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Suicide bomber kills at least 27 by army base near Baghdad
Today's Headlines
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Africa North
Gen Patrick Brady on Dust-off (per Michael Yon)
Posted by: mom || 11/06/2012 17:16 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm not much of a Yonnonite, but good stuff there.

(sorry for the turn of phrase g(r)om)
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:27 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Foreign Election Observers Amazed By Trust-Based US Voting System
The most often noted difference between American elections among the visitors was that in most U.S. states, voters need no identification. Voters can also vote by mail, sometimes online, and there's often no way to know if one person has voted several times under different names, unlike in some Arab countries, where voters ink their fingers when casting their ballots.

The international visitors also noted that there's no police at U.S. polling stations. In foreign countries, police at polling places are viewed as signs of security; in the United States they are sometimes seen as intimidating.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/06/2012 15:45 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We are too.

And the dhimocrats do everything they can to keep it that way.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 17:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Police are "intimidating" only if you have something to hide or have no respect for the rule of law and those commissioned to enforce it.

Just my .02 cents worth.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Depends on whether the police themselves respect the rule of law, besoeker.

I grew up with family who managed to get out from a place where they didn't. Other members weren't so fortunate and died in Stalin's prisons.
Posted by: lotp || 11/06/2012 18:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Ask the voters in Wisconsin's union/recall if the union policemen were comforting.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/06/2012 19:07 Comments || Top||

#5  From a partisan commentary in the NYTimes today (edited):
The reason for this is clear: making democracy efficient takes second place in the United States to the cherished notion of letting local officials run the election system. In this “hyperdecentralized system,” in the words of Richard Hasen, a voting expert at the University of California, Irvine, the process of voting is left in the hands of “volunteers or poorly paid workers, many of whom lack adequate training or formal expertise.”

Their supervisors are partisans, often making decisions about spending money on new machines or expanding the system on the basis of how it will affect their party.


In some parts of the US, a police presence is regarded as indicating the "rule of law" is in effect. In other parts, a police presence means "might makes right."
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/06/2012 19:25 Comments || Top||

#6  "hyperdecentralized system"

Otherwise known as the United States. The federal gummint is supposed to be limited; the Constitution gives the states responsibility for most things, and the feds are supposed to be restricted to the few things a central government can do best, such as foreign policy and regulating interstate commerce. (See "enumerated powers.")
Posted by: Barbara || 11/06/2012 20:21 Comments || Top||

#7  Decentralized systems are vulnerable to 'divide & conquer' strategies.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/06/2012 22:56 Comments || Top||


New Black Panthers Back at Philly Polling Place
A member of the New Black Panther Party who was charged with voter intimidation in the 2008 election for standing outside a Philadelphia polling site was back Tuesday morning -- in an official capacity.

Jerry Jackson, who was charged in the 2008 case along with Minister King Samir Shabazz, but later saw charges dropped by the Department of Justice, was seen early Tuesday outside a North Philadelphia voting site wearing the group's trademark black beret, combat-style uniform and heavy boots. Fox News confirmed he is a designated poll watcher.
Fox & henhouse...
Unlike in the 2008 election, members of the organization labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center were not wielding billy clubs or forming clusters. In 2008, members of the New Black Panthers wore black paramilitary garb and stood in front of the doors leading to a polling place in Philadelphia. In that case, the Department of Justice later narrowed the charges against Minister King Shabazz and dismissed the charges against the party and Jackson.
And how is this different than teabaggers at the poling (sic) places?

It differs in that I cannot even imagine anyone feeling intimidated by Tea Party people. Also, it is not clear that the NBPP is behaving any differently than they did 4 years ago, and against which injunctions were issued (though criminal charges were dropped - over the strong objections of career DoJ personnel, at least some of whom resigned in protest.) A better comparison would be 'how is this different from Kluckers in sheets standing 'security' in front of Alabama polls in 1960?'
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/06/2012 12:39 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's like they only know trick: cheat.
Posted by: Iblis || 11/06/2012 14:39 Comments || Top||

#2  An example of dem..... "revenge".
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 15:06 Comments || Top||

#3  I guess it isn't election day in Philly without them at this point.
Posted by: Secret Master || 11/06/2012 15:58 Comments || Top||


Philly GOP: Poll inspectors being ousted for Dems
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 11:29 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The people responsible should really be shot for this.

Complete fraud and intimidation and makes the whole democratic process null and void.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 11:30 Comments || Top||

#2  That's what the Donks passed Posse Commitatus for. Remove the federal troops from the Southern polling stations to make sure only the 'right' folks voted. Their modus operandi haven't changed much in over a hundred years.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 11:47 Comments || Top||

#3  See, we DID need those UN poll watchers.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/06/2012 11:59 Comments || Top||

#4  No, those UN Observers were for the 'alleged' Republican suppression of votes, not the actual Donk suppression of votes. That's why they're not deployed in machine owned and operated every state. One set of rules for me, a different set of rules for thee.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 12:03 Comments || Top||

#5  If they wanna get physical somebody ought to get physical right back at them.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/06/2012 12:14 Comments || Top||

#6  In France the this woud lead to the invalidation of the votes cast in the district.
Posted by: JFM || 11/06/2012 12:38 Comments || Top||

#7  Had read this would be happening -- reported by Fox:

A group of retired Navy SEALs and other former special ops service members vowed to counter any attempt to intimidate voters by sending teams to sites in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Miami and Las Vegas. Former Navy Capt.

Benjamin Brink told Philadelphia radio station IQ 106.9 FM more than a hundred former SEALs, Army Rangers, Delta Force operatives and Green Berets volunteered for the job. But he said his men will not provoke confrontation, but rather "watch for intimidation, videotape it, if possible, and report it to the proper authorities.”
Posted by: Sherry || 11/06/2012 12:45 Comments || Top||

#8  Oh if I were in Saint-Hippolyte, I would not give a damn. :-)
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 12:46 Comments || Top||

#9  #6 JFM, that sounds like a pretty good rule.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/06/2012 12:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Benjamin Brink told Philadelphia radio station IQ 106.9 FM more than a hundred former SEALs, Army Rangers, Delta Force operatives and Green Berets volunteered for the job. But he said his men will not provoke confrontation, but rather "watch for intimidation, videotape it, if possible, and report it to the proper authorities." Posted by Sherry

Arm and deploy them!
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 12:54 Comments || Top||

#11  Proper authorities? It's been reported on local TV and radio, it's all over the internet. If the proper authorities haven't taken action yet, when will they? Do we have to wait until the election's over and Obama has four more years? Because after that you know from experience that Holder won't do jack squat about it.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/06/2012 13:36 Comments || Top||

#12  You Americans ever before had presidential election where loss for the incumbent means a lot of the Dept. Justice top brass are going to jail?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 15:46 Comments || Top||

#13  The John Mitchell wing of the Bureau of Prisons might need some sprucing up.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 15:55 Comments || Top||

#14  I have learned that one of those organizations who "help" people to vote has been caught shredding thousands of Republican votes in Philadlphia. That is another thing who has to go: no helpers. Make the things right so there are no lines soeven if your old and have bad health you have no excuse (in Europe we have no lines so youmust be able to do it). In the interim put the fraudsters in jail, and throw the key into the Mariana Trench.
Posted by: JFM || 11/06/2012 15:56 Comments || Top||

#15  How about we just throw them into the Mariana Trench instead? After all, they're biodegradable!
Posted by: Secret Master || 11/06/2012 16:01 Comments || Top||

#16  caught shredding thousands of Republican votes in Philadlphia

JFM - do you have a source for that statement?
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/06/2012 16:12 Comments || Top||

#17  I think it was voter registration cards that were shredded. I saw something about it but can't remember where. Just went looking for it again and couldn't find it. But it does indeed sound like there is criminal activity in Philadelphia.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/06/2012 16:21 Comments || Top||

#18  When has there not been criminal activity in Filth-a-delphia?
Posted by: Steve White || 11/06/2012 16:24 Comments || Top||

#19  Breitbart "citizen journalists" reported the shredding of GOP voter registrations forms.

Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/06/2012 17:32 Comments || Top||


500-generals-and-admirals-endorsing-romney- background.
Posted by: Dale || 11/06/2012 10:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Great! Now, please use your backchannel communications networks to find out WTF your colleagues still on active duty are THINKING!

Please start at the VERY TOP!
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Several that I expected to see on the list, are not there. Disappointing.

...Still, it's a robust roster as it stands.

(GEN Jack Keane, USA (Ret.)please call your agent...) ADM Joe Dyer? Still out there...?

Posted by: canalzone || 11/06/2012 22:51 Comments || Top||


Report: Obama Campaign Considering Pre-Emptive Victory Claim Strike
Best-selling Chicago-based author Brad Thor says he has been told that the Obama campaign is considering a move to demoralize Romney supporters early on Election Day.

Citing a "very solid source" in Chicago, Thor says the Obama campaign is looking to make it appear to voters that they have "this thing sewed up and are less than 24 hours to victory," according to his source.

Meanwhile, team Obama will also urge voters to get out and vote so they can say they were part of the important 2012 election that resulted in a second term for Obama.

While Thor can't reveal his source, he told TheBlaze multiple times that the source is very reliable.
The flip side of the coin, the author explained, is that the Obama campaign is counting on the mainstream media to drive home their narrative should they implement this strategy.


Does seem like the kind of thing President Revenge would consider? Does it seem like the kind of thing the mainstream media that remains in love with Obama would amplify? Yes, actually, it does.
Go ahead fuckhead. No seriously. People don't trust you anymore and a stunt like this, if you win, will completely ruin any and I mean ANY chance of bipartisanship (not that you cared in the first place). My bet is that this will backfire and really send the Romney voters into overdrive while Obama voters will say, "Cool" and go back to their bongs.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 09:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The same strategy very nearly worked in 2000. Media called it for Gore when the polls were still open in the FL panhandle, which trends Republican. Result was that Republicans stayed home and FL was much closer than it should have been.

And if anyone still has doubts about the kind of people we are up against, the entire FL recount had nothing to do with counting ballots. The Dems knew they had lost on election night (Gore even conceded, if you recall). The recount mess was intended to prevent FL from certifying its results in time to participate in the electoral college. Without the FL numbers Gore would have won.
Posted by: Iblis || 11/06/2012 10:22 Comments || Top||

#2  ..Gore would have won if he'd taken his own home state. They knew better.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 11:48 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Fort Hood Families/Victims Sue: " Rule the Attack a Terrorist Attack"
(Reuters) - Families and victims of a mass shooting in 2009 at the Fort Hood military base in Texas filed a wrongful death suit on Monday against the U.S. government, the accused gunman and the estate of an alleged al Qaeda leader.

The 148 plaintiffs are seeking damages and a ruling that the rampage was a terrorist attack. The finding would clear the way for them to receive benefits.

Major Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, faces 13 charges of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder for the November 5, 2009, attack on soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq.

Survivors have expressed frustration about repeated delays over the past three years in bringing Hasan to trial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces indefinitely postponed Hasan's court-martial last month pending further review.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia alleges that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials disregarded the safety of soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood. It also alleges that they allowed Hasan to be in a position to open fire on the troops despite knowing he was a "radical extremist."

"The government seems to have gone out of its way to give the stiff arm to these victims. They have made their lives miserable," said attorney Neal Shur, who is the lead counsel in the case.

