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Govt. Soldiers shoot it out in Mogadishu
Today's Headlines
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Home Front: Politix
Kerry, John Kerry: Defense Secretary
Posted by: tipper || 11/12/2012 21:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Obama appears to want to purposely disrespect armed forces and veterans of America. True leftist Marxist move.
Posted by: Airandee || 11/12/2012 21:38 Comments || Top||

#2  The first thing they ask you at the SecDef interview is "Do you have a hat?"
Posted by: SteveS || 11/12/2012 23:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Just ask him about his discharge from the Navy. I doubt it was an honorable discharge.

Something about protesting against the government, conducting negotiations with the enemy as a civilian, a few other things like that.

John F'n Kerry has never released his service records. I suspect the discharge issue is why.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 11/12/2012 23:22 Comments || Top||

#4  I thought he wanted State?
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/12/2012 23:28 Comments || Top||

#5  After what he testified about the military back then - they want to make him Defense Secretary?

What kind of respect would he get?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/12/2012 23:44 Comments || Top||

#6  I think he would be better at the CIA. He already has a hat that makes him invisible.

God knows he is invisible in the Senate. In 30+ years his major accomplishments were to fund an oceanography lab and declare one month "National Lobster Roll Month."
Posted by: Frozen Al || 11/12/2012 23:53 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
A missing McAfee guru, murder, bath salts and a drug lab in Belize
AS BELIZE police search for computer antivirus pioneer John McAfee, details have emerged about the accused murderer's bizarre life of dodgy business deals, drug arrests and remote jungle dwellings.

The 67-year-old entrepreneur has been named the prime suspect in the brutal murder of US expatriate Gregory Faull.

Faull was killed at his home in Amergris Caye at the weekend. Police say Faull and McAfee had previously disagreed about McAfee's behaviour, guns and dogs.

The head of Belize's anti-gang task force told media McAfee was a prime suspect. No motive has yet been established, but police in Belize, central America, say they are following several leads.

Police said Faull was found by a maid who had arrived to clean his house early Saturday morning. He was lying face-up in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to his head.

News reports in the US reveal the bizarre and erratic tale of McAfee's life since he was pushed out of the company of his namesake, which sold for $7.7 billion two years ago.

His McAfee security software was designed to neutralise computer viruses in the 1980s. He let people download it for free, but charged corporate clients a licensing fee.
Posted by: tipper || 11/12/2012 20:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
Media Discovers Methane Hydrate as a Fuel
A half mile below the ground at Prudhoe Bay, above the vast oil field that helped trigger construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, a drill rig has tapped what might one day be the next big energy source.

The U.S. Department of Energy and industry partners over two winters drilled into a reservoir of methane hydrate, which looks like ice but burns like a candle if a match warms its molecules. There is little need now for methane, the main ingredient of natural gas. With the boom in production from hydraulic fracturing, the United States is awash in natural gas for the near future and is considering exporting it, but the DOE wants to be ready with methane if there's a need.
There's tons of the stuff on the ocean floor, why make it complicated to recover? Oh, ask the DOE!
The author mis-wrote the sentence: "the DOE wants to be ready to STOP with methane." There, that fixed it.
"If you wait until you need it, and then you have 20 years of research to do, that's not a good plan," said Ray Boswell, technology manager for methane hydrates within the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory.
20 years of research and 20 more years of court battles with the environmentalists...
Most deposits are below the sea floor off the continental shelf or under permafrost. Shallow pockets of methane hydrate release the potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and that process is exacerbated by climate warming.

Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity said research money should be poured into renewable resources, not more fossil fuel sources. Methane is 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2, though not as long-lived.
Maybe the WaPo likes methane hydrate, 'cuz it's "new".
Posted by: Bobby || 11/12/2012 15:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. In my uninformed opinion, if these clathrates 'melt' and release that methane we might actually match the temperature rise that has been postulated for 'global warming'. I would suspect that such releases have happened before - perhaps due to solar patterns, perhaps due to worldwide bolide-ignited fires, perhaps due to plate tectonics. The gerbil wormists MIGHT actually be right, if we are so close to a 'tipping point' that anthropogenic CO2 emmissions are enough to initiate methane hydrate melting, and starting that feedback loop. So, to defend our climate, we must quickly extract all the methane hydrate and convert it to the less damaging gas, CO2.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/12/2012 16:33 Comments || Top||

#2  We should save some of the clathrates for when the next Ice Age starts. Winter is coming.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/12/2012 17:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Methane hydrate was a subplot for the remake of Dallas. It was a stupid subplot but so were many of the other subplots.
Posted by: lord garth || 11/12/2012 20:17 Comments || Top||


Africa North
'Destroy the idols,' Egyptian jihadist calls for removal of Sphinx, Pyramids
An Egyptian jihad leader, with self-professed links to the Taliban, called for the "destruction of the Sphinx and the Giza Pyramids in Egypt," drawing ties between the Egyptian relics and Buddha statues, local media reported this week.
Brilliant. As Instapundit, channeling our periwinkle moderator, notes, "You import half your calories. Your biggest source of foreign exchange is tourism. So what do you do?"
Murgan Salem al-Gohary, an Islamist leader twice-sentenced under former President Hosni Mubarak for advocating violence, called on Muslims to remove such "idols."

"All Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove such idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues," he said on Saturday during a television interview on an Egyptian private channel, widely watched by Egyptian and Arab audiences.

"God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols," he added. "When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do."
So he's the one! We can hang him for that too...
But in retaliation to Gohary's remarks, the vice president of Tunisia's Ennahda party, Sheikh Abdel Fattah Moro, called the live program and told Gohary that famous historic military commander Amr ibn al-Aas did not destroy statues when he conquered Egypt.
Only because they didn't have dynamite in those days...
"So who are you to do it?" he wondered. "The Prophet destroyed the idols because people worshiped them, but the Sphinx and the Pyramids are not worshiped."

Gohary, 50, is well-known in Egypt for his advocacy of violence, Egypt Independent reported.
So he's especially pious...
"He was sentenced twice, one of the two sentences being life imprisonment.
Worked well...
He subsequently fled Egypt to Afghanistan, where he was badly injured in the American invasion. In 2007, he traveled from Pakistan to Syria, which then handed him over to Egypt. After Mubarak's fall in early 2011, he was released from prison by a judicial ruling," the newspaper added.
Next time just shoot him...
In recent months, fears have surfaced that the ultra-conservative Salafi political powers may soon wish to debate new guidelines over Egyptian antiquities.

Islamists have swept the recent presidential and parliamentary elections in the country's post-revolutionary stage, with the Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra-conservative Salafi Islamists rising to political power.

"The fundamental Salafis have demanded to cover Pharaonic statues, because they regard them to be idols," Egyptian author on ancient history Ahmed Osman told Al Arabiya English, explaining that Salafi Muslims follow conservative religious principles which view statues and sculptures as prohibited in Islam.

"But so far the government has done nothing to indicate what is the future of Egyptian antiquities," adds Osman.
Posted by: || 11/12/2012 14:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hope the curators of the National Gallery in London have an escape plan for the day.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 11/12/2012 15:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Don't worry - I'm sure the White House will have a plan to involve special forces in rescuing those cultural treasures.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 15:30 Comments || Top||

#3  They will probably get a nuke from Iran and put it down in the lower chamber of each pyramid, then kaboom. Collateral damage, rough on Cairo, but the deed will be done.

Winds are now 340 at 5 mph. Should dust the Nile. What a bunch of idgits.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/12/2012 15:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Only the purist in Islam would be able to cover it in wax. Anything less would give paradise mo a kidney stone and bring great shame and skinny goats upon their family.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 16:17 Comments || Top||

#5  After they get rid of triangular shaped buildings, they will start on rectangular ones.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/12/2012 16:24 Comments || Top||

#6  We could take some of that foreign aid money and nuke 'em ourselves. It's just the kind of helpful people we are.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/12/2012 16:59 Comments || Top||

#7  I think they should take out the godless Soviet built Aswan Dam first. That idol is a total assault by communism on Mo's holy deserts!
Posted by: Water Modem || 11/12/2012 17:25 Comments || Top||

#8  Buried with a donkey
He's my favorite honky
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/12/2012 19:34 Comments || Top||

#9  Buried with a Donkey? Guess he was honest.
Posted by: Charles || 11/12/2012 20:15 Comments || Top||

#10  Let's hear it for that Arab Spring!
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/12/2012 22:35 Comments || Top||


Economy
900 Jobs lost and 23 campuses closed
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 14:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "declining enrollment", I wonder if other educational systems are in a similar decline.
I know of a few in my area that have had to quit college.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 18:13 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israeli tanks 'hit Syrian units' in Golan
Israel's military says its tanks have scored "direct hits" on Syrian artillery units
Israeli tanks usually do hit what they shoot at...
after Syrian mortar shells fell near an Israeli army post.

It comes a day after Israel fired warning shots after it said a Syrian shell hit another of its army posts on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The episode is the most serious between the two countries since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "We are closely monitoring what is happening and will respond appropriately.

"We will not allow our borders to be violated or our citizens to be fired upon."

It was not clear if the tank-fire caused any casualties, Israeli Army Radio reported. "The Assad army asked Israel to stop firing," it added.
"Please don't let them kill us!"
Posted by: tipper || 11/12/2012 11:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If Israel had just complied with Obummer's request directive to roll back Israeli borders to pre-1967 borders they just wouldn't have to worry about shelling the Golan Heights when fired upon (sarc on). As the saying goes "With friends like this, who needs enemies?"
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:07 Comments || Top||

#2  A solidarity message from SKor amb to Israeli on Israeli evening news.
Posted by: Water Modem || 11/12/2012 17:26 Comments || Top||

#3  We see the difference between "Inshallah" targeting
and "Control-Alt-Smite" targeting.
Posted by: Grunter || 11/12/2012 22:56 Comments || Top||

#4  "Ensalada snackbar!"

Kablooey!

"oooofff, my croutons?!"
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 23:08 Comments || Top||


Abbas ‘No’ Puts Obama in His Place
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas threw cold water on President Barack Obama’s election victory, answering the president with a direct “no” after Obama told him his administration is opposed to the PA’s unilateral move for recognition by the United Nations General Assembly.

Abbas’ blunt “no” underscored the new Middle East reality, where the PA chief feels he can snub the United States and bank on international opposition to the State of Israel’s position for defensible borders, said analysts.

"There was a long telephone conversation between president Mahmud Abbas and Barack Obama," the Palestinian leader's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP. "Obama expressed the opposition of the United States to the decision to go to the UN General Assembly."

Abbas, who immediately launched a diplomatic war against Israel after taking over for Yasser Arafat following is death, turned Israel into the villain.

“Abbas cited the reasons and motives for the Palestinian decision to seek non-member statehood as continued Israeli settlement activity and Israeli aggression against citizens and property," Abu Rudeina said.

The White House later issued a conciliatory statement, stating that the president "reiterated the United States' opposition to unilateral efforts at the United Nations" in the call to Abbas and "reaffirmed his commitment to Middle East peace and his strong support for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with the objective of two states living side by side in peace and security.”

Abbas has stated that winning Non-Member Observer status from the United Nations, based on the PA’s own territorial and political demands, will pave the wavy for “negotiations,” meaning Israel’s acceptance of his terms.

Abbas’ “no” reflects a clear and single-minded path he has carefully paved since he took over from Arafat, wearing a suit and tie inside of donning Arafat’s kefiyah and pistol, and slowing whittling away at previously accepted commitments through semantics or political twists and turns.

He has publicly condemned terror when talking to English-speaking leaders while officiating at PA ceremonies praising suicide bombers.

Having gained Obama’s support that the term “illegal settlements” means all places in Judea, Samaria and areas of Jerusalem where Jews ive and which are claimed by the Palestinian Authority, he has been able to argue logically that if that is the case, Israel has no right to build in those areas and therefore must commit to a withdrawal before sitting down for direct talks.
Posted by: Sherry || 11/12/2012 11:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Update
Palestinian UN observer state bid on 29 November
Posted by: tipper || 11/12/2012 21:24 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Holder Knew: Petraeus & Broadwell Interviewed by FBI
Lots more details coming out --
A social planner's complaints about email stalking launched the months long criminal inquiry that led to a woman romantically linked to former Gen. David Petraeus and to his abrupt resignation Friday as Central Intelligence Agency chief.

The emails began arriving in Jill Kelley's inbox in May, U.S. officials familiar with the probe said. Ms. Kelley, who helped organize social events at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., told the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the emails, which she viewed as harassing, the U.S. officials said.

That FBI investigation into who sent the emails led over a period of months to Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus's biographer, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, according to the U.S. officials.

FBI agents were pursuing what they thought was a potential cybercrime, or a breach of classified information. Instead, the trail led to what officials said were sexually explicit emails between two lovers, from an account Mr. Petraeus used a pseudonym to establish, and to the destruction of Mr. Petraeus's painstakingly crafted image as a storied Army general.

Mr. Petraeus admitted to an affair in a letter to CIA employees announcing his resignation.

In the aftermath of the investigation, some lawmakers are aiming criticism at the FBI and the Obama administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder, who knew about the email link to Mr. Petraeus as far back as late summer. A House Republican leader also learned of the matter in October. Some argue that Mr. Petraeus shouldn't have resigned; others said that the FBI should have formally notified Congress earlier.
Correct. Petraeus was compromised. How thorough has Ms. Broadwell been investigated? Could this have been the classic honey-trap?
The top Senate Democrat on intelligence issues said Sunday she would investigate the FBI's handling of the inquiry, and why the matter wasn't shared earlier with Congress.

That Mr. Petraeus was having an affair wasn't the point of the FBI probe, according to the U.S. officials briefed on the matter.

The FBI investigation began with five to 10 emails beginning around May and received by Ms. Kelley, according to U.S. officials. Ms. Kelley didn't know who sent the emails. Some appeared to be accusing her of an inappropriate relationship but didn't name Mr. Petraeus. Agents determined the emails were sent from an account shared by Ms. Broadwell and her husband, who live in North Carolina, the officials said.

But the agents spent weeks piecing together who may have sent them. They used metadata footprints left by the emails to determine what locations they were sent from. They matched the places, including hotels, where Ms. Broadwell was during the times the emails were sent.

FBI agents and federal prosecutors used the information as probable cause to seek a warrant to monitor Ms. Broadwell's email accounts.

They learned that Ms. Broadwell and Mr. Petraeus had set up private Gmail accounts to use for their communications, which included explicit details of a sexual nature, according to U.S. officials. But because Mr. Petraeus used a pseudonym,
"David Smith?..."
agents doing the monitoring didn't immediately uncover that he was the one communicating with Ms. Broadwell.

By late summer, after the monitoring of Ms. Broadwell's emails uncovered the link to Mr. Petraeus, prosecutors and agents alerted senior officials at FBI and the Justice Department, including Mr. Holder, U.S. officials say. The investigators never monitored Mr. Petraeus's email accounts, the officials say.
By 'late summer' that would be September. When did Holder tell Champ? And don't say he didn't, because I won't believe it. He had an obligation to tell the President.
In September, prosecutors and agents began a legal analysis to determine whether there were any charges that could be brought. Among the discussions: whether to interview Ms. Broadwell, who was the focus of the criminal probe, and Mr. Petraeus.

Top officials signed off on the interviews, which occurred in late September and October, just before the U.S. presidential election. During Ms. Broadwell's first interview in September, she admitted to the affair and turned over her computer, the officials said.

On her computer, investigators found classified documents, the U.S. officials said, a discovery that raised new concerns.
As I asked earlier, was this a honey-trap? Who was controlling Ms. Broadwell?
At Mr. Petraeus's interview in the week before the election, he also admitted the affair and said he hadn't provided the classified documents to Ms. Broadwell. Agents conducted a second interview with Ms. Broadwell on Nov. 2. She also said Mr. Petraeus wasn't the source of the documents.
Did she say who was? Did the reporter ask his source? What kind of reporting is this?
That information helped resolve concerns that there was a national-security breach, although the source of the documents hadn't been determined. The officials offered no specifics about what was in the documents.

Despite efforts at FBI and the Justice Department to keep the investigation closely held, word of it leaked to a small number of lawmakers. Rep. David Reichert (R., Wash.) received a tip from an FBI employee that there was a national-security issue related to Mr. Petraeus, according to an aide. He forwarded the information to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.), who alerted the FBI in October.

"I was contacted by an FBI employee [who was] concerned that sensitive, classified information may have been compromised and made certain Director [Robert] Mueller was aware of these serious allegations and the potential risk to our national security," Mr. Cantor said in a statement, which was reported by the New York Times on Sunday after the election.

FBI and Justice Department officials reassessed their investigation over the next several days and determined there wasn't sufficient cause to bring charges. They advised the Director of National Intelligence of their findings at about 5 p.m. Tuesday, Election Day.
Oh how convenient...
Shawn Turner, a spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, said Mr. Clapper spoke with Mr. Petraeus that evening and the following day after the election was over and urged him to step down.

"Speaking as a friend, colleague and fellow general officer, Gen. Clapper urged Gen. Petraeus to step down," Mr. Turner said. Mr. Clapper is a retired Air Force lieutenant general, and Mr. Petraeus retired from the Army as a four-star general before assuming the helm at CIA.

Mr. Clapper informed the White House on Wednesday that Mr. Petraeus was considering resigning, Mr. Turner said.

Mr. Obama learned of the affair Thursday morning
Which Thursday? After the election? I don't believe it. He had to know back in September when Holder was told.
and met that day with Mr. Petraeus, who offered his resignation. Mr. Obama didn't immediately accept it and took a day to consider it.

An extramarital affair doesn't necessarily disqualify an official from serving as director of the CIA, and there are employees at the agency who have engaged in extramarital affairs without being forced to leave the agency.

Mr. Petraeus believed he should resign because the CIA would have viewed a lower-level employee engaged in an affair to be improper and that the director should set an example by publicly accepting responsibility, according to a person familiar with the events.

The affair ended more than four months ago, though Mr. Petraeus continued to advise Ms. Broadwell on her research into innovation in the 101st Airborne Division in Northern Iraq in 2003, which then- Maj. Gen. Petraeus commanded.

On Friday afternoon, as word began to leak out that Mr. Petraeus might be leaving his post, a shocked Ms. Feinstein, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, called Mr. Petraeus to ask what was going on, and questioned whether it was necessary to step down.
You see the pattern here: Democrats simply don't understand how compromised the General was...
She said Sunday in the "Fox News Sunday" interview that, given all the details of the affair, she now believes Mr. Petraeus was right to resign.

U.S. spy agencies are required to inform leaders of the intelligence committees of "significant intelligence activities," and the affair represented the potential for a security compromise, a congressional aide said.

However, U.S. officials briefed on the matter said the probe was closely held among officials at the FBI and Justice under a long-standing policy not to divulge information on continuing criminal investigations.

