Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/28/2012
19:57 ||
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#1
BTW only until March 15 for somebody to file and run for her seat or the gov. gets to appoint someone... likely dem...
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/28/2012 20:04
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#2
The Governor is a rough-around-the-edges first term republican named LePage. Democrats hate him. The feeling is mutual. It is highly unlikely he would appoint a democrat.
An election however is different; Maine is rather independent-minded for a blue New England state. It could go any way.
#4
Ms. Snowe has been a thoughtful and modest Senator for many years. Senator is not a job that encourages either thoughtfulness nor modesty. So, I thank her for her service. And I thank her for stepping down. And I hope the door does not hit her on the ass as she exits -- too hard.
#1
It is unwise to take away the one perquisite of military service many soldiers feel they have.
Many soldiers are of the opinion that if they get an omelet in the morning, with a cup of coffee, they can handle any shiat thrown at them for the rest of the day. Take that away, though, and they are going to get surly.
#2
Calories are a measure of the energy that the food provides. If a person is active enough (s)he can eat as many calories as desired. If (s)he is an inactive, desk-flying dietitian, (s)he needs to limit calories.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/28/2012 17:47
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#3
If we all begin to eat like her, will we cop an attitude and have arsses two axe handles wide as well? Think I'll stick to my fried eggs, cheese grits, red-eye gravy, and streak o'lean. The sooner I'm dead, the sooner I won't have to be bothered by these meddling, doddering fools!
A Georgetown co-ed told Rep. Nancy Pelosis hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex that theyre going broke, so you and I should pay for their birth control.
Speaking at a hearing held by Pelosi to tout Pres. Obamas mandate that virtually every health insurance plan cover the full cost of contraception and abortion-inducing products, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke said that its too expensive to have sex in law school without mandated insurance coverage.
Apparently, four out of every ten co-eds are having so much sex that it's hard to make ends meet if they have to pay for their own contraception, Fluke's research shows.
"Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception), Fluke reported.
It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her calculations.
"Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school," Fluke told the hearing.
$3,000 for birth control in three years? Thats a thousand dollars a year of sex and, she wants us to pay for it.
Yes, us. Where do you think the insurance companies forced to cover this cost get the money to pay for these co-eds to have sex? It comes from the health care insurance premiums you and I pay.
But, back to this womans complaint that shes spending $3,000 for birth control during her time in college.
"For a lot of students, like me, who are on public interest scholarships, thats practically an entire summers salary," she complains.
So, she earns enough money in just one summer to pays for three full years of sex. And, yes, they are full years since she and her co-ed classmates are having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently.
At a dollar a condom if she shops at CVS pharmacys website, that $3,000 would buy her 3,000 condoms or, 1,000 a year. (By the way, why does CVS.com list the weight of its condom products in terms of pounds?)
Assuming its not a leap year, thats 1,000 divided by 365 or having sex 2.74 times a day, every day, for three straight years. And, I thought Georgetown was a Catholic university where women might be prone to shun casual, unmarried sex. At least its health insurance doesn't cover contraception (that which you subsidize, you get more of, you know).
And, thats not even considering that there are Planned Parenthood clinics in her neighborhood that give condoms away and sell them at a discount, which could help make her sexual zeal more economical.
Besides, maybe, these female law students could cut back on some other expenses to make room for more birth control in their budgets, instead of making us pick up the tab. With classes and studying and all that sex, who's got time for cable?
And, let's not forget about these deadbeat boyfriends (or random hook-ups?) who are having sex 2.74 times a day. If Fluke's going to ask the government to force anyone to foot the bill for her friends' birth control, shouldn't it be these guys?
All of this seems to suggest at least two important conclusions:
1.If these women want to have sex, we shouldn't be forced to pay for it, and
2.If these co-eds really are this guy crazy, I should've gone to law school
#4
This is hilarious. Someone should suggest to the Georgetown administration that they now have a reputation as a "party school".
Schools have been sensitive to that label going back to at least 1,000 B.C., and the medical school in Sidon, in what is now Lebanon. The students were supposed to be chaste, and the school was surrounded by a high wall to keep them from going into town.
But a document from that time detailed all the known ways in which students had been able to get over that damned wall so they could get themselves some action.
The best part of the show is the Latin motto on the development group's shield... "Velocitas Eradico". Been a long time since Latin IV but it looks like a bad syntax take off on "Speed Kills", changing it to "Speed Obliterates".
Of course with the first person ending it really seems to say "I obliterate speed".
#4
The interesting thing about rail guns is they are using the same technology to launch planes.
Which blurs the distinction between a weapon and a projectile.
Large railguns on land could potentially fire projectiles intercontinental distances. Although I understand there are some serious stability issues with projectiles much above mach 10.
#5
Looks like Fox videos won't play on a linux platform. Need to go down to the basement for a window laptop.. That not helping those of us that use alternate platforms to reduce the risk of virus and infection.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/28/2012 19:15
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"Primarily because of what is happening in Iran Syria which is experiencing little turbulence. So I bloody phueching well know guess it is better. I am sure they must be better informed about the situation.."
When asked why the decision was taken so late, he said, "We were waved off These things can happen anytime and timing is everything. We can cannot predict. So it is better to carefully follow instructions be cautious."
#1
...Does our gummint actually have the stones to cancel something like this so we aren't arming a questionable ally (admittedly, the numbers involved are probably equal to a rounding error on the F-35 program) or did the Kansas congressional delegation - representing HawkerBeechcraft - sit down with The One's people and tell him they could kiss Kansas goodbye if the contract went through? Inquiring minds wanna know.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/28/2012 15:01
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#2
Actually Mike,
With our unemployment, even considering a foreign supplier for any DoD Procurement should be consiudered a scandal.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
02/28/2012 19:20
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#3
I have not understood this whole program, just build the damn Piper PA-48 Enforcer already.
When will they ever learn?
The Socialist front-runner in the race to become France's next president has announced plans to introduce a 75 per cent tax rate on millionaires.
#1
Capital flight will be the next thing they will talk about.
Remember, taxing those rich enough to pay to have their wealth moved to another country is like a Monkey trying to have sex with a football.
Looks like something is happening and is amusing to watch, but in reality nothing gets accomplished.
#2
France avoided having a credit/housing bubble as it had a higher percentage of taxation than surrounding countries in the immovable, i.e. Land/Property. Which is why despite it's horrendous level of state meddling in the economy it's not as fubared as expected.
#3
The problem is they won't be taxing millionaires, ie taxing wealth, they will be taxing high income earners.
Taxing wealth is a good idea from an economic perspective but notoriously difficult to do in practice.
Taxing very high income earners is nuts, because whatever they do is economically very valuable, and they will either do less of it or go somewhere else to do it.
#2
The vehicle weighs 140,000 pounds, more than twice as much as a Bradley and costs 4 times as much. It also weighs more than an M-1 Abrams and carries a 25 mm gun.
Too heavy, too expensive, not enough firepower.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/28/2012 16:57
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#3
I thought they were talking about the Air Force getting new golf clubs...
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been paying a defense contractor $11.4 million to monitor social media websites and other Internet communications to find criticisms of the departments policies and actions.
#2
I for one, fully support the persistent surveillance of internet sites and the dynamic tasking and re-tasking of airborne ISR over FEMA region, non-compliant or suspect neighborhoods andcell towers. Afghanistan was a successful beta test, Fast and Curious is here to stay. Get over it!
#3
Let me make it easy for you GD guys, you have always been good subs. ( name="Homeland Security Criticism" content="citizen comment" ).
Homeland security started out as an interesting concept. If it had secured the borders, championed enlightened self-defense (e.g. flight 94), and respected the American people, well then it would be a success.
However, being famous for insulting both traveling citizens and those foreigners traveling on a legitimate visa, ignoring illegal trespass of our borders, failing to support our sworn immigration officers, and lavishing money on NYC union make work projects is to be famous for fail.
I don't criticize HSD, it criticizes itself.
To those in HSD I ask you to look around. Americans respect the FBI; admire the CDC; and revere their Coast Guard. What are you doing wrong to be so hated?
Egypt's Islamist-led upper house of parliament chose a Muslim Brotherhood deputy as its speaker on Tuesday, cementing the group's dominance in the legislature after elections handed it a majority of seats.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) controls 59 percent of the seats in Shura Council (upper house) and around 43 percent of the lower house, the People's Assembly.
Both chambers convene on Saturday to pick a 100-strong assembly to draft the country's new constitution.
Ahmed Fahmy, a little-known FJP figure, became upper house speaker. FJP Secretary General Saad el-Katatni was already picked as the lower house speaker.
The positions of the two deputies went to members of the parties that came second and third in the votes of both houses, the hardline Islamist Nour Party and Wafd liberal group.
"I promise to keep the same distance from everyone - no distinction between the majority and the opposition - supporting democratic practice," said Fahmy after his election.
Members of the Shura Council met for the first time on Tuesday, concluding what was hailed as Egypt's most democratic parliamentary elections since military officers overthrew the king in 1952.
The parliamentary votes, which began in late November, are the first since a popular uprising toppled President Hosni Mubarak last February. His National Democratic Party, which long held a tight grip over both houses of parliament, was disbanded.
The Shura Council is a consultative body that only gives its opinion on issues and draft laws suggested to it by the president and the government.
The election to the upper house saw far lower turnout than for the People's Assembly as many Egyptians believe it matters little.
#4
"darkly warning Israel it had better get with the U.S. program"
We HAVE no program, that's the problem. Our "program" consists of "we will shun you if you don't play by the rules and send you sternly worded letters and say bad things about you in the press".
That's just about the extent of it. Sanctions? Sanctions have never worked in the history of the United States of American. Gee, those sanctions sure stopped North Korea playing with the nukes, didn't they?
Once you publicly announce sanctions, the other side gets a bit of a boost just by standing up to them, in other words, sanctions if announced publicly are at least partially self-neutralizing. If you are going to engage in sanctions, you do so quietly with no press. You start "losing" transactions or they move at a glacial pace. You start denying visas. You start pressuring businesses not to deal with them or better, give them alternative deals that are even better.
If you want to play the "sanctions" game, it is better done quietly.
#2
One afternoon a lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw two men along the road-side eating grass.
Disturbed, he ordered his driver to stop and got out to investigate.
He asked one man, "Why are you eating grass?"
"We don't have any money for food," the poor man replied. "We have to eat grass."
"Well, then, you can come with me to my house and I'll feed you," the lawyer said.
"But sir, I have a wife and two children with me. They are over there, under that tree."
"Bring them along," the lawyer replied.
Turning to the other poor man he stated, "You may come with us, also."
The second man, in a pitiful voice, then said, "But sir, I also have a wife and SIX children with me!"
"Bring them all as well," the lawyer answered.
They all entered the car, which was no easy task, even f or a car as large as the limousine was.
Once under way, one of the poor fellows turned to the lawyer and said, "Sir, you are too kind."
"Thank you for taking all of us with you .
The lawyer replied, "Glad to do it.
You'll really love my place.
The grass is almost a foot high."
Come on now...you really didn't think there was such a thing as a heart-warming lawyer story...did you????
#4
Why would anyone pretend to be a doctor. Hvaen't they watched tv? Everytime someone pretends to be a doctor they end up next to a medical emergency and unable to do anything but look foolish. Much better to pretend to be a marine biologist.
"While in his office for an evening meeting, Bahinipaty told his client he had to perform a medical examination of her breasts, reiterating that he is a doctor. He fondled the woman and took pictures."
#6
Every case she ever worked on can now be re-opened if the other side wishes to do so.
She won't be practicing law again any time soon, though she'll be defending herself from a lot of lawsuits.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/28/2012 17:44
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#7
Steve: I'm afraid that isn't how it works. If holding herself out as a doctor resulted in material harm to a client, she may get sued for malpractice. But that's pretty much it.
She is suspended until Feb 2014, which means, she is free to practice again in Feb 2014. Although she strikes me as the type who will have her own reality show by then.
The story I linked was meant to illustrate: it takes a lot more than a bit of ill-advised egotistical puffery to get disbarred altogether. I mean, A LOT. Words like "conviction," "defecation," "assault," and "lewd" typically appear somewhere in the board's findings of fact. Discipline in the legal profession is a joke compared to discipline in the medical profession.
#9
Yes. In one fairly recent local case, the respondent pooped himself. In the course of his 7th DUI, whilst smashing up his Porsche, a tour bus, and a squad car. His defense was that the gigantic heap of empty airplane-size booze bottles in the backseat, and the full one in his hand, belonged to a passenger who was absent at the time of arrest. Took two years from the date of arrest for disciplinary proceedings to result in disbarment.
Sectarian gunmen ambushed a bus on Tuesday, killing 18 Shiite Muslims in a usually peaceful region of northern Pakistan that neighbours the former Taliban stronghold of Swat, officials said.
The bus was stopped, before passengers were ordered off and shot in the mountainous district of Kohistan as it travelled from Rawalpindi, the city where Pakistan's army is headquartered, to the northern city of Gilgit.
"Armed men hiding on both sides of the road attacked the bus," local police chief Mohammad Ilyas said.
"Eighteen people have died and eight wounded," he added.
The ambush happened near the town of Harban, 130 miles (208 kilometres) north of the capital Islamabad.
Survivors said seven or eight gunmen stopped the bus, forced the passengers to get off and then opened fire, regional administration chief Khalid Omarzai told AFP by telephone, confirming the casualty numbers.
"It appears to be a sectarian attack," local MP Abdul Sattar Khan said.
#1
As the primary Shiite government in all the Islamic world, doesn't Iran have a duty to protect Shia in Pakistan? Maybe they should send the Republican Guard into Pakistan to hunt down and kill the offending Sunni. If Pakistan's nukes can reach India they can reach Iran...