The lead plaintiff is Shawn Manning, who was an Army staff sergeant three years ago and was shot six times.
Posted by: Bugs Uleger6376 || 11/06/2012 09:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Election 2012
Des Moines store near Obama rally has a message for the Secret Service
President Barack Obama is planning an outdoor rally here on Monday, but one store within the event's security zone is taking a stand against Secret Service searches inside the shop.

A sign on the window of Raygun, a clothing store that sells quirky T-shirts, tells Secret Service agents who intend to "sweep" the premises before Obama's speech that it does "not consent" to any searches. The sign also added a little humor, too: "It's not that there's anything illegal in here, we just employ several Colombian prostitutes and don't want to tempt you guys," the sign reads, a reference to news reports earlier this year about some agents who had solicited prostitutes in South America.

The Obama campaign was not amused. A store clerk told Yahoo News that the sign went up Monday morning, and Obama staffers have asked for its removal. The store is refusing.

Update 6:45 PM: The sign was removed from the window before Obama's rally started Monday evening.
Posted by: Beavis || 11/06/2012 07:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


The Grand Turk
Turkey tries ex-Israeli commanders over Mavi Marmara raid
A court in Istanbul is to try in absentia four ex-Israeli military commanders over the deadly raid of a Turkish boat as it tried to break the blockade of Gaza in 2010.

Nine Turkish activists died in clashes after the Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara. Seven of the commandos were also wounded.

The incident led to a major rift in relations between Turkey and Israel.

If the four are convicted, the court could issue a warrant for their arrest.
Posted by: tipper || 11/06/2012 06:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bandarlogs.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 8:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Israel should start proceedings about Armenian genocide...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/06/2012 9:33 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Suicide bomber kills at least 27 by army base near Baghdad
Death toll rapidly rising as I post this.
Posted by: ryuge || 11/06/2012 05:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Definitely war turning to the rebels. Can't be long before Assad heads to exile in Russia. Assuming he doesn't meet with an 'accident' first.
Posted by: phil_b || 11/06/2012 5:40 Comments || Top||

#2  While it's still Sunnis counting coup over Shia, it's Iraq, phil_b.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 8:41 Comments || Top||

#3  The rationale for booting Uncle Sam was the idea that the US presence was to blame for the continuing violence. No GI's in-country, no terrorist attacks. That theory has proven false. Iraqi dead from terrorist attacks has risen slightly instead of falling. Can't say I'm overly displeased with the idea of no GI's getting killed in Iraq.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 11/06/2012 10:32 Comments || Top||

#4  The total number of Iraqi dead logged by icasualties is about 60K. Syria is approaching 40K and country is in ruins, whereas we invested hundreds of billions in Iraq's infrastructure. I have to wonder if Iraqis ever think of their dead as the cost of toppling Saddam rather than the fault of a warmongering Bush. My guess is probably not.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 11/06/2012 10:37 Comments || Top||

#5  The reluctance of Iraq to extend the US a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) was a gift! I hope the same happens soon in AFG. Enough blood and treasure. Let the buggers do their own "nation building". The entire region isn't worth a warm pale of camel piss. If they fok with us, say nothing and put hot steel on target! They respond quite well to iron bombs.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 10:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe not so much rationale but sales pitch with a dollop of slander.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/06/2012 11:35 Comments || Top||

#7  This seems to be what the people of the region do best. They will have to do this until they tire of killing one another. In other words, their teachable moment will have to come at great cost. The blinders of islam are on quite firmly, and it will take substantial force to remove them.
Posted by: remoteman || 11/06/2012 14:04 Comments || Top||

#8  So much for the "Religion of Peace"(tm)
/sarc off

No one can kill them off better than their own - see Tamerlane.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 14:18 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Blast hits oil pipeline near Homs
An explosion struck the main oil pipeline feeding a refinery on the western edge of Homs on Tuesday during fighting between rebels and army forces in the area, according to opposition activists. A video, which could not be independently verified, showed thick smoke rising from the pipeline which links oil fields in the east with the Homs refinery, one of two in the country.

Nader al-Husseini, an opposition campaigner, said, "The pipeline blew up overnight when fighting broke out after the Free Syrian Army launched concerted attacks against army roadblocks in the area."
Posted by: ryuge || 11/06/2012 04:59 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Election 2012
CRUSH THEM
Good last-day call to arms by Michael Walsh in National Review Online
Conservatives have a rare opportunity tomorrow to do something they signally failed to do in the landslide elections of 1972 and 1984: finish the job. Nixon's victory was vitiated by Watergate and quickly revenged by Woodward and Bernstein, leading to his replacement in 1974 by Jerry Ford, a man who exactly nobody thought was qualified to be president of the United States, probably including Ford himself. Ford led to Jimmy Carter, whose ineptitude and weakness in turn lead to Ronald Reagan, who swept Carter away in 1980 and then smashed Walter Mondale and the Democrats to powder in 1984.

And then, having won a famous victory, conservatives went home and left it to the establishment GOP in the form of another man who never should have been president, George H. W. Bush, to fritter away the fruits of ideological victory and be supplanted by Bill Clinton.

In retrospect, of course, William Jefferson Blythe III was Pericles of Athens compared to Barack Obama, who far more than Clinton has revealed the true face of contemporary American left-liberalism in all its coercive ugliness: a blizzard of executive orders; the deployment of the regulatory agencies that have (in the words of the Declaration of Independence) "sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance"; and the naked Marxist appeals to race and class envy. The most anti-American of American presidents has run the most un-American of campaigns.

And that, by rights, should be it. That it's not explains the alarm of conservatives whose view of patriotism is that they love their country as it is, not as they wish it might someday be. From Day One of the Obama administration, real conservatives understood the explicit threat of "fundamental change," whose meaning can now be clearly discerned in Obama's "revenge" remark; for the Left, "revenge" is precisely what this election is all about. For them and their voting-bloc constituents, it's payback time: payback for slavery and segregation; payback for poverty; payback for foreign wars; payback for restrictive immigration laws. They've long used the goals of the civil-rights movement -- which after all was directed precisely against Democrats -- and the Vietnam-era "anti-war" movement -- which arose in opposition to the foreign policy of the Democrats -- as wedges with which to crack the larger social structure and now, so close to realizing the ultimate expression of "critical theory" -- that everything about America stinks -- they and their media allies are doing their best to swing one last election for Obama.
Emphasis mine-RbR. Folks, this is what's at stake here. If the communists (I absolutely REFUSE to call these bastards by the same party name shared by Harry Truman, Jack Kennedy, Scoop Jackson and Zell Miller) win this one, they win the whole enchilada...everything they've patiently worked for over almost fifty years as they slowly but steadily gnawed on the timbers and frameworks that kept our country standing upright.
It's not enough for the GOP to win tomorrow. It needs to win big, a win so convincing that even the Left won't be able to explain it away. The definition of victory in war is not a 50.1 percent majority that allows the other side to keep fighting -- it's the battleship Missouri, on whose deck the losing side signs articles of capitulation. The modern Left -- the unholy spawn of '30s gangland and '60s academic Marxism -- must be forced to its knees in surrender.
God, I absolutely LOVE Walsh's description of "the modern Left.". But I think maybe he's placing a little too much emphasis on this one day. If the good guys win, it may still be by a small margin - and the bad guys may still end up holding the Senate. But assuming we win...well, we can't think of it as an Appomattox or a Tokyo Bay. At best, it'll be our Trenton - the first real victory for the good guys in what's likely to be a very long war. There's a whole culture to take back. One school-board seat, one professorship, one op-ed, one screenplay at at time.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) || 11/06/2012 01:41 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Finish the job means not sitting down and letting the DEmocrats perpetuate through fraud. America nessacomplete overhaul of its voting system and federal supervision of it

You need mandatory IDs (if necessary make them zero cost), suppression of early votong (most European counytries voteduring asingle day and their linesare5 minuyteslong top), _paper_ ballots because they are auditable(again European countries manage to count their paper ballots in less than four hours, ballot boxes who leave the chain of custody are automatically discarded (no more Al Franken elections), I also think "Bring out the vote" initiativesshould be banned, first becausethey are obviously biasedandsecond because the people brought arebound to bepeople who haven't madetheeffort to lkeepthemselves informed.

I think this would lead the Democrat Party for long time in the opposition and would operhaps lead the adultsin it to regain control Assumming they are still someadultsleft in of coursze.


Also Republicans shoud fight to regain control of the academia and the MSM: they should no longer be machines for producing Democrats
Posted by: JFM || 11/06/2012 4:17 Comments || Top||

#2  The Stupid Party vs. the Evil Party.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/06/2012 5:47 Comments || Top||

#3  I agree wholeheartedly JFM. We've been a republic for over 300 years and we are still having difficulties with election voting ballots? Tragically however, what you have hit upon is only the tip of the iceberg and a symptom of a greater problem.

I agree that many of our colleges and universities along with the so called Main Stream Media are little more than incubators for communism! I believe we have both political parties to blame for this. For the past half-century, both have endorced (and well funded) the socialist mantra and group think of diversity, fairness, and equality of outcomes. wrapped snugly in the proptective cloak of "human rights".

Barak Obama did not invent the concept of equal outcomes via wealth redistribution, he simply supersized it! He is a creature of our own guilt fed making.

Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 6:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Besoeker, Citizens are also at fault: if parents had sued to death from the first time children had repotted that their teachers had used both their position of authority (in my agenda that is called politicalpeadophilia) and thecllas''s valuable time to indoctrinate the instead of teaching you would not be in such a quandary.
Posted by: JFM || 11/06/2012 8:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Obama is just a symptom.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 9:00 Comments || Top||

#6  Just voted. Early. 7AM.

Disturbingly in this polling place there are usually mostly republicans. However, there appeared to be a lot of Democrats turning out. Overheard several say they were voting straight Democrat tickets. And this is a very much a red state.

If your intention is to vote Obama out, take a friend today to vote against this guy, too. Take nothing for granted.

This may be a real fight.
Posted by: Bugs Uleger6376 || 11/06/2012 9:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Progressives have bankrupted this country morally and financially--or at least about half of it. They have picked the bones of the eagle clean and now the bones are being devoured. At the point where more than 50% of the people don't work and there are only government jobs and the redistribution of the income of those who work, the country will fail. The signs are there. The government does not produce or add any value to the economy; they can only collect taxes and redistribute those taxes to those whom they deem worthy--in that case whoever is willing to vote for them. CRUSH THEM or we will all be enslaved by the Chicago corruptocrats who are strangling this country.

Posted by: JohnQC || 11/06/2012 9:57 Comments || Top||

#8  I have been watching the so-called "democracies" in Zimbabwe, South Afica, and Namibia for decades. All were funded and facilitated by a feckless, guilt ridden West. All have shunned the West, Israel, and enthusiastically embraced Islam and more recently the Chinese. Their presidents Mugabe, Zuma, and Pohumba are little more than mini-Obamas on steroids. The pattern is quite obvious. It is a foretelling.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 10:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Markets are up and coal is starting out strong this morning.

NYSE
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 10:16 Comments || Top||

#10 

The eyes of the past are watching us.

Our troops on foreign battle fields are trusting in us.

The burdon of freedom for the next generation rests upon us.
Posted by: Bugs Uleger6376 || 11/06/2012 10:17 Comments || Top||

#11  While waiting to vote this morning, I heard this lovely gem from the woman standing behind me in line: "Fuck Romney's white ass."

I am in DC, after all.
Posted by: eltoroverde || 11/06/2012 12:20 Comments || Top||

#12  I doubt you would have heard such a comment in the United States eltoroverde.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 12:50 Comments || Top||

#13  Eltoroverde,
If Obama is fired today, she may have to get a job. You should have told her Staples is hiring...

