other people.

Police said one blast took place at the house the injured man rented with other Iranians. One of those men also threw a bomb at a taxi in the capital.

Last month, the US embassy warned of possible attacks in Bangkok.

The warning over possible attacks last month was of attacks perhaps against Israeli and American interests, and a man has been arrested in connection with those and some materials were found.

The Bangkok blasts come just a day after two bomb attacks targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia.

Israel has accused Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah of orchestrating the attacks. Iran denied the allegations.

There is no sign of who the attackers in Bangkok might have been targeting, but the timing and the link to Iran will raise suspicions that this might be part of a co-ordinated campaign, says BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera.

Identity card


Police told the BBC the first explosion happened around 14:20 (07:20 GMT) at a house in the Ekamai area in central Bangkok, which the three Iranians were believed to have rented for a month.

Two men managed to escape the explosion that severely damaged the house, according to police, but a third man who suffered minor injuries tried to hail a taxi. When the taxi refused to stop for him, he threw at least one bomb at it.

There was a third explosion when the same man then attempted to throw another bomb at police, but missed. The man lost his legs when the device blew up.

He is said to be receiving emergency treatment in hospital. Thai media said that an identity card found nearby indicated the man could be of Iranian origin.

A police forensics team was examining the house and reports said that police used a high pressure water cannon to defuse another explosive found there.

The Thai authorities say they have detained an Iranian man at Bangkok's Airport for questioning, but it was not immediately clear if he was one of the two other suspects.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra urged the public to remain calm.

On Monday, an Israeli diplomat was injured in a car bomb attack in the Indian capital, Delhi. It seems a motorcycle rider came from behind and attached an explosive device to the back door of the diplomat's car.

At almost the same time, a bomb beneath an Israeli diplomat's car in Tbilisi, Georgia, was found and defused.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 14:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This week's first Darwin Award.
Posted by: Glaitch Bucket5471 || 02/14/2012 14:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Original article said he survived the blast, and did not specify whether he lost two legs or all three.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 14:52 Comments || Top||

#3  It blew off his right knee... and his left knee... and his wee knee...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/14/2012 15:49 Comments || Top||

#4  did not specify whether he lost two legs or all three.

I think in Bangkok, the answer is obvious
Posted by: Frank G || 02/14/2012 15:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Good one Frank.
Posted by: Penguin || 02/14/2012 16:32 Comments || Top||

#6  The CIA has so many Iranian walkins as assets, that they turn them away. What a joke of a country.
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:03 Comments || Top||

#7  And this is what Oliver Stone's son is inspired to be?
Posted by: Ebbaique Spereting5364 || 02/14/2012 18:14 Comments || Top||

#8  Maybe we shouldn't link to 5th columnist narrative shops like the BBC?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 18:45 Comments || Top||

#9  As per LUCIANNE + OTHER, Israel is not expected to initiate any retaliatory mil moves agz Iran - for now, anyway.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 19:23 Comments || Top||

#10  In America he would probably be in line for $5M surgery at the Cleveland Clinic with a special Halal diet. In Thailand they will probably just have another inmate wheelbarrow him around the exercise yard.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/14/2012 20:41 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Dupe entry: Get ready for US Military RIFs
The Defense Department may have to force soldiers, Marines or other members of the military out of the services. Cut 67,100 soldiers from Army and National Guard starting Oct. 1, as well as 15,200 from the Marine Corps. The Navy and Air Force would lose 8,600 and 1,700 respectively, according to the budget sent to Congress.
Posted by: Tamir Pardo || 02/14/2012 14:09 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Science & Technology
Raytheon Restarts Production of Laser-Guided Maverick Missile
After more than two decades, Raytheon Company has formally restarted production of the laser-guided Maverick missile, with the first weapon expected to be delivered to the U.S. Air Force in late 2012.

"The combat-proven laser Maverick has demonstrated its effectiveness against frigate size ships, small moving boats, tanks, fortified personnel and fast moving maneuvering vehicles in excess of 70 miles per hour," said Harry Schulte, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems' Air Warfare Systems product line. "We are focused on getting laser-guided Maverick to the U.S. warfighter, and hope to also provide this weapon to U.S. allies since it is available via both Direct Commercial Sales and Foreign Military Sales."
The Maverick missile is the most widely-produced precision-guided weapon in the Western world. Nothing succeeds like success.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 13:40 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  After more than two decades, Raytheon Company has formally restarted production of the laser-guided Maverick missile, with the first weapon expected to be delivered to the U.S. Air Force in late 2012.

But new production delivery could begin as soon as Saturday if developments in the ME warrant.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 14:24 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
'Gays threaten humanity,' says Libyan rights delegate
Libya's delegate stunned the UN Human Rights Council on Monday by claiming that gay people threaten the survival of the human race.

It was the new western-backed regime's first appearance at the 47-nation body.
Clearly an auspicious start...
Libya's membership was restored in November.

Protesting at the council's first panel discussion on discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation, scheduled for March 7, Libya's representative told the gathering of ambassadors that LGBT topics "affect religion and the continuation and reproduction of the human race."

Council president Laura Dupuy Lasserre responded: "This council is here to defend human rights and prevent discrimination."
Unless it's against Joooz, in which case they're down with it.
Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, which monitors its performance by the yardstick of the UN charter, said: "This homophobic outburst by the new Libyan government, together with the routine abuse of prisoners, underscores the serious questions we have about the new regime's commitment to improving on the dark record of its predecessor."
Not to mention the serious questions we have about the new human rights council...
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 13:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Libya's delegate stunned the UN Human Rights Council on Monday by claiming that gay people threaten the survival of the human race.

But 'dancing boys' are still... ok?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 14:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Islam is a far greater threat to the survival of the human race. Deal with that first, and with trifling matters much later, if ever.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:27 Comments || Top||

#3  "You don't understand! Gays design high fashion that our wives insist on buying, and that stuff is hideous!! And expensive!"
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 16:23 Comments || Top||

#4  He doth protest too much.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 18:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Technically, he's correct: gay sex does not produce babies. Why would this worry him, unless it's so rampant in his corner of the world that he fears it will diminish the number of future muslims? I suppose he went on to explain that this is why rape is justified.
Posted by: RandomJD || 02/14/2012 22:22 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
When Welfare Recipients Go Militant
HT: Drudge
Full Title: Muslim Brotherhood Warns U.S. Aid Cut May Affect Egypt's Peace Treaty With Israel
Coming soon to a city near you......
Anything to keep the boodle coming in...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 02/14/2012 13:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Egypt is also on the verge of mass starvation. They are copying from North Korea's playbook. "Send us boodle, or we will raise hell."
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Probably the best thing for Egypt right now would be to round up all their poor people and Paleos and send them in human wave attacks against Israeli machine guns.

They could even get Imams to bless their shirts to make them bullet proof.

Of course, keeping their regular military in reserve in case Israel attacks with suicide Rabbis. Or something.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 16:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Anonymous - if they did that ... Israel would find it more effective to blow the Aswan.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/14/2012 16:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Speaking of which - countries with massive dams and huge populations downriver should be careful about whom they threaten how.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/14/2012 16:32 Comments || Top||

#5  The Ikhwanis were always spared liquidation by State Dept leverage. That can happen. Most of their voters rejected other parties on corruption issues. A reform minded junta - and there have been many of these - could get both popular support and immunity from Foggy Bottom leverage. However, there is something in the way and it rhynes with ohmamna.
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Fact of the matter is that one year ago, Egypt had a functioning economy, complete with supply chains, distribution centers and "global product"- you could keep the Egyptian Walmart shelves stocked with a functioning financial market place.
Now, most international expertise has been moved out of country, and after a year to think about it, has not been "budgeted" for reentry in 2012.
MakeEgyptian cotton in to high quality sheets to distribute to high end retailers around the world?- gone. Ability to run an international hotel chain? gone. It doesn't even matter if US charity remains at the same level, it won't be enough to reconstruct the progress made before the A train, known as Arab Spring departs for the 7th century.
Posted by: Capsu78 || 02/14/2012 19:24 Comments || Top||

#7  One of my engineering colleagues went with his son on a tourist junket when his son had an extra ticket. Went to the tourist sites always with an armed escort. People hawking wares or begging. Glad to leave the country, sez he.

Egypt has pooped in its mess kit.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/14/2012 19:53 Comments || Top||

#8  "...Muslim Brotherhood Warns U.S. Aid Cut May Affect Egypt's Peace Treaty With Israel"

The surgeon general has warned Americans to quit smoking as well. In all honesty, is the Muslim Brotherhood implying that they intend to honor their peace treaty with Israel. Let's pocket the money and take our chances.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/14/2012 20:49 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Sean Penn still a dictator loving ass - blasts the UK for not surrendering the Falklands
Sean Penn has branded Britain 'colonialist' for its refusal to hand over the Falkland Islands to Argentina.

The notoriously left-wing actor said that the UK was being 'ludicrous and archaic' by believing it could hold on to what he called 'the Malvinas Islands of Argentina'.
Archaic maybe but ludicrous? Who's going to throw them out?
Penn, who has no personal connection with the islands at all, added that diplomacy was needed to resolve the issue but that he was firmly on the side of the Argentinians.
In which case his sense of 'diplomacy' is rather one-sided...
His comments has incensed Britons, Falkland Islanders and the families of those who died in the war in the South Atlantic almost 30 years ago.
Sean once again proves he is against freedom and liberty and pretty much a full fledged asshole. The UK should ban him from their country.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/14/2012 12:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sean Penn is a loser. I avoid his movies, they are all the same.
Posted by: Fat Bob Unotch3711 || 02/14/2012 14:05 Comments || Top||

#2  In other news, Mafeking has been relieved.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 14:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Perhaps now that he is the Haitian ambassador at large he is speaking for the peaceful island nation when he says whacky things.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 14:44 Comments || Top||

#4  SHUT UP AND.... umm.... ehhh....

What the hell is Sean Penn good at? I Can't think of a single damn thing. Critical thinking certainly isn't it.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/14/2012 15:03 Comments || Top||

#5  "What the hell is Sean Penn good at?"

He played a mentally challenged kid one. Did good there.
Posted by: newc || 02/14/2012 16:18 Comments || Top||

#6  "He played a mentally challenged kid one. Did good there."

No acting involved, newc?
Posted by: Barbara || 02/14/2012 17:31 Comments || Top||

#7  After Spicoli, it was all down hill...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/14/2012 19:23 Comments || Top||

#8  He was great as Spiccoli though. For some reason all his nonsense hasn't spoiled that yet.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 20:50 Comments || Top||


Can the federal government seize state revenues to pay for Medicaid?
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/14/2012 12:09 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The thinking behind the original article is so limited & partial, it's pitiful.
Just what allows the feds to order individual firms to supply goods for free simply because government officials believe that these services are essential?
Beats me, but EMTALA has been the law of this land since about 1986. It basically requires hospitals supplying emergency care to supply FREE emergency services to whosowhatever needs it. The level of controversy about this 'taking' by the government is ZERO. The only ways around this are for hospitals to supply no emergency care to anyone and/or not to accept Medicare payments.
Whatever anyone wants to say against Medicaid and Obamacare must first be reconciled to current law on Medicare, but this is almost never done.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:05 Comments || Top||

#2  ..that's why so many 'Emergency Rooms' have disappeared across America while 'Urgent Care' store fronts have opened. Different regulations. It's also why today most Emergency Rooms are located in state or state university facilities.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/14/2012 14:48 Comments || Top||

#3  The 'third rail' of American politics is the question everyone studiously avoids: "What government (and government-mandated) expenditures are we willing to tax ourselves to pay for?"
Until this question becomes one of the most important ones in US political discourse, things will continue to go from bad to worse, perhaps ending in collapse.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Yah, affordability never forms part of the equation.
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:19 Comments || Top||


Britain
Sean Penn proves he's an idiot
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 11:44 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
Irony is not a river in China
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/14/2012 11:41 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Science & Technology
50 Years Later, Celebrating John Glenn’s Feat
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/14/2012 11:32 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'll say it again - the Bammer should be supporting Newt's schema for the US to return to the Moon by 2020.

I'm all for helping International Allies acheieve success wid their SpaceProgs, but how long is the US going to fund costly, failed-n-failing Solar = "Green Tech" Companies wid little to no viable Consumer/Free Markets, outside of the Govt, for their NT goods + services???

D *** NG IT BAMMER, "IFF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME"! SAVE A SOLAR + WIND COMPANY, + US TAXPAYER DOLLARS - GO BACK TO THE MOON + BEYOND!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 22:14 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Fox News - Left Oblique March, Forward March
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/14/2012 11:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Once a Saudi Sheik took a big stake in them - this was expected and they proved themselves to be whores too.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/14/2012 13:50 Comments || Top||

#2  The article comes from Politico. they've got one guy who went from Fox to CNN because he claims they are more balanced? Nonsense all around.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 14:47 Comments || Top||

#3  The article comes from Politico

Speaking of Left Oblique March...
Posted by: Pappy || 02/14/2012 16:33 Comments || Top||

#4  The article comes from Politico.

That does not mean that Fox News hasn't performed a Left Oblique maneuver.
Posted by: Black Charlie Phinelet7572 || 02/14/2012 16:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Just because they have commentators who favor Romney does not mean they've gone lefty. It means they have commentators who have opinions. Some retarded, some worthwhile. That's how punditry works. Don't blame the channel, just keep track of which pundits are shown to have questionable judgement for future reference.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 20:47 Comments || Top||

#6  I can believe that Politico found a person that is sick of hearing Fox. They were outstandingly lucky to find anyone willing to tune in CNN. I am one miserable dude when I am trapped in an airport and forced to listen to their broadcast. Katie Couric and George Stephanopolis are worst by a factor of ten, but Redneck Wedding is better TV than the Situation Room.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/14/2012 21:42 Comments || Top||

#7  That does not mean that Fox News hasn't performed a Left Oblique maneuver

Didn't say that. I said Politico has also gone left.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/14/2012 21:43 Comments || Top||


Obama's Budget Proves He Should Not Be Reelected
President Obama does not deserve to be reelected. By refusing to address the greatest challenge this nation faces -- our financial security -- Mr. Obama has failed the American people. Despite warnings from the IMF, the credit ratings agencies, China -- our principal foreign creditor -- and the American people, the president continues to offer up budgets and programs that ignore the dire trajectory of Medicare and Social Security spending, putting the future of this nation at risk.