#2
Update
Gunmen wearing military uniforms stopped a convoy of buses in northern Pakistan on Tuesday, ordered selected passengers to get off and then killed 16 of them in an apparent sectarian attack, the police and a lawmaker said.
The victims were Shiite Muslims, a minority in Pakistan that is frequently targeted by extremists from the majority Sunni community, said lawmaker Abdul Sattar. The gunmen spared several dozen other people in the four-bus convoy.
China is to overhaul the sometimes threatening slogans used to enforce its one-child policy, the authorities have announced.
State media blamed local officials for coming up with phrases such as, "If you don't get sterilised, your house will be demolished", "Kill all your family if you don't follow the rule" and, "If you escape (sterilisation), we'll hunt you down; if you want to hang yourself, we'll give you the rope".
#4
How about replacing the psychotic One Child Policy? China is destroying its next generation. Those not aborted or left at orphanages are under such tremendous pressure that more and more young couples are deciding not to have children at all. For privacy reasons, I won't go on at length about the behavior of certain "Little Emperors" of my acquaintance; but if the system doesn't change, some of these kids are going to be wet messes as adults.
The government is finding that one young couple cannot support both sets of parents, surviving grandparents, and their own child. Whether the cadres will wake up and do something about it is another matter.
#8
Some years back, Coca-Cola's ad slogan in the US was "Coke Adds Life..." Billboards went up in China that said "Coke Brings You Back From The Dead..." Lost in translation.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2012 19:42
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We're all doomed, I tell ya. Repent and don the sackcloth and ashes.
A changing climate isn't just about floods, droughts and heatwaves. It brings erupting volcanoes and catastrophic earthquakes, says Bill McGuire in London.
The idea that a changing climate can persuade the ground to shake, volcanoes to rumble and tsunamis to crash on to unsuspecting coastlines seems, at first, to be bordering on the insane. How can what happens in the thin envelope of gas that shrouds and protects our world possibly influence the potentially earth-shattering processes that operate deep beneath the surface? The fact that it does reflects a failure of our imagination and a limited understanding of the manner in which the different physical components of our planet - the atmosphere, the oceans, and the solid earth, or geosphere - intertwine and interact.
#3
Somehow our ancestors made it through the last big ice age up till now. Ingenious of them to develop all those heavy industries and automobiles and figure out domestication of animals to melt all that ice cap.
#5
The fact that it makes no sense whatsoever "reflects a failure of our imagination". Wow. That statement would make even a Soviet propagandist blush.
#11
Maybe we should throw some global-warming believers in a volcano to satisfy the global warming gods so they'll be nicer to us. Hey, it worked for our gullible primitive ancestors ....
#1
The entire set of six questions is based on false assumptions.
Once Iran has the bomb it will not need a direct confrontation with the US. All they will need is summggle one small nuke into New York city using an anonimous terrorist, denying anyconnection to it and squeeze bambi's balls as hard as they can.
Suddenly small terrorist groups will wield tactical nukes. Such a situation will bring the US to it's knees both morally and economically.
As for Israel, our "hundreds of nuclear bombs" will not help us if the Mullahs suceed in planting two nukes in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/ we will never be able to survive such a scenario.
We (Israel) cannot afford such a threat.
The monkey (Ahmadinagad) expressly said that he is willing to sacrifice most of Iran's population in order to anyhilate Israel. I believe him !!!!!
Israel will attack with or without US help. It is inevitable !!
the US under Bambi's direction is fucking it's friends and allies and encoraging it's enemies in a consistent manner.
By the time the American public wakes up it is going to be too late.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
02/28/2012 4:29
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#2
One question in return.
Would you stick to your opinion if we assured you that we have a team emplaced whose job is to kill your entire family in the event of Iranian nuclear attack on Israel?
#3
The U.S. has successfully deterred Iran for more than three decades. Why are we assuming that suddenly, deterrence will not work with Iran anymore?
The only thing we have 'deterred' them from is a major war of agression. Except their war with Iraq, of course.
Only a lefty dupe would fall for that question!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/28/2012 6:41
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#4
Its a time game. Will the Mullahs be overthrown before they get the bomb. If so then we have to (a) accellerate their removal (b) slow down the progress towards the bomb.
It is not rocket science. War is scary but Iran with the bomb is scarier.
#6
Q. ... how are we factoring in and addressing the uncertainty of intelligence on Irans nuclear program?
Israeli intelligence is much better - and they have more at stake.
Q. What are the views of the Iranian people in regards to a potential war and the current sanctions regime? Is this current path helping us win or lose hearts and minds in Iran?
I think the Iranian protests of a few years ago is a fair indication. Too bad Obumbles voted 'present' again.
Q. What are the forces behind Irans nuclear program? Could one factor be a desire for a nuclear deterrence due to a sense of insecurity and threat? If so, how can we affect Irans sense of need for a nuclear deterrence? Does the increasingly bellicose and confrontational approach of the West actually increase Tehrans desire for nuclear deterrence?
One - it is not *our* fault and Two - we can remove their capabilities and, if we are lucky, the existence of their dictators.
Q. The U.S. has thousands of nuclear weapons. Israel has hundreds. Iran currently has a mighty arsenal of zero nuclear weapons. The U.S. has successfully deterred Iran for more than three decades. Why are we assuming that suddenly, deterrence will not work with Iran anymore?
Because Iran has stated, in no uncertain terms, that they will use their nuclear weapons to wipe Israel off the map and then the 'Great Satan'.
Q. The U.S. military leadership does not believe Israel has an effective military option when it comes to unilaterally destroying Iran's nuclear sites. A tense exchange is currently playing out in public between the Netanyahu government and the U.S. military, with Israeli officials accusing Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey of having "served Iran's interests." What lies behind the starkly diverging views of the Netanyahu government and the U.S. military on Iran?
A bumbling, incompetent, and basically foolish President of the United States.
Q. According to the Congressional Research Service, total war-related funding for Iraq has exceeded $800 billion -- an average of approximately $100 billion per year. With these numbers in mind -- and at a time of over 8 percent unemployment and unprecedented government bailouts -- how will we pay for a war with Iran?
Simple - we don't do any 'Nation Building' after we do our 'Nation Destroying". Afghanistan shows that it simply doesn't work in those situations.
Imagine you are a cop on a crowded street. You see a man who is apparently insane who is waving a pistol. You pull your own pistol, take aim at him and tell him to drop his. He refuses. You don't know if his pistol is loaded or not. You don't know if he will fire it or not. But it doesn't matter. You have no choice. You cannot take the chance. You have to shoot him before anyone else gets killed.
#11
#7 reminds me of a scene from 1960's = 1980's OLIVER STONE'S "PLATOON" > "JUNIOR" = "...Free your Mind, your Ass will follow - simple"!
* INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > NATIONAL SECURITY:POSSIBLE STRIKE ON IRAN WILL STRENGTHEN MULLAH REGIME.
versus
* WAFF > WOULD IT BE SO BAD IFF IRAN GETS NUCLEAR WEAPONS?
* TOPIX > THE DAY IRAN TESTS THE BOMB.
By most accounts, the symbolic greater threat from a Nuclear-armed Iran stems notsomuch from Iran = a sovereign nuclear Nation-State, but the PROLIFERATION + PROPAGATION OF MILITARY NUCTECHS TO HIGHLY DECENTRALIZED, CONTROLLED OR "AUTONOMOUS/INDEPENDENT", MILTERR GROUPS.
As per post-Cold War, OWG-NWO "Bipolar",
"Tripolar, or "Multipolar" World, "ARAB SPRING" ISLAMIST GOVTS-STATES WANT THEIR OWN NUCPROGS AS THE COLD WAR "NUCLEAR HEIRARCHY" NO LONGER SUFFICES.
No NucWeaps = NO SHIA OR SUNNI "CALIPHATE" PAR OR SUPERIOR TO ANY + ALL NON-ISLAM.
THE ISLAMISTS WANT NUKES, + AREN'T TAKING "NO" FOR AN ANSWER.
#13
49 Pan and I have been discussing this MM Iranian nuclear weapons stuff for quite a while now, and this is what we have concluded so far.
It appears from our distant view that Iran is not persuing a plutonium bomb. To have some serious throw weight in a nuclear weapon you need a plutionium implosion device to keep the payload on long range missiles down.
Iran seems to be going with U235 separation by centrifuges in a big way. There are a number of underground centrifuge locations, so it is hard to take them all out.
The question then is what kind of a bomb is Iran trying to build?
Iranians want something adequate, not necessarily sophisticated, so a gun-type U235 weapon would be relatively easy to make.
We used to make these types that would fit in an artillery shell. Yield would be in tons to hundreds of tons. They are relatively simple but they are dangerous, especially with inshallah safing
These weapons could be mounted on a missile and sent for a considerable distance.
If the yield is not that high, it is still a bomb. Though inefficient or even a fizzle, it can contaminate a sizeable area with something that has a half life of 107,000 years.
Even a mass of U235 exploded over a target will make things uninhabitable.
The MMs make a crummy U235 bomb and the MSM will generate hysteria, making the propaganda victory that Iran's lack of advanced technology cannot achieve on its own.
The way we see how to deal with this is to either decapitate the regime, or make working on these projects life threatening, from the janitor to the scientist. Dinner Jacket becomes toxic and people avoid him because the employees are being targeted for killing if they work for DJ.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/28/2012 20:22
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#14
The MMs make a crummy U235 bomb and the MSM will generate hysteria, making the propaganda victory that Iran's lack of advanced technology cannot achieve on its own
And thus provide Iran with something to point at, as they continue their campaign to be a 'playah' in the region.
#15
I wonder if nutjob just pretends to believe the Twelfth Imam thing in order to make the mullocracy believe he is fit for the job. The mullahs are driving this one. The mullahs are nuts. They will use it. They just have to know that they, the Norks, Syria, and maybe Pakistain will disappear off the map if anything bad happens to the US or Israel.
#1
Tactics and methods: Roundball and children as an international 'community organizing' vehicles:
The NBPA (Player's Union) also travels overseas to improve lives and impact communities. In addition to distributing millions of meals to the residents of Kenya, the NBPA also has visited China, Saudi Arabia and Puerto Rico, as well as other international locations, hosting basketball clinics for local children at each stop.
#3
One of the great things about America and one of the great things about professional sports is weve all got cousins, uncles, family members, who are still struggling. And we are reminded we have a lot more work to do, the president is reported to have said."
A millionaire talking to a bunch of millionaires about how they've all got relatives struggling and that government is the answer. Says a lot about Obama when you think how little hes done to help his Kenyan relatives. The mindset is if the government can't be the one to help then nobody should I guess.
#4
He's going to run out of millionaires to tap who he hasn't ticked off. Of course he could parade Joe Biden out to tell these roundballers it is their patriotic duty to cough up.
#1
Will Robinson Danger Alert. The kooky internationalists have been pushing hard for an international tax for years now. They don't care how big, what kind, how justified or not; they just want some tax, any tax, as a precedent.
They see it as a first step to universal taxes on everyone to fund international government. And they are just as adamant about it as they are about socialized medicine.
#2
He could also get under their skin by pointing out that the *only* reason they are trying to force him to change his faith is because *their* faith is weak. They cannot persuade others to believe, so they threaten them to pretend to believe.
#5
What is important to the regime is that if a Christian leader denounces the Christian faith, the followers will do so as well. He knows this, he will not succumb to this intimidation, just as U.S. Catholics refused to succumb to the mandates of the Hussein regime.
Posted by: George Ebbeamp4828 ||
02/28/2012 14:49
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#1
I suppose it depends on how you describe "failure". If you describe it in terms of the amount of drugs coming into the US or the amount of US drug many flowing across the border, it hasn't been a "success" at all.
If you define it in terms of the growth of an agency's budget, it has been a great success.
#8
"Her" walls? Ya mean "Janet From Another Planet" actually has walls?
Heaven help us all. Almighty G+D will stand by and protect Israel. Thanks to Pharaoh's regime, chronic falsehoods and dithering, Our once-dominant USA has no such guarantee. That's serious shit in the End Times. AMF, girls&boys!
Last week we had the mispleasure of suffering a subdural hematoma or 7 after reading CA Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's formal response to the gas price shock, in which it became abundantly clear that the amount of heavy metals in the California water supply is directly proportional to the insolvency of said state. Yet the only thing better than the resulting cathartic post, which had over 57,000 reads, and hundreds of comments, is JPMorgan doing the very same to what some allege is the most corrupt and incompetent legislator in the history of the US Congress. Which, to our and our readers' utmost delight, is precisely what happened today, when JPM Private Bank CIO Michael Cembalest decided to clinically deconstruct her argument into its constituent utterly insane components. Below we present the carnage.
#1
amount of heavy metals in the California water supply is directly proportional to the insolvency of said state - mad hatters all? Ouch...
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/28/2012 2:30
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#2
Just remember that when Newt had the opportunity he failed to send to the states the Constitutional Amendment for term limits. As much as Ms. Pelosi has damaged America, she as enabled by a Trunk who is no less enamored of power.
#3
If my meory is any good Contitutional Amendments have to be ratified by two thirds of the States (in addition of being ratified by two thirds of Congress). Couldn't it be that Newt kew all too well it had a snowball in hell chance of adoption?
#4
Its 2/3rds of the House and Senate [or Constitutional Convention] for proposal and 3/4 of the states for ratification. As to if you'd get enough states to vote yes, think about the opportunities presented to state politicians if incumbents in Congress were required to step down. It opens a viable career progression that is otherwise obstructed by sitting incumbents who accumulate lots of bribes 'campaign' contributions from national lobbyists that state personalities usually have no access.