The disclosure policy was reinforced in a 2007 memorandum by Michael Mukasey, who was then attorney general under President George W. Bush. The memorandum, issued in the wake of the scandal over the firings of U.S. attorneys, sought to remind department employees that contacts with the White House and Congress about pending criminal matters were off limits.
But this wasn't just a pending criminal matter, it was an intel matter, because having your CIA chief compromised is serious intel.
On Sunday, U.S. intelligence officials said their briefing of intelligence committee members on Friday was appropriate. "We have a statutory requirement to keep Congress fully informed," a senior intelligence official said. "We notified Congress of the situation."
After the election.
The timing of events near the election has raised suspicions among some lawmakers that the administration was seeking to hide embarrassing news before the presidential balloting took place.

"The FBI has a lot of explaining to do, and so does the White House," said Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "I have a hard time accepting most of the story we've heard so far. It doesn't add up."
Posted by: Sherry || 11/12/2012 10:50 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So this curvaceous 37 year old surgeon's wife and MacDill socialite complains about harassing e-mails and the FBI jumps into action? Hmmm.
Posted by: Creresing Barnsmell5798 || 11/12/2012 14:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Shawn Turner, a spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, said Mr. Clapper spoke with Mr. Petraeus that evening and the following day after the election was over and urged him to step down.

Rommel was offered poison...
Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 15:36 Comments || Top||

#3  But he only got 15 minutes.
Posted by: Creresing Barnsmell5798 || 11/12/2012 15:48 Comments || Top||

#4  I imagine having to drive home to brief Mrs. Petraeus to what what the "Little General" had been up to with a buff 40yo was no fun ride the General.
Early, in our relatively long marriage, Mrs Capsu78 told me that if I ever felt the need to cheat on her, don't feel the need to "confess the deed" to her... She would already know it and I would feel the Lodge # 10 cast iron frying pan before I ever saw it...
Posted by: Capsu78 || 11/12/2012 15:59 Comments || Top||

#5  So this curvaceous 37 year old surgeon's wife and MacDill socialite complains about harassing e-mails and the FBI jumps into action? Hmmm.

Yeah. Harassing emails from someone she didn't know which didn't name anyone she knew or threaten any violence. So she called the FBI's spam hotline, activating the Spam Rapid-Reaction Force, which took 3-4 months to make the connection to Petraeus? Doesn't add up.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/12/2012 17:33 Comments || Top||

#6  That's just one of many, many things about this that don't add up.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/12/2012 17:42 Comments || Top||

#7  So "keep off my man" is harassing enough to have your email snooped by the FBI? Wow.

I think we're fed loads of crap here.
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/12/2012 17:51 Comments || Top||

#8  There is always a worry that the CIA might be susceptible to blackmail and so the FBI vets him thoroughly before he is confirmed to Director of the CIA? He is given a poly by the CIA and none of this affair comes up at that time?

I'm thinking the only blackmailing going on with Petraeus is by this administration--threats of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, busting him down in rank, messing with his pension, messing with his family, possible prosecution as a civilian--a general screwing over--no pun intended. He was most likely told to STFU before the election or else. Call me conspiratorial but this whole thing smells.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 18:09 Comments || Top||

#9  this thing does SMELL. and the odor is foul.

I wonder how we will attract a new generation of fine young people to serve in the CIA and FBI with all this cr** going on???
Posted by: Raider || 11/12/2012 18:24 Comments || Top||

#10  I wonder how we will get good men and women to serve in our military or Ambassadorships when calls go out for help and no one responds. When Seals are threatened with prosecution over consulting for some video game, it is likely they are going to think this is very chicken shit.

Obama misspoke the other day in one of his speeches while campaigning. He said to the audience: "You've got my back." What he meant to say was I got your backs or I'm backing you. Somehow I think the actual quote (misspeak) said is the truth--I'm turning my backs on you.

I heard a Marine speak on some talk radio show a day or so ago about Obama's trip to Afghanistan. He said it was really strange. O did not eat with the troops, he was aloof and stand-offish, didn't mingle with the troops. I remember seeing that on TV thinking at the time it seemed strange. He stood in front of a military vehicle in a hangar and no one was around him; he appeared to be all by himself--probably just another staged photo op, one of the many for political purposes.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 18:52 Comments || Top||

#11  The coverup would be more believable if these people had their stories straight.
Posted by: Lonzo Trotsky7304 || 11/12/2012 19:00 Comments || Top||

#12  According to Michael Yon there were rumours about an affair when Petraeus was still in Afghanistan.

Is it really plausible that the FBI didn't find out about the affair during Petraeus' pre CIA background check?

My theory: The administration knew about this before the appointment and Mr & Mrs Petraeus knew that they knew. Mrs Petraeus silence was bought with a cozy government sinecure job.

The firing/resignation is about Benghazi where something big went very wrong.
Who knows, maybe one of the secret prisoners held by the CIA was Bin Laden himself...
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/12/2012 19:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Another issue: If Petraeus lied during the FBI's background check would that not be a criminal offence per se?

This issue not being raised strengthens the hypothesis that the General's affair(s) has been known to all parties. The scandal is about something else.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/12/2012 19:08 Comments || Top||

#14  The fact that so little is being said by this administration about Benghazi and there is so much disinformation and cover-up leads one to believe that there is much, much,much, more. I think Petraeus was used by this administration (it's not clear in what way yet) and tossed. There is too much going on to go away. The less the information and truth that is forthcoming, the greater the interest.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 20:12 Comments || Top||

#15  I think one of two things. This affair situation will either pull Benghazi back into spotlight and the WH admin will get very uncomfortable (& hopefully enough congresscritters get pissed as being in the dark to go for the throat) or, this thing will get so convoluted that the avg moron Obama voter won't be able to follow it and will tune it out and tune back in to Dancing w/the stars. I think the latter is the more probably outcome.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 11/12/2012 20:22 Comments || Top||

#16  Will tune it out, Broadhead6?

The ones I know already have. La la la la ..... I can't HEAR you .....
Posted by: lotp || 11/12/2012 20:49 Comments || Top||


Britain
Radical cleric, alleged terror fund-raiser Abu Qatada wins deportation battle
Radical cleric Abu Qatada has won a legal battle that means he will not be deported from the United Kingdom to Jordan, the latest round in a long-running battle over British efforts to deport the man accused of funding terrorist groups and said to have inspired one of the 9/11 hijackers.

The British government says Abu Qatada raised money for terrorist groups, including organizations linked to former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and has publicly supported the violent activities of those groups.

Videos of his preaching were found in a German apartment used by some of those involved in the 9/11 attacks on the United States, including ringleader Mohammed Atta.

Abu Qatada has denied the allegations against him.

Also known as Omar Othman, Abu Qatada arrived in the United Kingdom in 1993 and applied for asylum on the grounds that he had been tortured by Jordanian authorities. He came to Britain on a forged United Arab Emirates passport, according to court documents, and claimed asylum for himself, his wife and their three children.

Britain has been trying to deport Abu Qatada for years, but his legal appeals have kept him in the United Kingdom.

In January, the European Court of Human Rights blocked Britain from sending him to Jordan because of fears that evidence obtained by torture could be used against him at the trial planned by the Middle Eastern country.

Britain then launched a round of negotiations with Jordan in order to deal with the court's concerns and arrested Abu Qatada again on April 17.

"The government strongly disagrees with this ruling. We have obtained assurances not just in relation to the treatment of Qatada himself, but about the quality of the legal processes that would be followed throughout his trial," a Home Office spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the government would appeal today's ruling.
Posted by: tipper || 11/12/2012 10:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They need to pick a nice abandoned oil platform in the North Sea as an "administrative housing area" for gents like this guy...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/12/2012 10:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Piper Alpha would be perfect.... M Murcek.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/12/2012 13:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Or maybe a nice Texas tower.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/12/2012 14:30 Comments || Top||

#4  They need to pick a nice abandoned oil platform in the North Sea as an "administrative housing area" for gents like this guy...

Finally! A use for Sealand!
Posted by: Steve White || 11/12/2012 14:39 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Did Petraeus' mistress leak sensitive information on Facebook?
The coterie of officers and advisers surrounding Gen. David Petraeus had become suspicious of the woman, now known to have been his mistress, due to her playful Facebook status updates they claim disclosed sensitive details of military operations in Afghanistan.

Paula Broadwell, the woman who penned the military chief's biography and ultimately began a romantic relationship with the married 60-year-old, became a cause of concern back in 2009 when those in Petraeus' inner circle saw her lighthearted postings on the social networking website.

Though Broadwell was a West Point graduate and had served in Army intelligence, officers, unaware at the time of the extramarital liaison, thought she should have used better judgement and now see her inappropriate behavior in a new light - in the wake of the former CIA Director's fall from grace.
Though hindsight is always 20/20, former Petraeus aides told the Washington Post that Broadwell's behavior at the time seemed odd and her closeness to the notoriously straight-laced family man was not without controversy.

Without any specific examples of her Facebook postings, aides said they were stunned that Broadwell was so free to describe her daily movements in Afghanistan on the networking site, so her friends back home could chronicle her adventures.
This issue has gotten bigger than just a CIA director having an affair. One former CIA guy claims that other directors have had affairs without all the attention. This is tied into BenghaziGate and the cover-up. A report this a.m. said the FBI knew of the affair as early as last summer. The WH and DOJ must have known this and chose to keep it quiet prior to the election. This can of worms needs to be opened to the light of day. Supposedly, the government answers to people of this country. I would imagine that foreign intelligence agencies know more about these events than the American people.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 09:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I know nothing of the ends of outs of our spook agencies, but I do hope that it must be next to impossible for the FBI to be digging into the CIA Director's personal email, and no one, in the CIA, Justice Department or WH knew it?

I just find that totally unbelievable -- sure there is always competition between the two agencies, but there are probably also professional friendships, that reach across the agencies and something like this would have been shared.

Seemingly, Rep Canton knew a couple of weeks before the announcement.

Not buying that in this administration, "I know nothn'"

If true no one knew the FBI was spying on the Director of CIA -- someone needs to be canned, and it's not just the General....
Posted by: Sherry || 11/12/2012 10:13 Comments || Top||

#2  I would figure that, er, monitoring of the CIA director by the FBI would be a long-standing practice. A Hooverism, as it were.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 10:52 Comments || Top||

#3  "Though Broadwell was a West Point graduate and had served in Army intelligence"

If that's true - then all these news reports are focusing on the wrong person. Forget Petraeus. this lady should have known better. MUCH better.
Posted by: Raider || 11/12/2012 11:21 Comments || Top||

#4  So Nike knew more about Tiger than the gov knew about Petraeus? That is the claim?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 12:08 Comments || Top||

#5  THERE YA GO ...

Petraeus quits and becomes the new promoter for Tiger Woods. This has got "success" written all over it :-)
Posted by: Raider || 11/12/2012 13:52 Comments || Top||

#6  So long as it is a green business. Although in this case Tiger might get a waiver.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:09 Comments || Top||

#7  HT: Breitbart:

"They had to have known and for them to say they were intercepting e-mails and reading the CIA Director emails and not reporting that to the White House is bull... what the DNI should have done should have done is call him and say 'What is this? What is this? What is going on here?' instead of waiting... They are not telling the truth. They get pants on fire award. The White House is not telling the truth. It is politically engineered by all of you would not be reading the doing the investigation in the diameter of the justice without informing the white house. They are lying." - Gary Bernsten, Former CIA Operative

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/11/12/Former-CIA-Officer-The-White-House-Had-To-Have-Known
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 11/12/2012 18:38 Comments || Top||

#8  Paula Broadwell's Father: 'This Is About Something Else Entirely, And The Truth Will Come Out'

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/paula-broadwell-father-paul-krantz-2012-11#ixzz2C3T9zno9
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 11/12/2012 18:42 Comments || Top||

#9  These 'aides' would have been interviewed by the FBI during Petraeus' background check.

Is it really plausible that aides would not have mentioned this 'odd' behaviour, especially as it was security related?

Is it plausible that the FBI would not have had a closer look at the oddly behaving person in Petraeus' entourage?

Could the FBI really have failed to notice this affair?
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/12/2012 19:26 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Saudi financing of anti mullah activities
long article from Tablet - an extract below
Extensive reporting from local sources in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states reveals that several countries surrounding Iran are beginning to back the country's ethnic dissidents as a way of waging a proxy war against the mullahs. In Saudi Arabia, media and clerical elites recently mobilized to raise public awareness about the situation of Ahwazi Arabs, frame their cause as a national liberation struggle, and urge Arabs and Muslims to support them. Saudi donors are providing money and technological support to Ahwazi dissidents seeking to wage their own public information campaign, calling on Ahwazis to rise up against their rulers. The Saudi initiatives, in turn, join ongoing ventures by Azerbaijan and Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government to organize and train other dissident groups.
Posted by: lord garth || 11/12/2012 08:09 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
Afghan soldier kills ISAF trooper in Helmand
Today's attack took place in the Nad Ali district in Helmand, Afghan provincial and military officials told TOLONews. The Afghan soldier "opened fire during a verbal clash," the news agency reported. The British troops returned fire and wounded the Afghan soldier.

The International Security Assistance Force confirmed the attack but would not release the nationality of the soldier who was killed.

"An International Security Assistance Force service member died when an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against ISAF service members in southern Afghanistan today," the ISAF press release stated. "The incident is currently under investigation. It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities."

The insider attack in Helmand is the second of its kind in the past two days. Yesterday, two Afghan soldiers opened fire on Spanish troops belonging to the Badghis Provincial Reconstruction Team. One Spanish soldier was wounded in the attack, and the two Afghan soldiers were detained. The Taliban have not taken credit for the Badghis attack, but did mention the incident on their propaganda website, Voice of Jihad.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 07:22 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is there any chance that US Republicans finally abandon the Bush-Obama consensus and put this deadly exercise in masochism called ISAF/"Enduring Freedom" out of its misery?

This is going to end in a humiliating defeat for the West anyway. If it ends sooner Obama will own it and Western troops' lives will be saved.

Romney stayed within the confines of the consensus and he lost.

Don't accept Obama's deadly ROE!
Demand change and refuse funding for this deadly mistake if Obama balks!

No one deserves to die for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan be they British, American, Aussie, German etc!
</rant>
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/12/2012 18:50 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egypt arrests a number of wanted jihadists in Sinai
Over the past few days, Egyptian authorities have reportedly arrested a number of wanted jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula.

On Wednesday, Egyptian authorities arrested three jihadists, one of whom was reportedly in the possession of an Egyptian military uniform, according to Ma'an News Agency. On Friday, Egyptian officials announced that "a well-known leader in a Jihadist organization," Mohammad Abdullah Abed al Rahman, was arrested on Wednesday. It is unclear if his arrest occurred during a separate raid.

On Thursday, Ahmed Allam el Hefny, a wanted jihadist, was arrested in the town of Sheikh Zuweyid near the city of el-Arish in northern Sinai. El Hefny was wanted in connection with "a June 2011 attack on el-Arish's main police station and a bank," according to the Associated Press. In September, he was convicted in absentia; he will now be retried, however.

The brother of Ahmed el Hefny, Kamal el Hefny, has threatened to kidnap Egyptian policemen and army officers if his brother is not released. In addition, he reportedly "phoned a police station in el-Arish and threatened to bomb administration headquarters."

Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities have denied Arabic press reports that alleged that 20 jihadists fleeing to Gaza through a border tunnel and in possession of 30 automatic weapons, 3 RPGs, 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a photo of Osama bin Laden, had been arrested. Officials have also denied that President Mohamed Morsy recently received a list of 7,000 suspected al Qaeda militants in Sinai and that a Palestinian was arrested carrying a handwritten letter from al Qaeda's Ayman al Zawahiri to jihadists in the Sinai.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 07:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  20 jihadists fleeing to Gaza through a border tunnel and in possession of 30 automatic weapons, 3 RPGs, 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a photo of Osama bin Laden

Had it been a photo of Hassan al-Banna, it'd be okay, though.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 10:43 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Jackson: Black Voters Deserve A Return On Election ‘Investment’
CHICAGO (STMW) – The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Saturday said that President Obama’s reelection was “a great victory,” but that it would be incomplete with a reconstruction of urban America and an investment in the communities where the blacks who voted overwhelmingly for the president live.

“We’re happy and full of pride,” in the president’s reelection, Jackson told the crowd at the Saturday morning forum at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St., “but our houses remain raggedy … our schools remain closed.”

Despite attempts at voter suppression in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, Jackson said, blacks turned out en masse to vote, enduring waits that stretched into hours in many places. “We waited, we voted, we believed,” Jackson said. “Now we want to get well.

“We voted early, we voted long. Our votes won,” he said.

Rev. Jackson, who spoke longer, louder, and more forcefully than he has in some time at the Saturday morning Rainbow/PUSH meeting, asked the crowd, “What do we want? We want, we want, we want, we deserve, we deserve … a return on our investment.

“What’s good for us is good for everybody. What’s good for blacks is good for everybody.,” he said. “We bled too much, we died too young, we cried too much, we prayed too long, now we want a return on our investment.”

Referring to those voter suppression efforts, he said, “these acts of meanness had unintended consequences.” Rather than keeping blacks and Latinos away from the polls, voter ID measures and the curtailing of access to the voting booths made people more determined to vote. “Suppression became stimulation and people fought back,” he said.

“We fought back,” and the battle was won, but the war still remains, he said. “If we vote and don’t bargain we get nothing. A Jacuzzi filled with stagnant water will not get you well,” Jackson said. “You have to stir the water.”

Jackson said blacks, who voted for Barack Obama for state senator, for U.S. Senator, and now twice as President of the United States, should demand, bargain, and march if necessary, for an end to “patterns of race discrimination, (for) our share of jobs. We want faster public transportation to connect us to where the jobs are.”

He said black American also needs “access to capital,” noting, “It’s cruel to say. ‘jump in the pool,’ when there is no water. “

He also called for “fair trade,” a “domestic trade zone. We need a domestic OPEC,” he said. “In Chicago, for example, there are 100,000 vacant homes or abandoned lots; 40,000 in Baltimore. If we were to rebuild 25 percent, if we take down the boards and put in window panes, fix the broken sidewalks, cut the grass, fix the roofing, we’d create more jobs than there are people, just rebuilding where we live.”

Jackson said, “there must be a plan for reconstruction” of urban America.

Saying that automobile companies and banks got bailouts, “we’re the people who provided the votes — we want to be bailed out. We need jobs, education, healthcare now. If we can be targeted for voter registration and voter turnout, target us for reconstruction, now.

“We are the new mainstream,” Jackson said. “We are the America of shared hopes and shared dreams. We have the power, we have the votes.

“We waited, we voted, we believed, now we want to get well.” He then asked the crowd, “Do you want to get well? Are you willing to fight to get well?

“It’s time to sing a new song, of joy and hope,” Jackson said.

“It’s time to march again. March for healthcare, march for jobs. When we march great things come our way. “
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 07:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And my baby boy wants a herd of ponies, cheaper blow and faster wymens.

