#1
Blue State politicians and privileged academia have long been morally exempt from the well established norms of selective emancipation. The pair undoubtedly assumed they were in full and lawful compliance. In the South, we've long since learned to pick our own cotton.
#6
Harvard (the town) has always been an odd place. And to work off Airandee's post, I suspect connections did have something to do with the agreement.
It's not actually news. It's just that every time I saw the poor guy's name I thought it was "Justice Halibut."
[Dhaka Tribune] The body of former chief justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman will be kept at the Central Shaheed Minar today for two hours from 10am for people to pay their last respects.
His body will be then taken to the Supreme Court premises for the first namaz-e-janaza. His second namaz-e-janaza will be held after Johr prayers at the Azad Mosque in the capital's Gulshan.
Justice Habibur Rahman, also a former caretaker government chief, passed away Saturday night on his way to the United Hospital after falling ill at home.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It's not actually news. It's just that every time I saw the poor guy's name I thought it was "Justice Halibut."
then he should lie on his side
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2014 16:55 Comments ||
Top||
It was a mad dash to scrub the red carpet ahead of Sunday's Golden Globes after a pipe burst, spewing liquid some say smelled of sewage across the pathway for the stars.
They're actors. Being really, really good at pretending everything is other than the evidence suggests is why they're all dressed up.
Black water gushed onto horrified members of the international press awaiting the arrival of Hollywood glitziest stars dressed in their finest gala attire.
The press fled from the spill as the Beverly Hills Fire Department rushed to the scene to clean up the smelly mess in front of Hollywood's famous Beverly Hilton Hotel.
#2
The press fled from the spill as the Beverly Hills Fire Department rushed to the scene to clean up the smelly mess.
Luckily, the US Army Corps of Engineers or FEMA were not needed. 'Federal' assistance would have been much costlier. I always call the local fire department for plumbing cleanups.
[Libya Herald] Some 26 people from Yefren have been kidnapped by a Zintani family whose son was killed in Yefren last week. They say they will hold the 26 until the killers are brought to justice.
"The man who was killed had gone to Yefren to visit his friends but then there was a argument in which he was killed," a media source from Zintan Local Council told the Libya Herald.
The victim's family had set up a road block near Yefren and started seizing anyone from the town, the source said. He also claimed that the killers' families had refused to hand over the perpetrators to the police and instead had helped them leave Yefren undetected. Some had escaped to Tunisia, he said, while others were in hiding elsewhere in Libya.
The victim's family was also bitter with the government, the source added, because it had done nothing to help.
However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... there had been attempts by the Zintan Local and Elders' (Shura) Councils to persuade the victim's family to release the abductees and the resolve the issue, but so far without success. Negotiations were now taking place between the two towns' local and Shura councils.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
[Al Ahram] Egypt's government will finalize a bill on a value added tax (VAT) by end of January, Mamdouh Omar, head of the Income Tax Authority, said during a conference on Sunday, Al-Ahram Arabic reported.
The VAT will be fixed at a unified rate between 10 to 12 percent and will be imposed on all goods and services with a few exceptions such as subsidized food stuffs like oil and wheat.
"The tax rate will be higher on other goods including alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and cars. The VAT should replace the sales tax currently imposed on 17 goods and services," Omar said.
Egypt's government has announced on several occasions since 2007 that it is going to implement the VAT in order to increase fiscal revenues, but the decision has been repeatedly postponed.
The VAT also formed part of the economic program the IMF discussed with the Egyptian government after the 25 January revolution in 2011 for a $4.8 billion loan.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... the IMF agreement was postponed during and after the rule of former president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... . Discussions were suspended following his ouster.
VAT, as well as sales tax, which was implemented in Egypt in 1991, are often referred to as regressive taxes because the tax burden is shared by all consumers whether rich or poor.
"The VAT increase puts pressure on the poor. It is a regressive tax and leads to a redistribution of the wealth in the wrong direction," said Mahmoud El-Khafif, a front man of the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in September 2012.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
That should crush what's left of the Egyptian economy. But on the plus side, it's a boon for corruption and black market deals. Which ain't necessarily so bad - it kept the fUSSR afloat for a long time.