Posted by: wr || 11/06/2012 13:55 Comments || Top||

#14  I doubt she's qualified
Posted by: Frank G || 11/06/2012 14:05 Comments || Top||

#15  Sympathies go out to you etoverdeies for having to live in D.C.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/06/2012 17:39 Comments || Top||

#16  I agree that Obama is just a symptom. His most dedicated supporters are the real disease.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/06/2012 19:05 Comments || Top||

#17  JFM, technically in Germany we have early voting because you can vote by mail, and you can mail your ballot weeks before Election Day.

But yes, voter registration is a big issue in the US... voting without a photo ID seems absurd to me.

In Germany, when I vote, I bring my notification and a photo ID or I won't vote.
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/06/2012 19:36 Comments || Top||

#18  "voting without a photo ID seems absurd to me"

To a lot of us too, EC. :-(

We're trying to fix that....
Posted by: Barbara || 11/06/2012 20:12 Comments || Top||

#19  You can't collect a letter at the post office without a photo ID
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/06/2012 20:26 Comments || Top||

#20  C In Franc we have vote by mail too. But iy is theption rather thanthe norm
Posted by: JFM || 11/06/2012 20:54 Comments || Top||

#21  A German friend from school was considering moving back to the US last year. I teased that I'd have to convince him to vote Republican. He gave me a funny look.

"Oh wait," I laughed. "You're not a US citizen."
"Oh wait," I laughed again. "It doesn't matter!"
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/06/2012 22:12 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Turabi Wants Obama Win
[An Nahar] Sudan's veteran Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, linked to al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden
... who abandoned all hope when he entered there...
in the 1990s, hopes U.S. President Barack Obama
Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back...
will win a second term on Tuesday.

"Obama of course," Turabi told Agence La Belle France Presse when asked about his U.S. presidential preference during an interview.

"He's gentle towards the Mohammedans generally," Turabi said, and referred to Obama's childhood spent in Mohammedan-majority Indonesia, and his Kenyan father who was raised a Mohammedan.

Obama uses the word "terrorism" far less than his predecessor George W. Bush, and his name is a variant of the Arabic word "Baraka", Turabi said.

"You know what 'Baraka' means in Arabic? Blessing."

Obama, a Christian, was elected the first African American U.S. president in 2008 and is in a tight race against Republican rival Willard Mitt Romney
...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O...

Turabi has been a force in Sudanese politics for six decades, and was a key figure behind the 1989 coup which brought the Islamist regime of President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
to power.

Sudan then became a notorious refuge for turban Islamists, including bin Laden, leading to American sanctions which Obama renewed last week.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan

#1  So B. Hussein Obama's UN speech(*) won him the open endorsement of genocidal and terroristic islamofascism.

You really can be proud Mr President!

(*)"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/06/2012 14:38 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Car Bomb Kills 50 Regime Troops in Syria as Air Strikes Pound Rebels
[An Nahar] Syrian rebels launched a devastating car kaboom Monday that killed 50 pro-regime fighters, a watchdog said, as air strikes pounded rebel positions and the opposition met for talks on an overhaul.

The suicide car kaboom on a military post in the central province of Hama struck early Monday, killing at least 50 government troops and loyalist militiamen, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The post, located at the Center for Rural Development, is the largest gathering place for troops and pro-regime forces of Evil in the region," said the Observatory, a Britannia-based monitoring group.

Regime aircraft meanwhile continued to pound rebel-held positions around the country, with one air strike killing at least 20 rebel fighters in the town of Harem in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Observatory said.

The rebels have scored significant wins in recent weeks and hold swathes of territory in the country's north, but have come under intense bombardment from the air as Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
's regime seeks to reverse rebel gains.

Clashes also broke out Monday around Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
and in Syria's second city 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...
, and state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported a car kaboom in the capital had left four dead and dozens maimed.

Fighting erupted in southern districts of the capital on the edge of the Yarmouk Paleostinian camp, the Observatory said, with Paleostinian sources saying 31 people had died from shelling at the camp on Sunday and Monday.

In Aleppo, fighting broke out at a roundabout at the northwestern entrance to the city in Zahraa district and on the airport road to the southeast, the Observatory and residents said.

One resident of a district near Zahraa said Monday's fighting in the area was the heaviest in recent days.

"It's been almost one week that we are living in terror at night. We hear everything -- shootouts, tank shelling, kabooms... The festivities before dawn today were the worst all week," Samir, a 37-year-old pharmacist, told Agence La Belle France Presse.

The Observatory said at least 105 people, including 55 soldiers and pro-regime fighters, had been killed in the violence on Monday.

The escalating conflict has added urgency to a meeting of the Syrian National Council in Qatar, where the United States is reportedly pressing for a new umbrella organization to unite the country's fractured opposition.

According to the reports, which emerged after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as America's Blond Eminence and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Al Haig ...
said the SNC was not representative, long-time dissident Riad Seif is touted as the potential head of a new government-in-exile dubbed the Syrian National Initiative.

Seif on Sunday denied planning to head such a government, while SNC chief Abdel Basset Sayda denounced what he called "efforts to bypass the SNC".

At the talks on Monday, SNC members approved a restructuring project that will see the organization add 200 new members representing 13 different political groups, SNC front man Ahmad Kamel told AFP.

On Tuesday SNC members will hold a debate on a proposal put forward by Seif to create a new political body to represent the opposition, folding in the SNC and other anti-regime groups.

The SNC lashed out on Friday at alleged U.S. interference with the opposition, accusing Washington of undermining the revolt and "sowing the seeds of division" by seeking its overhaul.

On the diplomatic front, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused countries that support Syria's rebels of encouraging them to fight rather than pressuring them to negotiate an end to the conflict.

Russia, one of the Syrian regime's most influential foreign allies, held no sway over the rebels, Lavrov said at a news conference in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Kamel Amr.

Countries that do have influence over the rebels, among them some Gulf Arab states and Western powers such as the United States, should encourage them to "sit at the negotiating table," Lavrov said.

Instead, some of these countries prefer to "unify the rebels not on the basis of negotiations but on the basis of continuing the fighting," he said.

Lavrov met Sunday with 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...
chief Nabil al-Arabi for talks, after which Arabi said "there wasn't any agreement on anything" during the discussions.

Russia and China have stymied Western- and Arab-backed efforts to put more pressure on Assad's regime by blocking U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


China-Japan-Koreas
China's economic destiny in doubt after leadership shock
The forces of reaction and economic folly threaten to prevail in China. The long political arm of Jiang Zemin has reached out from the shadows to thwart reform, with huge implications for Asia and the world.

If reports from the Hong Kong press and China's blogosphere are correct, a remarkable upset has occurred on the eve of the ten-year power shift next week -- the greatest turn-over of top cadres since Mao's revolution.

The South China Morning Post says the new line-up of the Politburo's Standing Committee is "packed with conservatives". The succession deal agreed over the summer has been scuppered.

The 86-year Mr Jiang -- who rose to supreme leader on the bones of Muxidi and Tiananmen in 1989 -- has placed his accolytes in charge of the economy, propaganda, as well as the Shanghai party machine.

The hardliners seem poised to snatch control of the seven-man Committee, tying the hands of incoming president Xi Xinping and premier Li Keqiang. If confirmed, long-term investors may have to rethink their core assumption about the future course of China.

Posted by: trailing wife || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Remember, folks...they're still commies.
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/06/2012 0:16 Comments || Top||

#2  I'd like to know if there was a regional component to this.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/06/2012 1:18 Comments || Top||

#3  If confirmed, long-term investors may have to rethink their core assumption about the future course of China.

Mildred, a memo to the Kissinger Foundation if you would please. I'm unable to reach them by phone.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 7:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Thier approach to note they hold regarding America's debt will be not so nice.
Posted by: Bugs Uleger6376 || 11/06/2012 9:18 Comments || Top||

#5  Anybody who ever thought they were really gonna reform is a fool.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/06/2012 11:33 Comments || Top||

#6  "America's economic destiny in doubt after election shock." Sounds about right assuming the Dems carry Ohio.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 11/06/2012 22:06 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Suffering of Black-Skinned Continues in Yemen
[Yemen Post] A fire broke out at the residential area of the marginalized people, the black-skinned class, in Yemen's southern province of Taiz injuring two people and ravaging a number of their houses made of tinplate and polyester fabric.

Local sources in Taiz said a man and a woman were maimed in the fire but not seriously.

Many marginalized people live in the Oseifra district, Taiz, where they have started to suffer such problems in recent years.

In the past few years, a number of marginalized people were killed and many houses ravaged in fires that usually are blamed on electric problems or mistakes by the people themselves.

The problem continues and adds to the suffering of the marginalized in Yemen, who struggle to enjoy the simplest rights like other classes.

The marginalized here don't exercise good jobs and most of them are hired by the government to sweep the streets for about one hundred dollars a month.

This stratum in the Yemeni society suffers the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, illiteracy and school dropout, spread of diseases and disrespect of other classes.

The authorities don't help the marginalized as they should and this deepens their suffering in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Being Muslim also is apparently not enuff for their antagonists.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/06/2012 1:16 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Roadside blast kills 4 Soldiers in Somalia's port city of Kismayo
(Sh.M.Network)-- At least four soldiers died and more than that number injured in a roadside kaboom that rocked on Monday afternoon in Somalia's southern port city of Kismayo, 500 Km south of Mogadishu, reports said.

Reports said the blast occurred near the airport targeting a military convoy carrying Kenyan soldiers serving under the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
mission in Somalia (AMISOM), killing 4 soldiers following the attack.

Kenyan army condoned off the site of the kaboom near the airport of Kismayo and began carrying out crackdown to find out the perpetrators. No arrests reported.

It was unavailable to reach Kenyan army officials for comments on the attack and corpse count.

No group has said yet it carried out the kaboom, but al shabab beturbanned goons have in the past claimed more blasts in the city since the allied forces moved in last month.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


India-Pakistan
No individual or institution alone can decide national interest: Kayani
[Dawn] Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
on Monday said that any effort to create a divide between the people and Armed Forces undermines Pakistain's larger national interest.

"The Armed Forces draw their strength from the bedrock of the public support. National security is meaningless without it. Therefore, any effort which wittingly or unwittingly draws a wedge between the people and Armed Forces of Pakistain undermines the larger national interest," said the military chief according to a blurb by the army's PR wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

"While constructive criticism is well understood, conspiracy theories based on rumours which create doubts about the very intent, are unacceptable."

Speaking to officers at the Army's General Headquarters (GHQ) in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, Kayani said that the country's national interest could emerge only through a consensus between the people and institutions.

"No individual or institution has the monopoly to decide what is right or wrong in defining the ultimate national interest," said the military chief according to a blurb by the army's PR wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

"It [National interest] should emerge only through a consensus, and all Paks have a right to express their opinions. The constitution provides a clear mechanism for it."

"As a nation, we are passing through a defining phase. We are critically looking at the mistakes made in the past and trying to set the course for a better future," said the Army chief.

He added: "While individual mistakes might have been made by all of us in the country, these should be best left to the due process of law.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
Eight Arrested over Tunisia Opposition Figure Death
[An Nahar] Eight people have been tossed in the clink
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
over the death of an opposition party official last month during a protest by supporters of Tunisia's ruling Islamists that turned violent, his family said on Monday.