Posted by: Shipman || 11/12/2012 11:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Your baby boy is a cracker from florida. request denied.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/12/2012 11:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Comment redacted before being made.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/12/2012 13:10 Comments || Top||

#4  "We voted early, we voted often, we voted long. Our votes won," he said.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/12/2012 13:21 Comments || Top||

#5  Be patient Jesse, now that the election is over, the ONE will have more flexibility.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:51 Comments || Top||

#6  Even if you rebuilt the downtrodden urban areas it wouldn't provide much in the way of jobs when the construction was complete. Lawless and high union areas will continue to scare away businesses.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 11/12/2012 15:05 Comments || Top||

#7  No Alpine Primate Social Worker for U Snowy!
Posted by: Shipman || 11/12/2012 15:23 Comments || Top||

#8  Where's my return on investment? The govt took five figures from me last year that DID not come back.

Posted by: Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division || 11/12/2012 15:52 Comments || Top||

#9  You wanted Obama, You got him, the time to vote him OUT has passed, now you're stuck with him.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 11/12/2012 15:57 Comments || Top||

#10  Let's hope they all get what they deserve. And as Frank said the other day, unlubricated.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/12/2012 17:09 Comments || Top||

#11  "What's good for us is good for everybody. What's good for blacks is good for everybody.,"

--minus the people you want to loot tax $$ from, but they're the wrong color and so therefore don't count.

Actually, what's good for blacks Jesse would be 70% less out of wedlock kids, & a concerted belief in the inner-city that an education is a good thing. F*cking @sshole.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 11/12/2012 19:32 Comments || Top||

#12  #5 Be patient Jesse, now that the election is over, the ONE will have more flexibility.

Well yes, if we don't Impeach him. And if we ever figure out what the real story behind Benghazi is we just might. I'm looking for Barack to start throwing kittens under the Bus next.
Posted by: Charles || 11/12/2012 20:25 Comments || Top||

#13  Budweiser distributorships for everybody!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/12/2012 22:54 Comments || Top||

#14  I seem to remember reading somewhere that when they visited Rome 30 years after it fell, all that was there were ruins, outlaws and wild animals, sounds like Detroit, doesn't it?
As mark said, history may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes.
Posted by: tipper || 11/12/2012 22:55 Comments || Top||

#15  Quick Question: How much has the government already 'invested' in these communities over the years?

What has been the results?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/12/2012 23:48 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
At a Loss in Red America
I believe that was the title on Mrs. Bobby's dead-tree version of the WaPo this morning. Maybe it should be, "Thrown for a Loss".
GOP's Red America forced to rethink what it knows about the country

Here in the heart of Red America, Cox and many others spent last week grieving not only for themselves and their candidate but also for a country they now believe has gone wildly off track. The days after Barack Obama's reelection gave birth to a saying in Central Tennessee: Once was a slip, but twice is a sign.

If, as Obama likes to say, the country has decided to "move forward," it has also decided to move further away from the values and beliefs of a state where Romney won 60 percent of the vote, a county where he won 70 percent, and a town where he won nearly 80.
Flyover country matters even less now. Obama got another 'mandate' and the media supports the theory.
Everything in her version of America had confirmed her predictions: the confident anchors on Fox News; the Republican pollsters so sure of their data; the two-hour line outside her voting precinct, where Romney supporters hugged and honked for her handmade signs during a celebration that lasted until the results started coming in after sundown. Romney's thorough defeat had come more as a shock than as a disappointment, and now Cox stared at the actual results on her computer and tried to imagine what the majority of her country believed.

"Virginia went blue? Really?" she said. "Southern-values Virginia?"
Overwhelmed by the takers in Northern Virginia.
"And Colorado? Who the heck is living in Colorado?
That would be the refugees from California.
Do they want drugs, dependency, indulgence? Don't they remember what this country is about?"

She blamed some of the divisiveness on Republicans. The party had gotten "way too white," she said, and she hoped it would never again run a presidential ticket without including a woman or a minority. The tea party was an extremist movement that needed to be "neutralized," she said,
Did she say that or did the Post writer editorialize?
and Romney's campaign had suffered irreparable damage when high-profile Republicans spoke about "crazy immigration talk and legitimate rape."

But many other aspects of the division seemed fundamental and harder to solve. There was the America of increased secularism that legalized marijuana. And there was her America, where her two teenage daughters are not allowed to read "Harry Potter" or "Twilight," and where one of them wrote in a school paper: "God is the center and the main foundation of my family."

There was the America of the media and gay marriage and the America of her Southern Baptist church, where 7,000 came to listen on Sundays, and where church literature described marriage as "the uniting of one man and one woman."

There was the America of the media and Obama and her America in Tennessee, where last week Republicans had won 95 percent of local races and secured a supermajority in the state legislature.

She could sense liberalism creeping closer, and she worried about what Red America would look like after four more years. Nashville itself had gone for Obama, and 400,000 more people in Tennessee had signed up for food stamps in the last five years to further a culture of dependency. The ACLU had sued her school board for allowing youth pastors to visit middle school cafeterias during lunch. Some of her friends had begun to wonder if the country was lost, and if only God could save it.

Cox came outside to watch the mover climb on top of his trailer to take down the "Sumner County Republican Party" banner that had hung on the front of the building. It had belonged to a doctor's practice that had closed, and then to a newspaper that had downsized, and finally to a campaign that had failed to win office based on its vision of America.
More like overwhelmed by the 98% turnout in Philadelphia. But the U.S. House still belongs to the people of flyover country, and the Dims forget there are still at least 49% of the people did not vote for them.
Romney didn't win, but there were plenty of Republican wins at the state and local level. Over the next four years we should see an accelerating divergence in the economies of Blue states and communities vs. Red states and communities. And it was more than 49% who didn't vote for Obama; it's just that not enough of them voted for Romney instead.
Posted by: Bobby || 11/12/2012 05:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The tea party was an extremist movement that needed to be "neutralized," she said.

My wife believes that, too, that the TEA Party is extreme right-wing on everything, social issues included. I asked her if she knew what TEA stood for. She did not. I asked if she could get behind "Taxed Enough Already" and she thought she could.

Maybe the TEA Party needs to do a better job of explaining who/what they are. Trunks too.
Posted by: Bobby || 11/12/2012 12:12 Comments || Top||

#2  The Obama team early in the campaign season, announced their strategy was to "Kill Romney."

And they did. The image they portrayed of him, before the convention when there wasn't near enough moneys to fight, did the deed.

Up until the first results came in, I thought landslide after reading and hearing of the voting lines.

That first exist poll results was telling... big percentage were saying, about Romney, "He just doesn't care about me" and I knew we had lost.

Case in point, a co-worker, black, early on was an undecided voter, had worked hard for Obama, but wasn't sure this time she would vote for him.

The "Kill Romney" started. She watched the first debate, and still came out saying, "He scares me. I don't think he really cares about me." That line lost us the election.

Obama won on that strategy of "Kill Romney." They defined him and they defined him early.
Posted by: Sherry || 11/12/2012 12:30 Comments || Top||

#3  The liberal cancer is flowing to the south with the jobs. Instead of embracing the conservative approach that has helped the south be the economic engine the northerners are poisoning the well politically.
Posted by: Airandee || 11/12/2012 13:55 Comments || Top||

#4  The Pubs should not get into a bidding war with the Donks, they will lose every time. The bottom line is that both parties would be using our money or borrowing from China. They are both playing the shell game with the money.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:26 Comments || Top||

#5  An electorate basing its decision on issues like "Does he care about me?" is hopeless.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/12/2012 16:28 Comments || Top||

#6  An electorate basing its decision on issues like "Does he care about me?" is hopeless.

I concur. I have other people for that job. The most I want out of the government is not to annoy me too much.

The weird thing is, Obama doesn't seem like the "caring" type, at all. Bill Clinton, yeah, Carter, yeah. Obama? Uh-uh. He's Mr. Spock. Romney actually seems touchy-feely compared to him.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 11/12/2012 18:50 Comments || Top||

#7  Yes he seems to be very icy and distant in his personal relationships. I think the guy is a whack job, a mental case. His dad abandoned him, his mom abandoned him. He is full of anger and hatred and he is narcissistic. He is spiteful and vindictive. He doesn't have any qualms about destroying careers to achieve his ends. He frequently speaks in personal pronouns such as I, me, my, mine regarding his administration. Shows signs of wanting to be a dictator. Serial liar. The voters seemed to want him although the vote in Philadelphia and Ohio might have indicated some voting hijinks.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 19:14 Comments || Top||

#8  The TEA party does have over-lap w/very social-conservative republicans. Why wouldn't they? Many social conservatives are also fiscal conservatives. What is this lady bitching about? That sounds like her.

Further, the lib media has distorted the TEA party to such a horrible degree that friends of mine who are not stupid (but don't watch Fox) think that the TEA party are extreme social conservatives whackos. The Tea Party is NOT a monolith. You have a divergent group there but the underlying principle is fiscal prudence. For that alone, I support them and consider myself Tea Party.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 11/12/2012 20:01 Comments || Top||

#9  The major problem occurred in the third debate I think. Remember when Romney kept staying close to Obama's views it seemed half the time. He wasn't, but the media spun it that way, people believed that, and those who viewed Romney/Obama as the same didn't vote in the Presidential election. Why trade one for another when there's no difference?

Just a half million more votes in key swing states and we'd have won. Not even a third of the people in this country voted, it's so disheartening, but we can't falter. When the world comes crashing down around us, we need to stand tall.
Posted by: Charles || 11/12/2012 20:23 Comments || Top||

#10  You will not win a battle without a fight...Why would the Latter Day Idiot fight O'Bummer if he think just the same? People did not vote because they remembered 2008's Romney, touting O'Bummer's
idiotic nonsense...Even McPain draw more vote than the Warren Jeff's co-cultist!
Posted by: Shaiger Lumumba8434 || 11/12/2012 21:06 Comments || Top||

#11  May I suggest a cleanup in isle 10? That's just straight up ignorant bigotry.
Posted by: Secret Master || 11/12/2012 21:27 Comments || Top||

#12  Secret Master, it's our notorious, often dumped, many-nymed troll. The one with the roaming IPs from Rochester(NY) to Canada and who way too often starts chewing on its straps.

I'm going to leave it up as a chew toy and as an example of political rabies.



Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 21:36 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Rocket Fire On Netivot And Eshkol Region Resumes, Ending Talk Of Truce
Israel conducts overnight air strikes on Gaza terror targets; southern schools reopen

A Grad rocket landed in the yard of a house in the southern city of Netivot Monday morning. No one was injured, but the kaboom caused damage to the building and its surroundings, leading to power outages in parts of the city. Twenty six people were treated for shock.

The rocket fire came after roughly eight hours of calm amid reports of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire after two days in which more than 140 rockets and mortars were fired on Israel's south by Gazoo terrorists.

Netivot Mayor Yehiel Zohar said that only schools that have proper bomb shelters would be opened in the city.

Six additional rockets were fired towards the Hof Ashkelon and Eshkol regions. Four landed in open unpopulated areas, causing no injuries or damage, the other two were shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Eshkol regional Council head Haim Yalin said that one rocket was too much and demanded that the government take action to end the violence. He said it wasn't up to him to offer solutions, but noted that Israel had two options, either to hit a decisive strike that will convince the faceless myrmidons to put down their arms, or reach a diplomatic solution with Gazoo's rulers.
Of course, Hamas won't accept anything more than a hudna, so that's not an option...
"I expect any government to take measures, no matter which party wins the elections," Yalin said..

A Grad rocket landed in the yard of a house in the southern city of Netivot Monday morning. No one was injured, but the kaboom caused damage to the building and its surroundings, leading to power outages in parts of the city. Twenty six people were treated for shock.

The rocket fire came after roughly eight hours of calm amid reports of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire after two days in which more than 140 rockets and mortars were fired on Israel's south by Gazoo terrorists
The rocket fire came after roughly eight hours of calm amid reports of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire after two days in which more than 140 rockets and mortars were fired on Israel's south by Gazoo terrorists.

Netivot Mayor Yehiel Zohar said that only schools that have proper bomb shelters would be opened in the city.

Six additional rockets were fired towards the Hof Ashkelon and Eshkol regions. Four landed in open unpopulated areas, causing no injuries or damage, the other two were shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Eshkol regional Council head Haim Yalin said that one rocket was too much and demanded that the government take action to end the violence. He said it wasn't up to him to offer solutions, but noted that Israel had two options, either to hit a decisive strike that will convince the faceless myrmidons to put down their arms, or reach a diplomatic solution with Gazoo's rulers.
The latter is not possible.
"I expect any government to take measures, no matter which party wins the elections," Yalin said.

Overnight, the Israeli Air Force struck three terror targets in the Gazoo Strip. According to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, the IAF achieved direct hits at a terrorist tunnel and a weapons storage site in northern Gazoo, as well as a rocket-launching site in the southern part of the Strip.

On Sunday evening, a Kassam rocket hit a house in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. The family inside the house had taken cover in a secure space and was unharmed, however the building itself was severely damaged.

Another rocket from the Strip hit a building in Shaar Hanegev. Four Israelis were maimed in the two-day barrage.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak made clear Sunday that Israel would not hesitate to reenter Gazoo: "If we are forced to go back into Gazoo in order to deal Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, a [serious] blow and restore security for all of Israel's citizens, then we will not hesitate to do so," he said.
Except they are not yet ready to go to war, and no doubt someone from America is murmuring about the inadvisability of kinetic action at this time.
Schools in other communities surrounding the Gazoo Strip were scheduled to reopen Monday, after having been closed due to rocket fire on Sunday.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/12/2012 04:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Twenty six people were treated for shock.
I see this reported often in the Israeli press, I assume is it's not shock as in trauma, but shock in the sense of scared witless for a bit (I know I would be). Sounds better than hysteria, but there's gotta be a more accurate term.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/12/2012 11:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Ever-present stress?
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 13:46 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
A View Of The Election From The Palestinian Territories
[Ma'an] US vote a painful reminder for divided Paleostinians

I didn't follow the United States elections due to my belief that in the Paleostinian subject particularly, and US policy in the Middle East in general, the difference between the candidates is negligible.

But I followed the approach for both candidates in how they reflected their position and defended themselves, as well as the mode in which each party criticized the other. I realized why they are at the top of the pyramid and rule the world and control the fate of people, and why we are at the bottom of the gendarmerie failing even to maintain our unity.

I followed with interest Obama's victory speech, delayed more than three hours even though everything was ready and waiting -- the public, the media, and the entire world -- but Obama preferred to wait for a call from his defeated rival Romney to bless his victory and wish him success in his mission.

Obama began his speech with thanks to his rival for his handling the election battle clean and clear from charges, treason phrases, defamation, and personal abuse, as we hear and read in our media every hour and every moment. Then he thanked his wife, his family, and his extended family America, where he said to the public that he became the US president because of them and re-elected, he promised that he will be president for all the people of America in all it segments, colors, ethnics and nationalities.

They are at the top of the pyramid and we are at the bottom because of the governance for the people, who choose every four years their president exactly and perfectly and not looking for excuses and justifications to evade this merit. It's true that we are not America and not even a part of its state, but we're talking about a concept and how to apply it, democratic values, cultural, and moral practice.

They competed for tactile achievements made by the president or claimed that he achieved, they spoke of figures, data and facts. They didn't talk about fake achievements or military and diplomatic victories that do not exist. They rebutted each other's claims in front of the people who will decide which of them deserve to govern and decide their fate in the coming four years.

We didn't hear one of them accuse his opponent of being an agent of the enemy or neglecting the interests of America for the benefit of its enemy; no one questioned the patriotism of each other. They don't have patriotic humans, noble, fighter, loyal to his country in the daytime and in the night he is a traitor, an agent, a killer, a corrupt, a thief, and a briber without any evidence provided about what they say or accuse. They talk about everything and criticized anything, but according to the ethical and professional rules that specified by law.

American leaders can't mislead or underestimate people because there is a free media and most importantly an influential, not cutting and pasting the news but investigations, asking questions, giving answers, and even if it's necessary, exposing.

Their media don't accept the official answers about coups and everybody will accept that, but the media examine the accuracy and credibility of a speech and whether the official exploits his power or this is the truth and then the independent and honest justice will protect peoples rights before it protects the official and his action.

The US vexes us on its policy of supporting Israel; US vexes us again with its democracy that makes us feel how young we are and how much they are our senior.

The author is a former Paleostinian Authority minister who lectures at Birzeit and Al-Quds University.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/12/2012 01:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They are at the top of the pyramid and we are at the bottom because of the governance for the people, who choose every four years their president exactly and perfectly and not looking for excuses and justifications to evade this merit.

Apparently it's easier for the American voter to turtle, watch the world burn, America meltdown and simply assume they can pick another from the list in 4 years, as if choosing a different color car, than to have pushed a little for what they want now. So secure in their secure belief that America could not fail them, that they let it.

I hope we still have the opportunity to choose in four years.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/12/2012 6:52 Comments || Top||

#2  I hope we still have the opportunity to choose in four years.

IMO, you (Americans) will have to choose a lot sooner.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/12/2012 7:12 Comments || Top||

#3  No worries Mr. Zaida. Those vexing scales will soon fall away. We're becoming more like you with each passing day.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 7:27 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Rohingya Muslims: Myanmar's ethnic-Bengali Muslims
CAIRO -- Described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, Myanmar's ethnic-Bengali Muslims, generally known as the Rohingyas, are facing a catalogue of discrimination in their homeland.

They have been denied citizenship rights since an amendment to the citizenship laws in 1982 and are treated as illegal immigrants in their own home.

Rohingyas say they are deprived of free movement, education and employment in their homeland and suffer human rights abuses at the hands of government officials.

Myanmar's government as well as the Buddhist majority refuse to recognize the term "Rohingya", referring to them as "Bengalis".
Possibly because that's what they originally were, at least some of them?
The website gives readers a glimpse of the Rohingya Muslims in a series of supporting sub-articles.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 00:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Europeans Continue to be Persecuted for Speaking Out Against Islamisation
Thanks to the clever mosque occupation stunt a few weeks ago, Génération Identitaire has been given extensive coverage in the French media recently. Prominent in the coverage has been the intelligent and articulate Damien Rieu, one of the group's spokesmen.

Until a few days ago, he was working as a trainee at a publishing house in Lyon, responsible for communications. He has now been dismissed from this position as a result of his political activism.

A few days ago a documentary about Sharia4Belgium aired on Belgian television. In it the movement's spokesman Fouad Belkacem declared that they didn't feel an "ounce of respect" for non-Muslim Belgians. "We have our religion: superior to yours. We have our system: superior to your system. We have our values: superior to yours."

In response to this, Stéphanie Gilson, a student at the IPES college in Verviers, wrote on her Facebook page: "Superior to us? Excuse me? LOL and a big LOL". She also wrote that in her class at college there were two girls who said the same type of things and it scared her.

The following day the two girls mentioned, who had obviously read her Facebook page, attacked her in the college, throwing a bench and chairs at her face. All three girls were suspended from the college for one day, the management telling her that she had no right to express opinions about Muslims on her Facebook page. Refusing to accept this, Stéphanie quit the college and filed a complaint with the police. "I am the victim, and all I did was give my opinion."

Last week Jörg Uckermann, deputy leader of the anti-Islam party Pro-Köln, was arrested in Cologne. He is suspected of claiming payment for political party meetings that did not, in fact, take place. This follows the raids on the party premises that took place two weeks ago.