Let's get specific. This week Mr. Obama set forth a budget calling for yet another trillion-dollar deficit, the fourth in four years. Through certain spending cuts, some gimmickry (counting not spending on two wars as deficit reduction) and $1.5 trillion in tax hikes, the budget gap is projected to shrink to $575 billion in 2018, comfortably beyond the range of the country's political telescope.
I'm projecting myself to be handsome and muscular by 2018...
Each of the proposal's major provisions scratches a partison itch: raising taxes on the wealthy, imposing new fees on banks, eliminating tax cuts on oil companies, spending $476 billion on transportation projects (mollifying construction crews teed off at the Keystone veto), allotting $30 billion for (guaranteed voting blocks) police, teachers and fire department workers, and so on. As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget summarizes, the president's budget stabilizes our debt at 76 percent of GDP -- "roughly double historical debt levels." This is not acceptable.
Amen!
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/14/2012 11:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We don't need no stinkin' budget.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 12:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Raising taxes will increase the recession. Cutting spending will increase the recession. Failure to do both, and substantially more than proposed, will collapse the economy completely. We've been kicking this hand grenade down the road for quite a while; got a graphic example of what comes next from an Iranian in Siam.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 12:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Cutting government spending will also collapse the economy. A spike in interest rates will collapse the economy. There is pretty much nothing the government can do that will grow the economy at even a middling rate. Saying this to the electorate will guarantee a loss at the next election.
The electorate with its profound economic and arithmetical ignorance is its own worst enemy.
So meanwhile, it's business as usual and kicking the can down the road. At least a politician can get half the votes in a election by robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:25 Comments || Top||

#4  Analysis of the budget effect over the next 5 years: Cuts in uniformed personnel proposed eliminating eight Army brigades, five Marine infantry battalions and four of the Corps’s tactical air squadrons. The Air Force would lose 303 aircraft and six fighter squadrons, while the Navy jettisons seven cruisers and 2 dock landing ships.
Posted by: Tamir Pardo || 02/14/2012 14:31 Comments || Top||

#5  "Cutting spending will increase the recession."

Fallacy.

Government does not "produce" anything but more government. Government jobs and workers are a net negative on the true economy.
For every dollar tied up in the government is a dollar that is not working in the economy.

Posted by: newc || 02/14/2012 16:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Choices : Ron Paul With : Occupation Party Support and Second Gadfly Republican Ticket Against : Mitch : Or Other Mainstramer ! Choices : Ron Jeremy Thuh : Hedgehog / Wanna Fuck Party : And Occupation Party ! Roseanne Barr / Roseanne : Green Party And Occupation Party ! Mason : The Bell Jar Party And Vice Pissee : dr.susanblock.com : too !
Posted by: Jairt Turkeyneck6702 || 02/14/2012 16:33 Comments || Top||

#7  Fallacy.

Government does not "produce" anything but more government. Government jobs and workers are a net negative on the true economy.

You're just not thinking. The true economy is what it is, and is not constrained by your ideology-driven distortion. A government produces a few things, like military security than private industry can't (thank God). Production and expenditure are not the same. Economic growth by increased production has only the barest superficial resemblance to economic growth produced by borrowing from abroad. By those standards the US has had little or no 'true' economic growth for many years.
A decent cut in government spending will immediately take money out of circulation. It will immediately render a few thousand government employees unemployed, their expenditures will immediately drop, and this will show up in the national economy very quickly.
The way out is through this conundrum, and people will suffer until the economy is re-engineered. That may not happen. But something will happen, always has.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 16:43 Comments || Top||

#8  His budget covers TWO years, ambitious little shit, isn't he.
Covering the time he's NOT in office.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/14/2012 19:15 Comments || Top||

#9  "their expenditures will immediately drop, and this will show up in the national economy very quickly."
Then it should behoove the Government to allow the economy to recover outside of "stimulus". It matters. The Military and road building is not what the government is spending money on, it's crap like bad mortgages and bailouts and unions and fake companies.

It's still temporary economy and one that does not pay for itself.
Posted by: newc || 02/14/2012 20:40 Comments || Top||

#10  "There is pretty much nothing the government can do that will grow the economy at even a middling rate."

I don't know about that. Removing bans on offshore oil exploration and pipeline building would drop the price of oil which would help the economy a lot.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 20:45 Comments || Top||

#11  and Harry Reid is deathly afraid of his Democrat minions having to take a position on this piece of shit budget. Hence, Mitch McConnell will force it to a vote so they have to go on record before the election
Posted by: Frank G || 02/14/2012 21:01 Comments || Top||

#12  >Government does not "produce" anything but more government. Government jobs and workers are a net negative on the true economy.

Wrong. Government produces Land Rights, Patent defence and copyright-defence and police. The economy would also work a lot better if it charged for them based on their value, rather than on harming comparative advantage taxes (sales, income, employment).
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 21:41 Comments || Top||

#13  If readers of Rantburg cannot agree that government use of resources is costly, the country is doomed. We in economics call it the "budget constraint.". But heck, most economists don't seem to believe in budget constraints anymore, so I guess we are all in good company.
Posted by: Perfesser || 02/14/2012 21:56 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer Victimized in Home Invasion on Nevis
The US Supreme Court has confirmed that Justice Stephen Breyer, 73, his wife and family friends were the victims of a machete-wielding, home invader at the Breyer vacation home on the island of Nevis on Thursday, February 9.

The suspect wore a mask and escaped, after stealing roughly US$1,000 from the group. Thankfully, no one was injured. The incident occurred at roughly 2100 hours.
He didn't jump out of the window and run down the street, like good little disarmed citizens are supposed to do?
Posted by: gromky || 02/14/2012 10:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian revolution comes to Damascus as rebels openly patrol the streets
Most media coverage of Syria is dire, but the UK Telegraph stands out as it often does. My view is that that the situation has tipped past the point Assad and the Alawites can control and as Saudi and Gulf Arab funded weapons flow in, the end is near for them.
As night falls over the central district of Barzeh, crowds of men, women and children gather among the crumbling old city walls to shout for the downfall of the regime. Walking, silently, and swiftly down narrow alleyways, they pass men sporting balaclavas and clutching Kalashnikovs stationed at the entrances to the public square. Members of the group that likes to call itself the Free Syrian Army, they provide 'security' for the demonstrators.

For months these protests would last minutes, or be violently dispersed up by security forces. Over thirty people have been shot dead here by regime security, locals told the Daily Telegraph. But now, surrounded by their own military, the crowds are becoming ever more confident and openly defiant.

"Now we have our fighters to protect us, the regime knows this and they don't dare to come here. We are not safe but now if the regime wants to come he has to bring tanks and troops," said Asra, a Sunni Muslim pharmacist who has been calling for the demise of the regime since early April.

Drumbeats accompanied the crowd in dances and songs that have been well rehearsed over the 11 month uprising. Crowds waved the revolutionary flag, jumping up and down as they yelled passionate cries of 'death to Bashar, death to the donkey!". Men in fluorescent yellow jackets, their faces wrapped in cloth to prevent being identified in photographs worked as stewards managing the crowds. A boy no older than 12 stood on a makeshift podium leading the crowds.

The slogans, a medley of prayers of solidarity for the 'brothers' coming under relentless bombardment in other cities, cries of outrage against the regime, and calls to remember the 'martyrs' killed in the last month, showed the boiling anger that has sprung from the months of violent unrest.

"This lady's son died here, in these protests," shouted Asra above the noise of the crowds. "He shouted to the police 'why are you killing us? Please stop'. So they shot him dead."

"They killed this boys' father," she added, grabbing the shoulders of a 12-year-old with curly brown hair and deep brown eyes. "He comes here everyday to call for freedom and revenge on his father."

Most uproarious came united cries of "first we trust in God, and then in our Free Syrian Army!". The armed gunmen watched silently from the rooftops. But the innocence of the peaceful protests are giving way to a more sinister form of action. Outside of the protests, Burzeh's streets are filled with the secret informants for the opposition. Lounging on street corners, young men listen to conversations, and watch the movements of residents, intent on weeding out the "spies"; people who reveal activities of the opposition to the regime, or in some cases are passionately aligned with the President.

Activists from Barzeh admitted to the Daily Telegraph that eight people have been assassinated in area in the past few months, but the figure is likely to be higher.

Those that are not killed, are bullied into toeing the line. Shopfront covers dotted across the district have an 'X' sprayed on them. "We do that to those that don't close their shops when we call for a strike. It is a warning that they must join us," said Asra. Barzeh is not the only pocket of defiance in central Damascus. Activists say that across the capital men are secretly being armed.

"[Bashar al-Assad] kills us, we are not his people. He is a criminal," said Hana, another activist. "Before we did not want to kill anyone, we did not want to use weapons, but now we don't see any other way. Now this is war."

"They don't want us to live in freedom," said the wife of a wealthy Sunni businessman. "They think this is about money, but it is not, it is about dignity." 'They' she said, refers to the Alawites, the minority ruling sect.

Asked where their place should be in society after the regime falls, many activists shrugged their shoulders, having given it little thought. "We will be the majority," said one Sunni opposition member simply.

"All those that killed, must be killed," said another Sunni activist. Working with an organisation that promotes democracy and freedom, he had long spoke the language of peace. But after months of seeing his friends killed or beaten, or family members arrested, logic was overrun by visceral emotion.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/14/2012 08:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hope the Russkies, Iranian IRGC thugs, and Hezb's get all the Karma and retribution they deserve
Posted by: Frank G || 02/14/2012 10:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Any bets on tomorrow's headline
"x peaceful protesters killed by syrian security forces in Damascus"?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/14/2012 10:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Days, weeks, months. Who knows?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 11:39 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Cell tower jumping teens reject arranged marriage.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 07:49 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh, dayamn.

This is like the perfect teen girl romantic tragedy. Romeo & Juliet kill themselves on a forbidden but popular holiday that celebrates love and romance.

Girl forced to marry an old, and to be portrayed as vile, foul smelling and disgusting man, for money, by her heartless and cruel parents.

Girls in the region will probably react to this like girls here reacted to the movie "Twilight", times about 10, but far more lethally. I expect there is going to be an s-load of teen suicides.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 11:38 Comments || Top||

#2  ION WORLD NEWS > OSAMA BIN LADEN WANTED TO MARRY WHITNEY HOUSTON, FORMER FRIEND SAYS/CLAIMS. Kola Boof, even to the point of Osama mulling to have Bobby Brown killed off so that Whitney could be free.

Yeeeuuuppp.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 23:12 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Special Operations Forces Could Get More Autonomy Under New Plan
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/14/2012 05:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thanks to Goldwater-Nichols they've already got seperate (but still somewhat visible) funding streams. They enjoy priority of resources on the battlefield in AFG. If you wish to take Congress TOTALLY out of the process and make the Country Team, State Department, Executive Branch and CIA the lead for a seperate private service under a "black funding line" have at it!






Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 7:31 Comments || Top||

#2  This sounds great on paper but ultimately will lead to the same screwups that we see regularly with police no knock raids
Posted by: blackjack || 02/14/2012 10:40 Comments || Top||

#3  There is a very good reason that conventional and special operations forces are different and contentious.

Like heart surgeons and brain surgeons, they can both be very good at what they do, but they are not operationally interchangeable.

While special operations are fighting the WoT, the conventional forces have to be preparing, at all levels, for not just a major war with China, but also to be able to intervene in medium sized wars between a multitude of belligerents to prevent it from going nuclear.

That being said, special operations should, for the most part, be migrated out of the Pentagon and to the CIA, becoming its operations branch.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 11:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Beg to differ with you on that one Moose. If the Central "Intelligence" Agency had been doing it's job, there might not be a GWOT or need for SOF or In-Extremis force involvement, let alone dedicated SOF for an agency military operations section that was ignored or looked down upon for decades.

Aside from the current Director, if you think the agency is "pro-military" you really need to take a second look. It's all about funding, exploitation of the market share, and don't forget.... excellent soldiers.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 11:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Political Generals are bad enough but political CIA "managers" are NOT what our Spec Ops folks need.
Posted by: tipover || 02/14/2012 12:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Yes. What every democracy needs is a spook shop with a private army.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/14/2012 13:02 Comments || Top||

#7  Then BHO won't be able to say, "I approved of the operation."
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:15 Comments || Top||

#8  Ah yes, the proposed [OWG-NWO?] "GLOBAL SPECIAL FORCES ALLIANCE".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 19:27 Comments || Top||

#9  I posted this because I was surprised to learn that there were things that JSOC was barred from doing. Who knew?

These guys have been spectacularly successful. All I will say is be careful when you dance with the devil....
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/14/2012 22:24 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Suspected Iranian Agent Bungles Bombing in Bangkok
Tuesday afternoon in Bangkok, a series of bombs went off along a road about two miles from my home here.

Exact details are still emerging, but it appears that a lone bomber threw an explosive device at taxi outside a school on Sukhumvit Soi 71 Road - along called Soi Pridi Binomyong - injuring the driver and passengers, but nothing life threatening.

When police arrived, the bomber evidently attempted to throw an explosive at them - but dropped his bomb, and blew his own legs off
Don't you just love a happy ending!.
There are also reports of a third bomb going off (or being found) at the bomber's home nearby.

There are reports that Iranian currency was found at the scene - and there are also reports that the bomber is Lebanese. He apparently survived, despite his injuries, and was taken to a leading university hospital in Bangkok.

Fairly gruesome photos of the legless bomber at the link.
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 02/14/2012 04:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The link is a tad wonky, and in Thai. But if you like pictures of just the lower half of the body, with the feet quietly standing further down the pavement, this is the link for you.

Here is another local source -- not so many pictures, but the text, in English, expands on the details in Lone Ranger's translation. Thank you, Lone Ranger!
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2012 7:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Sukhumvit Soi 71

Know it well. There is a private international school just off Sukhumvit on soi 71.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/14/2012 7:58 Comments || Top||

#3  !!!RRUNNN!!!!
Posted by: 2Sealys || 02/14/2012 8:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Some background? Is there any Israeli asset or Jews in the area, or what in the world is Iran upset with Thailand for?

Best case scenario is Iran declaring war against the world.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 8:13 Comments || Top||

#5  > !!!RRUNNN!!!!

I think you mean "Leg it"!
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 9:20 Comments || Top||

#6  'Moose, Sukhumvit Soi 71 is on a main commercial artery. But it is a bit of a trek from downtown Bangkok. Think suburbs. I imagine that if anyone intelligent were targeting the heart of international Bangkok the location would be Ratanakosin Island (not really an island) where most government offices, Jewish religious centers, and some popular Israeli restaurants are.

Also, Bangkok is kind of an international crossroads. The Thai people are very open and friendly to people of all backgrounds. A lot of Israeli tourists go there because it's a great vacation spot with beautiful beachs and jungle treks and it's fairly cheap, and neighboring Islamic countrys like Malaysia and Indonesia refuse to allow them visas, not wanting a associate with yucky Jews and such. But a lot of Pakistanis and Iranians and other Muslims go there too, for some of the same reasons but also because the Muslims are cheap perverts, and there is the added attraction of JIHAD in the southern provinces.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 02/14/2012 10:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Update:

One or more Iranians rented a house about a month ago. Evidently, their sole purpose was to set up a bomb-making center.

Legless idiot bomber (by name of Saerb Morabi) arrived into Thailand on February 8th, on a flight from Seoul.