Stop day dreaming. First it has to get approval of 2/3 of the Chambers and I dion't think incumebents would vote for term limits unless you put a loaded gun on their heads. Then you have to get thirty eight states ratifying the Amendmnet. The fact is that either because they have a good chance of being next incumbent, party discipline or because of the incumbents network of influence it is dubious you get thity states ratifying the Amendment let alone thirty eight.
Now before you begin to tell American Constitution is flawed and should be reformed I will tell you that your Constitution is best thiung since sliced bread, that even if the rules for getting it ammended get in the way on this particular subject you shouldn't be in a hurry to make it easier to ammend: had it been in Europe at the time Democrats controlled both chambers Obama could have it had ammended at will. Your Founding Fathers knew too well what they were doing when they made this Constitution.
#6
What JFM said, with fireworks and a pretty girl dressed as Lady Liberty. The Founding Fathers designed the system to go slowly, so that all possible objections to a course of action would have the opportunity to bubble up from the primordial muck and block it. Politicians always want to do things, especially things that allow more power to accrue to them. So it's much more important to prevent bad ideas than to permit good ones.
#7
First it has to get approval of 2/3 of the Chambers and I dion't think incumebents would vote for term limits unless you put a loaded gun on their heads
Of course the French did come up with a solution, but it involved Madame Guillotine. However, forcing such a vote and getting the incumbents name clearly on the record makes him/her a future target for a replacement who would.
However, while agreeing to the greatness if imperfection of the Constitution, the failure to follow the acts called for in Article V by the Congress, has resulted in the Judiciary substituting their 'interpretations' by merely a majority of the Supremes. [Thus the down and dirty fight for nominations and the elevation of such nominations in the Presidential elections] The slow has for all intents and purposes been replaced by the connected who avoid the painful and necessary process as intended and in doing so has basically ended the need to engage in committing themselves to engage the population in the process.
#8
Pelosi is reality in the hobbit city of SanFran. Those people are ALL insane and really need a lobotomy. I have been there before but you could not pay me enough to go back to those SCUMBAGS again.
I despise the left coast, their reps, and their view on life.
CURSE her, curse San Francisco, and Curse that evil wicked witch of the west.
#9
"Just remember that when Newt had the opportunity he failed to send to the states the Constitutional Amendment for term limits. As much as Ms. Pelosi has damaged America, she as enabled by a Trunk who is no less enamored of power." A better plan is to put it on the ballot in each state. If all 50 states adopt term limits the constitution doesn't need to be changed. I believe the constistion leaves election issues up to the states after all.
#10
In fact a lot of laws should be handled that way. The GOP should be pushing for nearly identical laws in multiple states the way folks did with the medical marajuana. Keep trying and eventually the mindsets start to change and you capture more states.
#11
Newc, hobbits are a lot more practical and sensible than San Franciscans. A better description of San Francisco would be the Land of the Lotus Eaters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters
Putting term limits on the ballot in every state? The idea has possibilities. Which state would have the guts to go first?
Coca Cola converted to Islam a year or two back apparently, but not the other beverages, well not yet, says Khalid* laughing. Shezan is manufactured by Ahmadis so we can neither sell the beverage nor their jams, and Pepsi is still a Jewish drink, so it is banned.
Khalid*, a canteen salesman at the new campus of Punjab University (PU) is referring to the unofficial ban on select beverages at the university campus by the the Islami Jamiat-e-Talba (IJT) an ongoing protest that was formulated after the publishing of controversial Danish caricatures of the Prophet in 2005.
The IJT, the student wing of the Jamat-e-Islami is known to interfere in the management of not just students affairs at Punjab University but the faculty as well. One duty the IJT assumes as its own is to control what is sold, where and to whom. Their control of such matters ensures that even while discussing regulations forced by the IJT on canteens, Khalid was scared of being seen speaking to this scribe or being overheard commenting against the IJT.
Israeli officials say they won't warn the US if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one US intelligence official familiar with the discussions.
The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill.
Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the US would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential attack.
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The US has been working with the Israelis for months to persuade them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran's nuclear program.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to top-level US visitors to the country, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security adviser and the director of national intelligence, and top US legislators, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the US over how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Netanyahu delivered the same message to all the Americans who have travelled to Israel for talks, the US official said.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment, and the Pentagon and Office of Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, as did the Israeli Embassy.
#6
Yup too many leaks. The NYTs would jump on this in a NY minute after receiving it from the administration. If past history is an indicator, the Israelis took out the Syrian and Iraqi capability without forewarning.
#7
#5 We didn't inform Pakistan before hitting Obsama. Posted by: Nimble Spemble
1.) No compound guards or PAK personal security element for UBL at time of attack.
2.) No PAK radar alert upon INFIL/EXFIL.
3.) Unobstructed air corridor where normally even drones are quickly identified and reported.
4.) No PAK Air Force quick reaction force (QRF), nobody even flying within the general vicinty.
5.) Token PAK outrage and dismissals.
6.) Recent visit (week before the operation) by General Petreaus.
7.) Little or very muted PAK and Saudi outrage over burial at sea.
8.) No administration blanket apologies over violation of PAK airspace.
9.) No access to the UBL compound by the PAK public.
10.) Demolition by bulldozer of UBL compound.
#12
You cannot doubt that the collection assets are focused on the Israeli sites that will be needed for the massed airstrike and other attack assets. Logistical loadout of armaments, fuel, tankers, maintenance, follow-on forces, SOF, the heightened Israeli ADA radars, movement of main ground forces, mobilization notifications, all of this is undoubtedly being assessed, baselined and followed. we used to do this to the USSR and had a very clear nuber of events that set DEFCON triggers. I am sure that this President is doing that to our former ally Israel.
Sad to see but likely, and I would not put it past Obama to make the call to Bibby just bfore launch telling him to stand down or know that WE will alert the Persians. That is how far we have devolved under this very Manchurian Candidate.
Tragic to see us turn on a former ally, betray our forces in Afghanistan, and watch as the "Arab Spring" turned into the fundamentalist Islam re-making of the entire Middle East, with the regional war, with nukes, that it will bring. Obumble has destabilized the region that much with his clueless tampering, betrayal of old allies, encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood and naivete.
#13
I would not put it past Obama to make the call to Bibby just bfore launch telling him to stand down or know that WE will alert the Persians.
First someone would need to inform him, in a clear and timely fashion. Does anyone else suppose there might be a . . . snag . . . in information flow? I've never known anyone in uniform who wasn't itching to see the Mad Mullahs get the ass-kicking they so richly deserve. They don't really care who does it, and couldn't stand to see a beautifully choreographed op ruined because of that dumbfuck sitz-pinkler temporarily occupying the CINC slot.
#14
'Tis a moot point, as Iran has times already said any unilateral Israeli attack(s) will deemed the same as a US-approved/supported milaction, justifying Iranian military andor terror response agz both.
[An Nahar] Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Wally Jumblat ... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling... has slammed the referendum held in Syria on a new constitution for the revolt-hit country, noting that a Yemen-style solution was the best to resolve the crisis.
"Wretched are those days when constitutional theatricals are being held over the remains of bodies and amid the roar of cannons and the sound of bullets," Jumblat said in a weekly column in his party's al-Anbaa newspaper to be published Tuesday.
Syrians voted Sunday on a new constitution amid opposition calls for a boycott and new violence. Almost 90 percent of voters approved the new constitution, with a turnout of 57.4 percent of eligible voters, the interior minister announced on Monday.
Drawn up by a committee of 29 people appointed by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad, Trampler of Homs... the new charter dropped the highly controversial Article 8 in the old charter, which stated that the ruling Baath Party was "the head of state and society," but left huge powers in Assad's hands.
"Wretched are those days when a citizen heads to so-called polling stations, although results are predetermined, while another citizen heads to death for demanding basic rights such as freedom, democracy and pluralism, and the daily toll of deaders nears 100!" Jumblat added.
He noted that "the regime's refusal of a Yemen-style political transition will complicate things further," stressing "the importance of a precise implementation of the terms of the Arab initiative, which resembles the Gulf initiative on Yemen and allows a far-reaching change in Syria."
Jumblat also criticized the "Friends of Syria" international conference held on Sunday in Tunisia, which discussed several ways to help the opponents of the Assad regime but put off a decision on sending a joint Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... -U.N. peacekeeping force.
"It did not meet the aspirations of the Syrian people and the Syrian opposition," Jumblat said, calling on all the factions of the opposition to "unite their efforts."
Commenting on the remarkable shift in Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,' stance on the Syrian regime, Jumblat hailed "Hamas Movement's historic stance," noting that "its support for the Syrian people proves that it understands the meaning of sacrificing for the sake of freedom."
Gazoo's Hamas premier Ismail Haniya on Friday hailed the "heroic" Syrian struggle for democracy during a rally in Cairo, in the first expression of support of the uprising by a Hamas leader.
"I salute all the people of the Arab Spring, or rather the Islamic Winter," Haniya told thousands of cheering people during the demonstration of support for Paleostinians and Syrians at Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque.
"I salute the heroic Syrian people, who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," he added.
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#1
"Wretched are those days when constitutional theatricals are being held over the remains of bodies and amid the roar of cannons and the sound of bullets," Jumblat said, quoting Orson Welsh Shakespeare, William's rightly less-successful younger brother.
[An Nahar] La Belle France on Monday lambasted Iran for its continued pursuit of "sensitive" nuclear activities and its "uncooperative attitude" after a critical report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
The ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday it had "major differences" with Iran and expressed "serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."
French foreign ministry front man Romain Nadal said the report "stresses Iran's ongoing sensitive activities, in violation of (U.N.) Security Council and IAEA board of governors' resolutions and without any credible civilian purpose."
"We strongly condemn the continuation of these sensitive activities and ask Iran to cooperate immediately with the IAEA and the international community," Nadal said.
"We strongly deplore Iran's uncooperative attitude, which contradicts the intentions shown in the February 15 letter from (chief nuclear negotiator Saeed) Jalili," to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Nadal said.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's top diplomat represents the permanent five U.N. Security Council members -- the United States, Russia, China, La Belle France and Britannia -- plus Germany in talks with Iran.
The Iranian letter said Tehran was ready to resume stalled nuclear talks at the "earliest" opportunity as long as the six powers respect its right to peaceful atomic energy.
The last round of talks was held in January 2011 in Istanbul.
Diplomats to the Vienna-based IAEA are discussing what action the 35-member IAEA board will take at its next regular meeting from March 5.
It could pass a resolution condemning Iran and reporting the Islamic republic to the U.N. Security Council, which has already passed four rounds of sanctions calling on Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.
Another resolution would depend on Russia and China which have so far been more lenient on Iran that their Western counterparts.
Iran denies seeking atomic weapons and insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes.
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[An Nahar] Beijing on Monday hit back at Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Heroine of Tuzla and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Al Haig ... over her criticism of China and Russia's stance on Syria, calling the U.S. Secretary of State's comments unacceptable.
Clinton said Friday that the international community must work to change the positions of Moscow and Beijing, which have faced intense criticism for vetoing two U.N. resolutions condemning the Syrian regime.
"It is quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto when people are being murdered," she said.
"It is despicable and I ask whose side are they on? They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people."
Asked for China's response to the comments, foreign ministry front man Hong Lei said Beijing "cannot accept that at all," and criticized the international community for trying to "impose a so-called solution" on the Syrian people.
China, which has a long-held policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs, has repeatedly defended its veto and says it is "willing to play a constructive role with all sides for the peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis."
China and Russia last week boycotted a "Friends of Syria" meeting of more than 60 foreign ministers gathered to seek an end to the 11 months of bloodshed in which rights groups say more than 7,600 people have died.
Both countries have frustrated efforts to rein in the regime of Bashir al-Assad, including by vetoing two U.S. Security Council resolutions.
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#1
Calling it that is accepting it ergo it's not unacceptable.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/28/2012 9:54
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For a map, click here. For a map of Durango state, click here To read Rantburg reports ion the Durango mass graves, click here and follow the links
By Chris Covert
Ten more dead bodies have been discovered in Durango municipality, Durango, according to Mexican news accounts.
According to Durango Fiscalia General del Estado, Sonia Yadira Fragoso de la Garza, further exhumations were in the village of Cristobal Colon in Durango municipality after ten were discovered last December, 2011. The total discovered in that area is 60.
The Durango mass graves most of which are concentrated in Durango municipality, are the worst mass graves in Mexico. Discovery of the bodies began in April of 2011, and have since risen to 290 until last December, 2011. The new discoveries raises that toll to 300 dead.
Proceso has reports the total exhumation is 322, going by official counts.
Yadira Fragoso is quoted saying no other graves are expected to be found. To read the Rantburg report on the December, 2011 grave discovery, click here
A similar mass grave find was made in Tamaulipas last summer, where authorities found graves with 193 individuals who were killed during a terror campaign by a Los Zetas armed group operating out of San Fernando municipality in Tamaulipas. Between July, 2010 and when those graves were found in April, 2011 the San Fernando Los Zetas group hijacked buses and abused passengers, reportedly as part of a recruiting drive.
The original discovery in Durango was made from an apparent interrogation of a detainee, who led authorities to the first of four grave sites in Durango municipality. Graves have been found as far away as the La Laguna region in far eastern Durango near the border with Coahuila state.
Many of the dead were not shot, but had been killed by various means. Some of the dead were killed as long ago as 2005, well before the late 2006 start of Mexican president Felipe Calderon's war on the drug cartels.
According to previous news reports of the 300 dead found to date only 37 have been claimed by relatives.