"They tossed in the clink
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
eight people yesterday (Sunday)," said Fethi Naguedh, the brother-in-law of Lotfi Naguedh, who represented the Call of Tunisia party in the southern town of Tataouine, where the violence took place.

The official TAP news agency confirmed the eight arrests, citing police.

The interior minister said Naguedh died of a heart attack when his supporters clashed with those of the ruling Islamist party Ennahda outside his office on October 18.

Officials from the opposition party, however, say he died after being beaten by protesters from the League for the Protection of the Revolution, a grouping close to Ennahda, who attacked his office.

Among those set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
on Sunday was Said Chebli, who heads the Tataouine branch of the League, said Naguedh, adding that according to the autopsy, his brother-in-law had been hit 59 times with blunt objects and weapons.

Call of Tunisia's leader Beji Caid Essebsi branded Lotfi Naguedh's death a "political liquidation," and President Moncef Marzouki condemned what he referred to as a "lynching."
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Arabia
Yemen Says Arms Cargo "Was Shipped to Domestic Trader"
Yemen said on Sunday the pistols shipment which was seized in the port city of Aden was shipped for the Yemeni trader Rashid Saleh Abdu Al-Badani who lives in the capital Sanaa, the official news agency Saba reported quoting a statement by chairman of the customs authority.

Muhammad Mansour Zamam, the chairman, said the ship, May OMF, which carried the Turkish-made pistols originated in Turkey on October 6 passing through the Saudi city of Jeddah and arrived in Aden October 20.

"The pistols were hidden inside biscuit boxes and was discovered after the shipt left the free zone container terminal to the customs port on Eid day," he said.

"When the authorities checked the cargo with advanced systems, they discovered the arms which were registered as biscuits and other foodstuffs," he said.

The cargo included 246 pistols, 2925 pistol frames, 2445 cartridges, and about 7998 spare parts of pistols, Zamam said in a press statement after deputy interior ministry held talks with officials from the customs office in Aden.

The pistol cargo was seized on Saturday as Yemen is struggling to cope with big challenges topped by insecurity that were deepened by the latest developments, mainly the 2011 uprising.

Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


India-Pakistan
Khyber tops violence in Fata
[Dawn] Khyber Agency has recorded the highest number of subversive acts during the current year as compared to other parts of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

The data complied by offices of political administration in Fata shows that total 96 kabooms, suicide and rocket attacks have
occurred in Khyber Agency between January and October this year.

These incidences have left at least 100 civilians and 20 security personnel dead besides injuring 60 others, the record shows.

Army and paramilitary forces have been conducting operations in Khyber Agency since 2009, but they have yet to evict forces of Evil from the area, situated at a stone's throw from Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.

The volatile agency has also topped the list of kidnapping for ransom incidents among all tribal units as it recorded 40 cases in which people were picked up and taken there before making demands for money from the relatives of the kidnapped persons.

Main thug groups like Lashkar-e-Islam, Tawheedul Islam, Ansaarul Islam, Haji Namdar group and Abdullah Ezzam Brigade have been operating in the area, according to sources. The infighting among these thug outfits and subsequent military
operations caused mass exoduses from the militancy-stricken area.

According to Fata Disaster Management Authority's report, around 71,000 displaced families, who left their native homes in the wake of lawlessness, had been registered with it.

Officials blamed deaths and civilian casualties in Khyber Agency on artillery shelling and rocket attacks.

The trouble started in Khyber Agency in 2003 when supporters of two rival sectarian groups led by Mufti Shakir and Pir Saifur Rehman respectively clashed in Bara. Mufti and Pir were expelled from the area in 2004. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching...
the sectarian festivities
resulted in emergence of Mangal Bagh
...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency...
group.

Interestingly, official reports portray situation in South Wazoo Agency, the birthplace of Taliban in Fata, as relatively quite and calm. No loss of life of civilians and security forces has been reported from South Waziristan where total 20 attacks,
including improvised bombs and roadside blasts, took place though media had reported that 30 security personnel and five non-combatants were killed in these acts of violence.

Also, decline has been witnessed in suicide kabooms in Fata in the current year. Sources said that political authorities had confirmed four suicide attacks in tribal areas one each in Bajaur, Khyber and Kurram agencies and Frontier Region of Kohat.

Militants had reportedly carried out nine suicide attacks in Fata in 2011.

Officials said that situation in Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central
...Smallest of the agencies in FATA. The Agency administration is located in Khar. Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani Pashtuns, which are divided into multiple bickering subtribes. Its 52 km border border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province makes it of strategic importance to Pakistain's strategic depth...
was pretty normal though acts of violence had occurred in the area. According to reports, 10 blasts and 15 missile attacks had taken place in Bajaur that claimed lives of 24 civilians and 10 soldiers. Around 100 civilians and security personnel have suffered injuries in these attacks.

"Confidence of local people in government has been restored as people contact government offices for resolution of their
disputes contrary to the past when they would approach the Taliban-run courts for the same," said an official.

He termed it a major breakthrough, saying it was an indication that state's writ was established.

Situation in previously troubled Mohmand Agency
... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
also remained under control during the past 10 months after subsequent military offensives against thugs. Officials said that security forces flushed out forces of Evil from villages and towns of Mohmand and consolidated government's writ there.

An official said that 39 bomb and rocket attacks had taken place in Mohmand Agency.

Situation in violence-stricken 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...
is still murky, particularly in the lower and central subdivisions of the area where 50 civilians died and 90 received wounds in suicide attacks and other subversive activities.

North Waziristan Agency, the nest of various thug outfits, also remained tense because of night attacks on security installations, military convoys and roadside blasts. Around 60 attacks had been taken place in the area that killed 20 civilians and soldiers besides injuring 50 others.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Good Election Day Morning
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Obamadämmerung
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/06/2012 2:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Birthday Gam Shot

Rebecca Romijn [aka Mystique](age 40)


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 11/06/2012 3:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Remember. Your firstduty is not_ voting. Your first duty is fighting fraud
Posted by: JFM || 11/06/2012 4:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Ja EC, hopefully the dawn my vriend. In 1990 your wall came down. Our wall may well be going up. We decide today.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 6:47 Comments || Top||

#5  If the wall goes here up Besoeker, it will be a long and hard fight until 2016. Let's hope this does not happen. Freedom will suffer greatly and it will seem like 20 years. After four more years of this crap, the country will look like the aftermath of Sandy or Katrina.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/06/2012 9:38 Comments || Top||

#6  I think the world is watching us John. Like you, I hope and pray we get it right. If we prevail, all should examine the root causes, the how and why this Republic has trek'd so far down the socialist path. If we do not win today, there will be little need to examine history. We will be history.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 9:50 Comments || Top||

#7  “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.” - General Nathanael Greene

Didn't win a battle against the British in the Southern Campaign, but drove Cornwallis out of the Carolinas to his destiny at Yorktown.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 12:15 Comments || Top||

#8  "Get there first with the most."
-- Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest
Posted by: mojo || 11/06/2012 14:08 Comments || Top||

#9  Just spent the entire day as an Election Judge in Cook County. Easily observable that, unlike stupidity, intelligence has limits......
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 11/06/2012 21:40 Comments || Top||

#10  Intelligence is finite. There are just more people these days.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 22:19 Comments || Top||

#11  Somebody has to break the bad news to you so shoot the messenger if you will but Romney will not win these elections.

Lots of work to do till 2016
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/06/2012 22:41 Comments || Top||

#12  Birthday Gam Shot

Virna Lisi [Filmography](age 76)


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 11/08/2012 4:06 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Exiled leaders to return to Yemen, political sources say
[Yemen Post] Yemeni political sources have anticipated that exiled southern leaders will come back to Yemen to take part in the national dialogue conference, a Saudi newspaper, Okaz has reported.

The newspaper affirmed that international efforts are exerted to persuade exiled Yemeni leaders including Ali Salem al-Beidh, a former president of South Yemen, to return and participate in the dialogue conference.

The sources told Okaz that these efforts are led by the UN Envoy Jamal Benomar.

They spelt out that guarantees were presented to the leaders, pointing out that they and their families will be given a complete security protection and that they will be allowed to practice their political life freely under Yemen's constitution.

They also said that the leaders were ensured that the dialogue will have no a ceiling and that the southern case will be among priorities of the dialogue's agenda.

Media sources quoted an assistant of Benomar as saying that the UN Envoy did not meet with any exiled leaders and that he conducted intense contacts with them.

A Yemeni newspaper, Akhbar Alyawam, cited that remarkable progress were achieved in communication with big shots including Ali Nasser Mohammad, a former southern president and Haidar Abu Bakar Al-Atass, a former prime minister.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Southeast Asia
Philippine Communist Rebels Shoot Dead 4 Soldiers
[An Nahar] The Philippine military said Monday communist rebels killed four unarmed soldiers in an ambush, further hurting efforts to revive stalled talks aimed at ending one of Asia's longest-running rebellions.

At least 10 New People's Army (NPA) rebels bumped off the soldiers as they were returning to their base from a trip to the local market near the southern city of Davao on Sunday, the military said.

"The soldiers were in civilian clothes and were unarmed," military front man Lieutenant Colonel Lyndon Paniza told Agence La Belle France Presse. "This is a treacherous attack by the NPA."

He said the soldiers belonged to an army unit engaged in humanitarian activities in remote villages on the fringes of Davao, the biggest city on the country's violence-plagued Mindanao island.

The government's chief peace negotiator with the communists, Alexander Padilla, warned the attack would hurt efforts to resume peace talks with the rebels.

"This will impact on the sentiments going forward in the grinding of the peace processor," Padilla told AFP.

Peace talks were due to have resumed in Norway last month. But Padilla said they were called off because of the rebels' long-standing condition that, before negotiations resume, 18 jugged
Please don't kill me!
comrades must be released.

He said the ambush appeared to be part of a fresh offensive by the rebels to pressure the government into releasing the jugged
Please don't kill me!
communist leaders.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  So Manila came to its new agreement wid the MILF only to see the Commies = NPA suddenly rise up in violence.

Huks???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/06/2012 1:12 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Yemen Arrests Three Saudis on Prostitution Charges
The Yemeni authorities cooled for a few years
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
on Monday three Saudi nationals on charges of practicing prostitution in the western port city of Hodeida, Almasdar Online reported.

Earlier today, state media quoted officials as saying the Saudis were not kidnapped, but were cooled for a few years
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
on 'criminal charges'.

Almasdar quoted a statement by security director in Hodeida, Muhammad Al-Maqalih, as saying the Saudis were cooled for a few years
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
after the provincial Criminal Investigative Office found some people including foreigners were practicing prostitution.

"The security authorities in Hodeida coordinated the raid on a house in the Ghalil quarter where the Saudis and three girls were found in a disgraceful, unlawful situation," the director said. But he did not identify the nationality of the girls, according to the website.
"The house belonged to a man and a woman involved in organized prostitution," he said.

The suspects are being held in the Office and after completing the investigations, they will be referred to the judicial authorities, the director continued, pointing out the Saudis arrived in the country to spend the Eid Adha vacation.

Many rich Saudi nationals arrive in Yemen a year and they exploit the situations of poor families to marry girls and leave them shortly after marriage.

Some shocking and sad stories of girls who married to Saudis revealed poverty remains the key reason for agreeing to uncertain, short marriage.

The phenomenon has recently become a concern amid increasing poverty rates due to political and economic unrest.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Operation likely in Bara as talks make no headway
[Dawn] The authorities decided to launch a military operation in Bar Qambarkhel area of Bara, however, local elders were engaged in extensive consultations to avert the action, sources said.