#2
As I recall, the Egyptian economy has been gifts/loans from Saudi Arabia, et al since April of last year. Under the circumstances, how will a VAT change things?
#7
Under the circumstances, how will a VAT change things?
It's true there have been big-ass aid-packages/loans/hand-outs/freebies/whatever from the Saudis which kept the Egyptian economy from cratering. But before the recent 'troubles', there were some attempts at economic reform - probably one of the reasons for the ex-Hosni.
The VAT comes on top of the recent sales tax. VATs are a nice way for a government to hoover money out of the economy, which is nice if you are the govt. But more money for the govt means less money for useful things.
VATs also tend to slow growth and have a huge compliance cost due to the record keeping burden (you get a tax credit for VAT on stuff you buy from your suppliers) Record keeping is a bigger burden for small businesses - the usual engine for job growth. Lots of records and administration overhead means more scamming and black market activity.
[An Nahar] Four people were killed and two seriously injured in a clash between national park rangers and suspected Rwandan rebels in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , the park said Sunday.
The Virunga national park, home to DR Congo's only population of endangered mountain gorillas, said one of its rangers died in a battle on Saturday morning that also claimed the lives of three rebel fighters.
Two other guards were maimed and one rebel was captured.
Virunga said in a statement that the clash was with the FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group that includes the remnants of the militia who carried out the 1994 genocide.
"The attack is thought to have been carried out in retaliation against the rangers' efforts to prevent the militias from regaining control of an area close to the habitat of the critically endangered mountain gorillas," the park said.
Virunga national park, a UNESCO world heritage site, was founded in 1925, making it Africa's oldest national park.
It is the most environmentally diverse area on the African continent, home to thousands of rhinos and 200 endangered mountain gorillas.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Senator Graham and I have visited Virunga. There are moderates among the Rwandan rebel groups whom we can work with. Something must be done.
h/t Gates of Vienna
They offer a range of activities and services to "meet the needs of male customers," such as smoking, internet, drinking, snacks and "beautiful attendants" World oldest civilization
#1
Some "just have benches for the men to sit and think"...
Ladies, this is NOT where you'd want to leave your husbands
Posted by: European Conservative ||
01/13/2014 16:31 Comments ||
Top||
#2
My favorite was the Bud Light commercial, where the guys had a TV with the football game on and a beer cooler inside a circular clothing rack at the Macys...
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/13/2014 16:36 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Well alrighty then - where do I sign or enlist?
[An Nahar] An estimated 50,000 pro-Western Ukrainians massed on Sunday in the heart of Kiev amid swelling anger over the bloody beating of prominent former minister turned opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko.
The 49-year-old member of enjugged Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko's cabinet was transferred out of intensive care on Saturday evening after being attacked by truncheon-wielding police during a small protest the night before.
"He received about 10 blows to the head," the former interior minister's spokeswoman said. "No one is allowed to see him except for his closest relatives."
Nearly 20 activists were maimed when they tried to prevent the police from moving to jail three young men who were sentenced to six years for allegedly plotting to blow up a statue of Soviet founder Lenin in 2011.
It marked the first use of force against a leader of Ukraine's latest wave of pro-Western protests and threatened to reignite the worst political crisis of President Viktor Yanukovych's four-year rule.
The ex-Soviet nation of 46 million that once served as the breadbasket of Europe has been gripped by ceaseless demonstrations ever since Yanukovych in November ditched an historic EU trade deal in favor of tighter ties with old master Russia.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
For a given value of reform that consolidates PM Erdogan's grasp on power...
[An Nahar] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi only they haven't dumped him yet... signaled on Sunday that his government would go ahead with controversial reforms curbing judges' powers amid a deepening corruption scandal.
"The commission put (the proposals) to vote yesterday (Saturday) and decided that they were not against the constitution," Erdogan told news hounds in Istanbul.
Fierce scuffles erupted on Saturday ahead of a second round of debate on the government-led proposals in parliament's justice commission, with politicians throwing punches, water bottles and even an IPad.
The reforms proposed by Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would give the justice ministry more control over the appointment of judges and prosecutors.
But the country's top judicial body the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) has criticized the proposals for being unconstitutional and opposition parties have demanded that the reforms be dropped.