[Dawn] A Taliban suicide car boomer targeting NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... troops at an airport in eastern Afghanistan killed nine people on Monday, on a seventh day of violence over the burning of the Koran at a US airbase.
The bully boyz also said they were behind an attempt to poison foreign troops, as the corpse count from unrest and protests that spread to even usually peaceful parts of the war-ravaged country hit about 40.
Six civilians, an Afghan soldier and two local guards were killed in the kaboom on the military base at Jalalabad airport, but NATO troops beat feet unhurt.
The Taliban said it was Dire Revenge™ for the Koran burning. ...One of the basic tenets of Islam is that once a Koran has been printed it is expected to last for all time, no matter how old, ratty, and smelly other, lesser holy books may become. Should it actually become necessary to put a Koran out of its misery there is a ritual that includes extensive charivari, featuring long drawn-wailing and head bonking, ritual wife beating, and the sacrifice of dozens of women's noses and pubic lips. When the actual disposal has been completed there is a prescribed period of celebratory gun sex with the expectation of a minimum of two hundred casualties. Should actual infidels dispose of a Koran, Islamic custom calls for three weeks of rioting and a minimum of three dozen dead...
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#1
Should it actually become necessary to put a Koran out of its misery there is a ritual...
I was wondering about this just the other day. Glad to get it cleared up. Although, after a little reflection, taking off and nuking the dang thing from orbit sounds a whole lot simpler. And it's the only way to be sure.
[An Nahar] The U.S. military has no plans to alter its troop drawdown timetable in Afghanistan despite a week of deadly unrest over the burning of the Koran at an American base, the Pentagon said Monday.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... and top U.S. military officer General Martin Dempsey both "believe that the fundamentals of our strategy remain sound," front man George Little told news hounds.
The United States will stick to its plan for a gradual troop drawdown and has an "unwavering" commitment to hand over to Afghan cops by the end of 2014 as agreed by the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... alliance, Little said.
Attacks on U.S. and coalition troops and violent protests were "regrettable" but had not jeopardized "strong" ties between American and Afghan forces, he said.
"We're not going to let the events of the past week, which are regrettable and unfortunate and tragic, influence the long-horizon view that we're taking with respect to our partnership with Afghanistan and to our enduring work there," Little said.
Another military front man, Captain John Kirby, acknowledged tensions had flared over the burning of the Islamic holy book at the Bagram airbase and after two U.S. officers were bumped off inside the interior ministry.
But he said the scale of protests had begun to decline and that U.S. troops were still operating successfully alongside Afghan forces.
"These events -- they're troubling, they're worrisome, they've got everybody's attention. And yes, tension is high here in Kabul right now," Kirby said by video link from the Afghan capital.
"But across the country writ large ... the mission continues and we're seeing the protest activity decline."
The United States has repeatedly apologized for the Koran burning ...One of the basic tenets of Islam is that once a Koran has been printed it is expected to last for all time, no matter how old, ratty, and smelly other, lesser holy books may become. Should it actually become necessary to put a Koran out of its misery there is a ritual that includes extensive charivari, featuring long drawn-wailing and head bonking, ritual wife beating, and the sacrifice of dozens of women's noses and pubic lips. When the actual disposal has been completed there is a prescribed period of celebratory gun sex with the expectation of a minimum of two hundred casualties. Should actual infidels dispose of a Koran, Islamic custom calls for three weeks of rioting and a minimum of three dozen dead, which is a holdover from the days of Moloch worship... at an incinerator and insisted it was a mistake and not intentional.
The incident has set off seven successive days of protest and violence, with the corpse count estimated at about 40.
The United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... announced that it was pulling its international staff out of their base in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz after it came under attack Saturday by demonstrators.
The commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, U.S. General John Allen, withdrew all staff out of Afghan ministries at the weekend when two U.S. advisers were rubbed out in the interior ministry, apparently by an Afghan colleague.
There had been no decision yet on when coalition advisers would return to their posts at government offices, Kirby said.
Allen "is not ready right now to have the advisers go back," he said. "But this is temporary."
The general had advised his commanders to be "vigilant" given recent events but "he also made it clear that operations must continue," Kirby said.
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[An Nahar] Thai police said on Monday they were questioning three more Iranians in connection with an alleged plot to kill Israeli diplomats in Bangkok.
"We have information that they may have links to the blasts," Police Major General Piya Utayo told Agence La Belle France Presse, referring to a series of botched kabooms that shook a residential district of the Thai capital on February 14.
He said no charges had been laid against the trio. One was jugged under immigration law for overstaying his visa.
"We are checking the other two people's backgrounds," Piya added.
According to Thai media, mobile telephone call logs showed that one of the suspects had been in regular contact with two Iranians now in jug, one of whom had his legs blown off as he hurled a bomb at police while fleeing.
The new suspects were picked up in a raid Sunday on two rooms in an apartment tower in eastern Bangkok.
Another suspect was jugged earlier this month in Malaysia, while arrest warrants have been issued for two more Iranians believed to have left the country.
Israel has blamed Iran over the Bangkok blasts, as well as attacks on Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia a day earlier.
Tehran has rejected accusations that it is behind a terror campaign against the Jewish state.
Thai police have said they believe that Israeli diplomats were the intended target of the botched plot but have yet to produce hard evidence.
Last week Tehran said it was ready to help identify those responsible.
Bangkok has been on alert since mid-January when police set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock a Lebanese man with alleged links to Hezbullies on suspicion he was planning an attack, following a U.S. warning that tourists might be targeted.
The safety scares dealt a new blow to the kingdom's tourism industry, still recovering from the fallout of months of devastating floods last year, as well as several rounds of political unrest in recent years.
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[An Nahar] Bulldozers razed to the ground on Monday the infamous three-story home in Pakistain where the late Osama bin Laden ... who was laid out deader than a mackerel... lived for at least five years until he was killed by U.S. special forces last May.
Only the wall of the compound remained intact, obscuring the debris of the house in the garrison town of Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... where the al-Qaeda chief hid with his three wives and nine children, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the capital.
Officials were reluctant for the site to become a shrine and the house was pulled down two months before the first anniversary of the secret U.S. Navy SEAL raid that has been described as the Pakistain army's biggest humiliation.
The fact that bin Laden lived so long just a mile from the country's premier military academy exposed the powerful military to charges of complicity or incompetence and dealt a massive blow to Pakistain-U.S. relations.
"The demolition has been completed, the three-story building was razed to the ground," a security official told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"We have been ordered to be deployed here until further instructions. The outer wall will remain intact for the moment and we don't know the plan for the future. First we will remove the debris."
Bulldozers began the demolition work late Saturday in Abbottabad's Bilal Town, which was propelled from a quiet suburb to international notoriety after the al-Qaeda leader was killed on May 2.
The debris from the flattened house was invisible from street level, hidden behind the 18-foot-high boundary wall of the compound.
But from the rooftops of surrounding houses, heaps of bricks, concrete slabs, twisted steel, broken wooden doors, a brown steel gate and two black plastic water tanks could be seen alongside two parked bulldozers.
"We found nothing in the building. Everything had already been taken away by the investigation experts," the security official told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The compound has been closely guarded by Pak security officials since the decisive U.S. operation. Foreign journalists in particular have been heavily restricted from visiting the site and local journalists from coming too close.
Hundreds of people visited after bin Laden's killing, provoking concern that it could become a shrine to Islamist gunnies in a country where attacks blamed on the Taliban and al-Qaeda have killed thousands in recent years.
The Americans buried bin Laden's body at sea, determined that no grave act as a memorial to the criminal mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
A provincial government official said the hideout had been destroyed because "the structure had become weak and cracks had appeared" following the U.S. raid, posing a risk to people who continued to visit out of curiosity.
"Moreover, since people used to come to the site in large numbers the authorities had to make special security arrangements, thereby incurring unnecessary expenditure," he said, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said no decision had been taken on the future of the site.
Many people living in the neighborhood want a girls' school erected on the bin Laden plot -- providing the local community with something they lack and a slap in the face for Islamist gunnies opposed to girls' education.
"It will be the best message to the world because gunnies are against girls' education," said Mohammad Siddique, who watched the bulldozers smash through the brick and concrete.
It is not the first time that Pakistain has faced a tricky decision about what to do with a particularly sensitive site.
The then-military ruler, Zia ul Haq ...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by various other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'ètat plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988... , demolished the central jail in the garrison city of Rawalpindi where former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent... was hanged in 1979, and the prison moved to a suburb.
Bhutto's Pakistain People's Party tried to build a monument to his last days, but the work was stopped and a subsequent government converted the site into a public park named after Pakistain's founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
"By demolishing this compound they want to remove Osama's name from Abbottabad history but you can't delete history," said Pak journalist and an expert on militancy, Rahimullah Yusufzai.
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#1
No doubt that house was built with Western aid via Perv & Co.
[An Nahar] EU foreign ministers on Monday extended the bloc's Somali anti-piracy mission Atalanta until December 2014, but did not act on plans to attack pirate gangs on land as well as at sea.
Ministers "agreed to extend the mandate of EU-NAVFOR Atalanta until December 2014", a statement said as talks focused on Syria and Serbia began in Brussels.
Diplomatic sources last week said discussions were being held on fine-tuning "an enlargement of the area of operations of the anti-piracy mission to the beach", but there was no mention of this idea in the statement.
Though no boots on the ground, European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... nations see a scope for extending their capacity to take action against trucks, supplies, boats and fuel stocked by pirates on the beaches.
Atalanta, typically consisting of a handful of surface combat vessels plus one or two back-up ships and two to three reconnaissance aircraft, is tasked with escorting merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid to Somalia while deterring and disrupting piracy.
Since its launch it has set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock and sent for prosecution 117 suspected pirates and last year alone disrupted 27 pirate action groups.
EU nations believe beach operations launched from sea or air, and if agreed by the hapless Somali government and the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... , would bolster the anti-piracy mission.
But Germany, which has troops active in the mission, needs further information on rules of engagement before Berlin can greenlight any operational extension, sources said.
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[Dawn] Two officials of Khan Razik cop shoppe deprived a senior citizen of Rs50,000 and a costly cellular phone set.
Senior Superintendent of Police Tahir Ayub, when contacted, confirmed the robbery by officials of his force, saying both of them were suspended and locked up in the quarter guard. "I have ordered inquiry against them. If found guilty, they will be terminated from the service," he said.
Haji Liaqat Shah Afridi, 55, told Dawn that he was travelling in a passenger bus to reach his residence in Hayatabad. When the bus reached Qila Balahisar stop, a young man in black clothes boarded the bus and came towards him, he said. "That person pointed a pistol at me and disembarked me from the bus by force," Mr Afridi said.
He said that two coppers of rider squad were waiting for him at the stop. "One of the coppers pointed his official AK-47 rifle at my back and said repeatedly that they were ordered to shoot me," he said.
Mr Afridi, a businessman of gemstones, said that he told the coppers that he was neither a criminal nor wanted in any case but one of them shouted at him and threatened to shoot him down if he continued to argue.
He alleged that both the coppers started searching his pockets and took away Rs50,000 and a cellular phone set worth Rs27,000 from him. After depriving him of valuables, he said, the coppers told him that he should be thankful to them for not killing him because they could get Rs1 million as reward for his killing.
Mr Afridi said that after the incident, he went to Khan Razik cop shoppe and informed SHO Sattar Khattak about it. "The SHO and I came to the same place in a police van where both the coppers were standing while their third colleague, who was in plain clothes, was missing. The workers of a nearby hotel also supported my claim and told the SHO that they saw me with the coppers," he claimed.
Mr Afridi said that despite identifying the officials and hearing statements of the witnesses, police were yet to register FIR against their colleagues.
The SHO, when contacted, said that the coppers, who robbed the senior citizen were identified as Mohammad Shah and Kalimullah.
Sources said that the immediate boss of Mohammad Shah and Kalimullah had already brought into the notice of his high-ups that both of them were involved in various crimes but no action was taken against them.
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If you know what's good for you, you won't get between a camera or an open microphone, and Balthasar
From TFA:
The celebrated Spanish human rights investigator Baltasar Garzón escaped a second conviction for abuse of his powers on Monday when the supreme court declared him not guilty in a case involving his investigation of crimes committed under the Franco dictatorship.
The decision came too late to save Garzón's career as an investigating magistrate as the the supreme court had already disbarred him in a separate case for wiretapping conversations between defence lawyers and their clients in a corruption investigation involving the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy's People's party.
After being deported from Kenya last week, controversial Canadian Muslim instigator preacher Bilal Philips nonetheless delivered his planned speech to Nairobis biggest mosque on Saturday via Skype.
Philips said, "I advised against any violent demonstrations which may cost the loss of lives over this minor issue. I further advised the Muslim community to take the necessary steps to combat Islamophobia."
A Jamaican-born Muslim convert, Mr. Philips was expelled from Germany last year for allegedly advocating the killing of homosexuals. Britain and Australia have also banned him from their countries and the U.S. has named him as a suspected terrorist co-conspirator.
Last Wednesday, hours after arriving in Nairobi for a speaking tour, he was expelled to Qatar, where he resides. Kenyan newspapers said he was not wanted because he had links with "terror circles" and might poison young minds with his preaching.
However, in an email, Mr. Philips said what happened was the result of a "simple standard Kenyan immigration policy which states that whoever has been barred entry to any country would not be allow entry into Kenya. Consequently, since my passport bore a stamp indicating that I was barred entry into the U.K. in 2010, they declined giving me a visit visa."
He claimed his online lecture was well attended.