Sources privy to the consultations, spearheaded by MNA Hamidullah Jan Afridi, said that no headway was made till late on Sunday as some of the Bar Qambarkhel elders were reluctant to furnish guarantees with the security forces about the conduct of Amr Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munkir, a Bar Qambarkhel-based banned group.

The Bar Qambarkhel elders were scheduled to meet in Bara on Saturday but they were denied entry to the area on security grounds. Later the venue of the meeting was shifted to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.

Sources said that the meeting discussed on Sunday threadbare the four demands of the government that included handing over of desperados, expelling Afghan holy mans from the area, closing down torture cells and furnishing guarantees about the good conduct of the banned group. "The meeting could not reach a consensus regarding a mutually agreed response to the government with regards to the four demands," source said.

The government has set November 5 as a deadline for Bar Qambarkhel elders to accept its demands or vacate the area so that a military operation can be launched.

Sources said that a comprehensive strategy had been chalked out to respond to the situation if Bara elders failed to respond to the official demands in affirmative.

Political Agent Mutahir Zeb declined to comment on the issue despite repeated efforts made by this scribe.

Sources said that despite closure of all entry and exit points of Bar Qambarkhel, a number of suspected cut-throats managed to flee the area. They said that cut-throats started assembling in Renay-Parchao area of Afghanistan, a small village on the bank of the Kabul River just across the border in Loe Shalman area.

Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ...
local chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
has threatened to stage a sit-in outside Governor's House in Peshawar if a military operation was launched in Bar Qambarkhel area of Bara.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, Shah Faisal Afridi, the local chief of JI, said that the ongoing operation in different parts of Bara had already displaced thousands of people. Another operation in Bar Qambarkhel would add to the miseries of people of Bara, he added.

Mr Afridi accused MNA Hamidullah Jan of not handling the situation effectively. He said that all tribal elders of Bara should be included in the process of negotiations.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Iraq
Three Killed in Bombing at Baghdad Shiite Mosque
A car booming near a Shiite mosque in east Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
killed three people on Monday, as worshipers continued to mark a key date in the Shiite calendar, officials said.

The blast struck at around noon (0900 GMT) near the al-Obeidi mosque in the east of the capital, killing three people and wounding eight others, according to security and medical officials.

It came as Shiite worshipers mark Ghadir, the day in the Islamic lunar calendar when the Prophet Mohammed is said to have named Imam Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, as his immediate successor, according to Shiite belief.

Though Ghadir fell on Saturday, Shiite Mohammedans in Iraq have continued to mark it over subsequent days.

Seven other people were also maimed on Monday by a blast in the town of Taji, just north of Storied Baghdad, officials said.

The latest deaths came after figures released on Thursday showed a sharp decline in attacks last month, with the number of people killed the lowest since June.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Over 30 Killed in 24 Hours at Damascus Palestinian Camp
[An Nahar] More than 30 people were killed in a 24-hour period in a Paleostinian refugee camp south of the Syrian capital Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
amid fierce festivities between the army and rebels, Paleostinian sources said on Monday.

Seven people were killed Monday when a mortar landed on a mini-bus traveling along the western edge of the Yarmouk Paleostinian camp, according to Paleostinian sources and Syrian state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
"All night through to Monday, the residents heard deafening sounds of shelling, but this morning there are many people in the streets, the shops are open and traffic is normal," a resident told Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity.

The day before, 24 people were killed when at least 10 shells fell on a southern part of the camp, according to a Facebook page called "Yarmouk Camp News" run by local residents, which listed the names of the victims.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported five killed, including three children and one woman, in Monday's mortar attack.

The Britannia-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and medics, had reported eight killed on Sunday by mortar fire.

According to the resident, fighting on the outskirts of the camp lasted 24 hours, pitting the rebel Free Syrian Army against government troops, backed by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine-General Command (PFLP-GC).

"Dozens were killed or maimed on Sunday during fighting when the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) tried to infiltrate the camp... but were pushed back," PFLP-GC front man Anwar Raja told AFP.

According to the Observatory, festivities began in the border districts of al-Hajar al-Aswad and moved to the outskirts of Yarmouk, where PFLP-GC fighters joined on the side of the regime and other Paleostinian factions fought with the rebels.

Fighting had erupted last Tuesday between rebels and pro-regime Paleostinian fighters backed by troops in Yarmouk, the largest Paleostinian refugee camp in Syria with some 148,000 residents.

The PFLP-GC is headed by Ahmad Jibril, a staunch ally of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
, who has been fighting an unprecedented revolt against his regime that began as a peaceful uprising in March 2011 and steadily militarized under repression.

In early August, Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
condemned shelling on the camp, which killed 21 civilians including two children, and chided the PFLP-GC for its role in dragging Paleostinians into the bloody conflict.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  See, I told you the boy has promise.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 8:48 Comments || Top||

#2  syria Martyrs website estimates the total 2011 to today Paleo fatality total in Syria at about 500
Posted by: lord garth || 11/06/2012 17:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Hopefully these figures will be dwarfed by next year's reporting.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:43 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Woman who attacked daughter with acid says it was her fate
A woman who killed her teenage daughter by pouring acid on her face and body after they caught her talking to a boy has told the BBC it was the girl's destiny to die in this way.

Police in Pak-administered Kashmire jugged
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
Mohammad Zafar and his wife Zaheen for the Oct 29 attack on their daughter Anusha, 16, who died in hospital two days later after suffering horrific acid burns.

The parents of the 16-year-old confessed to police in Kotli, a town in Pak-administered Kashmire, that they attacked their daughter after she had spoke to the boy outside their house, said Mohammad Jahangir, a local doctor at the hospital where she was brought.

"There were third-degree burns on her scalp, face, eyes, nostrils, both arms, chest, foot and lower part of legs. Even her scalp bone was exposed," he said, adding that the mother initially told the hospital their daughter tried to commit suicide.

So-called "honour" attacks are common in deeply conservative Pakistain.

Rights activists say more than 900 women were murdered last year after being accused of bringing shame on the family in some way.

Speaking from their police cells, the father told the BBC they had warned Anusha before about looking at boys, while the mother described how her daughter had begged for forgiveness.

"She said, 'I didn't do it on purpose, I won't do it again," the mother, whose own arm bore an injury from the acid, told the BBC.

"By then I had thrown the acid. It was her destiny to die this way."The parents waited two days to take Anusha to hospital. A doctor told AFP the teenager arrived in a "very critical condition" with almost 70 percent burns.

Almost 1,000 women bit the dust last year in so-called "honour killings" in the conservative South Asian nation, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistain. Activists say the actual number is much higher as most cases go unreported.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And they claim that they are religious people. I am pretty sure the being they worship has horns and a tail.
Posted by: remoteman || 11/06/2012 14:18 Comments || Top||

#2  The Indian culture used to practice sati.

British attitudes in their later history in India are usually given in the following much-repeated quote from General Sir Charles Napier -

"This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs." [73]
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/06/2012 15:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Feet first into the chipper. Lower speed settings please.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:42 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Indian Wardens Bang Drums to Halt Peeing in Public
[An Nahar] Volunteers in India armed with drums and whistles are to lead a crackdown on going to the toilet in public under a new scheme in the western state of Rajasthan, a report said Monday.

"We are constructing public toilets... and people will be encouraged to use them," Ramniwas Jat, head of the state's Jhunjhunu district council, told the Times of India.

"We want to raise awareness against the practice of urinating in public, which gave birth to the idea of beating drums and blowing whistles."

The Times said that volunteers, who will be paid a small wage, would embarrass people caught urinating or defecating by standing behind them and letting loose a barrage of noise.

Guilty parties would also have their names read out on public address systems.

Defecating in the open is a serious social issue in India, touching on health, hygiene, women's rights and the clash between traditional and modern lifestyles.

Women often refuse to go to the toilet outdoors during daylight hours to preserve their modesty, so they must go before dawn or wait many hours before it is dark again.

Walking barefoot where villagers defecate every day also spreads diseases such as tapeworm, and many children play close to outdoor latrine areas.

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh recently encouraged future brides to check their new family's home to ensure it had an indoor toilet before accepting any marriage proposal.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ZOOOMG, dare to dream that India has finally discovered PORTABLES???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/06/2012 1:18 Comments || Top||

#2  They should have done that at "Occupy Wall Street" protests.
Posted by: gromky || 11/06/2012 2:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Does that mean you won't in future get that curry, sweet, fecal smell as you travel around India?
Posted by: tipper || 11/06/2012 2:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Walking barefoot where villagers defecate every day also spreads diseases such as tapeworm, and many children play close to outdoor latrine areas.

In 2012, who knew ???
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 6:53 Comments || Top||

#5  A tiny cork and a hammer would work well. :p
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 9:28 Comments || Top||

#6  These are the people(?) we gave our telecom and software industries to?
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/06/2012 12:06 Comments || Top||

#7  I foresee an entire generation of pee-shy men... or, possibly, a generation that cannot pee without percussion.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/06/2012 13:47 Comments || Top||

#8  Peeing against walls in India is common...everywhere. I seriously doubt that the people doing the peeing are going to give a rats backside about some a-hole banging a drum or blowing a whistle.

Most of the pissers are jhuggi wala's (illiterate slum dwellers) anyway. India, like a freak a show 24/7, never a dull moment.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man || 11/06/2012 14:30 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Yemen Probe into Repeated Attacks on Gas Pipeline, Officials
[Yemen Post] Yemen started on Monday investigations into repeated attacks on the natural gas pipeline which was shut down October 30 after a fresh bombing, officials at the oil and minerals ministry said.

The pipeline, which carries natural gas from Block 18 in Marib to the Balhaf Liquefaction Plant in Shabwa, stopped pumping after the latest attack in area based around 22 km from the upstream facilities on Block 18. The repairs are underway and are expected to be completed in a week.

Yemen LNG, which runs the pipeline, reported about 10 attacks on the 320-km in the two provinces in 2011 and 2012.

The Sherlocks have so far held meetings with commanders and units from the military brigades in charge with protecting the pipeline on repeated attacks, the officials said, but did not give any details.

When the Yemen LNG $4.5 billion LNG project was launched in 2009, Yemen LNG signed a contract with the defense ministry on funds given to the military units protecting the pipeline.

Since mass protests erupted against the former regime in early 2011, the country's oil pipelines have also suffered repeated acts of sabotage including the Marib-Ras Isa pipeline which was shut down from October 2011 to mid-July this year.

Tribal saboteurs and Al-Qaeda bully boyz have been blamed for the attacks on the country's oil and gas pipelines that officials have said cost the country billions of USD in lost revenues.

Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


-Election 2012
Non-citizens registered to vote in Lawrence, MA but officials shrug
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Managua on the Merrimack. Massachusetts' very own third world hellhole...
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/06/2012 0:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Is there any way for a class action or omethhing similar leading thm to jail?
Posted by: JFM || 11/06/2012 4:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Non-citizen voters are indeed problematic. A non-citizen POTUS however, even more worrisome.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 7:09 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Three shot dead in Hyderabad
[Dawn] After months of sectarian and ethnic killings and incidents of targeted shootings in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
, the wave of lawlessness appears to have taken hold of Hyderabad, the second largest city of Sindh.

Two members of the non-political Dawoodi Bohra community were rubbed out on Saturday night and three men belonging to an organization of Barelvi school of thought were killed on Sunday night in the Gari Khata area.

Three others were maimed, two of them seriously.