His family has issued a statement complaining about massively biased reporting in the locally-dominant Dumont press. They claim that the Dumont press is working with the police and political establishment to smear Uckermann, while they themselves have been denied information about what is happening to him. They have not been allowed to visit him and he is not being allowed access to the medications on which he is dependent. The family has set up a Facebook page to campaign for his release.

Uckermann was responsible for organising the anti-Islam cartoon contest earlier in the year, which so panicked the German government and resulted in a horde of Muslims attacking the German embassy in Sudan.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 00:27 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If you found this article interesting, you may wish to read this related Rantburg article as well:

Klik
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 5:44 Comments || Top||

#2  The Brit has a few comment regarding the perpetually offended 'religion' of pieces:

http://dotsub.com/view/72457cbc-fe18-4053-ae3f-6c7639cf4e79
Posted by: Mugsy Glink || 11/12/2012 10:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Europeans would be lucky to just be persecuted. Speak out too much and you end up like Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh with a tag on your toe.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 13:51 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Dubai top cop spews bile at Brotherhood – Some Kuwaiti MPs barred from UAE
KUWAIT: Dubai police chief Lt Gen Dhahi Khalfan yesterday said that a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group that was arrested in the UAE had was creating turmoil through social media and that they had been in contact with foreign bodies. “They have committed state security crimes and that’s why the public prosecutors ordered arresting them,” he said, adding that all the arrested suspects had contacts with Brotherhood members in Kuwait and that some Kuwaiti MPs had condemned their arrest. Khalfan said that some Kuwaiti MPs – whom he did not identify – were not welcome in the UAE. “They know this very well and if you wish to know who they are, I suggest that they visit the UAE and they’ll be exposed,” he said.

Khalfan also stressed that investigations revealed that the suspects arrested in UAE had met with Kuwaiti Brotherhood members who are the “mentors of other groups”. “They hold courses and teach members how to act and resist, such as Tareq Al-Suwaidan. His anti-regime attitude is very clear,” he said. Khalfan highly praised the recent measures Kuwait took in confronting the “illegal” protests organized by some activists. “I personally believe what the government did was one hundred percent right,” he said, noting that the one-vote electoral system was the best.

Khalfan also expressed pleasure over the unprecedented number of candidates running for the forthcoming elections despite opposition calls to boycott it, saying this proves the Brotherhood opposition’s failure in convincing highly educated youth to boycott the elections. “How can an MP remain in office all life long?”, he also asked, suggesting limiting MPs’ membership to two or three terms. “Some MPs have been in office since I was a child and I’m 60 now,” he said.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 00:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Denounciation as Islamophobia incoming shortly.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/12/2012 9:06 Comments || Top||

#2  I like this guy. Sheriff Joe style.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 13:40 Comments || Top||

#3  It's a step up from railing against the Juice.
Posted by: Lonzo Trotsky7304 || 11/12/2012 19:30 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Obama To Unleash Racial-Preferences Juggernaut
If your organization has a policy or practice that doesn't benefit minorities equally, watch out: The Obama administration could sue you for racial discrimination under a dubious legal theory that many argue is unconstitutional.

President Obama intends to close "persistent gaps" between whites and minorities in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates.

His remedy — short of new affirmative-action legislation — is to sue financial companies, schools and employers based on "disparate impact" complaints — a stealthy way to achieve racial preferences, opposed 2 to 1 by Americans.

Under this broad interpretation of civil-rights law, virtually any organization can be held liable for race bias if it maintains a policy that negatively impacts one racial group more than another — even if it has no racist motive and applies the policy evenly across all groups.

Equal Outcomes

This means that even race-neutral rules for mortgage underwriting and consumer credit scoring potentially can be deemed racist if prosecutors can produce statistics showing they tend to result in adverse outcomes for blacks or Latinos.

Already, Attorney General Eric Holder has used the club of disparate-impact lawsuits to beat almost $500 million in loan set-asides and other claims out of the nation's largest banks.

In addition to the financial settlements — which include millions in funding for affordable-housing activists — Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust have all agreed to adopt more minority-friendly lending policies.

Though the administration seeks equal credit outcomes, regardless of risk, across the entire banking industry, it doesn't have to sue every bank to achieve its goal. As a prophylactic against similar prosecution, IBD has learned the American Bankers Association recently advised its 5,000 members to give rejected minority loan applicants a "second look," which it says "can result in suggested changes in underwriting standards."

Also, the administration sent a chill through the financial industry earlier this year when it announced its new credit watchdog agency will join Justice, as well as HUD, in using the disparate-impact doctrine to enforce civil-rights laws.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray warned companies the agency will "protect consumers from unfair lending practices — as well as those that have a disparate impact on communities of color." He added:

"That doctrine is applicable for all of the credit markets we touch, including mortgages, student loans, credit cards and auto loans," as well as small-business loans.

Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Elections have consequences. Enjoy yours voters.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/12/2012 1:20 Comments || Top||

#2  "The top 2 percent should pay a little more".
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 1:49 Comments || Top||

#3  I believe it was here on the blog yesterday, a writer opined that the election was not about... "demographics".
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 2:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Say, wasn't a simliar - albiet legal (meaning a law was passed by a majority of the House and Senate) - method employed by the Clinton administration, which lead to the housing meltdown?
Posted by: Bobby || 11/12/2012 5:36 Comments || Top||

#5  The Great Post-Racial President making racism ever more fundamental in the US? Say it ain't so!

It's not who you are, how hard you work, your education, aptitude skills. Forget that: it's your skin colour that will determine your chances of success. Goodbye aspiration. Goodbye incentives to work for success. Hello sloth and incompetence, and ever more divisive ghettoisation and unadulterated racism.

Did people in the states ever really believe Obama represented some kind of post-racism? It was always obvious the opposite was true, surely?
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/12/2012 5:53 Comments || Top||

#6  America Home of politically correct apartheid.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/12/2012 7:30 Comments || Top||

#7  I am certain comrades Mugabe and Shower Head Zuma are quite proud. The last vestiges of evil euro-colonialism will disappear as property and land ownership are redistributed to the appropriate recipients. I recommend we begin with the tax penalization of properties belonging to racially imballanced churches. It really is only fair.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 7:47 Comments || Top||

#8  Is the one drop rule in effect?
Posted by: Creresing Barnsmell5798 || 11/12/2012 8:52 Comments || Top||

#9  I see a lot of court actions in the future. However, there is a chance Zero will select new SCOTUS members during this term. A left-wing court is a scary thought.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 9:24 Comments || Top||

#10  Civil War, Part II may come faster than I thought.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 9:26 Comments || Top||

#11  About that first Supreme Court appointment -- prolly first one will be the one and only Eric Holder, sometimes know as Obama's best friend, and he would pass Senate confirmation.
Posted by: Sherry || 11/12/2012 12:04 Comments || Top||

#12  Should probably try this out in football first. There are an underrepresentation of pahkistahn running backs, so if a team has a pahkistahni running back, each run will be increased by a factor of 1.5, except in losses then loss is reduced by said factor. Any interceptions made will be negated if said player touches the ball first. For any person who can link their heiritage to Cherokee is granted a factor of 2. A panal will be declared by the Secretary of Business to asses Factors of Fairness, beginning with College Football, which of course receives government monies and therefore a vested education direction is accordingly necessary. Voluntary complience of private universities is mandatory.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 12:18 Comments || Top||

#13  I haven't seen too many angry white guys in college football these days. Any handicaps or points for recruiting white guys?
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 13:54 Comments || Top||

#14  Enthusiastic or otherwise personality noticable white males are a reminder of oppressive colonial racism. Penalty. Jarod Allen for example, except his celebration -the cattle rope- is a redneck lynching motion, additional penalty.

Now, white male homosexual/transgender or white female, now you are talking bonus, though not as significant as other races. Ru Paul for example would be around a bonus factor of 5.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 15:58 Comments || Top||

#15  Start in basketball
Posted by: Frank G || 11/12/2012 19:19 Comments || Top||

#16  I hear Farmin B. Hard just picked up his visa...
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/12/2012 19:39 Comments || Top||

#17  Say, wasn't a similar - albeit legal (meaning a law was passed by a majority of the House and Senate) - method employed by the Clinton administration, which lead to the housing meltdown?

The Community Reinvestment Act implemented a mandate for banks to give out loans to specific groups and areas. Non compliant banks would be put on a regulatory black list.

It is strange that Romney did not counter the left's narrative on the crash (vaguely defined 'greed') with one that was a bit closer to the truth.

The political class bullied banks into giving out loans that were economically nonviable. The CRA was one of the instruments.

In one of the debates Obama sarcastically asked Romney if he believes that regulation was a cause for the crisis. Romney should have answered 'yes.'
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/12/2012 19:41 Comments || Top||

#18  Beso, that was me. My point was that 9mil less voted for bammer this time than in '08. While Romney '12, however, underperformed McCain '08 by almost 3mil votes. Seems to me demographics was less an issue than motivating the base. Demographics is and and will be an issue, no doubt, as our side will never be able to "out hand-out" the Staticrats. If hand-outs is the common denominator and not the message of fiscal conservatism - then we will always lose the moronic electorate vote to the staticrats. I think there is a lot of common ground between minorities of faith and Pubs. Pubs just need to reach out and smarten up their tactics.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 11/12/2012 20:29 Comments || Top||

#19  Say, wasn't a similar - albeit legal (meaning a law was passed by a majority of the House and Senate) - method employed by the Clinton administration, which lead to the housing meltdown?
Ah yes, EH, brings back memories.
Obummer had nothing to do with the housing meltdown, nothing at all, I tell ya.
Posted by: tipper || 11/12/2012 21:09 Comments || Top||

#20  "Elections have consequences. Enjoy yours voters."

Consequences for Republicsns of choosing a imbecile RINO
who was totally incompetent in advocating a policy because he had none or they where identical to the incumbent...
Posted by: Shaiger Lumumba8434 || 11/12/2012 21:15 Comments || Top||

#21  Shaiger?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=m_mDTLphIVY
Posted by: Frank G || 11/12/2012 22:33 Comments || Top||

#22  http://youtu.be/m_mDTLphIVY
Posted by: Frank G || 11/12/2012 22:34 Comments || Top||

#23  Ah yes, the OWG Junkers-vs-Stalin Gruppe.

IOW, iff these Orgs are not de facto Govt. managed and controlled, to still be an NGO it must have a panel/level of Govt-approved Perts, espec in Top Management, to review + approve any and all internal decisions and polices.

ECONOMIC KOMMISSARIAT.

[EARLY MTV "DER KOMMISSAR", "WHIP IT GOOD" VIDEOS here].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/12/2012 23:01 Comments || Top||

#24  Operation Falco?
You're in his eye and you'll know why.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 23:20 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Islamabad, Kabul to Hold Talks on Afghanistan Peace
[An Nahar] Islamabad and Kabul will hold three days of talks on achieving peace in Afghanistan this week, Pakistain's foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Relations between the neighbors are often tense and Kabul has accused Pakistain of supporting Taliban Islamists in their 11-year insurgency against the Western-backed government of 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...
Pakistain has always rejected the accusations, saying it is committed to fighting the Taliban and is actively targeting bully boys.

A delegation of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, led by chairman Salahuddin Rabbani, will arrive in Islamabad on Monday, to meet President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, and to hold talks with the foreign minister and Pakistain's military.

"Mr. Rabbani was invited by foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar to visit Pakistain to hold talks with the relevant authorities with regard to peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan," a foreign ministry statement said.

Similar talks were derailed last year in September with the liquidation of Burhanuddin Rabbani
... the gentlemanly murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan...
, the former head of the High Peace Council, by a jacket wallah who purported to be a Taliban peace envoy.

Afghan officials lashed out at Islamabad over the killing, saying it was planned in Pakistain and carried out by a Pak with a bomb in his turban.

Pakistain denied the charges and blamed Afghan refugees living in Pakistain for the murder.

The Afghan government later named Rabbani's son, Salahuddin, as the new chief peace envoy.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria Dissidents Strike Unity Deal
What's the over/under on the start of infighting? A day, a week, or a month?
[An Nahar] Syrian opposition factions which agreed on Sunday in Qatar to form a new coalition to fight Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
have elected holy man Ahmed al-Khatib to head the bloc, dissidents said.

Khatib, a moderate originally from Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
who quit Syria three months ago, will lead the National Coalition of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition, formed after the Syrian National Council agreed to the new group.

Prominent dissident Riad Seif, who had tabled an initiative to unite the opposition, and female opponent Suhair al-Atassi, were elected as two vice presidents of the coalition.

The SNC had come under intense Arab and Western pressure to accept the unity plan amid growing frustration among other dissident groups.

The inked agreement stipulates that the bloc will be open to all factions, and will form a provisional government after gaining international recognition.

It will also support the unification of the revolutionary military councils, and will work for the fall of the regime and to dismantle the security organs

Former Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab who defected in August hailed the agreement as "an advanced step towards toppling the regime."

Participants in marathon talks in Qatar said the latest were centered on details of a planned new government-in-waiting, but that the Syrian National Council had now heeded Arab and Western calls to join a new, wider coalition.

Reservations in SNC ranks about what many members saw as a move to sideline it had prompted repeated delays in the Doha talks and mounting frustration among other dissident groups and the opposition's Arab and Western supporters.

But after negotiations that ran into the early hours of Sunday and resumed in the afternoon, opposition officials said a deal on forming a National Coalition of opposition forces had finally been done.

"We signed a 12-point agreement to establish a coalition," said leading dissident Riad Seif, who drew up the U.S.-backed reform proposals on which Sunday's agreement was based.

Another prominent opposition figure, Haitham al-Maleh, said a formal signing ceremony would held at 1700 GMT.

In a copy of the document obtained by Agence La Belle France Presse, the parties "agree to work for the fall of the regime and of all its symbols and pillars," and rule out any dialogue with the regime.

They agree to unify the fighting forces under a supreme military council and to set up a national judicial commission for rebel-held areas.

A provisional government would be formed after the coalition gains international recognition, and a transitional government formed after the regime has fallen.

The deal came after the SNC, which had formerly been seen as the main representative of the opposition, heeded Arab and Western pressure to agree to a new structure embracing groups that had been unwilling to join its ranks.

Former prime minister Riad Hijab, who fled to neighboring Jordan in August in the highest-ranking defection from Assad's government, hailed the agreement as "an advanced step towards toppling the regime."
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Afghanistan
Newborn Baby among Six Killed in Afghan Blast
[An Nahar] A mother and her newborn baby were among six family members killed in a roadside kabooming in eastern Afghanistan overnight, police and witnesses said Sunday.

The victims were heading home from the hospital after the mother had given birth when the bomb planted by Taliban Death Eaters tore through their vehicle in Khost province
... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name...
on the Pakistain border, police said.

"Six people -- three women, two adult men and a newborn baby -- were killed," deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Yaqoub told Agence La Belle France Presse.

Relatives said the family was returning home after the mother delivered her baby in hospital in the town of Sabari.

Five other non-combatants were killed in two separate roadside kaboom blasts in the southern province of Kandahar Sunday, 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 office said in a statement offering condolences to the families of all those killed.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria Air Raids near Iraq Border, Clashes near Turkey
[An Nahar] Syrian warplanes pounded an eastern town on the border with Iraq on Sunday as firefights raged around an army barracks in the northeastern town of Ras al-Ain near Turkey, a watchdog said.

Troops also launched a pre-dawn bombardment of rebel lines near Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
, after 121 people were reported killed nationwide on Saturday.

Northeast of the capital, festivities erupted around Irbin as the army shelled the rebel stronghold and nearby Mesraba, the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In eastern Syria, the watchdog said, two non-combatants were killed in air raids on the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border while Deir Ezzor city in the same province also came under tank fire.

Near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, troops were seen headed towards Bir Ajam in the demilitarized zone, several days after Israel complained to the United Nations
...an organization whose definition of human rights is interesting, to say the least...
about the presence of Syrian tanks in the village.

The Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition activists on the ground, reported regime artillery and tank fire on Bir Ajam and the nearby village of Bariqeh.

Israel issued a terse warning on Friday after three mortar rounds struck the Golan the day before, the latest in a string of "spillover" incidents into the Israeli side of the ceasefire line.

In the northwest province of Idlib on Sunday, the Observatory reported shelling on the strategic town of Maaret al-Numan, nearby Maarshmisha village and Idlib city.

The army earlier retook a stretch of the Damascus-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...
highway in Idlib used for transporting reinforcements, but has failed to retake Maaret al-Numan.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and medics in civilian and military hospitals, also reported fresh festivities on Sunday near Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border in Hasakeh province.

A military source in the area said rebels had been closing in on the army barracks in Asfar Nakjar village, east of Ras al-Ain, for the past 48 hours.

"We are well armed and the rebels haven't been able to break through. Our reinforcements are on the way," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman confirmed that rebels had surrounded the large barracks, which the army was using to bombard Ras al-Ain.

The mainly Kurdish province has seen heavy fighting
... as opposed to the more usual light or desultory fighting...
in the past few days, with 46 combatants killed when the opposition seized Ras al-Ain on Friday.

The Observatory on Saturday reported that Kurdish residents backed by militia from the Democratic Union Party (PYD) had taken control of three towns near the border with Turkey after convincing pro-government forces to leave.

The PYD has links with Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The watchdog said residents feared a repeat of the violence that saw 9,000 Syrians flee to Turkey in 24 hours.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Arabia
Bahrain jails 19 Shiites for 'attempted murder'
[Al Ahram] A Bahraini court on Sunday sentenced 19 Shiites to five years each in jail for the "attempted murder" of policemen during unrest which swept the Gulf state in 2011, lawyers said. They were found guilty of setting an ambush for police and attacking them with Molotov cocktails during demonstrations last December 23-30 in the Shiite village of Nuidrat near the Gulf state's capital Manama. Nine other defendants were acquitted.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Africa North
40 Islamists file lawsuit accusing ElBaradei of 'insulting sharia'
No doubt he did. Not so long ago that was how all modern-thinking people thought in that part of the world.
[Al Ahram] A complaint was filed with the prosecutor general on Sunday by forty Egyptian lawyers, accusing renowned reform campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei
Egyptian law scholar and Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. After stepping down from his IAEA position ElBaradei attempted to horn in on the 2011 Egyptian protests which culminated in the collapse of the Mubarak regime. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization's Executive Committee.
of offending Islamists, of being against Islamic sharia law and of having insulted prominent Islamist preachers.

According to Ahram Arabic news website, the complaint was based on statements made by the founder of the Constitution Party against last Friday's protest, which called for the implementation of Islamic sharia law in Egypt.

Last Friday, thousands of Salafist supporters gathered at Tahrir Square to demand a constitution based on Islamic law.

The complaint claims that ElBaradei, during a presser held on Friday in Aswan, Upper Egypt, described some religious preachers as "clowns" and "merchants of religion".

A similar charge was made by spokesperson of Salafist Nour party Yosry Hamad on Saturday via his official Facebook page.

Hammad also claimed that ElBaradei described some religious preachers as "clowns" and "merchants of religion" during the Aswan presser.