He said, "I also reminded the community that malpractices and unwarranted violence on the part of Muslims have also contributed to the global stigmatizing of Muslims and Islam. Thus, proper knowledge of authentic Islamic teachings was necessary to combat these deviations and to put Muslims back in a position to contribute positively to the world community."
Despite being banned from an increasing number of countries uncomfortable with his Wahhabi preaching, Philips continues to speak in his adopted home, Canada. Last year, he addressed two Toronto mosques whose former worshippers have joined al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups such as Al-Shabab.
Indonesia's Supreme Court has reimposed a 15-year jail term on Islamist cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for terrorist acts. Bashir was originally sentenced to 15 years in jail, but on appeal the High Court slashed it to nine, citing lack of evidence and old age. The court ruling reversed that earlier decision.
When receiving his 15-year jail sentence by a lower court last year, Bashir rejected that verdict as the work of the devil, demonstrating to his followers that he believes the rule of law as enshrined in the country's secular, democratic constitution does not apply to him.
The United States last week officially labelled the Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT) group, founded by Bashir in 2008, a foreign terrorist organization, linking it to several attacks in Indonesia.
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02/28/2012
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Ali Larter aka Clear Rivers in "Final Destination (2000)" aka Claire Redfield in "Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) & Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)" aka Evelyn Garland in "Crazy (2008)" aka Olivia Averill in "Confess (2005)" aka Brooke Taylor Windham in "Legally Blonde (2001)" aka Amber in "Giving It Up (1999)" (age 36)
[Dawn] Yemen's President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... stepped down after 33 years at the helm on Tuesday, making him the fourth veteran Arab leader to fall in a year of mass pro-democracy demonstrations that have rocked the region.
Standing before a crowd of parliamentarians, tribal leaders and foreign dignitaries at the presidential palace in Sanaa, Saleh formally ceded power to his deputy Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, pledging to support his efforts to "rebuild" a country still reeling from months of violence.
"I hand over the banner of the revolution, of the republic, of freedom, of security and of stability... to safe hands," said Saleh as he stood beside Hadi and gave a farewell speech carried live on state television. ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
The main opposition coalition, the Common Forum, which currently heads the interim government, boycotted Monday's ceremony, saying in a statement late on Sunday that Hadi officially became president after winning the February 21 election, not because Saleh handed him the post.
Hadi will serve for an interim two-year period under a Gulf-brokered transition plan signed by Saleh last November after 10 months of protests demanding his ouster.
Saleh said that he would "stand... by my brother the president of the republic," and urged Yemenis to rally behind Hadi in his fight against "terrorism, first and foremost, Al Qaeda. There is no place for terrorism," he said.
Hadi cautioned that the past year of turmoil that has crippled the economy and unleashed nationwide insecurity was not yet over, and appealed to Yemenis to "cooperate with the new leadership" to help the country emerge from the crisis.
He said he hoped that after his two years in office, Yemen could have a peaceful transition.
"I hope we will meet in this room again... to bid farewell and welcome a new leadership. I hope that in two years, I will stand in President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh's place and a new president will stand in mine," he said.
Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held at the end of Hadi's two-year term.
Saleh is the fourth Arab leader to fall since the beginning of the Arab Spring revolutions that forced the resignation of veteran leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, and led to the gruesome death of Libya's long-time dictator.
Saleh got the best deal in return for stepping aside: he and his closest aides were granted immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the brutal crackdown on dissent which left hundreds dead and thousands maimed.
Hadi took the oath of office in parliament on Saturday, and in his first speech as new leader he vowed to fight Al Qaeda and restore security across the Arab world's poorest nation.
"It is a patriotic and religious duty to continue the battle against Al-Qaeda. If we don't restore security, the only outcome will be chaos," Hadi said.
Yemen's local Al Qaeda branch, the self-proclaimed Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), has exploited the decline in central government control that accompanied the anti-Saleh protests that eventually forced him to cede power.
During the unrest, the gun-hung tough guys seized large swathes of southern and eastern Yemen.
On Tuesday Hadi received 99.8 per cent of the votes in a presidential election with a 60 percent turnout. He was the sole candidate.
Hadi now faces monumental security, humanitarian and economic challenges that if not resolved, could threaten to derail the political settlement.
The UN's Yemen envoy and key player in the power-transfer deal, Jamal Benomar, has described the political transition as the "beginning of a difficult and thorny road," warning that the country still faces "many dangers."
Yemen's most powerful military units, which were responsible for much of the violence in recent months, remain under the control of Saleh relatives, including his son and nephew.
In the south, separatists are demanding autonomy or independence and on election day and attacked polling stations, barring many thousands from casting their ballots.
And in the north, a Shiite Zaidi rebellion has refused to subside, despite several wars with the central government in recent years.
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02/28/2012
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[An Nahar] Nigeria has repatriated around 11,000 foreigners mainly from Niger and Chad over the past six months to curb a growing Islamist insurgency, the immigration services said on Monday.
"The latest number of foreigners repatriated as at this morning is 11,000," immigration services front man Joachim Olumba told Agence La Belle France Presse, updating an earlier figure.
"The bulk of them are from Niger and Chad."
The orc Islamist sect Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... blamed for dozens of attacks in Nigeria that have claimed hundreds of lives, is thought to draw some of its members from neighboring countries.
Olumba said the repatriation "has been intensified in the past six months following the Boko Haram insurgency," adding: "We have an obligation to rid the country of undesirable elements."
He said immigration officers last week caught 120 people trying to enter illegally from Niger "and we quickly sent them back to their country".
Boko Haram's deadly gun and kabooms have shaken Africa's most populous country which is divided between a mainly Mohammedan north and predominantly Christian south.
Its base is in northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... which borders Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Violence blamed on Boko Haram, whose specific aims remain largely unclear, has since 2009 claimed more than 1,000 lives, including over 300 this year alone, according to a tally by AFP and activists.
The sect has previously said it wants to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's deeply impoverished north.
Nigeria's military authorities last week said Boko Haram has ties with Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM).
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
I'm waiting for the first "isn't that racist?" comment.
[Dawn] A bomb killed at least seven people and maimed another 22 on Monday, targeting a public meeting attended by provincial ministers in northwestern Pakistain, police said.
The bomb went off soon after chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province, Amir Haider Hoti, and other ministers in his provincial cabinet had left the meeting in the town of Nowshera.
It was the third bomb in five days to hit the northwest, which in recent months had seen a decline in violence.
"The bomb was planted on a cycle of violence and the target was the meeting," local police chief Mohammad Hussain said.
The Awami National Party, which leads the provincial government, had called the meeting, attended by its senior members.
"The bomb carried about three to four kilograms of explosives, it exploded using a remote-controlled device," Hussain told AFP.
The bomb was attached near the fuel tank of the cycle of violence, parked about 150 metres from the venue of the meeting, he said.
"At least seven people were killed and 22 others were maimed," Hussain said, raising an earlier corpse count of five.
Doctor Rahim Jan at Beautiful Downtown Peshawar's main state-run Lady Reading hospital said they received nine of the maimed people and two of them passed away.
On Friday, three jacket wallahs blew themselves up at a cop shoppe in Peshawar, killing four officers a day after a car booming killed 13 people at a bus station on the outskirts of Peshawar.
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[An Nahar] Russia's secret service has tossed in the clink two men in connection with a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... after the March 4 presidential elections, Channel One state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said Monday.
The station showed two men who said they were acting on the orders of Chechen warlord Doku Count Doku Umarov ... Self-styled first emir of the Caucasus Emirate. Count Doku has announced that his forces will not target civilians, but qualified that statement by saying there aren't any civilians in Russia... . They said they prepared the attack in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa and were planning to carry it out in Moscow.
The station said three plotters came to Ukraine from the United Arab Emirates via Turkey with "clear instructions from representatives of Doku Umarov."
One of the men died in a blast in early January that prompted the investigation, the report said.
"They told us that first you come to Odessa and learn how to make bombs," the station showed a man identified as Ilya Pyanzin as saying.
"And then later, in Moscow, you will stage attacks against commercial objects, with the subsequent liquidation attempt against Putin," the man said.
The state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
footage, which was apparently shot in Ukraine, showed a video of Putin getting into his car being played on the laptop computer belonging to the second tossed in the clink man, identified as Adam Osmayev.
"This was done so that we had an understanding of how he was protected," Osmayev said.
"The end goal was to come to Moscow and to try to stage an liquidation attempt against premier Putin," Osmayev said.
"The deadline was after the election of the Russian president," Osmayev said.
Putin is widely expected to return for a third term as president in March 4 elections after serving two terms in 2000-2008 in which he waged a brutal campaign against MoslemDeath Eaters in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya.
The region remains wracked by violence to this day and Umarov -- who has grabbed credit for some of the deadly suicide kabooms in Moscow -- remains on the lam.
Putin's official front man said he can confirm the Channel One report but could not provide a more detailed comment at this time.
"I confirm this information but not commenting at this time," ITAR-TASS quoted front man Dmitry Peskov as saying.
The report said one of the two jugged men had told Russian and Ukrainian Sherlocks that some explosives had already been hidden near Kutuzovsky Prospekt -- the avenue Putin passes daily to reach the government White House.
It further quoted an unidentified Russian Federal Security Service ... the successor to the KGB... (FSB) official as saying that the explosive found near a road would have created a blast powerful enough to severely damage Putin's vehicle.
"This would have been a serious blast," the FSB official told Channel One.
"It would have been enough to tear apart a truck."
There was no immediate reaction to the report from kavkazcenter.com, a website Umarov and other Islamic fascistiuse regularly to communicate their messages.
Putin is facing four weak challengers in Sunday's election and widely expected to win the vote in the first round with support of about 60 percent.
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[An Nahar] Officials are puzzled over a mysterious hot tub that was installed -- and then removed -- from the roof of a building on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor.
But a group of "creative" students are believed to be the culprits, Computer Science and Engineering building front man Steven Crang told AnnArbor.com on Friday.
Initially reported by the Michigan Daily campus newspaper, the hot tub first was noticed Saturday, had visitors and was gone by Monday night.
"People were kind of flabbergasted," Crang said. "It was obviously unexpected. It was pretty creative and now it's gone. It left a buzz in its wake."
Despite its short stay, students called the hot tub the Bob and Betty Beyster Bubbler after the couple who donated $15 million to the school. The building is named after them. The philanthropic couple "found it amusing," Crang said.
"It's apparently people who are close to the department because they were able to gain access to the building and install the tub," he said of whoever installed it. "The thing that intrigued everyone was that it was on the fourth-floor balcony. It's a large hot tub and the doors that lead out to the balcony are not real big, so they had to do some work to get it out there."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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Top|| File under:
#1
"The thing that intrigued everyone was that it was on the fourth-floor balcony."
Apparently they also had the engineering acumen to know that the balcony would support the weight of the people and the water.
#6
Having spent some time in the inter-dimensional Michigan hot tub, let me only say that we will smooth out the reaction in the flux capacitor and time travel will be conducted in comfort.
Apparently there is still some work to be done on the design, but soon my friends, we will be all bubbly and warm as we start slippin', slippin', slippin, into the future.
#7
to be honest, nobody at the college level would've thought far enough ahead to check on the spa point load (which is actually most fully loaded with people, not water) on the existing structure's capable loading. Dumb stunt
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2012 22:40
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#8
You think keep thinking that. It is just those crazy college students...
[An Nahar] European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... foreign ministers on Monday agreed fresh sanctions on Syria, including a freeze on the assets of the central bank, the EU said Monday.
Other measures include an assets freeze and travel ban on seven Syrians close to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... , a ban on cargo flights into the 27-nation bloc and restrictions on trade in gold and precious metals.
Shortly after ministers went into talks, the EU announced "points adopted including restrictive measures against the Syrian regime."
The EU has already blacklisted almost 150 Syrian entities and people.
Cargo flights to the EU operated by Syrians will not be allowed to land, but should they be carrying passengers they will be given access to EU nations.
Some nations had also urged a ban on phosphate exports from Syria as the EU accounts for 40 percent of those. But Greece, which is one of the main buyers, opposed the ban, sources said.
Nations doing extensive business with Syria also argued against full sanctions against the central bank, fearing that such measures would halt all trade and impact on the Syrian people.
Likewise a proposal to ban commercial flights between Europe and Syria was dropped as it would complicate efforts to evacuate EU citizens if such action was needed.
The EU has already imposed oil and arms embargoes against Syria in response to a crackdown that has left more than 7,600 people dead, according to rights groups, since anti-regime protests erupted in March.
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#1
Because the sanctions were so effective against Iraq in the 1990s and Iran today...
Posted by: American Delight ||
02/28/2012 19:32
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#2
The nice thing about sanctions is they allow the pols and diplos to engage in the appropriate strutting and tutting without actually doing anything.
[Dawn] Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Hamid Ali Mirza on Monday directed to take action against Sindh Assembly candidate Waheeda Shah for slapping a polling official as well as the police personnel for negligence of duty.
He took serious notice of the incident of slapping a polling staff by Pakistain People's Party's candidate Syeda Waheeda Shah at Polling Station No 16 at Government Girls High School, Tando Muhammad Khan and directed the Provincial Election Commissioner, Sindh to take necessary action under the law.
He also directed to lodge an FIR against Syeda Waheeda Shah that was implemented by registering FIR No 33/2012 under Section 86 (3)(b) of the Representation of People Act, 1976 at Police Station, Tando Muhammad Khan.
Earlier, the assistant presiding officer who was slapped by PPP candidate Waheeda Shah Bukhari during Saturday's by-election had termed the incident a result of a misunderstanding.
The CEC made it clear that no one would be allowed to threaten or use force against the polling staff whose services are hired by the Election Commission of Pakistain (ECP) in connection with election duties. The Commission would take all possible steps to provide protection to the polling staff and take an exemplary action under the law against any one who indulges in any illegal activities to disrupt peaceful atmosphere at the polling stations.