On Saturday, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said if political parties reached a consensus, the proposal could be abandoned.
But the Turkish premier vowed that the reforms would go to the parliament floor having been discussed in the justice commission.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
The B.O. regime is trying to persuade millions of uninterested, or perhaps reluctant, Americans to purchase health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges. But the heart of Obamacare is coercion. If Americans fail do what the law's Democratic authors believe is best, the federal government will punish them, through the progressively higher penalties of the individual mandate, until it hurts more not to buy coverage than it does to give up and purchase it.
But what if many of those Americans rebel? Even if they know having health insurance is better than not having it, what if they refuse to be forced to buy the kind of coverage dictated by the government which may not really meet their needs at prices they don't want to pay? What then?
"I don't think Obamacare can survive without people wanting to buy it," Bob Laszewski, the respected health care analyst whose writings on Obamacare have become essential in recent months, told me in an email exchange recently. "How the hell are you going to enforce a mandate to buy something that people don't think is valuable enough to buy? If the uninsured don't start to see value in Obamacare and buy it, is the Democratic solution to fine the heck out of them until it hurts so much they have to buy it? Great political strategy!"
#3
Too many drones more interested in late night munchies meals, beemers, ripping off their parents/neighbors and their tattoo/nose rings. They won't move off the couch let alone against the blue state coasts.
[Shabelle] The Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Minneapolis, which sustained water damage in a deadly Jan. 1 fire next door, needs a temporary home.
Displaced by the New Year's Day kaboom and fire in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis that killed three people, members of the adjacent Dar Al-Hijrah mosque have spent the past week searching for a temporary home, so far without success.
Their building at 504 Cedar Av. S. survived the fire that destroyed the adjacent building, a street-level grocery store with apartments upstairs, but severe water damage left it unusable, perhaps for months, Abdisalam Adam, director at the Dar Al-Hijrah Cultural Center, said Thursday.
About 300 people pray at the mosque, considered the state's first Somali-American mosque.
Several churches stepped forward in the days after the kaboom to offer temporary space to the mosque and its cultural programs; so far those churches are too far away or don't have enough space.
Mosque officials said they will hold prayers Friday at the nearby Brian Coyle Center of Pillsbury United Communities, a cultural hub of the neighborhood.
At least 14 people were maimed in the fire, including several who jumped from second- and third-story windows to escape the blaze.
The cause remains under investigation, said Chuck Brynteson, Minneapolis Fire Department assistant chief.
A spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy said last week that a preliminary analysis detected no leaks in the utility's gas network; she has since directed questions to the Fire Department.
A witness reported smelling gas before the kaboom, Fire Chief John Fruetel said at a news conference just after the fire.
Other survivors, including two who spoke to the Star Tribune from their hospital beds, said they did not smell natural gas before the blast.
The bodies of two men who lived in the apartments above the Otanga grocery were found in the rubble.
A third man died Jan. 3 of injuries sustained in the fire and kaboom.
Mosque officials looked at one church, Trinity Lutheran Congregation on Riverside Avenue, and at space at nearby Augsburg College, Trinity pastor Jane Buckley-Farlee said.
"They are hoping to find a place close by where all of their programming could be in one location, but that might not be possible in Cedar-Riverside," she said.
A preschool program run out of their building has also been suspended due to the water damage, along with a weekend program for teenagers, affecting about 30 children and 70 teens.
"We may have to be split into two locations," said Abdikadir Ibrahim, who oversees the Al-Hikma preschool.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
[DAWN] A house was partially damaged in a hand grenade attack in Shakardarra on Saturday.
Police said that two brothers identified as Abid, Fasal and another man, Saadullah, hurled a hand grenade at a house owned by one Ameer Mohammad Khan, after clashing with him (Ameer) over a women dispute.
They also fired shots at the house with Kalashnikovs. However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... nobody was hurt in the incident. The house was partially damaged.
The police said the incident occurred after women from the two families quarreled over some trivial issue. The police registered case into the incident and jugged Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! the three accused.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
[DAWN] Police and Anti Terrorist Force (ATF) conducted a raid at the private jail of former provincial minister education and member of 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... Assembly, Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran on Sunday.