On Friday, ElBaradei held a presser in Aswan where he denounced divisions related to the constitution by political forces and called for groups to unite in order to achieve the goals of the revolution.

Last September, ElBaradei, along with Hamdeen Sabbahi's Egyptian Popular Current, called for a boycott of the Constituent Assembly, accusing it of being Islamist-dominated.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Army to Open Fire on Any Gunman on Sidon's Streets
[An Nahar] Interior Minister Marwan Charbel on Sunday warned that the army will open fire on any gunman who appears on the streets in the southern city of Sidon, in the wake of a deadly clash between supporters of Hizbullah and Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir that left three people dead and several others maimed.

"Army troops have received clear orders from their command to open fire on any gunman," Charbel said as he arrived in Sidon to attend an emergency meeting for the South's security council.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati had asked Charbel to convene the meeting and called on the army and security agencies to take prompt measures to bring the situation under control and arrest those behind the violence.

"We call on everyone to remain calm and exercise restraint at this critical and delicate juncture," said the premier.

Speaking to news hounds outside Sidon's serail, Charbel stressed that "no one enjoys impunity and there won't be consensual security from now on."

Answering a question, the minister said "all the Lebanese possess weapons," noting that the violence erupted in the southern city because of the "political and sectarian tensions" he had warned of five months ago.

Charbel called on all the Lebanese to "sit around the dialogue table to pave the ground for removing the weapons."

Later on Sunday, the Army Command issued a statement saying military units have launched raids aimed at arresting the shooters in Sidon, warning that its troops will deal "firmly and forcefully with any gunnies who appear on the streets regardless of their affiliation."

In remarks voiced after the security meeting, Charbel said a "serious investigation" will be launched on Monday in order to identify the individuals who ignited the deadly clash.

Charbel said he suggested during the meeting to turn Sidon into a "military zone in which all security units and agencies would operate under the command of the Lebanese army," noting that such a move requires a decision by the government.

The minister also reassured that he does not expect further escalation in the southern city.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


Iraq
$4.2 Bln Russian Arms Deal 'Canceled' by Iraq; 'Corruption' on PM Maliki's team cited
A more detailed reporting of yesterday's article, from the Russian perspective.
Iraq is annulling a $4.2 billion arms deal with Russia it reached earlier this year over concerns about possible corruption, an Iraqi government spokesman said. Russia and Iraq had touted the agreement to deliver Russian attack helicopters and mobile air-defense systems following last month's visit to Moscow by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. At the time the deal was announced in October, the Russian press had hailed it as the country's largest since 2006.

Moscow was to supply 30 Mil Mi-28NE night/all-weather capable attack helicopters, and 50 Pantsir-S1 gun-missile short-range air defense systems. The contracts were signed in April, July and August by Iraq's acting defense minister, according to documents released during Maliki's Moscow visit.

Khalid Al-Alwani, a member of the anti-corruption committee, said that a number of parliaments members urged Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to suspend the arms contract with Russia as those responsible for its signing are suspected of corruption. Another source said that Baghdad annulled the deal under the US pressure as Washington is "trying to prevent the implementation of Russian-Iraqi agreements."

"When Maliki returned from his trip to Russia, he had some suspicions of corruption, so he decided to review the whole deal," a spokesman for Maliki told AFP on Saturday. "There is an investigation going on, on this."

Another Iraqi official, Hakem al-Zamali, a member of the Iraqi parliament's security and defense committee, said: "The (Iraqi) prime minister has formed a new committee to negotiate with Russia for buying more sophisticated arms than the ones in the cancelled deal."

A source in Russia's arms export industry told RIA Novosti the Iraqi announcement raised more questions than it answered.

"Supposed corruption claims have never been and cannot be the basis for annulling contracts, particularly in the military-technical cooperation sphere," he said, adding that it amounted to "legal nonsense."

Hassan Jihad, a member of the Defense and Security Committee of the Iraqi National Assembly, told RIA Novosti that Iraq may soon send a delegation to Russia to sign a new arms contract.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq

#1  In other words, Maliki wasn't getting the right percentage off the deal.
Posted by: gromky || 11/12/2012 10:01 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Democracy is here to stay: CJ
Rule of law, however, departed decades ago.
[Dawn] Momentous decisions taken by the judiciary and the parliament over the past five years had changed the country's political landscape, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said on Saturday.

Speaking at an event organised by the 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.
High Court's Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
circuit bench, he said the superior judiciary had been taking difficult decisions and the parliament had purged the Constitution of provisions inserted by dictators. "The change has come."

The chief justice said in the past all players were guilty of violating the Constitution, but now the time had come when constitutionalism would prevail, leading to rule of democracy.

"We are bound to fully implement the Constitution in its true spirit and Article 5 demands of every citizen to act according to the law."

All individuals are equal in the eyes of law and everybody is accountable for his actions," he said.

Now nobody could dare to derail the system because the judiciary was working diligently for the supremacy of law and the Constitution, he said.

Justice Chaudhry said the judiciary had taken the lead in strengthening the institutions and laid off about 100 judicial officials through an order issued on July 31, 2009.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa Horn
Heavy Fighting erupts in Bay region, south Somalia
[Shabelle] Æthiopian forces in Somalia reportedly attacked on several military bases belonging to Al shabab hard boyz in Bay region of southern Somalia, as they seek to open up the road from the Baidoa to the capital.

The attack took place late on Saturday and continued till last night at Gofgadud area, where Æthiopian forces targeted Al shabab, causing bitter festivities between both sides, according to the local residents.

It was immediately unclear to get further details on the casualty following the combat as both officials from Al shabab and Æthiopian forces unavailable to reach on the phone for comments.

The latest reports indicated that the situation in the conflict zone is calm and the local residents resumed their daily activities and things returned up and running.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Imam gunned down in Dagestan
The imam of a village in Dagestan was gunned down in his own backyard in the village of Khadzhalmakhi on Sunday. The assailants pelted Gadzhi Aliyev with gunshots, killing him on the spot. They then fled the scene, leaving numerous cartridge shells from Kalashnikov assault rifles and Makarov handguns.
Posted by: ryuge || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Trial of Qadaffy PM Mahmoudi to Open Monday
[An Nahar] The trial of late strongman Muammar Qadaffy
...Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years until he was ejected from the gene pool by his indignant citizens...
's last prime minister, Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, is to open in the Libyan capital on Monday, the public prosecutor's spokesman said.

"Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi will appear tomorrow (Monday) on the occasion of a first case" against him, Taha Baara said, adding that Mahmoudi faces charges of "prejudicial acts against the security of the state."

Mahmoudi fled to neighboring Tunisia in September last year shortly after rebels seized Tripoli, effectively putting an end to more than four decades of iron-fisted Gadhafi rule.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Asir's Bodyguard Killed, Hizbullah Official Wounded in Sidon Gunfight
The poor, innocent darlings. Or perhaps not.
[An Nahar] Three people were killed and at least four others were maimed on Sunday in an armed clash between supporters of Hizbullah and Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir in the Taamir Ain al-Hilweh neighborhood in the southern city of Sidon, state-run National News Agency reported.

Among the dead was one of Asir's bodyguards whom NNA identified by his nickname Lobnan al-Ezz.

The clash also killed Lebanese national Ali Samhoun and Egyptian citizen Ali al-Sharaband, according to NNA.

Hizbullah's official in Sidon Sheikh Zeid al-Daher and his bodyguard who belongs to al-Dirani family were also maimed in the shootout, NNA said.

"Two people were killed and seven injured in festivities between supporters of Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir and Hizbullah near a Paleostinian refugee camp in Sidon. One of the injured was a representative for Hizbullah for the area," a security official told Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Later on Sunday, al-Jadeed television reported that the Taamir Ain al-Hilweh neighborhood was witnessing a cautious calm amid a heavy deployment by army troops.

In the wake of the clash, Prime Minister Najib Miqati asked Interior Minister Marwan Charbel convene an emergency meeting for the South's security council.

Afterwards, Miqati said he had requested the army and security agencies take prompt measures to bring the situation under control and arrest those behind the violence.

"We call on everyone to remain calm and execute restraint at this critical and delicate juncture," said the premier.

On Friday, Asir gave a 48-hour deadline to remove all the pictures and banners in Sidon that "contain slogans supportive of Hizbullah and its allies who back the Syrian-Iranian scheme," AFP quoted the Salafist holy man as saying.

"Hizbullah on Sunday removed the pictures and banners from the city, escorted by the Lebanese army, but Asir supporters entered the Taamir Ain al-Hilweh neighborhood near the Ain al-Hilweh Paleostinian refugee camp in Sidon, tearing up a poster of Hizbullah Secretary-General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...
and sparking a fight with sticks that soon erupted into gunfire," AFP reported.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah

#1  Seem like the great wheel has almost turned full circle...one remember that Lebanese Shiites used to be Israel best allies versus the paleo-simian sunnis...the air bridge between Israel and Teheran for "pharmaceuticals" being so busy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporte_A%C3%A9reo_Rioplatense

The Russkies, supplying the other side, put up a fake beacon and diverted the Canadair into Soviet territory where it was accidentally rammed by a Sukhoi! Now it seem that Syria and Lebanon Christians will get their heads sawed off alongside Hezbollah's filthy dirt encrusted necks...

Ah the good old gun running days!!!

Posted by: Shaiger Lumumba8434 || 11/12/2012 20:48 Comments || Top||


Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka troops accused of jail ‘massacre’
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s main opposition party Sunday demanded an independent inquiry into a prison riot that left 27 convicts dead, alleging many were shot by security forces in a cold-blooded “massacre.”

The United National Party (UNP) called for a parliamentary investigation into the riot that erupted on Friday evening at the maximum-security Welikada prison in the capital Colombo.

“This is nothing but a massacre,” UNP spokesman Mangala Samaraweera told AFP. “Most of the convicts appeared to have been killed in cold blood. We want a parliamentary select committee to go into this.”

Troops were deployed to quell the riots and the military retained a heavy presence at the sprawling prison complex Sunday.

During the riot, armed inmates climbed onto the roof and fired at troops and police. A handful escaped and hijacked a three-wheel rickshaw taxi which was stopped by heavy gunfire from security personnel.

Prisons Minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera told parliament Saturday that 27 inmates were killed and 43 others — including 13 police commandos, four soldiers and two civilians — were injured. He said there would be an internal prisons department inquiry into the riot, which was sparked by a police commando raid for contraband inside the prison on Friday.

The violence continued until early Saturday with some prisoners raiding a jail armory and grabbing about 80 weapons, including automatic rifles.
How exactly is it a 'massacre' if the bad boys had automatic rifles?
Posted by: Steve White || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They should've learned the lesson from Mario and his boys on how Sri Lankan troops deal with "troublemakers".
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/12/2012 22:46 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Bangladesh Detains Myanmar Rohingya Refugees
[An Nahar] Police in southeastern Bangladesh have cooled for a few years
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
five Rohingya Moslems who fled deadly communal festivities in neighboring Myanmar, an officer said on Sunday.

Mohammad Ismail, a police chief of Satkania in the district of Chittagong, said that the male detainees, aged between 25 and 45, were charged with illegal entry.

"We have learned they entered Bangladesh through the Cox's Bazaar district that borders Myanmar, and moved to Satkania to evade arrest," Ismail told AFP, adding that 29 other Rohingyas have been cooled for a few years
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
in the last month.

Hundreds of thousands of Moslem Rohingya have fled Myanmar in past decades to escape persecution, often heading to Bangladesh, and recent outbreaks of violence, in June and October, triggered another exodus.

Border guards on Sunday said at least 800 Rohingya who tried to cross into Bangladesh over river or land borders have been turned away in recent weeks.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
MILF warn of recruiting scam in Mindanao
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines, has warned Muslims in Mindanao to report to authorities anybody who is recruiting members for the so-called Bangsamoro Police Force.
This is seriously surreal: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front playing the good citizen. Not something I ever expected to see.
The warning came out following reports that several groups have been recruiting and collecting money from Muslims who are being lured to join the security force. The syndicates were collecting P2,500 from each applicant to the police force. It was not immediately known how many people have been duped by the groups or who are behind them.
Posted by: ryuge || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Of course, they're taking the MILF's money from _their_ people.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/12/2012 10:26 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Badanov's Buzzkill Bulletin

For a map, click here

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Mexican Army units nationwide have seized 669 kilograms of marijuana, 10 kilograms of hashish and MX  $19,468.00 (USD $1474.90) in cash since October 28th, according to official Mexican government information.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 4th Military Zone in Sonora state located illegal contraband aboard a truck from Querétaro state October 28th.  The unit had established a checkpoint on Kilometer 17 of the Nogales to Hermosillo, Sonora highway and stopped a truck.  Inside soldiers found 490,000 cigars packaged in 49 cardboard boxes.  The driver was detained at the scene.

  • An army unit with the 45th Mexican military Zone found a quantity of hashish in Sonora state October 29th.  The unit had been on patrol near ejido Desierto de Sonora when soldiers found 10 kilograms of hashish, one rifle and one fragmentation grenade.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 4th Military Zone located a quantity of weapons and munitions in Sonora state October 30th.  The unit had been dispatched to the area based on an anonymous complaint about armed suspects near a ranch near the village of Santa Rosa in Navojoa municipality.  Soldiers seized 10 rifles, 17 weapons magazines, 172 rounds of ammunition and one fragmentation grenade.

  • A Mexican Army road patrol from the 4th Military Zone seized quantities of weapons in Sonora state October 30th.  The unit had been on patrol on Mexico Federal Highway 16 between Yecora and Maycoba in Yecora municipality when it stopped three unidentified individuals travelling aboard three vehicles.  Soldiers seized two rifles, 10 weapons magazines, 225 rounds of ammunition and three vehicles.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 7th Military Zone along with state and local civilian police conducted a raid in Nuevo Leon state October 30th, seizing weapons and detaining suspects.  The raid took place in Santa Catarina municipality where authorities seized six rifles, 1,083 rounds of ammunition, 35 weapons magazines, eight vehicles and tactical gear.  Nine unidentified suspects were detained at the scene.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 8th Military Zone seized a quantity of diesel fuel in Tamaulipas state October 29th.  Found in Ciudad Madero municipality, the  total amounted to 124,000 liters.  Soldiers also seized three tractors and four tankers.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 8th Military Zone exchanged gunfire with armed suspects in Tamaulipas state October 30th.  Armed suspects had attacked the military unit which was on patrol in Nuevo Laredo municipality. Soldiers returned fire, killing one unidentified armed suspect.  Weapons seized included one rifle, one weapons magazine and 15 rounds of ammunition.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 9th Military Zone located a quantity of fuel in Sinaloa state October 30th.  The unit was on a road patrol in the sindicatura Villa Adolfo Lopez Mateos of Culican municipality when soldiers found 5,500 liters of gasoline and 11 trucks capable of transporting fuel.

  • A Mexican Army road patrol with the 8th Military Zone located and rescued five unidentified individuals who had been kidnapped in Tamaulipas state October 30th.  The victims were found inside a vehicle between the villages of Villa de Casas and La Lajilla, near Ciudad Victoria.  Military uniforms and five rifles were also found at the scene.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 8th Military Zone exchanged gunfire with armed suspects in Tamaulipas state October 30th.  The unit was on patrol in Obrera colony in Matamoros municipality when it came under small arms fire.  Army return fire killed two unidentified armed suspects. After the gunfight, soldiers seized two rifles, four weapons magazines, 32 rounds of ammunition and one vehicle. 

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 8th Military Zone located a quantity of marijuana in Tamaulipas state October 30th.  The drugs were found in an abandoned vehicle in a remote area in Camargo municipality.  A total of 663 kilograms of marijuana was seized.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 8th Military Zone located weapons and munitions in Tamaulipas state October 30th. The unit was on patrol near the village of Puentecitos in Camargo municipality when the discovery was made.  Seized contraband included four rifles, three handguns, two grenade launchers, two grenades, four weapons magazines and 391 rounds of ammunition.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 8th Military Zone exchanged gunfire with armed suspects in Tamaulipas state October 30th.  The incident took place in Alberto Carrera Torres colony in Matamoros municipality, where an army road patrol came under small arms fire.  Army return fire killed one unidentified armed suspect.  Two rifles and one vehicle were seized at the conclusion of the gunfight.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 8th Military Zone seized quantities of weapons and munitions in Tamaulipas state November 2nd.  The unit was on patrol on Centro colony in Ciudad Miguel Aleman when it came upon an abandoned vehicle.  Inside soldiers found six rifles, two grenades, 1,230 rounds of ammunition, 68 weapons magazines, 53 stars (for puncturing automobile tires) and other contraband.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 8th Military Zone rescued two unidentified kidnapping victims in Tamaulipas state November 2nd.  The unit rolled up on a vehicle with two suspects inside in Infonavit “Cañada” colony in Tampico municipality.  Soldiers found MX $19,468.00 (USD $1474.90) in cash, radio equipment and documents and a vehicle.  The suspects were detained at the scene.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 8th Military Zone raided a camp presumably used by narcotraffickers in Tamaulipas state November 3rd.  The raid was conducted in ejido Paso Real in San Fernando municipality, where soldiers seized nine rifles, four handguns, six grenades, one grenade launcher, 2,296 rounds of ammunition, 60 weapons magazines, nine kilograms of marijuana, quantities of other drugs, one vehicle and 28 radios.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 8th Military Zone exchanged gunfire with armed suspects in Tamaulipas state November 3rd.  The encounter took place in Victoria colony of Matamoros municipality, where the military unit came under small arms fire.  Army counterfire killed two unidentified armed suspects.  Soldiers also seized two rifles, 143 rounds of ammunition, four weapons magazines, one vehicle and other equipment including radios.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com.
Posted by: badanov || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So much for my trip down from Tucson to Nogales for "genuine Cohibas". /sarc off
Posted by: borgboy || 11/12/2012 1:01 Comments || Top||

#2  just order it online, borgboy
Posted by: American Delight || 11/12/2012 6:54 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Malala Day: Govt pushed for effective steps against militancy
[Dawn] The speakers at a 'Malala Day' function here (Peshawar) on Saturday pushed the government for taking effective steps to eradicate terrorism and militancy from the region and said that Taliban were against peace and education.
There, that'll fix it. Tea?
They appreciated the efforts of Malala for raising voice against the Taliban and said that the girl was a symbol of peace and education as had been recognised by the United Nations
...When talk is your weapon it's hard to make yourself heard over the artillery...
The function titled 'Global Day of Action to Support Malala Yousafzai' was organised at 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.
Pres Club, where participants condemned Orcs and similar vermin and urged the people to join hands with the government to eradicate militancy from the region.

SPO, CRSD and Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society Network jointly organised the event to recognise Malala's thoughts for education.

Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain was the chief guest on the occasion, where Idrees Kamal, Mukhtar Bacha, Nazeer Bacha, Arbab Mujeeb, Dr Sarfraz, MPA Naseem Katozai and Jamil Khan from University of Peshawar were also in attendance.

According to the speakers, the attempt on the life of Malala was tantamount to attacking entire Pakhtuns nation and therefore, all Pakhtun nationalist forces and elected people should get united against terrorism and for peace in the region.