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[An Nahar] Iraqi Kurdistan said on Monday it has granted refugee status to 30 Kurdish Syrian troops who defected to the region in the first such instance in the revolt against Bashir al-Assad's regime.
The autonomous Kurdistan region in north Iraq pledged it would not hand over the soldiers to Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... after they crossed over in the past two days.
"We received them for humanitarian reasons, and they are under our protection and we gave them refugee status," said Anwar Haji Othman, Kurdish deputy minister for the local peshmerga security forces.
"We will not hand them over to the Syrian government because they are Kurdish and it is our right to protect them," he said.
Othman said they crossed at the common border point between Dohuk province in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria, having run "away from the Syrian army."
According to an official overseeing two camps of Kurdish Syrian refugees in Dohuk, 15 families and 130 civilian men, all Kurds, have arrived in the autonomous region from Syria in recent days.
"Those Syrian families were distributed between the two camps where 1,800 Kurdish Syrians are living," said Barzan Burhum Murad.
Iraq has shied away from imposing punitive measures against Syria as Assad's regime carries out a bloody crackdown on an uprising against his rule in which rights groups say 7,600 people have died.
While there are still regular civilian protests in Syria, the focus has shifted to armed conflict with regime forces.
Assad is a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the majority of Syrians, and of his opponents, are Sunni Mohammedans.
Iraq, by contrast, is governed by majority Shiite Mohammedans, but has a substantial Sunni Arab minority.
Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... said on Friday it would not invite the Syrian government or opposition to an Arab summit to be held in the Iraqi capital in late March, after an Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... request that Damascus not attend.
Arab League member states voted in November to suspend Syria's participation in the vaporous Arab League because of the violence.
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For a map, click here. For a map of Coahuila state, click here
By Chris Covert
Mexican Army troops participating in the Laguna Segura security operation in Coahuila and Durango are being rotated out and replaced with fresh troops, according to Mexican news accounts.
Identification of the new units have not been released so far. The Mexican Army has been rotating fresh troops into Tamaulipas as well as Coahuila consistently since last summer. Since the start of 2012, it was reported that 8,000 army troops were sent to reinforce security efforts in Tamaulipas.
Units that have been identified as being deployed to Coahuila state, not necessarily in La Laguna include elements of the 15th Motorized Cavalry Regiment, which was redeployed from Chiapas state. Also, 150 Mexican marines, about a rifle company was deployed to Ciudad Acuna in far northern Coahuila near the border city of Piedras Negras. Both deployments took place in December, 2011
The Laguna Segura operation has already seen some changes since the start of 2012. For example, the former commander of the IX Miliary region, General Marco Antonio Gonzalez Barreda, was appointed to an army staff position as Inspector General and Comptroller of the Army and Air Force. He was replaced by General de Division Roberto de la Vega Diaz, a former 35th Military Zone commander in northern Guerrero, who had also been previously posted as military attache in Bolivia.
General de Division de la Vega Diaz reportedly said in a Monday news conference that other federal troops have been redeployed to other regions in the republic, a probable direct reference to earlier reports in El Diario de Coahuila news daily that said a Policia Federal unit had been ordered out of La Laguna a week ago owing to unspecified problems with the deployment in the area.
News reports over the weekend now say Policia Federal troops are still in the area, although it may not be the same unit which left a week ago.
The general also made the startling admission that he accepted the possibility of corruption of the troops, and regretted corruption is widespread amongst several security organizations. The general's candid remarks come only a day after a report by the leftist news weekly Proceso, which described in some detail corruption at the command levels in Mexican military units particularly in La Laguna.
Recent news reports from the region indicate the Mexican Army will be a permanent presence in the a region, as it was announced over the weekend in El Sol de la Laguna news daily that a new army base would be built in Gomez Palacio, Durango. The cost of the new base is said to be MP $280 million (USD $21,716,716.00 ) and will house a regimental headquarters. State government are required to come up with at least part of the cost of construction of new army facilities as well as donate land.
In Mexican military organization, a military zone comports to a regimental size unit, which is roughly 1,000 effectives, and about 100 vehicles
The Laguna Segura operation, which is one of four major security efforts in Mexico, began in earnest in late October, 2011 as an attempt to coordinated among the three levels of government security operations. The La Laguna area is astride a major east west road and the borders of Coahuila and Durango states.
Organized crime gangs use the inter border region to escape capture due to jurisdictional issues. The Laguna Segura is an attempt to coordinate incidents such as vehicle pursuits to make policing more effective in the region.
The three other major security operations include those in Guerrero, Veracruz and in Tamauliaps states.
[An Nahar] Russia on Monday slammed as "one-sided" last week's Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis that condemned Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... for its crackdown and vowed further sanctions against the Syrian regime.
"The meeting that was held in Tunis was clearly one-sided... It is clear to us that this meeting did not help create conditions that would stimulate all sides to seek a political solution," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told news hounds.
Russia boycotted the Tunis meeting after arguing that its Arab and Western participants were unfairly blaming one side of an "internal conflict" for violence that the opposition estimates has claimed more than 7,600 lives.
Moscow has infuriated the West by refusing to single out Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... 's regime over the deadly crisis and its assertion that both government forces and the opposition bear equal responsibility for the violence.
U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as For a good time at 3 a.m. call Hillary and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another John Jay ... on Friday called Russia's position "distressing".
Lavrov was not asked about Clinton's comments and did not volunteer any response of his own.
But he stressed that it the West's obligation to use its good standing with the Syrian opposition to call "on everyone who is shooting there to halt (the violence) as soon as possible."
He also welcomed the constitutional referendum that Assad staged on Sunday amid the bloodshed as "an important step" and "movement toward democratization".
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[An Nahar] Soddy Arabia on Monday accused some countries of being complacent regarding the bloodshed in Syria.
"The kingdom holds all parties that delay international action (on Syria) morally responsible for developments there, especially if they continue being complacent and ignore the interests of the Syrian people," a statement said.
The Saudi government, during its weekly session chaired by King Abdullah, also pledged to support "any international effort" that will help protect the Syrian people.
The statement did not refer to any specific country.
But Russia and China have twice vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning a deadly crackdown on protests by the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... .
Last week, King Abdullah told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that dialogue on Syria was "futile" and that Riyadh "will never abandon its religious and moral obligations towards what's happening" in Syria.
Earlier this month Soddy Arabia and its partners in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council expelled Syria's envoys and withdrew their own from Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... over the "mass slaughter" of civilians.
On Friday, Soddy Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at an international conference on Syria in Tunisia that he backed the idea of arming the opposition against Assad's regime.
King Abdullah had previously called for "critical measures" to be taken on Syria, warning of an impending "humanitarian disaster."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
I thought earlier this your Riyadh reached some special relationship with the ChiComs? Divorced so soon? The marriages these days...
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/28/2012 2:00
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Russians & Chinese has one huge advantage over Americans & Europeans when it comes to dealing with Muzzies---they know they are dealing with vermin.
[An Nahar] Efforts to evacuate foreign journalists from the rebel-held Baba Amr district of the flashpoint city of Homs failed on Monday, a Western diplomatic source in the Syrian capital said.
"The evacuation of journalists did not take place but three maimed Syrians were able to leave in Syrian Red Islamic Thingy ambulances," the source said.
A negotiator in the evacuation efforts said they fell through "at the last minute after ambulances had entered Baba Amr" but declined to specify if regime forces or rebels had blocked the operation.
An International Committee of the Red Thingyfront man in Geneva, meanwhile, said the ICRC and the Syrian Red Islamic Thingy were both operating in Homs.
"The Syrian Red Islamic Thingy volunteers entered Baba Amr to carry out the evacuation of persons who needed it and to deliver medical assistance," the front man said.
The diplomat in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... , speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , told Agence La Belle France Presse earlier that talks and preparations were taking place to rescue two maimed Western news hounds trapped in the besieged Baba Amr district.
"It is extremely delicate and the process could be blocked at any moment," the diplomat said.
The ICRC has been negotiating to rescue the maimed Western journalists from Homs -- under assault by regime forces for more than three weeks -- and retrieve the bodies of two others killed there last week.
British photographer Paul Conroy and French news hound Edith Bouvier were maimed in the attack on Wednesday which claimed the lives of American war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
Now you know why there is a "War Clause" in your life insurance policies. Welcome to reality, news people.
#3
Attention nano-violin players: while Rantburgers have pointed out that some reporters don't get out of their hotels, many do get in harm's way to report the truth. They deserve respect. When Liberia was blowing up in 1990, and we had family there, we listened to Elizabeth Blunt on the BBC, talking as calmly as if she were serving tea while bullets whanged and zinged in the background. And we knew our family members were within earshot of the same bullets. Don't snort until you've faced the same dangers.
[Dawn] Six Death Eaters and four civilians including women and kiddies were killed in Tirah valley in different incidents of violence on Sunday.
Officials said that five activists of banned Death Eater organization Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) were killed when helicopter gunships targeted their hideouts in Nanagrosa and Naree Baba areas.
They said that security forces and volunteers of Zakhakhel tribe made advances in the area and seized Khazana bunker from LI.
Sources said that an important LI commander Meen Asghar was killed when a mortar shell hit a hideout of Death Eaters in Speen Drand area of Tirah.
Sources said that the commander was chief of LI kidnapping squad.
In the same area, two children and two women were killed when the house of Saifoor Khan was hit by a mortar shell.
At least eight persons, mostly children and women, had been killed during the last two days by mortar shells in the region.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard... political administration locked away 21 members of Mangal tribe in Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... on Sunday after rocket attack on Piwar area, officials said.
Militants fired rockets on Piwar area near the Afghan border on Saturday night.
One of the rockets hit a residential compound but the inmates remained unhurt.
The administration locked away 21 rustics in Tangi area under the territorial responsibility clause of Frontier Crimes Regulation.
Officials said that rustics would remain in jug till the culprits were not handed over to the local authorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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[Dawn] Five Chinese captured by Pak security agencies from different parts of the country were deported on a scheduled flight, Dawn learnt on Sunday.
The source said the Chinese nationals identified as Kadeer Ali, Rehemutula Kverbak, Abduxukur Ablimit, Aihetamual-al-Hemati and Abudush Adaer-An-Hemadi were reportedly wanted by the Chinese authorities. However, some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them... charges against them could not be ascertained.
They were brought at Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... International Airport amid tight security and later, were handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency officials for deportation.
They were deported through Urumqi flight CZ-6008 that took off at 11.30am on Sunday.
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02/28/2012
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#1
hmmmm ....Uighurs? Cuz those don't sound Chinese
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2012 7:55
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New shipments of Chinese 240 T-AB-1 antipersonnel mines to arrive soon.
#3
Frank, you're probably right. The names Kverbak and Ablimit sound Turkish enough to be Uighurs, also known as Eastern Turks. Xinjiang has a slew of ethnic groups, and there's a stretch of less than 500 miles in the far west of Xinjiang where 5 national borders, including Pakistan's, meet China's border.
[Dawn] Despite the formulation of bills to protect Pak women against violence and brutalities, it is ironical that crimes and inhumanity have not ceased to haunt them. Perhaps one of the reasons why the perpetrators are not deterred to attack women is the fact that most of them get away with committing such abominable crimes because of lack of evidence and other ambiguous reasons.
In a country where cultural and ethical values supersede the right to voice the atrocities of the abusers, many people are of the view that crimes go unpunished as women refrain from reporting them. However, a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth... there have been cases where crimes have been reported but the alleged abusers have not been reprimanded for their 'misdemeanours'.
Perhaps the fear that law enforcing agencies will not assist the victims is an adequate reason to not report these crimes.
A recent case which failed to make the headlines was reported and publicised on the Asian Human Rights Commission's website. The case revolves around a woman by the name of Parveen Bibi, who hails from Rahimyar Khan. The woman was raped, abused and sold to various people over the period of a year. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... when her family finally realised what was actually happening and reported the crime, the police refused to assist them. In fact, many officials from the police force and community police discouraged them from filing the case and asked them to drop the charges as the 'people involved' were highly resourceful and were capable of vindictiveness.
The brutality of the crime, coupled with the indifferent behaviour of our LEAs, are enough to infuriate anyone. The laws, bills and policies will remain unimplemented unless the 'custodians' of these so-called mandates own them and ensure that they are being followed. While it is true that nothing will compensate for the traumatic events that have tarnished the life of the victim in question; taking severe actions against the culprits behind her abuse might play an important role in stopping other people from getting involved in any such activities.
Hence, it would not be unwise to say that a piece of paper has no significance till its contents are used for safeguarding the people it is meant to protect.
For decades women have been treated as commodities and items of sale in Pakistain. One of the most underreported crimes are those committed against women. The ratio and incidences of marital or spousal rape in Pakistain are extremely high. Women are subjected to marital rape for years and consider that the 'service' remains an integral part of their matrimonial duty. Women have reportedly died from cases of marital rape; however, our very deep rooted belief that this is our 'duty' discourages us from addressing the issue severly.
The aforementioned issue is not restricted to the poverty ridden and illiterate section of the society. Many a time, I have seen the so-called educated people mock statutory rape in Pakistain. Perhaps the phenomenon has more to do with our cultural and social values and the way we are individually brought up.
Perhaps it is slightly wishful of me to divert people's attention to more 'obscure' crimes when the most apparent and evident ones are being neglected by the law enforcers.
The announcement of the bill was very frankly a tremendous respite for many of us however; its success is yet to be measured. In a male dominated society, protecting women can be extremely tricky. It is encouraging to believe that laws and protection mandates will bring about a radical change in the structure of our society. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... what remains more essential and perhaps the most vital element of the process is the behavioural change amongst the masses of Pakistain.