The dear departed were identified as Shakeel, Kashif and Mustafa Kamal, the patron of Ghausia Foundation.

The injured included Maqbool, Rizwan and Imran. The seriously injured Maqbool and Rizwan are being taken to a Bloody Karachi hospital, according to doctors at Liaquat University Hospital.

Kamal and Kashif lived in Mughal Plaza and Shakeel in Resham Gali.

"Two gunnies, both wearing pant/shirt and one of them sporting a cap, sprayed us with bullets in the one-room office of Ghausia Foundation," Imran told Dawn in hospital while his condition was said to be stable.

"We hold 'mehfil-e-Ghausia' on the 17th of every lunar month in a mosque on Station Road. The mehfil was held and we were discussing it when the assailants attacked us," he said.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement
...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead...
's Cantonment sector office is located in the same former Star Light hotel which houses Ghausia Foundation's office. Initially it was taken as an attack on the MQM office.

"Both the assailants escaped. They used two weapons, one of them fitted with silencer," added Imran.

"I called police helpline soon after hearing the gunshot," said a lawyer, whose office is located on the same floor.

The Gari Khata area around the Hyder Bux Jatoi roundabout plunged into chaos. Shops and a filling station were closed. People gathered outside the building.

SSP Hyderabad Farid Jan Sarhandi, who had rushed to the spot, said: "We have picked up some people who were in the building for interrogation and have recovered a rifle." He said it was too early to comment on the nature of the attack.

Former taluka nazim
...small time big shot, the chief elected official of a local government in Pakistan, such as a district, tehsil, union council, or village council...
Jalilur Rehman was bumped off near a private hospital in the Phulelli cop shoppe area on Sunday morning.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Israel Says Army Vehicle Hit by Gunfire from Syria
[An Nahar] An Israeli military vehicle on the occupied Golan Heights was hit by gunfire from neighboring Syria on Monday, the Israeli army said.

"A military vehicle traveling in the Golan was hit by gunfire from Syria. Apparently they were stray bullets, and there were no injuries" to those aboard the vehicle, a military front man told Agence La Belle France Presse.

"The incident occurred in the central sector of the Golan Heights near the demarcation line," he said, adding that the Israeli army took no action in response.

Israel's armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said on Sunday that his country could become involved in the Syrian conflict, as fighting between regime forces and rebels raged near Israeli positions on the strategic Heights.

"This is a Syrian affair that could turn into our affair," Gantz was quoted as saying by the army's website during a visit to troops. It added that he told the soldiers to be alert, but did not elaborate further.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


-Election 2012
Barack Obama the not-so-happy warrior
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He hated attacking Romney - not his style - but he had to because of Romney's lies, now he's speaking from his loins.
Posted by: Bobby || 11/06/2012 6:06 Comments || Top||

#2  I am now adding "revenge" to my repertoire of usefull Obama words and phrases. Others on the same page include: rights, re-election, revolution, redistriction, retribution, and reparation.

Quite transparent that fellow, but certainly not in the manner he intended.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 6:29 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Netanyahu Says Israel Ready to Strike Iran 'if Necessary'
[An Nahar] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said his country is ready to strike Iran's nuclear sites "if necessary."

An Israeli TV network said Sunday that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in 2010 ordered the army to prepare an attack against Iranian nuclear installations, though the order was later rescinded.

According to private television Channel 2, the order was not implemented due to opposition from the army chief at the time, General Gabi Ashkenazi, and from then Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

At a meeting of top ministers, Netanyahu decided to order the elevation of the army's preparedness level to "P plus", a code meaning the armed forces must be ready to take action.

But Dagan opposed the move, Channel 2 reported, noting that a decision to launch a war against Iran could be taken only by the security cabinet comprising around 15 ministers.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  Doesn't spare or do the US anything good as per retaliatory TerrOps - Iran has times said any attack by Israel will be deemed the same as an attack by the US. At minima Israel's attack will be deemed by Iran as known + approved by Washington.

* See also BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Guardian.UK]ISRAEL'S "RED LINE" ON IRAN: 240-KGS, of Enriched Uranium i.e. the amount required for one Nuke/Uranium Bomb.

IIUC, Israel calculus has its timeline for Iran attack predicated on how soon Iran, at current or known rates of enrichment, can stockpile 240-kgs of EU for one Bomb, be it direct [singular purpose = NucWeaps only] or indirect [multi-use, includ for NucWeaps].

ARTIC NUTSHELL = Iff the above is correct, ISRAEL MAY UNILATERALLY ATTACK IRAN EITHER IN EARLY SPRING 2012, OR DURING SUMMER 2013.

and

* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > IRAN DENIES REPORTS OF ENRICHMENT SUSPENSION.

* FYI BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Jerusalem Post] SUNNI ISLAMISM [ + Sunni Arab identity] IS REPLACING ARAB NATIONALISM.


Turks, Persians, Kurds, ...@etc. non-Arab Sunni Muslims need not apply.

ARTIC > SUNNI = RADICAL SUNNI ISLAMISM, to includ NUCLEAR SUNNI ISLAM, by virtue of it being the majority in the Islamic World is a potens greater threat or danger to the International Community than a NUCLEAR-ARMED IRAN. SIGNIFICANT SECTARIAN RIFTS/SCHISMS WIDIN ISLAM CAN INCREASINGLY BE SEEN AS PER
> Theological differences.
> Individual Leaders, Personages.
> Organizations + Polities.
> Muslim State(s) competing or vying for Power-N-Primacy.

Once again, as I've said or inferred times before, 9-11 + GWOT = WAR FOR OWG-NWO = AS MUCH AN INTER-MUSLIM STRUGGLE FOR POWER-N-INFLUENCE/DOMINATION-N-CONTROL, ETC. AMONG ISLAMIC NATIONS AS IT IS ISLAM-VS-NON-ISLAM.

The Sunni Saudis have major, even dangerous?, rivals, + not just as per Shia Iran either.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/06/2012 1:06 Comments || Top||

#2  OOOPPPPSS, my Post#1 should read "Attack Iran either in early Spring 2013 ...", not "2012".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/06/2012 1:08 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Russian Sub Skirts Coast - Russian attack sub detected near East Coast
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Meanwhile, the officials also said that a Russian electronic intelligence-gathering vessel was granted safe harbor in the commercial port of Jacksonville, Fla., within listening range of Kings Bay.

Who's bright idea was that?
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/06/2012 0:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Why are we TALKING about this?
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/06/2012 5:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Who's bright idea was that?

A common naval courtesy in times of distress or storms. ISTR us getting miffed when the ChiComs didn't do this for one of our ships.

The interesting question is why are we talking about this NOW?
Posted by: SteveS || 11/06/2012 9:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Does that sub captain speak Russiah with a Scottish accent?
Posted by: OldSpook || 11/06/2012 12:39 Comments || Top||

#5  One ping only, Vassili.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/06/2012 12:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Ve came to your beutiful (but nikulturni) country to observe the elections.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 15:42 Comments || Top||

#7  So ... do they have any old albums from Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd ?????
Posted by: Raider || 11/06/2012 18:32 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Key ANP leader shot dead in Charsadda
[Dawn] Unidentified gunnies on Monday rubbed out a key local political leader in Pakistain's restive northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
, police officials said.

Sabiullah Khan, senior vice president of Charsadda district chapter of the Awami National Party's (ANP) -- the ruling party in the province -- was attacked in Darabo village in Shabqadar tehsil's Battagram area. One other person was also injured in the attack

Shabqadar local police official Wahid Gul confirmed that the ANP leader was dead. He said that the Khan "was going to his home village when he was rubbed out."

Arbab Tahir ANP's information secretary confirmed that death of Sabiullah. He said that he was key leader of ANP in Charsadda district and had been recently promoted to senior vice president.

The body of the dear departed was shifted to the DHQ hospital. No cut-thoat group has so far grabbed credit for the attack.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Arabia
Yemen Police Thwart Attempt to Kidnap Filipino
[Yemen Post] The Yemeni police have thwarted an attempt to kidnap a Filipino in the capital Sanaa.

Official sources said the police intercepted a car at 45th St in downtown the capital Friday and discovered the Filipino, in his 30s, was put inside the car and covered with a polestar blanket.

"The two would-be kidnapers tried to bribe the police with a lot of money and a machine gun to let them go without checking their car, but the coppers refused," the sources said.

"The car did not have a number plate. It was suspicious and later seized along with the would-be kidnappers inside it," the official said.

The Filipino, his name written like this Nar Sisco, worked for a private Yemeni company.

Several foreigners have been kidnapped in Yemen this year, most of whom by Al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons in south Yemen.

Tribesmen usually kidnap foreigners including tourists to pressure the government to meet special demands such as ransom, releasing detailed fellows or providing basic services.

Separately, Yemen said it has lost more than $200 million due to maritime piracy off the Gulf of Aden.

The statement was made at the meeting of the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) which was held in India recently.

Foreign minister, Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi, said the losses occurred fter warships of those patrolling the area to fight Somali pirates intercepted Yemeni fishing boats and because of attacks by pirates on fishing boats.

"The losses have remarkable impacts on Yemen's economy," he said, urging better cooperation among the association's members to protect the regional waterways.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Fazl Doubts Malala Attack
[An Nahar] The leader of Pakistain's largest religious political party has cast doubt on the Taliban shooting of schoolgirl activist MalalaYousufzai, saying he did not believe she was hit in the head.

The 15-year-old narrowly escaped with her life when Taliban gunnies shot her on her school bus last month for daring to campaign for the right of girls to go to school -- something the Islamist beturbanned goons bitterly oppose.

Doctors in Britannia, where she is now recovering, say the bullet from the attack grazed her brain and traveled through her head and neck before lodging in her left shoulder.

But the pro-Taliban holy man Fazlur Rehman, the head of the Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam
...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability...
Fazl (JUIF) party, the largest religious faction in Pakistain's parliament, dismissed the medical assessment.

"Pictures shown on social media have shown the whole character as suspicious because there was no sign of injury after the dressing was removed," he told a rally in northwest Pakistain on Sunday.

"It shows that the bullet did not hit her in the head."

Images released by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham showed Malala, who rose to fame in 2009 with a blog for BBC Urdu charting the brutalities of Taliban rule in Swat, showed the schoolgirl sitting up with her family, much of her head covered with a blue towel.

The cold-blooded attempt to murder the youngster shocked the world, but many in Pakistain -- where conspiracy theories on all subjects abound -- believe the incident was part of a plot to defame the Taliban and Islam.

Social media in Pakistain is full of such comments and pictures of Malala, questioning the credibility of the attack.

Malala is said to be recovering well in Britannia, but needs to fight off an infection before having reconstructive surgery to repair her skull.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami


Arabia
Workers Receive Death Threats after Yemen Seizes Arms Cargo, Site
[Yemen Post] Workers at the Aden port have been threatened to be killed and fired from their jobs after they refused to accept a bribe in return for keeping silent over the arms cargo which was seized on Saturday, Alahale website reported.

Three workers at the port received telephone calls from unknown numbers and were threatened to get shameful fate, the website quoted a statement by local sources.

"A minister from the power-sharing government has arrived in Aden and is searching for a legal document to bury the topic of the Turkish-made pistols cargo," it quoted the statement, that was posted on the Bandar Aden website.

Earlier today, a Yemeni official said the pistols were shipped inside biscuit boxes for a domestic trader with the name of Rashid Al-Badani.