The information minister praised Malala for promoting female education.

He said Death Eaters didn't belong to any creed and religion because they targeted innocent people and religious places. He claimed that the Taliban's network had been dismantled by security forces in Malakand division and elsewhere in the region and the recent incidents of terrorism suggested that they had been baffled.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


The apology issue
[Dawn] IT is a welcome sign that, despite the deep grudge many in Bangladesh still bear against the West Pak military action of 1971, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide...
has reportedly accepted Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's invitation to attend the D-8 summit in Islamabad this month. Dhaka would like a proper apology from the Pak government for the large-scale killing of Bengalis. It was not satisfied with then president Gen (retd) Musharraf's expression of "regret" in 2002. According to the Bangladesh foreign secretary, "some unresolved issues" still exist although, he says, Ms Khar stated that Pakistain had "regretted in different forms and ... it was time to move on". The debate by academicians and propagandists on both sides will continue; they will fight over the actual number -- in thousands for some, millions for others -- of Bengalis killed while resisting the injustices perpetrated on them by an insensitive western wing. What cannot be denied is that brute military force was used to exterminate activists, intellectuals and ordinary supporters of what was united Pakistain's largest political party, and that consequently led to Indian action and the creation of Bangladesh.

On its part Pakistain must recognise the wrongs committed by its leadership during those days, and issue a full-fledged apology -- not just expressions of regret -- that is acceptable to Dhaka. In doing so, it would be joining the ranks of other countries and institutions that have been courageous enough to admit the historical wrongs they have committed in order to give both themselves and the victim nation a chance to move on. The Vatican has apologised for the actions of Catholics who persecuted non-Catholics, and expressed sorrow over the attack on Constantinople during the Crusades. Japan has apologised to Koreans for wartime aggression. It is time for Pakistain, too, to come to terms with its past.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Afghanistan
Pakistan urges all Afghan insurgents to pursue peace
[Dawn] Pakistain hopes to persuade Afghan bad turban groups, including the Haqqani network, to pursue peace but worries resistance from political factions opposed to the Taliban could undermine reconciliation efforts, Islamabad's ambassador to Kabul said.
What a lovely, pious, one-sided hope Pakistan expresses.
Mohammad Sadiq, speaking in an interview, also suggested US efforts would be better directed at engaging bad turban groups -- rather than attempting to defeat them by launching military strikes against their leaders.

Sadiq was speaking just ahead of an expected visit to Pakistain by an Afghan peace council due to give Islamabad a road map of how it wants its influential neighbour to help end the war with the Afghan Taliban, now in its 11th year.

"Afghans are much more united in wanting to join the reconciliation process than they were two years ago," he said.

"But still there are very important people who fought against the Taliban and are not still ready to talk and negotiate with the Taliban. And we are working with them."

Sadiq was referring to former members of the Northern Alliance, which toppled the Afghan Taliban in 2001 with US backing.

Some now occupy government positions or are in the opposition.

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...
set up a High Peace Council comprised of members of diverse Afghan ethnic and political groups to try to ease mistrust between the Taliban and its traditional enemies and forge a peace deal.

The task has gained urgency as most NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
combat troops prepare to withdraw at the end of 2014 and hand over security to Afghan government forces.

Lack of progress has fuelled fears of a civil war and some Afghans worry the Taliban will try and seize power again if no comprehensive political settlement is reached before then.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Barak Warns Hamas over Rockets, Syria over Cross-Border Fire
[An Nahar] Israel warned the Paleostinian Islamist movement Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, on Sunday it will pay a "heavy price" for the latest barrage of rocket attacks into the Jewish state and that the conflict could escalate.

"Hamas is responsible for the rocket fire and all other attempts to harm our soldiers and civilians, even when other groups participate. And it is Hamas that will pay the heavy price," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

The flare-up, which began Saturday, as well as tough statements from Israeli officials, raised the specter of a broader Israeli operation against Gazoo, along the lines of its devastating Operation Cast Lead over the New Year of 2009.

"During the last two days, the IDF (Israel Defense Force), upon my instruction, has been evaluating the host of options for harsher responses against Hamas and the other terror organizations in Gazoo," Barak said.

"We will strike with an ever-growing intensity," he added.

In December 2008, just six weeks before general elections, Israel launched a huge operation in Gazoo against rocket fire. The 22-day war killed 1,400 Paleostinians -- half of them civilians -- and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.

The latest violence comes ahead of Israeli elections in January.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned earlier that Israel is "prepared to escalate" its response to Paleostinian rocket fire.

"The army is acting and will act forcefully against the terror organizations in the Gazoo Strip. They are receiving strong blows from the army," Netanyahu told a meeting of his cabinet.

"The world must realize that Israel won't sit by idly in the face of attempts to attack us. We are prepared to escalate our actions," he said.

The flare-up erupted on Saturday evening when Gazoo Orcs and similar vermin fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep along the Gazoo border, injuring four soldiers, one of them severely. Three remained in hospital on Sunday.

Israel retaliated with air strikes, shelling and artillery fire that killed six Paleostinians and maimed 35 by Sunday night.

Paleostinian Orcs and similar vermin fired at least 85 rockets into southern Israel, leaving four injured in the Israeli border town of Sderot. Two rockets were intercepted by Israel's missile defense system Iron Dome.

"It's a very severe situation, rockets are landing on our towns and villages, almost on a daily basis and of course no democratic country can tolerate such a thing," said Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, a Netanyahu confidant.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  I guess if the missles continue, Barak will issue a harsh warning. /sarc off
Posted by: borgboy || 11/12/2012 0:28 Comments || Top||

#2  I thought you were speking of Obama
Posted by: JFM || 11/12/2012 11:38 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
'Mumbai case suspects trained at LeT camps'
Are you as surprised as I am?
[Dawn] RAWALPINDI: Intelligence officials informed an anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday that suspects in the Mumbai attacks case got training at various centres of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
(LeT) bully boy organization, including navigational training 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...

In their statements recorded before ATC judge Chaudhry Habibur Rehman, five inspectors of the Crime Investigation Department, who are prosecution witnesses in the case, informed the court about the training details and capabilities of suspects Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi (the alleged criminal mastermind), Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younas Anjum.

The officials were in charge of CID stations in Okara, Bahawalpur, Rahimyar Khan, Mandi Bahauddin and Sheikhupura. They said the suspects, who allegedly participated in the attacks, were trained at the LeT training centres at Yousaf Goth in Bloody Karachi, Buttle in Mansehra
...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
, Mirpur Sakro in Thatta and Muzaffarabad.

The CID inspector from Okara alleged that Lakhvi was LeT's 'operational commander' who trained other bully boys. Lakhvi went to Kunar and participated in Afghan jihad against the Soviet forces, he said.

A resident of Renala Khurd in Okara district, Lakhvi was an expert in using firearms and improvised bombs. He also remained 'commander' of LeT in Azad Kashmire, according to the statement.

The other inspectors informed the court that suspected abettors Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq and Shahid Jameel Riaz were also trained at LeT centres and at sea near Yousaf Goth in Bloody Karachi's Gadap town.

FIA's Special Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told the court that the witnesses were responsible officials who had recorded their statements without any pressure. They had no ill-will against the suspects, he said, adding: "It was their job to keep the Islamic fascisti of proscribed organization under observation."

Khwaja Mohammad Haris, counsel for Lakhvi, asked the prosecution witnesses whether they had witnessed the suspects getting training at the LeT camps.

The witnesses admitted that they had never visited the LeT places or witnessed the suspects getting training in use of firearms or IEDs and had relied upon the reports of informers.

Mr Haris said the witnesses had no direct knowledge of the involvement of his client in the attacks and had never shared their intelligence with the police officials concerned.

Talking to Dawn, the lawyer said if the statements were true then it showed negligence on the part of witnesses because being responsible officials they did not take any step for closing the training camps. "If they knew that Lakhvi or other suspects were involved in suspicious activities then why they did not put their names in the Fourth Schedule to limit their movement. The prosecution has fabricated a false story against the suspects and the statements of the five witnesses are part of that story," he alleged.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba


Home Front: Politix
Mitch McConnell: Sen. Schumer's 'On Another Planet'
Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal interviewed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who talked tough. "I am not willing to raise taxes to turn off the sequester. Period." He said Sen. Chuck Schumer is "on another planet" to think Republicans would just raise tax rates and close loopholes.

Moore noted this is a negotiating position. “This isn't to say that next week, when the lame-duck congressional session begins to negotiate some kind of budget solution, taxes are off the table. Mr. McConnell is a realist.” And Obama will come looking to strike deals with moderate Republicans:

It isn't at all certain that Mr. McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner will be able to hold their troops together. The senator understands that Mr. Obama will try to cut a deal with other senators—Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina—but Mr. McConnell doubts that the tactic will work. "We have differences on other issues, but on taxes I can't think of a single member of my conference from Maine to Texas who thought he was sent here to Washington to raise taxes on anybody or anything."

...I ask him about the recent counterproposal by Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer that Republicans should abandon tax reform of the kind that passed in 1986 and lowered rates in return for fewer loopholes, and instead should both close loopholes and keep tax rates high to lower the deficit. "He's on another planet," Mr. McConnell replies, and doesn't seem to be kidding.

Would Republicans accept the liberal dream of a value-added tax as a new revenue machine? "There won't be any new tax. It's not going to happen in this Congress," he says.

What is clear about the coming tax-cliff negotiations is that Mr. McConnell doesn't trust the White House after the debacle of the debt-ceiling nonsolution in July 2011.

"The speaker and I spent an endless amount of time in the first half of 2011 trying to get the president to do what we all know has to be done if we're going to save the country," Mr. McConnell says. "Until we adjust the entitlement programs to fit the demographics of today's America, you can't fix the problem. You can't tax your way out of it. You can't cut health-care providers as a way out of it. But Democrats laughed at those ideas even when we offered a quarter-trillion of higher revenues largely taken from high-income people."

Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jesus H. Christ, Mitch...please just STFU, stand aside and let the 'Rats give the sheeple what they said they want, and give it to them good and hard.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) || 11/12/2012 1:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Yes. Republicans need to decide: stand aside and let it all burn; or cleave to principle and obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Pick one or the other and get on the same page.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/12/2012 2:07 Comments || Top||

#3  And Obama will come looking to strike deals with moderate Republicans:

I think not.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 2:17 Comments || Top||

#4  With respect, I don't think that to "cleave to principle and obstruct, obstruct, obstruct" is a workable option. The MSM propaganda machine would simply go into overdrive yet again and deliver a Dem-majority House in 2014. If we stand aside for the next two years and "let it burn," maybe - just maybe - enough independents, along with the millions of slugs who were supposed to be on our side but stayed home this time, will get wise and deliver both houses of Congress back into strong Trunk control. One thing though...what absolutely must happen now is a purge of the Trunk leadership in both houses. McConnell? You're a big part of the problem, so you're toast. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...and please, please take Speaker Weepy McTanningbooth with you.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) || 11/12/2012 3:49 Comments || Top||

#5  A good compromise would be to remove the exceptions...

Go for intellectual property taxes and remove all the loopholes.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/12/2012 7:27 Comments || Top||

#6  My current state of mind regarding American politics:

WTF
Denial

Anger
Bargaining
Depression and sadness
Acceptance
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 7:36 Comments || Top||

#7  Ricky: I was taking the longer view. I think Republicans should stop compromising, participating in, or otherwise sharing any responsibility for the destruction of the republic. Offering (1) no resistance or (2) maximum resistance are about the only options.

I think (2) is viable because it's a given that the MSM will smear Republicans and call them obstructionists no matter what they do. The lies and propaganda are a constant in this equation. Thus, Republicans need to stop responding and reacting to the press. The MSM and their followers are the bleating sheep from 1984. They can't be influenced, so they should be ignored.

The burden is on citizens to do their homework and seek out alternative media and sources of information. 58 million voters did turn out for Republicans last week, despite the best efforts of the Democrat-media complex.

I agree - the spineless compromisers have got to go.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/12/2012 7:43 Comments || Top||

#8  "No resistance" is going to do maximum harm to this country. What is being done to the country will not be undone for a long, long time if ever. This administration is churning out regulations/notices at the rate of 6,125 Proposed Regulations and Notifications Posted in Last 90 Days--Average 68 per Day. The Donks and the media will have their way whichever path is chosen. At least the path of maximum resistance (whatever that means at this point) will result in slowing things down and preventing some things from happening. Obugabee will attempt to force his agenda via executive orders or treaties with the UN (climate change, gun control, treaty of the seas).

More people don't vote than do vote. Something like 94M don't vote who are eligible. Currently, at least half the country or more (counting the people who did not vote for one reason or another: religious reasons, lukewarm towards Romney, didn't like either candidate, etc.) voted for gridlock, i.e. for obstruction as in 2010. The Donks scared the hell out of a lot of people in 2010. The path of maximum resistance has a risk; it might lead to losing the House in 2014. The Marquess of Queensbury Rules don't seem to be working for the Pubs. The Pubs also have to quit hiring firms to determine polling and demographics who might as well be stealth firms provided by the Donks. The Pubs need to get far smarter about elections. They need to figure out how to tap into the 94 million eligible voters who didn't vote.

We don't want a monarchy. We don't want czars. We don't want to be a mirror of the former USSR or of China. People need to think about whether they are a freedom-loving people or whether they are going to submit to the will of whoever wants to dominate them--that's what things boil down to. If the latter is the choice get ready for a statist government that dominates and suffocates every aspect of life. Get ready for more and more enslavement on a daily basis.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 9:00 Comments || Top||

#9  We don't want a monarchy. We don't want czars. We don't want to be a mirror of the former USSR or of China.

A large swath of "Americans" do want all of the above. They are the New Immigrants. The Muslims, the Socialists from the Old Countries who think the government is the ONLY source of all wealth. They are being allowed in by the droves by the Democratic Socialist Party.

The demographic change of America being implemented by the Socialists is working spectacularly for them.
Posted by: Bugs Uleger6376 || 11/12/2012 9:17 Comments || Top||

#10  Schumer and Bloomberg--two peas in a pod.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 10:03 Comments || Top||

#11  "No resistance" is going to do maximum harm to this country.

Correct. A colossal finanical collapse is also inevitable. Helping it along is precisely the idea, because (a) the quicker, the better, and (b) the party in charge when it happens will never get another vote.

"No resistance" and "maximum resistance" are extreme options, but not as extreme as civil war, and so far all Republicans have done is agree to death by a thousand papercuts. That is not what people elect them to do, so I'd just as soon have it over with, or see them get very, very serious about refusing to cooperate.

What is being done to the country will not be undone for a long, long time if ever.

Correct. That is my very premise: it is already gone, and never coming back as we knew it.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/12/2012 11:02 Comments || Top||

#12  Yes, aquiesce, give the whole platform to the Dems politely and without grief, then bitch quietly when there is a single party system only, and cry when it like that until the next revolution, because if crash and burn phoenix theory has not fruited in Cambodia, or PRNK, or ZimBob...in fact, name where it has worked.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 12:00 Comments || Top||

#13  swksvolFF, "crash and burn phoenix theory" never bore fruit in those places because there was nothing meaningful to return to. Also, America is different and so is its current economic condition. Much of life is timing, and I can't think of a worse time to attempt to institute socialism, paid for with other people's money, when we're already sitting on $16 trillion of debt, and every other major economy is also teetering on the brink. The global financial system is on the verge of a major reset, and Ogabe's reckless, ignorant ambitions may well push everything over the cliff. "If it were done, when 'tis done, then twere well it were done quickly."

A small disclaimer: I'm playing devil's advocate here. I think it's worthwhile to kick around unorthodox ideas, because orthodox ideas have gotten us exactly nowhere.
Posted by: RandomJD || 11/12/2012 12:36 Comments || Top||

#14 
We don't want a monarchy. We don't want czars. We don't want to be a mirror of the former USSR or of China.


We don't; a majority of the voters do.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/12/2012 13:11 Comments || Top||

#15  After 30 years of working and contributing to the public coffers - I've gone Galt. Lost my job 3 years ago to a government funded competitor (NIH research grants.) Sent out a 100 or so resumes (to black holes responses.) Now, I'm infrequently consulting, doing a little construction here and there, and not making much - but enough to survive.

Turns out, if you make half an effort, you can live on very little (if you have saved some from working for 30 years.)

I'm done with being a tax slave. Used to contribute ~ $50,000 a year in taxes... now only sales and property taxes.

I take the time now to enjoy myself. Started an exciting/interesting hobby (gold mining) that gets me out of the house (doesn't make money yet... but that may come.)

Anyway, I'm done contributing till the government considers me a free person, and not their cash cow.
Posted by: LeighG || 11/12/2012 13:27 Comments || Top||

#16  If the republicans had any balls they should just shut the government down. After all the leftist view America as the government and they will bargain to keep their America alive.

What do the republicans have to lose? They will get blamed for the coming bankruptcy either way.
Posted by: Airandee || 11/12/2012 14:01 Comments || Top||

#17  Somewhat off-topic but maybe not,
#15 LeighG, someone else mentioned gold mining the other day. They said they supported their family this way. Any websites outlining this off-the-radar hobby/income producing activity?
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:34 Comments || Top||

#18  You go, LeighG! :-D
Posted by: Barbara || 11/12/2012 14:48 Comments || Top||

#19  Another option is to go to Mexico, sneak across the California, claim you are Mexican, and demand your benefits.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:56 Comments || Top||

#20  Another option is to go to Mexico, sneak back across the California border, claim you are Mexican, and then demand your benefits.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:57 Comments || Top||

#21  JohnQC: Recommend this web site to start and read-up on the various processes relating to gold prospecting as a hobby, Gold Fever Prospecting

Depending upon where you live, likely there are gold mining hobbists groups within your state.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 15:00 Comments || Top||

#22  Yes you Go Leigh! I've always wanted to try my hand at placer gold mining, but I live in a sedimentary state.

But there's this place called Gold Head over to the east a bit that makes me yearn.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/12/2012 15:31 Comments || Top||

#23  Thanks for the tip--bookmarked it. We had gold mining north of Chattanooga at a place called Coker Creek years ago.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 18:19 Comments || Top||

#24  Some people poach ginseng off Federal lands around here but many of them get caught--the fines are stiff.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 18:21 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Houthi militias attempt to control Midi port
[Yemen Post] 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™â„¢, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews" ...
militias attempt to take control on Midi port located in Hajja governorate, local sources have affirmed, pointing out that armed fighters constantly go to coasts of the port at nights and depart at days.

Local sources said that four armed vehicles of the Houth arrived to the area, reiterating that they strongly seek to capture the port.

The Houthi group could take control on Saada governorate in 2011 after protests broke out against the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
across Yemen.

It sought to capture Hajja and Amran, but it failed after it was faced with vivid resistance by rustics.

Media sources affirmed that t he absence of security forces at Midi made the Houthi seek to put it hand on its port.

The local sources indicated that Houthi fighters receive training nearby the port, emphasizing that the militia warn locals of approaching to some locations.

According to tribal sources, the Houthi group has set up three training camps in Saada and Amran, pointing out that it receives weapons from Iran and Leb.