Shortly after noon today, there was a "factory glitch" - and the house went "boom goes the dynamite" - photo at: http://twitpic.com/8jq16y

Two Iranians then departed in a hurry - photo of one chap captured by a local security camera: https://twitter.com/#!/fm91trafficpro/status/169423257907372033/photo/1

But - one Iranian (the recent arrival) departed a couple of minutes later - bleeding, and carrying a large black bag.

This chap tried to flag down a taxi - but the driver evidently decided that a bleeding Middle Eastern-looking foreigner carrying a black bag was not an ideal passenger, and declined the fare.

Being a highly rational individual, the Iranian reacted by tossing an explosive into or under the taxi - causing this: https://twitter.com/#!/fm91trafficpro/status/169423257907372033/photo/1

Said Iranian then proceeded down the road, presumably looking for another taxi. At this point, police were showing up - and a local citizen pointed out the miscreant to the Police. A Policeman then proceeded to approach the subject.

The bleeding Iranian then decided to throw an explosive (grenade?) at the policeman. Unfortunately, as the the grenade following its graceful arc toward the intended target, it struck a tree branch and rebounded to the feet of the Iranian - and then detonated - removing said Iranians lower legs. Photo at the original link.

I understand that there is also a video of the hapless Iranian, twitching on the ground as local Thai residents loudly curse him from the sidelines.

One of the other two Iranians was picked up at the local international airport around sundown today, as he was attempting to board a Malaysia-bound flight. Carrying identification as Mohammad Hazaei.

Police inspecting what was left of the abandoned house found a number of other explosive devices that had been assembled.

Quds force operatives? Four Lions wannabes? Time will tell.







Posted by: Lone Ranger || 02/14/2012 10:36 Comments || Top||

#8  It appears there was an explosion at a house occupied by three would-be bombers. One bombers, Saeid Moradi, an Iranian ran from the house just as the police arrived. While he was trying to throw a hand grenade at them, he dropped the grenade and blew his legs off.
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 10:57 Comments || Top||

#9  I think it is a truly, profoundly bad idea to piss off a Thai cop. They lost any last vestige of humor after having to fight a huge number of yaa baa "mad drug" addicts on the rampage.

Yaa baa is a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine that is actually worse than meth alone for making people violently starkers.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 11:04 Comments || Top||

#10  "as the the grenade following its graceful arc toward the intended target, it struck a tree branch and rebounded to the feet of the Iranian - and then detonated - removing said Iranians lower legs."

This is what happens when your national sport is soccer. No one has a decent throwing arm.
Posted by: Penguin || 02/14/2012 11:18 Comments || Top||

#11  Happy Valentines Day, Saerb!
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 11:33 Comments || Top||

#12  PM Yingluck: Don't panic, there is no terrorist in Thailand, please visit, cup cup!
Posted by: Fat Bob Unotch3711 || 02/14/2012 12:14 Comments || Top||

#13  What good are photos of bloody gore when the gore is blurred out. Pinheads! Not Rantburg, the Thai site.
Posted by: Black Charlie Phinelet7572 || 02/14/2012 12:16 Comments || Top||

#14  I wonder if the Hizb'allah man they picked up in Thailand in January, the one with a storehouse full of bomb-making materials, was meant to be connected to this lot? I seem to recall it being said at the time that his work wasn't to be used in Thailand, but to be shipped to a third country...
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2012 12:43 Comments || Top||

#15  What an idiot.
Better luck next time around.
Posted by: Kojack || 02/14/2012 13:07 Comments || Top||

#16  Black Charlie, if you want uncensored gore from the scene look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnuv81ngoAI

(Not safe for work, or for anyone not interested in gruesome injury.)

One leg is gone. The other is 98% detached. Serves him right, I think. Is that a chunk of one leg a few feet to the right? This is what he intended to do to others. Karma!
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 02/14/2012 18:49 Comments || Top||

#17  In the Thai court system, he won't have a leg to... Incoming!
Posted by: Capsu78 || 02/14/2012 19:08 Comments || Top||

#18  What an idiot.

That's what one get when one teaches kids to bang their heads into the ground instead of throwing baseballs.
Posted by: Shimble Guelph5793 || 02/14/2012 21:17 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Jail term confirmed for Iranian presidential aide
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s media adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr has had a six-month jail term upheld on appeal on one of several charges against him, the chief prosecutor for Iran said Monday.

“He was sentenced to jail after the appeals process, and the duration of six months was confirmed for this person,” Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei said, according to the Fars news agency.

He did not say what charge earned the prison sentence, but added that Javanfekr had “more than one case before the judiciary.” Investigation into the cases was “ongoing,” he said.

Javanfekr’s lawyer, Qahreman Shojaee, confirmed the jail term to the official news agency IRNA.

He said the sentence had to do with “the case of the magazine,” apparently referring to an accusation that Javanfekr permitted a state magazine to run articles commenting critically on the headscarf and dress Iranian women are obliged to wear.

As well as being Ahmadinejad’s adviser, Javanfekr runs IRNA and a state press group that prints several newspapers and magazines.
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 01:44 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Obama set to approve Egypt, PA aid despite tensions
Despite recent tensions between the US and Egypt and a new Palestinian Authority government set to include Hamas, the Obama administration budget unveiled Monday maintains nearly the same level of funding for both in 2013.
That budget being, of course, what President Obama would like to see, not necessarily what Congress will actually give him.
Egypt, which has arrested several US citizens who work for NGOs promoting democracy, is slated to receive $1.3 billion for military assistance under the plan and $250 million for economic assistance, as was also approved for 2012.

"Our goal is to provide the necessary funds. It's obviously clear to all of us that we have issues we need to work through, and we're working very aggressively to do so," said Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides after the budget plan was released. "But this budget reflects our commitment and our desire to fully fund this initiative."

He said the administration would be consulting with Congress, several members of which have said the detentions could cause the US to withhold money from Cairo.

The Palestinians will see a slight roll back in economic aid from $395m. in 2012 to $370m. in 2013 as well as cut back in police training from $150m. to $70m.

An administration official explained the first reduction as stemming from an improved economic situation in the Palestinian territories and the second as due to the curtailment of US provision of equipment for police officers as those supplies have already been delivered.

He said when it comes to the role of Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization, and its role in the Palestinian government, the administration would revisit the issue in 2013 when the money was actually due to be allocated.
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 01:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "We Con the World"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz1OpSYxgus
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/14/2012 10:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Nobody's Interested?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/14/2012 19:40 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
IMF wraps up Israel visit with call to work
Israel's long-term prosperity depends on getting more ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli Arabs to join the work force, the International Monetary Fund said in a report Monday.

Wrapping up a two-week mission to Israel, the IMF also said the country's economy is strong and has weathered the global economic slowdown well. It cited growth of almost 5 percent in 2010 and 2011 and unemployment of 5.5 percent — an all-time low — while inflation has fallen back.

But it warned that the low work participation of Israeli minority populations poses a long-term threat to the nation's economic health. In particular, it said Arab-Israeli women have an employment rate of 20 percent and ultra-Orthodox men of 40 percent. The two groups are among the poorest and fastest growing in Israel.

The IMF study said the combined ultra-Orthodox and Israeli Arab populations could double over the next three decades, from a combined quarter of Israel's population to half. It said that if the two sectors reached the employment, wage and productivity rates as the rest of the country, Israel's output would rise by 15 percent.

The report underlines highlight a growing rift in Israel between the secular majority and a fervently devout minority whose numbers are skyrocketing and which lives in lifestyle distinct from the rest of the country. In ultra-Orthodox society, men focus heavily on religious study and often do not work, living instead on government welfare.

At current demographic trends — with the ultra-Orthodox typically having about six children per couple — the religious minority could become increasingly dominant.

Israel's Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz praised the mission and its feedback on the Israeli economy.

"We are acting and will continue to act toward the integration of Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox in the labor market," he said. "We are creating opportunities for ... education and vocational training and call upon those sectors of the population to participate in the labor market for their own good and the good of the whole economy."

Arab women have a low work force participation because of a combination of low education, distance from economic hubs and traditional social constraints.

The low work participation among the ultra-Orthodox, along with their refusal to perform compulsory military service, has fueled widespread resentment among secular Israelis. In some cities, ultra-Orthodox extremists have recently tried to impose their conservative mores on mainstream society, vandalizing billboards with images of women, for instance, further adding to the resentment.
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 01:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Justice Breyer robbed at machete-point
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 00:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Pakistani PM charged with contempt
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court charged the prime minister with contempt on Monday for defying its orders to reopen a corruption case against his political ally, President Asif Ali Zardari, sharpening a political crisis that has gripped the country. If convicted, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani could be imprisoned and will likely lose his job.
Can't we hurry this along? We already know how the play is going to end...
On Monday, Gilani drove to the court himself, accompanied by his lawyer, amid tight security. Helicopters buzzed over a rainy and overcast Islamabad, and hundreds of police blocked roads leading to the court building in the capital. Gilani said he understood the charges after they were read out and pledged to contest them.

The move was the formal start to a process that will now take weeks or months to conclude. The next session will be on Feb. 22.

The case against Zardari relates to kickbacks he and his late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, allegedly received from Swiss companies when Bhutto was in power in the 1990s. They were found guilty in absentia in a Swiss court in 2003. Zardari appealed, but Swiss prosecutors dropped the case after the Pakistani parliament passed an ordinance giving the president and others immunity from old corruption cases that many agreed were politically motivated.

The bill was decried by many in Pakistan, who saw it as an attempt to subvert the law. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 2009, and also ordered the government to write a letter to Swiss authorities requesting they reopen the case. The government has refused, saying the president enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: WoT
Force reductions coming at Pentagon
Feb. 13 -- The Defense Department may have to force soldiers, Marines or other members of the military out of the services for the first time since the aftermath of the Cold War to achieve the spending reductions in its budget proposal.

The Pentagon plans to cut 67,100 soldiers from active and reserve Army units and the Army National Guard in the five years starting Oct. 1, as well as 15,200 from the active and reserve ranks of the Marine Corps as part of an effort to save $487 billion over a decade, according to the budget sent to Congress today. The Navy and Air Force would lose fewer people -- 8,600 and 1,700 respectively -- because of their role in a strategic shift toward the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.

The military will first try buying out contracts or offering bonuses for people to leave, while working to keep those with valuable specialties such as cyber warfare and acquisitions, according to Travis Sharp, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington policy group, who attended a Pentagon briefing for analysts last month.

“I was surprised that they were going to complete the reductions to the Army and the Marine Corps in just five years,” Sharp said in an interview before the budget was released. “What they told us is that they will try to use those types of positive incentives to the greatest extent possible, but that involuntary separations would probably still be necessary.”

The Pentagon has said it is aiming to a create a smaller, more agile military. Special operations forces, whose commandos killed Osama bin Laden last year, would be expanded.

Republicans in Congress already have signaled they will challenge the Pentagon reductions when lawmakers take up the proposed fiscal 2013 budget that President Barack Obama sent to Congress today. Representative Howard “Buck” McKeon, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, cited a comment by White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “the time for austerity is not today.”

“They’ll have a tough time explaining that to the 100,000 troops who will be forced from service under the president’s new budget plan,” McKeon of California said today in a statement.

The cuts, spurred in part by plans to wind down the war in Afghanistan in the next three years, would mark the first time the U.S. military has forced personnel out of the services since the larger troop reduction after the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The military services, which decide how to achieve the cuts, may be able to tighten re-enlistment standards and offer incentives to leave, Defense Department Comptroller Robert Hale said. “I don’t think we can stand here and say there won’t be any involuntary separation,” Hale told reporters at the Pentagon today. “We have very high retention right now with the economy still fairly weak. If that changes, it will be easier. If it doesn’t, it will be harder.”

The prospect of cutting the U.S. military to about 2.15 million people by October 2017, a reduction of 92,600 starting next year, creates political risks for Obama in an election year, and economic risks as military personnel enter the civilian workforce in coming years. The reductions would start with 31,300 uniformed positions, or 1.4 percent, eliminated in the 12 months starting Oct. 1, cutting the force size to 2,238,400 from 2,269,700 this year, according to the proposal.

After the Cold War, the military pared its active-duty ranks by 494,000 from 1991 to 1995, according to the Defense Department comptroller’s office. That included 216,000 from the Army and 21,000 from the Marine Corps. Further cuts followed in the next few years, ending just before the Sept. 11 terror attacks by al-Qaeda.

The Army’s budget director, Major General Phillip McGhee, told reporters at the Pentagon today that his service will rely first on on-time and early retirements, reducing recruitment and other steps before resorting to involuntary measures.
“We really want to put minimum stress on the force as we do the rampdown,” McGhee said.

The cuts in uniformed personnel are in keeping with proposed steps such as eliminating eight Army brigades, five Marine infantry battalions and four of the Corps’s tactical air squadrons. The Air Force would lose 303 aircraft and six fighter squadrons, while the Navy jettisons seven cruisers and 2 dock landing ships.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Army’s budget director, Major General Phillip McGhee, told reporters at the Pentagon today that his service will rely first on on-time and early retirements, reducing recruitment and other steps before resorting to involuntary measures.

You know that the first round should be all those who fail to meet the long established and known height and weight standards. The second round should include every one of their raters who checked off the box that said servicemember meet height and weight standards.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/14/2012 0:09 Comments || Top||

#2  A Reduction in Force(RIF) will not solve the nation's budget ills. Those few who serve are NOT the problem.

Yes, AR 600-9 (US Army Regulation Height and Weight Standards) will be good starting point if their must be a RIF. It's a bit embarrasing when crusty old contractors exhibit more military bearing than some of the rear echelon personnel in uniform. (combat arms units tend to police their ranks and enforce the standards)

Unfortunately, the size of the initial cuts will mean we'll lose a significant amount of very fine soldiers at all levels.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 3:25 Comments || Top||

#3  "valuable specialties such as cyber warfare and acquisitions" ACQUISITIONS!!! That is the valuable specialty that deserves "special" treatment? Where will all the warriors go?
Posted by: Slindsey || 02/14/2012 8:44 Comments || Top||

#4  That is the valuable specialty that deserves "special" treatment?

Let me answer your question with a question:

Will you be STFU when there are cost overruns and weapons not meeting performance standards?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/14/2012 11:05 Comments || Top||

#5  All the money this government squanders and they choose to reduce spending on the military? Excuse me, but I thought one of the primary purposes of the federal government was to provide for the common defense. All the other crap is a bunch of crap.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 11:54 Comments || Top||

#6  It isn't to the Democrats and Obumbles Ebbang - to them its all about spreading around the wealth (mainly to their cronies) and destroying the idea of 'America'.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/14/2012 13:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Squandered money generates jobs. Lots of nice, clean, green regulatory jobs (the productive jobs that are destroyed in the process are the fault of the evil, greedy businesses, not government.)
And for what it costs for every military job they make go away, they can hire at least twice as many TSA people.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 13:30 Comments || Top||

#8  TSA is the model federal agency for the FEMA Region future of tomorrow. Never forget it!