Furthermore, Alahale quoted local sources as saying the cargo included more than 3000 pistols worth $120 million that were imported from a special Turkish company.

The seizure was almost the second in the past few months after the Iranian products that were shipped to the country to reassemble them and produce weapons including missiles.

Iran has been accused of providing financial, military and technical assistance to the Shiite Houthi
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is "God is Great, Death to America™", Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews" ...
Group in Saada on the border with Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  Something fishy here if the workers wouldn't accept baksheesh.
Posted by: American Delight || 11/06/2012 6:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Have our friends at TISAS begun a discreet tracking of a lost shipment? A few of their products have turned up in the Stans via PAK as I recall.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 6:39 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Voter Fraud Hotline Set Up For Election Day
Heading to the polls tomorrow? Be sure to take your camera phone. Voter integrity group True the Vote has set up an election integrity hotline for Election Day 2012 in order to help citizens document illegal activity inside and outside of polling places.

"If you want to make a difference on November 6th, True the Vote has a job for you," True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said in a statement. "Election integrity captured the American conscience with a rough cell phone video of New Black Panthers intimidating voters in Pennsylvania in 2008. Intimidation and electioneering is illegal inside and outside of polls. You have the power to be America's eyes and ears."

Citizens are encouraged to submit information to the hotline by phone (1-855-444-6100), by email (freeandfair@truethevote.org) and by video. The hashtag #watchthevote is also being used on Twitter to document cases of suspected voter fraud. After submission, True the Vote will verify and submit credible reports to the appropriate authorities. Below is a training video to help citizens document activity inside and outside of the polls.
Video is at the link.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian National Council Agrees to Expand Membership
[An Nahar] Syria's main opposition bloc, under U.S. pressure to reshape into a widely representative government-in-exile, agreed on Monday to broaden its structure to accommodate 13 other groups, a front man said.

The decision by the Syrian National Council came on the second day of a four-day meeting of opposition groups in the Qatari capital Doha aimed at forging a more united front against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
's regime.

Participants "have agreed a restructuring plan and to reduce the number of (current) members of the general secretariat to accommodate 200 new members representing 13 political groups and independents," said SNC front man Ahmad Kamel.

Kamel said the existing membership would be reduced from 313 to 220 to pave the way for the additional 200 members. The general secretariat will convene in its revamped form on Tuesday, he added.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Arabia
Saudi Arabia: Qaida Gunmen Kill 2 Border Soldiers
[An Nahar] Suspected al-Qaeda cut-throats rubbed out two Saudi soldiers in a clash Monday as they attempted to infiltrate the kingdom's borders into neighboring Yemen, the interior ministry said.

Ten Saudi cut-throats who were recently released from prison, in addition to a Yemeni, were all tossed in the clink
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
after they ambushed a border guard patrol and killed two soldiers, the ministry said.

"Security forces were able to pursue those assailants as they attempted to cross the Saudi border into Yemeni territory," the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency, adding that four gunnies were maimed in a firefight.

The ministry said the gunnies ambushed the patrol at dawn in the Sharura zone in the southwestern district of Najran.

"All those tossed in the clink
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
among the Saudi (militants) had been tossed in the clink
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
in the past over links with the deviant group," the ministry said, using a term that is usually employed to refer to al-Qaeda bad boys.

It said they were "recently released" from prison.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


Two Asians Killed, One Hurt in Bahrain Bombs
[An Nahar] A series of kabooms in the Bahraini capital Manama on Monday killed two Asian expatriates and maimed a third, police said in a statement, describing the blasts as "acts of terror."

"There were five kabooms from home-made bombs ... Monday morning" in the Gudaibiya and Adliya districts of Manama, the statement said.

The three victims were all Asian expats, it added.

An initial investigation revealed that an "improvised bomb went kaboom! when one of the dear departed men kicked" it, police said. He died at the scene.

A second victim sustained serious injuries from another blast in a separate area of the city and was pronounced dead at the hospital, the statement said.

"A third kaboom in Adliya seriously injured a man who works as a cleaner," it said.

Police gave no details of the intended targets of the blasts nor who might be responsible. They also gave no information on the remaining two blasts.

Bahrain's main Iranian catspaw Al-Wefaq condemned the attacks but cautioned that "due to the absence of independent human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
and media parties, it is difficult to clearly determine the truth behind the incidents."

In a statement, Al-Wefaq said it "refuses violence" and "condemns these incidents."

Bahraini police have been targeted in past months in what officials have described as "terrorist acts."

In October, two coppers died after sustaining serious injuries from an IED attack.

In April, an IED went kaboom! in a Shiite village on the outskirts of Manama seriously wounding two other coppers.

Sporadic protests have intensified since a March 2011 crackdown ended a month of protests in central Manama demanding democratic reforms.

According to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), 80 people have died in Bahrain since the start of the violence on February 14 last year.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


India-Pakistan
Government determined to exterminate terrorism: Kaira
[Dawn] Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira on Monday said that the government was determined to exterminate terrorism from the country.
"Exterminate" doesn't seem to have the same meaning in Pakistain it would have anywhere else. Unless you have a turban, of course.
Addressing the participants of the second South Asian Youth Conference (SAYC), he said, "We will utilize all available resources to exterminate terrorism in order to ensure durable peace and sustainable development for the mutual benefit of the region."

Around 120 delegates from SAARC countries are participating in the South Asian Youth Conference (SAYC) to discuss regional peace, education and sustainable development.

The minister said wars and conflicts breed poverty and deprivation and it is important for the regional countries to resolve the differences through dialogue and negotiations.

He said Pakistain has made unprecedented sacrifices in the pursuit of restoring peace and prosperity which has been acknowledged by the international community.

Kaira stressed the need for unified regional approach to defeat mind-set propagating terrorism and extremism.

The minister said forces of Evil would not be allowed to impose their nefarious designs through use of force.

Expressing his optimism, he said, youth of the region have potential to convert challenges into opportunities.

He said youth are the real future and urged them to play active role in putting the region on way of progress. "Youth's role is a key for regional peace and prosperity," said Kaira, adding that Pakistain and India still have some bilateral issues to resolve, but both the countries have mutual understanding on fight against poverty and illiteracy.

He said Pakistain and India had checkered relations in the past but now things were changing, as both countries have realised that hostile relations were not in their interest.

He said it was a positive sign that both the countries were cooperating with each other in various sectors.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


-Election 2012
Keep Calm and Finish Him
Feel free to use this thread for election-day discussion.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Obama Campaign Planning to Proclaim Early Victory to ‘Demoralize Romney Supporters’"

Don't panic over exit polls or networks 'calling' states. Don't get complacent either.

Just vote.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/06/2012 2:38 Comments || Top||

#2  And remember: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/06/2012 2:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Good Luck.

Whoever "wins" America is in for a rough time, obviously I'd prefer someone who has a proven record of turning around failed enterprises and cutting failure out of systems over a marxist community organiser, but the economy won't improve until the cultural damage of thinking you can vote yourself rich, or house-sit yourself rich ends.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/06/2012 5:17 Comments || Top||

#4 

Sorry, after four years of this fellow, I have no more capacity for additional political demoralization.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 6:51 Comments || Top||

#5  IIRC, CBS called it early in 2000. I was taking my kid to soccer practice and hadn't even voted yet. But I voted anyway.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/06/2012 8:53 Comments || Top||

#6  Re-arraigned my work day so that I could vote first thing and not at 6:30PM tonight.

A hundred people ahead of me in line this morning and a couple hundred behind. Pretty good turnout for 28-degrees as most of the line was outside the polling place. Waited in line about 25-minutes.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 11/06/2012 9:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Longest line I've ever had in my red district in central PA. Philly is already starting to throw out poll watchers to stuff the box. Ordered extra popcorn for tonight.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 11/06/2012 9:05 Comments || Top||

#8  2000 election ups and downs
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/06/2012 9:06 Comments || Top||

#9  Seeing a lot of Romney signs and bumper stickers in Blue and liberal Sacramento.

I estimate that nearly 40% of the cars with political bumpers carry a Romney one.

No way in hell he will win this county, but it is encouraging.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 9:26 Comments || Top||

#10  Demoralize Romney supporters? Ain't going to happen. These people are going to crawl over broken glass for a mile to vote--they are not easily demoralized. Some of these voters are WWII vets and they know what is at stake.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/06/2012 9:33 Comments || Top||

#11  Whatever the results todayvthe tea party should develop ballot measures fir every state for the 2014 elections that make it harder to cheat (voter ID for example) and very painful if caught (no voting again, ever, and maybe ten years in the pokey).

I also wouldnt mind deleting voter registration rolls and starting from scratch.
Posted by: Rjschwarz || 11/06/2012 11:10 Comments || Top||

#12  just voted. I had to wait in line for the first time ever, and there was a longer line when I left. Is this important? No, because I live in Kansas where W got 88% of the vote. Huelscamp will win and represent our rural heritage. In the primary 19 RINO republicans were beaten by conservatives and the legislature will now reflect its citizenry. There will be no more Sebelius's as governor of this state.
Thanks to our SOS Kobach you must be a registered voter and have a photo ID to participate. You also have a choice of paper or touch screen so those uncomfortable with the touch screen can cast their ballot. Now, if we can just get rid of our liberal supreme court and change the method that they are appointed we will again have a federalist state.
Posted by: bman || 11/06/2012 11:40 Comments || Top||

#13  Voted before coming to work this morning (county just outside Richmond, Va.). Got in line at 8:05 (parking was unbelievable), walked out the exit at 9:05. The line went the length of the school hallway and doubled back on itself. There were 8 voting booths. Besides President, Congressman, and Senator, we were also voting on 2 state Constitutional amendments. Everybody polite and cheerful (though I’d hate to be there at 6:45 tonight!).
Posted by: Barbara || 11/06/2012 12:28 Comments || Top||

#14  Can't get to polls until ~6 pm (if I skip dinner.) 10 1/2 hr workday plus 1 - 1 1/2 hr commute each way blocks the rest of the hours.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/06/2012 12:30 Comments || Top||

#15  Skip dinner, Glenmore!

It's just one meal for one day, as opposed to 4 years.
Posted by: Barbara || 11/06/2012 13:16 Comments || Top||

#16  @darthvader- your message warms my heart. I'm in Contra Costa and have been having a dream of the icing on tonight's cake that CA goes Red. A girl can dream right?
Posted by: warthogswife || 11/06/2012 13:17 Comments || Top||

#17  Keep dreaming, warthogswife. I'll vote in CA tonight myself. We're not all loony.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/06/2012 13:42 Comments || Top||

#18  Voted at 0715 in Eagle River, Alaska. Mainly professional people and military voting in this precinct. People were pretty quiet and behaved. They know what the stakes are.

Interesting thing: The voter roll printouts are
a-K and L-Z. LZs are 2 to 1 in numbers over AKs.There must be a problem with the accuvote machine, so the PAPER ballots go into a big hopper. We fill in the selection by inking in an oval with lots of space around it. Simple. Paper trail. It can be done.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/06/2012 14:11 Comments || Top||

#19  The popular vote doesn't decide the Presidential election but it does make a difference in the reality of DC politics.

A 'selected not elected' Obama will not be able to do as much damage as a 52% Obama. Think Supreme Court nominations!

So vote even if your state is deeply red or blue. Your vote for President will make a difference.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/06/2012 14:23 Comments || Top||

#20  Given O's record so far, whatcha been smoking Elmerert Hupens2660?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 15:48 Comments || Top||


#22  I don't smoke. I also don't have any illusions re Obama. If reelected his foreign policy will have truly nightmarish consequences.