The sources added that the group operates to recruit fighters, particularly children, from Saada, Sana'a, Hajja and al-Jawaf governorates and train them at different fighting ways .

Yemeni analysts accuse Iran of supporting the Houthi group with funds and weapons and seeking to create a proxy group in Yemen after it loses Al-Assad regime in Syria.

The US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein had frequently cautioned against Iranian intervention in Yemen, indicating that Iran seeks to spark troubles in Yemen through supporting the Saada-based Houthi group

Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Houthis


Economy
Hours cut, workers pushed to part-time due to Obamacare
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, this is massive. Governments will be forced to cutback themselves as the revenue drops even when they increase taxes. This will put many in welfare programs that will run out of money also.
Only if you can buy people off will they be content. Thank you LBJ.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 7:17 Comments || Top||

#2  The Swiss and many other countries are sending their youth to Norway to work. One fellow got a job the very next day he arrived. 2% unemployment.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 7:40 Comments || Top||

#3  SAS to cut 6000 jobs.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 8:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Flea markets, Pawn shops and bail bondsmen seem to be doing well at this time. I haven't heard but I'd bet repo business is good. When things are bad some always do well. Say it might be fun to dress up with chains, leathers and get some tattoos. Live the big life. OK!,OK!,OK!; Walter Mitty, get thee back!.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 8:11 Comments || Top||

#5  One of the interesting things to watch will be the results of lower weekly hours = lower weekly gross = reduced incremental taxes (owing to their not meeting withholding thresholds)which must be made up for at the end of the tax reporting period (year).

Their pain is only beginning....
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 11/12/2012 8:51 Comments || Top||

#6  The pain is only beginning. This impending economic monster is world-wide. The government is not going to have enough welfare money or unemployment benefits. People will be working two jobs if they can get them. Kids will be living in their parents basements until they are 40 years old. Maybe they can petition ObamaCare to be on their parents Medicare benefits if their parents have Medicare at that point. When the pain gets too great, think about your choices in the last election. Obama will not save you.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 9:09 Comments || Top||

#7  The Detriotification of America proceeds as planned.
Posted by: airandee || 11/12/2012 9:26 Comments || Top||

#8  Lower weekly hours means more workers to do the same work, means lower unemployment, at least if you don't measure underemployment. That was one of the key factors in creating the 'standard' 40 hour work week in the first place.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/12/2012 9:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Luckily government planners had the foresight to stock up on millions of rounds of handgun ammunition. Factory closings might have forced the Obama enforcers to using sjamboks and truncheons against the hungry, rioting masses. I have a friend who raises and trains police dogs. Last I heard, his business is going quite well also.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 9:59 Comments || Top||

#10  Looks like millions and millions of citizens are also.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 10:04 Comments || Top||

#11  ...that is stocking up.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 10:05 Comments || Top||

#12  "...that is stocking up". I think most now live paycheck to paycheck. No extras. As I recall two years ago many were using charge cards to pay monthly bills, groceries, and fuel. I believe most are maxed out. Then student loan problem is far worse. I know several who must now work part time and don't make enough even to pay rent. Dumpster diggers are seen more and more. Next will be trash pick up diggers at your home.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 11:10 Comments || Top||

#13  Obama's America: where the lucky have two part time jobs. Unless your business is government, then business is good.

Also, look for the fracturing of business in order to create an incorporation with employee amounts less than Obamacare mandate. Of course, numbers change. x%ers anyways.

Here's the thing about eating too much government cheese: not only is it addicting, the more which is eaten the more irritable, quicker, a person becomes when it is not longer served. Also anticipate those nifty Obama phones have a nifty little code in the programming so they constantly send in all conversations like a speaker/receiver, nifty little call tag likely as well to pre-sort and cross reference.

Liberals I knew used to cuss and rave about New York being sold for a bag of beads; yet they sold themselves for a cheap chinese spy phone.

If you don't know what to do with dry beans, better educate yourself.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 11:51 Comments || Top||

#14  Dry beans?
Posted by: Bobby || 11/12/2012 12:22 Comments || Top||

#15  Navy beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, split peas,....
Nourishing, relatively inexpensive (so far), with good shelf life.
And if you could figure out a way to harvest passed gas, they could even provide fuel.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/12/2012 13:19 Comments || Top||

#16  Soy beans are relatively high in protein and can made to be tasty if you doctor them up enough.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:47 Comments || Top||

#17  Duh
Posted by: Choluter Jones9539 || 11/12/2012 14:49 Comments || Top||

#18  Move over France, here we come....

May 03, 2012
Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies

Here’s a curious fact about the French economy: The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.

French businesspeople often skirt these restraints by creating new companies rather than expanding existing ones. “I can’t tell you how many times when I was Minister I’d meet an entrepreneur who would tell me about his companies,” Thierry Breton, chief executive officer of consulting firm Atos and Minister of Finance from 2005 to 2007, said at a Paris conference on April 4. “I’d ask, ‘Why companies?’ He’d say, ‘Oh, I have several so that I can keep [the workforce] under 50.’ We have to review our labor code.”

There are now 2.9 million people out of work in France, almost 10 percent of the workforce and the most in 12 years. “For the 100 employees we have in France, we have 10 employee representatives, for whom we have to organize weekly meetings even when there is nothing to discuss,” Haan says. “Every time a social security contribution changes, which is frequently, we have to update software and send our HR people for training. We can’t fire anyone without exorbitant costs.”
Posted by: Sherry || 11/12/2012 14:54 Comments || Top||

#19  Limited-employee-number firms aren't new. There are companies in New Jersey that have been doing the same thing for years.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 15:47 Comments || Top||

#20  And if you could figure out a way to harvest passed gas, they could even provide fuel.

Come on baby, light my fart...
Posted by: Jim Morrison || 11/12/2012 18:03 Comments || Top||

#21  "For the 100 employees we have in France, we have 10 employee representatives, for whom we have to organize weekly meetings even when there is nothing to discuss,

We have that problem here also. Made-up work that contributes little. I often joking say the government couldn't organize a one person parade. I got that wrong, it is just the opposite; meetings are held, lobbyists get busy, legislation is enacted, do-nothing agencies are created, attorneys have plenty of work, the prices of goods and the cost of living goes up. When someone tries to inject a dose of sanity into the process by cutting some of this bloat, committees are created to study the problem, grants are given to the universities which have to comply with all Federal requirements to further study the problem, lobbyist, attorneys, etc. get busy, legislation gets enacted and that is why we have the problems we have.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 18:32 Comments || Top||

#22  JohnQC, I think you just served up a complete Thanksgiving dinner. Tums please.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 18:39 Comments || Top||

#23  OK, who are you, Jim Morrison, with the same juvenile sense of humor as me?
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/12/2012 19:14 Comments || Top||

#24  JM does spark things up a bit. I understand that's against thew law now, breaking wind in public.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/12/news/companies/hostess-liquidation/index.html?iid=HP_LN

I have a friend that drives to work every day for 1.5 hours. He works for Hostess. He has a friend at the plant who will call him if they shutdown.
Saves him the trip in. Day by day they just don't know.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 21:05 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
42 Jamaat-Shibir men detained
[Bangla Daily Star] Police have jugged
Please don't kill me!
42 activists 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...
and Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
in the last two days across the country on charges of creating chaos and attacking law enforcers.

Ten activists were nabbed in Chapainawabganj, eight in Naogaon, nine in Chandpur and 15 in Jessore.

The nine Chandpur activists, jugged on Saturday night, were sent to jail yesterday.

Police filed two cases with Chandpur Model Police Station yesterday, accusing 250-300 Jamaat-Shibir activists of the same charges, our Chandpur correspondent reports.

The activists, who were cooled in Chapainawabganj and Naogaon, were planning acts of sabotage, said Chapainawabganj police.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pool hall, Peoria Slim had found another sucker...
Jamaat and Shibir have called a dawn-to-dusk hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
in Joypurhat today following the death of Shibir activist Badiuzzaman. He was hit by a bullet during a clash with police in the capital on November 5.

Badiuzzaman, 22, was from Joypurhat. He died at Islami Bank Central Hospital in the capital on Saturday morning.

Besides, 27 Jamaat men, including Panchagarh district nayeb-e-ameer and sadar upazila Chairman Abdul Khalek, have been sent to jail in a case filed for beating Chhatra League
... the student wing of the Bangla Awami League ...
and Jubo League
... the youth wing of the Bangla Awami League...
activists.

In Noakhali, 26 Jammat leaders and activists were placed on one day's remand yesterday. Chief Judicial Magistrate SM Zakir Hasan passed the order following a remand prayer from police, reports our Noakhali correspondent.

Habiganj unit of Bangladesh Chhatra league brought out a procession in the district town yesterday, protesting against a threat to kill its district President Mostafa Kamal Azad. BCL alleged Shibir's Sylhet district President Khalilur Rahman made the death threat by phone on Friday.

Our RU correspondent said BCL activists allegedly beat and ousted eight students from the Madar Baksh Hall of Rajshahi University on Saturday night, suspecting their links with Islami Chhatra Shibir.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


India-Pakistan
At least nine killed in Karachi violence
[Dawn] At least nine people have been killed and several others injured 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...
in a fresh spate of violence on Sunday, a day after 20 people bit the dust in similar incidents in the port city, DawnNews reported.

Unidentified gunnies on cycle of violences shot up an automobile workshop in Bloody Karachi's Orangi Town area, killing three people -- a father and his two sons -- on the spot.

Another man was bumped off in the city SITE industrial area, while a a perforated carcass was found early Sunday from Meethadar's Sarafa Market area.

Three people were killed in firing incidents near Martin Quarters and Soldier Bazaar. Unknown Orcs and similar vermin opened fire in Manghopir, killing one person.

Meanwhile,
...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin...
a clash between two rival gangnull>s left eight people maimed, including a news hound for a local television channel and an ambulance driver. The incident happened near the Edhi centre in restive Sohrab Goth area of the city.

Sunday's bloodshed followed in the wake of one of the city's deadliest days in the recent past, with at least 20 killed -- almost half of them victims of sectarian killings -- on Saturday.

The deadliest episode occurred when six students of the 'Madressah Ahsan-ul-Uloom' seminary -- all in their early 20s --were bumped off by at least six men in an armed attack on a roadside tea shop in Gulshan-e-Iqbal area. Among other deadly incidents, a worker of the Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat was also bumped off in North Nazimabad.

"On the face of it, there is no other reason than tit-for-tat killing on sectarian grounds," DIG east Shahid Hayat told Dawn on Saturday, when asked about the suspected motive behind the day's killings. "Unless other aspect is proved, we believe there is sectarianism behind the recent killings carried out in different parts of Bloody Karachi."

It was unclear whether Sunday's killings were also linked to the recent wave of sectarian bloodshed.

President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
has taken notice of the deteriorating situation in Bloody Karachi
Whoa! That is truly astute of him!
and has ordered law enforcement agencies to take action.

In various areas of Bloody Karachi police and rangers have now started carrying out search operations.

Two extortionists were enjugged
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
in Quaidabad, DawnNews reported. Rangers have arrested the head of a terrorist group in Gulistan-e-Jauhar.

Four other people have been arrested in Qayyumabad and North Nazimabad after rangers carried out a search operation.

Two people were arrested in Machar colony, while nine suspects have been arrested in Sohrab Goth.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Horn
Govt. Soldiers shoot it out in Mogadishu
[Shabelle] Heavy shootout has erupted on Sunday in Somali capital Mogadishu as the federal MPs struggling to approve the newly formed 10-member cabinet ministers, proposed by Abdi Farah Shirdon, Somali PM.

Eyewitnesses said the violence sparked when government soldiers exchanged gun-fire at KM4 junction, a busy crossroad in the heart of Mogadishu, accusing unconfirmed losses. The skirmish caused over unknown circumstances.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran Warns U.S. It Will Act Firmly if Airspace Violated
[An Nahar] Iran warned on Sunday it will react strongly against any U.S. intrusion into its airspace after two of its warplanes fired at an American drone 10 days ago, the ISNA news agency reported.

"Yes, we opened fire, and it was with warning shots. If they do it again they can expect an even stronger response," the agency quoted General Amir-Ali Hadjizadeh, head of the elite Revolutionary Guards air and space forces, as saying.

Pentagon front man George Little said on Thursday the Iranian Su-25 Frogfoot fighters fired at the robotic Predator drone on November 1 but did not hit it.

"They intercepted the aircraft and fired multiple rounds," he said.

The American drone was "never in Iranian airspace" and came under fire from the fighter jets off the Iranian coast over international waters, Little said.

In a warning to Tehran, the Pentagon front man said the United States was prepared to safeguard its forces.

"We have a wide range of options, from diplomatic to military, to protect our military assets and our forces in the region and will do so when necessary," Little said.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  So IIUC, Iran's version of the "Monroe Doctrine" per the Persian Gulf will be named after ...???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/12/2012 18:56 Comments || Top||

#2  More ...

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Sunday Times]ONLY THE "NUCLEAR OPTION" CAN WORK AGZ IRAN, FORMER IDF CHIEF SAYS.

* RELATED SAME > RIVALS FEAR ISRAEL'S BINYAMIN [Benjamin] NETANYAHU IS PLOTTING NUCLEAR STRIKE ON IRAN.

COLLECTIVELY, ARTICS = Israel's govt. has become convinced that IDAF air strikes + prob even IDGF ground ops agz Iran will not be good enuff to take out Iran's NucProgs - ISRAEL'S BEST OPTIONS ARE SPECOPS [destructive LR Commando Raids] + LRBM MISSLE STRIKE(S) ARMED WID SMALL TACNUKE WARHEADS [Limited Tac NucWar].

versus

* WORLD NEWS > VARIOUS > IRAN: WE WILL BREAK OBAMA'S "GRASPING HANDS".

IMO is more indicia that POTUS-Reelect Bammer is at high risk of political assassination from a variety of domestic and international sources.


* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [JDW = DigitalGlobe]IRANIAN MISSLES CAN HIT US BASES IN ARAB COUNTRIES, PICTURES REVEAL.

IMINT = IMAGERY INTEL ANALYSIS of recent Iranian LRBM test.

* SAME > UN CELEBRATES OBAMA VICTORY BY PUSHING GLOBAL GUN CONTROL - THE GUN MAG, THE OFFICIAL GUN MAGAZINE OF THE 2ND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION.

* SAME > [PressTV] KSA BRIBES US TO PROTECT MONARCHY FROM [ordinary = mainstream] SAUDIS.

* SAME > BAHRAIN UPRISING THREATENS US HEGEMONY, vee self-caused/induced, US-led "Rise of Al-Qaeda 2.0".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/12/2012 23:42 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
BBC chief quits over abuse row
[Bangla Daily Star] BBC director general George Entwistle has resigned over airing of mistaken allegations of child sex abuse against a former leading politician.

The resignation came on Saturday, just two months after he got the job.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pool hall, Peoria Slim had found another sucker...
BBC's governing board chief Chris Patten yesterday called for a radical overhaul of the world's largest broadcaster.

Patten, also a prominent political figure, said accepting Entwistle's resignation had made for one of the saddest nights of his public life.

He said the crisis had revealed a need for a "thorough, structural, radical overhaul" of the organization, although he said he would not be quitting.

Entwistle's departure leaves the state-funded broadcaster in chaos as it struggles to restore trust in its journalism and battles the scandal surrounding Jimmy Savile, the late BBC television star now alleged to have been a prolific child sex offender.

The organization issued a full apology on Friday, but early on Saturday Entwistle had to admit under questioning from his own journalists that he had not known in advance about the Newsnight report, weeks after being accused of being too hands-off over a previous scandal involving the same programme.

He resigned saying the unacceptable standards of the Newsnight film had damaged the public's confidence in the 90-year-old BBC.

"As the director general of the BBC, I am ultimately responsible for all content as the editor-in-chief, and I have therefore decided that the honourable thing for me to do is to step down," he said.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The first overhaul should be to get rid of the licensing fee.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 11/12/2012 7:05 Comments || Top||

#2  There are apparently 28 other BBC employees in the Paedophile ring.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/12/2012 7:31 Comments || Top||

#3  And the Whitehall migration hasn't even begun!
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/12/2012 7:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, at least the British axe senior personnel, while in America the MSM usually sacrifices the lowest possible agent when caught dirty or manufacturing libel whose product they had gleefully spread among the masses.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/12/2012 8:07 Comments || Top||



-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Camp FEMA Update: "We Feel Like We're In a Concentration Camp"
Though details are scarce and media coverage has been completely restricted by officials, stories of what victims of Hurricane Sandy are experiencing at the hands of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of the storm have begun to emerge.

The few available images from these so-called "tent cities" suggest that Camp FEMA isn't all it's cut out to be, with one resident using some choice words to describe how FEMA and the Red Cross have completely failed at their jobs.

...made an announcement that they were sending us to permanent structures up here that had just been redone, that had washing machines and hot showers and steady electric, and they sent us to tent city. We got f--k-d.

In other such tent cities the conditions are about as bad as you can describe them; on the order of third-world refugee camp, or worse:

One reason: the information blackout. Outside of the tightly guarded community on Friday, word was spreading that the Department of Human Services would aim to move residents to the racetrack clubhouse on Saturday. The news came after photos of people bundled in blankets and parkas inside the tents circulated in the media.

But inside the tent city, which has room for thousands but was only sheltering a couple of hundred on Friday, no one had heard anything about a move -- or about anything else. "They treat us like we're prisoners," says Ashley Sabol, 21, of Seaside Heights, New Jersey. "It's bad to say, but we honestly feel like we're in a concentration camp."

Access to the facilities has been restricted by armed guard. The same holds true for activities inside of the facilities, with guards posted around the clock.

The post-storm housing -- a refugee camp on the grounds of the Monmouth Park racetrack -- is in lockdown, with security guards at every door, including the showers.

No one is allowed to go anywhere without showing their I.D. Even to use the bathroom, "you have to show your badge," said Amber Decamp, a 22-year-old whose rental was washed away in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

The mini city has no cigarettes, no books, no magazines, no board games, no TVs, and no newspapers or radios. On Friday night, in front of the mess hall, which was serving fried chicken and out-of-the-box, just-add-water potatoes, a child was dancing and dancing -- to nothing. "We're starting to lose it," said Decamp. "But we have nowhere else to go."
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yeah, well compare that with people in prison. Free health care, three squares a day, recreation, leisure time, television, libraries, legal help, religious freedom, a job, a clean place to live, conjugal visits in some places--all that on the taxpayers dime.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 9:16 Comments || Top||

#2  How many people are now displaced because their homes are damaged beyond occupance? How many because power is unavailable?
Are there no churches providing aid and shelter? Colleges?
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/12/2012 9:17 Comments || Top||

#3  One would think that these resources could be mobilized. Some people are screwed. There insurance does not cover flood damage. They will basically eat the loss. I heard that the people in that area were singing the praises of the Marine Corp. They said they came in, knew what they were doing, pitched in and really helped.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 9:34 Comments || Top||

#4  Are there no churches providing aid and shelter? Colleges?

I've heard that there are Church organizations trying to help people that haven't yet, found themselves in the tender embrace of FEMA.