Check'em out, next time you're in Atlanta, Hartsfield, what'ya-call-it airport.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 14:12 Comments || Top||

#9  one of the primary purposes of the federal government was to provide for the common defense.
That was true once upon a time. At the moment to primary purpose of federal spending is to buy votes.
Notice this issue diverts attention from the ongoing massively wasteful non-military expenditures.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 16:53 Comments || Top||

#10  At the moment to primary purpose of federal spending is to buy votes.

Yes, of course. I knew that. whimper
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 17:26 Comments || Top||

#11  It's not clear from the article whether this is about reducing spending year over year to simply not increasing spending year over year by the usual and customary 7% or so. News articles always blur that distinction.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 17:31 Comments || Top||

#12  Perhaps more succintly ....?

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > US MILITARY TO CUT TROOP NUMBERS | [Bloomberg News] PENTAGON MAY OUST TROOPS INVOLUNTARILY [not-a-RIF?] TO MEET REDUCTIONS IN BUDGET PLAN.

and

* FREEREPUBLIC > [POTUS Bammer Admin] US WEIGHING STEEP NUCLEAR ARMS CUTS, perhaps up to 80% of deployed NucWeapons.

USDOD devol into UK MoD - OOOOOO, you just know this is not gonna end well?

The Irish armed forces is too small, so that leaves France + SIGHTED-PROPELLER-SANK-SAME HAPPY FNS CV CHARLES DE GAULLE to same America = Amerika.

Espec given ...

* PRAVDA.RU > MUSLISM TO CONQUER HEART AND SOUL OF EUROPE.

* SAME > GERMANY WILL BE CONQUERED BY ISLAM.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 20:02 Comments || Top||

#13  OOPSIES, forgot LUCIANNE > RUSSIAN NUCLEAR SUBMARINES AS OMEN: WILL THE US CONTINUE TO DISARM?

ARTIC = denotes that the Cold War US Pool of highly educated, highly skilled, veteran Weapons-SYS Designers etal. is steadily dwindling to age + mostly normal attrition towards a point where US National Security could be placed at risk; IT TAKES CIRCA 20 YEARS FOR A NEW US NUKE SUB TO GO FROM IDEA/DESIGN PHASE TO LAUNCH QUAY.

IOW, US POOL = OLD GEEZERS = THEY'RE GOING DOWN, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!? RUSSIA + CHINA, ETC. POOLS = F *** NEW GUYS = GOING UP!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 22:34 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Azerbaijan in row with Iran over 'Israeli spies'
Azerbaijan has angrily denied an Iranian claim that it has been helping Israeli spies plotting against Iran.
Heh. All sorts of ways to get into and out of Iran...
Especially when your people lived there for 2500 years, and created some of the trade routes.
Iran says agents of the Israeli secret service Mossad were behind recent killings of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Azerbaijan's foreign ministry called Iran's claim "slander". On Sunday Iran had summoned the Azeri ambassador and given him a protest note.

An Azeri foreign ministry spokesman, Elman Abdullayev, said the Iranian protest was an "absurd reaction" to Azerbaijan's protest last month over an alleged plot by Iranian agents to kill Israelis in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has friendly ties with Israel and the US, who correctly accuse Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Azeri-Iranian relations have long been strained over the large ethnic Azeri minority in northern Iran.

The Iranian protest note to Azerbaijan on Sunday asked the Azeri government to "stop the activities of the Mossad intelligence services in that country against Iran", Iran's Irna news agency said.

Azeri ambassador Cavansir Akhundov was told that "some of the terrorists linked with the terror of Iranian scientists" had travelled to Azerbaijan and then on to Israel "for co-operation with the spying network of the Zionist regime", Irna reported.

The Azeri spokesman insisted on Monday that Azerbaijan "will not permit any external interference or any terrorist activity on its territory".
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting. Hot on the heels of a MOSSAD agent saying that Azerbaijan was "spy central", or words to that effect. Something fairly deep is going on here.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 8:20 Comments || Top||


Good morning...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot 02/14

Tiffany Thornton aka Tawni Hart in "Sonny with a Chance (TV Series 2009)" aka Jamie Wynn in "Hatching Pete (TV 2009)" aka Mehgan McCain in "Game Change (TV 2012)(post-production) (age 26)



Be My Valentine
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/14/2012 0:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot 02/13

Gillian Leigh aka Fooks in "Power Corps. (2004)" aka Fooks in "Recon 2022: The Mezzo Incident (2007)" aka Barbara in "Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain (2003)" aka Fooks in "Recon 2023: The Gauda Prime Conspiracy (2009)" (age 31)



A Jane Russell Moment, Nekkid as an Egg
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/14/2012 1:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot 02/12

Sarah Lancaster aka Ellie Bartowski in "Chuck (TV Series 2007– )" aka Rachel Meyers in "Saved by the Bell: The New Class (TV Series 1993–2000)" aka Allison Conner Lauder in "Living with the Enemy (I) (TV 2005)" aka Marjorie Seaver in "What About Brian (TV Series 2006–2007)" (age 32)


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/14/2012 1:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Happy Valentine's Day from Judy Tyler & Martine Beswick

Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/14/2012 1:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Just a reminder that today is the Starbucks "Buy-cott", in support of their neutral-about-guns policy in the face of threats by the anti-gun crowd.

Me, I'm going to at least try some French pressed coffee, which is a special request order. It's simple, and it's coffee, not coffee flavored liquid ice cream.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 8:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Buy one for me. too. There is no Starbucks within 40 miles of me.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 02/14/2012 10:23 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Media Matters' enemies list
A continuation of the news about MMFA and Obama coordinating their message for us proles...
News Corp
o Fox News Channel
o Fox Business Network
o Fox News' websites

Conservative news sites
o WorldNetDaily
o BigHollywood.com
o NewsMax
o BigGovernment.com

Conservative think thanks
o The Heritage Foundation
o American Enterprise Institute
o Cato Institute

News Corp executives
o Rupert Murdoch
o Chase Carey
o David DeVoe
o Lawrence Jacobs
o James Murdoch

Conservative donors
o Peter Thiel
o Richard Mellon Scaife
o Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
o John M. Olin Foundation
o Koch Family Foundations

Fox News executives
o CEO Roger Ailes
o Senior vice president Michael Clemente
o Vice president of news Sean Smith
o Vice president of new editorial product Jay Wallace
o Fox Business Network executive vice president Kevin Magee

Fox personalities
o Glenn Beck
o Sean Hannity
o Bill O'Reilly

Fox senior production and corporation staff
o Hannity executive producer John Finley
o On the Record executive producer Meade Cooper
o O'Reilly Factor senior executive producer David Tabacoff
o Fox & Friends executive producer Lauren

Political figures
o Carly Fiorina
o David Vitter
o Eric Cantor
o John Boehner
o Mitch McConnell
o Michele Bachmann
o Steve King
Posted by: badanov || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  WHy does Media matter?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/14/2012 5:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Professor Dershowitz says they are going to keep President Obama from being reelected, Bobby.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2012 6:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Interestingly these are the same types of news providers that are under attack here in the U.K.

They're being singled out for "hacking" voice mails, when it's an open secret that other (left-wing) news-papers did it far more, and lefty news-papers are getting a free pass.

Very worrying. I'd put money on it being $0r0$ behind it.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 6:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Did Fred forget to file an application?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/14/2012 8:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Their list is out of date - Glenn Beck hasn't been a Fox personality since September or so.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 9:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Also out of date: the Olin Foundation has been out of business for about five years now, if memory serves. What a bunch of maroons.
Posted by: MW || 02/14/2012 11:16 Comments || Top||

#7  FeedbackAre these searches helpful? Yes NoThank They seem to have left off the following overall enemies of thier ideology:

Benjamin Franklin

John Adams

John Hancock

Thomas Jefferson

Samuel Adams

Robert Morris

Edward Rutledge

John Hart

Benjamin Rush
Posted by: Maggie Bourbon3210 || 02/14/2012 11:29 Comments || Top||

#8  Brock is apparently a drug-abusing paranoid. More: http://freebeacon.com/report-fringe-group-media-matters-works-with-white-house-to-attack-conservatives/
Posted by: Omoluque Hapsburg8162 || 02/14/2012 12:48 Comments || Top||

#9  I'd consider it a badge of honor to be on their enemies list.
Posted by: OCCD || 02/14/2012 15:00 Comments || Top||

#10  #9 I'd consider it a badge of honor to be on their enemies list.
Posted by: OCCD


"ME! ME! Pick me!"
Posted by: Albert Chaique6785 || 02/14/2012 15:39 Comments || Top||

#11  Want to be on the list? Get a CCP.
Posted by: bman || 02/14/2012 16:39 Comments || Top||

#12  If you have any doubts about the true political leanings of the Democrats, the tactics of Media Matters is straight from the pages of Lenin's tactics to discredit the Socialist Democrats and the Cadets after 1917.

The Democrats have gone from liberal to totalitarian.

Remember, all of the great and most blood thirsty and most oppressive in the history of the world were all socialist or communist:

Hitler and the National Socialist Party
Mussolini
Lenin and Stalin and the Communists
Pol Pot and his Brand of Communism
Mao and his brand of Communism

At some levels, the Taliban and Al Aqaeda are Communistic.

The fact that Media Matters wants to harass individual employees of Fox by publishing personal information on them is enough to scare the crap out of me. If they can do that to a Fox reporter, what is to stop them from doing it to a conservative teacher or professor or a county employee or even me...if they hack my computer and read some of the things I've said about the left over the years.

This is dangerous and very ominous to me.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/14/2012 16:40 Comments || Top||

#13  The fact that Media Matters wants to harass individual employees of Fox by publishing personal information on them is enough to scare the crap out of me.
The ad-hominem argument sophistry takes a totalitarian turn, aided by the internet.
Perhaps the answer is for journalists to become anonymous, or to only publish collectively.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 16:48 Comments || Top||

#14 

If they target individuals, serious consequences will be the order of the day.
Posted by: Ebbaique Spereting5364 || 02/14/2012 18:26 Comments || Top||

#15  Cookies matter...
Posted by: badanov || 02/14/2012 19:36 Comments || Top||

#16  Very worrying. I'd put money on it being $0r0$ behind it.

You hit the jackpot. Soros has been funding Media Matters for years though the groups he funds. A few years ago he dropped all pretense and gave $1 million to Media Matters directly. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. The Clinton crony Center for American Progress was instrumental in MM's founding and lavish funding.
Posted by: Shimble Guelph5793 || 02/14/2012 21:08 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Nawaz asks govt to write letter to Swiss authorities
The hyenas circle...
LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif on Monday demanded the government write a letter to the Swiss authorities as required by the Supreme Court (SC) so that the people's money could be brought back.

Addressing a press conference along with Sindh National Front (SNF) chief Mumtaz Bhutto, he said the question of immunity does not concern the common people, adding that common man wants his hard-earned money brought back into the country. The PML-N leader wondered as to why Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was shirking from writing the letter. He said the government had ridiculed the country in the world by not obeying the Supreme Court orders.

Nawaz said he stood by his stance over the memogate scandal and asked the government not to make hurdles in investigation process. Speaking on the occasion, Mumtaz Bhutto said that fair and transparent elections could not be expected from the rulers.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Roadside bomb injures 10 Thai rangers
A bomb buried in the road exploded and wounded 10 paramilitary rangers in Yala province. The blast occurred at 1:30pm yesterday. The device was in a gas cylinder and was detonated on a local road when the rangers had left their base to go on patrol. The attack occurred about 1 km from the base and the explosion ripped their pickup in half. Four of the rangers were seriously injured.

Meanwhile, Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has warned of an escalation in the southern insurgency if the government does not follow through with its promise to compensate victims. Mr Abhisit said yesterday that while a committee has agreed to pay up to 7.5 million baht in compensation, the cabinet has made no resolution on the issue yet. He added that inconsistency would create confusion.

Mr Abhisit questioned the scope of the compensation, claiming many people would wrongly think they were also eligible for compensation. He said a compensation set-up that discriminates between victims could make things worse.

Mr Abhisit also urged the government to ensure it could afford the overall compensation. He said compensation for about 5,000 cases would cost the government 30-40 billion baht.

More importantly, he pointed out the comptroller-general admitted there was no law to support the payments. Mr Abhisit said, "I would like the government to think seriously. Any decision-making must be done carefully and based on the principle that it is explicable to the public. If a measure is approved only to relax the atmosphere, it will turn out to be a problem."

Meanwhile, a report has found violence in the far South has hindered agricultural and industrial growth in the region and the economy now depends on government spending. The government has spent 63 billion baht on development projects in the area, but the benefits are focused on people close to community leaders, according to the report.
Posted by: ryuge || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Only field troops can comprehend how effective the IED is as a weapon. It imposes huge human and material costs, and it delays or defeats full operations. And they are so easy to plant that counters - evasion and detection - are extremely costly. The only solution is escalation.
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:12 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Henrique Capriles to challenge Chavez
Venezuela's opposition has chosen Henrique Capriles Radonski to stand against President Hugo Chavez in October's presidential election. Mr Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, triumphed in the first ever opposition primary election.

Voting was extended for an hour after what organisers said was a higher-than-expected turn-out.

President Chavez has said he is confident of winning re-election no matter who he runs against. The left-wing leader has governed Venezuela since 1999, winning repeated election victories. He had surgery for cancer last year but says he has recovered and is ready to campaign for another six-year term in office.

The primary, organised by the opposition Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition, was open to all Venezuelans of voting age, regardless of their political affiliation.

"Today, the future of Venezuela won and, as we said, we repeat to everyone: there is a path, there is a path for progress, for the future, to make Venezuela a greater country", Mr Capriles told supporters at a victory rally in the capital, Caracas.

Mr Capriles said he hoped to unite all the opposition parties through his leadership.

"I hope to be president of the yellows, the whites, the greens, the blues, the oranges, the reds. I hope to be president of those without a colour."

Some people had queued for hours at polling stations. Officials extended the voting time to try to allow all those who waited the chance to vote, reports the BBC's Sarah Grainger in Caracas.

Campaigning in this primary had been polite and well-mannered and the losers were quick to congratulate Mr Capriles. They are now expected to gloss over any political differences and throw their support behind him in his battle at the ballot box with Hugo Chavez, our correspondent says.

Election chief Teresa Albanes said Mr Capriles, 39, had won about 62% of the 2.9 million votes cast, with 95% of votes counted. He easily beat his closest challenger, Zulia state governor Pablo Perez. Mr Perez, 42, has the support of Democratic Action and Copei - two parties that dominated Venezuelan politics before Hugo Chavez became president.

Also standing in the primary were congresswoman Maria Corina Machado, 43, veteran politician Diego Arria, 73, and former Chavez ally Pablo Medina, 64.