Police said seven people including two women, three children were recovered from the private jail of the former provincial minister.
Six proclaimed absconders were also picked up by ATF and police. Police recovered arms and ammunition from their possession.
Earlier on Sunday, Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran surrendered to police in the aftermath of the registration of the kidnapping case against him in Barkhan Police Station.
Police had registered cases against Khetran, his son and eight others for kidnapping three coppers and snatching weapons from them.
A senior police official who declined to be named told Dawn.com that a team of police comprising personnel of ATF was already dispatched to Barkhan to arrest the Sardar. "Before the arrival of ATF party, Sardar Khetran surrendered before police", he added.
Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran is the member of Balochistan Assembly and he belongs to Jamaat Ulema Islam (F).
He remained provincial minister for education in the past and several times elected as member of Balochistan Assembly.
The police officer said that Sardar Khetran had subjected the police personnel to torture after kidnapping and snatched weapons from their possession. "We will not spare anyone targeting the police", he said.
However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... Sardar Khetran contradicted police allegations and termed the registration of case as politically motivated.
"I am in opposition therefore I am being targeted," he said.
There has been no reaction from his religious party since registration of case against
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Al Ahram] Pope Francis named his first batch of cardinals on Sunday, choosing 19 men from Asia, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere, including the developing nations of Haiti and 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 will leave office feet first, one way or the other... , in line with his belief that the church must pay more attention to the poor.
Francis made the announcement as he spoke from his studio window to a crowd in St. Peter's Square.
Sixteen of the appointees are younger than 80, meaning they are currently eligible to elect the next pope, which is a cardinal's most important task. The ceremony to formally install them as cardinals will be held Feb. 22 at the Vatican.
A U.S.-based advocacy group for people who have been sexually abused by clergy criticized one of the pope's appointments and also said he should have promoted an archbishop in Ireland to cardinal's rank.
Since his election in March as the first pontiff from Latin America, the pope has broken tradition after tradition in terms of protocol and style at the Vatican. But in Sunday's list Francis stuck to the church's rule of having no more than 120 cardinals eligible to elect the next pontiff.
The College of Cardinals is currently 13 shy of that 120-mark among eligible-to-vote members. In addition, three cardinals will turn 80 by May. That means Francis chose the exact number of new cardinals needed to bring the voting ranks up to 120 during the next few months.
Some appointments were expected, including that of his new secretary of state, the Italian archbishop Pietro Parolin, and the German head of the Vatican's watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy, Gerhard Ludwig Mueller. Two others named Sunday also come from the curia, as the Holy See's Rome-based bureaucracy is known.
The Vatican front man, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope's selection of churchmen from Haiti and Burkina Faso reflects Francis' attention to the destitute as a core part of the church's mission.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
When millions of health-insurance plans were canceled last fall, the Obama administration tried to be reassuring, saying the terminations affected only the small minority of Americans who bought individual policies.
But according to industry analysts, insurers and state regulators, the disruption will be far greater, potentially affecting millions of people who receive insurance through small employers by the end of 2014.
While some cancellation notices already have gone out, insurers say the bulk of the letters will be sent in October, shortly before the next open-enrollment period begins. The timing -- right before the midterm elections -- could be difficult for Democrats who are already fending off Republican attacks about the Affordable Care Act and its troubled rollout.
Some of the small-business cancellations are occurring because the policies don't meet the law's basic coverage requirements. But many are related only indirectly to the law; insurers are trying to move customers to new plans designed to offset the financial and administrative risks associated with the health-care overhaul. As part of that, they are consolidating their plan offerings to maximize profits and streamline how they manage them.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
It was a mad dash to scrub the red carpet ahead of Sunday's Golden Globes after a pipe burst, spewing liquid some say smelled of sewage across the pathway for the stars.
[Libya Herald] Some 26 people from Yefren have been kidnapped by a Zintani family whose son was killed in Yefren last week. They say they will hold the 26 until the killers are brought to justice.
The 
Escape the snow at GITMO. 
[Al Ahram] Pope Francis named his first batch of cardinals on Sunday, choosing 19 men from Asia, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere, including the developing nations of Haiti and 