However, once you have checked into Camp FEMA, you can lever leave. Having had direct experience with FEMA during the 'canes Katrina & Rita, all I can say is that they are vile even in the best of circumstances. With Obama appointed leadership I can only speculate that things are MUCH worse.

I hope the inmates...er...guests get a protracted period of time to enjoy their hosts hospitality, and to reflect upon their life choices.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man || 11/12/2012 9:36 Comments || Top||

#5  FEMA macht frei.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/12/2012 9:36 Comments || Top||

#6  But do remember, our Dear Leader got a 15% bump in the voting, because he flew up on Air Force One, stepped out and stood on a 2x4, made a speech, 10,000 pictures taken for his adoring public of his standing there, in all his glory with his bomber jacket on, and flew off to Vegas.... leaving these folks to this.

But probably like everything else he seems to not know anything about, Benghazi, Petraeus, he knows nothing about these FEMA camps...
Posted by: Sherry || 11/12/2012 10:22 Comments || Top||

#7 
Are there no churches providing aid and shelter? Colleges?


Hey, it's a Democrat area. That stuff is the government's job. Those other groups might get it wrong -- and a church group might sing a hymn!
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/12/2012 13:08 Comments || Top||

#8 
But probably like everything else he seems to not know anything about, Benghazi, Petraeus, he knows nothing about these FEMA camps...


If only he knew! Then he'd fix it!

Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/12/2012 13:09 Comments || Top||

#9  Hi! I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.
Posted by: SteveS || 11/12/2012 13:10 Comments || Top||

#10  "We Feel Like We're In a Concentration Camp"

You are.

You expected different? From the Feds? Why?
Posted by: Barbara || 11/12/2012 13:13 Comments || Top||

#11  I'd bet you we still have Fema camps in use from Katrina. Yes, they are fenced in with security.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 13:55 Comments || Top||

#12  Rejoice citizens, your sacrifices have not been in vain - you got The One re-elected. Chris Mathews thanks you and the hurricane for your efforts.
Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili || 11/12/2012 14:27 Comments || Top||

#13  Is Chris Matthews dribbling down his leg getting that tingling feeing up his leg again? What a putz.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 14:50 Comments || Top||

#14  From NYTimes: 29,000 homes in the Rockaways, 17,000 in Nassau and 12,000 in Brooklyn were still deemed so damaged that “if they power the electric system you could do more harm than good.”

Saltwater damage to electrical circuits, open gas lines and other damage all present risks of fire and explosion that must be fixed before current can safely be restored to the house, he said.

“There are some people who are not going to get their power back because it is not a power issue any longer, it is a housing issue,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The pace of repairs has been slow, as homeowners have found electricians and other contractors so inundated with storm-related work that it can take weeks to get someone to simply show up.


These are just rough estimates. When the resources are not available, they are not available, i.e, housing for several months for 58,000 households, or a quick way to check and repair house power systems damaged by flooding.
Kicking, screaming, blaming FEMA (or anyone) will not provide those resources.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/12/2012 17:51 Comments || Top||

#15  Source for my comment #14
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/12/2012 18:08 Comments || Top||

#16  Someone has forgotten in the aftermath of Katrina, thousands of people were displaced to other geographical areas well beyond the Gulf.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/12/2012 18:30 Comments || Top||

#17  Procopius2k, yes we have one near our area. That's why I know about the security. I haven't been back to check on it. It's in a remote rural area. I know they didn't mix with the locals. The state is West Virginia.
Posted by: Dale || 11/12/2012 18:35 Comments || Top||

#18  Someone has forgotten in the aftermath of Katrina, thousands of people were displaced to other geographical areas well beyond the Gulf.

In Houston we were flooded (no pun intended) with them. My boyfriend had neighbors from LA or MS who moved in right afterwards, and were there for four or five years.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 11/12/2012 18:56 Comments || Top||

#19  I'm surprised the Dead aren't in the hundreds from the aftermath. This has possibly been botched more than Katrina.
Posted by: Charles || 11/12/2012 20:27 Comments || Top||

#20  Apparently Americans = Amerikkans across the USSA = USRoA feel the same way ...

NOT-BRANDY "SANDY", SHE'S A FINE GIRL ...

versus

AFAIK, what began wid Louisiana + Texas earlier this weekend became ...

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > 15 US STATES [includ Texas] FILE PETITION TO SECEDE FROM THE UNITED STATES.

Which became ...

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > 18 STATES FILE PETITION TO SECEDE FROM US AFTER OBAMA VICTORY.

Which asof this AM 11/13/12 Guam time became ...

* FREEREPUBLIC > THE INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA: TENS OF THOUSANDS DEMAND TO SECEDE FROM THE US.

The abovesame 15 then 18 US States is now up to 20, which seemingly includes 20 of 30 US States wid GOP Governators.

NOT-BRANDY "SANDY" IS ALSO SECESSION/SEPARATISM-HAPPY RANDY, I.E. A RED-STATER???

Looks like the OWG Mighty USSA may yet still become the OWG Weak USRoA Global SSR.

--------------

* FYI TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > OBAMA WON HIS RE-ELECTION BECAUSE THE [poor] US ECONOMY WAS ON HIS SIDE, not Mittens.

IIUC, MORE $$$ SPENDING = QE #??? ... ...@ETC AD INFINITUM, NOT LESS???

I'M NOT SHOCKED, I TELL YA, I'M NOT SHOCKED!

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > LONDON TO LOSE TITLE AS WORLD FINANCE CAPITAL [3rd place by 2015], [CEBR] STUDY WARNS.

* WAFF > GREECE COULD DESCEND INTO CIVIL WAR - EXPERT [Charles McGrath], unless it chooses to de facto default on its crushing Govt-Public loans.

ARTIC > MCGRATH = TROIKA of European Commission, Euro Central Bank [ECB], + UN IMF is atempting to emplace itself as the de facto GOVT. OF GREECE + EUROZONE [EU = EUZ].

D *** NG IT, WHATS A LITTLE CIVIL WAR OR REGIONAL WAR IFF IT MEANS OWG + NORTH AMERICAN/AMERIKAN UNION [NAU] IN 2015???

* SAME > NO ONE TRUSTS GREECE, ESPEC THE TROIKA - TROIKA WANTS NAMES, NUMBERS OF THOSE TO BE FIRED, soon as well all those to be laid off and eventually fired EOY 2012 + likely going into EOY 2013.

Fear notteth, good people, Putin + Motherly Commie Airborne + North Koreans, etc. will come to save Amerikans from Americans!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/12/2012 22:48 Comments || Top||

#21  Looks like Joe just wrote the plot for the remake of the remake of Red Dawn. Wolverines!
Posted by: SteveS || 11/12/2012 23:07 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Blast damages house of JI leader in Peshawar
[Dawn] The house of a leader 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...
(JI) was damaged in a blast at Tarnab Farm area on the outskirts of provincial metropolis here on Saturday.

An official of Chamkani cop shoppe said that the bomb was planted near the residence of JI leader and former MNA Sabir Awan that went kaboom! with a big bang and damaged the rear portion of his house.

Quoting the personnel of bomb disposal squad, the official said that the bomb was packed in a canister and it weighed about 200 grams. It was a locally made bomb that was went kaboom! through remote, he added.

“We have started search operation in the area and trying to get any clue about the people involved in the terrorist act,” said Azam Khan, in-charge of Tarnab Farm police post. He said that police reached the site soon after the blast but no one was placed in durance vile
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
in that connection.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Southeast Asia
Thai teachers run down attackers
Two Thai school teachers whose car was attacked by gunmen reacted by ramming their motorcycle, forcing them off the road, and then fleeing to get help and medical attention.
Yeehaw! Ride 'em down, cowboys!
Last Friday morning, security officials received a report of an attack on a couple of teachers on a local road in Pattani province. A joint police, military and civilian force was sent to the scene to investigate. There they found a motorcycle abandoned by the attackers laying in trees on the roadside, but no sign of the riders.

About 500 meters away the victims' car was parked with three bullet holes in the driver's-side windows and another in the front windshield. They later learned that the car was driven by Sukij Ritdej with Wanphen Chankaew as the passenger. Both are teachers at a nearby school.

The teachers were heading to the school when their car was suddenly cut off by two gunmen on a motorcycle who opened fire on them with pistols. Ms Wanphen was hit in the body and left arm. Instead of stopping, the driver stepped on the gas and drove into the attackers' motorcycle, forcing it off the road into the trees. They then sped to the school and sought help from their colleagues.

The security force surrounded the area to hunt for the gunmen, thinking that they were likely injured by the car's impact and would not get far.
Posted by: ryuge || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency

#1  Brings back old memories of teaching in south Tucson. :)
Posted by: borgboy || 11/12/2012 0:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Or the late physician and novelist, Michael Halberstam, who after he was shot by a jewel thief, tried driving to the hospital, and ran the thief over on the way.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 11/12/2012 1:24 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan Jails Ex-Spy Chief for Corruption
Thank your lucky stars that you're an American, General Petreaus...
[An Nahar] A Jordanian court on Sunday sentenced former spy chief Mohammed Dahabi to 13 years in jail with hard labor and ordered him to pay a 21-million-dinar ($29-million) fine after finding him guilty of corruption.

Dahabi, a general who ran the intelligence department from 2005 to 2008, was placed in durance vile
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
in February and charged with money laundering, abuse of power and embezzlement.

"The criminal court today sentenced Dahabi to 13 years in jail. He will also pay a 21-million-dinar fine. The court also decided to confiscate 24 million dinars of his assets," a court official told AFP.

One of his lawyers said he plans to appeal the verdict.

Following Dahabi's detention, Jordan's general prosecutor barred him from leaving the country and had his assets frozen after the central bank lodged a complaint against him.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
Gunmen Kill Policeman in North Nigeria Raid
[An Nahar] Gunmen have killed a policeman and maimed another in a raid on a cop shoppe in a town in northern Nigeria's Bauchi state, a police officer said on Sunday, the latest violence in the volatile region.

The gunnies launched the attack late Saturday in the town of Itas, about 200 kilometers (130 miles) from the state capital Bauchi, hurling explosives into the cop shoppe and opening fire on coppers, leading to an hour-long shootout.

"The gunnies threw explosives into the cop shoppe, setting it on fire," and killing a police inspector inside the building at the time, said the police officer who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the incident.

Another policeman was maimed in the shootout and two nearby police homes were burnt.

Bauchi state police commissioner Mohammed Ladan confirmed the attack but said he had no details yet.

It was not clear who was behind the incident but Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
Islamists have been blamed for series of attacks on cop shoppes and banks in the area although criminal gangs have also carried out similar raids under the guise of the sect.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


Africa North
Masked group attacks police in Sinai's Rafah
[Al Ahram] An unknown gang fired at the Central Security Forces camp in the Ahrash district in Rafah, North Sinai on Sunday.
According to the Ahram Arabic news website, the attackers fled when the police fired back. However,
a lie repeated often enough remains a lie...
no casualties were reported.

The attackers were reportedly masked and drove a van equipped with machine-guns on its roof.

The Sinai Peninsula, a largely desert area bordering Israel, has been the site of several attacks by unknown assailants.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Salafists


India-Pakistan
Seven held with arms in Dera
[Dawn] Seven suspected persons were placed in durance vile
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
and arms seized from their possession in a joint raid conducted by the security forces and the police in Zaffarabad Colony of Dera Ismail Khan
... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ...
on Saturday.

The arrested persons were shifted to undisclosed location for interrogation. The search was conducted on the directives of the District Police Officer, Dera Ismail Khan, Suhail Khalid. The security personnel also recovered weapons from the possession of the suspected persons.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Iraq
Iraq Executes 10, Including Egyptian
[An Nahar] Iraqi authorities executed 10 men on Sunday, a spokesman said, bringing to 129 the number of people put to death this year, defying international calls for a halt to Baghdad's use of capital punishment.

The mass executions were the first in around a month in Iraq, which has been roundly condemned by European governments and international human rights organizations for its use of the death penalty.

"Ten people were executed, including one Egyptian," a justice ministry official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They were accused of terrorist crimes."

The official did not provide further details about the men, or the specific crimes of which they were convicted.

Executions in Iraq are normally carried out by hanging.
Rope is cheap, and they've got quite quite a collection of bad guys after all these years.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq

#1  Well, it gives the "international community" somewhere else to direct its attention other than Texas, Virginia and Ohio...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/12/2012 10:37 Comments || Top||


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Rhonda Shear [Filmography](age 58)



Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 11/12/2012 2:39 Comments || Top||

#2  delightful host of USA "Up All Night" an 80s show which had B movies

also, I think she was Fonz's girlfriend sometimes
Posted by: lord garth || 11/12/2012 8:08 Comments || Top||

#3 
She was born as Rhonda "Honey" Shear. I'm a believer.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/12/2012 8:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Welcome, Instapunditeers!
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/12/2012 10:45 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Afghan war has engulfed Pakistan: Fazlur Rehman
[Dawn] 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 (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ...
said that the war against terrorism in Afghanistan has engulfed Pakistain, Dawn News reported.

The JUI-F chief further stated that the sitiuation in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and 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...
is very serious, where bodies are falling everywhere.

Speaking in Islamabad at the last session on the first day of a two day International Islamic Conference, Maulana Fazlur Rehman said that the leaders of Mohammedan countries do not properly reflect the views of the Mohammedan world.

He said that that the leaders of Mohammedan countries have adopted the war on terrorism as their own, whereas the masses view it as America's war.

The JUI-F chief said that after the rule of the British, the people have now been told to serve the United States.

When speaking about Balochistan, Maulana Fazlur Rehman said that there has been a failure to solve the situation in the province.

On Bloody Karachi he said that death is prevalent in the metropolis, which leaves the question as to which court will the people be able to take their grievances.

The JUI-F chief also said that it is a crime to implement Shariah at the point of a gun.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami

#1  Balochistan is allegedly being "Talibanized" wid a reputed merger = "alliance-in-being" between the TTP + LeJ, Haqqanis, + other.

The other Pak province of concern is SINDH, both of which have strategic access to the sea.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > NO BREAKTHROUGH IN TALIBAN TALKS THRU 2014: AFGHANISTAN.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/12/2012 23:14 Comments || Top||


Europe
Greece Approves 2013 Austerity Budget
Greek lawmakers have approved the country's 2013 budget, which cuts spending and raises taxes in a bid to prevent the country from going bankrupt.

Next year's austerity budget reportedly includes $12 billion in pension, wage and spending cuts. Its approval comes days after parliament narrowly voted to proceed with other austerity measures.

The lawmakers are responding to international lenders who have required the measures in order for them to release some $40 billion in aid to Greece. Without the international loans, the country could default on debt due to be paid later this month.

On Sunday, thousands of protesters gathered outside of the Greek parliament as lawmakers prepared to vote. More than 13,000 people marched through the streets of the capital, Athens, in demonstrations that ended at the city's main square.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
West Africa Agrees on 3,300-Strong Force for Mali
[An Nahar] West African leaders at an emergency summit on Sunday agreed on a 3,300-strong force to wrest control of northern Mali from Islamist snuffies as fears grow over risks they pose to the region and beyond.
The salary package has been negotiated, then?
The summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja was aimed at setting out a blueprint for military force in Mali's north that would be transferred to the U.N. Security Council via 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...

Leaders from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States stressed that dialogue remained the preferred route to resolve the crisis in Mali's north, but said force might be necessary given the jihad boy threat there.

African nations and the international community have expressed growing concern over a continued occupation of Mali's north since it could provide a safe haven to al-Qaeda-linked jihad boy groups and criminal gangs.

"We foresee 3,300 soldiers for a timeframe of one year," Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara
...the current president-for-life of Ivory Coast. He actually beat his predecessor in an election before having to eject him from the presidential palazzo....
, the current ECOWAS chairman, told journalists after the summit.

The troops would come primarily from ECOWAS, but possibly from countries outside the bloc as well, he said.

Discussions also covered the possibility of training of 5,000 Malian troops, according to Ouattara.

Ouattara said he hoped U.N. Security Council approval could come in late November or early December, allowing the force to be put in place days afterward.

"We have countries that are offering battalions, others companies," he said.

ECOWAS countries he named were Nigeria, Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
, Niger, Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now...
, Ghana and Togo.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Ansar Dine

#1  Air support, fire support, transport and logistics to be extorted first-world-guilted-into determined negotiated later.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/12/2012 10:48 Comments || Top||

#2  My orders came through. We will be mustering in Gao and marching upland towards Tessalit with 3,300 troops with a service time maximum of one year. We have petitioned for and been promised French and US air support and logistics. Our operation begins in February, after the checks clear and the trucks roll.

When will you have lunch?

I can't tell you that. It's classified.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/12/2012 11:36 Comments || Top||


Europe
Street protests as Greek deputies consider budget vote
[Al Ahram] Thousands of protesters massed outside Greece's parliament Sunday as politicians prepared to vote on a 2013 budget that includes draconian cuts but needs to pass for vital foreign aid to be released.

Police estimated around 15,000 marchers joined two separate marches in the capital Athens.

"The measures will pass but we are here to prove that we are not resigned to it," said Olga P., 35, an English teacher in a public school.

The parliamentary vote, due to take place late Sunday or early Monday is the latest hurdle the government needs to clear in its bid to head off bankruptcy in the debt-crippled country.

The proposed budget includes another 9.4 billion euros ($12 billion) in cuts and paints a gloomy outlook for the country's economy and government finances.

But Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, while acknowledging the sacrifices already endured by Greeks, told parliament on Saturday that 2013 would be crucial for the country's economy.

This latest vote comes just days after parliament narrowly adopted a separate austerity package on Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Afghan army shelling kills four Pakistani civilians
[Dawn] The Pakistain government has strongly condemned the cross-border shelling by the Afghan National Army which led to the death of four Pak civilians including two children, DawnNews reported.

According to military sources, the Afghan National Army attacked villagers who were returning home after collecting firewood near the Pak-Afghan border.

A civilian car was hit by the mortar attack which left two children and other occupants of the vehicle dead.

Strongly condemning the unprovoked attack, Pakistain has said that such incidents are unacceptable.
Posted by: Fred || 11/12/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan



Who's in the News
35[untagged]
5Govt of Pakistan
3Govt of Syria
3Arab Spring
2Hezbollah
2Jamaat-e-Islami
1Boko Haram
1Govt of Iran
1Govt of Iraq
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1al-Qaeda in Iraq
1Hamas
1Houthis
1Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami
1Lashkar e-Taiba
1Salafists
1Taliban
1Thai Insurgency
1Ansar Dine
1al-Shabaab
1TTP

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

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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2012-11-12
  Govt. Soldiers shoot it out in Mogadishu
Sun 2012-11-11
  IDF Changes Rules of Engagement Along Syrian Border
Sat 2012-11-10
  Mexican police charged over US embassy staff shooting
Fri 2012-11-09
  David Petraeus resigns from CIA
Thu 2012-11-08
  Syria raids Hamas offices months after group's leaders leave
Wed 2012-11-07
  Bombings, Clashes Kill 131 in Syria as Gunmen Assassinate Parliament Speaker's Brother
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

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