Mr Chavez has dismissed all the candidates as representatives of US "imperialism" who would dismantle his socialist reforms. He has also said he would accept the election result if he were defeated in October.
Fat chance...
The MUD coalition narrowly won the popular vote in last year's legislative election, gaining 67 out of 165 congressional seats on offer. But opinion polls suggest Mr Chavez is still favourite to win the presidential poll.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder how much of Hugo's campaign funds are donated by Dinnerjacket and his friends.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/14/2012 16:20 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudis boost defense ties with India
RIYADH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah held wide-ranging talks with Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony here Monday.
Golly gosh. What would make the Master Race consort with the heathen Hindooz?
They did say they wanted to acquire nuclear weapons.. India has some, in case the Pakistanis balk at giving up the ones the Saudis have stored there.
The talks focused on "a range of bilateral and regional issues" of common concern with special reference to defense cooperation between the two countries.
This is going to upset the Paks no end...
Everything involving India upsets them no end.
"The talks with King Abdullah covered several bilateral topics ranging from economy to politics and defense cooperation," said Antony, adding that he was "extremely happy and privileged" to meet the king.

Analysts view this first ever visit by the Indian defense minister with a team of senior army, air force and naval officers as a very important development in view the Middle East facing new challenges.

Antony told reporters, after his meeting with the king, that he would be holding comprehensive talks on defense matters with Prince Salman on Tuesday. He pointed out that Riyadh and New Delhi are witnessing "rapidly growing relations" in the fields of politics, economy, energy and many more sectors. "The Middle East region is important for us," said Antony, while expressing his solidarity with the Kingdom and India's hope for peace and stability in the region.

Antony stressed the need for closer cooperation in defense as Saudi Arabia and India are on the verge of a significant long-range partnership. The international community will have to jointly fight the menace of terrorism, which is of "grave concern to global peace and stability."

He singled out terrorism and piracy as major problems facing the region that lies in India's extended neighborhood. Antony said that problems such as "terrorism and transnational crimes are common concerns the world over."
And Saudi Arabia is briskly stirring almost all of those bubbling pots, adding special Wahhabi spices.
"India greatly values its relations with Riyadh," Antony said, adding, "Now we will strengthen our relations further."

Referring to the specific areas of cooperation in defense, a press statement released by the Indian Ministry of Defense said: "Bilateral military cooperation should be boosted by high-level military exchanges, joint training of troops and use of training courses in India."

Indian Navy should hold joint exercises and pay visits to Saudi Arabia both in the Red Sea and the Gulf, it said. "One could expect more developments in the defense and security field, as this is a vital component of any strategic partnership," said a reliable source, on the condition of anonymity.

He said that the Delhi Declaration is a pointer in this direction. "In comparative terms, India is more geographically proximate to Saudi Arabia," said the source. It is only the Arabian Sea that separates them, he added.

"India and Saudi Arabia may not have a formal defense cooperation agreement, but the two countries have in the last decade enhanced their interaction with their forces holding joint training exercise, particularly in counterinsurgency and mountain warfare techniques," he noted.

India with its large Muslim population sees Saudi Arabia from the global perspective as the seat of Islam's two most sacred sites -- Makkah and Madinah --to which a large number of Indian Muslims go on pilgrimage annually.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Did the Indians make sure Abdullah wasn't wearing a wire?
Posted by: American Delight || 02/14/2012 6:39 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
What's the opposite of a Fifth Column?
A Second Look at 'The Third Jihad'
By Jeff Jacoby

Did the New York City Police Department use "terrible judgment," as Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, when it showed a documentary about Islamist extremists -- The Third Jihad -- to more than 1,400 officers undergoing counterterrorism training?

You might think so if you took your cues from a New York Times editorial calling the documentary a "hate-filled film about Muslims," or from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which declared that it "defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for."

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser fervently disagrees.
We've been following Dr. Jasser's exploits here at Rantburg for some time. Click on his name to go to his personal Rantburg archive.
Jasser is a former US Navy officer and a past president of the Arizona Medical Association. He is also an observant Muslim, a Wisconsin-reared son of Syrian immigrants deeply grateful for the freedom and tolerance his parents found in America. Ever since 9/11, he has been fighting the Islamist extremists whose goal is to destroy that freedom and tolerance.

"As a devout Muslim I saw it as my responsibility to expose the radicals," Jasser says in The Third Jihad, which he narrated. "I resented that they were exploiting the religion I love."

After al-Qaeda's murder of 3,000 Americans, Jasser recalls in the film, "I had expected to see Muslims in America taking to the streets and protesting against [Osama] bin Laden. Instead, in the years that followed, we saw many Muslim leaders standing up to defend or support the radicals." So he launched the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to defend American values, promote the separation of mosque and state, and expose the Islamist agenda behind certain influential Muslim organizations.

Happily, he is not fighting alone. During the recent furor over the film, New York City Councilman Robert Jackson, a Muslim, refused to toe the CAIR line. "I initially thought from reading about it that it cast a negative image on all Muslims," he said. "In my opinion it does not. It focuses on the extreme Muslims that are trying to hurt other people." Similarly, the American Islamic Leadership Coalition issued a strong statement defending The Third Jihad as "factually accurate and important."

You needn't take their word for it. Watch the film for yourself at TheThirdJihad.com, and gain crucial insight into one of the central struggles of our time: the war of ideas within Islam.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sixth column?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/14/2012 1:35 Comments || Top||

#2  One fifth column? Negative fifth column? I dunno....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/14/2012 2:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Hawaii Five-Oh?
Posted by: no mo uro || 02/14/2012 5:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Opposite of Fifth Column is a patriot. The media should be holding this guy up as an example that not all Muslims are against us rather than vilifying him in defense of the indefensible.

I don't know if the media is blind to the threat, or if they just hope they'll get eaten last.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 7:59 Comments || Top||

#5  rjs,

The media takes their orders from the Left/Dems. The idea of a patriotic Muslim doesn't fit the narrative anymore than a patriotic, conservative black does.

They have to a) hype the crisis and b) hype that it is all our fault. That way they can clamor for more power and control over everyone and everything.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/14/2012 9:25 Comments || Top||

#6  That explains the tactic, but still doesn't answer if they are blind to the threat or ignoring it.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 10:08 Comments || Top||

#7  Schwartz,

If you study the Russian Revolution, you find out thr "useful idiots" are executed FIRST.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/14/2012 10:09 Comments || Top||

#8  The fourth estate is the same as the fifth column these days. I don't know what the opposite is. Patriot would be a good opposite.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/14/2012 10:58 Comments || Top||

#9  This is a very important development. While it does not (advisedly) get a lot of press, there is a growing movement in Islam to reinterpret its doctrines away from barbarity, violence and primitiveness, to modernity and coexistence.

This type of religious reform didn't start to happen in Christianity in earnest until the 18th Century and the Age of Enlightenment. However, it is likely to happen much faster in Islam, because it has the western model to work from.

Efforts to avoid modernity with self imposed isolationism, ghettos, and that sort of thing is much harder to pull off if society as a whole is not segregationist. All it takes is the realization that "If I go 'over the wall', I can live in peace and not have to put up with this primitive b.s. any more."

This is why right now there are so many 'honor killings' in the west, because with just one look, smart kids decide the prefer modernity, and their parents cannot deal with that.

Eventually, the kids will figure out that if they leave home, there is no going back. But that is just one more factor in the equation. If they are willing to accept that, they are home free.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 11:52 Comments || Top||

#10  #9 ROTFL
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/14/2012 12:49 Comments || Top||

#11  This type of religious reform didn't start to happen in Christianity in earnest until the 18th Century and the Age of Enlightenment. However, it is likely to happen much faster in Islam, because it has the western model to work from.
You left something very important out of your history capsule -- the Euro religious wars from about 1517 to whenever the Enlightenment started, where hundreds of thousands were either murdered or executed in an overflow of religious zeal and a good percentage of the population of what is now modern Germany was exterminated. An a-historical quote from the movie "The Last Valley" summarizes it best: "We killed God at Magdeburg."
Islam has always been more bloodthirsty than Christianity has been about matters like apostacy, blasphemy, heresy.
Certainly it is in the interest of the rest of the world to be aware of the downside of Islam, and to encourage reformers like Zuhdi Jasser (who is under a death sentence just from what he has said so far). I think the Spenglerian prediction is the most accurate: America will prevail, provided the Muslim world does not take us down with it first.
p. 96 How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam is Dying Too)
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:14 Comments || Top||

#12  Bill Clinton, why did you add a t to my name?
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 14:45 Comments || Top||

#13  Anguper Hupomosing9418: While aware of the internecine conflict in Christianity, it was a fight internal to Christianity. And indeed, such an internal brawl can very well happen within Islam. That is, a Sunni and Shiite fight.

However, Islam is surrounded by "not Islam", and that is less a doctrinal fight than a Darwinian struggle of natural selection. While Islam is focused on fighting infidels, however, it also has a fight on its hands with Muslims who are only Muslims because they are *imprisoned* within the ummah.

For example, Africa is now being split, because blacks who formerly *had* to be Muslims now have a choice, mostly to become Anglicans. And Islam is hemorrhaging in the region because of it.

And that situation could expand to many places, where Muslims could abandon Islam, without fear that other Muslims will track them down and kill them. And that is a grave threat to Islam.

This has no parallel with the religious wars of Christianity. And remember, that while Islam has to contend with this, it also has to contend with the rest of the non-Muslim world.

And their purpose in doing so is to defend barbarity against modernity and civilization. Dictatorship against democracy. Whimsical, cruel and corrupt theocratic rule against good government. Controlling people who do not want to live that way.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 16:39 Comments || Top||

#14  Rantburg?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/14/2012 17:58 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Clinton: We need Assad's consent to put troops in Syria
Good lord, is this woman stupid or what. The whole point of removing Pencilneck is to do it without his permission, or at least to threaten it credibly so as to get his attention. "Mother May I" isn't going to work.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Clearly not to be confused with 'Allan Foster Dulles'...
and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had a clear and unified message coming out of their meeting in Washington, D.C. Monday: They are looking for a political solution in Syria and won't consider putting international troops there unless the Syrian regime agrees.

Clinton and Davotoglu spent the afternoon preparing for the upcoming inaugural meeting of the "Friends of Syria" group this weekend in Tunisia. Following the meeting, they both urged the international community to support the Arab League's recommendations for Syria following their Sunday meeting in Cairo, which included a request for a U.N.-Arab peacekeeping force in Syria. But Clinton said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who the State Department accuses of murdering civilians, would have to agree first.

"We support the Arab League's decisions coming out of the meeting in Cairo to try to end the violence and move toward a transition. And we look forward to working closely with them in the lead-up to the meeting in Tunisia. There are a lot of challenges to be discussed as to how to put into effect all of their recommendations," Clinton said. "And certainly, the peacekeeping request is one that will take agreement and consensus. So we don't know that it is going to be possible to persuade Syria. They've already, as of today, rejected that."
And (get ready for this!) Pencilneck is likely to continue to reject it. So either you're for regime change, in which case you help the rebels and accept that the likely result is another Muslim Brotherhood, or you pack it up, head home, and accept that Pencilneck stays in power.
Clinton then explained the main mission in Syria is to persuade the Assad regime to change course and give up its hold on power voluntarily so that a process can begin to change the Syrian system of government.

"Ultimately, it's going to be important to convince the Assad regime that they are leading Syria into the outcome that we all deplore. We do not want to see a civil war in Syria," Clinton said. "No one wants to see a civil war in Syria.
You already have a civil war in Syria.
So we have to encourage the Assad regime, and those who support it, to understand that there's either a path toward peacemaking and democratic transition - which is what we are promoting - or there's a path that leads toward chaos and violence, which we deplore."
Or there's a path that puts the Muslim Brotherhood in charge, which is the most likely outcome.
The Cable followed up and asked Clinton what U.S. assistance could be provided to help protect the Syrian people just in case Assad doesn't have a change of heart and allow foreign troops into Syria or give up his power voluntarily.

Clinton declined to answer that question, but Davutoglu said there were a number of contingency plans that he and the U.S. are working on, although he hoped they would never need to be put into effect.

"Of course, as decision makers, politicians, we have to think all the options and scenarios. Some scenarios could be not opted for, but unfortunately in Syria today, there is such a situation we are alarm[ed] and we are all worried about. But today, the agenda in our consultations and also in Tunisian meeting will be a political solution, diplomatic solution, and humanitarian access as early as possible," he said. "At this moment, we are talking on diplomatic and humanitarian steps to be taken, but for other scenarios we hope that those things will not be needed. But we need to think about contingencies as well."
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We need to support both sides. Or not support them at all. Both.

Who is more palatable, Pencilneck or Mooselimb Bruderbund. Neither. Thus...

I would supply some goodies to the side that seems to be losing, to equalize the opportunities.

Yep, I am machiavellian, so what? We tried nation building. It's time to flip the coin and try some nation wrecking (since they do it themselves by default, the involvement may be feather lite--li'l nudge there, or here).
Posted by: Twobyfour || 02/14/2012 1:27 Comments || Top||

#2  If I escape the Mrs. for a pint down in the village and an argument or fight ensues somewhere in the pub, I drink up and quickly find the door. We should do the same.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 3:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Perhaps everyone is waiting for the courageous Hero of Kinetic Actions to step forward and offer up his Civilian Protective Service like he did for Libya. Syria does have oil, after all.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/14/2012 6:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Remember Hubby Bill got permission from Haiti to send in the troops, after his representative [iirc Gen. Hugh Shelton] told the Haitian 'leadership' that our troops were already in the air and about the land anyway.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/14/2012 9:10 Comments || Top||

#5  I would work on arming the Kurds and other groups and preparing them to take over once the rebellion is complete and the victors are somewhat spent.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 10:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Who is more palatable, Pencilneck or Mooselimb Bruderbund. Neither. Thus...

The way I look at it, Sunnis have killed 10,000 Americans. Alawites have killed zero (although for argument's sake I'll say 200+, counting the Marines in Lebanon, who were killed by Hezbollah, which received weaponry from Syria). Sunnis are descended from Muhammad's war bands. Alawites are descended from the original Hittite inhabitants.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/14/2012 16:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Watch : Hizbollah & Islamic Brotherhood : With China Co-Operation Has UN : ASEAN : APEC Members Find Peaceful Solution : Avert Revolution : War : ASSAD : ARABIYA : SYRIA : Co-Exist : Economic : Social Department : Socio Political Solution : Mutual Common Grounds : al Qaeda
Posted by: Karl Heinz || 02/14/2012 16:11 Comments || Top||

#8  Better idea; stay the hell out of that mess.
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Well, the MX can solve the problem in about 45 minutes. No need to send troops either.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division || 02/14/2012 20:44 Comments || Top||

#10  OTOH DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > ARABS SET TO FAIl [again] WID LATEST SYRIA PLAN: ANALYSTS.