Unless we stop using women as tools for 'barter trade', the crimes and violence will continue to exist. Each victim of beatings, acid attacks, burning, rape and other forms of violence is an open question mark to the sanctity of our society. It is mandatory to take actions individually to eradicate violence against women; it is, in fact, the only way to fight the system which has accepted the status quo and denied justice to the women of Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
Once again, what would put an end to this is for women to adopt the social mandate demanded by other women that they *must* carry sharp weapons with them, and use those weapons against any man who attacks them. Repeatedly.
Nowhere in the world is it so poor that there is not a piece of sharp metal or even broken glass.
#2
Many years ago I read an interesting essay which proposed that the success of Christianity in converting the Roman Empire was based on the fact that women, particularly the middle class, were far better off as Christians. And, where the women went the men followed.
Somehow I can't picture the Rock Worshippers having the same effect.
[Dawn] The United States needs to further a reconciliation process in the Pak-Afghan region which is led by both key players, Afghanistan and Pakistain, says Senator John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry. Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, the Senate's current foreign policy expert, filling the vacated wingtips of Joe Biden... The senator, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the main foreign policy-making body in the US Congress, also urged Washington to re-establish a relationship with Islamabad which would go beyond the Afghan crisis.
In a policy statement on the floor of the Senate, Mr Kerry noted that "there is increasing anxiety in Pakistain about how the war ends in Afghanistan and what implications this will have for regional stability".
The US senator also noted that "many on both sides are questioning the value and meaning of strategic partnership".
Acknowledging that it would be difficult to rebuild this partnership, he said: "The truth is we have a lot of work to do to rebuild a productive relationship. Despite our many frustrations and setbacks, we still have more to gain by finding common ground."
The senator noted that Pakistain faced major challenges today, including an economic and fiscal crisis, a growing insurgency within its borders and cities, and chronic energy shortages.Explaining why the US needs to help Pakistain overcome these challenges, Senator Kerry said: "Whether it is finding a political solution in Afghanistan, reducing militancy, supporting democracy and civil society, or promoting economic and development reforms, the basic fact is that our interests do converge."
Both countries, however, now faced the challenge of finding ways to act together in common purpose, when and where possible, he added.
"For instance, on Afghanistan, we need to make our goals and strategy absolutely clear. Pakistain has a constructive role to play in forging a durable political settlement that will bring an end to this war," he said.
"And while we have often been frustrated by the divergence of policies on Afghanistan, it remains important that we work together to further a reconciliation process that is Pakistain-Afghan led and supported by the region's key players."
Warning against recklessness and political brinkmanship, he said: "This is a time for us to be careful, to be thoughtful, and to proceed deliberately but determinately -- as I believe we are -- to strengthen our relationship and confront our common challenges."
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02/28/2012
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Warning against recklessness and political brinkmanship, he said: "This is a time for us to be careful, to be thoughtful, and to proceed deliberately but determinately
Yes, sane people generally find a bit of humility when their asses are being handed to them.
[An Nahar] Almost 90 percent of voters approved Syria's new constitution brought in after 11 months of anti-regime protests, the interior minister announced on Monday.
Mohammed al-Shaar also told a presser that turnout reached 57.4 percent of eligible voters, with 89.4 percent of the 8.376 million who cast their ballots in Sunday's referendum saying "yes" to the new constitution.
"There has been a large turnout despite threats made by armed terrorist groups in some regions," the minister said, using a term employed by the authorities for rebels.
People went to polling stations "despite campaigns by treacherous media to stop citizens from exercising their rights and undermine the democratic process that took place freely and transparently," he added.
The opposition had called for a boycott of the referendum, while the United States described it as "laughable".
Shaar said the referendum had allowed the Syrian people "to decide its future and to understand that this constitution will allow it to achieve its aspirations in all areas."
In the rebel-held areas of Homs in central Syria and Idlib in the country's northwest, "beturbanned goons tried to obstruct this operation but only partially succeeded," the minister said.
He said 753,000 people had voted against the new constitution, or nine percent, and there were 133,000 invalid ballots.
The new text ends the legal basis for the five-decade stranglehold on power of the ruling Baath party but leaves huge powers in the hands of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... who has faced a deadly revolt since last March.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
I'm surprised the vote is not higher since it is a stuffed ballet box. Is there a Syrian ACORN?
[An Nahar] Severe cold weather has killed 35 children in the past two days in northeastern Afghanistan, an official said Monday.
The children died in four remote districts of Badakhshan province after the roads to districts were closed by heavy snow.
"Thirty five children died as a result of pneumonia caused by severe weather in Badakhshan in the past two days," Dr. Noor Khawrin a provincial public health official told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"We have only been able to set up some emergency mobile clinics recently to help the kids there."
Afghanistan, a landlocked and mountainous country, has suffered its coldest winter in 15 years.
On February 19, the public health ministry said the severe weather had killed almost 40 children in the country over the course of one month.
More than half came from refugee camps on the outskirts of Kabul, which house thousands of Afghans fleeing war and Taliban intimidation in southern Afghanistan, according to officials.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
Might want to put this under the signs and portents section. Poor kids. Coldest winter in 15 years, eh? Guess they were too busy protesting to clear the roads.
#2
In the refugee camps because they were fleeing who? The Americans? Oh, that's right, they're fleeing the Taliban. Sure wish we could help you with that, but all that feigned rage from Karzai isn't helping anyone. Shall we chalk this up to the Taliban, or blame it on the winter?
GENEVA The UNs top human rights body will call Tuesday for Syria to end all attacks on civilians and allow aid groups unhindered access to the city of Homs and other beleaguered areas, diplomats said Monday.
A draft UN Human Rights Council resolution condemns widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, saying they have worsened the humanitarian situation in the country. The resolution says the regimes use of heavy artillery and tanks to attack civilian areas has contributed to the deaths of thousands of people since March.
That's what heavy artillery and tanks usually do to unarmed civilians...
Western diplomats said opponents of a hard line on Syria, such as Russia, are likely to vote against the resolution when the 47-nation council holds an urgent meeting Tuesday.
The task of the council is to express the disgust of the entire world at the odious crimes that the Syrian state is committing against its people, Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said at the opening of the Geneva bodys four-week session, which was dominated by the issue of Syria.
We cannot remain silent in the face of the violence and the barbarity of the repression, the massacre of civilians, the bombing of towns, the torture of children, and wounded people being killed in hospital, he said.
Juppe called for countries to prepare to submit a complaint against Syria to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Paging Carla del Ponte to the mauve courtesy phone...
The day will come when the civilian and military authorities in Syria, in particular Pencilneck President Assad himself, will need to answer for their actions, he said.
Calls for Syria to be referred to the ICC will not be included in Tuesdays resolution, but may be revisited by the council next month.
A panel of UN experts issued a report last week concluding that Syrian government officials were responsible for crimes against humanity committed by security forces against opposition members. The crimes included shelling civilians, executing deserters and torturing detainees. Some opposition groups, too, had committed gross abuses, it said. The panel has compiled a confidential list of top-level Syrian officials who could face prosecution over the atrocities.
Britains Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne also called for those responsible for serious crimes in Syria to be held to account. But he refrained from calling outright for ICC referral.
The mechanism by which that happens can be discussed in time, but we are absolutely certain that it should happen, Browne told The Associated Press. He acknowledged that sending Syria to the Hague tribunal was certainly an option though.
Russia, which has previously used its Security Council veto to block action against Syria, would likely veto ICC referral as well. On Monday, Russia, Iran and Cuba were the only countries to openly object to the rights councils plan to hold an urgent human rights meeting Tuesday on Syria. Russia later relented, but maintained its opposition to any resolution condemning Syrias leadership.
I think the Russians are putting themselves on the wrong side of history, Browne told the AP. Hundreds of people are being killed in places like Homs. Do they (Russia) feel morally comfortable with that? What are they proposing to do about it?
Yes, of course, absolutely and nothing...
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Iran has always been the proud patron of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia. But now, the Islamic Republic is making overtures towards the Lebanese Army as well. Recent statements emanating from Tehran and Beirut demonstrate a strategic convergence between the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah when it comes to Israel.
Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn met in Tehran on Sunday with senior Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi. Vahidi pledged Iranian support for the Lebanese Army, announcing that strengthening the Lebanese Army was one of the strategic policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Lebanon should have a powerful army to defend its interests in the region, he was quoted by Irans Fars News Agency as saying.
Vahidi was quite explicit in stating that Iran viewed Hezbollah and the Lebanese army as two complementary forces, not two antagonistic ones.
Today, the resistance in Lebanon is not unique to a certain group or denomination, he told the Tehran Times on Monday. The army and resistance [Hezbollah] are two wings by which Lebanon is flying toward development, progress, and stability.
Straight to the thirteenth century. BC, if they mess with the Israelis any time soon.
Minister Ghosn, whose Marada movement is allied with Hezbollah, hailed the Iranian aid, confirming the close coordination between the Shiite militia and the army.
Right now, there is complete coordination between army and the resistance, Ghosn told Lebanons English-language Daily Star Monday. He then proceeded to warn Israel against any foolishness, such as attacking Lebanon.
This was not the first bellicose statement made by a Lebanese security official toward Israel in the last few days. Last Wednesday, the chief of Lebanons armed forces, Jean Qahwaji, ordered his senior officers to remain on high alert in confronting the historic enemy of the nation, the Israeli enemy, which violates Lebanese sovereignty on a daily basis, according to the armys official website.
The United States has provided over $720 million in funding to the Lebanese Army since 2006, but Congress withheld $100 million in October 2010 following a border incident in which a Lebanese sniper shot and killed an Israeli reserves officer. At the time, Iran offered to fill the funding void left by the United States, the Reuters news agency reported.
Some American politicians continue to worry about the strategic alliance between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state against Israel. As Hezbollahs victory in the national elections last March became apparent, Congressman Steve Chabot of Ohio, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said the United States should stop funding the Lebanese Army if Hezbollah was included in the government.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the annual American allocation of $100 million to the Lebanese army, saying the army was professional and nonsectarian and that it contributed to security along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
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[An Nahar] The International Committee of the Red Thingy said on Monday its teams have succeeded in entering the central Syrian city of Hama for the first time in over a month.
A Red Thingyfront man in Geneva said a joint team of the ICRC and Syrian Arab Red Islamic Thingy brought an emergency delivery of food and other items for 12,000 people.
Spokesman Hicham Hassan told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that it is the first time the aid group has been able to enter the city since Jan. 17.
Hassan said efforts to re-enter the embattled Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr continue.
He said the humanitarian situation in Baba Amr after days of fierce fighting is increasingly dire.
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[An Nahar] A boy opened fire on classmates early Monday in a high school cafeteria in Ohio, killing one and wounding four before fleeing and being apprehended, police and witnesses said.
Children were preparing for class at Chardon High School, outside Cleveland, when the boy, who was identified by classmates but described by police only as a "juvenile", started shooting with a handgun.
A teacher chased the boy from the school as the small community was placed on lockdown and the victims were rushed to hospital, some by helicopter.
The boy was locked away a short while later, turning himself in to bystanders, according to one police statement.
"The sad news is that I know from my people downtown, we have one deceased student right now," Chardon police chief Tim McKenna told a presser, providing no more information about the injured.
"One of the teachers happened to chase the shooting suspect out of the building," allowing officers to enter and secure the school to allow emergency personnel to treat the victims, he said.
"With that done, we started searching the areas, and shortly thereafter, we came up with the suspect. He is in jug," McKenna said. "No name will be released because he hasn't been charged yet. He is a juvenile."
Authorities put the school on lockdown after shots were fired at about 7:30 am (1230 GMT), just prior to the start of classes.
Masked SWAT team members ringed Chardon High and conducted security sweeps, and pupils were quickly evacuated from the building and transported to a nearby elementary school to be released to parents.
Police didn't identify the suspect but fellow classmates did and described the panic inside the cafeteria as they feared for their lives.
"My friends were crawling on the floor, and one of my friends was bent over the table, and he was shot," one student, Nate, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "It was almost like a firecracker went off. I turned around and saw him standing with a gun and I saw him take a shot."
Word of the tragedy sent parents rushing to the school, where they went through a protracted process of reuniting with their children.
"We've had disaster drills in the past, thank God we put those into place because our teaching staff did an excellent job in a very horrible, traumatic experience this morning," said Chardon schools superintendent Joe Bergant.
"Our prayers go out to the five victims and their families, first and foremost.
"We feel so disheartened -- it's going to take me a moment to get back together here. We certainly hope those families know that they're in our thoughts and our prayers."
A candlelight vigil service was scheduled for Tuesday night at a local church and grief counselors were on call to help the small-town Ohio community try to come to terms with the tragedy.
"Pls pray for maimed Chardon HS students, their families, and their community; appears things under control now," Ohio Governor John Kasich said on Twitter.
A parent, Jeannette Roth, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that her son, Joshua, a junior, was in the cafeteria when the shooting occurred.
Joshua told her that students were eating breakfast when a boy "stood up and starting shooting, and then it was chaos."
Another boy also described the chaotic situation.
"I thought it was firecrackers at first, I wasn't sure," an unnamed pupil told MSNBC.
"And then I saw a bunch of people running out. So I started running ... I heard someone yell behind me, 'Get down.' And I heard a bunch of shots fired behind me."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
Please join me in praying for the students whove been injured in this horrible crime, said Governor John R. Kasich in a statement after a shooting at Chardon High School in northeastern Ohio."
Governor Kasich instructs us to pray, but only AFTER children are slain at a school in which they could not pray.