Bush43 was politically weakened because he lost the popular vote. The Democrat's unprecedented filibuster of judicial nominees was one of the consequences of this.

My point was that Republicans (if they grew a spine) might be more likely to e.g. filibuster radical SC nominees if Obama were to lose the popular vote.

A vote for Romney will diminish Obama's political capital whatever the outcome in the EC. The Bush precedent has shown this.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/06/2012 16:27 Comments || Top||

#23  Romney Charges Reporters for Election Night Party
Mitt Romney "appears to be setting a precedent this election year in charging journalists and news organizations for any access to a presidential campaign headquarters on the night of the election," Mass Live reports.

Romney "will be holding his election night gathering at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, where access costs anywhere from $75 for a chair in the ballroom to $1,020 for permission to use the media filing center. Broadcast news organizations will be paying up to $6,500 for workspace."

"Obama's campaign party will be held at McCormick Place, in Chicago, and although his campaign is charging for premiums, credentialed reporters are granted access, which includes a workstation, electrical power and a wireless Internet connection, at no cost."
Posted by: Sherry || 11/06/2012 16:34 Comments || Top||

#24  Obama couldn't care less about all your written and (a lot more important) unwritten laws as long as he has the executive power, EH2660. If he's reelected, kiss your constitution---in particular 22 amendment ---goodby.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 16:39 Comments || Top||

#25  I share your fear g(r)om. He'll become another Robert Mugabe at his first opportunity.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 16:41 Comments || Top||

#26  Hey Besoeker, if you can't win today---you'll just have to do it the hard way. The Tree of Liberty, etc...
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/06/2012 17:07 Comments || Top||

#27  That's when you know you are going to win.

Mitt Romney walked out of his campaign jet at Pittsburgh International Airport here Tuesday afternoon and was met by an unexpected sight: hundreds upon hundreds of supporters packed into the top and middle levels of a nearby parking garage, cheering the candidate’s arrival.

A visibly moved Romney, clad in a white shirt and slacks, stepped into the late afternoon sun and walked across the tarmac to a spot near a metal fence separating him from the supporters in the garage.

Press entourage in tow, he waved to the crowd for several moments, saying nothing.

Afterward, a reporter asked Romney how the moment made him feel.

“That’s when you know you’re gonna win,” he said as he walked back across the tarmac and into an SUV that carried him off to his second stop of the day.

See the pic at the link
Posted by: Sherry || 11/06/2012 17:33 Comments || Top||

#28  Thanks Sherry. Win or lose, you had to know that sight meant a lot to Willard.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:37 Comments || Top||

#29  If Romney wins, I feel like he will be President for all of America instead of a divisive, pit-one group-against-another community organizer.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/06/2012 17:48 Comments || Top||

#30  NEWS FLASH

“Obama expected to take an early lead until Republicans get off work.”


Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:49 Comments || Top||

#31  SEX IN THE SHOWER POLL

In a recent poll commissioned by President Obama, his supporters have proven to be the most likely to have had sex in the shower.

The survey was carried out for democrats by a leading soap and toiletries firm.

The results revealed that 86% of Obama supporters said that they have had
sex in the shower.

The remaining 14% said they haven't been to prison yet.

Sort of brings tears to your eyes...



Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:51 Comments || Top||

#32  Exit polls typically show it tight, but Obama doing well.

I remember that with Kerry too and then the real results came in.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 18:05 Comments || Top||

#33  Edit

The exit polls, as typical historically, show it tight but Obama doing well.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 18:06 Comments || Top||

#34  LOL, Besoeker.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/06/2012 18:41 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Kabul Considers Action against Int'l Crisis Group over 'Bias'
[An Nahar] Afghanistan is considering action against the International Crisis Group, with officials on Monday accusing the respected think-tank of bias in its reporting on the troubled nation.

An analysis by the Brussels-based ICG last month said the Kabul government could collapse after the withdrawal of 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 in 2014, particularly if presidential elections that year are fraudulent.

Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
's senior front man Aimal Faizi hit back Monday, telling Agence La Belle France Presse: "The ICG reports and activities have been politically motivated."

"The government is now in the process of assessing the ICG's operations in the country," he added.

"It is detrimental to Afghanistan's national interests and no country will allow such activities by a foreign organization," he said, without elaborating.

President Karzai's re-election in 2009 was marred by allegations of widespread voting irregularities, while parliamentary polls a year later were also mired in controversy over fraud and vote rigging.

The ICG analysis characterized Karzai as apparently being motivated by his desire to cling to power rather than to work for his country's interests.

Foreign ministry front man Janan Mosazai also said Kabul was investigating the group.

"The Afghan government is currently doing an assessment of the ICG's work in Afghanistan, and will take an appropriate decision about its future work based on this assessment," he said.

The author of the report, the ICG's senior Afghanistan analyst, Candace Rondeaux, could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Saudi King Names Qaida Arch Foe as Interior Minister
[An Nahar] King of the Arabians, Sheikh of the Burning Sands Abdullah
... Fifth out of 37 sons of King Abdulaziz to ascend to the throne. He is, after his half-brothers Bandar and Musa'id, the third eldest of the living sons of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. Abdullah's mother is from the Rashid clan, longtime rivals of the Saud. He has 6 sons and 15 daughters and about $20 billion. His youngest son is just seven years old...
on Monday appointed as interior minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who has led a crackdown on al-Qaeda and survived a suicide kaboom claimed by the jihadists.

The monarch removed half-brother Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz from the position "upon his request," according to a royal decree published on SPA state news agency, adding that he replaced him with Prince Mohammed.

Prince Mohammed is the son of Prince Nayef, who served as the kingdom's interior minister for 37 years until he died in June, and was replaced by Prince Ahmed, who was his deputy.

The new minister, who had served as assistant minister for security affairs since 1999, has effectively led the kingdom's crackdown on al-Qaeda, following a wave of deadly attacks between 2003 and 2006.

He survived a suicide kaboom in August 2009 when a bomber managed to infiltrate the prince's security and detonated his implanted explosives next to him.

Prince Mohammed suffered only superficial injuries, but apart from the bomber, who was killed, no other serious casualties were reported.

The Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula grabbed credit for the attack.

It was the first high-profile al-Qaeda attack on the government since cut-throats rammed a car boom into the fortified interior ministry in Riyadh in 2004.

It was also the first strike on a member of the royal family since al-Qaeda launched a wave of attacks in the kingdom in 2003, targeting Western establishments and oil facilities and leaving more than 150 Saudis and foreigners dead.
Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IMO read, LOCAL SHIA SITUATION NOT LOOKING GOOD.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/06/2012 1:14 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Mexican security forces bag 6 bad guys in Piedras Negras

For a map, click here. For a map of Coahuila state, click here

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A series of running gunfights took the lives of six armed suspects in Piedras Negras, Coahuila on Sunday and Monday, according to Mexican news accounts and Twitter reports.

According to a news item posted on the website of Milenio news daily, the gunfights began at about 1100 hrs Sunday when Policia Federal (PF) operatives encountered armed suspects, killing four. The location in Piedras Negras of Sunday's encounter has not been disclosed.

Monday three separate gunfights took place within minutes of one another leaving another three armed suspects dead and two PF operatives wounded.

The first encounter took place near the intersection of calles Berrueto and Diamante in Los Espejos colony at about 1410 hrs.

Forty minutes later at 1450 hrs in Periodistas colony a second gunfight took place. Three minutes later a third encounter took place, this time leaving two armed suspects dead. One vehicle and three rifles were seized in the aftermath of the gunfight.

Piedras Negras is suffering from a severe increase of drug gang activities attributable to the prison break in late September, which sprang 129 inmates, reportedly most of them members of Los Zetas. Mexican security forces have reinforced the area in response.

At last count, of the 129 escapees, 104 remain at large.

Ciudad Acuna, another border city near Piedras Negras, was where the son of disgraced former Coahuila governor Humberto Moreira was murdered. Eduardo Moreira was murdered in October.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
Posted by: badanov || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Election 2012
Obama Ends Campaign in Half-Empty Arena
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Empty suit in a half-empty arena
Posted by: Frank G || 11/06/2012 9:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Empty man on a downward spiral.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/06/2012 9:29 Comments || Top||

#3  I wonder how many people in Long Island or along the Jersey Shore are sleeping in this morning and shooting hoops this afternoon with old buds back in the hood ?

How's that Hope & Change going down now northeasterners ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 9:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Besoeker, this Northeasterner has had little hope for 4 years now and the change has been all bad.

Living in bright blue Massaholia I'm afraid that I probably threw away my vote today when I drew the line for Romney/Ryan and Scott Brown.

There are a few of us that pray for our republic.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/06/2012 11:48 Comments || Top||

#5  At least there were lots of other empty chairs to keep him company.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/06/2012 16:50 Comments || Top||

#6  Alan: Please forgive my insensitive comment.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/06/2012 17:22 Comments || Top||

#7  Nothing to forgive Besoeker. I'm well aware of the fact that right thinking Massholes can caucus in the local Olive Garden without the need to make a reservation. We'd probably need 3 cars but that's about it.

If it wasn't for grand kids (and the grandma) I'd probably be out of here.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/06/2012 18:14 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Trial Begins for Pope Butler 'Accomplice'
[An Nahar] A Vatican computer technician accused of helping the pope's former butler leak secret memos went on trial on Monday, in a case which could expose other whistleblowers within the Holy See.

Claudio Sciarpelletti was being tried in the tiny state's 19th-century courtroom in what is expected to be a lightning trial as the Vatican rushes to wind up the embarrassing and damaging months-long scandal.

The 48-year-old is accused of aiding and abetting ex-butler Paolo Gabriele, who was sentenced to 18 months in jail last month after he admitted leaking papers alleging corruption and Machiavellian politics in the Vatican.
"The butler's accomplice did it!"
"Inspector! How do you do it?"

Posted by: Fred || 11/06/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
29[untagged]
4Arab Spring
3Govt of Iran
3Govt of Syria
2al-Qaeda in Arabia
2Lashkar-e-Islami
2Govt of Pakistan
1Govt of Sudan
1TTP
1Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami
1al-Shabaab
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1al-Qaeda in Iraq
1Commies

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

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

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2012-11-06
  Suicide bomber kills at least 27 by army base near Baghdad
Mon 2012-11-05
  Grenade attack on Kenya church kills 1, wounds 14
Sun 2012-11-04
  Two Suicide Bombers Attack Restaurant in Somali Capital
Sat 2012-11-03
  30 people shot dead in Nigeria, rights group says
Fri 2012-11-02
  US withdraws its support for Syrian National Council
Thu 2012-11-01
  Armed Islamists on Tunis streets after clashes
Wed 2012-10-31
  18 militants killed in Khyber, Orakzai
Tue 2012-10-30
  Israel Hit by 18 Rockets as Hamas Seeks Revenge
Mon 2012-10-29
  52 Dead in Syria Clashes, Air Raids after Eid Truce Collapses
Sun 2012-10-28
  Almost 150 Killed on First Day of Syria Truce
Sat 2012-10-27
  Indonesia foils plot to attack US missions
Fri 2012-10-26
  Afghanistan mosque suicide bomb attack kills at least 41
Thu 2012-10-25
  Israel says 79 rockets fired at it from Gaza
Wed 2012-10-24
  Libya fighters seize Bani Walid
Tue 2012-10-23
  Foreign jihadists pour into northern Mali

Better than the average link...



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