The Arab League's desire to be linked to UNO legitimacy keeps running into various pesky or serious obstructions, like the Euros + EU-ONLY BAILOUTS???

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > SYRIA: BEIJING'S POST-ASSAD PLANS.

IMO easier said than done for Beijing.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 23:27 Comments || Top||


Iraq
20 ISI hard boyz arrested in Ninewa and Diala
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Security forces today arrested 20 wanted persons, including a leader in the so-called Iraqi Islamic State in Ninewa and Diala provinces, according to a statement by Interior Ministry.

The statement, copy received by Aswat al-Iraq, reported that that the leader and ten wanted for terrorism charges were arrested east of Mosul. Another nine wanted were arrested for similar charges in Diala province.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian Cleric appeals to Israel for help in treating wounded Syrians
Shhhh, relax. It was only for rhetorical emphasis.
Posted by: Chique Unock2033 || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
US, Norks to hold nuclear talks in Beijing
US and North Korean officials will meet on 23 February to discuss Pyongyang's controversial nuclear programme, the US state department says. It says the US envoy for North Korea, Glyn Davies, will hold talks with North Korean First Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan in China's capital, Beijing.

The talks are aimed at restarting negotiations over disarmament. They will be the first such talks since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in December.

The talks in Beijing were announced by state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland at a news conference in Washington. "This is a continuation of the meetings that we've been having with North Korea to see if it is prepared to fulfil its commitment and its international obligations as well as to take concrete steps towards denuclearisation," she said.

Ms Nyland was referring to the 2005 agreement under which Pyongyang agreed to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for aid. Two rounds of such talks between US and North Korean officials were held last year, but the third round was cancelled because of the death of Kim Jong-il.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In unrelated news Ms Lucy van Pelt has agreed to assist Mr Charlie Brown with his football exercises.
Posted by: Jiggs Ghibelline7611 || 02/14/2012 1:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Send Oprah or Regis to talk to them.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/14/2012 21:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Anderson Cooper as backup.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/14/2012 21:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Actually Carrot-Top or Gallagher might serve better than Oprah. She might commit to something that Obama feels beholden to honor.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/14/2012 21:49 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Four killed in firing, bomb blast in Nasirabad
QUETTA: Four people, including two children, were killed in a bombing and a shooting incident in Nasirabad district on Monday.
Balochis are getting frisky...
Two children were killed and 21 others, including Dera Murad Jamali additional SHO, injured in a remote-controlled bomb blast in Dera Murad Jamali. Banned militant outfit Baloch Republican Army (BRA) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Police said the additional SHO, Gulam Rasool, was on a routine patrol in the area when unidentified people detonated a remote-controlled device near a local hotel in Dera Murad Jamali. The two children – Liaquat Ali and Bashir Ahmed – died instantly while 21 others, including Rasool and two constables, were injured. Police said the target was their van that was patrolling the area, adding that an investigation had been launched into the incident. A heavy contingent of police and personnel of other law enforcement agencies rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area. The bodies and injured were moved to District Headquarters Hospital, Dera Murad Jamali.

“It was a remote-controlled bomb, planted near a parked motorcycle,” a police official said, adding that police was the target in the attack. The police van and motorcycle were damaged in the attack.

According to Bomb Disposable Squad, two kilogrammes of explosives had been used in the attack.

Separately, a group of men armed with automatic weapons encircled a checkpost of Balochistan Constabulary (BC) in Chetter tehsil and opened fire on the personnel manning the post. BC Sub-Inspector Wahid Bhaksh and Constable Baddaruddin died on the spot, while two others were injured.

A heavy contingent of police and security forces rushed to the spot after the incident and cordoned off in area. There was also an exchange of fire between security personnel and the assailants. However, there were no reports of causalities on part of the attackers. Police launched a search operation as no group had claimed responsibility for the attack till the filing of this report.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel rejects Palestinian hunger striker’s appeal
JERUSALEM: An Israeli military court on Monday rejected an appeal from a Palestinian man on hunger strike for 58 days to have his jail term reduced, officials said.

Lawyer Mahmoud Hassan said a military court judge refused the appeal and that his client, Khader Adnan, will be detained until May 8. A military spokeswoman confirmed the ruling and said Adnan will be expected to carry out the full four-month sentence.

Adnan is a member of the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. He is on a hunger strike to protest what he says is humiliation that he faces in Israel’s military justice system. He is in poor condition and under guard at an Israeli hospital.
There are times when I think Fred has the right idea: force feed these jokers to a minimum weight of 450 pounds and then turn them loose. A fat terrorist is a slow terrorist...
Adnan is being held in “administrative detention,” under which an Israeli military judge can imprison Palestinians for six-month periods without charge. Palestinians don’t get to see evidence against them.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gavage of these chaps would be something else, no? Just like ducks and geese.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/14/2012 2:00 Comments || Top||

#2  It saids something of Israel that a prisioner would go on a hunger strike, what would be the reaction in many countries military courts to a man on hunger strike for 58 days who wants his jail term reduced.
Posted by: BernardZ || 02/14/2012 6:23 Comments || Top||

#3  People who Hunger Strike should have one week added to their sentence for each day they strike, if that doesn't work, one Month per day.

That should stop It cold.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/14/2012 19:38 Comments || Top||


Europe
Global Warming to Wipe Out Italian Olive Trees
(AGI) Rome- Polar temperatures in central and southern Italy are affecting 100 million olive trees. This Mediterranean plant needs a relatively mild climate to survive, even in the winter, and above all it needs to avoid huge temperature spikes, according to Coldiretti. The Italian farmers' association has raised the alarm on the dramatic effects of the ongoing cold snap on the country's most traditional tree, one which also represents the local Mediterranean diet. Temperatures below 10 degrees, claims Coldiretti, wreak havoc on olive trees and exponentially increase the damage to the food and farming industry, which has already reached half a billion euros along the entire supply chain.
It seems to me citrus trees have the same problem. I believe Florida growers handle the occasional cold snap with smudge pots to heat the air around each tree at need... Perhaps the olive growers should consult historical records to see what was done to protect trees during the Little Ice Age, which ended only a few short centuries ago. There are probably even beautiful etchings of picturesque peasants at the work, just as there are of the Great Frost Fairs on the Thames River during the same period.
Posted by: Whinens Jeling8412 || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The difference is orange trees are relatively recent in Florida, whereas olive trees have grown in Italy for millenia.

If there is a large scale die off, I'd be interested if there is a historical precedent and when. Probably the Little Ice Age or perhaps the Year Without a Summer.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/14/2012 3:24 Comments || Top||

#2  There are one or two types of olives that will grow as far north as Cairo Illinois. It spikes much colder than -10C (14F) there.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/14/2012 8:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Anyone who doubts how tough olive trees are is invited to try and chop one down.
Posted by: Grunter || 02/14/2012 16:11 Comments || Top||

#4  As I understand it, the Spartans ran an entire campaign to destroy Athenian Olive Groves, to no avail.

Perhaps the Britons could grow them, next to their grapes.

Seems to me the greatest threat to euro-zone agriculture, is the Euro-Zone, who if I remember right destroys fruit which does not look right and plowed under the pride of French Vinyards.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/14/2012 17:13 Comments || Top||

#5  D *** NG, does the Corleones' Olive Oil company/division know???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 20:09 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
A fatal attack on Israelis abroad could spark war with Iran & Hizballah
Debka, so salt to taste. Interesting that it is being said now.
This time, no one was killed although an Talya Yehoshua- KIoren, wife of the Defense Ministry representative in India, and three others were maimed by a sticky bomb planted on her Innova SUV in New Delhi Monday, Feb. 13, at almost exactly the same time as a similar device was safely defused in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

In recent weeks, terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets were foiled in Thailand, Azerbaijan and Argentina. However much they deny this, Iran and Hizballah are clearly determined to keep on trying until they achieve their objective of killing targeted Israelis.

DEBKAfile's military sources say that the odds are on their eventual success, after failing in four out of five tries.

On this assumption, Israel's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz summoned three senior staff officers to a conference as soon as the first reports came in from New Delhi and Tbilisi at around noon Monday. It was attended by Military Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavy, Air Force commander Ido Nehushtan and Operations Division chief Maj. Gen. Yaakov Ayash. The meeting's level indicated that it was not limited to discussing the immediate import of the two bombing attacks but focused rather on the broader ramifications of a potential attack with Israeli fatalities and its impact on the prospects of war.

This assumption does not look far-fetched when it is recalled that deadly terrorist attacks in the past plunged Israel into two major wars.

On June 3, 1982, four gun-hung tough guys bumped off Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov outside the Dorchester in London. He was in a coma until his death 21 years later. Three days after the attack, Israeli troops invaded Leb to fight the Paleostinians and Syria.

Twenty-four years later, on July 12, 2006, Hizballah raiders crossed into Israel and attacked an IDF patrol. They killed three of its members and dragged two back into Leb to be held as hostages. Before the day ended, Israel was at war, this time with

So the agenda on Gen. Gantz's urgent discussion with the IDF's intelligence, air force and operations chiefs was obviously not about plans to fly Israeli troops to New Delhi or Tbilisi, but for a calculus of the proximity of a full-scale war at some point in the ongoing wave of terror.

For some weeks now, the Middle East has been teetering at the edge of a precipice. A sudden shove could push it over the edge into full-blown armed hostilities without President Barack Obama
Why can't I just eat my waffle?...
, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei being in control. The atmosphere is already dangerously charged over the crisis in Syria, reciprocal US and Iranian threats over the Strait of Hormuz, and US and Israeli preparations to strike Iran's nuclear sites.

But wars may be ignited without notice by a small spark or a terrorist attack far from Middle East shores that would cause enough Israeli fatalities to satisfy its instigators in Tehran and Beirut and provoke an Israeli military response. This was dangerously close to happening in New Delhi Monday.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gavrilo Princip wanted to change the world too.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 02/14/2012 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  He did.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/14/2012 19:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Munich Olympics + Achille Lauro.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 19:32 Comments || Top||

#4  ION BHARAT RAKSHAK > ISRAEL TO "SETTLE THE SCORE" FOR BANGKOK/ENVOY ATTACKS. Israeli Public Security Minster Yitzhak Aharonovitch.

* SAME > DELHI BLAST: IM [Indian Mujahideen] LINK BEING PROBED, by India's Govt-Police.

BR BLOGGERS - anti-Israeli Tbilisi + Delhi Blasts may actually be separate incidents???

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > NATO MAY STRIKE IRAN by [early?] SUMMER: [top] RUSSIAN GENERAL - STAFF CHIEF.

Russ CoS Nikolai Makarov.

* REUTERS > RUSSIAN [top] GENERAL: IRAN'S ENEMIES TO MAKE COURSE [make Mil Move] SOON.

versus

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > IRAN: ISRAELI STUPIDITY TO BE ANSWERED BY MASSIVE RETALIATION. IRGC Public Relations Chief Ramezan Sharif.

* PRAVDA > ISLAMISTS TO POWER IN THEIR HAND IN KUWAIT.

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Haq's Musings]THE TICKING CLOCK: FOUR REASONS WHY - THIS TIME - YOU SHOULD BELIEVE THE HYPE OF ISRAELI ATTACK ON IRAN.

ARTIC NUTSHELL > Once again, as said or inferred times before, ISRAEL CAN MOST CERTAINLY ATTACK OR BOMB IRAN, BUT ONLY THE US [US-NATO] CAN INVADE + OCCUPY IT, which ultimately is the best or most reliable way to ensure Iran does NOT dev NucWeapons.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 22:00 Comments || Top||


Economy
Gas prices to hit $4 a gallon by spring
Gasoline prices could soon hit $4 a gallon, a threshold they haven't flirted with since last spring.
Brilliant, Barack, brilliant. You own this one.
The average price paid by U.S. drivers for a gallon of regular now stands at $3.52, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which released its latest figures this afternoon. That price represents an increase of 0.04 percent from a week ago and 0.38 percent from a year ago.

Experts expect prices to spike another 60 cents or more, with the $4 mark being touched—or exceeded—sometime this summer, probably by Memorial Day weekend, the peak of the summer driving season. The last time the U.S. saw $4 gasoline was back in the summer of 2008.

"I think it's going to be a chaotic spring," says Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service. He expects average prices to peak at $4.05, though he and other industry trackers say prices could be sharply higher in some markets.

Historically, $4 a gallon has been the upper limit of what consumers have been willing to pay. Last April, national prices peaked at about $3.98 a gallon before receding. "It's going to be tough to sustain that level," thinks Brian Milne of energy tracker Televent DTN. "People will drive less."
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't think Memorial Day is the 'peak' of the summer driving season, merely the start of it. IIRC, gas prices fell a bit after Memorial Day in 2011.
If things heat up in the Persian Gulf this year, we will WISH gas was just $4/gal.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 0:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Sure glad we're building that Keystone XL pipeline ... oh, wait ...
Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili || 02/14/2012 7:38 Comments || Top||

#3  $5/gallon by mid-summer. Asshat will blame Bush, you just know it
Posted by: Frank G || 02/14/2012 8:09 Comments || Top||

#4  "It's going to be tough to sustain that level," thinks Brian Milne of energy tracker Televent DTN. "People will drive less."

That's because recessions generally follow a rise of that magnitude. If the trunks can't win in November, they truly are the stupid party.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/14/2012 8:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Maybe we should come up with a national drinking game [since we won't be driving as much] in which the One and his minions in MSM blame economic refuseniks, sabotagers, and hooligans for the spike in price. Dumb drunk when he or his agents call for 'price controls'.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/14/2012 9:00 Comments || Top||

#6  People are already using a LOT less gasoline in the US; I can only figure that the higher price is being supported by increased gasoline exports.
Obama won't 'own' this, it will be painted as the oil companies' fault - after all, they are making big profits (though refining & marketing companies are not.) It will give the Administration more cover for adding new taxes on the oil companies, which will lead to even higher gas prices, but again, that's revenue to the government that they get to blame others for.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 9:19 Comments || Top||

#7  See if you can locate the central problem regarding Federal Motor Fuel taxes from the excerpt provided below:

The motor fuel tax is a per-gallon excise tax levied on gasoline, diesel, and other special fuels, and is deposited into the Federal Highway Trust Fund (HTF). Motor fuel taxes provide about 82 percent of the revenue used for Federal surface transportation funding.

The HTF was established by the Federal-aid Highway Act of 1956 for the direct purpose of funding the construction of an Interstate Highway System and aiding in the finance of primary, secondary, and urban routes. Prior to establishment of the HTF, a federal motor fuel tax of 1 cent per gallon was enacted in 1932 and increased, extended, and rescinded multiple times until 1955. Revenue was not collected in a dedicated fund, but instead was pooled with the General Fund of the Treasury. Similarly, cash to pay for obligations incurred for the Federal highway program came from the General Fund.