#3
Governor Kasich instructs us to pray, but only AFTER children are slain at a school in which they could not pray.
Students pray at school all the time, and all the more fervently for it not being a formal activity.
"Dear God, please let Teacher call on someone else."
"Dear God, I'll study next time if only I pass this test."
"Ohmigod, it's going to explode!!!"
Governor Kasich asked. In a twitter, no less, which presumes that those who received it were interested in what he had to say, rather than otherwise. He did not instruct. And as he is doing a much better job than his misbegotten predecessor, I have absolutely no complaints that he so chooses to share the sorrows of those who suffered in this tragedy.
Separately, a second student has died. One hopes the kids who'd been bullying the killer reflect upon the theme of unexpected outcomes.
#4
I still don't believe this actually happened. It must be a fabrication becuase, after all, isn't the scholl a gun fee zone? A shooting is impossible without a gun.
#5
The child who did the shooting -- was he reenacting the Terminator? The Matrix? High Plains Drifter? -- isn't dead yet. He turned himself in and he'll likely go to a juvie center until he's 21. If tried as an adult he'll likely get out when he's 30 or 35.
If he was dangling from a rope within 24 hours nobody'd have to pray after the next shooting because there wouldn't be one.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012 13:29
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Fred: I read that 3 of the kids have died so far, and if a 4th pegs, he will have reenacted Kent State. That, and pumped some ironic life into that Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song.
[An Nahar] Syrian security forces and pro-regime gunnies killed 125 people across the country on Monday, among them 68 in a "massacre" in the rebel central province of Homs, activists and a rights group said.
"Sixty-eight non-combatants were killed today in the western countryside of Homs, in a rural area between the villages of Ram al-Enz and Ghajariyeh, and were taken to the state hospital in the city of Homs," said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"The bodies bore signs of gunfire and knife wounds," Abdul Rahman added.
According to Abdul Rahman, "the Observatory received information indicating that the victims were residents displaced from the city of Homs" which has been bombarded by regime forces for 24 straight days.
"They were killed by 'shabiha' (pro-regime gunnies)," according to the reports received by the Observatory, Abdul Rahman said. "But we cannot confirm or deny this information."
The Observatory called for an independent investigation into the killings which the group labeled a "massacre."
The Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists, also reported a massacre in the Homs region.
A statement from the group said that "64 people who were trying to flee the bombardment in Baba Amr (district of the city of Homs) were killed at a security checkpoint in the Abel region of Homs."
The LCC said 89 people, including the alleged massacre's victims, were killed in Homs, nine in Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... 's countryside, 15 in Idlib's countryside, four in Hama's countryside, four in Damascus' ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... countryside, one in the capital Damascus, one in al-Hasakeh, one in al-Raqqa and another in Daraa.
Earlier on Monday, an Agence La Belle France Presse journalist said the Syrian army shelled Qusayr in an effort to regain control of the town in the mostly rebel-held central province of Homs.
Rocket and shell blasts as well as light arms fire could be heard at regular intervals around the town of more than 40,000 inhabitants.
Qusayr is located some 15 kilometers from the city of Homs where the army has been pounding rebel-held districts with shells and mortar fire since February 4.
"We have rocket-propelled grenades but mostly Kalashnikovs (assault rifles)," said an officer in the rebel Free Syrian Army who deserted from the intelligence services.
According to the FSA, some 35 army tanks are stationed around Qusayr, and another 200 around Homs. An AFP news hound saw a drone circling over the town, while early in the evening gunfire could be heard intermittently.
A doctor running a makeshift hospital at a secret house said he did not receive any casualties on Monday.
"This is a miracle," said the man who goes by the pseudonym of Dr. Nasser.
Sanitary conditions are "very bad", he added.
"The Syrian army has been deployed inside the state hospital for the past five months. There are only tanks and soldiers," he said, adding that supplies of oxygen and anesthetics were totally lacking.
According to FSA fighters, contact with the city of Homs has been severed.
A tunnel used by rebels to infiltrate the town has been destroyed by loyalist troops, they said.
The Observatory said kabooms shook the Homs neighborhoods of Hamidiyeh, Bustan al-Diwan, and the city center.
Two people were killed when a rocket fired by regime troops hit a car in which they traveled in the village of Talheya, in the northern province of Idlib, the Observatory said.
Eight civilians were maimed as troops shelled the town of Sarmeen, also in Idlib, according to the watchdog.
And in Rastan, in Homs province, 20 civilians were maimed in a huge blast that was heard across the city, it added.
Elsewhere, pro-regime gunnies known as Shabiha chased students staging a sit-in at the University of Aleppo's faculty of dentistry, the Observatory said. Gunshots were later heard at the university campus where demonstrators were trapped in halls of residence, while 16 were placed in long-term storage, it added.
In the central Hama province, military forces reportedly stormed the village of Khatab.
Qatar's prime minister said Monday he was in favor of delivering arms to the Syrian opposition that is battling Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... regime.
"We should do whatever necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said during an official visit to Norway.
More than 7,600 people have been killed in violence across Syria since anti-regime protests erupted in March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Heroine of Tuzla and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edward Livingstone ... on Sunday warned against the arming of rebels in Syria because such a move could inadvertently lead to support for al-Qaeda and Paleostinian Islamist group Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2012
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#1
They have a long way to go to even get in the same Human Rights violations league with the various tribal nations of central Africa.
H/T Gatewaypundit
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate
Following the insulting and shameful act of burning Quran in Bagram airbase that injured the religious sentiments of the Islamic world and particularly of the Afghan Muslim nation, two delegations comprising of representatives from government, the National Council of Ulemma and the National Assembly were assigned and dispatched to investigate the circumstances and causes that have led to the inhumane incident.
The delegations, while deeply touched by the religious sentiments shown by the Afghan Muslim and Mujahid nation, inform our citizens of the following:
1. In view of the particular security situation in the country, we call on all our Muslim citizens of Afghanistan to exercise self-restraint and extra vigilance in dealing with the issue and avoid resorting to protests and demonstrations that may provide ground for the enemy to take advantage of the situation.
2. After the shameful incident by the US soldiers stationed in Bagram, senior NATO and American officials expressed their deep apologies to the Muslim nation of Afghanistan and assured that such incidents will not happen again.
3. NATO officials promised to meet Afghan nation's demand of bringing to justice, through an open trial, those responsible for the incident and it was agreed that the perpetrators of the crime be brought to justice as soon as possible. Should this NOT be entirely a fabrication by the government of the Sharia Abomination Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, bring all Westerners out of Afghanistan now! If this causes chaos, ruin and devastation in Afghanistan, that would be an additional benefit. Afghanistan became dangerous when the Taliban regime stabilized.
4. The assigned delegations demand from the government of Afghanistan to take over from the Americans the authority of the Bagram prison so no such incidents can recur and calls on the US government to fully and comprehensively cooperate to this end.
5. The delegations also want from the Afghan government to formally praise those brave Afghan army soldiers and all others who showed feelings against the disrespectful act by preventing more religious books and Quran copies from burning, so that the pure Muslim sentiments of our honored Mujahid nation can remain alive. This article was published in English by the Afghan government, so it may not be entirely for domestic consumption.
Reading this piece one could get the impression that this was part of an instrument of surrender (the US being the party surrendering.)
This is the reward for Western restraint and mercy after 9/11. Bush broke with historical precedent to spare the Afghans great suffering. Here's the punishment for that good deed.
#3
Obama should know that if there is such a trial there will be protests in this country. If he wants to hand the Republicans an issue that will certainly defeat him in November he couldn't pick a better issue than this.
We let these people forget that we conquered them. We let them forget why we conquered them. It was their holy Quran that inspired the attacks that were launched on 9/11 from Afghanistan soil. We should have burned every copy of it in that whole country and made them apologize to us. We should have punished them, all of them, let them know exactly why we were doing it and let the whole world know that this is what happens if they attack the United States.
This incident angers me more than anything that has happened since 9/11. What makes it even worse is our mealy mouthed president who actually bows down to these bastards when he should be telling them to fuck off and die, literally and publicly.
But if he can't or won't do that then get all of our people out of there before we lose any more of them. It is rapidly degenerating into an untenable situation and it isn't worth it. We have not won the hearts and minds, we have lost them. The logistics are not sustainable. If we're not going to kill them all we need to get out, but only after letting them know that if they ever attack us again we will kill them all.
"...several hundred clerics issued a statement Sunday saying they would call for a jihad against the U.S. if those responsible for the alleged desecration were not handed over to an Islamic country for punishment within three days."
Less than 4 years after an attack on the scale of Pearl Harbor these clerics, residing in defeated and occupied Afghanistan, could threaten the US with impunity.
Rather than swiftly bringing these people to justice (either by shipping them to Guantanamo, or by trying them for war crimes and punishing them.) the occupation apologized, and thereby affirmed the legitimacy of the Afghan's behavior.
Bush wasn't criticized for this for whatever reason, even though the choice between the integrity of a copy of the Koran and human lives saved because a terrorist was made to talk (at the cost of a desecrated Koran) should be trivial.
La Belle France said on Monday that it wants to see the Syrian regime dragged before an international court of justice, as Qatar announced it was in favor of delivering arms to rebels battling the Syrian government.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, speaking during a break in talks between EU foreign ministers, said he would plead for legal action during a visit later Monday in Geneva, where he will attend the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... Human Rights Council.
"I will say this afternoon in Geneva that I hope to see the international community reflect on the conditions of a referral to the ICC," he said.
"This is a difficult dossier," he said, adding that as Syria was not a party to the Rome convention establishing the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... , the ICC could not initiate action itself.
Juppe said it would be up to the U.N. Security Council to refer the matter.
"So we will have to continue thinking and gathering elements that would enable a referral," he added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea: there was a simple way to tell whether Manetti had been the triggerman -- just look at his shoes!... Qatar's prime minister said he was in favor of delivering arms to the Syrian opposition that is battling Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... 's regime.
"We should do whatever necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said during an official visit to Norway.
"This uprising in Syria now (has lasted) one year. For 10 months, it was peaceful: nobody was carrying weapons, nobody was doing anything. And Bashar continued killing them," he told a news conference.
"So I think they're right to defend themselves by weapons and I think we should help these people by all means," he added.
More than 7,600 people have been killed in violence across Syria since anti-regime protests erupted in March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The IDF intercepted a large explosive device that was being smuggled from Sinai to Israel on Thursday, the army spokesperson revealed on Monday.
A routine patrol spotted a man attempting to cross the border fence from Egypt Thursday evening, and tried to apprehend him. But he fled back to Sinai. In the ensuing search the forces found a bag, discarded by the suspect, that contained a large explosive device. It was later safely detonated by the army.
Last Monday another explosive device was found in a joint operation by the IDF and the police.
Thursdays incident happened on the day it was announced that the border road route 12 would be reopened, after being closed since an August terror attack that claimed the lives of eight Israelis.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/28/2012 14:14
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Walid 
[An Nahar] 
Hillary Clinton
China, which has a long-held policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs, has repeatedly defended its veto and says it is "willing to play a constructive role with all sides for the peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis."
Koran burning.
The U.S. military has no plans to alter its troop drawdown timetable in Afghanistan despite a week of deadly unrest over the burning of the Koran at an American base, the Pentagon said Monday.
[An Nahar] Thai police said on Monday they were questioning three more Iranians in connection with an alleged plot to kill Israeli diplomats in Bangkok.
[An Nahar] Bulldozers razed to the ground on Monday the infamous three-story home in Pakistain where 
"We have been ordered to be deployed here until further instructions. The outer wall will remain intact for the moment and we don't know the plan for the future. First we will remove the debris."
Zia ul Haq
[An Nahar] EU foreign ministers on Monday extended the bloc's Somali anti-piracy mission Atalanta until December 2014, but did not act on plans to attack pirate gangs on land as well as at sea.
[Dawn] Two officials of Khan Razik 
Yemen's 
[An Nahar] Nigeria has repatriated around 11,000 foreigners mainly from Niger and Chad over the past six months to curb a growing Islamist insurgency, the immigration services said on Monday.
cycle of violence
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
Doku 
Officials are puzzled over a mysterious hot tub that was installed -- and then removed -- from the roof of a building on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Dawn] Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Hamid Ali Mirza on Monday directed to take action against Sindh Assembly candidate Waheeda Shah for slapping a polling official as well as the police personnel for negligence of duty.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] Efforts to evacuate foreign journalists from the rebel-held Baba Amr district of the flashpoint city of Homs failed on Monday, a Western diplomatic source in the Syrian capital said.
[Dawn] Six 
Kurram Agency
[Dawn] Five Chinese captured by Pak security agencies from different parts of the country were deported on a scheduled flight, Dawn learnt on Sunday.
[Dawn] Despite the formulation of bills to protect Pak women against violence and brutalities, it is ironical that crimes and inhumanity have not ceased to haunt them. Perhaps one of the reasons why the perpetrators are not deterred to attack women is the fact that most of them get away with committing such abominable crimes because of lack of evidence and other ambiguous reasons.
[Dawn] The United States needs to further a reconciliation process in the Pak-Afghan region which is led by both key players, Afghanistan and Pakistain, says Senator 
The US senator also noted that "many on both sides are questioning the value and meaning of strategic partnership".
"And while we have often been frustrated by the divergence of policies on Afghanistan, it remains important that we work together to further a reconciliation process that is Pakistain-Afghan led and supported by the region's key players."
Almost 90 percent of voters approved Syria's new constitution brought in after 11 months of anti-regime protests, the interior minister announced on Monday.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] The International Committee of the 
[An Nahar] Syrian security forces and pro-regime 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
International Criminal Court