Initially set at 3 cents per gallon in 1956, the motor fuel tax was increased to 4 cents per gallon in 1959. Then after a 24-year hiatus, motor fuel taxes were increased to 9 cents per gallon in 1983 and a new dedicated Mass Transit Account was established alongside the existing Highway Account and was funded with one-ninth of the revenues coming into the HTF. The next year, the motor fuel tax on diesel fuel was increased separately by 6 cents per gallon, a differential that remains today.

Since 1987, except from January 1996 to October 1997, an additional 0.1 cent per gallon has been levied and deposited in the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund.


Link

*Not mentioned are the individual State taxes applied to motor fuels.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 9:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Identify who said this:
"Energy prices must necessarily skyrocket."
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 9:49 Comments || Top||

#9  Former President Bush of course.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 9:55 Comments || Top||

#10  Of course. After Winston Smith's department did their job.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 10:15 Comments || Top||

#11  Already happened this weekend in the People's Republic of California.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/14/2012 11:03 Comments || Top||

#12  But, hey, at least we don't have inflation.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 12:21 Comments || Top||

#13  Yup, I saw $4.14 at shell north of San Rafael, CA on Saturday.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 02/14/2012 12:42 Comments || Top||

#14  People are already using a LOT less gasoline in the US; I can only figure that the higher price is being supported by increased gasoline exports.

Crude prices are being driven in large part by the simultaneous attempts by the Fed, ECB & Japan to devalue their currencies. Plot the US monetary base against crude prices and you'll see a very very strong correlation. The largest component of the price of finished gasoline is the cost of crude oil thus as crude runs up gasoline prices necessarily follow.

As you noted, the really frightening part isn't the forthcoming price spike, it's that it's happening in an environment where consumption has fallen off a cliff. That may not include imports but even if it doesn't that doesn't explain those two data points at the bottom right corner of the chart. Scary if they're the new normal and not extreme outliers.
Posted by: AzCat || 02/14/2012 12:53 Comments || Top||

#15  AzCat, it looks to me like gasoline prices are up considerably more than crude prices this cycle. Concur that crude prices are running in synch with dollar printing.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 13:26 Comments || Top||

#16  And of course the money-printing will mean larger $ amounts (not value) in profits to the oil companies who the Administration, and their lapdog media, will then blame for jacking up the prices.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/14/2012 13:32 Comments || Top||

#17  Boycott petroleum! That'll show 'em all.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:01 Comments || Top||

#18  Glenmore - One possible explanation for the divergence of gasoline from crude is that Obama has regulated a few US refineries out of existence. With refining capacity dwindling due to regulatory fiat the market doesn't know what to expect during the annual transition from cheaper winter gasoline blends to more expensive summer ones and is pricing in the risk that things won't go smoothly.

There's never perfect correlation over the very short term but in the long run that's been the way to bet:

Posted by: AzCat || 02/14/2012 14:33 Comments || Top||

#19  I've been looking for a good graph showing average monthly prices of gasoline versus monthly gasoline, updated from about 1/79 to 12/11.
I've seen partial & incomplete graphs. As best I can tell, people are using a little less gasoline, but not a 'lot less'. The graph I want is, IMHO, necessary to lead any article about US gas prices, just to give readers an accurate perspective on the situation.
In the poorer sections of my part of OH, I have been seeing many more grown men on bicycles or on foot with lunch boxes, backsacks & satchels than I have seen in previous decades. They don't look like students. Perhaps those are the ones who quit driving.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:41 Comments || Top||

#20  Correction: I've been looking for a good graph showing average monthly US prices of gasoline versus monthly US gasoline consumption, updated from about 1/79 to 12/11.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:42 Comments || Top||

#21  Anguper,might this help? Only goes back to 1991.
(Can't get the link thing to work - looks like it does, but vanishes when preview. Re-assemble the segments-)
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/02/
huge-plunge-in-petroleum-and-gasoline.html
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/14/2012 14:51 Comments || Top||

#22  Let's see if I can post the above referenced graph:

Unfortunately, pricing information is left out. Roughly it shows about a 9% drop in US gasoline consumption between 2001 and 2011, a period with 2 recessions. It's a step in the right direction, of clarifying the discussion on gasoline prices.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:59 Comments || Top||

#23  3.13 a month ago, 3.55 last night. And that's at the cheap station.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/14/2012 19:25 Comments || Top||

#24  IIRC the price for Regular Unleaded is going up to US$4.88 here on Guam - don't ask for Premium/Super.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 22:42 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Coalition partners vow to stand by PM
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, charged with contempt of court, moved his coalition partners immediately after his appearance in the apex court. The allied expressed solidarity with him in a meeting held at the Prime Minister’s House.

Gilani, facing most crucial crisis in his four years’ tenure as a prime minister, discussed the situation with all his coalitions partners after his indictment in the Supreme Court.

The beleaguered prime minister got a big boost from his allies when they showed complete solidarity with his government. The meeting was attended by Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali, Muttahida Qaumi Movement parliamentary leader Dr Farooq Sattar, FATA Parliamentary Group leader Munir Khan Orakzai, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khursheed Shah, Minister for Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar, Railways Minister Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour and MNA Raja Pervez Ashraf.

The meeting also discussed the current political situation in which it was agreed that they will continue to work together for continuation of the political and democratic process in the country. They also resolved to continue to work to strengthen the democratic dispensation in the country.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
No organized opposition in Bahrain: King Hamad
Just a lot of unorganized but really spirited opposition...
MANAMA: King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain has accused his opponents of chanting in support of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, he said: "It's just a case of manners. But when they shout 'Down with the king and up with Khamenei' that's a problem for national unity."

"In a sense there is no 'opposition' in Bahrain, as the phrase implies one unified block with the same views," Hamad said in the extracts. "Such a phrase is not in our constitution, unlike say the UK. We only have people with different views, and that's okay."

Security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters trying to occupy a landmark square in the nation's capital on Monday ahead of the one-year anniversary of the uprising. Traffic came to a standstill on the highway. Protesters fled into nearby villages to regroup and march back to confront police.

A top US lawman hired by Bahrain to help clean up its security practices said the government was serious about reforms and but youth violence was posing obstacles. Opposition parties often hold authorized marches and rallies but youth activists call their own protests that usually end in clashes with police.

"There has been a huge increase in the use of Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs). There were five or six dozen flung in Sitra the other week. Police are responding to assaults they find themselves in," said John Timoney, who as Miami police chief in 2003-10 was credited as a "tough cop" who cut crime.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
Britain frees radical cleric Abu Qatada
You really have to wonder if most of Europe has a death wish...
LONDON - A radical cleric once described as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe" was freed from a British prison to live under virtual house arrest on Monday after a court ruled that his detention without trial was unlawful.

The Jordanian preacher known as Abu Qatada must wear an electronic tag to allow the police to keep track of him, spend 22 hours a day at his family home and is banned from using the Internet and mobile phones.

Twice convicted in his absence in Jordan of involvement in terrorist plots, Britain says he is still a national security risk and should be deported before London hosts the Olympic Games in July and August. Britain says videotapes of his sermons were found in a German apartment used by three of the people who carried out al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Qatada was released from the high-security Long Lartin prison in central England on Monday night, a source familiar with the case said. The government declined to comment. Television pictures showed him being driven out of the prison in a van.

The 51-year-old, whose real name is Omar Othman, has been in and out of jail since he was first detained without charge under British anti-terrorism laws in 2002.

Under strict bail conditions, he will only be allowed out of the house for two hours each day and visitors must vetted. Qatada cannot go to mosques or lead prayer sessions. His bail papers say that if he bumps into a friend in the street, he must "after any initial greeting, disengage himself from the situation whether by explaining the terms of his bail order or by making an excuse."

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last week that his detention without charge was unlawful and that Britain must not send him to Jordan. Seven European judges ruled that Qatada would not receive a fair trial in Jordan because evidence against him may have been obtained using torture.

His case has been a thorn in the side of successive British governments. Prime Minister David Cameron, under pressure from some in his Conservative Party to stand up to Europe, said last week it was "completely unacceptable" that Britain can not detain Qatada or deport him.
So deport him. You could offer him a choice: Jordan or Ice Station Zebra.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Falklands isles are nice this time of year.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 6:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Read Italy and France break European rules regular re extraditing people having to pay minimal fines.

Why not UK?
Posted by: Whutch Throsh4701 || 02/14/2012 7:32 Comments || Top||

#3  St. Helena is beautiful at any time of year.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 02/14/2012 8:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Easier to get to him on the outside.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/14/2012 9:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Drop him on Mecca.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2012 10:05 Comments || Top||

#6  Falklands are nice, yes. But I was thinking maybe somewhere just about halfway between Britain and the Falklands.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 11:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Send him on a plane anywhere the Euro Court of Human Rights approves of, only to have the plane meet with an unfortunate water landing that leaves no trace.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 13:59 Comments || Top||

#8  Send him to Belgium, and get him a room next to the justices of the ECHR.
Posted by: mojo || 02/14/2012 14:25 Comments || Top||

#9  I can't make out the title, but by enlarging the photo, that blue volume appears to be authored by Salman Rushdie. Strange, very strange indeed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 14:31 Comments || Top||

#10  He gets 24/7 police protection, presumably to stop him from being taken out by non-Muslim "radicals"
There is no indication that this is going to happen but they are going to waste all that money on police resources at the same time they are cutting back on the NHS.
Posted by: tipper || 02/14/2012 15:00 Comments || Top||

#11  Not that strange at all Besoeker. You see at night Allan is dumb and blind and can't see his followers feasting and drinking during a fast, or reading (and doing who-know-what) with a proscribed book.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/14/2012 15:06 Comments || Top||

#12  South Georgia Island. A lovely frigid spot to put the radical muzzies on ice. Not, a lot of infrastructure there, but that would be a feature.
Posted by: Black Charlie Phinelet7572 || 02/14/2012 15:29 Comments || Top||

#13  Falklands isles are nice this time of year.

What do you have against sheep?
Posted by: Shimble Guelph5793 || 02/14/2012 17:49 Comments || Top||

#14  He can change his name to Abu Malvinas and be a goatherd.
Posted by: Kentucky Beef || 02/14/2012 18:42 Comments || Top||

#15  Rockall is a nice place to put him, too.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/14/2012 19:45 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian rebels repel attack on Rastan
BEIRUT/BRUSSELS: Syrian rebels repelled a push Monday by government tanks into a key central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime as the country’s 11-month-old uprising looked increasingly like a nascent civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attempt by regime forces to storm Rastan in the restive central province of Homs left at least three soldiers dead. Rastan has been held by the rebels since late January.

The town was taken by defectors twice in the past only to be retaken by Syrian troops. It is the hometown of former Defense Minister Mustapha Tlass, who held the post for more than three decades, mostly under Assad’s father and predecessor, the late Hafez Assad.

Calls to town’s residents could not get through on Monday and the telephone lines appeared to be cut, as they usually are during military operations. “Troops maneuvered by moving on the northern edge of town then other forces attacked form the south,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory. He added that hundreds of army defectors are in Rastan.

The Observatory also said that troops bombed the rebel-held Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr that has been under siege for more than a week. It reported clashes in the village of Busra Al-Harir in the southern province of Daraa between troops and army defectors.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Life imprisonment for ISI leader
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Iraqi Central Criminal Court issued a verdict of life imprisonment for the organizer of the administrative affairs of the so-called Iraqi Islamic State, affiliated to Qaeda organization.

Judicial media sources said that the convict admitted to his participation in Qaeda organization and receiving money and distributing salaries, as well as transporting arms in order to destabilize the country.

This verdict is liable for appeal, according to legal procedures.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
NA resolution decries US hearing on Balochistan
ISLAMABAD: Amidst grave concerns over deteriorating situation in Balochistan, the Lower House of parliament on Monday unanimously passed a resolution against the US Congressional Foreign Relations Sub-committee’s hearing on Balochistan by terming it a blatant interference in the country’s internal affairs.
"How dare the United States point out how we oppress our country cousins?"
The resolution moved by Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan sailed through the House following the suspension of rules through another motion, which was also moved by Nisar.

At the presentation of the resolution, Awami National Party’s Pervez Khan Advocate and Pakistan People’s Party’s Humayun Azia Khan objected to the moving of the resolution in haste. However, after taking on board all the parliamentary groups, the House succeeded in passing a consensus resolution.

The resolution noted with great concern that at a time when Pakistan-US relations were already under severe stress, the holding of such a hearing by US Congress could not but jeopardise the healing process and further inflame public opinion against the US by adding to the prevailing sense of mistrust and suspicion regarding its intentions towards Pakistan.

Earlier, Nisar expressed concern over the Congressional hearing on Balochistan issue and said that “if we keep silence on it, it will be a grave injustice to the country”.

However, he declared that the resolution against the US on Balochistan should not be construed as all is well in Balochistan and said the government should not take it as an excuse to keep mum on the fast worsening situation in the province. He said the government should initiate a dialogue with Balochs.

“Mere apology and speeches would not resolve the issue of Balochistan,” Nisar said, adding that unfortunately no lesson has been learnt from the grave tragedy of East Pakistan.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Since Pakistan has indicated a semi-alliance with Iran, Balochistan figures prominently, as it is split between the two. Pakistan's contribution to the Iranian war effort might involved the Pak army entering Iranian Balochistan, so that the Iranian army there can go elsewhere, as Pakistan cleans up "the Balochi problem" that has annoyed both countries.

If Iran "wins", then Pak will give Iranian Balochistan back to them. (Of course, if Iran is devastated, the Pak will hold on to it for them, as well as its mineral wealth.)
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2012 11:20 Comments || Top||

#2  ION DIVIDE-N-CONQUER ... ...?

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > [MEMRI.org] URDU DAILY: CHINESE MULLING TAKING OVER GILGIT BALTISTAN, PAKISTAN CONSIDERING PROPOSAL TO LEASE THE DISPUTED REGION FOR 50 YEARS.

Wel-l-l, even the Artic denotes that the next stage for China, after engaging in civic or engineering contruction [infratsructure] there, is to formally base PLA troops there.

This may NOT end well for Pakistan as while many Pakis support China as an Pak Ally + engaging in bilateral Sino-Pak cooper + development projects, THEY ARE AGZ ANY TURNOVER OF PAK = MUSLIM TERRITORY TO CHINA = NON-MUSLIMS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 23:36 Comments || Top||


Europe
Moodys Downgrades more Euro debt
Moody's actions can be summarised as follows:

- Austria: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative
- France: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative
- Italy: downgraded to A3 from A2, negative outlook
- Malta: downgraded to A3 from A2, negative outlook
- Portugal: downgraded to Ba3 from Ba2, negative outlook
- Slovakia: downgraded to A2 from A1, negative outlook
- Slovenia: downgraded to A2 from A1, negative outlook
- Spain: downgraded to A3 from A1, negative outlook
- United Kingdom: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All of which COULD mean opportunity and increased stability for the US market if things are played correctly. Regardless of what is said in Washington, we are NOT inextricably tied to these losers, but we can certainly learn from them.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 3:41 Comments || Top||

#2  And who, Besoeker, do you think is going to play this correctly? President Mittens, maybe?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/14/2012 6:06 Comments || Top||

#3  I thought you'd(Yanks) already got a downgrade.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 6:29 Comments || Top||

#4  IMO the best thing that could happen to the US economy is the USD crashes.

Basically all the industries that went offshore get repatriated.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/14/2012 8:43 Comments || Top||

#5  You know that a falling dollar is a pay cut for Americans?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 9:25 Comments || Top||

#6  You know that a falling dollar is a pay cut for Americans?
Americans are (and will be) paying for the bad debts of the FIRE industry through their falling standard of living. Realistically, pay cuts for Americans seem inevitable under ANY likely scenario, given the current economic situation. The only way through is DOWN. The question is, which path through will cause the least amount of destruction?
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/14/2012 14:34 Comments || Top||

#7  I'd suggest not wasting taxpayers cash trying to keep down the low affordability of housing...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/14/2012 18:41 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Gilani should quit following his indictment: Imran
Another hyena picks his opening...
KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Monday asked the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government -- what moral justification does Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani have after being indicted with contempt charges?

Khan was speaking to the media during the induction of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Karachi division chief organiser Syed Hafeezuddin into his party. The PTI chairman said that Gilani should resign from the premiership following his indictment in the Supreme Court.

Khan said that democracy is governed by "morality, not force," as force "remains with the armed forces."

He said that Gilani now will not be able to take any action against anybody who is facing contempt charges.

"You set an example for the people to follow. If Gilani has been indicted with contempt charges, how can he in the future question somebody who is found in contempt of the court?" Khan questioned.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
29 Nork Defectors Face Repatriation
Twenty-nine North Korean defectors were caught by Chinese police and are on the brink of being repatriated to North Korea. Seoul has asked Beijing to release them but there has been no reply.

According to their families in South Korea, 10 of the defectors were caught by Chinese police while trying to board a bus in Shenyang around last Wednesday evening. They were on their way to join their families in South Korea. About half were male and half female, and the group included teenagers, the relatives said. They requested emergency relief from the National Human Rights Commission though an activist group.

"They seem to be from the same family and were caught near Liaoning Province," said Kim Yong-hwa of the North Korea Refugees Human Rights Association. "They are in a very dangerous situation because guards have been under instructions to kill all would-be defectors" since new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un came to power.

Another group of nine defectors were caught by Chinese authorities the same day. Five others defectors were arrested in Changchun on Sunday and another five in Dandong on Monday. All reportedly face deportation to the North.

Liberty Forward Party lawmaker Park Sun-young said, "I understand that China and North Korea agreed at security meetings Sunday and Monday to repatriate the defectors soon."
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You send them back to NORK and they'll be slaughtered, Quietly.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/14/2012 10:25 Comments || Top||


Sri Lanka
US to support UN rights resolution on Sri Lanka
This is pointless and unnecessary, creating the idea that the U.S. is nothing but an international busybody.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- The United States will support a UN human rights council resolution asking Sri Lanka to implement recommendations of a UN report on the island nation's civil war, an American diplomat said Monday. The resolution would let Sri Lanka explain how it intends to advance ethnic reconciliation and accountability, said Maria Otero, under secretary of state for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, on a visit to the country.

A report written for the United Nations in 2010 found allegations of human rights violations were credible on both sides as the country's long civil war was ending in 2009. The UN and Washington have pushed for a full investigation of the alleged abuses, while Sri Lanka has defended its own investigation.

The government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission cleared Sri Lanka's military of allegations it deliberately targeted civilians and deprived them of food and medicine as a tactic of war. It said some violations by individual soldiers need further investigation. It said however the Tamil Tiger rebels routinely violated international humanitarian law.

Otero commended the commission report but said "it has shortcomings on accountability."

"I urged the Sri Lankan government to share the details of their plans and begin fulfilling the recommendations called in the report and to credibly address outstanding issues of accountability," she said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa assured American diplomats the commission report would be implemented "in a comprehensive manner," Otero said.

If Sri Lanka's own efforts have shortcomings, pressure will grow for an international investigation, said Robert O. Blake, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ahh, they'll just do what everybody else does. Ignore them.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/14/2012 19:35 Comments || Top||

#2  ION, as per BHARAT RAKSHAK POSTERS/BLOGGERS, it appears that India was ready to mil intervene in the Maldives Coup agz Prez Nasheed, but didn't because of Nasheed's alleged [puppet] ties or links to CHINA, hence India decided to play safe + waited for him to be ousted from power.

* OTOH DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > US FEAR STOPPED INDIA MILITARY ACTION IN MALDIVES.

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > INDIA KEEPS MALDIVES BASE UNDER WRAP, i.e. an active but preferably quiet presence.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 23:20 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Revolutionary militias in western Libya unify
TRIPOLI: Representatives of around 100 militias from western Libya have announced a new federation they say will prevent infighting and press the country’s new leaders for greater reforms. The new body includes brigades from many of the cities that saw the fiercest fighting during the eight-month civil war that ended with the death of longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi last October.

Col. Mokhtar Fernana, the group’s leader, said Monday the body will act as an umbrella group that will allow the militias to speak with “one voice.” He also accused the ruling National Transitional Council of being infiltrated by former Qaddafi supporters.

The federation’s formation is another blow to the National Transitional Council’s largely unsuccessful efforts to decommission revolutionary fighters or bring them under government control.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Months, not years?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/14/2012 21:37 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Armed forces get only 18% of total budget: Kayani
JACOBABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Monday made it clear that only 18 percent of the budget was being spent on the armed forces, and of this allocation, the army got only 8 to 9 percent.
Yes, yes. But what percent of the Pakistani economy does the Army of the Pure control?
Kayani said the reports that more than 50 percent of the budget was allocated to the armed forces were baseless and without any foundation, adding that figures being given in TV talk shows were contrary to facts.
"Lies! All lies!"
He pointed out that in fact, due to inflation and depreciation of rupee against the dollar, defence budget had gone down.
But control of the national economy has gone up. How many factories, how many apartment blocks, how many farms are owned by the army, or those beholden to the army?
And you wondered why Obama visited Pakistan all those years ago. He was attending 'economics' lectures. And taking notes...
The army chief said that parliament would decide about the future logistic and defence cooperation with a International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and NATO forces in Afghanistan. "The matter is under discussion in parliament while the prime minister has also given a policy statement on the issue," he told reporters after reviewing F-16 (Block 52) fighter aircraft, which were formally inducted in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter jets fleet at Shahbaz Airbase.

He said the induction of F-16 (Block 52) fighter jets in the PAF would strengthen air defence of the country, as this new aircraft was very modern and capable machine. Regarding the use of this aircraft in war against terror, he said it was our policy to ensure minimum use of air force in the operations being conducted inside the country.

The COAS said the armed forces did not get $1.5 billion of the coalition support fund. He emphasised that the army was not involved in any operation in Balochistan and only FC, which was under the control of the Interior Ministry was conducting routine operations. He said Pakistan Army was capable of deterring Indian aggression.
Sez the Indian armed forces: we'll be the judge of that.
Indeed. So long as Pakistan Army doesn't start another war with India, they'll be fine.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wehell-l-l, we know it may not be because the Pak Army faces new Militant attacks ...

To wit,

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > SIRAJ HAQQANI EXPOSES PAK MILITARY - MILITANTS PEACE DEAL. MilTerrs to refrain from attacking PAK Army-Security forces, will only strike US-NATO forces in Afghanistan.

* Also from SAME > PAK ADMITS NATO [food] SUPPLIES [into Afghanistan] ALLOWED BY AIR.

* TOPIX > PAKISTAN: NATO SUPPLY LAND ROUTES TO REMAIN CLOSED.

Pak COAS Kayani was quoted as stating that it will be up to the Pak Govt [SSSSSHHHHHH..CCCCCC aka Pak Army-Military] to decide when to reopen the land routes.

Iff the US-NATO wanna reopen the Land Routes, they may have to pay new Pak toll fees???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2012 22:24 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
BNP leader chopped to death in Narsingdi
Narsingdi, Feb 12 (UNB)-A local BNP leader was chopped to death near Meghna bazaar police camp in Sadar upazila Saturday night.

Family sources said Abul Kashem, 55, Pikepara union BNP joint-secretary under Sadar upazila and also a postmaster did not return home at night after some unidentified men called him out of house at 9pm.
Important safety tip: next time unidentified men call you out at night, don't go!
Later, his chopped body was found in a field. On information, police recovered the body Sunday morning and sent it to Sadar hospital morgue.
"He's dead, Jim."
The motive behind the killing could not be known immediately.
But the BNP immediately blamed it on the Tea Party...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Bullet-riddled body of BRP leader found
QUETTA: The bullet-riddled body of a missing Baloch Republican Party (BRP) leader, Sangat Sana, was found on Monday in Murgap area of Turbat, some 900 kilometres from Quetta. Police said some passers-by spotted the body of Sangat Sana and informed them.

Sangat Sana, a resident of Mastung, was also a former chairman of Baloch Student Organisation (BSO-Azad). “Sana Sangat was whisked away from Kolpur area in Bolan on December 4, 2009,” said Nasurllah Baloch, the chairman of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons.

“The victim was brutally tortured before being killed. The body had more than 30 bullet wounds,” police Constable Barkat Baloch said.

The BRP, Baloch National Movement (BNM) and BSO-Azad announced a three-day shutter-down strike and 40 days of mourning to protest the killing of Sangat Sana.

Separately, Zardad, a resident of Kohistan’s Battagram area, was also found dead in Mand Bolo area of Turbat district. Unidentified people had shot dead Zardad, said Balochistan Levies Constable Abdul Qadir Baloch
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian regime may have committed crimes against humanity — UN rights chief
NEW YORK: The top UN human rights official said Monday that crimes against humanity have likely been committed in the bloody crackdown on dissidents in Syria.

“The nature and scale of abuses committed by Syrian forces indicate that crimes against humanity are likely to have been committed since March 2011,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the General Assembly. “The risk of a humanitarian crisis throughout Syria is rising,” warned Pillay in the UN address.

“The failure of the Security Council to agree on firm collective action appears to have emboldened the Syrian government to launch an all-out assault in an effort to crush dissent with overwhelming force,” Pillay added.

Pillay’s speech to the 193-nation assembly came after Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari, backed by delegates from Iran and North Korea, tried unsuccessfully to block her from addressing UN delegations by citing procedural arguments.

“I am particularly appalled by the ongoing onslaught on Homs,” Pillay said, noting that Assad’s forces have been using tanks, mortars and artillery in the assault on the city.

“According to credible accounts, the Syrian army has shelled densely populated neighborhoods of Homs in what appears to be an indiscriminate attack on civilian areas,” Pillay said.

It is difficult to establish how many people have died in the Syrian conflict, though the figure was more than 5,400 and was rising every day, she said.

“More than 300 people have reportedly been killed in the city (of Homs) since the start of this assault 10 days ago,” Pillay said.

She reiterated her hope that the Security Council would refer the Syrian repression to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as it did in the case of Libya last year. But council envoys say veto-holders Russia and China oppose that.

Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari, backed by delegates from Iran and North Korea, tried unsuccessfully to block Pillay from addressing the UN delegations by citing procedural arguments. Ja’afari accused the Qatari president of the General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, of political bias against Syria and rejected Pillay’s allegations against Damascus.

“After today how can we trust the high commissioner for human rights on issues related to defending and promoting human rights?” he said, accusing Pillay of adopting an “unprincipled (stance) against the Syrian government.”

Ja’afari said Syria has been trying to establish security and stability “in exercise of its exclusive right to protect its citizens.”

He charged that some UN member states were helping Al-Qaeda launch attacks in Syria against the government.

“How can the United Nations combat the terrorism of Al-Qaeda, wearing one hat, while at the same time some of its member states are financing, providing succor, indeed sending combatants from Al-Qaeda to commit terrorist acts in Syria?“

Pillay told reporters the United Nations was seeking information related to the Syrian allegation about Al-Qaeda.

Libyan UN envoy Ibrahim Dabbashi predicted that “the Syrian despots will meet the same destiny” as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was killed last year by rebels who overthrew his government.
We can only hope...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I like his use of the word *MAY*.

Posted by: BernardZ || 02/14/2012 6:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Forgot to pay their UN dues, I guess.
Posted by: Spot || 02/14/2012 7:45 Comments || Top||


--Tech & Moderator Notes
Moderator note: our attendance
So that everyone knows, Fred is taking some time off. His health is fine but he's going to be on the road a while.

The moderators will mind the shop while he's gone. We'll be putting up posts from our usual favorite haunts, and of course we'll be checking in during the day. We should even have the Bloid on a nightly basis.

If there are problems, put a note in at the O-Club. Badanov, our resident tech guy, will keep the server up and running, and will also put in blocks as needed.

A request: for those who like to put in a post or two, please keep the Burg focused on the War on Terror (and stupid animal/human stories, naturally).

Many thanks,

the Mods
Posted by: Steve White || 02/14/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wishing Fred safe travels.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/14/2012 9:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Dissapointed Rantburg did not make the President's enemy blog list. We must try harder.
Posted by: bman || 02/14/2012 10:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Glad to hear Fred's health is fine. Hope he has a great trip.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/14/2012 11:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Will miss you.

Remember when Fred was called a "war blogger"?
Posted by: Hupeagum Wheamp5986 || 02/14/2012 18:01 Comments || Top||



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2012-02-14
  Suspected Iranian Agent Bungles Bombing in Bangkok
Mon 2012-02-13
  Israel says bombs target embassies in India, Georgia
Sun 2012-02-12
  Uzbek man in US pleads guilty in Obama murder plot
Sat 2012-02-11
  Arrests in Quetta Related to Rabbani Assassination
Fri 2012-02-10
  Zawahiri says Somalia's Shebab Joined al-Qaida
Thu 2012-02-09
  Badar Mansoor Dronezapped in North Wazoo
Wed 2012-02-08
  German Police Arrest Lebanese, Syrian for Spying for Damascus
Tue 2012-02-07
  Blasts Rock N. Nigeria, Police Station Attacked
Mon 2012-02-06
  36 Civilians, 28 Troops Killed in Fresh Syria Violence
Sun 2012-02-05
  Expel Syrian Envoys, Says Arab League Official
Sat 2012-02-04
  Libya's ex-envoy to France dies in custody
Fri 2012-02-03
  Britain Appoints First Ambassador to Somalia in 21 Years
Thu 2012-02-02
  Three top terror leaders killed in the Philippines
Wed 2012-02-01
  US raids kill 15 militants in Yemen
Tue 2012-01-31
  12,000 BNP, Jamaat men charged with violence

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